Later that evening, the two of them sat on Snape's terrace, each examining their predicament. For Hermione, the process was logistical. Calls had been made to the tour office and the cruise ship. Her change in plans was taken with aplomb; apparently, it wasn't unusual for a traveler or two to become so enamored with an island that they decided to stay for a while. They would be happy, they said, to send Hermione's bag to her on the next day's ferry. A call was made to Hermione's house sitter in London, a Uni student on a tight budget. She was overjoyed at the extra employment. Finally, she sent a text to Ginny and Harry, telling them she'd extended her holiday. They seemed unsurprised, and wished her a nice stay. In all, Hermione discovered it was disconcertingly easy for her to disconnect entirely from her life in London for an indefinite time.

For Severus, the process was much more emotional. Sitting on his terrace, at this very moment, was a bomb, an annoying, loud bomb that could potentially explode his entire life. At the very least, she would eradicate his beloved privacy for some time, for there was nowhere else on the island that she could stay at present. At the worst, she could, whether by intention or accident, call his continued existence to the world that he had chosen to leave. By all rights, he should be furious. And yet, he wasn't. For now, he was strangely content to let the hand of fate stir in the pot of his life. At the very least, he suspected that baiting Granger could become a pleasurable hobby indeed.

SSSS

"I can see why you love this place so much." She said, looking at the view of the village. "It's just gorgeous up here."

He glided over, (How did he do that? Shouldn't he be required to walk like normal humans? How was he so damned graceful?) He handed her a short glass filled with clear liquid. "How is it that you assume that I love this place?"

Hermione's lips turned up in the barest hint of a smile. "It shows. Everything is so well-tended, the flowers, the furniture. The gravel walk. You always did take meticulous care of the things that were important to you. Yes, I believe that you love it, and that you're happy here."

He snorted. "Having you here will likely change that. How, exactly, am I to explain the sudden appearance of a woman in my home for an indefinite visit?"

Hermione swirled her drink in a circle. "Ouzo?" She took a sip. "Oh. That's good. Much better than what they served on the boat." She took a deeper sip. "Perhaps I could be a visiting colleague? Or a former flame? Or a former flame who is also a visiting colleague?" She grinned at him, unsurprised when he didn't grin back. "Or, Hell, don't explain a thing. Let them think that you picked up a random tourist and are having your dastardly way with her."

He smirked, not unhappily. That last one would get Mama Alevizos into a twist.

"You forget, Mrs. Weasley, that in my current life I am never dastardly. Besides, any of those explanations would set the entire island aflame with speculation. "

Hermione grinned at him again. "Nothing wrong with that. Personally, I like the idea of being featured in a salacious bit of gossip. I've been "that poor widow" for too long. Merlin, I'm tired of being pitiful." She looked away, embarrassed by her confession. "But they are your people. It's up to you to tell them whatever you want to about me."

"That you are an obnoxious, impulsive witch who has gotten me into a magical bind from which I must now extricate myself?"

She raised her glass to him, and poured the rest of the contents down the hatch. Choking, she spluttered a barely intelligible: "If you like."

He tipped back his own glass, swallowing the firey Ouzo without difficulty. "Really, Mrs. Weasley," he said, placing his glass carefully on the table, "it's amazing to me that you have survived these thirty-nine years at all, given your predilection for rash action. One would think that by now your impulses would have gotten you into severe trouble."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, they do do that from time to time. But for the most part, they tend to put me exactly where I need to be. It's not a graceful system, I'll grant you that. And it bothers me that with all the stock I put into my brain, it ends up being my gut that makes so many of the choices, but I suppose it works for the most part. Not dead yet. But in the case of you…the debt magic… it really wasn't as impulsive as all that. Not really."

Snape refilled both of their glasses. "Oh, really?" His sonorous voice was rife with sarcasm. "Given that you knew I was alive for all of 5 minutes prior to making it, you claim that it wasn't impulsive? Oh, do elucidate, I am all aflutter."

Hermione glared at him, but continued nonetheless.

"Good. Then I'll tell it you a little story. It was a little over two years ago. The night Harry and I waked Ron. Ron asked for an Irish wake, so we had a big party, and Harry and I were the last two standing. Barely. Drunk as two skunks. Anyway, Harry made a confession."

"Oh," he rolled his eyes. "A Potter confession. It just gets better and better. I am riveted. Please do go on."

"Thank you, I will. Anyway. That night Harry confessed that the man he carried with great ceremony into the Great Hall after the battle, the very one given a hero's burial in a massive mausoleum next to Dumbledore's, was not you."

She paused in her storytelling, using a sip of Ouzo to examine her listener, and noted that he was paying very close attention. Good.

"It was only then that I found out that when he had arrived at the boathouse moments after Voldemort's death, your body was not there. Twenty years he kept that secret, even from his best friends. It seems he followed one of his impulses, and used the Elder Wand to transfigure the corpse of a snatcher into a facsimile of you. Then he levitated that body back to the castle. He wasn't sure how long the illusion would last, but when he saw that your body was missing, he believed that you had somehow escaped death. He transfigured the body to buy you time, as much time as possible for you to make your escape. He wanted you to be truly free."

She paused, to let her words sink in, and took another sip. "As it turns out, the wand's power held until after the internment. Et Voila, as far as the wizarding world was concerned, the character of Severus Snape was buried forever.

"When Harry told me all this, well, even in my drunken stupor I didn't buy it. I mean, I believed that he wanted you to be alive… you have no idea how much what he saw in the pensive moved him…but I never really believed you actually had survived. Those wounds…that venom…

She shook her head as if clearing the memory from it. "It was just…unsurvivable. Nonetheless, ever since then, I've envied his ability to make even the slightest amends for the wrongs all of us had done to you. And I swore to myself that if I ever had a chance to do so myself, I would grab onto it with both hands. My chance came, and I took it.

"So…impulsive, but not."

Severus, who had sat motionless through her recitation, stood abruptly and went to the railing to look out over the village.

"So. Potter bought me my freedom."

She looked at the tension in his shoulders, regretted the necessity of creating it. "No, you did, with whatever miracle you pulled off to survive those wounds. He just…protected your freedom to the best of his ability. Still is, really. You should have seen what he did to that bitch Skeeter to keep her "Snape's Alive" theories out that book of hers. Made her skitter like the insect that she is. It was a thing of beauty, I tell you."

Snape kept his back turned towards Granger so that he could digest these revelations in a semblance of privacy. So many years of freedom…essentially granted to him by the intervention of none other than the spectacled menace. Now that was rich. Life had always had a particularly pointed sense of humor where he was concerned. He waited for the itch to come, the sensation of repulsion he'd always felt when someone pitied him. To have been aided by one he despised…it should rankle. But it didn't. Perhaps it was right for him, and Granger too, to attempt to even the scales between them. If anyone understood the desire for atonement, it was he. Perhaps the fact that it eased their ridiculous parody of guilt did not mitigate the fact that they intended to do him a kindness in return for his suffering.

It was a vast thought, and one he would have to consider further. But the fact was, no matter what the motivation, Potter had taken an action from which he had greatly benefited.

He resolved to use fewer invectives when thinking of him in the future.

End Chapter Eight

AN: This transitional scene seemed necessary to me…Tomorrow, their life together begins, and that's when it starts to get fun!

Thank you for reading and reviewing. You guys are inspirational. Seriously, next chapter you'll start to see all the impact your input has wrought. Seiouslyperky, Chapter 9 is for you!

More please!

Theolyn