Epilogue "Open rebuke is better than secret love." Proverbs 27:5

"He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me" Psalm 55:18

"weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Psalm 30:5

Snape let out his breath in a shudder as he saw the unicorn wheel around and rear, its magnificent gold horn still intact. The creature screamed a whinny in pure frustration.

Snape and the other Death Eaters clapped their hands over their ears. The cry of the black unicorn was not to be borne. It tore a jagged hole through the soul. It ripped the fabric of the universe for an ever-lasting second.

The creature dropped to all fours and stood very still with its graceful neck lowered, almost in mourning.

The unicorn's cry had badly affected the Death Eaters. They scattered to the four winds, unable to bear the unicorn's presence and terrified to see their leader disappear before their eyes. Snape dropped his wand and fell to his knees amid the confusion of escaping Death Eaters. He felt utterly numb and unbearably wired at one and the same time.

He looked from the bundle of robes that had once clothed his old Lord and Master to the creature that stood forlornly on its own looking unutterably sad. Suddenly the creature knelt too and stayed very still. Snape stayed where he was and watched over it.

* * *

Just before dawn, Snape looked up and saw Hermione kneeling quietly where the unicorn had been only moments before. He choked back a sob of relief.

"Hermione," he called in a low voice. She turned and looked at him but he could see from her eyes that she was almost more still unicorn than human. She still had an otherworldly and rather wild expression on her face. Suddenly she focused in recognition and frowned. "Severus!" She said and abruptly got to her feet. She marched over to him. "What the hell were you playing at? I had Voldemort right there and I could have gotten rid of him once and for all!" She accused with tears in her eyes.

Snape unfolded his lean frame from its position on the cold ground and stood up stiffly, a bit uncertain on his feet. "Hermione, Voldemort is done for now for a good, long time. He won't be coming back in a hurry. It took over ten years last time. It will take longer this time," Snape reasoned tiredly, trying to sooth her.

"Yes but he will be back! If you'd let me do it, he never could have come back," she said, beginning to work herself up into a passion.

"Hermione, I was not going to let you make that sacrifice. We've been through this and you know why," he said, feeling very old.

"You don't get it, do you? It's my choice! How dare you take away my right to choose?" She demanded, hands on hips but her voice shaky with unshed tears.

Snape looked at her for a long moment. He was suddenly sick of lying. He was sick of lying to himself, lying to Hermione and lying to the whole damn world. He was also sick of hiding himself behind those lies. He looked at her steadily. "You're right, Hermione. I did take away your right to choose and I did it because I'm selfish. I don't want you to stay a unicorn forever. I did it because I want you to be Hermione and I want you to be with me." There was nothing romantic in his tone or body language. He was stating the facts of the case as dryly as he would explain the properties of a potion to a class. Snape felt very naked, all of a sudden. It was a feeling of remarkable freedom. It felt good and he hadn't expected that.

Hermione stared at him, her lips parting in astonishment and her frown fading. Now the ball was in her court. What did she want, she wondered? She turned off her brain and let her instincts guide her for once. She found herself walking the few steps between them and putting her arms around Snape and hiding her face in his robes. A shudder tore through her body suddenly. The fear departing, she knew.

Snape held her tight as the sun rose on the moors.

* * * Snape summoned his broom and they flew back to a larger wizarding town nearby that had a hotel whose fireplace they could use to travel to Hogwarts. I must get my apparating license as soon as possible, Hermione thought for the second time in 24 hours. She had retrieved Harry's cloak from the ground where she had been caught earlier and they used it to cover them both as they flew over small Muggle towns.

Snape was a surprisingly good flier. Hermione supposed she shouldn't be that surprised about it as his animagus was a raven. She enjoyed flying through the morning air on the back of his broom. It gave her a perfect excuse to hang onto him tightly. If she hadn't been so tired and shell- shocked, she probably would have been grinning the entire time. As it was, she allowed herself to lean into the warmth of his slender back and rest for a few minutes, breathing in his scent.

They got to Dumbledore's office less than an hour later, both looking rather worse for wear. Their hair was mussed from the wind, their clothes were muddy and damp from the moors, and they were pale-faced and tired. Dumbledore had already gotten reports from his own spies that something serious was afoot amongst the Death Eaters but as yet, had no details. One look at the bedraggled pair that stepped out of the fireplace gave him some clues.

"Sit down, I'll order some hot drinks and food." Dumbledore said quickly and summoned a House Elf to fetch it.

Snape sank his lanky frame gratefully into a comfortable armchair and said, "Voldemort is gone and the Death Eaters are scattered. I don't anticipate that we'll be having any further disappearances from among the Muggle-born ranks for a good long time until Voldemort finds some way to regain his strength again."

Dumbledore nodded gravely and passed a steaming hot chocolate over to Hermione, who was seated in a chair close to Snape's as though seeking reassurance. She looks exhausted and shocked, Dumbledore thought compassionately.

"We need to find the underground camps now! Today! People may die in the meantime. We can't waste a minute," Hermione said anxiously, simply holding the hot drink in one hand and looking from Dumbledore to Snape.

"Underground camps?" Dumbledore asked seriously, looking at her with a frown.

"Yes, Voldemort said last night that that's where they're keeping the prisoners. I heard it just before they captured me," Hermione insisted.

"They captured you?" Dumbledore said, sounding very grave and concerned.

"Oh yes - but as you can see, I'm alright but what about those still being held captive? We need to get to them now!" Hermione said fretfully.

"Yes, I heard Voldemort mention it too. It's the first time he's spoken about the camps at a general meeting although those in the inner circle must have known right from the outset," Snape confirmed tiredly.

"It's a pity we couldn't get a spy into the inner circle," Dumbledore mused worriedly.

"Yes, well I was hardly going to be invited after what happened the last time they tried to promote me to it," Snape said with a hollow laugh.

"Did they give you any indication of where this camp may be?" Dumbledore questioned them both, giving them each hot muffins and crumpets on a plate.

"Voldemort said something about 'North of Gillamoor' and 'West of Callington' being the locations of the old camps were they used to hold prisoners," Hermione said. "I imagine that they would use the same locations again, just put everything underground. It would be worth looking around there first," she argued earnestly, ignoring her plate of muffins.

"I was taken to the one North of Gillamoor all those years ago Dumbledore," Snape reiterated, poking at a crumpet.

"Yes, I remember you saying so. Of course, once Voldemort had been defeated by young Harry the camps were deserted by the Death Eaters. I didn't realise there was activity there again because the camps still look deserted. However, if they're underground it's not surprising we missed it." Dumbledore pondered seriously. He paced slowly for awhile in silence. "I'm going to send some owls to our spies. In the meantime, eat something Hermione and then you can use the bathroom in my tower to clean up and get fresh clothes while Snape uses his own rooms. We'll all head over to Gillamoor in an hour or so," he said decisively.

* * *

Less than an hour later, a much cleaner Snape and Hermione re-joined Dumbledore in his office and they set off for Gillamoor to meet with the others that Dumbledore had owled in the meantime. Dumbledore used a special spell to apparate both himself and Hermione at the same time, and Snape followed.

They met in a field in a convenient hollow between some low hills. Hermione saw Remus and half the Hogwarts teachers there plus a few Aurors that she didn't recognise. Dumbledore briefly outlined what Hermione and Snape had already told him earlier.

"Hermione suspects and I agree with her, that we will most likely find the new camps under the old ones," he said. "Remus, you've been sent to these camps before to keep an eye on the area. Have you seen anything suspicious in the past few years since Voldemort really started coming back to power?" He asked.

Remus shook his head. "No, I would have reported it immediately. It looks just like it did the day after Voldemort was defeated previously and the prisoners there were liberated. It's deserted all the time as far as I know. I haven't seen any Death Eaters lurking around the place on my visits either. If there is an underground entrance, it's well hidden and there are powerful charms covering the arrival and departure of the Death Eaters with their prisoners," he assessed.

"Yes, that's what I would have expected." Dumbledore said solemnly.

Dumbledore sent a team of Aurors in to disable any charms that may have been put on the area. They disappeared to the North. Meanwhile, those left behind huddled into groups and talked the recent events over. None of them knew the details of how Voldemort had been defeated, in fact it was something Dumbledore himself did not know yet. Neither Hermione nor Snape felt like talking about the appearance of the black unicorn the night before. Both of them stood alone and silent, waiting for the Aurors to come back.

It was a couple of hours later when they returned. By then, Snape and Hermione were sitting on the heather with their backs against a low, stone wall and almost asleep. According to the Aurors' report, the access to the underground camp had been protected by both Muggle-repelling charms and charms that would induce hallucinations in any wizard stumbling across them. A wizard who came across the entrance would merely see the beginning of a large, underground *burn.

Snape and Hermione struggled to their feet and followed the Aurors back across the fields to the entrance. They walked for around 15 minutes to the North of the outskirts of Gillamoor. The Aurors led the way in, after undoing some serious locking charms on the massive iron doors.

They followed a large tunnel, obviously built by magic, deep into the earth and lit by the same eerie green lights that had lit the outdoor Death Eater meetings. After half an hour of walking, they came to another set of massive doors. Hermione had a terrible feeling of foreboding. She glanced over at Snape. His face was pale. She supposed that for him, it would be a bit like relieving the most horrifying day of his life. He suddenly glanced over at her and saw her looking at him. A look of complete understanding passed between them in an instant and his expression softened for just a moment.

Just then, the doors crashed back and they all entered a huge underground room. It was just as Snape had described to Hermione that one time. Cages lined the immense walls from floor to ceiling. To her relief, most were empty but there had obviously been plans to expand the operation enormously.

"We need medi-witches and wizards," Hermione said, when she spotted someone in one of the cages. Remus nodded and ran out the way he came, in order to send urgent owls to the wizarding hospitals.

The Aurors fanned out to search the other rooms while Dumbledore, Hermione, Snape and the Hogwarts teachers began to check every cage.

It turned out to be a long day. A very long day.

By nightfall, they had found 20 prisoners in the cages and in a couple of laboratories they'd found off the main room. The Aurors had also found a meeting room and a Dark Arts library as well. The prisoners were being seen to by medi-wizards and witches, and had been given warm clothing before being transferred to wizarding hospitals for on-going convalescent care.

"Transfer the Dark Arts books to my offices, please. I will go through them and any that really are worth destroying will be dealt with later. The others can go in the restricted section of Hogwarts library," Dumbledore was saying as Hermione watched through a haze of exhaustion. "I will send owls tonight to specialists in magical site demolition so that this place can never be resurrected and used by Death Eaters ever again."

Hermione almost smiled as she heard it. Suddenly she noticed something out of the corner of one eye. Something familiar. She immediately disappeared through one of the side doors where she had seen it. "I know you're here so you may as well come out. No-one's going to hurt you," she said into the near darkness of the Dark Arts library.

A dirty and even more pale-faced than usual Draco Malfoy stepped slowly out of the shadows. Hermione kept her hand on her wand, just in case. Hermione had seen a flash of white hair earlier but now barely recognised him. His arrogance had been completely submerged in fear and his almost pedantic grooming had been replaced by dirt, blood and disarray.

They regarded each other carefully. "Why are you here, Malfoy?" She asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"I. I had to get away. I've never been here before and when I heard Voldemort talking about these camps for the first time last night, I had to come and see for myself. When you. when that unicorn charged and Snape annihilated Voldemort, I ran away from that unicorn's cry but I came here rather than go home. This place was already deserted of course. All the Death Eaters had been at the meeting and now they've all scattered with Voldemort's defeat," he explained, sounding disjointed and not at all like his usual pompous self.

"How did you get in? It's protected by some pretty serious charms," she asked curiously.

"Any Death Eater can get in," he pulled up his robe to show Hermione the Dark Mark on his forearm, identical to Snape's.

Hermione sucked in her breath sharply. "When did that happen? That wasn't there at school!" She said, shocked.

"This past summer, of course. Dad insisted. Anyway, the charms don't operate if you have a Dark Mark." He clarified.

"Why did you come here rather than go home once Voldemort had been defeated last night?" She asked, perplexed.

Draco bit his pale lips and looked away. He was silent for a long time. "I don't want to go back home, Hermione. I want to get away from all this, especially when I saw this place," he said, his pale eyes reflecting the dim, shadowed light in the library.

"You don't want to be a Death Eater anymore but you know your father will insist, especially when Voldemort comes back as he will?" Hermione probed.

Draco merely nodded miserably. "We'll help you get away," Hermione said simply. "Dumbledore helped Snape get away and we'll help you," she promised. Draco almost looked hopeful. "How did you even find the location of this place?" She asked with interest.

"Guessed. If Voldemort has used this location before, why not use it again? If it hadn't been here, I would have tried Callington too." He said with a shrug.

He'd simply used the same logic as me, Hermione thought. "C'mon. I'll take you to Dumbledore and we'll get things sorted out for you."

Draco looked over her shoulder suddenly and she turned to look too. It was Snape. "I had just wondered where you had gone," he said quietly to her, putting his hands on her shoulders and then looking over at Draco. "I'm glad you've decided to defect too, Draco." He added to the boy.

"I didn't know you were a spy," Draco said, looking a trifle shell-shocked. "Not until last night when you used that curse on Voldemort."

Snape smiled. "That's what makes a good spy," he said simply.

"Yes," Draco said faintly, his pale eyes moving from Snape's possessive and affectionate grip on Hermione to the girl's composed face with curiosity.

"Come with us. We'll take you to Dumbledore now," Snape commanded quietly and led both of them out of the library.