All Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.

Silhouette

Chapter XIV

Spinner's End was still and quiet in the early evening and Severus Snape was in a strange mood that swiveled wildly between dread and eagerness. He was also slightly nauseated, which did little to help the situation at hand.

He had lain awake for the better part of the night nursing a stomach-churning case of vertigo and a contrary mind. The long night had led to a rather extended lie-in once he managed to finally fall asleep. Now, he was running behind. He looked over his shoulder to check the time—three in the afternoon—and a dizzying throb in his forehead forced his eyes shut for a moment.

He did not have time for this. Hermione Granger was expecting him at the Ministry of Magic Portkey terminal by a quarter past four, and at the rate he was currently moving, their departure window would come and go without him. The cat needed tending to. The clothes he had spent the better part of an hour fretting over still needed packing; the potions equipment and vials of Alihotsy Draught had thankfully been secured already, should the trip actually yield something useful.

As his gaze moved aimlessly over the array of shirts and trousers and toiletries on his bed to the bedside table where he kept the faded lace-up boots and the generic looking grey trainers that he had never worn, Severus found himself staring back at his own reflection in his darkened Silhouette frame. The angle of its placement on the night table coupled with the dimensions distorted his face, accentuating the paleness of his elongated face and the size of the dark circles under his eyes. The frame was another problem entirely, and one that still needed to be addressed sooner rather than later, no matter how long he tried to put it off.

Looking away, Severus summoned both pairs of shoes and put them in the bottom of his battered holdall. After having the frame for over a month now, he still was not exactly sure of how it worked. Sometimes all he had to do was think of Adelaide Harlowe and he would feel the sting building in his wrist signaling her arrival. Other times it felt like he did nothing at all and there she would be. Adelaide never complained and he had eventually stopped apologizing for it when it happened, but he was growing tired of finding new ways to activate the thing without even meaning to.

Severus saw to the clothes next, a tedious task that would keep the frame out of his thoughts and hopefully the girl out of the frame. He had prepared for colder weather by insulating each garment he intended to take with a warming charm, but he wondered if that would somehow make him conspicuous to Muggles. He could see it now, the locals gaping at some hapless tourist that found himself at the mercy of the elements because he was either too stupid or shortsighted to bring a jumper instead of a parka. If he wanted to blend in, that would not do. For good measure, and despite the obvious overkill it would be, he retrieved his cumbersome winter coat from the wardrobe with a wordless wave of his hand.

A thin whine came from his side table, and he stopped fiddling with the zipper on the bag. It seemed to stop when he focused on the sound properly, willing it to be still and quiet, and after a moment Severus was sure he had imagined the entire thing. The spiral on his wrist gave a slight superficial twinge but was otherwise static. For good measure he retrieved the new watch he had purchased from Twillfitt and Tattings from the pocket on his bag and secured the bezel tightly over the spiral to hide it.

"Severus?"

Fuck, Severus thought. He was embarrassed but relieved to hear her voice, and lonely in spite of it all. He pulled at the leather band and the too-tight watchstrap pinched against his skin.

"I didn't mean to bother you." He turned to look at her at last, rubbing his wrist. "I wasn't even trying, but this bloody frame has a mind of its own."

The frame was hovering just above the side table. In her frame, Adelaide leaned back against what looked to be a desk chair. The fairy lights hanging over the bed in the corner cast shadows around her dimmed room, giving the image he saw an ethereal quality. She had charmed them to shine blue.

"I see," Adelaide said. She did not look like she really believed him. "Something bothering you?"

"I don't know," he admitted, feeling like an idiot. The truth was that his feelings, his current relationship with her carried certain consequences that he preferred not to examine, particularly the fact that he found himself wanting to be in her presence when he had been alone for a while.

"Nerves?"

"Among other things."

"I told you, you shouldn't have done that," she told him, her voice toneless.

Severus sat down on the edge of his bed, pinching his eyes shut. "Yes, I recall." He really had overdone it by Apparating around the whole of England in anticipation of being hurled a few thousand miles by dinnertime and was now paying the price.

"Well was it worth it—did you vomit?" she asked him, trying not to grin about it.

"I did not." He tried to sound proud, but the somersault his stomach did ruined the delivery.

Adelaide laughed. "A prudent man takes the precautions he must, I suppose."

Severus managed to smile. He was trying and failing to think of a way to bring up their arrangement without coming right out and admitting the prospect of not speaking to her for a week felt overwhelming. He had become dependent upon her like some sort of parasite, and it ate away at him, but not nearly as much as the thoughts of navigating his post-convalescent life without her to keep him feeling grounded and sane. Normal.

"You're not a very good liar today," said Adelaide. "Tell me what you're thinking."

Severus still did not know how to string anything sensible together, so just bluntly while he had the nerve to let the words flow freely as they came to him seemed like the only logical option. "I know this can't continue. I know the whole point of this is for me to figure out how make sense of what my life is now. It's only that—" His throat had suddenly gone dry, and he was acutely aware that he was on the verge of sounding like a coward. "I never know what the hell I'm doing."

"Is this about Iceland?" Adelaide asked. "You seemed settled on the idea yesterday."

"It's not that," he said automatically, then considered it properly and frowned. "Not exactly."

"Well, what is it then?" Adelaide was looking at him intently now. There was a mixture of fathoms-deep concern and sympathy in her blue eyes. Severus looked away for fear he might drown in them.

The frame floated silently toward him. "You can talk to me," she pressed. " I've told you this."

"That's exactly the problem," Severus said. When the words left him, he felt something twist in his insides, completely unrelated to his antics the previous day. "It's difficult to understand let alone explain."

"Is it, though?" she asked pointedly.

Fine. There was no point in trying to forestall the inevitable; she would get it out of him before it was all said and done.

"I would prefer to maintain the confidentiality of whatever this is, but I have no idea how to do that traipsing around the Arctic Circle for a sodding weeks' time. An enchanted picture frame isn't exactly discreet, and Herm—Miss Granger—isn't stupid." Severus forced himself to shut up. Adelaide did not need to know that he was afraid he could not do without her. She would get far too much satisfaction out of that.

Adelaide swept the air with her hand as if swatting away his words. "That's easy. Leave me here. I guarantee you'll be much too busy for me anyway. And that's a good thing."

Severus did not know what he wanted to say. The idea of it made him anxious. She had been what he needed to bridge the gap between where he used to be and where he thought he was meant to be, but the chasm of uncertainty still loomed below every step he took, bleak as ever.

But what if? Severus felt a nasty sinking sensation. He hated talking about his insecurities. They were hard enough to internalize and speaking them aloud as simply as if he were discussing the weather felt wrong. What if you get there and you can't handle it? What if Hermione sees? Somehow that thought was even more horrible than the prospect of Hermione Granger discovering his enchanted picture frame and the blue-eyed woman it contained.

"You are going to be fine," Adelaide said, reading him like an open book. "And if I'm wrong, you can always pretend that she's me." A strange look came across her face and was gone before Severus had a chance to decipher what it could have possibly meant. "What I mean to say is that maybe it would do you some good to open up to someone who's, you know, actually there."

Severus scoffed.

"Don't try to diminish what I'm telling you because that won't make it any less true," Adelaide said. "Someone sitting right in front of you is better than a silly girl in a picture frame, Severus. In August I'll have to let you go and wish you well, and I'd feel a lot better about doing that if I knew you had someone—anyone—to take my place."

That was not what he wanted to hear at all, but it was the truth. Adelaide Harlowe was always meant to be a steppingstone, not a crutch. "It's not the same," he told her. He slouched forward, out of her direct field of vision and stared at the woodgrain of the hardwood with his head in his hands. It won't ever be the same.

"Why can't it be?" she said in her solemn way. Bait.

"You're not like everyone else," he snapped. "And don't ask me to explain why that is because I can't." The sudden flash of annoyance swept through the vertigo, and he sat up again fully to give her a proper glare. This was going sideways in a hurry. "You've made me question everything about myself, every motive. Every action, every inaction. And you do it in such a way that I can't stop—half the time I don't even realise you've done it until it's over and I'm left reeling," he continued in an excruciated rush. "By all accounts, I shouldn't be able to stand anything about you."

"Yet you do."

"I do," he agreed. Then to himself, "Probably more than I should."

"I'd say you tolerate me decently enough," was all she said. Adelaide smiled a little now, but it was not of the variety he had grown used to seeing, but rather forced.

"I don't tolerate you, Adelaide." Severus sighed. She was going to make him say the quiet part aloud. "You'd know it if I did."

"Severus Snape—is that your way of calling me your friend?" said Adelaide. There was a genuine smile this time. Behind her the blue fairy lights shimmered.

Her announcement was met with total silence. Severus stared at her. As with most conversations about deeply personal things, he was not entirely sure of what to do with them.

Was that what this was? Was she a friend? What did that word even mean to him now? What had it ever meant to him? At one time he would have considered Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy friends, but to compare her to them felt perverse. She was nothing like Malfoys. The relationships with his former colleagues were strictly professional and cordial from the shared association alone. Minerva had been bearable to a degree, but it had been Albus that had trusted him implicitly and look where it landed them both. Then, of course, there had been Lily Potter…

"No," Severus told himself quietly, then rubbed his hands across his face, feeling suddenly deliriously tired. He certainly had no time for that train of thought.

"Don't do that," Adelaide protested. "Don't hang your head like you're unworthy of a friend because you're not. You are worth so much more than I can give you."

"That wasn't—That's not what I meant," Severus backtracked, trying to work out what he had said wrong. It should not have come as any surprise to him that she had misunderstood his personal scolding. After all, his Silhouette lived in the daily expectation of making it impossible for him to separate himself from her. There was a brief moment where Severus simply looked at Adelaide, his expression unreadable, then against proper sense and good reason said, "You are all I have."

"Severus—"

"That fact is indisputable, you said as much yourself," said Severus, then when her stunned silence went on unabated, "You want me to be honest with you, so here it is: Everything about you terrifies me. Being around you can be taxing, but somehow, I find myself wanting to do it anyway. I know how this ends, and despite the fact that I have enough foresight to see that you and I are traveling in different directions, I can't bring myself to do anything about it, even though I know I'm going to regret it when the time comes."

Adelaide opened her mouth the shut it, as if willing the right words into place. "You called me different—"

"I told you not to ask me that," Severus cut in. He stood again and started to busy himself with the holdall, feeling oddly foolish yet exhilarated from his candid admission. He hoped she would take the hint and not ruin it.

"Yes, I know that, but you're missing the point," Adelaide said. " I'm different to you because you made me different. You've never let yourself do what you've done with me with anyone else, so it's a different relationship—one you haven't experienced before."

Severus, who, not having anticipated the twist the conversation had taken, had frozen in the act of packing the toiletries and now stood staring at her with his toothbrush in one hand and a savagely crinkled tube of spearmint toothpaste in the other. When she smiled what was left of the once impenetrable and invulnerable walls he had erected to protect himself crumbled.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do," Adelaide continued, "because you're the only person that knows what you need. Take me, leave me. The choice is yours, but you need to know that you are more capable than you give yourself credit for. It's okay to take a risk now and then," she added. "You took a risk on me and look what happened."

"I would hardly consider being blackmailed with the prospect of forced hospitalization taking a risk," he said quietly. "Coerced seems the more appropriate word."

"I wish the circumstances had been different, but I do think that threat forced you out of a place you had been stuck. That's the thing with risks," she said seeming to follow where his train of thought was heading. "You have to take them even when it's uncomfortable and you have no idea of the result. Otherwise, everything stays sort of the same."

"Do you believe the outcome would have been the same regardless of who showed up in my frame?" Severus asked, genuinely curious.

Adelaide frowned. "I don't know."

"But the magic, omniscient or whatever it is, picked you. Out of hundreds from the way Shrout talked," said Severus. He zipped up the holdall and looked at her intently. "There has to be a reason for that."

"You're talking about magic that I can't even begin to understand," she said. The frame bobbed slightly from where it hovered. It gave the slight impression that he had put her off balance. "I don't know why it picked me, but it apparently knew what it was doing."

That he could not argue with. Had St. Mungo's not been looming in the background he would never have relented to Augusta in the first place, but Adelaide had somehow made the arrangement easier for him to take. In spite of how they came to know each other, whatever this was that had blossomed from their encounters felt foreign but right. He did not, however, agree with her assertion that the outcome would have been the same regardless of who his Silhouette was, and that had to count for something…

"I need to leave soon," Severus said, changing the subject. A casual glance at his watch showed a little half past three. "Miss Granger is likely already there, doubtless fretting over my absence."

"Best not keep her waiting then. I'll be here if you need me," Adelaide told him, no hint of expectation or lack thereof tinting her voice.

"I know."

"Do try to enjoy yourself, will you?" she said. Without waiting for an answer, her image slowly faded to black until the frame went still and quiet, like she had not been there at all.

Severus picked up the frame and a slight discharge of energy travel through the carvings in the wood and up his fingers before settling heavily under the spiral seared into his skin. He stared at his dimmed reflection in the darkened glass, took a deep breath, and put it where it belonged.

Consequences be damned, there was no turning back now.

0o0o0o0o0

Severus arrived at the Ministry of Magic at precisely four in the afternoon and was immediately regretting the decision of wearing his coat. It was wizard-made, but distinctly Muggle in its design; the slim fit clung to him with suffocating efficiency. When he picked it from Twillfitt and Tattings he had done so with the intention of wearing it between worlds. Looking back on it now, Severus realised his mistake. It would have been a fine choice for a stroll down any London street, but there in bowels of the governing body of the magical community, he felt exposed.

On a Monday, at four in the afternoon, he had also expected the crowds to be limited, but the atrium was teaming with witches and wizards—Ministry officials in their respective departmental uniforms tending to their duties, the rest civilians of varying degrees of status. Thankfully, the crowd could be used to his advantage. Severus kept his head down and stayed close to the reconstructed fountain and out of the fray of those coming from the Floo terminals and the various halls that branched off from the main throughfare. If anyone had recognized him, they had not made a fuss about it.

The lift room to the lower levels had been inconveniently placed at the opposite side of the room, a clever ploy to encourage visitors to appreciate the grand scale of the room they found themselves in. Severus entered through the golden gates and went to the first unoccupied lift he came to and pulled the golden level on the controls. A dozen or so interdepartmental memos whizzed inside just before the door slammed shut and Severus found himself being hurtled sideways then abruptly down.

Severus checked his watch again; six minutes after four. He was cutting it close.

"Level six," said the disembodied lift voice. "Department of Magical Transportation, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office and Apparition Test Centre. Have a lovely evening."

The latticed doors opened with a groan and Severus took off down the hall to the designated waiting area shared by the four offices. It was just as crowded, but he managed to spot Hermione Granger sitting along the wall nearest the receptionist's desk. She was looking at something white in her lap, which caused the thick scarf around her neck to conceal part of her face. The purple bag she carried with her everywhere was in the empty chair to her left. It appeared, she too had taken a page from the same book, bundled up beyond what was comfortable for the current location. She looked up as he crossed the room and smiled.

"I've already checked us in," Hermione said once he was in earshot. She moved the bag beside her, an unofficial invitation. "They're running a bit behind, according to the clerk I spoke to."

Severus sat down on the rickety wooden folding chair and placed the holdall he had been carrying in his lap. Directly in front of them a gaggle of small children—four siblings from the features they shared—were running between the rows of chairs, their parents unmoved by the occasional squealing peel of laughter or minor displays of spell work in its infancy. He leaned in closer to hear her better.

"How much of a delay?" Severus asked, making a solid effort to not sound annoyed that he had rushed for nothing and was likely to spend the next several minutes with a constant assail upon his patience and ears.

"She marked us arrived but wouldn't commit to a departure time before what was already scheduled," Hermione answered. The child nearest to them, no more than four or five-years-old shrieked, the octave rivaling that of a banshee, and she winced. "They've almost driven me crazy."

On time he could handle. "Have you been here long?"

She shook her head. "Not long, maybe twenty minutes before you."

One of the children, the oldest from the looks of him, rounded the corner and came within a few feet of where Severus and Hermione sat. Severus could feel the glare slowly move its way across his face as he stared at the dark-haired boy. It was purely involuntary and already there before he could stop it, the sort of look he had normally reserved for those he found particularly irritating. The child stopped in his tracks when caught sight of the pair and took a prudent step back, fidgeting with his untucked shirt tail.

"I tried that earlier," Hermione whispered, mildly impressed. "It wasn't nearly as effective."

Severus, on the verge of offering her his sympathies, continued to scowl at the boy until he made a prompt about-face and scuttled off in the direction of his mother, then turned his attention to an expressionless man in a dark green Portkey Office uniform that shuffled into the waiting area.

The clerk was a small man with slight creases on his face, dark eyes, and a self-effacing sense of inferiority. A peon within the establishment, Severus guessed. He consulted a slip of parchment, paying little mind to the chaos that was unfolding around him. "Ticket 547? Hermione Granger?"

"Thank God," she breathed. Hermione raised a hand as she stood. "That would be me."

The clerk never looked up from the page in his hand. "All members of the traveling party present?"

"Yes, myself and Severus Snape," she answered.

The clerk looked up this time, doing a double take between the pair.

"Indeed," was all the wizard said before he flicked his wand at the archway he had just emerged through. Down the narrow corridor a large black door with the number fourteen hanging above it opened. "You'll be in that holding room there, all the way at the end. The Portkey master will be with you shortly."

"After you," Severus said, eager to leave the waiting area.

Hermione led the way to a much quieter, but stiflingly warm, waiting space complete with a large sofa with cracked leather upholstery and a simple wooden desk and mismatched chair on the other side of the room. Parallel to the door they had just walked through stood a slight alcove outlined in the stone wall, like a door or archway should have been there instead of more stone. It was a room that saw a considerable amount of traffic, Severus reflected, following the faded path that ran like a wayward brush stroke across the dark polished floors from the entrance to the sofa.

"Hopefully not much longer now," Hermione said absently. The leather gave a muffled squeak when she sat down. After a brief moment she turned to look at him, then to what Severus realised was a white paper bag in her hand, as if suddenly remembering it was there. "I intended to give this to you when you arrived, but things were rather hectic." She extended it in his direction. "I hope you don't mind."

Something on his face must have tipped her off to what he was thinking because she said, "I know—not necessary—but I thought this was something you should see."

Severus gave her a scrupulous look as he plucked the parcel from her hand, but truthfully she had piqued his interest.

The bag contained a single book with a badly cracked spine. It was slim and thin and very old. The dull yellow cloth cover, dotted with water spots and moth damage, smelled of age, but was otherwise enacted. It moved easily in his hands, giving the impression that it had been well-read. Severus turned it over to see a Scotland Yard man and several personified cats climbing a ladder which led to the title.

"Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," he read aloud, raising an eyebrow.

Hermione gave him a hopeful look. "It has your Macavity in there, I thought you'd like to read it."

"Definitely not necessary," he said, flipping carefully through the brittle pages. He turned to the table of contents and as he scanned the page, Severus felt her weight shift closer toward him on the sofa.

"What you'll want will be on page—"

The sound of stone grinding against stone drowned out what she had intended to say, and they both looked up in the same instance to see a man standing in front of them.

"Afternoon," he was all the stranger said, his tone suggesting he believed he had stumbled into the middle of a conversation not meant for him. "Ira Hymdel, Senior Portkey Master. Call me Ira, please."

"Pleasure to meet you, sir," said Hermione, shaking his hand extended hand. Severus offered only a slight nod, stowing his new book in the deep pocket of the holdall, and took in a solid appraisal of the man that would be responsible for their cross-country travels.

Ira Hymdel was a wizard of gangly build and a thick welsh accent. His rust coloured beard and thinning hair made him seem older than he probably was, but what really did the trick was the goggle-like contraption he had strapped to his head. The lenses were missing, but the thick frames gave him the look of a praying mantis with tunnel vision. He had a chain clipped to a utility belt that clinked noisily with a ring of a dozen or so miniaturized clipboards. His wand was holstered to a ridiculous strap around his thigh.

Hymdel looked first to Severus and then to Hermione at his side, giving no outward indication that he knew the pair in front of him or the connection they shared and sat himself down behind the desk. It was a promising start to what would be an uneventful excursion, at least Severus hoped.

"You the two headed to Iceland, I take it?" said Hymdel. "Research purposes from the look of the initial request."

"Yes," Hermione said. "To Vik."

"You'll be departing from main chamber today, but before we do that, I'd like to discuss some safety protocols specific to your ticket. It shouldn't take long, provided the two of you have prepared your personal effects appropriately, namely the potions equipment." He turned his attention to Severus offered a careful smile. His quill was poised at the ready against a generic looking form. "Would I be correct in assuming this isn't the first time you've traveled via Portkey with a range of trappings from your profession, Professor?"

He does know, Severus thought sourly. "I'm no longer a professor, but yes."

"How do you usually handle hazardous items?" the Portkey Master went on, unmoved by the correction.

"The liquids are contained in shatterproof phials," Severus answered, as if by rote. "Those phials within a locked and warded leakproof case along with any other glass."

The wizard checked something off a list, moving to the next. "Accelerants and combustibles?"

"Secured with dragonhide." Severus hoped he would not have go digging through his bag for to show proof…

"Good man," said Hymdel, followed by another check. "I prefer it when people make my job easy."

The Portkey Master stood abruptly, seemingly satisfied by the information he had been provided and placed his wand upon the stone within the alcove. Brick and mortar melted away to reveal the inner workings of the Ministry of Magic Portkey terminal. "This way, please."

Ira turned and strode quickly through the bustling terminus. Severus and Hermione fell into step behind him. People were everywhere throughout the corridor. Travelers were being ushered into rooms by clerks, and those not responsible for seeing witches and wizards off were either hunched over desks tinkering with a random trinket or sorting through crates full of mundane objects that would one day become Portkeys themselves. It was loud and stuffy, and left Severus feeling a touch claustrophobic.

"You've thrown the office into a bit of a tizz today," Hymdel said over his shoulder. His tone was light but matter of fact. "Transatlantic flings to the aren't something we get often, so everyone is a bit on edge."

The doubled entendre caused Severus to physically wince, and he looked quickly to Hermione to see if she had caught the implication as well. She looked up at him in that same moment and simply smiled, thankfully oblivious.

You're trying to find a problem where there isn't one, he thought, remembering the words Adelaide had told him. Severus fiddled with the collar of his coat. God, it was hot.

As they rounded the corner, a scrawny blond-haired wizard carrying an assortment of envelopes stopped when they came into view. He too wore the same pair of goggles, but somehow managed to look even more ridiculous with his curly hair and different coloured eyes. The longer Severus looked at him the more he noticed the subtle incessant shifting of his features common in a Metamorphmagus that lacked discipline or the desire to control the ability altogether. Sometimes it was the curvature of his nose or the shape of his eyes, other times it was the freckles dotting his face moving about like enchanted inkblots.

"Ay, Finnegan. I was hoping we'd run into you," said Hymdel. He turned around, gesturing wide as if presenting someone important. "This is my apprentice, Finnegan Dowdy. He'll be assisting me this afternoon to ensure the two of you end up where you need to be in one piece."

Finnegan smiled, his teeth looking much too big for his mouth in one instance, then perfectly normal in the next. It was unsettling. "This the big fling?"

"Why does everyone keep calling it that?" Severus blurted. He could not help it. It was like everyone around him had suddenly turned clairvoyant and was toying with him for the fun of it.

Hymdel's peculiar eyes traveled over him, up and down then back up again, and meaning clicked. The man actually had the audacity to smirk. "Fling?' He means transport. That's what we call them. When you've been in the business as long as we all have you forget normal everyday folks aren't up to speed on the informal jargon used around here."

Hermione shuffled from one foot to the other, finally catching up. She cleared her throat and had the good grace to extend a hand. "It's good to meet you."

"Pleasure's all mine," the boy said, just as a dark shade of navy blue filled in the strands of his hair. He could not have been much older than Hermione, and he was far too jovial for Severus's liking. "I've been looking forward to this all weekend."

"As I said, a bit of a tizz," Hymdel said. He turned and studied his protégé for a moment, then said: "Do you have their itinerary?"

"Prepped and ready. I wanted to deliver it personally instead of leaving it in the chamber." Finnegan shifted the stack he carried to one arm and shimmied out the second bulky envelope from the top.

The Portkey Master took the file from his apprentice, checking the contents briefly and nodded. "Go on and see to the key; it's in my office in the lock box."

When the young man had disappeared the way they had come, Ira Hymdel started off in the other direction. "Iceland's Ministry of Magic has accepted your Portkey request and you'll be dropped somewhere on the fringes of the town, out of Muggle view, but within acceptable walking distance. Here are your papers—geologists on sabbatical from Britain by the looks of it. The currency exchange for a thousand British pounds is in here along with maps of the region, so be sure not to lose this. Your new backgrounds will be corroborated with the Muggle Icelandic Office of Foreign Affairs should you find yourself being questioned for whatever reason."

"What of weather conditions presently?" Severus asked with an air of indifference; the vertigo he suffered through in the early morning was starting to creep from the shadows. Ira stopped and consulted one of the many enchanted clipboards he carried about on the ring. When he found what he was looking for the wizard hit a switch on the side of his spectacles and the multiple lenses shuffled like a deck of playing cards before a teal, shimmering pair fell neatly into place.

"Cold with moderate onshore breeze and a slight freezing drizzle. The waters are choppy so mind your landing, unless you'd prefer to get swept out to sea." Hymdel hit the switch on the frames again and the magical lenses snapped back into place, leaving him looking more bug-eyed than ever, and started walking again.

"The two of you have been assigned a two-way key and will travel back to this same chamber in a weeks' time. It will activate at 9:00 in the morning next Monday, Greenwich Mean Time and will remain active for exactly sixty seconds. You don't have to leave from the same spot we drop you, but just make sure you're out of sight and out of doors. If either of you miss this window, wait where you are, and a Port Clerk will fetch you since we'll have a record of direct location from whoever makes it back." Ira came to an abrupt stop in front of a door with the Ministry of Magic emblem painted across the paneling in shimmering gold and gave them both a level look. "If you both miss the window you will be responsible for travelling to Reykjavík and the Ministry of Magic there to contact the senior most Portkey Master by the name of Magnúsdóttir, Ásta Magnúsdóttir. Directions for going about this have been included, should it happen."

He flipped the envelope out toward Severus, but it was Hermione who took it, stashing it inside of her bottomless purple bag.

The apprentice came into view down the corridor carrying a large brown box with a simple lid. As he approached, the door in front of them swung inward to reveal a simple dais in the center of the circular room with a solid wooden pedestal. The room was much larger than it first appeared. The bewitched ceiling extended upwards several hundred feet and tapered off to a single domed window at the top with overlapping petals of brass and glass set into the annulus frame. It left one with the sense of being dropped into the bottom of spyglass. Along the back wall was another door, leading into what Severus assumed was the viewing room for staff from the large pane of reinforced glass. Dowdy, purple haired and green-eyed now, scuttled in and up onto the dais where he deposited the nondescript box.

"Everything's set, Ira." Finnegan clicked the lever on the side of his goggles and a set of amber lenses fell into place. "I cross-referenced the Portus spell with the coordinates and populace patterns. They'll be out of sight."

Hymdel gave him a quick nod, stepped up on the platform, and tapped the lid with his wand. As he did so, the sides of the box fell away to display a worn Muggle rock pick floating upright on its own accord. Severus snorted in spite of himself.

"We're nothing if not thorough in this office, Mister Snape," the Portkey Master said, sounding pleased with himself.

"That was my idea," Finnegan mouthed to Hermione, giving her a slight nudge with his elbow. "Geologists and all that."

"Now for the tricky business." Hymdel flipped the switch on his goggles and an identical set of amber lenses fell forward into the frame. "Have either of you traveled such a great distance before?"

"Not nearly this far, for me at least." Hermione turned expectantly to Severus. "I can't speak for Professor Snape."

"A long time ago," he said without elaborating. Internally Severus was trying to recall the exact mileage it had taken to get to Albania and not what had transpired there after the Dark Lord fell the first time. "But it was not across such a large body of water."

"Wise, this one." Hymdel studied him for a while, mindful but deliberate. "Water is harder than earth if you hit it the wrong way, which is why we're going to do our level best to make sure that doesn't happen. Finnegan and I will be able to track the two of you with the Omnispecs during the entire three seconds it's going to take to cover the two thousand or so miles. Should anything run amiss, we'll be able to adjust the Portus Spell in real time. " He tapped the frames with the tip of his wand, and they began to glow. "On the landing if you would, please. Either side of the pedestal."

Hermione, who had been fiddling with the silly brass cuff on her wrist, gave him a steady look then did as she was told. Severus followed after her, coming to stand on her left. In front of them the rock pick bobbled slightly.

Ira Hymdel was circling them now. The subtle mechanical whir of the glasses on his face was the only noise in the room. "You can both place a hand on the Portkey. Once we're safely out of the room we'll activate it and you'll be off."

"Firm grip and hold tight," the apprentice chimed in. "We had to put a bit of effort behind the spell for this one since there's two of you."

"For improved stability for this distance I would recommend joining hands," said the Portkey Master. Then added with graceful nonchalance, "But that is only a suggestion." He turned in a flourish, which set the clipboards at his side to clacking, and headed to the viewing room door. "Twenty seconds, Finnegan!"

Hermione looked uncomfortable. Severus wondered if it was due to the thoughts of holding her ex-professor's hand or the imminent prospect of being hurled the length of the United Kingdom three times over in the span of single breath. She wants you here, she wouldn't have offered otherwise, said the voice inside his head. Then it was Adelaide in his thoughts, slight and quiet, ever the voice of reason, don't overthink this. He hesitated for only a moment then offered his free hand, as a gentleman would be expected to do.

She took hold of him with no reluctance whatsoever. Severus felt a white-hot flood of feverish relief followed by something akin to…thrill?

The door to the viewing room shut and the Portkey Master's voice rang out in the silence, "Fifteen seconds!" Under his hand the rock pick began to hum.

"Please don't let go," Hermione whispered as they stood alone in the chamber.

"Ten seconds!"

On their own accord his fingers laced between hers and he squeezed. The rock pick was now visibly vibrating.

The unmistakable pull behind his torso was growing, as was the jarring sensation of being compressed yet stretched from every conceivable angle. Severus could no longer hear the countdown for the rushing sound of his pulse hammering in his own ears, and by the time their feet lifted off the dais the room had disappeared entirely in a kaleidoscope of colors followed by a shock of cold air.

The cloying smell of sea brine hit him after the cold, followed by blurred ribbons of the horizon as reality stitched itself back together. The coast was to the left and to the right the massive expanse of the churning Atlantic. The rock pick spun them toward a grassy, snow-covered dip in the terrain, just beyond the black sand beach below their feet in spite of the gale of sea wind pushing them the opposite direction. Six feet or so above the ground the Portkey deactivated, and the enchanted rock pick reverted back to ordinary self. Gravity took over before either of them had time to orient themselves, and the two dropped like anvils onto the wet grass.

Severus landed on flat his back in such a way that it knocked the breath out of him and the Portkey loose from his hand. Struck with a sudden spasm of coughing, his lungs working overtime to capture all of the air that had been abruptly expelled, he saw stars swim across his vision.

Hermione had let go of him to try catch herself. She hit the ground a split second after he did, her knee bashing hard into the bony part of his shin. She wobbled a few feet away on her hands and knees and sank down into the grass and snow.

"Christ Almighty," Hermione wheezed at his side. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that she had gone from prone to sitting with her head between her knees. Given the circumstances, she handled being twisted and gnarled around the darkness of space and time reasonably well.

"That was the worst thing I've ever done," she said from beneath her wild hair, not offering to look up.

Severus tried to sit up, but the world started to tilt, and he closed his eyes eased himself back onto the wet ground. The dampness was already seeping into his clothes, but actively trying not to vomit took precedent over everything else. There was also something unforgiving digging into his lower back. "Agreed."

Iceland in the spring was colder than London in the spring. Being seaside did not help matters. The wind glanced over the waves and cut through any exposed skin like a blade. Severus tensed and relaxed his hands in tandem to combat not only the chill but the lightheadedness and looked upwards into the threatening cloud cover. It took several minutes of staring into the silver-grey void churning over their heads before he could pull himself upright to look around properly for the first time.

The long, low sweeping rumble of the ocean coupled with the greyed skies gave the impression that he and Hermione had been dropped into an alternate reality, some ancient place that was not meant for mere mortals. The severe juxtaposition of the landscape he now found himself in was more jarring than the freezing temperature.

Tall formations of stone jutted up from the water and were wrapped in the salty mist from the thrashing surf, like the veiled hand of some unknown deity rising from the depths. Beyond the black pebbled beach, far out to sea, Severus could make out faint hints of the Aurora Borealis where the Sun had already begun to set. It was a remarkable sight, but ominously so.

Hermione was standing next to him now. Face flushed, she stared out at the waves while the wind swept her hair back behind her shoulders.

"Are you ready for this?" Severus asked at last, hitching his holdall more securely around his shoulder.

"Are you?" she said, meeting his gaze. The intensity with which she looked at him caused the same sensation he had felt back in London to engulf him all over again. Definitely thrill—uninhibited, visceral thrill that he had not experienced in quite a long time.

"Welcome to the land of fire and ice, Miss Granger," he said, surprised at how much he meant it.

Author's Notes: It's been a long, hard while, folks, but I do hope you enjoy. And if you're so inclined, be sure to let me know your thoughts.