None knew for sure how and when it all started. One day everything seemed perfectly fine, the other day all their life had turned into a total and inevitable disaster. At first, Hermione assumed that Severus, perhaps, mixed his potions again. He used to do that a lot when he was too immersed in his brewing, or worked on endless theses, or was too distracted in general. She used to tease him when he lifted his eyes to look at her, totally ignorant of what and who she was.
"Honey, have you by any chance mistaken your headache Potion again?" she used to ask him and giggle, looking into Severus' blurry eyes.
He usually concentrated for a couple of seconds, she always guessed that he was adjusting his Occlumency shields, and after that, he usually smiled at her, if somewhat nervously, and told her that he just become too distracted by something. She believed him. She didn't have any reason not to.
They had been living together for ten years by now and their marriage seemed perfect to Hermione. They worked together in Severus' apothecary, sometimes Hermione attended different conferences, sometimes he helped her with research and improvement of the existing potions, they planned their holidays and they quarreled over breakfast. She was happy, their life was perfect.
Until it wasn't.
She didn't know when it had started. Severus was hiding his health problems from her. He kept brewing dark and secret potions for memory restoration, he visited Muggle doctors, he secretly portkeyed to Europe to consult mediwizards there, but nobody gave him any satisfying answer: neither doctors nor mediwizards knew how to cure dementia yet.
Severus had his own suspicions as to what was happening to his mind. He laughed, telling about it to Hermione.
"Oh, you know, with the life like mine it's a wonder I managed to live for so many years relatively intact. It meant to happen, sooner or later. Though, I would prefer it to happen later."
Hermione bit her lip and looked at him with her big brown and worried eyes.
"How could you say so? Memory loss is not a joke, Severus! You keep forgetting things, one day you forgot your wand, the other day you mixed some reactive potions ingredients together and yesterday you looked at me as if I were a stranger to you!"
"Do not ever say so," Severus replied, growing serious. "No matter what happens, I will always know you."
And after that, they made love near the burning fireplace, and his burning kisses kissed away her hot tears, his hands soothed her ache and his embrace gave her the meaning of life again.
They didn't know how much they had before everything would come crashing down, but she wanted to believe him so much.
They spent day and night researching, looking for the existing treatments, writing to their fellow potioneers and Muggle doctors: nobody knew the cure for Severus' problem. Some said the memory loss was happening due to so many Cruciatus curses applied to Severus in the past, some suggested it happened because of his constant applying of Occlumency shields. Hermione didn't care.
She wanted to scream in rage and desperation. She wanted to cry and fall down on the floor. She wanted to kiss him senseless and beg him to never leave her. She wanted to follow him into the dark abyss that would inevitably embrace him one day.
"I want you to know that I would always remember you in winter," Severus told her one day after being particularly gentle and passionate to her. He caressed her breast with his long fingers, he snuggled closer and buried his nose into her hair. "I want you to know that these years of our marriage were the happiest in my life, and I don't care about some shitty memory loss because I cannot lose what is engraved into my heart."
She wanted to protest, to yell at him, to promise some false hope. She snuggled closer and cried instead.
It all happened so suddenly that she didn't even understand it. At first, he started having spasms, then he had difficulties breathing, and after that Severus just restored his Occlumency shields and became very still.
Crying openly, Hermione took him to St. Mungo's where Lavender Brown and Draco Malfoy were working as Healers and they knew about Severus' situation pretty well. As well as the fact that there was no possible cure.
Hermione visited him every day at first. Severus never responded to her or to anyone else. If she brought him his potion-kits, he brewed perfectly qualified potions, if she brought him his thesis, he continued his academic research, if he were asked questions, he would respond in an adequate manner, he just didn't remember her or any of their previous life.
Draco insisted that Hermione reduced her times of visits, he told her he worried about her well-being, and slowly and reluctantly she agreed. She reduced her visits to one time every month. It was too painful to bear.
She went on with her life but she stopped living at some point.
Winter came suddenly and unexpectedly when Hermione already lost all hope. The morning came covered in a frosty blanket, the snowflakes amazed her for a couple of minutes on her way to work at the Apothecary.
At the very door of the Apothecary, a very nervous Draco was waiting for her.
"Come on, Hermione, quickly, Godfather came to his senses and he's calling for you, claiming that winter came, he is perfectly fine and we have no right to keep him at St. Mungo's! I must admit that I am not really sure what exactly happened but it just seems to me that his Occlumency shields suddenly dropped and all the flood of memories he connects with you have come crashing down. He really remembers everything that concerns you!"
Hermione didn't listen to Draco's nervous blabbering. She rushed to the hospital not feeling the ground under her feet. She flew to his ward and into his open arms.
"Severus! Oh my God, Severus!"
He just laughed nervously. He had the audacity to laugh! She spent three months worrying her heart over him and crying day and night in desperation and he dared to laugh!
"I told you, darling, that I will always remember you! I didn't want to worry you in vain but I had done some research and found out that if I keep my shields intact for three months, having stored all my memories of you in their distant corners, my memory would be back at the beginning of winter!"
Hermione punched his chest with her fists instead.
"You great bastard! I was dying from the loss of you and you knew all this time!"
Severus kissed her instead.
"I hate you!"
"I love you too, Hermione."
Not that he often said those exact words to her.
"Will you stay with me now, Severus?"
"No matter how cliched I might sound, but I told you already that I wouldn't be able to forget what was engraved into my heart."
It snowed, they kissed on the front porch of 's, and Draco and Lavender sneaked at the couple shamelessly through the slightly opened curtains of the Main Hall.
The End.