Three Months Later
If it wasn't for the train whistle, Hermione Granger would have missed her stop.
September first. A brisk day, a bright sun overhead. The day of Hogwarts students' annual return, and Hermione's very first shift in the Elvish Rights office.
A cloud of smoke obscures King's Cross almost entirely; before the train can move again she gets up and sprints from the door, her laughter gushing out of her in spite of herself, gazing around at the clusters of students on the platform as she runs.
These days Hermione laughs often. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others. She's begun making friends again. In fact, she's meeting up with a few other fellow Gryffindor girls in the city after work: Lavender and Parvati of all people, who've warmed to her in the days since she reached out. She hadn't realized how much she missed… friendship. Connection. She's rusty at interpersonal relationships, but happy to have the chance at them again.
Hermione's running so quickly she doesn't see him until they're upon each other. She collides with his chest—smooth black robes and a familiar scent. She looks up in surprise, hardly daring to believe it.
It's him. Of course it's him. Of all the people she could run into at King's Cross Station.
"Hermione," he breathes her name. He's carrying a suitcase in each hand, but he puts them down and they stare at each other, motionless, their faces only inches apart.
Severus.
"That's right," he says after a beat. "It's your first day, isn't it?"
He's referring to their brief correspondence in the few months since the graveyard visit, in which she had kept him apprised of events like her application process and consequent hiring, withholding the things that were harder to say, like I miss you.
A smile lights up his face. "It'll be good for you."
Hermione is vaguely aware of travelers moving in great streams all around them, the swishing of many coats and dull thuds of luggage. She shifts nervously from one foot to the other. When she slows down and stops to look around herself, she still occasionally has moments when she feels out of place.
"You… you think so?" A moment of uncertainty. The first time she's allowed herself to doubt. "I'm so out of practice being around other witches and wizards."
"That simply isn't true; you had a full year with me." He snorts. "In fact, at this rate you'll end up Minister of Magic. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised."
Hermione smiles slightly. Her brain processes the suitcases next.
"Wait—you didn't tell me…" She scans back mentally through his brief letters; no, he'd never mentioned. "Are you going somewhere?"
"Actually, yes. Shacklebolt's sending me overseas." He shifts. "Some new mission intended to employ the spy side of my history more than the potions." His lips twist. "Can't say much more than that, but needless to say it'll keep me... occupied."
Hermione bites her lip.
"You weren't going to say goodbye?"
Severus gazes around the train station, brow crinkling, and gestures weakly to her robes and briefcase.
"You… you're putting a whole new life together, Hermione." He shrugs. "It doesn't have anything to do with me."
Her heart twists. She inches closer, pressing up onto her toes so she can look into his eyes.
"Everything about me has to do with you," she whispers defiantly, before she can take it back, and then they're just standing there, staring at each other as everyone else moves around them, until he clears his throat and awkwardly breaks their protracted gaze.
"Can you tell me where you're going, at least?" she asks insistently.
"There are many trains that leave this station, Hermione Granger," he says softly, his voice lilting. "They go many different places."
It's a secret, then. Her eyes fill up with tears, and for a moment she can't think of a single word to say. Perhaps they never would have lasted—not in the real world, not in a world bigger than him and her and the house on Spinner's End. And now she's embarking on a new journey, into a world that exists entirely separate from Severus Snape. They'll both go on to do good things, great things, both of them—for a moment she can see their lives stretching out beyond this encounter, their various achievements and successes and victories—and she knows, intellectually, that it's for the best.
But she already misses him with everything in her, anyway.
"You know, I forgot to tell you. I still have a few of your memories." She reaches deep into her new bottomless briefcase and holds them out to him like an offering. In her hands she holds Severus, studying in the Hogwarts library; Severus, daydreaming with a smile in the Slytherin common room; Severus, finding shapes in the clouds on a sunny day beside the Black Lake. Little vials of white wispy substance that clink when they come together. They'd parted ways so quickly after the graveyard, she'd never had the chance to give them back.
Small memories, everyday ones, nothing particularly important. But they had brought her joy just the same. Seeing him happy.
"I've been keeping them safe for you," she whispers, and it strikes her how odd this must look to any commuters that happen to glance their way: a young woman standing before a man twice her age, holding out a few tiny glass jars as if they're of any great significance, her eyes full of tears.
"Severus, take them. They belong to you."
"Hermione," and there's so much emotion in his voice she has to look away from him then. He clears his throat and reaches out, hesitantly at first, then with greater intention, and closes his hands around hers, around the jars, and pushes them back toward her chest.
His touch is just as she remembered—a familiar, comforting warmth.
"I don't need the old ones, Hermione Granger," he says. "I have ours now."
He kisses her once, very tenderly, on her forehead, his hands resting gently the base of her neck. Hermione closes her eyes and whispers something to him that not a single passerby can hear.
Perhaps goodbye. Perhaps I love you.
And he releases her.
In the next instant, Severus Snape is gone. Hermione Granger is left standing alone in King's Cross Station, holding a briefcase and an old professor's memories.
She is crying, but smiling.
A/N: I always get a little sappy when I finish projects, but I just want to say I love this site. I know we've all been through the wringer in the last few months (2020, what a year), and it's meant a lot to me that no matter what's going on in the world, I can always hop on here and see that you're all reading my work and in some small way, I'm making your life better.
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