Сколько дорог пустынных исхожено

С тем, кто мне не был мил,

Сколько поклонов в церквах положено

За того, кто нас так любил…

Анна Ахматова

I could've gone home by the Ministry fireplace, of course. It would have been faster and more comfortable. But the weather is great today, business, at the serpentarium which is called the Ministry of Magic by a mere mistake, got done faster than I expected and now I have a little time for pleasure. So I'll apparate to the Hollow just a few miles from home - I'll walk and breathe the fresh air in because I'm officially fed up with all these offices. After all, I don't let myself relax that often. Every single one of my scandalous escapades is calculated, carefully planned and given to the world in precise moments. Spontaneity is not my style. Sometimes I allow myself rash acts, of course, and as a rule, I disentangle it for a long time.

I don't even know what kind of consequences may follow my current promenade. I'm taking a stroll and everything can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned.

Frost torments my cheeks, snow crackles under my feet, the sky is so high and it seems like it's getting higher and there's a magical mist in the air. Unmoving trees are covered in snow, the sun is shining, snowdrifts are sparkling so much it hurts my eyes, the edges of the fur hood are covered with hoarfrost from my breath. Utter bliss.

Godric's Hollow is an amazing place. An inexpressible atmosphere of coziness and fluffy happiness rules here, though a taste of bitterness is definitely in the air too. I think I understand what it is. Godric's Hollow accumulates the energy of love. Passionate and true, tender and loyal, wild and violent, careful and quiet – love. Hollow is like a cup that is full with this love to the brims, no wonder Harry's parents lived here. Is there a place in the world that is more perfect to live in, to love in, to raise children in? Love can be different though. It can be bright and happy like it was for Lily and James. It can be dark, heavy, excruciating, pulling a thin string from a solid ingot of a soul constantly – like love Severus Snape felt for Lily Evans. Godric's Hollow readily soaked up all this agony and now its' bitterness is forever here as a reminder: even the most blessed feeling can kill.

Severus Snape. Potions professor. Double spy. The horror of the Hogwarts dungeons. A tormented, jaded soul and a crushing tornado of emotions under the unbreakable armor of cold contempt. Who knew about this?

I knew. And how fucking great it was to be with you, professor. I'm trying to remember how it all began and just can't. I only remember the impossible, crazy, hungry kiss and the rough coolness of the walls of the school corridor. Snape grabbing Granger in the middle of the school — there's a reason to go crazy. But in that crazy month, everything was for us. No one wondered what I regularly forgot in the dungeons. No one was interested in why you began to find fault with my work and behaviour three times more often, giving me detentions for any reason and without reason at all. We never caught the eye of either students or teachers - sometimes only the moon caught us, but she knows how to keep secrets.

You have become a revelation and a realization for me. You showed me me. You - restrained, strong, smart, adult. And me - a tousled sparrow in your warm confident palms. You opened the bottomless depths of sensuality to me, and I could hardly believe that this was all for me.

How easily you broke my stereotypes and made me reconsider my beliefs! In disputes with you, I could scream hoarsely, proving my rightwards, and you erased my arguments to dust with a single phrase. You took my principles off me like peel from an onion, exposing my non-Gryffindor essence. You opened my eyes to terrible things, I was angry at you for this, because I understood that you were right. You were always right.

You got me addicted to quick hard sex and red dessert wine. Once, having drunk a lot of this wine, I began to share with you my plans from the series 'When the War Will End'. You listened carefully, getting grimmer with every word I said, and then said: 'Fool! Your war will never end!' I was stupefied and on a brink of tears, but when you noticed this, you spoke softer:'You are an outstanding witch, Hermione. But you are a Muggleborn witch. If you want to achieve in our world something more significant than the position of senior assistant to the junior secretary in the Ministry, you will have to take every step with a fight, every step. You will have to prove every day that you are better than others. You will climb out of your skin, but you will still be treated as an empty space. You will have to use all the cunning, all the anger, all the malice that you can only find in yourself. You'll have to forget about honesty and nobility, you will have to step on heads, lie, flatter, lay under the right people. All is fair in war, and you can't avoid this war.' Still, I cried, and then you took my face in your palms and whispered, looking in my eyes: 'You can do this. Lotus grows in mud and swamp silt, but it is always clean. You are smart and beautiful. This is a killer combination. Now you are still almost a child, but you will bloom, and men will fall at your feet, as I fell. You are a real calamity.'

You called me calamity and trouble, but you never called me joy, even as a mockery. You called me an unbearable know-it-all, your personal boggart, your mortal sin, called a rabid cat. Only once, on our last night, your stern lips whispered: 'My girl...'

You and I talked about everything in the world, but never - about us. There were no 'us'; only you and I. You and I did not have a future in which 'we' could arise. You were not going to survive the war, but I was going to. You had no idea what would happen after, but I dreamed of victory and happiness. Mismatch.

I still consider myself 'richer than all of Egypt.' After all, I saw you smiling. I saw that easy, contented movement of your lips when you realized that you were my first. I saw your approving grin when I managed (how rare!) to defend my point of view. I saw a slightly arrogant half-smile when late in the evening (or early in the morning, as luck would have it) you handed me over to Harry and his invisibility cloak so that I could quietly return to the Gryffindor Tower. My dear boys covered for us in all the ways imaginable. And the only real smile, thoughtful and sad, I saw when I said that I love you.

I didn't lie to you. I loved. But you? I never found out why you needed me. Sex? It's unlikely that you were easily seduced by virgins who could not even really kiss. Perhaps you just needed someone who would love you. But then why did you care about me, take care of my reputation and safety (not giving a damn about yourself, by the way!), taught me, instructed me, guarded me? I, the rational and prudent Hermione Granger, prefer not to sort through the phenomenon of our affair. I like to think that you loved me too, professor.

And then you died, and all that remains of you is the bitter ether in Godric's Hollow and the tormentingly slow pain in me.