Eight

"i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)"
—e.e. cummings

8th October 2004
Hermione is 33

Adrenaline and excitement kept me awake all night. I couldn't get away from Hogwarts quickly enough yesterday, and I was distracted through Julia's visit this afternoon, so much so that she told me to take a break for a couple of days, that my travel logs were impressive, but it wouldn't be good for me to collapse for the sake of history. I'd nodded vaguely and said I'd see how I felt.

Although I wanted to Travel to him straight away, I knew that intensive preparation would be wise. His portrait is moving; he isn't dead. So, I know that I am going to stop him from dying. Otherwise I'd just be burying a body later today, a secret and devastating memorial. Despite the fact that I must concede that I've been a little obsessive about him during the last few months, I would never steal his lifeless body so that I can fill my own deep need to mourn.

I'd never paid much attention to healing charms before; we were never taught many of them at Hogwarts. I smile as I remember a little snippet from the Prince's sixth-year potions book: If it's bleeding, chuck some dittany on it. However, I was not convinced that dittany was going to fix a severed artery, so I spent all night doing a little research. I think that a Stasis Charm is going to work best until I can get him here to Heal him properly—at least that part should be easy. The Stasis Charm makes sense, too: The Stasis Charm will render him unconscious, which fits with the events of that morning, when he collapsed.

But this all means that I'm going to have to Travel to the Shrieking Shack in the midst of a battle; avoid detection by Voldemort; avoid detection by a younger and desperate (and wand twitchy) Trio; cast a Stasis Spell without it being noticed. It would have been a daunting thought, except that Time is funny that way: I've already achieved it, so I know that it can be done.

After I was sure I'd covered every contingency, I tried to sleep, but after tossing and turning for over an hour, I realised that I had one last thing to do, one last preparation to make.

13th November 1994
Hermione was 33

When I arrived in Diagon Alley, I groaned to myself; I'd forgotten that Friday was market day. The narrow, cobbled alley was made narrower still because each shop had a display table set up under their shop's awning. Witches and wizards and children, lots of children, pressed around the tables, seeking the bargain of the week.

Perhaps it was for the best; at least the streaming crowd made me anonymous.

The Owl Post Office was less busy, but there was still a queue. While I waited, I unfolded the letter I wanted to send. My handwriting hadn't changed much over the years. If Severus set this letter beside a fourth-year essay of mine, the tight loops and hasty and off-centre dots would match.

Dearest Severus,

The first time was a surprise; I should never have returned to visit you again. I came back because I wanted to, because Thursdays with you were where I felt like I belonged, where I fit exactly right.

I can't explain where or why or how. But I can tell you that our friendship means the world to me; that you're the best man I know; that I love you.

I am desperately sorry for any hurt that I may have caused; it was never my intention, please know that.

Always carry hope with you, Severus.

Always,

H.

There is so much more that I wanted to write, to tell him: I've never felt like I belong more than in a Time where he is; my soul is weeping for the loss of its perfect match; I have dreams where he is my midnight lover and that he fits inside me so perfectly that it feels like we're halves of one piece; the bitter and uncomfortable truth… that I wouldn't change what I've done for the world even though it has hurt him. But I force myself to seal the envelope once more. He might Incendio the letter on sight, but at least I've tried to tell him.

Every time I Travel, I carry him with me, in my heart.

2nd May 1998
Hermione is 33

Usually it's easy for me to watch history unfold, to be an impartial observer of events as they flow forward into a known future. But it's different, now. Even worse than the Death Eater trials. A million times worse.

I want to leap up from my dark corner, where I hide under a Disillusionment Charm, and strangle Voldemort until his bone-white face turns blue. I want to tell Severus to run! He sounds so desperate to find Harry; I can sense his urgency to get away from here, sense his feeling of impending failure. He thinks that Harry is out of reach; that he's never going to be able to tell him what he needs to know. He thinks that hope is futile. I swallow hard and wipe at the tears that tickle down my cheeks.

I cannot bear to look when Nagini strikes. I cover my eyes with shaking hands, but I can still hear the sucking bubble of blood, the thud as he collapses to his knees. Oh, God, I wish that I could prevent it, but I know that it would change everything.

When I open my eyes again, I see my younger self rushing towards Severus, clutching Ron's hand so tightly. God. I look so young, so earnest, so naïve about what Time will bring me—that it will close the circle and bring me back to the beginning. My hand tightens around my wand. I want to cast the Stasis Charm right now, but I have to wait for Harry to collect the memories he needs.

When Severus speaks his last words, I cast the spell, and his head falls to the side; he looks dead. Go, go, go, I think at my younger self. I have no way of knowing if Severus has lost too much blood to survive.

As the footsteps fade back into the tunnel, I rush to Severus' side, oblivious to the blood that seeps into my robes beneath my knees. He's so cold and so still, I note with dismay that makes my heart ache and hope.

"Please," I murmur. "Please…" A sob hitches in my throat, and I'm crying again. "Please, please, please," I croon as I stroke hair back from his face. I'm asking Time to spare this man—my soul's other half. But I've deceived Time and betrayed the Traveller's creed, so as I take his still, white hand and prepare to Travel, I'm not sure if my heart's plea will be heard.

9th October 2004
Hermione is 33

In Severus' frame of reference, more than three years have passed without me, and they show. It's like Voldemort's second coming has leeched something essential from him. Or perhaps it was Dumbledore's demand or Lily's vow that have stretched the skin so tightly across the bones of his face, made him look like he's been fuelled on malice and vinegar.

I want to pull out my wand and Ennervate him; it would be a shock to his system, though, and it's best to let him float to consciousness rather than be jerked into the shock of 2004 like a fish gasping for water.

I sit curled up in an armchair next to my bed. The mid-morning sunshine is warm on my back, but I still tuck my hands up to the sleeves of my jersey because the icy stretch of silence makes me shiver with apprehension and dread.

What will he say to me when he wakes? The knot of dread at my core twists hard, and I cover my mouth with my fingertips because my lips are trembling. I'm starving but I can't make myself go to the kitchen to get something to eat. I can't fight the feeling that if I blink or move, he'll be gone.

But still, despite myself, I dare to hope.

9th October 2004
Hermione was 33

I held my breath when I lifted the Stasis Charm; if he didn't live then I didn't want to take another breath, either!

When his chest began to rise and fall, I let out a long, wavering breath and traced the thin, pink scar that ran from just below his ear down to the hollow between his collarbones. And then the other one roughly parallel to the first, which had been a deep and deadly gash that had sliced clean through his artery.

When I'd really had a chance to see the extent of the damage Nagini had done to his neck, I thought that the odds were very slim that he'd survive, that he'd been just heartbeats away from death when I'd put him under the Stasis Charm.

Fate and Time are strange and magical creatures. I had to believe that they'd collaborated towards the very moment when I reached for the precious crystal vial that I'd sworn I'd keep for a vital and much-needed moment.

I had helped Madam Pomfrey to Heal the injured from the Battle of Hogwarts before the St Mungo's Healers had arrived. I used the last drop of the dittany, and I stood up and looked at the long line of people who still needed help, and I'd dropped to my knees and cried for my helplessness. A soft gasp from the people around me had roused me from the depths of self-pity, and I saw that Fawkes had appeared in a flash of scarlet and gold. I'd thought he'd soar to Harry, but he wheeled around the Great Hall once before tucking his wings in and plummeting like a streak of fire to land at my knee. When he'd Healed all the wounded, he'd filled my vial with pearly tears.

"But I don't need them, now," I'd said to him with a perplexed expression.

Fawkes warbled softly and tilted his magnificent head as if to say, "Not yet."

Surely I was meant to save Severus; Time and Fate and even magic seemed to agree.

The phoenix tears worked miracles; the skin and muscle had knitted themselves together. But he remained ashen and still, and I realised that the biggest danger was the loss of blood he'd sustained. I had bought several vials of Blood Replenishing Potion, and I had prayed that they'd still work on a body under stasis; they had to, didn't they, for there'd surely been patients at St Mungo's with critical injuries and blood loss?

Like a miracle, the colour returned to his body by small degrees, like life had infused into him and was spreading from the inside out. Finally, even his fingertips were no longer the grey and dead colour they had been.

I moved to check his other hand, and it was then that I noticed he was clutching something in his fist. Carefully, I unhinged the clasp of his fingers, exposing his secret: a folded piece of parchment. Blood had stained into the very fibre of it, and it had been folded and unfolded so many times it was paper-thin and fragile.

As I unfolded the letter I'd sent him only yesterday, I wondered why he hadn't put some sort of Impervious Charm on it.

And then my heart interpreted its greatest hope for me: he hadn't done that because when he traced the lines of text with his long and beautiful fingers, he liked to imagine where my own hands had touched the parchment and he didn't want to spell my presence away.

Finally, his fingers twitch slightly.

I lean forward and suddenly I feel nauseous with dread and apprehension. I have broken all of the rules and risked everything; what if he hates me for what I have done? What if all he really wanted to do was to die and join Lily beyond the Veil?

I don't think my heart will go on if he opens his eyes and all I see is disgust.

I am frozen in place, now, with the horror of what could happen. I yearn to move to sit next to him, to take his hand, but I can't.

He makes a soft noise, almost a protest that he's waking up. That thought just makes me feel worse, and my hands curl into tight fists, my whole body tenses, just waiting for him to hate me so that I can throw myself to my knees and beg for forgiveness.

When his eyes slit open, an involuntary sound bubbles up my throat—it's a soft gasp of hope that sighs into the air. Slowly, he turns his head to look at me. All I can see in his eyes is myself, reflected in his dark, dark pupils.

He swallows as if he's trying to catch his feelings and mould them into words. "Hope," he murmurs, and then he falls back into unconsciousness.