Author's Note:
I apologize for the long delay in posting this chapter, especially after my assurances that it would be out the following week. My grandmother passed away. She had been depressed and ailing since my aunt passed away a few months ago, and it was obvious that she was ready to move on. She was 94 years old, and such a loving woman. I've been focused on family and a bit on myself for the past few weeks. That and my laptop died two days after she passed. I was also having issues accessing my documents on the cloud. It was an anxiety inducing add on. I'd been so busy that I didn't take time to replace it. Then I realized how cut off I felt by not having this outlet to write and share. I hadn't realized how important this writing and all of you had become to my well-being. So, I got a new laptop and was able to sort out the issue with my docs. Thankfully everything was restored. Anyway, to end this, I want to say how much I appreciate everyone that reads my stories and for the comments. You uplift my spirits. Thank you.
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Severus's hand shook as he reached for the doorknob to the master bedroom and slowly opened the door. The curtains were drawn tight, and it was so dark he almost missed the small, still form with a mass of frizzy brown hair curled in on itself in the center of the bed. Snape rushed forward and turned the body over to search for signs of life, only to be met with the unfocused gaze of his student.
His heart shattered, and he quickly gathered the girl in his arms. How could this be happening again? How? This couldn't be happening again, not to her.
He wept openly, murmuring into her hair. "I'm sorry, dear girl, you deserved better from me, from the Order, and the whole fucking wizarding world. I'm so sorry."
He gasped when he felt a small hand on his back and realized that his words were being echoed by the form in his arms. He pulled back. The girl's gaze suddenly focused on him, and she lunged, throwing her arms around him. She clung to him as she repeated a litany of I'm sorries.
Severus was flooded with relief and concern. He held her tight and tried to calm the witch. He still didn't know if they were in current danger or where her parents were. "Shhh, Miss Granger, I'm here," he soothed. When she started to relax in his arms, he asked, "Are you hurt?"
She shook her head no against his shoulder. Thank Merlin for small mercies, he thought. "Where are your parents?" he asked next, and she stiffened. She tried to pull away but Snape caught her before she flung herself to the floor. She looked frantic. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she said over and over.
"What are you sorry for, Miss Granger," he asked. Hermione shook her head vigorously.
"I didn't want to!" she exclaimed. "I'm so sorry! I didn't want to!"
She tried to flee again, but the wizard kept hold of her, his fear returning. "Hermione, what did you do?" When she didn't answer, he gave her a little shake. "What have you done?"
"I obliviated them," the girl whispered. Her eyes went wide with her own revelation, and she slapped her hands over her mouth as if she was trying to stop her own confession and the reality of it.
Horrified, he asked, "Why?"
The girl fished in her pocket and pulled out a galleon. He took the coin from her and read the message engraved on it. Tomorrow PM. Get out! There was only one place this message could have come from. Snape wasn't sure if should throttle Draco for is carelessness or thank him for taking the risk to save her.
"Why did you trust him?" the potion's master asked. "Why take such a drastic step off the word of someone who betrayed you?"
Again, Hermione didn't answer. She left the bed and padded down the hall to her room. Severus had just started to wonder if he had been expected to follow, when he caught sight of her coming back. She handed him a worn piece of parchment and he looked it over. When he found nothing more than inane childish ramblings, he frowned and took out his wand. After finding no magical tampering at all, he looked back to Hermione. "I don't understand."
"It's a code," she answered. "Draco and I started to work on it as a fun distraction when he got overly stressed. Which was most of the time in the beginning. Then it was just a convenient way to pass longer messages should we need to. We would put them in an old book bag that I found further into the room in a muggle studies text book."
"Clever," the man remarked.
The witch nodded her head in acknowledgement and continued. "It was still there….after. I needed to know. I needed to know why."
"And did it answer your question," Severus asked.
"Somewhat." she answered. "Not enough for me to be okay with the fact that I was complicit in Professor Dumbledor's murder and compromising the war, but it was something."
The potions master rose from the bed and approached her carefully. "Dumbledor's death was not your fault. It wasn't even Draco's fault. I'm sorry either of you got dragged into this, but it was not your fault."
Hermione laughed bitterly. "Oh, really, Professor? Because I clearly remember helping Draco bring death eaters into the castle. Where children are! Dumbledor is dead, and Bill is scarred for life!"
Severus took her hands and fell to his knees before the young woman. "It was Dumbledor's plan. He was dying and wanted his death to mean something, to further the cause. When I informed him of Draco's mission, he saw an opportunity."
"An Opportunity? That's all Draco was to him?" she asked sadly. "And me? Did he know I was helping him?" At the nod of the man's head, she laughed again. "Did he hope I would kill him myself, if Draco failed," she asked bitterly.
"No! That was never an option," he said vehemently. "Neither of you were to do it."
The witch frowned. "Neither of us?" she said then her eyes went wide. "You!" Severus flinched at the word. "He always meant for you to do it!"
"He had no intention of damaging either of your souls," he explained gently.
Hermione's face was awash in grief and anger. "But yours was expendable," she asked aghast.
"Miss Granger," the wizard said calmly. "He was right to do what he did. It secured my place in the Dark Lord's inner circle, and he appointed me the new headmaster of Hogwarts. I'll be able to help protect the students. If he'd chosen someone else, it would be a bloodbath."
"You cared for him," she asked.
"He was like a father to me," he confessed.
"Then we both murdered our parents," she responded. "I killed them to save them. They wouldn't leave without me. I tried. They just wouldn't go. I had to."
By Merlin, Snape hated himself for having to ask this question, but he needed to know. If he was to help her, he needed to know what she'd done to them. "Miss Granger, where are your parents?"
"Gone," she said simply. "I obliviated them and sent them on their way. They went to Australia. Where they go from there is up to them."
Snape breathed a sigh of relief. They still lived.
"I made them new identities and gave them all the money I could get my hands on. I'm not sure it will be enough," she said, then fell silent.
On his knees before her, Severus asked, "Why did you send for me?"
"I've worked all day since I got the message on preparations and getting ready. Then I argued with my parents and obliviated them. Now there gone, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do." Her voice cracked, and she started to crumble to the floor. The wizard gathered the girl to him once more as she sobbed in his arms.
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Severus wasn't quite sure how long they sat on the floor of her parents' bedroom before the sobs stopped, and she became still.
"I didn't know who else to ask," she said. "You've always been there before when I needed help protecting them. I hoped you'd help me now."
"Of course, I will. Anything you need," he assured her.
Hermione sighed and pulled away from him. "They need more money than what I gave them. A lot more. The house is insured should it be destroyed," she tripped over the last bit and took a second to bring up her occlumency shield to calm herself. Severus tried not to be proud at how quickly she accomplished it but failed. "That will go along way, but I need my parent's dental practice to be sold quickly. We need to come up with a reason why they disappeared so suddenly. The last thing they need is an international missing person's search. After that…..I have no clue," she said looking to her professor for guidance.
He stood and offered her a hand up. "Come," he directed. "We have scant hours left according to the message and have much to do".
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They went room by room, shrinking and boxing everything. Hermione said that taking everything was excessive, but Severus paid her no mind. He knew she had no idea what she really wanted to keep at that moment. Best to take it all and sort it out later.
It wasn't until he approached a little shed in the back yard the wizard encountered something odd. "Miss Granger," he called out. She peered out the back door moments later. "Why is this shed warded shut?" Knowing the girl, it could be about anything, and he wasn't about to enter it blind.
Hermione's face held a look of horror before exclaiming, "Crooks! She ran past him towards the shed. "I almost forgot." She brandished her wand, dismissing the wards.
Snape was suddenly assaulted by the plaintive cries of the beast inside. She wrenched the door open and a blur of orange fluff leapt into the girl's arms. "I'm so sorry, Crooky. I didn't mean to leave you in there so long."
The man was slightly appalled when he caught sight of the animal. Its smooshed face looked decidedly…wrong. "Miss Granger, care to explain why you locked your cat under wards in your garden shed?" he asked her.
"He kept getting in the way," she explained. "I think he knew. So, I put him out here."
"That doesn't explain the wards," the potions master drawled.
"Oh," she said as she coddled the beast. "Crookshanks is half kneazle and very intelligent. Ordinary locks and doors don't tend to keep him in." The half kneazle explains the wrongness. They tended to breed weird. He eyed the animal warily. "He was the first one to figure out who Scabbers was. He was always trying to kill him," she continued as if she were speaking of a misbehaving child.
Snape's eyebrows shot up at that revelation. Perhaps this cat was a good sort after all. He nodded his head at the animal in deference to his attempts to rid the world of that detritus and was surprised when the cat nodded back in acknowledgement.
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They sat on the front porch together greeting the dawn looking over the neighborhood Hermione grew up in. "I'm never coming back, am I," she asked. Her entire life packed into her Hogwarts trunk and Crookshanks in his carrier at her feet.
"No," he replied softly. "It will likely be gone by tonight."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an attempt to stifle another volley of sobs and mostly succeeding. "Where do I go from here?" she asked.
"Surely, the Weasleys…" he started.
"No, please," she said urgently. "They aren't expecting me for months. I thought I had more time. I can't go now. They're planning Bill's wedding. I can't ruin that. I don't want them to know."
Severus knew what the right answer to this situation was but fought himself viciously over it. The witch simply needed to allow her friends to care for her however difficult that may be.
Apparently taking his silence as an indication that he had no answers for her, she spoke again, "I don't have any more family. My grandparents are dead. No aunts or uncles or cousins. It was just us and now they're gone. I didn't even say goodbye to them. We'd just been arguing….."
"You did what you needed to protect them," he assured her, although he wished she'd taken a different approach. "And you still have family. You have the Weasleys and Potter. You aren't alone."
"I feel like I am," her voice breaking. "I've never felt so alone, and I can't even begin to think about what comes next," she admitted through tears.
His heart finally won out. "You aren't alone right now, are you?" he asked. Not sure exactly how to go about this, he awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm here. Right now, I'm here. I'm your family, and I won't leave you behind," he swore.
She looked up at him. "So, what's next?" she asked.
"We go home," he responded with an air of authority. With a determined nod, Hermione stood, took hold of her trunk and Crookshanks' carrier, and let Snape disapperate them away.
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Author's Note:
I'll leave you with a story about my grandma. When I was a young adult, I came out to my mother as bisexual. She then promptly told my grandma, because of course she did. My grandma was a farmer's wife in rural Iowa. I was ridiculously afraid she'd be angry wouldn't want to see me again. It had happened to others that I knew. Instead, a week or two later, I got a letter from her in the mail. She wrote to tell me how much she loved me, how she only wanted me to be happy, and how proud she was of me. I still have that letter, and a year later I moved to Iowa with her help. I met my husband there and so, so many friends. I've brought so many people to her home over the years for family gatherings as did my cousins. When I'd ask her if it was okay to bring someone, she'd always reply, "Everyone is welcome at grandma's," and she sincerely meant it.