Damnation of Memory

Title: Damnation of Memory
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Adult Situations
Summary: DH-EWE: With every generation, a Dark Wizard rises. Hermione Granger has survived one. However, after nearly thirteen years, a dead man returns to inform her that she must fight again, and this time, Harry Potter will not be the one to save the world from madness.
Author's Notes: This is my 1st full length SS/HG fic and my second 1st person POV fic. Please note that not every detail is canon, including the canon floor plan of Grimmauld Place. This chapter is also unbeta’d, so please, pardon the mistakes!




Damnation of Memory - XXII






Severus did not sleep next to me that night, though he stayed in the Manor along the seashore. It took me hours to finally fall asleep. After so many weeks, I had begun to grow accustomed to sleeping next to the pale, acerbic man. I missed his soft snoring, and the way he would wrap himself around me while we slept.

When I woke, however, Severus was watching over me, sitting in a chair next to the bed. I had no idea how long he had been watching me, but his eyes were distant, somewhere else than staring at the bloody bandages wrapped about my arm. Sometime during the night, my arm began to ooze blood, especially my hand.

He muttered that Ginny was waiting to speak to me, and quickly extracted himself from the chair. The brooding Severus had returned in full colours. He wore something very similar to his Hogwarts teaching robes, and even the way he stalked from the room reminded me of how he moved when walking down the corridors of the castle. His mood was in no way pleasant.

Ginny came moments later, visibly rebuffed, and I knew that Severus must have exuded his displeasure into the rest of the Parkinson Manor which I had yet to see the rest of after being cooped up in a bedroom for nearly three weeks.

Ginny was enormous, to put it bluntly, and when I had seen her before, I had been in too much pain to notice. Before I could enquire about her pregnancy, Ginny had already passed me two phials of potion, her face stony.

I drank down both, sitting up in bed, trying my best not to pull a face.

“Vitamins,” Ginny supplied, as she maneuvered herself down into the chair Severus had recently vacated. She drew her wand from the pocket on the front of her maternity smock and over her shoulder she cast—imperturbable and silencing spells.

“Before I even start to attend to those nasty bandages, I have a few questions for you, Hermione Granger.”

Ginny Potter had inherited her mother’s tone for rebuke, and I wondered what grave sin I had committed besides having a hand in making her older brother insane. I then blanched at my derisive mental behaviour. I attributed it to some twisted coping mechanism. I would eventually crumble and have a good cry, but as it was…

“When was the last time you had intercourse with Snape?”

Ginny’s tone was heavy with matronly castigation, and I opened my mouth, letting it flap uselessly as a blush burnt into my cheeks like new bruises.

“When was your last menses?”

“For Mer-godssake, Ginny!” I screeched.

Ginny’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her swollen breasts, resting her elbows on the top of her belly.

“I’m asking as your Healer and not your friend, Hermione.”

I closed my mouth with a snap. “Why?”

Ginny’s cheeks trembled, again like Molly’s, and I knew…

“You are pregnant. It’s very early, but as far as I can tell…”

I threw the covers back from the bed and moved to sit just before Ginny, my nightgown twisted about my waist.

“That’s impossible…” I hissed.

Ginny’s face softened. “Apparently not. I ran the tests before you woke. I ran and reran them. Whatever damage you had in your womb after the miscarriage is gone. You are fertile, and you are pregnant.”

I blinked and gaped at the same time, but my hands, uninjured and injured moved to my lower belly.

“I have not mentioned it to anyone, yet. Seeing to your injuries was more important when Harry and Snape brought you here. But you are on the mend, and now it is time to consider your options.”

Again, my jaw snapped with a click. “Options? Is something…”

Ginny shook her head. “You haven’t been listening.” Ginny uncrossed her arms and shifted in her chair to lean forward as far as she could, her face only inches from mine. “You are pregnant. Snape is the father. You are a fugitive. You cannot stay in Britain,” Ginny uttered to me as if I were two years old.

She leaned back and rested her hands on her belly. “It is too early to tell how exactly far along you are. As I said, I estimate about six to seven weeks…”

Stoke-sub-Hamdon. I slouched forward and sighed. So much time had passed so quickly, but how? Had time been different across the Poison Sea?

“You and Snape left London two months ago, didn’t you realize it?”

Again, another person asking me if I realized that so much time had passed. Of course, I had not!

“I stopped the pain reducing potions as soon as I detected the fetal heartbeat…” Ginny continued. “Are you feeling any soreness in your breasts or any sort of morning sickness?”

I smirked. “I am sore all over, Gin, and I have yet to get up this morning to see how I feel.”

Ginny sighed. “I know how unbelievable that might seem to you, Hermione, but…”

I raised my eyes to Ginny, affronted. “But what?”

“The options I started to mention…”

I felt my face twist angrily. “Abortion? What, Ginny?”

Ginny’s face paled and she turned her blue eyes away from my face. “No, not an abortion. I know what this means to you… It’s just… It’s Snape.”

I laughed.

Did Ginny’s dislike for Snape extend so far beyond the War? Of all people, I had believed that Ginny had somehow forgiven the petty grudges we all had in school.

Then I realized. The child was not Ron’s. The child would not be part Weasley as my lost child had been.

“I will have to discuss it with Severus,” I whispered. “But not until I can see the results of the tests myself. I have to know, Gin, that this is not some cruel cosmic joke.”

Ginny nodded, sniffing. “I just don’t want you hurt again, Hermione,” Ginny said finally rising from her chair carefully to tend to my right arm. “After everything we all have been through…”

I nodded as Ginny drew her wand again to Vanish the bandages about my arm. The sensation was unpleasant, but I said nothing. Ginny was distracted, her eyes bleary. I, on the other hand, was trying to comprehend her words after everything I had said.

I was pregnant and no amount of logic was going to make me understand. I could only believe.



Two days later, I was able to leave my borrowed room, nearly getting lost down odd winding corridors. It seemed that I was in a labyrinth once again. The Parkinson Manor was a mish-mash of rooms and corridors, and I wondered which insane relative had designed the house.

Finally, Pansy found me staring into a circular room with marble walls and a large floor to ceiling window over looking a cliff and the violent sea below. A fainting couch of blue velvet rested in the very centre of the room and I was puzzled as to the function of the room.

Pansy took my uninjured hand and led me back to a staircase leading down into the main part of the Manor, twittering all the while, about how happy she was that I was on my feet. She led me into a luxurious sitting room where all the surviving Knights were assembled. Severus was sitting in a leather armchair near the fire, a glass of brandy poised between his palms, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair.

I had seen Severus when I woke that morning, and upon my recognition of him sitting in the chair next to my bed, he seemed to flee. I was quite put out with him as Pansy helped me to sit next to Greg, who looked much improved from when I first laid eyes upon him after being unconscious for an unknown amount of time.

Upon the wall above the fireplace were Arcturus and Abraxas. Harry was leaning into the sideboard to my left, Fannie next to Greg on the sofa. Pansy took her place in an armchair across from Severus. We were all assembled, and we all looked at each other in silence.

Harry was the first to speak, pushing off the sideboard, moving to stand behind Pansy.

“We have discussed a matter and agreed, Hermione. You should give the memories of the altercation on the Tor and the Isle to me for safe keeping.”

I glanced to Severus whose dark eyes were fixed on the amber liquid in the glass before his face. Noticing where my eyes had settled, Harry continued.

“Severus has given his memories of that time, and in order to eventually clear your name, you will need to give yours as well.”

I sighed. “You realize that Severus’ memories would mean outing his identity to the Ministry?”

“A risk I am willing to take,” Severus grumbled.

“In time the Ministry will be able to manage…” Harry started, but interrupted.

“If we run, the statute will run out after some time—“

“No!” Severus growled, grasping his brandy in one hand and setting it upon the wide arm of the chair. “This needs to be resolved sooner than later, Hermione.”

I inhaled deeply, glancing to Fannie and Greg who sat silently, staring into the fire. Then I glanced to Pansy who gave me a sympathetic look.

“In time the Ministry will be reorganized in the wake of this…this…disaster,” Harry stuttered, trying to find the correct title for the madness that had swept us all up and left us sore and hurting. “When the time is right, we can submit the memories, along with the proper legal documentation.”

I snorted. “Damn bureaucracy,” I muttered.

Greg made a noise between a chuckle and a snort, and it set me off. I began laughing, slapping a hand over my mouth. Surely, everyone in the room believed I was finally cracking up, but I could not help myself. Perhaps I was cracking up, but soon my laughter faded and the seriousness of Harry’s words settled in.

“Do it then. Take them,” I whispered with tears in my eyes.

Laughter turned to tears, and as Severus watched Harry prepare to take my memories, there was a sadness in those onyx depths that cut me to the core.

The extraction of memories did not always erase the memory from one’s brain, but it did leave a grey filler, a blur. The clarity I had had was gone, and only an afterimage of what had transpired on the Tor and on Avalon remained. With the extraction, the clamping pain I had felt around my heart eased.

I was left slightly stunned in the sense that I was not full aware of what was happening around me after the last silver strand of memory was bottled and slipped into Harry’s pocket. I vaguely remembered Greg speaking to me, and patting my uninjured shoulder as he departed. I remembered Fannie taking down the portraits and the voices of Abraxas and Arcturus protesting at their rough treatment. I remembered Fannie saying that the Knights of Walpurgis, thanks to me, were no longer needed.

Harry kissed my forehead, and was gone. Even Pansy, who was playing the gracious host departed from the room until I sat on the sofa alone with Severus staring into the fire.

Something important had ended, and when I was finally fully aware of my setting and company, there was nothing I could do to bring the Knights of Walpurgis back together. There were so many unanswered questions, so many things I wanted to know.

“We will leave tonight, after you have some more rest.”

Severus’ voice was dull, almost disinterested.

I said nothing, but stared into the side of his face to the shadow of a beard sprouting along his jaw.

“All the arrangements have been made,” he continued before lifting his brandy to his lips and drinking deeply.

Silence was heavy in the sitting room and even the crackle of the fire did not seem to penetrate the stillness.

“Has Potter never taught his silly wife to shield her mind?”

I straightened. “What do you…”

Severus lifted himself from his chair to move to the sideboard. “I know.”

I watched him slosh more brandy into his glass, and I wondered how much he had had already so early in the day.

“Of course, Ginny Potter has a bad habit of revealing her every thought on her face,” he muttered, his back to me. He was wearing the same familiar doublet I knew from school, only the potion-scented robes were missing.

“My question to you, however, is this: how long did you know?”

I lifted my chin in reaction to Severus’ accusing tone. He had yet to turn back to me, and was tipping the glass back to drink quickly.

“I did not know until Ginny told me two days ago,” I stated. “If I had known, do you think I would—“

“You would,” he snarled, slamming the now empty glass into the surface of the sideboard, whirling upon me, his coal black eyes glowing. “You did!”

I ground my teeth. “I am just as…no…” I trailed, suddenly losing my fire. I had two days to think about the impossibility of it all, Severus had just as long, perhaps.

“I did not lie to you when I told you that I could not have children, Severus,” I whispered my chin falling to my chest, my hair falling about my face. “I have no explanations.”

Severus made a noise that sounded very much like a snort, and, like a sparking inferno, my anger returned. I turned my face to him, and I could feel the fire in my body moving to my eyes.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Severus. If your behaviour is any indication, you can go to hell… I am not giving up another child!”

I was on my feet before I realized it, and all around me was the crackle of raw magic, a sparking prelude to flame. The pain in my hand stopped me from letting this manifestation of power go out of control, but I knew that it was not simply my magic alone.

My womb seemed to hum, and for the first time, I was aware of the life inside, desperate to live.

Severus’ reaction was one of fear, his eyes wide, and his hand slipping slowly to his wand in the front trouser pocket. I could see clearly that he did not understand. How could he? My uninjured hand moved to my lower belly, and I took a step back. I had lost so much, and Severus’ loss of years or memories were nothing in comparison.

He opened his mouth to speak, but apparently finding his intended words insufficient closed his mouth again. Instead, he decided to do the one thing I found he did best. He left me alone.




I returned to my room, ignoring Pansy’s questions as I left the sitting room. As soon as I reached my room, I ran to the bathroom, vomiting into the flush toilet. One thing I had not missed about pregnancy was morning sickness. Before, my morning sickness had been light, but as I retched and spat into the bowl of the toilet, I had a feeling that I did not know what morning sickness truly was…

When my stomach had stopped lurching, I used a clean flannel wet with cold water to press the delicious coolness into the back of my neck and into my forehead. I sat on the edge of the bathtub, rubbing circles into my belly.

By afternoon, elves brought food, and apparently sensing my queasiness, brought simple foods. I ate ravenously.

At sunset, I was staring out the bedroom window to the stretch of open grey sea. Pansy had stopped by to check on me, asking if I wanted tea. I had refused. Pansy seemed slightly annoyed, but sad. Her last words to be had been in parting. I assumed that it was common knowledge that Severus intended to whisk me off to destinations unknown. To some silly chit, I supposed the idea sounded romantic or exciting.

“I will not go without you,” a voice sounded in the space from the window and the door.

I suddenly hated how Severus Snape seemed to know what was on my mind without using Legilimency. I was a superb Occlumens, after all.

I turned from the window to find Severus standing before the door, dressed to travel, another cloak over his arm, for me.

“You…” I started, but could not think of what to say.

Severus strode across the room to stop just before, passing me the cloak. I did not take it.

“If you think that this is some ploy…” I started again.

“You were never capable of a ‘ploy,’ Miss Granger,” he purred.

I shivered, the fingers of my right hand twitching uncomfortably.

“This is a mistake,” I whispered, my eyes falling to the proffered cloak. “All of this…”

Severus seemed stung by my words and the outstretched arm pulled back. I had used his own words against him. I could not look at him, I was too afraid of what I might see.

An uncomfortable silent dragged on and on, until the cloak was offered to me again.

“Do you love the child in your womb?”

The question startled me, but I nodded. The answer should have been obvious, rhetorical.

“Then I have no right to ask you to be rid of the child, do I?”

Our eyes met in the falling darkness in the room. His eyes were as hard as stone, but his voice was unusually soft.

“I will not go without you, and if I have to kneel beside you to await the Kiss, I would.”

No. I would never let that happen. We were not criminals. We were caught in an impossible situation with no other choice than to kill.

“Do you love me?”

I fell back against the windowsill, but my eyes never left his.

“I… I want to try,” I whispered. My voice was rough, but it was true.

Severus remained expressionless.

“Then you must come with me.”

He had not said that he loved me, not in so many words, but I supposed that was typical Snape. Severus Snape was never a man to openly express his emotions often. He demonstrated them.

I took the cloak from his arm and he helped me settle the heavy fabric upon my shoulders, lifting the cowl over my wild curls and waves.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

I did, and I demonstrated it with a kiss.


End Part Three





Epilogue

Pax maternum, ergo pax familiarum




“Helena get your brother out of the lòi before he tries to eat the taro leaves!”

I was lying in the hammock on the porch, fanning myself with the day’s copy of the Kauai Garden Island News. The sound of Helena threatening to curse her brother made me smile, as she was using a thin bamboo stick as a wand.

I heard Hadrian squeal from somewhere in the small paddy, and then begin crying following a muddy splash. I sat up in the hammock, ready to move, but already Severus had straightened at the far end of the field. Mud coated his chin and forehead, and on his lips was a scowl.

He sloshed between the rows of taro to where Hadrian fell, and lifted the four year old out of the water, dripping mud. I sighed, tossing the newspaper into the hammock as I rose. I walked barefoot across the small lawn to the taro field. Severus set the boy on the grass where I bent down to survey for any lasting damage. Besides a mouthful of dirty water and soiled clothes, the boy was fine.

“No more playing in the mud,” Severus growled, only succeeding in making Hadrian cry harder.

I ran my the stiff fingers of my right hand along the boy’s brow to push away the long muddy curls that usually were as black as Severus’ hair, but were a dull brown after falling face first in the lòi.

“The same goes for you, young lady,” Severus snapped, annoyed.

Helena, who had moved to stand by my side, straightened, the small bamboo stick falling from her fingers. I sighed, helping Hadrian to his bare feet and leading him to the bottom step of the porch, telling him to wait.

“Mummy is going to do magic, Haddie, just watch,” I heard Helena whisper as I padded across the wide front porch to snatch my wand up from a low table next to the hammock. The wand hummed in my ruined right hand, and I switched it to my left. I sat down on the step, wand at the ready. Hadrian’s dark eyes widened as I began vocalizing the incantations for the Charms to remove the mud from his clothes—a pair of red shorts and a tiny white tee shirt advertising the local surf shop. I used a different Charm to cleanse his skin and hair.

“It tickles!” Hadrian squealed in delight, as suddenly he was clean. Of course, I would have to bathe him later, but for the time being, he looked more like a little boy than some muddy monster born of the lòi.

“Off with you both. No more playing in the mud and no more making your papa a grouch,” I warned, slipping my wand into the front pocket of my cargo shorts.

The children, four and six, took off across the lawn, Helena snatching up her pretend bamboo wand as they ran. I watched them circle around the garden fields planted with taro and pineapples and then disappeared around the small shed we used to grow more eclectic herbs not suited to tropical weather. The dense jungle behind the house proved to be a child’s dream. There was nothing that would hurt them, the area magically secured, and I had no fears of the children getting into any trouble. It was lòi that proved to be a trouble magnet to Hadrian, or ‘Haddie’ as Helena called him. There were many times the boy would play in the lòi, or in the ̀auwai, perpetuating his usual muddy state. Hadrian loved water while Helena took after her father with an affinity for the earth and the myriad plants and trees that grew around the house.

This was to be my ‘happily ever after,’ but I knew there was no such thing. I settled back into my hammock, digging under me for the folded newspaper. I fanned myself as Severus tossed more and more huli outside of the paddy, tossing the harvested corm into another pile. I watched him rub his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm, swiping more mud onto his face.

We were the Princes, a transplant family from origins unknown. We were a magical family as were many on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. We had lovely neighbors, most of them native to the island, and we lived in simplistic peace. No one asked questions, no one pried, and no one thought anything about my strange accent or my golden eyes. After six years, even Severus ‘Prince,’ did not look like some pale wraith from another island far away. The sun had made his skin brown, work had filled out what bit of leanness he had, and with his cropped black hair and dark eyes, he belonged more to Kauai than I did. There was an ageless quality to Severus, now that he had colour to his skin and true bulk to his frame.

Ipo-lani Robinson, the nearest neighbor, and the closest thing I had to a female friend on the island, commented often at how Severus seemed to have been born of the island. His eyes were like the volcanic glass the children would find around the beaches. Ipo-lani and her husband Makoa had three boys that often played with Helena and Hadrian, but all were older and gone to school in Salem at the end of August. Until Christmas hols, Helena and Haddie only had each other.

Severus stepped out of the lòi and sat down in the grass, dropping his harvesting scythe, wiping his hands into the grass. I rose again, knowing that he was done for the day. He had cleared half the field, and the next day, he would finish. Between scolding Haddie and gruffly asking Helena to stop pretending to hex her brother, Severus’ pace had been hampered.

I slipped through the screen door into the small one story house set into the hillside, and quickly prepared a glass of iced tea. I could hear the children behind the house and in the jungle through the open windows, and I smiled. They were playing some sort of game Pali Robinson, the youngest Robinson son, had taught them.

I padded from the house, the sweating glass in my left hand, my right hand curled in the pocket of my olive green cargoes. The sun beat down on my bare shoulders, the faint tan line around my tank top had faded. I was as golden brown as Severus, my hair also cropped to sway in wavy golden tendrils about my cheeks.

Sitting next to Severus, I passed him the glass, my toes digging into the grass around the lòi. Severus muttered a word of thanks and drank, his held tilting back, sweat trickling down his throat and over his bare chest. I glanced to the collection of taro corms and then to the huli. This harvest was proving to be good enough to sell. Of course, we had no real need for Muggle money, but it was nice to have all the same.

“Do you think we put a ward with a shocking hex, Haddie will stay out of the lòi?” Severus grunted after draining his glass.

I feigned horror and then laughed. “I think that might constitute child abuse.”

Severus grumbled. He was tired, and when he was tired, he was cranky. “The boy has trampled a good portion of the other field, and just after I replanted it…”

“We’ll have to speak to him about that. I still say that if you were to dig a hole and fill it with water somewhere off the side of the house, Haddie would be content with his personal wallow to not bother the taro.”

Severus smirked, setting the empty glass between us. His legs were muddy, his bare feet beginning to dry with caked soil. He was definitely a sight dressed in a pair of cut off jeans Ipo-lani had donated after Makoa gained weight the year before.

The scars on his back were still silvery, but not so obvious under a deep tan. In fact, the Severus Snape I remembered from the night he appeared in Grimmauld Place was a shadow compared to the man who sat next to me.

“Mind a walk to the beach later?” I asked, pulling my near rigor-wasted hand from my pocket to rest my arms on the tops of my knees. “Ipo-lani will take the children. She promised to let the children watch the telly…”

Severus scoffed. “For such a powerful family descended of chiefs, to have a Muggle television in the house seems so…”

I chuckled. The Robinsons were formidable kahuna. However, they had integrated in between the Muggle and the Magical seamlessly. The Robinson boys had gone to the public schools on the island until the age of nine, and then were recruited to go to the mainland to the American Wizarding academy. Helena would go in three years. The Salem Institute had a lower age restriction than Hogwarts, and as far as I knew, a more well rounded curriculum.

“Ipo-lani will meet us in about an hour,” I continued.

Severus said nothing, but scowled to the half harvested lòi. With my hand, I could do little with growing taro, but cared for the special herbs in the shed instead. I kept the house and taught the children with Severus’ help, and besides perfecting the ability to write my stories about a boy named Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort with my left hand, I was a perfect Mrs. Prince.

Such was our life.




News from Britain came regularly via Manu, the barn owl we kept. News about the Ministry came from Harry; news outside of the Ministry came from Pansy. After six years, I was still wanted for the murder of thirty Ministry agents. The Ministry was in chaos after the arrest of several high-ranking officials in connection to the ‘New Order of Merlin,’ yet I was still wanted. Shacklebolt took Hopkirk’s position as Minister once again, and only in the last two years was the truth of the dark plot propagated by Ron Weasley and others brought to light.

Pansy informed us that Ron’s condition had turned from the violent to the catatonic. The public consensus of my supposed guilt was disinterest. No one was actively seeking me. However, there had been rumours of Severus Snape being alive, apparently seen stalking after a woman in Diagon Alley just before I supposedly murdered Percy Weasley in Islington. Severus only chuckled.

“Rumours are rumours,” he muttered.

News after six years began to lean more to the personal. Ginny had had an easy delivery not long after Severus and I settled on Kauai. Harry even sent pictures of little Lily; the most recent was stuck on the front of the kitchen cabinet. Lily at nearly seven… Helena looked upon Lily as a sister she wished she had. Haddie had little interest in Helena’s girlish games of ‘save the princess from the dragon,’ or ‘queen of the jungle.’

Pansy had married only the year before. Pansy Parkinson kept her maiden name, but Gregory Goyle did not seem to mind. It was a bit of a surprise to us, but fitting. Greg had cared for Perpetua “Fannie” Fancourt for three years before she finally succumbed to age and passed peacefully. All the while, it seemed that Pansy and Greg had reconnected.

I was happy for them.

Living as we did, I supposed, I was happy as well. Severus and I never formally married though we lived under a shared assumed name. We were a family, albeit an odd one. Severus never really took to being a father; he had no natural instinct to be fatherly. That did not mean that he hated the children, in fact, he was quite caring, but there were times that Haddie would try to play with Severus, only to end up sobbing. Severus was not playful. He was the disciplinarian; he was respected, but not feared.

Many times, he took on his official ‘Potions Master’ tone to frighten the children, but soon, they would laugh and hug his legs, finding him endearing. It frustrated Severus, but afterwards, he would smirk to himself.

Helena was very much like Severus in attitude, but she was almost a carbon copy of me at her age. She had my eyes and hair, but she had Severus’ bone structure and lean form. Hadrian, on the other hand, was a little Severus with the same ebony hair and eyes. Haddie had my attitude.

It was strange how genetics manifest in our children.

Later that day, we met Ipo-lani along the path to the beach. The children ran to her, speaking in the local dialectal Hawaiian. The children had learned it from the Robinson boys; further frustrating Severus’ efforts to teach basic Latin and Greek.

Ipo-lani winked at me before gathering Haddie in her strong arms and taking Helena’s hand. Ipo-lani was several years older than I was, but she too, like so many of our magical neighbors, was ageless.

I adored her.

Severus had washed before our walk to the beach, and his clothes, a pair of khaki trousers and loose white shirt, smelled of ginger. He walked a few steps ahead of me, his hands shoved into his pockets. I trailed behind, my bare feet rolling over the dark soil under the bamboo trees. The sound of the sea soon filled my ears as we emerged onto a white sand beach settle between the arms of two green mountains. We had walked along a natural valley to the beach, which was hidden from the Muggle tourists as part of the domain of the Wizarding population on the island.

The sun was setting behind the western mountain, but the light upon the water made the little bay glow green and white. We walked along the tide, the warm water a balm to our bare feet. For about a year after moving to Kauai, the sound of the sea caused many sleepless nights for us both, the sound reminding us too much of what we had to endure thanks to Ron Weasley. Soon, however, Severus’ hand found mine as we walked on the beach, grasping my left hand while my ruined right hand slipped into the pocket of my cargoes.

Moments of tenderness were plenty, but rarely did we have time alone. We sat down in the sand just out of the reach of the tide, the waves rolling and crashing in the distance.

“It is still so much like a dream,” I said finally, breaking the perfection of the silence.

Severus held my hand in his lap, our eyes gazing out across the clear sea.

“After so long, I am still afraid I am going to wake up,” I continued. “If it weren’t for this hand…” I pulled my right hand from my pocket and stared at the curled and thin fingers, then to the design scarred into my palm. “I would think I had died and gone to some version of heaven.”

“You should have named Haddie after Lucius,” Severus grumbled, still grouchy. Severus often made this statement when I waxed rhapsodic about our home.

Lucius Malfoy had been the one responsible for so much of our life as it was. In the weeks during my convalescence, Severus had gone to Lucius, as he had promised after we saved him. I still did not know what Severus told the man, but it was enough to give us a place to escape and hide. How Lucius knew of Kauai was another one of life’s mysteries. Money was of no importance here, but still Lucius gave what money he could to pay the tuition for Helena and Haddie to go to whatever Wizarding Academy they wanted.

Uncle Lucy is what the children called him. “Never to his face!” I would admonish.

I was never sure of what sort of father Lucius Malfoy had been to his own son, but he was a doting ‘uncle.’ Every month a package would arrive loaded with candy or toys from Britain, and once a year, usually around New Years, Lucius would arrive in Kauai to bring more gifts to the children. I had very little to do with Lucius Malfoy, and usually kept out of the way. Lucius was polite, but aloof whenever we spoke, which usually consisted of only a few words. It was Severus and the children Lucius was interested in, and as long as he did not interfere with our raising of the children, I had no qualms with the man.

He looked better than when Severus and I saved him. It seemed that depression at the crumbled reputation of his family name had done damage more to Lucius’ body than his mind. After so many years, he looked healthy despite his natural pallour. He was strong, imposing, roguishly handsome, and just as devious as ever. Ipo-lani called Lucius a kupua, a heroic trickster, or a demi-god.

Severus’ usual cutting personality did not change when Lucius visited, and Lucius only found delight in harassing my companion. Under it all, I knew that Severus enjoyed Lucius’ short visits. The friendship the men shared would always remain another mystery.

“Do you regret coming here?” I asked quietly, a question he had asked me many times over the six years.

“Besides the hard work, the rain, and the overabundance of sun, no.”

I smiled, burying my ruined hand in the sand next to me. I could still feel the grains of fine hands running over my scar and the back of my hands, but my fingers had little feeling.

I glanced to Severus who had been watching my motion. He would study my hand when he believed I was not looking. The children found it fascinating, but Severus, he found it horrifying.

“Do you?” he asked, turning his onyx eyes back to the waves.

I frowned. “Regret coming here? No.

The children were born here. It is their home. Taking them back to Britain would be a shock, not just for them, but also to me. Besides, the hard work, the rain, and the overabundance of sun have done us both some good.”

“I suppose,” Severus sighed somewhat wistfully.

My frown deepened. “You want to leave?”

Severus stiffened at my question. “No.”

“Then what is it?” I whispered, squeezing his large, work worn hand.

Severus sighed. “It’s news.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“Manu brought a letter from Potter this morning…”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Severus licked his lips and turned his tanned face to me, the breeze off the waves rustling the longer black hair atop his head, blowing a few strands about his dark brow.

“I wanted to wait, until I heard more…”

I swallowed thickly. Severus had not merely been grumpy because of the children.

“The Wizengamot will probably been sending a summons for you to appear before them in the next month.”

I sighed, closing my eyes and pressing my forehead into Severus’ shoulder.

“Six years… It took them six years to begin building a case.”

Severus said nothing, but wrapped his arm about my shoulders pulling me closer. I inhaled the ginger scent of his shirt, where, faintly, I could smell anise.

“The Wizengamot is granting you a moratorium of sorts until the trial ends. Potter has given them our memories and before long, the name of Severus Snape could be resurrected for the whole world to know.”

I ground my teeth. The implications would ruin everything, our family, our home…

“Potter is doing what he can to prevent your summons, but Shacklebolt wants this over as much as we do. The public has to know the truth; now that the threat is gone…” he trailed.

I opened my eyes and pulled away slightly to gaze up into Severus’ face. “Ron may be mad, Avalon may be lost forever, but there is still a threat, Severus.”

His eyes widened for a moment. “What do you…?”

“Think of all who we killed, if it were our children, wouldn’t you want some form of retribution?”

Severus frowned. “Personal attacks?”

I nodded. “And if you are outed…”

Severus sighed. Even after the War, and the truth of his role revealed, there were still those who wished Severus something worse than death or imprisonment.

“And what about Helena and Haddie. They are so young, they would never understand why we had to go back…”

“Lucius would take care of Helena and Haddie. Potter and his wife would raise them…”

I groaned and rolled away, standing in the sand. I did not want to think about it. I moved to the tide, the waves washing in over my ankles. We had made arrangements early for the children. Lucius would act as benefactor, Harry and Ginny would see that they were raised. It had been a contingency that I had hoped would never occur.

“It will take time for the Ministry to track us here,” Severus said moving to my right side, having rolled up his trousers to his knobby knees. “Lucius and I chose this place because it was so protected.”

I licked my lips, tasting salt from the sea spray. “I would not expose our community here to outsiders,” I said softly, thinking of the Robinsons and the dozen other families who preferred not to be noticed by outside organizations. Ipo-lani’s cousin who lived in seclusion in the jungle was once wanted by the American Aurory for the murder of a Muggle in Seattle a decade before. There were others who were ‘fugitives’ of sorts, down trodden by circumstance and fate, all who lived around us, all who were good people, all I trusted.

“We can leave, go somewhere else. China, or Russia…”

“No!” I snapped, whirling upon Severus, my eyes burning. “If I must go, I will. I will not bring the Ministry here. They do not belong. The children can stay with Ipo-lani and Maoka…”

“You cannot expect them to agree to something like that, Hermione. They have three sons…”

“And Harry has three of his own. I do not want Helena or Haddie to step foot in Britain until they are old enough to understand why we left!”

Severus said nothing, but stared back at me, eyes narrowed.

When he took my ruined hand, I winced instinctually. He ran his fingertips over the scar and over the back of my hand.

“I said once that I would not go without you, and if I had to kneel beside you to await the Kiss, I would. I still mean that, Hermione Granger,” he growled as he raised my wasted hand to his cheek.

I licked my lips as his own lips brushed over the back of my hand. “You also asked me if I loved you and I said I wanted to try?”

Severus nodded, the tip of his hooked nose brushing the permanently bent knuckles in my fingers.

“I do love you. No matter how foul or how fatalistic you can be… I love you.”

Severus smiled into my hand as I sloshed through the tide to stand before him, my left hand grasping his face.

“And if I do get the Kiss for all the sins I have committed, you will not be by my side.”

Severus’ smile faded.

“You need to raise our children, because, if Harry Potter ended up raising them…well, I’m sure Grimmauld Place does not have room for any more poltergeists and foul, vindictive things that make the place any more unpleasant.”

He barked a laugh. “Why did we plan to have Potter raise them?”

“Because Lucius would spoil them, and Draco’s Scorpius might end up being bullied.”

I smiled. Our children were the perfect mix of Snape and Granger. I did not want to imagine where they would be Sorted if they had to go to Hogwarts.

I fell into Severus’ arms then, the fear returning. We had had six years in paradise, and I wondered how many more minutes, hours, or days we had left. Time was a mortal enemy, and as we kissed in the sunset, I tried to imagine how our lives would continue from that point on.

We were together, by choice. We had made a home and a family, by choice.

We had changed very little from what we once were, but love had made all the difference. I loved Severus Snape. He had given me my children, and he had given me a life. To leave such a thing behind would be akin to tearing my soul.

In the darkness, we moved along the beach, hand in hand. As the moon rose, we made camp, and talked of all the silly little things our children did, of things we had done on our travel to the island. We smirked and jested about the time I had to find a new wand in New Orleans, or the time that we were stopped by Muggle police in Mexico City. We leaned into each other, watching the fire I had built, the moon, and the stars too large over our heads.

This was happiness to me, as improbable it might have seemed to me seven years before. I pushed aside thoughts of the future to live in the moment I had with the man who had effectively turned my world upside down, only to set it straight again so far away from home. He had answered a half formed wish, giving me my own Eden.

The power of Avalon had waned; a new age was about to rise. The Knights were no longer needed, and I prayed to the moon that I would not be called again to fight another Dark Lord. I had only one ‘lord’ in my life, and he was all I ever wanted.

And so it would be, forever, if I wanted, that I would be Hermione Prince, a simple witch raising her children, loving her mate, and forgetting Merlin, Nimue, or Avalon ever existed. ‘Damnatio memoriae.’ That part of my life never was, and never would be again.


End


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