What Little Things Remain

The piano was playing again, classical. Hermione heard it from in Snape's bathroom, where she stood under the shower spray and let the water wash away the tearstains. The heat brought her back to herself: she was Hermione Granger, she had always been fine before and she would be fine now.

"Fine: Fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional," Ron would say. But Ron was in Scotland being an Unspeakable, half the world away. Her current companion would nod icily and let it be, even if he did know how troubled she was. As she scraped at her scalp, a futile task without shampoo, she moved her mind to pleasant things: Christmas when she was very young, Hogwarts cooking, her cousins and their children. There was little enough left that wasn't tinged with grief; she hung on to what remained her own passionately.

When she was finished and dressed in clean clothes, Hermione emerged. Snape had set up a bluebell flame and was boiling something atop it. It smelled like there was rosemary in it.

"What's that?"

"A less addictive variant of the Draught of Living Death," he replied from the piano bench, letting his hands drop to his lap. "I must work tomorrow morning; I need a good rest." The words And you'll need it, too, hovered in the air, unsaid.

"Thank you." He barely acknowledged her, instead standing and crossing to the counter where the flame burned. It was strange, seeing her Hogwarts professor in a Muggle kitchenette: he was too large for it by half, but too graceful to knock into things and too deeply rooted in wizarding tradition to use any Muggle appliances. "Make sure this doesn't boil over. I have other things to attend to - informing the Center that I shall be absent today, for one." Snape turned in the stylized way he had, almost clicking his heels together as he left the room. Hermione settled herself on his sofa, eyes focused on the bubbling cauldron, and slowly slipped into sleep.

Fortunately she did not dream. When she woke, this frightened her. Didn't the Muggles say dreams were a way of working out problems in one's mind, picking at the tangles till they were undone, lying in comfortable straight lines? The thought passed, however, as the world blurred back into focus. Snape had been busy: the cauldron was gone, replaced by a tiny, green glass bottle set out to cool. As she blinked her eyes in the afternoon light that sifted in the windows, a shadow fell over her face.

"I was wondering if you were planning on occupying my parlor all day." Of course it was Snape, speaking in an unfriendly tone. "If you wish, take some of my potion, by all means. But it evidently has not occurred to you that I might have visitors coming today."

He didn't have visitors coming. Otherwise he would have already known he would be missing work. "We both know that's not true - oh, just shut up and go away!" She paused and backtracked: "I mean, don't send me back to my flat. Please."

Snape's eyes flicked to the tiny book and chain around Hermione's neck. She almost flinched. "Please," she repeated. His expression reminded her of nothing more than Potions class: Miss Granger, I believe you are passing notes.

That surely would have been the end of conversation. Hermione stared at the ceiling, noticed that the sofa was far nicer than her own, thought about her empty place next door. It stood still and stale, and while she never would have dreamed of considering the Potions Master's quarters more alive than her own, they were. The rosemary hung in the air, the noonday sun giving everything a golden cast even through the blinds.

"Owl post," she called to Snape as she sat up, startled by sudden noise. A large snowy owl was tapping at the plate glass that looked out on the balcony. Snape appeared from one of the back rooms, moving in measured steps as always; his face betrayed nothing as he took the letter from the owl and sent it away. When it was gone, however, he closed the curtain over the balcony's sliding doors and sat down very slowly on one of the dining chairs. His fingers were sure, but not quite natural, as they opened the thick parchment envelope. The contrast between his white face and dark hair and clothing seemed more pronounced than ever.

"Miss Granger," he said as he read the letter, his voice tinged with something she had never heard before. "Have you seen anything odd lately?"

Rubbing the wet spot her head had made on the sofa's arm, she glanced at him. "Besides the - ? No, not really."

Snape's voice pressed on. She knew what it was, now: urgency, the sense that if one did not move quickly one would not be capable of moving at all in the very near future. "If this is genuine - and all evidence points to that possibility - you must fly. Weasley is safe enough, if he's an Unspeakable, but you will leave here and never come back."

There was no pin dropping to test the silence, but it was nearly complete. Hermione leaned toward him. "What did you say?" Her voice was dangerous, and she felt that coldness return inside of her. Nobody was going to dictate her life. The people who had a chance of making her do their bidding were dead, whether she wanted them to be or no.

"Go back to Scotland. Go back to Hogwarts, even better. Take your little troubles and flee. It isn't safe, any more, for you to play at being a big girl and break down on your neighbor's doorstep." His voice had returned to its customary tone, the one it had always taken in the classroom: hard, sharp, and dangerously smooth.

Hermione raised her eyebrows - she had never mastered raising just one - and crossed her arms. "I won't."

Snape looked down the long, humped bridge of his nose at her. He said nothing.

"I won't go!"

"You will, eventually. Because if I must I will make you."

An unpleasant look crossed Hermione's face. "Then why will you be staying here?"

He turned and methodically lifted the blinds, opened the sliding-glass door, walked out onto the balcony without bothering to close it behind him. "Come back in," she told him, speaking gently for the first time in the conversation. "You're letting the cool air out and the hot air in."

"You won't back down, I see," Snape finally replied after a long moment, closing the door again and locking it. The soft snick of the bolt sliding home underscored his statement. He knew that her change of tack didn't mean she had changed her mind. Somewhere, Hermione wondered if he knew all his students so well, watched their growth so carefully. Until very recently she would have become angry at being denied, railed at him and everything else nearby. But he was ignorant of her thoughts, and he continued. "We both go. The Ministry should know - and Minerva will have to step into the Headmaster's shoes."

"Thank you." Hermione stood, walked over to her former professor, and reached out a tentative hand to take the envelope from him. "May I?"

"You'll read it anyway as soon as I put it down."

She took this as an invitation and plucked the paper from his fingers. Green-gold sealing wax crumbled off as the letter was removed from its casing. It was a love note of a very strange sort: a love note to death, to destruction, to betrayal.

I see you and your pet Mudblood have found Marquéz's body. It's a pity you did; I wouldn't have found you otherwise, I'm sure. Times do change - I remember when you called me father because you had none. Now you call me monster. All the same, I have leisure to be merciful now. Stay out of my way and I shall stay out of yours - but do keep an eye on the Mudblood. You wouldn't want her to have an accident.

Hermione's eyes skimmed the words, fell on the runes below it: Eihwaz and Uruz, neither reversed. "Purpose and Prowess," she said.

"A warning."

"Yes. From Lord Voldemort." Her voice wavered and her eyes remained fixed on the paper, but she could feel his nod. The slow golden light was beckoning the memories out from the book, awakening them even without her acceptance. "He called you adoptive son -"

But the words seemed to come from far away, not from her mouth, and already the light was waxing about her, then waning into a hundred disparate points, then turning each point into a candle ablaze.

Ron sat next to Hermione, Harry across from her, their feet just touching under the table. It was hard not to touch Ron's feet - like his hands, they were enormous, dwarfing Hermione's tiny slippers and making her feel delicate and petite. She saw herself from above: at this angle she was nothing but a halo of brown frizz, good-naturedly extending itself into anything nearby.

It had been a bad hair day. She remembered that in her heart, and soon her heart was wrapped up in what was happening and too full to remember anything else.

The doors to the Great Hall swung open, gusting a wind in. "We're - it's a troll," Hermione half-shouted, standing and backing away from the doors. "Run!" And even the teachers followed her advice. Ron and Harry stood still, as she watched the crowd of students fight for the exit, letting people flow around them. They were like rocks in a river standing there, small but determined.

"What are you doing?" she asked, grabbing Ron's arm. "Come on! You can't fight that thing alone. And -"

Then the Death Eaters came. Their white robes flooded into the hall behind the troll, and Hermione grabbed and pulled and pushed, nearly falling over the table to startle Harry into movement. The last of the students - some of the slower Hufflepuffs - were already falling under the wands of the enemy. The siege was broken: there would be a victor, soon, and the victor would surely be the Dark Lord -

A girl ran in front of Hermione, her eyes wide and blind with fear, screaming. There were bluebell flames creeping up the edge of her robes, and it took all Hermione's willpower to not reach out, tell her to just 'stop drop and roll.' Following the girl, though, was a tall Death Eater, garbed in the white and focused entirely on his prey. His mask was askew, and the blond hair made it obvious who he was, even though it was streaked with blood: Draco, who had left Hogwarts. Draco, whose allegiance was never in question.

"Malfoy." Ron called his name, and Draco stopped, turned to look. Hermione found herself stopping too, pulled back by the arm she had hooked around Ron's. "You won't get away with this, Malfoy. I'll have your guts for garters, you dirty -"

She had never seen a face so cold and calm as she did then on Draco, with the battle raging about her, with Harry putting his back to hers to stop a Death Eater from sneaking up on them. Just as she began to run once more, ignoring Ron and Harry's death grips on her arms, she heard his voice coming from behind them.

"Crucio."

"Harry!"

Ron convulsed, his veins standing out starkly against pale skin. Malfoy didn't matter any more. Hermione's muscles complained of the exertion as she and Harry dragged Ron away at a dead run. Draco stood still in the middle of the Great Hall, smirking. "I should kill that weasel, but I won't," he called after them. "My master wants to deal with you three. Personally."

They were the last to make it before Snape closed his teacher's entrance, the other professors barring and barricading it with magic and physical objects. Madame Pomfrey removed the curse from Ron, gently swabbing the blood from his bitten tongue and coaxing Dreamless Sleep potion down his throat.

"Ye who enter here," Pomfrey whispered, her eyes running over her unconscious charge's still form. Harry ignored her, putting his hands on Ron's and doing something that hinted of prayer. Hermione, though, knew the beginning of the sentence, and knew why she didn't vocalize it.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

"No, Poppy," came a voice from above their heads. It was Dumbledore, Fawkes perched on his shoulder. "I think that this rabbit-hole goes very, very deep, and it is very, very well protected."

And Ron woke up, good as new, as a phoenix tear fell between his parted lips.<

"...you must awaken some time, Miss Granger," came Snape's voice at its most sardonic. "Else what sort of a potions-brewer would I be?"

Hermione blinked: she was lying down on his sofa again. "What happened?"

One eyebrow stretched towards his hairline. "I was hoping you might be able to inform me," he admitted. "One moment you were speaking. The next you were staring off into space and clutching at your heart. I suspect - if you will permit me -" he lifted the book from where it lay on her chest. "I suspect that it has something to do with this."

"Not the vacuita," she answered, too quickly, snatching her necklace away from him. It couldn't possibly be the vacuita. Professor McGonagall had made it herself, and there were no ill-effects from vacuitas; the staff of St. Mungo's used them regularly.

"Is that what it is? A freedom from?"

She set her teeth. "Yes."

"For Weasley?"

"Yes. But it isn't your business, because it has nothing to do with what's going on here. It's my business - and Ron's."

"If it puts you out of control it is my business, Miss Granger. I don't know what you were thinking to take on a second set of memories, but you've been very foolish. Especially going so far from Mr. Weasley."

Hermione sat up, noting that the sun was going down. She had been unconscious for a while, then. "Professor McGonagall made it for me; she said Ron couldn't be an Unspeakable with that kind of guilt hanging over his head. I share the memories in it, after all. It can't be much worse than if the memories were single. And travel shouldn't hurt me. Professor McGonagall - Minerva said so."

A flicker of recognition passed over his face. "Travel. Say it again."

"Travel? What -"

"Travel - and your name, Hermione. From Hermes. Patron of travelers." Snape stood - he had been kneeling at the side of the sofa, before - and began to pace the room. "Say it again."

"Travel."

"Yes. It's a geas. It's a wonder you never felt it - there's a spark every time you say that word."

She was surprised, but hid it. It was easy enough to do, as her face was still set in the waking-up patterns that mask any emotion. "A geas based on my name? And to do with travel?" This time she was ready for the spark, and she saw it, a faint reddish glow that appeared directly in front of her.

"Against travel, I'd say. You said Minerva gave you the vacuita?"

"Yes - but she wouldn't - would she?" Long shadows now covered the room, and Snape's face was hidden in them. He turned and was visible, in the light from the door, in blinding profile.

"I don't know Minerva McGonagall's intentions, but if she thought it would be for their own ultimate good, she would do anything to anybody. She's a busybody that way. What does surprise me is the vehicle she used." He touched the vacuita again, his white finger tracing the spine of the book where it lay over Hermione's heart. "Normally, one does not attach a geas meant for a person to a thing. Can you take the necklace off?"

Putting her arms behind her head to unlatch the chain, she found there was no clasp. "That's funny," she muttered. "I ought to be able to - but I've never tried."

"I wouldn't advise you to try," Snape said in a low tone of voice. "It's two geasa, then. I could see the second when you tried to take it off. The first, to prevent you from traveling - the second, to keep the first firmly attached."

"Are you saying that when I did that - when I went away - it was as the result of a geas against travel?" Hermione felt the familiar rush of interest that came from discovering something new. "I never read about that sort of usage of geasa. It must be a new type of them. If it's tied into the vacuita, it might work." She stopped, feeling the upholstery beneath her: it was very like the upholstery on the chairs back in Gryffindor dorm. That reminded her of something. "But I've been traveling for the past two months. Wouldn't it apply to going away from Hogwarts - where it was put on me?"

"If you were alone, would you notice the fits?" She shook her head at his reminder. It was almost gentle and certainly rueful. "So you could have been having them for days. And now you're almost halfway around the world from Hogwarts - as far as you can possibly get."

"We'll be returning there, then."

"You read the letter. Where else could you go?"

Snape's face was still mask-like when Hermione looked at it then. It was the first time she had ever considered it simply as a face. It was a little jowly, a little dour, but the high cheekbones and dark eyes lent it an aristocratic air. As she looked, she saw him mouth the words she had been waiting for. "Where else would I go?" They framed him as a man, as a person, as something human behind the layers of deceit.

"I don't know," Hermione conceded, unsure of which question she was answering.. "I really don't know."

The airport was crowded, the airplane only a little less so. The discussion about how they were traveling was short: Hermione suggested Apparation, Snape replied that "You-know-who will be watching for that, you stupid girl," and countered with the fact that she could drive and he could finance tickets for a plane flight. She found herself acquiescing, but only because he was so insistent. Packing was quick: she put a few changes of clothing into a bag and used Muggle post to send the rest to her cousin's house in London and was done.

"Where will we go next?" she asked in a low voice. "We could stop in Chicago. Not go to New York."

"Your geasa will still trouble you then," he said, putting his feet into the aisle; the seats were not made for tall men. "In New York it should be a little better. We shall stay there a few days and then decide where to go further." He looked at the stewardess, who was explaining the safety precautions. "Muggle contraptions. If this plane goes down, we're Apparating."

Hermione thought more about their situation, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. They were wizards in the Muggle world, a world she had lived in for most of her life. She could do magic at any time, being out of school. She was on her way back to the life she had left behind, to discover what had changed and what had stayed the same.

Curiosity had always been her besetting sin, but Hermione was of two minds about the book that hung around her neck. One part of her wanted to travel to Hogwarts, to ask McGonagall exactly what she had been thinking - and another part just wanted to take it off, damn the geasa and full speed ahead, and throw it into the sea. That part was still closed off, hidden from the rest of the world. That part still believed that Harry was dead and that no other person would be a true friend. That part was what compelled her to leave Britain in the first place.

"Geasa are forever, aren't they?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"Don't be stupid, Miss Granger. They are."

"I was only hoping." She paused. "There's so much written about them. I couldn't get through it all in a year. Maybe you'd read something I hadn't."

Snape looked past her to their window as the plane began to rattle down the runway. "I regret that I have not. Not for your sake, but for mine."

Hermione slept on the planes, drifting in and out of hazy memories and snippets of dream. All the same, she was dead tired and jittery from too much coffee by the time they finally reached New York. Their stopover in Chicago had been less than pleasant, and Snape - who seemed to be as awake as ever - decided they had to get out of the taxi right at the edge of the theater district in order to throw off any pursuit. "The drivers are absolutely murderous, and they'll talk if someone makes them. Veritaserum works just as well on Muggles as it does on wizards. This way they won't be able to figure out exactly where we are right away, at least."

So they were walking about New York at the lunch hour, in the midst of honking horns and occasional crowds of rushing people. Hermione retreated into herself a little, trailing behind her ex-professor and watching the people move ever-so-slightly out of the way for him. The swooping walk from Hogwarts was still there; it seemed to work just as well on Muggles as it did on students.

"Snape!" A woman's voice came out of a crowd of people as they stopped at a pedestrian crossing, and then the woman appeared, dressed in a pinstripe suit and power pumps. Hermione vaguely recognized her: Arabella Figg, about Professor McGonagall's age but much more Muggle-savvy. She had watched over Harry at the Dursleys' for his childhood, right up until seventh year. Hermione had suspected, once, that she was Dumbledore's Secret Keeper.

"Arabella. What brings you to North America?"

"The same thing that brings you here - business, as usual. Oh, hello, Miss Granger." Mrs. Figg smiled in a grandmotherly way. "Minerva said something about you traveling, but from the Weasleys' reaction, I rather thought you had disappeared. It seems not."

Hermione smiled back a little weakly. "No, it seems not. I needed some time alone, thank you."

The older woman's eyebrow rose - can everyone do that except me? Hermione thought, And does everyone do it, all the time? - and her smile grew thin. "Alone isn't the same as with Severus Snape, child. Think of something better, if you haven't already." She fingered an intricately braided metal collar that encircled her neck.

"You could buy all of Britain with that bauble," Snape said in order to change the subject, betraying little surprise. "It's been a long time since I've seen dwarves' goldstrong work - except in photographs."

"If I could take it off. But I wouldn't want to even if I could," she replied. "Figg family heirloom from the middle ages. It went down to Algernon and he gave it to me."

"The Figgs have had questionable taste for centuries," came the response, but there was no bite in it. "Algernon. A name I haven't heard in years."

Figg looked sharply at him, her guarded face matching the clean lines of the suits that strode by their little reunion. "He's dead."

Snape's glance dropped to the gum-encrusted pavement. "I know. Or did you think I spent all my years of teaching with my head firmly in the sand?"

"No, I suppose not." She smiled in a final sort of way. "If you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to get to - the Carnegie Hall hideaways, you know. Give my regards to Minerva, Severus - Miss Granger." They stood silently as the tiny woman pushed her way between them and disappeared into the crowds.

A car blasted on its horn directly next to them, startling Hermione at least out of her wits. "Come on," she said, tugging lightly on his arm. "I'm tired. We need a hotel."

"And now we are known to be in New York," Snape added.