She'll Come Back As Fire

She´ll Come Back As Fire: Vengeance and Dust by Verity

"Still scorned by his demon - Because he's undone - Become the language of - Disaster and Love - Vengeance and Dust." The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete, the Smashing Pumpkins

EPILOGUE

:01

He takes the train in to London, against his better judgment; to his dismay, he finds that the only even partially unoccupied compartment contains Julia Riddle and Geneva Potter, the former being fast asleep.

"Hello, Professor Snape," Geneva greets him courteously - he wonders how long she has known, or suspected, and if she would tell him if he asked.

"Hello, Miss Potter."

They spend most of the train ride in more-or-less amicable silence, until they are nearly at the station.

"What brings you to London, Professor?"

"Potions ingredients. Some of the more strictly regulated ones have to be obtained directly from the Ministry."

"Ah."

"Where are you intending to go?"

Geneva glances down toward Julia, whose head is in her lap. "We're looking for an apartment - we'll be employed by the Ministry. We may stay with Julia's mother a few days."

"Ah."

She smiles down at his daughter. "I've known since the night my mother died, Professor. That's what you were going to ask, wasn't it?"

:02

:03

She takes him aside; steers him away from Geneva Potter and their daughter.

"Hermione-" he begins. "I know- I know I was wrong-"

She laughs at him. Harsh, bitter laughter. "You know, Professor, I used to dream of the day you would come crawling back to me. I waited. And I waited. And after a while I no longer dreamt of you saving me but of me spitting on you, kicking you, destroying you." She pauses. "That was a long time ago. Be thankful that I have more mercy than that now."

"You would have taken me back?" He clings to her first words, like a drowning man clings to driftwood in a gaping sea he had been so far from only seconds before.

"You never came."

"I never knew," his voice is a whisper, "Until she looked at me, that day in the infirmary, and told me that no one was to know they had killed him. I saw her in you. I saw myself reflected in her eyes. And then - I came. Too late. I have always been too late to save anyone."

"I'm sorry."

They stare at each other for a moment; and suddenly he understand that she isn't she anymore, and perhaps she never was. She is no longer beautiful (was she ever? had he gifted her with loveliness she had never had?) but merely looks as if she has come to terms with her age. She's merely a woman whom he knew once, a long time ago, and never very well - he feels lost, adrift.

"I never knew you," he says.

"No," she replies. "You did not."

"I used to wish, sometimes - but I don´t any longer. I am grateful for her, Hermione. More than I can ever express in words."

"What did you wish?"

"That I had never touched you."

"Do you know where I would be now?" She looks up, away from him, at the darkening London sky. "I would be married to Ron. We would have had three Quidditch-happy boys who were also quite good at maths, and Ron would have insisted that I stay at home to look after them. On the day the eldest left Hogwarts, I would have slit my wrists in our bathroom and felt no small amount of satisfaction at seeing the stains the blood made on the immaculate white carpet. Minerva McGonagall would have read about it in the morning paper, and burst into tears, as she drank her first cup of tea in the staff room. And you would have sat there, helpless and unable to comfort her or halt her tears, feeling slightly awkward, and perhaps a little sad."

"You are alive now," he points out.

"Goodbye, Professor," she says, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

"Goodbye," he whispers.

And she is gone.