A/N: I don't own this world, or the beautiful characters in it. They are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling and are not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only. And maybe some therapeutic purposes.

This story strives its best to be canon compliant, except for 2 changes: Snape's obvious survival, and The Epilogue. Let's forget that it ever happened, and pick up somewhere in the middle, shall we?

Though I have had it beta'd (without whom this story would still be dead in the water), I always appreciate a keen eye for any mistakes. I apologize for them in advance.

The dress was satin. Not what she would have picked, but it made both her mother and Mrs. Weasley happy. Simple, clean and structured with delicate flowers of hand sewn crystals which she planned to charm to sparkle when the lights were dimmed. The few Muggles who would bother to attend the impending nuptials already knew her secret. This was her way to honor to both families. A Muggle wedding gown with touches of wizardry.

She stood in front of the mirror, her wand over her shoulder pointed at her back, attempting to self-lace the corset bodice. She stared at herself. A frizzy mass powered by hormones, stress and a heavy English humidity tumbled over her shoulders. Deep pools of honey with an edge of fear stared back at her. This was The Dress. The Only Dress That Mattered. The Last Dress She'd Ever Wear. She would give herself over to Ronald Weasley in this dress. She would become one of the flame-haired clan that had taken her in time and time again. She would be hugged by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley- Arthur and Molly, she corrected herself- not as one of their sons' friends, not as 'that bushy haired possible-girlfriend of Harry Potter', but as her own, soon-to-be Weasley self.

The dress made her skin hot, and not for the first time. The anxiety rose quickly and road her slowly, starting in the pit of her stomach. This was The Dress. The Only Dress That Mattered. The Last Dress She'd Ever Wear, and she was drowning.

It wasn't just the dress. When Ron has proposed some ten months previous, she accepted with an air of muted joy. Of course she was happy, she told herself as he placed the heirloom ring that had once belonged to Mr - Arthur's - great-grandmother on her finger. Of course she was. She loved him. Right? Yes. Of course she loved him. She had to. Those wild kisses after the war. Those nights spent crying in each other's arms. Nights spent wide-eyed remembering the Horcrux that hung like lead around their necks. That's what love was. Why else would she have put up with ten months of wedding planning with Molly and her Mother. What did she care of table settings, table runners, Save the Dates (both enchanted and not enchanted) and flower arrangements.

She clutched at the skirts of the dress, her palms sweaty against the satin. She didn't give a single bloody damn about table runners or settings or dates or flowers. Not a single bloody damn. She breathed, placed her wand back on the side table, and stood as straight backed as she could. It was a pretty gown. Simple and elegant. The only piece of this bloody affair that felt like any semblance of her, and yet it made her choke. She tried to steady herself, letting go of the skirts and tilting her chin upward in the mirror.

"Keep Breathing, Granger." She said to the reflection.

That's all there was to do. Power through it. Learn to love it. Stiff upper lip and all that.

Come, on, Granger.

Satin, noun. a smooth, glossy fabric, typically of silk, produced by a weave in which the threads of the warp are caught and looped by the weft only at certain intervals. Just cloth. Woven and cut into a dress.

Cut into a dress.

Cut.

"Cut me out of this thing." She pleaded to the empty room.

There wasn't enough oxygen to sustain a fire in the room. It was gone with a woosh and she fell to her knees, hands clawing at the bodice.

No.

No

No I can't do this. No.

She pointed a wand and the spell that left her lips was the one to untie her, not to slash the thing into a thousand threads at once. It was going to be painful enough without being able to sell the thing back.

"Ronald…"

She hadn't meant to use his given name. It was supposed to be reserved for when she was furious with him. It was a weapon, never to be used at moments like this. Nothing would soften this blow. Nothing. For either of them, but she resolved to be as kind as possible.

"What have I done now?" He said, exasperation thick in his voice. Not that he had any real reason to be, she noted. He wasn't the one who had spent hours trying to mediate between their mothers about why her great-aunt Beatrice should be closer to the sweetheart's table.

"Nothing, Ron...I'm...I'm sorry. We need to talk."

In hindsight, the conversation went as well as it could have. He was furious, at first, the tips of his freckled ears redder than his hair. His fists shaking as he swung into the clock on the mantle. She stood back as he smashed the next nearest object, a Muggle photograph of the two of them with Harry and Ginny that Colin Creevy had managed to sneak of the four of them during their 4th year, during one of the few moments Ron wasn't in a complete snit about Harry-The-Chosen-One-Potter and his complete luck at being tossed into the wolf pit.

He had watched it fall and crack straight down the middle, dividing her and Harry in one clean go. She watched the anger leak from him and he shook his head, telling her he had a feeling. That surprised her. His emotional range seemed to have grown to at least a cup. He didn't have the words ready, but she knew what they would have been. Disappointed, relieved, hurt, resigned, and maybe even a touch of something more complicated that even she didn't seem to have the word for either.

They looked at each other for a long time, after the words were said. Nobody tells you how to leave. There were books on keeping and fixing this thing she had just ended, but nobody ever really told you how to leave. Nobody told you about how to handle shared incomes or who would get the flat and who would tell the parents. Nobody warned you of the anger from everyone else who had no right to say anything but always did.

Of course they all said something. Ginny was morose, but understanding. The brothers ranged from furious to mildly relieved. "It would have been bad for both of you, had you gone through with it. It's probably for the best." Bill had said. George had been less-than-kind, but Hermione understood why. He would apologize later. The Weasley parents had taken it down the middle. Mrs Weasley, furious at being denied a wedding, called her an "ill-bred trollip who didn't know a damn thing about anything outside of a leather tome." Mr. Weasley had been more kind, though obviously upset at the emotional distress his son was going through. They would both also apologize, much later.

When she found herself seated in the corner of a Muggle bar, a book propped open on a large mason jar, fingers traced ancient runes into the condensation on the side of her expensive-but-who-gives-a-damn three fingers of Scotch, she wasn't too surprised at the utterly hollow feeling.

What did surprise her, was the last thing she expected.

"What on earth are you doing here, Miss Granger?"

That Voice.

No, that voice was dead. Obviously there was mugwort in the scotch. Auditory hallucinations were a side effect, especially mixed with alcohol. She looked up slowly.

"No." She said simply. "No, you're dead, and I've obviously had far too much to drink."

"Stupid girl." The voice sneered.

Her eyes took in the thin, solid wall of black standing in front of her table. The familiar darkness that caused her copious amounts of anxiety wasn't made of its infamous worn wool and cut into a frock coat. No, this wall of black was cut into an expensive looking Muggle suit. A matching dress shirt buttoned to the top, monochrome tie with some pattern she couldn't make out in the dim light of the bar. A sheet of raven hair, framing a deathly pale thin face. Eyes of purest pitch, hooded, but not nearly as sickly looking as she remembered.

She cocked an eyebrow. "No. You are dead, and I am drunk, because why else would Ex-Professor-Dead-As-A-Doornail-Snape be standing before me in a Muggle suit in a Muggle bar in Muggle London, having the absolute gall to look like he hasn't been to the Ninth Circle of Hell."

Those damn black eyes had the nerve to narrow at her. "Don't make me repeat myself." His voice commanded. "Aren't you due to be wed shortly? What on earth are you doing here without your-" He paused, taking time to coat the word with ample distaste "paramour."

"How do you even know that? You are a dead man. Why am I even talking to you?" The last a statement as she downed the last of her scotch in an effort to do something, anything other than acknowledge that Snape was alive.

He pulled out the wooden chair opposite her, and sat. Long legs stretched under the table, crossed at the ankles. Now she knew she was hallucinating. "One cannot walk into a wizarding establishment and NOT hear about the impending nuptials." The distaste was still there, though fading.

"How are you even walking into wizarding establishments? People think you're DEAD."

He shrugged. The casual gesture surprised her. "I never said in London."

"Well, obviously, the news mustn't have made it to Wizarding China yet. There will be no-" She paused, and tried to coat the word with an appropriate level of mocking distaste. "nuptials."

"Such sass, Miss Granger." He cocked an eyebrow in surprise.

"Why are you even here?" Her question was soft. "We watched you die."

The corners of his lips twitched. The small gesture surprising her even more. "You did. My heart did indeed stop."

"Then why-" She was cut off by the waitress coming over with another round of scotch, unbidden. The short glass with a sphere of ice in the middle clinked as it hit the table.

"Does it matter?" He asked, head tilted as he watched her pick up the glass and hold it to her lips.

"I suppose not, no. You are obviously not dead." She sipped slowly, her lipstick marking the glass. She placed it back on the table and slid it to him, the lipstick turned to her.

He nodded in thanks as he picked up the glass. His obscene nose took in the bouquet "Muggle. Macallan?"

"And you know your Muggle scotch. How apropos."

The dark man shook his head. "Always the know-it-all."

It was her turn to shrug. "If I'm going to self-medicate, I'm not going to do it with blended garbage."

He barked a short laugh. He lifted the glass to his lips, lipstick away, and took a sip of the scotch. "Twelve year."

"Why are you here." It came as a statement, not a question.

"Free scotch." He said simply as he slid the glass back to her.

"Why are you even here." She said again. Her head was light and her gut warm with alcohol. She shook her head. "You know what? I don't really care. You aren't going to answer my questions because you're actually still dead and you're still a right mean bastard." she lifted the glass as if to toast. "Congratulations on your acquisition of a new corporeal form to torture me further. Because six years wasn't enough, was it. No, Severus Snape would see fit to dig the knife just a little bit deeper wouldn't he?" She took another gulp of the amber liquid.

"Will you shut your mouth, you belligerent idiot girl, for roughly five minutes?" The bitter sneer in his voice was a comfort. This was familiar ground. It felt good to be on familiar ground.

She paused, the glass to her lips again, mid sip.

He dug into the hidden pocket of his suit jacket and pulled from it a Muggle business card. He thrust it across the table. "When you sober up, call."

She woke up alone in the bed they had shared. The lingering smell of spearmint toothpaste and that cloying clean musky smell that was Ron Weasley's fire engine hair ripping something inside her chest. She threw herself upright, away from the spectral remains of him.

The hangover crashed through her head, rolling her stomach into a gordian knot. Bare feet padded into the bathroom and she assumed the proper position for those repentant sinners who prayed to the porcelain gods. Dear deities of drink, we accept our punishment for trying to drown out our feelings in overpriced spirits. Accept our offerings of empty stomachs and regret. We repent. We regret. We beg your forgiveness.

Sufficiently emptied, she pulled herself up to her feet and looked in the mirror. The tracks of salt still remained on her face, the mascara she had worn smudged in a mask around her eyes. Vanity long gone when in the throws of drink she realized she had thrown away the one thing she had ever truly loved.

Truly?

Yes. And that was what all the fuss was about.

Padding back into the bedroom, she noted the strangeness of his things being wiped clean of her existence. The dust outlines the only proof he had ever lived here. Everything hurt. Her eyes, her head, her heart. Unable to stand it, she striped the duvet from the bed and wrapped it around her. The down armor not much against the ache in her bones.

The disaster of her return home laid in a trail from the front door of the flat to the doorway of her bedroom. Shoes, hose, keys, the clutch, the dress, little soldiers lined the last march of shame. She picked up everything and piled it high in her her duvet cover arms before throwing herself onto the settee.

Nobody told you how to leave. Nobody told you of the ghosts that lingered behind when you kept the flat. No books on exorcism, no wards to keep them out. She wished for a moment the ghost was real. Then at least she could have spoken to it and asked it to haunt somewhere else.

She tossed the clutch onto the coffee table. Its contents expelled across the lightly scuffed glass surface. A tube of two year old lipstick rolled unceremoniously across the table, clattering on the floor. The black business card sliding across the surface, stopping short of the edge. The satin sheen of the card stock catching her eye. So that wasn't a hallucination.

Disgust swelled up like a wave as her brain conjured up the rest of it. The look of resignation in those distant black eyes as she finally spilled why she was there. The gracious glance away as a stray tear escaped its prison. Those long elegant fingers hailing her a cab. Those same fingers closing tightly around her arm as she was unceremoniously dumped from it in front of her building. He had said something as she stumbled out of the cab, though the words were lost to the drink. She had gotten blackout drunk in front of the one man who would probably never let her live it down. A dead man who would taunt her forever.

It wasn't a dream. She picked up the card, her thumb running across it like a worry stone. To the naked, hungover eye, it seemed blank if not for an embossed elegant black S in the center. Serif, she noted. Classic. Understated. She fumbled between the couch cushions for her wand and tapped it once. Obediently, the card revealed a Muggle phone number. She nearly laughed at the irony of magically concealing a Muggle phone number, but really what else could she have expected from the Half-Blood Prince.

What else was there to lose? Dignity was already gone, and the damnable smell of Ronald Bilius Weasley haunted her here. Faintly on the duvet she used to ward herself from the outside world, in the cushions of the couch, in the warm squishy armchair near the mantle. A new wave of nausea overtook her as a light tap came from the window.

Of course. She wondered how long it would take for Harry to check in on her. She opened the window and the small barn owl hopped into the perch on the side table.

"Floo me." the note said. Honestly, Harry.

She tossed some powder from the jar on the mantle into the not-quite-functional fireplace. She heard the bustle past the flames before Harry's face appeared in them, a pained look on his face. "You left." He said simply.

"I left." She confirmed. Something cracked again, and she wondered if she would ever be an adult human who wasn't triggered to tears at every change of the winds ever again.

"Gin told me last night. We tried the floo but you were out?" A faint hint of disapproval in his voice.

"I was out." This was going to be trying. She was thrilled her friend cared enough to check in on her, but she was aggravated. She knew Ron was the first to get all of the comfort. The one he ran to first. The one that wouldn't get scolded for drowning his sorrows in whatever cheap ale he could scrounge up. She bit the inside of her cheek. "I needed to get out of here. He's still here, and I couldn't take it."

Harry paused for a moment, trying to understand what she meant. "Oh." he said finally, the sad jut of his lip and the line between his brows giving away his age. Despite being 26, he looked older, even in the distorted green of the flames. "Hermione, listen, I'm really sorry."

"I am too. You know, you don't exactly go on about your day expecting to realize everything you thought your future would be is actually utter rubbish and would make you utterly miserable. I didn't exactly plan to lead us both down this path. It's just something we thought we had to do and I-I couldn't do it, Harry." Her voice strained with the effort to keep herself together. That thing inside her cracked yet again, straining under the weight of what she had done.

Harry looked away from the flames for a moment. She assumed Ginny was listening off to the side, and he was looking to her for guidance. "We thought so too. Though I can't exactly say it is a total surprise. You two are-very different."

She barked a humorless laugh. The understatement of the century. They weren't just different, they were diametrically opposed. She wanted a kid, maybe two. Maybe someday. He wanted a quidditch team tomorrow. She wanted to put her N.E. to good use, he wanted to quit the Auror office to run a blasted joke shop. Phah. The search for the Horcruxes has been hard on him indeed. He hadn't been there for half of it. The bitter bile of remembrance nearly choked her. She shoved it down, desperate not to turn this into something else. Something ugly, though she felt it inside like a parasite. Maybe later, she would sooth it, but not yet. Not now. There was still a clean getaway to make.

"We are. I'm more upset at myself for it having taken this long to see it. Tell Ginny I'm sorry-and the rest of them, will you? Ron spoke to them already, but it doesn't quite seem right for me to talk to them just yet."

Harry nodded "Of course I will. Hey, Hermione? If you need anything, let us know ok? Ginny too. She is still your friend, and still loves you."

Of course she did. Something she didn't quite deserve for shattering the life of her brother. "Thank you, Harry. Listen, I've got to go. There is a lot here I need to clean up, and if I stop for too long I'm afraid I'll do something stupid."

Harry smiled at that. "Hermione Granger, do something stupid? Not in this lifetime."

Oh, ye of too much faith, Harry Potter. Ye of too much faith.

She sat on the settee, staring at the Muggle phone number on the card for the hundredth time that day. She looked back to the old rotary phone mounted on the wall of the kitchen. The thing a gem, hidden in the back of an old Muggle charity shop near the Ministry. She had brought it home thrilled, leaving Ron completely confused. Why would they need a fellytone, he had asked? The floo connected them right to their family and to Harry.

To his family, she reminded him. Her family was only reachable by telephone, because the Ministry wouldn't make an exception to the floo network. Not even for a war hero. The phone, old enough that their magic didn't interfere with any delicate circuitry, was the one obvious Muggle link to her family. When she found them and restored their memories, she vowed never to cut them off from her again. The phone was her promise, she said.

He never understood it, and always jumped when the shrill mechanical ring filled the flat.

She looked at the card again for the one hundred and first time. What in heaven's name could a surprisingly alive Severus Snape want with her.

She shrugged, finally peeling herself away from her self imposed exile of the cushions. She laughed, hysteria playing around the edges. There was literally nothing to lose. Shaky fingers rolled the dial around, calling the number.

"It took you this long to sober up, did it?" That voice. Like deep tobacco rolled in velvet. Wood aged Fire Whiskey and honey. A touch of mirth played around the edges. It knocked her off balance.

"I don't always go through half a bottle of scotch, sir." She said lightly. The honorific automatically making its return. Old habits died hard, apparently, in the sober light of day. "Imagine my surprise when I wake up with a hangover worthy of a chocolate frog card and find out you are, indeed, alive."

An exasperated sigh was her answer.

"Yes yes, we did this yesterday, sir. Though admittedly I don't recall you telling me why you tracked me down."

A pause. A beat. She snagged her bottom lip between her teeth, gnawing at the flesh of it.

"Because, unfortunately, you have always been good at your job." The sneer evident. It had cost much for him to say it.

As a child, just as her magic began to manifest, praise from teachers would literally make her glow. She would light up like a Christmas tree, lights dancing under her skin in playful waves. She cradled the receiver between her ear and shoulder as she glanced down at her forearms. No lights. Damn if it didn't feel like it.

"Get a hold of yourself, Ms. Granger, I can hear you vibrating from across the city."

So he was still in town.

"Shall we cut to the proverbial chase, then?"

Some rich, deep rumble echoed in her ears and she realized he had laughed. An astounding sound she wasn't sure anyone in the wizarding world had ever heard. "You are one of two N.E. level arithmancers currently not employed at Hogwarts or Gringotts, and I am in need of a cost-benefit analysis."

She blinked. "And why me, sir?"

"I will not repeat myself, Ms. Granger." The hard edge was back. Good. She knew how to deal with angry Snape. Angry Snape was a childhood comfort.

"Of course, sir. However, I am currently employed by the Ministry." She stretched the cord of the phone as far as it could go, digging into a drawer for a scrap of parchment and a self-inking quill.

"Doing what, exactly, Ms. Granger?"

She froze. A desk gig at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures wasn't exactly impressive. Though she was doing her damndest to get Jacob Manderly in the Being division to take up the cause of reclassifying House Elves. She would get him to listen to her, whether he wanted to or not. No one could avoid Hermione Jean Granger when she was on a mission. Her silence stretched longer than she wanted. The footing lost.

"As expected. How the mighty war heros are greeted when they return home."

Now he was being nasty. Her face reddened and she laid the quill back down on the counter. "What cost-benefit analysis, sir?"

"You will be given the specifics when you accept the offer."

"You haven't actually made an offer, sir." She ground out.

"Perhaps I should clarify, as it seems that unruly hair of yours has impaired your critical thinking skills. You are going to do this analysis for me, Ms. Granger, because you owe me."

Her breath caught in her chest. Of course she did. They had let him die. Harry watched his heart stop. Harry had seen the blood and venom trickle from his neck before watching his last breath leave his body. They watched Harry, rubbing tears and soot from his eyes as he held the small vial with Snape's memories after the fight. She had taken it in her hands, amazed that such a man could contain such things. Those beautiful tendrils of light floating in that tiny glass vial. She dived into those memories without hesitation when given the chance. Her heart caved in as she gorged on them. Even she was weak against such tragic romance.

She carried those memories when Ron asked her to marry him. When she wanted to leave and didn't. When they fought and she gave in. Severus Snape had given them the key that saved them all. That horrible, broken man had contained an unearthly amount of love. So why shouldn't she? Why shouldn't she try?

She wasn't sure now if she wanted to blame him or not for it. One thing she knew for sure was she did owe him. They all did. They owed him more than the wizarding world had given him. A fuss when Harry petitioned to have his portrait placed in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Protests when the three of them requested his name be added to the list of The Fallen on the memorial in the ministry. Her own personal failure; being unable to stop Rita Skeeter from publishing that torrid account of his life. She owed him for that, at the very least.

"Alright." She said finally. "I'll do it, sir."

"Of course you will."