When Hermione woke up, she noticed two things immediately: Snape's absence, and the final product of their labors sitting on the counter. He must have completed and bottled it while she slept. Why hadn't he woken her? It was morning, and the potion all but sparkled in the sunlight through the windows. It was the perfect golden shade they had been expecting and for which they had hoped. Her breath seized in her throat and she all but lunged at the potion, cradling its nondescript bottle in her fingers.

There was not a moment to lose. Where was Snape? Oh, but Harry first, Harry foremost—and she dashed to the hospital wing.

There she saw Harry, the ashen pallor of the last few months vanished. She knew then that Snape must have administered the first of seven doses, and Harry's smile confirmed the fact. Joy and relief consumed her, the final lifting of a burden which had weighed down her heart like a stone for so long. She stretched her hand out, ruffling Harry's hair, hardly daring to hope. He opened one eye and smiled at her, and moved to sit up and stretch. She searched him for signs of fatigue or pain, and found none; and his eyes were just as they had always been—bright, green, alert. All was well.

Letters were owled, felicitations were given, and through it all Hermione laughed and deflected congratulations, and weeped occasionally with relief. It was the very busiest day the castle had seen in a while.

And so she could not perhaps be blamed for not realizing that something was terribly wrong.

/ \ / \ / \

Despite herself, Hermione was disappointed not to see the Professor at lunchtime. To wander into his laboratory when their project was already finished would have been too much, would have been to throw herself in his way, betraying her interest. She waited for him at the hospital wing, one eye at the door, hoping he would look in on their patient, but she learned later that he had given the task of monitoring Harry's response to Madame Pomfrey. The next six doses of the potion would be Hermione's to administer.

She was equally disappointed at lunch in the Great Hall, shooting covert glances at the High Table where she had hoped he might come, a concession to the general spirit of gaiety that had overtaken the staff. But there was only the professors, speaking jovially through mouthfuls of celebratory food. The Elves, with their fondness for Harry, had made a feast. Buoyed by relief as she was, Hermione had little appetite. There was no trace of Snape and, she noticed, of the Headmistress.

It was late afternoon when she decided that she would go to see Snape—later. First, she planned to see the Headmistress to discuss Harry's transfer. She climbed the steps to the third floor, reflecting on the number of times she had climbed up to the Headmaster's office, although never before with such happy intentions. Madame Pomfrey had discussed with her and Harry the possibility of continuing Harry's convalescence at the Weasleys or at Grimmauld Place, where he was sure to be among friends and would surely have benefited from a change in scenery. She spoke of plans to discharge him after five days. Eager to leave the castle which had held him for months, Harry bargained the days down to three.

Ginny was over the moon and insisted on both Harry and Hermione staying at the Burrow, and the two sweethearts had been chatting happily through the Floo when Hermione excused herself to see Professor McGonagall. Professor Slughorn had volunteered to give her a few days off as Harry recovered, though not normally one for unplanned holidays, Hermione welcomed the chance and thought the proper thing would be to give the Headmistress her notice.

"Swedish fish," she told the tower's gargoyle, wondering with equal wistfulness and amusement if the password was a nod to Professor McGonagall's predecessor. She was let upstairs soon enough, and into the office that had once housed Albus Dumbledore and the artefacts in the large room which contributed to an overall picture of grandiose, distracted whimsy.

She saw the tiny, whirring silver instruments in their glass cases first, and the Headmistress second. This was because Professor McGonagall was sitting a ways away from the enormous Headmaster's desk, in a deep chair in front of the fireplace. She didn't stand to greet Hermione, but said, a propos of nothing, "I tried to silence those knick knacks before, but the office ended up being much too quiet. You may have a seat, if you like," she added, then resumed staring into the fire, with a wan, empty smile.

Hermione noticed that she was holding a teacup, and that the sun was setting outside. A copy of the Elephant Man's biography was on a small table which held the tea things. Professor McGonagall must have been on the rotation after Harry, Hermione thought.

She took a seat as instructed, closer to the windows, puzzled but not overly bothered by the Headmistress' odd mood. The older woman had always greeted her with warmth, even affection, and there was something unusually cold about the way she didn't ask about Hermione's business directly; but then it had been a long day, and even joy can make one tired.

When the Headmistress said nothing more, Hermione began tentatively, "Professor, I've come to let you know that Professor Slughorn has offered to relieve me of my apprenticeship duties for the next week, while we're helping Harry to transition to normal life again." Or what counted for normal with Harry; soon enough he would be back in Ministry hearings and hero-worshipping Snape, she reflected wryly.

"Yes," Professor McGonagall said with a sideways glance at Hermione. "I believe congratulations are in order. Well done to you and to Professor Snape."

Hermione, who had been deflecting this comment all day, was going to say the usual platitudes of "It was a team effort" and "I was only glad to help," but she was cut off by the Headmistress saying, "A month or so ago I was not quite sure that I wanted you to work with Severus. I had my reservations, but he raised no objections, and so I allowed it to happen. I believe it all turned out well in the end."

The short speech gave Hermione pause, hinting as it did at the possibility that McGonagall knew about what had passed between her and Snape. Unsure how to respond, Hermione sipped at the tea which had appeared at her elbow. "I was grateful for the opportunity," she hazarded. "I still am. I appreciate Professor Slughorn's tutelage—" a loose word for the mind-numbing clerical work he had her doing— "but the opportunity to participate in experimentation was very valuable."

Again, a sideways glance. "Did you find your time with Severus instructive?"

"Oh, yes," she said, before blurting out, "Whatever else he is, he really is a brilliant Potions Master."

The resulting silence and the gathering of tension in the room let Hermione know that this was entirely the wrong thing to say. The sideways glance turned into one of cold fury, the kind that had never been directed at her from the Headmistress' eyes and thin, pursing lips. Hermione's mouth opened and closed while she floundered for something to save her blunder, but McGonagall would have none of it. She was sitting a few meters from Hermione but for the force of her presence, might as well have been towering over her former student's chair.

"Well then," McGonagall said in the high, clear tones of the incensed, "at least you won't have to deal with him anymore, whatever else he is. His duty to you is done. He has left the castle, and will never darken your doorway again, you foolish girl." This last piece of invective seemed to surprise even McGonagall, for a flash of shame seemed to flutter through her gaze, before the cold, hard mask was back and the older woman stood abruptly. She turned to the window as though looking at Hermione irritated her.

For Hermione, all thoughts of the Headmistress' displeasure fled her mind as she clung to those last words. She rose from her seat so quickly that she spilled her tea, the scalding liquid dripping from her knees, wetting her socks and trickling onto the carpet. She paid it no mind, for she was suddenly filled with a sinking fear. "Left?" Her voice was too high, too panicked. "But how could he leave? Where has he gone?"

When Professor McGonagall didn't answer Hermione swore under her breath, a feat she would never have attempted in the Headmaster's office in her schooldays, and all but stumbled to the doorway, frenetic and fearful. "That coward," she whispered to herself, "that utter coward—!"

"How dare you." The words cut through the air in the room before Hermione could step out the door, and they stopped her in her tracks. "How dare you stand in judgment of the man to whom you owe your friend's life. To whom we owe all our lives, and the promise of a future besides. He's given this castle more years than you've been alive, and I wanted him to leave when he could—but you happened. He felt that he owed you. By god, what a life of always owing," McGonagall spat out angrily.

"I never asked—"

"Miss Granger, you never had to. Do you know what an illuminating experience it has been, to watch the folly of generations be repeated in this same castle, decades and decades apart. Before you were born I watched that boy be torn apart by a Gryffindor girl who will forgive a handsome boy and shun an ugly one. I did nothing for him then, but I'll be damned if I don't do something for him now.

"Don't you dare find him! Don't look for him, for he doesn't need to be found by someone like you. Do you think the staff have been blind to how you treat him? We knew we ought to be licking his bootstraps, all of us, and asking him for forgiveness for how we treated him that last year. He wouldn't have any of it, and all he asked was to be forgotten at first. And then a miracle—he came and asked for his laboratory back, so he could work on a potion for Mr. Potter, keeping that boy alive yet again. The castle was glad to have him, and so were we.

"When Horace asked that you be allowed to help him the staff were glad of it, and so did I, because we knew nothing; but none of us could be blind to your sullen silences and the way you looked at him like he was something clinging to the underside of your boot. You, who had always looked at him with respect. He didn't tell me—I pried the knowledge from him, bit by painful bit, starting with those pamphlets he asked for, for your sake, and ending with your meeting at the Burrow."

The grey eyes turned to look at Hermione, who still stood with her hand on the door. "He never started the project with the hopes of winning you over. He had never had any such hope. You play at compassion, and yet you've found no difficulty in convincing a man—a good man, an honorable man—that nobody could ever desire him as long as he remained himself. I grant that you may have felt betrayed by his deception—a necessary deception!—but I have often wondered if you were simply ashamed at the parts of yourself that liked him."

"I—" Hermione found her voice at last, clinging to a flimsy defense. "It wasn't him that I liked! It was the person he was pretending to be."

"He never pretended to be something else when he was with you," McGonagall interjected. "It isn't his way. You sought him out first and he responded when you asked. Only his looks and his past were different when you met him as Max, and yet you act as though he tricked you into loving him. If that is the requirement of your love—if a man of his bravery and intelligence and self-mastery requires good looks and a sparkling clean history to earn it—then I think he is better off without."

The sky was dark outside and Hermione, though conscious of the moments flying by and carrying Snape away from her, couldn't move, couldn't say anything. The older woman met her eyes and seemed suddenly to deflate, becoming more like the woman Hermione knew, before slumping back into her seat across the fire.

"I hope he lives a good and happy life," McGonagall said quietly. "I hope he finds a blind woman, even a Muggle woman, who will believe him worthy just as he is, and who will give back to him everything that you've taken. I don't blame you for not wanting him now, my girl, but you've treated him no better than the Malfoys and the Lestranges of the world have done—perhaps even worse, because at least most of them thought him an equal."

The words seemed to unfreeze Hermione's limbs. "Where is he? Where has he gone?"

The old woman passed a hand over her eyes. After a pause, she said, "You might find him at Spinner's End if you hurry. But the place where he's going is unplottable and unreachable by owl or Patronus, somewhere none of us will be allowed to find him."

Hermione ran.

Poverty, ugliness, a bad reputation borne of past mistakes. She thought of those things as she ran, her shoes slapping against the stones and her heartbeat in her ears. Had she herself become the bully in the stories? Had she, in girlish insecurity, allowed herself to act as those three things disqualified someone from being loved or wanted? He'd never forced himself upon her, with either his touch or his company. She thought of a touch-starved, eleven year old Harry, unused to embraces and pats on the back, hungry for more than food. She wondered what Harry would have become after four decades of that starving.

She ignored the whispers of the ghosts in the portraits. Down one staircase, and up the next, and into the tower which housed his lab—their lab. She thought of the potion, the perfect, blinding gold in the nondescript bottle. She thought of the way she had spoken of her love for her friend, and how, with no jealousy or selfishness, he'd worked day and night to give Harry back to her, whole and happy, and left the castle without congratulations or reward. He must have known that she would have used even her gratitude as a weapon against him, as she had used any weapon to strike out at him for months.

She thought of the words he'd used with her as Max, gentle words she'd kept close to her heart, only to think about in between sleeping and waking, about leaving him breathless with admiration; about giving her back all of her choices. I hadn't chosen him, she thought wildly. I am such a fool. She thought of gentle arms, sweet kisses, frightened eyes.

She burst into the tower. He had left; there was no denying it. The laboratory admitted her with its magic but his cauldrons and equipment were gone. The was no silver doe among the stained glass trees, and the warm, humming feeling of his magic had disappeared from the room.

She didn't know how long it took her. She had never sprinted so fast in her life. Out the castle and onto the grounds, grass and shrubbery biting into the skin of her legs, past the gates and to the nearest Apparition point. The memory of her arm in his as they had disappeared from the castle and appeared on Spinner's End. Safe as houses. Before she knew it she was on the darkening street, while electric lights began to illuminate the area one by one, as irrelevant to her single-minded search as distant stars. Hermione ran to the end of the street she and Madam Pomfrey had walked only weeks before, but what met her eyes when she got there was no longer Snape's house.

The shutters were closed, and the house felt dead with an aching, yawning emptiness. There was no magic. A sign saying for lease, looking freshly painted, was mounted near a window. Hermione felt a crushing weight on her chest and felt herself stumble as she ran to the door; she jiggled the knob but the door was locked, as she knew it would be.

"Severus," she sobbed. "Severus!" but there was no response. Nearly blinded by tears she rounded the house and pushed open the fence to the backyard, where the plants gave her no answer, wilting as they were without their master's love. The door here was locked too, and stayed lock even as she beat on it with her fists.

There was no hope. Through her tears she tried to cast a Patronus but could summon no joy and the spell sputtered and failed in her hands. But how could Snape not be here? Surely she could not have missed him. He could not have left so abruptly and completely. She fought her way through the shrubbery, pinning her hopes on the window facing the backyard. She peered into a crack in the window, heart in her throat.

The books and pots and pans had disappeared, and the kitchen table was all but empty. But there was one thing left of the man who loved her, only one thing he had left for her to find—a potted flower.