At the Edge of the World - Part 1

[darnedchild]

Summary: They say you don't know what you've got until it's gone. Hermione's always been a smart woman; can she figure it what she's about to lose before it is too late?
Rating: PG
A/N -Originally posted here, At the Edge of the World was gift for scatteredlogic from the Winter 2008 sshg_exchange. Original Prompt: Hermione has been working with Snape for a few years (author's choice of profession) and realizes that she's falling for him. Before she decides what to do about it, he begins dating someone else (again, author's choice). Hermione has to take action before she loses her chance. How she does it, and how he reacts is up to the author.

The Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowlings, I don't own any of it. "Edge of the World" is the title of a song by the band Runrig, written about the St Kilda archipelago in Scotland, and I have shamelessly appropriated it for my fic.






At the Edge of the World - Part One

“I’m sorry I missed it, Mum.” Hermione Granger rolled her eyes as she finished pouring a small measure of white wine into her glass. “Sounds as if you guys had fun.”

Her mother’s voice continued to gush through the phone, describing a weekend trip to the vineyards, part of the “family” vacation that Hermione had been unable to attend. To make matters worse, Hermione’s cousin had brought his entire household, right down to both obscenely adorable tykes and a collie named Lucy, to spend the entire week visiting their adoring Auntie and Uncle Granger. In comparison to such a shining example of familial devotion, Hermione's vague excuse of work commitments had been met with Monica Granger’s very vocal disappointment.

And now Hermione was paying the price.

“I’m trying it now,” she assured her mother, lifting the glass to her lips and taking a cautious sip. A grimace twisted her features almost immediately, and Hermione looked longingly toward the sink all the way across the kitchen. With effort she forced herself to swallow the wine, tucking the cordless phone between her ear and shoulder so that she could set the glass on the counter and quickly shove the cork back into the bottle.

“Oh, yeah, it’s very ...“ Thankfully there was no need to continue searching for a polite way to describe the gift that had arrived earlier that day — her mother was off and running once more.

Hermione only half-listened, offering a “Then what?” or a “Really?” when there was a pause for breath. She opened her refrigerator and shoved the bottle toward the back, pausing to pull out a can of lemonade before she shut the door with her hip. She was careful to cover the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand so that the soft sounds of the can being opened wouldn’t be heard.

One swished mouthful to get rid of the foul taste later and the rest of the can was poured into the wineglass. Hermione took another sip as she shut off the light and padded barefoot down the hall to her bedroom.

“Mum, don’t start again. I like my job.” She double-checked to make sure her alarm was set while Monica tried, once again, to convince her daughter to move back to Hemel Hempstead, find a nice young man and settle down with a family of her own. St Kilda might as well have been all the way across the world as far as Monica was concerned.

Hermione was beginning to suspect it wasn’t far enough.

“Mum, it's been six years since I moved out here; you're going to have to get used to it. It’s not as if you can’t call me whenever you feel like talking. If you and Daddy are that desperate to spend time with some children — Nathan, Irene and the twins only live an hour from your place, and you can visit them any time you want. I'm sure they would love that."

Hermione flopped down onto the unmade bed with a sigh. “I am not jealous of my cousin or his family, Mum. And no one is going to start calling me a spinster just because I turned twenty-nine without getting married.”

Monica’s clipped reply was met with a groan as Hermione buried her face in a pillow. “Aunt Helena doesn’t count.”

-8-

St Kilda was a relatively isolated archipelago. Difficult to get to even by wizarding standards, downright impossible for Muggles on the days when the Scottish weather refused to cooperate, which was more often than not — the islands of St Kilda had been called the end of the world by more than one man.

Hermione called them home.

In the six years since she had taken the position as head of the Charms department for the Ministry's remote facility on the island of Hirta, Hermione had come to love the cold, wet mornings and the familial atmosphere that came from a community in which everyone knew everyone else.

At any given time, there were rarely more than a hundred people, nearly all of them magical, living on the island. Under the cover of civilians maintaining Hirta's old military and radio base, the Ministry of Magic had long ago leased the small complex from the National Trust for Scotland and converted the semi-modern buildings into a research and development facility.

Considering some of the more volatile accidents that she had seen over the past few years, Hermione had to agree that the Ministry had had the right idea when they decided to set up operation out in the middle of nowhere, where the occasional explosion or epidemic of speckled griffin pox would go virtually unnoticed. Even the handful of Muggles who arrived every summer to work on the restoration of the long-abandoned village seemed to chalk up any strangeness they might inadvertently witness to prolonged isolation and tricks of the mind.

Hermione sipped her coffee and ignored the progress report sitting next to her untouched lunch and the sounds of the other diners echoing through the small mess hall.

She didn't mind the isolation; it wasn't as if they were actually cut off from the rest of the world. The phone relay wasn't the most reliable, but it worked at least seventy percent of the time. Muggle boat tours dropped off tourists to explore the village ruins for a few hours every so often — weather permitting — and a supply boat docked at Village Bay every four or five weeks. Every few months she left the island by Portkey to visit friends and family over a long weekend.

Four days in the bosom of her loved ones tended to be just long enough for Hermione. By the end of that last day, she was almost always itching to return to her tiny cottage and her lab. It hadn't always been like that; she distinctly remembered the first few months of her new job, when she had missed her parents and Ron and Harry and Ginny so badly that she'd returned to London nearly every weekend. Life off the island had a way of quickly moving on, and Hermione found that she preferred her new home and the unexpected friendships she had found there.

The door to the canteen blew open, and Hermione looked up as the most unexpected of them all wrestled against the wind to pull the heavy metal door shut behind his imposing form.

Severus Snape.

There had been rumors of his survival over the years, fueled by the inexplicable lack of a body once the smoke had cleared after that final battle at Hogwarts, obviously. For the first six months, Snape sightings had been widespread, stories popping up in trashy tabloids each week — "I saw Severus Snape at my neighborhood market. 'He was thumping the casaba melons,' says Manchester housewitch." With such compelling eyewitness reports as that, it was no wonder that no one took the rumors seriously, and eventually the speculation died down.

In the end, it turned out they were right ... just not about the melons. Hermione had asked at some point, long after she'd gotten over her initial shock at seeing a dead man looking surprisingly alive and well and heading the Potions department. Severus had insisted that he abhorred melon, casaba in particular.

It wasn't as if the Ministry had taken an active role in keeping his continued existence a secret. There had been no official denials, no hastily scripted statements. If anything, the Ministry merely followed the wishes of a known war hero who wanted nothing more than to disappear and simply remained mum on the matter, while quietly offering him a job guaranteed to keep him out of the public eye.

Not that being out of the spotlight had managed to sweeten his disposition at all.

Hermione watched as Severus looked around the mess just long enough to spot her, then bypassed the food line entirely to stalk directly toward her table.

"I'm going to hunt that infernal woman down and rip off her wings myself," Severus snarled through clenched teeth as he scraped the chair directly opposite her across the tile and then dropped his weight into it.

"Why, yes, I have had a pleasant day so far, thank you for asking, Mr. Snape. And you?" Hermione flipped the folder containing her reports closed and leaned back in her chair to smile at the glowering man across from her.

"Pardon me, Miss Granger. I trust your day has been well? The weather is a bit blustery, but that's nothing unusual for this time of year. Any other mundane topics we need to cover before you allow me to get back to what I was saying?"

Her smile widened into a grin. Hermione fluttered one hand at him. "Please, don't let me keep you from your chosen topic. Continue."

Severus reached into his bulky winter coat, pulled out a hardback book and tossed it onto the table hard enough that it slid across the surface until it came to rest against her plate. "I found that thing on my desk just a bit ago." He finished unbuttoning his coat and shrugged it from his shoulders, letting it hang off the back of his chair.

Judging from his tone, Hermione had been expecting something a bit more vile than a simple book. With one finger, she cautiously rotated it until the photo on the back of the dust jacket was right side up for her.

"Rita Skeeter. She's written another one, then? Who is the poor bastard this time?" Not that she would ever admit it, but Hermione actually owned all three of Skeeter's earlier biographies. If you read between the lines and dismissed most of the sensationalism, they were actually almost informative. And, when Hermione had nothing better to do than crawl into bed with some mind-numbing tripe, Skeeter's books had more than fit the bill, particularly the eight hundred–plus pages of fiction masquerading as facts about Harry. Hermione had been by Harry's side for most of seven years, yet she had somehow managed to miss the majority of his dark despair and scandalous trysts - including, oddly enough, the entirety of the affair between herself, Harry and Ron. Hermione had been surprised to learn that instead of spending most of a year hiding from Death Eaters and searching out Horcruxes, she had spent months in a luxurious cabin servicing the manly appetites of two handsome wizards.

Now that she'd determined that the book wouldn't actually bite her, Hermione flipped it over to examine the cover. "Oh, Mr. Snape, I'm so sorry."

A lurid font proclaimed Snape: Scoundrel or Saint? in bold type, and just below was a photo of Severus in his teaching robes, a scowl marring his features. She tilted her head to the left and then toward the right, examining book Severus from different angles. Book Severus narrowed his eyes into a glare for a moment, then lifted his chin as if to look down his considerable nose at her. His lips twisted into the beginnings of a smirk.

"At least it's a decent picture. In the right light, you've got that 'dark and brooding' thing going for you." Hermione looked up at the real Severus, just in time to catch a hint of some unknown emotion cross his face before he turned to glare at the occupants of the next table over.

"I wouldn't care if it was a picture of my bare arse on the bloody cover, the picture isn't the point. That witch turned her poisoned quill in my direction — who knows what garbage she's penned — and some idiot thought it would be a lark to give it to me. Read the inscription."

Dutifully doing as she was told, Hermione opened the book and turned the first few pages until she found the handwritten inscription on the title page.

"To Severus Snape - May your next several years be only half as adventuresome as Rita would have imagined them to be. 09/01/2009," she read out loud. "I don't see what's so bad about that; it's just someone wishing you happy birthday."

"Anonymously," Severus snorted. "To what possible end, other than one rooted in mischief, would anyone have to gift me that anonymously."

A valid point, but one Hermione thought it might be best to overlook. She pushed her plate toward him, then reached out and snagged half of the sandwich from it. "I bet you haven't eaten lunch yet, have you? Eat. Ham and Swiss. With mustard and pickles," she added in her most enticing manner.

He glared at her for a moment, then seemed to deflate and reached for the other half of her sandwich. "You take it. I don't want that thing in my sight a moment longer than it has to be."

Considering the way half of his sandwich disappeared on the first bite, Hermione wondered if he'd eaten any breakfast, either. She took a much smaller bite of hers, then slid the book the rest of the way across the table and under her folder of reports. "Out of sight, out of mind."

"If only it were so easy with the ignorant fool who left the book in the first place." The sharp bite had left his voice.

It seemed as if the majority of his anger had dissipated with the application of food. If only she had known it was that simple during her school years — she would have bribed the elves to make sure he was constantly supplied with snacks and sandwiches.

"It could have been worse. It could have been sent to you directly from Rita, herself. Which would have meant that she not only knew you were alive, but where to find you for that extra-special, one-on-one follow-up interview to get your reaction to her book." His pale skin took on a greenish cast with her teasing.

"I seem to remember that Rita took great pride in her dictation. I bet she'd love to get her hands on you. Among other things."

Severus shuddered. "Do not even joke about that woman being within fifty meters of me."

Partway through his reply, Hermione realized she no longer held his full attention. There was no tell in his voice, no change in tempo or volume, but she could see the way he stiffened ever-so-slightly in his chair, and how his gaze seemed to be focused on a point just over her left shoulder. She doubted there was an immediate threat to their safety; even the most persistent of assassins would think twice before traveling out to St Kilda in January. Still, it never hurt to look.

Hermione dropped her paper napkin to the floor and bent down to retrieve it, casting a quick look toward whatever had drawn Severus' eye.

They were being watched by the new hire in the Transfiguration lab.

"Very subtle, Miss Granger. I'm sure no one will have seen through such a clever ruse. Tell me, what should I expect next? A copy of the Prophet with two eye holes cut out of it? Something inconspicuous, such as a giant potted Ficus to hide behind?"

She straightened and frowned, thinking out loud. "That's Enid Lynch. Just arrived last week, from what I heard. I wonder what she thinks is so interesting?" Hermione had seen the other woman in passing a few times already, noting little more than hair color (blonde) and approximate age (mid-to-late fifties).

"I should think that was obvious. She's gawking at a dead man."

Hermione rolled her eyes and tossed the wadded up napkin at him. "Someone is full of himself today, isn't he? You're not the only semi-celebrity at the table, she could be looking at me."

Severus blinked and then gave her a look that could have curdled milk.

"Really, Mr. Snape, it's been more than ten years since you 'passed on', I very much doubt there are that many people left who would take one look at you and immediately remember the war and your part in it. If anything, she's looking at you because she's been hearing the horror stories from your lab, and she's trying to figure out if you've really got broken glass and baby's blood nestled between the bread of your sandwich."

"Don't tell me. Artemis Finch has been telling tales since - Thursday last, when I caught him running his test without using the safety shields and explained exactly what could have happened if the potion had exploded?"

Hermione shrugged and popped the last bit of her sandwich into her mouth.

“Any other news of worth I should be aware of?” Severus nudged her plate back to the middle of the table and snagged a crisp off of it.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t find it particularly newsworthy, but my mother called last night.” Hermione took the hint and helped herself to some of her own lunch.

“Has she forgiven you for skipping the almost-yearly ‘last chance to be together as a family’ vacation, then?”

She started, having forgotten that she’d told him of the trip and her mother’s displeasure. Hermione was certain she’d only mentioned it once, in passing, and she certainly hadn’t expected Severus to have remembered it.

“It would seem so. Although, I get the impression that she’d be much more willing to forgive and forget if I’d just settle down with a nice man and start producing some adorable grandbabies for her to spoil.”

He finished chewing slowly, giving her a contemplative look that made her slightly uneasy. “Is that what you want? To find a husband, to produce children?”

It would have been easy to blow him off with some pat answer, similar to the ones she’d given Monica the night before, but Severus looked so serious, so interested in her response. “Sure, someday. It would be nice to have someone to grow old with, someone I could talk to and share interests with. I wouldn’t even mind a child or two, eventually. But I’m in no hurry, I’ve barely settled into my career and I like my job. I love the island. I’m not ready to give that up.”

“Why should you have to?”

Her snort wasn’t terribly ladylike. “Hirta isn’t exactly teeming with eligible bachelors, or a wealth of civilian jobs, should I happen to fall into love at first sight with one of the summer volunteers or tourists.”

Severus tilted his head and looked at her with hooded eyes. She hated it when he did that; it made it nearly impossible to tell what he was thinking. Not that it was ever easy to read him, even at the best of times, but Hermione thought that she had become better at it than most.

“What?”

“You’ve got mustard, there.” He gestured toward the corner of his mouth. Hermione flushed and snatched up her napkin.

She looked up to silently ask if she was condiment-free and frowned. Severus was studying Enid Lynch once more.

-8-

It was barely a week later when Hermione was startled by the sound of someone knocking on her door.

While it wasn’t completely unheard of for someone to visit her little cottage, it was extremely rare. She saw most of her work friends at the lab during the day, or after work for an occasional drink at the pub to burn off steam. The island was too far off the beaten path for Ron or Harry to drop in unannounced.

A quick glance at the clock over the mantel told her it was past eight in the evening. There was another knock, this one slightly louder than the first, and Hermione shoved a placeholder into the copy of Snape: Scoundrel or Saint? then quickly tucked the book under the pillow on her sofa.

She hoped whoever it was at the door wasn’t there on some sort of official business, because Hermione wasn’t about to change out of her flannel pajamas or her heavy woolen socks.

A third knock began just as she reached the door, and something of her annoyance must have shown on her face because Severus Snape quickly lowered his arm and took a step back. “Is this a bad time?”

“There have been better,” Hermione admitted, thinking of the book hidden out of sight in her living room. “It’s freezing — come in, come in.” Her socks were doing nothing to keep the chill of the winter evening from creeping up the leg of her pajamas.

Severus hesitated for a moment, then nodded once, sharply, before stepping over the threshold and into her living room. Hermione quickly shut the door behind him, rubbing her hands up and down her arms for warmth. “Did you need something?”

Hermione thought she heard him mutter something about a stiff drink, but she couldn’t be sure. He moved into the main part of the room and seemed to be heading toward the sofa, which sent her scurrying after him in a bit of a panic.

She dived onto the sofa, settling in with the edge of the book poking into her back. Severus gave her a look that seemed to be wondering if she’d lost her mind, then set himself down on the opposite end. His back was ramrod straight, and he appeared to be perched on the edge of the cushion. If she didn’t know better, Hermione might have thought he was nervous.

“Is everything all right?”

“What? Oh, yes. Everything is fine, fine.”

Well, that cleared that up, didn’t it?

“I doubt you walked all the way here through the snow just to tell me everything is fine, Mr. Snape.” Curiosity was killing her. This visit was unprecedented. Severus had never before been in her home, and she had never even seen his.

“You’re right, I did not. There is something that I wished to discuss with you. Something that I am finding rather difficult to articulate, now that I’m here.” Instead of meeting her eyes, he was staring down at his clasped hands.

“All right.”

They sat in silence for a bit longer, long enough for Hermione to grow uneasy. Finally, he looked up and met her concerned gaze.

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day.” He must have seen her confusion, and quickly clarified. “You had just spoken with your mother, about her desire that you should find a husband soon.”

Hermione couldn’t come up with of a single logical reason why Severus should have been thinking of such a thing — what possible interest could he have in her mother’s nagging? “I remember.”

“You were correct in your assessment that you’ve got plenty of time to find a mate. You’re young and attractive. You will be in your prime for many years to come.” She blinked, surprised at the unexpected compliment. Before she could formulate a response, he continued. “I will turn fifty next year.”

“Fifty is still young for a wizard,” Hermione offered. “We live a long time.”

“It can be too long, if you’re alone. I’ve given my future careful consideration, thought about the past fifty years, and the possibilities of the next fifty. I do not wish to spend the remainder of my life alone. My somewhat lacking charms will only continue to decrease over the coming decades. If I have any hope to find a suitable companion, I must do it now.”

Oh. Good. God.

Hermione’s throat threatened to close up.

“I - never thought you liked children?” It wasn’t really a question, but her voice rose at the end, as if it were.

“I did not like the little miscreants I was forced to deal with on a daily basis as a teacher. I’ve been told that one tends to feel differently about a child of one's own. Regardless, I have no pressing desire to be a father, nor do I have an overwhelming desire not to be.”

“I see.” She did no such thing. “And you’re telling me this because -?” Surely it couldn’t be for the reason she was beginning to think.

Severus turned to face her directly, his knee brushing against her own. “Because, Miss Granger... Hermione, I need you.”

Panic gripped her heart in a vise, then it slipped into overdrive, pounding loud enough that she could hear it.

Are you sure it’s panic?

It was the first time he had ever spoken her name.

“Need me?” Why was her voice so weak?

“Oh, yes.” Why was his so deep? “You’re an intelligent, attractive woman. The type of woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.

“I need you to help me woo Enid Lynch.”

-8-



Part 2