Damnation of Memory

Title: Damnation of Memory
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Adult Situations
Summary: DH-EWE: With every generation, a Dark Wizard rises. Hermione Granger has survived one. However, after nearly thirteen years, a dead man returns to inform her that she must fight again, and this time, Harry Potter will not be the one to save the world from madness.
Author's Notes: This is my 1st full length SS/HG fic and my second 1st person POV fic. Please note that not every detail is canon, including the canon floor plan of Grimmauld Place. This chapter is also unbeta’d, so please, pardon the mistakes!




Damnation of Memory - XII





The first time I was injured in the line of duty, Ron had been furious. Rounding up Death Eaters composed the first years as my work as an Auror. I captured Rodolphus Lestrange three years after the Battle of Hogwarts, after tracking him to the far north to the Hebrides Islands. Ron was supposed to be with me, but had opted to follow what turned out to be a false lead to Aberdeen. It was mistake to separate, but in those days, the Aurors were stretched thin over the British Isles.

The MacFusty Clan cared for the Hebrides Blacks on the islands, and certain areas were warded with Anti-Apparition Charms. In such an area, I trapped Lestrange, dueling with him only several hundred metres from a dragon’s nest.

We did not trade words. Hexes and Curses were enough. Lestrange fought desperately, and dangerously. I avoided the Killing Curse only by the speed of my legs and the spry manner of which I used to hold myself together. It was tiring. I was cursing Ron mentally as the duel lasted into the night, neither I nor Lestrange giving in. We had trampled the moorland, chasing each other, until; finally, as darkness settled, the battle was decided.

It was the first time I realized that I had used elemental magic. Wandlessly lighting candles or starting fires in the grate were one matter, what I did to Lestrange was another. Casting a Stunner with my wand at close range, Lestrange slapped at my hand, the Stunner glowing into the dark sky. He kicked out, catching me in the stomach, but I took the blow and grabbed his wand hand. My fingers dug into his wrist as he kicked again, but I would not let go.

Somehow, I ended up on the cold ground, Lestrange leering down at me, his face just visible in what light there was. Then it happened just as his free hand wrapped about my throat. Fire burst from my hand, running up the tattered sleeve of Lestrange’s coat to his lank hair.

Lestrange’s scream was terrifying, the fire lighting his unshaven face. His wand seemed to turn to ash as soon as the fire touched it, and Lestrange was off me, rolling into the grass. I watched as the fire burned his arm, the side of his face, and I listened to his screams.

For the first time in my life, I did nothing to save another human being. I wanted him to die. I wanted him to die like his wife, his brother, in agony. In hindsight, this lack of empathy frightened me.

“Damnit, Hermione! End the spell!”

Ron’s voice brought me back. I did not know when or how he had appeared on the moor. I also did not know how to stop the fire that blazed a bright red orange and white. I turned my back, Lestrange’s screams beginning to sicken me.

Stop.

And it was over. I fell to my knees as Ron moved to Lestrange. My head pounded, my stomach churned, and I vomited—blood.

The duel had done its damage, ribs, fingers, collarbone were broken. I had gashes in my back, on my face, and my jaw was fractured. The internal injuries were too numerous to remember, but I lay in St. Mungo’s for two weeks before I was able to walk again.

Ron was angry with me for long after, and then, six months later, I was pregnant.

I did not think long about how I had burned Rodolphus Lestrange so that half his face was melted or how his arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. I did not think of how it felt to wish the fire would turn him to an ashy shell.

When I had saved Pansy Parkinson, I had acted on instinct, in order to save myself from the position in which I had placed myself. I stood before impending death, and I had turned the death away, branding fire to flesh and bone.

As I sat before the small fireplace in Perpetua Fancourt’s tiny Somerset cottage, a chill passed through my bones. The fire before me was not the same as that which came from my hands. I studied my palms in the firelight, the dry skin in the lines and the new calluses on the backside of my knuckles.

The fire in the fireplace was dry, hot, and lifeless. The fire I remembered engulfing the man in the Blue Anchor Inn had been alive, a part of me—my anger and fear made manifest.

Elemental magic, every witch, and wizard could perform some. Whether it was to light a fire in my case, or the basic manipulation of the earth, as was the case with Neville Longbottom’s affinity with plants and soil, every magical being had some connection to the basic elements of life on earth. However, true elemental magic was rare, unheard of in the modern age. There were histories on various magical folk who could manipulate the wind, from gale force to gentle breeze. There were others who could summon water from a cloudless sky, or who could tame the North Sea.

I did not want to believe that I could kill with a touch, if I wished.

Severus was moving near the kitchen area of the one room cottage, searching the shelves for something, knocking cans of food to the floor. I glanced at him, knowing that he was angry. I, on the other hand, knew I was in shock.

Harry had sent an owl from the Ministry, and Severus had let me read the hastily scribbled missive.

‘Attack in Islington, 3 Muggles dead, Percy dead, Ministry moving. More info soon, be safe.’

Percy dead.

I threw the note into the fire before me and there I sat still, even after the sun had set and Severus searched the cottage. I leaned into the brick next to the fire, wrought out. I dropped my hands to my lap.

It was my fault. Percy was dead because of me. I should have never left Grimmauld Place. I should have never…

“Stop it,” Severus hissed from where he stood by the small table in the kitchen area. His palms were pressed into the surface, his thin lips curled distastefully. “Stop it now!”

I was crying, bone shaking sobs rattling every atom in my body. Even if I wanted, it would not stop. My teeth chattered in between the gasping. I could feel the tears on my cheeks as hot as the fire next to me. I had not let myself cry so hard since…

“Enough!”

I was hauled up from my place by the fire, Severus gripping my upper arms in a painful hold. I howled at the renewed pain in my body and tried to jerk away. When I was free, Severus grabbed for me again, but my hand flew, slapping him across the face. The sound was terrible as was the quickly growing red handprint on his sallow cheek.

His eyes were bestial and cruel, his head forcefully turned by my strike, and out of the corners of his eyes, he stared. The anger, the sorrow, the futility, it shrank away.

I grabbed his face and kissed him.

Gods, I just wanted it all to either make sense or end. My hands moved from his face to his neck, down the leather jerkin over his chest to his waist. I did not keep track of where his hands went until I felt them upon my hips.

I pulled away quickly, stumbling, my hand moving to my lips. I fell back into a wing-backed chair near the fire, and nearly tumbled to the floor.

Severus’ dark eyes were wide, but as he studied my face, the back of my hand pressed against my lips, the dark eyes narrowed. The derision that had marked his face since Harry’s note returned.

I did not want to see that face, I did not want to feel so separate from him as the cruel façade was reassembled. I stepped toward him again, and he took a step back, warning flashing in those twin chasms he had for eyes. Another step, it was his turn to fall back against a piece of furniture. The small kitchen table scarped upon stone floor.

“Stop,” he whispered, but there was no pleading, no warning.

His mouth crashed upon mine, and I could taste anise again, as if his tongue were coated in the licorice flavour. Hands moved, clothes and wands fell to the floor until I held my chest against his, following him back upon the tabletop. He pulled me closer and slowly we stood again, but I stood on the tips of my boots.

Our lips parted, and we stared at each other through hazy eyes. We knew what it was—frustration, desperation pushed together. There were also the dreams. I could see it so clearly as if we were standing in the mist before the apple tree. I could see him in the yew tree just down the road from the cottage, half in, half out, like some strangely beautiful parasite working its way out of the ancient wood.

I took his hand and stepped back, letting his eyes move over my bared breasts, the imperfect stretch marks near my hips just above the waistband of my dragon hide pants. He said nothing, but squeezed my fingers.

The methods and details of how we landed in the large sleigh bed across from the kitchen area of the one room cottage were unimportant. All that mattered was that I could feel him above me, feel his skin against mine. It was real, more real than my dreams.

The way he grasped my hair, pulling my head back to nip with crooked teeth at my throat, the way the hair on his chest rasped against my nipples—it was true. I groaned as his hips thrust against mine. There was no tenderness in this man, and I knew there really never had been.

My fingers traced the scars long his back down to his buttocks. I felt the rumble of his moan against my breast. He slid his length against my damp lips, biting into the inside slope of my left breast.

I could not breathe quick enough to feed my beating heart the air it needed. I was sweating, I was gasping, and my fingers could not stop from roaming. However, Severus grasped my wrist and slammed them painfully into the headboard with one large hand, while the other arm slipped under my left knee, pushing it over his shoulder.

The sound of his teeth clenching broke my lustful daze, and the painful slide of penetration made me mouth open in a silent scream. I arched my back as he pushed inside, feeling as if he were rending me in two. He grunted into my shoulder when he could go no further.

I could not decide whether to move my hips and perhaps get some pleasure out of the pain, or try to fight Severus Snape off my body.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Please don’t.”

My lips trembled at his words. I did not fight him. I could not.

We were lying under the great limbs of a great tree, the mist swirling about us as we began to move. An obscured sun glinted on the perfect skins of large golden apples. I could smell the anise on his breath and the apples in the air.

His cock throbbed against the walls of my barren womb, but as he pinned me down, bearing down upon me, my womb throbbed as well. I sobbed at every long stroke, and gasped at every wild thrust. He was unpracticed, almost clumsy, but I did not mind.

It felt good. Professor Severus Snape, he was no longer. He was simply Severus, a man who had cheated death. He was just as lost as I was, trapped in a plot bigger than the both of us.

My wrists were free. Severus planted his palms on either side of my head, his black hair swaying about his pallid face. His dark brow was furrowed, his thin lips parted. Severus Snape was frightening to behold with his eyes glowing like faint burning coals. I could not help but wrap my arms about his neck to kiss him.

Moving together, my legs wrapped about his slender waist, and I broke the kiss to sigh. The sound made Severus falter, and he fell into my arms, breaking his rhythm. The fire in his eyes was extinguished, the spell broken. I held him tight against me, shifting my hips to support his weight.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my ear.

As quickly as our joining began, it ended with us both unsatisfied. I could feel him slipping out of me. I closed my eyes. I let Severus pull free of my embrace, rolling to lie beside me, and once again, we were in the small, dusty cottage in Somerset.




I slept fitfully, but I could not remember dreaming. It seemed many nights had passed in such a way, like a developing routine. I awoke sometime in a grey earlier morning. Severus lay beside me on his stomach, hugging a musty pillow. The dingy sheets rested just below the pale skin of his rounded buttocks. I sat up slowly, the sheets falling over my breasts to the gentle swell of my belly.

I had a headache as if I had drunk too much or was too hungry. I rubbed my face, feeling grubby and then ran my fingers through tangled hair. I sighed softly, glancing to the scars on Severus’ back. I raised a hand to touch one long scar with the tip of my finger, but hesitated. Severus snorted in his sleep and shifted, turning his face toward me.

Already I could see the shadow of a beard and the crust of sleep in his long eyelashes. In sleep, Severus Snape was almost handsome, a childlike quality making his face likeable. In his waking moments, he brooded too much.

I rose from bed, immediately shivering at how cold the small cottage was, and searching for my clothes, I found my wand. After several stringent Cleansing Charms and a beauty Charm to plait my hair down my back, I went to the fireplace. Only embers were left, and throwing a few logs on the fire, I knelt closer.

I extended my right fist to the logs, and opening my hand…

“What is it?” I heard Severus ask from the bed, turning from the now raging fireplace to see that he had sat up in bed, his hand resting on the empty spot beside him.

“It’s nothing,” I whispered.



Two owls came as Severus was making coffee in a kettle over the fire. I was casting basic household Charms on the cottage, something that was sorely lacking, when a small, familiar owl flew through the low crack of an opened window. The second, much larger owl tapped on the glass of the same window visibly perturbed.

Severus took Pig’s missive while I opened the window wider for the brown Ministry owl.

Severus scanned the letter and passed it to me, a scowl on his face, and then snatched the next missive, a roll of parchment from the Ministry owl.

I did not recognize the hand, but if Pig were delivering the message, I had an idea…

‘R. searching for H. Leave no traces; no warrant yet, arrest imminent. P.’

I sighed, dropping the note on the small kitchen table next to Pig who was hopping and hooting at the other owl, trying to be menacing, I supposed. Severus frowned at the short roll of parchment and then passed it to me as well.

‘S and H, P.I.W. entire body not recovered, presumed dead. Two agents apprehended, questioning leading nowhere. R.B.W. moving for arrest with the approval of the Minister. I am being investigated. Grimmauld Place may be searched. P.F. coming to Ashbrittle soon, be on the move. Regards, H.J.P.’

Severus had begun feeding toast to the owls before shooing them from the cottage. He did not speak to me as he set the coffee on the table and sat down. I followed suit.

“They want to arrest me because I have been involved in two incidents,” I muttered, staring down at the messages. I grimaced, snatching them up in my hand and setting them on fire.

Severus paused in pouring himself coffee; his dark eyes watching the ashes fall to the cottage floor.

“It doesn’t matter,” Severus said, continuing to fill his chipped mug, then a second for me. “I’m more interested in ‘entire body not recovered, presumed dead.’”

I reached for the yellow chipped mug with a smiley face on the front, gripping it between my palms, savouring the warmth. “Do not give me reason to hope.”

Severus’ brow rose as he drank deeply of his black coffee.

“Was Percy Weasley, the officious little snake, only just a friend?” Severus mused.

I let my mug fall heavily to the tabletop. My eyes burned into Severus’ forehead.

“You know nothing about me.”

“True.”

I pushed my coffee aside.

“Percy was…” I began. “He was my truest friend, more than Harry or Ginny or Ron.”

Severus’ face was impassive. “Yet, you suspected him.”

I nodded. “Logically, one would. But he wasn’t…”

Severus looked away. “I could never understand this Gryffindor loyalty…”

“You wouldn’t,” I whispered.

The rest of the morning was passed in stilted silence.



I wondered how Severus believed he knew to proceed. Our mission: to find Aberforth Dumbledore. Fannie’s cottage was along a country road only a few miles from the church and yew tree. It was to that location we walked through the rain. I begrudgingly Transfigured Harry’s old leather jacket, knowing that I would have to apologize later for whatever damage might mar the garment. We looked like a pair of wraith spirits gliding down the country lanes through rain and mist.

Morning services at the church had ended an hour before we arrived, and we were unnoticed as we slipped into the cemetery. Passing under the draping limbs of the yew tree, I shivered. The Ashbrittle Yew was massive, segregated into separate trunks comprising a whole, living tree. It was just as it was in my dreams. The most central portion of the tree is where Severus went, while I stood at that largest trunk, my hand reading toward the gap in the bark.



“Here,” Severus said, catching my attention. I withdrew my hand and adjusted my wet cowl on my head. Severus knelt on the ground, his hands moving earth and dry needles.

I knelt next to Severus as his pale hands shifted soil away from what he was digging up. I watched as the dirt blackened his hands until I saw what it was he was seeking.

It was a sort of runestone with a deep design carved into the blue-grey stone. The pattern was crude, but I knew it. The labyrinth. Severus stopped digging when the face of the runestone was visible.



“In my dreams, there was a stone buried under the tree. This is only the very top of a stela. At the base of the stela is a body, the stone was to hold the body down into the earth…the body of an ancient, cruel king.”

The image of the seven circuit classical labyrinth, combined with the smooth quality of Severus’ voice transfixed me.

“I never put stock in dreams, until you were there,” he whispered, standing slowly.

I blinked. “What did you say?”

Severus did not answer, but his eyes glowed as he gazed at the stone.

“What does this mean?” I asked, motioning to the stone.

“It tells how we must proceed.”

I stood. Fannie had said that we had to follow the ‘path,’ was this what she meant? I shook my head slowly, confused. Severus turned away, stalking out of the protection of the yew tree and into the steady rain. I lingered, impressing the image of the carved labyrinth into my brain. The center of the labyrinth spiral was a shape of a five-pointed star that reminded me of a floral design or a design in nature. It puzzled me, as did the mark at the opening of the labyrinth. I narrowed my eyes.

The mark was the crude figure of a human entering the maze. There were no other markings I could see, and I began to ponder the design, the design in the centre of the labyrinth and the tiny figure entering the design like Theseus entering Daedalus’ Labyrinth.

The labyrinth was an ancient symbol. It was a trap for malevolent spirits to some prehistoric cultures, and a path of pilgrimage to others. The labyrinth preceded anything we knew of magic. It was sacred.

I took a deep breath and I could smell the faint hint of magic under the scent of earth, of yew, and of rain. I turned from the hole Severus had dug with his bare hands, and left the yew tree behind.

I followed Severus, for lack of knowing what else to do, hoping that understanding would come with time.



During the second year working for the Department of Historical Records, I had begun interviewing portraits in public locales. I had spoken to Headmaster Dexter Fortescue the year before, and learned that there were a great many portraits in Diagon Alley. Fortescue had a twin portrait in his great-grandson’s ice cream parlour, now under the stewardship of Mayberry Malkin, Madam Malkin’s niece.

Due to his twin portrait, Dexter Fortescue was able to move from Hogwarts to Diagon Alley, and in both cases, Fortescue had learned who his ‘neighbors’ were.

“There’s a portrait of Oswald Beamish at Gringotts, strange fellow. The goblins merely tolerate him nowadays. Then there’s Bowman Wright in the backroom of Quality Quidditch Supplies…”

I had a running list of portraits to interview by the time I finished with Fortescue. In my second year at the DHR, I spent a great deal of time in Diagon Alley, even Knockturn Alley. However, the greatest surprise came from the portrait of Daisy Dodderidge, the first landlady of the Leaky Cauldron.

Placed in Tom’s personal parlour in a back room of the pub, I spoke with Daisy Dodderidge as if I were speaking to an old friend. The robust woman was very pleasant, with a kindly face with brilliant hazel eyes. Dodderidge had built the Leaky Cauldron in the Sixteen Century to “serve as a gateway between the non-wizarding world and Diagon Alley,” as it said on the back of her chocolate frog card. As I spoke to Dodderidge, I found that the Leaky Cauldron was not simply a gateway.

“It is a haven,” she said from her plain oak wood frame, parts of her portrait cracked and peeling at the top right corner. “In those days, we were hunted by the Muggles. The Ministry was barely a cellar down the road, and witches and wizards sought solace here. Granted, the Muggles were easily Confounded, they were more of an annoyance than a threat.

This place was invisible to Muggle eyes, though in the beginning, some Muggles did stray inside. And when they stepped inside, they were lost.”

I remembered cocking my head, not quiet understanding. Dodderidge smiled.

“To Muggles, the inside of the Leaky Cauldron was only a maze of rubbish filled alley ways. It was a type of Confundus Charm, something my mother’s mother taught me. Muggles believed they had stepped into a dream, and in their brains, they were lost in what was alleys, dark and disgusting. Of course, they did not move far from the front door, they were lost in their own heads. By then, I or some patron would steer the Muggle to the door and kick them to the street.”

I had chuckled and Dodderidge smiled mischievously.

“Now, I suppose, there are new spells to keep the Muggles away, but in the beginning, when magic was still so strong in even the Muggles, it was the only protection to the Alley.”

I then asked about the nature of the spell, telling Dodderidge I was not asking for anything she was not comfortable divulging, but out of curiosity—how could such a specific Charm work?

“I was Sorted into Ravenclaw when I was at Hogwarts, and Professor Wenlock, a descendant of Bridget Wenlock, was my mentor. If you know your history, Miss Granger, you know that the Wenlocks specialized in Arithmancy.”

I had nodded, making note of the mention of Wenlock.

“Did you know that there was once a maze in one of the dungeons under Hogwarts?”

I had read this fact in ‘Hogwarts, a History.’ First designed by Salazaar Slytherin and built by the third Head of Slytherin House as a memorial of sorts. It had been basis for the maze in the Tri-Wizard Tournament and filled with just as many dangerous magical creatures at one point in time. The Slytherins used the maze to hone their dueling skills. After the Seventeenth Century, the maze was deconstructed and the space disused.

“I had the misfortune of being tricked to enter a maze by my school rival, Lucretia Black from Slytherin. She told me my cat had entered the maze, and stupid old Codswallop had a habit of going places he did not belong.”

I smirked at the name of the cat as I jotted down the name of one of Sirius’ ancestors whose name would not be used again until the Twentieth Century, an aunt to Sirius, and a cousin to Molly Weasley.

“I spent only five hours in the maze before I solved it. Lucretia Black was devastated that I had not died,” Dodderidge muttered with a satisfied smirk. “The maze was a miz-maze, a labyrinth. There were no crossings, and no deadly creatures. There were plenty of skeletons of creatures—manticores, re’ems, and putrid puddles of what was once lethifolds. There were some things I could not even recognize, but all were bad.

All the same, Lucretia was punished, I was rewarded for surviving the maze, which I was told later was the equivalent of walking twenty miles… When one reached the centre, there was a Charm like a Portkey that transported you outside the labyrinth to the entrance.”

“How did you manage that in five hours?”

Dodderidge’s eyes sparkled mirthfully. “That, my dear, is a secret. There were more than dead things in the labyrinth. There were traps, embedded jinxes in the stonewalls and floor. I overcame them, relatively unscathed.

My time in the labyrinth changed me, it gave me ideas for new Charms, new formulas. It became a hobby of mine to construct different types of puzzles and mazes whether literal or mental. That was my thinking in building the Leaky Cauldron, a commission given to me by way of Professor Wenlock.”

Dodderidge began to talk excitedly about the concept of the maze, of examples in Britain.

“The ‘caerdroia,’ the Welsh word for ancient Troy, the ‘fortress of turns,’ they exist all over Britain. There were turf mazes built after my time—at Wing, Hilton, Somerton, but there were others that existed long before. They fascinate me still. Before Tom, the previous publicans would sometimes set books before my portrait, Muggle books about these places, with pictures that did not move…”

Dodderidge’s words then veered away from the subject of her interest in mazes and labyrinths. I had noted every word, and filed my report.


TBC...