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 - XVII








We both touched the stone we found under the roofed structure in Somerton. The stone was part of the base of the cross near the ground. The stone was in plain view, but Muggles could not see it. All the same, the open area around the cross as it was placed on the crossing of two streets, made me wary. We were exposed, no matter that there was no one on the streets and the darkness hid us in shadow. I glanced to Severus whose dark eyes glowed as they gazed at my face. Our fingers intertwined as we touched the cool surface.

The connection was made, and again, I felt a rush in my blood, images flashing behind my corneas and deep into my brain.

“Glastonbury,” Severus whispered.

I had seen it clearly. The path had cleared. We were closer to the goal, spiraling inward to what Severus called Avalon. I was not sure what the goal truly was or what would be waiting, but we knew how to approach.

It was near dawn, we had walked from the inn, and had not seen another soul as we took the dark streets. I wore my new Muggle clothes under my Transfigured cloak.

We moved like thieves, faces obscured our footfalls silent. I was sure that anyone who might peek out the window would believe that we were wraiths or ghosts. However, we were neither, and as Severus held my hand, I wondered what we were.

The next marker was in Glastonbury, the Tor, and the last path. Glastonbury was the centre of several ley lines, an axis mundi. The concept frightened me as we swept from the Market Cross in Somerton to the outskirts of the village. Severus squeezed my hand as we moved along the dark road, only the setting moon, and the grey tinge of sunrise gleaming off the wet road allowing us to see where we were going.

I had only managed a few hours of sleep, and even after touching the marker stone, I still felt groggy, my legs heavy. Even when we Apparated in the middle of the empty road, I felt as if I could lay my head upon Severus’ chest and sleep for a long while yet.

It was stress, I knew, that made me weak in the limbs. However, it seemed I was not the only one overwrought, as we appeared with a soft pop in a field with high grass all around. Severus and I fell together in the grass, me on top. The clouds were turning pink over our heads, the sun rising.

We lay together in the dewy grass, weary. We were so close, yet our bodies and our minds were dulled. There was heaviness to our bodies, when we finally started walking east toward the sun. Every step was a chore, like slogging through brackish water. Behind us was the village of Street, ahead of us, rising higher than the now dry Somerset Levels, was the Tor.

The fields we crossed had once been underwater, drained centuries ago for land cultivation. In my half dreaming mind, I could see the seawater all around us, parting to allow us to pass as we headed for the light of a new day.







I was not sure what Severus did, but we somehow managed to knock a reservation from a room at a bed and breakfast on the south side of the Tor. We were treated as if we were royalty, shown a pleasant room with a large double bed with citrine coloured walls.

Severus drew the curtains closed, cursing that he had not though to apply his usual glamour. I wanted to tell him that it did not matter; we were almost to the goal.

I could feel the pressure, as if the air around me were pressing against my flesh. We were so near to the end. The anticipation was suffocating. I had no better an idea of what I would have to do or what I would see than I did from the first time I realized I was how wrapped up in a plot. I retreated into myself, not even Severus could distract me, as much as I would have loved to found some sort of comfort in his arms.

I fell asleep on the bed, my boots hanging over the edge of the bed, my face buried into a pillow. I dreamed as if I were waking.





I was sitting in my parent’s sitting room in their Headington house. It was just as I remembered before I evacuated them to Melbourne. My father was watching the telly, and my mother was standing by the doorway that led into the hall and the stairs leading to the second floor. However, it was not the door of my childhood memories. It was an archway of stone, and beyond was not the hallway.

“This is the door, my darling, this is what keeps the others out,” my mother said, as I rose from the sofa to stand by her side. “This tower arch acts as the last marker, built by the Christians, the only remnant left when the power of Avalon shook down the church in the Thirteenth Century. Only this marker remains.”

Suddenly, we were standing before a tower, before the open passage through the tower, facing east. The sitting room in Headington was gone. I could see beyond the arch, but not far. Mist and darkness swirled beyond. I was atop Glastonbury Tor, I supposed, and it stretched on into the mist, further than I believed the ground to go. Wind blew through the opening, and distantly, I could hear water.

“Avalon lays beyond, over the Poison Sea, through the mist, through time. I will be waiting for you there.”

I turned to my mother, whose radiant face seemed sad. She looked just as I remembered her the last time we had met. The sight gripped my heart and squeezed.

“There are some that will bar your way. You must push through, Hermione. Fight.”

My mother moved to touch me, but already, the dream was changing, fading.

I was in Hogwarts, suddenly, sitting alone in the Great Hall. I wore my dragon hide armour, sitting where I always did at Gryffinfor table. Platters of food were all along the table, but there was no students in the Hall to eat. I could not smell the food or admire the golden plate before loaded with all my favourite things. I was too concerned with why the enchanted ceiling was reflecting everything below it. I could see my thirty-year-old self staring up at my reflection. But in the reflection, I was not alone.

Sitting at the Slytherin table was a boy with long, stringy black hair, wearing outdated robes. My eyes shifted from the mirror like ceiling to where the boy sat, slightly obscured from my view by a great centerpiece of chocolate bon-bons on the Hufflepuff table. I stood, nearly overturning the bench, and soon I could see the pale face staring back at me.

I took a few steps, watching as the pale face followed me. When the dark eyes caught the light coming in through the windows, I began to jog. I made it to the end of the Gryffindor table, only feet away from the Head Table.

“What do you know about me?” a voice asked, not so aged, not so deep, but it stopped me in my tracks just at the end of Slytherin table. The boy, who was approximately seventeen, sat on the bench, his back to the far wall, ten or so feet down the table.

I opened my mouth to speak, but already, glowing coal eyes turned upon me, oily hair swaying, and mouth twisting angrily.

“What do you know?”

I frowned. “I know who you are.”

The boy looked away, visibly seething. “You know what is missing, you know it is I loved?”

I shook my head. I did not want to say.

“Who are you, anyway?”

I was still dreaming, I realized, and slowly I sank down onto the bench. Severus Snape’s eyes studied me, running along my face to my arms, to my breasts, like a lover’s caress. I blushed.

“I am…” I began, but trailed.

“I know you, don’t I?”

His voice had only just changed from boyhood to man, and under his robes, he was far too skinny and pale. The manner in which his eyes narrowed crinkled his brow, but the dark chasm of brooding between his brows had yet to form.

“Hermione, my name is Hermione,” I whispered.

His eyes sparkled, “Yes, yes, I do know you.” There was a sense of wonderment in his voice as he leaned to his left toward me, a large pale hand resting on the bench next to him. “You’re the girl that touched me as if you wanted me.”

I blinked. “I did.”

He straightened, swinging his legs over the bench to stand. As he walked toward me, he aged with every step, his robes changing into the clothes he wore the night we met in Grimmauld Place. Reaching down, his cupped my cheeks, and leaned over me.

“It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter…” he muttered. “I am lighter without that memory, whoever ‘she’ was.”

I inhaled deeply and I could smell him, anise scented, something I had begun to associate solely with the man before me. In my dream, he kissed me, sitting next to me on the bench. His arms wrapped around me and soon I was enveloped in darkness.

“Tell me that everything will be all right,” I whispered in my dream.

“I cannot tell you that.”

I sighed, “Tell me that I am not a substitute for ‘her.’”

Lips brushed against my forehead. “You aren’t. You surpass ‘her’ in every way. Passion, power, beauty, love, loyalty, you are more than ‘she’ ever was…”

It was what I wanted to hear, I knew, and not Severus’ words. All the same, it cheered me.

“Time to go,” he whispered, his lips brushing against my temple to my hair. I did not want to go, I wanted to dream forever. Distantly in the dark warmth of anise scent, I could hear my mother’s voice, telling me that I had to go. It was time.



I opened my eyes to the dark room, the curtains still drawn. I did not see Severus immediately, the only light coming from the open door to the en suite lavatory. I found him sitting on the floor, leaning into the foot of the bed, his chin resting on his chest, asleep.

I had slept for several hours by what the Muggle digital alarm clock read. It was well past midday. I rose stiffly, slipping out of my boots, sliding the canvas backpack off my shoulders. The cloak was next, then my Muggle clothes. I headed, naked into the lavatory. I bathed, the details of my dream already muddled memories, washing away just like the soapy suds washing off my skin.

I leaned my forehead against the wall of the shower stall, letting the hot water soak into the muscles of my back, into my sore shoulders.

Dreams, feelings, legends, lies, it had to end. I could not live my life on the run, for I did not think my body would allow me to run much longer.

Severus was still sleeping when I returned to the darkened room. I dressed in my dragon hide armour, slipping my holster over my bound breasts. I pulled my hair back into a low ponytail, and smoothed my shirt down over the waistband of my trousers.

I was again struck at how vulnerable Severus’ face was in sleep, how childlike. He was not handsome, but there was an untouched innocence in his sleeping face. A man-boy whose most protected piece of his soul was exposed only in his face. It made me want to kneel down beside him and run my fingers along his jaw, the stubble on his chin, along the bridge of his crooked nose and over the dark hair of his eyebrows.

As I slipped into my boots, Severus’ eyes opened slowly. He stretched, his arms rising up, his head rolling. He coughed dryly as he stood up from the floor. We did not speak as he went into the lavatory, not bothering to shut the door. I blushed at the sound of urine hitting the toilet water, then the sink running and water splashing.

I opened the curtains to a sunny afternoon. The sunlight made the room very warm, not just in temperature, but in colour. It was a lovely room, and part of me wished I could allow myself to enjoy it.

Severus stepped out of the lavatory, his clothing different. We stared at each other, and then I smirked. He wore the same clothing from the night he arrived at Grimmauld Place in London. He seemed larger than memory of that night, more substantial. What pieces of my dream was left after waking, I remembered him standing in Hogwarts’ Great Hall.

We glided across the floor toward each other, and I stood on the tips of my toes to kiss his face, holding it between my hands. The kiss never seemed to end, and in it, we spoke to each other without uttering a word.

This was perhaps the last time we would be free to turn around and run. We could escape the madness, if we wanted. We could run away to a place where no one knew our faces or names. We could forget and live.

We were faced with the great unknown, and it frightened us both.




The ‘path’ as Fannie had called it, led us that late afternoon to Chalice Well, at the base of Glastonbury Tor.

Duty compelled us, and we walked hand in hand in our cloaks, the breeze of a May day against our faces. I could smell apples and seawater. We were being followed. Eyes weighed heavy upon us. The Muggles in and around Chalice Well took no notice of us and our cloaks, probably thinking us a new ager couple, about to ascend the mystical Tor so popular with pagans, Wiccans, and other new age folk.

We came toward Tor field and the boundary to the path that the tourists used. However, just beyond the metal gate was a stone stela, approximately six feet high, made of the now familiar blue lias. The Muggles obviously could not see the stela and the design engraved into the surface. As we approached, we found that the carving was not of the labyrinth, but a larger inscription of the design I had seen in the centre or goal of the design. It was not a star, exactly, but more like a five petal flower, the petals narrow like tear drops, the pointed ends extending out in every direction.

“This is the path,” Severus muttered, his hand extending palm outward to touch the smooth face of the ancient stone.

I grasped his wrist before he could touch the stone, my eyes moving to my right. Severus lowered his hand, his fingers entwining with mine. The air around us had grown very still, and the distant hum of Muggle voices was absent. I ground my teeth, knowing that whoever had been following us had chosen the most inopportune moment to reveal themselves.

“Run, Hermione,” Severus whispered.

We had yet to turn.

“Touch the stela, and then run.”

I pressed my lips together, my right hand shifting to rise, to either touch the stela or draw my wand. Severus’ fingers on his left hand were moving under his cloak to his own wand upon his belt. I hissed in disapproval.

“What do you think you’ll accomplish by letting me escape?” I whispered angrily.

“I cannot have you hurt again. You said yourself, why must you be the one to always fight? I also recall you saying I was a coward…”

I frowned, my hand reaching out to the stela.

“For which I will apologize until you are appeased,” I muttered sarcastically even as I felt our pursuers approaching on foot behind us. “Please don’t make me do this, Severus,” I whispered.

His fingers squeezed mine. “You are the key and the keeper, Hermione. I am merely your companion…”

I choked on my fear.

“Now go!” he hissed, releasing my hand.

In a flash of black, Severus moved, turning, while a hand pushed me between the shoulder blades. My palm slapped against the face of the blue-grey stone just as the sound and smell of spellcraft flew around me.

The contact of my skin against the stone made me gasp. A shock passed through my skin, an arc of energy moving along my bones and blood to my brain. The ‘path’ appeared and before me was the sloping entrance to the true caerdroia, opaque mist forming the walls of the ‘fortress of turns.’

I heard hexes and curses slamming into the ground behind me, and then Severus’ voice.

“Go!” he roared in a terrible voice.

I ran, not daring to look back. I left Severus alone to his self-assigned fate, and I hated myself for every pounding step I took upward.

End Part Two


TBC...