LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Twenty-One

He knew what she was going to do the split second before she did it – and though he took the Apparation in one jump (rashly, like a much younger man, cursing himself for a million kinds of inobservant idiot), he got there a heartbeat too late to stop her.

She was lolled against the railing of the bridge, head at an unnatural angle, eyes closed. Unconscious, not dead, though he'd had to look twice to be sure. Insensible. And smiling. The Portkey he'd given her glittered around her wrist; apparently, she hadn't even thought to use it – either that, or she'd thought about it and decided not to. Severus felt his heart sink.

Oh, Circe. Hermione, you stiff-necked little idiot, that Gryffindor pride of yours is going to kill us both.

A pair of camera-carrying tourists were huddled around her, murmuring fearfully to each other. When he appeared at their shoulders, they moved aside for him gratefully.

"A priest! Doug, ask him if he speaks English," the woman prompted her husband in a tense whisper. Snape smiled grimly.

"All my life, madam," he snapped, and saw the beleaguered-looking Doug put away his phrasebook with a relieved slump of his brawny shoulders. "How much did you see?"

"We were just taking pictures," the woman said uncertainly, put on the defensive by his sharp tone. "Of the Eiffel Tower. From the other side of the bridge." She jiggled the expensive Nikon dangling from her scrawny neck on its custom-made strap as if it could vouch for her innocent intentions. "Weren't we, Doug?"

"There was some funny light," Doug offered. "Like static electricity, kind of. Creepy. And then she just ... fell over." He looked worried. "D'you think we'll have to contact the U.S. consulate? There's not going to be an investigation, is there? We're only here for two more days."

Tourists.

"Leave her to me," Severus assured him brusquely, striding forward to gather the unconscious Hermione in his arms. She was lighter than he remembered her, and distressingly cold to the touch. "I'll take her home – I know her family. Nothing to worry about."

But he was worried – so much so that the moment he was out of sight, he Apparated the rest of the way to her flat. As he deposited her limp form onto the parlor davenport, Maxie – dozing on her stool – sat up with a gasp.

"What is it? What's happened?"

"Botched Memory Charm," Severus said succinctly. Maxie closed her eyes.

"She didn't."

"She did."

Shocked silence, then: "Oh, the poor lamb. Where did it happen? When?"

"Ten minutes ago. Pont de Sully. Tourists found her." He'd already stripped off the lab jacket to check her pulse. Steady and strong, thank Merlin, and no knot on her head to indicate that she'd bumped it when she fell. But her eyelids weren't so much as fluttering.

"She seemed so happy earlier," Maxie said blankly. "Dressed up and smiling for the first time in ages. She was going out to dinner with that friend of hers."

"The doctor?"

"No, the other one. Her friend from school – I don't remember her name. She was just here for the weekend."

Severus didn't know who Maxie was referring to – what she was saying didn't make any sense, really, as no one from Hogwarts had any idea that Hermione Granger existed. Frankly, he had more pressing worries at the moment.

"Happy?" he repeated, incredulous. "She hasn't been happy since the day it happened. She's just gotten better at hiding it, that's all." He leaned closer, slapped her cheek gently. "Hermione? Hermione!"

Nothing.

Behind him, Maxie twisted her hands together anxiously. "Is she going to be all right?"

"Who knows?" Severus, furious with himself all over again, pushed himself to his feet and began to pace. "There's no way to tell until she wakes up. One thing's for certain, though – a regular-strength Memory Charm wouldn't have knocked her out like this. I imagine she's Obliviated a bit more than she meant to."

"It’s not like Hermione to fumble a spell," Maxie said, doubtful. Snape shot her a dark look.

"No," he said. "It’s not. But then, that's just the problem, isn't it? We're all so accustomed to her strength that we've overestimated it – myself most of all. I should never have left her alone."

"You were here," Maxie pointed out. "She sent you away."

"Yes, well, I shouldn't have let her, should I?" Dropping to his knees again, he took the white-faced girl on the sofa by her limp shoulders and gave her a shake. "Come on, Hermione," he muttered. "Wake up, will you?"

"Why not let her sleep?"

"Because we won't know what she remembers until she does – if she remembers anything at all, that is." Snape sank back on his heels and swiped a weary hand across his eyes. "Taking her recent state of mind into consideration, it's entirely possible that she miscalculated – or simply lost control of her own power – and wiped out her memory completely. And reversing a self-Obliviation is a hundred times harder than undoing the same charm performed by any other wand. Short of Avada Kedavra, it’s hard to think of a more drastic means of self-mutilation."

Maxie digested this, nodded, and sank weakly onto the piano bench. "Can it be reversed at all?"

Severus shrugged. "If she's still got part of her memory, we might convince her to reverse it herself," he said. "That's the safest way to do it. If, on the other hand, she doesn't even remember she's a witch – and that’s a distinct possibility – well, then, we have a problem."

"What about Albus?"

"Under ordinary circumstances, he'd be my first pick." He squeezed the cold hand dangling off the edge of the davenport, willing it to squeeze back. It didn't. "The Fidelius Charm complicates things, though. In order for him to perform the Reverso successfully, Sal and I would most likely have to break the Fidelius first. And you'll pardon me if I'm reluctant to do that – the moment we lower that barrier, she'll be in danger once again from those who tried to kill her before, and in no condition to defend herself, should we be unable to restore her memory."

Maxie shuddered. "That’s the worst case scenario, right?"

"More or less." He rolled his eyes. "Give me time, and I could probably come up with something more spectacularly horrific."

"Don’t. That’s quite bad enough." She frowned. "So what do we do?"

Severus studied the unconscious girl on the davenport for another moment, then sighed and blew out his breath.

No easy answers. The Story Of His Life.

"For the night, at least, I'll take her home with me," he said. "What happens after that depends on her state of mind when she wakes up."

Maxie looked troubled, but nodded. "Keep me posted."

Already stooping to settle the unconscious Hermione against his chest, he turned and gave the worried mural a brief, bleak smile. "Of course."

A moment later, they were gone.

**

She rose from dreamlessnesss into the sensation of flying, or at least of being elsewhere – warm air changing over to cool, a rangy shoulder beneath her cheek, the detergent smell of clean linen. Somewhere in the periphery of her vision, a lamp flicked on, staining the insides of her eyelids scarlet and gold. She turned her head away with a frown, and a moment later the light dimmed to a fainter, less intrusive glow.

"Hermione? Are you awake?"

Hermione? Who’s that? Uncertain, she didn't answer, and after a moment of expectant silence, the two voices that had been murmuring together started up again. One was cool and kind and worried; the other carried a lick of impatience at its edges. She was pretty sure that it belonged to the man who'd been carrying her.

"I don't know what to do," he was muttering. "Do we tell Albus, do we take her to Hogwarts, do we break the Fidelius? She should be awake by now; a Memory Charm isn't supposed to put you in a coma, for Merlin's sake. Perhaps Poppy should look at her. I'm not much of a mediwizard."

"Wait. Let her sleep if she wants to. She'll wake up soon enough."

"I blame myself."

"Don't."

Her throat was dry. Why was her throat so dry? What was the Fidelius? Who was the impatient-voiced man, and what did he blame himself for?

For a moment, she tried to remember – then gave up with a grimace; outside that lovely soap-bubble of blank white calm she was floating in was something dark and ugly that she instinctively shrank from. If the man who blamed himself was part of that, she didn't want to know.

"I think she's waking up. Get her some water."

Water! Yes, please. She opened her eyes, blinking in the dim light from the shaded lamp. A bearded man with grey eyes smiled at her.

"Ah, there you are." When he moved, she could see the pattern of the wallpaper through his forehead. "How are you feeling?"

She blinked again, to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. They weren't. "I can see right through you," she announced, and saw his smile grow fixed.

"Indeed. Well, goes with the territory, you know. That's what happens when you're a ghost."

"A ghost," she repeated, and studied him more carefully, a bit incredulous at her own detachment. "How interesting. You must be dead, then. How did you die?"

"That's not important right now." The ghost regarded her gravely. "Do you know who I am?" he inquired. She frowned.

"Your name, you mean? No."

"Ah." He looked away, but not before she saw disappointment cross his face. "I see. And you? Can you tell me your name?"

There were no names at all in the soap-bubble, least of all hers. Ordinarily, she imagined that this would bother her, but right now it didn't seem all that important. "I don't have one," she informed him cheerfully. "Shall we make one up for me?"

"No."

This, from the doorway – the impatient man had returned with her water. Hermione took it from him and sipped it, studying him over its rim. She couldn’t see through him; where his companion was transparent, he was impenetrable – black clothes, lank black hair, unreadable shadowed eyes. He looked tired and irritable and – from where she was lying – impossibly tall.

"I know you, though," she said, and grinned at him when his head swivelled sharply toward her. "You hum under your breath when you walk. And your shoulder smells of sandalwood."

She meant it as a compliment, but he didn't look pleased. "Indeed," he said sharply. "And my name?"

She could sense that the answer was important to him. She hated to disappoint, but try as she might to find it, there was no file folder in her head with his face on it.

Come to think of it, there weren’t any file folders at all. The first niggles of worry began to knock on the windows of her subconscious. She swallowed hard.

"I don't know," she said softly. He stared at her for a moment, his narrow, intelligent face tense with frustration, then turned abruptly and disappeared without another word into the next room. She bit her lip, hurt tears prickling behind her eyes.

"He's Severus," said the ghost quietly into the tense, weepy silence that followed the dark man's departure. "And I'm Sal."

"Severus. Sal." More dark fingers of memory, pushing at the edges of her bubble. She ignored them. "And who am I, then? Or don’t you know?"

He was quiet for a long minute before answering. When he looked up, his lined old face was pinched and sad.

"That's up to you," he said. "Who do you want to be?"

Yet another question she couldn't answer. Unable to look him in the eyes any longer, she placed her half-empty water glass carefully on the nightstand by the bed.

"I have a headache," she said, feeling that baffled prickly feeling intensify, and turned her face away. "I can't talk any more."

He didn’t argue with her.

**