A.N.~ This was written for the 2019 round of the SSHG Gift Fest over on LJ for the talented Cabepfir. I will give the prompt at the end as to not spoil the story. As ever, I had a wonderful village around me while writing; FawkseyLady helped with alpha'ing, and Q_Drew was my beta extraordinaire who quite literally hung on to my every typed word as I stumbled to the finish in the wee hours of the morning. Without her support, this would neither be finished nor half as good. This has been slightly expanded and edited, and any remaining errors are mine.

Some trigger warnings, dear readers. While this story is rated a T, it has mentions of suicidal ideation, along with a minor character death, mild violence and some swear-y language. I gladly welcome all comments and concrit.

A Good End

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you love, remember;
and there is pansies, that's for thoughts... There's fennel for you, and
columbines; there's rue for you, and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O, you must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all
when my father died. They say he made a good end"
- Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

Prologue

Icy pellets of sleet lashed the windows of the final terrace house on Spinner's End, serving as ample warning against the folly of venturing out in such cruel weather. The interior of the home was hardly more welcoming, a sepulchral air invading every cramped corner. No crackling fire lit the bare hearth, no kettle rumbled in the kitchen with the promise of hot tea. Indeed, it would almost be easy to mistake the house for an empty one, so still was the black-haired man sitting in the dark of the book-lined lounge.

From a leather-wrapped wingback chair, Severus Tobias Snape waited for confirmation of his downfall. It had come spectacularly swiftly this time; not three days before he had been, however improbably, ensconced in the warm embrace of a happy family. It had not been his family, true, but they were precious to him all the same. And now?

Now it is all over, and I will face the consequences of my actions, whatever they may be, he told himself dully. It was a good run. I will be thankful for that much, at least. In spite of everything, there had been some joy in living through it, and very few regrets.

In the nine years since the fall of the Dark Lord, Severus had painstakingly rebuilt his life into a semblance of boring, middle-aged normality. Leaving the gates and ghosts of Hogwarts behind following his recovery, he had eventually been appointed the Head of Potioneer of St Mungo's. Unlike his previous job, the position did not plague him with boatloads of bureaucratic bumf, granted him a pleasingly sufficient amount of time devoted to self-directed research, and featured a hefty salary along with a hand-selected cadre of minions at his beck and call who were neither evil wankers nor spotty students.

While his transition to civilian life had not been entirely smooth, it had proven easier than expected, especially when Severus discovered that the notion of maintaining a work/life balance wasn't entirely a fantastical crock of shit made up by leisure magazines or twinkly-eyed bosses. Copious amounts of therapy, a carefully reformulated variant of the draught of peace taken once daily, and not having two Machiavellian masters also assisted matters greatly. If he had not precisely moved on, he had at least found a different path. Life had been kind to him, and for a time, Severus was shockingly content. Not surprisingly, it had only taken the addition of a single Muggleborn Gryffindor witch to neatly implode his perpetually cursed life yet again.

As if summoned by his increasing morose thoughts, a car came to a screeching halt at the kerb. The slam of the door was like a gunshot, an opening volley to what he knew would be an incredibly difficult discussion. Snape got to his feet slowly, a muffled protest coming from his knees and back that spoke to the accumulated strife of his misbegotten forty-seven years.

Opening the door before she could knock, he was met with a blast of baltic breeze, liberally scented with feminine rage. The woman standing on his front stoop was well known to him, but for once that familiarity did not lend any comfort. Petite and with wrathful bourbon curls dancing in the damp winter air, she glared up at him silently, lips gone thin with displeasure.

Snape's gut twisted sharply at the sight; there had been a faint, lingering hope that his many lies and half-truths had not utterly destroyed everything, that life could continue as it had been. The woman's expression laid waste to that possibility in an instant. Wordlessly, he opened the door fully and stepped aside so that his guest could enter. She brushed past him roughly, a bright red woollen coat providing a macabre splash of colour amongst the grey and gloom of the afternoon. With a dramatic whirl of fabric and fury, she turned in the centre of the dim lounge to face him.

"How could you?" she hissed gutturally, hands resting militantly on her slim hips.

"There wasn't any other choice," he responded flatly, feeling sleet pelt his back in an added condemnation. Absently, he magicked the door shut, wondering if he should cast a protective shield between himself and the woman. No, he decided. If she lashes out, it'll be with a fist, not a curse, and it's not as if I don't deserve a smack or two for what I've done.

"Rubbish," the woman snapped, hand slicing through the air like a scythe. "That's a load of fucking rubbish, Snape! It's bad enough that you drugged us multiple times and performed god only knows how many dark spells, but to sit back and stay silent about it for years... you had to see that something wasn't right with him! And rather than come clean when you had a chance, you pretended to be helping us... you sat at our table, ate our food, celebrated sodding holidays with us, and like a coward, said nothing, did nothing!-"

Being accused of cowardice- of doing nothing!- was what finally sparked his own temper. With a snarl, he spat, "I may have lied, but I haven't been sitting back doing nothing. What do you think I've been working on this whole time? Why do you think that I acted in the first place? As soon as I saw how bad things were, I stepped in to fix it! And while I don't like the results any better than you do, my choice was the only one with any hope of a positive outcome."

"You call this a positive outcome?" she questioned, voice scathing. "My husband is lying in a coma, and the doctors have just told us that his brains are slowly turning to mush whilst we watch, and it's all because of what you did!"

Deliberately, Snape leaned forward, invading her space in a threatening manner that generations of Hogwarts students would have recognised. "Ah, so you'd rather be thinking yourself to be the childless Monica Wilkens, stuck in Australia with no family support while your husband fades away into nothing?"

"He wouldn't be losing his mind if you had just left well enough alone!" the woman shouted.

Severus strove to keep his mask of anger in place lest she see the reality of the matter, giving her a different truth to chew on instead. "If I had not had acted as I did, your daughter would not be alive today."

However foul the statement tasted, however gutting, it was the truth and the icy retort landed like a blow. The woman staggered back from Severus. Her eyes fluttered shut as she struggled to hold the threads of her composure together.

"No," she whispered, sounding lost. "No, I don't believe that. We all would have been fine. Still separated, but fine."

"The knowledge of what she had done to you was breaking her." A rough laugh, wholly devoid of humour, fell from his mouth. "If you trust me in only one thing, trust me in this. I know what it's like to be shattered into a thousand pieces by guilt and self-recrimination. There would have been no way of putting her back together again once she fell apart."

"She's strong. She would have-"

"No." His answer was implacable. Gentling his tone, Severus continued, "No. She's strong, but even the finest Damascus steel breaks in half given enough force. You weren't there. You never saw how bad it was when she failed to restore your memories the second time. If you don't believe me, ask Potter or Neville. We were all terrified that she'd... well, that the worst would happen." Letting out a slow sigh, he pushed back the horrifying memories of those fraught days from his mind. "I couldn't lose her like that, Jean. Not after... everything."

Stunned by the series of admissions, Jean Granger sunk down onto a tufted leather chair, eyes wide. "You love Hermione."

He glanced up from his folded hands, a soupçon of self-deprecating sarcasm flavouring the gesture. "Of course I do. Love is the only thing that's ever reliably motivated me." With a flippant shrug, he added, "Well, that and hate."

Jean pursed her lips again, the high colour leaving her cheeks as logic began to take over. "You love her as a friend," she said cautiously, the words caught somewhere between a statement and a question.

"No."

An emotion- not quite pity, but still a hair away from compassion- filled her brown eyes, the shade and shape so like her daughter's that it hurt to see that particular sentiment floating from them. Ahhh, he thought, so Hermione's mother recognises the impossibilities of a relationship between us as well...

The futility of it all- the situation in general, nevermind the unrequited feelings generated by his feckless heart- produced another flicker of anger. For a long moment, he contemplated lashing out and driving Jean away with a few carefully crafted barbs. He could do it quite easily, and it would serve to neatly sever his relationship with Hermione to boot.

Christ, but I am tired of burning bridges. I am so tired of being alone... I just can't do it one more time.

There was another, far more important reason to not lash out; he owed Jean Granger a debt of honour. Not for the reasons that she thought- it had nothing to do with the lies, or what he had done to restore her and her husband to this life- but because of what the entire Granger family had gifted him with over the last several years. There would be no pushing them away, not this time. Not without falling apart to pieces himself.

And I pay my debts. Always.

"No," he murmured at last. "There is nothing of the philia in what I feel for her."

She leaned back in the chair, gaze going remote as she took it all in. Abruptly, her regard returned to him, an eerily familiar expression crossed her face. Snape knew immediately that she had put together the exact pieces that he'd hoped she'd stay blind too.

"George's grandmother," Jean Granger suggested hesitantly after a long silence, "died of dementia, and an uncle, I think. Both on his father's side. Could it be something... genetic that's wrong, and not what..."

Her voice trailed off, the inherent kindness that she shared with her daughter rising to the occasion. It was a marvel to him that even now Jean was seeking to absolve both he and Hermione from their actions; really, the only consideration he could show in return was uttering the one truth that she was avoiding.

"And not have anything to do with the original memory charms that Hermione placed on you both?" he said. "It's possible. Maybe George's memory issues really are my fault; between the potions, legilimency, and compulsion spells, what I used was far darker than anything that Hermione dared to try. Then again, perhaps it was the effects of all that magic combined with an underlying genetic defect that triggered the disease. Four complex obliviations, even spaced out over a decade, can easily cause permanent damage to a brain."

"But you don't think so."

He shook his head. "No. Hermione was all of seventeen and forced into casting a series of enormously complex magical spells that she shouldn't have even known about, never mind attempted. It's a bloody miracle that you are both alive, frankly."

"Then why am I not a gibbering mess? Why I am not in a coma like George is?" Emotion thickened Jean's voice as she threw up her hands beseechingly.

"I don't know exactly. I have some ideas, but nothing that can be substantiated."

"Like what?" she demanded again.

"You're a squib, Jean," Severus told her. "You may not be able to cast any spells, but on an instinctive level, you can sense magic just as Hermione and I can. More than that, I think that your dormant magic helped form a buffer against any long term spell damage. Unfortunately for all of us, George is very much a Muggle and doesn't have that same protection, hence the differences in your conditions." The admission stung and he was aware that he was only offering a half-truth once more, but there were other secrets that he was still protecting.

Brushing his theory aside like a midge, Jean persisted. "Can the damage be fixed? Can we save him?"

"I don't know."

"Severus..." Tears began to roll down Jean's face, and that raw show of emotion, more than anything, was like a knife to his gut.

Severus knelt at her feet, seeking to impart what comfort he could. "Know that if I could change places with your husband, I would gladly do so in a heartbeat." He reached out and gently touched her shaking fingers. "I'm sorry for what has happened, and for as long as you will allow it, I will continue to seek out a cure."

She gave his hand a slight squeeze in a pacifying gesture to lessen the blow of what she said next, "Hermione is... that is to say..."

"She will object strongly to my presence in any form, and is utterly furious with me?" he put forth dryly. "Yes, I do know that. My continued offer of help is not contingent upon understanding or forgiveness from anyone."

"Would you do it again?"

"Yes."

Ever the mother, Jean asked, "Why didn't you come clean about what you did once we were safely back in England?"

"She was deeply fragile, for one thing... but it's far more than that. After we failed on the second attempt to restore your memories, we returned here in shambles. She was completely despondent. I waited six months to see if she would change her mind about making a third try. She didn't, and by then things had gotten bad enough that her magic was faltering," he explained flatly. "I fixed what I could, but something had clearly gone wrong with George... what do you think it will do to Hermione to know that she permanently damaged her father's mind?"

"You've been protecting her all this time," Jean said, and this time he could clearly hear the pity in her voice.

"Don't!" he exclaimed, dropping her hand and erupting from the floor like bludger from a box. "Don't you dare make me out to be some sort of knight errant. I'm the whole reason that she felt pressured into obliviating you in the first place!"

She eyed him for a long, silent moment. "Explain, please."

"By Hermione's fifth year, there were credible plans being made within the ranks of the Death Eaters to kill the lot of you during the summer holidays. I informed Albus Dumbledore about the threats and assumed that Hermione was close enough to Potter that the old man would put protections in place. I also warned Hermione, albeit obliquely. When you and George disappeared, it was assumed by all that Dumbledore had moved you into a safe house. But the cold-hearted bastard hadn't done a fucking thing! If I had only told Minerva, or pressed Dumbledore on his plans, she never would have been forced to protect you herself. And George wouldn't be slowly losing his mind now."

Snape averted his gaze, not wanting to see the betrayal in Jean Granger's brown eyes.

"Severus, look at me," she commanded. When he didn't immediately comply, Jean rose from the chair and placed cold fingers on his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. "What would have happened if Hermione had not moved us to Australia when she did?"

"Two weeks later, Death Eaters went to your house in Brixton."

"And they weren't exactly coming around for tea, were they?"

"No."

"And if they had captured us, would you have been able to break cover and keep us from getting killed?"

The faces of the many people he'd not been able to save flowed up from the dark recesses of his memory then, and it was a struggle to take a breath in as he heard the whispers and screams of all those final, desperate words. "No. I would not have done so. In the best-case scenario, I would have only had to watch you die; more realistically, I would have been called upon to slowly torture you all to death, extracting as much information from Hermione about Potter and Order as possible during the process."

Jean bowed her head, hand falling to his chest for a moment before dropping away. "I don't fault your protection of Hermione then, Severus, nor now." Tone firming, she looked up again. "It was George and I who failed her, not you. You are right that she never should have been forced to protect us, but she's always been frighteningly competent, even in nappies. It was so easy enough to forget that she was still a child. We didn't ask the questions we ought, or press when we should have done. Most parents- or at least good ones- would have made a stink when their daughter was almost killed by a troll as a firstie, or had spent weeks being petrified. We didn't... and as a result, had no idea how bad things had gotten. If we had known... if we had pushed Hermione harder when it was clear we weren't hearing the full story... things would have been different."

"Perhaps," Severus said, weariness and loss pressing him down. "Or perhaps not. What's done is done."

Jean appeared just as exhausted as he felt. "Indeed."

Thinking of Hermione, recalling the naked rage and hurt in her expression the last time that they had spoken, Severus made up his mind about the best way to proceed. "Let her continue to think that George's condition is my fault."

"What?" Jerking back with surprise, Jean stared at him. "She'll need you, Severus, and I can't let you take the blame for something that isn't your fault! You said it yourself that there was no way to be sure-"

"No," he interrupted with finality. "She'll need you just as much as you'll need her in the coming weeks. More importantly, George needs the both of you. Better her furious with me and fighting than the unthinkable. Three years ago, I broke all notions of consent and trust to restore your memories. I did it because the alternative offered no chance of a future for anyone. It's a decision that I stand by, no matter the difficulties to come." He attempted to smile, aware that it was little more than a toothy grimace. "At least you won't be alone in this."

Jean was silent a long time before meeting his gaze once more. "Have you told me the entire story, Severus?"

"No."

"Then do so now."