SUMMARY: Soul marks accepted, Hermione is faced with a decision after the final battle when things don't go as expected. Not only has Severus perished, but Harry has, too. She flees to the one place she knows she'll be safe: Severus' home. From there she has to decide what to do. And how to do it.
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
DATE STARTED: June 2021
STATUS: Complete
WORD COUNT: 99,400 +/-
FEEDBACK: Please, I can't write better without it.

NOTES: This is a "what if/divergent" piece based on my A Solitary Man. It diverges from it at Chapter Twenty-Four, with the completion of the war. In that fic, at one point Severus tells Hermione if they fail to defeat Voldemort, she is to take the time turner he created back to the past, find the horcruxes, and destroy them. He also tells her what to say to him so he'll believe that she's someone he would waste his time on getting to know.

Please bear in mind I was not intending on writing this piece when I initially wrote A Solitary Man. As that is the case, please note if I mention something being talked about or done in this story that was not said or done in A Solitary Man it doesn't mean it didn't happen. I covered a lot of years. It just means I didn't write about it. If I'd known I was going to write this maybe I could have foreshadowed a bit better, but I just couldn't write every conversation or event between them.