Disclaimer: Not mine, all JKR's




The man was fading before her very eyes.

“What happened?” he asked with no voice at all.

Hermione gulped, trying hard not to cry. “Sir… you were summoned away from Hogwarts…. the battle… to Voldemort.” She felt her attention lapse as sobs tried to find their painful way out of her chest.

She made another strained effort to concentrate. The spell was difficult enough with a wand without one it was a constant battle to keep her emotions out of the way and stay focused on the magic surrounding him. She needed the shield to remain steady for him, or he might slip into unconsciousness from which she was sure she would not be able to bring him back even with a wand. And she needed him to focus too, so she desperately continued, “He sought to master the Elder Wand… There was the snake in a sphere…”

The sobs made their way up to her throat, which made speaking painfully difficult. She grimaced to restrain them and resumed, “Voldemort released the snake upon you… Sir, you were bitten… you were bleeding.”

She dared not to move, not even to wipe away the tears that threatened to fall upon his face for fear of losing the precarious magical balance. “Harry and I… we saw… we did nothing.” The tears were falling freely now, she just could not help the violent sobs, and she sensed the magic flaring in response.

“We did nothing to stop him! Sir, please… forgive me,” she stammered, helplessly trying to regain control of her composure and her magic.

Why was he just staring at her, not ranting at her cowardice, which had cost him so dearly?

“I put you into stasis. There was no other way to stop you from bleeding. Sir, I can’t heal you, but I’ll help you! I’ll keep up the spell for as long as it takes for someone to find us. We’ll just need to wait for a little while. It won’t be long.”

Control gave way to emotions too complex for her to handle. Frustration, self-loathing and overwhelming guilt made her babble utterly senseless words. Professor Snape, the way she had known him, would have scorned her mercilessly for her idiocy, but he did not. His dark eyes simply stared up at her. And that was what made her shiver to the bone with fear. She knew, she mustn’t, her magic was too weak to sustain him safely beneath the shield.

With his head softly bedded in her lap, he felt the shivers too. And they brought him back from wherever he had been. His eyes focused on the pale oval of her face. My, but the girl looks miserable, he thought and was slightly curious. “Where is Potter?” he inquired, his voice barely audible.

Hermione made a terrible effort to regain at least a shred of control upon her composure and the weakening barrier around him. “He went back to Hogwarts. He was given an hour to… to meet Voldemort.”

Severus was mildly surprised that he could not even shake his head in bewilderment. Briefly, he closed his eyes to gather his last reserves. “Then why are you here?” The girl looked confused, and he wondered what he had missed in this strange state between dozing and waking.

It dawned on Hermione that Professor Snape had not been listening to her stammered explanations. At first relieved, she understood that she had yet to tell him again. And knowing that he was in no state to grasp more than a few sentences, she chose her next words carefully. “Sir, you have suffered from dire loss of blood. I put you into stasis, and I’m still upholding the spell.”

A strange sensation of ease washed over him along with the understanding of why he was lying here, half-conscious and oddly numbed. He remembered it now. Voldemort… the wand… the snake… and the boy, Lily’s boy. He exhaled a long drawn breath, calm and relief settling in its wake. He had done it; he had gone all the way as Lily would have wanted him and Dumbledore bid him to. There was nothing left for him to do; now it was all up to Lily’s son. Severus did not care, too new, too sweet was this sense of freedom.

So this is dying. He thought slightly intrigued, and he remembered the girl, too. Now that he no longer had to wonder why it was that he could not seem to wake to full consciousness, he took his time to closely explore what she had done. He could feel it when he concentrated on it. The magic that enveloped him and pulsed through him, ensuring his breathing and the very beating of his heart. And he could even sense the difference. It was no honed and carefully tended magic, finely measured through a wand. This was magic in its purest and most volatile form.

Merlin, but the girl is powerful, Severus thought, faintly awed. From the angle he had when he looked up at her, he was fairly certain that his head rested in her lap. And that touched him deeply. Here she was, that slip of a girl, kneeling in the dirt and blood with a crucial battle raging that might destroy everyone she cared for, and yet with the sheer force of her brilliant mind she had thrown herself in harm’s way to keep him from dying. Severus even understood why. Gryffindor to boot! He was aware that he should feel revolted at the notion of someone – her of all people! – having pity on him. But watching those tearful brown eyes and knowing he rested safely in her arms was nothing other than pure bliss. With the task of his life solved, the girl making sure his passing was a gentle one, and that sweet peace of darkness beckoning, who was he to resist?

“Let me go.”

Hermione flinched and her first impulse was to shake her head violently. How could he ask that of her?

There was no way she would let go of him like that! Didn’t he know that she was just saving the very life he wanted to abandon? “But Sir…”, she started and stopped short.

His lips had curved into a tiny smile. She had rarely seen him smile before. His smiles had always been meant to taunt or to insult; his lifelong habit of sneering ran just too deep to show such a trivial gesture as a genuine smile. But now he smiled at her, openly and warmly and with something very close to compassion. It shook her to the core. In all her experience of him, he had always been the cold loathsome teacher or the dark menacing wizard, Death Eater to Voldemort, Order member to Dumbledore.

He had no more strength left to guard his face, and she saw for the first time the man beneath. A man more inclined towards bitterness and anger – she supposed a lifelong treading the edge between light and darkness would do that – but a man no less. Here with his head in her lap – all pallid white face and shining black eyes – Hermione understood the essence of him. His cruelty, his scorn were just his way to keep the balance – his desperate measure to hold the world at bay, or else it might throw him off-balance to one side or the other.

She was supposed to be horrified at his request, but the staggering insight left her with nothing but a deep sense of sadness. He had never had much to give, apart from his steadfast loyalty to Dumbledore and his secluded life. And he had given both in service of Dumbledore, Voldemort, Harry – a loyalty that would always be doubted due to the Dark Mark, and a life that would never be mourned due to its solitude.

Her vision blurred as she realised that hers would be the last face he would ever lay eyes upon, her voice the last sound he would ever hear. His life had always been claimed by duty, by obligations and in the end by force. Who was she to deny him his last request to finally leave it all behind?

Hermione carefully schooled her features into a serene expression. He deserved so much more than a miserable smile but as his eyes lit up in response, she saw that it was already more than he had asked for. And slowly she bent her head to his wish, placing a soft kiss on his forehead before she whispered, “Sir, you are going to die.”

His eyes, beautiful dark eyes sparkled as he was breathing, “Yes, and what a way to go.”

Still reluctant she eased away a fine strand of black hair, making her final gift into a gesture of homage and affection as she caressed his face, cherishing the way his smooth skin felt. Stilling the need to keep him if only for a little while longer, she withdrew her lingering touch and gave him a rueful smile. “Good bye, Severus.”

And then she let him have his way as she slowly, gently released the magic around him.

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Author's Note: Thank you so very much, Dreamy_Dragon, for being my beta and for making my first attempt at posting a story so wonderfully easy!