Ashwinder :: To bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses

Author's Note: Warnings: self-harm, canon character death. I do apologise, as well.... this is a very short fic, at a mere three chapters, and they are not terribly long. Once again, thanks to the lovely adelarchersnape for beta-reading and brit-picking for me.

Chapter 2: Severus's Life

The angel by his side was one of the few things he could remember from his early childhood. He was forever getting injured: scraped and bruised and burned and whatnot as he played in his mother's hidden potion room, and he never recalled seeing her before.

He had taken it upon himself to climb out of his narrow bedroom window and up to the roof: Mummy was in pain again, hurting so badly, and he wanted to make a wish for her to be better. Wishing worked best on the stars, and if he wanted to be heard, he had reasoned with the logic of a five-year-old child, then he had best be close as he could.

Severus had finished his wish without incident, but on the way back down he had slipped. The house wasn't terribly tall, but the fall was still painful. Teeth sank into his lip as he bit back tears. Da would be crosser if he cried. Afraid to move, Severus didn't notice the soft golden glow until a hand extended itself over him. He could feel the bones in his shattered leg knitting back together, the pain going away. The person-shaped glow brushed his hair off his forehead, and he couldn't make out any details. Still, he felt better, and as the angel—for what else could it have been, no star had fallen to earth—disappeared, he found himself able to move and clamber up the drain-pipe to his tiny room.

In the morning, his mother didn't believe him, calling it a dream as she picked up after her husband's drinking. And his wish did not come true, for she still bore the bruises he had wished to be gone.

Wishes came to naught, and he stopped climbing to the roof.

Over the years, Severus saw his indistinct angel several times. He got up his father's nose often, trying to shield Mum from his fists with his own body. Several times he ended up flat on his back, nose broken, ribs creaking, with blood and bruises.

And yet, each time, the angel appeared. Each time, he was left with a bitter taste in his mouth and his wounds mostly healed. No one seemed to see it but him, even when his father towered over him as he writhed in pain, shouting down at him.

Severus had often tried to grasp that ethereal hand, but his fingers passed through it.

Some nights, as the heartache of his life got to him, with his fervent wish for more—more freedom, more joy than the handful of stolen minutes with Lily, more money, more safety—the angel would appear, a golden shimmer in the air beside his bed. It would reach for him, seeming to almost soothe him, and sometimes now and then he thought he saw eyes or a mouth and once some hair. After his unlikely companion had gone, he would wonder on it. Were there angels in the wizarding world? Aside from old school books awaiting him, they no longer had any tomes for him to study. He only had the stories that Mum told, hushed in secret after his father had fallen asleep in his armchair. The potions lab that he had once played and read in was long-destroyed.

It was at Hogwarts after a nasty hit with a Beater's bat—it had come from seemingly nowhere, though he had heard familiar barking laughter—that he finally realised that the bitterness left in his mouth after the angel left was that of Blood Replenisher or other potions. He studied obsessively until he could identify each one.

The bitterness had begun to spread, however. The angel—for lack of a better term, though he no longer believed in such a benign being—helped him heal, yes, but the damn thing never intervened. It never saved him. It never actually aided him, and he began to resent it.

“Go away,” he told it dully one night after a run-in with the Marauders. His back ached from the hex Pettigrew had thrown. The golden figure offered him a kind smile, and took his bodily pain away. It seemed sad to go, but he did not care if it stayed or never came back.

It could not, after all, heal the pain festering in his heart.

The angel did not come to him often now, for he had figured the pattern. When he lay prone with his injuries, it would come. Sometimes he saw it crying, sometimes it smiled. Sometimes its hand tried to offer him comfort he did not want.

It had come to him the night that Black had tried to get him killed, placing itself between him and the werewolf as he lay paralyzed with fear. Potter hadn't seen it as he dragged him backwards through the tunnel.

That night, he had felt that he deserved his little protector.

But now, tonight... he had lost his only friend today. And it was all his fault. There was absolutely nothing the angel could do for him. Still, as he stayed resolutely still with his eyes shut tight in his four-poster as the other boys in his dorm slumbered, he could feel a sort of warmth by his side. It stayed nearly the whole night while he pretended to sleep and pain ate away at him. He didn't deserve comfort.

In the morning, with his unlikely invisible companion gone, he decided to listen to what Malfoy had to say. No one else was offering him a paid apprenticeship straight out of school, were they? No one else was offering him prestige and a place to belong. Might as well see what it was about.

The angel was a woman the night that Lily died, Severus noticed. Her outline was faint, and he wondered who she had pissed off to be stuck protecting his sorry life. Was it perhaps penance for some sin? If so, who would he be forced into servitude for?

Severus almost wanted to find out.

He lay on his bathroom floor now, the angel flitting worriedly about him. He had slashed his wrists wide and didn't really care any more if she saved him or not. Everything was his fault. On one hand, he knew that Albus was right and he had to protect Lily's son. It was his fault, anyway. He owed her ghost—and Potter's—that much.

The angel staunched his wounds, took away the physical pain, but his heart felt emptier than ever. Her hand cupped his cheek, and sometimes now he thought he could feel her skin, as if she was somehow becoming real.

“I don't care,” he told her. His words were slurred, and he nudged the broken Firewhiskey bottle with his boot. “I don't want to feel anymore.”

Hot wetness fell on his face.

She was crying. Crying over him.

“Why do you care?”

As always, there was no answer. Only healing.

He had less need for his angel—for she was his, unequivocally his—these days. No one, not Lily, not Albus, knew him like she did. He wished she was real, that he could pull her from that glow or join her. Solitude was his burden, guilt the yoke it dangled upon. But he was not injured often. He had become faster at stopping explosions, going so far as to skim the very surface of his classes' thoughts to see who was and was not paying attention.

And if Severus, the dreaded Professor Snape, was completely honest with himself, he missed her.

Missed that someone cared enough to come to his side when he was hurt or ill. Missed that comfortable presence of hers. Albus did not care, did not trust him despite his words. Severus was keenly aware that to everyone he was a bully (and he was, but did not know any other way to be) and greasy and unwanted and disliked.

But not to his angel. She had wept over him.

It became an addiction, her presence. A terrible need to be loved, to be cared for. For someone who knew him and all he had gone through.

That craving was what started it. On nights when the world grew too much to bear, he found himself rolling up his sleeves. The pain was always the same, and he found he did not quite yet want to die, as he had work to do, but as he lay back on his plush bed—a luxury he had never had before teaching and sometimes did not think he deserved—and bled, his angel would come.

The first time he had done this, after Lily's death, he had frightened the angel, for it had wept again and healed him furiously. Now...now it healed him slowly, gently. Often he fancied it spoke in a voice he could not hear. She took her time by his side, eking out every moment she could. He saw eyes now, kind eyes. She understood what he needed. Why he was doing it.

Severus held off as long as he could, but he always found himself lying in his blood while she cared for him. He would stare at her, memorise the features he could just make out now. He would talk to her about what he wanted. About what he had been doing while she had been away. About Potter coming to Hogwarts and how the boy had formed a horrid little trio. She laughed at that, at his colorful description of Potter's friends.

It was not until the night of the Dark Lord's return and he lay writhing under the Cruciatus as payment for his delay and possible betrayal that he recognised his blurry angel's features as that of Hermione Granger.

“It's you,” he said thickly to her one night that summer after returning from the Dark Lord's side. “Potter's friend.”

He was too tired to sneer the statement. She tilted her head and nodded. Her mouth shaped words, but no sound came. Severus waved a hand to make her stop trying. He knew what Granger's voice sounded like. He just couldn't fathom what had made this happen. He worked his jaw as the healing that accompanied her arrival repaired his bitten tongue, soothed the nerves shredded from pain.

Part of him wanted to take what felt like a betrayal out on the girl in his class, but the other part of him... She knew him, this Granger. Knew his life and his choices and his follies. He did not want to give her up. He could not bear to be alone.

“Do you remember me every time you come?” A nod. “Am I the only one you come to?” Another nod. “Why? When?”

More silence, and he relaxed into his bed at last, his hurts mended. “I don't want this.”

A shrug. She was fading and looking sorry to go.

How old was she when she ended up tied to him, he wondered. And did she truly care for him, even just a little?

Severus called to her shortly after the start of term. She came without sound, as always, and began healing the gashes in his wrists. “Why me, Granger?”

He tried another question: “Are you going to die?”

She shrugged. Interesting. “When did this happen?”

Two fingers. “Two years?”

A nod. He lay in silence and she took her time healing. He never had to actually drink the potion she administered him, but the effect was the same. As she started to fade, he couldn't stop the words from escaping his battered heart: “Do you truly care if I live or die?”

An emphatic nod, and she was gone.

Severus didn't know what to think. His angel—for she always would have that title to him—was a constant companion these nights. He knew his temper was shorter, his pallor worse, but he needed her. Needed her comfort. What Albus had asked of him was foul, was gnawing away at his very soul.

Granger was understanding, but clearer than ever. She was hardly older than the girl in his classroom, but thinner and somehow more haggard. He wanted to ask if they won the war that was brewing, but very much didn't want the answer. If the Light lost, he would find a way to end it without her interference.

He spent far too much time dwelling on his student, and found to his surprise that he cared. She was pretty, he supposed, but that had never mattered much to him. No, she was brilliant. Fierce and loyal and everything he was not. Severus could not lie to himself, but felt dirty, sick, about the thoughts he had had about her.

Some nights his injuries were not merely for companionship, but to try to cleanse himself. He should not be falling in love with his student, no matter the strange circumstances under which it had come about.

Oh, he still spoke to her, his voice soft through the pleasant burn of the cuts, unable not to. He cared for her too much. He asked her questions, yes-or-no, in an effort to know to her better. And all that he learned of her only made him want more.

She still smiled at him kindly, took the time to touch his face, once tracing his nose. Sometimes he pretended that she stared at his mouth and thought about him kissing her.

But each time he asked, “Do you care if I live or die?”

And she always nodded.

The year he was Headmaster was the worst. The guilt was pain enough to call her, and sometimes he still found himself slicing his arms open to make the pain inside go away. He could not do this. He was not strong enough. He could not protect the school or the students. He had no idea where Potter was, if he was safe.

And he had no idea if she was safe.

Hermione, his own personal angel, looked more troubled than ever at his appearance. She lingered each time as long as she could, appearing so clearly now. Her Muggle clothes were torn and dirty, blood running from her knee and tear tracks in the dust of her face. She looked like she had faced battle, yet reassured him she had not died. He took little comfort in it.

Once in a while as she worked on him he thought he felt the brush of her warm skin, but when he tried to lay his hand on hers it passed through.

She still tried to answer his questions, let him speak to her. Was it his imagination still, or did she look like she wanted to hold him? Often now, he found himself staring at her mouth and thought about kissing her.

He had the dreadful feeling that he was going to die unloved and unwanted and without having kissed her. At least he had kissed Lily once, on the hand but it had been enough. He had never had that with Hermione.

“Granger,” he said one spring night, watching the laceration on his arm knit itself shut without a trace. She turned to him, the golden glow fainter than ever. “Do you care if I live or die?”

She nodded again.

He hesitated, his heart torn. He had to know... “Do you care about me?”

Her hand cupped his face and her smile was so sad he wanted to break. She nodded and where her lips should have been brushed his forehead.

“Miss Granger—Hermione—I,” but she was gone.

“Rennervate.” It was her voice and he gasped, the pain running through him. He had never heard her before. Severus's eyes found her face. She was not glowing: was she truly here? Had whatever it was that sent her to him ended?

His words were garbled, but he had to speak to her. “There you are.”

“Yes, I'm here.” She offered him a kind smile and fell to her knees beside him with a crunch of glass.

This time was different: she was real , pouring potions into him, placing the bezoar in his mouth for him to swallow, and casting healing spells to repair his ruined throat. Her hands, usually so steady, trembled in relief as the skin began to knit together and the bleeding stopped. Then she paused and his eyes followed her dismayed gaze: her hands were transparent with a soft glow to them. They looked down at her body: all of her was transparent, and the remnants of the Time-Turner lay crushed under her knee, her blood and his mingling.

“Oh no,” she said, very faintly.

And then she was gone, and he was alone.