Author's Note:Ah yes. The final chapter of this short little tale. As with the previous two chapters, thanks to the lovely adelarchersnape for beta-reading and brit-picking for me!!

(Please note: Posted same day as Chapter Two. You may need to go back a chapter!)

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Chapter 3: Coming Together

Severus was shocked: she was gone. She should not be gone. Hermione belonged with him. He gathered his strength, forcing through the pain to roll to his front and push himself to his hands and knees. Where she had knelt in his blood lay what looked like the shattered remains of a Time-Turner and Potter's silvery cloak. Stomach heaving as his head spun, he swallowed down the urge to vomit and picked up the fragile gold chain.

It was indeed a Time-Turner. Her blood soaked the shards, and he saw none of the sand that had filled the vial. His blood ran cold. This had caused it. Had brought her to him. This moment, this..rescue full of potion bottles—Blood Replenisher, Draught of Living Death and its antidote, Dittany, and more—had been the catalyst for his angel's presence in his life.

Severus crawled to the nearest piece of furniture and made it to his feet. He felt like he had run for miles, and still he had too far to go. A search of his pockets found his wand (hers had vanished with her, back along the course of his life) and he Summoned Potter's cloak and slung it around his shoulders.

It was slow going through the tunnel, and he stopped often to lean against the earthen wall for support. His neck burned, her work left unfinished before her disappearance, and he used his cravat and handkerchief as a makeshift bandage. It would likely scar, and he didn't truly mind.

Exiting the tunnel, he forgot about the damn tree and ended up knocked back, away from the trunk. Flat on his back, he tried to catch his breath. Hermione shimmered into existence beside him and he reached for her reflexively: he could nearly touch her, but the pain faded quickly and so did she.

Something told him he did not have much time, so he pulled the Invisibility Cloak around himself once more and made his way through the castle. He heard the cheering, saw the Dark Lord's corpse for himself. He saw the bodies lined along the hall—too many, far too many—but he was looking for Potter.

“I can't find her! She was...she was just here!” Harry's voice was panicked, and Severus hurried towards it, finding him and two of the Weasleys in an abandoned classroom.

“I know where she is,” Severus said without preamble, dropping the cloak.

Three wands were pointed at him, but lowered when his appearance registered. Potter seemed relieved and surprised to see him alive. “You do? Where?”

Severus grimaced. “It is...difficult to explain when I do not know the full circumstances.” He held up the chain. “She came to heal me, I assume, using this as her vehicle. It broke, and she disappeared.”

“Where'd she get that?” Ronald Weasley asked. His sister thumped his arm.

“That's not good, is it?” she asked.

“I assume not.”

“If it broke, she is no longer anchored in time,” Dumbledore said from the portrait behind him. Severus turned. Apparently the old man had wanted to see the victory. “She is lost.”

“She is anchored, actually,” Severus replied. “She has been frolicking along my timeline for as long as I can recall.”

“Ah. Then there is hope.”

“You've seen her?”

“Your whole life?”

“What's she doing?”

Severus scowled at the three of them. “Yes, yes, and she spends it healing me. Like some sort of demented echo.” He didn't mean that part, and tried to gentle his tone. It was not easy. “I did not know who she was for a very long time as she was little more than a person-shaped glow.”

Ginevra smiled at him. “So how do we get her back?”

Of course, she wasn't addressing him, but Albus. It rankled at Severus. “I don't know. You would need the right circumstances and to try to pull her back into this time before the Miss Granger of now departs. And even if you do succeed,” Dumbledore continued, “she may be different than when she left.”

Severus tilted his head, his mind working. He refused to think she would be different. She was strong, she was fierce, she was intelligent and everything to him now. “She was nearly tangible outside, when the Whomping Willow struck me,” he said. “Unfortunately the circumstances changed before...”

He turned, found a spot on the floor, and rolled up his sleeves. With the familiar spell he slit his arms open and laid back. Potter made a noise of alarm. Hermione appeared and the healing magic she came with bound his injuries. He grabbed a knee, the trio and portrait apparently not seeing her, feeling the firmness of her bone and leg but she faded.

With a curse, he sat up. His mouth tasted again of bitter potion.

“Potter,” he barked. The boy snapped to attention. Severus hoped the Horcrux in his skull was gone, but he could worry later. Right now, he needed to save his angel. “Do you still hate me?”

“Er...why?”

“The circumstances of which Dumbledore are speaking require me to be prone and in pain. That is what ties her echo to me. I cannot maintain my own injuries and hold her here. If you can manage an Unforgivable, that may lend us enough time.”

His green, green eyes were wide.

“You have to mean it,” Ginevra said to Harry. His chin lifted.

“I think I can.”

Severus lay back, his heart pounding with fear. If he failed, was she lost forever? And if he succeeded, would she still care for him?

“Crucio!”

The pain that ripped through him was not nearly as bad as the Dark Lord's curses had been, but it was still enough to make his nerves burn. Hermione was nearly instantly at his side, reaching for him. He grit his teeth and grasped her hands. She started to fade as the boy lost the spell, her eyes panicked.

“Crucio!” Potter managed again.

Severus gasped in pain and clasped her more tightly to him. He wrapped his arms around what probably looked like nothing. To his surprise, he felt her warmth around him, too.

“Crucio!” Ginevra's voice, keeping the spell going. Her tone was full of determination and Severus was reminded that she had been possessed by a Horcrux at one point. Unwilling or no, she had learned something from the experience, for that sort of hate was not easy to come by.

He bit his tongue and his legs spasmed, but he did not let go. Her hair tickled his nose, and she cried out. He could hear her, a good sign.

“Crucio!” Potter called waveringly.

His world was fire and pain, melting him down and reshaping him. Through it all, Severus clung to Hermione, unwilling to watch her fade. If she goes, take me, too. For I cannot stand to be alone. She was sobbing into his neck, fingers gripping his coat.

“Stop! Stop!” Ronald cried. “I see her! She's back!”

The pain ended, blessed relief. He released her and his arms flopped, useless, to his sides. He took in breath gratefully, aware that blood was once again trickling down his neck.

Hermione seemed uncaring of his injured state, for she flung her arms around him in gratitude and kissed his pale cheek. “Oh, thank you, thank you, oh I'm real again...”

She was pulled back by her friends, who hugged her. Severus, lying there like a discarded doll, felt the pang at losing her, his constant companion. No amount of pain would bring her to him now. He was hollow inside, clear to his soul. How could he go on?

“Ron,” Hermione said gently, twisting from his embrace.. “Let go. I, er, well.. I'm sorry but...”

The red-head's shoulders fell.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I don’t want to hurt you, but…”

“You’re different now?” Ron guessed.

“Yes.” She glanced over at where her professor lay alone with his pain. “I’ve spent a lifetime with him and I know it’s Professor Snape and he was our teacher and horrid and--a”

Ron shushed her. “It's okay.” To his credit, he gave her a smile and stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

Hermione smiled and took it, relieved not to have lost him. “Always.”

She hugged Ginny and then Harry. Quickly as she could, swallowing the pain and guilt down again she explained what she had done with her stolen time and handed Harry the vial of Wiggenweld. Tears spilled as she apologised for Tonks, for the people she had not been able to save, but they gave her strained smiled with assurances that they understood.

She very much doubted that they did.

When the tale was all told, the three of them left her alone with Snape and a nosy portrait.

The whole ordeal being over and her part done left her nearly drunk with relief before she turned to the man on the floor. She sat beside him on the flagstones and began casting spells.

“Stop it,” he said, feeling her magic repair him.

She shook her head. “Never,” she whispered. “I know you too well, Professor.”

He was quiet, her familiar magic washing over him. “Severus.”

Her smile was brilliant. “Severus.”

He inhaled, a long, slow breath. “I am too old.”

“Then I am older, for I have had my life and shared yours,” she told him tartly. “And I understand, I think,” she continued in a gentler tone, “for I made choices when I came back. I had to choose who to save. I have watched people die who I could not. I have cast spells with the intent to hurt, I have been hurt in return. I am not the same person I was when last I was your student.”

“No,” Severus whispered. He levered himself to a sitting position with her help. He cupped her cheek, and wondered that his voice was shaky with emotion. “You are my angel.”

She smiled. “And I always will be.”

And then he kissed her, as she had always wanted him to do.

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-The End-