Title: endless, numbered days
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Harry Potter
Time Line: Slight AU for Deathly Hollows
Summary: To have someone at the end makes the beginning worth it.
Pairing: SlightHermione Granger/Severus Snape
Warnings: Character death
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The title comes from the Iron & Wine album of the same name.
Author's Notes: If you read, please be courteous and leave a constructive review telling me what you liked and what could be improved upon. Thank you for reading!
endless, numbered days
She followed the trail of blood when no one else would. She followed the trail of blood when everyone else was busy crying or mourning or carrying the dead away. She followed the trail of blood when they said not to, and she followed the trail of blood across the lawn and into the woods.
She followed the trail of blood right to where it ended.
Lying on his back, eyes barely open and chest barely moving, Severus Snape was dying. Hermione Granger knelt next to him, and neither of them said a word as she placed the tip of her wand to the piercing on his neck gently. There were healing spells that she knew that could detect poison, and there were healing spells that she knew that could stem the bleeding. There were healing spells for just about everything wrong with a person.
There were no healing spells for this.
She pulled her wand away and set it on the ground beside her, eyes lowered, and he laughed, or at least tried to, but it came out as more of a gurgle.
They sat in silence for awhile.
"I was afraid of you, you know, when I was little." She looked at him, and he didn't look at her. "To tell you the truth, I still am."
"Would it please you to know that I was afraid of you, too?" His voice was nothing like she remembered; every word was a battle for him. "Your brilliance terrified me."
"Not now?" She thought about putting a hand on his arm, his chest, his face, but made no motion.
A hacking cough ripped through him, and he rolled on to his side to face her. One of his hands fell into her lap limply. "Not now."
"What changed?" She wrapped her fingers gingerly around his wrist. It was intimate, but not awkward. This was closer than they had ever been, closer than she ever thought they would be. "Why not now?"
"Someone has to be smart enough to pick up the pieces, now that I can't." Every time he spoke it grew softer and more strained. He closed his eyes.
"But you can. You can get better." They both knew that she was a terrible liar.
There was shouting somewhere behind her. His eyes opened again and he lifted his arm slowly, very slowly, to her face. "Do you know why I did what I did?"
"I… I don't know what you mean." His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her eyes.
"Tell Lily that I'm sorry." And now his hand fell back to her lap and didn't move again. She entwined her fingers with his.
Eventually, someone followed the trail of blood to find her. Eventually, someone followed the trail of blood and broke the silence she had been sitting in. Eventually, someone followed the trail of blood and convinced her to go back to the castle, to find her friends, to celebrate their victory.
Eventually, someone followed the trail of blood and brought his body out of the woods, but she didn't want to see him again.
There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days.