Disclaimer: I only wish I invented Harry Potter….

Look at Me

by Majestic Waters

~ Prologue ~

"Look at me…."

While the surrounding ruins of the Shrieking Shack were growing more shadowy and indistinct by the second, the glowing emerald of Harry Potter's eyes only grew more intensely brilliant. He was being blinded and absorbed all at once by a dazzling sea of green light, supplied by the wells that were the boy's, Lily's, eyes. The blistering fire that had ripped through his body upon the assault of his neck by The Dark Lord's wickedly venomous pet was receding now, as was the nauseating feeling of warmth and wet that came from lying in a pool of his own blood; a curious sense of weightlessness filled his broken body as he sank further into the fathomless radiance. If this is what it feels like to die, thought Severus Snape, I should have abandoned life long ago. As he closed his eyes in the real world, for what he imagined must be the last time, and opened them in the exquisite dream of the next great adventure, he caught a tantalizing view of the world beyond; the faces of Lily and his mother—looking happier and healthier than he had ever seen her in life—swam before him… and God. The peace… the joy of this place! For the first time since before he could remember, Severus felt incredibly… loved.

But it was not to be. Suddenly, he felt a great shock shoot through his entire body, as if he had been struck by lightening; he stumbled in flight. At the same time, he felt the burdensome obligations of life tugging at his heart-strings, telling him to return to his corporeal form. He attempted to resist the sensation of being slowly dragged downward, as if by an anchor, to no avail, destroying the freedom of weightlessness and the beauty of death. The insistent tugging became an almighty pull; Severus felt the impact of slamming back into his body, and human once more, he found himself retching upon the rotten wood floor of the derelict cabin.

"Thank God!" cried a choked female voice, the girl hovering somewhere beyond the periphery of his vision. "No!" he rasped painfully, the one word garbled because of his damaged and mangled throat; hot tears of pain, loss and resentment spilled from his eyes to mix with the vomit and blood.

"I thought you were dead… Oh, I thought you were dead!" she moaned, kneeling beside him, to aid in lifting him out of the noxious puddle on the floor. Before she could move him an inch, he was vomiting again, the anti-venin she had forced down his throat doing its painful job of purging him of any lingering toxins. He knew it might be weeks before the poison could be completely removed, longer still for his organs to recover and for the puncture wound on his neck to heal. I pray I never recover! he thought miserably, angrily, as the foolish girl held him aloft in a half-sitting position, so that he would not choke on his own putrid spittle. It was my time to die…. He was certain of it. If this girl—this imbecile!—had not snatched him from the brink of death…. His chest was sore, the hairs on it singed where she had applied her wand to perform the defibrillation spell that had literally shocked him back to life; his neck was bandaged with a scrap of cloth that seemed to have been hastily ripped from her shirt. With a bit of difficulty, she managed to flip him completely over, so that Severus might finally catch a glimpse of his 'savior.'

Of course, it was Hermione Granger. She looked dirty, beaten and bedraggled, as if she had been through a war-- which, Severus supposed, she had been-- and a steady stream of tears was making its course down her cheeks. "Don't worry, Professor," she hiccoughed. "The Healers from St. Mungo's will be here soon…." If possible, the rage he was feeling, the self-loathing and the contempt he felt for his ministering angel increased ten-fold. He wanted to rail at her, to scream that he wanted to die, curse her! But he was too weakened by the poison and the blood-loss; the fresh wound at his throat made it too agonizing to talk. He was fighting sleep, and losing. As he steadily drifted into unconsciousness, all he could do was glare bitterly at the girl, impotent rage ravaging his insides almost as badly as the poison had done, as she cradled his head in her lap, whispering, "Look at me, Professor. I'm here… I'll never leave you… I'm here…."

That night, he dreamed of brown eyes.