A/N
I watched the movie Constantine the other day.
...
Do you love me?
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in the middle of July, ten years after the victory of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger died.
He should have seen it coming. It was the only thing he could fathom as he stood alone in the morgue, looking down on her pale, lifeless form. He should have known. Severus Snape was not a man that Fortune spent much time on, and the brief flashes of happiness he had experienced in his life had always been brought short by devastating disaster.
His heart was shattering into a million tiny pieces, scattering like dust before his feet.
He should never have married her. Never given in to her insistence that he was capable of -worthy of- love.
He was not.
He had brought on her death, and though it had not been on purpose, his hands were tainted as red as the blood beneath her as she lay beneath the drunk-driven automobile. Why else would Death claim her but for her ill-fortuned connection to him? She, who was nothing but good and true and pure? It was the only way that it made sense.
And as clearly as he could see his own hand in her death, he could also see that he needed to set things right.
By any means available to him.
As he backed away from the metal table that was stood in the centre of the sterile concrete room, he brought out his wand to whisper an incantation of old. An incantation that would bring forth the only one that he knew of who could help him.
Upon the spell's completion, reality shifted, and the room grew hot as the air around him ripped, revealing a rupture into the abyss.
Satan stepped out.
Barefoot, leaving a trail of black oil and yellow sulphur in his wake, the Entity spread its arms wide in a show of mock surprise.
"Severus Snape."
He leered with eerily white teeth. "You dare call upon me at this late an hour? I have been waiting for you."
The gap between them was closed with otherworldly speed. The creature hissed in his ear.
"Why did you forsake me?"
"I was protected," said Severus, holding his ground. Barely. "But you stole away my saviour."
His eyes flicked to the table where Hermione's body lay, and the Devil laughed. It was a hollow sound. Like echoes in a sealed-off tomb.
"And now, you want her back?" The softness in that voice mocked him.
"Yes." Defiant. Determined.
"And what… will you give me in return…?"
"Anything." A quiet plea.
He who was evil laughed again. "Serve me then. Become my demon angel, and I shall not take her."
He tossed a blade onto the ground.
"Do it. Do it now."
And so Severus took the blade, sliced it deeply through his wrists, settling on the floor with his back against the wall when his vision became unfocused.
Another cackle, like the crackling of a fire.
"What is so amusing?"
Evil held out a hand towards the table. The body lay still and unmoving.
"You call yourself clever? Cunning?"
The shock was white-hot in his dying heart. He spent his last breath.
"You… promised…"
Their faces were close once more. A harsh hand took hold of his hair, bending his head backwards. "I promised not to take her. I shall not, because she was never mine to take."
He was dragged by his bleeding arm towards the chasm. "Now come. You are mine."
And so, they were both gone.
And they forgot about all things.
…
When they first met in the afterlife, it was at the gates between their worlds. She had a message for a departed soul, and he had brought it to hereafter, as was his wont.
She knew him not, but she could see his sins weighing him down, and longed to take them from him so that he would be free. But he was serving Satan, and his penitence had yet to be paid, and she was with the light on the other side.
Apparently, she thought, his love had been judged and found lacking.
His wings were as black as his shoulder-length hair. He was naked from the waist up. Where her body was smooth and youthful, his bore the signs of both hedonism and wear, jagged lines and scars scantly spread on his chest and belly. On both his wrists, the skin was blueish-black around the twisted, gruesome cuts through his flesh.
But that first time, as he came to deliver the newly dead soul, he cast his eyes upon her, and they shone with something that was wondrous. And she found him captivating.
He stayed longer than he should, his being withering and twitching before her sight as he was cast away in flames. She wondered who he was, and why someone from the Underworld would look like they almost recognised her.
Later, he returned. Not only to deliver a departed, but to take in the sight of her once more.
But their lots kept them apart. He could not stay within God's realm; he did not belong there, and the angels would frown upon him and call him names.
"Go down into the abyss," they would say. "Do not taint us with your lack of light. Azazel. Belial. Our house is not for you."
But there was light in him, and she was the one to see it. Like the fragile rays from the sun seeping through the clouds when the thunderstorm had passed.
Again and again, he would brave their scorn to look upon her face before he was torn away by the eternal flame. She awaited his arrival. Welcomed it. Cast down her eyes when he was gone.
One day, she approached him, the question on her mind seeming simple in the light that surrounded her.
"Do you love me?"
She looked into his eyes, seeing the spark within and rejoicing. He did not touch her, but his gaze was like a caress on her skin.
"There is such a light in you," he said on a sigh. "I want it for my own. Is this love?"
"Maybe… I do so fear your darkness, but I am raptured all the same."
"I do not have much else but that, but what little there is, it's yours." He took her hand. "Take it."
Again, he was cast down. But a part of him lingered in her heart.
"When will you let me go?" It was the first time he had spoken first.
"I am not holding you…"
He looked confused. "Is this not my punishment? To never reach you?"
Her lips parted. She ached.
But once again, he was ripped from her, leaving another piece behind.
She spoke of him to her Lord.
"Father. There is a soul that serves in the Below. One that seems different from the others. And it breaks my heart because I feel he does not belong there."
"Then save him, child," said the Entity. "Take him for your own."
She did not understand, and wept gruelling tears of anguish.
The next time he returned, he despaired.
"Why do you taunt me like this? I cannot let you go."
He wept.
"Then don't."
He smiled cruelly between the tears. "What do I have to offer someone like you?"
"You are loyal and brave," she said.
He shook his head, black hair brushing his shoulders in limp strands. "You are holy and pure. And I …am not."
"But I love you," she said, as though it finally settled his worth. And thus, she took another piece.
Time passed. His face grew weary and strained. His wings became tattered and scorched from the passing between worlds.
"Why do you come?" she asked him, tears glazing her eyes. "It tears you apart…"
"I cannot stop myself," he replied. "I long for you so."
She took his face in her hands. "My heart…"
The look of pleasure in his eyes was indiscernible from sorrow.
She claimed another bit of him.
But then, Lucifer was there.
He took a hold of his fallen angel, twisting his head around by the hair. She screamed.
"Long have you defied me," said the Beast. "We had a deal and yet you spend yourself where you are neither allowed nor wanted."
He jerked his hold, making the black-winged man fall to his knees.
"I grow weary of your lacking service. I think I might find myself another…"
The Devil cast the man away, and bright-red blood began to seep from the festering wounds on his arms. He slumped on the ground, head hanging limply to one side, his hands spread wide and his wrists slit open in eternal bloodshed.
"No! My love…"
She knelt by his side, shaking his shoulders. "Stay with me. Please. I need your love…"
He sighed; another final breath. "I do not have enough..."
"Then I shall love for the both of us."
She kissed his brow, claiming the last of him. A white light shone brightly from her core; enveloping both of them, strong enough to make Satan blink.
Then they were gone.
When they awoke, they had gone on to the next adventure.
Together.