Disclaimer: I love you J. K. Rowling! Don't sue me or steal my underwear! I haven't stolen your characters, merely borrowed them for an undeterminable amount of time.
Harry was lying in an infirmary bed when he had woken up and he couldn't precisely figure out how he had gotten there. The sterile, but strangely homey, whiteness of the infirmary confirmed that he was in Madame Pomfrey's domain. Harry tired to lift himself from the bed, but his limbs didn't seem to possess the strength to sit up, much less get out of the damn bed.
"I see you're awake."
Harry jumped in surprise, the deep hollow voice shot unnervingly through the empty infirmary. His eyes narrowed when they fell upon the figure that the voice belonged to.
"Snape," Harry hissed.
"Yes. Astute as always, it seems that three weeks in a coma hasn't deadened your wit, Potter."
"What are you doing here?"
Snape walked through the room; his usual menacing glide was gone. His strait aristocratic posture had an impossibly heavy weight dragging it down. He looked… he just didn't look like Snape.
"I was bringing you a potion Potter."
"Why am I here, what happened?"
Snape looked up, the surprise evident on his face. "Don't you remember?"
The buzz in Harry's head was now turning into a ringing. "No, I don't remember," he snarled. "The last thing I can remember was having dinner with Hermione at the Three Broomsticks. Was there an accident? Oh God, is Hermione ok?"
Snape blanched, but immediately his face fell back into its usual stoic composition, "I will get Madame Pomfrey. Sit still."
Several moments later Snape stepped back in followed by a very anxious mediwitch.
"Oh! Harry you're awake! Severus, be a dear and fetch Minerva please? Thank you! Harry now please, lay down still, I need to examine you."
Harry struggled against Madame Pomfrey's grip. "Where's Hermione? Is she ok? What's going on?"
Her eyes widened in surprise. "Harry, calm down. What's the last thing you remember?"
" I already told Snape. Hermione and I were having dinner at the Three Broomsticks celebrating the end of her apprenticeship with Snape when I was just suddenly here!"
"Then you don't remember The Last Battle?" The witch ventured slowly.
"The last battle? What are you talking about?" Harry became even more impatient and struggled to remove himself from the vice-like grip of the mediwitch and her equally infernal bed sheets. During his struggle the new headmistress and Snape ventured back in the room.
"Harry! You're awake! Is there anything wrong? Poppy?" The Headmistress rushed forward to greet Harry.
"He can't remember the last three months, Minerva. He doesn't remember The Final Battle."
"Oh Harry," Professor McGonagall spoke "You defeated Lord Voldemort. The Final Battle, it happened three weeks ago. Dear, you were injured badly and have been asleep ever since. I'm so glad you're with us again."
"I defeated Voldemort?"
"Yes!"
Harry felt a wave of warmth wash over him. Every sickening and terrifying moment that had tortured him because of that bastard was over. It was over. The gruesome battle to which he dreamt nightmare of for the last several years of his life was over and he didn't even remember any of it. He reached up to touch his scar, his hands shaking on his forehead.
Nothing. Just smooth skin.
"It's gone, dear. It disappeared after you destroyed the rest of Voldemort's soul. It's over. All of it. The rest of the Deatheaters have been rounded up and prosecuted. Fudge has been, well. He's gone to say the least and Arthur will be named the next Minister of Magic in a few short weeks. You've have saved us." Minerva patted Harry on the shoulder; her matronly eyes were brimming with warmth and happiness.
Harry looked up, "Can I see Hermione now?"
The warmth that emanated from everyone in the room was extinguished as soon as the words came from his mouth.
No one spoke. Harry looked frantically from Poppy to Minerva, even to Snape, search for some clue.
"What's wrong? Is she ok?" His voice shook. From the looks on his former professor's downcast faces, she might have suffered the same fate he had. She could be ill. Oh gods, she could be severely injured.
His eyes searched the three in the room begging, "Please?"
Severus opened his mouth, but shut it quickly. His eyes were clouded with some form of anguish that Harry couldn't decipher or even understand. Slowly, Severus opened his mouth again and spoke so softly that Harry had to strain to understand his words.
"She's dead."
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Harry lay slumped lifelessly on the infirmary bed. He hadn't moved or spoken since he had learned about Hermione.
He thought over and over again of how he could have saved her, but in reality he couldn't even remember the damn battle that had stolen her life.
Minerva and Poppy had been avoiding him; his despondent mood drove them away he guessed. The only person he had seen in several days was Snape who occasionally brought him potions.
Harry was staring at the wall when Snape walked in and handed him another brewed concoction. As he was leaving Harry spoke quickly.
"Was there a funeral?"
Snape spun in surprise and looked appraisingly at Harry. "Yes. Minerva wanted to wait until you had woken up to have it, but Miss Granger's parents couldn't wait. I supposed they wanted to move on and not prolong their grief."
"I understand, but I wish I could have said good-bye. You know, see her one last time."
Snape nodded his head and turned to walk out again. Harry made no move to stop and returned to staring at the sterile white wall.
On his way out, Severus paused at the door. He laid his hand on the frame and leaned on the opening for support.
"She had lilies in her hair."
Harry turned around. "Excuse me?" But the door had already clicked shut and Snape was gone.
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Severus Snape was sitting alone in his rooms, fingering a weathered clump of an old forgotten childhood toy. He didn't precisely know why this relic held so much meaning for him or even why he kept it, the stuffed piece of nonsense was not an item from his own childhood. Perhaps it was also why he had kept that worn copy of Hogwarts: A History and the wand, which everyone thought had simply been lost on the battlefield. All these things reminded him of her.
Months ago, Snape had seen Hermione rearrange the position of the old rabbit on her bed. She said it was Peter something or other. Severus sneered at Hermione for her sentimentality and sneered his foolishness for thinking that he, Snape the hateful bastard of the dungeons, would want such a girl.
Later as he sat there fingering the tufts of sticky fur, he wondered if she had known.
He had carefully hidden them for the past year. She was his apprentice, not his lover.
Harry was her lover.
The fucking bastard.
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Harry sat in the Astronomy Tower, looking out at the bright summer day to which he was not a part of. Hermione's death created such a gaping whole in his life. He had gone to visit Ron and Ginny, but without Hermione there was like a gap in reality, a silent vortex which sucked away the sound and sight, the touch or feel of everyday life. Nothing seemed whole or real anymore, so Harry sat and stared at the world from the tower.
The time slipped from him, but after the sun had reached its apex, Harry felt a weight settled on the other side of the bench from him. It was Snape, watching the lake, as if sitting beside his enemy and existential bane was a common act.
"Why are you here?"
Snape coolly gazed at him and answered as if he was surprised that Harry did not already know the answer. "Because, she loved you."
Snape tilted his head at Harry, waiting for comprehension to dawn on his face, though it didn't.
"I thought, that if being here, near you. It would be like being near her." Snape was thoughtful for a few minutes. "But I was wrong. I thought that if I tried hard enough to save you, she would come back. It was an old man's fantasy. I am a fool to have… It's the one thing we have in common, Potter. It's binding, this shared feeling."
"How did she die?"
Snape pursed his lips and didn't answer.
Harry turned his gaze back to the lake, and so did Snape. Snape didn't answer, but neither left the bench.
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-Sol en la Noche
