A/N - I actually wrote this a few years ago when it seemed like EVERY pairing in every fandom I read was being plagued by the "oh god my life sucks I'm going to kill myself but I am rculously saved by my one true love" songfics.
How To Save A Life
[insert The Fray's "How to Save a Life" here]
The wind howls, spraying ice chunks and hail against the battered old brick of the school, as angst can never occur on a sunny, warm day. Nor can it happen during the day, and as such, it is night.
So as the full moon shines bright in the blackened sky, obscured by thick greying clouds and the desperate scent of morose rain spattering the air and murky ground beneath, fuelling prose better seen in sappy 'inspirational' vampiric romance novels, Hermione rushes into the tower, crying sheets of tears, crystalline moments in her heartbroken existence, tattooing her skin with the abominable depression that is her life.
Why she is depressed is of no concern; all that matters is that she is. Depressed is even too understated an emotion for the blackest pit of despair that is surrounding her like a thick, black sludge.
The astronomy tower is as dark as her soul, because this scene just isn't as meaningful in, say, the bathroom or that one room behind that secret tunnel that's more of a shortcut between Potions and Gryffindor tower-no, the astronomy tower shall suffice. The wind blows her wild, unruly hair, a chestnut blaze of fire surrounding her face like a halo of darkness and death.
She cries out in pain, unable to express her all-encompassing sadness in any other way, so down upon her knees she falls; weeps! Beats her heart, tears her hair, cries: "Oh sweet Benedick! God give me patience!"
Who is Benedick you may ask? God only knows.
As we all know, angst-ridden teenagers enjoy quoting Shakespeare at random intervals through their depressing, histrionic cries for attention that are their fanfictions, and thus:
"To be or not to be, that is the question; whether 'tis nobler to suffer the mental slings and arrows or by opposing end them . . ." she whispers throatily, then pulls out a scalpel she filched from Potions.
One might question why she has decided to come to the astronomy tower to end her life with a scalpel. Surely she could have done this in a tub somewhere, out in her bedroom-why not fling herself from the tower? The real question, however, is: Why not?
She wails; "God, that I were a man! I would tear out his heart and eat it in the marketplace!"
To whom is she referring? This must be that Benedick fellow she mentioned earlier.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow," she sniffles dramatically, then puts the scalpel to her wrist, diamond-esque tears dripping to her soft flesh and leaving wet trails of sorrow.
That is when the door opens. Severus Snape steps in, mid-whistle of nonchalance stopping when he sees her. Her heart stops and she sucks in a breath and he blinks awkwardly at her. Her hand shakes, scalpel still against her soft flesh, and Snape blinks a few times.
Time stands still. Why is he here? Some may call it coincidence; others, fate. Most, plot-hole. In any case, there he is, as plain as the angst-ridden blackness that is her life that matches his robes and inky sky.
He eyes the scalpel, illuminated by the lightning that pierces the sky, glinting off the sharp silver and reflecting in his fathomless obsidian orbs. Has he come to rescue her from her plight?
"Carry on," he replies blithely, and shuts the door as thunder claps.
In shock, Hermione drops the scalpel. Fate has delivered her saviour; surely, this was an intervention from God? It is otherwise impossible for that to have happened, unless God wished for her to see that she had every reason to be alive.
Wiping tears of mirth, she realises that life is not as horrible as one cracks it up to be; dying is easy, living is hard; smell the roses; carpe diem; conscience makes cowards of us all and God Himself could not sink this ship.
She throws the scalpel from the tower, a new woman; vigorously enthused to be alive in this day and age. She knew from then on that Snape was not as evil as he liked to purport; after all, why would God have chosen him, of all people, to interrupt what would have surely been the most devastating death in Hogwarts history?
And this, my friends, is how one saves a life-not giving a shit.