What Took You So Long?
"Sectumsempra!" A bright flash and a familiar body fell to the ground with a shriek of pain.
"Noooo! Reducto!" He shouted. A thud and a truncated body hit the floor not far from where she had fallen.
"Hermione!" His hands fumbled for a uninjured place to grab before turning her over and propping her against a nearby wall. Hermione lifted pain-filled but accepting eyes to the panicked blue ones of her friend and old Professor, Remus Lupin.
She sputtered at the tickly feeling rising in her chest and tasted the metallic blood as it coated her tongue.
He attempted a few healing spells, but paled as the wounds failed to close. "Don't worry Hermione, I'll get you to the hospital wing." His voice shook in fear as blood spread from her wounds and began to puddle around them on the floor. She reached up and gripped his forearm, stalling his attempt to lift her from the ground.
"N-no. S'too l-l-ate Remus-s." She dissuaded him. He gasped shakily and opened his mouth to argue, but she just rolled her head limply along the wall in negation and smiled in attempted placation. Attempted but for the blood staining her teeth.
"S-stay-y w-with me?" she asked brokenly, her breath hitching with the pain simply breathing caused her.
Tears filled his eyes as he looked down at his fallen friend, comrade and former student . "Of course, Hermione." He agreed, taking her hands within his own.
She was paling with blood loss and breathing shallowly to minimise her discomfort, but she wasn't panicking.
"D-do you re-remem-ber that Ch-rist-mas w-with S-siri-us?" she asked him, her throat working overtime to swallow the blood overly lubricating her mouth and throat.
Her question brought forth the day he knew she was alluding to. The Christmas of her fifth year she had appeared on the doorstep of Headquarters a few days after the attack on Arthur Weasley. One evening after everyone had turned in for bed, Remus had come upon Hermione and Sirius in the library. Sirius had had his head in her lap whilst she read aloud to him and played with his hair. Remus had confronted Sirius the next day about their age difference, but Sirius had brushed him off. He didn't catch them together again, but he had witnessed the longing looks they had shared when they thought no one was looking, and he remembered how distraught Hermione had been when she had learned of Sirius's trip though the Veil of Death.
He nodded his acknowledgement.
"I-I w-was g-gonna m-marry-y him, you kn-now? I-I ask-ed him t-to w-wait for me t-to f-fin-ish-sh sch-ool."
Remus was shocked that their relationship had progressed so far so fast. He looked into her eyes and saw that they were glazing over. "Please Hermione!" He begged, "Let me get help!"
"N-no. I-I'll be w-with my S-sirius soon." Her head rolled against the wall, and she smiled her macabre grin at a spot over his left shoulder. "W-what took you s-so long?"
Remus turned his head to look where she was staring, but saw nothing. He turned back to Hermione as her hands relaxed in his own. She had stopped breathing, but the remnants of her final smile lingered about her lips.