This started as a very simple 3x100 words drabble, well, to be more honest, it started with four little words -Hermione's last line-. Scary, how my mind works. It's now official, I cannot write a short and concise story.
Disclaimer: As usual, anything you recognize isn't mine. Pockets and bank accounts are empty so don't bother suing. It's the first story I've ever finished so comments and concrits will be loved :)
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IN ONE FRAME
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They said she was unhappy in her life.
Such a bright, young witch, she could have gotten any promising job and done many great things she ever desired, she could.
Yet, the brightness of her future had decidedly dimmed for the law dictated that she used all her time to stay at home and bear children, the same corrupt law that had forced her into a marriage to her much older professor in the first place.
Dumbledore had explained to Harry and Ron that the marriage was all for Hermione's benefit, that Professor Snape would be able to give her protection.
'Protect her from who, the likes of Malfoy,' her dear friends had spat, 'when clearly Snape is the only one she needs protection from?' The portrait of the Headmaster simply looked at them gravely but said no more. Even Hermione had pleaded. She hoped that they would understand in time. As if, Harry snorted.
Snape had seen to her education himself, however. Potions. And dozens of useful -some bordering on dubious- charms and hexes, she easily surpassed the qualification of an Auror.
No one had the explanation as to why the dour Potions Master agreed to such a.... considerate deed when he was the one having leverage in the marriage.
Was it an act of kindness that sprang late in life? Or perhaps, it's because he knew that knowledge was the only thing he could give her
After all, when the outbreak took place, Snape had died leaving her with no child.
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They said she had fallen into a life of melancholy.
It had taken a toll on her, being held a prisoner of her own marriage.
Staying in the dungeons for far too long, eating far too little, they would always find her thoroughly consumed in either her books or the color of fume of whatever potion she was brewing. She started isolating herself from her friends as well, making excuses to refuse Floo calls and conveniently forgetting the group's monthly meetings.
Ginny Potter had often wondered if she would have turned into a different person too, had she married a man who despised her, though in all honesty, she would rather not have the answer. Within the span of four years, Hermione Granger had turned into a vaguely recognised name in the Wizarding World, replaced by the unfamiliar Mrs. Snape, who always had an air of wistful longing about her.
The Snapes had almost never been seen together in public. On the rare occasion they did go out, the couple never as much as gave any indication of having a marital bond, save for the dull golden bands encircling their significant fingers.
Ginny thought they acted like strangers around each other. Married strangers, granted, but strangers nonetheless. Snape made it a habit to walk ahead of Hermione, never keeping pace, never acknowledging her presence; she, a habit to keep a safe distance, pretending she didn't care that he didn't care.
Harry always showered Ginny with affection. The littlest things that reminded her of how much he loved her, made her love him even more. He would hold her hands in public, twist her hair with his fingers absent-mindedly, his eyes searching for hers amidst the crowd.
Once, though, Harry told her that he thought he saw something in Snape's empty eyes as his dark figure loomed over his wife, who had evidently drunk far too much Ogden's Best and was lying asleep on the couch at the Ministry party they all attended.
Harry later blamed his school day's spectacles for the misleading vision, because then Snape's thin lips curled in disdain as he muttered a spell, Hermione rudely woken up.
Scowling at her, Snape wasted no time to grab her hand as they both Disapparated.
Strange bedfellows, indeed.
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She said his death was self-inflicted.
The nightmare of the Wizarding World started at the end of May.
A bartender falling sick. Nothing unusual, just a heavy cold. Until he started to show very curious symptoms: magical ability diminishing, red irises, organ failure, paranoia. He died after five weeks of thrashing around and fighting sedatives.
Others started to get infected as well. Some of the Healers. Madam Rosmerta. Colin Creevey. Millicent Bullstrode. A child whose mother was infected. The list continued. Each time with a different kind of suffering but always the same end: ever so slowly, they withered, their lives wasting away.
Professor Snape (with the aid of his wife though this remained generally unknown until much later) was the one who found the counter-poison to stop the spreading of the epidemic. Unfortunately, while the antidote provided ironclad immunity for those who were still healthy, it did little to heal the infected. Still, it was good enough. The death toll stopped. The sick were quarantined and put under the care of Healers in special wards in St. Mungo's.
To Rita Skeeter's chagrin, the Quibbler had the privy to confirm this breakthrough firsthand as Professor Snape continued on his experiment to find a real cure.
Some speculated that it was his constant and unprotected interaction with the sick that had led to his own infection.
Luna, on the other hand, had a different opinion.
If only the Professor had acknowledged the fact that a certain portion of the infection was still able to pass through the barrier of the vaccine at night-time, like what Luna had tried to warn him repeatedly but was repeatedly dismissed, he might still be alive. She dreamily recalled how her account at the celebratory party, that a dangerous connection between the source of the epidemic with a beastly bird-eating Giants from Mexico existed, was so blatantly brushed aside.
Professor Snape's glare only swept across the room, his searching eyes squinted hard at the crowds of dancing witches and wizards. He told her curtly, "Duly noted, Mrs. Weasley. Now if you'll be so kind as to excuse me, I've spotted your rather eager father heading my way."
And before Luna could tell him that her father had an especially interesting view on the Mexican Giants, he was gone.
The inspection afterward showed that the cause of death had been a gradual, slow deterioration, a side effect of the infection that went unnoticed. Severus Snape had died of a failing heart.
Was she the only one who noted the irony?
As it was, Luna preferred her own pet theory that it was due to the professor's wish to relinquish his wife from her unhappiness or other equally selfish reason that Professor Snape chose to ignore her kind word of advice.
Or maybe not ignore at all, considering the mysterious shattered remains of a vial found in the laboratory where Professor Snape's cold body was first discovered by his wife.
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They said she was happier after his death.
"Mrs. Snape, his will", The Ministry official, Chester Gaturus, told her solemnly, "specifically stated that he wished for no portraits."
The widow merely stared, her eyes fixed on a faraway point above his head, while her friends tried to comfort her.
Gaturus deemed their efforts as futile seeing that Mrs. Snape was altogether dry faced and not wailing in distress.
The old man doubted if she had even heard a word in the last fifteen minutes he spent telling her that in essence, her husband had left her virtually nothing.
The late Mr. Snape had never been rich in any sense and what little he owned was not intended for his young wife.
The Spinner's End establishment was to be demolished. The books, he donated to the Hogwarts library while the meager sum of Galleons would be contributed to Potions researches.
Her name was hardly brought up at all in this latest will -finalised a year ago- though Mr. Snape did mention his wish for her to take his position and teach Potions at Hogwarts, which would mean that she could continue staying in the wizarding school.
Few more fiddling affairs that went unheard and Gaturus promised to stay in touch, offered his condolences once again before letting himself out of the dungeons.
"Don't worry, Hermione. It's over now," said Ron soothingly.
She looked at him numbly as his words sank in. He took both her hands in his but she pulled away.
"What's ... over?" Even to her ears, her voice sounded strangely aloof.
"Don't you realise?" It was Harry who answered. "Look, I wouldn't wish death on Snape. We owe it to him that we're all safe, but it's over. The bond ended with his death. You're free now."
"Harry's right. You can do anything you want now. You can be with us again." chimed in Ginny, holding Hermione's frail figure.
She looked at them funny.
But then, burying her head into Ginny's chest, she whispered, "It's over. It's over."
Ginny later told Harry that Hermione had repeated those words in her sleep, too.
Therefore, it was completely unexpected that two weeks after Snape's death, Hermione started hanging out with them again.
In Diagon Alley, helping Ron pick out books for Hugo.
In Hogsmeade, gossiping animatedly with Ginny and Luna.
She looked happy, Harry thought. She was happy.
Sometimes, she would grew very silent and shoot them a look as though to say there were only four of them on the table and she was just a spectator watching from afar. Harry almost wanted to assure her that she was, and always would be, a part of the group but caught himself.
Hermione wasn't in grief. She hadn't visited Snape's grave once. His name was never even mentioned. It was almost as if she was never married. Though, that, Harry understood.
She had laughed. She made jokes. Ginny confided to her how James' acting out tired her out and Hermione tried to coax her into buying parenting books.
Hermione still admonished him and Ron whenever they were tardy, though they just rolled their eyes at this. She had become their old, mothering and often annoying Hermione again.
They loved her like that.
Looking back, Harry realised that she must have known she had been infected even then.
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They said she couldn't possibly be in love with him.
Could she?
Her sickness, unlike others, did not show until the third month, and when it did, there was little to be done.
Crouched at either side of her bed, they all looked stricken at the horrific gauntness of Hermione's face. She had a fever of one hundred and ten, each take of breath sounding labored and painful. The Healer had let them know that at this level, the infection was no longer contagious. She had also told them quietly that it would be over soon.
Ron didn't know if he was to show his fury that she had hidden her illness from her best friends or cry that he was about to lose her. He was never good in controlling his emotions, so he did neither. Instead, he took her two thin hands in his silently, just like old times.
Hermione opened her dry mouth to speak but the words that came out was hardly intelligible.
Ron helped her down a glass of water and leaned his ear to her to listen closely.
"What, Hermione?"
"What did she say?" asked Ginny impatiently behind him.
He sent a worried look at Harry before answering.
"Portrait. She wished to be painted a portrait."
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Maggie Bagwell, the painter who did the magical portraits for Hogwarts was summoned to make Hermione's portrait.
At sixty five, Madam Bagwell was used to do portraits for sick witches and wizards on their deathbeds. In most cases, she had even started painting only after their deaths. But this lady, Maggie gazed sadly at the sickly pallor of the woman sitting in a wooden chair in front of her, so young. So unfair.
And so, with a twitch of her wand, she added a tinge of healthy blush on the apple of her cheeks, giving her portrait-face colors that softened her contour. In contrast to the pained expression Hermione was wearing, she painted the same youthful grin that Ron and Harry had often seen in their days at Hogwarts.
When the painter finished, it was the mirror reflection of Hermione Granger had she been healthy, happy and loved that smiled at them.
"What would you like for the background, Mrs. Snape?" Maggie inquired, her long fingers indicated the blank expanse of canvas around the portrait.
"I understand that you are a Potions professor. I could perhaps add a fancy laboratory and ....."
Hermione shook her head faintly.
"N--No background. Just my husband, please. Paint ... him, with me."
Ron's eyes bulged in disbelief while Luna regarded Hermione earnestly.
Ignoring the similar awestruck stares Harry and Ginny gave her, Hermione looked at Madam Bagwell calmly.
"Why on earth....?" Ron started to protest, his face as bright colored as the top of his head.
Maggie Bagwell put her hand up to cut the young man and smiled sagely at Hermione, "Of course."
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They said he had never loved her.
It was nearly a month after the funeral when the charmed portrait arrived at Hogwarts.
The four of them stood in front of the beatific, still asleep figures on the wall, watching expectantly, waiting for any sign of movement. In an attempt to break the silence, Ron commented that they must applaud Madam Bagwell's talent that Snape's ugly look was precise to the oily sheen of his hair.
Harry only gave a half-hearted laugh.
To everyone's dismay, Snape was the first to wake up. As his portrait-self adjusted himself to the brightness that filled the room, his brows furrowing in confusion as he registered where he was, he locked his gaze with Harry's. His expression quickly filled with painted fury. Even Ron backed away at once, bracing himself for the outrage that was sure to explode.
Harry chose to keep his composure. He would not let himself be intimidated by a portrait, not even Snape's. Especially not Snape's.
Snape started to raise his unreal wand menacingly at the lot of them when all of a sudden, he noticed ringlets of brown hair he didn't realise he had been holding, slipped away from the grasp of his hand. Snape looked down in search of the offending owner of said curls when he spotted his wife beneath all the hair. Speech seemed to have utterly failed him as he looked back and forth from the figure standing beside him and his still breathing former students.
He shot a deathly glare at them.
"She passed away three weeks ago," Ginny answered his silent question. "The infection."
For long seconds, Snape contemplated the news as he gazed at Hermione in what could only be described as a peculiar, un-Snape like manner for it was neither vicious nor condescending, before eyeing them angrily, fuming again. Harry imagined that Snape was furious that four of the last people he would choose to donate a kidney to, were about to witness, what exactly, an actual interaction with his wife? Eventually determined to ignore them altogether, his lank hair serving as curtain to cover his face, Snape sighed and nudged Hermione's shoulder, prompting her eyes to slowly flutter open.
Hermione's eyes widened as him and Ron, Ginny and Luna came into vision. She was about to burst out of the frame to give them a big hug when she remembered. She cast an anxious sideway glance at Snape and had she possessed a corporeal form, Harry could practically hear Hermione's brain racing.
Is he angry? Of course, he is angry. But is he angry at her? What will she do if he is? Oh, she hopes he won't leave her alone in this portrait!
For once, everything that had transpired in the past six years seemed to fall into place for Harry, but the only logical explanation he came up with felt so illogical, it simply could not be true. Hermione and... the git? It felt as if someone had showed him that two plus two equals to four, yet he struggled to believe if four was really the right answer. Who came up with that anyway? His brain continued to be filled with thoughts so alien and mindless, he wondered if he wasn't being trapped in some kind of a parallel universe.
Biting her lower lip nervously, Hermione's fingers reached the front of Snape's impeccable robe, trying to gauge her husband's reaction (Harry tried too, though Snape's expression betrayed little).
Ron whistled. They all wondered how it was possible that Hermione had not been hexed six ways to Sunday for daring to touch his robe alone.
Yet, was it a mere trick of Madam Bagwell's painted eyes, that Snape looked… not quite softened but… not as harsh?
Snape closed his hand over Hermione's two smaller ones in a grip that in its intensity could have left marks on her lily white hands.
His voice, if in Harry's memory was always sneering and cruel, sounded oddly caressing when he finally spoke.
" … Miss Granger."
Two words, three syllables. But when said with such raw emotions the world never thought Severus Snape possessed, it felt like his personal version of endearment… and perhaps it was.
They said many things about Hermione, but not one of them ever knew that she could beam that beautifully.
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FIN
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Lengthy A/N:
It wasn't my original intention to include the character voices as narrators (Harry and Ginny, they sorta wrote their own lines. Had to struggle a bit with Luna and Ron), so do excuse some little OOC-ness should you find any.
Further, while it's a story about Hermione and Snape, there is a definite lack of interaction between these two, that one can find claustrophobic or their characterizations vague. If you find that's the case, awesome! If it's not, then *sigh, hands in pockets, tilt head slightly to convey vulnerability ala Ted Mosby*. I wanted a story where the four outsiders formed their own perceptives on what they viewed as Hermione and Severus having a broken relationship and show that that might not be the case. Eyes could be deceptive and in this little story, all the characters' views were fundamentally flawed by their own prejudices.
As for Luna's assumption, did Severus, not only in a manner of speaking, actually took matters into his own hands? Or was it the bird-eating Giants? Luna, unique mind she has, sees what others don't. Sometimes her conclusion is very spot on, other times, way off. And which is it in this case, I let you be the judge :)
I did have more ideas about the epidemic backstory etc, but like I said, this was meant to be a very short tale, the muse gotta be entertained another time, another story.
Maggie Bagwell is a tribute to Theodore "T-bag" Bagwell and talented Robert Knepper from Prison Break who pretty much inspired this story with his lines: "We're all prisoners of our own creation." (I could have used the episode writer's name but -just assuming here- Robert is hotter so... ). T-bag, Serial Murderer Personified with one fake hand, wanted a reputable career as he had lost his equally fake identity as Cole Pfeiffer. So I turned him into a woman and a magical painter with two healthy, talented hands (the irony just occurred to me, I swear). Hope he's satisfied and doesn't threaten to axe my head or something.
And yes, while it's not obvious (cuz I'm subtle like that) "two words, three syllables" is an allusion to Blair and Chuck from GG.
I'm going to stop rambling at this point, because nothing good ever happens after 2 A.M :)