Disclaimer : Really don't own anything recognisable!!
Author's Note: Well, here's the one shot I promised my 'Fun in the Sun' readers. This was the brain child of a college course I went on ages ago. It was all about writing, and setting the scene for different atmospheres. This just kinda popped out :D
Inspiration : My little red bible!
Well, I hope you enjoy!
The wind howled as though in agony, and the dark clouds frowned down upon the small crowd.
Plastic fold-down chairs shifted in the mud slightly as the never-ending rain pounded at the softened earth.
Hermione shuddered as the cold bit down into her bones, and she glanced around the small gathering. There were some faces she recognised (Harry, Ginny, and Ron - who were, of course, at her side - Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey) and those she didn't, but they looked as though they also attended Hogwarts.
It was a grim Sunday morning at the school, and they were there for the funeral of Severus Snape.
Why were there so few people at the service? Hermione couldn't help the question spinning in her head. Of course, so many people were mourning family members, helping to rebuild the castle, and some just felt too awkward to be there. But really! This was the man who had sacrificed his life, his happiness, everything, so that they could take down the biggest Dark wizard of all time! The least people could do was pay their respects!
"Hermione!" Ron hissed in her ear, shaking her from her thoughts. She followed her friend's gaze down to her trembling fists, and slowly uncurled them to see she had been gripping so hard she had drawn blood. In sick fascination the woman watched as the blood bubbled over the half-moon cuts in her palms. She could feel Ron's worried stare, and she refused to look at him; she merely shifted in her seat and stared ahead at the beautiful dark wood of the coffin.
'Was he scowling in there?' Hermione wondered. 'Did he wear the ever present frown she had seen so often in Potions class? Or was he smirking perhaps, smirking at the irony that people only cared after his death?'
It seemed too out of place to think of him expressionless and calm. But maybe he could relax now, knowing he didn't have to look over his shoulder all the time. Hermione chewed her lip. From what Harry had told her, the Professor had never been without trouble : in his childhood there was his abusive father, at Hogwarts - the Marauders, and even after he left school he was hounded by a manipulative Dumbledore and an unstable Voldemort.
Hermione was jerked from her thoughts once more as the coffin raised steadily into the air, and the woman only realised the sandy-haired vicar had been talking now that he had stopped.
The coffin lowered gently into the ground, and she saw Ginny squeeze Harry's arm comfortingly. Ron shook his head sadly and Hermione was filled with a fury she couldn't explain. How dareRon look so mournful?! He had always been the one to disrespect and insult the teacher, leaving her to defend the man. Why did Ron think he could now act as though he would miss Snape terribly after so many years of hating the man?
Hermione looked away in disgust, and bit her lip until she could taste copper, so that she wouldn't unleash her anger on the red head. Instead she watched the dirt pile back onto the grave with a flick of the priest's wand, settling in a smooth brown layer of earth.
In short groups the crowd approached the gravestone, some muttering a few words, others leaving flowers, until the four War Heroes were the only ones left. After a few long moments they rose rather wearily to their feet - not physically tired, just tired of funerals and death, tired of loss and survivor's guilt, tired of the endless grey their lives had become.
Harry was clinging to Ginny's hand in the way a homeless man would cling to money; desperately, as if to let go would be the end of the world itself. They approached the grave together, looking perfectly matched, and Hermione wondered if she would ever find someone she would fit so well with. Ron tried to slip his arm around her waist as they followed, but the woman shrugged him off and strode forward without him. Harry knelt by the black shiny stone and spoke a few words the others couldn't hear over the roaring of the rain as it scoured the landscape around them. When the Chosen One rose his friends politely ignored the shininess in his eyes.
Hermione stepped forward then, and she didn't know how long it had been that she had stood there staring until Ginny spoke up.
"Hermione?" The younger woman looked up at the castle questioningly, and the brunette tried (but failed) to give a reassuring smile.
"You guys go ahead without me." Her voice was hoarse and croaky as though she had been screaming for hours beforehand. "I'll meet you up there later."
If any of them had any objections, they sure didn't show it. The trio started taking the long walk up the hill. Hermione saw how they all looked together (Ginny with an arm around Harry, holding Ron's hand with the other) and pondered if there was any place left for her there anymore. The war had changed things, and besides, the youngest Weasley seemed to be filling her shoes quite well.
As soon as the three of them were out of sight and Hermione was sure she was quite alone, she fell to her knees, the mud squelching and ruining the black funeral dress she wore. Her hand stretched out, and her shaking fingers traced the words carved into the dark marble.
Minerva had approached her a few nights before, distraught and totally out of her mind with worry, begging for help. McGonagall had had no idea what to have written on Snape's gravestone. Hermione had agreed to choose something at once, so to put the older woman's mind at peace, then spent the whole night searching her bible until she found the perfect quote.
And there it was now. Engraved before her in beautiful, neat lettering.
'You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
You will trample the great lion and the serpent.'
"Nice quote. Very fitting."
Hermione was on her feet at once, turning to face whoever had intruded on her moment alone.
"Professor?!" She gasped, holding onto the stone to steady herself. And true enough, there stood Severus Snape, the man whose funeral had just finished.
"Come now Miss Granger, I'm hardly your teacher anymore." The man replied and smirked. Hermione just stared.
"G-Ghost?" She asked in a quiet, timid voice, quite unlike the mighty roar one would expect from a Gryffindor.
"No. Do you really think I should choose to stay behind? And really, Miss Granger, do you know any ghosts that look like me?" Snape replied, the elegant eyebrow slightly raised.
"No." And it was true, Snape looked exactly the same as he had always done : his long teaching robes fluttered in the screaming wind, his lank hair fell about his thin face, but the lines on his forehead and around his eyes were almost non-existent. Most of all, he was neither translucent or silver like any other ghost.
"Are," Hermione gulped past the lump in her throat. "Are you alive?"
"I'm…not sure." Snape frowned lightly.
Hermione's eyebrows knitted together. This wasn't making any sense.
"Does the phrase 'help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it' mean anything to you?" Snape asked after a short pause. The woman's nose crinkled lightly as she thought.
"I think…Harry and Ron told me in my second year? After Dumbledore left?" Her head cocked to a side. "But I don't see - of course! 'I will only have truly left this school when none here are loyal to me!"
"Now you are beginning to see. Albus told me shortly before I came here that it was a part of being a Headmaster at Hogwarts."
"Professor Dumbledore told you? You mean, there is an afterlife?"
Snape stared at her as though she had grown another head.
"Miss Granger, you grew up in Hogwarts, having seen all the ghosts, and still doubted there was an afterlife?"
Hermione blushed a stunning shade of magenta.
"B-but this is just so weird." She breathed. "You look so alive. Like I could just reach out and touch-!"
Her breath caught in her throat. While she had been talking her hand had snaked out in front of her towards Snape, and she had fully expected it to pass through him. What she didn't expect, was for her quivering fingers to brush against his very solid, very real torso. Slowly, her hand uncurled so it lay flat against his chest and her mouth fell open.
"Oh my God…" She met his dark, questioning eyes. "You have a heartbeat!"
After a few seconds of feeling the soothing beat under her palm, she realised what she was doing, and quickly withdrew her hand as though scalded.
"I'm sorry!" Hermione gasped. "I was only-"
Snape suddenly grasped her cold little hand in his big warm one. His thumb massaged over the back of her knuckles and he watched it as though someone else were doing it.
"Curious…" He muttered, almost to himself. "That a dead man can touch and be touched by someone in the land of the living…"
Then he casually released her hand, and let it fall to her side as though nothing had happened. She blinked and swallowed hard.
"What's it like when you die?" Hermione whispered almost inaudibly. Snape raised an eyebrow.
"You can't really expect me to be able to answer that, right?" The man gave his gravestone a long, hard look, then shifted his gaze back to the woman before him. "I think the more important question right now should be why am I here?"
Hermione's eyes glittered with an unasked question, and his dark eyes took her in as he stared carefully at her.
"Why do you need me, Miss Granger?" Snape asked softly.
"I-I don't know…"
"What's wrong with you?" He insisted, and under his unfaltering gaze she couldn't help but tell the truth.
"…I think I'm broken…" She wanted the wind to capture her words and hurry them away before he could hear, but something in his face darkened so she looked away and shifted her feet.
"Why do you think that?" Snape's voice was rough and low.
"B-because…" She licked her lips and swallowed nervously. "I fell like I just don't belong anymore, I can't talk to Harry and Ron, my parents don't even know I exist, apart from anger I feel so numb, and the only thing I don't feel empty about is…"
"What?"
"Death. Everyone who died." She finally met his eyes and chewed her lip. "You."
His emotionless face was somewhat comforting, so she carried on.
"Every time I close my eyes, or just sit in silence, I see you in the Shrieking Shack!" Hermione's voice grew more and more hysterical. "You were dying and I did nothing! Hah, 'brightest witch of my age' indeed - and I couldn't even try to save you!"
"Did you ever think," Snape said carefully. "That I didn't want to be saved?"
Hermione's little pink mouth was hanging slightly open.
"I take that as a no." He smirked.
"I-I didn't know that though…I should have tried."
"You also didn't know I was on your side." He snapped and she jumped. "As far as you knew at that point I was the traitor who killed Dumbledore."
Hermione chewed her bottom lip. Snape rolled his eyes at the old habit.
"I guess…" She whispered.
"Good. Now snap out of this silly self pitying!"
"Self pity?! All I feel is guilt, you git! How dare-"
When Hermione saw the ever-growing smirk on his face she stopped mid-rant and glared at him. Her mouth became a tight, thin line.
"Don't tease me!" She fumed.
"It's not my fault you're so easy to tease!" Snape retorted.
Hermione put her hands on her hips and frowned at him. He mirrored the pose and they stayed that way for a moment until he noticed her continuous shivering. His frown deepened and became more serious. With a swish of black he flicked his long cloak off him and draped it gently over Hermione's shoulders.
She looked up at him in surprise, and through the rain she smiled at him. As soon as she did so, Snape almost seemed to flicker.
"Wh-What's going on?" She stuttered. Snape looked at his hands, which were steadily fading.
"I'm leaving." He spoke slowly.
"Wait!" She yelped. "Are you happy there?"
"…Yes Granger, I think I am…"
And just before he disappeared completely, she saw him smile for the first time in all the years she had known him.
For the first time since the War, Hermione collapsed and let the fat, fast tears drip down her face, and her body wracked with sobs.
And despite it all, it felt good.
Hermione stumbled through the great wooden doors at the Hogwarts entrance much later, and was taken by surprise when she saw her friends were waiting for her. Ron was pacing the floor, and Harry and Ginny were sat together on the stairs. As soon as she stepped inside, Harry leapt to his feet and crossed to her side.
"Blimey 'Mione, you took your time!" Harry caught her hand in his. "God, you're as cold as ice! We were worried about how you'd be out in that rain without…a…cloak…"
Hermione followed Harry's line of sight to her body, which was enveloped in a long black robe.
"My God…I was beginning to think I'd imagined it all…" Hermione murmured, more to herself than the others. She brought one of the too-long sleeves up to her face and inhaled deeply. "It even smells like him!"
"Whose is that Hermione?" Ginny asked softly, frowning lightly. "It kinda reminds me of something."
Hermione for her part merely giggled - giggled! - and began to spin around in happy circles, the cloak billowing and fluttering like butterflies in the wind.
"Hermione." Harry said urgently, grabbing her shoulders, and she knew he had recognised it. "Where did you get that cloak?"
"He gave it to me." She whispered.
"He's dead."
"I know."
"Then how?"
"Magic Harry, magic!"
"Ah…will he be coming back?"
"No." Hermione shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Oh."
"Harry…" Hermione stared at her friend, her eyes glistening. "Oh Harry he said he was happy there!"
The two friends suddenly embraced, and Hermione felt her feeling and memories of belonging return in one delightful swoop.
"And how are you, Herms?" Harry asked into her hair, his breath tickling her ear.
"I'm great Harry, just great!"
'And,' Hermione thought as she raised her eyes to the ceiling. 'It's all down to you, Professor…'
Author's Note : And there you go! I hope you enjoyed it!
The idea of Snape being able to come back to pull Hermione back from the brink of depression was just too irresistible for me!!
Well, this took a while to write, but you can always show your appreciation by hitting that lovely little review button!
Here's looking at you kid!
~ KookieEvans