Reinventing Hermione
Rating: PG
Summary: If death was as beautiful as a bleeding, rusting Hermione, then death was what he had been searching for all his life.
Disclaimer: The characters, locations and setting all belong to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing but this moment that I have borrowed.
They were a watercolor, they were a masterpiece. Emerging over the hill, soaked in blood and carrying the limp body of Hermione Granger in his arms, Severus wished he could see – just for a moment – the beauty of their image. She was bleeding all over his hands, all over his chest. Her hair was flowing loose behind her, her bare legs hanging over his arm. He was dressed in black – her executioner, her reaper, her savior – his body still trembling from the affects of the final moments. His hands shook, his knees threatened to give way at every step. Beneath them, the sun was setting. Beneath them, the bodies of friends and foes alike were basking in their final sunset as the living tended to the wounds of the dying.
Hermione was dying too. They hadn't stopped to help her, they hadn't picked her up with their wands and whisked her away to St. Mungo's. They had passed by her, as she bled on the corpse of Ron Weasley, they had believed her dead. They had seen the blood – she must have bled a river by now, Severus thought – and they had left her. Hers was not a magical affliction, she had not been cursed. She had been stabbed, repeatedly, and her open wounds were weeping red tears unto the body of her friend, her former boyfriend. Severus, barely conscious but walking, had stumbled into her, had seen the life in her red eyes and had allowed his arms to touch her, to hold her and to carry her here. She was alive, for now. She was the only one he knew alive. Potter, the Weasleys – all of them but the girl – Lupin, Tonks, Minerva... they were all dead. Somehow they had won without living, somehow their deaths had overcome Voldemort's men. Death Eaters by name, they could not stomach the meal of sacrifice dealt to them. Thousands of wizards had been willing to give their lives to fight. Barely one hundred had been killed, but they were the first hundred, the front line. Hermione was the only one whose blood was still warm, and as it seeped into his clothing, he was comforted that even if she was dying, even if these were her last breaths, she would not die alone, she would not die a face in the crowd, she would not be among the bodies being sorted into piles. She would die here, in his arms, or perhaps later in his rooms. She would not have an unmarked grave, she would not be ticked off on a list, her name not printed in the long list of the dead.
Yes, they were a sight to be seen, he thought, the teacher and the pupil, the snake and the lion, the killer and the killed, as he stumbled down to the entrance to his old rooms. He would write poems, he would tell stories, about this moment. This divine experience, holding his dying young woman in his arms and finally coming home, finally being welcomed again by the castle, finally alive. For the first time in his life he was confident that he was not going to die, and it was a beautiful feeling. No, if anyone were to die it would be her, he thought, it would be her amber eyes, her long, thick hair, her slim, bloody torso. It would be her heart, pierced by death, perhaps even by the knife of Goyle.
He had seen him stab her. Had shouted a warning as he saw the Death Eater stalk up behind her. Her hair was wild, he remembered with a smile, her eyes were full of power. She stood with Potter and Weasley, and they must have been channeling their magic, Potter's eyes seemed to hold some inkling of the wisdom in her own. She was magnificent, and he had lost his focus for a moment, staring at this young witch whose mind would be the reason they won this war, and whose magic was draining away from her, second by second, in an effort to help her friend. His pride and his awe, were cut short by the approach of the bulky, ignorant, filthy Goyle and Severus' cry of warning was also a moan of distaste. He would not taint her, he could not! She was a goddess, she was winning the war for Potter, she was going to save them all.
Goyle's first thrust was deep and unexpected, she cried out, she fell and with her fell her magic. But Potter and Weasley held strong, and Severus was running, running despite the agony in his legs, running despite the curse echoing through him. Goyle was still stabbing her, her body jerking and fighting him to little avail. Severus was running to her, to kill that bastard Goyle, and yet Potter and Weasley were holding their own, they were strong and suddenly, with an almighty roar, with a blinding flash of green light, they were dead. Potter, Weasley and Voldemort. They were dead, and Severus was falling, his Dark Mark searing through his arm, his head. There was no agony but the agony of not reaching her, of falling short.
He had woken some time later, and immediately the shock that overcame both his body and mind had driven his wounded legs, had propelled him toward her. Somehow, despite her own wounds, she had dragged herself over to Weasley's body, but her strength had failed her. She was a poem, he thought, she was a poem about love and loss and Wednesday evenings. She was the first star in the sky, she was the last to die. She was lyrical, all sighs and storms, all power and death. She wreaked of emptiness, and he knew then, knew even as his hands reached out to touch the blood flowing from her abdomen, that she was already dead, in so many ways. Her magic was gone. She was a Muggle-born witch without magic, bleeding from the womb. She was a poem about death, she was a sonnet to life, she was Hermione, and he would take her from this place.
And so he took her, he banished the pain and weakness from his legs, he shook the horror from his mind. He brought her to the castle, to his rooms, and he stood, watching her die on his bed. His sheets were turning black, the green blending with her blood, the mixture a full and blooming black, the most beautiful black he had ever seen. She was an artist, she was a painter. She was painting his sheets, she was painting his rooms, his life. She was dying before him, and their masterpiece would be her own beauty, her own pale skin tarnished with red, the blood slowly turning to rust. She was dying, she was dying and she was beautiful.
The song stopped playing in Severus' mind, the drums stopped beating in his ears. His heart chased the tremors from its chambers and began to beat again, his legs failed him and as he collapsed at the end of the bed of the dying Hermione, he wondered what he had been afraid of for all these years. If death was as beautiful as a bleeding, rusting Hermione, then death was what he had been searching for all his life.
There were ghosts in the air, Hermine thought as her consciousness returned. They were dancing, so white and dazzling, and they were filling her darkness with something new. They were blinding, and suddenly there were loud and shouting and one of them was touching her, one of them was reaching for her hand and holding her wrist, another was pressing a warm, living palm against her forehead. The ghosts were living, she realized, and so was she.
Her head was heavy and her thoughts were unlike her. They were not ghosts, but mediwitches, they were alive and they were surprised that she was too. They were speaking in hushed tones, of scarring, of telling, but mostly they were looking straight at her, a little too far behind her pupils, and telling her that she was lucky to be alive, that Professor Snape had saved her life and that he too was living, he too was awake. She didn't understand, she couldn't trust these women who looked too deeply into her mind, who tried to discern her health through her eyes, and who spoke of Professor Snape and life – when all she could remember was death, so much death, and a river of blood running from her stomach.
The next day, she awoke to the ghosts again, and she shouted at them to leave her, but her voice was no more than a whisper. They touched her again, and once more she realized that they were not dead, she was not dead. This was a place of the living. Suddenly, Death himself entered the room, and Hermione was so grateful to finally see someone she knew. She extended a hand to him, he approached slowly – as Death is wont to do – and when he was just ten feet from her, she dropped her arm, she cried out, she saw Severus Snape and she knew then that it was only them, that suddenly the world of the dead and the world of the living had switched places, and this new world was populated with ghosts, with Snape, and with the rotting bodies of her friends. She lost consciousness immediately, almost forcefully, eager to be with the dead again in her dreams.
She was a woman, she was nothing. She had no power now except that of her eyes, except the natural charm granted to all women. She was no longer one of them, he realized, and he would have to leave her soon. But somehow, somehow she was still pulling him, somehow he was being dragged towards her, he was brought to her bedside, his hand was brought to hers and his lips were drawn to her forehead. She was still warm, but the blood was gone, and it was not a liquid warmth. It was a constant warmth, it was the warmth of a woman who had outlived her parents, her teachers and her friends, a woman who had lost her magic and her womb, and a woman who was barely aware that she had been hurt at all. He stayed with her then, he held her hand and touched her hair. He loved her for a moment, he thought, and then he remembered Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, and he knew that she was in love with the dead, and that for once, that did not include him.
He was still there, hours later, when she rose again, and this time there were no ghosts. It seemed for a moment that she was the only person living in the world, and then she felt a pressure on her hand, she saw a face that she had known, it seemed, forever, and she remembered what it felt like to die.
"You have lost your magic Miss Granger," he said by way of greeting. "And you will never have children. Your friends are dead, your family is dead, your entire world is dead. But you are not. You must remember that, even when there is nothing but ghosts, no one but yourself. You are not dead, and you should be thankful."
He left her, her left her to her tears and as he stalked down the corridor and out the door of the hospital, he felt more alive than he had ever felt, and consequently, more full of anguish than ever in his life. With life came love, he supposed, and with love came grief.
Hermione was remembering this fact, sobbing angrily and fitfully into her pillow. Her life was over, at nineteen she had lost everything she loved, everything she was and everything she had ever hoped for. The world lived on, but it was only her and Professor Snape who remained in the dirt as the other flowers bloomed. She had been cut down in her prime, she had been plucked as a stalk. She was nothing, she was a shell. Three days later, her bags full of healing salve and her heart full of loss, she left the hospital and began the long journey toward living.
Within two months, her journey took her to Hogwarts. Her path there was almost impossible, a maze of barriers and blockades, her lack of magic slowing her at every step. But while her powers were gone, her mind was not, and eventually, in the depths of night, exactly three months after the Final Battle, Hermione Granger reached Severus Snape's rooms.
"Is there where you took me to die?" she asked, brushing past him and into the bedroom.
"This is where we both died, Miss Granger," he explained.
"I want to do it again," she told him, something like fire dancing in her eyes. "I want to lie down and die and I want you to die with me."
He merely nodded, and led to the bed, setting her down on the sheets. He stood himself at the end of the bed and after staring at her for a moment, he let himself slide down onto the ground, his body propped up by the bed frame. They sat in silence, waiting for death. It did not come. Instead of blood, Severus found words in his month, and as a result Hermione found a different kind of life in her heart.
"You were an artist," he told her. "Your death was beautiful. You stained my sheets with your blood, you painted my pillows with the strands of your hair. You created a masterpiece in death."
"I am dead," she replied, proudly. "I have been dead for months, and I'm the only one who has realized. Don't you see? Can't you see it in me?" She sat up, and he turned to face her, looking up at her excited face, her wild hair and her fiery eyes. It was then he remembered her finest moment, her climactic beauty, and it was then that he knew she was wrong, that he was wrong.
"You are not dead," he told her, and watched her face fall. "You are magnificent. You are as alive as you were standing beside Weasley and Potter, your power running in their veins. You are a poem, you are writing your own verses, you are singing the sonnet of their lives. But it is time to return to your major work, it is time to returning to writing your own life, Hermione."
She nodded slowly, sitting like a child on his bed, her hair tussled. She was Lolita, she was a ripe green apple, she was purity personified. After a moment of silence, she reached out her hand to him, and he took it, and allowed her to pull him onto the bed. He sat next to her, her hand leaning lightly against his shoulder.
"We are alive, Hermione," he told her.
She smiled, slowly and fully, and he knew then that he did fear death, and he was right to. Death led to old friends, to a world he had lost in a day. But death led away from her, and he was never going to take any path that she did not.
"No Severus, we are not alive. We are ghosts. We are ghosts of the world we knew, we are the ghosts of Harry and Ron and Professor Dumbledore. We are their ghosts, and we must haunt this world with their sacrifices, so that it may never come to that again."
She was right, she was the philosopher, she was the cryptographer, she was the Alchemist. She was turning their lives into gold right before his eyes, and he could not see how. She was a magician, she was a witch, she was a goddess. She was Hermione and she was his life.