Author's Note: Thanks to my amazing team for all their support this season. Onto the Finals!
Written for...
Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. Team/Position: Holyhead Harpies, Seeker. Task: Chessboard. Write about an event taking place on a battlefield.
Newt Scamander's Suitcase. Task: Write about a place that feels like home (to yourself, or your characters). Prompt: safe
Hogwarts Assignment #9. Lesson: Duelling Lessons. Task: Write about looking out for someone else
National Princess Day. Task: Write about someone in need of saving.
(Writing Club) Count Your Buttons. Prompts: Severus Snape, bucket
Duelling Club. Prompts: Severus/Hermione, book, Hogwarts
(Writing Club) Showtime. Prompt: regret
Stronger
1,610 words
The shack was dark, even in the middle of the day. Even after all those years, the windows and doors remained boarded up, preventing any sunlight from lighting the dusty interior.
Even without the light, the house-elf made her way through the house without bumping into anything. Elf magic gave her limited sight in the dark and it often came in handy.
She stopped at the body of the fallen professor, kneeling at his side and examining the puncture wounds from which blood and venom still oozed, even all these hours after his death. She hummed to herself as she let her magic run over him, examining his injuries.
"Professor is not dead," she muttered in excitement. Hurriedly, she came to her feet and cast a spell over him to preserve what little lifesigns he had left, then levitated his body to follow her from the shack.
:-:
"This area is only for the wounded," a student told the elf when she reached the infirmary. "Bodies are being taken care of on the grounds."
"Professor is not dead!" she repeated, squeaking in indignation when she tried to pass through and the boy held her back.
Another student, an older girl with bushy brown hair, rushed toward them.
"What's your name?" she asked of the elf.
"Milly," the elf replied.
The girl smiled briefly. "Milly. I saw Professor Snape die several hours ago. There's no hope-"
"Milly feels him! Elf magic is strong, can feel life before it goes. Professor hangs on, not gone yet." Milly turned to the boy, big eyes begging him to let her through. "Professor needs help."
The girl looked to the student guarding the door and nodded. He reluctantly stepped aside and Milly rushed in, the floating professor following her.
The infirmary was in total chaos. Every bed was already occupied by people looking slightly more alive than the professor, most of them bleeding and moaning. The floor was covered with even more patients. Madam Pomfrey, along with a team of adept students and adults, went from patient to patient, administering potions and salves.
"What's he doing here?"
The bushy-haired girl stepped in front of Milly as a male student marched towards them angrily.
"He's a traitor!" the boy shouted, catching the attention of everyone in the infirmary. Several other students joined him in their taunts of the wounded professor.
"He's not," the girl insisted. "Professor Snape is a hero, and he's under my protection." The boy sneered at her but did not back down until Madam Pomfrey shooed him away.
"What's happened to him?" Pomfrey questioned, running her wand over the professor's body.
"He was bitten by a venomous snake, ma'am," the girl supplied. "But that was hours ago."
Pomfrey pursed her lips and watched as the white light emitted from her wand quickly turned a sickly green.
"I'm not reading any lifesigns from him."
"Milly can feel him," the elf squeaked.
"Be that as it may be, it would take hours to procure a antidote, providing we could locate the snake that bit him." The healer lowered her wand and frowned. "I'm afraid he doesn't have that long."
Milly frowned. "Milly understands."
Pomfrey nodded solemnly and returned to her other patients.
"Thank you for trying to help Professor Snape, Milly," the girl said quietly. Milly could tell she was upset at the professor's diagnosis, as was the elf herself. She reached a hand up to pat the girl's arm comfortingly.
"Still hope, Miss. Follow Milly."
Working hard to avoid broken staircases and steer clear of anyone who might try to stop or delay them, the unlikely trio made their way down to the kitchens, which seemed to have examined untouched by the battle.
There were only a handful of elves here. Milly knew that most of her kind were up in the Great Hall, assisting those with injuries too minor for the infirmary. That was, if the elves that weren't injured themselves. Many of them had perished in the fight.
Eleven elves bustled about the kitchens, fixing food for the starving survivors. Among them was Aggie, the oldest elf at Hogwarts. Milly gently set the professor's body down on a long wooden table and ran to Aggie's side.
"Miss Aggie, Professor needs you!"
Milly pulled the bushy haired girl away from the table as Aggie approached the lifeless man and examined him.
"Elf magic is strong. Aggie is a great healer," Milly explained in a loud whisper. "She will help."
Several elves stopped to watch the elder elf work her magic, muttering things under her breath as she held a small, wrinkled hand to the bite mark at the professor's neck.
"Bucket," Aggie demanded of a younger companion. She shoved the wooden item beneath the wound just as a murky liquid began to gush from it.
The girl gasped as she watched by Milly's side. "Is that the venom?"
Aggie nodded. She instructed another elf to hold the bucket steady, and she shuffled her way to Milly and the human.
"The venom has reached his heart. It will be difficult and painful to draw it out."
"Please, you must try," the girl pleaded.
:-:
The girl, whose name Milly would come to learn was Hermione, checked on the professor several times throughout the day, though his condition hadn't changed. Aggie would continue to mutter spells over him every hour, forcing more and more venom to be expelled from his body.
At midnight, with Milly and the ancient healer by his side, Severus Snape took his first ragged breath as the venom left his lungs.
And in the morning, when Hermione arrived flanked by two boys, Aggie proudly announced that the professor's body was free from the poison and was operating without the aid of magic.
:-:
It had been clear after a day or so that the school kitchen was no place for someone to recover from such a serious attack. Almost immediately, Hermione found herself offering her house and her services up to aid the professor, setting him in the room once occupied by her parents and falling into a routine as his nurse.
She was disappointed to find that after a week of constantly monitoring his vitals and administering elixirs and charms, Professor Snape's condition had not changed - he was, according to Aggie, in a coma.
As nice as it was to be home after so many months of traveling with Harry and Ron, Hermione couldn't allow herself to relax until she knew the professor was safe - one less casualty to weigh on her mind. And if she were to sit still for too long her eyes might wander to the chessboard set up in the corner of the den where her father had taught her to play, or the novella her mother had left out on the coffee table. There wasn't time to let her regrets consume her. She was all Snape had - and for the moment, he was all she had too.
Day and night, she poured over every healing book she could get her hands on, hoping to find a miracle. Sleep came in short, restless spurts that only left her jittery from the nightmares. She grew to prefer spending her nights trying to decipher the healing terms than attempting to get a good night's sleep.
:-:
Twelve days post-battle, Hermione was startled awake in the early morning by a thumping noise. Wand held aloft and heart hammering in her chest, she quietly climbed the stairs and inspected each room until she came to find her former professor sprawled on the floor of her parents' room.
"Where am I?" he slurred, barely lifting his head from the carpet as she rushed to his side.
"This is my home, Professor. You're safe."
Hermione levitated him back onto the bed and watched as he promptly fell asleep. The moment was enough to give her hope that everything would turn out alright.
:-:
The next morning, Snape woke again. This time he appeared more coherent as he badgered his hostess for answers.
"It was a house-elf," she explained, sitting by his bedside and meticulously casting the healing charms she'd read about. "She went to collect your … your body, but she could sense you were still alive. It was a miracle."
The perpetual frown Snape wore deepened at this but he said nothing.
"What is it?" Hermione asked.
He lowered his head and mumbled, "Why did you bother?"
"Bother with…?"
"Saving me."
Hermione found herself speechless, blinking owlishly at her old professor. "Why shouldn't we?"
"I didn't deserve it. You should have let me die."
"That's not true. You're a hero, you … you were part of the Order all along."
He scoffed, pulling his hand away as she reached for it.
"Professor-"
"I'm not a professor anymore. I'm nothing. I might as well be dead."
"No." She moved to the edge of the bed, leaning over him so he had no choice but to see her. "Say what you will, but I refuse to believe that you were meant for nothing more than to die a pointless, painful death. You haven't been living for yourself, making your own decisions, for twenty years. Voldemort is dead; this is your second chance."
"You're wasting your time."
"I'm not!" She pushed up from the bed and stomped to the door. At the last second, she turned around and glared at her charge. "You're stronger than you think, and since you're stuck here with me, I've a lot of time to prove it to you."
It would be an interesting challenge, Hermione thought as she slipped into bed that night, but with any luck it might do them both some good in the end.
A/N: So this is basically the origin story for almost any Sevmione fic I've written. If it takes place post-DH and acts like Severus was miraculously saved from the venom, this is how I imagined that going. Although I usually have his recovery at Hogwarts while Hermione is in her eighth year.