Darkness.I swam in an endless spans of darkness. I knew I wouldn't return, to be quite frank I had no desire to return. Life held nothing for me. If I were to awaken I'd be shipped off to Azkaban for my relations with The Dark Lord, or worse, the dementor's kiss. Yes, death was very welcoming no matter how cold, dark, and depressing it seemed to be. I hoped I'd see Lily upon death but no. She is too good for the likes of myself. So I floated, I didn't swim or struggle or anything like that, no, I floated.
I don't know how long I floated but I was eventually pulled out of my wallowings by a warm golden brown light. A voice sounded not in my head nor out.
"Severus." It cried, "Please oh please don't die Severus."
So someone did care, how interesting.
"Oh gods Severus I'd die without you, I don't know what I'd do without your snark and cruelty, your amazing skill or wonderful voice. Oh gods Severus, I wish I'd just told you, told you how I felt."
How they feel? How interesting. With little effort I swam into the light only to find myself back amongst the living. Hermione Granger stood above me, bawling like she was going to die.
"I love you Severus Snape, you can't leave me, not now."
I didn't believe what I was hearing, someone so young, so innocent, so intelligent, so beautiful wanted me, the greasy git dungeon bat, to live, not only to live but to return her proclaimed love. Impossible. This must be a sick cruel joke Death is playing on me.
"Live Severus, if not for me then for the rest of the wizarding world, what would they do without their most brilliant and powerful potions master?" She cried before an odd sensation of warmth on my lips encompassed me, followed by something being shoved down my throat.
"Meum pro me am ant vivere rursus!" She cried, gripping my hands like a vice before falling limp.
The wave of power and healing energy flooded my senses. I'm alive. I look down at the girl- no- young woman limp on my chest, the life gone out of her.
Oh gods, what has she done?
Able to move again I sat up, holding her corpse, shaking it, "Miss Granger! Miss Granger! Hermione!"
Yet there was no response. No squirm, or mumble, or breath. No life.
"Hermione." I sobbed into her hair, holding her growing colder body against mine, in hopes that mabie, just mabie my warmpth can save her.
But no.
"Hermione." I sobbed again and again, sitting on the floor of the shrieking shack, covered in my own blood, holding yet another dead Gryffindor. Fate is a cruel bitch, a cruel, cruel bitch.
The irony of this situation alone sickened me. Here I sat holding a dead Gryffindor only this time around she loved me without question whilst I gave myself to another. Only this time the dead Gryffindor loved me, of all people, and gave herself for me, not a blubbering child. And this time I held no love for the dead Gryffindor, at least until I realized how much she truly felt about me.
Now I sit on a grimy bloody floor, holding the one person whom has ever truly loved Severus Snape, snarky Death Eater
bat, genius potions master, man.
I eventually passed out, holding her cold corpse like I myself would die if she was taken any more from me.
I awoke at an unknown time in blinding white light. Healers scurried about the way healers do. They questioned me on how I survived the blasted snake bite, but I could not answer. Instead I broke down. I heaved and sobbed, the healers tried to calm me down but to no avail. The little that remained of Severus Snape shattered, repairable only by death. Life holds nothing for people like me in this world. Nothing.
Potter cleared my name, but I didn't care. Part of me hoped he didn't so at least I could go die in Azkaban. News of Hermione's sacrifice spread fast, news of the mad witch hell-bent on saving her beloved professor and dying doing so, news of how she wasted her life for a filthy Death Eater. Her funeral, I did not attend. Instead I returned to Spinner's End and drank and drank and drank. At least in a drunken stupor she was still there. Laughing, smiling, waving her hand in the air like the insufferable know-it-all she was, my beautiful wonderful insufferable know-it-all that I didn't have the chance to love the way one such as her deserves.
Even if she lived I still doubt I could've loved her properly, like every woman like her deserves.
She left me a book. A note was found in her corpse's pants pocket, telling the reader that I was to be given a small black leather-bound book upon her death.
That book was apparently where she dumped all her thoughts, day to day activities, complaining about doing Potter and Weasley's work all the time, drawings of things she found interesting, lists and essays about all the reasons she found to love me.
I didn't think it was possible but my heart broke all the more reading her journal. How her so called 'friends' used her, how the simplest of things amused her, how she found so many light spots in the man that was Severus Snape.
What was all the worse is how little her 'friends' really knew her, how her 'friends' mourned for all of three days before carrying on with their lives, how her 'friends' never visited her grave.
I visited. Every day. I'd come, place the most beautiful of orange roses at her headstone, kiss her name, and leave. I'd then proceed home to fall into a drunken stupor reading her journal, looking at her drawings of Hogwarts, books, bottles, owls, the potions master. Reading her short stories, stories about Hogwarts, spoofs of muggle fairy tales, most always featuring herself, and of course the potions master. Savoring the way her letters curled and swished, like an autumn wind, about her words. Two in peticuler, Hermione Snape.
I cried. I cried and cried, read, cried some more, drank to numb why I am crying, and pass out, hoping to not wake up again where I passed out, tear stained pages in hand, alone.
I'd considered suicide, but she wanted me to live. I need to grant her that, for her death cannot be in vain because of my selfishness. I am Severus Snape, I don't do things for myself, I do them for everyone else. This I am merely doing for my Hermione.
May you rest in peace, my beloved Hermione.