Author's Notes: My answer to Romancingwizard's last challenge: An evening with Severus Snape. I had to write a 500-word ficlet incorporating the words of the following prompt "His robes billowed out behind him as he left the scene of the disaster"
Many thanks to the lovely Somigliana for betareading!
He muttered a quick Lumos. The room lit up in a second. He could see some squashed rose petals at his feet.
She'd always loved roses and today was special - it was their anniversary, even if she didn't know it. He'd decided that she might be more to him than an ordinary neighbour seven years ago.
Neville Longbottom, the founder of Magical Plants, helped him find the perfect roses for Hermione - roses from all over the world for an English rose!
She arrived earlier than he had expected. He was about to light the candles when he heard her soft footsteps. Her eyes shone when she saw the roses all around them. She smiled and laughed and cried as well, but what he could see in her eyes only mattered to him. There was love. And this look made his heart melt for the millionth time.
He advanced quickly, just looking at his feet, just seeing the petals, when he noticed a shattered glass in a pool of spilt wine on the carpet.
Their dinner was so lovely: she just stayed with him, not really eating - she had no appetite, but he wasn't surprised. He knew she was trying to please him by nibbling at her food. But when she tried to grab his hands, he knew something was amiss.
Snape didn't have the strength to mutter Reparo, and after all, some house-elves would do all the dirty work soon. All he wanted to do was to sit on the couch and to bury his face his face in his hands, but how could he?
He immediately rushed to the fireplace, and they were there in a few minutes, taking her with them. He couldn't follow them- it was forbidden; only staff members could use the St Mungo's Floo network.
It had been as if time had slowed a lot - he could see everything and everyone as if he wasn't himself. It already happened before when he'd had to kill Dumbledore all those years ago. Tonight, he'd seen Healers trying to save Hermione, to stabilize her and to take her back to St Mungo's.
He could see empty potions vials on the floor near the couch. He closed his eyes.
He had tried to follow her as quickly as possible. His robes billowed out behind him as he left the scene of the disaster, of his ruined evening with Hermione.
His eyes snapped opened; he couldn't stay like this. He had to live for Hermione and for their daughter. Rose was at his mother's tonight. Hermione had contracted a Muggle disease, inherited from her mother's line. It was unexpected, but they would fight it. Tonight, she'd had permission to leave St. Mungo's to be home with him. It was a surprise he plotted along with her Healer. Hermione was barely alive now; he would find the perfect cure for her, he knew he would. Rose, a Seer, to their annoyance, had predicted it that very morning.