Chapter 3
They got to Snape's quarters and found the door locked and warded. Dumbledore broke through the wards and entered. He found the note left on the desk, read it, and dropped it quickly. He rushed through the bedroom door. Harry gasped when he saw the tremendous amount of blood seeping through the sheet. Hermione was still breathing and almost beginning to stir. Snape himself was barely breathing. His breaths came infrequently and were nearly too shallow to have made much of a difference.
"Oh Severus, this is such dark magic you chose," Dumbledore muttered. "Still, I know that your heart was in the right place."
He drew his wand and placed a healing aura around the two on the bed. He stepped into the aura, softly singing some ancient spell. He sealed the cut down Snape's arm. It was nearly moot since the blood ran so slowly now and had begun to clot. Snape's face was grey and lifeless, but it held a look of deep peace and calm. Gone was the scowl that had frightened students and fellow faculty. Dumbledore touched Snape's head and heart, murmuring an ancient spell. Next, Dumbledore ran his hand over Hermione's chest and legs where the darts were. He isolated them one at a time. Then he withdrew them magically, dropping the darts on the table by the bed, one-by-one. When the last one had been removed, he began to sing the healing spell again over her. She slipped back into a deep sleep, joining Snape whose breathing had returned to deep and regular. His face was even beginning to return to its normal sallow hue. The next to last thing Dumbledore did was a cleansing spell. Harry watched the blood vanish from the bodies and from the surrounding bedding. Finally, he wrapped a quilt around the sleeping pair.
With a satisfied nod to Snape, Dumbledore stepped back out of the aura, which would remain in place until the couple had recovered sufficiently to survive on their own. He took Harry's shoulder and led him out, closing the door behind them.
"Harry, they need their rest now. Come, let's see what we can do upstairs," he spoke so softly to the young man, Harry hardly heard him.
"Professor," Harry began.
"Shhh. They need their rest now," Dumbledore reiterated.
When they were near the Hospital Wing, Harry asked again, "Professor, what happened down there?"
"Professor Snape was willing to offer his life in exchange for Miss Granger's. That is the most powerful and ancient magic of all. It kept her alive until we finished the undoing Bellatrix's poison just now."
"He loves her?" Harry was thunderstruck. "Snape's, sorry sir, I mean Professor Snape, always made out to hate us all. He's called us 'dunderheads' all through school, and he used to single Hermione out as an 'insufferable know-it-all.'"
"Yes, Harry," Dumbledore counseled him, "He loves her. This is a love that transcends all else. It's the kind of love that your mother Lily had for you. It's the kind of love that I wanted to manifest itself in you."
"What if Hermione does not share those feelings?" Harry was worried. He knew Snape to be an overly possessive man.
"There will always be that bond of blood between them, Harry. But I suspect that Professor Snape will never make mention of it unless he senses a reciprocal feeling from Miss Granger," Dumbledore explained in his gentle way. "By the way, no, I have no idea if he has romantic feelings for her, but he does love her dearly. There are so many different kinds of love given to us, Harry. Only time will tell which ones we are seeing this day."
