Chapter 9: Good Times Gone
{A/N: Here's another update...late post...}
My Thanks To All My Reader And Reviewers...Enjoy S.S
{"Lost it on the chesterfield...Or maybe on...A gamblin' wheel...Lost it in a diamond mine...It's dark as hell...And hard to find...You can climb to the...Top of the highest tree...You can look around...But you still won't see...What I'm lookin' for...Where the good times gone?...Where the good times gone?...All the stupid fun...And all that shit we've done...Where the good times gone?...Well I still don't know..."} Good Times Gone, Nickelback
Unknown Location, Unknown World...
A sea of nothingness had surrounded Severus Snape as he awaited his next great adventure in the form of Albus Dumbledore's mediocre tour of his life. To his surprise the old Headmaster had a virtually sorrowful expression plastered across his face. Snape arched an eyebrow at this change in demeanor as he looked into his former employer's unsettling blue eyes. They had not appeared to lose their trademark twinkle even here. Flint McCormick had been standing by with a smile on his face as he looked back n forth between Snape and Dumbledore. The eerie happiness had been most unnerving to the Potions Master.
"Well Sinister, it looks like it's time to say good-bye." said Flint walking over to the taller and much older raven haired wizard.
"Good-Bye Flint?" said Snape curious. "As I recall your final words to me were and I quote "See you in the funny papers."
Flint smiled at his old friend and took the time to ruffle his lengthy raven hair.
"You always were a smart arse kid." he said pulling a random cigarette from behind his ear and placing it between his lips. It had been the same brand that Snape himself had taken up smoking after he reached the age of twelve, and of course it had been when Lily wasn't around. "I've missed that about you."
"Well, I learned from the master." replied Snape flicking his thumb like a hitchhiker toward Dumbledore's direction.
This earned him a chuckle from Flint.
"Do you recall the conditions of our wager Severus?" asked Dumbledore.
Snape sighed.
Of course he had, he wasn't prone to losing valuable information, he had been a spy for Merlin's sake.
"Obviously." muttered Snape annoyed that he still had to endure these antics.
"Good." replied Dumbledore. "Then you are half way thought to preparing yourself."
This statement caused the Potions Master to arch his brow in that familiar way of his.
"Prepare myself?" he asked in confusion.
"There are others that love you, you know." said Dumbledore not at all answering his question, a typical notion on the part of the elder wizard of course. "A good deal of people one might say."
"And your point being?" replied Snape in a bored tone.
It was clear that he had enough of this game, especially of he had already been beaten.
. As Snape stood looking about the strangely white space he found himself conceding that perhaps Dumbledore had been right. He had indeed won the wager about people that loved him proving there had been more than one person in the process. The unnerving twinkle behind Dumbledore's blue eyes had not gotten any easier to deal with least of all pleasant as he stood looking him over.
"So what do you want of me now old man?" asked Snape not at all liking that he had been beaten in the wager.
"Me?" asked Dumbledore with a pleasant smile as eerie as the twinkle behind his eyes. "I want nothing from you Severus, not anymore...in fact I have come to release you."
Snape arched an eyebrow at this.
"Release me?" he asked as if the words had been foreign to him.
"Yes, my boy." replied Dumbledore pleased. "You are a free man now Severus...the conditions of your service to me have been met and the war is over."
Snape sighed.
"A lot of good being free of you will be given the situation you found me in old man." he grumbled.
Dumbledore had not lost his pleasantness.
"You know Severus, I shall miss you." he said in a father-like tone that would have sent chills down Snape's spine had he still been able to feel it.
He had a terrible feeling about Dumbledore's next dropping point.
"I trust you can look after yourself from here" he said with a pleasant tone. "Enjoy your new life Severus."
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Unknown Location, Wizarding World...
Before Snape could react to the ground opening up at his feet, the Potions Master was treated to a white light washing over him. His eyes opened and he found himself in the company of a sleeping bushy haired witch whom had been laying with her head rested on his apparent bed. The Potions Master had attempted to move his heavy body but found that he could not.
All at once the intense sensation of pain had washed over him.
He let out a weak gasp as the machines began to sound an alarm.
His apparent status had awakened the bushy haired witch, whom he vaguely recalled as Hermione Jean Granger, his insufferable know it all Gryffindor student for the past six years at Hogwarts.
Her amber eyes widened as she took in the sight of his open obsidian eyes.
"HARRY!" she shouted seemingly overjoyed at his apparent awakening. "HARRY GET IN HERE, HE'S AWAKE!"
In a matter of seconds, Harry James Potter had come racing into what appeared to Snape to be a bedroom. The machines had continued to go haywire as Harry checked him over carefully with his wand. Since when does Potter have medical expertise? And why am I in a strange bedroom?
"Professor...Professor Snape can you hear me?" asked Harry seemingly overjoyed to see the ailing wizard awake as well.
Snape opened his mouth but found that he could not make a sound aside from a pain-filled gasp. His eyes widened in worry as he recalled what Nagini and Voldemort had done to him in the shrieking shack.
"Harry...it's too soon." said Hermione pressing her hand to Snape's forehead. "His vocal cords haven't been used in nearly six months."
Six Months? I've been like this for six months? What the hell is going on here?
The Potions Professor had clearly been quite upset by revelation of being in this condition for nearly 180 days.
"Calm down Professor." said Hermione in a pleasant tone as she continued to stroke his sallow pale cheek.
Snape had not been accustomed to being touched but there was little he could do to deter her strange need to show him affection.
"We'll tell you everything you need to know about what happened after the shrieking shack but for now get some rest sir." said Harry his voice had been strangely filled with a hint of admiration.
What the hell planet am I on? Harry Potter going out of his way to help me recover? Hermione Granger, well I'm not all that surprised by her...she's had a school girl's crush that I've tried to deter for years. Lockhart...indeed.
"We'll let you get some rest Professor." said Harry making a point to pull Hermione out of the room to give the Potions Master some privacy.
Snape had been unable to move his body despite the pressing urge to urinate. With Potter and Granger gone the Potions Master felt less exposed as he noted the coursing urine that left his body and filling the strange clear tube that had been near this bed side. The dour wizard's eyes widened when he realized that he had been subject to using a catheter.
Given all the innovations in the wizarding world, these two former students have taken to using primitive muggle medical devices to see to his care. He supposed that it could have been worse but they had not been anywhere the expertise of Poppy Pomfrey. Somehow the Potions Professor had guessed that the old bastard had gotten him again for whatever it was worth, the bigger picture coming together, with Dumbledore conspiring to keep him alive long enough for both Potter and Granger to save him following the events of the final battle of Hogwarts.
It had been a well played move on the part of the old Headmaster, and in all honestly, something Slytherin in tact.
You've won this round old man...but this is far from over.
Unable to do much more, Snape found himself becoming quite tired and closed his heavy pale eyelids, but not before getting a glimpse of a certain bushy haired witch sneaking into the room to take her place at his bedside once more.