Disclaimer: Still don't own. Lots of tears. Please see previous.

A/N: Now you lovely people know I would not leave you like that as an ending without a word of goodbye. And you know I'd not make you wait a week to see the next bit. Again, I will say we are nearing the end, and all I can think is: "I don't want to go." Ten points if you know that reference.

Going to warn you this is entirely flashback. Much love to you all!

Chapter 36: Wand

A wand. Killed for a wand. He had quite different sentiments on magic now, all things considered.

And, devious to the end, the Dark Lord had apparently no idea that Severus had been unfaithful, but he had easily killed him anyway for the wand. The man was so cold he did not even stick around to see Severus had died. Maybe the bastard half-hoped he might survive somehow.

For his own part, Severus did not hope that. He had prepared for this moment, his death—the moment when he finally paid his debt, redeemed himself. The moment his pain finally ended. On the one hand, he'd taken anti-venom for months in case Nagini should be set upon him before his mission was complete, Potter aware of what he needed to know, his best chance in hand. But on the other hand, the wound was to his neck. The poison would be expelled but so would a lot of blood, and even with the antidote, the damage to his internal organs would kill him if someone did not find him within hours.

And who would find him? The only people who knew he was there was Potter and Riddle—Yes, Riddle, he decided to call him. Soon, one of them would be dead, perhaps both. He would be dead before that.

He felt the wet lips of the snake on his neck and, not wanting his body to be devoured, reached to smack it away with more strength than he expected to have.

A small gasp surprised him, and his eyes flew open. He was clutching her small wrist in his hand. Her brown eyes were wide, warm, and bright. He looked directly up into them, and it was like crawling through darkness into a welcoming, open door. He knew those eyes, he vaguely recognized. They were no threat.

"Welcome back." Her hand slid gently down his cheek from the spot she tended as she smiled. "You're alright." Her voice said softly, washing a stinging wound on his neck.

'How?' He wanted to ask, but his voice was too dry. He had his answer anyway. It was Granger. Granger of all people.

That meant she and presumably Potter had survived and she, he further assumed, had been clever enough to find his cure in his private stores; that and talking to Arthur Weasley about his past treatment, her own muggle knowledge with Poppy's able hands… she had help, naturally, but Granger had saved him. He had no doubt.

He wanted to laugh at it.

It was obvious. She was the brightest of her age, but he had never even been nice to her. How useless Potter and Draco were after all…

He choked a bit on his laughter, and she stopped her careful ministrations on his neck to gently raise his pillow, her arms scooping behind his head. It put him the awkward position of having to face her breasts. She moved in a moment, realizing he was conscious. This was apparently unusual.

A cup of water was pressed to his lips, lightly. He shook his head stubbornly. His throat was raw.

Granger, it seemed, knew better than to argue. She returned to her work. He noticed the rag pulling away with blood and some nasty colored pus type liquid from his jugular. She did not flinch, nor give him a bit of her attention. She chewed on her red lower lip in concentration.

"You are going to make it bleed." He said at last, startling her again. She sat back and stared at him, batting her eyelashes. He tried to move himself up in bed.

"Don't." She stopped him, her small hand on his shoulder. "The wound is only just sutchered and if you move, it will split open, and you'll bleed out again."

"Again?"

She paled, looking down. "You had lost a lot of blood when I found you. I tried stopping it the muggle way, figuring magic wouldn't work." She continued to nurse the wound. "I apparated you to hospital."

"A muggle hospital?"

She nodded, continuing. He watched her, mesmerized by her manner, as if she had done this for weeks, as if she were some impressive grown witch and not an overachieving student, as if he had survived the impossible and was sitting in Hogwarts. It was all true, though. Equally impossible and true.

"They restarted your heart with electricity, stopped the bleeding, stitched you up and gave you a transfusion. Naturally, though, they were a bit confused about your test results...your blood and the venom. The second your blood pressure and heart rate were stable, I snuck you out and back to Hogwarts. Didn't think you'd want to be at St. Mungos, especially until everyone's heard..." She continued her work.

"Arthur and Poppy showed me how to care for you, and I went straight to raid your labs for something to repair the internal damage. I was not sure it would work." She admitted.

"Stop." He insisted, pain swelling in his chest. It was dawning on him.

"I'm nearly done." She said absentmindedly, re-stitching his flesh with a spell.

"Go." He commanded, barely keeping his voice steady.

She watched him carefully. "Get. Out." He struggled.

Granger had the nerve to look hurt. He did not care. She had ruined everything, ruined his redemption, his reunion with his dear Lily at last. He just wanted to see her face, to tell her he was sorry and see her hear it, read his fate on her features.

She stood, tossing the rag down. "You're welcome." She spat before leaving. What did she want from him anyway? What did she expect?

"Thank you for what?"

"For saving you." She said, her voice thick with emotion. Her eyes welled. He did not care. Silly child could go have her selfish cry and leave him alone as he wished.

"I didn't ask to be saved. I wasn't supposed to be." He told her, closing his eyes as he rested back on his pillow. "I wasn't supposed to be."

"That's not really for you to decide." She shot at him. He only glowered in response, thinking it very much was up to him, and she had taken his death—the one had had chosen with honor and meaning—away from him. She spun on her heel, unbothered by the daggers he glared, and tip tapped her way out of the deserted hospital wing.

He was at her mercy when she returned hours later as the room darkened. She brought supper and lifted the cup of water again to his lips. She said nothing. This time, he drained it. It was cool and tasted sweet.

To his horror, she proceeded to feed him. He wanted to protest, his face clearly said he did, but it was the only way; if he moved, he would bleed out, and though he had wept for hours that he was not dead, he could not explain why he had not moved his neck and ended it all.

"I'm not going to apologize." She said thoughtfully a few moment later. She did not look at him as she spoke, but continued to stare into his soup. "But I do wish you would forgive me."

He had not known it would matter to her, his opinion. He finished eating, swallowing without protest the bottle of nourishing potion. She wiped his face, making him grimace. "I know you don't like it, but I have to. I won't tell anyone."

"You're enjoying this." He spat.

She laughed coldly. "I assure you, I'm not. I do have to thank you, though." She checked and cleaned the wound. "For saving Harry. For saving all of us."

He raised an eyebrow in response. "Indeed. I see then he survived."

She nodded once in the affirmative, her lips pressed tightly together like her mentor Minerva. "Riddle is dead. For sure this time. All the horcruxes are destroyed."

"Well done."

"What do you care?" She asked with surprising coldness. "You don't care to see the world after Riddle, who lived and who died. You had better things to do."

"Many died." He presumed.

"Yes, but it's not the quantity." Her voice was heavy with grief. "It's the quality."

And he knew exactly how that felt. He held back his words, knowing he couldn't express them and a wave hit him. He could express them. He did not have to pretend or hold back. No longer was he a slave to the role he must play, hiding his grief over the only father he had ever known, his disgust with the madman he had trusted as a boy. "Who?" He asked.

"You really don't want to know."

"Who?" He repeated.

She sighed, giving up. "Lupin. Not that you care."

"He was decent." Severus admitted, one of the few to stick up for him, monster though he was. Lily was always fond of him.

"And Tonks." Even he felt sorry for that child, their poor child.

"Fred Weasley." He looked up in surprise. Odds were not in their favor, that family, but still…one twin. They were clever too, fast. "Collin Creevey." Such a small boy… "Lavender Brown." He knew the awkward feeling of the name of the dead on your lips when you never liked them. "Professor Morgana Strait." He frowned.

"Vincent Crabbe died. Malfoy defected. Draco is safe, Lucius in prison awaiting trial. Nagini is gone thanks to Neville and Bellatrix at the hand of Mrs. Weasley. Greyback escaped."

"Is that all?" He asked when she said nothing further for a moment.

"About fifty died here. I don't know all the Death Eaters."

"Consider yourself lucky." He said darkly.

"I was." She finished with him as she replied. "Pain relief?" She offered. He declined. Though he would never admit it, he enjoyed the throbbing. Perhaps it felt like he was getting what he deserved. Living for nothing while another little boy lost two loving parents weighed heavily on his chest, like a stone he could not remove. Perhaps it was because the pain made him feel alive; it was his pulse after all that ached with every beat, as if it thumped away reluctantly, resentfully. 'Don't make me.' it seemed to be repeating. 'Don't make me.'

"If you're still here in the morning, I'll see you then." She stood, calling him from his thoughts. Her demeanor was unusual; she was still bothered. And he had no idea why. He did not care, but he supposed he had little less to think about in the empty room. He almost asked.

"Want to be by the fire or the window?" She offered, wand out. He was surprised. Granger was clever, but he did not know she was that empathic. Even annoyed, she thought he might want to be situated somewhere else, somewhere warmer or with a view, and could not move himself.

"Fire." He admitted. The grounds at night were spectacular, something he never thought he'd see again. But he was cold.

She sensed this too, conjuring another blanket without a word as she magically moved his bed next to a hearth. It was the castle all around him that made him feel safe, he told himself, the fire close by warming him. He slept well.

It was only when he woke to her cleaning him up and changing his sheets that he moved at last. He leapt from the bed. "What are you doing?" He demanded, hot blood spurting wildly out from his neck, spraying the table and the bed, his bear chest damp from her sponge.

"Lie down. Lie down. Lie down!" She had to press her weight onto his throat as he laid down on the frigid floor. It was suddenly hard to breathe and harder to swallow. She was stained with his blood, his filthy pure blood being held in by this desperate muggle born, this little genius. Those warm brown eyes were wide in the struggle, but the still so placid...

She managed to stop the bleeding, he surmised, for he woke again sometime later clean and on clean sheets.

Granger was reading aloud from a book she had taken from his office, one of his favorites. He knew this at once because it was worn on the spine and he recognized the words, but he supposed that was precisely how she guessed it was one of his favorites. She snapped the book shut, giving him a look from her seat, legs curled under her in an arm chair.

"I told you not to move. You made quite a mess." She said simply, standing and getting the glass of water and blood replenishing potion before he could say anything.

"Have you considered being a healer?" He asked in a very teacher-like manner once he had swallowed it all.

She snorted. "I haven't even graduated Hogwarts, professor." She shook her head.

"What are you doing?" He asked as she summoned a warm plate of food. He waved the plate away. Clearly, this was not pleasing to Miss Granger. 'Well that's just too bad,' he thought.

"Trying to get some food in you."

"No I mean, you and your friends should be celebrating. You're a war hero. I'm just your former teacher. I wasn't even nice to you, and you're—you're here. What are you doing?"

"You're not really going to make me say it, are you?" He was puzzled.

She shook her head. "It's—it's an hon—Look, everyone knows now, the truth. Some of us suspected it before. We've lost so many, and given all you've done… we wanted you to live." She shrugged at the admission. He had nothing to say. So everyone knew. Those little brat who showed him so little respect might cower and gape like they did at the great Harry Potter. He was sad for the first time Black had not lived to see this.

"Sorry to disappoint." She added, looking at him pointedly before going to the window. "Given your…history, we thought you'd want to be here, and we did not want visitors. The rest of the school is being repaired."

"You volunteered for this, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Think of it this way: you're sparing me from the funeral processions and preparations."

It was not an answer.

He could feel time had passed before he next woke. It was then he realized he had been sleeping long periods and waking periodically. Once again, the only person in the room to keep him company was Granger, and once again she was being ridiculously attentive. His body ached, and he felt irritable from being bedridden. And constipated.

"You missed Harry." Hermione told him. "I know you're terribly disappointed." She quipped.

"I almost am." He shot at her. He almost wished her voice were high and annoying so he would have a reason to cringe and complain.

She looked disappointed again and was silent in caring for him. He cursed her sensitivity as it caused him losing the little conversation available.

"I've never understood it, you know?" She said at last.

"Never understood what?" He reluctantly asked as she re-bandaged his wound. "Why you hate me so much."

"I've never hated you."

"You're as mean to me as you have been to Harry."

"I hated Riddle." He clarified.

"You should see outside. It's all different without him, you know."

"And when will I go outside, Madam Granger?" He asked snidely.

"Soon." She said, patient with a note of optimism. "Sooner if you had not had your fit earlier."

"Is that what this is? Are out trying to win my approval?" Carefully, he tried to raise his upper body into a sitting position.

"No."

"Then why? Why are you doing this?" He hissed, impatient.

She sighed, giving him a frown that was nowhere near intimidating. In fact, it was very nearly cute, if it had not been Granger. "Because I want to." She answered simply, making him want to growl in frustration. She did not shrink under his glare.

"You don't owe me."

"I thought I did." She commented, not looking up as she straightened the bed sheets. He hated it when she did that.

"No. Why on earth would you?"

She moved his bed to the windows. The night was warm. She was correct. The grounds were cluttered with rubble, dotted with a mass of memorial flowers pilled for the fallen. Hagrid was working as usual, his silhouette bending and straightening on a slope. There was no sound of children, but various beasts flew and dipped in the night sky, the stars bright. The lake reflected them, like two skies.

"For saving you and all." She answered, looking out on the grounds as well. He looked at her a moment, unsure what he was seeing. It looked vaguely like Hermione Granger. It was taller and sort of glowed in the moonlight. It was strong and unafraid. She looked at him too, and he recalled seeing those warm brown eyes when he woke… no before that, as he'd been dying. It was unclear, unlike her soft touch which remained uncomfortably vivid. 'Welcome back.'

"Goodnight." She said leaving him to the fresh air.

"I did not move." He called after her retreating form.

"I'm sorry?" Her footsteps died.

"When I woke and I was angry I had not died, you said if I moved my neck, I'd bleed out in a matter of minutes. You've left me alone, free to move several times since then and end it all of my original wounds."

"But?"

"But," he stressed. "I did not move." He knew no more why or what it meant than she did, but there it was. She nodded once.

"Don't touch that!" He snapped as Poppy made herself at home, or at work as it was, settling him into his own chambers.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Severus." She huffed.

"I hardly need help anyway." He could move at least, but found after so long in bed it winded him easily. He huffed as he climbed under his sheets.

"You are to stay in bed and take your potions until you recover completely. The castle is secluded enough to protect you from infection. But you can't move enough to maintain your own wounds."

"Oh if only we had magic…" He said sarcastically.

"Lay down!" She pushed him. Rather counterproductive to his healing, he felt.

"When is Granger returning?" He angrily pulled on his blankets.

Madam Pompfrey laughed. "When is Miss Granger returning indeed." She chuckled. "I'll have to tell her that. She'll be tickled." The woman ignored him and his glares.

"Missed me I hear." Granger turned on his lights waking him cruelly. Her voice was light with amusement.

"Desperately." He joked, taking her by surprise as his eyes had remained closed. She looked at him, then chuckled. Granger did not giggle, he'd grant her that, and she was much more careful with her hands than Poppy. She also chose to ignore his insults and snapping as she fetched him his things and checked his wound. "Watch it, genius." He'd warned her when she pulled out his stiches, earning him her only reaction at all: a snort.

"You should be fine to manage yourself from here on out, you'll be happy to know." She said when she was finished, replacing the book to his shelf she had borrowed to read to him during his period of unconsciousness. Her reading voice was less obnoxious than her answering-in-class voice, he noted in retrospect.

"So you won't be seeing much of me, that is until school restarts."

"You're returning?"

"I want to finish."

"Oh goodie. Another year with golden trio."

"No trio. Just me." She smiled sadly. "Anything I can get you?" She looked around.

"You are hardly my servant. If I need something, I'll ring for an elf or summon Poppy."

"Alright then," She looked at him. "I'll be going."

"Just going?" He thought aloud. It seemed strange after all the time she had spent there, caring for him, but he supposed this was just another project for Hermione Granger. She had finished her assignment and was moving on, simple as that. There were bits he did not remember, from before he woke, from bits in between too he guessed. it was all very person to him, dying and living and weakness, but to her it was just duty to some new celebrity, he guessed.

He'd wept, he knew, spoke in his sleep calling pitifully for Lily, Albus… He'd had nightmares which to his horror she roused him from. There was more he felt he could not remember… gaps where things had been.

"Not going to say goodbye?" He asked.

"Goodbye, professor." She smiled, hands in her jacket pockets.

"Thank you, Miss Granger." He said at last, hoping she did not make him regret it. Her smile twisted up on one end.

"You forgive me then?" He was not very much mistaken, she was teasing him.

"I do." He granted. "Though I suspect there are others who won't be so forbearing."

"I'll live." She said, unconcerned as ever.

"You had better, Miss Granger." He threatened seriously, leading her politely to the door. "I will hold you to that. It's the least you can do."

A/N: Almost did not include this part. Very sad. For those of you who hate flashbacks, sorry about this chapter. More to come soon, but not far to go now. Please take a moment and review! It simply makes my day and the more I hear back the faster I update. There were definitely more the last one! Thanks so much.

Yours,

Elsie