Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Hogwarts universe, I earn nothing. I am just playing - with a loving heart and neverending joy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now leaving the story of JKR for - I presume - understandable reasons.
Severus killed? Not on Hermione's watch...
Chapter 32
Before reaching the willow, Hermione had screamed her fear into the air without slowing down.
"Winky! Help! Please help me!"
In the hallway, she stopped and tried to calm her breathing. In a distance, she could hear noises from the shack and she could already feel the aura of black magic that surrounded Voldemort.
Noises were good, noises meant that something was happening, and something happening meant that Severus was still alive.
The plan she worked out in those seconds was more like a spiderweb shaken by a wild storm, but she had no choice - and certainly no second attempt.
Beside her she heard the familiar sound and Hermione sighed in relief when Winky stood in front of her with a startled look. Immediately, she put a protective silencing charm around them both and fell on her knees in front of the little lady to speak to her face to face.
"Winky, over there," she pointed to the other end of the hallway, "Headmaster Snape will be dead in a few moments if we don't do anything. It's the Dark Lord himself and I don't know if we'll get out of there alive, but I have to go there.
I have to."
She swallowed and continued with a whispered plea.
"Will you help me?"
Winky was shaking with fear now, she too could feel the black magic that came from the Shreaking Shack and noticeably became stronger and stronger. It seemed to wash through the corridor like a wave of malice; involuntarily Hermione turned her head and looked into the darkness.
Holy hippogriff crap, they had to hurry.
Suddenly she felt a small hand slipping into hers and looked back at Winky, who managed to nod with chattering teeth. She gratefully squeezed her tiny hand and briefly explained what she was up to. If Winky had run away screaming now, she wouldn't have blamed her, but she stayed.
More trembling than before, but she stayed.
Merlin bless her.
"Let's go," said Hermione and ran down the corridor while the house-elf followed her like a tiny shadow.
When she reached the shack, she peered through a crack in the wooden wall and, to her horror, saw Snape lying on the ground; above him Nagini, who had apparently already bitten him several times. At this sight her fear gave way to a strangely calm and cold anger and she felt a strength in herself that she would not have thought possible a few moments ago. The fascination she had felt around Voldemort so far was swept away and all that remained was contempt.
Voldemort was just addressing Snape as he looked at the wand in his clawlike hand, which Hermione recognized as Dumbledore's wand.
The Elder Wand.
"It will be your reward, Severus, for making me ruler of the most powerful wand our world has ever seen."
'Oh, fuck yourself sideways, you asshole.' Hermione thought, before arming herself with the strongest Occlumency she was capable of, hiding her wand up her sleeve and entering the scene with a submissive, admiring smile and open hands.
"Excuse me, your lordship"
Voldemort whirled around and pointed the wand at her while Nagini paused in her work of destruction. To Hermione's incredible relief, the strangely twisted body moved on the floor, Snape raised his head and a pained look from dark eyes met her through the curtain of his hair, which was already smeared with his own blood and Nagini's venom.
"Granger." Snape groaned in disbelief and Voldemort turned his bald head in sudden interest.
"A lovely afternoon to you, Professor Snape," Hermione said as if it was a cocktail party and immediately turned back to Riddle.
"Your Lordship, it has always been a dream of mine to meet you."
That wasn't even a lie. After all, nightmares were dreams too.
"So, she is that annoying character, that Mudblood Hermione Granger, Severus?" Voldemort asked, looking her up and down.
"Yes, Mylord." Snape groaned, wondering what this insane being had in mind, what performance she would try before she was going to die with him. It was too late, he knew that. Nagini had already done a great job and he only had a few minutes until the poison mixed with her master's black magic would have bled him out like a dishcloth in a waterfall.
"Potter's little mistress ..."
The Dark Lord's interest was clearly piqued.
"I would have liked to bring him here for you, your lordship," said Hermione in the most charming tone of voice.
"But thanks to your unfaithful follower here, it's not that easy."
She gestured with her hands still outstretched to prove her lack of armament, and now Snape understood what she was up to. That foolish, stupid, unbelievable child of summer. Maybe he could at least manage to get her thrown out.
He gathered all the strength he had left to get Voldemort's attention.
"Shut up, Granger!" He gasped with astonishing intensity and tried to sit up, which was acknowledged with a warning hiss from Nagini.
Hermione shifted positions slightly and pointed accusingly at him with her right hand.
"You have betrayed his lordship for far too long now," she snapped at him.
The synchronicity of Voldemort and Nagini began to crumble; while Nagini concentrated more on Snape, Voldemort's attention was focused on Hermione, who continued to point theatrically into the air with her right hand.
"For years he has been teaching Potter black magic secretly to harm you, Mylord."
A little more. A little bit. Carefully.
The two wooden wedges in the dilapidated wall behind Voldemort and Nagini that had been carrying the weight of the now completely rusted anchor chains for over twenty years slowly began to tilt under the constant pressure of the non-verbal Mobiliarbus, which Hermione did with her left hand.
She had never been so grateful for being such a dirty nothing to Voldemort that he apparently didn't even want to besmirch his mental fingers with the contents of a mudblood's head at the moment.
"Is that true, Severus?" Voldemort asked, more amused than shocked.
"A crazy lying mudblood, not worthy to even talk to you, Mylord," Snape coughed.
Hermione laughed scornfully and gave the best impersonation of what she imagined should coincide with the conspiracy theories of Bellatrix Lestrange. Hopefully, that mad woman had whispered a story like that into the ear of Mr. Paranoia Riddle - if you call that ugly rag on his head an ear.
"Not worthy? At least, my service was worthy enough for you after all, Professor. Otherwise, you would hardly have organized the timely exile of my mudblood family. " She turned back to Voldemort with an excusing smile. „Poor Mr. Greyback... I'm afraid he wasn't the one who had deserved your Lordship's anger."
It was a shot in the dark by Hermione, but it hit.
Voldemort's eyes suddenly sparkled red with anger and Severus cried out in a weak voice as his mark began to hurt painfully. At the same time, Nagini was now also targeting Hermione, who she apparently identified as the cause of her master's anger.
It was just too much for Snape now. The last thing he felt in that hurricane of pain was a tiny hand that carefully grabbed his left arm, which was stretched out on the floor on the side of his body facing away from Voldemort and Nagini.
'Merlin, what a strange mandrake.' was Severus Snape's last thought.
Then everything went black.
Now!
Now the distraction was as big as it would never be again and Hermione ripped out the loose wedges, so that the heavy chains fell to the floor with a deafening rattle.
At the same time she jumped sideways in the direction of the lying Snape and had her wand out. With a simple, but lightning-fast nebula, she hit Voldemort, who was distracted by the noise, with a cloud that took his field of vision. At the same moment, Nagini, who was clearly much less impressed by the noise than Riddle, attacked Hermione and missed her by the length of an horntail's tooth thanks to her quick move.
Like one of the swimmers at the championships that her parents had loved watching on TV, Hermione threw her left arm forward as if hitting the edge of a pool - directly into Winky's outstretched hand. During the Granger gala performance she had been sneaking through the shadows of the shack up to Snape. The three of them disappeared instantly, while Voldemort's screams of rage rang in their ears and Nagini attacked them in a second move.
But her teeth, dripping with poison, could no longer find a target.