Severus! No no! It's impossible! Severus! Wait!
Hermione's own feverish whisper was echoing in her ears, squeezing her temples as if in pain. The panic stuck in her throat, making it difficult to breathe. The room shrank around Hermione.
No. Don't panic. Not like that. Not now.
Hermione took a few shaky breaths, trying to catch her breathing, and leaned towards her husband.
"Severus, can you hear me?" Don't you dare die on me!"
But he did not hear her.
Hermione suppressed a wild desire to scream, to jump headlong into action, to call all Aurors here, to raid the entire hospital of St. Mungo. Her despair was definitely not going to help her husband in any way right now.
Think Granger. Use your illustrious intellect!
Snape gasped for breath and held his hand to her cheek.
"Look at me."
Hermione looked back in dismay.
"Severus?"
He tried to say something else, but his strength was leaving him. The air was leaving his lungs, his eyes, until recently filled with determination and incredible strength, were ready to lose their luster at any moment.
I love you, my dear heart.
Instead of tragically bursting into tears upon hearing this only declaration of love in her life from Severus's lips, Hermione suddenly felt rage boiling in her veins: the notorious "Look at me, Harry" that she had heard during the Battle of Hogwarts, instead of bringing tragical-hero vibes to all who listened, made her very angry. Okay, even though Severus had blood gushing from his throat that day and poison in his veins, even then she managed to pull him out of the long and skinny arms of Death. The Gryffindor lioness was not going to let go of her husband, whom she had barely found, so easily.
"Well, no, Severus Tobias Snape, you just can't get rid of me like that!" Hermione declared resolutely, wiped away her tears and, looking into his eyes, ordered: - Legillimens!
One could reproach Hermione for bringing herself to exhaustion by the constant expectation of a catastrophe. She was a war heroine, spent almost a year in the forest, surviving on mushrooms, canned food, and living in a tent open to all winds. Her best friend was a portrait of Headmaster Black, and her own husband was the Head of Slytherin. Her overthinking tendency was completely justified. At least, in her own eyes.
Hermione couldn't turn into a reckless optimist overnight. Not when Rodolphus Lestrange was still awaiting his final court. Not when his accomplices lined up for the Dementor's Kiss. And the Ministry was still trying to justify itself in the public eye for its stupid Marriage Decree.
Hermione let the assurances of Sirius and the Alliance's vows go down the drain, and continued to worry about her husband and herself. It was not in her position to indulge in laziness and indolence. Much more familiar was the eternal foreboding of the blows of fate.
From the very beginning, Hermione was alarmed by Black's hasty excuses that, as he had said, the Ministry would not have time to prepare five portkeys so urgently, so she and Severus would have to fly by plane, while Black himself and Regulus, would suffer for their sake and queue up in the international terminal.
Snape did not mind: after his injury inflicted by the enchanted dagger, he was glad to fall into a chair and sleep all the way to their homeland. Some suspicions crept into Hermione's heart, which she was afraid to even think about, let alone voice! Did they really succeed to conceive a child?
However, as soon as she and her husband had set foot on British soil, Kingsley immediately pounced on them, Minerva came running, led by the judges of the Wizengamot, Cornelius Fudge made a public apology, reporters gathered from all sides of the country... The confusion did not subside for a whole week, not giving them time to sleep, eat, and breathe.
One day, having barely reached the house and collapsed on the sofa, Hermione leaned back and whined in despair:
"I want to go back to Greece!"
Severus methodically unlaced his boots in the hallway, hung the cardigan habitually dropped by his wife on a hook, walked into the room, and began to knead Hermione's shoulders. She almost groaned in pleasure.
"You are such a sweetheart!"
"Let's pretend I haven't heard that sentiment. So what about Greece?"
"I don't want to be in England anymore. I'm tired of dragging around the courts, wearing security amulets like a Christmas tree. I am tired of giving the same interviews to Rita Skitter and other would-be journalists. I don't know what to answer them when they ask me about the future, you know? How many weeks are there until the future, by the way? A couple of weeks?"
Snape leaned closer and rested his chin on her shoulder.
"Five days."
Hermione sighed deeply and suddenly jumped off the couch and ran into the bathroom. Severus followed her with a surprised look. He heard the sound of water, the creak of open cabinets, the ringing of a timer spell, and sobs.
"Hermione? Darling, is everything okay?" he called, getting no answer from her.
After waiting five minutes for decency, Severus hurried out of the room. Hermione met him halfway, not having reached his saving embrace of some three steps, and fell to her knees with sobs. Snape sank to the floor and gently drew her to him.
"What is it, darling? What happened? Are you hurt? Tell me."
But she just continued to sob, burying her face in his neck.
"Severus, I don't want to die! Not like that! Not now. Not when we succeded. Let's go back to Greece, it will be warm there, we will be happy again."
"What happened, Hermione?" Severus repeated anxiously, wiping her tears with a plaid handkerchief he fished out of his pocket.
Hermione waved her wand, drawing an eight-like figure in the air, and her belly glowed green. Snape pressed his hand to her belly and closed his eyes.
"You are pregnant…"
She nodded.
"I don't want to die..."
"I will not allow this. I swear. I will save both you and our child."
Hermione raised her tear-stained eyes to her husband and grabbed his collar.
"Severus, I promise you that I won't be asking for trouble. I will leave the Ministry, I will not attend the remaining courts, I will sit at home all the time, just don't let me lose our baby again!"
Snape kissed the top of her head.
"Let's go to the living room, you shouldn't sit on the cold floor."
When she settled into his arms again, he spoke barely audibly, mixing words of consolation with his own anxiety:
"I would like to somehow dispel your fears, take your suffering instead of you, but I have never been distinguished by elegant wording the words of consolation. I can only swear, but you don't need my vows. We have allies, they are our strange, battered family, after all, and they will protect us, too much is at stake."
"You've changed so much here, honey," Hermione whispered. "We have strengthened our influence in the political arena, we brought Sirius back to life, we brought back the memory of Regulus, our Potion of Pristine Memories worked, and Fred will soon return to his family. Neville's parents are next to be awakened. Draco got married and became the Head of the House of Malfoys thanks to us."
"Ron Weasley left to raise dragons, too, thanks to me," Snape grinned wryly: he could not hide from his wife his machinations in their past and future, and confessed everything to her.
"You know, Ron stands in my life somewhere close to childhood, friendship and nostalgia. He will forever remain my best friend, but only after getting to know you better, I realized that it definitely would not have worked out with him," Hermione pointed to the pillow, inviting her husband to lie down, and immediately spread herself atop of him. "I'm tired."
"Shall I carry you to the bedroom? Would you like to sleep for a bit?"
"No, Severus. I do not want to sleep. I want to lie here. I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you."
Snape buried his long nose in her hair and took a deep breath: apricots, lilacs, and heather.
"What does it smell of?"
"My Amortentia," he admitted baldly.
"And that's good," Hermione murmured in satisfaction.
"So you do not regret anything? Knowing what I did to get you back? Aren't you worried about my meddling with time?"
"I'm just dumbfounded not to survive the next week, I'm afraid that the Lestranges will give us some dangerous surprise at last, that with my luck I basically have nothing to hope for, but no, I don't regret our marriage. It seems to me that we managed to teach each other much more than we originally expected."
At that very moment, Crookshanks, who had been taken care of by Minerva during their absence, loudly announced his attention deficit and jumped onto the sofa.
"Of course, Furball, what could we do without you here?" Severus grumbled, brushing the cat behind the ears. Hermione joined him.
"My time travelers, my darling boys! I can't believe you took Crooks with you!"
"You know, he was really supportive after… after everything."
Hermione rubbed her eyes.
"I hate Time-Turners for the fact that they do not work for the future! I don't need much, I just need five days in advance. And where, pray tell, has my Gryffindor courage gone?"
"Didn't you have enough courage when you hunted the Horcruxes? Didn't you turn to your courage when you erased the memory of your parents? Wasn't it the one that forced you when you saved my life in the Shrieking Shack and agreed to be my wife? When you forgave yourself and let Florian go? When you put up with your parents? Shall I enumerate further?"
"You're impossible, but you're right. Will you stay with me?"
"Naturally. I'll check the warding charms, I shall see what else I can think of, and after that, we shall go to sleep. We had a completely wild week."
"Will you read it to me?"
Severus smiled and with a wave of his hand summoned a novel of Jane Austen, dearly loved by his wife.
The gray predawn twilight gazed with curiosity into the chambers immersed in the sweet slumber. Severus sat in his armchair, nursing a cup of tea in his hands, and watching his sleeping wife. Today was the day that had robbed him of Hermione forever.
The past came face to face with him and demanded that he be held accountable for his crimes.
It seemed that Severus could breathe a sigh of relief: last night the last trial of the conspirators took place, Lestrange was sentenced, and the case was closed. However, Snape was in no hurry to rejoice ahead of time: many years of experience told him that Rodolphus would definitely throw out his trump card in the end. His brother, Rabastan, remained at large. And even though Harry Potter personally set up guards around the Lestrange mansion, which meant almost house arrest and a complete ban on correspondence, neither Severus nor Hermione were encouraged by such news.
They needed to survive the coming day... And then they were free to go to Greece. Hermione hid her worries behind work, Snape constantly rechecked his protective charms that were entangled in their rooms. For the last two nights, his wife had not slept. She spent late hours reading ancient spellbooks, she learned instructions for recipes for potions, she was practicing half-forgotten spells. In a word, she tried with all her might to distract herself from heavy thoughts.
Severus had offered to brew her a Dreamless Sleep Potion a couple of times, which he had perfected so as not to harm the child, but she refused. So they both stayed awake, whiling away the nights reading, drinking herbal tea, and entertaining themselves in long conversations about everything in the world.
Now Snape was watching her asleep, and his heart ached with tenderness. He loved her in those gray predawn hours as much as he had never loved her before. And he hated the insidious Time-Turners, that dared to stand between him and the future.
He recalled how the fertile charms flickered and turned green, signaling a positive answer, and Severus almost faint-heartedly burst into tears: they had a chance for happiness, the visions from the Mirror of Erised were coming true! They only needed to survive the coming morning. And then a lot of work awaited them. The Slytherin strategy bore fruit: Muggle-born and pureblood students were educated in the cultures of both worlds, George Weasley planned to open a magic cinema. Their reforms gave the first positive results. Hermione decided to stay to teach Arithmancy and Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, Severus accepted her decision.
They were going to become parents. The realization of this thought both frightened and excited Snape. He had no doubts that his wife would be a wonderful mother: moderately strict, moderately compliant. He was worried about his own intractable nature. Snape vowed to himself that he would be better than his father, that he would do everything to make his child happy. He would read fairy tales to his child, give them a Young Potion Master's set and, of course, a children's broom, he would take them to the theater and museum, he would show magical creatures and try to soften the blows of fate as much as possible. Snape was full of determination and anxiety. Welcome to the world of parenting.
Hermione enthusiastically leafed through a guide to Celtic magic. Hiding behind work, she managed to almost distract herself from the horror that fettered her hands and feet. There were only a few hours left until midnight, very soon she would be able to look confidently into the future and not be afraid of what awaited her there.
Severus went to the kitchen to make her his famous masala tea, to which she had recently become addicted. The Time-Turner lay on the table, grains of sand were poured from one bowl to another to connect two lines of probabilities into one.
Hermione stared mesmerized at this amazing object, which frightened and delighted her at the same time. As soon as the hands of the clock struck midnight, the Time-Turner would dissolve in time, forever leaving dangerous magic somewhere in the interweaving of probabilities.
The pop of someone's Apparition startled Hermione. Before she could understand who dared to break the evening silence of their rooms, her husband rushed to the sound and intercepted a black cloud, flying straight at Hermione.
House elf of the Lestranges immediately disappeared in an unknown direction, making the last order of his mad master true.
Hermione rushed to her husband.
Of course, what else, if not the Draught of Living Death, was this potion spilled in the air? How banal and how frightening in its genius! The faded Dark Mark reacted with a potion, the components of which were increased threefold, and were called upon to cause death instead of a deep coma.
Hermione wanted to laugh hysterically, but she couldn't allow herself such liberty.
"I won't let you go this easily, do you hear me? Not now that we've practically won! Don't you dare leave me, Severus!"
The black eyes of her husband beckoned and habitually mesmerized with their depth when Hermione collapsed into the pool of Legillimency, looking for his soul in the nooks of consciousness in order to return him home.
Severus squared his shoulders and looked around: the forest surrounded him on all sides. In the distance one could hear the sound of water, an owl was hooting mysteriously, the moon was shining with a pale light, a fire was crackling somewhere, beckoning Severus with its warmth.
Snape remembered perfectly that the pop of the Houseelves' Apparition sharpened all his reflexes and made him immediately rush to his study to save his wife. Lestrange's last trump card could have cost them their victory.
The Draught Of Living Death did not dissolve by any shields and counter-spells. It was Severus after all who improved this potion with his own hands and somehow, in his youth, he blurted out his secret to his brethren among the Death Eaters. Once again, his irrepressible thirst for public recognition played a cruel joke with him.
But he still managed to do something: to intercept the potion in the air and pour it over himself...
And now, when he again stood at a fork in the border, he wanted to laugh hysterically. Snape turned and walked towards the light, but he was pinned to the spot by a child's cry.
"Daddy! Daddy, wait!"
A girl of about five years old with a shock of curls, in a green dress colored in a daisy pattern, rushed to him, and, having reached, flew into his open arms with a swing.
"Dad! Wait! We will help you!"
Snape dropped to his knees, staring at the worried girl in dismay. He was not a stranger in Limbo, therefore he knew perfectly well that the souls waiting here had no age, and could be either the souls of those already gone or waiting to be born.
"Who are you?" Severus whispered, feeling his father's magic reaching out to the girl, just like the night when Hermione informed him of her pregnancy. The girl slyly examined him from the bottom up and confirmed his guess:
"I am Astra! Florian is coming and we will help you."
"What are you talking about?" Severus frowned worryingly.
"Dad, stop being silly," Astra smiled impudently, "We are your children! Mom is coming here too."
While Snape was wondering what was actually happening, Hermione and a boy of about fourteen ran into the clearing and rushed towards him.
"Severus!"
"Mum! Dad!"
Hermione, sobbing, threw herself into Snape's arms.
"Severus! You are alive! You are still here! I get here on time!"
The children exchanged mischievous glances: give nor take: mother's little Gryffindor prince and father's Slytherin princess, and tactfully stepped aside.
Snape cupped his wife's face in his hands.
"Don't cry, love, please don't cry, wife. We'll find a way out, I'm sure we can go back."
"Show me the Death, I am ready to meet it face to face and win back what is mine!" Hermione demanded angrily.
"Mom, no feats are needed, everything is much simpler."
"Wait, Florian, I have to get your Dad home," Hermione waved the boy off and in the next second, dumbfounded, she turned around abruptly.
"Children? Florian? Astra?"
"Finally, you understand everything, Mom!" her son smiled radiantly and, taking his sister by the hand, stepped into a loving mother's embrace.
Severus was dumbfounded to watch this surreal scene from his own possible future and felt something akin to happiness.
The sun was setting in the west, and something told Snape that he must get out of here before the first stars, otherwise his whole family would be stuck in Limbo. The children and his wife came closer and looked at him expectantly.
"Astra has overtaken me here too," Florian complained, waving his hand towards the fire, "I was supposed to be an older brother, my father's helper, but now I'll have to wait for my turn again. But after that, when I return, I'll show who's the winner here, Astra!"
The girl stuck out her tongue and took Severus by the hand. Hermione clutched her son to her chest.
"My children... My children."
"Our children, dear," Snape corrected meticulously. "So, where now?"
"We will take you to the edge of the forest, and you will step beyond the Edge. All of your departed friends and family have banded together to help all of us survive. Lily and James Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Walburga, and Orion Black, Nymphadora Tonks, Grandma Eileen, in a word, everyone to whom you, willingly or unwillingly, swore oaths and owed your life," Florian explained.
Severus and Hermione walked hand in hand through the woods, pondering their son's simple and complex words. The magic of the Blacks and the Malfoys, the magic of time, and the Debts of Life were intricately intertwined. Everyone and everything intertwined to shape reality in their own way and give them their long-lost hope back.
And then the forest scattered, the air rippled, the first stars flickered in the sky. Hermione wiped her daughter's tear-stained cheeks. Severus hugged his son to himself.
"We will wait for you, my boy, we will wait for you very much!"
"Dad, you take care of mom, and take care of yourself. And we will be back!"
"I love you, Daddy! Mommy, I'll be back soon!"
They talked and talked for a long time, interspersed their words with tears and promises, and Snape and Hermione were sure that everything would be so.
Air surged into his lungs, he coughed and sat up, doubling over. Hermione sobbed beside him. Snape, without looking, reached for her and placed his hand on her stomach in a soothing gesture. Bluish magic enveloped Hermione in warmth. Golden light streamed from her palms, healing Severus from possible damage. And as a result of everything, green sparks of Astra's fragile magic scattered from above, illuminating the room.
The circle of life and death was complete.
Everyone returned home.