Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harry Potter related. If you recognise it, it isn't mine.
Warning: Everyone is of age. Does contain some Ron Bashing.
"Take…it…Take…it…" rasped the broken man hunched over on the floor, as he gestured weakly to the silvery blue matter rolling down his cheek.
Hermione thrust a flask into Harry's shaking hand, and he hastily gathered the memories into it with his wand.
"Look...at...me..." Snape whispered, his breathing becoming more and more laboured as the seconds ticked by.
Harry and the old potions master stared at one another for a moment before a terrible gurgling noise issued from Snape's throat, and his hand dropped from Harry's robes to the floor with a thud.
"Go.. now!" he rasped with what Hermione supposed was all of the energy he could muster in these awful, final moments as he slipped out of consciousness.
Harry stumbled back from him, flask of silver in hand as a cold voice echoed around the shack.
"I speak, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."
Voldemort's voice sent a visible shiver down Hermione's spine, but her gaze didn't move from the man on the floor. His eyes were closed, but his chest still rose and fell. For now, Hermione thought, knowing it would only be a matter of time until he succumbed to the snake's bite and he bled out on the floor of the old shack.
"Let's get out of here!" said Ron, already forgetting the dying man on the floor.
"Let's get back to the castle." Harry agreed nodding, as the two of them made for the door.
"Hermione, let's go!" Ron insisted when he realised she hadn't moved from in front of the professor.
"I... I'll stay, you go."
Hermione wasn't sure what she planned to do, but she knew she couldn't leave him. Whatever Snape had or hadn't done in the past, she'd always felt there was more to him than he let on. And anyway she thought, she'd be no better than those they were fighting against if she let a man die without lifting a finger to help him!
"Leave him Hermione!" Ron pleaded. "It's too late for him, we have to go!"
Hermione shook her head, mind already made up.
"No Ron. You go, both of you! Go to the castle, take the memories to the Pensieve."
The two boys looked between one another, hesitating in the doorway.
"Hurry! You know what needs to be done. I'll stay here, you don't need me now, GO!" Hermione shouted, a plan forming in her head. She knew she didn't have much time and precious seconds were being wasted arguing with her friends.
"Be careful Hermione." Ron said, nodding reluctantly, a gloomy look on his face. He knew better than to argue with the girl once she had made her mind up.
When the pair finally disappeared around the doorway, Hermione flew into action. She hurried to Snape's side, grimacing at the wounds in his neck. Nagini hadn't just bitten him once, not even twice, in fact upon closer examination Hermione saw that his neck was ripped to shreds! It was a miracle that he hadn't bled out already.
Before she even knew what she was doing Hermione had stuck her hands inside her ex-professor's robes, looking for what she hoped he'd have stashed away.
"Come on, come on..." she whispered to herself. "You must have some, you must!"
If her hunch about him was right, and there was more to Snape than met the eye, she was sure she'd find what she was looking for.
She searched frantically before her hand found a small vial tucked into the chest pocket inside his robes. The bottle was sticky with his blood, but the liquid was unmistakable if you knew what you were looking at; anti-venom.
"Professor? Professor stay with me." If Snape could hear the girl he didn't let on; his face was deathly white and his lips were beginning to turn a worrying shade of blue. She held the vial to his mouth, pouring as much of the antidote down his throat as she could.
Snape's eyes flickered and he coughed weakly, but the blood still flowed from the gashes in his throat.
Casting the empty vial of anti-venom aside Hermione yanked open her beaded bag and summoned the essence of dittany that she kept for emergencies.
"Here... here you go. This will stop the bleeding, it's going to be okay..." Hermione whispered as she applied to essence to the jagged tears in the man's throat.
She wasn't worried about being stingy with the liquid; Snape needed all the help he could get if he stood any chance of making it out of the shack alive. She stayed knelt by his side, clutching his lifeless arm as she watched the wounds in his neck attempt to stitch themselves back together.
Eventually, as the minutes ticked by, the bleeding began to slow and the professor's breathing became more stable as the anti-venom and dittany worked on his ravaged body. He remained unconscious, slumped against the wall, but as some colour began to return to his ashen face Hermione allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. He was going to make it.
She squeezed his arm once more and wiped the blood from his chin with her sleeve.
"It's okay professor. I'm going to get you out of here."