Chapter 3: A Twice Dead Hero


Hermione was rarely at a loss, but this left her completely without words. Of all the situations she had ever faced, whether in the war or in the Ministry, never had one ever gotten her quite like this. She never thought she would have to wrap her head around being with Severus Snape in another world, making a child with Severus Snape in another world. Sleeping with Severus Snape, presumably more than once!

Did I MARRY him? Her eyes went wide, and her mind started to whir.

Her maternal instincts flared as the boy sobbed though, clearly against his willpower to keep it at bay, as evidenced by his clenched fists and chokes. That pulled her back from disbelief to the task at hand.

She could not think of what to say to the boy, she did not feel like his mother, although her logical brain was telling her that she still was genetically his mother in a bizarre twist of time, and he her son. Legitimately her son, with Professor Snape, who was very long dead in her time.

Without any processing time, what came out was about his father. It seemed safest to talk about him. "Your father was a great hero in our world…" Those charcoal eyes were like Professor Snape's without being tunnels.

"You saved his life…and he saved yours…in mine," the boy croaked. He didn't care if his father was a hero to others. Such things had never mattered. Why would they when your mother was the most wanted Mudblood traitor and your father was secretly still fighting the most precarious and losing battle ever to face wizardkind? "There's m-more important things than…h-heroics," he added, though not providing what those were.

Hermione gave a sob-like chuckle, "You sound just like him." Her former professor had probably said that.

Like most she could not have appreciated the truth about the man while he was alive, but she could have perhaps believed Dumbledore or believed in the man himself more than that, and she felt some guilt. Had they done everything in the end? She had thought of him far too often over the years.

He sniffled and tried to hold in another sob, choking and then hiding his face again, as lost in thoughts of his father as she was. I…I didn't even say anything to him…

"Minerva, do you think I could speak to him alone?" Hermione asked, quietly. "Perhaps you should ask Draco not to leave, and Harry. And perhaps...perhaps floo Kingsley. This might require his unique assistance." This revelation was of a kind the first two men should know about, and the third was just to make sure she had no conflicts of interest. The boy was, technically, hers, and she would have to be careful of any decision-making coming back politically. Not to mention, from the sound of the world he came from, they might need someone with both knowledge of magic light and dark, but also of the boy's father.

"Of course, dear." The older woman leaned down into Hermione's ear on her way out and said, "He said he goes by Severus..." and gave her an encouraging look.

He looks petrified with his legs all pulled up against him...What would Professor Snape have said to his son right now?

All she knew was that he had been vitriolic to everyone else's child. She was somewhat at a loss to think of anything he would say in light of that. Then she realized something…

Anyone with a child would do anything to ensure their survival, and Professor Snape was a sharply intelligent and cunning man. The boy had been far too confused for this to have been contrived between he and Scorpius; he had not known about the Time-Turner, so how had he been holding it at the right moment? "Did your father send you with Scorpius?"

"Yes, erm, ma'am. He told me to go in the lake with Scorpius, to run, while h-he held off dementors." He took a breath, trying to keep the images and sensations away. It was not something anyone would want to relive. "So I ran, and it was cold." Another breath. "And I saw-." My father's doe in the lake. Another breath. "Scorpius in the lake, so I jumped."

Hermione frowned, "Were you touching the Time-Turner?"

"I didn't know there was one. I must have been. I-I grabbed for Scorpius as I f-fell in. I didn't know if I could keep my P-patronus up if I went too far under."

She reached out and touched his tucked in leg, trying to envision it and feeling a pit in her own stomach, and realizing his heart was beating so hard and fast she could feel his pulse as she did so. One would have thought she'd have nerves of steel by now, but she rather felt she was going to vomit.

"You really do have no idea what's going on." Not that any of them did. Sideways. How does that even work?

He shook his head that he was fairly clueless, a state that he was honestly rarely in, so that was disorienting in itself; generally, his father made very sure he was somewhat prepared for just about anything with the sort of circumstances and world they lived in.

Apparently, of all the ghastly, gruesome, and demanding scenarios Severus Snape had prepared his son for, Time-Turning teenagers was not one of them.

As for Hermione, she related the important parts of Scorpius' story to the displaced boy, whose brow furrowed as he listened. His world truly had been blinked out of existence. Blinked into it and blinked out of it in less than a week to them, but his entire lifetime to him and those in his world.

Finally she finished, "He knew he was going to die again, for all of us, and he knew even if all went well you would be blinked out of existence, Sev. He sent you to the only future where you had a chance, one he had faith would be safe from Voldemort." He took in a breath at the name. "It was the only way you would not die with him. He knew you didn't exist here, so the Two Yous Paradox would be avoided at least. It was a chance, but better than being blinked out of existence."

Her unwitting genetics had surely softened out Professor Snape's more angular ones in the boy. She could see herself in him. The boy blinked and cocked his head to the side, trying to process. She did that. Not Professor Snape.

"W-why didn't he come with. If he was dead in this world, that doesn't mess with time," the boy asked, fighting back another round of tears. If he could only know how much that struck her like something she would say, something utterly academic about time and the world's lack of fairness from a child's perspective.

She found it profoundly moving that his father had sacrificed himself twice to save their world. That was far from what was on the boy's mind.

She pushed his rather messy hair away from his face. One charcoal eye flicked toward her for a moment. "Your father was the most resolute and selfless man I ever knew, in any world. He had to make sure Scorpius made it to get rid of Voldemort again, and to save you, to give you a better life. The man I knew would not leave the glimmer of chance for any of that to fail just to save his own life."

Finally, after some silence, the boy nodded and then sighed. "No, he wouldn't." He stared at the wall.

Her sigh matched his. Of course it isn't any easier, but at least he knows what happened...

She tried to smile at the boy, "You know, I think the Professor Snape of my world would have been intrigued by the academic prospects of a time-twisted piece of himself having survived."

"Of my time as well, obviously." Or else he would not have thought of sending him and would have just held him until it was that final moment they had always talked about. That grim prospect made him shiver, even though he had run toward it hours ago. His death was one horror he knew his father did not want to face; it was one that was mentioned often between them when his father had cautioned or lectured him. He had to be strong, always.

All Hermione could think was obviously in her best mental rendition of Severus Snape, unaware of the boy's thoughts of his own death.

"W-what's going to happen to me now, erm, here?"

"Nothing bad, don't worry," she assured him, gently. "Lots of people are going to have questions, and there will be some official sorts of paperwork things, but after what you've been through in your other world, it'll be easy."

He eyed her, almost as if he was not so willing to buy into this world's benevolence yet. She was like his mum but not like his mum in a strange sort of way. She was less gruff but that was to be expected; here she was apparently Minister for Magic, not a rebel with a death sentence. It was odd. Her face and voice were comforting, but her presence...hurt. It hurt him in a way he usually ignored.

"None of this is easy…losing my parents and, and, and getting dropped into a strange place where, where-." He gave up and swiped at his eyes. He didn't have words for it, yet. Even thinking about just answering questions about his existence was not easy; how was he to explain that world and the things he had done, things he knew, to people in a place that was not ruled by a twenty-year regime of the Dark Lord?


AN - THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS! Just to know people are enjoying it is great, as is the feedback 3

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