Author's Note:
The Houses Competition (or THC) Round 7
House: Slytherin
Class: Ancient Runes
Category: Themed (up to 3,000 words)
Theme: [Reconnecting] Reconnecting with something/someone.
Prompt: [Action] Dragging something heavy across the floor
Word Count: 2,814
Disclaimers/triggers: Mention of canon death/dying, some violence, time-travel, adult Snamione relationship
Beta Love: Thanks to EndofthePage and Irem for looking over my story!
Carved From Time
Severus Snape was dying. He could feel his blood, thick and hot, streaming from the wound on his neck. He could feel the potent poison setting his nerves ablaze until there was nothing but the pain of it.
The thing that nobody had ever told Severus about dying was this: while it hurt, while every cell of his body fought against the poison coursing through his veins and the paralysis freezing his lungs and heart, there was a depthless relief in dying.
Yes, he was letting everyone down. There was too much left undone. But now, at the end of his life, Severus realized that this was a lie. There would be someone to pick up the things undone by him. There would be another to carry on after this, for good or ill. He was no more special for dying than he was for being born in the first place.
The Dark Lord was talking, but Severus didn't care to hear it. The old wizard sure did love his grand speeches, but no matter what he said, there was no sustainable way for it to continue. The Dark Lord's days were numbered. He was falling apart with a damaged, fractured mind.
Severus saw a flash of green eyes. He thought of Lily, and somehow he knew that she was there with him. But also, so was her son, and he recoiled, knowing that he had to give him something, but then it was gone again, and he was lost in memories. Then they were pouring from his eyes like tears and he was reliving them as he lost them.
He croaked something out but didn't understand the words he was saying. It felt like there was another version of him, a jerky puppet with the strings half-cut, who had taken over.
None of it mattered. The burning fire had dulled to a thick, cozy warmth. The lights were shutting off throughout his body, and he drifted away into flickering dusk, feeling kind hands stroking his hair as someone rocked him and sang a familiar lullaby. There was something back there, something he'd forgotten, but then there was no sense of time, and then there was nothing at all.
Hermione Granger was exuberant. It had taken her a little over a decade, but by Merlin, she had done it! She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and surveyed her time machine with pride. This was not a mere Time-Turner. That particular device was meant for small jaunts back in time, and most of them had been destroyed. This, on the other hand, had been created with a singular purpose in mind.
"And I know just who to test it on," Hermione murmured, strapping it to her back and buckling the chest connectors.
The amount of Time Sand required to power it was immense, and the brown rucksack was the most compact version she'd been able to engineer if she wanted to avoid getting stuck in the past. A bit inelegant, but Hermione had never been much for fashion. A cuff at her left wrist held an analog clock face complete with a tiny year wheel.
Hermione looked at herself in the mirror, aware that she looked a bit more like a mad scientist than she was altogether comfortable with. What else would she call herself, though? Everyone she'd tried to tell about her project had given her the sort of look that said she was absolutely barmy. She also wasn't doing herself any favors by living out of her lab in the basement of Grimmauld Place. Harry had thankfully allowed her to live rent-free, especially when the Potter family had moved closer to the Burrow after their son was born. She remembered Harry's expression the last time she'd visited.
"Hermione, you've got to stop doing this to yourself. It's time to move on," Harry had said, his green eyes sad as he'd squeezed her shoulder.
Unused to regular conversation, she'd stammered awkwardly and made a hasty retreat.
Blinking away the uncomfortable memory, Hermione used her wand to stoke the runic coils to life. Twisting the activation ring, she could feel the prickling sensation of her body converting from matter into energy.
"I'll find him. I still have time," Hermione growled, setting the coordinates for space and time that she'd painstakingly determined with months of planning. "In fact, I have all the time in the world."
Drag, drag, stop. Drag, drag, stop.
Severus awoke to the sensation of being dragged across the floor. He'd been dragged across his share of floors throughout his life for a variety of reasons, so it was relatively certain that this was, in fact, the sensation he was experiencing.
'Wait. How can this be possible when I—was I dead?' His mind spun back like a record player recovering from skipping, and he recognized the harsh bite of petrol fumes. Sound came next, distant and distorted as though he were deep underwater. His body was leaden, useless, but he could feel the sensation of his body being dragged a short ways, then an abrupt stop as whoever was dragging him stopped to rest.
'A muggle, then, and likely on their own," Severus thought, reasonably certain that any magic-user would have levitated him ages ago.
He tried to move his limbs, but he remained immobile, a gangly bag of bones to be dragged by some mystery person for unknown purposes.
'Perhaps this is how Death takes souls,' he thought for a moment, before realizing that Death would have no need for petrol or the smoke and flame that followed it.
Drag, drag, stop. Drag, drag, stop.
The dragging became almost a comforting rhythm after a while. He could feel pressure under his arms, but nothing more, and it soothed him.
Finally, there was a much longer pause, and something trickled through the core of him like ice water. His mind flailed with the discomfort and then blinding pain as he felt his body come back to him. Next, something hot poured down his throat. The pain sharpened then faded abruptly, and his consciousness sank back down into darkness.
Hermione tried not to scream. She couldn't believe she'd miscalculated. While she'd accommodated for her own presence in the past, her wand was another story. It had not transferred over with her other items. It wasn't the worst that could have happened, as time-splinching was a distinct possibility, but appearing in the Forbidden Forest without a wand during the Final Battle was not an ideal situation. Luckily, she wasn't too far away from the Shrieking Shack, and the timepiece on her wrist told her she was still within range. She'd just need to time things properly to avoid anyone other than her intended target.
"Snape." She finally allowed herself to say his name.
He was the perfect test subject; someone who wouldn't be missed if she took him, not if she burned the Shack down. She knew that in her time, the Shack had burned to the ground, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. She may have always gone back to do this, or she may finally have succeeded in changing history. In any case, Hermione needed to be careful not to change anything else.
She made quick work of finding where Snape lay, his body still and his gaze fixed. She let out a whoop when she found the slow and waning pulse of his heartbeat with her fingers. Luckily, the antivenin and potions she'd brought did not suffer the same fate as her wand, and Hermione was able to pour them down his throat, massaging the jagged flesh until it healed into an ugly, but far less lethal scar. He was greasy and covered in cobwebs and grime, but she couldn't help but stroke his hair fondly.
"You're going to be an excellent test subject, aren't you, Professor?" she murmured sweetly, turning him until he lay on his back and grabbing him under his armpits to drag him out of the room.
She'd need to return to the exact latitude and longitude she'd arrived at if she wanted to return to her original time intact, and without the ability to levitate Snape's body, she was going to drag him there. She got into a rhythm, even as her muscles began to protest.
Drag, drag, stop. Drag, drag, stop.
It was soothing to her, especially as she began to notice signs of life returning to Snape's body. It was possible that there was damage, of course, but she'd be sure to give him a very thorough exam once she got him back to her lab.
Drag, drag, stop. Drag, drag, stop.
They'd reached the sagging porch, and Hermione nearly tumbled down them trying to get Snape down to the bottom without slamming his head into anything. In the end, she succeeded in getting back into the woods where she'd started, though she was exhausted and covered in cobwebs and twigs.
It was time to give Snape the final potion to start the process of stabilizing his cellular time-space and keep him unconscious. She'd already felt him twitch and stir under her touch a few times and knew that he would potentially fight her aid if given the chance. Hermione started up the runic coil, her arms wrapping tightly around Snape's middle, and only then did she notice just how emaciated he had become. He had hidden it so well that she'd have never known without touching him. She breathed in the scent of his robes as the machine roared to life, and they faded out of view.
Snape awoke to a bright light in his eyes. Wincing, he tried to shield himself from it only to find that his arms were bound to his sides.
"Oh, you're awake?" The voice that spoke was familiar, but he couldn't place it.
"Yes," he said, feeling like he was speaking through a wad of cotton balls. "Where am I?"
The light receded, and he blinked, trying to clear the afterimage of the light from his gaze. He could make out the shape of a woman wearing a lab coat, her hair tied up on her head like a bushy topknot. She was wearing glasses with articulating magnifying lenses screwed on the frame.
"How are you feeling, Professor? Or should I call you Snape?" The woman was leaning against a cabinet, her arms crossed.
"You didn't answer my question." Severus was becoming annoyed and vaguely alarmed as he looked down to see himself strapped down to a medical table, his body completely uncovered other than his pelvic region, which had been wrapped in a towel.
"You're in my lab, Snape," the woman said. "I was assessing you for life-threatening injuries and healing them to ensure that you will make a full recovery."
"Is near nudity necessary?" he growled, embarrassed that she'd seen every inch of his scarred, emaciated body.
"You needed to be cleaned, and, believe it or not, I care about your wellbeing, Snape."
"You keep calling me Snape, but I don't know who the hell you are!" Severus exclaimed in exasperation.
"I thought you'd recognize me. It's me, Professor. Hermione Granger."
He stared. She didn't look anything like the student he associated with that name. She was probably a bit younger than him, but not by much.
"What happened?" He asked, because he couldn't think of anything else.
"You nearly died. I came to get you. Now you're here, and I'm assessing your health and keeping you safe," she said, biting her lip in a way that suggested that she wasn't telling the whole truth.
"And what if I would like to be released, Miss Granger?" he asked, finally.
"I can't do that, Snape." She came closer to him, kneeling down until they were at eye level with one another. "You see, there are a few issues. The nerve damage from the venom is causing issues with your nervous system and you were randomly flailing around earlier." She pointed to a fading bruise on her jawbone. "You clocked me good only two days ago."
"My apologies," he said automatically.
"The other thing is…well, maybe I should save that for later. Let's take it a day at a time."
"So am I to understand that I am a prisoner here?" Severus was growing slightly alarmed.
"I wouldn't call you that," Hermione said, but her smile was a little sharper than he was comfortable with. "We're just going to take our time. Get…reacquainted with one another. Well, more than we have already. And then, well, we'll see how things go. And please, call me Hermione. We're practically peers now."
"I…see. Of course…Hermione."
Severus was slightly horrified at being essentially at the mercy of this adult version of a girl he'd always known to be a relentless know-it-all. He hadn't forgotten her polyjuice accident in her second year. There was something terrifying about her, yes, but also alluring. Something that spoke to his own bubbling need to know everything, to push limits, and to break out of the stuffy confines of mediocrity.
"Severus, may I call you Severus?" Hermione was grinning like a cat.
"You may." He waited.
"Can you guess today's date?"
He frowned. It must be a trick question. Surely he hadn't been in some sort of Rip Van Winkle slumber for years and years. He looked down at his hands and they didn't seem to be any more wrinkly than they'd been the last time he'd looked at them. And yet…her face told him that he wasn't seeing the entire picture.
"I don't know. What is today's date?"
She grinned. "You're not going to believe me."
"I highly doubt that."
"It's the third of May," she said.
He cleared his throat. There was something more. "What…is the year?"
She tapped her lips with her finger, pretending to be lost in thought. "Oh, I don't know…how does 2010 sound?"
Severus felt his blood run cold. "What did you do, Hermione?"
Hermione bent forward, her face only inches away, and whispered, "A miracle, Severus. A miracle."
He shivered, but it was somewhere between fear and pleasure. Now it made sense why things felt strange. Even the air felt different, warmer.
"Don't worry, Severus," she said, running her hand gently down his arm. "I've checked you over and your space-time cellular structure is stable. Other than the nerve damage and the residual effects of the venom, you're practically good as new. But I still have more data I need to gather before we can discuss what's next."
Severus tried not to lean into her touch as she continued to run her hand down his arm, giving his hand a quick squeeze before letting go. He wanted to be furious, but somehow he couldn't muster even the slightest bit of anger. He was in uncharted territory if she was to be believed, over twelve years in the future. Despite his lingering reservations, Severus considered the facts he knew. He'd suffered a near-fatal injury. She'd rescued him and healed him.
It was obvious that, while she wasn't going to let him walk out of her lab, he had been made as comfortable as possible. The exam table had been fitted with sheets, and his head was lying on a comfortable pillow. He'd been healed. Even his restraints were padded so he wouldn't hurt himself if he were to have another seizure.
'It's almost…comforting,' he thought, trying not to dwell on the implications of feeling more than a small measure of relief at being at Hermione's mercy. There was something soothing in letting someone else be in control after so long being forced to walk the razor's edge between Voldemort and Dumbledore.
"I promise, Severus, this isn't meant to hurt you. You're still recovering. In the meantime, I'll be attending to all of your needs."
Hermione patted his shoulder gently, and Severus blushed as he made an involuntary happy noise at the kindness in her touch. He thought back to the memory of gentle hands stroking his hair when he was hovering between life and death. She had been the one there when he had thought all was lost. He hadn't wanted to live, had been willing to throw his life away, but Hermione had valued his life enough to bring him back from the brink of death. In a way, she owned his life more than he had any right to it. He owed it to her to follow her lead, at least for now.
"I…thank you, Hermione," he said, his voice soft with gratitude.
Inside, he let go of a tension he'd been holding for years, knowing for the first time in ages that he didn't have to choose each move with caution like a knight on a chessboard. Hermione was in control now. She would keep him safe.