By Autumnmist
"Avada Kedavra"
Oh fuck no. Six syllables, that's all. Imagined. Not real. Didn't hear it. Two words. Oh god.
And she is falling - slow motion. Freeze frame. But no, not like this. Don't want to remember her like this. Because this isn't real. Not happening. Body, graceless in death, not like in the stories, not flowing into a heap to be mourned, but collapsing, down. A slight jerk, neurons, you see, the brain doesn't die immediately after the heart stops beating, and then he knows. She's dead.
And he can do nothing. There's too much to lose. Can't give it all away now. "But why not?" an inner voice questions. Is there anything left to live for? Would there, might there have been if he had not delayed and waited and avoided and stupidly idiotically moronically put it off until there was no time left?
Because now, it's too late. She's dead, Severus. And you never told her. You, the hidden naive romantic in all your hidden glory. There's no happy ending now is there? This hero in black robes doesn't get a chance to sweep his young beautiful heroine off into the sunset - or down into dungeons according to popular belief - because she died. She's dead.
Blur. Fast forward but time isn't moving, or so it seems. Then he feels someone put his hand around something smooth and warm and throws something else - he can't seem to focus on it - and then he's whirling. Apparating, the logical part of his mind tells him. He reappears with little noise and he's still in shock, not thinking. Just standing still, willing himself not to look down at what's in his hand.
Ah, here they come. The fire brigade says the Ironic Voice. Except there's no fire - at least not anymore. The city has already burned and the ashes aren't even smoldering anymore. Kindly wizened face appears in his field of vision - Dumbledore - and slowly unwraps his fingers from his burden. And now, he finally is there - he is conscious enough - to look down. And immediately wishes he hadn't. Because he was holding her wrist. Beautiful pure smooth skin. Dead now though. A pity. And he was the last to see her alive. And the last to hold her, still warm with the remnants of life.
Too late now for everyone. Slightly hysterical - and he knows it, which makes it even funnier in a morbidly insane way - they can't hold or touch her alive anymore. Because rigor mortis has set in.
He starts to laugh and knows they are all staring at him with concern. No fairytale ending for Severus Snape. Because Hermione Granger is dead and he never told her. And now, it's too late. Time ran out.
I'm sure I've copied ideas from every single SS/HG story I've read, so my apologies to any author whose stories I mangled. And of course, JKR owns both characters and Harry Potter and just about everything here.
