I am thinking of a chrysalis and how the butterfly breaks free.
I
am
nearly
gone.
But in the delirium of my death, I see Severus unfurl his wings.
I
dissolve
into
the
dream.
The nymphal skin remains.
~***~
Hermione closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. She was going to pass out, felt it drop upon her like a dark, wet cloth flung over her face. Her knees buckled and she fell into her most cherished memory. In Severus's arms, the night before Dumbledore's murder, before the forever defeat of Voldemort. Before the world diminished outside of her skin and the universe expanded inside of her womb.
That morning, in the bath, she had ticked off days on each one of her fingers. She was pregnant with his child.
A shout in the Wizengamot, from Snape, "Hermione!" He was on his feet, lunging towards her, his hands useless behind his back. Two wizards hit him with a curse, bringing him down, his face hitting hard on the stone floor. He left consciousness, swirling down, down, down into the memory of their shared grief turned passion, their year of simmering attraction brought to a boil in the fire of Albus's sacrifice. If he had been conscious he would have recognized the waking dream. But he was not conscious and his dark blood leaked from out of a wound in his temple.