Thank you to all reviewers. I make an effort to reciprocate those who read and review, and I've enjoyed reading Little Tigger and Duj's stories.

July 5th, 1999

Harry was dead.

Hermione Granger sat on the sagging mattress of a small twin bed, whose brass bedstead gleamed faintly in the dimly lit room. It had a dingy feel, all in sepia tones, with the hideous crocheted brown throw on the bed, the yellow-tinged doilies on the nightstand, and the stained lace curtains around the sole, small window.

Harry was dead.

For the first time, the reality of his death struck her. The first few days had been too hectic, to hurried to pause for grief; she had been numb in those frantic hours. Rushing to her parents' house, telling them to flee with her little sister while they still had time. Kissing them goodbye for the last time before fleeing herself. Always running, hiding, apparating where non-apparation charms had not been constructed. Always on the move. There hadn't been a moment's calm –

But now, here she was, in this still and silent house. Alone. And Harry was dead.

Harry had been struck by a beam of green light, his face a mask of anger and pain, his eyes still on Ron's limp form, his mouth still open in that last grief-stricken cry. And then he had fallen, his green eyes dimming.

They had all fled. There had been no time to remain to help the wounded, or to bring the bodies of the dead; the Dark Lord had come upon them as a wolf among lambs, and slaughtered them too quickly to resist. Their great leaders had fallen.

Harry was dead.

A wave of guilt washed over Hermione, so intense she could hardly bear it. All she could think of was Harry, when Ron – Ron, who had loved her so well, who had given his life to save hers – had lain with equally blank eyes, still on the grassy slopes of the citadel. Ron had loved her. He had loved her, all of her, had wanted to be with her, to marry her – she had worn the ring on her finger for three days – and yet all she could think of was Harry.

The bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down, the acrid taste of her own vomit lingering along with the guilt.

Always, always she had thought first of Harry. Ron had been like a brother to her during their school years; she had always relied on him, always thought of him as a steady constant in her life. Always dependable for his short fuse and his long nose, for his bickering and mocking so like a brother she'd never had. Her brother, Ron. You don't have to worry about a brother's affection; he's always there.

But Harry – he'd changed so much during those last few years, and she with him; Harry became the grim commander and the grieving youth, and both at the same time, while she the grave and courageous symbol of the Muggleborns, their hope and rallying cry through the fierce battles for their freedoms. But Ron had stayed the same, more or less – always trying to divert them from the war that was slowly sapping their youths. Always trying to tell her how much he cared underneath the bluster and badinage.

Harry had never loved her. He had seen her as a good friend, but it was Ron who was his staunchest ally. She was as a sister to him – and Ron as a brother to her. And how could she break the heart of her brother-friend, who loved her so dearly, when she loved him, too? How could she kill him, turn friend on friend, by rejecting him for one who could not, would not love her back?

And now, Harry was dead.

Ron was dead.

Her hands trembling, she looked at the small ring on her finger, with the dark blue sapphire – too dark to be a good cut – set on the fine gold band.

"FUUCK!" she screamed, grabbing the candlestick from off of the nightstand and hurling it with all her force at the mirror on her bedroom door.

The glass shattered, exploding in a million pieces and scattering to the floor. Short, angry sobs punctuated her movements as she staggered over to the door, trying to brush her long, frizzy brown hair away from her freckled nose. The tiny shards of glass lay on the ground, a circular pattern from the impact upon the still-hanging mirror.

Bad luck. Seven years of bad luck, when you broke a mirror. For seven years, she'd had friends, happiness, success in studies, admirers from students and teachers alike – a future marriage to one of her closest friends. Seven years of good luck. And now, from some fickle, unkind God, seven cursed years in return.

She collapsed, falling to her knees, crying heavily. It was all too much. Too much.

Her world had shattered like the mirror, splintered into a thousand disconnected, unmanageable pieces. She tried to pick up some of the shards, but she cut herself on an edge, a small drop of blood beading on the tip of her forefinger. She watched it with strange fascination, as the dark red liquid pooled on her finger and slowly rolled down across the pink flesh.

Hiccupping, gasping for breath, wiped the blood on the corner of her robe, now so dirty and frayed it hardly mattered what she put on it.

The doorknob screeched, the rusty metal protesting as it was turned, and Hermione tried to get to her feet, moving out of the way of the dark wood door.

A flicker of concern – more than a flicker – showed in a pair of black eyes, set against a sallow, drawn face. Wordlessly, Professor Snape – not a Professor any more, not by any means – stooped and lifted his former pupil to her feet. She could barely stand, her knees sagging, and she collapsed against his chest, her weakened sobs renewing to full strength.

For the first time in his life, Severus held a woman as she cried all her pain and sorrow at the world, and for the first time in her life, Hermione saw the potions master as a human being.

"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone."

Hermione's sobs lessened slightly as she listened to the recitation. She couldn't help herself, too many years of schoolgirl life kicking in. "Teasdale. There Will Come Soft Rains."

Snape nodded, steadying her as she pulled away from him slightly.

"Would scarcely know that we were gone..." Hermione echoed, her face haggard. She did not look like a girl of seventeen, to turn eighteen before the year was out. The lines on her face had deepened, and her cheeks had hollowed, the bones in her face sticking out more clearly. Her brown eyes looked old.

Snape thought she looked like a war widow, the sort of picture you see of women standing by their burnt-out homes, screaming invectives at God above in some foreign tongue – so far away, so alien. Couldn't ever happen here.

"He's dead, Profess –"

"I know. I know."

No love ever had been lost between the two men, so different, so incomprehensible to each other. And yet, holding this slip of a girl as she wept, Severus Snape couldn't help wish that it had somehow, some way, been otherwise.