Dumbledore and Hermione arranged for her to stay for a few nights in the Room of Requirement. It was the obvious choice. She walked there quickly and quietly on her first night back at Hogwarts - She didn't want to run into anyone.

She slept like a rock that first night, although she was so nervous. She had to face him the next day, and she had no idea what to do, what to say, anything. But she put it out of her mind. It was silly to be nervous. He was a person, just like her. She was just going to talk to him. Nothing to be nervous about.

The next morning, breakfast was almost unbearable. All the students stared at her as she took a seat at the end of the teachers table. He wasn't there yet, thank God. She couldn't face him here, in front of everyone. She wanted to speak to him privately, so she decided she would aske him for a chat when he came in for breakfast.

Except he didn't come in for breakfast.

So she went to his office to find him. She knocked, but no answer. She knocked again, louder. Still nothing. She was getting worried. So she walked in whispering "Severus?" The office was empty, but there was an open door on the far wall. She began to get a sickly, worried feeling in her stomach. What if something has happened, just when she came back? Where was he? Please let him be ok... Please...

She crossed the room, it seemed to take a lifetime. She pushed the door open, and saw him... Slumped over his chair, unconscious. Her heart stopped. Her breath caught. Her eyes watered. Her stomach dropped. She felt every bad, sad, hurt, angry emotion one could feel at one time. She felt the first tear fall, as she rushed to him. She sat him up and desperately tried to wake him.

"Severus! Severus, come on, I've come to talk to you, to tell you... I still love you. Oh God, no, you can't leave me, not without me knowing whether there was hope for us, not without knowing how you feel! Wake up... wake up!" she shook him and called him, but nothing. So she rushed to the hospital wing, screaming for help. Madam Pomfrey, Dumbledore and a new proffessor Hermione didn't know all followed her to Snape's office.

"He's alive, but in bad condition. It looks like..." Madam Pomfrey trailed off.

"What?" demanded Hermione.

"Well, it looks a little like a suicide attempt." she tried to say this as quickly and nicely as possible, but it still hurt like hell. Dumbledore looked especially shocked.

Hermione went back to the room of requirement in shock. Why would he do that? Madam Pomfrey told her to come back around five-ish to see if he was awake. She had to prepare herself, mentally, for what was about to come. She couldn't deny that she was definitely nervous now. The man looked as though he had just attempted suicide and she was going to tell him she loved him. How was she supposed to NOT feel nervous?

She sighed and hugged her knees. She jumped up quite suddenly out of frustration. She needed to get out of this room. The door swung open, after seeing what she "required". She walked down to the lake where she had spent many summer days sitting, reading, studying... And, what people didn't know, many nights, alone, thinking of a certain potions proffessor. She was never caught out of bed, she was lucky.

She picked her favourite spot under her favourite tree and sat and watched the lake. She got so lost in her own thoughts she lost all track of time. Before she knew it, it was completely dark, any light of the day, long gone. She sighed and headed to the hospital wing, for what she knew would be an eventful conversation, whether it was to be for good or bad reasons, she didn't know.

"Ah, Hermione," he said, as she entered, "They said you would come." His voice was soft and sorrowful, almost, his eyes the same as they had been all those years ago.

"Why didn't you stay with me? Why did you just walk away at the end of the dance?" she blurted, before she could stop herself, "Why tell me you love me, then just leave, without any explanation? And why try and kill yourself?" It all came pouring out of her.

"Your last question, I will answer first," he said, his voice now sounding so sad. "I did NOT try and kill myself. I was tying to take a simple sleeping draught, but I seem to have taken the wrong potion."

"Oh," she said simply.

"Alas, your other questions, I can not answer," he said, looking her straight in the eye, for the first time.

"What? Why?" she said. It was so confusing for her, and it hurt her too, couldn't he see?

"Because, Hermione, I do not know the answers," a hint of a sad kind of smile played on his lips. "I do not know why I did not stay with you, to see what would happen. I may have been afraid? Or worried? But I regret it everyday. I wish I had stayed with you, because I did love you. Do love you."

It was so un-Snape like, yet she knew it was him. She remembered the man she knew, that not many others did. She felt all the worry rush out of her, and the first tears of happiness sting her eys. She sighed, and went to his bed, climbing in beside him and resting her head on his chest.

"And I love you," she said. She closed her eyes, and felt calmness she had never felt before. In the arms of the man she loved.

A/N: Ok, I'm warning you, if you like stories with happy endings STOP HERE! The next chapter's the last, and it ends in tragedy! Sorry! But i'm warning you!

Purpledinosaur xxx