Hermione woke in the middle of the night, a sense of panic gripping her. She sat up in her bed, clutching her sheet to her chest and listening intently.

Voices. There were voices. She got to her feet and padded, barefooted, across the hospital ward and through to the door of the intensive care unit.

"I'm telling you, he's dead!" wailed Hagrid's voice.

"Be quiet, Hagrid!" Poppy snapped, concern giving her voice an edge that made even Hermione wince. "I can't tell if he's alive or not with you wailing in my ear."

"He's still breathing," Professor McGonagall, said in her soft Scottish accent. "Look."

"He's got a pulse," agreed Poppy. "Just. Right, I need you all to back off a bit, while I try to help him. Albus, I need some of your power for him to draw on. I can't do this by myself. Or Minerva, as she's younger?"

Both Professors muttered their acceptance and Hermione listened intently, the silence unnerving her.

"Advante Corporium," she heard the Medi-witch mutter. After a few seconds there was a gasp and an exclamation from Hagrid.

"Finite Incantium," Poppy muttered.

God, I'd give anything for a pair of extendable eyes right now, Hermione thought, edging closer to the door.

Professor McGonagall's tired voice floated out to Hermione. "That isn't enough is it?"

"He needs some of his basic magic restored, so he can start healing himself from inside. I can't do anything else for the outside, he has to start healing himself." Poppy's voice was tired and defeated.

"Take some more of mine, Poppy," Albus insisted, quietly.

"Any more would probably kill you, Headmaster," Poppy said. "The healing potions may still work. But he's so close to death that I just don't know if they will be enough."

"We could wake the other Professors," suggested Professor McGonagall. "We can't just let him die."

"He might not, Minerva."

"We have to do something," she insisted. "Severus is like this because of us. We can't just let him die like this."

Severus. Hermione had pretty much known it was him they had been talking about, but hearing his name confirming it made her blood run cold.

"He's going to die?" she asked, the quiet voice making Albus jump. They were all standing around a bed where Severus lay, attached to tubes of various sorts feeding him blood and healing potions.

Albus made to get up, but groaned as his legs gave way and he fell back into the chair.

"My dear child, you should be asleep."

"Is he going to die?" she asked again.

Albus shrugged helplessly. "It is a possibility, yes."

"But we've got to leave now, there's nothing more we can do tonight," Professor McGonagall said, putting her arm around her shoulders and leading her through the door and into the other room.

The other Professors and Hagrid trailed after them, leaving to go back to their chambers one by one.

Albus was the last to leave and as he walked towards the door, he turned his head and said quietly, "I don't advise what I know you are about to do, Hermione. But I know that it won't make any difference."

He nodded to her and left, quietly. Hermione closed her eyes, knowing what he meant, but not caring. She padded quietly back into the intensive care room. Severus was alone now, the healing potions making the state of his skin look far less appalling than it had looked just minutes earlier.

Hermione knew that all his wounds would heal; it was just that he had been so drained of magic that he probably wouldn't live. She could tell he was dying just by looking at him.

She reached to touch his cheek gently. God, she wished she had stopped him going back. Was this all because of her? Had Voldemort found out about him helping her and tortured him for it? Was he going to die because of her?

She grasped her wand and muttered a charm. Almost at once a protective shield surrounded her and Severus. No one could enter unless she wanted them to – she was free to do what she knew she was going to do from the second she'd heard Poppy say that she didn't think what Albus and Professor McGonagall had given had been enough.

"Professor?" she said, whispering close to his face. She'd read enough about this restoration of basic magic to know the dangers and her heart was beating fast. "Whatever happens tonight isn't your fault. I want you to know that. Don't ever blame yourself. I have to do this."

He lay still, looking almost peaceful. Only the bluish tinge around his mouth showed how close he was getting to his own death. The healing potions weren't bringing him back.

She clasped his slack hand in hers and pulled his covers down to bare his chest, which was still covered in deep cuts. She slid her wand in between their clasped palms and rested her other hand on his blood-covered chest.

"Advante Corporium," she whispered, her eyes closing as she felt the tingling start at her toes and then work its way up through her whole body.

The tingling fast became more like pins and needles, and she struggled to breathe. She opened her eyes to find Severus' eyes open and staring into hers in horror.

She saw him mouth the word 'no', but couldn't hear him for the rushing noise in her ears.

She felt something trying to break through her shield. Albus, she realized as she turned her head slightly to the left. God, it hurt to move.

She felt Severus moving his hand against hers, trying to get it free, but she couldn't let go – it was as if her hand was melded to his.

The world suddenly went black and she hit the floor.

When Hermione woke up, she had no idea where she was for a second. Everything was bright and her throat was so dry she wanted to gag.

"Water," she gasped, trying to sit up.

"Shush girl, lie back down," she heard a voice say, as a hand pushed her back against her pillows. God, she was still in the bloody hospital wing. Was she never to escape this place?

She felt some water touching her lips on someone's finger and she immediately licked at it, wanting more. The finger disappeared again and she groaned, trying to sit up again, before it returned again. She sucked the finger hungrily into her mouth, trying to get every drop of water before whimpering for more.

"Easy, you can't have much, or you'll vomit," the voice belonging to the finger said. "And I don't take kindly to my robes being covered in student's vomit."

"Severus?" Her eyes had started to adjust and his face finally came into focus. God, he was alive.

"Professor Snape," he corrected her. "Whatever state you're in, you're still going to show me some respect."

"You're alive?"

"I see the coma didn't damage your acute sense of observation," he commented, dryly.

"But if you're alive, how am…?"

"How are you alive too?" he asked.

She nodded.

"So you knew that the way you did that spell, with no Medi-witch to pull you out at the last moment meant you'd die?" It was more a statement than a question.

She shrugged. "You were going to die."

"Yes, I was. But sacrificing your life, however Gryffindor your actions might have been, wasn't what anyone would have wanted, myself included."

"Your lips were blue and your eyes were…"

"Devoid of life, I presume. Yes, I am aware that I was near death."

"Voldemort did that to you?" she asked, her voice faltering as she took in the scars that still hadn't healed on his face and hands.

"Yes, he did. And before you ask, yes, I did send your love to the Dark Lord. Hugs and kisses and everything."

"Torture does your humour the world of good," she said sarcastically, but quietly amused.

"How are you?" he asked, a little awkwardly.

"Aside from the confusion of not being dead, the little Draco problem and the fact that I thought I'd got you fired, oh, I'm fine."

"I see that the coma also did wonders for your sense of humour," he commented, his tone sarcastic too.

"If Albus gave you any provisos, like 'don't go near Hermione,' you do realise you're violating them right now, right?"

"Do I need to remind you that Gryffindors can never be subtle?" he asked, in bored tone. "If you want to know what the Headmaster said to me, you could just ask."

"Would you tell me?"

"No." He smiled. It was his first smile in far too long, he realized. Except she'd managed to knock him off track. He couldn't allow himself to become distracted; he had to tell her. He had to… find out.

"God, I'm thirsty," she interrupted his thoughts.

Severus sighed, before dipping his finger into the cup of water again and lifting it to her lips. She looked into his eyes for a second and he sighed again.

"You are wasting it," he said, impatiently, ignoring the lump in his throat.

She ran her tongue along his finger and licked off every drop, not daring to look at him again. His face didn't betray any emotion as he dipped his finger in the water and lifted it to her lips a second time.

This time she took his whole finger into her mouth, her heart racing as she did so. Part of it was driven by thirst for the water clinging to his finger and part of it was…

­God, I want him, she moaned to herself, flicking her tongue against his finger and sucking it harder.

She finally raised her eyes to his heavy lidded ones and he regarded her with a smouldering gaze. His eyes were almost black, she noticed, and his lips were slightly parted. She realized it was doing as much to him as it was to her.

Suddenly he pulled his hand away, scowling at the cup of water in his other hand.

"Miss Granger, why did you do such a foolish thing? Why… sacrifice yourself for… me?"

"It wasn't like that," she said quietly, not knowing how to explain it. "Besides, I'm here aren't I? Apparently not at all sacrificed."

The bizarre thought drifted through her mind that perhaps one of them was a Ghost, before she shook her head to clear away the ridiculous thought. They'd touched apart from anything.

"No, you're not," Severus said, quietly. "Would you like to know why you're not dead?"

His voice had a strange quality to it; an emotion she'd never heard before was straining at the surface of his words, trying to get out.

"Why am I not dead?" she asked, meeting his intense gaze.

"You were grounded by something, Miss Granger," he answered, confusing her more. "Do you know what might have grounded you?"

He felt his breathing quicken. He was feeling a hundred emotions at once and couldn't identify a single one of them.

At the shake of her head, he fixed her with that unreadable gaze again.

"The only thing that would be able to prevent the death of a person directly administrating Advante Corporium, would be if that person was… with child."

"With child?"

"I am assuming you haven't completely lost the use of your brain over the five days you were in a coma," he said, sarcasm being his only way of keeping his feelings under control. "With child, Miss Granger. As in pregnant."