AU!

Warnings: an attempt at suicide

THC

Standard

Slytherin, DADA

Theme: travelling

Prompt: (character) Severus Snape

WC: 1421

Betas: Charlotte, Bea, Dhrish, Aya, Hope


"Are you ready for this?" Hermione questioned Harry, holding the time-turner chain in her hand. They were standing a few feet away from the treeline, with the silhouette of the castle they had spent six years in behind them. Bodies littered the ground around them like fallen leaves, but neither of them paid any attention to the lifeless faces, all of them staring into the distance.

Harry nodded, his face stoic.

Hermione added, "You know we might not be able to get back here."

"Everyone's almost dead, Mione," Harry said flatly. His head was only a few inches away from hers. "This is the only thing we can do, so let's do it."

"Very well."

Hermione flipped the time-turner and spun it round and round, silently counting the rotations in her head.

Everything around them shifted. Colours blurred and the shapes distorted, converging and whirling upside down for a long time. Even though everything in her screamed about rules and that no good ever came from messing with things far greater than her, Hermione ignored the mess they were making of the timeline and only focused on the racing sand inside the small time-turner.

Finally, the blur of colours and shapes around them began to slow, and the sensation underfoot changed to that of cool grass and piles of sodden leaves just as everything around them slid into focus.

Harry ducked out from beneath the time-turner chain and glanced around. "The path to the castle is this way. It all looks the same. Are you sure we are far enough back?" he asked.

Hermione looked at him witheringly. "Of course I am. We're in 1979."

They had begun to move toward the path when a sound close ahead brought them up short. Hermione thought at first it was a wounded animal, but soon, a young man came into view.

He was on his knees in the dirt, his head bowed and sobbing loudly, with big, gulping distraught sounds, his despair obvious. The pair froze, keenly aware they were trespassing on a private moment, but then the boy raised both hands to his face and the curtain of his hair shifted.

Harry was the first to recognize him.

"It's Snape," he whispered urgently, tugging her arm, but Hermione had only seen the blood covering his hands and spreading over his sleeves.

"Harry, he's trying to kill himself." She tugged her arm free and ran forward to kneel before the young man. She firmly grasped both his wrists in her trembling hands.

"There is still so much time to fix this," she said, looking into a face that was at once familiar and somehow not. Her voice trembled and tears swam in her eyes as she spoke, "And I don't want you to go. I can't let you die."

"Hermione," Harry yelled, waving at her from between the trees. "We need to go!"

Hermione yelled back, "You go on ahead! I'll meet you at the edge of the forest in a few minutes."

Harry gave her a quick nod and disappeared into the forest, leaving her alone with Snape.

Her hands still trembling, she yanked open her Mokeskin pouch and began shuffling through it. She pulled out a few books, potions, her two-way mirror, and some parchment papers, dropping them onto the damp grass as she searched for the Dittany. There was no way she was leaving Snape here without helping him.

When her fingers finally wrapped around the thin vial, she yanked it out and unstoppered it with her teeth. She grabbed Snape's hand and dragged it towards her, ignoring his wincing and faltering breath. His eyes were trained on her face, but she didn't dare look up at him again.

Her heart was thundering against her ribs as she tried to steady her hands. "You're not going to die on me, do you hear me?"

She poured a few drops onto his wrists, and Snape hissed in pain as the potion began to work its magic.

"Who are you?" he whispered, his tone full of awe and disbelief. "Why are you helping me?"

"That doesn't matter," Hermione said off-handedly. Once the puckered scars began to heal, leaving only the dark blood behind, she placed the stopper on the vial, gathered the scattered items, and shoved them all in her pouch. She shot to her feet and ran after Harry, glancing over her shoulder at Snape one last time.

He knelt there, his bloodied hands limp in his lap, his dark eyes trained on her, and his jaw slightly agape.

Hermione looked away from him. Her heart pounded furiously against her chest as she sprinted through the forest to Harry's side. The ancient trees passed by her in a whiz, and she barely stopped herself from falling over the fallen boughs.

They were on the most important mission of their lives; Hermione knew they couldn't be side-tracked, but the sight of Snape trying to kill himself had shaken her to the core. Hermione didn't know what had caused him to take such a drastic step, but she hadn't been able to stop herself from interfering.

She didn't know if she had changed the future in any way, but considering their whole mission was to change the wizarding world's future, Hermione hoped she had done the right thing.


Severus sat there on the ground, his heart furiously thumping in his chest. What had just happened? He had no idea whatsoever. The young woman—Hermione, his foggy mind supplied—had appeared like a whirlwind, saved him from dying alone in the middle of the woods before disappearing just as quickly as she had arrived.

Lily was getting married to James Potter; there had been nothing left for Severus to live for… until now.

He had been ready to die and had been staring at his bleeding wrists with a feigned nonchalance when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the woman had fallen onto her knees in front of him, her beautiful brown eyes wide with fear, her dark-pink lips parted, and her dainty hands trembling.

He hadn't even seen her coming.

She was like a guardian angel with her halo of brown curls… My own guardian angel.

No one, not even Lily or his own mother, had ever cared for him this much before.

Still awed by what had occurred, Severus raised his hand, twisting it from side to side to inspect it. He looked up towards the trees where the young woman had disappeared, and his heart suddenly ached at his angel's absence.

A deep longing for something he couldn't quite name settled into his weary bones. All thoughts of Lily and her upcoming nuptials vanished from his head as he slowly got to his feet. The blood dripped down his fingers onto the grass below, but now, Severus didn't care.

He wiped his hands on the sides of his shirt, his mind awhirl with ideas on how to find his angel. He had just taken a step forward when something crunched under his foot.

A broken two-way mirror lay half-hidden between the grass blades. Severus's heart soared at the sight. Knowing how to use a two-way mirror, he simply tapped on it once and said, "Hermione."

The image in the mirror changed to pitch black. For a moment, Severus thought something was wrong, but then, the sound of something shifting and someone panting reached his ears.

"...Mione? What if he doesn't believe us?" a male voice asked, breathing heavily.

Severus realised it was the same man Hermione had been with. He tried to think of the man's features but failed. He had been so focused on his beautiful angel and the tears welling up in her beautiful chocolate-brown eyes that he hadn't paid the other man any attention. Now, he feared she was involved with the man; he knew he wouldn't be able to bear that at all.

"He has to," Hermione's unsteady voice said, barely a melodious murmur, but it was enough to give Severus a ray of hope. Unaware that Severus was listening in on their conversion, she went on, "We'll tie him down if we have to, but Regulus will have to listen to us. It's the only way we can get to the Horcrux before someone dies. We can't let him give it to Kreacher."

Regulus… Severus only knew of one man with that name: Regulus Black. Now that he knew where they were headed, Severus whipped out his wand and Disapparated.

He had an angel to get to.