A special thank-you to all who sent feedback, letting me know that there are a few of you out there who actually like the story enough to want to see an ending.
As a special way of saying thank you for your patience I have included a little something at the end of this chapter.
Disclaimer: see One
Forward to Time Past By Claudia
Eight
Six hours of the loop had already passed when Severus came to. He knew without having to look at his watch. In a way it was comforting to know that this was so, it was the one thing he could rely on; besides the obvious, of course.
He opened his eyes. The light was different, brighter and clearer than what to him had become normal in the past week. A week of loops, a week of reliving the same horrible day over and over again. Some, of course, were not so horrible - particularly if for the ending.
There was only one place that enjoyed such radiant sunshine: Hogwarts. Even his rooms benefited from it, although he had chosen them with windows facing north. But he wasn't in his rooms.
This was the Hospital Wing, and for the first time in a week - if you could call a week consisting of Tuesdays a week, that is - Severus felt that this time their choice had been a good one. But what with the events of the previous loop he wasn't quite so convinced anymore that this loop meant the end of their exile in time.
It was his fault of course, and his fault alone.
And for once he wished for the start of every new loop to erase their memories.
"Severus?"
He turned to face Poppy, and smiled inwardly, a sigh of relief.
"I don't know what happened," Poppy began, taking the Potions Master's silence as encouragement to do so. "But I'm I great fear of Ms Granger's life."
Severus was almost overwhelmed by the tiredness that suddenly took hold of his body and mind, just as though Poppy's carefully chosen words had wiped out the hope that had started to awaken inside him. "I know Poppy," and he hoped he wasn't sounding as old as he suddenly felt, "she won't live to see the night."
Poppy paled with shock. She knew him well enough to trust his words, years of working with him had taught her to listen to him in matters like these. "Are you quite sure?" she asked despite herself. When he didn't provide an answer, she pressed on: "How can you be so sure?"
"I saw her die, Poppy," he said at last, not caring if his voice sounded tired. "She died in my arms, and I had to sit by and I couldn't do anything."
Poppy sat heavily on the nearby bed. Severus settled on the adjacent bed, which was also unoccupied, and began to tell her everything he knew, including the possible way out of the loop. Once again, it felt good to be able to relieve himself of this burden. Normally, he wasn't the type to confide in people easily, only a few select people enjoyed this kind of trust - quite understandably, too - but Poppy was one who had always been close to him. She had saved his life on what seemed to him countless occasions, and he had never wanted to add to her burden. But this was Hermione, after all, in her days one of the more popular students, and if he wanted to help her properly, he couldn't spare Poppy the sorrow.
"Severus, I'm so sorry," she said once he had finished.
"Poppy, I don't need your sympathy," Severus replied, although his words were lacking the usual sting, "Hermione needs you, and I'd like to make sure that she isn't in pain any more than necessary. She wants to remain conscious."
A smile flickered on her lips. "Of course she would." She remembered the time when Hermione had been petrified by the Basilisk's reflection very well. "But from what you've told me - and the impression I get of you - I'd rather she lost consciousness. It would do her good."
"Where do I come into this?"
"You need sleep. Badly."
"But-"
"No," the Healer said firmly, not unkindly, though, "I can wake you as soon as ... well, you know." Despite herself, Poppy was more shaken by this than she wanted to admit.
Severus sighed. He knew that Hermione was in good hands. And he knew that he had to delegate more. "Where do I sleep?"
Poppy, who clearly had been thinking of his own bed, smiled at the battle won so easily. "You can have the bed next hers. I've put her into a more private room, just in case. Quidditch practice, you know."
"I appreciate that, Poppy."
--
But before Severus couldn't go to Hermione he went to the gargoyle guarding the revolving staircase to McGonagall's office. He didn't feel ready to meet Hermione just yet, but the serenity of his room was even less appealing. When he entered the rotund office, Minerva was correcting parchments, essays on Transfigurations, most likely. Upon taking over Dumbledore's duties as the new Head Mistress, Minerva had not given up teaching for good, "To keep that feeling of knowing the students," she'd said, "for I don't have any of Dumbledore's abilities." So she taught only one class, changing years at the beginning of September. This year, she was teaching sixth years. None too bright either, as even she admitted. Henrietta Tumsole, a former Ravenclaw, was teaching all the others who had either chosen Transfigurations for the N.E.W.T.s or all those for whom the subject was mandatory - the rest of school.
"Severus," she greeted him, the 'r' in his name rolling over the tip of her tongue. "I didn't expect you back quite so soon. Did everything go all right? I was under the impression that you and Ms Granger would celebrate."
She had said exactly the same when he had come to her in an earlier loop.
"There has been an accident, Minerva."
She gestured for him to sit and offered him some of Ogden's in a simple tumbler. "Not Hermione?"
Severus only looked at her. "She's with Poppy," he said, his voice muted as he spoke into the glass.
"What happened?" she asked with some urgency.
And again, Severus told her his story. This time, however, he didn't spare her the ending. "She's not going to live, Minerva. At least not when I'm wrong."
"I'm sorry, I'm not quite following," she said, elbows propped on her knees, leaning forward.
"Neither am I," Oswald chimed in.
Until then, Severus had ignored the portraits. "True Love's First Kiss is what I think the only power to end this."
"Are you telling me ...," Minerva interrupted herself. "Are you in love with her?"
He looked at her and nodded. "Yes, I am."
Minerva smiled and squeezed his right hand.
"You knew."
"She has a gift of herself, she has," Oswald commented. "Why, this is of course quite an interesting development for Chronologists like me."
--
Although the Hospital Wing's beds weren't any different from those in St Mungo's, Severus felt that Hermione wasn't as much out of place as in Ward Eight. When he entered the private room, she was awake. Neither of them said anything for while.
"Well?" Even on her deathbed, Severus noted wryly, she was as bossy as ever. And he wondered where the smile came from that wanted to be seen.
"You told me to forgive myself," he replied as though their conversation had never been interrupted, as though he had just left the room for a minute or two. He took off his heavy frock coat, and draped it neatly on a chair at the far wall.
"You do realise that that isn't something to be accomplished easily," he continued.
"I do," she replied. It had taken Potter years to forgive himself for what had happened that fateful night in the Department of Mysteries.
"I promise to try."
Hermione nodded.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
"Shall I read you some more of Sebekhotep's Book?"
"I'd like that," Hermione said. "Would you ask Poppy for some potion first, please?" It was only that he noticed that her brow was glistening, and that her complexion looked everything but healthy.
"Hermione," he said, sitting on the edge of her bed, "I'm afraid Poppy would rather your body took care of itself."
Strangely enough, Hermione nodded in agreement. "Yes, I thought she would." She forced a smile, "I can't promise to be a very attentive audience, though."
Severus met her glassy gaze steadily. It was now or never. This was the moment to end it - or go on like this until never-never day.
He bent, pushing his hand into the mass of hairy frizziness on the pillow to support her head, and pulled her gently towards him. Their faces only inches apart he stopped to look at her, to see whether she approved. The darkness of her irises her paled beneath a glassy sheen of pain, but there was something urgent in them.
He lowered his lips onto hers and kissed her, gently at first, as fearing the gentle touch would break her. When he felt the yielding softness, he deepened the kiss, and while losing himself inside her, he willed whatever power responsible for this to feel that he loved this young woman.
Hermione groaned, and he felt her go limp in his arms. It woke him from the power of this kiss.
"Too much, Severus," Hermione said weakly.
He had let down his guard, opened his thoughts completely, surrendering to Legilimency. Had Hermione managed, despite everything, to keep up her guards?
Almost in shock, he lowered her back onto the pillow. "I'm sorry, Hermione, I'm sorry."
"No," she whispered. "I love you, too."
When she closed her eyes then, Severus knew that she would never open them again in this loop.
He kicked off his shoes and lay down beside her, uncaring whether the arm he draped across her centre would cause any more damage to her battered body. There was nothing anyone could do now.
He closed his eyes.
Here's part of the story I had to take out when I realised that the characters were running away with me. However, I didn't quite want to send the excerpt into textual Nirvana, so here goes a scene from chapter six: "Meeting Luna Lovegood".
This scene had to go because it complicated rather than furthered the plot. It did nothing to help solve the riddle, only provoked more questions. And it's an excellent example for characters running away with your story. But I think it would be a pity to just throw it away.
They walked on in silence, until suddenly -
"Luna!"
"Pardon?"
"Luna Lovegood. If anyone's got a theory about weird stuff, it's her. And she would even listen to us," she said excitedly.
"So you remember her?" Severus asked, almost as excitedly. But he was better trained at containing himself.
Hermione met his inquisitive gaze wide-eyed. "Yes." The wonder in her voice was aching.
"Do you remember anything else?" Severus had stopped walking, and moved to stand in front of her. It was all he could do not to grab her by the arms.
She looked at him, met his dark gaze evenly. "No."
He felt his shoulders sag a bit. "Well, then let's find her. She's with The Quibbler, isn't she?"
Even though it was only Lovegood she remembered - like a genial stroke of inspiration - they suddenly had two chances to find out more. Three, if you counted the vendors, peddlers and Knockturn Alley. And it felt like grasping at straws.
Which, in the end, it was. The vendors and peddlers wouldn't talk to them unless it was business. The watchmaker, xy, had been very helpful once he realised what they were talking about. He left the immaculately clean, unusually Spartan shop in the good care of his wife to talk to them in the seclusion of his not-so posh back room. But ultimately he hadn't been able to help them.
Lovegood was as dreamy as she had been as a girl, but Severus knew this to be deceptive. He saw that Lovegood's air of mystery was trying Hermione's patience, who was a very down-to-earth witch.
"Fascinating," Lovegood said with mild interest. They had found her office easily enough and had been admitted without further ado. No wonder they published the stuff they did when every blundering fool was granted a hearing. Merlin only knew why she was a Ravenclaw.
"And on top of that, you don't remember a thing?" she asked Hermione.
"Only your name and ... occupation," Hermione replied patiently.
"And only this loop," Severus added, "but I don't think that's of any importance right now."
"Maybe," Lovegood mused, sounding more thoughtful, actually involved, now. "I understand you'd need to know anything about time loops and Time Turners as soon as possible?"
"Quite, yes," Hermione agreed, mollified now that she sensed help being on its way.
"I haven't given the matter a thought, but I know we had a piece or two on it," she said, more to herself than to her visitors. She swished he wand briefly, probably thinking hard of what she had in mind, and nothing happened. "It'll take a while," Lovegood offered. "Not easy sorting my thoughts. Tea, anyone?"
Eventually, a couple of loudly coloured and boisterously patterned files appeared on Lovegood's desk out of thin air. She skimmed through them, put one or the other aside, and handed them the rest of the stack: two files. She looked at them expectantly with her protuberant eyes.
One file contained a reading list and some incoherent and rather unintelligible notes - an idea for an article. A rough, a very rough sketch, was on the back of one of the sheets. It was a hummingbird trapped in a bell jar, and depicted were the stages of its life, in a circle. And a tea cup that kept falling off a board over and over again. And a fully grown wizard - a Death Eater, as a note in the margin said -- whose head was shrinking to the size of a baby and growing back to its mature size, also over and over again. "Oh, that was when we were in the Time Room. I never got past taking those preliminary notes."
Hermione looked at her puzzled.
"Ah, of course," Lovegood said. "Sorry."
Severus just raised an eyebrow at that. Then he looked at the other file. It was a short piece on Time-Turners, and musings on the side effects it had on wizarding folk. It mentioned a time loop only briefly, and didn't disclose anything they didn't already know.
"Thank you for your time, Ms Lovegood, but I'm afraid this isn't what we're looking for," Severus said, closing the file and putting it on top of a pile of papers in front of him.
Lovegood only shrugged. "Maybe you could come once you've broken the loop. It'll make a fantastic story."
"Yes," Severus replied dismissively.
The crowds in the street were nearly overwhelming after the quiet of Lovegood's dusty office, and for a moment, Hermione felt disoriented and grabbed Severus' arm for support. He looked at her, asking her without words if she was okay.
Hermione nodded. "At least she won't write about it," she said, trying to sound light-hearted.
Severus saw the false strength behind it, and wondered if he should take her to St Mungo's or to Fortescue's for a drink.
"She looked surprised to see you," Hermione was babbling on. "Us, together."
"Well," Severus said, peeking at his watch, "there is a lot you don't remember about me." They were starting to run out of time. Already the streets were getting less crowded as people went home to their families and dinner tables. But where were they to go?
"Are you sure," Hermione asked, her words sounding laboured again, "you're just my mentor?"
This is it.