Requiem for the Living
By Jinxd n Cursed
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. I merely play in the world of J.K. Rowling; she still owns the characters.
Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison.
Chapter Seven
Severus Snape did not sleep well the night after he received Hermione Weasley's letter. His slumber was plagued with a series of strange dreams and ended with a nightmare. In his first dream, he had been hiking through the park as he often did, when he came upon Hermione. She looked just as he remembered her: of medium height and very slender with her cloud of curly brown hair pulled into a ponytail. She was wearing khaki cargo pants with a cream coloured long sleeved tee shirt and a green vest. She had a small backpack with a canteen dangling from it and all of this was capped off with a fishing hat. She smiled at him. "Fancy a hike?" she asked.
"No," he replied.
"Oh come now, Severus, I know you go out walking every Monday afternoon. Let's go," she said.
"Yes, I take a walk through the mountains on Mondays but I do so alone," he shot back.
"You can be alone with me," she told him. "Let's go." She grabbed his hand and started tugging him along the path.
"Unhand me, woman!" he yelled. "Alone means solitary. One person, not two, and certainly not an obnoxious know-it-all child like yourself."
"I'm not a child anymore, Severus," she reminded him. "I'm a Healer and a married woman, you know."
She was changing before his eyes: the bushy mane of hair lengthening and softening down to something much less ridiculous, dark smudges forming beneath her eyes, imperceptibly fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and a slightly thickened middle. Only, her middle wasn't just slightly thickened; it was growing, pushing outward as if there were a Quaffle under her shirt.
"Miss Granger, you—you—"
"Mrs. Weasley," she reminded him. "Though that does remind me frightfully of Molly."
Molly Weasley was a Gryffindor lioness stuffed into a dumpy matron's body. Even Severus Snape was afraid of her when she was in one of her moods or dealing with a perceived wrong. Nevertheless, there was no Molly Weasley anywhere to be seen, only the young Mrs. Weasley who was suddenly very pregnant.
Her gait developed a marked waddle but she kept dragging him along the trail. He was slightly concerned that she would hurt herself as she practically sprinted down the path. Even though she released his hand, he chased after her, worried for her safety. He recognized the trail they were on as one he had hiked many times up one of the peaks. The trail had a few steep sections that were coming up ahead of them, just through the trees.
"Miss Granger—" he began to shout.
"It's Mrs. Weasley!" she reminded, though her tone was oddly playful.
How she ran with her belly bouncing as it did was beyond his understanding. Her breathing was hardly affected at all, even though he was starting to pant as he ran after her. He ran as a form of disciplined exercise but not like this. She was relentless. On and on they ran up the steep mountain, not stopping. Hermione didn't even slow until they were through the tree line when she came to a walk, clutching her lower stomach.
"It's time," she said, leaning against a rock.
"Stupid girl!" he said. "You have ran us up a mountain away from any help! I will apparate away to get a healer."
"No you will not," she said. "You will stay here and you will help me!" She slid down the rock so she was sitting on the ground, clutching her huge stomach and moaning.
Severus was at a loss. He had a variety of experiences in all matters of magical disciplines including some more minor forms of healing. He did not, however, have any experience with childbirth. He had never even seen a woman in labour before. Severus blushed as Hermione began working at the zipper of her trousers. "What do I do?" he asked.
"Catch! Catch him!" she shouted out.
He didn't know much about labour but he knew this wasn't normal; she was already pushing in earnest and he reluctantly came to kneel between her legs, trying not to look too hard while she pushed a baby out and into his outstretched arms. He caught it and looked down at his hands. He was holding the tiny thing which started wailing almost immediately. The shocking part of it was that the baby had a head of black hair.
"Oh he's beautiful, Severus," Hermione cooed. "Your son is beautiful."
He looked down and verified that it was, indeed, a boy before her last sentence sunk in. Oddly, though, he didn't doubt it. This was his son he was holding. The emotions were indescribable as he held the child in his arms, gently wiping away the blood and such from his face. Hermione had pulled a blanket out of her backpack that he wrapped around the baby. He looked from the baby's face to Hermione, who was beaming, and smiled at her. Filled with a surge of love, he leaned in to kiss her and then...
He woke up. In his bed at the stone cottage in Wales. He panted. It hadn't been a nightmare but it certainly had been strange. He thought about the odd vision of Hermione appearing in her hiking attire and then her dragging him up the trail, her growing belly bouncing. Then was the terror at the sight of her in labour and then... his son. The feelings were indescribable. He had never felt such joy in his real life.
His real life.
He shook his head and pulled the sheets up higher, turning onto his side and pulling his knees towards his chest. He would never have a son so it was useless to think on things like that. Sleep returned quickly despite his racing thoughts.
He had a few more dreams, snippets of unreality: brewing a love potion at Hogwarts, riding a bicycle with Percy Weasley, doing the tango with Gilderoy Lockhart, helping Lucius Malfoy dye his roots blonde, Narcissa threatening to dye his own hair pink, and going on a picnic with both Potters. While strange, those dreams weren't horrifying but what followed was.
He was once again walking the trails near his home with Hermione Weasley. It didn't bother him, though. They talked amicably about an article recently published by her co-worker, Terry Boot. He had apparently written an article theorizing an antidote for the Draught of the Living Death that carried fewer side effects than the Wiggenweld Potion. Hermione thought the proposition had merit, but Severus disagreed.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to give it a go. Take a Draught of the Living Death and then have the supposed antidote, hmm?" he asked.
"Of course not," she said. "I said the idea has merit, not that it is ready to go. Though if you keep talking like that, I may just try it out on you."
"I daresay you will find that impossible as I have the natural ability to sniff out most potions when added to food or beverage."
"You're impossible," she told him.
"I never pretended to be anything else," he replied.
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Hermione stopped by a tree after a few moments. "I think I see knot grass in the clearing over there. We should get some. It's the full moon."
His chest constricted; he had forgotten. The full moon had always brought such a sense of foreboding, ever since Sirius Black had lured him to his near death. "Yes, I suppose we should. Is there enough room in that back pack of yours?"
She nodded. "Let's go."
He followed her as she made her way over to the clearing. As she had said, the clearing was full of knot grass. She opened her pack and handed him a silver bladed knife and they both set to work harvesting the grass. It could not be shrunk or reduced in any way or else the magical properties would be gone so the amount they could collect was limited. Hermione handed him a leather pouch for him to stuff with grass.
"Isn't the full moon lovely?" Hermione asked.
He looked up to realize that darkness had fallen and the moon was a glowing circle above them. A deep feeling of dread and anxiety filled him. Something was wrong. "We need to turn back, Hermione," he said. "There is danger here."
"Don't be silly," she said.
"I am never silly," he told her with a scowl. "We need to leave this place immediately."
She shrugged and stuffed the leather pouches of knot grass into her backpack and straightened, slinging the bag over one shoulder. "Come on, then, if you're so worried."
He set out swiftly back toward the path with Hermione trailing behind him. He could hear her panting, as she had to jog to keep up but he didn't care; they needed to get away.
"Severus," she said.
"Not now!" he shot back. "Quickly!"
"Severus!" she cried.
He turned around and his heart was frozen solid. A werewolf was emerging from the trees coming right for her.
"Hermione! Apparate away! Forget about the knot grass! Get away!" he shouted at her, frozen and unable to follow his own advice. It was too late, though. She screamed as the beast lashed out at her with its claws and teeth. Severus remained frozen in horror as her screams abruptly ended when the beast tore at her throat.
He was still frozen in place as the creature advanced on him. All of his senses were magnified. He could hear the wolf's heavy breathing as it approached him, smell Hermione's blood on its lips, and feel it's hot breath. Just as the animal reared back to attack, he woke up.
The clock on his bedside table told him it was half-past ten, the latest he had ever recalled sleeping in his life. When he made his way to the kitchen and looked out the window, a now familiar looking barn owl sat in the tree, a letter clamped in its beak.
Updated 9/11/15 for minor grammatical and spelling fixes