A Pair of Brown Eyes

Severus ran as hard as he could through the pelting rain. His legs tired, but he dared not stop. He had to get as far away as he could. He had not seen the precipice before him...he skidded to a halt mere centimeters short of the edge. The skin on the back of his neck tingled with dread. He turned his back to the edge of the cliff, peering into the darkness and rain. He could see nothing, but some hideously sibilant noise seemed to grow louder and louder. Soon, he could no longer hear the wind or the rain for the hiss. Danger drew closer. Something was lunging at him. Defenseless, he lurched in fear. Toppling backwards over the precipice, the last thing he saw was a pair of reptilian eyes, glowing red. He fell through the darkness.

Suddenly, he was no longer falling, though it didn't seem as if he had landed, either. He must be somewhere else because he could sense light beyond his closed eyes. He heard before he could see.

"She's been here every day, dear girl," said a feminine voice.

Wherever it was, there were people about. Was that safe? Did they know he was there?

"Aye, the little dear's slept here more nights than I could count. Still, don't she say she's no kin to the bloke? Seems more'n a bit odd that she'd care so much..."

"Calliope..." the first voice admonished.

Who were these people? He tried to move his arms to no avail. Likewise, his legs refused to do his bidding. Was he paralyzed? Or was he under some sort of enchantment?

"Between you 'n me, Maire," the witch named Calliope continued in conspiratorial tones, "don't know why anyone'd care what happened to this-un. Not after the things you be hearin' about 'im."

"Enough, Calliope! The sleepers still have their hearing!" said Maire sharply. "Besides, it is not our place to decide guilt. We're Healers."

Panic assailed him. No one knew he was here, paralyzed. They couldn't see him, they couldn't hear him. He had to find a way to communicate...

Undeterred, Calliope continued. "Still. More'n a bit strange, this...what do you reckon he's done to the girl? She hardly leaves his side. Oh!" she gasped. "You don't suppose he's gone and Imperiused her? Given her some type of potion, or somethin'? Not much of a looker, that one... maybe that was the only way he could get a sweet, young witch to..."

Maire's voice thundered. "That will be quite enough! This wizard is our patient, and you will kindly stop spinning these lurid tales. If I could presume upon you to change his bed-pan and have done with it..."

Severus wondered where he was and with whom. He felt himself levitating gently, and he forced himself to open his eyes. He gasped. Wracking pain blossomed with every movement. He felt his arms and legs twitch.

"Sweet Merlin!" Calliope cried. "Maire, help me!" As if from a great distance, Severus felt himself being lowered gently to the bed. He looked up into the bewildered faces of two witches, both of them elderly, both of them clad in lime-green robes. One of them was now pressing a bottle to his lips and tipping it backwards. The potion seared his dry throat, but he began to feel his body relaxing as the pain ebbed away.

"W... w..." he began, but his voice failed him. The two witches continued to bustle around him, Summoning potions, casting diagnostic spells.

"Wa..." he stammered weakly.

With great effort, he reached feebly for the Healer nearest him, managing to graze her arm with his hand.

As if through a tunnel, a kindly, old face peered down at him. Whatever they had given him had stopped the agonizing convulsions, but he was very thirsty. Trying to speak, his parched lips smacked unintelligibly. The light was fading. He needed water...

"Here you go, now, Mr. Snape, Sir." The old Healer was holding a cup to his lips. He drank gratefully and enthusiastically, dribbling water down his chin. All too soon, the cup was empty.

"More," he rasped. Again, the Healer held the cup to his lips, and again he drank, sating himself.

"That's right, be a good lad and drink your water," the Healer crooned. He felt safe with her.

Distantly, he heard the other Healer calling out anxiously. "Maire! Does he need more Blood-Replenishing Potion?"

The Healer named Maire continued to gaze upon him kindly. "No, Calliope, I believe Mr. Snape is almost ready to rejoin us." She was whispering words of encouragement to him, soothing words, but the tunnel through which he was staring at her was closing. Before he knew it, the light was gone and he heard no more.

A new voice echoed distantly through the darkness. Severus' heartbeat quickened...it was a voice he had heard before. A sweet voice...

"He has now been here for two months. I am a bit concerned about decubitus ulcers..." The voice was growing closer. Opening his eyes, Severus could dimly see two feminine forms at his feet, again through a tunnel.

"I understand, Miss Granger. I assure you we have taken extra care...St. Mungo's has an excellent regimen for preventing bed sores." He recognized Maire's voice. "See, he's not really sleeping upon the mattress, but levitating ever so slightly above it with a special air-cushioning charm."

"Excellent. And do you turn him frequently to prevent lividity?" the familiar voice was asking, but he did not hear Maire's reply. The voices of the two women...he was certain he knew the younger of the two, though he was hard-pressed to say from where...were calm and intelligent and caring, and he felt safe for the first time in years. He drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

He didn't know how long he had slept, but something was direly wrong. His extremities began to tingle, and soon the tingle gave way to grinding pain. His muscles were contracting uncontrollably, his arms stiffening at his sides. He felt as if he were going through rigor mortis while he was yet alive. He wanted to scream out for someone, but his mouth wouldn't open...even his jaws were clamping painfully. Paralyzed within the darkness, Severus heard a voice he knew, a voice he despised and feared.

"You have been a good and faithful servant."

He had to scream, he had to run, but he was stuck. An awful, inhuman hissing sound was ordering his death. He had to try... had to scream...

Light flooded his vision. He heard someone crying out in fear and pain, a fear and pain that inhabited his own being. Then, he was looking into a pair of dark brown eyes. Suddenly, he knew that the screams were his own.

"It's all right, Professor, you're safe. I'm here. Hold my hand now, sir, that's right. I'm right here." He felt small hands enclosing his and looked questioningly into the brown eyes. The pain was unbearable. He wanted to stop screaming, but the pain was getting the better of him. A vial was being pressed to his lips.

"Mr. Snape, listen to me. I'm giving you a pain potion. Come on, open up for

Maire...that's my boy...drink up!" He opened his lips, and a thick, warm liquid was trickling down his throat. Immediately, the pain began to edge away. Once again, he slept.

Severus opened his eyes and looked around him. He was uncertain of his location. Was he alive, even yet? He knew that he shouldn't be...

This place was like nothing he had ever envisioned in his musings upon the after-life. He had always hoped for nothingness, yet here he was, in some annoyingly bright room, with pain beginning to tingle in his fingertips and toes. Hell, perhaps? Yes, he could imagine Hell being like this. He must seek out his long-dead, Muggle father and let him know that he had been right about one thing, at least.

"Ahh!" he groaned. The tingle had fulminated into spasms of agony. "Aughh!" He wanted to twist, thrash, fight against the overwhelming anguish. He was drowning in his pain. He closed his eyes tightly, screwing his face up against the intensity.

"Open your eyes, sir." No. He could not. He dared not.

"I know it's hard, but you have to look at me." He sensed someone near him, felt someone's breath in his face as he struggled.

"Here, sir, take my hand..." The lovely voice. The voice of his angel. Severus obeyed without question. He had to. The hand he held was massaging his palm with a firm and comforting pressure, and strangely, the pain, though it did not cease altogether, was becoming more manageable.

"Look at me, sir," the strong, kind voice was commanding, and Severus looked into the face that was poised so near his own. Whose eyes were those? The question teased him without actually tormenting him. Perhaps his father was right about angels as well. Perhaps angels even came to you in Hell, just to mitigate your suffering ever so slightly...

"Breathe with me now." The creature to which the voice belonged was breathing calmly, in through her nose and out through her mouth, slowly and steadily. Her eyes were anchoring him, pulling him towards terra firma.

His breathing, initially shallow and ragged, gradually became more modulated. He could feel himself surmounting the pain, working with it instead of struggling against it. He felt otherworldly, as if nothing existed except him, and his pain, and the kind eyes guiding him over it.

A sense of serenity began to fill him. He accepted the pain, using his breath, depending upon the voice to help him ride its swells and troughs. The waves were lengthening now and flattening, losing their intensity. He felt himself relaxing more and more...

Something began nagging at his brain...

He had something to do, something important. His muscles contracted tensely, and the pain began to surge once more. No, ignore it. He had a mission...

He arched his back in agony, grinding his teeth. He had to remain alert. Much depended upon his mission, he had to remember...

"Sir! Stay with me! Work with it!" he heard the blessed voice saying, but it was far away, so very far away.

The voice, the pain, the breathing were all unimportant. If he were alive, he must accomplish his task. If he were dead, he could demand answers; were answers not what everyone sought after death? If only he could remember the questions, the all important questions...

The anguish was unbearable. He was stretched between the mental torment and the physical pain as if upon a torture wrack. A stabbing pain shot through his torso just as he remembered...

A name...

"P... Po...tt...t...-er" he gasped. "Po...tt..." He was gripping his angel by the wrists, staring into her brown eyes, willing her to understand.

Her brow, which had been furrowed with concern, relaxed visibly, and she smiled. No, he thought. No, this is serious... she must understand...

She leaned close to him, placing her hands on his shoulder. Her lips barely touched his ear.

"He made it, sir. Harry Potter made it. Vol...I mean, the Dark Lord...he is dead.

Har...Potter...defeated him. You succeeded."

Severus relaxed then, giving himself over to this... creature, this angel... to her ministrations. She was massaging his arms and shoulders, and her touch chased the physical pain from his limbs just as surely as her words had chased the torments from his mind. He couldn't remember the significance of the name...Potter...or what his mission had been. But his angel had assured him that it had been accomplished. He could rest. A smile spread sleepily over his face as he looked up at her. She smiled back at him. Funny, she didn't look like the angels in his father's church...

Never mind. No one but an angel would answer his questions, soothe his aches, return his smiles. He was firmly convinced of that.

Hermione slumped into her chair, spent by her efforts. She peered at the man now calmly sleeping and dared give in to optimism. She felt a burden lift itself from her exhausted frame. Finally, after nearly two months, it seemed that Severus Snape was going to make it. Furthermore, it seemed as if he would not be consigned to the fate of the "sleepers," as St. Mungo's coma patients were known. To the contrary, it seemed that he was becoming more and more aware.

She shuddered as she remembered watching him in the Shrieking Shack, just a few meters away as the ghastly serpent struck him. Then, the helplessness she had felt as she watched the blood pour from his neck. She had thought him dead; they all had. Something had told her, though, that she should try to save him. Through her horror and disgust, she remembered that the same snake had struck both Arthur Weasley and Harry, and she had healed one of them completely.

Snape, though, had lost far more blood than Harry, and while Arthur's case was remarkably similar, he had almost been lost, even with St. Mungo's considerable resources. Of all the deaths and injuries she had witnessed, Nagini's attack upon Snape had been the most traumatic. Never before had she seen such a cold and ruthless display of power.

After the war, she, Harry, and Ron had collapsed in Gryffindor Tower. The three young warriors had felt a kinship unlike any they had ever known as powerful waves of grief, elation, and exhaustion had threatened to sweep them all away. Ron had broken the silence first.

"Snape..." he had said in amazement. "Snape was looking after you all that time."

Harry had swallowed hard. "Yeah. All this time... I never knew... never got to thank him..."

His green eyes had filled with tears, not only for Snape, Ron and Hermione had understood, but for all of his lost father figures. Though he had defeated Voldemort, he had lost Sirius, Remus, Fred, and Dumbledore...and Snape, the most unlikely father of all.

It had been then that Hermione had told Harry and Ron of how she had doubled back to the Shrieking Shack to tend to Snape, casting life-saving spells to replenish his blood and spreading dittany on his wounds, and how she had then Mobilicorpused him to the makeshift hospital at the Hog's Head. Recalling Harry's expression of joy, she smiled to herself.

"Blimey, 'Mione." Ron had glowed. "You did all of that before you came to help me with..." Ron's voice broke had broken, and his face had contorted at that first memory of his brother's body, which Hermione and Molly had tenderly moved and cleaned. Hermione had embraced her friend, allowing him to sob unabashedly upon her shoulder as they had grieved Fred Weasley together.

Harry had looked on grimly. After some moments, he had cautiously interrupted the silence. "Uh, Hermione?" he had asked softly. "Is he... I mean Snape... is he OK now?"

Hermione remembered how Harry's question had startled her. "Bugger!" she had cried. "I left him in the Hog's Head... there were house-elves helping him... I need to check in on him again!"

Beneath Harry's invisibility cloak, the three weary friends had walked to the Hog's Head. The shabby saloon was full of wounded fighters, but the trio had been intent upon finding one man. Harry's eyes had widened with fear as they had stared down at the Potions master.

He had looked like a corpse with his pallid skin and almost undetectable respirations. Hermione had pressed her ear to his chest and faintly, just faintly, heard his heart beating. Dutifully, she had taken his pulse and counted his respirations before calling a weary-looking house-elf to her for questioning. True to their word, the house-elves had followed Hermione's instructions faithfully, giving him various potions at hourly intervals. Then she herself had spread more dittany over the bite marks on his neck.

The three heroes had then made the rounds through all the wounded, congratulating them and thanking them for their sacrifices while encouraging their healing. It had been an exhausting day.

From that point on, she and Harry had taken it in turns to look in upon Snape, carefully monitoring his progress. After two days, they had decided that he had stabilized enough to be transferred to St. Mungo's. At some point, Harry had spoken directly to Kingsley Shacklebolt and secured Snape's pardon and reward.

"Miss Granger?" A gentle, old voice interrupted Hermione's reverie. Hermione looked up into a compassionate pair of hazel eyes.

"Yes, Healer Glamorgan?" she answered.

"Please, call me Maire." She smiled understandingly at Hermione. Hermione reciprocated wearily.

"Maire. Yes. Uhm." Hermione cleared her throat. "He awoke again, and he was in terrible pain, but I used the massage and breathing techniques we discussed, and he's sleeping again." She frowned slightly. "I didn't know what to do... I wanted to call for help, but he was watching me so intently... as if he needed me to stay right where I was..."

"I assure you, he did need you," Maire broke in. "The numbing potions we've used are already losing their efficacy. In addition, he is at great risk for becoming addicted to the potions...I witnessed the loss of many great wizards to such afflictions during the First War." Maire's lips thinned. "Our friend here faces quite enough of a challenge to be going on with. No, you offered him the best comfort under the circumstances."

Hermione sighed in relief. "I was so afraid I had done the wrong thing..."

Maire laughed lightly. "Of course you were. Have you considered becoming a Healer?" her eyes twinkled. "You are quite gifted, actually... I speak for all of St. Mungo's when I say that your presence at Mr. Snape's side has been a godsend.

"However..." Maire knelt and looked at Hermione closely.

"Miss Granger, you have been here every day and almost every night. I know, also, that you are researching Mr. Snape's case and studying for your N.E.W.T.s."

Hermione squirmed and squared her shoulders. She knew what was coming next. She had been lectured before about exhausting herself, and she had never listened. She was not going to be brushed aside. "Well," she started to protest, but Maire had turned a quelling look upon her.

"You'll be no good to Mr. Snape if you collapse from exhaustion, Miss Granger," Maire intoned. "If you intend to continue caring for Mr. Snape, you must consider it to be a race of endurance rather than speed. He has sustained a particularly grave injury, a rare case. We don't yet know the full extent of his injury or how he will recover from it."

Hermione's optimism flagged. The weariness that she had held at bay for so long threatened to overwhelm her. Moreover, she was dreading the day when Professor Snape would no longer need her assistance, a day left for her to structure for herself. Maire peered at her knowingly.

"Miss Granger..."

Hermione bit her lip and twisted her hands.

After a long pause, Maire continued. "I've rarely seen such a gifted young witch. You have an unparalleled talent for healing and..." the old witch smiled wryly, "research. I myself became a Healer under such circumstances. In the aftermath of the First War. With Grindelwald."

Maire blinked hard. "That war didn't last as long as this one did, not here in Britain. But there was a need, and those of us who were able stepped forward. We were young and scarred; we enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to heal the wounds of the wizarding world. We wore ourselves out. Many excellent Healers simply gave out."

Hermione looked into Maire's unflinching gaze. She felt uncomfortably transparent, almost as she had as a student when Dumbledore or Professor Snape looked at her. She didn't quite know what she would have to hide from the elder witch, but she definitely felt like hiding...

"Listen to Maire, girl." The edge that had slipped into the Healer's voice caused Hermione to sit up straight and alert. "I know what you're doing. I've done it myself."

Done what, Hermione wondered.

"War exacts a heavy toll. You can easily immerse yourself in caring for others while avoiding your own thoughts." Hermione's stomach lurched uncomfortably. She had a sense of dams being breeched within her mind. Chaos threatened to spill over her.

Maire continued staring at her. At once kind and stern, her voice continued to breech Hermione's defenses. "Mr. Snape has a very, very long way to go before he is what I would call 'well.' Even if his wounds were miraculously healed, he would still suffer the enormity of what he has experienced."

Enormity... Hermione batted the word away as if it were an insect that annoyed her. She did not want to consider the enormity of what Snape had experienced. Much less did she want to consider the enormity of her own experiences in the war. She fiddled uncomfortably with the hem of her sleeve as Maire went on.

"I don't presume to know why you care for this man so much. Obviously, however, you do care for him. And if you plan on being involved in his convalescence, you must accept that healing must happen on many levels...for each of you."

Maire's face relaxed and she stood straight. "Get some rest now, dear girl. I didn't come out of retirement to treat otherwise healthy young witches for exhaustion."

Hermione, suddenly reminded of Professor McGonagall, smiled involuntarily.

"I'll have Calliope bring a tray of sandwiches and tea round for you," Maire said. She conjured a small but comfortable looking camp bed. "Sleep. I'm watching out for your friend." She winked at Hermione as she walked around the curtain, leaving her to push the beckoning enormity away.

AN Many thanks to Angel Mischa, my gifted beta, and to amsev for helping me correct my errors. This chapter shares a title with a Pogues song, which also deals with post-war themes.