II. Dying and Living

Anonymous beta kudos: Special thanks to my betas who made this possible. Also, a scene from this chapter was inspired by odogoddess' brilliant work "Reckoning." No plagiarism or theft is intended.

Chapter II – Dying and Living

Severus woke slowly. The first thing he noticed was the narrow, hard bed upon which he was lying. The second thing he noticed was the oppressive heat. The third thing he noticed was that he was alive. This surprised him, but he couldn't remember why it should.

"You're awake," a voice said. Female...should he know it? He couldn't remember. He blinked.

The next time he awoke, the bed was still narrow and hard, but the room wasn't so warm. Now, he was just cold. He also noticed that his head wouldn't move. His eyes did, though, and carefully, he scanned the room. It contained a table, his bed, and a chair. The chair contained a young woman with bushy brown hair. He blinked.

The third time he awoke, he was still in the hard, narrow bed, but the room looked different. It was dark, this time, but he wasn't cold. The woman was gone. Severus wondered where Miss Granger had taken herself.

Miss Granger. He remembered. God, he remembered everything. Except . . . what in the seven levels of hell he was doing in this bed? He thought carefully: the last thing he remembered was being on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Then there had been Lily and James Potter and their son, and then there had been weeping and pain...quite a bit of pain, actually...and then nothing. Severus blinked.

The fourth time he awoke, Miss Granger was staring at him intently as she massaged something into the side of his neck; behind her stood Potter and Minerva McGonagall.

"You're awake! Professor, welcome back!"

Miss Granger's tone was jubilant. Minerva looked relieved; Potter looked awed. Severus opened his mouth. Nothing but a hoarse whisper emerged.

"Hush, don't try to speak," Miss Granger warned him, laying a gentle finger across his lips. "You've sustained rather serious injuries, and you weren't in the best of shape to begin with." Having completed her task, she drew back. "We're glad you're with us, Professor," she said, her eyes shining. "I...that is, we...missed you."

Severus spent several more days in bed, but finally, driven by boredom and frustration, he went against the wishes of his caretakers and rose to explore the confines of his room at Grimmauld Place. He took three steps before the floor rose precipitously to greet him. Severus discovered he liked the feeling of the floorboards on his cheek and decided to stay that way for a while. He blinked.

When he opened his eyes, he was still on the floor, but this time, he was on his back staring into the worried face of Miss Granger. Drops of water fell to his cheeks; he realized the girl was crying. Why should she be crying? What had he done to her?

"Don't do that, Severus!" she was saying. "You've scared me half to death." When had he become Severus to her?

He opened his mouth to scold her, deduct points from her, rant at her for finding him like this, but nothing emerged. There were no words, only a gurgling sound. He tried again; still nothing.

Miss Granger gently cradled his head. "It's all right. Severus, I promise, we'll make it better. We don't know how yet, but we will. We can fix it. You and I, we can do this."

What was the girl babbling about? Why was she pulling her wand on him? In his mind, Severus saw himself leaping from the floor, grasping his wand and holding it to her throat as he pushed her against the door. In fact, his hand twitched as the girl levitated him back onto his bed. Worn out by anger, frustration, and pain, Severus slept.

The next few...days? weeks? eons? how did one measure time in this condition? Severus wasn't sure...were hellish. He couldn't speak: the venom had been purged, but the bite had affected his vocal chords, and he could barely perform the simplest of spells. Miss Granger was his constant nurse and companion, bearing his moods and his fury with an equanimity that made him want to strangle her one day and marry her the next. He learned to walk, but could not walk far; he learned to do non-verbal spells; he even got his wand back, but he could not speak, only whisper, and it was killing him.

"You're a hero, you know," Miss Granger told him one morning. He glared at her.

"Harry wants to thank you." Severus glared some more. "But I told him that you weren't feeling up to receiving visitors. I hope you don't mind." He turned his back on her and stared at the wall, willing her to go away.

"You have to leave, at some point, Severus." Miss Granger was unbuttoning his trousers to bathe him. He closed his eyes. This was always the worst time: as her fingers brushed him, his reaction was immediate.

"No," he whispered.

"Yes," she replied. Did she know what he had said? Her hands slid his trousers down his hips; his y-fronts followed. He heard her draw breath and cringed. He knew he was hardening. He knew she could see it.

"Miss . . ."

"Don't try to talk, Severus; just breathe. One. Two. Three. Four." Gently, she ran the damp sponge down his shoulders and across his chest. Water trickled from it. He turned away.

"It's all right, Severus; sit up, now."

"I can't . . ." Damn his voice! Why wouldn't it work?

"You can. Here we go."

"No, it . . ." Severus slumped forward. If he opened his eyes, he knew he would be staring straight at his erection: his response to the girl who was now washing his back with gentle strokes.

"So thin...oh my, Severus, we didn't take care of you very well, did we?"

Why wouldn't the damn girl stop? Why couldn't she leave?

"Breathe, Severus. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. There you go; lie back, now."

As the sponge moved lower down, Severus' body tensed, and he tried to focus on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Don't think about where the girl is, don't think about what her hands are doing, don't think, don't feel, don't move, and don't respond. Don't think about Lily, don't imagine it's her there, and don't pretend. Just don't.

When Miss Granger would leave, he would lie on his side, staring at the wall, stroking his member, remembering her touch, her smell, her voice. But he couldn't come. That was when the nightmares were the worst: he would wake up croaking, drenched in sweat, entangled in his bed sheets, shaking. And Miss Granger would come, would soothe him, and would sit by his bed, holding his hand until he slept again.

Once, after a particularly difficult afternoon, he kissed her. He wasn't sure why, but he did, channeling all of his frustration, fury, anxiety, and rage into motion with lips and tongue. It wasn't until a few moments later that he noticed she was kissing him back just as passionately. Startled, he drew back from her, expecting to be hexed, hit, or worse, and watched in amazement as a slow, satisfied grin spread across her face.

Time went on: days, weeks, months, even a year. At Miss Granger's urging, Severus left his room and rented a flat, using his award from the Ministry. Privately, he suspected that it was a not very subtle bribe to disappear.

One wet Thursday, Miss Granger appeared at his door. Her hair clung in wet strands to her face and neck, her soaked clothing molded itself to her body and her eyes were shining.

"I passed!"

Severus wondered what she was talking about. He stood aside to let her in.

"Severus! I passed my exam! I thought we could celebrate." She waved a bottle of wine at him. "You have glasses, right?" And she hurried off into what passed for the kitchen. Severus heard her rummage for glasses, open the wine and return. Why would she care to "celebrate" with him?

"I couldn't have done it without you, you know," Miss Granger was saying, handing him a glass filled with a red liquid. He assumed it was wine, but upon tasting it, he wasn't sure.

"Sorry...it's a little rough. I'm only a student; I can't afford the good stuff," Miss Granger babbled at him. "Anyway, if it wasn't for the hell you put us through in Potions, I never would have had the discipline to sit through that awful class! Not that your classes were awful...they never were." She was on his sofa and patted the cushion next to her. "Come, sit down and help me drink my horrid, cheap wine!"

Severus sat carefully next to her, preparatory to drinking her offering. But before he could, she set down her glass and turned to him.

"Severus," his name was a whisper, "let me." Carefully, she reached out and brushed his hair from his face. Careful fingers traced the lines of his cheekbones, where her tears had fallen when she had found him on the floor. Her lips, soft, full, and warm, followed her fingers.

Desperate to end the contact, Severus grasped her head with his hands. But before he could push her away from him, he found himself pulling the impossible girl closer, capturing her mouth in a kiss. And like before, instead of pulling away in disgust, Miss Granger threw herself upon him, knocking over their wineglasses, kissing him back, matching his tongue stroke for stroke. He found that her mouth tasted of cheap wine and toothpaste.

Much later, he discovered that her body tasted of damnation.

"No," he whispered after as she clung to him, her face buried in his shoulder.

"Oh, yes," came the reply. And Severus was lost.

He could barely speak, he rarely left his flat, but he researched and wrote a little, and every Thursday afternoon between one-thirty and four, he fucked Miss Granger.

It wasn't much. It wasn't particularly enjoyable: merely a release of tension, but those desperate afternoons, when she slipped away from her fiancé and then her husband, telling him she had a class at university, did a little to ease the slow, burning ache of being alive. He refused to allow how much he needed her.

Miss Granger showed up at his door one sodden afternoon. "He knows."

"Come in."

"Severus! How can you say that?"

"Come in? It's considered polite."

Miss Granger flopped onto his sofa and swiped at her eyes with a shredded bit of tissue. Then she blew her nose juicily. Severus was repulsed.

"Please tell me, Miss Granger, that you did not do something terribly cliché."

"No, I didn't use the wrong name or anything like that." She snuffled and hiccupped. Severus sighed and handed her his handkerchief. "Thanks."

"Keep it. Tell me, why come here?"

"What?"

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be making up with your Weasley?"

"He said he doesn't want to share me with another man; that I wasn't any better than Lavender had been; that he didn't care whom I was fucking, but I'd better choose. He said that if I wanted our marriage to work, I should go and end it with you, and he'd forgive me and take me back. Then, he said that we shouldn't keep score in our marriage and we could work through this!"

"And you came here to 'end it'? Really, Miss Granger, I've heard this speech before, and I don't believe you now anymore than I did when you gave it before your wedding."

"But, I'm not trying to end anything! I . . . I want to be with you! Not Ron! Never Ron!"

"No."

"What?"

"No. You don't really want me; I'm merely a convenient and slightly more talented fuck than your husband."

"Please, Severus. Let me make you happy."

"Happiness is an illusion, just like love."

"But what we had . . ."

"Was convenient, pleasurable, and meaningless." Miss Granger cried all the harder. Severus sighed – the girl never could take a hint.

"Severus, please...I know that you . . ."

"Miss Granger, you know nothing of me. Do not try my patience further. Whatever relationship you imagine we had is over. Return to your husband. I will not be burdened with your melodrama."

"B-burdened?"

She cried for a long time on his sofa, begging him to let her stay, to let her make him happy. But finally, she left.

And he knew that she was not going to return. That realization was more painful than anything he had suffered since his recovery.

It was March, cold and windy; as he watched her from his window, walking away from him through the rainy streets of London, he reached a decision. Grabbing his wand, he Transfigured some Galleons into American dollars and Disapparated.