Chapter Two: Did I Shave My Legs For This?

For Sempraseverus

Chapter 2 – Did I Shave My Legs For This?

I regained consciousness in hell. That is, if hell looked like the Hogwarts' Infirmary on the night the Boy-Who-Lived finally managed to pull his finger out of his arse and cast the Killing Curse so that Tom Riddle would breathe his last and cease to be. I opened my eyes and tried to move. A hand stilled my movements.

"Shh," a soft voice soothed, and I felt something warm touch my forehead. "You're safe now. It'll all be over soon."

Armed and alarmed with this cryptic, familiar message, I struggled to open my eyes and sit up, but pain blossomed into my neck and I fell back with a grunt. As pain went, it wasn't the worst I'd suffered. I'd take this pain over the Dark Lord's Cruciatus Curse and his enchanted cat-o-nine tails any day. I'd suffered under them enough to know what pain really was, and I had the scars to prove it.

This new pain was burning, dry and itching, enveloped within a cold layer of air that cushioned my skin. It was accompanied by a high-pitched scream that reverberated in my head. Later I was told I was hearing the screaming of the injured, but in my feverish delirium I thought it was me. I struggled to move and get away from the cold layer of skin surrounding me and the scream that overlaid it. Small, strong hands held me in place.

"Please don't move, Prof...Severus," the shaking voice said. "Please lie still, please." The pleas were endearingly spoken with a voice trembling with fear. I understood that. I was back among the land of the living. I opened a swollen eye and found myself looking into a pair of huge, cinnamon-coloured eyes filled with concern and exhaustion. Hermione Granger. And I'd thought things were going too good to last.

"Lily," I moaned, trying to go back to that quiet place she inhabited. I despised this cold, screaming hell that I was currently floundering in. I despised the idea of Granger pawing me during my less-than-awake moments. I despised everything and everyone, especially myself.

-o0o-

My first truly lucid moment happened several days later. The afternoon sun was slanting into the Infirmary windows, and I opened my eyes to see Hermione Granger sitting on a nearby chair, a book of healing spells open on her lap. She had dozed and was leaning slightly forward. The slightest movement from me brought her wide awake, and she smiled at me as if I'd just delivered a cure for Muggle cancer.

"Severus, thank Merlin you're awake!" She jumped up and began running diagnostic charms on me. "How are you feeling?"

"Thirsty." I had meant it to sound imperious and authoritative, but it came out little more than a croak. Instantly she produced a glass of water and helped me to drink it. I was too weak to allow my pride to manifest, but later I would berate myself for letting her baby me.

"How long..." I rasped again and tried to clear my throat. Pain shot up from my neck. Granger's concern was palpable.

"Please don't try to talk any more than necessary, Severus," she fussed, plumping pillows, tucking me in, all the usual irritating things Poppy Pomfrey did to make me feel helpless. She must give her Healing Assistants lessons in it.

Granger noticed my irritation and took pity on me. "You've been asleep for almost a week." She gave me a proprietorially fond smile. "We did it, Severus! Voldemort is dead. Finally dead! And Harry did it – with your help."

I listened with growing amazement as Granger filled me in on the events of the night I died. So. What happened to me made no difference in the final outcome. I might as well have been a Hufflepuff Quidditch player for all the changes I made in the final battle. I felt sick with loathing. So Potter had won, and the Dark Lo...Tom Riddle was dead.

"Who else...dead?" I croaked.

Granger made a face. "We can talk about that later, Severus..."

"Who?" I sounded like I had acute laryngitis. I felt hideous. I felt even worse as Granger rattled off the roll call of the dead. So many students. My students. Killed while I was Headmaster. All because I was the puppet held up by the manipulating hands of Dumbledore and Tom Riddle. Her voice faltered when she mentioned Fred Wealsey, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin.

So, the capricious twins Fred and George Weasley, separated. How would George adjust to life without his twin? And Tonks and the werewolf were gone. I had heard through the Hogwarts' grapevine they were new parents. In self-disgust I turned away from Granger. She finally stuttered to a halt.

"Severus, are you okay? Do you need anything?"

I shook my head. Sadness and self-hatred welled up within me, and I wondered once again why I was forced to return to this life. It didn't help that Granger was talking to me as if we were old friends instead of student and teacher. Her familiarity enraged me for some reason, and I turned to her.

"It's Professor, Miss Granger. You are forgetting your place. I do not recall giving you liberties with my name." Circe, that one little speech left me exhausted, and I fell asleep, but not before I had the satisfaction of seeing the hurt on her face.

-o0o-

"What happened to me?"

It was several days later that I was able to sit up for a few hours at a time. I was still weak, frustratingly so, and irritated that Granger had taken it upon herself to be my personal Healer. Poppy Pomfrey was over the moon about it. She thought I needed around-the-clock care and, for some strange reason, Granger wanted to give it to me. Poppy had her hands full with an Infirmary overflowing with patients, visitors and concerned parents.

At my question, Granger flushed slightly and grew quiet. I smirked.

"Fancy that. If I'd only known the right questions to ask I could have shut you up years ago." She almost visibly flinched at the venom in my voice. Served her right, I thought.

Since her first year she'd been a thorn in my arse with her endless hand-waving and her textbook answers. I had famously coined her an 'insufferable little know-it-all' and nothing she'd ever done or would ever do would change my opinion of her. The truth was that she reminded me all too much of myself at her age, and seeing as how I despised myself, it only stood to reason I would despise Granger as well.

"Well?" I barked, when no answer was forthcoming. "Come now, Granger, surely you can sum up the answer without the use of one of your beloved texts, can't you?"

She shook her head. "Sev...Professor, it's a very uninteresting story. You were injured; I brought you here to get well." She said it all dismissively, but in an uncharacteristic gesture, her eyes refused to meet mine.

"What are you hiding?" I asked quietly. Too many years as a spy winkling out information from reluctant sources had given me certain skills in reading body language, and I used them to terrifying efficiency in the past. I was not above using them now if no satisfactory answer was forthcoming.

"Hermione," I said, dropping my voice to its smoothest, silkiest drawl. I was confident enough to know that my voice was pleasant to some. I was not above using it as well to get what I wanted.

"Hermione," I repeated, "look at me."

Sure enough, she brought her lovely, large eyes to meet mine, and I saw her breathing increase as she looked at me with absolute trust, as willing and supplicant as a lamb to the slaughter. I smiled at her, trapped as she was in my basilisk glare.

I whispered, "Legilimens," and those russet eyes flew open wide as I invaded her thoughts like a vandal tearing through a breached vault, bent on careless destruction in order to find what I sought. She was too tired to put up more than a token resistance, and I gleefully batted away her defenses as easily as an adult's hands will smack a child's.

I found myself back in the Shrieking Shack seconds after I gave Potter the memories. I saw myself through Hermione's eyes as I fell back, dead. I could feel her horror and fear and desolation, but also a lurking, grim determination to do what was right.

I watched as Potter and Weasley ran off, no doubt to find a Pensieve in which to view my memories, and Granger ran after them, but only to give the appearance of leaving. She quickly turned back to my body and fell to her knees, frantically searching amongst my robes for any potions I might be carrying.

"Clever girl," I found myself murmuring, impressed in spite of myself. The other two dunderheads hadn't even thought of checking to see if I had come prepared. She found my hidden stash and added several other bottles from her own sources.

It was only at that moment that I realized what I'd done. If I was so eager to die, why had I armed myself with so many revitalization potions? Blood Replenishing, Antivenin, Infection Deterrent, Pain potions. Why was I so armed to protect myself when I was so ready to die? I grimly pressed on, having decided to examine my motives outside Granger's head.

In her memories Granger gently placed my head in her lap, her eyes almost popping with fear. She was babbling, "Don't die on me, Severus Snape! Don't you dare die! Don't you dare!" Then, more gently, "Please don't die." I saw her open and pour potion after potion into my mouth, rubbing my throat, forcing me to swallow. Her hands were shaking so badly I wondered how most of the liquid actually made it into my sagging mouth.

She applied pressure to the hideous snake bite wound on my neck to staunch the blood flow. It soon became obvious she had been studying first aid. Hphmm. The St. John's Ambulance men would have been proud. She rubbed my limbs to increase circulation. She chafed my cold hands with hers to warm them. She transfigured my robe into a thick blanket and wrapped me like a mummy, holding her small body next to mine, giving me her warmth.

Then she did something most un-St. John's Ambulance-like. She kissed me over and over on my forehead with dry, chapped lips, pleading for me to stay with her, to please, please not die. Her tears watered my forehead as she held me tenderly, begging me to stay with her.

Sometime later Fawkes arrived. Granger wept along with the phoenix as its healing tears dropped over my hideous wound, cleansing it and purifying it to heal. He stayed with us until some unheard call drew him away. Even thus, the phoenix tears had not been enough.

Still I hovered in and out of death. Granger's magic began to weaken as she cast healing spell after healing spell on me. She sent her Patronus to the castle over and over. "Hurry to the shack... Please help me... I need help NOW... If anyone is alive, please come to the Shrieking Shack... Someone please come..."

Even her Patronus looked weary. I saw her lose hope when no one came to her rescue, and she looked down at my failing body, a look of absolute desperation on her face.

She took a deep breath and whispered, "I hope I have enough strength left to do this. I can't let you go without trying, Severus. Please stay with me..."

With tears streaming down her face, Granger gathered the last of her fading magical strength, and I could see it swirl and gather around us. It started narrowly at the top of her range and spread out over us, like a cone of protection. When she had gathered every last ounce of her magic, she drew it into herself and shouted, "Invenio etanimo serveturus!"

She pointed her wand at my heart, and I saw my lifeless body jerk in her arms. A bright white light flashed around us, and I watched myself take a long agonized breath. Granger almost collapsed on top of me, her magic and energy so depleted that for a moment there was no magical signature. She wept with relief, huge, braying sobs of exhaustion. "It's okay, Severus," she said, between hiccoughing sobs. "You're going to be fine. I'm here. I won't leave you."

After what seemed like another eternity, Potter and Weasley and the Aurors found us and helped her to take me to the Infirmary. Hermione held them at wandpoint until they swore a Wizarding oath not to harm me or take me anywhere else but Hogwarts. Seeing Aurors only served to remind me I was just a step away from Azkaban, and Granger had brought me back to all this.

I pulled out of her mind as ruthlessly and as callously as I had invaded it, stunned at what she'd done. Granger staggered back into her chair, a thin line of blood trickling from her nose. I knew I should apologise for raping her mind so mercilessly, but I was too unnerved to do anything but turn away from her to do battle with my thoughts.

Yes, Granger had brought me back from the dead, but she'd nearly killed herself to do it. And the worst part, oh yes, there was something even worse than everything put together. She'd done it for love. Granger was in love with me. Oh, it didn't get any better than this. Love, the most binding, powerful source of magic on earth, according to Dumbledore. And Granger had just bound my soul to hers to ground me here on earth. She had bound it with love. I was doomed.

I am ashamed to admit that I gave her unholy hell for it. My own anger stunned me, choked all utterance, and it was several seconds before I was able to speak. I more than made up for my silence when I once again found my voice. I turned on her and unleashed hell.

"You stupid, stupid little girl!" I roared, feeling a perverse pleasure in seeing her cower from my rage. "Do you even know what that spell means? Do you have the smallest inkling as to what you've done?"

"I...I wanted to save you," she stammered, cowering as if from a physical blow. "I'd been reading up on Sanctum spells while we were on the run, you know, in case one of us was mortally wounded..."

"In case you ever decide to hold someone's soul for ransom for the rest of their miserable life?" I was spitting in fury. "How dare you try to steal my soul, you little jumped up Muggle-born, pain-in-the-arse excuse for a witch?"

"Severus, what is the meaning of this row?" Poppy parted the curtain to my section of the ward, alarmed at the vitriol spewing from me. "The whole infirmary can hear you! Not to mention the fact that I must remind you that you are still recovering from a very dangerous wound and I can't be held responsible..."

"I'll tell you who's responsible!" I shouted, pointing at Granger. "This little fool has used the Invenio etanimo serveturus spell to bring me back from the bloody dead! Now I'm beholden to this stupid bint for the rest of my miserable excuse of a life!"

"Professor, please!" Granger was all but crying my name. She looked desperately from Poppy to me, a horrified expression in her eyes. "You were dying. I was only trying to help..."

"I wanted to die, you silly, stupid girl!" My rage was blowing sweet and hot through my belly, and I was just getting warmed up. "I was there with my beautiful Lily, and you yanked me back to this hellhole of an existence by capturing my soul? Why didn't you just make yourself into a Horcrux, you moronic bitch?"

"That is ENOUGH!" Poppy shouted. "You will calm yourself, Severus, or I will give you the strongest Calming Draught you have ever made for me! I am sure Miss Granger had her reasons for using such an extreme method of ensuring your safety..."

"Oh, and just what were your reasons, Miss Granger?" I spat out her name as if it were the most loathsome of curses. "Care to share with us this lofty justification? No?" I countered, as she remained silent, her eyes huge and filling with tears. I went for the kill, enjoying the feeling of hurting her.

"Well let me tell you something, Miss Granger," I said, my voice dropping to a lower, silker timbre, the voice that I had only just used to cajole and seduce. Now I used it to destroy.

"You will never own my soul. It belongs to my beloved Lily, and no matter how smart you think you are, or how clever or how noble, you are nothing but a slag compared to her! You're less than the dung from her shoe to me. Now get out of my sight, you pathetic, sad little piece of Muggle-born trash."

The room was too quiet. The silence was all encompassing and had its own deafening tone. Finally, in a quiet voice I had never heard her use, Poppy said, "Oh, Severus. How could you? I don't know how you can say such things to someone who has done nothing but care for you."

She shook her head. "I have never been so ashamed of you in the entire time I have ever known you, and that's saying something after this past year. Miss Granger has never left your side since she brought you here..."

"No, Madam Pomfrey, please." Granger was looking at me calmly. The skin around her lips had gone white, as if she'd been physically smacked and was still in shock from the blow. She looked into my eyes and I saw a pain that matched mine, without any of my vindictiveness. I only saw guilt and remorse – and crushing sadness. She thought carefully before she spoke.

"My reasons for what I've done shouldn't be used to make anyone feel guilty or beholden to me, especially Professor Snape."

She turned to me, her eyes bleak with hurt. "I wanted to save you. I thought you would be free from Voldemort, from Professor Dumdledore, even. I never thought you would think of me like one of them. Another master to serve. I will make this right, Professor, and then I'll never bother you again. You'll never have to be reminded of this ever." She turned, and the first tears spilled. "I'm so sorry. Gods, I'm so sorry."

Granger was gone so quickly the whole outburst might have been a dream. I was beginning to wish it had been. The original euphoria of venting my spleen had faded, and I was beginning to feel queasy. My head hurt like billy-o, and Poppy was looking at me like she'd like to finish Nagini's job.

She watched me pensively, like there was a million things she'd like to say to me and only self-control prevented them from coming to me all at once, accompanied by several of her favourite hexes.

She smiled a tight, humourless smile. "Well, Severus, I can tell you are on the mend. I'll leave you to your thoughts. I had hoped that a new lease on life would bring you some joy. I can see that some things are too much to hope for."

She turned to leave, then changed her mind and looked back at me. "Well, don't just sit there." Poppy did a perfect imitation of my trademark sneer. "Snape something."

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A/N: To see the beautiful art that inspired this fic, please go to: http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d32srwz