Part the Second

Slowly, ever-so-slowly, over weeks of painstaking work, the complex patternings on Severus Snape’s soul-box emerged from beneath the shrouding layers of tarnish— detailed engravings with all the intricacy of Celtic knot-work. Hermione thought it incredibly beautiful.

More weeks as she used a tiny, magically-crafted hammer to work out the dents.

Hermione brushed her fingers over the lid, giving in to a wave of sadness. It was time, and she knew it. It was time to let Severus’s soul go to its rest; she’d done her part to ensure he would go in peace.

She had to let him go.

After a great deal of research and thought, Hermione confessed what she had done to a few carefully chosen friends— friends who knew enough to be of help and cared enough for Severus to try. She still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong during the original spell-casting, and then to try to reverse it…

Minerva, Flitwick— even the Malfoys, in the end. All were present for the final working that would free Severus’s soul from its physical form. Under their watchful eyes, Hermione began the incantations and guided her wand with impeccable precision.

She completed the complex spell…

…and screamed.

Once the shock of dying had passed, Severus had given into a numb despair; this wasn’t the fiery hell of Grandmother Snape’s beliefs, but even that would have been better than the empty nothingness that usurped his senses.

Then impressions began forming, impressions that living words could barely begin to describe, and that he couldn’t explain. There was a warmth, a candle’s flame that grew and changed to first envelop him and then to reach into the deepest corners of his soul. Severus basked in it— drank it in and clung to it with the fervour of a frostbitten man.

Selfish. Selfish to revel in his new-found peace, selfish to rejoice in this blessed warmth. But any guilt seemed to dissipate into nothingness. What he’d done no longer mattered; he’d completed his penance, and it would be more than ungrateful to refuse the gift he was being given.

Was this what they called ‘Heaven’?

Did it matter?

Only when something— someone? —tried to rip it away.

Part of him said to let it go; the loss was no more than his due. Another part— newly nurtured in this ‘afterlife’ —compelled him to hold fast with every bit of his strength.

Twining vines, iron-hot… sharpling hooks burying in… Was this what Severus had felt like with his inimical vows grasping at his soul? This pulling, pushing, straining, tearing, ripping…? Struggling to remain in place—

To remain in one piece.

And then it stopped of an instant, leaving Hermione alone in a gasping blackness.

No.

Wait.

Not alone.

The ‘vines’… They were still in place, curling around her, but they no longer burned, instead glowing with a comfortable warmth— a comfortable, familiar warmth with a comfortable, familiar pulse point.

Like the close embrace of one beloved.

Wonder and delight suffused her. ::Severus?::

::Severus?::

Shock. ::Granger?::

::I didn’t know.:: A brief pause. Softly, ::I didn’t care about knowing. But… why?::

Gently, a little whimsically, ::Why do I breathe air?::

Something deeper, richer than laughter. ::Still… me?::

::Beautiful? Me?:: Embarrassed pleasure. ::You’re just a bit battered, is all. And so incredibly complex… And intelligent and loyal and determined and…::

Dryly, ::You’re making me blush.:: Underlying baffled satisfaction.

::Fair’s fair!::

::And now? :: Horrified realisation. ::Are you dead, as well? Did I…?::

::Back you go!::

She clings desperately as the vines of Severus’s soul begin to untwine themselves. ::No!::

::You’ve a life to lead, incredible potential to fulfil.:: Implacable determination. ::I will not allow you to sacrifice that for me.::

::Allow? Allow?:: Indignant fury, quickly tempered. ::It’s not your decision alone. Severus. We don’t even know what’s going on. It may not even be my decision.::

::I did what I chose to do. I’m responsible for the consequences of my own actions.::

Dryly, ::That doesn’t really help my guilt complexes, though, does it?::

“How long has she been unconscious?” Harry’s fist clenched fitfully.

“Approximately four hours.” Mrs. Malfoy’s voice was unruffled as she kept watch over the witch, though with a hint of concern in her eyes. “Lucius and Draco are ransacking our library now; Professor McGonagall is doing the same at Hogwarts. Unfortunately,” she sighed, “our best researchers are beyond helping us.”

“How could this happen? Mione said everything was straightforward.”

“Severus was never a straightforward man.” The older woman smiled ruefully, and Harry found his own lip quirking.

“Would you—“ Harry hesitated, then ploughed on. “Would you tell me…? About him?”

“We’d already plundered the Restricted Section.”

“Much of our library was confiscated after the war; we’ve been recovering volumes, but…”

“Have you searched the Bodleian? I seem to recall…”

“Perhaps the Bibliothèque Magique…? Quite a good collection, I understand.”

“Some acquaintances in Prague; they might…”

“Could try America; the Yanks have been known to pick up the odd artefact…”

“Pinch the odd artefact, you mean.”

“Did we take into account the effect of the polishing spell?”

“I think we might have left out this variable early.”

“And the initial spell went wrong there?”

“Professor, she’s been unconscious for twelve hours.”

“Damn!” Lucius swore as he slammed his book shut. “We need Severus. He’s the only idiot who could follow these bloody leaps of logic.”

"Leaps of logic…?" Harry paused a moment, then leapt to his feet, pounding his fist on the table. "That's it!"

"'That' is what, Mister Potter?" Minerva queried primly.

"Logic! Mione used to say that only one wizard in a thousand could be arsed about logic! That it was all ‘grimoires, guts, and guesswork!’" Harry began loping around the room. "What we haven't been doing is looking at this logically. The way Hermione and Professor Snape would."

“Okay.” Harry took a deep breath even as he circumnavigated the magnificent Malfoy library. “Hermione always says begin at the beginning. The freeing spell she performed.”

“The one she mis-cast?” Flitwick piped.

“Ye—es,” Harry performed an about-face. “She said it was to ‘break the chains’ between him and Dumbledore and Voldemort.”

“We have her notes; we’ve all examined them. The spell itself was perfectly sound,” Minerva added stoutly. “Severus’s soul should have passed on freely. But something went awry; he ended up as a silver box.”

Harry stopped short, nearly falling over. “But,” he blinked, “what if she didn’t mis-cast?”