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Two days passed, three days, with no word from Snape. By the fourth day, Hermione was frantic. She had owled Kingsley Shacklebolt and received a brusque, official pro-forma reply that her message would be forwarded to the appropriate department, but still there was no news. Harry, in describing the memories he had seen in the Pensieve, had told her Snape had been upset about Lily, but she could never have imagined him quite so distraught. It alarmed her and at the same time made her think wistfully: How wonderful to be loved like that, so completely. 

She worried about him constantly, imagining him ill or floundering in his renewed grief for Lily. She worried about the scars on his neck and why they had never healed. She worried that she had lost him.

Anxiety hijacked her dreams... Spells flashed. Bodies fell. Harry and Voldemort endlessly circled... and the circle revolved and rotated, rolling, turning... into a cage. And inside the cage was a great snake... And the cage descended lower and lower, enveloping her head until she was suffocating; she couldn't escape, she was trapped... And the jaws of the snake opened and widened and the dripping fangs sharpened and lengthened... and sank into her neck. 












From the look of the purplish circles under his eyes, Snape hadn't slept for days. In her relief, Hermione could have hugged him, but when she urged him to come inside, he was strangely reluctant.

"I have tried to stay away," was all he would say, his voice weary and hollow with defeat. Deaf to his protestations, Hermione tugged him across the threshold and through to the kitchen where he then refused either to take off his cloak or to sit down.

"I have come only to give you these," he said, laying on the table a pad of cream writing paper and a quill. Traces of turquoise ink stained the nib. Hermione gasped, struggling for air, feeling as though he had physically assaulted her.

"It was you all along!" she accused. "Why? Why?"

"Don't insult my intelligence. If I had written the letters I'd have come up with something a great deal more intimidating than ‘I know where you live'. "

"Who, then?"

Instead of giving her the name of the author, Snape quizzed her further.

"The writer threatened to ‘mark you as my equal'. The Dark Lord did not have the monopoly on ‘marks'. One might infer that the writer had been marked in some way. In your brief but eventful life, how many people have you ‘marked'? Myself not included."

Squirming at the allusion, Hermione pondered.

"I did sock Draco in the face once," she admitted, "and I set pecking canaries on Ron, and...Ohhh." Truth dawned. "Marietta." She had forgotten all about her or rather dismissed her as a non-starter.

Snape was watching her carefully. He gave a perfunctory nod.

"Always was a poor student. Weak grasp of technique, and her theory was equally bad. As was her performance in Charms and Defence - luckily for you. Her prime talents seem to be a sly and vindictive nature and an unusual capacity for resentment. You made yourself an enemy there."

Marietta Edgecombe! Not Voldemort at all! Of course, Hermione told herself, I never really believed the ‘Dark Lord' would stoop so low...

"Her mother still works at the Ministry. Miss Edgecombe, I have recently learned, was released just over a month ago from St Mungo's," Snape informed her, "where for the past year she has been undergoing treatment for some form of breakdown. Her recovery, it would appear, is only partial."

The news filled Hermione with an elation unalloyed by the thought of the humiliation she had caused Marietta in the past.

"So she wanted me covered in pimples too! But what about the death threats?"

Snape shrugged as though this were a matter of indifference.

"Hyperbole? Wishful thinking? Personally I think Miss Weasley's method far superior on both counts - a surfeit of chocolate."

Hermione had long since given up trying to make him refer to Ginny as Mrs Potter. But what was to prevent Marietta continuing her hate mail campaign? Despite his evident exhaustion, Snape summoned a smirk.

"She is susceptible to Memory Charms. And I told her to grow a fringe..."




Reluctant as he had been to come in, Snape now seemed equally loath - and at the same time determined - to leave.

"I must go," he said, and yet he did not move. He was staring at Hermione as though he had never seen her before, or might never see her again. "I shall not be coming back."

"No!" cried Hermione. "You can't walk out on me now. Not again. I've been at my wits' end worrying about you these last few days."

So many things in her life were in a state of flux or collapse - her marriage, her job, her very sanity - and amidst the uncertainty and confusion she had come to trust and depend on the least predictable element of all - Snape himself. If there was one single thing of which she was sure, it was that she wouldn't be able to bear it if Snape Disapparated out of her life forever.

"Don't leave me," she begged. "Please. I need you."

Snape's face twisted as if it were agony to tear himself away.

"Hermione, do not ask me to stay. You will regret it."

"What about the prophecy and my dreams?"

"If I leave now, you need fear neither."

That could mean, thought Hermione, clutching at straws, that he was on his way now to sort out both problems, maybe to confront Trelawney; or perhaps he had discovered new information that would allow him permanently to silence Voldemort's unquiet spirit.

"Tell me what's going on," she insisted. "There's nothing worse than not knowing."

"Believe me," Snape said grimly, "there is worse." And from the haunted, haggard look on his face, he had seen it.

"I won't let you go!" Hermione planted herself in front of him, a risibly insubstantial barrier before his greater height and strength and force of will. Expecting to be swatted aside like the last time, Hermione was taken aback when Snape put his arms around her, pulling her fiercely and awkwardly to his chest. Startled, but not unpleasantly, she snaked her hands under his cloak, drawing him in. It was a long time since anyone had held her, had wanted her. She clung to him, pressed herself closer hoping to feel him relax, to respond to her touch, but there was more desperation than tenderness in his embrace.

"I too shall regret it," she heard him murmur into her hair.

Then he let her go, almost throwing her to the floor, and stalked past her to the window. He stood, tense and tight-lipped, staring out, seeing nothing.

Minutes passed. Hermione felt as though she had walked in at the end of a blazing row, the air crackling with guilt and recrimination the cause of which she did not know. Could he still be blaming her for wearing Lily's dove? Should she run away before there was any reason for regret, or go to him?

"The prophecy," he said eventually, in a strained voice. "Repeat it."

Haltingly, Hermione recited the four line stanza:

" ‘Death is the beginning and the end.
Death is your enemy and your friend.
Death is your loss and your gain.
Only death brings peace and release from pain.' 


"At least I get to die happy," she joked with a wobbly, lopsided smile, looking to Snape for encouragement, wanting him to debunk Trelawney's words with his customary derision, to dismiss them as portentous drivel not worth wasting her time on. Then her composure slipped. "He wants me dead. The dreams won't stop until I die. Why me? It's not fair."

"You are blinkered, as ever, by subjectivity." Snape offered no sympathy. "Consider: Trelawney's first prophecy applied to two people - Potter and the Dark Lord. Has it ever occurred to you that this might be similar? Your loss might be another's gain?"

So what? That was no solution; it offered scant consolation. She still had to die.

"That's what I've been telling people all along," Hermione pointed out. "Me and Voldemort. Who else would want to kill me? Who else stands to benefit from my death?"

Snape looked her squarely in the eye.

"I do," he said.






If it was a joke, it was in poor taste. Warily, Hermione studied him, trying to figure out a motive for this particular brand of shock tactics. She couldn't understand why he would want to scare her like this. He was, after all, a hero, a man who had sacrificed his life - or so she had thought until recently - to save Harry. Judging in this light, she had seen moodiness not menace, and nothing more sinister than sarcasm. He could not be a murderer. Finally she rallied.

"I don't believe you," she said, more staunchly than she felt.

"Tell me what you see in the Foe-Glass," he ordered.

Hesitantly, Hermione walked over to the device. Emerging from a backdrop of smoky whorls, her reflection - white-faced and troubled - peered back at her.

"It works like a normal mirror. I see myself," she said, puzzled. Surely, if Snape was out to kill her, his face should be swirling there too. If she was honest, she usually tried not to look into it at all. The thought of glancing up and seeing those red slitty lizard eyes watching her was just too creepy.

"It's not called a Dark Detector for nothing," Snape snarled. "You see yourself. What does that tell you?"

"That I'm my own worst enemy?" In another life that might even be funny.

He came to stand behind her. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, not in a caress, but poised to seize her if she tried to make her escape. She shrank from his touch. The single reflection had not altered. Snape might just as well have been a vampire.

"The Glass reveals the enemies of its true Master," he said. "I had overlooked that fact when I lent it to you."

Hermione's mind was exploding. She couldn't think straight.

"You're saying that I am your enemy? How can I be? What have I done to hurt you? I know I did some stupid things when I was at Hogwarts, but I've said I'm sorry. Why would you want to kill me?"

Wriggling out of his grip and fired with a fearless indignation, she pivoted to face him, whipping out her wand. She wasn't going to take this passively; she'd fight him if she had to: duel or die, or possibly both. But Snape had not raised his wand, or made any move in self-defence. His hands hung limply by his sides, his shoulders sagged and his eyes were wet.

"I don't want to kill you," he said.







All she could think was that, unhinged by his grief over Lily, the talk of a prophecy had confused him and he was conflating their two deaths.

"So don't kill me. Nobody's forcing you. You say you tried to stay away - you should have tried a bit harder. I don't understand. Is this another Vow?"

Wordlessly, Snape shook his head. Hermione checked for signs of Imperius or Confundus and found none, though there was something different about him, a remoteness, a fragility that gave her concern. His wand clattered unheeded onto the floor and rolled away under the table. Then, as Hermione stared helplessly at her would-be assassin, his body seemed to blur before her eyes and drift weirdly out of focus. For an instant his form became indistinct, a grey shadow in a Foe-Glass, a wisp, a wraith. She blinked and he was whole again, but swaying on his feet, faint and shaky.

"I need to sit down," he muttered.

Hermione guided him to the sofa.

"Please tell me you're not a ghost," she said, sitting beside him, her arm lightly around his shoulders. He felt real enough.

"I might as well be. Anything would be better than this."

"Severus, what's happening to you - to both of us?"

His arms were wrapped around his chest, hugging himself as though he were either very cold or holding himself together. It was not a chilly evening, but Hermione shot a quick Incendio into the fireplace. And waited for an explanation.

"I should never have come. I tried to stay away...I can't do this any more. I've had enough. I can't fight it." He spoke in dulled tones. Weariness and remorse in equal measure. 

"Severus, you're not making any sense."

Slowly he unwound himself. Clasped in his fist was the carved dove. With a cry of despair, Snape hurled it into the fire and buried his face in his hands.

"It wasn't meant to be this way," he whispered.

Green-gold flames flickered as the remains of the carved bird fell into ash. The two figures on the sofa watched in silence. At last Snape spoke.

"I awoke in St. Mungo's. It was weeks, months, after the night when... when Nagini..." He choked on the memory. "I don't know how I got there. The Healers -"

"Why didn't they tell anybody? They must have recognised you," Hermione burst out in indignation. Snape frowned at the interruption.

"Shacklebolt was informed. He swore them to silence. As I was saying, the Healers did not expect me to live. Not that you would call it living, barely conscious, dependent on potions for my very existence. But I survived..."

"You were so lucky," breathed Hermione.

"Lucky?" Snape snorted. "Luck doesn't come into it. I survived because I could not die. Because I was - I am - tethered to life..."

"Oh, no." Hermione gave a horrified gasp and her mouth locked in numb, bitten-tongue shock. She had heard that phrase before - Dumbledore had used it of Voldemort - and it meant only one thing: Horcruxes. Her reaction told Snape that she understood. Without apology he continued:

"The Dark Lord had secured immortality for himself; he wished also to preserve a nucleus of loyal supporters. We were the elite, the few, chosen for this honour."

"We?"

"Lucius, Bellatrix, Avery, Lestrange and myself."

"But they died," Hermione objected. "Not Malfoy, but the others."

"They were the lucky ones," Snape said quietly, not caring whether the girl heard him or not. "The Dark Lord changed his mind. He feared we might challenge his supremacy and ordered all the ‘vessels' to be destroyed. The others complied but I dared to deceive him. When it came to my turn I destroyed a substitute and kept the real object hidden."

Hermione didn't have to ask what object Snape had used as his vessel. Her eyes slid to the fireplace.

"To the Dark Lord that clip was a worthless, inconsequential trinket," said Snape, following her gaze. "But to me..."

"It belonged to Lily, didn't it? Harry guessed as much."

Beneath her arm, Snape's back stiffened at the name. When he next spoke, his voice had softened, as though he had blanked out the intervening thirty or so years and drifted back to a more innocent age.

"We were friends. She dropped it one day in the playground and I picked it up. I kept it; I wanted something... of hers. And later, I used it."

Hermione gulped. She didn't want to hear how he had used it, whom he had murdered. It had all been a long time ago, and he had changed - or so she had thought.

"And then you saved it for all these years. Why didn't you destroy it?"

"The deed was done, I could not undo it. A form of insurance. You don't cancel when you've already paid the premiums." Snape was pragmatic. "I didn't realise then that I was condemning myself to this... this limbo. But on the night of the Battle I had to flee the castle before I had a chance to retrieve it. And afterwards..."

He shuddered and Hermione held him more tightly.

"It was months before I was able to return to Hogwarts. Months of pain and potions. The wounds wouldn't heal; I hadn't the strength to resist the venom. When, finally, I felt strong enough to Apparate, I went back, but the ‘vessel' had gone. That was my last hope of a full recovery. Without it, I am trapped in this... this half-life, neither dead nor truly alive." Years of frustration soured every sentence. Staring at the floor he lapsed into reflective, moody silence.

Hating what he had done, what he had become, Hermione found herself unable to judge him or condemn him. He had already done that for himself. His words were steeped in self-contempt.

"No better than the Dark Lord," he muttered, bleak and bitter.

Hermione edged nearer. She would have expected to sense the heat of his thigh where it brushed her against leg, but there was no warmth in his body. She leaned towards him, as though physical closeness might somehow enable her to transfer and share her vitality. This feeling of protectiveness for the man was something new, something powerful, empowering. With a spasm of guilt she realised that, on one level at least, she was enjoying his distress. She pondered over what he had just said.

"Recovery? You want to make the fragment come back to you? Is that even possible?" She glanced at him in sudden aversion, her mind leaping to make unwelcome connections. "Don't say you've been drinking Unicorn blood... That's horrible." Wasn't that how the Dark Lord had stayed alive? Why would he have taken such a risk if all he had to do to restore himself was to retrieve one of his Horcruxes? 

"Don't be ridiculous." With something like his old asperity, Snape slammed her suggestion. "The return of the soul...It is possible - theoretically. There is a text which describes... But, to my knowledge, it has never been accomplished."

"If he - Voldem- - the ‘Dark Lord' couldn't do it, what makes you think you can?" Hermione didn't want to trash Snape's hopes but she felt she had the right to ask, especially if, as it seemed, her death was part of the equation.

"Dumbledore put his faith in Old Magic," he said, speaking as though this was a satisfactory answer, "and for many years it served his purpose. I must do likewise. He had his faults, as I know to my cost, but for all that he was a powerful wizard. I'm not so arrogant as to dismiss his wisdom out of spite. I may fail, but I have to try. Otherwise, what is my life? Look at me. I'm too weak to work; my magic's little better than a Squib's..." 

"But you've been OK when you've been here," Hermione said, thinking back and wondering in retrospect if this were actually true. She'd been so wrapped up in her own problems, she hadn't paid much attention to Snape. On the few occasions when he'd been snappy with her, she'd assumed he was being mean. Yet all the time she'd been whining about trivia such as the letters and Ron, Snape had been feeling - literally - like death.

He coughed and sat up a little straighter, making an effort.

"I can -" He paused, groping for the word, "marshal my energies for limited periods. It is, ah, taxing. There have been times here when I would not have left so soon, but... I have to rest. And if my concentration fails..." His shoulders slumped back again and his voice dropped to a mere breath. "You have seen how it is. The anchor drifts. I slip into shadow."

Hermione had visions of him disappearing into a puff of smoke or fading in and out as though under a faulty Vanishing Charm, leaving her hugging nothing but a memory.

"So you searched Hogwarts and people's houses, and the Ministry, looking for the clip?" she probed, determined to learn as much as she could before he either killed her or winked out altogether.

"Everywhere I could think of - but I found nothing. Because Potter had already stolen it. It's always that damned Potter!"

Hermione's forehead wrinkled as she delved back through time. Harry had said something about going into Snape's office. It was ages ago, when he was trying to find out a few personal details to pad out Snape's eulogy at the memorial service.

Unimpressed by this information, Snape gave a hollow laugh.

"Eulogised by Potter, oh Merlin!" He made it sound shameful.

Going over past history was all very well, but it didn't explain one point (and to Hermione, an increasingly crucial one) - why Snape felt obliged to kill her.

"When I saw the bird in your hair..." Suddenly his voice was suffused with emotion. "It was like a miracle, as though you had been sent to save me."

"You've got a funny way of showing it," grumbled Hermione, remembering how he had clawed at her pony tail in his desperation to unfasten the clip.

"But when I held it in my hand and realised that it no longer contained the soul fragment, it was a... disappointment."

Make that a torment. She'd never forget his wail of dismay; that anguished ‘No!' 

The fragment had gone? Did Snape think that Harry had taken it or destroyed it or somehow released it? Or... The alternative was unthinkable. Her arm dropped from his shoulders. Suddenly Hermione felt shivery. Getting up, she knelt by the fire and stretched out her hands to the embers. It might be the last time she felt the glow of a flame warming her skin.

"No! You can't think I've got anything to do with it," she protested. "All this - the dreams, the prophecy - it's all because of Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. I know it is. I stabbed it, and the thing inside -"

Snape was shaking his head slowly, with more patience than she would ever have given him credit for.

"Think back, Hermione. When did your dreams begin?"

It was months since she had had a really good night's sleep, the stress of her new job and the rows with Ron had seen to that, but the dreams themselves...

"It was my birthday, the day of the prophecy," she replied, counting off the weeks in her mind. "I'd had a lousy day at work, and when I got home Ron was being a pig, and I went over to Harry's for a moan because Ron had forgotten to get me a present and... and Harry gave me the hair clip to cheer me up."

"And you wore it?"

"I put my hair up for work, yes." All at once hating the feel of the thick brown waves falling about her face, she pushed her hair away from her forehead as though it were contaminated or infested with lice.

So all that time, her psyche had been under siege by the spirit in a Horcrux. It just hadn't been Voldemort's.

"I'm guessing," Snape went on, "that at some point your dreams became more vivid."

"I thought I was losing my mind. Everything was going wrong. Getting suspended, Ron walking out... Can you blame me for having nightmares?"

"I don't blame you for anything," said Snape. He sounded very tired. "A soul fragment hates to be confined in an inanimate object. It will do whatever it can to return to its body or, failing that, to another living thing."

"Like Ginny and the Diary?" Hermione hazarded, not quite following. Riddle's soul or essence or revenant or whatever you want to call it, had taken control of Ginny, but it hadn't passed into Harry when he had the book. And the Locket had affected them all, but it had never actually taken them over.

Snape, thinking, outlined his lips with a long, pale finger.

"The Weasley child made it absurdly easy. She confided her innermost thoughts to that book, opened her heart to it, bared her soul, put up no defences. She virtually invited him in. In your case, however, the fragment had to wait for an opening."

"Meaning what?"

"That it seized its chance and possessed you."

Tears welled in Hermione's eyes. The enormity of her predicament was closing in upon her. She felt lost and alone, as though she had wandered by mistake into the Forbidden Forest where every path took her on a darker and more dangerous route, with no way out. A tear dripped onto the hearth, glistening golden in the firelight like a drop of cut amber. 

"I don't understand," she whispered. 

"You murdered an elf."

"That was an accident!" 

"But you were traumatised. The tiniest rip in your soul is all it takes. And ever since then -"

"It's your death I have been dreaming. That's horrible!"

"It wasn't pleasant," agreed Snape dryly.

Hermione scrambled to her feet.

"Take your damn soul back then," she shouted. "I don't want it."

"If only it were that easy." He sighed. "To release the fragment, I have to kill you."

Outside, tyres crunched on the square cobbled sets of the mews, and an engine revved in low gear as a neighbour manoeuvred his car into a tight parking space. A gust of wind smattered rain against the window. Crookshanks cruised into the kitchen, sniffed his bowl haughtily and sauntered back upstairs. Snape and Hermione eyed each other.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Hermione. "Get it over with, if you must. But if you kill me the fragment will be destroyed too."

"Do you see me brandishing Gryffindor's Sword or wielding a Basilisk fang? Who said anything about killing the Horcrux?"

"But it still won't work," she argued. "When Voldemort tried to kill Harry, his soul was destroyed. It didn't return to him."

"The Dark Lord killed in hate. I don't hate you, Hermione. Trelawney said that I am ‘your enemy and your friend'."

"And that makes it all right? Forgive me for being sceptical." 

"The Dark Lord intended Potter to die instantly. The fragment had no chance of survival. A slow death would let it realise that its host body was becoming uninhabitable."

"So I have to die and suffer. This just keeps getting better." 

Hermione thought of Dumbledore drinking the poison in the Cave. Snape was capable of making any number of slow acting poisons. He probably had a phial in his pocket right now. She was trying very hard to apply logic to the problem, but her brain refused to cooperate.

"Shouldn't I be killing you?" she asked. "Then the fragment will be forced to abandon me and revive you." That she was discussing this at all struck her as bizarre and surreal, and she felt a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat.

"It made a poor job of it four years ago. And now... If it has to choose between your psyche and mine... I don't fancy my chances. At best I'll be no better off than I am now. If, on the other hand, I kill you, I have nothing else to lose."

"Except me."

"Except you," he echoed sadly. 

"So what are you going to do?" she demanded.

Instead of answering, Snape was tilting forwards, his forehead cradled in his hands. For the second time that evening his shape was losing cohesion and substance; a curious, rippling shimmer passed through his body, his outline warping and dwindling like melting cellophane.

"What can I do? What do you want?" cried Hermione, afraid to touch him in case her hands met with no resistance.

"I want to die," he gasped, before he passed out.












"What I don't understand," said Hermione, as she fastened the end of the clean bandage around Snape's neck - the scars were oozing freely now - "is why Kingsley sent you to me in the first place. He can't have had any idea that all this was going on. He thought I was crackers."

Snape gave a rueful smile.

"To make me feel useful? To give me a reason to live?"

All night Hermione had sat, her wand in her lap, waiting for the right moment to put an end to her troubles. It had not come. She couldn't have killed him even if she had wanted to. And she did not want to. She refused to take the coward's way out and kill herself. There had to be another solution... Morning had dawned and Snape had woken, frail, bleeding and uncomfortable and depressed to find himself alive. Her plan did little to improve his spirits.

"I cannot allow you to do this, Hermione," he said.

"You can't stop me. What choice do we have? We can't go on living like this either," she answered, taking him gently by the arm.











The doors of the Intensive Care Unit folded back with a rubbery swish. Unnoticeable under a Disillusionment spell, Snape and Hermione passed through and entered the ward. It was empty save for an old woman in the end cubicle, sedated and oblivious to their presence. Hermione sat Snape on a bed and pulled the chequered curtains round, cutting themselves off from passing glances. In this strange, high-tech, Muggle milieu, the wizard was nervous and ill at ease.

"Are you sure about this? Don't do it," he hissed, viewing the dials and monitors with misgiving.

"Shh. Wait here."

In five minutes she was back, accompanied by an unnaturally docile Ward Sister. Snape quirked an eyebrow.

"Using an Unforgiveable on a Muggle? I never thought I'd see the day."

"And I never thought I'd say this, but... It's for the Greater Good. Do you think I'm happy about it, about any of this? Look, do you want to discuss ethics or can we just get on with it?" Her agitation shrilled in the muted hush of the ward.

With a glazed expression, the nurse wheeled over a trolley, ripped open a bag of sterilised syringes and, in a mechanical monotone, instructed Hermione to sit down and roll up her sleeve. Snape winced watching the needle go in.

"You know what to do?" Hermione checked for the last time. There was no going back now. Sickly pale and breathing fast, Snape nodded. Shyly, he reached out and caressed her cheek with cold, unsteady fingers. She pulled him towards her to whisper in his ear.

"Severus, I have a last request."

"Anything." 

"Hold me. I want to die in your arms."











One by one the rhythmic spikes flat-lined; the regular beeps grew irregular then petered to a high continuous drone. Hermione's dead weight slumped forwards against Snape's chest. And he held her. Held her in a way he had never held Lily, with his face buried in her hair and his lips brushing her neck; held her so close that for a moment he mistook his own heartbeat for hers; held her as he counted off the seconds, the minutes...

On his urgent signal the Sister administered adrenalin. Snape recoiled in alarm as she charged the paddles. Barbaric Muggle practices! 

"Stand clear!" barked the Sister.

Snape jumped as the shock waves arced through the limp body on the bed. 

And Hermione stirred.

"Severus?" Her hand trailed up to stroke the lank dark hair as Snape rocked her to and fro, crushing her against him, murmuring her name over and over again. Then his lips found hers and at first all she could taste was the salt of his tears. "Severus, did it work? How do you feel?"

Twenty years of loss and regret had been wiped from his face.

"I feel..." he said, his eyes shining, "I feel whole again. I feel alive. I feel vindicated. I feel so relieved, you have no idea. I feel -"

"Severus, shut up and tell me what just happened. How come Voldemort never tried this?"

"Because it required a power of which he was incapable. I thought I'd explained -"

"I want you to tell me again. Out loud. Now. And look at me when you say it." Hermione felt entitled to some recompense for her efforts, and seeing the blush working its way across Snape's features was a reward in itself.

"To reverse the Horcrux spell and allow the fragment to return to its original body, it is necessary for... for..." He lifted his eyes to hers, pleading to be let off.

"Go on, say it."

"...for the body in question to accord a greater value to the life of the ‘vessel' than to his own existence," he mumbled, pinker than ever.

"Oh Severus, you have such a romantic way with words! If you can't manage the L-word, will you do something for me?"

"I'm not tap dancing, not even for you." (1) 

"Show me your Patronus."

Together they watched the silvery creature frisking around the ward. Hermione squeezed Snape's hand.

"Since when have deer had whiskers and webbed feet?" 



The End




1 Tap dancing: Those of you who have seen ‘The search for John Gissing' will know why!

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