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The Last 24 Hours of Severus Snape	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 17388 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make any money from writing these stories.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
A/N: Thank you for following this incredible journey. It has been an emotional one. This was not the original epilogue, but rather a dream that was torturing me a few nights back.
The gauze was wrapped thick around her left hand. It stung and she knew it would be quite some time before the burn would heal. She hadn’t been thinking when she’d ripped the still smoldering metal cap from his skull. Her own safety had been the furthest thing from her mind. It had left a mark clear across her palm and up her fingers, but Hermione had not cared then and she didn’t care now. It would serve as a reminder of what she’d survived. The fire that blazed before her eyes was wicked. Even though it was in black and white, she could still feel its heat as it danced along the frame of the page. The Daily Prophet had refused to run the photograph in color, for what reason she couldn’t fathom, but she hadn’t been around to argue. It was mocking her now, the flames of a funeral pyre easily a hundred feet high. She’d set them ablaze with her own hand, refusing to use magic for the sendoff.
                It had been a spectacular blaze. A funeral pyre to be proud of, and although she had been the only one to attend, it could be seen for miles. Some nosy reporter had snapped a picture, ensuring it to be front page news. There had been no one to plead her case when she’d tried to save Severus Snape, no front page coverage from any publication when she’d gone to blows with the Minister of Magic himself in an attempt to free an innocent man from a backward and corrupted system of so-called justice. How horridly ironic that they would turn the eyes of the wizarding world to a man’s demise once it was far too late for anyone to do anything about it.
                The black and white headline mocked her more than the slow-burning flames of the picture. She’d read it over and over as if seeing it in print would somehow change the outcome for her. “Severus Snape Executed. Minister of Magic Disappears.” It rested above the photograph like a headstone over a grave. His grave, a grave of flames, robbing the world of any trace of his being left behind. Tears ran down her cheeks as she gazed out at the lake. It was not so different from the lake where she had built the funeral pyre, only this was in a land far away. Never again would she set her eyes on English territory, land or water. The wizarding world was but a distant memory to her, held only in the copy of the newspaper that she clutched in her trembling hands. Her heart was heavy. No one understood. She was alone.
                News of her own demise hadn’t been worthy enough for the front page. This had not surprised her. She’d made the obituary column eight pages in, little more than a few sentences squished amid other witches and wizards who had come to natural ends and illness during the week. Hermione Granger, suddenly and accidental, outlived by close friends. It had almost made her laugh. She’d left a note in her office, knowing that Harry Potter would forever hold himself responsible otherwise, and she was careful to include the fact that he was in no way responsible for her death. She had snapped her wand and left an ominous trail of ash and magical residue. While self-incineration was not a popular method of suicide in the muggle world, it had seen a rise in popularity among the wizarding community sometime after the war.
                Escaping the magical world had been easy enough, that had come as no surprise to her. There were few times that the intelligence of those in charge in her world outwitted her own clever brain and she knew that there would be no formal investigation. A note, a snapped wand, and what looked like incineration, no one would bother themselves with following up on her apparent suicide, especially not with the Minister of Magic who had gone missing shortly after the execution of Severus Snape.
                Hermione stood on the back porch of a small cabin deep in the woods at the edge of a tranquil lake. The Canadian forest had seemed an appropriate escape and it had taken precious little to get there. A few forged documents, some transfigured money and a good deal of convincing flattery on her part had eased her transition from fugitive to local. She had prepared everything before snapping her wand and fleeing the magical world forever. Good planning had left her a small fortune that was presently stashed in a pillowcase in a loose floorboard under the cabin’s lone bed, though she didn’t expect vagabonds or vagrants to come thieving aware her Canadian dollars in the night.
                With a heavy sigh she let the paper fall into her lap as she took a seat on the swing that was hanging from the wooden eaves. The view from the porch was striking. A glassy lake surface that was a brilliant shade of muddy gray, reflecting the mid-morning light over it. She wore a jumper and thick joggers with a pair of trainers. She’d brewed tea and sat staring idly between the lake’s surface and the image of the paper now resting on her thighs.
                It was a new life she would be living. A life where she had to cope with the blood on her hands, his blood that would forever haunt her. She looked down at her bandaged hand, trying to flex her fingers. Hermione winced. The burn had done her a good deal more damage that she had realized or was even willing to admit. A few magic potions and a spell or two would have healed them in no time, but she had not wanted to so readily forget what she’d suffered, what he’d suffered. She sniffled, rubbing her good hand against her eyes to clear away the tears. It was difficult, her heart heavy and full, and there was nothing to be done for it.
                She let her eyes skim lazily over the lake, occasionally flickering back down to the paper in her lap, unable to look away from the flames as they smoldered and consumed the pyre and the body within it. Hermione tried to feel peace, she tried to feel the tranquility that should have settled into her mind, but there was a disquiet that she could not shake from her mind. The trembling fingers of her good hand gripped the paper and shook it as if shaking it might cause the letters to tumble off the sides of the page, or that the motion might extinguish the flames in the slow-burning picture.
                “You ought to burn it,” he said, two shaky hands resting on her shoulder. The swing rocked slightly. Hermione shivered and leaned her head back against his chest.
                “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m a murderer.”
                “Sweet, sweet, Hermione…” his lips brushed the back of her ear.
                “And they’ll find me…and when they do…then what?” she turned to the side as he walked around from behind the swing and sat next to her. Meeting his gaze, her eyes still filled with tears.
                Severus gazed back at her, his own eyes looking steady and stern. “They won’t find you,” he muttered, and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “You’ve snapped your wand, faked a suicide, and brought us— wherever this infernal place is.”
                Hermione closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. A breeze blew up off the lake, chilling her cheeks. She leaned into his arms, resting her head against him. She sighed. “We needed a place to be safe,” she whispered. “Without a trace…where we could—”
                “I was teasing,” he said and pulled her bandaged hand into his. “Though I wish you’d let me help with this,” he said and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You were foolish.”
                “I wasn’t thinking,” she said and then pulled her hand back. “And you can’t— no magic—”
                Severus shook his head. His hair had not yet started to grow back, and he had donned a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun from his head as they swung gently on the swing. “Potions is not magic,” he said. “Magical properties, yes. Magical ingredients, certainly. But not magic that is by any means traceable. It’s bad enough it’s going to leave a scar, you should at least get the functionality back if you’re going to be living—” he paused a moment. “If we are going to be living as muggles without magic for the rest of our days.”
                Hermione’s teary eyes crinkled and she smiled. “What sort of life have I cursed you with?” she muttered.
                Severus laughed. The rich warm baritone sound that she had only started to recognize filled her ear “You’ve cursed me with life, Hermione Granger. Does it matter what sort?” He kissed the top of her head. They stood in silence, watching the sunlight dance along the surface of the lake. He kissed her forehead once more. “I still don’t understand how you knew it would work.”
                Hermione heaved a shuddering sigh. “I didn’t,” she confessed. “It was a gamble at best,” she whimpered. “I was terrified I’d done you in.”
                Severus shook his head and then cupped her cheeks. “I’ll admit I was terrified,” he confessed. “Death the first time was a trifle, I had nothing to live for. But after the world that you opened within me in my last 24 hours…” he closed his eyes. “I was not so ready to be dragged away.” Severus tightened his embrace around her figure. “I put on a brave face for you.”
                “That makes one of us,” she smiled through her tears. “Come on, walk with me down to the lake?” she asked. He nodded and wrapped his arm around her, moving slowly off their back porch and down onto the pebbled shore. They walked in amiable silence, every now and again stopping to pick up a smooth stone and skip it across the otherwise still surface of the water.
                “You were brave,” he whispered.
                “I was desperate,” she confessed. “The charm bracelet had been your idea, without you even knowing it,” she added. “I read it in one of your diaries…when I was doing work on your case initially a few years back.”
                Severus nodded at her. “You always were a clever witch.”
                “But I didn’t know if it would work. Phoenix Tears are one thing—”
                “Fawkes’ Phoenix Tears,” he said.
                “Even so…they heal…not— not—”
                Severus chuckled. “Put a stopper in death?” he asked.
                Hermione sighed and halted their walking. “You once said to me that you could teach me to—”
                Severus placed a finger on her lips. “I know, Hermione. It’s the same opening lecture I give to every first year class. I never suspected that any student would go about researching how to do so…let alone that it would save my life one day.”
                They started their walk in silence once more. When they’d paced the shoreline of the lake and could no longer see their tiny cabin, they turned back, this time hand in hand. Hermione leaned her head against his shoulder. “And the minister?” he asked after a while. It had been the one thing she hadn’t told him.
                “You’ll think me awful,” she whispered.
                “You saved my life, Hermione. How could I ever think you anything but brilliant?”
                Hermione bowed her head. “Constant vigilance,” she whispered. “A Moody lesson that never left me. That charm bracelet wasn’t just filled with potions that could stop death,” she confessed.
                Severus frowned and then his eyes widened. “Polyjuice?” She nodded and hung her head. Again she heard him chuckle. “How clever,” he added.
                “Not really,” she whispered. “I’m a murderer, Severus.”
                “A life for a life?” he shrugged. And then it dawned on him. “The pyre?” Again she nodded. Severus wrapped his arms around her. “I have committed many a dark deed in my day,” he whispered against her ear. “But none so noble as what you have done for me,” he kissed her cheek and then her lips. “He was, as you said, corrupted.”
                “Oh, Severus…” she buried her head against his chest.
                “No more crying, Hermione Granger. I think we’ve both had enough for one lifetime.” He kissed her temple, then her cheek, and then her lips. “I could ask for no more than what you’ve given me.”
                Their walk back to the cottage continued in companionable silence. She paused on the back porch and nodded at the door that led inside. “I know it isn’t much—”
                “It’s a comfortably furnished dwelling in a lovely and scenic location, what more does it need to be? It has provisions and I believe you said there was a convenience shop several miles out near the main road. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the satchel filled to overflowing with money stuffed under the floorboard should keep us contented for dozens of years…” he nodded a knowing look at her and she blushed. “Besides…this location has the most important thing of all,” he paused and smiled as she searched his eyes. “It has your company.”
                “Stuck with me, I’m afraid,” she said with a small smile.
                “Good, it will give me a chance to make things up to you,” he said.
                “Make things up to me?” she asked, following him into the cabin.
                “Hermione,” he said after a moment and then he took a step toward her. “If what you said was true…fancying me? Love is one thing, and I do not hold it against you if you were only trying to comfort a dying man—”
                She leaned up on her toes and silenced him with a kiss. “I meant it, Severus. I had always found you fascinating, and attractive,” she blushed as she spoke. “And I know that love doesn’t blossom overnight,” she admitted. “But I think it’s been simmering in the back of my mind for some time now. Being with you in those last 24 hours…” she shook her head. “I meant every word.”
                He nodded his head. “Then I will most certainly need to make it up to you, once we’ve both healed…” he touched her wounded hand. “I can’t have you thinking I’m a lousy lover if you’re to end your days with me,” he said with a hint of a smirk. “Or that I let you win that chess game.” Her eyes were wide suddenly and he chuckled. “Once my strength has returned…and your hand has recuperated,” he leaned in and pressed his lips against her ear, “I may not have had much in the experience of women, but you will find that as a former professor I’m an adept pupil who is quick and eager to learn.”
- 9
- 10
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The Last 24 Hours of Severus Snape