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All My Agony Fades Away	By : astartelydianna Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 5365 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any recognisable places, characters or plot lines and I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Five

For Hermione the first five weeks of term flew by, she was busy every single day and had already used her time-turner once. The only time she had used it was Sunday evening she was finishing an essay for her degree and noticed that it was already past midnight so she went back a couple of hours and went to bed to allow herself a couple of extra hours sleep. That was one of the downsides of having her own rooms. She had a small lounge area a bedroom and a small en suite bathroom; she loved having her own rooms for the most part since it meant her own space and peace and quiet to get on with her work as well as somewhere that her friends could all visit her in private also. The downsides were that firstly it was in the dungeons as she was the potions apprentice and secondly without anyone else around she tended to lose track of time and spend hour upon hour studying or working.

She had made some good progress on the written work for her degree already as she had her free periods and evenings to work on it, that being said she dreaded the end of the spring term when Professor Snape would take all her written work so far to go through it. Their private sessions weren’t quite what she had hoped they would be – she had been hoping that she would learn so much but so far she had just been brewing potions that she already knew how to brew. He literally placed an open book in front of her at the start of a session with a potion to brew, unless of course she was still working on one from the previous evening and she would brew that potion in silence. He offered no instruction and no criticism. At the end of the session he would simply ask her to leave a vial of the completed potion on his desk and clean her station before leaving. He hadn’t given her any indication of how she was doing good or bad; which was even more unusual since normally he loved finding a reason to tell her how wrong she was or insult her in one way or another.

“Incoming.” A voice murmured next to her, moments before an owl dropped a letter in front of her that landed on ungracefully on her plate.

“As much as I appreciate being able to just send an owl any time of day any day of the week until muggle post there’s something to be said for mail arriving through a letterbox.” She sighed, wiping the scrambled egg off of the envelope. It was from Ginny, asking her to meet her at Hogsmeade tomorrow for lunch with the whole gang. She smiled; it wasn’t often that the whole group managed to get together anymore.

“Boyfriend?” Gideon asked.

“No, Ginny Weasley.” She replied.

“Oh...” he nodded looking thoughtful.

“Oh, No!” Hermione laughed realising he was wondering if that meant that meant she was harbouring same sex tendencies. “No boyfriend, no girlfriend; she just wants to know if I’m free to join a group of us that are meeting up tomorrow is all.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, you just had that sort of wistful smile on your face was all...that one women get when they’re thinking about their fellas you know?” he explained sheepishly.

“Well I doubt you’ll see me receiving any love notes any time soon, I frankly don’t have time.” She snorted. “That’s why I’m looking forward to tomorrow so much; I don’t have very much time for my friends at the moment.”

“But you’re apprenticeship is still going well?” he asked.

“I guess so...at least I hope so.” She shrugged, thinking again about the Potion master’s lack of input to her training so far.

“Chin up Hermione, don’t tell me grumpy old Severus is turning you into another dungeon bat?” he chuckled. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really.” She admitted. “Honestly he’s been civil the whole time.”

“And this is a problem?” he enquired.

“He hasn’t said anything bad, but he hasn’t said anything good either.” She cringed. “I know it probably sounds silly but it’s just frustrating to not really have any idea how I’m doing.”

“It’s still early days, maybe he’s still testing you, figuring out where you’re at and what you need help with. The coursework you’ve done; has it been hard?” he asked thoughtfully.

“No, not at all,” She shook her head. “Nothing I don’t really know already so far.”

“So maybe he’s just letting you get through all of that nice and quickly first. It’s all coursework so it has to be covered whether you already know it or not. I guess he doesn’t see the point in teaching you something you already know.” He suggested.

“Oh...I guess that might be it...” she replied, she put her knife and fork down and smiled up at her colleague. “Thanks.”

Over the past month or so Hermione had come to enjoy the young defence professor’s company, he had become a good friend considering the short amount of time that she had known him always managed to make her smile. She watched him leave with a smile on her face, she could definitely get used to working at Hogwarts.

On arriving at the potions classroom she didn’t see Professor Snape anywhere so went to knock on his office door. When she received no answer she pushed the unlatched door open to check go through his office and knock on the door which she knew led to his quarters. She didn’t even step over the threshold instead frozen in place at the sight of her Professor.

“If I wanted you to come in I would have responded to your knock, out!” he barked, slamming the door in her face with a flick of his wrist. If she wasn’t completely stunned by the sight of her Professor she may have stopped to admire his powerful use of wandless magic. It wasn’t the fact that he wasn’t completely cover from head to toe for once that shocked her, and although the image of him buttoning up a white shirt across his stomach would definitely stay with her; it was the bandage on the right side of his chest that had gained most of her attention.

What had happened to him? The war was over...Voldemort had been defeated how had he managed to get hurt? She knew that the Professor was a good healer so if he was injured; why had he not healed himself? How badly was he hurt?

“Set up your work station as usual.” He said coldly, entering the classroom now fully dressed as usual and startling her from her thoughts. She hurried to so as he asked and had to bite her lip from asking all sorts of questions that kept popping up in her mind. He placed an open book in front of her as he always did with a potion for her to brew, this time he hovered though looking as if he were deciding something. “I can see the questions bubbling so close to the surface you shall probably burst at any given moment, therefore on the condition that you will never enter my office unless instructed you may ask me one question. Choose wisely.”

“Will you be alright Sir?” she asked quietly, her eyes straying to the spot where the wound was.

“That is your question, not how or when, who or why?” he frowned, narrowing his eyes at her.

“They are all very good questions Sir but I think your wellbeing is somewhat more important, you said one question and that was my choice – you will be alright won’t you, it’s just it must be a rather severe injury if you weren’t able to heal it yourself.” She explained.

“Dark magic is harder to heal, much like you need to remove the poison from a bite before it can heal, and your magic needs time to kill of the dark magic of a dark curse before the wound will heal.” He explained. “The same principle can apply to many dark potions Miss Granger so it is a useful fact for you to know. As you can imagine my body is more accustomed to dark magic than most, my own magic is tainted so it takes a lot longer for a wound inflicted by dark magic to heal without using dark magic myself to heal it. I will be perfectly fine in time Miss Granger so you need not concern yourself over it.”

She nodded and turned to focus on her work even though there were more questions that she wanted to ask. Upon reaching the end of her potion she glanced up to her Professor again.

“Was there a second potion?” she asked, it was Saturday and she usually worked until mid to late afternoon on a Saturday allowing her to complete on potions that took longer than an hour or two but the simple one she had just completed took less than two hours. He crossed the room and turned the page of her book to another potion.

“This, for today you will be completing the first page of instructions only.” he instructed.

“Sir, why didn’t you go to Madam Pomfrey about your wounds?” she asked quietly, knowing he would most likely ignore her.

“I did for the original injuries, she is unaware that it has not finished healing and I wish it to remain that way.” He grunted, his eyes locked with hers almost threateningly. “I trust that you can restrain yourself from interfering?” That was from the final battle?! Hermione’s eyes widened impossibly as she tried to comprehend that the wound had still not healed nearly a year later. He turned to head back to his office and was nearly there before she worked up the courage to speak again.

“I could help.” She offered. “I already know about it.”

“You know nothing about it Miss Granger, allow me the penance I deserve to serve and keep your Gryfindor theatrics out of my business.” He growled slamming his office door behind him. Hermione stared after him with one word echoing in her head...penance.

That answered the question of his loyalty once and for all; he felt guilty for his crimes and was punishing himself for them...how sad. She tried not to think of him as some tragic war hero knowing that he would hate to be thought of in that way but she was having difficulty not feeling sorry for him – he had given up everything for the cause and nearly his very life, not that he thanked her for saving it of course.

~Flashback~

The three looked in horror at the sight of before them. The older wizard’s breath came in ragged, struggled gasps as Harry knelt in front of him.

“Go Harry quickly.” Hermione said quietly, kneeling next to Harry and the gravely wounded man against the wall.

“It’s too late for him Hermione.” Ron protested, as Harry got to his feet.

“Snape wanted me to see this memory for a reason. I need to know what that reason is.” Harry murmured.

“Good luck.” Hermione nodded, quickly standing to hug him tightly just in case something happened...to either of them. “We’ll meet you back at the castle after wards.” Harry nodded and left his friends behind. Another laboured breath came from in front of them and Hermione hurried to the side of her Professor.

“And it’s never too late to try.” Hermione told Ron. “Anapneo!” Professor Snape let out a sudden loud gasp. “Ferula!” Bandages slowly wrapped themselves around the gaping wound. “Ron dig around in my bag, I need anti-venom. It’s the purple vial.”

Ron stood frozen to the spot for a moment before hastily rooting around in the bag Hermione had dropped on the floor by his feet. A moment later he tossed a small vial to Hermione. She carefully prised open the Professor’s mouth and pouring in the anti-venom, her hand stayed over his mouth to stop him coughing it straight back out.

“I don’t know if this is enough.” She frowned. “Please work. Velnera sanentur, please work.” Hermoine’s words were now soft and pleading in an attempt to get the spell to work. “Velnera sanentur...”

“Bloody hell Hermione! Look!” Ron exclaimed, pointing to the dying man crumpled on the floor. Hermione’s eyes snapped open and focused on her Professor. His chest was rising and falling evenly.

“It worked...” she gasped.

“Is he going to wake up?” Ron asked. “Because I vote we disappear before he does and goes stark raving mad!”

“I don’t think the anti-venom I had is strong enough for this venom. He’s alive but...it’s like he’s in a coma or maybe just passed out... We need to get him to the castle and get some stronger anti-venom.” She replied.

A moment later a voice filled Hermione’s head, when her frightened eyes met Ron’s she realised that it wasn’t just her. The Dark Lord’s words washed over her, bringing with them a cold shiver along her spine.

It was lies; even if Harry went alone to face him that rest of them wouldn’t live. The ‘Mudbloods’ would be tortured and killed and with them anyone considered a traitor or anyone who wouldn’t bow down to Lord Voldmort.

“We should get back to the castle while we can then.” Ron spoke up.

“Of course.” Hermione nodded. “Mobilicorpus.” Hermione and Ron made their way to the castle, levitating their Professor’s body with them.

Once inside the castle the sheer scale of horror and destruction hit them. People wounded, people crying over friends and loved ones...people dead. Hermione’s feet started to slow of their own violation as she spotted the Weasley family ahead of them. Ron ran ahead and was immediately pulled into an iron tight embrace with Molly and Arthur Weasley. Hermione saw him drop to his knees next to someone... Suddenly Hermione felt sick, tears stung her eyes...they were so naive to think that they wouldn’t lose anyone that they loved. Well, they hadn’t thought that they would come out unharmed but they just hadn’t really thought about losing anyone at all. She didn’t even know who it was yet and it didn’t matter, they were all family to her after all these years and losing any of them would hurt. So far she could see Percey, Remus and Tonks that she recognised...she didn’t really want to look around for anyone else yet, the battle wasn’t even over yet she needed to stay strong.

Suddenly she realised people staring at her and then she realised why. Everyone believed Professor Snape a traitor and a death eater and here she was bringing him into the castle. She didn’t even know why she couldn’t let him die...she just couldn’t. Something inside of her felt like it would break if she stood and watched him die. Besides...why would he have been so concerned with Harry being alright and taking his memory if he were a complete traitor. She noticed Professor McGonagall pause in front of her.

“Professor, we have to help him.” She pleaded. “It’s not right to let him die.”

“This way.” The Headmistress nodded. “Although knowing the sentence that will await him should he live, it may be kinder to let him die.”

“He’s not what you think.” A voice called from behind them.

“Mr Potter.” Professor McGonagall sighed in relief. “Thank goodness you’re in one piece.”

“He’s on our side.” Harry continued. “He’s been helping us, the whole time...I was wrong about him, we all were.”

“Mr Potter I don’t think-”

“His memories and Dumbledore’s own memories will prove it.” Harry insisted.

“Very well Mr Potter, I trust your word on it.” Professor McGonagall nodded.

A short while later Hermione stood with Ron and his family, still shaken from the loss of Percy, who as it turned out had died saving Fred’s life. Next to them the bodies of Remus and Tonks side by side. It was a sorry picture.

“We all knew the risks but we’re fighting for a cause dear.” Arthur said, comforting his wife. “He very brave, it won’t be in vain.”

“Where’s Harry?” Ron asked suddenly. Everyone looked around them.

“Professor? Neville? Have you seen Harry?” Hermione called. Neville looked sheepish for a moment and then nodded.

“He passed this way about ten minutes ago. I think...he said he wasn’t but...you know Harry.” The boy explained.

“That irresponsible, arrogant boy! I’m going to kill him! How dare he?!” Hermione burst out. This drew the attention of everyone around them. “He didn’t even...oh Harry!” Hermione and Ginny held each other as the truth sunk in. Harry had gone to the Dark Lord alone.

“He said...something about a snake; that as long as we take care of the snake he’ll take care of the last Horcrux.”Neville explained.

“He’s going to die.” Hermione whispered. “It’s Harry. Harry is the last Horcrux...I was just hoping we’d find another way before this day came.”

~End Flashback~

Without Professor Snape’s memories they wouldn’t have known how to take down Voldemort for good. He had given up his freedom for a lifetime, he had committed acts that would forever damage his soul and nearly died himself...all for the greater good...and now after all that he was still miserable, still suffering.

Author’s Notes: Sorry for the downer guys. Realistically though most of these people have seen a lot of death and they’re still going to be suffering the effects of that. This story is going to show the characters gradually moving on from their past and their grief. I am so grateful for all of your support and really hope you can all bear with me through this fic, the rating will go up later by the way so please do be warned but that is quite some way in the future as there are so many exciting moments yet to come...well they’re exciting in my head so I’m hoping they’ll be exciting for you guys to read. Keep the feedback coming
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All My Agony Fades Away