Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Last 24 Hours of Severus Snape	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 17390 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make any money from writing these stories.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
A/N: Well, Melpomene has struck, being the muse of tragedy, and she's given me what I need to get this one finished. This is not the last chapter, though we're very near the end. Remember folks, this is titled the way it is for a reason. There will be two more chapters- the one we're all dreading- and a brief Epilogue thereafter. Thank you for sticking with it.
  She’d brought a coffee service; it had taken a few moments for the enchanted wall out in the little foyer to get it right. The first three tries she’d been presented with a tea service and the fourth a coffee service with tea still in the pot. She had summoned a decanter of brandy just in case he changed his mind, and returned to the room, sitting the tray on the coffee table before them. He was where she had left him, only now he was seated on the sofa, gazing into the blaze in the fireplace. When everything was settled she moved to sit on the sofa’s other cushion, but he extended his hand to her, pulling her down so that she sat just beside him. Severus draped his arm casually over her shoulder and she blushed faintly. To give him such comforts, however small they seemed, was an honor to her, but she wasn’t sure she would ever be used to him being so physical.
                “How do you take your coffee?” she asked.
                “With a splash of cream, no sugar.”
                She found herself surprised just slightly to hear that he did take a splash of cream, having pegged him for the sort to drink it straight black. Hermione, who had never been overly fond of coffee, doused her own cup liberally with cream and three cubes of sugar, earning her an amused look when she handed him his own cup. “I never much could stand the taste, unless it was with a healthy dose of milk and sugar,” she confessed, a tiny smile on her lips. Severus only nodded, taking a slow sip from the steaming beverage, his arm no longer around her.
                “Will you tell me about your life?” he asked, his voice quiet, almost subdued.
                “Of course,” she said and took a sip from her milky sweet concoction. “Though I’m afraid there isn’t much to tell, at least not much that you don’t already know. After the war was won and Voldemort defeated, I took to the bar.” Hermione paused thinking about how she and Harry had visited him in St. Mungo’s nearly every day, though he had spent so many days unconscious she doubted he knew. “We visited you,” she said hesitantly.
                His slender black eyebrow arched up on its forehead as he turned his face to hers. “Is that so,” he said. “And we?” he rolled his hand, his gesture signifying curiosity.
                Hermione nodded. “Yes. Harry and I,” she felt bad for saying Harry’s name, knowing that all through school he had been a constant thorn in Severus’ side. But given what they’d seen of Snape’s memories in the pensieve, she understood why. “When you were in St. Mungo’s,” she confessed quietly, wondering how he would react to the news. “Nearly every day when his work and mine would permit, which was mostly,” she added. “We never stayed long, but he thought…well I thought, we thought that you deserved the company.”
                Severus scoffed, a reaction that surprised Hermione. “Pity from Potter even after I almost died,” he said.
                “It wasn’t pity, Severus,” she said. Hermione placed her hand on the top of his kneecap. “He felt horrible, not that I’m saying he did it out of a sense of guilt or as if he owed you something, but he knew you were alone…” she trailed off, not sure how much further she wanted to try and explain to him that Harry had felt a deep sense of pride and gratitude toward the wizard; one that she knew her companion would never be able to express properly. It was the same inability to express those feelings that had kept him from visiting once Severus had awoken fully from his comatose state.
                “And you?” he asked, taking another sip, this one longer, from the coffee.
                “Me?” she asked. “Oh, you mean why did I—” she stopped herself. “Well I suppose it was two-fold,” she admitted. “A part of me wanted to be with Harry, to comfort him. And the other part of me wanted to see that you were alright. I had always respected you— I won’t say cared for you because I simply don’t believe that you would believe me, but I had always prized you in my eyes as an intelligent man who deserved so much more respect than you ever got. Compounding that with what we saw in the pensieve—”
                “You saw my memories?” he asked. His voice was not accusatory but he sounded surprised. Severus turned and studied her face, really letting his eyes linger over every contour and freckle; lingering on her eyes.
                “Yes,” she said, though she knew her cheeks were pink for saying so. “I did.” Hermione set her coffee cup down on the table and turned slightly, her knees knocking against his. She bit her lower lip and then bowed her head. “And I’m sorry for all you went through.”
                “Trifles,” he muttered and waved his hand in her general direction.
                Nodding, and taking his gesture as a dismissal of the topic she clutched her cup once more. “But I visited you, until you were awake and stable…I guess I figured you wouldn’t want to see any of your former students once you’d come to terms with the fact that you were alive,” she shrugged her shoulders. It was a flimsy excuse for having stayed away, but she hadn’t known at the time how he might have reacted to her telling him that since he had lived, and she found herself rather curious and keenly interested in his person, that she was wondering if he might like to go for tea sometime. She pushed the thought from her mind, letting it linger there only causing her to blush further. “And then they’d sentenced you, and I took your case. You pretty much know the rest.”
                “Yes, you were quite the advocate for my release.”
                Hermione nodded. “You’d done no wrong; it was the first time in the Wizengamot history that a portrait of a former Headmaster was allowed to testify on the defendant’s behalf. Or on anyone’s behalf as I believe the record indicated,” she said sounding proud, a smile beaming on her lips. “I pushed for that to happen, I knew if Professor Dumbledore was allowed to testify— that he’d forced your hand— well, that there would be no excuses not to clear your name.”
                “And yet they found a way around all of your hard work.” He said, his eyes idling over the liquid in his cup.
                Hermione felt her heart seize up. “I know,” she said. “I don’t understand how they managed to slip that past the entire department— the ruddy bunch of bastards. They’re crooks! Had I known you’d been snatched up and sentenced you never would have sat in that hovel for the month that you did.” Her voice was wavering, on the verge of breaking and she could feel the tears starting to form in her eyes. “You wouldn’t be here now.”
                “Ah, but then I wouldn’t have your lovely company,” he said with a ghost of a smile crossing his lips. Hermione nodded silently, trying to blink back the tears. “Hermione,” he said and then placed his cup on the coffee table. Taking hers from her trembling grip he squeezed her hands and then pulled her against him, wrapping her tightly in an embrace. “You have been far kinder than anyone else would have been.”
                “I failed—”
                “What did I tell you before, hmm?” his voice was soft, one hand now idly picking through the curls that had come loose from where she’d bound them at the nape of her neck. “You did not fail me. No one has failed me. If they deem this to be my fate, so be it. I don’t want you getting yourself all worked up over it. I’m not worth it.”
                It took all she had not collapse into a fit of hysterics in his arms. How could he think so little of himself? So accepting of his fate because he believed himself unworthy. She was struggling to keep her chest from heaving. But he deserved better; he wasn’t meant to be comforting her as she broke down, she was supposed to be providing every luxury and comfort to him. Hermione drew in a shaky breath, forcing herself to regain her composure. It was bad enough she’d shed the tears that she had. She was resolved not to let any more fall while he was still in her company. Lifting her head from his chest she smiled at him and wiped the backs of her hands across her eyes. “What can I get you?” she asked.
                Severus had not relinquished his hold around her back, keeping her close to his chest. He gazed at her for a moment, a thoughtful expression crossing his face, but then he shook his head. “Just your company,” he said and leaned back into the cushions of the sofa a bit more. “Having another person with which to converse…or sit in silence with…in my final hours is indeed very comforting.”
                Hermione didn’t know what to say to that, but after a moment she leaned her head back down against his chest, listening for the steady beating of his heart through the dress robes. “I wish I knew what to talk about,” she confessed.
                The soft sound that was his laugh met her ear. “You could talk about whatever you like, just having someone to listen to after all that time alone, and your voice in particular…” he trailed off. Hermione blushed, feeling the heat in her cheeks. It made it that much harder to think of something to say; knowing that he seemed to like her voice. “Tell me about you and the Weasley boy,” he said after a long moment’s pause.
                Hermione was caught off guard, a bit stunned that he’d ask such a thing. She laughed softly. “There isn’t really much to tell. We were together and now we’re not,” she shrugged her shoulders. “After I threw myself into my work he and I drifted apart and he moved onto some other woman and that was that.” It hadn’t bothered her when Ron had suggested that they see other people, largely in part because she knew she was no longer in love with him. Desperation during the war had brought them together, but when life had settled down and they were no longer under the continually imminent threat of death in the near future, she realized that she had very little in common with him despite being his best friend. She needed someone who could stimulate her intellectually as well as please her physically and Ronald Weasley was not particularly apt in either department. That thought caused her to laugh.
                “What’s funny?” he asked, his fingers having once again taken up with her curls, stroking them without a care.
                “Nothing, I was just realizing how he and I never would have worked.” Hermione shifted her body slightly to lean onto him, her side now resting against his side, her head sliding closer to his neck. “He wasn’t my type.”
                “You have a type?”
                She chuckled. “Not really. But I know what I’m looking for, someone who can challenge me intellectually. Someone who isn’t going to mind sitting in companionable silence while I read the latest copy of Advanced Charms Quarterly in my armchair in front of the fire.”
                Severus tilted her head up to gaze into her eyes. “I didn’t know you followed Advanced Charms.” He paused, his lips thin for a moment. “Though I suppose there is a great deal I do not know about you, Hermione Granger. A great deal I do not know about a lot of people…” his voice trailed off for a moment and then he posed another question. “What other magical journals do you subscribe to?”
                “Oh,” she was in her element as he began to ask her about her reading. “Let’s see, Advanced Charms Quarterly, Progressive & Potent Potions, Haphazard Herbals Monthly,” she paused and counted on her fingers. “I’m missing two— oh! There’s also Arithmantics, and Transgresses in Transfigurations.”
                “Quite well rounded,” he said.
                “Yes,” Hermione blushed but only slightly. “Those are just the academic ones. I believe I still get a copy of Quidditch Star Weekly— thanks to Ronald, and George’s Novelty catalog every month from his joke shop and PlayWitch.” She realized as soon as she’d said it that she’d in fact confessed to getting an adult magazine. Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth a few seconds too late, her wide eyes looking mortified.
                There was silence for a very long moment and then Severus burst into a deep laugh. Something she had never heard him do before. “I suppose you’ll tell me you read it for the articles?” he asked, that familiar smirk crossing his lips.
                Rolling her eyes and deciding to go along with her slipup she nodded her head. “I do. They are fascinating, and the pictures aren’t hard on the eyes either.” Hermione shifted her head back down onto his shoulders and closed her eyes. So she kept a subscription to Play Witch, what single witch didn’t? Sharing it with him did not make her feel vulnerable as she had expected it to; if anything it made her feel closer to him, though she couldn’t justify that sudden feeling either. “Did you ever keep a subscription to Play Wizard?”
                Severus snorted. “Certainly not, those flimsy impossibly thin witches with disproportionate bosoms are hardly my type.”
                “You have a type?” she turned his question on him.
                He was quiet and thoughtful and after a time he shook his head. “I suppose I do not. Suffice it to say that if I did it would not be the bubble-headed air-brains in that sort of magazine. There is more to a woman than meets the eye…and I, much like yourself, require intellectual stimulation.” Severus pondered his statement for a moment. “Though there was never much time or any real interest to pursue a woman. What I would have done with one once I had one?” he shrugged his shoulders.
                This bit of information hit her hard. Did he think so little of himself that he wouldn’t know how to love a woman? That he would not make a suitable husband? She tried not to dwell on it. Forcing his words from her mind she sat up from his arms, feeling them slide away from her back for the first time since they’d sat on the sofa. “Would you like a snifter of brandy?” she asked.
                Severus shook his head. “I don’t think I will, though if you’d like some please don’t let me stop you.”
                Hermione smiled at him. She had only brought the brandy because he’d mentioned it earlier but she had no intentions of shoving it down his throat. She wondered if enough time had passed to ask him about what he had wanted to show her in the pensieve. With a gentle hand she touched his shoulder. He’d had his hands all over her for various and sundry reasons yet she’d done so little touching of him. It did make her quiver to think about how in a different set of circumstances she would have very much enjoyed exploring his body. Learning the scars of his skin, the contours of his bones; feeling the way his limbs joined to his torso. “Did you want the pensieve then?”
                Again he shook his head. “You’ve already seen most of what I would have considered showing you…and after some thought I do not wish to be reliving the more torturous and sorrowful memories before I die. Something happier I think.”
                “Can I get you anything?” she offered. Hermione was at a loss. If he was content to sit on the sofa with her curled quite close to him then she would slide back into his arms and rest there as long as he wanted her to. She had granted him every wish he had asked for, and only wished that he had more wishes to be granted.
                “Your company,” he said and his lithe limbs slowly entwined around her body once more, pulling her into his lap. “Though this sofa is not particularly comfortable.”
                She chuckled. “I can fix that.” Brandishing her wand she softened the cushions as best she could with a makeshift spell she’d picked up at the Ministry offices for those terribly uncomfortable desk chairs. “And if you lean back,” she nodded to the arm. “And spread your legs a little bit, I can lay back in your arms.”
                “Always thinking of alternatives,” he mused. Severus turned his body, and after Hermione placed a squishy pillow under his neck against the arm of the sofa he splayed his legs out and she settled herself between them on her back, reclining into his torso. She tried not to think about how rumpled and wrinkled his dress robes and her lovely green dress were getting, but it was of little consequence; nothing a spell couldn’t fix. With her head nestled back against his shoulder she turned her face to the side and pressed an almost non-existent kiss to the side of his throat.
                “Your lips are quite soft.” He whispered.
                “Thank you,” she blushed, gently nuzzling her nose against his warm skin. Flesh that in just a few hours time would no longer be warm, but cold and lifeless. The slow rising rhythm of his chest beneath her body gave her pause. In just a few hours he would draw his last breath as a heinous current of electricity coursed through him boiling him from the inside out. A sob threatened to choke free from her throat but she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. The last thing she wanted was to disrupt his comfort with her hysterics. He had seemingly come to terms with his death why couldn’t she?
                Hermione supposed that if he were terminally ill she would have been much more able to accept his passing. But he wasn’t sick, he was being slaughtered. A cold-blooded murder from a bunch of cowards who would never see him as anything more than the faded tattoo on his arm. Her stomach lurched at the thought of the world she lived in; how cruel men could be, the injustice of it all. But most of all how she had failed. The guilt of her failure weighed heavy on her mind but she refused to cry over it. She would cry later; when he was gone. He deserved so much more than to have her crying over her own stupid failures.
                The gentle rhythm of his breathing was slowing, deep even movements of his chest. Hermione lifted her head, noting that his eyes were closed, a soft whistling escaping from his nostrils. She knew he was tired, and was tempted to let him sleep. But he would be sleeping forever soon enough. The look of utter peace washed over his face in that moment broke her heart. He looked calm, one might even venture to say happy; his face no longer carried the tension that the years of serving two masters had etched into it. She gently brushed her hand across his cheek but he did not stir and she decided she could not wake him. Not yet anyway. That she needed to let him have his moment of peace even if he could only find it in slumber.
                Turning her head back into the crook of his neck she closed her own eyes, feeling the tears starting to form there. They were silent as they leaked down her cheeks. Hermione clung closely to him, but he did not rouse from slumber as she laid there a while crying silent tears into his neck. The fire was dwindling as she felt her own chest heaving though she dared not make a sound for fear of waking him. Her thoughts drifted away from her, as did the time. She hadn’t realized just how exhausted she’d been, nearly 48 hours without rest for her. She’d been running on pure adrenaline without even realizing it. She closed her eyes for a moment more, just resting against the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest, his arms draped haphazardly over her backside.
                When she opened her eyes the fire had extinguished itself. A wave of panic swept through her. How long had she slept? Would they be breaking down the door any moment to steal him away to his death? Her head shot up in a panic. But when she was met with the cool gaze of his glittering black eyes she blushed. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to fall asleep! I— how long have you—”
                The soft chuckle that pleased her ear gave her words pause. “You looked so peaceful while sleeping atop my chest. I watched you sleep,” he confessed, both hands now carding through her hair, gently untangling the little knots that had formed as she slept.
                “You could have woken me I wouldn’t have minded.”
                His smile was there, faded, but there. “I think I rather liked watching you sleep. You make soft purring sounds a bit like that ginger familiar of yours, I imagine.”
                For a moment she stared at him perplexed. “Oh, you mean Crookshanks!” she said and then laughed. “Yes, well, Crooks doesn’t purr much, he’s more of a rumbling sound, but, um,” she blushed thinking about how he’d complimented her. “Thank you?” she let her head fall forward for a moment against his shoulder before looking down into his eyes once more.
                “I’ve always wanted to watch a woman sleep, to know what that’s like without feeling like a lecher or a peeping Tom.” His fingers stilled in her hair and he exhaled deeply. “To watch a woman sleep who had willingly fallen asleep close enough for me to do so,” he confessed. “Thank you for that.”
                She didn’t know what to say. If he had professed to her that he had wanted to watch her sleep she might have felt uneasy, but she was glad that he had enjoyed it so. Anything for him. Her limbs ached as she slowly pulled herself up from his body. “Are you alright? Hungry perhaps?” she asked. Hermione stood from the sofa and managed to find the time piece. It broke her heart to see that there were only a couple of hours before he would be seized and taken to be prepared.
                “No, thank you. I don’t find myself interested in a last meal at this time,” his eyes studied hers. “Judging from the look of panic that you haven’t managed to hide as well as you think…I take it there is not much time left?”
                A lump formed in her throat. “No, Severus, I’m sorry. Just a couple of hours. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep— I could have kept you awake, I’m sorry.”
                He waved his hand, rising from the sofa, smoothing down his dress robes with his hands. “It makes no difference. I would have sat in silence staring at you if you hadn’t slept. And I must have drifted off long enough to feel well rested even if it was only for a couple of hours.” He moved over to where she stood, cupping her chin in his hand. “I’ve a notion,” he whispered near her ear, sending a shiver up her spine. “If you’d indulge me one last time?”
                Hermione couldn’t help it as she shivered. “Anything,” she whispered. She meant what she said. She would give him anything within her powers to do so. He deserved so much more than she’d ever be able to give him in that moment. “Anything you want, Severus.”
                He brushed a few of the stray curls that clung to her cheeks, pushing them back behind her ear. “Will you lay with me on the bed a while? As we did on the floor?” She took him to mean would she lay naked with him. Nodding her head she moved over to the bed, eyeing it and then him. He followed her over, placing his hands on her hips, pulling her slowly toward him. “Will you let me undress you?”
                It made her nervous; that much she could not deny, but she would not let her nerves stand in the way of what might very well be his final request. It was only a few hours before they would come for him; and already she knew that would be difficult to endure. Slowly nodding her head, Hermione turned to face him, a faint smile on her lips. “I’ve never…” she tried desperately to keep the blush from creeping up into her cheeks but to no avail as she felt her skin grow warm. “Ron was never quite so interested in how we got naked, just that we did,” she said after a moment’s pause.
                This tidbit of shared information seemed to amuse him if the slight quirk of his lips was any indication. It was his hands on her hips, gently turning her to face away from him that reminded her body just how nervous she was. It wasn’t entirely his fault, though she supposed in a sense it was all his fault, but more so her inability to keep calm as he began to run his slender fingers slowly up the back of her dress, finding the zipper only to pull it slowly back down. The air rushed against her back and although dancing with him had warmed her, and the fire had warmed the room, she felt the chill of exposure. She felt his eyes sweeping down her back as his hands came to cup the sides of her shoulders, pulling the dress down slowly. She was pressed back against him but with enough room for him to manage easing her dress down her figure.
                When the dress was in a heap of emerald material at her feet she turned her head over her shoulder and locked eyes with him. One leg at a time she stepped out of the dress, standing naked before him. She hadn’t bothered with undergarments or a bra, using a simple enchantment to hold her breasts in place when she’d donned the dress. She’d stopped trying to count the number of times she’d bared her body to him since he’d been released into her custody in the holding room of the ministry. While she was no more at ease for being so, she knew it would be the last time he would ever set eyes on a naked figure, hers or any other. His eyes swept over her figure, drinking her in, and she blushed in spite of herself.
                He placed his hands on her shoulders, gently pushing her back until she was backed against the bed. “Lie down,” he whispered and Hermione eased herself back onto the bed. “You look a vision.”
                “Are you going to get undressed too?” she asked, curious if he would divest completely from the dress robes and join her naked or if he would stay clothed to keep from tempting himself. They’d only been completely naked together in the bathtub, not even when he’d fingered her and tasted her in the shower had he been completely without clothing. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched him carefully shrug out of the dress robes she’d found him, letting them fall to the floor to join her dress. His figure was painfully thin, something that she had not been able to ignore try as she might, but she refused to let it reflect in her eyes.
                Severus slowly climbed onto the bed beside her, easing himself down into the mattress on his side. “Turn for me,” he whispered against her ear. “Like you were in front of the fire.”
                Hermione shifted onto her side, wiggling her body back against his, and his arm slid around her hip, spooning her into place. His body was warm, albeit bony, and she closed her eyes trying not to think how in just two hours they would barge into the sanctum of the holding room and spirit him away. She tried to push it from her mind, the notion that he was going to die, that she had failed, and that there was nothing to be done save for comfort him in his final hours. The distraction her mind sought came in the form of his hips shifting against her backside, a firmness that was unmistakable pressing against her cheeks. She bit her lower lip to keep from gasping, though she had known that it was going to happen.
                He’d been denying himself the pleasure of her and even just teasing her as he had in front of the fire had been arousing. She knew that although he had not been hard when he’d undressed, that pressed against her in the bed, it was inevitable. She didn’t mind, though the notion still worried her, not because she didn’t want to give him everything she could, or because she was disgusted by him— in fact it was quite the opposite. It had been ages since she and Ron had been together in their tempestuous on and off relationship toward the end, and although she’d told Severus it had ended on a rather banal note, she knew the truth to be different. And she knew that her bed had not known the sexual company of a man since. Closing her eyes she drew in a breath filled with courage and tilted her head back over her shoulder, opening her eyes to look up at him.
                “Severus…I’ll give you anything,” she whispered.
                “I know, Hermione.” He said. The hand that had draped over her hip was once again idly stroking through the curls on her pubic mound, his nails raking slow methodical patterns over her skin. “And I do…” he exhaled slowly. “I want this…” he confessed. “But I know it will take all I have…I need to wait.” She nodded her head, feeling a tear leaking down from the outer corner of her eye. “No tears…” he whispered and dipped his head to press his lips against her cheek, catching the tear with his mouth before it could escape down her face.
                “I’m sorry,” she whispered, nuzzling her nose against his cheek. “I just…you deserve—”
                “What more could I deserve, Hermione Granger?” he asked, hand still stroking over her curls. “I have had your wonderful company these last 24 hours. You have denied me nothing. You have brought me peace of mind, and even the impossible when I asked for snow. All I ask now is that you not cry for what you could not give me because you have already given me so much.”
                Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest. How could he be so accepting? She closed her eyes, afraid that if she met his gaze she would burst into tears, and it was the only thing that he had asked of her. She would honor him. She refused to cry. There was a great long silence after she nodded her head, untrusting her mouth to speak. The fire crackled across the room in the hearth, filling their silence as she laid in his arms, his fingers stroking her.
                How much time had passed she hadn’t been certain but she’d been lulled into a comforted quiet when his lips brushed against her jaw. “Will you?” he asked, trailing his lips against hers.
                “Anything you wish, Severus, anything,” she pressed her lips to his and shifted. Severus pulled his hands back from her body and pulled his body away from hers. She moved to sit up but he pushed her back, easing her flat onto her back. Her puzzled look caused him to chuckle.
                “I wish to take you as a man would take you, Hermione,” he said. “If it’s going to be my last chance to feel like a man…” he let his lips curl up into a wistful smile. “Then I want you screaming and trembling beneath me,” he leaned in and kissed her lips. “Even if it doesn’t last, and you don’t finish.”
                Hermione blushed furiously. She hadn’t thought of the fact that she might not finish. Was he inviting her to fake it for his sake? The notion seemed absurd, though not so farfetched the more she thought about it as she couldn’t recall a single instance when she’d copulated with Ron where she hadn’t faked an orgasm to just get him to stop his jackrabbit pumping. She giggled just a bit. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” she said and then closed her eyes. “Please just be gentle, I wasn’t lying when I said it had been some time…”
                Severus laughed, a full deep and hearty sound. “Let us not compare notes on how long it’s been…or you might consider yourself lucky…” Hermione opened her eyes when he pressed a delicate kiss to her forehead as he had done earlier that evening. “You are a terribly beautiful witch, Hermione Granger.”
                “No one’s ever called me beautiful,” she confessed. In that moment he was not a man wrongfully sentenced to death. He was not a man less than two hours from the end of his life. He was a man, and an attractive one at that, naked and about to become familiar with her in a most intimate way. She trembled. Her skin was already radiating heat and she could feel her core throbbing with the possibilities. His touches had been one thing, and although she was still terribly nervous, there was something about the whole event that excited her. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told him that she’d thought idly about him as an attractive wizard since her sixth year, and having him just above her, about to fill her was thrilling.
                “Pity,” he said and then pressed a delicate kiss to her lips. Hermione’s thighs were trembling as she spread them, feeling his hips ease down as he drew his body fully over hers. His hand was shaking as he gripped his cock, guiding himself forward to her, and she gasped as he pressed the head of himself into her. “Merlin…” he hissed. “It has been a while.” His voice was strained, a delicious deep throaty sound that sent shivers down her spine and she whimpered feeling him glide into her so slowly that it drove her mad. He stretched her and she groaned feeling him settle into her; it had been far too long since she had felt anything other than her own two fingers.
                He trembled, and she trembled. Their lips met and kisses ensued. He was slow, pulling himself out and easing himself in, deliberate gestures that had her core clenching and gushing like mad as he worked a dizzying but easy rhythm in and out of her. Their bodies clung to one another, the crackling of the fire underscoring their pants and cries as she arched her hips up, grinding against him begging for more. She felt him shudder, spilling himself inside of her not long after he’d begun and although she hadn’t experienced her own release, her body felt a release of a different sort as she embraced him, drawing his body down atop hers.
                Severus lay panting in her arms, his head just against the crook of her neck, his temples wet from sweating. Her fingers stroked through his hair, one hand at the back of his head, the other running up and down his back as his breathing slowed and his heartbeat returned to normal. She closed her eyes feeling tears beginning to well there. She refused to cry, for although she hadn’t reached a climax, it was the most beautiful instance of sex she had ever experienced. Hermione bit her lip to keep from sobbing as a wave of torturous sorrow overtook her. All the while she stroked his back and his hair, feeling his chest rising and falling against her own.
                “Severus?” she said after a while, nudging her nose against the top of his head.
                “I should die a happy man,” he whispered, slowly lifting his head to kiss her lips. “That was beautiful.”
                Hermione’s cheeks filled with a blush. “You are beautiful,” she whispered.
                She caught something in his eyes, a look of doubt, or perhaps gratitude, she couldn’t be certain but she eased herself up to kiss him once more. It was a fully and steady kiss; a kiss that could have frozen time is passion and love and understanding could do such things. When they pulled apart from one another, tears were sliding silently down his face and her resolve shattered. Throwing her arms around him, she let her own tears fall. They clung to one another, Severus having slid off her and onto his side, their bodies pressed so tightly together that it could hardly be said where one started and the other stopped.
                When the tears stopped and their breathing returned to normal, they laid together in naked blissful silence. There were no words, only knowing glances, and unspoken promises. The banging of the door didn’t startle her. Hermione bowed her head into his neck and tried her best not to burst into tears once more. “Hermione,” he whispered, pulling her head up from his neck. “You knew this was the end,” he said and blinked his eyes hard, silent tears trickling down his face. “Come on, Gryffindor brave, no?”
                Hermione shook her head violently. “No,” she sniffed. “It isn’t right.”
                “Ms. Granger!” The banging from the exterior continued. “It is time, we’ve come to gather the prisoner.” She heard a huge cracking sound as if a door had been shattered. “Ms. Granger, it’s— oh holy hell!” The burly guard cried, immediately turning his back to the two of them. The second guard who had followed him in did a double take before also spinning around. “Ms. Granger! I can’t even begin to— I’m sure the Minister—”
                “The Minister can see me personally if he has a problem,” she shouted, despite her tears. “Now give us a moment, and I’ll escort him out to you,” she snapped. When the guards stood trembling with their backs to the bed, Hermione picked up a pillow and flung it hard at them. “I said now!” The pillow landed hard against the first guard’s head and he all but fled the room.
                “Make sure he’s back in regulation garments— ow!” the second guard cried as a second pillow smacked him in the head.
                “Get out!” she shouted.
                Severus sighed, a slight smile on his lips as he slowly extricated himself from the bed. “You’re going to get yourself fired, Hermione. And for what?” he asked her, sitting on the edge of the bed, gazing at the fired up witch.
                “Good,” she spat. “I don’t think I much care working for a vile and corrupt institute that would put an innocent man to death.” Hermione took her time dressing herself, and when she watched Severus move to the trunk where the prisoner’s jumpsuit had been she dashed over and put her foot down on the lid of the trunk. “Wear your dress robes,” she said.
                “You’re in enough trouble,” he shook his head. “If they said—”
                “I don’t care what they said, Severus,” she said and then threw her arms around his still naked figure. “If you’re going to go out— you’re going out with dignity, not in that ridiculous prison getup. They need to see that they are killing a man, an innocent human being, not some nameless, faceless prisoner.”
                He didn’t argue with her, but stood with her for a few moments locked in a delicate embrace. The guards hollered twice more for them to move things along. Each time Hermione hollered back with an angrier voice and a string of obscenities that would have made a sailor blush. She helped Severus into his dress robes finally, and brushed him over once for good measure before taking his hands one final time and giving them a squeeze. Kissing him, she led him out into the front room of the holding chamber.
                The guards all but jumped him, thrusting shackled over his wrists and a large iron around his neck. It was all too much for her to watch and she turned away. When they had bound him up and manhandled him, nearly knocking him to the ground, they paused, with the heavier of the two guards glaring at Hermione. “I don’t think the Minister is going to be too happy about this, he needs to be in regulation uniform!”
                Hermione snapped. At once she drew her wand and pointed it into the face of the hefty guard. “I don’t give a damn what the Minister is going to be happy about,” she growled.
                “Get him out of here, she’s lost her damn mind!” the second guard shouted, hauling Severus’ chains hard. He stumbled and pitched forward onto his knees.
                Hermione drew back her wand and blasted red sparks up into the sky. “You will not take him from my sight without Kingsley Shacklebolt leading the fucking procession. If that bastard is going to insist on going through with this then he’s going to be here to watch.” Both guards stood stone still, staring at her as if they might draw their own wands to hex her, or possibly just flee from her. “Don’t think that I won’t hex both of you, now go!” And the guards dashed off, looking both perturbed and frightened. Hermione lowered her wand and stuffed it into her sleeve. She fell to her knees beside Severus, helping him up to his feet. “If you’re going to die it will not be in that filthy tattered jumpsuit,” she muttered.
                His hands, bound as they were, graced her shoulder. “But I am going to die.”
                Hermione stiffened at his touch. “We all have to die, Severus.”
                “Hermione…” her name on his lips sent her into a fit of tears. She threw her arms around him and buried her head against his chest. She could feel her body wracked with sobs but could do nothing for it as he struggled to lift his manacled hands up and over her to hold her somehow. “Oh, little witch, such tears,” he whispered. “You did everything that you could.” His lips pressed against the top of her head. “No tears now, Hermione, there’s no sense in them while I’m still here breathing, and speaking.”
                She shook her head slowly, sniffling to try and stop herself. “I’m sorry— I just— I’ve failed you.”
                “You’ve failed no one, Hermione Granger, no one. And you need to always remember that.” His eyes were dark but kind as they gazed down into hers and she felt herself coming unraveled once more; the tears were flowing down her cheeks in heavy streams now, but she didn’t break away from his gaze. His arms tightened around her back, squeezing her in a firm embrace as best he could. “You have not failed me, Hermione. You have been here every step of the way and I could not have asked for a better person.”
                They stood in silence, her body still quaking against his bony frame, though her tears were slowly subsiding. The gentle strokes of his hands up and down her back even with the heavy clank of the manacles seemed to do the trick of comforting her; but she was meant to be comforting him. He was the one about to die. The door to the waiting chamber creaked open but she did not lift her head from his chest.
                “Honestly, Hermione, dress robes?”the deep voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt scoffed. He narrowed his eyes at the way they stood together. “Get out from— ugh,” he grunted. “Don’t make me blast you apart from him, you are making this more difficult than it has to be.”
                Severus stood still letting her slowly untangle herself from his arms the way he was shackled. She was tearing up again as she placed both hands on the front of his chest. “You have to let me go, little witch,” he whispered. Placing a tender kiss to her forehead he stepped away from her and then turned to the Minister, bowing his head. The two guards, who were just behind Kingsley, surged forward and nearly beat him to the ground to grab hold of him. Hermione let out a great sob and rushed forward, falling to her knees in front of the Kingsley.
                “Please!” she cried, her voice broken, tears flowing down her face now. “You have to stop this! You can’t let them— oh, please! Kingsley! I’ll do anything. Give up my post at The Ministry! Please! I— you can’t let them do this!” she clutched at his knees, shrieking and wailing.
                “Miss Granger!” Kingsley kicked his legs free of her tremulous grasp. “What’s done is done, and you know damn well my hands are tied. Now let us move along, he has to be taken to be prepared. We’re on a schedule.”
                “Kingsley!” But her cries fell on deaf ears as he turned his back to her, signaling the guards, who were now in the process of adding cuffs around his legs, to come forward, the prisoner in tow. He did not look down at her as he was dragged forward by the neck, and Hermione felt her stomach roil with nausea. “No, No no no no no,” she whimpered. Springing to her feet she threw herself at the door, her shuddering frame barely large enough to prevent the minister from storming out of it.
                “Hermione Granger!” he growled, a hand raised to push her out of the way.
                “Let me do it!” she cried, all but falling forward. “Let me prepare him.” Her words surprised even her and Severus’s eyes were wide.
                “Hermione, no,” he said his voice cracking slightly. It was bad enough to have her present at the execution, but to strip him, to shave him and affix the instruments that would bring about his death. He couldn’t stand for it. “Hermione—”
                “Please,” she sobbed. “Let me be the one to prepare him, they can— they can be there to watch to make sure I don’t try to set him free— but please!” she whimpered, falling to the ground in a trembling heap, arms flung around Kingsley’s legs once more.
                For several agonizing moments she was certain she’d be kicked in the face as the procession passed her by. But when it was a hand against her face and not a boot she dared to look up with hope in her still wet eyes. “Very well,” Kingsley said. “But this is highly unorthodox and you will have to follow the preparation instructions to the letter—”
                “Fine!” she shouted. Hermione pulled herself to her feet. “But you will unshackle him. I can be his escort— he’s not dangerous!” she insisted. It was several more minutes of arguing before Kingsley agreed to undo the manacle around his neck and the chains around his legs, but insisted that he remain cuffed at the wrists. When only his wrists remained bound she threw her arms around him, sobbing once more into his chest.
                “Hermione Granger, we have a schedule to keep, either move along, or this absurd arrangement is off,” Kingsley snapped.
                Hermione glared at him but pulled herself upright. “Go to my office,” she glared at the hefty guard. “And if you’re too thick to know where it is, fucking find someone who does. I want my charm bracelet from my top drawer and my pensieve from underneath my desk.” When the guard did not move, she drew her wand. “Now, you fucking idiot, move!” Her words had him dashing away up the corridor.
                “You cannot bark at Ministry officials like that,” Kingsley spat in utter shock. “Have you lost your—”
                “Kingsley Shacklebolt, so help me, one more word out of you and I’ll hex you six ways to Sunday. I don’t care if you’re the Minister of Magic. You’re putting an innocent man to death and you don’t care that you’re doing it. The least you can do is let me have my comforts and a way to remember it,” she spat. When he did not dare to challenge her, she stowed her wand and turned back to Severus, whose head was still hung.
                “You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. “I didn’t want this,” he lifted tear-stained eyes to her. “To put you through this…it’s bad enough that you—”
                She quelled his words with a kiss, tears of her own streaming down her face. “You hush now,” she whispered, kissing his lips once more. “The last touch you feel will be mine,” she said, letting her forehead fall against his. “I’m twelve years too late, not that saying it then would have mattered, but you are loved, Severus, and you will die knowing that love.”

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The Last 24 Hours of Severus Snape