Left Behind 3: Curses

A Wand Returned

Hello Beautiful Humans. Its time to get started. I hope you enjoy the final leg of Draco and Hermione's battle and journey towards love.

-

"Before Draco Dies."

The words kept echoing inside Hermione's head over and over again.

"You're wrong," Hermione shook her head.

Because he had to be wrong.

Draco was not allowed to die.

"I wish I were," Snape said in a low calm voice. "It is deatheater's bane, of that I am sure as much as I am sure that it is a deathsentance of a curse."

"You have to be wrong!" Hermione insisted. "Ron Wouldn't do that."

"What Mr. Weasley would and would not do, is evidenced by the curse itself. Though how he came across what was supposed to be obliviated knowledge is still a matter of mystery."

"There has to be some way...some cure for it though," Hermione insisted.

Snape looked at Hermione and the professor who had never been kind to her had sympathy in his voice.

"There is no cure for this curse Hermione, not for someone who has the dark mark," Explained Snape "If a normal witch or wizard were infected they would have nothing more than a small entry wound for a day or so before healing up. However," Snape inhaled. "Mr. Malfoy is a deatheater and he bears the dark mark."

"But he isn't evil!"

"The curse does not care if you are good or evil, only if you are marked."

"He didn't want the mark in the first place!" Hermione felt her voice rise and Snape flicked his wand around the cellar quickly creating a barrier for sound.

Hermione looked at him pleadingly.

"Professor there has to be a way, there has to be something that can be done. THERE HAS TO BE!"

Snape shook his head, having already said all he could.

In the silence of his answer Hermione broke.

Her knees gave out from beneath her and she collapsed onto the floor sobbing.

-

Snape shifted awkwardly, never having been one who knew what to do when others were upset. Tears made him uncomfortable, even when they were his own.

After Lilly died he had wept.

He had held her in his arms and wept.

And for many nights after he had dreamed of that horrible night...the worst night of his existence and awoken with a tightness in his chest and a dampness on his cheek.

"After all this time?" Dumbledore had had the gall to ask.

There was only one answer for Snape:

"Always"

He would always love Lilly. 

Snape recognized that for Draco Hermione had become his Lilly.

Could Hermione possibly love Draco in the way that Snape had always wished Lilly would?

She needed to leave.

If there was a way to go back in time and save Lilly Snape would do it-no matter the cost. Draco was dying and in its own way it was a gift because it gave him the chance to save Hermione.

To set her free.

"I believe this is yours," Snape reached into his robe and retrieved the wand that he had found sticking out from between the feathers of her pallet in Draco's room. He had been careful to conceal it quickly so that no one would suspect that Draco had allowed her a wand during her captivity.