Loving Lily: A Snily Story

Chapter 98 - A Boy Who was Loved

Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Harriet, Tom, and Anuman landed roughly back in their camp a few seconds later.

Hermione and Ron gasped as three people instead of two fell from the sky after the loud pop rang out to announce their hasty arrival.

Tom quickly staggered back onto his feet, but Harriet could only crawl over to Anuman, sick with grief and dazed by shock.

Her scaley friend had vanished.

Finally, after years of friendship and innumerable hours of glad company spent together, Harriet saw Anuman for who and what he really was.

"Anuman.......?" She asked as she furrowed her brow, "You're an......an Animagus?"

His breath came in shallow, shaking gulps as he managed to give her the slightest of nods.

Harriet's emerald eyes scanned over him from his black hair, to the handsome features of his tanned face, all the way down to Nagini's long fang that protruded from his chest.

Her green eyes widened as a quiet groan left his lips while his life's blood flowed onto the grass.

"HERMIONE!" Harriet screeched.

She instinctively clasped a hand over the wound in a vain attempt to stem the bleeding, but Anuman only groaned louder as the pressure from her hand worsened his suffering.

Ron and Hermione raced over, their faces gaunt with bewilderment.

"Anuman!" Harriet shouted as she looked at Hermione with her eyes full of horror, "H-He's an Animagus! He's-He's hurt! Please.....Please! Do something! Help him!"

The warm color in Anuman's face had already started to fade as the shadowy hand of death slowly began to caress his soul from his body.

"I......." Hermione gasped while sympathetic tears welled in her amber eyes, "Harriet, there's nothing I can do. There's not enough time!"

"There is!" Harriet cried in defiant insistence. She turned from them to Tom for help as she called, "TOM!.....PLEASE!......HELP HIM!"

"The poison we could manage but the wound has been open for too long, my darling." Tom frowned, "I have no Blood-Replenishing Potion nor suture spells in my possession or skill set. I'm afraid that for once I find myself completely useless."

".........No." Harriet whispered as tears of bitter defeat gathered in her eyes.

Desperate for a way to avoid the inevitable outcome, she turned back to Anuman, with her hand still over his bleeding chest as she pleaded, "Anuman, hold on! Hold on, alright? I'll....I'll take you to St. Mungo's! To the hospital! They'll know what to do there, they'll-"

Hermione raised a hand to gently weep into the excess fabric of her sweater's sleeve.

"Harriet Snape......" Anuman whispered while his eyes threatened to close, "I......I need you to know......I need....."

"WHAT?" Harriet cried as she bent down and took Anuman into her arms, "W-What do I need to know?!"

"Everything I've done.......has been for you." Anuman said as a soft smile graced his dry lips, in bitter spite against his own pain.

Harriet gasped as her emerald eyes widened.

"This war.......is too great." Anuman whispered, "I would have......taken you.....to my home....and given you one there, just as you did.......for me."