The Power of Pain

Chapter 9

Severus held her through her screams, his heart pulling painfully on his insides. Not just from the agony behind her screams but also from the fissures in his soul. His body was so exhausted, as if he himself had just run through the that very day all over again. He didn't want to move but he needed to. He didn't trust himself to stand but he knew he couldn't stay leaned over her bed.

He could feel the curses that had struck her faintly on his own skin. They burned beneath, he could only hesitate to wonder what they had felt like first hand. He tried to force his brain to analyze their residual damage, perhaps through the pain he felt by proxy he could identify just what had struck her down so efficiently. He clenched his teeth as her screams clouded his senses. He could do nothing more than hold her tightly to him in that moment.

As her screams had started to dwindle to soft whimpers, his headache came back with unrivaled force. His entire body ached, he had felt what she had felt that day and so much more. He lived through her memories. His mind trying to organize them with his own, paralleling them the best it could.

It was exceedingly strenuous. Severus dared a few cleansing breaths as he gently released her back into the soft folds of her bed. His eye lids had begun to droop and he knew he'd never make it to his own bed. He glanced at her now passive face, all indication of the torture she'd undergone completely wiped away. He knew he shouldn't, he knew better. He did, truly— but his prudence was banging on a deaf man's door at this point; and so, Severus Snape, former Headmaster and Potions Professor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry climbed into the bed beside a former student.

The bed was so soft under his aching muscles. It wasn't a large bed by any standard and his frame all but took up most of the space. He had gently shift Hermione to lay on her side facing him, her arms curled up to her chest. The stones on her head were swirling softly between white and yellow again as he stretched himself over top the covers. It was the least he could do, he surmised, keeping their bodies from touching too intimately. It was a compromise between his fatigue and prudence.

His arms gently held her to him keeping her resting on her side as she didn't have the ability to keep herself up that way on her own. His eyes closed as he rested his head on the pillow, her head tucked under his chin. The smell of her hair wafted under his nose, and though he'd used his own products on it, it still held it's own uniqueness. It took him mere seconds to pass from the waking to the resting world. His arm resting in the curve of her back, his other arm under his head beneath the pillow.

oOOo

Morning came swiftly, its boldness spilling into the room filling it with a golden light. Though neither occupant so much as stirred. Severus' head had turned down, his hair shielding his eyes, his arm having come up to rest between Hermione's shoulder blades, her face hidden under his arm. It was a peace neither one of them had experienced in a long time. A sense of being safe, truly safe.

oOo

Minerva hadn't meant to come unannounced, she had meant to wait for a reply to the two way parchment. However, it had been hours since she first contacted Severus. She had done so directly after her none too cordial visit from Mr. Potter. Though she had assured the young man, and consoled his demons in the intervening time. She had become secretly worried, that perhaps this task had been just a bit more than Severus could handle.

Now she stood in the doorway, having found her way up the stairs; and gazed upon the sight before her. It was something she never thought she would ever see. Such a strong and independent man, a proud and confident man, able bodied and so alone; curled against a woman so much his junior, holding her like a dark angelic protector, so tightly to his chest.