The Serpent and the Lioness

Chapter 68

"I thought it was you, professor."

Severus raised his head slowly, his dark eyes piercing straight through the healer who had come into the room. He didn't recognize him, but it was clear the man recognized him. It took Severus only a second to pull the memory from his open mind and when he did, he couldn't help but frown deeper.

"Where is she?"

"They've just finished now, they'll be bringing her in shortly." The healer sat down his peace offering on the table beside the chair Snape had taken to. "Though you might want to put your face back on before they do."

"The baby?"

"Safe, inside the orb, your new house elf will be along with it soon enough."

Severus lowered his eyes down to the coffee that had been brought. His body finally releasing the tension that had built up over the past three hours. "When can I take her home?"

"Three days."

Severus said nothing more, his jaw silently working. The healer threw him an understanding glance before setting the file he had come with into the holder beside the door. He lingered for a long moment recalling the last time he had seen the man before him. Bleeding out on his operating table, seconds from true death. It was hard to believe that the strong man who had survived such an attack could possibly look as broken as he did now.

"For what it's worth...I think you made the right call..." When Snape didn't react to his words he lowered his head down. "They should be here in fifteen minutes." With nothing more to say, the healer turned away and back through the door from whence he came.

Severus flinched marginally as the latch clicked into place and lazily raised his wand to his face placing his glamour back on. His hand fell down back to his side along the arm in the chair. His gaze turning to watch the steam slowly curl into the air from the cup of coffee that had been given to him. An internal battle raging inside himself threatening all that he had come to be.

oOo

Hermione was still as death, her skin only marginally darker than the bedsheets that kept her warm. Severus had barely managed the strength to come by her side. The healers had left now, leaving only the potion drip behind. The dark purple liquid flowing down an invisible tube into the left side of her collar bone, directly into her heart.

His hands hovered over her arms that were tucked neatly at her sides. His eyes turning down over her softly swollen stomach, the mark of their child, gone. His chest hurt with something so foreign, so inexplicable that he found himself running through every possible word he knew to try and give it a name. Yet, despite his extensive vocabulary, he found himself at a loss on how to define his current state.

It was like being in a dream that felt so real but so detached. Like fighting for air when one was drowning but came to find that their dream state no longer needed oxygen to survive. The feeling of out lasting something that shouldn't have been possible.

Severus lowered his head down, resting it ever just so along her waist. The feeling of cloth ever so lightly brushing against his brow as she breathed unnaturally deep. He had saved them both but at what true cost? He had been in this position before, he had known what would happen when he stepped beyond the boundaries of a woman he loved. He knew, all too well, the price of his cowardice. Now, it was time to pay the price for his bravery.