Severus Snape: OneShots

Sleeping Darkly

ermione stumbled out of the castle entrance closest to the Great Hall and into the dawning daylight. After the darkness of the night and the flashes of battle, the sun warm on her face was a welcome feeling. A feeling she did not have time to indulge in or even really enjoy. Skittering down the stairs and over the piles of rock and debris, Hermione set off at the fastest run she could muster after such an exhausting night. She had only thing on her mind...Professor Snape.

Passing the bodies of fallen members of the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters alike, all Hermione could think was how much of a waste all this carnage really was. All this death and destruction for a wizard who had lost his way and his mind a long time ago seemed utterly pointless. Even with the muggle history to show her that prejudice and hate could lead to vast destruction, she still had a hard time wrapping her mind around someone supposedly as brilliant as Tom Riddle would buy into and then propagate such a ridiculous and wasteful mind set. It only proved to her more and more that hate really did bring about blindness and utter stupidity.

Racing out of the court yard, Hermione turned and headed down the hill and across the simmering green grass with her lungs heaving and her heart pounding. Her legs ached from all the fighting and running she had already done all night long and this sprint against time only pulled at her sore muscles until she felt like every inch of her body was lying in a dull fire and all she could think about was the moment she would be allowed to collapse and sleep.

Taking the stairs down the side of the mountain two at a time, her hand gripping the wall firmly to keep from tripping and rolling to her death, she reached the Black Lake and skirted around the edge until she came to the building she had been racing for the entire time...the boathouse. What felt like only a few short minutes has passed since she, Harry, and Ron had been hiding outside the windows as Tom Riddle has ruthlessly attacked and killed what he thought was one of his loyal subjects for the mastery of a wand that was never meant to be his. Keeping her eyes on the shadows of the two most powerful wizards living at the time, Hermione had had to bite into the arm of her jumper to keep from crying out when the Professor was thrown to the wall and then viciously attacked by that thrice damned snake.

Even knowing or believing at the time that he had betrayed them, Hermione could not conceive of her strong and formidable potions Professor ever being taken down by anyone or anything. Up until he had killed Dumbledore and even some nights beyond, Hermione had believed that Professor Snape had always been on their side. Dumbledore had told them so many times that he trusted Severus and with that knowing gleam in his eye, Hermione always felt that was a loaded statement none of them would ever understand...not until now.

Using her self-taught legilimency on Harry, Hermione had seen the memories as he had and pieced the same conclusion together. Professor Snape had not always been on the light side but from the moment Tom Riddle had killed the only woman he ever loved, the supposedly brilliant Dark Lord had lost the loyalty of a great wizard. Now Hermione was going to do all she could to return that love and loyalty by saving his life. No one had really thought about it but Professor Snape was a brilliant potion's master and just plain brilliant. There was no way in her mind he had not planned on being attacked by Riddle and/or that damn snake. As long as it was not an Avada, Hermione believed he would have been ready for all possibilities. Just because they thought they saw him die did not mean he was dead just yet. And so she ran, as fast as her legs would let her and then a little more to try to reach him before it really was too late.

Having arrived at the entrance to the boat house in record time and with Mad Eye's constant vigilance ringing in her head, Hermione entered quietly with her wand at the ready to defend herself and her Professor if need be.

Hermione found the contrast between the beauty of her surroundings and what she knew to have happened here was bone chilling. The water lapped peacefully against the sunken boats the first years would normally ride in and the side of the docking area. The sound was something Hermione had always associated with breezy spring days lazing along a river bank. Now the sound made her think of sailors sinking below the waves as their boat drifted to the sea floor in defeat. The sun shone so very bright through the windows and illuminated the old wood and the beautiful symmetry of the structure, reflecting off the water and causing a perfect replica of the boat house to appear upside down on the surface like it was a glass mirror. Her footsteps echoed in the silent stillness until she came to an abrupt stop at the pool of tacky looking blood that had flowed and then congealed several feet from her Professor's body.