To Save A Serpent

“No! No!” she cried, thrashing, and she felt herself tangled up in something, restricting her, and she couldn’t breathe. “No!”

“Shh,” the gentle whisper reached her ear and then there was a cool cloth against her forehead. Hermione’s eyes shot open and she nearly shot straight up but there was another hand on her shoulder easing her back onto a bed. “It’s alright, calm yourself down,” the voice whispered.

Hermione panted, gasping for air. “But I was— and he—” she nearly growled in frustration. “And then Remus— what the hell is going on?” she demanded, eyes focusing on Poppy Pomphrey, the Hogwarts school Mediwitch.

She sighed. “You poor dear,” she shook her head. “You’re dealing with this whole grief thing a lot worse than anyone expected.”

“Don’t talk to me about how I’m coping, just tell me what the bloody hell is going on?”

“Perhaps it best if I explain things?” The voice of Remus Lupin, who she now noticed was sitting in a chair, along with several others, rose and walked toward her.

“But you’re— or at least you were…”

He sighed. “Hermione, this is very difficult, I know.” He began and then pulled the chair over to the side of her bed. “You passed out in my arms when I came down to the dungeons to check on you. Molly was worried— let me back up a moment.” he ran a hand through his salt and pepper mane. “When you and Harry and well everyone saw Tonks and I dead on the floor beside Mr. Creevy, who unfortunately is no longer with us, we had no choice but to appear so. Despite the Dark Lord having fallen, Fenrir had managed to escape. Had he thought we were still alive he would have went straight for Ted and Tonk’s mother, but in thinking that we were already dead, he figured he didn’t have to rush…giving the remaining aurors and Order members time to capture him, which they did so late last night.”

Hermione just stared at him with a look of bewilderment on his face. “I still can’t explain Fred, it just sort of— but no one’s complaining. When Tonks and I received word that Fenrir was no longer an issue we apparated straight away to the Burrow since laying there on the floor we had overheard the plans. Molly was worried about you and asked would I come to check on you and so I did. Just before I knocked on the door you stumbled through it and were babbling, sobbing, and then you passed out. I brought you here and Poppy said you had the highest fever she’s ever had to treat, and then you were restless with nightmares, screaming and tossing and turning about…”

She was silent. And then she blinked. “Where is Severus?”

Remus closed his eyes. “Hermione, he’s dead.”

“I know that,” she snapped but then bit her lip. “I mean, why haven’t they found his body? What happened to his body? Harry had seen it with his own two eyes, in the shack, they brought it back to Hogwarts and now it’s just gone? I don’t understand…”

It was at that moment that Minerva McGonagall stepped forward from the group of onlookers and placed her hand on Hermione’s shoulder. “Hermione,” she drew in a trembling breath, hazel eyes quivering with tears. “I don’t wish to upset you, but we fear that it may have been re-re— oh!” she sobbed. “Remus, I can’t.”

The wolf nodded and turned a sympathetic gaze to Minerva before hugging the older woman.

“That he may have been re- what?” Hermione demanded.

“That’s enough for today,” said Poppy. “Everyone out, except you, Remus.” The others did not have to be told twice, and once on their feet they were out the door before Hermione could demand anything more of them. “You’d better make this quick, Remus, the girl needs her rest.” Poppy warned.

He nodded to the mediwitch and then took his seat in the chair beside her once more, arms folding tentatively over his chest. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for what I’ve done, but in my rush to bring you hear, so as to further help Poppy understand what it was that was spiking your fever, I probed your mind a bit, and some of the things I saw…” he trailed off. “No matter those, what did concern me was your images of him in the shack, once you’d moved him to the bed, and then when Harry found him.”

Hermione turned scarlet and then all the color in her face drained. “You saw me— you saw what I…” and she nearly fainted.

“That’s not the important part,” he whispered. “Minerva thinks it’s possible that his soul has been reclaimed, the body containing enough energy to perform one final task or one final act, and that is why she thinks we can’t find his body because his body is waiting to be able to perform that one final task, supposedly involving you, before he disappears completely.”

“But how— I mean— that just doesn’t make any sense!” she sobbed. Hermione felt like she had fallen into a blender and that someone had pushed liquefy and just not stopped.

“Hermione, I know this is difficult to grasp, and your fever is still fairly high, though Poppy assures me that it should break within the hour, but please listen very carefully…” he paused. “Perhaps this would be better if we did this with a pensieve?”

She hesitated, unsure if she really wanted everything that was happening to be explained via that stone basin, but finally after a few moments thought she nodded her head. He was quick to perform the charm, extracting several memories from her mind, pulling them forth into a basin that she hadn’t even noticed until he’d started dumping memories into them.

A moment later had them both leaning over it and tumbling into the swirling silver and blue. Hermione felt sick, but then things cleared, and she could clearly see herself with Ron and Harry, watching the memories pour from Snape as he bled out on the floor, and then her pouring the vial of phoenix tears onto his wounds. The scene flashed and she was sneaking back to his body, weeping over it after having cleaned him up and moved him to the bed.

She felt as if she was choking, watching herself mutter the spell and then mount him like a horse, and again she felt a wave of nausea sweep over her. She’d fallen asleep and when she woke he was gone. The scene faded and flashed to the confrontation with Harry. On the scene played, her in his chambers, then her storming into the Great Hall for the funeral service and then back to see Fred, and then back to his chambers, until finally Hermione found herself back in the hospital bed.

“That didn’t clear anything up…” she muttered.

Remus looked tired. He’d always looked tired but the war had done a number on him, and even more so now. “I know, Hermione, but the part when you…when…the spell, it— that is to say…something happened, it sparked some sort of energy into his otherwise lifeless body.”

“So he’s alive?”

“Technically I suppose you could say that…”

She bolted up from the bed, head swimming. “I have to find him.”

“Hermione, lay back down and rest, you aren’t well enough for that.” His hands were gentle as he tried to keep her in the bed.

“No! He’s alive! I have to find him! I have to tell him!”

“Hermione!” he shouted but she’d somehow managed to untangle herself from the sheets and various other trappings that Poppy used on a regular basis to keep her patients bound to the bed. “Hermione! You don’t understand! He’s not really alive!”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said, but please, just listen to me.” He was glad that she had slowed up at the door and he came to her, putting an arm around her. “Listen, that spell, that magical scroll, it wasn’t designed to wake the dead, and he knew it. It’s designed to invoke just enough life force into the person to complete one final task, the one thing that they have to do before they can move on in peace. And he knew that Hermione, it was selfish of him to tell you that it would do anything…” but his voice trailed off. “He never told you what it did…did he?”

She shook her head. “He was reluctant to give it to me at all,” and a fresh round of tears came to her eyes. Remus sighed and wrapped both arms around her. “So he’s really gone…I can’t—” she sobbed.

“Shh, Hermione, there, there, now, listen. I don’t know what Severus intends to do with that last ounce of energy you gave him, but he must have thought it highly important or else he never would have given you that scroll…” Pulling back from the young witch he gazed deep into her eyes. “I suggest you go and clean yourself up, you look frightful…I’ll take care of Poppy. And then go to him.”

“But how will I—”

“Hermione, I’m not him. I don’t know. But I’m going to take a fair guess and say that because this final business of his is most likely pertaining to you, since none of us have seen his walking corpse…you should go to the place that’s most special to the two of you, someplace where something very important happened.”

With her heart sinking, Hermione left the hospital wing with Remus Lupin taking the slack for letting her go. She hadn’t saved him. And everything that the other wizard had said seemed to be babbling nonsense. Nothing made sense to her and all she could feel was her head swimming, and her eyes watery, her heart broken. She needed the Hogwarts library.