To Save A Serpent

A/N: I know that the last chapter was very confusing, and I apologize for the delay in further advancing this story. I do hope this chapter clears things up, think of it like that chapter near the end of Deathly Hallows, King’s Cross. Hopefully that will shine some sort of clarity, with the addition of this next chapter. Thank you for those who have reviewed. I do appreciate the feedback. Reviews galore, please give me some more.


“He’s gone.” She said her voice hollow. “He’s really gone this time.” Hermione sat on the edge of the bed in the hospital wing. Poppy had been ran out, everyone that could fit, squeezing person to person, inside the room, gazing her, touching her arm if they could, Harry, Ginny, Remus, and Minerva the closest, Ginny on her knees behind the girl. When she’d risen from the coffin Molly Weasley had fainted, being the first to see it. “And I’m pregnant,” she added.

No one said anything, but the hands kept stroking her arms and shoulders, fingers in her hair. Ginny finally leaned over her shoulder, wrapping her arms around her best friend. “Don’t ever make me cry like that again.” She laughed, and Hermione turned her head over her shoulder, kissing the girl on the cheek.

“Hermione,” Harry said, sitting on the edge beside her as much as she would allow. “Did you say—”

“Yes.” She said quietly. “He made me come back for it.” It was disturbing to hear the girl speak as if she’d wanted to choose the land of the dead over the land of the living, but most understood that she was in shock. It took over an hour to get everyone out of her room, even Ginny and Harry finally left with Minerva, leaving only Remus behind. “You can go, I won’t off myself,” she said.

He chuckled slightly, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. “You know, Tonks was the first to find you…” he said softly, gazing at her, trying to keep the color from his cheeks. “She locked me out of the room until she’d made you decent…”

“Fantastic,” Hermione rolled her eyes. “Did she get a good look at him?”

He tried not to chuckle. “She said you were practically impossible to pull apart from one another, like there was some sort of energy binding your lifeless, naked bodies together…”

“Strange,” she said and laid back on the bed, hand on her stomach. “I’m going to be a mother…”

“I’m very happy for you.”

“Do you think that’s what he wanted?” she asked, turning her eyes to him.

“Hermione, Severus was a very secretive man. You knew him better than any of us, so it would seem, so I have no way of knowing if that’s what he wanted…but, from what I saw in the pensieve…”

“Gods, how many people have seen what’s in that thing?” she flushed and closed her eyes. A moment passed and she sighed. “I shouldn’t be ashamed. I loved him. And he can’t be ridiculed now, he’s safe, he’s at rest.”

“I would be willing to risk a yes, Hermione. Yes he wanted you to share with him a child between you.” A silent tear trickled down her eyes and he brushed it away. “I know it’s going to be rough, Hermione.”

“I can’t raise this baby by myself…” she sounded so far away.

“You won’t be doing it by yourself,” the voice of Severus seemed to whisper.

She sat bolt up in the bed, eyes frantically searching the room. Remus’ expression grew even more worried. “Hermione?”

“Did you hear it? Did you— you didn’t—” she gasped in frustration. “Oh!”

The deep voice chuckled, and then whispered again. “She’s going to be a beautiful girl…” and then his voice faded away completely.

“Tell me you heard that,” her eyes turned pleading to him.

“No, Hermione, I didn’t.” he said, and she sighed. “Was it him?”

Nodding slowly she shifted back into the bed, laying down gazing up at the ceiling. “He said I…I won’t be alone, and it’s a girl.”

Remus’ eyes went wide, “He said that?” Again she nodded. “Amazing, whoever thought that Severus was a prophet,” he tried to tease, succeeding in cracking a small smile from the witch. “He’s right you know.”

“Hmm?”

“You won’t be alone. If you think for a moment that Harry or Ginny would abandon you, Gods, and Molly will spoil the girl rotten, if it is a girl… and there’s always me and Tonks, plus your girl will be just young enough to find a playmate in Teddy.”

“I suppose you are right,” she said and curled slowly onto her side. “I just—”

“What?”

“I feel like all of this was for nothing.”

“Hermione, you have to realize that with all your efforts you saved him.”

“Yeah if saved is Webster’s new definition of dead.” Remus looked confused for a moment. “Muggle dictionary,” she added and he nodded.

“I don’t think you quite realize what you’ve done for him, Hermione.”

“Sent him to an early grave so that he can never know his daughter?”

“Dear God, I think he’s embodied you…” Remus shook his head. “That sarcastic tongue, it’s like…” and he shuddered. “Guess the two of you spent far too much time together.” Hermione flushed. “In all seriousness, Hermione, from listening to you describe what happened in that semi-dead state, in that crossed over whiteness, you’ve truly saved him. You let him live again, for however brief a time you were in his love, and most importantly you showed him how to love again.”

She pursed her lips to protest, and then began to weep, her lips falling into a broken smile. “I did, I saved him…I just never thought that in saving him, I’d have to lose him too.” Pulling herself upright, she wrapped her arms around her chest, and cried for a moment more before gazing up to Remus. “Tell me I did the right thing.”

He didn’t hesitate, fully believing what he was saying. “You did the right thing, Hermione. All is well.”