Dusk and Her Embrace

I do not own Harry Potter characters, they are the property of JK Rowling

*all characters are of age*

I was bored so I wrote another chapter... R/R please.. Thank You, and now here we go:


Dumbledore helped Severus out of bed. Severus felt weak, practically atrophied, like he hadn’t used his muscles forever. “ How long have I been asleep?”
“ About a week.”
“ Who’s taught my classes?”
“ Oh I was quite the potions master in my time,” Dumbledore chuckled. “ Besides Severus when you plan your lessons out several weeks in advance, probably anyone could teach your classes.” He turned towards Severus with a serious look in his face. “ I must warn you, Severus, she doesn’t look good.” He led Severus to another curtained off section of the hospital wing and led him inside…
Severus couldn’t have prepared himself for what he was looking at… She looked like a mannequin. Her skin was a pasty pale color, practically the color of porcelain, but a little lighter. Her brown eyes were open but unfocused and glassy. Her hair was spread out about her in limp waves. The color had drained from her lips, which were almost as white as the girl’s skin. She looked… unreal… a doll, a mannequin… her face was devoid of any emotion. “ How awful,” he found himself saying… He didn’t like the know-it-all, but she didn’t deserve a fate like this. “ Will she ever come out of this?”
“ Only love can break down the wall, Severus,” Dumbledore stated. “ I’d like you to stay here and try talking to her.”
“ But you said only love can save her, headmaster, I can assure you the girl has nothing but hatred for me running through her veins… if anything I’ll drag her down deeper into her state… I think it better if Harry and Ron sat by her instead.”
“ If she hated you, Severus, then why would she save you?” Severus was silent. He couldn’t answer that question, he didn’t know himself… he didn’t know why anybody would risk their own life to save him.
“ I don’t know, headmaster…” he sputtered out. “ Perhaps she wasn’t thinking rationally…”
“ On the contrary, Severus, I find Miss Granger one of those more rational individuals I have ever met.”
“ Why do you want me to talk to her, headmaster? What can me talking to her, do to help her?”
“ You were both hit by the same spell so perhaps that may have contrived a connection between you two… It’s worth a try, Severus. What do you have to lose?”
My dignity… thought Severus, but he said nothing. Finally he turned and looked the headmaster in the eye… “ Fine, I will try, headmaster, but don’t expect a miracle…”
“ Why not? Miracles do happen…” and with that, he was gone, and Severus was left alone.

He felt uncomfortable and vulnerable as he was standing in a curtained off area with Hermione… He felt like she could see right through him, even though she was unconscious. He brought himself over to her bedside and sat on one of squishy purple armchairs, which the headmaster had conjured and looked at the girl.
He brought a quick hand to her forehead and felt her skin… cold as ice… “ You stupid girl… why would you risk your life for someone like me?” he sighed. “ Someone who’s been nothing but cruel to you since the day you stepped through the doors of the great hall… I don’t understand it…” Severus looked up; he felt stupid. She probably couldn’t even hear him… This was just a waste of his time… “ Maybe I was just meant to have died then and there… maybe my life was meant to come to an end then. But no… thanks to you… I don’t know… I guess I’m trying to thank you, Hermione, I don’t think I wanted to die… maybe I was meant to die at that point, but thanks to you I feel like I’ve been given another chance… I’m sorry I’ve always been so cruel to you… you’re just a know-it-all, maybe I’m just a little angry that my own students aren’t as driven as you… a mudblood, though when I say that I don’t mean it in a derogatory way… I’m rambling… I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore….”
A head popped in the curtain, Snape winced thinking maybe it was the Potter boy or his friend Ron. But it was Madame Pomfrey… “ What are you doing to my patient, Severus?” she asked.
“ The headmaster asked me to try to talk to her, he thought maybe since we’ve been through the same thing that perhaps we formed some sort of connection that may be able to help her break through this.”
“ I see,” Madame Pomfrey said, “ Just don’t over exhaust yourself, Severus, you also have been through a great ordeal.” She turned around and left, closing the curtain behind her.
“ I owe you my life, Miss Granger, and I promise you one day I will find a way to make it up to you.” He stared at her for few minutes, at her emotionless face, he wondered if she felt lost… lost in the darkness somewhere, wondering if she’d ever find the light back to them… to him… “ I will do anything in my power to help you get out of this, Hermione…”
When he was younger he had had a babysitter who had an affinity for old muggle fairy tales. He remembered one tale about a beautiful girl named Snow White whose evil stepmother had given her a poisoned apple and it had put her in an enchanted sleep until a prince came to wake her up with a kiss… That was what Hermione reminded him off, Snow White sleeping and waiting for her prince to come, only Severus sure as hell didn’t think of himself as her prince… he wasn’t sure if he could wake her up from her enchanted sleep…
“ I just don’t understand why you did what you did, Hermione…”

“Neither do we, Professor Snape.” Severus turned and found himself facing that dastardly duo, Potter and Weasley.
“ Before she ran out and blocked you from the spells, she said something, Professor Snape,” Weasley said, “ She said ‘good or bad he’s still a person’ and that’s why she ran out to save you because she thought you were no different then any of us…. Now if you wouldn’t mind, Professor, we’d really like some alone time with our friend.”
Severus was speechless as he walked away.