Breeding Lilacs out of Dead Land.

A/N


First of all, I\'d like to apologise for the delay: I had a Passover to celebrate, clogged inbox to unclog, some real-life tasks to attend to, etc. Aside from that, I was also making some changes in BL- all of them meant to undo the moral ambiguity of Snape\'s character. One main change can be found on chapter 3: The River is a Strong, Brown God, in Hermione\'s reaction to Dumbledore\'s work proposition. The second, and more important change, was made in chapter 13: Man Row, Woman Must Sail. Those changes were made after a lot of thinking, once I came to acknowledge the fact that even though I wished to provide my readers with nothing but what I view as possible reality, I have never meant for Snape\'s morality to be foggy or unclear.

Enormous thank you to the wonderful Bambu, who beta read those additions.

I\'d also like to apologies to those of you who were put off by the severed finger on the last chapter. My intention was and is not to receive my readers\' attention by flooding them with disturbing images, but merely, to describe a situation in the most realistic way I can. War is not nice. Nor it is pretty or photogenic. I live in a war torn country, I should know.

Until twenty and something years ago, fanatic terrorist used to sneak into houses in the city next to the place where I live, and butcher children and parents in their sleep. This is war. War is running to the shelter every few months or so, sometimes every night, when you hear the siren breaking. War is living by the siren. War is climbing up the buss, never knowing if you\'d reach your destination. War is two soldiers making the wrong turn, only to be lynched by a crazy, blood lusted mob. War is a buss full of school-children, exploding in the middle of the street, with not one amputated finger of eight-year-old child, but many, smashed against the road. War is my mother telling me, that while she carried me, her greatest wish was to have a girl. A boy will be recruited to the army at eighteen and a half, and might be, someday, sent to the battle. And die. War is to hold on to the people you love and remind yourself, in any way that you know, that you are alive. Yes, people make love in the middle of war. So do my Snape and Hermione.

As to pursuing my religious beliefs through the last chapter: seeing I am an atheist, I can hardly see how it can be said. I\'ll say one thing concerning my lack of belief, and I hope that would be enough to shut this argument down: my and my family\'s relationship with God, ended almost sixty years ago, when he sent my entire grandparents\' family on my mother\'s side to die in the gas chambers. We\'re not speaking to each other ever since. I don\'t think we ever will. I highly respect everybody who do believe in God, and think everyone has the right to stick to every kind of belief or religious ritual they see fit. Amen.

And now, on to chapter 24.

Chapter 24 – The River is Within Us, the Sea is All About Us.


The sun was slowly pouring lemony light into the pre-dawn sky, mixing drinks of night and early morning into a beautiful concoction of blue, purple, pink, orange and gold. Some of this clear, bright liquid, leaked down Hermione\'s bedroom window, staining the bedcovers, trailing along quilt coated body; along Severus\'s recumbent, sleeping form.

Every word of any importance had already been said. He made love to her. She made love to him, so may other times before. And inside her, a new life was putting down tiny roots into her womb.

A man doesn\'t have time in his life to have time for everything.

Lost in thoughts, Hermione almost didn\'t notice that for the first time, Severus had fallen asleep before her. She watched him sleep for a while, before she fell asleep herself, and was hardly surprised to have nausea dragging her out of bed, little before dawn. Severus was still sleeping when she came back from the toilet. A brief look at the early morning sky told Hermione the hour was between five to six in the morning. Ribbons of light crept to stain the darkness of the sky, in what was a beautiful, colourful prelude to a day of acid green and blood red.

The final battle. Almost against her wish, Hermione\'s body summoned the sense of utter dirtyness, of filth and insanity, the taste of spite and blood and seminal fluids. Of men\'s – whom she didn\'t knew – semen, dripping from between her legs, mixing with her own blood; of the inhuman, or perhaps utterly human, knowledge, that nothing clean had remained in this world. And this knowledge was like a huge, swirling pool, in which they were all going to dip their hands up to their forearms, glazed eyed fools hopping into battle like the lemmings rush into the sea.

\"Hermione…?\" She heared Severus\'s worried voice, echoing from behind the green hills, miles and miles aways from her. \"Hermione??\"

\"Oh God…\" She murmured, hardly aware he had jumped off the bed, and with two steps crossed the room and swept her into his arms. \"I think most of them are not even scarred enough to know what kind of scars they are going to have. It\'s kind of…\" she shook her head, sobbing, \"You have to know what war is like to be considered responsible for your decision to take part in it. Or else you can\'t really be considered aware to what you have agreed to.\"

Snape chuckled.

\"Stop that,\" Hermione cried. \"Don\'t you know you\'re hurting me?\"

\"Perhaps you should ask all unborn babies whether they\'d like to be born or not,\" Severus answered acidly. \"That would save all of us much trouble.\"

Hermione wailed, turnind around to bury her face in Severus\'s chest. \"I never wanted to fight any of these stupid battles. I didn\'t want to go after the Philosopher\'s Stone in my first year, didn\'t want to ride to the Department of Mysteries on my fifth year…\" Her nose and eyes were leaking, the salty, lucid fluid, and the thick, gluey liquid mix up, and smear on Snape\'s exposed torso. \"I was always so afraid, even though I let Harry and Ron believe I wasn\'t. And I know I should be fighting on this battle too, but I\'m glad I\'m not, I\'m glad I finally have reason to stay behind –and yet I am afraid. Being there I could verify nothing happened to them – I didn\'t always succeed, but I could do something; I could have told myself afterward that I did everything in my power to assure they would come out of this alive. But I can\'t follow you there; If you\'ll die, I will be wondering for the rest of my life if there was something I could have done to save you. I\'m afraid to lose you. I\'m afraid of the guilt. I\'m afraid of me!\"

\"You are pregnant and therefore over-emotional,\" Severus tried to calm her, in what was supposed to be a reassuring manner. \"It\'s simply your hormones speaking.\"

\"My hormones?\" Hermione screamed. \"My hormones?\"

\"Indeed,\" Severus replied camly, \"which is also the reason I let you spread this disgusting substance all over me.\"

Insulted, Hermione withdrew immediately, and still sobbing, wipped her cheek with the back of her hand.

Snape\'s cold, indifferent mask cracked at once, and he pulled her to his body, rocking Hermione as she cried silently. \"Now, that you have regained your some of your senses,\" he whispered, \"I think it might be a good idea to take a shower. Aside from this, there is something I need to ask of you, and I won\'t insult you by saying that we both have a long day ahead of us.\"

* * *

It was ten past six by the time he dragged her out of the steaming shower in her living quarters and down to his private laboratoy, were Hermione was then seated on the big, over-stuffed couch, forced to watch Severus searching his library with uncharacteristic urgency.

\"Ha! There it is!\" Snape pulled an old, leather-wrapped tome out of a low shelf, dusting it with the end of his sleeve. \"Tell me, Miss Granger, what do you know about the three fates?\"

\"Allowing me to answer a question?\" Suspicious, but eager as ever to demonstrate her knowledge before this man, Hermione recited those facts she knew. \"The three fates: three daughters of Nyx who decided the fates of men and godike.ike. Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured its length, and Atropos cut it. Together, they were known as the Moerae. The three of them share one eye. Why are you asking me that?\"

Severus handed her the open book. Hermione frowned, scanning the yellowing, aging parchment, attached to the spine in a way that indicated the book had been manufactured somwhere in the late Middle-Ages.

\"The Eye of the Fates.\" Hermione read, her mind automatically translating the Latin, in which the book was written, to modren English. \"An exquisite concoction desgined to enable the temporary opening of a window into one\'s fate… …It takes five days for the potion to mature … The vision, praise be the power of the fates, then floats onto the potion\'s surface…\" Hermione blinked, closing the book gently even though she wanted to slam it, then lifted her gaze to meet Severus\'s eyes. \"I should probably thank you for the offer, but I shan\'t. This is cruel. To be able to watch you while doing nothing. I hardly think I\'ll be capable to wish you farewell, much less, follow the fight from afar.\"

Severus leaned to take the book. \"You don\'t seem to pay attention to what you read, Hermione. I have brewed The Eye of the Fates five days ago, on the day Aubrey was kidnapped. Today, two hours and thirty-four minutes from now, you might add to the potion a single lock of Aubrey\'s hair, and watch your daughter. Perhaps for the last time. If- if I come back alive, but she\'s gone…\" Severus closed his eyes. \"My request have been selfish. Please forgive me, Hermione. Perhaps there is still time to find someone else to watch over the child-\"

\"Oh-\" Tears were gathering in her eyes again, and again, Hermione let them spill. \"Oh, well, I-…I didn\'t even think it might be an option. The war, this… damn situation. Of course I\'ll watch the potion. I\'ll watch it for the both of us.\"

* * *

By the time Hogwarts\' famous wards were finally removed, Hermione was drained of tears. Head spinning, she watched the castle\'s lawns – now dotted with hundreds and hundreds of people, all ready to Apparate – and felt too weak and too emotionally spent to wish for anything but to have her loved ones come back to her alive. Coiling her arms around Severus\'s neck, she pulled him to her for what might be their last kiss. Their lips met gently, brushing against each other, with a soft, feather-like touch. This kiss, she thought – memorising it, memorising him – it tasted of morning dew, of ashes, and of soft, pricking rain.

Then Harry Potter, not five feet away from her, raised his hand, ordering his
half of the army to Apparate. Maggie Trimble Macmillan did the same thing on the other side of the lawn. And with the endless echo of hundreds of people Apparating at once, Hermione Granger was left almost by herself in front of Hogwarts castle, craving for the warmth of her man\'s body, where he just stood, barely a second ago.

Her brows throbbing, Hermione forced herself to move, lifting her left leg, then her right leg from the ground. Merlin…! Her limbs, all of them, seemed so heavy. Slowly, she made her way back to the entrance hall, where a considerable guard of Aurors was left to protect the students and rest of the castle inhabitants who were prevented, for whatever reason, from fighting. Looking at her Muggle wristwatch, Hermione noticed the time was right to make the last preparation for The Eye of the Fates.

With that in mind, she prolonged her journey, climbing down and down the spheres into the Slytherin dungeons, where a devilish potion would be waiting for her, demanding her to sit and look her personal boggart in the eye for long, long hours.

It didn\'t take long to make the potion ready, yet the preparation seemed to take forever. At last, Hermione poured the clear, tear-like liquid into a wide, shallow, clay cauldron. Standing motionless above the ancient basin, she lifted the single, moonlight colour hair, held between her thumb and index finger. Releasing it, Hermione watched the hair floating down, until it touched the surface of the liquid. The colourless fluid stirred a little, invisible wind blowing, and waves covered the thin, silvery hair. At that, the potion turned mirror-silver, and reflecting upon its clear surface, Hermione could see her bright, beautiful daughter.

The picture, disturbed only by the soft ripples caused by Hermione\'s breathe, showed Aubrey, leaning against the swollen, pregnant belly of Ginny Weasley. The woman and the child were sitting in a small, musty looking room, that almost made Hermione hear water leaking softly down the wall and pooling at the corners. Aubrey\'s hair, which was brutaly cut, surrounded her pale face in a dirty, unwashed tangle, the way Ginny\'s once beautiful red curls had used to surround her full, freckled face.

Bluish circles were shadowing Aubrey\'s big eyes; closed, as she was apparently asleep. Hermione wondered whether the kicking and beating of the baby inside Ginny\'s womb were relaxing the sleeping Aubrey. Perhaps, she thought, the baby was asleep too. Even inside the lamp-lit dirt, Hermione thought with her heart bleeding, the two formed a beautiful, innocent sight. Even there, they seemed to remind each other, remind the woman watching them, that there was still cleanness in the world.

Suddenly it occurred to Hermione that seeing the place where Ginny and Aubrey were located might have given Harry and Severus some critical information, then her first wave of enthusiasm subsided, when she realised that if this was an option, the whole damn war would have been fought differently. There must have been a way to contradict the potion, make it impossible to use on wider scale or something of the sort. Curious, Hermione reached for the book, flipping through the yellowing pages until she reached her destination. There. The Eye of the Fates. Nothing in the basic formulation design were to indicate any specific difficulties… The potion concocting process was little more complicated than specialist\'s level, and little less complicated than Master\'s level. There were few truly gifted Potions Masters in today\'s Wizarding Worlds, but Hermione was sure there were enough Potions students capable of brewing this specific potion.

On to ingredients, then. Some of them rare: three phoenix tears. Fawkes would have given his to Severus. Some of them illegal- almost thirty drops of unicorn blood. Even so, Hermione noticed nothing out of the ordinary. And then she saw it. One drop of blood, drawn from the aorta of a man, who loves the person whose fate the potion is designed to follow. For all Hermione knew, Severus Snape loved only four people in his entire life. His mother, Aniko Goldstein Snape; his Russian friend Kolya; the man who became his adopted father: Albus Dumbledore; herself, and now – the clearest of evidence lying in front of her – their daughter, Aubrey.

She thought she had no more tears. Well, Hermione shrugged her shoulders; I also used to think a heart can break only once. But then, hers had been broken time and time and time again. And so there were more tears. Feeling too weak to stand, Hermione had attempted to conjure an armchair, ending up with a checkered cushion-seat. She decided it would do. Her hands trembling, Hermione lowered the clay bowl to the floor, and then, sinking to the pouffe, sat to watch over her daughter.

The time passed slowly, seconds and hours pouring into each other in an endless loop of insanity. Aubrey and Ginny had slept, and then woke up; talking so quietly Hermione couldn\'t hear them. Somehow, they seemed to be comforted by each other\'s low, soft voices. By being able to cling and crawl to each other. How foolish, how utterly selfish that she should be jealous of Ginny for being able to give her daughter this little solace. Hermione knew the battle was storming outside. She wondered whether they had knew it as well, whether they had this little hope to hold to, for Ginny to apply like a bandage to their open wounds. Aubrey was up, walking a little, helping Ginny up on her feet, too. Then they were back sitting in their darkened corner. Talking in mute voices. Ginny singing to Aubrey the same lullaby Harry sang to them, only few nights ago, about the witch and the fairies and the loch.

Then this fragile, greyish tableau came to a halt, when all of a sudden the door to the chamber crashed open and Severus burst into the room, a stream of silver sparks hitting him straight in chest and redeeming him useless.

Hermione shrieked, almost knocking over the bowl the ball as she leant forward to look at its trembling surface. Aubrey, she saw, was running to her father\'s twisting body, wailing like a banshee. Seeing Severus in obvious pain through the Cruciatus he was just hit by, there was no way of stopping the girl –although Merlin knew the pregnant Ginny had desperately tried to do so.

The reason for Ginny\'s wild struggle appeared not only five seconds later, depicted by in the intimidating, skeletal figure of no other than Lord Voldemort himself.

\"No!!\" Hermione cried. No sane universe would allow her to see her daughter unprotected, in the same room with that monster, and the man she loved, lying helplessly, writhing with pain, on the floor. Hermione screamed and cried, her hands fisting hopelessly in her hair, tearing off honey-coloured locks, fingers twisted into the worn-out denim of her jeans, into the soft skin of her thighs, until blood began oozing.

\"Severus…\" she heard the soft, reptile hissing of the creature, carefully circling her love and child like calculated, inhumanly clever animal.\"Did you really think you can turn you back on me and live it out? Crucio!\"

Severus\'s eyelids fluttered, his whole body arching with the despicable pain of the curse. Aubrey howled.

Voldemort ruby eyes focused on the little girl. Hermione bleeding heart jumped to her throat. She thought that soon enough she\'d choke on the blood flooding in rivers from her pierced aorta.

\"And who would you be…?\" murmured the monster. \"I remember… a woman of your appearance. It must have been Justin\'s Muggle wife. Foolish woman she was, condemning her son for joining me. Perhaps if it wasn\'t for her, I\'d still have my loyal servant.\"

Aubrey took a deep breathe.

\"Shut up!\" Hermione screamed, on the other side of the tear-like liquid. \"Shut-up, Aubrey! There is no talking back to Lord Voldemort! Shut up and go back to Ginny!\"

For a moment, Hermione thought that this is what being God must feel like- watching your children from above, bound to allow them make their mistakes, unable to interfere. But what was the point in being God, then? If you couldn\'t prevent your children from digging their own graves? Or perhaps the right question was what kind of God were you, digging your children\'s graves by allowing monsters like Voldemort to roam on the face of the earth?

Being no God, and so, bound to for her share of foolishness in trying to achieve the impossible, Hermione simply kept on crying. \"Shut up!\" she pleaded with her unhearing daughter, \"don\'t speak up to him, Aubrey! Just shut up!\"

But Aubrey was deaf to her, and so, the child had answered Lord Voldemort. \"Hello. My name is Aubrey Victoria Granger,\" the chilld tld the abominable creature in a shaking voice. \"You killed my father. Prepare to die!\" At that, with the determination and rage of a wounded animal, the girl did the one thing no one had expected her to do- throwing herself to the side, she picked up a long, cylindrical piece of ebony wood Hermione had recognised as Severus\'s wand, and pointing it at Voldemort shouted at the top of her lungs: \"Wingardium Leviosa!\"

God only knew whether it was the was the wand-work, the charm, or perhaps the natural magic every underage wizard naturally have shimmering in their bones, but at Aubrey\'s incantation, the darkest wizard of the age, was lifted four feet above the ground, his head crashed in the ceiling, than levitated and knocked against the left wall, by the determined Aubrey.

\"By Salazar Slytherin himself--!\" blood trickling down his nose, Voldemort swore frantically. Still racing in the air, the creature had adjusted his wand, and aiming to Aubrey, cast a deadly Cruciatus.

Hermione, Ginny, and Aubrey all shrieked at the same time, as the silvery spray of the curse enveloped the child in an iron cage of searing pain. Even Severus\'s body, lying unconscious on the floor, seemed to arch with the inhuman torment his daughter was experiencing.

\"VOLDEMORT!\"

Some people saved your soul- Harry James Potter, Hermione knew, would save her loved ones. For Hermione Granger, it was enough to call it salvation. For a brief moment, she saw the hate burning in Voldemort\'s eyes, as he lifted his wand to cast the third and last unforgivable on the boy who had kept defying him simply by living. Then, apparently, he changed his mind, turning around and pointing his phoenix-feather cored wand to the powerless, yet now conscious spy. \"If I am going to leave this world, he murmured, \"at least I am going to take an old friend with me.… Ava-\"

But before the snake-like creature could complete the incantation, a loud pop was heard – a sure sign the anti-apparition shield cast on Riddle House was finally breached – and Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, his magnificent phoenix standing on his left shoulder, appeared between Lord Voldemort and Severus Snape\'s body. \"Not so fast Tom.\"

Snape screamed.

That second, Voldemort\'s incantation was completed, and a silent, deadly green bolt of light hit Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, straight in the chest. When a second lateoldeoldemort had fallen too, defeated by Harry Potter\'s Avada Kedavra, no one was interested in the body of the man who had once been Tom Riddle. All of them were now crowding around the dead body of the late Headmaster of Hogwarts School, Albus Dumbledore.

* The chapter\'s title it taken from T. S. Eliot\'s \"The Dry Salvages\".

* \"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.\" The Princess Bride. Script: William Goldman.