All the way

Severus didn\'t hear the gasps and cries of the of the class that were standing in the door way, as he fell to his knees and checked frantically for a pulse.

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A couple of the Gryffindor students hurried to find the Head Mistress, while Slytherin boy -who remember Snape from his first year- walked forward, carefully.

He stood behind his Professor, until the group in the door way parted and Professor McGonagall rushed in. The old witch almost screamed and dropped down next to the dark haired man, still searching for any sign of life.

\"Let me have a go!\" She pushed Snape\'s hands out of the way and felt the womans wrist.

Professor Snape stood up. He was pale and shaking slightly.

\"Go.\" He muttered, before turning back to the other women. The class were so shocked at seeing there Professor so out of control, that they obeyed with out thinking.

The young Slytherin man put his arm around his crying girl friend and guided her out of the living room and through the class room, her tears soaking his shoulder.

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Minerva looked up at Severus, tears streaming from her eyes. She didn\'t want to take the hope from his eyes, but she shook her head and stood up.

\"No...\" He breathed, \"No, she... she was only going shopping... With Ginny... only shopping...\" He seemed incapable of speaking a full sentence. \"Check again.\" He said almost hysterically.

\"It\'s no good, Severus,\" Minerva rubbed his arm, \"She... she\'s gone...\"

Everything seemed to happen at once. Severus threw himself into his bedroom, Minerva broke down, and the door burst open, revealing Remus, Annie, Pat and Lucius.

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Annie stood frozen in place as she looked around the room, flicking over the gasping Head Mistress and the slamming door; finally, her gaze settling on the body of her aunt.

The other three were also frozen, but she recovered first and let out an ear piercing scream. Two arms wrapped around her and she leaned into the person, burying her head in a strong chest.

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Remus was broken from his trance by Annie’s scream and rushed over to Minerva, pulling her to lean against him.

\"Come one, you shouldn\'t be here.\" He whispered, \"Is she...?\" He swallowed back tears as the old witch nodded, \"Well, take the kids and get Molly and Ginny and Harry, they\'ll need to know.\"

Minerva nodded and, shakily, pushed the two sobbing girls and the broken looking boy from the room.

\"Wait!\" She looked back at Remus\' call, \"Where\'s Severus?\"

Minerva pointed to the bedroom with a wavering hand. Tears slid down the mans cheeks as Remus picked up the lifeless body of his friend and laid her on a sofa. He went over to the bedroom door and tried to open it, but it was warded.

Remus tried to break the wards, but they were too strong. He couldn\'t even imagine how Severus was feeling right now.

He knocked on the door, \"Severus? We\'ll find out what happened, I promise. Come out, you need to be with your friends at a time like this.\"

There was no answer for quite some time, so Remus told Severus he was leaving and hurried up to Minerva\'s office.

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Lucius held Annie as she cried her heart out. A large group of people were gathered in the Head Mistresses office. There was more than a dozen red heads, Harry potter, Hagrid, the Lupins and Mad-eye Moody with a group of Aurors.

\"Severus said that she was going shopping with you.\" McGonagall pointed to Ginny Weasley.

\"No she wasn\'t,\" Ginny frowned, \"Me, mom and Tonks were at the Burrow all today.\"

Mrs. Weasley nodded, \"We were seeing Sirius for the first time\" She sniffled, hugging her husband.

\"Can you confirm that?\" Moody asked Tonks.

\"Yeah,\" She mumbled as she drew back slightly from Lupins chest, \"I was going to come here after so Hermione could see Sirius -\" She burst into tears again and her husband hugged her.

\"Well, where was she going then?\" Mr. Weasley puzzled.

Every one shook their heads. For a long time the only sound in the room was the dripping of tears.

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Severus sat on his bed, staring blankly at the door. He was numb. He was past tears. Past caring about tears. Just past caring.

Emptiness was eating him alive. But he wasn\'t alive. He couldn\'t be alive.

He had to be dead.

But he could feel his hollow heart beating.

He was in between.

He had no reason to live, yet some unmerciful God kept his heart moving.

He had heard the girl scream and Lupin speak. He didn\'t acknowledge them.

He couldn\'t.

His brain was surely dead, for he couldn\'t think.

He wanted to die. But he couldn\'t move. He must be dead then.

He blinked.

No, it was only wishful thinking.

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The moisture from Poppy\'s eyes fell onto the white linen sheets as she determined a cause of death for the young woman bellow her wand.

Finally finished, she stepped out of the curtains, to greet the crowd in the ward.

She shook her head, \"She was in perfect health. If only her heart was beating she would be fine. She was caused no harm. So I can only think,\" She sniffed, \"that it was the unforgivable. It... It would have been quick and painless.\" She tried to reassure them, \"There is only one strange thing...\"

They nodded for her to go on.

\"There is no trace of the baby.
____________________________________________________

Minerva and Remus hurried from the Hospital wing to the dungeons. Not only had Severus lost his wife of not even a week, but his son or daughter as well!

Remus knew that Severus would not want pity or anything near that, so all he would offer was understanding; not that he could even begin to think he could understand what he was going through.

They went through the potions class room. It was like time had stopped: ingredients sat half cut and books lay still where they were left.

Minerva knocked on the living room door and they entered when there was no answer. Not seeing Severus, they knocked on the bedroom door. They found that it was still locked and warded.

\"Severus?\" Minerva called softly, \"If you’re in there... we just want to make sure your ok. We... We know about the baby, but we have news. Poppy looked for the cause of...\" She swallowed hard, \"death,\" It came out as a squeak, \"and it was like she was never pregnant. Is... Is there anything you can tell us?\"

They waited, but there was still no answer.

\"Severus,\" Remus tried, \"any time you want some one, me and Harry will be there... just come and find us... ok?\"

Giving up, Remus put his arm around the sniffling woman and they left.

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He didn\'t know when one day ended and the other began. If Severus was in the right frame of mind, he would have thanked the Gods for the late Lucius Malfoy daring him to take a potion that deterred facial hair for the rest of his life.

He didn\'t eat and only sipped from a glass of water that kept itself full. Some elf named Dobby kept bringing him food, but he turned away.

He might have slept, but he wasn\'t sure. The crack that signaled the return of the elf didn\'t even make him blink.

\"Dobby has a message for sir,\" the creature said (or that’s what it sounded like), \"Head Mistress McGonagall says for Dobby to tell sir that it will be announced today, sir, at breakfast and that sir is very much wanted there.\"

He ignored the elf, closing his eyes and trying to forget what \'it\' was.

\"Sir,\" the elf squeaked, \"No one is telling Dobby what it is, sir, but Dobby knows and Dobby is sorry. If it makes it better sir, sir\'s Mrs. helped Dobby a lot in his life as a free elf and gave Dobby more clothes than Dobby deserves. I will treasure them, sir, always.\"

Finally, the creature disappeared and Severus pulled the bed covers over his face, wishing the world away. The only problem was, the bed was dowsed in his wife’s smell.

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Minerva stood up and the hall fell silent; not that many people had been talking.

\"We all know,\" She started a little shakily, \"that rumors have been spreading about Professor Snape and his wife. I regret to inform you...\" She took a deep breath, \"that Hermione Snape was found dead, by her husband three days ago.\"

Students gasped looks of despair on their faces.

\"For the time being, Potions will not being taught because -as you can imagine- Severus is taking it rather badly and will not be in any way fit to teach. There will be no classes today.\"

With that abrupt end, she swept from the hall.

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Something nagged at Lucius. He couldn\'t put his finger on it. How was he expected to? His world had crumbled around him.

His father had abandoned him and the one person he thought he could rely on went and died.

He was so torn; on one hand, he was grieving for the nearest thing to a mother he had ever had and on the other he was so angry at her for leaving him when he needed her the most.

So he did the only thing an eleven year old would do.

He cried.

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Ginny was worried about her nieces. Pat and Annie had never been so quiet. Then again, neither had Fred and George. Or Harry. Or any one.

It had hit them hard. No one knew Hermione was pregnant and that only made it so much worse. Every ones thoughts were with Severus.

Every day, two people went down to try and coax him out of the bedroom, but he wouldn\'t move. It was only through Dobby that they knew he wasn\'t dead as well.

Ginny had been surprised when she had gone down with Tonks, to find ever-lasting flowers left outside the door to his rooms, with cards of sympathy attatched.

Ginny sat at the kitchen table at the Burrow. Aurors had tried to find clues as to what had happened, but there was nothing. They couldn\'t look in her rooms because as far as they were concerned, her stuff was now her husbands and as he was still alive, they needed his permission, and as he wasn\'t talking...

Every Person had racked their brains for anything, anything that would help but found nothing.

Ron’s reaction the night of the wedding sprung to Ginny’s mind first, but he wouldn\'t do anything like that. He did act hard some times, but he was really a softy, no matter how big the crush may have been.

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Groaning, Hermione opened her eyes. Slowly, she remembered what had happened in the Hogs Head and looked around her.

She was laying on a leather sofa in a huge living room.

\"Ahhh and sleeping beauty wakes...\" Drawled that hateful voice.

\"What do you want?\" Hermione asked, trying to sit up but finding her wrists and ankles tied by some invisible force. Ron and Draco were sitting in chairs opposite. Draco looked at home, while Ron looked out of place.

\"I think he will be missing her about now.\" Draco smirked.

\"Yes, after three days, I would think.\" Ron agreed.

\"Three days!\" Hermione panicked, \"I\'ve... I’ve been here three days! Severus will wonder where I am!\"

\"Oh no,\" Draco said mildly, \"He thinks you\'re dead.\"

\"WHAT!\" Hermione screamed and struggled against her bindings more, \"How? He won\'t have anything to suggest my death!\"

Ron sneered, \"Oh yes he will.\"

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Another two days past, as well as many tears, but still something was tugging on strings in Lucius\' mind.

Finally, he plucked up enough courage to go thoroughly through the events of that day. Lucius placed himself on a chair in his common room and thought the day through.

1) He had woken up and in her bed and she had spoken to him.

2) They had disagreed about whether he hated his father or not.

3) She had got a letter through the floo, smiled and said she had to -

Wait...

... She went out after she got the letter. Maybe she went out because of the letter.

Lucius jumped up and ran out of his common room. He had it!

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Every one had given up on Professor Snape now, apart from Annie. She returned every day to see if he would come out, like a ritual. She knew that Hermione would want Severus to be cared for properly.

She turned the corner by the Slytherin common room and saw Lucius running towards her. He was, for the first time since that day, smiling.

He didn\'t stop when he saw her and when he got close, he hugged her tight.

\"A letter!\" He gasped, \"She went because of a letter!\"

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Severus stood up slowly and made his way shakily over to a cupboard. He opened it and pulled out a small pensieve. Placing it on a bedside table and pulling his wand from under his pillow, Severus pulled out several memories and deposited them in the bowl.

He knew he shouldn\'t do it, as it would only fuel his pain, but he craved her.

Taking a sip of water and a shuddering breath, he entered his memories.

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\"One of my more ingenious plans, even if I do say so myself.\" Draco drawled as Ron glared at him, \"Do you want to know how it worked?\"

Hermione glared at him, “I suppose it has to be more interesting than you two fighting.\"

\"When your dear friend,\" Draco sneered at Ron, then turned back to Hermione, \"came to see me about your... marital problems,\" Hermione growled loudly, \"I knew it would take something special to sort it out. So I searched through some of my fathers books and combined Polyjuice potion with a strong stunning hex and some... choice curses. You saw me feed it to Goyle, who I had previously transfigured into a dog and I sent the body -that looked like you- to your dear, dear husband. When the coffin is lowered into the ground, Goyle will be able to apperate away.\"

\"And why would you want to do that to us?\" Hermione asked, puzzled.

\"You see, me and Weasley couldn\'t let you throw your life away with him and we decided that we would do something about it.\" Draco sneered, \"Snape will learn not to touch things that are mine.\"

\"I will never belong to you,\" Hermione snarled, \"You may have me in body, but as long as I breathe, my heart will be with Severus!\"