On a Hot Summer Night

As he finished his tale, he was surprised at how candid he had become. He could have easily told Hermione to leave him be. It was how he liked his life after all. But this was his daughter. And in some ways, he did feel a parental tie to her. Although, in the vampire world, that didn't mean much. It would still be perfectly fine to have a relationship with her. Severus always thought that the little know-it-all had a sort of spark to her. A spark that met his. It would all depend on her, of course, and he wouldn't push her.

Hermione sat, still with glass of blood in hand, and spoke in a soft whisper at first, but it grew into a more normal conversation tone as her story wore on.

"You know most of this. I guess I only really need to tell the experience. However, you weren't there the whole time. With other Death Eaters I suppose. Anyway, we had found all of the Horcruxes, save the last one. Who would have guessed it?

"Harry was standing a bit in front of Ron and I as we faced Voldemort and a few Death Eaters. Along the way we enlisted Ginny, Luna, and Neville to join us in this final battle. Everyone else had fallen back to attend to the other Death Eaters. Voldemort was terrifying. His face looked like death. Not to mention the fact that he was a little ticked off at us destroying a good set of his soul. He was weak, obviously. But still too strong for Harry. Least I thought so. My forte was never on the battlefield, so I could have been wrong.

"We split up. I was on Harry's right side, and began to duel the henchmen on that side, and Ron to the left. Harry stood firmly in the middle. It was a good thing that you helped us to create that spell. Without your knowledge, I don't think I could have gotten the pronunciation right. Despite the knowledge of Prior Incantatem, both wands were raised. I was shouting, not paying attention to my opponent. Silly of me. I was trying to tell Harry to say it then. Without his wand. Which of course, was twice as hard.

"The strangest thing happened. I'm not sure if you saw or not. As soon as Harry spoke the words, 'Amor Socraticus,' he began to glow a strange every color and levitated. A ball of green light escaped from his forehead and reached Voldemort where it engulfed him, killing him. Both of their bodies collapsed. As I was running towards Harry, foolishly, I was hit from behind by one of your spells. Sectumsempra. I honestly don't know how they knew it. I did manage to swing around and yell out a Stupefy. At least I wouldn't be more injured.

"Ron had taken care of his side pretty well, and was walking towards Harry first. I didn't blame him. But I was bleeding from cuts that kept forming on my back. They wouldn't stop. I was bleeding to death. Ron lifted Harry, and was carrying him out of the room, when he saw me lying there. At this point, I was too weak to say anything. He ran with Harry to where the others were, and let them take care of him.

"You came in. My knight in long billowing black robes. Little did I know of your intentions. You came before Ron could come running back. In fact, I'm not sure how you would have been able to be at my side so quickly. Though I was drifting in and out of consciousness, so that does complicate things a bit.

"Once Ron had come, he still had animosity towards you. Especially since he didn't know if Harry was going to be alright or not. He began to attack you. Stupid git. He should have known better about that. After all, to gain our trust, one of the things you showed us was that you were a vampire, and that if you wanted to kill us, it would only be too easy. No magical trail left. Of course the two bite marks were something.

"After you made Ron come to his senses I thought I was going to die. For a moment I thought you were Harry. Must have been the black hair. And my lack of much of anything. I'm not sure why you bit my wrist though. Neck would have been so much more, cliché. Or romantic. Hurt worse than the blood still running from my back. It hurt and hurt, and then it felt like heaven. Or ice cream on the beach. Or when a man touches...never mind. It was near madness. I never thought dying would feel so damn good.

"But then you 'spared me'. I could hear you and Ron talking. He didn't sound upset though. He sounded at peace with the decision at hand. That seems ridiculous. That's not the Ron I know. Your wrist pressed to my lips and I tasted...well you know. Life. I had accepted my death by this point, but life was running down my throat. In gulps and drops I tried to get as much as I could, until you pulled away. The first feeling was the wounds on my back healing. The skin forming anew and the blood being collected into where it belonged.

"Then I died. You son-of-a-bitch. I died. You must have felt it. You were telling me, but your voice seemed so far away, so distant. My body was dying. It seemed that my body could take no more pain, but that was the last pain I would ever need to feel, so I suppose it is only fitting that it be the worst. A lot of unnecessary bodily fluid was involved. Yet, I was not disgusted. I would have no need for those systems anymore anyway.

"I don't remember much until I was back at Hogwarts. Which was strange. I would have thought that we would be at St. Mungo's. But Hogwarts it was. And I woke up, to find that in my sleep my teeth had punctured little holes in my tongue that healed right away, but the result was my pillow covered in blood. I only screamed out of habit, and Madame Pomfry came to my bedside. She informed me of my, new situation. And that Harry was alive. He was alive, and I was dead. I would never have thought.

"I spent the next few years purposely hiding from you. I didn't want you to find me. I'm not even sure why. Then I just let life take its course. Until now. I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown, all the time."

Looking up from her glass, she looked into Severus' eyes and tried to locate any sympathy from them. They remained cold, and hard. Not warm and inviting as Hermione had hoped they would be. Not like her story was very hard. A typical dying human to vampire transformation. She supposed that she didn't need to make it seem all dramatic. But she was telling it like she remembered.

"Well...say something. I hate sitting here in this silence."

Severus looked as though he were a statue. He hadn't changed his seated position since she started to speak. Compared to his whole life, this seemed like a walk in the park. He didn't want to judge Granger though. She was a fragile young individual. And it was his obligation to help her. Some sires would turn away their fledglings. Allow them to perish at their own will. He didn't want Hermione to perish though. It was why he saved her in the first place.

"I saved your life because I thought you had something to offer to the world. Something bigger. Not just to the magical world, but to the combination of both, as we both knew was going to happen after the Second Wizarding War. You are intelligent. And I knew that you dying was just going to make things worse."

He sat in the silence that followed, holding back one last thing that he had wanted to say, but he continued to bite his tongue: you're perfect.


[AN]Lots in this chapter. Took me a while to get down. Thanks to WeasleyWench and Emmylovedraco for reviews. By the way, WeasleyWench, the SW thing was more when Luke found out about Daddy, and the confuzzled-ness. Same confusion.

This is kinda following HBP, and my own version of DH. 'Amor Socraticus' means platonic love, but the version that Plato actually came up with, named after Socrates.

Suggestions would be great.[/AN]