A Long Way Back ~ Editing

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
*******************************

Chapter 1 ~ Prologue

"Hermione! Please!"

"No! No, Harry, I can't!"

"Hermione for gods' sakes, help me! Help me!"

"No…Harry don't ask me to…"

"Hermione…the pain! Please…the pain!"

"But I love you!"

"Then free me! Hermione…please! I'm begging you…don't wait. Do it! Now!"

"Oh gods Harry…forgive me! Forgive me! Avada Kedavra!"

Hermione Granger sprang up in her bed, tears flowing down her face as she relived the last moments of her best friend's life. She drew her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around them and began to rock, sobbing as she did at least one night a week for the past five years.

Harry Potter was dead…and she killed him.

It didn't matter that it had been an act of mercy. The guilt she felt ran bones deep. She had the scars on her wrists to prove it. She had wanted to follow him into the dark.

After months of therapy, her suicidal state was declared cured, but in reality it was those who still survived that kept her here. She didn't want to cause anyone anymore pain. So she lived…kind of. In her own little world, a hermit…a recluse, alone with her books and her Siamese cat familiars, Ying and Yang.

Hermione was a rich woman. Harry had left her his fortune. She didn't believe she deserved it since she was the method of his demise. But the law was the law and Harry made sure she couldn't transfer it or give away more than two percent a year, or dissolve any investments that were bringing in income. Hers was an enforced wealth. The Auror knew that Hermione would try to get rid of it and made sure she would be cared for the rest of her days if she chose not to work.

And the witch didn't work. She read, she fed her cats, cooked a single meal once a day and sat in her large manor with the curtains drawn. Outside, a twelve-foot high fence ran the perimeter of her estate, charmed and warded to keep everyone out.

Hermione continued to live like everyone wanted, but she didn't live much.

Her chestnut hair had two fine streaks of gray in the front. They appeared the day she killed Harry. The witch was twenty-two years old then, in the midst of the Final Battle. Harry had killed Voldemort, but not before the Dark Wizard hit him with a terrible curse against which there was no counter curse. The victim's body would begin to cook from the inside out, great boils appearing on the skin, their eyes frying in their sockets until they literally exploded from the heat. They lived up until this point in great pain. Boils were already appearing on Harry's skin, and he was thrashing about on the ground in horrible pain. Nothing could be done for the boy who lived, and to allow the curse to run its course would have been too cruel.

Hermione couldn't even run for help. It would have made no difference if she had. She could still hear her own shrill voice screaming the Killing curse, still see the dread green light blast from the tip of her wand, enveloping Harry's writhing body until it fell still, the boils on his face and arms bursting.

No…she couldn't die. So Hermione lived as the living dead. Alone, in the darkness of a barren, barely furnished home too big for her with only her cats to rouse her, insisting on food and being let out. Her skin had nearly lost all color, no sun having touched her skin in ages. Her fresh air allowance was given when she opened and closed the front door to let Ying and Yang out to roam the desolate acreage, which was as dull and gray as its Mistress.

Her lab was laced in cobwebs and dust, a sepulcher of dead hopes and murdered dreams riddled with overturned beakers, broken distilleries, cracked cauldrons, torn notebooks and shredded research papers…the aftermath of her destruction when Hermione broke down and rampaged through her workspace, swearing she would never work on anything again.

She was never punished for killing Harry Potter. All the wizarding world knew it had been an act of kindness…but Hermione never forgave herself, and there is no judge more damning than one's own heart. So she created her own punishment. Self-banishment in a self-made prison.

Albus, Remus, Ron and Madame Pomfrey checked in on the witch from time to time. But they had to send an owl weeks in advance to come and visit her. If they showed up unannounced, they wouldn't be let in. Minerva had been killed by deatheaters in the final battle, as had Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and Kingsley Shacklebolt. But before they fell they put up a glorious fight, each receiving the Order of Merlin posthumously. Hermione's own medal lay forgotten in some drawer someplace. It meant nothing to her.

Whoever came to visit would sit in one of two armchairs in the great empty living room and try to talk with the witch. But Hermione always seemed distracted and half-listened to what was going on in the outside world. She didn't care. Her world was dead. Both her parents died in an unfortunate car accident involving a drunk driver. That happened three years ago and the last time she left her manor was to arrange and attend their funerals. She was twenty-seven years old now, an old woman in a young woman's body.

Hermione sat in her study, surrounded by four walls of tomes, reading silently. Ying and Yang entered and twined around her legs, yowling. She looked down at them with tired, amber eyes.

"Damn it…I just let you two back in. If you keep this up I'm going to get rid of the both of you," she complained.

The cats still yowled, used to her threats of expulsion, their blue eyes looking up at her lovingly despite her warnings. Sighing, Hermione put her book down on the small table, stood up and exited the study, trailed by the cats, their tails held high. She walked down the long corridor to the main doors and pulled them open. It was night. Hermione hadn't known that. Ying and Yang stopped by the door, yowling into the night but not exiting.

Hermione scowled at them.

"Well, go on. You got me up…now out you go," she said to them, trying to push them out with her foot. They merely slipped it and stood in the doorway, peering out.

Suddenly Hermione heard a snap of a dry twig. She drew her wand and pointed it out the door.

"Who's there? No one is allowed on this property," she called, holding her wand steady, ready to stupefy.

"Is that any way to treat a visitor?" a silky voice said from the darkness.

"Visitors are supposed to owl for an appointment if they want to see me," she said, so detached she didn't recognize the voice. She should have. "Show yourself."

"Accio wand!" the voice purred.

Hermione's wand flew out of her hand into the darkness. She gasped and attempted to slam the door, only to find it held open by a strong pale hand.

She looked up.

"What are you doing here?" she said, an ugly look on her face.

"Now, now Hermione…is that any way to greet the wizard that once gave you so many nights of very naughty pleasure?" Severus Snape answered, his dark eyes washing over the witch.

Dear gods. He hardly recognized her.

"I asked what are you doing here, Severus? I don't want to see you. I told you I never wanted to see you again," she said, still trying to close the door on the wizard.

"Well, I wanted to see you. I've been abroad these past five years and heard a rumor you had become a recluse and stopped your research. I had to see for myself if it was true," he replied.

"Well, now you've seen it is true and can go," the witch said.

Severus frowned.

"I'm not going anywhere, Hermione Granger," he said, pushing his way through the door and closing it behind him. He looked about the barren corridor…there wasn't even a single portrait on the wall and every curtain was drawn

Severus looked at Hermione's pale, frail appearance. Even her once wild hair looked lifeless and her beautiful amber eyes were dull. What happened to the vivacious, irritating brilliant witch he had known…in the biblical sense? The witch before him was a sad caricature of the woman she used to be. This was entirely unacceptable.

"You can protest all you want, Hermione," the Potions Master said imperiously. "But you and I are going to talk."

******************************************
A/N: Ok…just a scenario I had in my mind. I have no idea where this is going, or even if it will be finished. I am seriously drawing a blank. But a cold, withdrawn Hermione with Severus Snape as a former lover popped out at me and I got up out of bed and wrote this. Now I guess I can go back to sleep. Please review.