Chapter Text
Hermione knelt beside Snape’s limp form, cradling his head in her hands, and trying very hard not to fall apart.
His wound had stopped bleeding, and after the copious amounts of dittany she had poured into the wound, the tissue had even knit itself back together, but he still lay prone and unmoving in her arms.
“Wake up, oh please wake up,” she begged.
He did not respond.
A great sob tore itself from Hermione’s chest, even as she fought back the stinging in her eyes.
“You can’t go yet,” she shuddered. “I didn’t— I never got to tell you that I knew. I never thanked you. I never—”
She hung her head, allowing her forehead to rest against his.
“I know you aren’t mine. You were never mine,” she whispered, “But I was yours. I was so yours.”
Liquid coursed down her cheeks and pooled over his closed eyes before leaking down his face, as if he too, wept with her tears.
“I need you to wake up. I need you to live. What was this whole stupid war for if you don’t make it? Please, please, please.”
Nothing.
His chest did not rise and fall.
No breath escaped his lips.
Terrible understanding crashed into her, extinguishing her last hopes, and she crumpled against his chest, curling into a ball and wailing like an infant as she clutched at his robes.