FIC: No Escape 1/1, FR13, HG/SS
Title: No Escape
Author: Sweetness (aaronlisa@gmail.com)
Rating: FR13
Pairing/Characters: Severus Snape/Hermione Granger
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and company.
Prompts: 40_mixed - #T.17 (exhausted)
Notes: Set post-war.
Summary: After the war, Snape finds himself with a new charge.
As Severus Snape regarded the amber-coloured liquid in his glass, he felt his exhaustion creep up on him. He had been cleared at the end of the war but he was still burdened with responsibilities that stole his freedom away from him. He quickly drank the whisky before turning his gaze to the slight form on his couch. The one remaining responsibility was the most repugnant to him because it tore him apart to see Hermione Granger irrevocably broken. The greatest witch of her age had been destroyed on the final battlefield and in her place was a childlike wraith that reminded him of Shakespeare’s tragic Ophelia. Hermione was insane but every now and then traces of his former student would shine through.
Hermione stirred on the couch and for a brief moment, Snape feared that she would awaken and she would begin to babble more of her nonsense. Or worse that she would look at him with tear-filled eyes and beg him to tell her of Harry and Ron. At those times, he desperately wished that he had the nerve to leave her in the care of the mediwitches at St. Mungo. However the vision of her wandering the ward with Lockhart and the others prevented him from doing son.
As long as he lived, he refused to see her institutionalized, even though he was forced to endure her madness and the brief moments of sanity. When she was sane, he would tell her lies about her friends and her family, who all refused to see her because they would rather live with the illusion that their best friend was dead. They didn’t want to accept that she had been the unfortunate victim of one too many hexes that she had taken to protect Harry Potter so that he could destroy the Dark Lord.
It had been Snape who had promised Hermione that he would find a cure in one of her rare lucid states. And now he wondered if there was a cure for her outside of death. Everything that he had researched and tried had been met with no result. Yet he refused to give up despite the hopelessness of the situation.
Instead he would cave in momentarily to his exhaustion as he fantasized about a life where he was free from every reminder of the war and his days as a double agent. And when he awoke the next morning, he would return to his work because he had to believe that there was a cure out there for her, even if the surviving Order members told him that she would never be whole again.
Snape refused to accept that there would be no escape from the prison that the smartest witch of her age found herself locked in. He had made a promise to her, even if he was never quite sure what had prompted him to promise her in the first place.
**END**
Author: Sweetness (aaronlisa@gmail.com)
Rating: FR13
Pairing/Characters: Severus Snape/Hermione Granger
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and company.
Prompts: 40_mixed - #T.17 (exhausted)
Notes: Set post-war.
Summary: After the war, Snape finds himself with a new charge.
As Severus Snape regarded the amber-coloured liquid in his glass, he felt his exhaustion creep up on him. He had been cleared at the end of the war but he was still burdened with responsibilities that stole his freedom away from him. He quickly drank the whisky before turning his gaze to the slight form on his couch. The one remaining responsibility was the most repugnant to him because it tore him apart to see Hermione Granger irrevocably broken. The greatest witch of her age had been destroyed on the final battlefield and in her place was a childlike wraith that reminded him of Shakespeare’s tragic Ophelia. Hermione was insane but every now and then traces of his former student would shine through.
Hermione stirred on the couch and for a brief moment, Snape feared that she would awaken and she would begin to babble more of her nonsense. Or worse that she would look at him with tear-filled eyes and beg him to tell her of Harry and Ron. At those times, he desperately wished that he had the nerve to leave her in the care of the mediwitches at St. Mungo. However the vision of her wandering the ward with Lockhart and the others prevented him from doing son.
As long as he lived, he refused to see her institutionalized, even though he was forced to endure her madness and the brief moments of sanity. When she was sane, he would tell her lies about her friends and her family, who all refused to see her because they would rather live with the illusion that their best friend was dead. They didn’t want to accept that she had been the unfortunate victim of one too many hexes that she had taken to protect Harry Potter so that he could destroy the Dark Lord.
It had been Snape who had promised Hermione that he would find a cure in one of her rare lucid states. And now he wondered if there was a cure for her outside of death. Everything that he had researched and tried had been met with no result. Yet he refused to give up despite the hopelessness of the situation.
Instead he would cave in momentarily to his exhaustion as he fantasized about a life where he was free from every reminder of the war and his days as a double agent. And when he awoke the next morning, he would return to his work because he had to believe that there was a cure out there for her, even if the surviving Order members told him that she would never be whole again.
Snape refused to accept that there would be no escape from the prison that the smartest witch of her age found herself locked in. He had made a promise to her, even if he was never quite sure what had prompted him to promise her in the first place.
**END**