Twice Bitten (Hermione Granger/Severus Snape)

A Long Anticipated Awakening

"Kill."

A horrible pain shot through his neck as the snake's sharp fangs pierced his throat, sinking into the jugular, reminiscent of a pain he suffered long ago, one he survived, and Snape screamed in agony as he failed to push the cage off himself. His knees gave way as Nagini's poison took effect and the Potions master fell to the floor.

He could feel hot blood gushing from the wounds left by the King Cobra and tried to stop it, seal it off before his very life spilled out on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack. Everything was becoming darker, dimmer, his limbs feeling like lead weights.

He vaguely heard the Dark Lord utter something, then he left. Just like that. As if he was nothing. He laid there, blood pumping over his fingers, staining the floor and the dust.

He had failed. Harry hadn't received the final message he was meant to know. The Wizarding World was doomed.

Suddenly something moved and Snape's black eyes shifted desperately. He saw Harry Potter appear from nowhere, a cloak in his hands.

It wasn't too late . . . not too late. He had to tell him! Snape tried to speak but only a gurgle came out, because of the blood filling his throat. He coughed, expelling some of it and tried again.

Desperation gave the dying wizard strength and when Harry bent down to look at him closer, Snape grasped the front of his robes and concentrated, willing his secret forth, willing that which was hidden to make itself known. He felt it seeping, flowing . . . bubbling forth . . .

There was still hope.

Between the gurgles and rasps he managed to speak to the stricken boy, who wore a look of terror on his face.

"Take. . . it. . . . Take. . . it. . . . "

Suddenly a silvery-blue substance gushed from the Potions master's mouth, ears and eyes. A flask appeared, conjured from thin air and Hermione was there, thrusting it into Harry's hand as she stared down at Snape. Harry used his wand to fill the flask with the substance that was neither liquid nor gas, but seemed a combination of both.

Snape felt cold. Death was here, loosening his grip on life, on the boy's robes. He looked up at Harry, dying, but wanting to see . . . longing to see just one more time . . .

"Look. . . at. . . me. . . . " he whispered to Harry whose green eyes affixed themselves on the dilated black orbs of the professor, and witnessed that dark light which fueled the man . . . go out, the hand that clutched him thudding to the floor.

Severus Snape was dead. Killed by Nagini by the order of her master, Voldemort.

Harry started as Voldemort's cold high voice sounded close to his ear before he realized it reverberated everywhere. Everyone would hear him clearly. He told Harry to surrender and everyone would be spared. The Dark Lord gave him one hour to turn himself over or he would kill everyone.

"It'll be all right," said Hermione wildly. "Let's-let's get back to the castle, 

if he's gone to the forest we'll need to think of a new plan-"

She took a final quick look at Snape's body then hurried back to the tunnel entrance, Ron following her as Harry gathered up the Invisibility Cloak and looked down at the dead wizard, shocked at the way he had died, and why.

Then he too returned to the tunnel and crawled through.

Snape lay there in the dust, alone, pale and bloodless, irreversibly unconscious, unaware of the world. For all purposes, he was dead. But death is a process. There is Somatic death where the individual will not awaken, but the body dies in increments, on a cellular level . . . a Cellular death, and it was beginning.