Until Death and Beyond

UNTIL DEATH AND BEYOND

Hermione was sitting in her Head Girl dormitory with a book on her lap when the music box started to sing a romantic song. It was a gift from him which plays the song as a reminder of his coming visit to her dorm. She stood up and went to the fire place and activated the floo network. After a second Severus Snape wearing a black robe as usual stepped in to the room. Hermione immediately threw the book to the floor and went to him. She embraced him tight and hissed him on the lips. He just took one of her hands and kissed it.

"Hi," Hermione said smiling.

"Hi," he replied while he avoided looking directly to her eyes. He seems somehow distant, she thought.

"Is there a problem Severus?" she asked while wondering if she really wanted to hear the answer.

"We need to talk," he murmured.

She started to get nervous about his visit. What he is planning, she thought.

"So?" she asked.

He stopped for a moment then looked at her eyes with some weird look on his face then suddenly said, "We can't keep this going on." She was just shocked. She cannot even think.

"What? ... What are you talking about?" she asked praying crazy for this being just a nightmare or Severus making a joke for the first time in his life... Please don't leave me. Don't, she said to herself.

He just stood there watching her. He was just like a stone but crying inside. It has to be like this. Why but... Why? I hate it. But he kept his silence towards her. Hermione looked into his eyes with a great fear inside.

"We must break up our relationship," he said. She was just going to cry and she thought she's going to die.

"Why?" she said while sobbing. "Don't you like me Severus? Did I do something wrong?" she asked hysterically.

"For Merlin's sake Hermione! Of course I still love you and always going to love you but be realist! I'm quite older then you! You're still my student and we were really getting caught last night! I can't risk both of us' situations in Hogwarts."

"I'm going to graduate this year. We can wait!" she said quickly.

"No," he said shortly shaking his head.

"You..." she said and broke into tears once again.

"Princess..." he started to say but Hermione cut his words while he was reaching to her hair to stroke them.

"Don't call me Princess! You bastard! How can you, how dare you leave me because of this stupid reason? How?" she said and hit his hand which reached her hair. He suddenly pulled her by the waist and kissed her lovingly as she kept crying...

"You..." she said between his kisses.

"It has to be this way Princess... It has to be... unfortunately," he said still holding her in his arms.

"No..." she said quietly, "I can't live without you."

"Yes you can. We both have to live in this way."

"Please, I can't live. You're my life and destiny," she cried out.

"No," was the only thing he said. Then he stepped back and looked for a last time at her and left without looking back, so that Hermione couldn't see his tears.

She stood motionless. She couldn't speak, couldn't move even couldn't breath. It was as if life was just taken away from her by the only person she's ever loved in her life. He simply left her.

She remembered the times they spent with each other secretly. He used to call her Princess always... Princess of his life... And now throwing her away like a simple trash or something. She felt to the floor. How small and meaningless the world is now, she thought and fainted as she cannot bear the pain inside.

...

It has been a week and she was like a ghost moving inside the castle. It was the worst week she had eve had. She refused to answer to both Harry and Ron when they asked her what's wrong with her. She didn't go to the meals and ate hardly in her room which is just for to survive. She smashed the music box and threw the remaining to the fireplace.

It was like a torture while she was in Potions. Seeing him with his black robe which was a gift from her on his birthday and looking at her with empty eyes. He even took ten points from Gryffindor. Ten points from Gryffindor Miss Granger, as you keep looking at me but not your cauldron, he said.

He refused every attempt of her in order to speak. He kept saying "You're my student Princess." She was like a mad person. How dare he keep saying Princess to me, she said to herself every time she spoke to him.

It was an unbearable life for her. She was like a skeleton because she was eating less and less as days passed. She even stopped studying and just looked with empty eyes to the ceiling or simply cried for hours and hours...

"He doesn't care about me, so why would I need to care about me?" she said to herself. "I just want this to end," she said loudly. Pain was unbearable. She couldn't sleep anymore. She locked the door, inactivated the Floo Network and didn't care about the owls waiting outside.

"I don't want this. Please end pain, please!" she cried for a million times that week. Then she remembered the thing he said to her before:

"Life has to end to kill the pain if we're separated Princess." She still remembered the face, the smell, everything he had when he said "Until death and beyond."

"YES!" she shouted with joy. Until death and beyond... She ran to the fireplace and activated the Floo Network and called him.

"Hermione, where have you been? What's going on and why didn't you reply to any owls I sent you this week?" he said immediately when he saw her face.

"Severus, please I need to talk to you for a last time. Could you please come here for a minute? Please?" she asked with her best "sweet" voice.

He thought for a moment and said, "Ok," and stepped inside to her dorm once again.

"I just need to know," she said, "if you still love me that much." He didn't answer. He just opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything.

"Please," she insisted.

"Yes," he said slowly without looking at her. "Until death... And beyond." He turned his back and started to seem more interested in the wall in front of him.

She smiled weakly. Then she moved closer to him while she put her hand inside of her robe and took something out. She was carrying this with her since last week after the conversation they had.

"I love you back Severus," she said. Severus turned to look at her. With a sudden move she spitted a shiny dagger, which was a present from Severus for Christmas, to his chest. "For beyond," she said as Severus kept looking at her with his mouth full open but couldn't speak. He was smiling just before he felt to the floor. Blood was everywhere. I love you Princess, he murmured with his last power. She smiled again and took the dagger from his chest. She looked at it for a second and then spitted it to her hearth. Her last word was "beyond".

...

A few hours later when Harry, Ron and others came to see her newly found dead body, they saw the smiling and happy faces of Hermione and Severus. They looked peaceful but they looked separated too... A professor and his student who died in a Head Girl dormitory...

The End