AN: So I finally managed to finish the story in time for the Grand Finale. My deepest apologies to all those of you who've been waiting for the conclusion for longer than I would dare ask. RL has had me in its firm grip; the wish to write has been with me all this time, but at the end of the day I guess I was just too tired to come up with a decent ending. Thank you for all your support.
Forward to Time Past by Claudia
Nine
It was night when she woke. Or rather, came to. She wasn't quite awake, it was more like the semi-consciousness you're in just before you wake -- when you notice, from beneath heavy lids that it's dawning outside already but you won't acknowledge the fact to get that extra minute.
Hermione thought she'd need an extra day at least. Her body felt numb, and it took some time until her mind was clear enough to even realise that. This was a completely new sensation. She couldn't remember a time when her body had not been on fire with pain. Reliable in its constancy, searing, glaring white, painful even behind the closed lids of her eyes.
Now there was nothing. Numbness counted for nothing, because it meant you felt nothing. No fire eating you up from the inside, no dull throb that pulsed with your blood. Just nothing, and a heaviness that settles on you when you're exhausted but happy.
This was what it was like not to be in pain.
There was another feeling, too, a tugging sensation around her midriff. The left hand side, to be more precise. A rumbling issued when she touched the area with her right hand. She was hungry.
That, she supposed, was a good sign.
"Hermione?"
The voice sounded very familiar, even though for the moment she felt unable to attach it to a equally familiar face. The voice, she remembered now, had embodied many people, men and women alike, as well as a strangely genderless voice that filled in the information in between the dialogues.
The weight of a warm palm settled gently on her shoulder.
"Hermione?"
"I'm here," she replied.
Again, the voice called her name. It still sounded strange, disembodied. The palm on her shoulder became more insistent, its weight pressing down on her.
"I'm here, I'm here."
She couldn't know that all that escaped her was an unintelligible moan that sounded rather painful and disoriented.
"Hermione!" The voice was very insistent. Harsh, even.
"Snape!"
The name exploded from her lips.
"Yes! Yes, I"m here," replied the voice -- Snape -- gentle once again. "Hermione."
Her eyelids fluttered open. It took her eyes a while to adjust to the bright sunlight streaming in through her bedroom window. The weight of the palm on her shoulder was gone, as was its owner. His scent had filled her nostrils just until a moment ago. It had felt so real. But then dreams did that sometimes. They had the uncanny power to appear indistinguishable from reality. She sighed, and got up.
Snape of all people it had to be. She got up and went through her daily preparations.
The day dawned bright and filled with cheerful birdsong. The York air was heavy with the scent of damp earth, a reminder of the night's thunderstorm. The sun glistened on the black, patched pavement down in the street, and was reflected by the drops that still clung to every leave and petal. The sky was a clear blue, and even the city's air seemed cleansed, less dusty than it had been the previous evening.
Hermione inhaled all this deeply as she stood by the open window, cradling yet another mug of tea. Today was≈
The realisation washed over her powerfully. Today, yesterday, the days before, they all seemed to run into each other like a very wet watercolour painting. Their colours swirled and bled out in the margins, spoiling that which was already there. That was where the pain was coming from; it had something to do with the previous days--
But hadn't she spent them working on her Master's Thesis, adding the last finishing touches to it? Today was the day that it was due to hand in at the Potions Research Board at the Ministry.
This had all happened before.
And she was quite positive that she wasn't experiencing a particularly powerful bout of déjà vu. It had all happened before.
"Severus," she whispered. He had been there after all. It had been his voice she'd been hearing all that time, reading to her, impersonating all those characters in the book. And all the time she had lain dying, time and time and time again.
How often had the loop repeated itself?
The Time Turner!
Quickly, she went to her desk, where her bookbag was sitting on the chair in front of it, and pulled out the envelope that held the device. She pulled it out by its rather sturdy chain. The pendant, however, the actual Time Turner, was a fragile looking thing. How irresponsibly stupid of her to keep it in the envelope McGonagall had given her. Hermione found her small jewellery box and emptied a bracelet from its small plastic box -- a present of her parents' -- into one of the bigger box's compartments. The plastic thing, lined with cotton wool, would hold the Time Turner safely until she could return it to the Ministry.
That task fulfilled, and her Master Thesis in hand, Hermione stepped out of the phone box into the not quite so fresh London mid-morning air. Snape was close behind her. She didn't have to turn around to notice him. Knowing him to have been by her side all that time had taught her to feel his presence rather than reassure herself of it by looking at him.
She took his hand in hers. "I guess you remember the letter I want to have you." She turned towards him and looked at him.
"How could I ever forget that," he replied neutrally. His face, too, was a cool, even mask that did nothing to betray his true feelings. "I once thought that after all that I had done, I deserved a thousand deaths. Now, after witnessing it before my very eyes, I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
With anyone else, Hermione would have felt compelled to apologise for whatever had happened, but with Snape it was different. "Thank you, Severus. For everything."
The tell-tale signs of a smile appeared on his features. "It's over now, Hermione."
Hermione shook her head. "No, it's not." She held up her diploma.
"It's only just begun."
He tugged at her hand, and pulled it up to his chest to rest there.
---
end