Chapters 211-220

The Long Way Home

Severus couldn’t breathe. An iron weight pressed down on his chest. He could feel how his heartbeat faltered as sudden agony ripped through him. His knees buckled.

‘Hermione,’ he gasped.

Harry looked where Death pointed. ‘Your wand,’ he croaked. ‘Severus, the key!’

With a feeble gesture Severus clutched at the bandolier with the Necromantic bells and his two wands—or rather, his one wand and the key to the Gates between Life and Death.

But there was no key.

Only two brittle wooden sticks with a power that meant exactly nothing in the Realm of Death.

oooOooo

Lois held Ron’s icy hand. He was so cold, so still. His freckles stood out in dark spots like a particularly pernicious kind of measles against his pasty white face. He actually felt dead, even though she knew he wasn’t. Blood Replenishing Potions were doing their work in his body this very second. Where Muggle medicine would have failed, the spells of the wizarding world succeeded: the fatal shock of losing an arm at the shoulder had not killed him. Yet. She swallowed hard. In spite of healing spells and potions, Ron’s life was still in danger. Transporting Ron to St. Mungo’s couldn’t be risked yet. He had to stay at Hogwarts—where they’d ended up in a splinched and bloody heap at the front gates, Alina yelling for help at the top of her lungs.

So Lois sat and clung to Ron’s hand. Yet at the same time, she knew that her daughter was waiting for her in the other room. Scared and shocked. Alina was out there and needed her mother. But Lois couldn’t let go. Somehow she wasn’t able to move. She kept hanging on to Ron’s cold, lifeless hand. And for the first time in her career, Lois was unable to function professionally. She couldn’t do what she knew she ought to—tend to her daughter, reassure the relatives, inquire about any news…

Madame Dubois was dead.
Six Aurors were killed.
Hermione—disappeared.

And Ron, oh my God, Ron!

oooOooo

‘Severus! Severus!’ A fist hit his side. He jerked upright painfully. ‘Damn it, stay with me, you bastard!’

The soft chord of a guitar drifted over to him. ‘Not that I’d mind to keep you, Severus. But…’

But? How absurd. Not even Death wanted him. But—Hermione—Hermione! Merlin, if the key was broken—if the connection was broken—something had happened—was she—

Darkness gazed at him from beneath the sweet white bones of a skull. ‘She is not dead,’ Death whispered. ‘Not yet.’

‘Not dead,’ he repeated weakly. Harry grabbed him around the back to keep him upright. Not dead—not yet—Hermione was not dead yet…Merlin, what had happened to her?!

‘We’ll only find out if we make it back’, Harry said as if he’d heard every thought. Or had he spoken aloud without even noticing?

Severus raised his head to face Death. ‘I am sure you’ve heard it more often than I could count even if I could spend all the years of my life counting,’ he said hoarsely.

He was and was not afraid of death. There is an instinct in all living beings that abhors death. Life. A primitive instinct that forces a creature to fight without aim or reason. Severus knew that. And more than that. He’d faced Death—abstract and Personified—on more than one occasion. For himself, he thought he ought to feel not even the slightest twinge of apprehension. If his death were certain, final, he should gladly—

But—

Hermione…

What about her? What had happened to her? More than life, more than death, the simple fact that he had no idea what had happened to her, was—was—this was—The weight on his chest became heavier, breathing a labour. Harry’s voice faded away.

He couldn’t die without her?

That was even more preposterous than the cliché that he couldn’t live without her.

Death smirked.

Severus forced a breath into his lungs and smirk onto his face as he stared at Death Personified. ‘Anyway, I know this question is a trifle clichéd. But what do you think of a deal?’

Death guffawed, a black toothless laugh that sucked life from the lips of all who could hear him. ‘Actually, my dear Severus, I don’t hear such entertaining offers even half as often as I’d like to.’

‘So your job does get boring after a while?’ Harry asked. Obviously it had been too much to hope for that Harry would keep his damn mouth shut on this occasion.

‘And being an Auror is all you dreamt it would be, my dear?’ Death retorted sweetly.

Severus winced. But Harry just smiled at the black figure. ‘No,’ the boy had the gall to reply. ‘It’s not. But hey, that’s life. I’ve become strangely attached to its disappointments and annoyances. You might say I’ve learnt to treasure them. Experience. You know, the life and death kind of experience and all that.’

Death wheezed at that; a dry, huffing sound that might have been a laugh in a living person, and which probably caused consumption and well, DEATH, in the Lands of the Living this very second.

‘Indeed, indeed. And that’s why I like you, Harry Potter. You always smile at me. You did that already when you were just a baby.’ Death shook his head in a bemused fashion. Then he turned to Severus. ‘And you—you never give in. So incredibly stubborn.’ A grin contorted Death’s fleshless lips. ‘And so immensely entertaining.’

To emphasize his words, Death strummed a dramatic riff on his guitar. ‘Well,’ Death said and slung his guitar over his back again. ‘Since both of you were also very helpful to me, I think there’s no need for a deal. This time.’ He winked at Severus. ‘I will help you,’ Death announced. ‘There’s only one small problem. Your short-cut back into life is closed even for me. You’ll have to take the long way home.’