The blood on the floor (is it your doing or mine?)
There was glass, everywhere. Bigger pieces spread all around her; smaller pieces digging into her skin, scratching it, coaxing red droplets out. And pain; so much pain, she wanted to scream into the void.
But she knew she couldn’t.
Hermione breathed shallowly as more glass rained around her. The room she was into seemed to be in such a disarray, as if a whole battle was happening in there. And honestly, that was exactly the case, if the screams and the sounds of metal hitting upon metal were any indication.
“Severus–” she groaned, when her body felt uncooperative. He was standing just on the edge of the room, close enough to see him staring down at her with an indifferent expression. Not even a little twitch to indicate that he was affected by the sight of his young bride bleeding upon a layer of glass shards.
“Severus, please–”
Hermione reached out for his unmoving silhouette, for his dark, billowy robes; but once she thought she could reach him, her hand met no resistance.
And suddenly, he seemed to be further away.
Crawling wouldn’t do it; she had to reach him, make him notice her presence. Maybe he could help her and she wouldn’t meet her end in an unknown room, bleeding herself to death before she managed to see the end of the war.
She grabbed the shard of glass and dragged her body forward, stray slivers burrowing into her knees, smearing more of her blood –look at that, it was bright red; not the colour of mud, as some people would think–, making a crimson trail behind her. She had to get up. This was it.
She’d either reach him or collapse by his feet.
Would he help her? she wondered, crying out as the pain –sudden, excruciating, making her eyes close tightly until all she saw was hot white– coursed through her. Judging by the fact that she was among so much broken glass –where had that come from?– there was a possibility that he couldn’t help her, at risk of betraying his identity. And if he had to choose between the wife bestowed on him and the Boy who is meant to save the world, the choice was clear.
As Hermione, exhausted and trembling, made the first shaky steps towards him, her bare feet stepping on shards that further bled her out, she looked pleadingly at him.
“Can’t you help me? Sev?” she asked quietly, with as much voice as she had left.
The man –not her husband, not the taciturn man who had managed to somehow love her along the way–, merely huffed.
“I can’t, but I won’t,” he said, and it was the last thing Hermione could hear before her ears started wringing and a sharp pain made her neck ache–
Then, she was on the floor of their tent, crying, with her boys hovering over her with an expression of confusion. And in that moment, it hit her; she wasn’t dying. They were still on the run. She had worn Slytherin’s locket for far too long and now Ron had wrenched it off her neck in an attempt to stop her hallucinations.
“Bloody hell,” he murmured, as he reached to help Hermione up. “Mione, just who were you calling out ‘Sev’?” he asked, and the witch wondered whether it was worse to keep on hallucinating or having to answer this question.