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HER
Levicorpus . The spell Hermione and Minerva used to carry Snape’s body from the Shrieking Shack after the battle. The final spell they used on him before bringing him back to the castle, presumably to lay him to rest.
Levicorpus. It had been the last step in their retrieval. First was a panicked Patronus cast to find Minerva, tell her what had happened once Hermione realized that Snape was not among the bodies laid in the Great Hall.
Next had been a Disillusionment charm to get them safely to the Shrieking Shack. Despite Voldemort’s fall and the subsequently quick Death Eater retreat, the grounds still felt haunted and dangerous.
Then came the diagnostic spells, cast more and more frantically until both women had looked at each other, stricken, tears rolling down their faces while they held back sobs.
After that was the flurry of clean up spells. Siphoning up and Vanishing away the blood, cleaning Snape’s wounds, removing the dirt that they could from his body.
Pondering these actions on the way back to the castle, Hermione will suspect it was some sort of ritualistic attempt at comforting the two witches, both in shock over the horrors witnessed that day.
Despite how things will eventually turn out, Hermione will have nightmares about this moment for years.
At first she’ll feel guilty—she’ll be anxious when Harry travels for a mission, but will never have nightmares about the moment that Voldemort had declared Harry dead during the battle. She’ll talk with her Mind Healer about it and come to the conclusion that she’d lived with the knowledge that Harry would be in perilous danger as the savior of the Wizarding World for their entire acquaintance.
That doesn’t have the same hold over her that the Shrieking Shack will have, despite the many other deaths she has witnessed in battle—not to mention her own torture at Bellatrix’s hand. She hadn’t been so privy to the drawn-out nature of those deaths. They hadn’t been so personal, like it’d felt when she watched the life draining out of Snape’s face, desperately transfiguring bottles for Harry to catch the leaking memories.
She hadn’t witnessed the aftermath of clean up, and corpse retrieval in the way she did with Minerva that day.
Levicorpus —Hermione realized she needed to refresh the spell as they made it to the Hogwarts gates, exhausted and dirty, both covered in dried blood—not just their own. Snape was the only one between them that looked halfway decent at that point, ironically.
Hermione eyed the ragged edges of Snape’s throat, held together as best as possible with a Sticking charm at the moment. They’d have tried to stitch it together if he was still alive, she thought to herself. Another tear rolled down her face at the thought.
Minerva trudged alongside her in silence, stoic now. The two continued staring straight ahead as they got closer to the castle, not bothering with Disillusionment this time. Somehow, those sorts of precautions seemed frivolous in the face of the scene they’d just come from.
HIM
Levicorpus. He felt the telltale tingles of the spell washing over him for what seemed like hours but he was sure was far less time in reality. He wondered briefly if this was the in-between; waiting to be judged for his fate, certain to be doomed to eternity.
Minerva had always told him he had a flair for the dramatic. If only she could see his thoughts now.
Although—
No, no. That wasn’t her magical signature, dancing lightly across his skin. It was vaguely familiar, in that way where you couldn’t tell if it was deja vu or truly something you’ve experienced before.
He drifted out of consciousness again as he heard a soft voice intoning:
Levicorpus.
HER
Levicorpus. Hermione took over again for Minerva as they carefully navigated the ruins at the Entrance Hall. She kept vigil over Snape’s body, hovering over the ruins, as the other witch alternately picked up or Vanished debris in their path.
When they reached the staircase, Minerva took back over. Hermione trotted ahead to gently cradle Snape’s head under her hand, manually positioning him at an angle for their ascent. In a split second, she thought she saw his eyelids move.
Her breath hitched and she gasped loudly.
Minerva’s face snapped up from the bottom step where she was casting towards the banister, repairing the damage that had occurred several flights up along the railing.
“I thought—“ Hermione started, cutting herself off in disbelief. She stared even closer at Snape’s face, leaning her head down to hover her cheek over his mouth, wondering if he was somehow breathing.
But they’d checked for that. They’d checked for everything….hadn’t they?
HIM
He surfaced again, head throbbing. But it was nothing in comparison to his throat. He felt like he’d consumed an entire case of Firewhisky—no, like his throat had been ripped out by a giant, evil snake, he thought hazily.
He tried to flutter his eyes open, but failed to do more than maybe shift his eye in its socket.
Fully aware he was some form of alive, he really did wonder if he’d prefer death at this point.
The pain pulsed through his body as he struggled to stay conscious. He needed to find out where he was, what was being done to him. He’d already assumed there was no malicious intent—how he managed to skirt that, he wasn’t sure. He’d been reviled by both sides of the fight for weeks now.
He doubted anyone there was anyone left who cared for him in any capacity.
Eventually, he’ll learn how very wrong he was in that moment. He’ll hear how much his actions in the war meant to Potter once it all came to light, despite his attempts to dodge that particular conversation. He’ll be begged for forgiveness by his former colleagues, until he has to revert back to his overly acerbic self in order to get them to stop the platitudes and accept all was forgiven.
But most importantly, he’ll be shown that care in touch, and sentiment, and adoring gaze, over and over. Eventually he’ll grow old with that understanding never far from his side, a permanent fixture in his life.
It’ll come from his personal savior, though he doesn’t quite know it yet.
THEM
Eventually, Minerva and Hermione will get Snape up to the Gryffindor Common Room, because the Hospital Wing will be overrun and the Great Hall will be full of families mourning and reuniting and the Headmaster’s Office too painful.
They’ll make a maudlin joke about Snape’s disdain if he knew where they were, which sends the witches into less restrained tears which will lead to sobbing for several long minutes. Their sobs will only be cut off because they’ll suddenly hear a deathly low, drawn out moan leave Snape’s mouth.
The women will startle, but to their credit, they won’t shriek or panic. Instead, they’ll later wonder over the quick thinking Hermione will use to dig a sewing kit out of her faithful beaded bag, her fingers flying over Snape’s ragged throat after the application of a quick Numbing charm.
Much, much later, they’ll be able to question Snape in his bed in St. Mungo’s, and will find out how his continued life managed to evade their thorough diagnostics.
It’ll turn out that Snape actually did die for several minutes, though he’ll later joke that since he remembers nothing of that time; proof that teaching Potions to dunderheads was the real purgatory all along.
The first time he makes the joke, Harry’s annual Order Christmas party will get so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Hermione will be the first one to laugh, first as a tentative giggle, moving into a full blown cackle with tears streaming down her face before everyone else joins in.
Neither will quite realize it, but that will be the moment that they fall in love with each other. They’ll have been dancing around the mounting attraction for months on end at that point. Ever since she ignores his threats against her intelligence and continues the daily visits she and Minerva start when he is in his worst condition, they will grow closer.
He’ll admire the way her mind works, endlessly curious, and her mad hair that frizzes with crackles of magic when he goads her. He’ll admire her as a person, as a woman, and as his reason to continue living, though that last part he won’t admit until their bonding ceremony, where both will have tears in their eyes.
But right now, all he knows is that his eyes have finally cracked open. He sees a glimpse of the Hogwarts ceiling before he realizes the rest of his view is blocked by a familiar face bending over his, a halo of hair surrounding them. And his consciousness fades once again.