Author's Note: This story follows Hermione as she struggles to cope emotionally with a terminal curse. It is not intended as a moral story. It is simply a story. There are some elements loosely based on the end of life behavior of a close friend, and some of my own experiences dealing with chronic illness, but it is primarily its own story exploring a set of circumstances that people react to in very unique ways. There is no major character death in this story, but the ending is left partially ambiguous.

This story sprang from a tumblr prompt several months back and then grew and grew uncontrollably into a 30k word fic. Let that be a lesson to me.

Prompt: sevmione with snape taking care of an injured/sick hermione

Alpha and Beta work by Jamethiel, who patiently let me whinge endlessly to her about it on all the occasions when I got stuck.

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Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~Dylan Thomas

It was subtle at first. For the first several months, she assumed it was merely the stress of the war; for the next several months, she assumed it was the stress of the trials; then when winter approached, she assumed it was stress from school.

She kept assuming it was stress until she was walking to the cabinet to retrieve her supplies for Potions class and the walls began closing in, wobbling and swallowing her up.

When she woke again, she was in the Hogwarts hospital ward.

Severus Snape stood at her bedside, staring down at her with an expression of profound irritation.

"Did you never consider having that injury on your arm examined by a professional?" he asked, as she sat up in bed.

His voice was low and rasping. His throat had been permanently damaged from Nagini's bite.

Hermione looked down at the still raw wound carved into her forearm. Mudblood.

The bandages she kept wound carefully around her arm to cover it had been removed.

It was bleeding again.

It never stopped bleeding, no matter what she did to try to staunch it.

She turned her arm to hide the ragged incisions from view. "Fleur treated it. She said it was cursed not to heal. It's not very deep, and I keep it clean. It didn't seem worth making a fuss about."

His lip curled into a derisive sneer. "It's killing you."

Hermione stared at him blankly, feeling as though he'd stepped forward and struck her. Her lungs wouldn't take any oxygen, her throat closed, and she just looked at him.

After a moment, she looked back down at her arm again and drew a stuttering breath.

Somehow, even though she hadn't considered it, she felt strangely unsurprised.

She was so tired. She couldn't remember when she'd last enjoyed eating, or read a book without developing a migraine, or been able to summon a sense of excitement about anything.

Everything had required effort for so long, she'd gotten used to it.

Now as she sat in bed thinking about it, it had all started after Malfoy Manor. That was when everything had begun getting increasingly difficult and painful.

It was hard to make herself think about Malfoy Manor. Hermione preferred not to if she could possibly help it.

If Hermione hadn't been tortured there, they wouldn't have realised Bellatrix had Hufflepuff's Cup. If Hermione hadn't been tortured, Harry wouldn't have disarmed Draco Malfoy and gained the loyalty of the Elder Wand.

They would have lost the war.

Malfoy Manor had been a vital necessity. A tipping point in the war.

Dobby had died.

Hermione hadn't been conscious when Dobby died. She'd only found out afterwards when she woke and heard that Harry was digging a grave.

Harry often talked about Dobby's death. It was one of the most deeply significant events of the entire war for him. When Malfoy Manor was brought up, Dobby was the first person Harry referred to. Sometimes he would belatedly mention that Hermione had been brilliant and lied under torture.

But Dobby's death was the most important aspect of that day. It was the tragedy.

Torture was a distant second, and one that Harry and everyone else preferred not to acknowledge as having happened at all.

Hermione never felt as though there were any context in which it was acceptable to bring up a cut on her arm that kept bleeding.

She was lucky to have just been tortured. A lot of other people had died.

She stared across the room at the white dividing curtain for several seconds as she sat absorbing it all.

"I suppose it's not reversible, is it?" she finally asked.

"It's not intended to be."

She nodded slowly. lf Snape was telling her that she was going to die, she probably was. Otherwise she would have woken in St Mungo's.

"How long do I have?"

"If you bother to take your health seriously, you might manage to last a year." His voice was cold.

Her skin prickled painfully. Her organs were shriveling, and she thought she might throw up.

Her heart was beginning to pound and, as a result, all the little cuts on her arm had started to throb. They always throbbed, as though she had a pulse-point there. When her heartbeat sped up, the throbbing would reflect it. All the precisely carved letters in her arm would start to bleed.

She'd gotten into the habit of ignoring the throbbing, or pressing her palm lightly against it. Sometimes the pressure and warmth of her hand helped.

As she sat stiffly in the hospital bed, trying not to have an emotional breakdown in front of a professor who had never regarded her existence as anything but a nuisance, several streams of blood started making their way towards her wrist.

Her blood was thin and watery looking. Somehow in the midst of all the effort that it took to complete her homework and make it to class, she hadn't noticed

She didn't know why Madam Pomfrey or Headmistress McGonagall couldn't be the ones telling her that she was probably going to die before she turned twenty.

Her eyes burned, and she had to blink in order to keep her vision clear. She had decided after the war that she wasn't going to cry about things anymore. It was exhausting and always gave her a migraine. So she wouldn't. She simply refused to.

She swallowed, and the words seemed stuck in her throat for a moment before she managed to force them out. "Thank you for telling me, Professor Snape. I apologise for disrupting your class today."

Snape snorted, and then coughed when it aggravated his damaged vocal chords.

"There is a reason I am the one informing you. I have several theoretical potions that may slow the effects of the curse, or stop it, although you may prefer care at St Mungo's. However—" his jaw rolled slightly, as though the words coming out of his mouth had a vile taste to them. "If you choose to remain at Hogwarts, as Potions Master, I will endeavor to develop a cure for you."

Hermione stared at him for several seconds.

Going to St Mungo's would mean withdrawing from school and living either at the hospital or with the Weasleys.

It would mean being an invalid.

It would mean telling Harry and Ron.

Snape was an exceptional curse-breaker. Dumbledore should have died within hours of putting on the Gaunt Ring; instead, he lived for nearly a year because of the enchantment Snape had used to slow the curse.

If she had a year, Snape might be able to stretch it out into a decade or more. If she stayed at Hogwarts and graduated, she might have more opportunity to use the time she had left constructively.

"You may inform the Headmistress of your choice." He drew himself up, his shoulders rising so that he looked extremely batlike, his unfriendly black eyes glowering down at her; as though he were trying to make it as clear as possible that he was only offering his aid because he was obligated to.

He appeared to be on the verge of turning and sweeping away.

"I would like to stay, if that's alright with you, Professor," Hermione said quickly, her voice low.

Snape froze and peered down at her with an impassive expression on his face.

After a moment, he blinked. "I hope you're not inflicting yourself upon me because you think I would be offended if you choose to withdraw."

Hermione's throat tightened but she raised her chin. "No."

He made a snorting-coughing sound in the back of his throat, turned, and left, his black robes billowing behind him.

After Hermione was discharged from the hospital, she spent most of her evenings in the dungeons, her arm unbandaged and laid across Snape's private lab table while he muttered incantations over it and mixed up potions that she either had to gag down, or grit her teeth and let him apply to the raw wound on her arm.

Bellatrix had used a cursed blade and cast an additional curse on the injury at some point when Hermione had been tortured. Because of the way Bellatrix had used the cruciatus on Hermione immediately after cursing the wound, the curse had not 'set' properly. Instead of staying concentrated in Hermione's arm until it was lethal enough to kill her, the curse had distributed itself and 'set' throughout her bloodstream.

Hermione was still alive as a result, but although the curse was weakened by the distribution, it was also impossible to counter by any traditional method.

Snape was a viciously unpleasant companion. He worked in stony silence and didn't speak to her at all except to snap at her to move out of his way, or resentfully interrogate her about how she felt before and after he dosed her with nauseating potions, and then glower at her answers as though she were being intentionally uncureable.

Hermione was too tired to contribute any conversation and didn't think he'd appreciate it if she tried to. She sat quietly and read her textbooks, jotting down notes, or just watched him work, theorising about what he was doing.

She'd hoped that eventually things would become routine enough that spending time with him wouldn't feel like having her emotions exhaustively rubbed down with sandpaper, but if anything Snape became progressively more unpleasant as the weeks rolled by and Hermione's health deteriorated further.

She stopped reading and simply sat with her head resting on a stack of textbooks while he worked until she fell asleep there. She'd wake up in an empty lab, levitated onto a couch with a blanket draped over her.

She missed a homework deadline for the first time in her life, fainted in Charms class, and then fainted again in History of Magic three days later.

Minerva called her into her office and asked if perhaps she should write and tell her friends of her illness, since it was difficult to conceal when she regularly arrived late to class and looked ghastly pale.

Hermione gnawed her lip.

Most of her friends had not returned to Hogwarts; at least not any that Hermione regularly interacted with. She'd been clear when the school year started that there was little reflected glory available to gleaned from her. Hermione had not returned to Hogwarts for new friends or to tell stories about all the adventures she'd had with Ron and Harry.

She had never been particularly well-liked among the larger student population. It had only taken a few weeks before she was predominantly left alone, although the fainting had recently drawn attention.

It was only a matter of time before word got out that there was something wrong with her.

"Harry and Ron are visiting Hogsmeade weekend," she said after a silence. "I'll tell them then, in person."

After a long, late evening in Snape's lab, she made her way slowly out of the dungeons. She reached the foot of the stairs and stopped on the third step, feeling too drained to climb them. She wondered if she had reached a low enough point to go ask a Slytherin prefect to levitate her up to the first floor.

Her shoulders slumped. Once she got out of the dungeons, there would be more stairs. And then more.

When she reached the Gryffindor tower, there would be seven final flights in order to reach her bed.

Maybe it was time to admit she was dying. She should withdraw from Hogwarts and make the most of the remaining time, rather than try to pretend she'd catch a lucky break and end up with more.

What possible use would her corpse have with a Hogwarts diploma or NEWTs? It was delusional of her to even be there.

Her eyes started burning as she stared at the staircase. She buried her face in her hands and struggled to choke back a sob.

"Is it so unbearable to admit you need assistance that you must instead waste everyone's time by weeping on the stairs," rasped Snape's enraged voice directly into her ear. One of his hands firmly wrapped itself around her waist and the other gripped her right arm to stabilise her as he walked her up the stairs and out of the dungeons. "Some of us wish to enjoy the severely limited personal time they still possess."

His hands were warm through her robes. She focused on his bruising grip rather than on the dizzy pounding in her head.

He didn't leave her at the top of the dungeons staircase but escorted her to the hospital ward and handed her over into the care of Madam Pomfrey. While Hermione was collapsing into a bed, she could hear his low, grinding voice giving Pomfrey a long list of exacting instructions.

The next day, Minerva arrived to announce that Hermione's room was being relocated. She was going to be moved to the staff housing wing, private quarters with not nearly so many stairs, and—Severus was also going to be there, to keep an eye on her and work to reverse the curse. They were spending most of their time together as it was; this way it would be less disruptive, and Hermione would not be required to traverse the entire castle every evening after a school day.

Hermione rather felt as though McGonagall had just firmly announced the intention to house Hermione within the constant proximity of an aggressive scorpion, but her choices currently were Snape or St Mungo's.

St Mungo's felt like giving up.

Snape scowled furiously at her while relocating his entire private lab into the kitchen of "their quarters" and glowered with cold rage while ferrying boxes into his room.

Hermione lay curled into a small heap on the sofa, trying unsuccessfully not to take every muttered profanity personally.

Living with Snape was as unbearable as she had feared it would be. He barely spoke to her; he just glared balefully when storming through the apartment carrying armloads of essays to his room to grade and made constant references to treasured personal time that no longer existed. When he wasn't teaching, he was either grading homework or stooped over dozens of cauldrons furiously trying to develop a cure for Hermione's curse.

He treated her continuously deteriorating health as though it were both a personal and professional insult.

Hermione finally made her way to the Headmistress' office with a withdrawal form in hand.

"I appreciate that you asked Professor Snape to help me, but I think I should be realistic about my chances." Hermione said after she'd dropped into a seat across from the Headmistress' desk, her head feeling achingly hollow. "I've disrupted his life more than enough during the last month. Asking him to supervise me during his time off, in addition to all the hours he's spent trying to develop a cure, is too much of an imposition."

McGonagall leaned back in her seat, Hermione's withdrawal form dangling between her fingers. Her dark eyes stared shrewdly at Hermione for a moment before she spoke.

"I am not Albus Dumbledore, Miss Granger. The faculty of Hogwarts are faculty, they do not work here as a favour to me, or perform extensive non-contractual research at my request. Severus volunteered to develop a cure for you of his own initiative, brought to my attention that Gryffindor Tower was difficult to access, and proposed the relocation his laboratory."

Hermione stared at McGonagall until the corner of the Headmistress' mouth twitched. She leaned forward, and her sharp gaze softened as she studied Hermione, sliding the withdrawal slip across her desk.

"Severus is a difficult man even on his best days. If you would prefer to be transferred to St Mungo's, I understand. However, I assure you, Severus' efforts have been entirely of his own initiative and volition. You are not imposing on anyone."

Hermione stood, and, picking up the withdrawal form up off the desk, she slipped it into her pocket and returned to her bedroom, curling up in bed and pressing a hand against her throbbing arm.

She heard the door bang, Snape's muttered cursing, and the sound of clattering cauldrons and supplies being removed from their jars. When the noise eased to the faint tap of a knife chopping ingredients and the soft hissing of rising steam, Hermione stood up and made her way to the doorway to watch him work.

She had no idea why Snape would want to go to all the effort of trying to cure her when she'd been convinced her entire life that he utterly abhorred her.

He'd worked for decades to protect Lily Potter's son; it had been the point of everything he'd done. Hermione couldn't understand why he'd bother to do anything for her.

His coal black eyes were fastened on the contents of a small silver cauldron as he stirred it rapidly and added several drops of armadillo bile. He was completely immersed in brewing, his expression a stark contrast to the indolent one worn during classes. He had stopped even pretending to care about teaching Potions class. He was no longer Head of Slytherin, and he had no inclination towards showing favouritism towards anyone.

He was bored, she realised.

Seventeen years of teaching the same classes to children he loathed; trying to cure her was something interesting to do. He'd probably made the initial offer thinking it would be easy, and now he was continuing out of pride and obstinancy that there was a problem that was beating him.

He wasn't saving Hermione Granger; he was just interested in getting the better of the thing on her arm. He was getting the better of Bellatrix Lestrange.

The fact that Hermione was the person attached to the problem was a coincidental nuisance.

Snape didn't appear to even notice her as she stood in the doorway watching him work. His cheekbones were flushed from the heat, and his nostrils were flared. She stayed a few minutes longer before retreating back into her room.

A picture of Harry and Ron sat on the small table beside her bed, lying face-down.

Hermione lifted the picture up and stared at Harry and Ron's grinning faces for a minute before laying it face-down again and turning to her textbooks.

She was going to have to tell them she was dying when she saw them on the weekend, and she didn't want to think about it.