They kept having sex.

She, Hermione Granger, reputationally a good girl, was having sex with Professor Severus Snape, reputationally a dungeon bat.

They had sex both morning and evening sometimes, and it was brilliant and utterly inappropriate, and she had no intention of stopping until she was too close to death's door to continue.

After the first two nights, once Severus had proven himself to himself, it became much less tense. It had, she decided in retrospect, simply been a matter of settling things between them.

He was a generous lover. Which was initially baffling because "generous" and "Snape" was not a word association that would intuitively occur to Hermione; but then she realised that based on everything she knew of him, he had never done anything halfway in his life.

He spent an astonishing amount of time touching her. She'd wake in the morning to the sensation of his fingers tracing across her skin, his lips pressing kisses along her shoulders and spine. She'd sleepily roll over into his arms, and they'd have dreamily slow morning sex before he'd get up.

Hermione would sleep for a few hours longer before getting up to head to class.

Somehow, despite her fantasies, she hadn't considered that Severus would be someone who was intensely physical. Sensuous, yes. But not necessarily sexual.

She'd always noticed the way he moved and spoke.

"Bewitch the mind, and ensnare the senses…" what sort of person said such things to a room full of eleven year olds?

However, he'd always been entirely isolated. Not someone who touched anyone voluntarily unless there was some kind of vital necessity. She hadn't considered that it was because he didn't have anyone to touch.

Now that Hermione was someone he was permitted to indulge in physical intimacy with, it was as though he was entirely without a sense of moderation.

He touched her, greedily.

He broke his own rules.

His fingers would ghost along her waist or arms, and she would feel his breath on the back of her neck when he passed her in the corridors.

It was as though he possessed a latent possessive streak that he could no longer rein in.

Quick. Careful.

He'd been a spy. He knew how to be deceitful, all the tricks of misdirection. He was well aware of all the habits and observations of the student population.

His behavior in the castle remained entirely consistent. He was just as surly and cruelly vindictive towards the students of Hogwarts as he had ever been. No one would ever look up at him scowling wrathfully from the Head Table and imagine he was getting laid or ever had been laid.

Hermione would stare at him sometimes while eating, and, if his intrusive eyes met hers, she would cast her mind towards vividly recalling his body upon and inside hers, or his head between her legs as he brought her to climax.

His expression would instantly turn black, and he would look determinedly down at his meal.

Then, in the evening, he would punish her for it, in a variety of delectable ways.

It was exactly what she wanted.

She was so absorbed in their affair that she stopped spending all her time thinking about the fact that she was dying. There was no mental space to fret or despair over the future when her mind and body were utterly enraptured by the present.

But as the two week countdown towards her next treatment elapsed, she faded.

Over the course of the second week, day by day, she had less and less energy and strength to be reciprocal in the way she wanted to. It was more and more her lying there and having him do things to her.

Two days before treatment, she returned from class so drained she felt faint. Her heartbeat was a rapid flutter. Severus looked up from the cauldron he was working over, and then approached her, taking her hand in his and pressing a finger against her wrist, feeling her pulse for several seconds before casting a diagnostic.

"Go to bed," was all he said.

Disappointment welled up in her chest as she looked down and nodded. He released her wrist, and she went to her room, taking a vial of Blood-Replenishing potion and dropping into bed, her mind blurred with exhaustion.

She couldn't sleep deeply. Her racing heart kept waking her throughout the night, and she'd jerk awake in a cold sweat, panicking as her mind tried to make sense of the physiological symptoms she was manifesting.

Every time she woke, she would hear Severus working in the kitchen.

The next night, she fell asleep on the sofa waiting for him to return from office hours. When she woke, he was asleep beside her. She shifted over and fell back to sleep against his chest.

The evening she was due for treatment, she unwound the bandages on her arm and took the vial of sedative without a word, but his hand pressed gently against her forehead. She watched through hooded eyes as he hesitated, and his knuckles whitened before pressing the poultice against her immobilised arm.

When she shuddered and screamed from the fire burning through her veins, he wrapped his body around hers.

Afterwards, when she was trying to force herself to breathe and long wailing gasps escaped her throat, he leaned over her, his hands hovering and uncertain until she stopped shaking. He bandaged the wound, gathered her into his arms, and took her to his room. She felt his lips pressing against her forehead until she passed out.

In the morning, when she woke, she felt alive again. She rolled over and found him sleeping. She nuzzled her face against his, unbuttoning his shirt and kissing down his chest until he woke with a moan.

She touched him, trailing her fingertips across his skin and noting all the ways he responded to her.

There were less than four weeks until the end of term. She wanted to keep feeling vividly alive until she reached the end of them. There wouldn't be many diversions for her once she left Hogwarts.

She shoved the thought away.

His hand reached down and caressed her jaw; his fingers tangling in her hair. She drew her head back until she could capture his fingers in her mouth, wrapping her lips around his index finger as her tongue ran down the length of it and sucked.

She slowly pulled her mouth away from his hand and slithered down his body. He was staring at her with an expression of dazed disbelief as she knelt between his legs, gripping him in her hand and kept meeting his eyes while she slowly enveloped his cock in her mouth.

His head dropped back and his hand tangled in her hair, his fingers gripping her curls, and she dipped her head down, taking him deeper.

She'd wanted to do this since the first time, but he always woke before her in the morning, and he was much more controlling than she was. She could tell him she wanted something or didn't, but he didn't ask. He preferred her under him. He never took his robes off until she initiated it, never guided her to touch him. He usually kept his eyes closed. Somehow, she'd felt that if she asked to give him a blowjob, he wouldn't be particularly receptive to the idea.

She'd never slept with a man who didn't just assume that blowjobs were an inherent part of sex.

She traced her left hand up along his torso, and he shuddered as his hips jerked. She continued bobbing her head, slowly, trying to draw it out, hoping that eventually he would relax.

He did not.

He grew more tense with each swipe of her tongue, his fingers spasming in her hair, tugging at her.

She kept her other hand wrapped around the base, sliding up and down what she couldn't fit in her mouth.

He groaned as his stomach and pelvis grew taut and his hips rolled uncontrollably up to meet her mouth.

"Stop," he finally rasped out between gritted teeth.

Hermione shook her head slightly and swirled her tongue down along the underside as she took him as deeply as she could and then drew her head back up, sucking evenly.

He grunted forcefully and sat up, gripping her with both hands as though he intended to rip her off, and his cock throbbed in her mouth, and she felt him come. He held her head between his hands, holding her in place as his entire body shuddered and he came down her throat.

He pulled her off, panting. His fingers caressing her face, running along her cheekbones and jaw.

"You shouldn't have," he said.

She sat up, swallowing. "Why not?"

He dropped back on the bed, his chest still rising and falling heavily. "There was no need to."

She curled up against him, her head on his shoulder, feeling tired again. His fingertips trailed in circles along her arm.

"I wanted to," she said, relaxing against him, her eyes drifting shut. "I want you to have good memories of me."

"Where do you intend to go following graduation?"

Hermione glanced up at Severus.

It was the weekend. He had been unusually quiet for the last several days. Withdrawn. She'd ignored it, assuming it was another dead-end in the experimental potions he continued to brew in his spare time.

Whatever it was, it was probably depressing and not something she wanted to think about or talk about.

When he asked the question, Hermione was seated at the far end of the worktop, grading a final batch of second-year essays. Her arm was getting tired, and her notes were teetering on the verge of illegible, but she'd obstinately continued, determined to finish them.

She paused and set down her quill, a low sinking sensation creeping over her.

This was a conversation she kept intending to have and then delaying because she felt angry every time she had to think about it.

"The Weasleys expect me to live with them," she said without looking up. "Harry already lives there. It seems—the natural thing to do."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him set down his stirring rod.

The sinking sensation intensified. Did this conversation have to require his undivided attention?

She stared at the quill, carefully straightening several barbs. "I've actually been meaning to talk to you about graduation. NEWT exams are next week. I think it might be ideal to undergo another treatment before they begin, so I'll have more energy for them. That will also put me on schedule to have the last one just before the Leaving Feast and school ends."

There was a pause.

"The last treatment?" He spoke slowly. Because it was the weekend, his voice was stronger and clearer than usual. It almost sounded the way it used to.

Hermione gnawed at her lip, drawing in a sharp, deep breath. "Yes," she said with a nod. "I don't think it makes sense to continue treatment once I'm at the Weasleys. I wouldn't really want to keep doing it—once I'm there. I think it would be upsetting for them to see it. And it would draw things out for longer than I want to."

She glanced briefly up at him.

He was staring at her, his expression inscrutable. "How long do you intend to stay there?"

Her head jerked a little and she swallowed. "They—they expect me stay at the Burrow until I deteriorate to the point that I need hospice care. Molly wanted me to stay on till the end, and just have healers visit, but I said I'd prefer not to."

He blinked. "A hospice?"

She nodded without meeting his gaze. "There are a few I'm considering. Molly and I are going to visit them after I graduate in order to have everything arranged ahead of time. And—" she licked her lips "—Harry and Ginny are getting married this autumn. They were planning for next summer, but they bumped it up—to make sure I'll be there." She didn't look up but forced her voice to brighten. "You'll probably get an invitation over the summer holidays."

She tapped her fingernail rapidly on the worktop until a movement in the corner of her eye made her glance up. Severus was drifting towards her, his expression still unreadable. However, there was a sharpness in his gaze that Hermione recognised from years as a detested student under his tutelage.

Irritation and viciousness just waiting for an excuse to lash out.

She shriveled instantly, a shudder running through her gut as her skin prickled.

"You hadn't mentioned that you'd made that decision." His tone was suspiciously casual.

Like a trap. Something intended to seem innocent.

Hermione grew more tense. Where had he thought she was going to go?

Her heart began to pound more and more rapidly. "What decision?"

"The decision," his voice was soft and deadly, each word carefully pronounced, "to live at the Weasleys once you leave Hogwarts and then die in hospice, rather then go to any of the clinics I have recommended."

There was a sudden dropping sensation in the pit of her stomach as she stared at him.

"But I told you," she said, her mouth dry and her throat tightening. "Over a month ago. I told you I didn't intend to keep pursuing a cure."

His head tilted sharply as he stared down his nose at her. "When?"

She wetted her lips and stared up at him. "Right here in this kitchen. After I told you I'd withdrawn from Potions. I said I didn't intend to pursue treatment anymore and that I hoped you weren't offended, and you said—" her throat caught and she couldn't breathe for a moment, "—you said, 'hardly.'"

He blinked and just stood staring at her, appearing to turn several shades paler.

Hermione wanted to bolt but she forced herself to stay seated. He was looking at her as though what she was saying was entirely revelatory, which was unsettling to put it mildly.

She was sure that he, of all people, understood plainly that she was dying. That she would die in the near future—certainly within the next year. She'd assumed that he'd known longer than she had, with greater certainty than even she did. He was the one with scrolls upon scrolls of analysis and fruitless hours of research that she'd napped through.

She was positive he knew. His undeniable shift from treating her like an inconvenient nuisance to someone who merited his occasional sympathy had been the most damning death knell possible.

His lips parted and twitched before he spoke. He raised a pale hand and pressed it against the side of his throat. "I assumed that it was a temporary decision until you had taken your NEWTs," he said at last.

"No. It was permanent." There was an uncontrollable tremor underlying her voice.

His expression twitched, and his hand disappeared into his robes. The fact that he wasn't being cruel yet was worse, because she just kept recoiling and bracing herself more with each progressing moment.

She drew a short gasping breath and rage unexpectedly flooded through her. Her fingers curled around her quill crushing it.

"What did you think I was going to do? Just keep trying and trying to find a cure until everyone else gives up first?" Her voice dripped with bitterness. "Wait until everyone else wants me dead?"

His eyes narrowed and hardened.

"There are options worth pursuing," he said in an unexpectedly measured tone. "The clinics I have recommended have specialisation and resources—which I cannot offer."

"And—" she said, the word sharp, "—if I choose one and go, and their treatment doesn't work, I'll die there. I've done my research; the odds that I survive at all are negligible, and even if I survive, chances are that I'll be vegetative or barely more than a shell. Not dying is not the same as being alive."

Her heart was pounding, and her chest felt tight, as though it couldn't draw the oxygen she needed. Severus' continuous ominous silence made her keep shriveling internally.

She forced herself to breathe more steadily.

"It's my death," she said after a long oppressive pause. "I think I'm well within my rights to want to die on my own terms. I'm not obligated to die in a way that meets the emotional needs of other people. Especially—" her voice grew so sharp it vibrated the air "—when almost none of them gave a damn about meeting mine when I was standing in front of them!"

She stood up.

"I don't—want to talk about this again." Her voice was stilted, and all the words came out jerkily. "I—I thought you knew. I assumed you'd understood this for the last month."

She fled to her room and slammed the door. Her head felt light, and she went and snatched up one of the vials of blood-replenishing potion she kept on her desk.

There was a sharp rap on the door half an hour later.

Severus stood, looming in the doorway, his shoulders drawn rigidly up in the intimidating posture he regularly employed in class. His face was sallow, and there was a seething rage hanging about him. She stared at him, bracing herself, until he spoke.

"You said to me that you don't want to die. When I asked what you wanted, you said—" he half-snarled the word, "—you didn't want to die."

His tone was accusing and resentful. As though he'd caught her in the act of willful deception.

Hermione shifted, her right shoulder twitching. She had a stress-induced migraine that was steadily engulfing her brain.

"Sometimes people change their minds about things." She eyed him pointedly. "Just because something's true at one point, doesn't mean it always will be. However, I don't want to die. I'm not dying because I want to. I am dying. Regardless of how hard I try not to, regardless of how I feel about it: I am dying."

The corner of Severus' eye twitched slightly every time she said 'dying.'

She glanced away from him and stared at the floor. "I decided to just accept it rather than waste my limited remaining time denying the inevitable.

"Why?" His tone was deadly.

Hermione looked back up at him. Her head throbbed, feeling achingly hollow.

His eyes were glittering, and his expression was black, his jaw set mulishly as though he had already decided not to accept whatever answer she chose.

"Because I'm tired, Severus. I am always tired." She closed her eyes, trying to relieve the strain behind them and giving a low scoff. "I don't think you realise how exhausting it is to want to live when you're dying."

When she opened her eyes, she found his eyebrows furrowed into a deep V as he stood studying her. His pale fingers unfurled, stark against his black robes, and he seemed on the verge of reaching towards her, but then his fingers curled into a fist that vanished back into his robes.

He turned, glancing at the kitchen for a moment. He seemed to be calculating something.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" he finally said.

She gripped the doorframe. "Say anything about what?"

He glanced back at her, visibly irritated. "You have watched me continue to spend my time seeking a cure without comment." His lip curled. "Did it never occur to you that I may be unaware your decision was permanent. Perhaps you assumed"—his eyes raked wrathfully from the top of her head down to her toes—"that I had nothing better to do."

Hermione felt the blood drain from her face.

Her chest gave a small spasm, and her throat closed briefly. Then heat flooded into her cheeks, and she lifted her chin with a jerk, meeting his glittering black eyes.

She gave a quick laugh. "Are we going to stand here and pretend that you came to the hospital ward after I fainted in Potions class because you cared at all about whether I lived or died?"

His nostrils flared, and he started to reply.

"Don't—" she cut him off, her own voice implacably cold. "Don't lie to me about why you offered. I was diverting." She gave another sharp laugh. "I should clarify, my arm was. A welcome distraction from the job you'd always despised. Something to do—now that the war's over. I was just the inconvenient person attached to an interesting problem." She gestured at the kitchen behind him. "You didn't decide to do this because you cared about me."

Her lungs ached as though she'd been holding her breath. She kept meeting his eyes. "Did you think I couldn't figure that out? That I'm like Harry, and I assume everything is about me because I'm so special to everyone?" Her jaw threatened to tremble, and she scoffed. "It wasn't as though you ever tried to hide it."

He paled and a low colour rose in the hollows of his cheeks.

Hermione swallowed and blinked, her fingers gripping the doorknob more tightly. "It's fine. I didn't really want you to care. I liked that you weren't pitying like everyone else." She looked away. "My decision to stop pursuing a cure really didn't have anything to do with you. I'm sure it doesn't necessarily feel that way, but it really wasn't related to anything you did."

She dipped her head down and inhaled deeply. Her skull felt as though it were being crushed, and her eyes were beginning to burn. "I think I need to lie down."

He was still standing motionless outside of her door as she closed it.

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