Title: Preserving Life After Death

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or world of JKR. Rita Skeeter is still a daft cow.

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A/N: This is not intended to be a continuing story, as it was a short distraction from my main stories A Chance for Happiness (and its sequel A Continued Chance for Happiness.) I just had to get it out of my head so I could continue with my classwork. :) Enjoy.

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Pain was the first thing that Snape became aware of as he peeled himself off the random tree he had been thrown against. Pain he was used to. Mental or physical was no different. Surviving a war or two had not given him a reprieve from pain.

He opened his eyes blearily, watching the strange colored blurs move and reform into something more recognizable. He shifted his weight as he attempted to stand from his unseemly launch into the elder trees with a grunt. His vision shifted as his focus became sharper. Edges became more distinct as his other senses demanded equal attention. His nostrils flared. Her scent was in the air.

Hermione.

Severus became alert within seconds, flinging himself off the ground as he half-staggered to the crumpled form of who had become his most stalwart companion for the past two decades. The growl reverberated from his own throat as he cradled her body against him. Her scent was mixed with the iron tang of blood. Both scents he knew with a familiarity of time and repeated experience.

As he cradled her in his arms, pulling her half into his lap, he brushed her hair back from her pale face in a practiced gesture of physical contact he reserved only for her. His black robes draped down around his shoulders like a shroud. His wand was in his hand, and he moved it over her body, muttering the various incantations to seal her wounds. A trickle of blood was moving down the corner of her mouth, and part of Severus knew her wounds were more dire than what his wand could heal fast enough. "Hermione," Severus whispered her name.

Her fingers curled weakly around his chilled and pale hands. Her normally brown eyes had darkened as she struggled to meet his gaze. "Sever…us," she gurgled. "The dark wi…zard?"she asked.

Severus' eyes flicked to the charred remains of the dark wizard that had sent them both on a merry chase across Europe. "Dead, Hermione. He won't hurt anyone else."

Her dark brown eyes seemed to lighten somewhat with the news, and she coughed slightly. "Are… you hurt?"

The potion master gave Hermione a look of pain and tenderness combined, the hardened lines of his normally cold expression softened around the edges. "I am fine," he whispered.

The relief in her eyes spread to her face, and she squeezed his hand. "I'm glad," she replied softly, wincing in pain. Her eyes began to slowly flutter closed.

Severus' chest tightened as he placed his pale hand to her cheek. "Stay with me," he whispered. "Hermione."

For the last two decades, the Gryffindor lioness had stayed by his side since she had inadvertently saved his life after Nagini's attempt to kill him. The experience had had changed him in more ways than the Dark Lord could have ever predicted.

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"He will kill you," the man said simply, his dark robes draping around him like curtains. His skin was utterly pale, and his eyes had a slight feral look upon them. Unlike Grayback's wolfish features and animalistic liveliness, this man had a dangerous quality in his stillness. He was, unlike Grayback, lethal without flaunting power. It did not take a great power of deduction to sense it. His face, much like Snape's, held no expression. "He will kill you for the trinket, nothing more."

Severus turned slightly to face the man who had been roped into the Dark Lord's crusade. "One such as you need not bow to the Dark Lord, yet, here you are… under his service."

The man's mouth curved upward into a strange smile. "You are more observant than your comrades."

"How can anyone not see it?" Severus asked with some disbelief.

"People see what they want to," the man said simply, pulling his robe around him almost as if to move for Severus' benefit rather than any need. "Is that not how you have survived so long?"

Severus narrowed his eyes at the man, who, to this day, had not been addressed by any name by either the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters. Strangely, however, no one had seemed bothered by it, or if they were, did not mention it. The man was a ghost, even amongst his supposed allies. "Why are you here?" Snape asked, his dark eyes scanning the other man's face.

The man's lips curved up slightly. "To preserve life after death."

Severus inclined his head. "And what life would you deem worthy of such… preservation?"

The man's lips pulled back from from his teeth in a deadly smile. "Perhaps, I will start with yours."

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Severus cradled Hermione's head in his hand as a soft hiss escaped his mouth. His lips pulled back from his emerging canines as his tightly controlled preternatural nature emerged. They had been careful. Oh so careful. For years, Hermione had worked with him to create the ultimate potion to curb his hunger for blood. He had risen from Nagini's bite due to the bite of the Dark Lord's mysterious "ally," but Severus knew better than to think his attacker had been loyal to Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle was the most current actor on a stage of time that true immortals found as fleeting as the mechanizations of normal mortals. When Voldemort had exited the stage, the "man" who had preserved Severus' life disappeared into the mists of the aftermath. The one who had saved him, however, had been Hermione.

Hermione had been at his side the moment he "woke" to his new nature. She had tended him in the hopes of preventing his death, grieved for him when his body went still, and cradled him when his still body surged back into life. His hunger had been maddening, but his control had been as it was in life — flawless. She knew what he was the moment his new fangs flashed in remembered pain of Nagini's parting gift. Her eyes met his fearlessly, with the kind of understanding that had no question of genuine care.

As Snape struggled to contain his newfound hunger, Hermione had bared her neck to save him. Had she expected to survive, he did not know, but he fed from her, slacking his thirst for the first time on the brave and selfless Gryffindor witch that had not lost faith in him.

But much to their combined surprise, Severus' thirst had eased almost immediately. Her blood sated him akin to giving fresh water to a man surrounded by ocean. He had pulled away from her neck, fangs half bared, as his eyes met hers. It was there, in that desperate moment, that a trust formed between the old Potion Master and his former student. From that time on, she alone stood by his side as the aftermath of the latest and terrible Wizarding war came to a close. And by some blessing of some compassionate or terrible god, her blood always sated him quickly, and she never once quibbled over his need for real blood over the draughts they had developed together. She stayed with him. First as his unbidden savior, then as his apprentice, later as his friend, and always his stalwart companion. Somewhere along the line, they had become inseparable. She aged. He did not. She had joked one evening that it seemed she was now the age he was when time had stopped for him, and soon she would be old and gray, and he would be as timeless as the night he survived Nagini's bite.

Strangely enough, while rumors of Snape's being a vampire was prevalent during the time before and during the war amongst the students of Hogwarts, it seemed like the rumors died off once he had become the real thing. Severus and Hermione pondered often if the students had just learned to have different priorities or if they were just so much more than dunderheads. How was it that when he was completely human they saw him as a vampire, but now that he was one… no one seemed to even notice.

"People see what they wish to see," the man had said to him. Perhaps he was more right than Severus knew back at the time.

But now, Severus was facing a challenge he did not wish to face alone. Mortality. It wasn't his mortality that concerned him. He had long since come to terms with his death and then had been denied it. The only care he had was for the curly haired witch that was cradled in his arms.

"Stay with me," Severus pleaded hoarsely. "I beg you. Hermione."

Hermione's eyes were starting to stare unfocused even as her hand squeezed his with the echo of her pain.

Severus moved her head to the side and sank his fangs into her throat. Her blood rushed to the surface, filling his mouth so he could drink it down. It was as familiar as the taste of one's favorite drink. He knew it well. He knew the bouquet and the subtle make up of her blood.

With a hiss, he pulled back and bit his own wrist, taking his own blood into his mouth. With a low growl, he placed his mouth to hers, allowing their combined blood to transfer. He stroked the skin of her throat with his pale hand until she swallowed. He pulled away as his offering was taken, and he bit his wrist again, but this time he placed it to her mouth. "Drink, Hermione," he commanded hoarsely.

Snape's eyes fluttered closed as a rush of Hermione's presence brushed against his mind, and he bared his fangs in heightened emotion.

"Severus," her mind voice whispered into his thoughts.

"Hermione," he replied, brushing the hair away from her face with his hand.

Her heartbeat was slowing, and she leaned into his body, eyes closing and her breathing slowed.

Severus cradled her, rocking her against himself as he stroked her hair and pressed his face into her skin. The sense of panic leaked away as he took comfort in her acceptance of his bond. Decades may have passed and many more would come and go, but Hermione would remain at his side for them all, as she always had and always would.

It was enough.