A/N: OMG! I am back! Sorry for the long absence, but I'm having trouble finding time to sleep, let alone write something that isn't for school. I'd like to say that I'll be able to write more soon, but I won't lie to you: I probably won't. Life is just going to get even busier. So anywho, after a year of nothingness, here be a new chapter! Sorry it is so short!

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.

She pulled her wand out and held it out for him to take. As he took it she said, "Perfect, now he would only see that the spell came from my wand so he will have no idea who else knows about Harry."

She really is a rather bright girl. Snape thought as he raised the wand to the girl and began the charm.

After Snape had explained the situation, he sat back and watched as the girl processed the information. He had carefully left out the part about the boy wanting to end his life. He figured that Harry would not want her to know about that. She sat there for a few minutes silently before asking, "Can I see him?" Snape got up and proceeded to the invisible door in the wall and opened it; he could feel her following behind him.

"Oh my!" she gasped, "Harry!" She ran and knelt next to him. "He looks awful, Sir. He looks so close to death."

"He is, Miss Granger." Snape couldn't see any reason to lie to her now. He went and stood behind her. "I have done everything I can think of, Miss Granger. I have read every book, tested every potion… I know you wish to help Mr. Potter, but I do not want you thinking that there is some miracle answer waiting to be found in a book somewhere—there is not."

She sniffed a little. "I know, Sir. There has undoubtedly been no other case like this, just like there has been no instance similar to Harry's scar. Their connection is unique." She sat silently for a minute before speaking again. "Why do these things always happen to Harry?"

Snape mentally sighed. He had been thinking the same thing as well. He wished he had an answer for that, but it seemed that recently he could not come up with a useful answer for anything. He hated feeling this useless—there was nothing he could do for the boy except watch him and hope that he woke up soon. But even then he would be waking up to face more pain. Snape did not honestly think that Granger would be able to help, but at this point it couldn't hurt for her to try. "You shall have full access to my library to research what you can and if I am not mistaken I believe you still have access to the restricted section of the library. However, do be careful—"

"That nobody sees what I am researching," she finished, "Yes, I know. I'll place charms on the books so the students will think that they are for other subjects, and I will keep them hidden from other teachers just in case they notice that they are charmed. Do you have any suggestions as to where I should start looking?"

Snape shook his head. "No, I have not found anything anywhere. Start wherever you wish, Miss Granger."

They stayed there for a while longer, Hermione kneeling next to the bed, Snape leaning against the cold, stone wall by the door. They both silently watched the boy lying on the bed; every so often his chest would rise and fall—the only evidence of life. Snape assumed the girl's head was swimming with book titles and subject areas that she planned to research. While he admired her dedication to her friend, Snape had little hope that she would find anything. After months of researching, his only foreseeable solution was to kill Voldemort, thus breaking the connection. Even though he knew that wouldn't be possible for him to do, he worried that when the Dark Lord was eventually killed, what would that do to the connection between Him and Harry? If the connection was so strong to make all this happen, what would happen if Voldemort died? Hopefully the connection would be broken… but nobody could know for sure. Months ago, he would have been glad to sacrifice the boy if that meant the end of the Dark Lord, but now he wasn't so sure.

Not that he would ever admit it aloud, he had grown to admire the young boy… no, young man. He had to find a way to save him, even if that meant enlisting the help of the Granger girl. It was a long shot, but it couldn't hurt, right?

Three weeks later found Hermione sitting cross-legged on her bed pouring over another large book with tiny print. Her eyes started to drift closed as she heard the faint chime of a distant clock tower, which startled her back awake. Four o'clock… only two hours until she had to get up to start the next school day.

She thought back to her first conversation with Snape. She had a feeling that he knew about her plan. She'd been careful though. She only voiced her concerns to a small group of Gryffindors when she knew that teachers were listening. She figured eventually one of them would crack and tell her to shut up; she just hadn't thought it would be Snape. However now she realized that, besides Dumbledore, he was the only one who knew the truth. She was surprised that he had confided in her, and also by the desperation she had seen in him, especially while they were in the room with Harry. He hadn't given her much hope, and Hermione figured that was because he probably didn't have any hope in him to give.

She could easily see how he had given up hope. For three weeks she had read any book she could find even remotely related to the subject. Many times she had stayed up reading all night while her dorm mates slept peacefully around her. But tonight would not be one of those nights, she decided as her eyes began to drift closed again. She put the book she'd been reading away with the usual charms placed on it, including an invisibility charm and a concealing charm, and laid back in bed. Her head had barely hit the pillow and she was asleep.

Hermione spent lunchtime in the restricted section of the library scanning titles of books. As this didn't seem to be very useful, she was tempted to just start at one end of the library and read her way to the other side. Annoyed that she wasn't able to find anything that looked helpful, she grabbed a random book off the shelf and read the title. It was a book about locking charms written in ancient Greek. Well it can't hurt to read it, she thought as she placed concealing charms on it and slid it into her bag.

Hermione had found it difficult to focus in potions class ever since her talk with Snape. She couldn't help but think that her friend lay there, just beyond the wall, so close to death, so close—

"Well, Miss Granger?" Snape's sudden voice brought her back to the classroom. Apparently he had asked her something as everybody was looking at her as if expecting an answer.

"S-sorry, Sir. What was the question?" She asked quietly. She tried to avoid the shocked looks on every face around her. She could read their minds: 'Hermione wasn't paying attention?' 'She doesn't know the answer?'

"Detention, Miss Granger. Tonight. For not paying attention in my class." Snape said sternly. Hermione wondered if this was just his way of meeting with her without making others suspicious. She lowered her eyes to the desk in front of her, embarrassed. She tried to look upset, but in reality she was looking forward to hopefully seeing Harry again tonight.

After all the students had left the classroom, Snape went into his office and, after applying the appropriate warding spells on his office door, he entered the room where Harry was sleeping. As he watched him slowly breathing, he couldn't help but wonder yet again if he had done the right thing. The boy had been so adamant about doing this, but in his desperation he probably would have agreed to having the giant squid bite off his leg if that would mean the nightmares would end.

Snape sat down in the chair next to the bed and checked on Harry's condition—still the same. There had been no change since he had first cast that damn spell upon him.

Snape thought back to the day that Dumbledore had returned to the castle, a few days before the students had all arrived. He had come immediately to Snape's office to check on Harry's situation.

"Ah Severus, how good to see you again. I am terribly sorry that I've been gone so long—much longer than intended. We thought we would have the issue resolved quickly, but then the giants and centaurs had their say and—oh, you know how it goes. I see the castle is still standing, I do hope that means that you and Harry got along well together?"

At some point during this speech, Dumbledore had sat down in a chair on the other side of Snape's desk- the same one Harry usually sat in. Snape's mind was pulled to the boy on the other side of the wall. He had still not woken and Snape didn't know what sort of reaction to expect from the old man when he found out about Harry's current state.

"So have you had any luck in discovering a cause, or better yet a cure for young Harry's situation?" He asked with a hopeful eye.

Snape sighed. "Albus, you are not going to like what I have to tell you, but…" After warding the door of his office, Snape recounted the story of what had happened to the Headmaster. He did, out of respect for Harry, leave out the thoughts of suicide.

As Snape finished the tale, he sat silently and waited for the man to react. For a moment they merely stared at each other until finally Dumbledore whispered, "You did what?" Clearly, he did not approve.

"Albus, I understand that it is highly risky, but-"

"No, Severus, you do not understand," the man said, his voice still low but above a whisper. "That is not a solution! That is barely even a temporary fix. I did not expect you to have cured him yet, but to do this? What were you thinking Severus? He could die! It's a miracle he has not died yet. From what you said, this spell is thousands of years old and probably hasn't been used in that many years. What if he never wakes? How could you have done something so foolish? I realize that living with the nightmares must have been difficult for the boy, but he could have dealt with it—"

"No, he could not, Albus. He is strong, much stronger than anyone I have ever met, but you seem to forget that he is human." The man's constant need to place Harry as something above human had always aggravated Snape, but now it irritated him to no end, but for a different reason. He had never thought that the boy deserved that, but now he knew the truth. While he certainly did deserve it, he did not want it, and it was too much to ask from him. "The human body can only be pushed so far before it snaps. He was desperate, Albus—"

"And he does not know what is best. He is a child, Severus, and you are the adult. You should never have told him about the spell. You should have known he would agree to anything."

"I did know that, Albus. But Harry is most certainly not a child. I do not believe he was ever a child. He has been forced to grow too fast, and that we cannot change. But we can respect that he is an adult, and therefore can make choices for himself." Snape sighed. He did not expect Dumbledore to agree with him, but he had not expected this either. "You did not see him, Albus. He was wasting away…I had to do something..."

After Albus had left, Snape sat in the chair next to Harry's bed for a long time. It was difficult to hear Dumbledore say all those things aloud because they were the same things Snape had thought to himself every day since he had cast that spell. Was he foolish for attempting this? Had he given a death sentence to the boy-who-lived? He pulled out the letter Harry had written him and reread it in an attempt to reassure himself that he had done the correct thing. Snape could not remember a time when he had doubted himself this much. He had been sure he wanted to become a Death Eater, and then he was sure that he did not want to be anymore. But when it came to this… Snape just did not know what to think.

A/N: Okay, so I know that's not a good place to end it, but I'm tired. However I do have the next few scenes in my mind so maybe possibly hopefully it won't take me another year to get them on paper. I hope.

As always, please review! It makes me happy to know that people actually read what I write.