Fic update!

[rillalicious]

Oh, my goodness, it's true!


Title: The Lives of the Saints
Pairing: SS/HG
Summary: Sometimes death is only the beginning.
Alternate link: At Ashwinder
A/N: Special thanks to ellensmithee for the read through. Thank you, dear, for your willingness to read 2200 more words of mine after I've already subjected you to 60k this month!





Hermione felt the sharp swell of nausea in her belly as she watched Snape's grotesque form bubble and ripple as it seemingly tried to find a reasonable shape. She felt as though she could see all of his insides as well as his outer form, at the same time.

"I've never seen you so speechless, Granger," he sneered.

"I've never seen you so incorporeal," she said, her eyes still wide in astonishment.

The Snape-thing began twitching and jerking violently, though judging by his smooth tone, he was unaware.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you going to launch into some uselessly long diatribe about where we are and what needs to be done now? Spare me the trouble. I know already. How long has the Queen had me? It can't have been long. You're hardly a day over..." His voice trailed off and she knew that he recognized her newness.

"I'm dead," Hermione said bluntly. "I died a short time ago. Or maybe a long time ago. There's no way to tell here. I was an old woman--very old--when I died. You had been... You had been gone for a very long time."

"Oh." The Snape-thing grew still. "Well. I suppose that changes things. Is the Da--"

"He's dead," Hermione said, nodding. "Harry killed him. Just after you--after the snake bit you. It's been peaceful ever since. More or less."

"Right," he said. There was an air of pouting about the room and she couldn't help smiling. It was as if she had just told a small child that he couldn't have a favorite toy.

"I didn't mean to imply cause and effect," she said. "It wasn't peaceful because the snake bit you, it was peaceful because Harry killed Voldemort. Neville beheaded Nagini, by the way. So I suppose you were avenged in the end."

The Snape-thing made a sound, and Hermione was quite positive it was a growl.

"You don't have to be like that about it," she said sensibly. "It was a very long time ago, and you did your part. Harry made sure everyone knew about your bravery."

Snape-thing harrumphed.

"He even named a child after you," she added. "In a way."

"What do you mean?"

"His... His younger son. Albus. Albus Severus."

"Albus Severus?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Believe it or not."

"I'd like to choose 'not'."

Hermione laughed in spite of the absurdity of all this. "So what do we do now?" she said.

"You are going to do whatever it is you came here for whilst I find myself a body. I've had Merlin knows how many years in that jar to plan an exact course of action upon my escape and now that day has finally come and I shall not see my plans diverted for some former student's sense of 'we'."

"So you knew where you were, this entire time," Hermione said, fascinated.

"Of course I did."

"Wasn't it maddening, to be trapped inside that little glass jar for all those years?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. After all those years spent in the company of pupils like you, Granger, it was positively a holiday."

"Well," she said, "now that we've determined that the only thing you're missing is a corporeal form, shall we get on with our escape plan?"

"You said 'we' again."

Hermione held up the jar. "I could always put you back in here and escape myself."

The Snape-thing rippled.

"Right," Hermione said, straightening her dress. "So first, you are going to help me figure out what the Faerie Queen wants with the Weasleys, and then we're getting out of here."

"You can't add conditions at this point," said Snape-thing.

"Jar."

"Weasleys?"

"Yes, Weasleys. She told me she wants me here because she needs something from the Weasley family, and I think she intends to force me to help her get it. I have to find out what it is so I can warn them."

"You seem to be forgetting that you exist on a different plane now than any living Weasleys. You can't warn them of anything."

Hermione stared at him for a long time, then slowly smiled. "Change of plans," she said. "First, we follow your lead and find you a body. Then we figure out what she wants with the Weasleys and escape."

For an incorporeal being, Snape-thing did a fine job of staring her down.

~@~@~@~

Rose sat up in bed, suddenly, her body vaulting into the thick darkness, eyes wide and unseeing. It was freezing in their bedroom. She felt for Silas, who lay sleeping soundly beneath a single sheet. Could he not feel it too? Slowly, the outlines of her bedroom things made themselves visible in the near-complete blackness. She reached for her robe and wrapped herself in it. Her feet hit the floor and she shivered. She exhaled, surprised when she did not see her breath.

Growing older (old, if she was to be honest with herself) did not suit Rose at all. She had strange aches and pains, temperature issues, not to mention the forgetfulness. It was a pity the joy of being a grandmother came with this old woman's body.

This cold was different, though. It was like the chill that comes in through a broken window in January. Something about the breeze that passes through that jagged glass makes it, too, seem broken. She walked to the hallway and the cold followed her. It extended in icy tendrils from her body, examining dark corners and bookshelves, slipping ahead of her into the kitchen, then winding its way back up her legs. It was searching for something.

What does Cold wish to find? she asked herself. She was a foolish old woman, wondering about the Cold as if it had sense.

Her rocking chair was in the library and she sat in it, pulling her robe tightly around her. It was a useless gesture. This cold snaked beneath the heavy fabric, beneath her nightgown, into her skin and bones and blood. The world slowed down. Was this Death come to call on her? So soon? She pressed a hand to her belly. She could feel her pulse there.

Still alive, she thought, and she wondered again what the Cold was searching for. Still alive.



"Rosie?" Silas nudged her gently on the shoulder. He only called her 'Rosie' when something was wrong.

Rose startled, the rocking chair propelled into motion by her wakening.

"Oh," she said, blinking the sleep from her eyes. "I must have fallen asleep out here." She was suddenly very warm and she shrugged off the robe.

"I worried when I didn't find you in bed," said Silas.

"Nothing to worry about," Rose said. "It was probably just a dream that woke me. I don't... I don't remember now."

"Why don't I put on some tea?" Silas said after a moment's silence.

"Yes." Rose nodded. "That's what I need."

As he reached the doorway, she was struck with a flash of memory.

"Silas?"

"Yes?"

"Did you... feel a chill last night?"

Silas chuckled. "Not at all. I was quite warm."

"It must have been my imagination then," said Rose. She looked out the window, where the world was still cloaked in grey light, unable to shake the feeling that she hadn't been alone last night.

~@~@~@~

They clambered out of the thicket and dropped to the ground, one after the other, with little ceremony. The brambles had scratched long threads of scarlet up Hermione's arms, and she half-smiled as she looked at them. Her young, smooth arms.

"Done with all the grace I remember," Snape drawled.

Hermione looked up to respond, but squeaked in surprise, her gaze skittering up and down him.

"What has you in such a state?" he asked.

"You're wearing white," she said, unable to disguise the horror in her voice.

"I'm--" He looked down at himself and his upper lip curled away from his teeth in disgust. "Revolting."

"Indeed," she said, finding her tongue again. "It's not... nearly as becoming on you as black."

"That was far too much like a compliment for my comfort," he said. "Try not to let it happen again."

"It won't be hard," she said through gritted teeth. Hermione took a deep breath, pushing away the shocking color of his clothing for a moment to take a good look at him. "You're young too." She smiled reflexively. "Like me."

"I am?" Snape examined his hands.

Finding a body for him had not been nearly as difficult as Hermione had expected. Snape had known exactly where to go and how to do it. "My jar was not," he had said, "kept on that particular shelf for the entirety of my captivity." The spells involved had been fascinating, and if she'd had more time, Hermione would have loved to delve into the theory behind it all. But, as Snape had reminded her several dozen times already, time was not an asset at the moment. The Faerie Queen wanted something with the Weasleys, and Hermione needed to find out what it was.

"Wait," she said, remember something they discussed earlier. "You can see me? I thought I only exist in the Faerie realm."

"You do," said Snape. "So do I."

Hermione put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. "You might have told me that would be the case before I got you a body. Now how are you going to help me protect the Weasleys?"

Snape's lips twisted into a cruel smile.

"For goodness sake!" she said. "I saved you from that jar. You owe me a wizarding debt."

"We are not wizards or witches anymore."

"Give me a wand and I'll prove you wrong." She lowered her voice menacingly. "And if you're lucky, I won't emasculate you while I do it. You really are the horrible person everyone said you were."

Snape heaved a sigh of annoyance. "Perhaps... Perhaps there is a way for both of us to achieve our ends. Without having to spend a moment longer than necessary together."

"I'm listening," she said.

"The realm of the Fae and the human realm are incompatible in most cases, but there are those whose worlds overlap the two. I may be able to call upon an old acquaintance of mine to aid us--you."

"And what are you getting out of it?"

"In addition to your unending adoration?" he said poisonously. "This acquaintance is deeply in my debt. Because of that, he is something of a threat to me. I need to lull him in to a false sense of security before I double cross him."

She sighed. "Always the double agent, aren't you? Then you know where we're going?"

"Of course I do," he snapped. "To my childhood home."

~@~@~@~

Spinner's End was as ominous and abandoned as Hermione might have expected. On their journey, she marveled at the way other witches, wizards, and Muggles passed by as if they didn't even exist. It was strangely liberating. Snape managed to bribe a small tribe of Faery folk for some clothing in his characteristic black, and she found him much easier to look after he changed. It was odd to see him without the billowy robes she'd come to associate with his presence, but not as odd as seeing the gelatinous mass of him that floated in her room back in the Faery kingdom.

They paused in the doorway and Snape cleared his throat.

"Lucius," Snape called out, his gaze upward. "You can come out of hiding now, you miserable, double-crossing specter."

Hermione just stood in the doorway of the ramshackle house, unable to move. "You mean to tell me Lucius Malfoy is a ghost?" She let out a hollow laugh. "And he's here?"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't be addressing him as such if he weren't," Snape snapped. "Your mind has grown a bit foggy in your old age, hasn't it, Granger?"

"It's about time you showed up!" Lucius Malfoy appeared in front of them with an air of entitled indignation. "A quarter of a century has passed since I began haunting these walls. What happened to you? Why are you young? Why," Malfoy's voice faltered here, "why are you solid?"

"Because I'm alive." Snape's grin was so vindictive that it made Hermione shrink back as if she were still a teenager in his potions class. Malfoy let out a gasp of shock.

"I know," Snape continued. "The irony of it all is delicious, isn't it?"

"Why is he here?" Hermione asked, still not understanding why Lucius Malfoy's ghost would haunt Snape's uninhabited residence for all these years.

"Because he is still as slimy and conniving as he ever was," Snape said. "My friend Lucius made a deal with Death, only to find he could not deliver the promised goods."

"What were the promised goods?" Hermione asked, but she feared she already knew.

"An item in high demand after my death, it would seem. Lucius promised Death that he would deliver my soul."