Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. It belongs to the incomparable J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: Number 25 in my one-word prompt series. This fic has the dubious honor of being the first SSHG that I have written in six years, but I was determined to give it another shot. Please enjoy!
There were many things that she hadn't been told when she was growing up. Her parents, even though they supported her academic endeavors and indulged her curiosity, would wave away certain questions, fobbing her off with empty platitudes like, "You'll know when you're older."
Eventually, Hermione realized that they didn't have the answer either and were loath to admit their ignorance.
The questions that had plagued her childhood were behind her, their place taken by the mad specters of adulthood and war. Learning that magic held no more answers than her parents had been a bitter lesson. All of the books in the Hogwarts Library could not tell her why the Amortentia smelt the way it did for her.
She understood freshly-mown grass because it was a smell that took her back to her childhood, to days in the park and ice lollies from a truck. It was the scent of innocence and innocence lost. She could no more go back to those sunny days than she could raise the dead, and there were days that she desperately wanted both.
New parchment also made sense. It was the scent of endless possibility and of a future unwritten. But, some stories would never be told, some people would fall victim to this awful war and never know why. Lives would be lost, lives would be saved, and someday, in a future that she did not allow herself to dream of, someone would tally them up, telling the story as if it mattered (as if it wouldn't happen again).
Hermione told herself repeatedly that the third scent belonged to Ron, that it was the scent of his bright Weasley hair that had wafted up to her from the cauldron. Because that is how it was supposed to be.
However, all of the books in the library, even paired with her vaunted intelligence, could not tell her why she lied to herself. They could not tell her why she looked for him in every shadow, nor could they explain why her eyes lingered on his fine, slender fingers. Hermione ached with disappointment every time she watched Slughorn, and not him, brewing at the front of the classroom, dicing up ingredients with precise care.
She strained to hear every word that fell from his lips in Defence, angry that she could not hold his attention. Books and cleverness offered no solace or answers when she breathed in the Amortentia and smelt Snape.
"Go, Harry! Go now, I'll take care of him!"
"But, Hermione, you can't just—"
"Yes, I can, Harry, I will and I am. I'll stay and catch you up soon, but I'm going to stay with him. I'm going to save him."
Hermione's words finally penetrated Harry's skull, and he tugged a still protesting Ron down the passageway. She turned back to Snape, ripping open the beaded bag, summoning bottle after bottle of various potions.
First: sutures. She transfigured some of her clothing into a close approximation of catgut, set it to a needle, and with a flick of her wand, it was weaving in and out of his flesh. She fumbled through the potions, muttering to herself about the efficacy and necessity of each one. Hermione settled on Dittany (to help seal his wound), Blood Replinisher (his color was in a bad way, his pulse was thready and getting worse), and a bezoar.
The bezoar was a gamble, but as she lacked the appropriate antivenin, it would have to do. Hopefully, it would either counteract the poison in his blood, or halt its progression long enough for her to get him on a Portkey to St. Mungo's.
The suturing finished, and she spread Dittany along the stitches, watching as it helped seal the wound tight. Next, the Blood Replinisher went down his throat followed by the bezoar.
All the while, Hermione kept up a steady chant, "You can't die, do you hear me, you stubborn man! You cannot die. I will not allow it. You don't know what you mean…you cannot die."
Once the potion and the bezoar were in him, she cast a charm to monitor his heart rate. As she feared, it was perilously low, but as the potion and stone took hold, it climbed back up to a safer level. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief: he was finally stable.
It was time to transport him away, but first she had to make sure that the Healers wouldn't refuse him treatment on the spot. She dashed out a hurried message on some spare parchment and attached it to his robes like a flag.
Then she saw to the Portkey; before it whisked him away, she brushed a kiss across his cheek and whispered fiercely into his ear, "I will find you, sir, when it's all over. Please, wait for me!"
Within the space of a breath, he was taken away from her, and even though she knew it to be for the best, the loss of him tugged at her. Still, there was a battle raging around her, and she would have time to dwell on Snape later, after the war was won.
When she arrived at St. Mungo's, he was already gone.
"Disappeared during a shift change," the Healer informed her.
Hermione wanted to rage at the Healers for their incompetence, but the relief she felt knowing that he was well enough to give them the slip overruled her anger. Thinking that there was no more the Healer could offer her, she turned to go, but he stayed her with a quick "Miss Granger!"
"Yes?"
"He left something for you. He also wrote a note saying that any hand other than yours would be cursed should they tamper with it. We all know him, Miss Granger, so we didn't take any chances."
"Oh, thank you, Healer MacBride."
The letter Snape left her was short, but it filled her with a sense of hope that she had not allowed herself to feel for a long time:
Miss Granger,
I've been told that you are to blame for my second chance.
Should you desire to see what I do with it, you would do well
to start your search in the place where it all began. However,
your pursuit will be a long one; I suggest you put your affairs
in order.
-S.S.
He was right; she could not go haring off on some mad chase without seeing to a few things. But, when she was finished, Snape would still be out there, waiting for her to find him.