Story: Light that shines in the Dark

Rating: T / P12

Genre: friendship, romance

Disclaimer: All's JKR's. Nothing is mine. I just want to play around a little and I promise to give all the dolls back unharmed. More or less.

This story was beta-ed by Laura001 – thank you so much!

Foreign and familiar. New and well known. Ghastly and beautiful.
It was just a strange feeling for Hermione to walk through the wrought iron gates that had opened magically. Nervously, she smoothed the uniform, which could be seen under her open cloak. She was not wearing the grey-white clothes of the students, although it seemed to her like only yesterday that she had learned and laughed with all the others in the ancient halls.

Hermione had not laughed for a long time.

Sometimes, a small smile played on her lips when she could help someone, reducing the wrinkles of grief and sorrow that had dug deep lines into her face. Even in their school days, Ron had made fun of her about the fact that a deep crease formed on her forehead when she was upset.
Ron. Dear, clumsy Ronald. The second year anniversary of his death had been just the week before. His colleagues had told her it had been an accident.

After mourning, the anger had come. No one, certainly not an Auror, had the right to test whether curses could get through mirrors as easily as through window glass. No one. Especially not the man Hermione loved tenderly with every fibre of her young heart. The anger had then turned back into sadness and then into a dull throb she would be accompanied by the rest of her life.

Hermione squared her shoulders and pushed the memories to where she was able to endure them. In this corner, there were already other experiences that repeatedly forced her to flinch like they were an ingrown splitter. Without warning, the wound broke again, calling into her mind what it like was when Dumbledore died or when she ran back onto the battlefield with Snape's blood on her hands.

Seeing the headmistress coming towards her, Hermione squared her shoulders and walked with her head held high. Snape had survived Nagini's attack and, perhaps, Hogwarts was the right place for both of them. Maybe she would find new strength here, whenever her memories tried to wear her down.

"You look well, my dear!" Minerva McGonagall's smile creased her face in a thousand little wrinkles, as it has always been. "Although, I am afraid that Madam Pomfrey will be disappointed that you do not wear the traditional uniform."
Hermione drew her eyes away from the still extravagant furnishings of the headmistress's office and looked a little embarrassed at herself. Her clothes were modelled after the healer's robes in St.-Mungo's. Except in colour, because Hermione hated lime green. She wore plain white pants and a pale blue tunic. Ginny had referred to her creation as boring when Hermione had presented it to her on her friend's insistence. This comment was not as hurtful as she had feared. It was just another step of alienation, which began after Ron's death. Without him, Hermione felt as if she had no longer a place to belong. Her pastel grief separated her from the colourful lives of her friends and Hermione had not noticed it before it was too late to restore the old familiarity.
Of course her shirt was short-sleeved, for hygiene reasons, and had a pocket for her wand at the hem, which she now fumbled awkwardly. Professor McGonnagal's gaze was drawn to it.

Hermione gave the answer to the silent question. She knew what her former teacher wondered.
"Vine wood and dragon heartstring, almost identical to my old wand. It is half an inch shorter and contains cardiac fibres of two dragons instead of a single one. This means my character giving properties are still the same, only my magic has become stronger and can work better using the stronger wand." She had always wondered why everyone seemed to keep the wand they bought before adolescence, when so much changed during the following years of growing up. She knew for certain that her old wand did not work properly for her after the war.

Silently the two women drank their tea. Hermione was not accustomed to talking to anyone. For lack of other options, and, if she was honest, hoping that the busyness of Hogwarts would bring her soul to rest, she had accepted the offer from her former head of house after her healer traineeship. It was not so much a request as a cry for help that the headmistress had given. The nurse, Madam Pomfrey, was losing her eyesight due to irreparable curse damage from the war against the Dark Lord. She could still provide help for the smaller and more severe injuries and diseases of the students, but no one knew how long she would be able to do so. So Hermione had packed her bags and followed Hogwarts's call once again.

"Well, my dear -" Minerva McGonagall smiled indulgently as Hermione rose simultaneously, cutting her off. "Go on. Poppy - Madam Pomfrey surely is waiting for you".
Hermione put her heavy cloak back over her shoulders, nodded to the headmistress and made her way to the hospital wing.

Hermione really tried to disguise her concern, as Madam Pomfrey led her through the infirmary, giving her a brief overview of the resources. She knew she had not succeeded when the older woman patted her hand after they had settled in the small nurse's room.

"It's okay, child," she murmured, not letting go of Hermione's hand.
Hermione tore her gaze away from the skinny fingers over which spanned the blotchy skin, and let her eyes slide scrutinisingly over Madam Pomfrey's appearance. The school nurse's cheeks had sunken in, her eyes were deep in their orbits, and the skin over the lean body was grey and unhealthy. Inwardly Hermione shuddered and then turned on her professional mode. Madam Pomfrey was not only losing her sight, she also needed her help.

"You realize, don't you, Madam Weasley?"
She nodded slightly. "Why are you hiding it, Madam Pomfrey?"
The nurse sighed as she slid deeper into the chair.
"Madam Weasley,-"
"Hermione," Hermione interrupted.
"Only if you call me Poppy. We are colleagues, after all."
Again, the younger witch could only nod.
"Well, Hermione, as I am sure you have learned during your work as a healer, there is a simple principle: How quickly and completely someone can recover depends largely on their psyche. The might behind our spells and hexes is secondary. But how could a patient have confidence in my healing abilities after seeing me like this? Therefore, it was necessary at a certain stage to disguise my appearance. It is not a particularly strong glamour I am using, but almost no one has bothered to look closely apart from you. "

The long speech left Madam Pomfrey clearly exhausted, but Hermione knew she had to learn everything about her illness. After all, being Hogwart's new healer, she was responsible for the care of the sick woman in the foreseeable future.
"Do you take your Mandragorine Draught regularly?"
Madam Pomfrey waved her hand. "It's not that I am dying voluntarily, child. Severus, the dear boy, has been brewing my medicine for a long time now. But that does not delay it any more; it only helps with the pain."
Hermione furrowed her brow. The potion containing mandrake roots, dragon scales, and a highly potent magical citrus plant, slowed the spread of the curse in the body, but it had no analgesic effect.
Madam Pomfrey continued before she could ask, "Severus has added a painkilling component that does not change the actual effect of the Mandragorine Draught. And he should know, he's the Potions Master, the dear boy."

Severus Snape, Potions Master, was, at that moment, hastening with long strides through the halls of Hogwarts. Although students had to be sitting in their classrooms and listening to the teachers for their own benefit, he preferred this pace, which kept his robes flying after him. He knew his nickname and if he was honest, he was proud to be the fearsome bat of the dungeons. Utmost respect from the students had to be ensured.

But now, he was indifferent to the effect of his fluttering cape. He was on his way to the hospital wing to see Poppy Pomfrey. Severus raised a sceptical eyebrow as he thought of the mediwitch. In his hand he securely held a small vial with a light green potion, a potion which he had been brewing for several months. He was sorry for the maternal woman who had more than once brought him back from certain death after he had returned from a mission of his masters. Now he did his best to help her bear the last few months, the last few weeks. To alter the Mandragorine Draught to integrate a pain relief potion had been a tricky task, but he was a master of his craft. However, he was unable to develop a potion that could cure Poppy and the many other victims of the curse. The eyebrow fell grimly as he remembered how Amycus Carrow, who had used this curse over-enthusiastically, had received his just punishment by the Dementors.

Severus pushed open the door to the infirmary, holding his shoulders tight to face the inevitably exuberant welcome given to him by the school nurse. He was not disappointed.
"Severus, my dear boy!"
He nodded stiffly, though he was aware that his features had slipped. Poppy looked worse each day. She had lost even more weight and now seemed more dead than alive. If only he could do something!
But he had his facial expressions under control in an instant, especially since he had noticed a stranger in the room. He remembered that Poppy had spoken for days of her successor, who had to be this pale, little witch who was standing at the reception desk of the hospital wing, where she and Poppy had been studying some papers when he arrived. Severus strode to her, pressing the small bottle of medicine in the hands of the new healer without acknowledging her, and disappeared into the nurse's room Poppy had waved him into, leaving the other witch to her own devices.
There she asked him to introduce Madam Weasley to the stocking of the hospital wing, since she herself was too exhausted.

Severus could not believe it. He had hoped the little know-it-all had been gone for good after she had received her NEWTs. He loomed over her, ready to intimidate, should she dare to attempt a conversation that went beyond the respectful collegial. But she risked nothing, kept her eyes down, and when she looked up to him once, her expression was one of helplessness and loneliness paired with knowledge. Something touched him deep within, but he drowned it with snarled instructions and harsh remarks. His mask was stuck, he was sure that the girl saw nothing of his inner turmoil. He was trying to stir her, to shower her with tasks and questions that had previously kindled a fire in her that reminded him so much of himself. Focus and passion, self-abandonment and loneliness.
Perhaps, even now, they were not as different as it might seem.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to have a confidante in Madam Weasley.
The Potions Master finished the introduction of the young woman in the supply system of the infirmary. Deep in thought, he did not notice that her eyes followed him and a small light had kindled in her eyes.

During dinner, Hermione was trying hard to look relaxed. Beside her, Poppy's dear boy, Severus, sat impassive and black at the head table.
Their first encounter in the early afternoon had not been pleasant. At the sight of her former teacher, Hermione had turned in a stammering handful of misery. He had rushed into the hospital wing and had pressed a vial of a shimmering green draught into her hand without perceiving her as a person. Hermione's heart began to race uncontrollably as she saw the scar just above the high collar of the professor's starched shirt, but then she felt as if it had completely stopped when she noticed the caring gaze which Snape gave the school nurse. Poppy had smiled and sent her dear boy off to Hermione to show her to control the potions supply of the infirmary. Although the meeting from then on had been transforming itself into one of the most terrible nightmares the young healer had ever experienced, she had made the decision to befriend this man who was capable of both cutting remarks and that loving look. Just before he left the hospital wing, Hermione had had the impression that he had discovered something about her that no one else had noticed. It seemed as if he could see something in her that was so important that he had even said the offensive parting remark without real malice, just out of habit. She knew then that there was more behind his mask, and she was determined to give him a place to remove it. The idea that this could be a project like S.P.E.W., because she needed someone to whom she could take care of, came to mind, but she pushed it far away.

Now Hermione sat next to the horror of her youth and her future partner in an equal friendship, and wondered how she should begin this venture. It was said that you only had to be a good friend to win one. But she just could not think of a way she could do that. All her friendships were formed during childhood, when you do not question motives and goals of others. But this was something that she would start as an adult, as a survivor of a war, as a widow, and she would not allow their shared past to affect their future. Deep in thought, she reacted almost too late as the object of her friendly desire spoke to her.
"Here you are, the salt, Professor Snape."
The former spy looked at her with a mixture of doubt and resignation.
"Madam Weasley - Hermione," he growled so quietly that she involuntary tilted her head towards him, "this is absurd. You are the person with whom I need to maintain regular contact, so I will allow you as the only one, besides Poppy, to call me by my first name. "
Seriously he stared at her, as if to verify on her reaction if she was worthy of the privilege.
"Thank you," Hermione said just as softly and solemnly, "Severus."
As she spoke his name her body's magic left her hair crackling.

Hermione relapsed into brooding. This was quite unusual, she thought, as she tried to inconspicuously tame her hair with one hand. Not that her magic found a way to express repressed feelings was unheard of - with frightening regularity Hermione's hair stood on end or turned into a proverbial rat's nest. However, the fact that they began to crackle in exactly this situation was amazing. It had only done so when Ron and she finally realized what they had, and as Victor had invited her to the Yule Ball. And, much to the amusement of Ollivander, her hair had turned to beautiful little curls when her eleven year old self had gripped her wand for the first time.

Hermione noticed that Severus looked at her searchingly. He seemed to look for something in her face that was known only to him. It was a confusing and uplifting feeling that she felt as his eyes bored into hers. Almost shyly, she allowed herself a small, genuine smile, and immediately her curls submitted again to the hairpins that formed a messy bun.
But, as Severus gave her a precarious and lopsided smile, the hair on her arms stood on end without the assistance of magic.

.