When Grace woke up, she was in the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey was immediately on her.

"Oh thank Merlin you're awake! I don't know what any of this Muggle medicine does, but Luna was abstinent you take them!" She handed Grace a blue bag with a giant red cross on it. It was Grace's "Muggle Medical" bag, filled with her anxiety medication, anti-depressants, and her inhaler. She took two puffs of the inhaler and soon started to feel relief in her lungs. The chest pain, however, would not subside without her medications. She swallowed the handful of pills, so many just to get her to be what she considered "normal."

Another voice came from her bedside, "How can your tiny physique take all of those in at once?"

When did Professor Snape get there? He hadn't been there the whole time, had he?

Snape watched as Grace, not twenty minutes ago her happy and cheerful self, now on the floor in the fetal position clawing at her face and arms. Was she hexed? Possessed?

McGonagall knelt next to her and tried to pin her arms down, but she still thrashed and sobbed. He had never seen anything like it.

"The child has lost her mind!" said Dumbledore, wand ready to cast a spell on her. But before he could, she threw her head back hard for the last time and finally knocked herself out.

Snape watched the entire thing happen, standing there dumbfounded. But the sickening thump of Grace's head on the hard floor broke his trance and he looked to see Grace had knocked herself unconscious, "What in Merlin's name happened here?"

Professor Flitwick tore the letter from Grace's tight grip and handed it to Snape. He skimmed over the letter and for some odd reason, his heart sank. He didn't know she was a foster child. How could he'd known? Her mood was always happy and cheerful, the opposite of what he saw her demonstrate just now. In mere minutes, her life had been torn apart by a matter-of-fact letter. How could someone do this to a fourteen-year-old? How could they be so heartless to give her up like she was furniture?

"We need to get her to the infirmary!" McGonagall tried lifting the girl up, and that was when Snape noticed the pool of blood forming around her head. He didn't know what came over him, but in an instant, he had swooped her up in her arms and began carrying her down to the infirmary without a word. He felt her blood quickly soak through his robes, but oddly enough, that didn't bother him as much as how she looked. Her eyes were puffed from crying and her face was paling. There were scratch marks and a few cuts across her face, one deep cut sliced right through the strip on her cheek that was littered with freckles. The blood blended in with her deep red hair.

Unfortunately, there was no potion to fix her mental state. Madame Pomfrey covered her in creams to repair her head and cuts and scratches. But nothing could fix a broken heart or a ruined mental state.

After Snape brought her to the infirmary, he couldn't find himself to leave her. She doesn't have a guardian anymore, someone should stay to see how she recovers. He thought. He just hoped no one came in to see him sitting by a girl's bedside mildly concerned. He had a reputation to keep, after all.

By the second hour, she was unconscious, he decided to occupy his time with her Muggle book that brought him to find her in the first place. He opened it, careful of her bookmark and highlights and notes, and began reading.

Grace's face was free of all scratches and cuts now, but her eyes were still red and puffy. She had lost all of her colors in her face as well. But her breathing had gone back to normal and the pain in her chest was going away. She sat up and stared at the professor, then at the book he was holding, her book.

"Does she die at the end?" He asked.

"Wh-what?" What the hell did he just ask her? Some stupid question about the book? And she just woke up and now he's here?

Professor Snape looked mildly uncomfortable, but repeated himself, pointing to the front cover, "Miss Lancaster. She just had an attack of some sorts and they rushed her to the hospital. Is she going to die?"

Oh, Merlin, she couldn't believe it. Snape was reading a teen novel. A Muggle teen novel. And he was so interested in it, that was the first thing that came to his mind to ask her! "Does she- I'm not spoiling the book! I- what happened? Why am I here? Why are you here?"

He looked rather annoyed at that last part, "You started having a fit after reading that letter, which, was cowardly and selfish of them to do to you. I was the one to carry you here before you bled to death!"

Grace had forgotten about the letter, tucked it away deep into the depths of her mins because it made her depressed and so she decided it wasn't good information to keep, but there it was again, and there were the tears forming. She mumbled a, "Thank you, Professor," and laid back down. Hot tears ran down her face again, her body too exhausted to do anything but.

"I'm sorry, Miss McClivert. How are you feeling? You were out for almost three hours," a stupid question to ask. Of course, she wasn't feeling okay. She had been abandoned, once again!

Snape got up, "I should let you process this on your own and-"

Grace quickly reached up and grabbed the sleeve of Snape's robes, "Please don't leave. Stay?" She had already been abandoned and felt alone as it was, she just wanted to be in someone's company. Even if that someone was Hogwart's most hated teacher.

Snape stared at her for a moment before sitting back down at her bedside. But it took her longer to finally believe that he wasn't going anywhere and let go of him.

"What's going to happen to me once holiday begins?" her throat sounded raw and groggy from sobbing, along with sounding shaky and ready to break into another wave of sobs any minute. She couldn't bear going back to the home. She had no privacy there and remembered being bullied and teased for the dark bruises that littered her tiny seven-year-old body. On top of recovering from the abuse, her parents inflicted on her, the children's' psychiatric diagnosed her with depression and anxiety, something a child shouldn't have to live with. The medication at first made her feel weird, and it took years of trying new things to get her to even out into a child that would be desired by couples coming in looking for a little girl.

Grace knew if she went back to the home now, she would never get taken home somewhere. She was too old, no one wanted an old dog when you could have a cute puppy. She would probably live in the home until she was eighteen and then be forced to fend for herself in the big, scary world.

"Everything will be discussed tomorrow, Miss McClivert. For now, just focus on your mental stability," and went back to reading.

Grace huffed out something along the lines of a laugh. She couldn't wait to tell Luna all about how Snape was reading a Muggle book. "Hey… Can you… Like, read to me? Please?"

He looked at her for a long time. She looked exhausted, and if you had known her, she looked like a corpse of her old self. Maybe she was an annoying Ravenclaw, but she was perhaps the only student in Hogwarts that didn't give him a problem or show disdain. He nodded and began reading her the terribly depressing Muggle novel of a girl who had cancer. What a bedtime story.