AN: So, apparently I've decided that I will be updating on Thursdays. We'll see how that goes a few weeks from now-- I've just started my senior year at college and my writing is very slow because of a lot of other commitments. I am currently working on chapter seven though, so... hopefully I won't fall behind!
Granger—Miss Granger—was asleep in his bed. Severus was having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. A student in his bed! It was unthinkable. Then again, so was everything that had happened in the last few hours.
He went through the motions of getting ready to go to sleep feeling like a robot. He was watching himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and splashed water on his face as if it were one of those Muggle telly things, and he was watching someone else with his face. His mind wasn't on it at all. It was on the girl in his bed.
She was a student! A student! His mind wouldn't let it go. This was the sort of thing he would have been sacked for if she had been willing, and the consequences should by rights be far worse since she had not been.
A student! Not even of age yet. He shook his head and pulled some blankets out of his closet. He would be on the couch tonight.
And he was on the couch—for all of about thirty minutes. Then he was up again, pacing in front of the smoldering fireplace. A student! A student! And not just any student, the best student in the sixth year. He should have been giving her back papers with scathing remarks for her ever-perfect grades, not healing the cuts and bruises he'd put on her body.
Guilt wasn't going to help him though, so he pushed it away, roughly. He had to deal with this, and burdening himself over it wasn't going to help. He knew that, and so he forced it out of his mind.
Lying back down to sleep didn't help. As soon as he cleared his mind of everything else, the guilt came back full force, complete with visualizations. Memories, really, still new. He hadn't realized that he'd noticed the look on her face, but he remembered it.
It was rapidly making its way into his collection of Worst Memories Ever, number one being tied between the damning twinkle in Dumbledore's eye when he was about to make Severus do something that he didn't want to do, and the similar glint in Voldemort's eye when he was about to do the same thing. Her eyes widened with fear, her expression slack, her mouth open and making small noises that he couldn't quite understand. Tears on her face, which he now knew were tears of pain from the damage to her back. It wasn't pleasant, especially combined with the memory of sniggers coming from behind him as other Death Eaters took their own pleasure from the sight.
He was awake the rest of the night.
He was pacing the Great Hall when the sun started to rise. He met it with a sense of annoyance—pacing was much better in the dark. Then he headed back down to the dungeons, hoping that Gr—Miss Granger would be awake. He wouldn't wake her, but she had to awaken soon. They both had classes that day, and her housemates would be missing her soon, if they weren't already.
He still couldn't figure out what had happened to get her were she was. His colleagues, at least the ones in the general area, were not all that smart. They certainly couldn't have gotten her from Hogwarts. But there had been one… a young voice, disguised so that he didn't recognize it, but it had sounded intelligent, and smooth, persuasive. He was worried about that. Youth meant passion among the Death Eaters. It meant there was someone who probably still thought that all Muggles should die, and that the Mudbloods were worthless. None of the older Death Eaters did much about their convictions any more—they were tired, and Voldemort was, quite frankly, a little insane. Everyone saw it, but they couldn't leave, so they went along with everything. They still had their beliefs, but they were burnt out.
This young man would not be burnt out. And there were probably more. How had Severus missed this? Were there new recruits being trained in secret, initiation ceremonies going on secretly? Or was it just this one? Was he young enough to still be in school? He didn't know, and that was worrying. He was a spy; it was his job to know. He needed to talk to Dumbledore about it, and he wasn't looking forward to it. He cursed himself for not attempting Legilimency on the newcomer, though he had been understandably distracted.
Miss Granger was stirring in his bed when he returned. Quickly he went to the bedside, checking to be sure the potions and liniments he had put there the night before were still at hand. They were. As if they would have gone anywhere. I'm losing my touch. Severus did not make a habit of checking behind himself. He did things right the first time and was self-assured enough not to fret over them.
He was fretting now. Any moment now those brown eyes would open and they would be terrified, just like the night before, and she would try to run. The image of her running through the corridors of Hogwarts, still naked and bruised, went through his mind. Then she opened her eyes.
"Professor?" she asked sleepily, and he relaxed. The Calming Draught he had administered was still affecting her, of course. He had known how strong it was, but hadn't taken into account her slight body. Of course it would affect her far longer than affected him.
Use your brain, you idiot, he told himself.
"Yes, Miss Granger. How are you feeling?" How are you feeling? He hadn't ever said those words to anyone before in his life that he could remember. He didn't know what possessed him to do so now.
"'M sleepy. And stiff. And… sore. Sorry, 'm alliterative as well."
Severus tried not to smirk in amusement. It didn't work. Granger, even drugged and probably emotionally disturbed, was still Granger.
"I can't do anything about the fatigue," he told her. "I can, however, give you some liniment to put on your muscles and bruises to help with the stiffness. Use it only on broad body areas though, and your limbs. Not on any of the more sensitive private areas, or your face." It was a good thing he didn't blush easily. "I'll get something else from Madam Pomfrey for that, or I can brew it myself if you'd like."
Her eyes met his and she said fiercely. "You do it. No one else should know."
He nodded, surprised at her sudden show of… strength? Determination, perhaps, was the word for it.
She sat up and he told her where the bathroom was. When she didn't move for a moment, he looked at her quizzically.
"Clothes?" she asked. "Or… I suppose you've seen me naked, but I will have to have some eventually. Get me some while I wash up?"
With that she was out of the bed and walking across the room. Severus' eyes found the floor and stuck to it. Once the door shut behind her he sighed and sat down on the bed. I really am a prude.
