Chapter 3

Intimate Thoughts

Ron belched, and mumbled, "I wish I had eaten something before we left the castle. My stomach is so empty I keep burping up air."

"Well, keep it to yourself or at least go for the gold and stop stifling them," mused Harry.

Hermione's voice intervened, "No. Absolutely not! You will not have a belching contest while we are walking our last mile to war. Honestly!"

The boys laughed and kept walking. She trailed them, able to see them by the moonlight, and she extinguished her wand. The silence between them became thick as the three former Hogwarts students retreated into their own private bittersweet reflections of times past. Enjoying the calming reverie before walking into the storms of the unknown, Hermione's thoughts remained with the only wizard who had ever made her feel truly safe and guarded.

After she and Draco had finished their conversation, he descended the stairs to the dungeons, and she went up to hide in the girl's bathroom until she was certain Draco was long gone. She heard the faint gong of a distant clock chiming the one o'clock hour, and she was certain she would lose house points or get detention for the rest of the school year if she was caught, but she simply had to know if her Potions Master had safely returned from his visit with Voldemort.

Standing in front of the door to his private study, she could smell the fragrance of musty leather binders of aging books, much like in the library, and she wondered what the inside would look like. She raised her hand to knock, holding her head as confidently high as possible, and softly cleared her throat before her knuckles made contact with the wood.

From behind her, she heard the wounded, silky voice of Severus Snape violating the deafening silence of the corridor, "Out of bed, are we, Miss Granger?"

Trembling, she whisked around, ready to explain, but she gasped when he emerged from the shadows. Blood trickled down the left side of his face as well as his nose, and blood gushed through a slice on his shoulder, splattering onto the floor. Holding onto the wall for support, he stopped and rested his head on his arm, exhausted and hurt.

Rushing to him she gasped, "Professor! You need Madam Pomfrey!"

"No!" he ordered, his voice echoing down the empty marble hallway. Lowering his volume, he added, "I do not need her. I have potions inside that will heal my bumps and bruises."

He moved a step closer to his door, but he almost fell when he removed his hand from the wall. She put her shoulder under his arm to help steady him, grasping him around his waist for support.

"You're badly hurt, Professor! You've got more than bumps and bruises! Please let me go fetch Madam Pomfrey!" she said in a stage whisper.

Ignoring her, he reluctantly leaned on her for support, taking the few steps forward to his door. Removing his arm from around her shoulder, he placed his hands on either side of the door facing. He leaned his forehead on the solid, splintered wood, trying to block her so she could not hear his password. His nose was an inch from the door and he mumbled as quietly as possible, "Know-it-all." The wards dropped and the door clicked open.

Smiling at the floor, Hermione decided to make no comment, and she focused on helping the injured wizard to a green wingback chair that was closest to the door. He flopped down on the cushion, expunging all his air in a low, painful groan, and she warded the door behind them. She pulled the matching ottoman under his feet and propped them on it. She turned around to search for his potions, but her breath hitched when she saw his enormous, overstuffed bookshelves covering the walls, and she inhaled the musty cologne of antiquated leather. Despite the pain he was in, she was acutely aware of the pleasure he took in her reaction to his massive book collection, and she touched the binder of Shakespeare's Folio, a first edition copy of sonnets. Before she knew it, she had the book open in her hands, caressing a page with her fingers, skimming a sonnet that made her smile.

Holding his shoulder to contain the bleeding gash, blood continued to trickle from his nose with a bit more force when he wheezed, "My prized possession."

She slammed the book shut, suddenly feeling unworthy of touching such a valuable treasure when she should have been tending to his bleeding wounds. Pulling a white, linen handkerchief from her pocket, she glanced at the pink initials that her mother had embroidered for her. Without further regard to its sentiment, she balled it up and placed it under his nose to catch the blood.

"Hold that," she ordered, taking his hand and placing it on top of the white cloth. Her eyes darted around the room, "Where are your potions?"

"Look in the left drawer of my desk. The password is 'bat piss'," he said nasally, careful to keep the handkerchief fixed to his nose exactly as she had instructed.

She ran to his desk, recited the password, and took out two odd-shaped phials from the drawer. Recognizing the blue one as pain potion, she unstoppered it on her way back across the room, and handed it to him first. He accepted the bottle and downed the contents, grimacing as he swallowed. He did the same for the other, and she placed the phials in her pocket, as she had no other place to put them. Leaning his head against the back of the chair, he sighed audibly, enjoying the feeling of instant relief from the pain.

She tugged at the top buttons of his jacket, working diligently to remove it so she could tend to his bleeding shoulder. For every button she unfastened, she felt her blood heating up, and she was glad that he had closed his eyes because she did not think she could undress the upper part of his body with him looking at her. She swallowed the lump in her throat and freed him from his jacket. As she was undoing the buttons of his white shirt, she reminded herself that he was her patient and she was acting as his Medi-Witch. Still, she was anxious because the only parts of his body she had ever seen were his face and his hands. He was never dressed in anything other than his conservative layers and she wondered if she would ever get to his skin. Finally, she peeled the bloody shirt away from the oozing gash on his shoulder and placed it aside. Pulling out her wand, she took notice of the dark meadow of fine, masculine hair covering his sternum, and she followed the small trail of it leading all the way down his abdomen until it disappeared under the waistband of his trousers.

Her face flushed red, she turned her eyes away from him, and swallowed hard, readying her wand to heal his gash. Looking at his shoulder once more, she felt his eyes land softly on her face, and she could see from the corner of her eye that his lips were slightly parted as though he was going to say something. She was embarrassed for enjoying the titillating feeling it gave her when he looked at her like that.

She focused all her attention on the ugly gash on his shoulder and she had to think harder than usual to recall the simple healing spell she had learned in her third year before she could perform it. However, she quickly mended the cut as well as any other bleeding knick she could see, and Scourgified all traces of blood. Examining her work on his shoulder, she lightly traced the neat seam with the tip of her finger, and she saw chills sprinkle across his skin under her touch. Her eyes widened and they mindlessly darted to his face, making eye contact with him for the first time since she had seen him in the pub.

"I don't think you'll have a scar," she breathed, glancing nervously back at the place she had touched.

Scanning his arms, and his chest, she could see many other scars, and some were obviously from past painful wounds. Her fingers moved to touch a jagged line on his breast bone, and she asked quietly, "How did you get this one?"

"Cruciatus," he replied, looking away from her.

She moved to touch his other arm, finding another different shaped scar to ask about, and she caught a glimpse of the ugly black Dark Mark stamped onto his skin. Drawing back her hand, she cocked her head, and studied the offending thing.

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said, lacking the usual venom in his voice. Pulling his arm away, he looked into her eyes, and whispered, defeated, "I am a Death Eater."

She fell into the black pools of his eyes. Her heart pounded for him when she glimpsed into his soul and she offered him absolution for his haphazard transgressions. She knew for certain that he had been working as a double agent for the light, and she wondered if he felt the warm field of sacral power that flowed from her directly into him. He looked away, closing his eyes to break any chance of further eye contact or conversation on the matter.

He had removed the cloth from his nose to respond to her and she saw the blood continuing to drip from it. Taking her wand, she promptly muttered, "Episkey", and healed his broken nasal bones. Although she was impressed that he did not flinch when the tiny bones corrected themselves, she became irritated that he had ended the dialogue. She removed the afghan from the back of the chair across from him, glaring at him as she draped it across his chest. He opened his eyes when he felt the soft cloth covering him.

Placing her left hand on her hip, she counted on her right hand as she tartly spoke, "Death Eater! Professor! Potions Master! Spy! Whatever the bloody hell you want to call yourself, I trust you with my life or I wouldn't be here right now!"

She was certain he would reprimand her for her for insubordination, but he began to laugh out loud, seemingly proud that she had retorted in such a reckless way.

"You are a very brave and brilliant young woman, Miss Granger," he said in a velvet tone. "Your friends are extremely fortunate to have you among them. It is regrettable, however, that they do not have a clue as to how lucky they really are."

She stared at him, her brows furrowed, watching his face to confirm the sincerity in his voice as he spoke the ultimate compliment. She became speechless and she blushed. Smiling brilliantly, she became aware of the stretching of her lips across her teeth when she said, "Thank you, Professor. Coming from you that is the best compliment of my life."

"How long have you known that I held all of the titles you so insubortinately named?" He asked, relieved, almost joking. "Nevermind. That no longer matters. I am tired, Miss Granger. I will excuse you for being out of your room after curfew this once."

"Good night, Professor," she whispered.

The smile on her face quickly disappeared when Harry's voice brought her from the memory and she saw the roof of the Shrieking Shack come into view beyond the tree line.

"We're almost there." Harry told them in a low, cautious tone. "Best get your wand ready."

Gripping her wand tighter in her right hand, she slid her left into her pocket and felt the fancy glasswork of the two phials from Snape's study. She carried them with her most of the time only because they were something of his and he had apparently forgotten about them because he never requested for them to be returned. For the time being, the imperfections of the bumps and ridges in the glass secretly gave her comfort, reminding her of the perfectly flawed, tender soul that lay inside of Severus Snape.