Chapter 4: Rescued
Hermione's first instinct was to grab for the canoe. Immediately, Severus smacked her hand hard with the paddle.
"Ouch!" Tears of pain sprang to her eyes. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Idiot girl! Do you want us both in the water?"
"What, then?" Hermione snapped, deciding to hex Snape twenty different ways once she had the opportunity.
"Just hold still!" Snape stowed the paddle in the bottom of the canoe and whipped out his wand in her direction. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
She felt herself lifting gently out of the water and moving up and above the canoe.
"I think I sprained my ankle. Watch out for - ow!" The warning came too late; Hermione's dangling left foot struck the side of the canoe.
Snape's concentration broke immediately, and she fell like a sack of potatoes into the boat. It rocked wildly for a moment, forward, backward, side to side. Hermione could feel icy black eyes burning into her as she tried to right herself.
"Would you," Severus seethed, "just...stay...still?"
Hermione bit back a caustic reply and pushed her dripping hair out of her eyes. As soon as they disembarked, she decided, she would take inventory of her aching body parts and, if need be, drag herself to the nearest point where she could Apparate home. She'd had all she could take of Severus Snape and the North Woods for one day.
"Sit up," Snape growled.
"Make up your mind, would you? You just told me to -"
"You're on top of the paddle."
Wearily, Hermione tried to raise up, but the canoe began to rock once more. Cursing under his breath, Snape tugged her upright with one arm and quickly pulled the paddle out from under her with the other. Within moments, they were underway at far too high a speed for one man paddling a canoe.
"You're not paddling," she said accusingly. "You're using magic. Why did you need the oar?"
"I wasn't aware that you were so experienced in piloting a canoe. Would you care to switch positions?" Snape demanded in icy tones. "No? Then shut up and sit still."
Hermione fumed silently while minutes slid by. With the fog still blanketing the lake, there was only the slap of water against the hull to mark progress. "Just how far down the shore did I end up, anyway?" she asked finally, wondering if she'd been quiet long enough to satisfy Snape.
"You didn't end up down the shore, you ended up on a small island in the middle of the lake. You're lucky you didn't end up in the lake."
Well, that would have been a rude awakening. "Just how far do your wards extend, anyway?"
"About a kilometer's radius from the cabin on land. Onto the water, as far as the island - about half a kilometer."
Hermione's jaw dropped in astonishment. "Isn't that a bit extreme?"
"Given what you know of my past," Severus drawled in annoyance, "why would you find that to be extreme?"
"Don't tell me you have enemies even out here."
"No, I happen to have solitude. And I like it that way."
Suddenly, the upright posts of the dock loomed out of the fog. With one final burst of speed, Snape slid the canoe past the dock and onto the shore. Gravel crunched as the canoe came to an abrupt halt at the water's edge, and Hermione, who had made minor progress in propping herself upright within the boat, found herself tumbling onto her back once more.
"You did that on purpose," she muttered.
Severus climbed out of the canoe without answering. He splashed the few paces onto dry land, grabbed a rope that was tied to the bow, and pulled the canoe forward another foot.
"I don't suppose that you'd like to help me out of this thing, would you?" Hermione's voice rang with sarcasm.
With more force than was absolutely necessary, Snape grabbed one arm and pulled her upright. The motion landed Hermione on both feet, and immediately, she winced and transferred her weight to her sound right ankle.
"I don't suppose you can walk unassisted, can you?" he demanded in a perfect imitation of her previous question.
Hermione glared at him, jerked her arm away, and began to hobble towards the path to the cabin.
She'd made her point sufficiently: Snape went on ahead without bothering to offer any help. Hermione was panting by the time she reached the door.
"Here." He met her there, handed her a wad of clothing, and nodded towards the bathroom. "Put these on after you've taken a hot shower."
"I don't need your clothes. I'll just use a drying charm once I've -"
"They're not my clothes, they're Lawford's, and they're warm and dry. You can dry your own garments later." With that, Snape disappeared back outside.
Hermione shut her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply. Her head throbbed, her knees hurt, and her ankle ached, and suddenly a hot shower sounded like the finest idea in the world. She hobbled into the bathroom and began to undress, a process made more difficult by the fact that she was now shivering violently. Peeling off the soaked denim jeans turned out to be an exercise in self-inflicted pain, and one look at her bare legs showed why: both knees were scraped and skinned, and the swollen left ankle was already turning a delicate shade of purple.
Wearily, Hermione stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Her lips were almost blue from the cold and her hair stuck out in all directions. The Hogwarts student of whom everybody expected Great Things was a thirty-three year old failure and a complete wreck.
Great. Just great. How had her life ended up like this?
She turned the water on in the shower stall and climbed in, letting the streams of hot water pound away at her flesh and temper the memory of her dip in the lake. It was only after she tired of perching on one leg that she turned off the tap and reached for a towel.
Snape's towel. Who would have thought that one day I'd be using Severus Snape's towel, she thought dryly, but even as she said it her mind automatically corrected itself: Brady Lawford's towel, idiot...
Lawford's clothes turned out to be a pair of gray track trousers and a horribly ragged green sweatshirt. But they were soft with the wear of years, and Hermione slipped them on as soon as she placed a drying charm on her underwear. The jeans and the sweater would take longer to dry, and she was suddenly grateful to Snape for providing the temporary clothing, oversized though they might be. She had a sudden memory of Harry at age eleven, clad in his cousin Dudley's clothing and overwhelmed by it.
Out of long habit, Hermione started to push the memory aside. But this one was a pleasant, benign memory from simpler times, and she allowed herself to smile at it briefly before forcing her mind back to the task at hand.
A brief drying charm expelled most of the moisture from her hair. Hermione twisted her curls into a vague knot on top of her head, then stuck her wand through it to hold it in place. She didn't look much better after the shower than before, she decided as she gazed at her reflection, but at least she was warm. By the time she limped from the bathroom, her spirits had lifted marginally, even if her aches and pains hadn't. She found Severus Snape in the living room, feeding fresh logs to the wood-burning stove.
"Thank you for the loan of the clothing," Hermione ventured tentatively.
Snape said nothing at first; finally, he stood back upright, put the fireplace poker back in its rack, and turned to face her.
"I can only assume," he said, "that you are here because your supervisor did not care for my response on Thursday."
"In a word, yes."
The scowl on his face indicated exactly what Snape thought of that. He motioned her toward the sofa that sat a few feet from the stove. "Sit."
"I'm really very sorry -" she began, gingerly lowering herself to the sofa.
"I'm quite sure that you are," Severus said flatly. He walked into the kitchen, leaving Hermione with nothing to do but stare out the windows at the brightening day outside. The fog, it seemed, had finally decided to lift.
"Is it always this foggy in the morning here?" she asked, casting about for a polite topic of conversation.
"Rarely. You chose the wrong day."
The usual bite in Snape's voice seemed to be lacking. Hermione was totally taken aback when he returned several minutes later with a cup of tea, which he held out to her. "For me?" she asked stupidly.
"Of course it's for you. Do you want it or not?" Snape demanded.
"Yes, thank you." Severus Snape, bringing her a cup of tea? It was an uncharacteristic kindness, along with his offer of the dry clothes. "You see, I hadn't planned to come back here, but Madam Hobbs insisted."
"Madam Hobbs would be your supervisor?"
A nod as Hermione took a sip.
Snape took a seat in the overstuffed chair across from her. "It's no use, you know. I don't give a damn about the government and what they want me to do."
"I understand, but -" Hermione groaned aloud. "Oh, no... My briefcase... I dropped it in the lake."
With an expression of pure exasperation, Snape rose once more, opened the door to the deck, and pulled out his wand. He aimed it into the distance.
"Accio Weasley's briefcase."
There was a sinking feeling in Hermione's stomach that had nothing to do with her wide variety of injuries. "It won't work," she muttered.
"What?"
"I said, it won't work. Try Accio Granger's briefcase."
Snape started to turn back towards the lake, then fixed her with a withering glare. "Tell me, Granger, were not your last words on Thursday to inform me that your name was now Weasley? Did you, by some mysterious quirk of fate, change your name overnight?"
Ah. There was the Snape of old. "Just try it," she sighed. "Please."
He did, and moments later, a dripping leather bag deposited itself on the deck. Hermione was glad to see it, even with water streaming from each and every pore. She shook her head in dismay at the thought of the number of drying charms she'd have to do, and immediately regretted it.
"Would you happen to have anything for pain? I tripped and hit my head in the fog, and I twisted my ankle, too..."
Severus abandoned the briefcase and strode toward her. "Look at me." He grasped her chin and tilted it upwards so that her face was closer to the nearby lamp.
"Ow!" Hermione winced at the sudden movement. "What are you -"
"No concussion," Snape said flatly, pushing her chin away.
"How can you tell?"
"I can tell. Surely you don't think that I sent every Slytherin with a bump on the head to Pomfrey."
Hermione inwardly thanked her lucky stars that her Head of House had been McGonagall. "As I said, do you have anything I can take?"
"Downstairs in my lab. I don't have the usual..." Snape's voice trailed off. "I do have something, but it's rather strong. Wait here."
As if she had a choice. "No problem," Hermione muttered. Moments later, she could hear activity in the cellar workshop beneath her. Soon, Snape returned with a small bottle in his hand.
"It's the Iberian Formula for Severe Pain. Take it or leave it, it's all I have available at the moment."
Hermione tipped the bottle into her mouth. The solution was surprisingly sweet and fruity; her past experiences had taught her that if Snape made it, it was likely to taste utterly foul. "Thank you," she said gratefully, handing the bottle back when she'd drained it.
"I spent some time working for an Apothecary in Spain," Severus told her. "I found that they're rather fond of their flavor additives there."
"Imagine that," Hermione said dryly. "A potion that tastes good and works well."
Once more, Snape took the chair across from her, draped his legs out in front of him and crossed his hands in his lap. "Very well, Granger, or Weasley, or whoever you are, what will it take to appease your supervisor?"
She sighed and leaned back into the sofa. "It's not just about the legalities of registering the formula, I'm afraid. I found out that your insect repellant made it into the hands of the Prime Minister's nephew. He owns a large potions factory in Winnipeg, and apparently he thinks he could make a lot of money with it."
"Of that, I have no doubt. I take it that his staff was unable to deconstruct it?"
"That's correct." The pain was beginning to ease a little. Hermione saw the lofty expression slide across Snape's face, and immediately the corners of her mouth twisted into a smile. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? You put in a decoy ingredient of some sort so that no one but you could deconstruct it."
"Surely you knew that I created a fair number of somewhat...misleading potions for the Dark Lord. Had they been deconstructed, I would have been a dead man twenty times over. I'm not stupid, Granger."
"No, sir. You were never stupid." The words were out before Hermione could stop them. Aghast, she stared at Snape to gauge his reaction, and discovered that there were now two of him. "Uh... That Iber-whatsit Potion you gave me -"
"Is rather strong, yes."
"It certainly is..." The words were barely out of her mouth before Hermione realized that she was listing dangerously to one side.
Severus sighed audibly. He rose from his seat, pushed Hermione's shoulder gently with one finger. The girl collapsed sideways onto the sofa.
By the time he returned with a blanket and a charmed cold pack for her ankle, Hermione was already snoring.