Anti-Litigation Charm: It all belongs to JKR; I play for non-profit amusement.
It All Started when the Girl Fell from the Sky
by Silver Birch
Chapter Seven: Returned (Part One)
The first sensation of which Hermione became aware was that of pain. It pulsed through her whole body, burning like fire across her torso and seeming to take especial care to bounce around viciously in her skull, which felt abnormally attuned to the least sensation. A feeble whimper of protest escaped her, immediately causing her to wince at how much making the sound hurt, which hurt in turn. Her throat felt dry as a bone, scraped raw.
"Hermione?"
She felt certain that she knew the owner of the voice and was left with the distinct impression that it was important to respond to the urgently-spoken word. With supreme effort, she forced open eyes that felt as though they had been glued shut. Instantly, light pierced her skull, and she closed her lids again, making an incoherent noise of protest. The original pain had intensified exponentially, her skull throbbing mercilessly with each beat of her heart.
"I've dimmed the light. Can you open your eyes again?" The voice sounded somehow desperate and hopeful, the words soft-spoken but still hurting her ears.
A name pushed its way through the haze of pain that envelopped her. Severus. With this knowledge came a certainty that she was safe, and, armed with that reassuring belief, she surrendered to the pain and let the darkness overtake her once more.
The second time Hermione returned to consciousness, it was like swimming out of a deep well. Pain was still dancing up and down her spine, radiating out to encompass her whole body, but she felt a little more connected and functional than she had previously. There were voices arguing in hushed but intense tones within hearing distance. She tried to open her eyes, but the achievement seemed to be currently beyond her reach.
"It's been nearly sixty hours. You have to start thinking about what that means."
Ron, she identified, the redhead sounding as though this was not the first time he had made this argument.
"Ron, if I want to sit here for the next week, there's nothing you can do to stop me," Harry snarled.
Hermione smiled faintly, not able to execute the full-fledged grin she wished to display. Whatever had happened, the Boy Who Lived continued to do so.
The third voice to speak told her she was exactly where she was supposed to be. Harry, Ron, and Severus: all safe. A load was lifted from her mind. "You seem extremely anxious to consign Hermione to her death."
"I want her to get well as much as you do!" Ron shot back defensively. "You were the one who said we'd know within forty-eight hours. You and Madam Pomfrey agreed. If she's not responded yet, you know what that indicates."
"And where's the harm in waiting a little longer?" Harry was the one to make the belligerent demand.
Hermione realized that Harry and Severus had voluntarily banded together, even if it were just to present a united front against Ron. There was hope for them yet.
"What about Calla?" Ron demanded. "You're only making this harder on her."
Calla! Where was she? Was she alright? Hermione had just begun to panic in earnest when her abused brain registered the warmth radiating from her right-hand side. It took her several attempts to act upon the motor instructions she was conscientiously trying to send to her hand, but her quest was eventually successful, and she found silky hair resting against her shoulder.
Making her mouth work with equal difficulty, she managed a barely-audible, croaky "Soft."
The warmth shifted, a kiss pressing into the crook of Hermione's neck, sending little sparkles of pain through her.
"Aunt 'Mione!" Although the little voice was right at her ear, the child had either figured out on her own or been told to keep her voice down, so the volume was sufficiently diminished not to make her injured head pound any more than it already was. "You need anything?"
Hermione took an inventory of her immediate needs and uttered, "Thirsty."
The warmth squirmed right away from her, and there was a thump, presumably as Calla landed on the floor.
"What are you doing?"
It was Severus who asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.
"Aunt 'Mione is thirsty," the little girl answered.
"Allow me."
There was an edge of resignation to his voice, and Hermione realized that he didn't believe Calla. He would assist to assuage the little girl, not because he believed she knew what Hermione wanted.
Still, he was very gentle as he propped Hermione up against his chest and tilted her head back so that she was at the correct angle to swallow the water that he slowly tipped into her mouth. She felt as though the liquid was being absorbed directly into the parched tissue of her throat rather than reaching her stomach. She was amazed by how much more human this immediately made her feel. Note to self: am extremely sensitive to dehydration. The ability to swallow without causing additional pain to her thoroughly-abused body was certainly a step in the right direction, anyway.
Marshalling her vocal skills once again, she said, voice sounding marginally more normal this time, "Thanks, angel."
The body supporting hers went rigid.
"You're welcome, Aunt 'Mione." There was a trace of smugness in her voice, suggesting that she had not been completely oblivious to what the others had been thinking.
"Hermione?" Spoken in the voice of someone who was convinced that whatever he had just seen or heard was a delusion.
"Severus?" she returned.
For a fleeting moment, she could have sworn that the arms supporting her embraced her, but then he was pulling away from her, allowing her to be held up only by the headboard of the bed.
"Can you open your eyes for me? The lights are dimmed," he demanded.
As it happened, there was very little that Hermione wouldn't do for Severus. This seemed to give her the strength of will that she had lacked earlier, and she forced open her heavy eyelids. Severus was her first sight. He was peering at her anxiously, lines that she didn't remember etched into his face. His hair looked even worse than usual, and his whole appearance was dishevelled in a way that she had never seen before.
Another smile formed on her face, a bigger one this time, and Hermione did not mind the twinges of pain this caused.
"Hi," she said stupidly.
"Hello," he replied seriously.
It looked as though he was going to speak again, but he didn't get the chance.
"Hermione!" It was wrenched from Harry, who couldn't seem to contain himself any longer as he strode up to the bedside, skirting around Severus.
He looked as unkempt as the Slytherin, as did Ron, who joined Harry on the opposite side of the bed from Severus. The tension was nearly unbearable, and Hermione wanted to relieve it, but all she could think of was a potshot at Ron and his reaction to her unconsciousness; the look of him said that he wasn't up for such ribbing right now.
Instead, she repeated the useless "Hi" she'd used before. Oh, come on now, she goaded herself, she could do better than that, surely?
"Gave up on personal hygiene and sleep in my absence, did you?"
Full grins spread over the cheeks of her two best friends.
"Can't expect us to remember everything on our own," Ron said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"Aunt 'Mione, I'm so glad you're alright!"
She had squirmed back onto the bed and took the opportunity to hug Hermione, who thought she'd about die, the pressure from the little girl exacerbating what seemed to be the very fragile state of quasi-functionality that the Gryffindor had achieved since waking. Not for the world, however, would Hermione let the little girl know how much that had just hurt.
"I was so worried when I woke up and you wouldn't." Her face fell. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have got hurt."
"You mustn't think like that, angel," Hermione said sternly but gently, before adding, as though the idea had just occurred to her, "unless you made the Portkey that sent us to Voldemort?"
The little girl smiled and shook her head.
Hermione nodded. "There we are, then. This was no one's fault but Voldemort's, and we both survived just fine."
"And he isn't going to hurt anyone anymore," Harry put in.
At first, Hermione couldn't quite process this. Her eyes caught and drowned in his brilliant green depths.
"No more Voldemort?" she questioned.
"No more Voldemort," he confirmed solemnly.
A wave of faintness overwhelmed her, leaving her gasping back on her pillow. After everything they had been through, the Dark Lord was dead, killed while she was in his clutches, but, anticlimax of anticlimaxes for her, while she was unconscious. Still, she didn't suppose that was really a detail to quibble over, since the defeat had evidently occurred before the psycho succeeded in killing her.
"There are potions that I need to administer," Severus said. There was a general protest, but he overrode it: "Hermione needs her rest. You may come and visit her again tomorrow. I will not endanger her recovery because of your foolishness."
Hermione had to wonder what had happened while she was unconscious. Severus had just referred to her by her first name in front of Harry, Ron, and Calla. And while they did continue to protest, it was in a mild fashion, and all three allowed themselves to be prodded out of her presence with a complete absence of insults and imprecations.
"You must say something if they injure you." She looked up at him, startled, and he continued: "It will be difficult for them to avoid if they never realize that you're in additional pain."
"I might have spoken to Ron or Harry. The last thing Calla needed to hear just then was that she was hurting me. My physical wounds will heal. At least," she smiled at him, "I trust they will?"
He gazed at her sourly. "So long as you don't go getting yourself reinjured."
"Point taken," she agreed. "I will do my very best to follow doctor's orders. Or Potions master's, as the case may be."
Or mediwitch's, she added silently as the matron bustled over. Guess that phrase doesn't work so well in the wizarding world.
"How are you feeling, my dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked solicitously.
"Like I was recently tortured and didn't expect to wake up," Hermione answered without thought.
"Less melodrama and more empirical evidence," Severus demanded.
"Severus!" Madam Pomfrey protested, sounding faintly scandalized.
Was it melodrama when it was true? Hermione was feeling too tired to argue the case properly, so she switched to a factual recitation of the aches and pains in her body.
"What hurts the most?" Severus pursued once she had finished.
She frowned. "Is it a contest? It all hurts."
"Did you lose the ability to answer my questions?" the Potions master asked acerbically.
Hermione considered this and then answered with a hint of the surprise that she felt at the realization: "Yes. Round about the first Legilimency attack, I decided to speak my mind even," she smiled faintly, "if it killed me. I hate to break it to you, but you simply aren't as scary as Voldemort."
"And you don't think you should revise this determination now that you are not about to die?" he queried.
"Perhaps," she conceded. "But you've caught me as I've just returned to consciousness."
"Then allow me to recommend that you put it at the top of your agenda."
"As you wish. And to answer your question, before you pester me with it again," she nearly managed to successfully roll her eyes, because she'd caught him as he'd opened his mouth, "it's a toss-up between my head, which is about to explode, and my torso, which once again feels as though it's been ripped apart by something with sharp, jagged claws."
Madam Pomfrey and Severus performed several scans, consulted in low voices, and soon came up with a whole battery of evil-tasting potions that she needed to drink straightaway. One of these must have been Dreamless Sleep, because the world faded out shortly thereafter.
"Crucio."
Pain tore through Hermione, mixing with the cold, cruel laugh that hurt her ears.
"Tell me about the child and this will all stop."
She couldn't have spoken even if she had wished to; agony locked her jaw.
"I never tire of this curse, and I will have answers." A hissed promise.
It was becoming difficult even to hear what the madman was saying. Hermione knew with absolutely certainty that he wasn't going to relent with the curse. It was going to go on and on until there was nothing whatsoever left of her mind.
She screamed, the agonized sound a small echo of the torture she felt.
"Hermione!"
The Gryffindor woke with a start, gazing around wildly until she realized that she was in the darkened hospital wing, and it was Severus who had woken her from her nightmare.
"Thank you." She'd succeeded at a fairly even tone, and had her voice not sounded as though she'd just screamed herself raw, she would have achieved the casual effect she was going for.
Severus, fortunately, chose to be polite and stick to the facts. "The Dreamless Sleep has worn off. I would prefer not to give you another dose so soon."
"Sit with me?" she requested. "Then I'll know I'm safe."
She couldn't quite interpret his expression. He looked … disbelieving?
"Are you going to make me beg?" she asked, voice low and full of emotion, because she would beg if he asked it.
Abruptly, Severus sat, although there was still that trace of doubt painting his features. She closed her eyes again, but found that wasn't good enough. It wasn't as though she expected him to duck out the second she wasn't looking, but with her eyes shut she didn't know he was there. Opening her eyes once more, she reached out and found his hand. He said nothing as she grasped it and pulled it back onto the bed. The last image she saw before she surrendered to sleep was his increasingly puzzled expression as he stared down at their twined hands lying on the coverlet.
The next couple of days passed in a monotony of potions and spells designed to make Hermione well, supplemented with an absurd number of visitors, many jockeying to find out what had really happened at the Final Battle, as they insisted upon calling it. All these hopefuls refused to believe that she had been non compos mentis when all the action occurred; since they had already been turned away by Harry, who had essentially told them to mind their own business (and since none of them wanted to piss off the brand new Saviour of the Wizarding World), they were quite persistent with her. When Madam Pomfrey caught her threatening to curse a gaggle of fifth-year Hufflepuffs who'd waylaid her early one morning (her wand having been returned by Remus, whose sharp eyes had found it in the debris), she got a little short with the Gryffindor girl.
"There is no need to resort to violence, Miss Granger, as I would think you would appreciate."
Hermione scowled. "What I don't appreciate, Madam, are asinine questions."
"You've been saying how bored you are; visitors should help relieve that," the nurse pointed out.
"Visitors that I actually know might help," Hermione conceded, "but gawkers I can do very well without." She continued hopefully, "I'm feeling ever so much better."
Madam Pomfrey stared down her nose at Hermione, clearly not believing a word of it. "You can't even walk yet."
"I'm sure I can," Hermione assured her. "Really, I just—"
"Fine. You walk to the doors unassisted and under your own power, and you may return to your own chambers," the nurse proposed with pursed lips.
Hermione wasted no time in taking her up on her offer. Flipping back the bedcovers, she eased her legs over the side of the bed and allowed her feet a few minutes to get used to the feel of the floor again. Gingerly, she gave them some of her body's weight, and then a little more, until she was finally standing, weaving shakily, beside her bed. There. Upright.
The horribly unsettled feeling inside her made it seem as though all her internal organs were forced too abruptly to acclimate to gravity acting on them in the vertical rather than the horizontal, but she took a step forward anyway. All her limbs felt shaky, as though the Cruciatus had been cast quite recently, and the wound across her abdomen meant she was breathing fire with every step as the healing gash tightened and stretched painfully.
Ten steps away from her bed, all she wanted to do was lie back down and never move again, but that would mean conceding defeat. She'd said she could do it, after all, and she wasn't about to allow the injuries inflicted by Voldemort and the Death Eater prevent her from achieving her goal.
Her movements became more and more of an awkward and pained shuffle across the floor, but she didn't permit herself to stop. It had at first seemed as though her progress was non-existent, but slowly the doors loomed larger, until finally she was standing on the threshold.
"Really, Poppy," she had been so set on her goal, she had not even noticed him tucked into the shadows by the door, arms crossed, watching her with dark eyes, "you should know better than to issue such a challenge to a Gryffindor."
"I hadn't thought—" Poppy began.
"I'll just see that she achieves her room without killing herself, shall I?" he said sardonically, pushing away from the wall with feline grace.
"I didn't—" It was clear Poppy hadn't meant for Hermione to leave, but the words had been said, and she reluctantly stood by them. "Yes, thank you, Severus."
Hermione tried to smile at the mediwitch, though it came out as a pained grimace, and by sheer force of will manouevred herself out the door and into the hallway. Severus followed.
"Idiot girl!" he snapped, as soon as Madam Pomfrey was out of sight. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"You know, I think I've already filled my quota of death wishes for the month," Hermione managed, although the fact that she had to gasp it out between laboured breaths rather ruined the offhand effect.
He was still muttering about idiotic Gryffindors, suicidal heroics, and insufferable know-it-alls when he surprised her by suddenly sweeping her up into his arms and beginning to stride down the corridor as though this were the most natural action in the world. She let out a big breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding; there had been no way that she was going to make it to her room on her own two feet. She'd thought that if she were lucky, given the mood he seemed to be in, he'd Body-Bind her and drag her there. Afraid to ask questions, in case he came to his senses and dumped her on the floor, she merely wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
Her cheek was resting against his black-clad chest; he smelled of potions, and she breathed deeply, instantly soothed. She didn't suppose he'd consent to carrying her around like this all the time, but she couldn't shake the feeling that all would be right with the world if she could only stay here like this. He would probably think her touched in the head if she said so.
They arrived outside her rooms, and she spoke the password as she felt his arms shift, as though he had intended to put her on her feet here and leave her to enter on her own.
"Tempestas."
The door swung open, and Severus carried her inside. Carrying me over the threshold, her mind was quick to point out, just as though— but she squashed the thought before it could be completed.
They passed through the sitting room as she directed him to the door opposite that led to her bedroom. A moment later, he had her settled on her cherry four-poster. It required conscious effort on her part to keep from clinging to him when he released her.
His gaze travelled around the room. Opposite the bed was the fireplace, a fire crackling merrily within, showing that the house-elves, at least, had been on the ball and unsurprised by her sudden bid for increased freedom. The hearth was flanked by bookcases stuffed with books, mirroring the arrangement of shelves on the wall behind her desk. Light from the room's one large window slanted down upon the myriad articles burying the desk's surface: current books, scrolls of parchment, quills, ink, and sundry other stationary supplies. There was a tall wardrobe on the right side of her bed, with a bedside cabinet squashed in next to it. On the other side of the bed was the door leading to her private bath, and the fifth and sixth bookshelves bracketed the door they had come through. Several rag rugs covered the cold stone floor, done in deep blues and purples to match the curtains surrounding her bed and the fluffy indigo quilt which her grandmother had made for her, ever so pleased that it could accompany Hermione to school. Hermione had always brought and used it, never having the heart to inform the woman that blankets were provided by the school (although, really, hers was much nicer than anything Hogwarts had ever provided).
"Ah," he pronounced. "I always suspected you were secretly a Ravenclaw."
"I refuse to let something as silly as house affiliation determine my colour preferences."
"Or impact your obsession with books?" he asked pointedly.
"Or that, either," she agreed blandly. Amongst all the other happiness at being named Head Girl, she had been overjoyed at the prospect of having her own room and thus being able to bring many more books than in previous years (not to mention the fact that she could now devote a whole bookshelf's-worth of space to library books). She'd become quite adept at shrinking her possessions in order to pack them, and this year that skill had been abundantly necessary. "Besides, if I'd been a Ravenclaw, you might have had to concede my skill in the classroom, and we couldn't have that, now could we?"
"Hmm…" His response was noncommittal. She hadn't really expected him to admit his prejudice outright. "I will have to retrieve your potions. Please see that you inform the Dream Team of your move so that mass hysteria is averted."
"I'll hobble off to the Owlery first thing," she promised facetiously.
He regarded her dourly, before saying in a put-upon voice, "Oh, very well; if I see them, I will inform them myself."
She hid a smile, wondering why he couldn't just have offered to inform her friends straight off, as he had obviously intended to do. Silly man. "Thank you, Severus."
She heard him exit, still grumbling, and allowed the smile to spread across her face.
Hermione's return to her own quarters may have barred the masses from her, but it signalled to others that she was well enough to answer questions. Propped up on pillows in her own bed, she met with friends, Order members, and Ministry officials to explain (with varying degrees of honesty and detail) just what had transpired when she and Calla were forcibly transported from the school.
Harry and Ron were not the only ones who thought that she could have been a little more forthcoming about the DA coins and Calla's necklace. As Hermione had explained to everyone, she had thought the information was safest if she was the only one aware of it. The coins, as Harry and Ron had proved, were self-explanatory (although she had taken care to point out quite forcefully to the two abashed boys that had she thought they wouldn't even have the sense to Disillusion themselves before Portkeying, she would have made the instructions on the coin longer). To anyone who argued that it would have been safer for Harry not to have such a coin, she had shaken her head pityingly and inquired if they knew Harry at all; he always found a way to do the right thing and rescue his friends. Her intervention minimized the risks of his haring off and putting himself in more danger by searching erroneous locations.
Truth be told, however, she had sooner imagined herself and Ron having to go after Harry one day than the other way round, but, for the sake of thoroughness, she had made each of their coins capable of not only sending the message but also receiving it. The objects she had given to the others Harry cared about, by contrast, were able to send the message only. This news had prompted several moments of Weasleys, friends, and Order members producing the coins, bracelets, rings, or necklaces with which she had gifted them and exclaiming loudly over them and their suddenly-discovered purpose. Dumbledore had been particularly impressed that she had managed to charm the coins so that they sent out the message when Summoned but then became passive so that Voldemort wouldn't detect them as potentially dangerous objects – it was the receiving coin which changed its nature and became a Portkey.
All those at Hogwarts who knew Calla's real identity had seemed embarrassed not to have thought of further protections for her, and so Hermione had played up her own compulsive nature; like all those Harry cared for (and perhaps a person who was just for Hermione), the Gryffindor girl had ensured that Harry's daughter could be tracked. Given Calla's unique situation, Hermione had added an additional feature. If Calla couldn't access her Portkey and felt endangered or worried that she was being asked information she knew she should not divulge, she was to drink the potion Hermione had provided in the little vial that was much more than simply a decorative part of her necklace. The potion would put her into a deep sleep that was almost guaranteed to last until Hermione, Severus, or Draco woke her, as the mostly likely malefactors did not have access to other Potions masters who could crack Hermione's alterations.
This feature had spectacularly exceeded Hermione's expectations, since she had really imagined it in the context of the Slytherins Calla was living with getting a little too nosy (and since Draco was so good at Potions, it would be easy to pass the Draught of Living Death off as him keeping his family's secrets to himself). Landing in Voldemort's lap had been the worst case scenario that she hadn't considered terribly seriously – what would he really want with a little girl, after all? This had been without taking into account his complete paranoia; a small child appearing mysteriously under the protection of Albus Dumbledore was a puzzle that had to be solved. Hermione would remain forever grateful, despite the horrors she had experienced, that Calla had been sitting in her lap when the Portkey activated; the Gryffindor had been able to take the brunt of the Dark Lord's ire; a small unconscious child would have made too easy a target if he lost his temper.
Severus could be heard muttering that she had been acting a complete Slytherin, and she didn't think that Ron and Harry disagreed. She had agreed with the Sorting Hat for years about the division of the school into houses causing problems, so she only smiled. A Gryffindor, accused of planning with a Ravenclaw's thoroughness and executing with a Slytherin's secrecy, who protected a child with a Hufflepuff's loyalty – it sounded about right to her.
Hermione had also had several holes in her own knowledge filled, learning all the details about Nott's house-elf and Harry and Ron's Gryffindor rescue. She had also learnt that at the death of her master, the lurking Nagini had turned on the Death Eaters. Four of them had been killed before the Aurors arrived: Bellatrix Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov, both unconscious, had apparently made easy targets, and Rodolphus had fallen avenging his wife. Rabastan Lestrange had managed to kill the great snake, but her last act had been a final lethal bite.
Hermione wasn't entirely certain how she felt about these deaths. Her last image of the Death Eaters was of Bellatrix's manic glee as Hermione was tortured and Dolohov's inhuman face as he attacked her. There had been too many casualties in recent years for her to feel particularly vindicated, but she also couldn't prevent the distinct feeling of relief that Dolohov wasn't sitting in a wizarding prison, perhaps about to break out yet again and come after her. Harry, she imagined, felt the same way about Bellatrix and her family. Hermione would have to be forever grateful to Voldemort, she supposed, for gathering together so many of his Death Eaters to run amok on Friday the thirteenth.
Severus continued to brew and administer the potions necessary for her return to health, and Madam Pomfrey made "house calls" each day, shaking her head at Hermione's obstinacy. Hermione suspected, however, that the woman actually understood her desire for privacy and her own bed; Hermione did not recall her time at St Mungo's and the Hogwarts infirmary terribly fondly (especially as, between her botched Polyjuice and her Petrification, she had spent more than her fair share of time in the latter medical facility during her second year).
Nightmares continued to plague her, the only nights she did not suffer them coinciding with a faint lingering smell of herbs and potion ingredients in the morning. Severus made no allusion to these nightly interventions, so she had thus far been grateful in silence. She knew that he tended to perform his good deeds unacknowledged, but wondered a little at his continued reticence now. Voldemort was dead, after all, the need for absolute secrecy over. It would obviously be unwise to inform all and sundry that he was spending many nights in the Head Girl's rooms, as that could be completely misinterpreted, but why keep the knowledge from her? Surely he must know that she was deeply grateful and that she would never betray him?
Calla's favourite location continued to be at Hermione's side, as though assuring herself that the Gryffindor was really safe and whole. Hermione consented to watch the child when classes resumed after the week's celebratory holiday that Dumbledore had granted everyone. Harry, Draco, and Ron now came to visit when they had free time and then took Calla off with them at night and when Hermione was being examined by Severus or Madam Pomfrey. The boys had also begun bringing her her homework, incredulous, as usual, that she was not using her injuries to get out of the work. She still tired more easily than usual, however, and the slow-to-heal nerve damage from the Cruciatus made her hands shake, so her progress was much slower than normal.
It wasn't long, in fact, before she was sick of being in bed, sick of her room, sick of stupid questions, and sick of sickly solitude. It was evening and Draco, Ron, and Harry were off entertaining Calla somehow or other; they hadn't said what they were doing, just taken her before dinner, leaving Hermione alone. It was at times like these that she missed Crookshanks terribly; the half-Kneazle had taken a curse meant for Hermione in Hogsmeade during her sixth year, and Hermione had not had the heart to replace him, although she had been touched by Ron's offer to go find the ugliest, orangiest, smartest cat he could for her. She had known, however, that it hadn't been time, still wasn't time; Crooks had been unique, and now he was gone, and Hermione was alone.
Severus came to administer a round of potions that evening in the midst of one of her strongest bouts of this moping, and when he tried to duck out immediately afterwards, unwilling, even, to stay for a cup of tea, she snapped.
"If you would rather Madam Pomfrey have sole contact with me, go ahead and tell her to administer my potions."
This brought him, already halfway to the door, around to face her quite quickly.
"What?"
"Or I daresay I could take them on my own, and you need only give Madam Pomfrey replacements from time to time," she offered, unable to keep all the bitterness from her voice.
He faced her stiffly, face blank and eyes shuttered. "If you do not wish me to—"
"Oh, come off it!" she interrupted angrily. "When have I given the least indication that I don't want you here? It's you who has been practically running out of the room."
He continued to look at her impassively.
"I only sleep well when you're here, Severus," she continued more quietly, her voice now sounding hurt rather than angry, "but if you want nothing to do with me, I'd prefer you make a clean break of it."
He was silent for so long that she thought he wasn't going to answer her, and she was going to have to watch him walk out on her for good.
"I walked out on you." His voice was low, the echo of what she had been thinking startling her, although the past tense only confused her further. He continued: "I took Calla and left you to be tortured."
Hermione stared at him, not understanding, finally uttering, when he said no more: "You got her out of Voldemort's sight." She frowned. "Though I still don't understand why you didn't Portkey her out of there straightaway."
He answered with evident reluctance: "If I took Calla and left you there, I would have been leaving you to certain death."
"But he could have killed her when you brought her back," she protested. "He was going to hurt her to make me talk."
"He was hurting you to make you talk. He was going to kill you," the Potions master responded intensely, stepping closer to the bed.
"I'm quite aware of that, thank you," she responded tartly.
"And I left you there!" he yelled, now almost right beside her, the extra volume completely unnecessary. "I took Calla and left you there to die!"
She blinked up at him. "But you didn't. You came back."
"In time to see Dolohov curse you," he snarled. "By the time Potter and I got to you … I thought you were dead. I thought I'd stuck to the bloody plan and upheld the greater fucking good and it had cost me you!"
The look on his face showed plainly that he had gotten a bit carried away and said more than he had intended.
"So …" she tried to put the pieces of his convoluted reasoning together, "you think I'm angry with you for leaving me there?"
"How can you even stand to speak to me?" he demanded.
"Severus," she paused to marshall her thoughts, "if I'm even a little annoyed with you, it's for not escaping with Calla when you had the chance; I protected her for a reason. I was prepared to die for the greater good, just as you have always been, every time you went back to that maniac. But I'm not angry with you. I can hardly be angrier with you for coming back than with Harry for rushing to my aid, and you don't think I'm angry with him, do you?"
Looking rather stunned, he shook his head.
"Coming back for me was daft, you know, completely stupid," she pursued, and saw his jaw tighten, "and I've never been more touched in my life."
Today seemed to be her day for leaving the man speechless.
"It can't really have escaped your notice how much I care for you." From the look on his face, it could. He had risked everything, his status as a spy, Calla's life, his own, all in an attempt to save her, so she continued, confessing her own ultimate truth: "Severus, I've been in love with you for ages."
He gaped at her and sort of fell blindly onto the end of the bed when she patted it in invitation. "You can't possibly—" he gasped out.
"But I can. I am," she pointed out inexorably.
"Weasley—" he uttered.
She laughed softly. "Severus, you know better than anyone that we would have killed one another within a week. We don't have the same interests or goals, and I'm not attracted to him, I haven't been for years, and even then … I went to the Yule Ball with Victor Krum, Severus, and he certainly doesn't look anything like Ron."
"So you're saying…."
"Still saying that it's you I'm crazy about, yes – have been since before even I realized it," she answered, still amused by his descent into sentence fragments and words of few syllables. She tried to put her feelings into words to give him something concrete to go on with: "You love potions and books, and you're so … intense, it makes me shiver sometimes. Your voice could melt steel. And you listen to me and understand me, even when you argue with me…. You're one of the smartest people I know, and you have a wicked sense of humour, even if you sometimes misuse it. I don't think anyone could have done what you've done over the years. You're noble and courageous – even when you deny it." She'd caught his splutter. "I don't think you're perfect, Severus. You've treated Harry abysmally over the years for sins that were not his own. I could have smacked you for what you did to Professor Lupin in third year, and God knows that you took more pleasure than I think you ought to have done in putting down Gryffindor over the years. But nobody's perfect. Talk to Harry and Ron and you'll know how many times I've annoyed them over the years, the errors I've made, the opinions I've carried even in the face of evidence to the contrary. That's what makes us human. I love all of you, Severus."
It took him a minute to find his voice. "You're … very young."
She shook her head, negating this objection. "Not so very. I'm younger than you, yes, but you know as well as I that the gap is not so large, especially in the wizarding world. I've seen a great deal and suffered more than many, and you know how close to death I recently travelled. You were my very last thought."
"I'm a Death Eater."
"You were a Death Eater once upon a time," she clarified sternly, having long-expected this argument and remaining certain that it was utter bollocks. "For many years, however, you have been a spy for the Order, and I have seen you atone for your past."
"You won't want to be associated with me. Everyone will turn on you," he tried again.
"Not those whose opinions matter to me," she answered with dignity. "And before you protest that I don't know what it feels like to be ostracized, I weathered Rita Skeeter's campaign against me quite well in fourth year when I wasn't actually in a relationship with Harry; that was just on principal. I'm more than willing to fight possible ill opinion for someone I'm completely in love with. Professor Dumbledore helped me achieve my Potions N.E.W.T. so that I am no longer your student, Severus. You honestly think he doesn't know how I feel?"
"Your friends—" he continued.
"Harry's going to have Calla with Draco. If he says one word against you and me, I'll curse him into next week. Besides, the lot of you have really been quite civil since my return, haven't you?"
It appeared to be hard for him to deny this.
"I … need to go," he said, sounding slightly desperate as he popped up from the bed.
"Of course," she forced the words out, and he was far too frazzled to notice if her voice was off.
Alone again in her room, she tried to squash her desperate wish that he, rather than responding with a string of paltry objections, had made some sort of return declaration to her outpouring of feelings. She supposed she should be grateful he hadn't simply walked out without a word or laughed in her face, but grateful was the last emotion she was feeling at the moment. His actions had seemed very indicative to her, but perhaps she'd only seen what she wished to see.
As the dawn light crept into the castle, it found Hermione, still perched on her bed, wide awake and even less hopeful than she had been the night before.
Next up: Chapter seven continues (with Hermione still trying to work out how to cope with life post-attack).
