Hermione awoke aching for the canary and angry at the small boy featured in her dream. The anger faded when she thought of the little bird, she wondered why she'd loved him so much. It was just a bird. No, he was a special songbird, he was hers...somehow, she felt she was supposed to help him fly. Yet she watched his wings break and then the plummet that killed him.
She shuddered as she remembered him dying in her hands. Along with the shudder was a light tug on her clasped hands. She looked to her side and saw Severus taking his hand back to rub his eyes, the other hand still cradled his face. He put his hands down, folding his arms across his chest as he examined her.
"I wish you wouldn't look at me like that." She stuck her thumbnail in her teeth as she looked away from the prying expression.
"And how exactly am I looking at you?"
"Like I'm some broken thing and you're trying to sus out exactly how to fix me..." her voice trailed off as she realized all he had done for her. As much as that cold clinical look disturbed her, she couldn't say he deserved the grief after last night. "I'm sorry," she groaned burying her face in her hands. "I shouldn't be speaking to you like that. After last night I really—"
"If you really want to express gratitude for last night you'd stop bringing it up."
His voice sounded irritated as he asked her to forget about all the kind things he had done for her only a few hours ago. She turned to face him to see if his face was as angry as his voice sounded, but to her surprise his face was neither angry or indifferent. But a resigned pleading flickered in his eyes, as though she had just revealed a nasty secret and he realized he was helpless to her. "Yes, sir."
In a blink of an eye his all emotion in his face drained and his cool, indifferent demeanour took over. Any anger that was in his voice before drained as he spoke with a tired voice: "If you are wondering why, it's because I don't want you harassing me trying to repay the favour."
"Of course," she nodded.
The two sat in silence for a while waiting for Pomfrey to come to them and say she was good to go. Severus pretended to read a book while he watched Hermione write in a small green book. The quill she used met her teeth a few times as she chewed on it pensively. After a long pause she opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but she wrapped a tendril of hair around her finger and placed it in her mouth as a silencer.
"You won't be discharged this morning if you begin coughing up hairballs, Granger..." he warned.
Hermione removed the hair from her mouth and replaced it with the quill she had been writing with.
"Ink poisoning," he observed. "Much better, that should extend your stay a while."
Taking the quill out of her mouth she placed it in her book. "Don't you have a class to teach?"
"It's barely sevenAM, Miss Granger."
"I thought it'd be much later..." she thought about the time that passed as she nibbled on her fingernails.
"Do you realize that's a disgusting habit?" Severus kept himself from shouting as he slammed his book shut. "I'll tie your hands together if you don't stop it!"
She clasped her hands together in her lap and looked down a sound passed her lips but whatever she was going to say she must've decided against as she now gnawed on her lip. She adjusted her position to sitting cross-legged on the bed and played with whatever manner of object she could fiddle with (be it sheets, the book in her lap, her jewelry etc.). It was a manner of seconds before his blood began to boil. Everytime he'd asked her to stop biting something, something else found its way to her mouth. He didn't know if that was part of her absent-minded habit or if she was spiting him.
He took her face by the chin and turned it to face him. He felt a pang of guilt when he saw her eyes widen in surprise at the violence of him just grabbing her face. Ashamed he let go and said what he had planned to in a calmer tone. "If this disgusting habit is a way to keep from saying things, I can guarantee you that I will be less offended by what you have to say than this."
"I was just going to tell you I've been doing this for as long as I can remember, but I figured it'd do no good."
"Why should it?" he asked standing up. "Life long habits harder to break people of, Granger. You shouldn't get any lenience from it. If anything I should be harder on you about it."
"It never seemed to bother you before now," her tired eyes showed him she was as annoyed with him as he was with her. He wondered when the connection they shared turned to tired tones and glances. "Why does it all of a sudden bother you?"
"It's easier to ignore when you're surrounded by students with worse habits," he now leant over the foot board, tapping his nails impatiently. "The girl chewing her hair stands out less when she sits between two defiant boys passing notes or beside a boy who can;t do anything right."
Hermione rolled her eyes and cast him an exhausted look with a drawn out sigh. "I don't suppose you'll ever stop insulting us?"
"Don't expect it anytime soon," he replied flatly, feeling his blood boil. "How do you see with your eyes rolled back half your life?"
"It becomes second nature. I see how angry you are, so this is going to fall onto deaf ears..." she paused and bit her lip in thought. She spoke: "Respect is mutual, Professor. A very wise woman once told me that you only get out what you put in."
"I'm tired of you quoting your mother and sister, Granger!" he seethed. "With all your short comings, I have to admit you are intelligent...so why can't you think for yourself?"
"I was quoting my Grandmother. And my choice in believing them is me thinking for myself."
Before another awkward silence had a chance to pass Pomfrey came out to check on Hermione and see if she was able to be discharged. "I over-slept, I hope I didn't keep you two waiting."
"Of course not," Severussaid shortly. "The two of us were having a grand-old time, weren;t we, Granger?"
"Oodles and oodles," she said sarcastically.
"I'm amazed you're both still alive," the nurse scoffed examining Hermione. "You should be good to go. Just avoid voluntarily being hit by hexes and charms that affect heart-rate, potions too."
"That should be easy enough," she agreed eagerly nearly jumping out of the bed, her face paled as her feet on the floor. Swaying she sat back down, after a few deep breaths, she stood again, this time more carefully.
"You're sure she's good to go?"
"I'm fine," Hermione all but snapped at him. If this was some new way of tormenting her she wished he'd forget it, and if it were some new found concern for her, she wished he'd stop.
"I believe I asked Madam Pomfrey," he seethed.
"She's fine," Pomfrey sighed. "She should know better than to get up that quickly."
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes she grabbed her bag and shoved her book in it and capped her ink, placing it in the bag as well before slinging it over her shoulders. "I forgot for a moment." She turned to both of them and said while she could still be sincere. "Thank you both for looking after me."
Hermione was barley down the corridor before she heard Snape's voice calling out to her, she turned to see him drawing close.
"Yes, Professor?"
"You were in such a hurry to leave we were wondering if you knew you weren't dressed?"
Hermione looked down at the white night dress she was still wearing and felt a wave of embarrassment come over her. She dug out a blue jumper Mrs. Weasley had knitted for her for Christmas and put it on a top the gown. "There's a bathroom not too far from here. I'll just change there."
"Miss Granger?" he asked walking alongside her.
"Yes?" she replied cautiously. He could be leading in to a detention, or extra homework. That or worse, he could tell her he saw the scar...
His eyes and face were as cool and indifferent as ever, but his hand touching his chin betrayed a pensive man. "I wonder... what was it you were going to say before your hair found its way to your mouth?"
"I don't normally do that to prevent myself from talking, professor," she crossed her arms and did her best to keep her lip out of her mouth.
"I suppose you're just teething then?"
"I tend to chew on things when I'm deep in thought. I tend to think more clearly I suppose..." Hermione bent her head as she bit her lip. "It certainly helps me recall things."
"But you did reconsider saying something, weren't you?"
"It was just a question I already know the answer to," she sighed as she looked at the ceiling, the floor, anything but the man walking beside her. "The answer I knew and the answer I wanted were different. I knew you wouldn't have the answer I want."
A hand moved the hair that was blocking her face behind her ear, making her look curiously at the hand's owner. In all her years at Hogwarts Snape had not touched her once, but that seemed to change in the last 24 hours that all seemed to change.
"Try me," his voice and smirk presenting a challenge he seemed to think she'd lose.
Hermione played with the silver chain around her neck as she thought about how to put it. Now Severus Snape was not a man who needed or wanted to hear the easy or delicate way of wording things, but she wanted to avoid another out-burst...
"Don't chew on your necklace, Granger." He said firmly, reaching behind her neck, unclasping it and taking the thin chain. "You'll get it back when I stop catching you with things in your mouth that don't belong there. Now, I believe you had a question."
She gnawed thoughtfully on her bottom lip a moment. "I heard everything you said to Neville while I was-er- down..."
"You unable to move?" he asked anger surfacing in his voice like water about to boil. "I'm not going to refuse to answer your question, Miss Granger, but if this is going where I think it is...which I think we both know it is. I would sooner you skip the rhetorics and get to the point. I'm not a young man, nor am I getting any younger."
"Oh, you're not that old."
"I will be by time you;ve finished asking your question."
Hermione sighed as she looked the towering unimpressed man in the eye. "Do you think you're too harsh with some of your students?"
A flash of anger lit up his eyes and was gone with a wash of sympathy within seconds, followed by an exhausted pity she knew entirely too well. She wondered if she imagined half the emotions that registered in his face when he placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. "If you're talking about the way I reacted when Longbottom knocked you unconscious, I think it was more than warranted. For all I knew you could have been seriously harmed and until I'm convinced your attack last night was unrelated I'm going off the assumption you were."
"But I'm fine—"
"You might not have been," He sighed looking at her with concern as his grip tightened slightly on her shoulder. "I'm not sure if you realize just how serious this is, Miss Granger. What would've happened to you if I didn;t see the attack? You could have died...Do you understand that?" his dark eyes now pleaded for understanding as he now rested his palm lightly on her cheek. "You're not protecting anyone by pretending not to. If something had happened to you..." his voice trailed off and his eyes bore into hers.
"I understand your concern, Professor," she said moving his hand off her face while trying to remain sympathetic. "But making Neville feel more guilty doesn't do anyone any good. It was a horrible accident, and believe me, the entire visit yesterday I could tell he felt just awful—"
"As he should have..." he nodded folding his arms over his chest. "He could have killed you. I think you were far too quick to forgive the boy."
"It wasn't entirely his fault..." Hermione sighed diverting her gaze to the ground as her muscles tensed. "I—"
"I'm not interested in you hearing about how my presence making the boy too nervous to function relieves him of the blame. It's an excuse that gets old. The rest of you seem to fair well, so don't blame the boy's incompetence on me."
"It's my fault," Hermione sighed tension leaving her body as she admitted it.
"Now you're beginning to sound like a battered wife, Granger..." Snape sighed with an irritated ring to his voice. "How, pray tell, would his mistake be your fault?"
Hermione opened her mouth to answer but was cut off.
"Did you tell him what to do?"
"No, but—"
"Did you possess the boy?"
"No, sir, but—"
"Were you holding the wand?"
"No..."
"Did you cast the spell on yourself?"
"N—"
"Did you in anyway influence the boy's actions?"
"You're being—"
"Did you?" he snapped impatiently and began tapping his foot as he stared at her.
"No, but if you'd listen to me for a moment and let me explain—" Hermione began speaking a mile-a-minute.
"If you didn't influence him at all then how the hell is it possible for it to be your fault?" he growled taking a step toward her, making her feel cornered. "I want you to think about that for a moment."
Hermione fought the urge to roll her eyes as she tapped her lip nervously, lip taping quickly became nail-biting. She took the hand away from her mouth when she saw him reach for it and finally spoke. "I'm better than I was, but I'll never be the healthiest person, Professor. The doctors did what they could, but my body can't handle what most people can. If I had been a healthy person it would have merely knocked me back and make my blood pressure lower. My blood pressure's already too low, so Neville's mistake did too much to me. He didn't know I have a medical condition."
"If I had assigned spells that were supposed to affect your body that way it would be your fault." Snape nodded in agreement as he kept pace with her. "You've failed to inform both Mister Longbottom and myself of a medical disorder knowing the seriousness of the consequences. I need to know these things, Miss Granger. I won't stand for my students endangering themselves. If something happens to you because you're too ashamed to tell anyone about your illness, you'll be the only one responsible."
Hermione nodded as she played with her ring, twisting it around her finger in an attempt to keep from chewing her hair. "I understand that. That's why I really think you shouldn't hold Neville responsible for the incident. I chose not to tell anyone."
Snape looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "Do your medical problems affect your hearing at all, Miss Granger?"
Hermione shot a quizzical look to the man as she thought about the implication that hid behind his words. "No, sir."
"Well, I believe I said that would only apply if I had assigned spells that affect your medical disorder. If the only thing wrong with you is your blood pressure, then I didn't. Leaving Longbottom to blame."
"But—"
Snape rolled his eyes and groaned as he now held her by the crook of her arm, and turned her around to face him. "If I had knocked down someone with osteoporosis and broke all of her bones, I would be responsible whether or not I knew about her disorder. Can you tell me why this isn't the case with Longbottom?"
Hermione bit her lip and stared down at her feet. She searched for excuses but she couldn't muster anything with those dark eyes staring into her, a stolen glance told her the expression was disturbingly probing, and his hand gripping her arm was enough to disturb her concentration. She knew he was ready to tear at any excuse she could muster.
"Is he just so stupid he can;t learn?" Snape asked tilting her chin upwards slightly so their eyes met, and she couldn't avert her gaze with such ease. "Because that's the only thing that would excuse the boy."
"You know I don't believe that, and neither do you."
A gentler expression took over his face, but the intense gaze forever lingered. "And that is why I hold him responsible for what he did to you."
"He's a good kid, Professor," she told him.
"So are you," his voice rang with sincerity, taking her a back. "I just wish you would stop sabotaging yourself."
"Sabotaging myself?"
"You'd refuse to believe me if I told you," he took his hand back and his arms returned to their natural position of folded over his chest. "Even if you did the behaviour wouldn't stop..."
"Try me."
"Alright," he agreed with a curt nod. "You refuse help when you need it, no matter how dire the situation. How long have you been depriving yourself of sleep because of your sleepwalking? Or should I even mention the fact that you won't tell anyone that you're seriously ill?" his eyes begged for an answer as his fingers found their way to her chin once more. "Are you so damn proud that you're willing to let this disease take hold instead of asking for help?"
Hermione's hands shook with anger as she turned her face away only to look back at him with narrowed eyes. "How many times am I going to have to tell you I'm better?"
He looked at her mournfully, resignation took his voice as he spoke: "You actually believe that, don;t you?"
"I know I am." She said determined.
"I don't know how that can be when I know you're not."
"This isn't going to be easy to say..." she sighed. "But.."
"Get on with it, Granger!" he snapped impatiently.
Hermione looked dead ahead, eyes fixed on nothing as she took a deep breath. "For thirteen years people have been using my illness as an excuse to strip me of my independence..." she turned her gaze to the indifferent face that examined hers. "I won't let you do that. Words can't express how grateful I am for what you did last night, but I don't need you."
With that she turned away from him to the bathroom that they had finally come to. In the girls' toilets Hermione found refuge from the ever-present spector of Severus Snape and his battery of questions about the illness.
It doesn;t matter! Hermione chastised herself taking her robes out of her bag. As far as she was concerned she was cured. She survived the disease, all she had to do was live what was left of her life the best way she could.
Which meant coming clean of her prognosis eventually, she knew that. No, she couldn't have Harry and Ron rallying together for her when they had more important matters to attend to. The peace effort had to come first, no matter what. And she couldn't stand her best friends—or anyone—treating her differently. Four years from now Hermione would slip into obscurity and die alone, leaving her friends with fond memories, and letters explaining how much she loved them all.
Casting off the night gown, Hermione got a glimpse of her naked reflection. She looked at the ghost of a girl with disdain. Her stomach lurched as she looked at her now wiry figure, her bones hadn't quite resembled that of an anorexic's, but her bones were still too pronounced. Knees and elbows protruded, ankles were withered and fragile, her stomach was flat without any sign of muscle tone, ribs could be counted with the lightest of a touch, and chalky pale skin became tight and of course was cold.
The girl before her illness's comeback had curves, ruddy lips, pink fingernails and something that couldn't be seen. Hermione sadly touched her small breasts, remembering that they were once fuller. Everything seemed fuller before it came back. Tears stung her eyes as she traced a long scar between her breasts, stretching from shortly below her collar bone to seventh rib. It was still red against her chalky skin, despite being months old. It glared at her in the mirror, making her cringe as she stared at her reflection, only noticing the scar. It was the only evidence of what the cancer took from her.
She always told herself the cancer could take her health, but she'd be fine, that the treatments could take away her hair, her weight, her energy and destroy her body trying to get rid of this, but she thought she would have been fine. She wasn't fine.
Hermione felt a wave of shame come over her as she looked at the pathetic shadow of a woman in the mirror. Here she stood, cancer-free, and for good, but all she could do was cry in front of the mirror because the doctors took more than they had planned. Because of the thing that made her so upset, she was better, so why couldn't she just be happy?
Hermione sighed as she finally finished dressing herself, covering the damned scar Hermione decided four years was too short to be spent moping over what the cancer took from her. It didn't take her life, she had that to be thankful for. The cancer she was cured of wouldn't take anything else from her!
There's no cure for cancer, Hermione, she reminded herself, not sure if the voice in her head was hers or her mothers. You thought you were cured before...
Shaking the thought from her mind she left the toilets determined to not let the thought surface again.
Severus kept an eye out for Hermione when he entered the great hall for breakfast. He had waited for her a while outside the girls' toilets, but had decided against it when she took over ten minutes. He figured she was waiting out his patience, to make sure he was gone by time she emerged. He thought briefly about proving her wrong, but he didn't want to upset her further. Mentioning her illness made the confident, defiant know-it-all a frightened little girl.
Severus knew he had a knack for knowing how to make people react a certain way to him. He kept Potter and his irritating posy at bay with his natural demeanor. When he was mad at Potter all he had to do was mention his father and watch him squirm, Weasley was easily insulted and making him do anything he didn`t want to do was the ultimate punishment. But Hermione Granger was not the girl he`d pegged her for...
He spotted her at the Gryffindor table sitting across from Potter and Weasley, listening thoughtfully as she nibbled on her hair, processing what was being said. She sat there with her friends, the fear and anger that had shown in her face so prominently earlier vanished. It was as if their conversation earlier had never happened.
She`d have erased it from her memory if she could!God forbid she have a conversation with me that isn`t pleading on behalf of Longbottom! He approached her keeping his anger from boiling over, pushing the "I don`t need you" back for a later date. She needed someone, and as the only person who knew she was seriously ill, it was him she needed.
I am far too happy about that, he chastised himself knowing that even if his longing to be close to her was rational, it was wrong to be happy about her illness as a means for it. It was bad enough he had loved one woman who could never return it, but to fall for another who he couldn`t have was cruel. Even more cruel was the only way he could ever have her. Something told him people had held her illness over her head before.
He knew a man who once held his wife's illness against her. It was the cruellest thing he had ever seen, and he wouldn't do it. At thirty-eight, he held the same belief he did when he was eight. Silias Snape was an evil man and Severus was terrified of becoming that monster.
He pushed his thoughts away as he came up behind Hermione and gently pulled the hair she had been chewing on out of her face. He leaned over her shoulder and spoke at a normal volume into her ear. "I believe I've asked you not to chew on your hair, Miss Granger."
"Of course, sir," she said in a false chipper tone with a broad smile that was equally as false. "You have a lovely day now, sir!"
"I would, but I have a meeting with you after classes to look forward to." Severus let go of her hair in favour of folding his arms over his chest. "Be at my office promptly at four-thirty, if you're a moment too late the hole you're in will be much deeper. You have a lovely day now, Miss Granger!" his mock enthusiasm didn't quite match hers, but before he waltzed off he saw the expressions of her half the people around her were assurance he'd caused her enough trouble with them to make up for any more "I don't need yous", he'd be hearing.
"What was all that about?" Dumbledore asked as Severus took his place beside him at the teachers' table. His blue eyes twinkled behind his glasses with an amused knowledge.
"I'm afraid the little know-it-all's found herself with a disgusting habit," he said as he began picking at his food selectively. "I was merely asking her to stop. Needless to say, the girl didn't take the criticism well."
"And to think," Dumbledore sighed. "I thought the quality time would bring the two of you closer together. But I guess an old fool can be wrong." He chuckled amused then looked at Severus. "How did you and Miss Granger get along last night?"
Severus restrained himself from bursting at the table, something told him his mentor already knew about Hermione's somnambulism. "When you asked me to watch over the girl I figured it was to keep her from walking off when the nurse wasn't looking. Knowing that she sleepwalks was fairly important, don't you think?"
"I didn't see any need to tell you," the old man laughed with whimsy.
"And why didn't you?" he nearly snapped, frustrated with him. "She was fast asleep I didn't expect her to just get up! It-it—" he took a short breath and huffed. "The fact that she sleepwalks was pertinent information."
"Yes, it was." Dumbledore nodded. "And she was supposed to tell you."
The idea of that girl willingly giving up any clue as to what was wrong with her was so absurd Severus couldn't help but laugh. "She'd sooner purge the information from her mind than ever let me know," by the end of the sentence his laugh became a scoff which became a low grumble.
"She's a little attached to her independence is all," the old man commented. "She doesn't quite understand admitting she needs help isn't completely surrendering it."
"She's a teenager," McGonnagal interjected playing with her peas in a child-like manner. "I don't know a single one who accepts the fact we know best. She'll grow out of it."
"I'm afraid your little prodigy's going to have to grow out of it soon." Severus replied as he cast his eyes back to the girl.
Hermione was now the one talking animatedly with her friends, moving her hands as she spoke with a smile on her face. She occaisionally played with her fork as she spoke, she also often reached out her hands to meet one of the boy's arms or hands. After a reassuring clasp on Weasley's hand Hermione got up and walked away. It wasn't often she left without her friends, so he found it a bit peculiar. Once she was out the doors he got up to follow her.
She walked down a small corridor that wasn't frequented. She came to a wall that ended her path, she carefully placed her hands on one of the stone bricks. Pressing the stone in the wall opened up to a darkened room which she slowly walked into. He followed her quietly and hoped she wouldn't catch his movements almost directly behind her.
The room was small and square, it darkened as the wall shut behind them. In the pitch black Severus clung to the first corner he found and was glad to find something, a crate perhaps, he could duck behind. He felt a pang of shame for spying on her.
It's necessary, and she's done it enough to warrant this. He thought as the room lit up by sconces giving off a faint glow on each wall. The room was filled with crates piled along each of the walls, cobwebs filled each of corners and dust piled up on almost all of the surfaces in the room, showing just how often it was used. One lonely crate stood unassumingly in front of one of the piles of crates in his view, it stood out because the thin layer of dust that had covered the entire room seemed to neglect it.
Hermione sat at the crate, lowering herself slowly and using the crate as support. Once she was seated crossed legged on the dusty floor she struggled to lift the lid and set it aside. Rummaging through the crate she pulled out two vials of a deep azure liquid Severus immediately recognized as energy revival potions. Why she needed the needed the Navitas was lost on Severus, he pondered a brief moment but was broke from it as he watched her pull out a vial with an orange liquid he recognized as Orexis, an appetite building potion.
She quickly drank one of the Navitas and placed the other two viles in her bag. After this she placed the lid back on the crate with slightly less difficulty and dug out a three small orange bottles of pills and a water bottle. He watched her take two pills from two of the bottles and pop them quickly into her mouth, chasing them with the water. Hands steadier she put the pills back into her bag, but eyed one bottle still in hand.
She bit her lip as she stared down the bottle with apprehension. Indecision and uncertainty flickered in her eyes, even in the dim light provided by the sconces he could see it clearly. Everything about Hermione's position revealed she was ill-at-ease. The way she held the bottle at a distance meant she wanted nothing to do with it, she rocked very slightly, almost imperceptively, and she was slightly hunched over, her physical form reflecting her mental turmoil. She finally brought the pills close to her and unscrewed the lid with a resignated sigh.
"If I take these," she bargained with the sky, "I can't have the side effects. I'm only taking these to prevent it from coming back, I don't need the side-effects right now. Not when I'm cured..." with another sigh she popped two of the pills. "A magical replacement would be nice." She scoffed throwing them back into the back.
Hermione then pulled out a small mirror and examined herself briefly. She pulled out her wand and pointed it at herself. After a few well-chosen words he began to see changes in Hermione physically. Oxygen starved blue lips and fingers became pink, her pallid skin became rosy in the appropriate areas, and her bony hands fleshed out just enough to look healthy without being an obvious change. Severus wondered how long she had been using magic to hide her illness, and what the side-effects were of her medications. He watched her put the mirror back into her bag and get up to leave.
Hermione's legs wobbled as she bent over holding her head with one hand as she reached out for the wall to hold her up. She moved to where she was over the crate she had just closed and clumsily fell on to it. She placed her hands on either side of her head, supporting her bowed head as her elbows shook on her knees.
"It's this stupid condition!" she cried burying her hands in her face. She looked up to the ceiling once more, her voice now broke into a sorrowful screech. "Damn my condition! If you're out there, can you hear me? THANKS FOR THE DISEASE!"
He watched her silently as she began to sob. It dawned on him rather quickly that he was intruding on a very private moment. She was coming to grips with her illness, talking to whatever god she believed in an attempt to cope. He shouldn't have been intruding on her; she should have been able to be alone until she was ready to face people. His heart went out to her, it seemed all she wanted was to be healthy, it must have broke her heart knowing she was cured but still needed to take those awful medications. He was torn between wanting to comfort the broken girl and leaving her to think she was alone to cry. Had he away to leave her alone without being caught, he would have done it.
The sobbing stopped adruptly, taking Severus by surprise. Hermione raised her head from her hands and looked into his direction. Her eyes remarkably dry for someone who had spent the last few minutes crying, Severus had the feeling she had been used to quickly drying her eyes. Had others caught her distraught rants and mournful weeping? Did this mean he was caught? Or perhaps she just was about to leave and her looking in his direction was a coincidence.
"I don't know who you are," she said firmly eyes fixed at the crate he hid behind. "And I don't care. Show yourself or I'll seek you out."
At this, she drew her wand from her waist and was about to get up.
"Don't!" he sighed but spoke with urgency as he stepped out from behind the crate. "If you get up you'll get dizzy again."
"You—you—you—" Hermione squeaked as anger lit up her eyes, which were about to brim over again. She grabbed her bag and attempted to stand. This time as soon as she was nearly stood she lost balance immediately, her arms flailed about for support, knocking a crate over.
Severus was at her side in seconds with a firm hold on both her arms, leaning over to be eye level with her. As he helped her sit back down he said, "What did I just tell you?"
"I just wanted to leave," she sighed looking at anything but him. "I hardly see anything wrong with that."
She took to looking at the ceiling as it was safest. He stood across from her, bent over to meet the sitting girl at eye level, hands still on her arms; he made sure his grip was firm, but not tight. He didn't want her to lose her balance again. "You weren't ready, that's all."
Hermione rolled her tear-filled eyes. "I've been hearing that for the last twelve years, Professor. Don't become one of them. I've been brought up with that phrase referring to things most things toddlers take for granted. Don't patronize me, please..."
Severus felt his heart break when he saw her look at him in the eye, her eyes despite her best effort have finally brimmed over. He saw years of pain and turmoil plain on her face. He knew people treated those who were ill differently, that must've worn on her. He knew she thought knowing she is or was ill was the only reason he was being kind to her. He couldn't tell her the real reason he was the way he was toward her, but he had to offer her something...
"I'm not patronizing you, Miss Granger. It's called concern."
Hermione laughed painfully. "Or pity."
He sighed as he strung together something believable for her. "You're impossible sometimes. Stubborn, unruly, disrespectful, far too confidant and you are a show off and a liar." He moved one of his hands to her face, cupping her cheek and wiping a tear with his thumb. "And if I had a daughter, I imagine she'd be just like you."
Hermione's eyes widened for a moment in surprise, she had been deeply touched by her professor's words. In all honesty, a bit put off too, she had brief thoughts of a romantic relationship and he thought of her as a daughter. But she was still moved by his closeness and his admitting to it. No matter what he said, nothing made what he did to her acceptable. Hermione already had a father who monitored her constantly at home. She didn't need the invasions coming from him as well.
"Why were you spying on me?" she asked, her anger hadn't left her voice.
"I'm sorry," he spoke with sincerity. "I could tell you I was concerned, but I know it wouldn't change anything. I wasn't supposed to see this, and I should never have followed you." He let go of her shoulders at long last, but he sat next to her after moving a crate beside hers. Hermione hated how he used magic to do something he was capable of. If you have the physical ability to do things most people take for granted you should do it. "I needed to know. I needed to make sure you were safe." He reached for her hand and she moved it away from him. "I know that's no consolation, but it's the truth."
"I'm not sure if I can get up yet," she began swallowing alump. Her feet were numb from her blood favouring more vital organs, it would be a while before she could stand.
"Take all the time you need."
"Please just leave me alone." She hung her head and more tears hit the floor.
"If you're sure..." he agreed tentatively.
"Dead certain."
He sighed as he brushed away the hair that hid Hermione's tear stained face. There was no use in hiding her tears, he saw everything. She imagined it insulted him to hide so much from him when he had reached out to her. She was deeply moved by his reaching out, but all she could do was shut him out. She wasn't sure who she was angrier with, Snape or herself.
"Very well," he spoke with a troubled voice. With one last lingering look with equally troubled eyes he got up. He paused when he moved to open the passage, "Miss Granger?"
She barely managed a response of "Yes," she wanted him to leave her with her melancholy.
"You've reached out to me before, many times over the years. Just because I didn't accept the hand reached out to me doesn't mean I didn't appreciate it. I'm extending the same offer to you. If you ever get tired of talking to the sky, you know where to find me."
With this he left her alone with her thoughts. Hermione crumpled under the pressure of her reality. She had worked so hard to keep her sick life in her muggle life separate from her life as a witch. When she first came to Hogwarts she was finally in the company of people who didn't know about her cancer. She wasn't just the sick little girl, she was Hermione, a smart, sometimes annoying girl with strong values and an overall capable girl. Nobody treated her like she was dying, any love she gained at Hogwarts she earned by being herself. Nobody scrambled to help the feeble Hermione, instead people let her help them. That was something the girl diagnosed with cancer never had the pleasure of doing.
Here she was, as healthy as she could be, pretending to be healthy and normal, with real friends and she was doing something that mattered. She had carefully separated Hermione the sick girl and Hermione the witch, making sure her friends would never know the devastation cancer brings loved ones. That among the many selfish reasons she had. Hermione was beginning to feel like a whole person finally, and Severus Snape had ruined it.
Hermione's chest tightened as she felt a fluttering within it. The room began to spin around her as the pain in her chest increased, a wave of nausea came over her as the air she tried to breathe became heavier. Her vision was blurred, and she wasn't sure if it was from the tears or her dizziness. She wavered before falling to the floor and blacking out.
Severus wondered if he had done the right thing leaving Hermione alone when she could barely stand. Correction, Hermione couldn't stand! The thought made Severus shudder internally as he thought of her trying to stand with no one there to keep her from hitting the hard floor. She could seriously be hurt by his leaving her to her own devices. She wanted to be left alone, you sentimental fool! She;ll be fine!
He always knew there was something wrong with her. Years of seeing clearly forced smiles, seeing her look out a window with her eyes vacant, the way her hands always shook when she was angry, and the intense sorrow that seemed to always sit behind her eyes. He wondered if she would have been better if he had tried to help her earlier. On the other hand he wondered if she'd be better off if he didn't involve himself with her. She had so much to worry about; the girl held herself accountable for her friends' welfare, she played a huge role in the war, she was widely hassled by the student body, she mothered Longbottom and on top of that she had her illness to worry about. Before he was outright about his affections for the girl, infact, long before he had affections for her, she had tried to help him.
"Is something wrong?" asked a thirteen-year-old Hermione after he had asked her tostay after class.
"I asked you not to help him," he sighed wishing she'd drop the act. "And yet you did. And to make it worse, you've been denying what we both know to be true. That's what's wrong."
With a heavy sigh she finally admitted "I couldn't just let him drown, professor. He smarter than you think, but you make him so nervous he can barely function. If you'd lay off—"
"Excuse me?" he snarled, finding her pleas for him annoying. "I didn't ask you to stay behind to put up with your defiant behaviour!"
Hermione hid her hands behind her back when she noticed their shaking. He debated whether or not to mention it, but before he came to the decision she screamed, "And I didn't come here to watch you tear my friends apart!"
His blood boiled as he watched the girl stare him down angrily. "I dare you to repeat that!"
"I didn't come here to watch tear my friends apart," she said in a calmer voice, but the anger remained in her face.
"I think you just put your house in point-debt, as well as granted yourself detention through-out the month."
"Is that supposed to upset me?" she asked rolling her eyes folding her arms across her chest shooting him an unimpressed look.
He returned the unimpressed look, "The amount you try to stay out of trouble, I assumed it would, but whether or not it does doens't affect it."
"Fair s fair, Professor," Hermione shifted slight frame from foot to foot. "Though I sometimes think you aim to upset us." Her eyes now offered a sort of sympathy, though a slight flame of anger still touched them.
He wasn't sure which angered him more; her brashness, her accusation or her extending judgement free sympathy though she was still very angry with him. "And why would you say that?" he asked with a low barbed voice.
She sighed as she leaned against a wall, looking at him with those irritating eyes, begging for honesty. "Look at how you treat each of us? You know just how to make us puppets on a string. You intimidate Neville into compliance, you insult Harry's pride or bring up his dead parents, you know it upsets him enough so he can't think straight. And you make Ron feel inferior until he's so flustered he walks into all of your traps. You do this with all of us."
Severus was caught off guard by her honesty, but more impressed by how level headed she was presenting the information. Moments before her hands were shaking with rage, though the anger hadn't left her eyes. "You're a clever girl, Granger," he admitted drawing closer to her. "It amazes me you've caught on to that and yet are still so blind you can't see that there is a very good reason for it."
"Enlighten me, then?" she challenged. "Because it just seems like a bunch of childish tantrums to me."
He bit his tongue and kept from bursting, his fuse was short, and lit, but his desire to not proveher right kept him at bay. "My methods are not for you to question, little girl."
Hermione rolled her eyes cast him a tired look. "Then I have every right to keep my rather low opinion of you."
"One student holding me in alow opinion won't devastate me."
The anger left her eyes and surrendered to the sympathy that churned his stomach. He kept everyone he knew at a safe distance, so why did she still reach out to him?
She wavered a little, with a staggered gait, she walked to the nearest desk and leaned against it. Her sympathetic eyes still on him she spoke: "I desperately want to believe you're a better person than I've taken you for. I don't understand why you're so angry with the world, but I want to."
He looked at her forlornly knowing that she held something dark behind her as well. "Why?"
"I understand what it's like to see how unfair the world is and feel like the only thing to do is crumple under it. It's obvious to me that your life hadn't been easy; I don't know why, but I do." She looked at him and reached her hand to the desk he leant on, still respecting his boundries. "I won't pretend to understand everything, I don't know what you've been through, but I know it was hard. I also know people can't make it through such horrors without some sanctuary or person to lean on."
Before he replied his eyes went to the purple and grey dotting along the back of her hand. "Where did those bruises come from?"
With in an instant what little colour the girl had drained and her already unstable body shook as she looked at her bruised hand. She stood, shifting from foot to foot as she pulled the sleeve back over her hand. "I bruise really easily."
"How unfortunate," he nodded. "But I'm afraid that doesn't answer my question."
Hermione cast her eyes down as held her arms close to her as she tried to control her shaking. She looked up at him, her eyes pleading him to stop asking. "For all I know I just hit it against a wall. Again, I bruise really easily."
"The bruising's very precise, Miss Granger..." he sighed. "I don't appreciate being lied t."
"If you have any respect for me as a human being you wouldn't ask me that!" she cried. "No one's noticed them before now, why do you have to? They're beginning to fade!"
A million flashbacks of his own childhood played through his head like a sick play, he inwardly shuddered at the thought of the same things happening to her. Swallowing the anger he knew wouldn't help he spoke as calmly as possible. "This is one of the hardest parts of my job. But it has to be done to ensure your safety."
She shot daggers at him with her tear stung eyes. "I obtained the bruises over the summer, so it's really none of your buissness. Please stop asking."
A wave of emotion poured over him as he watched the fragile girl overcome by fear. She wavered, looking like she was about to lose balance, he reached out his arms to help support her. "Perhaps you should sit down..."
She recoiled from his offer to help. "Please don't touch me!" she snapped. But she did as instructed and sat.
"Even if you got the bruises over the summer," he began. "We still need to know. How do we know your life isn't in danger?"
"It's not!" she cried.
This quickly turned into a screaming match between the two. He kept telling her it was important and she begged him to stop asking her. He wasn't sure how long it went on before Hermione's pale face greened and she trembeled.
"I'm gonna be sick!" she sprang from her chair and started from the door.
"You won't make it, the sink's over there." He pointedand ushered her over to it.
After a violent session of her coughing and gagging over the sink, she finally turned back to him, looking worse for wear she said: "Can I leave now?"
"Yes," he answered shortly. "Can you make it to the door?"
"I'm not an invalid, Professor," she said hoarsely and began for the door.
He didn't know what made him look in the sink before cleaning it with magic, but he did. When he looked he saw the porcelain stained red with blood.
Snapping back to the present, Severus wondered if the bruises and vomiting blood were also symptoms. Her mystery illness had baffled and frustrated him to no end. She kept telling him—and herself—she was cured, but she still acted and looked so sick. She had trouble standing, and was lethargic without the aid of potions. On top of this she needed potions to give her an appetite.
He went over the symptoms as he noticed them in order. Thin, but that wasn't a tell-tale for teenaged girls, she was pale, her bluish nails and lips, her dizzy spells, bruises, vomiting blood and finally her mysterious chest pains.
Severus Snape was a man of logic, he was clever, and most puzzles he could peice together without effort. But he knew little of the human body, making this impossible. Between classes he poured over mediwizardry texts in his office he had dug out of the library.
None of the books offered a diagnosis for the ailing Hermione Granger. "Damnit!" he slammed his fist against his desk. He didn't know why she couldn't just be upfront with him about her illness? He already lost his mother to ALS—or possibly his father, he certainly made everything worse—when he was eighteen. That feeling of not being able to help as he watched her fade away in that cold hospital room lingered with him, and bore deep into his mind everytime he saw Hermione stricken by her illness.
It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair, but she was still a sixteen-year-old girl who had her whole life a head of her, and still she was sick. He wondered selfishly why every woman he'd ever loved was ripped away from him because she was victimized by something she didn't deserve. His mother was hit by a double whamy with ALS and an abusive husband, Hermione was ill, and he couldn't bear to think of the woman he had loved since he was eight-years-old.
He rolled up his sleeve and looked at the tattoo on his arm just below the inside of his elbow in disgust. A snake coiled around a skull looking at him mockingly. It was a mark of betrayal to her, and something he could never forgive himself for. He bore his Dark Mark like a scar he was ashamed of.
Little did he know Hermione had a scar of her own that defined her as much as his defined him.
