Title: This Once
Pairing: Viktor/Hermione
Rating: M (adult content, abuse, sexuality)
Summary: Could he make her whole again? "His heart was shattering in his chest, hemorrhaging his soul and bleeding his conscience dry."
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the innumerable characters and content therein. I am making no profit from this jumble of words.
This Once: Chapter Twenty-One
Tick
Her eyes lolled in their sockets, mouth gasping as she struggled against a hot draught pressed on her straight from the cauldron.
Tick
Snape as he prowled around the makeshift laboratory taking calculations, barking orders to his assistant who frantically ground and minced and plucked and measured.
Tick
The sound of the clock as it ticked away precious seconds that could mean the loss of self or function.
Tick-Snick
Viktor glared at the pendulum of the table clock as it's hand turned over yet again. He had two hours, forty-five minutes and fifty more seconds until he could regain the sick room after having been shoved out and locked into the nursery to rest by- someone. He wasn't quite sure in the confusion of his daze.
He wasn't sure of anything anymore.
"What are you doing here, Granger?" He was hissing, hackles raised as he took in the scene in the hospital room he'd just walked into. The woman was hunched over his ailing mother's bed, patting gently at her hand as his mother wept and sniffled against the sea of pillows propping up her wasted torso.
"My job, Malfoy." She sat back on the low stool, brow furrowed as she looked between parent and child with a vaguely tired look on her face. Swathed in hideous lime green robes, an embroidered rank patch that proclaimed her specialty and department on it's breast pocket, it appeared that his former captive had indeed become a healer while they'd been.. away.
Draco's eyes bore into the other witches without restraint or guile in his distrust.
Finally after a tense moment, he rasped out a bark of disbelief. "Why, in Salazar's name, would you want to help me or mine, little Gryffindor?" Muggleborn. Order member. Potter's. His eyes were still narrowed in suspicion as she rolled her own at the mild slight. Then his mother began to heave; deep, wracking coughs of stilted pain that shook her entire form as Hermione turned to ignore his increasing ire. Her disheveled patient reached out for her arms before the younger witch had even swung around completely.
Draco's anger built like a slowly fed flame as he watched his former classmate rub at his mothers hands and temples, his mother groaning in agony. A minute passed, and though slowly quieted his mother continued to shake like a leaf in the wind as the seconds ticked past.
"Is that all you're going to do?" Silence. She didn't even register his presence as he moved to stand next to her bent form. "Just get out." His voice shook, no longer waiting for her to administer the draught that he knew would bring his mother short term relief. He wondered, vaguely, if it was satisfying to see them in pain for all they'd done. Maybe it was deserved, but his mother had suffered enough to last several lifetimes. He'd have none of it. "Out."
Narcissa turned a heavy lidded eye to glare at her son, mouth turning from twisted pain to a sharp moue of displeasure he was all too familiar with. He winced.
"It's a balm absorbed through the skin. It works to soothe the nerve endings effected. New research." His mother's voice had morphed. Her once melodious voice was scratchy, as if she'd sung one too many arias. It was kinder to think of that fiction rather than the truth of having watched her scream herself raw after their fall from grace.
Granger, calmly massaging his mothers forehead, moved a strand of prematurely white hair behind a sallow ear. His mother's liver had been effected by her bodies slow deterioration, and her once snowy skin had yellowed with the time past between dialysis potions. He swallowed thickly.
His mother's eyes, sad and sunken, caught his own sharply before he let his gaze fall to the floor.
He took a deep breath and held it, willing himself to let go of a great many things.
"Draco."
His head was bobbing, hand slackening in his grip as he hung over a small mountain of lacewings. His chin suddenly jerked up, startling himself awake as his drooping knife tip clattered against the marble cutting board.
"Draco!"
"What?" He spun, knife in hand to glare at Snape, who glowered right back in response.
"Leave. Remove yourself to shop or home." At the other man's balking, he elaborated with a much put out air. "You're dead on your feet. Send in George Weasley on your way out."
"But-"
"Don't argue. Just do it." He continued to stir as he spoke, deft hands moving ceaselessly as his eyes telescoped his lack of patience, black gaze bleeding out of their ever deepening sockets and drawn countenance. A charmed abacus next to the cauldron steadily ticked it's rounded beads as it counted the revolutions of his copper stirring rod.
"You want me to send in George sodding Weasley?" The query was filled with tired indignation.
"Do you think half his potions patents fell out of his sodding ear?"
A loud snort echoed through the bubbling and churning of substances trickling through the now elaborate tubing set around the mess of used cauldrons. Both men turned to glare in the direction of the penetrating dark gaze of one Sirius Black. At Viktor's ejection from the room he'd pulled rank on his fellow order members, stonily staring down the others as they bantered their distrust of a certain blond and the need for diligent vigilance of the man's actions. It was hard to argue with the wizards reasoning behind his rebuke; if anyone could spot something afoul between the two potioneers it would be easy enough said as done for the former childhood enemy and auror, and he had years of experience over Harry in that respect.
"No one asked you, mutt," snarled Snape, too exhausted to hold his tongue.
"Eyes on your work, Lanci Vicar's boy," snapped back Sirius, without missing a beat.
Draco bit back his own cursing jag as the Marauder's eyes bore into his shifting form in blatant suspicion. Of what, after his conduct throughout the past day, he was entirely uncertain. His hands clenched at his sides as he moved to pack up his knife kit, carelessly blowing his long bangs out of his eyes.
The younger man shuffled, his pack dead weight as his leaden limbs protested at the strain of carrying a once buoyant load, pausing to glare at her unmoving form on the makeshift bed. She hadn't so much as twitched since Snape had poured the equivalent of a stasis spell down her throat to stop her thrashing. A muscle ticked in his cheek as he relented to the heavy silence in the room, stalking out the door without a backwards glance as he left in search of his once school-mate.
At Malfoy's departure, the two wizards left in his absence gave up any pretense of good will.
"If she dies-" He halted mid sentence as his words snapped taught, unable to finish, black curls falling into his face as he moved to stood over Hermione' utterly still form. Sirius's voice had delved darker, more gravel into his already threatening posture and matching intonation.
"Then it won't be on my soul for lack of effort. I owe her a life debt." Snape's perpetually deep snarl, tarnished by his injury, slipped even further into baritone in response.
The retort offered no reproach, only a flat truth that Sirius couldn't maneuver around with his newly grown conscience. For which he had a few truly close friends to count for in it's cultivation, one of which lay expiring with no way for him to haul back to his clutches other than through the man that stood in front of him, however distrusted. Dragging out a shred of goodwill, he relented.
"It's on all our heads. "
Both men shared a dark, knowing look.
"Weasley the younger." The man jolted up from his light sleep, leaning against his brother's dozing shoulder in the hallway. "Get your freckled arse up and go assist Snape. You're taking over for me."
"Where the hell do you think you're going now, ferret-face?" George blinked wearily in the low candlelight, assessing the washed out pallor of the dark wizard as he leaned heavily against the wall.
Draco wrapped one hand around a sconce to steady himself. "Elsewhere. I have other pressing business that is none of yours. Especially in light of your time wasting questions."
"Well bully for you then. Feck off and thanks for the help."
Draco grunted, raking a hand through his already ravaged hair before shaking his head and stomping off towards the stairway.
Charlie blinked, blearily taking in the scene with faint amusement. "You thanked him."
George had hunkered down on the floor, laboriously contorting himself while trying to crack his back, twisting his spine against the thin carpet. It was no place to sleep, but he'd survived worse boltholes over the years. He lifted his head to shrug.
Charlie snorted at his lack of response. "That's a start, I guess."
Hermione drifted. The month she'd spent petrified had her mostly mastering the art of lucid dreaming after having been forcefully rendered unconscious. For some reason unknown to her or any text she'd stumbled upon over the years, the circumstances mattered. During her normal sleep schedule she was occasionally able to guide her dreams contents, but it was a comparative rarity.
Currently she was sitting on a blank and barren sheet of parchment, meditating as best she could. She'd dissolved the surroundings of the Forbidden Forest she'd fallen into upon her thrust into her own subconscious. So far her dreamscape hadn't been very formative on pushing back against her exerted will. But then again she hadn't been unconscious for very long.
Or so she thought.
It was impossible to tell passage of time when imprisoned within ones skull. The last time she'd been laid up after having a hex rebound onto her during healing she'd been sure that only a few hours had past, waking up to the reality that three days had slipped by in the meantime. Like having lain down to sleep only to discover it was already the next morning.
The landscape blurred, the parchment underneath her crossed legs crinkling. She frowned, concentrating. It was difficult to keep her mind clear, but much more taxing to lead something already formed or to create something out of nothing in order to relieve her boredom. For the time being she would attempt to relax and blank her thoughts.
She breathed out, measuring her exhales and inhales in an exercise of patience that would have done her yoga loving mother proud. Counting the seconds, she went to shift her legs, finding them and the air surrounding her viscous. She panicked.
The bright landscape plunged into darkness.
Viktor jolted out of bed, clutching his wrist as it blazed past the ever present tingle that had remained since their brief interlude. Throwing back the bedclothes he quickly slid into his boots, grabbing his shirt off the footboard railing to toss on untucked before stumbling to the fireplace. Hastily grabbing a fistful of floo powder, he stepped into the green flames, whisking through the house until he was yanked into the room he'd bellowed to be taken to.
He'd gotten little further than past the grate before Snape grabbed him by the arm, yanking him up as he fell over his half awake feet as he lumbered towards the occupied bed. The older wizard half pulled half dragged him to sit on the floor beside Hermione's ensconced and unmoving body before Snape heaved his own exhausted frame into a chair next to them both. He waited for the questions, diminished body hunched over.
"Vhat is, she is-" Viktor stuttered, tripping over his tongue in his fear, shooting an eye to the clock to see that several more hours had past than he'd wanted to allow. George Weasley was huddled on an armchair nearby, lanky body folded absurdly into the small furnishing, pale and sleeping like the dead. The air in the room felt heavy, magic nearly tangible in the leftover fumes that hung thick over the abandoned cauldron. The sideboard was littered with potions prep.
"Miss Granger is doing well. Given the circumstances." Snape paused to exhale, rubbing at his scarred throat with a weary hand. "She slipped into a coma after I applied the final healing draught. There's nothing more to be done."
"You are certain?"
Snape sent him a dim look, thin lips pursed. "Very. I attempted to legilimize her and found no trace of higher brain activity," he paused, watching as the seeker's face crumbled in on itself with a vague and twisted sense of satisfaction. As much as he pitied him, it had been his own negligence that had taken root and grown to fruition. "Her body needs time to heal itself."
Viktor slumped against her bed once more, eyes distant. The pain crawling up his arm was immense, but he welcomed it like an old friend.
"All we can do is wait. Time will tell." Snape half shrugged, disconcertingly. What was meant to be a reassuring gesture fell flat.
"Vhat.. What are her chances." A swallow. A silent prayer.
"I'd weigh in on a fifty percent recovery rate. That's far more than most would have warranted after such an ordeal. She is.. very lucky indeed." He wouldn't give the boy false hope. That would be too cruel in the end.
The younger man shook his head, unwilling to believe the words that shook him to the core. Steeling himself, he drew his body up to full height so better to pin the older man with a grateful look that he felt was warranted though not entirely genuine. Bowing his head, he nearly genuflected in the old language with thanks.
"I am in your debt."
The silence hung between them for a pregnant pause, before Snape returned his gesture with a graceful if tired salute. "There is no debt that could discharge my own."
George sat up, falling from his precarious perch in the chair.
"I believe it would be kind if one of you could inform the others." The dark wizard promptly slumped, eyes listing off as he allowed himself, finally, a measure of rest.
Wood crackled in the grate, a large ember falling off to the stone beneath as sparks flew into the chimney above. Little else broke the silence as the men sat in their respective places throughout the large room. Some slumbered, others stared off into oblivion, and one barely maintained a visage of functionality.
Viktor ruminated. Guilt flooded his every waking thought. Few things had stolen his breath in life so fearfully as when he'd plunged himself into Hermione's thoughts and found nothing of the woman he loved. His mind had flashed back to when her heart had stopped beating in her chest, and all he wanted was to drown himself in fire whiskey.. but that wouldn't bring her back to health. The thought had crossed his mind that he'd never forgive himself if she died and he wasn't by her side. Apparently, by the men surrounding him, he wasn't the lone progenitor of that particular thought.
Harry sat beside him on the couch, stoic and yet obviously effected.
"I know this is hard to think about," Potter paused to push back his glasses by their bridge, clenching his jaw. "But, we need to continue planning."
Viktor shut his eyes, taking a deep and shuddering breath as he nodded his head in assent. Digging into his breast pocket, he retrieved a crumpled letter. Padushka had delivered it as they were trying to maneuver Snape onto a transfigured cot, and he'd shoved it into his robe with little thought as to it's contents. He'd only read it after rolling onto his crinkling pages upon waking from his impromptu collapse into sleep himself. They'd all hunkered down in the sitting room turned hospital chamber for the time being, resting or otherwise.
Sirius shifted, lifting up his tucked chin to open one eye, pinning the the revealed parchment with a bleary glance. He'd been running the perimeter inspections singlehandedly as the rest of the men were needed elsewhere. Charlie and George slumbered on nearby, unaffected by the conversation.
George had run himself magically ragged, offering the by then bone dry Snape his own magical reserves to pour into the needy potions that were vital in halting the spread of the poison running rampant through the sick witches body. Charlie had been tapped in a more tangible and straightforward manner. Part of the healing regime required a muggle style blood transfusion. After testing the entire party, he had been the only possible donor with his universal type O, and Snape had drained him dry like a parched vampire. His skin was nearly as waxy and pale as their patient, and he'd been soundly unconscious for several hours after they'd force fed him a nutrient potion or five before laying him out.
"Coach Milanov put together some ideas for a publicity event. I think ve should look at them, see vhich vone is...," he groped for the right word, "most viable."
Harry fell silent for a long moment after nodding, before continuing on in fractionally more steady tone. "I also think that... after she's recovered," he swallowed, clenching his fists as he pinned his worried gaze on his best friend. "That we should scale back our presence at the cottage. Lead them to think we're being complacent and dropping our guard, give them a bit more incentive."
Viktor grit his teeth, torn, before gesturing for the other wizard to continue on with his explanation.
"It's my professional opinion, and Bill's, that they're bodily unable to get through your wards. The risk should be minimal. I also don't think that they have the intention of letting you go quietly. Everything points to them wanting to make a grand gesture of harming you, to cull you in a public place to make it more humiliating."
At the Bulgarian wizard's hesitancy, Sirius finally spoke his mind on the matter.
"Leave it up to the fates, son, and plan for the future when she wakes. Prepare for the best possible outcome. She's had the finest treatment available and she's always rallied after every turn. Trust in that."
His grandmother had once berated him about letting go. "The more tightly you grasp the faster the snitch will slip through your fingers, boy." She hadn't truly been speaking on the subject of quidditch, but it was something that had stuck with him in both aspects of its philosophical and practical application. The advice had served him well. Things would right themselves if they were ultimately intended to, no matter his own will in either direction. She'd come back to his arms just as she had before.
One clenched fist rose to nudge at the simple cross he'd worn since childhood before rubbing compulsively at his neck. He could trust in Hermione's capability to fight against this illness, she was stubborn to a fault and her will to live was near daunting. He couldn't allow himself to fall into despair at every setback, but... it was more difficult at every twisted turn.
He would have to have faith in God and love.
Sirius rose to stoke the fire, throwing on another log before hunkering down in front of the flames in silent contemplation. He still reveled in the heat of a well fed hearth after so many years of the dank wet and frigid stone of Azkaban. And the nothingness of the veil. He gripped the iron, thrusting it into the flagging embers until the sparks ate away at the new wood.
"Once she's awake we need everything in order, set in stone. The longer we drag everything out the more chances they have of surprising us."
Viktor dredged up the remnants of his tattered resolve as well as dark and and uncomfortable memories of terrorism and sabotage.
"I think I haff gutd plan."
Dawn was breaking. Viktor had pulled some strings and had a company of aurors assigned to watch the grounds, giving them all the rest they so desperately needed. He'd also called in a favor with an old schoolfriend who headed up a team within the Bulgarian equivalent to the Department of Mysteries.
Tzvetan Todorov might have been a cranky bastard when it came to exiting his well insulated research station into field work, especially for personal favors, but he'd proven himself thorough if not diabolically clever when he chose to take that plunge for Viktor in the past, particularly during their school years. One year behind him in Durmstrang, Tzvetan 'Todo' actually managed to outstrip each and every standing test record as well as having skirted his way around Karkaroff's ever watchful eye with an ease that had Viktor twitching with jealousy. The younger wizard had fielded the headmaster for him while he'd courted Hermione, whom Todo had declared he approved of on an intellectual level after having researched her academic performance at Hogwarts. It was just the kind of reasoning he expected from the brilliant, if eccentric, friend he had found in the younger man. Todo also knew how to keep his mouth shut, and that was the key factor in contacting him over his other contacts within the Bulgarian ministry.
Informing anyone in his countries government of their plan was a risk, however necessary. But Todo had vouched for his small team of hand picked agents in full, and Harry had backed him up with his own cross referencing. The two reviewed a tentative plan Viktor had outlined and offered suggestions, something that would come at regular intervals over the next two or so weeks as they built a more detailed plan of action.
The entire cramped contents of his house were asleep, save himself, scattered through the nursery he'd outfitted for even more guests yet again. Snape had determined that Hermione was stabilized enough to move, so Viktor had her ensconced in her original room, expanded to include a parlor for visitors.
And he'd slept on a cot next to her body, guilt eating away at his conscience. She was pale in the morning sun, cupids bow lips parted as even breaths slipped past her lips. He wanted to draw her into his arms, feel her warmth to anchor himself, but he wouldn't allow the undeserved pleasure. Medical charms floated above her headboard, monitoring her heart and lung function in reassuring chimes.
Tender hands tucked an errant curl behind her ear before moving to take her hand, raising the cool flesh to his cheek, holding it there as he exhaled with a ragged sigh. All he'd wanted was a second chance at life with her, to put both their pasts behind their feet as they apparated into the sunset. Living for her had tested his faith, stretching it to it's limits until he knew the depth and breadth of it, of his own strengths and weaknesses therein. He'd become who he was in many ways for her sake, for their worlds sake for her being it it.
Hermione had once, jokingly, sent him a book of children's fairy tales by an H.C. Anderson among his Christmas presents many years before. She'd charmed it to open to a passage entitled "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". At the time, he'd been both touched and horrified at the intended comparison. Into the fire they went, he supposed. His paints might have faded, and his exterior battered by his fight to her side, but his tin heart remained solely shaped by her hands. However blackened and tarnished they might emerge from the ash, he would remain hers until it all burned away like parchment to flame.
He pressed her slack palm against his trembling lips, moving in a familiar rhythm to words well practiced, praying for yet another miracle.
Authors Note:
-Update long time in coming, but hopefully worth the wait. Be prepared for more backstory, angst and sappy tributes to lurve.
-Religious overtones are intentional. Viktor is a religious individual, it's just the way he was raised and how he views the world. Our religious beliefs (or lack-thereof) tend to color how we deal with grief and anxiety, and Viktor isn't any different in this respect. If you're offended by this, please let me know why and I'd love to explore and work through your reasoning as fodder for future works.
-A very special shout out to Kyria of Delphi, who I've been keeping in my thoughts and prayers. Your esteem is very close to my heart indeed, and I'm wishing you the very best. It might sound a little trite, but thinking about your situation made this chapter much more of a challenge when working through the emotional aspects of the story line. Writing for me is very cathartic, I can only hope that it's the same for you as well since I do really enjoy your stories XD
-Tzevtan Todorov is, in real life, a renowned Franco-Bulgarian philosopher. I've once again pilfered reality for good Bulgarian names, no offense intended.
-Soundtrack for this chapter, because cellos are awesome:
Ryan Knott's cover of Sail by Apocalyptica [www. you tube watch?v=o0zuU2yYt3Y]
Nearer My God to Thee (for 9 cellos) from ThePianoGuys [ wwww. you tube watch?v=gosY-UrpHcA]