CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE—Trial by Fire
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Aside from the three dozen witches and wizards Apparating into the Ministry of Magic's foyer, it was quiet. Nobody said a word. Nobody else appeared, be them friend or Auror.
With smirks and grins and nods sent each other's way, all the Death Eaters darted in different directions to wreak their havoc.
Severus had only one bothersome department in mind.
Several lifts appeared at once. Death Eaters jockeyed for position and grouped up. Alecto pushed her mask to the top of her head when she saw Severus in the next lift over.
She wrapped her thin hands around the bars. "Meet me near the Department of Mysteries," she said.
Her lift descended. Severus's shot up.
Yaxley sprang out of the lift when it hit Arthur's department. "Filthy blood traitors, the lot of ya!" he shouted as each desk in the corridor rose several meters off the ground.
As the lift rattled upwards, the desks flipped end over end and rammed into shelves and walls and other desks.
Severus exited on the next floor where the smaller departments were housed—including the storage room for all the magically binding contracts. He strode past archives of property transfers, living wills, broomstick registration—but paused at the blood status set of filing cabinets.
He tipped the cabinets to their sides. Drawers burst open. Papers scattered—they froze in midair. He slashed them each through, several times.
He moved on to the entire room devoted to marriage contracts. It was less organized than the birth records room next door.
Severus checked behind him. He didn't think anybody saw him in here, but he wanted a few moments to scour the place in peace.
Severus raised his wand aloft. He Summoned his official marriage contract.
The gold-edged paper zoomed across the room. He caught it in the other hand.
He didn't think this was all the evidence. "Marriage request," he muttered.
Every marriage request with Severus's name, either in the petitioner or petitioned line, toppled off of shelves and flocked towards him.
"Fuck," he grumbled as they fell at his feet.
More kindling, he decided as he raised his wand once more. The glass covers on the oil lamps exploded around the room. Oil splattered the walls. He cast fireballs into each corner. The shelves caught quickly.
Severus shoved his contract into his coat and rebuttoned it.
With a slash of his wand, each moronic request to wed him were reduced to ash in moments. He cast one more line of fire at one of the ceiling beams and a chandelier.
Each bulb burst. He gave the rest of the rectangular office the same treatment as he strode towards the exit. The room filled with smoke. Severus turned to survey his work. The whole floor would be consumed in a matter of minutes.
Severus Apparated to the Department of Mysteries.
Alecto returned from her jaunt in the Wizengamot courtroom.
Her hair was a wild mess behind her. "We have to go!" she panted.
A curse flew over her head, from someone behind the door.
She and Severus Apparated to the foyer and right into the midst of a brawl.
Severus saw Kingsley on one side and Amycus on the other. Alecto ducked behind a parapet in an attempt to grab her dolt of a brother.
Severus took aim as soon as he saw the gnarled walking stick. His Sectumsempra slashed through the air. Most of the Auror made it out of the way. Everything but his wooden foot.
His vicious pleasure was short-lived; Kingsley's curse caught him in the chest. He ducked down behind the remains of a statue, struggling to breathe. He felt warm blood spread over his chest.
The foyer began to tremble. He heard Bellatrix's cackle in the distance.
A crack spidered across the ceiling. As he peered over his balustrade, he saw one massive chunk fall.
He flung out his wand and forced the mass to fall towards the Aurors and away from the Death Eaters. Podmore's spell burst the rock into millions of sharp edges. Severus threw his arm over his head and still felt cement collide with his skull.
Lucius appeared at Severus's side; if he had not been near blinded by the stars in his eyes, he would've hexed the bastard.
"We have to go!" Lucius shouted over the din.
The new skylight forced several levels to collapse. Including the Magical Contracts department—singed parchments and files fluttered to the ground.
Severus saw a fiery bookshelf keen over the side of the hole. He and Lucius ran the other direction. Smoke billowed in. Fireplaces blazed green as people fled or arrived.
Another explosion knocked the men off-balance. Severus twisted his ankle and went down. He tossed his wand so he wouldn't snap it when he fell on his hand.
Lucius stumbled to a stop. His eyes darted back to the fray, then down to Severus, and to Severus's wand.
Severus struggled to his feet. Lucius jumped towards Severus's wand before inserting himself under Severus's arm. With both in hand, Lucius Disapparated.
The ungraceful escape ended in Narcissa's drawing room.
The witch sprang to her feet. "Lucius!"
She put both her hands on her husband's face to check for injuries. Aside from the bruised cheek and split lip, he was fine.
"Severus—" She grabbed his uninjured hand. "Was Draco with you?"
"He stayed at Hogwarts." His eyes swept over Lucius until he found his wand.
Lucius handed it back.
Severus felt light-headed, but better with his wand returned. "I have to go," he said.
Narcissa pressed her lips to Lucius's hand, fit to never release him. Severus limped to the front door.
The contract had slid down to his stomach. He wondered if it had been cleaved in half. Would that invalidate it? Would a new copy be generated?
The parchment squelched against his gut as he opened the front door. He Apparated to the back gate of Hogwarts.
And landed on his twisted foot. He fell to the ground in a heap.
Now horizontal, his head spun. He pulled the mask off his face to breathe. He—slowly—made it back onto his feet.
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Hermione flew through each N.E.W.T. exam, one after the other, in a whirlwind of parchment and quills. She darted from table to table in the Great Hall, answering questions here and there.
A crash behind her jolted dream-Hermione upright—and woke up real-Hermione in the dungeons.
She placed her hand over her pounding heart. Crookshanks was a large cat but he could not make that kind of noise without breaking something valuable.
"Crooks?"
A meow sounded from the foot of the bed.
Hermione flung the covers away and sprinted barefoot to the sitting room.
The fire was low. She lit a tiny Lumos. The door to Severus's office was open; she peered in and circled the desk but couldn't find him.
"Severus?"
The claustrophobic darkness pressed in.
Her feet froze on the stones and she had forgone a dressing gown. Had she imagined the noise?
She trod the gritty floor until she stepped in something wet.
She sucked in a breath and lowered her wand. She wouldn't be happy, but she hoped Crooks had had an accident.
But it was a dark puddle, and a dark smear.
Hermione snapped up and brightened her wand light. Severus was not in the chair or on the couch.
That stupid man, she thought as she rushed to his potions lab. She tripped and staggered as she rounded the couch.
Severus leaned against the back of the couch, his head ducked forward to rest on his bent knee, the other long leg stretched before him.
He made a high-pitched groan. A lethargic hand disentangled from his cloak to grip his extended knee.
Hermione knelt before him. "Severus, what hurts?" She placed her hands on his other arm but he didn't stir.
She put one hand on his ankle and he twitched. As carefully as she could, she rolled up the hem of his trousers. His ankle had swollen to twice a normal size and practically glowed purple.
How did he manage to walk all the way here? she marveled.
She gave him another once over. There was blood somewhere she couldn't see but could smell, a spot of it cooling on the bottom of her foot. His right arm lay limp at his side, palm up.
Severus turned his face away from the bright light.
Severus struggled to breathe now that he was awake. Hermione Summoned anything she could remember was stored under his washroom sink; a roll of bandages, dittany, pain relievers and skin repairing salves floated across the sitting room. As they landed by Hermione's knee, she flicked her wand at the nearest oil lamp.
She unbuttoned his frock coat. It wouldn't do to wrap a sprained wrist with his jacket still on.
And there was the blood—the front of his white shirt was soaked with it.
"What happened?" She didn't really need to know, but it would be nice if Severus would actually say something.
"You'll read about it tomorrow." His throat sounded raw.
Hermione leaned forward on her knees to remove his jacket. She smelled smoke in his hair.
"You had to go on a raid," she said.
He clenched his lips but remained silent when she tugged his tight sleeve over his fractured wrist.
"Go away," he forced through tight teeth.
"Do we have to argue at this very moment?" She unbuttoned his shirt, fingers slipping on the blood-coated buttons.
"Do you know how many fires I've set?" He grabbed her hand.
Hermione paused to make one thing very clear: "I'm sure more than either of us would like to think about."
She shook him off. He scowled at her but said no more.
He had cigarette burns on his chest and magical burns in patches on his stomach and arms. There were thin scars feathered on the pale bits of skin not covered in his blood.
There was a rustling noise under his shirt. She unbuttoned it all the way—and found their official marriage contract. The gilt edges shone out of the dark blood.
She set it on the ground.
Someone had sent a curse his way and caught him from pectoral to abdomen in a diagonal arch. It started just to the right of where his heart was, thankfully, and ended above another scar that dipped past the hem of his black trousers. The bleeding turned into oozing when he inhaled. That seemed to be the most pressing of his injuries.
"Who did this?" she asked as she unscrewed the cap on a disinfectant. Based on the strong chemical smell, it was going to sting a bit.
He shifted a bit in anticipation of the burn. "Shacklebolt, probably."
Hermione hummed as she poured the clear potion onto a rag.
"I'd rather you didn't," he said. He braced his weight on his usable hand.
"If I don't clean this, you'll get an infection."
"I'd rather you didn't help at all," he snapped.
"I'm your wife—"
"Oh, God." He rolled his head against the threadbare couch.
"And it is in my best interest to stay that way. Which means I'm not letting you die." She pressed the rag to the wound.
He reigned in his body and didn't react except to stare at the ceiling.
She wiped the blood from the torn flesh, careful not to snag his skin.
He needed more sunlight in his life. He was far too pale, and way too thin, his ribs evident through his skin when he sucked in a breath.
But a Dark Mark and a litany of scars wasn't really something he'd show to the sun.
Hermione tried to recall a spell to fuse skin back together. She didn't know what would work on a gash already scabbing.
Everything looked terrible. He should see Madam Pomfrey after she did what she could.
She gently picked up his hand to find the broken bones. She didn't have to investigate long to find the swollen middle finger. She picked up her wand and said, "Ferla."
The bone clacked back into place. Bandages spun from her wand tip. Severus flinched.
She crawled over the cold, gritty floor to his ankle.
"Broken?" she asked.
"No."
There wasn't a magical way to heal a rolled ankle. She settled on her aching knees to unlace his boot. Taking the thing off wouldn't be pleasant, and she doubted he'd like the thing Banished.
"Alright—"
"If you're going to do it, do it," he sighed, as if he'd been manhandled too many times to get worked up over it.
He probably had, if the variety of scars were any indication.
"Would you rather Madam Pomfrey help you?" she asked.
"It does not matter." He did not deign to look at her.
Hermione slipped it from his heel but couldn't be gentle about it. She pulled it off over his toes a bit more graceful, but it still aggravated his thick ankle.
Black socks. As expected.
By the time she saw him without shoes on, it was dark and he was sliding into bed. She wrapped his ankle with the bandages and he squirmed.
It wasn't aesthetically pleasing but it would hold until morning. She looked up at his chest again. One of Madam Pomfrehy's spells sprang to mind.
She held her wand to the beginning of his wound. Vulnera Sanenteur, she thought.
He made a noise of displeasure as his split skin shifted. "God, have you never heard it said before?" He was choked in pain—Hermione stopped.
"It's a bit more musical than whatever it is you're thinking." He panted and could sag into the couch now that his skin wasn't bunching like a quilt.
She flushed with embarrassment but was mortified about the pain she had exacerbated. "Madam Pomfrey never sang it," she muttered, lining up her wand with the tip of the injury again.
"Madam Pomfrey didn't exactly invent it," he murmured back, already tensing for when she cocked it up again.
Hermione angled narrowed eyes at him. "And you did?"
"I did, in fact, and I'd like to not die by it." That earned her a glare.
Great, that's just what she needed, mangling his own spell in front of him. Well she definitely wasn't about to sing in front of him again, but she tried in her head.
The skin glided together, the tear turning into a slit, until only a thin red line remained. She went over the wound again and again until the skin met perfectly in the middle, but a crease persisted.
He shoved her hand away. "It will never heal completely that way."
Hermione glanced at the assorted potions and ointments around them. She found a tiny jar of dittany. She brushed the unction on the thin line, afraid it still hurt.
He watched her out of the corner of her eye; he looked disheveled and about to give in to exhaustion at any moment.
"Why are you doing that?" his voice was low, as if someone may overhear.
Hermione made a sharp exhale through her nose without stopping her work. "Clearly this was the bit you skipped in Healing 101."
"It doesn't matter." He was being petulant and impatient about the whole thing, like being forced to heal was some burden. It was odd, but, you know, human. Instead of the usual brick-wall, clammed up professor.
"Just let me finish," she huffed. And she would, too, regardless of his whinging.
"Do you know how many people like you—"
"Stop." Hermione slammed her fist and the dittany on her thighs. "You're just trying to scare me and I won't have it, not when I'm trying to help you."
She closed her eyes, unfortunately seeing snippets of texts of just what Death Eaters did for fun in the years before she was born.
He didn't say anything. She didn't say anything.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Severus glared at the bookshelf to her right.
She continued to dab the dittany where she left off.
"You're an insufferable prick, do you know that?" She echoed his words back at him. "I'm doing everything I can to help you, even a tiny bit, and you still—still treat me like I'm a speck. Maybe it's your ego, or your guilt, or maybe you think I'm a useless Mudblood—"
"Don't say that," he snapped.
"—I don't care," she powered over him. She laid her hand flat on his stomach to impress her point. "Just because you're an arse doesn't mean I am. I'm going to help you because that's my job right now."
He stopped staring down the bookcase to give her his full attention. "This is not your job. You are inserting yourself where you shouldn't."
Hermione screwed the cap back on the dittany. "That choice was taken away a while ago. And now we're here. So deal with it before I start Silencing you when I heal you."
The adrenaline from the crash had worn off and left her eyes burning. Severus shivered on the stone floor with his shirt undone.
Hermione examined his torso. The dittany appeared to be working.
Hermione would have preferred to see him like this without all the blood.
With that, Hermione clambered, achingly, to her feet, deciding she was addled by the lack of sleep and sharing a bed with the blighter every night.
She left Severus amidst the mess. He deserved it, bloody wanker.
…
The next day, Hermione woke up to find that Severus looked mostly put together. He lay on his back, sans shirt due to the healing scar. One arm was thrown over his eyes. Since his broken finger was attached to that arm, she could assume it didn't bother him.
Perhaps by Monday, he wouldn't be injured at all—and no one would suspect him of having gone on a raid.