CHAPTER 18

It had been late and the boys hadn't returned. Lily would have been worried if she had not been asleep and Hermione thanked her wit to offer her the dreamless potion. It would not have been good for either Lily or Harry for her to stress. She was around twenty one weeks pregnant now and needed to take proper rest. However , Hermione wasn't pregnant and so couldn't stop herself from worrying. She knew that the boys were more than capable but they had considered Peter as their friend for a very long time and were very emotionally invested in him. He could trick them easily and could cause some serious harm to any of them. She was chewing her fingernails when the monitoring charm on the wards of her home alerted her of the arrival of the boys.

Thank god. They are back. She thought as she ran to the door. It wasn't that anyone else could come into her wards apart from those she allowed but still she had added the monitoring charm so that she would know who came into her house in her absence. She had added that after Peter's spying earlier. It made anything inside the wards invisible to others.

"What took you so long, we have been…" she was saying as she opened the door but the person in front of it shocked her. Standing in front of her was none other than one Severus Snape. Although the condition he was in was far from the condition she would have liked him in. His hair was sticked to his forehead with sweat, his eyes looked heavy with exhaustion. It looked like he would faint any moment now. He was clutching his arm tightly as she looked him over, his black robes were darker in certain place and she could bet it was because he was bleeding.

He was about to trip over but Hermione caught him. She threw his hand over her shoulder and supported his weight over her shoulder as she held his waist and ushered him inside.

"Sev , What happened to you?" she said , her voice void of emotion as she saw the trail of blood that she left behind as he walked.

She placed him gently on the couch.

"Dark Lord." He croaked through a soar throat. Clearly he had screamed a lot.

" You are bleeding." She rushed to the cupboard and grabbed some towels from it. "Let me see." She said as she tried to help him out of his robes. He stopped her hand with his and removed it.

"I don't need your help." He said.

"Then why are you here?" she asked him angrily. "If you don't cooperate here Severus Snape, I will be forced to use other methods which you won't like."

Severus stared at her. He didn't know what brought him here at her door. It wasn't like they were friends. He had in fact met the witch only twice. He only knew he was dying and had no friends to go to. And no matter what Severus Snape said , he was scared to die. He didn't want to die. And at that moment when he was left dying on the ground as their meeting was dismissed , Severus thought of the one person he couldn't get rid of from his head since yesterday. The witch who had taken him to her house , knowing very well of his status as a Death Eater. Who had promised him she had no alterior intention apart from helping him. He had heard the truth in her voice. And so apparated knowing it could be a huge risk. But at that time, he had no other choice.

The witch, Hermione had took him in and when he saw the worry and pain in her eyes, he knew he had done the right thing. She had brought him into her house and sat him on the sofa. The way she was scolding her as she helped him out of his robes , he felt that she had known him long and was well aware of his reservations since she paid no heed to his jeers or declarations of not needing her help.

He watched her as she took in the wide gashes on his bare torso. She was well aware of the curse that caused it. He had seen her using it on Malfoy that day in Diagon Alley. It was ironic that his own spell had been used against him. She was dabbing the open wound with a fresh towel and again he wondered why would she dirty her fresh laundry for him. No one was so selfless in the world. Not even Lily , who had thrown away years of friendship because of a word. It was wrong for him to use the slur on her and if there was a god , he would know how badly, Severus regretted it every day. But it was selfish of her to not even give him a chance to explain. She had broken saying she didn't liked the friends he kept, not caring that her own friends bullied him at every chance they got, just for being poor and Slytherin.

"It won't heal." He said as he saw her lift her wand to, most probably to use a healing charm. She frowned.

"Vulnera Sanentur." She said in a low song like voice.

Severus stared eyes wide as the gashes on his chest closed and in its place lay scars.

"Sorry the scars will stay." She said as she cleaned the blood on his shoulder with a wet towel.

"But h..how?" he asked flabbergasted. He was the inventor of that spell and knew there was nothing to heal it. He himself had been working on it for a year.

"I will explain but you need to take these first. Maybe tomorrow when you are well rested and feeling better" She handed him several vials, "Blood Replenishing, Pain Relief, Anti-Cruciatus, and these two are dreamless sleep and sleeping draught, you take them before going to bed." She said picking up a purple salve that he recognized as Bruise removal.

"What are you, a medi-witch?" he asked surprised at the precision with witch she took care of his wounds. He suddenly felt glad he had chosen to come over to her. He was going to live after all.

"I have been tortured before." She said.

Severus gaped at her. Why would someone torture the nice witch. She took the unasked question and answered it, "Bellatrix , Dolohov and Greyback." She shrugged as she finshed her work.

Will she ever cease to surprise , he thought.

"And still you helped me, knowing I am one of them?"

"I know more about you than you know Severus. I know you don't want to be there and therefore I want to help."

"How will you do that?" he asked. "Do you think it is easy to leave him? he will kill me if I ever stopped working for him."

"Regulus Black left him." she said as she motioned for him to follow.

"And he is going to be dead, once dark lord finds out."

"He won't find him. He is with us. He is safe and only a few know the locations, me, Sirius, james, lily and Remus being the only people aware of his location."

The names threw cold water over him. there he was thinking , they could actually be friends.

He took his wand out and pointed at her.

"You lied to me." He roared though with his sore throat it didn't come out as menacing.

"I did no such thing." She said as she turned to look at him , her head tilted.

Hermione knew he would react this way and they needed to be having this conversation. It was one of the reasons why she had brought him to the guest room farther away from where Lily slept.

"You are their friends. You tricked me. What do you want?"

"I already told you that I want nothing more than for you to have a normal life. And I know why might find it hard trust me knowing I am their friend. But Severus, If the Marauders were mean to you, you weren't a saint either. Everything between the four of you is the fault of each of you."

"they started.." she held up her hand to silenced him.

"I don't care what you all did. It is none of my matter. What matters to me is I have a mission here. To save who deserves to be saved. And that includes you Severus. You might have had a few flaws but deep within I know there is a good heart in there." She placed a hand on his chest over his heart.

Severus lowered his wand trusting to chose the witch who had done nothing for him to doubt her intentions. It felt bitter not being able to insult those prats. Though whatever he had wanted to say got interrupted as a scary growl was heard from behind them.

H

Thanks a lottt... I appreciate your suggestion. I know there may be many mistakes , spelling and grammar, that I have missed. It's just that this is my first fanfic and I am trying to finish it rather quickly. That is one of the reasons why I could have missed some things. After all , I am not perfect. But I assure you I will make sure to have minimum errors from this chapter onwards. And I will take out some time one of these days , to correct the previous chapters. Thanks again. My sincere apologies for your inconvenience.

Litfreak89

Thanks a lot for reading and reviewing. I hope you keep liking all the future chapters. Keep reading.

Lost O'Fallon Girl

The rat is gone for good now. Thanks for the review. Keep reading. I hope you like the story.

lady sesshomaru sama 949

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Time doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that you have sticked with this story since the very beginning. I am glad that there are such readers like you who are so sweet. Your simple gestures and sweet reviews have encouraged me, an amateur writer, a lot. Thank you.