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Chapter 3

I partially wrote this while intentionally sleep deprived, between back to back overtime shifts, while listening to Behind Blue Eyes by The Who* and Til It Happens To You by Lady Gaga. It's a deep one. Again, mentions of rape, and also suicide. I actually cried writing this. But again, sleep deprivation. Hermione may seem like she's handling it all well, but a breakdown is coming. She has so many different conflicting emotions about Draco, and she won't have an office full of bubbling cauldrons to keep her mind off it all.

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Hermione was awakened by a voice coming through the Floo. The sun was just coming up through the dungeon window.

"Hermione! 4 more cauldrons each of bloodbuilder and strengthener. Hagrid is coming with supplies. Then we need 2 cauldrons of pain reliever. A house elf will bring you breakfast."

She jumped up and immediately got started preparing ingredients for the bloodbuilder. Hagrid brought in a huge amount of supplies concealed in his shrinking pocket. He also handed her a couple of chocolate frogs to snack on when she had a free second.

As it bubbled, she slammed down a ham and egg breakfast sandwich, orange slices and pumpkin juice in record time.

When she flooed up to the infirmary with the first vials, she noticed Draco had a slight pink tinge to his skin, but it was still pale. He was still unconscious. She nodded at Professor Snape on her way back to the fireplace, and he nodded back.

The strengthener worked up quickly under her hand. She was getting good at quickly dicing up ingredients into tiny, even bits. She'd even devised a faster, more effective way to crush the Moringa leaves by wrapping parchment around a small rock she'd found just outside the office window.

After delivering the strengthener to Madame Pomfrey's storeroom, she threw down the chocolate frogs and got started on the pain reliever. Peppermint leaves, willow bark, cataire leaves, pineapple core, banana peel.

She followed the professor's instructions to a T as she prepared the pain reliever. Soon the office was filled with a tropical smell consisting of peppermint, banana and pineapple.

While it was on a 2 hour simmer, the Headmistress entered the office, sniffing appreciatively.

"Aaah. It smells like a muggle cocktail I once had in the United States. After you graduate, Miss Granger, you and I will figure out the recipe for it."

Hermione smiled at her over the bubbling cauldrons. "Sounds like a plan."

The Headmistress helped her cool and bottle the pain reliever. Then they both flooed up. Hermione stocked it while she checked on Draco's condition.

After emptying her basket into the infirmary stockroom shelves, Hermione walked over to where Draco lay, being attended to by Madame Pomfrey and Professor Snape.

"Is there anything else you require me to brew or bring up?"

Professor Snape looked up from where he'd been keeping vigil at Draco's bedside, and looked to Madame Pomfrey. His face was haggard, his eyes were sunken in and his skin was pale. Paler than Draco's.

"We are okay. Go get some rest. I will send a patronus if we need more of anything within your brewing skill."

Hermione walked slowly to her dorm. Luna was already there, sleeping. She'd stayed up much of the night assisting with Draco's care. She took a hot shower and collapsed into the bed, and dreamed about dicing ingredients and brewing potions.

Sometime around supper, a doe patronus woke up Hermione. "Hermione, we're losing him. If you want his soul to be at peace, please come."

She raced to the common room and flooed to the infirmary. Seeing her enter, Professor Snape immediately motioned her over.

"Talk to him. Tell him you're here, and tell him what you think you're able." Hermione sat down in a chair next to the deathly still Slytherin. The professor nodded at Madame Pomfrey and they both stepped away as a curtain was drawn. Hermione cast a silencing spell.

The brunette watched his chest rise and fall slowly, his shallow breaths barely detectable. She took his icy hands in both of hers and looked right at his face. She remembered laying on the floor at Malfoy Manor. Beaten, tortured, bleeding. Shaking uncontrollably from the Cruciatus. The Death Eaters standing around her. Bellatrix raising her wand again. Blackness. Waking up in incredible pain, but fighting her way out with Harry, Dobby and Ron. Apparating to the sandy beach.

She stared hard at his face. Draco Malfoy. Her Slytherin rival for 6 years. Former Death Eater. Disarmer of Dumbledore. One of her rapists.

"Draco. It's Hermione. Professor Snape wants me to help you find peace after death. I know what you did. I know you raped me. I know Bellatrix forced you to do it. You were as much a victim of your blood heritage as I was in this war. Mudblood. Pureblood. We were both always defined by our bloodline. Or lack of it. I cannot say I forgive you. However, I can say that I do not hate you. May you find a peace you never had a chance to know in this life."

Hermione knew it may have been her imagination, but she would swear on Dumbledore's grave that she felt a slight squeeze of her hands. Draco's face seemed to relax and he gave a deep, shuddering breath, and was still. So painfully still.

There's a difference one can feel in a body, after the soul has departed. You can't look at the deceased and pretend they are merely sleeping. The body is empty, cold, limp. A shell. The heart no longer beats. The brain no longer sends signals to the rest of the body. Lifeblood is no longer moving through the blood vessels.

The wizard who lay in front of Hermione was truly gone. All his life force. All his magic. His suffering was over. The Dark Lord and his father had twisted and tortured Draco to bend him to their evil ways. They wanted a monster, but only succeeded in destroying the brilliant young man within. His mother tried to shield him, to save him, but she could not.

Hermione did not know how long she sat, how long she held Draco's cold hands in hers. She finally forced herself to let go. Then to stand. And to breathe. Then to walk. Open the curtain. Then close it again.

Professor Snape, the Headmistress and Madame Pomfrey stood when she exited the curtained area.

She looked up at the Potions Master, a heavy numbness and silence pervading her entire being. Words eluded her, so she hoped he knew what she wanted to ask.

He simply gave her a single nod of his head.

He understood. She wanted his quarters, not her Ravenclaw dorm. The smell of herbs and black tea. The green Slytherin blanket, the black carpet, the chill and darkness of the dungeon quarters with only an ambient fire. Candles nearby, ready for the shake of a wand, should the night become too much to bear. Someone who understood her complicated, contradicting jumble of emotions bubbling under the surface, muted by shock. Someone who required no explanations as he sipped his whiskey or his tea as she sipped her own steaming mug and they could sort through their thoughts as they stared at a fire in mutual silence.

Hermione stepped out of the fireplace and settled herself in the ebony leather chair opposite Professor Snape's favorite, after wrapping the blanket around herself. The heavy silence and numbness settled over her again like a thick blanket edged with grief.

Professor Snape stepped through the fireplace, and set about making tea. They both sat, sipping and watching the fire, knowing there were conversations to be had. Conversations for another day. For today, for tonight, there was only silence and contemplation.

Both just felt shock. So much had happened so fast, that when it was over, both were left holding the pieces of a promising young man's broken life. A life that could have been, if not stolen by the Dark Lord before it had begun. A young man who the world had turned their back on.

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like

To be hated

To be fated to telling only lies

But my dreams

They aren't as empty

As my conscience

Seems to be*

Hermione felt a chill in the air, so she wrapped the Slytherin blanket around herself and sat back in her chair. She'd come to associate that blanket with comfort, with the darkness of the dungeon and with the Head of Slytherin himself. Feeling her eyes grow heavy with the exhaustion of the previous two days, she fell asleep.

Professor Snape once again levitated Hermione to his couch, then transfigured his own chair into a couch so he could sleep near her. He had a feeling she was going to wake up in a poor frame of mind, and wanted to be close by when she did.

After she'd fallen asleep, Hermione was pulled into a terrifying nightmare. She was back at Malfoy Manor, and she was heavily pregnant. The Dark Lord was peering in her face as she lay tied down by unseen magical binds. He was demanding to know which of his Death Eaters had fathered her child. She was sobbing and screaming that she didn't know, but he kept demanding that she tell him who the father was. Then he started killing all his followers, including Draco and Professor Snape, then Harry and Ron and everyone else in their dungeon. She woke up crying, unable to comprehend raising the child of an unknown man, but at the same time thinking about the baby she'd never know.

Professor Snape had woken up soon after she did, and he hadn't been surprised in the least that she was crying. He sat down next to her and put an arm around her. She once again soaked his robes with her tears.

After it seemed she had no more tears left, Hermione stayed curled up against his chest, drinking in the scent of herbs, tea and parchment. His other arm wrapped around her as well, and she buried her face in his robe.

She finally sat up as a question burned in her mind and refused to be ignored.

"Sir, why didn't it work? Why couldn't we save him?" Tears threatened to fall down her cheeks again. "I did everything right with those potions. I followed your written instructions to the letter."

The Potions Master sighed deeply and stood up.

"Let me make us some tea first, and then I'll do my best to answer that."

His quarters contained a small kitchen, a bedroom and a sitting room. Hermione followed her professor and watched as he boiled water in a kettle, and expertly measured out loose tea leaves into tea baskets, and added cinnamon sticks and bits of vanilla bean. After it was brewed, he added sugar and milk, and handed her a steaming cup.

They both sat down and he took a sip of his tea and looked up at Hermione.

"Draco had deep gashes in his neck, chest, thighs and wrists, which caused him to lose a large amount of blood quickly. He also had a poison in his system that takes several days to kill an adult and was causing his heart to fail. It was too late to reverse it, but we tried. He was malnourished, from months of barely eating. We did everything we could. There was just too much damage to his body. We gave him over 100 vials each of bloodbuilder and strengthener, but he was just getting weaker. I told him he had to fight, and he just shook his head, no. He didn't want to keep going. So we stopped trying to save him, and just gave him Draught of Peace and pain reliever."

"Did he take the potion himself or did someone poison him?"

"I'm fairly certain he took it himself, but I'm not 100% positive. He did have a lot of enemies."

Hermione sighed. "He did. I told him I didn't hate him for what he did to me, but sometimes I'm not so sure I meant it. I keep having nightmares about the Manor."

"Is that why you were crying earlier?"

She closed her eyes, remembering the terrifying images of her nightmare. "Yes. I dreamed I was back there, but heavily pregnant, and the Dark Lord was demanding to know which Death Eater's baby it was, but I just kept screaming and telling him I didn't know. Then he started killing everyone, including you."

"He's gone now, Hermione. For good. He can't hurt anyone else. Dolohov is dead, Bellatrix is dead, they're all dead."

"Are you safe, sir? No one's trying to kill you, are they?"

"No, they're not," the Potions Master explained with a long sigh. "They all consider me a hero, now."

"That's good."

Hermione cast a tempus, and saw that it was 7 AM.

"You should sleep, Hermione. Classes have been cancelled for the week."

She glanced up at her professor and shook her head. "I'm afraid of more nightmares."

"I would offer you a potion, but you need to deal with everything you're feeling, not suppress it." Professor Snape stood up and sat down on one end of the couch. "You can go to sleep on me. On my shoulder."

Hermione wrapped the blanket around herself snuggly and laid down with her head on the Potions Master's chest.

"Or on my chest." He wrapped his arms around her, and soon they both fell asleep.

When he woke up several hours later, she was still sleeping, so he stayed where he was. The brunette's wild hair tickled his nose. It smelled like lilacs, and he took a deep breath in, cherishing the smell.

When Hermione woke up, she realized she was laying on a warm chest, rather than the couch. She breathed in the smell of herbs and felt the professor kiss the top of her head. She was about to raise her head and kiss him on the mouth when a sudden revolting thought intruded into her mind.

Had Draco kissed her, when he'd raped her? Had all of them? The thought of it, of all of those men touching her unconscious body made her jump up, pushing away from the man with his arms around her. She desperately began pacing back and forth but the intrusive memories of their leering faces just wouldn't go. She pulled at her hair with her hands and yelled out, "Aaaaaaaaaah!"

She continued pacing and grabbing at her hair, while Professor Snape silently watched from where he sat on the couch. At first, when she'd jumped up, it had startled him very briefly. Now he knew she was likely being haunted by memories of Malfoy Manor. He considered accioing a Draught of Peace for her, but remembered what he'd told her earlier that same day. That she needed to deal with what she felt, not ignore it.

"Sir, is it alright if I take a shower? I need a shower."

"Yes, of course. There's clean towels in the cabinet. Go ahead."

Hermione all but ran into the shower and scrubbed until the images went away. Then she sat on the shower floor and cried. There wasn't soap or water enough in all of the British Isles to wash away the filth she felt.

When she finally turned off the water and dried off, she found a jumper, a tee shirt and a pair of pants on the bathroom counter, shrunk down to fit.

When she walked out to the sitting room, she noticed a tray of food on the kitchen counter.

"You need to eat, Hermione." She sat down at the table and ate a pastry and a couple slices of bacon, but then nausea began to kick in. She walked to the couch, wrapped herself in the green blanket and laid down facing the back of the couch. She didn't want to talk to or see anybody, not even Professor Snape.

She heard the professor moving around his quarters, then she heard him speaking to her. "I need to do some brewing. I'll leave the door open, if you need anything." Hermione grunted a response.

She laid under the blanket for hours, remembering all the events of the manor. At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because the sky outside the window was dark. With some effort, she remembered it was Tuesday evening. But she couldn't even make herself care. She quickly visited the loo and dove back under the blanket.

The professor heard her moving around, and poked his head through the doorway. Normally, the Hermione he knew would have been interested in what he was brewing and asking to help. But there was no movement from her on the couch. He turned back to his cauldron, realizing just how poorly she was managing. He had known a breakdown was coming, after he had confirmed to her the events of the Manor to her and then Draco's death magnified everything.

When he'd finished brewing the Skelegrow for the infirmary 3 hours later, she was still laying on the couch in the same spot. Her even breathing told him she was most likely sleeping. He started on the Draught of Peace next. As he diced ingredients, he kept peering in at the brunette huddled under his blanket, even calling her name. But he got no response except an occasional "go away". After that was done, he briefly napped in his chair where he could keep an ear out for the girl.

When he woke up again, the sun was up. It was Wednesday morning. Hermione had been in his quarters since Monday, and she'd barely moved in the last day and a half from his couch.

He brewed more healing potions for the infirmary. The day continued much like the previous. He kept the door open, hoping the smells of his brewing would coax his guest off the couch. No such luck. He couldn't get her to eat, either. Once in a great while, she would quickly dash to the loo, then dive back under the blanket without speaking to him.

Not feeling the least bit tired despite the hour being late, he started brewing the painkiller, hoping maybe the pleasant odors of pineapple, mint and banana would get her attention.

It didn't work, though, but it did somehow summon the attention of the Headmistress.

"How did you know I was brewing this? How do you always show up when this is on the cauldron?"

"I just know."

She peered into his quarters, and saw someone under a blanket on the couch, so she raised her eyebrows at the professor.

"It's Hermione Granger. She's not dealing well with Draco's death. She's been here since she left the infirmary Monday. Things…. happened to her when the trio were on the run, at Malfoy Manor. It's finally catching up with her. I won't reveal more than that, anything else will have to come from her. She's welcome to stay as long as she needs to, she seems to have an attachment to my couch and my blanket."

"The golden trio is no longer, I've observed."

"No, on that you are correct."

"I suppose you know the reason, but are unwilling to share that as well?"

"You are correct. I do not betray my students' confidences when they come to me. You know she was moved to Ravenclaw."

"Yes, I knew she was, but the reasons were never revealed to me beyond 'an unfortunate falling out'."

"I kept secrets as a spy, and now I keep them as my students' confidante, odd as that may sound. I apologize, but I cannot reveal anything further."

"Only Mr. Longbottom and Miss Lovegood have asked after her. Shall I tell them she is ill?"

"Tell them she is dealing with a death close to her and will return when she is ready."

"Okay. I will. Just when did you go from being the most hated professor to every 8th years' big brother?"

"I think it was when they all realized I was fighting on their side the whole time, and when I survived Nagini's bite. They also know I will keep their secrets and do so without judgment."

The Headmistress smiled and patted the Potions Master on the shoulder. "You're a good man, Severus. Look after her, will you?"

He nodded. "I will. I promise."

"If you need anything, you know where to find me."

"Thank you."

After the Headmistress left, he poked his head into his quarters and saw Hermione with her head out of the blanket, looking at him.

He walked in and sat down on his chair, not wanting to get too close. It hadn't escaped his notice that just prior to her change in mood, she had fallen asleep in his arms. Perhaps the close proximity to him had triggered her. He sighed, realizing he had little experience helping rape survivors, and found himself wishing for someone who did.

"Thank you, sir, for not telling her anything. I appreciate that."

"You're welcome, Hermione. It wasn't my secrets to share."

She stared at the fire. "I'm sorry I pushed away from you so frantically earlier. I just… the Death Eaters…. their faces… I just couldn't get their faces out off my head." She pulled at her hair again, and threw off the blanket and started pacing. "I just can't stand the fact that they all saw me, they all touched me, they all kissed me…."

Professor Snape turned and warded his office door, and winced when the girl jumped.

"Why did you do that? What are you going to do? Why?" Hermione backed herself into a far corner of the sitting room.

The professor put both his hands up and backed up into the hallway that led to his bedroom and bathroom.

"Hermione… it's alright. I only warded the door so no one would hear you. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're not going to hurt me?"

"No, I'm not going to hurt you. I just wanted to give you privacy. That's all."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry I doubted you."

"It's okay, Hermione. I understand."

She hesitantly sat down on the couch again, and covered herself with the blanket except her face.

"That's what I couldn't stand about being near Draco. Knowing he'd seen me, touched me… kissed me, even. It just made my skin crawl just to be near him after I knew. It still makes my skin crawl to think about all those men... I can't stand it. That's why I took a shower. I just had to scrub everything off me." The brunette sat on the edge of the couch, rocking. She was quickly nearing panic mode again, but she didn't want a potion.

Professor Snape sat back down on his chair, facing her.

"Hermione. Look at me. Take a deep breath in through your nose."

She did.

"Now let it out through your mouth."

She exhaled.

"Again. In through your nose. Good. Out through your mouth. Good. Keep going. Slowly."

Hermione kept doing as he told her. Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.

"Focus only on your breathing. Keep going. Push all other thoughts out."

She kept breathing, slowly, focusing only on her body bringing in air through her nose and letting it out through her mouth. Slowly, the panic began to subside.

"Whenever you feel this panic starting, do that kind of breathing. It helps, believe me."

"How do you know? You have to use it?"

"I still have nightmares and flashbacks of the Dark Lord and others using the Cruciatis on me, which happened too many times to count. I use that breathing technique to get through them."

"Bellatrix used it on me, too."

"I know. When you have nightmares about it, do the breathing and clear your mind."

"Thank you, for letting me sleep on you yesterday morning. I actually did sleep good, before I panicked."

"You're welcome, Hermione. In my quarters, you can call me Severus. You don't have to call me sir or professor. Okay?"

"Okay."

"But out there," he pointed towards his office, "I expect to be called Professor and sir, alright?"

"Got it."

Severus walked back over to his cauldron, and extinguished the fire under it.

"You want to hear something funny? The Headmistress always knows every time I brew this pain reliever potion and makes her way down here because she loves the smell."

Hermione laughed. She watched as he cast cooling spells over the potion. After the required ten minutes, she walked over to help bottle it. As he ladled it out, she capped and labelled each vial.

"She told me that she once had a drink in the US that tasted a lot like it, and we'd figure out the recipe after I graduated."

"I think I have figured it out, from her description." He eyed the brunette as she stored the pain reliever in his stockroom. She would do amazing as an apprentice. Maybe she needed something to wake up for every day to help her heal. If he didn't act now, perhaps another Potions Master would step up instead.

"Have you given any thought to what you're going to do after graduation?"

"No, sir." He raised his eyebrow. "Oops, I mean… No, Severus. I haven't. I've been too busy coping with the past to think about the future."

"Would you consider an apprenticeship in potions? With me?"

"Are you serious?" Hermione walked over to where he stood in his office. "I would definitely like that! Yes!"

"I watched how you handled all the potionmaking we threw at you while trying to heal Draco. I already know you're skilled at it. You got an O on your potions, arithmancy and herbology OWLS. We can still get your NEWTS done."

Hermione clapped in excitement. She thought about how Luna had predicted she would do an apprenticeship in potions and would fall in love with Professor Snape. For the first time in days, she actually wanted to return to her dorm.

"I think I'm actually going to return to my dorm tonight. I would like to tell Luna about my apprenticeship."

Severus nodded in approval. That was a good sign, Hermione returning to her dorm.

"Classes are canceled all week, but be down here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I need to check the supplies in the infirmary and brew what they need. I also need to inventory the charmed cabinets in each common room."

"Okay, I'll be here. At eight o'clock sharp. Good night, Severus!"

"Good night, Hermione!"

She practically ran to her dorm, hoping Luna would be there. It briefly crossed her mind that she was wearing Severus' clothes and her own were still in his quarters, but she didn't care.

Luckily, she found the blonde getting ready to go to supper.

"Luna! Guess what? I'm going to do an apprenticeship with Professor Snape!"

"That's fantastic, Hermione! I'm really happy for you!"

"Thanks!"

"Is that why you're wearing his clothes? Just what have you been doing for the last two days?"

Hermione blushed. "I crashed on his couch for two days because I was having a really difficult time coping with Draco's death. Yes, it was only his couch, and no it didn't involve any of what you're thinking."

Luna gave her a knowing smile and a hug, and they headed to the Great Hall for supper. Neville was glad to see her. She caught a smile from the Headmistress and Madame Pomfrey and even the Potions Master. She realized more people cared about her than she thought.

Noticing that her former friends were staring at her again, Neville got up and sat in their line of sight again.

"Thank you, Neville. I don't know why they insist on doing that."

"You're welcome, Hermione!"

"Hermione, you should tell Neville your good news."

He raised his eyebrows in askance.

"I'm going to do a potions apprenticeship with Professor Snape!"

"Congratulations! That's great."

The next morning, Hermione was showered, dressed in her robes, over a tee shirt and jeans, and standing outside the potions office at 7:55 AM. She had remembered to bring his clothes back, and a house elf had returned her own to her during the night.

Excitedly, she knocked on the door, and it opened a few seconds later. As she walked in, she handed him his clothes with a smirk. "Luna had all kinds of ideas about why I was wearing your clothes when I came back last night."

"Did she really? Was she disappointed in your explanation of the truth? Or did you feed her fantasies of a professor/student relationship?"

Hermione laughed. "I told her the truth. She was disappointed."

"I'm sure she was." He motioned Hermione to his store room and handed her a basket.

"Collect all the Skelegrow and healing potions, and half of the Draught of Peace and pain reliever. We'll take that up to the infirmary."

Hermione filled her basket as instructed and they flooed up. While Severus read off what potions they needed to brew and in what amounts, she wrote it down in a logbook he had handed her.

"We need to check the charmed cabinet in each common room. I like to maintain 25 contraceptive potions in each one."

They rounded by foot rather than by floo. Severus had explained that the students became very nervous when he would use the floo to enter their common rooms. Even Slytherin, because he usually didn't floo in and out.

The rounds of the first three common rooms went smoothly, but Hermione found herself growing more nervous as they approached Gryffindor. True to her suspicions, Harry was sitting in there with Ginny on his lap, snogging. Ron was snogging Lavender in a corner. All four looked up in shock to see Hermione enter with Professor Snape. Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but was suddenly unable. All four watched the Potions Master and his apprentice inventory the contraceptive cabinet without a word.

Just before leaving, he turned and looked at them with a sneer and suddenly they could talk again.

Hermione held in her laughter until they were behind the closed door of his office.

"Severus! Did you langlock them?" The image of her former friends unable to speak was enough to make her double over with laughter.

He feigned innocence. "Oh, were they unable to speak? I wasn't aware."

"Thank you. I don't think I could have dealt with their big mouths."

Her mentor just gave her a smirk in return.

His smirk faded when he looked at the logbook for Gryffindor's charmed cabinet, and he glanced at her. He had just loaded 25 potions in there the previous week and it was empty already. Not willing to contribute to any small Potters or Weasleys entering the world, he decided to raise that cabinet's quota to 30.

"I need you to get started on the contraceptive potions. We need to brew a total of 140, and each cauldron yields 20. I like to keep extra here in the storeroom and in the infirmary. That way if a student asks me for one, I have a supply to pull from."

"Do students ask you for them often?" Hermione knew she wouldn't have thought of that, but she wasn't sexually active in prior years, either. Or this year, for that matter, she thought with a grimace.

"Occasionally. At least once a week or more, and I usually provide a few when it's ever requested. I'd rather brew 7 cauldrons a week than have to brew the abortifacient or especially the rescue because someone didn't use it and took matters into their own hands."

"Has that ever happened, a pregnant student giving themselves an abortion?"

"Yes, it has. Fifteen years ago, a pregnant student threw herself down the stairs. No one knew she was pregnant or that she tried to induce a miscarriage until she was found unresponsive in the Room of Requirement. I brewed rescue and bloodbuilder as fast as I could, but she died. I vowed never to let that happen again."

Hermione swallowed hard, but she continued at her task of preparing ingredients. She remembered the desperation she'd felt when Madame Pomfrey had confirmed her own pregnancy.

"So that's why you keep the cabinets filled?"

"Yes. It took some arguing on my part to get the Headmaster and the other heads of houses to agree to it, but I won. It was hard for them to argue against the necessity of it when a student's death clearly could have been prevented with the availability of contraceptive potion."

"Thank you. For caring enough to do that. I know how scary an unplanned pregnancy is, and I'm glad other students don't have to face that."

Severus nodded at her, and returned to his work. He was brewing a fresh batch of maternus interruptus to keep in his storeroom, to replace the supply he had as it was getting old. The way Gryffindor was going through the contraceptive potion, someone was bound to slip up.

After the contraceptive potion was completed and bottled, Hermione stocked some in the storeroom, minus one vial she secreted away in her robe pocket. They distributed it to each common room and the infirmary. This time the Gryffindor common room was empty.

When they completed that, they grabbed lunch in the Great Hall, then Hermione set to work on the infirmary list. She spent the afternoon cranking out bloodbuilder, laxative potion, strengthener, stomach soother and sleeping draughts. After making her deliveries to the infirmary, Severus told her to call it a day and to be back in the morning.

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I am seeking a beta for this story. I've started chapter 4 three times but haven't been happy with it and I can't decide which direction to take things. Romance vs drama/angst/PTSD vs neither.