Saturday, September 19, 1998. Month 1. Day 13. Sixteen days till full moon.
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Severus was well and fully drunk. Fire whiskey was the only thing keeping him from losing his mind at this point. That damn girl meddling in his death. Ugh. She should have just let him stay dead. Then, he wouldn't be dealing with this massive pile of bullshit. Damned werewolves and sick students and war traumas. He heard a crash from somewhere above him followed by a sinister cackle. Peeves. Fuck it. He couldn't care less. He threw back another shot before settling further back into his favorite chair. Another crash and a yelp. Probably Filch. He didn't care one bit.
None of the noise or chaos going on above him could bother him at all. All he could think about was the student traipsing around the castle like nothing was wrong, like they weren't infected with a dangerous disease. Then there was Granger, all tired and sickly, and he didn't know how to help her or if he even wanted to help. But, he owed the little swot his life. He owed her his life, which was something he didn't even want. He was ready to die when that snake got him. He welcomed it really. But here he was, drunk and as lonely as ever, risen from the dead like some kind of evil messiah. He had killed and tortured witches and wizards for the Dark Lord, and for some stupid reason, the damned girl had to bring him back and curse his very existence with the dark spells she used. Why him? He didn't deserve it. Not unless this was his hell. Perhaps this insufferable ringing in his ears was a hint he actually was in hell since it was utter torment to have it continuously assaulting his senses.
He snapped out of his self-pitying stupor when he realized the ringing was tied to the wards he had placed on his private rooms in the castle. And as soon as they started, they stopped. Someone was in his private lab, and he was too drunk to do anything about it. He stumbled to his desk at the other end of the room and downed a vial of sobering potion before he could lose himself completely in his drunken haze.
He cringed with the sudden sanitized feeling of sobriety though it would still be a bit longer before all the effects of the alcohol had dissipated. He immediately missed the warm grogginess that had blanketed his body and mind. He was almost tempted to ignore his knowledge of someone entering his lab in favor of a tumbler or five more of firewhiskey.
He chased that thought away and traipsed angrily towards his door. Had he been wearing his teaching robes, his signature billow would have been overly dramatic, bordering on undignified with the way the dark man was moving. Pity. That would have been a sight. He slammed open the door with a lack of patience and an abundance of annoyance; his gaze immediately landing on the culprit.
That damned bushy hair… of course it was her.
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Hearing from George had Hermione's mind in a fog… well, hearing from George and her current ailment. She could only focus on two things at present: Fred Weasley and the situation at hand. Really she needed to focus on the situation. She was in the Professor's lab thieving like a criminal with a vague feeling that she was forgetting something. But all she could see for the last day and a half since George's reply was the limp and bloodied body of his twin laid haphazardly amongst a sea of bodies. The image sickened her almost as badly as her current ailment. Fred.. her Fred… The guilt crept up on her as she continued to gather ingredients, struggling to focus enough to find the right ones. She had saved so many people. She had even brought someone back to life. Why didn't she bring Fred back? Why not him instead of Severus bloody Snape? A choked sob escaped her throat, bringing her back to the present. This was not the time to grieve.
Focus. Focus. She needed to focus. She was forgetting something. She ran through the plan over and over again in her head. She ticked off each step on her fingers. Recruit Peeves, distract Snape, cancel the wards, get in, get out, all should be fine. But something was missing.
The realization hit her like a ton of bricks when a bang rang through the room, startling her half to death. She jerked around harshly to face a steel-faced Snape. The movement was so abrupt and without warning that she let out a scream. Not only was she frightened, but she could feel as if it were in slow motion, her little bits of partially healed flesh tearing away completely and the already exaggerated wounds ripping wider and deeper. The pain coupled with the surreal visage of his white shirt in comparison to the white-clad man in her wrong memory made her dizzy.
Her ears were ringing so violently that she almost didn't hear the deep drawl of the man in front of her.
"And what do you think you are doing?" His faraway voice sounded falsely calm.
"I forgot to check the map," she whispered to herself.
"Obviously," the professor's silky voice was quiet and had a vague sense of amusement lying in the undertones that disappeared when he saw just what she was doing.
The frail girl was swaying and looked to be on the verge of fainting, but that was no surprise. He already knew she was ill. No. What was surprising was the table she was standing next to. The usually empty surface was covered in potion ingredients and a seemingly empty bag. That little swot was stealing from him!
"Thieving are we, Miss Granger?" He asked rhetorically.
Severus took stock of each of the ingredients laid out. Black Quicksilver, Giant Moonwort, Myrrh…. Aconite.
"Why the HELL are you trying to brew Wolfsbane potion?!"
His question was met with utter silence, and he felt his usual stony demeanor slip away to be replaced with a stunned expression. As his alcohol fogged mind connected the dots, a steady, drip...drip...drip...broke him out of his rumination. His eyes sought out the source of the noise, finally landing on the girl standing before him. .
THermione's face was pale, white-knuckles clutched the hem of her pink jumper. Her whole left side was soaked with a dark red substance that was spilling down the woolen fabric, pooling around her fist, and splattering in a steady rhythm onto his pristinely polished floor. The sweet, pungent smell of her blood saturated the room, and Snape was briefly dragged into a flashback of a particularly gruesome revel where multiple muggles had been tortured before Fenrir's pack had been set upon them. A violent tremor swept up his body as he pulled himself from the memory to stare directly into Hermione's rapidly dilating pupils.
"Why," he started in a frustrated manner, "are you bleeding?" He approached her slowly.
"You don't…" she pointed at him, "you don't have my permission- to- to tell anyone." She barely managed to gasp out her words before a cough wracked her body causing a bit of blood to dribble on to her chin.
"Tell anyone-"
Snape didn't have time to finish his question as in that moment Hermione pitched forward, losing consciousness. He reached out in time to slow her fall but wasn't close enough to stop it completely.
He momentarily panicked. She was bleeding quickly, staining the fabric of his pristine white shirt a brilliant shade of crimson. There wasn't any time to get her to the hospital wing. He'd have to heal her himself.
"Damn it, Granger!" he snarled as he swept her into his arms. Any fog remaining from his drinking binge was burned away as adrenaline rushed through him.
He carried her limp body into his chambers intent on saving her, once again, but upon entering his sitting-room, he realized there was nowhere to put her. He had two armchairs and a broken love seat that would only cause her more pain. He sighed and sat her down in his least favorite armchair before transfiguring his side table to something reminiscent of a muggle hospital bed. As he moved her to the bed, the movement caused her bleeding to increase.
"Shit, shit, shit," he murmured.
He spelled away her shirt and groaned deeply when he realized that the blood was coming from beneath her bra.
"I am going to make your life HELL for this!" he hissed at the unconscious girl before spelling away her bra as well.
He gasped at the sight before him. Her pale flesh was covered in sticky, dark red blood from a wound that was only slightly visible behind the clot. He carefully siphoned the blood from her skin.
Was that a...of course, it was. Of course, it was her. Severus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He had found his werewolf.
A deeply lacerated bite mark marred the flesh over her ribs just below her left breast. It was disfigured from weeks without being healed with the appropriate treatment.
"Wiggenweld! You tried to heal this with Wiggenweld?! You daft bint!" he yelled at the girl who by this point looked more like a corpse than a living person.
He forced a blood replenishing potion into her before placing her under a stasis charm to allow enough time to create the poultice to heal her wound. With a mortar and pestle, he ground silver into a powder before tipping dittany into the stone vessel to create a paste. Once the mixture developed a metallic sheen, he began to apply it, watching the flesh stitch itself back together before he realized that her breast was falling in the way. Without thinking, he reached to move it but stopped in his tracks when he realized just what he was doing. He averted his eyes with the fear that they might be burned from their sockets if he looked any longer.
His gaze fell upon her left arm which was resting palm up. He growled low in his throat when he saw the letters carved into her skin. An open wound that he knew existed but had never seen. He hated that word with a passion. He looked away again, fixing his eyes instead on the wall behind her. Severus took out his wand and cast a quick charm on the tissue that sat mockingly on her chest so that it levitated and stretched awkwardly away from the wound he was so carefully healing. Once he was finished, he canceled the charm and draped a throw blanket over her exposed body.
'Much better,' he thought to himself.
He turned to retrieve a second vial of blood replenishing potion when he noticed the pool of red forming around her leg.
"Seriously, Granger? Another one?"
He magicked away her ruined jeans and used the throw to cover most of her bottom half.
'At least I don't have to look at her this time,' he thought as he healed the claw marks on her calf.
After she was healed and the blood replenisher was forced down her throat, Severus sat in his favorite armchair and waited patiently for her to regain consciousness. Oh, the girl was going to get an earful when she woke.