Chapter Seven
Her body went rigid with the renewed onslaught of sensation and before two seconds could even pass by, a gruesome, blood curdling scream tore out of her throat. With the sound ricocheting around the room, the restraint she had over her seizing body broke. Her back sharply bowed off the bed as another wave of the Cruciatus crashed into her bleeding wounds and pulsed throughout her system. When her lower body began to writhe and contort with her convulsing muscles and burning nerves, twisting itself into dangerous positions that threatened the safety of her joints and bones, he pulled his wand back and lifted the attack.
Gasping for breath and weeping through the pain, Miss Granger turned her sweat-slicked face to him and hoarsely begged, "Please Professor… I can't… Not again."
Struggling to keep his mind detached while the new echoes of their bond whispered mirroring tremors through his left arm and hand, Severus looked past her, raising his wand once more ready to do what needed to be done. However her resulting flinch as her instincts took control and made her shrink back from him in fear, hit the armor of his mind with a blow worthy of the most sadistic of Legilimens. The fissure that erupted down the center of his mind, created an opening for his locked down dominant traits to pour forth. The qualities that came from being the one to bear the weight of their soul bond and the ones that came from his desire for exchange of power, drove him to act on the urge to protect her from any and all harm. Especially when that harm was inflicted upon her by himself.
Slowly placing his wand on the bedside table so she could track the movement, he lowered himself to kneel beside the bed and brought his gaze down to her level. Meeting her swollen and bloodshot cognac colored eyes, he brushed back the limp curls that had long escaped her braid in favor of sticking to her forehead in a macabre halo and peacefully praised, "You've done magnificent, pet. You're so strong for having endured all of this without a single complaint. I'm very proud of you. I need you to hold out for just a little longer though. Can you do that for me? Just one more round and we'll be done for today, I promise."
Gently wiping his thumb along the sharp, hollow line of her cheek to remove the tears that were staining her face, Severus continued to coo soft strings of approval and reassurement as he waited for her trembling and traumatized body to soothe. Pulling up a dry section of the soiled sheets, he proceeded to slowly catch and pat away the fresh tears that were welling up in the corners of her eyes. Caressing the Tencel fabric down the slope of her button nose, he took care to clean the threads of mucus that had roped their way down her chapped, bow shaped lips and were falling off her chin. After cleaning her face as best he could, he again made his movements slow as he picked up the cool glass of water that rested on the table beside his wand and brought it to her lips, quietly commanding her to drink.
Removing the glass from her mouth as she gulped the water in a frenzy making her cough and sputter around her abraited throat, he corrected, "Slowly," stroking his fingers over the lower part of her larynx.
Pulling back after several smaller swallows, she wiped her face further on the pillow case and looked up at the ceiling as more tears slid down her ashen cheeks, determinedly croaking, "Let's do this."
"Good girl," he further praised, watching as her responding sigh softened her worn features and brought her luminescent eyes back to him. "Just once more I promise, then we'll start putting you back together."
"Don't go... getting soft... on me now, Professor," she horsley admonished. "I'll honestly... be disappointed if you... give up so quickly."
Startled by the deep laugh her parroted words drew from him, Severus patted her hand, enjoying the weak smile she gave him and tucked another drooping curl behind her ear as he stood up, shaking his head at her cheek.
"Careful Miss Granger, one may think you're milking the situation to play on my sympathies."
"First you laughed and now you have sympathy?" She observed in mocking shock, a deep cough interrupting her words. Closing her eyes, she laboriously mused, "And here Remus assured me… that death was preferable to… to you finding out... about me. If only he could… could see you... now."
Coughing even more, her voice was only a broken whisper when she addressed him by his old title, "Professor?"
"Hmm?" He answered, turning around to pick up his wand and begin tucking everything back into place so he could effectively bring himself to put enough strength into the curse to further burn off the one that was ravaging her magic.
"Should I be feeling... so cold and… and tired?"
"Fuck!"
Snapping back around, he lunged for the bed and lifted her limp body up to his. Despite the layers of sweat that covered her, she was alarmingly cool in his hands. Bringing a leg under her back, he propped her up against his knee and began slapping at her face in vain and uselessly commanding her to keep her unfocused eyes open and on him as she lost consciousness. Waving his wand over her, he summoned her vitals and swore further as her heart rate rapidly increased in equal measure with her plummeting blood pressure.
"FINICKY! MOPSEY!"
The two elves, along with several others who were the heads of their assigned sections of the manor and oversaw the rest of the creatures in his care and employee, crashed through the bedroom as he ripped the sheet back from her body. Tearing through the fabric as he placed a charm over her spilled blood to reexamine her vitamin and nutrient levels as well as any underlying conditions he may have missed, Severus began to tie a tourniquet just above her elbow. Diverting his attention to where his charmed quill was scrawling the charm's findings into his journal, he yanked on the knot as hard as he could to stem the flow of her blood until her arm could get treated while his eyes flew over the reported findings.
"Shite, her RBC won't stabilize," he swore to himself, angry for having pushed ahead with doing her entire arm in one session. Uncorking the last two vials of Blood Replenisher and tilting her head back to pour them down her throat, he barked at the assembled elves, "Mopsey and Whiskly, take the potion soaked rags and start cleaning and wrapping her arm!
"Finicky, Meringue, and Niggle, go to my stores and bring back six vials of the O Negative Replenisher I use for myself, the iron, vitamins A, C, B-6, 9, and 12, as well as E, plus three of the nutrient absorption base!
"Squeaky and Suds, ready a hot bath for her while her arm gets bandaged up. Then strip the bed and mop up in here, get us fresh clothes, and for the love of Merlin, corral the rest of the elves away from the doorway and let them know their Mistress will be okay so they can stop fretting in the hall!"
As each task was assigned, the worried wringing of the elves' hands and ears ceased as they scurried to comply with his directives. He hadn't even finished addressing Mopsey before she had trekked heedlessly through her Mistress's spilt blood with a snap of her fingers to re-summon the basin and rags she had from earlier. In the mere seconds it took the other five to pop out and carry through their respective emergency duties, she had already wrapped the first three letters in the potion soaked rags with practiced haste and was bossing Whiskly through the process of scar intervention and curse neutralization, ordering him to start from the other end.
"Master should have been taking better care of our Mistress," Mopsey scolded, as she swatted Whiskly's fumbling hands away and snapped her fingers towards the puddle of blood she stood in, commanding him as if she were the head of the manor and not Finicky. "We could hear her screams throughout the manor and across the fields to the stables. Even out on the lake, Scales said she could hear the echoes of Mistress's pained and terrified wails. Having a soul Mistress is a rare gift that Master is squandering with his callous behavior. She has lost everything in the face of your victory. Master would do well to treat her with the kinder hand that Miss Elieen raises him with as she learns the new way of things. Otherwise your soul will free herself of you one way or another and leave you even more lost and broken than you are now."
"You speak far too boldly, Mopsey," Severus warned, sweeping his unconscious witch into his arms as the elf tied off the last rag.
Brazenly meeting his eye, she responded, "If Master will not, then Mopsey will speak and act for Mistress's best interests when she cannot do so herself. It is my duty as a Mistress elf."
"Never again question my treatment of Miss Granger," he seethed, slapping the lid on his growing anger as the elf rightfully berated him. "Caring for her interests, providing for her, seeing to her needs, keeping her well and safe, and helping her grow is a burden and an honor that will always be at the forefront of mind."
Stalking towards the curling humidity that was wafting out of the bathroom and carrying the fragrant scent of roses and vanilla, he swiftly dismissed Suds and Squeaky from the room. Kicking the door shut behind them, he brought the frail witch over to the claw footed tub as the vials of the potions and vitamins he listed materialized on the mirrored side table. Careless of his jeans and henley, he stepped in with his clothes still on and sank into the steaming water with a hiss. Not designed to hold two people, large amounts of water rose and displaced over the curled rim and sloshed across the tiled floors.
Bringing his heavy knees to rest against the walls of the tub, Severus carefully arranged her to rest between his legs, leaning back against his chest and with her head tilted back on his shoulder. With her bandaged arm safely draped over the side, he grabbed the vials with the nutrient absorption potion and coaxed her mouth open to pour them down her throat. Massaging the column of her neck to be sure she swallowed the entirety of each dose, he painstakingly repeated the process making his way through the heavy amounts of vitamins with intermittent breaks to be sure she received hydration. Recasting the examination on her blood, he found her levels to still be low but sufficient enough that her circulatory system would have a chance to pump the Blood Replenisher through and repair the severe blood loss from their treatment of her curse.
After he chased the third vial down with more water, color slowly began to return to her skin. With her blood pressure and heart rate working their way back into normal ranges, he slowly began working through the steps to remove her tourniquet. When her bandages remained clean, he gave her the next dose of the Replenisher he made with his own blood instead of the synthetic substitutes and continued loosening the bind on her limb.
Once he made his way through the remaining vials and finished unwinding the sheet, he casted it aside on the floor and banished the litter of empty glass to the sink in his lab. It wasn't long after that her vitals flashed green and remained within a steady, acceptable range. Checking her red blood cell count, nutrient makeup, and her vitals one more time, he adjusted his notes accordingly for Meringue about her diet and his own about the rest of her treatment going forward. Snapping the journal closed, Severus canceled the monitoring charms and exchanged his wand for the honeycombed sea sponge that rested next to a basket of gels and oils.
Dropping the sponge to float and absorb the water, he removed the tie from the ends of her hair and began unweaving her braid. Combing his fingers through to release some of the knots that had formed before getting them wet, he found her hair to be brittle with a branching tree pattern of splitting ends. Making a note to arrange for someone to come breathe life back into her once untamable hair when she was better recovered, he also filed away a note to be pointed in guarding and caring for her self image. He easily recalled the less than favorable - sometimes down right disparaging - things he often overheard other students say about her during his tenure as her professor and the things he had said to her himself. Petting a hand down her sweat coated curls, he wondered just how much her perception of herself had been damaged by those words. If she had ever been afforded the time for simple vanities over the years of war. Or if the ironic twist of fate that mated them was still working and the first time she would be at leisure to explore such things came from being forced to live under the same, though admittedly large, roof with him in a world under the reign of the Dark Lord.
Banishing the thoughts of her that were already beginning to consume him and fuck with his plans just as he had dreaded, Severus refocused his mind on the task at hand and picked up the waterlogged sponge. A miniature waterfall cascaded from the bottom of the heavy sponge as he lifted it up from the surface of the water. Dragging it up and over the part of her body that was not submerged, he began to wet and warm the rest of her cool, sweat slicked skin. Wringing the remaining water out of the sponge at the base of her throat so that it rolled beneath the top of the silk nightdress Mopsey had put her in, he reached back to the table and collected the bottle of rose scented gel.
Squeezing a liberal spiral around the sponge, he massaged the soap in until it began to suds up and started to pat it across the top of her chest and up her neck. With an arm wrapped securely around her waist, he next leaned them forward to wash and scrub across her shoulder blades and down the fine, protruding bones of her spine. Less concerned with preserving her modesty when there was nothing gender defining about her back, he eased his hand and the sponge through the side of the arm hole on her nightdress and began washing further down the length of her back. Stretching the limit of how far he could go before circling to her front or grazing the top of her tailbone he washed and rinsed away as much as he could reach while still maintaining the line of privacy. Switching his hold, he methodically repeated the process on the other side.
Reaching the silvery mark that branded her as his, he felt his detachment crumble away but found he was unable to curse the situation. Tossing the sponge back into the water, he used the soap that remained on his hands and began to wash the unmarred shooting star with the reverence it was due in spite of his hatred for his own. He hated it not for the way it was gnarled and warped under burn scarred skin but for what it represented. More accurately, who it represented because despite his mother having been the dominant bearer of their bond, his mark, and thus her mark, were fashioned after his father's ancestry. One he had hoped with vindictive glee to see die out with him, the bastard son who was all but forgotten until his father's death when he left more than half the family's substantial wealth to him in penance. As if all that old money gold could have made up for his abandonment of them and the heart shattering pain he had cursed his mother to live with for fifteen years before her heart and soul couldn't take it anymore and gave out.
However, seeing it painted perfectly across Miss Granger's sharp shoulder he found it beautiful. And though he would deny its truth if anyone ever gleaned the thought from his mind, he found himself feeling something that closely resembled contentment as he cared for her and her soul mark. Because even though his dear friend believed the night to be a blacked out blur, Hermione Granger with her vast intellect and her loudly opinionated, fiery spirit had been who he had described to Lucius as his perfect ideal for a soulmate. They had been far too deep in their cups that night leading him to confess to the alarming draw he had begun to feel towards her in her sixth year. A draw he startlingly understood upon seeing her that morning to be the strength and power of their soul bond.
Needing to distance himself from her and the unwanted feelings her presence made bubble to the surface, Severus quickly finished washing what he could of her body and made even faster work of washing her hair. After gingerly getting them out of the tub and her dried off, he carried her back into the now clean bedroom to a waiting Mopsey. Laying her on the bed for the elf to redress, he snatched his dry clothes and swiftly walked towards the door, fully intending on leaving her to rest. With his fingers gripping the handle though, he turned back and looked at the witch as Mopsey began to comb out her hair, already having exchanged her wet dress for a dry one. This time in a tantalizing shade of crimson that he knew had been chosen to manipulate him. Pursing his lips as he glared at the far too cheeky and meddlesome elf, he released the door handle and stomped back towards the bed, charming himself dry and into his loose lounge pants as he went.
"She's going to ruin everything."
"Maybe," Mopsey conceded as he fixed the armchair into place beside the bed where she was tucking her Mistress in. "But she will give you so much more than you would have gained if you allow her in."
Snorting at the absurdity as he wrote out two lists of books, he responded, "My hands are scarred and stained with countless murders that I do not regret. She will never trust me to hold anything within them, least of all herself."
"As she knows Master to be, no. But as Master truly is, it won't be long before Mistress trusts no one and no place else but Master."
Hearing but not acknowledging the elf's words, Severus ripped out the two lists from his journal and handed them over, silently dousing one of the closer of the two lamps completely and dimming the other.
"Please collect the books on the first page from the library and bring them here. The second page is a list of books I would like for you to give to Finicky so he may go purchase them before the shops close."
Taking the pages, Mopsey smirked, "I'll bring Master his dinner too since he has decided to stay with Mistress," before popping out of the room.
"You're lucky I don't believe in punishing elves, you insubordinate little wench," he hissed after her.
Rubbing his eyes as the last forty hours without sleep began to crash into him, Severus put aside his journal and wand and scooted his chair even closer to the bed. Trusting in the way he was ordinarily a light sleeper so he could remove himself before being caught, he gave in to the soul pull and covered his witch's hand with his own. Folding himself over the mattress, he quickly reached the cusp of sleep where real life blurred with the imaginary and felt her fingers curl over his, the softly accepted and reciprocated touch lulling him the rest of the way into a peaceful slumber.