Chapter 2

Breaking News

"Oy! Save me some food!"

Ginny stumbled down the stairs the next morning (a warm one, of the typical late-June variety) wondering offhandedly if there would be consequences for the incident in Professor Snape's hospital room the day before.

Yes, they had probably not adhered to the St. Mungo's Cheer Squad Code in the strictest sense, but she doubted there was an explicit rule against giving pedicures to coma patients in the ten-point pamphlet the head nurse had handed them the previous morning. Like Fred and George always said, 'Salvation lies in the loopholes, sister dear'. Ginny turned the corner and started down the second flight of stairs. She tripped over a dusty cauldron but somehow managed not to lose her balance, leaping to the landing before she fell. Despite being an excellent chaser, she was actually quite careless in her movements. Her athleticism usually covered it up.

Sliding into the kitchen, she murmured "G'morning", scanning the table for what was left of breakfast. Luckily there was still a slice and a half of bacon sitting in the frying pan (magically handling the cooking process itself). She put the bacon on a plate and grabbed the last cinnamon roll off the tray before squeezing into the rickety open chair between her mother and Charlie.

Charlie ruffled her hair and she rolled her eyes. "Merlin's pants Chuck. I'm of age, I'm really too old for you to treat me like your 'baby sister' anymore." Charlie snorted. This was their thing. He knew Ginny actually didn't mind. After years taming dragons in Romania, he knew she was actually happy to have him home again. She switched to a high, falsely-dignified voice to add "How in Salem am I supposed to find a decent husband with hair that looks like it's been torn up by a troupe of wild nifflers!". Ron and her father chuckled in the midst of chewing and her mother shot her a sharp look.

"So I'm hearing you're finally serious about finding an honest wizard and carrying on the most sacred of our traditions?" Molly said. Ginny sat up straight and shook her head. "Well don't confuse me or I'll sign you up for one of those pureblood mixers all your peers are attending."

"Yes Mum," Ginny said wearily. Of course, it was not all her peers - only the ones from wizarding families would be invited, and Ginny herself would be barely welcome, but the threat had the desired effect.

The family continued eating, a bit subdued until they were interrupted by the arrival of the new family owl, Elvis. Their dear Errol had finally passed on year before and his replacement, Elvis, was definitely more, well… virile? Elvis swooped in and dropped the stack of post in the middle of the table with a loud HOOT!. The new owl was also a bit of a show-off.

"Here you are Gin" said Arthur, passing Ginny a folded piece of Muggle notebook paper with her name on it. It was also written in with one of those strange Muggle pens. It just said '13 Briar Way, Godric's Point, 3pm'. "Oh Mum, Hermione has found us more volunteer work for this afternoon. Near Godric's Hollow."

"That's nice dear," Molly said, without looking up.

Mr. Weasley reached for the Daily Prophet, with Mrs. Weasley picking up the stacks of bills and official-looking correspondence underneath. She read them shrewdly, but without the anxious wince Ginny remembered from her childhood.

"O-HO the devil's finally awake! I told them a little snake bite would never be the end of Severus Snape!" Mr. Weasley cried out. He was reading furiously. "This is amazing news. I wonder if the healers used 'stitches' on him too. Wouldn't that be wonderful Molly?" She flashed a look at him but said nothing.

"Truly?" Charlie said in a low voice. Arthur nodded. "I wonder what he remembers."

. . .

After only half an hour at their new volunteer assignment, all three girls were thoroughly drenched with sweat. It turned out that 13 Briar Way was not another hospital or charity or soup kitchen, but the address to the sprawling Azkaban Gardens.

"This is where they grow all the fruits and vegetables to feed prisoners of the state," Hermione had explained. "I saw their rather desperate advert in the Hog's Head last night, owled them in the morning, and they replied immediately asking how soon we could come! Apparently, they are chronically short-handed."

Located on the mainland, with the island prison looming in the distance, Ginny thought she knew why. It definitely was a grim place. As you toiled in the hot sun, you could not help but think about everyone in there, rotting away, living and reliving all the worst moments of their lives… consuming this very food they needed but were likely too miserable to taste. Brambles and grass and mutated plants she'd never seen before climbed over the neat institutional rows of potatoes, greens, cucumbers, squash as if they had never been tended at all. It would be an impossible job to clear every weed. "Hermione, this is horrible and perfect."

"Yes, I thought so, " Hermione replied, wrenching a half-formed mandrake from the earth. Little potato-like protrusions wiggled all over its lumpy body, but it seemed too inanimate to cry.

Over in the next row, Luna looked strangely in her element. She wore an enormous straw hat and was pulling up armfuls of Devil's Snare as casually as if it were dandelions. Luna paused and gazed out at the prison, her hand on her hip. "This does feel an appropriate setting. In a garden all but forgotten, across the channel from everyone we're trying to forget." Ginny loved Luna's way with words.

"Quite," said Hermione. Hermione did not have much of a way with words, but served to keep Luna on track, so Ginny was grateful for her too.

"It fits though. Our entire society really is completely hypocritical. We've defeated You-Know-Who, but they're still too cowardly to actually look at the parts of ourselves that are ugly. We just sweep our shortcomings under the rug and pretend that we're back in this fairy tale world where Good triumphs over Evil, as if it were that simple. I mean it's definitely bad that dark wizards and Death Eaters still running around either. But it just drives me MAD that people like Percy have managed to take something the Ministry screwed up, for years and years, and then ride its coattails back up to status and power. I mean, honestly, remember how useless he was when You-Know-Who first came back? Pretending it hadn't happened. And now he's pretending he's a hero, 'cleaning up the town,' when I'm not convinced he's doing anything. It's sickening!"

Ginny's outburst hung in the air and for a few moments they weeded quietly. Ginny picked at some brambles, and was grateful to the dragon hide gloves protecting her fingers.

"Perhaps we start there," said Hermione.

That afternoon, over much sweating and swearing, the three witches hatched themselves a plan.

. . .

Being a medical miracle was nothing short of miserable.

The nurses fussed over Severus constantly, asking how he felt, and how did he feel now? and what would he like for breakfast? and could they make him more comfortable? How was he supposed to rest with their constant haranguing.

Severus received mountains of mail he did not read, sweets he did not care for and flowers that set off his allergies. But by far the worst were the people. People came to visit Severus several times a day, becoming falsely emotional and asking the same inane questions about his now famous NDE ("Near Death Experience", he now knew) and pretending to give a rat's ass about his health when he was sure they had spent the entire time he was unconscious cursing him as a Death Eater. How could one rest amidst all of that?

The main problem was he was really quite weak. Seventeen months of lying in a bed unconscious had caused his muscles to wither, to the point that simply sitting up left him breathless. His vocal chords too felt inelastic, like the dried out ligaments of a dead cat, making speaking both difficult and painful. And so bellowing obscenities at his tormentors or stalking off in a huff were both out of the question. Thus, days in St. Mungo's passed slowly.

Severus was accustomed to spending long hours reading; here he made do with the Daily Prophet, each day reading it cover to cover. He was finishing up a particularly flimsy opinion piece ("Why Owl Post Should Be Replaced With Rat Couriers") when his thoughts turned yet again to the only other reading material in his possession for a moment. It was safely concealed for the present. When the time was right, he would examine it and learn its secrets. It hoped it would come soon. A commotion in the corridor pulled him out of his reverie.

"Easy Iverson, watch his head," said a thick masculine voice.

"His head? Where in the Devil's his head?" The second was more nasal.

"I think it's under that pot plant…" The two men walked past his open door and Severus glimpsed what they levitated between them.. It was amorphous dark blob the size of a piano, encrusted with gravel and sparkles was being supported between them. Near the bottom a pair of designer horn-rimmed glasses and a tuft of reddish-brown hair stuck out of the jumble.

"Welcome, Weasley," Severus called. For the first time in seventeen months, the ghost of a smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth. He returned to his paper and started on the obituaries section.