Disclaimer: Same as before.
Chapter Three
At last the light
Professor Snape and Hermione Granger were lying in hospital beds unconscious as Headmaster Dumbledore and Madam Pomfery worried over their welfare. They could find nothing wrong with their still bodies, but no one could tell them what was in the potion bottle Longbottom accidentally spilled into the caldron-full of trouble that has put Professor Snape and Hermione Granger in such a state.
"Mmm…" Hermione moaned as she came around. She struggled into sitting position.
"Oh dear, you gave us such a fright!" Madam Pomfery fluttered over to Hermione's side.
"Yes indeed," said the dear old Headmaster Dumbledore. "We were about to send for more mediwitches to help wake you up."
As Headmaster Dumbledore and Madam Pomfery tended to Hermione, Professor Snape body was accommodating its precious little visitor…
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It's so warm, the small sprite wondered, and the light…
Its little hands were no more, and it could no longer kick and maneuver about, but it had never felt so safe. It was surrounded by music! Rush, rush, pump! Rush, rush, pump! And a strange gurgling feeling coming from somewhere about it's round middle, not pain, not really discomfort, more like a need that somehow it knows that this new place will fill. It struggles to understand the far away voices rumbling through the walls against which it's new body bounces, and then it hears a loud boom as one very familiar voice rumbles back at the far away voices from somewhere up above.
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"Albus, there is something wrong. I feel strange." Professor Snape mumbled struggling to stand. The moment passes and everything is righted for Professor Snape. "Never mind, it must have been where I stood up to fast."
"Are you sure, Severus?" Professor Dumbledore came around to where Professor Snape stands with his hand over his right side. "Maybe you should let Madam Pomfery give you a once over, just to be on the safe side. I'd hate for you to collapse again."
"I'm fine, Albus," Professor Snape growled, "It'll take more than a snot nosed brat to make an invalid of me."
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Back in the dungeons, Professor Snape angrily began to clean up what was left of Marilyn Magg's potion. Not bothering to save any of Longbottom's misbegotten potion, he chucked the whole lot in the trash.
Better to start Marilyn Magg's potion from scratch, Professor Snape growled in his head as he overlooked the wreckage. No way to salvage any of this mess.
As Professor Snape turned to head back to his office to start on Marilyn Magg's potion, a strange dizzy sort of shifting fell over him. Clutching the frame of the door, Professor Snape tried in vain to steady himself as the floor rushed up to greet him.
"Professor!"
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"I found him collapsed on the floor!" A sobbing Hermione exclaimed. "I was going to ask him to go easy on Neville…" Hermione stood at the foot of the hospital bed that Professor Snape was stretched across.
"Don't worry, deary," Madam Pomfery soothed as she ran a mystical looking forked branch over Snape's prone body. "I'm sure it's nothing more than…" The branch jerked over Professor Snape's right side. "What?! This can't be!!"
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TBC
A/N: Thanks to Strega Brava, Atheis and Aeris Gainsborough, Hermia, and i-is-izzy for reading and reviewing. And yes it is what it seems.