Stay On The Outside
Her eyelids felt nice covering her eyes, comfortable.. rested. Trying to open them was like denying their right to stay shut. She was tired, very tired. Her entire body felt as though it was weighed a thousand tons and was placed onto one of the most uncomfortable beds she had ever been in. She knew instantly that she wasn't in her own bed, but she couldn't figure out where she was. Some use of brillance that was.
She forced her eyes to open and looked around. She was in the hospital wing, in a bed, near a window. The sunlight cascaded down onto her and made her body warm- or maybe that was the comforter on her. Either way it made the room look pretty, or at least her corner of it. It would look perfect if there wasn't a dark body standing with his arms crossed across his chest at the foot of her bed.
Severus, Hermione thought.
And that was all she thought. She couldn't really remember what had happened. She had come back from her meeting at lunch, walked to Severus's chambers, and then.. nothing. It was black to her. No white. No gray. Just black. She clutched her forehead as she sat up, feeling a small headache.
"A-ah-ah! You'll end up hurting yourself that way, Miss. Granger.", the man at the foot of her bed said.
"I obviously already hurt myself if I'm in the Hospital Ward. But you seem to be in perfect health; why are you here? Surely you couldn't have thought that you wanted to help me."
"As a matter of fact, I did. You told me you wanted help with your potion to cure for your lupus."
Her heart skipped.
"How did you know?"
"Well, I'd be rather stupid if I thought that your fainting was for anything other then your sickness. I should have thought that you were the one with lupus when you said that you were tired at lunch yesterday."
Hermione looked at him curiously. "You know about lupus? How do you know.. I mean..", she searched for the words.
"I've been researching it. Secretly, of course. I thought something was amiss when you 'went home' to give the potion to your mother but returned the same night. Oh, don't look confused. If you truly were trying to cure your mother, you would either stay for a few days to celebrate or stay for a few days to mourn your failure. And you never even left, which was a big tip off. I started researching that day."
"Have you got a potion plan?", she asked.
Pausing, Severus looked towards the floor. "No. Not yet."
"Will you still.. work with me?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Because I lied to you, and if you haven't figured out a potion by now, then it must require more time then you would be willing to give me.", Hermione said as if it were obvious. She could tell that she should probably keep her mouth shut and just take what he was giving her without questioning, but her curiosity got the best of her. (Hanging out with Harry and Ron, hadn't it always?)
"Hermione, people lie all the time. It does not matter if you did or didn't, especially towards me. What matters is that you are sick and you need help."
"Why are you doing this?", she questioned.
Good question. Why was he doing this? Severus was asking himself, quite aware that Hermione was probably thinking the same thing. It was like the day before when he offered his help when they weren't even talking about potions. He wondered why he would even think of helping the insufferable know-it-all that rose her hand to answer every question, even the rhetorical ones.
Although, she wasn't really that person any more. She had grown, not just in body. Her mind, however advanced, seem to only collect more wisdom in her young age and matured a great deal. She knew things like when to back off and leave someone alone. She even collected some common sense over the years. It was as though he had never met her as a student.
"I don't know."
It was a few weeks before Hermione felt well enough to work on the potion. Her lupus had started to really take effect on her, even with the muggle medicine. There was about a week until school started up again when she got out of the hospital wing. Severus wondered if Hermione would be able to teach as well as she needed to. It breifly occured to him that she'd be teaching people she'd gone to school with, which could either make her first year very hard or very easy. He hoped it the was the latter, because he knew that she could not take the extra stress.
The last Monday before school started, Hermione joined Severus after breakfast to work on the potion. He had been worried that her lupus would limit they're time and decided to do all the research he saw fit. He already had several pages of notes on ways to go about finding the cure. He told Hermione all of this as he walked down to the dungeons.
"It sounds like you know even more then I do about lupus. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you cared.", Hermione said as she read over few parchments. "Are you sure this'll work?"
"Very. I'm not exactly new to this."
Hermione glared as she got up to get a cauldren. "You know that's not what I meant. I just don't know if I could survive another failed potion, and I don't want to get my hopes up. If there's a possibility that this won't work, please let me know now."
Severus fixed his eyes on the the other person's. "There's always a possibility. You know that as well as I do."
Hermione continued to stare into his eyes a few seconds before dropping her gaze down to the ground. She seemed a little.. sad that the potion might not work. That not even her old Potions Master thought it would work for sure. Severus noticed.
"Cheer up, girl. You need to concentrate on what you're doing."
Hermione nodded.
"Y'know, if this doesn't work, I'll be staring death straight in the face."
"Oh please. You know that you'll have at least another tens years to live. Possibly more, if you take good care of yourself." He looked up at her, sorting out the various ingrediants he had pulled from his cupboard. "When I was a spy for Albus, Voldemort nearly caught me twice."
"What happened?", Hermione asked curiously.
"He was about to kill me. Both times. I'm not sure what stopped him. He had started the curse, and you know as well as I that once Voldemort decides to kill someone, they're dead. He held up his wand and started the curse, and then.. I don't know what really happened. I saw myself being killed. Not from my eyes, but as an onlooker. I saw myself being hit, I saw Voldemort throwing my death away like it was a rotten apple. And as I began thinking of favorite memories, I saw him put his wand down, and then.. nothing. The second time, I was sure I would die. But Voldemort didn't do it."
Hermione listened quietly, wondering if dying would be the same for her. She wondered if just before she closed her eyes, she would somehow know that it was the last time. She wondered if she would be able to watch her funeral. She wondered which memories she would look back on. She wondered why Severus had told her any of this.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because death is not easy for anyone. Eventually, everyone encounters it."
She sat in a chair with him, snuggling into his chest. She wasn't cold, but she wanted as much of his warmth as possible. Her body seemed to fit perfectly with his, as if they were meant to be together.
Meant to be. What a wonderful thought.
She looked up to him for some sign of emotion; any emotion. His face was etched in the usual blank stare that she had seem countless times. She began to wonder if he could feel anything but that blank stare, and the hatred he easily found in anyone new. She wondered if he had hated her the first time he saw her. Wondered if he still hated her.
"Severus?", she questioned.
"Yes?"
"Do you.. love me?"
Her heart felt more nervous than anything in her entire being. She wondered if maybe she had been wrong about his feelings toward hers, in which case her feelings would be greatly hurt. Loss of love was the one thing that could hurt more than Death. Hermione was sure of this.
"Yes."
She reached up to his face with her mouth, molding her lips to his. She threw herself into a kiss that she knew would be remembered as her favorite.
But then she sat up, for she had been laying down.
And she looked around in the dark.
It was a dream.
Thank Merlin.., Hermione thought. What could have I been thinking? Kissing Severus? I must be insane..
Hermione sat up most of the night, thinking about what she had dreamed about. She wondered if all this was because she had talked about things with that man that she had never talked about before with anyone. She wondered if she would spend the rest of her life thinking of that dream. She wondered if the kiss would be as good as it was in her dream. And now she wondered what she had been thinking just then.
"Go back to sleep, Hermione.", she told herself.
A few weeks went by and school started up again. Hermione and Severus were both busy during the week, teaching classes or patrolling the halls. There was hardly any time to just talk about the potion, let alone work on it. The weekends were spent with each other, talking about everything they shared in personality, history, and future as they worked hard to try and save Hermione' life.
Severus was reliefed as they finished a potion that hadn't exploded or turned an irky color. Severus thought it was perfectly safe to drink and was positive that it was the cure. He was proud of himself, and of Hermione, and Hermione was nervous about the results of the potion. What if it worked? What if it didn't? Why the hell couldn't she figure out what she wanted?
"I know I should be happy that I'm going to be getting better soon, but.. I just don't know what to think.", Hermione confided in him as they waited for the potion to cool.
"You're write. You should be happy. Why aren't you?"
She wasn't really sure how to answer that. "I am happy. I just feel like.. I don't know."
"Yes you do.", he told her, cleaning up the few things they had taken out.
"I hate it when people tell me that I know something when I know that I don't. Why can't people just.. Let me be frustrated that I don't know something."
"Because, people care about you, and they hate to see you frustrated."
She paused doodling on the table with her finger. She looked up breifly, wondering if she had really heard what he just said. She dared hope he had and had meant it.
"You care about me?"
He nodded. "But don't let word get around."
She smiled a little.
"You know, if this works, we won't be spending any time together anymore."
"Hermione, what started out as a simple gesture of help has turned into a friendship. I've told you things that I only tell Albus. Some things he doesn't even know. I have no intention of having told you those things just so that you can forget them and go back to hating me."
She smiled at him. Severus had a soft side. This was going to make teasing him so much easier.
"So you're saying we're friends?"
"Somethin' like that, yes."
"Aw, Luke. You big softie."
Severus looked at the girl mortified. What the hell was he thinking?
He was interupted when Hermione said the potion should be cool enough to drink. He handed the small bottle over to Hermione, knowing that she would take a few minute to think about the results of drinking it some more. Merlin, how he hoped it would work.
She lifted the drink to her lips, barely letting it touch her. He couldn't stand this "I'm doing it. Hold on a second." pattern any more. He wanted to know what would happen.
Braving the worst, Hermione emptied the potion into her mouth. It wasn't anything like the last time. Last time, her eyes were covered in white. This time, she saw everything perfectly. She could feel her body, the insides fighting something. Whether it was her lupus or the urge to pass out, she did not now. She waited impaitently for something to happen. Anything. She lifted her hand so that her palm faced upward and she felt like it weighed nothing. And then.. she wasn't sure what happened.
She saw her hand seperate from herself. The seperation seemed transparent, and Hermione wondered if it was her soul leaving her body. She faught hard against it, trying to grab onto herself. She wondered if Snape could see it, too.
And then.. everything went back to normal.
And Severus waited for Hermione to say something.
And Hermione waited for death.