Above Whining?
House elves lined the walls of Snape's chamber, silent and looking faintly annoyed. Everything was black, as Hermione had expected, darkening the mood that had overtaken her on her trip back to the Manor with Snape in tow. Black curtains, black walls, black bedding, black wood. She had been secretly disappointed that it wasn't some sort of surprise - she had been hoping for a hidden burst of color somewhere in the confines of the room. Maybe even, Merlin forbid, pink. But Snape wasn't usually one for pleasant surprises.
The house elves had glared at her as she levitated him onto his bed of black velvet and satin. They wouldn't have even allowed her into the room if they hadn't seen the unconscious master floating behind her. They were suspicious of her, she knew, and she could hear them whispering among themselves. For some unknown reason, they didn't move to help her. They preferred to watch.
"All right," Hermione muttered, feeling like she was talking to herself even though she was far from being alone in the room. "Can't cast eneverate, he'd be in too much pain. Damn, I don't even have my bloody wand. Bloody troll…"
She kept looking her professor over, even though it was obvious where he was injured. His black trousers were soaked with blood, and his leg was set at odd, ill-matching angles. His face, paler than usual, was set in a stern expression, his mouth drawn tight under his prominent nose. She wondered if he always looked angry, even in his sleep.
Picking up the sleeve of his trousers with a cautious pair of fingers, she pulled them up his leg and gasped. A fragment of bone had torn through his skin by his knee - that was where the blood had begun to soak through - and his usually pale skin was purple and disfigured. It also looked like his shin had been shattered by the club of his own guard troll. If the part of his body hadn't been connected to his knee, she might not have even known that it was a leg. She flinched in sympathy, trying to gather the courage to not faint or walk silently from the room.
His head nodded to the side and he grimaced, letting out a drawn-in sigh. Hermione dropped the leg of his trousers and looked pleadingly over at the elves.
"I would like some help, please," she said, lifting her bloodied hands in surrender. "I don't even have a wand."
"Elves," a little, mottled-blue female elf from beside his dresser piped up, standing on her tip-toes to peer over the shoulders of those in front of her, "cannot help mudblood unless Master commands us to."
Hermione's mouth drew into a thin, tight line reminiscent of McGonagall. "Who taught you such language?"
"The master and mistress, Miss Mudblood," Beatrice said smartly, gripping her tea-towel clothing tightly in tiny hands.
Hermione rolled her eyes. She should have known. Though how the elves figured she was Muggle-born, she had no idea. She also had the sudden inkling that there might be a Snape-ish portrait of Mrs. Snape, almost a double of Mrs. Black's in the Order headquarters, lurking somewhere within the halls. It probably served as a worship post for the household elves. It was sad, really. Poor, deluded souls…
"I can't believe that I ever founded S.P.E.W," she muttered, searching around her pockets for her wand. "Should have never felt sorry for them…do not know what I was thinking…" She finally realized that her wand had died an honorable death several minutes ago and let out a frustrated groan. "If you bloody things do not help me, he is going to bleed to death!" she screamed at the ugly little creatures. They all laid their ears back like threatened cats, and Hermione had the sudden thought that Beatrice might hiss at her. The elf's bulging eyes shot daggers across the room.
"Master will not die, but Misses might if she treads on the wrong toes. Misses has no respect for privacy."
She felt her face growing hot, and no doubt that her ears were flaming. "I'm not the one snogging my master's knickers."
"Mistress!" Beatrice shrieked. "Mistress, not Master!"
There was a mutteredcurse from the headboard and Hermione turned in surprise, frizzy curls falling in her face and blocking her vision. As soon as she was able to sweep them aside she saw that Snape was awake, his teeth bared and his eyes squeezed shut as he realized his pain. His hands moved down to grasp his leg and he let out a painful, eerie, almost inhuman howl of pain.
"Let go!" Hermione said hurriedly as she moved to grasp his hands away from his injured leg, suddenly feeling like a mother tending to a fussy toddler. Except toddlers weren't nearly as surly.
He pushed her hands away hurriedly, smearing them with even more of his blood. When he spoke, his growl was hoarse and painful-sounding. "Leave me, you foolish girl!"
"I'm as much of a foolish girl as you are a gentleman!" she retorted, tugging his wand out of the hand that he had quickly used to retrieve it from his pocket. Hermione was thankful for his weakness, otherwise he might have beat her to it and struck her with some horrible hex that she wouldn't be able to undo.
"Damn it!" Snape groaned through gritted teeth. "Just kill me, get it over with."
"Be quiet," Hermione demanded, magically binding his wrists to the posts of his bed to keep him from picking at his wounds. He kept emitting strange sounds like those of a dying animal, particularly a goat. He was a drama queen. Hermione had seen him endure worse torture before without much more than a few winces. "And lie still. You're not helping matters, you know."
"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Snape spat out bitterly as Hermione moved to his bedside drawer, beginning to paw through its contents. "Stop!" he protested. "I demand that you cease this instant! This is violation of my property. You might as well kiss your future goodbye, Miss Granger, for your disrespect is doing nothing to lighten my mood."
She ignored his complaints and slammed the drawer shut, moving down to the one below it. "Do you have any Healing Salve readily available? Klotter? Skel-aligner? Skele-Gro?"
Snape had suddenly turned much, much paler, his skin tinged with an odd shade that could only be described as puce.
"You plan on de-boning me?" he murmured, his hands curving into claws at his sides. His good leg twitched involuntarily.
"Like a fish," Hermione assured him with a sly smile. She hated to admit it, but she was enjoying this. She had been given the upper hand over the Potions master, and this was a rare opportunity that she must take advantage of. She would have to remember to express her gratitude for his saving of her life…later.
"Bring Skele-Gro and Dreamless Sleep, please," Hermione said to Beatrice. The elf pointedly ignored her request and instead looked upon her master with large, unblinking eyes.
Snape grimaced. "Do what she says."
Hermione smirked in triumph as Beatrice left, her shoulders slumped in defeat, and the other elves vanished.
"Well, Miss Granger," Snape said as soon as they were alone, "congratulations on becoming the stupidest being to ever walk these halls. That includes your mangy excuse for a cat, by the way."
"What was that?" Hermione said, proud of her newfound boldness. She twirled his wand in between her fingers, examining the circular path it made in the air and observing that it wobbled slightly. "I think that your wand is off-balance, Professor."
He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth. "You are not here to critique my wand, you are here to fill that empty head of yours with my precious knowledge. If such a thing is possible."
"Hold still," Hermione commanded, approaching the side of the bed and poking his wand into his injured leg, just below the knee.
"That hurts!" he protested, trying to swipe his wand away from her grasp but missing by a matter of inches.
"I never knew," Hermione answered, quickly pausing to reinstate the binding curse that had worn off more quickly than she had anticipated, "that the most feared Potions Master that Hogwarts has ever known is prone to whine."
His glare was steady and incredulous. "I do not whine."
Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, Professor."
An odd greenish tint came over his face once again as she removed the bones from below his knee to his ankle. For a minute, she thought that me might vomit, but he instead closed his dark eyes and swallowed, apparently trying to ignore the bizarre, sickening feeling of having no bones in one's leg. It looked like an odd, undiscovered sea creature that had washed ashore, purple and discolored and with no bones to speak of. Rather like a tubular jellyfish.
"Potion and Skele-Gro for Miss Granger," Beatrice squeaked bitterly as she appeared at Hermione's side. "Does the Master request anything else?" she added, ignoring Hermione and turning to face Snape.
"Leave us," he mumbled. She obeyed his orders and vanished with a crack that split the air in two. The echo of her disappearance rung in Hermione's ears quite long after she had left.
"I never though that I'd meet such bigoted house elves," Hermione muttered, attempting to pull the cork from the bottle of Dreamless Sleep Potion. Her hand slipped and she rubbed it on the rough cloth of her bathrobe, trying to wipe away the clamminess.
"Yet you were quite fortunate for meeting Kreacher," Snape replied, eyes still closed and voice quiet.
"But he was mad," she insisted, trying to dim the tone of naivety that threatened to overflow in her voice. She gave a little cough to clear her throat, hoping that he wouldn't bring up S.P.E.W. She finally managed to uncork the bottle and moved on to the Skele-Gro, twisting open the jar and coughing as disgusting-smelling steam shot through the air.
He took both without complaint, but his eyes held an animosity that she completely understood. It was her fault that he was injured, and no doubt that her presence here was much less than comforting.
Snape hissed in pain and Hermione turned an inquisitive eye toward him.
"You are supposed to be asleep," she said, twisting the bottle around and making sure that she had read it correctly.
"Dreamless Sleep…" he grunted. Rivulets of sweat were beginning to wander down from his forehead, making his pale skin glisten. "…does not work. I have built up an immunity to it over the years."
"Then why did you drink it?" she asked, frowning in disapproval.
"If you must know, you nosy child," he hissed. "I was holding onto the naïve hope that I might not be forced to listen to your voice."
Hermione didn't reply but fingered the belt of her bathrobe, mildly insulted.
"You couldn't simply repair it!" he yelled as another wave of pain swelled through him. Hermione started at the sudden change in the volume of his voice.
"There was too much damage!" She could feel her own voice rising. Not a smart choice, she must get herself under control.
"It hurts!"
"Well, you wouldn't be in so much pain if you hadn't forced me to leave."
"I wouldn't have forced you to leave if you hadn't been invading my personal chambers."
"I was curious and you weren't there to stop me!"
"Then you should learn to control your curiosity!"
"And you should learn to control your temper!"
Snape stopped his bantering, defeated. He knew that she was right, but it was impossible to admit. His temper was not loud nor did it demand attention of those around, but it was quiet, quick, and poisonous. In many ways, much worse.
Hermione brushed a tendril of hair behind a hot ear as she held a dampened cloth to his flesh wounds.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice demure and apologetic, "that I invaded your privacy. And thank you…for saving me."
She swept the drying blood away silently, not daring to meet his eyes. But when he spoke, his voice held none of the sarcasm or bitterness that it so often did.
"You're welcome."
A/N: This conversation from B&tB was so much like Severus and Hermione that I couldn't bare to not put it in there. Hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks to: Joshua Glass (um, this chapter should clear it up for you), Snapegirl51606 (ahh, all right then), Satern Mya, Zephyre, Chibidaima, Anarane Anwamane, blueHeffer, Melissa Jooty (I think she's a bit more angry at herself than she lets on), Aindel S. Druida, M'cha Araem, crudedly, Cassandra (Why would I mind? I have a border-line (only?) obsession with him too :) Obviously.), and krisleigh. I'm glowing from the compliments.
And, as always, thanks to my beta, Laiagarien.