Author's Note:

The Houses Competition (or THC) Round 2

House: Slytherin

Class: Ancient Runes

Category: Standard (up to 3,000 words)

Prompt:

2. [Action] Struggling to Breathe
Theme-[Five Senses: Sight, Smell, Sound, Taste, Touch] Chosen Theme: Smell
Word Count: 2,901
Disclaimers/triggers: Be warned of descriptions of magical malady and illness. AU, Severus survives. St. Mungo's AU.
Beta Love: Thanks to Charlie for the lovely beta!


Outbreak

"P—hhh-pl-hhh—" The man on the hospital bed flailed weakly as he struggled to speak.

"Ventus Minimus," Hermione whispered, her vision slightly distorted by her Bubble-Head Charm.

She cursed herself for having forgotten to brush after lunch. She could smell the awful remnants of her tuna sandwich when she breathed. But rancid tuna breath was better than the alternative that lay gasping in the bed below her.

This poor wizard was the thirtieth case in as many days, and the number of patients was growing rapidly.

The spell gently pushed air into the man's lungs through his nostrils, and his chest expanded, calming him. Hermione then pulled the rune-stone, which was carved with the rune for in and the rune for out from one of her many Mediwitch apron pockets and refreshed the spell through it, setting it gently on his clammy chest. The rune stone was coated in a tacky substance derived from mandrake roots that held it in place. Hermione smiled sadly as she remembered how excited Neville had been when he'd discovered it. If only they'd known what its primary use would become.

Hermione dosed the patient with the Draught of Dreamless Sleep and left him to his fitful, feverish dreams.

"It's fine," she muttered to herself, bustling down the darkened wing that was nearly overflowing with patients. "Neville and Luna are working their hardest to find a cure, and I need to do the same."

Luna had been the one to create the clever rune stones, but the modified wind spell had been none other than the handiwork of the sour Head of Research in the Magical Maladies Division of St. Mungos, Severus Snape, M.W. He'd got his Medical Wizard scroll after his miraculous recovery thanks to the universal antivenom inoculation he'd created. Hermione was pretty certain that he'd embellished things a bit, but results didn't lie. Other than the awful scar at his throat, which he kept visible at all times like a dare, he hadn't much changed. He still swooped about in his black robes and kept odd hours. And he had a way of sneaking up on people.

"Mediwitch Granger? A moment, please."

Hermione nearly jumped at the silky sound of Snape's voice. She turned, feeling silly in her Bubble-Head charm. He, too, was using it to keep from breathing the air, but had somehow modified it, so that it lay across his face like a second skin, giving him a strange, otherworldly shimmer. Nobody was as artful with spellcraft modification and creation than he had proven himself to be. He'd recently added Master of Spells to his wall of achievements in his office.

With her Bubble-Head Charm still refreshing her rancid lunch breath Hermione could not detect his distinctive scent of mint and thyme. She wanted so badly to dispel the charm and breathe him in, but her logical mind slammed the lid on her daydream before it could be fully formed.

'What are you thinking?' she chided herself. 'The illness could be airborne!'

She composed herself and turned, giving the Spells Master a tired smile. "Master Snape. How can I assist?"

"Please. Come with me. I need your opinion on something." His voice was soft and even, but Hermione could sense an underlying tension in his expression that spoke to how well he was hiding his true feelings while within earshot of patients. She knew well how to compose herself around those who ought not to hear.

"It has been a busy day," Hermione said conversationally.

Snape's eyes widened as he picked up on her subtext. Indeed."

He slowed and waited for her to fall into step with him before they continued down the hallway and entered the restricted staff area. Hermione enjoyed the sensation of the cleaning spells and wards washing over her, sanitizing her body and robes. Snape had been the head of the committee that had installed these gateways only six months prior. The front doors of St. Mungo's did the same, removing stray particles and magical residue from visitors to ensure minimal transmission of disease. Neville had been the one to add the soft scent of lavender to the final design, but Hermione could only smell the same stale, hot air. It was unpleasant but not yet dangerous.

They went past the main nurses station, their robes shushing softly against one another as they moved, and Hermione got a silent jolt of glee every time their elbows touched.

They reached a metal door and Snape motioned for her to go ahead. "You will need to dispel your charm and disrobe completely, then place your robes in the hatch to the right. Keep your wand. I have set up a three stage decontamination process within. Do not fear the flames, they will only burn away non-corporeal entities. Once it is completed, the opposite door will open automatically and you will find some clothing and sandals. Wait for me in my office."

Hermione did as she was told. When she was done, she pulled the soft, linen shift over her head and sat on one of the leather chairs across from Snape's tall, wingback seat, letting her eye drift over his Order of Merlin, multiple awards, certifications, and diplomas. The man had been busy. But more than the sights of the dark, impeccably tasteful office, Hermione savored the scents of leather, parchment, and the minty herbal scent that was all him. A small fire lapped away at the wood in the fireplace, but the room was not hot or stuffy. The warm, soft scents of the office made Hermione feel drowsy and safe, especially after treating patients all day. She dozed against the chair, her mind conjuring up images of dark robes wrapping around her—

"Wha—!?" Hermione snapped awake as the door to the office slammed behind Snape, who was now garbed in a gray linen garment, the waist cinched tightly with a thick, charcoal colored sash.

"I must be honest with you, Hermione," he said, and her skin prickled at the sound of her name on his tongue. "You are my last hope."

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked, her mind on high alert.

"Longbottom and Lovegood have taken ill," he said, and Hermione sucked in a horrified breath. "Yes, I know. They are being cared for as we speak. It has come to my attention that you were involved with some of their research, yes?"

"Y-yes," Hermione replied, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. "But I wasn't involved enough to take over for them. I merely helped out with testing and some final tweaks. I know they added me in their research publications, but I was hardly an equal participant."

His expression darkened, and Hermione was certain he was about to demand she leave immediately. "Be that as it may," he said, instead, "what I am about to tell you must not leave this room."

"Understood, Master Snape," Hermione said, leaning forward.

"Please. Call me Severus. You've earned that much," he said with a slight hand wave when she made a sound as though to protest his request. "Especially since your life is in as much danger as mine."

She stared at him in shock. "Pardon? Did I hear—"

"I have followed every potential line of transmission, and have come to the conclusion that this is not a naturally occurring illness. It's far too specific and focused. I believe someone has designed a magical illness that affects the magical core based on one's alignment in the previous Wizarding War. As they lose their magic, they lose the ability to regulate normal bodily functions such as breathing or heart rate." At Hermione's stunned expression, he continued. "I know it seems far-fetched, but consider this. Both Lovegood and Longbottom were perfectly fine in the laboratory for over a week, but when they went out for lunch to the cafe down the block, they collapsed at their table and had to be carefully brought back by our emergency extraction team. We have zero school-age patients, even in households where both parents have been affected, and as you know from the last Dragon Pox outbreak, children tend to be affected more severely by illnesses."

"That's true, but who would do such a horrible thing?" Hermione asked.

"Voldemort had many supporters at Durmstrang other than Karkaroff, and this sounds like something they might have devised," Severus replied. "But really, it doesn't matter who did it. What matters is that we have a problem and we need to figure out how to contain and quell it before it gets worse."

"I will do anything," Hermione said, fire in her eyes.

"You won't be able to leave St. Mungo's until a cure has been tested and verified. I know it's a lot to ask, especially since you are not as up-to-date with the research as Lovegood or Longbottom, but you are the closest we have to an expert in their research, and our team needs you."

"Can I floo-call Harry to take care of Crookshanks?" Hermione asked.

"That would be acceptable," Severus replied. "What is your limit for maintaining your Bubble-Head Charm?"

"I can keep it up for eleven hours," Hermione said grimly, "but do you have any suggestions to deal with the…smell issue?"

Severus pursed his lips and nodded. "This has been an ongoing issue. I've found that this tends to help. It should last awhile. Keep it under your tongue when you're not chewing it."

He handed her a small wrapped orb. She lifted it and gave it a tentative sniff. It held that same minty herbal scent she associated with him.

"Is it some sort of candy?" she asked. "It smells heavenly!"

"My own personal recipe," he replied, a slight twitch to his lips showed he had appreciated her compliment. "I call it Mint-Tea-Chew. It can be chewed or stored flat under the tongue and does not lose flavor for a whole day. It also improves your focus and energy without making you jittery."

"How curious!" she replied. "Thank you, Severus."

She was glad that the shadows made it hard to show how much she was blushing at the thoughtful gift.

"Simply ask me if you need another," he said. "Please use my fireplace to floo-call your friend, and then we will get started."


Hermione was extremely grateful for Severus' confectionery in the coming weeks. Not only did it keep the stifling, recycled Bubble-Head Charm air manageable, but it also kept her alert. Severus did not work in the same lab as she did, as she was left to pore over Neville and Luna's work and visit them in the adjoining room to help ask only the most urgent of questions that she couldn't figure out on her own. Both of them were so weak, they could only answer yes and no questions by nodding or shaking their heads as they struggled to breathe. It was utterly horrifying to watch, and Hermione doubled her resolve to continue.

In the end, the breakthrough came when she infused pygmy eucalyptus leaf oil with the essence of dittany. This created a powdery mist that, when heated and aerosolized using Luna's patented Runic Inhalation Chamber, actively reduced lung inflammation. The bonus was that the scent was soothing. A small amount of digitalis tincture reduced from one of Neville's studies on heart failure was carefully measured and tested on the worst-faring patients.

Severus directed staff to brew potions to clear out blood clots and strengthen the magical core against collapse, but they lost three of their older patients and each death felt like a blow.

In the end, Severus was the one who discovered the imps.

"It's just as we thought," he said. "These creatures hook into mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, or mouth, drilling deeper inside until they latch on the magical core, slowly draining energy. We are calling them, for lack of a better term as Lovegood is still indisposed, imps."

The creature on the diagram didn't look like Hermione's idea of an imp, as it was round, and covered in spikes that made her think of a chestnut. It had a spiked tail, and a sharp, unpleasant mouth that reminded her of a tick. Four small, black eyes ringed the mouth. Hermione shuddered.

"They drain the magical core until they burst into thousands of copies, the magic allowing them to do something akin to Apparating randomly within a one-mile radius." Severus curled his lip at the diagram.

"So that's why the infection hasn't spread to those of us using the Bubble-Head Charm," Hermione said thoughtfully. "But is it possible for someone to be infected with more than one at a time?"

"These creatures originate outside of our reality," Severus said, stroking his chin. They seem to be greedy, often killing one another fighting to embed into a singular host, which is why the infection hasn't been exponential. With our health bulletins requiring the Bubble-Head Charm to be practiced and taught to anyone who needs to learn it, that has helped as well. I've even released a few imp-repelling wards to the general public to keep them out of the house, but they do nothing to the infected."

He sat heavily in his chair, and Hermione saw the dark circles under his eyes had become more pronounced than ever.

"You look awful," she blurted, her tact loosened by lack of sleep. She'd slept on the floor of her lab using a cushioning charm for the past week. In comparison, the lovely scent of the leather chairs and the cozy office made her eyelids heavy.

"Aren't you the flatterer?" Severus quipped, but the exhaustion in his tone made her worry.

"Have you been sleeping?" she asked.

"Nothing a little Pepper-up Potion can't solve," Severus replied, gesturing to his face with one hand as he leaned heavily against the other. He looked half-asleep already, and Hermione ached to join him.

"You need to actually sleep, Severus." Hermione felt a bit hypocritical for admonishing him, but it was true.

"I…can't." His eyelids were drooping, though, and she had just enough time to cast a cushioning charm on his desk before his head slid from his hand and thunked against it. Hermione checked his vitals, but he was simply in a deep, exhausted sleep. She conjured up a blanket and placed it around his shoulders, then went to sit in her own chair, settling back against it and closing her eyes. She could do with a bit of a nap herself, of course.

"Hmmm-me, your scent," he muttered.

'I'm just hearing things,' she thought, but she had to admit how he'd caught her breathing in a set of his robes she'd found draped over one of the chairs in his office and hadn't said a word. 'Are you mental, Hermione?' she chided herself. 'We're in the middle of a bloody imp infestation and you're mooning like an idiot!'

Chastened, she crossed her arms and settled with her eyes closed into an uneasy sleep, trying to ignore the traitorous part of her heart that was gloating about how much Severus must trust her to sleep in her presence.

'Just don't read too much into it,' she thought ruefully.


After that fateful day, they worked together to finalize a cure to the imp plague. In the end, ironically, it was the Dark Mark that inspired them to look into unusual ways to ward the body from attack. With their combined focus, Hermione was able to create a runic shape that, when activated with a spell that Severus had crafted, would essentially make one's magic core resonate at a frequency that was harmless to the individual but deadly to imps. The only downside was that it had to be drawn on the skin using a special type of ink that wore away after two years, requiring subsequent reapplication.

While it was not the outcome they had hoped for, it was a solid strategy, and within six months, the Wizarding World was pronounced Imp-free, and the required use of the Bubble-Head Charm was lifted by the Ministry.

"I'd say we did pretty well for ourselves, wouldn't you, Severus?" Hermione said, slipping into her customary chair across from Severus in the cozy office where they'd saved the Wizarding World yet again.

He smiled back. "Indeed."

She breathed in deeply and sighed with happiness. The difference in the scent of the room had shifted subtly, but she knew both of them could sense it. The scents of eucalyptus, ink, parchment, thyme and mint all swirled together. The room was theirs in a way that Hermione couldn't bring to put into words. She felt his eyes upon her and she knew that if she looked up to meet his gaze that she would be unable to stop herself from betraying her treacherous heart.

She drummed her fingers on the desk, trying to bring some levity into the conversation. "So then, what's next?"

His fingers closed over hers and she went very, very still. Somehow he'd come around the desk and was standing beside her.

"Please," he said, and she couldn't help but bend forward until his arms were around her, pressing her nose against his heavenly-scented robes just as she felt him breathing in her hair.

"Now, that's just what the doctor ordered," she said, sighing with contentment and letting her eyes close as he held her as though he would never let her go.