Chapter 8: Sleep & Luck
The cosy warmth that comforted her body so much moved again and Hermione frowned in her sleep, shuffling closer to it. Becoming more and more aware of her surroundings she sighed in her light sleep. Her feet were cold. Apparently she had somehow managed to kick off half of the blanket. But there was a simple solution for this problem. The warmth would get rid of her cold feet. As she shifted to accommodate and her feet touched it, the source of the warmth groaned. She smiled at the familiar sound, but only until she regained full consciousness. Slightly startled she opened her eyes and took in the situation.
She was in bed. Tightly nestled against Severus, who was waking up at this very moment. She had cuddled with him in her sleep. He hadn't moved one inch closer to her, it had all been her doing. While her cheeks reddened she backed away a bit to give him space. When she finally looked at him again, there was a smile in his eyes.
"Sorry." Hermione mumbled and combed back her hair with her hand. "I didn't mean to attack you in your sleep."
"I'm used to it. This is how we usually sleep.", he said and his gaze lingered on her face. "How are feeling? Any morning sickness?"
Hermione shook her head. She was feeling pretty good actually. And her waking up had been pleasant. It was almost as if her body remembered. Maybe she was making progress and would soon be rewarded. They'd just have to wait and see.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious again, she climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom to shower. The water helped her wake up and she spent more time enjoying it to the fullest.
Half an hour later she was greeted with another beautiful looking breakfast table and gave Severus a radiant smile, which he returned with a smirk.
"It looks beautiful.", she said when she sat down.
"Just like you.", he replied and took a sip of his coffee. Hermione blushed. Her hair wasn't combed, she wore a loose shirt over her jeans and had done absolutely nothing to look good today. "That doesn't sound like something Severus Snape would say.", she said while grabbing a toast.
Severus smiled. "I usually don't. This is one of my good days. They are rare, so you better appreciate them." Hermione bit her lip to keep herself from grinning. "Also, I like that it irritates people when I behave nicely. After the war a lot of people kept telling me how they saw me, idolized me or wished me to be. Some of them were horrible. They wanted me to fit into this corner of the brooding, self-loathing Death Eater. And I did. It took some time for myself to see that I could be whoever I wanted to be. And to be honest, you helped me with that and boosted my self-confidence tremendously." The look he gave her was intense and Hermione felt herself being drawn to his words.
"I remember an evening, when you were my apprentice, but we didn't have a romantic relationship back then. It was summer and we were outside discussing a potion you made and a student came up to me and told me it would have been better if I had died in war." He smiled suddenly and Hermione frowned, uncertain as to why that would be entertaining. When Severus went on however she understood.
"Cost him fifty house points and a broken nose, which was your doing by the way. After this whole incident, you wished me a good evening despite of everything and you said something to me, which touched me so deeply I kept thinking about it for hours."
Hermione caught herself holding her breath. Her toast forgotten, she simply stared at him. This was so interesting. She needed to hear more of it.
"You said: There will always be someone, who can't see your worth. Don't let it be you."
Her arms were covered in goose bumps. This was actually something her mom had told her, after she had come home one summer stating that someone had called her Mudblood.
"I'm sorry that happened to you.", she heard herself saying. Severus frowned.
"I am not. It brought us closer together and ultimately led us here. And it's not the worst thing someone ever said to me." Hermione nodded understanding and picked up her toast again.
"True." She gave him a small smile. "Be however you want to be around me. I want you to feel good about yourself.", she said and bit into her toast.
Severus inclined his head. "Will do, my beautiful wife."
They had planned to visit her office today and Hermione was already curious how it would look like and if she would find anything interesting or helpful there. The smell of flowers greeted her as she opened the door and she couldn't help but marvel at how beautiful her office looked. The widows were covered with green plants, causing the light to reflect the green and make the room look more natural in general. Bookshelves grazed the walls and a large desk with a comfy looking chair waited for her return. The grin on Hermione's face was so wide, Severus started smiling as well when he saw her face. He had been in a good mood all morning, making snarky but funny remarks and it had only made her like him more. She had the feeling as though they were already good friends and that only added to her happy mind-set.
"It's beautiful.", she said and turned to look at the books lying on her table. Her eyes went wide at some of the titles. These were expensive books she had always wanted to read. Most of them were on Charms, but at the bottom of the pile was a Potions book, which looked rather worn out. Curious she opened it were the bookmark stuck and saw some notes at the side of a page covering the Sleepless Draught. It was her handwriting and she was irritated by the fact that she had written something into the book directly. She was much more careful with books usually. To the usual ingredients including Flobberworm Mucus, lavender and valerian sprigs was another ingredient added: a ravens feather. Frowning Hermione read the next part: Warning! Extremely dangerous. One drop causes frozen state of subject, imitating sleep for at least a week, while being fully aware of its surroundings.
Hermione shuddered at the thought. Being trapped in your own body was not something she ever wished to experience. Still she wondered how exactly she knew of the effect. Eyeing Severus who was currently watering the flowers by letting the watering can fly around with his wand, she decided she would have to ask now. Even if that meant talking about a horrible potion.
"Severus, why did I add this to the book? Did we research this?", she asked and went over to him to show him the page. Carefully he finished watering the plants and set the can down. His eyes narrowed when he read her writing.
"Actually you discovered this by accident while you were my apprentice. It's thought-provoking that you looked it up. We recently found a similar case with Felix Felicis." He frowned and made a rather long pause. "I wonder why you didn't tell me you were connecting these two incidents?"
Hermione looked at him apologetic. It was a pity she couldn't help him with this. "Maybe I had wanted to but we didn't have the time?" She offered sounding uncertain.
Severus shook his head and Hermione could tell his mind was busy thinking.
"No, it seems off. You always tell me, when you discover something. Especially when it's something we are working on. It makes you so enthusiastic to come to conclusions." He started pacing around the room and for the first time since her memory loss, Hermione started to worry about him. She put the book down on her desk and bit her lip nervously.
"I'm sorry I can't help you with this problem, but what did we find out about the Felix potion?"
Severus turned to her, a serious expression on his face that reminded her of the old days, when he had been her Professor.
"We discovered that adding snake venom reverses its effect and turns it into a Misfortune potion. Whoever takes the potion will be extremely unfortunate and become depressive and eventually try to kill himself. We let the ministry handle the case as soon as the first test-subject attempted it.", he explained. "That was about a month ago. The responsible Auror did send me a message to confirm our discovery. And the potion was added to the record of dangerous potions."
Now it was Hermione's time to frown.
"It really is weird that one special ingredient will give these potions different effects, right? Usually you just mess them up with the wrong ingredients and they explode or turn into a solid mass."
Severus nodded.
"Exactly. That's apparently what made you suspicious of it too. I did not even think about the Sleepless Draught, but you did.", he looked confused and Hermione had the feeling, his pride was hurt. They were both intelligent, but he had always been the Potions Master with the great mind. She understood his bafflement. Walking over to him she carefully gave him a hug and sighed in relief when he returned it. His posture however remained stiff. He was still thinking about it. She could tell.
Suddenly it occurred to her. This was the explanation. The missing link.
Raising her head to look at him, she couldn't believe that he hadn't said anything.
"Severus, this might be why I'm in this state. I think we've been going about this the completely wrong way." She stepped back and looked at the book on her desk. "Instead of trying to trigger my memories or relive certain ones, we should have been focusing on what we did the day before this happened.", she said sounding frustrated. And she was, but mostly with herself for not noticing this sooner. "When I told you about not remembering anything you asked me a bunch of questions, about time turners, potion accidents, hexes. What if I actually had a potion accident and I don't remember because that was the effect of the potion?" She stood with her hands on her hips and saw realisation dawn on his face.
"But Poppy checked you for potion influence and it showed up negative." Severus reminded her.
"Yes, indeed. But with the other potions being so powerful, how do you know this one is traceable?" Her words were but a hiss. She was really wrought up right now. If her theory was proven to be true, they had to find the potion responsible. Otherwise there was no way of getting her memories back. Now she was the one pacing around. Why hadn't they thought of this sooner? She had been such an idiot. Wasting precious days trying to recover something that was gone. Mourning a relationship that she had probably had a big part in being destroyed. Her damn curiosity had possibly gotten the better of her. So it was true. Curiosity killed the cat.
"If that is the case, it can't be a coincidence. The three of them having this effect… Something is off. What I don't understand is why I don't know anything about this. Why would you keep me in the dark? You shouldn't even have been experimenting. You are pregnant. This could have affected the baby." He sounded angry now and Hermione understood why. She even felt guilty though she couldn't remember. Shaking her head she sat down on her desk and buried her face in her hands. The day had started so well.
Two hours later they were standing in their potions lab searching for useful hints as to what Hermione could have brewed. But naturally she had cleaned up everything before she left.
Also Severus voiced his thoughts about it being strange for the effects to trigger in her sleep, because they had been together that evening and she had been her normal self.
Considering this Hermione had started going through her books, looking only for sleep effective potions. But she didn't find anything that caught her eye. There were no handwritten notes hiding in her books or mysterious bookmarks placed. She hated to admit it, but this wasn't working.
Her husband on the other hand was inspecting the cauldrons. Searching for traces of leftover potion or ingredients, but naturally not finding any.
Frustrated the two of them looked at each other despondently. This was leading nowhere.
"If only we could use a time turner…" Severus mumbled. Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "They are forbidden."
Sighing he gave her a defeated look. "I know. I just can't accept this. I feel as though we are so close to the solution and now it's a dead end? There has to be something we can do. Someone we can ask…" He trailed of and took a look at the clock hanging on the wall.
"It's Sunday. We usually visit the Potters on the weekend. It might be a good idea to do so now."
Hermione tilted her head at this. "Why?"
"And here I thought you were the smartest witch of her age.", Severus remarked sarcastically and came closer to her. "We should go there because Harry bloody Potter is an Auror. He might have connections to someone who can help us." Without waiting for her agreement he took her hand and led her to their chambers. "Can't we just ask the Auror who confirmed our discovery? Maybe he knows someone-"
"I don't trust people I don't know and you shouldn't either. I know this may sound harsh, but don't believe people too easily. We only assume it was a potions accident. In truth it could have been an attack. Maybe someone thought you had discovered something. I can't shake the feeling, that it has something to do with the Sleeping Draught and Felix Felicis. The incidents have to be connected somehow." Hermione only stared at him in surprise, but eventually nodded and followed Severus to the fireplace. He did have a point there and she was wondering what had really happened and if they would ever find out.
AN: Woohoo, I did it. Reviews are welcome as always. Thank you to all who follow, fave and motivate. Much appreciated. :)
