Chapter Two: Why She Lived.
"What has happened to her, Severus?" Poppy said, maternally as she levitated her body onto one of the many cots.
"She fell on the way to her door. She has been overworking herself, again." He drawled on lazily as he watched Poppy run different tests.
"Yes. I haven't been seeing her at dinner either. Tests show that she has lost at least twenty pounds. Poor kid."
"She's hardly a child anymore, Poppy."
"You know what I mean, Severus. The poor girl has been through enough in her life. She needs a break. I am going to induce a rested sleep. Take over her classes, will you?"
"Of course."
"She should be up in about five days." She laid her wand down on the table next to Hermione bed. "She should be back to normal come Saturday."
"She'll hate me for tricking her." He scoffed lightly and smiled mischievously.
"How so?"
"I told her that she could teach her own classes if she could make it to her doorway. She was already tired and weak. She passed out midway because she got up too quickly."
"Severus!"
"She'll have time to heal this way."
"I suppose. Off you go now." She shoo-ed Severus out of the room.
He then walked down the corridor to resume teaching the rest of his classes and a few of her classes.
The following Saturday, Hermione woke up a little dizzy. She saw a wand resting on the table next to her, and assumed it was hers. Her eyes were cloudy at first, but she quickly realized where she was.
"What am I doing here?" She said to nobody in particular. She looked at her muggle watch. "Merlin! I have class in ten minutes! Look at me!" She was wearing hospital robes of white and her hair was curled and crazy all around her head.
"Hermione dear, settle down. It is Saturday and you have no classes."
"Saturday?" She tried to run her hands through her hair. "Saturday!" She stood quickly from her cot and just as quickly fell back to the floor. "Severus, you bastard!"
Madame Pomfrey rushed to her side, giggling slightly, and lifted her back to her feet.
"No more of this, Miss Granger. This is the last time you are overworking yourself. You need to eat and you need to rest. No more of this!" She pointed to Hermione in a mirror. "I am going to give you your clothes back and I am going to escort you to your room, okay?"
"I can do this myself." She said miserably and she began to hold herself up. "I just got up too fast."
"Okay, you can walk yourself to your room, but Hermione, you have got to stop this! You have been starving yourself and you are sleep deprived. I have a batch of dreamless sleep potions for you. I want you to take one before you go to sleep tonight and one for the rest of the month, every night. I've already told Severus to keep an eye on you this break."
"Why Severus? Why not Minerva?" She whined.
"Minerva is in Spain, on vacation."
"Pomona?"
"Greece."
"Oh, please."
"Get over it. It's already been settled, now off to bed you go."
"I just woke up!"
"Okay," She thought of all the activities Hermione could and would want to do, "go and read something."
"You and I both know that I have read everything in this school's library twice."
"Borrow a book from Severus."
"Leave it to you to suggest something as ridiculous as that." She half-heartedly glared at Poppy.
"Goodbye Hermione."
"Bye." She said as she reluctantly left the hospital wing.
She was lying on her couch when she heard the knock at her door.
"What do you want?" She yelled, miserably.
"May I enter?"
"Yeah, whatever." She had a box of chocolate frogs in one hand and a bottle of pumpkin juice in the other.
"One would swear you are drunk." The tall man observed as he watched her listlessly toss a chocolate frog box onto the floor.
"Hardly, unless pumpkin juice is alcoholic?"
"Are you feeling alright?" He said as he took a seat in one of her chairs.
"Oh, I'm just peachy." She took a severe bite out of one of the chocolate frogs. She peered into the box and pulled out another card with a gleaming image of a raven haired boy with green eyes. "Why, wouldn't you know? Harry Potter!" She said in mock excitement. She threw the card aside in a pile with the rest of the Harry Potter cards.
"I see."
"You know. Every now and then I find a Ron Weasley. And you know, Ginny Weasley is supposedly a really popular card." She nodded her head. "Would you like a chocolate frog?"
"No, thank you."
"It would have been nice if Lord Voldemort had just taken me with him. It was rather rude of him to kill off all of my friends and leave me here. Don't you think?"
"Hermione." He said as he stared at her miserably.
"And I also heard just why I made it out and they didn't. I suppose you already know, though?"
"Please."
"Yeah. Old history, right. It was only eight years ago. We all remember the night Harry willingly gave himself up to him just to save our asses. Why don't we remember the rest of them. Fred, George, Ginny, Ron, Molly, Arthur, Percy, Bill, Charlie, Hagrid and Neville. All of them lost. I don't know how I made it out alive."
"Hermione, you made it out alive because you weren't destined to die." He whispered sadly.
"Destined to die!" She sat up in the couch. "And they were destined to die!" She looked back down at her Chocolate Frog, "I know why I am still alive!" She looked down at her feet and said meekly, "You." They both sat in complete silence.
"Who told-?"
"Remus told me. Of all the people there that fateful night, how did you think I was the most important?"
"You were all I could save." He murmured.
"You could have saved anyone of us the same way I was saved. Remus told me the circumstances. You two were trapped and you had the opportunity to save one person each. I know. He saved Tonks." She looked him straight in the eyes. "WHY ME!"
"Hermione, please."
"Please, what? You made sure I had to live with the fact that every single person in the world who loved me is gone!"
"I didn't mean to hurt you by saving your life!"
"Why?" She was now crying terribly.
"Because…"
"WHY!" She threw the chocolate frog box in his face. "You selfish bastard, why?" She collapsed to the ground and began to pound her hands on the floor.
Severus stood rooted to the spot where she had thrown the box at him. His eyes never left her.
Why had he saved her and nobody else? He had often questioned himself and he came to the same conclusion that she had. He was selfish. He had always respected her for her intellect. In the beginning, she was the only person to believe that he didn't murder Albus Dumbledore, and she was the one to uncover the fact that Dumbledore had forced him to, in the first place. She was beautiful and he wanted to believe that she wanted to live. He had always hoped she would never find out the truth about what happened that night, but he figured she would eventually.
She grew quiet quickly until he found that she was staring in his direction.
"I'm sorry, Hermione." He said quietly and she sat there dumbfounded.
"No, Severus, you shouldn't be apologizing about saving my life." She took another sip of pumpkin juice, gulping loudly. "It's just hard to live, not knowing why you are still alive."
"I don't know what to tell you." He said quietly and silently left the room. Hermione sat on the floor, motionless. Dried tears stained her face and her hair was matted funnily around her face.