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A/N: I am not now, nor have I ever claimed to be, J. K. Rowling. She (and her affiliates) own it all people and make all of the monies from it.
I own nothing except my own strange imagination, but it's free. Deal with it. --snickers--
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CHAPTER 15: HEALING HERMIONE; Part Two:
A warm, wet, flannel being suddenly and quite vigorously applied to her face caused Hermione to gasp and jerk away from it in instantly awakened awareness.
She was literally nose-to-nose with an unknown house elf; a female one with a rather disapproving frown creasing her wizened crinkled face, at that.
"The missy is wakened now Master," it called back somewhere over it's shoulder.
"Thank you, Gristle," replied a deep, rich, voice that Hermione remembered all too well.
Severus Snape stepped into the startled young witch's line of vision; he was holding a steaming cup. "Drink, Miss Granger," he calmly ordered her, as he proffered the vessel.
"What is it?" Ever the 'want-to-know-it-all', Hermione had blurted the question out to him, even as her slender right hand obediently reached for and took the cup from him.
"Poison," he sarcastically replied with a brief, wry grin before his face settled into it's normal sour expression. "Now drink it up, so we can begin your healing."
Hermione stared down into what appeared to be a steaming cross between roughly pureed spinach (or seaweed) and gloppy brown gravy.
'What in the world?' she thought, as she lifted the cup to her lips, and successfully managed to avoid it's aroma as she took the first tentative sip of the strange brew.
Hermione swallowed the concoction with great trepidation; it unpleasantly slid down her throat with a slimy texture somewhere between that of boiled eels crossed with soured borscht.
But the flavor was simply heavenly! Thickly sweet with the cloying taste of ripe, wild, cherries.
She spared the Potion's Master a brief, grateful, grin and greedily slurped down the remainder.
If it wouldn't have been considered to be the height of ill-manners, she'd have ran her finger around the bottom of the cup and licked off every dreg.
Hermione still quite unconsciously licked her lips clean as she passed the cup back into his again outstretched hand.
"Good?" he softly querried with an actual smile, instead of that sarcastic smirk of a grin that he normally used to show his amusement.
Two huge amber eyes met his with curious, open, honesty.
"Very," she just as softly replied.
The cup rattled in the Professor's hand at the depth of her look. For just an instant, his black eyes had widened until Hermione could have sworn that she'd seen a pale golden halo briefly encircling those obsidian depths.
Severus tightened his grip on the cup, sharply turned on his booted heel, and stepped away from the girl to set it down on top of the liquor cabinet with a sharp 'clink' of the fragile bone-china.
Instantly Hermione was no longer hungry or thirsty. In mere minutes she felt stronger, healthier; still wounded . . . still in pain . . . but infinitely stronger.
'Merlin! His skill at potions is truly amazing . . . I wonder . . . perhaps . . . no. No. He'd never apprentice me, the insufferable Know-It-All. I'm just supposed to be his . . . his . . . bedwarmer.'
"Yes. Missy feeling is much more better now, Master," said the unknown house elf, as she nodded her fuzzy head at her, with the comfortable ease of long acquaintance with the Professor.
It dipped the flannel back into the basin of warm water, rang it out, and determinedly attempted to clean Hermione's face again.
Hermione, just as determinedly, fought it as fiercely as she was able for control of the flannel.
"I'm perfectly capable of washing my own face. Please let go of the flannel. Just let it go. NOW!" she attempted to firmly order it; to Severus' ears it simply reeked of childish bickering.
It only further emphasized the difference in their ages to him; although to most wizards' way of thinking the mere eighteen years (and three-quarters) variant between them was so small as to be completely negligible.
The young witch might be currently legal in both worlds however, to the world-weary Potions Master, Hermione Granger was still very much a child in some of her reactions.
'Ah well. Her own aging process will 'even' that up. Eventually,' Severus grimly thought to himself. 'After all the Dark Lord wants it this way now, just as it used to be in his time; with all young, powerful, strong witches placed under an older, more experienced, wizard's control for breeding up a new generation of loyal Death Eaters.'
It was too late now to back out of it gracefully anyway.
He'd already bonded himself to the insufferable Gryffindor brat when he'd accepted her as his own . . . bondswoman . . . with that sealing kiss in the Great Hall.
Severus Snape wouldn't allow himself to abase someone he'd desired for so long by calling her a slave.
There was nothing even remotely 'slave-like' about Miss Hermione Granger in his eyes.
Where others had seen 'shy bookishness', Severus had always seen enthusiastic studiousness.
Where others had seen the bushy haired, bucktoothed, awkwardly gangly child, he'd seen the brilliance of a mind to equal his own.
He'd forced himself to ignore or demerit her wherever possible, lest word get back to the Dark Lord that he favoured yet another Mudblood Gryffindor witch; especially one so closely tied yet again to Harry Bloody Potter.
Severus hadn't meant for it to be cruel when he'd said that he'd seen no difference in her looks when his godson had hit her front teeth with that nasty hex; it'd merely been the truth.
He'd never really 'looked' at the girl's childish physical form with his eyes; he'd looked at the girl's already mature mind with his own instead.
In his mind's eye he had always seen the woman that the young witch would one day be; beautiful, strong, brave, and blazingly intelligent.
Now he could add extremely passionate to the list of totted up attractions that this witch embodied within her lithe young frame.
Severus would bet his last sickle that, given his sexual experience and prowess, he could bed this witch in four notes or less.
Nothing about their shared Kiss had been even remotely virginal!
It had seared his soul with it's raw, untutored, passion.
It had been an earthshattering revelation to him of the fiery woman that existed deep inside of the obnoxious child. She just needed careful awakening by a full-grown adult wizard; instead of the continued fumbling with mere schoolboys, and learning nothing of true passion's skills.
And Oh, sweet Merlin! How badly Severus wanted to awaken her to that right now, simply remembering that kiss again.
Instead he roared, "ENOUGH!", instantly frightening both his witch and his house elf out of their ridiculously petty argument and into silence.
Severus took a couple of deep calming breaths, and counted to ten (twice) to suppress both his ire at himself (for his explosion) and his annoyance with his two females for 'pressing his buttons'.
Then he continued in a much calmer tone, "Miss Granger, you will kindly be silent and accept the fact that Gristle will be sponging you off. After you're physically better, you may bathe yourself in privacy; right now it will be better for all parties concerned for you to simply lie back, shut the fu . . . uh . . . well, aahmmph," clearing his throat as a very slight blush flushed his cheekbones at his frustrated near-slip of foul language, "just control your tongue, witch, and let Gristle be about her business."
The house elf, that Hermione now assumed to be named "Gristle", smirked into her face with an 'I've won the battle' look curling up it's lips and crinkling it's blue eyes up merrily at the corners.
It reapplied the now chilly flannel even more vigorously to her face.
"Ow! Careful, that hurt," Hermione whispered to it as it firmly scrubbed over her blackened eye. The house elf paused, and then began to wipe the grime away more slowly and more carefully.
Hermione had to admit that there was something . . . comforting . . . about Gristle's ministrations. She'd been a child of seven the last time her mum had actually washed her face for her, and she'd been feverish at the time with some childhood ailment or other.
A single tear slowly trickled down her cheek at the memory of a mother that she'd never know again. Gristle began to softly hum a simple unknown tune, and her touch with the flannel became infinitely more gentle.
"Ssshh, young missy," Gristle whispered under her breath so that only the girl could hear. "It 'twill all be for the best; you will see. Gristle knows. Missy will see."
Gristle nodded in agreement with herself at the odd statement, as if the future was already a 'done-deal' from the house elf's perspective.
And perhaps it was; after all, elfin magicks worked on a very different plane than regular magicks did for wizards and witches.
She'd learnt that from Dobby; poor, goodhearted, dead, Dobby.
A fresh tear of loss slowly slid down her cheek to join the first one.
Gristle began to softly hum again, and gently applied the suddenly re-warmed flannel to Hermione's shoulder as what seemed to be an ocean of silent tears came and went like waves on a beach.
"Grievings must always come first, then will come the healings now," it whispered so softly that Hermione missed it in her feelings of loss and grief.
Now Hermione's healing could begin in earnest.
Unbeknown to Hermione, the house elf calmly proceeded to magickally rub away some of the young missy's lifetime of heartache along with her encrusted dirt of days.
All house elves had some special ability along with their regular elfin magicks. That was Gristle's gift; soothing children and taking their childhood pains away.
By the time this witch's body had healed, so would her heart; she'd be ready for the Master then.
Gristle smiled knowingly to herself and continued to bathe the now compliant, silently weeping, girl before her with her love.
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Severus set the cup down on the cabinet with a firm 'clink' of bone-china, and strode over to his desk after his irritated outburst at his two females.
He began to silently clear the smooth mahogany surface of his private desktop by hand. It gave him a useful occupation for his hands and body as he calmed and centered himself for the bloody task to come.
Parchments and scrolls that had been spilling from their place on the corner onto the floor were tidied and carefully put away in the proper drawers. Various ink pots and quills, along with his signature blood-red wax and personal seal, were neatly tucked away.
From across the room he could hear Gristle's faint hum of a lullaby that he remembered so well from his very earliest childhood memories of a toddler of three or four.
That first time Gristle had sung her lullaby to him had been late in the night after the first time his father had ever beaten him for an uncontrolled burst of childhood wild magicks. His mother was being beaten in her face and choked nearly unconscious by his father in the midst of a wildly drunken rage; her toddler son had attempted to come to her aid.
When Tobias Snape had picked himself up off of the floor across the room, from where the toddler's panicked outburst had thrown him, he came up pulling his wide, thick, leather belt from his workpant's beltloops.
The beating that Severus received had left great wide burgundy whelts across his small-for-his-age, bony, little back that rapidly turned into long, two-inch wide, purple bruises.
Very late in the night, long after he'd painfully sobbed himself to sleep on his small pallet in the corner of the tiny room that he'd been allotted, Gristle had come to him.
There had been a cup of warm milk, heavily laced with lavender and sweetened with wild comb-honey, and a still-fresh whole croissant filled with thinly shaved ham for him to eat and drink.
And after he'd filled his little growling stomach (that'd had nothing else except water inside of it all day long) into drowsy fullness, Gristle had sponged his wounded back and hummed her soft lullaby.
He'd drifted off into a wonderfully pleasant dream; the details weren't ever clear to him, even then, but he'd awakened the next morning with a smile on his face and no bruising at all on his little back.
Just catching the faintest hint of the tune, even now as a full-grown wizard . . . and an official Death Eater at that, still had the power to bring a small respite of silence and peace to Severus' bruised soul.
His desktop finally cleared, Severus transfigured it into the correct size and height of a surgical table. He proceeded to set up his instruments, potions, unguents, and bandages on a hastily conjured up tray that hung magically suspended near where his right hand would be reaching as he worked on the girl.
The last addition (added almost as an after-thought) was a thin mattress covered in sterile white cotton sheeting across the hard surface of his desk, that had now magically become a makeshift surgical suite.
He didn't trust his Miss Granger to the 'tender mercies' of the squad of Death Eaters now in charge of St. Mungo's.
He had the necessary skills; nevermind how he'd acquired them. He'd do it himself.
Miss Granger had drifted off to sleep while being bathed off by Gristle; he'd expected it. He bent and lifted the girl up with his strong arms; her eyes jerked into instant awareness.
"What are you doing?" she squeaked out in her alarm.
"I'm going to cut the damaged flesh away from your body and re-grow fresh, new tissue in it's place. You'll be as good as new when I'm done, Miss Granger," came the honest reply.
At the sharp hiss of terrified inhalation she'd sucked in, he suddenly remembered what Bella and Anton had done to the girl.
Severus took mercy on her, and explained himself more thoroughly, "I'll take the greatest care of you, Miss Granger. You'll be given many pain potions, and a Dreamless Sleep Draught, to take right before any pain that I must, however unwillingly, inflict upon you in order to properly heal you."
Hermione stared into those bottomless black eyes, and slowly nodded her hopelessly tangled, bushy-haired head; she believed him.
He'd only stated the simple truth. She needed healing. He was going to heal her; and as carefully and painlessly as possible, or so it seemed.
She relaxed within his arms, blinked several times to fight back more tears (of relief this time), and softly said, "Thank you . . . sir."
Severus carefully laid her down on the prepared surgical bed and moved away from her to recheck all of his implements one more time. He definitely didn't want to be in mid-debridement on the girl, and then suddenly realize that he needed an unavailable tool.
"You're most welcome, Miss Granger," he softly said to the girl staring at his wide back, almost under his breath.
Turning away from the wounded girl, Severus had briefly allowed a quickly hidden smile to curl up the corners of his lips.
It seemed that Miss Granger must still trust him, at least on some unconscious level.
He could build on that.
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Gristle poured warm water from the kettle she held over her master's hands; thick pus, and bloody, nearly black, slivers of burnt human tissue sloughed off of his sticky red hands as he briskly rubbed them under the clear water.
What ran off his bloody hands into the empty copper collection basin was almost the exact same colour and consistency of his correction ink.
The dark Potions Master was all quiet, precise, concentration. Even an exploding cauldron wouldn't have swayed or disturbed him right now, as he efficiently worked on his witch.
Severus' attention next turned to magickally cleansing the wide exposed patch of bare, bloody, pulsing muscle of her sliced open thigh. He filled the gaping wound with his own version of Muscle Regrowing unguent; packing it full to capacity with the healant.
It never ceased to amaze him; the intricate workings of the human body.
It was a fascinatingly complex machine.
As he watched closely, Severus saw the little fibers of the severed and missing musculature begin renewing, regrowing; all of the barely injured edges knitting quickly, covering, twisting, to join-up with the more slowly repairing of what had formerly been deeply amputated middle muscle tissue.
He poured a healthy dollop of Skin Repairing Solution over a wide patch of gauze lint and covered the wound with it, bandaging it tightly down.
There were many other bleeding wounds left to be treated; some were merely scratches, some were rather deep and were now beginning to become infected themselves.
Severus didn't pause to congratulate himself on what would eventually be proven to be a superior healing of her burnt thigh; he didn't have the time to spare.
There were still her injured ribs to be re-broken and properly set; as well as a bruised lung left to be healed. The Potions Master-cum-healer had less than two hours left before the dose of Dreamless Sleep wore off of the girl.
He renewed his efforts and bent back to his painstakingly minute work.
Severus Snape was determined that, if it were at all possible, his young witch wouldn't bear even a single scar.
END OF CHAPTER 15
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A/A/N: Well, well. Severus certainly had his work "cut out" for him, didn't he? snickers
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