Warnings: Underage drinking
A/N6: Yes, the chapters will get steadily longer as the story progresses, just hang in there!
A/N7: In real life, I work on Saturdays. I will tempt to post after work, but it's more likely I will post on Sundays from here out.
A/N8: Reviews are truly loved!
Word Count: 778/?
Day Two
When she first saw Severus Snape (sitting next to Frog-Girl across the room from her in the daily group therapy session), Hermione was completely paralyzed. She knew intellectually that Healer Muttonhead was calling her name, but all she could do was sit in her seat, whispering "But you're dead" over and over to herself. She wanted to scream it at the thing wearing his face, to make it go away (because it couldn't be him, he was dead), but the words can only come out in a whisper. Barely, at that.
Then, Frog-Girl starting skipping around the room, and Healer Muttonhead had much more to deal with then her borderline catatonic state.
He was still there, however, even when the sisters came to shove more sedatives and other assorted potions down her throat. They didn't last as long as the first round, and she was quite lucid by the time individual therapy came around after lunch.
The second time, he's in her individual therapy, sitting behind the healer assigned to her case. And he's drinking absinthe.
The shimmering liquid in the cut crystal glass was a bright green, a colour that had meant nothing but death and pain and fear to the woman staring into its depths for too many years. Slowly, she dripped water from the decanter into the glass through a lump of glimmering white sugar resting atop a thin silver spoon, turning the absinthe in the glass the milky green of malachite and seemed to pulsate with light. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the glass to her lips, the taste bitter and comforting all at once. The alcohol no longer burned as it flowed down her throat, as it once used to, and she sparred a passing thought to mourn the last dregs of her childhood innocence slipping away with each sip of the anise infused liqueur.
"The only time I ever see you have a drink is after you come back from dealing with our fearless leader," Severus remarked, a dry smirk twisting his words as he glided across the room to the leather chair by the dying embers of the fire were Hermione was curled up. He moved with an effortless grace held by few, and that she envied as she watched him settle into a chair across from her.
"I know that I shouldn't, but," she shrugged, the motion an explanation in it of itself.
"Many have said that absinthe drives one to madness," Severus steepled his fingers, "perhaps the Headmaster should offer absinthe sherbets instead of lemon?"
"Maybe a little madness is what is needed," she retorted, "Anyway, you're the one who introduced me to the drink."
"A mistake I often regret," he sighed and fixed a glass of the drink for himself, "I have been informed of your plan."
"We need more intelligence if we're going to have any chance, and I'm in a prime position to gather it."
"You don't have to do this, Hermione,"
"You do worry for me, how sweet," she smiled at him, "Do you have so little faith in your own teaching abilities, Professor?"
"No one can prepare you for the Dark Lord's court."
"So you often say. You could show me."
"Hermione, you are not thinking clearly-"
"Why does everyone tell me this!" she fairly yelled, "I'm not some silly girl!"
"Then why do you insist on asking like one?"
"Because there is no other way to save everyone!" she was screaming at the man now, pulling on her own frizzy mess of hair in frustration as tears rolled down her face.
Healer Dingbat patiently waited out the flashback, scribbling on his Muggle pad of paper with an equally Muggle ball point pen. He didn't ask her about it, but insisted that she hold on to a ball filled with wisps of blue coloured smoke, lazily moving around in concentric circles. It looked like Neville's ever misplaced Rememberall.
(She would NOT think about Harry. Not now, not ever.)
"The smoke will start to change from blue to red if you begin to slip into another flashback," he said, tapping his wand agaist the glass. Obediently, the smoke changed from indigo, to purple, then finally to red, like watching a sunrise in fast forward. "When that happens, I want you to focus on the present."
"You think I'm never going to stop having them, that's why your giving me the globe version of a seizure dog?" she stated incredulously.
"Hermione, we have to take your healing one step at a time, be it forwards or back." Healer Dingbat smiled at her, and Hermione had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.