A/N Thank you for the reviews/story alerts so far. I hope you will continue to stick with me. This story will become M rated eventually, but it is not the crux of this story at present. I prefer to let events unfold at their own pace (or my muse's) A warning that I should have maybe put in the first chapter is that there will be character death, although obviously not SS/HG. There will also be other adult themes too which I will expand upon in later A/N's. Thank you. Please be tolerant of any glaring errors, my beta/helper was rather busy this week and I wanted to get the next chapter up asap.
An Unexpected Gift
Chapter 2 – Coming To Terms
Madam Pomfrey cast the mobilicorpus spell and levitated Snape up to the hospital floor, Harry followed close behind. He had been in two minds as to whether he should find Hermione and Ron and tell them the news, but Poppy had insisted he go with her. He wondered if it had been for fear that Snape might regain full consciousness and what he might do. As it was, moments after life had been confirmed the medi-witch had quickly wrested Snape's wand from his fingers and put it in her apron pocket.
Madame Pomfrey paused for a moment at the entrance to the hospital wing. "Wait here Harry." She walked forwards and swung the doors open to her domain. "We need another bed!"
A harried looking junior medi witch ran to do her superior's bidding and managed to find a rickety old fold up from Madam Pomfrey's office. There was no place to put it, but the corridor. The hospital ward was already full to the brim and it would be some time before St Mungo's could start taking the more critical patients. The girl waved her wand over the bed and it unfolded, the springs protesting the abuse. The mattress looked lumpy and uncomfortable, but there was no time to be fussy.
Harry watched the proceedings. "Is there anything I can do to help?" He asked.
"Find some clean sheets and blankets." Poppy replied. "I am not sure how many house elves are still alive or if there are any able to respond to the request."
They both got their answer in a puff of smoke. Winky appeared, looking worse for wear. The little elf's blouse was grubby and bloodstained. Harry had noticed the house elves fighting alongside the teachers and pupils in the thick of the battle, Winky among their number. She looked up at Harry with her large brown eyes. "Mr Potter will be wanting these." She held out some sheets and blankets, meticulously folded. Only in the aftermath of war would the house elves worry about presentation. "Winky is thanking Mr Potter for what he did for Dobby." A fat tear rolled down her face. "Winky misses him very much."
"He died a Hero, Winky. I think you ought to know that." Harry leaned down and patted her shoulder.
The house elf smiled at Harry's words, clicked her fingers and the bed was made. She clicked her fingers again and was gone.
Harry pulled down the covers, Poppy lowered Snape onto the bed, began loosening the cravat around his neck, and unbuttoning his shirt. He looked at the angry red marks around Professor Snape's neck. They were no longer bleeding and seemed to have healed somewhat. Poppy stood back and passed her wand over his inert body, going from head to toe.
"Phoenix tears." She muttered to herself. "Seems to have removed the potency of the snake venom, but I sense some nerve damage, and severe blood loss." She paused for a moment. "Mr Potter, I would like to make further use of your offer to help. Go to the dungeons, see if there are any blood replenishing potions in the store cupboard and anything else helpful you might find would be a great service."
Harry nodded; he was going to need Hermione for this. No one else knew the supplies cupboard like she did, except for Snape and he wasn't going anywhere fast. About to leave, he looked up as Kingsley Shacklebolt entered the corridor in a swirl of coloured robes. He stopped by Harry and looked down at Snape lying on the bed.
"And you are certain he was dead?" Asked the older wizard.
Harry nodded. "He died; I saw the light go from his eyes. Snape was gone."
Kingsley seemed lost in thought for a moment before he continued his questioning. "I saw Miss Granger bring him in. What part did she play in all of this?"
"She retrieved his body from the shrieking shack and brought him back to the castle. As far as we knew he was still...what will happen to him?" Harry looked at Kingsley.
"Severus Snape was a servant of Voldemort, if he recovers he will be taken to Azkaban and await trial like all the other dark wizards." Kingsley shook his head sadly as he looked at Snape. "It is a sad thing when a wizard with so much power and potential turns bad."
"No, that's not true! He was Dumbledore's man through and through. He may have been a dark wizard, but he was still on our side."
Kingsley raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. "You have evidence to support this?"
"Everything you need to know is in the Pensieve in the headmaster's office." Harry supplied.
Harry made to move away from the bed, surprised as a strong grip clasped his sleeve. "My memories...mine." Snape croaked, barely above a whisper, his voice raw with pain.
Kingsley looked down at Snape. "I am sorry Severus, but they are ministry property now. They will be needed as evidence for Wizengamot in deciding your fate."
Severus opened his eyes, not seeing Harry. His gaze followed the sound of Kingsley's voice, fixing him with a venomous glare, before closing his eyes again. "So tired." He rasped.
Snape's hold on Harry's sleeve went limp. Harry looked down at him with compassion, an emotion he never thought to feel for Snape in a million years. His memories had been deeply personal and the idea that they would become ministry property would be an anathema to him. When he had shared his recollections with Harry he had been dying, never expecting to survive. Maybe he could persuade Kingsley to leave out some of the parts that involved Snape's regard for his mother, what good would that information do in deciding his fate?
Harry opened his mouth about to ask him about it, before he had a chance to speak, Kingsley interrupted him. "We have to have all the facts Harry if you want him kept out of Azkaban, even the ones that may not seem pertinent. I must retrieve them immediately."
His tone brooked no argument so Harry abandoned his train of thought and turned his mind to the mission at hand. "Kingsley, have you seen Hermione in your travels?" He asked hopefully.
Kingsley gave him a big grin, a welcome sight in the midst of so much sadness. "The last I saw of Miss Granger, she was headed to Gryffindor tower, hot on the heels of a disgruntled young man. Come; let us go together as its all on the same floor."
Hermione thumped her pillow, she couldn't sleep. She had tried. Ron was snoring gently at her side. She had always envied him his ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Some dreamless sleep potion would come in handy right now, but it was one thing she didn't have in her bag. Every time she had tried to close her eyes, she saw blood, lots of it and the faces of Fred, Snape, Remus and Tonks would float beneath her eyelids. She sat up in bed, still fully dressed, snatched her wand from the night stand and started to pace the room. Maybe a bath would help...if there was still one working. Feeling slightly claustrophobic in the darkened space, Hermione picked up her beaded bag and headed down the spiral staircase back to the Gryffindor common room. The door swung open and she instinctively pointed her wand at the newcomer.
"Hermione, it's only me."
She lowered her wand immediately.
"What is it Harry?"
"Feel in the mood for another surprise today?"
"Not sure I can take any more, but go ahead. It's not about Voldemort is it?" Hermione asked warily.
"Well...actually it's about someone we recently associated with him, but not him."
"Harry, just tell me!" She was in no mood for riddles.
"It's Snape. Snape is still alive."
Hermione started laughing and the noise sounded hysterical, even to her ears. "Have you been at the firewhiskey?"
Harry sighed. "I would give a vault full of galleons for a sip of Ogden's old right now, but it's true. When have you known me to joke about the important stuff?"
Hermione sat down heavily on the nearest chair, digesting the information. He was alive. Her sharp mind ran over the scenarios that could have brought it about and rejected them all. They had seen him die in the shrieking shack. She played the events over and over in her head again in case she had missed something. She thought she had seen Fawkes flying away on her way to attend to Snape, but had not been sure.
She shot up from her seat. That had to be it. "Fawkes! I thought I saw the bird when I went to retrieve Professor Snape, but I didn't know for certain. However, even Phoenix tears cannot raise the dead, something must have happened to him after he died." Hermione's brows knitted together in an effort to make better sense of it.
"Madam Pomfrey said something about Phoenix tears when she was examining him." Harry replied. "But I am here for another reason besides the news about Snape. I need your help. I was asked to go to the supplies cupboard to search for any useful potions that she could use for Snape and her other patients. He may be alive, but he is still in a bad way."
Hermione smiled at Harry affectionately. "Worried you won't be able to identify a blood replenishing potion from a love potion?"
"Something like that." Harry mumbled as she threaded her arm through his and they went on their quest.
"What would you do without me?" She grinned. "Talking of doing without, you haven't told me how you returned yet."
Harry paused for a moment. "Another time perhaps, but when I talked to Dumbledore, after I, you know...he told me I had a choice about whether I came back or not..." A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Hermione, what if Snape had his choice taken away?"
"What makes you think he did?"
"Come on, you saw his life, apart from his friendship with my mother, it looked like a living hell. Who would want to come back after that? I at least had something to come back for."
Hermione pondered Harry's words. "That is something only Snape knows, and if I know his taciturn nature, we could be waiting a long time for the answers."
An hour, several potions and healing balms later, Harry and Hermione made it back up to the hospital wing. The corridor was empty; Snape's bed no longer where Harry had left him. Poppy seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to her ward because no sooner had they arrived she was out of the doors and beckoning them in.
"You can stop staring; Severus is still alive Mr Potter." Poppy paused for a moment. "Sadly, Katie Clutterbug, a third year Ravenclaw is not. We had an opening for a bed or two in your absence."
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief for Snape, and sadness that more victims had been claimed by Voldemort's evil. When Snape had not been in the corridor like Harry said he was, she had felt a sick churning in her stomach that they had been too late, had taken too long. So many had died, but why she cared so much about Snape's fate she did not know.
Perhaps, it was because he had the tragic Byronic hero down pat without even trying. It had been strange to sift through his memories in the Pensieve, and to feel what he had felt. No wonder he was so grim, there had been no joy or light in his life since before she was born, not since his broken friendship with Harry's mother. Hermione didn't even try to begin to imagine the price he had paid, paying lip service to the man who had murdered the only person he had truly loved. If someone had done that to Ron, she would want to tear them to pieces. For God knows how many years, Snape had had to wear a mask of indifference to all that went on around him. Would the real man she had glimpsed in the Pensieve still even exist?
"I am sorry." Harry mumbled, not knowing really what to say as another name of a fallen one etched itself on his memory.
Poppy held her hand out to Hermione. "Did you find anything in the supplies cupboard?"Hermione opened her bag, drew out several blood replenishing potions and burn salves as well as various healing tonics and put them into the medi-witch's arms. "This should last us through the day at least." The medi-witch smiled gratefully.
"Some of them are a bit close to their use by date, but I can brew a few more healing potions myself if you have need of me?" Hermione offered.
Madam Pomfrey, ever the mother hen, looked at Hermione. There were deep smudges of fatigue around her eyes, like she had not slept in a really long while, but then who had with the worries they had all faced. Harry looked no better.
"Hmmm," She thought for a moment. "There is something you could do. Perhaps you could both attend to Professor Snape?" Poppy looked at the bottles and jars in her arms before placing a vial of the blood replenishing potion in Harry's hand before either could protest. " By the way, Lavender Brown was brought in while you were away. I've put her in my own bed. She is critical, poor girl. It's touch and go with her at the moment, so my hands are full."
"Will she become a..." Hermione asked. The last she had seen of Lavender she was being attacked by Fenrir Greyback. She had to know.
"Werewolf? Yes, in all likelihood."
Hermione spared a thought for her past rival. Of all the things she had wished for her when she had been with Ron, she would not wish that fate on anyone. Hermione turned her thoughts back to Snape. "What do we have to do?"
"Just dose him with the blood potion every couple of hours. Make sure he takes it. He has been...resistant...to treatment so far." Poppy's mouth twisted in disapproval.
"So, he is awake again?" Harry asked.
"Only brief flashes of consciousness." She replied. "Although, I had to cast a body binding spell as well as a silencing spell on him before he destroyed his voice beyond all repair. It's the last bed on the right."
Harry took Hermione's hand and they walked into the ward. He looked at his friend and smiled. "Imagine that! A Snape who can't answer back or even swoop."
"Or take away house points!"An exhausted giggle escaped Hermione's lips.
They walked over to privacy screens, which shielded Snape's bed from prying eyes. All mirth on her face died at she looked down at him. It was strange to see him out of his tightly buttoned teaching robes and in serviceable black cotton pyjamas, presumably from his own wardrobe. The blankets went up to his chest, but his neck was exposed. There would be scars, even when the healing was done. His face was paper white and if it was not for the slow rising and falling of his chest, she would think him still a corpse.
Noticing that there was only one uncomfortable wooden chair by the bed, Hermione got out her wand and transfigured it into an oversized armchair, easily big enough for the two of them. "Looks like we will be here for some time, we might as well be comfortable." Hermione looked at the potion in Harry's hand. "Well, do you want to give it to him or shall I?"
Harry thrust the bottle into her hands. "I have already died once today, I don't feel like doing it again." He sat down on the much improved chair.
Hermione sucked in a deep breath, walked over to Snape and gently touched his shoulder. His skin felt cool and she could feel his bones through the thin material. He did not wake up, so she shook him a little. Eyelids snapped open, glaring at her with intense dislike. Even though he could not voice the words, she knew he was not particularly thrilled to see her. His eyes flicked to Harry, widening in surprise and then they drifted back to her again. So Harry was alive. It seemed that more than one person had returned from the dead today.
"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked him.
He rolled his eyes.
"Um, yeah, I forgot you can't speak right now." She blushed. "I have to give you this blood replenishing potion on Madam Pomfrey's orders."
Did she have to talk to him like he was a simple child?He got enough of that from Albus. His resentment at being still alive, intensified.
Snape struggled against the binding spell holding him to the bed, but with great effort and force he managed to turn his head away. Hermione frowned and put her free hand on her hip. "Severus Snape, are you going to take this potion or am I going to have to force you?"
He carried on staring at the privacy screens. Insolent little witch, how dare she use his given name? Maybe, if he pretended they were not here they would get bored and go away.
Hermione waited for a couple of moments before she marched over to the other side of the bed, her temper rising. She and her friends had faced off Voldemort and his followers today, she would be damned if she was going to let one cranky wizard with a death wish intimidate her. All previous pity she had felt for him was quickly dissolving. Hermione uncorked the potion bottle and pinched his large nose, cutting off the air. His mouth popped open and she poured a dose past the thinned lips, their eyes locking in a duel of wills as she dared him to spit it back out.
Severus looked at the determined witch with intense rage. The thought of spitting it out was quickly replaced with a sense of resignation. If it meant she would leave him alone then he would drink it. He slowly swallowed the bitter potion, it slid down his throat like razor blades, causing him to gasp, but he started to feel its effects almost immediately. He hated her self-satisfied smile as he complied with her will. It seemed his ordeal was not over as she removed a jar of ointment from her bag.
"This is a preparation of my own. I treated Ron with it after he managed to get himself splinched once while apparating. It contains essence of dittany, just in case you are worried that I am trying to poison you in some way."
Snape's lip curled, giving her a look that spoke volumes. Why was he not surprised it was Weasley. It was common knowledge the boy had failed his apparition test.
"Although, after forcing the blood replenishing potion down your throat it would be rather counterproductive of me to finish you off." She continued.
Hermione thought for a moment that she had seen a slight curve to his lips, but quickly decided she must have imagined it as she scooped some ointment out of the glass jar and gently applied it to the tender skin of his throat.
The relief spread over his flesh like a warm blanket. The ache lessened somewhat as her fingers and the salve worked their magic. Perhaps, he had taught her something that had stuck in his potion lessons after all. She was about the only student he had seen any promise in, in his years of teaching, although he would rather suffer Nagini's bite again than admit it. Snape closed his eyes, suddenly tired of everything and everyone around him. He wished for death, but sleep was the next best thing.
Hermione studied him for a few minutes, before joining Harry on the chair. "Budge up Harry, you are hogging all the room, let's try and get some sleep before his next dose is due."
Hermione sat down and laid her head back against the cushions. Harry lay down, resting his head on her shoulder. It was not long before both of them were fast asleep. Madam Pomfrey poked her head around one of the screens, she looked first at her patient and then to Hermione and Harry. All were sleeping. She smiled with satisfaction before continuing her rounds.
TBC