Disclaimer: This is all for fun, I do not claim ownership of the characters or anything recognized from the work of JK Rowling. I am only borrowing them.
Warning: Mature themes, subject to change: mild violence, strong language, substance use or abuse, scenes of a sexual nature as well as general innuendo smattered throughout, adult themes including but not limited to death and disease both mental and physical.
[A/N] March 7th, 2017.
Hi. It's been a while, hasn't it? September 2016? I've been active on the site, but this story got a bit stuck. Frankly it still is to an extent. That said I would really appreciate any commentary around this chapter and what your opinions are on where I'm headed with the story. I'm not as focused on it as before since I am honestly focused more heavily on original work at the moment and have likely made huge plot errors along the way, and though it isn't fair I did get to a point with this chapter where I felt it needed more but I didn't want to touch it and potentially ruin it. Regardless, I love you all who follow this story and give it any of your attention. I still plan to finish this, but there isn't even an ETA. Thank you for sticking with me.
Playlist: Jar of Hearts (Christina Perri Cover) - Twenty One Pilots | Faded - Alan Walker | Light of the Seven - Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones)
Thursday, August 18th, 2005 | 6:33 am | 19 Aster Way, Surrey
Hermione wished she had a better excuse for how terrible she felt as she rolled into wakefulness: excessive drinking, staying up well into the morning hours, cage-fighting, or maybe all three. Bright sunlight creeped between the stitches of the quilt over her head. She warred with the desire for fresh, cold air in her lungs and the pull of warmth and solitude. Her lungs protested enough that she pulled the lip of the covers down below her nose, eyes screwed tightly shut in defiance.
This was easily the most she'd slept in ages, judging by the color of the sunlight streaming through the skylight, though she didn't feel rested at all. All the other possibilities of her distress aside, she felt a familiar, gnawing feeling scratching at her insides.
Guilt.
She hated feeling guilty. Hermione tried to do exactly what felt right every moment of her life, and though that didn't save her from tripping and falling flat on her face, she rarely felt such unrelenting guilt over her choices. That was the benefit of working with numbers and potions instead of people with her Healing designation; people had so many variables that couldn't been contained. Cold logic worked so much better, and made more sense.
Why couldn't she apply it to the only other person who was likely as logical as she was? Snape's love of logic was as apparent as the nose on his face. Nothing she tried could get the man and his acidic words out of her mind. Three days since their...was it a fight? A confrontation? She wasn't sure, but she could barely stand the raw feeling it left behind. And they'd disagreed, vehemently in fact, many times before so what made this argument any different?
Isolation had worked well for her the years following the diagnosis of Lautiores Maleficus. At least for the first few years. There were minimal symptoms that she couldn't handle without a bit of help from a potion or a homemade pot of chicken soup, courtesy of Molly Weasley or Harry, before his job made it nearly impossible to meet for dinner every other Sunday at that flat of hers in Ireland. Now, though she rebelled against the idea, Snape's suggestion that she needed more help was proving to be true. A dark taste grew on her tongue when she started to fold to agreeing with him and swore she would never admit it out loud.
The mattress dipped on her right, but she didn't open her eyes, waiting for the intruder upon her thoughts and in her home to speak. Her wards must have acted as the alarm bells waking her out of a deep sleep when he came through them, one of two people allowed to without invitation. She didn't need to wait long. Draco never was known for patience with people; and in many ways, that mutual lack of patience was what brought them together as friends at the University.
"You're a bitch, did you know?"
Hermione's eyes shot open as fast as her mouth. "Good fucking morning to you, too, Draco. How's the weather? Would you like me to make a rasher of bacon? Or would you prefer a swift kick in your-"
"But he overstepped," Draco cut in, staying at the end of the bed furthest from her balled up fists. He looked like a shadow against the muted neutral colors of her room, dressed head to toe in black robes that looked too fancy for brewing but not quite nice enough to wear to a formal dinner. The only conclusion she could make was that he had a meeting in the city, and she couldn't stop herself from wondering what it was about. "He overstepped and approached the subject in what was possibly the worst way. But you pushed him."
"What the hell are you-"
"I am not finished," he said through clenched teeth, standing and slowly pacing back and forth around her sparse bedroom furniture. "You are blatantly avoiding your own good advice and every effort both he and I have extended to keep you safe and healthy. We don't want to confine you, Hermione, especially not now that the press is focused on the bouncing Potter child and not the incident at Hogwarts. The fickle public has all but forgotten that, since you've done well at secluding yourself enough from the world that very few people care what happens to you anymore."
Hermione pulled her quilt over her head to trap all the warmth she could, and she had a considerable amount in her bright red cheeks, but if it was burning from anger or embarrassment, she didn't know.
"I want you to live closer to a normal life, like I have been, and my parents. They aren't the best example, scratch that entirely. But do you see where I'm going with this? You can't keep acting as though the slightest bit of positive human interaction outside of me, or Astoria, or that Dudley Dursley and his fiancee is going to make things worse. You used to have friends, Merlin so many friends that it only made me envy you more at school, you made it look so easy.
"You need to remember why the fuck you're trying to live in the first place. Something. I don't know if it's the treatment or the disease doing this. The treatment has already proven insufficient and detrimental to you, and the disease keeps deteriorating the connection between your body and your magical core, and since we don't understand yet if the curse blocks the connection or severs it entirely, we need to focus on figuring this out. Together."
Draco paused his pacing and monologuing to look at her for the first time since getting up off of her bed. She could feel him staring at her from above the quilt still tucked securely over her head. In a muffled voice, she grumbled, "Am I allowed to speak now?"
Draco ground his teeth for a moment before speaking in a forcibly calm voice, "Yes."
Hermione slipped out of the covers and walked over to look Draco in the eye, even if she were several inches shorter than he was, especially when he wore dress shoes. She folded her arms over her sleep shirt, the one with the holes on her right shoulder after so many washings, and planted her bare feet into the carpet for balance. Static electricity from covering her head crackled in her ears as it traveled through her hair and she hoped it added to the overall effect she was trying to give.
"You assume many things, Draco Malfoy. Presuming what I need to do, or say, or think, is...the wrong side of intolerable. I am not your girlfriend, your mother, or your sister, and even if I were I am a person with my own autonomy and am perfectly capable of making my own choices -"
"I wasn't suggesting-"
"Ah!" Hermione said, pulling one hand from her power stance to hold up in front of his face. "No interrupting, it's my turn."
"But you never ask for help! Don't you get that?" Draco dragged his hands down his face and ground his teeth again.
"Because I don't need it! Especially not from people who think they know the best for me." Hermione's lip quivered a bit but she stood resolutely and let the first words that came to her mind to fall out of her mouth. "You're just like Ronald, Draco Malfoy. You think you're taking care of me when you worry over me or give me the charity of your company-"
Draco blanched and she could tell she hit a nerve when he interrupted again. "Stop."
"-or did you feel guilty over the war all those years ago? Befriending me because it meant that what you'd done wasn't really all that bad? That my friendship would help boost your status in society?"
By now she'd taken two steps towards him, and Draco matched them with two steps backwards towards her bedroom door. His lips were thinner than McGonagall's on a bad day, and she'd never seen him resemble his father more than at this instant with his cold expression and solid stance. But still, she couldn't stop now that she'd started. A bubbling anger she didn't remember harboring was boiling to the surface like a powerful burst of steam from a locomotive.
"I will not stand to be your example, the reason you've changed to parade to the press and prove to yourself you're not as bad as everyone says you are. Well, that tattoo on your arm proves otherwise, doesn't it? We all make mistakes but you sure as fuck made a doozy, didn't you, Malfoy?" Her voice cracked on his name and she realized she was crying. She cried when she was angry and she hated that about herself.
The room was spinning. When did the room start spinning?
"The room isn't moving, Hermione."
Draco sounded very far away, but when she turned her head he was right there. Strange, that. Wasn't she yelling about something? He sounded concerned, but she was yelling at him and trying to make him go away, so the tones didn't match up in her head. It didn't make sense.
"And...furthermore," she said, her voice hard at the edges as her hands reached to grab onto her dresser. "You've a nasty habit of sneaking around my property and I will not have that…"
She fumbled for her wand to erase him from her wards, but before she could cast the first charm, she blacked out.
Thursday, August 18th, 2005 | 8:20 am | 19 Aster Way, Surrey
"Utterly dramatic," drawled a voice above her head. "How many times does her own body have to knock her out before she listens to it."
Hermione was awake, but she didn't remember falling asleep. She was in her own bed but her wards were being quite insistent that more people were on the property than normal. Opening her eyes still seemed too much a hassle to bother with, so she didn't.
A warm and familiar hand rested on her forehead. Weight on the mattress next to her made her hip slide to lean into someone else, presumably attached to the hand on her face.
"You both bollocksed it up so wretchedly I'm surprised she's not out for good."
Clare was here. Hermione tried to open her eyes, then, but even with effort found it was futile. If she were able to move her hands, she would have slammed them against the bed in frustration. Clare's hand moved away but the warm feeling lingered. "We're lucky this time she passed out of hypoglycemia but her magic knew enough to regulate that while she was unconscious. I'll make something. Don't give her anything until I come back."
"I rather thought I was the Healer in charge here."
Clare laughed and the sound filled Hermione's head pleasantly, a familiar feeling of warm sand growing in her mind. "I'm glad you think so highly of yourself, Snape."
Hermione focused on her breathing and riding the soft roll of sand beneath her. The Occlusion tactic to rock herself into quiescence was effective, and she felt her muscles relax slowly. She'd always enjoyed the beach, and memories from a trip to remote parts of the Sahara as part of their Healing training stuck with her so much the sand dunes around them became her Occlusion tactic.
Clare had unlocked something within her, she could feel that. As much as she was considered a Squib by the general society of wizarding Britain, Clare had a magic all her own. Something deeper and more potent than the kind that a person harnessed with a wand or incantation; something powerful and healing.
"Foolish witch," Snape muttered to her right. "Foolish, stubborn woman. You're blinded by your own intelligence."
She could do nothing of her own volition, but she could still feel the way he checked her arms and shoulders for any broken bones. If she'd fainted again, perhaps she'd fallen. His hands were gentler and much warmer than she'd imagined.
Her thoughts made a full stop so violently that she felt like she'd fallen again. When had she ever imagined his hands and the relative temperature of them? The soft movements stopped and were replaced by the smell of waking salts. As much as her consciousness was able to take in with this dream like state, there was no mistaking the wretched intrusion of those awful scents. A few hacking coughs scratched her already rough throat as she came to, arms trembling with the force of trying to stifle them.
"I'm going to help you sit up," Snape said, moving an arm behind her.
Once she was upright the coughing slowed and stopped. His arm rested beneath her shoulders to prop her up, and she realized she was resting most of her weight on him and couldn't do much about it just then.
"Are you able to breathe?"
Her throat screamed in pain when she tried to speak, dry and rough from yelling and coughing, so instead she nodded once.
What she wanted to do was ask a thousand questions, starting with why she was having such a hard time focusing her thoughts into more than fleeting ideas. The nausea and disorientation she'd felt before blacking out (again, she really had to stop doing that) were almost completely gone but the aftertaste of a potion meant to alleviate those symptoms told her why.
"You've got almost nothing for me to work with, Hermione," Clare said as she came back to the room. "I'm going to pop out for a second to get something to eat from the shop I saw driving in. Are you two going to be alright for a few while I do that?"
"It would be much faster if I Apparated somewhere for food, perhaps Malfoy Manor for something prepared by the elves."
Even as he spoke, Snape gently lowered Hermione back to the bed where the pillows were propped and waiting. His movements were slow until he'd completely settled her and he swept from the room before Clare could protest. The sliding door to the back porch whooshed open and shut and they didn't hear him Disapparate.
"Knight in shining armor off to get you something to eat," Clare said.
Hermione raised her eyebrows at her friend as she pulled a chair close to the bedside. Leaning forward so she could whisper, unable to keep her mouth shut after that comment, Hermione said, "Snape? A knight in shining armor?"
"Well, he isn't Lancelot or anything! But did you see the way he popped right up to go get you something to eat? The only man I've seen do that for anyone is Dudley rushing to get me my medication when I get a migraine."
"What are you implying-" Hermione started coughing before she could finish.
Clare lifted a glass of temperate water to her lips and helped Hermione sip it slowly. "I'm going to deliberately change the subject because as little as you understand about that situation, you're avoiding something. You can't talk much right now so I'm going to take advantage of my clear upper hand.
"I've known you for a few years now, Hermione. You've never, ever shied away from a challenge." Clare paused as she took the half empty glass and put it on the bedside table, scootching a bit closer to Hermione in the process, sitting next to her on the bed with her legs crossed. "Right now, though, you're picking the wrong challenges."
Instead of rushing over her with long explanations, or admonishments, Clare spoke softly and paused frequently when she spoke to give Hermione a chance to think and breathe. As Hermione fiddled with the hem of her shirt, Clare took her hands in hers.
"It's alright to be scared, you know, my beautiful Gryffindor."
The connection of their hands started that soothing warmth again and Hermione sunk further and further towards it, her magic following the vein of power. Hermione was so tired, so very tired of fighting everyone and everything around her. Clare was right; she was scared.
Another few sips of water down her throat with Clare's help and Hermione felt almost like she could speak again, so she tried to very quietly. "I don't know what to do anymore."
Clare tucked herself up to Hermione when the hands she held started to shake.
"I feel like I've tried everything and I still get worse. I want to help anyone else affected by this curse, this thrice-damned curse, but every step I take in any direction spins me around to land flat on my back at the start." The more she spoke, sipping water every few words, her voice grew stronger, and the words flowed freely.
"You've got Snape and Draco working with you, now. They said they've made progress?" Clare wrapped one of her arms behind Hermione's shoulders to hold her close.
"They've...they've done what they can for me, but I know what's happening. I can feel the way it's eating at my core, my magical core, I mean. Something is draining me away from the inside and the treatments only slow part of it down." Hermione paused to drink more water and kept her face turned away from Clare's. "I lose myself, sometimes. Like I've changed without my own consent."
Clare stayed quiet for a moment to let Hermione think, but said after a few minutes of silence, "Have you told them about any of this?"
Hermione shook her head. "I don't think I properly noticed until I started seeing more of Draco again. And now that I left the lake house? I couldn't put my finger on it until now. It's not the same as when we were at school, when we became friends, it's like he's a stranger but I'm starting to think that I'm the stranger."
Clare's thumb moved slowly back and forth over the back of Hermione's hand. A jumble of thoughts clouded Hermione's head that she couldn't arrange into a neat line, something she could manage much easier than the gnats they were imitating now. Now that she had a moment to think over the events of the past few weeks and how different she felt than even a month before that, she could see the little holes in her timeline. Hours she was missing here and there between sparse visits to Ginny and Harry to check on Albus's development, or her brief weekly visits to work to provide copies of her documentation and research, glared at her across the years since her diagnosis of Lautiores Malificus.
The disease was affecting her more than she'd ever wanted to admit to herself but she didn't know how to fix it. Not knowing the answer or even where to start looking for it, and with such high stakes in place, it all made her dizzy and simultaneously not want to leave her bed and rush to a lab as quick as she could.
The sliding door to Hermione's back porch whooshed open and shut followed quickly by the smell of cooked food. Clare kissed her on the forehead gently before leaving the room to help Snape arrange a breakfast for the small group in Little Whinging.