Sans Serpens

Chapter Three – For Your Own Good

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A/N: FFnet would not give me the space I require between paragraphs, so forgive the little 'o' I've used as a placeholder in the middle of them. Thank you.

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The hours passed in a disorienting blur for Hermione. A deluge of images flowed in and out of her consciousness, often too swiftly for her to make proper sense of them. It was maddening, really, and after the first frenetic hour ended, with no sign of slowing pace, she grew restless of it. Sluggishly her mind reentered the reality that was the Hospital Wing, and she welcomed the silence and utter stillness of the ward, only punctuated briefly by rustling and snoring from the bed adjacent. She rolled her eyes, resigning herself to being unavoidably awake, and tossed back her sheets. For a moment she just sat at the edge of the bed, confused by the potion's odd effects. I've succeeded in acquiring a headache in place of my memories, just brilliant. She slipped off the bed and advanced toward the infirmary's lavatory, but in her haste she knocked over an unused stack of bedpans. She hardly cared if she woke anyone, but out of habit she peered behind her to the only other occupied bed, which remained unchanged, it's occupant facing away from her. Hermione went onward, and immediately upon her entrance, small orbs of light brightened up the room. She was instantly assaulted with her own eyes squinting back at her from the room's full-length mirror. For some time she just stood there, reflecting on her predicament and examining what was visible of her scar above the hospital gown.

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A door unlocked within Hermione's earshot, and right away the panic began. Her vision started to darken, she felt like she could not breathe, and her heart beat in sync with her racing thoughts. Hermione felt nauseated by the sudden onslaught of her latent memories, brazenly forcing themselves back into her tangible awareness without regards to the discomfort they caused. A sudden feeling of terror engulfed her as the first memory pushed its way to the forefront of her mind. She faintly registered a pair of arms preventing her from falling and easing her to the floor. But she could see nothing, hear nothing outside of her little bedroom hundreds of miles away, in London.


She left her bathroom, to determine who had decided to invade her bedroom, and was met halfway by a imposing intruder, who could only be a witch, judging by the flowing robes barely concealing an hourglass figure and her outstretched wand. She could not discern the face, however, it was completely obscured-- "Granger, are you alright?" The witch spoke without introduction, as if she were starting in the middle of a conversation already in progress. "Miss Granger, it is imperative that you gather your belongings and come with me to safety," the voice echoed in her memory. "Who are you?" Hermione demanded, "that is irrelevant," the strange witch countered, "all that matters is that I get you away from here before they arrive and remove you. It would be for your own good to trust me, Hermione, and follow me to Hogwarts as soon as we can arrange-- "Can you hear me? Please? Can you--" "Why should I trust you? And who are 'they' and what do they want with me?" She could not help her curiosity getting the better of her. The witch huffed impatiently, and continued in a slightly lower voice as she cautiously edged closer to Hermione's window. "We haven't the time for questions, but I'll bet you have a firm hold on your instincts, haven't you, girl?" With a sweep of her wand she packed Hermione's trunk with just about all that would fit into it from each end of the room; Hermione looked affronted, but quickly settled into bewilderment as her own wand sailed across the room from the witch's hands to her own. "Now would I have given you that, had I the intent to harm you?" "Hermione, this really isn't funny, please, if you can hear me--"

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Hermione had difficulties concentrating on both voices at once, and even more difficulty making an impulsive decision based solely on instinct instead of logic. The witch wasted no time in banishing the trunk while Hermione thought out the problem. Should I leave with this stranger, possibly risking life and limb, or stay here to face a less predictable danger, most definitely risking life and limb? "Please, Hermione, wake up, you are at Hogwarts, not--" The arms that held her steady had vanished then, and taken her resolve with them.

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She felt cold shivers and soreness along her spine, and still she struggled to decide. Until the decision was made for her. A loud bang resonated from the floor below, followed by raucous laughter and more sounds that could only mean that her time for remaining idle had passed. The witch advanced on her, wand raised, and Hermione flinched. At the last moment, the witch dropped her guard, confused at such a reaction. "Come, Hermione, we must Apparate, and you have no choice but to trust me, lest you splinch yourself," the witch whispered. But her near-silent voice did nothing to deter the new intruders from making a steady circuit up the stairs to Hermione's unlocked room. Before either witch could react, the door was flung open and a curse was released. A curse not restricted by its lack of initial aim. It hunted its intended target ruthlessly, and just as it struck Hermione full force, the strange witch had sent another one of equal magnitude down the corridor to the same effect. Hermione could easily hear someone falling down the flight of stairs, and yet another continuing upwards. The witch swiftly encircled Hermione's waist with an arm and spun on the spot without warning. Hermione shut her eyes tight at the constricted feeling that such hasty Apparition had given her, and moments later, the two witches alighted in a cold, unfamiliar place.

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Hermione caught her breath leaning on one of the two brick walls that comprised the alleyway. She chanced a look around, but there was nothing distinctive about it, aside from the creaking signpost some distance down the alley, announcing the presence of a pie shop. Upon first glance, it appeared an abandoned venture. A few feet in the other direction was her trunk, and beyond that the strange witch had started pacing and muttering to herself rapidly in a language Hermione could not understand. "Who are you?" Hermione repeated, only this time it was more out of curiosity than anything else. The witch paused, hesitated as if deciding something, and beckoned Hermione forward. Instinctively, Hermione felt that she could trust this stranger; an odd revelation considering what had happened that evening. Instead of answering Hermione's question, the witch asked her own: "Do you trust me, Hermione?" She merely nodded, wondering if her thoughts were truly that transparent. The witch continued, "you shall need to be healed then, that is going to make one awful scar," she gestured towards the wound on Hermione's chest, and judging by the blood, she knew that the longer she waited, the weaker the young witch would become from blood loss. Hermione looked down in shock; it was funny how the adrenaline had prevented her from feeling any pain, up until that moment when it became real. "Episkey," she incanted on the wound, tracing its path with her wand. Hermione felt the wound stretch to close itself, but when she glanced down a second time, she was slightly disappointed. Magic had never failed her before, and she was subconsciously letting the witch's inadequacy irritate her. The witch must have sensed this shift in demeanor, however subtle, and she allowed for a small, apologetic smile to cross her face. "Forgive me," she twirled her wand nervously between her fingers, "I thought it would be more, er, beneficial than that." She set off at moderate speed, grabbed Hermione's trunk and remarked that Hermione should give her a hand. They exited the alleyway together, and rested the trunk on a wooden bench. She raised her wand hand, and to Hermione's amazement, the Knight Bus appeared, with the grace of a rabid Hippogriff.

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"One more thing, Hermione," she began, "for your own good, I urge you to listen." Before Hermione could register any movement from the shrouded witch, her wand was surreptitiously placed at Hermione's temple. "Obliviate," she cast, and for that small moment in her memory, Hermione was blissfully removed from all thought and emotion.

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"Take her to Hogwarts, if you please, sir, and you'll receive double if you make it your highest priority." He responded simply, "will do, ma'am," and she tossed a small leather purse to him. Hermione took a seat on the bus, and vaguely recalled someone on the street beside her, but when she turned to the window to confirm it, the street was empty.


"Hermione, can you hear me?" That voice again, Hermione noticed, so gentle, so reassuring, so..

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"Malfoy?!" she opened her eyes to find the source of her momentary comfort, only to wish instead that she had gouged them out. He quickly retracted the bandaged hand that previously held her own, and gaped at her as if she had just struck him. He shrank back, and his unusually unmanageable hair blocked any further reactions from being so apparent.

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"Your innate grasp of the obvious astounds me," he retorted, with less malice than he felt she deserved. Though she had brutally poisoned his ego, he had readied a bezoar for just such an occasion. Snape smirked from the doorway he was hovering over. Suddenly, she was outnumbered, and she realized that it was prudent to concede the battle for the advancement of the ongoing war between their intellects. "Come, now, Granger, you very well can't lie on the floor all morning." He offered an arm in a rare spot of chivalry, and she accepted it and quickly detached from him as soon as she could stand of her own volition.

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She returned in a daze to her bed, still haunted by the echo of the witch's voice from her recovered memories. Snape proffered her a goblet, and she swallowed the concoction without question or protest. He searchingly raised an eyebrow in her direction.

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"I figure, that if I can't trust you won't poison me after six years of opportunities wasted, then I must be mad," she answered. She could have sworn she heard him chuckle. Now I know that I'm mad, she thought, poison or not. He rested a breakfast tray beside her, which was by no means sparse; it held abundant portions of anything she could desire to eat. There were strips of bacon, crisped to her liking, a serving of eggs and several slices of buttered toast, some assorted fruit, and even orange juice, of all things. She didn't think it existed in the Wizarding World. Clearly, the house elves have outdone themselves, she thought. "I don't mean to be rude, Professor Snape, but--"

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"Too frequently rudeness is an inevitability, ah, but do excuse me, you were saying?" He asked, sarcasm only barely veiled in false curiosity. She was put off, and forced to rephrase, with a bit more tact this time.

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"This is really too much, I mean, the efforts the elves have taken are appreciated, but--" Again, Snape chose to interrupt. He raised a hand to halt the elf rights propaganda she was certain to spew, stood and retrieved his own tray before speaking.

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"Miss Granger," he said, exasperated, "had you researched correctly, you would understand that there are no elves present over the summer holidays. Only four have remained, and it would be folly to impinge on their vacation privileges, lest one has a death wish. Furthermore, if you doubt my culinary talents, I suggest you tuck in and leave your ideologies where they are better suited, in your head." He proceeded to follow his own advice, and began to apply some jam of unknown flavor to a piece of toast. Draco did his best to imitate his mentor's example, but only succeeded in his impaired dexterity to spill jam on his bedsheets.

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"You win," Draco lamented to his toast, "I surrender." Snape smirked, Hermione was torn between giggling and dropping her jaw in amazement. But what she ended up with was a highly undignified and ill-timed snort. Draco glared in her general direction, a glare that said were-I-capable-of-using-my-wand-I-would-hex-you, or something incredibly similar. Chastised, she returned to her meal, but after some minutes passed she decided it was better revenge to make a great showing of how delicious it was, knowing he could not manage his own breakfast. Snape quickly tired of her shamelessness, and of Draco's covert nasty looks, and took action.

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"For Merlin's sake, Draco, forget your manners; I daresay we can change the bandages after breakfast, and Miss Granger stop tormenting him." The rest of breakfast passed in relative silence, since each was quite starved and uninterested in distracting themselves from the food.

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"Is there anything you wish to discuss about what you have seen, now, Miss Granger, or would you prefer to speak once you have had time to contemplate it?" She thought it interesting that she was not given the option to completely avoid talking altogether. But she took the third option despite him.

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"I would prefer not to speak on it now, Professor," she exerted. And not ever, if I had anything to do with it, she added to herself. It was enough to relive it a second time. He nodded, and held a hand out for her tray. In the other, he passed her what she recognized as a Calming Draught, and she questioned him about it.

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"Regaining one's memories is seldom uncomplicated and often traumatic," he explained, and offered her the potion once more. She reluctantly grabbed it, though she internally debated if it was a necessity. Once she settled back into her pillows she could tell that there was more than a mere Calming Draught at work. He must've added a sleeping aid, she thought, some people never change. Hermione could feel a deep sense of peace come over her mind, and push all other somber thoughts aside. She could no longer keep her eyes open; the last image before she faded into oblivion, was the flush of embarrassment evident on Draco's face as his bandages were replaced. He should really keep his hair like that, it would look a lot less prissy if—she fell asleep, mid-thought.


Harry argued with Madame Pomfrey for quite nearly half an hour. Armed with nothing more than his Gryffindor persistence (which other houses mistake for stubbornness), he managed to come to a compromise with her; he would be permitted to remove Hermione from the Wing on the condition that he maintain her current state of health. That is, to prevent her from overexerting herself and see to it that she, in her grief, does not neglect her own needs, namely food and rest. After ten minutes of detailed instructions as to what he should do, in the event that the Hospital Wing could not be easily reached, he was ready to get Hermione and himself far away from there. However, an additional ten would pass before he was allowed to leave her office and collect Hermione.

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She was sitting up in bed when he entered, a book rested unopened in her lap, and instantly he could measure the extent of her distress. He sat in the same chair he had in the darkened hours of that morning. "Afternoon, Hermione. How are you feeling?" he asked with concern. She looked away from the wall she had been studying, and surveyed him closely for a moment.

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"Tired," came the short response. She yawned and stretched, as far as the stitches would let her, and leaned back into her pillows. "What brings you here?" she continued. She noticed that his clothes looked slept in, but from his eyes she could tell he had not rested, at least not adequately so. And yet he was fussing over her health, denying himself the same concern. She was grateful to have such a selfless friend, and she deeply hoped that he would not change too much with the hefty burden of his role in the war to contend with.

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Oddly, he waited until she had brought her thoughts back to the present, then he stood and answered her. "I'm worried about you, Hermione, which is why I can't let you sit up here and sulk. So I have been given permission to take you away, to somewhere that is far less depressing. Are you interested?" he asked. She perked up at once, clearly, even a day in the Wing had become unbearable for her, but he would not discover why until many months hence. He passed over a set of folded robes and she gestured for him to close the curtain around her bed.

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"I'll meet you in the hall in ten minutes, Harry," she enthused. Precisely ten minutes passed before she joined him outside the double doors of the Hospital Wing; Hermione was nothing, if not precise. It comforted him slightly that she still had her predictable habits, even when her mood was anything but. He led the way, and she fell into step beside him. "Where are we headed, Harry? This is the route to the dungeons, isn't it?" She could not help being reminded of Snape and his strange kindness, no she could not call it that, more like civility, towards her. It was especially odd for him to behave thus in the presence of Draco, she thought. When did I stop thinking of him as Malfoy? She asked herself as they walked by the familiar Potions classroom, only to her disappointment, she could not remember.

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"Because it is the dungeons," he confirmed, effectively rousing her from her derailed train of thought. Still more perplexing, Harry halted their journey directly facing a blank stone wall. He whispered something in Parseltongue and the stone gave way to an arch, not unlike the entrance to Diagon Alley, only more Gothic in style and height. He entered without hesitation, and she followed suit. His trunk and Hedwig's cage were positioned at the foot of a rather cozy-looking armchair. Cozy for a snake, she added, I can imagine Draco sitting there while presiding over his High Court of baboons. No, she hastily amended, Malfoy, not Draco. She had just enough time to admire the intricate carvings of twin black-scaled dragons upon the mantelpiece, which thankfully did not move as she studied them, but before she could further explore the Common Room, Harry grabbed her by the hand. Trailing his trunk and cage with his other hand, together they exited the more frequently used passage into the dormitory. Stealing a glance behind her, she committed to memory the portrait of a dark-haired man decked in emerald dress robes, crooning to a baby viper that had wrapped itself around his hand.

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They pressed onward, and reached their own tower after several flights of stairs, faster than they would have if the term was in progress and yet slow enough to give Hermione an easier time of things. The stairs had lost their incessant desire to change and subvert students from their intended destinations, at least while school was not in session.

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"Make yourself comfortable, and I'll get us some lunch," he said. She seated herself in the softest chair by the fireplace, and waited. Hedwig perched herself on the window ledge and pecked on the window to be let in, Harry diverted his step from the hearth and opened it for her. Hedwig nipped impatiently to be relieved of her scroll, the instant it was untied she took flight and alighted on Hermione's lap. She nudged her head under Hermione's hand, and her owl eyes widened. Hermione stroked Hedwig gently, unused to such attention from a creature that typically kept to herself, when not delivering post. "Oh!" Harry remembered, "did you ever get that letter I sent you, Hermione? I seem to only have a letter from Ron."

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She scanned her memory, but did not recall getting any message from Harry, not in several weeks. She told him that she had not received any owls since earlier that summer, when Ron wrote her to ask her to visit him at the Burrow. Hermione declined politely, on the spot inventing an exotic location that she and her parents were "vacationing" in, when in truth they hadn't traveled as a family for two summers. But Harry didn't need to hear all of that truth. Just the part that directly answered his question.

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"What did it say, Harry?" He sat in the chair opposite her, and passed her a sandwich from the plate Dobby had arranged for them. He proceeded to tell her what he saw the previous evening, the entire vision of what he remembered with special emphasis on the orb. When he concluded, he watched her expression fade from mild interest into one of dire contemplation. He knew that she would either burst into an epiphany after a few long minutes, or in the worst case, she would spend the next few days buried neck-deep in a steadily growing swarm of books. And then she would emerge, with a solution, or at least a potential one.

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"Perhaps they reference it in a history book somewhere?" he hoped aloud. She mentally compiled a list of which volumes were most likely to mention an orb, and unfortunately for the both of them, she came up with a less-than-useful handful. It was against all odds that there would be anything other than a small passage devoted to anything of the sort, as History was mainly centered on events as Wizards perceived them and not on the objects that influenced their outcome. Hermione had read all of their History of Magic texts cover to cover, and ended up with a relative understanding of all they had learned (or all that she had learned). Not a single mention of an orb, on occasion a crystal ball or two, but those were far too large to fit the description he had given her. She huffed in irritation; the library wouldn't open until the start of term, and she craved that unattainable knowledge so. It put her on edge, not to be able to distract herself with research as she had imagined she would when he first detailed the peculiar and dangerous orb-of-unknown-origin. Though not unknown for long, Hermione promised herself, not if I have any say in the matter. And I very well do.

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She inquired about Harry's scar. He was rubbing it, but out of habit instead of the pain. "I feel just fine," he informed her, "I'll feel more like myself when I wake, and I should think the same would apply to you." He said this by way of dismissal, and he took the stairs to his room two at a time. He flashed a last minute smile over his shoulder as he reached the top step, and then he disappeared from her line of sight. She smiled back to herself, and privately agreed with him. But she did not lose her resolve, she had been presented with a puzzle she fully intended to piece together.

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She was of the opinion that all things lost to history or memory deserved to be found. And see what benefits that gave me, letting curiosity reign over common sense. She then realized that this monumental event, along with her summer vacation, was beginning to turn her into a bitter young witch. She reveled in the liberty of it. For once, she lacked the inclination to care about others and what they thought of her. Hermione was finally free to do as she pleased, and Merlin save anyone that should attempt to take that away from her. It would most certainly take more than Merlin's blessing to resurrect the soul that begged for Hermione's trust the night before, particularly if Hermione was forced into another situation that robbed her of her ability to determine what was in her best interests. For your own good, my arse, grumbled Hermione into her pillow. She rested but could not sleep; she feared for her parents and for her own life. She feared for the future. And most of all, she feared that her life would only worsen in the weeks to come, and that she would be alone in her suffering.


A/N: More to come soon, Promise! And while you wait ever-so-patiently for the next installment, drop me a review and tell me what you like about it, or what you hate about it. Or give me advice. Whatever, so long as you review. It is greatly appreciated, and I will repay fellow authors in kind. Thanks again for reading, chapter four, "Shattered Glass & Broken Heart", coming soon to a computer screen near you.