Sors Vita- Chapter 5
Procrastination really helps fanfic writing. Don't want to study/work? Somehow still want to be productive? Write a fanfic!
Of course I can't do it without having so many readers! I thank all those who've reviewed and all those who've stuck with me and have kept reading this fanfic.
I know it's slow moving, it's getting boring but bare with me. If you don't get what you want in this chapter, well wait a little it'll be in the next few chapters for sure. Plot wise I mean, writing wise, I try my best but I can't satisfy everyone.
Disclaimer: Not JK Rowling, the whole Harry Potter universe belongs to her and I'm only borrowing it.
Hermione stared at the unconscious figure on the couch. She slowly removed the mask from the mans face to find the stern one of her former professor. She examined the wounds, all open and bleeding and placed around the man's body. She tried counting them but she quickly lost count considering the obvious shear violence the man had just endured. Seeing that she was thankful that the man was unconscious because in this state he looked completely unfazed by his wounds. Hermione's chain of thought was interrupted by an impatient voice from behind.
"Come on, get moving. Your husband needs you."
Hermione turned around and stared at Draco in confusion, 'Get moving?' she wondered how she would act if a husband she loved came home in such a state. Unable to connect with the idea of having a husband she considered the way she would treat someone she greatly cared for like a friend or a family member. Hermione thought of what she did when she saw Harry hurt during the war and immediately realized what Draco was talking about.
Hermione got up and started looking around the room for salves. She headed straight to the kitchen where she assumed she could find a medical first aid kit.
"Where do you think you're going? To cook a stew?"
Hermione froze, she knew that it was going to be very obvious that she knew nothing about what was supposedly her own home. She tried to think again of other places where a first aid kit or healing salves may be placed in this house. She turned around to look back at Severus, the bleeding had yet to stop and at this pace the damage would be far too large to heal with a simple healing draught.
Draco clicked his tongue in disapproval, "Tough day, Hermione?" He gets up and heads towards a small door hidden between shelves near the entrance of the potion's masters quarters. "We all have some of those," he continues to speak to his former classmate as he taps the door with his wand. The door swings over to reveal a flight of stairs heading down to a lower level.
It was obvious, where else would a potions master place his potions? In his laboratory. Where would the personal laboratory of the potions master be? Well considering he lived in the dungeons it had to lay under it. Hermione gave herself a subconscious kick for not realizing it sooner. She gave a look at the unconscious man on the couch and muttered a half-sincere apology.
"You should tell Severus to top up on the Pepper Up potion, winter is around the corner and no doubt will Madam Promfrey be asking for it but the kids will be needing it too." Hermione heard a shout coming from downstairs.
Within a couple of seconds Draco had reemerged from the downstairs laboratory with a couple of potions and salves. "You know I'm no good at potions, but I think these are the ones you usually use." Draco said as he handed a salve over to Hermione. He continued to move over to pour potion after potion down his former mentors throat.
Hermione stared down at the salve that she was just handed, it was a salve that she didn't recognize. She concluded that it was likely one of the potions masters own creations and despite her distrust in Malfoy's pick in potions she couldn't do much better in her current state of confusion. She slowly opened the salved and dabbed her finger in it. She applied the salve on the cuts on Severus's arm and she dabbed her finger in the salve again to apply it on the next arm.
Draco having finished administering all the potions moved on to assist his friend with her task. He started unbuttoning the older man's robes and heard a shriek beside him. Startled and afraid to wake the children in the same quarters he quickly silenced the woman by covering her mouth. "What's wrong with you today?" he snarled as he released his hands from the woman.
Hermione looked at Draco in shock. Seeing her former classmate and rival undress a former professor had startled her. Knowing that saying anymore would make it more suspicious she chooses to keep silent and returns to tending to the professor.
"Do you want to help him out of his clothes instead?" Draco turned to ask his friends wife. When the woman refused to look up at him he knew that something was off. "What is it? Did you fight again?" Draco asked as he pulled the professor's shirt off and started applying salve to the cuts on his chest. As he did so he watched as Hermione carefully rolled up the man's pants to tend to cuts on his legs, "It's not the divorce again is it?"
Hermione stopped, she turned to look at Draco in the eyes. What was with this divorce, first the kids, now Malfoy? Did the Severus in this world get fed up with his wife after a long marriage? Why was it that it seemed like the reality in this world seemed nothing like the world written in the diaries left by the other Hermione who belonged to this world. Hermione couldn't understand, it seemed strange that just the day before she was arguing with the Slytherin Head of House about student discipline and now she was his clueless wife and mother to his two children. Even something as absurd as magic could not explain the strange circumstances that she's found herself in.
As soon as Hermione turned to look at him, Draco knew he had crossed the line. "Sorry, forgot that we're not allowed to talk about 'that'." Draco applied some salve to the last cut on the mans chest and buttoned back up the shirt. "Plus, nothing to worry about. The way old Severus acted at the meeting today, I doubt you'll be going through that again anytime soon." Draco plopped himself down in to the armchair next to the couch, "So how's the quest for the third child going? I'm looking forward to being a godfather, you promised me this time Hermione. I swear if you make another Weasley godfather I'll tell my father about it. You know how Severus really wants to access the Malfoy greenhouses-"
An hour ticked by as Hermione listened to Draco Malfoy go on and on about how his last relationship had taken the wrong turn once his boyfriend became a Ron Weasley obsessed fanboy. As things continued Hermione started to feel slightly drowsy and that was when Draco noticed Severus stir.
"Hermione, you might want to go over. He's going to have a fit if he doesn't see you."
Hermione snarked, it was unlikely that Severus would look for her the second he wakes from his pain and drug induced slumber. She wondered if it would actually give the man a fright but in order to dispel any suspicions her guest might have she walked over to the side of the couch and kneeled down beside the man.
A second later the man suddenly sprang up, his eyes opened in an instant. "Draco! Where are you?" the man shouted. Severus Snape had awoken, he had remembered all the events of the meeting that he had just attended. He also did not miss the signal that he had received from Draco, a sign that he had used with other lower ranking spies from the order. Draco had signaled him the all clear sign, it signaled that everything was under control. He needed Draco for more information and more importantly what his purpose in the order is now that he has been reduced a mere lowly spy that was unable to gain any valuable information from the Dark Lord's inner circle. He wanted some reassurance that Draco had it all safe and under covers.
Draco was surprised that Severus would ask for him before his wife but he quickly came to his senses realizing that the man was probably in need of a report. "To report sir, today's meeting was of little purpose to the order. You-Know-Who was celebrating a successful destruction of a muggle village in Africa done by aspiring Death Eaters. He had invited you along to the celebration as you were due to deliver his skin replenishing potion." Draco looked down at his former classmate next to the couch, at first he thought the woman was upset about her husband's lack of concern for her but upon closer inspection he suspected the woman was giggling.
"Seriously, what's up with you two?" Draco questions. He stares at Severus in the face, "You asking me for a report before fussing over the wellbeing of your wife and children." He turned next to address Hermione who had started dusting off her knees after standing back up, "You. Why aren't you all over him like you usually are?"
Severus turned to look at the woman who had just stood up, to humor his friends son, "Hermione are you alright? The children?" At that Hermione realized that she had to play along with the farce and nodded her head to both questions as she extended her arm to check for a fever.
Draco shivered, "You're being so odd today. It almost seems as though you two never fell in love."
Hermione quickly retracted her arm when she heard that, it was clear that Draco had a very deep well of knowledge about her life and Severus's life in this timeline. If she wanted to know more it would be best to ask him without raising any suspicions. Hermione smiled at Draco in all knowing way and asked in false innocence, "How did we fall in love?" After saying that she turned over to Severus and inspected the mans wounds to see if they were fully healed.
Draco let out a laugh and continued to play along, "Well, you fell in love with the old geezer when you saw him with that doe patronous. You saw that and obviously thought, what a wonderful and intelligent man; one day I have to marry him and have children with him. So you seduced Severus and Severus thought, what a lovely, young, intelligent witch, she should bare my children. So the Wizard and Witch got married and lived happily ever after." Draco burst out laughing and hid his face behind his hands in embarrassment of the childish way he had just recounted the love story of Severus and Hermione Snape.
Severus took a glance at the laughing young man, "Draco, don't you have anywhere else to be? I'd like to be allowed to sleep in peace." Snape was obviously not a sociable man and being injured only made him less so. It already bothered him enough that he had to share his quarters with a family, a guest was only going to make this nightmare even worse.
"You can sleep fine in your rooms." Draco countered as he lifted his feet on to the coffee table in defiance of his work partner. "I'm not leaving; it's late; my father and mother has invited yet another lady to the manor in hopes that I'll take a liking to her. I'm not going back." Draco crossed his feet and lounged back in the armchair he was currently occupying.
"And where will you sleep? With my sons?" Severus raised his eyebrow at his former student, hoping his offer to let him sleep with the boys would be enough to make the young man return home.
Draco eyed the man on the couch carefully and said "The couch of course." Draco couldn't understand the fuss, he had stayed over at the Snape quarters more than once in the past year and the couple had always accepted him with open arms, it seemed odd that he would suddenly be so unwelcome.
Hermione looked at Draco in shock, the couch was supposed to be her spot for the night and her spot until this nightmare was over with. "I think this isn't a good time Draco. Severus really shouldn't move off the couch. Even if he did retire to his rooms, I don't think I should be in bed with him in his condition." Hermione started to ramble on with excuses to make her unwelcome guest leave as soon as possible.
Draco jumped out of his seat at Hermione's protest, there was no way would he be heading back to the Malfoy Manor that night and he would not take anymore of the strange attitude he received from the Snape's. "Severus can walk just fine, so he can definitely clear the couch and having you with him will make him all better in a jiffy so stop trying to kick me out of this house!" Draco yelled in a low voice as he stared at his former professor as a prompt for the man to get up and to hand the couch over to him.
Severus sighed as he recognized the signs of an upcoming temper tantrum by the young Malfoy, being older and more mature did not mean that he had suddenly outgrew his tantrums. Severus stood up and gave Malfoy a stern look, hoping his influence as a godfather will remind Draco to behave. Walking towards the young woman in the room he tapped her on the shoulder to turn her towards his rooms. Before opening the door to the room he turned his head slightly to see Draco making himself comfortable on the couch.
The door closed behind them and Hermione once again found herself in the cold, unfamiliar room of the Potion's master. She stood still near the door refusing to budge any further in to the room. She watched as her colleague walked towards the bed that lay in the center of the room and lowered himself down. Being in the room wouldn't have been so unpleasant if it looked as it did in the morning but the ways things were Hermione doubt she was going to get any sleep that night. "Maybe I should just go and sleep with the boys." Hermione suggested as she turned around and reached for the door knob.
"And make Mr Malfoy more suspicious about us Miss Granger? Anyways there are some things that we should discuss just in case we get stuck here for the long run." Severus Snape told the young woman who was guarding the door. He nudged closer to the side of the bed he found himself on in the morning and patted the empty spot beside himself to invite her up on to the bed.
Hermione stared at the door longingly and turned back around to sit on the bed that she had woken up on. She looked at the professor tiredly and asked, "What do you want to discuss?" She no longer had the energy to correct the professor and ask him to use her first name.
"Did you find anything while you were waiting?" Severus asked. While he may have been more concerned about gaining information from Draco, he did notice the book on dream potions that was lying on the coffee table. He greatly hoped that the famous Know-It-All had finally found something in a book that was actually of some practical use. If there was a solution to their problem the next part of his conversation would no longer be needed because things would be back to normal.
"Nothing, dream potions are an unlikely cause of something with such alternate extremes. Now what should we do," Hermione asked as she stared straight at the former headmaster without avoiding his over bearing glare. It wasn't going to be easy finding a solution for their predicament and expecting one to be found so quickly wasn't realistic.
"Well then we can always see if sleeping for longer periods of time will break this curse, or else we can just wait for this to wear off when we don't even know if it will." Severus snarled back, the girl obviously wasn't trying hard enough to find a solution for the problem and there was no way was he going to be stuck here for an extended period of time. He looked around the room and then at the clock on the bedside table. Despite his best efforts the possibility of being stuck in this timeline has become a clearer reality and it worried Severus.
Severus looked at his colleague once again, "Get comfortable, it's not like you have anywhere else to sleep." When the girl stared at him in disbelief, "Just for tonight, if this continues any longer we'll find separate sleeping solutions." The girl continued to refuse to make herself comfortable on the bed, "It's not like I'm going to want to touch a child like you." With that Hermione returned another glare at him and lifted her legs on to the bed to lie down.
Once the witch had settled in to the bed the man continued to speak. He went over some basic protocol in case they had to keep up the rouse of a family. Considering the reaction in the Great hall that evening Severus had gathered that the two were supposedly quite close and the couple may not have been adverse to public displays of affection. This leads to a certain need to draw boundaries, Severus had preferred that the two to limit any physical contact as he did not like to be touched and he certainly did not want to be touched by a woman who was acting as his wife. However the choice was no longer in his hands and the two decided that while unlikely to be necessary they could share a chaste kiss in public if it helped dispel any rumors about the two. To avoid even the slightest of physical contact Severus drew up a magical barrier to separate the bed for the night.
On the other hand Hermione was more worried about the greater task at hand, the division of workload. If the research was not well divided it would be almost impossible to escape this nightmare. It was decided that they would divide the work by the possible scenarios, Hermione was to do further research on dream magic or hallucinations while Severus would do further magic on travel between parallel dimensions. With the work divided the pair of professors finally turned of the lights and fell asleep.
My writing style was all over the place. I apologize. I will try harder next time, it was difficult trying to get back to writing this chapter after leaving it aside because I was too stressed about school.
Even if I didn't enjoy my writing, I hope some of you enjoyed the story. Please leave a review if you enjoyed it as it's encouraging and if you have anything you want me to improve please tell me and I'll definitely work on it. I'm not one to be put down easily so if you just didn't like it do tell me as it gives me the motivation to improve.