Hermione drifted to wakefulness, gasping at the continued pain in her gut. The warming spell had dissipated and the effects of Professor Snape's potion had worn off.

Professor Snape

Hermione sat straight up, a wave of dizziness washing over her. Her eyelids fluttered but she willed herself to arise. Snape was expecting her return to make up her work and she had never missed a class. She wasn't about to start now.

Throwing back the sheets, Hermione cleansed the bed and staggered to the loo. Her sickly complexion was a shock, and her hair was flattened and mashed against her sweaty cheeks. She turned the taps and stepped into the shower, reveling in the warmth of the water against her sticky skin. The ablutions helped waken her but the pain persisted and Hermione was becoming concerned. Her monthlies had never been this bad before. Perhaps she should pay Madam Pomfrey a visit after seeing Professor Snape tonight after all.

She exited the shower and toweled off, then wrapped her hair in the damp terrycloth and activated a conditioning spell in attempts to tame her wild curls. She attended to the necessary feminine needs before slipping into a comfortable pair of knickers, opting to forego a bra. Too tired to bother with formality, Hermione selected a pair of leggings, slides, and a loose sweatshirt for the excursion to the dungeons, allowing for the chilly damp that always seemed to pervade that area of the castle, no matter the season.

Removing the towel, she fluffed her curls, gratified to see that they were behaving at the moment. Then she exited her chamber and made her way through the Gryffindor common room and toward the stairs. Her gut clenched and she knew she'd probably have to sleep in multiple layers of protection tonight to keep from bleeding through her pajamas, but that, she decided, was a worry for a later time. Right now, she had to get to the Potions room before Snape decided she wasn't coming.

The trip seemed interminable, and Hermione was struggling. The hallways seemed to grow in length and her vision shimmered on the edges. The dungeons were just ahead, she knew, but she also knew she'd never make it without a bit of rest. She sank down gratefully on a damp stone bench that appeared from the wall, silently thanking the castle for the accommodation. Just a few minutes' rest. Then she'd be on her way. Just a few…

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Snape looked up from the stack of first year essays he was marking. Utter tripe. Some days he loathed his job. And this evening, he was particularly distracted, though why he wouldn't admit.

Before he could dwell on the reason for his unease further, Snape felt a prickle along the back of his neck. Someone had triggered the wards that alerted him of anyone approaching the dungeons. He waited, expecting Miss Granger to enter presently, as she would be the most logical option. But, though he watched, the door remained closed, and the wards continued to alert with a constant thrum rather than a wave to indicate a change in proximity.

Placing his quill in the cup on his desk, he rose and crossed quickly to the door, throwing it open without preamble. No one was there. The wards continued to hum. Snape removed his wand from his robe pocket and held it up.

"Lumos." The light flickered to life and he entered the dank hall, moving the wand left and right to illuminate his path, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Until he rounded the corner to the halls leading to the stairway.

There, on a stone bench he was fairly certain hadn't been there earlier in the day, lay crumpled a witch with very familiar curly hair. Snape was by her side in less than a second, casting the light over her person. Where she had been pasty and pale this morning in his class, she was now flushed and dripping with sweat. Her eyes moved rapidly behind her closed lids and her breathing was shallow and rapid. The heat radiating from her body was evident from where he stood.

"Miss Granger?" There was no response to his hushed address. He tried again, a bit louder.

"Miss Granger?!" Not even a twitch.

"Hermione? Can you hear me?" That was met with eyes opening the slightest fraction, before flying wide when she saw who was addressing her. Snape watched with a sick feeling in his stomach as she frantically tried to raise herself into a sitting position. Tears had started to well in her eyes and she was speaking so fast that it bordered on babbling.

"So sorry. Must have dozed off. Was coming to make up. So sorry, Sir. I didn't…" she trailed off as he held up a long-fingered hand.

"Miss Granger. You did not 'doze off'. You were unconscious. You are clearly very ill, young lady. What were you thinking, trying to come make up work in this condition. I specifically said that you were to do so only of you were up to it." Snape was horrified to see the welling tears begin to fall in earnest and hurried to add,

"Clearly, you are unwell. You should be in the hospital wing. Come, let me help you." He offered her the hand that had silenced her earlier ramblings. The one she slipped into his was radiant with heat. That fact had no sooner attracted his attention than she slumped again. Snape moved quickly, bending to put his left shoulder under her right arm and scooping his right arm under her knees. Against his chest, scalding tears soaked his white shirt through and a constant murmur of apology and entreaty poured from her parched lips as he strode through the halls towards the hospital wing, black robes flapping out behind him.

The infirmary was deserted, not even Poppy was about. Placing Hermione's feverish form on the cot closest to his lab, he touched his wand to his throat, summoning the medwitch. She appeared almost immediately, her thin dressing gown clinging to her damp skin. Snape felt himself flush slightly.

"Apologies, Madam Pomfrey, but we seem to have…" he was cut off abruptly as she caught sight of the cot's occupant.

"Merlin! Severus, what has happened?!"

"She was ill this morning, complained of cramps. I gave her a pain-relieving potion and sent her back to bed. I just found her in the dungeon hall, burning with fever."

"What on Earth was she doing in the dungeons this time of night?" Poppy was flitting about, removing Hermione's clothing and flicking a hospital gown in place. Severus caught a glimpse of pale flesh tipped with pink and averted his eyes.

"One can only assume she was trying to return to class to make up the work she missed this morning. The wards alerted me to her presence, else she might have been there all night."

Poppy nodded, flicking her wand over the slight form on the cot, now thankfully completely covered by gown and sheet.

"She's definitely menstruating, but that's not what caused… oh, dear."

"What? What do you see?"

"It's her appendix. It's ruptured. She's septic, Severus. Get me a healing potion, quickly." He turned to retrieve the requested vial from his lab as Poppy added, "And a fever-reducing potion as well. This child is burning UP!"

As he gathered the necessary draughts, collecting extra in case they were required, Snape heard Poppy delivering the grim news to both Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Dumbledore by way of the floo network. As he returned to Hermione's bedside with vials clinking in his hands, he was joined by both, Minerva practically running out of the floo as she cinched the belt of her robe and Albus in his striped nightshirt and cap.

All night, Severus and Poppy took turns administering potion after potion, Madam Pomfrey even suspending a bottle of replenishing potion and infusing it through a thin tube directly into a vein in Miss Granger's arm, something she had seen on a Muggle medical drama called an "IV".

Dawn found Severus in a wingback chair by Hermione's cot, and Poppy asleep in an adjacent alcove she often used when she had patients. A soft whimper roused him from his doze. Hermione was restless again and her flushed cheeks signaled that her fever had returned. Severus reached for a vial of fever reducer and moved to perch on the side of the cot, not seeing the need to wake the medwitch. It had been a very long night, and he was inwardly glad it was Saturday. No more sleep than he had achieved, and as worried as he was about the young witch beside him, it would have taken very little to goad him into doing something dire. Severus slipped a slim hand under Hermione's feverish head, taking care not to snag his fingers in her wild mane of curls. Her skin burned his palm as he cradled her and she moaned at the sound of his voice.

"Miss Granger? I have a potion for you. Are you able to drink?" No response. He tried again, thinking back to what had garnered a response the previous evening.

"Hermione? Hermione, please wake up and drink this. Please?" She jolted in his grasp but she cracked her eyes open at least. This time, they didn't fly wide in horror and Severus couldn't explain why the absence of such response pleased him, but please him it did.

"Professor?" Her voice was raspy.

"Yes, Miss Granger. One and the same. Will you drink your potion, please? Your fever is quite high."

She nodded almost imperceptibly and attempted to sit up but failed. She was simply too weak. Briefly, Severus wondered if she might not be better suited to a stay at St Mungo's but decided that was a decision for Madam Pomfrey, and not he. Easing the hand from behind her head lower, he supported her slim shoulders enough to raise her head to allow her to quaff the proffered medication without strangling on it. Then, casting a quick Aguamenti, he held her while she gulped gratefully at the water. When she finished, he sent cup and vial away to the lab with a quick flick of his hand, and gently lowered her slight form back to the cot.

She was staring at him through fever-glazed eyes. Severus couldn't help but to feel disconcerted by her scrutiny.

"Something amiss, Miss Granger?"

"You called me by my name." Her voice was a bare whisper.

"I call you Miss Granger daily, silly girl. Why should today be any different?"

"You called me Hermione." And she was asleep before he could respond.

Snape sat back, mulling over the fact that he had, in fact, called her by her Christian name, twice in as many days. No sooner had that thought gelled in his mind than he sensed a slight movement out of the corner of his left eye. His head snapped, hand reaching for his wand.

Remus Lupin stood there, leaning against a column in his usual baggy attire, with a knowing smile on his face.

Snape felt his irritation spark.

"Well, mongrel, what brings you here? Is it Wolfsbane time already?"

Lupin shook his head. "That's tomorrow."

"Came to remind me, then? I'm not apt to forget, you know. I'm not like some of your other associates."

Lupin was still smiling that irritating smile. "I know you aren't."

"Then what?" Snape felt his irritation growing.

"I came to check on Hermione. Seems you had quite the eventful evening."

"Yes, the silly girl was more ill than she realized and then tried to attend make up work and collapsed in my hall."

"Make up work?" Remus' eyebrows shot up. "Since when do you allow make up work?"

"Since I walked into my sixth-year class to find a perspiring witch doubled over in pain at her desk, that's when. She was in no shape for lessons."

"When are you going to admit it, Severus?"

"Admit what, Remus?"

"You don't hate her as badly as you let on. In fact, I think if you let yourself acknowledge it, you might actually care for her."

Snape scoffed softly. "Care for her? Lupin, she's a student. She's the most insufferable chit I have ever taught. She knows everything. It's my job to teach her."

That infuriating grin grew wider. "It's your job to teach her, to be sure. But how quickly you forget, my friend."

"I am not your friend." Remus waved a dismissive hand at the remark.

"Regardless. You once threw yourself between she and I when I changed during the full moon. You saved her life, in all probability. You allow her far more latitude than you either realize or admit. You allowed her to make up work when we both know that nothing of the sort has ever been allowed in your classes. You dosed her with a potion for pain that I know for a fact takes a month of brewing, and you carried her here instead of apparating."

"Apparating is forbidden inside the castle." Severus even had to admit the retort sounded weak. "And she's a child."

"Severus. She's 18 years old. She's been of age for a year. There's a war coming, you know this. You deserve to be happy, more than most. Hang the rules. They won't matter much longer anyway."

"They are still rules, however, and you are completely off the mark."

"Am I?" Lupin raised an eyebrow.

"Of course you are!"

"Even if all you're blathering on about is true, it's conjecture. What concrete evidence can you offer to support the implication that I hold Miss Granger in any different regard than I do any other insufferable swot that has ever walked these halls?"

Lupin tapped a finger against his chin for a beat before answering.

"Maybe the fact that you're still sitting on her cot and haven't let go of her hand since I got here?"

And with a cheeky grin, he turned and left the hospital wing.