Snippets
Chapter Eighteen
According to Harry, Hermione spends the better part of the next several days following her first treatment with Healer Greengrass sleeping in the guest room at 12 Grimmauld Place.
February bleeds into March by the time that she finally brings herself to roll out of bed and stumble down the stairs into Harry and Ginny's parlor, where she is greeted by two small humans– her nephews, James and Albus.
"Mum! Dad! Aunt 'Mione is awake!" Albus shouts, standing from his place on the floor and tentatively approaching his aunt and wrapping his arms around Hermione's waist. "I'm glad that you're okay, Aunt 'Mione."
Hermione smiles and wraps an arm around Albus in return, leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of his head. Despite not having children of her own, she has always considered Harry's (and now Ron's, too) children to be a bit hers, too. She's been a part of James, Albus, Priya and Lily's lives since the moment they were born, and she is the godmother to all of them, so she is grateful that she gets to be such an active part of each of their lives.
"Hermione, honey, you should be resting," Padma admonishes as she enters the room. It occurs to her that Padma is neither of the people whom Albus had called, but it doesn't surprise her that the Healer in the room had jumped into action before anyone else could.
Padma rushes to Hermione's side and wraps an arm around her waist when Albus releases her, helping to support her weight as she helps Hermione into the sitting room where Harry, Ginny and Ron are gathered.
"It's good to see you up and around, 'Mi," Harry smiles, standing from his chair and coming over, seemingly to assist Padma in getting Hermione into an open wingback chair beside Ginny. "How are you feeling?"
Hermione settles into her chair, breathing a sigh of relief when she is no longer standing.
"Exhausted– like I got hit by a bombarda. What happened?"
Hermione vaguely remembers waking up in a room in St. Mungo's after her treatment with Healer Greengrass, as well as being half-carried through the floo to Harry and Ginny's by Harry and Ron. She remembers Ginny coming into her room and tucking her in and then she thinks that she remembers Mrs. Weasley having come by to stay with her for a while and bringing soup along with her. Otherwise, though, Hermione has nearly no memories of the past few days. She isn't even exactly sure how long it has been since her treatment.
"You had your first treatment with Healer Greengrass about a week ago," Ginny explains, reaching across the gap between her chair and Hermione's to squeeze her friend's hand. "The treatment caused some sort of distress for you, so Healer Greengrass placed you in a magically induced coma for two days at Mungo's. You woke up naturally but she still wanted to monitor you, so she kept you for another couple of days. She discharged you four days ago, but you still weren't lucid enough to go home, so we brought you here."
Hermione nods in understanding. Her first instinct is to apologize for imposing on her friends, but she knows that Ginny would shut her down immediately if she tried. This is what family does for each other, she would say.
"Did Healer Greengrass say anything about the treatment? Did it work?" Hermione asks, although she has a sinking feeling in her gut that tells her that it didn't.
"She wouldn't tell us much," Ron pipes in, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. "She said that because we're not family, that she couldn't disclose many details."
Padma places her hand on her husband's knee comfortingly before she speaks next.
"It's hospital policy, Ron. She really couldn't tell us," Padma explains, although Hermione can tell by the tone of her voice that it frustrated her too.
"Yeah, well, the information that we do know mostly came from Malfoy, so how was he not breaking hospital policy by telling us what was going on?" Ron asks his wife, looking at her pointedly.
Hermione is mildly shocked that Ron just spoke so candidly about talking to Draco, but she decides it best not to mention it right now.
"Healer Malfoy was with Hermione during her appointment, but only as a support person. He's allowed to tell us only what he witnessed because he wasn't there as a Healer or in any official capacity," Padma clarifies, and though it sounds like a loophole to Hermione, she is grateful that her friends didn't have to wait for her to wake up in order to get any sort of information. This situation reminds Hermione that she should probably designate an emergency contact with St. Mungo's for in the event that this or something similar were to happen again.
"You talked to Draco?" Hermione asks, still wondering how exactly that had gone and how it had happened in the first place.
"He was with you in the room when we first got to Mungo's, and he came here twice to check in on you," Harry answers, shrugging his shoulders.
"What Harry means is that he came here twice, sat and watched you sleep for thirty minutes each time, and then left without a word. It was bizarre," Ginny states, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.
Hermione sighs and slumps back against her chair. Even just the short amount of talking and sitting up that she has done has already exhausted her, so she decides to relax back in her chair and close her eyes– just for a moment.
Hermione's eyes flutter open, likely hours later as it is now dark outside her window, and she realizes almost immediately that she is no longer in her chair in the sitting room, but back upstairs in the guest room. She assumes that Harry or Ron must've carried her upstairs, for which she will have to thank them later. She certainly feels better being horizontal than she had sitting in the chair earlier.
Hermione tries to remember details from her treatment or the days following, but her recollection is foggy. She remembers Healer Greengrass starting her treatment and remembers vague moments from the hospital and from her time at Harry and Ginny's, but she is forced to admit to herself that she genuinely doesn't remember much.
Hermione presses the heels of her hands to her eyes in frustration. It's bad enough that she already has to sift through her actual memories and her visions, but now she also has to reconcile with gaps in the memories that she does have.
Hermione sighs heavily and closes her eyes. The vision that comes to her this time is different than the ones she's used to. It's more like fragments of a vision– discordant pieces– rather than like a scene from a film.
In the first fragment, vision-Hermione seems to be shouting at or fighting with someone whom she cannot see. The tips of her hair are sparking with magic, which happens to real-Hermione sometimes when she gets extremely angry or upset. Real-Hermione can't see who vision-Hermione is fighting with, but she can see that the vision-version of herself is standing in her own living room in her current flat, so it could probably be anyone.
The next fragment is what appears to be the polar opposite of the previous. In this one, vision-Hermione has her back pinned to a wall– the wall leading toward the hallway in her flat, if real-Hermione is correct. Her back is against the wall and her legs are wound tightly around vision-Draco's hips, who is supporting her with his hands on her bottom. Vision-Hermione's shirt is missing, although real-Hermione thinks that she can see it piled on the floor beside them– and it looks like the same gray, floral-patterned t-shirt that vision-Hermione had been wearing in the previous fragment.
Real-Hermione can't help but wonder if the two fragments are somehow connected. It's not exactly implausible that vision-Hermione and vision-Draco had been fighting and that that fight had led… elsewhere.
Real-Hermione's vision swirls again and comes into focus on another fragment. This time, vision-Hermione is alone in her bed. She sits up, clutching her quilt to her clearly bare chest as she bites her thumbnail with a coy smile. Vision-Hermione smiles to herself and looks to her left, to the empty side of her bed, when her eyebrows scrunch together in confusion.
Vision-Hermione reaches over toward her left bedside table, where a folded piece of parchment lays. She picks it up and reads it, though real-Hermione can't see what it says. Vision-Hermione scoffs, crumples the parchment and tosses it across her room, falling back against her pillow with a huff.
When real-Hermione comes to after this vision– or visions– her first thought is that despite the seemingly chronological nature of these fragments, she still feels confused. In a bizarre twist of fate, the fragment which makes the most sense to real-Hermione is the one in which the vision-version of herself and the vision-version of Draco had looked within moments of tearing each other's clothes apart. At the very least, that fragment had tracked with the other visions that she has had up to this point.
Real-Hermione, however, decides that the dissection of these vision fragments can be tomorrow-Hermione's problem because she's far too tired now to analyze why her vision-self and vision-Draco might've been fighting or what the parchment on her bedside table might've said.
"How are we feeling today, Ms. Granger?" Healer Greengrass asks a few days later when Hermione has regained enough of her strength to floo to St. Mungo's.
Hermione shrugs her shoulders and frowns.
"I'm tired. I still don't fully understand what happened," Hermione responds, meeting Healer Greengrass' eye.
Healer Greengrass leans back against the counter on the opposite side of the exam room from where Hermione is sitting, and holds eye contact with Hermione as she begins to explain.
"The spell I used to pinpoint the areas of your brain which are affected by the visions triggered a vision. I stopped the spell and we waited for you to come to, but after a few minutes, your vitals started to decline. So, in an effort to relieve some of the pressure on your body, I placed you into a magically induced coma– it allowed your body to rest."
Healer Greengrass steps closer to Hermione with her hands clasped in front of her.
"This treatment is aggressive. But it is your decision whether we continue with it or not," Healer Greengrass states. "Have you noticed any changes in your visions since your treatment?"
"Not exactly," Hermione sighs. "The first vision I remember after waking up at Harry's was more like… pieces of a vision– or multiple visions, probably. They seemed connected, I think."
Healer Greengrass nods, reaching for her quill which is tucked behind her ear and her usual file from the counter behind her.
"Could you tell me about those visions?"
Hermione picks at a loose thread on her jumper as she tries to decide what to say. She still doesn't feel comfortable telling Healer Greengrass about visions including Draco, but she supposes that it would be okay to tell her everything else and just keep the who to herself.
"I was fighting with someone," Hermione begins, wrapping the loose thread around the tip of her finger. "Shouting, really. I was angry, but– but I looked hurt. I couldn't see who I was fighting with, but it looked personal."
Healer Greengrass scribbles out a line of notes on her parchment before nodding for Hermione to continue.
"After that, I saw myself with… someone. We were– my shirt was off," Hermione stammers, hoping that Healer Greengrass will catch the hint and let her off the hook. Healer Greengrass tips her head and Hermione breathes a sigh of relief. "It seemed almost like this piece of a vision was a direct follow-up to the first one– like maybe the fight led to… that."
Healer Greengrass smiles a half-smile and Hermione can't help the slightly uncomfortable laugh which bubbles up out of her chest.
"But then… The next piece that I saw was myself, alone in my bed. If I had to guess, it was the morning after. There was a note on my bedside table. It seemed… It seemed like a 'goodbye' note. Vision-me looked so deflated. So sad."
Healer Greengrass takes a few more notes before setting her quill and file down on the counter and turns fully toward Hermione.
"Do these events seem plausible to you?" Healer Greengrass wonders, tilting her head to the side to listen intently to Hermione's response.
"I… I don't know. The fight– maybe?" Hermione replies, shaking her head with a light laugh when she remembers to whom exactly she is referring. "I don't know. Probably. The sex? Unlikely. The skipping-out the morning after? That doesn't seem like him, but I– I guess I don't really know."
Healer Greengrass nods in understanding.
"So, this isn't someone that you have a history with?" she asks for clarification.
Hermione huffs a laugh again.
"That depends on what you mean by 'a history', I think."
Hi, friends! Happy Wednesday, again. Lol.
I apologize again for the late upload. Life is just super busy in this season for me, but I'm still here, I promise!
This is actually one of my least favorite chapters in this fic- not because of the writing or anything. I just think it's boring, lol. But it's also really important, so here we are, lol.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! As always, I'm eagerly awaiting your thoughts, theories and favorite parts of this chapter! (:
In other news, I have a new multi-chapter Dramione that I've finished and am planning to begin uploading soon, but I have a question for y'all! So, it's a multi-chapter Dramione, as I said. Is that going to be confusing to have the two Dramiones uploading simultaneously from me? Snippets will continue to be uploaded on Tuesdays (in theory) and the other, I was planning to upload on Fridays. Will that be confusing to y'all? Like, will it be hard to follow both? I can absolutely wait to upload the new fic until Snippets is finished, but that'll be a while yet, so I'm leaving the decision up to you.
I recently uploaded (*shameless plug*) two one/two-shot Fred/Hermione fics- if you haven't read them, go check them out! I really like them both, and yes, I'm wildly biased. :P - and I wasn't concerned with those being confusing because the main pairing is different, but now I don't know what to do with the new Dramione, lol.
The new Dramione is also super short by comparison to Snippets. It's only five chapters. But with my schedule of uploads, it'll be five weeks of two uploads from me, so please, let me know your opinion on whether it'll be difficult to keep up with two multi-chapters or not.
ANYWAY. As always, thank you so much for spending a bit of your time here with me this week. It truly means more to me than you could ever imagine. I truly appreciate you all so much. Your reviews literally make my day.
See you all again next week!