Chapter Four: Snape

The usual disclaimers apply.

A/N: I continue to be amazed at the wonderful responses to this story. Thank you all so much for the time you've taken to send reviews and criticisms. Again, an especially big thank you to the Snapetastic Rissa. She continues to offer sound advice and interesting ideas which, when thrown into the mix, serve to make this story much better than it would have been without her input. This chapter, in particular, owes a great deal to her!


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As far as days went, this one ranked up there as one of the worst ever – and that was saying a lot. He had, after all, been a Deatheater and a spy. Some of the things he had seen and done just didn't bear thinking about.

However, with the fall of Voldemort his life had finally established some type of normalcy and stability. After he had been released from Poppy Pomfrey's redoubtable care following the epic final battle, he had picked up the pieces of his life and carried on. He was still Potions Master at Hogwarts, obliging him to teach classes where stupid idiots who probably couldn't even brew a good cup of tea mixed potentially deadly ingredients together on a daily basis, to periodically create stock for Poppy's medicinal potions, and to take part in the meetings and duties a member of the faculty was expected to do. And during it all, he worked on finding a solution to Hermione's condition.

It was simplistic but it was his life, and he had come to enjoy the relative tranquility it brought him. The dark mark was long gone, burned away with the rest of his old skin when Voldemort had died. If he was still haunted by disturbing dreams, it was no less than he deserved. If certain people within the Wizarding world still whispered about his 'dubious loyalty to the cause', despite everything he had done to prove himself, there was nothing he could do about. He had been given a reprieve, a second chance, and though he didn't believe he had deserved it, he found himself being able to live with it without much bitterness.

Or rather he had.

He should have known that he wasn't destined for tranquility or even a reasonable facsimile of such. Men such as he didn't deserve it.

* * * * *

He knew it was going to be a bad day the minute Poppy sat down next to him for breakfast at the high table and began sending him covert, searching looks that she must have been stupid to think he wouldn't notice. He hadn't spent nearly twenty years as a spy for nothing. The hairs on the back of his neck were quick to hackle in annoyance as she casually loaded her teacup with far too many spoons of sugar and continued to play her irritating game of off-handed glances.

A meddlesome medi-witch and her gossip-fodder questions was not something he was up to this morning, or any morning for that matter. He had been up half the night, reading a book he had finally received on ancient curses and their cures, hoping to find anything remotely related to what Hermione had been hit with. He hadn't, of course, and his growing frustration with his lack of progress – combined with less than 2 hours of sleep – was leaving him stressed and agitated even more so than usual.

It had been 18 months since Voldemort had fallen – since she had fallen – and he was no closer to a solution now than he had been at the beginning of his search. Animula somnus, living sleep, sounded simple on paper but was an entirely undocumented type of curse. No references existed explaining its affects or duration, let alone a counter-curse to dispel it. He had only the medical records and his own observations to go on concerning Hermione's condition. Her body was alive, albeit barely, but for all intents it was as if her very soul had been separated from her body. Sucked out, destroyed, or locked away, he didn't know. A year and a half later and being not a step closer to a solution was wearing thin on his nerves.

So, when Poppy had smiled at him over her teacup and inquired oh-so-casually after 'Miss Granger's health', the snarl was already firmly affixed to his face.

"Madame?" he replied warningly.

The foolish woman continued undaunted. "How is Miss Granger doing? I hear you visit her every day." Poppy's words sent a hushed ripple down the entire length of the staff table, stopping all conversation dead. Every eye turned to fix on him, save for Albus', who was attempting to direct a piece of scrambled egg onto his toast. The Headmaster was aware, of course, of his ongoing effort in researching the curse, and probably already knew about his daily visits to St. Mungo's. The man knew everything.

"Why, Severus, I didn't realize you were visiting Hermione!" Minerva exclaimed, her head tilted to the side as if puzzled by this sudden bit of news.

Hooch, just a bit further down the table, was looking at him suspiciously. "Why would you be visiting her, then? It's not like she was one of your pets when she was here; you could barely tolerate the girl if I remember correctly."

There were several nods of murmured agreement from the other staff members.

"I imagine he's feeling guilty, isn't that right, Severus? After all, you're the reason she's in St. Mungo's." Severus wrenched away the arm Poppy had been leaning over to pat in a consolatory manner. Though her tone was sympathetic, each word from the nurse's mouth was like a blow to his midsection.

"I only wonder why you need to see her everyday," she continued blithely, then giggled most unbecomingly to a woman of her age. "Just what do you do in her room every evening anyway?"

Snape looked at her, appalled, and briefly at a loss for words, before snapping, "You know perfectly well I'm researching her condition in an attempt to find a cure."

"You've not had any luck though, I assume?" Minerva sniffed knowingly. "After all, poor Hermione's still locked up in that asylum."

Flitwick squeaked something along the lines of, 'That poor bright girl!' before returning his attention to a large stack of waffles.

"I would have thought you'd admit by now that there is no cure," Poppy added kindly, "I tried everything known to wizard to lift it and it cannot be done. It's not like you to waste your time on something so completely futile."

Poppy leaned closer and Severus found himself scooting backwards, his blood suddenly quite cold. "Tell me, Severus, is there another reason for your visits? I hope you're not going in an attempt to alleviate some of your guilt, that was all so long ago. Unless, perhaps, could you have actually developed a tendre for the girl?"

"Are you insane?" Snape hissed, before pushing away from the table and standing abruptly to glare at his gaping colleagues. "Unlike the rest of you, I do not believe that Hermione is irredeemably lost to us, and I am attempting to find a solution. If I find the need to visit her to assess her condition, then that is my prerogative and none of your damn business!"

With much scowling and swooping he exited the great hall through the staff door, Hooch's cackle following him out.

"He's calling her Hermione now, is he? Since when?"

He was furious. Poppy had just provided the entire staff with enough gossip to occupy them for the rest of term. Snarling at a few unlucky students, he continued on his way to the dungeons, trying to banish the memory of the curious looks on their faces and Hooch's parting comment about Hermione.

When he reached his quarters he grabbed the first book within reach, a muggle text he had managed to track down that discussed comas and coma patients in great detail. At the time he'd thought that learning a bit more about comas and their causes might give him a better insight into why Hermione still remained in one. However all the book had done was create more questions than it answered. He hadn't considered that her coma might have been caused by simple head trauma, as was so often the case in the muggle world, and the spell had simply reacted with it in some unforeseen way. Not the sole result of a spell after all, but possibly brain damage, even irreparable injury. At the time, the book's information had been more painful to consider than helpful.

Recalling his earlier misgivings about the book, he dropped it back on the table and set about completing preparations for his morning class. However the menial work of paper shuffling and equipment arranging was not helping to abate his irritation and lingering anger over the conversation at breakfast. What right had those nattering old hags to question him? For eighteen months they had not lifted a pinkie finger to help Hogwarts' brightest student in a decade, and suddenly he was a pedophile just for visiting her?

He didn't think one of them - with the possible exception of Minerva - had even laid eyes on the girl since her short stay in the school infirmary. It bothered him, though he was loathe to admit it, that even though he had proven himself time and again, they still felt they had the right to question him about his actions. They still didn't fully trust him. And they wondered why he despised them all.

Not once, in all his years as a Professor, had he ever stooped so low as to even look at a child under his care as anything other than that – a child. To imply that he – Snape – was perhaps visiting Hermione with less than the purest of intentions was unbelievable. He wanted to save the girl because the loss of her mind would be a blow to their world. That was the only reason.

If, perhaps, he had noticed the beginning of her seventh year that she had quite grown up over the summer, it didn't mean anything. He was a man after all, and despite what anyone else may think of him, he could appreciate beauty in its myriad forms whenever he saw it. That didn't mean he was a pervert.

His thoughts continued along this dark and moody path as he took stock of the ingredients to be used in that day's upcoming classes. Upon retrieving a bottle of powdered lace wings he was startled to see something other than his handwriting on the label. In a flash of memory he realized that it was one Hermione had prepared during her last detention with him. He recognized her precise script, the same that had covered every test and essay she'd turned in, and briefly wondered if he should change the potion for the third-years so as not to use them all up. Cursing himself for a fool, he ruthlessly banished the fleeting thought from his mind, snarling as he did so. He refused to be sentimental over a bottle of bug wings. He refused to be sentimental at all.

Five minutes into his first class, he had already made three students cry, much to his satisfaction. But when Bertie Bones, a barely competent third year Hufflepuff who made Neville Longbottom look like a potions genius, knocked Hermione's bottle of lace wings to the floor, shattering it, Snape had exploded.

The next 20 minutes were spent, rather spectacularly, ranting at Bertie and calling into question the genetic line that had managed to produce his sorry hide for the Wizarding world.

He had never been more relieved to see the backs of his students as he had been when the second class of the day finally ended. In his coat pocket rested the delicate bottle Bones had broken, the shattered glass and torn label made whole again by a snarl and a quick reparo. He ran his fingers over the paper and glass and stayed his hand from returning it to the storage room, telling himself unconvincingly that the smoked glass was really too pretty to be used as a receptacle for lace wings.

He took his time cleaning up the messes left behind, not the least bit sorry that lunch arrived and he was too busy to attend to it in the great hall. His morning had been horrendous enough, and knowing his colleagues as he did, his mere presence would invite more insipid questions about Hermione and his visits to her.

And that was another thing - Hooch had been right. Since when had he started calling her Hermione and not Miss Granger? He had taken on the familiar use of her name in his one-sided discussions with her during his evening visits months ago. The change had not been intentional, it had simply happened. She was no longer his student, which entitled him to call her by her given name if he so chose. Besides, he preferred Hermione to Miss Granger. Miss Granger had been the irritating little know-it-all he had detested. Hermione was the young woman who had saved his life. He didn't know why Hooch had found it important enough to remark on. There was no great significance to a name - none whatsoever – the others only proved their idiocy for making such a fuss about it. Perverse, clucking hens, the lot of them.

He stewed over this as he ate his rather tasteless mutton sandwich and by the last bite had decided there were plenty of things he needed to attend to in the dungeons that would keep him away from the great hall and the staff for the rest of the week.

The sixth-year students that afternoon were well on their way to brewing a stronger variant of the pepper-up potion, though not one of them had been able to answer the simplest questions or recite even three of the ingredients. Not one moron was ever brave enough to raise their hand, let alone answer when called on without stuttering or breaking into tears. His thoughts were replaced by a memory of Hermione, on the first day of class, unabashedly waving her arm in the air while he had drilled the Potter brat.

He hadn't been sure at the time to laugh or snap at the girl - and even though a harsh snarl had won in the end, he'd never seen that hand hesitate to rise again over the next seven years. He hadn't known until now how much he missed it. Dealing day in and day out with students who had less than half her intellect was frustrating. She had raised the bar so high the lucky nitwits he currently had the misfortune of teaching didn't even have to crick their necks to walk under it.

Yet for all that vitality and sparkling knowledge, she was lying in a bed in St. Mungo's, still alive but not living. He recalled how she had looked that first visit – her small frame laying so still, her hair short and spiky before he had magiked it back, completely changed from the student he'd known - and he felt something inside him twist.

Could Poppy, perhaps, be correct in her assumptions that he visited her for reasons other than his research? They had never been friends, let alone close colleagues, before all this. If he was somehow able to save her, would they be friends after the fact? He didn't think so. To her, if she ever awoke, the time passed would have been only a moment, perhaps no more than a long dream. Would she even care to know of his part in saving her? What could she possibly need in a friend like him? The thought was deflating and, curiously, saddening.

It was while he was contemplating Hermione and the remote possibility of any future relationship with her that it happened: a cauldron exploded in class so suddenly that he was caught unawares. Students were screaming and he himself tried not to show alarm as he caught the distinctive smell of dragon's blood mixed with moon dew and troll urine. Some dolt had inadvertently created a toxic gas, one that could burn the breather's lungs to ash if inhaled for any more than a few seconds.

"OUT!" he roared, covering his mouth and nose with the material of his sleeve as the stench grew. "Do not breathe in the fumes!"

It took him several valuable seconds to cast three sets of evanesco to banish the noxious fumes, and by the time he was done he could barely breathe. The entire class had emptied as per his instructions, probably out of fear of him more than the potion, except for one student. Dennis Creevey was in worse shape than he, slumped on the floor under the destroyed cauldron, his lips already turning blue as Snape gathered the boy into his arms and ran to the infirmary.

Snape barely managed to get them both to Poppy and gasp out liquefaciopulmo before collapsing in a heap at her feet.

When he awoke, hours later, Poppy was hovering over him. He groaned.

"Dennis?" he managed to croak out.

"He'll survive," Poppy replied. "Just. If you had cast evanesco one second later..." she trailed off, tutting at Snape. "I've been busy. Between the two of you, you've lost three lungs. What happened?"

Snape sighed, and ended up doubling over in pain as his lungs protested. "Some fool managed to get hold of troll urine and decided to add it to our potion today. When I find the idiot...."

"He's lying on the other side of the infirmary, feeling even worse than you do, I dare say." Albus stepped into Snape's small cubicle, smiling at him. "It seems young Mr. Creevey is the culprit. He obtained the urine from some street peddler on his last visit to Diagon Alley. It appears he was told just a couple of drops would magically make any potion perfect."

"Perfectly lethal," Snape hissed. "He's lucky he didn't kill us all!"

"He's lucky you were there to save him, you mean," Albus retorted, eyes twinkling. "Really Severus, rescuing students seems to have become a past time of yours."

Snape scowled and pressed a hand to his throbbing chest. "I don't know why I bother, ungrateful little brats. I should just let them kill me and put them out of their misery."

Poppy smiled at him fondly, before reaching forward and patting his hand, "We'd be much worse off, if you did that. Imagine what would have happened if you hadn't helped Harry? Why Voldemort..."

"Enough, Poppy," Snape said coldly, "Don't even mention that name in my presence. Merlin's balls, my chest is killing me."

"It'll be sore for a few days yet." Poppy assured him cheerfully, "You're growing back fresh pieces of lung you know. Now if only we could figure out some way to grow a new heart for you, to go with your new skin and lungs, you'd be a changed man!"

Albus chuckled at that, before leaning forward and patting him on the shoulder, "Now, Poppy," he admonished, "I kind of like Severus just the way he is. Now, I must be off – I've taken the liberty to cancel your potions classes for the rest of the week –"

"Damnit, Albus – I'm perfectly fine. I'll resume classes tomorrow."

"You will not." Poppy interjected firmly. "You'll be lucky if I even let you out of here by tomorrow. You will need a full week to recuperate, at the least! If you cooperate, you may return to your quarters tomorrow evening." She handed him a smoking cup of liquid. "Now, drink this. It will lessen the pain and help you sleep easier. That's what you need right now – lots of sleep."

Snape took the potion churlishly, sniffing suspiciously and scowling as the vile fluid finagled its way down his aching throat. "This is the vilest potion I've ever tasted woman!" he growled, even as he felt the tingling heat of restorative sleep slide over his skin.

Poppy shrugged, "If you don't like the taste, perhaps you should consider adding peppermint to it the next time you brew me a batch."

He was trying to think up a suitably sarcastic response to that as he slid into the arms of Shiva.

That night, as he lay in the infirmary regrowing pieces of lung, his mind relived the explosion in his classroom over and over. But it wasn't Dennis Creevey he had scooped up in his arms and rushed to the infirmary - it was Hermione. Only he couldn't save her. The dream always ended with her sparkling cinnamon eyes becoming dull and empty, her last breath rattling from her blue lips as she breathed his name: "Severus."

It was also the first time in over 18 months that he had failed to visit Hermione.

TBC


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A/N again:

liquefaciopulmo means dissolving lungs