All Wounds Heal In Time

A/N: Well I just wanted to say thank you guys for the lovely reviews and take my time out now to personally thank you all before getting back to the next chapter. So here we go…


Only fooling! I really am very grateful for all the fantastic reviews and I promise I will leave some individual replies at the end of this day, but I can’t waste the time now when these chapters are churning out of my head like a steam train, so there is a full new chapter right here right now and it's my favourite so far. lots of fun to write!

The truth us I actually finished this chapter last night before eventually going to bed at a late hour, I could have had it up then but I have cruelly kept it to myself in order to get a sort-of beta read and thumbs up from the ol’ man when he got back from work. That being done it gives me great pleasure to bring you all this chapter I’m rather pleased with, I hope the others come by just as fast.

Can I just selfishly add a reminder that this is my first ever fic and I don’t have an official beta, so please be gentle with my silly mistakes =) Thank you everyone for reading! All your awesome revies relly do help me write faster! *grins* ~ Love, Marie.


~~An Interlude~~

The blackness swirled around her, she felt as if she were underwater or weightless, turning in a dark sea of nothing. She held her arms out at her sides and they swayed and moved as if in a dream. She twisted and turned, trying to look around her, but there was nothing to be seen. The darkness seemed to rise to meet her and she saw it was a vast black floor, her feet slowing sinking onto the smooth surface. She could hear her breathing and nothing else.

“How nice to see you again, Miss Granger.”

The deep voice echoed around her, ringing in her ears and at the tip of every nerve. She felt goosebumps rise on her arms as her hair stood on end, a thrill of fear or excitement ran through her. She turned to see him standing a few yards away, dressed in his black robes once more, even taller than she remembered. She tried to speak, but her mind seemed blank.

“You, of course, have had the opportunity to see me often in the last week or so, but I have been unable to express my-” he paused a moment, “appreciation, before now.” His voice was a drawl, the sarcasm dripping, she was instantly reminded of the reasons they had despised him.

He stepped forward then suddenly, striding a pace or two towards her, bearing down on her. He really was tall and she had to tilt her head to look at him, which was unusual for her since she wasn’t a petite sort of girl. She could almost feel her knees knocking together, she felt so afraid. His face was harsh.

“I assume the Dark Lord has been beaten?” he asked then, his voice harsh and urgent.

Realisation dawned on her face as she understood just how much had changed in the last half a decade, and again she tried to speak but the words did not form.

“Come on, girl, Voldemort! What happened to him?”

She looked into his now mean face, twisted into a scowl, and then suddenly remembered the tenseness of the great hall as Voldemort had faced his last moments against Harry, and like a flood around them the darkness shifted and twisted into light, forming into the very scene she had pictured. It was like they had returned to the hall that night, the tables at the sides, the bodies of the victims lined along the floor. And in the centre, her best friend and his evil, snake-like foe.

Snape stood next to her, as close as he had been in the dark but he was now twisted to watch the scene which lay in front of them, his face a slight frown of concentration as he took in as many details as possible. The words of the facing wizards floated across towards them, she saw her professor tilt his head to listen.

Like the cut of a knife, the morning sun streaked down through the windows into the room, both Snape and Hermione flung up their arms to shield their eyes from the dazzling light. The two duelling wizards cast, and Hermione could clearly see Voldemort’s curse rebounding and kitting himself, as she had done the morning it had actually happened. The man beside her stood as frozen as the memories of the others around them were too, before the crowd erupted into cheers, and the scene melted away like a chalk drawing in the rain, the colours and sounds lingering briefly like shadows.

Hermione studied the man before her, once again the only thing besides her in the dark empty expanse. One hand covered his mouth as he dragged it down his face.

“He’s gone, then,” he said, and then he turned again to face her. “Potter, he lived?”

She nodded.

“Other’s didn’t,” she added, and he responded with a similar nod.

“So I saw.” He began to pace then, striding only two or three steps before turning and pacing back again. Hermione just stood still, unsure of what was happening.

“And that room,” he continued, she noticed his face crease into a deeper scowl. “I’ve been in that room all this time? Five years?”

His clipped questions and striding reminded her of being in the dungeon classroom, but she found she could give no answers, merely nodding her head up and down like a fool. He stopped pacing and glared at her.

“Why is it you here?” he suddenly demanded, stepping nearer. “Any why did you not try to act sooner? Was I unworthy enough to be left wasting for five years?”

He was close to her face, his anger showed on his own. Her own rage flared inside her.

“Don’t try that,” she warned him, her voice raising too. “I didn’t want you trapped there, I demanded answers too!”

As her loud voice echoed around them, the darkness shifted again, shadows of her conversations with Kingsley, with Dumbledore, floated around them, the voices mixing and clashing together into a babble of sound. He stood straighter and glanced around taking in the details of the memories as they began to weave faster around them. Hermione could hear details amongst them too.

“If you could see it… if you could see that room…”

At the sparking of her memory the twisting shadows faded away to be replaced suddenly and wholly by the white room. She stood in the spot she had stood for hours the second day, waving spells at him. The roomed seemed to bend away at odd angles and was much dirtier and darker. The body on the bed looked older and more sallow, the bed seemed further away. Next to her, the standing Snape buckled slightly.

“No.” His commanding voice rang out in the room, and he swept his arm across in one gesture of dismissal. As he did so the room melted away as the sunlit hall had done. They were alone again in the black space.

“Very well, Miss Granger.” His voice was calmer suddenly, and less sarcastic. His head was slightly drooped, his hair hanging over his face. He glanced back up at her.

“I am aware of your attempts to free me from that prison,” he continued. “I only wish I remembered with more clarity the precise lengths you had gone to. It is an obvious conclusion that you have had no success as yet?”

With the reminder of her failure, the light changed once again, but this time she felt as if she was hurling at breathtaking speed between her destinations. Vivid memories of her studies and research from the last week flew past them, her hair was whipping around her as were his robes. Scenes of the library, the room, the shadow of herself flitting to and fro like a humming bird as hours sped by in seconds.

She could hear her heartbeat in her head and realised that it echoed around outside her body too, the flying images accompanied by a steady boom like a drum as the muscle pulsed in her chest. The images got faster, even more frantic, she thought she could hear her internal voices heckling her again, were they in her head or outside also? Could he hear them?

I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave him there, I’ve got to go back.

She pushed her hand to her face, trying to move her hair as it flew in the wind, into her eyes. She looked across at the man standing with her in the centre of the chaos, his hair too was flying round his face, but she thought she saw the hint of a sneering smile, his eyes looking at her from the side. She shook her head.

“No, no!” she called, and with the stomach dropping feeling of falling in a lift, they suddenly were back on the smooth dark surface.

One of his hands ran through his hair, moving it from his own face, and she saw his infuriatingly smug look. His hair was greasy and shorter as it had been when he had taught her. He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, well, never mind Miss Granger.” He turned his body towards her then, lacing his hands together. “You can’t have the right answer *all* the time.”

She immediately self-denied that she could have ever found him attractive. His face was grotesque to her now. She felt an intense desire to give it a slap.

To her horror, her hand flew out of it’s own bidding, she was sure, and her palm rang across his cheek in a stinging blow. The sharp sound reverberated around them in a long moment of silence. Her shocked eyes stared at his own as they narrowed into a glare.

“I’ll let that one slide, Miss Granger, since we find ourselves in a situation where there is not the time to *think* before you *act*,” he stressed the last word strangely. “But if you ever feel the desire to strike me rise again, as I’m sure will be case, I suggest that you take a moment to *reconsider*.”

As he said the last word he leaned forward, so near to her that she leant backwards slightly to escape the closeness of his face. She felt fear flood through her again, and then scolded herself, her back straightening again as he slowly retreated. She did give a curt nod, however.

“I understand you might be feeling certain pressures,” his voice continued to drawl, taking on the tone of his profession as he projected it out into the wide open space, pacing away from her now. “But you need not worry yourself any longer, for I have the answer.”

She was the one glaring at him now, hating the smug and knowing tone of his voice, and hating even more that he knew the answer she did not, as she had known he would. He turned to face her again, his face twisted into a sneer. He said,

“Yes,” the sharp ess echoing. “It doesn’t surprise me you would miss an answer so-” a tiny but meaningful pause, “obvious.”

Her temper rose again, if he had been standing near her she would have pummelled him this time. Perhaps that’s why he moved away, she thought wryly.

“Hardly,” his voice rang out. Another smug smirk.

She felt something inside her snap.

“What is this?” she called loudly, loving the feel of her anger reverberating in her repeating voice. “Where are we? How the hell can we be talking like this? You’re laid up in that room,” she reminded him and herself, and although it didn’t appear, she felt the presence of the room hovering around them like a mist. She kept it away. She saw him twitch.

“We are currently in your mind, as I believe you are beginning to notice,” he told her. “You have some control as to what happens. But as you can see, it is very difficult to hide anything from me here, so I suggest to try to illustrate some self-control.” The amused look on his face was obscene to her.

But she knew again that he was right. Infuriatingly always right. She tried to keep her mind blank. At least she could ask questions.

“This is my mind?” she asked, hoping her simple wording would somehow convey the true question she was asking.

“Yes, we are currently both very much inside your head. It is lucky for us that the answer to my predicament is so simple, I know for certain that it is located here in your memories somewhere. Otherwise my conveying the answer to you might have been a more difficult endeavour.

“I do not currently have the strength – in my real situation – to fully enjoy the irony of this lecture, so I have come to meet you here in a space I have the power to manipulate almost as much as you have, Miss Granger. You’re skills at occulemcy are atrocious.”

She set her jaw at his bluntness. He quirked an eyebrow and continued.

“I must say, your bleak and empty imagination is a wonder.” He looked around at the large, dark space that surrounded them. “There are no – adornments. It’s the most sparce and organised I’ve seen. Very…practical.” His tone was cutting, she felt as if she were shrinking.

Her eyes narrowed. She allowed herself to think some very vivid insults, and hoped that he heard them. The smirk on his face told her he had done.

“I see I must be the one in order to progress things in terms of my bodily situation.” He sneered. “I don’t wish to be trapped in that bed for another five years.”

Memories flashed into her mind and as they did they flew into sharp focus around them both. His eyes flying open, and staring into her own, his hand gripping her wrist.

“You grabbed me,” she said somewhat unnecessarily. “You can move.” The grating voice she had heard echoed around them. “You said my name!”

She stepped forward. “Why have you been lying in that bed for all that time with no contact when you could talk? When you could have contacted somebody? You weren’t ever in a coma,” she said with bitter bluntness, a match for his own. The scowl that creased her face was just as harsh as his.

“How did you get into that hospital in the first place?” Her questions kept rising out of her. “Why did you choose to stay there?”

“There is little time for your questions now, Granger. I’m certain opportunities will arise later for discussions on the time which has past, but for now I need you to try and concentrate.” His voice was infuriatingly patronising. “I have not stayed in that room by choice. I am trapped there and need a specific object in order to escape. An object you can bring to me.”

She was going to interrupt, to press for answers, demand for them if necessary. But he was moving across the space towards her, filling her vision, taking the moment for his own. He stood only inches away from her, his hand clasped firmly but not tightly round her upper arm.

“Now,” he said with a little menace, leaning his face down very near to hers. “Think of me.”

She stared into the dark pools for a moment, and was then spinning again through blackness. She couldn’t see him in front of her anymore, she could not make out anything around her, only the feeling of her body as it twisted at speed through nothing. It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and she saw the darkness around her receding somehow, revealing large dark shapes surrounding her as it did.

As she focused on them, she realised it was the library at Hogwarts, warm and familiar, settling into reality as she watched. She saw herself then, just in front of her. She was looking through the gap in the shelves, and her other self was in the corridor beyond, browsing a book.

She saw him approaching down the alley of books, coming up behind her so she did not notice his presence at first. He looked like he had stepped out of the photograph. He moved right up to her and stood flush against her back, she could not deny his presence now, yet she did not seem shocked at the contact. As Hermione watched the shadow of Snape in the corridor beyond reach out to touch her copy, she suddenly realised with a sinking horror what it was she was watching.

Her dream from the night before! As his hands reached nearer and nearer, she willed herself away from the moment, try to focus on something else. But she was fascinated by the scene in front of her, and a stronger force seemed to hold her there like a magnet, watching herself and him.

One of his hands reached up to caress her cheek and jaw from behind, and she felt the feeling now in the present, hot and intense, as if his hand was on her cheek right now. The other hand snaked around her front, reaching up to her neckline. Her chest was heaving, both hidden behind the shelf and on the copy in front of her. His hand touched her neck, her collarbone, moving down ever so slightly more. As with the one on her face, the watching Hermione felt the heat on her body also.

“A good heart,” the Snape before her muttered, and behind the bookshelf Hermione buried her head in her hands, realising with mortification what was coming next. Even though she covered her eyes, she could still see the scene clearly in front of her, still heard his rough voice echoing.

“Would you like me to kiss it better?”

The head of her former teacher lowered, leaning down to plant a kiss firmly on the skin of her chest, just left of the bone under which her heart lay. She thought she would feel the touch of his kiss again and her embarrassment was the worst she had ever felt. She wanted to die, she actually wanted to die.

Just before his lips touched her skin, however, the scene froze and began to fade away. The feeling of his hands remained, however, and the blow of his breath tickled her ear when he spoke into it, right behind her.

“An interesting interlude,” he said, and she spun round so she was facing him, looking up into his face. She wasn’t afraid, she hadn’t been startled at his appearance or closeness, but she tried hard to keep her mind blank, not wanting to reveal what she really thought to find him so close, the warmth of his now absent hand lingering on her face.

“However , it won’t help us at this moment. I told you to think, girl. Think!”

At the command she once again she felt as if she were falling, and all around her scenes flew by with his dark face at the centre of each of them. She was in the hospital again, flying through it, and then suddenly she was in a dim and dusty room, leaning down over Harry, who was crouched beside the flailing body of the professor. She held out a glass jar while blood spurted and poured out of his neck and over the floor, a vivid red. His eyes were wide, he struggled to speak, his wand pulled at the sliver strand hanging from his temple. It was real. It looked real.

Hermione looked up and saw him standing in front of her, looking down on himself bleeding on the floor of the shrieking shack. She saw the horror on his face, the wince, his hands stuck out, palms forward, and he moved them erratically from side to side as if to erase the image before him. He looked directly at her.

“No, further back, Further back!”

Suddenly they were at Hogwarts and she stood with him in the classroom. He nodded at her then, and said, “Yes, your classes. You always did have such a sickening expression of rapt attention. I’ve no doubt that you remember some of my teaching at least. So show me, Miss Granger. Show me what you can recall of my lessons, and you will find the answer in there somewhere.”

Hermione stood for a moment, just looking across at the man standing in front of her. She considered his look, his face. Importantly, his expression. Then she walked towards a bench at the back, occupying the seat which had been ‘hers’ for over seven years.

It took her a moment to distinctly recall the sharp smell of the dungeon, the voices of her peers, the feel of the echoing room. Once she did recall them, however, they returned in a rush, hours and hours of her rapt attention.

It was all flying past as a shocking pace, but not as fast as others had been. There was still enough time for her to see what exactly he was doing at any given moment. She watched him, moving about the room, gesturing at them from his desk, flitting about like a bird or a lizard. She was certain there must have been days when she had been off, when her attention had wandered, but it was not obvious watching the reel of memories play for them. A solitary Snape stood by the door, watching the scenes roll around him also, but she focused her attention on the professor of her memories, his appearance and characteristics altering as she flicked to memories from different years.

As the moments flashed before her eyes, she found her vision being drawn, and the focus of her view moved in like a zoom. She began concentrating almost wholly on his hands. It reminded her strongly of her schooldays. The memories around them became a little sharper.

She had not had a crush on him at school. She knew this was the truth. But she had suffered from a strange fascination with his hands. The long, lithe fingers captured her attention with every gesture, every movement. She had watched them move with a hawk like gaze, and eagerly remembered every facet of them as they worked. As was evidence now, as she watched hour after hour of classes pass before her eyes, her focus sharp on each of them. Nearly every single thing he had ever taught her was being laid out in front of them with graceful movements of his captivating hands.

She realised just how her attention had been focused in one horrible moment, and her eyes flew to the static professor who was watching with her, standing by the door. He was facing towards her though, not the desk where his shadow administered advice. His face was drawn into an odd expression, a look of bafflement or disbelief, but also something else. Before she could see what it was, her eyes were met with his again, and she felt the strongest feeling falling she had felt so far.

The sudden light was blinding and she started upwards, feeling the heavy drag of her body around her. She was back in the room, and she was lying across the bed, the toes of one shoes still pressing for support on the floor. Her arm was help up slightly, she saw the white and pink mark where he had been holding her wrist and hand.

His right arm was slack now on the sheets, twitching once as she looked. His skin was covered in sweat, his forehead and pillow were soaked again. His breathing was laboured and his face was pulled into a grimace. His eyes were screwed shut, but she saw, on his cheeks, some tears falling down.

Hermione suddenly realised how tiring it must have been for him to work his magic as he had done, especially after such a time without practise. He looked exhausted, and she wished she could let him rest a while, but she couldn’t leave it there. She had to find out how to help him as soon as possible. What was the answer?

She reached her hand forward and once again steeled the Gryffindor courage she needed in order to touch her former teacher. She gently touched his right hand, and his eyes snapped open, looking at her face before sweeping to look at their hands as she laced her fingers through his.

She felt his fingers tighten too as his dark eyes met hers again, and she twisted through the blackness once more, returning almost immediately to the dungeon. His hands moving in front of her once more, this time showing different ingredients as they twisted and merged into each other in his palms. Roots, moulds, minerals, all of them flashing before her in an endless parade. His murmured listing of their properties were like a deep mantra, settling around her in an indistinguishable chant.

The hands filled all of her vision now, she could not see the professor watching with her, only the speeding, flashing images. She heard his voice, though, calling to her.

“It’s here somewhere. Not much longer.”

Her mind continued to furiously search though her catalogued memories, pushing them before her in a macabre show. She could feel the strain of the link she was sharing with the man as the information flowed around them, she was afraid she would fail and then, at the height of her despair, she saw the answer.

She wasn’t absolutely certain to begin with, but as she focused on it the dungeon returned to perfect clarity, the Snape behind the desk frozen in time, the small and pivotal item held forward in his hand, and she saw the other Snape standing by the door again, his arms folded, a smug look on his face. She knew then it certainly was the answer, and she could kick herself. She could kick herself all the way to kingdom come.

She felt her leg give an involuntary twitch and she remembered to control herself, but still the blindly obvious solution was a very painful blow at the end of such a tiring week. Her head shook from side to side in disbelief.

“A bezoar?” she asked aloud. He nodded, his arms still folded.

“Painfully simple, isn’t it Granger?” his voice was full of mocking again, her fury at herself was scary. “The precise magical and scientific factors linking this *elementary* cure to my particular recovery is a subject we will perhaps discuss at a later time,” he added as he moved towards her. “Let me be painfully blunt now though, Miss Granger. As I’m sure you are aware, the use of a bezoar is a ridiculously obvious method for rehabilitation.” He nodded to the copy of himself still frozen at the desk. “Your *first lesson*.” He said with a sneer. “The fact that it has taken you both a week of research and my own intervention to pry it from your memory is a laughably poor result. Very disappointing, Granger.”

She felt his insult as he had meant her to, like a kick to her stomach. She actually lent forward as if the blow had been physical. Receiving this ‘poor result’ from him heightened her sense of failure painfully, her self worth draining from her.

He strode across the room in moments and was suddenly in front of her again, leaning menacingly once more. His face was near to hers, his voice was low, she felt her fear returning.

“Now that you have your answer, Granger, I would be very grateful if you would get me out of this damn place as fast as your verbose approaches can allow for!”

His last wave of anger washed over her as she fell back through the dark into her body, and this time the start at her return pushed her from the bed and she fell to the floor, landing on the polished surface with a bump, hurting her knee.

She pulled herself up and collapsed into the chair, her focus once more fixed on the prone form lying on the clinical bed in front of her. He was unmoving aside from the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the piercing beep of his heart monitor screeching out his increased pulse. Her mind was disjointed, it was taking her a moment to put everything together.

Then she leapt to her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg as she gathered her things together as hurriedly as she dared, and then ran from the room and the building.