Remember When It Rained

Remember When It Rained
Chapter Fifteen
The War Within


Blood had poured from her wounds, leaving a crimson trail across the floor of the usually pristine infirmary and staining the white sheets of the bed. Madam Pomprey took a deep breath and checked over her patient once more, satisfied that the injuries were healing properly and that her pale complexion was slowly regaining some of its colour.

Behind the partition, stood a very worried Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. All waiting for word on Miss Granger’s condition. It was a situation that for once Poppy was ill prepared for. She wondered if her friends had any inkling of just how ill Hermione Granger was, as she cursed them in her head. She was angry that at them all for their apparent lack of observation skills, especially the boys. They were supposed to be her best friends, yet her appearance had escaped even their notice.

Then again, she thought somewhat charitably, Hermione Granger had cast a very good glamour.

“You lot can come around now!” she exclaimed, her anger apparent in the tightness of her voice. She glanced at the two boys disdainfully and then turned her gaze on the Headmaster.

“Professor Dumbledore,” she said. “Miss Granger will be fine, but I am afraid that she needs to stay here for a few days to get adequate rest.”

Albus swept past the boys, who were looking down at their friend with expressions of horror mixed with worry, and grimaced at the sight before him. He truly cared for her, like a daughter perhaps, but certainly with the affection that an instructor holds for a particularly brilliant student. The Miss Granger lying in the bed was a pale copy of the vibrant girl who had spent the whole of last year plowing down Severus Snape. He suddenly felt guilty.

“And where is Severus Snape?” Pomprey inquired in an indignant tone. “He’s the reason for this- this unhealthy, under nourished girl! He works her too hard I dare say in between her regular classes and her apprenticeship! To merely carry her up here, trailing this mess on my floor, dump her on the bed and flee!”

Albus held up a calming hand and replied, “I believe that Professor Snape is currently disciplining Mister Longbottom and cleaning up the mess in his classroom, Poppy. There is no need to be so hard on him, for the fault of Miss Granger’s condition falls on my shoulders as well as his and hers.”

Harry’s head whipped up at these words and he fixed a glare in old wizard’s direction.

“It’s not Hermione’s fault that she is like this!” he remarked forcefully. “Professor Snape has never liked us and I’m sure that he is taking it all out on Hermione!”

Ron grabbed Hermione’s hand and stroked it lightly with his thumb. “That’s not what Professor Dumbledore is saying, Harry. You know Hermione. Always work, work, work and Snape always releases her before eleven.” He looked at the Headmaster and gave him a slight smile. “Besides Snape isn’t being more than his usual self anyway.”

“That’s Professor Snape, Ronald,” Albus chided with a smile.

Harry still glaring at the wizard asked, “How is this partly your fault then?”

Albus reached down and brushed a curl off of her forehead and murmured, “That is between me and Miss Granger, Harry.”

Both boys looked at him, eyebrows raised to their hairlines. This elicited a soft chuckle from Albus. “Don’t worry boys, it’s nothing to be overly worried about and I will soon set it to rights.”

He turned to Madam Pomprey, who had been watching the scene before her with some consternation and said, “Let me know when she wakes if you please Madam, I shall inform her Professors about her absence for the next week.”

She nodded at him, looking somewhat relieved at his gentle tone. He walked to her and patted her shoulder.

“Thank you for your honest words, Poppy, and for taking such good care of our Miss Granger.”

He was rewarded with a smile.


~*~


The fire crackling merrily did nothing to ward off the chill that he felt deep in his bones. Somewhere above him Hermione Granger lay in a potion induced coma, because she needed her rest. At least that was what a very tired looking Albus had told him about two hours ago.

So close and yet so far away. He closed his eyes and took another sip of his wine, allowing the beverage to warm him.

He had stopped his stalking of Miss Granger some months ago, as the dreams of her served only to drive him to distraction. He thought that perhaps by ignoring her, she would stop haunting him. When that hadn’t worked he resorted to his usual behavior toward her and her friends. Cruelty in the classroom and coldness in the lab. He, in the hopes that Miss Granger would tire of his treatment of her, quit her apprenticeship, and so he had been sure to assign her the meanest of tasks. It was only Albus strict orders that she be sent to bed by eleven p.m. that kept him from running her to exhaustion.

Apparently she had been doing that on her own.

He hadn’t missed the look in her eyes, the veiled longing in them, as she attended to her lessons. He had noticed that she had dropped a bit of weight and that her eyes were darkened by tiredness, but he had attributed it to the fact that she had a heavy schedule, denying the thoughts that whispered his treatment of her as the real cause. Then one day she came into class, looking more refreshed and better rested. He allowed himself to relax inside.

She had fooled them all, apparently, and this time he could not deny that part of the blame lie at his doorstep.

He closed his eyes and the sight of her bleeding form assailed his memory. The smell of her blood still clung to him, he could still see the stains on his robes from where he had carried her against him through the Floo and into the Infirmary. He could still see the horrified look on Pomprey’s face as he nearly dropped her on the bed. He couldn’t stay, not seeing her like that, and so he turned and fled back the way he came.

Neville Longbottom would be serving a month of detentions with Hagrid and Filch, that was all the punishment he could think of upon seeing the boy again. He had been brave enough to stay behind and clean up his mess, and Severus had found the boy weeping silent tears as he mopped up the puddle blood with out the use of magic. Instead of angering him, Neville’s behavior had elicited something akin to pity.

‘Fuck,’ he thought. ‘I’m going soft.’

With a growl of anger, he hurled his wine glass into the fireplace, the shattering of the crystal a burst of noise in the silent room.

~*~

“Welcome back Miss Granger.”

Hermione blinked rapidly against the bright light that flooded her vision and turned her head in the direction of Madame Pomprey’s voice.

“How-“ she cleared her throat, her voice rusty sounding. She rephrased and began again, puzzled as to why she was lying in the Infirmary. “What am I doing here?”

The Medi-witch tutted with a click of her tongue and gave the girl a tiny smile. “There was an accident in your Potions class, don’t you remember?”

‘Oh yes, that was it,’ she thought with a grimace. She had been in class and then there had been a loud bang and then there was Severus floating over her.

“Oh. Neville,” was all she said aloud.

“Yes, Mister Longbottom,” replied Pomprey. “He has already been here this morning looking after you, last night too and the day before.”

Hermione shot the woman a startled look. “How long have I been here?”

“Just on three days now.” Madame Pomprey answered lightly as she made a great show of dusting a piece of lint from the top cover.

“Three days!” exclaimed the girl who was now struggling to sit up.

“Oh no you don’t!” Pomprey said forcefully as she pushed her patient back down on the bed. “You are going to lie still and continue to rest! I won’t have you getting ill again, Miss Granger! Your appearance was and still is quite shocking, very ill looking and now that we know you’ve been using a glamour, you won’t be getting away with that little trick again! No you are to stay here until I see fit to release you, as ordered by the Headmaster, so there will be no argument from you!”

Hermione flopped back against her pillow, knowing it was useless to argue with the Medi-witch when she was in such a tizzy, and accepted her fate.

A few of hours later found Hermione bored to tears, well practically. Madame Pomprey forbade books.

“You need your rest, Miss Granger,” she had said in a sing song voice. Hermione itched to hex her, yet her wand had apparently been confiscated too.

Harry and Ron had tried to visit, or so Madam Pomprey had informed her, but she had shooed them away telling them that she was resting and that they were to come back tomorrow.

The only visitor she had during the course of the day turned out to be Professor Dumbledore, who spent his time sitting quietly in a chair at her bedside with an expression that varied between twinkling and sorrowful. The small talk that he insisted in making had grated on her nerves like nails on a chalkboard, and she had been thankful for his eventual departure.

She refused to feel guilty about hastening his departure by feigning exhaustion.

Now, she lay on her bed, counting the cracks in the ceiling for the umpteenth time, wondering where Professor Snape was and what he was doing at that moment.

She harrumphed and turned to her side, thinking that it was partially his fault that she was in the state that she found herself in, so the least he could do was visit her. Even if it was on the sly.

‘But noooooo!’ she thought viciously. “Merlin forbid that he actually show any sort of compassion toward a student. A student that he had kissed passionately on a couple of occasions. A student who was injured in his class. His apprentice. His best student. Fellow order member.

“The bastard!” she muttered into her pillow.

A smooth, dark voice startled her into an upright position.

“Actually, Miss Granger, my parents were married.”

A/N: Zambonigirl, hope your challenges are less challenging! I want to thank all of you for reviewing! It really brightens my day! Happy Holidays. Titania.