All Wounds Heal In Time

Just another quick one for now, but there is plenty more on the way! Thanks for taking the time to read and please review it makes me so happy! :) Hope you enjoy ~ Love Marie.



Review Replies



Tenar10r: And more to come! Thanks so much for reviewing. :)



Voracious Reader: Aww, thank you! Knowing people read your work is grand, hearing that they re-read your writing is fricken awesome! Sorry its so damn slow though, I appreciate you coming along with me muchly.



MaggieCate: I\'m glad you think it\'s worth waiting for and that you like the characters too, I was beginning to think they were a bit wobbly = but I guess we all are now and then! Thanks for the lovely review.



savigar: Thank you indeed for reading my fic and reviewing, I hope you enjoy what\'s to come too.



And a thank you to those who rated as well. :)









~Tuesday Night ~



Hermione sat on the edge of her small bed, her hands clasped together in frustration, irritation and annoyance burning inside. Arriving back at the house she was all too ready to demand that Minerva made arrangements to move the recovering professor, she didn’t care where as long as she was not responsible for him, and she couldn’t see how McGonagall could protest against such an arrangement. But she hadn’t expected him to be awake when she had returned.



She had been shocked to see his wiry body sitting up on her mother’s sofa, his thin shoulders slouched over in his effort to remain upright, despite the cushions and blankets at his back. Seeing him awake was nearly worse than when he was asleep, then the difference between his hollow body and her memory of his imposing form was less marked, he looked so thin and ill when he was sitting now. Any words she thought about demanding his departure died at the back of her throat at his sorry appearance, and she realised that she pitied him. But she didn’t want to stay here, and she didn’t want him to stay there, and she hardly believed that there would be anything to keep him here in any case. He was interested enough in his papers to show his obvious desire to return to his former life. What remained of it.



She had sat and watched him, his head bent forward so that his hair fell lankly across his shoulders and his chest, having grown so long that it almost reached his elbows. His face was so gaunt and empty, his cheeks grey hollows of shadow, spindly veins stood out at his temples and made him look ancient.



The minutes had passed while she sat silently, longing to ask about how he had come to be in the muggle hospital, but not willing to speak out and interrupt his own questions. When he began flicking through the papers with tenacity, his dark eyes sweeping every line with care and intent, she found herself staring at his hand as he turned each page. The fingers were long and thin as she remembered, pinching at the corner of the page for a minute or so before he turned it, his right arm the only part of him which looked real somehow. Unlike the rest of his frail body, his right arm at least had some definition, and purpose.



A chilly breeze blew in from her open bedroom window. She rubbed her face with her hands, trying to dislodge the memories of him, trying not to think of him at all. It was so hard, harder than it should have been – but her thoughts had lingered almost exclusively on him for over a week now, and he still was not fully recovered.



She had decided to go to bed early, being the first to stand in the quiet room, before Minerva or Crampiddle. Before she left she switched on the lamp which stood on the table next to the sofa, since the light was almost gone, and she didn’t think that even he could read in the absolute dark. McGonagall followed her into the kitchen.



“You didn’t let me know he was awake?” Hermione had asked.



“We sent word to the ministry. You weren’t there.”



“How long has he been up?”



“Not long, he has been sleeping most of the time. He was rather sick earlier, but I think Mac has been making comprehensive notes, I’m sure you can borrow them.”



Hermione had felt herself nodding.



“He will be moved soon, won’t he?” She had said then, with a glance towards the hallway and towards the quiet room in which he lay. “I don’t want you to think harshly of me – ” she had whispered, agitated.



“Dinnae worry yerself,” Minerva told her, her accent pronounced in her concern. “It’s best for him to be moved now anyway. I hope he will choose Hogwarts, but he is considering Mungo’s currently as well.” McGonagall’s eyes had narrowed with the slightest scorn. Then she had turned to Hermione, beseechingly. “Will you give him time to decide? It won’t be long.”



Doubt, hesitation, the desire to be as far away from him as possible – all rang through her mind as she considered the pleading face. She didn’t want him to stay. She couldn’t let him stay. But she had never found it easy to say ‘no’.



“Yes,” she had replied weakly. “So long as he doesn’t take *too* long.”



She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes, the sting of sleep making her eyelids feel heavy and droop, but her mind going at too fast a pace for her to sleep. She stood up and walked to the door, opening it slowly and listening for any sound in the quiet house before stepping out on to the landing, where she hovered again before stepping into the bathroom.



Standing at the sink she ran the cold tap, cupping the crystal water in her hands before splashing it onto her hot, tired face.



====================



Severus stood in the silent forest, trees crowding around him on all sides, pressing up to him and surrounding him so that he had little enough space to even breathe. Even as he watched, coils of scaly vines wound round the broad-faced trunks before him, and wove their way across his arms and torso, reaching round him with spindly fingers and coiling him in their grasp like snakes. With effort his tore his arms from their weed-like grip, using his hands to claw away the vines on his chest and legs, the imposing trees mercifully yielding against the force of his frantic pushing.



With scrabbling desperation he was able to pull himself free of that wooden cell, the forest beyond still darkly imposing and intimidating, but the trees were at least spaced far enough apart for him to stumble between them. His breath was sharp and ragged in his chest as he tried to run through the unforgiving woodland, everything around him was as dark as night, but that might have been because of unpenetrable canopy above. He managed to run just a few steps before tripping each time, roots and branches and vine hitting and pulling him down as he ran, while haunting sounds echoed from every corner.



Suddenly, ahead of him like a lantern in the dark, he saw the bright glint of sunlight shining where the trees parted. Stumbling and desperate he raced towards it, his hands outstretched towards the light, pressing down onto the ground each time he fell.



Was it seconds? Minutes? Hours? It felt as if he had spent his whole lifetime running towards that sun, everything he had ever known forgotten in the desperation he felt for reaching the light, every laboured step taking him nearer and yet seeming to make no difference at all. His legs were beginning to ache. His hands stung by nettles and torn by thorns, scratched by the broken twigs and splintered wood on the ground when he fell, but still he kept running towards the white light.



Blinding and brilliant, the warmth of it rushed over him and dazzled him, once he suddenly emerged out into the open. He brought an arm up to his face, holding it aloft to shield his eyes from the glaring sunlight, everything a pale wash of pastel colour which blurred and shimmered like water. As he stood and stared, panting for breath, the scene began to gain some definition. Overpowering light became a soft mint, and then the fresh and glowing green of clipped grass as he saw the lawn stretching away at his feet, while the sky became bluer with wispy white clouds remaining. In the middle of it all, like a great eagle clasping onto the mountainside, was Hogwarts. He had chosen return, then.



Students were around, sitting in small groups or walking together at the edge of the lake, their black shadows crows against the green of the sloping lawn. He could hear their calling in the wind, the gruff shouts of a group of boys playing football, the shrill shrieks of girls as they gabbled together. In the summer sun they were enjoying the fine weather.



He stepped forward as if he were walking on clouds, he was floating rather than walking, while the sights and sounds around him seemed to arrive like whispers on the wind. He didn’t know whether he saw her first or heard her, he could not know, since it seemed as though his vision was filled by her entirely at the same time as his ears heard nothing but her breathy, beautiful laughter. He watched her as her body shook with mirth, her arms holding a pile of books safely to her chest, a clip in her hair matching her sparkling eyes. She was more stunning than he could have imagined and it shocked him, the sight of her made his heart sing, and took his breath away. She looked so much older – beautiful – so different. Whether he intended to approach her or not was unimportant, she pulled him towards her with a magnetism that was impossible to ignore.



It was her friends who saw him first though, suspicious boys watching him approach from their positioning either side of her with narrowed eyes, and they were up and dragging her to her feet before he was barely close enough for her to notice. As he watched them leading her away he couldn’t help but call out to her.



“Wait,” his voice was strangled with fear at the thought of letting her go, he hardly made a sound.



She paused, her back to him and her insufferable friends pulling at her elbows, but she did pause. With a flick of her long and unusual hair she turned and saw him. She studied him with calm and intelligent eyes, then he saw a hardness he didn\'t expect come into them, and she turned away from him again.



“Wait!” He called once more, with a desperation that made his voice loud and cracked.



He ran again, the gradual upwards slope of the manicured lawn turning into a mountainside before his very eyes, his strides painful as he climbed to the top. She was further away, almost at the school, and without hesitation he chased her again while ignoring the roar of pain in his legs. The boys had gone now as had the other students. It was only her that he saw, and like a rabbit chased by a fox she seemed to sense his following her and started to run, her hair flying wildly out behind her.



She darted up the cold steps and into the school and he followed not far behind, but still long enough to stop short in the large entrance hall, his eyes darting around while he frantically searched for a way to go. Movement caught his eye, he stared down the dark corridor to his right long enough to see her disappear round the corner at the very end. Without thinking, he ran again.



Running, running. Always running. He didn’t know how he could be breathing, or if he even was still drawing air into his lungs, his whole body was crying out for him to stop. Except his heart, which was pounding painfully in his chest, telling him that he had to run and keep on running.



Dark and winding and narrow, the hallways were like none he had ever seen in the old school, weaving their way deceptively so that she was always just moving out of sight. He caught only glimpses of the edge of her black school robes, the shimmer of light in her hair, the vivid colours of her Gryffindor tie streaming out behind her. Her tried to call, but made no sound. He could only follow her.



He turned another corner and was elated, it was a long corridor but she was less than half-way along it. He had managed to gain some ground again. With a deep breath he steadied himself and continued to follow her.



His shoes slipped on wet stone. He flung his arms out to try and steady himself as he wobbled, looking down at the sodden floor. There was little light but he could see that the ground was not only wet but sticky, he lifted a foot and watched as the fluid gripped to the sole of his shoe, stretching out in web-like strands which gleamed candy red when they caught the light. In a sickening wave of horror he realised where he was, and he was suddenly morbidly afraid.



She was before him still, away further down the corridor, but when he had stopped running she had stopped also. Now she stood silently, facing away, her hair tumbling down her back.



He tried to get to her but something strange was happening to him. He tried to run but his body was like lead, his legs would not move when he told them to, instead he forced himself to drag them along the floor at a shameful pace. The horror of the nightmarish place cut at him, blood seemed to run down the walls of the corridor, the floor was slick with a shimmering red. She stood with her back to him still, in the centre of the madness, as pristine as an angel. Was it the fear that was making his limbs seize? Fear for her and for himself? Like crumbling chalk his legs gave way beneath him, he fell to his knees in helpless despair, his arms still reaching out to her.



“Please!” He shouted, calling out to her, to anyone. He reached out his arms and clawed at the stones of the floor, dragging along his useless legs with an upper-body strength he didn’t know he could possess.



“I need you!” His words were desperate and pleading, but he didn’t care what he said so long as he could make her turn round, make her come to him.



She did turn, slowly swinging round until she was facing him, staring down as he dragged himself along the floor at her feet. Her brilliant eyes were suddenly cold as ice.



“No!” he choked out, the cold fingers of absolute fear squeezing his neck like a murderer. She turn away from him and ran.



“No!”



His left arm collapsed beneath him, without an ounce of strength left in it, and he strained his neck to keep his head off the floor as his right hand reached out in desperation. Dripping with crimson blood, his finger reached out towards her disappearing form.



“Lily!” he cried, as she vanished with a last flash of her flowing red hair. “Lily!” He was screaming.



But she was gone.



====================



Hermione stood up in alarm, cold water dripping from her shocked face, the sudden sound of anguished cries filled the house like the bellowing of a wild and viscous creature. She felt the hairs stand up on her arms and neck as the chill of fear ran down her spine, as she didn’t know whether she felt better or worse when she realised that it was a human being that was making that sound. It was Snape.



She ran onto the landing, her palms sweating as she grabbed at the wooden bannister, staring wide-eyed into the dark stairwell from which the echoing cries of the emerged like wails from hell. The door to the guest-room flung open and Crampiddle rushed out, pulling on a paisley dressing gown over his pyjamas, though he looked instantly and impressively alert.



“I’ll go,” he said quickly as a passing gesture, rushing past her while she stood gripping at the wood with white knuckles, fear freezing her like a statue. The healer ran down the stairs and through the doorway, casting a dim scattering of light as he went.



Once the healer had gone down she found it impossible not to follow, the wild shouting still terrifying her, although it was impossible to make out what it was the professor was calling so desperately.



She could hear Crampiddle’s firm voice then and she crouched down, sitting on the dimly lit stairs a few steps from the bottom, staring through the gaps in the bannister and the open door to the sitting room. The lamp was still on, casting a glaring beam of electric light onto the sofa, while the healer leant over it.



Snape writhed under the crumpled blanket. His pathetically thin body was barely moving though his right arm thrashed about wildly, his hair was matted across his face which was crimson red, his eyes screwed shut and his head thrown back as raw and sickening sounds tore deafeningly from his stretched and straining throat.



“Severus! Wake up!” Crampiddle was calling to him, shouting almost as loudly. As she watched he grabbed the front of the younger man’s shirt.



“Wake up, man!” He shouted again, shaking the thin body.



He snapped awake with alarming speed, the sudden silence as deafening as his cries had been, and even from a distance she could see she way his chest rose and fell as he desperately gasped for air. He breathed like that for a second or two, and then his body seemed to lurch forward. It was only his right hand, however, that he was able to reach out with and grab at the old healer. Another cry rose out of him, nowhere near as loud or ragged, but even more haunting in its quiet despair.



“My God,” she strained to hear him and just made out the pleading words. “My God.”



His hand was grasping at the collar of the old man’s worn dressing gown, veins rising on his arm showing the strength of his hold, the healer was bent awkwardly forward since he could not pull away. Snape pulled him nearer still.



“Mac, for God’s sake, kill me,” the hollow and sunken dark eyes stared levelly up at the man’s face, his voice even and low. “Kill me now.”



Hermione\'s hands were gripping at the wooden bars before her like vices, her breath caught in her throat as she stared unblinking at the scene, the two men as still as a photograph.



“You’re not *nearly* important enough to bump off now-a-days,” the healer replied with a straight face.



Snape was still for just a moment longer, then he expelled a short breath of air though his nose – a single, feint snort of laughter. He dropped his arm and leant back onto the sofa, Crampiddle standing up straight and giving his dressing gown a tug, while the two men shared the slightest of smiles. It wasn’t obvious enough for Hermione to notice, however, away across the room as she was.



“Take this,” Crampiddle said with kind authority, leaning over with another dose of numbing solution. Snape peered at him but reluctantly took the potion.



“The pain should be gone by morning,” the healer added as he stood again.



“No, Mac,” the younger man replied in his low voice, his palm pressed to his chest. “It will never go.”



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Ooh, what\'s going to happen? I don\'t know myself! Haha! Please review.