All Wounds Heal In Time

Sorry once more, to you fine chaps, for taking longer than I intended in finishing off this instalment. But it’s here now at least! I have work tomorrow morning (bleergh) so it will be a little while before the next one is up, but it will be soon, I promise. I’m keeping up with this writing malarky now the end is sort-of in sight (thought it might not look like it right now :)

Please consider leaving me a review so I can read them when I get back from slaving on a Saturday, or whenever, I really like them. Om nom nom! Enjoy Wednesday night ~ Love Marie

Review Replies

MaggieCate: Thanks so much for your great reviews, keeping me going all the time :) It’s really so much fun writing when I can hope people enjoy the chappies. This one was fun to write, I hope you enjoy it. Also you might be pleased to know that I too would never want to see a champagne bottle broken on the SS/MM ship – wrong, just wrong! Work is poo – especially when the computer won’t allow AFF due to ‘adult’ filters – sigh!

Nombre-De-Pluma: I don’t have a update list, but I would be happy to e-mail you and anyone else when I uploaded. Especially when you have written such a lovely review. Thank you, I’m so pleased you like my story.

MorganaByTheSea: Thank you for the review! Sooner rather than later, I think ;)

TambraTheGreat: The feeling is very mutual! Your reviews were a great help to me at the beginning and I am so happy to have you back, it was hard and hairy in the middle but I’m starting to think the fic may be redeemed! I hope you enjoy catching up. Thanks for letting me know :)




~ Wednesday Night ~

Dust lay like snow on the dark wooden floorboards of the dim room. Though she moved silently at the edges where the drifts were thickest, her feet left no prints behind her, her movements making no breaks nor swirls in the fragile surface. Eight people stood shoulder to shoulder, crowded together in the shadows, forming a large circle around the scene in the middle of the room.

Black and twisted as a flightless crow, his body was sprawled out awkwardly like a rag doll, crimson blood creeping out around him to form a macabre halo. His eyes were closed, his skin white, the little light there was reflecting from the red mirror-like pool surrounding him. She stared at his chest, his throat, the little she could see of the ragged, torn wound at his neck. He didn’t look as if he were breathing at first, though when she looked hard she thought she could see him breathing at a painfully slow pace, an almost imperceptible pace. As dragging a pace as the blood creeping across the floor, moving only a hair’s breadth in a minute, as slow as the erosion of cliffs.

From the gradually widening pool she saw scarlet footprints fading as they reached towards the doorway. They were Harry’s footprints, and hers.

“How long has it been since we – since I left?” she asked quietly, and everyone else but Snape started at the sudden sound of her voice in the silence.

“I’m not certain,” he replied, staring down wide-eyed at himself five years before. “Some minutes. I lost consciousness, but not for long.”

As they stood in silence again they could hear running footsteps, the sound of someone approaching who’s feet touched the ground beneath them, unlike the group the observers. A Death Eater ran into the room, black robes billowing, the face of the unknown wizard covered by the haunting mask. Hermione felt fear streak through her, her instinct to battle rising inside, though she knew she was safe, and could make no difference to the events unfurling before her.

“Snape?” The Death Eater called out as they approached, and Hermione was surprised to hear a female voice, though she didn’t know who the witch could be.

“Who has done this?” she asked in alarm, kneeling down in the shallow puddle of blood with no hesitation.

“Get away,” the bleeding Snape somehow managed to say, his voice little more than breath.

The anonymous witch cast some healing spells on the wound, apparently stopping the flow somewhat, though Hermione didn’t know what charms they were.

“Who has done this?!” She asked again with fury in her voice. “Was it him?” she said, and everyone watching knew who’s name she wasn’t saying.

Snape voice rose out like the crackling and bubbling of boiling water.

“Yes,” he wheezed.

The black gloved hand which was not holding her wand reached up the mask, and with a tug she pulled it from her head, revealing the unknown witch in a tumble of white-blonde hair. Hermione stared at Narcissa Malfoy, not quite knowing what to think.

“Come with me,” Narcissa said then, pulling at the black robes of the man lying in red as she cast a spell on his body to help her. “Come on, Severus!” she cried, hauling him to his feet with an impressive show of determination.

“Narcissa – you have – to go,” he managed, brokenly.

“There’s a little time. Enough time,” the blonde witch said with determination, as if believing it strongly enough would make it true. “I’ll get you out of here,” she said.

The stumbling forward of the large group of people watching was almost as clumsy as the original pair had been, it seemed to take an age for them all to reach the outside, where Narcissa Malfoy ran as fast as she could with the arm of a dying man round her shoulders. Hermione thought she could imagine the unnatural feeling of invincibility that must have been coursing through the beautiful woman at that time, when she struggled beneath the weight of Snape, her face scrunched up in effort and smudged with streaks of blood.

Like a whisper in the night Hermione heard Voldemort’s calling voice. Fear made her feel like a child, the sound of evil making her forget her safety, she felt the very real fear of death. Then she regained her composure, adding events up in her head. That was Voldemort calling for the truce, daring Harry to come to him in the forest, to his death. She imagined Harry, away not very far from where she was, preparing to walk on sturdy but shaking legs towards the unknown. She felt hot tears on her cheeks at the thought. He had been so brave.

And Narcissa had been so very brave too. It wasn’t like the time-turner, Hermione knew they were in no danger of changing the events by watching them now, she knew that the woman would make it back to the forest in time to save Harry. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t empathise with the frantic scene she was watching now, her light illuminating the grassy path beneath their stumbling feet with a feeble glow from her wand, the pair of them a desperate sight in their fight against time. In the wandlight Hermione could see Snape’s sallow face, becoming more pale as the blood still ran from his body, one arm clinging to the small witch while his other hand pressed frantically at his sticky, spurting neck.

“Where – ” he panted. “Where?” He couldn’t ask the full question.

“There is a road,” Narcissa said firmly.

“No,” Snape choked, his voice rasping. “Leave me – Narcissa!” He stopped moving and looked down at her. “You have – to go. Leave me!”

He pushed away from her, staggering, nearly falling backwards. She grabbed him, supporting him again, marching forward without hesitation.

“It’s not far!” She was gasping with exertion. “I can apparate back to the forest. There’s time,” she added in a whisper.

The fields sloped down to the edge of a spinny, where some evergreen trees grew high above, the floor turning from green grass to brown needles in the beam of light from her wand.

“The road is there!” Narcissa called out, her voice breaking. “Just yards, Severus!” She began to move faster, almost running.

Glinting flashes of sparking light caught Hermione’s eyes, she stared past the hurrying couple to the darkness beyond, not knowing what to think of the twinkling stars. Then she realised – it was a car. A muggle car, headlights beaming, casting blueish yellow light through the tangled branches of the hedges and trees. The swooping shape mirrored the chilling feeling of shock and fear that Hermione felt – up here in the Scottish highlands seeing one car on the rambling rural road was miraculous, another opportunity would not come. Narcissa and Snape needed to catch that car.

It seemed that they had come to the same conclusion, since the witch practically threw the slack body of the Professor to the ground as she took her heels, Snape calling out at the same time.

“Run!” He gasped as he fell.

Hermione ran forward too, as did Harris and another of the ministry wizards, staying nearer to Narcissa as she ran the fifteen-or-so yards to the tarmac. She burst through a gap in the roadside foliage, emerging out onto the road like a ghoul, draped in black and covered in blood as she bolted unflinching into the path of the car. Hermione heard the squeal of tyres as the car pulled to a sudden stop, and a man got out.

“What is this?” he called.

“Help me!” Narcissa cried desperately, running back towards Hermione and the others standing round the gasping Snape. A woman got out of the car too, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed, then she stepped forwards as she spoke.

“We’d better help, Joe,” she called as she began to run. “Hurry!”

The muggles left the car doors wide open as they dashed into the scrubby piece of woodland, the man called Joe only pausing to grab a torch from the glovebox. As he ran he switched it on. He cursed bitterly – the batteries were dying. But still, the yellow glow was better than nothing at all.

“Avril?” Joe called out to his wife. She hesitated ‘til he reached her, then clung to his arm as they hurried after the strange and whimsical blonde, stumbling over fallen branches and roots. When they reached the woman and saw the bleeding man lying at her feet they couldn’t help but step back in alarm, then Avril leant forward and tugged Snape’s hand away from his wound.

“Has he been stabbed?!” she asked with quiet shock, staring at the glossy blood in the failing beam of the torch.

“He needs help,” Narcissa said.

“Joe, there was a hospital back at Lunmoral,” Avril whispered hastily.

“It’s twenty miles back,” Joe said in alarm.

“What else can we do?” Avril replied. “An ambulance would never get here in time – and your emergency work phone has had no reception since we left Edinburgh.”

Joe’s face was ghostly white as he stared down at Snape’s bleeding body.

“Joe – we have to try!” His wife begged.

“Help me,” Joe grunted as he crouched down and scooped the Professor over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Avril hovered as support as the muggle man sprinted back towards the lights of his car, almost stumbling more than once. He could feel the warmth of sticky blood dripping down his neck. “Open the back door,” he called out to Narcissa.

Hermione noticed the way that Mrs. Malfoy stared for just a moment at the car, her eyes fixed on the strange flat handle of the car door, terror on her face. She didn’t know how to open it. Joe and Avril mustn’t have noticed, however, Avril was reaching for the handle almost as her husband spoke. She flung that door open and then ran round to the other side of the car, opening the fourth and reaching inside as Joe gingerly tried to place the groaning man on the back seat carefully, helping the best she could.

“What’s his name?” She called up through the open door to the blonde woman.

“Seh – ” Narcissa began, and then stopped.

“Seth?” Avril called out as a confirmation, cupping her hand to her ear to show she had not heard. Narcissa said nothing. “Seth?” Avril repeated the name, staring down at Snape’s strained, grimacing face. Despite the wound – his pain – he nodded.

“You’ll have to get in the back with him,” Joe said to Narcissa, his chest heaving and his blue cotton shirt stained with dark blood.

“No,” Narcissa said, already retreating. “I have to go.”

“Hey – where the hell do you think you’re going?” Joe started shouting angrily as he strode after her. “Hey!” he bellowed. But Narcissa had slipped into the woods – and gone.

“Joe, leave her,” Avril called, slamming the back door on her side shut. “We need to get going!”

She reached into the car and pulled the headrest from the back of the passenger seat, tossing it into the footwell and climbing in after it, pulling the second door on her side closed behind her.

“Joe!” She shouted, beckoning him with her whole hand.

He stared at the dark roadside woods for a few seconds more, his breath visible in the night air as he breathed heavily, then he dashed towards the car. He slammed the back door, jumped into the driver’s seat and closed his door also, the ignition barely growling before he had got into first gear and sped off.

When Hermione looked at them she felt as if she were actually in the tiny, cramped, steamy car with them. Joe sat hunched forward as he squinted unblinking through the steamed windscreen, Avril beside him, twisted round in her seat so that she could look over the back of her seat at Snape’s crumpled form. It was like she was sitting on the bonnet, looking in at them. When she glanced around, however, she could see the other ministry wizards and Crampiddle and Minerva standing round watching as she was. She could look at the one or the other, but when she tired to see both groups at the same time she simply couldn’t, and it made her head ache. She focused on the scene in the car once more.

“How is he doing?” Joe asked, glancing briefly into the rear-view mirror.

“Not good,” Avril replied quietly, very pale.

“What the hell are we doing?” Joe muttered as he drove, his foot pressing down on the accelerator unforgivingly, the tiny car speeding along the empty night-time roads. “If he dies we can kiss the rest of our trip goodbye. How will we explain it?”

“We’ll tell the truth,” Avril said. “Anyway, Seth won’t die.” She looked down at Snape, his face covered in sweat and blood, his eyes screwed closed. “I won’t let him die.”

The drive to the hospital was long and hard, Avril was trying to tend for Snape the best she could with no supplies and while also trying to navigate, while Joe concentrated on his dangerous driving with astute caution, pausing now and then to wipe the steam from the windscreen with the cuff of his shirt sleeve. The little car bumped and swayed along the uneven B-roads, bouncing in holes and whipping at the hedges either side, traversing the distance to civilisation. In the back seat Snape was still bleeding, and still alive, though there was nothing to show how or why that could possibly be.

When they eventually – finally – reached the town of Lunmoral it still took time for them to find the hospital. It was on the other side of the town, poorly signposted, the accident and emergency department even more so. Eventually they came to the ambulance bay, and Joe parked just past it, so he was near enough without blocking. Avril and Joe both flung open the doors and got out, Joe running through the automatic doors for help while Avril reached into the back, dragging Snape out of the car.

“Come on, Seth,” she said sadly. “You need to try.”

He opened his eyes, glancing at her, then closed them again. But he pushed himself up, trying to get to his feet.

“Come on,” Avril said again, but it was no use.

“I can’t feel – my legs – ” Snape mumbled.

The sliding doors opened once more and a team of men ran out pushing a trolley, the wheels clattering on the floor as they approached.

“Quickly!” a man in a white doctor’s coat called. “Get him on the gurney,” he said.

The other men rushed towards Snape, gathering him up and bringing the trolley nearer. Avril took the strange, long black robes from his back while she had the opportunity, and one of the medical team was already cutting his shirt off as they wheeled him into the hospital.

“What is his name?” one of the men asked as they ran, Joe and Avril chasing after.

“Seth,” Avril said, glancing down at the black collar in her hands. “Seth Merlock,” she amended.

Hermione felt the smallest glimmer of amusement – Merlock was the name of a reputable but cheap tailor in Hogsmeade.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait here,” a young woman in blue barred the muggles from following any further, and as Hermione chased the trolley through swinging double doors she glanced back in time to see the vanishing faces of Joe and Avril through the security-glazed windows.

“Did you ever have contact with the muggle individuals – ‘Joe’ and ‘Avril’ again?” One of the ministry officials asked the Snape who stood observing with them, an impassive look on his face as he watched everything with his arms crossed.

“No,” he replied. “I only ever saw them that once.”

Hermione looked at the severe, standing Snape, who was more filled out and had much shorter hair. She reasoned it must be a mental projection of himself in the memory, as she was too, and she wondered briefly whether she subconsciously made herself look different to how she really was as well.

In the room around them muggles worked frantically amidst a tangle of machines and apparatus in order to stop the bleeding from the gash at Snape’s neck.

“These look almost like bite marks,” she heard one of the doctors mutter. “But the fangs would have to be eight, no – twelve inches long. At least!”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the nurse beside him agreed.

“His heart-rate is increasing,” another man said loudly, over a shrill beeping which suddenly began. “He’s in severe shock.”

The room around them began to fade slowly from view, the busy people melting into nothing, the noises becoming faint and distant.

“We’re losing him,” the doctor’s hollow voice echoed.

Then there was nothing but empty blackness, the group of eight observers standing at a loss, glancing around and at each other.

“I estimate that I was unconscious for approximately four days at this point,” Snape said then, his voice reverberating around the empty space.

Then a beep. Not as shrill as the others, but constant, unignorable. As the beeping continued, another room came into view, one that was very familiar. Stark, white, silent. With a white ceiling, separated into tiles, twenty six of which could been seen by anybody who lay on the bed.

Severus Snape was in the bed.

A man leant over him.

“Seth?” He called. “Seth Merlock? Can you hear me?”

But even though he could, Snape lay still, and said nothing.

The man left.

For quite a few long minutes the group of people stood around the bed, fidgeting awkwardly in the close room, all of them waiting to see what would come next in the stream of memories. But though they waited, nothing happened. They stood longer still, some of them taking in the room around them, Hermione herself staring at the Snape which lay in the bed. He looked so much younger than he did now, withered on her mother’s sofa, younger than he had looked when she had seen him just over a week ago in this room for the first time.

“We could stay here for a much longer while yet,” the standing Snape said clearly. “But I assure you, it only gets more tedious as it progresses.”

And with that the scene around them faded away into nothing again, and then something, and before she knew it Hermione was back in her parent’s sitting room. The other wizards and witch who had accompanied her were blinking in the light, adjusting to being back as well, and Snape lay on the sofa as painfully thin and immobile as before.

“Through rough calculations, I estimate that I was in that room for approximately one thousand, eight hundred and thirteen days. And each of them were very like the one before, until Miss Granger came into that dreary world.” He turned to her then, looking at her with narrow eyes, like a sly fox. “I didn’t think I needed to include everything leading up to that point,” he added.

He picked up his wand and cast a small glass bottle, setting it down carefully on the table next to him, transferring the swirling silver memories from the pensieve into the bottle with a wave of his wand. He corked the container, holding it out to one of the ministry officials, who stepped forward to take it from him.

“I trust it was a satisfactory contribution?” Snape asked.

“We will run a little analysis at the ministry,” the wizard replied. “But it certainly seems sound. Solid.”

Snape nodded.

“I’m afraid you have no-one to testify as a witness,” he said.

“Well, we could always approach Mrs. Malfoy if verification is required, but I very much doubt we will have to go to those lengths,” the ministry wizard was saying, but Snape’s face was pale.

“Narcissa – she is alive?” He said, shakily.

“Yes, she is,” McGonagall confirmed for him.

And then he smiled. A genuine smile, more a smile than a smirk or anything else, which went to his eyes as well as his lips. Hermione realised suddenly that he was glad that Narcissa Malfoy had survived, and she was glad herself, to know he thought that way. Though she still thought her son was vile, Mrs. Malfoy was now and would always be a person of inspiration to her.

“Thank you,” Hermione said then, before she knew what she was doing. “For showing us this.”

“I don’t think there is anything I could keep from showing you, Miss Granger,” he said evenly, his smile gone, his dark eyes staring at her. “Eventually.”

She wasn’t sure what she could say in return, so she smiled, or at least tried to smile awkwardly at his comment. On the face of it, it seemed like a compliment – but was it? It was so hard to tell. He infuriated her so much in that way. She was never sure that what he said was really what he meant.

“Er, excuse me,” she said, glancing round at the others in the room before heading through to the kitchen.

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

“That was a good thing you did,” Minerva said quietly to Severus when Crampiddle, Harris and the other observers had made their way home through the fireplace. “I know it can’t have been easy.”

“It was rather tiring,” he admitted.

“I won’t stay long. I don’t want to keep you up.” McGonagall stood and wrapped her shawl around her, a small smile curling at her mouth. “You didn’t have to do it today, you know. She would have let you stay.”

“You’ve changed your tune,” he said, looking up at her. “Earlier you were saying that she wouldn’t.”

“I said I thought you shouldn’t stay,” she replied. “I never said she wouldn’t let you. In fact I knew she wouldn’t say no.”

“She hasn’t said I can stay longer than tonight,” he reminded her. “And I wouldn’t blame her if she were to evict me at any moment. I very much doubt that I would be so accommodating, had the shoe been on the other foot.”

“Well Hermione’s nothing like you and she is better for it, I dare say!” Minerva chuckled at his scowling expression. “But you were willing to give a little today, which was good to see, and I’m sure she appreciated it. She’s a complex young woman. One of my favourites,” she whispered, as if it were a secret. “I’d be wary about leaving you in anyone else’s hands.”

“You trust her,” he murmured, his right shoulder rising in a sort off shrug.

“Yes, I do,” Minerva said. “But I was thinking about how much I don’t trust you.” Severus couldn’t help but smile at that. “I know she’ll keep her head around you, however hard it might be for the rest of us, with your Machiavellian ways.” She smiled briefly, slyly almost, then turned away from him. “Well, I am sure she’ll be a worthy opponent. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She walked over to the fire, taking a handful of floo powder, checking that he didn’t need anything before she threw it into the hearth.

“She won’t let me stay,” he repeated, as she stepped into the fireplace.

“Yes, Severus,” Minerva called as she vanished. “She will.”

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

Hermione stood in the garden, leaning against the wall beside the back door through to the kitchen, staring up at the night sky as she puffed now and then on a cigarette. There were no clouds above, only shining stars, so many it made her feel tiny and insignificant and very alone. In the city, the orange glow of the streetlights made it impossible to see the stars, but out here in the absolute darkness of the countryside the deep dark blue was scattered with them like glitter, pinpoints of light shining down from billions of miles away. When she exhaled she could make out the feint silvery glimmer of the smoke as it twirled away in the breeze.

She thought about what she had seen. It was hard to think about it all at once, she wanted to make sure she remembered everything, but it was almost as if the new memories were too fresh in her mind. And she had some questions which would not go away.

She sighed, the last drag rushing out between her lips, and she dropped the butt and ground it out, with the toe of her shoe. She glanced up at the endless stars for a moment longer, and then went inside.

He was lying on the sofa, alone, leaning on a pillow as he read a small red book. She took another deep breath and stepped through the door.

“What are you reading?” she asked as she entered. He glanced up at her in surprise, closing the book with a snap in his hand.

“Adrian Alabaster’s ‘Observations of an Amateur Potions Professional’,” he said, offering the book out towards her. “It’s amusing enough in small doses.”

She shook her head at his offer to see the book, and instead pulled the armchair nearer, sinking into the deep and familiar seat.

“I know it,” she said. “And I could read it all day. I laugh out loud at every page at least once. I love the part about support spells tangling,” she felt herself chuckling at just the memory of the dry, witty writing.

“I was reading the part about tainted samples,” he told her, the smallest smile slinking across his face too. “I’ve smashed a few on the floor in frustration as well.”

“I’ll have to read my copy again,” she thought aloud.

He nodded absently. She avoided looking at him directly. After a few seconds she spoke again.

“Professor Snape,” she looked at him then. He studied her with expressionless eyes. “Would it be alright if I asked you a few questions? About – that night,” she explained unnecessarily.

“If you want,” he said.

“Didn’t it hurt?” She asked.

“Of course it hurt!” He scoffed, then he caught the look on her face. “It was excruciating,” he said honestly, looking down at the blanket covering his legs.

“How did you manage to walk that far? It must be over a mile to that south road from Hogsmeade.”

“It’s not so far from the Shack,” he replied. “But it was Narcissa alone who saved me, who made me walk that distance. I would have died if anyone but her found me. She has been a very good friend to me.”

“She was incredibly brave,” Hermione said. “Afterwards – when you were driving to the hospital – she lied to Voldemort.” Snape flinched at her use of the name, or perhaps with surprise at this revelation. “She said that Harry was dead when actually the Deathly Hallows had saved him. She made it possible for us to defeat him, really.”

“And what about Draco?” Snape asked quietly. “Did he survive?”

“Yes,” she told him. “Unfortunately,” she added with a wry smile. “And Mr. Malfoy as well. Mrs. Malfoy got a second class Order of Merlin. Perhaps they’ll make it a first class now,” she mused.

“Narcissa got to keep her family,” Snape muttered, looking down at the blanket again. “I’m sure she wouldn’t want any other reward.”

Hermione was silent at this, because she didn’t know what else she could say.

“Miss Granger, do you smoke?” He asked suddenly, peering at her. She blushed.

“I did just have a cigarette,” she admitted sheepishly.

“I could smell it on you,” he said a little worryingly, she didn’t want to think that she smelled bad – or why he had noticed – but his motives soon became clear. “Give me one,” he demanded.

“What?” She stammered.

“Give me a cigarette, Granger,” he said, his tone menacing. He pushed himself up with his good arm. “Now.”

She almost reached to her back pocket without thinking, his voice so like it had been years ago in the classroom that she dared not disobey, but at the last minute she stopped herself from yielding quite so readily. She had the advantage in this sudden situation.

“This house is non-smoking,” she said a little smugly and to her surprise she heard her mother’s voice.

“The window’s open,” he spoke quickly through his clenched teeth. “One won’t matter. Give one to me!” That tone again.

“Maybe if you were to ask nicely,” she couldn’t help but tease him, crossing her arms and turning away slightly.

“God damn it!” he growled out loudly. “I have not had a fag for over half a decade, and if you don’t give one to me right now I will hex you, Granger, I swear.” His eyes were fierce, glaring, scary. “I’ve killed men for less,” he said.

She stared at him, seemingly not able to move. He sighed.

“Please,” he added, curtly.

She took the packet from the back pocket of her jeans and held them out to him, open, and watched the long thin fingers of his right hand take the fragile stick as reverendly as if it were made of gold. He put it in his mouth and lit the end with his wand, breathing in and exhaling a billowing cloud of smoke, then he began to cough. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, stuttering and sputtering, his hand clasped in a fist at his hacking mouth with the cigarette sticking out jauntily between two of his long fingers.

“Help me up,” he gasped, while she smiled down at him in amusement. “Now, Granger!”

Hermione sighed and reached forward. She grabbed the front of his baggy shirt as she had seen Crampiddle do the night before, using her annoyance as a simmering strength to move him, though in reality his empty shell of a body was deceptively light, like a bird. She was more vicious than she meant to be as she pulled him upright, accidentally banging his head on the windowsill above him, making him wince and rub at the spot. The cigarette was still clasped in his long fingers, a thin trail of smoke drifting from it forlornly.

“A little care, Granger,” he ground out. “You could have brained me!”

“So sorry,” she said in a withering voice that sounded anything but. “Would you like me to kiss it better?” she spat back at him, crossing her arms.

He took another drag, not coughing now he was sitting upright, looking at her sideways through narrowed eyes. A smirk came to his thin mouth, getting wider as she watched, and she noticed he was shaking. She was alarmed at first, but as his smirk became a smile and then even wider, she realised with shock that he was laughing at her. She narrowed her eyes in a glare she had learnt from him years ago, uncrossing her arms and putting her hands on her hips, but she couldn’t help the twitch of a smirk herself as she watched him laugh harder and harder. He brought his hand up to his face, covering his eyes as his chuckle became louder, real and echoing in the room. He dropped his hands a little and looked directly at her, still for a second as he blinked at her through his watering eyes, and then he threw his head back and cackled – a bellowing and uncontrolled sound of glee coming from deep inside him.

She wanted to be offended by his peculiar actions, she didn’t think that what she had said had been particularly sharp or witty, it certainly couldn’t have inspired this reaction by itself. But watching her severe Professor unable to control his gasping laughter was a strange and wondrous and distracting sight. The way his head fell back in open humour, his hand clutching at his side as if it was painful, tears of laughter running down his cheeks as the deep rich sound rang in her ears. She chuckled and rolled her eyes, walking quickly to the kitchen, where she could hear him laughing still.

Hermione took one of the ashtrays that her mother kept for dinner parties with business associates, and by the time she had returned to the sitting room Snape had managed to control himself somewhat, albeit with an uncharacteristic smile still lingering. Placing the ashtray on the table Mac had provided for the professor, she sat down again, taking a smoke herself with a little thrill.

“I’ve never smoked in my parent’s house before,” she said, her cigarette wagging between her lips as she lit it.

“There’s a first time for everything,” he said, puffing lazily on his with his eyes closed, as if it were a fine cigar.

“It doesn’t feel right.” She pursed her lips, but didn’t stub it out.

“Where are your parents?” he asked. The question surprised her, and she didn’t answer for a moment. “Minerva told me that they had gone off to look for sun and sand, or something similar,” he added.

“Something like that,” Hermione conceded.

“You’ve not seen them recently?” He looked at her evenly, making her glance away.

“No,” she said. “Not for three years.”

He must have been able to see her discomfort, since he didn’t ask her anything else, the two of them taking drags silently now and then.

“Professor, there’s still something I just don’t understand,” she began. He didn’t say anything but raised an eyebrow, a welcome for her question.

“Even though it was a muggle hospital – though they were muggle doctors – they would have been able to help you, if you had only talked to them. You could still speak, still move to some degree – but you pretended that you could neither talk nor feel. You could have tried to get a message to the ministry.”

“Was I supposed to ask them to find an owl for me?” he drawled, then he glanced away and spoke more calmly. “I didn’t know what was happening in the wizarding world. I didn’t know whether we had won, or the Dark Lord, or whether war was still raging on. And I was - afraid.” He faltered a little at the admission. “Afraid of the unknown, how the doctors would treat me, what would happen to me. I thought Narcissa would inform someone – eventually – about what had happened. When nobody came after a few months, I thought she must have been dead.”

“But even then you must have wanted to escape,” she leant forward in her desperation to understand, gesturing with her hands. “Even though it would have been difficult – it couldn’t have been too much of a challenge for you.”

“I didn’t have my wand,” he said as defence. “And – after everything that I had seen – the months before that last day – ”

He paused and shook his head, apparently trying to find the words.

“I needed the rest,” he concluded. “I didn’t want to think, or plan. And then, after a while, perhaps a year – I forgot.”

“Forgot?” she repeated, her eyebrows furrowed, not understanding.

“I forgot everything,” he told her. “Who I was, what I had been, what I had done. And the world outside, the wizarding and muggle worlds, everything that existed beyond the small white room.”

“How could you forget?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I suppose at first I was trying to forget, many things, things that I would still wish to forget now. Then, in time, I couldn’t remember any more. I became that room. The first time I saw you again I didn’t know who you were, though there was a vague familiarity. When you began casting spells I thought you were insane. I didn’t realise the truth.”

“When did you remember again?”

“At first I remembered little things, time, the outdoors – ” he hesitated a moment, looking down at the blanket again where one long finger drew random shapes absent-mindedly. “Then something triggered something else, and it all came flooding back, all of it. I couldn’t stop it, then.”

“You’re not glad to be yourself again?” Hermione took another drag on her cigarette, but there wasn’t much left on it. Snape sat very still, staring straight ahead, obviously thinking seriously about her question.

“No,” he said, then he gave her half a smile. “I am very glad to be myself again.”

Despite herself, she felt a smile on her own lips too. She leant forward and stumped out the burning butt of her cigarette. Snape did the same.

“Granger,” he said, his gaze shifting from the makeshift ashtray to her face. “Let me stay a while?”

She leant back, folding her arms across her chest, leaning back into the sagging armchair as she considered him and his request. Her mind was battling with itself, her desire to help others fighting with the selfish part of her that wanted him to leave, so that even now at the pivotal moment she didn’t know what to say. She looked at him evenly, and he looked back.

“Okay,” she said.

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