A Different Kind of Magic--UNDERGOING EDIT

JK Rowling owns it all and makes the bucks off it. I do not.

Thank you my wonderful beta VIVAvivacious. You rock!

Chapter 19 – Delirium and Poetry

The rest of what Dobby told Severus was Sunday passed interminably slow in their secluded room. No one else, save Poppy, came to visit. At this point, he would even have welcomed the constant chatter of that airhead Miss Longbottom – anything to pass the time. Hermione had slept most of the day, and Poppy was concerned that, despite the potions, Miss Granger was running a high temperature and was shivering.

Poppy wouldn’t tell him anything, save for Minerva was going to come see him later in the week with Harry. He could only assume she was going to try and force the memories out of him at that time, or threaten him with Azkaban again. He would tell them to fuck off.

Dobby was a downright mess when Poppy was absent. He worried over the girl fretfully, replacing face cloths every ten minutes and muttering to her in that strange little elf language. It was driving him crazy.

“Would you just shut up and leave her alone! Gods, your inane chatter is maddening!”

Dobby scuttled over to the other side of the room. “Dobby is sorry, Professor Snape. Poppy tells Dobby to look after Miss Hermione. Dobby does as he is told. Please do not be angry with Dobby.”

Severus gave a great sigh and threw up his hands in disgust. “Fine, take care of her if you must, but be silent!”

“Yes, Master Severus. Dobby will be silent.”

Curious, Severus brought himself over to her bed, seeing the blue stone still in her left hand. He glanced at Dobby and back down at the stone. “Dobby, nothing that happens here is to be shared with anyone else. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Master Severus, but if you is hurting Miss Hermione, then Dobby will have to tell.”

“I would never hurt Miss Granger, you twit! Now, will you promise me?”

“Yes, Dobby promises, Dobby will not tell.”

“Thank you.”

He placed his palm over her sweaty, cold hand, and thought to her.

‘Hermione, can you hear me? It’s Severus.’

‘Cold. I’m so cold, Professor. Please close the window. It’s so cold!’

‘Hermione, listen to me. Minerva is going to bring Harry with her this week.’

‘Harry, Harry, please don’t leave me, Harry.’

‘No, Hermione, its Severus Snape, your old professor. Listen. They are going to subject you to Legilimency and look at your memories. You must not let them see that I have lost my magic.’

Hermione opened her eyes, looking dazed and glassy. ‘Professor? You’ve lost your magic?’

Shite! He forgot he hadn’t told her. There was so much happening, and he thought she already knew. ‘Yes, Hermione. The only thing I seem to have left is my Occlumency. Legilimency won’t work without my wand, as it involves magic to invoke it. Please, do not let them see.’

‘I’ll try, Professor, I’ll try.’ Her eyes closed again, succumbing to the fever.

The delirium took over again. ‘So cold, so cold, please hold me, don’t go, don’t go.’

‘I’ll hold you. I won’t let you go.’

“Dobby, help me get up on the bed next to Miss Granger.”

With the house-elf’s help, he gingerly lay down next to the shivering girl and wrapped his arm around her. Her breathing quieted and the shivering abated somewhat.

‘So nice, my Severus, Severus, warm…’

She had called him her Severus. What did it mean? Was it just the fever talking? He pulled his hand away from the stone to give her thoughts some privacy.

“Dobby?”

“Yes, Professor Snape?”

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll wring your little neck.”


Hermione drifted in and out of sleep. Sometimes she knew she was dreaming, other times she wasn’t sure what was real or imagination. She imagined Severus lying on her bed with his arm around her. If I’m dreaming, then I never want to wake.

She saw Harry dueling at the Ministry of Magic, and she screamed in her sleep when Sirius Black was killed.

She was on a tropical island with her parents, and a volcano was about to erupt. The hot lava flowed from the peak to completely surround her family on top of a hill. There was nowhere to escape. Just then, her parents said, “Goodbye, Hermione. We’ve always loved you, but now it’s time for us to go away.” They jumped into the lava and left her all alone on the hill. She dropped to her knees and felt herself falling and falling, ready for the instant death, as her body would vaporize when she hit the lava.

Ava and Severus heard a loud thud as Hermione’s body hit the floor, and she cried out.

“Oh my god, she rolled out of bed!” Ava shouted and ran over to the young witch.

“Professor Snape! Please have Dobby Floo Remus. I may need additional assistance, and Headmistress McGonagall is gone. Poppy is busy in the infirmary. Hurry!”

Dobby summoned Remus after Severus shouted at him to, “Get that fucking werewolf down here right this minute!”

Professor Lupin joined Ava beside Hermione.

“What happened, Miss Longbottom?”

“She rolled out of her bed, Rem – Professor Lupin, and seems to have hit her head again on the floor. There’s so much blood! She seems to have re-opened the fracture, and I am going to need to un-bandage her head and re-heal it. I need to lift her onto the bed and have you go get Blood Replenishing Potion, Pain-Relieving Potion, Dreamless Sleep, and sterile bandages from the Potions storeroom.”

“Right. I will levitate her, and you support her head as I settle her onto the bed. One, two, three…” and with a gentle spell, they had cradled Hermione back into her nest. A steady trickle of blood ran out from under the blood-soaked bandage and down her neck, staining the white bed sheet a dark crimson.

“Why isn’t Poppy down here?” Snape asked.

“Poppy is tending to another emergency, and she can’t be spared at the moment,” Ava replied.

Severus snorted, but didn’t otherwise interject.

The pair worked swiftly and efficiently. Dobby notified Poppy, and she Floo’ed in after she had finished in the infirmary. Her arrival just coincided with Ava and Remus finishing their healing and bandaging. Poppy cast a diagnostic spell over Hermione and shook her head. “Oh, my. My, my, my, oh my,” she kept repeating over and over.

Severus clutched his levitation chair, knuckles white while he stayed nearby. His dark eyes flitted between Remus, Ava, and Poppy for any indication of what shape Hermione was in.

“Well?” he asked in an irritated but concerned tone.

“Hush!” admonished Poppy. “I need to concentrate!”

The silence was deafening. Dobby’s little feet pitter-pattered back and forth in front of the fire.

At long last, Poppy looked up from Hermione and bit her lip. “Hermione’s fever was already complicating her condition today. Now that she’s re-injured her head, I can’t tell for sure, but I think she may have suffered permanent brain damage or memory loss. There is nothing more I can do until she wakes up, except keep her comfortable. I have put a binding spell over her so she cannot move. Ava, I require you to stay with her and the professor until further notice. I will make the necessary excuses for your absence when Headmistress McGonagall returns. She is not to be moved, and if anything changes, you are to call the Headmistress or me immediately. Is that understood?”

Ava nodded, her head bowed in solemn abeyance.

Poppy checked over Snape’s injuries, nodded once, and looked at him kindly. “Severus, we’ll take right good care of Miss Granger. Don’t you worry.”

Remus exchanged a long glance with Ava and said, “Miss Longbottom, I must take leave, as I have classes to teach in the morning, but if you need me for anything, you have but to ask. Ava, Severus.” Professor Lupin inclined his head to each in turn and Floo’ed back to his quarters.

Ava sat by the bed and stroked Hermione’s hand.

Professor Snape stared ahead in stony silence until Dobby served dinner, which was also eaten without a word being said. Finally, he moved around his bed to the tableside to pick up a book he had requested from Ava. He returned to Hermione’s bedside and began to read.

Ava listened in rapt attention as Professor Snape’s silky voice projected the words of William Shakespeare. Shivers ran down her spine as he spun the prose like the delicate but deadly silk of a spider’s web. His cadence was mesmerizing, and she now understood how some of the past students would have been afraid to be on his bad side. If her love interest hadn’t been Remus, she could definitely see how a woman could fall for his voice alone. Fortunately, Remus was more than enough man for her. But still, his dulcet tones hypnotized her.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives

Severus was oblivious to anyone but Hermione, unaware of the transfixed Ava at the bedside. He read on into the night, just as the silent girl had just a short time ago, when he lay still and prone in his hospital bed. He remembered now, in bits and pieces, Hermione reading to him endlessly, day after day and month after month, keeping his tenuous hold on life alive. She had kept him alive and was the reason he had hung on: for her, for her voice. And so, he read for her so she, too, had something to hold onto.

He read until his voice cracked and his head slumped in his chair. Ava had long since fallen asleep, draped over Hermione’s bed. Dobby put a cover over Ava, and magically lifted the professor back onto his own bed.

The loyal servant watched over them all, unblinking.