Broken Angel

Hermione barely slept that night. When she woke up, she moved slowly into the bathroom to shower. After having downed three cups of coffee she was finally ready to go to the lab and begin brewing. She looked at her dark circles underneath her eyes, but was too tired to bother with concealer, and left them as they were.



She went to Snape’s door and knocked loudly. Several minutes later he opened it and stepped aside to let her in.



“I forgot to tell you yesterday, the password is ‘Raven’”



She smiled briefly, and he noted how tired she looked. “Did you sleep last night Miss. Granger?” he asked her, surprised at himself. He felt…concerned.



She looked taken aback by his concern, then said, “A little bit sir, why?”



“You need to concentrate Miss. Granger, you are going to be brewing today remember?”



“I know sir. I’ll try not to blow anything up.”



He smirked and said, “I hope so. Now, you may go up and begin, the infirmary needs to be completely restocked.”



She nodded and went through the door leading to the lab. She set up three cauldrons side by side, and the ingredients she would need. She was going to be making three potions, Pepper-Up, Strengthening, and Dreamless Sleep. She set up the flames, and began.



Two hours later, the potions were coming along, and she was nodding every several moments. Adding some ingredients quickly into one of the potions, she turned to stir another. Suddenly she realized her mistake. She turned to the first potion and saw it bubbling angrily. She had added the wrong ingredient. As soon as this thought crossed her mind, there was a deafening explosion and she was thrown backwards. She hit the wall and knew no more.



***



Severus Snape was busy organizing his student cupboards when he heard an explosion come from his private lab. Cursing, he turned and rushed in. One of the cauldrons had exploded, covering the place in bright orange potion. Using his wand he quickly vanished it, looking around for Hermione. His eyes fell on her, and he swore louder. She was slumped against the wall, the orange mess on her leg.



He rushed over to where she lay, and checked her over. She had a big gash on her head, from where a piece of the flying cauldron had hit her. Her leg was covered in the orange potion, which had burned a lot of her skin away and was making a sizzling noise, like butter on a frying pan. Damn! Of all the time for this to happen, it had to be when everyone in the castle except Sprout and Filch where at an Order meeting. Cursing some more, he lifted her as gently as he could, and carried her into his bedroom. He lay her carefully on the bed and ran a diagnostic spell. She had a bruised rib, a slight concussion, and the burned leg, third degree. He could put a burn salve on her leg, but it would take a while to heal. Unfortunately, he could not give her a potion for the pain; it would react badly to the burn salve.



He went to his stores and returned to his bedroom. He carefully cleaned out the burn site, thanking the gods she had been knocked out, and applied the salve, then wrapped it in bandages. He cleaned her head wound, and applied bandages to that as well. Then he conjured a chair and sat down to wait for her to wake up.



After about half an hour, she began to stir. She opened her eyes and looked at him blearily, then grimaced as the pain hit her. Burns were extremely painful. That and the splitting headache from the concussion would be almost intolerable. She tried to say something but ended gasping in pain, her eyes screwed shut, her face pale.



“S-Sir, Wha-,” she stopped, her labored breathing making it difficult to talk.



Severus brushed her hair away from her slightly damp face and put a finger to her lips. “Sssh. Do not try to talk, you have a bruised rib and it will only hurt more. You blew up your potion when you added in the wrong ingredient. Do you remember?”



Hermione thought back. She remembered realizing she had botched the potion, an explosion… then nothing. She nodded her head, which made her headache worse. It felt like her head would split in two.



“Well,” Severus continued, “You ended up thrown across the room. I found you against the wall, with a gash on you head and some of the potion on your leg. You have a minor concussion, and third degree burns on your leg, which is where most of the pain is coming from. I put a salve on it in order to heal it, but you can’t have any pain potion because then the salve won’t work. When your burns heal in about six hours, you can drink some, and I can heal you rib and head.”



She nodded, fighting back tears; her leg felt like it was on fire. She closed her eyes and curled herself up. Eventually the pain grew too intense and she slipped into unconsciousness.



Severus watched her sleep, and eventually dozed off himself. He was awakened twenty minutes later by a piercing scream.



“No, no, no!” Hermione was screaming, still asleep but with tears streaming down her face. “Not my daughter, please not my daughter, kill me instead!”



He looked at her, shocked. It was no wonder she got no sleep.

“Miss. Granger,” he said shaking her shoulder gently to wake her up.



“Please, please, please,” she whispered now, “I’ll do anything! Brianna!” She was shaking now, and thrashing around on the bed.



“Miss. Granger!” he said, louder this time. “Hermione!!!!” he said shaking her harder, but careful not to hurt her.



She opened her eyes and sat up quickly, gasping in pain as she did. “Are you alright?” he asked her.



“I was dreaming about Brianna. Again. And I couldn’t do anything to help her, I let her die!” she screamed, and began crying harder. “She’s dead.” She sobbed. “Dead and it’s all my fault. My baby.”



Despite himself, Severus found himself hugging her and stroking her hair while she cried. “It’s not you fault,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s Voldemort’s fault, do not blame yourself Hermione, you were a good mother. It’s not your fault.” Soon she stopped crying, and just leaned against him, trembling slightly.



“How does your leg feel?” he asked.



“Better, but my head feels like it’s about to split open.” The salve is working quickly; your leg should be healed in about an hour.”



She nodded slowly and leaned against him. She felt oddly…safe.





“What happened Hermione,” he said speaking softly, almost in a whisper. “That night. If you don’t want to talk about it I understand, but I think it would be good for you too do so.”



She said nothing, just leaned against him for a while, and then began to speak in a low voice.



“It was the worst night of my life…”





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A/N- Currently with this story I've already written up to Ch. 5. I will be posting the rest soon. You can find the whole story at fanfiction.net, same title.