Everything I Do, I Do It For You

Chapter 34:- Severus Gets Some Answers

Hermione took the stairs two at a time. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her breathing was rapid.

She fumbled with her keys, eyes darting down the corridor, looking for the man from the street to come up behind her once more and take her away to this place he called Hogwarts.

Finding the right key, she shoved it into the lock and quickly turned it, opening the door. She slammed it shut behind her, making sure to deadbolt it before backing away from the door as if she were expecting it open at any moment.

Her mind was racing at million miles per hour. ’What just happened?’ she thought. Her head hurt and although this tall, dark stranger hadn’t made a move to grab her, she was still very apprehensive when it came to anyone touching her. She shivered as she wrapped her arms around herself in a cocoon of warmth.

Racing into the kitchen, she grabbed for the bottle that held her medication with shaky hands. Looking over her shoulder every couple of seconds at the door, she flipped off the lid, spilling the bottle’s contents all over the kitchen sink. Most of her pills went down the kitchen drain. She swiftly put her fingers down the drainpipe to catch them; unfortunately, she was too late.

’Damnit,’ she rumbled to herself, still looking over her shoulder. ’I just had them refilled.’

She still had three tablets left, so she hastily shoved two of them back in the container, leaving one out. She lifted the pill to her mouth and quickly swallowed.

Unbeknownst to Hermione, she was actually taking the Magic Inhibitor and not the Memory Inhibitor.

She moved back into the lounge room of her flat and sank to the floor. She held her back to the wall, keeping both eyes on the door. Her hearing was finely tuned to any foreign sounds, but the only noise she heard was her own strangled breaths and the rather erratic beating of her heart.

***

Severus moved onto his knees, his hands instinctively cradling his groin. ’Damn, that hurt,’ he growled as he used his right hand to push himself up off the ground.

Hermione’s wand was still up his left sleeve of his robe, and it was still trying to get to her. Luckily he had placed a Sticking Charm on it before he had positioned it up his sleeve, as he thought that a wand flying through the air would have looked a little strange to all the Muggles that were now passing him by. Some were even whispering and laughing at his expense.

Scowl firmly in place, Severus let the wand lead on.

He walked up a flight of stairs before coming to a door. A number 12 adorned the flat’s door, and he looked at it reluctantly. Severus was having a hard time trying to control his left arm, as the wand struggled to go back to Miss Granger.

Drawing in a breath, he knocked quite forcefully on the door and waited.

“Who’s there?” the voice on the other side of the door answered, sounding hesitant. It was definitely Miss Granger’s.

Turning his head from side to side to make sure that he wasn’t being observed, Severus pulled out his wand.

“It’s me, Miss Granger. Now let me in!” he growled in a half-whisper to the closed door. Pressing his ear up against it, he heard nothing.

’This is ridiculous; I am a wizard and should not be standing out here like a common Muggle.’

He muttered a quick Unlocking spell while flicking his wand at the doorknob. The door clicked open and he pushed on it. It opened to reveal Miss Granger seated on the floor against the wall. Her knees were tucked up to her body with one arm around her shins; in the other hand she held a tube. She was looking at the door and, when Severus entered, her eyes opened wide to reveal the whites surrounding the chocolate colour of her irises. The look on her face was one of sheer panic as her mouth opened but no sound escaped.

Severus thought he would put a stop to this nonsense once and for all. It pained him to see the confident, self-assured young woman, who had fought so bravely on the battle field beside Harry Potter, being reduced to this trembling, hesitant mess of her former self.

“Miss Granger,” Severus spat out in his best classroom voice. “What are you doing?”

Hermione visibly jumped as the stranger’s menacing tone hit her ears. He had said that he had been one of her professors, a teacher of Potions, though she had no idea what that was. As he did not make any advance towards her, she sucked in her courage. She squared her jaw in place and raised her eyes to meet the dark-haired man’s whom she had kneed in the groin not five minutes previously. He was standing in the open doorway to her apartment.

He looked like the devil himself and she grimaced as that thought hit her. Hermione hugged her knees closer to her body.

“How did you get in here?” she asked, her voice unsteady.

“I, Miss Granger, am a wizard,” he started. “You are a witch, and a Muggle-born one at that,” Severus continued with a slight up curl of his lip. “I have come to take you back to Hogwarts and to give you back your wand. It was broken, but I fixed it. I don’t know how well it will work, though; that will be something for you to see to,” he added as an after thought.

Walking over to her and holding out her wand, upon which he had just performed a Finite Incantatem, he waited with it outstretched in his hand for her to grab it.

When she made no move to take the wand, he glared at her before growling, “Go on, take the damn thing - it’s been more trouble than it’s worth.”

She reached out with a trembling hand and as she did so, she dropped her medication on to the floor. It landed and rolled over to Severus’ right foot. Hermione quickly snatched her wand from Severus as he bent over to pick up the plastic container.

Eyeing the cylinder, he scrunched up his eyes, scrutinising the label. Perplexed, he looked up at Miss Granger, who was looking at her wand as though it was about to come alive and eat her.

“What are these?” Severus asked Hermione, holding out the container to her.

She shrank back a little before he realized what he was doing. He was trying, in his usual way, to intimidate her by standing over her. He took a step backwards and she relaxed a little.

Drawing in her breath she explained, with as much bravery as she could muster, “That is my medication. I have to take one every morning and night.”

“Obviously,” Severus drawled. “I meant, what are they for?” he asked as he held the bottle of tablets out in front of him in her line of vision.

“Well, that one is an anti-depressant, and the other one,” she motioned towards the kitchen where her other lot of pills were, “is for my memory.” She kept a firm hold on the wand in her hand.

Severus marched into the kitchen, brought the other bottle out and took up his position once more in front of Hermione. This new development left his mind spinning with the possibilities, although his face showed his customary look of indifference.

“Well, this definitely complicates things,” he said, pocketing the two cylinders in his robes.

This motion did not go unobserved by Hermione, who was on her feet with her hands on her hips, her wand forgotten in her right hand.

“And where do you think you’re going with my medication?” she asked as her face went red with anger, her trepidation forgotten.

Severus just raised an eyebrow at her as he lifted his wand and Disapparated from her lounge room.

Hermione blinked twice. Where had he gone? How could someone be there one second and gone the next? Had she passed out? No, she was standing in the same position she had been a few seconds earlier, hands on hips, legs apart. Could she be hallucinating? She didn’t think so, as she had just been standing, well sitting, in her lounge room having a conversation with, oh what did he call himself again, that’s it, her Potions professor. But why couldn’t she remember anything about him? He had told her she was a witch, but that wasn’t possible, was it? Witches were make-believe, something in a fairy tale, made up to frighten little children.

She took a deep breath, shaking her head, and sank back to the floor, staring at the wand he had given her. The strange man had made no move to touch her and aside from his tone, he had neither advanced, nor made any attempt at retaliation.

“Abracadabra,” she said mockingly as she pointed her wand into the air in front of her. When nothing happened, she sighed.

She’d have to go back to Calan Park and see if she could get some new medication.

***

Severus was once more seated in the Headmaster’s office. It was beginning to get dark outside. In his hands, he held the two small tubes containing Miss Granger’s medication.

Albus was sitting in his own chair behind his desk. He had a bemused look on his face as he stared at the Potions Master, who was scowling quite vehemently at the bottles.

“I trust you have found Miss Granger, then,” the elderly wizard asked, grinning.

“Yes,” Severus replied, still scowling at the bottles in his hand. “Although there were some unforeseen circumstances that require my immediate attention.”

“Indeed,” Albus said before adding, “and I assume that those are the unforeseen circumstances that you mentioned?” He motioned toward the two tubes held in the younger man’s hands.

“Yes, these are her medications, as she called them. One is for her memory whist the other is for her depression.” Severus held up each tube in turn while looking at the Headmaster.

“Why would she need such things?” Dumbledore asked the younger wizard.

“I have no idea, but I do plan on getting to the bottom of these.” He shook the tubes before adding, “She didn’t even recognise me, and I think that these are the cause of that. Miss Granger did say that she had to take them twice a day; I feel that they are somehow interfering with her usual self.” He finished, standing up to leave.

“Albus,” he said, turning to face the older wizard, “this conversation is not over; I just have some more pressing matters to attend to.” Changing the subject, he added, “Can I use your Floo? It will make life that much easier.”

“By all means,” Albus replied. He watched the young man grab a hand full of Floo powder, mumble something into the fireplace, and vanish.

Albus placed his elbows up on his desk, his hands cradling the sides of his face. He could tell that the Potions Master was agitated about something, but he trusted him to see this business through to the end.

Trust in Severus he had plenty, time on the other hand was swiftly running out.

“That’s my boy,” he said to the now empty room, a twinkle in his eye.

***

Severus stepped out of the fireplace and into Tolmie Crobobin’s mansion. The older wizard was sitting in an armchair reading; he looked up to find Severus racing towards the potions lab.

Tolmie’s fireplace was on the Floo network but was keyed to only accept himself and Severus. Anyone else trying to Floo directly into the mansion would receive a rather nasty hex. They would then be spat out into the original fireplace that they came from.

Standing up and placing the book he had been reading down on the table beside the armchair, he followed Severus down to the lab.

When he reached the door he grinned, as he saw Severus gliding gracefully, pulling a cauldron down off the shelf and lighting a flame underneath it. He was pulling down ingredients from the neatly labelled shelves and placing them on the bench before him.

His hands were trembling as he reached for the ingredients. The late nights with little to eat, and the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins, was leaving its toll on Severus.

Tolmie noticed his hands were trembling as he took the vials and jars off the shelves, but he chose not to comment on that fact.

“So did you find her?” Tolmie asked.

Severus stiffened a little at the sound of Tolmie’s voice; he hadn’t even heard the man follow him downstairs.

“Yes, but she is not herself,” was the only reply Tolmie got.

“What do you mean, not herself?” he asked, intrigued.

“She didn’t recognise me. She has been taking some Muggle medication for her so-called depression and memory problems,” Severus replied stiffly.

Tolmie saw the Potions Master take two plastic cylinders from his robe pocket and place them on the bench. Walking a few steps closer, he picked up the tubes and looked at them sceptically.

“Are these them?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

The younger man nodded his head curtly as he went about setting up everything for the potion he was going to brew.

“How did you get them?” Tolmie asked, shaking the contents around.

Severus stopped taking down the ingredients and looked over his shoulder at the older wizard. With a sneer on his face, he answered, “I took them,” before turning back to his work once more. “Now are you going to help me, or are you just going to play with those damned pills?”

“Okay, okay, no need to get snappy; what do you need me to do?” the older man asked while he placed the two tubes back on the table and rolled up his sleeves.

“First, I would like for you to see if there are any spells or enchantments on the pills. I am making up a Revealing potion, which should show us if there are any potions and such in these tablets.”

Both men went to work silently.

***

A/N:- Severus is just too smart for his own good. What is going to happen when Hermione goes back to Calan Park, and who will be there? The suspense is killing me, LOL!!!

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far, you make it all worth while.

Huge hugs go out to LariLee, who is my beta on this project.

Disclaimer:- I’m not her, and wouldn’t want to be. I prefer to remain anonymous, that way flamers can’t get to me.