All Wounds Heal In Time

A/N: Thank you guys for the reviews! Again it inspired me to write another chapter out, I have more planned but the horrible figures of university assignments loom over me! Hopefully I will be able to get some pleasure writing done in amongst the grief. I will update soon though, don’t worry. Enjoy day two! ~ Marie.


~ Day Two ~

Hermione threw the heavy bedcovers off her body, the air cooling the parts of her skin not covered by the shorts and t-shirt she had worn to bed. The rooms at Grimmauld Place were much less oppressive than they had been when she first arrived over seven years ago, when the place had belonged to Sirius and the Order swept about the dark rooms whispering their vital secrets. They were lighter, airier now. Most had been redecorated, but the furniture was still heavy and old, and the rooms were stifling in the summer when the sun was as hot as it had been for the last few days.

The morning sun blazed through a crack in the curtains, falling across the bright wooden floorboards as it warmed her room. She could see the small flecks of dust winking and flashing in the beam of light. She lost her train of thought as she watched them weave and dance around, golden and beautiful. The moment of serenity didn’t last for long, however, and she recalled with startling clarity and a sinking feeling inside the reason why she had slept for less than an hour during the night. Her thoughts had distracted her more than the heat as she had tossed and turned.

Professor Snape, alive and yet not living, alone in the stark white room. Had he been there since the night Hogwarts suffered, since the snake had sunk it’s fangs deep into the flesh of his neck and shoulder? Hermione thought of all the things that had happened in the last five years. Painful things, but also joyous occasions. Teddy’s birthdays at Grimmauld Place, and Victoire being born and growing slowly too. Ron and Harry achieving their ambitions. Her own achievements since joining the Ministry. The morning the war was finished – the morning she had pitched herself into what she had thought were the last memories of Severus Snape – seemed like so long ago. So long since the day she couldn’t stop crying.

Had he really been lying in that bed – day in, day out – with no contact from any of the Order or the wizarding world, for all that time? Hermione couldn’t understand it. How could it be that Snape had survived at that time, only to be trapped in that room, unable to be, unable to leave. Why had no one tried to help him until now? Why had she herself not found him and recovered him years before?

When she had first saw him there, as she hovered just inside the door, she could hardly believe her eyes, refusing for a moment to believe the evidence in front of her. She couldn’t move into the room, approach him and look into his face, afraid of what she would have seen, or not seen, had she looked into the deep dark of his eyes.

Was he aware of the world around him? Had he felt every day pass, an excruciatingly slow march of time, while he suffered, not able to help himself? Was he in a type of coma, unaware of the world around him, dreaming of some false reality which had been his real world for the last half of a decade? Or was he gone forever, any semblance of her foul, sarcastic potions master and unsung hero vanished and never to return, leaving his body on earth to survive somehow – with no response.

Her internal questions plagued her, nagged at her, rolled around her head in unending circles. She could hardly make sense of what she wanted to ask, let alone formulate any possible answers in her mind. Her logical brain was spinning with confusion. She felt far too emotionable than she would have expected to feel at this moment, knowing Snape was alive.

She felt a sorrow she could not comprehend at first. Surely she should be beaming with excitement, thrilled by a turn of events which had lead them to the Slytherin, as Kingsley had been. Instead she felt remorse, and – she suddenly realised – guilt. Intense guilt that she had not even thought to find him, find out what had happened to him. She knew, as the rest of them had known, that his body had not been found when the Charlie and his father had broken into the Shack with a group of fellow fighters. The blood had covered the floor, Charlie had said, there was no way he could have survived.

But so many had appeared when all hope of their surviving had gone. Hermione knew this more than most, her work had showed her the lengths a person would go to to survive, to exist, rather than succumb to the cold hand of Death. Voldemort’s war had come to pass through his own quest for immortality. Snape surely had a element of self-preservation inside him as any man did, it would not be impossible to conclude a part of him had simply refused to die that night, and that part now lay in a ward of a muggle hospital.

She felt the guilt wash over her again. She felt appalled with herself for not believing that he could have survived until she saw his body breathing with her very eyes. But then she remembered the black, writhing coils of the snake in the orb, the frantic clawing of his hands as he tried to escape from the glass prison, the look in his eyes as he bled at her feet. That he had survived was little short of a miracle. If she had not seen him yesterday, she would still be swearing today that he had died in that room with Ron, Harry and herself.

Her logic came back before her mind could tie itself in knots trying to reason how he had lived that night, knowing that the answer would only come if she was able to ask Snape himself. And the situation at present meant that she would have to help him before he could help her.

She should have stayed longer at the hospital yesterday, should have at least taken the time to try a couple of the most basic counter-curses. Kingsley had asked her to work as quickly as possible, and the notes he had given her had listed a few dozen suggested spells for her to try for his Recovery. She should have stayed. But the sight of him had shocked her, even scared her. The nurse had seemed reluctant to leave the room also. She had felt stifled, and had fled.

She climbed out of the large bed and walked towards the window, pulling the curtains across and letting the sun warm her face. She felt rejuvenated and invigorated. She picked the folder up from the table were she had left it last night, her eyes scanning the list of spells she had memorised in minutes. They were all pretty standard, exactly what she would have chosen to begin with, but since this was the ministry’s plan of action, she could only assume that they didn’t think she would have much trouble in reviving her old Professor. And once she had done that, she would start to get answers.

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

Severus Snape had been awake and aware of each day of each year passing, but he could not begin to comprehend that he had been lying in the same bed for five years. Time had lost any meaning that it may have had in another life, instead his world had shrunk to the few square foot his eyes could sweep laying flat on his back in the white room.

White, white.

It was all white, the walls were white, and the ceiling was covered in white tiles. There were twenty six complete tiles in the line of Snape’s vision. He counted them, he re-arranged them, he performed mental arithmetic at blinding speeds as he considered, in depth, the number twenty six.

At times it was light, and at times it was dark. There were three nurses who would drift in and out of his world, one less frequently than the others. He would hear their voices before he saw them usually. He was aware of every sound.

Sometimes there were people he didn’t know, had never seen before. He had little understanding of who they were, and why they would want to see him. There had been a girl visit recently. He had sworn he heard her voice, but she had not appeared in front of his eyes, looking down on her. He could only assume it was not himself she had been interested in.

By now, he had spent so much time staring - lying in the bed and staring - that he had no notions or thoughts beyond what he saw in front of him. He could not realise that it had been five long years since he had been bitten, he did not recall the bite or his life before that point. He existed in this white room. He was the room, and the room was him. He could not have realised that it had been yesterday when the girl had called, because yesterday did not exist for him anymore, nor tomorrow. He simply was.

Of course, he was aware of none of this. Only of his white room, his twenty six tiles.

Twenty six.

The nurse. The nurse again, and alone. No, not alone, another girl. Not another nurse.

It must be the girl who had visited before. He hoped that she would come closer, lean nearer, so he would be able to see her face. The rarity of any change in his surroundings meant that he craved it on some level, but without the concept of time passing he could not really understand how rare these small changes really were. He knew that when he saw something different, he remembered it. He remembered the faces of everyone who had leaned into his vision, but whether they had done so on the same day, or years apart as was the reality, he could not say.

When he had known that a new face lay just beyond his level of understanding before, he had regretted it, and that alone was why he was glad she was back, and why he hoped he would see her.

“I am sorry for leaving so abruptly yesterday.”

Was she talking to him? People seldom talked to him.

“I was a bit surprised, I must say. But I was never one for judging! I always say let sleeping dogs lie.”

The nurse. Talking to the nurse then. Not him.

“I had to get back to the office before five. I work part-time you see. I just wanted to familiarise myself with the ward and the hospital, so I could get an early start today. I like to be prepared!”

That voice. There was something about that voice. He was certain he had never heard it before, that voice had never rung through his white room. But there was something familiar about it which he couldn’t place.

“Seppy here is often awake in the morning.” The nurse had come forward now, he could see her blue dress, her grey hair. She leant forward and looked into his eyes. He kept them staring at the ceiling above him. He didn’t move a flicker. “At least, I assume he is awake when he has his eyes open like that, but who knows for sure?”

Suddenly the girl emerged before him, the light catching on her brown hair. It was wild and curly, but she had tied it up into a pony tail. It fell across her face as she leant to the side, her arm rummaging around in a bag she had round her shoulder. She pulled out a notepad and lay it on the bed. He could feel the weight of it near his left leg.

“Well you seem eager enough to get on, I must say! Although the Lord knows what you’ll find, I know the others had very little success. But you’ll be certain to get your PhD if you can find what it is that is keeping poor Seppy in this state. The trauma of his wounds was severe, but why he should remain so distant is a mystery. It’s almost as though he just switched off.”

The nurse was leaving now.

“I’ll be at the end of the hall if you need me.”

“Thank you very much.”

That voice! It called to him again, seeming to say much more than just a thank you. How could he not place it? He was certain he knew it, yet looking at the girl in front of him, he was none the wiser. He did not recognise her, could not recognise her. He began to feel agitated.

The girl was looking at him now, looking at his face. All this time he had not moved his eyes from their spot glued to the central white tile above him. He watched he through his peripheral vision. Years of practise had made him very good at this.

She took what appeared to be a pencil from her bag, and spent a few moments glancing over the open page of her notebook. She closed her eyes then and stood still, seeming to prepare herself in some way.

And then horridly, annoyingly, she moved just outside his line of sight.

How infuriating! How could it be that she had managed to step back just far enough to prevent him from seeing her.

He could tell, somehow, that she was only inches from her previous position, and if her were only to flick his eyes down towards her for a moment he would be able to see her face again. But he did not move, nor even blink. He didn’t know why, but there was some part of himself deep down who knew he could not give any indication of independent thought. He stared at one of twenty six tiles.

There was all probability that she would return to his view.

Suddenly a whisper filled the room, she was whispering. But they were single words mostly, and all of them unfamiliar. They sounded like a foreign language. Harsh syllables strung together, some of them she whispered softy, some of them she almost spoke aloud. At all times, however, she kept an air of secrecy about her. It was obvious she did not want the nurse to know what she was doing.

He felt a momentary wave of fear lick his heart for a moment, this was an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation and he did not know quite how to react. But the fear quickly turned to an anger, and he felt bitter bile rise in his annoyance.

Would she ever stop this whispering in heathen tongue? That voice, that voice…

It was the voice which somehow riled him. He wanted to grasp the sheet with his good hand, but again he resisted showing his level of ability. But he was clenching his teeth together so hard they ached, he felt a fury in him that was unjustifiable and yet undeniable.

That voice! The whispers. They were relentless. Unending.

They seemed to slip under his skin, itching and burning. He could hear them reverberating around his skull, he could not recognise any of them, and yet he also couldn’t seem to forget them. Each one called to him, and there must have been tens of them now, perhaps over a hundred whispered words. He hated them. He hated her. She had not moved. He still could not see her.

Can’t she just stop! She should just get out.

Almost as if she had read his thoughts, the whispering stopped abruptly. She stood still for some time, and he had the unnerving thought that she was watching him. He lay silent, still, except his chest which was rising and falling perhaps more raggedly than usual due to the intense rage the voice instilled in him.

Then he heard the brief sound of her returning items to her bag, and with the sound of departing footsteps, she was gone.

Almost immediately, he felt remorse. He noticed that the light in the room had changed, and realised that she must have been there whispering for longer than it had seemed.

For some reason he could not explain her voice and the things it was whispering had left him intensely emotional. He only wanted it to stop. But now that it had, he was already yearning for her return.

His right hand grasped a handful of the sheet beside him and he squeezed it until his knuckles went white. Then, when he felt a bit calmer, he brushed his hand gently back and forth over the creases, until he felt them smooth under his palm.

Intriguing.

She would be back.

For now, twenty six.