Love Bites (REPOST)

Chapter 4 ~ Dreams and Discoveries

Later that night, in his dreams Severus found himself on the moonlit, stone-scattered plain again. He felt for his sword, but found this time he didn't have it. A cold wind blew in from the south, carrying the hot mist with it at great speed. The wizard was instantly covered in it.

Alert, Severus spun slowly in the mist, listening, trying to see through it but hearing and seeing nothing. Cold fingers brushed his cheek and he struck out with his fist, connecting with nothing but air. Again he felt a touch, a caress, this time on his thigh and he kicked out his leg, spinning about.

"Show yourself!" he demanded.

"Very well," came Vashti's voice.

Severus looked about, then saw a shape in the mist, coming closer to him, walking sensuously. It was a woman. The shape stopped a few feet away from him. He could make out the curves of the woman. Whoever she was, she was shapely. He walked toward her, but she seemed to drift back out of reach. Then he ran, but she still remained distant from her.

"You cannot approach me yet, wizard," Vashti said, her voice low. "You have not yet felt the hunger."

"Hunger?" he asked the form. "What hunger?"

"The hunger to find me, to mate with me, to become my king," she replied.

"I will never have such a hunger," Severus said.

"Oh, but you will. And others will sense it. And others will respond to it," the Queen said with a little laugh. "You will become quite desirable, Severus Snape. It is part of the turning."

Severus snorted. This was some dream he was having. Him? Desirable?

"You will like the power. It will grow on you," Vashti said, grinning, her fangs lengthening a bit as she thought of the wizard aroused. "You can have who you want, for a time. Before you become mine. Once you have experienced Vashti, no mortal woman will do, then you will want me to complete your turning."

Severus felt a hand caress his cock and jumped. The shadow in the mists hadn't moved. Or had she?

"Stop touching me," he hissed at the image.

"You are large," the Vampiress commented, her eyes turning red. "I'm not surprised that one as powerful as you would have a powerful organ as well. I will enjoy you."

"I know this is a dream," Severus said evenly, "but even in a dream I would not fuck a vampire, no matter how beautiful."

"This is no mere dream, wizard," Vashti said, anger in her voice now, "And I assure you, fucking me will soon be your only desire. Only I will be able to bring you the release and the freedom you need. Only I can complete your turning."

"You are a nightmare brought on by Poppy," he said.

"You call me a nightmare now, wizard…but soon you will call me 'salvation,' Vashti hissed at him. "Return to your world of light, irritating mortal. Return and feel the power of Vashti."

The vampiress waved her hand, and once again Severus found himself sitting up in his bed, covered in sweat, his bed sheets soaked. He had a headache, and felt dizzy.

The Potions Master rose out of the bed and headed for the bathroom, stumbling as he did so. Gods he felt so weak. .

The wizard used the loo, staring at the wall as he did so, then he looked down at his cock and let out a hoarse scream as he urinated thick, hot blood, the water in the bowl turning bright crimson. Severus staggered back from the loo, hitting the wall hard.

"Fuck!" he gasped, horrified.

Severus looked down at his cock, expecting to find blood on it, but saw nothing. After a moment he pushed off the wall, walked back to the loo and looked into the bowl only to find his piss was normal. He stared at it a moment, then flushed the loo, scowling. Now he was hallucinating.

He hoped Hermione was as good a healer and doctor as all her degrees said she was. He knew he was ill now, possibly very ill. He hoped she'd be able to find out what was wrong with him and heal him.

Severus thought about the Agstani Flower he had drying in his lab. If last came to last and the witch could not cure him, he could use it to save himself. The only thing was, to brew the powerful restorative would require the whole bloom and take several weeks. He would not be able to sell any of it and would probably need help in brewing it.

That would be a problem. The Agstani Flower was so valuable he couldn't trust it in the hands of another Potions Master. Most certainly at least a pinch would be stolen, and even a missing pinch could make the potion inoperable. Well, he would deal with it if he had to.

Severus walked back into his bedroom. He couldn't eat, was suffering headaches and dizziness, kept dreaming about vampires, and now was hallucinating. This was horrible.

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Hermione was in the small lab that was connected to the infirmary. It had been largely unused except for storage space since Poppy was a medi-witch and did no lab work. Hermione had cleaned it up and brought her medical equipment there, setting it up. She had been coming to Hogwarts every evening for two weeks prior to moving in this morning, familiarizing herself with the infirmary setup and studying files of students that had ongoing ailments.

The witch had given the Potions Master's blood the vampirism test, but there was no visible reaction. As far as the test showed, Severus' blood was completely human. Relieved, Hermione placed a bit of blood on a sterile glass slide and topped it with another slide and slid it under her microscope.

Hermione adjusted the lens to bring the Potions Master's blood into focus. She immediately noticed his red blood cell count seemed quite low, and the color of the blood was less than vibrant. This could account for his dizziness. Red blood cells carried oxygen to the body and the Potions Master was receiving an inadequate supply of it. The darker color of the blood seemed to suggest this. Hermione made a notation to prescribe a blood replenisher potion to build up his count and possibly several oxygen treatments.

Hermione tapped the microscope with her wand, causing it to zoom in and looked at the cells closer. She pulled back from the eyepiece and rubbed her eyes, then looked back. Each blood cell contained a small black speck of what seemed to be foreign material. It was a very tiny amount compared to the volume of each cell, but something was definitely wrong with the Potions Master's blood. This could be the underlying cause of his anemia and ailments. She had to isolate whatever it was and try to identify it.

This was where Hermione's skills as a Spells Mistress came into play. She had developed a spell to remove the individual components of blood, which would leave behind anything that was not part of the cell makeup. Most likely she would need a sample of the blood stem cells, located in the bone marrow. These stem cells created the various types of blood the body needed, and she needed to know if this foreign substance was being created by the stem cells themselves.

Hermione sighed. She needed to get the Potions Master in for a full examination. She needed to check his hormonal balance, which meant she had to get samples from all the glands. She wondered how the wizard would react to having a former student see him naked. Considering the way he jumped around today when she examined him, she imagined it would be quite an ordeal for the Potions Master. Well, he'd just have to suck it up. She was a doctor, and her interest in him was purely medical. If he was sick, and there was every indication he was, she had to make him better.

Hermione slid back from the counter and rubbed her eyes. It was just her luck to come into a new situation and find that one of the most well known Potions Masters in the wizarding world might have a disease. Every eye would be on her. If she couldn't help him, it would be a black mark on her record. She couldn't afford that. Hermione was one of the youngest fully certified healers at the tender age of thirty. She had worked very hard to achieve that status, doubling up on classes and shaving off a couple of years of study.

In addition, she had attended muggle medical school, receiving a degree as a general practitioner, but studying several specialized areas as well, blood and the endocrinal systems her main area of knowledge. She also received a Potions degree and a Spellmaking degree, certifying her as a Mistress of both fields of magic. How she had managed to do all this was by excluding everything else in life such as friends, romance, and other luxuries. All she did was work and study, relying on scholarships and grants to survive. She filled her life with learning. Books didn't die on you.

When Hermione's parents died, Ron and Harry had been her strength. When the two wizards died at the Final Battle, she felt she had no one. She was alone in the world, and retreated behind the walls of learning to protect what was left of her heart. Hermione had no time and no desire for wizards. No time for love or romance. She was the only thirty-year old virgin she knew. She didn't care either. Having some randy, sweaty wizard shoving his cock into her over and over was not the witch's idea of fun. Whatever sexual urges she had, she'd learned to repress long ago, finding them a distraction. She was quite good at repression.

Hermione retrieved two petri dishes from under the counter, sterilized them with her wand and poured the remainder of the Potions Master's blood into one. Taking out her wand, she cast the separation spell on the blood, all the natural components transferring over to the other petri dish. She looked at what remained in the original dish. It was only a mere drop of foreign matter. She transferred it to a slide and carried it over to the microscope, removing the other slide and slipping the new one under the lens.

The witch placed her eye against the lens and looked at the slide. Her brow furrowed as she gazed on a tiny collection of what appeared to be decomposing red blood cells, each colored black with a pulsing red nucleus. Hermione raised her wand and tested the blood. Despite its appearance, the wand registered the cells as living. But how could that be? She could clearly see the decomposition.

This was odd. She had never read about any disease that involved decomposing blood cells that had life in them. Her brain clicked into overdrive. She had a feeling she had just discovered something unknown to either magical medicine or muggle science. Professor Severus Snape suddenly became more than an ill wizard in her mind.

He was now a research project.

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A/N: Wow. So…hmm. Severus is about to undergo a change that will make him more desirable to women. That ought to be fun. And who do you suppose he is going to end up affecting the most? Lolol. Hmm. I wonder if Trelawney is still at the school? Hermione is going to see him naked. That ought to be interesting too, as well as his reaction to her physically examining him. Anyway, please review.