All Wounds Heal In Time

A/N – Here is another chapter for you all, I would like to say I have been good and working hard at my Uni work but the sad truth is this has been occupying my time far more! I had hoped to get two chapters up, but on second thoughts I have decided to look over the second for a while, so only the one right now. It’s a little longer than I first thought it’d be too, so I hope it does until more emerges! I am sorry if this all seems a little repetitive right now, I am hoping to launch into the meat soon so to speak but I am enjoying the set up so very much. I am very flattered by everyone who has reviewed or rated my work, thank you so very much. I am glad you are coming with me on this! Roll on day three… ~ Love, Marie.


~ Day Three ~

Hermione sat at the worn kitchen table with her face resting in her hands. Her elbows leant on the rough surface next to the large blue mug full of steaming, hot black coffee. She had slept a little through the night, more than the previous anyway, but she had not been able to sleep deeply.

She still felt refreshed however, and although she knew her body was tired, she didn’t seem to feel it. Her mind buzzed with spells and counter-curses, and she muttered a few now into the empty kitchen to practise her pronunciation.

None of the counter-curses she had tried yesterday had any affect on the prone body of her professor, even though she had tried for over three hours. She had exhausted the list recommended by the ministry after only ten minutes or so, but she had remained standing in the exact same spot, reciting any charm or incantation that she could think of which may have revived the man. None had any reaction in the slightest.

Hermione wasn’t fazed though. Kingsley knew how she relished a challenge and that must have been one of the reasons why he had chosen her for this case. As soon as she had returned to Grimmauld Place yesterday she had rushed to her room, pulling her extensive collection of books from her old school trunk. Steadily working her way through them, she made copious notes on any passage which seemed to be relevant to her victim’s condition. He did close his eyes on occasion, very rarely yet he did all the same, so he was not frozen completely immobile which discounted her niggling suspicions of a curse similar to the gaze of a basilisk. But even so there were many possible causes to consider, and many would-be solutions.

By the time she had gone to bed she had amassed a collection of new counter-curses to try and she was satisfied with the results of her evening’s studies. She had found many new avenues to explore when she returned today to the sterile white room of the hospital, and for some reason she could not explain, she had a bubbly feeling of excitement inside her.

She felt certain that it would be a good day, and she would succeed with a new pioneering use of an old spell. For some reason she knew it would work. She always had gut feelings deep down which she had learnt to listen to instinctively though the adventurous events of her school years and beyond, and they were telling her she would not fail today.

She moved to the kitchen window, leaning forward against the white Belfast sink and wrapping her hands round the mug in her hands, slipping fingers through the handle and twining them with themselves, warming on the surface of the ceramic. It was quite a cool morning and she wondered if the day might be cooler as well, rather than the sweltering days which they had recently experienced. It really had been very hot for the end of June, but she reasoned that it was already the middle of the summer, she just had not noticed it. The year had flown by. They had all flown by.

If it was to be cooler though, she welcomed it. She didn’t really like to be too hot and she didn’t seem to enjoy the sun as much as others. London always seemed to be a couple of degrees hotter than anywhere else in heatwaves such as these, the pollution trapping the heat and warming the residents like an oven. The hospital room yesterday had been boiling, and she had once considered opening a window. She might today if she ended up staying as long again.

She took a moment to use her wand to clean the plates and cups she had used for her breakfast and put them away, and then took the time to make sure than she had everything she might need, putting them carefully one by one into her bag. She paused in front of the long mirror in the hallway, only taking a moment to tug at the hem of her jacket and run a palm over her hair. Then she grabbed the handle of her bag and slipped her shoes on, wearing her trainers this time rather than her office heels, stepping across the hall and into the dining room, where the larger fireplace made flooing more easy. She had to nip to the ministry before the Hospital, and it was still early enough to floo without queueing.

She stopped suddenly in the middle of the dining room however, her legs frozen mid-step and her arms flexed by her body. She realised she was tense in a moment and relaxed, the small gush of air escaping wobbling into an almost chuckle at herself for being so alert. She straightened up, walking a step or two towards the open doors to her left, through which she could see the man asleep on the sofa in the room beyond.

“George?”

His steady breathing continued and she didn’t want to speak very loud and wake him up, yet she was worried that he may have seen her and she was acutely aware she had not spoken or even seen him in the three days she had been back. But she would be delayed if she didn’t leave now, and she was eager to get going today.

“I have to get to work, George,” she whispered her excuse quietly, feeling she could not leave without explaining herself and yet hating her own impatience to get to Snape in the hospital room.

Her eye was suddenly drawn to the side of George’s head, the view of the wound around the hole of his ear clear in the morning light which came in through the window. He had not bothered to draw the curtains before he fell to sleep. Her stomach lurched, Snape had done that. She recalled the bitter anger she had felt on that night, the fear in her heart as she had flown through the air as one of the seven Harrys, the sinking reality of death that had come. Moody had fallen that night.

Her eyes flicked down to the wooden floorboards, the polish a sheen which reflected the light like the lake at Hogwarts. She saw the ashtray on the floor, filled with ash and fag ends, a small circle of detritus littered around it. In the same sweep of her gaze she took in the two – no, three – empty bottles of Ogden’s scattered around the couch as well.

She hefted her bag onto her shoulder and grabbed a handful of floo powder from the jar they kept by the fireplace. With barely a whisper she was gone in a blaze of green flame.

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

Had he only been thinking of her since she left?

He had continued to stare up at the tiles above him, taking in the almost imperceptible differences between them which made them all unique, but he had been unable to concentrate on even the simple arithmetic he usually resorted to in order to distract his mind as days came and went. He had watched the room slowly darken around him. He had paid more attention to the sounds that surrounded him than he had done for a long time. In reality it had been years since he had spent hours listening to the noises around him but of course he had no way of recollecting this.

The nurse who stayed throughout the night had arrived and, to his surprise, she and the day nurse had spent quite some time talking, having a conversation in the quiet of the late evening while around them lay several people who may or may not have been listening.

Severus Snape had been listening to them that night, his ears straining to hear the meaning of the voices as they echoed down the corridor and into the room through his open door. He had identified them and their tones, deciphered the names of their husbands, and some of their children. He listened to the various tales they recounted to each other, the school term was nearly over, it was summer already, where had the time gone?

Twenty six. Halved, thirteen.

Doubled, fifty two.

Twenty six.

He had hardly been interested in the idle banter which had passed between the two women. He certainly was not intrigued by any element of the humdrum lives they seemed to inhabit. He was more interested in the younger, quieter one who spent the night time watching over the ward, but she spoke seldom in amongst the chatty barrage of the woman who ruled the space by day.

There was something that troubled him, however, and coupled with the unnerving experience of the young girl who had visited him the conversation had left him quite unsettled.

He could not quite conceive himself of the real reason why he was haunted by the conversation he had been enthralled by, since he was not quite at the level where he was willing to accept all that had happened to him. His body was still withholding crucial epiphanies required in order for his capable mind to finally understand his situation, but the things he had already heard had sent unconscious worms of recollection moving through the fog that was his current mental state. Slowly he was becoming more and more undeniably aware of things just beyond his reach, but they wouldn’t stay there for long.

The reason why he had been left feeling so peculiar following the nurse’s conversation was the fact that it had made him consider the realities of a world outside his own. The mention of family, homes, life, all occurring away from any level he could currently focus on himself and yet which still spoke to a part of his soul, deep down. They had mentioned time, and it’s swiftness, and this too sent small cogs of memory turning in deep regions of his conscious.

But as mentioned, his mind was not yet ready to accept and understand the truth, so this was all still alien to him. It was only a matter of time, however, before it wasn’t.

He must have slept, because light had returned to the room.

He continued to stare, continued his counting.

But still he continued to think about her. Would she come? Would he want her to go as soon as she arrived? What was there about this particular girl which kept her at the forefront of his mind since she had first stood at the edge of his world? He still could not understand it, and seeing her again had done little to satisfy his curiosity. He remembered ashamedly that he had been afraid while she had been there, and he resented it. He wouldn’t let her affect him like that again.

Light, white.

Twenty six.

She was in the room before he noticed she was coming. He had not heard her converse with any of the nurses at the desk. She was suddenly there, standing two or three feet from the bed. He could see the weave of her shirt, the stitching on the pockets of her jeans. Picking up tiny details through the corner of his eyes. He was nervous. He could feel the acute dryness in his mouth. He willed himself not to swallow while her brown eyes were on him.

She moved to his right, putting her bag on a chair that sat under the window. She pulled out a notebook which seemed to be the same as the one she had before, and he watched her shoulders, her legs as she stood with her back to him, rummaging around in the bag on the chair. She wore a green jacket which came in slightly at her waist, her long curly hair was tied in a thick long plait down her back. Her hips were slanted as she rested her weight on her left leg, her right bent at the knee, the scuffed toe of her trainer dragging slightly across the floor.

He couldn’t help it. His eyes moved from the spot above his bed, which usually remained his centre of focus whenever they were open, and flicked up and down her body. He took in every detail during the stolen sweep of his dark gaze, from her wild hair to her tight jeans. It took less than a second, and his eyes were focused on white once again before she turned again to face him, a pen in her hand.

He found her attractive. He didn’t mind admitting this fact to himself, and it was certainly true. More so than the night nurse, the only other woman he had seen who had incited such feelings in him. Yes he certainly found her attractive, but there was more to it than that. He was almost sure now that he should recognise the girl, yet he could not place her. He had hoped a more focused look at her might have jogged his memory, but it had been unsuccessful. He had not seen a body like that in his room before – he would have remembered *that* – but his doubts continued to nag at the corners of his mind.

Perhaps she would look into his face, and he would be able to see into hers.

She moved her bag from the chair and pulled it forward slightly, the thin metal legs scraping and clattering across the polished floor. She sat down with a slight sigh, watching him again for a moment before crossing her legs, opening her notebook and resting it on her lap as she made her first few notes. She glanced at her watch, sending another reminder to his subconscious level of understanding. She noted the time and the date down.

He stared at twenty six white squares. The air seemed to settle between them as he lay there listening and watching her, watching her write in her notebook.

After a time, she looked up at him and whispered again, once more in a strange and unfamiliar language. However this time it was not a constant stream of harsh whispers, but the occasional one, reverberating around the quiet space.

He was pleased that she had moved her seat nearer, he could see her and it made things much easier for him. He found no menace in the situation now. The words she uttered seemed almost comforting, familiar. He wasn’t afraid.

He watched her every movement from the corner of his eye, and noticed the strange habitual movements she was making, the pattern to her actions. She would whisper one or two of her strange words, and as she did so she waved her left hand in a fluid motion of some sort, flicking what must be a pencil back and forth. She would pause then and watch for a few moments, her eyes moving to his face, his body, before she picked up another pen in her right hand and wrote for a while in the book in her lap.

He realised with a sudden clarity that she was working through some sort of problem, eliminating different elements perhaps, who trying to achieve some affect. Whatever the reason might be, she was cataloguing her progress as she went along, and the academic genius that was Severus Snape recognised it deep inside.

He had so much to consider sitting in the chair not far from him that once again the hours of time that she spent in the room, working through her collected studies, rushed past without him barely noticing. He was too fascinated by the wiggle of her foot, the small strand of hair that was loose from her braid and fell charmingly across her face. He studied the small frown that creased her forehead when she concentrated on her writing.

No part of him was thinking about time.

It seemed to him then that she had only just arrived when she stood suddenly, almost throwing her book down onto the chair. She went over to the window, leaning on her two hands, her arms stretched out in front of her. She leant down, looking at the floor, while she breathed deeply. He could see the rise and fall of her body with each breath. She suddenly moved forward, reaching through the white blinds hanging in front of the window, making them swing and clatter on the glass, the loud noise shocking in the relative silence of the room.

She scrabbled at the window and her hand found the handle of the catch at the side, pulling it down and pushing the window so it swung open, leaving a gap of several inches. He only noticed how hot and stuffy the room had been once the cool breeze blew through the blinds, making them sway, and moved across his face, cool and fresh.

There were smells of the summer city carried in from the street, a underlying sharpness of dirt and pollution mingled with the bright sweet smells of summer blooms, perhaps even the smell of cut grass from the park across from the hospital. The sound, too, carried up from the ground below, traffic, people, a stark reminder of life outside his white sphere, unable to penetrate through the seals of the window before now. More indications seeping into the hidden parts of his mind.

She stood almost shaking, breathing in the air as it flew through the gap. He noticed the sweat on her brow, the glisten of it at her neck. He was aware suddenly of the level to which she must have been exerting herself in the moments that had passed since she arrived. He wished he had paid more attention to what she had been doing rather than to the girl herself, but she seemed captivating. He could not help but concentrate on her. She continued to lean by the window, looking out and down on the world, and he forced himself to focus again on her notebook on the chair. There he saw the second thing that day which forced him flick the gaze of his deep black eyes from their usual anchor once again.

The biro she had used to write with lay on top of the notebook, next to a thin piece of wood. It seemed unintrusive, but as he focused on it it seemed to flicker slightly, and sway, lines blurring in front of him. He thought he could see some sort of large feather in it’s place. That was when he turned his gaze fully to the pen and stared a few moments, seeing not only the biro, but also a feather, merging in and out focus in the same place. A chill ran down his spine.

Some movement in his line of sight roused his attention and his eyes snapped back immediately to his hallowed spot above him.

Twenty six, twenty six, twenty six.

The fear struck him deep in his gut, a twisting snake of unease writing inside. He was suddenly very afraid. He had heard her intake of breath just as he had moved his vision back to the ceiling and he felt now like it was certain she had seen him. She had seen him looking at her chair, not staring at nothing like she was supposed to see. He cursed himself silently for being weak and letting his vision stray.

“Professor?” Her voice rang out across the room.

Professor?

He noticed the sound of the heart monitor. It had been there all the time but he thought change must have roused his attention, since he could hear it now above all else, like a razor through his hearing, high pitched and faster than usual. He realised it was his own heart beating quickly in response to his fear at being caught, that revelation only increasing the intensity of the repetitive beeping.

He must try to be calm, try to relax.

Thirteen.

Twenty six.

Fifty two.

The beeping began to slow, or he thought it did, it might just be in his mind. He concentrated on his breathing, inhaling deeply and slowly. He was entirely in control of this situation. She had not seen him. She hadn’t noticed. He felt he needed to be in control, but he didn’t know why. It didn’t matter now. The moment had passed.

At least, he thought it had. But his concentration was about to be tested further, and it would have scared him more than anything else if he had known it was coming. As it was he was caught unawares.

He had not heard or seen her approaching, he had been too engrossed in controlling his own traitorous body. He only became aware of her presence when her face moved into his direct vision, hovering only a few inches away from his own.

He was sure that his body flinched from the shock it gave him to see her above him, but maybe it didn’t, he was frozen in place, he was holding his breath. She was so close, so tantalisingly close, he felt he would smell her if he breathed in slightly. But he withheld, he moved not an inch. His eyes stared as they should, straight up, ahead into a sea of white tiles. Only when he was certain the beeping of the machine beside him was completely uniform did he allow his focus to wonder slightly to the details of the face before him.

The beads of sweat still clung to her skin, glinting on the edge of her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, her lips parted a fraction. He stared straight ahead still, using all of his concentration. He wanted desperately to break his line of vision again, to sweep his hungry gaze across her face, into her eyes. He felt the struggle inside as a strong part of him sought for the control he desired, fighting with another part determined to look into her dark eyes.

As if reading his thoughts she leant just a little further, so she was level with him, her eyes looking deep into the centre of his own. He stared up into her face, and he felt all control sliding from his grasp. He was going to look in her eyes if she didn’t move. Even now he could see the dark browns, the hints of green as well. She was still over him. The moment seem to stretch on forever.

Then she was gone, turned back to the chair, replacing her things into her bag and swinging it over her head to lay the strap across her chest. He let his breath out slowly. His lungs had been burning, but he did not gasp for air, merely steadied his breathing to a reasonable pace.

She lingered a moment more, scuffing one toe again, and then turned and left the room.

He swallowed several times and took another few deep breaths, drawing the air through his nose, wondering if perhaps he had caught a scent of her.

Despite seeing her so clearly, he still did not have any idea who she was. But he could not deny now that he had known her before, before this room. Before his vision had been filled with white tiles.

He’d not always been in this room.

The statement seemed so rudimentary, so simple. It was the obvious and he liked it’s certainty. But he did not feel like he would have thought it yesterday.

Yesterday.

Time had returned in some form to him, and it was the beginnings of his recovery. Like slowly dripping water the reminders of his world had washed upon him little by little. It was only time before he would recall everything, and then he would understand.

He was sure she’d be back.

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I would like to take this opportunity to say how ecstatic I am with the results of the recent election in America. As a citizen of the UK I have followed the whole thing with interest, coupled with part of my degree being the study of Civil Rights in the US. In my wildest dreams, it seemed, I hoped that Obama could be the 44th President, but staying up til 6am typing this chapter while it became reality was one of the finest moment of my life. I think the whole of America should be proud in taking this step. For every reader who played their part in this election I could only observe from afar, I thank you.

Both McCain and Obama’s speeches were excellent, and the whole affair has restored my faith in politics which had til now become very jaded to me. I hope I do not offend anyone with my personal statements.
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In a further gesture of goodwill I would like to thank more people who have reviewed me personally, I understand there is no way at present to contact you all so please bear with me everyone (and thank you very much indeed for reading my ramblings thus far!). Your reviews and ratings have continued to make me write this first fiction of mine – Thank you!

Voracious Reader: I hope that the Snape that evolves in my continuing chapters will manage to become less OOC, perhaps through unresolved anger issues, abandonment fears and an increase in already elevated paranoia, perhaps not! (although it is rather likely, I think I may have included some or all of these already! ;) We shall have to see what happens. I’m not sure yet whether he will behave himself! Whatever happens I hope you enjoy it.

Nmos: I hope it will be happier soon! I’m not all dark I hope.

Tambrathegreat: Thank you very much, I am very flattered by your comments. I hope you like my future instalments.

Sureves Epans: I certainly hope that you’ll enjoy these further chapters too. Thank you very much for your reviews. I hope the answers you want will be revealed in time!

Madietta: *blush* Thank you very much, your comments were lovely. To say I have a way with words is confidence building indeed! I am pleased you liked my descriptions of London, I worked hard on that bit. I am trying to improve my descriptive style so hopefully there will be more for you to enjoy.

Again, thanks all. :)