It Is the East and She Is the Sun

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any carachters or settings from Harry Potter. They belong to J.K. Rowling.

AN: HG/SS of course! I The story and chapter titles are from Shakespeares\' \"Romeo and Juliet.\"

*And to the fans of \"I Will Always Find You\", don\'t worry, I AM going to finish that one, I\'m just a little stuck right now and I decided to pull this one off the shelf and work on it for awhile until my muse decides to get her lazy ass back to work.


\"It Is the East, and She Is the Sun\"


CH.1 But soft

Because her tears were on his face, her desperate sobs in his ear, her hair brushing his neck, her arms wrapped around his body.....


He knew he was alive.

Two Months Prior~


The dungeons were cold, though spring was blooming outside. He was stalking down to his office to enjoy the promised hour of solitude he had before the last class of the week.


He nearly tripped over her.

She was sitting on the cold dungeon floor out in the hallway, knees to her chest, with her head in her arms. He could her her crying.


\"Miss Granger, do get off of the floor, and stop your pathetic whimpering.\" He growled.


She stiffened, and he felt pleasure in her reaction.


Then she looked up.


Her eyes were leaking tears, yes. But her nose... her nose was leaking blood. Quite a bit of it.


The sight enraged him to an extent that it even shocked him. Tightly controlling his anger, he offered her a hand.


When she didn\'t take it, he bent down and lifted her to her feet himself. When she was standing, he realeased her; but she began to crumble, her knees giving out.

He steadied her easily, placing an arm about her waist, and only then did he realize just how thin she was. He could feel her ribs and her spine sticking out.


\"What happened?\" He asked in a tight voice. He was ready to flay alive whatever idiot had dared to hit her. She might be a Gryffindor and the little know it all best friend of the boy who lived to be the bane of his existance; but she was a young woman, not a punching bag.


She flinched. \"I don\'t know.\"


\"You\'re lying. What happened?\"


She looked up and he could tell she was angry; but it was hard for her to look so with blood dripping down her chin.


\"I just started bleeding and I got dizzy and I was too disoriented to....\" Her voice got breathy and he grabbed her before she fainted.

She was telling the truth that time, he knew. He also knew that she was very sick. He wondered that he hadn\'t noticed. Her work hadn\'t been suffering; but obviously she had. Looking at her face he wondered how he had assumed that someone had struck her.

\'It must have been a charm, or a glamour.\' He thought to himself as he carried her hurriedly through the halls to the hospital wing. He would have liked to run; but it would be more dangerous to her if he fell. \'That\'s how she hid it. And it explains the nosebleed. Too much magic. Tough on her system.\'

Students along the way stopped to gape at the potions master as he strode by with a limp and bloody head girl in his arms.


He cursed when Potter and Weasely saw him. Thier faces paled and they ran behind him. demanding to know what had happened.


\"She has fainted. Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasely. Were either of you aware that she is sick?\"


\"No sir,\" they both replied.


\"You can do nothing then, so I suggest you stop hindering me, and allow me to take her to someone who can.\"


They stopped asking questions; but did not stop following him as he took her to the hospital wing.


Whe he burst into the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey took one look at Hermione and rushed off to bring the necessary equipment.


He gently transferred the limp girl to a vacant cot, and arranged her limbs in a comfortable position.


\"Professor I shall need your assistance with this,\" she said breathily as she returned.


\"Of course.\" He inclined his head slightly. \"You see how emaciated she is? Something has been wrong with her for quite awhile.\"


Madam Pomfrey glanced at the pale gaunt face of the girl and nodded. She was preparing to administer a blood replenishing potion. \"Look at her eyes. She looks like she hasn\'t slept well for months. But I saw her only yesterday, and she looked so healthy.\"


He frowned. \"I fear she has been using some kind of glamour to hide her illness.\"

\"Yes. It would explain the nosebleed. She has been straining herself far too much.\" Madam Pomfrey was looking quite severe.

Snape looked down on the frail girl in the bed and felt something he had not felt in a long time. Complete horror at anothers\' state of being.


When he and Pomfrey had given her numerous potions and gotten her as clean and comfotable as possible he turned to the Mediwitch.


\"Madam, with your leave, I would like to draw blood from her as soon as her body can handle it. I\'d like to know just what is wrong with her.\"


\"Of course, Professor Snape. I shall notify you as soon as I feel she has recovered sufficiently.\"


He nodded and took his leave of the hospital wing.


Snape went directly to Dumbledores\' office. The old man called for him to enter before he even knocked.


Sighing, he went inside and informed the headmaster of Miss Granger\'s condition. The usually merry Headmaster sobered instantly.


\"What do you think is wrong with her, Severus?\" he asked. The twinkle in his eyes gone for once.


\"Hopefully I shall have that information soon, headmaster. I have only to wait until it is safe to draw her blood.\"


Dumbledore nodded. \"Severus you know how important she is to the wizarding world. Please do all you can to save her. I\'ll take your last class today.\"


Snape nodded and took his leave of the headmaster. He needed a stiff drink before he got down to some serious research on wasting spells, poisons and ilnesses.


~

When Harry and Ron saw Professor Snape leave they got up from the bench they had been told to wait on and asked Madam Pomfrey if they could see Hermione.


\"Yes dears, you may go in; but she is asleep and the potions that have been administered will keep her that way until she has healed up a bit.\"


\"What\'s wrong with her?\" asked Harry upon seeing the girls face. He was scared for his friend. She looked extremely sick and weak.


\"I\'m afraid I do not know Mr. Potter,\" Madam Pomfrey replied. \"When she has recovered enough, Professor Snape will take a blood sample from her and try to determine the cause of her illness.\"

Harry and Ron nodded. They still disliked Professor Snape; but they both trusted him now. They had seen the condition he had returned in after being summoned to Voldemorts\' side, and knew what he risked by being a spy.

They sat with her until Madam Pomfrey shooed them from the hospital wing. She then did a charm to scan Hermiones\' body in order to tell if they could remove a small amount of blood.


The frail girl seemed to be doing better, so she flooed Professor Snape. He was there in an instant and carefully took Hermiones blood.


He assured the worried Mediwitch that he would notify her as soon as he knew what to do and retreated to the dungeons. He didn\'t want to gaze upon Hermiones\' emaciated form any longer than he had to. His chest tightned every time he looked on her face.


It literally hurt to think of the glowing happy girl she had been over the summer. Had she been sick even then? He seriously hoped she recovered so he could flay her alive. What had she been thinking, not telling someone how ill she was? He only hoped he had found out in time to save her.

After an entire night in his lab researching and analyzing her blood, he finally came up with an answer. It was a poison. A rare one. The Contabesco. Contabesco literally meant, \"to waste away slowly.\"

He would make whoever had done this to her pay. He\'d read about Contabesco before. It made absorbtion of nutrients impossible, so that the body would naturally use it\'s reserve fat stores and then muscle and finally bone mass. Her body was actually feeding upon itself.

He prayed to whatever gods were listening that he could find the ingredients in time. He knew how to brew the antidote; but the ingredients were the tricky part. He needed moonflower dew and the powdered egg tooth of a dragon. Not easy things to get; but perhaps he could ask Charlie Weasely to locate the dragon egg tooth.


The moonflower dew was going to be the most difficult ingredient. He sighed. Best to let Dumbledore know what was going on.


He went to his fireplce and threw floo powder in. \"Dumbledores office.\"


He stuck his head in the fire and saw Dumbledore sitting at his desk. \"Headmaster, could I have a word?\"


\"Yes Severus? Do you have an answer?\"


\"The Contabesco sir.\"


Dumbledores eyes widened. \"You\'re positive?\"


\"Yes sir.\"


\"You\'re in luck Severus, I was speaking to Mundugus the other day, and he has a vial of moonflower dew.\"


\"Stolen, no doubt,\" said Snape; but he was glad, for once, that Mundugus had sticky fingers. He was not surprised that Dumbledore knew how to brew the antidote to Contabesco. It seemed the man never forgot much of anything.


\"Yes, I\'ll have him send it at once. I\'ll get in touch with Charlie Weasely and see if he can get a dragon egg tooth for you.\"


\"I\'ll gather the rest of the ingredients and prepare,\" snape said and pulled his head out of the fire.


It took nearly a day for him to get everything. He was worried that she was too far gone to respond to the antidote; but he was going to give it to her anyway.


AN: Hope you liked, I\'ll have the next installment up soon. This story is only going to be about four or five chapters, so it shouldn\'t take too long for me to finish it.