Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and all these other people are characters belonging to J.K. Rowling. I claim no rights to them, their surroundings, or their situations. Much to my sorrow.

--- 19 Hermione: Or Has It Just Begun

It had been a long evening and a restless night, sitting up next to the oblivious Potions Master, and Hermione was tired. She had lost her voice after several hours of nonstop talking, and had found even her formidable repertoire of information strained a bit toward the end.

Knowing every possible use for Acanthopanax senticosus or the historical origins and development of Arithmancy was all well and good, but it was hard to hold a one-sided discussion of such things without it turning into a lecture. And one simply didn't lecture one's Potions instructor, even if he was comatose.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Snape had finally drifted into a deeper slumber, and no long reacted when she carefully disengaged her hand from his grip long enough to make a dash for the loo. She took this as an encouraging sign; his respiration and colour had improved steadily throughout the night. The nurse who had stopped in several times said that the danger was most likely past, though the mediwizard would need to confirm that.

She'd managed to doze for a while, herself, though the eerie quiet of the place actually made it harder. And the chair, comfortable enough for sitting, was totally unsuitable for sleeping. She ached in several places, feeling decidedly grungy and badly in need of a toothbrush.

Getting up and going quietly to the washroom, she took a good look in the mirror and groaned. Her hair was frizzed out wildly in all directions and still speckled with ash from the burning of the school; and though she'd washed her face directly afterward, she now realised she had missed a few streaks and splotches of soot. Her eyes were red and bleary from too little sleep.

"I look like an overworked chimney sweep," she mumbled disconsolately, wetting a bit of paper towel and scrubbing at the soot marks.

"There, there, now, my dear," the mirror said in a tone meant to reassure, no doubt enchanted to speak as soothingly as possible to anyone who happened by. "It's not so bad as all that. Nothing a little charm or a nice shower won't cure straightaway."

Neither of which was available to her at the present time. "Oh, just...stuff it, won't you?" she snapped, turning and flouncing back to the Professor's bedside, ignoring the mirror's hurt exclamation.

She sighed and rubbed at her forehead as she re-seated herself, then indulged in a long, therapeutic stretch. Professor McGonagall would probably be cross with her for staying on so long, but, she decided, she wasn't sorry she'd done it. Having at last seen with her own eyes that Professor Snape was a real human being underneath his fearsome, scowling demeanor, she thought she would never again be terrified or intimidated by his mere presence.

As well, she'd turned up an intriguing mystery--albeit a slightly guilty one.

It had been sixteen years since the deaths of James and Lily Potter, she reflected; yet here was Snape, their old classmate, calling out Lily's name in a moment of deep distress. It was possible he'd known another Lily at some time, of course; she would have to look the name up in the school records, once they were out of storage. But given Harry's description of the pensieve incident, Hermione felt she could be reasonably sure of her guess.

She studied his sleeping face, going back over that sad story in her mind. Sallow skin, prominent nose, less-than-perfect teeth...Snape wasn't precisely an ugly man, she decided; not like, say, Argus Filch, or poor old Mad-Eye Moody certainly. His perpetually unpleasant expression did far more to detract from his appearance than did any of his physical flaws. But he couldn't be considered good-looking, either.

He did have his redeeming features, most notably the dark mysterious eyes and that incredible silky voice; but she doubted that he had yet learned to use them to their full effect as a teenager. Shy and bookish, he likely hadn't got much attention from the young ladies; especially not with the likes of James Potter and his cronies about.

It was all too easy to imagine that any kind word from a female classmate would have turned his head. He'd called Lily a mudblood, she recalled with a slight frown; but then Snape was a Slytherin, habituated to such vile terms, and how many teenage boys of any House would want to admit to needing help from a mere girl? As though being dangled the wrong way up and tormented for no reason weren't humiliation enough.

Yes, it made perfect sense. It even provided a possible explanation for Snape's defection from the ranks of the Death Eaters, now that she thought of it. How many men, after all, could continue to serve a master who had slain their first love in cold blood?

"And is that why you hate Harry so?" she whispered, almost inaudibly, lest he should wake and hear her presumptuously speculating on such a private matter. "Your Lily's eyes looking out at you from James Potter's face...it's a wonder you can bear to be around him at all."

She laced her fingers through his again, absently adding large gracefully built hands to the list of his appealing features, and wondered sadly why fate seemed to single out certain people for such senseless punishment, while passing over others who were surely more deserving. And at what point the cycle of disappointment, distrust and resentment became inescapable, feeding upon itself until there was no room left for anything else...

Lost in such morose thoughts, Hermione barely registered the quiet opening of the door. Only when a tall figure in lime green robes stepped into the room did she look up, relieved that the mediwizard had finally got around to making an appearance.

A nondescript but agreeable-looking man with brown hair and blue eyes, he smiled at her rather blandly, speaking in a low voice with a clipped, precise accent as he consulted a clipboard. "Good morning...Miss Granger, is it?"

My goodness, they certainly believe in thorough record-keeping...perhaps because it's a restricted ward, she thought as she nodded. "Good morning."

"Been here all night, have you? You ought to have asked for a cot...these visitors' chairs aren't made for lengthy stays." He began conjuring instruments as Madame Pomfrey had done, though these varied somewhat in their shapes and apparent functions.

Hermione blushed, feeling quite foolish. "It never occurred to me, sir. The chair wasn't so bad, though."

"The nurse should have offered, then," he said with a slight frown. "But they are so very busy, and it's difficult to find adequate help these days.

"Well, no matter. Let's see how our patient has fared under your no doubt very capable supervision. He's certainly looking better than his chart led me to believe."

"All I did was sit with him, sir," Hermione hastened to assure him, though pleased at the gratuitous compliment. "He does seem much better; when we brought him in last night he could scarcely draw a breath."

"Yes, quite," the mediwizard murmured, picking up one of the instruments and manipulating it curiously. She noted several sharp projections and edges to the thing, and wondered what its function might be.

For no apparent reason, the bluish light from the bar still hovering over the Professor flickered and changed colour slightly.

Something was tickling unpleasantly at the back of Hermione's awareness, but she couldn't quite pin it down. Knowing very little of the Healing arts, she assumed the man knew his business. Perhaps the strange device was used to calibrate the energy field somehow.

Only then did it penetrate her fatigue-addled mind that it really wasn't appropriate for her to be in here while her Potions instructor was given a medical examination. "Oh, gracious...excuse me, I'll just step outside a moment, until you've finished." Blushing, she hastily rose out of the chair and began to skirt her way around the bed and the Healer.

"No, no, on the contrary. I think I prefer you right where you are." The mediwizard glanced up and smirked at her in a most unprofessional manner, his eyes gleaming in a way she did not like at all. He set down the instrument he'd been fiddling with, and reached for his wand.

Then her eyes chanced to fall upon the bar again, and it hit her. "...but as long as you don't cast any spells in here, nothing you do will disrupt it." There was a flare and a crackle in the field, which shaded over into a sort of lilac colour, as the mediwizard's hand closed over the wand's handle.

She went on moving as though she'd noticed nothing, and smiled brightly, hoping her sudden tension wouldn't give her away. "No, really, it simply wouldn't be proper. I'm just a student, you see, no relation at all..."

"Oh, but I insist." The mediwizard's face had gone quite blank, except for his eyes. Their pretty blue colour had faded to a sort of washed-out slate, and lightened toward silvery grey as she watched; the brown seemed to be leaching out of the roots of his hair, leaving them white as snow. "You've come this far with him; it's only proper and fitting you should see it through to the end."

He whipped his wand around toward her in a motion that called to mind instantly the battle at the Ministry two years before.

Once again, Hermione's training with the DA saved her. She snapped her own wand up and shouted "Expelliarmus!" before her conscious mind could process the command, diving behind the washroom door before she'd even seen whether her curse connected. Her ears informed her within a matter of milliseconds that it had, by way of a violent crash and a stream of foul profanities, in a snarling voice that was now all too chillingly familiar.

This was immediately followed by an angry "Colloportus!" and the squelching sound of a door sealing itself shut. Her heart sank; even if the sound of their battle got through the room's thick walls and help arrived promptly, breaching the ward would take time.

That left her with only one immediately available ally, and he was out cold, even more at risk than herself. Filling her lungs to their utmost capacity, she shrieked as loudly as she could, "PROFESSOR SNAPE! WAKE UP!"

Then the door was blown apart by a vicious Blasting Curse, throwing her back against the doorframe. Her head connected with the wood solidly enough to set stars dancing before her eyes, but she forced herself up and into motion, knowing that to remain still was to die then and there.

The room was small, and the only place to run to (other than the tiny washroom, which would be a suicide move) was to the other side of the bed. That meant putting Snape between herself and her enemy, directly in the line of fire, and she saw no sign that her shout had roused him at all.

But unless she meant to charge straight into Lucius Malfoy's arms, she had no choice.

She dodged behind the bed, firing off a hasty, rather ineffectual Petrificus along the way. Malfoy shook it off almost without effort and aimed a "Stupefy!" at her. She countered with "Protego!" wondering why he hadn't tried something more lethal.

Brought to a standoff, they exchanged several rapid volleys. Hermione managed to counter each of the Death Eater's curses, somehow even preventing any ricochets from hitting the Professor; but she knew she couldn't hold out for long, and that the Unforgivables would not be long in coming. "Professor! Please!" she gasped between incantations, seizing Snape by the shoulder with her free hand and shaking him roughly, but she had no time to watch for a reaction.

Casting about frantically for something with which to break the stalemate, she turned her wand on the hovering bar, which was by this time spilling light of a shocking magenta colour, and sent it flying at Malfoy with the most forceful "ABLEGATIO!" she could muster.

The light sputtered out entirely as the device hurtled toward the Death Eater. It missed his head by a fraction of a centimetre, and pulverised a floor lamp in the corner of the room behind him. He flinched sideways slightly, but looked more enraged than intimidated.

"Filthy whore of a Mudblood!" Malfoy backpedaled, caught up the bar from amid the lamp's wreckage, and physically threw it at her, after the fashion of a spear.

She hadn't been expecting such a blatantly Muggle-ish tactic from the bigoted pureblood. The missile struck her shoulder with stunning force, knocking her wand arm askew, and Malfoy used the moment to fire off a furious "CRUCIO!" that caught her square in the face.

Everything else was washed away in a torrent of blinding, searing, unspeakable pain.

She dimly heard her own voice screaming, as she staggered back against the wall and clutched her head, but the sound had no meaning. Nor did the loud banging from somewhere across the room, or Malfoy's voice, as he spat something vile and contemptuous--as though mere words could worsen this agony.

Then as abruptly as it had struck, the pain vanished.

She was on her knees, trembling and sobbing uncontrollably; drawing a blank, for a moment, on where she was, or what had just happened.

Then, remembering, she fought to bring her blasted senses back into focus and locate her enemy, before he delivered the killing blow...

Her ears recovered first. She caught the tail end of an agonised scream, the voice too distorted to identify. Underneath it came a peculiar sizzling noise, and the distinct popping sound of an Apparation.

An unpleasant burning odor filled her nostrils; her muddled brain reacted with an absurd image of Ron--his face screwed up in comical dismay, shaking out his smoke-saturated robes after the long-ago Potions accident.

Now all was quiet, but for muffled voices outside the door, a soft rustle of fabric, and someone panting softly very close by. Friend or enemy? She forced her eyes open, but they remained unfocused and blurred with tears, essentially useless.

"Miss Granger?" The familiar voice near her ear was still slightly rough around the edges, and a bit confused, but calm.

It was perhaps the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard.

Beyond worrying about such trifles as propriety or House points, she reached out blindly and snatched him into a fervent hug, burying her face against his shoulder.

Snape made a small sound of discomfiture, but had sense enough not to try to shove her away immediately. He was warm and solid and reassuring--even smelled rather good, some small clinical part of her mind noted with interest, while the rest of her carried on in near-hysterics. After a moment his arms settled around her, awkwardly, but evoking a visceral sense of security which she badly needed.

As the door was summarily blasted off its hinges to admit a swarm of Aurors and mediwizards, he sighed deeply and murmured quietly into her hair, "Hush, Hermione...it's all right. I'm here."

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