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.

--- 5 Hermione: When the Shadows Come to Call

"--Leviosa! Someone get Madame Pomfrey!" Hermione Granger lowered her wand and gestured urgently to Ron Weasley, who hurried off to find the Healer as Hermione sprinted across the room toward Harry. The Boy-Who-Lived had turned in surprise as Snape collapsed, and was now crouching over the Potions Master's prone form, which hovered perhaps ten inches off the ground.

Hermione had to push past several curious onlookers, some of whom seemed to think the situation was funny. "Is he all right?"

Snape's face had gone the colour of old concrete, and he made the most horrible wheezing, rattling sound as he struggled to draw in air. If he was conscious, he gave no sign of it.

"I don't know! He's breathing--more or less." Rather white-faced himself, Harry picked up the mask Snape had dropped and carefully put it back in place. Impossible to tell whether it helped or not. "I expected him to be angry, but I didn't think he'd--I mean I didn't realise--he didn't look that bad until he went and tore this thing off."

Hermione scanned the room impatiently. "Where have all the Healers got to? And the other teachers?...Well, we shouldn't leave him levitating here. Come on, there's an empty cot over there by Malfoy. Oh, get off, you lot, go do something useful! Find a Healer..." She imperiously shooed away the gawkers. The amusement value of an unconscious floating Potions Master was apparently of very limited duration; they dispersed without much argument.

Hermione watched them go, quite disgusted by the grins and snickers; not that one could expect a general outpouring of compassion, but really! Hermione didn't like Snape any more than the next struggling potions student, but, his service to the Order aside, it ran contrary to her nature to watch anyone suffer and not try to help.

She and Harry maneuvered the Professor's wilted form up and over the cot, and Hermione allowed him to settle gently onto it before dispelling the levitation.

"What did you say to him, Harry?" she asked in a low voice, checking Snape's pulse. It was reassuringly strong, but rather too fast, and his skin was clammy. That of course didn't necessarily mean anything; it was quite possible that Snape's skin was always clammy. Hermione found a blanket and spread it over him carefully, noting with some relief that Malfoy, in the next cot over, looked to be sound asleep. Awake, he would undoubtedly have been accusing them of trying to murder his favourite teacher...

Then she paused and looked at the Slytherin youth again, more carefully, certain she must have been mistaken. He'd been seriously burned, but that seemed to have been adequately treated. What struck her as odd was that his eyes were all puffy and red, with faint silvery streaks running down his face on either side...had Draco Malfoy been crying?

But Harry's answer brought her attention back to the situation at hand.

"Not that much, really. I...I basically told him that I'm not my dad, and asked if he'd please stop treating me like I was," he explained, not quite looking her in the eye.

Ah, that would explain it. Hermione nodded slowly, recalling the incident Harry had told her about two years before, when he'd accidentally--well, all right, not accidentally, but without a clue as to what he was meddling with--pried into one of the Potions Master's less-than-affectionate memories of James Potter and his cronies.

Harry had been very unspecific, and hadn't spoken much of his parents since, what with everything else going on, but Hermione was certain that his heroic notions about his father had been somewhat deflated that day. She also suspected he'd developed a small sympathy for Snape, though she would never be so foolish as to mention it to either one of them. Snape had been furious, by all accounts.

"I can't believe he got clocked by one of his own potions," Harry remarked, pulling up a chair and plopping down, looking slightly guilt-stricken.

"He's always going on about how dangerous they are, and how easy it is to make mistakes...I imagine he miscalculates more often than he lets on to us." Hermione kept a close eye on the Professor as she speculated. It almost hurt to watch him struggle for each breath, but she noted with cautious optimism that he didn't seem to be losing any ground, for the moment.

"Anyway it wasn't the potion itself that got him, it was the fumes. It must have taken an enormous amount of the stuff to destroy the entire dungeon, and the ventilation down there was always a bit of a problem, even with our small cauldrons in class..."

While it wasn't common, Hermione had seen a few students overwhelmed by particularly malodorous mistakes over the years; on one memorable occasion Snape had evacuated not only the classroom, but that entire section of the dungeon, courtesy of Neville, who had unwittingly substituted Essence of Wyvern for Essence of Wisteria. The stench had taken days to clear, and everyone in the class had been forced to burn the robes they'd worn that day (excepting Ron, who couldn't afford replacements, and had spent the next several months smelling faintly of scorched wyvern.)

"Yeah, I suppose." Harry looked around, frowning. "You sent Ron to find Madame Pomfrey, right?"

"Yes, but I can't imagine where she's got to; or Professor McGonagall, or...any of the others."

Snape stirred a little, and muttered something ragged and indecipherable, his brows drawing together in a scowl even deeper than he usually wore in class; Hermione absently patted his hand. It was icy cold. Not a good sign at all. "I hope nothing else has gone wrong."

Harry's eyes widened. "Hermione...have you seen Professor Dumbledore since we got back?"

She blinked. "No...no, I haven't..."

Harry was on his feet and striding for the door in a twinkling. "Stay with Snape, 'Mione, I'm going to find out what's going on."

"But..." She half-rose, one hand extended to stop him, but he had moved beyond her reach and was out of the room within moments.

Disgruntled, she sank back into her chair. "And who appointed you Head Boy, Harry Potter, and me Keeper of Fallen Slytherins, when I wasn't looking?" she grumbled under her breath.

The next instant she nearly jumped out of her skin as Snape sat bolt upright, wild-eyed and gasping desperately for air. He flailed out blindly, and grabbed onto her by pure reflex to save himself from toppling out of the cot, but there was no recognition in his eyes; only a look of horrified panic that she had never imagined seeing there, and could scarcely believe she was seeing now.

He tried to speak--a name, she thought--but the effort triggered a fit of coughing so fierce and prolonged that she feared he might damage his throat beyond repair.

"Calm down, Professor!" She caught hold of him by the shoulders, helpless to do anything but support him until the spasm had passed. "You passed out," she added, hoping to avert any further hysterics before the Potions Master ran out of air entirely. "I know you're having trouble breathing, but please, you have to try to stay calm. Madame Pomfrey has been sent for. You'll be all right..."

Trembling violently, he sagged against her as the coughs finally eased off. Holding him upright with one arm, she drew out her wand and Accio'd a spare pillow stowed on a nearby shelf. Then she gently turned Snape and eased him back onto the cot, propped up slightly, hoping it would help him breathe a bit more easily.

His panic seemed to have died away with the coughing spasm, and Hermione saw a flicker of recognition when he looked up at her now through glazed half-lidded eyes; but he was panting hoarsely, on the verge of hyperventilating, and looked exceedingly ill. She wondered distractedly whether it would be possible to Accio Madame Pomfrey to them, and the devil with propriety and whatever else the Healer was doing...

Only then, with the most immediate crisis past, did it come back to her what Snape had been trying to say upon awakening. It had been a name, yes, one she knew, and now matched with an identity after only a moment's thought--"Lily."

Never slow to put two and two together, Hermione stared at her teacher, the realization dawning that his terror of a moment before had not been for himself; and then she had to look away, as the implications of that fact began to filter through. He could only have meant one person, really.

Lily Evans--later known as Lily Potter.

Unaware of what he had just given away, Snape gave his full attention to the business of breathing, closing his eyes.

They flickered open again a moment later in dull surprise. Hermione had taken his cold hand and clasped it in both of her own. "It will be all right," she repeated softly.

For a moment, as he frowned at her, she feared that the impulsive gesture had been a mistake. But his scrutiny seemed thoughtful, even mildly puzzled; he didn't try to pull away.

That was how Ron and Harry found them a short time later, when they returned with an alarmed Madame Pomfrey in tow.

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