A Harsh Light

Saving a Death Eater

By Bambu

Author's Notes and Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers and thanks may be found in chapter one.

~o0o~

Chapter Five: A Harsh Light

Proving that competence had a great deal to do with a smooth landing, neither Harry nor Hermione were jostled in the slightest when they arrived in a sun-dappled glade in the midst of the New Forest. The whisper of Harry's mother's name faded in the quiet morning. And yet, hard-learned lessons were not easily ignored, and the two friends immediately stood back-to-back to survey their surroundings, their wands held loosely in their hands. Not as a threat, but neutrally defensive.

"For a forest, it's not bad," Harry said, eliciting a nervous giggled from Hermione.

"True," she agreed, looking at the enclosing trees, some of which were as old and gnarled as any she'd ever seen. "And listen to that."

He cocked his head. "What?"

"Birds. I can hear birds chirping."

"There are birds in the Forbidden Forest and in the Forest of Dean."

"I've never heard birdsong in the Forbidden Forest, Harry, and I was far too busy fishing or scrounging for edible fungi ... or just plain afraid ... to notice during our camping trip."

"It's not like the Forbidden Forest though, is it?"

"No," she said, relieved. "It isn't. It's well ... friendlier." She took a few steps toward the corpse of a fallen tree, one sheared off at head-height by lightning, and as if to negate her comment, a trumpeting scream rent the air, stilling the cheerful birdsong. Hermione spun, wildly, looking for the attacker, her wand pointed in the direction of the threat, but she checked her movement when the largest stallion she'd ever seen dropped stiff-legged from his rampant challenge.

The unicorn pranced into the glade, nostrils flaring as if in anger, but in reality scenting the invaders to his domain. His coat was not the pure white Hermione expected. Indeed, shimmering hints of a rainbow gleamed in the lustrous coat, a trick; perhaps, of the differential refraction of light waves, or perhaps, a representation of the inherent magic in this most magical of all creatures. The stallion's hooves were a darker ivory and his eyes were the palest blue she had ever seen. For a fleeting second, she noted they were the exact same shade of Draco Malfoy's eyes, but then she forgot about her childhood nemesis as the stallion lowered his silver horn at Harry's midsection.

"No!" Hermione screamed, racing to stand between Harry and the unicorn. "Please. We've come to you for help. Professor Snape has been badly injured, and he might die without it."

The stallion snorted and pranced forward. Hermione trembled violently and gripped her wand tighter so as not to drop it from her suddenly sweaty hand. Although the danger was real, Hermione still noted the spiral horn wasn't properly silver; instead, it held the luster of mother-of-pearl.

At her back, Harry's inarticulate fear and anger bubbled from his mouth in an odd sort of gargle, but other than standing so rigidly Hermione could feel the inner strength it took to keep him still, he did nothing. The stallion stood firm, his eyes staring deeply into hers.

"Please," she whispered. "Please help."

The stallion lowered its magnificent head until his horn pointed directly center circle of the wand vow she had taken so recently. Hermione trembled but held her ground. And then, ever so slightly, the stallion leaned forward.

The second the nacreous horn touched her, Hermione screamed. It was as if she were lying at Bellatrix Lestrange's feet again, being cursed and kicked and carved once more. It was as if Antonin Dolohov had risen from the grave to cast his silent, lethal, purple-tinged hex in her direction.

It was too much.

Hermione's knees buckled and she sank to her knees; Harry's panicked shout so indistinct she couldn't understand him. And yet, as if she had been Legilimized by Dumbledore, Voldemort, or Snape, himself, memories of the past year flashed through her mind in a crisp timeline progression that would have taken days for her to organize. Her last cognizant image was of Severus Snape lying in his hospital bed, her own desperate, pleading voice looping around her plundered memories in an endless refrain: Please, please help.

Then darkness swooped to claim Hermione.

Harry's frantic voice roused her, and she opened her eyes to an occluded sky, thunder clouds jostling one another, ready to throw down into an all-out brawl. Hermione blinked, trying to remember what had happened. Her mind was tender, the result of an alien magical presence she instantly identified as the stallion's. When she sat up, Hermione closed her eyes until her dizziness and nausea passed.

Then she looked for the stallion, but he was gone. The full encounter tantalized the periphery of her mind, shimmering like jewels cast upon a sunny meadow, each waiting to be discovered and treasured.

For the moment, however, she took in her surroundings, absently noting the lack of birdsong as she saw the mare lying within arm's reach. Hermione whispered the name, "Amandaria," that knowledge a gift of the stallion's mental invasion. The bump where Amandaria's horn had been detached no longer gleamed with magic, but was instead lackluster grey against her snow-white coat. The dainty creature was dead.

Tears welling in her eyes, Hermione leaned toward the unicorn, but at that moment she realized Harry knelt on the far side of the mare. He held Amandaria's softly gleaming horn in one hand, and his other hand pressed against his side, blood trickling from between his fingers, saturating his shirt, staining his jeans, and nourishing the glade's loamy floor.

Surreal fantasy shattered in the face of a more urgent reality.

"Harry!" Hermione scrambled to his side. "My god, Harry!" She raised her wand to heal him, but he shouted, "No! Hermione, you can't!"

"What? Why ever not?"

"We need it. We need my blood for the potion to cure Snape. The stallion explained. While you were ... er ... out."

"Explained?" She shook her head, as if to shake a memory loose. The truth of what Harry said sparkled at the edge of her consciousness. "What happened? Tell me what happened."

He grimaced. "Can it wait 'til we get back? Bleeding here!"

"Sorry! Where's the Portkey?"

"I used it." His cheeks flushed pink, and he wiggled his elbow, drawing her attention to his wound, and the Portkey handkerchief he used as a rough sort of bandage.

"Oh, god! How long have I been out?"

"Long enough for me to feel a bit light-headed. Can we talk after they take my blood and we give them the unicorn horn?"

"Of course it'll wait. Have you kept pressure on the wound? Have you..." She pressed her hand against his fist, touching the bloody handkerchief, and listening to Harry grunt in pain. "Sorry," she wailed even as they were whisked from the glade.

They landed awkwardly in in Hogwarts' great entry. Pomfrey cried out in dismay and Shacklebolt's easy smile of triumph faded as he saw the blood seeping from beneath Harry's and Hermione's hands.

"Let's go!" the Minister shouted. At his shout, his dedicated team of Aurors and Hit Wizards converged upon them. "Poppy!"

"You aren't coming." Pomfrey's eyes narrowed, and she waved her hands at the Aurors. "Neither are they."

"Nonsense," Shacklebolt replied forcefully.

"You know the rules, Kingsley. You can't come, and they..." she pointed accusingly in the direction of a Hit Wizard "...certainly shall not."

Shacklebolt's face darkened with anger, but Hermione interrupted the argument, snarling. "Harry's bleeding! I don't care who comes or not, but stop rowing, please, and let's go!" By this time, she had one arm wrapped around her best friend, and he had begun to lean heavily against her, his jaw clenched against the pain.

The reminder of Harry's state quashed Shacklebolt's anger in less than a second. Pomfrey said nothing, her mouth pinched tight, but she removed her brooch from her lapel and offered it to Hermione and Harry. Hermione placed Harry's shaking hand on the pin, holding it in place so they both touched the delicately worked metal. Then Pomfrey snapped out, "Potter must be seen to immediately."

"I'm coming with you," Kingsley said, his chin jutting forward pugnaciously. "I fit the bloody criteria, Poppy. Severus has been a friend of mine for twenty years." His glance fixed his fey-faced Auror as if he'd cast a stunning spell, and he barked an order. "I will return as soon as it's feasible. No one is to know what has happened."

He reached for the Portkey.

When the four landed in the private ward, Brian Pauling and a team of healers awaited them. Within moments, Harry was laid out on the bed nearest Snape, and a mediwizard used a carefully applied Surgical Hex to cut away Harry's saturated shirt before debriding his wound. The others scurried about their tasks with quiet efficiency, and Brian Pauling joined Kinglsey Shacklebolt next to Snape's bed to have a quiet discussion before the interim Minister departed.

Hermione stared at the jagged hole in Harry's abdomen and her mental landscape shifted. Suddenly transported to the final battle, she stared at a fallen Death Eater. She had never seen the result of an Entrail Expelling curse until that moment. The man could have been anyone she might pass on the street -- middle-aged, slightly balding -- but he wore Death Eater robes, and his silver mask had been pushed off his head as he desperately pressed his intestines back into his gaping abdomen. He had died shortly thereafter, and Hermione had been carried past him by the inexorable tide of fighting.

In the private ward of St. Mungo's, Hermione wrung her hands, hovering at the foot of Harry's bed.

The St. Mungo's staff, intent upon their tasks, treated her as if she was a piece of the furniture, but Poppy Pomfrey draped a blanket about her shoulders and handed her a small glass filled with deep green liquid. "For shock," she said quietly before returning to Brian Pauling's side.

Forming the base of a U between Harry's and Snape's beds was a stone slab worktable. Freshly brewed Blood Replenishing Potion simmered gently in a number seven cauldron, its fumes rising in lazy swirls in spite of the surrounding activity. Adjacent to the simmering potion, a very small silver cauldron sat upon an unlit burner. Arrayed in orderly fashion along the table-front were a series of potions ingredients.

While Hermione drank the Calming Draught, she mentally catalogued the ingredients she recognized: pomegranate seeds, some form of powdered horn (which she would later learn was rhinoceros), goldenseal, and nettle as well as willow bark, but her eyes were drawn to the unique goblet from which Snape would drink the hopefully life-saving potion. It was a hollowed-out unicorn horn, its pearlescent sheen gleaming in the brightly torchlit room.

As Pauling and Pomfrey worked with swift efficiency, Hermione's adrenaline-flushed anxiety succumbed to the soporific effects of the Calming Draught. She stopped shaking, and then she removed the blanket, draping it over the foot of Harry's bedframe. She kept watch over him, noticing that his eyes were closed while the healer worked to repair the damage the unicorn stallion had caused. Periodically, her eyes darted to the adjacent bed, to Severus Snape's pale, unconscious face. His wounds hadn't noticeably improved, and he was frequently restless, his limbs twitching as muscles spasmed against the incursion of Nagini's venom. His expression was a rictus of pain so intense it penetrated his subconscious, and Hermione's heart ached as she watched.

Occasionally, she observed Pauling as he prepared and tested the bloodied unicorn horn Harry had shoved in his hands. He brushed his graying hair off his forehead with restless fingers and his mouth was held in a tight, concentrated line. While Hermione watched, he poured a flagon of water into the silver cauldron before levitating the unicorn horn into it. Within seconds, the water was boiling furiously, and he nodded his head in satisfaction.

Fascinated, Hermione watched as Pauling removed the horn from the boiling water with a pair of silver tongs. All of Harry's blood had been removed from the softly gleaming horn. Pauling picked up a silver tool which, to Hermione's Muggle-born eyes, resembled the micro-grater her mum used to shave parmesan cheese, but this one was smaller. While holding the horn with the tongs, he grated the blunt end of the sacrificial horn until a small pile of shavings heaped into a glass bowl. Then with a flick of his wand, Pauling cast Incendio! and the shavings caught fire.

Expecting the disgusting odor of burned bone, Hermione was extremely surprised to smell a sweetish, not unpleasant smell. When Healer Pauling nodded his head again, she bit her tongue against the numerous questions clamoring to be asked. For now, she marked Pauling's movements, even as she moved to the foot of Snape's bed and laid one calming hand on a restless foot struggling beneath the covers. Snape calmed under her touch.

For his final test, Pauling took the horn and traced a small circle on the stone slab. Hermione remembered Ron saying something once about unicorns and spiders and how he wished he'd had a unicorn horn to draw a circle about his bed so spiders couldn't get to him at night. Thus, she half-expected it when Pauling placed a spider in the middle of the circle he had traced. The eight-legged creature skittered across the worktop, but it recoiled from the invisible boundary as if repelled. Again and again it tried to escape; again and again it was rebuffed. Pauling finally took pity and scooped the spider back into a narrow test tube. He handed the tube to one of his assistants.

Hermione was a little irked that he hadn't taken hers and Harry's words for the authenticity of the horn, but approved of his caution. He was, after all, attempting to save Snape's life, and if it took an additional ten minutes, then it was worth it if Pauling was confident of his results. Hermione had learned enough about magic to understand that assurance mattered.

While he began to macerate the herbs in the horn-boiled water, Pauling picked up a pestle to mash the pomegranate seeds, and Hermione became aware that Pomfrey was at her elbow. The mediwitch's fingers neatly and accurately wrapped around Hermione's wrist, feeling for a pulse. "Good," she said. "Potter's had his Blood Replenishing Potion and his wound has been sealed. Now, let's see to you." She led a reluctant Hermione to the bed adjacent to Snape's.

"I'm all right," Hermione protested.

"Let me be the judge of that, please. Harry has paid the stallion's price, but we need to know what price he extracted from you."

Large brown eyes turned toward the older witch. "Price?"

Wand quivering in her hands, Pomfrey replied, "There is a price to pay for everything, my dear. Here..." she gestured the bed, "...hop up here, Hermione, and remove your robes."

Hermione paused in the act of getting on the bed, balancing awkwardly on one leg. "Sorry?"

"I need to see where the stallion touched you."

"But –" She hopped all the way onto the bed.

Pomfrey stepped closer. "Did you expect the unicorns to offer the life of one of their members without equal recompense?"

"Yes. Or no. I'm not really sure; I imagined goring Harry was more than enough."

"That was the price he paid."

Unaccountably wrong-footed, Hermione defended herself. "I've never read about this before."

The older woman flushed. "Nor would you have had the opportunity. Those sorts of books aren't kept in the library – not even the restricted section. Too many romantic idealists would misunderstand. Before Dumbledore took the post as Headmaster, the unicorns negotiated a compromise with Armando Dippet. The Care of Magical Creatures curriculum was altered and several books on the subject were removed from the library entirely."

"Really? Why?" Hermione's curiosity was piqued anew.

"Let us just see what has happened, shall we?" Pomfrey ignored Hermione's questions and secured privacy screens around them. "Disrobe please."

As soon as she unbuttoned her borrowed robes, Hermione gasped. She stared at her chest with shocked fascination. No longer did she sport a reddish seam of scar-tissue bisecting her torso. The scar from Dolohov's curse had subsided into a flat, thin, line of opalescent silver.

So bemused was she that she paid little attention to Pomfrey's examination, but after a time, the woman's murmuring and the removal of the thick bandage on her wounded shoulder blade broke through Hermione's pre-occupation. "Well?" she asked.

"Very well indeed." Pomfrey smiled as she fingered the fully healed wound site.

Hermione twisted her neck, trying to see behind her. "What does that mean?"

"I'll tell you bluntly. You've been blessed. The stallion has claimed you."

"Claimed me?" Hermione's voice shrilled on the first word.

Pomfrey gestured toward Hermione's chest. "This is very rare. To my knowledge this hasn't happened more than twice in my lifetime, but the stallion has accepted you as one of the herd."

"He has? Really?" Hermione stared at the other woman, but then recovered her wits. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"If you are ever in trouble, real trouble, you only need touch your scar and call for help to be instantly transported into the middle of the herd. They will protect you as one of their own."

Hermione fingered the flat silver scar. "But why?"

"I cannot say." Pomfrey performed a Freshening Charm on Hermione's robes before handing them to her. "The stallion obviously found you worthy."

"But you said there would be a price?" She stepped into the robes, slipping her arms into the long sleeves. "All that happened was the stallion touched me with his horn and Legilimized me."

"That's not quite all." Heightened color stained the matron's cheeks. "There is some foundation to the stories of virgins and unicorns."

"What do you mean?"

"Great Florence Nightingale! You're not usually this dense, Miss Granger. Use your head."

Bristling, Hermione replied, "Our Care of Magical Creatures text seemed to have skipped this part, and as none of the other reference books in the library contained any reference to this sort of circumstance, you unjustly accuse me!"

Tucking her wand into the narrow sleeve sewn into her robes, Pomfrey braced her hands on her hips. "You're no longer a virgin," she said baldly.

Hermione's jaw dropped.

"The stallion took your hymen as recompense, claiming you in the process."

"Oh ... my ... god." Hermione gasped for air and frantically tried to remember everything and anything from her encounter with the impressive stallion.

Pomfrey sighed. "My apologies, Hermione. I tend to forget you're Muggle-born. There was nothing prurient about the procedure. The process is painless and magical, and the only reason there are jokes about stallions and their horns is that they must be touching you with it in order to alter your body in any way."

"Oh. I see," Hermione said faintly. "That explains it."

"Not entirely." Waving her wand, Pomfrey remade the rumpled bed. "I have a book in my office which will help you understand more fully. You've been offered a unique honor. You're bound to the herd for life and I trust you will be responsible about it."

"Of course I will." Fastening the last of her buttons, Hermione asked, "What will I have to do?"

"The book can explain far better than I. I haven't read it since I was in advanced training, and I don't like to misinform you."

"All right. Does this mean Harry's been marked by the herd as well?"

"It's possible, although his exchange will have been a bit more direct. He may not have any lifelong obligations as you were the one to ask for the herd's sacrifice."

"What about Professor Snape?" Hermione asked, leaning to the side, peering around the nearest screen to look at the man in question.

"Severus' life, too, is bound to the –" Pomfrey broke off mid-sentence, her face a study of intense concentration.

"Are you all right?" Hermione laid a hand on the elder witch's arm.

The matron shook her head. "Sorry. Just a stray thought about the stallion's obligations to his herd. Did you say you and Potter weren't a couple earlier?"

"Yes." Hermione frowned at the non-sequitur. "We're not a couple. He and Ginny Weasley might reach an understanding at some point though."

"Good. Good." Pomfrey nodded her head, as if agreeing with herself, and then said briskly, "We're finished here. Shall we see how Brian is progressing?"

"Yes!" Hermione helped banish the screens, and returned to her position at the foot of Harry's bed. He lay flat on his back, a thick dressing wrapped from waist to jutting hipbones, but his eyes followed her movements as best they could from his position.

"Come on up," he said, patting the mattress. "I can't do anything for at least an hour, so you'll have to tell me what's happening."

Carefully Hermione perched on his bed, finding space next to his knees, and for the next fifteen minutes, she related what Pomfrey had told her about the unicorns while keeping a running commentary of Pauling's progress. "And now he's added your blood to the potion for Professor Snape."

"He explained while Madam Pomfrey was with you. My blood will purify any it comes in contact with, and by adding it to the potion for Snape, it will cleanse his blood."

"Then why did they need me at all?"

Pauling replied when Harry had no answer. "You were the emissary, Miss Granger, and yours was the willing sacrifice. In offering yourself to the stallion, you essentially exchanged your life for the mare's. The herd has not grown weaker as a result of her loss, but has been balanced by the addition of yours. We might have purified the patient's blood with Mr. Potter's donation, but without the sacrificial horn we couldn't have made the Healing Potion, which I assure you will be necessary to seal Snape's neck wounds. That sacrifice occurred because you bonded to the herd."

It was too much and too little information to satisfy Hermione, and she planned to borrow that book from Pomfrey at the earliest possible opportunity, and then visit Flourish and Blotts for good measure.

"I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand why there's a problem?" Harry awkwardly turned on his side to better see the Healer. "Mr. Weasley was bitten by the same snake and I know it took some time to heal, but he did heal."

Pauling glanced at Snape. "It's different this time. The snake was ovulating."

"What?" Harry asked.

"It was fertile?" Hermione's voice rose in alarm. At the sound, Snape flinched in his bed, and she immediately slipped off Harry's bed and crossed to Snape. She touched the pale skin of his hand. "Sorry, sir -- Severus. Everything's all right. Healer Pauling is making a potion to heal you. You will be fine."

Once again, Snape stilled under her gentle touch, and keeping her hand in place, Hermione turned her head toward the Healer, expecting further elaboration. His keen eyes were fixed on the sight of Hermione's hand lying atop Snape's, but Hermione refused to be intimidated by it.

At the other side of the workbench, Pomfrey had ceased her efforts. "Pregnancy hormones?" she asked.

Pauling nodded. "Yes, Poppy. In sufficient quantity to inhibit the wound's sealing."

Pomfrey shook her head, her expression even grimmer than before. "Will it work?"

"I beg your pardon," Hermione interjected, "but will you please explain to those of us who don't understand?" She noticed Harry's lips twitch at the tone of her voice; he knew just how much she hated to be ignorant.

"My apologies, Miss Granger," Healer Pauling replied. "The snake, as you said, was fertile, and had it survived, would most likely have laid an egg or two sometime in the next few days."

Although unconscious, that information quite clearly made an impression on Snape's brain as he shuddered ... in exactly the same way Harry did on the adjacent bed. Hermione smoothed her fingers across the back of Snape's handas she considered the awful possibilities which had been averted by Neville's bravery.

"In any event," Pauling continued, most of his attention focused on the powdered nettles he added pinch by pinch to the simmering potion in its silver cauldron, "fertile females produce a specific hormone, glycoprotein the Muggles call it. In humans, it occurs during pregnancy and is excreted through urine – it causes, among other things, a breakdown in connective tissue. In this case, it was delivered in the venom, and the wound cannot seal. The longer the hormone remains present in his body the more damage it will cause."

"I see. I assume the purifying aspects of the unicorn horn and Harry's blood will flush the hormone from the professor's body."

"That is my supposition."

"Supposition?" Harry asked quietly. "You haven't done this before?"

"It is a sound method, and it should work."

"But...?"

Pomfrey stepped next to Pauling, addressing Harry, "We believe it will work. If we didn't we wouldn't –"

"Are there other options?" Hermione asked, her eyes tracing the gaunt lines of Snape's pale face. The mediwitch's heavy sigh was answer enough, when Hermione flicked her eyes in Harry's direction she saw his shoulders slump in resigned acceptance. She squeezed Snape's hand. "How soon will the potion be ready, and how is it administered?"

Pauling turned to face her. "He'll have to drink it."

"Can't you just Apparate it directly into the wound or his stomach or something?" Harry asked.

"The magical components of the potion would be reduced to insignificance in the case of the former, and the body needs to assimilate it through digestion rather than having it applied topically." When a timer dinged, Pauling turned his back on his audience, and counted seven deosil swirls of his wand over the potion, bringing it to a pre-boil, before he used a glass stirring rod to count out eleven clockwise rotations. Then he said, "In just a few more minutes we can administer this remedy. Without your assistance, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, I can assure you that my patient would not survive."

Hermione's eyes overflowed and she brushed angrily against her tears, irritated that she was so easily overset.

"It's only fair," Harry said quietly, and oddly enough, Snape didn't react to the sound of his least favorite student's voice.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"That we repay his saving our lives by our saving his."

A genuine smile stretched the stiff muscles of Hermione's face. "You are so right, Harry."

He grinned.

In quiet anticipation, they watched the potion's rising fumes writhe in the cooler air of the large room, and then Pauling left to make his rounds, with a quiet command for them to remain in place until his return. Hermione barely moved from her protective position at Snape's side as a junior Healer arrived to refresh the charms on Snape's bandaging and hovering gauze, then he added two packs of ice to the wound site. Afterwards, he, too, left for other duties.

Pomfrey had levitated a chair into the space between the two beds and her head had fallen back, a soft snore showing her exhaustion had finally overtaken her.

"Hermione," Harry said, only to be shushed by his friend.

"Quietly," Hermione whispered. "Madam Pomfrey's asleep."

"Oh," he whispered back. "All right."

"I think it's the first time since the battle actually," she said.

"That long?"

"She has this potion which helps, but I imagine it's worn off."

"Probably."

"What did you want, Harry?"

"I wasn't just stalling Kingsley. You know ... before. About Australia."

"Oh." She plucked at the coverlet beneath her fingers, and Snape's arm moved restlessly. "You weren't?"

"No. I've been thinking a little."

Rather than tease him, she listened. "All right."

"I'd like to go with you."

"But ... but ... what about Ginny?"

Harry angled himself onto his bent elbow, and looked at her directly. "If that's going to work, Hermione, then she'll understand why I won't let you go to Australia alone to look for your parents."

"Thank you." Hermione flushed. "I know Ron won't want to leave his family at this point, but I hope he understands that I need to find Mum and Dad. They're important too."

"Of course they are. I'm sure he'll understand." His face clouded, "At least, I hope he does."

"You don't think he will?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "It's that honesty thing I promised you. I would like to think he would, but Ron doesn't always consider other people's needs."

"That's a very mature attitude, Harry."

He grinned. "It seems being dead does that."

She giggled, and her fingers flew to her mouth to cover the sound, but it had roused Snape slightly, and his eyes moved beneath his eyelids. "Shhhh, shhhh." Hermione soothed the unconscious man, and when he settled, she kept her voice soft. "So, tentatively, we have a plan?"

Harry lay back on the bed, his head resting against the pillows, his black hair a polarized contrast with the white slipcover. "Your home, the Burrow, and Australia."

"Then NEWTs, if they'll let us take them, and Gringotts before career." Hermione leaned her hip against Snape's bed.

"NEWTs?"

"I want to earn my way."

"I don't think I want to go back to school. How could we, after this year?" Before she could say something, Harry continued, "Can you imagine only being allowed out once a month, or pretending that we haven't lived as adults for a year. Pretending we're children for another year isn't going to make what's happened go away."

After a long moment, Hermione said, "That's rather insightful." Absently, she traced the tendons on Snape's hand, the bluish veins which stood in relief to the smooth expanse of skin. "In general I agree with you, but without our NEWTs there are a lot of positions we couldn't even apply for. You couldn't be an Auror, if that's what you still want to be. I would be just another Muggle-born trying to take advantage of my celebrity, and there are bound to be people who will assume we've been given whatever post we choose based on favoritism. I want to prove that I've earned my way."

"I want to be something other than the Boy Who Lived."

"Twice," she teased. "You're the Boy Who Lived Twice."

Harry groaned and Hermione stifled a laugh at his expense.

"There are always private tutors," Brian Pauling said, quietly interjecting his thoughts into the discussion as he carefully lifted the sleeping Hogwarts matron from her chair. He settled her onto the bed where she'd examined Hermione, tenderly tucking a blanket over her sleeping form.

Hermione and Harry exchanged a knowing look. If Pauling and Pomfrey weren't a couple, it wasn't because Pauling didn't care deeply.

The senior Healer moved to his place at the work table, checking the viability of the healing potion. Giving it a final stir, he nodded in what appeared to be an habitual mannerism.

"Tutors?" Hermione asked when was finished.

"There are many students who never step foot inside a magical school. They are homeschooled through their NEWT levels, although they rarely surpass the marks of those in more formal training. However, I suspect you and Mr. Potter would both be exceptions to the rule. The advantage of private tutoring is that you can progress at your own pace. The Ministry holds NEWT testing twice a year, in the fall at the Ministry, and in the Spring at Hogwarts."

"That would be an ideal solution." Hermione's mind reeled at the information and the possibilities it opened for her and her friends. "Don't you think so, Harry?"

"It suits me perfectly."

At that moment the timer squeaked once more. In the universal manner of good physicians who put their patients' well-being before their own, Poppy Pomfrey awoke. She scrubbed at her face with her hands and threw the blanket off her before she got off the bed. "Thank you, Brian."

"It was that or listen to you complain about a stiff neck, and I've heard you whinge."

She ignored the jibe, asking instead, "Is it time?"

"It is."

Hearing those words, Hermione squeezed Snape's hand once more and stepped across the narrow aisle to Harry's bed. He attempted to rise, but with a groan flopped back on the pillow.

"I told you twelve hours, Mr. Potter, not one, or three, or four," Pauling scolded. "I meant it regardless of the shenanigans you and your friends have entered into over the years. Unicorn-induced blood loss isn't something to take lightly. It could kill–" He broke off, suddenly flustered.

Harry's smile was small but forgiving. "I understand, sir. I won't try again." And he was docile as Hermione angled his torso against a small stack of pillows.

Other than a small frown at Hermione, Pauling had no comment about the abrogation of his orders. "Poppy, stay close." Then, surveying the large room, he gestured peremptorily. "Flaherty. Come."

A red-headed junior apprentice reacted like an owl to its master's summons, practically sprinting between the rows of beds to reach Pauling's side. Pomfrey masked her grin at the younger man's zeal, and Hermione was suddenly struck by his eagerness and how it reflected on her younger, more desperate to please, self.

Before Flaherty reached them, however, Pomfrey said, "Severus is a very private man, Brian. Please remember that. I am perfectly willing to assist."

"Poppy, you're far too senior–" He didn't complete the thought, at least verbally, but when Flaherty arrived, pink-cheeked and bristling with energy, Pauling gave him a mundane task – to place several shielded screens around the two beds and work tables. From Flaherty's dejected expression, it was clear he had hoped for something more, but he complied with his superior's request. As he worked, his keen, interested eyes flicked from Harry to Snape to Hermione, never in succession, but serially, like a visual mantra, as if he were memorizing every detail.

When Harry glared at him, the young healer blushed, finished his tasks and departed without looking back.

The sudden escalation of tension penetrated Snape's unconscious slumber, and his eyelids twitched, sooty black lashes fluttering like butterflies' wings, delicately brushing his skin, but they were the calmest part of him, for it appeared that every other muscle in his body flexed, and the gauze circling his gaping wound sped up, until pieces of saturated material were blinking from sight quicker than they could be counted. Alarms flared in a colored array above his bed, and a persistent whine rent the quiet industry of the ward.

"It's all right, little man. All will be well." Pomfrey stepped close to Snape's head, and attempted to smooth his hair from his face.

Snape struck out blindly, one of his arms hitting Pomfrey in the chest.

He was the source of the whine. The high-pitched agony in his tone tore at Hermione's heart and she hurried to the far side of Snape's bed where she grabbed for the hand scrabbling at the drain tube. Without conscious determination, she cradled Snape's hand against her breasts and crooned, "Hush. You're safe, you're safe. I know you're in pain, but you will be healed."

Pomfrey had recovered from Snape's staggering blow, and held onto his other hand tightly, shushing him with her own soft murmurs. Pauling attempted to pull the matron from her position at Snape's side, whispering urgently in her ear. The usually unflappable Hogwarts matron blushed and turned her head. While Hermione was at the wrong angle to actually see a kiss, she was certain one had been bestowed.

In good conscience, Hermione turned away from the intimate moment and was rewarded for her efforts. Snape's eyes were open and he was staring at her. Her smile could rival that of Molly Weasley the moment she had learned Bill would live after Greyback's attack.

"Granger – Hermione?" Snape asked, his voice cracked and hoarse, and little more than a whisper.

Ignoring the quick intake of breath from Pauling, and Pomfrey's cry, "Severus!" Hermione bent forward, her long hair framing her face, effectively acting as a curtain between her and Snape and their audience. "Yes. I promised you would be safe. You are, and you're going to be well."

He stared at her for a long moment, then his eyes closed, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

When she lifted her head, Hermione found three pairs of eyes watching her, only Harry's expression was unfathomable. The others were ... smug.

Pauling nodded and said, "I'd like you to assist as well, Miss Granger."

Hermione tightened her grip on Snape's arm and said, "Anything."

Pauling stepped back to the workbench. "We need to levitate Snape's torso to give him the potion, but from what Poppy's told me, I would like to use a slightly unconventional approach."

"Sir?"

"You might as well call me Brian under these circumstances."

"Fine. You'll call me Hermione and Harry ... Harry." Hermione nodded in Harry's direction, where, against orders, he had managed to adjust the pillows even more so he was practically sitting up in order to see more clearly.

Pauling opened his mouth, but the patient said, "I'm mostly lying down," and Pauling's scold turned into a rueful chuckle. "Poppy was right about you."

"Er ... is that bad or good?"

"Do not get out of that bed for another four hours and we'll call it good."

Harry grinned and settled further against the pillows, grimacing as his movement pulled at the healing muscles in his abdomen.

After that, Pauling ignored the young savior, and returned to the preparation of the healing and repairing potion. Steam rose from the silver cauldron, displaying a rainbow-like iridescence. It spiraled into a vaporous replica of the very horn which had given the potion its cohesion.

While Pauling measured a precise dose into the hollowed-out unicorn horn, Hermione and Pomfrey repeated their actions from the Shrieking Shack a mere thirty-six hours before. Pomfrey levitated Snape's torso, and Hermione – tucking her hair into a hasty knot at the back of her head -- climbed onto his bed, shifting to brace her back against the institutional bed-frame. When Snape was lowered against her, an upwelling of tenderness threatened to close her throat, and she wrapped her arms around him, carefully avoiding the drain-tube and hovering gauze, but she leaned close enough to murmur indecipherable nothings into his ear, just as she had done when she and Pomfrey had first saved his life.

Administering the potion was messy, but over before Hermione realized it. Snape had stiffened and cried out only once ... when Pauling had massaged his mangled throat so that he would swallow. Pomfrey talked to Snape during the entire process, explaining what potion they had created, including the list of ingredients and how each would affect him.

Later, Hermione would remember that the pomegranate seeds had been added for fertility and others for virility, but at the time, all her attention was focused on Snape. She would never know what she said, exactly, but she did know that he remained calm for the most part and soothed easily when the worst was over.

She refused to move, claiming that Snape needed all the solid rest he could get. Pauling and Pomfrey left her alone and they cleared the work table of all but the potions they would administer over the subsequent twenty-four hours. After a short time, Harry closed his eyes and fell asleep, Pauling and Pomfrey left the private enclosure, and Hermione watched over Snape until her heavy eyelids shut and she dozed fitfully. She roused to assist with each successive dose of the potion.

It was only when Harry stood at her side that she realized her legs were numb and she had been cradling Snape in her lap for several hours.

"Let's go home," Harry said.

With the realization of elapsed time, exhaustion slammed into Hermione like a rogue Bludger. "Will he be all right?" she asked anxiously.

"They believe so. It'll take several weeks and some intensive physical therapy."

She fingered lank strands of black hair, tucking it behind one finely shaped ear. "But he will recover?"

"They think completely." Harry shifted from foot-to-foot.

"Good."

"Let's go home, Hermione."

Wide, stricken brown eyes met his. "I'm no longer sure where that is, Harry."

His expression softened. "I understand."

"I know you do." Her smile was apologetic. "Help me move Severus," she said quietly, ignoring Harry's sharp glance, but focused on moving the sleeping man. Once she was off the bed, she rubbed her legs and stamped her feet to bring the feeling back into them.

"How can we leave? Poppy's already gone."

Harry held out a caduceus pin. "Healer Pauling gave me this while you were asleep. It seems he feels he can trust us, but we can only keep it as long as Snape's here. Once he's released, we have to return the pin."

"That was nice of him. I don't know if Professor Snape would like us to come back, but I'd like to." She fussed for a few minutes with Snape's covers, and then Harry grew impatient. "Quit stalling, Hermione. I'm knackered and so are you. We still need to set up wards at your house."

"And go shopping. There won't be any food and I'm starving ... again."

He grinned suddenly and teased her. "You're getting to be as bad as Ron." When she shot him a look he apologized, and then said, "It was funny."

"Yes, yes, I'll concede that it was funny, but let's go before I lose my nerve about going home entirely."

He held out his hand, and the silver pin gleamed softly in his palm. Hermione took a last look at Snape and placed her hand over Harry's before they were spun out of sight.

Behind them, Severus Snape slept peacefully under the combined healing influences of expertise, sacrifice, and affectionate care.

~o0o~