Hermione to the Rescue

Chapter 5 – Hermione to the Rescue

"Ron? Ron! Oof!" Harry tumbled through the Floo into Ron's tiny flat, yelling his best friend's name. He landed hard on his hands and knees, ash choking the air around him and his glasses skittering off his face to land several feet away. With an aggrieved sigh, he extricated his glasses from the thick pile of the tacky orange Shag Rug (it was named for its purpose as opposed to its style) and shoved them on his nose. Floo travel had never quite agreed with him – he much preferred a broom.

Climbing to his feet, he glanced around Ron's apartment, his eyes sliding over the old Chudley Canon posters and newer Holyhead Harpies poster (Ginny had given him a copy signed by the whole team) that still adorned the walls. Ron was not sprawled over the green suede sofa, so Harry made a beeline for his bedroom. Ron's voice sounding from the kitchen stopped him in his tracks.

"Harry? What are doing here? Do you know what time it is?" Disheveled, but more or less awake, Ron wandered into the living room in a pair of old jeans and a holey tee shirt. He was carrying a mug of tea in one hand and a half-eaten croissant in the other. Despite his panic, Harry had to take a moment to process the incongruous sight of his friend up at dawn on a day he would normally sleep until the crack of noon (they had decided to take Monday off, as they had worked two straight weeks without a break). All was explained when a woman wearing another pair of Ron's old jeans and a tee shirt that proclaimed "Beware of the Leopard" in a bright red scrolling marquee padded through the kitchen doorway.

"Tea, Harry?"

"Erm... No thanks, Luna." Harry had accidentally walked in on Ron in various states of undress with a number of different women, but this was the first time he had actually known the woman. He could only be thankful that neither was actually undressed, but this was beyond awkward. "Sorry to, um, interrupt, but..."

"You aren't interrupting anything. Ron was kind enough to invite me over while we waited to see if I was infected." Against his will, Harry's eyes darted to the Shag Rug, scanning it for wet spots on which he would want to avoid trodding. "I don't think I am."

Ron caught his glance and rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Harry. We've been talking all night."

"Talking, right..." Finding nothing on the rug, he eyed the sofa. The clash of retro green and orange made his eyes water, so he gave up and shot his friend an incredulous glance. Sometimes he wondered if Ron were a little color blind.

"Talking, right," Ron confirmed irritably and took a sip of tea. Not even batting an eye, Luna smiled blandly. "So, what is it that you wanted?" Harry got the impression that if he were anyone else, he would have already been shown back to the Floo.

"Ginny didn't come home last night. Nor this morning," he said, running a hand through his messy black hair, the panic that had been distracted momentarily returning in full force.

"Where did she go?" Ron asked around a bite of croissant. Luna disappeared into the kitchen, and Ron's eyes followed her backside.

"I don't know! She didn't leave a note."

"Did you Floo Mum?"

Harry nodded. "Last night. She said that Ginny was an independent woman and that she was traveling." Pursing his lips, he stared at Ron in entreaty, but for what, he didn't know. "I was sure she would come back last night! She never does this!"

"Never is not for a very long time, Harry," Luna said as she returned from the kitchen with a steaming mug of tea and pressed it into Harry's hands. "More accurately: she hadn't done this until last night. Otherwise, 'never' would have come and gone, which it hasn't."

Ron nodded sagely.

Harry blinked and wondered how that was supposed to help him. "Yes, but..."

"Mum's right, you know. Ginny knows her own mind. She's probably pissed that you missed your move-in anniversary and went to a girlfriend's to sulk."

Paling as the bottom of his stomach dropped, Harry smacked his palm to his forehead. "Shite! I completely forgot! That was two days ago, wasn't it? We were going to go out to celebrate, and what with the Rash and all... Fuck!"

Ron nodded again and took a knowing sip of tea. "It was all she could talk about." He raised his voice to a squeaking falsetto. "'Can you believe Harry and I have been living together for a whole year? Isn't it wonderful?'" Shaking his head at the theatrics of the fairer sex, he rolled his eyes to the heavens. "Of course, she didn't say it when Mum could hear... Strange though – she hasn't mentioned it in at least a week. I'd forgotten about it myself."

"I am such an arse," Harry muttered and mussed his hair again. He hadn't been this far up shit creek in a long, long time.

"Hm, yes," Luna agreed. "It seems to be a fairly common affliction among wizards. Fortunately for you, Ginny is the forgiving sort."

"I hope she makes you beg," Ron added unhelpfully.

"She will," Harry assured him. Groveling and debasement, not to mention expensive presents, were looming on his horizon, and he was happy to do it so long as Ginny came home. In the meantime, he thought he might be sick. His stomach was churning, and his knees had become as sturdy as overcooked spaghetti. He was about to excuse himself to visit the washroom when something clattered in the kitchen, closely followed by the distinct sound of shattering ceramics.

Swearing, Ron darted into the kitchen, closely followed by Luna and Harry. Standing on the kitchen table was one of the scrawniest looking newspaper owls that any of them had seen. Its feathers were dirty, unkempt and ragged, its toenails a decidedly un-regulation length, and it was making short work of the remaining croissants. Upon the humans' entrance, it screeched and snatched the last whole croissant in its beak and bolted for the window, not even waiting to be paid. A rolled up Daily Prophet lay on the floor next to the table, soaking up the tea that had once resided in the pot that was now scattered in pieces across the linoleum.

"Damn owls can't deliver a paper properly anymore," Ron grumbled as he cast a Reparo on the teapot and Vanished the tea from the floor.

"I'm surprised that they are delivering at all. Look at this." Luna unfolded the newspaper and held it up. Headlines screamed from the front page to the point that they crowded out the stories, but they didn't need them to get a feel for the state of the wizarding world.

"Bloody hell," Ron said unnecessarily. Harry only nodded, speechless.

"Looters Vandalize, Rob Jewelry District in Diagon Alley!"

"More Reports of Disappearances, Dark Arts Suspected!"

"St. Mungo's Cover-up - Twenty Dead of Fever, Maybe More!

"Hogwarts Evacuated by Order of the Ministry!"

"Minister Trout Among the Missing?"

"He's just working from home," Ron said derisively when he read the last one. "Coward."

Harry shook his head, his eyes fixed on the word "Disappearances." The panicky feeling was returning in full force. "Do you suppose she would have gone to a friend's in all this chaos?" he asked, willing his friends to reassure him, though doubtful that they could.

"No," Luna said, and Harry's face broke out in a cold sweat. "But she might have left not realizing how bad things were and simply stayed where she was to ride it out." She pointed out a smallish headline that instructed, "Stay Home and Off the Streets, Instructs Head of Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"We didn't get that memo," Ron complained with a frown.

"It's probably in our in-boxes at work where we're sure not to read it." Harry chafed his palms nervously, his tone sarcastic and slightly bitter.

Ron nodded glumly and scratched the back of his neck, his features tightening with worry. "I'll Floo the office and have the Aurors on duty keep an eye and an ear open for Ginny. They'll contact us the moment they learn anything."

The rest of the day they spent contacting Ginny's friends and family while Harry made obsessively frequent trips back to Grimmauld Place to see if she had come home. Eventually, they decided to relocate there, as Harry couldn't sit still while at Ron's flat, and his constant pacing was making Ron nervous. Luna was as unflappable as ever, though she offered no empty platitudes. No one had seen hide or hair of Ginny; however, the entire Weasley clan had snapped to high alert. The Weasley family clock still reported her as "Traveling," and Mrs. Weasley became convinced that Harry's late hours had driven her to run away to Paris (sometimes it was Rome) to seek a proper romance. Hermione was not to be found, but that was common enough for her; Harry wrote her a quick note and left it under a glass paperweight on her desk.

It was after midnight when the three finally got to bed: Ron in his old room, Luna in the guest room next to Ron's, and Harry once again on the sofa. None of them slept well.

Draco eyed his godfather from the entrance of the greenhouse, watching carefully for signs of the debilitating fever that had gripped the man for the last twenty-four hours. Though wan and spotty, Severus moved fairly steadily as he watered an arrangement of rare swamp orchids with a mister. Draco might have been fooled to believe that he was almost recovered had he missed the slight tremor in his godfather's hands, and had he realized that Draco was standing there, watching him.

One could not sneak up on Severus Snape, Super Spy.

And yet he watered his orchids with unfocused detachment, oblivious to Draco's presence. It gave him the willies, but he couldn't help but watch and wait for Severus to notice him, morbidly fascinated by his livid purple hives and blank black eyes. Draco shivered despite the humid heat of the greenhouse and smoothed the goose bumps that prickled his arms with the palms of his hands.

"Uncle," he finally said, the word popping out almost of its own volition. Severus' head snapped up, and his eyes fixed flatly on Draco, his lips slightly raised in a snarl. Draco's hackles sprang to attention and stood on end, and he had a sudden impulse to high tail it out of the greenhouse. Had this been anyone other than Severus, Draco would have made himself scarce, but he was unwilling to let his godfather face whatever this was alone.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked warily. The man was watching him unblinkingly, like a feral dog readying itself to attack. A vein in his temple was throbbing beneath the faint sheen of fever sweat. Draco shifted nervously, the urge to flee singing in his veins.

"You," Severus whispered venomously through bared teeth.

"It usually is." Laughing nervously, hoping to lighten the mood, Draco snuck a quick peek over his shoulder in case there was someone else around. He almost wished there were, just to distract his godfather's ire, though he hadn't a clue what he had done to incur it.

His eyes glassy with fever, Severus glared at him as he slowly tightened his grip on the mister, his purple-spotted knuckles whitening under the force. "You want her."

Draco wanted lots of women. He usually got them, too. Who and what was this about? "Erm... who?" he asked finally when he drew a complete blank. As far as he knew, the only woman that Severus loved was long dead, and he hadn't cared about Draco's lovers any more than to state firmly that if he got one of them sprogged up, then he was moving out. Draco had no worries on that point as he diligently took one of Severus' contraceptive potions each morning.

"You can't have her," he hissed. Draco shivered again, taking a step backward, the madness crawling behind Severus' eyes like a slathering, mindless beast. The vein at his temple stretched the skin and then twisted.

Draco's eyes widened and the words "Benjamin Barker's Ward for the Violently Insane" drifted through his mind as he took another step backward and surreptitiously eased his wand out of the pocket of his trousers. Droplets of liquid fear slid out of his hairline to glide down the back of his shirt. Still clueless as to whom "she" was, he was quick to assure him, "That's fine, I don't want her!"

The thin plastic body of the mister cracked loudly in the silence that followed. Draco startled, his wand snapping up to point at his godfather's chest. An instinct born of a more violent period of his life, he hadn't realized he had done it until Severus bellowed like a bull and lunged for him, his hands outstretched and reaching for his neck.

"Stupefy," Draco yelled, and the red jet of light hit Severus square in the chest, dropping him in his tracks. Severus' arm knocked into one of the planting benches on the way down, upturning the bench and scattering a bag of potting soil over Severus' chest and the greenhouse floor.

"Merlin, Severus, I'm so sorry," he whispered as he bent down to check the man's pulse, easing his body into a more comfortable position. It was fast and fluttery, and his skin was hot to the touch. Draco swore colorfully and felt his forehead – sure enough, the man's fever had abated only slightly. How he was up and about, Draco could not guess. Being Stunned couldn't have helped. He hadn't meant to draw his wand on him, and he certainly hadn't wanted to hurt him... but he was obviously ill, both in mind and body. The Rash seemed to be infecting his system at an accelerated rate. Movement caught his attention, and he focused on a small serpentine form writhing beneath the skin of Severus' bare forearms.

Sitting back on his heels, Draco considered his next actions. He could have Severus committed at St. Mungo's, but his skin crawled at the idea. They may be able to help him, but he would be miserable there. Malfoy Manor had secure holding areas were he could be prevented from hurting anyone, but the last time he had seen the dungeons, the floors had been a foot underwater.

Granger – perhaps she could help.

Not wanting to waste the time levitating him to bed when Granger might just have him transported to her clinic, Draco cast a quick binding spell on his godfather in case he woke up and found someone else to attack. He would probably have the swot back here before Severus even woke up. Relieved to have a plan and unwilling to consider the fact that Granger might not want to help the man who had shown her nothing but unpleasantness, Draco hurried back into the house and Flooed directly into Granger's office.

The office was devoid of life and strangely quiet when Draco stepped onto her hearth and knocked the soot from his shoes. He was soon to realize that the odd silence stemmed from the fact that the clinic was deserted – not even the receptionist was at her post at the front desk. Had he been thinking more clearly, he would have wondered why the most popular Cosmetic Transfiguration clinic would be closed on a Tuesday, but he wasn't, and therefore didn't give thought to anything other than where the President and Founder might have hidden herself. He seriously doubted that she was having a mid-week lie-in, but the image of a sleep-mussed Granger in a short nightgown made searching the deserted clinic somewhat bearable.

He found the door to her lab very much by accident.

He had gotten lost. Though the clinic was small, all of its halls looked very much the same, painted a reassuring creamy color and hung with soothing watercolors of pastoral landscapes or still-lives of flowers and fruit. Even the potted palms placed tastefully in the corners looked alike. On the third time he had wandered past a particular painting featuring a ripe red apple sitting on a chipped blue-and-white china plate, he kicked the wall under the painting and swore very long, loudly and colorfully. It was then that he noticed a fat fly perched on the apple, its wings fluttering periodically as its proboscis tasted the apple's skin. Just for spite, he pushed his thumb against the canvas, as if to squash the fly... and that section of wall swung open. Startled into immobility, he stared in surprise through the secret door into a garishly lit hallway as the fly buzzed angrily about the painting. Eventually it reclaimed its spot on the apple, and the door began to swing shut. Needing no invitation, Draco slipped through the narrowing entry and into the hall, the door sealing itself after him.

The light was harsh and artificial, lacking the warm glow and softening effects of candlelight. Gleaming whitely, the spotless walls of the short hallway seemed sterile and grim, and the brushed metal door at the end was imposing in a way that none of Malfoy Manor's grand, arched double doors could attain. Nor would he want them to; he did not like this place. He palmed his wand, just in case.

A small portal window set at eyelevel in the door broke the monotony of metal. Next to the handle were several round, white buttons, almost lost against the background of white wall. Peering through the window, he saw a figure clothed from the top of the head to the toes in a baggy white suit. The room was filled with equipment, some that he recognized and others that he didn't. The shelf of cauldrons, scales, beakers and tubing were familiar, as were a number of instruments that Severus also kept in his lab. Several glass aquariums sat on one of the workbenches, each containing a number of hairless mice.

The large metal contraptions were wholly unfamiliar. One of them, an enormous hinged arm that ended in serrated pincers, gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies. If he hadn't caught site of a telltale bag of mushrooms sitting at the bottom of a sealed glass jar, he would have left the way he had come and poured himself a very stiff drink. As it was, he had either found Granger or someone who was likely to know where she would be.

Draco pushed aside his unease and tried to open the door, but the handle wouldn't budge with any amount of jiggling or cursing. Raising his fist to the window, he rapped on the glass with his knuckles. The figure didn't seem to hear him, for it was bent over a round thing that spun so fast that it was a blur. He rapped again, but to no avail. Pounding on the door with both fists did nothing but make his hands hurt, and opening spells fizzled against a complex network of wards. Sighing in exasperation, Draco leaned his back against the door and slapped the wall with his palm, accidentally catching the buttons with his forearm. A distorted grating sound filled the hallway, making Draco nearly jump out of his skin. A moment later, the door behind him opened with a depressurizing hiss, and he spun on his heels, leveling his wand at this new threat.

Granger glared at him through a transparent faceplate, apparently not impressed and more than a little irritated. With a hollow thud, the door shut behind her. She pressed one of the buttons on the wall. The narrow hallway suddenly filled with an acrid mist, and Draco coughed as he tucked his wand back into his trousers. Granger peeled off the hideous white suit and hung it on a peg near the door, scowling fixedly at him the entire time.

"Thriving business you've got here," Draco said, trying to dispel his nervousness with the familiarity of sarcasm.

"We're closed. Which begs the question: what are you doing here, Malfoy?" she snapped as she planted her hands on her hips, drawing his attention to the short trousers she wore, exposing an indecent length of legs. Smalls or something; Draco loved those things. She'd topped it with another brilliant Muggle garment of stretchy material held up by two thin straps. Her face was pale and drawn, though, and there were dark rings under her eyes. "Well?"

Her querulous voice called him to his present predicament. "Severus has been infected with the Rash. Badly."

"Did you contact St. Mungo's? I'm not taking patients anymore."

"No, they'd just put him in that ward," he said with distaste. "You said you were working on something, and you obviously have some of the mushrooms..." He noted her rising flush with amusement, wondering if Potter had given her that sample or if she had acquired it like he had.

"I have been working on a treatment, but I haven't tested it on anything living yet." Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she fixed him with a worried look. "Malfoy, if he is bad enough to be committed at St. Mungo's, then he has the Snakes, yes?" At his nod, she continued. "It's the second stage of infection. These mushrooms aren't natural. They were created with Dark Magic to infect via their spores, creating the Rash. If a host has a proclivity for Dark Magic, then the spores take root, spawning the subcutaneous parasites – the Snakes – that travel under their skin excreting a raw form of Dark Magic, inciting violence and insanity. He's dangerous at this stage, Malfoy."

"I know." The blond rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "I left him Stunned on the greenhouse floor. He was raving. Is there a third stage?"

She pursed her lips, her brown eyes warm with compassion. "I don't know yet."

"Does your treatment work?"

"As I said, I haven't tested it on anything living. But the lab results have been very promising," she said, brightening. "I thought the infection was caused by some sort of parasite. Very stupid of me, really. Once I knew that mushroom spores were the source of infection, I was able to Charm an anti-fungal potion to attract and destroy the Dark Magic in the subject's system. The anti-fungal kills the infection." Her excited grin dimmed somewhat as she added, "In my Labrats, that is."

"Well, I've got your first human subject lined up."

Hermione still had significant misgivings about doing her first live test of her treatment on Snape when they Flooed from her office into the parlor of Spinner's End, but she had to admit to a certain level of tingling excitement that quickened her heartbeat and sent adrenaline rushing through her exhausted body. She had spent much of the last couple of days and nights studying the mushrooms and their spores and had been horrified by what she had found. Many plants were poisonous or aggressive, but she had never encountered one that had been bred of Dark Magic. This, more than anything else, spurred her to distill a potion that would kill the infection.

St. Mungo's had been more than cooperative, allowing her to observe patients in Barker's Ward and run her own set of diagnostics. She had managed to extract one of the parasitic entities from under Umbridge's skin to take back to the lab. It had been a tricky thing, requiring the use of borderline Dark Magic, and her skin had raised with a new parasite moments after Hermione had bottled her sample. From Umbridge's screaming, the extraction had hurt like hell – Hermione had been unsuccessful in her attempt to feel sympathetic. The result was a Charmed potion that would kill the spores, deflate the hives and dissolve the parasites until there was no Dark Magic left. Of course, all of this had been accomplished in her lab under controlled conditions.

The fact that the first living subject was Snape was probably the biggest damper on her enthusiasm; she doubted that he would be pleased to see her or be used as a guinea pig. His vitriol she could take, but if the treatment had side effects that she had yet to discover or failed completely, then she would be injuring a man who had already suffered at her hands. Then again, if it worked, and he made a full recovery, maybe some of the guilt she had been harboring for the last decade would finally be absolved.

She could only hope that he still lay unconscious on the greenhouse floor where Malfoy had left him.

"The entrance to the backyard is through the kitchen..." Malfoy trailed off, and Hermione mumbled an acknowledgement as she followed him through the house, digging through her tote for the fever reducer that she wanted to use first. Not paying attention to where she was going, she bumped into his broad back.

"Malfoy, what..." And then she saw "what." The white porcelain sink was smeared with blood, as were the tile countertops surrounding the sink. A braided rug was crumpled and pushed away from the cabinets, so splattered with red that its original color was indistinguishable. Its movement had left a red smear that traveled from the sink to its final resting place under a chair. Atop the rug rested one booted foot.

"Uncle?" Malfoy asked, his voice quavering. His body was trembling, and Hermione was beginning to wish she had brought a sedative – or had had a sedative to bring. Nudging him out of the way, Hermione darted across the kitchen to the fallen man, wondering what she might find. Would it really be Severus Snape, or had he gone murderously insane and brought his victim back to the house like a cat would a headless mouse?

She regretted her uncharitable thought the moment she laid eyes on his pale purple-spotted face, which was contorted in uncharacteristic horror. Shredded and oozing blood, the skin of his forearms bulged and writhed as if a nest of maggots burrowed beneath it. A pair of bloodied cutting shears was still clenched in his right hand. His gray tee shirt was splattered with dirt and gore, and his jeans were in no better condition.

Though her Healer's training helped her to distance herself from the gruesome sight, she was taken aback momentarily by his attire. The Severus Snape that she knew dressed chin to toe in unrelenting black. It was silly, she supposed, to assume that he always wore it about the house or while... gardening. Another odd concept when associated with Snape, though Malfoy had mentioned it before.

"Malfoy, get towels and hot water!" she snapped over her shoulder as she cast a quick diagnostic spell. He was alive, but unconscious, feverish, low on blood, and riddled with infection.

Malfoy whimpered, but hurried to comply, his hands shaking so badly that he had trouble opening the drawers. It took him many tries to actually find the towels, and when he did, he wadded several in his hands and then tottered over to Snape's fallen form, dropping to his knees. Hermione had to pull the towels from his grasp and snap her fingers in front of his face to regain his attention.

"Malfoy. Draco," she said softly, but firmly, staring into his haunted gray eyes. "He's going to be fine. Boil water so that we can clean him up." She didn't really need the water, but she did need Malfoy out of the way and busy so that she could patch up Snape. He nodded and rose unsteadily to his feet, and she patted him encouragingly on his calf. As he reluctantly wandered away, she began to cast cleaning charms to clear the blood off Snape's arms and healing charms to seal the cuts.

What at first glance appeared to be a botched suicide attempt was actually something else entirely. There were many gouges tracing up his arms, some deep and some relatively shallow. Several of the cuts followed a serpentine pattern, and Hermione had a sick feeling that he had actually attempted to cut the parasites from his body. The lacerations were concentrated on his left arm where Voldemort's insignia had once been branded on his flesh. She wondered if he had recognized the evil of the infection and, in his delirium, mistook it for the Dark Mark.

Snape moaned quietly, and Hermione's eyes snapped to his face. Dark strands of hair were plastered to his forehead and cheeks in vivid contrast against his sallow skin. His eyelids fluttered, and long thick black lashes that she had never noticed before danced against his cheeks. She tucked several of the towels underneath his head for cushioning, and with a quick Aguamenti, she wet one of the towels. Carefully, so as not to chafe the swollen hives, she swabbed his face clean of sweat, only realizing when she was done that he was watching her with bloodshot black eyes.

"Hey," she said softly, aware that he probably had a terrible headache. He caught her wrist in one of his clammy hands, but wasn't strong enough to prevent her from dabbing the cool cloth across his forehead. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Ms. Granger," he said hoarsely, his voice barely above a whisper. Malfoy dropped to his knees beside her a moment later, staring into his godfather's ashen face.

Smiling in relief, she said, "No, that's my name." Scooting the fingers of her free hand under his head, she tilted it slightly forward and hovered her wand above his mouth, allowing a slow trickle of water to leak from the tip and over his lips. He licked at it greedily, and she increased the flow so that he could have a proper drink. "Draco, hand me the fever reducer and Blood-Replenishing Potion; they're in my bag."

He did, even having the forethought to remove the corks so that she could tip one after the other into Snape's mouth. He swallowed obediently, his glassy eyes still fixed on her, and she wondered how long he would be such a good patient. Probably up until he found out about her untested treatment. "We need to move him somewhere comfortable," she said to Malfoy, who was still very pale but had stopped shaking. "I'll Levitate him, and you grab my bag and lead the way to his bedroom."

"I can walk on my own," Snape protested as he scowled up at her, struggling to lift himself off the floor. It was rather like watching a fly on its back, wiggling its legs uselessly in the air. Snape hardly had the energy to lift his head from Hermione's hand. "Draco, give me a hand..."

"Don't make me Petrify you first," Hermione said sternly as she grasped his shoulders and pressed them into the floor. She doubted it would come to that; he was in terrible shape and was as weak as a newborn kitten, but fighting him didn't appeal to her. He scowled and grumbled, but ceased his struggling, and Hermione Levitated him from the kitchen floor to hover at hip-height. Following Malfoy, she directed an irritated but cooperative Severus Snape through the house, up the stairs and into his bedroom. With hasty movements that shook the tiniest bit, Malfoy drew back the bedclothes and stacked the pillows so that when placed in the bed, Snape would be gently reclined.

"Does he have anything to sleep in?" she asked Malfoy, who was standing next to the bed as she hovered Snape over it, wringing his hands and trying not to appear useless. Somewhere along his journey, Snape had dozed off again.

Malfoy grimaced and walked over to a low battered dresser and began yanking open the drawers. The room was sparsely furnished; other than the dresser, a wooden chair had been placed in a corner, and a tattered trunk sealed with two leather straps sat at the foot of the bed. Blackout curtains shrouded the room in gloom, though the faded gray wallpaper wouldn't have looked cheery even in the brightest of sunshine.

"I'm sure he's got one of those hideous night shirts around here... Here we go." He pulled it out and gave it a quick shake, presenting it to Hermione. It truly was hideous: graying and threadbare, it had a gathered neckline, blousy sleeves and would cover him from gullet to shin.

Hermione raised an eyebrow, but chose not to comment on the garment. "Let's get him changed before he wakes up."

"I can..."

"He hasn't got anything I haven't seen before," she said as she silently cast the spell that would divest the floating supine man of his clothes and replace them with his nightgown, finally lowering him to the sheets. It was over within a matter of seconds, and Hermione had had precious little time to ogle. It was a pity; from the brief glance she did get, she suspected that Snape had been hiding a fine masculine figure underneath his bulky robes. Perhaps she would have occasion to undress him again, prone this time, and get a look at his arse. For purely professional reasons, of course.

First things first, she had to wake him again and acquire his permission to use her experimental treatment.

"Master Snape?" she said softly as she placed a damp rag Malfoy had thoughtfully provided on his forehead. "Master Snape, before you go to sleep, I need to ask you a question." Those impossibly long, thick eyelashes fluttered again, and he squinted unfocusedly up at her. "You've been infected with the Rash; you're in the second stage, now."

"... Know that, silly girl," he whispered, but his head lolled until his cheek was resting against the back of her hand. Unconsciously, she stroked his cheek and smoothed back the hair that had become tangled in his stubble.

"I've been working on a cure, and I think it will kill the infection, but I haven't tested it on a live subject yet."

"Give it to me."

"Are you sure? Because..."

"Now!" he croaked, his eyes widening, and she could see a hint of the madness that Malfoy had mentioned.

"Alright, then. I should have you sign something, but... alright. It's going to make you feel a bit loopy." Draco handed Hermione her bag, from which she removed a flask of luminescent green fluid marked "D5" and a spoon. Pouring carefully, she filled the spoon and tipped it into Snape's open mouth. He hardly flinched at the taste, and moments later, his eyes slipped closed.

"Now what?" Malfoy whispered, eyeing his godfather anxiously.

Hermione shrugged and readjusted the damp cloth on Snape's forehead so that the coolest side was touching skin. "We wait. He should show improvement in a matter of hours."

Sighing, Malfoy scrubbed at his face and slumped against the wall by the bedroom window, sliding down until he was sprawled on the floor. "To see him like that, after so many years... I thought it was over, you know?"

She wanted to remind him that though Voldemort had been vanquished, evil always had a way of coming back, but what she said was, "Perhaps you should take a sedative. I would offer you some, but I ran out last week."

"Actually, I was thinking in terms of a large brandy. Want one?" Surprised, Hermione found that she did, indeed, want one and nodded. Though her training as a Healer had exposed her to much worse, Hermione was disturbed and shaken by the violence that Snape had perpetrated against himself.

"A small one, though. I haven't gotten much sleep lately, and I want to keep an eye on him."

Malfoy grinned suddenly, shaking off his fright as he rose gracefully to his feet. "Speaking of running out of potions... I have some contract terms that might help keep you awake."

Groaning, she grabbed the back of the old chair and dragged it to the head of the bed, lowering her tired body onto it. Of course she would consider his contract, having no other potions suppliers lined up, but she simply couldn't deal with legalese at that moment. "Just go get the drinks."

A/N: Thanks again to my betas, the TPP mods and all you wonderful readers and reviewers. You guys are the best.

More chances for House Points! Place the source of "Beware of the Leopard" on Luna's tee shirt and Benjamin Barker from "Benjamin Barker's Ward for the Violently Insane." It's a challenge fic, right? :P