A Self-Preservation Thing

Chapter 7 – A Self-Preservation Thing

It took Harry a precious few seconds to recognize his surroundings when he popped into existence at his destination. He hardly had time to cast a Protego before one of the blank windows that served as St. Mungo's Muggle front blew outward in a spray of glass and violently hot flames. Dust and smoke stung his eyes and poured into his lungs despite his shield. Gasping and wheezing, his eyes streaming with tears, Harry covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and cast a silent Aguamenti, showering the top of the fire with a heavy mist. Cursing loudly through his cough, Ron aimed his Aguamenti at the base of the flames, a thick stream that killed the root of the fire as Harry smothered it from above.

Surrounding them, disembodied shouts and screams slashed through the smoke, and tiny shards of glass carpeted the pavement, winking colorfully as they reflected the firelight. To their right and lost in the thick haze, Griswold shouted something that sounded like an order, but a thunderous explosion drowned out his voice and shook the ground beneath their feet. The dense gray smoke turned the twilight to night and began to glow with an eerie red-orange light that flickered with flashes of green and blue. Grotesque elongated shadows danced through the haze like demons on holiday.

His pulse pounding in his ears almost as loud as the roar of the fire, Harry grabbed Ron's elbow and jerked him out of the way just as one of the shadows condensed into corporeality. Both men had their wands trained on the figure until they realized that it was a Healer, her robes hanging in singed shreds and her mouth gaping in a rictus of terror. She barreled past them, her hands slapping their helping hands away in her haste to flee. Neither man had time to wonder on her behavior before her pursuer coalesced from the smoke: a man in the linens of a resident of a secure ward, his pupils burning as red as flame and his lips coated in white froth.

Without pausing, the rabid man changed course and lunged for Ron, his fingers crooked into claws as he swiped at Ron's face.

"Stupefy!" Harry roared the curse and struck the man in the back, knocking him unconscious, but his voice was almost lost in the din. With a move more nimble than most people would expect of him, Ron dodged the dead weight of the man falling to the ground. Simultaneously, he pushed Harry's shoulder – hard. Stumbling to the side, Harry watched the tail end of Ron's Stunner shoot into the smoke and hit a burning-eyed shadow that had been rapidly approaching.

"What the bloody fuck?" Ron shouted, sending Harry a bewildered glance as they both cast binding spells on the unconscious wizard. Immediately after, their eyes snapped back to the smoke, scanning it for new threats. Harry pressed his back against Ron's, giving them the advantage of a full three hundred sixty degree view of the situation – not that they could see much further than a few feet. Another explosion shuddered through the earth, and several shards of glass that had remained in the large picture window now cascaded to the ground with barely audible tinkles. Twin pinpoints of red blinked at them from the smoke and then disappeared into the gloom.

"St. Mungo's was detaining some of the more violent Rash patients in one of the secure wards!" Harry yelled back through the stinging in his throat. He inhaled a great lung-full of smoke and choked with the need to cough it back up.

"Hermione's bloody rats!" Ron twisted his head to stare at him in sudden understanding. Harry nodded, remembering the red-eyed foaming rats in Hermione's aquarium that repeatedly slammed themselves against a Magical barrier to get at each other. They shuddered in tandem. "You don't think they could've prepped us?" he shouted, gesturing at a cluster of shadows from which jets of red light emanated.

Harry shook his head. Having advance warning about the situation at St. Mungo's before they Apparated would have been nice, but he doubted that there was time. He doubted even Griswold knew – they were simply responding to an emergency call.

One of the shadows broke away from the group, and both Harry and Ron had their wands trained on it until they recognized Auror St. Germaine loping towards them.

"This is madness! Are you two alright?" he wheezed through the smoke. His dark blond hair was gray with ash, and his face was streaked with soot. When Harry and Ron nodded, he smiled grimly. "Good, because the Muggle-Repelling Charms and location glamours have failed. Muggles are starting to gather... What's that?" he asked suddenly, cocking his head and furrowing his brow in consternation.

Harry wondered how he could hear anything through the commotion, but then he caught the faint wailing of sirens and strobing lights in the distance. "The Fire Brigade," he said tersely. Just what they needed: a crew of Muggles armed with axes and high-pressure hoses added to the mix of terrified Healers and patients, rabid wizards, and Aurors on hair-trigger.

Grimacing, St. Germaine opened his mouth to comment, but screamed instead as his back erupted in deep gashes, showering Harry, Ron, and the pavement with fine droplets of blood. He pitched forward, screaming, and Harry caught him just before he hit the pavement. Over their heads, Ron riposted with a Stunner, catching the approaching madwoman with a glancing blow on the shoulder before she ducked below a windowsill still fanged with jagged shards of glass.

Allowing Ron to cover them, Harry eased the semi-conscious St. Germaine to the pavement and settled him on his side. With his gloved hand, he quickly brushed shards of broken glass away from St. Germaine's face. Like an abstract stained-glass window, they shimmered in the muted firelight, reflecting dazzling bursts of red, green and gold where they weren't spotted with blood. St. Germaine coughed, a sick, rattling sound, and Harry cursed. Knowing that the man needed more help than he could give, he sang the counter-curse to Sectumsempra, tracing the deep gashes with his wand. He had been flayed to the bone and one rib was broken cleanly as if it had been sliced with a giant cleaver. Coughing again, the rattle becoming more of a gurgle, St. Germaine opened eyes hazy with pain and gave Harry a mute look of panic.

"We must get you to the Leaky Cauldron," Harry said, so close to St. Germaine's ear that he did not need to shout. "I think you've got internal injuries." St. Germaine's eyes rolled in their sockets, his gaze fixing on something beyond Harry. Glancing up, Harry was relieved to see Auror Woodworth, an Amazon of a woman and St. Germaine's partner, cast a Protego as she skidded to a stop next to them.

"Bugger," she said abruptly as she knelt next to them. "How bad?"

"Broken rib, punctured lung?" Harry guessed. "I've healed the external damage, but he's also lost a lot of blood..."

"I've got him," she said, cutting him off. Slipping arms that bulged with muscle under her partner, Woodworth gathered him to her chest as if he weighed no more than a child and then Disapparated with a crack.

With no dieing colleagues to distract him, Harry realized that some of the flashing lights were mounted on the top of two fire engines that were barreling down the street toward them, sirens screaming above the infrequent explosions.

"Ron!" he yelled through the racket as he pushed to his feet. They had to contain the Muggle interference with this mess before they were hexed, either accidentally or intentionally. As it was, he and Ron were in for a long night of Obliviates.

Ron grunted in reply as another curse hit the shield that he was maintaining between them and the attacker that Harry had momentarily forgotten. Feeling foolish, Harry waited for the moment that she would rise above the windowsill to hex them. Only moments later, she popped up from behind her cover like a jack-in-the-box and vaulted the sill, casting a volley of multicolored hexes that powdered the glass at their feet and charred the pavement. Ron's protective shield shattered under the onslaught, but not before Harry lunged to the side out of range of the shield and cast a well-aimed Incarcerous. Hissing and spitting, the woman tumbled to the ground trussed in thick cords.

Grabbing Ron's elbow, Harry dragged him toward the fire engines, which rose out of the smoke like flashing-eyed leviathans. Already, Muggles were swarming out of the trucks dressed in thick plastic suits and wide-brimmed helmets. Several firefighters were setting up a temporary barrier to hold off the crowd of Muggles that were collecting in a loose circle around the disaster that was St. Mungo's. Clustered to the side of the Muggles and standing distinctly apart were awkwardly dressed people that could be none other than witches and wizards. They cast fearful glances at St. Mungo's, the fire engines and the Muggles in turn. Harry noted with dread that most had their wands drawn.

A startled shriek emanated from a woman at the fringe of the crowd. The press of bodies surged as a wild-haired man tied into a battered straightjacket tore out of the smoke and leapt the barrier, crashing bodily into her. Harry was only able to catch a glimpse of glowing red eyes before the man sunk his teeth into the screaming woman's arm. The mob exploded into shouts and converged on the man, ripping him away from the woman and beating him into the pavement.

"Relashio!" Harry shouted as he sprinted toward them, Ron hot on his heels. Several brawlers were hurtled backward, and several more were startled into retreat by the sparks alone, but as one Muggle was pushed away, another was ready to take his place. Dread knotted in his stomach as Harry realized that the violent crowd was swiftly growing in size. There were already more Muggles than just he and Ron could handle without hurting anyone.

The small gathering of witches and wizards seemed to swell as their muttering grew louder, the very air around them crackling with static. From the depths of the group, an angry shout, surely the result of a Sonorous, rose above the roar of the Muggle crowd. "You there, Muggles! Unhand that man!"

A hex flashed red and rocketed into the violent throng, and several Muggles dropped to the pavement unconscious. Following on its tail, three more hexes hit the crowd of Muggles. Ron cast a Protego between the Muggles and wizards as Harry cried, "Cease and desist!"

Several hexes at once hit Ron's shield, and it expired in a flicker of light. In tandem, the two groups, Magical and Muggle, rushed towards each other, the Muggles with raised fists and the Magical with raised wands.

Severus stirred against the soft cotton of his bedclothes, his unshaven cheek snagging in the fine weave. The light was bright against the backs of his eyelids, and for a moment he wondered if he had fallen asleep with the lamp lit. That was ridiculous, however, because the last thing he could remember was taking the gardening shears to his arms in an attempt to cut the Dark Lord out of his flesh. Which was also ridiculous, for the Dark Lord was dead, and he felt fine. Terrific, even. He must have dozed off while reading one of those Muggle horror novels, then, and dreamt the whole thing.

Groaning softly in protest of having to move, he swung his arm over the side of the bed and reached for the lamp's cord, giving it a sharp tug. The light only increased, but Severus gave a few good jerks to be sure that it wasn't the lamp lighting his room.

It was morning, then, and he had overslept. Preferring to be up with the sun, Severus wasn't one to have a lie-in, but he felt too good let it irritate him. Blinking sleep-crusted eyes open, he met the warm brown gaze of Hermione Granger.

He let his eyelids slide shut again. So, he was still mostly asleep. It wasn't the first time he had dreamt that Miss Granger had snuck into his bedchamber wearing one of his white button-down shirts, though she usually wasn't wearing gray sweatpants underneath. It was a nice dream, second only to the one where he finds her in his garden pruning the begonias in nothing but an apron. However, Miss Granger was not in his bedroom, nor would she ever be. When he opened his eyes again, she would be gone.

He opened his eyes.

She was still staring at him, smiling gently and offering a tantalizing view of the tops of her breasts through the gap in his white button-down shirt.

"How are you feeling, Severus? Well enough to get out of bed?" She brushed several damp strands of black hair from his face and placed her palm on his forehead. Severus lay silent in shock, both at the informality with which she had addressed him and the tender caress of her hand. It had the surrealism of a dream, but the tactility of real life – and it felt eerily familiar. "Your fever is almost gone." She smiled and patted his cheek. "Draco has made toast and tea. Perhaps you're up to joining us in the kitchen? What's wrong?"

He clamped his lips together for a long moment to prevent himself from gaping like a fish or sputtering like a fool. She could not be in his room! And yet here she was as if she had every right, and wearing his shirt, no less! As she leaned closer to him and frowned with concern, an unsettling sense of vulnerability tightened his chest and shortened his breath, robbing him of his earlier euphoria. He had managed to keep her at a safe distance for years with her none the wiser of his observation. He had been sure that their most recent personal encounter was to be their last. Why, then, was she here? It was unacceptable; he had to drive her way properly, this time, for the sake of them both.

Pushing himself up until he was sitting propped against his pillows and not laying in such a defenseless position, he crossed his arms over his chest and tried to ignore that he was dressed in one of his older, rattier nightshirts. When he was confident that he could form whole, appropriately vicious sentences, he hissed, "'What's wrong', you ask? You stand in my bedroom wearing my shirt, and you dare to ask 'what's wrong'?"

She straightened, her frown sharpening as the concern fled her eyes. "I see. You're fine, then. And you remember nothing of the last two days?"

"Of course I remember," he snapped, though he was beginning to suspect that he might have lost some time. Then suddenly, he did.

"Are you coming down for breakfast or aren't you?" Draco's snippy question issued from the doorway.

Blinking dazedly for a moment at the intensity of the memory, Severus came back the present with unaccustomed sluggishness. Hermione... Miss... Ms. Granger was still leaning over him, but the blush of his memory had been replaced by a tense, irritated expression, and her eyes were dark with disappointment. He stared at her blankly, mortified by his behavior and shocked by her responsiveness. It must have been something in her treatment, he decided, for only when very drunk did he become so... Well, he wouldn't think about that right now. He wished that the memories had been suppressed, as had some of his more inebriated moments.

Despite the embarrassing nature of many of his recollections, he realized several things at once. Draco's mushroom sample had infected him with the Rash, and its evil had pervaded his system within an hour, rooting into the Darkness of his being and growing tendrils of evil that had twined through his bloodstream and wound through his thoughts, writhing under his skin and choking his reason until his sanity had snapped under the pressure. Draco had taken the brunt of his breakdown, and if the boy had been slower with a wand, it might have been him who had been carved by the gardening shears. Draco's hex had momentarily knocked some sense into him, but only enough to recognize the evil that was consuming him. Perhaps worst of all, considering the intimate nature of his memories, Ms. Granger had been nursing him for the last two days.

What had the boy been thinking to bring her into this catastrophe?

Ah, yes. She had developed the cure.

Glad for the momentary distraction from her censure, he narrowed his eyes and glared at the young man standing in the doorway. Draco's pursed mouth was widening into a delighted smile as Severus' frown deepened.

"Uncle! Glad to see you coming back to your old self. I dare say I would have strangled you if I had to listen to much more of your sappy rot."

Severus had been accused of many things over the years, but spouting "sappy rot" had never been among them. His knee-jerk response was to deny it, but when he looked back at his interactions with Ms. Granger, he had to admit that they might have passed for sappy to the kind of incompetent boob that Draco sometimes chose to be. Schooling his face into pained forbearance, he spoke slowly in a sarcastic drawl. "Well, Draco, I am so sorry to have offended your delicate sensibilities while drugged into insensateness."

"I thought he was pleasant enough company," Ms. Granger said casually – too casually in Severus' opinion as he watched her from the corners of his eyes. Her face was strangely blank, and her brown eyes glittered with calculating intelligence.

Grimacing at her, Draco exaggerated a roll of his eyes. "You've never had the best of taste when it comes to character. Take Potter and Weasley, for example."

"Is insulting my friends part of your master plan of seduction?" she asked dryly as she tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. Snape couldn't help but surreptitiously follow the curve of her breasts under his shirt. Her words registered a moment later, forming an icy casing around his heart.

Draco barked in short laughter and strode across the little room to take Ms. Granger's hand. Bowing shallowly over it, he brushed his lips over the top of her knuckles and gave her a sultry, bedroom variation of his Hunting Smile. The ice around Severus' heart leached into his veins, sending spider-like tendrils of frost through his chest and into his extremities. He concentrated on keeping his hands relaxed, rather than clenched, on the bedclothes. "Hermione," Draco purred. With a dizzying lurch in the pit of his stomach, Severus remembered saying her name in much the same tone. "I have no need of a master plan of seduction."

Hermione pulled her hand out of Draco's grasp and wiped the back of it on her shirt, but her smile was wry and amused. "Overconfident, much?"

"How very touching," Severus said silkily around the catch in his throat. "And you accuse me of 'sappy rot.'" He could not watch his godson attempt to debauch Ms. Granger in his own bedroom. Of course, he had watched as she had entangled herself in relationships, only to send the sods packing. None of them had suited her, and it was always with relief that he noted her ascension to the rank of single witch. Draco, however, was off limits. He would charm her, use her and then discard her, as he had all of his other women. And as Severus had to suffer through the travesty that would be their fling, she would be too close, her presence a temptation that would threaten his carefully delineated boundary of just when and how he would come in contact with her. So, distracted and agitated as he was, it didn't occur to him to question why it was his shirt she was wearing.

Draco grinned at him, but Hermione only sighed, brushing past Draco on her way to the door. "I think I'll have that tea, now," she said over her shoulder, the playfulness having vanished from her voice. She sounded slightly exasperated, and the chill in his blood slowly began to thaw.

"You might have a look at the Daily Prophet," Draco called to her retreating figure. He, too, had discarded his flirtatious mean to regard Severus with equal measures of pity, disgust and amusement. "She saved your sanity, you realize," Draco said when they could no longer hear her footsteps. "Quite possibly your life."

"I do," he confirmed with little grace. "And now that I am better, she may leave with my... ah... heartfelt thanks."

Raising an eyebrow, Draco watched him in silence for a moment. "You want her to leave," he repeated slowly, as if measuring each word for its veracity. Severus felt the vein in his temple twitch as his temper quickened. And to think that he had awoken feeling so damn good. "I believe I made myself plain on that point."

"Interesting," Draco said as he nodded to himself. Severus struggled to maintain an indifferent expression; it would not do to encourage his godson by reacting to whatever game he was trying to play. He was seriously beginning to consider feigning sleepiness when Draco's next words hit him like a sucker-punch in the gut. "And when did you take up photography?"

The ice was back, but this time it swept through him like a winter storm, leaving his extremities numb and his heart beating at a frantic rhythm. He felt the blood drain out of his face, but he locked his features into immobility. There was a chance that Draco was not referring to his collection of photographs that he had hidden in plain sight in his office. Perhaps he had left his camera out and the boy had stumbled across it. Or, a less desirable scenario: a member of Draco's social circle had seen him taking photographs. It was unlikely, for he had perfected the art of not being seen when he didn't want to be, a necessity for continuing his little hobby undetected.

Severus cleared his throat and met his godson's cunning gaze directly, hoping that his thoughts weren't completely Occluded. Unfortunately, Draco's mind was locked down. Deciding to play it cool, he said dismissively, "I have always had a camera, though I hardly see how that counts as 'taking up photography.'"

"Yes, you did like to take pictures of me when I was young. Father gave you that camera, didn't he?"

"You know he did, Draco," Severus said sourly, wishing he would get to the point already, but fearing what it might be.

"Why don't I fetch it and Hermione for you? You haven't nearly enough pictures of her." Against Severus' will, his lips drew back from his teeth as his molars ground under the pressure of his clenched jaw. The vein in his temple seemed to throb audibly, and his hands twitched, as if they would spring up on their own and wrap themselves around Draco's throat. Through the red that was clouding his vision, Severus watched Draco take an unobtrusive step backward as he fingered the wand that was suddenly in his hand. "Easy, Uncle. We wouldn't want the good Healer to dose you again in fear of a relapse."

It took an enormous amount of willpower, but Severus managed to stay in bed, panting and sweating in anger. With a satisfied smile, Draco tucked his wand back into his pocket. "Very good. You are clearly on the road to recovery, and you'll be back on your feet and brewing in no time. Hermione will need a dedicated Potions master to produce the quantities of her cure required to treat so many ill wizards."

Severus' lips were still quivering with rage, but his voice was deadly soft and steady. "Understood."

Severus closed his eyes and spent the next several minutes calming down by imagining all the ways he could hex the little viper. Despite his liberal views concerning Muggle-borns (liberal when compared to his father, anyway), Draco was certainly a product of his upbringing. Severus didn't necessarily blame Draco for blackmailing him; it was what any young man would do if he were raised to scheme and manipulate his way to his desires. If presented with a similar opportunity, Severus himself would have taken advantage of it. He blamed himself for not protecting his collection with more diligence. He should have expected Draco to snoop sooner or later, instead of counting on the boy's aversion to anything that resembled a text to keep him away. No, it was Draco's motives – and Severus' possible exposure – that worried him.

"A question, Uncle." Draco's cheerful question broke the strained silence as if Severus had not been imagining his body covered in weeping pustules. Severus opened one eye and stared at him discouragingly. Draco wasn't fazed, of course, and continued, "Why not simply approach her? She's not as scary as all that."

Severus disliked the implication that Ms. Granger might frighten him. It was a notion as ridiculous as initiating social contact. Brewing for her would be bad enough. The fact was, Severus preferred his solitude, his freedom, and his collection of silent photographs. He would always have them. Through his photos, he could live vicariously with the woman that meant the most to him without endangering her with his actions and poor choices. Having loved and lost once already, he chose to remain alone. It was safest for all involved, and he could live in contentment with his decision. None of this would make the slightest sense to Draco, however, and he certainly didn't owe him the effort to explain. Closing the one eye he had held open, Severus settled back into the mound of pillows. "It's a self-preservation thing, actually," he said finally. "Now get out of my bedroom. And if I catch you in my office again, I will personally see to your new career as pest control."

With a small chuckle, Draco slipped out of the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him.

A/N: Thanks to my dedicated betas and the mods who have made this challenge possible! Thanks also to you readers and reviewers who give an anonymous author some love. :)

"It's a self-preservation thing, actually," is right out of Love Actually.