Strange Power

A/N: Once again, if you recognize it, Ms. Rowling created it (unless it's 19th century poetry, in which case Emily Brontë wrote it). I just play with the toys for the fun of it.

Warning: This chapter contains the aftermath of the violence. There are bodies to be buried. Look away if you are squeamish.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Strange Power"

He did not need a broomstick to be able to fly. He did, however, need a wand. His was at the cottage. So Snape began to run.

Very shortly, his breath was coming in gasps, but he kept hurtling forward. Her face was all he could see before him. Hermione, brutally attacked. Hermione, savaged beyond recognition. Hermione, staring up at him, her eyes accusing him, her life leaking out onto the floor of the cottage in the middle of nowhere.

Someone he loved was going to die, and once again it was going to be his fault.

A muscle in his side suddenly spasmed. He slapped an arm across it, willing it to go away, and ran on. He had to get there. He was not going to make it soon enough.

By the time he had the cottage finally in sight, his lungs were scraped raw, he was soaked through with perspiration, and his legs were shrieking at him to stop, please, stop. Breathing was agony. There was a mottled mist before his eyes, threatening to overwhelm him.

Only the thought of her overpowered the physical agony and urged him on. He reached the door by sheer force of will and flung it open to reveal the scene he had been dreading to find all the way here--blood, disorder, chaos... and her body, lying still and broken and bloody beneath the upended, cracked table.

Across from her sat a figure propped up against the wall, grimacing up at him. His pale cheek was sliced open, and his eyes were staring out at Snape. The long ebony handle of the kitchen knife protruded from his chest and blood dripped from the terrible wound.

Snape registered only that this body was very, very dead and offered no further threat. He turned his attention away from the corpse without a second glance.

He knelt beside Hermione, his eyes boring into her, desperately seeking a sign of life. He managed a single, guttural sob and grabbed the edge of the table, flinging it aside and revealing the woman beneath it. She did not stir, but as Snape watched, the tiniest movement of her breast whispered that he was not too late. Not yet.

Her face was covered with blood, and one arm lay at an unnatural angle across her chest. Her left foot looked crushed. He began to wipe her face gently with his bare hand, trying to find the source of all the blood, but there seemed to be no breaks in the skin or in fact anywhere on her skull. He removed his coat and wadded it beneath her head for a pillow and then proceeded to examine her carefully and thoroughly for other injuries.

The right arm was out of its socket, and he gritted his teeth while he positioned it to pop it back into place. As he forced it back, she moaned in pain, and he murmured reassuringly, stroking her cheek, seeing the first signs of bruising already beginning to darken her chin.

The deep cut in her left thumb was still bleeding a little, and he put it gently in his mouth, applying pressure to encourage coagulation. He realized he was weeping, but he focused on his task.

His fingers explored carefully down her arm but found no other wounds there. He undid the buttons of her shirt, revealing soft flesh but no apparent injuries on her torso. He lifted her gently a few inches off the floor to stroke down her back and found it also untouched. He sighed in relief, embracing her carefully before laying her back down and tugging her shirt closed again. Head wounds and injury to major organs were the most immediate threats. She seemed to have escaped the worst.

He continued down the obviously injured leg, his fingers carefully caressing her thigh, her knee, her calf. He arrived at her ankle and took it gingerly in his palm. A thick woolen sock still covered it, though the shoe had fallen off in the fight, and he thought, as he felt its wet warmth, that the sock had at least offered some kind of protection.

With the utmost care, he began to peel the sock down. Hermione moaned again, louder, and he thought his heart might burst to be hurting her further.

Once off, the sock revealed a sorry sight. A jagged shaft of bone protruded through the skin, surrounded by congealed blood. Her foot flopped uselessly at the ankle and felt to Snape's touch like a bag filled with small, rough rocks rather than an appendage with the connected bones that should have lain beneath the skin.

He rose from beside her, his own muscles already stiffening painfully, and hobbled outside to the cistern, returning with a damp cloth, a bowl of cool water, and a crude bar of homemade soap. He lifted the blanket from her mattress and draped it gently over her still form. He considered transferring her to the bed but decided not to risk moving her yet.

He ripped a strip from the hem of his shirt and began to wash the wounded foot very gently but thoroughly. When it was clean, he wrapped it firmly, trying not to aggravate the injury. His fingers worked to straighten the protruding bone and return the foot to its natural alignment. He found a spoon on the floor to use as a makeshift splint. It would do for now. It would have to.

He placed the foot gently back on the floor, cushioning it with the discarded sock, and examined her right leg, which appeared to be intact. He went to work cleaning the drying blood from her face. As he dabbed gently at her cheek with the cloth, he stared down into her bruised and battered face, memorizing every curve and surface. He brushed the hair back from her brow, feeling it for the warmth of fever or the clamminess of shock. So far, neither were present. He hesitated, then leaned in to plant a feathery kiss on her forehead.

Dittany. He needed dittany from his meager stores in the cave, and essence of Murtlap, Skele-Gro, Blood-Replenishing Potion, Bruise Removal Paste, Dreamless Sleep Potion. Some he had and some would require time to brew and ingredients he would never be able to procure in time. And magic. They required him to use magic.

He leaned back on his heels and looked up at the wand mounted over the door. It sat there, untouched by the terrible battle that had raged below it. A single shaft of wood, crafted for his hand, designed to concentrate and focus his magic. His gift. His curse.

He rose from the floor and stared up at his wand. Making up his mind suddenly, he grasped it and swung it down in front of his chest. He opened the door to the cottage and looked toward the ridge that rose behind it. Taking a deep breath, Severus Snape spoke the first words of magic he had uttered in more than four years. "Accio dittany," he commanded firmly into the wind.

For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then a small vial suddenly shot through the air into his outstretched hand. He turned back to the room to continue ministering to his patient.

~~~~~~~~~~

A good while later, Snape had done as much as his considerable knowledge and limited resources made possible. He would now be forced to wait, an activity he disliked intensely even in the best of circumstances. He sat back on the floor with a groan, leaning wearily against the wall next to the unconscious woman.

He gazed across at the dead man--and for the first time recognized the contorted face staring back at him with dull, dead eyes.

"Dolohov!" he breathed in horrified wonder. How had the man come here? How had he found him? Who else might be coming in his wake?

He shivered. He would have to move the corpse, he realized. It would not do to have that gruesome sight be the first thing Hermione saw when she awoke.

Aside from his own unpleasant and unattractive visage, he thought sourly.

With a loud sigh of pain, he pulled himself up and walked over to stand staring down at the body. Grasping a rough blanket from his own bed, he threw it over the grimacing face. He leaned in and tried to lift Dolohov from the floor, but the effort was beyond him. At last, he grasped him by the ankles and began to drag him from the room, refusing to dignify the body with any magical assistance. Outside, he was able to haul him as far as the lean-to and fling him awkwardly onto the piled firewood. He adjusted the blanket to cover the body as best he could. He stalked back inside and settled in to wait.

~~~~~~~~~~

He must have fallen asleep, for he felt a small hand touch his feebly and startle him out of his confused dreams. His eyes snapped open, and he turned his head to find Hermione looking up at him, her eyes vague and bleary. He leaned in to cup her cheek with one trembling hand.

"How do you feel?" he managed to rasp.

She searched his face. She tried to moisten her lips with her tongue, and he came to her aid at once, pressing them delicately with a damp cloth.

"Severus," she said feebly.

"Shhh," he replied, fear evident in his eyes. "I'm here. I'm here."

She looked at him a moment longer, then her eyes drifted shut again. He continued to stroke her cheek, as much to assure himself that she was merely asleep as to offer comfort.

"It's fine, dearest," he said, though the words were almost inaudible. "It will all be fine." He willed his words to be true.

~~~~~~~~~~

Snape leaned his head against the cottage wall wearily. She would recover. He would do everything in his power to heal her wounds. He would make it so.

And then she would get on the next boat and go back to England, back to that London flat she had mentioned the other day, back to the life she had clearly carved out for herself, back to her place in the wizarding world. She would leave him in peace. She would tell no one where she had found him. He might have to move again, depending on what Dolohov had discovered and who he had shared his findings with, but it would not be because of Hermione.

She would not even tell anyone that he was still alive if he asked her not to. She would not feel compelled to tell the world that she had been right. It would be enough that she knew. He himself had been the one to cure her of her need to show off her knowledge. He smiled bitterly at the irony of that.

Nevertheless, his refuge had been shattered. He stared at the dust motes dancing in the shaft of sunlight in front of him. In less than a week, this hurricane of a woman had swept into his sheltered retreat and upended everything. Because of her, he had even used magic for the first time in forever--used it several times, in fact, in every way he could think of that might ease her pain or speed her recovery. He could give it up a second time, of course, but that was not the point. He had dared to use magic again, and it had not killed him or hurt someone he cared for or caused destruction of any kind.

He thrust his hand into his pocket--and found himself holding the crystal flask. He took it out and eyed it warily. She had said he needed to take these memories back, but he was unconvinced. What could they possibly show him that he did not already know about himself? Twenty slivers of his past could never counter the overwhelming tide of memories he still recalled clearly. There was evidence enough for a hundred trials, whether or not the Wizengamot chose to conduct them. He was not a nice man. He had done unforgivable things. People had died because of Severus Snape.

As recently as today, he thought mercilessly.

He continued to stare ahead, unseeing, his thoughts tumbling madly through his head.