No Man is an Island

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JK Rowling owns the Potterverse. I'm just shamelessly feeding off of her. I make no money from my writing.

Summary: Tragedy prompts Hermione to make a breakthrough discovery, and Severus Snape grudgingly agrees to assist her. Things do not progress smoothly, but sometimes, it is merely a matter of seeing things in a different light...

It had been a strange night for Hermione, full of half-dreams, fragments of overheard conversations, implausible and perplexing memories, and through it all, a heavy, unshakable languor which made opening her eyes impossible. She was vaguely aware that perhaps she had done something of great significance, but it was hard to figure out precisely what; she drifted along in a potion-induced haze, any thoughts which might have threatened to take form instantly swept away. Perhaps under different circumstances, she would have objected to having mind so clearly separated from body. But in her current state, it was difficult to muster up the energy to care, for she slept almost constantly. Once or twice, when she had resisted the enticing calls of slumber, she had found that she was no match for the insistent black void that kept coming to claim her in its thick, soundless embrace.

Fussing attention rained upon her, and she was in no position to resist. There was always a motherly cluck here, or a worried-sounding humph there; a vial being held to her lips and reflexive swallowing of foul-tasting substances; her hand being held and the hushed murmuring of her friends; a cool touch upon her forehead or the faint brush of cleaning spells over the bed. But what she remembered most, given what little she could remember at all, was the sound of a smooth, deep voice, its rich tones washing over the sea of her blank consciousness, rousing her from her interminable trance. She did not know to whom the voice belonged, nor did she know why it was there, a patent departure from the constant and unremarkable droning which filled the hospital wing. But she heard it often, sometimes far away, sometimes right next to her. It was on some occasions low and roughened, on others, clear and melodious. As she lay there in unnatural stillness, through the minutes and hours, not certain whether she slept or woke, the words floated around her in disembodied wafts.

"...Listen to me carefully, Draco!"

"...was told nothing of significance, Albus. Then again, he would not confide in me completely, would he?"

She knew the voice should mean something to her, just as she knew there must be some reason for which she was here in a bed, her mind thick and unwieldy as molasses. But all her thoughts were as snowflakes in early spring...disappearing as soon as they alighted, melting into thin air...

"How foolish you have been."

Something jolted in Hermione. There, that was the voice! She was hearing it again; this time it was so close, and it was barely a whisper.

She wanted desperately to open her eyes and to escape from this mental hinterland. She struggled, but her body remained resolutely still; already she felt her mind fading to nothingness again, her feeling of disappointment the last to slip through before all became black once more.

The next thing she knew was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It was the complete and total absence of everything except overpowering sensation. She felt as if her skin were alive and crawling, tiny pinpricks marching up and down her body, over every inch and into every fold. She was able to zero in on the exact points of contact between herself and the surrounding bed sheets, for the feel of them became so oppressive that she tried to scream, except all that came out was a hoarse croak. Her entire body began to shake from the unbearable assault onto hypersensitized nerves.

Was she finally awaking?

Footsteps hurried over, two sets, one on each side of her bed. The sheets were abruptly jerked away from her body, and she would have cried with relief, except that a palm suddenly landed on her forehead and the touch inflicted so much pain that she flailed about like a fish out of water, wanting to faint. A moan sounded, which might have been hers.

"Be still, child, for just one moment!"

Madam Pomfrey.

"The potion's effects are fading, it has run its course."

The voice again!

Hermione's eyes flew open, her body finally remembering how it was done. The light was only slightly less agonizing than the pain...objects wavered and shimmered with weird auras, and colors were unrecognizably bright. But she needed to find the source of the voice; her finally-conscious brain, addled though it still was, demanded it, craved it. She twisted her head in the direction from whence it came.

For one glacial moment, all her distress was forgotten:

"Snape!"

She uttered his name without knowing it, and it hung there, suspended.

Then the horrible pain returned anew, and Hermione opened her mouth to scream, this time in earnest.

A vial was pressed to her lips.

"Drink, Granger."

The command was austere, but there was steel behind the words. It was enough to make her quiet, to help her grope about for the last vestiges of her dignity, to allow her to reach forward with shaking hands and accept the proffered potion. Though her fingers managed to close around the vial, Snape's hands never released it, perhaps due to wise distrust of her ability to hold it.

The potion flowed into her mouth, its acrid taste making her gag. But Snape had gently tipped her head back at the last moment, and the potion slipped down her throat. Immediately the riotous sensations left her, leaving only a dull, unspecific ache in its place.

Hermione wanted to sink back gratefully into the now unoffending, if sweat-drenched sheets, but Snape had thrust a new potion beneath her lips.

"Another," Snape ordered.

She complied readily, not just a little persuaded because it was that voice. The sound of it immediately overrode any thought of objection...she merely instinctively trusted it as the voice that had filled all those countless hours of void.

This time, the potion went down readily, and to her surprise, the remainder of the pain disappeared, too. Hermione wiggled her toes beneath the sheets experimentally.

"I must say, I don't see much of this kind of damage around here," Madam Pomfrey said with a hint of disapproval. "One of you with your magic eating you up and here you are coming in with close to no magic at all." Hermione considered these cryptic statements with puzzlement while Madam Pomfrey held out an empty tray, and Snape placed the used vials upon it, lining them up neatly.

Then to Hermione's mortification, Madam Pomfrey proceeded to expertly roll her about in the bed while changing her sheets. Her limbs were briskly being repositioned and her body deposited like a sack of shrivelfigs without regard for which direction her hospital gown had wandered. "Ah, no magic to change your sheets, my dear," the Mediwitch declared unhelpfully while Snape stood stonily by. Hermione's cheeks were flaming as the coverlet finally landed upon her again.

Before turning to leave, Madam Pomfrey insisted, "Don't keep her awake too long, Severus. The headmaster will no doubt traipse in shortly, and between the two of you the poor girl will get no rest."

Snape did not seem inclined to stay at all; he actually appeared a bit put-out. His hooded gaze scrutinized her, and Hermione saw something flicker across his black eyes. Then he looked away from her at a blank spot on the wall above her head before reluctantly lowering himself into a chair by her bedside.

Hermione's heartbeat quickened as she watched the professor smoothly cross his legs, then drape an arm languidly over the chair. She felt out of sorts and nervous, now that she wasn't drowning in pain or wading through murky semi-consciousness. Professor Snape regarded her silently in that unnerving way of his. Hermione had a multitude of questions lined up in her brain, but the chief among them, the one at the fore of her thoughts, was the one she could not put into words. She balled the sheets into a fist. Was it really his voice that she had heard, and his voice she had sought? How could it have been Snape, her reclusive, icy Potions professor who had been the one to warm her in those arctic hours of darkness?

She knew that she was expected to speak, so at length she finally asked, after clearing her throat awkwardly, "Why couldn't I wake up?" It wasn't the first question that had presented itself to her, nor was it even the most pressing one, but it seemed like an easy question, something safe that she could handle.

"You were magically induced to sleep by way of a Dreamless Sleep potion. It is a strong formulation that is difficult to overcome. I suspect there were times when you had thought to awaken but discovered you could not," Snape said steadily. His eyes bored into hers.

Hermione nodded, unsettled.

"You were treated thus to allow for your magical core to regenerate. You arrived with close to none left and drastic action was necessary. When the potion wore off, you began to awaken again."

Hermione realized that the professor's voice, though still cool, had taken on an edge, and one hand now gripped the arm of the chair, long fingers wrapped tightly about the wood.

"What you felt when you awoke, the... discomfort, was the sensation of your germinating magic. It is known to be a painful process. You were then imbued with two protective potions, one to deaden the pain, and the other to protect your sympathetic nervous system while your magic continues to regenerate."

That certainly sounded right, Hermione decided, for she had a dim recollection of Harry describing the pain that occurred when one regrew bones.

Snape's words were truly starting to have a bite to them now, and she was afraid to ask the next question, but she had to know, didn't she?

"A-and how, sir, did I end up in the state that I am?"

Expecting to be reproved, Hermione waited for the caustic explanation of whatever foolish deed she had committed. She did not expect Snape to rise to his feet so suddenly that it caused the chair to jump backwards with a screech. He loomed over her, back as straight as a rod, glittering eyes accosting her over his well-delineated nose. Something seemed to strain violently beneath the black depths of his ruthless stare. There was a slow intake of breath, followed by a small tic in his jaw. Softly, he said, "You do not remember."

It wasn't a question, but Hermione still shook her head, terribly confused now and shrinking back defensively. Her mouth had gone dry, as if her body had decided to abandon all other duties in favor of focusing wholly on Snape.

Seeing her spastic movement, the professor seemed to catch himself, and closing his eyes briefly, he turned away from her and muttered in a voice laced with longsuffering, "It was because you were being unaccountably irrational, always placing action before thought, like the rest of your Gryffindor colleagues."

"Ah, but she did save Mr. Malfoy's life!" Dumbledore's cheerful voice pointed out this essential fact to all as he strode into the hospital wing. "Severus, I see you have been keeping Miss Granger company."

Snape cast a look of ill-concealed annoyance at Professor Dumbledore. He stepped aside and intoned with frosty politeness, "Your pardon, Headmaster, I have potions that need attending to." Without looking at Hermione again, Snape walked out of the hospital wing, all billowing robes and rigid gait.

"Merlin's balls, Hermione, what possessed you to risk your own life for the sake of Malfoy?" Ron asked, holding a chocolate frog card up in one hand while idly flicking it with the fingers on his other hand.

Tap, tap.

"Do you really got to do that, Ron?" Harry asked crossly from his perch at the foot of the bed, scowling as Ron's fingers knocked against the card.

"Sorry, mate! It's just, you know..." Ron shrugged vaguely. "Hermione's gone and saved Malfoy's arse, and I don't know what to do with myself!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. She supposed she should be happy that they weren't grilling her on why she was in the Astronomy Tower in the first place; they had assumed that she was carrying out routine Head Girl duties, which suited her just fine. "Yes, I kept him from being eaten alive by his own magic, what else should I have done? Were it you in a similar situation, you would have chosen to do the same thing!"

Harry snorted in a way that suggested he wasn't in agreement, and Ron simply shook his head.

"But who do you reckon would want to off Malfoy?" Harry asked. He glared forebodingly in the general direction of Malfoy's bed. "He's a mean-spirited git, it's true, but usually I'm the one getting death threats..."

"I really don't know," she responded. Dumbledore had spoken to her at length about the incident, both of her part in undoing the curse cast on Malfoy and of how both he and Professor Snape had been unable to apprehend Malfoy's assailant. "Dumbledore said that immediately after Malfoy and I were brought to the hospital wing, he had left to scour the castle for intruders and to strengthen the protective wards. But no one turned up, and when they questioned Malfoy about what he had been doing, he claimed that the last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his bed!"

"Huh. So whoever this bloke is... "

"Or she," Hermione inserted peevishly.

"Whatever! So whoever this person is, they actually got into Slytherin, cursed Malfoy in his sleep, and then dumped him in the Astronomy Tower?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Or they were part of Slytherin themselves," Ron said darkly. "They've got some seriously unbalanced people in there!"

Hermione shivered. "Yes, neither of those possibilities sounds too appealing."

"But I heard from Professor McGonagall that you did a bloody cool spell!" Ron said appreciatively. "Something about how no Hogwarts student in one thousand years had ever managed it. Wow, Hermione, that's pretty amazing."

"Plus," Harry added in an authoritative tone, "you've got the wizard's debt now. That will definitely come in handy."

Hermione felt herself smile just a bit. "Thanks, though Snape did accuse me of being a thoughtless Gryffindor."

"Aw hell, you know Snape, he's just a snarling, greasy bat. Figures he wouldn't have anything good to say. I'm just really sorry that you had to endure all his endless potions. And it was probably a good thing that you weren't conscious went he brought you into the hospital wing. If it were me, being in such close contact with him would have caused me to die on the spot, forget mucking up magical cores," Ron said fervently.

Hermione frowned. She shook her head, saying, "No, it wasn't like that at all, Ron. He was furious, I'm sure, but his care was unimpeachable. He hardly said anything... snarly... to me at all, in fact!"

Harry waved a hand dismissively. "Well, he couldn't very well poison you right under Dumbledore's nose, could he? Of course he did everything right."

She knew that there was more to the truth than that. As the discussion between Harry and Ron shifted to the latest Quidditch news, she mulled over Professor Snape. She was still uncertain about what to make of him. His sarcastic aloofness and biting remarks belied his real, if understated care and concern. It had been Snape who had borne her to the hospital wing and who had been by her bedside when she awoke, delirious from pain. Actions any Hogwarts professor would have taken, Hermione was sure, but the fact that it was Snape, for whom such tokens of humanity must have rankled at all his unfeeling senses, made it altogether mystifying.

And that was not to mention his voice, which had been like a beacon in a storm, which she could still replay with vibrant clarity in her mind, and which still warmed a deep and undefined part within her.

Severus had no potions to brew, but the suggestion that he did had always been a dependable mode of exit whenever he wished to escape the noxiously ebullient presence of the headmaster. He had used it so often that he was sure the old man was merely indulging him now, but Severus couldn't be convinced to care even if it meant the Dark Lord's demise. He had had more than enough ruckus in the space of one day to last a whole year; he now had every intention of savoring a few hours of solitude, and he would not answer for the consequences if anyone dared to disturb him.

With an impatient wrench of the door knob, he let himself into his rooms. The door slammed shut, and without turning he pointed his wand behind him, casting a litany of warding spells that he was certain neither Merlin nor Albus could breach. The incantations issued from his lips in rapid succession, and the air crackled with magic. He shoved his books aside, some of them falling onto the floor with noisy thumps. Normally a man who opted for stealth, he felt frustration bleeding out of him with each unrestrainedly loud action.

But still, it wasn't enough; he stalked to his warded door, raised his fist, and plunged it straight into the hard oaken surface. The pain dragged a curse out of him, and he felt splinters tearing at his flesh. Small rivulets of blood appeared on his knuckles, and as he watched them ooze, he felt his rage abate at last and with that, finally came blessed relief.

How inexcusably imprudent she had been! How laughably foolhardy! Malfoy was spared from death, but only after she had ransomed his life back, depleting her own magic until she approached the brink. Granger had unwittingly placed herself in the midst of affairs that she had no business being part of. Albus' words had rung like an ominous death knell. "This cannot be contained in a night, or perhaps even a week; I'm afraid Mr. Malfoy must now be extremely vigilant. When the father was captured, the mother grew desperate. She has made overtures to many, including myself, and that, I fear, will attract not merely a bit of unwanted attention from her erstwhile friends in Tom's circle."

A night full of Severus' most vicious intimidation tactics paired with many vials of Veritaserum, both within and without his House, had still yielded nothing. A killer was at large...and two students had nearly died.

Severus could not ever recall when he had been so burdened with care, as when he had held her in his arms, rushing her to the hospital wing. He had doused her with Dreamless Sleep, and for hours, she lay there as he carried out his duties to the headmaster, his House, and the school, neither staying nor leaving, not daring to so much as glance at her. But he had felt that from one moment to the next, his heart was racing so hard it might have burst forth from his chest. It was not merely a matter of alertness or of being on guard, as he was during the occasions when he was summoned by the Dark Lord and he knew his very life hung on his every thought. No, this was chaotic and uncontrolled, a wild state of lawlessness that induced him to do impulsive and reckless things.

He railed against it, despised himself for it. How could this waif of a girl, so unmistakably beneath his concern, become such an all-consuming object of fascination, holding him in twisted thrall? Her woefully deficient sense of self-preservation aside, Severus could not forget the adeptness with which she had handled the rarely-performed core magic intervention, or the inescapable fact that she had indeed saved the life of Draco Malfoy, dubious though the boy's merit might be. It was a true testament both to her diligence and her abilities. In a different time and place, Severus would be blind to not recognize and appreciate her formidable gifts. It was the one characteristic of Granger that distinguished her from her more forgettable peers.

He had not the faintest notion, however, why admiration of such traits should leave him unable to breathe whilst at her bedside, until he had assured himself that she breathed, too.

He merely knew that the time had long passed since his life was his to live. For his one transgression in the days of his unrepentant youth, he would now spend a lifetime at the precipice between Light and Dark. It was a demanding vocation, one in which he could ill-afford another such lapse again.

He came upon her when she was alone, an uncommon state for her. The potions she required were not stocked routinely in the infirmary, and he had come to re-administer them to her, a task for which he could not work up the loathing that he wished. She was still recovering...it would be two more nights that she must stay in the hospital wing and at least a fortnight before she regained full use of her magic. He watched her sigh impatiently as she set aside one of her texts, expression clearly mutinous in reaction to her forced confinement. She appeared bored, and Severus was not surprised. One such as she did not take well to the unstimulating environs of the hospital wing.

She looked towards Draco's bed, where the boy was sound asleep. Then she looked to the nightstand adjoining her own bed, which now held a small collection of her possessions, brought to her from Gryffindor Tower by the devoted Potter and Weasley.

He should have foreseen it, from the speculative glint that appeared in her eyes as she inspected the contents of the nightstand. In the next instant, she had her wand in her hand.

"Expelliarimus!" he snapped.

Her startled face followed the progression her wand made as it zipped its way towards where he stood just inside the door. He mentally noted that it was the second time in recent weeks that he had had to disarm the Head Girl, which was two more times than in the past seven years of their acquaintance.

He was beside her faster than he himself believed possible. "Just what did you think you were doing?" he asked. "Was there someone else here you believe in need of saving?"

She had the grace to appear ashamed, two pink spots spreading on still-pale cheeks.

"I was merely going to attempt Wingardium Leviosa, sir," she mumbled, eyes now fixed upon her coverlet.

"I assume that at some point during your illustrious academic career, you did gather that persons drained of their magic should refrain from casting spells?" he inquired sharply.

His remark appeared to dispatch with her embarrassment. Now she actually looked at him in disaffected challenge, which was startling to say the least. "One wonders why my overly-paranoid caregivers did not simply confiscate my wand then. And I won't insult you, Professor, by informing you that Wingardium Leviosa would have drawn out less magic than exists in a Squib."

Severus remained silent in response to her outburst, eyeing her coldly.

She seemed finally to realize she was raving. "Oh, Merlin," she spat out bitterly. "That was very rude, sir, I apologize..."

But these weren't words of Granger's usual caliber, accompanied by the over exuberance that typically tried his patience. Indeed, her visage was clouded with a black look, which was accentuated by her pointed silence and her folded lips. Severus was curious in spite of himself.

What was this? He wondered if he had been too quick to assess. Her unusually foul humor was more than boredom and irritation.

He folded himself into the chair that he had taken up the night before and placed the potions on the nightstand.

"A good point you bring up, Miss Granger. I shall therefore be keeping your wand for the time being, lest you are tempted again." He tucked the wand into his robes, feeling it prod against him. Seated, he was able to have a clearer view of her eyes, and he realized from their swollen redness that she had recently shed tears. He kept himself from frowning.

"You are not well?" he offered as way of an opening. Merlin help him, now he was attempting to pry into another's feelings. Legilimency remained an option, and a far easier one, but she was still convalescing. He restrained himself.

She watched as he sat, her expression growing progressively alarmed. But in response to his question, her eyebrows furrowed and Severus imagined that it was not the query she had been expecting.

"I am as well as I could be, given the condition I find myself in!" she said after a pause. She sighed, raking troubled eyes over his face, as if searching for some deeper meaning. She seemed to hold an internal debate of sorts, before grumbling, "Oh, bother, it may as well be you then."

She shifted about a bit, as if getting more comfortable, then began slowly, "I'm not used to being such a complete invalid. Actually, I don't think I've ever been like this. I'm not just talking about being stuck in a bed, or being made to take potions, or feeling a bit weak and under the weather..."

She looked tentatively at him now, and Severus nodded at her to go on, still feeling himself on unsure footing.

"What I'm talking about is this complete...helplessness. Especially this no magic thing, Professor. I know that I shouldn't complain, having brought this upon myself, but truly, I can't do anything, at least not in the Wizarding world, where Muggle conveniences like hairbrushes simply do not exist!"

An odd understanding came over Severus. Having frequently been laid low in the sick ward himself from his excursions with the Dark Lord, Severus was not unfamiliar with the teeth-gnashing dissatisfaction that came with losing magic. For a witch such as Granger, it was surely galling. He had nothing to say about hairbrushes, of course. But neither should Granger, whose restless intellect was starved for fodder and forced to dwell on inanities.

"If it is any consolation, it hardly makes a difference," he opined, his lips quirking.

She seemed baffled at first, then her eyes widened disbelievingly. She reached up and patted her hair, laughing. "Ah, do you believe so, Professor? I had no idea you were an authority on such things. Though really, my hair is hopeless with or without magic, which is probably why you see no difference!"

The sound of her laughter caused a small knot to release in his stomach. Some distant part his brain approved.

Her laughter died down now, and she resumed her brooding stance. "But yes, you see, I really don't know what to do with myself. I can study, but I can't practice, I can't summon things at will, I can't even indulge in some of the sweets my House mates have sent me, since most of them are magical." She gestured disconsolately at the meager supply of Muggle chocolates sitting on her nightstand.

"You will be released from the hospital wing in two days," he said reasonably. "And your magic is not restricted indefinitely. Melancholy does not become you, Granger, anymore than it becomes other eternally-upbeat Gryffindors."

"How remiss of me," she rejoined mockingly. Before Severus could decide whether her cheek warranted discipline, her voice lowered to a bare whisper and her gaze became downcast. "And worst of all, I'm can't pursue my project. My parents have still sacrificed in vain."

Severus' eyes narrowed. So revenge was still on the girl's mind?

"Do not be foolish!" he said in a hard tone. "You speak of this vengeance like it is but another assignment from one of your classes. Do not forget that the headmaster and I have only consented to allow you to experiment with your theories on a probationary basis."

She nodded once, jerkily, but her gaze was still obstinate.

"You are not..." he began, but she interrupted pointing at his right hand.

"You ought to do something about that, Professor!"

He glared at her, and tugged his robe sleeve further down to cover the hand still bearing the wounds from the night before. "Do not change the subject."

"You can perform a healing charm. Why on earth--? Ah, is it your dominant brewing hand, Professor? It needs to heal naturally in order to avoid damaging the integrity of your potions?" she asked brightly.

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. At the moment, she was wreaking havoc on his good judgment.

"Honey and vinegar, then."

"I have not the faintest idea what you are talking about," he snarled.

"Honey and vinegar, when applied to wounds, can speed healing," she said pedantically.

Severus decided he had had quite enough. With a muttered oath, he turned to the potions, made a show of levitating them with his wand, and shoved them before her face.

"You will drink these."

He wondered if her confinement had really caused her to lose her wits, for she was now wearing an insufferable grin. "Of course, Professor."

He watched her take the potions, exasperation causing his temple to pulsate. He wondered what had inspired him to be subject to this churlish tirade of hers. He had far better things to do than listen to Granger's confidences. Yet, as he surveyed the sight of her swallowing the potions determinedly, features distorted in distaste, and perceived her animated eyes darting to him surreptitiously, believing him unaware, he confessed a mindless relief at witnessing her alive, unharmed, and well. After seeing her awaken, screaming in torment... It had shaken him and now it promised to haunt him. It had been more difficult than he cared to admit to put her agony from his mind as he administered to her the potions.

She stifled a yawn after she had downed the brews, and Severus took this as a cue to depart. He had already stood up when her voice, now much softer, drifted up to him sleepily, "I'm sorry."

He looked at her questioningly. Her eyelids were starting to droop, and her face had lost its moody angles.

"For messing up with the Pensieve Base...I was being pretty stupid, wasn't I?"

Severus opened his mouth to speak, but found that the words were reluctant to emerge. He blinked, then murmured, "Think nothing of it, Granger."

"I can come back, then?" her speech was almost indistinguishable as torpor descended upon her.

"Yes, I suppose you may."

"Good." Her eyes closed, and her head turned slightly into the pillow. Tense fingers released their hold upon the coverlet.

Severus stared, his breath lodging in his throat. His hand rose slowly to hover over her face. He closed his eyes, his mind flooding with warnings. His fingers quickly retracted into a fist, and he remained standing over her, immovable. Then, in spite of his own admonitions which insisted that this was not for him, his fingers unfurled, trembling, and brushed against her mussed, uncharmed hair with a touch so feather light that he would later convince himself he hadn't touched her at all.

Author's Notes:

1. The title of this chapter, "No Man Is An Island," is the title of one of my favorite poems, written by John Donne:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

2. For anyone with a Livejournal, I'd love to friend you! Mine is listed in my profile. Also, I am on Twitter as @labrt2004

3. And as always, many thanks go out to my betas, Snarkyroxy and Natalie (LaSyren)

Reviews are very much appreciated!