Chapter 3

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One Week Later

***

It had been a week since the funeral, Hermione mused. She had been reluctant to leave Severus alone so that all three of them could attend the ceremony at Hogwarts, but he had absolutely refused to accompany them – no surprise there, she thought. In the end, she had insisted on giving the man one of her charmed coins left over from the DA. It had been modified to sense not a squeeze but any sudden motion, so if he were to fall down or flail about during a seizure, it would alert the bearer of the other coin, which for that day would be her, and she could return immediately to Grimmauld Place to attend to him. He had initially refused such measures, but she reminded him forcefully of the one seizure he had had at Hogwarts in which he had almost bitten off his tongue, and he relented, although not graciously. Fortunately, that day had gone off relatively free of Snape-related drama, but since then, he had had three episodes, each of them increasingly worse. She tried to keep his deterioration from the others, but even they could see that his seizures lasted longer and left him more and more fatigued. The last one he had had left him unconscious for the better part of twelve hours and had required an emergency visit from Madam Pomfrey. Whatever was causing this, she thought, the potions were not helping.

So, while Harry had dived into the efforts to rebuild Hogwarts and Ron had been assisting his father with Ministry issues, Hermione had begun researching. After all, she surmised, research was what she had always done best. It was where she could be the most helpful, at least for now. And it kept her mind off her grief. Ron had been lucky – his entire family had survived the war unscathed, aside from George's ear, and so while he was appropriately sombre at the funeral, and truly mourned the losses of his friends and colleagues, he had rebounded faster than any of them and really tackled his projects with energy and vigour. Harry's main focus in life, though, seemed to be clearing Severus' name, but even he had realized that that wasn't possible just yet, and so he threw himself into reconstructing Hogwarts as a means of distraction. Aside from that, he barely noticed anything, not even Ginny. But Hermione couldn't move on so quickly or simply choose to ignore her feelings. She knew that Harry and Ron missed Remus and Tonks, and Colin, and the others, but not to the point where it kept them up at night, stifling their sobs with their pillows, like it did her. But a research project – that was exactly what she needed to occupy herself.

It was difficult at first, since she had rationally concluded that the only logical starting point was with Nagini herself, and of course Neville had killed her. The snake's body had been destroyed during the cleaning of the grounds after the battle, so she no longer had that to use for tests, and Severus was, of course, less than forthcoming with his knowledge, preferring to spend most of his time brooding in his quarters. Reading, he called it, but Hermione noticed he never seemed to turn the pages of the book he had been staring at all week. So, for now, her main focus was to determine exactly what type of venom such a snake would have produced, and what its effects would have been. But it was difficult, with such little information to go on, so most of her calculations were based on nothing but educated guesses.

"Bah!" she spat, slamming yet another heavy tome shut and sitting back at the kitchen table. Resting her head in her hands, she tried to still her restless mind. So many ideas, so many things to test, and no way to get the answers.

"Problems, Miss Granger?" Severus asked in that irritatingly calm voice. Hermione jumped. She hadn't even heard him enter the room, and she hated that tone of voice. She could never be entirely sure that he wasn't making fun of her.

She sighed, slumping, then straightened up. The last thing she needed was for him to start thinking of her as nothing but a petulant teenager. "Actually, yes," she said in exasperation. "I keep trying to find out more about the properties of Nagini's venom, but none of these books have anything to say about snakes like her."

"Not surprising," Severus spoke, "given that she was the only one of her kind."

Hermione sat up even straighter, surprised that for once, he had volunteered information. "But – how is that possible, sir?"

Severus sighed as he put on water for tea. "Miss Granger, do use your brain. She was Voldemort's familiar. Surely he would not have chosen just any common creature."

"Do you mean to say that he had her ... bred? Engineered, somehow?" she queried.

"He made her himself," the man replied, looking out the window.

The implications of his words struck her, and she growled in frustration. "But that means –"

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said, whirling to face her. "Clearly, you have been under the impression that I have been – how did Mr. Weasley put it yesterday? Sulking like a first year in detention? I assure you, I have given my ... condition ... a great deal of thought. I realize that I am not improving. Quite the opposite, in fact. I also realize that it must be related to my particular wound. Poppy's potions might be staving off part of the effects, but without an antivenin made from Nagini's own venom, I will continue to worsen. It will probably be a slow and painful process, resulting in a seizure so strong that I am unable to recuperate." His voice rose as he spoke, and by the time he finished, his hands clutched the counter, white-knuckled.

She gasped at his frank words. She hadn't realized that he had been so cognizant of his own condition or, if she were truthful, that he had been giving much thought beyond being stuck here with the three of them. "Surely there is an alternative, sir. Couldn't we try other antivenins, or different combinations?"

"Combining antivenins from different breeds of snake is tantamount to an immediate death sentence, and while I am not entirely sure that death would not be an improvement over my current state of existence, I'm quite sure I would prefer a less excruciating end," Severus retorted.

"But –"

"Miss Granger!" he snapped. "Your persistence, while admirable, is foolish. There is nothing that can be done."

She sat back, stunned. Had Snape just complimented her? She shook her head. That wasn't important. What was important was that Severus Snape had given up. "I can't believe you," she spat. "After everything you did to stay alive all these years, and everything you did to try to survive the battle, and now, in the face of a little ... adversity, you're just going to let yourself die?"

"Do not presume to know what I am thinking, Miss Granger!" Severus thundered. "Regardless of what you and your imbecilic flatmates think you understand about my personal life, you know nothing!"

"Oh, but I do, Mister Snape," Hermione hissed, brown eyes blazing. "I know this much. You've given up. Well, you might be content to let yourself die, but I certainly am not. You mark my words. There is a way, and I will find it!" And with that, she stormed out of the kitchen, tears streaming down her face.

She slumped on her bed, hiding her face in her hands as though to mask her tears even from herself. Why did he frustrate her so badly? It wasn't just that he was ill, although of course she fretted about his condition. And of course his situation with the Ministry was precarious and grossly unfair. It would take weeks, if not months, for them to have cleaned up the thousands of messes that Voldemort's lackeys had caused, let alone be prepared to handle a case like Snape's with anything akin to fairness. Still, the man had been caught between two masters for the better part of twenty years, she thought. A few more weeks shouldn't be enough to make him give up all hope. It wasn't even his horribly unthankful attitude toward her and Harry and Ron. Not like they weren't used to his derision by now, Hermione thought. What really bothered her, she realized, was that that ferocity, that spark, that ... essence of Snape ... was just gone. Oh, he fussed and mocked and sneered, but it was somehow empty, though no less cruel at times. He just wasn't the same man anymore, and for some reason, the idea of him living like that was more frightening than thinking of him dying.

Severus sat at the table, sighing. It was difficult for him to admit it, but Miss Granger had struck a nerve. Why, indeed, had he struggled so hard to survive during the war only to find his present conditions so bloody unbearable? His seizures were difficult and painful, to be true, but no more so than the Dark Lord's Cruciatus, which he had borne more frequently and for longer periods of time than his current affliction. He certainly didn't care what the wizarding public thought of him, either. He had done what he had to do, what he had sworn to do, and he'd be damned before he'd share his motivations or his memories with society just to become acceptable. And while currently he was stuck in this hovel with three faces he had hoped never to see again, he had only to wait for the Ministry to shake off the dust and pass him a pardon. He had been patient before; he could be patient again. But – for what?

Severus looked down at his hands, pale and shaking. Dumbledore had said the future was in his own hands at last, that he was finally free to control his own fate. And for the first time, he realized that he had completely forgotten how.

Neither Hermione nor Severus came out of their rooms for dinner. Ron knocked on their doors, but, getting no answer, called out that he had left them plates warming on the counter, and that he and Harry would be back after their meeting with Arthur at the Burrow – something to do with electing a new Minister of Magic. It was long after nightfall before Hermione dared to venture out, her need for the lav overcoming her desire not to run into Snape. Finishing her business, her stomach growled – quite loudly, actually – and she realized that she hadn't eaten at all that day, having previously been too fixated on her research. She chuckled grimly to herself. Won't make that mistake again, will you, she thought and headed for the kitchen. But as she turned the corner, she saw something that made her stop in her tracks.

Severus Snape sat at the kitchen table with the books she had been reading earlier. A stack of scrap parchment sat to one side, and his quill had been charmed to edit her calculations as he muttered out loud. She fought between distaste at seeing him and curiosity at what he was doing, and per the usual, her curiosity won out. She could only catch a few words out of what he was whispering, but it sounded to her as though he were doing a series of calculations – for antivenin. She gasped. Could he actually be on to something?

"I heard you well over a quarter of an hour ago, Miss Granger," he said mildly, without turning around. "If you're so curious, you might as well come in."

Hurriedly, she rushed into the kitchen, all thoughts of dinner pushed aside. "What is it, sir?" she asked.

The corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. Back to sir, was it, he thought; never could get the know-it-all to stop thinking. "Quite obviously, you overlooked several main factors in your Arithmantic calculations, Miss Granger. I'm rather surprised, actually; some of them were things of which you should have been well aware."

Her face burned at his criticism, but a distant part of her brain registered that there was no real frost in his voice. "What – what had I not taken into account, sir?" she asked, a bit more politely than before.

"First of all, you were basing all of your calculations on the qualities of Madam Pomfrey's potion. But as you had already mentioned, that potion was not created using Nagini's venom, so it is inherently flawed," he replied, eyes still glued to the pages in front of him. Not once had he looked at the young girl sharing the table.

"I know," Hermione replied, "which is why I had been hunting for information regarding Nagini's venom. I figured that if I knew about its properties, I could replace the values of the venom used in Madam Pomfrey's potions with the values of Nagini's, and reconfigure a way to create a synthetic version, but I couldn't find out what they were –"

"You couldn't, because as I mentioned before, Nagini was unique. There has not ever been a mention of her kind in a text or tome, so there is no recorded information about the characteristics of her venom." Snape's quill scratched a few more lines onto one sheet of parchment before flurrying back to Hermione's notes, adding signs and symbols in a different-colored ink.

"So – so then, what –"

"Secondly," Severus continued blandly, as though she had not spoken, "you failed to take into account the relative sizes of the beasts themselves. Not only is – was – Nagini unique, but she was also a very, very large snake. In case you had forgotten." His quill scratched again. "The types of snakes upon which Madam Pomfrey's potions are usually based are between ten and twenty times smaller. Therefore, your calculations, even had they had the correct values for Nagini's own venom, would have been woefully disproportionate in terms of potency."

"Of course," Hermione said excitedly. "That must be why my first attempts to come up with a working model failed. I didn't think that Madam –"

"You didn't think, Miss Granger," the older man interrupted yet again. "That much is clear. Had you stopped to think, you might also have realized that no magically-created venom such as Nagini's could ever be replicated using non-magical snake venom, no matter what the combination, qualities, or amount."

Hermione thought frantically. She had had no idea about Nagini being a magically-created snake until just that afternoon, so of course she couldn't have known that, but – "Wait, sir. Does that mean that you think we can create a synthetic version of the venom magically?"

"We, Miss Granger?" Severus asked deceptively.

"Well, I mean, I just thought that I – you – we could –" Hermione stumbled over her words, blushing. This was so exciting! Magical synthetics of naturally existing elements were fairly easy to do, and were generally taught in upper-level Transfigurations and Charms at Hogwarts, but coming up with a magical synthetic not just of a magical element, but of one that was no longer in existence, was beyond Master's level work – and there was no way she was going to let him do it without her.

"Sadly, the work that we will need to do – yes, we, Miss Granger, please do close your mouth – requires two people to cast simultaneous spells, and since I am most loath to even contemplate allowing Mr. Weasley or Mr. Potter near such a delicate experiment, I suppose I must suffer your company. But I warn you – if you do not listen carefully, if you do not follow my every direction with the utmost care and attention, I will dismiss you from the project and do it myself, spells or not. I trust I have made myself abundantly clear," Severus stated.

Hermione sat back in her chair and allowed herself a small smile. That almost – almost – had sounded like the Professor Snape she knew and despised. Perhaps he hadn't quite given up after all.