Chapter 16

A/N: Still not mine (all hail JKR). This chapter is brought to you with the invaluable help, and brilliant alpha and beta reading skills of beaweasley2 and clairvoyant (*bows low*). Thank you for your reviews - please keep them coming! I read them all and welcome all comments. This chapter was hard to write.

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Chapter 16

"Well, that's done then," she said with a false casualness, the relief clearly evident on her features. "According to your notes, now all I have to do is wait a few hours until it cools, decant it, and then I can take it to Sabazios."

The smile froze on Snape's lips at her words. His mind was still feeling muddled from the concussion he had suffered, and the Butterfly Weed Balm that she had rubbed on his face and back was also clouding his thoughts. But still, he could have sworn she said that she was intending to take an untested potion, one that she had never brewed before, to Sabazios and his cult followers in his lair. But that would be so... ridiculous... idiotic. Utterly reckless. Why on earth would she risk that?

He was lying uncomfortably on the transfigured trestle bed with a light blanket across his body, his right arm bandaged and immobilised beneath the coverings, his right shoulder throbbing and stiff.

His chest hurt when he breathed, although the pain was mostly high up at the top of his chest this time, not in the same place as when he had fractured his ribs a few days ago. He could feel that he was no longer wearing his tunica or his underwear and wondered, with asperity, where she had vanished his clothing to this time... before the embarrassed realisation hit him that she must have seen his body naked again. Immediately, he felt a rush of guilty arousal sweep through him at the memory of his previous actions when they had both been naked the night before.

Entirely unaware of the emotions boiling through him, she walked back towards him from the bench and perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed by his hip. Taking a deep breath, she turned and looked at him steadily.

"Now, for you," she said, and he flushed in response and felt his traitorous cock begin to stir at the thoughts running through his mind. Ohhhhhh, nononono. Don't you bloody dare.... Think of other things. How much it hurts... what you did to survive... why you always fuck things up in the end. He couldn't see her very well in the dim light of the magical sconces, and he hoped that she hadn't noticed, although her features were hard to read. He opened his mouth to say something, but she forestalled him by pulling her wand out from her skirts and pointing it at his chest.

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"How is she?" Ginny asked quietly but anxiously, cradling a fractious Lily against her chest and rocking her from side to side. The baby was fretting and had woken up both of her parents in the middle of the night, just in time for Harry to hear a gentle tapping at their apartment window. He had not been surprised to see one of St Mungo's owls hovering outside the window and waiting to be admitted. Urgent notes were delivered directly, not through the morning post. Harry frowned as he scanned his friend's note.

"Umm," he began, "Luna says she still hasn't woken up. She has barely moved, and the Healers haven't detected any change in her aura since she was brought in." He paused, reading more of the note. "Professor Spleen thinks she might have been stung by something that lives in rosemary bushes on the site.... Luna thinks that this seems very sensible."

Ginny raised her eyebrows but said nothing, and Harry smiled at her unspoken comment.

"She's been muttering things in her sleep, and her temperature has risen," he continued, "but the Healers are not too concerned. She'll let us know if there is any change in a few more hours. They are going to try to administer the Wiggenweld Potion to see if it will help her to break out of the coma." He rolled up the scroll and sighed.

"I wonder if Septima has found any answers about that portrait?" Ginny said quietly, shushing the infant in her arms. "I can't help thinking that there is a connection, don't you?"

Harry nodded and rubbed his fingers through his sleep-rumpled hair. He yawned. He would go and see Septima in the morning to let her know how Hermione was doing and ask if she had solved the riddle of Snape's portrait. For now, he followed his wife back to bed where he made room for little Lily to lie between them as Ginny continued to soothe their daughter.

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Snape found that there was nothing like ten and three-quarter inches of vinewood with dragon heartstring pointing straight at you to deflate a burgeoning erection.

She was brandishing her wand at his chest, but it soon became obvious that she was uncertain of how to continue. His mind, woozy from the drugs and concussion, struggled to clear, and he turned his attention from his pathetic emotional rambling to his injuries.

From what he could see and feel of his own body, the dark stain of bruises that were marring his pale skin and the pain he was experiencing, Severus was certain that he had some serious injuries on his upper chest, arm, and right shoulder. He looked at her steadily, and when she her eyes locked with his, he raised his eyebrow with deliberate slowness. His lip quirked at her flushed reaction to his arrogant challenge.

"I don't..." she began hesitantly, breaking eye contact to look helplessly at his chest and upper body.

Snape's regard softened slightly. He moved his left hand and caught the side of her dress by her hip, silently trying to steady her.

"You are going to have to help me," she said quietly, "I've fixed simple breaks before now, and I've done the odd healing spell, but these look..." Her voice trailed away, and he thought he could see panic growing again in her as she contemplated the extent of his injuries.

She needed direction if she was going to be able to repair the damage caused by his encounter with the Manticore, and he sensed that such direction needed to be forthright and clear enough to prevent her from panicking and messing the treatment up entirely. Botched healing spells could be worse than the original injury. That thought finally focused his mind.

He shifted uncomfortably on the bed, and through the fog of the medication and pain he was experiencing, he tried to summon the correct procedures to mind.

"The diagnostic spell is Ostendere." He began his instruction formally. "You need to turn the blankets down and unwrap the bandages to expose the... injuries... before you cast it." He took another breath and was helpless to prevent his face from twisting in discomfiture as he did so. "Point your wand at my upper body and say the incantation. You should be able to see the damage clearly through my skin." Again, he did his best to keep his voice even and dispassionate, but he could see that she was still nervous.

"Relax, Granger," he said and was pleased that he was able to keep his voice steady despite the pain it cost him. "You are not going to kill me. Not yet anyway." She smiled at that, and he saw the tension in her shoulders dissipate a little.

As she moved the blanket, she jarred his arm through necessity, and he hissed inadvertently as the pain, in particular from his shoulder, spiked through him. Slowly and carefully, she unwrapped the bandage from around his lower arm, peeling away the last layer of material from the sweaty skin beneath.

***

Hermione finished peeling the blanket down his body, leaving it across his hips. She noticed once again the golden chain around his neck and noted with surprise what seemed to be an old and battered golden Time-Turner hanging on the end of it, nestled in his sparse chest hair. She frowned in fascination, temporarily distracted from her task, as she looked at the odd little device.

"Oh...," she said, reaching out to touch the tiny, twisted glass vial with its pale glittering contents nestling within the twin circles of gold. There was something very familiar about it.... She had some experience with Time-Turners, and given the situation that she currently found herself in, she would have liked to study it in more detail, but as she touched his chest, he took a hissing breath.

"Doctor Granger... If you wouldn't mind..."

Feeling guilty, she tore her attention away from the Time-Turner and his chest – his nipples were puckering and goose flesh was forming on his skin in the cool air of the laboratory. She steadied her breathing once more and focused her intent on the injured shoulder and chest. His shoulder was very swollen and mottled with livid bruising. His chest on the right side also looked odd; the collarbone was pushing up prominently under his skin, and the flesh surrounding it was stained a sickly yellow colour.

"Ostendere," she commanded. Slowly, she began to see the skin growing thinner and becoming like a translucent shadow, and the muscles and ligaments shivered into view. Then, after a moment, they also paled and grew transparent, and the bones became visible.

Ouch. Hermione recoiled slightly at the damage to Snape's shoulder. She was no Healer, but it was obvious that the head of his humerus was split into three parts. The rest of the shoulder bones looked to be whole, but as her attention was drawn across his chest, she could see that the collarbone was also badly broken. The bone was snapped in two, displaced at an angle with one edge jutting above the other.

"What can you see?" he asked with a trace of impatience.

"Um," she began. "I think your shoulder is broken."

He grunted, "Really? What does it look like?"

She described the damage as best she could.

"What about the chest? How badly is my collarbone broken?" he asked.

"Badly," she confirmed. She felt rather ill looking at the broken ends of the collarbone flexing as he breathed in and out shallowly. "I think it's what Healers call a displaced fracture." She could see that he didn't understand the term. "The bones are completely separated and overlay each other," she explained, moving one flat hand on top of the other to demonstrate to him. His lips thinned and he nodded slightly.

"Check my ribs and wrist," he said.

She turned her attention to his arm and ribs and repeated the same charm.

The ribs looked fine on the left, but she was not surprised, given the dark bruises around his upper chest, to see thin linear marks denoting greenstick fractures on three of the upper right ribs.

The arm was another case altogether.

Both bones in his forearm had snapped at the point where the arm must have taken the brunt of his body's impact against the corner of the pillar. The breaks looked clean, both of the bones broken at about the same point on the forearm, but they had been pulled past each other, displaced by the contraction of his ligaments and muscles. It must have been unbelievably painful.

Again, she described the injury to Snape, trying to be as detailed and dispassionate as she could, although she could hear her voice wavering as she spoke about his arm.

She lowered her wand, and the charm dissipated. Hermione found herself staring at his damaged pale skin once again.

"What do you want me to do, Severus?" she asked quietly, trying hard to keep her voice steady, even though she felt faintly sick at the thought of having to set the bones underneath the unnatural bulges that marked the various fractures under his skin.

"Take my hand, Hermione,' Severus instructed her calmly, "Lace your fingers through mine and lift my hand up, without twisting my palm. Hopefully, the weight of my arm will apply enough traction to align the bones so you can set them properly. Use the charm Os Sarcire to knit the bones together, and I should feel them click back into place as they mend."

"What about your shoulder? Won't that pull the joint apart?" she asked nervously, unwilling to hurt him more than absolutely necessary.

He grimaced. "You'll have to mend the arm first before we can move onto the shoulder and clavicle, or you won't be able to apply enough force to draw the bone there back into place."

"Right," she said without much conviction.

He stared at her for a moment.

She stared back – still obviously reluctant to act. How could she possibly do this without causing him agony? What if she couldn't apply enough pressure to set the bones correctly? If he passed out again, would she remember the charm and get the traction right? She froze as those thoughts plagued her, her right hand gripping her wand, and her left hovering just above his chest, feeling the heat radiating off his skin into the cool air. She couldn't do it! There were too many variables, and she had no anatomical training. She knew basic skeletal anatomy, but the bone at the top of his arm was shattered! How could she possibly picture the correct alignment of the shoulder joint so she could fix it?

As if sensing her doubt and fear, Snape simply raised his eyebrow again. He looked at her coolly but with utter confidence. Slowly, under his regard, she calmed and came back to herself. Her eyes fluttered shut as she dug deep for the fortitude needed to help him.

"Well? Shall we get on with it, Doctor Granger?" he drawled deliberately. The unfamiliar use of her formal name was a challenge, and it stirred her into action.

Carefully, she laced her fingers between his, acutely conscious of the pain that simple act caused him. His lips thinned, his face blanched, and beads of sweat began to gather on his brow. She shot one last look of uncertainty at him, and he scowled back.

"Do it!" he ordered roughly, then, "Remember! Don't twist the arm, just lift it up."

He moaned slightly as she stood to raise the limb, trying to be as smooth in her actions as she could. She kept the limb untwisted, and sure enough, after a few seconds, he nodded, and she incanted, "Os Sarcire!" on the arm. She felt a faint shiver in the limb, and Snape hissed sharply, and after a pause, he squeezed her fingers with his own. Carefully, so as to minimise the pain to his shoulder and collarbone, she returned the arm to his side and sat down once more as she did so. She wasn't sure if he had fainted again, and impulsively, she placed her left hand on his belly gently, her fingers brushing through the soft, wiry hairs that tracked down its centre, as if to try and soothe the pain away.

***

He lay still for a moment, his eyes closed as he fought for control. Oh Christ, that hurt! His shoulder felt like it was a ball of agony. When she had lifted his arm, he had felt the shattered humerus fragments grate against each other in his shoulder and an almost intolerable pressure on his collarbone. He concentrated on calming his breathing, utilising long-forgotten strategies for accepting pain and controlling it.

Unbidden memories sprang into his mind from his past: the hideous Dark revels, the scenes of torture he had witnessed and endured at the hands of Riddle and his followers. He groaned slightly and tried to banish the images of twisted figures, screaming and contorting under Death Eaters' wands, which thrust themselves to the forefront of his mind, as well as the memory of those times when he had displeased the Dark Lord and had felt the punishing effects of the Cruciatus Curse as his reward.

To his embarrassment, he realised that he was crying, and he was shamed by his weakness. He tried to pull himself together and then felt the blessed relief of a cool, damp cloth wiping gently across his face, disguising the flow of tears. Opening his good eye, he saw Hermione leaning over him, her face white and concerned.

She smiled bravely at him, her own eyes bright with empathy, "One down," she said softly, "three to go."

He nodded slightly. The pain in his shoulder was receding slightly. It had now dulled to a flaming ache that he could cope with, and he was able once again to focus on the young woman before him, her face anxious in the light of the magical sconces that illuminated the laboratory.

He became conscious of her other hand resting lightly on his abdomen, the fingers curling slightly on his skin, sending delicious waves of sensation through his lower body. He caught his breath and felt his ribs grate in protest. "My ribs," he hissed. "Just aim your wand at them and say the charm, Os Sarcire."

She nodded and pulled back a little, taking aim, saying, "Os Sarcire," with a lot more confidence this time. There was a sharp pain in several places but not nearly as bad this time. Once the pain had passed, it had become much easier to breathe. He lay quietly, bathed in sweat, but enjoying the simple act of breathing for a while.

Hermione watched him, not moving, frown lines formed between her eyebrows.

"Severus," she began. "I'm not sure I can visualise the bones properly to mend your shoulder. I... I haven't studied human anatomy since my NEWT Transfiguration lessons. I looked at it again at uni... but that was mostly for recognition of bones in an archaeology site...."

He lifted his left hand and laid it gently over hers on his belly, delighting at the contact. It was obvious what he needed to do, but suddenly he felt a rush of nervousness at the prospect. He was a private man, unused to permitting the sharing of his thoughts. "I'll show you what it should look like. Look at me."

Hermione's eyes widened, and Snape doubted that she had ever attempted this particular magical skill before.

"Look at me, Miss Granger," he repeated, his fingers tightening on hers. "I will show you the shoulder joint as it should appear to you. You will then be able to cast the spell to bring the broken pieces of the bone back together in the correct form. Then we will be able to address the broken collarbone, and I will be healed. The incantation is Legilimens, as you know. I will then show you what you need to see." He paused and then continued, his eyes boring into hers, "There will be no need to wander about in my mind. You will simply be a passive observer. Once you have the image, you may cast the spell, and I will break our connection."

He saw her smile and nod, clearly relieved and reassured by his confidence in their plan of action. Nevertheless, she had not withdrawn her hand from his belly, and he had not let go of her fingers either. Snape looked into her eyes, and he felt her attention focus on his, saw her irises widen and sensed the pressure of her mind on his as she whispered, "Legilimens."

***

It was like falling into water, a strange, disorientating sense of being struck, enveloped, then cushioned. Hermione could see images forming before her. She saw a picture of the top third of the humerus, the ball joint clearly delineated.

She recognised the parts of the bone she was seeing: the smooth, dome-shaped head in relation to the two tubercles (the twin bulges at the top of the bone) and the deep groove that ran between them down the shaft.

She felt a rush of sympathy as she recalled the image of the split and damaged bones in his shoulder. Uncontrolled, her compassion for him pushed through her mind and charged forwards into his.

She felt him start and then recoil from the contact, sensing the opaque shields he raised sharply against her blundering consciousness.

His voice sounded in her mind, tense, defensive, and irritated. "Do you have what you need? Say the charm, girl!"

Feeling foolish, Hermione focused on the joint in his shoulder, as he had instructed her to do, and murmured the incantation while keeping the image he was showing her within her vision.

Snape keened, a high and desperate sound in his throat, as the broken pieces of bone came together through the mass of damaged muscle, ligaments, and nerves, all knitting together at the top of the bone. Mentally, she could feel him shaking with the effort of not passing out. He clung on to consciousness just as his hand convulsively squeezed hers on his stomach.

She should have pulled away then, but she did not wish to break the mental connection between them. Instead, upset at the pain she was causing him, she sought blindly to provide him comfort. Without knowing what to do, she brushed her consciousness against his gently and felt his shields weaken and shiver in response. She thought of her desire to heal him, her wish that he should feel comforted, and felt, in return, a desperate wall of agony burst against her... and then suddenly... nothing.

She felt his hand go slack in hers – he had passed out from the pain.

Suddenly, a barrage of images and emotions assaulted her. Her stomach churned as her perception shifted. It was like watching extracts from a film that had been fast-forwarded without the security of viewing from a distance:

A dark, thin man, a strap hanging from his hand, a poor woman on her knees washing a flagstone floor with a scrubbing brush and a tin bucket.

An argument, the redhead shouting at Hermione, close up, her pretty face contorted into a rictus of dislike and scorn.

Hermione was confused – What's going on? Who...?

Longing, a desperate craving. Her body cramped, and she felt sick with self-loathing.

Hermione's head was swimming. Images bled into other images, and she was drowning in feelings so intense that she feared she would be sick.

The images kept coming, pushing around her, swarming up close. She had to find a way of controlling what she was seeing. Desperately, she grabbed at a passing image, and the disorientation lessened.

She was at Slughorn's party, the one she had attended with Harry and Cormac in her sixth year. She could see the charmed mistletoe, the glasses of elf-made wine, and she felt a strong resentment that students were being encouraged to drink and socialise when they should be preparing relentlessly for the darkness ahead. She was standing sullenly to the side of Slughorn's sitting room in the shadows, watching... watching....

But I don't remember the party like that! Hermione thought. The room was brighter, surely? The music was much happier... How can I be watching myself in my own memories without a Pensieve?

She realised with a shock that she was seeing his memories and dreams from his unconscious, not his rational thoughts. The knowledge frightened her – this was not normal Legilimency. Instinctively, she tried to pull away from him, to open her eyes and quit his mind. But the temptation to see more, to take the opportunity to pry a little – in particular, to see why he had pulled away from their intimacy during the previous day – proved far too enticing for her to leave his thoughts.

She was locked onto his memories, feeling his emotions as if they were her own.

There I am! she thought, and then she became confused as she watched her teenaged self walk into Slughorn's rooms on the arm of the burly Quidditch player, a false and brittle smile plastered to her features.

She felt a surge of something feral in her stomach, curling through her body with tendrils of dislike. 'That oaf McClaggen is all over her....' She felt a swift moment of satisfaction as she saw herself push him away and escape behind a curtain to the window balcony....

She remembered something that Harry had told her about his lessons with Snape in their fifth year. Emotions were the key. They would help her to navigate this strange, disorientating dreamscape. Fascinated by the insight into Snape's mind, she returned to her study of the scene playing out before her as she watched her younger self avoid McClaggen and seek out Harry. Hermione caught the covetous emotion swelling in her body – Snape's body – and felt it draw her to another memory.

Quieter now... and cold... so cold... A clearing in the Forest of Dean, watching a thin, wan-looking young woman in an ill-fitting jumper carefully gut and clean a dead rabbit by a tree stump. She worked methodically, all her concentration on the little creature, limp and lifeless in her hands. She cut the skin around the feet of the animal, removed the head and abruptly pulled the furry pelt off the carcass. Her lips were thin with concentration, and she looked... capable... beautiful.

Beautiful... she was in his arms – his arms! Coming out of the painting, landing on top of him... crying on his chest, soaking his tunica with the salt of her sorrow and fears... arching against him in the warm water, kissing him, wanting him.

*

Snape's eyes slammed open. His shields smashed against her, and she was suffused with terror – hers or his, she didn't know.

"S-Stupefy!" Hermione reacted instinctively, throwing herself backwards and away from his body as she hexed him, landing hard on her backside on the flagstone floor of the potions laboratory, her chest heaving, bile rising in her throat, and adrenaline rushing through her body. With her left hand she scrabbled at the front of her dress, pulling the perfume bottle out and breaking the silver chain that bound it around her neck. With a strangled cry of revulsion, she threw it away from her, watching it skitter across the floor and hit the far wall. It didn't break.

"Severus?" A man's voice was calling from the stairs outside the room.

Hermione squeaked in alarm and scrambled to her feet. What? Who the hell is it?

Footsteps were coming close, scuffing on the stairs.

***

"Severus, old man? Are you down here? I've brought your 'niece's' palla over. Marcella insisted I came round to thank you and Hermione for saving her and the children the other night...." Conviva's voice drifted away as he took in the scene, Severus lying unconscious on the low bed, Hermione standing facing him, her face wild, pointing a stick at him with a shaking arm.

"Hermione?" he asked. "What's the matter with Severus? Are you all right?"