Six

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

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Roused groggily from sleep, Hermione spent a moment staring in confusion at her hands. They were crossed over the haphazard array of parchments in front of her, stained deeply. Her knuckles looked as though they'd been etched into her skin, their furrows marked with black ink.

She heard a sigh and cracked her eyes open a bit more widely, pushing bunches of her hair out of her face. Ron stood before her, his mop of red hair disheveled, shaking his head with a mixture of fondness and irritation. By the light streaming through the windows of the small room, she judged it to be nearing noon.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to fall asleep doing homework?" he demanded, arms crossed belligerently. She opened her mouth, finding it fuzzy. As the daughter of dentists, the shock of finding that she'd fallen asleep and neglected her nightly brushing was the most alarming thing of all. "Didn't you get enough of that third year?"

Hermione cringed, recalling that hellish third-year schedule and the damned Time Turner. The sight of her collapsed over her homework had become unremarkable to all of Gryffindor Tower. "How many times do I have to remind you that it's never my intention to fall asleep on my parchments?" she shot back. "Besides which, this isn't homework. This is..."

"We know, we know!" Ron wailed. "We're all sick of hearing about your project with Snape. Yes, yes, we want him to get better,"...Hermione suspected he'd taken note of the murderous expression entering her eyes..."but really, Hermione, you've got to enjoy some of your holiday. Merlin knows you'll have enough time to worry about schoolwork once you're back at Hogwarts.

"Come play Quidditch with us today!" he concluded exuberantly.

Hermione gave a muffled, noncommittal groan and let her head return to the table with a thunk.

"Oh, come on," Ron wheedled. She could hear the rustle of parchment against his jumper as he began to scoop up her notes and pull them away from her. "You're not that bad, you know."

"Yes I am." She glanced up dolefully. Ron didn't appear to be heeding her.

"You just need practice! And you've been cooped up in here for three days now. That's inhuman, Hermione. Just spend the day at The Burrow with us. Please?"

Sparing a moment for her still-foggy brain to process his request, Hermione yawned and stretched lightly. He was right: she'd spent far too much time sequestered indoors, even for her. The frustrating thing was that despite the innumerable hours she'd spent in the same cramped position, poring industriously over her equations, she'd only managed to incorporate the first portion of Snape's most recent physical status examination. She hadn't even had the chance to so much as glance at his past records yet.

There were simply so many variables to be taken into account, she thought dizzily. She adored the complexity of it...and she certainly thrived on the challenge of it...but since the afternoon of the previous day, Hermione had been contending with the inexplicable but deep-seated knowledge that the worst lay ahead. She'd barely scratched the surface of Snape's physical injuries, and the painful records of years' worth of abuse and torment still had to be processed.

She knew she couldn't spare the entire day apart from her equations, but the prospect of a bit of a break definitely appealed to her. Grudgingly, she nodded and said to Ron, "Yes, I'll come with you for a little while. It would do me good to get outside."

Ron's face broke into an excited grin, and he proceeded to grasp her right hand and drag her bodily from the room. Lavender wasn't due until the following day, thankfully, and her conversations with Ron had thus far been civil but limited. Nevertheless, his skin against hers made her give an involuntary grimace. She extricated her hand from his, and he turned to her with a pained look in his eyes.

"I was just joking around," he said softly. They had paused in the narrow hallway, and she knew that he didn't want Harry and Ginny, wherever they were, to overhear. "Too soon?" he surmised.

She simply nodded at him, allowing her arm to fall to her side. Ron murmured his acknowledgment and remained several steps ahead of her until they'd entered the kitchen. He moved to the other side of the room, looking chastised. She thought guiltily that perhaps she'd overreacted. For the past three days, she had longed to say something to him that would put the two of them both at ease, finally, but Hermione didn't think there were words enough to liberate them from the awkwardness that remained.

Ron wasn't a bad young man by any means, when it came down to it; but there was no denying that he couldn't seem to comprehend, even after so many months, what his actions over the summer had done to her emotionally. Even Ginny had seemed aware that he was still struggling to identify with Hermione, and she'd been watching him intently for some time, scrutinizing his behavior and language in Hermione's presence.

Still, Hermione appreciated the efforts he'd put forth over the past few days. He'd avoided anything other than a cursory mention of Lavender and the fact that she would be visiting, which was a far cry from the rhapsodizing he'd once indulged in despite Hermione's anger and discomfort. He'd even tolerated her perpetual chatter about her project and sought to soothe her anxieties over its completion in the only way he knew: offering to play Quidditch with her. Hermione knew her waistline would appreciate the use of sports in lieu of food as her primary method of catharsis, but she'd been loath to abandon her equations for more than a few moments at a time.

Taking a seat, Hermione glanced around her. Ginny and Harry were already seated at the table...or, more accurately, Harry was seated at the table; Ginny was seated in his lap. They'd already commenced the daily process of melding themselves together. Hermione often wondered if there was a set minimum of square inches of skin that had to be in direct contact between the two of them in order for them to get through the day.

"Look who decided to join us," Ginny teased. Hermione shot her a mock glower and gratefully accepted a cup of tea from Ron. "What do you say to coming home with us and playing some Quidditch this afternoon?"

"She already agreed," Ron interjected. "And now I'm not going to allow her to take it back!"

"I'll go, I'll go." Hermione sipped contentedly and leaned back against her chair. She could feel her hair waking up and taking on an agenda of its own, but she'd become more proficient at simply not caring. "I can't stay all day, though, like I told Ron. I need to get back to those equations."

"I don't suppose you'd care to share anything about your progress with us today." Harry's tone made it seem more of a statement, and Hermione shook her head. He knew by now what answer to expect. She'd been touched when he had shown such genuine interest in her project and its implications; he wanted nothing more than to see Snape recovered and back to his usual, if intolerable, self. Hermione could see daily the lingering guilt in Harry's eyes whenever Snape's name was mentioned.

"I really don't think that would be appropriate," she said quietly in the same neutral tone she'd offered him the past three days. "It's not that I don't appreciate your interest. I really do. I just don't think it would be ethical or respectful of me to discuss Snape's private medical information with any of you. He's doing a very selfless thing in volunteering as my subject."

"I hardly think it's selfless," Ron called from the vicinity of the stove. "He's hoping you can cure his pain. He's not doing it for your sake."

Hermione opened her mouth, but Ginny, surprisingly adamant, beat her to it. "But he's also placing himself at great personal risk. Hermione's talented, but there's still a definite risk for him. He's doing her a big favor."

"I'd say that it indicates he has a lot of confidence in you," Harry mused thoughtfully, his mouth half full of scrambled eggs.

"Though I do have Professors Vector, Pomfrey and even Flitwick to lend expertise," Hermione cautioned, "and he's well aware of that. I wouldn't put too much stock in assuming that his faith is in me, necessarily."

"You sell yourself short," Ginny argued. "I doubt he'd have done it for any other student."

Hermione found herself chuckling. "It's doubtful that he's thrilled about doing it for a student at all. Besides, how would you know whether or not he'd have agreed to identical experimental conditions under the work of another student?"

Ginny's features could be startlingly elfin when she was in a mischievous mood. "Because I overheard him talking to Vector the day I left," she replied smoothly with curved lips, "and he told her he thinks you're the brightest student Hogwarts has had in a century." Her eyes glowed as she searched Hermione's face for a reaction.

Hermione flushed and returned to sipping her tea, having no idea how to respond.

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Eight hours later, bruised, beaten and even slightly bloody, Hermione resumed her methodical calculations. Quidditch had been breathless and exhilarating fun, but it had never been more frightfully clear to her that she was out of shape both physically and socially. She'd found it tremendously difficult to bear Ron's joking and criticism, even if it was intended in a good-natured and friendly manner. It was going to be a long time, she reflected, before the two of them could expect a resurgence of their affection of years past, especially with Lavender's appearance imminent.

Hermione rubbed at her eyes and yawned. Winter evenings made the shadows that filled Grimmauld Place soft and soporific, but she was determined to spend more time on her equations. She gathered her disagreeable hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and fastened it. Pulling out the second portion of the notes from Snape's most recent exam, she gazed at them thoughtfully. She'd already completely cataloged and incorporated her own; these were Madam Pomfrey's. As they were quite similar to her own and differed mostly in professional versus amateur terminology, few modifications were needed. Hermione was grateful, for when dealing with Arithmantic equations of such breadth and complexity as those required for her endeavor, the polishing of only one equation could consume literally a sheaf of parchment.

Half an hour later, she'd finished with Madam Pomfrey's notes, effectively incorporating the first of Snape's many exams into her predictions. Okay, she thought, next up. Madam Pomfrey was a fastidious woman, and all the old reports were arranged chronologically, dating in order from the most recent to the most distant. The more recent reports were marked by the fresher, crisper ink and pages that slicked satisfyingly past one another with the delicious sound she'd always associated with a textbook. The older pages were yellowed, some shockingly so, and Hermione had to forcefully remind herself that she would be essentially covering Severus Snape's life with her observations. It was a heady and daunting thought.

Again she paused and assessed her own state of mind, feeling the bizarre but instinctive pang that the difficult material was likely to be approaching. She spared a quick moment to fetch a large cup of tea from the deserted kitchen and then dove in without allowing herself the luxury of hesitation.

It was worse than she'd ever imagined. Despite all her feelings of nervousness and foreboding, the injuries...and the tragedies...that marked Snape's adolescence and adulthood piled up more quickly than she would have thought possible. That he was still alive could be deemed a medical miracle unto itself, and not solely on the basis of Nagini's attack. She was almost proud that she managed to make it to the reports pertaining to the end of her fourth year...when he'd returned to the fold of the Death Eaters...before putting aside her tea, having lost her appetite entirely.

Ginny was right. She hadn't wanted to know any of this. How could she possibly have wanted to discover this?

Hermione stood bolt upright and began pacing back and forth, astonished by her own selfishness and the violent thudding of her heart. Her ribs and her own breaths felt painful, constricting. She calmed herself by inhaling deeply and rhythmically, drinking in the sight of the many books lining the walls, trying to convince herself to savor it. Even the familiarity of faded covers, wrinkled bindings and the faint taste of parchment and dust in the air couldn't serve to ground her mind.

She was beginning to picture his face throughout the years, the awkward, ostracized teenager and the reclusive, deeply troubled man he'd become. The sheer size of the social stigma he'd accrued over his lifetime was astonishing, yet it didn't even begin to probe the depths of what had happened to him privately. She thought of the dark, terrifying nights of the Death Eaters' conclaves and read and reread Madam Pomfrey's descriptions of his Dark Mark compulsively, wondering perversely what it had felt like on his skin when he was summoned. Hermione was amazed...downright flabbergasted, in fact...that Snape had agreed to take part at all. Madam Pomfrey was likely the only person who knew the true extent of his injuries, and now that she'd been made privy to them, she didn't know how she could possibly continue.

Harry had once remarked to her that the Death Eaters dehumanized their own just as they did their enemies, even if their methods weren't the same. Hermione hadn't known, at that time, just what to make of his statement, but she'd pondered it for what felt like ages. Now, circumscribing the same path in a state of illness and slight panic, she understood his meaning all too well. She was willing to bet, too, that in Snape's case, the treatments dealt him had passed the point of merely dehumanizing years ago.

Hermione tried to imagine Harry living through the same experience, or Ron, and had to fight back the urge to retch. They wouldn't be able to look themselves in the mirror anymore. They wouldn't be able to see themselves as human, let alone as people, as men. What did Snape see?

She was crying thickly enough at that point to obscure her vision. When Ginny entered the room silently a few minutes later, Hermione blinked and struggled to discern her friend's silhouette in the faint light.

"Hi," Ginny murmured, taking in the sight before her with a slight enlarging of her eyes. She visibly forced a smile. "I thought maybe you could use some company. You said earlier that you thought you were getting to the difficult part."

Hermione snorted and wiped at her cheeks. "I can't believe you were able to hear that. I said that two milliseconds before Ron nearly killed me with the Bludger."

Grinning fondly, Ginny placed a tray with some biscuits and another, larger cup of tea on the desk, neatly brushing aside several parchments to free some space. "Mum was disappointed you wouldn't stay for supper. She thinks we're starving you."

Hermione snorted again. "One look at me should dispel that worry."

All hint of the smile disappeared from Ginny's face, and she sank into a nearby chair with sudden and obvious weariness. Her gray pajama pants and the silky matching shirt glowed eerily against her pale skin. "You're getting better, Hermione," she insisted with soft urgency. "We know you're depressed. None of us can honestly imagine what it was like going through that with Ron on top of everything else that's happened. You think we hold everything against you and expect you to be perfect, but we really don't."

Hermione smiled despite herself. Somehow, her weight gain had become the large, imposing elephant in the center of the room to which everyone could vaguely allude but never bring themselves to address directly. The words Ginny had just uttered were the closest her friend had come to acknowledging Hermione's problem, and Hermione was surprised to find that she was no longer so afraid of that possibility.

"I think it will get easier for you," Ginny continued almost tenderly. "But that's not why I'm here. I was worried about you. Harry was looking at the map trying to find Kreacher, and he said you've been pacing like mad for nearly an hour."

Hermione gulped, tasting saltiness, and glanced at the clock. Had she really been pacing so long? Thoughts of Snape...images of him lacerated and bloodied, naked, in situations she didn't dare consider...had been flitting through her mind in a sickening montage. She hadn't realized how much time had passed, but the leaden feeling in her stomach had failed to dissipate.

"You got to the bad stuff, then, didn't you?" Ginny cocked her head to the side and offered a sympathetic smile that suggested she realized she was stating the obvious. Hermione nodded and wiped at her cheeks once again.

"Do you see now why I didn't want to tell you what that man has had done to him? It used to make it difficult for me to sleep at night, and that was before we had reason to really trust or like him."

Mentally damming a fresh flow of tears, Hermione nodded. "I can't imagine Madam Pomfrey having to deal with him after... after all these things they did to him. My God, Ginny, do you know how many times he's had to suffer through Crucio?" She grabbed viciously at the parchments, riffling through them in haste. "How many times he's been tortured...cut, stabbed, burned? Left for dead? Do you know he's been raped?" she finished lamely, her voice cracking.

Ginny nodded, her eyes glistening. "I know about it all," she admitted. "It was hard for Mum when Madam Pomfrey told her, but Madam Pomfrey had to tell someone. She couldn't keep it inside any more than you or I could. She could never stop thinking about Snape. No one really... That is, I don't know how a person could move past those things, Hermione, but especially Snape.

"You know how proud he is." Ginny hadn't needed to state it outright; it was all the two girls could think about.

Hermione raked back the tendrils of hair that had sprung loose during her furious pacing, sniffling. Ginny watched her in contemplative silence for a moment, seeming to debate whether or not it was safe to continue with any kind of discourse.

"That's what I meant when I told you that I don't think simply curing him of his pain is going to be enough," she finally concluded in a heartbroken tone. "It would be an amazing achievement, and it would definitely improve his quality of life. No one's arguing that. It's just... Hermione, you really like this man...I can see it."

Hermione arched her neck and stared at the ceiling. She'd adjusted to the fact that Ginny knew something of the extent of her feelings for Severus Snape, but hearing the words spoken aloud made her heart beat even faster. It had been like that for years. Every thought of him, every idle mention of his name, and even the most trivial references to him had set every nerve in her body on edge.

"You're letting this get to you so much. I just don't want you to think that if you can take away his pain, it's also going to take away everything else."

Hermione sank heavily into her chair and brushed a fingertip against the report she'd tossed aside when her emotions had overtaken her. It fluttered idly and then settled, still real and unavoidable. To say that Snape would have difficulty forming a relationship with anyone... Well, that was the understatement of the century. She'd already told Ginny enough, she insisted to herself. She'd already revealed more than she should have, even considering that Ginny had overheard the grotesque details in various conversations between her mother and Madam Pomfrey.

She needed to stop before she told Ginny the entire extent of it. She needed to control herself before telling Ginny that Snape was an insomniac who regularly harmed himself when he did fall asleep, desperately trying to elude the tormentors who followed him in his dreams; that the beatings he'd survived had left him able to withstand little food or comfort; and that he was impotent, having suffered through years of sexual and physical abuse. If the damage to his body was incredible, then the damage to his mind had to be insurmountable.

"I should get to bed," Hermione choked out. She half expected Ginny to rise and comfort her, perhaps hug her, but the other girl only nodded solemnly and left the room. Hermione remained sitting, staring at the parchments and wondering how many of those torture sessions at the hands of his supposed comrades Snape had endured only by clinging to the image of beautiful, sweet, innocent Lily Evans. She could cling to images too, she thought stubbornly, wiping at her eyes and closing them. She could hold tight to the image she'd envisioned from the very beginning, her own portrait of the moment her spell work and her potion alleviated his pain. The expression on his face would be one of a relief so wide and so deep that no one could hope to fathom it. She could give him that, at least.

Some time after two o'clock in the morning, her tears expended themselves. Dry and numb, Hermione dipped her quill and once again began refining her equations.