Getting the Hang of Thursdays

Chapter 9 - Who Was Left?

By Hayseed

Day One Hundred Eighty

She’d brought him an orange. Severus had no idea how she knew that he liked them, but Hermione had shown up at his office door that morning, as she tended to do more and more often as of late, with a pair of oranges in her bag. She’d put one of them on his desk silently and began to peel the other nearly as soon as she took her customary seat.

They peeled their oranges without speaking, an odd sort of camaraderie that Severus would have never thought possible between them. He watched Hermione carefully remove all of the excess strings from her first section of orange and tactfully refrained from commenting.

She turned the thing over in her hands a couple of times, probably inspecting it for further imperfections, before popping the whole slice in her mouth and chewing. As Severus bit into one of his own sections, juice spurted out and dribbled down his chin. Hastily wiping it off with his robe sleeve, he thought he saw Hermione suppress a smile.

“It’s started raining already,” she said quietly, looking down at another orange slice as she methodically picked it clean.

“So early?” He finished off the slice dripping juice onto his hand.

Hermione wrinkled her nose and worked a seed out from under the orange flesh. “What time is it, anyway? I’ve stopped wearing a watch.”

Severus’ eyes flicked upward to look at his clock. “Quarter past seven.”

“It’s storming fairly heavily,” she continued, “although I’m not entirely surprised that you can’t hear it down here, what with the whole castle over your head and all.”

He caught himself picking excess rind off his own section and forced his hand to still. “I like living down here,” he replied defensively.

“I never said that you didn’t,” she said mildly.

“It’s quiet, and it doesn’t get too warm in the summer months,” he found himself saying.

“Or that you shouldn’t,” she countered with a small smile.

“It is, in any case, immaterial, I suppose,” he said by way of conclusion, polishing off the orange slice in his hand. Hermione popped another neatly cleaned section into her mouth as well.

The ensuing silence now was slightly more awkward than the one earlier. Severus finally began wondering why she was here and was on the verge of asking her.

“I couldn’t look at the rain any longer,” she said, breaking the quiet and answering his unasked question. “Harry and Ron kept talking about it at breakfast, and how it had ruined their plans for this afternoon after classes. And I just couldn’t...” Hermione cleared her throat and looked away. “So I came down here.”

“Another advantage of living in the dungeons,” he said neutrally. “No windows.”

Her smile was thin and clearly forced. “Any other day and I might have felt the urge to argue with you, you know.”

Severus watched her hands smooth over her orange slice and decided not to reply. Thoughtfully, he worried another section of his own orange out of the peel and bit into it.

Looking back down at her lap, Hermione’s hair fell into her eyes, obscuring his view of her face. Still entirely too thin and pale, she had started to look particularly haunted as of late. Severus wondered if she slept any more. She looked so tired.

No one under the age of about two hundred should look as tired as she did.

And she never seemed to genuinely smile any more. Not even at Potter and Weasley’s often-harebrained antics at various points through the day. More often than not, he’d actually seen her snap at them instead. In fact, the last true smile he’d seen grace her features was the day that it first rained -- it seemed like an age ago.

Severus missed her smile suddenly. He stared at her as if he could force her into it by sheer will, but, as he’d secretly expected, Hermione’s features remained impassive.

Perhaps aware that she was under his scrutiny, she tipped her face up after a brief pause and offered him a wan smile -- not nearly the one he’d been hoping for. “Is there something wrong with my hair or something?”

Startled, Severus glanced down at his orange. “I, erm, no,” he said, rather embarrassed at being caught out.

But, as he’d noticed before, Hermione could be incredibly kind when the occasion called for it. “The oranges are always so good today,” she said quietly, changing the subject. “I don’t even know where the house elves get them.”

“Albus knows, I think,” Severus replied, gratefully accepting the shift. “I don’t pay attention to such details, myself.”

She chuckled. “I wouldn’t imagine that you do. But... I didn’t know about the oranges for the longest time. How good they were, today, I mean. I just got so tired of toast...”

“And no marmalade,” he supplied in a dark sort of voice.

Another little chuckle -- this one had a bit more warmth behind it. “So it’s not just the Gryffindor table, then?” she asked. “Every morning, the first words out of Ron’s mouth are, ‘Where the ruddy hell is the marmalade?’”

“I actually hadn’t even thought about it in a while,” he said thoughtfully. “As you have said -- toast is not nearly as... inviting as it used to be.”

“And if I ever have to see another platter of lamb chops ever again,” she sighed. “I used to like lamb, but after more than one hundred straight lamb dinners in a row...”

He smiled at his orange. “I wasn’t even particularly fond of it to begin with. You have just made me quite relieved that I usually do not attend luncheon, Hermione.”

“I like to think that if the headmaster actually knew what was happening, he would make more of an effort toward variety,” she said. “Especially in such matters as those.”

“One can never be sure about Albus,” Severus told his orange. “Consider, I recall telling him about the time-loop no less than five times in the past, and each time he informed me that I had not been getting nearly enough rest as of late.”

Hermione was wide-eyed. “You’re joking...”

Fixing her with a stoic look, he solemnly shook his head. “Assuredly not. For fair weather or foul, Albus Dumbledore refuses to believe that we could be caught in a time-loop.”

With a small sigh, she looked away and popped another bit of orange in her mouth. “Why is it that we are the only two people who know? At least, I assume so...”

“No one else is nearly anxious looking enough,” he said dryly.

“I just... if mental barriers were overcome by strength of magic, then why doesn’t the headmaster break through? And if it’s a simple matter of physical proximity, well Harry and Malfoy ought to know, as well -- they’re the instigators, after all. So... why us, sir? Why does entropy affect us and no one else?” Frustrated, Hermione made an odd, fidgety motion with her free hand.

Severus shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It’s just so strange.”

“I’ll give you that,” he conceded with a wry smirk.

And they fell to peeling their oranges once more, not speaking. Hermione was right -- the oranges were quite good, and Severus decided that he was going to enjoy his as well as he could, all things considered. Despite the rain and the fact that his quill was missing now as well as his lecture notes and Albus not believing him, Hermione had brought him an orange and he was damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy it.

Perhaps, then, his guard had lowered too far. Perhaps that was the cause for what happened next.

“Hermione?” he asked abruptly, glancing up.

She hummed interrogatively.

Severus was quiet for a moment, realizing that his question was not a tactful one and trying to rein in his mad impulse. In the end, however, it simply tumbled out. “What does it feel like to die?”

The orange slice in her hand froze halfway to her mouth as she stared up at him.

He took her silence to mean that he’d overstepped his bounds -- after all, he rather thought he had. “I’m sorry,” he backpedaled quickly. “You don’t have to answer that. I shouldn’t’ve --”

“There’s pain,” she said slowly, finishing her orange as she spoke. “There’s pain and brightness and one horrible moment. But then... everything is dark. And I don’t... I can’t...”

“Hermione,” he said in a strangled voice. “It’s all right. You don’t have to.”

Suddenly, so fleeting he could have sworn he’d imagined it, she leaned over his desk and her finger ran across his bottom lip. As she stared down at her fingertip, she looked about as surprised as Severus felt. “You... there was a bit of orange on your lip,” she muttered.

For one disconcerting moment, he thought she was going to lick her finger clean and wondered what he would say if she did.

As she wiped her hand hastily on her robe, blushing, he felt oddly relieved.

Day One Hundred Eighty-Eight

“Severus, it’s a bit of an odd thing,” Poppy Pomfrey’s head said hesitantly as it sat in Severus’ fireplace, “and I know you’ve got class in a few minutes, but I was wondering if you happened to have any digitalis antidote on hand.”

He felt his heart drop into his stomach. “Digitalis antidote?” he echoed dumbly. “What could you possibly need that for?”

“Professor Sprout got in a handful of carnivorous oleanders a few days ago, you know,” she said. “And a couple of seventh years were helping her get them situated when one of them was attacked. Normally, I could just... but there were so many of them. I need the antitoxin, Severus.”

Closing his eyes and covering his face with his hand, he collapsed into the chair beside the fire. “I don’t have any, Poppy. And you know as well as I do that it takes about two months to brew. What happened to your supply?”

She gave a self-deprecating snort, but Severus could see the fear in her eyes. “Expired. I don’t see very many cases of glycoside poisoning, and the antidotes don’t have an infinite shelf life. And I tried to contact St. Mungo’s, but...”

“The external Floo network is down,” he completed heavily.

“Yes. So, you see, Severus, I don’t know what to --”

He cut her off. “What symptoms is Miss Granger exhibiting?”

“I am a mediwitch, you know, Severus,” she said irritably. “Miss Granger has received a more than fatal dose of oleander toxins within the last hour. She’s already exhibiting the characteristic arrhythmia patterns. It’s only a matter of time until she goes into full arrest without the antidotes. I’m doing all I can to maintain her electrolyte balances -- those potions I have, at least -- but I don’t think her kidneys are up to it. Hell, Severus, I don’t think a griffin’s kidneys would be up to this.”

Surprised by the uncharacteristic invective on Poppy’s lips, Severus frowned. It was bad.

Of course it was bad. It was always bad.

Hermione was going to die.

And Poppy was talking again. “... didn’t mention her name,” he heard.

Severus tried not to roll his eyes. “I guessed,” he snapped, not even bothering to hide his sarcasm.

Making a decision, he turned away from the fireplace and walked out of his office, leaving Poppy’s head staring in his wake. He did not actually enter the classroom -- just stood in the doorway and, with a glower, barked, “Class is canceled.”

Potter looked absolutely gobsmacked. “Professor--?”

“I said that class is canceled. All of you, get out of here,” he said, striding down the hallway purposefully. He was at the Infirmary in mere minutes.

To say that Poppy was surprised to see him was an understatement at best. Her mouth hung open as he burst into the room. “Severus?”

“Where is she?” he asked without preamble.

Wordlessly, Poppy pointed at the other side of the room. With a nod, he followed her finger, coming to stand beside Hermione’s bed.

Her face and hands were covered with angry, reddened bites. But where the skin was not marked by the attack, it was a deadly pale shade, making the dark circles under her eyes even more pronounced than usual, her eyelashes lost in the shadows. As he approached her bedside, her eyes opened slightly. “Professor?” she whispered.

“Carnivorous oleander?” he asked in a snide sort of voice. “What on Earth made you think that messing about with carnivorous oleander would be a good idea today?”

“Believe it or not, sir,” Hermione said with a ghost of a smile, “I’d helped Neville out with them before with nary a scratch. Today, even. But this today... something went wrong.”

He sat on the edge of her bed and continued to glare at her. “Obviously. Has Poppy told you yet?”

“You mean about the antidote?” she asked, wincing as she shifted in her bed slightly. “Or, perhaps I should say, the lack thereof? Even if she hadn’t already told me, I’d guessed.” Her brow furrowed. “So... why are you here, then?”

Severus pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Hermione...” As he trailed off, her eyes slipped shut once again. “Wake up!” he said loudly.

As if in slow motion, her eyelids dragged themselves upward to about half-mast. “I’m tired,” she protested fuzzily, glowering up at him through slitted eyes. “And my head hurts.”

“Of course it does,” he said sharply, “you’ve been poisoned.”

“And I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she continued in a petulant voice.

Severus forced himself to take her hand. “You very well may.”

The scowl deepened. “Fat lot of help you are.”

“And here I thought I was going to cheer you up with my sunny disposition and winsome charm,” he said dryly.

Hermione did not smile. “Madam Pomfrey had my heartbeat on some kind of monitor thing. It made noise whenever it started... skipping. I made her turn it off. I don’t want to know when... and Neville came to apologize.” Severus blinked at the non sequitur -- her disorientation seemed to be increasing -- and resisted the urge to look down at his watch.

“Longbottom?”

“He’s so nice,” she sighed. “S’not his fault -- told him so. I wanted to help Professor Sprout. And Neville’s so nice...”

He did not tell her that she’d already said that.

“But sometimes... his eyes...” Wincing, she turned onto her side, facing him, and pulled her legs up into a near-fetal position. “Neville is very angry sometimes,” she whispered. “When he needs to be. Not like you -- you’re angry all the time.”

“I am not,” he protested gently, still holding her hand.

As she closed her eyes, he almost told her to open them, but her continued speech was enough of a sign of consciousness that he left it alone. “Maybe not angry, then,” she mumbled. “But... not...”

“Not nice,” he supplied with a rare smile that went unnoticed, giving her hand an ironic little squeeze.

Hermione’s eyes struggled to open and she gave him a drowsy smirk. “Are so nice...”

“Come, Hermione,” he said in as good-natured a tone as he could muster, “delirium is not a symptom of oleander poisoning.”

With a yawn, she wrinkled her nose at him. “You are nice... you tried to save my life...” Another little wince. “And you came up here. In fact...” Confusion warred with curiosity on her face and she looked very nearly alert. “Why are you here? You weren’t...”

“Madam Pomfrey told me what had happened,” he said, moving a curly strand of her hair from her cheek. It was a sign of her extreme lethargy that she hadn’t done it herself.

“Doesn’t explain...” Hermione chided.

Severus rolled his eyes. “For Merlin’s sake, girl, did you want to die alone?”

She turned her head into her pillow and coughed. “Sorry...” he thought he heard her whisper. “And thank you...”

“Severus, is Miss Granger --” he heard Poppy ask abruptly, voice moving closer. “Oh... is everything all right?”

Hermione took in a sudden, gasping breath -- Severus realized that she was in more pain than she was able to hide. “Under... circumstances...” she panted.

“Miss Granger, really, you should be on a monitor at the very --”

“No!” she cried, struggling to sit up.

Instinctively, Severus put both his hands on her shoulders, holding her down. “Easy,” he said, “you’re just making it harder.”

“No monitor,” she repeated, craning her neck to see Poppy over Severus’ shoulder.

Turning to a rather surprised Poppy, he made a face of exasperation. “Damn it, Poppy,” he exclaimed. “Just --”

She glared at him. “Fine, Severus. Since she seems to be responding better to your care, I leave her in your capable hands. Just... don’t make her cry, please.”

Trying very hard not to poke his tongue out at Poppy’s retreating back, Severus muttered, “As if I’d attempt to bring a terminal student to tears.”

“Wouldn’t let you, anyway,” Hermione said with a sigh, finally relaxing.

He did not answer, merely taking her hand in his once again. “Do you want me to try and find you something for the pain?”

Her lips twitched minutely. “It’ll pass.” Suddenly, Hermione’s face, impossibly, blanched further. “Oh, God...” she muttered. “I think I’m gonna --”

Fortunately, Severus had years of dodging potions explosions -- as soon as her expression paled, his reflexes kicked in, and he swiftly stood, bodily pulling Hermione up with him, bringing her head closer to the bucket Poppy had thoughtfully left by her bedside. As she heaved, he held her hair out of her face with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, holding her upright.

“... embarrassing...” she whispered, still coughing.

Releasing her hair and easing her back onto the bed, Severus handed her a tissue. “You’ve been poisoned, Hermione. It’s called a ‘symptom.’”

Eyes slipping shut once more, Hermione did not reply, and for a long moment, he thought she’d fallen asleep. Or unconscious. He sat down on her bed again and wiped at his forehead with a hand.

“What time is it?” she asked in a sleepy voice.

“I don’t know -- I didn’t bring a watch,” he lied.

“It’s close, isn’t it?” She did not open her eyes. “I can feel it... my heart... it’s about to leap out of...” Stiffening, her face tensed. “It hurts.”

“Hermione, I --”

Her eyes flew open, and they were full of agony. “Severus, it hurts.”

And with a loud gasp, she began convulsing, hands working at her sides. Severus heard someone shouting for Poppy Pomfrey and realized that it was his own voice.

When he was unceremoniously shoved to the side as Poppy began pushing at Hermione’s chest, muttering incantations futilely, it occurred to Severus that Hermione had called him by his first name.