A Matter of Honor
by Amy McWilliams (McAmy)

Book 3: Love and Honor

Chapter 9: Recovery and Revelation

Just before midnight, he saw her head nod, briefly, before she shifted in her seat and sighed. She had barely moved for nearly six hours. He approached, softly, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"You should rest," Remus said.

Hermione's answer was a scarcely audible, "I won't leave him."

"No, but you can lie down and rest," he said, gesturing to the empty bed beside her. As she stood wordlessly, Remus moved the screen out of the way so that she could see Snape from her own bed.

Snape was deathly pale, and an angry gash marked his temple, close to his eye. Remus could see bruising on his neck where his shirt lay open, and on the hand Hermione had released. Poppy had said that she had done everything she knew to do, save continuing the doses Hermione had prepared. Dumbledore had assured her that she could do no better, and had suggested that it might be a matter of will, rather than wizardry, that would save him now.

Remus didn't know if he had been referring to Snape or Hermione.

When he returned to his post at the door, Sirius was standing there. "I don't know what she sees in him," he muttered.

Remus smiled. "I don't know, but it's got to be something, to inspire that sort of devotion."

Sirius snorted. "Either that, or he's got her under a spell."

"Sirius…" Remus chastised.

"Why don't you get some rest," Sirius continued. "I'll keep watch for a while. And I'll come get you if anything changes."

A few hours later, Hermione woke up. She remained still, watching the figure in the next bed. She heard the door open and craned her neck to see Sirius leave the room.

Then she sat up, the moonlight streaming across her face like tears. She slid down to kneel on the floor beside him, taking his hand again in hers.

"Severus…" she began, the sound of his name strange on her lips. "Can you hear me? I know you can hear me…please, hear me." She stifled the sob that was rising in her throat, angrily brushed away tears.

"They say that…that it's up to you. They say that you have to fight now. You have to fight…to…wake up. Do you hear me? Severus, you have to fight now. I know you. I know you would never give up. You're too mean and stubborn."

She paused, her face a mask of pain as she clutched his hand between both of her own.

"You have to fight. You have to wake up. Please…please try. Please don't leave me…"

She cried in earnest then, but softly, bending to brush her lips against his hand before laying her head down beside it.

When Sirius returned with the next dose, he found her there.

Hermione woke again when the sunlight began to creep in at the windows. For a moment, she couldn't remember how she got back into bed. But then she heard it.

A low sound… "Hermione…"

She moved quickly back to his side, taking his hand. "I'm here. I'm here." She said it over and over, willing him to answer her, stopping only when Madam Pomfrey arrived at the other side of the bed.

Remus was there as well, and as she stood, he put his hands on her shoulders while the nurse checked Snape quickly. Pomfrey beamed up at them. "He'll be all right. A day of rest, another dose, and he'll be all right. Give me a minute with him, will you? And then you may return. And Remus, do fetch Albus. He's been so worried."

Remus guided Hermione towards the door. She said nothing, but when they reached the entryway, he heard her sob. She clutched his arm and whispered, "I can't lose him. I can't do without him."

Taking her in his arms, Remus stroked her hair and whispered, "I know, dear heart. I know."

Hermione skipped breakfast the next day. When it had become clear that all Snape needed was rest, Dumbledore had sent Hermione to her rooms to sleep while Poppy arranged to move Snape to his own bed. Though he had opened his eyes again, two or three times, to look up at her for a moment while she sat with him, he hadn't spoken to her again. And she couldn't bear to see him for the first time in front of everyone else.

She had classes all morning, all of the fifth years together, followed by all of the sixth years--by that point in the Arithmancy sequence, there were few enough students that the four houses could meet together.

Remus arrived in her classroom just before lunch. "You look better." She managed a smile. "Missed you at breakfast," he added.

"I'm sorry if I worried anybody. I just…couldn't face everybody quite yet," she explained.

"I see. Well, Snape wasn't there either, so I was left quite to my own devices." She immediately looked worried. "He's fine," he explained. "He insisted on returning to class today, and Poppy, in turn, insisted that he remain in his own chambers the rest of the time."

He gave her a look. "So will you join me for lunch?"

She smiled. "I'd love to."

Hermione knew that Snape would be in class all day, and that, with their weekend trial ruined, there was no work-related reason for her to go to the dungeon. She wanted to go to him after his last class, but told herself that he would be tired, that he needed rest. She wanted to go to him after dinner, but worried that he would be back in bed and unavailable.

She went anyway.

The light was on in the classroom, and she held her breath for a minute. Instead of knocking, she eased the door open slowly, giving herself the chance to leave without his knowing that she had been there if he was in the office.

He wasn't. He was at the worktable, and turned at the sound of the door opening. Her heart beat faster. He looked as though he'd never been in the hospital wing, aside from being slightly paler than usual.

Raising an eyebrow, he said, "Sneaking in, are we, Miss Granger?"

She smiled. "I didn't want to disturb you; I thought Poppy might have sent you back to bed." He nodded.

"You can rest assured that I have seen more of Poppy Pomfrey today than I have in all my time at Hogwarts. I am very well looked after, to my great discomfort."

She crossed to the worktable, suddenly not knowing what to do with her hands. "Well, we were all worried," she said, stating the obvious. He had returned to his potion. "What happened?"

The question was out before she could stop it. Her face flushed, but as he met her eyes, she did not look away.

"What happened?" she repeated, the frustration and anger she had so long forced down rising to the surface. "I have a right to know."

A wave of his hand. His voice was low and menacing. "You have a right to know? What, do you think that your…attendance on me while I was ill gives you the right to ask me things that you know perfectly well I do not want to discuss with you? Would you take advantage of my…preference for you, of our partnership, of whatever friendly openness we may have found together, small though it may be, to insist on knowing information I would keep secret from everyone, up to and including the Headmaster?" He sneered. "Or perhaps this is a test. If I fail, do you return safely to your tower rooms and leave the miserable old bat in his dungeons alone? I assure you, that threat will grant you no sway over me. And if…"

"I have a right!" Hermione's face was red with anger, her hands planted on the table, and she was making no effort to lower the tone of her voice. "I have every right! How dare you! How dare you suggest I'm blackmailing you in some way, that I'm…I'm some unreasonable harpy demanding confidences from you unfairly!"

She turned from the table to pace back and forth across the front of the room.

"I have kept my questions to myself, afraid you would cut me off without a backwards glance if I asked one too many. I didn't want details--I simply wanted to know what you were feeling, the basic facts of what you were up against. Instead, I have waited, in ignorance, every time you get one of those blasted notes, to see if you would disappear, or if we'd find you dead on the doorstep in the morning. I have worried myself sick--not that it matters to you, you who find it an…an annoyance to think that anybody would care anything about you."

She stepped onto the dais to face him again across the table.

"I have every right. I have the right to know whether you're merely going to some shadowy meeting or whether you think there's a chance you might not come back at all. I have the right to ask if you're scared. I have the right to tell you that I'm scared. I have the right to be treated as a colleague, as a friend, and not as a student who's to be scolded and sent away when she asks unwanted questions. I have a right to know if there's a chance that the man I love is going to wind up unconscious in the hospital wing…"

She stopped, mid-sentence, as the horrified realization of what she'd just said washed over her. Snape looked as though he'd been slapped. She headed for the door.

Snape took two quick steps and grabbed her arm. When she tried to pull away, he drew her firmly to him. When she turned her head to face him, she was mere inches away, her eyes flashing fire, her breath warm on his face. "Hermione…" he whispered, and watched as her eyes moved to his lips, felt her lean towards him…

He released her, and took a step back. Cursing himself mentally as he saw the pained expression on her face, he cleared his throat and said, "You are right. You have been a…friend to me, and I have not treated you as you deserve." Walking back to the cauldron, he added, "I will answer your questions--reserving the right…" he almost choked on the word, "to hold back the details that might put you in danger." He saw her flinch out of the corner of his eye; he knew she hadn't thought of that. "But I cannot do it tonight. I simply do not have the energy."

He waited for her response, still not looking at her, still cursing himself for turning away…and heard the door close behind her as she left the room.

He stood, immobile, until the boiling cauldron called him to his senses. Finishing quickly, he left it to simmer and moved to sit in his office.

Gods, what had he done? The most beautiful creature he had ever seen had stood in his classroom and proclaimed that she loved him, and he had sent her away. Was he so used to pushing everyone away--out of necessity, out of inclination, out of habit--that he had rendered himself unable to feel any real connection? The pounding of his heart, the cold pit of his stomach told him differently.

He loved her. He admitted it to himself now. Perhaps he could only do so now that he had lost her.

It was for the best. Besides, it made no sense. It was inconceivable that she would want to be with him…that she could want him. It was a crush, a passing fancy born of too many hours spent working together. And he was used to being alone. He liked being alone.

But he loved her. And Severus Snape could not remember having ever loved anyone.

He could not say how the hour passed, but at its end, Snape extinguished the flame under the cauldron and carefully ladled the mixture out into vials. With that preparation for class done, he would return to his rooms, take a Dreamless Sleeping Draught, and…

The sound of the door opening. Turning, he saw her standing there, framed in the darkness of the hallway. He opened his mouth to speak, but could find nothing to say. He watched her, transfixed, as she slowly approached. She came to stand before him, and reached her fingers up to brush a strand of hair from his cheek. Then, placing a hand on each side of his face, she moved closer, drawing his lips down to hers.

She kissed him gently, and her lips were warm and sweet. He could not respond for a moment, then found himself returning her kiss, sliding his arms around her to feel her hair brushing against his hands.

She released his lips to smile against his cheek, and her arms went around his neck as she held him close.

"I thought you were gone," he murmured into her hair, the smell of it--a clean smell, laced with vanilla--filling his nostrils as he pulled her closer to him.

A shy giggle in his ear. A breath on his neck. "I decided that, if I waited for you to kiss me, I might have to wait forever."

He smiled, and, placing his lips near her ear, whispered, "You might at that."

A/N: The bedside vigil owes a few things to Emma Thompson's screenplay for (and performance in) Sense and Sensibility. The dreamless sleeping draught I stole from Riley's Pawn to Queen, though she calls it something slightly different.

On to Chapter 10