A Connection
‘And then?’
‘I was transported to St. Mungo’s where I received treatment.’
‘For what?’
‘The venom of the snake that I came in contact with, because of … Professor Snape’s blood.’
Her hands had been smeared with his blood. Her clothes had been drenched with his blood. And because she had done mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she had actually swallowed some of the blood and the venom. The following two weeks at St. Mungo’s had not been pleasant. In retrospect she was almost grateful, though, because that way she had escaped most of the aftermath of Voldemort’s defeat. Including the burials and the victory celebrations.
‘How is he now?’
She stared at her interrogator. Why was he asking her that?
‘Alive,’ she said. ‘Still at St. Mungo’s. You’d have to ask his healer for details. Muriel Mugwort.’
Still not awake, she could have said and almost would have. She managed to bite her tongue at the last possible moment. Thankfully Harry had warned her about that urge to talk that was a side effect of Veritaserum. Still deathly pale. Still no change. We don’t know if he’ll ever speak again. We don’t know how to give him back his memories IF he wakes. We …
‘Oh. Yes. Well. Thank you, Miss Granger, that will be all for now.’
She managed to nod and to refrain from saying anything else, although there was so much she wanted to say. About how he’d always tried to protect them, even against themselves. It was so strange how some events appeared so different to her now, looking back. But it wasn’t her place to say all those things. This was a trial, and not a SPEW campaign. They’d hired the best lawyers money could buy, both from the wizarding and the Muggle world. And there was no point in hiring experts if you didn’t let them do their work. So she kept silent.
Once they were outside, and ready to Apparate, she realized that she couldn’t go back to Grimmauld Place right away.
‘Look, guys – how about you go ahead? I’ll see you there later. I just … I have to –’ She bit her lip, when the truth wanted to spill out of her: I need to go and see him. I need to go make sure he’s really alive, that he’s still there.
‘Of course,’ Harry said. ‘We understand.’
Ginny nodded. But Ron looked at her with his almost customary confusion.
Before she could say anything unfortunate she concentrated on the Apparition platform of St. Mungo’s and vanished.
oooOooo
Healer Mugwort, a squat woman with sharp eyes and a calm demeanour greeted her, as she entered the floor of the Isolation Ward.
‘Miss Granger. It’s been a while.’
Hermione nodded. ‘The lawyers advised us to stay away for the duration of the trial.’
‘So today was the last day?’
‘I sincerely hope so,’ Hermione replied.
‘You do look pretty wrung out.’
‘Trust me, I feel even worse than I look,’ Hermione said with a frankness that made the healer raise her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Veritaserum,’ Hermione added. ‘I came here directly from the Wizengamot.’
‘Ah, of course.’ The healer gave her a comforting smile. ‘Then I guess I’d better not offer you some Pepper-Up-Potion.’
Hermione snorted at the joke. Pepper-Up-Potion didn’t mix well with Veritaserum – unless you wanted to speak the truth and nothing but the truth for the rest of your life. ‘I think I’m generally an honest person, but that would be taking things a bit far … How is he?’
‘Better,’ the healer said at once. ‘But still not awake. However, the latest readings show that his blood is completely clean now, his kidneys are working again. He’ll have to watch his diet for the rest of his life, but he will have a rest of his life to do so.’
‘That’s good. Or it will be if they don’t put him into Azkaban for that rest of his life.’ Hermione trusted the healer, and she was simply too tired to watch her tongue right now.
‘It would be horrible to have saved him from certain death for a life-sentence in Azkaban,’ Mugwort said.
‘Horrible doesn’t even begin to cover it,’ Hermione said. ‘I couldn’t – how could I live with myself if I ended up saving him for a living death?’ Despair choked her. ‘I had no idea what I was doing when I saved him. And the Memories – they replayed the Memories he gave Harry – they made Harry put them into a pensieve and then projected them on screen – Snape wanted to die, you know? He wanted his life to be over. He never intended to survive the last battle. And then I come along, the Gryffindor Know-It-All, and I remember Muggle First Aid of all things and I save him. What am I going to do if all I saved him for was Azkaban?’
‘I am sure it won’t come to that. I’ve been following the trial in the Prophet and the Quibbler, and I think the prospects are quite good. Especially with the new line of the Ministry. They don’t want to end up looking not much better than those Death Eaters and their pureblood propaganda concerning what should be done to blood-traitors. Why don’t you sit down a bit with me and drink a cup of soothing tea? I think our patient is aware of his surroundings again, at least up to some measure, and I don’t think it would be a good idea if he were to pick up on how upset you are.’
Hermione swallowed her tears and sank down on the offered chair. ‘Of course. But I just had to come, do you understand? I needed to make sure he’s still there, that he’s getting better, that –’
‘Of course I understand. You saved his life. And he in turn saved all of your lives at one point or another. You can’t get a much closer connection between two persons than that in the wizarding world.’
What a great setup! I love the way you’ve modified the Marriage Law enough to make it plausible, as opposed to the ridiculous version of the original challenge. That choice shifts the dynamic, removing the distraction of needing to deal with why the Ministry has become so obviously corrupt. Making Severus the one who needs saving, instead of Hermione, is a great role reversal, and having Severus unaware of the plan is a very nice little plot twist – I anticipate a great deal of suspicion on his part, making things difficult for Hermione.
W00t! Great to see you here. 😀
The original MLC the lawyer in me stimply couldn’t stomach. But at the same time the *idea* absolutely intrigued me. And didn’t let go until I figured I’d try to twist it and bend it a little and see what happens …
Having Severus unaware of the plan was a lot of fun. And yes, he’ll be definitely a pain in the behind. But that’s his job!
What a great start. Lots to like. Luna being smarter than everyone thinks. Hermione marching off to a fate worse than death, feeling honor bound to do so. The sneaking suspicion that Luna is really getting Hermione out of the way so she can become a Weasley. She’d fit right in.
Mwahahahahahah!
mk
PS: It needs classic soap opera cliffhanger organ music.
Hi,
I really love your story so far, and I can’t wait to read on!
Just wanted to let you know that the link to part 2 does not work, either you get a warning that it “Cannot modify header information”, or the page closes down… *sobs*
Budgie
It should work now. I’ve been trying to get a caching plugin working to speed up the performance of the site, but the dratted thing won’t work and even worse, as you’ve seen, BREAKS stuff. *ARGH!*
Happy you like the story so far! 🙂
I love your whole plot. I am so excited to keep reading. You take things at an absolutely perfect speed– the characters developing bit by bit is perfect. The whole idea is brilliant.
I don’t think I’d be able to rave enough about your work. *claps*
Thank you very much for spending time with my story and even more for taking the time to leave a comment. 🙂
I’m very happy you like the story so much so far!
I think I’m going to love this! I’ve been an avid reader of SS/HG since 2003, and I especially love when an author does a post-DH fic. 🙂 I followed the link from some artwork on DeviantArt and am so glad I did! I’m also happy to see that this is a completed fic, so yay! I can read to my heart’s content and not worry about it being abandoned! 🙂
Thank you for spending time with my story and even more for taking the time to leave such a kind comment. I hope you will enjoy the rest of the story!
Followed your link from ff.net, and am so glad I did! I read this when you were first putting it up, and loved it then. I love it even more now that I have actually gone back and re-read the gloriousness that is Abhorsen. 🙂
Also, may I say that I absolutely love the site. There’s something about reading a wonderful story in a functional, beautiful setting.
You have always been one of my favorite fan fic authors for your skill, unexpectedness, the way you deftly take a story I think I know and turn it upside down and inside out while remaining true to the spirit of it, and this story is no exception.
Thank you for your kind words. That means so much to me! 🙂
Iv’e just read this entire fanfic in a few days, it was AWESOME. Of course, I didn’t take the time to write reviews then, I was too enraptured with the story. And when I saw you had a sequel, of course I had to read that first too. I did resolve to come back latter and leave a review on every tenth chapter, so here I am.
So, starting with chapters 1-10:
Really well done. I like the tension in Ron, Hermione, and Harry’s relationship. Especially that Harry and Ginny foresee the coming doom of Ron and Hermione’s romantic relationship.
I like the cute nicknames you give Harry, like ” the Boy-Who-Could-Use-Cusswords-Without-Being-Scolded.”
The healer at Mungos is a treat, extremely likable. 🙂
And best part: Arthur Weasley mentions that Snape’s sentence has some similarities to muggle theories of rehabilitation and Hermione just has to express her frustration. Her hitting her head on the desk is like a facepalm X 10.
And last but not least, I am definitely looking forward to seeing how the sequel develops. My only hope is that further maiming of our beloved main characters is limited. If the pace of terrible injuries maintains itself from this fic, by chapter 200 of the next one they’ll all be sitting around in Mungos each of them in a “johnny got his gun” kind of situation.
Intriguing setup. I’m not quite sure how I feel about Ron’s characterization, but after the summary, he has to get out of the picture. Even after finally reading all the books, my feelings for Snape are not overly friendly ;-).
You just totally and absolutely MADE my day. *dances*
Now, your comment: Yes, obviously writing SS/HG Ron must disappear. Mostly. 😉 But also, I never liked him (much) in canon, so … Otoh, I always adored Snape. In HBP I *knew* without any doubt that he hadn’t killed Dumbles … Also, one thing about “Apprentice” is definitely that I’m not always sharing the characters’ opinions. I have them being stupid and making mistakes, and being beastly, and doing things that made me go “DON’T DO THAT!” even as I was writing the relevant chapter. It’s pretty wild and sometimes even *gasp* controversial. But I had tons of fun, and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too — even if you don’t really like Snape. 😉
But you make him likeable. Through Hermione’s eyes, no longer a child, some of his choices make more sense.
I tried hard not to whitewash or bash any character. I’m happy the characterisation works for you so far! 🙂
I was referred to your story as a “must-read” and I’m happy that I followed this recommendation. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful idea. I especially enjoyed the way you made them behave “real” and how smothly you added Alina and her mother to the known characters.
I hope you will some day continue with the sequel.
Thank you for spending time with my story, and I’m thrilled you enjoyed it — especially my OCs. I know many people are dubious about OCs, so I’m always very happy when readers like the additional characters I created. I really, really want to finish the sequel (it’s all plotted out!). But offline life has been utterly awful since 2010, each year in its own way, and 2013 is less than fun so far, so I doubt much will happen this year. 🙁
I’m excited to start your story–I stumbled across it through a “favorite story” link on FF.net. I’m not sure how I feel about Ron and Harry’s characterizations so far, but then again I don’t particularly like either one of them in canon, either, so you’re probably spot-on.