𝙻𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 II SS/HG ✔️

Awake

When Severus cracked open his eyes, he was not surrounded by the flames of Hell, nor staring down an eternity of watching James and Lily and the other Marauders gallivanting about.

He was in the Hospital Wing.

He couldn't move.

Hermione was asleep on his shoulder, one of her arms a tight band across his gut.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were suddenly there, looking down at him.

Fuck. Maybe he was in Hell.

"I'll get Madam Pomfrey," Weasley said.

Potter put his hands on his hips and sighed at Hermione. He poked her shoulder. "Mione," he whispered.

She grumbled and burrowed further into Severus's armpit.

A step up from Hell, perhaps.

Potter shrugged at him.

Then Madam Pomfrey bustled into view.

Why could he not talk?

She poked and prodded him. Weasley scooped up Hermione and put her in her own bed nearby.

Poppy examined her watch while she checked Severus's pulse. She clicked the watch closed. "Well, young man, you have been asleep for six days. I daresay you needed the rest."

That didn't explain why he couldn't move.

"St Mungo's owled me their notes from Arthur Weasley's case—they said it might be best if you were heavily sedated. Now that you're conscious, I'll dial back the dose." She held up her hands. "But I must insist you do not try to speak."

Potter and Weasley had wisely wandered off at some point during Poppy's briefing.

By the end of the day, he could move his limbs, but it was damn exhausting to try. Hermione woke up at dusk long enough to eat and push her bed up against his.

From his limited vantage point, Potter and Weasley checked mail, the house-elves bringing it in by the armful. Poppy continued to monitor his pulse throughout the day.

As the paralytic wore off, he felt the burn in his throat, six pinpricks alight with venom. He could feel its path through his veins. And the wretched tingles as feeling returned to his extremities, like a restless leg he couldn't shake out.

Hermione reached through the bars on her bed to loop two of her fingers around his stinging pinky finger.

It made it easier to push through the pain all night.

.

After he had succumbed to exhaustion once more, Severus awoke to hear Hermione telling Potter and Weasley she was well enough to defend them, should anyone somehow get past Minerva.

That was better than waking up in a cell, he supposed.

He witnessed their round of hugs—and then another round. And a third. The three were afraid to be separated again.

But Hermione said she would see them at the funeral, and the two finally left.

Hermione sat at Severus's elbow. "You can't talk, but I suppose you want to know what happened."

And she recounted everything, beginning from her trek to Gringotts. She had to pause a few times. But she pushed on.

The conclusion was: "So there is a pile of fan-mail over there and I have to say, a lot of the envelopes are pink."

Severus rolled his eyes.

Hermione put her head on his shoulder again. "Professor McGonagall was here. She'll want to talk to you." Then she scooted around a bit so she could see his face. "But we can play the Can't Talk card for a while."

He sighed through his nose.

Madam Pomfrey insisted Hermione sleep in her own bed each night so as not to aggravate his injury. Hermione pretended to acquiesce but would always end up with a leg or arm on his mattress by morning.

.

Poppy flipped through his charts and compared them to the notes on Arthur. "This is the Linkage Act at play, I am sure of it."

Severus hated that Hermione slept all day. That he was sapping her energy.

He waited until she was awake to write Divorce? on the notebook she had given him.

"Absolutely not, Severus," she snapped, offended. "You are on the mend—just rest, okay?"

Killing you slowly, he wrote.

Hermione stilled.

She climbed onto his bed into her usual spot. He could now turn his head one whole inch to watch her. Brown eyes wide open—her invitation to use Legilimency—she said, "I'm not going to leave you while you're unwell. So stop asking."