Foolish Hearts

Three

Snape's Pov...

The water boards creak under my weight as I slide against the glass window of the boathouse. Voldemort is gloating over me as Nagini, his pet anaconda, struck me again and again. Voldemort laughs coldly, and then leaves me as if I were a piece of discarded garbage. So much for loyalty.

Then I see Lily's son Harry Potter approach me. I release my memories through my tear ducts, and beg him to take them. I can see Miss. Hermione Granger's tears. She wants to go to me, but Ron Weasley is pulling her away.

But she comes back. I see her crouch by my side, and I feel her fingers run through my hair, and her lips on mine. It is a brief touch, but it is a brief spark. Then I feel no more...

I woke up out of a dead sleep on my bed as a ward goes off outside the house.

Then Smocky, my trusted main house elf, popped in and said in her high pitched elfin voice, "Master! Master must wake up! A guest has arrived...a girl!"

I rubbed the weariness out of my eyes, and looked down at myself. I slept in my damn clothes again, but I had the foresight to remove my shoes first. Or maybe Smocky took them off? I'm too hungover to remember, quite honestly. A migraine was starting to form behind my crusty, dry eyes.

Smocky kept calling for me, and I finally had to yell, "Yes, Smocky! I'm up, damn it! Now, what is this foolishness about a girl? You know very well that I never bring women to the house."

Smocky put her hands on her hips, and sighed exasperately, "Master, I'm telling you that it is a girl. A witch, if I'm not mistaken."

"Well, send her away."
"I...I can't, Master. She--"
"What?! Speak up."

"She looks starved, and...beaten up bad, very bad," Smocky said, beginning to cry. "She doesn't look homeless, but, she looks very badly beaten. Master should take care of her."

I could see the fear I will punish her for being so blunt. But I don't, I like her plucky, motherly attitude towards me; it was the main reason I hired her to take care of Spinners End while I taught at Hogwarts. I put on my socks and boots, and followed my house elf to the front door.

The bundle on my doorstep barely resembled a girl, let alone a human one at that. I picked her up in my arms, and she weighed nothing as I put her in a guest bedroom.

"Smocky, get my first aid box in my lab," I ordered.

"Yes, Master," The house elf squeaked, and popped as she disapparated. I went into the bathroom, and wet a washcloth, and began to wipe up the girl's very bruised face. I found her black leather purse, and my heart nearly stopped as I found her Ministry of Magic employee credentials: Hermione Granger--Weasley her badge read underneath her picture.

I couldn't reconcile the spirited, bossy insufferable know it all with this emaciated, abused witch lying on a guest bed in my home. I didn't want to do Legilmency on her, but I had to know what brought her to this wretched state.

I took out my sleek black wand, and cast the spell, "Legilimens."

Her memories revealed how Ron Weasley ceased to be a good, kind wizard almost immediately after saying 'I do.' He would make excuses for sometimes being rough with her, and always used his family, and being a mama's boy as a crutch. Then when he began abusing drugs, he progressed to rape to assert his ultimate authority over her. Then her most recent memory of her forgetting to bring home his firewhisky, brought on him raping her brutally, and nearly breaking her left arm when he screamed obscenities in her face. She miscarried a child in the shower as she tried to clean herself up to go to work. She often liked to come to Spinners End to feel close to me. Odd.

I was sobbing as I ended the spell, and stared at my former student. I was no longer her teacher, but I had no choice but to protect her. Smocky returned with the first aid kit, and I wiped at my eyes.

Damn triggers of my own abuse. Thank the gods I wasn't born a girl, or I have no doubt that my asshole muggle father would have abused me the same way as that idiot Weasley boy did to his wife.

"She looks like a skeleton."
"Yes," I agreed. "Can you run a bath for her? I need to examine her for more injuries."

"Yes, Master."
I nodded, and proceeded with the arduous task of undressing her to her bra and panties. Her body was gaunt, very gaunt, much as mine was when I was a boy before I worked up the confidence to exercise. Her body was also black and blue, and there was blood flowing from between her legs. No, I would let Smocky take care of undressing her completely.

I didn't feel right about seeing a former student of mine naked. But also because I feared that I would fly into a rage if I saw more of the physical evidence of Ron Weasley's barbaric treatment of his wife. I attended to her wounds as best as I could, and even set some of her bones in place. She stirred, and I waved a hand over her eyes, using wandless magic.

"Sleep, Miss. Granger," I murmured. She fell into a deep sleep again, her breathing evening out again. I was stitching up a deep gash over her left eye when Smocky returned.

"Shall I bathe her, master?"
"Yes. Find whatever will work for a sleep shirt. I have no wish to see her naked," I said. "I am going back to bed, but wake me when she wakes up. Do you understand, Smocky?"

The little house elf nodded her head with an enthusiasm that would be cute in any other circumstance. But I simply nodded, and went back to my room. I undressed, and took a shower before getting ready for bed.

What the hell was I going to do with an abused witch? And most importantly, what was I going to do to protect Hermione Granger when I was fighting my own demons? I didn't know. All I knew was that I had to protect her from the Weasleys, no matter what the cause...