The Serpent and the Lioness

Chapter 42

By the time Hermione came around again she felt unbelievably warm. Her body felt as though it was laying upon heated clouds. She turned her head and breathed deep. A familiar scent filled her senses as she pressed into the coolness of the pillow beneath.

The weight of a blanket pulled all the way to her chin felt pleasantly heavy and her limbs were starting to regain their feeling. She rolled her head to the other side and gave a small stretch beneath the covers. Her joints let out a soft pop before settling back into their proper place. Her hands rose and rubbed over her face before her eyes started to feel light enough to open.

She let her arms fall down beside her head and she blinked in the dim light of the room she found herself in. Her brain was still a bit foggy but it was functioning well enough to discern that she wasn't in the hospital wing.

In fact, she was in a room she believed she'd never been in before. Her eyes opened just a bit farther and a gentle green light came into view. Her blurry eyes tried to focus on it while her mind was piecing together a puzzle that she was sure she'd completed before.

A soft snoring to her lower right redirected her brain's processing and she shifted just a bit to see over the rise and fall of her own chest. A chair was sitting beside the bed, a large black wingback style with the love of her life sitting inside. His face was tense but she could tell he was sleeping.

His fingers were folded together tightly in his lap and his right leg, the one he'd always seemed to keep his weight off of when he was tired, was stretched out in front of him. His head rested back against the wing of the chair tilted into its shadow. Hermione took a moment to appreciate his visage.

Deciding to let him rest just a while longer, Hermione rolled her head away, rubbing her face into the pillow beneath her head. It's soft cream color jump-started her brain and her eyes went wide. With limbs that still hadn't fully come to life, she clumsily pushed herself up onto the heels of her hands, using the large headboard to help keep her up and turned her eyes over the room.

She had been there before. Her mouth felt a bit cottony and she chewed her bottom lip to try and bring feeling back inside. She was in his rooms. His rooms. The air smelled stale but there wasn't a spec of dust anywhere to be found. Everything looked almost— preserved. Like the castle had put the entire room in stasis.

With another small shift, she folded down the large comforter and sheet taking in her attire. She had expected to be in hospital wing issued pajamas but her heart fluttered at what she had been dressed in. It was one of his shirts, softer than she had ever felt. The material felt thin and worn and one of the buttons was chipped hanging loose in the catch.

Her eyes rolled over the room and spotted the wardrobe that had been left partially open. She could make an educated guess as to where it had come from and a new feeling rose inside. It was one of his shirts, one of his shirts that he surely would have worn at some point during her time as a student. An odd sort of intimacy settled inside her and couldn't help but smile.

The feeling faded quickly, however, replaced with a morose sadness. She ran her hands down the worn fabric to her stomach. It no longer hurt, but there was a dull pressure, or rather the feeling of something missing. Her brow ticked as she tried to decide which one it was when Severus shifted in his chair letting out a soft grunt.

Hermione smiled gently as he shifted his head to the other side of the chair letting out a deep breath before going back to his soft snoring. Hermione tested her legs lifting one then the other. They felt heavy as if she'd run a marathon but they didn't hurt. Everything was still rather dulled. She did take note that she wasn't wearing the underwear she had picked out that morning but rather a small pair of shorts that he must have transfigured for her from something else.