Chapter Text
Ron was gone, and they were hungry. A snowstorm had blown through the previous evening, and only now was it safe for Hermione to begin hunting for something to eat. Hermione shivered, pulling her coat tighter against her body. She could have cast a warming charm, but without regular access to food, Hermione was weakening. Every spell performed seemed to drain a bit of power that she was unable to regain.
Her boots crunched in the snow as Hermione walked deeper into the woods. It was dangerous to travel so far from the safety of their tent and the protective wards, but she and Harry were growing desperate. Harry, especially so. The Horcrux he wore around his neck, combined with his gnawing hunger, only made him that much more unbearable to be around. Hermione almost preferred the biting chill and the danger of Snatchers to spend another moment in his irritable presence. To be clear, she loved Harry, just not when he was in a terrible mood.
Hermione stepped over a log when she noticed a promising lump in the snow. It could be a cache of hazelnuts collected by a squirrel. At least, that’s what she hoped it was. She had been following a foraging guide, for which she thanked her lucky stars for having the foresight to pack in the first place.
She apologized to the squirrel whose store she might be stealing from and then began to dig. Her fingers numbed as she pushed aside the snow, but her current discomfort was nothing in comparison to the possible reward of food. Yet, as she dug, Hermione did not uncover nuts but long, black fur.
Hermione stopped abruptly. She must have found the final resting place of an animal. Her stomach rumbled. Would it be safe to eat? Or would she and Harry only get sick, weakening them further?
She returned to her digging. Hermione would assess the condition of the carcass after she had finished. She pushed away more of the snow until more of the body was revealed. Her hand brushed against its fur, accidentally touching a bit of its skin.
The skin was warm.
At least, warmer than the surrounding snow. Hermione stood up, holding her hand against her chest as if the creature had burned her. Was it still alive? Or had she caught it not long after its death?
Her stomach protested, but Hermione squatted down again to examine her find. The bit she had exposed was strangely human flesh-colored and, Hermione squinted harder, looked like a human ear. Well, that couldn’t be right. Unless…
Hermione dug faster now, with an energy she did not know she possessed. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. If this was indeed a human, then she had to save them before it was too late.
As she removed more snow, the person’s body was beginning to take shape. Hermione could still not make out their face as it was obscured by their hair and bits of snow. It crossed her mind that she could be dealing with a dangerous witch or wizard, but even in that unlikely scenario, Hermione decided she could not live with herself if she did not save a human life.
Eventually, Hermione had cleared away enough snow to turn the person over. With great difficulty and much grunting, Hermione was eventually able to gain enough leverage to get them onto their back. She brushed aside their long black hair and let out a gasp.
The person she had uncovered was none other than Severus Snape.
At least, she was ninety percent confident. The man before her had a black eye nearly swollen shut, a split lip, and blood dripping from a broken nose. Her first reaction was that of pity. Even if Professor Snape had not exactly been the kindest teacher, she still had known him quite well after six years. No one deserved to be left for dead in the snow.
But then Hermione remembered what had happened the previous summer. Snape had killed Dumbledore, someone who had trusted him unequivocally. And Snape had used this opportunity to become the newest Headmaster at Hogwarts. Under his guidance, Muggleborns would no longer be granted admission into the school. Hermione was sure that that directive had come from Voldemort, but she also did not think that Snape had put up any fight when he received his promotion. She curled her lip in disgust. And to think that she had once respected this man.
Hermione let his body slump unceremoniously against the snow. She had told herself that she would save the person no matter what, but she would make an exception for the traitor, Severus Snape.
She stood up and walked away, prepared to let his body color the snow and his bones become homes for all sorts of woodland critters until a strange, niggling feeling overtook her. Hermione paused. Who had attacked Snape and left him to die? If it had been the good guys, Hermione doubted the Order would have resorted to such brutal tactics. And if they had, Snape would probably have been imprisoned, not left to bleed out on a snowbank.
But why would the Death Eaters torture someone on their side? Had Snape angered Voldemort by disobeying an order? Hermione had assumed he was a loyal follower, but that might not have been enough to save him from the Dark Lord’s capriciousness. Unless—and this was the least likely scenario—Snape was not as bad as she had thought.
Whatever the reason was, it did not matter. Severus Snape was an evil man. He deserved to die a horrible death. Not only for killing Dumbledore but also for the countless Muggles and Muggleborns he himself had undoubtedly tortured. And this would be justice for all of the students Snape had turned away from their rightful education.
It was time for Hermione to leave and continue her search for food. Except Hermione’s feet would not move; she was glued in place. She wanted revenge, retribution, but this did not seem like the way to do it.
Hermione sighed. She was going to do the “right” thing. Even if it killed her.
Merlin spare her bleeding Gryffindor heart.
As she saw it, Hermione had two options ahead of her. She could either bring Snape back to her and Harry’s tent and treat his injuries there. Or Hermione could return to their camp and find the second tent she had been saving in her beaded bag in case of emergency.
In reality, the latter was her only choice. Not only could she not lead Snape to Harry, but Hermione doubted her ability to drag his unconscious body all that way through the snow. Even with the aid of magic.
So, Hermione removed her coat and wrapped it around Snape’s body. He was unresponsive throughout the whole process, but Hermione could still detect a pulse, however faint. Then she pulled out her wand and cast a warming charm. Hermione could feel herself weaken, and her body shook violently from the cold, but she knew she could still make it back to Harry. She had to.
Hermione left Snape there in the snow and wondered if someone would do her the favor of finishing him off before she returned. Then she wouldn’t have to waste any more of her precious magic over his sorry existence.
Her hands were red and chapped with chill by the time she returned to the camp, the wards pressing around her like walking through jelly. And when Hermione pushed aside the tent flap, Harry stood up, hopeful. But then his eyes dropped to her empty hands, and he sat back down, refusing to meet her gaze.
She tried not to let such an obvious dismissal sting. But Hermione supposed, on some level, that she deserved it. Her only job had been to go out and get them food, not to waste invaluable time and magic on a known traitor.
“I’ll be going back out,” Hermione said, sifting through the stuff on her cot to find her beaded bag. “I just needed some supplies.” Hermione was a horrible liar, but Harry had been too mopey lately to notice her tone or mannerisms when she spoke.
“What happened to your coat?” Harry asked.
Hermione stiffened. She had hoped that he would not have noticed that as she did not have a plausible reason for its absence.
“I left it outside,” Hermione said. “It was covered in snow, and I didn’t want to track any into the tent.”
Harry nodded, seemingly accepting her lie at face value. Hermione was rather impressed with the speed at which she had produced it. Normally she would have stammered, but desperation must have forced her to think faster on her feet.
Beaded bag in hand, Hermione headed for the exit. “I’ll be back soon.” And hopefully, she thought, with some food.
Hermione realized as soon as she stepped back into the snow that she had no idea where she was going. And twilight was coming fast. Still, Hermione headed in the direction she believed she had come from.
But with the gathering darkness and the cold that stripped her right to the bone, Hermione was beginning to regret every decision that had led her to this point. She should have never found Snape. She should have never agreed to go on this futile hunt for Horcruxes. She should have never gone into that bathroom to cry and become friends with Harry and Ron as they saved her from that mountain troll. She should have never agreed to go to Hogwarts. She should have never…
Hermione had never been so glad to see an unconscious body before in her life. She breathed a sigh of relief upon finally finding him, pleased that he had not moved. Although, she realized shortly after that Snape not moving was not exactly a good sign.
She knelt down beside him. His pulse was still weak, but he continued to breathe, which meant that her trek through the dark and the snow had not been for nothing.
Unfortunately, the lack of light and the rapidly decreasing temperature meant she could not waste any more time. Hermione took out her wand again and cleared away a patch of snow big enough to accommodate a tent. Then she summoned it from her bag and set it in the vacated spot.
Luckily, the tent was a magical one, so it required no further assembly. Hermione stepped inside and pulled out a lantern, a cot, and a sleeping bag. Then she lit a fire in the small stove. She wanted to linger by the stove a moment longer, hold her fingers by its flames, but she still had more work to do.
Hermione levitated Snape into the tent and set him on the floor, not the cot. It was a good thing that she had decided to do so because as soon as she removed her coat, as well as his own, she found his shirt was caked in blood. Hermione did not want Snape’s bodily fluids on her new sleeping bag, the sleeping bag her dad had bought her for their backpacking trip in the Tetons.
A camping trip they might never go on because Hermione had wiped her parents’ memories and exiled them to live in Australia. She wondered if she would die before she ever saw them again. Hot tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
But Hermione could not think about that now. She had more important things to attend to. Namely saving her former professor’s life.
Tossing ideas of propriety aside, Hermione removed Snape’s shirt, revealing the extent of his injuries to her. His chest was covered in seemingly hundreds of tiny cuts. They had healed somewhat, which was a little bit of good news. But Snape was sure to have lost tons of blood in the process. Hermione eyed her beaded bag. She had a good amount of healing draughts saved in there, but not an infinite supply.
She summoned a Blood Replenishing Potion, then forced his mouth open and made sure he swallowed it. Snape sputtered, which was odd, considering that he still did not wake, but Hermione had already decided that she would much rather help him while he was unconscious anyway. If Snape were lucid, she might have cut his throat after demanding he apologize for killing Dumbledore.
But Hermione was supposed to be helping, not hurting today.
She dampened a bit of cloth with Aguamenti, then wiped his chest clean before applying a small amount of Dittany. Hermione was about to turn him over and work on his back when she realized that she also needed to check for wounds on his lower half. She sighed and cursed her stars for putting her in this position before reaching for his fly and button.
As predicted, Snape was covered in the same cuts. Hermione treated them as she treated the others, all while studiously trying to avoid looking at the spot between his legs. When she had finished, she finally flipped him over to repeat the same procedure on his back.
He already was looking a lot better, Hermione thought, but there was still more to be done. She rubbed bruise paste on his eye and cleaned up the rest of his face. Then she opened her sleeping bag and set it on the cot.
Hermione looked between her sleeping bag and naked Snape and his pile of blood-soaked clothes. His wounds were no longer bleeding, but she still did not want a naked man in her sleeping bag. Yet the decision had already been made for her when she had chosen to help him. Plus, the sleeping bag was designed for negative forty degrees, so it would surely keep Snape warm. Hermione would need to suck it up and use a thousand cleansing charms when he was finished with it.
She levitated his naked body into the sleeping bag and zipped him up tight. Then she searched for his pulse. If Hermione was not mistaken, it was getting stronger. He was still cold to the touch, but his temperature would improve with the help of the stove.
Hermione decided to leave him for a bit, do some foraging, and check that he was getting better before she returned to the other camp.
But as Hermione stepped back into the snow—re-equipped with her coat—another thought occurred to her. What if someone had come back to finish the job? If someone had left Snape for dead, they would probably want to make sure the deed had been completed, so to speak. It was not long ago that Hermione had wished for that exact thing, but now she had sunk so much magic and effort into this man she would hate to see all that work undone.
At least, that was what she told herself.
So, Hermione pulled out her wand for the final time and put up a full suite of protective charms. Her hands were shaking by the end of the spellworking process. And she was overcome with a strong desire to curl up, fall asleep, and perhaps never wake again. But Harry was counting on her to find something.
From the glow of her wand and her foraging book, Hermione was eventually able to track down a chestnut tree. She grabbed as many spiky fruits from the ground as she could find and threw them into her beaded bag. Hermione was not counting but estimated she had a couple dozen, grateful the denizens of the forest had not found this particular plant. And when she had finished, Hermione pried off the outer casing of one and popped the nut into her mouth.
This, as she would soon find out, was a mistake. Her tongue tingled, and her mouth went dry. Hermione spit it out and braced her hands against her knees. Her first instinct was to assume that she had eaten the wrong thing or that the nut had gone off. Hermione kicked the base of the stupid tree, upset that she had spent all that time on something she couldn’t eat.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose.
She did not know why that song had popped into her head—maybe hunger was finally getting to her—but it was not just a useless lyric. She opened her book to the page on chestnuts. Then she flipped the page, wondering if she had missed something. Sure enough, the section continued:
Most foragers prefer their chestnuts roasted to remove the tannic acid, which is known to irritate the digestive tract.
Hermione’s shoulders sagged in relief. Her long and arduous trek had not been such a waste after all. She brushed the snow off her knees and headed back to Snape’s tent. At least this time, she’d had the idea to break off twigs to guide her path.
After removing her boots and zipping the tent closed, Hermione could see that the fire still roared, and her patient slumbered. Once again, she was grateful that she did not have to talk to Dumbledore’s murderer. Hermione placed the back of her hand against his cheek, expecting him to have warmed up.
He was icy cold.
Feeling utterly dejected, Hermione reached for her wand to cast another warming charm. But when she lifted her arm, Hermione found her magic failing. She wobbled on her feet. Hermione had never felt her magic ignore her before.
Yet all was not lost. She looked down at her body. There was still another way she could provide heat. It did not make her happy, but this was the only surefire way to increase his body temperature. It was unfortunate, but Harry would have to wait just a little while longer to see her.
She stripped to her underthings, prayed to whoever was listening that Snape would not stir, and considered how best to navigate her way into the sleeping bag. It had not been designed with two people in mind, and Hermione could scarcely fathom conjuring the magic necessary to make it any larger. So, Hermione undid the zipper and pushed his body aside. Then she sat up on the cot and slid one leg into the bag, followed by the other.
Hermione lay with her limbs pressed closely to her sides, imagining all of the ways Snape would hex her if he found her in his bed. And though she would have preferred not to touch him, Hermione had to admit that she would not make much progress lying there, stiff as a board. She extended her arms and pulled Snape into her chest, holding him tight in her embrace. Hermione inhaled sharply as she felt his icy skin against her own, but she persevered nevertheless. Then she intertwined their legs, an intimate gesture if Hermione ever saw one.
She closed her eyes and pretended that the man held in her arms was not her former professor but maybe the love of her life. This hypothetical man would be tall and lean but also an intellectual. And he would keep her safe. After fighting for her life for so long, it was nice to imagine someone else taking over that role. This man would also be a skilled lover, though not necessarily a gentle one.
It was somewhat difficult to fall asleep with an icicle in her arms. Still, Hermione eventually managed to doze off, carried off to dreamland by her fantasies of a man who almost certainly did not exist.