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Shattered	By : Adriana Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 11986 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
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- 12
Shattered

By Adriana

trixielou60@hotmail.com

For life, with all its yield of joy and woe,

And hope and fear-- believe the aged friend --

Is just the chance o' the prize of learning love,

How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;

And that we hold henceforth to the uttermost

Such prize despite the envy of the world,

And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all.
~From the poem, "A Death in the Desert" by Robert Browning
********************************************
Chapter 11: Truth
"This can't be happening," Hermione thought dimly. The
surreal nature of her circumstance almost caused her to lose control, but she
fought hard to maintain it. "He needs me," she whispered to
herself. She focused her concentration on Severus.
As she knelt before him, she leaned over his face and immediately saw that
he had small blisters ad hid his nose and mouth. Mentally eliminating several
poisons, she frowned and brought her face even closer. She caught a whiff of a
distinctive, acrid smell. "Oh no!" she thought.
Tincture of calotropis.
Not only that, but that bitch had spelled Severus so that the poison was
permeating his skin. She could see the dark energy surrounding his body. If she
touched him, she could find herself overwhelmed by the toxic effects of the poison.
This was a spell designed to do some major damage.
Severus was a crumpled mass, and his lank hair had fallen in his face,
obscuring his eyes from her view. At the moment he'd been overcome by the
poison, his face had contorted into a mask of pain and fear. For the first time
ever, he looked as if he'd been caught by surprise. His colour was a terrible
bluish tint. Hermione had a hard time looking at him.
Heart pounding, she fought a feeling of panic. "What if I can't do
this?" she said to herself. Her hands began to shake. "This is
no time to lose it," she thought, resolutely. In the distance, she
could make out Ron and Draco shouting at each other. Briefly glancing over her
shoulder, she could see that Taryn had been immobilized and it appeared that
Draco and Ron were arguing over what to do with her. "They'll work it
out," her mind flickered.
Turning back quickly to her task, she cast a Shielding Charm around herself
and touched him for the first time. Feeling his pulse, she noted it to be
excruciatingly slow. "Antidote, antidote" . . . . she scanned
her mental database. As she watched him, his skin colour worsened and Hermione
uttered a quick spell to transform the air around him into pure oxygen.
"Breathe, Severus," she told him gently, and the air began to move
ints lus lungs. Hermione charmed it to move under pressure.
Suddenly, she remembered the antidote. Belladona! Hermione knew that
Severus kept a supply in the storeroom. "Accio Belladonna!" she
shouted and, as quick as a snitch, the vial was in her hand. Frantically
scanning the mess in the lshe she found one of Severus' quills, next to a
broken piece of glass. Remembering her battlefield training, Hermione
transfigured the quill into a syringe and the piece of glass into a rubber
tourniquet.
"I know you'll forgive my Muggle ways, Severus," she murmured, as
she tied the tourniquet around his upper arm. "I have to get this antidote
into you fast." She withdrew the Belladonna into the syringe, and
carefully measuring it, she injected it into his vein.
"Please, God," she breathed. "Let this work!" She began
to shakily chant a spell designed to make his body and mind more receptive to
the healing.
There was no telling how much poison he'd ingested.
*******************************************************
"Life is a funny thing," thought Draco, as he moved towards
Ron Weasley. All these juxtapositions were threatening to permanently disorient
him. One minute he's on his broom, the next, Voldemort is yanking his hair. One
minute he's draped across a chair and the next, he's wrestling an assassin with
a goody- two-shoes Gryffindor.
"It's a wonder I'm not barmy," he thought.
" her her fucking wand, you pillock!" yelled Ron.
"No need to be rude, you stupid cow! I don't have to even touch her . .
. Petrificus Totalus!" Draco shouted with a dramatic flair.
Taryn Butler immediately froze, teetering precariously.
"And you call yourself a wizard, Weasley?" With a curl of his lip,
Draco put a hand on Taryn, pushing her over. She landed with a satisfying crash
on the floor.
Ron straightened up to his full, impressive height, red-faced, short of
breath and sweating profusely. "She's well trained," he said. "I
would have overpowered her . . . eventually." Draco snorted.
"What were you doing here, Weasley?"
Ron let out an incomprehensible mumble.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you."
"I said, I'll explain later, it's a very long story! We've got other
things to worry about."
They both looked at Taryn.
"What do you suppose we should do with her, Malfoy?"
"I don't know. Maybe we should hang her by her big toes and cast a
tickling charm on her until she pukes on your shoes."
Ron gave him his best sneer. "Same old smart-arsed git, aren't you?
What's wrong, can't you think of anything useful?"
"Of course I can. Don't you realize what a coup this is? Taryn Butler
is one of Voldemort's most trusted Death Eaters . . . she'd have to be, for him
to give her such an assignment. Think of the information! A few minutes with me
and I'll have her squealing like a pig." He gave his most charming smile.
"Torture is a specialty of mine," he said proudly.
"Trust you to brag about something like that. But you're right about
one thing. She has to know a lot of his sts. ts. As much as I'd love to see her
get the Dementor's Kiss, we'll have to extract information from her. I'm sure
you could do the honors, Malfoy."
"Actually, I hate torture, it's very messy. I'll leave that to the
Ministry experts. But I can give pointers!"
Ron shook his head in exasperation and tiredly rubbed his eyes. "We
have to infohe Hhe Headmaster."
"I suppose you're right," sighed Draco. Walking over to Hermione
he asked, "How's Uncle Severus?" He couldn't keep the anxiety of
of
his voice, as much as he tried. Hermione had never seen that look on Draco's
face before. If she didn't know better, she would have thought it to be the
barest flicker of fear.
"He's stable, but I still don't know if he's going to survive,"
she answered quietly. "It depends on how well he responds to the antidote.
I'm moving him to his chambers . . . we can't take him to the hospital wing.
Nobody can know about this yet. I can get everything I need from the Potions
Lab."
"Yes but first things, first," said Draco. Bending over Taryn, he
began to pat at her clothing. "It has to be here, somewhere," he
muttered to himself. "Ah ha!" He tugged on a garish silver ring on
her right hand. Pulling it off, he opened the jewel and took a sniff. He
grimaced.
"Ergh! Cyanide in a ring! How utterly, utterly predictable! So you were
planning to do the world a f by by committing suicide, were you? How noble!
Couldn't you and Voldie come up with anything better than this? Aside from the
fact that you tried to kill somebody very dear to me, I ought to kill you just
because you're bloody stupid!" he yelled.
The only things that moved on Taryn Butler's body were her eyes, and they
were slits of anger.
"Draco! This isn't helping!" Hermione's voice was pleading.
"I'm sorry, love. But I'm very angry." Turning to Ron he said,
"Watch over the prisoner, Corporal. I'm fetching Dumbledore." He
walked quickly from the room.
"Malfoys never run," he thought.
Hermione and Ron finally looked at each other. He�d only seen her briefly in
recent months and he quickly took in her fragile appearance. Ordinarily he
would have been concerned, but he knew that despite how she looked, she was all
steely strength underneath. She'd always been very strong, and she had been his
and Harry's rock throughout all their fights against Volrt. rt. He knelt with
her next to Severus.
"I don't know how you came to be here, Ron, but thank you," she
told him softly. Briefly glancing at Taryn Butler's still form on the floor she
added, "I can't deal with her. If I look at her, I'm going to want to hurt
her and I have to concentrate on Severus."
"Leave her to me, Hermione. I'll see to it that she pays for what she's
done. One way or another."
Hermione nodded, and pointing her wand at Severus, she murmured,
"Mobilicorpus!" He was gently lifted in the air. It was the second
time in her life that she'd seen him floating after that spell, but she was
determined to make this journey a more comfortable one. She carefully guided
him to a far wall of the lab and said,
"Serpens fortis."
An open doorway suddenly appeared and Hermione took Severus through the
entrance. She remembered the last time she'd been in his chambers, the night
that Poppy had died. She pushed that thought away quickly.
"He isn't going to die," she thought. "I w let let
him."
Before gently laying him on his bed, she removed his robes and boots,
lovingly caressing them as she laid them across a chair. Withdrawing her
crystal wand, she laid a comforting hand on his cheek and began to flick the
wand across his prone body. Gradually, the dark spell surrounding him began to
lighten and his color improved. He let out a deep sigh and appeared to rest
easier.
There was nothing more to do but wait. As there were no more spells and no
more healings to be done, the enormity of what had happened finally hit her
like a Weasley Twin Bludger. She began to shake and tears threatened to spill.
Her stomach was tied in a thousand knots and she fought a feeling of nausea.
Touching him without the Shielding Spell for the first time, she was relieved
to find his skin cool to her touch. As her hand lingered over his face, her
fingers caressed his lips. "Such full, sensuous lips, when they're not
stretched into a thin scowl," she thought. Her shaking began to
subside and she marveled how touching him had somehow healed some of her
physical distress. His complexion was rather waxy, but to Hermione, the sight
of him quietly breathing was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.
Leaning closely to him, she continued to stroke his face. "Please
Severus. Don't die." The tears finally spilled.
"Don't leave me all alone," she whispered.
*****************************************************
Ron paced the Potions Lab, waiting for Albus and Draco to arrive. Patience
was never a Weasley virtue, although some of his siblings were blessed with more
of it than he'd ever been. What the hell! Did Malfoy stop at the opera on his
way to get Dumbledore? What was taking so long?
When Draco finally arrived with Albus, Ron was wholly unprepared for the
immediate verbal assault that greeted him.
"Alright, Weasley! I explained the situation to the Headmaster. Do you
think you could enlighten us as to how you came to be in the Potions Lab at the
exact moment Taryn Butler was trying to kill my uncle?"

p>Rop>Ron opened his mouth, the closed it, then opened it again, trying to find
the right words.
"You look like a carp, you idiot. Just start at the beginning."
Ron sighed. This wasn't going to be easy. It was likely that several people
were going to want his head on a platter, starting with the Headmaster. He sat himself
down on totiootions Master's desk.
"Months ago," he began slowly, "Ministry Aurors began getting
very vague reports that a spy had either penetrated Hogwarts or was in the
process of penetrating the school. The intelligence came from deep underground
in Voldemort's organization and we weren't even sure if it was true. Nobody
could be certain of the reliability of the source, but one thing was clear. If
there was a mole at Hogwarts, many lives were threatened."
Albus curled a finger through his long white beard. "And nobody saw fit
to consult with me about this?" he asked quietly.
"I'm sorry, sir. I wanted to tell you, but I was under strict orders to
stay silent. My assignment came straight from top officials at the Ministry.
This information was so sensitive that nobody was to know about this . . . you
know how paranoid those in the spy business can be!"
Albus nodded. "No offense, Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Weasley, but I always found
spying to be a nasty undertaking. All that moral ambiguity is most confusing."
Ron looked relieved. "Well then, you can understand the level of panic
at the Ministry. We immediately thought of two possibilities as to who the spy
could be."
"Let me guess," said Draco dryly. "Me and Uncle Severus. How
come we Slytherins are always the first to be suspected of evil-doings?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because you were both Death Eaters, you
poncey git!"
"Boys, boys," murmured the Headmaster.
"Anyway," Ron continued, "We ruled you out pretty early on,
Malfoy. You remember back in October, that night you were in The Boom Boom Room
and you couldn't stop pinching that brunette waitress on the arse?"
"You're going to have to be more specific, Weasley. There's a lot of
arses and a lot of pinching going on in that place."
"Well,was was in early October and you'd taken a liking to a new
waitress who was serving you drinks all night. What didndidn't know is that she
worked for the Ministry and while you were busy getting a lap dance, she poured
Veratiserum in your scotch. She was able to interrogate you and find out that
you were not the spy, and in fact, that you hate Voldemort and your father
almost as much as Harry does."
Draco looked stunned. "I think I remember that night. I'd had only a
couple of drinks, and then I couldn't remember anything. I thought I must have
been drunk, but then I knew I wasn't drunk, but then I couldn't remember. It
was all very confusing.t;
- 10
- 11
- 12
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