There, There

Snape arrived at the infirmary to find Lupin standing by the doorway, looking to the floor. "Where is she?" he asked, and Lupin pointed to a bed with a curtain drawn around it.

"Poppy's dressing her," he said, crossing his arms. "Severus... why did you call Hermione down to the dungeon?"

Snape bristled at Lupin calling Miss Granger by her first name. Snape had never called her anything else but Miss Granger, not even in his mind. It may not have been a written law, but it almost seemed wrong to call a student by their first name. He surely had never called Harry Potter anything other than Mister Potter... and why would he? My debt to the Potters was paid off sixteen years ago, he thought.

But he couldn't think about that now. Not now, when one of his students may have been gravely injured due to his own stupidity. Although he would never let it show, especially not to Lupin.

"I already told you. I needed her to check something for me. In case you haven't noticed, she's quite intelligent. I was also going to ask her if she'd be my student assistant next year." Snape thought about what he had just said. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind. It was the perfect excuse.

Lupin glanced away. "Oh! Well... I was also thinking about asking her that very same question... but if you must have her-"

"Oh, come now Lupin. You treat this as if she is not a living person. It really should be up to Miss Granger to decide," Snape said, automatically becoming annoyed with his "colleague".

"Professor Snape, I don't think it very wise to ask her such a question right now, in a moment of crisis."

"Well obviously! Oh, and what is it you know about crisis?"

"Well, I had a bit of a crisis last night when someone forgot to bring me my potion."

"I already apologized for that, you insolent bastard!"

"Oh, and how sincere it was! Not to mention the fact that you simply barged in on me while I was consulting with a student! Now if I needed to ask you something and I just a barged in on you, you'd throw a bitch fit!"

"Oh is that what we're calling it these days? Consulting? Clever word choice for something of that nature, Remus. Your muggle mother MUST have been an English teacher!"

Remus' lupine blood must have been flaring up, because his eyes glowed gold for a moment. "Don't you ever talk about my mother, Severus. It was your goddamned 'circle of friends' that murdered her!"

"For the last time, I am on your side! Why can't you accept that Snivellus isn't ALL bad?"

"I NEVER called you Snivellus ONCE! In fact, when Lily wasn't defending you, I WAS!"

"What is going on here? I have patients to attend to!" Madam Pomfrey came bustling over from behind the curtain over to the two men, who were in fighting stance. "My Goodness, I thought that I could expect better from you both, Professors! Especially in Hermione's hour of need."

Lupin backed down. "May I speak with her, Madam Pomfrey?"

"And I as well?" asked Severus, not to be outdone by Lupin.

"Very well," she warily began. "As long as you do not blow her eardrums with your incessant and childish arguing."

Both men glared at each other as Madam Pomfrey went into her stores to retrieve something. They began to walk over. "May I please speak to her first, Remus?" Snape asked, not looking at the man striding next to him.

"Only if you apologize for your behavior this evening."

Snape glowered. "To who; you, or Miss Granger?"

"To Hermione. It's your fault this had happened," Lupin said, daring to look over at Snape, who had stopped in his tracks.

"Lupin, if she had stayed in your office, I'm sure you'd be in a lot of hot water by now. So I think you should be the one apologizing to me for saving you from your downsizing."

He shook his head in anger. "Fine. I'm not saying anything. Go talk to her. But you'd better not be as cruel as you usually are."

"Nothing of the sort. I will make one apology tonight, and it shall be toward Miss Granger."

Snape walked over to the bed, which was still shrouded in curtains. He found Hermione with her hands over her eyes, taking deep breaths. Upon hearing the curtains rustle, she jumped. "Madam Pomfrey?"

"No, Miss Granger. It's Professor Snape."

"Oh, hello Professor. How's your head?" she asked, not wanting to show any signs of pain in her voice.

"It's fine. I daresay I should be the one asking you how you're doing. Are you feeling any better? Do you remember anything else?"

"Yes. I do."

"And?" he asked, curious as to what had happened in the time he had been blacked out.

"An Unforgivable."

He wasn't surprised. Her hands were still covering her eyes, so she couldn't see his familiarity with the Unforgivables. "Which one?"

"Cruciatus. It was dreadful."

Snape grimaced. He could sympathize with the pain. "Miss Granger, I'm sorry if this sounds crass at all, but did they inflict any physical harm on you?"

She knew the question was coming, so she didn't mind. "Only the bruises from grabbing me." She pulled up her pajama shirt an inch or two to show him, her eyes still closed. Her white stomach had a large purplish bruise branching out over to the left side. "There's more on my shoulders and legs. But the internal pain is the worst."

"Her-Miss Granger," he began, catching himself before he pulled a Lupin. "I'm- I don't often do this, but I feel it is overly necessary. I probably could not do it enough times in order to feel any better, but... I am incredibly sorry about all of what happened. To be perfectly honest..." he couldn't resist. "I was merely going to ask if you'd be my student assistant next year."

Her eyes were still closed, but he could see her eyebrows fly up. "B-but Professor! You've never had a Gryffindor Potions assistant!"

Snape pursed his lips in thought. "Ah, now Miss Granger, that's not true. My second year of teaching, I did indeed have a Gryffindor assistant. And I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was right about Gryffindors. They really are insufferable brats, including that particular assistant. Even though she did do a good job.

"In any case, I know that you are not as insufferable as most Gryffindors, not to mention you do have a knack for potions. Just think about it, if you will. And don't think I'm playing favorites or anything," he hastily concluded.

She laughed slightly. He turned his head away, to look out at the window over the bedpost, the only side of the bed not covered in a curtain. He felt a little better after apologizing. It never had been his strong suit. Luckily he was good at concealing his true emotions. He was finding it tough at that moment, though.

Hermione opened her eyes to see a very troubled Professor Snape gazing out the window over her head. It was a side of himself that she had never seen. For her, he had never ceased his glaring. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel his face, glaring down at her broken form. But now there he was, looking almost peaceful, if not a little perturbed. In public, he was very good at concealing his emotions. He's probably emotionally distraught, she thought, still looking at his face. When he's not glaring, he is rather fetching. She could see his eyebrows etched in intense thought, and realized that his eyes were not that dark black everyone thought them to be, but instead a sort of dark brown that glistened, making them seem dark. His lips were folded into his mouth, giving him an almost comical look. His hair was still greasy, though.

His gaze was broken as Hermione gave a small cough. He looked down at her, but not with a glare in his eyes. It was almost an appraising look, as if he saw something he couldn't exactly comprehend, but he had to look anyways.

He broke the silence, and the staring, with his deep voice. "Well, Miss Granger, I suppose you would like to see Professor Lupin right now, so I shall bid you adieu."

I didn't know he knew French, Hermione jokingly thought as she watched her brooding Professor's black cape swish out of the room. Her heart quickened at the thought of Professor Lupin though, pushing Snape out of her mind. However, her chest was beginning to ache.

Snape emerged from the curtain to find Lupin sitting on the bed across from Hermione's. "I suppose you were listening," Snape said, making to walk out.

"Well, it is a curtain, Severus," Lupin said quietly, so as not to make him angry. It only made him more annoyed.

"I'm aware of it's status as a curtain. Now I shall wish you a good night." He whisked out of the Hospital Wing, and automatically ran into Dumbledore.

"Severus! I was just coming to see how Miss Granger is doing," he began, searching Snape's face for any sign of emotion.

"She's much better, Albus. She even managed to crack a smile once or twice."

Dumbledore chuckled. "And what is it you have to say to make a young girl chuckle, Severus?"

"Albus, you know I'm perfectly capable of being personable when I feel like it."

Dumbledore nodded, looking at his young colleague. "I know it, Severus. It is why I have kept you around."

Snape smiled. As odd as it was, the only person he ever really felt comfortable talking to was Dumbledore, although the old man got annoying sometimes. He couldn't help but be uplifted by the old man's agility. He seemed both younger and older than Severus by a number of years.

"So I gather it's no use in me going to offer my support to her, then?" Albus asked.

"Unless you want to wait in line after Lupin. He's in there 'chatting it up' with her as we speak," Severus said, scoffing.

That alarmed look that Dumbledore had had in the fire returned. "I shall go and keep a watch over Miss Granger for the rest of the evening. I would appreciate if you did not tell your house about this, Severus. We must leave it up to Miss Granger to tell us what to do."

Snape became curious at Dumbledore's change in emotion. "You don't think that Professor Lupin would do anything, do you?"

"I have no idea as to what you're talking about, Severus." He disappeared into the Hospital Wing, leaving Severus no option except to go to bed.

**

Lupin peered around the curtain to see Hermione looking back up at him, a grimace of pain on her face. "Are you okay, Miss Granger?" he asked, concerned at the look of pain on her face.

"I'm fine," she began. "Ever since Professor Snape left, I've had this pain in my chest. It won't go away."

Lupin looked alarmed. "He didn't do anything strange to you, did he? He didn't cast an incantation that would make you be in pain?"

Hermione was caught off-guard by this statement. "Professor, why would you say something like that? I don't believe Professor Snape would ever try to hurt me. He was too... genuine to do something that would cause any of his students pain."

"He's done it before, you know."

"To other people, yes, but that was in his past," she retorted, making to sit up.

Lupin guided her back down to the bed, bringing his face close to hers. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and her heart was madly pounding. "Yes, Hermione, but who's to say he'll never do it again? As they say, Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater."

She looked into his face, and could see something playing across it. She drew in a deep breath. "I'm sure it's nothing more than-than, um, a side affect. From the curses."

"The Cruciatus, was it?" he asked, as he drew away from her face. She let her breath go, half-thankful, half-regretting.

"Yes. I take it you heard what Professor Snape and I were talking about?"

"Yes. The curtains are not noise proof, unfortunately."

Her eyes were focused on a very interesting piece of her blanket. "So I suppose you heard that he asked me to be his student assistant next year?"

"Yes, I did hear that as well. Congratulations. Hopefully, you will fare better than his last Gryffindor assistant."

Her eyebrows were knit in confusion. "What happened?"

"You'll never believe me if I told you, my dear."

"Tell me anyways," she said, intrigued.

He mock sighed, rolling his eyes. "Okay. Well, rumor has it, she broke into his potion stores, planning on stealing and drinking a hair growth formula. A large portion of her hair had burned off due to a freak cauldron accident, you see." Hermione snorted at this, causing her stomach to pulse slightly. "Anyways, she grabbed the wrong potion, and drank an entire bottle of love elixir. As you know, one drop would suffice in order to make someone crazy in love, so imagine what a whole bottle would do. And, who was the first person she set her love struck little eyes on, but Snape himself."

"So what you're saying is," Hermione began. "She fell madly in love with him?"

He nodded. "So much so that she went insane with love, and jumped out of the Astronomy Tower, calling his name the entire time."

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"And ever since then, all he's ever had as an assistant is a male Slytherin. Every year. He should have stuck to that system from the beginning. Even now, I don't quite agree with him having someone as lovely as yourself as an assistant." Her cheeks flushed over, and she hoped he couldn't see in the muted light that surrounded the curtain.

Desperate to change the subject, she immediately tackled a topic she knew would catch his interest. "So, Jupiter is visible now."

"Is it now?" he asked, looking down at her nervous face.

"Yes... and Io is said to be orbiting quite close. So close that it should be visible soon."

"Very interesting," he mused, playing with the edge of her blanket.

"D-do you think it will affect you? I mean, it is a moon and all..." She wasn't sure how to feel about his closeness. If he knew he was making her nervous, he didn't show it.

"I'll have to look further into that, Hermione," he said, giving her another weird look. He patted her hand, and stood up. "I suppose you should be going to sleep right now. You've had a trying day, I know. I'll come by tomorrow and check in on you."

She smiled. "Thank you for your kindness, Professor."

He turned to look at her once more. "It's nothing, my dear. You are an absolute wonder to be around. I don't think I've ever met a cleverer girl in my time at this school. I'll be around in the morning." He gave a wave and left.

Her heart was sick of beating so fast. Give it a rest, Hermione, she thought. The pain was subsiding, and all that rested in her body was nothing more than a dull pain in her stomach, and the ache of her bruises. Her head was pounding, and she desired almost nothing more than a deep sleep.

**

Remus made his way toward the door, and caught sight of Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey conversing in her storing room. She was holding a bottle of something, and handed it to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore saw Remus, bade Madam Pomfrey goodbye, and walked out to meet him. "Ah, hello, Remus. I suppose you were just speaking to Miss Granger."

Dumbledore's cool blue eyes danced as he looked at Remus. "Er-yes. She seems to be a little better. She has a slight pang in her stomach, but other than that, she's simply tired."

The Headmaster nodded. "She'll be asleep by now, then. I am keeping watch by her bed all evening. Perhaps it would do if you could somehow alert Misters Potter and Weasley about the nature of their dear friend?"

Remus bit his lip. "With all due respect, Headmaster, I'm not sure Hermione wants to see Harry and Ron at the moment. You see... she came to me with some of her problems earlier this evening... two of which were the sirs you speak of."

The old man nodded, a wise look in his eyes. "Well, I suppose we can wait until Miss Granger rouses until we find out what is in her best interest."

Remus nodded. "Thank you, Albus."

"Goodnight, Professor," he merely said, as he slipped back into the Hospital Wing, leaving Lupin with the same option he left for Snape... to go to bed.