Unlikely Connections

Chapter Fourteen - Leaving the Floor Breathless

"Harry . . ."

The insistent whispering seemed to be coming from at least a mile away. Soon it was accompanied by a gentle but equally insistent bout of shakes.

"Harry? Oh, Harry, please wake up ..."

He rolled over towards the voice and hands that were yanking him from sleep and slapped at them halfheartedly. "Go away. I was right in the middle of a really good dream."

The shaking continued. "Harry, please . . ."

He finally motivated himself to sit up and reach towards the table where he had left his glasses. After a prolonged period of rubbing at his eyes and then squinting through his glasses, Harry started to recognize what was going on.

"Hermione, what are you doing in the boys' dormitory at this hour of the night?" Harry questioned in a barely contained whisper, trying to cover his bare chest.

"I need to ask a favor."

Harry remained silent, but his annoyance slid from his face. Hermione sneaking into the boys' dormitory in the middle of the night to ask a favor ...? "All right, you've got my attention."

She gulped. "I need to borrow your invisibility cloak. I need to ... check on something."

He raised an eyebrow on her, which, to her great unsettling, reminded her forcefully of the 'something' she was sneaking out to check on. "M'inee, you're Head Girl. You can go anywhere you want, at any time you want, why would you need my cloak?"

"Well, it's ... not really somewhere I'm ... supposed to be." More or less.

He raised an eyebrow again, but bit back an angry retort at the look of desperation on her face. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Her heart softened. She knew that this was the farthest thing from what he desired to do. "No, I think that would ... aggravate matters. Thank you though. I just need the cloak."

He nodded swiftly and rose to rummage through the trunk at the end of his bed as quietly as possible. Ron snorted in his sleep once, to which Hermione and Harry froze in horror, but after the sounds of him turning over, the room stilled once more. After a few seconds, Harry made to hand over the cloak, but as her grip tightened on it, so did his.

"Where are you going, M'inee?" he spoke, forgetting to whisper.

She loosened his grip with fingers she forced to be steady. "I can't tell you, Harry. I'm sorry, I just can't. And I know it's a horrible thing to ask of you, to have you lend out your cloak without knowing, but I just can't explain. There's too much to tell."

Something flickered in Harry's eyes, then his face. "You're going to see him, aren't you?"

She didn't need to ask which 'him' he was referring to ... "Yes. But it's not ... I just can't explain."

But Harry seemed to understand. "Make sure they haven't hurt him ... badly."

Hermione nodded and, with a brief kiss on Harry's cheek and a swish of fabric, she was gone.

****

She hurried down to his office as fast as possible while still concealed under the cape. She glanced at her watch. 3 am. There was no way of telling whether or not he would be back by now. When she reached his office she pressed her ear to the door and listened hard. Nothing.

She looked right and left before realizing, exasperated, that she was invisible. Hermione quickly and quietly flattened herself on the floor in front of the door. Six years of snooping on her baby sitter as a child had taught her a few tricks. She pressed her ear to the floor and stared at the small gap between the stones and the bottom of his office door.

There was absolutely no light coming from within the office, which meant one of two things. First of all, it could mean that there was no fire lit, meaning that he had not returned yet. Secondly, it could mean that he had returned but hadn't bothered lighting a fire in the outer office upon entering. Frustrated to the extreme, she acknowledged that there was no way of telling which it was, short of somehow breaking into his office.

A cold draft swirled around her ankles, making her wish she had changed into her warmer pajama pants, rather than the short nightgown and knee socks. She suddenly realized a third option. It was entirely possible that he had enough wards on his office door to block out any kind of light or sound that might be observable from the hall.

That, she thought with a smirk, would be just paranoid enough of him to be true.

Hermione was suddenly sickeningly aware of the dull tapping of a boot on the stones just inches from her head. She bit her lip to stifle a gasp as she looked up at Snape's form, leaning against the wall and staring at a point a few feet away from her head.

"Hmmmm," he muttered. "A pair of stockinged feet that seem not to be attached to anything on the floor outside my door ..."

Her eyes widened and her body tensed in horror. The invisibility cloak must have ridden up above her ankles when she lay down on the floor!

"Now, any kind of feet in front of my door at this time of day would be odd enough. But a pair of feet not connected to a body ... Hmmm. They're certainly not crafty-looking enough to be Slytherin feet ... Slytherin feet would never be caught. And they look a great deal too crafty to be Hufflepuff feet, but Ravenclaw feet would never venture this far away from their common room at such an ungodly hour. So I daresay they must be Gryffindor feet. Gryffindor feet that would have to be connected to a body ... right about here ..."

He remained leaning against the wall, but extended his foot and explored with the toe of his boot. The edge grazed her ribcage, just under her right arm, causing her to squirm and giggle involuntarily.

"Hmmm, giggling air ... even more suspicious ..."

The feet disappeared momentarily as Hermione raised herself off the floor. Her head came into view as she pulled the hood away. "Damn," she muttered, "caught."

"Good morning, Miss Granger," he responded jovially, "and what brings you out at this hour?"

Hermione frowned at him. He was still leaning against the wall, his hood raised around his face and his arms folded inside his cloak. He wasn't standing upright. Something was wrong.

"You do," she replied simply. "You're hurt, I can tell."

His posture stiffened, but he remained leaning against the wall trying to appear as if he were lounging there. "Do take off that cloak, I prefer to see the entirety of the person to whom I'm speaking. And incidentally, Miss Granger, I have been returning from Dark Revels since before you were born; I'm quite certain I can handle things."

She removed the cloak from her shoulders and wadded it in her hand. "Prove it," she challenged. "You're not standing."

He raised himself from against the wall and sneered down at her as he spread his hands. "Convinced?"

His posture was too rigid. "Stop it! You're in pain, I can see it!"

His eyes flamed to life. "I certainly do not need--"

The simple act of being angry seemed too much; his locked knees gave way and he pitched forward at her. She flung out her arms just as his upper torso crumpled across her neck and shoulders. Her knees were buckling under the weight of his body, but she clung to him ferociously, refusing to let him fall.

He whimpered in pain as she rebraced her arms around his back, trying to get a better grip. "What can I do?" she asked quickly.

His pride was clearly warring with his injuries. "Just help me into my office," he said gruffly.

She struggled for a moment. "Professor, you need to say the spells to unward your office, I can't reach my wand without letting one arm go, and if I did, I'm sure I'd drop you."

She heard him mumbled a few words and then a charm that caused the door to swing open in front of them. "Good thinking," she whispered near his ear. He was so weak that he couldn't even help her walk him in the door; he merely sat as dead weight on her shoulders, his feet dragging as she backed through the door.

Her arms were screaming for relief, so she set him as gently as possible on the nearest piece of furniture: the leather couch. After stretching her arms a bit, she turned to drop Harry's cloak in the chair near her, and then reached for her wand. As she turned to face him again, she fought to choke back a gasp. In the dim light that was streaming in from the window, she got her first clear look at his body.

He was covered with large scratches, bruises and oozing wounds. The hood and cloak had fallen away from his face and shoulders and she could see many places where his robes were torn and bloody. From the way he was grimacing, he was obviously in much internal pain as well. Her heart was screaming within her chest in anger and pity.

Thankfully, he was starring up at the ceiling, so he didn't see her horror. She walked closer to him and spoke softly. "I'm sorry, Professor. I can't carry you any further so I have to do this ... Mobilicorpus."

His body rose limply into the air, his toes dragging on the ground and his head lolling unpleasantly. He moaned out, much louder than before.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

She walked him to door which she assumed lead to the bedroom, careful to keep her wand steady so as not to bump him. "Through here?" she asked gently.

He grunted, and she figured this to be an affirmative. Still pointing her wand at him, she walked around his floating body and led him into the room. In the dark, she could just make out the bed, and lay him down as gently as possible. The instant he was on the bed, she muttered "Incendio" and the fireplace sprang to life. Once there was light in the room, she turned back to his face. He was grimacing in pain again, though less than before.

"What now?" she questioned him, leaning over him on the bed so that he could look into her eyes. A ghost of a sneer worked over his face.

"Not the most prudent thing, Miss Granger, being in my bedroom in the middle of the night."

Her composure ruffled. "Oh give over, you don't have the energy to seduce me, even if you wanted to." She gasped at her own response, but he laughed, followed by a groan of pain. "Shall I get Dumbledore? Or Madam Pomfrey?"

"No," he responded quickly.

"Professor, I have to do something ... you're suffering ..."

"I'm always suffering, Miss Granger, it's my part in this little charade."

She had never heard him speak this way before. She'd heard him angry. Vengeful. Cruel. But never so ... embittered. At a loss for what else to do, she decided to question further. "There must be something I can do ... Shall I get you into pajamas or something?"

Another grim sneer graced his face. "Oh dear, now undressing a man who's too injured to resist. Tsk, tsk, Granger, not in good Gryffindor form at all ..." She huffed and he seemed to relent. "Just ... help me take off some of the outer clothing so I'm more comfortable."

She felt her cheeks flush but set to her purpose. Her fingers gently worked away the ties of his cloak from his neck. "I'm going to undo the robes next, and then I'll get them out from under you all at once, all right?"

He nodded slightly to indicate his agreement. Her hands worked quickly and gently, fumbling only on a few buttons. "I trust you can sleep fairly comfortably in the shirt you have on. I'm going to take off your boots next, all right?"

He thought that Granger made a fairly decent nurse. She was swift but gentle and considerate. She was just tugging his boots off his feet and setting them at the foot of the bed when he twitched uncomfortably.

"The belt," he grumbled, "it's wickedly uncomfortable in this position."

Her hands shook just a bit when she reached to his waist, untucked his shirt and pushed it up out of her way to bare his stomach. She felt her cheeks flush again as she reached to release his belt. Her fingers grazed his abdomen lightly and he twitched.

"Tickling a man who has lost all his muscle control isn't the wisest idea, Miss Granger," he spoke, grinning just slightly. She grinned in response but continued working at the belt.

Once she had worked the ends apart, she realized another problem. "Can you lift your hips so I can slide it out without tugging at you?"

She saw the muscles in his abdomen strain, but he yelped in pain and collapsed. "Be easy," she said quietly, "I'm going to do it for you."

As gently as she could, she worked her right arm underneath his waist and lifted his lower torso into the air. She had to grunt in exertion, not realizing how heavy the weight of his body would be against her arm. Her left hand worked to yank the belt free from his waistband and she dropped him as quickly as she could without hurting him further. Without other questioning, she moved upward and put both arms underneath him in what would have appeared to be a hug.

"Put your arms about my neck, I'm going to lift you up to get your robes and cloak."

He did as she asked, rather stiffly, and she pulled upwards on his back, causing him to flop forward against her. "Hmmm," she muttered, realizing that her supporting arms could no longer be used to push away the garments lying underneath him. Trying hard to balance as best she could, she lifted her right leg and used her stockinged foot, tottering uncertainly for a moment before stabilizing and setting him back down gently. Losing her balance, she tumbled forward onto his chest. Her cheeks burned as they locked eyes. She wrested herself up straight quickly.

She went about the room, folding his clothes and draping them across the back of the leather, straight-backed chair that stood in front of a wardrobe. She turned back to him. "Are you sure you don't want me to get Dumbledore or Madam Pomfrey?"

"No," was all he managed. She moved to the door to leave him in peace, hoping the rest would do him good.

"Miss Granger?" It came to her so softly that she was scarcely certain she had heard it. "Hermione ..."

At the sound of her given name escaping his lips, she turned at the doorway to look back at him. His gaze was strong. "Thank you."

Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded and moved again to leave. Just as she was heading out his office door, his voice caught up with her.

"Five points from Gryffindor for snooping."

Her chuckles drifted back to him and he smiled slightly as he heard the door click shut.