Of Snake Bites and Dittany Cures by Iva1201

Motto:

"Well, I start bleeding like mad every time they try. (…) It seems there was some rather unusual kind of poison in that snake's fangs that keeps wounds open."

(Mr. Weasley to Fred, Christmas 1995, St. Mungo's)

J. K. Rowling: "Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix," GB children version (2003) – p. 431

ooooo

Harry Potter's and Hermione Granger's hiding place

Early Christmas Day 1997

Tent, the idiots were camping in a tent! Snape swore as he Apparated into the forest and saw the fabric shelter covered in fresh snow. Phineas had never mentioned where the children lived and Snape had to admit that he hadn't cared before. A tent, in the middle of winter! Idiotic Gryffindors! He longed to shout it aloud, to abduct points and order detentions – but forced himself to remain quiet as he needed to surprise the girl. If he wasn't mistaken, Potter was in no shape to stand up to him right now.

Snape approached the tent, his eyes carefully studying the surroundings as he did so. When he didn't spot anything of interest, he cast a swift warning charm and reached his hand to open the threshold of Potter's shelter. As quietly as a cat, Snape entered the tent. On the lower berth of the bunk bed right in front of him rested the Potter boy, his face sweaty and as pale as death, the infamous scar inflamed and another building on his cheek. Hermione Granger was frantically waving her wand over the boy, heavily sobbing. She clearly didn't hear the intruder. Snape nodded gratefully, thankful that he didn't have to fight her, and flicked his wand, silently casting Petrificus Totalus.

The girl fell back in the old, moth-eaten armchair standing next to Potter's bunk, her wand falling to the ground; her eyes widening in her petrified face as she recognized the older wizard nearing Harry's bed. "No!" She wanted to scream, to warn Harry, but found out she couldn't; her eyes horrified.

Snape looked her coldly up and down, satisfied deep down that she seemed unharmed, and looked around. Weasley was indeed nowhere in sight – so Phineas had been right. It was only the two of them now, Potter and Granger. He sincerely hoped that they guarded their shelter better when Potter wasn't lethally injured.

That reminded him to swiftly approach the bed the boy lay on. His eyes were still taking in the many bruises on Potter's body, the scratch on his face and the bleeding puncture marks left after Nagini's bite on Harry's forearm – strangely, in exactly the same place where Voldemort marked his followers with the Dark Mark – when his wand ran its first diagnostic charm over Potter's battered body. Bruises, mostly bruises, he wanted to sigh in relief, but there was still Nagini's venom running through the veins of the boy and while the snake clearly hadn't been ordered to kill, it couldn't very well hinder injecting the poison in the wound.

Snape was strongly reminded of the night when Dumbledore had pulled him out of his bed in the middle of the night right before Christmas two years ago. "Voldemort," the old man mouthed and Severus immediately stepped aside to let him into his dimly lit chambers; silently cursing Umbridge for watching even Dumbledore's fireplace. "He sent his snake to the Ministry. Arthur was bitten –“

"Nagini? I am afraid I still wasn't able to finish the antidote but she is not deadly per se as you know well..."

"Arthur was bitten really badly, Severus. He would have bled out if St. Mungo's didn't apply the thrice charmed bandages." That was bad, Snape knew. Slowly, he nodded. "I shall look at it immediately," he promised. "But if I find the cure, my name mustn't be mentioned." Dumbledore gave him an affirmative nod. "It won't, Severus." Once again, you will be spared the praise that rightfully belongs to you…

Snape bowed over the boy's figure and took a closer look at the puncture marks. This time they were small and the bleeding wouldn't really harm the boy for hours yet. It was, however, also too late to simply extract the venom from the wound and let the body deal with the wound itself. If not treated, Snape knew, the venom would harm internal organs and cause lasting damage. "Very well, Potter," he said, disgust plain in his voice, "you will have to endure my potions once again."

Snape stood and searched his pockets for a small vial. Unstoppering it, he forced the boy to open his mouth and drink the contents of the flask. Potter forcefully swallowed, then jerked up and coughed. Snape got hold on him and when the coughing fit ended, he eased the boy back on his pillows. For a while, Snape remained standing by the bed; then, when the boy's face started to turn from deadly pale to the somewhat more tolerable pale of the sick, he nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned to Miss Granger.

The girl was eyeing him from her body's imprisonment with wide eyes and disbelief written all over her weary face. "Miss Granger," he greeted politely and had to smirk over her swiftly altering expression. "I trust you have some Extract of Dittany to close the wound."

Her eyes told him she would have nodded if not petrified. "Good," he said, and once again turned to the boy. The diagnostic charm revealed the boy was building a fever, but that was to be expected. "Potter will be delirious for several hours," he informed the girl matter-of-factly, his eyes still on Lily's brat. "But he shall survive this latest adventure of his," he sneered, "without lasting harm."

"You, on the other hand," Snape turned to her startled face. "Would have failed my Potions NEWTs class if still at Hogwarts." Hermione's eyes, if at all possible, widened further. Why? She wanted to ask, for the time-being forgetting where she was and that the man in front of her was no longer her teacher but one of her enemies.

Snape smirked, getting exactly the reaction he expected from her. Some things will never change, he thought, suddenly feeling a fully unexpected desire to teach once again when this war was over. If it ever was over, he corrected himself, knowing full well that the expected saviour of their world could have easily died earlier that day. "Boomslang skin, Miss Granger," he said aloud, presenting her with his best annoyed glare reserved for the students who clearly didn't apply themselves while having the brains and abilities. "Can you tell me what are the dangers of its prolonged or continuous use?"

Hermione's eyes betrayed her shock. Snape knew what they were doing – and worse yet, he was right that she had completely forgotten the last line on Polyjuice Potion in the Most Potente Potions (a line that was already on the next page dedicated otherwise to the Confusing Draught). "Exactly," Snape nodded, spotting the look and being able to understand her thoughts.

His hand fished once again in his pocket and suddenly, two vials of a yellowish draught were presented to Hermione on his palm. "Miss Granger?" he offered her one of them.

Hermione's eyes uncertainly skipped from his outstretched hand to Harry's bunk and back. Her friend was moaning and was clearly caught in some kind of a nightmare but otherwise, he seemed much better – even the puncture marks had stopped bleeding. She looked at the man, painfully aware that they would have both been dead by now if he wanted them to and finally, slowly and unwillingly, she thought: "Yes."

Snape nodded and flicked his wand, freeing her head from the body bind. Hermione moved her neck to get rid of the stiffness she felt there and her eyes hanging on his face, she quietly said: "But the colour is off, Professor."

The man suppressed an urge to laugh. "I am well aware that your textbook suggested a slightly different tone of yellow, Miss Granger. Take it or let it be, I don't care." Not that you need to be aware of it, anyway.

She bit her lips, recalling the book Harry had used the previous year. Finally, she nodded and he freed her left hand while Accioing her wand to him. He handed her over the vial and she swallowed the liquid inside, dreading that she was mistaken after all…

ooooo