Veiled Mystery

Chapter 14

Severus spent a couple of difficult days in St Mungo's to mend his right broken shoulder blade, lacerated deltoid muscle and dislocated shoulder. The convalescence was obviously difficult for Severus due to the extent of his injury but the staff who attended him had also suffered.

By Thursday morning Severus was chomping at the bit to get out of the hospital. Hermione flooed in to accompany him home and could hear Severus bellowing from down the hall,

"I am a Potions Master and therefore perfectly capable of managing my own medications. Why in Merlin's name do I repeatedly end up here subjected to dunderheads."

A mediwitch burst through his door, back into the hallway shaking her head and rolling her eyes,

"Bloody stubborn man!"

Hermione smiled and shook her head as she entered his room. Severus was sitting on the side of the bed long legs dangling bare in a too short flimsy hospital gown and staring through enquiring eyes,

"I hope you brought trousers. These - these people tossed my clothes claiming they were shredded or too blood-stained to salvage. That was an Armani suit and the shirt was Hugo Boss. Bloody cheek."

Severus remembered after Voldemort's defeat, and prior to his trial before the Wizengamot, when the "carers" at St. Mungo's cared very little about his injuries and didn't bother to hide the disdain on their faces when they had to touch him while changing his bandages. He had been treated like a mange-ridden animal infested with lice. He was left to lay there in his blood-soaked shirt and trousers not to mention the lack of any kind of loo assistance.

Was it any wonder he resented everything about St. Mungo's?

He hadn't gone into any detail regarding his ill-treatment by the medi-staff with Hermione. This was one of the many deeper layers to him that were too painful and perhaps too overwhelming to reveal all at once. He didn't want to scare her away. It was just something else Severus had endured and survived in his life and had filed away under the "Life isn't fair" descriptor.

Hermione snickered at the reappearance of the old Severus who seemed to show up when the occasion truly warranted.

She let her mind drift back a few days trying to picture the suit the now sartorial Severus was so upset about losing. Hermione could see him standing tall and slender in his outer office dressed in a sophisticatedly bespoke black suit with a charcoal gray shirt. Yes, it was a nice suit. She smiled.

Hermione stamped her feet together and in a military cadence presented the bundle she held in her arms,

"Sir, Yes Sir, clothes and toiletries as requested, Sir."

She giggled. Severus frowned. She kissed him.

"Sev, it's only been two days since you were injured and these good people are here to help you recover. Now stop acting like snarly old Professor Snape and change so we can get out of their hair."

"Out of their hair? Indeed",

Severus fussed as he grabbed his clothes and headed for the loo.

Hermione snickered and shook her head. She thought Severus had a terrific sense of humour, albeit very dry, and he was never funnier than when motivated by indignation.

Sitting down in the chair next to the hospital bed Hermione picked up the Daily Prophet from the bedstand. She cringed at the photo of Antonin Dolohov gnashing his yellow teeth at her from the front page.

After Harry and Ron had taken charge of him at the park and transported him back to the Ministry Dolohov was sent to Azkaban to await trial. Hermione read the beginning of the article, as she had at home that morning, feeling the need for confirmation of what she had read,