Always For You. [Snape Romance] [Harry Potter]

Arc 1: Chapter 9: Sleeping Snow

Arc 1: Immaterial Bonds
Chapter 9: Sleeping Snow

My eyes slowly began to open. My whole body felt heavy and sluggish like a massive weight had been placed directly on my chest. Why did everything hurt so much...? My mind was so hazy... 

The room around me was bright, a little cold and well ventilated. Several white beds laid evenly against both sides of the walls with a walkway down the centre. To one end were a set of double doors which must have been the entrance. To the other end was a much smaller door in comparison which seemed to go into, presumably, some sort of office. 

I rubbed my eyes and my vision slowly began to adjust further. I was laying in one of the beds near the back side of the room. My clothes had been changed into a sort of hospital gown or pyjama substitute and the blood on my hands had been wiped away. The fresh scars bore into my palms and the dorsal side. They had stopped hurting but it was disheartening to look and be reminded of the suffering I endured.

The smaller of the two doors opened and a woman dressed in white nurse clothes came from inside the room. Her blue eyes lit up when she noticed that I was awake.

"Oh good, you're awake now. I'm Madam Pomfrey, the matron here." she beamed as she placed the back of her hand against my head to check my temperature. "How do you feel?"

I felt exhausted but not... bad. The more I considered my health, the more I felt a strange light hidden inside of me. It began to make the fatigue fade away slowly. 

"I feel alright, thank you. Forgive me, what time is it?" I asked, looking around for a clock but failing to see one.

"Breakfast is about to start. If you feel well enough, I may dismiss you so you may go but only if you're absolutely sure you're strong enough." she replied with a raised eyebrow. That trick must work wonders on convincing students who were being brave to go back to their beds.

"Yes, I do think so." I replied and stepped behind one of the screens to get dressed into some clean clothes that had been left nearby. I don't recall bringing any spare clothes with me so someone must have gotten them for me...

"That's a relief for me then. Speaking of, you must reprimand that Severus Snape for how he stormed in here! Normally, he'd use some sort of Levitation Charm to bring any unconscious students to the Hospital Wing but he was carrying you in his arms like some sort of baby! I had to almost pry you from him! Good thing nobody else was here or you'd have made a scene!" she rambled on.

My cheeks immediately flushed at the realisation that, as well as Madam Pomfrey, other students or professors likely saw Snape carrying me... 

"Ahh, I'll be sure to speak quite firmly to him next I see him..." I replied bashfully and left the room before she could tell me any more embarrassing details.

*****

The doors of the Great Hall were closed before me but they could not stop the magnitude of voices coming from within. They must have started already... I took a deep gulp and pressed open the doors. 

The noises came to a still as hundreds of faces all turned towards me. I was not what they were expecting. The silence was deafening as everyone mutually contemplated what was occurring. The one to break the silence came soon as a young Gryffindor I remember helping in Sprout's Herbology class rose from their chair and pointed straight at me.

"It's Miss Juniper! She's back!" he cried and the hall erupted with cheers and applause. Had these not been the people I had been missing with every fibre of my being... it would have made me shrivel up. But seeing and hearing so many people welcome me back gave me the pride to move on from the trauma I had to conceal from them all.