Chapter Text
The first thing I consciously recognized was pain. My head hurt so bad I thought someone must have been pounding on it with a hammer.
The next thing I noticed was the smell. It was the same astringent, sterile smell present in every medical facility the world over.
After that, when my brain really started processing things properly, I knew something was very wrong. It would be a long time before I realized just how wrong, and by then, it was almost cruel for life to work itself out.
As I became conscious of the pain in my head I groaned and screwed up my eyes. Somewhere I could hear movement and a door, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Though I felt like I was moving through molasses, I eventually managed to raise a hand to my head and massage it a bit before I was brave enough to open my eyes.
Nothing. Blackness.
At first I just thought the lights were off, but no matter what, there is always some kind of ambient light, some feeling that I should be seeing an object. This was not the case.
I felt my face to ensure my eyes were in fact open, then waved my hand in front of my face.
Nothing.
I reached over to my side, sure there must be a nightstand, or possibly a call button as the smell indicated some sort of medical facility. The table was there, but there was no light source apparent.
Some part of my brain registered that I must be in denial, or possibly even shock, but another, more insistent part, wanted to wait; wanted to call for help; anything to prove wrong what my senses were screaming at me: I was blind.
After what could have been hours or just a few minutes, I heard a scraping off to my right, which I assumed to be the door. The soft tapping of the footsteps that accompanied the door opening stopped, presumably upon seeing me awake. My vision didn’t change.
“Hello?” I croaked. Who knew when the last time I used my voice was? I attempted to clear it lightly, then asked, “Who’s there?” While slightly stronger, my voice was still raspy. The person at the door slowly approached my bed, bringing a new scent with them. It was a male scent, certainly, but also vaguely familiar, full of sort of spicy, woodsy aromas.
It was intoxicating.
“Would you like some water?” His voice… I was sure I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t place it. The deep, lilting tones made me want to melt into the bed.
“Please?” was all I managed to croak out. I scooted up the bed a little before lifting my hand, clearly waiting for the glass to be placed into it instead of trying to reach for a cup I couldn’t see. The mystery gentleman held it steady as I shakily managed to bring the cup to my lips without spilling it all over me. Once I’d finished, I tried again to figure out what was going on.
“What’s happened? Where am I?” Infuriatingly, instead of answering my question, he again answered with a question of his own.
“What do you remember?” he said, gently. I frowned and tried to think. The continued pounding in my head did not help at all. After a moment I shook my head.
“That’s just it. I don’t remember anything. I know things, I can deduce some things, but I don’t remember anything.” He was silent a moment before phrasing another question, one that had my heart pounding almost as hard as the hammer in my skull.
“By ‘anything,’ do you mean you don’t remember the events that brought you here, or do you mean you don’t have any memory?”
“I-,“ I paused, trying to figure out the best way to phrase this. “I know things. I know that I must have a head injury because of how much it’s pounding, and the fact that I’m blind, but seem to instinctively know what things look like. That means I wasn’t always sightless.” My strange companion seemed to start at that revelation, but kept silent. “I don’t actually have any memory of an injury, nor do I know how I know what I’ve just described. Where I came by the knowledge, that is. I know I’m in a hospital, or something similar because of the smell, but I don’t have memory of ever being in one. I know you’re male, probably tall, and I recognize both your scent and your voice, but I can’t recall how I know them; can’t recall your face; nor your name.” I paused again and took a deep breath. “I don’t even remember my own name. I can tell you things, clearly I can speak, eat, deduce, but whatever caused that head injury, caused some rather serious amnesia. I don’t even know how I know that memory loss is called amnesia!” I threw up my arms as much as I could in my weakened stated before letting them and my head fall back onto the bed.
My companion was quiet for some time. I imagined he was processing everything I’d just told him. For some inexplicable reason—probably the same I recognized his scent and voice—I knew he had a fierce scowl on his face.
“I think it best to retrieve a healer before I answer your questions. It would be best to better understand your memory loss and the chances of its return before we attempt to fill in the void, as it were. The rustle of clothing indicated his movement.
“Will you at least tell me my name? And yours, for that matter?”
“You are Hermione Granger, and I, am Severus Snape.” I nodded my thanks, not even sure I was looking at him, then heard the tapping of his boots as he headed for the door.
I don’t remember anything.
The words hung like a death knell in my head, turning round and round in circles. She knew plenty of things, but my beautiful, brilliant, witch, had no true memory.
“Healer Sampson, she is awake.” The young woman behind the desk’s eyes widened comically before she jumped out of her seat. I grabbed her arm before she could go charging down to Hermione’s room.
“Before you go dashing off down the hall, you should know, she has no soft memories—memories of events or actions, that is. She didn’t even know her own name, until I told her.” The woman gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “She knows about things, the fact she’s in a hospital, that she has a head injury—all this she figured out herself, but she has no memory of the events that brought her here, or how she came by any knowledge she has.”
“I must see her immediately and call a specialist from the Janus-Thikey ward. They know more about memory loss than anyone else in the world.” I nodded and released the young witch’s arm, then followed her back to Hermione’s room, a slow pain overtaking my heart. The sickening realization that my witch might never be coming back was slowly pulling itself out of the box I had firmly locked it in since they told me she might never wake up. Seeing her eyes open when I returned to her room earlier had made hope well in my chest much stronger that I had thought it would, and apparently stronger that it should have.
Waking up didn’t mean she was going to be alright.