"There must be something..." Hermione spoke into the mattress beneath her father's hand. She'd taken to the opposite side, leaving her mother to rest. She hadn't tried to wake her but she had done what she could to make her comfortable; taking a spare blanket from the room's closet and covering her up before reclining the chair to allow her to rest more deeply. Her heart felt marginally calmer knowing that her mother would know who she was; she was certain she'd seen a small spark of recognition in her eyes before they'd rolled closed.

Now sitting down on a small doctors chair, she rested her forehead against the back of her father's bruised hand. Her own held it close, willing the connection between them to do something. She wanted to do something, anything to help him. Her fingers lightly smoothed over his wedding band and her brain ticked unexpectedly back to what Severus had said to the nurse. She lifted her head from the mattress, sniffling heavily, her face red from her tears.

"Husband huh?" Her mouth formed an odd grin, like a contorted drama and comedy mask, it twisted between light humor and unfathomable grief. She could feel her mind slowly snapping, like the threads breaking on a taut rope.

Severus turned towards her when she spoke, his foot knocking over her bag that she'd carelessly left on the floor. He didn't immediately see the clear vial that rolled out but his ears did pick up the distinct sound. Presently, he was looking through her father's chart trying to understand what exactly had happened to him. Every attempt he'd made to run a magical diagnostic had resulted in mixed unintelligible readings. The machines keeping him alive—he theorized—were interfering with his magic. He tilted his head a little when she started to chuckle, his brow furrowing deeper when that small bit of humor quickly melted into another round of tears. He was just about to console her when her anger hit him full force like a lory.

"What good is all this magic if I can't even save someone I love!" Hermione had pulled her wand free when she came to her feet. Severus had warned her not to attempt any magic on her father while he was in this state but she didn't care any longer. She had to do something. She'd just spent the last hour listening to Severus' excuses for why nothing magical should be attempted but she didn't want to believe him. She knew spells to heal the bones, repair cuts and bruises, why couldn't she use them now?!

"Expelliamus." Severus caught her wand in his hand with a sharp snap, her helpless rage turning onto him. "Hermione-"

"No! I don't w-ant to hear it!" Hermione was heaving now, caught somewhere between sadness and anger, the ambivalence fighting for control over her face, breaking her voice, "Us? Them? They made me. I am them." Hermione came around the edge of the bed about to give him another ear full that he most certainly didn't deserve when her foot knocked into the potion that had fallen free from her bag, sending it rolling across the floor and under one of the counters along the wall. Hermione gave it only a cursory glance, her mind in too many directions to possibly process the implications.

Severus met her halfway, having tucked her wand hastily into the inner pocket of his jacket before she had a chance to retrieve it, "Hermione." His voice was firm but kind. He caught her by the arms with a bit more force than he normally would have and grunted when her fist hit his chest with impressive force. Just like the night, she had punched him square in the nose; she rained down all her anger and frustration. Though this time her hits became more desperate than actual intent on doing damage. He held her still, letting her release what she couldn't find the words to express.

When her lashes turned to searching hands, desperately pulling at his still partially open jacket, he lowered his head down to try and meet her eyes, "This isn't about that. He's in a coma, even the magical world can do nothing for that..."

"But you-you can.. read minds... you-you..."

"I cannot read a mind that isn't active..." He had already told her this—on numerous occasions, "Even if we healed his body, there is no guarantee that his mind would..." He didn't want to say it, he couldn't say it. From the doctor reports he had been able to read and from what he could understand, her father wasn't just in a coma. They believed he was brain dead. The only thing keeping him 'alive' were the various machines attached to his body.

Hermione let out a heartbreaking sob before thumping her forehead down onto his chest. She rocked her head over his sternum before resting her cheek against his heart, "We have to do something..."

"We will..." Severus released her arms to hold the back of her head and shoulders. He took a deep breath, the fatigue of the last two days making his entire body ache in places he hadn't even known possible. When he turned his head to rest his chin, his eyes caught sight of the vial just barely sticking out from under the counter. A small voice, his mother's voice, echoed into the back of his mind.

He had been only four or five at the time, it had been after he'd returned home from the hospital. His mother had fixed him up, nearly as good as new, with potions and magic. She had apologized for what his father had done but it wasn't her apology that struck him now; it was her reply as to why his father hated him so much: There are no mistakes in life, everything happens for a reason.

Severus' brain suddenly kicked into gear. Everything in his life flashing by in quick succession. The information he'd gathered recently, filling in holes where his keen logic hadn't been able to sate his emotional state. Faster and faster it went, images, words, actions, until finally, it ground to a halt-with a revelation.

"I should be dead..."

"Wh-what?" Hermione was shocked by his whisper, her head tilting back. She tried to jump onto the track with him but found herself just completely bewildered. When he released her to go over to the counter she felt her heart beating just a bit faster. It wasn't regret on his brow, it was a solution. "Severus?"

He groaned softly as he bent down slightly to call the potion out from out of the counter, "I should be dead." He repeated his words stronger now turning the vial in his hand, "I fell well over eight stories onto rubble and stone."

"They said you protected yourself..." Hermione was still trying to follow.

"I didn't. I couldn't. My body was falling too fast." He didn't even remember hitting the ground, he was sure he was knocked unconscious well before. Severus moved closer to the window trying to see through the bottle in his hand.

"But-"

"They lied." His voice was the end of the discussion, his tone clipped and sharp. Severus lifted the vial up, squinting his eyes. Another shift of the vial made his blood run hot and cold simultaneously. His eyes tracked the faintest bit of golden dust that just barely caught in the light of the sun. He shook his head ever so slightly in disbelief, it couldn't have been what he believed it to be. He now was sure he knew just exactly what his ancestors had hidden away in the castle. He was certain.

"Severus...?"

"We can use this..." He turned towards her slowly, closing his hand around the vial.

"A potion?" A small sniffle, her voice raised cautiously with hope.

"Yes." Severus turned his eyes to the various tubes running all over her father's body. He just had to find a safe way to get it inside him.

Hermione wrapped her arms tight around her waist itching to do something, anything. She wasn't the one to sit idle while someone else figured out the puzzle, she needed to be useful, "What do we need to do?"

"I need a safe way to get this into him," Severus was wary of touching anything, everything looked much too important to be moved improperly.

Hermione took a slow breath and came to the bed. Her eyes narrowed as she looked between the machines and where they connected on her father's still form. Her hand ran down his arm gently turning his hand to try and find an IV but found none, she glanced back up to the blood that was being replaced before following the tube down. Carefully, she moved his hospital gown aside noticing that they were running it straight into his heart.

"This... this goes straight into his heart, can you use this?" Hermione was filled with new hope, her eyes turning up to Severus' to light the flame.

"Yes, but we should repair what we can first, there isn't much left." Severus reached into his coat very slowly pulling out her wand. He gave her a small look before offering it back to her, "Mend the bones, I'll work on his internal injuries."

"Okay...okay." Hermione took a deep breath trying to ignore the massive contradictory words that had just came from his mouth. She opened and closed her hands for a moment to still her nerves before moving towards the middle of the bed. Closing her eyes for a long moment to clear her thoughts, before she softly whispered the spell.

They worked in tandem, pausing every so often to look at the monitors. Thus far, nothing had changed aside from his blood oxygen levels, which were improving. Severus kept his eyes moving between the machines and the small diagnostic spells he was able to cast well enough to get an idea of where to work. He'd just repaired his swollen kidney when he felt heavy anti-apparation wards falling down completely around the hospital.

"That was fast." Severus snarled slightly before completing his last spell.

"What was fast?" Hermione lifted her wand from her father's hip that was now mended and back into place.

"The Australians have tighter restrictions when it comes to magic and muggles." Severus picking up the vial he'd set on the bed, "We have very little time. I need you to hold his jaw for me." Severus pulled the stopper off moving closer to her father's head. He had hoped to use the tube to his heart but there was little time to properly transfigure the needle he would need.

Hermione set her wand down on the bed hurrying up to do as he asked, her heart thumping a bit quicker. "What are they going to do?"

"I don't know, but I don't think either of us will be able to plead our case if we resist." As much as Severus wanted to fight for their right to be there and do what they were doing, he knew he couldn't do any of that if he struck the officers down, though they were more than capable.

"Our case?"

"Just hold his head, come on." Severus leaned closer pressing his wand into the crystal glass pulling out a thin stream, "Can you part his lips?"

Hermione pursed her own trying to understand what was going to happen, her brain only able to focus on one task at a time. She reached over and very lightly thumbed open his dry cracked bottom lip.

Severus glanced up at the heart monitor briefly before slowly calling a small stream of the potion through his teeth. This had to work. This had to be why they'd gone through all they'd gone through in the past few days. Why Galia had convinced Hermione it had to be that weekend. Why Parvapro had chosen to startle Hermione instead of just making her presence known. Why they had fallen down into the catacombs instead of being rescued by Librous who had surely been around. There was no question in Severus' mind that it had been the elf who he'd seen that day, the shadow that had lured him away from Hermione. Everything happened for a reason, like a well-scripted play. He had to take the chance that this too: his anger at Galia, staying away to seek answers and his unquestioning of Parvapro's words that had sent him home, was something more than what it appeared.

He'd managed just three full drops when the door to the room came open, turning Hermione's head and releasing her hold. He hissed when the potion slipped down her father's now closed lips but he took a second to watch the dry and cracked skin heal perfectly.

"Wands where we can see them."

"It's on the bed." Hermione turned her eyes to the heart monitor that was starting to beep faster, her own heart almost matching its rising tempo, "Please, I just want to help my Dad..." She raised her hands up slowly, palms out, with every bit of strength left in her calm. They couldn't take her now, not now. Her father needed her, she needed to be by his side. She looked to Severus from the corner of her eye and heard his voice silently inside her mind urging her to remain calm.

"Got some poms here, yeah?" The two officers came further into the room, one man, one woman each with a look that didn't appear at all sympathetic to her cause. "Is that so?" The man came closer trying to see what was in Severus' hand. "Got any ID on ya?"

"In my bag..." "Hermione sniffled and pointed towards the end of the bed, though her ears were more tuned into the slowly increasing beep of the monitor just behind her.

"Go ahead, Casey." The male officer kept his wand pointed at Severus who was standing still with his hands near his chest. He'd left his wand on the bed as well but anyone who knew him would have known he wasn't truly disarmed. He kept his jaw up, as he was at least half a head taller than the both of them, hoping to use his stance as a deterrent for stupidity.

Casey, the female officer, bent down slowly pulling Hermione's bag from the floor and onto the bed. She was careful of the man therein but her brow deepened when she dipped her hand inside instantly feeling the extension charm, "Extension charm," Casey gave her a once over before digging a bit deeper trying to find something resembling a wallet. "How old are you?"

"Twenty?" Hermione didn't understand the question but she didn't care, her head turned just a bit when the screen monitoring her father's breaths started to let out a soft high pitched noise that certainly didn't sound like it was good.

"Hmph, wouldn't have guessed that. How about you?"

"Obviously over your statue of magical limitations." Severus tried to keep himself civil but even he could tell that neither of them had half a brain between them or they would have realized the man on the bed was not doing well.

Casey pulled out what she felt to be a name badge and turned it in her hand, "Hermione Granger, Department of Magical Records and Ancestry."

"That's a nice name," The man glanced at the badge when his partner held it towards him before tucking the ID into her pocket. "How about yours?"

"Severus."

"That come in two parts or do I have to pay extra for the sequel?"

Severus snarled but swallowed down his retort, his hand shifting slightly. The small movement made the man before him rather twitchy and he forced his fatigued body to go still again. He watched the female officer move closer to Hermione from the corner of his eye. He had to say something to keep them placated. He couldn't let them take her away from her father. He didn't know how famous his name was, so opting for the safe route; he lied, "Prince."

"What do you have in your hand there Mr. Prince?"

Severus' brows furrowed deeply when the man raised his wand towards him, "We're not resisting."

"Open, your hand." The officer kept his wand pointed straight at him, his bright blue eyes narrowed and suspicious.

"Dad...?" Hermione turned her tear-filled eyes towards the monitor that was starting to let out more than just the rapid beat of a heart. Warning lights filled the room, going from machine to machine. The female officer who'd come around the bed to take her wand also glanced up at the noise.

Severus turned his glare towards the man in front of him before closing his eyes slowly, there was nothing more he could do. Obviously, the potion wasn't doing the man any favors. He might have very well killed off any chance her father had had at a recovery. He had been so sure he'd known what was in the vial. He'd never questioned himself. Still so, he couldn't allow anyone else to get ahold of it. If he was right, it could be very disastrous, if he was wrong, it was just a mess on the floor. When his eyes opened a second later, so did his hand. The vial dropping down to the floor side by side with his heart. He had failed her.

Hermione's desperate cry filled the room as her father's body gave a hard lurch. His chest stuttering as though pushing against the ventilator. Everything felt as though it were happening in slow motion. Before the vial Severus had released even crashed to the floor, the female officer had Hermione's arms pulled back behind her holding her away from her father and her wand. Hermione struggled against her hold trying to reach him before tight cuffs kept her wrists in place.

By the time the vial shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, Severus found himself bound and on his knees. The glass from the vial digging painfully into the bone. His next breath felt like a waking nightmare.

"Dad!" Hermione's desperate heart-shattering scream echoed painfully into all those present.

The last either of them heard, was the long slow beep of a heart that had stopped.