Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. The Harry Potter world and everything in it belongs to JK Rowling. I write this for the enjoyment with others and to spread awareness of the affects of CFS and depression. No money was made out of this, and no copyright infringement was intended.

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Chapter 2 - Actions and Their Consequences

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Hermione had a room to herself this year, as she was Head Girl. It looked a lot like the rest of the girls' dormitories, but was furnished for just one person. She had her own deep oak wardrobe in the corner, and a matching dresser with a mirror on top hugged the wall beside the door. Muggle pictures of her parents sat on the mantle over the fireplace in the opposite wall. A large window to the left looked out on the misty Quidditch fields, and opposite that an oaken four-poster bed rested near the corner, dressed in red and white linens and draped with gold-trimmed red curtains. A small table sat on one side of the bed, and a chair on the other.

Hermione was in her bed reading her Charms textbook, when there was a knock on the door. "Come in." As soon as she said it, the door opened to admit Harry and Ron.

"Hi, Hermione. We came to see how you are doing?" Harry said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"And I brought you these," Ron added, giving her one of the packets of Chocolate Frogs from the last Hogsmade trip, then sat on the chair next to the bed.

"Hello guys. Thanks for the sweets, Ron-- I'll be ok. Just the flu."

"Well, we hope you got the sense to stay out of class tomorrow. Especially since we have Potions last thing," Harry warned.

"Yea, Professor Snape was really pissed about that."

"Don't worry guys, I've been ordered to stay in my room and not even go to the library, or Madame Pomfrey's going to lock me in the hospital wing. I can't believe all the work I'm going to miss... I'll never catch up."

"Poor Mione. How're you going to survive without going to class or getting any work?" Ron teased.

Hermione threw a pillow at Ron, hitting him square on the face. "Not funny, Ron."

"Well, newsflash Hermione, you're already caught up. You have every textbook and practically every book in the library memorized. You're not going to get that far behind in a few days," he insisted.

"Besides, we'll let you know what homework you missed," Harry offered before she could throw another pillow at Ron.

"Thank you, Harry."

"Yea, but take a break," Ron told her, picking up her Charms textbook.

"Ron! Give that back!" Hermione shouted at Ron and tried to snatch it from him. Unfortunately Ron had grown up a lot since their first year-- he was now 6 feet tall, and Hermione nearly fit under his chin. "Ron!"

"Ron, give her the book back," Harry sighed.

"What? She should be resting. Not going to do much of that reading through this."

Hermione jumped up, managed to grab the book off Ron and made a run for it out the door.

"Now look what you've done, Ron!"

"How was I to know she wasn't going to take a joke?"

"She's Hermione, and that was a book. That's how. Besides, she has the flu-- she's probably not thinking rationally."

"Should we go after her?"

"Yes, come on." The two boys ran out to look for her, but it was too late. She was nowhere in sight. "Ok Ron, you check the library. I'll look in Moaning Myrtle's toilets. If we don't find her there, keep looking, and meet back in the common room after a few hours."

Ron nodded and headed toward the library.

****

Hermione ran out of the portrait hole crying. She had no real reason to do so, but couldn't seem to help herself. Deciding that she needed some air, she headed out of the castle into the snow and sat beside the lake, shivering. She hadn't thought or had time to dress in anything warmer than a nightshirt and a pair of pajama bottoms.

After a while she noticed it was getting dark. Not sure how long she had been there, Hermione tried to get up, but the coldness of the air around her enveloped her and she couldn't move. She looked around for help, and not seeing any, reached for her wand, but then realized she had left it behind her.

Hermione tried to call out for help, but for the second time that day nothing would come out. She felt that heavy feeling come over her and fell forward into the snow, and gradually lost consciousness.

****

Professor Severus Snape was fuming after the incident with Miss Granger that morning in class. She had passed out before he had time to take points off for coming to class sick, and after all, most of the fun in taking points off was to see the reaction of the reciprocate. He was not only mad about the fact that she had been sick over him, but he had also had to take her all the way to the hospital wing, covered in vomit, and then Madame Pomfery had the nerve to point out that he smelled rather more vile than usual. So to top things off, he had had to go back to his chambers and clean up, even being forced to shampoo his hair, before returning to his class. So consequently he had been in a foul mood all day, taking off points for as much as sneezing in class and barely enduring compliments about his hair from other members of the faculty.

Feeling too mad to continue marking papers and not tired enough to go to sleep (despite the lateness of the hour), he decided to get some fresh air. He headed out of his office and then out of the castle.

****

Harry and Ron were now officially worried about Hermione. It was past curfew and Hermione had not come back yet, nor had they found her. Harry and Ron had met back in the common room a while ago and decided to wait to see if she would show up. It had been anything from five minutes to three hours-- they couldn't tell-- and she still hadn't shown up.

"Harry, I think it's time we went and looked for her again. What if Filch-- or worse-- Snape catches her?"

Harry looked at his watch and saw it was eleven p.m. "I have to agree, Ron. Wait here-- I'll go get the map and the invisibility cloak." Harry ran up the stairs and returned with the items. Then the two boys left through the portrait hole to go find Hermione.

****

Severus was walking by the lake when he tripped over something heavy he hadn't seen in the dark. Picking himself up, and brushing the snow off his face and robes, he turned around to see what it was he had tripped on. A look of horror briefly crossed his face when he realized he had stumbled over the body of a young woman. Getting out his wand and muttering a terse lumos he saw it was Hermione Granger. He quickly checked for a pulse and let out a long sigh of relief when he found one. Granted it was very weak, but it was a pulse.

She was very pale, and obviously suffering from the effects of hypothermia. Snape took off his cloak and wrapped it around the girl, then picked her up carefully (he had a thing against Mobiliarcorpus after the second Shrieking Shack incident) and carried her off to the hospital wing for a second time that day.

****

Harry and Ron were watching two dots on the map. One that was labelled Hermione Granger, and the other-- Severus Snape. They were beside each other and heading towards what looked like the common room.

"Looks like Snape caught her."

"Well Harry, if Snape has her and they're headed this direction, he's got to be taking her back and I don't want him to catch us as well."

"Yeah, you're right. Better head back. She should be back soon."

The two boys made their way back to the common room and deactivated the map once they got inside. But if they had kept the map active they would have seen Snape and Hermione taking a sharp turn before they got there, making their way to the hospital wing.

****

Snape ran into the hospital wing as fast as he could, where a worried-looking Poppy Pomfery met him. "What happened, Severus?" she demanded, gesturing for him to put the bundled girl in his arms onto the nearest bed.

"I don't know. I found her outside in the cold, unconscious. I have no idea how long she was there or why." Severus tried to keep the worry out of his voice as best as he could. "She was only wearing a nightshirt and pajama bottoms when I found her."

"Silly girl. She shouldn't have been out there and definitely should have dressed warmer, sick or not," Poppy scolded to no one in particular. She got out her wand and examined Hermione's vital readings. "Well, looks like she's suffering from hypothermia, and she's taken pneumonia." Poppy said. She cast a Warming charms over Hermione and a few other spells to stabilize her condition, then covered her in several blankets, leaving her to wake up naturally. "She will be ok, Severus. Go get some rest, it's been a long day for you."

Not wanting to argue, he left, deciding to come back and check on her in the morning.

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A/N: See wouldn't have happened if she stayed in the hospital wing. Big thank you to those of you that reviewed :) I live for feedback. So go ahead, and press that button, it don't bite :)

Big thank you again to my wonderful beta I only know as A, who very kindly takes the time to beta my story for me. No easy task too, so thank you ten thousand times over, because I know you are so busy at the moment with school.

Now you read it, you can make my day a lot brighter by pressing this button

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* P.S. Any other writers are welcome to copy and paste my arrow