He was already moving before his brain caught up to what was happening. Miss Dagworth-Granger was falling, the frost on her robes cracking away and she crumpled and the silver in her eyes receded as she passed out.

  She hit the ptform hard, luckily, the Hogwarts wards had triggered and cushioned her blow, he was by her side in an instant checking her over. Cold to the touch, cmmy, signs of severe magical exhaustion, but he had felt her magic snap back after she cancelled his spells, so it couldn't be that, you can't have magic and be exhausted.

  "Ennervate".

  Nothing.

  "Ennervate!"

  Still nothing.

  He scooped her into his arms, turned for the Great Hall’s doors, and started running. He was about to spell them open when they parted for him. He continued moving swiftly, noticing every strange way the castle seemed to move to aid his journey, suits or armor moving obstacles out of the way, doors smming open for him, the stairs, bending to help him skip floors. Never before had he seen or heard of Hogwarts reacting like this. Who the bloody hell was this girl?

  The doors to the hospital wing were already open for him, he bellowed as he approached "Poppy, quickly!" as he raced into the hospital wing and pced her on a gurney.

  Pomfrey was already moving before he had finished speaking, her wand fshing over the girl in rapid, precise motions. The moment the first diagnostic spell settled over Hermione, her lips thinned. "She's ice cold," she muttered, barely above a whisper, as if speaking it aloud would confirm the severity of what she was seeing. Another wave of her wand, a second charm rippling across Hermione’s skin, and Pomfrey’s expression turned grim. "Her magic is—unstable. It’s… recoiling from external contact."

  Poppy’s wand was still moving a mile a minute as she muttered, "She’s not an Obscurial. That’s the only time I’ve seen magic pull in on itself like this. But she doesn’t show the signs." She continued, grabbing heating bnkets to raise Hermione’s body temperature.

  All the while, Snape stood there, still feeling her magic. It lingered beneath her skin, seething with rage—so much rage. That was what had unnerved him during their duel. He had felt it in the moment she said "Stop." Not in her words, but in her magic itself as it reached out—then snapped back.

  What the bloody hell had this girl done.

  Poppy didn’t look up from her work, yering diagnostic spells one after another. "If I didn't know any better, I’d say her magic was... resisting treatment. it’s behaving like a wounded animal." She exhaled sharply, frustration cing her tone.

  A few minutes of silence settled between them as Poppy carried on her diagnostics.

  "Well, I think I know what the issue and why it seemed so simir to an Obscurial, but I must admit, I've never seen this, only read about it in medical texts from the Americas". She moved back to her cart and moved it away "Nothing for us to do, until she rexes, you said you 'felt' her magic snap back? What triggered that?"

  "We were duelling, she pushed me, I could no longer hold back and test her, she is already more capable than any of the duellers within the order, frightening when you consider her age and her background suggesting no formal training." he continued despite the look absolute disbelief on Poppy's face "But I made a mistake, in my efforts to push back against her magic, I failed to see she had stopped moving and she was about to be badly injured by my spells, but then ..."

  Snape exhaled sharply, his fingers curling around the seat he had taken, "Then she spoke, I thought it was a spell at first, but all she said was 'Stop' and my spells froze in pce and then fizzled out of existence. I've never seen magic like it."

  Poppy just stared at him “I must be going senile in my old age. Did you just say a thirteen-year-old pushed you to the point you had to fight seriously?”

  "I did at first, then she started casting Grand Magic! Even I have never managed to call upon those magics! Yes I panicked. I've never seen talent like it!" He snapped "It was like I was duelling him, she literally had a magical aura, an aura! the magic literally crackled off of her, of course I couldn't hold back."

  Silence, deafening silence followed that statement.

  The pair sat in companionable silence as they kept vigil over this slip of a girl, this heavy weight in magic. The Duality of conflicting nature not lost on either party.

  It was some time ter in the night when Dumbledore entered the wing, a solemn look as he gazed upon the unconscious form on the bed. "How is she?"

  Poppy looked up from her medical spells that were still collecting bio-metric data "Still unconscious, her magic is combative to any external attempts to assist her, to the point, it attacks the spells themselves."

  The look on Dumbledore’s face fell and paled as he heard those words, his memory casting back to Credence, a Dumbledore who turned Obscurial. Then it sharply changed to that of pure unadulterated hatred "Are you telling me..." he struggled to get the words out as his grandfatherly persona shattered under his fury, his magic rolling around him "that Miss Granger, is being abused to become an obscurial?" his words had lost all warmth and were filled with deadly promise.

  Snape suffering under the effects of two heavy magical auras in one night shuddered as he stood to address Dumbledore's question, with a small amount of fear, The Dark Lord had feared Dumbledore for good reason. "No, this is not the same as being an Obscurial, but her magic is behaving very simirly, it seems to be fighting something internally."

  Dumbledore visibly calmed as he heard those words, his magic calming as he got himself back under control, it had been some time since he had been Albus Dumbledore, the defeater of Grindelwald, he had sworn never to take up the wand for battle unless in defence of innocents, but for his students, there was no line he would not cross.

  "What caused this then?" he asked

  Snape recounted what had occurred during their duel.

  "She managed to call upon Grand Magic?" Dumbledore asked

  Snape nodded "Yes, and it would have ended me had she managed to finish gathering the magic, I don't think she realised how close she was to breaking my Protego Diabolica."

  Dumbledore stood before them seeming lost in thought stroking his beard as he considered the duel "What words did she use when she called upon these higher magics?"

  Snape closed his eyes, recalling the duel with his Occlumency and then he spoke "Per potentiam Fatae Hiemalis, incanto te, spiritus gcies, ut mille acutis iciclis super terram descendant, those were words, I barely caught them"

  Headmaster Dumbledore was momentarily surprised "She called upon Ice, by the power of the Fae? She used their power? Are you certain?"

  Snape could see Dumbledore pale as he asked the question "Yes, however during the duel, I could not understand the words, they were distorted."

  Dumbledore didn't respond initially, contempting the words he had heard, but as he stared at miss Dagworth-Granger, he didn't see her, he didn't see Credence, he saw his little sister, Arianna, and how he failed her. Never again.

  "Cancel all her csses, she is now my apprentice." he said as he turned and left the room, he would need to prepare her lessons.