Chapter 23

A/N: This is the promised chapter you've been waiting for. Things are not going to turn out as planned by the Order. Hearts will be broken, futures will be uncertain. Thanks as always to luvsev and WriterMerrin for working so hard with me! Also, thanks to all of you who read and review!

***

Severus came to Gryffindor tower to tell them that it was safe to go freely about the castle again. He spoke with Hermione and Remus for a while and told them about the Dark Lord's visit with Dumbledore.

"It didn't go as he had hoped," he replied. He stared at Remus, studying him harshly. "I do not approve of discussing matters in front of the werewolf!"

"Severus!" Hermione chided him. "Let's not forget our manners, shall we?" she said coldly.

Severus looked at her angrily, and then his expression turned impassive. "By all means. Please remember the relationship of our houses. I am only required to speak with you, not him as well," he said softly.

Hermione turned to Remus. "Just go, it's all right."

Remus left after giving a glare to Severus.

"Severus," she started, "that was unbelievably rude!"

"Please, not now with sympathy for the wolf," he said waspishly. "We have bigger things with which to concern ourselves."

"Such as?"

"It failed. The Dark Lord is angry and vengeful. The war will now take on a more deliberate and concentrated effort."

"I need to go see Dumbledore," she said.

"No need. I am sure Dumbledore shall be here shortly," he replied. He glanced over Hermione's shoulder, and his face grew dark. Hermione turned around and saw James and Lily snuggling and kissing. She turned to look at Severus' face. It was murderous. He swept away without a word, and Hermione closed her eyes. She didn't even want to think about what thoughts might be running through Severus' mind.

***

The spring arrived, and more meetings of the Order of the Phoenix were being held in Dumbledore's office. People were flitting in and out; names were mentioned briefly.

"Barty Crouch is the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. The curses that Voldemort is using, the Ministry now calls them 'Unforgivables'. Just as you, Hermione and Remus, were trained in receiving and casting Unforgivables, the Aurors have now been allowed by the Ministry to use them whenever necessary," Dumbledore reported.

"I still think it's a bloody mistake!" growled Moody. "There'll be no way to sink down to that level and then rise above it after the war is over!"

"Duly noted, Alastor," said Dumbledore. "However, we are in no position to debate Crouch when he seems to be the only one strong enough to hold the Ministry together. We do have those inside the Ministry who are with us, fellow Order members who are fighting out there, risking the lives of their families."

"Has it gotten so bad now, Dumbledore?" asked Remus. "The Prophet only tells us so much!"

"The Ministry is one step away from collapsing," Dumbledore replied. "Would you and Hermione be willing to join the fight? I realize you have NEWTs coming; however, there are certain things we need where only you and Hermione can help."

A look of realization came over Remus' face. " I shall begin taking the necessary steps," he replied darkly.

"I won't lie to you," warned Dumbledore as he stood up from his chair behind his desk and made his way towards them. "We have experienced a lot of tragedy. There is someone in the Ministry who is sabotaging our efforts, and we don't know whom. We lost some very good people."

Hermione breathed deeply. "What can I do?" she asked simply.

"For now, I need you to lean on your contact with Slytherin. See if there are any others who are unhappy or willing to defect. We need to break into their ranks, infiltrate and do something to stop Voldemort. Can he still be trusted?" Dumbledore asked warily.

Hermione thought cautiously before speaking. "He is holding his own, for now; although, he is aware of the pull the Dark arts are playing on him. Voldemort is working hard to seduce him. He is losing heart, growing fearful about the future. I hope there will be someone who will join him so he won't be so alone. He's terrified all the time. He sent me a warning: Voldemort was not pleased by the way your meeting with him ended. He will be throwing his full weight onto you to prove he is the stronger wizard. He is working hard to ensure his 'immortality,' as he calls it. He has been enlisted in creating Dark potions that he doesn't fully understand. Voldemort will not explain the reasons behind it, but the fact remains that these demonstrations of might and power keep the Death Eaters in line. He has them terrified and convinced he is unstoppable."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and said, "I want Hermione, Remus, Sirius, James, Peter, Lily, and Mary MacDonald to meet me here, tonight. I have a proposition I would like to discuss with all of you."

***

They all crammed into the office. It was uncomfortable, with Lily and Hermione not speaking to each another, but fortunately, Dumbledore did not make them wait long.

He came in and smiled happily at them. "I hope we can all dispense with the formalities. Let it just be said that we are all sad that 1978 will prove to be another year of war, and that I am regretful to thrust adulthood upon you all so quickly, however, for the sake of our world, it must be so.

"I believe all of you are ready to sit for your NEWTs. I would like for all of you to come next week in shifts to take your examinations. Afterwards, you will be leaving the school to go immediately into Auror training and officially become members of the Order. I will be giving you information as needed for your own safety. No one is to know of this adjustment to your education. You will just disappear, which, unfortunately, will not be so odd, considering the losses the Order has already suffered."

After much discussion, questions, and fears expounded upon, the scheme was accepted. It was April, and very soon, they would all be gone. After the others had left, Hermione stayed behind to speak with Dumbledore.

"Remus will be joining the werewolves that have taken up with Voldemort. He will be unable to contact us for quite a while. As for you, as long as Severus remains, I need you to as well. You will go to class as always, even though you will no longer technically be a student. It will be imperative that we get as much information as possible. Have you found any dissatisfaction in the ranks?" he asked.

"Severus, during our last visit, mentioned Regulus has not been himself. There seems to be a melancholy hanging over him. He will have to work more on him, but he seems to be the only weak link," Hermione reported.

"Very well," he replied. "It is all coming to a fast and furious conflict. More deaths, more lives splintered. I wonder how many of the students here today will be alive by the end?" He turned and faced Hermione with an urgent look on his face.

"I implore you, Hermione. If there was any time for me to know anything about the future, this would be the time to tell me!" he urged.

"I can't, Albus. I can't risk jeopardizing the future. As far as I can tell, though, everything is going according to the history I know. I will say this, the next three years will be brutally difficult, and hope will seem lost, but it will not be. James and Lily are important to the cause and must not lose heart. I shall do all I can to ensure their safety."

***

They all sat secretly for their NEWTs, and when it was all over, the newly instated members of the Order of the Phoenix began to pack to leave for training. Hermione was sure they were leaving for Fenwick's with Moody and Kingsley, but didn't want to ask. Mary and James came to say their farewells. She hugged them both and said, "Please be careful!"

James smiled broadly and whispered to Hermione, "I proposed to Lily, last night. She said yes! As soon as we can, we're going to get married."

Hermione's face shone. "I am so very happy for you both!" She squeezed his hand and watched as he went to meet Lily across the common room to escort her out. For one moment, Lily's eyes met Hermione's, and then, they were gone. Hermione felt a lump in her throat after their departure. She knew that she would never see them again.

***

Later that day, Hermione met with Severus out by the lake. The meeting was under the umbrella of Severus trying to pump information from Hermione about the missing Gryffindors, so there was no issue of being seen talking. It had been a while since they could meet privately. They looked at the other hungrily, but did not dare touch, knowing someone was watching their every movement.

"I noticed the diminished ranks of Gryffindor house today, Hermione," he replied while looking out at the lake.

Hermione saw no reason to lie. She leaned over and picked up some smooth rocks and began skipping them across the surface of the water.

"Yes, they are gone. Dumbledore had them all sit for their NEWTs early, and they are in the wind."

"You know I have to ask..." he said

"...Tell your Lord that they are in a place marked by a Fidelius Charm. They will not be found until they resurface."

"What of you?" he asked with a glance her way.

"Me?" Hermione repeated. "My place is here, protecting the others, the younger ones, Muggle-borns, fulfilling my role as Head of Gryffindor," she replied unimportantly.

She stole a glance and saw the telltale flicker of the vein in his temple. It was his tick that gave him away when his was furious. "Is there something wrong?" she asked. "You seem to be out of sorts."

"I saw them, Hermione," he said tersely.

"Lily and James," she whispered as she nodded slowly.

"They were shagging! Shagging!" he spat as he clasped his hands behind his back. He looked murderously angry and jealous.

"What do you want me to say, Severus?" Hermione whispered sadly.

"She snuck out of here like a fucking coward...she couldn't even face me...ME! Her oldest friend! She still could not find it in her heart to finally forgive me." He began to walk away from Hermione, his robes billowing behind him.

Hermione didn't know what to do. She didn't want to follow him. She wanted to smack him. After all this time, he still loved Lily best? What would he think if she just decided to throw it all away and tell him the whole truth, that Lily's passions were not for either him or James? Lily loved her! She stood there and kept skipping stones, trying to keep her temper under control. Finally, after he had made his circuit, did he come back to talk with her.

"I wasn't good enough to shag. I had to promise the sun, moon, and stars before I could have a bit of trim, and what angers me is that I'm having to do the same with you!" he hissed.

That was it. She struck him, hard, across the face. "I cannot believe you!" she screamed. "Is that what I am to you? 'A bit of trim?' Sod off!"

She ran inside the castle, back towards Gryffindor tower. Two Slytherins intercepted her: Regulus Black and a sixth-year named Travers. They each had her by an arm. She was going nowhere.

Regulus leaned over her and grabbed her hair, pulling her towards him. "I saw what you did. There are no heroes here to help you now," he whispered in her ear.

She jerked her head away as much as she could. "I never had any use for heroes, Regulus Black. I am able to stand on my own steam, thank you very much," she said as she glared at him.

"You will not get away with striking Slytherins, Mudblood," he warned darkly.

They ushered her into an empty classroom, and Regulus warded the door and placed a Silencing charm on the room.

"You want to fight like a Muggle, then you shall get beaten like one. And if you tell anyone who did this to you, we will find the first Mudblood Gryffindor we can and personally make her suffer," he said dangerously. He lowered his head to hers as she was forced to her knees. "I think you know what I am getting at?" he asked.

He backed up and nodded to Travers. He began to beat Hermione viciously as Regulus looked on. She hunched into a defensive position, but Travers just began to kick and stomp her around the legs and back. Finally, Regulus stopped the beating and said to Hermione as she lay there bleeding, "Don't worry, we shall alert the infirmary to your whereabouts. It's the least we can do."

Hermione lay there bleeding and broken as they walked out. Regulus had been merciful, far more merciful than she had expected. She waited patiently as the discovery was made, and she was transported to the infirmary. She stayed there for one week, having sustained numerous broken bones and lacerations, including a horrible head wound that was a little dicey. Hermione mentally kicked herself the entire time for being so foolhardy. She never should have struck Severus. She could have called him every filthy name in the world...could have even threatened to hex his bollocks off. It all would have been acceptable. But she had hit the Head of Slytherin and in public. She was fortunate she wasn't dead.

Frank and Alice came with Marlene McKinnon to visit and cheer her up. Marlene brought some lovely spring flowers and tried to get Hermione to tell them who had attacked her.

"Please," Hermione said desperately. "Do not engage Slytherin. I had it coming. I did something that was out of bounds. I'm lucky to be alive, not to mention unscarred. They could have done much worse damage, but they were merciful. This is war, and while I know this must all seem insane, it is how things are. If I tell anyone who did this, they promised me they would find a Gryffindor Muggle-born and make her suffer."

She looked at the three of them hard. "Do you understand the message? Not he, but she. You know what that means, right?"

They nodded slowly. "I can't wait until I can join and fight those bastards!" Frank said fiercely. Alice slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. He looked at her and began to calm down.

"Let's go, Frank," Alice whispered.

After they left, Marlene sat on the edge of the bed and said, "Is there anything I can get you, Hermione?"

"Please," Hermione said as she grabbed her hand.

"Please make sure no one does anything rash or foolish. I think I've done enough of that to last until the end of term," she whispered.

Marlene smiled. "Why did you hit Snape, Hermione? I thought you and he had some sort of amicable truce between you?"

"He said something about James and all of them, and I just lost my temper. It's just I have had it building up in me for so long, and I snapped," she lied.

Marlene stood. "You are a damn liar, but I won't press matters. It's your business, not mine. I'll keep things tight while you're healing," she said a bit roughly, and then she walked away.

***

Severus didn't come to see her in the infirmary, although Dumbledore did. She had just woken from a nap when she saw him sitting in a chair by the window near her bed. The area was curtained off, and she began to look anxiously around her.

"Don't concern yourself, Hermione. No one can hear us," he promised.

He stood and brought the chair closer to her and sat down again. "I must say, I am rather disappointed, Hermione. You allowed your personal feelings to take over your better judgment. You are better than that." He looked at her strangely.

"I do know that one can only take so much. It must be hard with Remus gone. You have no one to confide in. Your relationship with Severus must be at a breaking point for you to lash out at him in such a public manner."

Hermione's eyes were brimming with tears. "He hurt me with his words. It felt like he punched me in my stomach, and I felt so humiliated, I needed him to hurt as much as I hurt!" she explained.

"And instead, now you feel so much worse," Dumbledore mused. "It isn't easy, seeing the person you've lived to hate in an intimate embrace of the girl you had once loved and hoped to marry," he said calmly.

Hermione cried. She cried all the tears she had wanted to cry for all the years she had been stuck in this life, the life she had never meant to live, for the boy she loved, whom she had never meant to love, and for all the loss and pain that came with it.

Once her cries started to subside, Dumbledore squeezed her hand. "It's hard to let go in the best of circumstances, but when a person is so prideful, it can be nearly impossible..."

***

Finally, graduation came and all the ceremony and pomp that came with it. Hermione had made her decision. She was going to have to leave the wizarding world. She could not stay and risk the chance of destroying the future she hoped to return to. She had not spoken to Severus in nearly two months. There was nothing to say. He still loved Lily, despite everything they had shared and promised, he still loved her and wanted her. It was something Hermione could not forget.

She walked slowly back from outside to meet Dumbledore in his office. The weather was looking poorly. A chilly breeze was setting in, and the air smelled of rain. She was going to gather her things, all the things that would trace anyone back to her, and make her case. Like it or not, she was leaving and would not return until after the thirty-first of October 1981.

She made her way back to the castle alone until she sensed a person closing in on her. She spun around, brandishing her wand at the person. It was Severus. She tucked it away and turned her back on him.

"Hermione, we must speak to each other!" he said urgently.

"Why?" she said weakly. "There is no reason anymore. There is no more hiding the fact that you and I are through. Shortly we will leave, you will go back to your Lord, and I will go where I must. It's over."

His face grew dark. "That's it, then?" he spat, grabbing her arm and marching her over to where they could be unobserved. "All the vows and promises you made to me are over and done?" His black eyes burned into her as he raked them over her form. "You swore to me I would have you. You swore you would never leave me. You swore you would be mine!" he said angrily.

Suddenly the thunder rolled, and the rain came down on them. "What does it matter?" Hermione yelled as the rain began to seep into her clothes. "You love Lily! You were so angry Potter got her and not you! You don't want me."

She broke down crying, and he grabbed her and held her to him. The rain was plastering his black hair around his face. "I love you, Hermione. Yes, I felt a hurt pride from long ago, and I was a bastard to you for saying what I said. I'm sorry. I love YOU! I want to be with you, Hermione. I always will. Come with me, and be my wife. Come be by my side, and together we will live the rest of our lives happy and content!"

"Are you fucking insane?" she screamed over the rain. "We are in the middle of a war! You think I can just come with you, move in with the Dark Lord, and we'll live happily ever after?"

"We'll do it together; you and I will stop this, we can do it!" he insisted.

"What about you, Severus? Why can't you just come inside and let Dumbledore hide you? You don't have to go back to him. If I go with you, I'll be just another Mudblood whore. Do you understand that?" she yelled as she grasped desperately onto him.

"If you don't come with me, Hermione, we can't be together!" he snapped. "I HAVE to go back. I've come so far now, and I have to keep you safe. The only way is to finish what I have started."

"No!" said Hermione. "Please don't go. You don't know what he could do...he could really hurt you...change you. I love you. Please don't leave me!" she begged.

"I'm not leaving you!" he hollered as he pulled her to him and kissed her. They kissed hungrily and desperately as she pleaded with him.

"Don't go. You don't need to keep doing this!" She wanted to tell him, just three more years, and it would be over, and then they could be in the open, loving one another, safe, not worrying about Voldemort for another decade. At least they could have that. If he left now, what would become of him? Had she changed things too much? Would he even live?

She began to cry. She was terrified for the future...their future. She clung to his robes. She poured out her heart, everything inside her. "Please, Severus," she sobbed. "Don't go!" She sank to her knees, clutching his robes, desperately weeping.

"Don't leave me! Please!" she screamed as her voice grew hoarse.

He dropped onto his knees, grabbed her face, and said, "You'll understand it one day. I must do this for you and Lily, for all of them. I have to do this! Besides, he will kill me if I don't come back. The only way is for me to fully give myself over to him, don't you understand? I have to get the power and the strength. Then I can defeat him. I'll show them all!" His eyes were blazing with greed and passion.

He stood and left Hermione on her knees in the mud from the heavy rain. "Please," she tried to yell as her voice became raspy and soft. "Don't go..."

***

Hermione shivered in the infirmary as Madam Pomfrey admonished her.

"I will never understand it! Outside, yelling in the rain, soaked to the skin! You are begging for pneumonia!" she chided.

Hermione took her Pepper-up Potion and waited for the steam to stop coming out of her ears before going up to see the Headmaster.

He had been surprised by her announcement and tried desperately to make her change her mind.

"Hermione, your formality concerns me," he said anxiously.

"Expect me around the fall of 1981, Headmaster," she said sadly.

"Hermione," Dumbledore asked delicately. "You've been crying. What's the matter?"

She refused to look at him. "Nothing that can be helped now, sir. The die has been cast. No one would listen. He wouldn't listen!" She burst into tears.

Dumbledore embraced the crying witch. "Please, can't you tell me anything?" he begged.

"I wish I could!" she said brokenly as she wiped the tears from her face. "I wish I could unburden myself and have this entire bloody business over and done with...but I can't. If I do, I risk changing everything in my world, and I can't do it. Besides, all of this was decided years ago. It wasn't even me...it was the choices they all made before I came here! Then, after I arrived, the same stupid, asinine choices kept being repeated, and now everything will be the way it is supposed to be...no matter how much I loathe it! It would be better for me to be apart from our world and not upset anything more than I must."

"And Severus?" he asked. "Can he still be trusted?"

"I don't know, I don't know anything anymore..."

A/N: Now before you all start sending Howlers... just remember the very first chapter. For three years, Hermione was hiding in the Muggle world. Then she sees Severus for the first time during those three years, and they fight. For those who have been asking for lemons...we are now approaching the grove!