Chapter Four

She stared at the parchment in her hands, tracing the impression of the green seal with her index finger. It felt substantial, about twice the weight of any letter she received before. Don't be daft, Hermione, she thought. It's the same as the last letter Malfoy sent you. She turned it over, examining her last name scribbled across the parchment. It seemed very, very real as she mentally ran over what she hoped would be the coming events in rapid succession. She was going to talk to Severus Snape. She would convince him to teach her. Learn how to access her parents' minds. Free them from the labyrinth of lies in which she had trapped them and receive their thanks for protecting them during difficult times. Then their forgiveness for the liberties she had taken without their permission.

This became a secret ritual for Hermione, one she would enact over and over again each time she picked up the letter of invitation. A private ceremony that always ended in gratitude and clemency.

She had six days until the meeting. Six days she had been planning on using to establish her new life in Britain, but now she cancelled her appointments with her realtor and postponed her interviews at local Muggle hospitals. She had decided long ago that she would settle herself in central London; it was close to everything she would want in the city and put her near Harry and Ginny, who were the closest thing she had left to family. A flat downtown came at a pretty price even if she avoided posh neighbourhoods, newly remodeled buildings, or multiple bedrooms, and her savings would only stretch so far before she needed an income. She needed access to medical resources like she had before and an adequate income to pay for her pad, and she decided that all other points were negotiable. Really, Hermione, why did you leave your post in Melbourne right after you started earning a decent salary? When a suitable job in her field couldn't be found anyplace inside the Inner Ring Road, she looked farther afield. When one still couldn't be found, she decided to apply for emergency room shifts in a number of local hospitals in order to provide for herself.

Six days to weigh her options and engineer a strategy with the highest probability of success. What should she do and say? Should she acknowledge the past and dredge up their history or ignore it completely to keep things dispassionate? She considered the awkwardness of the position she was in. This venture would be greatly simplified if it were anyone but him. If only it were Professor McGonagall who was the accomplished Legilimens she needed. Or Professor Flitwick. Any other teacher would be easier to approach, regardless of how many years had passed. Most teacher-student relationships maintain that polite distance that is easy to step out of or renew at will, but Snape's role in the war and their treatment of him rendered that option impossible. Had it been Flitwick, she would have owled him a brief note of greeting, dropping in a few sentences on her life since Hogwarts alongside honest well wishes for his health and happiness. She would have signed it with a flourish and added a short post script asking for a bit of his time: perhaps she could take him for a lunch at the Three Broomsticks some free weekend and ask his advice concerning an obscure branch of magic? Yes, that would have worked if it had been Flitwick. Or McGonagall. Or Vector or anyone else besides him. Oh, there would have been the requisite questions about her choice to leave the wizarding world if it had been Professor McGonagall, but that would only have made her reach out more enthusiastically.

She was going to talk to Severus Snape. What could she possibly offer Snape to induce him to give her lessons? She began compiling lists of everything she knew of her sullen Potions master in an attempt to understand her target and plan her actions. She knew him as a reluctant mentor at Hogwarts, as a recalcitrant member of the Order of the Phoenix, as a repentant Death Eater. He was endlessly unconventional and unimaginably complicated, and she told herself that she knew better than to assume she could figure out why he had ever done anything. He was Harry's bully and one of his greatest protectors. Dumbledore's healer and his killer. He insulted Harry's mum and yet he loved her? He was powerful, definitely, possibly one of the most powerful wizards she had ever known. But was there anything about him she knew for certain?

He was not a bad man; he had fought on their side in the war as long as she had been alive, and he guarded Harry in spite of his hatred.

He was not a simple man; outside of Dumbledore himself, Hermione knew that she'd never met anyone with the depth and breadth of knowledge he possessed.

He was not a flexible man; no, she had seen enough of his exacting standards in Potions lessons all those years. His devotion to Lily seemed driven by obsession rather than generosity.

Six days to talk over things with Harry. He was with her when Malfoy's owl had delivered the letter, so she saw the bittersweet smile that flashed across his face when he realised Draco had come through for her. She knew he was happy for her, but it was difficult for him to watch her receive an opportunity he thought he'd never have. It had been hard enough when she debriefed him after her lunch with Draco, relating Draco's words of his assumed indebtedness. If Malfoy felt the need to pay off a debt for her testimony, shouldn't he be owed the same? Nevermind that neither wanted Malfoy to be running around with his tail between his legs – it just seemed too out of character for Malfoy, no matter how badly their fifteen-year-old selves would have liked to see him doing things on their behalf. Still, it was obvious that Hermione had enjoyed her run-in with him, and that seemed to be more disconcerting to Harry than anything else. The meeting with Snape was the elephant in the room for five days. Really, it was the elephant in every room in Grimmauld Place, and it gained a few stones every passing hour until the day before Hermione's appointment. Ginny and the kids were visiting the Burrow for their regular Saturday lunch while Harry and Hermione stayed behind to mull over what was to come with a plate of Kreacher-prepared sandwiches and biscuits.

"No, of course I don't begrudge you the chance to speak with him," Harry said.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I know you wanted to talk to him," she said. "Is there anything you'd like me to ask? Anything at all?"

He shook his head and reached for a ham sandwich on rye bread. "Hermione, this is your chance, not mine. There was a time when I was desperate to speak with him. Ask him about my mother, and what he remembered about her, and why he loved her. Ask for some of his memories to use with a Pensieve. I thought a lot about what I would say, imagining whole conversations between us, you know? I imagined the questions I would ask, sure, but also the answers he would give: 'Harry, she was the most beautiful woman in the world – so kind, so full of love,' and so on. But I don't know what he would really say about her! I don't think he would ever even answer me."

"'There was a time'... what about now?"

"Now I'm just angry I didn't ask more questions of Sirius and Remus." He reached for his glass of water and spoke quietly. "Why didn't I ask them? I had years with them both, and I wasted them."

"Harry, those weren't easy years. We were all preoccupied by Voldemort, you..."

"Why didn't they offer to tell me more stories about them?" he interrupted crossly. "Surely they should have known that I would have wanted to hear anything that they would say."

Hermione placed her hand on his and waited until he looked up at her. "They didn't know how little time they had with you, Harry, and they..."

"You're right, Hermione. I know you're right." He smiled wanly at her. "At the risk of sounding horribly morbid, I must insist that you promise me this..."

"What?"

"If, God forbid, Ginny and I were to die tomorrow, I need to know that you'll tell them everything you can possibly can about us."

Hermione didn't bother asking who "them" was referring to. "Harry," she pleaded.

"Promise me."

"Harry, you're being ridiculous. We're not at war and you're not going anywhere."

"Promise me."

"Fine. I solemnly swear," she began as she raised one hand as if pledging an oath, "to bore your children to tears with stories about you, Harry. They'll listen to me describe what colour toothbrush you used, what your favourite flavour of Bertie Bott's Beans was, and how you depended on me to pass every History of Magic exam you ever took. I'll inflate the role I played in getting you two together, of course, and they'll grow up eternally grateful I ever had the good sense to throw their mother at Michael Corner..."

"That's all I needed to hear." He finally offered her a broad grin, and she knew the subject was placed behind them. "Now then, how do you plan on convincing Snape to take you on? Will you be all right at Malfoy Manor?"

The last time she saw Severus Snape, he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Although she knew logically that he must have been in the hospital after Voldemort used Nagini to attack him, she was still surprised when Neville led her to his room at the end of the Janus Thickey ward. He hadn't been placed on the second floor with other patients of creature encounters, but St. Mungo's had been so overwhelmed in the months following the resolution of the war that she didn't question it any further. She had tagged along with Neville when he asked her to accompany him on a visit to see his parents. After the years he had kept silent about their condition, she wasn't about to refuse him anything. The war had done Neville a tremendous amount of good, giving him an opportunity to show everyone once and for all what stuff he was made of. He was hailed as a hero for the first time in his life, and he finally opened up about his family when he wasn't living in fear of failing to live up to his folks. He led Hermione to Snape's room, where the two teenagers sat and spoke to their incapacitated former teacher, trying not to wallow in the guilt they both felt in having misjudged him so badly. The only thing more inviolably wrong than seeing him attached to odd, beeping contraptions was the lilac hospital robes he had been dressed in. Hermione altered their colour to black as she choked back unbidden sobs and apologies, finally taking her leave of him after less than ten minutes by his side.

The previous time she encountered him, she was witness to what she was sure had been his death in the Shrieking Shack. Truthfully, she hadn't actually seen him from the place she and Harry and Ron had been hiding, but she had heard it all: Voldemort's interrogation about the Elder Wand, the moment when Snape realised Voldemort intended to kill him to gain it, and everything that followed thereafter. When they emerged from behind the stacked crates in the tunnel, she finally saw his body limp on the ground and ran away. She should have spared more than a passing thought for him then, but they were still in the midst of the battle, chaos surrounded them on the grounds of Hogwarts, and she was simply overwhelmed by how close she had been to Voldemort.

Before that, it was the night of Dumbledore's death, when she and Luna met him as he tore out of his office to defend the castle from the invading Death Eaters. He was so concerned for Professor Flitwick's well-being and so insistent that she remain behind to revive the man. That was the last time she spoke with him, believing with certainty that he was on their side, a hasty conversation she replayed in self-doubt over and over again in the days and weeks following Dumbledore's death. It garnered revisiting again after Snape shared his memories with Harry at the final battle, and it confirmed what she already knew: Snape always protected them when he could, even when the circumstances made it difficult. At the time she thought he primarily wanted to ensure Flitwick's safety, but later remembrances of the event prompted her to recall signs of his relief when he saw her outside his doors. She suspected it gave him some assurance that at least she and Luna would both have to stay with their Charms professor and remain safe through the onslaught.

Before that... life was normal. (Or as normal as life ever was with The Boy Who Lived as your best mate.) He was her professor. He was her professor, and she saw him in class. She saw him in class and sometimes out of class when he was completing tasks for the Order. That was all.

When the 25th finally arrived, Hermione steeled herself with her plan of attack: she would ignore the past unless he brought it up, appealing to his expertise and integrity as a teacher. After a morning of playing a meandering game of hide-and-go-seek with James and Albus (who both, Hermione noted, often forgot the point of the game and leapt into view when anyone else traipsed by) and a hearty lunch with all five Potters, she gathered her jacket and headed to the fireplace. Reaching into the terra cotta pot atop the mantle for Floo powder, Hermione said her goodbyes to her friends and accepted their warm wishes for her success. When the green flames and rapid spinning finally stopped, she stepped out of an ornate marble fireplace in a large room bereft of furniture, spotting a series of hooks and hangers adorning the far wall and a pale, elegant couple to her right.

"Granger... Hello."

"Miss Granger."

"Hello," she offered politely. "Thank you so much for setting this up, Malfoy."

"Granger, meet my wife. Astoria... Hermione Granger."

Astoria was as tall and lithe and blonde as Narcissa Malfoy, but she emanated a warmth and hospitality Hermione had never seen from the older woman. "Miss Granger. I remember you from Hogwarts."

"Please call me Hermione."

She raised one hand to her sternum. "Astoria."

To say that Hermione was surprised by the woman Draco married would be an understatement. She had expected the same detached superiority she had always seen from his mother – particularly when she saw the physical resemblance between the women – but Astoria was all kindness and consideration. "I'm afraid I don't remember you particularly, Astoria, but I used to have shared lessons with your sister, Daphne."

"Well, there's no reason you should have known me, is there? I was two years behind you and in another house," Astoria answered, chuckling. "It was, on the other hand, quite impossible to go through studies at Hogwarts and not know who you were."

A crimson blush flushed up Hermione's neck. "Thank you for letting me intrude upon your hospitality today."

"Certainly." Astoria leaned in a bit closer to clasp Hermione's hand. "Good luck today. I hope everything goes well."

"You know...?"

"None of the details. I simply wanted to welcome you here and introduce myself."

Draco was starting look a bit uncomfortable as his wife and his old school nemesis acted friendly. "Ahem... Granger. Let's be off, shall we?"

Hermione nodded, passing over her jacket into Astoria's outstretched arms, and followed him out of the Floo room.

"First bit of advice," he perfunctorily stated. "Don't waste his time. Follow me. We don't want to be late."

Hermione checked her watch – 1:58 – and lengthened her stride to be able to keep up with him. She followed him down one torch-lit hallway, around a turn to the right, and through a large hall filled with what she assumed were family portraits based on their nearly uniform flaxen hair. Blond hair is a co-recessive trait, she thought. Is there an unwritten Malfoy marriage law demanding the preservation of the family hair colour? She returned her focus to the advice he offered as they made their way through the house.

"Second piece of advice – no Potter talk."

"Yes, Malfoy, I could have guessed on that one," she responded with a gleam in her eyes. "You'll recall I avoided mentioning Harry when I met with you as well. I know better than to bait a Slytherin."

"Third piece of advice – don't get too personal."

"You're giving me some tremendously obvious suggestions here," she chortled.

"Just making sure you know the basics."

He turned around to look at her, giving her an oddly reassuring smile.

"I'm sure you'll be fine with him."

He led on for several paces, then sharply stopped in front of a massive set of double doors.

"Here we are."

Beside the fireplace in the study stood another relic of her past. A pale, lanky man with jet black hair; a familiar stranger who simultaneously looked exactly and yet nothing at all like the man who taught her every week for six years. Though several inches taller than herself, he seemed somehow smaller than she remembered. She couldn't make out why; was she thinking back to when she met him as a first year? He would have seemed more imposing then. His face, while thin as always, had lost its gauntness and hollowness. His skin, while pallid as ever, had lost its sallow tinge. A few stray strands of grey hair shone in the sunlight, and small lines touched the corners of his eyes, but otherwise, there was no notice that he had aged much. The most shocking thing to Hermione was the loss of his customary robes and buttoned-up coat. Perhaps that was why he looked smaller – the loss of thirty pounds of heavy black wool wrapped around him like a shroud. In their place were simple black trousers and a white linen shirt that nearly covered the four raised scars on his neck, the proof that he really was Severus Snape.

"Miss Granger."

The time she spent in his company as a child and teenager was always in the company of others, whether in a classroom full of students at Hogwarts or in a house full of Order members at Grimmauld Place. It was not until she was faced with the prospect of time alone with him that she fully appreciated the force of his presence. She had felt it briefly before – when he was observing her in a Potions lesson or interrogating her in an empty hallway – but his intensity was somehow more bearable and less noticeable when it was diffused among a crowd.

"Professor."

Draco coughed quietly.

"Right. I'm clearly not needed for introductions or anything else of that nature, so I'll take my leave of you," he said congenially, continuing his streak of slightly unnatural politeness. His voice was a bit higher than usual as he spoke, and she realised she had forgotten he was still in the room. "If you'd care for something to drink, please help yourselves to anything on the sideboard. There's a very fine Irish whiskey I acquired on my last visit to Dublin that I heartily recommend to you both. Something to eat, just call a house-elf." He caught himself and turned to her sharply. "Or don't, Granger... Merlin only knows the state of your philanthropy these days."

He returned to the doors to see himself out. "Astoria and I will be down the hall in the conservatory if you need anything."

With one brief glimpse at Hermione and a long, indecipherable glance at Snape, Draco swept out of the room and closed the double doors behind him.

They both stood there for a few moments, indulging in the strangeness of this meeting. He hadn't budged from the position she found him in, standing with his arms rigidly folded across his chest, and he made no move to sit or even look away, no move to initiate this conversation. Well, she thought, I was the one asking to meet up. Perhaps he's waiting for me to begin?

She finally found her voice. "Thank you for agreeing to this."

He nodded once. "Draco asked politely. In the best interest of all who regularly interact with him, I felt it my responsibility to utilise positive reinforcement."

She felt tempted to smile at what she thought might be a joke, but kept her face stolid and responded in kind. "And here I thought social conditioning was relegated to Pavlov's dogs."

"Systems of etiquette and courtesy employed by the masses would say otherwise."

Another prolonged silence followed his dry response. She hadn't expected them to carry on with ease, but she had hoped for a way to quickly move past this awkwardness as she had with Draco earlier. A taboo hung on nearly every topic she could think of, and she reminded herself again to avoid the past. She waited a few beats to give him space to say something – anything, really, and when he didn't, she tried again.

"You look well, Professor."

"Do I?" he asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically.

There was no answer she could give that would satisfy either of them, and she was grew increasingly rankled over his reluctance to even try to make her feel human. 'Why, yes, sir, you should have ditched your antiquated wardrobe years ago' would not be a wise response to make before asking him for a favour. She was also fairly confident that a well-timed 'Yes, Professor, you finally look like you've eaten enough to keep your emaciated frame from collapsing in on itself' would not go over well with this haughty man. She needed to change the topic of conversation.

She plastered a falsely cheery smile on her face. "How has your research been coming along lately?"

"Have you been working in Potions recently," he asked with a smirk, "such that what I do is even remotely relevant to your sphere of experience, Miss Granger?"

Here again she was stopped. 'Well, no, Professor, but I do use Muggle technology to quantify the effects of various potions and curses on the brain' probably sounded like a soft answer to the man. Even worse, 'I largely left the wizarding world behind me twelve years ago, save for my highly unorthodox and rather illegal experiments' could potentially get her into trouble. She needed to change the topic of conversation to something he was willing to respond to, a question he wanted to answer. Since that was clearly beyond her current capacity, she decided to settle instead on a question that she wanted him to answer.

"You're not going to make this easy on me, are you?" she asked with a weak smile.

"Should I, Miss Granger?" he asked coolly. "You have already shown yourself a reluctant conversationalist, ignoring each question I have posed you. You blatantly refused to discuss my person and declined to address my inquiries as to your ability to understand my work."

"I assumed those were rhetorical questions designed to shut me down."

He sighed melodramatically, finally dropping his arms to his side.

"Shall we get on with this, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, sir," she agreed blankly, mentally going over her plan. Don't mention the past, just appeal to his integrity as a teacher and ask. Just ask him for lessons.

He walked forward slowly and deliberately, stopping a few feet in front of her and raising his wand.

"Sir..." she began, shifting her eyes around the room in growing unease.

"Miss Granger, this will work only if you look at me," he said contemptuously.

"What?" Her brown eyes snapped back to his black ones.

His eyes narrowed and he repeated himself. "Look at me."

Look at me. Had he chosen any other words, she could have collected herself and continued on with this charade. But no... "Look at me." She fought the images as they sprang to her mind: the smell of the dank, moist air in the tunnel underground, the feel of the spongy dirt beneath her feet, the sound of Voldemort pacing in front of them as he spoke to Snape. The sound of Snape asking to leave. The sound of him screaming in pain and the sound of him directing those three words at Harry before he lost consciousness: "Look... at... me."

Hermione had been slightly on edge since she arrived at the manor, but had proudly maintained her composure. The sheer immediacy of these recollections pushed her over whatever line she had drawn for herself, and her carefully constructed boundaries began collapsing around her as the flood of emotions overtaking her wore away her restraint.

She willed herself not to cry, closing her eyes and clenching her hands into fists at her side. "I am so sorry, sir."

He looked genuinely confused by her response. "What?"

"I'm so sorry, sir." Tears were gathering in her eyes, and still she forced them closed. "You didn't deserve that, no matter what you did."

"Miss Granger, are you all right?" he asked, truly perplexed. "Please look at me."

The tenuous hold she had on her emotions broke then and there. She rushed past him and just managed to sit down on a leather wingback chair in the corner of the room before beginning to sob.

"Really, Miss Granger. Did you..." he began, turning to face her.

"I didn't believe in you," she interrupted, gesturing aimlessly with her arms. "I should have."

"Miss Granger," he began gently, "there is no way you could have..."

"I should have," she broke in again. "I should have believed in you."

He paused, clearly having not expected this response. "Not many did."

"No, they didn't, did they? Only Dumbledore and Voldemort, I suppose." She felt the conversation spiraling out of her control, but she had no power to stop herself from speaking. "I should have."

"Why you, Miss Granger? Do you still believe your abilities superior to everyone else's?" he asked ambivalently.

She brushed past this question. "I was always defending you to Harry and Ron. Always."

"Really," he drawled, folding his arms again as he stared at her.

"From the very beginning!" she shouted defensively. "When they thought you were planning on stealing the Philosopher's Stone in first year! When they thought you were sabotaging Harry through Occlumency lessons! Always."

"Do you want my thanks, Miss Granger," he said coldly, "for those sacrifices you made on my behalf?"

"Of course not, sir, but..." she implored.

"And with such demonstrable faith in my innate goodness, Miss Granger, would you care to share why your trust in me was finally shaken?"

She was not going to answer that question. What had she intended for this conversation? She went over her mantra again: don't mention the past, appeal to his expertise. Well... there was no way for her to regain control of this exchange, and every passing sentence between the two of them highlighted how far she had allowed this to drift away from her original goal.

"Dumbledore believed in you!" she finally erupted. Then she added quietly, "I should have known."

His voice was as hushed as she had ever heard it, and yet she understood every venom-laced word he offered her. "So what you're saying," he spat quietly as he strode towards her, "is not that you regret believing me to be a murderous traitor after I spent years protecting you, but that you regret failing to believe the headmaster capable of managing the war?"

"What was I supposed to think?" she asked immediately. "You killed him!"

He started at her words, and a fury raged behind his eyes. He took a few more rapid steps towards her, then paused. He regained his composure somewhat and stalked over to the sideboard, pouring himself a glass of the whiskey Draco had mentioned earlier.

No, no, no, NO! she thought, as her eyes followed him walking swiftly to the window. She had regretted her words even as they were coming out of her mouth, but now, she couldn't explain herself. She knew that he hadn't murdered the headmaster, but he had killed him, regardless of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the event. And she had believed the worst.

"Sir, I... I'm sorry, I... I didn't mean that you..." Her voice faltered as tears continued to fall. "And then when Harry saw the memories you left him, and we learned how you had loved Lily, we..."

He whirled around to face her, eyes open wide. "Stop." His voice was now seething with barely contained anger as he spoke, weighing each word as his eyes pierced her own. "Just stop. Do not say her name."

She knew she should have stopped speaking then, but she continued on. "Sir, we..."

He turned back to stare out at the grounds.

"No."

His knuckles were white as he clenched the glass he was holding.

Hermione finally came to her senses and stopped herself from speaking, and she made her decision.

After all of this, she couldn't ask him to teach her.

She couldn't ask him for anything.

"Thank you for your time, Professor. I don't want to take any more of it. I'll go now and leave you some peace." She turned, flung open the doors, and flew out of the study.

When it finally dawned on her that she should tell Draco and Astoria that she was leaving, she was more than halfway back to the Floo room. She turned around and headed back toward the conservatory, retracing her steps along the wide hallway she had taken to get there. Now as she turned down another hall to her left, she began seeing portraits on the wall that she knew she had never seen before. A few stray suits of armour stood beside the mullioned windows and an enormous tapestry possibly depicting the War of the Roses hung above her, and she silently acknowledged that she was lost. Stopping to calm herself and settle her breathing, she turned back once more to find the passage to the conservatory.

Questions flew through her mind as she tried to find her way through the manor. How could she have been so foolish? How did she lose control of everything so badly? Could it possibly have gone any worse and what was she going to do now?

As she walked slowly back through the hallway, she noticed the figures in those portraits along her right side waking up. Most ignored her, taking the time to yawn and stretch a bit. Most peculiarly, five or six of the older ones weren't moving at all. Muggle portraiture in Malfoy Manor? Surely not. She thought this over as she continued along her path, she felt a dawning sense of recognition. I know this room, she thought, but was I here this afternoon? Lost in her thoughts, she was startled out of her inner sanctum by a sudden series of noises.

First was a resonant banging sound, metal clanging against the hardwood floor. Next came a high-pitched scream, and for the second time that day, Hermione remembered something she had desperately tried to forget.

Remembered the glint of a silver knife, the flash of a wand.

Remembered this very archway above her and this carpet beneath her feet.

Remembered that night eleven-and-a-half years earlier when a werewolf and a madwoman tried to break her.

Phantom sensations flooded her body in an instant: knives that weren't there pieced her hands, ropes she couldn't see burned along her wrists and ankles, and flames that didn't exist flickered at her torso. Twinges of pain plucked at her skin, her muscles ached, her joints... shocked, her head throbbed...

... and everything went dark.