The Return of Ronald Weasley.

A/N: I am eternally grateful to amazing Annie Talbot for beta reading.

Disclaimer: I would never take a penny for telling the true story of Severus Snape; I am not Rita Skeeter!

Hermione's talk with Rose was fruitless. She needed to find some way to reach her daughter. All she could get out of Rose were a few "fines" and "okays" and some shrugs. Her detention with Hagrid was "fine"; it was "okay" to go to the Forbidden Forest and see where Voldemort thought he had killed her Uncle Harry. Hagrid told her the "same old story" and showed her how to get "stuff" for Professor Rickman's Potions class. Professor Sidney P. Rickman had replaced Professor Slughorn the same year James had started Hogwarts.

Normally, Rose would have been thrilled to see her grandparents, but this time she shrugged off all of her mum's requests to meet them, saying she had too much to catch up on at the library, so she could not leave. Hermione thought that it was a lame excuse, and she told her so. As a result, they ended up yelling at each other. Rose had inherited both of her parents' tempers. She yelled her recent usual..."You would never understand, Mum!"...and Hermione left before she could really lose her patience. Besides, it was so painful to watch her daughter sulking like Ron used to.

The only thing that the girl told her lately was that she could never understand. What about all her efforts to understand? Didn't they count? Hermione felt like crying.

She reached her office and found out that Professor Snape had woken up. She had lost her composure, run to him, and... She hugged him. She would have never done it if she were in her right mind, right?

Of course. As she said, she did not go around hugging all her patients. Never had she ever thought of hugging that tyrant!

But the insufferable man would never let it go. He started teasing her about such a silly misstep. Then he went out of his way to insult Ron. Even though he had no way to know about Ron's fate, he should not go about insulting people left and right, in Hermione's opinion.

sssSSsss

He had planned to apologize the next time he saw her, but that was impossible since she was with Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, and Harry Potter. She didn't throw a single glance towards him the whole time, at least not while he was looking at her. He could hardly stare at her, but he did look more than he would have any other time. As far as he was concerned, he was the one who did all the looking.

She did not speak to him; she spoke only to the others, and only when they asked her a direct question; then she provided the shortest possible answer in the quietest possible monotone. She was extremely angry with him, and she wanted him to know it, he supposed.

Secretly admiring how she looked when enraged, he had amusedly observed an angry Hermione before, when Potter or Weasley was the target of her wrath. But there was absolutely nothing amusing about how he felt, nor was it easy to watch her hurt because of his words. He had caused her tears before...but he had caused most of his students tears, so that hardly counted.

His visitors asked him all sorts of questions about how he was feeling, and he managed a polite and civil conversation, which was highly uncharacteristic of him given the company present. He even waved off Minerva's apologies without any well-deserved barb. He kept himself focused on his earlier promise to himself about being a better person.

The only terse thing he had said was directed to Potter, and it was..."You have done it, haven't you? In your silly sentimentality, you have tied up my name with the name of my childhood nemesis and the only man I have murdered... Was it more fun than killing off the Dark Lord?"

And the gall of the boy! ...The man! He laughed out loud until his eyes were all watery before saying, "Very much."

Severus could only shake his head when the others had joined in Potter's laughter...all except her. She didn't laugh, not even a hint of a smile. She left quietly before anyone even noticed her absence. He wanted to call out and ask her to stay, but thought it better not to embarrass himself in front of the others.

He thanked them again and again for saving him. He acknowledged his life debt to Longbottom and Potter, but they waved it off and told him that they were the ones paying some of their countless debts to him, instead. He couldn't fathom how their Gryffindor minds worked, but he let them know he was extremely grateful to them and would do anything for them.

Again, Potter said to forget about it.

"Besides, Hermione was the one who thought to put your memories back. Without her, you still wouldn't be you. She really was the one who brought you back," added Neville Longbottom.

He wondered why she had never thought to mention that part. Was it just her modesty or did she really not believe she had taken any important part in his recovery?

Minerva said, "One had your body, one had your memories, and the other thought to put them together to bring you back. They did it once again, Severus. You should be proud of them. I know that I am."

And he was.

mmmMMmmm

Lucius Malfoy was very happy about how things were progressing. Everything was proceeding according to his plan. He had been at King's Cross station with Draco and his family to see the kid off, as any doting grandfather would do. But as soon as he saw Potter and his sidekick whispering together, away from the rest of their gang, he had to Disillusion himself to know what they were on about. He knew those two were his investigating Aurors and the Daily Prophet wouldn't let anyone forget how skilled they were at catching Dark wizards red-handed in crimes.

One must keep one's enemies close and to be close to one's enemies...and, if they were anything like Potter...one must Disillusion oneself. So as a sensible wizard, he did just that. It was sheer luck that he had heard Weasley's aptitude for driving those Muggle transportation vehicles. A consummate Slytherin like Lucius Malfoy had never wasted an opportunity that came to sit on his lap invitingly. All he had to do was Imperio the driver of the other vehicle, and... Voila! Pop goes the weasel!

Potter needed to be knocked off his feet next. He might have found a thread to get to Potter through his goddaughter. To get to her, Lucius needed his own grandson's cooperation. He needed to form a foolproof plan. He didn't mind using children for his purpose; that's what they were for...a means to an end. The boy must learn the Malfoy way firsthand.

He had sent an innocent book as a Christmas present on behalf of his grandson to gain the girl's trust, just in case any of those nutters chose to check it for her safety. There would be time enough to strike when their guards eased down. They had to form sort of a friendship for his plan to work. The boy had to be trained properly about what he needed to do and how subtly it needed to be done, so he would not back out on his duty. Lucius had to see to it himself; he would not allow Draco to muck things up once again. The sour thought came back to him...Ugh! With his near-Gryffindor subtlety and incompetence, Draco might just as well have been... any Weasley.

Unlike Bella, Lucius disliked unnecessary bloodshed; it seemed so... unsophisticated. He avoided it whenever possible. Controlling others' minds was so much better and so much...less messy!

He stopped whistling the "Mulberry bush" tune and tapping his long pale fingers on his office desk as he had one of the house-elves send for his mostly incompetent, yet unquestionably obedient, son.

rrrRRrrr

Rose had found a strange stone in the forest when Hagrid took her to get ingredients for Professor Rickman. She could not really call it a detention in her mind. Would anyone call a stroll and picking up leaves, flowers, and bugs a detention? Of course, if she counted Hagrid's same old war story... Nah! Still not a detention.

Anyway, she would apologize to Uncle Neville, even if she thought him way too mismatched for her mum. She loved Uncle Neville as Uncle Neville, not as her would-be step-dad.

The only good thing that came out of that detention was the intriguing stone. She could tell it was magical. But she could not detect what sort of magic...good or bad. Maybe she should let Uncle Harry have a look at it.

She was still sitting on her bed playing with the stone...tossing and turning it. She didn't have much to do. She had lied to Mum about catching up because she did not want to go to Muggle world, and Mum wanted Rose to visit her grandparents in their Surrey home. They were coming from Australia. She liked them, just not where they lived...in the Muggle world, with all those Muggle cars.

Rose was not reading anything because she could not concentrate. She was the only Slytherin girl left in the school at the moment, so the dorm was pretty much empty. Rose had no friend here to unburden her mind; most of her classmates were so immature. Absentmindedly, she played with the stone in her hand and thought of how much she missed her dad, how much she wished he were here.

Suddenly, a shift of movement alerted her to someone's presence. Rose looked up to see her dad standing in front of her with a familiar smile on his face.