Three

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

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"Hermione?"

Hermione chuckled at Madam Pince's hiss when Ginny's voice rang throughout the library. She was the only one studying at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning, but that didn't make any difference in the librarian's stringent rules.

"Over here," she called softly. Ginny rounded the corner of the nearest book stack and smiled brightly.

"There you are! I figured I'd find you here. Have you eaten breakfast?"

Hermione thought guiltily of the sweet buns she'd eaten in the Hogwarts kitchens several hours earlier and said simply, "Yes, I've eaten. What did you need?"

"Are you coming to Hogsmeade?" Ginny sat down across from her, and Hermione noticed that she was dressed awfully nicely for a simple trip into Hogsmeade. Her skirt had been magically hemmed to show a bit more thigh than usual, her soft brown boots lengthened to just brush the smooth skin of her pale knees. Even her hair seemed especially burnished. "Harry and Ron said they'd try to meet us if they can get out for lunch break early. Their captain's quite the taskmaster, I gather. You interested?"

"I really can't afford to take a break right now. I need to keep working on this," she replied apologetically, gesturing at the enormous stack of textbooks and parchments in front of her. Ginny nodded, peering curiously at the work load. Her hair brushed against the dusty cover of one of the larger tomes, loosing particles in a vast cloud, and she sneezed.

"Did you talk to Professor Vector yet?" she asked fuzzily, wrinkling her nose.

Hermione hesitated, embarrassed. It had been well over a month since she'd reached her decision regarding her future: she had always loved Arithmancy, and she couldn't understand why it hadn't before occurred to her to pursue her favorite subject professionally. She was never happier than when she was caught up in a series of equations that coalesced into something beautiful and simple, something that made sense to her. It had come to her in a dream, actually, in which she'd been vividly aware of every detail: her desk, smooth and solid and wooden, with the professional veneer of quality; the stacks of parchments strewn about it, glinting with equations that beckoned her curiosity; the way the ink flowed from her pen, which she'd been able to truly feel, and the mingled scents of books and chalk as pungent and as heartrending as though she'd been in the presence of the Amortentia.

Waking to a feeling of unprecedented excitement, her heart beating rapidly, Hermione had received the revelatory flash every young scholar dreamed of...the moment she'd known, deeply and without any doubt, that she would become an Arithmancy Mistress. She could love it, she knew...revel in it...and she could excel. She could distinguish herself academically as she'd always wanted to do and suffer from no second thoughts. She could achieve a sense of balance in her life and give something back to the magical community that had fostered her own fascination, perhaps teaching at an institution like Hogwarts while pursuing her own research. She could apply her discipline to any number of other studies, pursuing a truly interdisciplinary career while performing a calling in which she knew herself to be tremendously gifted.

Her convictions in that moment had never felt stronger and more solidly defined. It was the awakening of her old self for which she'd longed seemingly forever. She now faced the need to convince Professor Vector to let her pursue an apprenticeship under her tutelage the following year, however. She needed and wanted...she demanded...from herself a research proposal that was revolutionary, equal to the task of demonstrating her immense enthusiasm and dedication, one to blow all others out of the water. As it turned out, it hadn't taken long at all for her plans to take shape in the feverishly inspired state of her mind.

"I'm almost done," she replied, shaking herself from her recollections upon realizing that Ginny was beginning to regard her oddly. "I think I'll talk to her Monday afternoon. She's usually still in her office when we're done with Potions."

"What did you decide on for a project?" Ginny had risen and was glancing out the window longingly toward Hogsmeade. Hermione remembered that it had been some time since Ginny had had the chance to see her boyfriend and felt a sympathetic pang. She'd dressed herself up on the simple chance that he would be capable of making it into town.

"I'm not absolutely sure yet. I can't decide between applied and theoretical, and the project I'm most interested in has elements of both. I'd like to pursue both concurrently, to be honest."

"Then why not suggest it to Vector?" Ginny suggested. "She's pretty heavily involved in research for the Ministry during her spare time; I hear the other professors talking about her all the time. She edits journals, too. She'd probably love a new challenge."

Hermione had opened her mouth to launch into a detailed explanation of the hitch in her plan...the application of Arithmantic analysis to mediwizardry solutions...when Ginny interjected with, "Look, I'm sorry, but I really need to get going. I am sorry!" She was already partway to the door, shrugging helplessly. "I promise I'll let you explain every boring detail to me over supper, though!"

Hermione gave her a mock glare and shooed her out. "Fine. Have fun! I'll talk to you later, okay?"

Ginny waved goodbye and headed out happily, leaving Hermione to relish a moment of pure contentment. Ginny had been wonderfully supportive lately...invaluably so...and she was finally beginning to see the sunlight through the clouds, to use an old expression her mother favored.

Rising to stretch her stiff limbs, she stole a few moments from her research to pace back and forth before the window and do just that...admire the unusually vivid blue of the sky as it peeked through the cloud cover that day. The weather had been beautiful lately, as though it now felt the need to compensate for the overabundance of gray, hazy days that had dominated their lives...and moods...the previous year. Giving an appreciative sigh, she returned to the table and sorted idly through her parchments. She'd long since passed the mark of fifty and was still plowing steadily ahead. With every additional parchment added on to the already precariously balanced pile, she felt an increased thrill.

Hermione had undertaken some rather serious introspection over the course of the past month, largely of the variety her Muggle relatives would have jokingly termed soul searching. She knew that her greatest passion lay in Arithmancy and that she also loved Charms, and she couldn't help but feel incredibly energized by the thought of performing Arithmantic analyses at the professional level. What she required was a proposal of sufficient sophistication and depth to illustrate to Professor Vector that she had the skills, talent and tenacity required to study under her the following year. It was unusual for a Hogwarts professor to accept an apprentice, as it was understood that the apprentice had to possess the abilities to handle the lower-level classes and perform teaching duties in order to compensate for the additional drain on the already busy professor's time. There were alternative avenues for her to pursue, of course...others who would undoubtedly have jumped at the chance to take on one of Harry Potter's best friends as an apprentice...but just as she'd felt prior to approaching Snape, Hermione wanted no complications to come between herself and her teacher. Professor Vector would be honest with her, just as Snape had, and the fame and reputation she'd garnered since the final battle would be entirely irrelevant. If she was accepted, she could be totally confident that it was on the basis of her talents alone.

Research material, of course, she had in abundance. The Hogwarts library was fully stocked in that regard and with plenty of high-quality Arithmancy texts and journals, many of which she herself had ordered over the summer. What she wanted...what had occurred to her in one of her three o'clock morning revelations...was to apply her skill, the area in which she did have genuine talent, to helping others. She knew there was probably a deeper psychological reason for her fixation...some form of lingering survivor's guilt since the war...but there was no getting around it: these ruminations always led her inevitably to one area...healing.

More specifically, she thought with mounting excitement, healing charms and potions. It wasn't unheard of for Arithmancy experts to employ extremely difficult analyses in the development of new and improved healing methods, but the opportunities to find willing patients for clinical trials were slim. The most recent example she'd been able to dig up of such an event, a successfully revolutionized healing method...in this case, a potion...had taken place during Grindelwald's reign.

Hermione already clung desperately to an idea, but she wasn't sure she could possibly admit it to Professor Vector. She wanted to explore the possibility of Charming healing potions to intuitively sense and seek out areas of the body acting "unnaturally"...in other words, in pain. Such Charms already existed; they could be cast over the form of the sufferer in order to literally illuminate for the attending Healer the regions of the body affected by damage or injury. The difficulty lay in subsequently dosing the patient with the appropriate potions. Healing charms weren't effective over a prolonged enough period of time to treat chronic injuries, and potions, since they couldn't yet knowingly concentrate themselves in only the necessary regions, lost efficacy when spread out over the sheer volume of blood and tissue in the human body.

It was reckless, perhaps, but she didn't see why it wouldn't be possible to cast a Charm during the critical stages of potion making that would allow the potion to concentrate itself where it was most needed. There were ingredients that made potions more potent, more competent, more susceptible to the words their makers murmured as they stirred the cauldrons. There were potions so similar in their basic and most critical ingredients that only the subtlest differences in wording or enunciation prevented their dosage from killing rather than invigorating.

For Hermione, it was the ideal situation: it allowed her to immerse herself in the most challenging theoretical Arithmantic calculations of which she was capable at that point in her academic career, and it also provided if not the guarantee, then the possibility of future applied work if and when a willing subject entered the picture.

It also provided her with the means, at least in her rapidly whirring mind, to cure Severus Snape's lingering maladies. But that was the part she most decidedly could not admit to Professor Vector.

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"It would be wise," Snape was murmuring silkily, "to follow the directions precisely as I have worded them. You will find the outcome unpleasant if you do not properly skin the shrivel figs."

Ginny made a face at Hermione when he'd finally turned his back, and Hermione shot back an annoyed look at her friend. Modification of Shrinking Solution at the advanced level was difficult enough without Ginny chancing Snape's ire. It certainly didn't improve matters that since delivering his unfortunate decision regarding her recommendation letter, he'd behaved no differently toward Hermione in Potions, but she was uncomfortably aware of him...even more so than usual.

She'd always had a habit of reacting to his proximity. From an alarmingly young age, in fact, she'd been abnormally sensitive to certain aspects of his presence. Ginny, thank God, didn't seem to take much notice...yet. She seemed to remain oblivious even to the delicious way his voice would caress every ingredient, never failing to make Hermione shiver with its timbre.

Still, Hermione had lately begun to worry that Ginny might prove to be a dangerous lab partner. If she wasn't careful...if she couldn't learn to control the heat that suffused her cheeks whenever he passed nearby...Ginny was going to start taking notice. She may have been caught up in frequent daydreams of Harry, but she wasn't going to remain oblivious much longer...and Hermione, as adamant as ever that she didn't need cosmetics to court the attentions of irritating seventh-year boys, couldn't very well have blamed her reactions on the overeager application of blush.

"Think he stays up at night talking to a mirror, practicing what to say to scare us?" Ginny whispered, her hands clumsily skinning the shrivel fig. Hermione, terrified she might soon begin with an interpretation of Snape's nightly monologues, took it from her urgently. She may have lacked innate Potions talent, but she could still manage to properly...perfectly, in fact...skin a shrivel fig.

Not wanting Ginny to feel hurt or put out, she waited until Snape was safely across the room, occupied with terrorizing some student's unsatisfactory technique, before she spoke. "Why are you even in this class?" she teased. It had been a topic of ongoing joking debate between she and Ginny for some time. Ginny grinned and shrugged, setting about preparing the other ingredients. She'd expressed an interest in training to be an Auror, a choice of which her parents had seemed understandably wary. Hermione suspected it was still at the casual stage, but Ginny undeniably had the sense to perform at least decently well in all her classes in order to ensure that she would stand a fighting chance in the eventual profession of her choice. It was more than could ever be said for the boys, anyway. In fact, Ginny was an exceptional student when she wanted to be. She simply had Ron's capacity for allowing apathy to overcome her common sense at times.

Hermione was concentrating deeply on her shrivel fig, not really expecting Ginny to answer. Her whisper, complete with feigned longing, came as a complete shock.

"Because I just can't live without hearing Snape's sexy voice."

Hermione's knife veered wildly off course and sliced deeply into the pad of her right thumb.

Ginny, she was gratified to see, looked as shocked as she did by the sight of blooming blood. Uttering a small cry, Hermione quickly staunched the bleeding with her opposite thumb and stared at her friend. What had she meant by that? She removed her finger and stared at the wound, noting with consternation that the cut had penetrated far too deeply for a simple healing spell. Attempting one would only have poorly stitched the ragged edges of her tissue.

"What the hell did you mean...?" she hissed at Ginny.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Ginny whispered ominously, her suspicious eyes boring into Hermione's. Despite her evident concern, she had a look of pure, unadulterated triumph. Just then Snape landed before them, and Hermione tore her eyes from Ginny's, squeezing back a growl of pain and frustration.

"Miss Granger. Are you incapable of shredding a shrivel fig?" His hair had fallen forward, as usual, but she could see the slight curving of his lips through its curtain. His eyes, fortunately, were shadowed.

"Apparently, sir," she snapped back boldly, then clamped her lips tightly. He raised his head and his face came fully into view, expression darkened. He opened his mouth, presumably to deliver punishment, but she beat him to it.

"I apologize, sir. I allowed myself to get distracted and I'm in pain."

She expected a scathing lecture, but instead he closed his mouth and regarded her for some moments. Hermione resisted the urge to squirm under his unexpected scrutiny. Beside her, Ginny was holding her breath, as was the majority of the class. Finally, with a glance at her bloody finger, he said simply, "Your wound will require Madam Pomfrey's assistance. Miss Weasley, you may remain here and complete the assignment to the best of your abilities"...his trademark sneer overtook his lips again..."or you may accompany Miss Granger to the hospital wing, and the two of you will consequently accept a grade of zero on this assignment. Make your decision."

He stalked off, and Ginny grabbed Hermione's hand, dragging her towards the door. Hermione, feeling somewhat in shock...and not from loss of blood...let the mention of a failing grade slide into the back of her mind and followed dumbly.

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"What's the matter with you?" she cried as Ginny dragged her into the hospital wing while the other girl shouted simultaneously, "Madam Pomfrey!"

"Girls, girls!" The mediwitch appeared at the door to her office, flustered. "Really, all this noise is inappropriate. Now what is going on?"

"I sliced my thumb in Potions," Hermione bit out distractedly. "Professor Snape said..."

"Good heavens, girl! On the bed! Quickly!" Hermione realized as Madam Pomfrey set about observing her thumb that the damage was even greater than she'd first thought. She was fortunate the magically enhanced blade hadn't struck and damaged bone.

"Miss Weasley, fetch an analgesic potion," the mediwitch said peremptorily. Ginny, fully knowledgeable of the infirmary's layout after that summer, set off toward the gigantic cabinet stocked top to bottom with medicinal potions. Hermione found herself suppressing tears as Madam Pomfrey cleaned the wound and began murmuring spells.

"I'll knit it up, of course," she told Hermione, "but I suspect you're going to need a potion to to counteract the blade. One of Severus' Charmed knives, I would imagine?"

Hermione nodded, her mind latching onto Madam Pomfrey's use of his first name. She so rarely heard his colleagues refer to him as Severus. It seemed to her such a sensual name.

Ginny was staring at her oddly. It was the same look of which Hermione had been on the receiving end frequently over the past couple of months. She returned to glaring at her friend and downed the proffered analgesic potion.

Once Madam Pomfrey had dealt with the wound fully, Hermione was encouraged to continue taking regular doses of both potions for the following 24 hours. Reassuring the mediwitch multiple times that she would comply with her instructions, she waited patiently as Ginny returned to the dungeons to fetch their belongings, trying not to fuss with the magically adhered gauze strapping her thumb. Having her dominant thumb incapacitated for several days was going to be bothersome.

Finally, Ginny returned, and Hermione could tell from the look in her eyes that the two girls were going to be in for a hell of a talk. Still desperate to speak with Professor Vector...and wanting to avoid explanations as long as she possibly could...Hermione thanked Ginny for her book bag and said, "Is everyone gone?"

Ginny nodded. "Class is over, and that's your last class, so now you get to explain to me what in Merlin's name happened back there." Her voice tapered off to a breathless, almost awed whisper. Hermione managed to hold back a groan.

"I have to go talk to Professor Vector first... No! I really do!" she protested. Ginny had opened her mouth to object and was gesticulating wildly, but Hermione was already heading out the door. "I'll talk to you after supper."

"You're not going to avoid me!" Ginny shouted as Hermione fled, causing Madam Pomfrey to once again shout, "Girls! The noise!"