Professor Hermione Jean Granger had been teaching at Hogwarts for a little over 2 years and though she could have loved it immensely, she had found no joy in waking up to teach a group of dunderheads each day. A lot of things could change a person within the span of ten years, or more accurately, war could change a person. For some, it was a time that they could easily close the door on, lock it and throw away the key, But for others? Those few could not escape the tremors, the sadistic memories that they fought against. These were the witches and wizards who carried a reminder of the war with them each hour of the day, even though they had been scarred in different ways, they bared a mark. These people suffered the most and though they were constantly begged by loved ones to seek help, they couldn't open up. They began to rescind within themselves, building walls around them as high up as possible to keep their minds from crumbling to pieces, to keep anyone from entering.

Hermione was one among thousands who had become withdrawn, never being able to feel the warmth of the sun reaching down into their souls. She had never been one to open up after the war, becoming silent, observing everything, always guarding herself and shutting the world out of her life. She took no note of the changes until a year after the war, when Ron had broken up with her because of her uncharacteristic ways. So with each year that past, she turned into the female version of the second most feared wizard in their world.

One, Professor Severus Snape, took note on the way Hermione cut off the world, only speaking to teach the class and when talked to? The woman barely said more than two words when subjected to a bit of light chatter. He silently observed her from the corner of his eye. She sat next to him staring at her plate of food, as if its contents held something far more gruesome than what she had experienced her whole life. He raised a questionable eyebrow as he projected his full attention towards her. 'What the devil is wrong with her?' He pondered unsure on how to proceed.

Hermione could feel eyes analyzing her and froze, only relaxing a smidge when she noticed that it was Severus, her colleague. Slowly she made eye contact with him, giving him the briefest of nods in acknowledgement before turning her attention back to her food. She waited a few moments, waiting to hear the familiar 'clank' of silverware on fine china before she resumed her thoughts.

She felt exposed when seated next to the mysterious man and even though they had been colleagues for a while, Hermione feared him. She feared that at any moment he could barge into her mind, slyly poke at the right answers to the unasked questions and make her come completely unhinged.

Hermione held a dark secret that she dare not share it with just anyone. She detested those who couldn't keep their noses out of other people's business and knew she should be one to talk. With her track record as a student there, but like it was stated before, war can change people.

She had been cursed, it was nothing she couldn't handle, but it affected her greatly. She just needed to rely on her mental parlor tricks to keep Hades from stealing her. Whenever her mind was not occupied on observing and teaching or anything else remotely distracting, she was plagued by images of death. Visions of how people died or she would see corpses mangled in the most frightening way. The images were so vivid and realistic that it shook her terribly at times. Even though the vision's fought her constantly these days, showing up on a whim, she spoke to no one about them.

It felt like she was on the brink of insanity, and she dare not live through hours in a clinic of being tested or even worse, being pitied.

Hermione Jean Granger was not to be pitied.

Severus watched as the poor girl resumed fighting an endless battle within her, millions of different emotions rushing across her face. His thoughts wandered back to the war, remembering how he found her at the end of Malfoy senior's wand, eyes wide with fear. The blonde man had spoken an ancient curse that even Severus knew not what it was, but when it shot her square in the face it seemed as if there was nothing amiss. Severus had shot the death curse at his ex-friend and he watched as the man withered to the ground with a playful smile frozen upon his lifeless face. Severus quickly inquired if she was okay. He left her when she nodded 'yes' and did not see her until the very end when they bumped into each other trying to collect the dead.

The silence, that usually relieved him, was making him uneasy that afternoon and the emotions of concern washed through him as he watched her.

"Professor Granger, may I enquire to know if you are feeling alright this evening? You seemed to be distress about something. Surely Potter and Weasley haven't said or done something to anguish you?" Severus asked in a most civil tone.

Hermione placed her silverware down, taking the napkin from her lap to dab at her lips for good measures before turning to speak to him.

"Oh, no, sir. I can assure you; all is well with me and I thank you for your kind inquiry. Harry and Ron are quite well." Hermione knew that he wasn't really asking about them, but she replied with no more and prayed that he would not press further. She began to resume picking at her food when she was interrupted again. 'That was longer than two words.' Severus noted. He knew war changed everyone in different ways but the way she was acting was rather ridiculous, so he persisted on having a conversation with her.

"I've heard Potter and the Weasley girl are on their fourth child, it would seem. Not long till we'll be having their children running around? We'll have to savor the next couple of years before they come to terrorize these halls." He smirked.

She nodded and then excused herself from the Head Table to rest before the afternoon classes began. He thought that she might at least show a small smile or protest, but after the war he had come to notice that not once did she smile the way she always did. In fact she never smiled at all, not a single trace on her face ever showed that she did before. He almost missed the way she used to pester him with endless amounts of questions, her determination to devour every crumb of information. Now she was simply a shell of the woman she used to be.

He continued to watch as the woman before him scurried out of his presence. It was the first time the man never wished that he held the power to clear a room with his presence. He sat hunched over his plate, staring into it with a daze that he could not breakout of. 'What is wrong with her?' He counted to thirty before excusing himself to the Headmistress and began his trek to Hermione's classroom.

So, Severs Snape had finally decided, He was going to get to the bottom of what happened to her. What else did he really have to do? Life was beginning to get dull anyways; he needed something to preoccupy himself once in a while.

Hermione did not stop her fast pace until she had reached the safety of her classroom, but even then that was a stretch. Gasping for air, she leaned against the door for support. It was not much of a distance from the Great Hall and the woman was not out of shape, but she was sick. Hermione was thin and without her large intimidating robes, very frail looking indeed.

The great Hermione Jean Granger was dying.

The curse was causing her to grow slowly insane and at the same time, it was sucking her magic and life away. She had tried everything; researched till she no longer found pleasure in reading, experimenting till she ran out of money and sponsors, and sought out the most wisest and dangerous of witches and wizards their world had ever know. Yet, it was all to no avail.

Ten years.

Ten years and still she was no closer to an answer, not a single clue. She figured she had another five years to go before the curse would take her fully; even Severus' 'stopper in death' would not slow down the curse. She refused any help from anyone that she questioned and dare not breath a single word on the matter to people she knew.

She was giving up.

Hermione gained some bearing and when she grew confident, she walked to the front of the classroom taking a seat behind her desk. Research notes were scattered about that she still dabbled in, but it was from mere habit now to have them.

Her hands fluttered to her face, covering her eyes with a groan of frustration. She let them slide lifelessly into her lap and simply let her head fall back against the backrest as she stared wordlessly at the ceiling. Minutes ticked by as she let her head drop back down to stare out at the empty classroom.

It was quiet and looming with magical energy. The wooden desks were old and rickety, faded from years of use. The surface's were scratched and marked from improper use of quills or students writing to forcefully on their parchments and the stone floors had seen better days. It was empty of posters, pictures and knickknacks, sitting just as plain and dusty as the first day she was assigned to it.

Letting out a sigh she shuffled to her feet, trying to find something to focus on before the terrors found their way to the front of her mind. Behind the desk were large imposing bookshelves that housed the many books she had collected on her quest for the answer.

'Oh, the answer…' she sighed.

That was what it had become to her, 'the answer'. It was never the cure because she couldn't think of it as a cure. A cure was something that made a disease go away forever, but she had lost hope for finding such a thing. She didn't even know what it was she had. There was nothing like it that was ever recorded, so the cure became 'The answer'. 'The answer' told her why and what could be done, who had first created it and what was its real purpose.

She ran a light finger along the many spines of written facts, which she knew by heart. She could point at any volume and recite the text word for word, cover to cover and it was tiresome.

Hermione was tired, exhausted and over taxing herself. She would quit if she could, but at the same time, Hogwarts was her home, her only guiding light in the darkness of her soul. If she did quit, where would she go and with what money? Her parents were gone, she had no other relatives and Harry and Ron were to busy with their own lives. She wasn't going to be around much longer and the more she stayed away the less it would hurt them, the less it would hurt her. Her teaching position had allowed her the ability to use less magic and let the magic of the castle work for her, but sometimes, it wasn't enough.

"How does one live with the knowledge that they will soon die?" she asked the empty room, not expecting any answer in return.

"Everyone dies soon, Hermione. You cannot die until you've lived, that is life and deaths only rule." came a soft voice. She knew that silken tone but a detached feeling spread through her as turned to meet Severus' gaze.

She froze, not believing she could have let her guard down. As turned around in terror, a gruesome sight met her. The field of the final battle replaced the boring classroom. Fire blazed around as smoke made it harder to see and breath, it began filling her lungs causing her to choke as her eyes filled with salty tears. Figures walked towards her, clawing the ground and air to get closer to her, beckoning for her to come to them.

Faces of friends and enemies alike called her name and their screams were frightening, but not as much as the sight of them. Their mangled bodies were falling apart, blood gushed from wounds and guts spilled out onto the floor. Their flesh was colored grey and blue and some had eyes hanging right out of their sockets as others had jaws hanging unhinged. She couldn't explain it any other way, but it was horrifying to see the way their bodies moved as one, like puppets, as black shadows wrapped around them like ivy. Some of the shadows formed hands trying to capture the frightened woman and as she shrank away screaming with pure terror, she tried to fend a pair of arms off as they encircled her.

She thrashed and screamed, feeling the vision smother her until the rasping voices of her name being called formed into one strong masculine voice, that she knew all to well.

"GRANGER? GRANGER! GRANGER can you hear me? HERMIONE, it's not real! It's not real witch! Focus!" Came Severus' strong but pleading voice as he held on to her with a strong hold. He couldn't understand, as he coaxed the girl out of the terror. One minute he was answering her question, the next she was screaming bloody murder.

Hermione stared at Severus with owl like eyes. Her brain was trying to focus on his face, trying to see the lines of his features, the way his lips bent into a deep frown and his nose held a slight irregular bump on the bridge of it. His eyebrows were arched high with concern and his dark eyes searched her face trying to find some form of life in her. Her muffled mind gripped at his gaze, using it as a light through the darkness and finally she could breathe. She gasped for air, not seeming to fill her lungs fast enough as she held Severus in a death grip, but fear came back to choke her when she couldn't seem to look away. 'NO!'

Severus was in shock by the sight before him, he watched as she withered like a rabid animal about to go insane. The woman before him was grey and as cold as death, her teeth were clenched as if fighting off the Cruciatus curse, but it was her eyes that made Severus openly stare at the woman in pure horror. He recalled how it was said that the eyes were believed to be the door to the soul, but when he looked into hers he saw nothing but darkness. Whether it was because her soul was completely corrupted or because she no longer possessed one, Severus was lost within them, falling until he landed in an endless realm of darkness and decay.

All around him, life seemed to have disappeared and he could feel himself panting from the labor of running away. The distance growing closer as he ran harder and suddenly a two-story cobblestone house appeared, causing him to stop dead in his tracks. Fear gripped him like no other as he recognized where he was and as he looked up at the lit window, he saw the flash of green light in his mind before it even happened. His vision blurred as the scene rushed past him, finding himself in the doorway leading into a navy blue room. His heart froze as the scene unfolded in front of his very eyes, the nightmare that he relived every day.

Lily lay sprawled out on the floor, limbs positioned in unnatural ways, as he stared into her eyes. Her precious emerald green eyes that held such warmth, such wonder and passion, were frozen open with never ending fear. Tears streaming down his face as Severus crumbled to the floor, he felt the ground shake around him as he cradled her lifeless form to his chest. He had sensed someone in the room and was ready to leap at them when he saw Hermione, standing rigid with clenched fists at her sides and tears streaming down her face.

"NO!" She scream and Severus was ready to lunge for her when she screamed with more force than ever.

"NO!" The ground seemed to rumble and in the middle of the scene; golden light appeared like a rip in a seam.

"NO!" She screamed the third time with such force that the world seemed to rip apart and Severus felt himself being thrown into the air, his form went crashing into a row of desks. He banged his head hard against one of them and his vision blurred before it focused again and he saw Hermione in the same stance as he did in the vision.

"Get out, NOW!" She snarled like a wild dog.

Severus didn't need to be told twice as he crawled up to regain his footing. Too petrified to look back, he fled the room as if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels.

Hermione waited till he left the room before sliding to the floor unconscious, her magical and emotional energy exhausted from trying to save him from her mind and souls cage.

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