She couldn't leave him there…Harry and Ron had both fled with his memories in the vial she had conjured. Torn between following and helping, Hermione looked down upon the expired man, still bleeding, the blood soaking her denim as her knees touched his body while she knelt. Her fingers were on his throat, trying to staunch the blood—the venom in Nagini's fangs must have qualities that prohibit the congealing of the crimson fluid as even on the wooden floorboards it was still fresh, still raw and coppery.

She looked down on the bat of the dungeons, looked at his face tight and drawn, pale as parchment, and her fingers did not feel the pulse of the living beneath her. But, she was Hermione, resident Hogwarts know-it-all and bookworm. She had read many books, on all academia and knew that wizards did not die like Muggles—but Snape was the Half Blood Prince—could he go either way? Like Hermione she did not know whether her life span would be cut short as a Muggle or pulled taunt like a witch to live to be as old as Dumbledore. Hermione had read in Healers: A Reference Guide that even if a heart stops, that doesn't mean death; a wizard falls into a sort of coma, a limbo that with each passing moment, their essence separates from their body and if depleted, they may fall into a squib/Muggle state and thus pass on to the great unknown.

But, how could she let this strong, stony epitome of fear and pride, snide and torment slip literally between her fingers? Hermione thought of turning away, raising and chasing to catch up to the Boy Wonder and sidekick, but looking at Snape, she couldn't. She was drawn to him; his mind seemed to beg for company in this distress—beg entrance into her mind—tell her something…

Tearing her sleeve into a strip of material, Hermione applied to his throat. Was she or wasn't she a witch?

"Accio Dittany!" She shouted without her wand, as it lay on Snape's chest. No thought went into foolish wand waving; intent and will, magic and soul went into the distress of her words as they wavered and echoed around her. Her voice was unfamiliar to her now as another voice was in her head—a voice that commanded her to search the body below her.

Insipid girl! Make yourself useful and look in my pockets…

Hermione started to tug open his sodden cloak with haste and flipped the inside over for any pockets. Casting a silent Lumos she held the light over the black and bloodied material. His undercoat held few pockets and many buttons. She wasn't keen on unbuttoning them all with a war waging around her and the balance of the wizarding world at stake, seeing her possibly dead professor starkers was not high on her list.

Patting him down she felt something next to his chest, not in a pocket, but underneath his coat. She opened a few buttons and withdrew a pouch that was attached to a silver necklace, worn over his bloodied pink stained shirt, it was similar to hers.

She opened it and held miniature vials but dropped them as a whizzing sound behind her made her fly to her feet, wand at the ready—but it was the Dittany that flew into her hand. The vials were returned to their regular size but unlabeled. They were green and thick beneath their glass. And something else was there that missed her first sight, a picture torn in half of a red haired woman. Lily…

Why would he be carrying vials? He was a potions master so they must be important to be on his person.

Hermione poured the Dittany in his bloody mouth, trying to make him swallow, but blood just gurgled out. Hermione was dry heaving. She opened the vials and sniffed them. Not blood replenishing potion at all. Poison?

Think Hermione! Think! You're good at this!

Professor Snape was a double agent. Working around the megalomaniac and the Order, he was in constant danger. In danger of Death Eaters—but he was a master dualist. Something he was prepared for more subtly…poison? Antidote? Antidote…antidote…poison…snake…Nagini…anti—antivenin? Antivenin!

Yes! Hopefully…Well, he is dying so it can't hurt any if he takes it….but he can't swallow…think…think…

Inject it!

Hermione transfigured the vial into a syringe and jabbed it into his thigh.

Work! Work! She commanded but he just laid there, cold and pale. The blood was slowing but she thought it was due to him running out of it.

Why do I care if he lived or died anyways? He was a prat to us all, he played us all for his own devious plans…but Dumbledore trusted him…

"Dumbledore trusted you! Dumbledore trusted you! And by Merlin's sodding bleeding beard so did I! I trusted you, respected you! You were the only professor that I actually had to try to please and could never impress! What do I have to do? Tell me! Wake up! What do I need to do? I can solve this, I can! A clue, one sodding clue…" Hermione threw up her hands and walked away from his body. She was done. She had no clue what else to do and knew not what else to do.

At that moment she jumped. Voldemort's voice was reverberating throughout the room. She needed to be out there, helping the war. Helping the fight. Not here, helping her dead professor. She had hoped he might be alive, like in the effects of draught of the living dead—but no, he would not wake, and he had lost to much blood.

Perhaps, even if he was alive, death was better after all this war. And living the life he was living, this peace, no matter how he went, had to be better.

Life? Did such a man, a Death Eater, value life? Did he know the pleasure of it, because he certainly knew the pains…Hermione was young, but she be damned if she hadn't lived enough of the second war to know and value life. This man had so far been in two, front lines and all.

She looked at his face, that nose of a Roman sculpture and slender fingers that had fallen at his sides as he had let go of Harry and said those horrific words she knew would keep her up for many hours and years to come:

Look…At…Me…

With a shudder she crossed to the hole she had entered from. She had done her work and tried her best. He was a goner for sure, she was positive. So many had already fallen. Nothing could be done for them.

"I've tried professor. But, if we fail today, I'll be seeing you on the other side and perhaps then we can discuss N.E.W.T.S. level Defense Against the Dark Art and Potions, eh? There's so much that I wanted to know but as your student, you wouldn't even spare me the chance." She didn't look at him. She wanted to remember the towering black man that would leer over her cauldron and in not finding a fault pass wordlessly by to torment Neville. She would take that voice of his in her mind's recesses and remember the professor as he was with agate eyes as mirthless as a midnight soul.

She did not see that the onyx eyes slowly cracked open seeing nothing and a slippery crimson finger barely attempted a twitch.

The war was over. Of course, the Chosen One had won, and all over celebrations were held in his honor and all the war heroes glorified and all the excitement just made Hermione want to crawl into a hole and cry. And that is precisely what she did in her childhood home after retreating from the carnage hewn battlefield of Hogwarts once the counts were tallied of the living and dead. All the baddies were locked up and under Auror watch, mainly Death Eaters and sympathizers, except one. No one had thought of going back to the Shrieking Shack and hovering Severus Snape back into Hogwarts into the Main Hall were the tables were being used to line up the dead for identification later, but Hermione.

Hours had passed when her mind had remembered, and with the wards around Hogwarts down, she Apparated to the Shack, but the dreary body of the Potion's Master was gone. All that remained was the blood stains. No hand prints or feet besides Hermione's.

All she could think of as an explanation was that a Death Eater or someone with a personal vendetta must have taken his body for some hopefully decent burial or some horrific dissembling of the body in some manner she would rather not think of.

She told no one of this. If they couldn't find him so be it. She was through with this mess. She had her own body to worry about right now and no one else.

Her parents were back from the outback. And bless them for their ignorance; they let her carry on living mopping around her room undisturbed. She did not tell them of the war, and how close they all were to being nonexistent. She kept her windows closed to the owls that flew to her home, clawing and beaking at the windows. She had at first accepted the mail, letters of gratitude, letters of desired interviews and fan mail, letters of memorial services and Ministry services, and so on and so on. She had ignored responding.

Was Hermione falling into a depression? Perhaps, but who in their right mind wouldn't? It was destined to happen sometime, with all this stress. She was an overachiever. Sitting down and thinking about it all frustrated her. She no longer had some demented psycho to worry about—she had a future. But, the problem was she was fantastic at everything, and that left too many doors open, too many options to pursue and then regret not choosing. The problem was she didn't want to sail through life on some early made success as the wingman in the Golden Trio. She was her own woman now..

As the school grounds were being cleared and Hermione was helping to levitate the injured away she saw the thestrals emerge from the forest and swoop over the grounds, attracted by the blood and the body parts laying around. With Sirius Black's death she thought hadn't thought a second about being able to see them, but now, now they held her gaze and she just stared back, and realized then that even some adults would double her age had yet to see them.

Harry, Ron and Neville had joined the new Ministry under Shacklebolt's ushered in peace and reformation. Hermione found herself desiring not a new life in the world, but a second chance to finish a seventh year that she missed out on in a familiar setting. Her N.E.W.T. year was rather comical as it was tragic, looking around and seeing the decimated number of students. This year all the house tables sat together, and all four houses became one. The hardest hit house was Slytherin, with their parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends and other family members in Azkaban.

There was nothing more comforting to Hermione than the library. She was the oldest student that chose to return, and thus, McGonagall had given her own room alone. She was not permitted status of Head Girl, and was of age, so she had her own rules: none. After the library was closed in the evenings, she would sometimes go and wonder the hallways, finding her way on the Grand Staircase and just following her feet and the faint glow of her wand. Peeves would leave her alone as well and the occasional Hogwarts Ghost would greet her then pass by. Several times, she would end up outside of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and more than a few times more, in the dungeons outside the Potions classroom. It was here that she felt secluded, sheltered and safe. Here the pulse of the castle breathed in its magical rejuvenation into her veins and kept the silence of the world in a echo that dripped off a wall and passed through the stones to beneath the world to clap with the thunder in another cycle.

Hermione would pull her sweater sleeves over her palms and fist them into a ball, crossing her arms over her breasts and turn away. She was becoming paranoid, believing that she could sometimes hear the steady stride of confident footfalls and the brush of a cloak on stone in a billow of an abrupt turn. He just wouldn't leave her mind.

But then he wouldn't leave McGonagall's either. She was still Deputy Headmistress. The castle refused to accept her as Headmistress and prohibited her entry into the chambers. The Headmaster portraits would visit other pictures in her office and tell her that Headmaster Snape's portrait had yet to make an appearance, and until it did so, or the castle acknowledged his death, he was still the Headmaster, until he resigned. And he never technically did that, since that dreadful night he was protecting the students, and Harry Potter, thus, he was protecting the school. It had been found that he was indeed working more favorably for the Order and not the Death Eaters, so his name was clear legally, but everyone thought otherwise, but Hermione and the Golden Trio. Dumbledore had trusted him. It unnerved Hermione to no end that the castle behaved in such a manner, and Snape's body had never been recovered. It was beyond eerie.

Nigellus, who kept in touch now and then past midnight in picture frames, leering around like his old self during those few months past now, had told her that McGonagall had been on the very urge of tearing Dumbledore's frame down and onto the fire if he didn't tell her if Snape was dead or not, was very interested in this gossip. He also mentioned that if he was Hermione he would approach the Deputy Headmistress, ask to take the N.E.W.T.S. now, and then set off traveling the world, wrecking havoc as it were, haunting old haunts, like a spider drawn to spinning webs, but then, that was him…

What the hell did that all mean? Buggering Headmaster left before she could ask. Hermione huffed, turned on her foot and went down to the Potions classroom. Slughorn was still instructor of the younger years, and only them. He had not seen the point in instructing just one student in her N.E.W.T.S. so had recently let her, as she was mature and intelligent enough to not blow herself or the castle up, free reigns of the less expensive ingredients and cauldrons to create a final project to hand in when completed to get top marks and pass Potions. Gods, how she hated Slughorn and his neglect for the subtle art of Potions and the intense care one needed to excel and push students to the precision necessary to not be careless. At least with Professor Snape—

No more thinking of Professor Snape.

Hermione had no idea what to brew for this project. All her other instructors had pretty much as well gave her independent study and offered to test her when she was ready enough before the end of the year to leave school. But that fear of leaving her safe surroundings gripped her again, this was where she had spent so many of her years…

Going to the classroom ingredient stores Hermione almost sneered at the absolute mess of the storeroom, it was so unorganized. Professor Snape would have heads rolling…she wondered then if McGonagall had been able to access the Headmaster's office, if Slughorn had been able to access Snape's private store room. She had been in there, before…but he was a DOA instructor so surely Slughorn had been given access to it. But then, both were Potion's Master, so maybe each had their own.

Hermione ran out of the dungeons, her feet pounding on the stones and her breath hitching in her throat, wondering at the thought that she might have after all left the man of her thoughts laying so undignified dying, she thought, and it turned out he was alive. If he were dead, then surely, surely, everyone would be able to get into his past possessions. He was a private man, determined to shut himself off from the world, but by Gods, Hermione be damned if individual magic could carry on past the grave. It just couldn't, and Hermione had read that in Hogwarts: A History, of which only the founders and others could was because their magic had been a collaboration and also carried on by others, and no one was doing that Professor Snape's.

She was now in the entrance hall and took off towards the storeroom, encountering no one but one spiteful cat, who just glared and hissed at Hermione. Mrs. Norris must be pissed off that she had no authority of Ms. Granger. Ha!

The door was locked and warded. Testing the wards, she could tell that they were stronger than before, but easy enough to lower. Within minutes they were down and Hermione was in. And everything was in place as it should be. Hermione closed the door and lit the lamps to be alone in this room. Professor Snape had a spare high collared robe on a hook behind the door.

Well, now that you're in, now what Hermione? What did you achieve?

Biting her lip she crossed to the ladder and sat on a rung. Nothing made sense, nothing seemed to have a purpose and she was sure she had been onto something. Just a dangling of something. Fisting her hair, she groaned and stomped the floor, making the ladder swivel a bit and a glass jar was tapped.

Shite!

Hermione rose, climbed the ladder and looked at the glass jar to put it back where it should be. Sopohorous beans. Her mind ticked over and remembered that they were in Draught of the Living Dead and very few other potions. Perhaps they weren't placed back from using them for sixth years. She scooted them back onto the shelf and looked around from her height, brushing her hair behind her ear. Some jars were sat apart from others as well as a black leather bag. Reaching over, she hefted the weighted bag down the ladder with her and peered inside. It was full of shrunken items.

Perhaps the Potion's Master was working on something and dropped this off. She clasped it shut and left the store room, re-warding the door, and left for her dormitory.

Sitting crossed leg on her duvet, Hermione stared at the carrying case that she had lifted from the store room, now sitting on her desk. She had stolen Professor Snape's bag, and was expecting him to swoop out of some corner and berate her, then cast an unforgivable curse on her. Taking deep breaths she told herself:

"O.K. Hermione. It's O.K. He's not here. Nothing wrong. Just a peep inside, is all."

Opening the clasp, and removing the insides carefully removed a test tube rack filled with vials secured in with rubber stoppers; pipettes; burettes; deflagration spoons; measuring spoons; splints; stirrers; beakers; thistle tubes; burners; clamps; tongs; crucibles; pedestal and mortar; and tubing upon tubing with connectors; cauldrons; and last of all, notebooks. Three notebooks.

Hermione couldn't help but smile. This was intellectual stimulation that she needed, longed for, now that Voldemort was gone and her friends working, she was left to herself, with no goal. Now, she had a goal. What was Professor Snape doing?

Enlarging the equipment and placing them on her floor and desk, she lastly returned the notebooks to their size and ran a trembling finger over the leather bond cover. It was ink stained with fingerprints on the corners and edge where the owner must have turned to open and close it. She checked for traps and wards on the books and finding none, flipped open the cover of one.

It was definitely Professor Snape's. There was no dismissing the cramp and spiky writing. Flipping through the pages she saw he had filled in almost every white piece of parchment inside with notes, jotted all over, with torn pieces of paper tucked inside as markers, and there were diagrams and pictures, charts and numerical systems inside. The other two books were just as similar. But, there was one underlying problem with all three notebooks. They weren't written in English: they were coded. He had written them in some other language or something as the writing, was most definitely not readable to her.

Professor Severus Snape became more intriguing the more she got to know him. Well, first off to decipher the blasted thing. And if Hermione J. Granger could solve his logic puzzle potions first year, she'd be damned if she couldn't solve this system at 18 years of age now…

Opening her satchel and removing bottled ink, quill and parchment, she proceeded to copy down a sample page of his work, and then let it dry as she flipped through the books more slowly, looking for anything that resembled a sort of key to unlocking his works. But, knowing him, he kept in his memory, and locked away somewhere.

She found nothing. Looks like a trip to the library was in order then, first thing in the morning. Hermione was exhausted after all this excitement and promptly fell asleep for the next few hours.