Hermione Granger was having a bad day. She's just finished ratting out Ron for taking advantage of Lavender and earlier today Snape had given her a detention for assisting Neville in his potion. She wouldn't have done it if she hadn't been in the cauldron next to him, but this potion was explosive and she was personally not in the mood to die today. A detention for literally saving the class! She fumed. She hadn't had a detention since her first year and it had been because of Ron and Harry. It would be fitting that Snape would be the one to give it to her.

With a frustrated sigh, she stormed out of the castle in her fury. She knew she was alone, everyone else was at dinner, but she wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of finding her sulking in her Headgirl rooms. Instead, she decided to take shelter from the dark clouds and approaching night in the skirts of the Forbidden Forest. With the dark clouds as warning, it began to rain. How fitting, Hermione thought. The sky matched her emotions.

She was left to her thoughts in the silence of sunset as the quiet transition between animal calls of the day and night began. She didn't mind the rain as it hit her face and soaked her thoroughly. She had a fleeting hope it might rinse her of her anger, her apprehension, her difficult life in essence. Looking back at the castle, she realized she didn't mean that. She loved Harry and Ron and all that Hogwarts was. She just wished sometimes it wasn't so complicated. She had little idea of how complicated it was about to become.

Severus Snape didn't like warm weather. He didn't like summer or light or spring and the cute little animals that came along with it. He preferred darkness and winter and fall. He enjoyed blackness. And yet, he realized glumly, he didn't like rain. What purpose did it have? It made you wet, it made you cold, it made people irritable, and it quite often was miserable to endure.

Fuck rain, he decided grumpily, casting a charm to keep him from getting wet. Use the damn seas to water your damn plants. All you have to do is boil it first. It isn't hard to find, he moaned in his mind, all of England is a fucking island! Deciding it was probably useless, Severus let his sudden irritation pass as he walked towards the Forbidden Forest. Besides, he thought with a sudden pang in his heart, rain reminded him of his past, of love gone stale. He returned to his normal cold and harsh behavior as he picked up his pace. The last thing he needed was Lucius prolonging this meeting for a "chat".

As planned, the oh-so-familiar blond man stood in the center of the Forbidden Forest. He leaned against the trunk of a large tree and sighed impatiently, studying his nails. Where was the twit when he was needed? Suddenly, a crack of a branch and movement from the bushes revealed his partner, scowling in his normal way. He mistook a step and came straggling forward, barely catching his balance. Lucius rolled his eyes in annoyance. The man was like a bat: graceful where he was comfortable, blind to the rest of the world and its complications. He was safer to stay inside Hogwarts' walls. Luckily, however, this bat was particularly adept at potion brewing.

"You have it?" Lucius asked hastily and Severus, never one to come unprepared, nodded and lifted a crimson potion into the open where they could both see it. He swirled his creation as he stared at it intently.

"A time traveling potion. Why would the dark lord want this, Lucius?" Severus already knew the answer, but he decided to play dumb, just to be sure. Besides, holding the potion Lucius was to deliver to the dark lord, he gained some leverage.

"What do you think, you git? He's going to go back and make sure Evans and Potter are killed long before they can copulate, let alone create a child." Severus absorbed the information. Smirking, he was surprised a word as big as "copulate" was in Lucius' vocabulary. No doubt Dumbledore would find it vital. He'd be expected to report to the Headmaster's office immediately after Malfoy left. But he wasn't going back to the time when Harry's parents were killed so he could just take Harry with them. With this action, there would never be a Harry. It would change the past, the present and the future. He'd just given the dark lord his greatest chance at winning.

For some odd reason, his stomach knotted. A fleeting, often ignored conscience told him that he'd done wrong. And yet, his body moving automatically, he handed Lucius the potion, just like he'd been expected to. It would do him no favors to turn good now.

Hermione kept walking, suddenly glad the brush on the edges was so immensely thick as it poured overhead. But when she realized she could no longer see clearly because of the dark, she stopped to survey where she was. With a filling emotion of dismay, she realized she had entered the Forest and was assuredly lost. The sound of voices mildly assuaged her fears. But as she got closer, she suddenly wished she hadn't. There, in the clearing, stood some of the last two men she would ever want to see. Lucius Malfoy and Professor Snape turned to glare at her.

"It appears we have a visitor, my friend." Striding quickly, Lucius caught the spy before he could escape. Grabbing his arm firmly, Malfoy threw her forward. After a glance, they both recognized the intruder as Hermione Granger and Snape's scowl nearly disappeared as he walked toward her. What was she doing here? Didn't she realize how dangerous this was? Lucius could want to kill her for overhearing and he couldn't stop him. Otherwise, he would appear as a traitor and all his work for the Order would end. Hell, his life could end. He wished she knew what kind of situation she had just put him in.

"Oh good," Malfoy said with a sneer, "Our lord wanted a test subject." Panicked, Hermione looked up at her Professor. He was her only hope. She didn't know what Malfoy planned to do, but she could be sure it wasn't going to be good.

"Leave her be, Malfoy. I will be under suspicion if a student disappears during my watch. My information for the dark lord would be cut off if I'm suspected. Lord Voldemort needs me, Lucius." His voice of confidence covered the deep fear he had in his soul. Hesitantly, he gave his hand to Hermione, who gingerly took it to stand. When their hands met he nearly pulled her to him. It had been so long. . .

With great anger, Severus noticed she was bleeding from a large cut in her head and her knee. Lucius had thrown her in bushes with thorns nearly as large as the young girl's fingers. She was pale; she was losing blood quicker than she should. He had to protect her, his heart told him. He loved her.

"Oh don't be a prat, Severus. Give her here." In a low tone so only Hermione could hear, Snape turned to Hermione.

"Run, Granger. Don't look back until you've reached Dumbledore's office." Shoving her forward to urge her to hurry, Snape stepped between her and his associate.

"Move, Severus. You will regret this."

"No." He said without emotion. He was alarmed to realize he couldn't hear Hermione's footsteps. Glancing behind him, he saw her still standing there, looking petrified.

"Go!" He shouted at her. Turning back the last thing he saw was Lucius' triumphant smirk before he uncorked the vial and threw it at Hermione. Suddenly understanding everything, Snape watched her dissapear, feeling as if a part of him had just died. Meanwhile, Hermione flew backward into a world she considered the past.

R&R! thanks much!

Your mistress of the untold,

-Rae-