PG-13; Harry Potter - Highlander; Learning to live in peace time is even more difficult than in war time since there's only the good guys left to fight. Methos shows up at Hogwarts, Hermione apprentices to Dumbledore, and Sybil Trelawney sees Death.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. The only benefit I'm gaining from this writing is (hopefully) reviews.

A/N: This is the sequel to Death & Betrayal. While this fic can stand on it's own (I think) I would suggest reading D&B first. To those of you who have already read D&B, my apologies for taking so long with this. It had to simmer for a few months before it took on a proper form. It's still going to take a while for each chapter to manifest, but I now know where it's going and more or less how it's all going to work out. I hope everybody enjoys. mg

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Life & Loyalty

by MarbleGlove

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Learning

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Waking up proved a slow process and Sybil was scared to finally open her eyes for fear that she was still in the nightmare. It was an old nightmare that she tried to forget. It hadn't returned in more years than she cared to count and she had thought it gone permanently.

The future seemed to be beating itself against her skull and she feared that it was finding it's way in, but surely that was only the residue of the nightmare. She hadn't seen anything for more than a decade and as much as she hated that loss, the idea of the future returning to her eyes was terrifying.

"Don't be an idiot, Sybil. You no longer see the future and if you did, it would have nothing to do with him. He's in the past, he's in your great-great-great-great-grandmother's past at that. Pull yourself together, girl. You've come this far, you can get through one more day, and at the end of that day, you can get through another night, and at the end of that night, you'll get through another day. Okay? Okay."

She was muttering to herself as she got up, wrapped herself in a thick robe, and lit the first stick of incense. She worked hard to get her senses interacting with the present world. Let the future come to her through tea leaves and tarot and crystal balls, not through the cracks in her psyche. The dream was nothing more than a nightmare.

She had nothing to fear from the man with gold-green eyes.

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"Mudblood."

The insult came from a group of students walking to their next class in one of the Hogwarts corridors. It was not obvious who had spoken, but they had all heard it. Hermione tried not to let it show how much that insult hurt.

It was only to be expected. When the great Albus Dumbledore, generally acknowledged to be the most powerful wizard alive, takes on an apprentice for the first time in at least twenty years, there's going to be some jealousy. And it was such an obvious insult. But it still hurt. It told her that no matter how much she learned, and how hard she tried, she would never be completely accepted into the wizarding world. Her eyes prickled.

"Miss Granger." The low voice caught her attention and after a sniff, she turned to face Professor Snape.

"Yes, sir?"

Snape was just looking at her in a considering fashion. She wasn't sure whether to be insulted or complimented that he was looking at her much as he would some new, mildly interesting, potions ingredient.

"Do you attend church?"

The abrupt question took her completely off guard. "What? I mean, um, yes. When I'm at home, I attend my parents' church."

"Tell me about the creation of man."

"Um." She took a moment to think back to Sunday school. She wasn't particularly religious, but she did have a very good memory. "'Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.' Genesis 2:7."

Snape looked a bit disgusted and Hermione winced. He always looked that way when she recited from a book. After all the essays she had written and gotten back covered in insults, she should know by now that he expected her restate her readings as a demonstration that she held "at least some miniscule pretense at comprehension". As he had pointed out on several previous occasions, a good magical reference book could provide quotes on any given subject at request, and he would prefer that she offer some evidence of being sentient. She held herself ready to receive another insult, but looking at him it was clear when he bit back whatever comment he was about to make.

Instead he said, "'Mudblood' is only an insult if you are embarrassed by your faith. As a rule, wizards don't have religion. If you are embarrassed by having religion then you are made weak because you are possessed of something you must hide and protect. If you are proud of your religion, then those who are without faith are the ones who do not understand and are lacking that which you have."

Hermione was amazed by this entire speech, but what finally burst out was, ""Mudblood" is a religious reference?"

Now Snape really looked disgusted with her. "You've been called that for how many years now, and you, the annoying know-it-all, never even bothered to look up what it meant?" He sighed dramatically, waving her away with a contemptuous hand. "Be quiet and lead the way."

Hermione shut up and led the way.

That morning, Dumbledore had asked her to give a tour of the castle to a friend of Professor Snape's while the professor was in class. It had been rather enjoyable. She had been too cautious to question Master Adam, as he had been introduced, about the unexpected friendship but the man had been pleasant and she had kept up a constant monologue of facts and stories that she had learned from Hogwarts: A History. Adam had actually seemed interested, unlike all of her own friends. He was also kind of cute, with a sharply angled face and rather amazing eyes that seemed to shift between green and gold depending on the light.

And then they had gotten to Sybil Trelawney's tower and been seen by the batty old fraud who had immediately let out a shriek and fled into a corner to cower there, as if expecting to be beaten. The shriek had almost given her a heart attack, Hermione was sure, and she had no idea what to do with a hysterical professor. She supposed it would be bad form to simply leave the woman where she was, especially since there was a witness present. Hermione really disliked That Woman.

So the tour was cut short, Adam stayed to try to calm Trelawney, and Hermione was sent off to Dumbledore to apprise him of the situation. From there she had been sent to escort Professor Snape to Adam who was still with the divination professor.

At least she was getting her exercise today, racing back and forth and up and down through the entirety of Hogwarts castle. Once she had made sure that the two professors and the guest were settled in the infirmary for the time being and did not want anything further, she left them, headed back down the main floor, and then up again to Dumbledore's office.

After events there had calmed down and Dumbledore was ensconced in his office preparing to make a floo call to Trelawney's family, she went to the library and got out a dictionary and looked up Mudblood. Sure enough, "a reference to the followers of three of the major muggle religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Stems from the belief that a supreme being formed the first man out of mud." Hermione had to laugh out loud. She would bet nearly anything that none of the people who called her this actually knew the meaning. The dictionary was one of those centuries old books that the Hogwarts library seemed to specialize in. Almost nobody actually read it, not even her. They heard the insult and repeated it knowing only that it referred to muggleborns. She had always thought it had to do with blood purity and she was fairly sure most people thought that. Only Snape, with all his cutting comments and insults, could be depended on to know the actual meaning of every insult he used, and then use it appropriately.

She was beginning to realize why Dumbledore liked Snape so much. He was a rather enthralling character.

She had always tried to show the professors of Hogwarts respect. Well, with the exception of Trelawney who was a complete fraud and deserved no respect. But, she had always shown Professor Snape respect, and tried to make Harry and Ron do the same. It was not, however, until the point she had hated Snape with every fiber of her being, that the seed for true respect had been planted.

It had been near the end of her seventh year, after Voldemort had been defeated.

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Hermione once more had her hand up in Potions class.

With the war finally over, the atmosphere at Hogwarts was more relaxed than it had been for six long years. The change had even effected Professor Snape.

Admittedly, Hermione was rather surprised that a more drastic change had not taken place he was still harsh, insulting, and highly prejudiced in favor of his Slytherins but the insults were not quite so pointed, and he wasn't quite as unfair as he had been before. Thus, Hermione felt better than ever about raising her hand to answer every single question asked in potions class.

It was only the third day after classes restarted. After a moment spent under the thoughtful gaze of Professor Snape, he called on her again.

He waved her to stand. "Miss Granger."

She stood and gave the answer to the question, but then to her surprise, he kept asking questions of her specifically, getting more and more advanced and esoteric. She began to sweat. The other students were completely lost a third of the way into the fifteen minute oral pop quiz. And by the end, she was making wild guesses and had to concede that she had no idea what the answers were or even what kind of answer the questions demanded. When she had first admitted that she didn't know the answer to one of the questions, Snape had nodded his acceptance, but just when she had thought her humiliation was complete he told her to continue answering questions with her best guess as to the correct answer. It only ended when she admitted that the final question made so little sense to her that she couldn't even parse the sentence.

It was like a nightmare in fact it was to fuel later nightmares for months to come. She just stood there and tried to answer questions that she didn't know the answer to and the professor listened to her stuttering and gave her absolutely no feedback. She trembled.

"Miss Granger. You have all the knowledge of an apprentice and all the attitude of a first year. To prevent you from getting a swelled head, more than you already have, let me inform you that a correct attitude is considerably more important than mere book knowledge. You will sit down. For the rest of this course, you will remain silent and with your hands down. For every word you speak within this room for the rest of the year, you will lose your house five points. Do you understand?"

Hermione was still in shock from the grueling pop quiz and at first his words had no meaning to him even though they were in standard english. He waited for her reply and when she finally comprehended what he had said, her mouth dropped open.

"Nod, if you understand."

She closed her mouth with a click of teeth, her pale face now red with anger. She nodded jerkily.

"Oh, and five points to Gryffindor for every correct answer you gave, and five points from Gryffindor for every incorrect answer."

"But you told me to guess!" The words burst from her without any thought. She was outraged.

"I don't believe I told you to guess incorrectly." Snape looked slyly condescending and spoke in his silkiest voice. "And that will be thirty points from Gryffindor for speaking six words."

Hermione had to grip the edge of her desk to prevent her hands from shaking too badly, and possibly to keep herself from jumping on the professor and trying to kill him. Snape continued to smirk at her, as she stiffly sat back in her chair, and turned her eyes downward.

The professor leaned on his desk and finally took his eyes off of her. He scanned the entire room of students. The other students were variously angry, shocked, pleased, or gloating. However, mostly they were confused and waiting to see what happened next. Several of them thought that it really wasn't fair of Snape to start changing now, in their very last year. And if he was going to change, why couldn't he suddenly change into someone nicer and easier to deal with? Wasn't it just like him to confuse things this close to graduation. Sadistic bastard.

"I am implementing open office hours twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, after dinner. If any of you have any potions questions that you didn't ask in class, for one reason or another, you may do so then."

Hermione was furious. That had been far worse than anything Snape had ever put her through before. She barely heard what he said for the rest of the class period. She hated him.

She muttered obscenities as she ignored her friends after class and stalked to the library to research the correct answers to each of the questions he had asked her.

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Over the following few weeks even the Slytherins had started disliking Snape's new attitude since they were all now required to know the answers to the questions that Hermione had once answered for them. When Ron's rants against the professor quickly turned from being solely in her defense to being about how he really wished she could speak in class so that he, Ron, didn't have to study as much, Hermione began to get a glimmer of understanding about her situation.

It was this dawning understanding that convinced Hermione to venture down to the potions office on a Thursday night and see what happened. Snape had apparently had a good reason to tell her to be quiet. He couldn't be totally unreasonable. Perhaps she wouldn't be killed on sight if she ventured into his office.

Professor Snape had a surprisingly pleasant office. It was brightly lit and verging on too warm given the extra layers Hermione put on in preparation for time spent in the dungeons. The professor was relaxed in his chair apparently researching something given the number of books on the desk.

But he looked up when she entered and politely waved her to a chair while he marked his place in the book he was currently studying. "Yes?"

Well that didn't sound too antagonistic. She smiled nervously and pulled out a scroll that had all of the questions she wanted to ask, with space left between them for her to fill in the answers. Most professors would wince to see such a thing in her hands, she knew, and the pre-final-battle Professor Snape would have probably given her detention for a month just for sullying the doorstep of his office. However, now that the war was over and he wasn't under as much pressure, Hermione was willing to test the new limits. She didn't think he would kill her. She kept her hand near her wand just in case, though.

Snape just continued to look at her questioningly.

"I have some questions."

"Ah. Revenge for that quiz? It took you long enough. And you a Gryffindor. I'm sure Minerva would be disappointed to learn that you seek revenge and, given that you are, that it took you so long to bolster your courage." He paused for a moment to see if she would reply, but she just flushed. At least some of the questions she had put on the list solely as a way to get back at him for that horrible pop quiz that still had her waking up at nights in a cold sweat.

"Well? Are you going to ask or just stand there all night?"

Her face was still red when she asked the first question.

Two hours later, when she left for the evening, she was astonished. He had answered each question fully, many with various side comments or stories. Occasionally some other student would come in with a question and the professor would break off to help that student, but when it was done he would return to exactly where he had left off with her and continue.

He had leaned back in his chair, rested his head back, his dark eyes glittering under slightly lowered lids, and wove a web of knowledge with his voice. He was relaxed and obviously enjoying expounding upon his subject of choice. He was enjoying what he was doing, and for the first time ever, Hermione looked at him and saw something beautiful.

Hermione left in a daze, completely amazed by the amount of knowledge the professor had. She wondered if any of the other student even realized how knowledgeable the potions master was.

By the following Monday, several other students were coming to listen and interject a few questions. Mostly sixth and seventh year Ravenclaws, although a few younger students would come and sit in the hall so as to not be seen, without a hope of understanding the potions discussed, but just to hear his voice and the occasional story's that dotted his expositions.

By the end of the year, the other teachers had learned which students to threaten with a detention on a Monday or Thursday for maximum threat. It had taken the students a much shorter period, and a few painful lessons, to learn that Snape was only this relaxed when he was in his study. In class when he had to get through an entire lecture in a finite period of time, or when there were a dozen cauldrons at work, he was just as short-tempered as he ever had been.

This had actually appealed to Hermione for a time, that vitriol that seemed to be lacking in all the other professors who remained giddy over the end of the war. After the horrors of the battlefield, Hermione had thrown herself into her studies once more, seeking some escape from the memories. Professor Snape managed to provide just what she needed. When he was talking about his potions, his voice was surprisingly comforting, and the information given was enough to keep her mind more than occupied at the same time.

While she refused to be grateful for the anxiety dreams he had given her, they were at least a break from some of her other nightmares.

Another thing he had given her to think about was the idea of being an apprentice. He had told her that she had sufficient knowledge to become an apprentice. Admittedly, he also said she didn't have the attitude, but she had been silent, as per her instructions, for the rest of his classes. Being an apprentice after graduation was the best way to become the best in whatever field she chose. And she chose potions. Or rather, she had chosen potions as her field of study for as long as it had taken to get up her courage to ask Professor Snape to be taken on as his apprentice and for him to look at her like she was insane and say, "no."

Hermione vaguely wondered how it was that after seven years of being this man's student she could still be so utterly mortified by him giving her a single look.

Since she had nothing more to lose, certainly not her dignity, she might as well continue. "But, sir. I'm your best student in potions. I've beaten all the records of every student you've ever taught at Hogwarts, sir, and,"

He cut her off when she took a breath. "Given that Headmaster Dumbledore has been chortling to himself, and anyone else who stands still for too long, about the joys of taking on an apprentice ever since you requested a time-turner five years ago, your immediate future is not really up for debate, so stop blathering at me about your grade percentages."

Hermione had been honestly shocked. "What?"

"Oh, come, come, Miss Granger. You have top scores in Arithmancy, Runes, Transfiguration, and Potions. Now what field do all of these add up to? And that Hogwarts happens to contain a world-renowned master of?"

"Alchemy." The word was said on merely a breath. Her eyes were large. "Headmaster Dumbledore wants to take me as an apprentice?"

"Indeed. Why don't you go and let him know that I've ruined his surprise." Snape snorted, then smirked. "And I never take apprentices."

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A/N: A forewarning: while I have rated this fic PG-13, which won't change, I am seeing some fairly dark themes headed this way.