a/n: welcome to a new fic by a new writer. it's AU, but does contain HBP elements. will be SS/HG later on.

disclaimer: only going to put this on the first chapter. you know the drill. they arent mine (of course they arent..) and i make no money from them (of course i don't). so, enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE

"…It's for your own protection, Miss Granger," warned the headmaster, a hint of exasperation creeping into his usually calm voice. The witch before him was beginning to understand that he was not going to relent in his stupid scheme to get her away from the war.

"In light of all the threats you've been receiving-" he faltered, pondering the best way to reiterate the sentiment he'd expressed so many times before. "Surely you can understand your parents' concern for your safety?" Hermione did not raise her head to argue with him, which he took as a good sign. "This does not shut you out from the work of the Order; in fact, I think it could make you one of the key members in the months to come-" he was interrupted by an incredulous "Sir?" before he finished his statement. Hermione's head had snapped upwards and she was staring at him as if he had just grown wings.

"You think that by sending me to some safe house in the middle of nowhere you're going to make me a 'key member' of the Order? By sending me out alone to go mad, just so I 'don't get hurt'! You're not sending Harry and Ron away! Why can't I fight with them like I always have? Do you really think me incapable of making my own decisions?!" She looked set to continue her rant, but was silenced by a look from the headmaster.

"Miss Granger," he began, wishing she would lose the defiant look she was carrying and accept the plan, "you will not be alone, and I assure you that you will be doing important work for the Order; I hope you understand why I can't tell you exactly what at such a time. I do not, in fact, know all the details myself but you can be sure you will be of value. We will contact your new house using protean-charmed parchment, so we will remain in touch. I know you will miss your friends and your studies but we must all make sacrifices for this war. You will be able to take all your belongings with you."

The ever-occupied mind of Hermione Granger was racing. She could tell she wasn't going to be able to get out of this. She would miss Harry and Ron and Hogwarts but if she really was going to help the Order defeat Voldemort, she wouldn't be spending her time grieving her loss of freedom. It was a small price to pay compared to the task Harry had. A few months wasn't so long in the scheme of things. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded her head.

"Excellent!" beamed Dumbledore. "You must leave tomorrow. The school will hear that your parents chose to take you home for your safety. Pack your belongings and say your goodbyes." The twinkle was back in his eyes, but there was a lead weight in her chest.

"You're sure you'll take care of my parents?" she asked on the way to the door.

"I have made their house unplottable, my dear," the old wizard replied kindly, "They will be safe there. I am sorry you cannot remain with them, but your work may prove vital – I feel it is best under the circumstances if you and your companion remain alone." She nodded and let herself out of the circular room.

It was the longest, and yet the shortest walk to Gryffindor tower she ever remembered. What would she say to Harry and Ron? They were bound to think she was trying to hide away. Though the threats had shaken her, she had not wanted to try and escape. She of all of them had always understood what it meant to stand so publicly against Voldemort. With a sigh, she gave the password and entered the common room.

Harry and Ron lounged in their usual seats by the fire, deep in their game of wizard's chess and talking in whispers. They quieted as she approached.

"What did Dumbledore want?" Ron asked as she sat beside them. She took a deep breath.

"Well…" The breath wasn't enough. She took another. "He wants…" She swallowed. "He wants me to leave Hogwarts." She rushed the words and waited for them to sink in.

"What?" said Ron, either in incredulity or because he hadn't heard properly.

"Leave Hogwarts?" Harry looked like he didn't understand. She decided she'd have to elaborate on her own. Looking around to check no one was listening, she began.

"He says I have to go to a safe house because of the threats, and he wants me to work with someone on something that will help us defeat Voldemort, but he won't tell me who or what…" she trailed off, realising she didn't know what else to say about it. It was all so vague. Ron didn't seem worried.

"You can just tell him you won't go, right?" He looked up at her, fully expecting an affirmative answer. She looked down and shook her head.

"He won't let me stay," she said in a small voice. "He seems to think it's too important. I know it's horrible and surely you know I don't want to go, but… but well, it's not my decision… you can contact me with some Protean parchment Dumbledore is setting up; he doesn't want to use owls or anything. He says I have to leave in the morning." This time it was Harry who spoke up.

"In the morning?" His face carried an expression Hermione had never seen before. She nodded.

"There's nothing we can do. Maybe you'll be able to come and visit me sometime… I don't see why you can't…" Finally the realisation hit her and she collapsed sobbing onto her friends.

Sleep came uneasily to Hogwarts' Head Girl that night, alone in her room. Despite staying up very late to see her friends for as long as possible, she couldn't clear her mind enough to rest. Who would she be working with? She thought of several people but dismissed them as soon as they entered her mind. With her trunk packed and Crookshanks in his basket, there was nothing to do but try and sleep. Eventually she slipped into uncomfortable dreams of loneliness, torture and Voldemort. She awoke at dawn still exhausted and somewhat worried that the threats had seeped their way into her subconscious. Getting up, she decided to have a bath and prepare herself as much as possible for a day full of the unknown. The familiar surroundings of the bathroom and the comforting scent of bath oil soothed her until she felt ready to go to breakfast in the Great Hall.

Leaving her rooms was harder than she'd expected, but she tried to push any sentimental thoughts out of her mind as she made her way to breakfast. Joining Ron and Harry at the table, she began piling egg and bacon onto her plate. What would they do about food wherever she was going? There were so many things she didn't know. Deep in contemplation, she barely noticed the owl until it had landed right in front of her. Unfastening the note, she read:

Main gate, ten minutes.

Whoever had penned it clearly didn't feel like wasting words. She crumpled the missive and returned to her breakfast, looking around her to try and remember every detail of the magnificent room.

"Still be here when you get back, you know," said Harry through a mouth of toast. The comforting words hit her like stones – was it true? If the war was lost, there might not be a Hogwarts anymore. She might never return.

It was pointless thinking that way, so she smiled and nodded. It was time to leave. Getting up and smoothing her robes, she summoned her Gryffindor courage and headed outside.

Their goodbyes were almost formal. There was so much and yet so little to say to each other that wasn't already known, or that hadn't already been said.

"I'll be back," she choked, blinking furiously to try and stop the tears. "Don't forget the parchment, and don't forget to try and visit me… Make sure you do your homework!" The last sentence was so typically Hermione that everyone had to smile, but ten minutes had passed, so with a quick hug she was forced to put her friends behind her and run down to the gates. It was going to be a long few months, she was sure of it.

Just outside the gate, Hermione was faced with what looked like about half the Order. Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Moody and Molly Weasley were there along with several other figures too far away to make out. She was stunned by the huge security Dumbledore had placed on the area, but managed to smile warmly and hug Molly with some attempt at normality.

"You got the note, then," came Kingsley's gruff voice. "Dammed post owls can be so unreliable…" Hermione nodded in an offhand way, feeling lost for words.

"We've got a portkey for you," Molly said shakily. "We're not allowed to come with you. Dumbledore said he would rather we never saw the place. Are you alright, dear?" She brushed some imaginary dust from Hermione's robes and pulled her into another embrace.

"Let's get moving," growled Moody, his magical eye rotating manically. "Here's the portkey." He handed her a muggle tin of baked beans brightly displaying the caption 'Heinz: 57 varieties!' "Just tap it with your wand. You should arrive in the kitchen. Dumbledore says your companion will be along tomorrow morning and your belongings are already there." She thought she detected a hint of wariness over the word 'companion', but couldn't be sure of it. Too off-balance to think of a suitable question or anything else to say, Hermione drew her wand and nodded a farewell.

"Good luck, Hermione, dear," said Molly, "everything will be just fi-" The words were cut off with a familiar tug behind her navel as she activated the portkey.

Severus Snape strode through the dungeons in a towering rage. His life, a mess from the best of angles, had just grown a million times worse. The façade hiding his emotions threatened to crumble. For the first time in forty odd years, he wanted to scream. As if running between a madman and… well, another madman, wasn't enough, he now had to lose the one source of stability and respite he had. It was enough to drive anyone insane, he reasoned.

"…Tell the old fool you have been discovered spying on me," said the first madman.

"…It's for your own protection, Severus," said the second. So here he was, about to go to some safe house with Hogwarts' Most Annoying, caught between a Dark Lord who thought he was undertaking his most cunning spying ever and a sugar-crazed headmaster who thought he was in mortal danger since being discovered by the above Dark Lord. It was becoming progressively more difficult to remember who believed what about him. It had been a very long time since he considered what he believed about himself, in fact. He did not choose sides. He played his parts. He waited.

His bags were packed and his rooms all empty. The new Potions Master – or, as it was, the old Potions Master – Horace Slughorn, would be arriving first thing in the morning. The Granger girl was already in the accommodation they were meant to be sharing. He hated to think what life – if one could refer to it as life – would be like over the next few months. He could not abandon the Dark Lord, and yet the headmaster seemed intent on him working with Granger on some Order-related business. Naturally, he had flatly refused, but naturally, he had a nasty feeling that the refusal would not do him any good. It was going to be hard explaining his absences to the girl; some improvisation would likely be on the cards. All in all, the situation looked to be the stuff of nightmares whatever light you put on it.

A cold, mirthless laugh echoed off a stone wall in a room that was nowhere. With the servant in the "safe house" and the old fool believing his spying days over, the war had suddenly taken a delightful turn in his direction. Yes – it was all working out very nicely indeed. The man was a natural spy; observant as a hawk and quiet as a mouse. They would never know where the leak was until he had cornered all of them.
Hermione appeared in the middle of what seemed to be a completely average, unremarkable and very muggle kitchen. Out of paranoid habit she turned all the way around, surveying her surroundings. Moody would have been pleased, she thought. In front of her were French doors revealing a small garden. A rickety fence surrounded the plot and she couldn't see anything beyond it, rather like the ground dropped suddenly away. She then let herself outside and discovered that in fact the ground did drop suddenly away. Very suddenly. As a matter of fact, her house was rather precariously perched on the top of a large cliff.

Having been a mild vertigo sufferer all her life, Hermione did not take well to this new turn of events. Clinging to the fence she dared to look down briefly, which she knew immediately to be a mistake. At least four miles below, (several hundred feet, anyway) jade waves crashed brightly onto some jaggedly picturesque rocks. She realised she was still holding the tin of beans and edged away from the fence to set them down inside. Trying to forget the altitude, she went to explore the rest of the house. Telling herself she was actually much closer to sea level than at Hogwarts did nothing to ease her sense of being much too high up.

The rest of the house was as average as the kitchen, she found as she searched each room in turn. Downstairs, aside from the kitchen, there was a small bathroom, a living room with a dining table and a TV, and a warded door. According to a note spellotaped to it, she was not to try and enter until her companion joined her. She hoped it was to be the place where they would work and nothing more sinister meaning that she would require someone with her. There was no space on the ground floor for a room behind the door, so either it was magically extended inside or it led to a basement. She hoped it was the former but, given the muggle nature of the house, rather feared it was the latter. Putting the thought out of her mind, she climbed the stairs.

In a cream coloured room overlooking the beach she found her trunk and Crookshanks. As she let him out he pounced into her arms, almost bowling her over.

"Oh, poor Crooks… I know, baby…" she talked in soothing tones. "It's a strange new place, but we'll be okay." She batted his paws playfully and he tried to catch her fingers. "Be careful in the garden," she added, "don't you ever go past the fence." As if to discover why his mistress was warning him, the ginger tom bounded out of the bedroom and down to the kitchen door. By the time Hermione reached him he was angrily clawing the glass. "Hey! Leave it alone," she laughed, letting him outside.

As the cat neared the fence, he slowed and seemed to survey the scene. He gingerly pushed his head through the posts and looked down. Almost before she had chance to react, Hermione found her arms once more full of orange fur. She giggled in a way entirely unlike her. At least that made two of them who didn't like the drop.

As the day drew to a close, Hermione wondered how she was ever going to survive several months with just this unremarkable house to entertain her. The only other rooms upstairs were a second bedroom and a bathroom. She had unpacked her trunk, marvelled at the distinct lack of interesting possessions she owned, and aimlessly wandered back downstairs. She prayed that whoever would be staying with her would be pleasant or interesting enough to alleviate the unceasing boredom the next few months was looking set to provide.

Deciding to take a walk out the front of the small house, she soon discovered that something very strange was happening. Though she could not really feel a magical wall surrounding the property, it was clear that she was not going to be able to get further than just outside the garden gate. There was a small gravel path running from the gate over the clifftop as far as she could see. She could not step onto it. She could not apparate onto it. She could not touch it in any way. Her heart sank as she realised she was completely trapped. Trapped by a huge cliff and a magical wall, and completely cut off from civilization. It didn't take her long to construct a charm to show her the wards. On top of the Fidelius Charm that hid them, there was some kind of charm to make muggles avoid the spot, much like the charm on Hogwarts. There was also an anti-apparition spell and several kinds of barrier she didn't recognise. Her cage almost felt more constricting for the lack of visible bars. She could see the beautiful countryside extending beyond her mile after mile, but she could not touch it.

There was nothing to be gained dwelling on her complete captivity. As a test, she attempted to make a portkey out of a fork, but it would not activate. There was no fireplace with floo powder and so no way she knew of to leave. Defeated, she fished around the kitchen for something to eat, but every cupboard was empty. She found every kind of plate and bowl and knife and spoon and fork, but no food. She retired to the sofa in the living room, starving, lonely and thoroughly miserable. In fact, she had never believed she would be so pleased to see a television set.

It was quarter to nine. She was starving. She was bored. Crookshanks was out.

"I want some food…" she didn't know if her voice came out as a scream or a sob. However it came out, there was now a piece of parchment floating in front of her. She frowned, hopeful. Pulling out her quill and some ink she experimentally wrote "fish and chips". The parchment disappeared. At first she thought nothing had happened, but when she went into the kitchen she found a large plate piled with muggle-style fish and chips. As she shovelled huge lumps of fish into her mouth, she considered the food's origin. It must have come from Hogwarts. It was clear that the food was always going to appear on this table, but she wondered how it reached here. At Hogwarts, the kitchens were directly below the house tables. There must have been a lot of complex magic involved, but right now all she wanted to was stuff her mouth full of as much food as possible, dieting be damned.

When she had finished, she found the remains did indeed fade from her plate like at Hogwarts. On a whim, she said aloud "I wish I had an apple." An apple promptly appeared on her plate. Feeling thirsty, she added "Can I have some orange juice too, please?" As if in answer to her question, a goblet appeared next to her plate. She almost felt bad for the house elves and thought about SPEW, but decided she was in an extreme situation and had no other way of eating.

Hogwarts' most hated Professor had one more night to spend in the castle he called home. He'd had the day off to pack, but did not feel better for the lack of annoying students to teach. In fact, he almost felt he would have valued the distraction. The whole school was at that moment being told that he was very ill and would not be teaching for a while, if at all. It made him smirk in a very humourless way to think of the expressions of joy on the students' faces to think of his imminent and painful demise.
At that moment there were five students who were not trying to hide their pleased expressions. Crabbe and Goyle laughed outright, knowing from their families that Snape was on a special mission that would bring down Hogwarts. Draco Malfoy's face showed a mix of emotions – regret, confusion and loneliness. Nobody noticed. Over at the Gryffindor table, Harry and Ron exchanged a scared look. They left the hall for the privacy of the common room immediately.

"What do you think?" Harry was the first to speak.

"I don't know," replied Ron. Something was not right - Snape was mysteriously ill at the same time as Hermione had to leave.

"It's got to be him," said Harry darkly. Ron gave a small nod.

"How could Dumbledore do that? Maybe it's just a coincidence." Harry seemed to be trying to convince himself.

"There's nothing wrong with Snape," said Ron. "Health wise," he added with a smile. "Get the map out." Five minutes later, with the map spread out between them, Ron located Snape's dot moving around in his office. They sighed.

"Clearly he's not ill… or not that ill, at least…" For once it was Ron that seemed calmer.

"How could Dumbledore do it?" Harry was getting angry fast.

"Harry, think about it, mate, there's probably something we don't know… Hermione can look after herself, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. It's hardly like the git will want to see her, anyway, so she won't have to put up with him much."

"But they were meant to be working together… that thing Dumbledore wouldn't tell her about." People were arriving back from dinner so they vacated the common room and went up to the dormitory.

Not having much else to do, Hermione tested out the shower (perfectly average, as predicted) and climbed into bed. Her housemate would arrive in the morning and she felt she might as well be rested for it. Idly stroking Crookshanks' fur, she drifted to sleep.
"…I assure you, Miss Granger will be perfectly safe with Professor Snape, and I will hear no more on the matter. This parchment will let you contact her – I also have a copy that leads to the same receiving parchment. There is no reason to fear for her. Now, I think, it is time for bed." Harry took the parchment and left the office alongside his red-haired friend.

"I still don't like it," he muttered.

"You realise Dumbledore gets to read everything we write to Hermione…" Ron scowled as he spoke. "I thought he was meant to trust us."

"We'll find a way," mused Harry. Some time later he added, "or, Hermione will…" They both laughed, and decided to go straight to bed.

Hermione struggled out of bed, disengaged herself from Crookshanks and stumbled to the bathroom. As usual, her hair was a mass of fuzzy curls and her eyes were still half closed. She splashed water on her face and brushed her hair. Once she had completed her ablutions she made her way downstairs for breakfast.

Passing the living room door she met the worst, strangest and most frightening sight she had ever seen. Severus Snape was stretched out on the sofa, stabbing the remote control wildly and scowling. The scowl deepened as he noticed her.

"Granger," he snarled.

a/n: if you could leave a review, it would make my day:)