Chapter Two – New Accommodations

Disclaimer & Story Warnings: The characters and the world of the HARRY POTTER universe belong to JKR. The plot is mine. This story plot is rated MATURE. If you are not 18 years or older, this story is not for you. You have been warned!

Hermione's parents were furious at first.

The spells to reverse their Obliviation and return all photos and memorabilia with Hermione's own likeness were difficult. It was only made worse when her parents confronted her about what she had done. As soon as they gave her a chance she pulled out a stack of copies of the Daily Prophet from the last few years that showed them some of the events culminating in the war, as well as letters from Headmistress McGonagall and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley to fill in the misconceptions and truths they would want to know.

Though still angry that she had put herself in harm's way and had erased the very memory of her existence without consulting them first, they finally accepted it all after three days of going over the entire history of Hermione's years and struggles at Hogwarts. They were appropriately horrified at learning everything she had hidden from them and they made her promise not to hide anything from them again. It was the least she could do to get back into their good graces.

When tempers cooled they finally got around to talk of the future and were quite disappointed to learn of her plans to stay at Hogwarts for the summer to help prepare things for the next term, while she studied to complete her N.E.W.T.s. After she had promised to write often and to visit as soon as she officially graduated, they let her leave, accepting that she belonged to a whole different world and would not be able to stay in their own Muggle world. Tears and hugs were exchanged before Hermione headed to the Burrow by Floo, trunk in tow, briefly visiting Harry and the Weasleys before moving on to Hogwarts.

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Harry and Ron, of course, fussed over Hermione when she arrived and pleaded with her to stay with them for the summer before they started their studies for their N.E.W.T.s. They insisted they couldn't do their studies without her, at which she reminded them they had helped end the war and that she was pretty sure that they could handle a bit of schoolwork. They had no good reply to that, so Hermione insisted she needed the time to think about what she wanted to do while she studied and helped out at the school, having officially decided she didn't want to pursue being an Auror. Molly, of course, protested right along with Harry and Ron and made Hermione promise to come "home" to the Burrow as often as she could.

Hermione said her goodbyes, gathered her trunk and a basket of baked goods Molly insisted she take as well, and Flooed to the Hogwarts staffroom, having owled the Headmistress the day before to change the Floo connection from her parents' house to the Burrow. No one was present when she stepped from the flames. With a shrug at how quiet the castle seemed, she pulled out her wand to levitate her trunk and basket of goods instead of carrying them as she began her trek through the castle to the Dungeons below, wondering all the way just how quiet and different her this summer would be at Hogwarts.

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When she arrived at the Potions classroom she paused and looked at all the empty shelves, noting the disheveled look of the room in general. All the chairs were against the walls and the table had been put together to accommodate bodies being cared for, though thankfully the house elves had cleaned them thoroughly. She knew some of the wounded had been cared for down here during the battle. After her previous experiences with his character, she had figured that Slughorn would take some of the supplies when he left. But cleaning the place out? she thought incredulously. She hadn't thought that even Slughorn, with all his greedy little ways, would actually take everything. Some of the things, she was sure, had been here even before he had taken residence of the classroom the first time round. She was quite glad that Slughorn had left to enjoy his retirement once again. He was a good teacher but too much of a politician, (and apparently a bit of a thief), for her taste.

She pulled out her wand and conjured a quill and a piece of parchment and made an organized list of the things that would need to be stocked before next term. When she was satisfied that the list was complete, she put the parchment on the chalkboard with a Sticking Charm so she wouldn't lose it in the, she was sure, soon to be chaos of Professor Snape's quarters.

She approached the door that led to his office and said, "Draught of Living Peace." The door glowed green and opened for her. The office itself was in disarray similar to the classroom. Hermione tried to remember what it had looked like before, when Severus Snape had occupied it, but she couldn't. Too many other pictures crowded up against her skull, waiting for recognition, and so she stopped trying altogether. She walked forward and opened the door to a hallway that led to the Potions Master's private quarters.

During the previous year these rooms had still been used by Headmaster Snape, since Slughorn had demanded nicer quarters, so all around her was the essence that had been Severus Snape. After closing the door and waving her wand to light the candles about the room Hermione stared around her, taking in each and every detail with a curious sort of reverence, fear, respect and awe. A feeling, she was sure, that only Professor Snape had ever been capable of inspiring.

The room was simple, yet it spoke volumes about the man who had occupied it. The only furniture that graced the room was two plain wooden chairs, a small black and green brocade couch that had seen better days, and a scratched and dusty coffee table. Across the room was a vast window covered in heavy green and black velvet brocade drapes that matched the couch in both pattern and age. Behind it Hermione imagined there was quite a view of the lake. But from the stiffness of the material, as she brushed her hand over it, it seemed that he had preferred to keep them closed. Moving on to the fireplace, Hermione stared at the single picture frame that sat on the mantel in the middle of potion bottles of different colors and sizes. It was a small picture of a woman and a little boy. From the crooked shape of the boy's nose and the lank hair that hung over most of his face, Hermione knew at once that it was a picture of Snape and his mother, Eileen Prince-Snape. She picked up the frame and stared at it, wondering what life had been like for him in his youth, before the dark arts, Death Eaters and Voldemort, and a broken heart had corrupted it.

She set the frame down and looked through a doorway that led to a small, curving hallway with three doors opening off it. The first door on the right led into his bedroom. Hermione levitated her trunk and the basket of goods onto the end of the bed, where they stood out like a sore thumb, as if the room knew that it had an intruder in its midst. The bed was a four-poster, made of black walnut finely carved into a simple design of interweaving thorn branches. The headboard was more ornate, featuring two S's surrounded by thorn branches. The other furniture in the room, two night tables and one large dresser, made a complete set with the bed. In front of the large fireplace was a faded brocade chaise lounge that matched the sofa out in the sitting room. Next to it was a small coffee table upon which sat an old vase of dead flowers and a tarnished silver tea service. Without thought for her actions, Hermione Vanished the dead flowers and conjured a simple arrangement of a few white roses.

Satisfied with the small change, she opened her trunk and grabbed a stack of her clothes and headed for one of the doors that stood on either side of the bed. The door on the right was the closet, a fairly large walk-in. There were three large dowels inside, but only a fraction of the left one was occupied by a few robes that hung there. Everything else was bare and a bit dusty. Hermione wondered, as she waved her wand and Vanished the dust on the right side, why the house-elves had not been in these rooms. Granted, she was happy that they had at least one less area to slave over, but it was odd to find a Professor's quarters in such disarray. Hermione emptied the box of clothes until everything was organized in an orderly manner.

Sparing one last look at the black wizard robes, she left the closet and fetched the small box inside her trunk labeled "Toiletries". Hermione took the smaller box toward the door on the other side of the four-poster. She knew this to be the bathroom because it had been cracked open and she could see a medicine cabinet mirror and sink as she walked into the room earlier. She opened it and froze in the doorway as she took in the room before her. The bathroom resembled something out of a Home and Garden magazine of her mother's she used to read at home, underneath the darkness, dust and cobwebs that showed once again the house elves avoided these rooms like the muggle plague. The floor was exquisite with its black square marble tiles. The cabinetry was of the same black walnut that the bedroom furniture boasted. The counter to her left, around the sink, was of the same black marble as the floor. To her right the tile continued up the walls behind the fancy glass doors of a large, rather modern-looking walk-in shower. And directly in front of her was the largest old-fashioned style claw-footed bathtub she had ever seen. Every faucet, handle, knob, and hinge in the room was silver. Above her was a simple yet elegant black and silver chandelier. On closer inspection of the counter Hermione saw a row of phials and bottles. She read the labels to herself: Healing Paste, Pepper-Up, Sleeping Draught, Headache, and Blood-Replenishing... were among the many potions, pastes, and salves that were cluttered together all along the back of the counter.

Opening the medicine cabinet, Hermione discovered magically enhanced shelves that appeared to hold vast amounts of bandages and several books about how to heal various ailments. She closed the medicine cabinet door, her breath coming out in gasps; she knew all too well why Snape would have needed to keep such things handy in his personal quarters. She squatted low and opened the cabinet doors below the sink. The sight before her brought her to her knees and the tears began to fall. The contents of the cabinets would, to some, seem to be a complete mess, but Hermione saw the organization before her. On the left were several crates containing empty potion bottles and phials which, when she examined them, proved to be clean and sanitized and ready for use. In the middle were several crates full of used phials and bottles that had not yet been cleaned. And to the right were his stock potions ready for use, some of them glimmering in protective spells to give them extra longevity. Hermione slammed the doors and fell against them, gasping in sobs as the reality of the war, and all its consequences and the lives and opportunities it had taken from people, crashed into her again.

This room opened her eyes to the depth and reality that had been Severus Snape's life: long hours of tedious potions classes followed by torturous meetings, attacks, plotting, and sacrifice. This was the room he came to when he returned from his own private hell on earth. This was where he healed himself over and over of the countless tortures his body went through in the act of spying for the Order. This was the room where he would heal the shell that everyone else saw but no one really knew was just that, a shell. Thinking of all the hells he had been through, Hermione wondered if anyone besides Dumbledore had ever tried to heal Snape's soul.

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She bit her lip in concentration as she carefully listed the order in which she planned to sort and pack the belongings in each room in the Potions master's quarters. Part of her knew that if she succeeded in her plan, it would be all for naught. But she knew if anyone was to check up on what she was up to, she needed to appear to be hard at work with the task. So, to keep up appearances, she started with the sitting room. It only took her around twenty minutes, given how little had been in it. Next she decided to sort through the bedroom, closet, and bathroom so she could put her own things away for the duration of her stay.

When the bedroom suite looked more like a room she herself would live in, something clean, she walked across the hall to the room that she knew to be the library. Hearing the rooms and its layout briefly described by Headmistress McGonagall didn't do the library justice. Floor to ceiling bookshelves covered every inch of the walls. A large desk and leather chair were positioned at the far end of the room, with two love seats, two chaise lounges, and matching small coffee tables in between. The shelves on her left and right contained volumes upon volumes of detailed information about potions ingredients, while the shelves behind the desk were enclosed with glass doors. Bypassing the hundreds of other books, she headed straight for the glass doors and waved her wand.

The power of the wards that protected the contents nearly knocked her off her feet. Bracing herself against the desk, she proceeded to spin a complicated weave of spells to bring the wards down. Finally, sweat dripping from her brow and twenty minutes into the unravelling, the wards came down. The moment the wards came down the glass doors glowed an emerald green, then the light faded and there was nothing left between her and Severus Snape's most prized and dangerous books but the doors themselves. With cautious fingers she slowly opened the doors. Inside were the books she instinctively knew were the ones that would help her bring him back.

Pericoloso Potente and Viciousa Poisona were but two titles among the many dangerous and rare books before her that she knew would be a good place to start in creating an antidote. So as to not lose her nerve, she Accioed her white bag and proceeded to put those two along with a dozen others into it for her own perusal later. It was at that moment, when her mind was aching to get started on those books, that a loud pop sounded behind her, startling her. She swung around to see one of the Hogwarts house-elves, bowing.

"Please excuse, Miss, but the Headmistress sent me to announce dinner. She is saying you have never had dinner here in summer and would not know of the earlier time for eating. If you please, Miss, I will be showing you a shortcut from here."

Hermione smiled gratefully and held her hands – and the bag that she was slowly closing – behind her back and replied, "Yes, that would be very kind of you."

"Is no trouble, Miss. I is volunteering on account of Miss's past behavior. Some of the others was a bit scared to be helping Miss Hermione Granger."

Hermione smiled at the elf and proceeded to follow him. "I understand I made a bit of a fuss in my fourth year, but you can let them all know I won't pester any of you again – unless you ask me to, that is," she replied carefully, still smiling and hoping she wasn't posing a threat to the house-elves' beliefs.

"I is glad to be hearing that, Miss. Though I is doubting any of us elves would be taking Miss up on such offers. We is happy with our work, Miss," the small elf replied confidently.

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Hermione smiled in wonder at the many changes when she entered the Great Hall. The tables where the staff usually sat were gone, as well as the House tables. In the center of the room there was one large, round table made of a beautiful cherry wood, with matching chairs all around. The table was set in the regular Hogwarts style except there were candles on it as well as the enchanted ones that floated above. In the center of the table were four vases, each of them depicting one of the House crests. They were filled with a strange assortment of flowers and berries. Professor McGonagall was already there, as were Professor Flitwick, Professor Sinistra, Madam Hooch, and Professor Sprout. When McGonagall saw Hermione standing awkwardly in the doorway she motioned for her to join them at the table. Hermione chose a seat next to Professor Sprout, who greeted her with a friendly smile.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and said, "I would like to begin tonight's dinner by greeting Miss Granger, who has agreed to the task of ordering and cataloguing Headmaster Snape's possessions as well as prepare the Potions classroom for next term." Everyone smiled at Hermione before turning their attention back to the Headmistress. "Now, as to the students themselves, there will be some changes. We will no longer accept any behavior from students who prove themselves to be immovably prejudiced against others because of blood status. I am currently working on several strategies to deal with this and would be happy to hear of any ideas you have that might help. Now, I am starving, and I'm sure you are as well. Let's eat," she stated with a sense of finality that only McGonagall would get away with.

Hermione enjoyed the meal and the small talk with her previous Professors. It was even distracting enough to take her mind off the rooms in the dungeons below, and all the secrets it might hold.

A/N: There you go, people. I hope you're enjoying this story. I know this chapter may have been a bit…I guess lacking in dialogue…but I thought it was important, and I liked it, so no Howlers lol.

UPDATE March 2016: again this is written. Luckily this chapter didn't need as much work lol. Please read and review!