Hello my lovelies.

Sorry for the extreme length of time between updates- life caught up with me. I started my new school year, classes and clubs are insane, and I am drowning in work that needs to be done. More below. For now, enjoy Part Two!

Part 2

Hermione went through the rest of her classes that day in a kind of daze- she wasn't focusing on McGonagall or Sprout, she was thinking about Severus. It wasn't until after dinner that she had the chance to escape to the library, where she knew the boys wouldn't follow her. The questions at dinner had been humiliating and uncomfortable- everyone wanted to know why she hadn't shown her Patronus, and she did not want to answer. The library was the one place that they would all just leave her alone.

She settled into the same seat she had taken over the summer, looking out onto the lake. It was a clear night, with only a light breeze ruffling the treetops. Still, the slowly darkening purple of the sky warned that the sun was setting later and that winter was finally leaving, even as it turned the water of the lake black as the early spring night sank down upon the grounds.

"How on earth did this happen?" Hermione asked her reflection in the glass. "How did I fall in love with Severus Snape?"

September

Potions Master and student stared at each other, both breathing hard.

"I didn't mean for you to see that, Miss Granger," said Snape, inclining his head so that his hair fell forward, hiding his face. "I apologize." He leaned against the desk, strained from the effort of ejecting her from his mind.

Hermione, despite the pounding headache growing behind her eyes, shook her head. "Don't apologize for that, Professor Snape," she said quietly. "No child should be treated like that. You shouldn't have been treated like that." Hesitantly, she stepped forward and reached out a hand, resting it on his forearm. "I'm sorry."

"Now you are the one apologizing with no reason," murmured Severus. "Don't." He pushed his hair back, looking down at her with a glare- a glare that somehow managed to be friendly, of all things.

She squeezed his arm and let go. "I'm hoping you'll decide that is all for today?" she asked hopefully. "My head feels like it's made of earth and there are all manner of things digging holes through it."

To her surprise, he snorted in amusement. "Yes, that's all the Occlumency. But it's still a half hour before I can let you go- to avoid arousing suspicion. Would you like some tea?" They had decided for Hermione to announce that she was doing a special project for Defense Against the Dark Arts, which was why she had to meet with Professor Snape every Thursday night.

"I would love some," Hermione said, beaming at him. "And if you include that headache cure you brew, I'll be even happier."

The strangest expression crossed his face- his eyebrow raised and one corner of his mouth stretched up. Hermione realized half a beat late that it was a smile, of a kind. A crooked half smile, like he wasn't quite sure what to do with his mouth.

"Then by all means, a headache cure will find its way into the tea," he drawled. "I could use some too." He turned the handle of a door that suddenly appeared behind in the wall behind his desk, and disappeared into his quarters.

In a short moment he was back, bearing a tea tray laden with a heavy teapot, two cups, and a half eaten packet of biscuits. And, behind the teapot, a small package simply wrapped with brown paper. He busied himself with the tea, pouring it and offering her sugar and cream. It was domestic, almost unsettlingly so. Hermione settled into her chair, frowning at him suspiciously. Still, the tea was delicious and with a vial of Severus Snape's headache cure inside, it took only a few sips for the pressure behind her eyes to abate.

"What's that?" she asked finally, gesturing to the packet.

Severus picked it up, turning it over in his long fingers. It was funny- until that moment, she had never really noticed how graceful Professor Snape's hands were. The fingers were long and slim and scattered with faint scars. They danced over the package, tracing the sting it was tied with.

"I understand that you turned seventeen last week," he said finally. "And it came to my attention that no one has seen fit to continue with wizarding tradition, and therefore I have taken it upon myself to do so." He stretched out his arm and offered her the package, which Hermione accepted with slightly shaky hands. "Open it."

She did so. Inside was an old looking gold necklace. It bore a heavy looking gold locket, which revealed a timepiece when Hermione pressed it open. There was a delicate kind of filigree lace pattern on the outside of the locket, and the chain was sturdy but pretty. "Professor Snape, this is beautiful," she said, fighting back tears.

"It is custom to give a witch or wizard a watch when their reach their majority," he said, in his slightly stilted way. "For wizards, especially, a watch is tradition. For witches, any kind of timepiece does, really. It is unsurprising that no one thought to give you one- traditionally it is the parents or grandparents, or occasionally, a mentor. They must have thought your parents would have done it, but as your parents are not of our world, there is no way they would have known. Therefore, I felt it was my duty to-"

"Thank you," she said, interrupting him. "Thank you."

He nodded solemnly. "It was my pleasure, Miss Granger."

October

Hermione approached the door to Professor Snape's office with a hint of trepidation. She knew this night would be different- at their last session, he had given her a book to read- a book on strategy of all things- and had warned her that he would expect her thoughts on it the next time.

She knocked, waited for him to bid her entry, and walked inside, clutching the book to her chest. Severus snorted when he saw her. "It's not a security blanket, Miss Granger, and I thought we already established that I don't bite."

Hermione grinned at him sheepishly, then lowered the book. "Sorry," she said. "But after everything that happened with Katie Bell- I've been a bit jumpy lately."

Severus frowned, but gestured for her to sit. "About that. What are your thoughts?"

"On the Katie Bell incident?" asked Hermione. Severus nodded, but she was already talking. "That was strange, Professor. Really, really strange. I knew that the Dark Lord is back, I knew that there were going to be attacks, but I didn't expect it to be so soon, and so close to Hogwarts."

"Those are your emotions," snapped the Professor. "Tell me what the facts tell you. And don't tell me you haven't tried to put it all together, because if you didn't you aren't"

Hermione straightened in her chair, taking a moment to organize her thoughts. "Fine. An attack in Hogsmeade, on a weekend that it was known that there would be Hogwarts students present, tells me that whoever orchestrated the attack wanted to cause a particular reaction in the Hogwarts population. It was a message to the residents of the castle- students or teacher, I'm not sure yet. That's the problem- normally, I'd say that this kind of attack was nondiscriminatory, meant to cause fear and not to attack anyone in particular. But- but something is telling me it isn't that."

"I believe we have discussed your instinct for sorting out information like this in the past," Severus said quietly. "Go with your intuition on this."

Small white teeth closed on her lower lip. It caught his attention and held it for a moment, before she began to talk again. "Okay. So, something is telling me it wasn't an attack meant to inspire terror. Katie went into the bathroom, then came back with a cursed object. She then headed back to the castle. If it was a terror attack that wouldn't make sense. If they wanted to scare as many students as possible, they should have had Katie touch the necklace inside the very crowded Three Broomsticks. There were tons of students in there- on the road to the castle, no one saw her touch it except for Harry, Ron, and me. That tells me that the person the message was supposed to be delivered to was in the castle. The only people in the castle on a Hogsmeade weekend are the younger children, and then the teachers who stayed behind." She paused, uncrossing her legs then crossing them again.

"Keep going," urged Snape.

She sighed. "That line of thought wasn't taking me anywhere. So I turned to the cursed object- a necklace of opals." Hermione hesitated. "I saw it over the summer," she confessed. "Ron, Harry, and I followed Draco Malfoy into Borgin and Burke's."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Did you now?"

"We did," she said, her chin set mulishly. "So, Harry is convinced that Draco was the one who bought the necklace and somehow gave it to Katie. It would work out perfectly, except that when we went to tell Professor McGonagall, she said that Draco had been in detention with her all day. So, there is no reason it should have been Draco, except Harry feels like it is… and something is telling me that he has something to do with all of this. And now, thinking about it, you're going to kill Dumbledore because Draco is supposed to- so could this have been an attempt for Draco to kill Dumbledore? Make Katie deliver a cursed package? It works, except Draco wouldn't be that stupid- there are so many ways for that plan to go wrong, as we saw."

Severus leaned back in his chair, bringing the pads of his fingers together in a steeple as he considered Hermione. "You're close to correct," he said finally. "The plan was not Draco's, the plan was his mother's, but he was the one who executed it. It was meant to kill Dumbledore, and as you saw, it didn't work very well."

"Damn it," Hermione whispered. "I was hoping it wasn't Malfoy. Either of the Malfoys. That was- that was so reckless! Katie could have died-" A hand was at her chest, nervously fiddling with the locket she wore.

"To the Malfoys, Miss Bell was expendable," Snape said quietly. "She meant nothing to them, just a means to an end. Instead, they are probably angry that she touched the necklace and lost them a valuable magical object. But what does this tell you about Draco and his mother, Miss Granger?" Hermione didn't want to notice it, but she did see that he called Draco by his first name and yet he stilled referred to her as Miss Granger.

Hermione sighed, slumping in her chair and rubbing her temples. "That they're scared and desperate and they're not acting smart," she said mournfully. "And since they're scared and desperate, they're just going to hurt more people as they try to get what they want."

Severus nodded. "Exactly."

"But what do we do about it?" Hermione asked, rising from her chair and looking at him defiantly, brown eyes wide. "What do we do?"

Severus arched an eyebrow, and slowly, Hermione retreated back into her seat. "We do nothing, Miss Granger. I will try to get Draco to listen to me, as futile an effort as that may be."

"But isn't there anything I can do to help?" asked Hermione, a begging note in her voice. She leaned forward in her seat. "Please, Professor Snape."

For a moment, he was quiet, thinking. "What you can do is try to get Potter off the scent," he said finally. "If he gets wind of this, it will be bad. Just keep him out of this whole mess, understood?"

Hermione nodded eagerly. "Yes. Yes, I can do that."

November

He was in her mind and he could see the youngest Weasley boy wrapped around the twittery Miss Brown, and it was unclear where her mouth ended and Weasley's began. Since he was in her mind, Severus could feel Hermione's hurt and her embarrassment and the creeping sense of I didn't even like him that much but I was trying to and then he goes and does this and the jealousy for the kiss-

And then that memory led to a corridor when it was dark and cold and there was fluttery satin against her skin and Krum's face was approaching and there was a mouth pressed against hers and a warm hand moving up- dangerously high- from her waist to her ribcage-

She was pushing against him, using her memory and his surprised emotion to follow the attraction in her gut to him memory of the same attraction, and she was in his mind-

Bodies, moving roughly against each other, his mouth kissing a woman with red hair with a bruising pressure, flesh against flesh-

And then she was roughly expelled from his mind, and they were in the present, in the real, and Hermione was turning and retching from the dizziness that came with being so forcefully ejected. Her cheeks were flaming red, as were Severus'.

"Oh dear," Hermione croaked finally. "I'm assuming I wasn't ever supposed to get anywhere near that- um- kind of stuff?"

Severus groaned, and sat behind his desk. "I was hoping that wouldn't happen," he admitted. "You did a fantastic job of using my reaction to your memories to push me out of your mind and into mine, but you shouldn't have followed me there, just expelled me."

"I tried but your hooks were in pretty deep," Hermione admitted. "I figured I'd just follow and wait for you to kick me out or for me to get your hooks free, whichever came first." She coughed weakly. There was no way she wanted to admit that her mouth burned, that she could feel the phantom pressure of what it was like when Severus Snape kissed someone, and that pressure was tugging at something in her lower belly.

Severus sighed. "I supposed I knew it would have happened sooner or later," he said grumpily. "I should have put those kinds of memories in a Pensieve."

"It's not too bad- we're both adults, and I can deal with it," Hermione said, looking up at him. "Don't worry about it, Professor."

He frowned at her. "You're an adult in name only," he said, tone biting. "You've had one kiss- there is no reason why you should be seeing your Potions Professor in that situation, and I should have taken precautions-"

"Hush," she told him, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly. "That's just rude. Get over it."

There was a moment as he gaped at her in disbelief. "Get over it."

"Yes," she told him. "And then don't go digging there in my memories in the future."

He shook his head. "Agreed."

"Tea?" she suggested. "We can talk about that book you lent me…"

December

Slughorn's Christmas Party had long wound down, and students were slowly streaming out to go to bed. After the disastrous interaction with Draco, Severus had returned to the party, spending the evening glowering at his Firewhiskey. He knew the Dark Lord wouldn't call him that night, so when Horace had pressed toast after toast into his hand, he had taken at least one more than he should have. The man was a bore and an annoyance- Severus Snape was a Potions Master, with credentials held by only a dozen other wizards in Europe, and Slughorn had missed Severus' talent in school and deeply regretted it.

For some reason, he had been hoping for more than a glimpse of Hermione Granger. He had seen her arrive at the party on the arm of a brutish Quidditch player- McLaggen, or something like that. With growing disgust he noticed how the Gryffindor's arm was hooked possessively around Hermione's waist, how he had tried to pull her close and tuck his nose in the crook of her neck. He was gratified when she seemed to try to avoid to brute all evening, hiding behind people and using Harry as a distraction.

She had flashed him a quick, harried smile when she had passed him once, and he returned it with a nod. She looked lovely in red, he decided. Her dress robes were red and a little low cut, but still within the limits of tasteful. They were tight around her waist, then fell gracefully to the floor. Her hair was up in a way that actually left most of down in little ringlet curls. Hermione Granger was not the most beautiful girl in the room, but she was definitely the most interesting, he thought.

He hadn't seen her leave, but when the room was mostly empty and he saw that she was there any more, Severus left. It was his night to patrol the castle, but since his mind was a little hazy, he decided to just to a quick sweep of half of nooks and crannies where students liked to hide, then go to bed.

He was nearly done when he heard her voice.

"Get off of me, I'm serious, Cormac!" It was Hermione's, and she sounded frazzled and annoyed.

"Granger-"

Feeling himself fill with thunderous rage, Severus turned the corner. They weren't far from Gryffindor Tower- there was a little dead end that students sometimes used for liaisons. There was Cormac, his face ruddy, and Hermione, her arms tightly folded against her chest and her face furious. She looked like an angry kitten without claws, and the boy's bulk next to her make her seem even smaller.

"What do we have here?" Severus drawled, his voice low and dangerous. Both of them whirled to face him. Hermione's face paled.

"Professor-" she began.

"Silent, Miss Granger," snapped Severus. He didn't notice that his hands were balled into fists or that his voice was more tight than calm. "Mr. McLaggen, you'll be serving detention with me when you get back from break. Report to my office after dinner the first night back. Go!"

Without a glance at Hermione, the boy left, leaving the two of them in the nook. Severus crossed his arms to match hers, glaring right back. He tried not to notice that the locket he had given her was hanging right above her cleavage.

"What does an intelligent woman like you see in an idiot like that?" he asked finally. "What leads to you being groped in a corridor by a poor excuse for a troll?"

Hermione sighed, leaning against the wall. "I just wanted someone to go with, and he didn't seem that bad," Hermione said, covering her face. Alarmed, he noticed that she seemed to be crying.

"Don't – don't cry," he said, pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket. "Here."

She accepted it gratefully, wiping her eyes. "Why aren't you punishing me?"

"Because it seems like a night with that dolt was punishment enough," Severus murmured. "You looked lovely, by the way. Red suits you." He smirked when she raised her face. "Red eyes, too."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Prat," she muttered.

"Know it all," he retaliated.

Hermione tapped the handkerchief with her wand to clean it, then tried to hand it back to him. "Thank you," she said, meeting his eyes. "You don't really let people see that you're actually a kind person, do you?"

Severus frowned, and motioned that she should keep it. "I'm not a kind person."

"Of course you're not," Hermione said wryly, holding back a laugh as his affronted tone. "You're a good man even if you don't think you are."

January

"Happy birthday, Professor Snape," Hermione said, beaming at him. She pushed a small wrapped package at him. "Open it, open it!"

He gave her a withering glare, and picked up the gift as if it would bite him. "How did you know it was my birthday?" he asked suspiciously.

"I looked it up in the teacher directory," Hermione said, flapping a hand at him. "Go on! I didn't curse it." She looked down, then up again through her lashes. "I don't bite either," she murmured.

The package was soft and floppy, wrapped in simple brown paper and string. With a sniff, Severus wandlessly and wordlessly Vanished the wrapping, leaving his hands full of soft green wool. He held up the scarf, examining it. The wool was warm and thick, and the shade of green was so dark it was almost black. There were spells for warmth knit in, and a subtle diamond pattern that she had made by reversing the stitch. He knew it was handmade the moment he saw it- there were a few places where it was too wide and a few more where it was too thin. "Did you make this?" he asked finally.

She beamed at him. "Yes," she said happily. "I was home for Christmas with nothing really to do, and my mother had bought that green wool and the moment I saw it I knew I had to make you something for your birthday."

It was so soft. He stroked it once, twice, three times before he caught himself. "It's… very nice," he said, fighting to prevent color from rising to his cheeks. "Thank you." He was picturing her sitting in the childhood bedroom he had seen in her mind, in the sunny kitchen with blue cabinets, on the comfy leather sofa, knitting away at the scarf with a determined or pensive expression on her face. Something in his chest squeezed tight.

"Professor Snape-"

"Severus," he said, interrupting her. "Call me Severus. Here, at least, when it is just us."

Hermione smiled at him. "Severus, then. You're welcome. And please, call me Hermione."

At the next Quidditch game, from across the stands, Hermione saw a flash of dark green at his neck, and smiled broadly to herself, warmed by more than the hot chocolate in her hands and the bluebell flames in a jar by her feet. He was wearing the scar she made around his neck, and she wore his locket as her throat. All was right in the world.

February

"How are Apparition lessons coming along?" asked Severus, sipping at his tea.

Hermione made a face. "It's harder than I thought it would be, but at least I haven't Splinched myself," she admitted. "Ron has and it looks painful."

Severus' face dipped from stern neutrality in a frown. "It is," he said shortly. "I've done it a fair few times and if I have my druthers I'd as well not do it again."

It was almost amusing, the way her mouth dropped open and she gaped at him like a fish. "You? You've Splinched yourself?" Part of him was glad that she thought him so adept at the magical arts to be so incapable of such a mistake, and the other part of him was upset that he would have to shatter such an image of himself, and held by her no less.

He glared down his long nose at her. "Yes."

"How on earth did you of all people manage that?" asked Hermione, still looking incredulous, but also slightly amused as if she suspected him of teasing her. "I don't know of anyone with better control of their magic, Severus, no one!"

There had been many times in his life that Severus had heard a backhanded compliment, but none of them had come from a better place. "It was because I didn't have control of my magic at the time," he said, unconsciously tracing the outline of his lips with the tip of a finger. "The Dark Lord punishes his followers when he is displeased, Hermione. I've protected you from those memories in my mind, mostly because they are buried so far down that I cannot remember them myself without actively trying. He uses the Cruciatus curse until a person is on the brink of insanity, he tries out new curses, he lets others try out new curses… it's not pleasant, and it often leaves the person who has disappointed him in quite the state of magical disarray. Not to mention bodily disarray- leaving behind a chunk of flesh while Apparating back home after such a punishment is not uncommon. Now, if one knows one is to be punished, it is common to ask a… well, a friend is an odd way of putting it, but a friend to stay and Side-Along one home afterward. It creates a debt though, to ask such a favor. Myself, I prefer the Splinching."

The amused quirk of her lips had disappeared, and Hermione had paled. At some point, she had raised a hand to her mouth, a hand that trembled. "Oh, Severus."

"I don't want your pity," he snarled, suddenly regretting telling her.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't pity you," she said, shaking her head again. "I hate him, Severus. I hate him so much. I don't think I've ever hated anyone before, not even Malfoy, but I hate the Dark Lord. I hate him for hurting you, I hate him for killing Harry's parents, and I hate him for threatening the world of magic that as supposed to be perfect and wonderful and not filled with things like people I care about Splinching themselves because they've been tortured so long they've lost control of their magic."

Severus looked at her, his anger calming. "No world is perfect, Hermione."

"My birthday is in September," Hermione said, a note of misery in her voice. "September 19, Severus. That meant that I had an entire year, minus nineteen days, to dream about stepping onto the Hogwarts Express and read about magic and the Wizarding World. One year minus nineteen days to dream about it. I thought it would be perfect."

She and Severus locked eyes for a long moment. The air grew heavy and sad in the space around them.

"I thought it would be perfect too," Severus admitted finally. "Except instead of one year, I had eleven."

The conversation moved on soon enough, but when Hermione rose to leave and Severus rose to open the door for her, she turned suddenly and hugged him around the middle, tucking her face against his chest. "I'm sorry this world isn't as perfect as we dreamed it to be," she whispered, knowing he would still hear. She could feel the rapid, almost scared, thump of his heart under her cheek.

Then, all too quickly, before he could react, she pulled away and ducked out of the door, leaving a stunned Severus Snape behind her.

March- Present

How had she fallen in love with Severus Snape?

The answer was slowly and surely. It had happened without her knowing it at first, then suddenly it was there and a facet of her everyday life. Severus Snape had grown dearer and dearer to her, until she considered him an odd sort of friend. Then he had become more than just a friend, he had become the one person who knew her down to her very bones. From there she had started to notice his hands, his beautiful delicate hands, and then his eyes that were kind when no one was watching, and then his height and his features and the way he smelled like smoke and ink and dried herbs.

When he traced his lips with his finger she thought about kissing him. Or rather, him kissing her the way she had felt in that memory of his, all fire and heat and pressure- and gods she hadn't noticed it in the moment but in the memory he had been hard and aching with want. Oh, she wanted him to feel that way about her not some redheaded woman with dark brown eyes and wandering hands.

He had seemed so cold, so disinterested when she had revealed her Patronus to him. Either he knew and he did not care, he did not reciprocate, or he hadn't realized and he thought she was in love with someone else, Ron perhaps, or Harry.

Hermione didn't know which was worse.

Two days later, it was Thursday and time for Hermione's weekly meeting with Severus. Two days of avoiding looking at him during meals in the Great Hall, of trying to avoid thinking of him at all. Except, of course, she thought about him all the time, she could picture his face without looking at it three times a day, and she spent all her free time composing what she would say to him once she finally had him alone again.

When she arrived at his office- no longer in the dungeons, but still far away from the rest of the castle- Hermione was surprised to find the door unlocked, but the room empty. Still, she sat down to wait for him, thinking that he had just ducked into his rooms to make a pot of tea, or he had deliberately planned to be late to make her squirm.

Five minutes passed, then eight, then ten. With a frustrated sigh, Hermione checked the time again on her watch. When she had been waiting for him for twenty minutes, she finally stood, spots of red high on her cheeks. She was irate and almost irrationally upset, close to tears.

A silvery light burst through the wall, leaping through the desk and swirling in front of her. It had the distinct form of an animal- a fox with a battered ear and wary eyes. Severus' voice came from its mouth- "Outside the gates. Help."

Hermione didn't remember running through the school- twisting and turning in the dungeons, praying that the stairs would listen to her, running out the door and into the fresh air, still cold at night. Running, running, running through the air her feet never touching the ground because she was held up by fear and fear alone. Later she would remember seeing his form crumpled in the grass. The light had not quite faded, the sky was shades of purple and dusky rose, and the grass was the deepest green she had ever seen it, barely contrasting with the black robes of the Potions professor. Still, the white of his Death Eater mask, with a streak of red, red blood on it, was clearly visible. Her arms ached as she opened the gates, pulling the heavy metal to the side until she had a slot just big enough to slip through.

He was breathing harshly when she fell on her knees in the damp grass beside him.

"Severus, Severus-" she said, her eyes wide and full of fear. "What do I do- the hospital wing-"

Their eyes met and she was pulled into his mind.

Spinner's End

Apparate

There was image of a potions cabinet and what looked like three mouthfuls of a blue potion in a large bottle.

"I can't Apparate, I've only taken a few classes-" she pleaded. He coughed then, and blood fell from his lips. Hermione drew in a shaky breath, grabbed his arm, and twisted. It was awful, it felt like her lungs were on fire and her rib cage was being squeezed and her eyes were going to burst from the pressure, but then they landed on a hard wooden floor. Pain flared in her knees, so bad that when she tried to stand she fell again. Still, she pushed herself up, running through the house she had only seen in his mind to find the potion.

Hermione let herself breathe when finally she tipped the last few drops of the potion into his mouth, laying the empty bottle by his head. His color improved rapidly, his breathing eased. Something inside her that had been wound so tightly her chest hurt released, and tears came flooding from her cheeks.

Over the rest of the night she cared for him, tending his wounds and tipping potions down his throat, eventually falling into an uneasy sleep in the worn loveseat next to the sofa. The room smelled uncomfortably of blood and cigarette smoke, like old booze and polluted air. It wasn't a pleasant place to be by any means, with peeling wallpaper and phantom memories she had seen in Severus' head of an angry man with large fists and a pale withered woman.

Her dreams were of his dreams, his nightmares, his childhood. The man whom she cared about deeply wasn't sleeping next her so much as he was passed out. At least he wasn't dreaming, she thought, at least he wasn't dreaming of what his place evoked in her. Because if it caused such awful emotions in her, Hermione knew that it would do so in him.

In his memories, Hermione had only seen an adult Severus in Spinner's End in the lowest of times. Injured, drunk, sick. Even in the summers he resided in the castle, staying as far away as possible from the old home in the old mill town with the old furniture and old pain. It wasn't a place he returned to if he had the choice, and she hated that she had brought him there.

She had set an alarm for the hour ahead of the sun's advance. It would be Friday morning after all, and she had class. At this point, at least, even Hermione Granger knew that there were things more important than classes- however, it had turned out that appearances were one of those things, and as such, classes needed to be attended. The alarm blared far too soon, and jerked her awake from the dozing kind of sleep that wasn't useful or resting.

To her surprise, the man on the couch opened his eyes. It was just a glitter in the darkness as his eyes were almost black and the room had no light. She didn't trust that he was awake until he sighed.

"So you're alive then," she said, her voice hoarse. It was hardly above a whisper, and yet in the silence it seemed louder than she had thought possible.

He made no move to stand or even sit up. "I suppose I am," he croaked. "Water?"

Hermione rose, stretched. She didn't notice her shirt ride up, or his eyes focusing on the strip of skin suddenly framed by shirt and skirt. "I'll get that for you," she replied.

In moments she was back and he was sitting up and sipping at the glass. She pretended not to notice the dried blood on his clothes or on his brow. "What time is it?" he asked. His voice was stronger now, but his hand still trembled as he held the cup.

"Five in the morning," she replied. "So that we can be back to the school before breakfast. Or if you need more time, at least before classes."

He smiled at her then, a crooked thing with no humor in it. "You did well last night, Hermione," he said. "Thank you."

Impulsively she reached out, took his hand in both of hers. "You scared me so badly," she said, her voice falling into a whisper when it cracked. "I thought you were dead."

Severus squeezed her hand gently. "I had enough strength to send a Patronus," he said. "I couldn't have been that bad off."

"It was a fox," she replied, only able to meet his eyes for a brief moment before looking away once more.

Suddenly he was gripping her hand tighter. "Don't tell anyone," he said harshly. "Look at me, Hermione- don't tell anyone. And as far as you can do, don't show anyone your Patronus."

Confused, Hermione stared at him. "I wasn't planning on it," she said quietly. "How embarrassing would it be if my friends knew that I was in love with my Potions Professor? So much so that my Patronus changed for him?"

The somber expression on his face changed, closed, became distant. The hand pulled away. "It is for my safety, not your feelings, woman," he said harshly. "The only reason the Headmaster trusts me is because he thinks I'm still in love with Lily Potter."

"Still in love?" asked Hermione. "What- wait- yours changed too?"

"I might not be the man you would want me to be, but I still have feelings," he hissed at her. "Even though you are my student and I am your teacher. Even though I'm on the wrong side of this damned war no matter how things fall out-"

Hermione reached out, placed a finger over his mouth. "You feel the same way?" she whispered. "Here I was, thinking I was going crazy seeing things, thinking you that might care-"

Severus kissed her then, quickly, gently. There was no tongue, no burning flaming passion, just a brief brush of lips that filled Hermione with a peace she didn't know she could find in the darkness of the morning in a place filled with hate.

"I do care," he said gruffly, pulling away. "But now is not the time nor is it the place." He rose, wavered for a moment, then stalked off. Minutes later, Hermione heard the shower start to run.

"He cares," she whispered, her fingers hovering over her mouth, scared to touch them in fear that the feeling of his lips on hers would vanish.

So ends Part Two.

I hope the romance makes up for the long time I've made all of you wait. Part Three will be up as soon as I'm finished writing it. :)

As far as life goes, for those of you who are following FTOH, it'll be a while before things aren't so crazy I can find time to write. I'm getting that paper published so it get writing priority time right now, and so does all my school work, and the clubs I'm now running, and the volunteering I'm doing. So it's a shit ton of work.

Thank you so much for reading, more next time. Reviews would be lovely! Thanks to every single amazing person who reviewed last time, and every single lovely person who voted for FTOH in the SSHG fanfic awards.