Thanks to everyone who's favorited my story, I hope you enjoy it. A few things. First: Disclaimer I own nothing, the characters recognized and the universe belongs to JK Rowling. Second: Hermione's use of the time turner does not bring her back in time. It's used with her schooling. Third: this fic will eventually have fairly graphic scenes, sex scenes, aftermath of Death Eater meetings, evidence of torture and mentions of rape (on Non-Con is not between SS/HG). I will post chapter warnings in case you'd like to skip chapters or sections, but I just thought I'd warn my audience in advance. Anyways on with chapter two!

The place in her mind had been a rock she'd meditated on so many times before while at school last year. The boulder was rather large and seemed very old. It had been weathered to where it was flat along the top, almost like a bench. It sat to the right of a very large old tree, the tree was slightly bent. It had many branches that looked as though they were bent out like seats, possibly from students constantly sitting on them. She smiled as she recalled Ron and Harry often being found sitting in that area of the tree chatting over their years at school during the warmer weather. She would be sitting atop the boulder with her books laid out around her studying while more often than not the boys would be talking about Quidditch.

Hermione hadn't done it all that often, apparate and disapparate within Hogwarts that is. She'd begun to do it on accident in her third year during her use of the time turner. She'd be in the library studying for her many classes, beginning to feel overwhelmed and overworked. She'd begin to get stressed out and think of the lake and before she knew it, she'd find herself out at the lake. It's a rather good thing the boys didn't follow her to study in the library all that often. She didn't need the added stress of them seeing her apparate out of her study area at random, she had enough to deal with at the time. The boys knew they couldn't chat while in there without risking the wrath of Madam Pince, so they didn't stay long when they did join her and it wasn't all the often.

It helped that she picked a back corner of the library to call her own, that not many people knew about, if anyone knew. She found it simply by accident, it had been warded so that people wouldn't notice the tiny little alcove, probably to give them privacy or so that they wouldn't be found. It was a nice little alcove, fairly dark but there were candle sconces and plush green pillows to sit on. The pillows almost looked as if they'd come from the Slytherin Common Room. At the time she laughed at the thought that she'd come across a Slytherin's hidey hole.

The boys had grown suspicious of her in her third year, with her disappearing at random times or showing up at random locations. So the hidden area in the library for her to study for her many subjects and use the time turner at her freedom became her salvation. The boys had begun to notice the use of the time turner, they didn't know she was actually using one until the end of the year. They had still begun to be suspicious about her actions though, they didn't know how she was getting around to all of her classes, and studying for so many of them all at once. The boys were thick, but she knew they weren't so thick as to not notice the implications of her time table. They just couldn't figure out how she was accomplishing it. Hermione laughed at the memories and thought about how far she had come since her third year. 'I've changed so much and there's no going back. Not that I'd want to, I like who I've become it's just so different.'

Hermione laughed at the thought of when she knew the changes had really began. It started happening in her fourth year. She began abusing the time turner and testing her own mental and physical limits. She thought back to some of the things she knew had really changed her, and how she'd gotten to this ridiculous point! She'd come of age at the beginning of her fifth year, undergone a molecular transformation/awakening! She had the ugly task in front of her today and her best friend was a mermaid!

In her fourth year was she'd really started testing out her magic. She decided she needed to strengthen herself if she really had any hope of protecting Harry. Someone had put his name in the Goblet of Fire and he was on his own in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Ronald and Harry were fighting, so she couldn't count on them to stick together. So she decided to prepare herself. She couldn't let these things keep happening to Harry, she needed to be on her guard. When she'd really thought about it, she'd come to recognize a pattern that she really didn't much like!

During their first year she helped him protect the Sorcerer's Stone the best she could. In second year she was caught off guard by the Basilisk in the library and used a mirror to protect herself. If she'd been quicker, she could have gotten away without being petrified. Harry had almost gotten himself killed down in the Chamber of Secrets, he'd had Ronald but that hadn't been all that helpful was it? Ronald had gotten himself trapped with bloody Lockhart. 'Falling for a dunderhead like that was certainly not one of my proudest moments. At least I've moved on to falling for a much smarter man.' Then in their third year Lupin turned into his werewolf form and had forgotten to take his Wolfsbane potion. She had been sensing the pattern and decided that she needed to better prepare herself, so that she could protect them all.

So at the beginning of her fourth year Hermione decided to speak to Professor McGonagall and asked to be put back into all the classes she'd taken the year before (aside from Divination). She'd told Professor McGonagall that her reason was, she didn't know what she wanted to do yet. So logically she thought it was best to stay in as many classes as she could, so that she could keep her options open, when it came time to make a career choice. Now that wasn't the complete truth, but she was right it didn't hurt to keep her options open.

Hermione made good use of the time turner during her fourth and fifth year. She read up on all sorts of defensive and healing magic while in her secret alcove, which she'd magically enlarged. Hermione duplicated the pillows in there so that she could fit multiples of herself in there, each with a different book in hand. It wasn't recommended for you to see yourself, but Hermione already knew what she was planning and with Harry in the tournament she was getting desperate. So most weeknights for multiple hours Hermione would sit reading about different complex magic, studying her notes and talking to herself about different theories.

Her multiple selves reading different books, some of which she shouldn't have been able to get her hands on was aided with the use of a blank pass she'd picked up that had just so happened to be signed by one Severus Snape. She knew no one would question a blank pass that had been signed by him, so she used it to her advantage and did plenty of research. She also began dueling against herself and training up her endurance during her fourth and fifth year. During the beginning of her fifth year she'd used the time turner enough where she came of age two years early. Then many more things began to change for Hermione. The trace being lifted on her magic wasn't the only interesting thing that happened. Her magic had come of age as well and it had changed her physiologically.

Hermione thought back to her transformation in her fifth year, when she'd become 17. It had been a warm September night and she'd been meditating down by the water disillusioned, and she began to feel a change. First she'd felt dizzy from her head to her toes and then there was a blinding flash of light before she passed out. When she woke up she looked down at her legs and noticed that her appearance had undergone a few changes. It had scared her at first, she'd never read of anything like it occurring when someone came of age. Over the next few days she'd noticed that her magical power had increased significantly as well.

A slight rustle brought her out of her reveries, she looked around and didn't see anything. Then she heard it again, and when she realized it had come from above she whipped herself into a standing defensive maneuver, she'd pulled her wand from the bun in her hair and was ready for a fight. When she looked in the tree above, she noticed it was a Black Guillemot, but she could sense Severus' magic. 'So I didn't lose you like I thought I did hmmm? Clever man.' "Hello there handsome," Hermione shook her head and smirked.

With a look of relief she tucked her wand back into her hair and disillusioned it with a bit of wandless non-verbal magic. She found she liked to keep it there when she was alone. It wasn't within sight, but it was always within reach. If the boys were around usually she kept it in a disillusioned holster in her sleeve. She began to remove the glamour charms she'd had to wear since coming of age. Her skin began to change from the creamy white it'd been from before, to the bronze tone it had taken on since coming of age. Her chestnut hair grew into a darker shade of onyx and took on shiny hue of colors like oil. The shiny webbing with a tinted greenish blue in between her hands and feet began to show and become more pronounced. She'd determined that the webbing wasn't always so prominent, it depended on her intentions. Right now it served her purposes, as she was planning to get into the lake. When she was done and beginning to dry off, it would recede.

After she felt her glamour charms fall aside, she took off her jumper and was left in her bikini. She began to sing and make her way into the water. In her song she poured out her emotions and pushed out the excess magic that had been building up. She wasn't using it as a means to call out to someone, just let out her excess magic and anxiety. She knew people in the area could be lured in, but Severus was the only one around. He was in his animagus form and he was always occluding, she knew she didn't have anything to worry about. Severus was a successful spy for the Order and occluded successfully around that annoying man with a snake face! She doubted her siren song would have much effect on him. She jumped into the water and made her way down to the settlement she knew so well below. The moment her face hit the water she felt free and could feel gills form. Once she was settled she kicked her webbed feet in the direction she thought she'd find her best friend.

Up out of the water was a very tense, heavily occluding and quite stunned Severus Snape. 'Granger…' Severus had been close to catching her all week, but then she'd slip away at the last second. So last night he'd decided, he'd wait in the garden for her this time. He knew around the time she was leaving. He'd just get there an hour earlier, to be on the safe side. Sure enough before dawn she'd come down, and began meditating on the grass. He'd peeked into her mind to catch a glimpse of where she'd been going, as soon as he saw her begin to concentrate on her point of apparition. He thought he hadn't seen the correct destination when he'd seen it. However, he'd shown up at Hogwarts gates, transformed into his animagus form and flew over by the lake and there she was. No one was supposed to be able to apparate on Hogwarts grounds but there she was, five foot Granger sprawled out on a damned rock by the lake meditating.

He was shocked when she'd sensed his presence, not many could do that. However, she'd been thrown off by his animagus form. He'd made a few extra noises to satisfy her. He knew he'd been caught making the noise, so he'd just needed to pretend to be a bird, which he felt he did pretty successfully, after all she wouldn't call him handsome. Although it felt nice to have her call his animagus form handsome, he'd never had that happen before.

Not many people knew he was an unregistered animagus, with the exception of Minerva who'd taught him and Albus whose idea it was. It had been a bit unnerving to see how much she was hiding with glamour charms. 'How much does Albus know? Surely he's felt her presence through the wards, if this is indeed where she's been running off to this past week. What is the old man up to?'

Dumbledore had put him on assignment to watch her at the end of last year, because Albus claimed he had a feeling she was keeping something from them, which he couldn't argue with. He'd sensed the glamours and the fact that there had been changes in her magic this past year. So he'd been watching her while they were at Grimmauld this past summer, and she was indeed keeping things from them. She was much more advanced mentally and physically than he thought could be possible for someone going into their sixth year. It just didn't seem possible.

He still couldn't gain an exact insight into the depth of her knowledge even after all their plentiful and in-depth late night conversations over tea. He couldn't exactly tell how advanced she'd become, quite advanced from what he could tell. He wasn't sure where the knowledge stopped though, and that was the problem. He couldn't see that it did stop, their conversations were engaging and she was well on par with him on every topic they'd discussed, which wasn't normal for a teenage girl going in to her sixth year. She certainly had knowledge beyond the curriculum at Hogwarts, he'd at least be able to inform the headmaster of that much.

Severus had asked her with some help on some potions for The Order last month at the beginning of summer, claiming she was the most capable of the dunderheads he'd had available (which wasn't a lie, she really was quite capable). It had started out as a way to keep an eye on her and perform is duty. Soon it was clear to him that it had become more than that.

Hermione had been happy to help when asked of course, he knew she was happy to try to prove herself and be of help. He also knew for her it would keep her out of the constant discussions and debates about Quidditch with the dunderheads. He imagined it was probably really quite boring at Grimmauld Place for the most part. After he'd asked her, she was practically always in the basement brewing with him. He was rather surprised at first, but after a while he came to enjoy her company and noticed that it felt empty without her presence.

After about a week, he noticed she spent most of her free time in the library when she wasn't with him (mostly in the evenings), not surprising for Granger. She'd read by the fire, while the dunderheads played chess or some other game. He preferred it when she was in the lab with him rather than the library. He'd had to catch glimpses of her instead of being with her. He couldn't bring himself to sit in the same room as the two dunderheads if it were avoidable, and after all how much trouble could she get up to in Black's library. He knew the answer was quite a bit, but he'd convinced himself otherwise.

Regardless he'd brought the books from his private collection into the makeshift lab he'd had downstairs, and sure enough Granger took the bait. He'd had to ward the bookshelves so that the tomes would be protected, in the instance of a potion accident. It'd been worth it to not have to sit in the same room as Potter and Weasley though. As soon as Granger had seen the selection of tomes he'd brought into the lab, and he'd given her permission to read them while in the lab. She hadn't really left since aside from their need to eat with the others and sleep. He admitted to himself that it had made his job significantly easier, and if he happened to enjoy her company, it was really no matter.

The first bit of wandless non-verbal magic he'd seen from her had been an accident. They'd been in the lab working on potions most of the morning. He was busy focusing on Remus' Wolfsbane Potion and Granger had been working on a Pepperup Potion. She was expecting him to stay focused on his own potion and not pay any attention to what she'd been doing. She didn't know he'd been watching her out of the corner of his eye, and he'd caught Granger magically creating labels in her tiny miniscule scrawl for the Pepperup potion. She didn't have her wand in her hand and she hadn't said anything. He'd had to turn his full attention back to the Wolfsbane for the next step, as the cues for adding the next ingredients in succession were visual cues. After spending some time thinking about what he thought he'd seen, he wasn't as sure. So from then on he'd tried to catch her up when he didn't see her wand within reach, and he had caught her several more times.

Earlier today was the first time he'd seen her without the glamour charms she wore, but he'd seen all kinds of magic and oddities from Granger this past summer. Between watching her during their time making potions, the practiced ease with which she'd begun to work could only indicate how much time she'd spent around a cauldron. She could make potions from memory just like he did, and do so seamlessly. He had wondered where she'd been brewing during the school year and what she'd been brewing. He'd be taking a careful inventory of his stores when he got back to the castle. He hadn't noticed anything missing before he'd left on assignment for the summer.

He'd watched her perform all kinds of advanced magic in the garden, when she thought she was alone this past month late at night. He saw her mock dueling with someone, but he couldn't be sure who it was. From their conversations her knowledge of different subjects had soared far beyond that of those in her year. She'd always been the smartest one in her year, but now it was different, much different. At first the question was why she was keeping it all a secret. The little swot was always trying to answer every question possible in his classroom and every other classroom. She'd never had any qualms about hiding her knowledge, so why was she hiding her advancements in magic?

Another question he'd had was how had she not gotten a letter from the ministry expelling her for performing magic outside of Hogwarts? How had she even apparated onto Hogwarts grounds directly? He knew he'd only been a few seconds behind her, she'd apparated directly to the spot he'd seen her sit at while in school. He had to apparate outside the gates themselves and then fly in. He contemplated all this from his spot on the tree while determining what he wanted his next move to be. He'd been watching her practice memory charms discreetly on the dunderheads lately, and wanted to know what she was up to.