Ron and Harry stood solemnly by the portrait that had claimed their friend seven years ago. Seven years ago, they lost their best friend, their confidant, their rock in hard times. They had come to realise not long after she went missing, she was the glue that held them together. She was the brains of the operation and they struggled without her. They often came back to the portrait, just to see, hope and pray to whatever deity they could to bring their friend back. They often found themselves sitting for hours staring into the black abyss of the portrait just waiting. Hoping. Praying. Wishing.

People often said if you stared at the portrait long enough you would see a glimmer of light from the tip of her wand or the silhouette of Hermione. Others said if you stood in front of the portrait and chanted her name three times, she would haunt you in your dreams. Of course, there were often young students standing sheepishly by the portrait chanting her name to see what would happen… Nothing ever came from it.
Harry and Ron would chase them away and tell them to sod off if they caught them while they were there.

The truth was, no one knew where she was or where she went. Not even the most advanced curse-breakers at the ministry could help. They would just shake their head and walk away solemnly. This was nothing they had been subject to before and nothing they knew how to handle.

So much had changed since Hermione had wandered into the portrait. They had defeated Voldemort, Harry and Ron had both joined the Chudley Cannons and were both doing well in their respective positions. Both had married, Harry to Ginny and Ron to Lavender, much to his mother absolute disgust. They had lost Fred and then a few years later George as well. Harry always maintained it was of a broken heart despite what the medi-wizards had said.

And now they stood before the portrait like they did whenever they got the chance, just waiting and wishing. It used to be a weekly occurrence but that waned as life and work got in the way, but they never forgot Hermione and they would never get over the way she disappeared.

"Well," Harry sighed sadly, slapping Ron hard on the shoulder as they both stared stone-faced into the portrait. It had almost become their friend in a sense with the amount of time they had spent with it. They knew every intricate detail of it, the curve of the frame, the hue of the wood, right down to the intricate carvings.

"Well," Ron mimicked back, blinking back tears as he stared into the darkness of the portrait, angry and sad that again, nothing had changed since the last time he was here.

"Let's say we go, yeah?" Harry muttered, a lump in his throat as he blinked back the tears his green eyes were threatening to spill from behind his glasses.

"Yeah. Lets." Ron nodded. The love they both felt for Hermione was still so raw and still so plentiful in their hearts like a day had not passed by without her. They loved her the same now as they did when she first vanished.

o-o-o-o-o

In what universe would the dour old dungeon bat be appointed headmaster, she thought to herself as the book flicked its pages effortlessly. Well okay, he wasn't that old, but in comparison to her, he really was. No one would allow someone of such an unsound temperament to oversee an entire school of young, impressionable children. She snorted, tossing her wild mane of auburn curls over her shoulder, they cascaded down her back like a chocolate waterfall.

Hermione forced a shaky breath through her nose as she continued to watch the pages once again slowly flicker and dance, catching glimpses of certain snippets putting her on edge, her head was spinning from the dizzying highs and the heart-stopping lows she was reading.

Voldemort had taken hold of the ministry? As if that would ever happen, she rolled her eyes sharply before the book stopped and she gasped, a hand coming to cover her mouth to stop herself from vomiting. A list of fatalities from the war. Fred Weasley caught her eye first followed by Lupin and Tonks. No, no, no this wasn't true.

A tight metal band felt as if it were weaving around Hermione's whole body and constricting her chest. The more she breathed out, the tighter the band became. She hated having panic attacks like this.

She tried in vain to calm herself continuing to chant repeatedly in her head that this wasn't real. This wasn't at all real. This was a figment of her imagination. She would wake up in her bed at any moment and all would be good with the world and besides when had a book she ever read of late lied to her? Books didn't lie or upset her like this. This is why she would rather books over people if she were being honest.

Shakily she ran a slender white hand through her chestnut mane and sunk low to the ground trying to process what was happening here. This was all a dream and if it wasn't a dream it was probably a joke. Probably something stupid Draco Malfoy had set up as a ruse to get her in here so he could corner Harry and Ron and she wouldn't be around to save them. Everyone knew how intimidated and scared Draco was of Hermione and everyone also knew how jealous he was of Harry and how much Ron was frowned upon for being a blood traitor. Draco would give anything to be able to get to the two of them to show off in front of his cronies, so he could then run off and gloat to the Dark Lord that he had a shot at Harry Potter. At the brink of almost hyperventilating and tears pricking her eyes, a large lump in her throat made it hard for her to swallow, breathe or even think, the door that had slammed shut behind her opened slowly, much too heavy for its hinges it creaked with every centimetre it moved forward.

Hermione watched it as it opened agonisingly slow as if it were taunting her, tempting her, beckoning her. She waited, watched. Nothing happened, it just sat idly open and she didn't have to be told twice.

Hermione grabbed her over-sized bag laden with all of her books and sprinted as fast as she could, practically falling out of the portrait into the inky darkness of the castle, landing hard on her knees with a thud, panting, she looked around slowly, confused. It was literally just mid-day when she had stepped through the portrait merely minutes ago. The soft footsteps of someone in the distance grew closer and closer, the glow of their illuminated wand bouncing off the cold cobblestones of the castle before they came into view.

Severus Snape rounded the corner slowly and stiffly, a scowl firmly on his face in the soft blue light of his own wand. Long black hair curtaining his stoic face. Eyebrows snapped together in disgust at a student out of bed, shining his wand right upon them to get a better look at the perpetrator.

"Please tell me, Miss Granger, why are you out of bed at this hour?" He sneered hard down at her, still on the ground, almost baring his teeth pathetically. It hadn't processed in his brain just yet who was actually on the floor.

She tried to get a story straight, her mind stumbling, unable to get a clear train of thought her mouth just gaped open and closed for a second before his dark inky orbs grew wide with shock and he stood stock-fast to the spot.

"He…Hermione Granger?" He asked as if he had just seen a ghost and the magnitude of the situation was just coming to light. This couldn't be. She had been gone for seven long, tiring years, people didn't just show up out of the blue like this. At least not from within a portrait after neither hide nor hair of them had been seen prior. Even the Aurors and the curse-breakers had said this was a hopeless case she would never, ever come back. The magic that Bellatrix had cast upon the portrait was nothing anyone had ever seen before. The crafty bitch.

Shuffling closer to her, wand held high, Hermione wondered what had happened to him since she last saw him earlier at breakfast. He usually strode with purpose, almost glided along the ground with little effort, commanding presences as he went, and here he was struggling, stiff, dragging his feet as if he was physically unable to move with the air and grace that she had come to know from him.

He extended a bony hand towards her in a gesture to help her up. She looked up at him, quirking a brow…Why was he being so… well… nicer than she knew him to be.

She eyed his hand suspiciously for a moment before accepting it begrudging and he pulled her to her feet with relative ease.
As he stood mere feet from her she could see the lines in his face were harsher, eyes tired and sunken and sadder than usual, a stray smattering of silver hairs tangled in the long onyx tresses that she was so accustomed to. What the hell had happened to him in such a short space of time? He looked like he had gone ten rounds with the Voldemort.

He looked her over quickly, she hadn't aged a damn day. Still, the slim, bushy-haired seventeen-year-old girl that he had come to know and loathe. What the hell had happened in the portrait?

"Are you… Are you the headmaster?" She asked with a feigned sigh and worry etched deeply on her face.

Furrowing his brow he cocked his head to the side trying to process what she had just said… That question came from left field and took him by surprise.

"No, Miss Granger."

"Thank god," She whispered happily under her breath and watched as his eyes narrowed for a moment.

"Not recently anyway," He added.

"What... What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come, Miss Granger. There is a whole lot of explaining for us to do. In private."

"Us? She questioned with the utmost sincerity.

"Yes, us," He muttered gruffly, casting his doe Patronus in the most elegant and commanding way she had probably seen anyone cast it in her life.

"Minerva, I have Miss Granger," He muttered softly to the doe before it leapt out of sight down the long corridor. He needed a stiff drink because this was going to be an excruciatingly long night.

A/N: Here you all go xx. I hope you like it. This will take me a while to piece the story together, there will probably be flashbacks in there as well to further explain the story.

Thanks!

-Aliasmel1