An hour and a half later, Janie and her father were walking down the steps into the school's dungeon.
"Dad, you told me about Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw; there are four houses, aren't there?"
"Yes."
"Then what about the fourth? Isn't that Slytherin?"
"Yes."
"Ooooo, that name sounds cool! Where's it located? Who's the Head of House? What are the colors-"
Oh no, Severus thought, she's already started to question everything like her mother always does.
"Slytherin is located down here, in the dungeons, and the Professor, that is the Head of Slytherin, is me."
"That's so cool! My dad, Head of Slytherin. Hey, that has a kind of ring to it."
Severus smiled, "Yes, I suppose it does."
The two toured the dungeons for a little bit, until they ran head on into Filch.
Shit! What's he doing down here? Isn't he supposed to be cleaning up the poltergeist's mess?
"Good afternoon, Professor," Filch said bitterly, ignoring the small girl hiding behind her father's black robes.
"What are you doing down here? It's under my understanding that Peeves has made a...mess upstairs?"
"Well, Professor, I came down here to get some ink-eater potions to clean up that damn mess that that son of a-"
"I get the point," Severus said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"And then I heard this irritating scratching coming from your office, Professor."
"Scratching?"
"Yes. It sounds like a critter is trying to come through your window."
Sighing, Severus turned around and directed Janie to his office. As he opened the door, he found a bird angrily pecking at the window.
Reaching the window, the bird stopped its noisy pecking and Severus flung the window open. The bird flew in and landed gracefully onto the Potion's Master's desk and dropped a small envelope on it.
Noticing that his daughter had become suddenly quiet, and was looking everywhere but at the bird, Severus spoke to her, as he picked up the parchment envelope.
"What's the matter Janie? Do you know this bird?"
She nodded, "That's Tailion, my Mum's falcon."
Severus quickly opened the envelope and sighed; in it were two small pieces of parchment. He raised the first piece of parchment and read it:
Severus,
Ms. Granger will meet you at 5:30 P.M., at the apparition point outside of Hogwarts. I have asked her to run an errand for me, so I suggested that she meet up with you and your daughter. Have a pleasant day!
Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore
Severus muttered something under his breath about Albus' last statement and then read the next piece of parchment.
Professor Snape and Janie,
Please let Janie know that when she comes back, she can have her broomstick back. I was going to send it, but I didn't think that you would approve of her on it. I figured that if she was going to risk getting into trouble by bringing it, then she must have really wanted to show you something. Have a nice day, and please, enjoy yourselves.
-Hermione Granger
"What did she say?"
"That you can have your broomstick back when you get home."
"What? She never lets me have anything back when she takes it away from me; or at least, for a while."
"She doesn't?"
"Nope, and she'll even hold it longer if I don't behave myself in the meantime. Great! Now I feel guilty about what I said to her. And that doesn't happen all that often," Janie muttered under her breath.
"You can't take back what you said."
"I know." Janie was quite for a few moments. Then she added, "What else did she say?"
"That she'll meet us at 5:30; this evening."
"Good, we still have lots of time left. I don't know why she has to come today, though. What else do you want to do," she asked looking up at her father, eyes shining.
"I was thinking about going into Hogsmeade."
"Hogsmeade? Isn't that a town full of shops?"
"It's similar to Diagon Alley."
"Awesome! Diagon Alley was one of the coolest places I've been to so far."
"I bet it was," he said as he opened the door and let his daughter through, before he shut and locked it.
---
An hour after they had left, Janie and Severus emerged from the Three Broomsticks, after having lunch. Most of the time, was spent by Janie filling her father in on her childhood. It seemed to Severus that Potter and Weasley were mentioned one too many times, along with the terrible Weasley twins (even though she had only mentioned them twice). Along with knowledge of some of the things that her "uncles" told her, he also learned that she played the Muggle sport, soccer, in her Muggle school.
When Severus had finally realized that his daughter had walked off, he frantically turned around only to find Janie with her nose pressed against the glass window of Honeydukes.
"Dad, can we go in here, please? Mum won't let me have a lot of sweets, because my grandparents are dentists."
"Sure."
"Yes!" Janie exclaimed as she ran through the door.
Twenty minutes later, Severus' pockets were weighed down with many shrunken candy bags, and he was about twelve galleons short (which is a lot for just candy).
When his daughter went into the shop, he just couldn't refuse on her first-time Wizard candy shopping spree. It made him feel that Potter and Weasley hadn't taken everything completely away from him. He did refuse, however, to buy anything that would piss off Filch, because nobody would want that.
After Honeydukes, Janie dragged her father into Zonko's Joke Shop, which was the only joke shop in the Wizarding World that was not yet bought out by the terrible twins.
Severus knew he shouldn't buy his daughter anything from the shop, considering he was a professor, but he wanted her to be happy (hey, even he played Exploding Snap while he was in his first and second years).
Before going into the shop, Severus stopped his daughter.
"We have to be careful with what we buy, because Hogwarts doesn't allow half of these novelties."
Janie nodded and ran into the shop, nearly knocking over her father on the way in.
As Snape walked into the shop, he looked for his daughter among the many isles, when she suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a Fanged Frisbee in her hands.
"Can I have one of these," she asked while holding it up for him to see.
"You're going have to pass on that, it's one of the many that's banned from Hogwarts."
"Okay," she said, walking back into the many isles of jokes.
It wasn't even five minutes when Janie came back, her arms loaded with pranks.
---
After saying no to about a half-dozen items, and yes to almost a dozen more, they finally left the shop.
"Janie, do you need any clothes?"
"No, I think I'm pretty much set."
Thank God. I don't know if I could handle an hour of holding clothes while she went and tried them all on. Besides, I'll bet I'll get my fair share of that in a couple of years.
"Know what I do need?"
"What?"
"I need to go to that store, right there," she said, pointing to a book and quill store.
Oh good, I need to purchase several bottles of red ink; I've found my supplies rather low.
As they entered the store, Janie immediately went over to where all the quills were on display.
"Woah, look at this one here; it's beautiful. Look, it says it's made up of eagle feathers, and the tip was made by Goblins!"
Severus walked over to the quill that his daughter was currently gaping at.
"It is nice; I suppose you want it?"
"You don't have to do that," she said while looking into her father's eyes.
"Yes, I do."
"Dad-"
"Think of it as a late Christmas present."
"But it's too expensive."
"That doesn't matter; just make sure that you don't loose it. Besides, when we buy it, I'll have them charm it only for your use."
"You'd do that for me?"
"Of course."
"Dad, you're the best!" Janie said while almost knocking him over with a hug.
"Would you like ink to go with that?" Her father asked her curiously.
Janie just looked up at her father with wide, twinkling eyes, and a smiled graced her face.
---
They left the shop quite some time later with several new purchases. As Janie put it, it was like 'Christmas came early!' She was now the proud owner of five different colors of ink, an eagle quill, and both were now carrying various new books.
"Where can we go next?"
Severus checked his wristwatch, (they didn't only prove useful to Muggles).
"Back to Hogwarts."
"What? It's time already?"
"Its 5:15 and your mother is meeting us in fifteen minutes outside of Hogwarts."
"Darn."
As the two started to walk up the winding path, Severus suddenly remembered the package that Albus gave his daughter.
"Janie, what did Professor Dumbledore give you?"
"I don't know; I didn't open it yet. He told me to open it later, though," Janie said as she pulled out the small package.
Severus watched as she carefully tore off the packaging and stuffed it into her pocket, revealing a piece of parchment wrapped around something silver.
Janie quickly read the parchment and put it into her other pocket, holding up a silver necklace. Severus took the necklace and closely examined it. The necklace itself was a silver chain with the initials "J.S.," which looked like two snakes. The letters, upon closer inspection had a very fine detail to them, all the way down to the eyes. There were sparkling green gems as the snake's eyes, and a beautiful red ruby that was set in between the two letters.
"Isn't the gem in the middle beautiful? It says in the letter that Professor Dumbledore gave me, that it's made from a melted phoenix feather."
Melting a phoenix feather is very hard to do, even with the help of magic. And when it is melted, it can be sold for a hefty profit. The most spectacular thing about phoenix feathers is that it will protect the wearer from any minor jinxes, and the stone will turn color when the wearer's mood is greatly affected.
"Take good care of this, Janie; it's really valuable."
"Don't worry, I will," Janie said as her father gave the necklace back to her.
"Can you please put it on for me?" Janie asked, holding up the necklace for her father to take.
Snape nodded and took the necklace while carefully hooking the latch around her neck.
When he looked back up, he saw a figure standing in the near distance. As they neared Hermione, Severus was sure that Janie would go running up to her mother and tell her everything that had happened, but to his shock, she remained next to his side, keeping up with his long strides.
"Have fun?"
"YES! It was awesome; Dad and I walked all throughout Hogwarts, and then he took me to Hogsmeade! We got so many cool things; I can't even name them all! And then Dad got me this gorgeous eagle quill!"
"Wow, sounds like you two had a lot of fun!"
"We sure did!"
When Hermione looked towards Severus, he flashed a feeble smile in her direction.
Good gods, did Professor Snape just smile?
"Ms. Granger, would it be alright if Janie went with me to the staff meeting tomorrow morning?"
"Sure. You know Professor, she's your daughter too; you don't have to ask on every little thing."
Severus gave her a glare.
So much for the smile.
"I'm well aware of that, Ms. Granger. I was merely making sure if it was alright for the staff to know."
Hermione was quiet for a few moments, before finally saying, "I suppose so."
"Good," Severus said, while reaching into his pocket to pull out a handful of mini shopping bags."
"You bought that much?"
"There's more."
"Put it back in your pocket."
"Excuse me?"
"You can come over and empty your pockets. I think that'll be easier on the both of us."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Dad's coming over?" Janie asked hopefully.
"Yes."
"But just for a little while," Severus added in.
"Professor, why doesn't Janie just stay with you?"
"What?"
"I mean, she's going with you to the staff meeting tomorrow morning, right?" Hermione said as she sharply took in a breath.
"Ms. Granger, what's wrong?" Severus asked, while charming all the bags in his pockets to levitate to his quarters.
"Nothing," Hermione said as she let out a painful sigh and quickly grabbed her side.
"Ms. Granger?"
When she didn't respond, Severus moved towards her and asked again. In return, Hermione shook her head, clutching her side even more.
"Mum, are you alright?"
Hermione tried nodding.
As Severus saw the pained expression flash across her face, he grabbed her arm and gently pulled it away; he gasped.
"Ms. Granger, where did you get this?" He asked dangerously.
"I don't know."
"Someone doesn't get something like this, without their knowledge."
"What; get what?" Janie asked curiously, causing Severus to move closer to Hermione.
"Nothing. Janie, why don't you go down by the lake?"
Raising an eyebrow, Janie obeyed her father and walked towards Hogwarts.
"Ms. Granger, I need to see the source of all the blood."
She shook her head again.
"If I can't see it, I can't help you."
She made an attempt to pull the corner of her shirt up, but then stopped.
"Ms. Granger, I need to see it; your hands are covered in blood, and its bleeding right through your shirt."
Hermione nodded, but didn't move.
Taking the queue, Severus lifted the corner of her shirt up and gasped for the second time that day.
Hermione had a deep gash that was approximately six inches long on the far right side of her stomach.
"How did you get this?" He asked softly.
"I. Don't. Know."
"You sure?"
"Yes!" Hermione yelled, causing her to yelp and once again, covered her side.
Severus took out his wand and told her politely to let go of her side, or he would do it for her; Hermione reluctantly agreed.
He tried casting numerous healing charms over the gash, but all were unsuccessful.
"Dammit, it's resisting magic. Ms. Granger, was this caused by a magical object?"
She shook her head, "It was a potion."
"Ms. Granger, we need to get you some medical attention, immediately." Severus said and turned around.
"JANIE," he bellowed out towards Hogwarts.
Janie looked up and started running towards her parents. She had never heard her father yell like he did, even though she had only really known him for two days.
"Janie, do you remember where the Hospital Wing was?"
She quickly nodded.
"Go in and tell Madam Pompfrey that I'm bringing Ms. Granger in," Severus told her, sending the young girl running back up towards the castle.
When Severus turned towards Hermione, he found that she was holding a hand over her mouth, while the other hand was still gripping her side.
"Are you going to be sick?"
She shook her head.
"Then, what are you doing?"
Hermione's eyes grew wide as she shook her head again.
"Then why are you covering your mouth?"
Hermione seemed to gag for a second, and then stopped, all while trying to shake her head. Severus watched as her eyes started flickering. He looked towards her hand over her mouth once more, and was utterly shocked at what he saw; there was now blood seeping through her clenched fingers.
He started to move towards her, when she began to sway on her feet and staggered backwards.
Severus reached out and grabbed her, preventing her from falling over. He quickly took off his outer robe and wrapped it around her body, to prevent any blood from dripping onto her clothing. Then in a swift movement, he picked up Hermione, while keeping her head up, and started to move towards the castle.
A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed and read the story! I'm stuck with a small problem, and if anybody could help me by voicing their opinion, it would be greatly appreciated. I was wondering if I should send Janie to Hogwarts with her mother's last name, or her father's. I'm not sure what to do, because it could be played either way. Another big question: I'm already set on a house to put her in, but I would like to ask you were everybody thinks she should belong in, to see if I'm making the right choice. Thanks!