A/N: Sorry, my dear readers! I know it has been a long time since my last update, but my beta-reader had disappeared for about two months and she hadn't sent me the complete version of the betaed Chapter 20. Today I decide to post the betaed part of Chapter 20, in case my readers lose interest in it or forget it. So... I hope you like it.

Still Thanks my warm-hearted beta-reader Crumplette.

Chapter Twenty - Ups and Downs

it was already dinner time. When she walked through the hallways back to Headmaster Flitwick's office, her feet brought her past the Great Hall, where she could see all the students were already sitting at their house tables, and enjoying themselves with the copious amount of savory food the Hogwarts kitchen was famous for. Hermione suddenly felt alone. Very alone. It had not been so long ago, when it was her sitting at the Gryffindor table with her friends. She sighed deeply, lost in her own thoughts. Her head held low, not caring where she was going.

Why am I doing this? She asked herself again and again, while wandering through the hallways, when saying good-bye to Professor Flitwick, when packing her belongings, even when she was finally sitting on her own bed again after having returned from Hogwarts.

Of course not for Dumbledore. Recalling the name of the former headmaster made her feel a bitter lump forming inside her heart, which wasn't entirely out of despise and hatred even she hoped she could hate and despise him. Dumbledore had again managed to demonstrate to her how much his heart seemed to be made of stone. He coldly was integrating people, their lives and deaths into his overall plan to defeat Voldemort. Though he undoubtedly had the greater good of the whole wizard population of Britain, maybe even of the whole world in mind, his methods to gain it had meant dismal deaths for many of Hermione's friends.

Yes, she knew Dumbledore did showed genuine concern for his people, but it was also fact that he calmly regarded the fate of people, using them as pawns in his plan. And those were the people whom she had loved and cherished, and it really made her angry! Was it useful that Dumbledore felt compassion for the sufferings he caused them when he used people? Dumbledore said that he had been ready to die for Harry, had considered to sacrifice his own life to preserve Harry's. But both Harry's and Voldmort's lives were intertwined. One cannot survive while the other one dies. The prophecy had said so, and now it sounded really like a good excuse. Dumbledore still was preserving his life to give it at one most important moment, as the most powerful strategic move possible. But he could only die for once and he couldn't waste someone's life at a less-great time. A chill pin pierced Hermione's heart: did he value our lives as humans, or as pawns?

While Dumbledore's stone-heartedness angered her immensely, his self-denial, calculating strategic thinking, and intelligence impressed her. His whole presence was dominated by his intelligence, always thinking a couple of steps ahead of his conversation partners, his strategic planning, his incredibly sensitive perception as if he almost could read a person's mind without even using legilimency. On top of that he was constantly exuding absolute calmness, even in heated discussions, as if he was always thinking a couple of steps ahead and knew exactly what to do and what to expect, even for his enemies. These qualities quite admirable, but also overwhelming at the same time. Hermione felt herself almost unable to bear them.

She had never felt so weak after hearing the intense discussion between Dumbledore and Snape about war, sacrifice and death. Each word had hit too close to home for her not to feel very emotionally involved. War. They had fought a desperate war against a dark wizard who had known no kindness, no compassion, and no remorse, just sadistic cruelty and torture. Although the memory about each battle had shattered into pieced, they had vividly implanted into Hermione's memory. Sacrifice. Too many friends had become sacrifices in Dumbledore's plan to win the war. Death. Everybody who had been close to her. Hermione knew each war had its sacrifice, its death. But why did they happen to be her beloveds?

Hermione had no strength to ponder any further what Dumbledore had said. She felt only intense feelings of immense sadness for her friends and for herself threatening to overwhelm her.

I can't forget. No no, I must forget!

She forced herself to snap out of her grief. If she succumbed to the sadness, she would be enveloped in it for a long time, until she finally cried herself to sleep, as she had done countless times. No, Hermione decided, she had cried enough. Crying did not help bring back the dead, nor did it help alleviate her grief.

No, Hermione thought to herself, Dumbledore was dead, and she could not let herself be neither dominated nor influenced by him anymore. The only reason she had allowed herself to get drawn into this was to repay Snape, and rectify his honor. After all, she owed him her life. She clearly remembered when Voldemort died and the battle fell into a chaos, one hand, which had grasped her, let go of her arm and pressed a wand into her palm, while the other hand pushed on her back hard. She knew that one must be Snape, because he was one of the two who grasped her.

But must I do this for him? All that he did was throwing her into the bloody battle, to fulfill her obligation as a Warrior of the Light. And she still couldn't forget those hateful encounters with him during her Hogwarts years. Snape was never her friend and she didn't do this for friendship. Then did she do this for her ideal? The innocent belief in him as the infallible and compassionately caring leader which she had held on to throughout all of her time at Hogwarts, and throughout the war, until she had realized he had sacrificed Harry. Now that she had lost her belief in Dumbledore, was her belief still intact, in in the cause of the war against Voldemort, the cause of the Order, and of the Light?
She decided not to think about it any more. She would repay Snape, after all what could she expect for Snape after finding out about Dumbledore's scheme? And since she stood out to check Snape's corpse, she couldn't leave：her curiosity wouldn't let her go.

Hermione's face turned into a sneer. No wonder the Gods had spared me during the war: they spared me just to deal with today's mess.

Tomorrow will be another day. The next day was another difficult day for Hermione.

She knew exactly what it was she needed to take a stab at unraveling the mystery of what had transpired in Dumbledore's memory. She needed to find more information about that most powerful and horrible dark Wizard, whose name had not dared to be spoken by most people just two years ago, and whose Dark Mark tattoo had terrified the population of Wizard Britain. The Dark Lord whose life had been a puzzle and who to Hermione still remained the puzzle of all puzzles even after his death.

But where could she find more about Voldemort? Hermione knew she had nothing on that subject in her personal book collection. The Hogwarts library probably owned a few useful tomes in the Restricted Section, but Hermione did not want to involve Hogwarts in her quest again, if it somehow could be avoided. Dumbledore would surely find out about any visit she made, and she did not feel inclined to inform him about her activities regarding this matter.
Hermione suddenly grimaced to herself. I can always ask a Death Eater. Of course. As if there were a lot of Death Eaters who were friendly enough with her to honestly tell her about their experiences and their assessments of their former leader. She could try to visit Azkaban again, but it was not likely she would get any honest information from anybody interred there.

The only other place holding a semblance of a possibility of finding information about the Dark Lord was her favorite bookstore in Diagon Alley, Flourish and Blotts. That was it. She was going for a visit to Flourish and Blotts and dig through all those wonderful books the store held. Yes, Flourish and Blotts held a lot of books, and cycled through their inventory quickly due to their large popularity which made them always the first to acquire new editions and publications. By all means she should be able to find something useful there. Hermione decided to call it a night, and start the next day fresh and early with a visit to her favorite bookstore.

The next morning she stepped into Flourish and Blotts and greeted the proprietor kindly. Then she looked around. It had been a while since her last visit here. The magic candle chandeliers hanging from the ceiling coloring the whole store in a warm slightly beige light, and she soon relaxed in the warm light. She started walking in awe from shelf to shelf, sometimes lightly touching a spine with her fingers, deciding which book look at more closely. Her eyes shone brightly with the fire they had not held often anymore since the war. Step by step she made her way through the darker section of the store. She felt alive again and hungrily connected with the abundance of information presented in here. Engulfed in the aroma of the books, totally lost in her own world Hermione did not notice her surroundings any longer until she suddenly bumped into somebody.

"What by Merlin...Granger!"

The harsh, loud and hostile voice startled her out of her book induced euphoria and made her jump. Hastily she muttered something like "Sorry. Didn't notice you were standing there."

Once she had composed herself, she looked up and saw directly into a dull face. She recognized the man immediately from her time at Hogwarts, it was Gregory Goyle. Time, however, had not been kind to him as she recognized his stature to be much less imposing now as it had been during their time together at Hogwarts. His face was no longer rosy. His small eyes looked still clumsy, but no longer containing the used-to-be mirth. With his hair cut short and untidy clothes, he looked rather listless, like a sack of potatoes. He was carrying piles of books on his shoulders which instantly gave Hermione the feeling of being mocked: in Hogwart Goyle would run away from a book as fast as Peeves ran away from Bloody Baron.

"Sorry, Goyle. I should pay more attention to where I am walking." Hermione said calmly, looking into his beady eyes. With her tainted memories of him during her Hogwarts time she couldn't prevent an unkind thought entering her mind, but he looked quite pitiful, He resembled nothing more than a goyle.

"What are you doing here?" he inquired mostly in surprise, though with a very small but still perceivable hint of malice. It would have given her heart a little sting, had he not appeared so downtrotten.

"I'm looking for information about pure blood."

" Why are you interested in info about us purebloods?" Goyle's eyes full of a pig-like suspence, "Anyways, that's something you will never have, Granger!"

Hermione felt her face flush in the dimmer light of this store section. Why can I not be interested in information about you purebloods? Is that information only deserved to be acquired by members of the pure blood society? No! You guys don't own the monopoly on that!

Pureblood superiority wasn't stranger to Hermione. when she arrived at Hogwarts full of hopes and dreams, just to realize people of her "lowly impure blood status", as in people born to muggle parents, were second class citizens in the eyes of many magical folk. The Dark Lord Voldemort had focused on blood purity, and had continued to foster that prejudice which had presented Hermione with so many unsavory situations. Now the war was over. She had learned how to face and stand the subtle prejudice in those seems-civil looks and talks. But how dare Goyle ask her like this? He didn't even know how to spell Acromantula! How could Goyle behave towards her as if purity of blood was the property of people of his ilk, and she was trying to wrongfully claim it for herself?

However, Hermione couldn't even muster the energy to deign Goyle with a feisty retort. Especially when she came to think of what had happened to him. Goyle's family had taken a large toll from the aftermath of the war. She didn't know what both Goyle's and Crabbe's fathers did to save themselves from being brought to justice to receive their rightful punishment for their crimes. Anyway, after the war they had engaged in debauchery and women, and one day had managed to be arrested by the muggle police in a brothel during a concerted drug raid in the muggle red light district of London, when both of them fell unconscious because of "muggles' addictive white powder". In the end, it took several Aurors disguised as muggle polices to transfer Goyle Sr. and Crabbe Sr from muggle police station—with a lot of memory spell—to Azkaban, and only one year later they both died there.

This story about "how old Goyle and Crabbe died on muggle women" had made the front pages of at least a couple of editions of the Daily Prophet, and had been the scandal of wizarding Britain for most of last year, making their families outcasts in their own society circle. This had affected Goyle's mother and sister so much they had succumbed to deep depression. These immensely hurtful experiences must have had a devastating effect on Gregory Goyle. It was thus no wonder he was clinging tightly to his prejudice. With his best friends dead and his family in shambles it was all he had left of his former life.

Hermione kept quiet, and Goyle lost his interest in taunting her. With his shoulders hunched down, he lazily walked away. Hermione couldn't help feeling a lump in her throat: the Slytherins in her Hogwarts class had died, experienced grief and pain, and were lost in life, the same as Hermione and her Gryffindor friends. But Hermione didn't say so: These immensely hurtful experiences must have had a devastating effect on Gregory Goyle. It was thus no wonder he was clinging tightly to his prejudice. With his best friends dead and his family in shambles it was all he had left of his former life. She kept quiet, and Goyle lost his interest in taunting her. With his shoulders hunched down, he lazily walked away. Hermione couldn't help feeling a lump in her throat: the Slytherins in her Hogwarts class had died, experienced grief and pain, and were lost in life, the same as Hermione and her Gryffindor friends.