Chapter 24

Sorry about the wait, but I've been busy trying to get everything ready for xmas, puls dealing with my fluctuating health. but enjoy =3

Friendship Rekindled

Hermione cooed at Aria as she fussed in her arms as Harry tried and Failed to get up off the couch in the Malfoy Library. After Dumbledore had visited the Hospital wing Severus had decided to pull Hermione out of Hogwarts knowing that she was more than ready to take her NEWTS when ever she had the time. Lucius followed Pulling Harry and Draco out as well.

Severus still taught at the school but would commute from Spinner's end rather than staying at the castle full time. At the weekends he would teach Harry and Draco whatever had been taught during the week, Reamus would teach then defence, Bella would teach them Charms, and Tom Transfiguration. Narcissa busied Herself with teaching Lucy and caring for Aria when Hermione felt she needed a break.

"Hermione, how did you do this?" Harry grunted once again attempting to get up off the couch.

"With great difficulty" Hermione chuckled, placing Aria in her carrier and moving to assist her friend up.

"Urgh!" Harry groaned as he finally got to his feet. "Ohh for!" he grumbled frowning at thin air.

"What?" Hermione laughed picking her daughter up again.

"The need to pee is gone" Harry muttered before waddling off to find his husband, he didn't quite make it to the door before Severus came bursting through the door a small trinket box in his hands.

Hermione paled when she saw it and sat down, knowing that it was time to explain what that Bastard had done to her.

"Severus what all this shouting and running about?" Bella asked as she followed Severus into the Library.

"Indeed" Lucius said also coming into the Library, followed by Narcissa and Tom.

"Yes Severus your acting very out of character" Tom said lightly.

Severus turned to glare at the man "I think you would if you'd found a box filed with Albus' Fucking Lemon drops in your private chambers!" he fumed, and Hermione sighed.

"You better sit down" she said and Lucius helped Harry over to a chair standing behind it, whilst the other found seats. Draco came into the room Little Lucy skipping along behind him.

"What's going on?" Lucy asked as Draco took in the somewhat sombre atmosphere as picked Lucy up Sitting beside his mother and Tom.

"Would you care to explain wife?" Severus snapped. He really thought she'd changed, that there was a curse on her, now he was sure it was some kind of ploy to gain their trust and get Harry back to Dumbledore.

"I know what your thinking but your wrong" Hermione said, rocking a fussing Aria in her arms.

"Am I?" Snape sneered "What else am I supposed to think when I find these in my chambers, Witch? Are you are you not Dumbledore's girl?" He raged and Aria began to cry.

"Would you please calm down, you're upsetting our daughter!" Hermione snapped, before focusing solely on contenting her child.

"I'll take her" Bella said lightly, taking the baby from Hermione and pinning Severus with a sharp glare before she left. "Here her out" was all she said before she and Aria were gone, leaving Hermione free to explain.

"Well?" Tom asked in a bored tone. "We're waiting"

Hermione to a deep breath and exhaled, "I got those the beginning of my fourth year, or at least the first batch of them" Hermione explained and Severus sat back with his arms folded her really didn't believe her.

"You see the potion never really helped me at all, but I knew the Muggle pill did"

Harry looked at her and could tell she was speaking truth.

"Anyway I asked Madam Pomfrey if she could get them for me, and she said that she wasn't sure, she made me try this other potion that Dumbledore suggested"

"What did it look like?" Severus asked Curious to know which potion the old coot had recommended.

"Purplish with a torques swirl?" Hermione said and Severus eyes narrowed, he'd never herd of such a potion, he couldn't make up his mind about wither or not she was telling the truth or not.

"Anyway, I took the potion for a couple of weeks and I found that there were things and periods of time I couldn't remember.

Harry's eyes went wide, he remembered that as the time where Hermione would constantly be siding with him and then Ron and then him again almost as if she were two different people.

"Any way I went back to Poppy and told her I didn't like the side effects and that I demanded the muggle pill" she said with a sigh. "Later that night I found that trinket box on my bedside table with a note saying that I was to take one daily, exactly as I woke up, I found this odd but did so anyway thinking that it was a wizarding version of the pill"

Severus shook his head he really didn't believe this, there was no such thing as a Wizarding pill, and these were clearly Lemon drops.

"Anyway I took them daily and it was like I was watching myself through someone else's eyes, I was rude and mean and a down right bitch to Harry, my best friend, I started to secretly have relations with Ronald Weasley a boy I tolerated only for Harry's sake, I just was not myself"

Harry was reeling at the fact she'd never liked Ron although he could understand why.

"anyway this continued and I tried and tried to fight off the mist that was slowly but surely clouding my mind, but the more I took the pill the stronger it got and the harder it become to fight it off, but I couldn't stop taking the pill, something in me just kept taking it"

Severus and Lucius shared a glance and Severus studied the box in his hand.

Tom had a thoughtful look on his face and Narcissa looked down right terrified.

"Anyway the marriage law came about and well the law required that I do my wifely duty, so there was no need for the pill, as soon as I missed a day the things I thought were pills transformed into lemon drops and I could feel the mist lessening slightly" Hermione said and Narcissa covered her mouth with her hand.

"I knew I'd been well and truly doped then, and eventually there were time where I could break through the mist and the longer I went without it the easier it became, but if I ever saw Dumbledore the mist would come back tenfold and I'd have no idea how"

Severus took out his wand and did some tests on the box and them some on the lemon drops and found that the box was charmed to show a box of muggle contraceptives and that the lemon drops had been coated in some potion that he'd never heard of.

"Ohh Hermione!" Harry said lightly going over to hug his friend, it was hard to believe that she had been through all that, but he and the rest of the room could tell by the tears in her eyes and the way she was trembling as she told them her tale that what she was saying was true.

"Harry I'm so sorry" she sobbed onto the boy's shoulder.

"Shh" Harry soothed "I forgive you" she said and she sobbed harder as Severus silently plotted to kill Dumbledore. He stood up and pried his wife away from harry pulling her close and holding her as if his life depended on it.

"He will not touch you or our daughter ever again, I promise you" he whispered into her hair and she clutched his robes and sniffled lightly.

"How did you get whatever it was off you? And what was it?" Draco asked.

"Sounds like some variation of the imperious" Tom said with a frown, Dumbledore really way a cruel, cruel man.

"As for getting it off of her, well that was mostly her own will with a helping hand" said the hooded girl from the door way where she was leaning, against the frame.

"Thank you for that" Hermione said with a smile and the girl inclined her head as, Lucy came barrelling up to her.

"Will you be staying?" Lucy asked excitedly.

The girl smiled as she put Lucy on her hip. "Perhaps" she said, stroking the girl's hair lightly.

"You are more than welcome to stay" Lucius said with a bow of the head, he respected this woman for helping Severus' wife.

"We'll see what the weeks bring" the girl answered and with that she put Lucy down and turned to leave.

"She always that strange?" Draco asked Lucy and Lucy looked at Draco thoughtfully.

"Yes" Lucy answered and Harry burst into a fit of laughter quickly followed by Hermione as the clung to each other to keep up right, both glad that they could be friends once again.