A/N: I put two chapters together because it made sense and this story has far to many. Keep up with the comments. Enjoy.

Severus awoke with the light shining in through the uncurtained window. He tried to push back the pounding in his head by draping his arm over his eyes. Trying to sort out and remember the details of the previous night when he felt the weight of what could only be a fluffy bowling ball land on his chest knocking the wind from him. There was a damp, coarse lapping on his nose accompanied by a deep rumbling.

He moved his arm to see Hermione's cat licking his nose. He purred contently and began to knead at his chest. The ginger behemoth stared at him with expectant amber eyes. He let out a meow and leaped off of him. He turned over to his side to ignore the furball.

Hermione knelt at the side of the bed, resting her chin on her clasped hands and her face, inches from his, didn't seem to be conveying any clue of what happened between them last night. She simply raised her eyebrows and said. "If you don't get up soon, I'll catch the ferry without you."

"Ferry?" he moaned sitting up.

"Yes," she rolled her eyes and took to her feet. The cat walked over to her and she nestled him, contented and purring against her chest. Both girl and cat gave him a lingering dejected look before she turned to go down stairs.

"Coffee and asprin," she sighed pointing to a place set on the table that only consisted of a giant mug and two long chalky pills. "After that you'll want to drink a bunch of water. IF you're still hungover in a couple hours we can stop by a dairy and get you some gatoraide."

"Thank you," he sat down, bewildered by her cursory attitude, and took the pills.

"Uh-huh," she sat down by her precious boy as he attacked the mountain of kibble she had given him. "Pace yourself, Crookshanks."

Crookshanks meowed and walked into her lap now that he'd had his fill. He purred contently as Hermione scratched behind his ears and whispered "Lady of Shalot" into his ear. Because cats just love Tennyson! He could never get behind the idea of treating an animal as though it were a child. There was a difference between being a responsible and affectionate pet owner and doting upon them. Hermione clearly crossed that line.

"When are we to catch the ferry?" he asked not remembering why they were taking a ferry or which fairy they were taking.

"In about an hour," she answered lifting Crookshanks, who squirmed like a tired baby refusing to be comforted to sleep. "I already brought the luggage down, so we can get out of here as soon as you're finished."

Severus threw back the remainder of his coffee and rose to his feet. "Don't you think you should put him in a carrier before we get on our way? Or have you forgotten that detail in your eagerness."

Hermione let out a snort of derision as she rolled her eyes. "Yes, I am just so eager to be poked and prodded in every possible place!"

"What are you talking about, girl?" he asked no longer interested in pretending he knew what she was talking about.

"I have an appointment with Doctor Cavanaugh."

"Of course," he said as worries began to swirl through his mind. Could it be she was sick again? "Just to ensure you're fit to fly?"

"Something like that," she sighed ushering Crookshanks into his carrier.

She bent to pick up the carrier, but he heard a soft whimper as she grabbed her side and winced in pain.

"Hermione!" he held her up and pressed on where her hand was. She winced as he touched a spot where he could feel a break in her rib...

He now remembered everything.

Does he honestly not remember? Hermione wondered as she pretended to be lost in a book on the ferry. She tried to decide whether she liked it better this way or not. The two had confessed to something that at the very least, she had been hiding for a long time.

How could she have told him everything? Why did she? Things would be so different if he remembered. It shouldn't matter to him, she told him she was still deeply in love with her dead fiancée, she couldn't imagine him wanting to be overshadowed by a dead man.

Snape had been acting strange since he found her broken rib. He used a bone-mending spell and had spent the entire trek from her childhood home to the terminal fussing over every movement she made while still managing to avoid eye-contact without fault. What was it he wanted from her? What did she want from him? Above all, what was going to happen now?

Hermione had been an expert at avoiding questions that disturbed her...but she couldn't distract herself from them anymore. But in all her great maturity, she at least knew how to point a finger. It was her heart transplant, she was certain!

Hermione's dreams were memories of a friend or lover of his. Snape had played the part of the childhood friend of the role she adapted in her dreams. She knew so much about this girl, her family life, her older brother who died in Veitnam, her older sister who deeply envied her for her ability to do magic, the loving parents who seemed to draw just a little too much attention to her being different, even if it was supportive, the boy she dated and wound up marrying, and a little boy who Hermione knew this girl never got to see grow up.

Hermione decided that this girl, whoever she was, was the reason Hermione felt the way she did. She was blameless for it, for the desire she was sure betrayed Joshua. It was this nameless girl who had been sharing her memories responsible for her feelings. Perhaps this girl never told him before her death, or never realized until she was on her deathbed that she was in love with him.

Hermione could string together as many theories as she wanted, but it didn't make her situation any easier. If he did forget, it must be for the best, and if he didn't, she had to admit that he was smart to pretend he did. If Hermione gave a damn about her own sanity she would to.

"We're supposed to get off now," he said breaking her from her stupor.

He stood before her, arms folded across his chest with an air of impatience that faded almost as soon as she perceived it. She saw his brow furrow and head cock to the side as her eyes met his for the first time since he fixed her rib. And they spoke volumes. He was anxious, he was scared and he was concerned. It was then, Hermione became painfully aware he remembered too.

Tearing her eyes away from him, she rose to her feet and grabbed Crookshanks's carrier. They walked onto solid ground in silence and made their way through the busy streets of Dublin to the hospital. Nearly a half hour they were silent when Snape decided to break the silence for whatever reason.

"I find it curious that you see a doctor in Dublin rather than the somewhere closer."

"My parents knew Dr. Cavanaugh from when my Nanna had breast cancer years before I was born," she explained with a sigh. "This way." She pointed.

Navigating the streets was a job in itself, teeming with buissnessmen on their way to cafes for their lunchbreaks and families out on the town with little ones who weren't quite school-age. Passing through the streets and lanes to get to their destination, they encountered corners filled with busker's that Hermione felt the need to give change to and a raving woman on a park bench that looked as though she hadn't bathed in days wrapped in a dingy coat and tuque that shouted profanities at passerbys.

She couldn't believe everything he did that night, everything she told him. He sat there patiently as she wept about the past. She cried unconsolably as he said nothing, he simply sat by her side and soothed her hair, rubbed his hand lightly across her cheek and held her hand. He didn't object when she turned away from him and curled into a fetal position, he instead let go of her hand and let her withdraw mentally with the exception of gripping her shoulder reassuringly when she needed anchorage the most. At one point during the long, long night, she felt him wrap his arms around her and lay at her side. When she woke up Hermione found herself, despite her extreme confusion, still safe within the circle of his arms.

Despite everything, the grief, the pain and just how overall lost she felt, she felt a connection. She knew he felt it too. The two were both just far too scared to recognize it. It would mean that everything between them would change, that they would have to own to everything they felt and live with the consequences. Niether of them were ready for that.

Even so, Hermione was still lead by the hand through the busy streets, and though she tried to distract herself from it, there was not a moment she did not feel his eyes upon her or the worry he was so poorly hiding.

When they finally arrived at their destination Hermione felt a new anxiety crashing down upon her. Hermione realized that she was not only going to be mercilessly examined by her doctor, not only having to endure examination and Snape seeing her at her most vulnerable, but also she would have to be stabbed by an onslaught of needles with as many taking substances from her body as there were injecting substances into her body. At the end of it all, Hermione would be tired nauseas, dizzy and too weak to stand on her own for at least a couple hours. Sitting in Doctor Cavanaugh's office, she nervously nibbled on a thick strand of hair as she silently anticipated the hell she would be put through.

Feeling the familiar hand pull the strand away more than seeing it Hermione looked at the man who the hand belonged to. She could see his eyes boring into hers, and there was a myriad of emotions found within them. There was a hint of guilt, a gratefulness she was okay, an anxious air, but also a sense of relief that he no longer had to hide, and above all a confusion that he could only blame her for, she knew that. Hermione recognized all of this because she felt it all as well. She loved him, right or wrong, and she hated herself for it. Not because of their past, not because of their age difference or because she was now one of those girls infatuated with her teacher, but because she felt as though she were betraying Joshua.

She turned her head in hopes he hadn't the chance to see it. She felt like a traitor just seeing him and wanted so desperately to hate him. She wasn't only going to betray her love if she let this go further, but she would condemn Snape to the same fate. Could she allow him to watch her die slowly and leave him as Joshua left her? Could she leave this world knowing there was still something left for her?

This is why you wanted to cut the ties, you insipid girl! She cursed herself as she heard the doctor enter the room. Snape took his seat and let go of her hand, turning his all too attentive eyes to the middle-aged, portly, bespectacled man sitting before them.

Dr. Cavanaugh was old before his time, a man drained of any colour it might have had once been present, a blue vien was visible

"Hermione," he nodded to her taking off his glasses.

"Doctor," she replied feeling her throat tightening.

"I'm Doctor Cavanaugh," he said offering his hand to Snape.

"Severus," he said taking the hand with an uncharacteristic smile. Perhaps he was nervous? Damned if Hermione knew, everything she thought about the man was slowly being proved wrong over the course of a year.

"And you're an uncle, a friend...?"

"She's my charge," he explained, Hermione once again wondered who the hell had the ability to appoint her as his charge.

"I didn't know her parents had appointed her a keeper," he spoke with a hint of curiousity as he sat back down across from them.

"You're not the only one that wasn't aware," she muttered still bothered by being in his care.

"No one was interested in leaving the poor girl alone for the days she was still here," he explained, more directed at Hermione than the doctor. "It was the only way to ensure the girl was safe."

"Ah," he said with understanding, offering him a sympathetic glance, as if to say he knew how difficult his position was. "A lot of sick teenagers are so often trying to prove themselves, Hermione, as exceptional as i think she is, is not an exception."

Hermione rolled her eyes and suppressed a groan as she folded her arms across her chest. She bit her lip as she tried to let her anger pass. The good doctor had done nothing but try to help her for as long as she could remember, she owed him her grandmother's life, and hers. He saw people he connected with die daily, and the devastating aftermath. Hermione would not be surprised if the poor man often received death threats...that was enough to calm her anger.

This brought her to be more observant of her onocologist. He was a weary, thin and pale man, his glasses barely hid the dark circles under them and there was a palpable sorrow in his ice-coloured eyes. Despite all of the more than evident signs of a man worn to the very soul, there was still an air of hope, something in his eyes, face and posture, that despite that he was limp, lifeless, and bleached completely. He was completely driven by his cause, like a paladin of old, and it was heart breaking to see how the weight of the world crushed such a good man.

"Oh, doctor, when was the last time you've slept?" she asked placing her hand atop his.

His thin brittle lips offered her a crooked smile, and gripped her hand reassuringly as he raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't I be asking you that, deary?" he chuckled and threw her an expression that was both paternal and playful.

"I slept last night," she answered. Very little, but hey.

"And your medication, Hermione?"

"Taking it every morning and every night as you recommended," she smiled sitting up straight.

Snape shot her a look, questioning if not outright accusatory. She inhaled deeply as she anticipated his calling her out. Why was she lying anyway?

"And what about your chest pains? Have those gotten any worse?"

"Worse?" she gulped. "I wouldn't say that exactly..."

Both Dr. Cavanaugh and Snape shot an exasperated look her way. She had to question why she was avoiding his question. It wasn't relieving him, why did she bother?

Because I'm afraid of what he'll tell me.

"Hermione?"

She looked at both of them with fear and sympathy clutching her heart. Both of these men have done so much for her, and only wanted to hear the truth about her health. But she didn't...

"But they are more frequent than they have been..." she admitted hanging her head in shame.

"When you say more frequent..."

"Nearly daily," she sucked in more breath and shifted uncomfortably. "Why is that, Doctor?"

Doctor Cavanaugh stood at his desk and walked over beside Hermione. She looked up at him when he placed a hand on her arm. "We'll just go through the tests we had scheduled and let you go. We'll contact you as soon as we get the results."

"Would it kill you to at least turn around?" Hermione asked, not looking the man behind her as she pulled off her jumper.

"I already have," Severus grumbled. "It still amazes me how even now you expect nothing but the worst of me."

"You've already proven you have little to no respect for my privacy." She hissed.

"Hermione," he sighed. "I—"

"Don't care. I know," she nearly growled.

That hurt him. Maybe she didn't remember as he thought, but even then, hadn't he proved he cared? Why was she being so distant? After last night he expected there to be no more hostility between them, but they both grew colder. He didn't know where to go from here, and neither did she. If she did remember, she was too afraid to acknowledge it.

"You're taking a while," he broke the silence.

"Just tying the back is all," she sighed. "Any chance your mother ever taught you the virtues of patience?"

"If she hadn't I'd hate to see what would have become of you."

He turned around to see her sitting on the end of thehosptial bed, fingers fumbling on the ties about her back. "Let me," he said taking the ties and noticing blue marks, precisely placed in neat rows in a square on her left. He gently touched his finger on the marks, trying to figure out what they were. "Anyone draw on you before you left?"

"They're birth marks!" she snapped throwing her hair in his way.

Rolling his eyes, he moved her hair out of his way and finished tying the ties of the hospital gown. "Don't lie to me, girl."

Silence came from her.

"If it bothers you, I won't ask."

Hermione stood after he finished tying the strands. "Thanks."

The nurse that might possibly have years on Dumbledore parted the curtains, was a very thin woman whose scrubs hung off of her, wispy white hair was tied back in a severe pony tail, a smile graced her tanned wrinkled faceand she stuck a claw-like hand out for shaking. "You're Hermione Granger?"

She nodded, subdued, backing up into Severus when moments before she couldn't be far enough away from him. He set his hands on her shoulders to soothe her when she moved away from him. "She's nervous."

"It's really not unexpected. Spinal taps are painful and—"

"Intrusive..." Hermione sighed. "And necessary. I'm sorry, ma'am, I was just-I had a rough night and to say the least I'm a little out of it."

"Ah, " she said sympathetically. "Are you on any sleeping medications? Or anything else lasting making you loopy?"

"Yeah," she snorted. "I'm loaded on opium."

"Hermione—" he began before realizing the nurse took no offense to her comment.

"So, how would you like this taken, Hermione?" the nurse asked as Hermione sat upon the table.

"Sitting up," she replied meekly, clutching the side of the table with a white-knuckled and shaking grip.

The nurse then picked up a long and cruel looking needle sharper than a serpant's fang. She winced at the sight of the large surringe in the nurse's hand. Severus surveyed the cruel instrument, the needle itself was longer than his fingers, and was exceptionally sharp. Hermione braced herself after taking in a deep breath and bit her lip tightly after squeezing her eyes shut.

"Is that necessary?" he asked the nurse poising the needle at Hermione's bared back.

"It's to ensure nothing's wrong with her CSF pressure or the production of her leucocytes and—"

"A yes or no would suffice!" he snapped.

The nurse narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes, it is very necessary. Now, I'm sure you're concerned for her, but I do not do this for the pleasure of it. Maybe you could—"

"This girl—" he cut her off raising his voice slightly, but not so loud a passionless and indifferent voice couldn't be heard.

"Has had far too much blood taken for testing and would like this done before I faint," she groaned, eyes still fixed on the cold tile floor.

"Very well," he sighed with an eyeroll.

Seconds later he was watching Hermione's face contort in pain as the impossibly long needle had been plunged into her spine, water streamed from her tightly shut eyes as her long front teeth dug so deep into her bottom lip a line of crimson trailed down her chin.

It was painful to watch her as the nurse filled the surringe with the deep red liquid. He didn't think she would be in that much pain. He figured that she clamped down on her lip hard enough to bleed to distract her from the even more intense pain from the needle driving into spine and drawing the ever important liquid from it. Severus pitied her, that must have always been the mutual feeling exchanged between them, but he felt it more so even now. Hermione was so entirely small and fragile that he began to think it a miracle she'd've lived so long with her reckless behaviour. Or blind, dumb luck! For God's sake, who the hell volunteers herself to the frontline of a war when she's got a terminal illness?She could have died from a mishap in class, let alone that night at the ministry! A sudden revelation came over him as he surveyed this girl, the woman he loved. They all stood a chance to die, and if they were successful they believed a better world would show for it. Hermione didn't care if she died for that world, none of them seemed to. But she'd would be the first to fall on her sword regardless, as she thought she had nothing to lose!

"I'm here," he said giving in as she let out a short cry in pain. He held her arms and tried to get he to look at him, perhaps as a distraction.

She looked directly into his eyes, he could read a trace of fear through the tears, but also hope. The nurse finally removed the needle from Hermione's spine and Hermione collapsed into Severus's open arms.

"You're alright..."

"I know." She breathed after a moment sitting up and offering an insincere smile.

"Don't pretend you're fine," he said helping her off the table, pleading. "I thought we were passed that..."

Hermione sighed as she ran a shaking hand through her bushy locks and sent him another look, this time pleading. Her knit brow and long teeth digging into her bottom lip created a suspenseful air around her. She looked hurt by his assumption, somehow offended. Severus remembered when she looked away feebly that he wouldn't reach that point. Nor would she ever reach that point with him. His position in the order meant no one ever would with him...And Joshua meant no one ever would with her again.

He sighed and pulled her into his embrace, and rested his chin on her shoulder after she had melted in his arms from exhaustion, both physical and emotional. "I know that can't happen." He whispered in her ear. "I'm sorry."

Severus stood with Hermione enfolded in his arms for a breif moment before he felt her body waver and go limp. This, of course, should have been expected after the comment she had made about so much blood being taken from her. She had been injected with a pain killer after an examination before she received a pain killer before the spinal tap, though it was a mild one, it still made her loopy after so much blood being withdrawn. He gently stooped to lay his hand behind her knees to pick her up and laid her on the table.

"Sir," the nurse asked returning to the room. "Is she-?"

"Unconscious I'm afraid." he answered as he brushed hair away from her face. "THe pain killers in combination with the amount of blood taken were just too much."

A squeak escaped from her bloodless chapped lips as her body weakly shook on the table. He took her ice-cold hand in his and examined the blue finger nails. He wondered how long it'd be before the girl woke.

"Do you think she'll be ready to meet with doctor Cavanaugh soon?" he asked the nurse who took to checking Hermione's pulse.

"Give her time, Mister, she'll be fine."

"How long will will she have?" he asked, as the words left his lips he felt the other meaning of that question nagging him. How long did she have? How much time? Was she cured? What if the results to the test were bad? What if her problems returned?

"She can rest until here she's ready to meet him, dear."

"Hey, Fantine!" Severus cries with open arms.

"The hell are you doing here!" Hermione laughs responding to the name "Fantine".

"Little bird told me you might be wanting company on the walk home."

That was when Hermione took in her surroundings at last. It was a muggle parking lot of all places and Severus looked as though he were about fourteen or so.

Hermione was not Hermione at all. A glimpse of her reflection she was a girl, also about fourteen, with long red hair dressed in a nineteenth century pale green dress. "My father I assume?"

A smirked graced her friend's face as he began to walk beside her. "He couldn't make it, so naturally, he wanted someone with you on the walk home at night."

"Oh, my hero!" she giggled. "Did you get a chance to see-"

"I'll tell when we're far away from the ticket sales people..."

Hermione jumped for joy and wrapped her arms around the teenaged Severus. "Thank-you, thank you!" she squealed.

"And might I say," he said wriggling out of her embrace to look her in the eye. "Best damn Fantine, ever."

"You flatter me, Severus!" she laughed merily once more.

Now her eyes scanned the parking lot for Phoebe. Her parents both managed to see the grand-opening, and tonight was the finale. Phoebe hadn't managed to come at all for the week they ran. She kept looking, her heart beating furiously for a sign of her sister.

"Have you seen Tuney?" she asks Severus, her heart dropping.

"I'm afraid not, Lily..." he said taking her in his arms once more as tears began to form in her arms. "And it's her loss! You played beautifully!"

The walked in silence down the pools of lamp light overlapping in orange pools on the sidewalk. Severus, his arm linked in hers, stopped. "Why the long face?"

"It's just-" she sighed as she looked for words. "I don't understand why she couldn't make it. It's not just tonight, she hasn't been down to see the play all week, and hasn't spoken to me all summer. Not since I got the part at least."

"Wasn't Petunia auditioning for the same role when you two were enrolled into the summer program?" he asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"Yes," she admits to her best friend, hating what it reveals about her sister.

"If you ask me," he begins and Hermione feels her blood begin to boil. "SHe's been jealous of you since you were little. She was jealous when you were smarter, she was jealous you turned out to be a witch, and she's jealous you got the part of Fantine when she wasn't cast at all. Petunia's petty and jealous, and you shouldn't give a damn aboutwhat a sore loser thinks."

Hermione feels her blood begin to boil as her body stiffens. He walks beside her, arm-in-arm, talking about her sister, who, despite her bitter coldness, she loves dearly as though she were nothing more than a pest who should be swatted without a second thought.

"well, I don't think I did ask you." she hisses dropping his arm and striding foward quickly without so much as a look back.

"God damn it- Lily!"