Her sleep was fitful at best. She tried probing the GM for more information, but they skirted around the issue like Harry and Ron trying to avoid admitting they hadn't done their homework assignments, which did nothing to help calm her nerves. More than once throughout the night she had gotten up and paced the floor just outside the room she shared with Ginny, ignoring the whispers and murmurings of the Black Family portraits until a snide, drawling voice caught her attention. "Nightmares, Miss Granger? I would think you would be the last person to worry about ghosts and goblins in her sleep."

She stopped and looked over at a frame on the wall to behind her. Phineas Nigellus was leaning against the frame of a bleak and dreary landscape. Hermione frowned and turned to face him fully. "What are you on about, then?"

The late Headmaster arched a brow. "I might have been nosing about a painting in Professor Snape's quarters, wondering what had Albus Dumbledore looking so guilty. And I might have heard some rather interesting things about you."

She narrowed her eyes and stepped closer. "Who else knows?"

"Other than myself, no one who didn't know already, though with all the shouting I wouldn't doubt it if someone walking past might have caught a few snippets here and there."

Great. "How pissed off is he?"

The question seemed to amuse Phineas. "Greatly so, but very little of it is directed towards you."

That drew her up short. "Who's he mad at, then?"

"Oh, where to start." Phineas seemed to be contemplating that very thought carefully. "Well, he's furious at Dumbledore, considering the Headmaster has known all along you were his daughter and saw fit not to tell him. That and he apparently has always been aware of your peculiar talents. Then there's the blazing row he had with the Bloody Baron when the ghost tried to stop him from yelling at the Headmaster and your father realized that all the ghosts have been aware of the very same facts." Hermione gave a muffled groan and leaned forward to rest her head against the wall beside the painting. "But I suppose he's the most upset with your mother, who not only neglected to tell him he had a daughter but also neglected to tell him her true nature. Of course, I'm not entirely certain he would have had the bollocks to take her to bed had he known, but that's neither here nor there."

"Why couldn't he just get drunk off his ass like a normal man?"

Phineas gave a bark of laughter. "That waswhile he was drunk, Miss Granger. He would have been violent had he been sober." She started banging her head against the wall, muttering 'fuck, fuck, fuck' softly. "Quite the vocabulary you have developed."

"It's genetic. I get it from Kathryn." She turned around and rested against the wall. "Maybe I could run away. Grab Cedric and Crookshanks and move into a lovely little villa somewhere in Southern Italy. Spend all my days sunbathing in micro-bikinis." She heard Phineas give a snort. "What?"

"You're too much of a Gryffindor to do that, although it is kind of you to consider improving the Italian landscape in such a fashion."

"Sometimes you come across as quite the lecher."

"Even portraits can appreciate the female form, Miss Granger." The sound of the clock chiming two in the morning drifted up from the study. "As for you, you should return to bed and try to wring out what little sleep you can. You'll need to be sharp when your father arrives."

Hermione sighed and pushed herself away from the wall before making her way back to the bedroom. Sleep still refused to come to her, however, and even she knew she looked like death warmed over the following morning. So much so that Mrs. Weasley gently suggested that she remain behind and try to rest while she and the others went to visit Arthur at the hospital, even going so far as to give Cedric orders to make certain she didn't exert herself when he had shown up a bit later with a box of presents his parents had sent over.

"How much do you think he knows?"

"Everything Mr. Turner and the others know."

"That could be uncomfortable." He was sitting on a sofa, turned a bit so that he could bend one knee and act as a sort of support while she leaned back against him, her head on his shoulder and her nose tucked under his chin. Hermione let herself relax into him, inhaling the scent of his soap and catching a whiff of the detergent used on his clothes. She hadn't realized how topsy-turvy she had been feeling until he had arrived. "I'm certain everything will be all right."

Hermione made a non-committal sound before slipping her arms about his torso and snuggling in more tightly, shifting only slightly for a more comfortable position when the hilt of one of her sai jabbed him in the bony part of his pelvis. The more she thought about it, the more that idea of running off to Southern Italy with Cedric gained in merit.

Severus waited until the hangover potion took full effect before he journeyed to Grimmauld Place. He found is mostly empty save for Black and Lupin sitting at the kitchen table as they perused reports and drank stout coffee. Sirius gave him a sneering look as he looked about. "Want something, Snivellus?"

Lupin gave his friend a warning look. "Sirius…"

"I'm looking for my daughter. I suppose she's gone off with the Weasleys."

Remus shook his head. "She wasn't looking all that well so Molly told her to stay behind. I believe she's in the study with Cedric."

"Give them some privacy, why don't you?" Black refreshed his cup. "Young love and all that. It's not like they'd be allowed sufficient time together at school, what with being in different houses."

Severus reminded himself to keep his temper in check. "When will the others return?"

Black frowned. "Later this afternoon. Why? Is something wrong?"

He sighed. "After a fashion. The Headmaster has asked me to speak with Mr. Potter regarding some additional classes that may be of benefit to him." He managed not to smirk at the expression on Black's face. "Do let me know when he's returned." Dismissing the animagus from his mind, he turned on his heel to leave the kitchen in search of his daughter.

"Hold on! Just what sort of lessons are you talking about?"

"That is a matter between the headmaster, Mr. Potter and myself, Black. It doesn't concern you." He ignored any further sputtering from the man, letting the door close behind him and making his way down the hall. He knew where the study could be found. Sure enough, Hermione was there along with Cedric Diggory, who couldn't possibly be comfortable in his current situation but seemed intent on acting the part of a settee. The boy's hand gripped the back of the small sofa for support, his body slightly bowed as Hermione used him for a cushion. From her deep breathing he could tell that she was sound asleep.

Diggory was too intent on keeping watch over the witch reclining against him to notice his arrival. Severus scowled briefly at this lack of attention, more tense over her safety after the recent attempt on her life than usual, but knew that this wasn't the time to lecture. Not Mr. Diggory at any rate. Instead he settled for clearing his throat loudly and was rewarded by a suddenly awake Hermione. She pushed back from Cedric, who also straightened up, and reached her hand automatically to the small of her back. She paused in the middle of the movement, but it was still enough to give Severus pause. How many times had he seen Kathryn make the same gesture when the moment called for them to be alert?

He summoned the demeanor he most often used while teaching. "Enjoying a bit of a nap, are we?" She swallowed, blushing slightly under his gaze. He knew that their actions were innocent, but he was not going to accept a romance between the pair without a fight. Let the boy work for it a bit longer. Besides, people changed a great deal between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five. They could still outgrow one another. "Mr. Diggory, I would like to speak to my daughter in private." Severus watched as Cedric gave Hermione a cautious look. She nodded, giving him a smile that failed to be convincing. Nevertheless, he did rise from the sofa, bending down to give her a brief kiss to the cheek before leaving them alone.

She sat on the sofa, hands knotted in her lap and seemingly unable to look up to meet his gaze. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked slowly towards the hearth, pretending to study the trinkets on the mantel that had been deemed 'safe' and therefore allowed to remain. "The two of you seem to be growing ever closer. Should I add your young man to my list of possible threats to your safety?"

"He would never hurt me."

"I would have thought you had lost that youthful naiveté by now. What with the seemingly endless font of age and wisdom always just a thought away." She didn't respond. He looked into the mirror over the mantel and saw that her head was still slightly bowed. "I will be blunt, Hermione; I am not certain how to address this new bit of knowledge regarding you I have gained."

That got a response. She lifted her head and turned in her seat to look over the back of the sofa in his direction. He turned from the mirror, hands still clasped behind his back. "That you did not tell me what you were going through is understandable. Decent witches and wizards would be likely to turn against you, unable to understand the difference between you and a necromancer. The ones who would accept you… well… I would never condone you interaction with their kind."

She frowned, seeming uncertain of how to take his words. He let her make the next move. "I thought you'd be furious."

"I am, but there is no point in directing my anger towards you. I choose to save my ire for those who deserve it."

Her head nodded slowly. "Like Kathryn."

"She's at the top of the list, but unlike you I am unable to yell at her properly. I'm restricted to those I can actually see."

She frowned. "Isn't it a bit hard to keep yelling at Professor Dumbledore? I mean… he practices passivity all the time. He never rises to the bait." Severus narrowed his eyes, contemplating her. "What?"

"I am wondering how I failed to notice the changes in you since you learned of your adoption. It's easy to see the physical resemblance between you and Kathryn, but it goes deeper than that. The Hermione Granger who came to Hogwarts five years ago wasn't nearly as relaxed in her speech and mannerisms. You've become less frantic. More confident in yourself."

Hermione looked as though she may be mildly insulted. "I was never frantic!" He barely repressed a snort. "When was I frantic?"

"You were the most neurotic child I ever had the displeasure to meet, and I serve as head of Slytherin House." She glared at him and he finally saw some bit of himself within her. It was there in the eyes and the way her lips turned down at the corners when she was scowling. "That being said, I find it surprising that you have adapted as well as you have to your additional talents."

Her shoulders rose and fell in a brief shrug. "I couldn't have done anything else. Not really. Once I figured out those equations and 'unlocked the door', there wasn't any shutting it back. It was creepy in the beginning, what with my dead mother chattering away inside my skull, but mainly it was annoying because she had a tendency to say some of the most inappropriate things at the positively worst times."

Had? "You are no longer in contact with Kathryn?" A look of something that resembled regret flashed through her eyes. "What is it?"

"She… sort of got kicked out. The others didn't like how she was speaking to me after what happened last year and Sal… he decided to give her the boot."

"'Sal?'"

Her cheeks colored a bit and she licked her lips nervously. "Salazar Slytherin. He appointed himself the spokesperson of the others and told Kathryn she'd overstayed her welcome. She stormed off and he… sort of took over as my mentor."

He couldn't have heard her right. "Hermione, are you telling me that Salazar Slytherin, one of the most respected and feared dark wizards in our history, is running about inside your mind?"

"Only when needed, and he isn't all that bad!" He drew in a breath, preparing to give her a lecture on the foolishness of letting manipulative bastards have access to her thoughts. "He isn't! History's got it all wrong! He never hated muggleborns, just how they were treated. He said that muggleborns were often put to death when they were just children. He used to watch for signs of accidental magic in muggle children and step in to intervene, faking their deaths and then placing them with magical families so they would be safe."

"Who told you this?"

"He did."

"And you believe him?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hermione, the type of wizards and witches put into Slytherin house are not known for their ability to tell the truth."

"Yeah, well to hear him talk he's not all that thrilled with how the lot of you turned out. He's extremely disappointed, and he's pissed as hell that Voldemort runs around claiming to be trying to finish his work."

"Don't say that name!"

She rolled her eyes at him! "It's just aname. Not saying it only gives him more power."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You are definitely Kathryn's daughter. Your sense of self-preservation is as poorly developed as hers ever was."

"I have a very strong sense of self-preservation."

He doubted that. "If you had even a weak one you would have better sense than to allow Salazar Slytherin to act as your mentor. What is he mentoring you in anyway?"

"Not really a mentor, but more as a guide in finding who I need."

"You mean 'what' you need?"

She shook her head. "I mean 'who'. I can't communicate with things, after all. But if there's something I need to know he helps me find someone who has the answers. And he helps me analyze events and information to see where I might have fouled up. Like with the mess in the graveyard. I was dead lucky there, because my reluctance to aim to injure could have cost me my life. I nearly fucked up the entire thing."

"You swear like Kathryn, too." Perhaps distancing her from her predecessor had its good points. "Hermione, while my displeasure at having been kept ignorant as to the full scope of your abilities is in no way directed towards you, I have to insist that there be some changes made. To begin with, the ghosts tell me that you spend almost as much time in physical training as you do in your scholastic endeavors."

She gave him a puzzled look. "Well, of course. Kathy always said that a wand is only useful if you manage to keep it whole and in your grasp. If it gets broken or you lose it, you've got to have a fall back."

"Be that as it may, you are to sit your OWLs this year. I will not have a repeat of your third year and that nightmare with the Time Turner. Before you resume classes after the holiday we will sit down and work out a more tolerable schedule so that you do not work yourself to an early death."

Hermione looked incensed. "I am not going to work myself to death."

He ignored her as he continued one. "Also, you will provide me with a weekly summary of any conversations you may have with any… departed individuals."

"Some of those conversations are private!"

"Not any longer." He felt no remorse in 'laying down the law'. The Headmaster had been wrong to allow her to plow head-on with her self-explorations. History was rampant with bright witches and wizards who had turned down the wrong path when their curiosity was not kept in check. "Finally, you will tell me of any specific disciplines or schools of thought you wish to master. We will first endeavor to find you a teacher among the living before resorting to taking your answers from those gone on."

She stood up, stamping her foot in a gesture that was better suited to the teenage girl she was. "That's justsilly! Why shouldn't I ask the GM for help? They're just waiting there, doing the same thing they did when they were breathing and perfecting it! They've honed their skills far beyond what you or I can even imagine. Why not learn from them?"

"Because I have said it is to be so." It was the classic fatherly cop-out, and he wasn't ashamed to use it. "Surely Mr. Turner told you of Kathryn and her seemingly perpetual coldness. Now I can see that it was due in part to the fact that her closest friends were no longer among the living. I will not see you drawn into the same frigidity. I have been too cautious in my dealings with you since learning of our connection out of concern that I may overstep my bounds, and that failing is entirely mine. I see now that I must take action if you are to salvage anything resembling a normal existence."

"I'm not normal! I never have been! I never could be!"

"You will do as you are told." He kept his voice as calm as he could manage. In his mind he kept reminding himself that it was not Hermione with whom he was furious, but all those who wove a web of secrets and lies about her. Kathryn he could understand. She did what she did to protect the child she had born, but she could have told him. He would have left Voldemort sooner if she had told him, taken her to Dumbledore and begged the old man for asylum. He would have even offered to marry her, even though she would never have accepted, and would have been there for their daughter from the beginning.

And Hermione likely would have turned out far different. She would have been colder and less open to her own emotions. She would have likely been calculating and ambitious, and lacking the generous nature that encouraged her to help that idiot Weasley boy with his essay assignments or stand up to her best friends by reporting potential dangers to teachers before they got themselves killed.

In short, she wouldn't have been Hermione.

He was so intent on reminding himself of all this yet again that he missed her question. "What was that?"

She was looking at him with an expression that looked to be one part curiosity and about two parts fear. "I asked how Kathy died."

That was an odd question. "Sure you know that already."

"She would never say. I know she had enemies, like that Trout person, but no one will talk about him. They said that… it was something that should come from the living. That it wasn't something I needed to hear from the dead." She drew in a breath and hugged herself. "That they won't say scares me a bit."

His anger fizzled out. It hadn't occurred to him before, but if Kathryn had told her everything then it wouldn't have taken this long to locate her body. "How was your relationship with her before she was… dismissed?"

"Odd. I mean, what else could it be with her being dead and all? She was brutal at times, very strict and stern. She could give a verbal lashing that made you look like a pussycat, no offense. And she was downright embarrassing a good portion of the time, and a total perv more often than not." She worried a bit of carpet with the toe of her shoe. "And she was very… stand-offish. I got the impression that she didn't have much in the way of warm feelings. She said that the only motherly thing she ever did for me was to find me a decent set of parents."

"I see." So that was the impression Kathryn chose to give their child? She had no end of time to let Hermione know and opted to keep herself distant from her even as they shared the same body? What madness had settled into the Necroscope's brain that she would take such an action? "Hermione, never doubt for a moment that Kathryn cared for you. Practically every step and deed she made from the moment of your conception until the night she died was done to protect you from those who would do you harm."

His daughter blinked, her eyes open and trusting as she listened. "I… I'm not certain I understand."

Severus weighed his thoughts carefully. All her life people had lied to Hermione, be it a lie of omission or just a blatant falsehood. Granted, the bulk of those lies were intended to be for her own good, from concealing the fact she was adopted to refraining from telling her how her birth mother's death had come to pass. Truth could be brutally painful, but it could also repair a great deal of damage.

It was in that moment that Severus Snape decided that he would be the one person who would not lie to Hermione. She deserved at least one individual with a still beating heart who would tell her how things truly were.

"Kathryn's enemies caught up to her, Hermione. She was apprehended by this Geoffrey Trout and his underlings and taken to a secured location where they could… question her. They spend several days torturing her for information, keeping her in place by physically restraining her to the building structures so that she could not… teleport away. Walls of steel and concrete prevented the dead from being able to rescue her." He saw the dawning horror in her eyes. "In the end, Trout was desperate to the point that he would have settled for just a gender, to know whether you were a son or a daughter. Kathryn would not even divulge that much. To the very end she refused to give him even the smallest bit of information that could be used to track you."

She shook her head as if trying to banish this new information. Now that she had it, he doubted she wanted it any longer. He felt a moment of uncertainty, thinking perhaps the others had it right before reminding himself of his new vow. "Such is not the action of a woman who does not care for her child, Hermione. Kathryn was a mother to you in the only way she could be; by sacrificing everything to keep you safe."

"Tortured." Her complexion had gone pasty white and there was a slight tremor to her frame. "How? What did they do?"

He frowned. "He employed other wild talents, those with more offensive abilities. There were also more traditional methods such as what might be used in a war prison or gulag."

"Oh." She swallowed as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Oh," she said again. There was a tremor to her chin that did not bode well. His paternal instincts were not the strongest, but he got the feeling that now would be the time he might be expected to approach her and perhaps pull her into a hug. He Severus hesitated for a moment, the act not a natural one for him, before he forced himself to move forward, arms coming up for her only to be rebuffed as she held up her hands to ward him off and stepped back.

"Hermione?" She shook her head; her eye lids closing most of the way, but not completely. Severus watched as the last sliver of brown from her irises rolled back so that all he could see was the pale white of the sclera. Was she having a fit of some sort? "Hermione!"

Her eyes snapped open, wide and now darkened with something he could not quite put a name to. Her breathing was coming in shallow, measured bursts as though she were trying to fight for each gulp of air. He made to move towards her again but again she stepped back. Her eyes met his and something in his mind clicked. He knew was she was going to do, had been told of the ability by Mr. Turner just the previous day, before she started to turn away from him. "Hermione, no!"

She ignored him and vanished even as he watched. It wasn't the suddenly gone vanishing of apparition, but more like she stepped through a door that he couldn't see into a room that wasn't really there. The first thing that came to him once his mind had unfrozen was that it was too slow. Someone could get in a curse if she didn't move more quickly than that. The second thing that came to his mind was that he had no idea where she had gone to, but she had been clearly upset and likely needed someone beside her even if she did not appear to care for his company at the moment.

That thought completed, he left the study with a hope that she had not actually left the house. There was at least one person present who would be a likely candidate if Hermione needed comforting. He ignored the puzzled glances from Black and Lupin when he first checked the kitchen and found no sign of the boy before heading upstairs and checking the various bedrooms until he found Diggory sitting on a narrow bed with his back against the wall, his History of Magic book in his lap. There was no sign of his daughter. "Where is she?"

Diggory frowned. "Pardon?"

"Hermione. She took off. Where would she go?" Cedric's gray eyes blinked back at him before Severus watched his expression change from puzzled to incensed.

"What did you say to her?" He closed his book with a snap, setting it aside as he rose from the bed. Severus could not help but be surprised as the usually placid and even-tempered Head Boy closed the gap between them, hands curling up.

"Mind your attitude, Mr. Diggory. Recall to whom you are speaking."

"I don't give a damn right now." He was, however, keeping his tone low. Likely so that he didn't attract any unwanted attention for the wizards downstairs. "She was worried sick when they told her you knew. Dreaded your arrival. What did you do to her?!"

His concern over where his daughter might be faded, replaced by the realization that there was yet another person who had been aware of Hermione and her unique abilities when he had been left in ignorance. "You knew? She confided in you?"

"Of course I knew!" The boy winced at his own volume, glancing towards the door before lowering his voice. "I couldn't bloody well ignore it. Not after that night in the graveyard."

"I wasn't aware that she had done anything visual that night."

"What?" Diggory looked confused for a moment before shaking his head. "I mean I couldn't ignore it after she had me brought back. Pettigrew's curse didn't fail. He killed me that night."

Severus felt the blood drain from his face. "What?"

"You heard me. Pettigrew murdered me that night. You only see what Hermione is from one side, from thisside, but I've seen the rest of it. I've felt the rest of it. You've no comprehension of what she is, and you can't begin to conceive it until you are there yourself."

Fortunately Diggory chose that moment to turn away from him. Severus did not want him to see the horror that was likely etched in his face. Life over death? That was something no one warned him about, and not a gift that was conducive to her safety should the wrong people learn of it. "How did she… save you?"

"She didn't." The boy looked back over his shoulder at him. "The others did, the Dead. What she calls the 'Great Majority'. They recognized that my being dead was causing her pain, could tell that we are in love, and I wasn't so long dead that I couldn't be put back." He gave a shrug. "Apparently they are quite strong en masse if they need to be."

That it hadn't been Hermione's doing directly did little to assure him. "Where do you think she may have gone?"

"That would depend on what you said to set her off. What were you discussing at the time?"

"Kathryn and the circumstances behind her death." How much did he tell this… he couldn't quite call him a 'boy' any longer. You couldn't call someone of age who had been murdered and brought back from death a 'boy'. Any remaining innocence would have been torn away from him. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that he even somewhat admired Diggory's ability to keep from falling into bitterness and cynicism. "It wasn't pleasant, and for some reason Kathryn and the… Great Majority felt that I should deliver the news to her rather than disclose it to her directly."

"How 'not pleasant' was it?"

"It was the stuff of nightmares."

Diggory's jaw tightened slightly, swallowing hard. "Then she'll have either gone off to be alone for a time, or gone somewhere she can yell out to thin air without being seen. She doesn't have to be vocal when she speaks with them, but she says that sometimes it helps." The young wizard who was most likely destined to one day be his son-in-law slipped his hands into his pockets, trying to appear nonchalant. "She's clever. She won't put herself in harms way. We'll just need to sit tight until she decides to come back."