And thus ends the fourth and final chapter of what I dubbed "The Albus Death Series"... meaning that after this chapter, the plot will continue to move forward. Hope you all enjoy! A big THANK YOU to all my readers and reviewers. This chapter should get me just about to the 100,000 word mark, which is a MASSIVE deal to me, and I would not have gotten here without all of your support! Special thanks goes to my amazing Beta Holli, without whom every other review would probably say "You have a typo there." or "You spelled such and such wrong." I'd be screwed without you, Cherri!

Everyone went their separate ways after leaving the Head's office, including Hermione and Minerva. Everyone was intent on taking a closer look at their bestowments, or just contemplating Albus' last words to them. Hermione, of course, headed back to her quarters and found a quiet corner to sit and read the letter that Albus had left for her. She wanted to resent the former Headmaster for handing off the Order of the Phoenix to her - it wasn't as if she was in need of additional responsibility - but in reality she was grateful, because she knew that the Order's primary task was to see to the end of Voldemort, and Harry wouldn't be truly safe until that happened.

Becoming Head of the Order, especially with the Head of Hogwarts being the person she was closest to, was the best case if she meant to protect her ward. There would be no hidden info she wasn't privy to. Anything the Order knew, she would know, and the more she knew, the better prepared she was to plan Voldemort's demise. She was already going over a mental checklist of things she needed to organize before the first meeting with her in charge, but before she even started planning that out, she needed to know whatever Albus had kept from the rest of the Order in the months and years prior to his passing. She knew that's what his letter was about.

My Dear Hermione,

It is my intention to tell you this in the near future, but in the case I didn't get that chance, I need to explain why, between you and Minerva, I chose her for Head of Hogwarts and you for Head of the Order. We both know you would have been equally qualified to do either, or I could have left both positions to one of you. However, Minerva is a Wardling. She does not know. If you are not already familiar with Wardlings, you'll find the information you need in a book of mine titled Foundations of Hogwarts, which should be in Minerva's possession at this juncture. Her being a Wardling makes her the only choice for Hogwarts in the current political climate. On the flip side of that coin, I found it difficult to juggle Hogwarts, the Order, and my relationship with Robert all at once, and I'm me! I did not want that pressure on Minerva, and in any case, I believe you would be better at making the hard choices than she could be, and that will be needed from time to time.

Regarding Severus: for as lacking in good cheer as that man is, he is a brilliant wizard, and an excellent strategist. Were I not dead, I'd have considered him my most trusted General, and I urge you to do the same. The thing you have to understand about him, and he'll never forgive me for telling you this, but he is the reason that Harry's parents are dead, and he is also the reason that Harry remained mostly unscathed before you returned from your trip through time. You see, when Severus was a child, he lived in a muggle neighborhood, and one day met a pretty little girl called Lily Evans, whom he befriended when he realized that as he was a wizard, she was a witch. They came to Hogwarts together, he to Slytherin and she to Gryffindor. Where Severus was teased by most of his housemates, Lily was popular with her fellow Gryffindors, and very quickly grabbed the attention of a young James Potter, who was part of a group who were Severus' primary tormentors. By their fourth or fifth years, both James and Severus had fallen in love with young Lily. As you are aware, James ultimately won her affections, which drove Severus into the service of Voldemort - pressured by his Slytherin peers to do so, and willing to do anything to forget the pain of losing Lily to his greatest enemy.

About six months after Harry's birth, Severus overheard a conversation between myself and the Divination Professor that I was interviewing at the time. I had been meeting with Sybil that day as a courtesy, given that her grandmother was a highly respected Seer. I had no intention of hiring her for the position. However, halfway through that interview, she make her first, and to date only prophecy.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

Severus only heard part of the that prophecy, and reported it back to Voldemort. Voldemort then found two possible candidates - two boys both born at the end of that July. One, on July 30th, was Neville Longbottom. The second, born that very next day, was your ward, Harry Potter. The Longbottoms, Frank and Alice, were Aurors and Order members, but neither of them came from particularly powerful bloodlines. Harry, on the other hand, was a Potter - an ancient and powerful family, so Voldemort opted to primarily seek to destroy them, seeing young Harry as the most likely threat. The whole Wizarding World knows what happened to the Potters that Halloween night, though lesser known part of the tale is that Death Eaters found Frank and Alice before Voldemort found the Potters, and the couple were tortured into insanity. Neville was raised by his grandmother, and to this day his parents remain in the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungo's.

Meanwhile, the moment that Severus realized that Voldemort meant to target the Potters - meant to target the woman he was still deeply in love with - was the moment that Severus turned away from Voldemort. He came to me, begging for help in protecting the Potters. Unfortunately, the Potters were betrayed by their Secret Keeper, and the rest is history. Severus, of course, was devastated, but agreed with me that one day, Voldemort would return, and when that happened Harry - Lily's surviving son - would need protecting. I gave him employment at Hogwarts, and when Harry came back to the Wizarding world some ten years later, Severus became his unknown protector. Further, as he was during the tail end of the last war, Severus is prepared to maintain a role of spy when Voldemort does rise again. He is, after all, technically still a Death Eater who has every reason to hate Harry; the boy who looks so like his nemesis James, but looks up at him with his mother's eyes. I do hope that Severus will grow to care for Harry. If we're being honest, they need each other.

There is one other thing I need to tell you that I have not shared with the Order. I suspect that what allowed Voldemort to remain alive, albeit weakened greatly, in the aftermath of his killing curse at Harry rebounding upon himself, was because he had already created a Horcrux. A Horcrux is a bit of dark magic in which an intended and unremorseful murder splits a wizard or witch's soul. There's willpower involved in the process, and of course a spell, which allows that bit of soul to be placed in a container of sorts. This container can be a dirty old shoe, a priceless relic, or, in the case of Tom Riddle, be placed in a Diary. While a horcrux exists, its owner cannot truly die. My instincts say that Voldemort would have sought to prove his might by having multiple horcruxes, though I have no proof of this. The Diary that enchanted Ginny Weasley during her first year was in fact a Horcrux, destroyed by pure dumb luck when Harry thought to stab it with a Basilisk fang in an effort to save young Ginny from the connection continuing to drain away her life force. Basilisk venom is one of the few ways I am aware of which can destroy a Horcrux. Fiendfyre is another. I'm sure there are other routes but as of the moment of my writing this, those are the means which I am certain would work. Your job, I suppose, will be to find a way to determine if Voldemort created more than one Horcrux, and if so, how many. If there is a second Horcrux, or Merlin forbid, more than one other, you will have to destroy them before going after Voldemort himself. While I suppose you could destroy Voldemort's physical form and then later go after any horcruxes, I do not believe that would be wise. He will be at his weakest directly after the destruction of a horcrux, so in a perfect world he'll only have made one more, and you time its destruction at the exact time an attack on his person would happen, offering said attacker - presumably Harry - to stand the best chance. Horcruxes aside, Voldemort is a very powerful Wizard. Any edge would be a good one to have.

I wish I could offer you more, but the truth of the matter was that while I always meant to keep the Order semi active after the fall of Voldemort that Halloween, very few of us believed he'd ever rise again, and the optimism of those celebrating was… intoxicating. We all wanted to believe we'd never face a threat like that again, and it wasn't until after the incident in the Chamber of Secrets that I realized that not only would he rise again, but he would also rise quickly. Still, the duties that come with being Headmaster take a fair bit of time, even with Minerva's help, and so I have not made much headway with either research or recruitment. Most in the Order at the present were in the Order the first time, but there weren't many of us left by the time Voldemort attacked Godric's Hollow, and thus numbers are low. If there is one bit of advice I can give as you take on this role, it is that it is imperative that you recruit as many as you can, because you will not be able to count on the Ministry for anything. Those Aurors who are not Order members will refuse the call to battle when it comes to that. Make no mistake, Hermione: it is coming.

Best of luck, my dear girl. And may you live to see happier times.
Albus Dumbledore

Hermione wanted to be sick. After a few seconds of struggling against the nausea, she did just that, emptying the contents of her stomach in the wastebasket, tears falling in waves as she retched over and over again. She cried for the loss of Albus, and she cried for lack of breath as she continued to heave. Mostly, she cried because of guilt, because the threat the Wizarding world faced was, at least in part, her fault.

In another lifetime, her beautiful little girl, all of four years old at the time, had gotten deathly ill. Hermione, Salazar, Rowena, Godric, and Helga had all searched and searched to find a cure, only to find it and realize that the Potion that would make Lucy well took a month to brew, and Lucy didn't have that long. Had a timeturner been available, they might have just gone back in time thirty days, making time to complete the draft. Sadly, that was not an option.

Then, Hermione had thought of something. She knew that, in the case of magical soulmates, both either lived, or both would die. One could not continue to live if the other passed the veil, and only a magically inflicted wound could kill a bonded soulmate. Age would also kill them, but in the case of mundane illness, like Lucy's situation, the immune system of the bond mate would keep its partner alive. The question that remained was how to artificially make Lucy a soulmate. The answer was quite simple.

Mere hours after presenting the idea to Salazar, going directly to him because she knew Rowena and the others would not approve, no matter if it meant saving Lucy's life, the two of them had split off small parts of their souls each, as not to irreparably damage themselves by having only one person contribute. They then placed those bits into Lucy, and the effect had been instant. Her breathing eased, the blue tinge on her lips faded, and her frail form stopped shivering. The ritual was borderline dark magic, but Hermione hadn't cared. It was her daughter.

All these years later, Hermione realized what she and Salazar had done that night. They had made the first Horcrux. What had given Lucy life had been perverted somewhere along the line and Voldemort was now using the magic to keep himself essentially immortal. Salazar was dead and buried and freed from facing the consequences of their actions, but she didn't have that luxury.

"Hermione?"

Severus' voice came from the direction of her doorway, sounding concerned at the sight of her crumpled on the ground with a wastebasket nestled in her arms. She stared at him, saying nothing as he took in her tear streaked face and the smell of vomit. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought she should be feeling embarrassed by her current state, but at this moment, she wasn't. She was too consumed by her guilt, the word horcrux echoing in her mind as if it had just been shouted in a great cathedral. She barely registered the fact that he was not leaving, let alone the fact that he was walking towards her. One flick of his wand banished the vomit, another cleaned her face, and a third conjured a glass of water to his hand, which he pressed directly to her lips when he got close enough, kneeling on the ground beside her to do so.

"This was about how I looked after my first raid with the Death Eaters," he commented in low voice. "I came down here to discuss what I imagine Albus had to say about me in that letter he left you, but at the moment I'm a bit more concerned about what he could have said to you that would have left you in this state."

Hermione sipped the water slowly at first, and then greedily as the cool liquid calmed her stomach and in the same stroke, seemed to force the echo in her mind to abate. "Thank you," she croaked, looking up at the man gratefully. It then registered to her that of all people, this was Severus comforting her, which forced a small smile on her lips as she thought about what Albus had said about the man. Further, she realized that if anyone could understand the guilt she was feeling, he could. It was long past time to tell him the truth of everything anyway. He'd earned it. If he'd known that all it would take to gain her trust would be a glass of water and a couple of cleaning charms, she imagined that he'd have done it a good deal sooner.

"What got you in this state?" he asked.

"Guilt," she said. "Something Albus shared with me made me realize that a questionable decision I made in the course of my life with Salazar all those years ago had long lasting consequences."

"What sort of consequences?" Severus inquired.

"I created a spell, something meant to save a life and did just that, but it has been perverted, and is the means Voldemort used which has kept him alive all these years," Hermione replied frankly. "The guilt I'm feeling is… indescribable, especially when I know that given the chance to go back to the day I created that spell and never do so… I'd do it again. I'd save my daughter's life, and say to hell with the fate of the wizarding world. As much as I wish I could claim to love Harry as if he were my flesh and blood son, if I'd known then when I know now, and it was down to a choice, I think I'd still chose Lucy. Perhaps Minerva was right… perhaps I really did fall to darkness during my years in the past. The girl I was before I went there would be ashamed of the woman I've become."

There. She'd said it. She'd handed Severus the key to everything she was. Any moment now, he would put it all together, and so Hermione watched closely for his reaction, meeting his gaze with a defiant stare, daring him to start treating her like the schoolgirl he'd once called insufferable.

"If you're saying you were born in this era, and went to that era, only to come back here… add in your interest in Potter…" His eyes bulged and his jaw dropped. "No. No. Just… no."

Hermione chuckled. "If you are thinking that I was born Hermione Granger, then I'm afraid so."

"No," he said again. "I refuse to believe that. It's ridiculous."

"That it is," she agreed. "But true nonetheless. Come now, Severus, you're a wizard and a smart one at that. Take a moment and wrap your head around the idea."

"Obviously you're still a swot."

"I'm also still an insufferable know-it-all," Hermione smirked, enjoying the groan that came out of his mouth at her remark.

"I am never going to live that down, am I?"

"Nope," she grinned.

"I'm beginning to suspect the universe is conspiring against me," he moaned.

"Don't be such an infant, Severus."

I know many of you were looking forward to Severus finding out the truth. I hope you're happy with his reaction. PLEASE REVIEW!