Disclaimer: I own…a lot of holes in my socks, but that's about it. HP belongs to JKR.

It was a meeting day. Or, perhaps, more accurately, a Meeting Day, with capitalizations for all the significance Hermione placed on it. Or maybe it should be meeting day. However it was written, the emphasis was clear. In approximately thirty seconds, she was going to be confronting—er, convening with her crush. Crush. That sounds so curst juvenile. Oh, for Merlin's sake! No wonder people are supposed to get eight hours of sleep each night. Going on much less for so long definitely messes with proper mind control and thinking processes. Just get on with it, and employ some of that good common sense your parents taught you, and a dash of the good compartmentalizing Severus pounded into your head! Hermione apparated before she could rethink her sudden confidence, giggling a little as a random image of a musical she'd seen as a child and loved popped into her head with the snippet of song it accompanied. "I have confidence the world can all be mine! They'll have to agree, I have confidence in me." Well, perhaps she didn't have the naïve confidence Maria did in the world. But she was going to be confident of herself if it killed her to do so, and most especially with Severus, who could smell a weakness from a mile away. And tell me to my face to fix it, with his bluntness, and not risk the cause with my bloody childishness. I survived with concealing my…feelings…before. I can do it now.

"Milena, prompt as usual," purred a silky voice that went straight to her…never mind. Struggling to keep hold onto the personality of the skin she was wearing, though it got harder by the second as waves of Hermione's emotion overpowered the comparatively weak, one-dimensional, thoughts of the constructed Milena. Love conquers all and all that. No! Go away! Milena had just barely managed to wrestle back into the seat of control when a dark shadow detached itself from the wall and walked—glided—over to her, and it was all Milena could do to stay in power as Hermione's body suddenly and unexpectedly experienced a rare wave of pure desire.

"Severus, it's very good to see you," Milena murmured, arching an eyebrow and sliding one hand smoothly to his arm. "It's been too long."

They started walking, and Severus placed a light hand on the small of Milena's back. Hermione was ready to dissolve into a pool of hormones and she'd had a realization. Damn, it's that time of month. I'd forgotten about it. No wonder I'm so…responsive. That and I'm really tired. Both Hermione and Milena did not object to the hand, leaning into it a little as they headed down the corridor and into Severus' quarters.

Where Severus' hand at her back seemed to linger just a little longer, perhaps, than was necessary. And yet not long enough. She bit her lip in consternation at the jolt of lust she'd become at the mere sight of the man—tall, clad casually in his usual black but in robes meant for lounging and not teaching, eyes with a hint of a spark that Hermione wanted to find and bring out fully into the light, and the way the comfortable material of his robes folded and flowed over his body rather than encasing it in a cloth armor…

"We have a problem." Severus bit, breaking through her wandering thoughts and stepping abruptly away from her as if he'd been cursed. "The Dark Lord's planning for his foot soldiers to do some damage this Halloween. Cassius Cain thinks they're going to break his sister out of Azkaban before her trial. They might take the opportunity to break out the other Death Eaters there as well."

"Damn it." Hermione cursed, and then cursed again. The sudden surge of desire that had nearly knocked her off her feet when she'd laid eyes on him subsided, to be replaced by a deep dismay and anger. The weariness of little sleep and much work and worry suddenly reasserted themselves over her hectic hormones.

"You'll have to hurry. All Hallow's Eve is in only a little more than a week," Severus said, his eyes dark with fatigue.

Hermione, equally exhausted and feeling extremely dull-witted and slow now that her hormones and emotions weren't running roughshod over her, nodded. "Yes. I will let Minerva and Li know," she confirmed. "Is that all you could find out, that they were planning something for Halloween and that it might be a breakout of the Death Eaters at Azkaban?"

"That's it," Severus shot at her short-temperedly. "Being poisoned and being a key member of a vital research team while trying to sabotage said research doesn't leave me much time for anything else."

"Neither does keeping a gaggle of imbecilic students from blowing themselves up in class," Hermione snapped back. Then she thought about what she had just said, and looked up to smile a tad ruefully at the highly ironic lifted brow Severus had just lifted. Merlin, but his crooked eyebrow was irrepressibly sexy! "Then again, I do suppose you know something of that," she acknowledged. "I'm sorry, Severus, I've been so testy lately. It hasn't been a good week. Slughorn's an idiot and isn't following your syllabus so I am holding tutoring sessions now for upper level Potions students, the second and third year students are the most unruly and obnoxious children and won't listen to me no matter what I say, I've been running interference for Draco for an important project he needs higher Order access to research, and—how did you ever manage your multiple roles when you were our professor, Severus? I'm fair fatigued, and it's barely been two months!" Hermione groaned and rested her head in her hands, the scarlet of her dress wrinkling at her disregard for its appearance.

"I am sure you are doing a fine job, Hermione," Severus said in an uncomfortable manner. Peeking through her fingers, Hermione noted that he looked stiff and almost uncertain of what to do—oh. I think he thinks that I'm going to cry or do something utterly girlish. Poor man! I haven't yet met a male who could cope with tears.

"They won't listen to me though," Hermione bemoaned. She sat up and thumped her fist against a cushion angrily. "I feel like a failure as a teacher on all counts. The second and third years won't listen to me for the most part. They have the worst attitudes. Did you know, one third year boy even charmed a spitball to attack his classmate right in plain view? And just yesterday, a second year decided that it would be fun to purposely dip her quill into her friend's cauldron? It was a Swelling Potion."

Severus winced. "I fear to ask what resulted in that experiment…"

"Of course the preservative coat on the quill feather reacted badly with the puffer-fish eyes in the potion! The cauldron exploded, the quill went up in a ten foot blue flame, and a student had to go to the Hospital Wing! The second year holding the quill managed to get himself a minor concussion from diving out of the way. If I hadn't managed to get a shield up fast enough, they could all have been burned badly!" Hermione flung her arms out. "I'm not cut out to be a teacher, Severus! I had never planned on being one until I had to. I can't even protect my own students or get them to learn. Two of the seventh year advanced Potions students came to me to ask about some esoteric question or other because Slughorn had directed them to me, and I didn't know the answer. I couldn't even tell them where to begin, except for to go to the library or back to Slughorn!"

"That was Horace Slughorn's prerogative and duty in the first place," Severus said firmly. "He is to blame, not you, for that. You were not in a seventh year advanced curriculum Potions class. You did not get the benefit of an actual Potions teacher for your last year, and besides which—it was not your first choice of subject to go into, was it?" He looked at her narrowly.

Hermione shook her head disconsolately. "I love Potions, it's fascinating, and I can brew competently—sometimes even brilliantly in moments of divine inspiration. But it was never really something I wanted to base my entire life around. It still isn't. No offence—" Hermione looked at Severus anxiously, but he gave her a small smirk that reassured her immensely.

"You would make an acceptable Potions Mistress," he told her. "However, you would do even better with something that drew your heart as well as your mind."

"That's it, exactly," Hermione cried, ridiculously relieved that he understood—that Severus got what she felt and couldn't quite say to anyone else. "I could never aspire to be as devoted and as brilliant as you are to Potions. It just doesn't consume me. And I didn't ever really consider teaching as a job I'd want—maybe back when I was younger, but it wasn't something I truly thought about. I actually never really was sure what I wanted to do after Hogwarts. I was going to take a couple of years off in the Muggle world and maybe catch up with my studies there, go to Uni, maybe even a temporary job. But…" she sighed.

"Did you think that teaching was my first choice of career?" Severus asked. Surprised, Hermione furrowed her forehead. "It wasn't," he affirmed grimly. "I knew I wanted to pursue Potions further. I gained a Mastery, but before I could even begin to look for a way to employ my skills—perhaps at an apothecary—the Dark Lord had planned my future for me to his benefit. And then even when he was gone, Albus held my redemption in his hands, and it lay in atonement at Hogwarts."

Hermione swallowed, and after a moment, impulsively—albeit nervously—reached over to lay her hand over his long, callused hand. She clasped it briefly, squeezed, and then reluctantly let go and drew her hand back. "You have paid for anything you might have done wrong ten times over, Severus," she said fiercely. "Don't believe anything different. You're the one that keeps us relatively safe in our homes and at school, and prevents evil overlords from taking control of the world. Albus may have been a wonderful, amazing man but he was human and he made many mistakes in handling your life, Severus. You deserved better—you deserve better. I hope that after this, whenever it may be, you'll find the happiness that you should be enjoying even now."

The silence engulfed them, and in the wake of Hermione's passionate, un-planned speech, Severus looked flabbergasted and astounded. He stared at Hermione like he'd never seen her before, and Hermione tried not to duck her head down and fix her eyes on her feet. My feet too, since I'm back in my un-Polyjuiced self. It was a risk, but one Hermione was willing to take and Severus had said nothing but only given her a veiled glance of approval when her Polyjuice had worn off soon after they repaired to his quarters, leaving her as plain Hermione in the slightly ill-fitting clothes of the glamorous Milena. Just when Hermione was beginning to wish she'd not opened her mouth at all, that she'd stayed quiet and saved herself the embarrassment, Severus—wonder of all wonders!—reached out on his own initiative, and took her hand!

Trembling, Hermione allowed him to pick up her left hand with both of his and turn it to examine her palm. One thumb rubbed absently across the cold, dry surface and it left a blazing trail of heat that prickled and played havoc with each and every nerve ending in her hand, shooting all the way down her arm and flooding her entire body with hopefully unnoticeable shivers of delight. Oh, my…

"You give me more credit than I could ever imagine, Hermione. There are things I've done that are simply unforgivable," Severus murmured, his dark eyes never leaving her breathless gaze.

Somehow, she managed to find enough functioning brain cells to scrape together a semi-coherent reply, still hyperaware of the way his hands cupped around hers. "That's because you haven't forgiven yourself yet," she replied. "One must forgive oneself before the unforgivable becomes forgivable. Er…" she blinked at her rather convoluted answer. "I mean, some things we can't earn on our own merit, right? That's why words like mercy and grace exist. For cases like yours, when a lifetime of devoted work to preserving life and love and light for others may not balance out some ugly deeds of the past, but the intention and the repentance is true and are what is counted for in the equation of forgiveness. Oh dear. I feel as if I'm not making sense. Am I just confusing you more?"

Severus half-smirked. "A dreadfully unorganized, un-encyclopedic answer, Miss Granger, but barely acceptable." He glanced down at their connected hands. "Albus…Albus used to say that love was the greatest power in the world. I wasn't sure I believed him, but it seems to me you're speaking about much the same thing, only in different ways. Albus considered love as a driving force that would defeat evil. You seem to be saying that love is a compassion for the…the foolish, the fallen, the second chance without having to earn it physically. Love as a saving grace, rather than an attack on the dark."

"That makes sense, I suppose," Hermione agreed. She paused, savoring the thrill that Severus' focus on her, his warm fingers around hers, and the most distant fleeing thought in her brain wondered, might he actually like me in that way as well? It was banished quickly, but the lingering seed of hope had been planted.

--break--

"You look so peaceful," Draco breathed. He was standing at the foot of a white hospital bed, in St. Mungos, and Skye was both standing solemnly next to him and lying serenely in the bed before him. "Like you're dreaming about something good."

"I'm certainly not dreaming at the moment," Skye replied tartly. She strode over to her body and put her hands on her hips, sighing exasperatedly. "Skye Corwin, I demand that you wake up this instant!"

The wax-pale body didn't stir.

Neutrally, Draco said, "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity you know."

"If that were true, at least half the student population and probably that many professors would be committed to St. Mungo's permanent ward for the mentally instable," Skye retorted. She tilted her head to gaze thoughtfully down at her sleeping self. "This is most inconvenient and possibly the oddest thing I've ever experienced, really, just watching myself. I never get used to it no matter how many times I come. I'm glad you came this time though." She smiled radiantly at her solid boyfriend, who had jammed his hands into the pockets of his robes and was now staring at the still face of his girlfriend's physical body as well.

"You had better be, it took some convincing to get permission to visit St. Mungos at all, and even more to get into your room," he fake-growled.

"All you had to do was flirt a little with the receptionist and give a bit of money to St. Mungo's latest charity fund, and she was practically tripping over herself to show you to my room. Doesn't say much for my security," Skye grumbled.

"Yes, but she was old enough to be my mother, and ugly besides!" Draco protested. "Ow!"

"Don't be a baby. You can't feel my punches anyway," Skye said snippily.

Draco subsided sulkily, and for a long moment there was nothing but silence and the distant murmur of voices farther away, out in the hallway. Taking the opportunity at hand, Draco examined his girlfriend's comatose body with care tinged with true regret and remorse for his role, however unwanted, in landing her there in the white hospital bed unconscious in the first place—and her parents in the cold, earthen graves beneath pale gravestones. Yet even as he mourned having caused Skye so much pain and harm, he could not help but be selfishly glad that things had occurred as they had done, for the tragic events that still haunted Skye (though she might not admit it, he could see how much she missed her parents and being able to interact with the world) had also brought Skye into his life in a significant way. He didn't think he could imagine life without her now, and it terrified him when he stopped to think about it—that she might still slip away, that she might one day disappear and her body pass away into the Veiled Realm, or even that she might come to her senses and spurn him, or become resentful of his hold on her existence. Gods, I can't lose her. She's everything good about me. I couldn't do a damn thing without her. How easily he'd fallen in love, the boy who had vowed never to do so! He'd had crushes before, of course, but all of them paled in comparison to the overwhelming flood of emotion associated with the beautiful girl who was both lying deceptively still in St. Mungos and the contemplative spirit gazing down at herself with troubled and longing eyes.

He still couldn't believe that such a wonderful creature reciprocated his feelings, but she did and Draco considered himself the luckiest person alive. If only Uncle Severus was—

But that was another thing altogether. Uncle Severus, as far as he knew, was on the opposite side of the war. Or, perhaps more likely, playing his own game completely and on his own third front. That would explain his reasoning in not giving Draco away when he'd confessed his desire for an out of the darkness. There was still that unspoken belief in his heart, Draco mused, that made him unwilling to think that Uncle Severus would deliberately cause him harm. Not the man who had often held his little secrets for him from his parents, and had often taken care of him when his parents were too busy holidaying or socializing to bother with a little boy.

Besides, as the consummate Slytherin who knows where his true loyalties really lie? Common sense says with the Dark L—with Voldemort, but the infuriating man always had unexpected tricks hidden up his sleeve even in a simple game of chess. I'm not going to pass judgment on his apparent murder of—of the headmaster, until I hear him explain himself and can look him in the eye.

Ruminating, lost in thought, Draco didn't hear Skye's sudden exclamation or the door to the private hospital room turn, until it was too late. Jumping to his feet, Draco gulped and threw a terrified glance towards Skye—spirit Skye—before squaring his shoulders and turning to face Danielle Corwin.

"What. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing. Here?" she thundered, wand clutched threateningly in her hand and nearly touching the tip of his nose.

Draco opened his mouth, squeaked, and swallowed, then tried again. This time, his mouth was slightly less dry though he was no less intimidated. "I'm—uh, I'm visiting Skye, Ma'am. Headmistress said I could, you see, it's a Hogsmeade weekend and she gave me permission, that is, she said—"

"Quiet, boy." Draco shut up immediately. He tried not to stare crosseyed at the wand in his face, but waited. "What I want to know is, what are you really doing in my niece's hospital room and how dare you even show your face around her after all you've done?"

"I was—I was apologizing, Ma'am," Draco babbled. "I'm truly sorry, I really am, for what happened. I never knew what my father was going to do or anything until it was too late, honest. I would take her place right now if I could, she doesn't deserve what my father did. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"I don't believe you. Why should you, a Malfoy, have a sudden attack of the conscience now? The…those higher than us may have decided to trust you but I don't."

The wand moved swiftly to dig into the side of Draco's neck. Panic began to set in. Draco flicked his eyes up to meet Danielle Corwin's desperately, and just beyond her saw the girl he loved hovering with worry in her lovely eyes. "Tell her about me," she called suddenly. Draco started, and the smooth wood increased its pressure.

What? His eyes conveyed.

"Do it. Tell her about me being like this, and what we're trying to do to get me back into my body," Skye ordered. "She'll never let go of the vendetta she has against you otherwise. It's better to have her on our side than against, and she could maybe help bolster Hermione's petition in the Order to get us in on the information we need."

Are you sure that's what you want, Skye?

"Do it."

"Okay," Draco spoke aloud.

"What?" Corwin demanded.

Draco took the plunge. "Ma'am, please, I have something of crucial significance to tell you. But I can only do that if we perhaps were a little more comfortable. Would you be amenable to hearing me out like civilized beings, perhaps?"

She seemed on the verge of saying no, but something in his steady and earnest gaze must have convinced her to change her mind, because she abruptly took her wand away from his neck and clamped a hand around his wrist, dragging him forcibly outside. Skye followed, and murmured encouragement as he was yanked down the hallway and into what looked to be a large storeroom. When she'd transfigured two boxes into chairs and thrust him into one of them, seating herself in the other, and put a privacy spell up, she fixed him with an expectant glare. "Well, go on," she ordered.

Draco, now that he wasn't being held at wand-point by a formidable warrior related to Skye, loosened a little and drew strength from the girl in question who was sitting cross-legged on a third box nearby. "To tell this story, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning," he mused, keeping a wary eye on the wooden stick still lying across the woman's lap but slipping into a more relaxed state. "It all started when my father decided that it was time to contract for my eventual marriage…"

"Skye is here, in a sort of spirit-ghost form. Right now." Danielle Corwin stated flatly.

"Yes," Draco asserted confidently. "She is. She's sitting on that box right now." Skye sketched an ironic little half-bow from her waist from where she was sitting, and Draco smirked back at her.

"You expect me to believe this fantastical drivel?" Corwin exclaimed incredulously. "You'll have to prove it for me to believe it."

"Tell her when I was five, my mother had a miscarriage and it took months for her to recover from the guilt," Skye told Draco.

When Draco dutifully repeated it (with an inquisitive glance directed at Skye) the woman visibly started, before her face hardened again. "You could have gotten that information from someone at St. Mungos. That still doesn't verify anything except for your bribery skills."

"Oh, for heaven's sake Aunt Danielle," Skye sighed in exasperation. "Um…let me think of something else." She tapped her fingers to her bottom lip. "When I was seven, I went flying by myself and Aunt Danielle caught me. She tanned my backside good and proper for disobeying my parents."

But Corwin didn't accept that either. Draco began to feel his life expectancy drop drastically as Skye frantically searched for something else that might satisfy her aunt's suspicions and said aunt stared at him grimly. Finally, Skye's eyes lit up triumphantly. "I've got it! This one she has to accept, no one but she and I know about this. When I first fell in love with glass-blowing, my parents weren't too keen on it, and I felt torn because I felt almost obligated to go into something like Auror-work. One day, before they had grown used to the idea, Aunt Danielle took me aside and told me that 'sometimes, the bravest thing in the world is not to fight evil with spells and incantations, but to combat the darkness with beauty. If you feel that beauty wanting to come out, honey, you must let it out and never let anyone—no matter how much they mean to you—tell you no.' Those were her exact words."

Draco sure hoped they were, as he repeated them to the woman who currently wanted to slow-roast him, behead him, cut his bits off, and feed them to the hippogriffs—not necessarily in that order. And while he thought Skye might protest at the last without having, er, tried them out for herself first, it wasn't as if she could do anything while in the insubstantial form she currently possessed. I haven't even had a chance to live yet! He pleaded with the unknown deities that might be listening in at the moment. Let her listen to me, and I swear I'll…I'll…I'll give Potter a compliment!

And perhaps the gods had some sort of sick amusement in toying with his life, because the Unspeakable's façade cracked from cold fury into pure shock, grief, and incredulous pain. "What…no, it's not possible," she whispered, and her wand dug into his neck for a brief instant so far that Draco thought that the tip would emerge from the other side soon. Then the pressure relaxed abruptly as the wand dropped, following the limp hand holding it. Draco resisted lifting his hand up to rub at the painful hole he was sure he now sported. Do I really have to pay Potter a compliment? He whined mentally in the general direction of the deity that had apparently decided to keep him around a little longer. He directed his attention up, and exchanged looks with Skye—who looked watery-eyed and emotional. Blinking, and realizing he was trapped between two highly-emotional, about-to-cry women—though perhaps Danielle Corwin would not allow him to see her tears at least, thank the gods—Draco sighed, and gently and slowly pulled out his own wand, holding placing it on the box right next to where Sky was sitting, indicating his own harmlessness. "Look, Unspeakable Corwin, I swear to you by all I hold dear that I am speaking the truth. Skye is here right now, sitting on that box right there, and she's been visible to me since the end of last year. Before the Hogwarts attack happened. She misses you a lot."

"It's hard to believe…I still don't know…but only Skye and I knew what happened that day, and those exact words! Are you really here, Skye?" the woman cried, voice trembling.

"I'm here, Aunty Dani," Skye whispered, tears now spilling down her cheeks. She lifted her hand to her aunt's shoulder, just barely touching it.

"Is she…is she doing something?"

"She's touching your left shoulder," Draco told her softly.

Madame Corwin placed a slightly shaking hand up over onto her own shoulder, and perhaps just by luck, managed to place it right through Skye's. Both women gasped, simultaneously. "I can feel her!" They both exclaimed, and Draco looked between the two, flabbergasted.

"What? You can feel each other?"

"Yes," Skye said breathlessly, her nose still stuffed from crying but eyes bright with excitement. "Not like feeling feeling, you know. I haven't felt felt like a real person since…well, you know. Since I stopped being inside a real body. But it feels…"

"Warm," Danielle Corwin whispered. "It feels warm, and with the tiniest pulling in my veins, almost like my blood recognizes hers."

"Can you hear her?" Draco asked in fascination, still in shock.

"If she's spoken, no, I haven't heard her," Danielle admitted. She tightened her hand on her shoulder, fingers going right through Skye's. "But I can feel her. She's here. She's really here."

"I love you, Aunt Danielle," Skye murmured, and gave her aunt a full hug.

She still needs me, Draco tried to assure himself. She still likes you. It's good that she has this connection with her aunt. She's been missing being able to touch and feel objects physically, that's been one of the hardest things for her. You know it has. She's a physical person, and it was slowly driving her mad that she couldn't touch anything. And reuniting with her aunt, her only living blood relative, is important. Significant. I shouldn't be jealous. But he was, watching Skye and her aunt communicate—her aunt apologizing profusely for everything that had gone wrong, Skye trying to tell her aunt that it wasn't her fault despite not being able to be heard—all the while hugging each other in a fashion. Feeling some sort of sensation from each other as blood recognized blood. I would give anything to be able to just hold hands with Skye. Feel her hair brush against my fingers, touch my lips to hers. Hold her when she's upset, even get whacked in the head when she's fed-up with me without her arm passing through and me being none the wiser if I didn't visually see it.

If—when she got back into her body again, would she need him anymore? Would she still feel the same way? Draco wanted to think so, but his stomach clenched and the voice that had been with him for forever but had recently subsided to the background came back with a vengeance, murmuring insidious words that made his head hurt and his heart go cold. She only needs you now because you're the only one who can see her and hear her. She only likes you now because of it. When she gets back into her own body she won't need you anymore, she'll realize what a burden it was to be bound to you that way, and she'll be resentful. She'll have wider prospects. She'll leave you.

"Draco?" Draco looked up at the sound of Skye's voice, concerned and still a bit thick from tears. "Draco, what's wrong?"

Merlin's balls, I forgot about the bond. She can sense my strong emotions. Draco immediately employed the little he'd managed to learn from Uncle Severus by the way of Occlumency, and said faux lightly, "Nothing's wrong, Skye. Just a bit tired. I didn't get much sleep last night, you know."

Skye still looked suspicious, but she lost the majority of worry from her face and her brow lifted from its furrowed position as she looked back at her aunt. "Do you think Aunt Danielle would be able to help us out with our research a bit? Maybe give Hermione's word a bit of weight?"

"I can ask," Draco replied, and turned resolutely to the older woman, who now looked years younger with the revelation of her niece's conscious existence despite the rather unfortunate aspect of not being within her body. "Madame Corwin," he began with the utmost politeness, "Skye and I, we were wondering if you could help us with a bit of a dilemma we're having in getting Skye back into her body. You see, it's like this…"

A.N.: I'm back! I'm sorry for the delay and sad wait. But in the interval between my last update and this, I did manage to see—or rather hear, real life, an amazing rendition of several themes from the Harry Potter movies including "Hedwig's Theme," performed by the Honolulu Symphony. Absolutely magical. :)

So, I'm going to try and readjust myself back into Friday/Saturday updates, which is generally what I try to aim for. I might not get a chapter out by the end of this week, but hopefully next week will be back to normal. Cross your fingers…

Hope you enjoyed the chapter!