DISCLAIMER: All characters seen here are the exclusive property of JK Rowling. She's the genius, I'm the fangirl who can't resist playing with her creations.


Chapter 50: Just A Kiss


Professor Severus Snape wandered through the rows of shelves that made up the library of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The library was, in fact, made up of rooms upon rooms upon rooms, although the vast majority of students never made it past the main hall. Most of the books in the back rooms were so specific, old, or obscure that no student would ever have need of them.

He turned a corner and froze. Hermione Granger stood only a few feet away from him, her nose buried in an old, dusty tome with no title on its cover. His muscles tensed as if ready to flee, but he did not move. She seemed to hear him, and she raised her head, her eyes meeting his. As soon as she saw him, her face lit up with a radiant smile and she gripped her book more tightly.

"Miss Granger," said Snape, in a strained voice.

"Professor," she answered, the smile fading from her face to be replaced with a look of mingled hope and uncertainty.

There was an awkward pause, in which she looked back down at her book (now closed) and he appeared to search for something to say.

"You are reading," he said in a tone that attempted to be conversational.

"Yes! It's so incredibly interesting—"

"Hermione," he interrupted, taking a step forward, "I don't care what you're reading."

"Oh," she whispered, her lower lip trembling. "Oh, of course you don't, I'm sorry, sir. Am I—am I not supposed to be back here?"

He took another step forward. He was looming over her now, so close that she had to tilt her head up to see him.

"No," he murmured, "you belong here."

Then he gathered her abruptly into his arms and bent over her, his lank, heavy hair falling around them in thick waves, one hand moving up to caress the line of her jaw.

He kissed her.

For a long moment after their lips touched, neither of them moved. They both seemed to have been turned to stone. Then she made a subtle movement towards him and the muscles in his arms flexed, nearly lifting her off the ground with the force of his embrace. He tilted his head and, their moment of hesitancy past, kissed her forcefully and long.

She made a soft moaning noise against his lips and his arms convulsed and wrapped still more tightly around her, until she was supported only by him, wrapped completely in the black folds of his cloak.

0 0 0

Hermione woke up, her heart pounding with the same terrified rhythm that her nightmares had so familiarized her with. She lay very still, forcing herself to take in the reality of her surroundings. The curtains of her bed were drawn, enclosing her in darkness. On opposite sides of the room, she could hear Lavender and Parvati breathing evenly. She felt for her wand, secure under her pillow, a talisman against evil even when useless in her hand.

It had been two and a half months since she'd discovered the enchantment, and she'd grown to recognize the outside influences that sometimes touched many of her dreams. Garbled visions of Voldemort had crept into her own nightmares, along with snatches of Professor Dumbledore falling to his death, and a woman who she guessed was Harry's mother. Given that bits of Professor Snape's dreams were obviously making their way into her mind at night, she could only assume that he saw portions of her dreams as well.

It was this that terrified her at the moment.

The dream had been incredibly clear. She had no doubts at all that it washer dream. The only question was whether he'd seen it too.

Overcome with mortification at the thought, she flipped onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. If he had seen it—well, the thought was too terrible to even consider. With a despairing little moan, she dragged the blankets over her head and tried to pretend she'd never dreamt any such thing.

0 0 0

Severus jerked awake and swore loudly, a book falling from his lap with a loud thud, his heart racing as if from a nightmare.

He leaned over to pick up the book and then looked about him as he began to vaguely remember that he did not usually sleep upright in his bed. He'd fallen asleep reading in his sitting room.

Not only had he fallen asleep, he'd had a dream.

He stood up and grumpily re-shelved the book. It was one thing to succumb to a fleeting moment of possessiveness (totally unromantic; he had every right, given their connection, to care about who she associated herself with). It was another thing entirely to dream so vividly of her—to dream of kissing her.

He had moved to his bedroom, but now he stopped preparing for bed, his shirt half-unbuttoned. He was not an optimistic enough man to even hope that she never saw any of his dreams. What if she had seen this one?

Severus sighed unhappily. This entered a realm of student-teacher ethics that was absurd and obscure even by the standards of the Wizarding World, where absurdity was practically nonexistent. Was it wrong to dream of kissing a student? Was it wrong in general, or only if the student happened to be attached to one's soul? He swallowed slowly.

Had she seen?

How could he possibly tell, if she had? Even she, the consummate Gryffindor, would surely not say anything about it to his face. And he could not ask. After all, what if he brought it up, and she hadn't seen it? Besides, he reasoned, a kiss was just a kiss. It meant nothing. He had dreamt of countless kisses (and more) at other times, with other women, and he was certainly not in love with any of them.

Love. It was all Flitwick's fault. The dream was merely a result of the power of suggestion. He had fallen asleep unprepared, and hadn't performed his usual Occlumentic rituals before drifting off. He'd been thinking and worrying about his Patronus, and about Flitwick, and about Hermione—only natural to have such a dream, in the face of all that.

Only natural to have such a random, meaningless, forgettable dream.

0 0 0

Hermione was partnered with Harry in Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall had decided to use their private lessons to work only on human transfiguration, and so had sent him back to his regular classes as well to ensure that his grip on the rudiments remained strong.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked, under cover of the gravelly sound of a roomful of ancient phonographs. Each of them stood in front of their phonographs (Harry's gold, Hermione's black, trimmed in emerald green), attempting to transfigure them into birds. Harry's had sprouted two rather pathetic-looking, featherless wings, but what ought to have been its beak was still just a large, curved horn. Hermione wasn't impressed.

"No," she said impatiently, grabbing his wrist to stop him from trying again, and demonstrating the proper wand movement. "It's like this."

Harry tried it. The phonograph re-shaped itself into a large bird, albeit one whose song still had a peculiarly scratchy quality to it. Her own wand had merely produced some sparks and an offended-sounding squawk from her phonograph.

"Ten points to Gryffindor for each of you," said Professor McGonagall from across the room, giving them each an approving nod. Hermione scowled.

"I don't like being awarded points out of charity," she muttered. "And honestly, she's giving you Animagus lessons in your private sessions, you'd think that you'd be able to transfigure a phonograph."

"It's all the moving parts that make it so hard. You didn't answer me," said Harry, stroking his bird along its back and watching it prod Hermione's phonograph in a hopeful, forlorn sort of way with its beak.

"Yes," she said, annoyed, "that's what Professor McGonagall said. That's the whole point of the exercise, Harry. And she's actually going to let you try and transfigure yourself? Don't you think that you have moving parts? And you didn't need to know."

"Who says I didn't need to?" he retorted grumpily, prodding his bird with the tip of his wand. It stared at him balefully out of the corner of its eye and made a grab for the wand with its beak.

"Let's see, Harry," she said irritably. "We'd just sent a group of Death Eaters to Azkaban, Voldemort was trying to kill you, Sirius had just died—I guess I thought you already had quite enough to be getting on with."

Harry poked his bird again, looking annoyed. "Nice to know you trusted me so much."

She sighed, attempting once more to transfigure her phonograph, and failing. "It had nothing to do with trust, Harry. I just didn't want to burden you with something you couldn't change. And then when everything happened during sixth year, it just never seemed the right time, and after a while, I'd kept it a secret for so long, I started to feel as if I missed my chance to tell you."

Harry blinked. "That makes no sense."

She ignored that and flipped through a few pages of their Transfiguration textbook, watching the animated drawing of the proper wand movements once more time, just in case she really was able to do it and was just getting it wrong. "So now that you do know, what difference does it make?"

He shrugged, watching her make yet another attempt at transfiguring her phonograph. "None, I guess. I just wish I'd known."

"You couldn't have done anything, Harry," she said.

He looked at her unhappily. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Hermione threw her wand down on the table in exasperation, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. "Yes, it's supposed to make you feel better."

"I thought," said Harry, "that we were good enough friends—that you trusted me."

"That has nothing to do with it. I just… didn't want to think about it more than I already was."

"And all those times you tried to distract me from watching him during sixth year. I knew he was up to something. I knew it. Why did you do that?" he continued, staring moodily at her still untransfigured phonograph. His bird was now warbling at it with an expression that struck Hermione as being decidedly lovelorn.

She didn't answer his question. There wasn't really an answer to give.

"What would you have done about it, anyway? Killed him? Be realistic, Harry."

"Killing would be too good for him," said Harry darkly. "But someone could have told Dumbledore, someone could have done something to get rid of him."

"Only… I don't think he would have done, Harry," she said softly, voicing a terrible thought that had been plaguing her for months. "Professor Snape made the Unbreakable Vow. If Dumbledore had got rid of Malfoy—"

"Things would still have happened the same way! Snape killed Dumbledore!" he protested in a furious whisper. "Getting Malfoy out of the picture wouldn't have changed that."

"I know," she said stiffly. How could she forget what Professor Snape had done, when she saw it so often in her dreams? "But he—he wanted to give Malfoy a chance, didn't he? He hoped Malfoy would change. You're the one who told me that."

"You're more important than Malfoy."

"To you, maybe." She picked her wand back up, pointing it halfheartedly at her phonograph but not attempting to try the proper wand movement again. "Not to Dumbledore."

"I didn't notice him leaving Malfoy anything in his will" muttered Harry.

Hermione, feeling unusually cynical, fed Harry's bird a bit of millet, distracting it momentarily from its doomed courtship of her phonograph. "You and I both know that he only left me that book because of you. It had nothing to do with me."

"But it's automatic expulsion! He couldn't have just let it go."

"Oh come off it, Harry. For all I know, he even knew about what happened and chose to ignore it. It doesn't matter, anyway. Dumbledore's dead. I'm not interested in talking about what he might have done if I hadn't been stupid."

"I didn't say you were stupid."

"You might as well have."

"I just wish that I could do something to help!"

"Well, you can't," she snapped, "so stop trying." The bell rang and she swept her things into her bag and ran out, leaving him to follow behind.

0 0 0

Severus watched her covertly across the Great Hall. She was looking in his direction no more than she usually did, as far as he could tell, but he wasn't able to look every moment. Was she looking when he was not?

He had no idea what he would say if she had seen the dream. Should he make an excuse of some sort? Pretend that it hadn't happened? Indicate, perhaps, that it was her dream only, and had nothing to do with him, beyond an unfortunate choice of subject matter?

Now that he came to notice her, it did not escape him that she had become rather pretty. Her teeth were still a bit too large for his taste, her hair too wild, and her face too thin. But her bone structure was unimpeachable. Her skin was flawless, except for the sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Her hands were small and delicate, and she gestured gracefully as she talked with her friends.

Severus was entranced.

Then she finally looked directly at him. He allowed himself to have a glimpse before he turned away. Her eyes were huge and curious, and from that distance, he could almost imagine that they were as black as his own.

It was no use pretending otherwise. He knew it in that moment. His Patronus was her—unmistakably, obviously her. He would have to take care not to let it be seen for any length of time by someone who might recognize it, which meant finding a new method of communication with Minerva.

But what did it mean? Only that their link was, in spite of his best efforts, becoming stronger? Or was it more?

He watched as she turned away again, laughing at something that Ginny Weasley said. Love was not something he was willing to confess to, especially not love for a student. But affection? Perhaps he might admit to that. Friendship? Yes, he supposed that, in the end, there would be no getting away from it. A friendship of sorts seemed to be unavoidable.

He picked uninterestedly at his meal, lowering his head to mask his expression behind his hair as he mulled over the matter. It still remained to decide how to act. Ought he to give in? It seemed almost unthinkable to openly foster such a friendship, even if he admitted that it was an inevitability. Better to continue biding his time, at least until the end of the school year.

Much would be influenced, he suddenly realized, by discovering whether or not she had seen any portion of the dream, which meant that he was all but required to find out somehow. If she had seen it, and he suddenly became friendlier towards her, he feared that it might create a very wrong impression in her mind as to his intentions.

Enough for him to have assumed so much of Potter's role as her protector and co-conspirator in ridiculous Gryffindor stunts that involved traveling halfway across the world. It would be far worse for him to appear, at least by pureblood standards, to be taking a deeper interest in her, and consciously attempting to build a friendship between them would certainly be seen that way in pureblood circles.

Not that he expected her to abide by, or even be familiar with, those standards—but she had pureblood friends, and they would notice, even if she didn't. He had a nagging fear that Longbottom already harbored suspicions of that sort, and it would be in keeping with the way that Longbottom had plagued him in the past if he were to mention such a suspicion to Hermione.

0 0 0

Ginny reached across the table for a pumpkin pasty, thoughtfully tapping her bottom lip with the point of her quill. "Hermione, why does Snape keep looking at you during meals? Is he trying to scare you or something?"

Hermione, who had done a fair amount of anxious and covert looking across the Hall herself, blushed and shrugged in a manner that she hoped was nonchalant. "He's probably just trying to make sure that I'm doing all right, after all that's happened."

"That doesn't sound like him."

She shrugged again, opening another book and thumbing through it so she could avoid looking at any of her companions. She had opted, for reasons she preferred not to share with her friends, to leave the library early and study in the Common Room instead. Nearly everyone else had gone to Hogsmeade, but Hermione hadn't felt like going, and her friends had decided to stay behind with her, in spite of her protests.

"I think maybe it's not like the old Snape," said Harry grudgingly, "but it's different now. He gives points to Gryffindor and stuff too, and he's been pretty nice to me in Defense."

Ginny tossed the wrapper of her pumpkin pasty into the fire. "True, but actually being concerned about a student? A Gryffindor student?"

"I think he feels bad because Malfoy was his godson," said Ron. He and Hermione still hadn't entirely patched their friendship up, but she'd done what she felt was the right thing and invited him to join their study group, as his parents had revoked his permission to go to Hogsmeade.

"He was?" said Harry, sounding disgusted.

Ron, his mouth half-full of pumpkin pasty himself, nodded knowingly. "Oh yeah. They kept it hush-hush around school, mostly, because of propriety and things, but dad told me about it ages ago. Anyway, he disowned him just after Christmas."

Harry stopped craning his neck to see Hermione's parchment. "He did? How d'you know that?"

"Dad again." Ron gave Hermione a shrewd look, but she kept her eyes steadfastly on her parchment.

"You don't look very surprised," commented Ginny, who had apparently noticed the look that Ron gave her.

She tensed for a moment, then gave in. No point in trying to lie. She wasn't very good at it, and she had bigger lies to save her energy for. "I already knew."

"You knew?"

"Yes, Harry. He told me after Draco was expelled."

"Oh, well that's all right then. Everything makes perfect sense, doesn't it?" said Harry sarcastically. "Merlin, Hermione, doesn't it even strike you as strange?"

She set her quill down carefully and then looked at Harry, one eyebrow raised. "Doesn't what strike me as strange, exactly?"

"Well," said Harry, faltering slightly, "Snape."

"No stranger than he's ever been before. Forget about it, Harry, if it doesn't bother me, then it shouldn't bother you. It's about time you got over your habit of assuming he's always doing something wrong. We've got homework to finish."

Harry raised his hands defensively. "I never said he did anything wrong! I just said it was strange."

"Snape's been acting strange all year," said Ron, with a somewhat anxious look in her direction. "Hermione and I fought about it months ago."

Ginny smirked. "Maybe you were right, Ron. I bet he fancies her."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Hermione, grabbing Harry's Charms essay and beginning to check it over for errors. Her cheeks were starting to feel distinctly warm, and she inched closer to the fire, so as to have an excuse for blushing if anyone pointed it out.

"Snape and Hermione?" said Harry, his eyes wide. Then he grinned and nudged Ginny with his elbow. "Well, I mean, they'd be perfect for each other, wouldn't they?"

"What? What are you talking about?" asked Ron, aghast.

"Oh yeah," answered Ginny, picking up the joke. "Noses always in books, smarter than everyone else—they're even all chummy about Potions."

Hermione's cheeks were definitely burning now and she hung her head lower, her nose nearly touching the book as she checked Harry's references against it.

"They can move to Manchester and live in a house made of books," said Harry.

Ginny snickered. "Hermione, you're going to need to start wearing more black. And don't forget the children!"

"All in Slytherin, of course," said Harry promptly. He and Ginny exchanged a look, smirking at each other.

"Yeah," said Neville, speaking for the first time and looking at Hermione with a pained expression in his eyes. "Hermione and Snape, happily ever after."

"Professor Snape," corrected Ginny, in a nearly flawless impersonation of Hermione, which was followed almost immediately afterwards by shrieks of laughter as she and Harry both lost their last fragment of self-control and dissolved into mirth.

"Urgh," said Ron with a shudder, "don't keep talking about it. I'm trying to eat." He held up a half-devoured pumpkin pasty, his third in the last hour, as evidence.

"There's your Charms essay finished," said Hermione abruptly, shoving it at Harry. "I'm going to go find someplace to study where there's actual studying going on."

They all sobered up at once.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," said Harry, half-rising. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I just want to get my homework done," she snapped.

"I'm not supposed to let you wander off by yourself. McGonagall said you aren't supposed to be alone—"

She clutched at her wand tightly. "Everyone's in Hogsmeade, if you haven't forgotten. I'm not going to get hurt just wandering around the castle."

"If McGonagall catches you ought alone, you're not going to be the only one getting in trouble," said Harry stubbornly.

"Well maybe I'll just have Snape escort me," she sneered, "As I'm sure he'd welcome the opportunity to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. Did it ever occur to any of you that I might just want to be alone once in a while?"

She wasn't sure how it had happened, but she was shouting. Everyone stared at her and she shuffled uncomfortably, covering up her discomfort by snatching at her homework and stuffing it all back into her bag.

"Anyway, I guess I'll just go up to my room," she muttered, "as I can't go anywhere else by myself. Unless you think someone needs to be there to make sure I don't get ambushed by Death Eaters in the loo or molested by the vampire under my bed, Harry?"

"Er, no," said Harry, abashed.

"Fine, then. See you later, Neville, Ron."

She trudged up the stairs, not waiting for their replies, and dropped her things on the floor just inside the door. She locked the door manually and sat down by the window, staring out without really seeing what was there.

After the dream that had awakened her that morning, her friends' supposed joking hit a little too close to the mark for her comfort. Not, of course, that she was in love with Professor Snape, or that he was in love with her (far from it!)—but people had noticed something strange.

Neither of them had any interest in making the enchantment between them a matter of public record, but as a result, she was beginning to realize that the people who noticed the subtle, inevitable changes between them were going to talk. She wondered how many others would make the same guess that Neville had guessed, or make the jokes that Harry and Ginny had made.

Was being linked romantically to Professor Snape in school gossip better than letting people know that they were linked literally? She sighed, thinking of Draco and Percy and the other Death Eaters who still lingered out there. Dimly, she recalled the night they'd driven to Grimmauld Place. What had he said when he helped her out of the car? He would have carried her, but they were being watched, and he didn't want to give the wrong impression to his enemies.

He didn't want her to be a target.

Although this thought warmed her, it wasn't terribly comforting, either. No matter which way things went, she was more a target now than ever—as was he. Either someone would decide they were secret lovers (if her friends' guesses and jokes were any indication of how people would begin to think when they noticed), or the truth would come out. Either option drew far too much attention to the fact that anyone wishing to take revenge on one of them could hurt the other.

The thought actually made her laugh out loud. Would anyone seriously believe that they could exact revenge on Severus Snape by attacking Hermione Granger, or vice versa?

It seemed so strange. It was almost loverlike, that they could be used so to hurt one another, and that when finally given the chance to live an honest life after so many years of spying and skulking, he'd chosen to continue lying in order to protect her.

But to actually fall in love with him, or for him to fall in love with her as Ginny and Harry had suggested was preposterous. Dreaming about a kiss didn't mean anything, except that they were close, and that she trusted him.

And she didn't need a dream to tell her either of those things, thank you very much.

Still, she had no idea how she could possibly face him in their next Potions lesson. What if he'd seen? Not that a reasonable person would ever hold her responsible for a dream, but if anyone would be unreasonable about something like that, surely it was Professor Snape.

Resting the side of her head against the window, she touched her lips with one finger, remembering the dream. It was still real and vivid in her mind, and she wondered how close it came to what it would really be like to kiss Professor Snape.

Not that she would ever have a chance to find out.

Not that she wanted to have a chance to find out. She frowned. She hadn't given much thought to the long term ramifications of their situation yet. She was pretty sure that they'd have to stay in touch after she left school, but none of the literature discussed how the enchantment worked over long distances. She knew he'd seen through her eyes during the most traumatic moments during her stay in Australia, but the only real approximation she had to a precedent was Harry and Voldemort, and she had no desire to consider the similarities in their situations.

She sighed. She needed to just stop worrying about it. No matter if he'd seen it or not, there was no way to go back in time and change it now. He'd looked at her quite a lot in the Great Hall, but perhaps that was because he'd noticed her looking at him. It didn't necessarily mean that he'd seen anything to discomfit him. After all, he hadn't seen all her dreams.

It was with that thought that she attempted to comfort herself as she left the window and went to finish her homework.

0 0 0

Since early in the previous term, he had found himself looking forward to their private lessons. Hermione was quick and curious, and she still managed some degree of magical power while brewing. It was a pleasure to watch her and guide her through the more advanced intricacies of the science.

On this particular morning, however, he was not anxious to see her. Two weeks had passed since the dream—two weeks of anxiety, discomfort, and annoyance with women and Gryffindors in general, and with Hermione Granger in particular. He did not dare use Legilimency on her. He felt sure that if he did, not only would she notice, but she might very well turn it against him and search his mind instead of allowing him to search hers.

And so he was reduced to the meanest guesswork, attempting to drop subtle enough hints that she would not recognize them as hints, and to which, therefore, she never offered a satisfactory response. Even years of spying amongst the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself had not prepared Severus to attempt to learn the secrets of an eighteen-year-old Gryffindor's putative romantic dreams.

As a result, he had more or less given up, and settled on his plan of simply ignoring it altogether. Except when it might prove absolutely necessary (as in the case of his ridiculous trip to Australia), he saw no reason to acknowledge in any way that there was any sort of special or unusual bond between them. Therefore, he put great effort into behaving exactly as he always had behaved towards her, and if it bothered her, she never mentioned it.

The door opened, and his heartbeat faltered for a moment, leaving a strange sensation in his chest.

"Miss Granger," he said irritably, rubbing his chest with his palm, "you are late."

She blushed. "I'm sorry, sir. I got held up in the hallway."

Something in her tone roused his thrice-damned protective instinct towards her, and he raised his eyebrows. "Held up, Miss Granger?"

"I got into a bit of an argument, that's all." She was already pulling out Potions ingredients, her face carefully averted from him. He found himself wishing that she would look at him. It was frustrating having to pry information from her when he had a right to know what troubled her. After all, it might well begin to trouble him also, and he preferred to know what was wrong with him when he began to feel melancholy. He had enough things to be depressed about in his own life without also experiencing unaccountable waves of depression from hers.

"Before you begin your next project, you will tell me what happened," he said in a bored voice, watching the slight jerkiness in her movements that followed his words. She didn't want to tell him. It was becoming so easy for him to read her, now that he really tried.

"Ron was supposed to walk me over here and he got called back by Professor Flitwick. Someone… stopped me," she muttered, her cheeks aflame.

"You planned to have Weasley escort you?"

"He's—he apologized," she said lamely. "And I don't like asking Harry all the time."

Severus ground his teeth, counting to ten before he answered. "And he, not surprisingly, failed to do as he had agreed, leaving you to walk here alone."

She selected a mortar and pestle and sprinkled a handful of shredded root of asphodel into the bowl. "Yes."

"I see," he murmured softly. "And who, exactly, accosted you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Oh yes, Miss Granger, it most certainly does matter. The Headmistress has made it quite clear to all students that you are not to be harassed for things which are not under your control."

"I don't tell tales."

He scowled. "Would you prefer I simply removed the information from your mind, Miss Granger?"

She went quite pale, the pestle going still as she stopped grinding the asphodel to powder. "No, thank you," she whispered, so softly that he had to read her lips to be sure of what she said.

"Then you will tell me who is responsible for your tardiness." He looked at her curiously. She was clearly as unwilling to let him use Legilimency on her as he was to actually use it. Veritaserum might have been a choice, but no—it was forbidden to use on students, and he didn't imagine that Minerva would consider a dream to be a worthy reason for bending the rule.

Besides, he didn't really want to know. Not that badly. It was really immaterial anyway.

She was blushing again, carefully keeping her eyes averted from his. He stood up, walking towards her. She fixed her gaze on the asphodel, picking up the pestle again and resuming her grinding.

"Miss Granger," he said softly, when he had come quite close to her, "you will tell me who is responsible, or you will have the information forced from you. I will not tolerate flouting of direct orders from both the Headmistress and myself, and the student responsible will learn that.

He looked down at her hair. Her fingers, he noticed, were trembling, and he had to consciously repress his desire to seize her hand and clasp it in his to stop that tremble. A little shakiness never hurt anyone, though, and he was determined to remain aloof.

"Romilda Vane," she finally said, glancing up at him with a look of utter humiliation. "You won't tell anyone, will you, sir? I just—nothing really happened, and I'm fine."

"Thank you," he said crisply, turning his back on her before he allowed his face to show any of his fury with her classmate. "And I most certainly will be telling someone. The Headmistress will hear of it, as will Miss Vane. Proceed with your potion, Miss Granger, and five points for having the audacity to request that I withhold a matter of discipline from Professor McGonagall."

She nodded mutely and bit her lip. He returned to his desk to brood in vengeful silence over how many points he could legitimately remove from Romilda Vane.

0 0 0

Percy Weasley sat beside Severus in Minerva's office, eating a biscuit and looking rather pleased to be back at Hogwarts, if only for a brief visit.

"They're starting to put quite a bit more pressure on me," he said, polishing off his biscuit and folding his hands in a businesslike manner. "They don't feel I'm providing enough information about the Order, and Malfoy is becoming obsessed with Professor Snape. He's been reading through the Malfoy family library, and he's got some idea about a way to break into the school, some weakness he's hoping you don't know about."

"Break into the school? Again?" said Minerva in surprise, glancing at Severus.

"A small contingent, and they don't want to be seen, except by Professor Snape."

Severus steepled his fingers, narrowing his eyes at Percy. "And who is to be part of this… contingent?"

"I don't know for sure. Malfoy and Selwyn. Probably Walpurgis. Maybe Montgomery."

"You?"

Percy's lip twisted. "I haven't been invited, as of yet."

"And you've no idea what this supposed weakness is?"

He swallowed, running one hand through his flame-red hair. "I was hoping you knew."

Minerva shook her head, pursing her lips and glancing up at Dumbledore, who was listening intently.

"No," said Albus, answering for them all, "it seems to be a bit of a mystery. Although, I have said many times, Hogwarts has always been a source of surprise to me. I doubt even the Founders were aware of all its intricacies, at least not independently of one another."

Severus stroked the side of his neck thoughtfully with one long finger, biting down on the inside of his lower lip as he thought. "If Malfoy has truly discovered a weakness, surely it is something that we should be able to find as well. Have you any idea what books he's been reading, Weasley?"

"None. I can probably find out, though."

"Do so, as soon as you can," said Minerva immediately. "Whether they are only going after Professor Snape or not, I do not wish any of them to have admittance to the school at all." She stopped speaking and looked at Severus strangely.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Does your lip hurt, Severus?" she asked in a strange voice.

He immediately stopped biting his lip, scowling at her. "As a matter of fact, Minerva, it does. Your hapless Gryffindor protégé splashed a highly acidic potion on me this morning and some of it happened to hit my face."

It was a lie, of course, but she was no Legilimens.

"Speaking of Hermione," she said, turning her attention back to Percy, "is Malfoy still talking about her?"

"He's more interested in Professor Snape at the moment, but he is still talking about her, yes. He's got an idea that if they can get away with murdering Snape and not get caught, they'll try to go after Hermione on their way out."

Severus snorted. "Highly unlikely that they would succeed."

"Highly unlikely," agreed Percy, looking unhappy, "but not impossible. If they really can get into the castle, perhaps they really can kill you without triggering the wards, and if they can do that, nothing's to say that someone will stop them before they break into Gryffindor tower, or find her alone somewhere."

"She is never alone," said Minerva.

Severus recalled the Romilda Vane incident that morning, and his frown deepened. "Almost never," he corrected, "but we cannot be always relying on the reliability of eighteen and nineteen year old escorts."

"Have you another suggestion?" asked Minerva, looking tense.

"Unfortunately not, but I suggest it is something we must begin considering immediately. Although I have—" he glanced at Percy warily "—my own methods of staying vigilant about any danger she might be in, they are sometimes… unreliable."

They were, in fact, wholly unpredictable. He could hardly command her mind to open to his the moment that something bad happened to her. But perhaps they could find some way to harness the connection, to use it consciously to communicate.

That thought was so different from the ones he'd been entertaining for so many months that it caught him by surprise. It could, he supposed, be quite an advantage to be able to communicate telepathically with someone, especially with someone as skilled and intelligent as she was, to say nothing of how easy it would become to ensure her safety.

"You and I will discuss it later, then. I don't think Percy needs to be a part of that decision, and the less he knows of specifics, the better. Is there anything else, Percy?"

"That's everything, for now."

"Keep us abreast of any new developments. Find out what Malfoy is reading. If we know where he's looking, perhaps we can find the same thing. Alert us immediately if you discover anything more."

Percy stood up, accepted a tin of biscuits from Minerva, and stepped through the Floo, spinning away to appear in the fireplace of The Burrow's kitchen.

"We will need to move your chambers," said Minerva immediately.

"I would prefer to stay in them. I will erect extra, stronger wards."

"If Malfoy really has discovered a weakness—"

"Perhaps," he interrupted, then paused for a moment of thought before he continued, "it might be best… if we allow him to breach our defenses."

"Severus!"

He shrugged. "He will bring Selwyn, Walpurgis and Montgomery to us."

"And if he kills you? If he attacks a student?"

"We will be ready for him. He will kill nobody."

"You can't guarantee that."

"I cannot, but I can tell you that it is extremely likely."

"Fine. I can't move you. Should we move her?"

"Rather than moving her, perhaps we ought to… confine her. Gryffindor tower is very safe. We can erect extra wards. She can be escorted to and from her necessary classes, excused from those where she is responsible only for book study and essay-writing, and can take her meals in her Common Room."

"Severus, I am not putting her under house arrest after everything else she's been through!"

"I do not trust Potter, Longbottom, Lovegood or the Weasleys to protect her," he said, scowling.

"Could we assign a ghost to watch over her?"

He snorted. "Yes, perhaps Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington can float about and make Malfoy feel a bit chilly if he attempts to injure her."

"Surely if something truly dangerous happens to her, you will be alerted."

He kept quiet for several minutes before he answered: "I do not know, Minerva." He spoke slowly, carefully measuring the words. "I do not fully understand… that is to say, I am not positive that the connection can be relied upon to alert me every time she is threatened."

"A Charm, then, perhaps?"

"Possibly. I wondered—I thought perhaps we might… work with the enchantment, solely for the purposes of dealing with this possibility. It might be wise to discover if we can… intentionally communicate through the connection we share."

"Intentionally?" she stared at him over the tops of her spectacles. "I thought you were attempting to distance yourself?"

"Yes," he admitted slowly, "but it seems that distancing myself only works so far. The enchantment is, like most enchantments, proving to be difficult to circumvent through mere willpower, and I know of no magic that will loosen the bonds that it wishes to tighten."

She frowned at him. "You are keeping your emotional distance as much as you can, are you not?"

Severus bowed his head in assent, hoping it was true.

"Very well. You have my leave to discuss it with her—but not yet. I would prefer to wait and see if we can discover what this weakness is and do something about it before Malfoy and his thugs come rampaging through my school again."


Author's Notes: To those of you who have asked... no, I am not going to abandon this or leave it in any way as a permanent WIP. Yes, I will be finishing it. I promise. There are certain people I'm rooming with at Portus who would try to kill me in my bed if I didn't.

However, the update rate has slowed down (as you allb.ave noticed) and I am not sure if I can promise that it will speed back up. I have been incredibly sick, and working full-time at a new job. I'll do my best to keep up the pace, but if it's slow, that's why.

No worries, though. I will keep on keeping on. Treasure will be finished.

Don't kill me for the fake-out at the beginning of the chapter. Think of it as a promise of things to come. Plus, come on, Snape is so obviously in love with her now, how can you be mad at me?