A/N: I will be updating this, though it will be sporadic. The Five Winters is still my priority. However, once that is complete, updates to this story will become more regular.

I would appreciate some reviews, particularly because I work hard to get these chapters out. TFW is scheduled to be updated every Monday, but this keeps my muse going (even though I've got it all planned out) and some reviews would be most appreciated. -arches eyebrow in Snape-like fashion- or do I have to start placing Compusion Charms on my readers?

Thanks to April93 for her awesome beta-ing skills. =) Seriously, she is absolutely amazing. Please give her a round of well-deserved applause.

Please review!

Hermione stared down at the letter she was currently composing.

Dear Harry and Ron…

She didn't know how much to tell them. Before, she had told them everything, omitting only the details that were not strictly necessary. They didn't need to know about the instances where Hermione had gotten information by luring Lord Snape's officials into a bed, interrogating them, and then Obliviating them. However, how was she to tell them about the extraordinary events that had taken place in the weeks between their last letters?

She had to tell them that he was now her danna. The question was how they would react. With the boys, Hermione had to be careful how she worded herself, knowing that Ron was still labouring under the delusion that she was saving herself for him. Hermione had never told him that, but after their—rather heat-of-the-moment kiss—he had told her, before leaving for North America with Harry, that once the war was over, he would marry her. Hermione hadn't even had a chance to set him right, and in over three years, had not found a tactful way to inform him by letter. That could compromise their operations. Hermione was certain that if she let him know that she was seducing Severus Snape, he would blow not only his top, but her cover, by storming to Britain to confront her. She didn't know if Harry was capable of containing him. She had not seen the boys in three years—she didn't have a well-rounded idea as to how they had changed in that time. It was not safe to tell them everything.

However, the information they got from her were delivered to the right sources. That was the important thing.

She carefully penned the letter explaining that Lord Snape was now her patron, her danna, but was using her for potions research, not as a personal call girl. She cited other information, though it was growing scarcer now, given she spent most of her time with the man himself and not his lackeys. Wishing them well, she rolled it up, sealed it, charmed it to burn itself immediately if opened by force or by someone who was not the intended recipient, and sent it off.

Watching the owl leave, she wondered what it would be like to be free again.

She imagined it would be like soaring on silent wings.

~o~O~o~

Snape came in one evening after not appearing for eight days, something that had greatly worried Hermione, appearing extremely agitated. He entered her room without knocking—something he had conceded to her as a common courtesy— and when he shut the door behind him, Hermione was certain that if it were not for the Silencing Charms placed around the room, the sound of the sliding door banging—and then being slammed again when it bounced open—would have reverberated throughout the teahouse. It distinctly reminded Hermione of the times he had slammed his way into the classroom on days he was particularly vitriolic, and it did not bode well.

Crookshanks took one look at him, hissed with his ears flattened against his skull, and then dove under the bed.

Hermione fought the urge to cower, to leave, and to find somewhere safer that lacked the dangerous aura surrounding him, but she kept her calm.

"Did something happen today?" Such an obvious, open-ended question.

"I have rarely had to deal with such incompetent idiots in my life," he sneered, kicking off his boots and sending them flying with a careless, wandless flick toward the corner of the room. "I thought Potter and his little band of Gryffindors were in a class of their own, but I've clearly been proven wrong."

"What happened?" Hermione repeated, laying a hand on his arm in an attempt to calm him. He grabbed her wrist, so enraged was he, and Hermione winced at the vise-like grip.

"Dolohov," he hissed, "left for a week without informing us of his whereabouts, and then he returned half-dead after trying to track down Neville Longbottom. I never gave him the orders, never gave him any indication, and he went off and got himself nearly killed trying to capture that blundering idiot."

As far as Hermione was aware, Neville had progressed rapidly and matured into a much more competent wizard in the years of Snape's regime. The fact that he was able to take on Dolohov did not actually surprise Hermione.

"What did you do to him?"

"I can't afford to have idiots like him working for me." Snape's grip on her wrist made Hermione wince again, but she bit her tongue. "He's reckless, useless half the time, I only keep him around because he followed orders—until now."

His grip on her wrist tightened, and Hermione finally let out a whimper. Something seemed to finally register in Snape and he let go of her wrist, as if burned. Hermione pressed her wrist against her hip and discretely rubbed it with her other hand, trying to restart the circulation.

She watched as Snape's eyes dilated, and saw the milky, cloudy part of his left eye clearly now. It seemed to start in the far corner and stopped about a quarter-way across his eye, and Hermione had no doubt it caused vision problems.

She watched fear flitter across his face, unguarded, and knew he was worried that he had not only hurt her, but alienated her as well. Hermione waited a moment to collect herself again before she lifted her hand from her wrist and placed it on his cheek.

He flinched. Her thumb stroked gently, soothingly, and he did not pull away.

Hermione's eyes met his, and she realized that he was finally aware of her. She was able to judge men, the amount of interest or arousal present when she interacted or observed them, and it was obvious to her now that her little trick after he had gripped her arm with such painful force had left him reeling and confused. And now that he was calming down from his near-frenzied rage, he was seeing her for the first time. Not her brains, but her breasts, the way they heaved with each breath Hermione took; her milk-chocolate eyes, which were deliberately curtained by shiny brown ringlets…

He was seeing her as she was for the first time.

And Hermione could easily detect the faint traces of arousal from him.

Her heart stopped. This was her chance. She had finally made him aware of her.

"Your face, Christine, its white," she whispered, her voice taking on the musical edge that Lucius Malfoy cherished so much, although she now sounded more like Mitsuki than herself. "It frightens me…" She carefully stroked the corner of his lip with her thumb, and then reverted to her real voice, a seductive smile creeping over her face. "Don't be frightened."

And then—before he had time to fully register what she'd said or what she was about to do—she kissed him.

It was deep and sensual; precisely what Hermione was aiming for. He stood there, shocked, torn between participating and pulling away, as she pressed both her lips and her body against his. She pulled away slightly to gently kiss first the left, then the right, corner of his lips, an act that prompted him to open his mouth ever so slightly, and Hermione immediately invaded it with her tongue, tasting him, urging him to taste her.

His lips were thin, his reactions unmeasured and uncertain, but Hermione had received far worse kisses from better-looking men. She waited until he began to respond and then pulled away, ending the kiss, knowing better than to push her luck. Her seduction was moving along flawlessly, and she saw it as something akin to training a dog; stop after a good session, reinforce the next day, and then move on to the next trick. It was time to stop.

The pressed a finger to his lips to prevent him from speaking, from asking—no, demanding—what she thought she was doing, and then carefully took hold of his shoulders and pushed him gently back onto the edge of the bed before taking a seat next to him. He seemed to be gazing at her with disbelief, not quite certain that he had not dreamed what had just taken place, when Hermione snapped him out of his reverie.

"What did you do to Dolohov?"

He was calm now—if still panting somewhat from arousal— but no longer full of unventable rage, and he answered as smoothly as he could manage:

"I killed him."

~o~O~o~

The minute Snape left, Hermione felt like celebrating.

Antonin Dolohov was dead.

She immediately felt like penning the good news to Harry and Ron—and possibly Neville, too, if her owl could find him— but soberly remembered that she didn't actually have an owl. Harry and Ron sent her the owl once a month, and until then, she was unable to communicate.

However, that sobering thought hardly dampened her elation. Dolohov was dead. She wouldn't have to fear him any longer. The brute of a man, who had so nearly killed her—and tried to kill her friends— in the Department of Mysteries had gotten what was coming to him.

She would have asked him for the gory details, but an inkling suspicion that most girls would rather not hear such things, and thus needed that as part of her cover, deterred her. However, knowing Snape, she doubted he had done it painlessly. Most likely, he had had a private execution—which would explain why it was not announced in the Daily Prophet— whose audience consisted only of his officers and other higher-ranking officials, as a warning against disobedience. It would be just like him.

Crookshanks chose to come out at that moment, having satisfied himself that the temperamental man was gone, and jumped onto Hermione's lap. Hermione carefully stroked his fur, and Crookshanks sat up straight, gazing into her eyes in a contemplative, considering manner—on some days, it reminded Hermione of a professor in lecture mode— before he reached up and batted her wrist with his paw.

"I know, Crooks," Hermione said, scratching him behind the ear. "But I got what I wanted in the end."

Crookshanks gave her a look that Hermione interpreted as the cat equivalent of raising one's eyebrow.

"I know you trust him," Hermione countered, "I can see it in your eyes and the way you walk. You treat him better than you've ever treated anyone else at this teahouse." She looked at him curiously. "What is it that you're not telling me?"

Crookshanks merely curled up, folded his paws beneath him, and closed his eyes.

This conversation was clearly over.

~o~O~o~

Snape returned the next day. He stiffly entered the room, set his boots aside, and then—in his usual tone of imperious demanding—asked to see the notes she was to have prepared for him that day. Hermione covered her mouth with her fan, smiling, before turning around to the bookcase to retrieve her notes.

They sat down at her desk and made comparisons. The sketch, the outline of the potion Snape was aiming for, was slowly becoming more defined, shapelier, and so sharp in definition that Hermione could almost grasp it and pull it out of her mind's eye. There were just a few things beyond them, things they had not figured out yet, but Hermione had no doubt that they would.

He stayed later than usual, and when Hermione inquired about the meetings he usually had to attend, he sourly answered that Lucius was taking care of them for him.

Lucius, Lucius. Hermione had not seen him for awhile. Oh, the man stopped by occasionally, but he rarely called for Sakura anymore, even when his eyes travelled over her thoughtfully when he saw her in passing, though he still requested Mitsuki. Hermione suspected this was both a combination of the man's increasingly busy schedule and Snape's possessiveness of her. She had seen signs that he really did think he owned her, but when Lucius refrained from asking her to sing for him, Hermione wondered if he was doing this out of consideration for his friend or if Snape had had a word with him. Hermione suspected it was the former.

To both men, she was property. No different than an exotic bird. Snape had had so little of which to call his own that Hermione rather suspected that Lucius was making a grand gesture of leaving what had become one of his most valuable pieces of property alone. It was both thoughtful and insulting—thoughtful of Lucius in regards to Snape, but insulting to her. Hermione felt as though she were in one of the kokeshi dolls that decorated the shelves of the private rooms of the teahouse, locked in a tiny, hollow, helpless doll with the name Sakura carved roughly into the wood. Like a spirit that had been sealed in a decorated jar; and until she broke free, she was as much of a possession as her inanimate host.

It was one Friday however, that it seemed Lucius's self-control broke. He had had a stressful week, too little sleep, and by six o'clock, too much to drink. Not enough to make him tipsy, but enough to loosen him up a bit, work the stiffness from his body, and render his self-control inert.

"Sakura!" he called from across the room, gesturing to join both himself and Mitsuki, who had taken a seat on the couch with him and had been entertaining him with a story. "Come join us." He pointed to the spot on Mitsuki's left. "We could use the company."

Truthfully, Hermione was grateful for the invitation, and she gladly joined.

"So you were saying, my dear?" he addressed Mitsuki, who happily snuggled up against her adoptive sister.

"Well," she said, smiling slyly, "there's been a story around for ages about a demon who haunts teahouses." Her eyes widened expressively. "It's called the Willow Demon. Do you know why?"

"I haven't the faintest clue," Lucius said, smiling indulgently.

"Well," Mitsuki said, pleased at having such an attentive audience, "it's said that geisha inhabit a different world, a different… reality." Warming up to the story, she continued, "Courtesans were thought to be flowers, dressed up in colors and bright patterns, but geisha were willows."

"Graceful and beautiful," Lucius said with a nod. "Some wands are that way."

Mitsuki giggled. Her wand was made of willow. "Exactly."

Hermione took up the story.

"Three years ago, they say a girl came to a lower-class teahouse looking for a place to stay," Hermione said, smilling. She licked her lips to moisten them, and then continued; "we are not geisha—far from it—and neither was she."

"Hey, I'm telling the story," Mitsuki jibed, elbowing Hermione harmlessly in the ribs. Hermione pouted, faking offense, but allowed Mitsuki to continue her tale. "But this girl—she fit right in. She was beautiful, graceful, and moved like a ghost on silent feet. She had the most perfect heart-shaped face, eyes as bright as the moon, and lips like sliced peaches. She outclassed her fellow sisters." It was no uncommon to refer to their coworkers as sisters; they worked so closely together that they became a tighty-knit self-formed family. "Every patron that came through the teahouse fell in love with her, and when she danced, they claimed even the stars came down to watch her. No one knew her real name, but they called her the Dancing Willow."

Lucius had either had too much to drink or had not heard the story before—perhaps both—but something prompted him to sit up a bit straighter, eyes alight with child-like interest.

"The teahouse prospered," Mitsuki continued, "patrons paid exhorbitant amounts for her time. Everyone thought her to be a blessing." A dramatic pause. "But then— something happened."

Hermione smiled behind her unfolded fan, but she did not interrupt.

"One night, long after the customers had all gone, a rich man came in," Mitsuki said, her voice taking on a hushed tone. "He was drunk. The girls and the proprietor asked him to leave, but he refused, threatening to hex them if they didn't present the Dancing Willow to him. She came in to see what the commotion was, and then ordered her sisters to leave. They did so, reluctantly, and she was left alone with the man.

"Her sisters heard terrible screams emanate from the room, but they were helpless to get in, because the Dancing Willow had locked the door," Mitsuki continued, eyes alight with mischief, "they heard the man begging for mercy, and then silence, except for a barely-audible sound that went like this—glub glub glub—the sound of blood pumping out onto the floor.

"She killed him for violating the teahouse," Mitsuki continued in a hushed whisper, "she was a demon—wasn't that what she said?" she asked, turning to Hermione. "The geisha we met two years ago—wasn't that how it went? She was a fox demon?"

"A kitsune," Hermione corrected.

"Yes, that's right," Mitsuki said, waving her hand. "Well anyways—she'd been watching over the girls at the teahouse, because they were poor, but worked hard. She took them under her wing and protected them—and when this man came in and threatened them, she ripped his throat out, spilling his blood on the floor, and revealed her true form."

Lucius's pale eyes flickered between Hermione and Mitsuki, but didn't interrupt, clearly wanting them to go on.

"The kitsune knew she would be hunted for what she'd done," Hermione said, picking up the story, "and so she gave her youngest and favorite sister a willow branch in memory of her, before she disappeared forever."

"But the kitsune had hidden herself within the willow branch," Mitsuki added triumphantly, "and when the younger sister planted the branch in the ground, it grew into a willow. The kitsune protected the teahouse, leaving the haven of her willow tree at night.

"And the teahouse was guarded by the willow dancer ever since."

"Where did you hear such a story?" Lucius asked, awe evident in his voice.

"We met a geisha years ago," Hermione replied, smiling. "She told us some pretty fantastic tales."

"Geisha," Lucius repeated, "I should like to see a real one. Not that you girls aren't lovely enough," he added, nodding his head at them in acknowledgement.

"Oh, you should!" Mitsuki said, clapping her hands together excitedly. "They're about the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

Lucius ordered another bottle of sake and then gestured at Hermione and Mitsuki.

"Sing for me," he said.

~o~O~o~

They were very nearly close to finishing the potion. Severus had enough political prisoners to use as lab rats—much to Hermione's unvoiced disgust, though she couldn't deny that Umbridge and Runecorn, who were among them, deserved what they got—and knew that they would soon hit upon just the right amount of aconite and olive oil needed to balance out the potion's effects.

And then, one day, he didn't drop by. But Hermione was reassured of the reason when she read the Daily Prophet article claiming the invention of a new prophylactic potion designed to make Werewolves non-contagious. The potion was credited to Lucius Malfoy, who had apparently taken the patent out on it, but the article cited that it was to protect his associates' identities. Hermione understood what was happening; Severus made the potion that made his job working to keep the werewolf population at bay easier, and Lucius took care of the publicity. They made an efficient team.

Hermione was not mentioned. She hadn't expected to be. Even if the true identities of the potion's maker were revealed, she doubted she would be mentioned at all.

She was only property.

You gave the general credit for moving swiftly, not the horse.