A/N: Once again thank you all for reading this fanfic and I love hearing your responses. The first half of this chapter may be a little boring as it is filling in some gaps and is giving a little more information; however, I am extremely excited about the last half of this chapter. I really enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy it too. Thank You!

A/N: Chapter Warnings – Potential mentions of sexual assault, bad language and other sexual situations.

Chapter 44 – Aftermath, Draco, and Dinner with Rita Skeeter

Severus had spent all day worrying about Hermione, he had heard the vicious gossip that had taken the school by storm and once again, his heart went out to her. He had been grateful when Draco had informed him where Hermione might appear tonight if she wanted to be alone.

It was almost ironic, as a lonely student, Severus used that exact same room to hide away from everyone and sometimes he even invited Lily there so that they could be undisturbed by the Gryffindor's who enjoyed tormenting him. It was almost amusing that his godson and Hermione had found it and used it as their hideaway so that they could do the same thing and have a place of privacy.

Severus immediately stopped thinking about all of that, the last thing he wanted to do today was reminisce over his childhood years, he did not want to ruin a perfectly good set of furniture that Dumbledore had been kind enough to replace many times over the last twenty years. His thoughts turned back to his Hermione and her face this morning when she had read that article.

When Severus had entered the great hall that morning, ahead of Hermione, for breakfast, he had first noticed the worried look of Minerva and the gleeful look on Umbridge's. He was confused but could tell something big was going on.

When he had sat down and had been passed a copy of the morning paper, it took everything he had in him to maintain his shock. Then Hermione had come in and read the article, to everyone else she put on a brave face but Severus could tell that she was close to breaking down and the only reason that she hadn't broken down yet was because it would only confirm the rumours if she reacted. If she gave the student body nothing, then the students would have nothing else to talk about than what they already knew. Severus almost glowed as he watched Hermione pick up her cutlery and continue eating as if there this was nothing more than her average breakfast, he felt extremely proud of her and almost smiled. He only held back just in case anyone noticed it. He instead, spent the rest of the day trying to keep calm and stop hold back from hexing everyone in sight.

He felt calmer now though, he had the whole day to realise that if Hermione was not going to let it affect her publically, then he would try to keep her mind off of it privately, unless she wanted to talk about it. He had been thankful when Draco had come to him and told him where Hermione was going to be later on that evening; he just wanted to be able to see his Hermione. He entered the room and was greeted by the voice of his godson.

"Ah Severus, right on time" his godson stated as he entered the room.

Severus was wholly ignoring him though as he focused on Hermione who was sat looking small and broken all over again.

He immediately went over to her and knelt in front of her.

She looked up at him and smiled, she was glad that he was here and she wrapped her arms around him. Severus lifted her so that she was in his arms and he kissed her gently.

"I am so sorry" he mumbled.

"Why are you apologising? It's not your fault Severus" she replied.

"What happens now?" Draco asked them.

The pair turned to look at him with confused expressions.

"What do you mean?" Severus asked.

"You're not going to let Skeeter get away with this are you?" Draco asked astounded that both of them were going to sit by and do nothing.

"Of course we don't plan to sit around and do nothing. But going to Skeeter now and criticising her work will be like adding fuel to a fire. It will give her reason to write more absurd articles about why anyone would support Hermione. We can't let her do that, we need to wait for this to die down and then we will make our move" Severus told him.

Draco backed down, he agreed with Severus. Getting involved and sticking up for Hermione against Skeeter now will only lead to more slanderous gossip. Draco did not like it but he would do it if it kept Hermione at peace.

"I suppose you're staying with me tonight?" Severus asked.

Hermione looked up at him sheepishly.

"Is that alright? You don't mind sharing a bed with a common whore, do you?" She asked him bitterly, she was angry at the turn of events today and she couldn't help but make the jab.

Severus immediately put her down on the sofa and sat next to her, holding her.

"Don't you ever let me hear you talk about yourself like that ever again, not even if you are just joking" Severus said gently but with a serious tone to his voice. It saddened him to hear her talk about herself like that, especially when there was not even an ounce of truth to what was being said about her.

Hermione nodded and curled up against her Severus.

Draco was still stood on the opposite side of the room and he watched the pair interacting and he smiled at them. They were perfect.

Draco sat down on the other seat in the room and hoped that he could one day have what they had. Draco understood that not many people would accept his romantic preferences and that it would be unlikely that he would find that perfect man anytime soon. At the end of the day, he is the son of a Death Eater, he is a reluctant Death Eater himself and everyone either wanted to be part of his life because of his name and his money, or they did not want to be within 50 metres of him at all. Draco had never had any true friends; it was rare that someone wanted to be his friend just because they wanted to have a genuine friendship with him. He would never have guessed that Hermione Granger of all bloody people, would end up becoming his closest friend, he had also started to see her as more of a sister, especially with everything that had been going on, he felt more protective of her. She was the only one who he knew he could talk to, besides Severus, about everything including boys he found attractive.

Hermione looked up and saw Draco sat in deep thought and she went over to him. She sat on his lap and hugged him. Draco had been a true friend to her, listened to her, provided intelligent conversation and most of all he had looked out for her and had her back when she needed it most.

Severus stared at the pair and was thankful that the pair got on so well, they were his two favourite people in the world. He knew that Draco really needed someone that he could trust, with being forced to take the dark mark; Draco had isolated himself from normality which highlighted just how terrified he was. Severus had noticed how his godson had got thinner since Christmas and had been trying to secretly smuggle nutrition potions into his food to help him remain healthy. Severus had also noticed that Draco had been getting little or no sleep and tried to offer the boy sleeping drafts, which Draco had been repeatedly turning down out of pride claiming that he didn't need help sleeping and that everything was fine.

Severus focused back on his godson and his Hermione; they really were protective of one another. After a few moments, Hermione climbed off Draco's lap and went back over to Severus.

"Thank you for tonight Draco" she told him.

"Goodnight Hermione, you're welcome" he said to her.

Severus then disillusioned the pair of them and walked further down into the dungeons. They first stopped at the Slytherin common room to drop Draco off before heading to Severus' rooms.

Hermione was exhausted and immediately climbed into Severus' bed and Severus joined her. Severus stroked her hair until she fell asleep and then he lay awake for most of the night thinking about how to deal with Skeeter.

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The following week passed and Ron's birthday had come and gone. They had not done anything that special because Umbridge was watching them like a vulture watches its prey and they were careful about their movements.

Harry, Ron and Hermione had enjoyed a drink or two in the pub in Hogsmeade and had given Ron his gifts - mainly sweets and Quidditch stuff - and had spent the evening larking about. Hermione felt nostalgic about how the three of them were quickly growing up, they were not going to remain young for much longer, especially with a war knocking at their door. It was these happy and carefree moments that Hermione treasured the most, just watching the boys messing about. Hermione found herself wondering how much longer they all had until they would be fighting for their lives and for the wizarding world. Hermione refused to think about it anymore, she was going to enjoy Ron's birthday, the twins had managed to smuggle in alcohol and Hermione planned to let her hair down a bit tonight.

Hermione was thankful that the comments made in the article about her had died down somewhat, there were still a few people who liked to taunt her just for the sake of something to do but she had stopped letting it get to her.

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Meanwhile, Severus was sat in a private booth at the Leaky Cauldron in London. He was waiting impatiently for his guest to arrive, he had ordered a couple of drinks and some food and was frustrated that his guest was 10 minutes late, as a stubborn professor it was only natural that he had little patience for people who were late.

"Severus Snape, what a pleasure it is to finally see you again and how handsome you are" she exclaimed as she sat herself down at the table and poured herself a drink.

"Thank you for coming Madame" Severus said as he took her hand and kissed the back of it. He tried not to sneer at her in the process.

"You wanted to talk about my recent article, didn't you?" Skeeter asked him sweetly.

Severus grinned back.

"Actually I wanted to thank you for the article, it provided quite the entertainment watching the golden girl being knocked down of her pedestal" Severus told her, trying to hide his disdain.

Skeeter shrieked with laughter, she had heard about the reaction to her article at Hogwarts and she had been thrilled.

"It was good, wasn't it?" She asked rhetorically before knocking back the drink she had poured herself, the one that was slightly laced with veritaserum.

Severus smiled when she drank her beverage and didn't seem to notice anything odd about her drink. Severus had used just enough of the potion to make her more loose tongued, it would not necessarily force her to tell the truth but he hoped that she was either too scared of him to deny him answers, or that she could persuade her with flattery.

"You, dear lady, are quite the talent. How on earth did you get hold of such information? Surely it cannot be true" Severus said, trying to play to her ego.

She giggled again.

"Now dear Severus, I can assure you that it is all true, Black was arrested on sexual assault charges, I mentioned I had a reliable source for this information" she told him, blushing at his comments about her writing talent.

"I highly doubt that the source was reliable, you would have had to go to Azkaban itself for that and surely that would have been far too dangerous for such a fair lady" he said in a silky deep tone, the tone that he used when his Hermione was giving his body some special attention. Severus tried to shake that thought, he refused to even think about it or he would never use his sexy voice again.

Skeeter rose to the bait.

"Can you keep a secret Severus?" She asked him, enchanted by his voice.

Severus nodded and waited for her to continue.

"Haha, you are quite right, an important beauty such as myself did not have to go anywhere near that place. No, I am currently having relations with Antonin Dolohov, the sexy Death Eater who escaped Azkaban a short while ago. He still has contacts on the 'inside' and they informed him of the situation surrounding Sirius Black" she told him.

Severus accepted that explanation, at Death Eater meetings Dolohov had been going on and on at just how 'special' Skeeter was and how she had many other talents besides her writing abilities. So that explanation was entirely plausible, they all knew Dolohov had undesirable friends who were some of the guards at Azkaban.

"Not to mention the anonymous owl that I received" she said.

Now that piqued Severus' interest.

"Sounds awfully ominous, you should be careful, an anonymous owl could have enchantments surrounding it. We wouldn't want you to get hurt now, would we?" He asked her whilst drawing imaginary circles on the back of her hand with his finger.

"No" she agreed, whispering breathlessly. Severus almost threw up everything he had eaten in the last month.

"I wouldn't know how to look for those types of charms" she whispered back, her attention focused on Severus' fingers.

"Perhaps I should take a look for you, after all I am an expert in dark magic and I wouldn't want you to be in any danger" he said smoothly.

Skeeter was close to stuttering and to save herself from that embarrassment, she reached into her bag and pulled out the letter.

"You can read it if you like, the only reason I only used it as a source in the first place was because it correlated with what Antonin had told me, but it gave me a bit more information. There was nothing to contradict what the letter said so I put it into the article" she said as she handed the note over to Severus.

Severus opened the note and began to read it whilst pretending to examine it with his wand for dark magic. Once he had read the note, he handed it back to her.

"No dark magic my lady, you're safe" he told her.

She took the letter back and placed it in her bag.

"Its interesting information isn't it?" She asked.

"I didn't really read it Madame, I have no interest in idle gossip but I do love to watch the fallout of your articles for my own twisted entertainment, especially when it includes some of the students that annoy me the most" Severus grinned.

Skeeter chuckled.

"I wish I could have witnessed it, I bet her face was a picture" she said.

"It really was" Severus agreed.

The two of them sat and finished their food and drinks before Skeeter looked at the clock on the wall and her eyes nearly fell out of her head.

"Merlin! I'm late for an interview with the Minister of Magic! I'm sorry Severus but I must go, thank you for the meal and the chat, it really was good to see you again" she said as she hurriedly collected her things.

Severus stood up as well and left the money for the meal and drinks on the table before signalling to Tom that he had paid. Tom nodded and waved goodbye as Severus and Skeeter exited the pub.

They rounded the corner into the alleyway that would take them to Diagon Alley and before Skeeter could open up the passageway Severus pulled out his wand.

"Obliviate" he whispered, removing her memories of their afternoon. As far as Skeeter was concerned, she had gone to have a meal with a client who did not show up; she would not remember who that client was or anything that had been discussed. Satisfied with his work, Severus quickly left and headed into muggle London to find another remote location to apparate back to the castle.

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"Where have you been? Are you alright?" Hermione squealed at him as he walked through the door to his rooms.

He flinched in shock; he hadn't expected her to be there. Then he remembered that it was her occlumency lesson and he had missed it.

"I apologise, something came up and I had to go, I should have told you, I completely forgot" he said feeling guilty that he had caused her to worry.

"It's alright Severus, I thought you'd been called away to a meeting and was worried when you didn't return. But it's alright, you're back now" she said to him as she hugged him and kissed him gently on the lips.

Severus kissed her back and then they proceeded with a small occlumency lesson before calling it a night.

"Are you sure you're alright Severus?" She asked him.

He nodded and kissed her reassuringly.

"Are you staying the night?" He asked her.

"Can I?" She replied.

"If you want to you can, I would like it" he told her.

"Then I will stay" she said as she grabbed her belongings that contained all of her school things she would need for the next day.

"Know-it-all Minx" he said as he noticed that she had already planned to stay anyway and didn't look like she would have taken no as an answer.

She giggled as she prepared to get ready for bed and he told her he would come to bed shortly.

Severus sat for a moment in his chair by his fireplace and pondered over his afternoon with Skeeter. He had done well in hiding his distaste and his anger. He had read the anonymous letter that she had presented to him and he didn't understand. The information was correct but he didn't know why it had been sent to Skeeter.

But there it was; the information that would be published to hurt his Hermione, in the all too familiar handwriting of Albus Dumbledore.