DISCLAIMER: Everything Hogwartian belongs to the one and only JKR. "Carry On" belongs to Motor Ace.

The places you know

Friends that you owe

Somewhere to go

Does it pay to be alone?

"I didn't see the lake in the dark," she told them. And they believed her without question.

Her skin was no longer blue but her hands continued to shake. It didn't make sense. The hypothermia had passed days ago. Her fever had long since broken. Still her hands shook.

She was alone in her Head Girl room, of course, as she had been for days. She wanted it that way. Her friends had gotten the hint eventually. When they visited her, she wasn't really there anyway. They'd bring her homework, which she thanked them for and then left untouched and ignored. They'd talk about quidditch and the House Cup and Hagrid's new creature and Trelawney the oversized insect. She'd smile and laugh and wince in all the right places. Then one of them, usually Ron but sometimes Harry, would accidentally mention an Unmentionable. Christmas, or parents, or the snow. Something they felt certain would make Hermione uncomfortable. More likely something that would make themselves feel uncomfortable. The offender would apologise a little too profusely, Hermione would insist that she was fine with it, and the conversation would proceed awkwardly until Hermione pretended to yawn and the boys gratefully excused themselves.

All in all, she preferred the solitude.

Nobody wanted her to come out anyway. None of her classmates knew what to say to her, or what not to say. Her teachers were just as bad. Professors Flitwick and Vector had visited her when she'd been in the hospital wing; the former burst into tears and the latter couldn't stop rambling about when his grandmother had passed away.

It wasn't as though death was an unusual thing at Hogwarts. There had been Cedric Diggory's demise in fourth year. In Hermione's fifth year, after the war had broken out, a sixth year Ravenclaw girl and a seventh year Slytherin girl were killed in Hogsmeade, as were seven other bystanders, when a group of drunk Death Eaters apparated into town for some weekend fun. After that, weekend trips to the village had been banned. The other deaths affecting those at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were mostly relatives of students and teachers – grandparents, cousins, that sort of thing. Ernie Macmillan lost his 21-year-old brother. No, death was no stranger to those who lived in the Hogwarts castle.

But you see, this was different. For several reasons. One was that once the cease-fire was called, everybody believed the tragedy and heartbreak was over. Surely now that peace reigned again, things would have to go back to normal.

Another reason was the girl herself. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had become heroes in the war years. They were seen as warriors, especially Harry. And nobody really believed that anything could happen to them. They had played such a part in the battle against Voldemort, and come out so triumphant, that people had begun to see them as invincible. Untouchable. Champions.

Ron loved it. Harry tolerated it.

Hermione despised it.

She didn't feel like a hero. And when the fighting was over and the celebrations began, she certainly didn't feel like dancing. Of course, she understood why her friends had to celebrate. They believed that after all the suffering and anguish, after three years of constant battle, life was going back to normal. It had to go back to normal, you see, because otherwise what were they fighting for?

Hermione knew better, though she wished she didn't.

And here it was, the proof of what she had known perfectly well on the night she had sat alone at the table with her butterbeer while her peers danced around her.

She was alone. Her parents were dead. And life would never be normal again.

In the halls at night there's a kind of peace that Hermione used to find intimidating. The quietness, to her, once represented a looming disaster – a professor lurking around the corner ready to take 50 points from Gryffindor for the person out of bed, or Peeves waiting to cause mayhem if you weren't on your guard.

No longer. These days, the midnight halls of Hogwarts welcomed her with open arms. The cold stone beneath her feet made her feel more alive than her warm, cocoon-like bedroom. She shivered in her thin white nightgown and ran her cold hands along the stone walls. She would do this all night, all around the castle, as she had for days.

Unwatched. Free. Alone.

Or not alone.

"Get back to bed."

She stopped – almost near the huge doors of the entrance hall – and turned around, coming face to face with Severus Snape standing only metres from her. Tall, dark and imposing.

His sallow face was stony and his arms were folded across his chest. His eyes wandered all over her face and she suddenly felt exposed. Her pale skin, her thin cheeks, the shadows beneath her eyes. She wanted him to look away, but the best she could do was to look away herself. She concentrated on a painting on the wall over his shoulder.

"I was just going…..." The fact was, she had no idea what to say. She knew where she was going, but the truth seemed highly inappropriate at this point.

"I know exactly where you were just going, Granger, and I'm telling you to get back to bed." He spoke in soft, slipped tones, but the warning tone in his voice was not lost on her.

"No, you don't," Hermione said hesitantly, testing the waters.

It struck her that he did, indeed, know exactly where she was going. After all, he was the one who had found her there two weeks earlier. He was the one who had pulled her from the icy depths of the lake with his own arms, using no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations, but his own sheer strength. He was the one who suggested to McGonagall that she be banned from going there, at least for the time being. McGonagall had agreed, but insisted that she only worried that the Hypothermia would return. She had, of course, approached Hermione – gently – about what had happened that night. Why she had walked onto the ice.

I didn't see the lake in the dark.

The answer was good enough for McGonagall. But not for Snape.

"Return to your room," his deep voice growled. He took a few slow, calculated steps toward her. "Now."

"Why?" Hermione challenged, finally looking him in the eye. "Afraid you're going to have to rescue my Gryffindor self again? Well, don't worry, there's nobody around to see you walk away. I won't tell."

The blow came quickly and fiercely and stung like hell. Hermione was caught by surprise and cried out. She so wanted to hold her cool hand against her cheek, but her pride wouldn't let her. She stood looking away from him for a long moment, catching her breath and telling herself she deserved it. Severus moved in towards her lowered his head until his mouth was mere inches from her ear. His hands grasped her upper arms gently – but firmly – and held them against the stone wall behind her. His voice was deep, soft and clear, but not without menace.

"The coming months will be the most difficult period in your young life. The death of your father and mother was unfair and untimely, and your behaviour is borne of grief and anger, I know. There are those who will coddle you, Miss Granger. They will put up with insolence, careless remarks, and even unsolicited cruelty. Do not mistake me for one of those people again."

He turned his head to look at her face, stilling pinning her arms to the wall. Hermione was biting her lip and mentally threatening to stab her own eyes out if the unshed tears they held began to fall in his presence. He stared at her for a long while, and eventually she realised he was waiting for an answer. She angled her head towards his and immediately wished she hadn't, for the black eyes that met her brown ones held an infuriating mixture of threat, insight and pity. Through the flood of tears that escaped her traitorous eyes, she managed to choke out the words, "Go to hell," before pulling free from his grasp and storming towards Gryffindor Tower.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, all the feedback I got was so supportive and it just made me want to write more! Please, if you've got a few spare moments, review this chapter, it keeps me going and I really appreciate the effort you guys make.

Ten points to Jamie and Hasapi, who guessed that it was the ice on the lake breaking! Yay! I'm glad that some people got it and some people didn't, because I wasn't sure if I was being too obvious or too obscure! Thanks again to everyone who reviewed!

Also, if anybody can tell me how to upload my chapters so that the format works, I would be so grateful. For some reason, the italics, centre alignment and line gaps that I used just didn't work, though I tried several times to fix it. I saved it as a text file, so maybe I should try html this time?