A/N: Moo.

Disclaimer: Repeat after me! I have no talent. J.K Rowling has all the talent. If I am lucky, some of her talent will rub off on me. *repeats* I have no talent. J.K Rowling has all the talent. If I am lucky, she will rub her talent on my fics...umm...whatever!


Snape wandered through his office, wondering about the validity of these rumors. What if she did love him? Then she couldn't be his apprentice! He wanted her bright mind and potion-making skills on his side when it came to the fight against Voldemort. He paced the floor of his office, his mind worried with this.
He decided to go visit her in the hospital wing. He strode out of the office, through the dungeons, and out of the door. He walked up to the hospital wing, and opened the door.
"Hello, Professor Snape!" She was a ball of cheer, which was unusual for a girl who needed surgery.
"Hello, Miss Granger. I have something to discuss with you. I found a note today, on the Potions class floor. It said something very...unbelieveable." He continued with his story, and when he finished, Hermione looked stricken.
"What?" Her face looked angry and hurt.
"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, I knew it couldn't be true. I am very sorry to have wasted your time." He spun around and left the hospital wing, leaving Hermione to her own thoughts.
"Oh my god." Hermione spoke softly, and laid back on the pillows. Her head hurt enough before Snape visited, now it was racing at a mile a minute, and that hurt worse. She shook her head, trying to get the image of Ron and Harry sitting smugly in the common room, laughing at her.
And, upstairs, in the common room, they were doing just that. They laughed at everything they had read, and everything they knew. They were so full of themselves. Little did they know, Hermione had done something that would turn them into the talk of the school, instead of her.
Hermione woke the next day, her head cloudy and aching. Too many trains of thought, and they were all about to collide. She shook her head, but the cloudy grogginess persisted. She struggled into a sitting position, and shook out her messy, disheveled hair.
Harry and Ron looked through the window, but Hermione's curtain was pulled shut. Madam Pomfrey was coming out of the back room, so they bolted. Madam Pomfrey walked up to Hermione, and tried a painkiller spell. Hermione was able to do a lot of things now, but not allowed out of bed. She grabbed a hair brush and pulled it through her long brown tangles.
30 minutes and a sore arm later, Hermione had sleek brown hair once again. She looked around, and spotted a note on her bedside table. She picked it up and began to read. In scrawling letters she knew as Professor Snape's, it said:

Hermione,
There is no way to make this easy on you, or myself, so I will just say it. I am in love with you. I have been since the incident in your fifth year where you had the sheer bravery to stand up to me on Ron's behalf. You are a marvelous person, and after I found the note on the floor, and I came to you to find out if it was true, my heart has been leaping. I know you don't feel the same way about me, so I will ignore my feelings and treat you as I treat everyone else.

The note was not signed, but she knew who it was from. She hid the note and called Madam Pomfrey.
"What would you like, dear?" Her voice floated from the back room.
"Am I allowed to send notes to friends using the hospital wing owl?"
"Yes. His name is Beamer, and if you call him, he will come down off his perch." Hermione looked at the gorgeous tawny owl. He ruffled his feathers, and looked back at her.
"Beamer!" Hermione watched as he glided off the perch and onto her leg. He waited. She wrote the note as the owl waited patiently.

I never said I was not in love with you. I was merely amazed that the news spread so quickly. I hope this will not change the fact that you offered me an apprenticeship. If it doesn't, we can still work together, but we can keep our...affections for our own free time.

Hermione

She tied the note to the owl's leg and watched as he left. She fluffed up her pillows and fell asleep. She woke, several hours later, to Madam Pomfrey shaking her.
"Hermione, meet Dr. White and Dr. Marks. They are here to perform the much needed surgery on you." Hermione stared, groggily, at the two white coated people in front of her. They stood at the head of a team of nurses.
"Will I have to be awake during the surgery?" Hermione asked, remembering her mother's knee surgery.
"No. We will give you an anesthetic, and you will feel nothing for the whole procedure." Dr. Marks smiled at her. Hermione didn't smile back. She allowed them to roll her over and put the surgery cover over her back. They drew a needle and inserted it into her arm. She felt peaceful as she slid into a dreamless, painless sleep.
Hermione woke up two days later, without remembering a thing. She tried to sit up and had to bit her lip in an effort not to scream. The pain was excruciating. Madam Pomfrey came over and tried the painkiller spell again. It worked, and Hermione sat up.
"What happened?" Madam Pomfrey told her all about the surgery, stopping when Hermione interrupted her.
"I think I'm going to be sick." Madam Pomfrey bustled out of the room, and Hermione layed back down. Just then, Hermione saw Beamer fluttering out of the hall and into the hospital wing. He landed on her blanket and held out his leg. She untied the scroll and began to read.


A/N: Yay! A cliffhanger. I can't even be happy that part 4 is finished. It's Sunday, September 8th. 3 days until September 11th. Even though this won't be posted until after September 11th, I still have to say this. What happened on that day, 1 year ago, was unacceptable, and unfathomable. Nevertheless, it happened, and it made some of us angry, some of us sad, and ALL of us vengeful. In the words of Dave Barry:

"So we need to remember this: The heroes of Flight 93 were people on a plane. Their glory is being paid for, day after day, by grief."

The people on Flight 93 were just that....people. People with homes, and jobs, and children. They didn't deserve to die. But, they fought to the end, and sacrificed their own lives for the preservation of what makes us a nation. Our freedom. They fought so that future generations could live in a great nation. They died so that others wouldn't have to. They gave the last full measure of devotion, and we will always remember them. In the words of Todd Beamer:

"Let's roll."