A/N: Day Two, believe it or not. I really didn't think about the timeline of this very well. Pick all the holes in it you can.
Thanks to my wonderful reviewers!
Annabelle Elizabeth: Yes…
S.D.: oh, I don't mind the idea- I just think it's all too rushed. But then, the author is always a little over-critical.
Mandi: glad you're reading it! And yes, if you read it too fast, you'll get confused. It's a bit like that.
Angel Fire: thanks! I will!
Risi: thanks!
PRIMAX: thanks- here's your next chapter! (day…)
Jasperpress77: indeed she did. She's a conniving little girlie, that's for sure.
Of Potions and Professors Day TwoThe Unmentionable Department's offices were overcrowded. Hermione grunted and pushed the pile of papers from her desk onto the floor. She was resigning; this was it. No more sorting through people's memories, no more stealing thoughts that weren't hers. No more unwelcome anguish. She couldn't stand it anymore.
Looking at the now-blank desk, Hermione remembered her first day on the job. During Auror training, she had been singled out to become an Unmentionable. Harry and Ron had urged her to do so, even though they had no idea what it entailed. It drew her apart from them. Now she could read them like books, feel the emotions wafting off them, and the slightest touch triggered their memories to start pouring into her mind. She couldn't stand it.
They were so happy. That was the problem, of course. They were happy where she was miserable, not that they realised it. They didn't realise that their very presence made her uncomfortable now. She had no words to explain it, but the feeling was there. It was somewhere on the edge of her senses, and Hermione had learned to trust her instincts. It had taken a long time; she recalled the many times that it took her such a long time to reason the answer she had instinctively felt ages beforehand.
Her first day on the job, she had been required to go and negotiate the truth out of a rape case. The victim's thoughts were so vivid that she could still remember them. The rapist's mind had been a sewer, and she shuddered at the memory of the emotionless sink that had swallowed her attempts to rationalise his actions. She hated her job.
She was startled to see a flash of red and gold at the window, and even more astounded to see that it was Fawkes, the resident phoenix of Hogwarts. Her astonishment reached even greater heights when she saw the letter held in his beak.
Retrieving the letter, she immediately felt the distress of the writer- Dumbledore, she realised. Reading the content, she tore her eyes away and tapped her wand against it. It curled up in tongues of flame.
Grasping her letter of retirement, she allowed Fawkes to land on her shoulder, handed in her resignation to her astonished superior and walked to the grounds of the Ministry of Unmentionables. She grasped Fawkes' luxurious tail after charming herself not to be seen, and allowed the super-strong phoenix to carry her to Hogwarts.
Hermione must have passed out, because the next thing she knew was being fluttered with orange wings. She sat up and took in her surroundings: she was within the Hogwarts grounds. She got up and, after helping Fawkes to her shoulder, walked to the Headmaster's office.
The memories flooded into Hermione's mind- her memories, not someone else's. In this corridor, she had her first kiss. In this corridor, her heart was broken for the first time. On this staircase, she had cried for hours…
Albus Dumbledore looked as if he hadn't slept for three weeks. He looked every one of his one hundred and eighty one years. Hermione was astounded to still see him alive. Hermione grasped the hand he extended and immediately pulled it away again as she saw what had occurred over the past few hours. She narrowed her eyes at the man, wondering at his good grace.
"Don't judge him too soon, Hermione. He's had a hard lot in life, and I have put a lot of trust in him. I was going to dismiss him on sight before I realised that the ingenious girl had used a charm to ensure that I would become enraged. Naturally I was, but after Fawkes saw through the enchantment I realised that I had been acting hastily. That is why I have called you in.
"I realise that you have resigned from your job, and I do intend to offer you the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, as our previous teacher resigned last week. I would, however, wish to prevail upon you to please sort this out before I take you on. It would take a large weight off my mind and allow me to keep other Aurors and Ministry officials out."
Dumbledore slumped down into a seat, his oration over. Hermione looked at the old man. She didn't wonder how Dumbledore knew all these things- she just nodded at him, signalling her acceptance.
This would be her last case.
~*~
Alicia Bennet walked back into Dumbledore's office from the room where she had been sleeping. She was a little confused. She was sure that she had administered the charm correctly- why was she still being questioned?
She seated herself at Dumbledore's insistence, and was introduced to a woman with fluffy cinnamon hair and tired eyes. Dumbledore insisted that it was just because he wanted her to have a female to talk to, but Alicia was not certain that it was the case at all.
But, seeing no way to back out of the situation, Alicia began to tell her fabricated tale. She involved a great deal of emotion, hoping to sway the woman. She just smiled sadly, reaching out to take her hands. An expression of intense revulsion flashed briefly across her face, gone as soon as it appeared. Alicia could find no way to ostracise her hands from the woman's grip, however, so she simply continued with her tirade.
When she had finished, the woman smiled at her again and assured her that Snape would be brought to justice. Standing up, Alicia smiled weakly.
But when she noticed the small badge that resided on the shoulder of the woman's robes, it was all she could do to keep her face straight.
The woman was an Unmentionable. Alicia swore at herself for underestimating her opponents, and made her way straight to her tower. She must write a letter, no matter what the outcome.
~*~
Hermione's face was grim as she turned to look at Dumbledore when the girl left.
"You were right. She was playing with us. I'll go and speak with Snape, then look for a little more evidence. I think I managed to find the site where she brewed the potion, and I don't believe she's cleaned up after herself just yet. She won't just now- she will write to whomever she's corresponding with. I'll do that straight away, and then speak to Snape, I think. I should be ready to compose my report in the morning. Will you be the witness?"
Dumbledore nodded, "I will be your witness. Please, I want this over as soon as possible, before the other students find out and worse rumours get out about Severus. He has been horrible to you, I know, but please, be kind to him…"
Hermione nodded in response to his plea, her mind, however, still closed. She made her way down the familiar, dreaded path to the Dungeons.
She stopped before the classroom, however. She stood in front of a large portrait of a beheaded man. It contained a lot of blood, and Hermione was disgusted by the perfect detail of the severed head. "Mort," was the password, and Hermione nearly laughed as she gleaned the information from the frame.
Inside, in perfect arrangement, was a potions lab. It held an uncleaned cauldron, and Hermione shrank it down to a size practical for travel. She glared scornfully at this- no real potions master would leave cauldrons unscrubbed. She placed it in a plastic bag and put it in a pocket of her robes. There was another cauldron to shrink, and then Hermione collected the stored potions that were littered around the lab. She identified quite a few, recognising them as restricted potions. Hermione was pretty sure that the girl wouldn't have been able to get recipes for these from the library.
After her raid, Hermione closed the portrait silently. She walked down to the Potions classroom with dread building in her heart.
It wasn't that she disliked the room, or even the class, but that she was terrified of the man who resided in there. He was the only teacher who had never valued her input in class, and the only man in her life to make her feel nervous. Even Draco Malfoy had never made her feel intimidated, only angry.
She knocked on the heavy oaken door but didn't wait for permission to enter. She stepped into the classroom, noted the man sitting at the desk with his head in his hands, and sat down at her normal workbench. She noted wryly that her hips seemed to have grown since her last time here, her seventh year.
Snape looked worn too, she realised. His hair was beginning to grey, and his hands were growing rickety, the fingers stretching against thinning skin. Hermione could see he was scared, could almost smell it in the room.
"I suppose you're here to take me to Azkaban." The words were muffled; he didn't lift his head as he spoke. Hermione was startled at the depth of emotion present in her former teacher's words. She could almost feel terror pulsating in his voice.
"Actually, I'm here to sort out what happened. So far I've ascertained that you're innocent and that the little seductress is in league with someone else. I would like to know your story though. It would be helpful if you cooperated." Snape's head jerked up to look at her. His eyes widened a little when he saw her identity, and he sighed wearily.
"I feared that Dumbledore wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt."
"He wasn't going to. Alicia cast a charm on him to enflame his sense of anger, and he wanted to dismiss you on sight. However, Fawkes saw through the enchantment and alerted him to the situation. Dumbledore called me in to investigate." Hermione shrugged her tired shoulders, seeing relief flood into Snape's face.
"Why did Dumbledore bring an Auror in?" Snape asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.
Hermione smiled a secretive smile. "I'm not an Auror. I'm an Unmentionable."
Snape's expression showed disgust. "I thought you had no aura."
Hermione winced. "Apparently that's useful, because I don't have anything to interfere with the subject's aura. It's good for business."
Snape nodded weakly. "I suppose you expect me to tell you what happened?"
Hermione shrugged. "If you want. I could share the memories if you don't want to relive them," she suggested.
Snape looked at her suspiciously.
"I can duplicate the memories from your memory and store them within my own mind. All it takes is the slightest touch - it makes shopping horrible. With some people it hardly even takes that, they project their thoughts so strongly. It's a horrible thing to have to deal with. I feel like a pensieve most days." She shuddered whilst Severus grinned maliciously at her discomfort.
"Must be terrible." Snape's curiosity took over for a moment, "What do you feel from me at the moment?" Hermione grimaced.
"Fear, anger. It's all in the room. I can feel the echoes of thoughts… but then, you've been teaching frustrated teenagers in this room for a long time. The emotional residue would be strong."
Snape sighed. "My one refuge in life. Tormenting my students." He made a face that Hermione could only begin to interpret, even with her years of training. "Well, if you're going to pilfer my memories, you'll have to come over here."
So Hermione stood up and walked to the drained man in the hard-backed seat. She hesitatingly placed her hand on his, the clammy cool of his skin pulling the heat out of her palm. The memories flooded her mind, and for a second she was swept up in the wave of horror that had been the man's life.
After a moment, she reached the memories of the past few days. She slowed there, walking through the memories instead of rushing so as not to consider anything too much. She watched as the events played themselves out.
When she had the information she needed, she stepped back, shaking.
"I knew she was malevolent, but I never guessed that she could be a rapist too… although I guess that's what she is." Snape looked up at her, startled. Hermione realised that he had yet to clear his name in his own mind. She stepped back again, said something in parting, and left.
She could still feel his memories searing through her mind.
~*~
Snape could still feel her hand on his. Shivering, he thought of her words- 'I never guessed that she could be a rapist too… although I guess that's what she is…'
He was at no fault? That couldn't be. He had always been in the wrong, always the one perpetrating the evil. He remembered the sensation of Hermione in his thoughts, feeling her mind being flooded with his memories. He wondered if she had taken in his memories, if she could avoid them.
He irrationally hoped that she could. He was still running from his memories.
Forcing thoughts of the bothersome girl from his mind, he scratched his quill over the paper, sating himself with destroying the hopes and dreams of children.
~*~
Hermione Granger sat very quietly in the room that had been prepared for her. It was large with high cathedral ceilings that made her feel incredibly small. Sheer curtains covered the large windows in pastel shades and the bed was situated in the very centre of the room. Hermione was seated on the bed, rumpling the covers only slightly, as she dived through her thoughts. To any unseen observers, she would have appeared as one in a trance, and in many respects she was. Her eyes were blank, staring into the far-off distance; her thoughts, however, were filled. She went over every aspect of the situation, feeling all the emotions and thinking all the thoughts. It was quite a while before she was satisfied.
Hermione quickly stood, her face suddenly filled with dread.
"I forgot the girl!" She exclaimed with disgust at herself. She glanced out the window at the sun, guessing the time. She stood and raced from the room.
~*~
Alicia didn't know what would happen. She rushed into the Owlery, startling many of the owls from their slumber. Feathers floated from the roof, appearing as a mockery of the snow that had stubbornly refused to fall this winter. The blonde girl reached for a very average-looking owl; gripping it firmly, she pulled it off the perch and tied the letter to its foot. She looked at it sternly, and it was apparent from the owl's expression that it understood its task. It fluttered to the opening in the wall and into the falling darkness.
Suddenly, the door to the Owlery flung open, thunking against the thick stone wall. The woman, her hair flying in all directions and her eyes wild, stood in the doorway. She sighted the girl, narrowed her eyes and advanced on her. Alicia crept back slowly until she was pressed firmly against the cold wall.
"You had better come with me, girl."
Alicia's panic faltered, and her malicious nature began to emerge. "You'll have to catch me first," and she turned and jumped out the window she had earlier thrown the bird out.
Hermione gasped, ran to the window, and cast a charm she had learned in first-year- Wingardium Leviosa- almost without thinking. A very disgruntled girl was halted in her fall mere inches from the ground. She writhed in the air, trying to break the woman's hold on her. Hermione levitated the girl back up to the Owlery window. Alicia spat a spell at her when she was level with the window.
Hermione's surprise at being attacked didn't slow her defence, but it did make her drop the girl again, and she was beginning to get tired when she halted the girl's inertia once again. This time, however, she stunned the girl as soon as she was halted. She changed her charm to mobilicorpus, which was much less draining for moving a human body than wingardium leviosa, and levitated the sultry girl straight to Dumbledore's office.
~*~
It was late afternoon, but Dumbledore was still thinking over the situation. He rested his head on his hand, his elbow uncomfortably pressed against the table that served as his desk. He tried to think what he could possibly do about the tormented woman that was Hermione Granger. Could he possibly give the girl the Defence Against the Dark Arts position? Was she ready? How would she interact with the other teachers?
He was startled from his contemplation by the woman herself, bursting into the room, a stunned blonde Ravenclaw held in front of her by a charm. She sullenly thudded the girl onto the ground, leaning her stiff form against the wall.
"You'd better go and get Snape. I'm ready to make the report right now." She slumped down into a chair, passing a hand over her eyes wearily.
"Right away, dear." Dumbledore looked worriedly at the young woman sitting in the chair and wondered how she had grown so old over the last eleven years. Her eyes were closed and her fatigue was plainly creased along the ridges of her face. Her hair was beginning to grey, far too soon. Dumbledore worried about the girl. Could he afford to take her in? Could he afford to not take her in?
Calling for a house elf to bring Snape, Dumbledore set himself about making Hermione feel comfortable. He pottered around the room until everything was perfect. He made Hermione feel better just for his apparent nonchalance about the manipulative girl leaning against the wall in the corner. She even chuckled slightly when Dumbledore raised his feather duster and dusted the top of the pretty blonde girl's head. He decided it was a marked improvement. The girl-turned-woman relaxed a little into her chair, but tensed up instantly again when the door to the Headmaster's office flew open and collided noisily with the inoffensive wall. A vision of darkness stormed in.
"What is the purpose of calling me away from my work, Albus?" His eyes flickered from Dumbledore to Hermione and finally to the stiff figure leaning uncomfortably against the wall. "Can't it wait?" Severus looked so suddenly terrified that Dumbledore sighed.
"Hermione, I will agree with Severus. I'll keep the girl here. Go and get some sleep. You look worse than Severus usually does. Everything will be ready for the trial in the morning."
Hermione thought about disagreeing, but nodded, suddenly desperate for sleep. She dragged herself to her feet, relinquished her charm as Dumbledore cast his own, and brushed past the disgruntled Potions Master to go to her rooms. She had had enough for a day.
Severus glared at the woman whom he still thought of as the know-it-all of the Harry Potter Brigade as she brushed past him. He turned to Dumbledore, nodded at him and turned to return to his rooms also.
Dumbledore sighed as he thought of the two broken people who had just vacated his rooms as he unseeingly studied the blonde girl. Turning, he marched up his stairs and pushed through the fake wall of his office to his private rooms. He noted Fawkes sitting placidly on his perch, and turned to speak to the bird.
"My dear friend. Would you please look after the girl in the other room? I'm afraid I must sleep. Just keep her stupefied. She will be gone by tomorrow afternoon." Fawkes nodded at his friend and lifted himself off his perch and flew through the solid wall to maintain a vigil over the wily girl.
Dumbledore sat down on the bed to think.
~*~
Hermione stumbled into her rooms, tossed her clothes onto the ground and slid into the warm bed before falling instantly asleep. Her dreams, however, were not all that pleasant. She was caught up in the nightmares again. The memories of all her past cases haunted her dreams, but tonight her nightmares were reserved for the members of her latest case. She was thrust into the world of Severus Snape, the trials and tests he had been put through and the discrimination he had received after he returned to the light. She lived through her school days again, hating every moment of it. She lived through the past few days, feeling every wrenching emotion. She shuddered in her sleep, finally breaking the hold of the memories and sliding deep into the dark realms of unconsciousness where no dreams existed.