A/N: Thanks to my reviewers; declarations of adoration are always appreciated ^_~

Chapter 29

Jeremy sat at the table with the book from the restricted section (Finally, he muttered, much longer and I wouldn't have any ground to work from) and the lights working properly.

"You can call me back if you want a different book, Jeremy." Madam Pince nodded at him, then returned to her own desk. Jeremy hardly noticed.

Anyone looking at him would have been astonished and disgusted. He was reading an interestingly titled book, 'Rites of Passage', which was bound in what appeared to be leather. At closer inspection, however one would have noted that it was leather made from human skin. The pages inside were vellum, and of the highest quality. The writing writhed on the pages, and was an interesting rust colour. A potions expert would have detailed it as enchanted blood. A powerful book, from ages past, when the Dark Arts were still accepted as small, provincial rites. It had been a long time ago, yet the leather didn't crack, the writing didn't fade. It had been tenderly looked after.

Inside, the contents were less than pleasant. There were details of many rites, mostly pertaining to passage between realms. Hence the title. But there was one item in the book that kept Jeremy fascinated.

'One can restore a soul to a body,' it read, 'if one has the means to do so.' And from there it went on to tell how to do so.

Jeremy thought that all his Christmases had come at once. Of course, he had little practice in the area of soul magic, and thus forgot to look at the exact wording of the passages. The rite he was hoping to perform, far from returning his parents' souls to their bodies, would instead restore a lost soul to its body.

Yet, Jeremy read on, drinking in the information that he believed would bring his parents back from the brink; unknowingly researching something that would drive them further away.

~*~

Hermione Granger waddled into the hospital, fitting her disguise around herself.

"Hello, madam. Is there some way I can help you?" the polite voice came from the desk. The pretty girl who sat there smiled up comfortingly. Hermione braced herself.

"Yes, I'm here to see my sister. She was brought here from her home, I believe. She would have been taken into emergency. She never carries any id, I'm afraid." Hermione shrugged apologetically. The girl was typing things into the computer. The wonders of the Muggle world that I'll never be able to fully recapture, Hermione mourned silently, wishing that there were some way to make technology work in conjunction with magic.

"Here we are- your sister is in East wing, third floor, room twenty eight." She smiled.

"Thankyou; East wing, third floor, room twenty eight," Hermione repeated back to the lady. She nodded, and replied that she was happy to help. Hermione made her way to the elevator.

~*~

"Draco!" Adrienne caught up with the man after jogging the remaining metres to him.

"Yes?" he replied, amused.

"I want to talk to you about Lianna." Draco's face became a little softer, then more solemn.

"What about her?" he asked, narrowing his eyes and running his hand through his hair.

"I want you to keep teaching her about soul-magic. She was floating around by herself yesterday afternoon, and I'm not sure if she's got the skills to keep herself safe. I don't want you to just open the door then let her go through." Adrienne stopped herself, although her mind continued to list off things that she wanted to say about her fears for her sister. She quieted her thoughts, allowing the words Draco were speaking through.

"She was?" he appeared startled, his eyes going wide. "It's good that you brought this to my attention, Adrienne. I will go and speak to her at once."

Adrienne's shoulders slumped from the weight removed from them. "Good." Draco turned and hurried off, his irritatingly blond hair glistening in the sunlight whenever it had the chance.

"What now?" she asked herself. A startling revelation came to her. She didn't know.

~*~

Snape nearly ruined the potion he was working on due to the knock on his door. Who would come and irritate me at this point in time? Haven't I intimidated enough people for them to know to leave me alone? He hastily cast a hesitation charm over the pot and went to answer his door, inwardly fuming.

His anger drained away, however, when he opened the door to see his daughter standing before him, looking abashed.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, and avoiding any title, "but I really need to do something to keep my mind occupied. Would you mind if I made a few things?" She kept her gaze lowered and averted; Snape was entirely unsure as to what to make of her. After a few moments of silence, he stepped back and waved her in.

"Not at all," he mumbled, hating that he couldn't turn his sarcasm on her and avoid his conscience. Snape went back to his potion and finished it quickly, hardly noticing what Adrienne did. When he did pick his head up from bottling his potion, he noted that the girl was picking ingredients almost at random and setting them down on her workbench. She had set her titanium cauldron on a low flame. Snape picked up his syllabus and pretended to go over it, all the while watching what Adrienne did.

And watching, he was astounded. He had known, in his classes, that she had an intuition for this magic that he hadn't seen for decades, if ever, yet to watch her work with no restraints was like watching art. She barely paused in her movements. She sliced ingredients, ground herbs in her pestle and mortar, cooked and stirred and heated to perfection. At some point in time, Snape became aware that he had put down his syllabus and was staring in admiration. She never looked up at him.

Hours must have passed, yet Snape didn't feel a single one. When Adrienne finished, she bottled the potion, and labelled it in her clear script; placed in on the table in front of Snape. He picked up the bottle to read the label. "Dreamserum?" Snape asked, looking at the colour and consistency of the potion. "That's a very hard potion to make." Yet, she's made it perfectly, without any instructions, he said silently to himself. He looked up at Adrienne, only to find that she wasn't standing in front of his desk, as he had expected her to be. Instead, she was in the back corner of the classroom, her arms covered in suds, cleaning her cauldron. He shook his head in amazement.

"Adrienne," he called, loud enough for her to hear over the running water. She turned her dark eyes to look at him, without saying a word. Her face was pale, but her mouth set in a determined line. "Any time you want to make a potion, you're welcome." He watched with some small amusement as her eyes widened at this unexpected turn of events, then saw her smile.

"Thanks," she replied, before turning back to her sudsy sink. Snape shook his head again, put his syllabus away, tidied a few things, and escorted his daughter to dinner.

"Did we miss lunch?" she asked, bemused.

"I think so," he replied, glancing at the dark sky outside. "Or we missed dinner as well."