They sat in her rooms, the three old companions, trying to remember how to talk to each other. Hermione wandered restlessly, examining the strange objects Anne had brought to decorate her room. She picked up a small silver box, crusted with filigreed roses and peacock feathers. Anne smiled affectionately at her friend's curiosity.

"That's a scribe's kit. Here, let me show you. I think you'll like it." Anne set the small box on the table and lifted the hinged lid. An amazing number of things were packed inside, each in its own compartment; she laid out the inkstone, tiny water bottle, quill knife, blotting cloth, and a few scraps of parchment sized to fit into the falcon's leg cases. She cut a new quill, rubbed a drop of water into the inkstone with the side, and poured letters onto a scrap of parchment.

Hermione was entranced. Anne's hand flowed across the fragment from right to left, laying down a ribbon of intricately twisting lines and marks. She blotted it briefly with the cloth and held it out to Hermione. The scrap glowed faintly, a pale green smudge almost the color of Anne's eyes.

Hermione turned it over. "What is it?"

"Just a protective charm I learned from an old Bedouin woman. Keep it in your pocket, if you remember. It's good for scholars and travelers." She turned to Ron, who was busily trying to seduce Nejat off the curtain rail. She rummaged in a glass box by the window and handed him a tiny green tree frog.

"Here. You'll have more luck with this. Falcons pretty much think with their stomachs when it comes to making friends." She smiled again as the bird dropped off the rail onto Ron's wrist and nibbled delicately at the frog. She showed him the special spot above the bird's beak, and left him cooing softly to the bird. With a deep sigh, she settled herself into an embroidered chair close to the fire. She coughed, a thick sound that bothered Hermione.

"How have you been, Anne?" Hermione's face was lined with worry.

"Mostly all right, I suppose." She looked around the room, drinking in the unfamiliar furnishings and decor. "Is it always so cold? I don't remember England being this cold in the summer."

"Anne, are you sure you don't want to see Madame Pomphrey? I mean, it's sweltering in here, and you look like you're freezing to death. Are you sick?" Hermione fretted about her, as always. She pushed her friend away as gently as she could.

"No, no. I'm not sick. I'm just not used to the climate anymore. It's a hundred and six in Turkey right now. One gets used to the desert, I suppose."

Ron plopped onto the floor in front of Hermione. "You were in Turkey? What were you doing? Was it for the war? No one ever told us, Anne. What were you doing in the desert? Which desert?"

She studied their faces. She was torn between telling them everything, and keeping her secrets until she knew they were ready to hear. At last she sighed and began to speak.

"I joined the Ministry right after H– right after my last visit here. They put me through a special training program in Edinburgh, taught me languages, history, culture, politics, defense...I was particularly gifted in Arabic. That's what made them want me to go to the Middle East." She paused as Ron gasped out loud. She smiled, a grim twitch of her mouth.

"Ron knows what I'm going to say, don't you Ron? I suppose you can't work for the Ministry and not know a little something about Silent Storm." Ron nodded, turning shocked eyes to Hermione.

"Ron? What is it? What is she talking about?" Hermione wished, for the first time, that she had been privy to this sort of activity during the war. She'd been glad to be at Hogwarts, but now she felt woefully excluded.

He shook his head in disbelief. "Silent Storm. I don't know much, mind you, they were incredibly secretive about it 'round the office, but I remember Percy saying something about counterintelligence and assassinations..." He stared at Anne. Surely not her?

Anne continued the explanation. "Hermione, Silent Storm was– is– a special task force designed to monitor and, to an extent, control the Dark's influence on Muggle affairs. Basically, we put magical people in strategic positions close to key political figures so we can...negate...some of the influence."

Hermione was stunned. The last Dumbledore told me, she was thinking, she worked for the Ministry in some minor clerical role in Europe. Anne turned frosty green eyes to her friend's face.

"Dumbledore kept secrets for us for years." Anne grinned at her gasp of surprise. "That's a little talent I picked up a few years ago. It comes in handy when you're manipulating government officials." She snuggled down into her chair and wrapped her hands around a mug of hot, milky tea. She desperately wanted some of the thick bitter coffee she drank in Turkey. She coughed again, a thick, liquid rumbling deep in her chest, then cleared her throat as best she could.

"One strategically placed person could possibly prevent our war from leaking over into their world, or worse. There are a lot of borderline-crazy Muggles out there, 'Mione, just looking for any excuse to start another war. So, we meddled in politics and people's lives, manipulated, plotted, schemed...sometimes we even made people disappear. All in the name of preserving people who don't even know we exist."

Her face became terribly grim. "I don't know if you know this, but Edinburgh has a Ministry training center for magical people. The Ministry recruited me almost as soon as my second term classes started. They put me through the training center. I studied fourteen hours a day for two years, and when I got out, they sent me to Turkey. I spent five years meddling in Middle Eastern politics. Things got exciting during the war; the Dark likes to work on religious extremists since they're easier to persuade than the average cynic. We had a few very quiet, intense battles here and there, lost a few people, and then the war was over. I was just starting to wonder if I wanted to continue on when I got the letter from Dumbledore." She paused to take a long drink of tea, letting her hair fell like a curtain across her face.

She could feel Hermione watching her intently. Anne knew that Hermione noticed that she kept the left side of her face covered with hair when her veil was off, and that she always sat turned away from them on that side. Hermione's gaze traveled to her lap; Anne tucked her left hand deeper inside the loose robe she wore.

"Don't ask me now, 'Mione. It's too recent still." She turned her face to the fire and closed her eyes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He stood outside the gate to his old school, waiting. Memories of the war mingled with memories of school friends and Quidditch matches, blending into a confusing mess inside his head. He no longer knew which memories were new and which were old.

Dumbledore met him outside the gate. The deep mask of care that lay over the boy's face worried the old man; the green eyes clouded with anxiety and fatigue, exhaustion screaming in his slouching walk. He laid a hand on Harry's shoulder and Apparated them both into his own office.

"Harry. I am so glad you came. We have been expecting you, my boy."

Harry nodded, still dazed. He was only recently back from the worst of the fighting in the States; he had joined the regiments scouring the Rockies for the last traces of Voldemort's supporters. The fighting had been fierce and ugly to the end. Then the owl had come, summoning him back to the only home he had ever known, and he had come blindly, wanting only to escape.

"The others?" His voice, still sweet and warm, now sounded lifeless. Dumbledore patted him on the shoulder.

"Mr. Weasley has agreed to take on the Charms position. Miss Granger has filled Professor McGonagall's position for three years now." Dumbledore hesitated, debating the effects of his next few sentences. "Professors Snape and Flitwick are still with us. The other new professor is filling the Muggle Studies seat."

Harry was curious. That position had always been filled by one of the other professors before. "Who is it?"

"I believe you will find that it is someone of whom you have often thought, these last few years." Harry was too tired to puzzle over Dumbledore's cryptic remark. Dumbledore lifted the boy's bag to his shoulder and escorted him to his chambers. Once Harry was settled, Dumbledore retraced his steps to Anne's door and knocked. It was high time he and Miss Llewellyn had a chat.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~Anne~

Hermione and Ron had slipped out when Dumbledore entered my rooms. I almost wished they had stayed; I felt loose, disconnected from the world. His announcement fell on me like a collapsing mountain.

I was silent. Dumbledore scanned my face for signs of reaction. I forced myself to speak finally, my voice rasping in my throat.

"Harry's here? He's– he's still alive, then?" Dumbledore assented. "Where is he?"

"He's resting now. He needs to recover his strength. He's not well– the war was...unusually hard on him." My sardonic laugh cut him off.

"The war was hard on everyone, Albus. No one escaped unscarred." My right hand covered the hidden left one protectively. "Some of us gave far more than we ever expected."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dumbledore touched her shoulder. She had changed so much from the girl he had known. She still affected Turkish dress, saying that she felt unclothed without the layers of veiling and black kohl she had worn for the last six years. She was harder, angrier, more bitter and brittle than he ever expected. He rose to leave, patting her shoulder.

"Try to be gentle with one another, Anne."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~Anne~

I stormed about my chamber, cursing in Arabic. I tripped over a book Hermione had left and kicked it viciously away. Nejat, startled, shrieked and fled to the curtain rail. Finally, I could stand the small room no longer and slammed out of my chambers. I stalked through halls, veiling rustling about me, fairly crackling in anger. The moonlight washed in through the high windows, throwing my face, glimpsed in passing mirrors, into sharp negative relief.

I rounded a corner and ran full-length into another dark figure. I rebounded off a solid form and sprawled on the floor amid a torrent of my own cursing. I glared up at the inky figure, standing impassively over me. He crossed his arms and waited, his very posture screaming disdain at me. I dusted my hands, checking for bruises, and then cocked an eyebrow at him.

"The least you could do, Professor, is help me up."

"Forgive me, Miss Llewellyn. I was under the impression that you did not wish my further assistance." Snape extended a pale hand to me. He scrutinized my face. "May I ask why you are out and about at this...unholy... hour of the night? A bout of insomnia, perhaps? Surely there are better times to tour the school."

"Do you have a moment, sir? I.... I need a familiar face just now."

He gestured for me to follow him into his chambers. I trailed behind him hesitantly. Although we were now, ostensibly, colleagues, I felt a certain thrill of the forbidden when entering his rooms. He pointed to a chair near the fireplace. I poured myself into the surprisingly comfortable chair, wrapping my too-thin robes tightly around me, shivering, wishing I had fetched my woolen djellabah on my way out of the room. Snape muttered a word, snapped his fingers, and a fire roared up in the fireplace. I smiled gratefully at him.

"Now, Miss—forgive me— Professor Llewellyn. How may I be of service to you?"

I regarded his inky black eyes. "I think I made a mistake, sir."

He waved irritably. "If you're going to unburden your soul, Professor, the least you could do to ease my misery would be to call me by my name. What mistake do you imagine you have made?"

I nodded and continued. "I shouldn't have come back here, Severus."

"Ah, I see our dear Headmaster has informed you of Mr. Potter's arrival. I would have expected you to be pleased, Professor Llewellyn. As I recall, you and Potter were quite close. Once." His eyes narrowed, calculating.

"Were being the operative phrase, Severus. I haven't heard from him, not one word, in years." I leaned back into my chair. "And please. Since we're extending courtesies, I'd prefer you call me Anne. I'm not used to the Professor yet."

"Well, Anne. It would seem that an opportunity for reconciliation is at hand. You should be overjoyed."

He still quite enjoyed needling me, I could tell. We had sparred often, my last year of school, a fact that had never ceased to amaze my friends. Ron, particularly, expected me to be poisoned or turned into something unnatural at any moment.

My lips pressed into a thin line. "He left me, Severus. He went off to live his life and sent me home like a child who'd been naughty." My fists clenched. "I wanted to go with him and be of use, not sit at home and count bandages and wait. He doesn't deserve to be forgiven."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Snape could feel the hot edge of her fury bubbling up under that chilly exterior. He realized that she was fully capable of leaving this room and murdering Potter in his sleep– he'd followed her activities in Turkey far too closely to trust her anger. He tried another tack.

 "Why did you come back, Anne? You had to know he would be summoned. Why didn't you return to your studies? Take up music again; I seem to remember that you were quite gifted, once. Find a nice wizard, settle down, have little witches and wizards? Why come back here?" His sneering voice cut to her bones; anger roared in her head, wiping out rational thought. She flowed, trembling, to her feet.

"Why did I come back, Severus? That's an unworthy question. Where else could I go? I lost everything in the wars. The Ministry took my life, that bomb in Ankara took half my hand and my face, my voice –well, you can hear that for yourself–and the war took Harry. What else was left?"

Her voice shivered and broke against his cold stare. She hung for a moment, quivering in fury, as a single tear slid down her cheek. She didn't touch it, merely swept her hair against her cheek and let the tears fall.

Snape stood before her, letting her weep silently. He was not good in these situations. He knew he should say something comforting, but his years of solitude had rendered him incapable of the correct words. At the same time, he felt an urge to do...something. He touched her arm awkwardly.

"Perhaps I should escort you to you rooms, Anne."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~Anne~

Back in my rooms, I sat and stared at the fire. I absently cradled my crippled left hand, gingerly probing the long scar that lay along the outside of my hand. I flexed the fingers, feeling the damaged muscles strain and resist the motion. I clucked gently to Nejat, who was still ruffled and upset from my earlier tirade. I tried to tempt her to me with a small frog, but she only danced across the rail, chittering. I couldn't blame her. I didn't like me very much when I was angry either.

"Dumbledore told me you were here." I whipped around, Summoning a wand into my right hand. I gaped at the tall figure in the shadows by the window. His hair was long now, a tangle of inky strands swept back into a shoulder length tail in a failing attempt to conquer its natural wildness. He still wore the round, steel framed glasses that made his grassy eyes stand out from his pale face. He looked tired to me, dark circles under his eyes and a haunted, haggard look about his mouth.

"Don't do that. You could get killed, sneaking around the wrong places. How did you get in here?" My voice shook him; it was no longer liquid and melodic the way he would remember. Instead, it was a harsh, raucous, grating noise that rasped out of me like a raven's call. I wonder if she ever sings anymore, his thought was plain on his face. He had always loved my singing.

"Simple, really. Muggle skeleton keys are quite useful." Harry stepped into the firelight. He gestured warily at the wand in my hand. "Umm, could you put that down? You're kind of scary right now."

I laid the wand on a small table, still within reach. I watched him approach me, panic building in my stomach. I turned away quickly and stepped around an armchair.

"Would you like to sit down? I think there's some tea– do you want some?" He nodded as he sank gracefully into the chair. I piddled about with the tea things, finally coming to settle in another chair close to his. He watched me pour. His gaze was probing; it made me deeply uncomfortable in ways I didn't like.

Nejat swooped to the arm of my chair, protective of me around strangers. She twitched her head from side to side, examining him with one eye, then the other. Harry tracked her as she bobbed nervously along the arm of the chair.

"Am I upsetting him?"

"Her. She's shy of strangers, especially since we came back to England. She doesn't know this place, so it makes her anxious. I'll have to keep her away from the owls for a while." I rubbed the spot above her beak, coaxed her to take a treat from my fingers.

"What kind of bird is she? Some kind of hawk?" Birds fascinated Harry, still.

"She's a falcon, actually. A black kite. Fairly common in the Middle East and Africa, but I think you can really only see them in the zoos here. Her name's Nejat." We fell silent, the conversation dropping like a stone into the heat of the room.

"What happened to your hand?" I stiffened, pulling it back into my sleeve. I glanced at him, saw curiosity and concern in his face. I debated telling him, then sighed. I never could keep secrets from him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"It was a mistake. We were supposed to be gathering information about an extremist group that was trying to buy nuclear technology from Pakistan. According to our sources, a certain religious leader that we believed to be under Voldemort's influence was going to be visiting the area and planned to meet with this group. Our orders were to infiltrate the group and assassinate the imam before the purchase was completed–without him, the sellers wouldn't deal." She stopped. Harry could see her visibly struggle to find words.

"Someone leaked. That's the only way they could have known we were there. I was supposed to take a bottle of wine to the imam's room, disguised as a.... companion. The plan was to kill him and Apparate the body elsewhere so that no trace would be found." She stopped again.

"But something went wrong," Harry prompted. She nodded, her hair dancing in the mellow light.

"I was on the elevator. For some reason, I got a strange feeling that something was wrong. I had the bottle of wine in my hand, and I remember holding it up to the light and seeing...something... inside the bottle. I barely managed to turn away before it exploded. We found out later that the bottle was filled with nails and just enough explosives to create shrapnel. If the others hadn't yanked me out of there, I would have gone to Voldemort—they didn't intend to kill the traitors, you see. Just mark them for later. I was in the hospital for weeks. I missed the end of the war by days."

She stared off into space. Harry set his cup and saucer down and knelt in front of her chair. He grasped her left wrist and drew her hand out of her sleeves. She tried to fight him; he was startled by her wiry strength but eventually wrestled her hand free of the entangling fabric. He drew a sharp breath.

Her pinkie finger had been removed, along with the bone down to the wrist. Her remaining fingers were gnarled with scar tissue, crisscrossed with white and red furrows. A long, angry scar ran down the entire length of her hand, ending three inches above the wrist. He stroked the damaged limb and stared up at her face. She twitched her head away from him, trying to hide the left side. He reached up with his free hand and scooped her copper hair off her face. He nearly wept.

The left side of her face was just as scarred as her hand. Her eye was mercifully, miraculously undamaged save for a webbing of scars around the outer corner. Her cheek was bisected by a jagged scar that started below her cheekbone and ripped through the corner of her mouth. The rest of her lower cheek and jaw were bird-tracked with stitch marks, a patchwork of scars that extended down her throat and disappeared into the neckline of her robes.. He touched her face with a trembling hand. She jerked away from him.

"Anne. I'm so sorry I left you, Anne. I thought I didn't have a choice." His voice was soft and compelling. She tried again to pull her hand out of his grasp.

"I thought you were dead. All the Ministry would tell me was that you disappeared. That's why I joined, Harry. That's why I signed up for Silent Storm. I didn't have any reason not to. I didn't want to come back at all." She blurted out her confession to his stunned face. He froze, staring at her.

"They let you think I was dead?" He couldn't seem to catch his breath. He imagined her, getting that news. How she must have felt. He dragged her into his arms and buried his face in her spicy hair the way he had before the war.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~Anne~

I hated the look on his face, when he finally saw my face. I knew that look too well; Gram had worn that look for weeks after I came back. I had been only too glad to wrap myself in my Muslim veils again, if only to escape the prying and pitying eyes everywhere I went.

I could feel Harry trembling against my shoulder, a deep shuddering that also shook me. I stroked his hair, wondering if we could just begin again like this, if we could erase the years of separation and anger as easily as a child destroys a sand castle. Even if we could, did I want to?