Chapter 1
Sitting on the Hogwarts Express, Hermione rested her chin on her hand and stared out the window. The carriage was quiet as Harry, Ron, and Ginny were currently napping, lulled to sleep by the dull vibrations of the train. In their sleep, Ginny, who was sitting next to Harry, had leaned over so that her head was resting on his shoulder, and Harry, in turn was resting his head protectively on hers. Ron was by her side, and at one point had been leaning towards, but a particularly nasty bump on the tracks had repositioned him so that he was now leaning against the wall opposite her and snoring slightly with his mouth agape. Not that she minded.
While she was just as exhausted as the other three, there were too many thoughts floating through her head, and she hadn't had enough time to herself these last few days to thoroughly process them. Every morning since that night she had woken up with a dull, leaden feeling in the depths of her soul. And every morning she would once again realize that yes, Dumbledore was truly dead, and Snape had been the one to kill him. Although it seemed much easier for Harry and Ron to accept the latter, for her, it was just as hard as the former. There were few constants in Hermione Granger's life, but for the last five years, one of them had been that Professor Snape, the greasy bastard, was one of the good guys. He had proven it when he had risked his reputation and shown the former Minister of Magic his Dark Mark. He had proven it a year before that when he had risked his own life by protecting them from Remus in werewolf form, even though she had just earlier that night cast the stunning spell on him. But most important of all, he had somehow proven his redemption to Dumbledore.
And that was what was plaguing Hermione's mind. What was it that Snape had done or said to have so fooled Dumbledore into believing in him so implicitly? How could such a great man have been so mistaken? And, her pride asked herself subconsciously, how could she have been so deceived?
There was another part of her—a part that she kept well hidden from Harry—that still fostered a glimmer of hope that both men had not been truly lost. A hope that perhaps one of them had been a Polyjuiced imposter. Or that Snape had been under the Imperius curse. Or that there was still some plot that the two of them had figured out that would account for this great rip in her reality. But being the practical girl that she was, Hermione suppressed those ideas, for now.
While she continued to stare out into the foggy landscape that blurred past her, her free hand had strayed to her book bag, and she was idly tracing the outline of the newest collection to her library. A loud snore from Ron jolted her out of her reverie and also drew her attention to what she was doing. The book, his book. So far it was her only possible lead to the mystery of the triple agent.
After double-checking that the other three were still safely ensconced in sleep's sweet embrace, she carefully and silently eased the textbook out of her bag. How ironic that the self-named "Half-Blood Prince", whom Harry had defended so vehemently, would turn out to be Snape. She really should have been able to figure it out earlier. Who else would have been able to deduce all those tips to producing perfect potions? Or for that matter, been able to create those sinister hexes and curses?
Since she had never had the chance before to peruse it at leisure before, she now took the time to pore over the pages. After just a few, she was able to see just what a genius Severus Snape had been at seventeen. While she was slightly irked that he had been better than she currently was at Potions, she could not help but respect him. Clever, yet evil, she reminded herself.
Towards the end of the book, she noticed one page that looked different from the others. While the previous pages had been crammed with the black-inked notations, there were areas of the parchment here that were clear of any writing. Her pulse quickened as she reached for her wand. She remembered that Specialis Revelio had produced no results but that had been cast on the book as a whole to see if it was anything more than just a book. The spell she would cast now would reveal anything written in invisible ink. With three quick taps and a quietly whispered, "Aparecium," the words that she suspected would be there appeared. What she didn't expect, though, was that they would be in a different handwriting.
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Author's Notes:
Sorry, another short chapter. But isn't it much more fun to end with a little cliffhanger?
And no beta as of yet (any volunteers?), so please let me know if there are any errors or if something doesn't make sense. Hopefully I'm not stretching the characters too far.
A great big thanks for all the reviews so far. Just to forewarn those who are HG/SS shippers (of which I count myself as one of), it's probably going to take a while for anything romantic to start up between those two. Heck, it's probably going to be a while until we even see our favorite professor again. And before that happens, I have a feeling something else is going be revealed…but I don't think it will be that surprising to anyone who's paid attention to Slughorn's sycophantic praises and some of JKR's comments about the seventh book.
Oh yeah, and I've made a few slight changes to the prologues since I first published them, so you might want to reread it just in case you read one of the previous versions.
For more thoughts, and before the author's notes become longer than the chapter itself, please check out my LJ (link found on my profile page).
