When he reached the edge of the forbidden forest, he disappeared into the trees and was gone. She could even hear the crack of his disapparation but she knew that she was imagining that. Except for the occasional glimpse of his dark mark, she didn't really think about his past or his affiliation with Voldemort. He was just Severus Snape, potions master at Hogwarts. He was more than that, of course, but she struggled to see the evil in him that everyone else claimed he wore upon his sleeve.

He had survived hundreds of death eater meetings. There was no reason to think that he would not survive this one. He had just been spoiled, though, staying away for the length of her recovery. She realized that he was going to probably talk about her. What would he say? Would Voldemort be angry that she had survived or pleased that he had cured cancer? Well, he had cured her cancer. He had told her himself that she had a very unique case – that the treatment she received wouldn't have worked on just anyone. That she was strong.

She looked down at the essay in front of her. There was nothing that she could do but to do the things that she needed to and perhaps wait for his return. She buried herself in her essay. When she reached the point where she needed to go to the library to look something up, the sun had set fully and it was only an hour until the library closed and two until curfew. She decided to go for it and when Madame Pince greeted her, she even smiled which was rare for the severe librarian. She swiftly founded what she needed to put the finishing touches on the essay and she realized, upon leaving the library as the clock chimed its closing hour, that perhaps Dumbledore could give her some advice on to handle his departure. After all, Dumbledore had been waiting for Snape for years. She would just see if Dumbledore was in his office, at the very least. The gargoyle was only three floors out of her way and she wasn't doing anything wrong, walking around the castle alone. When she reached the entrance to Dumbledore's office, the gargoyle did nothing but stand stoically guarding. She reached out and touched its cool, metal breast, stroking it as if it were a real creature. She wouldn't bother the headmaster tonight, even if she had known the password to enter in the circular tower office. She started to walk away when the gargoyle moved just enough for Dumbledore to call out,

"Come in, Miss Granger!" She watched, surprised, as the staircase extended itself fully and she stepped on.

"How did you know I was out there?" she asked, stepping into the office.

"Was there something you wished to discuss?" Dumbledore asked, ignoring her question.

"I saw professor Snape leaving the grounds during dinner," she said, for she had learned early on that it was much better to tell the headmaster the truth because he already knew it anyway.

"Ahh, yes, he does that from time to time," he said. "Why don't you sit down and wait with me?" he offered and it was just exactly what she had wanted him to do. "Severus has always given me sparse reports on all of his many projects and his time with you was no exception. May I inquire into how your time was, down there?" he asked, politely.

"It was… horrible, at first," she said. "I don't really remember much. But then, when I started to get better, it was fine," she said. "I never expected being locked in a dungeon with Professor Snape to be comfortable but it was."

"How so?" he prompted.

"Well, I guess I expected him to be bitter about being locked up with a know-it-all Gryffindor but he seemed genuinely concerned about not just my progress but about me. He was very gentle and kind," she said. "He had an interesting library."

"You two remind me of one another," Dumbledore said, calling up a tea service and pouring Hermione a cup. "Oh, not in your looks or anything like that. It's little things, like the way you move your hands or the intonation when you speak. The way that your brains work. He was the smartest boy at Hogwarts when he was a student here, just as you are the cream of the crop, so to speak."

"Thank you," she said, "Any comparison to professor Snape I'll take as a compliment." They drank tea quietly. "What do you do, while you wait?" Hermione asked.

"Me? I pray, Miss Granger," he said.

oooo

She fell asleep in a squishy arm chair in the office and it was dawn when she awoke, hearing voices. She didn't open her eyes right away; she wanted to figure out where she was first. She could hear Dumbledore and remembered his office and the waiting. The other voice filled her with hope. Snape was back!

"Why is she here?" she could hear him say, but he was tired more than upset.

"She paid me the courtesy of waiting up with me," Dumbledore said, fondly. "She adores you, it seems."

Hermione blushed, trying not to cringe, still pretending that she was sleeping. Yet, she was desperate to hear his response.

"Even so," Snape said. "She should be returned to her rooms before I make my report."

"Do you not think she would like to hear what you have to say?" Dumbledore asked. This only confirmed Hermione's suspicions that he had reported to Voldemort about her.

"I'll tell her in time," he said.

"Very well, I'll be here," Dumbledore said, and she could hear the sound of air escaping the cushions of the chair he'd sat down in. She heard footsteps coming towards her and then the feeling of arms slipping beneath her. Snape was picking her up and she instinctively curled into his arms. The arms tightened and lifted. She struggled deciding whether to keep her eyes closed or show Snape that she was, at least a little, awake. She kept them closed while she felt them descending the stairs.

"You can open your eyes," he said. "I know you're awake."

"How did you know?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes a bit as she opened her eyes. He was looking down at her with an amused smirk. She wiggled a bit so he could set her down but he held tight. Well, if he wanted to be chivalrous, she wasn't going to protest.

"You make a little humming sound when you sleep. Little sighs," he said. "You're too quiet when you're faking."

"Noted," she said. "I will improve my lying next time."

"Ha, ha," he said.

"I was worried," she said, all trace of humor gone from her voice.

"Worried?"

"That you wouldn't come back," she clarified. "That you would be ordered to kill me or punished because you didn't."

"Don't be silly, Hermione. You're much too brilliant to be wasted in death," he said. "The dark lord has many plans for you but even he underestimates your wit in thinking he could ever turn you against Potter."

"You're right about that," she said.

"Here we are," he said. The portrait opened for Hermione and he stepped in and walked straight into the bedroom. "Get some real sleep."

"Stay," she asked, already burrowing into her pillow and the nest her blankets created on her unmade bed.

"Hermione… the headmaster is waiting," he said.

"Let him wait," she said. She cleared a space for him. He stared at her, looked out the window where the sun was filling the sky. It wasn't long until the students would start to rise and breakfast would start and then classes. Dumbledore would wait in his office and as soon as Snape didn't come back he would, of course, know. Snape would have to shamefully face him in the evening to make his report and receive and stern, if veiled, warning. He looked at her pretty, heart shaped face and expectant eyes. He took off his cloak, his shoes, his vest, and shirt until he was just in slacks and socks and he climbed into the bed next to her. She slid against him and buried her nose in his neck, inhaling deeply. He smelled like sweat and soil and the air just before summer. He put his arms around her and ran his hand up and down her back.

"This is the last time," he said, though something lodged itself in his throat, trying to stop the words from escaping.

"The last time," she agreed and threw her leg across his hip, pressing and sighing. Her tongue snaked out to taste the skin on his neck, to taste what she smelled. It was salty and sweet and intoxicating.

"Hermione," he gasped. The desire was too great. He pulled her over him like she was a rag doll and pressed his mouth against hers.

Hermione had been kissed once, awkwardly, by a muggle boy when she was fourteen, and again, decently, by Ron Weasley when she was fifteen, but she had never been kissed well, let alone exquisitely. She was a virgin still. All this didn't matter, though, with Snape kissing her. His long fingers wrapped around the back of her neck, holding her in place while his other hand moved to her hip and then her ass, kneading as it went. They kissed and moaned and gasped until, distantly, the breakfast bell sounded. He pushed her away.

"I have to go," he said, trembling, crawling out of her bed and throwing on his various pieces of clothing. "I have to teach," he said. She sat in the bed, disheveled and glassy eyed, her hand pressed to her red and swollen lips. She wanted to say something, but she realized she didn't know what to call him. She thought, at this point, Professor was just as inappropriate as Severus.

"Okay," she said, and she realized that she was shaking too. He looked at her and she looked back, waiting for him to speak, needing just a crumb of reassurance. Instead, he turned around and left without a word. She was shocked and more than a little hurt. It was so hard to tell if he cared at all. She looked down and her shaking hands. Her black slacks were wrinkled and pushed up her legs. Her t-shirt was askew and at some point Snape's hands and made it up her shirt and had unhooked her bra so it hung limply from her shoulders. She pushed her covers aside and went into the bathroom for a cold, cold shower.

oooo

She didn't go to any meals. She stayed in her room working furiously to catch up, leaving only to go to her meetings with teachers. She avoided Harry and Ron. They were pretty much used to her absence anyway and didn't pressure her. They were consumed with their own exams and Qudditch games anyway. She put herself back into quarantine except for this time Snape wasn't anywhere near her.

She ached to see him of course, but he had said that it would be the last time and there was no reason that their make-out session would have changed the rules. They couldn't have a relationship anyway. He was a teacher and she a student, with a full year to go. At least, at this rate, she was way ahead of McGonagall's make-up schedule. She was already half way done with all her work and that was inside a week.

She'd stopped sleeping. She stayed up late into the night, working. She went to her sessions in a zombie-like state. She turned in four or five assignments at a time and flew through her wand work flawlessly and emotionlessly. Her teachers couldn't criticize her work but they were worried all the same. When Thursday came, she sent Wally with her assignments and chose not to attend. She didn't know of anyone who'd blown off Snape's class before. No one ever forgot his detentions or was late to a meeting. Even being in the hospital wing was a shoddy excuse. Even if you had a note from a professor, he still marked you off as a zero for the day.

None of this mattered to Hermione. She would do her work, but she refused to be alone in a room with him. She refused to be in a room with him at all. She wished she could go home for the summer and take to her bed. Harry would never let her rot away in her rooms if she stayed at Hogwarts but her mother had fought depression all of her life and she knew that her mother would let her lay in bed reading books all summer if she wanted to. She tried to bring up images of hateful Snape, the one who ridiculed her and mocked her in front of her peers. She tried to imagine the look of hatred on his face that night in the shrieking shack but all she could manage was the look of him just as he was about to kiss her.

She couldn't do this. She decided to go to Madame Pomfrey and ask for a dreamless sleep potion. Things would look better after she got some sleep. She ran a brush through her hair just to make it lie flat on her head. It was really growing out now and she either had to live through months of an awkward growing out phase or she had to get it cut again. She sighed with frustration. Why did everything have to remind her of Snape? Now she was flooded with images of him with the scissors and the phantom feeling of his fingers against her scalp. She found her shoes and rushed to the infirmary. She told Madame Pomfrey she was feeling a little under the weather and drank her dreamless sleep potion greedily. She shut her eyes and slept.

oooo

"Miss Granger." She felt a hand on her should, shaking gently. She opened her eyes to see headmaster Dumbledore staring down at her. She looked up into his kind, wrinkled face looking at her with genuine concern and she started to cry. "Oh, now," he said and gathered her into his arms. She wept and wept into his scratchy beard and soft purple robes.

"I'm sorry," she said finally, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes were swollen and her cheeks mottled and red. "I'm so sorry."

"Whatever for?" Dumbledore asked, his hands on her shoulders, gazing intensely into her face.

"I didn't go to my session with Professor Snape," she said.

"While I am not in the habit of condoning skipping class, I hardly think it is worth shedding tears over but then again a good cry is nice every now and then," he answered. "But, Miss Granger, I do believe that your tears have something to do with Professor Snape."

"Please don't make me talk about it," she said, her tears beginning anew.

"You can talk about it when you're ready. However, I must insist that you stick to the schedule that Professor McGonagall provided you. No matter what you and Professor Snape have endured together, I insist your professional relationship remain intact. Is that understood?" he said. She knew that he was right. She hated it, but if she was going to stay at Hogwarts for the summer and the year after that, she would need to learn to coexist with him without falling apart.

"I understand," she said. Dumbledore hugged her once more and left. She lay back on the bed. She knew not only would she not be able to skip anymore of her sessions with Snape but she would have to make up the one she didn't attend. Pomfrey soon ushered Hermione out after a thorough talking too about proper rest and nutrition, especially after overcoming a serious illness. She trudged back to her room with a heavy heart.

"Hermione!" Harry's voice called out. She saw him behind her. "I heard that you were sick. I just wanted to make sure you were feeling better."

"I'm okay," she said, smiling for his benefit. "Just tired. Catching up on the time that I missed is harder than I thought it would be," she said. She didn't bother to mention that it was she who was making it hard on herself.

"Well why don't you take a break? We can take a walk around the lake after classes."

"That sounds nice," she said. Harry grinned and gave her a hug.

"I'll come by your room later," he promised and jogged off to class as not to be late. She continued her trek to her room but paused at the staircase. It was Friday morning – Snape had the first class period free. She wanted to get this over with. She entered his classroom without knocking. He was poised at the blackboard, writing his first lesson on the board with a long, white piece of chalk.

"Professor Snape," she said. His shoulders tensed and the chalk uncharacteristically fell from his fingers out of his surprise. He turned around swiftly.

"Hermione," he said. "You didn't come to our meeting yesterday."

"No," she said, "But I was hoping I could make up for it now."

"Frankly I don't think these sessions are necessary. You're nearly done with all of your missed assignments and you can learn theory just as easily from a book as you can from me," he said dismissively.

"I see," she said. "Well, then there is really no reason for us to see each other at all until the beginning of next term," she said, in what she hoped was a cool voice.

"That isn't what I meant. I was trying to pay you a compliment," he said, walking towards her.

"It didn't feel that way," she said. "I don't understand what's happening. You made the quarantine time so comfortable and then, the other morning… was amazing and then you just disappeared like it didn't mean anything and now you tell me you have no reason to see me? What the hell am I supposed to think?"

He looked stricken. "As much as I want nothing more than what you want, there are other considerations I must take into account," he said.

"Considerations?" she asked.

"Like the dark lord. The closer I get to you… to anyone, the more danger you are in," he said. "I won't take that risk."

"What if I will take the risk?" she countered.

"It isn't up to you," he said. "I will send your graded work up to your rooms with Wally." She nodded. There was nothing left to say.