Despite last chapter being a bit short and out of focus, I've decided to leave it how it is, thanks to all your wonderful reviews.

And a big ROAR to Rhiannon!

Also, Velvet Storm, thanks for your concern. Things have just been a little screwy around me at the moment, but I'm sure they'll even out in time :-)

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Chapter Thirty

Eight o'clock Saturday evening found Professor Snape making his weekly rounds of the school grounds, striding across the vast lawns, keeping his eyes peeled for any students who dared to lurk out doors. While the official curfew may not have been until nine o'clock inside the school, no students were to be out on the grounds after the sun set. And seemed that today, students seemed to be taking this rule seriously, for once, for he had not spotted any students out and about. And after so many years at the school, he knew where to look for them.

As he roamed the grounds, his mind wandered off the Gryffindor he had not seen since breakfast that morning. Miss Granger had not attended lunch or dinner, and something about the guilty look on Potter's face told the older man it had something to do with him. Snape could only wonder at what the foolish boy had done this time. Truly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know, he was tired of the games that boy played.

Scowling into the darkness, he made his way to the Quidditch pitch – more then once he had found hormone driven teenagers hiding within the stands. Oh, how please he'd been that night he'd found Mr Weasley groping that Ravenclaw within the shadows – what a perfect excuse for fifty points off and three detentions. However, according to Minerva, the boy could not be expelled just yet; it was his first offence in this cause. How disappointed Snape had been.

However, he was apparently going to have no such luck picking the annoying red head up and tossing him out of the school gates tonight, not a shadow stirred within the pitch or its stands as Snape made his rounds. With a sigh which was a cross between annoyance and relief, he left the pitch, just in time to see a figure creep out of the shadows. He had just found where Hermione Granger had been hiding all day.

"You do realise, don't you, Miss Granger, that you have your own room within the confines of the castle?" he asked, casting his voice softly into the darkness. The creeping figure of the student stood perfectly still.

"I did not see you there, Professor." She murmured, keeping her head to the ground.

Snape smirked at her. "Clearly not," he said, not moving. "So why are you down here in the dark? It is a pity you are Head Girl."

The silence filled them at his horrid remark, and he was almost ashamed of himself for letting it slip. If the girl was out here, once again, it clearly meant that was upset about something. What if it were something to do with him, was it his fault? He tried, unsuccessfully to tell himself that he did not care if it were him causing her discomfort. Finally, as the silence became too much to bare, he asked here again, "Why are you out here?"

She still did not raise her head from the ground. Good, Snape thought, I do not wish to see her tears. "I just had to get away, again, sir, like last time." She suddenly moved her head to look at him. "Why might you be here, Professor?"

"It is none of your business what I do, Miss Granger," he sneered at her, before regretting it as he watched her head drop. He sighed. "That was silly of me. But a stupid question of yours. I am quite clearly doing rounds." He gestured to the darkness around them. "What are you escaping from?"

Much to his surprise, her fists clutched up, and she went stiff. "From them," She whispered. "From all of them."

Before he could register what he was doing, he guided the seething Gryffindor back into the Quidditch stands, and led her up to where he had found her not so long ago, while he flew high above the ground. He lit his wand so they could see, and in the faint light, saw the witch's smile quirk into a shallow smile as he recognised his path.

"You were not at lunch, or dinner." He commented as she sat with her back against one of the support beams.

"I like to think I was hardly missed." Was her reply, making Snape very curious as to what had happened. "Unless of course Harry needed someone to fire his bothersome questions at." The bitterness in this statement made Snape almost take a step back. He watched as she cast a look up at him, her eyes filled with… well, he couldn't describe it.

"I never thought I'd hear the day someone other then myself referred to Potter as 'bothersome', I must say I am surprised to hear it come from a mouth such as yours." He offered her. Her hand waved through the air.

"You know, I thought of all people, Harry would understand." She stood, beginning to pace the small platform. "He and I talked, and he said he understood, that it was Ron who wouldn't understand, Ron would never believe. Oh, of course, Ron doesn't know, he'd scream bloody murder. But Harry…"

Snape put a hand to his forehead. "Miss Granger, I must ask that you made some kind of sense quickly, before I cast a silencing charm on you." He was shocked to say the least when the young woman cast a glare his way.

"Harry saw on his stupid map that I had spent the night in your chambers. I told him when he first got that map that it was bad, that he should hand it in. It's only been of one great use since, more bothersome then anything, yet he still keeps it, using it spy." Ice flooded Snape has he found his idea had been true – Pathetic Potter had looked on his map to find the girl. "And even though I told him, yes, I told him, what you were like when I was ill, now, he doesn't care."

Snape felt both of his eyebrows shoot up at her words – she told Potter what he was like when she was ill. What was he like? He resisted asking her, though he was sorely tempted to. Instead, he asked her, "what does Potter not understand, Miss Granger?"

Her eyes swept to him, and he saw the disbelief in them, and he recognised that look. She'd said too much. "N-nothing, Professor." She stuttered.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger," he informed her quietly. "Answer the question, you are more then willing to answer every other question put to you know-it-all face." Somehow, this time, he couldn't quite manage the sneer that should have accompanied those last five words, and groaned inwardly when he realised that she'd noticed.

"Harry can't understand that I would actually enjoy spending time with you."

Not for the first time tonight, Snape was nearly thrown off his feet as though he was hit by a very strong "Expelliarmus". Yet he stood his ground, staring at the witch. She actually enjoyed spending time with him? Where had the world ended? Gathering his wit, he asked her, "What did that foolish idiot say to you?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "Just said he couldn't understand why I'd chose to spend my evenings studying in your quarters." She snorted. "Not that I have any choice on the matter if I want to continue using your books, sir."

"Miss Granger… Hermione… if you wish to use my books outside my quarters to continue your research and keep at peace with your friends… then I allow you." He muttered, thinking of the silent vow he had made to himself, to help her from the path of Darkness by keeping her from any embarrassment.

Her eyes widened with shock and he watched her head twist around quickly to look at him when he spoke those words. "Professor?" She asked. He allowed his eyes to meet her brown ones, lit only by the faint light from the wand he was holding, the darkness closing in on them from every other side in the cool spring night. "I do not wish to remove your books from your rooms. I… I enjoy studying there." Her lips curved up into a smile. "It's better than the common room, with no students running around screaming, and it's better than the library, since Madam Pince's shoes are still squeaking, even after seven years." She offered him a bitter smile.

"Well, that certainly is interesting," he muttered, half to himself. "Very well, you may continue to study of an evening in my chambers, if you are sure." He gave her a slight bow.

Silence fell over them again as Miss Granger sat down, giving him a clear indicator that she was not ready to leave yet. "It's also that I'd hoped Harry would be… well… more welcome to you." She shook her head. "We know, now, we all know, it's hard not to, we know what happened." Her voice fell to a quiet whisper. "Why would you have been put through that if you were not who… he thought you were?"

Snape stood behind her. It did not take the Gryffindor brains to figure out what she was talking about, and frankly, he was quite shocked about her bringing up the subject. Why would the Dark Lord have kept him quite literally under his spell if he was not what Albus Dumbledore had always seen him as – someone to be trusted. He stiffened up, thinking of this. It was hardly something to be discussing with a student, and every part of his body told him to turn around and walk away, leave the witch the darkness, in more ways then one. But somehow, no matter how hard he tried, he could not bring himself to leave her here.

"Potter will never be welcomed by me, and I would never expect him to be welcoming to me." He snorted. "You expect everything to just fall into place after seven years of hatred, Miss Granger?"

"Oh, I don't know, sir," she hung her head, her legs dangling over the edge of the small platform, her back to her. "It just doesn't seem fair."

"Nothing is fair, Miss Granger." He even cringed at the soft tones he had let slip through in those words.

"No… nothing is fair…" she agreed quietly in a defeated tone.

"Silly witch." He chided her gently, moving to sit beside her before he could stop himself. "You fight against the Darkest wizard of all time, then expect that everyone who is left behind to treat each other wonderfully? Oh, no, Miss Granger, the world is not so… kind." He fell silent for a moment, thinking of what he could possibly say. "I won't deny it, I have an immense disliking for your war hero Potter. He is his father's son, everyone says it, you know they do. And I for one, experiencing Potter Senior in my younger days, am inclined to agree, even if it is in a different light to that which they see him."

"He's not a war hero…" Hermione whispered, and he noticed a tear spill down her cheek. "He doesn't want to be, he's not. Fawkes is the hero, he says."

Snape shook his head. Potter – be modest? "Well, he is more of a war hero then I, as much as it pains me to say." A slight movement told him the Gryffindor had just cast a look in his direction. She seemed at loss for words. "I do not pretend to dislike this fact, either, Miss Granger." He smirked.

"It wasn't your fault, you weren't to know. You were sent there." She whispered.

Unbidden, the images of Snape's last full memory before awakening not even a year before. Images of Albus Dumbledore telling him what to do, where to go, what to say. How miserably it had all failed.

Pushing those images out of his mind, he told her gruffly, "I do not remember the war, nor do I wish to. I know what I did – what he made me do, and whom he made me to do it." He said it in a way that Hermione was clear that he was no longer talking about Albus Dumbledore. "I know it, Miss Granger, yes, but I refuse to remember it." He hoped his blunt tone would tell her that the conversation was over.

Silence commenced again for a while before Miss Granger spoke again. "Professor, may I please ask you a question?"

He turned to look at her. "I would say no, but I don't believe that word has ever stopped you before." He was granted with the briefest of smiles.

"Why did you want to teacher Defence Against the Dark Arts so badly?"

He chose to ponder the question for awhile, though he truly pondered why she would be asking such a question. Finally, touching his lips with one finger, he spoke. "I was a Death Eater, Miss Granger, as you well know." He kept his voice level, though it threatened to crack. "I knew the power that the Dark Lord possessed, I was beginning to understand the ways in which he worked at the time he fell. You know, do you not, that I began teaching here at Hogwarts a year after his downfall?" He did not wait for a nod. "While I've always…. For lack of better word, loved, Potions, I desired to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at this school because who better to teach students how to defend themselves then someone who once had to, and most likely, would again?" He allowed himself a smile at her. "I taught myself so many ways to fight the Dark side Miss Granger, I wanted to pass that one. Yet year after year, Dumbledore passed the job onto fool after fool."

"You taught it last year." Miss Granger whispered. "Why did you not return to it this year? I heard Professor Slughorn was willing to stay on as Potions Master."

Snape shook his head. "I wanted to continue as I had. Besides, as you may have gathered during your first year, Potions is my calling. I just wanted to help, Miss Granger." He was startled with himself making this frank admission to her, but she took it in her stride. As another silence fell over them, he found he had a question to ask her. "However, in my absence, I reviewed your class's work… and I must ask, how did Potter manage to keep his work at such a level? I've always thought Slughorn was an easy prick, did he allow you to help him every lesson?"

He watched with great interest as she stiffened again. "No… he had help, but not from me. I didn't talk to him for quite some time in Potions last year…"

"Then whom did he receive help from?"

Curiously, she took a great breath and let it out before turning to meet his eyes in the pale wand light. "From the Half-Blood Prince."

Before he could help himself, Snape blanched. He was the Half-Blood Prince, a nick name he had fashioned for himself after his mother and his breeding. "H-how?" He stuttered.

Miss Granger hesitated. "In the Potions class room, Slughorn found an old text book and gave it to Harry to use because he didn't have his own… It belonged to the "Half-Blood Prince – it was yours."

Snape did not even bother to question how she knew it was his, fury ran like fire through his flames until it was all consuming. His breath came quickly and again his nails dug into the wood beneath him. "Potter. Has. Something. Of. MINE!" He muttered. "That was my book!" The guilty look in her eyes made him stop before he strode up to the school and forcible extracted the book from Harry's hand, whether he had to kill the boy in the meantime. He did not want that boy touching his things.

"Well, no, sir, Harry doesn't have your book," she whispered, her eyes wide with fright. "He got rid of it last year."

"Then where is it, I want it returned to me immediately!" He growled. "Have you any idea just what is in that book? Tell me, where is it?"

She ducked her head, a curtain of hair falling across her face. "I have it."

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I hope that all made sense!

I had to do that. I don't know why. It just came to me while I was at work tonight… was scribbling ideas all over the back of dockets and eft slips all night, lol. Hope you like it.

Wonder what he'll do now!

Hope you liked this chapter. You'll be doing some wondering for a few nights, probably, because as usual I probably won't have a chance to post tomorrow, and I'll be out of town at the Bands Festival Saturday night. I can't wait!

Have a good weekend everyone, and REVIEW! LOL I love reviews, you are all so wonderful (I'm not in a talkative mood tonight, I swear!)