Anything from the books isn't mine…

Thanks so much for the reviews, particularly the advice from Droxy, I really appreciate it, I hope you enjoy this long, strange, trip that continues with:

Chapter 5

"When he kill… when he went undercover we did a lot of research on him. Or I did, that was my job, that and potions for the Order. I know the facts. I know that she was murdered by her husband. Snape's father." Hermione was ashamed of herself.

Emotions were very raw immediately following Dumbledore's death and she had volunteered to examine the evidence left by Snape and Dumbledore. As much as she loved Harry she did not trust him to give Snape the benefit of the doubt and wanted to be sure that no stone was unturned, a fitting analogy for her time spent in the dungeons uncovering what little she could find to "explain Snape". She had always defended him from the other two, mostly out of respect for his position as teacher and in later years for her respect for his knowledge and what she had learned from him. She had moved into Snape's rooms and private lab when she took over brewing potions for the Order. She had looked through his books, his notes, his desk and his bathroom drawers but she kept an emotional distance, not wanting to empathize with him. It was shame for her previous lack of feeling that she suffered now.

"I don't know the details of what happened to her, perhaps you know more, Hermione, but I know that she was so unhappy that she began to lose her magical powers and when her relationship with her husband began to fail she didn't have the strength or the will to leave. Her husband killed her in a rage. And Severus witnessed the event when he was just a small child."

Hermione nodded. She had learned as much from the magical and muggle crime investigation reports. Latifah continued, "Tom Riddle told him, when he was older, but still a young man at school, he had avenged his mother, securing Severus' allegience. When Ayoob discovered what had happened he introduced himself to Severus and tried to explain that he could be relied on, but Severus was already a teenager and soon after he made his commitment to Voldemort.

"Ayoob will never forgive himself and strangely that is one of the reasons why I love him so much. He thinks that he should have made himself more available to Severus and not just given him money for books. But he, too, was young and preoccupied with his career. He thinks that he should have taken the time to let Severus know, during those years when he was making difficult decisions, that his mother had been a good, kind woman, a woman for whom friendships extended to her children. I'm sorry that Ayoob is affected by everything that has happened but I would never try to convince him otherwise. I love him because of his commitment to the people Fate has decided he must share his life with. I wish everyone took that kind of responsibility for all the people in their lives- not just the ones they choose to include."

Hermione was deeply touched by Latifah's speech and tears dripped into her lap. She knew what had happened to Snape's family and had chosen to stay at arms length, she did not want to cloud her judgement with emotions. Snape would not want to be pitied but he surely wanted to be understood, like herself and everyone else.

"I've shared this information with you Hermione, information that Severus gave us in confidence when he admitted he had lost his magical ability. What do you plan to do with this knowledge?"

Hermione didn't answer right away. She cleared her throat. She wanted to make sure she could speak. "Latifah, I would never betray your confidence in me and you must believe that I would not try to hurt him further. I… I wanted to leave my friends and the Ministry behind because I wanted to find peace, I thought that I just wanted to see the world but I really, I want to find peace after everything that has happened. I feel so fortunate that most of my friends survived and simply that Voldemort was defeated, but I wasn't able to settle down. I think that is why Minerva wanted me to come here. To find Sna… Severus and make peace with him."

She looked at Latifah to see if she should continue. Latifah nodded and Hermione took a deep breath. "Did you know that I was the one entrusted with his rooms and his things… and his innocence?"

Latifah shook her head, unwilling to try to speak. "I looked through his things, I read everything I could in his handwriting I occupied his space and refused to feel compassion for him so I could do my duty. That is the source of my unrest during this conversation, now. I want to bring him back."

Hermione stopped and realized that she had finally figured out what she wanted from him- but more importantly what she thought she could ask of him based on their recent interactions. If Latifah did not trust her, they wouldn't have spoken about him so intimately. "If not physically, to England and Hogwarts, at least emotionally. I need to bring him back for closure. He deserves our gratitude but we also want to hear his side of the story. He took Dumbledore from us, someone who nearly all of us would have died for. He killed him to save Draco and Harry, all of us, and we want to hear his side of it. I need to hear it. From him. I want to forgive him and I want him to forgive us. Me."

"I think that is what he needs, too, Hermione."

Hermione remained in Fes for a few hours after Latifah apparated to Casablanca. She wanted to process the conversation and form a plan of attack. She wandered around the market, spiraling downward into the deepest labyrinthine passages of the market. Some turns she made were dead ends but others snaked their way from one main thoroughfare to another, collapsing to only two feet wide and shrinking to be only five feet high. When she finally emerged near the entrance where she had first gotten lost she emerged, like Alice, out of the rabbit hole. She was followed by muggle men who wanted to know, " França? Inglizeeia?" flattering her with their stares and attentions. In a fit of temporary insanity she bought some hashish off one, who had simply assumed that it was what she had come for. She wanted to experiment again with how she had felt her first night in Morocco, hopefully without the vomiting. She recalled her courage in regards to Snape and was frankly sickened by her wilting flower act since then.

When they left Casablanca the next day, Khadija took Hermione's hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. "Don't forget what I told you, Hermione. I believe in you."

For what seemed like the thousandth time since she arrived in Morocco, Hermione felt near to tears but she wasn't as confused by the emotion anymore. Now, she knew what she needed from this experience and looked forward to getting started.

Snape wandered into the kitchen as they all gathered for tea when they arrived home, hair mussed, looking as though he had just awoken from a nap. Everyone else had greeted him with two kissed cheeks and he looked at her and smiled.

"Welcome back, Miss Granger."

"Hello Severus," she replied. Emboldened by her purchase and the giddy attractiveness she felt from the shallow attention from men in the market, she walked towards him. His eyebrows had lifted when she used his given name and his eyes widened as she reached for his shoulders and pulled him down to kiss him on both cheeks. He smelled sweet like the sand and salty like the ocean. It was intoxicating and her resolve momentarily faltered.

She recognized a pale Snape smirk on his lips and his eyes narrowed, asking her silently, "What are you playing at?"

Suhair and Firdaus stared at them open-mouthed, looking as though their parents had told them their birthdays would be celebrated once a month from now on. Latifah and Ayoob bustled about with Amina and Fatima, beginning to prepare dinner and store their purchases. Latifah was trying very hard and failing to stop herself from grinning broadly. Hermione stepped over the bench to sit at the table facing the girls and her fingers cirlcled around Snape's arm and she pulled him to sit down next to her. His skin was soft and hot at her fingertips. Perhaps she squeezed too hard, but she found herself getting nervous again.

"So, Uncle Severus," she used the title to lighten the mood and mask her uncertainty, "Suhair, Firdaus, and myself were hoping you might help us with something." She smiled at the girls first and then smiled at Severus, looking at his eyebrows instead of his eyes, a trick her father had taught her. She would be too distracted and depending on the way he looked at her she might chicken out. One eyebrow began its slow ascent into a once-scathing, now amused and curious arch.

The girls didn't know about her plans for the potions, but they smiled at her wide eyed and nodded vigourously.

"We are hoping you would be willing to allow us to make some first year Hogwarts potions in your lab."

Snape opened his mouth, but Ayoob spoke first as he levitated a sack of potatoes into a cupboard.

"That's a great idea, Hermione. What do you say, Severus?"

Snape looked at Hermione and immediately she regretted her decision to ask him there and then. She had promised Latifah to give him the opportunity to refuse her and she had managed to trap him. She bit her lip and looked at him apologetically.

To her great relief, he smiled at her, the girls, and then Ayoob. "I think that is a great idea. When would you like to start?"

"I thought I could help you set up a space in your lab. I don't want to be in your way. When we do that, we can look at ingredients lists and I can choose a curriculum based on what you have already and the equipment available in the lab. I will, of course, replace the stores."

"Nonsense, Hermione, Ayoob and I will replace them." Latifah interjected as she sorted and pulled stems from sultanas at the counter.

"Oh, well, there are many potions that you had us brew as first years that Firdaus has not done yet. Both she and Suhair will benefit from brewing those."

"When you are done with your English lessons tomorrow; you usually finish at noon, don't you?"

Hermione and the girls nodded.

"Why don't you come to the lab after lunch, at two? Do you know how to find it?"

"We can bring her, Severus, and we can help you set up."

"No we can't Suhair! They need to set up the lab. Alone."

Hermione's felt a blush creep up her cheeks at Firdaus' emphasis on the word alone. Why had she brought this up in front of everyone? Oh yeah. She had felt attractive. She looked sideways up at Snape who took one look at her flushed face and sheepish expression and began to laugh. Suhair began to cackle wildly and Snape began to howl, a deep, rich sound, a laugh worthy of his notorious voice.

"What is this? Why are you laughing?" Latifah wanted to know which just made Snape laugh harder and Hermione began to laugh despite herself. He was a lot kinder than he used to be and she much preferred his generous, contagious laughter to his dark sarcasm.

"You don't want to know!" Snape came to Hermione's rescue. "But it was worth the cramped muscles." He patted his abdomen.

Hermione glared at him through tears of laughter. She hadn't laughed this hard in a really long time. Thankfully everyone let the matter drop. They ate side by side for this meal for the first time since their first dinner and she helped fill him in on what he had missed out on in Casablanca.

"What did you think of Khadija?"

"That you were right. She reminded me of a shorter McGonagall. She read my palm."

Snape laughed again. "I thought you wouldn't stand for having your fortune read? I seem to remember an opposition to Trelawney that I very much approved up."

"How do you remember that?"

He looked at her, "I remember a lot of things from the times when you and your friends were at Hogwarts."

She had finally regained the upper hand and decided she didn't like the way it felt.

"The most important things happened after we all left. You should have been there with us."

She wasn't sure if he understood exactly what she was trying to communicate, but he nodded meaningfully and there was a profound silence between them as Suhair argued with her father in Arabic and Firdaus laughed with Latifah and Amina and Fatima refilled the tagine with chicken, couscous, and sultanas and attempting to shout down the others to know who wanted more salad, waving steam from the table and fanning the air so it swirled tangibly with steam and the aroma of chicken, cinnamon, fresh oranges and olives. Hermione could still smell the sweet sand on Snape's neck and smiled at him and returned to her meal. She was hungry.

The next day the girls ran rampant over Hermione's intended lesson plan and she was so distracted, she even let them "do" her hair, which ensured she'd need another detangling charm before meeting Severus. Hermione still did not know where the lab was so Suhair led her and with her wee fist banged on the door, shouting, "She's here Uncle Severus, let her in," smiling at Hermione the whole time; if she had been coordinated enough to wink she would have loved to.

Snape opened the door and shooed Suhair off, "Okay, stop banging, I'm here, now go away," while playfully poking her in the back with his finger, pushing her into the hall. He smiled at Hermione and she felt the blood rush to her face. His smile was relaxed and genuine, but the muscles in his face, from years of doing so, pulled it into a devilish smirk. Hermione smiled back, then dropping her eyes, tried to shake some of the thoughts out of her head. If all he had to do was smile at her to make her come unglued, she was going to focus on maintaining her dignity today, if not accomplishing anything else. She was certain she would have fun, though.

He held the door open for her, "Come in." Hermione walked past him slowly, inhaling deeply, seeking out the sand and sea she had smelled before. She sensed it and the heat off his body.

She laughed to herself and mustered some bravado. "I'm so glad we are going to set up the lab tod… oh, wow."

She had looked past him and down into the ministry regulation lab he had constructed for himself. It was huge, with every piece of equipment imaginable, including a new model fumes hood that had only come out last year. Fumes from potions were sucked sideways, avoiding inhalation by the brewer and at several points apparated into the atmosphere exactly one mile overhead. It was expensive to say the least and very complicated magic.

"How can you afford this?" Hermione couldn't help herself.

Severus smiled. "I was given a lot of money with that Order of the Merlin. And I made a lot of money off some of my potions work. Patents. I inherited the Malfoy fortune."

Hermione hadn't realized and paused to look at him. When Narcissa had died, there had been a lot of speculation about how their money would be used. The public had assumed that since Draco had died before his parents their money had no inheritors… living, or legally capable of controlling it. But they had found the trust and the sole beneficiary silently took control. A lot of money was handed out around the same time, to rebuild the Ministry buildings and to build new public spaces and especially to Hogwarts, to rebuild, notably a new potions lab, nearly identical to this one, and expand. But the estimated Malfoy fortune was so great the interest off money that couldn't be touched would be more than enough for generations of beneficiaries.

He continued walking past her and down the stairs. She followed him to a corner near the stairs. "First things first, emergency exits," he gestured with his arms and as she looked muggle lights in the form of humans running in red blinked around the room. "They appear automatically if concentrations of toxic substances gets too high or the temperature in the room begins to move towards extremes. Or if you say "exit" outloud. I've begun to set up for what the first years lab at Hogwarts was equipped with here, near the door. I've keyed you to use everything, but the girls won't be able to touch anything except what is in this corner… they don't need to be wandering around in here anyways. Even if curiosity seems to take hold."

He looked at her. "Minerva told me that you were in charge of the lab at Hogwarts after I left and that you were working in a Ministry lab. I assume you know how to use everything in here?"

"What, oh yes! I'm sorry, I'm looking at all of your equipment, it looks like you haven't used it yet."

She gave him her best innocent, wide-eyed smile.

He smiled back.

"I'm working on a project here," he gestured towards an office. "If you need help finding anything, just let me know."

He turned and went into the office, Hermione could see it was arranged just like the one at Hogwarts. And he didn't close the door.

She went to the corner that would be their lab space and continued where Snape left off, managing several things at once, summoning equipment and rearranging it to best accommodate two students and a teacher. She started summoning appropriate ingredients from Snape's supply closet and arranging them in her own and began an inventory. She finished in a couple of hours and went to Snape's office to let him know.

He was on the phone and pacing, wiping nonexistent dust from a bookshelf with a long finger. A tiny little muggle phone.

"Yes Arthur. No. I'm on schedule. Yes I am. Yes I am." He rolled his eyes and caught Hermione staring at him from the doorway, shamelessly eavesdropping. She came into the office and smiled at him and went to the bookcase. Hmmm. A lot of Dark Arts. Old Dark Arts books. In French. And Latin. And Arabic and Chinese? What? He does not speak all these languages. Does he?

She looked at him and he was watching her, eyes narrowed. "No Arthur. I don't. No. She's. He wants to speak to you." He looked irritated, but she didn't think it was at her. "Arthur Weasley"

She took the phone. "Arthur?"

"Hermione, how fortunate to have caught you in Severus' office" She blushed. "I was set…"

"Hermione, my dear, it's wonderful to hear your voice. How are you enjoying Morocco? You must write to Ginny and the boys soon, they miss you. Have you been very busy with your charges?"

"Erm, well, no."

"Oh good. Severus is working on a very important project and we would like it done very soon, the sooner the better. Would you be willing to help us out? You would be protecting the lives of innocent wizards, witches, and muggles you see why I must intrude upon your holiday, but you know how brilliant you are and you will be able to accelerate progress."

"Well, when you put it that way Arthur…"

Snape sat in his chair heavily and glared at her. Or at the phone. Or at the person on the other end.

"This is great Arthur. Are you introducing phones into general usage at the ministry now?"

Snape rolled his eyes.

"Actually it was Severus' idea. It gave me the idea to introduce… phones," he said this carefully, "a few years ago, remember?"

Hermione did, suddenly. There was a massive uproar overnight and the Minister of Magic was forced to withdraw his proposal. And still somehow managed to raise his popularity, according to the polls.

"So will you do it, Hermione?"

Hermione looked at Snape who raised an eyebrow in challenge. He was amused. "Could do… I don't know Minister, I don't know if he will allow me to help him. I'm not even sure I'm qualified. It doesn't look like he is working on potions." She raised her eyebrow at him in return.

"Oh well, he's not. Just ask him now. I have to go to a meeting and I'd feel much better if this was settled now. And if he says no, tell him I'll send Molly."

Snape could overhear Arthur because at that last comment he held up his hands in surrender and mockingly widened his eyes and mouthed, Whatever he wants!

"He is indicating to me that he will take me on as an assistant."

Arthur laughed. "Yes. I've always found that particular form of persuasion particularly effective. That orange beast of yours is great, by the way, keeping all of the gnomes out of the yard. Take care of yourself and write to the kids, Okay?"

"Yes Minister, take care."

She looked at the phone and looked for the little red receiver, like on the Nokia her mother gave her when she was home for Christmas. Ah, there. She pushed it and the line cut off, the screen with what must have been the Minister of Magic's phone number erased and was replaced with the date, the time and the message, Bring it back Suhair. Hermione laughed and handed it to Snape and smiled.

Thank you, Minister. Thank you.

To be continued.