McGonagall paused for a moment before wrapping her knuckles against the oak of Albus Dumbledore's old chambers. It wouldn't be long before Severus returned and she preferred this particular conversation to be between herself and Miss Granger. They hadn't been alone together since the girl arrived, Severus kept her so secluded she had to wonder if it was by design. He surely had nothing to hide, especially from her. No, she worried more for the sake of the girl. Cooped up for the past two months like a prisoner in these rooms, she was probably going a little insane.

McGonagall rapped again, this time with a little more force. The candied apple she had in her left hand, a prize taken from the Halloween feast (which had been as resplendent as it was every year) was now melting with urgency.

"Miss Granger" she called out, realizing the girl wouldn't answer the door to just anyone in a school filled with death eaters. What with the way things have been headed and the way her own person was treated on a daily basis, she wouldn't open the door to just anyone either.

The door opened laboriously by the small unoccupied hand of Miss Granger. The other clutched at an old and dusty tomb, one finger desperately marking a passage. Her eyes were already wide with expectancy when they lay upon her old transfiguration teacher and became even wider at the sight of the apple. McGonagall figured Severus Snape would take every possible comfort in to account except of those basest fancies. The man probably didn't have any.

"May I come in" she asked.

The door was let open wider and the old woman was reunited after several months with her old benefactor's personal rooms. After the death of Albus, Severus had immediately warded off the space and it had been inaccessible until now. Albus had spent little time here himself during the years of his residency and she hadn't been expecting the new air of domesticity. It almost seemed homely, occupied by emotion as well as people.

She focused rightly on the young girl in front of her and handed her the candied apple. After suggesting they sit down, it was Hermione rather who pressed right in to matters and left McGonagall for a moment, speechless.

"You're here alone."

The observation was less of an observation and more of an accusation. Severus had made it very clear to both of them that any visitors for the girl must be seen with him present.

"Yes."

"Thank you." She held up the apple and placed it on the table beside her.

There was something insincere in the silence, as if Hermione didn't approve of them going behind the Potion Master's back, but although her face remained pinched and tense, her words were short and clipped.

"I came to see how you are Miss Granger. It must be very lonely here."

Hermione's mask fell for a few seconds and she bowed her head.

"Very."

"Does Professor Snape ever talk to you? Does he let you read and do things you enjoy?" He would never deny her maliciously. But he would deny her out of an ignorance only a man could ever know.

"He does." She answered quickly. "He's very good to me. He lets me read all the books I can find, and he never bothers me."

"Hermione, you don't have to defend Professor Snape to me. I've known the man far too long to see him any other way than he is. I'm only worried about you."

"I'm fine. You really shouldn't be here. He wouldn't be very happy if he found out."

"Don't tell him."

She looked up with a pained expression and the older woman cursed beneath her breath. How insensitive. The girl had no control over herself when it came to that man.

"I've been trying very hard to find something about my curse, anything that can help. I figured some of Professor Dumbledore's books might have something, but his personal collection is… quite odd." She held up a book titled Magical Birds and Unromantic Suicides. "I've really lost hope with most of them. Every book of value seems to be in his office. But I'm not allowed out there."

It became plain how Minerva McGonogall would be of service.

After retrieving about twenty books of differing sizes and volumes, Hermione was much more content with the entire situation and eagerly buried herself in the first book.

Feeling as if she had little left to offer, and very unfamiliar with the familiarity of this feeling, Professor McGonagall bid her adieus and just managed to miss the homecoming of her colleague.

In fact, there was nothing she could do. She had wracked every source she could find on the subject of this curse with nothing at all to show for it except a spell for talking tattoos. But it was all she could think about when she wasn't constantly on guard for faculty misdemeanor. Half the staff had been replaced by death eaters. Some of them were dead, and then there was the rest, like herself, who's presence Severus had managed to justify. She was already precariously close to being assassinated, surely.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was the first and last visitor Hermione would have. She couldn't really say why she had been able to open the door. She hadn't been able to open it before. Professor Snape had made it very clear that she could stay with him, under the condition she would never leave his study again. The office was strictly out of bounds. He simply couldn't control who came through the office day to day and he couldn't secure her safety. So, for the past month it had been very similar to the first month. She stayed cooped up in his rooms, unable to go within an arms length of the door.

But today, for some strange reason, when she'd heard Professor McGonagall's voice on the other side of the door, she'd experienced an overpowering longing to be with the woman, to talk to her and finally be in the company of someone who cared for her. And that seemed like it was enough to open the door.

The experience however was strained. Not on Hermione's own part. No, she wanted nothing more than to talk to the motherly figure openly. But instead all she could muster out was an ungrateful accusation. It felt as if she was so overcome with guilt by having disobeyed her potions professor that she couldn't enjoy the product of her regressions.

She would never tell him anyway. And he could never force her because he couldn't know to.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Professor Snape did come back from his evening patrol she was tucked away in her room as usual, this time surrounded by those books McGonagall had brought in for her. She was in the middle of what seemed to be a promising book called Ancient Curses in Modern Times when an Irate Severus Snape unceremoniously burst through her door with a candied apple in one hand and a clenched fist in the other.

"What's this?" he raised the apple.

"An apple, Sir."

He growled. "This was an apple that came from the Halloween Feast. A feast in which I don't remember you attending. How did it come to be here?"

Suddenly a shooting pain ran down her spine, crippling her to the floor.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

He pressed forward and grabbed her by her wrists, forcing her to kneel in to him.

"How did you get out again? Hm?" he shook her. "How did you do it?"

"Someone brought it to me." She whimpered. The pain was starting to become unbearable as his anger coveted her. She thought she might explode as his displeasure ravished through her.

"Who?"

"I can't-"

"Who Damnit!" he shook her even more violently, letting the apple fall to her knees.

"Professor McGonagall."

"You let her in?"

"Yes, yes, please!"

"How? How did you let her in?"

"I don't know!" she had her hands on his chest, her fingers kneading in persistent submission.

"Do you want to be killed you damn chit?" he dropped her and she fell in a heap at his feet. "I can kill you right now, it would make my life much easier."

"I'm sorry." She whispered but this time it was of her own volition.

"I can bring you candy." He stated. "If that's what you-"

He was interrupted by a large bang from the outside office. Professor Snape was immediately alert and heading in that direction before Hermione could even process the noise. She followed after him until the point just before the fireplace and he pushed her back with a small press of his hand.

"Stay."

He pressed forward through the office door, leaving it just open enough for her to make out the voice of Ginny Weasley. Ginny! She dared move just a little bit closer to hear properly.

"Carrow did this!" Ginny sounded furious. She was using the same tone of voice she used with her brothers when they'd wronged her. It was a high pitched fearsome sound, and it reverberated louder than Hermione had ever heard it sung before. "You can't let them get away with this!"

"Miss Weasley if I remember correctly it is I who am headmaster, not yourself. Now Please return to your rooms immediately. It's nearing curfew."

"You're no headmaster at all."

And with the same loud bang as before, Hermione assumed she left. There was rustling and whimpering to follow. The gentle coos of Snape she could only assume she was imagining, they sounded so foreign. She chanced a few steps closer to the door and angled herself to see through the small crack he had left ajar.

A young boy, one she couldn't recognize, was perched on the headmaster's desk with his fingers pressed up against his chest in a gesture of injury. Professor Snape was gently trying to coax his hand away for inspection but the boy seemed more terrified of the master than in any desire to be cured. After a bit more hushing the boy finally gave in to the demands of his teacher and displayed a severe cut on his hand.

Hermione watched in transfixed awe as the man she had thought to be a death eater, handled this boy with the most care she had ever seen from any teacher. He treated the boy carefully and eagerly, making sure that not only the physical wound was healed, but the emotional one as well.

"Stay clear of any more trouble. Keep your head down for now. Understand?"

The boy nodded his head and hopped off the desk.

Severus Snape stood there for a little while after the boy left, gazing at the empty desk where he had just sat. So, Hermione thought, Snape was working two angles. Much more emphatically than he let on to her. She hadn't given his behaviour much thought. She'd only seen him interact with Professor McGonagall and herself and those instances had been short and clipped, as if it pained him to have to resort to such company. But why wouldn't she think better of him? He had never intentionally hurt her, or taken advantage of any situation despite the fact that he very easily could have. He was trying very hard to find a cure for her, perhaps not for his own sake as she had imagined, but for hers.

She looked down at the tattoo that bound her to him and noticed it had turned a different color, almost looked faded like a real tattoo would over time. Well, time had gone by, two months in fact.

Professor Snape caught her unawares when he entered the study again. Instead of picking up where he left off in their conversation he merely nodded in her direction and sat down in one of the winged back chairs that outlined the fire. He must have known she'd seen but he said nothing to confirm it.

She walked steadily over to the fire place, with a sense of calm she hadn't known for some time, even before her capture. And as her feet carried her against her own better judgement, her mind neither screamed for control or shrivelled in fear. She claimed the demands and her walk was full of his purpose as well as her own.

He said nothing as she sat down in front of him, next to the fire. And he didn't move when she gently laid her cheek against his thigh.

It was a strange sort of comfort but he needed it. Just this once. So he let her press the weight of her head against his leg, he let her closer than he'd ever let anyone before. And while he assumed he was allowing himself to give in to his own desires, that she was doing this out of some forced obligation to him, she was beginning to realize this was not the case. That familiar feeling of satiation after giving in to a command was not there. Instead she was feeling her own satisfaction and she realized it hadn't been the curse at all, that she was comforting her professor out of her own volition.

But he didn't need to know that and she wouldn't tell him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lupin's house was a rickety old makeshift home he illegally transfigured from an even smaller house. It was never very clear why Lupin could never manage well to do, but it was apparent that he was as far from it as he'd ever been.

As soon as Harry had received the news about Hermione's capture, his immediate thought was to go straight to the school. Hogwarts had been safe, when Dumbledore was headmaster but now who knew who was running the school. And so, he couldn't risk going in alone.

It had taken Harry almost a month to find and track down Remus Lupin. The man was rather private already. In a war with a pregnant wife, he had become almost non-existent, working for the resistance in almost a ghost like way. Harry felt it had been less of his ability to find the man, than the man allowing himself to be found.

He knocked on the weather-beaten door, eager to be inside. Before he knew it, he was, sharply pressed against the hallway wall with a wand digging in to his jugular.

"What did I give you on the train the first time we met?"

"What?" Remus Lupin's glaring face was inches away from his own and he could smell the offensive after wash of whiskey.

"What did I give you on the train the first time we met? Answer, quickly!"

"Chocolate! Chocolate!"

He was unceremoniously dumped to his feet and given back his personal space.

"Sorry." Lupin muttered sheepishly. "Can't be too careful nowadays."

The house was eclectic and it had Tonks written all over it. Lupin almost seemed like he didn't belong, like someone was playing one long practical joke on him. As he moved about making tea it was clear in his groggy movements that the whiskey smell had been fresh. While he took in his new surroundings, it dawned on Harry he hadn't been "inside" for almost two months now and he relished this fleeting comfort (and the hot tea) before getting down to the matter at hand.

"I want to go to Hermione."

Lupin smiled that familiar smile, the one that suggested Harry was reawakening memories of his father.

"That might be difficult. She'd under the care of Professor Snape now. He's headmaster."

Harry jumped to his feet.

"He's a murderer! He killed-"

"I know Harry, I know." The older man waved his hand and gestured for Harry to retake his seat on the dingy couch. "Professor McGonagall seems to think Miss Granger is perfectly safe however." Lupin's recount didn't match the expression on his face.

"How could she be? He's a death eater! Why is he keeping her anyway?"

"Apparently she has been cursed and the nature of it ties her to Snape."

"But… I have to get to her! She needs me!"

There was something in Lupin's expression that suggested this was not the course of action he had in mind and as the minutes ticked by with little reaction from the retired professor, Harry could only gather he hadn't in fact had any plan at all and was devising one within the silence. Finally he pulled himself upright and took a good look at the young boy.

"You can't go there, not yet."

"How could I not?"

"There are more important matters to attend to."

"Like-"

"Like whatever it was Dumbledore had set out for you. Harry there is no way for you to get in to that school undetected. There are death eaters everywhere. And even if you could we know nothing of this unnatural bond between Miss Granger and Professor Snape. Separating them could kill her. No, what I suggest is that you stay here until you can think of a logical plan to go about your task. Instead of worrying about moving place to place."

Harry thought briefly about telling Lupin about the horcruxes. Perhaps he could be of some help. Then he thought about Hermione and what kind of curse she could possibly be under. Why kill Ron and spare Hermione? What use could she be to a dour old man like Snape? But Lupin was right.

"Alright." Harry leaned back in to the comfort of the couch. "Here's what I have to do."