Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to the immeasurable genius of JK Rowling; I just like to borrow them and play with them.

This story is pre-HBP and completely and utterly AU now. No spoilers. Disregards canon events after Book 5.


Chapter 20

Hermione shrank back from the furious man, but Snape followed, backing her into the corner of the room and snatching the book from her grasp.

"Well?" he hissed, towering over her. "I'm waiting for an explanation, though I fail to see how you will justify this."

He flung the book down at her feet, and it fell open to the very page she had been reading.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Sorry doesn't even begin to cut it," he spat. "Good gods, Hermione, you want me to trust you, and yet the minute my back is turned you deliberately disobey me!"

He was truly scaring her, and she tried to move away from him, only to have him grab her by the shoulders in a hard grip, pinning her to the wall.

Her gasp of surprise and fear went unnoticed as, face inches from her own, he demanded, "What were you looking for?"

"N- no- nothing," she stammered. "I heard something and I… I came over to see what it was-"

"Do you take me for a fool, Hermione?" he sneered, black eyes boring into her own. "A mysterious noise – how convenient – and I suppose my notebook just happened to be open to that particular page?"

She looked away as he smirked in triumph.

"Do you want to learn how to brew the Cruciatus potion, Hermione?" His voice was soft and dangerous, and he released his grip on her shoulders but didn't step back. "Do you want to be the one to make the batch I'm to deliver to the Dark Lord? What happens when he uses it against the Order, or against the school? Could you live with yourself, knowing your friends have died because of something you made, knowing that you had a hand in their deaths?"

She gasped, tears filling her eyes at the images his words were bringing to her mind. He smirked cruelly again.

"I thought not."

He picked up the notebook and turned away from her, placing it back on his workbench, closed.

Anger was written in the stiff lines of his body as, back still turned, he said in a low voice, "I would have thought, after all I have taught you, you could have accepted my decision to leave this be. It seems I overestimated your respect for my authority."

Hermione stared at his back, suddenly realising what she'd done. She would have rather Snape shouted, than have to hear the cold disappointment in his voice. As usual, her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and her need for knowledge had clouded her own judgement and common sense. A split-second, foolish decision could destroy everything that had passed between them since November.

She'd never considered the possibility that his refusal to teach her the potion had been out of concern for her well-being. She'd assumed he didn't think she was capable of understanding the brew, or not entitled to learn to make it when she hadn't yet passed her NEWTs, let alone any Master level tests.

"Do you not see, Hermione?" he said, turning back to her. The anger was gone from his eyes, leaving only the disappointment she could still hear echoed in his voice. "It's going to be hard enough for you as it is, knowing about the potion and having seen its effects. If something happens to your friends or fellow students... I couldn't ask you to brew it, knowing what the consequences might be."

"Why didn't you just tell me this before?" she asked. "All the times I've tried to lead you into talking about it, and all I got was a one-word refusal. At least if I'd known where you were coming from, I could have made my own decision."

"And what would your decision have been?" he enquired.

"I would have taken it as a learning opportunity," she said defiantly, and remembering his words to her from weeks before, added, "You said yourself, not everything we do is good or easy, but somebody has to do it."

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "That is exactly why I refused."

"Why?" she demanded. "Because I'm brave enough to take on whatever you can throw at me?"

"No!" he shouted. "It's not bravery, you foolish girl. It's pure idiocy! You think you can handle anything, but you can't. You have no idea what it's like to watch people die, knowing something you've made – something you've created – is the reason they're screaming, wishing for death to come quickly to release them from the pain-" His voice broke and he turned from her again, breathing heavily.

Hermione was shaking, but no longer with fear. She was moved by the desperation in his voice, and frightened to see him lose control. Though she knew the cold indifference he so often displayed was just an act, she hadn't realised how deeply Snape was affected by what he had to do. It was foolish of her not to have realised, but he always seemed so calm and in control that it was easy not to look beyond the façade.

"I'm sorry," she said again, putting all the sincerity she could into her voice.

Not looking at her, he walked across the room to the storage cabinets on the far wall. Opening the first one, he started reorganising the bottles and flasks. She recognised, by now, the way Snape used work to distance himself from an uncomfortable situation, and she'd discovered any display of sincerity towards him garnered such a reaction. Not to be deterred, she continued speaking, certain he was still listening.

"I honestly didn't mean to defy you, and if I'd stopped to think, I'd have realised the stupidity of my actions. I saw the book and I was so pleased that you were using it. There were some ingredients on the index page that I didn't recognise, and I was looking to see what potion they belonged to."

He continued to rearrange the bottles, and for a moment there was only the sound of clinking glass in the room. With a sigh, she crossed the lab and stood next to him.

"Severus," she said softly.

He turned his head sharply, as though forgetting he'd given her leave to address him so. He held her gaze with tired eyes, and she hesitated, unsure of how to convey in words what she felt needed to be said.

"I wish you'd have told me you were only trying to protect me," she began honestly. "Perhaps if I'd looked a little harder I'd have seen your reasons anyway, and regardless of what I said before, I appreciate why you did it. I don't presume to be able to handle anything, and I suppose I forgot the gravity of the situation we're faced with. I just... you... you seem so unaffected most of the time," she finished inadequately.

"You think I'm unaffected?" he said incredulously.

"Well, not now," she said, "I guess you just hide it well. But sometimes you're so indifferent about the whole situation."

He favoured her with a derisive look before turning his attention back to the cabinet. "I see you know as little about me as I know about you."

Recalling his Christmas missive, she took a deep breath and said, "Maybe we can do something about that."

His hand paused, hovering over the bottle he'd been about to pick up.

"That is, if you still want to," she added hesitantly.

He moved the last two bottles on the shelf, closed the cabinet door and turned to face her.

"I would say the question, given you now understand the dangers you face in associating with me, is whether you still want to," he said, dark eyes boring into her own.

Hermione blinked, thrown by the slight uncertainly of his tone.

"I'm here, aren't I?" she replied.

"Indeed you are," he murmured, seeming to exhale a breath as he spoke.

There was a quiet moment in which they both looked at one another, and Hermione realised she had no idea what to do or say, now their argument seemed to be over. It was strange, she thought, how easily she could find her voice when they argued, yet now found herself lost for words, unsure of how to handle to softer side of the Potions master.

Breaking her gaze, he glanced over her shoulder and frowned. She turned to see the remnants of her half-prepared ingredients scattered across her workbench.

"Sorry," she apologised, hurrying over to the bench to finish what she'd been working on. He followed, glancing at the open textbook.

"Hangover potion?"

"I thought you might appreciate it," she said lightly.

"I didn't drink the whole bottle, you know," he said darkly.

"I didn't say you did," she countered, "but it can't hurt to have a clear head for the Order meeting."

Snape cursed softly, glancing at the clock over his desk. "I'd forgotten about that."

He walked around to the other side of the bench, picked up a knife and the bunch of daisy roots laying nearby, and Hermione realised he was going to help her finish the brew.

She smiled to herself, but sobered quickly as she watched Snape ease himself gingerly onto a stool, wincing slightly as he sat.

He caught her look of concern and said shortly, "It's nothing."

"It's obviously not nothing," she countered. "You can't walk around with broken ribs, and it's not the sort if injury that will heal itself easily."

His eyes narrowed. "How did you-"

"What did you expect me to do?" she exclaimed. "Ignore you passed out on the couch with your face black and blue? You could have been seriously hurt, for all I knew, not to mention the explaining you'd have to do if you turned up at the Order meeting with a bootprint on your neck!"

Wordlessly, he shoved the daisy roots aside, stood up, and swept out of the lab. She followed him after a moment, hearing the door to his bathroom bang open just as she entered the sitting room.

She went as far as the bedroom door and then stood, undecided, biting her lip. It was open, but that wasn't necessarily an invitation. The last time she'd ventured that far into his personal domain, he'd been too weak to protect otherwise.

Steeling herself for a rebuke, she stepped into the room and headed for the bathroom. That door, too, was open, and she could see his shadow thrown across the floor by the light of the torches on the wall.

Standing on the threshold of the white marble floor, she watched Snape examining his neck in the mirror over the hand basin. He glanced at her reflection behind him and cleared his throat.

"It's an improvement to how it felt earlier," he murmured, by way of thanks.

"I take it he wasn't impressed with you, then," she said, as he inspected the side of his face, grimacing slightly as he probed his temple.

"On the contrary," the Potions master said, earning a confused look from Hermione. "He was most pleased to hear of your gratitude to me for saving your parents' lives," he said, the latter of his words muffled slightly as he splashed his face with a handful of water.

"I don't understand," she said, as he muttered a drying charm. "If he was pleased, why did he hurt you?"

"Ah, this," he said, turning around and leaning against the bench, arms folded. "This was the work of a fellow Death Eater who didn't like my disappearing act at your house last night."

"Malfoy," she said flatly, wondering if the bruise on Snape's face had come from the hard, metal tip of the cane he always carried. "If V- sorry, he was pleased with you, why did he still let Malfoy do that?"

Snape sighed. "Regardless of the fact that my 'plan' worked better than Malfoy's would have, the fact of the matter is that I still disobeyed the Dark Lord and caused harm to other Death Eaters in doing so."

"I suppose you got off lightly compared to last time," she mused, and he chuckled bitterly.

"The Cruciatus – curse or potion – would have been welcome under these circumstances," he said quietly.

"What?" she said. After last time, she couldn't imagine he'd ever want to go through the pain of the Cruciatus potion again.

"The Dark Lord specifically instructed Malfoy not to curse me, so I can still prepare the potion and deliver it to him next Saturday night. No more stalling, no more excuses."

"What's he going to do with it?" she asked fearfully.

"That's the worst part," he said hollowly. "I still don't know."

"You can't give it to him without knowing what he plans to do with it," she said, alarmed.

"I don't have a choice, Hermione," he groused. "It's either that, or forfeit my position as a spy, and Dumbledore has already decided we cannot afford to lose the inside information that I am still privy to."

Hermione stared at Snape.

"Is Dumbledore mad?"

"Quite possibly," Snape snorted. "The Dark Lord isn't the only one keeping things from me. I have no idea what the Headmaster plans to achieve from this, either."

It seemed he was going to elaborate further, but he appeared to change his mind, instead saying, "Perhaps we should return to the lab, if you wish to finish the potion before the meeting starts."

She was still standing in the doorway, and when she didn't move immediately to let him pass, he raised an expectant eyebrow. In the conversation turning to the potion, Snape had almost succeeded in distracting her from the reason she'd followed him to the bathroom in the first place.

Almost.

"Nice try," she said, "but haven't you forgotten something?"

He merely watched her through hooded eyes, and she extended one hand, boldly poking him in the ribs.

He stepped away from her touch quickly, but not before a hiss of pain escaped his lips.

"Are you going to let me fix that?" she asked.

"Are you going to give me a choice?" he returned, an annoyed glint in his eyes.

"Probably not," she said loftily, and he snorted.

"Think again, Hermione. You are not the one with authority here."

"Look, I don't see what the problem is!" she exclaimed, exasperated. "It's a simple charm that take a matter of minutes. What's the point of being in unnecessary discomfort when I can fix it?"

"Firstly," he countered, "you're not a mediwitch, Hermione, not even one in-training. Secondly, the discomfort is insignificant and not worth the trouble of the charm-"

"It's no trouble," she cut in.

"-And thirdly," he said, holding up his hand to stop her interrupting again. "I believe I told you once before some healing charms are inappropriate between a teacher and student, and this is no exception."

"That's a pretty lame argument, Severus," she replied, emphasising his given name to prove her point.

"I'd advise you to let me pass, Miss Granger," he returned, ignoring what she'd said.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked suddenly.

A strange look flitted across his face before he recovered himself and sneered, "Certainly not you."

"I think you are," she pushed, watching him carefully. "Otherwise, why would you refuse?"

He glared down at her, and she returned his gaze defiantly.

"Why do you have to be so damn persistent?"

"Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?" she countered.

"Because, in my experience," he replied angrily, "no one offers help without wanting something in return."

"You think I want something from you?" She almost laughed at the absurdity of his statement. "All I want is for you to treat me like the friend you say I am, instead of just another one of your dunderhead students. Is it so hard to believe I'm offering to help you because I want to?"

He was silent, and she realised that maybe, for him, it was hard to believe anyone did anything not driven by want of selfish returns.

"I'm sorry," she started to say yet again, but he stopped her.

His face seemed to soften a little and he said, "One thing I do know about friendship is that one friend should not always be apologising the other, especially when they have each other's best interest at heart."

She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again, realising she'd been about to apologise for apologising too much. She laughed nervously, and the corners of his lips quirked up, trying to suppress a smile.

"I meant what I said before Christmas, Hermione," he said frankly. "I do wish to consider you a friend. I'm just not well versed in what being a friend entails... including, as it would seem, making concessions."

"Well," she said with a smile, "I'm not used to having such a stubborn friend and having to make concessions of my own, so maybe we can learn from each other."

"So," he said, after a moment, smirking at her in a most disconcerting way, "how about this for a concession... You let me out of my bathroom, we finish the hangover potion so I can relieve this splitting headache I have, and then you can poke and prod until you're content I'm sufficiently healthy."

Hermione was about to agree when a thought struck her, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Severus Snape, you wouldn't be hoping there won't be time for that last part of the deal before the Order meeting, would you?"

He had the grace to look slightly ashamed, but returned, "That would be positively Slytherin, Hermione. However did such a thing cross your mind."

"I know how you think," she said, "and don't think I care if you're late for the meeting to uphold your end of the deal."

She spun on her heel and finally conceded her place in the doorway, heading back to the lab. His dark chuckle followed her, and to her disgust, he sat on the other side of her workbench and didn't lift a finger to help her, stalling in anticipation of the meeting.

Setting up her cauldron and tossing in the first ingredients, she said, "Well, if you're just going to sit there, you can answer some questions."

He raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"What sort of… questions?"

"Well," she said, lighting the flame beneath the cauldron with a flick of her wand. "You said you wanted to know more about me, and I think that works both ways."

"Does it now?" he smirked. "So I can ask a question for each of yours?"

"Of course," she said lightly. "In fact, you can go first."

She grinned to herself as he opened his mouth, but no question was forthcoming. He seemed to be searching for something to ask, and by the time her cauldron was simmering nicely, he managed, "What's your favourite colour?"

She bit back a laugh at the ridiculously simple question, but answered, "Blue."

He looked surprised, and she shot back, "When is your birthday?"

"January 9th," he replied reluctantly.

"That's less than two weeks!" she said, and he gave her a withering look. "How old will you be?"

"I thought it was my turn to ask a question," he bit out.

She rolled her eyes, counting as she stirred the potion the required number of times.

By the time the potion was complete, cooled and bottle, she had discovered quite a few things about Severus Snape, both predictable and not.

He would be thirty-nine in two weeks – more than twice her age, as she snidely pointed out when she finally got it out of him - his favourite colour was black and he despised pumpkin juice, inattentive students and Divination. Whilst at school, he had received nine OWLs and seven NEWTs, and made the mistake of taking Divination as his eighth NEWT subject, earning his first and only Troll.

He had been a Beater for the Slytherin Quidditch team, and had once managed to hex the Bludgers to attack only the Gryffindor Seeker, James Potter, for the duration of the game. He hated lemon drops, Canary Creams and most other sugary sweets, but had a penchant for plain Muggle licorice bullets.

He preferred owls over other animals, and his own black eagle owl was called Tonatiuh. Hermione had to use a second question to ask the meaning behind the name, and discovered Tonatiuh, or The Rising Eagle, was the sun-god and heavenly warrior of the Aztecs, an ancient and – to Hermione's surprise – magical civilisation.

With his own questions, he asked her about Muggle-related things; what it was like growing up in the Muggle world, whether it was strange returning there after her time at Hogwarts and what, if anything, she missed about it when she was at school. He was surprised to find she didn't think much of Quidditch, and even more surprised to find she didn't yet know what she wanted to do with her life beyond Hogwarts.

"I guess I'll just wait and see how things work out," she sighed, handing him a small phial of the completed potion as she corked the remaining bottles.

He held the phial up to the light, inspecting it before drinking the contents.

"Better?" Hermione asked, as she cleaned the cauldron with a flick of her wand and banished the unused ingredients.

"Much," he agreed, looking distinctly uncomfortable as he eyed the clock across the room. There was still an hour until the Order meeting.

"So," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, though in actual fact she was quite nervous. "Time to uphold your end of the bargain, don't you think?"

He eyed her shrewdly. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to forget about it?"

"Not even for unlimited access to your book collection," she quipped, then added seriously, "Really, what's so distasteful about it?"

"Nothing," he sighed, though Hermione had the distinct feeling it was far from nothing. "Let's get it over with, then. How do you want to do this?"

"Er, it might be easiest of you could lie down... if you don't mind," she said hesitantly.

Snape gave her a look that said he really did mind, but he turned on his heel and exited the lab. She followed him through to his bedroom, nerves fluttering in her stomach as he sat on the edge of his bed.

As he made to lie back, she cleared her suddenly dry throat and said, "Can you, uh, take off your shirt, please, sir... so I can see what I'm doing?"

Her use of his title was an effort to regain some semblance of control over her emotions... a vain effort, so it seemed. Snape appeared to deliberate her request for a moment before reaching for the top button of the garment. Hermione's eyes were drawn to his hands, working their way down the line of buttons, each one released exposing more pale, unmarked skin.

What, did you expect him to be covered in scars? she chided herself. She hadn't really thought about it, but she'd be surprised if his body didn't exhibit some evidence of his hard life.

She realised she was staring when he cleared his throat irritably. She met his eyes and blushed, muttering, "I'll, uh, be back in a moment."

She left the room before he could respond, leaning on a blank wall out in the sitting room and taking a deep breath.

Must get a grip, she chanted under her breath. The butterflies in her stomach felt like rampaging hippogriffs instead, and she concentrated hard, trying to remember the healing charm she was going to need. Her brain seemed to have switched off in the last five minutes.

Spotting the jar of bruise salve still sitting on the table, she picked it up, took one more deep breath in a futile attempt to calm her nerves, and re-entered the bedroom.

She could feel Snape's watching her from his position stretched out on the bed, but she avoided his eyes as she set the jar of salve on the bedside table and used her wand to brighten the room a little.

Hermione glanced up at his face then. His features were carefully schooled, but there was a trace of apprehension in his dark eyes as she leant over to examine the dark bruises on his chest.

Casting the injury detection charm once again, she allowed herself a briefly, subtle appraisal of his exposed torso. His shoulders weren't particularly broad, but rather wiry with hidden strength. The muscles on his chest looked defined, but from the rigours of daily life more than any purposeful regime, and his ribs stood out more than they should have, a testament to how many meals she knew he regularly missed.

A smattering of dark hair broke the pale skin over his breastbone, trailing down over the flat stomach and disappearing into the waistband of his pants. His left hand was resting on his stomach, covering the left side of his body just below the ribs. She glanced at his splayed fingers, thinking she could see the hint of a scar on the skin beneath.

She dismissed the thought as she shifted her concentration back to healing his ribs, frowning in concentration as she cast the bone-mending charm. She was relieved to see a ripple under the skin as the bones knitted back together, though Snape gave a small grunt of pain at the movement. She met his eyes apologetically as she reached for the salve.

"This might hurt a bit, too," she murmured, spreading some on her fingers and cautiously working it into the bruises over the now-healed ribs.

The only sign of discomfort he gave was a slight hiss of pain at her first touch, after which he was silent. She could feel his eyes on the top of her head as she worked the salve into the fading bruises, and she found her gaze drawn back to his hand.

She was sure, looking at it again, that it was covering up a mark or scar of some sort. She was also sure the placement of his hand wasn't a coincidence. She could see the edge of the Dark Mark on the underside of his bare forearm, and she wondered what sort of blemish could be worse than that. Was that mark, whatever it might be, the reason he'd protested so vehemently when she'd first offered to help him today?

She finished applying the salve and noticed Snape had closed his eyes at some point. Reaching across him, she took the hand resting on his stomach in her own, and tried to pull it away.

His eyes shot open and he tore his hand away from her grasp, inadvertently doing exactly what she wanted, exposing the scar beneath.

Or four scars, to be exact.

Hermione stared at what could only be claw marks; jagged scars extending under his rib cage and disappearing around the side of his body. They seemed to be old, yet the skin around the edges was still red and raised, the skin of the scars themselves paler even than the alabaster of his normal complexion.

She looked up at him fearfully, expecting another outburst of anger for her curiosity and presumptuousness. Instead, she found him watching her uncertainly, as if he was waiting for her to pass judgement on the marks, and on him for bearing them.

"They're just scars, Severus," she said softly, reaching out to trace the uppermost one lightly with her index finger. He stiffened slightly, but otherwise didn't move. "They're nothing to be ashamed of."

He merely looked at her, then at her hand, now tracing the other marks below the first. He seemed thrown by her lack of disgust at the marred skin.

"Most people have scars," she continued. "I have one from the Department of Mysteries, two years ago."

He looked at her curiously, and she pulled the neck of her jumper aside slightly to reveal the scar on her collarbone, faded but still visible.

"I heard you were hurt, but I didn't realise there were any lasting scars," he murmured, his eyes moving from the mark back to her face.

"Madam Pomfrey didn't recognise the curse," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "She healed it, but couldn't eradicate the mark altogether. It's there, and I certainly don't like it, but it's a part of me now... I'm not ashamed of it."

"It's not that I'm ashamed, Hermione," he said. "But if people see it they want to know how I received it... and that is something I am ashamed of – being made a fool."

She had no idea what Snape was talking about, and her confusion must have shown on her face, because he snorted derisively.

"Please, Hermione," he sneered. "You don't mean to tell me Potter didn't regale you with the details of the joke his father and Black played on me when we were at school?"

Brow furrowing in thought, Hermione recalled that Harry had mentioned something about a joke to frighten Snape by sending him down the Whomping Willow tunnel after Lupin, but she hadn't paid it much mind... until now. Looking at the jagged scars again, the pieces suddenly fell into place.

"Lupin did that?" she gasped.

Snape nodded.

"But I thought... Harry told me you only saw the werewolf through the end of the tunnel."

"That was the official version of events," Snape sighed, pulling himself into a sitting position and reaching for his shirt. "If the real events had been known, Black would have been expelled, and Lupin most likely would have been locked up or destroyed. I was forbidden to speak of what really happened, and the Gryffindors were allowed to go on with their schooling as though nothing had happened. Black and Pettigrew were given a week of detention, and Potter," he spat the name out derisively, "received an award for Special Services to the school for pulling me back and subduing the werewolf in his animagus form."

Hermione gaped at the Potions master. "They tricked you into going into that tunnel on the night of a full moon, knowing you'd come face to face with a werewolf? They could have killed you!"

"I have every reason to believe that was Black's intention," Snape said in a low voice, buttoning his shirt. "Our hatred of one another was not merely the school-boy rivalry Dumbledore would like to believe."

Hermione sensed there was more to the story, but decided to save those questions for later. Snape had already conceded to tell her far more than she had intended to learn from him today.

"It's good of you to make the Wolfsbane for him after such an incident," she commented.

Snape snorted. "You really thought I made it out of the goodness of my heart? You should know better than that. I make it because of that incident, so I never again would have to face what I saw that night in the Shrieking Shack."

He was staring straight ahead, across to the bare stone wall, but Hermione knew he was seeing beyond the room, reliving the events from another time and place.

Hermione couldn't imagine the terror Snape would have felt at being attacked by the werewolf. It had been terrifying enough to encounter Lupin in his other form, as they had in her third year, the night Pettigrew escaped and Sirius went into hiding. Thinking back on that night, she realised something, and voiced her thoughts aloud.

"You followed us into the Shrieking Shack that night, knowing Lupin hadn't taken his potion."

Snape turned his gaze to her again. "I was merely doing my duty to protect students, even if you were less than grateful at the time."

She looked away, ashamed at the memory of Snape sliding down the wall, knocked out from the combined power of three disarming spells. Looking back on that night, now, Snape had only been doing what he thought was right, and it must have taken more courage than Hermione thought she could ever muster for him to return to the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, knowing what he might find within.

Aloud, she simply said, "I never did apologise for disarming you. You were only doing what you thought was best for us at the time."

"Which turned out to be wrong, anyway," Snape sighed. "I hated Black, yes, but he was innocent in the Potters' deaths. I should have learnt years ago what happens when I let hatred cloud my judgement."

Hermione thought on his words for a moment, then said hesitantly. "You hated Sirius so much... is that what drove you to join… him?"

He looked up sharply. "No."

She recoiled slightly at the vehemence of his tone, and he shook his head, elaborating more evenly, "Not as such, although I won't deny the possibility of revenge wasn't a factor in my decision."

"There are many things I wanted as a teenager, Hermione," he went on, getting off the bed and moving to stand in front of the window as he spoke. "Power, knowledge, acceptance, recognition... all of which I thought the Dark Lord could offer me. All I had to do was pledge my loyalty to him, and I would have everything I'd longed for, everything I'd never had. It seemed a small price to pay."

"How wrong I was," he sighed, turning back to the room and meeting Hermione's gaze across the room, his dark eyes filled with anger and remorse. "He offered these things, but what he asked in return… what he demanded as a show of one's loyalty… none of those things were worth it. Power is an illusion when you find yourself crawling in the dirt to kiss the hem of his robes; acceptance and recognition in his circle are based on your willingness to take a life in the bloodiest, most brutal way possible."

"He did offer me knowledge, though," Snape mused. "Knowledge of Potions, the Dark Arts, things I'd never have learned under another tutor. Did you know it was he who funded the development of the original Wolfsbane potion?"

Hermione shook her head, disturbed yet intrigued by his narrative.

"It's true,' Snape confirmed. "The Master of Potions whom I apprenticed under was a Death Eater, commissioned by the Dark Lord to lure the werewolves into his service. He planned to offer them relative freedom from their affliction in exchange for loyalty, at the same time using the potion to bind them to his service for life. The binding element of the potion failed, though, and the Dark Lord killed the Master in anger, appointing the man's apprentice to continue his work."

"You," Hermione said quietly.

Snape nodded. "I was welcomed into the Death Eaters' ranks as a promising young student, and much of my first year in the Dark Lord's service was spent in a lab; creating, brewing, testing... it was a long time before I saw the results of some of my experiments."

Hermione saw a shudder run through him, and she wondered what other Dark potions besides the Cruciatus could be credited to his name.

"It was when I saw those results that I realised what I'd gotten myself into," he said hollowly. "At about the same time, the Dark Lord began calling on me more often to take active part in the raids, as they were known. I saw how, each night, he tested the loyalty of one of his servants, and it wasn't long before he tested mine. That was the night I went to Dumbledore."

"I know," Hermione whispered. It was one of the things she had seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve... and something she never wanted to see again.

A clock chimed out in the sitting room, breaking the heavy, brooding silence that had fallen across the room. Snape seemed to shake himself, physically and mentally, and accioed his frock coat from across the room.

"We best not be late for the meeting," he said. "I believe there will be a few people very glad to see you."

"Harry and Ron are here?" she said, following the Potions master out into the sitting room.

"No," he replied. "The meeting it at Grimmauld Place. We are to Floo directly there, and yes, Potter and Weasley will also be there."

She smiled to herself. It seemed an age since she'd seen her friends, though in reality it had only been a week.

"Am I actually allowed to attend the meeting?" she asked suddenly. In the past, she, Harry and Ron had been at Grimmauld Place often when the Order met, but had never been privy to what went on within the meetings, save what Dumbledore told Harry afterwards.

"I think Dumbledore wishes you to be there for part of the meeting," he emphasised. "The Order is not taking what happened over Christmas lightly, and will probably want your account of the events as well as my own."

He picked up the jar of Floo powder on the mantle, and as he offered her a handful, cautioned, "Remember, do not address me as Severus when others are around. We have enough to explain without a slip of the tongue causing more trouble."

"Of course, Professor Snape," she said, trying to suppress a smile.

He smirked as she stepped into the fireplace, tossing down her powder and calling out, "Number 12, Grimmauld Place!"


To be continued

This is the last chapter I wrote before Half-Blood Prince was released, but never fear, I am continuing the story despite it's obviously AUness in light of the book. This story will obviously be disregarding any canon after OOTP, although you may see some elements or ideas from HBP appear later in the story. No major spoilers, though. I'll continue to write the story as I've planned it.

Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. I hope you continue to enjoy the story!