AN: Thanks to my reviewers! I will try to update as often as I can, but in a few weeks I have two tests in English on University level. During Christmas I should be able to update often.
Chapter One
Affirmation
Waking up the next day, Hermione felt disoriented. Granted that she was only squinting, but she could tell that this bed was not hers. The sheets were much too silky and much too... purple to belong to her – she would never ever even consider buying sheets that were that purple. As a matter of fact, she would never buy sheets that were any kind of purple. Where was she? Opening her eyes, she blinked a few times and then sat up in the large bed, taking in her surroundings. The room she was in looked like a fancy-pants dungeon. She frowned in confusion. A fancy-pants dungeon? Then she smacked her head against her knees as yesterdays events came crashing back to her. She couldn't help laughing at herself. How could she have forgotten that she had fled to Hogwarts? She shook her head and then stretched out her body across the bed like a cat. Letting out a content sigh, she vaguely wondered what time it was. She could barely remember when she had felt this well rested before.
There was a knock on the door and a wave of panic came over her as she flew up in a sitting position. She immediately felt stupid and could barely restrain herself from rolling her eyes. There was no need to feel panicked here, just as she had no reason to worry in any other kind of way. Ron wouldn't be able to hurt her here. Scrambling out of bed, she pulled a bathrobe on that she found hanging on a gold-plated hook on the inside of the bedroom door and then she slowly opened the door. She let out a small breath of relief when she saw that it was only Dobby.
"Good day to you, Miss Hermione!" the little house-elf squeaked when he saw her. "Headmistress asked Dobby to bring Miss Hermione food and a fresh set of towels."
He gestured towards the little one-person table in the corner of the room, where Hermione saw a plate of soup, freshly baked bread and big glass of pumpkin juice. Her stomach grumbled so loudly at the sight of it that she almost felt embarrassed.
"Thank you, Dobby," she said kindly and reached out her hands to take the towels that were still in his arms.
He flashed a grin before he disappeared. Hermione gently put the towels on the couch and then hurried towards the food. She drank greedily of the pumpkin juice, realizing that she had not had a single drop of the delicious beverage since the last time she had been at Hogwarts. Just then, a clock chimed at the other side of the room. Hermione automatically looked at it and at the sight of what time it was, she somehow managed to choke on the juice. Three thirty! her mind nearly screamed as she coughed up the juice that had gone down the wrong pipe. She never slept past eight! But that was of course due to the fact that Ron woke her every morning at that time on those few occasions when she didn't get up before eight to make him breakfast. No wonder she felt so good this morning. She had not only fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, she had also managed to sleep through most of the day.
After she had eaten, she decided to take a nice, long shower and then go see Professor McGonagall. She felt obligated to explain why she was here and the state she had been in upon arrival. The hot water felt good on her skin, but she forgot about the wound on her back and cried out in pain as the water hit it the first time. Slowly she got used to the heat and to the pain and vowed to herself not to forget to ask McGonagall to heal the wound after they had spoken.
When she was dressed, she felt a bit restless. She wanted to unpack the duffel bag, but she did not want to take for granted that she would be allowed to stay here. Instead she left the quiet room to face the bustling energy from the students of the school. She swung the door open and nearly crashed into the chest of Severus Snape.
"Miss Granger, watch where you are going," he snapped as he reached out to steady the staggering woman.
He immediately let her go when he felt her tense. They looked at each other for a moment in silence. A voice inside Hermione's head was screaming for answers. Why was he here? Yes, that was the dominant question that she really wanted the answer for. Just as she opened her mouth to straight out ask him, he beat her to it.
"The headmistress wanted me to come collect you," he said and scowled, leaving no doubt in Hermione's mind how little he enjoyed running such errands.
He gave no further information. Instead he turned on his heel and started down the deserted corridor, his robes billowing after him. She assumed this meant that he wanted her to follow him, so she hurried after him and was forced to take very large steps in order to keep up with his pace. Just as yesterday, neither one of them uttered a word. They met no one along the way.
Once inside the headmistress's office, Snape had her sit down on the same chair she had occupied during their last meeting. McGonagall arrived a moment later, carrying a stack of books and on top of the stack there was a copy of the Daily Prophet.
"I trust you slept well, Miss Granger?" she asked as she put down the books on her desk.
"I slept very well, thank you. But I really would prefer if you could call me Hermione instead of Miss Granger. It makes me feel as if I am still in school."
McGonagall gave her a gentle smile and then nodded in acknowledgement.
"I will agree to call you Hermione if you agree to call me Minerva."
Hermione gave her old professor an alarmed look. Call her former professor and head of house by her first name? McGonagall caught the look in her eyes.
"Just as you are no longer my student, I am no longer your professor. We are merely two adults acknowledging that there no longer exists any reason as to why they should call each other by their last names," McGonagall said with the hint of a smile.
She almost laughed, but Hermione bit the inside of her lip control herself.
"As you wish then, Prof– I mean, Mi-Minerva," Hermione finally managed to get out, even though she stumbled a bit on the words.
Minerva nodded her head, seemingly pleased. Hermione dared a glance at the surly Potions Master and that was all she needed to realize that he would not permit any first names what so ever. Turning her attention back to the headmistress, she saw that the older woman's expression grew serious and she seated herself on a chair close to Hermione.
"Are you ready to inform us as to what brought you here in the middle of the night?" she asked softly and gave Hermione a searching look.
Hermione took a long, deep breath before she slowly nodded her head. She was in no hurry to start her tale, and both of the professors seemed to be patient. Hardly knowing where to being, she finally started with the most obvious.
"I'm sure you can both guess who I am running from," she started as she nervously twisted her hands in her lap. "And that's why the situation is so complicated."
"Are you in fact admitting then, Miss Granger, that it was indeed Mr Weasly who did this to you?" Snape asked slowly, his eyes narrowing at the mentioning of Ron.
Hermione kept her eyes glued to her hands while she nodded. She did not see the furious look in Snape's eyes, nor the fact that his hands were balled up so tightly that the knuckles were turning white.
"I... I cannot begin to try to remember when it had started – when he started drinking, when he changed so completely. Maybe it had always been there from the beginning, being forced to live with the constant attention Harry always got. I think he's always been very jealous, being the last son of six, and then getting Harry Potter as his best friend couldn't have made it any better."
Her tale was told in a monotonous way and she had a far away look in her eyes.
"Then I went and became the highest scoring graduate of Hogwarts in fifty years! For a while, I was as famous as Harry. Maybe that's when it slowly started going so terribly wrong. I didn't notice that anything was off until we had lived together for a few months. He didn't get accepted to Auror school with Harry. He started coming home late and he was usually more or less drunk. At first I was understanding. Then... I became worried. And not long after that, I was scared. But by then it was already too late."
There was a lump forming in her throat, she was so close to tears. She swallowed and then inhaled deeply, daring a look at Minerva. Her expression was a mixture of troubled, worried and sad. Snape was not showing any traces of what he was thinking or feeling, as if there was a mask securely attached to his face that kept all his emotions at bay.
"What made you decide to leave last night, Hermione?" Minerva wondered when she hadn't spoken for quite some time.
"I'm not sure what finally made me realize that I had to leave... The revelation that I should not have to live like this just suddenly came to me. He has done me so much harm... I haven't even told you the worst parts yet."
She raised her hand to her shoulder and turned to look at Snape.
"I think you noticed that something was wrong here yesterday," she said as she gently patted her back. "A few nights ago he decided that he was hungry and when I wasn't fast enough to fix him a sandwich, he decided to help, or at least that is what I suppose he was thinking about doing. But he started swinging around the knife I had used to cut the bread behind my back and in some way he managed to cut me open."
As she spoke, Snape arose from the chair and slowly took a few steps towards her. He reached for her shoulder, searching Hermione's eyes for permission and as soon as she nodded, he gently slid the t-shirt down a bit. She heard him suck his breath in. Without bothering to ask her for permission, he whipped his wand out and muttered a spell to heal the wound. After he was done, he carefully stroke his finger along the scar he knew she would always have. An unexpected feeling swept through Hermione's entire body when he caressed her skin. It had been so long since she had felt any kind of desire for a man that she at first couldn't identify the emotions that flitted through her whole being. It was over in a second, but Hermione could feel that her cheeks were flushed and she hoped that they wouldn't notice. Snape gave her a odd look as he stepped back from her, a look she had never seen on him before and that she couldn't possibly understand. He didn't know that he had made her blush, did he? She bit the bottom of her lip and then blinked a few times to try to remember what she was going to tell them next. Oh yes. The most troublesome part of the whole situation.
"There is one last thing I need to tell you and it's also the worst," she said, letting the words rush out of her as quickly as possible so that she wouldn't lose her nerve. "I have lost control of my magic."
Her last few words were barely more than a whisper, but she knew that they had heard her – Minerva let out a gasp of surprise while Severus let out of stream of quiet curses. It was not unheard of that some witches and wizards lost control of their magic, but it was unusual that it had happened to someone so young. Apart from that, neither Minerva or Severus had ever known anyone who didn't have complete control of the magic they possessed. A person's magic was a part of who you were. If Hermione had lost control of hers, it meant that she was far more hurt and betrayed and scared of Ron than she let on.
"Can you not summon your magic at all?" Minerva finally asked, breaking the silence that had endured after Hermione's shocking news.
"I can, but it seldom does what I want. Watch," she answered and then pulled her wand out from the pocket in her sweater. "Accio Daily Prophet!"
Nothing happened. Hermione let out a frustrated noise of impatience. She said the spell again, more forceful this time, and now the newspaper wobbled a bit, but then flapped down on the floor. Hermione looked at it with a miserable expression, but didn't dare to look at either of her old professors. She sighed as she raked her brain for another spell that could be a good example to show them. Ah, of course. Why not a spell she had mastered since her first year at Hogwarts?
"Er, you might want to brace yourself for this one – I've not tried it since I noticed that my magic wasn't quite right," she warned the two professors, then pointed her wand at the Daily Prophet and said "Wingardium Leviosa!" as she moved her wand in the 'swish and flick' motion that Professor Flitwick had taught her so many years ago.
The newspaper shot up in the air and then went blaasting out the window like a bullet, creating a small, but noticeable whole in the glass. Hermione stared after it with resigned surprise. Minerva had a kept her eyes on the newspaper, while Severus had kept his keen, observing gaze on Hermione. He saw that she did everything right – the right wand moment, the right word emphasis. She had done nothing to make the newspaper fly so forcefully out the window. She was right to be troubled – she would have to work very hard if she wished to regain control of her magic.
"Reparo," she muttered without thinking, her wand pointed at the broken window.
All three adults jumped when the entire window shattered into a million pieces, Hermione being the only one to react verbally as she let out a piercing shriek of surprise.
"Thank you, Hermione, I think we have seen enough," Minerva said faintly as she raised her wand towards the empty window frame.
Saying the same spell that she had just used to destroy the window, Hermione watched as the tiny pieces of glass arranged themselves back to where they were supposed to be. She sighed, feeling utterly useless.
"Does Mr Weasly know that he has caused you to lose control?" Minerva wondered next, seating herself back on the chair.
Hermione considered the question seriously for a moment before shaking her head.
"I don't think he ever noticed, mainly due to the fact that I stopped using magic. I was afraid that I would set the whole flat on fire."
A moment of silence. Then–
"Does Mr Potter know anything about what has happened?"
Hermione gave Minerva a troubled look.
"Harry is so busy, he probably wouldn't have time to meet with me... Anyway, I don't want to burden him with my problems."
"Burden him with you problems?" Severus repeated in a low hiss. "You have no control of your magic! You have lost the ability to use the simplest spells because the one who claimed to love you abused you so! He should be put in Azkaban for what he has done to you, Miss Granger. He is no better than the pathetic Death Eaters I once spent my worthless time with!"
Hermione couldn't control the shock she felt at hearing her old Potions professor speak (or rather roar) this way about what had been done to her. She also thought that he was using quite strange words to describe the Death Eaters (had some of them not been his friends?) and his time (he really considered his time to be worthless?)
"We all know that precious Potter's time is valuable, but if you for one second believe that he would not lay aside everything to come to you in your need, then you really must have forgotten who he is!"
Minerva put a hand on his arm to calm him and shot him a look of incredulous disbelief. She had not seen him so passionate about anything since before the war had ended.
"What I think Professor Snape is trying to convey, Hermione, is that Harry is so full of love when it comes to his friends, especially you, and he will always have time for you if you need him," Minerva tried to rephrase.
Hermione nodded in agreement.
"I know that, but I don't want to force Harry to choose a side. I'm not the only best friend he's got – Ron has been his best mate since they met on the train first year."
Snape sneered at her, his mouth formed into a line so thin that it almost looked as if he had no lips.
"If the-boy-who-lived" – she didn't miss that his tone was full of disdain at the the over-used nickname that Harry loathed – "chooses to side with Mr Weasly, then perhaps he is not the good friend you thought he was."
All remaining color drained from Hermione's already very pale face as Snape voiced one of her biggest fears – that Harry, all her friends, everyone she knew in the magical, would side with Ron. If that were to happen... well, then it didn't really matter that she no longer could do proper magic. She couldn't stay in a world where magic surrounded everything without the support of her friends and those she had come to view as family. The entire clan of Weasleys she considered to be family – what if she lost them on account for something that she couldn't be blamed for?
"Take a deep breath, Hermione," Minerva instructed her as she shot Severus a must-you-agonize-her-so kind of look. "I couldn't possibly imagine that this is something you need to worry about. The important thing now is for you to regain control."
Hermione breathed deeply in and out. She knew that Minerva was right, but it was hard not to worry about the future.
"How will I do that?" she asked quietly, almost desperately, looking at Minerva for answers.
Minerva gave her a brief look of sympathy before she turned to Severus. Hermione immediately knew what that meant and her insides turned slightly from the nervousness that suddenly filled her – her old head of house had absolutely no idea how to fix this. She would have to rely on a person that had always seemed to hate her, on the one person who had never appeared to be impressed by the power and magical abilities she possessed. It took an extra moment before she dared to look at him. His gaze was already on her, giving her a calculating leer, his mouth pressed into a thin, almost evil smile. Hermione gulped. Was he really looking at her like that or was she just imagining things?
"I hope you realize, Miss Granger, that I have no obligation what so ever to help you," he started off by saying, his arms folded across his chest. "If you however are prepared to work hard and relinquish all your free time to assist me with brewing potions to the infirmary, then I am willing to sacrifice my time to help you."
Two minutes ago he had claimed that his time was worthless. Know he was saying that the time it would take to help her was a sacrifice he was willing to make if she would brew potions for him? Hermione didn't quite know what to make of the man.
"Sir, why do you need my assistance with the potions?" she wondered, a small frown indicating that she really didn't understand why this was necessary.
His eyes narrowed at the question and Hermione found herself wishing she could take it back.
"Because if you agree to this, then all my free time will be spent helping you," he replied coldly.
Hermione's mouth formed into a voiceless 'oh' as she understood the implications – when he wasn't teaching or grading papers, he spent his time restocking the supply of various healing potions for Madame Pomfrey. Now, when he wasn't teaching or grading papers, he would be spending his time with her, helping her with her magic. When she thought about it, it really did make sense for her to help him. After all, her magic was wonky, but there was no need for 'foolish wand-waving' while making potions, recalling her former professor's words from her very first year at Hogwarts.
"I understand," she whispered, her head bowed – she didn't want to see him sneer at her.
"Do you agree then?"
His voice was still cold and calm at the same time. Hermione quickly nodded her head.
"Look at me when I speak to you!" he barked and Hermione's head snapped up to meet his penetrating gaze. "Furthermore, I really believe you to be capable of saying 'yes' instead of simply nodding your head as a scared little first year."
Hermione's cheeks burned at this and at first she wanted to defy him by not saying anything at all, but as she thought this through, she realized that it would be a bad idea to antagonize him when he had just offered to help her get the control of her magic back. Besides, she was not five years old. She sighed in defeat.
"Yes, sir, I agree to your terms."
His eyes glinted strangely, but he didn't comment. As a matter of fact, his expression conveyed no hint that he had heard her. He simply seemed... bored.
"Well, now that you have come to an agreement, I think it might be a good idea to meet with her every evening, Severus," Minerva said, having looked back and forth between them during their exchange with a feeling of amusement. "We will announce to the students and staff that you are here as Professor Snape's apprentice and I am certain it will only take a day or so before it is printed in the Daily Prophet."
Hermione's eyes bulged at the mentioning of this becoming public knowledge. She swallowed to get rid of the lump that had formed in her throat. Ron would know she was here by tomorrow or the next day.
"Don't fret, child," Minerva said softly, "you are safe here. You are welcome to stay here until we have sort this out."
Hermione tried to smile, but it came off more as a grimace. She wasn't sure if Minerva meant that she was welcome to stay until she had her magic back in check or if she was allowed to stay until the whole mess with Ron was over and done with.
"Are you ready to begin this evening, Miss Granger, or do you need more time to acclimate to your new surroundings?" Snape asked, his tone silky.
She really did want more time to get used to her new freedom and home, if that was indeed what Hogwarts was to her now. But she could hardly imagine that Snape was seriously asking her if she felt ready to start. He was testing her in some peculiar way, that she was certain of.
"The sooner we start, the better, wouldn't you say, sir?" she answered with a small smile.
Snape did not smile back, which, when she thought about it, would have made her quite alarmed if he had, since he had never smiled when looking at her.
"Indeed, Miss Granger. Indeed."
He might as well have said straight out what they both knew he was thinking – the sooner they started, the sooner he would be rid of her.
"My office. Seven o'clock. Do not be late," he warned and then swept out of the room.
Hermione couldn't help but follow his exit with round eyes. Did she really know what she had gotten herself in to?
