A/N 1: Now let's get back to what I enjoy most about writing this story...

Chapter 23

Hermione had felt naked, wrong without the Map pressed against her waist in her inner pocket all week. But it had been right to leave it with Ginny in the Room of Requirement, tacked to the wall of the DA's newly-formed information hub. The Map had plenty of company there: several dozen portraits, a blank wall for the exclusive use of the castle ghosts to come through, and Ginny, Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, and Terry Boot rotating shifts, watching over the castle. Neville and his band of fighters had patrolled in pairs, be alerted by the new term's class schedules if any DA members ran into the Carrows, Filch or any of the DEs. They hadn't needed to mobilize; it had been an unsettlingly uneventful week. And now, with the map once more in her possession, Hermione still felt unsettled; she could almost feel all the eyes and ears of the castle around her, which she suspected might be largely because Phineas Nigellus was keeping pace with her as she walked towards the Headmaster's office for their first lesson of the New Year.

"Why are you here, again?" she huffed. She was nervous enough to be attending her first lesson of the year with Snape – doubly nervous because, like in the previous lesson, she had a question for him. Putting it from her mind – you've rehearsed it enough, you silly girl, you've made your decision – she glanced at the portrait. "You have your own assignment, just like all of the other portraits do."

"What, spying on the Slytherin Common Room? I'd rather watch Kreacher poke around his nasty little hidey-hole at Grimmauld Place. You are much more interesting."

"And you're not following me on someone else's orders?" Hermione demanded, suspicion pricking at the back of her neck. "Because it seems to me that all of the portraits of the Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts are sworn to aid and obey the sitting Headmaster."

"You've seen the regard Professor Snape affords us," Phineas answered sufferingly. "Not even allowed to sit in on meetings with his students. Being continually cast out, and with very little ceremony, I might add."

"Student-s?" Hermione asked, emphasizing the plural. "How many students does he meet with regularly?"

"There's you, of course, and one other."

And suddenly she remembered, the answer coming back like a distant echo from that very first meeting all that time ago.

"Malfoy." The portrait nodded as they carried on up a dark corridor. "He's still seeing Professor Snape alone every week, then."

Yet another thing for me to investigate.

"Indeed. Honestly, the Malfoy heir and the Headmaster are both such taciturn, dull types lately that I believe their meetings must be quite tedious. You, on the other hand, bring out something quite different in our erstwhile Professor Snape."

"What do you mean?"

Phineas just grinned mischievously and swept an elegant arm at the Gargoyle. They'd arrived.

Here we go again, Hermione thought, giving her Mind's Eye a quick checking over. All systems were a go, and she instructed herself for what felt like the thousandth time to keep her emotions to herself, no matter what Snape's answer to her question might be.

"We'll finish this conversation later," Hermione told Phineas. "Sir," she added hastily.

The sharp little man just rolled his eyes, and Hermione gave the Gargoyle the password - Agent Orange, a cancer-causing chemical weapon used during the American war with Vietnam… is it a band as well? And climbed up the staircase that appeared.

Snape stood in the centre of the circular room with his hands behind his back. He gave no greeting or acknowledgment, but he met Hermione's eyes, and raised his eyebrows slightly.

It's like he already expects it. Like he already knows I've got something to ask.

"Professor," she said, planting her feet firmly so that she stood directly in front of him.

"Miss Granger."

"I wonder if we might have a discussion this evening, before we start the lesson."

"A discussion regarding…?"

"Regarding our arrangement."

Snape cocked his head to the side slightly and regarded her warily.

"What about it?" he asked with a hint of a sneer.

"I have a… proposal for you," Hermione said, struggling to mirror the same confidence he always displayed at moments such as these. It's so easy for him, she thought compulsively, he just sneers and then he's right back to where –

"Indeed?" Snape said, halting her train of thought. "Then, Miss Granger, I am all rapt attention."

It was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic; his face was clear of emotion, and as he strode away from her and to his desk, Hermione saw the same economy in his movements as always. He waved his wand, and two chairs arranged themselves before the desk.

"Proceed," the dark man said after Hermione sat down.

"Right," she said. She straightened her back, and squared her shoulders. "Since I became aware of your use of the Pensieve, I have been contemplating our respective missions within our arrangement. Since you want to discover particular, deeply-hidden memories from me, and since you hide similar memories of your own in the Pensieve, you have a serious advantage, especially considering our mutual ability to use inversion."

Hermione stopped there and looked at Snape, who raised his eyebrows again. She took that as a signal to continue.

"Also, you have said several times now that I am capable of…" Hermione blushed a little, and strained to strip her voice of inflection, "holding my own in our exchanges. Not every time, of course, but I'm getting there. I realise now, however, that there must be a ceiling to my success in Occlumency and especially in Legilimency because of how you prepare for our lessons. There might be a similar ceiling to your success as well."

She squirmed a little, looked down at her clenched hands, and then glanced up at Snape, who sat tracing his mouth with the tip of his index finger. He regarded her steadily, and Hermione dropped her eyes again, squashing her nervousness and other useless feelings into a drawer in her Mind's Eye. Shut up. Stop reacting to him, she told herself. And then she almost laughed: It would be easier to stop breathing.

He studied her for a few more uncomfortable moments, and then heaved a short, sharp sigh.

"If I understand your rather roundabout proposal, you wish me to cease using the Pensieve before our meetings."

"Yes, sir."

"And what could possibly induce me to give up such an advantage?" He glared down his nose at her, sneering openly now. "Unless you have something on offer, girl, you are wasting my time."

"I thought it was rather obvious," Hermione snapped, nettled by his condescending tone. Stop. He's unsettling you on purpose. She composed herself again before pressing on. "You stop putting your sensitive memories into the Pensieve. You must then use all of your Occlumency faculties during our lessons, making it so that I am able to fully use all of my skills as a Legilimens when I reverse or invert a psychic attack. It will also be useful to me to observe an Occlumens of your calibre using his full range of skill. In return, you will know that I will be engaging with your psyche as deeply and effectively as I can…" Hermione felt herself blushing again. "I would be leaving myself open to deeper and more effective inversion as a result."

Snape leaned forward in his chair. In the low candlelight of his office, he looked intent and utterly open, the expression a stark contrast to the dangerous exasperation of moments before.

"Why would you purposefully expose yourself to that, Granger?" he asked in an undertone. "What exactly do you hope to find inside the recesses of my mind?"

"I… I don't have to tell you that."

His manner changed, and he sat back, away from her. He looked at her appraisingly now, and Hermione felt a prickle of fear in her gut. This might have been a bad idea…

"No, you do not. But I suspect that your prying questions of late might be at the core of your little proposal."

"You needn't sneer," Hermione blurted. She almost apologised for her cheek, but stopped herself when the dark man gave her a small, queer smile.

"I accept your proposal, with a warning," he said. "You are raising the stakes here. This is not my idea, and I admit that I am hesitant to enter into this new arrangement." He ran a hand through his black hair, his eyes never leaving hers. "However, as we briefly discussed over the holidays, you have indeed proved a good study of Occlumency. So much so that I am equally as pleased as I am hesitant at the opportunity you present."

"Why… why are you hesitant?" Hermione asked, the fear gone, and an odd, unfastened feeling opening in her chest.

"Because, Granger, both our skins are truly in the game now."

Snape spent the next twenty minutes behind his desk, removing strand after strand of memory from the Pensieve and replacing it in his mind. Hermione watched him carefully, fascinated by the huge volume of psychic material he'd been keeping from her. When he was done, he fell into the chair behind the desk, placed his head in his hands, and remained there, a dark, quiescent figure.

Hermione gave him a minute, then another, and then she stepped forward.

"Sir?" she asked, hesitantly. "Snape?"

The man breathed deeply, quietly. He did not answer. Hermione found herself making her way around his desk without considering what she did. She was at his side a moment later, her hand on his slumped shoulder.

"Are you all right?" she asked, bending forward to peer around the curtain of his hair and into his face.

He sat up suddenly, and Hermione pulled her hand back as though he'd burned her. He eyed her warily from his seated position.

"What do you think you are doing?" he hissed.

He looked pale. And angry.

"I was…" Hermione trailed off, confused and a little hurt. "I was concerned. You just… you seemed so…"

"Do you think that it is easy to remove and then return sensitive – sometimes agonizing – memories, you stupid girl?"

The poisonous words shocked her, but they were said in a cold, toneless voice that had Hermione straightening up and standing her ground. She answered him in kind:

"And do you think it is easy to sit by and watch you suffering, you stupid man?"

Snape narrowed his eyes and rose from the chair so that he towered over her. He stepped to the side, and Hermione realised that he now crowded her against the desk. She felt herself cowering slightly at his proximity, at the anger blazing down at her from his black eyes. No, she thought, trying to calm herself as he stepped even closer, he's not angry. This is something else.

"Perhaps you can contain your preposterous emotional outbursts long enough to remember that I am your teacher."

Hermione sneered, and Snape's eyes darted over her face, from her eyes to her mouth, and back, before a curtain of his hair fell forward to obscure his expression. She felt righteous opposition flowing through her.

"No," she said, raising her chin. "You stopped being my teacher the moment you showed up at my door with your first proposal. You are my captor. Don't pretend that this is even close to anything else, Snape." She reached up and, in one of those moments of insanity this man had a particular skill at inciting in her, Hermione gathered the greasy hair that had fallen into his face and gently tucked it behind his ear. Snape's eyes widened. "If you're shamed by my kindness to you, that is your problem." Hermione let her hand trail down through his hair, which felt softer and cleaner than she'd thought it would. She dropped her hand. "But you are not my teacher."

The dark man's nostrils flared as he stared down at her, his eyes glinting. Hermione looked back at him, sure of herself at that moment, sure of what she was at her core. He inhaled to speak and his black-clad chest brushed hers.

"You should not…" he said, but he couldn't seem to carry on. He looked away, out the window, and then stepped back, his hair falling into his face once more. "You should not be… kind… to me, Granger."

"Maybe not," she answered. "But that's up to me." She looked him over – he seemed so subdued now. "Are you… will we be able to have a lesson this evening? That is, you seem a little – "

"Tell me what Sentinella says about the use of a Pensieve, Miss Granger," Snape said, his voice heavy, eyes still downcast. "Tell me how you will verify in future that I have not used it."

Hermione smiled at him, but he didn't see it. So she answered his question. And they carried on.

A/N 2: Bonus points to any reviewers who catch the paraphrase I've pulled from another sshg fanfic writer, scumblackentropy. Shout out to her and her devastating opus Self Slain Gods on Strange Altars.