A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews! This chapter needed more fine-tuning than I'd anticipated, so it's a touch later than I wanted. Next chapter is on the way, and will hopefully be ready in the next week or two.

Chapter 30

She was ready at last, her forehead prickling a little painfully from all her preparation. Her stomach ached as well – she'd skipped dinner to meditate and organize her Mind's Eye... and to choose the right clothes. She'd stopped wearing her school uniform to her Friday meetings with Snape ages before, and this evening she'd changed from her jean skirt to her trousers and back again twice.

"Don't be pathetic," she whispered to herself, choosing the trousers once and for all and Banishing the skirt to her trunk. She told herself that it was because she'd not seen him in several weeks, that her nerves were because her Occlumency would be rusty, that it was because using her Mind's Eye still made her head ache… not for any other reason.

"Ahem," a voice said from behind her.

Hermione tucked in her camisole, careful not to look down at her uneven chest, and threw a loose jumper over herself before addressing the small empty portrait on the wall next to the window of her dormitory.

"Come in, Professor Black."

Phineas Nigellus appeared, looking distinctly agitated.

"What is it?" Hermione asked immediately. Her Mind's Eye worked on autopilot, filing away the answering worry his expression prompted to rise within her.

"Your lesson is cancelled this evening, Miss Granger," the portrait said.

"Again! Why?"

"The Headmaster did not instruct me to give you a reason, Granger, just to tell you that you will resume lessons next – "

"But – " Hermione tried to interrupt.

"But," the little man cut her off in turn, looking annoyed now. "I will tell you that Professor Snape left the castle several minutes ago. His destination is not unknown to me, although I will not share it with you."

He's in trouble! No, stay calm. Think rationally. There must be a way to… of course!

She pulled the Marauder's Map, which she'd reclaimed from the brain chain in order to move through the castle safely for her Friday meeting with Snape. It took less than a minute to confirm that although the Carrows were still in the castle, Malfoy's little dot had disappeared again. They'd been summoned together yet again. Confirming where Snape had gone redoubled Hermione's fears, and set her forehead to aching. She took down her Mind's Eye and allowed her emotions to surface. Worry arose from her gut so strongly that Hermione thought she might choke on it.

"What does this mean?" she asked Phineas Nigellus. "He's not usually summoned this often, is he?"

"It has happened before, actually," the portrait answered quietly. "But three times in one week usually means…"

"Go on." Hermione prompted, but she thought she might already know.

"It either means that there have been serious developments in his... organization, or…" Phineas paused, his brow furrowing in what Hermione was almost shocked to perceive as worry, "or it means that things here at Hogwarts are under review and that our Headmaster has something to… answer for."

Hermione's mind replayed all of the DA's actions that month, all of the successful attacks on the Carrows, and quailed. You-Know-Who must have discerned what's been going on, he must have seen some of what's happened to the Carrows if he's summoned them, and now Snape…

"You're worried about him," she said to the portrait.

"I am," he answered, nodding with visible reluctance.

"Let's go, then."

Hermione was sneaking quietly through Hogwarts and toward the Headmaster's Office less than ten minutes later.

This is insane, she thought to herself, he won't want to see me, and what can I do anyway, and what if he comes back with another Death Eater in tow, and…

She arrived at the gargoyle, and spoke the password in an undertone: "Pink Floyd."

Nothing happened. Of course, it's been weeks and he's changed the password. She looked around for a brief moment until she located Phineas Nigellus in a painting across the hall from where she stood. She went to him carefully, and he whispered the new password to her: Pearl Jam. Yet another band, of course, she thought as she submitted the password and walked up the winding stairs to the office above.

It looked the same as always, and Hermione was surprised to feel relief course through her as she settled into her usual seat to await Snape's return. She watched as Phineas Nigellus resumed his usual frame behind the large desk. The other former Headmasters and Headmistresses were away from their portraits.

"Why tonight?" she asked him. "This has been happening for a while now. Why are you so worried tonight?"

"He's been… holding things together, but only just. And as you say, it is unusual for him to be summoned this often in the span of one week."

"Has he been avoiding me?" Hermione asked. The question had plagued her for a month, and she expected Phineas to either ignore it or reprimand her for it.

"Oh, absolutely," the little man said instead. "He used to keep his Friday nights open for your meetings. He stopped doing that."

"Why?" she blurted.

"Why indeed?" he regarded her sharply, and Hermione had to look away.

Their conversation tapered off after that, and Hermione reached into her bag determinedly, took out the weekend's homework, and set herself up at Snape's desk. She'd managed to keep up with schoolwork despite all of her DA duties thanks, in part, to an unusually light workload from most of the teachers. And this way I won't obsess while I wait.

In between glances at the Map, Hermione finished writing two essays, caught up on her reading (she'd had to leave off memorizing full texts this year, unfortunately), and practiced her spellwork for both Charms and Transfiguration. She was starting to feel sleepy when Phineas's sharp voice cracked into her determinedly academic thoughts.

"He's back."

Hermione, who had been slightly slumped over the desk, straightened immediately and looked at the Map.

"Where?" she asked, scanning the Map.

"Dilys has just seen him walking through the Entrance Hall with the Malfoy heir."

Hermione located the two dots immediately and watched them separate as Malfoy went down to the dungeons and the Headmaster proceeded up the staircase.

"How is he? Is he all right, is –"

"Hush!" Phineas snapped, his face turned to the side, clearly listening to someone Hermione couldn't see. She was on her feet now, and impatient.

"Yes, they're fine," Phineas said, relaying the message, "neither are injured this time, but Severus appears pale and..." He turned back to Hermione. "You'd best leave now, Miss Granger. My earlier alarm was clearly unwarranted. Off you go."

"What?" Hermione glared at the portrait, and planted her feet firmly. "No! I'm here and I'm staying."

"Granger, you don't want to see Severus when he's just back from what we now know was a –" the little man cut himself off with visible effort, but Hermione would have none of it.

"You know. You know where he's been!"

"Use the fire – Floo down to the kitchens or to the Gryffindor Common Room."

"Where was he?" She stepped around the desk so that she was confronting the portrait as directly as possible. "I'm not leaving, Phineas, so you might as well tell me."

Phineas Nigellus didn't even bother chastising her for her tone, nor her use of his given name.

"A revel. Friday nights are often revels," he said, speaking very rapidly, "and he's avoided them a long time now as he's made excuses. Lately, though, he's been attending and it's catching up with him."

"And why do you think I should leave now, when I've been waiting for him all evening?"

"He'll have been made to do… unpleasant things tonight in order to reaffirm his loyalties. Hermione, please get out of here. He won't want you to... he'll do or say something he'll – "

"It's too late, Phineas," said a woman's voice. Dilys appeared in her portrait. "He's in the hallway below already. I tried to redirect him, but he…"

The two former Heads disappeared as the door to the office opened. Hermione turned around as Snape himself stepped over the threshold. His eyes were on her, and Hermione understood what Dilys had been about to say: Snape had clearly known that he would find her here. She almost regretted her stubbornness in staying as she took in his extreme pallor, the set of his shoulders, and his blank, terrifying eyes. He approached slowly, and Hermione thought absurdly of apologizing for being behind his desk, for the schoolwork she'd left strewn about the office, for…

"What," he said deliberately, "are you doing here?"

Blood rushing in her ears – my face must be beet-red, oh God, why does he have to look at me like that–

"I…" she trailed off, trying desperately to bring her Mind's Eye up as the dark man stepped forward languidly. He stopped before his desk and glanced down at the mounds of parchment and textbooks.

"Do you mistake my office for the library?"

His voice was colourless, but it affected her nonetheless. It's the first time he's spoken to me since... she shut that thought off immediately.

"No," she said, finding her voice at last, and facing him squarely. Her Mind's Eye fell into place and Hermione felt neutrality settling over her firmly. "I wanted to see you to ask why you've been cancelling our sessions."

"Despite what you may think, Miss Granger," Snape answered, peering down at her essay for Professor Slughorn, "you are not the only chore with which I am charged."

"Maybe not," she said, storing her annoyance and pique carefully away as she spoke, "but you and I do have an agreement. And your cancelling my lessons every week goes against the Vow you took last September."

The dark man snorted slightly, discarded her Potions homework carelessly, and took up her Arithmancy essay instead.

"I Vowed to teach you Occlumency. I did not specify when I would do so."

"So where were you tonight, then?" Hermione asked.

Snape's black eyes met hers, and she felt a shiver rise from her gut at the blankness she saw there.

"There is only one way for you to gain that information."

His voice was quiet, but the challenge in it was unmistakable.

Something is off, she thought as she held his eyes, he's challenging me instead of chastising me. He's dismissive and nasty, but he's inviting a fight. Phineas was right to tell me to leave. I can't handle him like this.

Hermione dropped her eyes back to the desk and busied her hands by sweeping her papers into a neat pile, which she Banished into her rucksack. She took a deep breath and walked around her desk, keeping a careful distance from Snape. She stopped to snatch up her bag, and shoved the chair she'd occupied back into place beneath the desk. The back of the chair stood between her and the dark man, who followed her movements with his hawking stare.

"I'll have that back now." She held out her hand for the Arithmancy essay. "Please," she added as an awkward afterthought.

Snape looked down at her hand outstretched over the chair, and his black eyes tracked up her wrist, her arm, her shoulder, her neck and – a shiver ran over her – lingered on her mouth before finally meeting her own.

"I thought you wanted a lesson this evening, Miss Granger," he said, and with a deliberate movement he took out his wand. Her essay disappeared. "I will return your typically verbose and overreaching essay on the magical properties of the number eleven when you have completed your Occlumency work."

"I can always rewrite it," she shot back, but she was already flicking her wrist, releasing her wand from its sheath and into her hand.

I can't just say no, not when I can find out what he's been up to…

"You could, but you might find that difficult, given that your essay and the books you consulted to write it are now in my possession."

Hermione glared at him before checking her rucksack; it was as he'd said. The dark man smirked at her before raising his own wand to a defensive position.

"Whenever you're ready, Miss Granger," he said in a voice of almost infuriating calm.

Her wand was warm in her hand, and Hermione took a few more seconds to check over her Mind's Eye. Her defenses were in place as usual, her roiling emotions - confusion, worry, yearning - stored away carefully. I'm as ready as I'll ever be...

"Legilimens!"

Snape's mindscape appeared around her: the bleak, beautiful plain stretched on endlessly as Hermione rotated carefully on the spot. Mist rose from the pools of thought and memory at her feet, and a sense of ensnaring invitation permeated the air around her. Like the dark man's presence in his office this evening, it was a disconcerting mixture of almost jocular dismissal and alluring provocation. As conflicting emotions arose in her chest once more, Hermione felt the dark man's impatience saturate his Mind's Eye. She did nothing, however; she stood there within his mindscape and remained, enfolded in those aspects of the dark man that Snape allowed her to perceive.

I could stay like this forever, she realized abruptly. I've missed this...

But she had business here, and she tentatively followed the glimmer of impatience, which led her to a pool of memory. Peering down hesitantly, Hermione saw a group of dark figures, and a starkly white face. Malfoy, surrounded by a number of –

He's practically offering this to me, she realized abruptly, on the point of diving into the memory. He provokes this confrontation and then he offers this up? And I actually do know where he's been, and I have a good idea of what he might have done. Phineas told me. And now Snape wants me to find out. But I'm not acturally here for that, and he knows it …

Hermione made to enter the memory, but swung away at the last minute, running hard across the mindscape, jumping over misty pools. She headed straight for the blurry horizon ahead, to where she knew Snape stored most of his more sensitive memories. Hermione gathered power as she moved inside his mind, and peered quickly into each pool she passed. More hooded figures bearing down on a writhing figure; Harry Potter's visage, screwed into a mask of rage; a dark woman she recognized as Snape's mother cowering in a corner. She kept running until... There! A glimpse of her own face, set into lines of concentration – Hermione dove.

A memory coalesced around her: she and Snape stood in this very office, holding onto one another after a particularly harsh lesson – it's the same one I used to try and stop him last time we did this, Hermione realized immediately. She felt herself grimacing in concentration through the slight pain in her forehead as she bore down on the memory. Through the haze of psychic connection, Snape's eyes were wide with the surprise she felt coiling around her. She let the memory play and, as she'd hoped, an echo of the emotions Snape had felt at the time arose slowly around them both as they watched. Hermione seized on that emotion – just the slightest, thinnest shade of something she couldn't quite discern, and pushed forward into the next memory connected to it.

Now they were in the office again, and memory-Hermione was running her hand through memory-Snape's lank hair as he pointedly looked away. She pressed on to the next memory – Snape giving a prostrate Hermione potions on a conjured couch – and on until she at last she saw what she'd been avoiding for a month now, what he'd surely been avoiding too – and drove herself forward into it. She watched as memory-Hermione held herself gently against memory-Snape and pressed her lips carefully to his. Reining in her own emotions, Hermione found the thread of Snape's emotions – overwhelming surprise, voluptuous passion, and an underlying sorrow – and sprang after the latter emotion into the next memory.

Now she watched as memory-Snape bent over his desk in resignation, as a voice she recognized as Dumbledore's rang out over his head: "It is imperative that you keep your head, Severus, now more than ever." Beyond memory-Snape, Hemione recognized her own prone figure sprawled out on a Transfigured sofa across the office… a half-formed recollection of this same heated conversation came to her as memory-Snape sent parchment, quills, ink, books, and potion vials crashing from the desk onto the stone floor with an angry sweep of his arm.

Snape's eyes – watching all of this while he concentrated on containing his evident curiosity at what Hermione was doing, suddenly narrowed. And at last he countered her, pressing back against her, trying to keep her from seeing… what? She redoubled her efforts, despite the possibility that he'd invert the connection. Even if he did, what would he see? Probably the same thing but from my side. And I'd hopefully get to see more of this that way…

"You'll wake the girl," Dilys said from inside the memory, which was blurry and falling away rapidly as Snape fought Hermione's psychic hold, "if you carry on throwing things, young man. Calm yourself."

"Would you be calm in such a situation, Dilys?" snarled memory-Snape. "Would you be capable of standing by while… while…"

Snape broke the psychic connection with a flare of magic. Hermione staggered a little, her shoulder stinging, holding onto the back of the chair next to her at the sudden ejection from his mind. She breathed slowly to calm her racing heart.

"What the hell was that?" His voice was colourless again, but Hermione wasn't fooled; she'd unsettled him deeply enough that he'd preferred to disengage her with a Stinging Jinx rather than using his formidable Legilimency to invert the connection and take advantage of the depth of her attack. Yes, it might have carried them both right back into the same memory from her side, but she'd left herself open enough that he could have moved just about anywhere within her mind.

Instead, he stood before her, hooded eyes glinting, and when she looked down she fancied she saw his hands shaking. She met his eyes again and consciously and deliberately took down her own Mind's Eye. Her feelings for the man surged forward, but Hermione refused to panic in the midst of it all. Instead, she straightened her spine and regarded him evenly. She didn't need Occlumency for this particular confrontation.

"Legilimency," she said smartly, answering his question.

A shadow descended over his face, and Snape stepped forward.

"What do you think you're playing at, girl?" he demanded, anger pitching his voice lower.

"I had a talk with Dumbledore's portrait recently." Her voice was calm although her mind tried to go into overdrive as she spoke. She kept herself present as she carried on, "And even though he didn't give me the answers I wanted, I have an idea of how to find them now."

Hermione kept facing him, holding her ground, her eyes on his, before she deliberately turned her back on the dark man and lifted her rucksack.

"What are you doing?" the dark man demanded.

"I'm leaving," she said, going calmly around the chair that separated the two of them.

Snape stepped in front of her, blocking her way out of the office.

"We're not through here."

"No, but it's late and I'm tired and I've decided that I don't need to know where you've been tonight. I can guess well enough, and there is more valuable information to be had from you anyway." She stared at his shoulder as she spoke. "And I can remember enough of the essay and my books to put something together for my Arithmancy homework without too much difficulty."

She moved on, but stopped when she felt a warm, long-fingered hand close over her wrist.

"Granger," he said from behind her. He said it simply, but there was something beneath his deep voice. Something dark and tempting that might surge over her should she turn around and face him.

"I haven't seen you for a month," she said, her eyes focused determinedly on the door that would lead her from him and his perplexing presence, from the deep feeling she had seen in him before he'd cut off her attack, and that hint of answers. She let all of her confusion and feeling into her voice when she spoke again: "I've missed you."

He let her go, and Hermione heard him move away. She turned slowly, and saw that Snape was facing away from her, leaning against the opposite side of his desk, his head bowed slightly.

I should leave. I've done all I can tonight, and I know a bit more than I did before, and I know how to find out even more next time, and I should just stop while I'm ahead…

She thought it, and yet she moved forward, dropped her bag, and skirted the desk to stand before the dark man. He'd hunched in on himself slightly so that he was a small black stain in the midst of the opulent office.

Snape didn't look up as she approached, and so Hermione had to push back that curtain of black hair in order to see his face. She stepped forward carefully and glanced briefly at his eyes – pained and strained and full of that ardour she'd followed through his Mind's Eye – before pressing her closed lips to the hollow of one flushed cheek. He took a deep, almost inaudible breath, and Hermione felt his black-clad chest brush her own as she moved up onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his sharp cheekbone. Snape stood frozen, hands at his sides, his eyes staring straight ahead, as he allowed her to trail her lips up to his temple, back over his gaunt cheek, and then down over his jaw. She stopped, looking at his mouth, which had gone white with restraint.

This is… the nattering voice was back, and louder than ever. This is insane…She stepped away from Snape, feeling the colour rising into her cheeks, her boldness giving way to trepidation. How could I ever think he'd want this?

She was about to turn away when the motionless man came to vivid life and moved with her, countering her retreat with a step so sudden that Hermione stumbled. Snape caught her with a hand on her shoulder; his other hand came up to tilt her head back and he bent forward to plant his lips on the hollow of her cheek, just as she'd done to him. She inhaled sharply, relief and confusion and heat stealing over her along with the scent of woodsmoke and herbs as the dark man's lips roved over her face in precisely the same pattern she'd traced earlier. When he came to the edge of her jaw, Snape moved downwards, and Hermione felt the hand he'd buried in her hair tilt her head back until her neck was straight and straining and waiting for his eager mouth.

"Oh," she heard herself murmur as the dark man's lips descended on her pulse point, coaxing blood to the surface of her skin and igniting fire all through Hermione's body. He growled in response and moved with slow, deliberate, sucking kisses down the side of her throat until he reached the hollow of her shoulder. Stitches popped as he pulled her jumper aside to trace the hollow of her collarbone, ever so slowly and gently, with the tip of his tongue.

Her hands moved of their own accord, clutching Snape to her, pulling at his shoulders as he moved back to her neck, fixed his lips on her pulse point once more and sucked.

"Oh, God," she whispered, "I – "

She was cut off when Snape – eyes heavy-lidded and glittering – surged back up to cover her lips with his own. There was no hesitation anymore. Hermione opened to him at once, sliding her tongue against his, and a thrill went through her and weakened her knees when she both heard and felt him moan into her mouth. His hands had left her shoulders, and moved down, pushing her up and onto the desk. Hermione pressed her knees together as the heat pooling in her belly went down lower, and she felt Snape's erection pressing against her. He deftly insinuated a knee between her thighs, and Hermione felt a flash of panic. She broke the kiss.

"Wait, I – " What was she trying to say? Snape looked down at her, the fire still alight in his eyes, the blood still pinking his cheeks. It was a different man who stared down at her now than the cold-blooded, blank creature who'd met her in this office earlier that night, and Hermione was unsure if she could handle this man any better than she had the other.

"…I think we should stop there," she said at last.

Snape let go of her instantly, and backed away a careful distance. But he held her eyes firmly, and in their depths Hermione saw a promise of something that made her shiver once more.

"Are you…" she felt breathless. She ran a hand through her hair and discovered that it had gone quite wild while they'd been – "Are you going to start avoiding me again?" she asked.

"No," Snape answered, and the simple negative held enough suggestion to redouble the heat burning in her very core.

"Okay. That's – that's good." She bent down quickly and retrieved her rucksack. "I'll… I'll just go then, shall I? But I'm glad that we had this… that is, I'll be glad to start our lessons again and that we'll…"

He said nothing to this inane chatter, and Hermione thanked him silently for humouring her incoherent babbling. With burning cheeks, she turned away from Snape at last and made her way across the office. She paused at the door and turned back a final time. The dark man still stood behind the desk, following her with attentive, ravenous eyes.