"How long have you known?"

It wasn't exactly how Hermione had planned to start her very first meeting with the Headmistress of Hogwarts on the very first day of her official employment, but the walk from the dungeons to Minerva's office had given her time to shake off the lingering shock and work up a bubbling anger that absolutely demanded a good shout. She couldn't imagine shouting at Professor Snape, particularly since he apparently still had the ability to make her feel like an under-prepared student, not to mention the fact that he'd made more sacrifices than anyone else alive to defeat Voldemort. But, once she'd almost shouted "Gang aft agley" at the gargoyle and stomped up the stairs to what she still thought of as Dumblebore's office, there was a target for her fury right there behind the desk.

Minerva McGonagall looked startled. "Known what, my dear?"

Hermione kept her hands planted firmly on her hips, to minimise the chance that she'd be tempted to take out her wand. "That Professor Snape is alive!"

"Oh, my goodness." The Headmistress put a hand to her heart. "How on earth do you know?"

"He popped up behind me in the Potions classroom!"

"Oh dear. Are you alright?"

"Am I alright? A man I thought we buried five years ago just offered to review my lesson plan! Am I alright?"

"Yes, I quite understand. I meant — do you need Poppy Pomfrey's help?" Minerva looked Hermione over carefully. "I assume you didn't believe him."

"I didn't."

"And defended yourself against what you must have assumed was an impostor."

"Yes."

"So are you hurt?"

"No." Hermione sat down without being invited. Being visited by the ghost of Potions classes past should give anyone a pass from good manners. "Nor is he, for your information."

It clearly hadn't occurred to the Headmistress that Hermione could have inflicted an injury on Severus Snape. "No, well, I'm glad," she said quickly. "I suppose you have questions?"

"Loads," Hermione snapped.

"Yes." Minerva's shoulders slumped a little. "It wasn't my idea, dear. Please believe me. But we did owe him rather a lot, and it seemed fair to allow him to choose the way we repaid the debt. Would you like some tea?"

"I've just had some." Hermione knew she was being sullen, as if she was reverting to the type of teenage girl she'd never actually been, but she couldn't seem to help it. Her whole body was boiling with a mix of emotions. An unfamiliar bubbling delight — he's alive! He's alive! — indignant fury — how dare they let us think he was dead — an urgent protectiveness like she felt towards Crookshanks — it's not agreeing with him, being shut up, he looked really ill — injured pride — did he think I couldn't be trusted to keep his secret?

It was too much.

"Minerva, how could you!" she said, and burst into tears as if she was still thirteen years old.

Putting her head in her hands, she tried to stifle the gulping sobs. She could hear Minerva moving around the office, the clink of china, liquid pouring. When Hermione finally composed herself enough to raise her head, the Headmistress was standing beside her.

"Handkerchief?"

"Thanks." Hermione took the offered item, mopped her cheeks and blew her nose.

"Drink?"

Her mouth open to refuse, Hermione realised that Minerva was holding not a teacup but a glass. "Thanks."

"Sometimes a wee dram is just what's called for." Sitting down in the chair across from Hermione, the Headmistress sipped her own drink. "I must say I'm surprised that Severus made himself known to you. He's been adamant that Poppy and I must be the only people to know since the beginning."

Hermione took a cautious sip of the amber liquid in the glass and recognised Muggle whiskey, not Firewhisky. "He said he thought there were still Death Eaters out there, who'd want to take revenge."

Minerva nodded. "That was certainly true, in those first weeks after the final battle. It may still be — Severus certainly believes that it is."

It was slightly surreal hearing Professor Snape's first name used so casually, the way Hermione herself might say to Ron Oh, Harry's running late. Professor Snape had been aloof and distant, he'd been intimidating and then frightening, and then he'd been dead. He hadn't been the sort of man Hermione had ever imagined to have friends who thought and talked about him informally, friends he trusted with his most important secret. "We wouldn't have told anyone, though. Ron and Harry and me, we're definitely not Death Eaters and we wouldn't have told anyone."

"I know," Minerva said. "But it wasn't up to me, was it? It was his secret, not mine."

"Why didn't he trust us?" Hermione burst out. "Hadn't we proved ourselves?"

"Hermione, if you'd known, could you have kept it from Mr Potter?"

"Yes!" she said, and then paused. "Well. Maybe. But Harry deserves to know, too."

"I agree." Minerva set her empty glass down with a faint click. "But Severus is content for young Mr Potter to believe him dead and buried."

"Is he ill?" Hermione blurted. "Because he looks … ill."

"That's a question you should direct to him, dear."

Yes, that meant, because if Snape was in good health the Headmistress had no reason not to say so. "I will, then." Although I doubt I'll get a straight answer. "Is there anything else I should know? That you can tell me?"

Minerva gave her the slightest hint of an approving smile. "That's an excellently worded question. You'd have done better to phrase it in two distinct parts, though."

Two feet on the Unbreakable Vow, with examples of where it has gone wrong. Words, and the ways they could both convey and conceal meaning. "Minerva, is there anything else I should know?"

"Yes, there certainly is."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"There's a great deal I can tell you," the Headmistress said. Hermione thought she could hear a hint of disapproval in her tone.

"Is there anything else about Severus Snape —" Not precise enough. "Is there anything else you can tell me about Severus Snape being still alive?"

Minerva gave a dainty sniff. "Better. I can tell you that Poppy and I agreed with him at the beginning that secrecy was essential to his safety, but that lately, we have come to believe it is counterproductive."

"Counterproductive? Why?"

Minerva folded her hands. "I can't go into specifics, dear."

"Right." Merlin's beard, it was like that last horrid year of the War again, chasing hints and clues down the twisting corridors of a wizard's mind. Counterproductive. Not just unproductive, which would imply that it was no longer necessary, but counterproductive, which means the secrecy is not just no longer essential to his safety but is actually endangering it.

And she didn't tell me he wasn't ill.

"I think I understand," Hermione said. He needs help that Minerva and Poppy Pomfrey can't provide. "Do you have any theories as to why he decided to show himself to me?"

"I do," Minerva said, and nothing more.

"Do you think it's because he wants me to help him in some way?"

Minerva shook her head. "No, dear. I'm sorry."

"Why then?"

"That's a question you'd have to ask him," the Headmistress said for the second time.

Hermione looked at her closely. "Minerva, are you bound by an Unbreakable Vow?"

Minerva smiled. "No, dear. Only by promises of the sort one makes to friends." She eyed her empty glass regretfully. "Which are just as binding, and can be just as foolish." She shook her head slightly, as if dislodging an unwelcome thought. "Now. I presume you'd like to know where your rooms are?"