Severus waited for the scream, the revoltion, the disgust. He waited for her trust in him to shatter like crystal. What he hadn't expected was for her hands to slowly rise and for her fingertips to lightly trace his features. Nor the compassion and softness to round her eyes. Though her brows ticked, he could feel her mind turning. Associating what she was feeling now to what she had before she could see.

When her hands slipped further, cradling his jaw and tucking his hair back further away from his face, his own brows furrowed with confusion from the small sad smile ticking at the corner of her lips when her eyes lowered down to his own. Why did his heart feel as though it were beating much too hard to possibly be contained inside his chest? Why did her fingers leave warm trails on his cool skin?

"Speak to me..."

"What would you have me say?"

Her hands retreated slowly, as though she was reluctant to release him. Her fingers moving down his chest, exploring the texture of his coat, "This is real...you... you're real..."

"I am..." Severus raised his own hands, taking her small wrists in his palms. What more could he say?

"You saved me..."

"I did..."

Hermione's eye lowered to their connected hands. Her own so small she could hardly recognize them. Her mind slowly clicking into place. Every black memory she had of the Medicine Man gradually forming into the image of the man before her now. It was nearly impossible for her brain to completely understand that her professor—the most hated of all of Hogwarts—had done all he had in the time she come to know him.

"Why... Why didn't you tell me... who you were?"

"It was too dangerous."

"And now?"

"Even more so."

Hermione inhaled slowly, her head nodding ever just so. She needed time, time to think, to understand this new world. She needed to see what he saw. To fill in the holes of darkness that had ravaged her mind for so long. She needed answers to what had really happened to her.

"Where are we?"

"Hogwarts."

"How long?"

"Since the beginning of the term."

"And the men that did this to me?" Hermione took his hands tightly in her own, her eyes fixed on their junction.

"All dead, bar one."

"Did you?"

"I did."

Hermione's eyes rose sharply then, even through the haze she could see a sort of vindication shining in his dark eyes. Eyes that had never before looked so soft, so vulnerable as they did right then. Everything about him looked different. It was like she was caught in a dream, a forbidden fantasy. Yet still, her heart trusted him. Completely.

"I want to know...I want to see..." Hermione looked up at him through her long lashes, a heat burning in her crimson and silver depths. Like gas to a fire, her will to fight turning to diamond.

"In due time..." Severus took a slow breath, gingerly pulling his hands from hers. Their words had been spoken like secrets. Soft, timid. Yet there was a clear difference in the girl he was speaking to now and the girl he had put to bed yesterday. He could feel her struggling inside her mind but unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to help her. At least, not at present.

"Are you hungry?"

Hermione closed her eyes tight but nodded her head. The light of the room was starting to give her a headache. That in combination with everything else tearing through her thoughts, she had barely found enough strength to nod. Her body swayed as the stress of all the new information threatened to take her under. The two halves that she had come to possess fighting for control. It was a battle she could not win. Not today.

Severus caught her with ease, her body pitching forward into his arms. Her head thumped heavily against his chest, rolling back to expose her thin and discolored throat. His eyes caught on the vein pulsing wildly along the side before rising to her softening features. He had done this. There was no turning back now. The world believed her to be dead but he was sure, there was going to be no way to contain her.

oOOo

Hermione woke to a dull pain rumbling in her stomach. Her body heavy and disoriented. She could smell the Medicine Man—Snape, all around her and knew she must have been resting in bed. Her tongue felt thick as she pulled it from the roof of her mouth, her head turning slowly into the hand that rested beside her head.

A small groan passed her lips as she stretched out her legs and back. She scratched the side of her face before gradually turning her head forward. Her eye pulsed with the dim light that laid just beyond her eyelid and her body jolted slightly when she remembered that she could see. With great caution and heavy trepidation, she opened her eyes just a fraction.

The world came into focus slowly, the black that came from the center starbursting out until everything was in focus. Though the edges still felt as though she were looking down a well, it was much more than she had had in a long time. The canopy above her was beautifully detailed with golds and silvers of ancient designs. The curtains were a deep blue, all pulled back to the posts with silver ropes. The blankets on which she laid matched their richness with soft swirls of silver all throughout.

As she turned her head and the world tilted she felt an odd sort of out of body experience. It took her a solid second for her body to reorient. The room was deeply shadowed. Just as it had been when she'd first opened her eyes. Everything that hadn't been directly in front of her was nothing but blurred masses with no discernible features. Now, however, she was clearly able to see the deep orange light that was being cast off from the fireplace and everything the light touched.

The floor was a grey stone, with large area rugs whose color was impossible to fully identify in the dim light. She could make out bits of furniture and other decorative things along the walls based on the heavy shadows they cast. It looked elegant yet simple in its layout and she idly wondered if he'd removed things to make it easier for her to crawl to and from the office.

Just as that thought began to leave her mind, a soft sigh near the fireplace turned her immediate attention. With a small adjustment, she managed to push herself up onto her elbows just enough to see over the rise at the foot of the bed. Her vision was a little blurry with the shadows creeping in from the sides but she was just able to make out a form sitting in one of the chairs.

With a narrowing of her eyes she slowly started the process of pulling back the blankets. Though it was only when she was pulling her legs over the side of the bed did she realize that she was sleeping in his bed. That she had been sleeping in his bed. The thought made her stomach grow warm and her face turn flush. Never in her wildest dreams would she have ever thought that would happen.

With as much grace as she could muster, she slipped her feet down onto the soft carpet. Her eyes turning down to look at her small and extremely thin feet. The sudden urge to look at herself in a mirror pressed hard but she pushed it aside for other matters. First and foremost, letting the man who had sacrificed so much of his time caring for her to know that she was awake. He was always very addament about her meals and she didn't want to disappoint him by making an unnecessary detour. There would be plenty of time for that later.

"Pro-professor?" Hermione winced at the waver in her voice. She sounded as weak as a kitten in a rainstorm quivering under a collapsing cardboard box.

When he neither responded nor made a move—at least none that she could see through the darkened haze at the corner of her vision—she pushed herself up from the bed. With only a small sway she managed to make her way silently over towards the fireplace.

"Professor?" Her voice was stronger now, more confident but still barely more than a whisper. Her feet felt as though she were walking on a tilt even though the room was more than steady. She was sure it was going to take some time for her brain to readjust to actually being able to see without her hands but it was something she was willing to work towards. After all, the war wasn't over.

When she came around the edge of the chair an odd feeling rose in her chest. He was sleeping, quite heavily by the soft hum that was coming out with each exhale. She'd never known him to snore nor make anything more than a sigh when he'd slept. The fact that she even knew that information was still a bit difficult to grasp but she stuck by her previous will to respect the man regardless of who he'd turned out to be.

"Professor...?" Despite trying to raise her voice to gather his attention the fear of startling him kept her volume down. Still, he didn't respond to her and she found herself not wanting to disturb his obviously needed rest. Instead, she took the moment to just take him in.

Her body lowered down as it was still very unaccustomed to holding her weight for too long. As she curled up on her legs she let part of her body rest against the ottoman that sat just in front of the chair. Resting her head on her folded arms she ran her eye up his form.

She took in the shape and color of his dragon leather hard heeled boots, the hem of his lean tailored slacks, the small press along the shin. How the fabric seemed to seep outward with the pureness of the black it was made with. The dim light from the fire didn't allow for her to see much definition but she could definitely tell they were long with the way they'd streched out on the floor in front. The position of the boots telling her that his legs were crossed.

As her eyes rose further, she took in the same darkness that made up his coat. Though she couldn't actually see the buttons, she knew from the many times she had pressed against him that they were there. Small and numerous she followed their presumed trail all the way up to his high collar.

His head was tilted down, his long hair obscuring his features making his face appear blurred and out of focus. Of what she could make out was his pursed lips and long nose that from the angle in which she sat seemed to be partially crooked as if the bone had been broken and set improperly.

She wasn't sure how long she simply sat and watched him rest but it was long enough for her throat to feel painfully hollow from her lack of food. A sharp pain followed the observation before a deep animal like growl disrupted the heavy silence of the room.

There was no way she was going to wake him. That was simply out of the question. It wasn't so much that she was afraid as that she felt that he more than deserved the sleep he surely had missed when taking care of her. She had had no sense of time without her eyes to tell her whether it was night or day. Merely relying on his strict schedule to tell her what was going to happen next. It was a habit that wasn't so easily broken.

So instead, Hermione lowered her forehead down to her arms, closing her eyes tight to push away the feeling. He would feed her when it was time. He had never let her go hungry. It was one of the reasons she had trusted him so quickly. That and the niggling, that only now made sense, that she knew him.

oOo

"This is going to be invaluable." Neville leaned a bit farther over the coffee table where they'd set the map. The common room was mostly vacant being that most everyone was still down at dinner. They had both eaten exceptionally little, their stomachs too full with anxiety.

"I think if I take this corridor I can circle back around here and go up the stairs." Ginny traced the map with her finger, her brow tight with concentration.

"Then I can take this one and meet you in the hall before the gargoyle." Neville repeated her action, his face just as taunt, "I think you should carry the map, we can use the coins to alert each other if we get in trouble. The Carrows are our biggest problem but they always take the same paths in their rounds. I think they're deliberately leaving places of the castle unprotected."

"I think you're right, and one of those areas passes right through my path." Ginny chewed her bottom lip as she decided on whether she agreed with Neville on carrying the map. They'd both been made prefects that year even though they were a year apart. Neville wasn't supposed to be out patrolling this night, so he would have to take a more discrete but much safer path.

"Does this show the headmaster's quarters?"

"No...just the office I think. Here turn that there." Ginny shifted on the couch pulling the paper just a bit closer so that Neville could fold down the proper place. As they did there was a small flicker over the center of the room that instantly caught there attention. "What was that?"

"I don't know..."

They both held the map still and waited, after about thirty seconds a name, barely inked, faded into and then out of the paper, "Ginny...does this map show ghosts?"

"Yeah...it does..." Ginny had seen in too but she didn't know what to make of it. It didn't make sense, "It's like...blinking in and out...the other ghosts don't do that..."

"What about angels?" Neville spoke with the same sort of awe and confusion that painted Ginny's face. He too, didn't have a single idea as to why they would be seeing what they clearly saw.

oOo

Severus started awake to the sound of soft suppressed sniffles coming from somewhere to his left. His far left. His heart thumped heavily in his chest, he hadn't even meant to fall asleep. One moment he'd been sitting, thinking—plotting, and the next he was waking to a dark room with a dead fire.

His body pushed up from the chair with graceful silence but his ears turned his head towards the bathroom door. There was a small light coming from inside as though from a candle and the door was partially cracked. Curiosity led him closer and he found himself looking down at the floor where a half naked Hermione Granger sat on her oddly bent legs.

Hermione sniffled harder, barely registering the shadow that had come to the doorway. She hadn't closed it for fear he would think her to have run off. Not that she could in her present state. Initially having needed the loo, she'd found herself standing in front of a full length mirror. Her body held captive by its reflection.

She's hadn't even recognized herself at first, she'd actually thought for a split second that someone else had entered the bathroom with her. It wasn't until her movements matched the image did she fully realize.

She was so dreadfully thin. That had been the first thing she'd noticed. Her face had lost all its childhood shape leaving behind sharp angles of a young woman. The band over her eyes actually looked better than she believed it to look. Though still very noticeable, it was clearly healing. The deep shadows beneath giving her an odd sort of masked appearance.

Her neck was small with more deep shadows that she quickly discerned were healing bruises. Her stomach nearly revolted on the spot when her mind reminded her how they surely came to be. She had truly thought she was going to die that night, right then encased in fear and pain. She'd welcomed the idea with open arms.

Her fingers had made quick work of the buttons running down her partially oversized night shirt but what lied hidden beneath had slowly sunk her to the floor.

Scars. Scars and scars. Deep jagged lines crossed nearly every inch of available skin over her boyish chest. Some were dark, obvious lines left over from one curse or another. The others lighter but still easily seen in the low light. She had felt them of course, but to see them? It was no wonder the man that cared for her didn't want to touch her. She didn't even want to touch her.

Her eyes had watched her ribs come in and out with her steadily increasing breaths but she had found no strength to cover herself. The shirt she had pulled open falling to the floor to pool around her waist. Who was she? What had they done to her? Was any of this real? How had she survived?

So trapped in the memories of how the scars must have come about, she barely registered a soft blanket coming around her shoulders until the smell of it pushed the darkness aside. Her eyes snapped away from the mirror just in time for her body to come from the floor and her head to be pressed into midnight fabric.

A deep silence filled the air as Severus sat the quaking girl into his own chair. It was clear that she wasn't there with him but she was returning. Her trembling almost coming to a stop by the time he pulled her legs into the chair with her. Diligently, he avoided her gaze, not wanting her surely cluttered mind to disrupt his own thinking.

He was gone for only a minute, just long enough to retrieve their dinner from the desk inside the office. It was a standard fare as he hadn't but in any specific requests, though should it not be too her liking he could easily call upon a replacement.

Hermione blinked slowly when a soft sensation brushed against her chin, her body's natural response to open her mouth quickly filling it with something warm. As she chewed her brain was finally able to slow down enough to take notice that she and Snape had switched positions.

He sat on the ottoman with his deep black eyes and emotionless face looking directly into her own. As though judging her but not for punishment. His gaze was so intense she wondered if he was seeing something that only he could see. The thought was gently pushed away when another bite of food was gingerly placed into her mouth.

Another slow blink raised her hand; and the tray along with the fork were kindly placed into her lap and hand respectively. There was a long pause as she actually let her brain process what she was seeing before she took a small bit of grilled broccoli onto her fork. Her eyes raised back up as the man came to his feet to sit into the other chair just beside the fire.

In that moment, no words needed to be shared. It was simply as it was.