A/N: *Peers bashfully around a corner* Hello, dear readers! Happy Easter if you celebrate! Happy Sunday if you don't! For this chapter, Nantai deserves all of the love. Seriously, shower her with as much love, good vibes, general wonderfulness as you can. She beta'd/alpha'd this chapter for me and is an absolute joy to work with. She's my saving grace with this update, and I don't think I can articulate how truly grateful I am for her help.

Last update, imasurvivor21 asked what the chapter titles mean, and I'm glad you asked! I'm studying Latin in one of my graduate classes, so they're all Latin words that relate to the chapter and the events within each one. If all goes according to plan with the fic, they'll play a role in later chapters.

Shoutout to percabethbooklion, TimeyWimeyMagicWagic, JuliSt, annnemaaageth, Wildflower Weasley, imasurvivor21, Virginie Cires, Kyonomiko, In Dreams, Nantai, ClumsyKnowItAll, and the Guest for your kind words and well wishes. I appreciate your thoughts and condolences. 3

No music this time! I listened to the rain on my balcony for this chapter.

Medius ● 3

The next few weeks flew by for Hermione. Looking back, she couldn't tell what happened that made her agree to Sev's proposal so readily. Honestly, it was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard.

She couldn't be a witch, and she definitely wasn't responsible for a whole different timeline.

However, she had to admit that some of what he had told her parents had made sense. It explained why she could move things if she concentrated on them really hard. It also explained what had happened with the mirror. So, while she could believe that she just might be a witch, she had a hard time wrapping her mind around the idea that she had somehow created a whole new timeline.

She'd pestered Sev about it at every opportunity, but the man always told her that she knew as much as he did. If she wanted to learn more, she'd have to talk to Dumbledore about it, and it was likely that even he didn't understand how she'd done it. She always left the conversation more frustrated than she had entered it.

That was how, two days before she was due to leave for her new life at Hogwarts, she found herself once more frowning sulkily on the settee. She'd asked Sev again to explain the whole thing to her, and he had just glared at her until she was quiet.

These moments had infuriated her, but she'd also had a revelation: the sneer she had thought she'd learned from her mother and father was an identical copy of Sev's. Though she was still irritated with the man, meeting his sneer of annoyance with an identical one of her own made it a little more bearable. Especially when she saw the reluctant amusement light up his black eyes.

She toyed with a frayed bit of the couch while she waited for him to finish speaking to her parents. He was taking her to Di-uh-gone Alley—she liked to draw the name out just to annoy him—to buy her supplies for school, but he had to have her parents go get money from the bank that they could exchange for the magical money that she would use there.

Sev already knew all about how to exchange the money and how much she'd need. After his revelation with the timelines, he'd spent more time with her. Presumably to prepare her for her magical life, but she also strongly suspected that he was avoiding going back to the school. He never sounded happy when he talked about it.

She'd also realised that Sev grew up like she did, in a Muggle house. He explained to her that while she was a Muggle-born—the daughter of non-magical parents—he was a half-blood, as his mother was a witch and his father was a Muggle. She wasn't sure if that's why she felt so safe with him, but she wasn't going to question it. He had promised her parents he would look out for her, so she trusted him.

Her dad trusted him, too, which was even more telling of how accepted Sev was in her family.

A sharp snap in front of her face brought Hermione back to attention. Sev stood in front of her staring down his imperious nose at her, one eyebrow cocked. Her face flushed a little, and she hopped to her feet.

He cleared his throat. "If you're ready?" Embarrassed at her inattentiveness, she met his eyes then crossed the room to hug both her parents.

After the necessary pleas to be safe and listen to Sev, both Jean and Hugh hugged her, trying not to hold on too tight or too long and let their nerves betray them. Hermione swallowed and walked out the door.

Sev was waiting at the end of the path in his new normal attire. Now that there were no more secrets about who he truly was, he seemed to exist in the heavy black robes and cravat, both meticulously groomed and ironed. When she reached his side, he motioned for her to follow him.

Neither of them spoke as they walked down the footpath of the neighborhood that she lived in with her family. Located in northwest London, it was far enough removed from the bustle of the city that she felt safe in their little cottage. However, it was close enough to Charing Cross that her father had no trouble navigating them there with a car.

When Hermione asked where Sev's car was, however, he pulled her into a dim ally behind the chemist near her house.

After checking to ensure there was no one around to overhear, Sev spoke to her. "We will not be going by car. We'll apparate."

"Apparate?" Her brown eyes sparked in curiosity.

Her question earned her one of Sev's rare half-smiles. "Magic," he said. He looked serious once more. "Where we're going, you must be careful. There are people there who might try to take advantage of your wonder at the new world. It will be obvious to them that you are a Muggle-born. You must not let your guard down around strangers."

Hermione gazed back at him soberly, trying to look older than her nearly-twelve years. Sev was always serious, but his eyes held a deadly calm in them that raised goosebumps on her arms.

"While we're there, you must not call me Sev. In the wizarding world, I am Professor Snape to you. If you wish to remain safe, you'll do well to remember that." He stared back at her.

She swallowed. It would be hard to remember that; she'd never known him as anything other than Sev, but she agreed all the same. If he was telling her the truth, she had changed a lot when other-her—because she couldn't think of the other timeline as herself—had somehow changed reality. He didn't know how to protect her here.

He took her silence as understanding and straightened once more. With a quick glance around the alley, he took her hand. "Hold tight," was the last thing she heard before a pop echoed through the alleyway and a hook in her gut seemed to wrench her backward.

Hermione's feet reconnected to the ground with a slap. She promptly bent at the waist and was sick on the cracked pavement in front of her. Severus sighed.

"Apparition does tend to make those who are unaccustomed with it nauseous," he reached into his robes and pulled out a long, tapered wand that Hermione had only seen sparingly. With a careless wave, the puddle of vomit vanished, and he stepped up to the brick wall in front of them.

After managing to calm her roiling stomach, Hermione took in her surroundings. They were standing on the back patio of what appeared to be a pub. She could hear the patrons inside muttering to one another, but none were loud enough for her to make out. She could hear the traffic of London on the streets, but it sounded as though they weren't near a major road.

Hermione thought the whole experience seemed rather seedy, but she didn't dare say anything to Sev, who had marched up to the brick wall, wand out, and began tapping away at the bricks. He stepped back a moment later, having tapped an intricate pattern on the wall.

Nothing happened.

Until something did. Slowly, the wall in front of them peeled backward, seeming to melt into itself on the sides. There, where a wall had been just moments before, was a cobblestone alley lined with teetering shops. Both the alley and shops were bustling with people, and bright voices filled the cloudy afternoon with cheer.

Hermione moved to bound into the wondrous alley when Sev's hand closed over her shoulder. It wasn't painful, but it was enough to grab her attention.

"Should anyone ask, you're a half-blood. Your father is from the states, and your mother is British. You lived without magic before you got your Hogwarts letter."

Puzzled, Hermione looked up at him. However, her rapidly-moving mind caught his line of thinking. "You don't want anyone to know I'm a Muggle-born. But Sev—"

"Professor Snape," he cut off and turned back to march into the alley, black robes billowing behind him. Hermione was helpless but to follow.

It was difficult to keep her awe in check as the alley assaulted her senses. Sev was right; there was magic everywhere. Shop windows were crowded with children admiring figurines that moved of their own accord and others munched on candy that made steam come out of their ears. Even the buildings themselves seemed filled with magic, keeping themselves upright when they ought to have toppled onto the cobblestones. She shoved her amazement deep inside and tried to maintain a passive expression that Sev, had he been paying attention, would have been proud of.

She'd always been attentive and imitative of the beak-nosed man, and Hermione supposed that was finally paying off.

Though he hadn't told her otherwise, she knew that she would have to feign understanding of everything that she witnessed around her today. If she was a half-blood, even if she hadn't seen magic at home, she assumed that she would have been told about magic at some point in time—parents of half-bloods couldn't truly leave their children without any knowledge of the world which half of their immediate family came from, right?

Her internal questioning was interrupted when Sev halted in the middle of the sidewalk, and she ran into him. She felt rather than heard the deep sigh he exhaled as he turned around to peer down his long nose at her. She swallowed hard. Sev hated to be bumped into.

"The list," he prompted, and Hermione scrambled to find the letter in the overstuffed backpack she had brought with her. Sev's scowl deepened the ever-present notch in his forehead from the perpetually-slashed eyebrows, and Hermione knew she only had a matter of seconds to find the letter before Sev unleashed one of his trademarks sneers on her.

She much preferred to be one dealing the sneers—or, at the very least, giggling silently at those who earned one from Sev. Being the recipient made her cringe harder than she'd ever admit.

Just as she was losing hope of ever finding the blasted letter, Sev rolled his eyes and withdrew his wand. Waving it, the letter surged out of the depths of her bag and into his hand. Appropriately chagrined, she took the proffered parchment and opened it to the supply list.

"Wand, robes, parchment, cauldron. Where do I get all this, S—Professor Snape?" The name sounded clunky to her ears, but the incline of his head was enough to tell her that he was pleased she caught herself in time.

Sev once more turned to the streets in front of them, stowing his wand back in the depths of his robe. Hermione would have to ask him where he kept it. She wondered if he had a holster for it, like the cowboys in the cheesy American movies her dad liked. "First, Gringotts. You need money."

Hermione hurried along behind the man, glancing side to side periodically, trying to see as much as she could without being too obvious. Near an ice cream shop, a red-haired woman juggling a truly frightening stack of used books scolded a tall, gangly red-haired boy she could only assume was the woman's son for losing a rat "for the fifth time this week!" Hermione shuddered. Who would want a rat for a pet?

On the other side of the street was a building with a rickety wooden sign hanging above it. Flourish and Blotts was written across it in beautiful script. She wasn't entirely sure, but she thought it might be a bookstore. If it was, she hoped Sev wouldn't mind stopping in for a bit longer than just picking up her school books. She had a lot of catching up to do.

Her words caught in her throat at the building in front of her.

The cobblestones gave way to large white marble steps under her feet. Hermione sucked in a breath as she craned her neck back to take in what had to be Gringotts. She nearly stumbled climbing the steep step into the building, but she was too mesmerized to peel her attention away from the architecture. She slowed her walk to a crawl so she wouldn't miss the long, ornate windows decorating the front.

The inside was no less opulent. Hermione found herself once more swallowing her gasps of awe at the sparkling chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. However, it was the creatures behind the desks pounding stamps into pile after pile of paperwork that intrigued her the most.

They were sitting on tall stools, and their hands bore the ink stains of several hours spent working through manuscripts. They chattered to one another in a language that Hermione could not discern but which sounded like a strange mix of grunts and the scratches like her father's old record player made when it hit an uneven spot in the grooves. She made eye contact with one of them, a white-haired, cranky being whose lips pulled back tightly. Hermione quickly looked away.

Sev, who hadn't noticed her lollygagging, approached the counter where another of the strange creatures lurked. His fingers were curled around a quill and he scratched away at the parchment in front of him with the slow nonchalance of someone who had was reassured of the permanence of their employment. Upon reaching him, Sev cleared his throat.

Looking over his spectacles, the little creature drawled, "Yes?" He reminded Hermione of one of the gnomes her grandmother kept in the shabby patch of flowers in her garden: squat and unpleasant.

"I need to exchange Muggle money for wizarding coins," Severus plopped the banknotes down on the countertop. "As this will be more than enough to purchase Hogwarts supplies, we will also open a vault under the name Hermione Jean Granger."

Hermione gaped at the man. Surely her parents hadn't told him to open a vault for her? She opened her mouth to protest, but his piercing glare silenced her before she could get a word in edgewise.

"Ms Granger will have one of the newer vaults. I expect it to be properly warded," Severus stared down his long nose at the creature, who hurriedly swept the British notes off the counter and disappeared below the desk. Curious where the small creature went, Hermione craned her neck over the counter. Just seconds later, however, the creature appeared beside her, barely reaching her knee. Her eyes swept over the small creature, taking in his shabby robe and the tufts of hair protruding from his ears.

She wasn't sure what she had expected in a magical world, but she'd somehow failed to realize that she might encounter creatures she'd never knew existed before. She itched to get to the bookstore Sev had promised they'd go to. She was sure there'd be a book that would tell her all about the creatures she would encounter.

In her fascination with the being in front of her, Hermione stopped paying attention to her surroundings, though, if she was honest, she never paid them much mind anyway. As the desk manager hustled away to bring her what Hermione presumed would be a stack of strange wizarding currency, she whirled to Sev to question him. However, as she spun to question the man, she overestimated her balance and found herself teetering over.

Hermione braced herself for a fall that did not come. Instead, she stared up into the face of a man whose rather pinched expression matched Sev's. She was sweating where his hand kept her upright, her nerves betraying her at the cool grey eyes staring down at her. She hastened to right herself as Sev stepped forward.

"Ah, Lucius. You've finally deigned to leave your schmoozing at the Ministry?" Sev's eyes swept over Hermione, and her blush deepened.

"Not everyone can have a cushy day job at Hogwarts, Severus." The man before her—Lucius, Sev had called him—glanced at her. "It seems as though McGonagall has been shirking her duties. Are you dragging about the Muggleborns to get school supplies?"

Hermione opened her mouth to protest. She recognized the malice gleaming in the man's eyes; it was the same contempt she'd been the recipient of from her classmates in primary school. Her retort, that Muggleborns certainly weren't as bad as he made the word sound, froze on her lips when she remembered Sev's warning. In this world, I am half-blood.

Hermione hadn't liked the idea of lying about who she was, but she would do anything to wipe the contempt from the man's eyes.

"Half-blood," she corrected, staring him down. A small chuckle to his left drew Hermione's attention, and she started.

Standing before her was what she could only describe as a younger, carbon copy of the man challenging her. He stood silently, save for his chuckle, beside who was undeniably his father. Blonde hair was slicked backward in an unflattering helmet, but his sharp features showcased his father's eyes. He wasn't the prettiest boy Hermione had ever seen, but he certainly caught her attention. His silent approval of her correction bolstered her courage and her stomach flip-flopped a bit at his scrutiny. Embarrassed though emboldened by his gaze, she returned her stare to his father.

One eyebrow crooked upward, and a begrudging lilt lifted Lucius' lip. "Not one to mince words, is she?" Lucius commented, just as the desk clerk returned to the counter bearing a clanking drawstring bag. He passed both the bag and a key to Severus. Sev took them without a word and passed them to Hermione.

"She learned from the best," Sev admitted, and Hermione felt a flicker of pride that she'd seemed to have impressed both men with her response.

Lucius nodded to the boy next to him. "Well, since it seems as though you've captured Severus' tutorship, you will be spending quite a lot of time with my son. Draco Malfoy, heir to the Malfoy fortune and Severus' godson. He, too, will be attending Hogwarts this year."

Draco stepped forward, extending his hand to Hermione as he studied her. She swallowed and met his eyes. This was a test, she knew. She had next to no knowledge about the wizarding world, but Sev's interaction with the clerk of Gringotts seemed to indicate that there was a hierarchy to this world.

Draco Malfoy and his father were undeniably at the top.

Stepping forward, Hermione steeled her spine and extended her hand to meet his. Though he showed no hint of nerves, the boy's hand was also slightly clammy.

"Hermione Granger, half-blood. Pleasure." She firmly shook his hand once and was suddenly grateful that her father had made her learn how to shake hands. Hugh had always insisted that women needed to know how to shake a hand properly when a curtsy wouldn't do. For once, she was glad of her father's eccentrics.

As Hermione resumed her stance at Sev's side, Lucius turned and spoke to the creature at the desk. She wasn't sure why, but she found herself once more studying the boy in front of her. He was lean, angular enough that she feared he'd cut her should she get close enough. His cheekbones appeared as though they would slice through his cheeks, but fat still clung to his arms. This was a boy her mother would tell her had shot up like a bean pole: still growing slow enough to be awkward in some places but growing into himself. It was fascinating to observe since she hadn't been around any boys her age long enough to appreciate the difference between herself and them.

She had been a quick grower, though, so she was slightly taller than the boy before her. He had a small scar above his right eyebrow, only a shade lighter than his skin tone; had she been merely glancing at him, she wouldn't have noticed. He also hadn't quite managed to get all of his hair slicked back. Fine blond hairs haloed around his face, enough that Hermione thought they had to be tickling his forehead.

She wasn't sure why, but Hermione was intrigued. For the first time since she had left her primary school, she hoped to befriend the boy in front of her.

When Lucius was done demanding his money be brought from his vault, Sev interrupted Hermione's musings.

"Lucius, we're off the Flourish and Blotts. I have potions to brew, and Hermione still needs supplies," Sev drawled.

"Ah, it is amusing to see you play errand boy, Severus," Lucius motioned his son forward. "Say goodbye, Draco. I'm sure you and Hermione will see each other soon enough, and you can acquaint Hermione to Hogwarts."

Following his father's prompting, Draco murmured a polite goodbye that Hermione returned.

As they left the wizarding bank, Hermione tried to quiet the thoughts in her mind. She needed to figure out more about the wizarding world, and she knew her best bet, after Sev, would be a book. She could think about befriending the boy with the grey eyes later.

I'm so sorry for my extended absence. My fiance got an interview at his dream job, so our vacation was a little more extended than we planned. We also found a lovely little two bedroom house that is pet friendly, so cheers for good luck! Thank you all for your well wishes :) I truly appreciate them all.