Chapter 6

Hermione laid in bed thinking about all that had happened; all the memories that Severus had brought to the surface. Memories that she never wanted to relive again and memories that she wished she could live over many, many times. As painful as it was to be forced to recall the memories of Ron, she wished more than anything she could have those days back. Without meaning to, her thoughts drifted back to Harry's capture and subsequent rescue. For the last several days she kept thinking that there had been something about that day that she had missed; almost as if there was something just out of her line of sight that would shed some additional information on her situation.

Feeling a sudden surge of energy, she jumped out of bed and threw a robe over her nightgown, grabbing her wand off her nightstand. She slipped out of her door and made her way down to the empty common room. She wished that she had Harry's invisibility cloak; she didn't want to run into anyone who might ask where she was going. Luck was on her side, however, and she made it to the Great Hall without running into anyone, although she did have to run quickly to avoid being seen by Bill who was standing guard at the Entrance Hall.

She slipped into the Great Hall and walked down the long length of it to the room she and Harry had been in the day before. Breathing a sigh of relief she saw that the Pensieve was still sitting on the table on the far side of the room. She walked over to it, looking down into its murky depths. Taking a deep breath, Hermione raised her wand up to her head. After Harry had first told them about the Pensieve, she had rushed down to the library to read everything she could about it. She understood the theory behind removing a memory, but she had never done it before. She hoped she could do it correctly, only having the knowledge from her studies to rely upon. Hermione thought very hard about the memory in question and was nearly giddy with excitement when she saw a long silvery strand of memory attached to her wand. She gently placed the strand into the Pensieve and swirled it. Looking down she saw the inside of Riddle Manor.

It took fighting against every instinct she had to actually lean down to touch her face to the surface. Although she knew that it was only a memory, there was an irrational fear that she would find herself somehow having to fight again. Before she could fully think out her fears, she felt herself falling down and landing in the middle of the entrance hall of Riddle Manor. They must have just arrived because no sooner had she landed she heard Voldemort speaking.

"So you see, Harry, you are going to have the pleasure of watching your friends die before I kill you. I'm just disappointed there aren't more of them. Perhaps you aren't as well loved as I had thought."

Instead of moving over towards herself and Ron, she moved back to where Snape was standing. He was as tense as one would expect when they are about to go into battle, but his gaze seemed to be resting on the other Death Eaters, and not the Order members. When the battle broke out, Hermione saw him shoot a spell towards Tonks, but it was well high of her head and then he immediately moved backwards, into the shadows of the room where he could not be easily seen.

Hermione followed him to his spot in the corner and once there, she saw that he could observe all of the activity in the room. What she saw next truly shocked her. He continued firing off curses, but they weren't hitting any Order members. Instead, they were hitting Death Eaters. In the confusion, no one seemed to have noticed what he was doing, but he seemed to be clearing the way for Ron, who was quickly making his way across the room. Suddenly Bellatrix stepped in front of them, blocking the view and Snape moved to the side, closer to where Ron was standing.

She saw herself run over to help Ron out and it was a strange sensation hearing herself say, "You go free Harry and I'll continue here."

Suddenly, from the other side of the room, it appeared that Antonin Dolohov had taken notice of her and, intent upon finishing his work from the Department of Mysteries, was raising his wand to fire off a curse at her. Snape seemed to have seen it as well and crouched down where he would not be seen. He then reached forward and pushed on her legs, knocking her to the ground just as the curse was fired.

Hermione supposed it was a good thing she was in such a state of shock watching this, because she completely missed Ron's murder. All she could do was stare at Severus Snape, who had crawled back into the corner of the room and then proceeded to Stupify himself.

She was still completely dumbfounded as she found herself back in the small room, staring down at the Pensieve. She put the memory back in her head as if in a dream and stumbled out of the room. As she paused outside the doors of the Great Hall trying to decide what to do, she felt her stomach rumble with hunger and she remembered that she had not eaten in quite a while.

'Perhaps if I eat something and have a cup of tea, this will all make a bit more sense.'

Without giving it a second thought, she headed first for the library and then down to the kitchen.

Severus sat in his old quarters in the dungeons drinking a fire whiskey. He had not come out of his rooms since he had left the Room of Requirement, oblivious to the rumbling of his stomach. Instead he tried to ignore everything in favourof the sweet oblivion of the fire whiskey. Unfortunately for him, it did not appear to be helping. He could not get the images from the day out of his mind.

'Why couldn't I have left it alone?' he thought to himself. The last thing he needed to see was the Weasley boy, red faced and panting over the Know-it-all Granger. It was stomach turning. It was disgusting. He dismissed the idea that it was heartbreaking. He didn't have a heart, anyway. He also tried to forget the memories of himself that she had forced him to endure. He had always wondered about Dumbledore's funeral, but he had never wanted to see it for himself; the rows and rows of mourners and the white tomb.

He grew restless sitting in front of the fire and stood up, pacing back and forth in the room, feeling as if he were caged. Finally, he couldn't stand the claustrophobic feeling any longer and decided to head down to the kitchen to find something to eat. It was late and he knew that all the Order members would have long since headed to bed, leaving him to eat in undisturbed peace.

So, it was with a large amount of frustration and a small amount of nervousness that he saw Hermione sitting at a table in the kitchen with a sandwich in front of her and a book in her hand. She looked up as she heard him enter and her face turned a dark shade of red.

'Good,' he thought to himself. 'Perhaps if she is properly embarrassed, she won't speak to me.'

He could not know the thoughts going through her head at that moment; that she was staring at a man that she had spent the last year hating and who had perhaps saved her life. Hermione was determined to put those thoughts behind her though, and she bravely put a smile on her face.

"Hello, Severus," she said setting the book down. He saw the title, The Meeting of Minds, A Comprehensive Study of Legilimency and Occlumency. He refrained from rolling his eyes. He should have known.

"Would you like to join me?" she pointed to the chair across from her. He could think of no excuse as to why not so he walked over, roughly pulling out the chair and sitting down. He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her plate of food. She was eating an enormous turkey sandwich, a bowl of soup, an apple, a very large piece of tart and she was well into a pitcher of pumpkin juice. She blushed a little when she saw him looking at the vast amount of food in front of her.

"House-elves," she muttered. "They can't help themselves."

Severus wanted to comment that she didn't appear to be having any problem eating it all, but instead he picked up the apple sitting by her plate, sliced it using a severing charm, and began to eat it. She stared at him hard for a moment as if she was going to say something, but then thought better of it and returned to her book.

A house-elf came over begging to serve him and so he requested a bowl of soup and a cup of tea. It appeared to be a little disappointed that he hadn't asked for more, but no sooner had he blinked than the food was in front of him. They sat in silence eating. Hermione continued to try to read, but having Severus sit across from her was distracting. When she found she had read the same page three times and still didn't know what it said, she gave up and put the book down for good.

"Why aren't you resting?" he asked as he drank the last of his tea and a house-elf came to bring him more. "You'll be worthless tomorrow if you don't."

"I tried, but I couldn't," she said giving him an appraising look. "I have just been re-examining some of my memories in the Pensieve."

This took Severus by surprise. "And what possessed you to do such a thing?"

"Well, for the last few days, every time I thought of Harry's escape, it seemed that I had missed something. I thought I would use the Pensieve to see if I was right."

Severus cursed silently to himself. He should have known…

"You are the reason we escaped so easily," she said in her usual forthright manner. "How is it that you were able to curse so many of your fellow Death Eaters and get away with it? Did no one see what you were doing? Didn't anyone notice you pushing me over?"

Severus flushed. She had apparently done a thorough revision of that memory.

"No," he said. "When they saw me stupefied… I assume you saw that as well… everyone just assumed that I had been out for the entire time. People see what they expect to see, even the Dark Lord. He is still human, after all, as hard as it is to believe. No one expected to see me help the Order of the Phoenix rescue Harry Potter."

She nodded and said nothing more. They continued to sit in silence for several more minutes, sipping drinks and lost in their own thoughts.

"I am going to have to insist that you get some rest," Severus finally said, returning his gaze to her.

"I don't think I can," Hermione said with a sigh.

Severus stared at her. "Self-pity will get you nowhere with the Dark Lord. He is not going to show you mercy because your boyfriend died."

Hermione's eyes snapped back to his, anger flaring in them. Why did he always have to be so cruel? "I never asked you for mercy."

"Well that's good because you're not going to get it," he said through clenched teeth. "This entire mission is up to you."

"Yes! It is!" Hermione said raising her voice. "So why don't you try helping me instead of running me down? How would you like to do this? How would you like to have to face him like this?"

"WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK I'VE BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME?" he shouted, making her take a step back. "You are not going to get any sympathy from me, Miss Granger. I never received any from anyone else."

He spun away from her, his robes flying behind him, storming out of the kitchen. Hermione took several breaths to steady her racing heart and then left, hoping to find some sort of rest in her bed.