The usual dislcaimer applies...

A/N...I apologise profusely for the delay with this update. I had the worst writer's block, and it took me a while to post anything worth reading. I started, then deleted, this chapter at least three times. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Chapter 3

Hermione slowly sat up in bed, and tried to rake her fingers through her hair like a brush. Despite only being here for two weeks...or is it three, now...she wondered; her hair had already formed some small mats, some almost like dreadlocks. Both hairbrushes and combs were forbidden since they could potentially be used as weapons. She snorted softly as she tried to visualise doing harm to herself or others with a hairbrush.

She had no idea what day it was until the guard knocked loudly on her door. "Courtyard time, if you want to go," a loud voice echoed in her cell. It was the third time she would get to go out since she had arrived here. So...it must be two and a half weeks now, she thought to herself.

"Coming," she managed to muster weakly.

As she walked through the corridors towards the only bit of sunlight she would see, she wondered whether she would see Professor Snape. A small part of her had actually looked forward to her outdoor time last week, until she noticed the hour had passed and she had been alone the entire time. She wondered whether he was allowed to go out once a week as she was, or whether his time was more limited.

She knew that he wasn't considered a maximum security prisoner since he was serving time for assisted suicide, rather than murder. She still thought it was quite unfair that he had to go prison at all, since he only acted on Dumbledore's orders. Like herself, he was a major player in the second wizarding war, and also like herself, he had been made an example by the Wizengamot. There was no way the Ministry was going to let him off the hook for killing, even if it was a mercy killing, the most popular headmaster that Hogwarts had ever had. Even the testimony of Harry Potter, using the memories from the Shrieking Shack, and the portrait of Albus Dumbledore couldn't get him an acquittal.

She sat down in a small patch of dirt that had a little bit of grass growing on it. Most of the courtyard was just bare soil, but she unconsciously gravitated towards the small amount of greenery. She stretched out her legs, and propped her arms behind her; trying to take in what little sun she could get. Her eyes had been closed less than five minutes when she noticed there was a shadow now blocking the sun. She looked up and saw the black, piercing eyes of Professor Snape.

"May I join you?" He asked politely, almost as if the conversation was happening anywhere but in Azkaban.

"Yes," she replied automatically. She glanced at him as he sat down beside her, sitting in a position similar to her own. She gasped slightly as he pulled a book from his robes and started reading.

"How...how did you get a book?" She knew that her mouth had to be gaping as she stared at him.

"We are allowed a few creature comforts, Miss Granger. Minerva gave it to me when she visited last week. We are allowed books as long as they are not magical, or about anything magical. They thoroughly check them before we are allowed to have them, however."

She looked at the title of the book, and couldn't help the snort that escaped her mouth. She tried to cover her mouth to stifle it, but it was too late. He looked up at her, faintly amused.

"Yes, the irony isn't lost on me, Miss Granger." He gently put down the battered copy of Heart of Darkness, and gave her a sharp look. "Speaking of Minerva...she was quite concerned after her visit with you. She thinks you are going to try...something again." His voice had become quieter again, resembling the tone he had used in potions before issuing a detention or docking house points.

Hermione quickly looked away, knowing exactly what that something was. "She knows that I cannot starve myself. We already had that conversation, Professor. I wanted her to leave, I did not want her pity or her trying to give me false reassurances about getting out of here."

"There are many ways other than starving yourself, Miss Granger. Please tell me, for your own sake, that you are no longer having those thoughts."

She quickly looked away from him and focused her gaze on the few blades of grass blowing in the light wind. Neither one spoke for several minutes, then she finally spoke, changing the conversation.

"Where were you last week? I...noticed you were gone." She didn't want to act like she missed him, but the truth was, she did...a little bit. He was the only person who would talk to her without animosity, and who treated her like a human being rather than a prisoner.

"I was...in the warden's office. It seems that the Ministry doesn't trust their own wards here at Azkaban, and wanted to make sure that I could not affect them wandlessly."

"How can they check that?" She blurted out without thinking.

"A combination of Legilimency, Veritaserum, and a potion that increases susceptibility to Veritaserum."

She had a disgusted look on her face as she processed the information. She then paused in thought for a moment, "Harry told me that you are a very good Occlumens, though."

His eyes came to life for a brief moment, and a smirk appeared in the corner of his mouth. "Yes, but the Ministry does not know that."

She smiled the first genuine smile since she had entered Azkaban. "So what did the warden see?"

"Only what I wanted him to see," he paused briefly, "But I have nothing to hide concerning the wards. I am good at wandless magic, but I am not that good. The wards are easily strong enough to prevent any magic here without a wand."

Hermione had enjoyed the conversation more than she had expected, and hadn't realised the time was up until she saw a guard walking towards them in the courtyard. This time, it was the Professor's guard who came first, and she quickly rose to watch him leave. "Goodbye, Professor."

"Goodbye, Miss Granger."

-ooOOoo-

Hermione looked up from her bed towards the small window in her cell. She stared at the few stars she could see as she tried to get comfortable enough to go to sleep. Although going to sleep had been very difficult these past weeks due to the nightmares, tonight her insomnia was due to something totally different.

Today had been the first day that she had not thought about either harming herself or dying. It hadn't been an exceptional day, by any stretch of the imagination, but it had been better than most of the days that she had been in Azkaban. Her time in the courtyard had been...well, not exactly nice, but she had enjoyed the conversation with Professor Snape.

She had never thought much about the man while she was a student at Hogwarts. He was just the strict potions professor that disliked all things Gryffindor. She had respected him as a teacher, and tried to get the boys to respect him as well. Not that it ever worked. And once they were on the run in seventh year, they avoided talking about him while he was Headmaster. It would only cause heated discussions or arguments with Harry and Ron. It was only when they watched him almost die in the Shrieking Shack that she thought about him in any way other than just as a teacher. Harry had portrayed him as the tragic anti-hero after viewing his memories, and tried to convince the jury of that at his trial.

Talking to him today had been enlightening, and she noticed there was much more to him than she had ever realised. He wasn't just a former teacher or Death Eater-turned-spy, but he was a real person with various facets and emotions. She had never seen anything but coldness or ambivalence in his eyes as a student, but today she could see the humor in them when they talked about the book. And she swore she could almost see a trace of a smile on his face when they were talking about his skills as an Occlumens.

Although she only spent an hour talking to him in the courtyard, it had made the rest of the day bearable. She had no thoughts of self harm the rest of the day, and had even eaten more than she usually did. And most of all, she had actually smiled for the first time since she had been incarcerated.

Her last thought as she drifted off to sleep was that maybe, just maybe, she finally had a reason to survive the next three years.

A/N...See, she is starting to have a better outlook.

I will try to update weekly, but if it is longer than that I will post a note in my profile or on my livejournal page. I will probably focus just a bit more on NUO since it is closer to being finished, then once it is done post updates more often here.