Disclaimer: I hate these things. Really I do. JKR made Snape up. Not me.

EDIT!!!!!! INSTEAD OF THIS ALL STARTING AT THE END OF TERM, IT'S THE BEGINNING OF CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY


C H A P T E R / T W O

You know, when I flooed to Dumbledore, I was still in a state of shock, even disbelief. It COULD have been a dream, my mind reasoned, a delusional dream brought on by sleep deprivation.

Right and so was the final battle.

I was still sort of talking to myself when I arrived. I didn't even realise I'd reached my destination until I heard someone clear their throat. I looked up and found myself staring down a red and white stocking, hung on the mantle. I ducked under it and stepped out.

Dumbledore's office is just how it's always been. There are odds and ends cluttering every available surface with portraits of past headmasters, the founders, and various professors lining the walls. Fawkes, decked in vibrant scarlet with flecks of gold tingeing his feathers, hoots softly as he sleeps with his head tucked under his wing.

Dumbledore himself is the only thing that's changed, and that being that you can now see through him.

He smiled at the sight of me and motioned for me to have a seat across from him. 'How did you rest your first night off?' he inquired.

Rest? Oh, I did sleep. 'Fine,' I replied, the universally neutral answer. I sat in the wing-back chair quietly, my mind still whirling from the morning's events.

Focus, Hermione, focus!

There was a slight pause until Dumbledore cleared his throat again. 'I called you here today to ask a favour. See, I wish to open a club of sorts, one I think you'll take an interest in. Many students are like how you were when you went here, they enjoy studying outside the classroom to further their education in independent research, even developing upon, and perfecting, existing charms, potions, and whatnot. I thought it would be a smashing idea to create a group around this idea. You'd be the supervisour, so they have some guidance and aren't entirely on their own, and the club would meet whenever you see fit. What do you think?'

During this entire speech, I heard what he was saying, but I could barely listen. Maybe Snape wasn't Snape after all. Maybe it's one of the twins! I'd thought they'd toned down a bit and grown up but they've still been children at heart. How would they get a bit of Snape's hair to Polyjuice themselves into him? Unless they've developed a more efficient way to change into a person temporarily. I think they've actually been working on it. But why choose Snape? And ME for that matter?

'Hermione?' came Dumbledore's concerned voice. Apparently, he'd been waiting for a response.

But if it were the twins, they wouldn't have taken it that far. I knew them. Eventually they wouldn't have been able to contain their mirth. So it couldn't be then. What if it was Snape but he was under someone's Imperious?

I hadn't seen enough of Snape though to notice any differences in his mannerisms. But Dumbledore has, since Snape's been visiting him a lot recently. Almost two, three times a week.

So, I said, 'Albus . . . I've noticed Snape acting . . . a bit odd lately.' That's a light way to put it. I could also say that fire is a bit warm.

Two bushy silver eyebrows went up. 'Oh?'

I nodded. How to put this without sounding either paranoid or nutters . . . 'He was here, at Hogwarts yesterday, right?'

'Yes,' replied the old wizard. 'I do believe I saw him.'

'Well, this morning he showed up at my house and . . . brought me food . . . and kissed my cheek.' When I finished up, I felt suddenly out of breath, as though I'd just completed the 100-metre dash. I gasped for air and leaned back, trying to elongate my lungs to ease the airflow (yes, I actually do think of these things as I do them).

I don't know how I expected Dumbledore to react. I mean, I thought there'd be some lowering of the brow, a bit of confusion. But there was nothing. He stared at me blankly, as though trying to figure out the purpose for my unbosoming.

Then, realising I wanted his input, he said, uncertainly, 'Well. I may not know of his . . . nuances or . . . habits in that area so you'll have to elaborate.'

What?

Ok, he was old and dead. He'd seen what happens after you die (but refuses to tell me on account of 'morals'. Bugger) and came back to the land of the living. So it's slightly, slightly forgivable that he might not have understood me. So, I expanded.

'Headmaster!' I shouted (a little). 'He kissed me. Well, my cheek. But still! He did it all casual as though it were normal!!!'

Slowly, clearly taking a stab in the dark, Dumbledore asked, 'He's never done it before?'

What on earth does he think Snape and I do? Go around snogging each other's cheeks? Has he, all this time, thought I smooch everyone I know? Is he mad? 'No! Of course not!' I exclaim, answering his question. 'And I don't . . . I can't figure out why he did it!'

'I don't see the problem.' He shrugged.

Don't see the problem?

Ok, so now I was a little hysterical. I'd been woken up far too early to be kissed by my former teacher and to have my boss, who's known both of us long enough, sit there and think this is all wonted. I couldn't figure it out and I hated not being able to figure something out. Usually, I add a bit of logic and POOF all was clear. But this—this had no logic.

I did the classic and cliché thing and opened my mouth, trying to say what, I don't know, but it was as though my gears just jammed up and I stopped thinking, breathing, and speaking.

The Elderly Mad went on. 'Does his kissing your cheek make you uncomfortable?'

Does it?

What do you m—of COURSE it does! It makes me uncomfortable because I don't . . . I can't figure out his motives and now DUMBLEDORE IS ACTING LIKE A LOON!

I'm not normally a violent person, all right? But right then, I really wanted to jugulate something; squeeze the life out of something. I had all this pressure that was rapidly building.

Dumbledore suddenly leaned forward. 'Listen, I don't mean to sound inconsiderate, Hermione, but wouldn't Mrs. Potter be more suited for this sort of thing?'

Huh?

My voice made an encore appearance. 'W-what are you talking about? Why would she . . . She doesn't know Snape as well as you do.'

'That's true.' He nodded in affirmation. 'But I'm afraid that the intricacies of relationships aren't my forte. I think she would be better for this thing.'

Ok, let's pause here. I really should have realised that something was up with how Dumbledore has been putting this. I mean, it should have hit me, what was up. Ok, maybe I wouldn't have gotten . . . I'm getting ahead of myself. What I mean is, even at this moment, I wasn't getting what Dumbledore was talking about. Soon I did. Ohh, too soon.

'However, since you came to me, I'll do my best to help.' Dumbledore poured me a cup of tea and handed it to me. I took it on autopilot and took a sip. It scalded my tongue but that helped wake me up.

As if the rest of all this wasn't doing it effectively.

'I would only suggest that if what Severus did made you uncomfortable, you should talk to him. Tell him. I mean, couples go through these sorts of things all the time. One person will like something that the other doesn't. People work around it. You could probably come up with a happy compromise.' Then he smiled, clearly pleased and surprised by his response. As though saying, that was some good advice. I should send that to Hallmark.

Hold on. You saw that too, didn't you? That word. Couples. Yeah. He referred to Snape and me as a couple. Now, even someone as thick as me realised not all was copasetic in Reality. My mind zeroed in and highlighted that word, sending out a red-alert.

Alert! Alert! Ears have detected an alien reference! Mouth. Fly in to investigate. Memory, get ready to take notes. I have a feeling this one'll be a doozy!

I just wanted to be sure. 'What do you mean, "Couples go through this thing all the time"?'

Patient as though I were the particularly slow child in class, he explained, 'We're both adults here. I mean, maybe the man likes to be kissed on the—'

'I know what you meant by that! I mean, what do couples have to do with Snape and I?'

And then his mouth formed a perfect 'O', realising something. He looked at me in that clinical way psychiatrists have, when they realise they've found the Freudian reason for something you've said or done. 'I see. You still aren't comfortable being out in the open.' He lowered his voice to keep the portraits from hearing. 'Hermione, Severus and you told everyone a month ago. I know you are still uncomfortable having others know, risking judgment, but you've got to accept it. Your friends are happy for you. They might not like your choice of a boyfriend but they know he makes you happy and that's all that matters to them. I've also done my part to get them to apperceive that Severus is a good man in general, let alone for you.'

Yeah. There. That's where you might be confused. Or, like me, you might be going through

Cliché #2: Thinking you are dreaming

And

Cliché #3: Laughing hysterically.

That's what I did, causing Dumbledore to look alarmed, because clearly, I'd gone insane.

The jury's still out on that one.

That's when my mind snapped to. Hermione! Be reasonable! No one dreams so cognitively! Dreams are scattered and confusing. This is going as one straight plot, with all the characters acting as they should! You aren't building a dam with Prince Charles so you aren't dreaming! STOP LAUGHING!

It takes a firm talking-to from one's mind to get one to straighten up. The laughter died on my throat when I realised that Dumbledore was serious and I was completely awake (just for good measure, I went through

Cliché #4: Pinching one to make sure one is awake

Just to be sure.)

Now, I won't bore you with the details but after some lobbying back-and-forth, Dumbledore stood up and walked over to his bookshelf, not saying a word.

He sat back down, now carrying a book roughly the size of his desk. Looking worried, he thumbed through the pages, finally landing on one containing nothing but tight, messy scrawling.

'Oh dear. It was true!'

Now, if you thought you were confused before, get ready, because your mind is going to look like it took a trip or two through the blender when you're done with this chapter, and more so, this book.

I'll give you a moment to brace yourself.

Ready?

Ok.

So Dumbledore studied the text a bit longer before looking up. The way he looked at me, even to this day, having lived through it all (I'm still surprised at that and you will be too), I still remember the expression on his face being that of complete fascination mixed with admiration.

I will pause here again and explain that I? Yeah, I don't like being looked at. This will come into play a lot later on but I just want you to know, that I don't like people's focus being on me. I know, I raise my hand in class or whatnot but that's because the compulsion to share knowledge that fascinated me with others overrides my fear of being under someone's scrutiny.

Got that? Good. Ok on with the story.

So, shifting under the weight of his gaze, I finally demanded, 'what? Would you mind explaining what's going on?'

He smiled, then masked it with Ultra-Serious Professor. 'You, my dear, have traveled across dimensions.'

Ok, you can laugh. I can see you sitting there, reading this, going, 'that's impossible' and just thisfar from throwing the book down and rendering it too improbable to be enjoyable. You want to be able to connect with the story, right? You can't do that when the characters are too perfect (and clearly, this story doesn't have that problem) or if the circumstances are impossible. Also, Dumbledore's delivery. I mean, look how he just slapped that one on! Just, 'oh, clearly all your problems can be summed up by inter-dimensional travel'. It sounds like a shitty episode of Dr Who.

I know. I'm right there with you. Had this never happened to me and I had been reading this story, I'd throw the book down myself.

However, I must beg you not to! For I swear, on my very own grave, that this happened.

I suppose now it isn't relevant (I, knowing the end of the story) but I like to keep the element of surprise in there so, even though it has no meaning whatsoever, besides being a pretty nifty concept, I'll put down how Dumbledore explained inter-dimensional travel.

'Our lives all start out the same way,' he told me. 'We all start out with a straight path. Then, some time early on, we make a decision that causes a fork in the road. It could be something simple, and usually is. We could, decide to eat the pretty thing off the floor, which turns out to be poisonous, which sends us to the hospital, which renders us paralyzed. Or, it could be, we decide to throw a fit in a store, causing our parents to leave early and not purchase the gift they were intending on getting you.

'Therein lies the "what if" scenario. All or lives, we wonder, "what if we'd done this" or "what if this had happened".

'You make a decision and a part of the course of your life branches off, making your path, two. You don't come to a fork in the road, as they say, but rather, you create the fork in the road. See, Hermione, there could be two choices ahead of you, But you might choose C: Neither and find a choice you didn't know you had, creating that branch!

'No matter how insignificant a decision, it still creates a break. Let's say you decide to take a different course home. If you'd gone your usual way, there could have been someone there that you were supposed to meet, who would change your life.

'Let's look at something real in your life. Let's say you'd decided to brush off your Hogwarts Acceptance Letter as rubbish. You'd never gone here, never met Harry or Ron. You never would have fought Voldemort as you had. Harry might not be alive since you've had much involvement in saving his life. YOU, Hermione, might not be alive either. We both know you probably wouldn't be here, at least. Unless, you are a firm believer of fate and whatnot, of course. Every decision you make, no matter how small, has a butterfly effect that forever changes your life, or keeps it from changing, as the case may be.

'How did you get here? I don't know. All I have to go by is theories.' He flipped the book around so that I could see it. He couldn't have possibly intended on my reading it because the writing was so small and flowery, it could honestly have just been scribbles made to look like writing.

'This,' he explained. 'Is a journal from one Leonardo da Vinci, the papers copied into here by magic. Leonardo, a muggle, was all too wise for his own good. He was the one Muggle who began figuring out about us, using facts and coincidences. He was good. Too good. Even back then, we had a ministry of sorts and they kept a close eye on him.

'Anyway, I'm running away with myself. As I was saying, he wrote this and he was one of the few who had theories about traveling through time and space. Here—' He jabbed a middle section of the right page with his long finger.

Pause.

Ok, I KNOW ghosts aren't supposed to be able to have matter. I mean, the only reason Peeves does is because he's a poltergeist, and was never alive. No one can figure out why Dumbledore has matter and I've actually been working on it in secret. He knew of course, and that's what spawned the whole, 'Students Who Want to Further Their Education' club.

Resume.

'Here—it says that to travel to other dimensions, alternate realities as he puts it, you do something that causes a hiccup. You do something at just the right time, when the universe is weak, and you are expelled to the other area. He has actual methods of getting back.'

Dumbledore began reading upside-down.

'Inter-reality travel, in my theories, is accidental. There is no way, I can ascertain, that one might do so by choice. However, when one lands themselves in another era or place, the only way they can get back is to figure out what is different in that world, which they will when they realise they aren't in their own time, then figure out what they did differently than in their time, and then somehow, go back in time to that moment, and choose the correct path.'

Dumbledore closed the book not-too-carefully. 'So, Hermione, the only thing you can do is find out what you did differently, since, from what you've told me, you aren't dating Severus back in your time. What decision did you make that you chose B instead of A? You'll have to figure this out and then, come find me and I'll get you a time-turner so that you can go back to that moment. I trust your recall how to use one?

'However.' He leaned forward again, arms crossed and eyes stern. 'I must warn you of the dangers. Theories speculate that if you change anything within this time—' he jabbed his finger into the leather with each of the last two words, to accent their importance. '—if you change the course that this path is going, you will not be able to return to your dimension.'

I had to ask here. 'Why?'

He didn't have an answer. That's fine. I figured out why later on.

So there you have it: the very confusing reason for Snape snogging my face. Yeah, even though it confused you, did you really think that was the reason? Oh you did, did you?

Liar.

So, I walked out of that office still not believing it completely. I mean, dimensional travel? How unrealistic can you get?

Ohh . . . say, about as unrealistic as time-travel, wizards, flying brooms, and werewolves?

Yeah, now you see why I could semi-easily believe it.

I suppose, you are probably thinking, 'she should get right on that figuring-out-what-she-did-differently thing!' I know, I suppose that would have been smart, had the situation (remember, I know the end of this story) been differently.

I know that doing so would only do NOTHING in the long run. However, you are sitting there confused as hell so I guess I could try to explain my procrastination.

And that being: I still had to let it sink in.

I mean, take a step back and look at the painting in its entirety.

I was plopped into another reality

Where I was dating my former professor

Who hated me

Or was at least annoyed by me

But in this reality, he was kind

From what I could tell at least

And the only way to go back is to figure out what I did differently.

Now, I realised that

It could have been something ages ago that I did differently

Or a bunch of different decisions, which'll force me to go digging really deeply.

So, with all this, imagine yourself (as I will ask you do to do repeatedly during the course of my telling my story) in my place. What would you do?

Go right back to bed.

A/N: Well! That was a doozy! Ok, you are all confused and I know you are probably more so now. I know you are wondering such things as, 'why was Snape at Hogwarts' and 'Why was he confused' etc. And plus thinking about inter-dimensional travel will confuse you in general. All will be explained!

Oh, that reminds me. I don't know if da Vinci ever said that thing about inter-dimensional travel, of if he even had any theories. That theory was all mine. I just chose some random guy.

Tadaaaah!

Oh, I used a bunch of odd words. I got a new thesaurus-like thingy.

Unbosoming: revealing something. (Say, your bosom?) But here it means like, to tell something about yourself.

Wonted: Normal

Jugulate: Strangle

Oh and the phrase 'elderly mad' was borrowed (stolen) from the Confessions of Georgia Nicholson series. You know, Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging.

Well. I look forward to feedback and I will try to update soon. I'm working on my next chappie for Confessions of an Agony Aunt.

OH! And let's all thank Melissa AKA Severus-fan. Because if it weren't for her giving me the idea to write out an outline (I would just write what my mind came up with, as it came up with it), this story would never have been completed, same with the others. SHE SAVED MY STORIES! WWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next Chappie: This is going to be a long one so might take me a week to get done. But in this one, Hermione will deal with the beginning of dating Snape. Remember, this won't be like those other fics where she finds herself married/dating Snape. Think of this as my LATE entry for the Marriage Law Challenge. Except I don't abide by the rules. And they're not married. And there's no law.