A/N: Yup. You all want to murder me. I get it. Over a year...that's legit reasoning for deep, passionate hate. I have no excuse for you except for I just really got out of touch with this story. I hope you are not so disappointed that you gave up on me. I'm still here...slowly, but surely. :) Thanks for sticking with me.

Days had passed since the Final Battle that Hermione still knew little about.

The dead were honored and buried on the Hogwarts grounds near Dumbledore's grave. The ceremony had been a blur for Hermione who was still trying to get over the fact that one of her best friends was gone and she barely remembered the cause of his death.

Harry was very quiet. He had only wanted to retreat to his rooms and be alone; of course there was so much to be done that this was nearly impossible. No one pushed him; no one pushed any of them really. In fact, people were near as reluctant to bother Hermione as Harry. She had withdrawn, so completely unsure of her own surroundings; it was unnerving to Hermione, even.

She still retained that vague memory of the forest, and Death Eaters surrounding them, throwing curses and jinxes while trying to take them down. It was so unclear though, she wasn't sure if she had dreamed it or not.

That was another thing that was strange to Hermione; her dreams lately had been so utterly peculiar, seeming so incredibly real to her that when she woke from them it took several moments to recall that she had, in fact, been dreaming in the first place.

At first, they had been simply confusing. Then, they had started to get repetitive. Most of them were of a faceless figure, a man more specifically, who was there in brief flashes but then disappeared again. It positively hurt her brain to try and unscramble the mess it was currently in, and these dreams certainly weren't lessening the stress any.

Hermione also knew something was off with her near-death experience. She had not only found it odd that Professor Snape been at her side when she opened her eyes, but he had seemed...genuinely concerned. It baffled her completely, and something was not right—she could feel it.

And yet everyone seemed to know something she did not, and they didn't appear to want to say anything about it. They just seemed happy that she had been able to pull through and hadn't been lost, like many others.

The days after the memorials and funerals were winding down time was spent simply rebuilding lives, not to mention the castle, which was going to take a lot of time to do. The Great Hall was completely demolished; stone and granite littered the ground, spilling out onto the grounds. Doors were completely torn off their hinges; windows were shattered, the little glass pieces glistening in the sunlight.

What could have been hundreds of witches and wizards stayed on the grounds, trying to help rebuild the historic castle that had tried to stand strong during the course of the war. It had protected its inhabitants and held a strong fortress for a good duration of the Final Battle and it only felt right to many to make sure it remained that way.

Hermione had taken to seeking refuge from her confusion in the library. It was somewhere familiar, and the books certainly weren't adding to her stress. In fact, they calmed her, made feel the way she knew she should. On the other hand, it seemed that no matter how hard she tried to immerse herself in the familiarity of her books there was still a glaring void that could not be filled. Something was missing, but Hermione was at a complete loss as to what that 'something' could be.

Or was it a 'someone'?

She shook her head of that; the masked being in her dreams was simply that: a dream, a figment of her imagination. It was nothing of consequence, nothing that would help her decipher the reasoning for her missing memory.

Her friends seemed to be the most skittish, the most reluctant to bring up what had transpired. Even stranger, was the fact that Neville and Draco Malfoy were being quite civil with one another. Malfoy himself had even been acting strangely toward her.

He found her one day in the library, curled up in a corner by the window, an ancient-looking tome resting in her lap while her attention was otherwise directed outside at the dark grey storm clouds forming in the distance.

"You're not going to find your memories out there, Granger," he said, causing her to jump slightly. She did not look at him though. Instead she only calmed and looked back to where her eyes rested previously.

"What do you want?" Her voice was tired, bored-sounding, like she just wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

Draco didn't answer; instead he leaned up against the opposite bookshelf and folded his arms across his chest, studying her. "You can't hide in here forever, you know," he stated matter-of-factly, ignoring her obvious, unspoken wish for him to leave.

Hermione glared at him. "And what would you know, Malfoy?" Then she simply deflated with a sigh, turning back to the brewing storm. "Just go away."

"I know your so-called friends consented to just let those memories of yours come back on their own," he stated plainly, but with a bite.

Shaking her head, still not looking away from the window, Hermione found herself slightly confused. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that potion you ingested; it tampered with your memory and Potter decided life would be easier if they didn't tell you anything, if they just let the memories come back by themselves."

"They lied to you, Granger," he said and she cast him a loathsome glare.

"They wouldn't do that," she defended.

Draco sneered and got up close to her, close enough so she barely had to turn her head to look him in the eye. "Then why haven't they told you the reason you can't remember anything, hmm?"

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but found she didn't know what to say. Had they really been hiding information from her? Draco watched her for a few seconds as she processed the information, her eyes jerking restlessly between his own, searching.

And then his words, belatedly, hit her. "What potion?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.

He smirked and took a step back, crossing his skinny arms over his chest, surveying her. "Snape's potion," he answered after a while and a cloud of confusion passed over Hermione's face. "They didn't tell you?"

She could only shake her head.

"You told her what, Malfoy?"

Harry was livid; Ginny placed her always-calming hand on his arm which was flexed and tensed to its fullest ability. "I thought we agreed to allow those…memories to come back on their own," Harry said through a clenched jaw.

Draco glared at him. "No, Potter. You agreed. I wanted nothing to do with this bullocks of a situation, remember? You're supposed to be her friends; you're just lying to her."

"Better than letting that greasy git at her!" Harry snapped back, gripping his wand tighter in his fist.

"That git saved her life, Potter," Draco snarled, but unlike Harry held his ground. He too clenched his wand, but kept it out of sight in his pocket. He wouldn't fight Potter…not yet, anyways.

Ginny didn't remove her hand from Harry's arm, but addressed Draco with a visibly-forced calmness. "You had no right to say that to her you know." Draco rolled his eyes, but Ginny ignored it. "No, Draco, I'm serious. What if she suddenly remembers and is so…disturbed with the notion that she, I don't even know what. What if she puts herself into an even worse state than she's in now? I heard Madam Pomfrey talking about it: Hermione could throw herself into even worse lapse of memory, that is, if she tries to block everything out once she knows the truth."

Even Harry relaxed somewhat and removed his gaze from his sworn enemy to look at Ginny as she finished her little speech. Clearly, neither of them had known this information. "Are you sure, Gin?" Harry asked in a low voice. "That's what she said?" He lowered his arm and Ginny released her hold on it, nodding a few times.

"And what is it that makes you so certain that this will occur?" Draco asked after a while. "Are your minds really that incapable of grasping the idea that she could love someone like him?"

The other two cringed at the statement and exchanged an uneasy glance, telling Draco all he needed to know. "That's what I thought," he sneered.

Snape's potion.

Malfoy's words rang in Hermione's ears as she paced back and forth next to her four-poster. She was alone. Ginny and Harry were off somewhere together; Hermione never knew where but Ginny didn't come back until the wee hours of the morning these days, if at all. Just as well, Hermione thought. She always rather preferred complete silence when she was working on something particularly challenging.

When her friends were around, Hermione had nothing but questions. Sometimes, they were eager to answer. Other times, however, they seemed somewhat reluctant.

Hermione wanted answers.

Ok, what else was knew? But she was sickeningly desperate at the moment. She knew, at the moment, she would do almost anything to solve the puzzle in her nearly-blank mind. Malfoy had mentioned something about a potion…Snape's potion. She assumed this could only be in reference to what was supposedly given to her on the post-final battle scene, but the idea that Snape had given it to her was strange enough in itself.

Pacing only did her so much good before it was counterproductive.

The first lights of dawn were peeking over the mountains when Hermione decided that the answers she needed would only come from the source itself.

She would have to go talk to Professor Snape.

She concluded that she would simply waltz down there to the dungeons and demand and explanation. Ha! She thought. Demand and expect answers out of Severus Snape? May as well have asked Voldemort to afternoon tea…when he was still alive, she added with an internal shrug, still slightly disconcerted that she couldn't even remember the Dark Lord's final moment.

Nevertheless, Hermione felt that if she truly wished for her questions to be answered she was going to have to be demanding. If no one would clue her in to her own memories, she'd have to press as hard as she could for them to come back on their own terms. And so it was, on a now-strangely quiet and subdued afternoon in the castle, Hermione made the trek down the familiar stone steps that lead to the depths of Hogwarts—where she hoped her answers were hiding away in the form of a tall and always-brooding potions master.

She found the door to the potions classroom ajar, the undeniable stench of brewing potions hitting her square in the face. It smelled distinctly of Wolfsbane and Skele-grow, although with the scents mixed together, she couldn't be one hundred percent certain. She took two steps into the open doorway and knocked on the heavy oak door to announce her arrival. Professor Snape was in the very back of the room, bent over a cauldron; five more with Stasis charms stood nearby.

"Enter." His voice was gruff but he didn't raise it as Hermione was accustomed to. He also didn't turn around to face her, and so she simply stood in the center of the room and waited as calmly as she could until he was finished.

"What is it, Miss Granger?" He asked, his voice flat and bored. Still, he kept his back turned. Hermione didn't really have time to dwell on how he knew who he was addressing without turning around.

She took a deep breath. "I had a question…"

"Naturally," he drawled in the same voice.

Hermione decided to ignore the comment. She realized that if she wanted him to be honest with her, she couldn't allow him to push her around, or make her feel like a stupid child. "I need to know about the potion I was given, Professor." The muscles in his shoulders tightened ever-so-slightly. "After the battle. Please, I have to know if there is anything that can be done to counter it, or help my memories come back or…something."

Anything, she thought.

Finally, slowly, Severus faced her. He studied her for a moment, and she was becoming slightly uncomfortable under his intense gaze when he finally spoke to her. "And what is it, Miss Granger, that makes you think I would know anything about what you ingested on the battle field?" He fixed her with one raised eyebrow.

Oh, never mind the fact that I awoke to you holding my hand, she thought exasperatedly. "Malfoy," she said. "He told me it was your potion." She didn't let her voice betray her with uncertainty.

Severus set his face in a glare—one that was reserved for sending the dunderhead first years into crying hysterics. But Hermione wouldn't falter.

Finally, he seemed to make up his mind about something. "The potion," he said slowly, "was designed to act with the obvious opposite effect of the Draught of the Living Dead. More specifically, its intent was to counter the effects of the killing curse."

Hermione's eyes widened slightly.

"As it happens," he sighed, "I have…thought through the possibility of a potion to restore your memory without, obviously, counter-acting the first potion's original intent."

"So you'll be brewing it soon?" It was almost too much to hope for.

"No, Miss Granger. The potion itself—the idea of it, if you will, still requires a fair amount of research, not to mention rare ingredient collecting." He raised his eyebrow again at her as she opened her mouth to speak. "I would assume you are not in favor of such a potion being rushed, therefore perhaps reeking even worse havoc than the first?"

She shook her head. "Of course not, Professor. But if this is a possibility, I would like to be able to assist in the research, that is, if…"

"No."

She furrowed her brow at him and how quick he was to dismiss the idea, trying to make sure her temper didn't boil over on her.

"Not that I owe you an explanation, Miss Granger, but I fail to see any point in your being involved with the research of something that may not even be possible," he sneered at her.

That did it.

"Not owe me an explanation?" She said, her pent-up anger finally exploding. "You owe me every explanation in the world! You fed me that potion, that…experiment! How dare you tell me not to be involved! It's my memories that need restoring," she fumed. "Don't tell me this isn't my concern, Severus!"

Hermione clamped her mouth shut instantly. She braced herself for his raging outburst at her impertinence, but it never came. A strange look passed over his harsh features, one that was neither furious nor even shock. If she wasn't so astonished at herself, she would have fully registered that hope had flickered through his eyes for a few split seconds.

"Um...Professor, I'm…I'm sorry," she stumbled through her words, shaking her head. "I didn't…I should go." She didn't give him time to respond to her mutterings before she turned and was walking out of the dungeon, taking the stone steps two at a time. That was strange, she thought as she slowed her pace once she had put at least three floors between her and the potions classroom. It was disconcerting, to Hermione, that what she had just done had felt normal. It was as if part of her memory had jumped back for an instant and then was gone again. She didn't know how else to explain it.

Then again, when would she ever have been in a position to gain permission to call Professor Snape by his name?

She began pacing. The window she passed by again and again looked out onto the sun-streaked lawn, where most of the battle had taken place. Various witches and wizards were out there, all helping along the process of putting the castle back in order.

"This is ridiculous," she mumbled to herself. She sat down on a bench in the corridor and sighed. "Well that was a waste, Granger," she admonished herself. "That was a sure-fire way to convince him to let you work on that potion."

At the same moment the sound of swift footfalls came to her ears and she turned just as Professor Snape was making his last few strides towards her. When he came to a stop—a good nine or ten feet away from her, she noticed—she slowly stood up, not daring to speak; surely her outburst had finally caught up with him. She breathed in, bracing herself for whatever he was about to hurl at her when he spoke:

"Miss Granger. We begin tomorrow. 9 am sharp. I trust you won't be late?"

Hermione could only look at him, mouth slightly open, and shake her head. But he didn't see it, for he was already sweeping away from her down the corridor and out of sight.