16 November 1998.

She retreated to the shower and for a moment, she saw mud run into the drain and DOWN roared in her ears. She dropped without thought. Her heart paused, and then leapt again, because her eyes had failed her and she couldn't breathe. She lost her vision to black and shadow, and behind her eyes she saw the savage beauty that was spellwork raked across a midnight sky. When she blinked, it was water on her shoulders and tile beneath her feet, but the water was heavy, and her knees buckled and she grabbed at the knob roughly and turned off the flow. She fought for breath through a haze of hate, and she glowered and hit the tile on the wall. She regretted it immediately…and yet she felt relief when her knuckles throbbed and a dull ache calmed the turmoil inside her head.

It was her last moment of peace.

She had expected to see Harry waiting on her bed, kicking his feet and twirling the wand in his hand. He would have quirked a brow at her towel and turned away discreetly with heat in his cheeks. He wasn't though, and had she joined the Order for dinner, she would have known that Harry, Bill, and Remus were gone because there was a rumor of a gaunt woman with raven hair and a smile that just wasn't right. The rumor suggested that this woman had entered a shop in Diagon Alley alone, and had left with a small child, and that a young mother was in hysterics as she wept and ran and searched for her half-blood daughter.

Instead it was Snape leaning against her wall. There was frost in the glitter of his eyes and distain that dripped from the sneer on his lips, and all she could think was that it was odd to see so much tension in a posture that should have been relaxed.

"Really, Miss Granger, do you make it a habit to wander these halls with only a towel to cover yourself? Now that you have abandoned your classes and can no longer be called on, are you so in need of attention that you engage Order members in acts suitable for Knockturn Alley? I suggest that you clothe yourself. Immediately."

"Get out of my room!" She was shrill, incensed, and she wrapped the towel more firmly around her and crossed her arms. He couldn't have known, but black-and-white pictures of her last night flashed in her mind and shame burned her face.

"There are few things I would like more than to leave you to your escapades Miss Granger. Unfortunately for you, and perhaps more unfortunately for me, Dumbledore and Kingsley have said otherwise. Now, I believe I said dress. You have forty-five seconds, and I will return." He didn't know how exactly how closely his words struck home; anger was much more productive than her current state of half-witted shock, and so he was deliberately snide with words carefully chosen to incite her rage.

She closed her eyes and drowned Snape and Voldemort together in the toxins in her mind, then she counted to ten and pulled on suitable attire. Despite a hasty ward she had cast on her door, Snape flung it open with a crash that damaged the hinges.

He resumed the lazy lean against her wall and she could feel displeasure radiate off of him in waves that almost pushed her back. He conjured a bar that hung in the air just above her head.

"Ten pull-ups."

She grasped the bar with a venomous glare and hopped a bit as she fought to lift her chin above the bar. One, two, and her body shook. She didn't need to look at him to see the disgust in her efforts. Defiance was tangible in her mind, and her knuckles paled from the rigidity of grasp… but defiance wasn't enough, and neither was determination; Snape was not pleased.

"Not good enough. Fifty crunches. Your arms can cross your chest, or you can touch your ear with your middle finger. Begin."

These, she could do...and she did, though after number thirty-four, it required effort to finish. But she was satisfied, and she stretched her back as he ordered push-ups from her. Of ten, she managed seven before he ordered her to stop and repositioned her, and demanded she start again. She collapsed shortly after her next attempt and drew blood from the inside of her cheek as she struggled not to scream, cry, or utter some combination of the two.

He was relentless. She saw red. He told her she was physically incompetent and that she was wasting his time. She told him to go to hell. His eyes glittered and narrowed malevolently and he said he going easy on her tonight. She sneered and told him she didn't need his charity. He smirked and conjured a bar that weighed seventy pounds, and he told her to squat, and she knew then that he had won the battle she hadn't known they were fighting. With a fierce scowl, she performed thirty squats. Somewhere between number twelve and number twenty, the red broke away and she forgot her anger when she got lost in the rhythm of her lifts and the surge of her pulse; she didn't see the short nod of approval.

DOWN! he roared, and she dropped. It was instantaneous, but the grace in her fall left much to be desired. She hit her shin on the bar so hard that it purpled immediately, and tears burned her eyes. He demaned thirty more crunches, this time on her side.

Halfway through he yelled MOVE and she lifted her eyes to him, puzzled, and was struck by a hex that blinded her. She shrieked and in that moment, Hermione Granger had gone and Rage was all that mattered. She grabbed for her wand, but it wasn't at her wrist, and belatedly she realized her error when she'd forgotten to set it in her holster for her impromptu fitness session. With an inarticulate scream, yell, shout, roar, she lunged in the direction where she had seen him lean against the wall, but she hit her dresser instead. The force was enough to break the glass, and the shards shredded her skin and fell into her shirt and the carpet.

She didn't care.

She flung herself sideways and tripped over the bar and she felt her ankle give. From her position on the floor, she reached out and grasped anything, everything, and she threw what felt like shoes, hangers, books, socks, and quills in different directions, trying in vain to hit what she could not see.

Just as suddenly as her rampage began, it stopped, and all color drained from her face. She drew bruised knees up to her chest and clutched them with bleeding hands, as if by holding onto something, anything, she might find balance in a world whose spin she created. Her breathing was ragged and her entire body trembled, and he could see the war that raged across her face as she fought tears of raw emotion, and lost.

"Are you quite finished, Miss Granger?" He spoke barely above a whisper, and Hermione shivered involuntarily. There was death in the silk of his voice, and she hugged her knees tighter.

"Yes, sir." Her own voice was a whisper, and there was nearly nothing behind the words. She could hear the brush of his robes as he moved his wand as he restored her vision without speaking.

"Be warned. This will not happen again. "

"Professor, I-"

"Hold your tongue, Miss Granger. You lost the right to speak when you lost your mind. It will not happen again. You are an adult. You will act like one, or I will personally see to it that any and all of your memories regarding the Order are removed, placed in a pensieve, that said pensieve is destroyed, and that you are Oblivated on the grounds that you are mentally unstable and physically unfit to serve the Order of the Phoenix. I daresay this is not something you desire."

She shook her head but couldn't meet his eyes.

"There aren't enough of us to attack each other."

He sounded…almost tired, then; perhaps not necessarily tired, but closer to human than she'd ever heard before. She tucked her chin then, and better swimmers than she would have drowned in the waves of her guilt.

"This is the Regeneration Agent. Your request for the Accelerant was denied. It is a tool for Aurors, and you are not an Auror. Prepare yourself and take this immediately. You will be dressed and ready to run at precisely 4:30 am, and you will meet me on the front steps."

These were not suggestions, these words that fell from his lips, nor did his tone invite negotiation. He withdrew a small vial of something mahogany, and he left it in her glass shard graveyard as he strode from the room. Even here, his robes billowed behind him, and in his wake, all that Hermione heard was Harry's voice in her mind as it echoed, "Death Eaters don't fight with Stupefy, Hermione."

So right after I was so gung ho about a chapter a day, life kicked me in the teeth. I got sick again, and I'm pretty sure I crammed more than 80 hours into that work week... I'm not sure how mathematically, but I'm quite sure it happened. Today was a big day: I gave my notice for my second job, and I can see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel: the return to just 40 hour work weeks is near! I am celebrating with a new chapter tonight, preparing tomorrow's, and continuing forward progress for the story. Sorry it took so long 3

Yours,
Threnody