CHAPTER THREE—Remembering

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All of Hermione's friends were taking their Care of Magical Creatures exam, so she took a spot on the grand staircase and opened her Potions textbook. She had little more than an hour before Professor Snape's exam would start. Brewing anything from Advanced Potions Making would be easy, but Hermione J. Granger was thorough, and revised before every exam.

But today, as she reread the instructions for the Anti-Flame Potion, her mind began to wander. When left time in a quiet space, Hermione always remembered awful things. Fenrir Greyback sniffing her neck; Bellatrix Lestrange's shattering laughter; Professor Snape soaking in blood. After breaking out of Gringotts, those many months ago, things began to unravel so quickly. The "Final Battle" started not even twenty-four hours after stealing the Sword of Gryffindor. Hermione dwelt on those few days too often.

Copper and iron and dust—that's what the Shrieking Shack smelled like. Hermione remembered the room, the spider webs, the muffled quiet. Voldemort's bare feet had smudged clean spots on the dusty floor. The snake had left polished trails.

Hermione had never seen the bottom of Professor Snape's shoes before, until that day; they were smeared with mud and dirt. Interpreting the mud Rorschach on his soles was easier than looking into his black eyes as he died. The gurgling coming from his throat paralyzed Hermione. She hovered at Ron's shoulder as Harry ventured closer. The tangy scent of blood increased in intensity every few seconds. She didn't want to stay and watch the professor die, even if he was the bastard Death Eater Mad-Eye Moody had always claimed.

"Look at me."

Hermione did as he said. The professor was staring into Harry's eyes—and he looked so, so sad. A sad Death Eater? The mists of his memories began wisping from his eyes. Harry demanded a flask and Hermione provided, watching Professor Snape's chest twitch the entire time she fished in her bag.

"You have your mother's eyes."

Professor Snape wanted his last words to be a compliment? Unlikely. The professor was maddeningly succinct most of the time. Why would he start pouring out niceties, now of all times? Ron pulled Hermione back to his side. Only Harry, the Boy Who Lived, would get close enough to collect the memories of a domestic terrorist. The palm-sized vial was filled, and Harry dashed off to the headmaster's office. Hermione and Ron followed.

The witch caught herself on the doorjamb. She had fixed Harry when he had been attacked by Nagini, and still had some dittany left over. As Ron loped out of the Shack, the professor slid further down the wall, his head dropping to his chest. His thin legs stuck out from his body, his billowy robes all around him.

Oh, bugger, she had thought.

Chapping her bottom lip with her teeth, Hermione knelt down. She felt hot blood seeping into her frayed jeans and jerked her knee out of the red puddle. Blood was everywhere; splashed on the wall, speckled on his chin, sucked into his heavy black robes. Was that blood on his mouth? Hermione gagged at the rotten copper aroma. The Summoned dittany shook in her hand. She didn't want to touch him or the coagulating globs hanging onto the ragged fragments of his throat.

She had to suck in air through her mouth—she could almost taste the venom pooling on the floor. She recalled the sterilized air of the infirmary as she watched Professor Snape convulse. The professor that glided down the halls, dictated at the front class, healed her chest was weak. He was about to die.

She had to do it; she had to help him.

Before the dittany had finished sizzling the wound back together, Hermione began to wind the gauze around the headmaster's neck. She sat back on her knees, avoiding all eye-contact (not that there could be any, since the professor had fainted from lack of blood). Had she done enough? Why had she done anything at all? This bastard had run Dumbledore out, added in some Carrows to torture the students, and served as Voldemort's puppet. So what if he had made all the potions to counteract Dolohov's curse—he was a Potions Master, that was his job—his legitimate job, not the one requiring white masks and Killing Curses.

"Hermione!"

She jumped and ended up pointing her wand at Ron. He clutched the doorframe, panting, coated in soot and sweat. "Leave the git to die before we get killed ourselves!" Conceding that nothing more could be done, she followed Ron back to the battle.

Even now, she wasn't entirely sure why she decided to try to save him. Once Harry had let it slip that Professor Snape was a brave spy who was in love with Lily Potter, she was glad she had done so. He deserved some bloody recognition after all he had been through! And after they had all doubted him! Even she had doubted him, and she was ashamed—"brightest witch of her age" indeed. Hermione sighed as she turned the page. She had reached the last line of the Anti-Flame Potion, but had been so busy recollecting that she didn't remember reading the rest of it.

This exam was going to be rather difficult, if she couldn't stay focused. Revising Metal Purifiers would not hold her interest, no matter how hard she tried. Professor Snape and love—that was a subject worth some thought. Professor Snape had been in love with a woman so deeply he protected her son from the vilest wizard in recent history. Professor Snape had protected the legacy of the man that had stolen away his only love. Suffice to say, Hermione, and most of the wizarding world, had been shocked when they found out. Hermione thought it was beautiful, if not a little tragic. Okay, extremely tragic.

Even before she found out about the professor's unrequited ardor, Hermione had wondered what it would be like to have the strongest, meanest, scariest teacher in Hogwarts fall hopelessly in love with her. Ever since her fifth year she had spent hours fantasizing about how it would feel, how he would act. He would be harsh in public but sweet and gentle at night, caressing her face and letting her fall asleep in his lap.

Perhaps he would refuse to let her speak until after he had taken her body, backed her against a door as his hands stripped off her clothes. As she wrapped her legs around his waist, and threw her head back, he would murmur her name, her real name, not "know-it-all" or "Miss Granger." Even though, sometimes, she thought it might be sexy if he called her "Miss Granger" while he took her on the floor of the Potions classroom.

Hermione looked up from her book. Sometimes she used to wonder if falling in love with anybody would make him less of a berk. Maybe his cold, black eyes would thaw, or his stern brow would relax. That would be good for him, Hermione thought. He would lecture in class, then see her sitting in the back row. He might even smile at her, when no one was looking, if he fell in love with her.

But then she found out about Lily Potter. He had been in love with her for all those years, and it had turned him into a cruel, isolated man. Love hadn't made him happy, but had tortured him.

Hermione's brown eyes focused on a dark figure entering the hall from the dungeons. The man currently occupying her thoughts crossed the flagstones to reach the doors of the Great Hall. He had a book under his arm. Even when he was alone he was scowling. It was terrifying to think that love had ruined him so, could make a person such a grotesque.

The professor disappeared into the Great Hall, presumably to set up the room for the Potions exam. The new examination policy was one Ministry decree Hermione agreed with. During the war, no Muggle-born wizards had been contacted about Hogwarts, or told they had magical powers. Some Muggle-born students had been too terrified to return, and even some half-bloods. Several students, like young Colin Creevey, had died in the battle. The Ministry now required exams in the middle and end of the school year to establish a base-line and hopefully show improvement in the time of rebuilding.

Hermione thought it was a good idea, but if she were in charge, she would monitor more than just test scores. Inter-house unity would be hard to quantify, but it could be observed. House points and over-all mood of the school should be important as well. Perhaps counseling services should be offered, more than just pre-O.W.L.s career guidance.

Students began trickling in to the Entrance Hall from the Quidditch pitch, or from their dormitories. The Potions exam would begin soon. Hermione watched her younger classmates loiter from her spot on the stairs. This would be the first year Hermione didn't have to worry about Harry being killed by Voldemort. No basilisks or tournaments. Harry wasn't even an Auror—he was Minister Shacklebolt's assistant, at the time being. All Hermione had to worry about was N.E.W.T.s and finishing her Transfiguration apprenticeship. It was going to be a good year, a normal year.

The eighth-year gathered her notes and books before she stood up. Now was not the time to ponder Ministry initiatives or the Potions Master—now was the time to take the Potions exam.

When she entered the Great Hall, Professor Snape was perched on the dais, thumbing through his book. Hermione knew the professor was intelligent, and it followed that he was well-read. But the Gryffindor had never seen him reading in public before this term.

Ron and Lavender joined her in the back row as she sat down. "'Mione, Lavender doesn't know all the ingredients in the Wolfsbane Potion—do you know what they are?

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Severus Snape, former headmaster of Hogwarts, sat on the dais at the front of the Great Hall. To break his habit of secretly observing his students walk in, he had taken to reading a book any time he had a spare moment. His covert practice was twenty years old and presenting some difficulty. His eyes strained in an attempt not to peek up through his lanky hair.

Every few lines, he had to remind himself to keep looking down instead of spying. The Dark Lord had been destroyed by Harry Potter, again. Nagini was the only fragment of the Dark Lord remaining—Severus didn't have to spy anymore.

The professor cleared his throat. As his Adam's apple bobbed, he could feel his scar tissue straining. He had foisted Dumbledore out of the school, becoming the most hated headmaster in the past three centuries. He had allowed the Carrows to use the schoolchildren for target practice, denied magical education to the Muggle-born. He had acted as the Dark Lord's lapdog. He deserved death.

Sprawled out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack was not an entirely dignified way to die; nonetheless, Severus had welcomed the searing pain, the clamp of jaws around his throat. He had protected Lily's son completely. He would no longer have to look at Lily's eyes surrounded by James Potter's face.

Severus stopped reading. He stared at the number printed in the corner of the page. Thinking about Lily was painful, and not to be done as children filed into the room. It wouldn't do for them to see him become disheveled. The fifth-years, most likely to cheat in their worry over O.W.L.s, filled the front rows to Snape's right and the first-years sat on his left. Three eighth-years took tables in the back row.

Granger was busy gesticulating at Weasley. No doubt she was explaining something. On the boy's other side, his girlfriend was frowning—by the bounce of her shoulder, Severus assumed she was tapping her foot. Miss Brown was smart, but damn if Severus didn't find her annoying, especially when Weasley was concerned.

Severus marked his place before he set his book on the dais beside him. Lifting his wand, he cast the doors shut. The definitive slam rumbled through the students, quieting them in a wave starting at the back of the room. They all turned to him. Professor Snape locked a sigh in his lungs by lifting his chin and setting his jaw. Having this many students brewing at once was one of the most dangerous things he could imagine—in fact, during his first year of teaching, this was a recurring nightmare. What dunderheads had been hired to reform Hogwarts? Obviously no one who has ever taught here, the derision reflecting on his face.

"The results of this exam will factor into your final grade," he said, just loud enough. "You have two hours." Papers shimmered, appearing on each desk. Older students immediately flipped their papers over. The first- and second-years needed a stern eyebrow lift from the professor. "Cheating would be unadvisable." As Severus returned to his book, the little ones scrambled to begin on the instructions. None of them would cheat this early. He figured he could read about four or five more pages before he ought to start prowling between the rows.


Metal Purifiers—Hermione cursed her luck.

Busy checking the thermometer, stirring the mix, dicing Monarch butterflies, and waving away steam, Hermione had no time to think of the Potions Master, not even when he prowled behind the back row.


He couldn't do it; he couldn't bear to sit idle, reading, with so many people in the room. Especially people wielding wands to start fires and tossing in whatever item they thought would improve their potions. He paced between the rows.

Severus remembered the name of every fifth- through seventh-year student in Hogwarts, regardless of House affiliation. What the first-years didn't know was he didn't learn all of their names until the end of the year—there were just too many children to remember. Not to mention all the other things he had to keep in his mind; which Death Eater had killed which bureaucrat, when the Dark Lord had been displeased, had Albus changed the password again, etc. And sometimes, the second-years all looked alike when they returned after holiday.

Trouble-makers, yes, he learned their names the quickest. Crossing to the next row, Severus passed behind two of the most recognizable trouble-makers Hogwarts had ever created: Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.

The wizard had improved in Potions making, largely in part to his newfound maturity. The witch remained the top of her class, brewing at a professional level since her fourth-year. Miss Granger should be his favorite student—intelligent, hardworking, steadfast, driven—but he very nearly despised her.

He had been apathetic to her existence at one point. She irked him with her hand-waving and high concentrations of eagerness. But then she had inserted herself into his life, just as it was ending. He had waited almost half his life for death. The pretentious child had stopped him just as he was about to reach his goal. She had blocked him from repaying Lily.

Striding behind Granger and her perfect potion, Severus rubbed his snake bite through his collar. Severus had always had a lifetime of anger sitting in his bone marrow. Keeping a lid on it while teaching lackadaisical teenagers the dangers of Potions or of Defense Against the Dark Arts—when they clearly didn't care if they learned or not—had been possible only due to his calming Occlumency.

Finding himself alive two weeks after the "Final Battle" caused his rage to implode into a tiny ball, then expand out until he was screaming at Granger for her idiocy. He had screamed so loud that blood mixed with his spittle.

Sometimes the memory of her shocked face added to the anger he harbored. The girl could not fathom that she had done something wrong. Other times, he was embarrassed. Was he so easily controlled by his emotions?

Clinking vials and panicking third-years did not distract Severus from his brooding. Yelling at Miss Granger had served no purpose. He should have continued to ignore her, and lived the rest of his insufferable life in silence, as he had done for many years. Tearing her down, showing Miss Granger in the loudest, vilest terms possible that she had been mistaken had been a liberating experience. The professor had not just been yelling at Miss Granger—he had been yelling at every person that had interfered in his life. At every person that had imposed their will over his own.

His bookmark didn't even flutter when Severus walked by the dais. With one glance, he could see the bushy hair of his "savior." Involuntarily his lips thinned. Whether angry at her or himself, it didn't matter.