A/N: This story was meant to be a one shot, but it escaped. I had to break it up into smaller 20k word chapters. Heh. Smaller 20k chapters. Sigh. Why can't I be normal and publish 2k chapters and think that is an accomplishment? WHY?! There are 3 chapters total, and this story is done. Next chapter ( the conclusion) will be published tomorrow. (AND THERE SHALL BE SPHINXLETS!)

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, and Flyby Commander Sheperd

Chapter Two: A Sphinx For Your Thoughts

Whatever ardeur they may have had disappeared with the arrival of the two hapless Aurors. Hermione, utterly mortified, redressed herself with surprising speed. She refused to give up Severus' outer robe, however, hunkering down under it like a favourite handmade quilt.

"I would like that back, you know," Snape muttered.

"Mine now," Hermione responded, happily snuggling further into the warm black robe.

One brow raised high into his hair. "I did not—you did not—agh. I find it hard to believe that anyone would enjoy… snuggling into anything of mine."

"Their loss," Hermione replied with a soft sigh. Then, in a whisper, she added, "I'd really rather snuggle into you."

Snape's pupils immediately dilated and he dug his fingers into his palms, trying to quell a sudden rise of desire. Instead, he poured a liberal amount gravy over Hermione's turkey and tried his hardest to think of England.

"Harry always did have the absolute worst timing," Hermione mused, enjoying the good food. "Sometimes, though, I think it's for the best. He interrupted Ronald a few times, much as he did tonight. Perhaps, I should thank him for that kind service."

"You and—" Snape trailed off. Conflicting emotions seemed to swim across his face.

"Another thing I can "thank" the old Headmaster for," Hermione growled, poking at her food a few times before eating it.

"I had always assumed that you would find some kind connection out there—life, love, and happiness. Far away from Hogwarts. Farther even than myself. I had accepted that it would happen, even presumed that it should." Snape rubbed his nose with his hand. "I did—wish for you to find true happiness."

"But not with you." Hermione's eyes turned downward, saddened.

"It did not seem likely to ever be, Hermione," Snape replied, his dark eyes shadowed by his long black hair. "Even without Albus' tampering, I believed that someone younger and much more deserving would find you and make you happy."

Hermione just shook her head. "Someone younger wouldn't work. Someone younger wouldn't be you. If I had been meant to be with anyone else, I would have seen at least some hint of that, and I didn't. Even under a bloody spell from Dumbledore—I never felt right about anyone else. Only now, I know why. Now, I realise it was because none of them were you."

Severus gently touched her chin, lifting it up so he could look upon her face. His dark eyes softened as he took her in. "You were always like a dream, just out of reach."

"I'm here. Now." Hermione touched his cheek and brushed the hair away from his face. "And you're here. Like a second chance I never knew I needed. I'm not going anywhere, Severus."

Severus growled softly. In a swift motion he had her caged within his arms as his mouth descended upon hers. She groaned into his mouth, her hands snaking around his neck, pulling him closer. They kissed hungrily, desperately, sinking into each other's skin as though they might merge together completely through simple proximity.

Soft groans signalled Harry and Draco's mutual return to consciousness, and Severus froze, emitting a low, rumbling growl of frustration that sounded a little too unearthly to be strictly human.

Hermione, closing her eyes in frustration as well, drew Snape's head down to kiss his forehead before pushing him off, surrendering his outer robe to him with a wistful sigh.

"Agh, get off me, mate," Harry's voice groaned.

"Get off me," Draco responded a bit peevishly. "It's your leg on my neck."

"Oh, sorry."

"Now I know this place is haunted. There is no way what I thought I saw was real." Draco's voice sounded rather weary.

"If you saw the same thing I thought I saw—"

"Wait, what did YOU see?"

"My best friend snogging our old Potions professor."

"We've been spending way too many hours together, Scarhead," Draco muttered. "Now we're starting to share delusions. Bad enough that our friends think we're nutters for being partners as it is. At least my father is hiding away somewhere in Switzerland and can't give me any grief over it."

"Come on, I'm starving, and I smell food like some sort of banquet is going on here. Where's my map?" Harry's voice muttered.

"That thing is just a useless piece of parchment," Draco informed him with a roll of his eyes. "Seriously, mate, get it together, would you?"

"This map is never wrong," Harry insisted.

"Until it is."

"No—it's never wrong! I mean it!"

"Because you were there when it was made, right?"

"Yes! I mean, no. I wasn't there, but—will you just trust me?"

"Because you simply ooze trust," Draco quipped.

"Just help me up," Harry groused.

"Fine, just don't complain I never gave you anything," Draco grunted.

"If you are done yammering on like an old married couple, perhaps you could leave so we could finish our meal and conversation," a smooth baritone voice rumbled, causing both Aurors to gape and stare.

"Y—you're not real!" Draco stammered.

"I saw you die!" Harry added.

"Yes, and thank you so much for leaving me as I bled out and saving me from tedious Gryffindor displays of awkward sentimentality," Snape said, eyes narrowing.

"You left Severus to die?" Draco yelled at Harry.

"He was bleeding out! You heard him. He told me to take the memories and go!"

"So you just went?!"

"Sorry, I was kind of busy trying to save the world!"

"Oh, and so you just forget the people who made it possible?"

"He told me to go!"

"And you always listened to him before, ya?" Draco hissed.

"You tried to kill Dumbledore!"

"To save my family!"

"Well, I wanted to save everyone's family!"

"Have to save him, no!" Hermione cried, clutching her head. "Can't leave, no! No! Let me go! Must be something—something! Let go! Let go!"

Both Aurors stopped bickering as Hermione moaned in pain, clutching her head as another surge of forgotten memories forced their way to the surface.

Snape moved to cradle Hermione, pulling her against him as she shook.

"Don't leave him here to die!" Hermione moaned.

"Hermione," Snape said, touching the side of her face. "I'm not dead. I'm not."

Hermione's face twisted in anguish.

"Potter, tell me what happened," Snape snapped at him. "From the very moment you left."

Harry shook his head sharply. "I—I, er—"

"NOW, Potter!"

"You told us to go, and Ron said we had to go before the Death Eaters came back," Harry blurted. "So we ran, but Hermione tried to stay, digging through that bag of hers—trying to staunch the bleeding. We had to go. Voldemort was in our heads. I had to get to the pensieve. Hermione stayed, trying to do something, anything, crying that you were our professor and that we couldn't just leave you there like that—not matter what a bastard you were to us. Ron got angry, and he grabbed her by the arm. He—"

Harry trailed off, his eyes glazing over slightly. "He touched her and, she—instantly stopped resisting."

Snape snarled, turning his attention back to Hermione, his hands pressed against Hermione's face. "I'm here," he insisted. "Hermione, listen to me. I didn't die."

Hermione stared up at him. "Dead. I let you die." She quivered, her body shaking miserably.

"No, Hermione," Snape soothed her, stroking her hair gently. "You pushed me into the leys. You preserved me—healed me."

"What?" Hermione's eyes glistened as she stared up at him.

"You saved me, Hermione," Severus insisted. "Even with all the spells that were used against you, you called upon the leys and they responded to your call. They carried me in their embrace, but I didn't know what happened. I thought I had died. I thought myself a ghost. Until you came here, touched you, and—remembered."

Snape brushed her temples with his thumbs. "Now, you must remember, love. Let the memories come. I am here. Do not let that silver-haired bastard win."

"I fear, Miss Granger, that by the time you even try to remember anything, I will long be gone. Harry will have completed his task, saved the world, and I—I will be content." Hermione whispered the words, her voice changed, different.

"What's wrong with her?" Harry asked.

"The memories," Snape answered.

"The return of memories can be seriously excruciating," Draco explained, holding Harry back by the shoulder. "Auror Proudfoot took me on a case where the entire family had been driven insane—forcefully Obliviated and then forced to remember everything they'd lost. Without an anchor, it's every bit as painful as the Cruciatus. Even when not forced, depending on how traumatising the original memory was, multiply it and then put a brick behind it and imagine what that would feel like smashing into your head."

"How do you know this, Malfoy?" Harry asked.

"Proudfoot Obliviated me, with my permission, of a small memory. It was just me having breakfast that morning. Then he released it. It was way worse than a firewhisky hangover. Father says that's the reason the healers can't help people like the Longbottoms. Just remembering everything could kill them. And that memory Proudfoot took—that was just a single breakfast, mate. Breakfast isn't even a trauma."

"It is at the Burrow," Harry muttered half under his breath.

Draco raised a brow and stumbled over to Hermione's side, gently putting his hands on her arm. "Help me anchor her, Potter, before the pain drives her mad."

"Anchor—I've never," Harry stammered. "I have no idea how!"

"Think of something positive—a memory your shared," Draco ordered. "Something positive or something really strong."

"What the hell are you using then?" Harry demanded.

"The day she punched me in the face."

"How is that bloody positive?"

"It was positive for HER," Draco snapped, "and I was involved."

Harry made an odd face, awkwardly touching Hermione.

"She's your friend, not a sodding viper, Potter!" Draco hissed. "Touch her! I swear they call the lot of you a bunch of bleeding heart Gryffindors but you just sit there and forget that touch is easiest say to show you care. "Damn it, Potter, TOUCH HER!"

Harry carefully placed his hands on Hermione's arm and a strange kind of grimace crossed his face as he frantically tried to think of something, anything, that might work.

Magic arced between them, and they were all sucked into a vortex of vivid memories.

"I'm sorry Miss Granger, I'm afraid I can't have you thinking about anything other than supporting your best friend, Harry. That's the way it should be. That's the way it needs to be. That's the way it will be."

"Happy birthday, sweetie."

A light kiss on the forehead. Twelve pink candles.

"I suppose she'll be asking for the keys to the car pretty soon," Mr Granger fussed.

"Psh, hush your mouth, love," Mrs Granger said, slapping her husband upside the head with a chuckle.

"Oi! Oi! Abuse!"

Laughter and love—

Then came an image of a small cemetery and a twin grave. The skies above were dark with low, swollen clouds and a heavy snow was falling. A fine coat of frost and ice was gathering on the gravestones. Two stones sat side by side on the headstone—small, round pebbles from a distant shore.

Hermione stood there alone, her head bowed as if in prayer.

In the distance, Ron and Harry were clearly arguing with each other about something, making wild gestures at each other.

"I love you," Hermione whispered, placing one more stone on the headstone. "I miss you so much."

Strong arms surrounded her. Warm black woollen robes protected her from the darkness.

Grief.

Pain.

Loneliness.

"Just cry," a low voice rumbled.

A hand stroked her hair. The scent was overwhelming and yet so soothing—earth and herbs.

Gone. They were gone.

Agony and grief—a hole in the heart of her.

She sobbed. She sobbed until she could barely breathe, her diaphragm hiccuping as she cried. She clung to that all-encompassing darkness. She beat on it. She wailed, and she whimpered. She cried until there was nothing left inside begging to be purged.

She awoke and silently grabbed her books for class and pulled it tightly against her like a shield. With a heavy sigh, she opened it up, sat next to the looming shadow of black cloth, leaned up against it and studied.

She said nothing.

Dark black eyes softened as he wrapped his arm around her.

They said nothing together.

SMACK!

Pain like validation surged through her as she socked Malfoy square in the face.

Rage was in her blood. Fury was her spear.

It felt… good.

Harry shared a dance with her after Ron stormed off and left them behind—it was an awkward thing but sorely needed. They said nothing, but they let the music guide their clumsy steps. Harry wasn't quite sure how to touch her. She could see it in his eyes and the way he moved.

They danced anyway—joined in a desperate need for some some sort of compassion and comfort in the midst of their quest to claim the scattered remnants of a Dark wizard's soul.

Draco pressed a soft kiss to the back of her hand as he left for the night. "Good night, Granger. Say hello to Viktor for me."

"Night, Malfoy," Hermione answered absently. Then she looked up with a hint of mischief in her eyes. "I will, but we both know you really just want tickets to the Quidditch World Cup."

Draco gasped, pressing his fingers to his heart in an overly dramatic gesture. "You truly wound me, Granger."

"Yahuh," Hermione snickered. Then she pulled out two pieces of printed parchment and waved them at Draco with a small grin.

Draco's eyes went comically wide.

She handed it to him, shaking her head with amusement. "Boys and their sports. Do try to not to get so hammered that you leave your pretty arse behind in a bad splinching acci-MPH!"

Draco planted a swift kiss directly on her mouth. "I really owe you one," he cooed with his eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas morning.

"Just keep Harry from killing himself while running in where angels fear to tread, hrm?" Hermione replied.

"Feh," Draco replied. "He's wearing his big boy Auror britches now."

Hermione arched a brow. "Do try, yes?"

Draco swirled his hand and bowed. "Your wish is my command, milady."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Go, have fun. Remember, if Ginny finds out I gave you the tickets, I will murder you, Malfoy."

Draco gasped. "I'm Slytherin, Granger. I value my own life above all others. Surely you would know this by now."

Hermione snorted. "I'm counting on it, ferret."

Draco gave her a cheeky wink and a lopsided grin and then Disapparated.

"So what's really bothering you?" Hermione asked, poking Ginny in the center of her head. "And don't give me that well-practiced drivel you think even works on your mother."

Ginevra smiled, sipping her tea. "How is it that I can fool my own mother but not you?"

"I'm obviously a highly-trained agent having been apprenticed to a true master."

Ginevra coughed, choking on her tea. "Hermione! That's not funny."

"Oh? Was it supposed to be?"

Ginny sighed, shaking her head. "I thought it was enough, ya know? The gentle awkward touches. The occasional snogging session. At first there were all the glamorous parties and social events, rubbing shoulders with all these other famous people. Oh, how I lived for them. But Harry doesn't like them. He never did."

Hermione set down her teacup. "Have you told him any of this, Ginny?"

Ginny shook her head. "I can't, Hermione. I might be—"

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Ginny—"

"It could be his! If it's," Ginny mumbled, trailing off.

"Ginny, this isn't because your mum is pressuring you to marry, is it?" Hermione asked.

"Y—no!" Ginny protested.

"You're a horrible liar, Gin" Hermione said.

"You can't say anything to him!"

"Gin—"

"You can't! Please! Swear it, Hermione! Swear on your magic that you won't ever tell him!"

"I'm not going to lie to him, Ginny. You have to tell him."

Ginny grasped Hermione's hands tightly. "Please, Hermione. Don't say anything."

Hermione's eyes glazed over. She shook her head and stared at Ginevra. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

Ginny patted her hand. "Nothing, Hermione. Could you pass the tea?"

The wind was fierce as it whipped across the lake, chilling all those unfortunate enough to be downwind of it to the bone. Hermione's teeth chattered slightly, even with multiple warming charms.

"Gryffindors," a low voice muttered. "Are you all so thick in the head that you cannot remember to dress appropriately in the middle of winter?"

A drape of heavy black wool covered her shoulders, and the owner pulled the hood over her head.

"Can't find my cloak," Hermione chattered, snuggling under the warm clock.

"What?"

"One of my shoes are missing too."

Professor Snape shook his head and made a disgusted sound. "And your friends? Nowhere to be found?"

"Quidditch practice."

"Oh, well, that is a priority, of course."

Hermione shuffled closer, leaning closer to his warmth.

"Homework done?"

"Psh. Yes, master."

"Both sets?"

"Of course, master," she replied.

"Boiling point of mercury?"

"Three hundred and fifty six point seven Celsius."

"Energy circle diagram for warding a site from magical or Muggle?"

Hermione drew it in the air with her finger, letting it hang in the air in glowing runes.

"Change it for banning house-elves."

Hermione promptly altered the symbols.

"Difference between Arnica montana and Aconitum lycoctonum?"

"Arnica montana is false wolf's bane. Using it in a potion will cause itching and hives, with a fifty percent chance of explosive diarrhea. Aconitum lycoctonum is northern wolfsbane, has a purple flower, six lobes or sometimes four, and has palmately lobed leaves. It can also prove fatal if you use too much."

"Did you fall asleep on top of the herbology encyclopedia again?"

Hermione flushed. "No."

"Try not to spew facts straight from the textbook when a simple answer will do."

"Yes, master."

Snape sighed. He pulled out something from his robes and casually placed it in her lap.

"What is this?"

"Now, the last time I gave you something, you complained I hadn't bothered to wrap it. Now, you ask me what it is without even bothering to unwrap it. Tell me, Miss Granger, which way do you prefer?"

Hermione slowly beat her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I just—I'm not used to people giving me things."

"Good thing I am not a people."

Hermione laughed, smiling. "Yeah. Good thing." She fussed with the elegant silver ribbon on the box and lifted off the lid. She gasped, lifting a small jewel set in a delicate wreath of tiny laurel leaves: her mastery insignia. One tiny emerald was set multiple rings around the center. "It's so beautiful."

"You earned it. You are your own master now."

"Mrrrowl!" Crookshanks hopped into Snape's lap and purred, kneading his lap before curling up and making himself quite at home.

"Hah! I knew he liked you!" Hermione chuckled.

"Gah, ginger cat fur all over my nice, clean robes." Snape curled his lip slightly, narrowing his eyes at the wholly unrepentant feline offender.

Hermione looked at the laurel and frowned in confusion. "How do I wear it? There is no pin or anything."

"I—" Snape made an odd face. "I would have to set it. There is a special place," he said, tugging down his collar to expose a gem set just over his sternum.

Hermione's eyes widened.

"Most masters know other masters on sight without needing any visual aid, but in circles where you are unknown, one often simply dresses with a low collar."

Hermione touched the laurel with clear reverence. She shyly handed him the laurel, her fingertips just barely grazing against his skin.

Snape gently motioned for her to undo the topmost buttons of her blouse, and she did so, trusting him as he splayed his long fingers across her chest, set the gem and laurel between his fingers, and set his wand tip to it. There was a warm surge of magic as he spoke the incantation, and the insignia sank into her skin, becoming as one with her body.

Snape looked at her with a soft curve gracing his lips. "In a few months, you will be officially the age of majority, whatever that means to you. As the Wizarding world sees it—an adult, complete with adult problems, responsibilities, and stressors."

"As if the time-turner didn't already age me enough?" Hermione smiled ruefully at him. "What would they think—a old hag like myself gambolling around as a student much younger?"

"Hardly an old hag, Mi—Master Granger."

Hermione looked up, flushing.

"Just between us, for now," Snape said grimly. "When all of this is said and done, you will be able to have your pick of jobs from here to southern seas."

"You just want me to teach Potions so you can go terrorise the DADA students again." Hermione lay her head on his shoulder.

"Hn," he agreed. "You had better not be wrinkling my robes, witch."

Hermione harrumphed. "And what if I am?"

Snape's eyes slid sideways to look at her. "You're incorrigable."

"Pot meet cauldron," Hermione chimed. "Best teacher, after all."

"Hmph."

"Master?"

"Hrm?"

"Thank you for believing in me."

Snape's gaze softened. "Always."

"You're cheating!"

"I am not."

"Just because you're good at everything else doesn't mean you can come up here and be good at chess too, 'Mione! Why don't you go and pester Neville or something?"

"Ugh, I can't believe him!" Hermione groaned, throwing up her hands in exasperation before snatching a chocolate cupcake from the platter and proceeding to demolish it with an almost ferocious intensity.

"Not too keen on seeing Ginny all lip-locked with Dean either."

Hermione sighed. "Aren't we quite a pair?"

Harry just shrugged. "I think we're both looking at the wrong people. Shouldn't be this hard, yeah? We shouldn't have to work so hard to get someone's attention if they really care."

"I don't even know why I care so much," Hermione confessed. "Here, with you, I'm like, yeah he's an arse. But then—when he's near me, I just, arrghhhh."

"You forgive him."

"Yeah, like a complete dunderhead." Hermione thunked her head onto the table repeatedly.

Harry looked at her rather strangely. "I dunno, Hermione. Sometimes I think you're too old for the rest of us. You just… get on better with people who are ten years older or something. Even when we were in first year, you were repairing my glasses without even realising how great that was. Don't hit me, but sometimes it's like I'm talking to my big sister or the mum I never had."

WHAP!

Hermione's hand slapped him upside the head with the palm of her hand.

"Ow!" Harry snorted and set his head down on the table. "You're just way more mature than the rest of us, alright? More focused. Most people our age just want to do as little as possible and have fun. You have fun too, but only when you've done as much as possible first. And Ron? Hell, I don't even know what you see him, 'Mione. You two fight like Crookshanks and Mrs Norris."

Hermione flushed and tangled her fingers in her hair. "I swear, I feel like I'm losing my mind, Harry. I want the whole dream, you know? Someone I can talk to, read with, be read to, say nothing but share company, share company and say everything—I want to see that special smile. I want to feel… special."

Harry touched her hand awkwardly, patting it. "You are special, Hermione. One day, you'll find a proper bloke, and he'll be so great that you'll just know that Ron wasn't the one."

Hermione bonked her head into Harry's shoulder. "Thanks, Harry."

"Heh," Harry chuckled. "Anytime. Just—find someone who can speak fluent Latin, loves books and learning, and loves you all at the same time, yeah?"

Hermione laughed. "Can I tell you a secret?"

Harry perked. "Ooh?"

"No really, you can't tell anyone, Harry."

"This isn't like… girly stuff is it? Because I'd totally run out that door screaming."

"No. Well, at least," Hermione boggled, "I don't really think so."

"Okay, go on."

"When I really need to get some sleep, I read my favourite stories and imagine Professor Snape reading it."

"WHAT?!"

"Harry!"

"Why would you do that?"

Hermione flushed. "I really, really like his voice, alright?"

Harry's eye twitched. "Only you could like the nasty git's voice, Hermione. All he does it insult you with it."

Hermione frowned. "Not when I imagine it."

Harry sighed. "That's okay. I like to imagine the Quidditch scores being read by some witch from America. Mmmm. That accent."

"Harry!"

"Hey, you like—ugh, his voice. I like Americans, okay?"

Hermione laid her head down on the table and let out a long sigh. "Fine."

A moment later, Hermione lifted her head and gave her best friend a knowing look. "You like listening to Katie Couric, don't you?"

Harry stuffed an entire chocolate frog in his mouth and tried to mumble around it.

"You're a horrible liar, Harry."

"Why did you have to teach Potter how to be an Animagus?" Draco huffed. "Now, every time he gets really stressed, he sprouts antlers like a sodding stag, and I have to get him knackered to the point of him spouting lovey-dovey poetry—to ME, Granger—before they disappear."

Hermione snorted and sniffed, passing him a cup of tea.

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You did it on purpose didn't you?"

"Purpose? What purpose would that be?"

"Oh, I dunno—payback maybe." Draco narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. "This is because I proposed, isn't it?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, Draco," she replied, her rare use of his first name causing him to look up. "I know why you did it."

"I know it isn't the love you dream of—"

Hermione touched his hand. "Draco, it isn't that. I know what you are offering, and I respect what you are willing to give up for me. I really do. I just can't let you marry me to save me from life while sacrificing your own."

"Marrying you would hardly be settling, Granger."

Hermione smiled. "I appreciate that, but I know, in your heart, you are still looking for the one that makes you spout mindless drivel about flowers and makes you show up with champagne and fine chocolate—perhaps even with a rose clenched between your teeth."

"Psh," Draco snorted derisively. "As if."

Hermione grinned at him.

"Potter snores like the Hogwarts Express with a sinus cold. Why didn't you ever tell me?" Draco shook his head. "I had to put a silencing charm on him while we were on a stakeout, just so he wouldn't end up giving our location away."

Hermione coughed, taking a sip of her tea.

"A year on the run in a tent between Harry and Ron, Malfoy," Hermione mused. "The Dark Lord aside, I might have smothered them both in their sleep."

"Not sure if I should thank you or curse you for not doing so," Draco replied. "Speaking of Weasel, he's been asking about you again. Demanding, really. Well, more like sticking his face up in mine and threatening to expose me as Death Eater if I don't tell him where you're living."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I do hope you told him where to stick it."

"Many times and with explicit detail, love," Draco said, "not that it helps any. 'No way that my 'Mione would ever be friends with a sodding Malfoy. I know you must've potioned her into liking you'."

Hermione choked on her tea. "What?"

"Apparently, I'm drugging you."

"I don't think giving me a pain potion for my headaches counts!"

Draco threw up his hands. "I dunno, Granger. He seems to think that life outside Hogwarts is just like it was. People don't change. People can't ever—make themselves better."

"Well, he's rather fucked now isn't he?" Hermione said darkly.

"Granger! Such language from a lady!" Draco said in mock offence.

Hermione sighed. "Sorry, the boy makes me curse… sometimes like a bloody sailor."

"Still getting those nasty headaches, love?"

Hermione nodded. "I don't know why, either. Sometimes, I'll see something or hear something, maybe even smell something, and I get this stabbing pain in my mind. Then, it's like a rush of molten lava. My mum used to have migraines and she said she'd have to lock herself away in a dark room and sleep it off, but I almost want to hit myself with a Stupefy or maybe just bonk myself over the head with one of mum's old cast-iron pans to get a little relief."

Hermione hissed, clutching her head. "That potion isn't going to stir itself, Granger. Do you plan on willing it to boil with a mind full of frivolous thoughts?"

Draco frowned. He beckoned her over. "Come here a second, yeah?"

Hermione obeyed, wincing.

Draco splayed his fingers across her face, closing his eyes. He opened them after a minute. "I know you don't like healers poking around in your head, Hermione, but you really should have someone check you over. I've seen this kind of thing before. Memory returns—due to the spell weakening after a forced Obliviate or memory charm."

"I keep meaning to," Hermione said. "But every time I try, I get to Mungo's and panic."

"Tell you what, after we get your place here all settled, and I'm giving you a house-elf—don't you DARE protest, witch, because you need one to help you take care of this place—I'll get one of my personal healers to come make a house call, alright?" He gave her a look of determination.

"Okay, fine," Hermione waved her hand. "Lately things have been getting really strange. I almost remember things. I—sometimes spells, sometimes people, but then suddenly they're gone." She scratched her chest idly, almost habitually, her hands curving over her breastbone.

Draco's hand shot out to touch Hermione's wrist and pull it back. "Wait, what is that, Granger?"

"What?"

Draco had his wand out and he cast something, pressing it to her chest with a dire look on his face.

"Draco, what are you—?"

"Finite Incantatem," he hissed. He looked where his spell had found and countered a rather intricate hiding charm. "What the hell, Granger?" Draco said, eyes wide with shock. "You were running around with an abscondamus aboculis charm on you. That's seriously high level stuff."

"What? On me?" Hermione gasped, looking down.

"No, on that." Draco tapped the area just above her sternum.

Hermione squinted trying to look. Draco handed her hand mirror.

"Where did you—"

"I'm a Malfoy, Granger," Draco scoffed. "I always have a mirror, somewhere."

Hermione squinted into the mirror—a goblin silver wreath of tiny laurels surrounded a shining emerald where a magical glyph shimmered just under the surface. "What—"

"Blimey, Granger," Draco gasped. "You're a bloody Master!"

"I—what?" Hermione blinked dumbly.

"You can't fake those," Draco said, tapping it with his finger. "They are given from master to apprentice on the day they obtain their mastery."

"I don't—Draco I can't remember ever having a master."

Draco touched her hand. "Look, once we get your cottage here all safe and warded and we get the stupid Weasel off your back, we need to address this memory loss, yeah?"

Hermione flinched, a bit of fear lurking in her eyes.

"Hermione," Draco repeated.

Hermione nodded. "Okay. Just—be there for me, alright?"

Draco smiled. "I'm Slytherin, Hermione. I can't stand not knowing big secrets. Ravenclaws only think it's their lot in life."

Hermione shook her head. "Get used to being disappointed, Malfoy. My life is apparently a secret, even to me."

"No! No,no, nono, no, no!" Hermione wailed, dashing over to the lone hospital bed. She knelt by the bed as she touched Professor Snape's arm. "What have you done? What happened?"

Snape was still and silent. Blood trickled out from Snape's mouth, his eyes open but blank and unseeing.

She looked frantically around Madam Pomfrey was busy tending to a student that was in even worse shape. All the Medi-witches under her were at her side, gathered around the bed like gawkers around a crime scene.

"What happened?" she heard a voice ask.

"Potion explosion," one of the other medi-witches replied. "One of the older students was trying to help the Longbottom boy with his potions project. Professor Snape got a shield around Longbottom, but he threw something else into the cauldron and it blew up a second time."

"That boy should stick with Herbology and stay away from anything with even the potential to explode," another said.

"Careful now," Pomfrey said. "Stabilize his breathing. Cassandra, work on feeding him that blood replenishing potion. Healer Martijn, treat those burns."

"Yes, ma'am," they all chimed together.

Hermione touched Snape's hand, her face full of pain and conflict. She had to go soon, or they would end up seeing her. But her master was hurt and she hurt just seeing him like that. She grasped his hand, rubbing her cheek against it. "Master," she whispered.

She pulled out a vial from her pocket and shook it, changing the liquid inside into a bright, glowing green. She unstoppered it, sniffed it, and placed it to his lips. He had called it liquid bandage: the potion that knit you back together from within. A little of bit of blood replenisher, a little Dittany, and a little of something they had worked on together to put in the magical version of a first aid kit for the laboratory—just in case someone was hurt in the lab and wasn't going to be easily moved.

Sadly—only two people knew about it: Severus and Hermione. Severus had been in no condition to take it.

She soothed his neck muscles to encourage him to swallow, lifting his head so he wouldn't choke. When the potion was gone, she lay his head back on the pillow. Already, he was looking better, and his eyes fluttered open.

"Hey," she whispered.

Snape's eyes flicked around to see where he was. "Sodding Longbottom," he hissed. "Going to murder him."

Hermione placed her hand on his chest to keep him from moving. "Please, Master. I didn't give you the potion so you could land yourself in Azkaban."

"Only if they catch me," he replied, wincing in pain. He stilled, placing his hand on hers.

Hermione's expression saddened. "You never let them see you hurt. No one ever sees the man who saves his students from their mistakes."

Snape grunted. "I wouldn't want to encourage them to keep doing it."

Hermione grasped his hand and lay her head against the side of the bed. He pulled his hand out from hers and tenderly stroked her hair. "Just because you've time-turned your way into your twenties and you could teach my class does not give you authority to mother me, Miss Granger. Minerva does enough of that."

Hermione sniffled and gave him a half-hearted affronted look. "You're such a git."

"I assure you that you you are not alone in that particular sentiment," Snape said, grunting as the pain flared and ebbed. His hand gently brushed against her hair. "Stupid girl. I told you not to worry about me."

"Someone has to worry about you master," Hermione replied with a deep sigh. "Merlin knows you forget to."

"I do not, ugh, forget," Snape muttered. "I simply prioritise."

"You forget to eat, too."

Snape sighed, leveling his gaze to meet hers. "Yes, mum."

Hermione coughed and thunked her head on the side of the bed. "I'm sorry, I worry. So sue me."

"I would rather not involve the barristers," Severus said, "or the Wizengamot." He brushed her tangled strands of hair away from her face. "I'll be fine. Thank you for bringing me the potion. Now get out of here before someone sees you."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Really, master? Who do you think has been teaching me?"

"Dunderheads and soft-hearted, misguided—"

"Professor McGonagall is not—"

"That's what they all say just before they drag them off."

The curtain rustled, and Hermione vanished into thin air, automatically disillusioning herself and rushing off to escape the hospital wing.

"You talking to yourself, Severus?" Poppy asked, coming in. "Oh, you do look much better now. That's good to see."

"No thanks to anyone here—" He tried to get up, ready to leave.

"Oh no you don't, Severus Snape," Poppy hissed. "If I have to restrain you to this bed, you will get some rest and recuperation after that explosion."

Snape sneered, his lip curling. "Yes, mum."

"And don't you forget it!" Poppy tutted, smacking him upside the head with her hand.

Severus glared. Healers were mean.

Hermione slowly opened her eyes, groaning softly as the light seemed way too bright, causing her head to throb unmercifully.

"Hermione!" Harry cried.

Hermione winced, visibly cringing away. She held her head, and Severus drew her close against him, tucking her under the darkness of his robe.

"Close your eyes and breathe," he said. "Open them slowly."

Hermione had dug into Severus' robes, burying herself in deep. Her breathing slowly eased back to normal. She peeked out from the robes slowly , wincing, but didn't go back into hiding. "Bag," she said hoarsely.

Harry, understanding, picked up the beaded bag from where it had been tossed. He reached to hand it to her, and Hermione shook her head. "I can't—touch it. Just—green vial, red stopper. Please, Harry."

Harry frowned but started to dig around. He pulled out a large stack of books, a tin of mints, a coil of rope, a first aid kit, a handful of apples, about fifteen assorted keys, a tiny, miniaturised canoe and paddles, a jar of owl nuts, a sealed bundle of beef jerky, hard tack, trail mix, a silver blade, a miniaturised cauldron, a rather extensive miniature potions kit, a bundle of parchment, a dozen library cards from various libraries around the world, a figurine of Anubis, a mess kit, extra clothes, quills and ink—

"Blimey, Hermione!" Harry moaned.

Draco sighed, pointing his wand to the bag, and said, "Accio green potion."

"Draco, no—oh bloody hell, DUCK!"

Countless potions came flying at them from all directions, coming down the floo, shooting out the hearth, and raining potion chaos down upon both Draco and Harry. Two virtual mountains of potion flasks, vials, and bottles covered the two wizards.

"Idiots," Severus hissed, his arm diving into the dropped bag, he fished out a green bottle with a red cap, shook it vigorously, uncorked it, sniffed, and passed it to a grateful Hermione. Hermione, who was hiding from the flying bottles, slowly drank from the bottle and passed it back to him. She closed her eyes, letting her breath out slowly. "Thank Merlin."

"Oh, bloody hell!" Harry cried as a giant octopus tentacle up rose from from his back, waving threateningly at Draco.

Draco, too, was having issues of his own. Feathers were sprouting all over his body—vivid bubblegum pink feathers that would be the envy of flamingos everywhere. Harry's hair turned an eye-wateringly bright, sun-bleached blond, while Draco's turned a deep shade of aubergine and stuck out like he'd been playing with a kite in a lightning storm.

"Hee-honk!" Harry brayed.

"Neigheheheheheeeeeeh!" Draco sputtered.

Severus was towering above them both, with fury in his eyes and his lips turned up in a sneer of pure derision. He reached down, grabbing both wizards by the collar as though they were still in their first year, dragging them up to stand on their… cloven hooves. "Did you learn nothing in all of your years at Hogwarts? Are you wizards or some sort of brainless wand-waving pseudo-plankton? One does not simply Accio potions unless they are being very specific, and by very specific I mean like "Veritaserum from the fourth shelf on the left of the most southern storeroom in a blue bottle, silver cap, with my sigil on it!"

"Heehawwww," Harry brayed. A few more tentacles had sprouted from his back and tried to slap Snape's face.

"Neeeeeehhhh!" Draco neighed.

"I know where we can take them," Hermione said, placing her hand on Severus' arm.

"The sanitarium?" Snape growled out the question, glaring balefully at the pair of imbecilic dunderheads before him.

Hermione smiled. "No, but it's better than St Mungo's where everyone can see you've come back to life and better for those two," she said jutting her chin in the general direction of the two rapidly mutating Aurors. "As if we need any more stories being spread."

Hermione held out her hand. "Trust me?" She gazed on the pile of things Harry had pulled out of her bag with a sad expression. "I wish I could pick up my bag, but there is no telling what my touching it will do to me."

"Allow me," Severus said, pushing Harry and Draco towards her. He picked up the bag, and with a wave of his hand, wandlessly and silently moved all of the former contents into the beaded bag once more. He shook his head at the pile of vials, flasks, and bottles, many of which were broken and leaking, mixing together into the unholy mess that had transformed Draco and Harry, resulting in the unlucky duo bearing a strong resemblance to a pair of refugees from Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

Shaking his head, Snape placed his hand in Hermione's, realising there was something cool and smooth in her hand—a focus or a Portkey—ready to wisk them away.

"Houston, we have a problem," Hermione said.

Fwwwoooofffp!

The Portkey instantly came to life, sucking them into the vortex that would carry them to their destination.

"You were right to be concerned," Kingsley told them, sighing deeply as he sat down next to Snape and Hermione. "Minerva has several significant gaps in her memories and blocks in other places. There are some things she may never remember, and there are others that will be painful for her to remember."

"Been there," Hermione said, frowning. "Harry and Draco?"

"Malfoy is unaffected, but Potter—there is some evidence of tampering in his mind as well. It's mostly fairly old stuff. Maybe five or six years back."

"Hrm," Hermione thought for a moment. "That would be roughly around our fifth year."

"Anything specific you remember around that time?" Kingsley asked.

Hermione's brows came together as she thought. "Umbridge."

Kingsley winced. "Horrible woman."

"I believe—" Hermione trailed off. Her face reddened. "I was a bit infatuated with Ronald Weasley at the time. It got worse during the following years, but that was definitely the start of it. Harry, though, started to trust much less. I had thought it was because of his having witnessed Cedric's death and people not believing him."

"I know that expression, Hermione," Kingsley commented. "What is it?"

"I'd always rationalised it as being what Muggles call post-traumatic stress disorder," Hermione replied. "He didn't trust us. He didn't talk to us at first. He said we never wrote him—nothing we said or did was ever right. Harry insisted that only Sirius understood; that's what he'd always say."

Hermione rubbed her temples with her fingers.

"Severus is fine, Hermione," Kingsley said warmly. "We had him looked over from head-to-toe. If there were any blocks left in his memory, they aren't there now, and you, too, seem to be free of them."

"And Harry? Minerva?"

"I will take time to get them to a point at which a sudden return of memories won't hurt them. Seems as though the biggest ones you two have already tackled: remembering each other. Remembering years of being master and apprentice was no small thing to remember. Whoever did it must have had to tap into some extraordinary power—power that is now faded."

"That's why we're remembering?" Hermione asked.

"Our best guess, Hermione," Kingsley said.

"Are they—" Hermione trailed off. "Are their tentacles still locked together like a pair of male octopi fighting over a female?"

Kingsley looked up as if for divine guidance. "Thankfully those reversals went well. Potter might bray every so often, and Malfoy still makes the odd neighing sound in his sleep, but those should wear off when the effects of potion would have normally worn off." Kingsley paused. "You may want to keep them away from the giant squid for a few months, though. It could—possibly trigger a relapse or something."

Hermione worked her jaw a few times, looking somewhat like a gaping fish. "Okay, then. Let's move on."

"Bad news," Kingsley said. "Your beaded bag is toast. The curse on that bag—spell, hex, whatever—was woven very specifically into every fibre of that bag. It was created for you to crave having it around, and it is linked to—" he trailed off.

"To?" Hermione repeated.

"The entire Weasley family."

"WHAT?"

Kingsley winced, and Hermione clamped her hands over her mouth.

"Sorry," she squeaked.

"It wasn't just Ronald Weasley, Hermione," Kingsley said. "The touch of anyone of Weasley blood will trigger renewal of the spell on the bag and thus the hold over you."

"To do… what, exactly?" Hermione asked, her teeth gritting together.

"Be agreeable," Kingsley replied, wincing slightly.

Hermione flushed red, her hands balling into fists, and those fists were transforming into paws. "Be AGREEABLE?!"

Kingsley touched her paws gently. The warmth of his gaze and his hands instantly defused the irate witch sphinx, and her paws returned to the smaller, human shapes. "There now," he soothed. "Some of us know there are better ways to get the assistance of an intelligent witch. Some of us even know how to bribe a sphinx."

Hermione grinned at him. "You always know how to make me feel better, Kingsley."

"Didn't you know? I'm incredibly talented," Kingsley said in between chuckles. His face grew serious as he touched her temples. "How are you feeling, now? Healer Aubergine said you had a nasty little geas on you that prevented you from going to Mungo's without a fight."

Hermione cast her gaze over to the tall healer dressed in—no surprise—dark purple robes. "He said that it was deteriorating. That is what allowed me to go to Mungo's most recently when I suspected I was forgetting things. Only a year ago, the very thought of going to Mungo's set me into a panic."

Kingsley narrowed his eyes. "Someone didn't want you seeking help for you memory loss—or to even detect it. Most people who can succeed in memory charms don't bother with secondary spells."

"And Severus?" Hermione asked.

"They are taking good care of him, Hermione," Kingsley replied, patting her hand.

Hermione nodded and have a half-smile, trying her best to be positive.

"I'm glad you brought them here, Hermione," Shacklebolt said. "Mungo's was not the place for this kind of thing."

"I don't think Harry or Draco knew we had a private hospital here."

Kingsley shrugged. "Aurors are taught that highest ranks are the hit wizards and witches, and they have reserved beds at St Mungo's. They have no reason to think that there would be something here, deep within the bowels of the Ministry. I did, however, swear Heehaw and Neigh into secrecy, including anything they may learn about you and Severus."

"They are never going to live that down, are they?"

"Never," Kingsley said in a sing-song tone. His brows furrowed. "If what I think happened comes to light, they will need to know your secret. Best it be learned now under oath than later when you are trying to keep them alive."

Hermione bowed her head. "I understand, Kingsley. I trust your judgement." She grinned suddenly. "Do I get to call them Heehaw and Horseradish?"

Kingsley snorted. "All the other Unspeakables are."

Hermione giggled into her sleeve. "I love you, Kingsley. You're the best boss ever."

"Don't let that get out," Kingsley replied with a wink. "My cabinet members will be asking for hefty raises in no time."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "I would never compromise my chances of getting more rare tomes."

Kingsley chuckled and clapped her on the back. "I see we have an agreement. You really were Severus' apprentice. It makes more sense now—Master Granger."

Hermione shook her head. "That's going to take some getting used to. Remembering it is strange enough. At least, when it's between us and close friends, Hermione will be easier to swallow."

Shacklebolt grinned.

"Minister Shacklebolt, Minister Shacklebolt!" a young wizard called out frantically as he gasped for breath. "Healer Thornwhistle said to tell you, Mr Weasley is gone! He told Merryweather that he had to get back to work. She's a newbie—he still had his Ministry badge and everything."

"What?" Kingsley growled. "Who assigned a new healer to a detainee?"

"I don't know sir," the wizard panted. "I was just sent to tell you."

"Why wasn't he under guard?"

"I don't know sir," the poor wizard groveled.

"Why don't you know anything!" Kingsley hissed, throwing up his hands as he stormed off, dragging the groveling wizard along with him by the collar.

"Issues?" Severus' voice rumbled over Hermione's shoulder.

"I think I need a hug," Hermione said, her face torn somewhere between frustration and fear.

Dark cloth whooshed as Snape pulled her into him, cocooning her in the complete blackness of his robes and the strength of his arms.

"Help," she whispered. "I'm being attacked by a black hole."

"Complaining?" Snape rumbled.

"Never. Do carry on."

"I want to know why that room wasn't under guard, and I want to know why the most inexperienced healer was assigned to it!" came a very angry voice.

There was the loud slamming of a door accompanied by the sound of something heavy falling off a wall.

"Kingsley gets angry?" Snape whispered in disbelief.

"Ronald escaped from Ministry custody."

"Now, I'm angry."

"Hug me instead."

Severus twitched, somewhat conflicted. Then his arms tightened around her. "As my lady commands."

Hermione sighed softly, snuggling into his embrace. "I like that."

"Hn?"

"Your lady."

Snape pressed his face into her hair, closing his eyes.
"If you would prefer, I could call you Granger or St—"

His words were cut off by a paw to his face.

Seconds later, just as Harry and Draco finished buttoning up their robes after their physical, they were bowled over by a golden greater sphinx who was madly running away from an even larger ebony greater sphinx.

"What runs faster, faster, than

A watched kettle or a minute hand?"

The golden sphinx roared as she fled from the huge black beast that was chasing her.

"I shall catch you,

Just you wait.

A riddle caught,

Is a riddle gained.

I shall keep running unrestrained.

I shall catch you in my grasp.

I shall pursue across chasms vast.

Let no other man stand and wait,

For I shall claim thee as my mate.

What runs faster than your minute hand?

What shall chase you like wind across the sand?"

As the two sphinxes went bounding by, the experienced healers lifted up the trays, moved over, stepped to the side, and rescued carts with practiced movements, barely even pausing in what they were doing.

"The Ministry has a sphinx?!" Harry cried.

"Fix those glasses, Potter," Draco snapped. "There was obviously two of them."

Dual roars shook the walls, and a few portraits came crashing down as a healer swiftly caught a jar of cotton balls.

An older wizard dressed in pale blue robes came shuffling into the hospital area, white as a sheet.

"Oh! Marcus, what's wrong?" one of the Medi-witches cooed.

"I… I went to get a book from the reference library and—"

"And?"

"And—I was told by two very large beasts that the library was occupied, and I should come back later."

"Oh, Marcus, this is what you get for being on holiday for the last few months. Come on, I'll get you a nice cuppa."

"The hell, Malfoy!" Harry exclaimed. "Where in the hell are we?"

Draco scratched his head. "Past the point of no return, Potter."

"How are you all so calm about this?" Harry demanded to the nearby healers.

"Oh, the sphinx courtship? That's nothing, Mr Potter. We've had dragons getting it on in the foyer, and we also had that unicorn and the pegasus having at it the other month. The manticores were a bit trickier, but it's not like they can check in at the local tavern, eh?"

Harry's lip quivered. "How is this even normal?"

"Ah, you must be from upstairs, lad," the elder Healer said as ran his wand over another patient. "Welcome to the Unspeakables Infirmary—if you haven't seen it out there, you'll surely see it here."

Harry made a soft whining noise in the back of his throat. "I knew I shouldn't have signed that parchment."

Draco was all smiles. "Wicked!"

"How's that trace coming?" Draco yelled into the wind, the beat of giant wings came in tandem from both the gold and ebony sphinx as they carried the two Aurors.

"This way—I'm pretty sure we're heading to the Burrow!" Harry yelled back. The beam off the crystal he was holding was leading them, and both sphinxes were flying directly to the target. To accentuate the utter strangeness, the crystal was dangling around the neck of a ginger-furred Niffler.

"You've been Weasel's best mate since you were eleven years old, Potter," Draco said. "What's going on in his freckly head?"

"I don't know!" Harry replied. "I really don't! If you'd asked me if Ron was capable of this last week I'd have told you that you were completely nutters."

"We are nutters, Potter," Draco muttered. "We're both riding sphinx-back to apprehend your ex-best mate using a magic-tracking crystal attached to a bloody Niffler!"

Suddenly the two sphinxes banked harshly, pinning their wings to the side and then straightening out again as they pursued the beam's end.

"Are you trying to kill us, Severus?" Draco yelled.

"No, but if you keep yelling into my ear, I will most definitely forget which side of me is up and which side is down while flying."

Draco gulped and wisely chose to shut it immediately.

Hermione rumbled, her purr vibrating Harry to the point where he had to cling like a burr to her golden mane for purchase.

The flight had been long—far longer than they had expected. By the time Harry was sure they were heading for Burrow, they decided Apparating in would be far too risky. Apparation was noisy, after all. Neither of them wanted to risk alerting Ronald that they were hot on his trail. He had also had considerable Auror training under his belt, and he had already demonstrated a respectable amount of skill.

By the time Kingsley had figured out where the system had broken down and how Ron had gotten away, he insisted that the pair team up with Hermione and Severus to track him down, handing Harry the brightly-coloured Niffler with the tracking crystal hanging around its neck. They had wondered why they weren't being given brooms until Hermione and Severus had demonstrated exactly why they weren't taking backup with them either.

"Might want to hang onto something," Severus muttered. "I've never attempted a landing before."

"WHAT?!" Draco cried, madly throwing his arms around Severus' ebony mane and shrieking at the top of his lungs, "I'm going to die! Just wait until my father hears about this!"

Hermione zoomed ahead and down, lazily spinning circles as she landed almost daintily on silent paws, folding her wings to her sides like a practiced athlete. Severus mirrored her the entire way, landing beside her with a soft huff as Draco rolled off and kissed the ground multiple times.

Severus and Hermione head-bonked together, rubbing against each other as re-greeted each other, completely ignoring Harry, who was still clinging tightly to Hermione's mane and Usekh collar. Severus used one giant paw to swat him off Hermione so he could rub his cheek against her back, sending a Harry tumbling off into the dirt with a yelp.

"That wasn't very nice, Severus," Hermione admonished, even as she purred.

"I was never a nice man," Severus responded. "It is only logical that I am also not a nice sphinx."

"Liar," Hermione rumbled, lightly smacking the side of his face with her tail as she trotted over to hoist Draco and Harry off the ground by the collar using her teeth.

"We will keep watch outside," Severus growled just before giving a very leonine yawn, fangs and all.

"Call us if you require assistance that would be worth someone seeing us as we are. We will be using our senses to make sure no one sneaks up behind you from the outside."

Harry and Draco nodded together. They swiftly drew their wands and headed off into the marsh, sneaking up to the Burrow.

"Last thing we need is Molly Weasley passing out upon seeing my face plastered onto a winged lion's body, hrm?" Severus mused.

"I rather enjoyed seeing Severus Snape's face attached to that sexy sphinx body," Hermione purred rather flirtatiously.

Severus rumbled at her, nostrils flaring. "Temptress."

"Yours."

"Hrr…" he replied, licking his teeth thoughtfully. "I am suddenly craving vast expanses of sand, warm sun, and cool water." His ears swiveled as he carefully listened for signs of any other persons on the premises. Hermione's, too, flicked from one direction to another.

"Nothing," Hermione said.

"Small favours," Snape said, sitting down and grooming his paw before casting it over his mane.

"I'll go guard the opposite side," Hermione said, snuggling up to Severus and giving him a tender lick on the ear before trotting off into the reeds.

Severus gazed off after her. "Sometimes I wonder. What would it have been like if Lily had lived. Would we have been friends? Or would we have only postponed our split for another day?"

He set his head down on his paws, ears swiveling as he watched over the Burrow. What would life have been like for him without Hermione? Would Lily have tolerated someone like Hermione being around Severus any more than she had Mulciber and Avery?

His brightest, shining memory of Lily had been when they were children—long before they arrived at Hogwarts. Her compassion and her eagerness to learn from him had been like a breath of fresh air to him. All of it had changed once they went to Hogwarts. All his dreams of a future with Lily had crumbled into dust and blown away. It hadn't been sudden, but it had happened all the same.

While Snape had found nothing but pain and ridicule, even with snickers of not being pure enough in his own house, she had quickly risen like a newborn star. Wherever she went, her light shined down upon everyone—until she eventually began looking down her nose at him and all those who did not see eye-to-eye with herself.

It had angered him, slowly at first. It oozed under the surface as molten lava moved beneath the Earth's crust. It waited, waited, waited for the right time, the perfect moment to erupt : one day when Severus had been hung upside-down, his disreputable pants revealed for all to see. And he had lashed out at her with the cruelest word he had known.

Mudblood.

He had done it. He had unleashed one of the foulest of epithets against his only childhood friend. He had been no better than Petunia—worse, perhaps because he knew better. And when his pleas for forgiveness had fallen on deaf ears, he had turned to a different sort of revenge: power. He had tried to prove himself to the Dark Lord. Then, because of him, Lily's life was placed in danger.

No matter what he thought of the hated Potter—the old loyalty to Lily had remained, and he had desperately tried to save her. And he had stumbled right back into Dumbledore's waiting clutches—the man who had erased his very sphinx from him. Albus had protected his little Gryffindors and let Severus take the fall over and over again and repeatedly demonstrated that Severus' life meant absolutely nothing to him.

He had sworn after that revelation to never trust any Gryffindor ever again. Gryffindors were nothing but trouble.

For a decade, he had walled himself off from all emotion, compassion, or anything resembling pity.

Until Hermione Granger had walked into his life—first as a student, then as an apprentice, then a friend, and then a peer: a skilled master in her own right. She had gifted him with the one thing no other had given him: simple forgiveness. No matter how many times he insulted her, sneered, berated, or rained his bitterness and rancor down upon her in public, she took it and soldiered on. When it was just them, she would absorb every single lesson he gave her. She looked upon him as though he was her entire world. He pushed her out of her comfort zone. He forced her to think for herself. He molded her into a warrior witch who would not, ever, become what he had. She would never be taken for granted. She would never bow to the whims of stupidity.

She would be Hermione Jean Granger. She would be no one's witch but her own.

And then bloody Albus got his hooks into her, and began to erase the existence of that strong, powerful, independent witch.

Severus began to write a journal of spells and discoveries from their lessons—a last resort in case they were compromised. He detailed their work: wards, protections, potions, and survival. He extracted the memory of it every evening, put it in a vial, and did not replace it until the morning. Then the day came when he looked at the vial and had no idea what was in it. He watched the memory, horrified that something so significant had been taken from them both. He dug the journal out from under the floor stone, marched up to Hermione Granger as she stood in the hall, abandoned by her oblivious friends. He gave it to her, knowing she didn't remember him, praying that her spell knowledge was not lost to her and could be triggered with just a little reminder. He gave it to her and then he Obliviated himself.

It had been the only way to guarantee that Albus Dumbledore would never find out.

While Albus Dumbledore had deemed it absolutely essential that one Hermione Granger had to remain steadily affixed to the side of the Boy-Who-Kept-Trying-to-Die-Through-Various-Acts-of-Stupid, he hadn't thought to actually train her. No, Albus believed Hermione just came naturally inclined to the position of bodyguard as an exceptionally talented witch.

She had been, but Severus had trained her to be even better. Then, because becoming emotionally attached to someone like Severus would only be a distraction for the both of them, he had stolen their memories of each other—the wizard who had once been a sphinx, and the witch who would one day become one. Albus had stolen their promises to each other—promises that once the war was over that they would find each other and attempt a relationship that went far beyond student and teacher, or master and apprentice. And Severus would have waited for another decade if it meant being reunited with her because Hermione had given him something special: trust.

Trust was something he believed had been lost to him forever.

Mudblood.

And Albus Dumbledore had stolen that sweet succor away from him again and again, allowing him to believe that pain and guilt were the only emotions he was permitted to feel.

Somehow, despite the late headmaster's best efforts, she had found him again. She had saved him, and she kept on saving him with every small touch, every soft purr, and even the rather needy growl of want that sent every single rational thought flying right out of his head.

His mate.

His beautiful, powerful, glorious sphinx—

Severus blushed. Had someone ever told him that he would claim his future life-mate in the middle of a library deep in the bowels of the Ministry shortly after his "resurrection", he would have told them exactly where to go. His tail lashed. Had anyone told him he would have had a life-mate at all—he would have given them explicit directions regarding how and where to stick it.

Yet, even the memories that would have allowed him to think that such a thing might even be possible had been repeatedly stolen from him.

He stared off into the distance, seeing nothing, but knowing she was there in the dark, watching over the Burrow, just as he was from the other side; he knew they had defied truly astronomical odds. Even now they were plagued by things that had to be done before they could settle down and simply enjoy each other's company. Then again, maybe that was not so bad a thing just now, as the first and last time they had coupled together, they had brought about a new ley line in the middle of the Unspeakables' library. Not that anyone was complaining that the Ministry had more power running through it, but questions were being asked outside of the DoM on how one just appeared out of nowhere.

Severus coughed. Part of him wondered if there was something marketable in that. Need a ley line? Provide a nice quiet, undisturbed place with plenty of reading material, and the ley line will come to you, courtesy of a mated pair of sphinxes! Or was that a mating pair of sphinxes? He slapped his face with his open paw. There was also the fact that whenever he, Hermione, and a ley line met in greeting, energy sphinxlets happened. The gods only knew where those went off to, how long they lasted, or if they were completely different entities altogether.

Severus' ear flicked. Odd that there wasn't much of a ley line presence here where magicals liked to live. While he didn't expect one to be running right through the house, he did wonder why the place was barren of them altogether.

Hermione had said that they had rebuilt the Burrow after Death Eaters had so "kindly" burnt it to the ground. It had been sad, she said, but they also had the opportunity to build it a little better the way they had dreamed of it being. Yet—no ley lines. Maintaining a magical residence without one at least nearby would be exhausting. Didn't the Lovegoods live nearby as well?

Severus' tail twitched. He was really curious now. Curiosity had been a mainstay in his life, but nothing compared to the almost ravenous curiosity of a sphinx. Whatever he may have had before, it was far more than doubled. It was almost as if he was making up for all the time he hadn't been able to shift—robbed of the ability by a not-so-well-meaning Dumbledore.

And for what?

Insuring that one Harry Potter had 2 people with him during his struggle to bring an end to Voldemort. Meanwhile hundreds of people were dying to cover for him, while hundreds more were dying because the Dark Lord didn't like their shoes.

Had it worked? Yes.

Should it have worked? No.

Stupid, dumb luck, as Minerva put it. Potter's life was a poster child for stupid, dumb luck.

Then again, had he not put so much time in making Hermione Granger into a better witch—supporting her growth, encouraging her to look outside the box, stressing her to be strong and independant—would she have had the skills to make their mission work?

Maybe, maybe not. At least they had survived. Tom Riddle was no more. The Dark Lord had risen and fallen—his immortality having lasted him less than a century. Albus Dumbledore had still outlived him. Hell, Rolanda Hooch had outlived him. Most of the elder witches and wizards had. What had his search for immortality truly gained him?

Death and Purgatory.

At least Severus had only believed he had been a ghost for the last two years. He had believed that was what he was—never striving to be anything else. Tom had eked out an existence trying to make himself a body for a decade. The body he had finally created had not been kind to his charisma and comeliness.

Severus wondered if the Dark Lord could have possibly done as much as he did, had his face originally been the face of Severus Snape. Could have charmed the masses with imperfect features—the dramatically aquiline nose, pale skin, and "greasy" hair.

At least Hermione wasn't complaining—no, she seemed very satisfied with every detail from his rather sharp nose, pale skin, not so pale fur, all the way from nose to his tail tip. How many others could say the same… sphinx or not. Well, maybe if you weren't Kingsley, who seemed to be happy to see both Hermione and Severus with equal enthusiasm.

Could Lily have?

A loud crash suddenly caught his attention, and Severus stood, ears swiveling as he heard yells. It wasn't the kind of yell he was expecting, however—

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY!"

Severus flattened his ears against his head. "Well, obviously Molly is still alive," he muttered.

A chain of gibbering nonsense and irate yelling came shortly after, making Severus twitch slightly. He could only imagine what Potter and Draco were experiencing close up.

"I'M GOING TO HEX HIM INTO THE NEXT MILLENNIUM!"

Crash!

That didn't sound good.

"Mrs Weasley!"

Thump!

Clatter!

"Mrs Weasley!"

Then came the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh.

"Malfoy! I—Merlin, child, I'm so sorry!"

"Mrrfflrfhf!"

"I think you probably broke his nose, Mrs Weasley—"

"Oh—Harry! I thought you'd released him. I thought it was all a mistake, but then I saw him looking in the biscuit tin for the key to our Gringott's vault. Then Ronald spun around and paralysed me, setting all of my kitchen implements to go on the attack!"

"You okay, Malfoy?"

"MrrfFFFFrrgh!"

"Here use this."

"Mfffmff!"

Snape closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. He hadn't heard anyone leaving that house, so the errant Weasley must have left the premises some time before they arrived.

"Did he say anything?" Draco mumbled, his voice sounding muffled for a moment, then he let out a sharp yelp as Harry fixed his nose with a quick Episkey. "Perhaps where he might be headed?"

"Nothing. But—he has our Gringott's key," Molly fretted, wringing her hands. "We don't have much after rebuilding the Burrow, but it's all we have left to work with."

"Didn't you get any of the reward money—Ron's share for his part in helping take out Voldemort?" Draco fussed, obviously still having a few nasal issues. He sounded a little like a foreign taxi driver—complete with lost and clipped syllables.

"What reward money?" Molly's voice asked, sounding quite confused.

"We all got a sizeable amount," Hermione said, sitting beside him.

Severus startled, almost tripping over his own paws as he quickly spun around. Hermione could be a bloody ninja when she wanted to be.

"You did too, and a lot of back pay that you apparently never received," Hermione said, scratching her ear with her hind foot. "I had it all transferred to your Gringott's account. I didn't realise then that my name was still on the account as your apprentice. They never questioned my request. Now, I guess I understand. Then there's all that stuff they can't touch back at Hogwarts because no one can get past your wards but me, and they can't afford for me to come break the wards for them."

Severus gave Hermione an appraising look. "You were going to charge them to break into my old chambers?"

"Gal's gotta eat," Hermione said with a smile of mischief.

"Why did you—it wasn't like you knew our relationship was anything but hostile at that point."

Hermione sighed. "After Harry shared your memories, and I really thought about that book you made me memorise and then destroy—I felt like there had to be more to it. It was like an itch that I couldn't quite reach. Maybe it was the sphinx in me, sensing that something mysterious was being guarded within me. All I know is that I felt they had no right to get in there if they couldn't get in on their own. If they wanted to cheat, well, then I had to be paid to do it."

"Very mercenary."

"My fees are apparently a bit too high."

Snape snorted. "Knowing you, not quite high enough."

"Anyway, Harry spent some of his reward money to pay for his part in destroying a few levels of Gringott's and, uh, running off with their guard dragon," Hermione told him. "I paid for my part by guarding the vaults while they rebuilt the floors—the high security ones. When I ate my first interloper, they hired me for real. I think they—respected me more because I was less human."

"Very goblin."

"They began to pay me after my service was done—books, artifacts, shiny things no one but the goblins had ever seen. Them and the curse-breakers, that is. As a result, Harry is no longer banished from Gringott's and I—they want to built a suite in the lower vaults for me to live in."

"Did you take them up on it?"

"I told them it depended on what it looked like and if it had room for expansion, thinking they would just let it go as too high a request."

Thwap!

Severus' palm smacked Hermione upside the head.

"Ow! Watch those claws!"

Severus sighed. "If I know goblins, that was basically like throwing down the gauntlet. They will now do their very best to you something you will never want to leave. All out of principle. You're a sphinx. They will want to protect you as fiercely as the Crown jewels."

Hermione made a meeping sound. "Oh." Her brows furrowed. "Well, I'm not going to like it unless there is enough room for you too." Her eyes widened as she realised what she said—verbally confirming the elephant in the room. "If you… want to that is—move in with me."

Severus met her gaze and pressed his paw to her face. "Hermione—if you are determined to settle for my sorry arse, I would not disagree with sharing space with you of all people."

"It would not be settling," Hermione scoffed. "Settling would be marrying one of those horrible suitors who actually believe that a token gift and an owled letter will get them in the door—or worse, Ronald."

Severus shuddered.

"Exactly."

"I didn't smell anything or hear anything unusual. I don't think Ron is working with anyone. Maybe he had a plan for this?" Hermione seemed torn—what she should feel and what she should do seemed to be at odds.

"If he had been working with anyone—Dumbledore specifically—then he would have been given a plan to escape. It is quite possible that is what Mr Weasley is doing right now."

"Stunning his mum hardly seems like a good start. Molly will be sure to tell everyone. At high volume. Knowing Harry, though, he and Draco will have already sent out their Patroni to the rest of the family in an attempt to intercept him at the bank. I wonder what is taking them so long to move—maybe they informed the other Aurors already?"

Severus shrugged. "Hard to say. It is hard enough for me to imagine Potter being particularly competent."

"Severus," Hermione huffed.

"Last I knew of him, he was tripping over anything that could kill him. It was not something one forgets easily—without help from Dumbledore, apparently."

Hermione frowned. "I keep forgetting you never got to see—well, he did get better."

"Do not think I am not grateful for that change," Severus replied. "I would hate to think Potter's luck finally ran out, and he ended up being flattened as he forgot to look both ways before crossing a street."

Hermione slapped her face with her paw, shaking her head.

"We have to get moving to try and catch Ron," Harry exclaimed.

"We can't just leave Mrs Weasley here alone after all that!" Draco replied.

"We can't just let him get away!"

"You sent out Patroni to the Head Auror—he'll send someone to intercept at Gringott's!"

Harry made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. "Ron's my best mate—was my best mate. I have to know. I have to catch him!"

"And if he comes back here and decides he needs to beat on his mum some more?"

Dead silence.

"No—damnit! What if he gets away? What if he stops because it's me? What if—"

"Damnit, Potter," Draco hissed. "Get a grip and stop bleeding your heart all over! I don't care if he was there to witness the creation of your first child. You can't save everyone. You can help keep this woman here from being assaulted—again—in her own home."

"But if one of us stays—"

"And then both of us don't have backup, good one," Draco retorted. "Remember our job, Potter."

"We can have Hermione and Professor Snape—"

"SSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

"Hermione?" Molly's voice interrupted. "What do you mean Professor Snape? Severus is alive?"

"So much for keeping my resurrection secret," Severus said with a disdainful sniff.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed, thunking her head solidly against Severus' shoulder.

"Well, now she knows, we might as well call them in, and then we can go—"

Slap!

"Potter, for Merlin's sake, listen to yourself!"

"Tell me what the hell is going on!" Molly screeched shrilly.

"Potter would make a dreadful spy," Severus quipped.

Hermione just groaned. "He's always been—very driven."

"And easily derailed."

Hermione winced. "Yes."

A glowing snow leopard appeared in front of them and spoke, "Potter let the Kneazle out of the bag. Might as well come watch over Mrs Weasley."

"Imbecile," Severus grunted, transforming in tandem with Hermione.

Hermione shook her hair out now that it was not being held back with the Nemes headdress. "I love him, but sometimes I just want to eat him."

Severus raised a brow. "We might as well go in so Potter can fly off and play the hero."

"You—you're alive," Molly whispered, taking a step towards Snape and then freezing in place. "How?"

"I didn't actually die," Snape replied. "It is a very long and hideously complicated story, but let us just say that Master Granger saved my life and didn't realise it until quite recently."

"Master Granger?" Molly gasped, staring wide-eyed at Hermione.

"Also a long, complicated story," Hermione said, rubbing the top of her nose.

"Does this have anything to do with my Ronald?" Molly asked.

"No," Harry said immediately.

"Yes," Severus and Hermione said at the same time.

Molly looked at Draco.

"Don't look at me, I'm not even a friend of the Weasel."

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Potter?" Severus said, scowling down at Harry with a very familiar rancor.

Harry stared like a deer caught in the glaring headlights of a Muggle car.

"Now," Severus hissed.

"Come on, let's go!" Harry said, grabbing Draco by the sleeve and rushing headlong out the door. With a sharp crack, the pair immediately Disapparated.

Hermione snickered into her sleeve.

Severus narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"Nothing," Hermione replied, clearing her throat. She glided over to the kettle, filled it with water, and set it over the fire. She opened the cupboard and pulled out Molly's teapot and a tin of chamomile, and set it on the counter to await the heated water.

"Hermione dear, " Molly said, her voice trembling. "What's going on?"

"Might want to have a seat, Mrs Weasley. It's kind of a long story."

Molly gave Hermione an almost fearful look, but she moved to sit down in one of the overstuffed armchairs. "Is my Ronald under a spell? Did he attack anyone else? Why on earth would he attack his own mother?"

Hermione waited until the tea was poured and served before saying anything more. "I found out a few months ago that I had several gaps in my memories. Gaps with information I should have known. I sensed there were things I had somehow forgotten but not what they were. Malfoy had suggested that I go to a healer a year ago, but the mere thought of it always sent me into a terrible panic attack. At least it had, until very recently. I checked myself in, and they found out I had several memory blocks and that I had also been Obliviated multiple times. My acquired skills, I somehow got to keep, but certain people and events had been erased from my mind. And I couldn't remember where I had learned certain things. I had forgotten where and when I had gotten this." Hermione tugged her blouse open to show the embedded laurel and gemstone and her master's mark.

Molly gasped.

"I wasn't even aware that I had it. Someone had charmed it to go unnoticed, even by myself." Hermione sipped her tea. "I started to remember a few things—the healers said I would eventually start to remember, but it would be painful. They cast a sort of time-release spell on me to keep me from being bombarded by memories and going completely insane, but they said some memories would still come in a rush. They wanted to keep me under observation, but I refused."

"I decided to attend the victory ball to take the opportunity to interrogate the old Headmaster's portrait," Hermione continued. "He told me that he'd erased my memories so I wouldn't remember how awful Ron had been to me, so I wouldn't hesitate to forgive him. He needed me to remain friends with Harry, and since Ron was Harry's best mate—I needed to forgive him."

"Ronald was taught better than to—"

Severus shot Molly his fiercest glare, the one he had often reserved for the likes of misbehaving first years and Neville Longbottom. Molly's eyes widened and she instantly stopped talking.

Hermione sighed. "Dumbledore put a spell on me that caused me to forgive Ron any time he touched me—but it wasn't just Ron. If any Weasley touched me, I instantly became more compliant—much more suggestible. Sometimes, even forgetful. All he had to do was touch me, and I'd forget all that anger and just forgive him. No matter what."

Hermione's expression darkened. "Like catching him in a broom closet shagging Lavender Brown. Like forgetting every vindictive little thing he'd ever said and done to me. I found him attractive, unnaturally so, to the point where I became exceedingly jealous and overprotective. I cast spells on other people just so he could win a position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I even finished his homework—because he asked."

"But, Hermione, that was your choice!" Molly insisted. "You can't blame my Ron just because you chose do those things. You're a very forgiving person! You can't blame Dumbledore for that. Dumbledore was the reason we were able to stand against Y-you Know—Voldemort."

"I had no choice!" Hermione snapped, her hand balling into a fist and shaking. "That is the entire problem! I was too forgiving. I almost threw myself off the Astronomy tower because of the terrible, hurtful things he said to me. All the time. Every day. You heard what he said at the soirée. You were there!"

"He must have been cursed. Influenced somehow!" Molly said, wringing her hands. "He wouldn't say that. He wouldn't do that! He wouldn't attack his own mother! He's a good boy!"

A weasel Patronus bounded in through the wall at just that moment. Arthur's voice boomed out of it. "Molly, love, Ron's gone and done something truly horrible. Everything we had in our family Gringott's vault is gone. The goblins told us that I came in, visited the vault, and left shortly after. Well, I obviously didn't do it, but they have eyewitnesses. I checked my wand, and it's not mine. My wand is missing! The Aurors are here too. Percy and Bill are here. There's nothing, Molly. There's not even a single knut left. I'll contact you if we find anything else."

The Patronus disappeared with a soft pop.

"No!" Molly wailed. "This isn't right. This isn't my Ronald! He's under a spell! He must be!" She grasped at Hermione's hand. "You'll tell them right? You'll tell them that he must be under a spell!"

Hermione froze in place as realisation dawned. Severus, too, put the math together.

"Molly," Severus said very gently. "Look at what you are doing, even now."

Molly stared at him, confused. "What do you mean, Severus?"

"Even now, you reach out to seize her as you beg her to change her mind. Yet, you don't even realise it do you?"

Molly shook her head in denial. "I don't know what you're saying, Severus. It's perfectly natural to reach out and touch someone—"

"Yet, not once since you discovered I was alive, did you ever do so for me." There was no anger in Severus' voice, only truth.

"I—" Molly said, her hands clenching Hermione even more tightly.

"You're hurting me," Hermione said, wincing.

Molly stared at her hand as though it were not attached to her arm. She dropped Hermione's wrist as if it was scalding hot. "I don't—I never—What is going on?" She buried her head in her hands and wept bitterly.

Hermione rubbed at her sore wrists, and Severus was at her side in a flash. He placed his hands around her wrist, whispering an incantation that caused his hands to cool and soothe her much-abused joints. Hermione leaned into him, snuffling his chest with pleasure. "Thank you."

"I would groom you to make you feel better, but I think Mrs Weasley has had quite enough stressors for one afternoon."

Hermione smiled up at him. "Rain check?"

"But of course."

Hermione purred softly, staring at his flawless collection of buttons on his doublet.

Hermione traced a glyph in the air with her finger and made a complex gesture. Her Patronus promptly leapt through the glyph and zoomed out the open window.

"Informing Kingsley?"

Hermione nodded. "He should probably know. I doubt Harry or Draco would even think of it. Draco might, if he's not dragging Harry by the collar and beating him senseless."

Severus raised a brow and sniffed. "You've improved the silent spell framework."

"Frequent practice, master," Hermione told him with a small smile. I crafted many of the silent wards using the framework that we developed. Some of them are currently guarding a few vaults in Gringott's."

"Oh? Expanding your career already?"

Hermione grinned. "I do like to hoard my knowledge."

Severus brushed her cheek with his thumb, his expression softening.

Molly let out a strange, strangled wail. "Severus—what is going on?" She stared back and forth between Hermione and Snape. "Hermione? Why are you—I feel as if a whole lot of something somehow passed me by."

Hermione suddenly looked a little dizzy, and she quickly sat down on the nearby settee. Severus sat down on the opposite end, putting some distance between them, but Hermione glared at him and scooted over so she could properly lean against him.

"Her—"

"She's going to find out soon enough, Severus. It might as well be now, while she's sitting down." Hermione sighed, rubbing her temples absently. "We go way back. Longer than you might think. Since my second year. Severus is my master."

"Was."

"Is still—psh." Hermione grunted. "He taught me things—first to get my mind off of what other people thought. Then, it became a challenge—to see how much I could retain. But, we worked together for years. Dumbledore gave me a time-turner so I could take more classes, and I used it to split my time three ways. Four if you count making time for sleep. Half of it was spent doing everything my fellow classmates. Half was spent with Severus as his apprentice. The goal was to get me prepared for when, how did you phrase it? 'Ready for when Potter does something overwhelmingly stupid and you have to save him from the potentially fatal results of his typical idiocy'."

"Sounds like me."

"Hnn," Hermione agreed. "It went on like this for years. By the time I turned seventeen on parchment, I had already accrued enough years to be in my early twenties. Fortunately for me, I aged well. Unfortunately for me, somehow Dumbledore managed to find out that I had received my mastery, and he was no longer content with the "simple" spell of having me be so very agreeable to Ronald. He believed my relationship with Severus distracted us from what he had decided was most important—ignoring the fact that he was training me to help Harry from the start—and he Obliviated us both to forget our time together."

"I had no one left then but Harry and Ron—and so we left on our quest. Everything happened as you recall until a just few months ago. Cracks in the spell were causing it to break down. I was starting to remember. And—unbeknownst to me—there was a time constraint on the spell. If I went for a few months without being touched by Ronald or any other Weasley family member, the spell became forfeit. After the war, I saw no one but Harry and Draco Malfoy. My work kept me away from just about everyone. Months passed, and the spell, finally, wore off."

"So, too, did the spell that prevented me from being able to go into St Mungo's. I was finally able to walk in and have a healer check me out, and they confirmed that my mind had been heavily tampered with. So, I went to the gala, talked to Dumbledore's portrait, and he—it—ugh. Dumbledore informed me that it was all for the greater good. Harry had defeated Voldemort and survived. He was sorry, or so he said, but that made it all worth it. All—perfectly excusable. To him. He admitted he had put the geas on me. What he didn't admit, however, was Obliviating me of most of my memories of Severus. I didn't find out about that until the moment we first touched at the Shrieking Shack—and suddenly it all came flooding back."

"I suppose I've never really fit in," Hermione mused. "And when I finally found my place, where I truly belonged, it was deemed too risky for me to remember." Hermione clenched her jaw and turned her head away.

"But why hide it?" Molly asked, confused.

Snape's eyes darkened. "He Obliviated us both when he found out she had earned her mastery. What makes you think he wouldn't have done far worse had we told anyone at any point before then?"

Molly clawed her fingers as she clutched at her head. "Dumbledore was the Leader of the Light—the creator of the Order of the Phoenix! Why would he do something like that?"

Snape curled his lip. "Contrary to what most people believed, Albus Dumbledore was not a shining beacon of purity and goodness. He may have claimed that all of his actions were for the greater good, but he was willing to do anything, sacrifice anyone. He frequently sent me off to do his dirty work—all for his precious cause. Do you have any idea how many people I "got rid of" for your shining figurehead of the Light?"

Molly wore a pained expression, the skin wrinkling around her eyes and mouth. "No, that's not true. It can't be true!"

"Ever wonder why Hogwarts was so castrated that it couldn't even protect itself against all of the Dark magic swarming and gathering in its halls? Did you have any idea that half the ley lines in Hogwarts had wandered off long before that battle?"

"Ley lines, what?" Molly looked even more confused.

"She wouldn't know, Severus," Hermione said softly. "Most people can't sense them like we can."

Snape steepled his fingers together.

The floo came to life with a burst of green flames as a boogle of Weasleys came tumbling out. George, Arthur, Bill, Percy, and a man they hadn't seen before, dressed in the brown robes of an Auror spilt out of the green flames one after another, falling into an untidy pile of bodies.

"Knew we should have waited a little longer—Molly, are you alright?" Arthur's voice came from somewhere in the heap.

Molly rushed over to them. "Arthur, please tell me it isn't true. Tell me it's all a mistake!"

"It's not," Percy said, brushing off the Floo Powder from his robes. "Everything in the family vault is gone, mum, including that portrait of Desmond the Dangerous I had you save until I had a place to hang it."

"That was your graduation present," Molly moaned. "No, it couldn't be him!"

"The goblins said the wand checked out, and he looked just like me," Arthur said. "Since our vault isn't on the lower floors, we don't have the dispelling waterfall or any other expensive guardians on our vault. All they had was the visual and wand check."

"I tried to tell you to switch to one the new, more secure vaults," Bill said. "I begged you to. Especially after getting all that reward money from the end of the war."

Arthur, George, Percy, and Molly stared at Bill. "What money?"

Bill blinked. "The money you got for your roles in the war. Every family got a little to help rebuild their homes and such, but those who were in the Order—you have no idea what I'm talking about do you?"

"What are you talking about, bro?" George asked, totally confused.

Bill pinched his nose. "There was this huge thing down at the Ministry's War Restitution Office. Thanks to some fundraising and donations from several other countries, the Ministry awarded thousands of galleons to each family hit by the war, depending on the properties and all. Since all magical places had to be registered, they knew approximately what each family would need to rebuilt and they made it happen. I thought that was how you rebuilt this place. Hell—Fleur and I invested in expanding Shell Cottage so if we ever have kids—did any of you get a share of the galleons?"

A round of blank stares was his only answer.

"Bloody hell," Bill groaned. "You would have received an owl. Everyone was supposed to get one. It was the only way they could make sure all of the potential recipients got the message. Hell, Hermione, you got one, yeah?"

"Multitudes."

"And you Sev—SEVERUS?"

Severus held up a restraining hand. "Not now. One crisis at a time, if you please."

Bill just stared at him for a long moment and then shook his head. "I, uh—bloody hell." He ran his hands through his long red hair and tried to wipe the gobsmacked look off his face. "Hermione, you told them about it too, yeah?"

Hermione leveled a rather less than kind look at him. "I was informed in no certain terms that if I didn't marry Ron, I would no longer be welcome here. At the time, I had no reason to not believe Ronald when he said that."

"I said no such thing!" Molly protested, visibly appalled.

"And since all of the letters I owled to you went unanswered, I accepted it for what it appeared to be."

"We received no such letters!" Molly exclaimed.

"Hey, where's Ginny?" George wondered aloud. "Last I checked, she was still a Weasley."

"Just look at the new clock, yeah?" Percy said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "After all the money I put into getting it remade—it had better still be here."

George snapped his fingers. "Right. Be right back." He shuffled off into the next room. He came back a minute later with a pale face that made his red hair and freckles stand out even more.

"What's wrong now?" Percy sighed as he stared at a visibly shaken George.

"Um," George said, uncomfortably fussing with his collar. "Seems Gin's getting married at the moment… in some place called Las Vegas."

"WHAT?!" Molly shrieked as all the portraits fell off the walls with a resounding crash.

Percy dove for cover as he was almost brained by a flying yarn-ball and a pair of knitting needles. "I knew I should have just ordered a normal clock."

As Molly's emotional magic caused a whirlwind of various household materials to go flying wildly about the room, Severus cleared his throat. "Excuse me, but if that clock can track any living Weasley family member, wouldn't it be prudent to quickly get that clock to Potter, Malfoy, and their fellow Aurors?"

Multiple ginger-haired Weasleys stared at Snape.

Snape narrowed his eyes. "Sometime today, if you please."

Narrowing his eyes as well, George quickly darted away to retrieve the clock in question.

"It says Ron's at the Gringott's branch in Bucharest." George announced when he returned.

"Bucharest? But, why would he be in Bucharest?" Molly's distress was growing by leaps and bounds, but so was her confusion.

Hermione's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Percy, what did you have done to that clock. It was never quite that detailed with your family's whereabouts before."

Molly was clinging to the clock like a child to a favourite toy under threat of being cast into the fire.

Percy looked uncomfortable since the Auror was silently taking the family drama in. "Mum was terribly upset she lost the old one. And I felt really bad about it after all the horrible things had I said. The Burrow was just a pile of ash. There was nothing left but family, so I had a new clock made, but much more detailed—"

"And I may have tinkered with it a bit," George said, staring down. "I tried to adjust it to make it funny, you know, to get a laugh when you looked at it, but it changed it a little—made it more detailed. Definitely less funny. Fred was always better when it came to tinkering with objects."

At the mention of Fred, Molly hugged the clock even tighter, and Arthur tried to comfort her while also trying to pry the clock out of her arms. "Come now, Molly, we need to give this to—Molly, please." Try as he might, Molly refused to give it up.

Hermione fidgeted uncomfortably. "Sodding stalker clock is what that is," she whispered. "I'm glad I'm not a Weasley even more now. Can you imagine? Hermione is chewing on a random interloper in the DoM?"

Severus rubbed her shoulder awkwardly, his own face reflecting a certain disgust at the very thought of being traced at all times. "I am far more concerned," he replied, "of the implications that they have created an object that effectively spies on someone's every move just to placate a paranoid mother."

"You realise the implications of this?" Severus aid, loud enough that they could hear it. "Tracking a person's every move? If that sort of thing got out?"

"It won't," George said with a sigh. "I botched the spell I was trying to do. I got this tickle in my nose in the middle of trying to cast a spell that would warp whatever you were really doing into something funny. I sneezed like fifteen times sending the dials all over the place. Even if I could remember where all of them went, which I don't, I couldn't replicate the sneezy bits if I tried."

"You created a clock that does illegal tracking magic by accident?" the Auror said, reminding them all that there was the voice of law enforcement still there. "You could end up in front of the Wizengamot for that alone—just that you even tried! It's one thing to have the standard vague tracking magic they allow for family clocks, but you tampered with it. You made it—stalkerish!"

"I can't lose any more of my babies!" Molly wailed. "Never again. Never!"

Arthur pulled the Auror over to the side. "Look, Auror Pembroke, you have to understand. After the war, she wouldn't eat. She wouldn't talk. She just wailed for days on end. Fred was gone, and we were all worried we'd lose Molly to grief. We had no home. We used up all of our savings to rebuild the Burrow, and had just barely enough to do it. That clock was the only thing that got her through it. Knowing where we were. Yeah, it's a little—disconcerting about how well it knows—but after it started being more specific, Molly snapped out of it. She carried it everywhere, but she was eating. I know we would have eventually lost her without that clock."

Pembroke sighed. "Look, Arthur. We've known each other for years, but you know that kind of magic is banned for a very good reason. If someone found out about this—someone with say, interest in tracking people—it could bring out the people out with pitchforks and flaming torches threatening to burn people at the stake. And who could really blame them, yeah? We just fought two wars fighting for our personal freedom and safety—and you can't tell me that a bit of reassurance is anywhere near as important as that."

Arthur closed his eyes. "Look, just—She really needs that clock. It took her a year before she wasn't sleeping with the sodding thing, checking it every other minute. A year before she could put it on the wall and treat it like a clock—"

"Arthur, do you even hear yourself? Didn't you think that maybe she should get some help from Mungo's? A proper mind healer. Grief counselling. Something? She's cuddling a clock, mate. A bloody clock—like a child. Your kids think is okay to give her a highly illegal clock as long as it makes her feel better. Screw what it means if someone finds out it's possible—Think about what You Know—Voldemort would have done if he had one of those things. Or, if he knew it was even possible, what he would have done to you and your children to torture them with the intent of finding out how to make one for himself."

Arthur paled significantly.

"If she's been like this for what, two years now? What if it's affecting her heart? Dammit, man," Pembroke put his hand on his shoulder. "She needs to be checked out immediately. Something isn't right. What if she's under a curse?"

"She couldn't be under a curse. Albus scanned us once a week because Molly insisted—"

A low, twin growl came from the settee where Hermione and Severus were sitting. "You let him… touch you? Once a week?"

"Well, at every Order meeting, after it that is," Arthur said. "Se—Severus?!"

Severus curled his lip, putting up a hand. "Later. Gasping and astonishment, disbelief, and misplaced anger later."

Arthur seemed torn between all of the above, and his fist clenched. "You did something to her, didn't you?!"

"I will not have a Dark wizard in my house!" Arthur yelled, his wand out, and a spell zinging before a shocked Auror Pembroke could even move.

Suddenly, Hermione was there, standing in the way, her warding summoned around her as a snarl pulled her lips back from her teeth in a very inhuman grimace. The curse partially bounced off the wards, causing the curtains to fall to the ground, a pan to fall off the rack, and a songbird that had been sitting on the bird feeder just outside the window to give a startled squawk before falling to the ground.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Crimson droplets stained the wooden floor and a few locks of Snape's and Hermione's hair drifted to the ground where it the ward hadn't gone up quite fast enough.

"Arthur, get ahold of yourself! Those two outrank me!" Pembroke yelled, grabbing for his arm.

Hermione slammed her hand against Snape's, and a surge of power snapped into place between them. Purple energy glyphs floated in the air, overlaying golden ones. They spun, forming a complex diagram that glowed at their feet and then shimmered up in a barrier of energy.

As the energy in the magic circle touched Hermione's blood, it instantly became stronger—fiercer—and visibly more malevolent. Hermione's curls were writhing like angry snakes. Energy crackled between her fingers that, rather disturbingly, began to look more and more like claws. Fire burned within her previously calm brown eyes, and there was no mistaking the raw, uncontrolled anger magnified ten-fold by the casting of blood in her circle.

Suddenly, Bill hit his father with a stunner, forward tackling him to the floor. "Drop your wands! EVERYONE drop your wands. Quickly!"

Percy had his wand pointed at Hermione, and her gaze raked across the room, eyes noting who had wands and who didn't, who was actively struggling, and who wasn't. Her lips pulled back from her teeth.

"Percy drop the wand, now!" Bill hissed. "Or she's going to blow up the Burrow again!"

Percy looked from Bill and then back to Hermione—the raging, almost malevolent-looking Hermione—clearly not convinced that giving up his wand was the best course of action.

"Dammit, Percy!" George yelled, "Drop it already!"

"Severus, do something," Bill asked , his gaze leveling at the older wizard.

"What, exactly, would you have me do, Mr Weasley?"

"Something only her mate could do," he said meaningfully. "I've seen the same kind of behaviour in my Fleur. She almost leveled an entire restaurant because our waiter was stupid enough to call me a dirty werewolf."

Severus' eyes narrowed, but he nodded to Bill.

Severus touched Hermione's cheek, used his other hand to pull her around, and descended upon her mouth with a fierce kiss. The crackling energy around her instantly began to dissipate, and Snape's free hand traced a series of glyphs in the air to counter Hermione's wards.

Slowly, the wards began to fade, the energy level lessened, and the thick fog of pervasive anger began to lessen. Severus pulled away slow, but only just, his dark eyes searching Hermione's for that anchor of sanity he needed to see. Blood continued to drip onto the floor from where her arm had been slashed—yet one more scar to be added to her already impressive collection.

"Hermione," Severus said quietly, his black eyes searching hers.

"Lost it there," Hermione replied. "Sorry. I just saw that spell coming towards you and—that was a really nice kiss."

Severus flushed. "Careful, you have several Weasleys watching you very closely."

Hermione, realising they weren't alone, blushed and turned around. "Sorry, I—"

"Don't apologise," Bill answered immediately as his family just gaped. "I've been married to Fleur long enough to know a mating bond when I see one, and all that entails. If someone had tried to attack Fleur, I'd have done the same thing, sans the fancy silent wards." He winked at her. "Besides—it was my father who tried to take Severus out, and I can't be the only one to think that kind of behaviour seems mighty suspicious. Between my mother cradling that clock like it's her baby, my brother cleaning us out of family funds, and my father suddenly being willing to throw slicing hexes and curses at you with barely a warning, something fishy is definitely going on here."

George was rubbing his head. "What's going on? Is this all connected somehow?"

Auror Pembroke sighed. "What nest of Ashwinders have we stepped in this time?"

Bill watched his family carefully. "First things first. All of us need to go to Mungo's and get checked to look for any kind of insidious geas or evidence of mind-altering spells. Every last one of us, up to and including me. As the eldest Weasley who is not on the floor or otherwise mentally compromised, I give you permission to stun each and every one of us should we even attempt to resist."

"What?!" Percy stood up, his face matching the colour of his hair.

BSSTTZZT!

Percy fell to the floor, and George handed Auror Pembroke his wand. "Sorry, Perce. Bill is right. Something seriously odd is going on, and I want to be sure I wasn't smoking Thestral dung when I screwed up that bloody clock. I will admit that the very idea of going to Mungo's is making me want to pull out my wand and fight. Be a mate and bind me up, would you?"

Hermione's tension ebbed. "You want me to tie you up?"

"Eh? Getting excited there, Granger? Not that you'd want that from anyone but tall, dark, and brooding, hrm?" George teased.

Hermione snorted. "Come here, I'll make absolutely sure you can't escape."

George sighed mournfully. "Why are the good ones always taken by the bad boys?"

"Oh, you are a bad boy, George," Hermione confirmed with a smirk. "Just not my kind of bad."

George stuck out his lip, pouting as she bound his hands behind him with both nearby curtain cord and magical bindings. "I don't have enough black in my wardrobe to be that kind of bad!"

"Poor you," Hermione said, smiling. "Thanks, George."

"Whatever for, Granger?"

"Always knowing how to make me smile—even when you're having a hard time doing it yourself."

George straightened and quirked a small smile. "Somebody has to, yeah? Hey, Bill, you feeling any effects?"

"No, but I didn't have much contact with other people once I started curse-breaking. Only Fleur—and you know how everyone treated her. I had no reason to stick around."

George nodded rather shamefully.

"Before you go all blame-yourself, let's get everyone to Mungo's," Bill said, helping Auror Pembroke up. "I'll feel a lot better knowing what caused our mum to become a clock-hugger and our dad to try and murder someone right in front of us."

Hermione snuggled into Severus' robes as they sat together in the waiting room. Snape had one arm around her, pulling her against him, seemingly okay with both her presence and her closeness, even in public.

"What do you think, Severus?" she asked, slumping into his comforting warmth.

"I think we need a holiday," Severus said. "Preferably in some nice out of the way Muggle-owned wilderness area where we are far less likely to run into a boogle of Weasleys."

"I like that word, 'boogle'."

"Seems like an odd word for a group of weasels, and I suppose we could call them a confusion of Weasleys. They are that, most assuredly."

Hermione snorted softly in amusement. "I was never so angry before. Well, that's misleading. I've been angry before. I've been that angry before, but I've never been so quick to violence."

"Mr Weasley seems to think it was all on par for a mated pair," Severus muttered. "He may not be sure as to what species we are, but he's far too observant to think it a wholly human response."

"Why do you seem to stick with 'Mr' so-and-so instead of a given name?"

Snape rotated his head to loosen his neck muscles. "Using a first name implies a higher level of intimacy, of a certain... closeness."

Hermione burrowed a little closer to him.

"Are you—snuffling my robe?"

Hermione was silent.

"Her—"

"Yes."

"I see."

"It smells like you. I really, really like the scent of you."

Snape sighed. "As you wish. It is slightly disconcerting to have someone so openly appreciating anything about… me."

"It isn't like my feelings are a complete surprise to you, Severus," Hermione said, fussing with his robes.

"Perhaps not that you have them but that you retained them," Severus replied, turning to look into her eyes. His expression softened as his fingertips gently brushed her cheek.

"To be fair, I did forget them for a few years," Hermione admitted, her expression sad.

"Not by your own design, however."

Hermione smiled, touching his jaw with her fingertips. "Thank you for keeping me from murdering my childhood pseudo-family. I may not have ever felt truly at home with them, but they meant a great deal to Harry, and they did eventually grow on me. I just hope, at least I think, eugh. I just hope what I think I feel is really what I feel."

"Healers didn't notice anything?"

"No, but that doesn't really comfort me considering everything else that's been going on."

Snape nodded.

The door opened and Head Auror John Savage walked out. He scanned the room and found Hermione and the solid wall of black fabric she was leaning on. "Ah, there you are. Kingsley told me to update you."

Hermione sat up. "What's the news, Auror Savage?" she asked.

"John, please," the wizard huffed. "If anything you outrank me, Master Granger."

"Argh. Hermione, please," Hermione replied. They laughed together in understanding. John, Severus. Severus, John. I'm not sure if you've met, officially."

"I've heard many things, Severus, pardon me. Would you prefer me call you—?"

"Severus is fine, Auror Savage."

"John. Please. Sometimes I think more people need to call me that so I remember what my given name is. Better than 'Hey Savage' and 'Boss'." Savage gave them a friendly grin but quickly sobered. "I'm afraid the Weasleys will be out of commission for a while—all but William Weasley. He seems to have dodged a curse in his case. Molly and Arthur, Percy, and George are all going to have to stay for a while and be de-cursed, un-hexed, brain bleached, and Merlin only knows what else the Healers have to do to make things right."

"What is the nature of the problem?" Snape asked.

Savage frowned. "Darndest thing. Seems to be some kind of compulsion geas. Molly seems to be obsessed with her family—knowing where they are at all times, specifically. Which is why she is driven to constantly check that strange clock. Nice and illegal that thing—Looking at going before the Wizengamot for that alone, if they aren't judged innocent due to being under the compulsion geas. That all depends on their healers and what they have to say about it in a month."

John rubbed his temples. "All of them, save William, are under something. Percy is it? Yes, Percy. He was under a strong "Believe all authority figures" compulsion, George had a—" He flipped through his notebook. "Ah, a recklessness and increased suggestibility geas, specifically tied to the other males of the family. Their whole family seems to be in the thick of one sort of insidious enchantment or another. I questioned William, thinking he may have done it—seeing as he's the only one that hasn't been affected, but he's clean. The spell signatures don't match."

"Potter and Malfoy brought in a drooling, semi-conscious Ronald Weasley just as the first scans were going through," John continued. "He had some sort of password-charmed Portkey with a trigger spell on it. He must have said the wrong password because, well, he's shades of Gilderoy Lockhart, if you catch my meaning. They found him along with a sack that had an undetectable extension charm on it, packed full of galleons and a few bottles of Polyjuice, or rather what was left of it. No idea where that Portkey was supposed to take him. Charles Weasley spoke with me, and he had one of those fancier vaults at Gringotts that magically records all activity that occurs within it when the door is opened or there is pressure on the tiles. Some sort of magic-Muggle strangeness that they started using—"

"Technomagery," Hermione said, her lips twitching.

Savage shrugged. "Strangery if you ask me," Savage replied. "The goblins handed me a small stick with buttons on it and said everything I needed was on there." He held it out. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it."

Hermione reached over and touched a button. Instantly, a hologram of Ron inside a bank vault began to play.

"Maybe it was lemon drops. He always liked those. No. Maybe it was licorice whips. Chocolate frogs? Ice mice? Cockroach clusters? Tooth-flossing string mints? Drooble's best blowing gum? Wait, I think it was Fizz something! Oh! Fizzing Whizzbees. That has to be it."

There was the sound of something heavy being dropped and a protracted rustling.

"Ah, so glad they gave me a Portkey. Well, here we go—Fizzing Whizzbees!"

Thud.

The sound of Ron groaning came shortly after.

"Whoa, where am I? Wait, who am I? Oh, this a vault! Is it my vault? It must be my vault, why else would I be in it. Hey, why is it empty?"

The sound of his foot hitting something heavy clanged in the recording, following by a trip and a fall. Then there was a low groan followed by several seconds of absolute silence.

Hermione reached to hit the button again, when suddenly there was a heavy metal creaking noise and the screech of the vault door being opened, followed by Harry and Draco's voices yelling, "Aurors! Freeze!"

"Stai! Aurors! Îngheţa!" several heavily-accented voices yelled at the same time.

Ron groaned again. "Oh, hello. Do I know you? I'm—well, I have no idea who I am. Who are you?"

"Incarcerous," Draco's voice said coldly.

"Stupefy," said Harry's at the same time.

Hermione clicked the device off as Savage scratched behind his ear idly.

"How the heck did you know how to use that thing?" John asked curiously.

Hermione smiled sweetly. "I made it and sold it to the goblins as a secondary security device."

Savage's jaw dropped in frank astonishment. "Is there anything you can't do, Hermione?"

"I'm still working on perfecting the molten lava cake," Hermione confessed. "And I am still not quite sure about my Boeuf Bourguignon."

Savage slumped and shook his head. "Hermione, I have the feeling that even your failed attempts at both would beat my very best attempts."

"I make a stunning molten lava cake," Severus said with a sniff.

"This is why I love you, Severus," Hermione replied, not missing a beat.

Savage had the dubious honour or watching Snape's face flush a rather intriguing shade of red.

"Oh, I forgot. Kingsley sent you these. He told me if I lost them, he'd find a way to force me to listen to Proudfoot singing in the shower for the rest of my life." Savage handed them a bundle of black velvet.

Dual eyebrows lifted simultaneously.

"He's always hideously out of key," Savage explained with a visible shudder.

Hermione and Severus exchanged glances. They tugged on the cord on the bundle to expose two golden bangles done in high relief in the ancient Egyptian style. Deep azure scarabs grasped the shining disc of the sun and moon as inlaid wings curved to make the up the bangle.

"Whoa," Hermione whispered in awe. "They are so beautiful."

"Honour, fidelity—eternity," Severus said with an unmistakable tone of wonder in his voice. He picked up the parchment between them and unrolled it. "Seeing as the entire DoM knows you are a mated pair, you might as well have rings. Since rings are hardly sphinxly, much less practical, I give you appropriately themed bangles. May they serve you well." Severus flushed.

Hermione poked her head over his shoulder. "P. S. —Wear them on the left foreleg. You wouldn't want to give the wrong impression."

John Savage snickered into his sleeve. "Ah, Kings. He's always prepared for anything. Did I tell you about the time he broke in on me and Elena? He thrust his hand into the break room, magicked rings onto our fingers, and closed the door. He left a do not disturb sign on the handle of the door too. There was even a pile of cigars that I almost tripped over on the way out the door. I swear that man—he's utterly unflappable. I swear he runs the Department of Magically Bonded Marriage too, the way he seems to just… know. Oh, uh, I suppose congratulations are in order. Monsieur and Madam Snape."

Hermione and Severus turned red as they put on the bangles. They magically set themselves flush against their skin and shimmered, locking in place.

"Thanks, John," Hermione said, still looking a little pink.

"Look at the bright side. No more suitors lining up at the Ministry to try and get your home address."

Hermione shuddered.

"Oh, and this is for you too," John said. "Viktor dropped it off. He said—oh how did he put it. 'Tink you find dis interesting, Her-my-own'."

Hermione lifted a brow, snorting at John's faked Bulgarian accent, and took the parchment. "What the—it's a news clipping. Oh, it's Viktor catching the Snitch. Hah!"

Severus shook his head, pointing one pale finger at the moving picture. "I believe you should be focusing here, on the snogging couple almost half-starkers and covered in butterbeer."

"Oh my—"

"The mystery of where Miss Ginevra Weasley was last night is now solved," Severus noted, running the back of his hand across his nose. "Or rather—the mystery of to whom she was getting hitched to in Las Vegas earlier."

"Isn't that—oh Merlin, it is," Savage muttered. "That is none other than American heartthrob of the Deep South circuit, Bryan Lucas Studworthy. Big break up according to the gossip papers last month. We had some people watching over him because some witch from Austria wanted him dead for not acknowledging his alleged baby or some other such drama. Some rebound. Marriage you say? You sure?"

"If the clock is to be believed," Severus said. "Or she snogged this man and went and married someone else in less than forty eight hours."

John closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten.

"Mrs Ginevra Molly Studworthy—good gracious gods above and below," Hermione said, twitching. "If Molly ever releases her death-grip on that clock, she's so going to murder her only girl-child."

"You've been spending too much time with Mavin," Savage chuckled. "She uses that term all the time, saying she's going to murder her girl-child and feed her to the crows."

"To be fair, her daughter is pretty horrible," Hermione commented. "It was only because of Kingsley's timely intervention that she didn't get," Hermione trailed off.

"Eaten?" Savage prompted.

Hermione smiled innocently. "Maybe?"

"You'd need some serious tabasco or sriracha sauce to go with that meal—maybe some of Madam Spicy's Magical Pepper Sauce."

"Well, I appreciate you not eating one of my better Aurors' daughters," Savage sighed. "Even if she did deserve it. What the hell was Trudy doing down in the bowels of the DoM vaults anyway?"

"Proving that the rumours were just a bunch of tall tales and that they really didn't have a dragon guarding the under-vaults. To be fair, Augustine wasn't on duty that night."

"Small favours there," Savage said. "He likes to char the bodies and then leave them to hang for a week. For 'peak flavour', he says."

"Barbarian," Hermione hissed.

"People seem to think that being Head Auror gives me access to all of the most exciting Ministry secrets, but I don't think anyone really expects the sort of things I am privy to. I have a drawer of various oddball permits: License to Riddle and Devour, License to Flambé and Season Before Eating, and License to Spontaneously Combust—Madam LeFlamme's phoenix form has set so many things on fire. She came up with that super secret special tenderizing spice rub for Augustine—he apparently adores the stuff and uses it on everything, including his human prey.

"Rumour says he uses it in the shower too," Hermione said, her eyes sliding sideways.

Savage stared at her for a long moment. "Could have gone my whole life not knowing that. Thanks ever so much, Gran—Snape—ah hell, Hermione."

"Been saying for you to just call me Hermione for a long time now," Hermione chuckled.

"Will the Weasleys eventually recover from all this?" Hermione asked, changing the subject.

"Healers seem to think so, but it will be a slow process," Savage replied. "However, Ronald may not be so lucky. He's been admitted to Janus Thickey. He and that Lockhart oddity are apparently already best mates."

Hermione looked rather horrified. "Well, I guess that's a different sort of torture."

"Get anything out of him?" Severus asked.

"Nothing that wasn't on the recording device—which reminds me, I should take it to the office to be combed over. After that we'll go through what we can tell you and what we can't due to privacy concerns and all that rigamarole, since you're in that odd grey area between official and victim."

Hermione sighed. "I think my entire life has been a grey area between rule follower and victim."

Savage had a thoughtful look on his face. "Severus, you really like Hermione? I hadn't pegged you for a riddling man-eater, to be honest. I mean, there were the stories from the DoM, Kingsley gave us the sphinx-handling lectures, and all that stuff, but—wow, two of you!"

Severus made an odd expression, "I haven't eaten anyone."

"Yet?"

"So far."

"Give it a month or two. Stupidity breeds in a vacuum," Savage said. "Though, we'd all appreciate if you didn't eat Trudy, despite how much she desperately deserves it. Her mother is a real gem and does the work of fifteen Aurors. She obviously got all the genetic perks and kept them close to her. I think Trudy inherited everything from her berk of a father."

"I will," Severus said, "attempt to keep myself from gnawing on this—Trudy. Provided, of course, she introduces herself."

"Can't miss her," Savage said. "She wears this bright, glowing, blaze orange collar that has "Trudy" emblazoned on it."

Severus looked at Hermione.

"Don't look at me!" Hermione replied.

John shook his head. "She bought it from a Muggle shop and in her infinite wisdom, used the permanent sticking charm on the buckle so her mum couldn't take it off. Kids."

"Can't say I ever had that desire, John, even when I was a kid." Hermione raised her brows and tapped her fingers on her chin.

"So, before I take this back to the office, do either of you have any idea who could have instigated all of this mess on the Weasley family?"

"In a word?" Hermione said.

"Dumbledore," Severus finished.

Savage rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Pity the man isn't alive to be prosecuted," he said after a while. "We can't even question the portraits because you only put into the portraits what you want people to know—also punishing a portrait seems a bit anti-climactic. Hermione, it seems that you've been shaking off the spell Dumbledore put on you. Severus, you as well. Yet, the Weasleys are definitely not going to be able to shake it off all on their own."

Hermione looked thoughtful. "Severus shoved my memories away using blocks so the Obliviate couldn't take root, shortly before Dumbledore Obliviated him."

"But, how does he remember anything now?"

Hermione and Severus exchanged looks.

"When I started training Hermione, I copied my memories meticulously each night, then I reviewed them in the morning to see what I had forgotten," Severus said. "When I realised that I was starting to forget more than just random little things, I began to write a journal of all I had taught Hermione and squirreled away those memories. When I woke up one morning, remembered nothing—I left notes for myself you see, in odd places only I would know—and I didn't remember at first to check me memories, I realised that Hermione had forgotten about me. Completely. She retained spell knowledge, but nothing about our partnership. I notated the journal of spells, suppressed all of my memories of her behind blocks—safe from Obliviates—and then gave her the journal. Then, I Obliviated what I had done from myself, so anyone attempting to search my mind couldn't—wouldn't—know.

Snape furrowed his eyebrows together. "I wasn't until the ley lines released me from their embrace that I began to remember. Only one thing could have released the blocks: the war was over and Hermione was still alive. As for Hermione's—I do now know for certain."

"The sphinxlets!" Hermione said suddenly, causing both wizards to look at her strangely.

"Every time a sphinx meets a ley line, we create sphinxlets," Hermione explained. "I've been trying to figure out what that was for years now. Every time they manifested, they would hang around and then wander off. Until that night I met Severus. One of them fused to him—and he instantly began to remember. What if those sphinxlets aren't just energy—what if they are a part of the ley line memories? What if the ley lines ARE memories? Our memories, Severus. All sphinxes. Everywhere."

"So, our meeting with a ley line, what?" Severus asked. "Spawns copies?"

Hermione nodded. "I've been trying to figure out how ley lines all over the world seem to know me before I even show up. What if it's because of the sphinxlets. They spawn, and then they go merge without another ley line somewhere else, passing on the memory stream—preserving it. And now that you're a full sphinx—no one can ever take your memories again."

"Because every time I'd meet a leyline, it would remind me—it would know."

Hermione nodded.

"Lost here," Savage confessed.

Hermione grinned from ear-to-ear and swirled around Auror Savage. "That's okay, do you like stories?" She wiggled her eyebrows. "There is an excellent café a block away with fantastic pastries and comfy chairs!"

She grabbed Auror Savage by the sleeve and dragged him off as he sputtered, Severus following behind in a swirl of black cloth.

"Hrrr."

"Sever—meep!" Hermione squeaked as Severus latched onto her neck with a soft, rolling growl.

"Yes, wife?" he replied, working on the sensitive lobe of her ear.

Hermione's hand clutched at a handful of his robes and dragged him down onto the silk sheets—sheets that were a suspicious shade of Slytherin.

"Either you've been hiding a closet fascination with Slytherin, my wife, or Draco decided to gift you with suitable bedroom accessories."

Hermione could barely answer, her breathing was coming in soft gasps as he grasped the skin of her neck between his teeth and laved her skin with his tongue. "Eergghffff—"

"Hrm? What? You want me to stop?"

Hermione hissed, pulling his face down so she could kiss him properly, holding his hair with her hands as her legs wrapped around his back and levered him down. They rolled on the silk sheets as Severus shot his arm out to brace them so they wouldn't go sliding off it in a very undignified manner. His eyes locked with hers with a darkness moving across them—hunger, need, and something primal.

Still, even so, he braced himself, pressing his arms beside her to cage her in. "Hermione," he rumbled. "I. Want. You." Despite his want, and despite he desire, he wrestled with his control. There was a pain in his expression—disappointment.

"Severus?" Hermione touched his face, concerned.

"I wish you could have been the one—my first, my only," Severus admitted softly, turning his head away. "I would be lying. There are things that were not among the memories I gave to Potter, though," Severus trailed off with a self-conscious cough. "I would have enjoyed seeing his face—"

Severus stroked Hermione's hair back from her face. "The reason I took Lily's lack of forgiveness so hard was that, for a time, I thought she was the one. I thought there could be no other, so beautiful, so magical. And when she chose to lay with me, I thought my every prayer had been answered. I—naively thought—that physical closeness, the intimate touch of skin against skin, was an expression of her love for me. I believed it because I truly believed that was what she meant by it."

Severus closed his eyes. "I was such a pathetic fool. After a few couplings, I thought it time to start saving for a ring, and then I heard her talking with her vapid little friend Marlene McKinnon, asking her how good I was. Was my cock big enough, long enough. Did it please her, did I make her come? She just smirked and said McKinnon owed her ten galleons. As I watched Lily pocket her money, I suddenly realised that what I had believed was not the truth at all. Looking back, Lily had never once promised me anything. I had—stupidly misread her intentions."

"She came to me that night, expecting more of the same, but I just couldn't—" Severus balled his hands into fists. "I couldn't even fake it—I couldn't bring myself to use her like she had obviously been using me. I was just a boy in love— with an idea, a dream."

Hermione's gentle touch on his cheek startled him as she tenderly drew his head up, encouraging him to look at her. "I wish I could that was abnormal behaviour for young witches, but I know first hand that it is not. Not every witch, thank the gods, but I heard Lavender and Pavarti talking enough to know speculating on boys and their parts was not exactly atypical. My first time was in a tent in the wilderness—desperate, clawing, pounding. I didn't know it wasn't about love. I thought, maybe, this is what love was—letting him attain that release. A gift, right? He had to love me. Surely he did if he could get it up, yeah? There had to be at least some attraction."

"I didn't know," Hermione said, pained. "I—didn't remember you, Severus. I didn't remember what I was waiting for. I couldn't remember why it mattered anymore. Clinging to life in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow was just another chance to die. He said he loved me, and I truly believed him."

"Viktor was a kind and gentle lover," Hermione said softly. "After the war, he taught me that it wasn't all about him getting off. He helped me. There was a genuine love between us, but it wasn't the kind of love that has you picking out curtains together. He knew that. I knew that. But, for a time, we were happy and content that at least no one else would be asking while we were together. I knew he was still searching for the one. It was because of him that I finally cut ties with Ron. I realised I didn't have to settle. And if it hadn't been for him, enough time wouldn't have passed between touches of the Weasley clan. The spell was broken. I realised I had never loved him. I had never needed him."

"Remind me to get Viktor a care basket," Severus said, touching her cheek and wiping away the tear that was trailing down her face. She laughed as he pressed his forehead to hers.

"This is real, Severus," Hermione said. "I want you inside, burning, eating me from within. I want to be close to you. I do not care that I was not your first. I kind of want to dig Lily up and hex her to death—again—but it does not matter how you got here to me. What matters is that I am enough for you in this moment, tomorrow, or two hundred and twenty years from now. Not because some magical bond declared us married. I want you, I need you, but if I am not enough—I would be an adult. I would understand. It would hurt, but I would know the truth. That is more than what most would give me—MRPFH!"

His kiss cut off what she was going to say, a low, growl rumbling in his throat, and his tongue eagerly explored her mouth—both asking and demanding at the same time. He pulled away with difficulty. "Hermione, you are all I want. You are everything I have ever wanted, though it took me a long time to realise it, and even when I did, I turned from it in fear, thinking myself a fool. It was a dream of my youth that I would find love and it would make all that suffering worthwhile, only—had I been a mature sort, I would have realised that what I wanted didn't necessarily have to arrive while I was at Hogwarts."

"Technically, we did meet at Hogwarts," Hermione said, a small smile on her lips.

Severus growled lowly, his hands moving up to pin her wrists against the headboard. "Technically, we are on a very comfortable bed—talking."

Pure mischief danced in Hermione's eyes. "What are you saying, Severus? Would you rather be—oh holy Merlin, GAH!"

Severus released his mouth from her breast and growled. "I would far rather show my mate there are better things to be doing in this situation than talking and spilling our past pain and guilt over each other like pouring custard over a crumble."

"Hrm, can't say I've ever been into food pla—MPH!"

Severus covered her mouth as one hand roamed down her body, sliding down her half-open robes. He released her just long enough to evict the robes from her body, and attached himself to her neck, moving down it to tease her breast and work lower, inch by inch.

Hermione groaned, writhing as her body tried to figure out what it wanted, seemingly conflicted between multiple intense desires. "Severus," she moaned. "Please."

"Please what?" Severus purred as his hot breath tickled her ear. His tongue flicked out to lick her earlobe.

"Ngggh!" Hermione gasped. "Please—I need—"

"Hmmm," he murmured, his hand traveling lower, pressing between her legs. "What was that?"

Suddenly, her hand broke free from his hand, and she slid it down his body, seeking something lower. She cupped him with her hand and hissed, "This, right now. Inside me!"

Severus' eyes crossed a little at the unexpected surge of pleasure, and he instantly rose to the occasion—very interested, indeed. Had there been any doubt at all that he was aroused, it was no longer on the table.

Hermione was panting, whimpering, writhing against him, and his eyes darkened in desire, his own breathing coming in shorter, needful pants. He couldn't stop touching her. He touched her everywhere, stroking her hair, kissing her skin, licking her smooth skin as he positioned himself over her. Their mouths met as he thrust, and she took him in. Their tongues warred together, trying to fuse as he buried himself within her, giving out a low cry of desperate need. Her legs locked around him as her hips repositioned, and her back arched, meeting his thrusts with her own. She clawed at his back, leaving pink welts across his exposed skin, his dark robes having disappeared—somewhere—without a sound.

Severus halted his attention, groaning as Hermione had made like a leech onto his neck, sending tiny thrills of ecstasy down his spine in a growing current of overwhelming pleasure. He forced himself to slow his pace, watching Hermione's flushed face as she panted. Her fingers were entangled in his hair, rubbing his scalp in just the right places— tugging at his hair in just the right way. He watched her closely, waiting until just the right moment.

"Severus!"

He thrust into her with abandon, each one sending shockwaves through his body. The leys were gathering, and he felt them— waiting, waiting for something. Suddenly, Hermione spasmed around him, and he cried out as he emptied inside her, her body clamping around him like a trap. He spasmed, his mouth clamping on her neck as his teeth pressed firmly into her skin. The unexpected sensation sent Hermione bucking wildly against him, and he was lost, unable to fight the waves of rightness overwriting every misstep he had ever taken in his life.

The leylines sang.

He could hear them—a chorus of celestial voices whose very words were magic, power, and primordial. There was the roar of sphinxes— here and now, then, and later. The surges of arcing energy passed through them with a great vibration as their voices screamed together in a joint roar as their passion erupted together in a flood of raw, untamed energy.

Hundreds of energy sphinxlets zinged around the room, swirling, darting, and flying about before escaping out the open window. As they collapsed against each other, his arms locked around her waist as his face pressed into her wild, writhing curls, a new ley line sang itself into existence— its new voice like the clarion bell ringing within a deep, dark cavern.

They lay there, entwined and unmoving, breathing heavily.

"Severus," Hermione purred, pulling his arms around herself.

"Hn?"

"I will admit to being glad she didn't know a good thing when it bit her on the face. I will apologise in advance in case that makes me a horrible person."

"Then you will be my horrible person," Severus rumbled, kissing her neck.

"I can live with that," Hermione purred. "Mrrrrrrrr."

Severus tongue laved at her neck like a cat's, having taken on some of the more sphinxian characteristics. "Hrm."

"Hrm?"

"I seem to have left you a rather dashing mark on your neck. A scarab ankh, if I recall my Egyptian symbols correctly."

Hermione wriggled to turn over so she could face him and pulled his head down so she could look at his neck in return. There, where she had bitten him in the height of her passion, was a scarab with its wings spread in a circle like the sun. An ankh hung between the wings. "Wow. You have one too."

"Apparently we have upgraded our respective hickies," Severus mused.

Hermione snuggled into his chest. "I like them. Kingsley will be all over them."

"Not while we are in bed, wife!"

"I think he's a little more respectable than that, Severus."

"Hn, better be," he muttered.

Hermione's eyes closed slowly as she sighed against him. "I've missed you. I've missed you for my entire life and never knew it until now."

Severus kissed her forehead. "I have waited my entire life for you, and for the first time, I realise it was worth every single minute, every mistake, every heartbreak— as long as it lead me to you."

Hermione thunked her head against his chest, sniffling. "You're such a sodding romantic!"

"Psh."

"But you're my sodding romantic."

"I suppose that is acceptable."

"You know what would also be acceptable?"

"Hn?"

Hermione's hand crept lower on his body.

Severus' eyes grew wide, and he rolled her onto her back once more and descended upon her mouth with his as his hands went walkabout across her body.

The sound of a Portkey transport rang from the next room accompanied by multiple feet hit the floor.

Severus froze, his lip curling in disdain. "I swear to Merlin. We are going to be the most interrupted married couple this side of Wizarding Britain."

Hermione pressed her fingers to his mouth and whispered, "Severus, where are your clothes?"

"I'm going to tear his portrait to shreds!" Minerva yelled, trying to get up from the bed.

"Oh no, you don't!" Poppy sternly told her patient, pushing her back down with two fingers and a tiny bit of magic. "It's bad enough you didn't want to go to Mungo's, so I brought Healer Faulkner here to visit you!"

Minerva seethed, but when the healer gently pressed his fingers across her face, she let out a soft sigh of relief as the strange angry pressure finally eased. "Oh," Minerva whispered. "I don't know what you did, but suddenly I feel so much better."

"You are under a very strong geas, Headmistress McGonagall. The other healers must have missed it when they were checking your memories." Healer Faulkner informed her. "Now please be still as I work on it."

Minerva sighed and sulked, cat-like, as she was prone to do.

Healer Faulkner leaned over to whisper something to Pomfrey, his face dire. Poppy nodded in return. "Headmistress, you are going to have to trust me."

Minerva's brows knit together. "Okay?"

Faulkner held out a hand, taking Poppy's hand in the other.

Slowly, Minerva put her hand in his, just barely feeling the cold kiss of something in his hand and the familiar tug at her navel.

FFWWOOOLLP!

Minerva landed on her feet, but only barely as Healer Faulkner and Poppy stepped away. She found herself in a lovely stone cottage. Sun came in through the open windows as a breeze blew in—salty sea air permeated the room.

"I swear to Merlin," a rather distinctive annoyed baritone voice hissed. "We are going to be the most interrupted married couple this side of Wizarding Britain."

Hermione stepped in from an adjoining room, her robes a little disheveled. "Healer Faulkner! Hello! Madam Pomfrey! Oh! Minerva!"

A tall, dark shadow took up the doorway. "Had I known you were going to drop in, I would have made more tea," Severus rumbled, his long, pale fingers drumming against the doorframe as his eyes narrowed.

"You were right, Severus," Healer Faulkner said with a nod, dropping a small disc into his hand. "There was a very strong compulsion geas on her on top of being obliviated. Quite extensively, I might add."

Minerva, who was ignoring the healers, gaped at Severus, her mouth working but no sound came out but a soft, confused meow-like noise. She staggered forward, wrapping her arms around Severus and squeezing the stuffing out of him.

Severus grunted, his hand awkwardly touching Minerva's hair in some semblance of a half-comforting pat. He stared at Hermione, looking awkward and desperate.

"Give her a moment, Severus," Hermione chortled. "She thought you were dead, and the last time she saw you, she tried to kill you with fire."

Severus squared his shoulders and petted Minerva on the head as one would a cat. "Hello, Minerva."

"Severus Tobias Snape!" Minerva wailed. "Where have you been? Why didn't you tell me! Would it have been too much trouble to send a bloody owl?" She sputtered a chain of questions non-stop.

Severus let her run at the mouth for a minute before he took two fingers and placed them over her mouth. "Minerva, if you expect an answer, I would suggest you breathe between accusatory disbelieving questions."

"I heard after—I realised when Potter told us all what you had done," Minerva said, her eyes shimmering with tears. "I realised I'd terribly misjudged you—I tried to kill—"

Severus shook his head and sighed. "It was not anything you were not supposed to think, Minerva."

"I could have killed you!" Minerva insisted tearfully.

"No," Severus said smugly. "You would have tried."

Minerva wiped her eyes and sputtered, "You arrogant, foolish, irritating boy!" She hugged Severus again, so hard that he had to brace himself against the wall.

"Can't breathe, Minerva!"

"Serves your right, you big sodding idiot," she muttered into his chest.

Hermione, who was watching everything, covered her face with her hand to avoid giving away all of her amusement at once. She waved her hand, summoning the tea service even as her stealthy house-elf popped in, dropped in a platter of biscuits and assorted hors d'oeuvres. Hermione shook her head in resigned amusement as the house-elf grinned at her and popped back out.

"Why is it my mate almost levels the Burrow to defend my person from a rampaging boogle of Weasleys, but when I'm under attack by a large, overgrown tabby cat, she just calmly sips tea and watches?" Severus muttered, sending a glare towards Hermione.

"Perhaps, she knows this was a long time coming and that you will undoubtedly survive being hugged by a silver tabby Animagus versus being cursed to death a year from now had you not told her you were alive!"

Severus glowered at Hermione, and Hermione crossed her hands and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Mature," Severus said with a derisive sniff.

"Someone had to be," Hermione retorted. "I tried to send her an owl, and you burned my letter."

"I was simply postponing the inevitable," Severus argued. Then, a little more quietly, he said, "We hadn't had a nice patch of alone time since—" He cut himself off, steeling his self-control.

Hermione blinked and then flushed. "Oh, erm, how about we all sit down and have tea and hors d'oeuvres." She thrust tea and biscuits into Poppy and Faulkner's hands and sat them down on the nearby armchairs.

Hermione tugged at her Usekh collar and sighed. "Minerva, the reason we brought you here is because we don't trust anything to be said or done at Hogwarts."

"What?" Minerva asked, sipping her tea. "Why?"

"Healer Faulkner had to remove the geas from you and then get you out of there to talk. There are no portraits here," Hermione said, nodding to Faulkner in thanks. "Nothing gets in here without our express permission."

"Is this?" Minerva looked around more closely. "Is this your home?"

Hermione nodded.

"I suspect that Hogwarts is full of little painted spies, Minerva," Severus said grimly. We could not send mail—which is the true reason for my having burned Hermione's correspondence—and we could not tell you about me until we were sure you were free of Hogwarts."

"But, Severus, why?" Minerva asked. "Hogwarts is peaceful."

Severus shook his head. "Hermione told me that she came to visit you and talk to Albus' portrait the night of the gala."

Minerva nodded affirmative.

"She said something that bothered me," Severus said. "She said the portrait became uncomfortable answering questions, and that you had to order the portrait to answer, and even then, the answers were not complete. Now, a normal person would have just thought this was because the portrait wasn't told something and thus had nothing to share, but why look uncomfortable, Minerva? Why look—anything but matter of fact? Even Phineas Black answers questions when posed by the Headmaster. He complains, but he answers. Why look nervous?"

"But what does that mean, Severus?" Minerva asked. "Why bring me out here?"

Poppy seemed to realise what wasn't being said. "You think that it isn't just Dumbledore's portrait that is compromised."

Hermione nodded. "No, I think that a lot of things that went on while I was at Hogwarts is still going on. The Weasleys have all, well sans Bill, come down with some pretty serious problems. Kingsley gave us permission to include you and Poppy because Poppy has been clear of tampering, and you have been released from the geas."

"What was this geas, Hermione?" Minerva asked worriedly.

"The very thought of going to St Mungo's made you want to be somewhere else, didn't it? A powerful, inexplicable desire not to go? Yet, I'm betting if it was just to go to the Hogwarts infirmary, there wasn't an issue."

Minerva frowned. "Why?"

Hermione closed her eyes. "Tell me, Minerva. Do you even remember teaching me to become an Animagus?"

"Don't be silly. I'd certainly remember something like that!" Minerva scoffed.

"But you don't," Hermione said sadly. "And I am willing to bet my two date palms outside that you don't remember that Severus and I were master and apprentice for most of my Hogwarts career."

"What?" Minerva gasped.

Severus rubbed his chin. "You probably don't remember teaching me to be an Animagus either. Or the countless times I hid in your office to avoid a gang of Gryffindors."

Minerva frowned. "Why would I not remember this?"

Severus shook his head. "You had help."

"But why, Severus?" Minerva said, pulling on her fingers in a fretful gesture. "What would that serve?"

"In the beginning, it was to prevent me from having any allies," Severus said. "It was to cover up what I had become. It was also to cover up the sins we all had— the fights, the hexes, the curses. It was almost a given that a Slytherin would do such things. But a Gryffindor? No. Heroes had to be kept shining examples of the Light. Avatars for Albus' much-vaunted greater good."

Minerva rubbed her temples.

Healer Faulkner placed a hand on her shoulder. "You may never get all of the memories back, Headmistress. There were no blocks in place to prevent the Obliviate from taking whatever he might have wanted to take from you."

Severus placed a few vials on the nearby table. Shimmering memories flickered within. "Hermione and I have compiled our memories between us— all of our memories that included you. They may not be your memories, Minerva, but they are something you once shared with us. It is something."

Minerva reached out to the vials and paused. "Albus did this?"

Severus set down his teacup and nodded. "Yes."

"Why? Why rob me of perfectly normal memories?"

"Perhaps, when you view these memories, you may see something we do not," Hermione said. "There might be something he left you— just enough to remember why."

Minerva frowned, but her hand clasped the vials of memories. "I'll need a Pensieve."