January gave way to February. It was cold, dreary and wet, though the snow had mostly melted around the school. Purplish-gray clouds hung low over the castle and a constant fall of chilly rain made the lawns slippery and muddy. It was a nightmare jogging even the short stretch between the castle and the greenhouses for Herbology.

The bright spot for most of the sixth years was beginning of Apparation lessons. Hermione was just glad they took place in the Great Hall instead of outside.

Hermione walked down to the Saturday morning lesson wondering just how she was supposed to pretend not to be able to Apparate without splinching herself.

The Great Hall was changed from its usual. The House tables had been removed, leaving a large open space. The Heads of House stood at the front of the room with a small wizard she didn't know. The man didn't seem to have eyelashes, which was kind of off-putting. He had wispy hair and a generally insubstantial air, as if he might just vanish before their eyes.

Are you prepared to watch me fail spectacularly? Hermione asked Severus as she took her place with her House mates. He almost smirked.

I am looking forward to the show.

"Good morning," the Ministry wizard said, cutting off their silent conversation. "My name is Wilkie Twycross and I shall be your Ministry Apparition instructor for the next twelve weeks…"

Hermione bit off a groan. Twelve weeks. It had taken her one week, one, to get the hang of it under Minerva's guidance. Holding in her scowl, she arranged herself with the others, putting extra space between them. Severus swept by, marshaling students into position and breaking up arguments, touching his hand low on her waist as he passed her.

"Harry, where are you going?" Hermione asked when she noticed him taking off for the other end of the hall. She'd been hoping she would be close at hand in case he splinched himself. She might even be able to take care of the injury before anybody else noticed it had happened.

He didn't answer. Within a minute he'd found a place at the very back, just behind Malfoy. Hermione could feel a headache blossoming behind her eyes. She caught Severus's eye and jerked her head toward her wayward friend. He shared her sour look, then nodded and turned away.

"The important things to remember when Apparating are the three D's!"

Hermione wondered if she could splinch herself intentionally. Just a little bit. Just enough to get out of the lesson, since she couldn't keep a proper eye on Harry anyway, and duck off to get some pain relief from Severus's bathroom cabinet.

They made their first attempt. Hermione spun on the spot, then looked around to see if anybody needed help with missing body parts. There had been no splinching. Most students looked relieved, and more than a few were laughing at each other. The next few tries yielded the same results.

On the fourth attempt Susan Bones screeched. She'd left her leg where she'd begun and the rest of her was in the hoop. The students nearest her backed away, horrified. The Heads of House descended, there was a flash of purple smoke, and she was whole again. Rather anticlimactic, Hermione thought, considering the lengths that had to be taken when somebody was Apparating more than a few feet.

The rest of the class passed without incident. Nobody Apparated, but nobody splinched themselves either. Twycross ended the lesson with an elaborate show of Apparating to the far end of the Hall, and reminded them about the "three D's." Minerva walked him out.

"I think I felt something the last time I tried—a kind of tingling in my feet," Ron was telling Harry when she came even with them, and she knew she wouldn't be able to talk to them about it without laughing.

"I expect your trainers are too small, Won-Won," she said, smirking, trying not to smirk, and hurrying along out of the Hall. Severus had been in earshot, and she could feel the mirth coming off him. It wasn't helping her maintain her ruse.

\\

The next few weeks were torture. Harry had taken to following Malfoy around on the Marauders' Map, meaning Hermione couldn't sneak out to be with Severus. Her high points during the week as February became March—transitioning from wet into windy and wet—were stolen moments before and after Defense, even if it was just a half a minute of direct eye contact to talk silently. They hadn't managed more than the briefest kiss since his birthday.

The general tension in the castle was on the rise as well. People were disappearing, some of them families of students. Through the Order, Hermione knew that a few of the disappearances had been people going into hiding, but that wasn't true for all of them. She was increasingly nervous for her own parents.

Dumbledore cancelled the March Hogsmeade weekend. Ron was furious—it was supposed to have taken place on his birthday—but Hermione couldn't disagree with the judgment. Students outside the castle would be a weak point, a target. And Harry would be one of the students; even if she'd gone with him and kept on him like a Niffler on a gem there were no guarantees.

Ron's birthday came, and Hermione didn't get him anything. She was supposed to be mad at him; she hardly spoke to him, after all. And she hadn't been able to think of anything to get him. Something to do with Quidditch? A planner book?

She knew something was wrong the moment she made the common room, but there was nothing to do. Lavender Brown was in tears, being consoled by the loyal Parvati, both of them muttering darkly about Romilda Vane, of all people. And then neither Harry nor Ron was at breakfast. After exchanging a look with Severus, she went looking for the boys.

They were nowhere to be found. Hoping they'd turn up, she went to the Great Hall for the Apparation lesson, but they didn't show up for that either.

Ron and Harry are both missing. Lavender Brown is having fits, so they're probably together somewhere, she informed Severus, choosing a wooden hoop at the front so that she could stand right in front of him and have unobstructed eye contact.

Severus exchanged words with Minerva, and the Gryffindor Head of House left the room. The lesson crawled on. Hermione couldn't bring herself to even pretend to try; she just stared into the center of her hoop. Severus passed her more often than necessary, brushing his mind with hers. She appreciated the gesture, but she felt impotent and it pissed her off. The whole point of her being in the castle, acting this part, was to keep Harry safer than he'd be without her. What was the point of it? He ducked off without her all the time, he always had.

Hours later, she sat silently by Ron's bed in the hospital wing. Harry and Ginny talked the poisoning over endlessly. She half listened, knowing precisely who the poisoner and intended victim had been, and fumed. Harry should have brought Ron to her, not Slughorn. She could've sorted out the love potion without much thought, and then they never would have been near the poisoned drink. Slughorn probably would have ended up dead, drinking it alone by himself, of course. She wasn't in the castle to look after Horace Slughorn, though.

"But you said Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas," Ginny was saying. "So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore."

Well of course he was.

"Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well," Hermione scoffed, realizing from the looks she received that she had been awfully quiet. She was too used to being the ignored one in the corner of Order meetings, apparently. She still had to adjust to being Hermione again, not Sam. "Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself."

"Er-my-nee," Ron croaked, and they all fell silent, watching him for further signs of life. Hermione itched to cast diagnostics over him, to check on him herself. She sat on her hands, relaxing a fraction when Ron started snoring.

Hagrid burst in a moment later, dispelling any tension that might have been brewing. Hermione ignored the conversation, more conspiracy theories. She had to tell Harry about the Time Turner. He had to know. He couldn't keep running off like that, and, really, he was bound to find out eventually, at the very least when the war was over. She didn't want to have this secret between them.

When Harry and Hagrid rose to leave, she went with them.

"It's terrible," Hagrid said as they walked. "All this new security, an' kids are still getting' hurt… Dumbledore's worried sick… He don' say much, but I can tell…"

"Hasn't he got any ideas, Hagrid?" she asked, wondering how much the headmaster had shared. Hagrid was loyal to a fault, and he had a good heart, but he didn't keep secrets very well at all.

"I 'spect he's got hundreds of ideas, brain like his," said Hagrid. "But he doesn' know who sent that necklace nor put poison in that wine, or they'd've bin caught, wouldn' they? Wha' worries me," he said, lowering his voice and checking the hall for eavesdroppers, "is how long Hogwarts can stay open if kids are bein' attacked. Chamber o' Secrets all over again, isn' it? There'll be panic, more parents takin' their kids outta school, an' nex' thing yeh know the board o' governors…"

The Ravenclaw ghost drifted past and Hagrid didn't speak again until the long-haired woman was out of sight.

"…the board o' governors'll be talkin' about shuttin' us up fer good."

"Surely not?" Hermione asked, worried. That seemed like a ridiculously stupid thing to do. Where would the children go? Where would they be safe? Especially the younger students and the Muggle-borns.

"Gotta see it from their point o' view," Hagrid said heavily. "I mean, it's always bin a bit of a risk sendin' a kid ter Hogwarts, hasn' it? Yer expect accidents, don' yeh, with hundreds of underage wizards all locked up tergether, but attempted murder, tha's diff'rent. 'S'no wonder Dumbldore's angry with Sn—"

Hermione jerked, looking at Hagrid sharply. He stopped in his tracks, looking guilty.

"What?" Harry asked quickly. "Dumbledore's angry with Snape?"

"I never said tha'," Hagrid said, but his expression gave him away entirely. "Look at the time, it's getting' on fer midnight, I need ter—"

"Hagrid, why is Dumbldore angry with Snape?" Harry was practically shouting. Hermione revised her plan. She wouldn't tell him everything about her Turning. Definitely nothing about her closeness with Severus, and sharing her marriage had never crossed her mind.

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked both nervous and angry, glancing up and down the hall again. Hermione flicked her fingers, casting Severus's Muffliato. "Don' shout stuff like that, Harry, d'yeh wan' me ter lose me job? Mind, I don' suppose yeh'd care, would yeh, not now yeh've given up Care of Mag—"

"Don't try and make me feel guilty, it won't work!" said Harry forcefully. "What's Snape done?"

Married your best friend. Hermione thought madly. Surprise!

"I dunno, Harry, and I shouldn'ta heard it at all! I—well, I was comin' outta the forest the other evenin' an' I overheard 'em talking—well, arguin'. Didn't like ter draw attention to meself, so I sorta skulked an' tried not ter listen, but it was a—well, a heated discussion an' it wasn' easy ter block it out."

"Well?"

"Well—I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he—Snape—didn' wan' ter do it anymore—"

"Do what?"

"I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin' a bit overworked, tha's all—anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed ter do it an' that was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him. An' then he said summat abou' Snape makin' investigations in his House, in Slytherin. Well, there's nothin' strange abou' that!" Harry had looked to Hermione significantly, and she hadn't needed Legilimency to see that his mind had gone straight back to Malfoy. "All the Heads o' House were asked ter look inter that necklace business—"

"Yeah, but Dumbledore's not having rows with the rest of them, is he?" asked Harry.

"Look," Hagrid said, fidgeting with his crossbow. He snapped it accidentally. "I know what yeh're like abou' Snape, Harry, an' I don' want yeh ter go readin' more inter this than there is."

Hermione looked away to hide her tender smile. She'd seen more than one instance in Severus's mind where Hagrid had helped him up to the castle, or even just pulled him into his hut for a quiet cup of tea before he went on to report to the headmaster. They weren't quite friends, not like Severus was with Minerva or even Flitwick, but they were both loyal to Dumbledore, fond of each other.

"Look out," Hermione said, noting Filch's shadow bearing down on them. She cancelled her Muffliato just in time for the caretaker to catch sight of them.

"Oho! Out of bed so late, this'll mean detention!"

"No it won', Filch," Hagrid said shortly. "They're with me, aren' they?"

"And what difference does that make?"

Hermione wanted to hex him.

"I'm a ruddy teacher, aren' I, yeh sneakin' Squib!"

Hermione and Harry hurried off, leaving the pair to their argument. They passed Peeves on their way to Gryffindor Tower, but the poltergeist ignored them, drawn to the shouting. The Fat Lady was asleep, and Hermione considered taking advantage of it to drag Harry off to an empty classroom, but his mind was clearly on the news of Severus's fight with the headmaster. She bid him goodnight, went far enough up the steps to the girls' side so that he wouldn't see her Disillusion herself, then went back down to make sure he didn't try to sneak off by himself.

He and McLaggen—good God had she really taken him to that awful party?—talked a bit about Quidditch, then Harry went up to his room. Hermione quickly went up to her own room, taking her time putting on her pajamas and brushing her teeth. She sat behind her hangings for almost an hour, at which point Harry must have been asleep. She put her shoes back on and wrapped herself in her fluffy white bathrobe, then went back down.

Hermione spent twenty minutes warding the common room—not for security but for detection. Harry Potter would not slip away in the early hours without her knowing about it.

The portrait of the girl in a white summer dress wearing a daisy crown, the one she'd noticed watching them whenever she, Harry and Ron had sat up late talking over the years, glared at her. The portraits didn't usually speak unless spoken to, at least not in the common room. Hermione glared back, then Disillusioned herself. She had to speak to Severus before she slept, no matter if the girl in the daisy crown ran off to report a student out of bed to Minerva.

She wasn't surprised to find him awake; she was surprised to find him drinking.

"I thought that was my vice," Hermione said, dropping her Disillusionment and wrapping her bathrobe tighter around her. It was cold in the sitting room; he hadn't lit a fire.

"Well," Severus said, holding the tumbler in front of his face and staring at the light through his drink, "it seemed called for."

"Testing your own supply?"

"I dumped the bottle he gave me for Christmas."

"Good. It was shit."

"The principle of the thing," he agreed, nodding. She wondered how much he'd had, but it didn't actually matter. She poured herself a few fingers more than strictly polite and joined him in the other wingback.

"Rumor has it you rowed with the headmaster." The whiskey burned her throat pleasantly, heating her from the inside out.

"How—? Oh, Hagrid, then? And I suppose he let it slip to Potter. Typical."

"He really can't help it, you know," Hermione said, turning so that she could rest her back against the arm rest. She slipped off her shoes and tucked her knees up to her chin, holding them loosely to her.

"I know."

They were quiet for awhile, drinking their whiskey. She'd brushed his mind in greeting even before she'd dropped her Disillusionment, and he'd latched onto the contact like twining his fingers through hers when they held hands.

"How are you, Severus?"

"I miss you," he said. He glanced over at her, then knocked back the last of his whiskey and stood up to refill it. He topped off her glass even though she hadn't really made a dent in it. She took a deep swallow and didn't speak again until the burn had faded from the back of her throat.

"It's a good thing I left the Time Turner in Edinburgh. Some days, it's all I can think about. How easy it would be to just grab you and Turn back the day, or the year, more. Hide away someplace and just hang on to you, dread the day we catch up to ourselves again."

"That sounds wonderful," he said, letting his head drop back against his chair.

"We would buy a house somewhere off where nobody could find us. I imagine we'd argue about how much of the garden should be for potions ingredients and how much for vegetables."

His breath hitched and she looked up to him, expecting him to be laughing at her mad fantasy, but he was crying.

"Severus? What is it?"

"That sounds perfect," he said, reaching out and putting his hand on her knee, squeezing gently. "I wish I could be there for it. I wish I could see it. I wish I could hope for it." His voice cracked and he looked away. She grabbed his hand before he could take it away.

"This is my little fantasy, Severus. You're always in it. In the house." She squeezed his hand, leaning over to set her tumbler on the floor by her shoes so that she could use her other hand to trace the lines of his bones. He had long bones in his hands, long fingers to match long arms. "It's our house. That's what makes me want it."

He'd given up any pretense and was crying openly, if quietly. His whole torso was arched forward over his legs, as though he wanted to curl up but couldn't quite muster it.

"I don't want to do it anymore," he said to his knees. "That's what Dumbledore and I argued about. I told him it was too much, that I had to be done. I can't take it. I can't kill him."

"Severus," she said, her heart breaking for him. She crawled into his chair with him, taking his tumbler away and setting it on the floor. She held him close, shifting so she was mostly on the arm rest and holding him to her so that his head was on her chest, her feet braced on the cushion by his hips, her knees off to either side of his chest awkwardly. She clung to him and stroked his hair.