Tale of a Smart Witch: Rebrewed
by Teddylonglong
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes. Warnings: completely AU. Time travel.
When Severus returned to his seat, he placed a small, dark green box onto the table and opened it, revealing two rings. "These are friendship rings," he explained. "While mine is charmed to be invisible to everyone but you and me, yours will look to others just like a normal ring." He took the smaller of the two rings out of the box, causing Hermione to instinctively hold out her left hand's ring finger. Severus gently slid the ring over her finger, watching how it adjusted itself to the correct size.
"Thank you so very much," Hermione replied, feeling incredibly happy. "What exactly is a friendship ring though?" she asked in a soft voice.
"A friendship ring is as much as a promising ring," Severus replied, smiling. "It's my promise to at one time exchange it with an engagement ring, plus it gives us the ability of communication. If we both wear the ring, we can communicate through telepathy."
"So, I can just think to you, even if you're not with me?" Hermione asked in excitement. "I'll always wear it."
'So will I,' Severus thought to her, 'and yes, it works.'
'Brilliant,' Hermione thought back, happily staring at the ring. It was very originally decorated with two cats. 'No. Horses?' she wondered in surprise, as the animals stretched and slowly moved in front of the silver background, before they curled up against each other to cuddle. 'They're our Animagi forms,' she thought to Severus, who nodded in apparent amusement.
"Thank you so much. This is totally amazing," Hermione said aloud.
"I'm glad that you like it," Severus replied. "However, seeing that it's already midnight, I believe that we should turn in for the night."
They exchanged another passionate kiss and bade each other good night, before Cicero popped Hermione right into her dormitory.
Before Hermione could do as much as thank him, the relatively tall elf was already gone.
'This was the best birthday ever,' Hermione thought, as she drifted off to sleep, fingering her new ring with her right hand in happiness.
HP
The Marauders greatly admired Hermione's ring, however, she refused to tell them who had given it to her. Only when Lily asked her in private if it had been Severus' birthday present, she admitted secretly being Severus' girlfriend.
"Please don't tell anyone though," she pleaded with her best friend.
"Of course not," Lily said, gently. "It would endanger both you and him if the wrong people knew about it."
"Yes, I think Dumbledore knows and you now of course, but other than that, we're going to keep it from everyone," Hermione replied, sighing. "Frankly speaking, I'd love to announce to the whole world that I'm together with him, but I'm not that unreasonable."
"I'm sorry," Lily said in a soft voice, "but on the other hand, I'm very happy for you that the two of you managed to get together, even if you have to keep it a secret."
"Yes, that's true," Hermione agreed, smiling. "I'm still very happy."
HP
The next big event was that Remus introduced Amelia Bones to the Marauders as his girlfriend during the Halloween party.
'Well, as happy as I'm for Remus, it's another thing which I changed by inventing the wolvescure together with Severus,' Hermione scolded herself. 'I really ought to be more careful. Who knows what bad effects this might have?'
Nevertheless, she was pleased for Remus and Amelia, and during the remaining months of Amelia's time at Hogwarts until her and the Marauders' graduation, she became a fixed part of the Marauders.
HP
During the next couple of months, Dumbledore accepted the rest of the Marauders into the Order of the Phoenix. Hermione was extremely tempted to warn Dumbledore about not adding Peter Pettigrew to the Order, however, knowing that she was supposed to not change things, she kept quiet. However, before Pettigrew was admitted to the Order, she informed the members that he had been a Death Eater in her time and asked everyone to not let him know about her coming from the future and about Severus being a spy.
"Thank you for sharing this invaluable information," Dumbledore replied and added, "Of course we won't tell him about you and Severus, as his position could be jeopardized."
"Not only that," Hermione replied, feeling extremely annoyed with the old headmaster for not pointing out why it really mattered. "Voldemort would kill him."
HP
"I don't even know if Peter's a Death Eater yet," Hermione said to Severus, when they were sitting in Severus' room to enjoy a quiet rest of the evening and discuss the matters which had come up during the meeting.
Severus remained pensive for a moment, before he slowly said, "Although I've attended at least all the Death Eater meetings on Saturday nights, I can't tell you if he was there. If not explicitly told to remove their masks, many of the Death Eaters wear their masks during the whole evening. I'm sorry, Hermione. I don't have a clue. Without mask, I haven't seen him. That I'm sure about."
"Thank you, Sev," Hermione replied, smiling. "Well, if you get to know that he got the Dark Mark, please tell me."
"Of course, I will," Severus promised before leaning over to pull her into a light kiss, to which she replied, happily.
HP
"Sev," Hermione asked one day, "are you going to remain at Hogwarts after your NEWTs?"
Severus let out a deep sigh. "Just like you, ever since we received the Order of Merlin, I got a couple of offers for apprenticeships, and I'm thinking about accepting one. The point is though that I'd prefer to remain at Hogwarts for my Potions mastery, but…"
"Why don't you ask Professor Slughorn?" Hermione asked in excitement, not even realising that he had not finished his explanation yet. "If he could…"
"He doesn't want to," Severus interrupted her, sharply. "Don't you think I've asked him already?"
"Sorry," Hermione mumbled, thinking, 'If he gets like this, he really reminds me of the Professor Snape of the future.' "But Dumbledore said that he wants you to replace Professor Slughorn at some stage. Why don't we ask him if he could convince Slughorn?"
"Ahh, forget it," Severus replied in apparent annoyance. "Sorry, but I need to go and see Dumbledore, before I get ready for the Death Eater meeting tonight. I'll see you in the morning."
"Okay Sev," Hermione said, smiling, when he gently placed a kiss on her cheek before leaving the room.
Looking at her wrist watch, she decided that there was still half an hour before dinner, just enough to speak with Professor Slughorn about Severus' problem.
However, she was half-way down to the dungeons, when she decided otherwise. 'As much as I want Sev to remain here over the summer, I mustn't interfere with this,' she thought, letting out a deep sigh. Wondering where Severus had studied for his Potions mastery in her old time, she thought, 'I only know that he was the youngest Potions Master ever, but not where he studied for his mastery.'
HP
In the end, the headmaster forced Professor Slughorn to take Severus as his apprentice, so that he would be able to take his mastery right after Hermione's NEWTs or during the following year at the latest. At the same time, he arranged for Alastor Moody to come to Hogwarts every morning during the summer holidays to train Hermione in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
To Hermione's chagrin, they still had not found a way to cancel the curse from the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor's position. In fact, they did not even have a clue how to proceed. Of course, the idea of changing the classroom or even the name of the class had come to their minds, however, they did not believe that it would help against the curse.
"Maybe Hogwarts herself could help us," Severus said one day.
"Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, incredulously. "But how are we even going to ask her?"
"At least the headmaster should be able to communicate with the castle," Severus replied, matter-of-factly, only to add, "How else can he make additional rooms or such?"
"How can he talk to the castle?" Hermione asked, doubtfully, when a sudden idea crossed her mind. She rose from the spot, where the two of them were seated on the window sill in the small oriel of her room, turned around and laid both hands on the bare wall right next to the window.
"Hogwarts, can you hear me?" she enquired in a small voice.
"Yes, my dear, it's about time that you talk to me," a never-heard voice responded. It was the gentle voice of an older woman.
"Hogwarts?" Hermione breathed in disbelief, as Severus jumped from his seat in shock.
"Yes, that I am," the castle replied, letting out a small chuckle. "I was very excited when you first set foot in here," she continued. "I immediately felt that you had to be the heiress of two of my founders."
Hermione stared at Severus in shock, before she replied, "I'm sorry Hogwarts, but that's not possible. I am muggleborn."
"Rubbish," the castle corrected her. "If you were muggleborn, you wouldn't be able to communicate with me, and as I just said, I can feel that you're my heiress."
'Something is very wrong here,' Hermione thought, giving Severus a helpless look.
tbc...?