A/N: If you're reading along in chunks, I would recommend coming back to read at 206 (at the end of September). If you need a midway chunk, 196 would be the next good break point for a chunk.

The next group of chapters is largely a denouement. If you have issues with slower pacing, I highly recommend coming back at 206 to read it all at once.


Hermione woke to searing agony ripping through her body, and she was screaming before her eyes even opened. Someone was holding her down.

"—repairing the damage, it'll just take a moment, hold on dear—"

She could feel the nerve damage being repaired in her hands and arms, the pathways the electricity had seared and damaged knitting themselves back together in excruciating, painful detail. She reached out for her earth magic, but she couldn't—the pain was too distracting, she couldn't even feel her magic—

"Drink, dear girl, drink—"

She coughed and sputtered as a potion was poured into her screaming mouth, swallowing it and coughing hard. Immediately the pain began to dull, going from an all-encompassing furious agony to merely a really awful throbbing pain. Her head slightly cleared, Hermione seized onto her magic, and her earth elemental spun into life. It was different, this time – the pain was blocked in her mind, not her hands, now. She could still feel the pain and her nerves and flesh knitting itself back together and healing, but strangely, the pain didn't seem to bother her.

Uncaring of how it worked, Hermione was just glad that it did.

The pain issue taken care of, Hermione was able to refocus her attention and open her eyes, blinking and looking around.

She was clearly in the Hospital Wing. Morning light was pouring through a nearby window, illuminating the white sheets on the empty beds. Madame Pomfrey was nearby, hovering by her bed with an empty flask, before she hurried away, undoubtedly to get some other healing potion or salve.

Next to her bed in a chair, his eyes dark and forbidding, was Professor Snape.

Hermione swallowed hard as her eyes met his, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Good morning, Miss Granger."

"…morning, professor."

"I am intrigued that you've stopped screaming," Snape said conversationally. "By all accounts, you should still be in incredible pain."

"I am," Hermione admitted, her arms and hands still aching horribly. It just didn't… seem to bother her anymore.

Snape's eyebrow went up even higher.

"If you find yourself somehow able to converse, despite your agony," he said, "then I suppose I would like to ask you a question."

Hermione braced herself. "Yes, sir?"

His eyes narrowed to sharp slits.

"How is it, that a girl of thirteen who never left the Hogwarts grounds last night," he said, dark eyes glittering, "somehow ends up with second-degree electrical burns?"

Hermione swallowed.

"I, um," she said. "I miscalculated."

His nostrils flared. "You miscalculated?"

"Everything else went perfectly!" Hermione quickly defended. "Both rituals went off just as planned. But Susan expressed a desire toward the end of the second one, and I thought of a way we could do what she wanted, and it was just… the power I had to channel for a minute was, um, significantly more than I had thought it would be."

Snape's eyes were sharp, judging.

"You said no one would get hurt," he said flatly.

"And no one would have! But the last bit I planned on a whim—"

"Miss Granger," Snape said, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly. "You should not be planning rituals on a whim."

"It was the only chance we had! I had to think fast—"

"Do you even realize the strength of the magic you are tossing around so casually?" Snape demanded. "Rituals are unstable and dangerous, Hermione! You cannot treat them so carelessly!"

Hermione's mind called back the surge of power and magic she had felt as their collected might had broken through the darkness, cracking it open and splitting the sky. She relived the memory of the feeling of awe and joy Myrtle had felt, when she'd been able to remake her choice and ascend in the pillar of light, made manifest by her coven's will.

"I know even more than you think, sir," she said quietly. "I knew the risks. I thought them worth taking for the reward."

Snape looked at her hard.

"And I suppose you will not tell me what risk you thought worth taking," he said flatly.

"No," Hermione said honestly. "I'd rather not."

Snape gave her a sharp looked, before he stood.

"Your classmates," he stressed, as Madame Pomfrey returned to the room, "delivered you here saying that you had hurt yourself studying." His gaze was piercing. "At six in the morning."

That sounded about right – sunrise would have been about 5:30am…

"I was up most of the night," Hermione said. "With exams—"

"No one, no one pulls an all-nighter studying for exams a month in advance," Snape said flatly. "Detention, Miss Granger. For a week."

Hermione's eyes widened. "What? But I—"

"But what, Miss Granger?" Snape snapped. "Why should you not have detention?"

"I didn't break any rules!" she objected.

Snape raised a skeptical eyebrow, saying nothing.

"…okay, so I broke a few rules," she admitted. "I was out past curfew and in a place I shouldn't have been. But that didn't even have anything to do with me getting hurt!"

"And no rules were broken with whatever travesty you did?" he queried, his voice snide.

Hermione considered, biting her lip. It was odd to feel the pinch of her teeth on her lip but not be able to recognize the pain.

"Umm," Hermione said. "I… don't know…"

There probably was an existing rule about 'don't manipulate the protective wards of the castle or Hogwarts itself unless you're the Headmaster'. But any such rule was probably so old and antiquated it hadn't made it into recent handbooks of rules...

Snape's eyes were slits.

"You told me no one would be hurt," he said, his voice soft, dangerous. "You assured me, Miss Granger, that no harm would come to pass. And yet, I found myself at your bedside first thing in the morning, with you screaming in agony from severe electrical burns. Electrical burns!"

"It was only me," Hermione said hastily. "No one else got hurt—"

"Blaise Zabini and Harry Potter also had burns," Snape said flatly. "Not nearly as bad as yours – Madame Pomfrey was able to heal them with a wand-wave and a salve – but they did."

Hermione winced. "I… didn't realize that."

"Even if they had not been injured, Miss Granger—" Snape's eyes were hard. "—the fact remains that you said no one would get hurt, and then you did."

"But that was my—"

"You are a person too, Hermione!" Snape snapped. "What makes you think that your safety is any less important than anyone else's?"

He was mad, Hermione realized. Snape was genuinely, actually mad at her. He'd been scared for her, and he was angry that she had endangered herself. He was upset that she had gotten hurt.

He cared.

Despite his ire, Hermione felt her heart warm.

"I… I didn't realize…" she tried to articulate. "I thought you were just annoyed to have to come up here…"

Abruptly, Snape's anger was gone, a resigned sort of pity in his eyes in its place.

"Though you drive me to madness, Miss Granger," he said dryly, "Veritaserum would have me unable to say I dislike having you in my class."

"So you like me," Hermione summarized, smiling faintly, and Snape rolled his eyes. He looked down at her with dark eyes, his thoughts and emotions inscrutable.

"It is not often that I see someone with your brilliance and ambition come through my classroom, Miss Granger," he said, his voice quiet. "I would miss your light if you were gone."

Hermione felt a surge of emotion, and she was surprised to feel tears gathering in her eyes.

"I would hug you," she said, her voice choked, "if I didn't think it would hurt terribly and think it would probably make you mad."

Snape smirked. "Then it is wise that you controlled yourself," he said. He gave her a pointed look. "But… you gather my meaning?"

"I do," she admitted. "And… it's not that I think my safety is less important," Hermione said, "just that I can consent to risks on my own behalf more easily than I can risk others." She smiled faintly. "Big risks for big rewards."

Snape sighed. "Shall you never fail to torment me?"

"Probably not," Hermione said. She smiled faintly. "I'll probably be your least favorite student by Tuesday."

Snape looked down at her, one eyebrow raised. His eyes were masked.

"Regardless of whatever new chaos you have caused," he said quietly, "I doubt that would ever be true."