When Hermione woke the next morning, it was as if a storm-front had blown through in the night and wiped every trace of malaise from her mind. The fog of uncertainty was gone and now she felt tightly wired and ready to fire.

It was still early hours on a Sunday, so no one else had risen yet. She hurried to get dressed in the dim morning light, hoping that Madam Pomfrey might also be an early riser.

They were thinking about this all wrong, Dagmar and the Ministry. Idiotic, antiquated solutions, so evident of an ancient culture. The Wizarding World was always slow to adapt.

Hermione let herself out of the portrait hole and walked quickly down the deserted hall.

Surely there wasn't a need for these involuntary unions. What was magic for if not creative solutions? There had to be a way to guarantee the desired outcome from voluntary couples. Happy marriages were likely to produce more children anyway.

With a surge of understanding, Hermione realized why her mind had felt so trapped before now, so averse to temperamental letter-writing and governmental coups. What she had really needed from the start was honest research, facts, and study. A problem that required a solution.

If she could piece together an alternative action, find a promising premise, perhaps she could convince the Ministry to sanction a funded project and put off the mandate in the meantime.

But, it would have to be a very promising premise.

And though she had nothing yet firm to go on, she thought she might know a good place to start.

Thankfully, Madam Pomfrey was indeed awake at this time, reading The Daily Prophet and taking coffee in her office.

She seemed startled by Hermione's sudden appearance, but after a moment of disorientation, she beckoned Hermione inside the room.

"Is there something the matter, Miss Granger?" she asked with concern. "Are you unwell?"

Hermione sank into the chair across from her desk. "Thank you, I'm fine. Actually, I'm in pursuit of a new project and I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind. About that test last night."

In a flicker, Pomfrey's expression changed. Her demeanor became immediately defensive, bordering on embarrassed. "Please understand, Miss Granger, it was not in my power to refuse. I know it's a ghastly business but they would have taken my credentials otherwise, turned me out of the castle. As much as I detest the position you dear girls have been put in, I would rather be able to offer what support I can. And I wouldn't be able to offer that if…" Her eyebrows drew together, her quivering jaw taking on a determined set. "If I abandon my post."

Hermione was a bit thrown by this reaction, her hands having raised reflexively during Pomfrey's outburst. "No, no, that isn't what I mean at all, honestly. It would be hypocritical of me to cast judgment. I know the choices we've been given."

Pomfrey seemed to relax, her breath coming easier as she nodded. She curled fingers around her coffee cup as though seeking the comfort of its warmth. "What is it that you wanted to ask me?"

Hermione straightened in her chair. "The potion you administered, what does it do? I felt affected but I can't understand how. And the scout flies, why do they react in such a way to, um... ' men's business '?"

Pomfrey made a small sound of amusement. "A peculiar method, isn't it?" she said companionably. "The scout flies are called such because they have a natural alert system that triggers when a foreign invader enters their home. The potion I gave you is an extract made from a particular flower they feed from and inhabit. As such, with the nectar in your bloodstream, you became their 'home' and any substance within you not of your own body became the 'invader'."

Hermione wished she had brought parchment and quill, she'd been so hurried this morning, she hadn't thought to prepare notes. "And the potion," she asked quickly, "how is it made? Can you adapt it for other uses? What are the binding properties that make it capable of manipulating–"

"Oh, darling," Pomfrey interrupted quickly. "I'm sure I don't know. I've been trained to administer the concoction, not create it. For questions of this nature, you had best seek the Potions Master who provided it. I'm certain Professor Snape would be more than willing to…"

Pomfrey trailed off, her face suddenly draining of color.

Drat, Hermione thought. Pomfrey clearly knew the man she'd been matched with.

Which she supposed was not altogether surprising. Even if the staff was able to keep delicate information from their students, likely they were not so withholding around each other.

Pomfrey cleared her throat, making a strange motion, a sudden jerk as though she were about to stand up to get something. Instead, she gestured to a nearby medicine cabinet. "There are things I could offer you…" she said tentatively. "Medicinals to ease your mind, or affect what you perceive. Not a glamor per se, but it might make him a bit... forgive me, but appear as someone you might find more agreeable."

Hermione almost let her mouth fall open in shock. Did she just hear Madam Pomfrey offer her magical hallucinogens?

Ponfrey continued. "As I said, what is legally binding, I can't do much to change. But, when I'm unable to cure the disease, I can manage the symptoms." Her voice lowered to an almost conspiratorial whisper. "If you wanted a contraceptive potion… you only need to ask. I understand that would defy the purpose of the whole exercise, but there is room for you to be ready in your own time. Especially with someone like…" She shook her head despondently.

Then, she took a quick sip of her coffee and resumed her normal tone of voice. "I've said enough. Just know that I'm here, Miss Granger. And please, be discreet with these offerings. They will only be available so long as they remain unnoticed."

Hermione left Madam Pomfrey's office with a new appreciation for the complexity of her situation, and that of others who might be more impacted by the mandate than she thought.

If Pomfrey was under fire, surely more staff had been threatened. Flitwick presumably, made to bear witness to all of those marriages. Hermione couldn't forget the reluctant shame buried in the shake of his head as he led Hermione to her impromptu altar.

McGonagall, too, had to be facing dire choices. Putting up a fight would risk being forced to leave the school she'd only newly inherited, subjecting them entirely to the mercy of the Ministry. Hermione shuddered to think who the Ministry might appoint as the new Headmaster instead. Or would it be Headmistress? Dagmar seemed a likely candidate.

A second shudder rippled through her, this one she wasn't able to suppress.

In any case, all that aside, Hermione still didn't have the answers she sought this morning.

Add to that, it seemed the one person in the castle who might be able to give them was the one person most likely to deny them.

Double drat, she thought venomously. Do I really have to go toe to toe with that old bat?

She knew she would have to. And furthermore she knew that she would. Determination was a merciless mistress, always had been for Hermione. Once she felt those stubborn claws take hold, nothing could shake her loose from its clutches except total completion or total annihilation of her goal.

For an encounter like this one, though, she would have to seriously consider her method of approach.

Because it was very clear that her previous methods of communication were not the way to go with Severus Snape. After almost two decades of bullying students, he was so used to authority, plowing through conversations without fear of retribution. If he saw a flicker of hesitation, he stamped opposition down like a wilting weed.

Except, he didn't always come out the victor, did he? His tussle with Dagmar was proof enough of that.

Hermione pursed her lips as she walked, fully lost in her own thoughts. Perhaps there was inspiration to take from that. She would have to be more like the Ministry woman of cold composure, direct and forthright, no extraneous tangents or circuitous preludes. She would go full force and momentum, get her questions out before Snape had time to shut her down.

No more playing nice.

She would just have to pluck herself up and bully him right back.

Hermione anticipated that Snape might be a bit more inclined to fight fire with fire in her case, so she did run the risk of him graduating from insulting threats to disciplinary artillery.

But, a few detentions were certainly worth the risk, she concluded.

The lives of countless hung in the balance, not just hers. If she could solve this problem, put the wizarding world on a promising path, she would be releasing shackles from an untold number of ankles.

She wasn't going to give this idea up before she'd had a chance to test its worth.

Hermione didn't have to wait long for her impending opportunity. Potions class was first thing that morning after breakfast.

Throughout the majority of the weekend, Harry and Ron had kept a respectful silence around her for the most part.

This had apparently run its course though. As the three of them settled down at their customary desk in the dungeons, preparing the fires beneath their cauldrons and rearranging their potions kits, her two friends began to take on new lines of inquiry. It was as though seeing her in the dawn of the new week, still intact and altogether herself, they realized that she wasn't likely to fall to pieces at the slightest misspoken word.

Ron in particular had clearly been bursting behind his own curiosity and his questions quickly became pushier than they had been before.

"What's the big deal if you tell us," he pressed. "Aren't we here to help? We're your mates. You know we'll keep your secrets. Just give us a hint at least, we're dying. Who is it?"

"I would think," Hermione responded primly, "as my mates you might also allow my privacy when I ask for it."

Ron sighed, disappointed. "Yeah…" he said. Though his tone suggested he was not completely defeated just yet.

Harry tried another angle. "Does he treat you alright?" he asked.

Hermione shrugged. "Alright is a relative term, I suppose."

"Isn't he courting you at all?" Ron jumped in. "The Patil twins have been drowning in gifts and that Daphne Greengrass was flashing her love sonnets all over the place last night at dinner." His earnestness intensified, truly seeming interested on her behalf. "Does he send you letters? I expect you'd like letters."

Hermione smiled despite herself, amused by the notion of Snape doing any of those things. "Oh," she said, flapping her hand, "I don't care about presents or poetry. And I've enough essays to write without expending parchment on correspondence."

There was a moment of silence. "That isn't exactly what I mean," Harry said quietly. "I mean, is he… unkind?"

Hermione nudged a bottle of shrew tallow into a better position in the recesses of her potions kit. "Well…" she started, unsure exactly how to put it into words.

Reading the reluctance in her body language (Hermione always felt it difficult to lie to her friends), Ron's face reddened and he stood abruptly from his chair.

"I'll kill him," he said simply.

Hermione snatched his arm immediately, tugging him back into his seat. "No no," she said gently. "No, Ron, now really."

Though admittedly rash, this reaction from Ron still touched her tender heart. She knew that even if she had revealed Snape's identity then and there, Ron likely would have vaulted over the desk and thrown himself at the man, no care for consequences, all danger be damned.

The man in question currently had his back turned to them, arranging notes on the blackboard at the front of the room.

Glancing his way, Hermione thought she saw him freeze briefly at Ron's outburst, overhearing part of their conversation.

She wasn't sure, though. The reaction was subtle and passed by so quickly, she could easily have imagined it. Her glance was so quick, too, there was barely time to register anything with surety.

She couldn't make herself look at him longer than a fraction of a moment, feeling even that brief flash of attention singe her as if she'd been burned.

She knew that Snape was her objective this morning, but she dreaded seeing him, being in proximity for the first time since Saturday. Thoughts of that night still rose up in her mind's eye so frequently, consuming her in waves of confusing, sensual memory. She feared that with him close, those memories might overwhelm her, smother her beyond basic, cognitive function.

As class began however, bearing his presence turned out much easier than she anticipated. Her hackles soon lowered, her heart rate evening out.

The harsh words he had thrown her way at the inn, though cruel, were also comfortable in a twisted way. They had reaffirmed the most familiar aspect of him, cementing his statued form as an immovable object of grimness and aspersions. That's who she saw today, the man of frigid malice.

In comparison, that man in the dark, the one who had actually touched her… Those sensations, his smell, the warmth of his breath... All of it felt so removed, like that wasn't actually him but a different entity entirely.

Her time in the void had been a lucid dream, almost, a half-imagined delusion in which she'd copulated with shadows.

The Snape now standing at the head of the class, orating the properties of horklump juice in his flat, disinterested tone, was her professor and nothing else. A Potions Master of grand repute whose expertise she would desperately need to win if she was ever going to tackle the impossible task in front of her.

When class ended, Hermione made an excuse to Harry and Ron about needing stock replacements for her mandragora root and let them go on ahead.

Snape had retreated to his office by then. Once she was certain that the last of the students had left, she steeled her resolve, took a deep breath, and entered his waiting lair.

Her anxiety was miles high, but she clung to one notion of promising hope: Snape was just as unhappy as she was. Perhaps, after all, this could be a blessing in disguise. Who would be more motivated to want to succeed in this endeavor? She just had to make him listen.

Pushing the door fully open, Hermione took a moment to look around and realize how much she actually liked Snape's office, not having had the opportunity previously to take it in. So many mysterious objects, ancient texts, hoarded bottles and tinctures of all shapes and sizes, her impulse to point and exclaim, What is that? bubbled up in her like a chirping bird. What is that? What is THAT?

Obviously, she did no such thing. She didn't need instinct to tell her how unwilling Snape would be to humor her curiosity.

Carefully, Hermione approached Snape where he sat rigidly behind his desk, scrawling with unbroken interest on a stack of parchments.

Though she was certain her presence had been noted, Snape made no indication of acknowledgement.

"Professor?" she tried quietly. "Professor Snape?"

No response. She stepped closer.

"May I speak with you?"

At last, with the wearied reluctance of someone long suffering, Snape looked up.

His dark features again held the same expression he had worn when she'd first entered the sitting room at The Stoat and Satyr. It was an expression of deep placidity, a schooled mask behind which any manner of thought might be lurking.

The icy composure of his stare made the back of Hermione's neck prickle.

Gathering herself, Hermione cleared her throat. But, just as she opened her mouth to speak—

"Is this to do with your classwork, Miss Granger?" Snape asked silkily.

"Not exactly," Hermione replied. "The truth is, I wanted—"

Snape cut her off. "Then I hardly think I can help you." He turned back to his parchments. "Run along after your witless colleagues. I'm certain they'll be able to offer in abundance the fruitless conversations you seek."

Hermione shook her head, as though trying to dislodge the cobwebs holding her wits in check. "Professor, if you'll allow me to discuss the mandate for a brief moment, I imagine you're not pleased with the current circumstances."

Snape gave a sneer. "Have I been so subtle?"

"No, sir," Hermione replied coolly. "Not subtle."

At that, Snape looked up again, leaning back in his chair and quirking his eyebrow, daring her to say more.

Hermione realized she was playing with a viper. She stood in the open, vulnerable and exposed. He was coiled, ready to strike.

She pressed forward anyway, taking the seat across from him and planting herself with what she hoped would prove to be immovable confidence.

"I believe that if we present the Ministry with a viable alternative, we may have the means and leverage to reverse the measures they've taken."

Snape's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "An alternative?" he said. "How revolutionary. And what alternative would that be?"

Hermione shifted in her seat. "Gaining your approval is a preliminary step before I'm able to pursue the particulars, given the resources I would need and guidance in advanced areas of study. In blatant terms, I would like to make this my extracurricular project and request your mentorship with its completion." Hermione pulled a parchment from her book bag. "I've prepared a list of foundational questions that aim to—"

"The unmitigated gall," Snape interrupted before she could continue, "of parading into my office with preposterous demands you can't even articulate. Your hubris knows no bounds, Granger. My resources are valuable and my time even more so. If you want me to commit myself to what I can only assume would be a term-long endeavor, don't come to me with nothing." His tone was absolutely scathing, his gaze scalding. "This conversation is, as I predicted, fruitless beyond measure. If you have something of merit, then pursue it by all means, don't expect credit for a half-cocked thought. Challenge your precious little mind to comprehend the formality I deserve. Submit your proposal and I may consider it, though I feel obligated to remind you that I do not suffer amateurs."

Before Hermione could help herself, the snippy response fell out of her mouth. "A proposal after marriage? How progressive of you, Professor."

Snape snarled, "I am not a humorous man."

Hermione felt her grip on the parchment in her hands tighten compulsively. "Your direction is noted, Professor," she said, her cheeks growing warm. "I will certainly take heed to produce the formality you require. In the meantime, seeing as you are my Professor, I would still like to ask you the questions I've prepared, or at the very least request your direction as to texts that might prove useful in my research."

Snape, if possible, became even more prickly and disdainful. "Shall I save you the struggle entirely," he drawled, "and write your report myself?"

Hermione's frustration was already getting the better of her, hard though she fought it. "Don't you want to solve this?" she asked, exasperated. "Don't you see the merit of your contribution? Is sparing a few words of advice such an unimaginable hardship when the fate of the wizarding world is all but dangling from the rafters?"

Snape sat forward in his chair. "I choose not to contribute," he hissed, "for the same reasons I imagine you are not trailing after the Weasley girl with your arms full of parchments. Ineffectual exertions are a loathsome occupation."

Hermione sniffed. "Yes, and all of your charming tantrums have clearly produced effective results."

Snape's jaw fell slack.

She went on. "As much as I mutely accepted this ridiculous farce of a union, you performed a great deal of noise but took no discernable action."

"I took no—" he sputtered.

"And I can only assume your harsh outbursts towards me are out of misguided resentment that I certainly did not earn–" she raised her voice as Snape again made a motion to interrupt, "–but I will nevertheless overlook since I suppose we all deal with difficulties in our own unfathomable ways. But to your point about Ginny, I don't concede your premise that our situations are the same. This would be a solution, not a protest."

"A solution," Snape mocked waspishly as Hermione finally finished. His normally faded pallor was beginning to brighten, the bridge of his long nose taking on a rash of subtle redness. "Are you so overly confident in your own abilities that you think you can waltz into a room on daydreams and whimsy and produce some save-us-all potion of saintly ascension? Just because every ruddy professor in this school waxes poetic about your limitless potential, that does not mean you possess powers of the divine."

"Having been on the receiving end of your implacable grading, sir, I can assure you I'm under no delusion that every professor finds my potential to be limitless." The parchment in her hands was quickly becoming a crumpled mess, the heat behind her cheeks blooming past her ears and down the length of her neck. "I'm making no declaration about my powers, and in fact I'm coming to you specifically because I admit that my education and experience is limited. Say all you want about decorum and proposals, but making assumptions about my intentions then chastising me for those very same assumptions is inherently dishonest." Hermione was on her last nerve. "You're not being…"

Snape leveled a withering glare at her, daring her to say the word.

Hermione tipped her chin up, flagrantly defiant. "Fair," she said.

Snape's eyes widened briefly with anger. He rose from his chair with a smoothly powerful, intimidating grace that only he seemed capable of possessing. "Given our present circumstances," he said loudly, "what does that tell you about the nature of fairness in this world?"

Hermione felt herself bolstered with a conviction that all but blazed through her veins, an elixir of righteousness that made her tremble and quake. Her heart surged, beating a wild tandem against her chest. She stood from her chair, hands balled into fists at her sides. "It tells me," she replied furiously, "that those who are empowered to impart it should do so!"

She had made it. The final shot across the battlefield. Snape was speechless, unable to produce a response for several long seconds.

Before he could get his wits together, Hermione shouldered her bag and turned away from him in a flurry, striding towards the exit. Just as she was at the door, pushing down the hot tears welling behind her eyes, she stopped for a brief moment and cast a glance over her shoulder. "Blaming injustice on the ways of the world," she intoned, "is a craven's defense. And I don't take you for a coward."

With that, Hermione left.

Her stomach churned, her head spun. But a warm light flickered fainty in her chest. She hadn't backed down, she hadn't given in. Snape may come at her later with wrath and ruin, but despite it all, the kindled hope of determination still lived.

Submit your proposal, he had said, and I may consider it.

She had a next step.

It wasn't much, but it was something.

And for now, that's all she needed.