Summary: Alterations

A/N: Thanks for reading! Hermione's resolve begins to give way...

Chapter 4

Severus didn't return for three days. On the morning of the fourth day after his hasty exit, Hermione received an Owl from Lilah asking her to meet with her around lunch time. She got ready and took the Floo to the Ministry. Descending to the Department of Mysteries and through the Time door, she made her way to Lilah's office and knocked on her door.

"Come in!"

Opening the door, she smiled at Lilah as she made her way to the seat in front of her desk. Settling in, she greeted her new boss.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Devane. How are you?"

Lilah gave her a measured look. "I asked you to call me Lilah. We don't stand on formalities in this department. I hope you didn't in the future either."

Hermione shook her head. "No. We didn't. I just… I've always tried to be respectful of people I don't know well."

"Well, you'll know me well soon enough. Drop the formalities."

"Yes, ma'am… Lilah."

Lilah smiled at her. "Perfect, thank you. Now." She put some papers on her desk and pushed them toward Hermione.

"Here are your N.E.W.T. scores from Durmstrang, and your birth certificate."

Hermione looked down after grasping the papers. She frowned at her scores and looked up at Lilah. "An 'E' in Divination? I didn't even take Divination at Hogwarts."

"Don't worry about it. No one will ask you about Divination."

"I can't believe I got an 'E' anyway. I had all 'O's when I sat for my N.E.W.T.s after…" She cleared her throat. "When I took them."

Lilah nodded at her tact. "You'll live. You said you didn't take the subject anyway."

"Yes, but…"

"Maia."

Hermione gave her a curious look.

"Your name is now Maia." She motioned to the other paper.

Hermione noted her name. Maia Moreau–what they'd settled on. She looked back up at Lilah.

"I guess I'll have to get used to that."

"Yes, and quickly. Your parents are Matilda and Jerome Moreau. Jerome is the Muggle. You start here on Monday. As for your grades, how many times were you asked about them in your future?"

"Never, once I got this job." She paused. "And I suppose that occurrence was more me spouting off how well I'd done."

"So now you know how important getting all 'O's is."

Hermione blushed. "I see what you mean." She thought about starting work on Monday. Her eyes got big. "I guess I'll need to color my hair, too."

"Did you find a spell you liked?"

Hermione nodded. "I'll set it when I get home. I also found one to permanently change my eye color, so I won't need to wear Muggle contacts."

"Perfect. Speaking of home, you've been able to keep the future from your friend?"

"For the most part."

"Maia, you understand the reason to keep secretive."

"Yes, ma'am. I understand perfectly."

"Good. I trust you to keep your secrets."

"I intend to, Lilah."

ooo

When Severus came through the Floo that night, he took a double take at Hermione. Her hair was as black as his, and her eyes were a deep blue.

"What on earth?"

She rose, her hand extended. "Maia Moreau," she introduced. "Pleased to meet you."

Understanding filled his eyes. He shook her hand as he looked her over. "This is your alias."

She nodded.

"It's good. I barely recognized you. I wouldn't have had I not been expecting to see you sitting in my reading chair."

She nodded. "Where have you been?" she asked in a somewhat small voice.

He looked away.

"Hey," she called to him. He didn't look at her. "I'm not upset at you for hurting me. Like I said the other day, I need to learn how to do this, and anyone really wanting to read my mind is not going to be gentle."

"That doesn't mean I had to be vicious."

She came up and squeezed his arm. "I'm not upset with you. You shouldn't be either."

"Well, I am. My colleagues always took pleasure in causing pain. I never want to be like them."

"You're not, Severus, and you never will be. Now, please stop worrying about it."

He sighed. "Okay. But I will be more careful."

"For right now, that would be best, but once I have perfected Occlumency, I want you to be brutal with me. I doubt You-Know-Who would be soft if he wanted to find something out."

"All right." He looked her up and down. "So, tell me about yourself, Maia Moreau."

She grinned at him. "My parents are Matilda and Jerome Moreau–he's a Muggle. They live in Sweden, and I went to Durmstrang."

Severus arched a brow at that. "So, you are talented in the Dark Arts, I assume?"

She frowned. "I am proficient. I think it would be sufficient enough to be accepted by anyone."

Severus nodded.

"I start work on Monday. I moved here from Sweden. I love to travel and wanted to have experience here in the UK."

"Shouldn't you have an accent of some kind?"

"Probably, but I don't want to sound odd. Let's say that my youth was spent here in the UK and the family moved to Sweden when I was ten."

"That is believable."

"All right. I guess I've got my past taken care of."

"It will suffice. I'd develop some memories of school. Actually, you should develop a lot of memories of your childhood and youth. They will help with Occlumency too."

"I suppose I can use my childhood memories that I already have, just alter my parents' appearances slightly."

"For Durmstrang, you can use some of your experiences at Hogwarts in the same way. Just alter them. Do you know anything about Durmstrang?"

She grinned. "I dated one of their students for a little while. He showed me a lot of pictures of the school."

"Good. You can start with those. Perhaps read something about the school as well."

She blushed. "Well, I've done that too."

He arched a brow. "Maybe read something current, so you can set your memories in the right time frame."

"That's a good idea. I'll go find something tomorrow at the Ministry."

"Are you ready to practice?"

"Absolutely."

They worked for over an hour. Hermione got stronger and stronger with her ability to block him out. He did see several things, though. He lowered his wand.

"We are done for tonight."

"Thank you, Severus."

"You are doing well. I think that in a week or so, you'll be able to block everything I throw at you."

She grinned. "That's good."

"I need to ask you about the things I saw today, and especially the other day."

She frowned. "Severus…"

He put his hand up. "Whatever you tell me–I will speak of it to no one and not do anything about it."

She moved over to the sofa and sat. "Go ahead with your questions," she sighed.

He took his place in his reading chair.

"The snake."

Hermione's eyes closed. "What about it?"

"It was what attacked me, wasn't it?"

"Severus, I can't."

"Please, Hermione–Maia. Don't I have a right to know how I was killed?"

"You do have a right, but I've promised not to speak of the future."

"Maia… please?"

"Don't do that! I want to tell you, I do. I just… can't. And you begging me just makes me feel worse about it."

"Why would a snake attack me like that? Was it the Dark Lord's? Did he find out about my spying? Why didn't he just use an Avada?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Memories of his broken body on the floor of the Shrieking Shack flooded her mind.

"Because he's evil! And he manipulates everything so he can survive!" She clapped her hand over her mouth as tears formed in her eyes.

"Maia…"

"There was so much blood!" Her hand moved away. "And you were on the ground, barely able to talk. And then you were gone."

He moved over to the sofa and grasped her hand. "It hasn't happened, Maia. I'm not dead yet."

"But you will be!" she sobbed.

He pulled her into him and let her cry. "Does my death affect the outcome of the war?"

"It has to happen."

"But do I have to die?"

She pulled back and wiped her eyes. "What are you asking?"

"You can survive from snake bites. If my death isn't important to the war, perhaps… perhaps we can prevent it?"

"Severus, you can't!"

"Why the hell not?"

"The timeline…"

"To hell with the timeline. What would have happened if I lived?"

"I… I don't know."

"Well, take a guess."

"It's complicated."

He scowled at her, which caused her to bite her lip some more.

"Ultimately, I think that you would have been… free."

"Free?"

She nodded but was quiet.

"Maia? Tell me what you're talking about. Was I in Azkaban at some point?"

"I can't say."

"What did I do?"

"Nothing. Just drop it. What I meant was that you'd be free to live your life as you wanted to."

He arched a brow. "And that would be bad for the timeline?"

Her eyes searched his. "I… I don't know. It's a hypothetical. In my future, you didn't survive. I don't know how the future would be changed if you did."

"It sounds like it would change for the better for me," Severus ground out.

"Yes, it would."

"Will you help me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Help me to survive?"

She stared at him and stared at him. What she was about to do went against everything she had learned in the Time Room, and could alter the future in unknown ways. But… To help him survive… To give him the chance to be free from both Dumbledore and Voldemort.

She didn't even really need to contemplate it.

"Yes."

"Even though it will change the timeline?"

"To hell with the timeline. As long as you're bitten, the timeline stays intact."

"What if I decide to turn into the next Dark Lord if I survive."

She chuckled. "You're not like that."

"You don't know that. Maybe that's what I want. To have power."

Huffing, she gave him a cross look. "That's not who you are, Severus Snape."

He stared at her for a bit before waving his hand haphazardly in front of her. "I suppose I appreciate your faith in me."

"You're welcome, I guess," she said with equal reticence.

"Why did the Dark Lord choose a snake over the Killing curse?"

Sighing, she answered him. "All I'll say is that it fit into his plan better."

"I suppose I'll leave it at that–for now."

"That would be for the best."

He stood then. "I'll leave you to your evening. I'll stop by after work to see how your research on Durmstrang went."

She nodded. "Good night, Severus."

Watching him disappear in the Floo, she bit her lip. She had no idea why she'd agreed to help him survive. Well, aside from the fact she'd been gutted by his death, especially when she'd found out his real motives for everything.

Would it hurt the timeline if he survived? Perhaps she could study the results. Maybe she could study every major event to see if it had to happen. Sure, the timeline had to be preserved, but did everything that happened have to happen the way it did to result in the light prevailing over Voldemort? She was determined to find out.

ooo

Hermione knocked on Lilah's door.

"Maia! Come in."

"Good morning, Lilah."

"Have a seat," Lilah directed with a wave of her hand. "I want you to team up with another Unspeakable second class. You both can run your own experiments and report on them."

Hermione nodded. "Sounds similar to what I was doing before."

"Good. Your adjustment shouldn't be too difficult then."

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Go on."

Hermione hesitated before speaking. "I obviously have a good deal of insight into the future. I was wondering if we could possibly use that to our advantage?"

Lilah frowned."Maia, you know we can't change the timeline."

"I understand that, but wouldn't it be interesting to investigate changes in the future without them really happening?"

"What do you have in mind?"

She explained her idea to experiment with things from her future to see what differences would occur if they were changed.

"Wouldn't it be interesting to see what changes would do hypothetically? I mean, I have knowledge that no one else does. Think of the advances we could make with these experiments."

"That does sound intriguing. How would it work?"

"If I could have access to one of the rooms, I'd like to transform it to work like a Pensieve. I could run my memories of the future, then alter them and view the results. It would give an interesting view of the future and how it would have changed if something happened differently."

"What would you do with this information?"

"Well, I can write up reports on my experimentation, discussing the actual timeline and the changes and how it's affected."

"That would be fascinating, wouldn't it?"

Hermione nodded.

Lilah thought about the idea for a bit before nodding. "Let's move ahead with it." She pointed at Hermione. "But don't get any ideas!"

Hermione grinned at her. "I won't," she lied.