Making sure the boy who lives, actually does...

Chapter 16: Weasley the King wants a Queen...

Ron looked over his glass of pumpkin juice at Hermione in speculation. Two rusty eyebrows shadowed the light blue hue of the boy\'s large eyes, giving him an almost stormy appearance. His thin lips were curved into a small scowl, eventuated by the clench of his jaw.

\"What do you mean you have to see Snape after classes?\"

\"I have to see Professor Snape, because I need to ask him something about magical universities.\" Hermione offered somberly, looking to her unbuttered toast in exasperation. She\'d explained this at least three times over the course of not even a day to him, and Ron still wasn\'t satisfied. She knew that Ron loathed Professor Snape, but honestly...this was pushing it.

Still the fiery red head sulked, looking to his eggs in disappointment. There was still something he didn\'t trust about Hermione and Snape alone together, and he couldn\'t quite place it. She\'d been different around Snape ever since she came back, and only now Ron was starting to notice it. The timid looks, the refusal to answer questions in class, the secrecy. It was all rather suspicious in his opinion.

Ron had come to the conclusion that something must have happened in the past between she and the younger Severus. Hermione hadn\'t told her much, only that she, Harry and Draco had gone into the past and that they\'d met Harry\'s parents and some of their Professor\'s when young. She didn\'t specify which ones. Harry couldn\'t tell him anything for as far as he knew Harry had been sleeping whatever had been bothering him for the past day or so.

\"What are you going to ask him?\" Ron asked lightly, poking at his meal. \"He won\'t give you a letter of recommendation, just to tell you.\"

Hermione\'s dark eyes flashed as she looked up to him. \"I know that, Ronald.\"

Ron flinched at the use of his whole name, knowing she only used it when perturbed. Deciding that he\'d better leave well enough alone they finished the rest of their meal in uneasy silence before packing their things and heading to classes.

As they made their way down the hall, who should stop by them? Snape himself. In all his dramatic, robes billowing and scowling in a way that made Ron want to pummel him. Knock that greasy nose right off his ugly face. The moment Hermione locked eyes with Snape, Ron felt uncomfortable, almost excluded.

\"Miss Granger.\" Snape said in that voice of his, causing students around them to shiver in fright. Hermione herself though looked almost completely at ease, perhaps only a bit of fright showed in her dark eyes.

Hermione thought that Snape looked rather tired, and immediately felt a surge of empathy for him, for she knew that he was probably tired from staying up all evening making their time travel potion. She wanted to thank him, but knew it was a most inappropriate fancy.

\"Yes Professor?\"

\"I\'m simply reminding you of our engagement this afternoon.\" Snape sniffed, glaring down at her as if he was doing her some giant favor by reminding her so rudely. At the words, \'our engagement\' Ron actually stiffened noticeably, then moved to glare at the oblivious Snape.

\"Yes sir. Three thirty. I remember.\" Hermione answered dutifully as she glanced at the strange behavior of Ron beside her. Snape looked from one to the other, letting his eyes rest on Hermione a second longer before he nodded primly, saying nothing more as he glided down the hall to his classroom.

\"Bastard.\" Ron muttered audibly under his breath.

\"Oh shut up Ron.\" Hermione said in anger, her hands clutching her books tightly to her chest as she glared at Ron. \"Just enough already. He\'s done more for all of us than you even realize. Only a completely idiot would insult him.\"

Before Ron could say anything in retaliation Hermione had given him a disgusted shake of her head and whirling on one well placed heel, marched her way down the opposite hallway, leaving Ron to stand and watch after her. His face turned an ugly shade of red that some of the passing students managed to point out to him.

Ignoring them all he headed to his own class, his light eyes flickering back and forth in front of him as if he were reading something on the far wall. No, instead Ron\'s thoughts were troubled, unsorted and confusing. Quite expected of a young, troubled man in love.

Already the seeds of jealousy and deceit had been planted within him, and already he felt justified in claiming Hermione as his own. She was perfect for him, she was made for him and he knew one thing for certain;

He wasn\'t going to give her up to anyone

* * *

\"If you would just calm down a moment, Madame Pomfrey.\" Albus was saying to the shrieking woman, \"I\'m sure this can all be explained.\"

\"IT CAN\'T BE EXPLAINED ALBUS! THE BOY IS COMATOSE! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? HE WAS ON MY WATCH!\"

Albus and Poppy stood in the Infirmary beside Harry\'s bed. Poppy had been wringing her hands and moaning dramatically, claiming that Harry had slipped into a coma without her knowing it. She\'d promptly caused enough commotion that Dumbledore had to be fetched and he now moved the shaking Poppy to sit in a chair by the wall. Slipping her a small cup of strong tea, Albus moved to the still young man\'s side.

He glanced into the peaceful face of Harry, squinting his light blue eyes at the young man\'s face. Taking a gnarled digit, he gently stroked the boy\'s right lid, closing his eyes a moment and taking a deep breath.

Moments passed in which Albus opened his eyes once more, drawing his hand back. He looked to his own palm, turning it over a few times and making a small face at it as if confused by it.

\"Strange.\" he murmured softly to himself.

\"WHAT IS IT?\" Poppy shrieked from a few feet away, her eyes bugging out of her face. \"WHAT\'S WRONG?\"

Albus turned slightly, looking to the woman with patience. It was obvious she thought that she was slipping in her years, and he wanted to attest to her that she was still more than capable when she wasn\'t shouting like a lunatic. Last thing he wanted was to hire a new DADA teacher and Head Nurse.

He looked to Harry once more, his thin lips curving into a tight grimace of unsettled thoughts before he faced the shaking woman, her knees almost buckling under her as she struggled to stand and come over to the boy.

\"He\'ll be fine Poppy.\" Albus reassured soothingly, giving Poppy a gentle smile as he rescued her before and untimely fall.

\"I\'m sure of it.\"

* * *

\"Sit down.\" came the stern voice from beside her. Hermione nodded respectfully, internally wishing he\'d stop being so rude to her when she was trying to be polite. She seated herself in the stool he pointed at and took a deep, patience inducing breath.

She\'d been in Snape\'s classroom for a good fifteen minutes now, and only at this current moment had he acknowledged her presence. He\'d been nothing but silent and then rude for the beginning part of their quest, and she had a feeling traveling back in time with him was going to be her own, personal hell.

Ron was still furious with her as she was with him. He\'d given her the cshoushoulder through all of their classes and at lunch. She\'d given it back to him just as coldly, actually enjoying the break from him. She wondered if that was cause to be worried about their tentative future and decided that every couple needed a break. Still no word on Harry, so she assumed all was going to plan.

The cauldron still bubbled on a few feet away from where he stood, taking notes in some stupid book of his. His nose almost touched the page that he wrote on in such hurried scribbles, and Hermione was faintly reminded of her trip to the past, and in watching him over his cauldron as a student. This caused a small, forlorn sigh to pass her lips that she later prayed Snape hadn\'t heard.

Oh Severus... she thought sorrowfully, wiping her damp eyes with the back of her hand and not looking to her Professor any longer than she had to. Where did you go over the years?

He coughed roughly then, drawing her attention to his inky figure in the classroom. She watched his tall frame make its way over to the cauldron seated on a tall table then. Placing the notebook down beside the cauldron, his steely eyes became transfixed on the potion below him, simmering away. From where she was sitting, Hermione couldn\'t see it, but judging by the way he wasn\'t throwing things at her, she assumed all was going well.

\"Well Granger.\" He suddenly announced, stirring the mixture with his wand a few inches above the cauldron, \"The mixture is done. We\'ll be leaving in a matter of moments, thirty years ago, at ten o\'clock at night.\"

\"Why ten o\'clock sir?\" Hermione questioned, standing a bit as Snape\'s eyes made their way over to her.

\"It\'s past curfew, and still not too late.\"

Hermione nodded at his ambiguous answer and looked to the cauldron. Snape gave her a wry sneer before taking a large wooden spoon from the table. Scooping out a lumpy, quivering mass of dark green jelly into two separate beakers on the potion table, he looked to his student in sadistic bemusement. Hermione\'s eyes widened at the sight, having never even heard of the potion he was brewing.

\"Oh.\" Hermione said softly, wondering what exactly the potion consisted of. To her it had a faint aroma of burnt hair, and reminded her idly of jello she used to make as a child with her Mother. Snape corked the beakers, put them in his robe and then poured a larger amount into two glasses on the table before he made his way over to the awe struck Hermione, offering her the dripping glass forcefully.

\"Do stop gaping Granger.\" He said with a sneer, \"I haven\'t all afternoon.\"

Hermione nodded as she touched the cool glass\' surface, refusing to meet Snape\'s eyes fully. Every time she was this close to him, she felt the dire need to stare into his eyes, as if hoping there would be some sort of spark. That his eyes would get that warmth back to them, and...

And then what?

Nothing. That\'s what. He wasn\'t cute, bad boy Severus anymore.

\"Thank you.\" she said gently, her eyes falling victim to his once more. The glass that Snape held out was in between them, and in a matter of moments Hermione finally reached her hand more fully around the glass.

In a mere moment, Snape\'s fingertips brushed over her own. Whether it was accidental of intentional, was known only to him. But in that second that their fingertips met, they both flinched at the contact of each other\'s flesh, and in a startled fashion both dropped the glass. It landed on the floor with a tingling crash, breaking the contact of their eyes on one another.

\"Foolish girl.\" Snape hissed, looking down at the mess and breaking the gaze further. Placing his glass down on the desk he moved to pour her another glass. He looked over and saw the pink on the girl\'s cheeks, viewed the trembling of her lips and limbs and said nothing, for he too had felt the coursing shock go through him as she had.

\"It slipped out of my hand.\" She sputtered shakily, her heart beating madly in her chest as she floundered to say something to rectify her mistake. She felt her pulse thundering all around her, mainly in her ears and only managedchokchoke out a soft; \"I\'m sorry.\"

\"I don\'t have much left.\" Snape said rudely, placing the glass on the desk next to his own as he came over to her once more. He wanted to tell her he wasn\'t angry, for it had been partly his fault as well but refrained, falling back on something he was much more skilled in. \"Care to see if you can hold this one like a big girl Miss Granger?\"

Hermione\'s face burned at his humiliating words, all prior thoughts of Severus gone. This was what he had become. This was what was to be. It was time to accept that Snape and she would never get along, that Severus was gone and that she needed to move on.

\"Good.\" Snape said darkly, \"Now, you need only take one sip of this mixture. It will take us back thirty years, as I stated before. You will stick close by me, understand?\"

\"Yes sir.\"

\"And we are there for one reason only: to get a sample of the potion. You aren\'t to be seen by anyone, understand?\"

\"Yes sir.\"

\"Good.\" Snape said lowly, giving her a severe glance before picking up his glass and waiting for her to do the same. Hermione raised her glass to her lips, giving Snape one last quizzical look before downing the questionable contents of the glass in her hands.

She finished a gulp, placing the glass on the table next to her, seeing that Snape was doing the same. They locked eyes once more for the evening, causing Hermione\'s heart to skip a beat once more...not that she understood why. At that moment Hermione felt her stomach lurching, and suddenly a ripping pain went through her.

\"Oh God.\" she suddenly moaned, falling to her knees in pain. Snape gave her wildly worried look, coming to her side instantly, he didn\'t seem to be in pain. He grasped the young girl by the shoulders, shaking here awake.

\"Miss Granger!\"

He viewed as she gave him one last look, hazy and bewildered. It was in that last groggy look that Hermione saw the worry in Snape\'s eyes, mirroring that of Severus\' on that night. It was in the moments following that her eyes fell shut, and she was bathed in darkness.

* * *

Miss Granger.

The voice was rumbling and far away.

Miss Granger, wake up.

Hermione felt as if she was floating.

You silly girl, get up this instant!

Something in the tone and words of the nameless figure struck a chord with Hermione. Her eyes suddenly fluttered open, her eyes blurring a moment in the darkness before adjusting on the pale figure above her. Two dark eyes, seemingly black as coal stared back down at her and her breath caught in her throat. She was back in the past, and Severus was holding her!

But as he vision cleared she saw that it was not indeed Severus, but Professor Snape that had her in a loose embrace, peering into her face and looking agitated. When he saw that she was fully motor and awake he sighed deeply and moved her to a standing position.

\"What happened?\" she offered lazily, finding the words hard to say.

\"I suppose I underestimated your immune system to Potions.\" Snape said, and coming from anyone else it would have seem almost apologetic. But knowing who he was and what he did, Hermione could only assume it was out of irritation. \"You weren\'t ready for such a potent potion.\"

\"Oh...\" Hermione blinked a moment before meeting his eyes once more, \"Are we in the past?\"

\"It would appear so.\"

Hermione felt his hands leaving her shoulders softly, dragging down to her elbows and suddenly releasing. She missed his hands the moment they were gone, but focused on the task of standing properly. When she didn\'t sway, and her head was cleared, she believed herself to be fine.

\"How long have I been out?\"

\"Not long at all.\" Snape said, looking around the darkened corridor. He was making a face that made Hermione very nervous. This was not the face of a man who knew what he was doing. Hermione glanced around the foyer, the one that was supposed to be familiar.

\"This doesn\'t look right.\" Hermione said to Snape dimly, rubbing the dirt that had gotten into her eyes during their transition from future to past. She blinked a few times, taking in their muddy surroundings.

Snape stood behind her silently, looking around the hall they were in. Things didn\'t look right at all, she was right. If his calculations were correct, they were to have landed in the middle of the foyer to Hogwarts, at ten o\'clock p.m. sharp.

Suddenly there was the sound of running down the halls. Snape\'s face blanched further as he grabbed Hermione to him. Muttering a small spell that Hermione recognized to be an Invisibility incantation, they were soon cloaked in invisibility, with Hermione pressed to Snape\'s chest. Part of her was beyond aroused, and the other part was just damn well frightened at having him hold her.

Snape himself was more than unsettled holding the girl\'s small frame in his arm. Her hands were flat against his chest, and her forehead was inches away from his mouth. Thinning his lips he waited for the cause of all the noise to show themselves.

They did in a matter of seconds as students suddenly whirred past in school robes, chuckling to themselves and joking that they\'d pulled another one over Filch. Hermione held in a grin, watching the students running by. She couldn\'t be sure, but one of them with a shock of black hair looked quite familiar. She couldn\'t quite place it though.

Suddenly from around the corner a thin figure made its way into the foyer, mere feet away from where Hermione and Snape stood watching silently. Greasy, limp hair hung off of a slowly balding scalp. The man raised his lantern a few feet in front of his face, obviously looking for the students that had eluded him. It was then that Hermione noticed the aged looking cat at his side, making her way slowly across the stone floor.

Oh my Lord... Hermione thought in shock, her eyes going wide. It\'s Filch!

She looked up to Snape, seeing that he too saw the resemblance. The much older looking Filch made his way across the stone floor, looking around the foyer in disappointment. If Hermione was unsure if the man in front of her was Filch, she was stood reaffirmed as he called to his small pet;

\"Come now Missus Norris...we\'ll find those horrible little brats.\"

When the students and Filch and his flea bitter pet were gone, Snape pushed Hermione from him instantly retracting the spell and trying to clear his head. Hermione tried to look nonplussed, but failed miserably.

\"Immature little brats.\" Snape muttered, looking after the students in disgust. He shook his head, looking to Hermione in question as she spoke to him.

\"Did that...was that, Filch?\"

\"How can it be?\" Snape said condescendingly, placing his wand back into his pocket. \"We\'re thirty years into the past, it\'s quite impossible.\"

Hermione didn\'t answer, instead opting to look around at their surroundings in disbelief. Everything seemed just a bit off. She looked to the trophy case, squinting at the new trophy a moment. Snape himself turned slightly, noticing the halls looked much larger. The portraits that he had viewed not so long ago, were now newer looking, and different. He looked to Hermione who still looked a little pale and sighed deeply.

\"Sit,\" he said darkly, motioning for her to sit on the bench near them. When she was seated he looked to her seriously. \"I am going to see if I can find the Headmaster...if he is the Headmaster. You stay right here in case something goes wrong.\"

\"Yes sir.\"

\"Do not move from this suntiuntil I return.\"

\"Yes sir.\"

Snape gave Hermione a prim nod, then reached into his robes, pulling out a small vial of his mixture. \"This is in case I don\'t return.\" He gave it to Hermione detached, giving her an imploring look as she placed it into her robes. \"You need only a sip...as I said before.\"

Hermione looked to him with worry in her eyes, \"Why would anything go wrong?\"

\"I\'m not saying something will go wrong.\" Snape said with a dramatic rolling of his eyes. \"I\'m merely taking the necessary precautions.\"

\"But...but what if I don\'t know something went wrong and you don\'t come back? What if I get sent to Azkaban for violating codes...or what if you do? What if Voldemort-\"

\"Miss Granger?\"

\"Yes sir?\"

\"Do shut up.\" Snape finished with a raised eyebrow in warning. Hermione fell into a sudden silence, not watching him as he walked from her. All she heard was the soft almost inaudible sound of his shoes moving farther and farther from her, into the darkness of the hall.

Snape took one look over his shoulder, seeing the slumped frame of Hermione on the bench, looking beyond worried. He sighed to himself, resigning himself to the fact that he felt badly for her. The poor girl had been through much.

It was after a few minutes of walking out of the barely lit halls that something caught his attention, a large portrait near the library. Strange, there had never been one. Going closer to it, he saw that it resembled greatly, the infamous stern librarian, Madame Pince. A pit grew in Snape\'s stomach as he came to read the plaque below the portrait, something that he knew but didn\'t want to admit.

\"A good book is the precious life-blood
of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured
up on purpose to a life beyond life.\" - John Milton

Dedicated to the memory of Madam Irma Pince

\"Oh Lord.\" Snape gaped, re-reading the inscription over and over before a rustling sound acquired to his left.

\"Severus.\" cooed a giggling voice that was hauntingly familiar. Snape slowly turned, his heart beating unnaturally fast. Hermione came sauntering down the hall, giving him an even smile. Snape felt the compulsion to smile back but stopped...there was something strange about all of this. Did she just call him Severus?

\"I told you to wait at the bench.\" Snape snapped, looking to her irritably.

\"Have you found her?\" Hermione asked him as she approached, ignoring his words and looking quite different than when he remembered her last. Her robe was different he believed. Snape gave Hermione a calculating look before shaking his head brusquely at her inquiry...why would she call Dumbledore a she?

\"No, not yet.\"

\"She\'s always like this...from the day she was born.\" Hermione said with a flippant wave of her hands for emphasis, putting them on her hips at once. She shook her head in exasperation and then looked to Snape with a small grin. \"But of course, you knew that.\"

Snape gave Hermione a withering look before raising an eyebrow in supreme confusion. How would he knew what Albus had been like when born? Did she really think him to be that old? He frowned deeply, looking to her with suspicion.

\"Oh well.\" She said with a breezy shrug, \"Minerva\'ll find her I\'m sure. Nothing to be worried about. This isn\'t the first time it\'s happened.\"

Snape frowned deeply, the thin crease in the center of his eyebrows deepening at her words. What was she talking about? How couldn\'t she be worried? They were in some strange realm of time that even he didn\'t know about. And since when did she call the McGonagall Minerva?

\"My...you look different.\" Hermione suddenly said giggling, coming to place a soft kiss on his bottom lip. A jolt went through him at the contact of her soft lips on his own, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to kiss her back. His hands lay at his side as Snape instead watched her in shock, wondering just what had come over his student as she pulled away to look into his eyes once more.

\"You seem different.\"

\"Miss Granger-\" he started, only to be cut off by one of Hermione\'s fingers placed on his warm lips. From their close proximity he could tell she was wearing perfume...luring and tantalizing. Her finger was so soft on his lips, he could barely drag his eyes away from her face.

\"Not right now \'Professor\'.\" she said with a playful smile, winking at him with a grin. \"We\'ve got other priorities.\"

In a matter of moments her finger was replaced with her lips once more, a soft and sweet kiss. Before she could pull away from the gentle movement, Snape had grasped her shoulders in his hands and in a haze of perfume and lust he was kissing her back.

She was so delicious, her mouth seeming to know every crevice of his own. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, bringing his mouth more roughly against her oher her tongue snaking its way past his yearning lips. Soon his arms were around here, pulling her into the kiss more deeply. If she was tired before, she certainly wasn\'t now. She was kissing him back with vigor, wrapping a leg around his waist.

Suddenly Snape pulled back, looking to her with worry in his eyes. His lips were trembling from what he\'d just done and he stepped back in shock at himself. Kissing a student...Albus would have his head.

\"This can\'t go on Miss Granger.\" Snape said roughly, pulling away from Hermione\'s embrace slowly. He was so confused...why she hadn\'t protested, nor seemed inhibited. It was if she was acting like they snogged like mad all the bloody time.

\"Oh Severus,\" Hermione said rolling her eyes at him. \"Enough role playing, we have to find her or we\'ll never get back to bed, as you so obviously are eager to be.\"

At the word \'bed\' one of her dark eyebrows lifted in quite a suggestive manner before falling back down. She grasped his hand in her own and was about to lead the way down the hall when Snape pulled back as if he\'d been burned. He was getting rather angry at her now for undermining his authority, and she didn\'t even seem to care.

\"Listen you foolish girl.\" Snape snapped, \"I don\'t have time for your idiotic tendencies. We came here to do a job, you know that. We can\'t be cavorting around here...for more reasons than you\'ll ever grasp in that tiny head of yours.\"

\"Severus.\" Hermione said sternly, her hands on her hips as she fixed him with an even glare. He saw there was a sudden gloss to her dark eyes and he wondered if he\'d been too harsh, when she suddenly spoke, taking him aback.

\"That is no way to talk to your wife.\"

* * *

\"I\'ll be right back Miss Granger.\" Hermione muttered to herself, still standing in the middle of the foyer. Snape had been gone a good half hour now, and she was becoming more than irritated. He should have been back with the Headmaster by now.

She stood suddenly, slowly making her way over to the display case where the new trophy sat. Why hadn\'t she ever noticed it before? Even being a bookworm, she knew when the school had new trophies...perhaps they\'d just been polished? She watched her reflex ion in the glass as she walked over to the trophy, her eyes widening as she came closer.

Before Hermione could read the inscription on the trophy, there was a small scraping sound in one of the darkened hallways leading to the foyer. Remembering her horrid ordeal with the Basilisk she felt her heart leap into her throat.

Calm down...calm down...you\'re fine. Snape\'ll be back soon. Calm down. It\'s nothing. Just the wind.

Hermione put her back to a wall, looking at the openings around her, listening to the hollow echoing of the various tunnel like hallways leading out of and into where she stood. There, everything was fine. Nothing to wor-

\"Mummy?\"

Hermione gasped and turned slightly at the small voice, and looked down in surprise. There stood a small girl, really still a baby in Hermione\'s eyes, she couldn\'t be more than four or five with reddened cheeks and a tearstained face. Her large dark eyes shone up at Hermione with trust and she smiled broadly, showing an expanse of small, perfectly straight teeth. She also had a large mop of curly, dark brown hair. Hermione was perplexed to see her roaming the halls. Was Dumbledore having guests or something?

\"I got lost. I\'m sorry.\" continued the small child, holding her short arms up then, waving them wildly and moving to step on tiptoes as if expecting to be picked up by Hermione immediately. Hermione gave her a puzzled look and stepped back slightly, surveying the small creature with a bit of alarm.

\"Oh, I think you\'re confused.\" Hermione said sweetly, looking at the girl with a small smile. \"I\'m not your Mum...do you-\"

Before Hermione could offer her services in finding the child\'s mother, the small child promptly sat on her bottom roughly, threw her head back and began to heave her chest. Hermione\'s eyes widened, for her limited experience with babysitting had taught her that a move like that meant only one thing; a tantrum.

\"Shhhhhhhhh.\" Hermione tried frantically, coming to sit next to the sputtering young girl in a rush. If the baby started wailing they\'d surely be caught. Snape would never forgive her. Why wasn\'t he back yet? Tentatively she reached out an arm, drawing the babe into her arms and onto her lap. \"Don\'t cry...you\'ll be okay. Shhhhh.\"

She rocked the small figure in her arms a minute or so as the heavy breathing subsided along with that ugly red coloring in her cheeks. Instead the baby now looked drowsy, coming to rest her head against Hermione\'s shoulder as she rocked her.

\"That\'s better.\" Hermione said, heaving a sigh of relief as she stood with the small baby still in her arms. If Snape wasn\'t going to come to her, she was going to have to go to him. She looked down at the groggy child in her arms and smiled softly.

\"What\'s your name?\" she asked the child softly, not wanting to alarm it. Large deep brown eyes turned skyward into Hermione\'s face, still she looked tired as she smiled widely up at her transport.

\"Jane.\" she offered with a yawn, wrapping her sticky hands around Hermione\'s neck as the girl continued with a soft, child like giggle. \"You know my name, Mummy.\"

Hermione bit her lip, refusing to alarm the child further as she set off down the hall. She must look like this Jane\'s mother an awful lot to have the poor child so confused. She was about to round the corner when she viewed Snape\'s tall figure making his way down the hall. Relief flooded her body...he was back.

Hermione squinted at his approaching figure, finding that something looked different about him, although she couldn\'t quite place it. It was something about his hair...still the same length, but different.

\"I was so worried.\" she exclaimed to him before giving it a second thought. The moment the words left her mouth she blushed, finding that the comment was quite unnatural to be given to him of all people.

As Snape came closer, she saw he was giving her a broad smile. That was uncharacteristic enough to have her almost drop the increasingly heavy child in her arms. My he was handsome when he smiled like that. Confused, she gave him a soft smile back and waited for him to approach her. When he did she found that he did indeed look different, why he had a streak of white hair on either side of his dark head...had she just not noticed it before now? They looked like little white, lightning bolts.

\"So you found her.\" He said softly, looking to Hermione with a charming smile. Hermione couldn\'t answer, but as it turned out that was the best course of action, for Jane was stirring at the sound of Snape\'s voice, and had craned her small head to see him.

\"Daddy!\" She squealed, squirming in Hermione\'s arms. Hermione watched in dull shock as Snape held his arms out, almost as if waiting for Hermione to give him the baby. How confusing. What would Snape want with a baby? Still, he seemed to know what he was doing. Hermione deftly placed Jane into Snape\'s arms, seeing as he gave the small girl a severe look reserved especially for first years at the welcoming feast.

\"You snuck away again.\" he said darkly, looking to Jane evenly. Jane looked to her fingers, listening the words her father was speaking lowly. She pouted slightly, much to Hermione\'s amusement.

\"You scared Mummy.\"

At this Snape gave Hermione a surreptitious wink before looking back to Jane. Hermione felt unsettled with the motion, wanting nothing more than for the normal Snape to come out. What was going on here? How did he know this baby?

\"What do you say?\" Snape finished roughly, looking to Jane with a no nonsense look on his face. Jane didn\'t cry though, instead opting to rub her eyes as if she had been and pouting her small lips dramatically.

\"I\'m sorry Mummy.\" Jane finally said, turning to face Hermione this time. Hermione\'s heart caught in her throat, and she made a horrid, cringing face. Snape looked to Hermione in question, wondering why she wasn\'t answering.

\"Hermione.\" Snape said surprised as a few minutes passed, giving her a surprised smirk. \"Don\'t tease her.\"

\"What do you want me to say?\" Hermione asked irritated and confused, looking to Snape with a worried look in her dark eyes. Why was he acting like this towards her? It wasn\'t her baby. \"I don\'t even know who she is.\"

Jane\'s dark eyes suddenly filled with tears and she buried her face into Snape\'s neck. Snape began rocking the baby, soothing it with a small kiss to her fevered forehead as Hermione watched in shock. Snape gave her a small, perturbed look that chilled her along with his words.

\"That\'s not funny Hermione. You’re scaring her.\"

“What’s not funny?” Hermione demanded, looking to him frantically as he rocked baby Jane in his arms. “I’ve never seen her before in my life! Neither have you!”

“Just stop it.” Snape interrupted, giving her a look that could only mean he was supremely disappointed in her. She was surprised to see that he wasn’t yelling at her, but at this point everything was surprising. Snape, Jane, Filch…everything. Since when did he call her by her first name?

“Hermione I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I’ve never seen you like this!” Hermione sputtered, giving Snape an even look. She suddenly got ferocious chills, as if she was witnessing something she wasn’t supposed to be. Fine hairs all over her body began to spring up in tense fear, and her face blanched. She began to tremble and searched for a wall behind her to steady herself.

“I don’t know what to do…everything is so strange.”

Snape looked at Hermione with a confused look in his eyes, glancing at her up and down in perplexity at her words and actions. When Snape spoke, he didn\'t see the sudden panic that flashed into Hermione\'s eyes. In fact it was only after the words were spoken that he panicked for Hermione had fallen into a dead faint.

\"Hermione, how could you say those things about our daughter?\"
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Author\'s notes: I never make it easy, do I?
Well obviously inspiration hit me for a while, so I hope you enjoy my updates. A special cheer and thanks for all those who reviewed. cheers. holden.