Time lost. ...EPILOGUE UP!

I just want to say thank you all for your lovely reviews. It's hard to believe I started writing this fic almost 10 days ago. I think I am breaking some record here.

Sureves, kalderas, angel and everyone else who has been there in the beginning.... Thanks for your thoughts and opinions, I love them.


To everyone else who is reviewing more recently, Thank you and I am so happy you find the fic amazing. I love writing it.. IT will be long, never fear.. I see nothing but opportunity now.

Thanks for putting up with my sticky grammar.


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Severus choked on his pumpkin juice. Certain that he was hearing things he coughed and wiped his mouth as the newest Hogwarts student made her way up to the podium.

A bushy-haired petite girl with dark brown eyes and a narrow sharp nose made her way confidently up to the chair. The sorting hat sat upon her head and hemmed and hawed internally in debate with the young girl.

Only a slight betrayal of nervousness showed before the hat yelled. “Gryffindor!” Hermione grinned happily and flounced to join her other classmates.


Snape had spent the last few years in purgatory over a certain Gryffindor and he could not help but stare at the child longer. The young girl was happy, carefree and probably as brainless as the rest of them. Snape decided that it was impossible that this was a relation to the young girl of his past.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to research the girls past. Maybe a cousin? With the same last name. And bushy hair. Dumbledore had to be told. Certainly. Something wasn’t right here and it wasn’t the damned pumpkin juice either.

“Gryffindor!” The hat cried again and this time silence fell over the Great Hall for a moment before everyone erupted into cheers. Harry Potter had been given his house.

The bane of Severus’s existence was now in Gryffindor as well. Severus never realized the toll of that Oath that Hermione had requested of him that day.

Who could have predicted the importance of such a family? The Potters were legendary, as were their deaths. Their only son, escaped the Killing curse as an infant and sent Voldemort into permanent death or hiding.

Of course, it made Harry famous, that scar was legendary. However, no one knew the truth. Except Dumbledore and himself. The real hero died thirteen years ago in the Room of Requirement. And it was Severus’s fault.

The thought of Hermione had long since dried up any tears and left only a barrage of questions and hollow pain in its wake.

He failed Lily Potter as well. Yes, Lily had married that bumbling fool and then Snape had to watch them die, despite his best efforts. Why Lily Potter? The oath still held him to Harry but regardless since Voldemort was dead, no one was in any danger now and he could relax his guard. Except now, it was clear that Hermione was a seer or she coincidentally, choose someone who would later prove to be extremely important.

Severus did not believe in coincidence.

Late that night Severus went to Dumbledore for potential answers.

“Higgly piggle puffs.” The gargoyle leapt aside at the Potion Masters silky tone.

Dumbledore looked up at Snape and smiled. “ To what do I owe the pleasure Professor Snape?”

“ Something… about the new students.” Snape swept over to him, robes billowing behind him. “Hermione Granger?”

“ Ah yes, the Muggleborn.”

Severus Snape felt like his chest was threatening to cave in suddenly. “ Muggle….”

Dumbledore nodded to him and peeked at him from behind the spectacles. “ Yes, I believe her parents are Muggle Dentists.

Severus found his voice after a moment. “ Sir, do you believe it may be…?”

Dumbledore sighed and motioned for Severus to sit down. “ Even if it were her, which I am not certain of entirely, she obviously is too young for it to make a difference. Interestingly enough, she is of the same year as Harry Potter. Someone who you are sworn to protect. Coincidence? Perhaps, however… what is more predictable is that she somehow came to your time in her… sixth year? She was older, correct?”

Severus felt wooden and he snarled. “ Yes, I didn’t sleep with a damned child. She was sixteen I believe. As was I.. I might add.” His tone was acerbic.

Dumbledore smiled patiently at the tone. He knew that Severus was in a great deal of pain from this realization. “ Something that would have extinguished all hope for Voldemort’s demise, like the birth of Harry Potter never happening, could give a young woman cause to try to right things. Unfortunately Ms. Granger never made it back. Tragically she died in doing this noble thing.”

Severus could feel his hands slipping up to his greasy locks and clutched them in frustration.

“Severus! You must not give a hint of your feelings for this girl to her. It is of the up most imperative that you allow her natural course to be discovered. The entire wizarding world is dependent on it. If she does not persuade you to the Oath then Harry Potter may never have been born. How many times did you save their lives as a Death Eater? Twenty, twenty-two?”

Severus rasped. “Twenty-four, and each time it was for her. A damned child! Playing at her feelings! Manipulating me!!”

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “ No Severus, in all likelihood, everything Hermione Granger felt for you was real, thus the tragedy of all this.”

“Severus….”

Snape did not respond, his lanky form sprawled comfortably in the chair. His dark greasy hair hung about a face that was once meagerly handsome, with its long nose and dark eyes and pale flesh. His years as a Death Eater had not been kind to him. The only charming features left to him were his sensuous lips and his hard body that he toned regularly. He would be damned if he was going to laze up like those other soft wizards. Everything’s same and sound, pop out a few kids, watch Quidditch all day long drinking fire-whiskey.

No, not for Severus. He was still a lean, mean and snarky wizard capable of taking on the world, except he couldn’t handle this one, bushy haired problem. An eleven year old girl.
Who may or may not be his ex lover. All though, everything added up.

“Severus… You must not reveal who you are to her. You must not change the events for her.” Dumbledore’s words floated back to him.

“ Oh yes, old man. Let’s not save a young girl from her sacrifice to save a despot like me.” Severus growled and stood up suddenly.

“ Your machinations and manipulations of these children makes me sick, ALBUS. For example, the Potter boy… what plans do you have for him? How many people will you sacrifice?” Severus slammed his fist on the desk.

Dumbledore rose up to meet Severus’s grief stricken gaze. “ My old friend, you are not yourself today. Promise me… At least not until she is of age then. If then, you can do so. Please swear a wizard’s oath to me, son.”

Severus sneers and pulls back from him. “ NO! I wont. No more oath’s. Not to you, not to her. You will have to trust me old man. Yes, I rather like that. Trust your old Death Eater pet.”

Severus’s eyes darken with a malicious smile. “ Don’t worry Albus, I am not into pedophilia anyway.” Severus swept from the room in a cloud of black robes.

Albus stared at the small globe penseive that rested in his robe pocket. Albus sighed in relief that he had managed to glimpse inside before Severus’s visit. The penseive was delivered just that afternoon with instructions.

Hermione Granger was after all the cleverest witch of her age.

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