Beta Love: Checkers of my brain, The Dragon and the Rose; Dutchgirl01 and Flyby Commander Shepard (poor guy had the flu, send him light soups and game controllers!)

[Summary]: [HG/SS] Something haunts the Shrieking Shack, and it isn't Remus Lupin. Gaping holes in Hermione's memories signal a hunt for the ultimate reason of why she can't remember such a big chunk of her past. [AU]

Rating: M (Citrus warning)

A/N: My brain is currently on holiday. Sorry. I've been getting odd reviews stating that I change things without it being AU. Um, all of my stories are AU because Snape lives. That being said, I like to bring in canon things to bring a little what-if into my stories, but that doesn't mean I stay with it. If everything was canon, I wouldn't have to write at all. We'd all be happy reading JKR's stuff (not that we aren't, but we still write fanfiction.)

Warnings: Manipulative!Dumbledore, Intelligent/Friend!Draco, Alive!Snape, Git/Manipulated!Ron, you get the idea

A/N: Back to school in a week. Once I'm back in clinical, I won't be updating much or able to work on stories. Very sorry. Real life and all that. *whimper*

A Ghostly Affair

Chapter 1 : Riddle of the Sphinx

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen. Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"What are you doing, Granger? Sitting there by the window as though the past will change when you know it will not?"

"Professor?" Hermione jolted awake, her head falling out from her cupped hands.

Hermione winced.

It had been almost two years since the end of the Second Wizarding War—two years of countless suitors who all wanted to claim the ultimate trophy wife, the 'Brightest Witch of Her Age' for one reason or another. The thing was, she wasn't bloody looking, thank you very much.

The only one she tolerated visiting her, here at the Granger holiday cottage in Cornwall, was Viktor Krum. While they were very close, Viktor being a far better friend than she had ever known growing up, they both knew that Viktor was still seeking "the one." It hadn't stopped them from spending time together, sharing both thoughts and intimacy, but it was a safe, comfortable sort of relationship. The love they had was special, but not one that could last for a lifetime and they both knew it.

Viktor was still looking for that special witch who could make everything else fade away into nothing. Hermione was still grieving for the one man she'd lost before it had ever even begun: Severus Snape. Only Viktor understood truly understood how she had felt about the late potions master. Harry, despite doing all that he could to clear Snape's name and reputation with the wizarding public, couldn't fathom the notion of his best female friend with—him.

Severus Snape was dead, but Harry and Ron still regarded him with the same instinctive, knee-jerk reaction of disgust and loathing that they had had to him ever since they had been his students. It was one thing to be aware that the man had done some amazingly brave things in the face of constant danger, but it was another thing entirely to imagine their Hermione having a soft spot for the intimidating dark wizard. Hermione, however, had always sensed that there was far more to Professor Snape than had met the eye. She had suspected that he wasn't what he seemed to be ever since she had discovered the Potions master had been actually fighting to counter the curse that Quirrellmort had placed on Harry's broom.

She had tried so hard to decipher the man, but he had always proven so very enigmatic and elusive, at least until—

"If you value your lives, you will take this Miss Granger. You will memorise it thoroughly, just like you memorise everything else. Then, you will destroy it."

"P—professor?" She held the small, leather-bound journal.

"Memorise and destroy it, Miss Granger," he said, his dark eyes stern and fathomless. "There will not be a second time."

She tucked it into her pocket, nodding silently. "Yes, sir. I will, sir."

Snape's lip curled. "See that you do, Miss Granger."

He pulled out his wand and touched it to his temple. "Obliviate."

His eyes glazed over and he shook his head. Suddenly, anger filled his eyes as he glowered down at her. "What are you staring at, Miss Granger?"

"I—I'm sorry, sir!" she stammered, excusing herself, hurrying to make it back to Gryffindor tower before curfew.

The small journal had long since been destroyed, but Hermione knew every single page by heart. She knew every slash of his handwriting, every ink splotch, and every single spell. Disillusionment, wards, wards on top of wards, shielding the mind during torture—she had memorised it all, and oddly, it came to her easily as though she had been doing it all her life. The information in that journal had saved their lives on more occasions than she could count.

This spell will shield your personal living space from all who are not attuned to it. None will know it is there, neither magical nor Muggle. Be sure to attune it to yourself, or you will lose your way home.

She had used it, and it had kept them safe, at least until they happened to step outside the boundaries. Then, Harry had impulsively used Voldemort's tabooed name—and no amount of spells could have warded against that. She had used spells to dull the pain of Bellatrix' torture. She had used others to harden her resolve when her emotions were getting the better of her. And, most of all, she had used her newfound knowledge to cloak the help that Professor Snape had given her, blanking the information out of her mind and replacing his face with Headmaster Dumbledore's—but she knew the truth of it.

It was a truth that no one else knew, and after Professor Snape had died, all hope of her one day knowing why he had helped them had died along with him. She could only presume that somehow Professor Snape had decided that the best way to help Harry Potter was to educate his rather more diligent friend. And his perspicacious gamble had worked, after all.

What neither of them had counted on was that Hermione would've become so drawn to him while doing such an intimate study of his magic and his notes. She knew his handwriting very well—every curve and every jagged, spidery edge. She knew his moods from the style of his writing, and she knew—felt—his hidden wells of pain.

The journal had been a doorway, his writings the key, and she his precise instrument of vengeance. Of that, she had little doubt. Perhaps, he had never expected to survive, and she had been his only hope of accomplishing something he could not: keeping Harry Potter alive until he could fulfil his destiny.

Now that the war was over, at least on paper, Hermione had settled into her family's summer cottage in Cornwall—the sole remainder she had of her dead parents. No amount of Obliviating and memory charms could have saved them. Someone had evidently seen something and tipped the Death Eaters off. All of the passengers inside the plane to Australia, including her parents, had been killed in a fiery crash only minutes from the runway.

Muggle investigators had eventually deemed the plane crash to be just another tragic accident. Hermione, however, knew better.

You have a rat in your midst, Miss Granger. Trust no one in this war. No one but yourself. Even your professed allies have loose lips.

She should have believed, but in her paranoia to make sure everything was pre-approved and that she would be able to come back and reverse the memory charm one day, she had done exactly what Professor Snape had warned her not to do: she had trusted someone other than herself. She had paid very dearly for her naive trust. It had been the flames of her rebirth from Hermione-the-Naive-Schoolgirl to Hermione-the-Warrior.

It had been Hermione-the-Warrior who had kept Harry and Ron alive, despite the two boys' best efforts to get them all killed. It had been she who had Obliviated Dolohov and countless other Death Eaters. She'd also buried the bodies of all those who got too close to them—that was something neither Harry nor Ronald had ever suspected. Had they have even guessed, perhaps Ron wouldn't have run off his spiteful mouth and left them alone in the woods. Perhaps, instead, he would have grabbed Harry and made a run for it.

Why? Oh, no particular reason…

Hermione hopped down off the chair and walked out the front door of her cottage. She immediately fell onto all fours, setting free the magic that Professor McGonagall had carefully drilled into her, day in and day out, until it was every bit as natural as breathing for her.

She yawned toothily, her profusion of bushy hair seeming even more like a lion's mane than usual. Golden claws stretched out from tawny paws. Black padded feet thumped onto the ground, and a long, leonine tail swished proudly back and forth. Her pointed, tufted ears angled up out of her curly mane, and her human face had a few rather—predatory changes. A mouth full of wickedly sharp, feline teeth and a raspy sandpaper tongue, for example, were among the more obvious physical changes. But Hermione's face, mostly, was just the same as the one she'd known all her life. She was a sphinx.

She had stopped wondering why the great sphinx of Egypt was so huge. She was huge. She was quite a gargantuan specimen of sphinx-hood, and she hungered for knowledge even more as this rather rare example of magical predator. She found the uneducated and willfully ignorant to be violently distasteful to her.

Quite often, fatally so.

She had torn perhaps twenty or so Snatchers to bloody screaming shreds with nothing other the tools of a master predator. They could not hope to answer her riddles. They paid for their ignorance with their pitiful lives.

Minerva had said the majority of Animagi became some normal, mundane species of animal—those few that weren't were quickly whisked away into service by the Unspeakables for various jobs that required a very special touch. They were kept off the formal registry in exchange for an agreement to perform whatever specialised job they were to be assigned.

Hermione's job?

She guarded the very deepest vaults in the Department of Mysteries—ensuring that the tragedies such as the incident when Harry had broken in to "save" his godfather, Sirius Black, only to see him tumble through the Veil of Death, no thanks to the late, unlamented Bellatrix Lestrange. She wasn't the only one, thankfully, but her fellow rare Animagi took the job in shifts. She was paid very, very well: half in ancient tomes that she gleefully hoarded and half in an exceptionally generous amount of galleons that kept her human life most comfortable, indeed. She split her time evenly between guard duties and her work as the Ministry's top warding specialist. No one seemed to realise just how she had become so versed in creating high-level security wards as such a young witch. Whenever she was guarding in the vaults, she worked with her friend and partner, one Augustine Flamescale, who was a rather impressive Hungarian Horntail, if she didn't say so herself.

What was even more "out there" was her slow incorporation of various Muggle forms of protection, seamlessly blended with magic to prevent easy work-arounds. That was her specialty: techno-magery. At least that is what Kingsley had dubbed it.

She had just enough knowledge of the Muggle and the magical to make it her very own type of magic. It was the sort of thing that the most hard-core of traditionalists had no idea whatsoever how to counter. It was also the kind of thing sphinxes really couldn't get enough of.

Sphinxes loved traps—be they mental or physical. Traps were just another type of riddle, as far as a sphinx was concerned. And Hermione was no exception to the species. Animagus she may be, but the form was, as Minerva had explained, her true shape: the ultimate physical manifestation of her innermost self.

The greatest mystery of all, however, remained just why Professor Snape had deigned to help her. Hermione always had been a sucker for mysteries.

Professor Snape was one big enigma wrapped up in heavy ebony wrapping paper with elegant silver ribbons and a velvety green bow perched on top. He was the most appealing mystery that she had ever encountered—both then and now. His death had only heightened that craving, the desperate need to know. It was a craving that seemed to be rapidly taking over her life.

Hermione set forth digging herself a brand-new lagoon—quite literally with her own paws and claws. Huge piles of earth were flying in all directions, even displacing a rather teed-off ground squirrel.

Oops, sorry little friend.

Magic would take care of the rest, but she really needed to DO something physical to get her mind off things. Being a sphinx made her a little mentally OCD. She tended to get… fixated. Thankfully, there were no neighbours to call in the local special forces unit, the police, Scotland Yard, a military air strike, or Merlin-only-knew what else. That was the really nice thing about living where she was. The powerful wards she had constructed did all the rest. Cornwall was not a Wizarding-only community, so she did her best to keep up appearances, paying the electric bill, taxes, shopping at the local grocery, and whatever. For the most part, though, they left her in peace—which was just the way she liked it.

She had constructed a solar panel array the envy of green-living enthusiasts everywhere, and had surreptitiously joined it with her magical warding net, and had even enticed a rather lovely ley line to come plunk itself down smack in the middle of her acreage. It wasn't even really that hard. As it happened, ley lines spoke fluent sphinx. Who knew?

Her house had started to become almost… sentient, much like Hogwarts herself, and there was something pleasingly familiar and reassuring about that. Chairs would appear precisely where she needed them, rugs would straighten themselves out, and doors would obligingly open for her whenever her arms were loaded down with groceries. Really, did she even need anything more than that?

Well, that and the fully-stocked library of her dreams. And she was really working hard on building exactly that.

After a few hours of digging, she noticed that river stones and sand were already rolling in to create a lining for her lagoon, without her even having to ask, and she silently thanked the ley line for always looking out for her. A rather dashing pair of male and female date palm trees popped out of nothingness, casting the perfect amount of shade in all the right places.

Well, now. Didn't she seem quite the proper sphinx? She even had dates to snack on. Excellent.

She rolled over onto her back, her hind leg scratching at an itch and her tail lazily swishing back and forth in the sand. It was definitely starting to feel like home.

"Whooooooo."

Her ear twitched in annoyance.

There was a rather plump-looking barred owl perched on one of her new date palms, watching her.

Hermione sighed, the sound coming out distinctly more like a leonine growl. Owls were never, well, rarely ever good signs. Owls brought—mail. She didn't bother suppressing a shudder of distaste at the thought of still more unwanted mail.

"Whoooo."

Unfortunately, eating postal owls was generally frowned upon. Bother.

She stretched out her wings and rolled onto her back, shimmying back and forth to scratch herself in the warm sand. Ahh, much better.

Minerva had helped her enchant a set of wraps to follow her when she shifted into her Animagus form—seeing as sphinxes still looked very much like a woman in certain ways. It saved her from having to show up to work half-starkers and making all of her co-workers drop what they were holding and start doing the slow zombie walk towards her exposed mammaries. Merlin… was having large breasts that big of a deal?

Nah, don't even bother noticing the mouth full of sharp teeth, the claws, and the wing spurs, no. Just stand there gawking at my breasts. Really?

Then again, it had stunned plenty enough Death Eaters to make them ridiculously easy kills. At least the ones who appreciated the sight of a nice pair of breasts. She was convinced that more than a few of them were poofters and would have much preferred to ogle certain other types of equipment.

Another of her big secrets? Sphinxes had this unnerving desire to devour those who didn't, or couldn't, answer their riddles. You could only keep so many friends revealing that sort of thing. Needless to say, she had never told Harry, much less Ronald.

Kingsley had given her official permission to eat any interlopers who tried to break into the vaults. That must have been an very... interesting Wizengamot meeting. At least she wasn't like Augustine, who preferred to char roast and let his victims hang for a few days to " tenderise and properly season like a pheasant."

Her rear leg scratched the itch under her rather stylish and official Unspeakables collar. To prevent any awkward questions, she was registered as Kingsley's "familiar." Nobody had any desire to get near enough to question her about it. And she preferred it that way. She could come and go without ever being stopped at security. She could walk right in and flop down in the middle of Kingsley's office and stare at his guests without even a word of reprimand, much less being stopped.

Kingsley, she was pretty sure, was enjoying that immensely.

Kingsley would often pass her various odd tomes and other rare books as treats, and she snuggled up with them like a cat would with her most treasured plush toys.

After having taken out one of his door frames with her sheer bulk, his offices mysteriously replaced all his doors with wider and larger double doors. Not a word was said about it, almost as if they were afraid she might THINK they were trying to say she was becoming a wee bit "large."

That and there was also the matter of the ley lines.

They really, really liked her. A lot.

They would find her like stray cats and rub up against her, sharing their energy with her and following her around. Which is why the main leyline that had been beneath the Atrium when the Ministry building had first been built "had just left" and "showed up in Kingsley's office" one day. That particular incident had remained the main topic of discussion for several weeks afterward. Even more unnerving, energy would arch off of them into various shapes, and sometimes Hermione would be followed everywhere by a small pride of little energy sphinx-lets.

It was really hard to deny any responsibility when evidence shaped very much like yourself was happily playing around your paws.

And so her side-job, whenever she wasn't warding and performing various feats of techomagery, was ley-whispering. Sometimes you really wanted to build something and having a ley line smack in the middle of it making everyone around practically sing with static electricity was a very "bad thing." Nothing like trying to do a simple Lumos spell and getting a sun instead—

On the other hand, some people paid even MORE to have the ley line which sat so tantalizingly close to them come and visit their land. All of it required a veritable ton of paperwork, more so even than trying to take a loan out at Gringott's, thanks to, well, it being a ley line. They usually didn't just up and move—well, unless they happened to be following a sphinx.

Suddenly, the reason why the great pyramids and key places in Egypt always seemed to have leylines in major places became perfectly clear. They hadn't built the pyramids on top of the leys. The ley lines had come to them.

Once the paperwork was filled out, Hermione was dispatched, and she rolled around on the ground and made herself obvious to it. Sure enough, the leyline would creep ever closer and finally snap into place, happily sharing its energy with her and spawning many more sphinx-lets. She'd stay for a day or two to ensure the ley made itself at home in its new location and then shifted back into her human form. Otherwise, the ley would follow the sphinx and the whole process would start over again.

Was it any wonder that the ancient sphinxes a were given grand territories, the very finest in food and drink, access to untold knowledge, and were offered myriad other types of enticement to stay?

"Whooo."

Damn, the owl clearly wasn't inclined to leave anytime soon.

Hermione glared at the offending avian, but alas, it wasn't going anywhere. With a heavy sigh, Hermione rolled over onto her stomach, her tail sweeping in the sand as her feline tongue lolled against her sharp teeth.

"Whoooo." The owl seemed quite unimpressed.

"You might as well come down from there," Hermione said with a yawn. "I can't very well take whatever you're bringing if you don't come down to give it to me."

The owl stared at her, practically radiating suspicion.

"I won't eat you," Hermione said, her lip curling. "You have my solemn word."

That finally seemed to motivate the owl, and it flew down to land nearby. There was a scroll tied to its leg.

Hermione snagged her claw underneath the twine and tugged, releasing the scroll. How was it that a postal owl could find someone, anyone—even if they were a sphinx—anywhere in the world, but when it came to finding three errant children rampaging Hogwarts battling three-headed dogs and other horrors, they seemed utterly befuddled?

Sighing, Hermione tucked the scroll in a scroll case around her waist—one of the first things she and Minerva had enchanted to be remain on her whenever she initiated her transformation. Sphinxes didn't come preinstalled with convenient pockets, after all. This sphinx, however, was well-prepared. Kingsley had added a few things as well, such as the traditional nemes and uraeus of the ancient pharaohs. He'd even added a rather spectacular gemmed Usekh broad collar in the form of Tutankhamun's falcon that doubled as a protective shield for her upper body. There was a part of Hermione that found it utterly ironic that Kingsley had adorned her head with an Egyptian headdress and a serpent. The rest of her was even more amused that Kingsley had dressed her up as a pharaoh sphinx. Oh well—when in Egypt…

She really wanted to visit Egypt someday, but a part of her was worried she'd make some ley line friends that might choose to follow her home. The last thing she wanted was to steal away Egypt's ancient ley lines—that would be so embarrassing. She was pretty sure—well, almost positive—that she would have to be in sphinx form in order for that to happen, but there was also another concern. What if the sphinx loved it there and didn't want to leave? How would she explain her sudden desire to immigrate?

Oh, hello, I uh… feel really drawn to your country. Mind if I stay forever?

Sure, that would go over well.

Then again, if they found out why she wanted to stay, Wizarding Egypt might roll out the red carpet and build her a pyramid of her very own. That would defeat the entire "lying low" thing she currently was attempting to do.

Hermione padded up to her enlarged cottage door. She'd made that particular change first. Her parent's poor cottage was not built to accommodate a few tons of adult sphinx, or at least it hadn't been until she fixed it. Viktor had actually performed the charm on her door that caused it to automatically resize for her as she passed through it. Muggles would assume it was just an unusually large front door, and she didn't have to explain how or why it became even larger.

Truly, Viktor was such a sweetheart, and he was the ultimate friend. There were times when they both had pondered getting married—not because they actually wanted to get married but because it would make life so much easier for them, and eliminate the annoyance of having people constantly trying to marry them or marry them off all the time. Neither of them enjoyed the blatant public pressure to marry that had become the case shortly after the end of second Voldemort war. It had reached even those outside of Britain and came along with an increasingly blatant tendency to reward for those who went along with it. People who married, in order to encourage them to breed, got better perks. No one would actually admit that was the reason why the married wizards and witches were getting more days off along with other considerations, but Hermione wasn't an imbecile and neither was Viktor. It was the main reason Ronald wanted to hurry up, get married, and get busy—the married wizard got considerably more paid time off to spend with his family.

Hermione curled her lips back from her fangs. Ronald had no idea whatsoever just how close he had come to becoming sphinx-food. The last "conversation" she had the displeasure of experiencing with the stubborn redhead had been quite distasteful indeed.

"Come on, 'Mione! We'd be great together! Loads of people already think we belong together!"

"I don't belong with you, Ronald," Hermione had hissed. "I do not belong to you, either."

"Think of all the great benefits! A month of paid vacation, personal days for taking care of each other—"

"Ronald, I am not marrying you to be your ticket to better work benefits!"

"'Mione, everyone thinks we're already a done deal—"

"I don't think we are!"

"Mum thinks—"

"Ronald Bilius Weasley!" Hermione had blown up all over him at that point, and the conversation had ended with Hermione Disapparating three times in rapid succession in order to avoid being traced.

She'd discovered early on that Ronald had taken advantage of his Auror lessons on how to trace Apparation to raise his game to a whole new level of stalking. Fortunately, she was much better and faster at Apparating than he was at tracing, and after she had led him to a freezing mountain somewhere in Tibet, he'd given up on trying to chase after her, at least for the most part.

It had taken him a few long weeks of therapy at Mungo's to regenerate the skin on his hands, toes, arse, and bits from the ravages of severe frostbite. That had been a few weeks of sweet, blissful silence. Sadly, it had only been a few weeks.

The owl hitched a ride on her leonine back, clinging to her rump as she walked into the cottage. She guided it to the perch and bowl of owl-treats that she had in perpetual stasis for the ever-hungry postal owls. The owl was plainly sticking around, which could only mean one thing: it was waiting for a reply.

Hermione pulled the scroll out and used her teeth and claws to open it, refusing to transform herself just to open a piece of mail she didn't even want in the first place.

The Third Annual End of the War Celebratory Ball

Where: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

When: July 31st

Come and celebrate with us the end of the of the dark reign of terror that turned Wizarding Britain upside-down.

Witness the grand opening of the newly-rebuilt Hogwarts Library and the new memorial greenhouses!

Take a grand tour of the newly-rebuilt Hogwarts. Explore the new, joint common room. See the new dormitories! Meet the new baby hippogriffs! Enjoy a spectacular feast just like those in your student days in the newly-expanded Great Hall. Dance the night away in the new memorial ballroom. Learn about the new arrivals of the rare Sneezing Fanged Geranium! Boggle at the adorable purple boarhound puppies.

There will be games out on the greens, a job fair out in the courtyard, and so much more than dancing!

Door prizes include:

A rare tome of ancient charms, donated by the Malfoy family.

A rare fire opal focus, donated by the Greengrass family.

Packets of various rare garden seeds, guaranteed to grow plants that will actively protect your yard from annoying gnomes.

Kneazle-nip, owl-nuts, and more donated by Eeylops Emporium

Gift certificates for Ollivanders, for your budding little wizard or witch

Gift certificates for many of Diagon Alley's finest establishments —far too many to list!

The new Unmess Cauldron by Silver Cauldron Works —guaranteed to keep a lid on your worst potions explosions.

The new Nimbus 2003: War and Peace Edition —It hasn't even been released yet, folks!

Signed autographs and Quidditch memorabilia by the Holyhead Harpies, Falmouth Falcons, Kenmare Kestrels, Montrose Magpies, Pride of Portree, Caerphilly Catapults, and the Chudley Cannons.

Custom fittings from The Wand and Button so you can step out in style!

Muggle fashion consulting service for when you need to blend in and have no clue on where to start

Hermione practically stared a hole through the parchment. A rare tome from the Malfoys… hrm.

She felt her eye twitching. Curiosity ever lured the sphinx.

Draco had been feeding her tidbits from his parent's extensive library in an attempt to forge a lasting peace between them. It had worked, for the most part, but she did wonder if his parents were starting to notice a few telltale gaps in their private library.

Since Harry and Draco had been forced to suck it up and get over their mutual animosity in order to effectively work together at the Aurors' Office, the true Slytherin had tried to smooth over any lingering bad feelings by starting by making amends with Hermione. Truth be told, it wasn't exactly a terrible idea. It had worked. The only thing Draco hadn't counted on was the sheer grudge-holding ability of one Ronald Bilius Weasley. The boy, and Hermione struggled to see him as mature in any way, shape, or form, was never one for letting bygones be bygones. He had raged all over Harry for being a sucker for falling for such blatantly Slytherin tactics, and then had coldly informed Hermione she'd apparently forgotten who had always called her a Mudblood back in the day.

As if she could forget that any more than she could forget the incident when Ron had called her a "traitor" for going to a ball with the "enemy" also-known-as his erstwhile Quidditch hero, Viktor Krum.

The one thing she couldn't remember is why she had ever tolerated it to begin with. Why had she been so inexplicably attracted to Ronald? They were nothing alike and had absolutely nothing in common. She couldn't stand the boy for the bulk of her school career—So how in Merlin's goolies had her profound dislike turned to an obsession?

To be fair, there were a few ways in which he redeemed himself somewhat: trying to inflict the slug vomiting curse on Malfoy after he called her a Mudblood, for example. But such moments were far fewer than the times that all he could do was endlessly bitch about how she was always ruining his and Harry's fun by insisting they study and do their homework. Why then, had she run around wanting nothing more than to snog his face off up until the very day Dumbledore died—

No way. No way!

Hermione blew by the owl, practically knocking the startled avian off his perch, summoned her wand to her hand, and ran a scan over herself.

"There will always be someone better than you when it comes to certain spells. Even the most gifted witches and wizards know someone who is better at a particular spell than they are. The trick with memory charms is: it's not what you know. It's what you can't remember, though you should. Recognizing such blank spots is the first and most crucial key to knowing when to scan yourself for traces left from memory tampering. Even you, Miss Granger, can be taken for a fool."

Hermione glowered into the darkening room. Now she had a legitimate reason to go to the celebration. She had a date with a certain Headmaster's portrait to demand some straight answers, starting with why she had been memory charmed and magically fixated on a certain obnoxious toerag by the name of Ronald Bilius Weasley.

"Hey, Hermione," Harry called from the nearby table. He hooked the back of Hermione's collar with his finger. "You don't want to go that way."

Hermione felt her eyes sliding to the side to peer at Harry. "Do I even want to know?"

"I really don't want to have to arrest my best female friend for cursing my best male friend and coworker into a tapeworm."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Really, Harry? A tapeworm?"

Harry eyed her consideringly. "A flaming tapeworm."

Hermione sighed. "You have have me there."

Harry grinned. "Come on, have a sit with me. Ginny is off being a wildly popular Quidditch star, so I had to come stag tonight."

Hermione groaned, thunking her head against the table. "Harry—"

Harry snickered into his sleeve. "I couldn't resist."

"I swear to Merlin, teaching you how to be an Animagus was the worst thing I ever did," Hermione moaned.

"Worst thing I ever did, Hermione," Harry confessed. "If I'd known it would condemn me into carrying around a bloody huge rack of antlers and getting stuck in every space possible, I'd have thrown in the towel from the start."

"Your father was a stag," Hermione said.

"Does that make me more or less of an imbecile for expecting a different outcome?"

Hermione snorted. "You could have been a puffskein or—an Acromantula. Then Hagrid would want to cuddle you and follow you everywhere."

Harry looked panicked as his eyes went wide and his nostrils flared. "Gods no, please, just... no."

"Hamster?"

"No."

"A chupacabra, maybe?

"No!"

" Buffy-tufted marmoset?"

"Hermione!"

Hermione grinned at him rather evilly.

"Maybe an itty-bitty fruit bat?"

"Well, those are kind of cute—no! Damnit, Hermione!"

Hermione chuckled, passing him a glass of tea. "You could've also become a black ferret and gotten to run around with Draco as a perfectly balanced representation of Yin and Yang."

"Hermione, do you hate me?"

"Why, no, Harry, whyever would you ask such a thing?"

"This is for sending you the invitation for the ball, isn't it?"

Hermione stared narrowly into him, her eyes flashing a vivid amber colour for a second.

"It's totally not fair that you get to see the innermost sanctum of the Department of Mysteries, and all I ever get to see is the Aurory and occasionally Kingsley's office." Harry rubbed his fingers through his already messy black hair. "Ginny doesn't even let me meet her teammates before or after the game."

Hermione frowned darkly. "Harry, are you—" she trailed off, looking around, checking to see if anyone nearby might be listening. "Are you sure you and Ginny are working out okay? Viktor has taken me into the back to celebrate with the team countless times, and we're not even—engaged."

Harry got a rather strange look on his face, caught somewhere between pain and fear.

"You and Daphne always seem to get on pretty well," Hermione remarked casually.

"Hey, Granger," a tenor voice purred, slamming a jar down on the table. "I brought you a gift."

Hermione eyed the jar and smiled. "Malfoy, you're such a sweetheart. However did you know I've been wanting one of those for years?"

"Hmm, I'm quite good like that."

A panicked beetle ran in frantic circles within the jar.

"Funny thing is, I found it crawling across one of the classified filing cabinets in the Auror's office," Draco said, running his hand through his platinum blond hair. "Specifically, the one containing your records, Granger."

The beetle in the jar was now slamming itself against the lid of the jar in a desperate attempt to pop it up.

"I thought that was rather interesting, considering that we've had that rash of incidents with classified Ministry information being leaked to the media of late," Draco went on. "By the way, I've been absolutely dying to try out this new toy I got at the Wheezes. It's an explosive bug zapper. George marketed it to the Americans for their Fourth of July celebrations. The more bugs, the more intense fireworks you get. It's absolutely brilliant. Just think of what it could do in a bog," he added with clear relish.

Draco took out a small black box, opened the lid and plunked the jar down inside. He closed the lid and smiled. "Sensory-proof. She's probably going nutters right now."

"You know, Malfoy, there is a pretty substantial reward for apprehending a spy at the Ministry," Harry suggested.

"Oh, I think this extra-special treat goes to Granger, Potter," Draco said with a sniff of derision. "They have a—well established history of scorn, yes?"

"I know just what to do with this!" Hermione said, snatching up the box, planting a swift kiss on a startled Draco's forehead, and dashing off across the room.

Draco's eyes grew as wide as saucers.

Both wizards watched as Hermione smoothly went into a dance with the Minister for Magic, leaning into Kingsley just enough to whisper in his ear as they danced.

"Skeeter is so dead," Harry whispered, grinning madly.

Malfoy's eyes darted at him. "Yeah, trying for sympathy and coming up with nothing," he sniffed. "Not after she wrote that load of piss and drivel about my father having a secret lovechild with my dear, demented, and unlamented Auntie Bellatrix."

Harry watched, transfixed, as Kingsley slipped the small box into an inner pocket of his robes and gained a very disturbing glint in his dark eyes. With an elegant swirl, he dipped Hermione and pulled her up, placing a gentlemanly kiss on the back of her hand before gliding off to attend to his many other social and Ministry affairs.

Hermione returned, silent and smug, looking very much the feline that had not only eaten the canary but had eaten all of his friends as well.

"So, Granger," Draco said, eyeing her a bit nervously. "I figured you'd at least make the bint walk across burning lava a few times before giving her up."

Hermione gave a small, secretive, knowing smile. "Hrm, who's to say she doesn't think she's doing exactly that?"

Harry whistled. "And this is why you don't ever want to piss off Hermione."

"You only have to be punched in the face once to figure that out, Potter," Draco said with a derisive sniff.

"Can't say I've ever had the pleasure, Malfoy."

"I could slug you right now just so you don't feel left out, Scarhead," the blond offered with a smirk.

"No thanks, Ferret."

Harry's face twisted in thought. "Hermione, why is it that you taught me how to be an Animagus, but you've never once showed me what you turn into?"

Hermione arched a brow. "Do you think I actually need to be an Animagus to teach advanced Transfiguration?"

Harry frowned slightly. "I guess I just thought—"

Hermione eyed him, one slim eyebrow arched high.

"Don't ever assume, right," Harry said with a sigh. "It'd be nice to have something to help keep me from getting stuck between trees all the time. I don't have a bloody clue how the wild ones manage it."

"The wild ones who fail are probably eaten," Draco mused.

"Well, that's a rather depressing thought, thanks for that, Malfoy."

"Anytime, Potter," Draco responded with a small bow and a smirk.

Hermione just snorted, shaking her head.

"So, what was your big hurry to get up and see Professor McGonagall all about?" Harry asked, clearly curious.

Hermione's expression darkened. "I had a rather pressing question for Professor Dumbledore's portrait."

Harry straightened. "What kind of question?"

Hermione stared into her neglected glass of tea as if it held all the secrets of the universe.

"Hermione?"

"Granger," Draco said together with Harry.

"I asked him if he, well, Dumbledore, had ever used a memory charm on me," Hermione answered.

"And," Harry encouraged.

"And he flatly refused to answer me," Hermione growled. "Professor McGonagall had to command his portrait to answer my question truthfully."

"Wait, what?" Draco leaned in. "What—why—?"

"Apparently, my helping Harry was part of a great plan that he had set into motion from my very first year," Hermione said, her face completely devoid of affect. "So much so, that when Ron drove me to the point of running off crying to the Astronomy Tower, fully intending to throw myself off of it in the midst of my pain and suffering, Dumbledore realised that I needed a bit of "help" getting on board with his plan for me to take care of Harry and Ron, and not compromising the mission he had planned for us."

Hermione sipped her tea, staring through Harry. "He obliviated me of every single time that I had been hurt and suffering—every time Ron and I had gotten into an ugly row—so I would forget what I was upset and easily forgive him. Then, when it started getting more complicated, he implanted a fixation on him within me, so that I would crave and actually seek out his attentions. All so I would stay the third member of a trio that ultimately led to Harry walking out into the bloody forest… to die."

"It was all for the "greater good", Miss Granger," she spat, making air quotes with her fingers. "I am so very sorry."

"Anyway, when Dumbledore died, his spells began to unravel, and I started to remember bits and pieces and retain my earlier annoyance with Ronald," Hermione said. "It was only fairly recently that I started realising I had a few blank spots in my memories—some of which you noticed before, Malfoy. So I performed a scan on myself—a deeper one, a scan for something far more insidious. I'd been Obliviated, so I checked into the memory ward at St Mungo's, and it took them a few weeks to remove all the blocks that had been implanted into my mind. They cannot, however, release the memories. That, I must do with time and perseverance."

"Merlin, Hermione," Harry gasped, grasping her hand. "I'm so sorry! I didn't—How could I have—damnit!"

"I always wondered why you forgave Weasel so often and so easily," Draco admitted. "It seemed strange to me, but I had figured it was some crazy Gryffindor loyalty thing."

"Most of it is coming back, at least I think it is," Hermione admitted, "but there are still pieces missing in there I cannot explain, much less figure out. Pieces he completely removed from my mind with no intention of ever giving them back."

"Did you ask the portrait?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded. "Dumbledore's portrait-self doesn't know—it's like he deliberately left that part out when he was transferring memories to his portrait."

"Yet he was perfectly okay with admitting he had kept you from hating the Weasel?"

Hermione looked up. "Yes."

"What the hell could be so terrible about Dumbledore's mission that erasing your memories was considered to be perfectly acceptable?" Draco hissed, anger clear in his silver-grey eyes.

Hermione tilted her chin up. "I don't know, Draco. I really don't."

The three exchanged worried glances.

As a hundred some dancing partners came and went, or so Hermione believed, she was rapidly becoming incredibly tired. One after one, a veritable parade of "suitors" had come her way, eager to play a part in Malfoy's plan to make a furious Ron incriminate himself. Like sharks smelling blood in the water, all of the Slytherins came out of the woodwork, eager to prove that they hadn't lost touch with the manipulator within themselves.

Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Marcus Flint, and a host of others practically oozed satisfaction as they swept Hermione off her feet, if only as particularly desirable role in a play. They kept her just out of range of an increasingly red-faced Ron, who had been trying to make his move on her all night long.

Each Slytherin was extremely careful to place their hands in blatantly suggestive places as they danced by, enough to tweak Ron's temper just that little bit more. Hermione was not wholly innocent in the game, either. She blushed, and giggled, and batted her eyelashes in the manner of Lavender Brown. If she was going have a night out with so many suitors, she was going to make a proper show of it.

Finally, as the music began to slow down, and the final song was starting to begin, Draco swept in, tapping Marcus on the shoulder and giving him a courtly bow. He took Hermione's hands and spun her into an intricate waltz, making use of the entire dance floor to elegantly glide Hermione across it. He held her close, then twirled, and then he dipped, leaning over her but a tiny fraction away from her face with an incredibly smug grin on his handsome face.

"I would, you know," Draco whispered.

Hermione looked into his silver eyes with a sad expression.

"I would marry you, even if it was just to keep Weaselbee from meeting a very messy end at your hands, you know," he told her with a slight downturn of his lips.

"I really appreciate that, Malfoy," Hermione replied, twisting her face to look blissfully happy to any curious onlookers, "but we both know your parents would not handle such a thing very well. Even as a mercy marriage."

Draco gently pressed his lips to her ear, "I wouldn't care."

Oh, how far they had come. Now, nearly a decade since she'd socked him in the face, they had somehow become friends—good enough friends that he would willingly bind himself to her to save her from a fate arguably worse than death. They were friends enough that he'd risk being disowned by his parents for her sake, even if she didn't truly love him in the ways even he deserved.

She realised, in that moment of truth, that Draco deserved better than to be strung along in a marriage of mercy. He deserved to be happy with someone who saw him as their earth and sky. He, like Viktor, was still searching for the one, and that one was not her.

"I know, Draco," she replied, using his given name for the first time in a rare moment of solidarity. "And I truly love you for it, but I won't. I cannot."

"Stubborn, foolish Gryffindor," Draco breathed softly into her ear.

"Self-serving, manipulative Slytherin," she replied, a small, sad smile on her face.

He fell to one knee an instant after the music stopped. A low murmur and an expectant hush came over everyone around.

"Hermione Jean Granger," Draco spoke up loud and clear. "I have loved you since the day you punched me in the face in our third year. Will you be my wife and help me raise the name of Malfoy to the stars?"

Hermione's face softened.

"You sodding Slytherin git!" Ronald roared as he pushed his way through the crowd. "You get your slimy, scaly paws off my 'Mione! Like she'd ever marry some bloody evil git like you. Fucking Death Eater!"

Check.

"Name calling, is it?" Draco purred, standing up and gently placing Hermione behind him. "She's a free witch. I see no ring on her third left. She has the right to choose, and I have the right to ask. Even if she says no, we will still be mates, Weaselbee. That must chafe you like a pair of sandpaper underpants, ay?"

"'Ey now, what's goin' on 'ere?" Hagrid bellowed loudly, trudging into the middle of the fray without caring overmuch what was going on. He grabbed for Draco, thinking that the blond wizard was somehow hurting Hermione.

As soon as Draco wasn't there to stop it, Ron grabbed Hermione by the wrist and yanked her to his side. "Come on, 'Mione! We're getting married like we should have after the war was over and putting an end to this bloody farce. Let's go right now!"

"Wait, wha—unhand me, Ron!" Hermione yelled, attempting to jerk herself away from the offending redhead.

Ron made a strange face and let her go, but it was only to grasp her again, "Come on, 'Mione!"

"Let go of me this instant, Ronald!"

"Hey, let the lady go," someone said nearby.

Draco was there in a flash, crushing Ron's wrist with his hand, forcing his tendons to shift and release her. "Let. Her. Go. Weasel," the blond wizard snarled lowly.

And then suddenly, everything changed.

Ron's face grew dark. "Dumbledore promised me success. He said that as long as Hermione and I were together, Harry would win, and he did, didn't he? So, I want what's mine! I want what I was promised, I bloody well earned it! It's not like anyone else wanted the bint! Harry was too interested in Cho Chang, and Ginny had to use all sorts of charms just to get him interested in her, and even then he wouldn't have cared about Hermione. She's just a lowly Muggleborn! Hell, I'm doing her a bloody favour!"

"Whu—WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" Molly's voice screeched shrilly from somewhere in the crowd.

Ron stormed towards Hermione again, rubbing his wrist where Draco had practically crushed it. Hermione was still frozen from the shock of what she had just learned and looked on dazedly. Harry and Draco were trying to intercept. Hagrid came wading in, bellowing something like, "You best never talk about 'Ermione like that!"

And then the room came alive with jinxes, curses, hexes, and protective shields. The chandelier in the ballroom came crashing down, pinning Hagrid to the flagstone floor. Aurors were rushing into the room like a swarm of angry bees. Kingsley swept Hermione up in his arms as he moved her out of the ballroom to safety.

Hermione—half in shock and half in rage, was beginning to convulse.

"No, Hermione," Kingsley grunted, pushing her out as the battle of the ballroom started to reach critical mass. "This is absolutely not the place you want to have your sphinx coming out party," he gently whispered into her ear.

Hermione's eyes were dilated, her breaths coming in short gasps, but she nodded to Kingsley, fighting hard to clamp down on her control. Her eyes tracked various people as they dove for cover and others who tried to tackle Ron. The enraged redhead's eyes were crazy, flashing with some strange, suppressed anger.

Kingsley, pressing his hands against her changing paws, looked her in the eyes. "Easy now, we'll take care of him and find out what is going on. Go take a flight, love."

Hermione stared at him, conflicted. She winced, her fangs showing as her ears took on a more pointed, tufted appearance. But as she met Kingsley's gaze, meeting with his calm, warm, always compassionate energy, her breathing started to ease.

"I promise you," Shacklebolt vowed, "I will get to the bottom of this."

There was a very loud crash from the vicinity of the Great Hall.

"Well, if there is anything left of Weasley to question," Kingsley added with a wolfish smile.

Hermione let out a half-snort.

"Go find yourself a nice ley line to roll around with, hrm? That always makes you feel better."

Hermione's eyes softened, and she relaxed at last. "Thanks, Kings."

"Anytime, love," he said. "Just looking out for the best office guardian a wizard could ever ask for."

Hermione laughed, laying her head against his broad chest for a moment. "You're insufferable."

"And ruggedly handsome," Kingsley added with a cheeky wink.

"Incorrigible."

Kingsley grinned. "Minister Incorrigible to you, madam."

Hermione smiled back at him. "Thanks, boss."

"Mmhmm, off you go. I know I gave you permission to eat people who didn't answer your riddles, but you really don't need the indigestion you would surely get from noshing on Ronald Weasley's sorry hide."

Hermione chuckled softly and allowed the change to consume her, her giant sphinx form quickly towering over him as she shook herself from head to tail tip.

"Easily lost but hard to gain,

It rises up when under strain.

This is the thing that lies in your heart,

Deep within and seldom apart.

Polished by countless battles,

When courage fails and faith is rattled.

This you have within your soul,

Etched within, emblazoned bold."

Kingsley looked upon the face of the sphinx, bowing low. "Without honour, we are nothing."

Hermione smiled at him, the look of a predator mingled on her half-human face. Her fangs glinted as her lips curled up.

"Blessings upon you, human man,

Chase the riddle, if you can.

Honour upon you, given form.

I bow to you, this given norm.

Answer me this before I go,

And this shall rise between us grow.

What is this thing no hand may force.

What grows within without remorse?

Between two people,

Not always love—

Its wings do whisper like the calling dove.

What binds one to another clear,

And draws the other in quite near.

Friendship grows within its embrace,

But without it there can be no trace.

Answer me this, human man.

Chase this riddle, if you can."

"You really should have been a Ravenclaw, Hermione," Kingsley said with amusement, his head bowed in thought. "Respect."

Hermione launched up into the air on giant wings, sailing off over Black Lake.

"Good to know I get to keep my life tonight," Kingsley sighed with relief. "I'd hate to see what her riddles would be like if she hated my guts."

Hermione didn't take long to find a good ley line. Thankfully, Hogwarts was chock full of them. Some speculated that it was the reason places became "sentient" after long-term exposure to the leys, but Hermione would have disagreed. Her cottage had, after all, become a mini-Hogwarts, and it had not taken especially long for it to do so.

The very moment that sphinx and leyline met, she spun in the air doing barrel rolls, happy to feel the tingle of such powerful magic caressing her body. The ley line seemed quite happy to greet her as well, for it wrapped around her like a cocoon and seemed to sing with energy.

Pop!

A little energy sphinxlet formed, cartwheeled happily about her head, and then zoomed off into the night.

She really did wonder where they went when they left her. Sometimes they stuck around. Sometimes they wandered off. It was quite an intriguing mystery. It wasn't like there were any books out there detailing sphinx and ley line life cycles. There weren't even books detailing sphinx life cycles in general, save the few that stated the plainly obvious: "ancient magical animal with the head of a human and the body of a lion," "loves riddles," and "eats those who can't answer said riddles."

It was enough that Kingsley had managed to preemptively excuse her for eating people who couldn't answer her riddles. The grim reputation of the sphinx was deeply embedded within the psyche of the wizarding world. They were incredibly dangerous, but they always gave you a fighting chance: a chance to answer their riddle—or die messily.

She didn't have the heart to tell Harry that she had tried to eat a fair number of the Death Eaters that had been pursuing him to avenge the death of their master, the late and unlamented Dark Lord Voldemort, but the Dark magic that existed within them—perhaps because of the Mark, perhaps because of the long-term exposure to such overwhelming hatred—tainted the meat and made it something truly foul. She ended up ripping them to shreds with her massive paws and hastily burying the remains.

Many believed the war was long over. Hermione knew better. Kingsley knew better. So, too, did the Wizengamot.

After she had "disposed" of a few such bodies, one of the Wizengamot members had demanded to see the evidence that anything had happened at all. Maybe she had simply murdered a rival, after all. Kingsley had personally extracted the memory of said events from her mind to ensure she was beyond reproach, and then he had delivered the half-decomposed, savagely mauled corpse to the floor of the Wizengamot, complete with a rather damning arm of evidence.

The member had promptly fled the Wizengamot floor to violently expel everything she had eaten since the day she was born.

There had been a few requests to see said sphinx—the proof being in the seeing, even in the Wizarding world. Kingsley had stayed beside her the entire time, keeping her calm as they asked her a series of questions, and pointedly reminded them that if she were to ask a question, not answering could trigger an rather unfortunate instinctive response within Hermione.

Thankfully, after seeing the remains of the victim of the previous topic of interest, they were very, very polite.

After that, she had been issued her identification collar, all necessary clearances to roam the Ministry, and strict orders were given to all members of Ministry security to stay the hell out of her way. There was only one of her, after all, which made her very easy to identify. Being the only great sphinx in Wizarding Britain did have its perks.

Oddly enough, even though she worked at the Ministry and under the same roof as Harry, Ron, and Draco, she was very careful to not show up at work as a sphinx, so her dual identity remained carefully protected. Those who needed to know, knew, but Harry had asked her why she started wearing a Usekh collar all the time.

"Because I gave it to her," Kingsley had informed him. "It's been in my family for generations. I think it looks quite stunning on her, don't you?"

Those who knew, however, recognised that collar instantly and understood what it was connected to. No one gave her any grief, which was a strangely satisfying feeling after so many years of being thought of as nothing but a swotty little bit of baggage or filthy Mudblood scum. The Wizengamot was sworn to secrecy, and Hermione had a guaranteed, lifetime job at the Ministry doing what she did best: acquiring knowledge and guarding things.

It had become rather tricky to describe her job in conversation, but her stock answer was, "Warding and protective magic for high-security areas." It went over much better than "Mauling and eating unlucky trespassers." Her partner in vault guarding, Augustine, said, "At least ye aren't having to pick your teeth with bits of bones like me."

Well, of course not. She was a remarkably civilised sphinx. She even kept a toothbrush and dental floss on hand for such occasions. Psh. Dragons were such amateurs. There was more to being a greater sphinx than unusually large size and a penchant for clever riddles. The unusually large size did help, however, in making that perfect first impression.

Realising that she was dragging one of Hogwarts' ley lines along with her, she decided to land, choosing the dark roof she had spotted nearby as a perch. There were no lights on, so she figured either no one was home or no one was awake. Both worked just fine for her. She'd have to guide the ley line back to where it should be after she had a bit of a breather. She didn't plan to head back to Hogwarts anytime soon. Kingsley said he'd take care of it, and she trusted him to do just that. He had never once steered her wrong.

Crack. Crackle.

CRASH!

Hermione went tumbling into the house arse over teakettle. She let out a keening roar of surprise as her paws went flailing out, her claws trying to grab onto something, anything for purchase. Her wings got tangled up in debris, and her tail was being squished under her own bulk.

Splat!

Ow.

Hermione opened her eyes slowly, her breath coming out as a wheezy , strangled cough. A fine layer of plaster dust settled around her along with the remains of the rotting roofing tiles. Eaugh. Of all the houses she could've landed on, she just had to choose the rotting one.

Great job there, Hermione. Don't tell Augustine. He'll never, ever let you live it down.

He's never tried to land on a house, she hissed to herself.

Yeah, her mind mocked in response. So why did you think a giant sphinx would fare any better? Hrm?

Shut it, she answered herself.

"Great, now I'm talking to myself," Hermione huffed, sending a cloud of plaster dust rolling away from her face. "Merlin, I hope I didn't kill someone by falling on them."

The paperwork alone would be murder.

Hermione shook herself off and transformed, pulling out her wand to light up the area so her human eyes could see properly. "This place… is a total dump."

Even without the rather obvious deconstruction due to one rather large sphinx crashing in from above, this place was something akin to the Lost and Never Found Room at the Ministry. There was stuff there that was literally turning to dust due to being there for so long.

"Good thing I've been well-trained in magical house construction and repair," Hermione muttered to herself.

Taking her wand in hand, she got to work, "Reparo!"

Wood creaked and snapped into place, paper flew, cloth mended, plaster reset itself, and the ceiling tiles went flying up to take their places. Books went flying back onto newly-mended shelves, and tables and lamps replaced themselves about the room. An antique-looking piano took form, assembling itself from what had previously been a pile of broken keys and strings, deep gouges in the walls that looked like claw marks disappeared without a trace, and—

"Is that blood?" Hermione gasped as the lamps came to life and revealed the room as a whole to her horrified gaze. "Ugh."

She continued to work steadily until everything was spotless, the hardwood floor was smooth, mended, and shining, and then it slowly started to dawn on her exactly where she was.

The Shrieking Shack.

Mechanically, she walked further into a place she never thought she'd see again—prayed she'd never see again: the site of her ultimate failure. It was the place where the man who had repeatedly saved both her life and the lives of her friends had died, succumbing to Nagini's venom and sheer blood loss, in the place where he had nearly lost his life to a werewolf as a frightened teenaged boy so many years before.

He was murdered by Voldemort and his pet snake as she watched helplessly, and she had done nothing to help him.

The wood was permanently stained with his lifeblood, and Hermione's face twisted in agony with a devastating sense of loss.

Her incredibly brave professor. Her secret mentor and friend. All of her dreams of a future reconciliation with the man that had saved her life through teaching her the magic of survival had died along with him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, falling to her knees and gently touching the bloodstained floorboards before her. Emotion she had buried for so long seeped back into her awareness, and a sudden rush of older, long-buried memories came along with them.

"You will be fine, Hermione," Snape's face said as he wrote in a small leather-bound book. "You will be brave. You will be cunning. You will be a sickening example of a bleeding-heart Gryffindor to your friends, but with the discerning mind of a proper Slytherin witch.

He tapped the leather-bound book with a long finger. "It is almost done. I have made use of certain failsafes should my memory ever be taken from me. There is a certain chance—that you might also be affected. However, this will be your roadmap to remember everything that you once knew. You will survive, Hermione. You will even save your foolish Gryffindor friends from themselves."

"Master, please—"

One of Snape's large hands covered hers as the other gently brushed away tears from her cheek. "Survive, Hermione. Whatever comes. Whatever might happen. Be strong. Be brave. Be the know-it-all."

"I don't want to forget you," Hermione protested.

"He will make you forget," Snape explained calmly, inexorably. "Just as he's made Minerva forget every single horrible thing he has allowed to happen under her watch. He will make me forget. But this—" He held up the leather journal. "This, Hermione, is our ace in the hole—our dragon amongst the hippogriffs. You will be prepared. When the time is right, this book will find its way to you. One way or another."

Hermione wrapped her arms around his waist and clung tightly to him. "It's not fair. It's not right!"

"I've been saying that since I realised—had you been in my life instead of Lily—so much would have been different."

"Why can't we?" Hermione protested. "You know my feelings for you!"

Snape's expression softened. "Those too will be gone, when Albus finds them. Everything we had—everything we could—will be gone. There will only be this." He tapped the leather book firmly. "Spells and survival."

He brushed her cheek. "You are already old before your time, Hermione, and what I have asked of you for the last six years has been so much more than I have ever dared ask of anyone before. I know that you believe these emotions are real, and perhaps they are, but we cannot indulge ourselves at this time. We dare not to dream, not yet. One day, perhaps, should we survive all of this. After you have made your mark, found a career that you love, after you have taken a few years to think on what it is that you truly want. Should you decide what you want is me, then you will be able remember enough to find me… and then beat me about the head and shoulders to remind me of why you have been the only one I would ever take on as my apprentice."

"Why do you have to be so bloody noble," Hermione whispered bitterly into his robes.

"Psh," Severus replied. "What I want is a powerful thing, Hermione. I would have you be very sure it is what you want before inflicting myself upon you more than I already have as your master."

"I know exactly what I want," Hermione insisted, her eyes imploring him to believe her.

"I have waited an entire lifetime, Hermione. What is a few more years to be absolutely sure? When you are older, established—then no one will have the right to judge you for your choices. No one will tarnish you or think you have been manipulated by a greasy old bat. And if they do, well—You did deal with Madam Umbridge quite satisfactorily. Pity that Albus chose to go rescue her."

Hermione flushed, burying her face in his robes.

A gentle hand alighted on her hair. "Only you, Hermione, would seek comfort in this battle-scarred body." He placed something in her hands.

Hermione sniffled and stared at the small box in her hands. She opened the small ribbon on it and opened the box. A goblin silver ring, woven in delicate patterns surrounded a shining garnet.

"It's my embarrassingly Gryffindor birthstone," Severus muttered into her hair. "Feel free to cast it into the MFFFFFFPH!"

His words were cut off by a petite Gryffindor witch pulling his face down to hers and cutting off his air supply with a fierce kiss.

As she pulled away, entirely shameless but afraid he would scold her, Severus sighed, his face torn between pain and affection. "Happy 17th birthday, Miss Granger. You are officially an adult witch."

Hermione looked saddened. "You're still going to make me wait, aren't you?"

Severus closed his eyes and nodded firmly. "Unfortunately, Miss Granger. I must ascertain that we aren't under some sort of manipulative spell. You may yet awaken tomorrow morning and wish to thoroughly scour your brain with Scourgify."

Hermione turned her face away even as she placed the delicate garnet ring on her finger. "It won't change anything, you know." She combed her fingers through the fabric of his robes.

"Many terrible things will happen before the end of this war, Hermione," Severus said softly. The use of her given name caused her to look up at him. "I will not blame you if you should choose a different path in life. Believe that. I am merely saddened I will not get to see you make your first transformation into a bunny rabbit, a hedgehog, or some other sickeningly adorable animal form."

Hermione groaned, beating on his sides with her fists. "I will not be some cutesy little animal!"

"I'm sure you'll be a fit and proper kitten for Minerva to mother endlessly," he replied with a mischievous gleam in his black eyes.

Hermione scoffed. "Y—y—you!"

"Speechless, Miss Granger? Is this even possible? Are the end times truly upon us?"

"I hate you so much," Hermione muttered into his arm.

"See? I knew it wouldn't last."

"I'm so telling everyone that you are a really sweet person. And that you love Care Bears and have a stuffed hippogriff named 'Cuddles'"

"You wouldn't dare."

"I'm a Gryffindor," she hissed with a martial glint in her eye.

Snape glowered at her, his black eyes darkening. "So you are, but out there, they won't care if you are a Gryffindor and Slytherin or a random girl who innocently turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time." His eyes closed as he ran his hand through his hair. "You'll be the enemy, and if you don't keep your head about you—you'll end up dead."

Hermione squared her jaw, staring deeply into his eyes. "I'll find you. After it is all done. I will find you."

Snape's pale hand alighted on her head ever so lightly.

"I wish that could happen," he said rather grimly.

"You will survive," Hermione protested. "You survived the first war. You're alive now. You can't die—not after all of this!"

Snape touched her cheek, brushing his thumb across her cheek. "I serve two masters, Hermione. Neither of whom desire me to outlive my usefulness."

She sat down heavily on the now-pristine armchair. "Well, at least I can say I left it far better than it started out. This place was a dump even back in third year."

"I truly appreciate you making my afterlife hellhole somewhat more hospitable, Miss Granger."

Dark robes hung like a funeral shroud over pale, white skin. Dark, fathomless eyes seemed to stare into her very soul, yet the books behind him were clearly visible through the insubstantial physical manifestation of one Severus Snape.

"Ma—Professor Snape?"

Hermione instantly shot out of the chair she was in, half-wild with panic. Surprise, pain, guilt, and every single feeling she had ever harboured towards this strangely compelling man for so many years came flooding out in an all-encompassing tidal wave of pure emotion. She shifted, her body instinctively transforming into the great sphinx. Her body tumbled into the nearby wall, crashing through it like it was nothing but a brittle sheaf of parchment. She roared, eyes wide with surprise, her paws flailing helplessly as she fell flat on her back, rolled onto her legs, and poofed out, every hair on her body standing straight on end.

Professor Snape stood frozen in the makeshift new doorway, his nose crinkling as he stared out at her with an expression that flickered between amusement, astonishment, and mild dismay. "It's quite a surprise to see you as well, Miss Granger. I notice that you've apparently undergone some—rather dramatic changes since last we… spoke."

Hermione's pointed ears were pressed flat against her skull. She swallowed convulsively, her eyes very wide with shock. "I thought you were dead. I saw you die. There was so much blood—I tried," she trailed off. "I tried, but there was so much blood." Hermione's face twisted in clear anguish.

"I'm not here to haunt you, Miss Granger," Snape's apparition told her gently, with a slight softening of his great dark eyes. "I am aware that you tried to save me. I fear I am—inexplicably drawn to you."

Hermione flushed, her hind leg reaching to scratch behind her ear in a nervous twitch. "What—what was the last time you remember speaking to me?"

Snape's ghostly countenance shimmered as he frowned. "The last day of class. It was your sixth year, I think. I told you to get the hell out of my classroom, to take yourself and your bleeding heart off to join your two dunderheaded friends."

Hermione winced, closed her eyes, and turned her head away. She sat down on her haunches and drooped visably. "I see."

There was the slight rustle of non-corporeal fabric as Snape moved out from the somewhat abused Shrieking Shack. "Miss Granger, I feel there is something inexplicably missing from this equation. Your reaction to me is—quite unexpected."

"I'm sure most people don't turn into a greater sphinx and smash through a wall on reunification, no," Hermione quipped, her tail still poofy from her earlier stress.

"No, Miss Granger," the Potions master replied. "But that is not what I mean. You were visibly upset that my last memory of you was of me ordering you from my classroom. Why?"

"You could have picked a better memory, that's all," Hermione said quietly.

"I may have died, Miss Granger, but I didn't die an idiot, nor was I ever oblivious to body language," Snape said, eyeing her with a slight frown.

"Did you ever have an apprentice, Professor?"

Snape frowned. "Never. There isn't one child with sufficient work ethic to make it worth my while."

"Wouldn't know the the difference between a pinch of aconite and a gram of sodium."

One dark eyebrow lifted into his phantom hair.

"Ask me a question that no one would know other than someone you trusted completely."

"I trust no one, Miss Granger."

"Suppose you did. Humour me. You asked, after all—why."

Snape frowned in thought. "What wards are—were—on my chambers at Hogwarts?"

"Blinding and deafening wards on your hearth to prevent Dumbledore from eavesdropping on you in your rooms. Fire wards ring the outside of your chambers if this specific symbol is not traced on the brick—five to the left, six down from the top." Hermione traced a symbol in the air with her claw, etching it in floating magic. The innermost layer is pacification—all who enter and are not authorised to do so feel a sudden overwhelming desire to have tea and put biscuits on their pinky. The third is a tracer that goes directly back to you, telling you exactly who is there and what they are doing. The fourth is mass paralysis—if they touch anything in your chambers without neutralising the first three wards, they are frozen in place."

Snape stared at her in shock. "How—how do you know all this? Did you dismantle my wards?"

"Your quarters are precisely as you left them," Hermione answered. "No one knew how to disable the wards—and I cost too much."

"You… being an expert on warding," Snape growled.

"Actually—yes." Hermione looked up, squaring her jaw. "My master taught me everything he knew."

"There is no one out there who could have taught you my wards. No one," Snape hissed.

"You're right," Hermione said sadly. "No one out there could have."

"Talk sense, Miss Granger."

"Sense is only an collection of opinions and bias commonly united under the same banner."

"Who taught you that?"

Hermione closed her eyes and turned away. "My master."

"You had no master at Hogwarts. I would have known."

Hermione sighed heavily. "You did."

"How? How could you possibly have had such a master?"

"I once set his robes on fire without him seeing me," Hermione told him quietly. "And in my second year, I brewed a polyjuice potion with ingredients I stole from his storeroom."

Hermione squared her shoulders with a ripple of powerful muscles underneath her tawny fur. "My... punishment for being caught was agreeing to accept his offer of apprenticeship."

"My third year was spent time-turning my classes under Dumbledore's blessing, but what he didn't know was that I wasn't just time-turning for my Hogwarts classes. I also turned for my apprenticeship—the apprenticeship no one knew about save myself and my master."

Hermione winced, holding her head as if it pained her to remember, then she stared skyward, searching the skies for some answer or a shooting star to make the conversation seem less like torture. "I turned twenty on the day I officially became seventeen, give or take a few months for time slips. Fortunately for me—I aged well."

"If you don't remember this, don't feel bad. I didn't either until very recently when I discovered that I had been memory charmed. And even now—old memories come calling when I least expect them. Like now. Heh, can you imagine? I just wish—it didn't hurt so much."

Hermione stood and shook herself from nose to tail tip with a small grunt of release. "The great irony is, had I come into my inner sphinx in time, I would have been immune to memory charms. Sphinxes are strangely resistant to that sort of thing. Memory charms… tend to make us hungry. Obliviates make us… irrationally wrathful. I think I may have eaten someone. Why am I only remembering this now? Ach! He was… gamey. Who doesn't know a simple thing that doesn't have a lock, key, or lid but golden treasure inside is hid. Come on! That was too easy, practically a giveaway. I was only just starting out!"

Severus was staring holes through the back of her head. Hermione froze in mid-tirade and slowly turned. "Sorry. I—was having a moment."

"Obviously," he intoned.

Hermione blew her hair away from her face, her almond eyes closing slightly as she took in a deep breath and let it out very slowly.

"Miss Granger," Severus said carefully. "When is my birthday?"

"January ninth, nineteen sixty," Hermione answered. "Your birthstone is garnet, but you think it terribly Gryffindor. Your father was a bastard. Your mother was abused, and your best friend growing up never forgave you for saying a single word in anger—and oh my, where the hell was all that coming from?"

Hermione clutched her head, groaning in pain. "You hate your middle name because it's your father's. Your favourite tea is a mixture of English and Irish with just one leaf of bergamot. You used to practice curses on flies and other insects, imagining them to be your father. Your mother caught you trying to slip a potion in your father's tea to make him sleep so he wouldn't beat her… she stole it away and later that night, he beat her to death. The constables called it a tragic accident, but you knew better. The night you intended to kill him, he had killed himself—too drunk to walk, and he broke his neck after he tumbled down the staircase—ahhhhh, too much, too much, it HURTS!"

She clutched her head tightly with her paws, groaning under the onslaught of memory. She staggered, slamming into the nearby tree, a rock, a stump, and then the wall of the house just before collapsing in an agonised heap.

The nearby ley lines, drawn by her distress, gathered around her, swirling around her like the spinning of a cocoon. Energy arched and rippled, and small sphinxlets tumbled off during the union of raw energy. They bounced and flew circles around Hermione and seemed extra curious about Snape. The little energy creature seemed to appraise him, staring him right in the eyes as he fluttered only hairs away.

Bsszzzt!

The little energy sphinx flew into his "body" and disappeared. Others seemed have other places to be, and they fluttered off, fading into the dark of the night sky. A few snuggled up to Hermione's face like cats affectionately rubbing against their mistress' leg before flying away into the warm summer night.

Hermione groaned, her leonine body twitching with the aftershocks of her suffering.

Instinctively, perhaps, Snape reached over to her, his pale, shimmering hand touching the space between her tawny, tufted ears. The moment it touched—really touched—there was a flash of searing heat and an instant magical connection that jolted to life between them. The memories poured out of her and into him, bowling him over with such incredible force that she heard the sound of him crashing soundly against the floorboards.

The smell of ozone hung thick in the air—ozone and charred hair.

Hermione blearily tried to lift her head, moaned, and instantly set it back down on her paws. "Errghhh."

She stared at the smoking hole in the side of the Shrieking Shack, wincing as she realised there was even more work to be done to restore the battered place back into working order—if it had ever been in working order to begin with. Dust, smoke, and debris continued to swirl about in strange clouds before finally settling. She heard harsh coughing coming from within the shack and winced.

"Professor?" she called. "I'm so sorry—"

Two huge, black paws came out of the gaping hole first followed by Snape's rather pale face attached to a magnificent lion's body. Pointed, tufted ears were pinned back across his head as his new, feline teeth bared in disgust. His wings, half-unfolded and awkward, smashed into the sides of the hole, causing even more plaster and wood to collapse around him.

"Fucking Albus Dumbledore. If he wasn't already dead, I'd fucking murder him!"

Hermione's jaw dropped to the ground.

Professor Snape had become a sphinx. His coal black eyes stared into Hermione's as his face paled and went slack.

"Hermione?"

"Severus?" Hermione whispered, her voice guarded, yet hopeful.

There was a flurry of movement, tangled wings, paws, legs, and hair as the two sphinxes slammed into each other, rubbing, purring, rolling, and scent marking each other. Then, suddenly, the pair seemed to realise this situation wasn't exactly normal, and they both sat down on their haunches at the same time making the same rather puzzled, awkward face at each other.

Hermione's tail was puffed out like a puffskein.

"I thought you were dead."

"I thought I was dead."

They stared at each other, tails twitching.

"I didn't know you were a sphinx."

"I wasn't—until just a few minutes ago."

They stared at each other, each speaking at the same time and managing to talk over the other.

"I've been living in this bloody hellhole, my body passing through everything since the night of my supposed death," Snape said, frowning. "I hadn't been able to do anything more than move a few papers around and stir up a bit of dust."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip worriedly, her fangs flashing. "Well, you did say I had to go make my way in the world before finding you again," she told him with a sheepish grin.

Ley lines were swirling around Severus, moving around his legs and his belly, gliding against his body as they were getting to know him. His eyes went wide. "Why does that feel so—"

"Like greeting an old friend long parted," Hermione finished softly.

"Yes." Severus tilted his head as an energy sphinxlet popped into existence, rubbed against his cheek, and then zoomed off into the night.

"I feel like I should have a stiff drink or at least a very expensive cigar," the wizard grunted, stretching his sleekly muscular bulk.

"I think I may have quite a selection of each back home," Hermione mused. I have a rather impressive hoard of such things thanks to many, many would-be suitors.

One black eyebrow arched into a fall of coal black mane-like hair. "Oh?"

Hermione bared her fangs. "A great many long and uninteresting stories, I fear. Let us just say that I cannot fathom the sudden appeal of one such as myself, who spent most of her life treated like a pariah and considered to be nothing more than a worthless little Mudblood witch."

Snape's expression darkened. "Do not cheapen yourself with such words."

Hermione's expression hardened. "Tell me, Professor. What memories do you have of me that are not just about an insufferable know-it-all chit who annoys you so much that you sneer into her tear-streaked face to claim that you see no difference in her grossly oversized teeth? Why—tell me, why should I believe you?" Her topaz eyes were afire, her gaze blazing across him with a sense of fiery, shimmering heat. Her claws were fully extended and her teeth were bared menacingly.

"This emotion grows, nestled deep—

Past the baring of glistening teeth.

Grown deep within each passing pain,

Fertilised by insult gained.

One by one, unkindness grew.

Again, and again mockeries anewed.

Tell me why I should believe you now—

When all affection you disavow."

Pain flickered across Hermione's face as she stared at Snape.

Snape flinched, his face twisting with newly remembered pain.

"Hatred is the answer you seek.

It is this that makes your heart seem bleak.

If the memories you shared with me are true.

I pray you, let us build anew.

Give me the chance to see the truth—

Or let me wallow like a tortured youth."

For a moment, Snape's expression was pained but sincere, and the flash of anger that had accompanied Hermione's outburst slowly softened. "I'm sorry. I don't know where that wave of rage came from." Hermione winced apologetically. "I've never—ever blamed you for that. I swear it." She tore frantically at her mane with her claws.

"No, my boy. I fear she will never see you as anything special ever again."

Severus clutched at his head, quickly sinking to the floor as a painful flood of memories hammered their way through meticulously crafted walls that were not of his own making.

"You will not be distracted from the task I have assigned to you. And I will not have her be distracted from the task she is meant to perform. Harry Potter is too important—too vital to the ultimate greater good. She will put her brain to work for him and keep him safe until it is time for him to face Tom for the final time. While they do what they must, you will keep Tom distracted and unaware of what they seek to end him. I fear there will be no room left for foolish romantic entanglements, even if she does happen to be of age. Such tender emotions were never meant for the likes of you, my boy."

"Arrrghk!" Snape hissed, letting out a low groan of agony. "What have you done to me, Albus?" Memories, jagged things that cut like shattered glass, tore through his mind as they ripped out of the walls that had held them.

"As exceedingly rare as you are, Severus, now that you've attracted a remarkable number of healthy ley lines to Hogwarts, I fear I cannot risk you perhaps deciding to leave here and take them with you. Seeing as you would never want anyone to know that you are far more of an outsider than anyone had ever guessed—I'm sure you wouldn't want anyone to discover your little secret, Severus. I'm really doing you quite a large favour, you see. In exchange, you get your Potions apprenticeship and a lifetime job here at Hogwarts, the Light wins, and Miss Evans never has to learn that her oldest friend is actually a class four dangerous magical beast."

Snape rolled on the ground in the rubble of the fallen wall, gripping his head with his paws as his claws dug insistently into his mane of hair.

Hermione promptly bounded over to him, her claws digging into the earth as she skidded to a stop to his side. Her paws gently caressed his flank, perhaps to offer what comfort she could.

Snape's eyes widened with her touch upon him. He locked gazes with her, pained.

"No, please," Severus groaned cradling Hermione as she slumped backwards, her eyes eyes rolling back into her head.

"I warned you, Severus, what would happen if you became too close—too attached to Miss Granger."

"She has done nothing!"

"Nothing but distract you from my plans."

Hermione convulsed, her body fighting frantically against the spell—her mind screaming, clawing, desperately trying to hold on to all it knew. She stared into Severus' black eyes, betrayal and pain clear in her eyes—in her soul. She clung to his robes, her fear a palpable thing.

"Master," Hermione whimpered, clinging to him.

"Hermione," he groaned, touching her hair to brush it tenderly away from her face.

He could feel the strain of her magic and her mind trying desperately to hold on. Just like he had taught her—like a good soldier.

"Forgive me," he whispered, knowing what he had to do—had to do or the spell Albus used would destroy her mind in the process of trying to subjugate it.

"No," she whimpered, her hands clutching like iron around his wrists. "No!" She knew what he had to do, and even knowing it, she fought against him, desperate to cling on to his memory.

"It's killing you," he pleaded. "Hermione. They will not be gone forever if I do this."

She shook her head. "No, no."

Albus was gone, leaving him to suffer—as he always did. The old man knew that one way or another, Hermione Granger would never remember him. He knew there were only two options—three, if you counted death.

"You will remember again," he promised her. "Please." He held her hand, his black eyes tortured.

She grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut, nodding as though he had just asked her to choose between killing either one member of the golden trio or the other.

Tenderly, Snape pressed his lips to her forehead, stroking her hair as his wand pressed to her temple, and he whispered the incantation that would seal her memories away—out of the insidious reach of Dumbledore's magic.

"I will remember you," he whispered, pulling the small witch against his trembling body. One tear slowly slid down his aquiline nose and dripped onto her peaceful face.

"No, Severus," Albus voice said calmly from close behind him. The distinctive touch of a wand pressed firmly against his skull. "You won't."

Magic surged in a rush of sizzling, electric heat, shattering the remnants of the memory blocks that had been painstakingly constructed and wedged between the one-time master and apprentice. Both sphinxes went tumbling through the air, smashing through the already very abused wall of the Shrieking Shack, before coming to a rather rough landing, lying flat on their backs upon the cool floorboards of the shack.

The black sphinx whuffed, a fine cloud of dust and plaster settling all around him. "I swear to you, Albus. If you weren't already dead, I would fucking murder you, you manipulative, cold-blooded old bastard."

"Check, please," Hermione muttered into the dusty gloom of the shack, paws up in the air as she lay on her back, completely undignified. "I can't even feel my legs."

The black sphinx was instantly on his feet and bounding on into the gloom, his eyes adjusting where his human ones would not. "Hermione!"

"'Ello, my master," Hermione coughed. "I'd get up, but it seems as though I can't move at the moment."

Snape gave a low, guttural groan. He nosed Hermione, nudging her carefully with his giant, ebony paws.

Hermione coughed, wincing. "Feels somewhat anticlimactic to have been taken out by a sudden return of memories, especially after everything we've already been through—even if unknowingly."

Severus placed a paw on her haunch, staring at her with a worried, desperate expression, the lines of his face seemingly conflicted as to which emotion they should show.

Hermione's amber-flecked eyes, sad but resigned, flicked over to meet his own. "At least I remember you now—and everything that we had."

"Still have," he replied, pressing his forehead tenderly to hers.

"I don't feel very—" Hermione's eyes closed slightly. "Useful right now."

"Usefulness be damned," Snape growled. "Do you think all that matters to me is that you are useful?"

"Given the nature of our history in the classroom?" Hermione laughed, coughing. "Ah, don't look at me like that. People will think we're in love."

"And what if they do?" he replied, his voice barely a whisper.

"I'd say it was about damn time," Hermione said, her breathing growing heavy.

Snape's face paled as she drifted off. "Hermione—damnit—stay with me! Stay with me!"

Hermione's eyes fluttered slightly, but she obeyed, staring up at him with clear affection in her gaze. "Is this what it takes to get your undivided attention? Had I only known, I would certainly have permitted Neville to blow me up now and then."

"There is nothing that Mr Longbottom could possibly do to make his astonishing level of sheer ineptitude even remotely permissible, much less forgivable."

"He did kill Nagini with the sword of Godric Gryffindor."

"Hmph. There is that, I suppose. Did he turn into a blazing golden dragon and emit a fiery shower of hearts and rainbows across the battlefield?"

Hermione snorted. "No."

"Pity. Shoot lightning out his arse?"

"No!" Hermione giggled, despite herself. Her eyes closed slowly, and her breathing evened out. Her paw rested on his.

"Hermione?" Severus' voice cracked with emotion.

"So warm," she sighed. "So very comfortable."

A tendril of panic rose up within Snape, but as his paw rested on her, he felt it—a warm, tingling caress of pure comfort.

Tendrils of energy surrounded him, swirling as he bled out over the floor. Pain eased. Comfort spread across his body like a lover's caress.

It was the same as he had felt when he had "died."

Severus curled up next to Hermione, wrapping his leonine body around her. His wing unfolded to cover her as his face pressed into her mane of hair. Her scent—was a comfort all its own.

Pop!

Pop-pop-pop!

POP!

Little energy sphinxlets materialised out of thin air and rubbed up against her like playful kittens. Some of them rubbed, and some of them took a leap, seeming to choose to blend themselves with her, perhaps offering her some sort of healing in a way that only they could.

The ley lines were all around them, vibrating with a low, rumbling thrum. Yet, to his ears, he could hear the music in it, like the soft lull of a choir intermingled with delicate tinkling chimes. Severus snuggled into her, offering his warmth and his magic—both familiar and newly rediscovered—as well as his comfort.

The humming lull of the ley lines caused his eyes to grow heavy, and he struggled to remain conscious. It was too much effort, however—having been so long parted from his magic and his sense of being alive. His eyes slowly drifted shut, pulling him into the peaceful, encroaching blackness.

Lick.

Ear twitch.

Lick. Lick.

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

Lick!

Twitch. Thwap.

Severus opened one eye to see a tawny sphinx staring at him with an amused expression. Sphinxlets were tumbling around and on her like happy kittens.

"Hi," she greeted. The loving warmth in her amber-brown eyes was unmistakeable.

"Hermione." He sat up, pressing his head against hers.

"We should write a book, I think," Hermione mused. "Sphinxes and Ley Lines: Magic's Most Magical Symbiosis."

"As much as the notion of writing such a book together appeals to me," Severus commented, "the instinct to hoard that extraordinary knowledge is even stronger."

"We could always write the book and then hoard it."

"Hn."

Hermione stared at him.

"I see your point."

Hermione grinned. Her face became serious. "How come you never told me you were a sphinx?"

Severus sat down and itched behind his ear with his hind foot. "I honestly didn't remember—not until fairly recently."

Hermione stared and then seemed to understand. "Did—would he have done that? Stolen something as utterly amazing as being a sphinx from you?"

"So it would seem."

Hermione shook her head, her hair flying. "How long have you been one?"

Severus frowned slightly, his eyebrows knitting together in thought. "Since—I was a teenager. I was being pursued by Potter and his moronic best mates. It had been off and on all week long. Gradually, it began to escalate. Some days I won the hexing contest. Some days, they did. More often them—seeing as it was always four against one. They strung me up, relieved me of both my trousers and my pants, and painted me crimson and gold with some sort of natural plant dyes they had made in Pomona's class. Minerva had been guiding me through my Animagus meditations, both to challenge me and to help me to gain better control of my temper."

"You, master? Temper?"

Snape gave her a heavy sigh. "I'm actually much better now than I was back then."

"Hn," she answered, mirroring him.

"Please, call me Severus," he requested. "You're a grown witch—you have been ever since your official seventeenth birthday, and we both know you were considerably older than your time long before then."

Hermione smiled. "Do give me a little time—Severus. I just remembered everything today, after all."

"Point made." Severus scratched his other ear idly. "That night, when they had strung me up in front of half the school, Black decided he wanted to see what would happen if he used engorgio on my bits—saying that there wasn't much of anything there to begin with, so he couldn't possibly make it any worse."

"He what?!"

Severus gave her a quelling look.

"Sorry." Hermione sat on her tail, but the tip of it was puffed out like a feather duster.

"Anyway—" Severus continued. "When Black got bored, he pulled out a knife and, well, I decided I really wanted to be something else at that particular moment. I was hoping for a bird or perhaps something conveniently camouflaged. I pulled on the Animagus magic in desperation, and then I shifted for the first time."

Severus pinched his nose. "It wasn't quite what I was expecting. Hell, it wasn't what anyone would have expected. I shifted, shook off all of their hexes, and was suddenly very, very hungry. I swatted them around for a few minutes, bloodied them up, and then, right when I really wanted to eat them, I felt this overwhelming need to riddle them. I just couldn't get past it. I was awful at riddles. You have no idea. So, I pinned them all down between my paws as they shat themselves in terror—which was so very attractive—and so I spat out this old riddle my mother had given me: My tines be long, my tines be short. My tines end 'ere my first report. So, I couldn't help but tell them, that they could just—walk away and I'd have to let them go, but if they answered incorrectly, I had every right to eat them."

"Been there. Had that exact same issue." Hermione sighed, her tail flicking with mild annoyance at the memory.

"So, Potter says pitchfork, Black yells shove it up your arse, Pettigrew pisses himself saying cheese, and Lupin just started whining and growling like a wolf." Severus grunted. "Of course, none of those was the proper answer."

"Lightning," Hermione answered promptly.

"See? Was that really so hard? I figured they would answer and I'd lose my dinner. I was so very, very hungry at this point. I dragged them all down to the lake to wash them off, because I wasn't about to eat a shite-covered meal. Naturally, that was when the Headmaster appears before us all like Zeus on his bloody stormcloud, waving his wand and binding me up with some sort of spell I'd never even heard of."

Severus growled and shook his head. "My first night—barely even a few minutes into my new skin—and he performs some sort of obscure spell that forces me out of my sphinx form and trusses me up like a goose to be roasted. He starts yelling at me like it was somehow all my fault. Can't hurt other students. Blah, blah, blah. What about me? He obviously didn't give a flying fuck about me having been tortured to the point of making a last-resort Animagus shift—"

Severus huffed, grooming his wing obsessively by chewing on it for a while. "He obliviated them all. He obliviated Minerva so she wouldn't remember teaching me. He obliviated me so I wouldn't remember I was even an Animagus. The next day it happened all over again, only Lily was there, and I—completely lost it on her. You know the rest."

Hermione slumped. "I'm sorry."

"Wasn't your fault, Hermione," Snape replied with a deep sigh. "I accomplished that entire exercise in stupidity all on my own. Thing is, had they remembered that I was a sphinx, they probably wouldn't have done it. The entire sodding mess would never have happened at all. Or, maybe it would have later—at least the final blow-up with Lily—I don't know. That's just it. All I know is what happened."

"So much for Gryffindor honour and chivalry," Hermione mumbled.

"Well, if that was the only requirement to be a Gryffindor, you'd have ended up eating at a much smaller table," Severus mused.

Hermione snorted, blowing her unruly mane out of her face.

"Who made you the headdress and collar?" Snape asked, sphinxian curiosity reflecting in the interested twitch of his tail.

"Kingsley," Hermione said with a smile. "The collar was a family heirloom, but he put some magic into it to make it mine. It also has my identification and all that fun stuff that keeps me from being seen as an uncontrolled rampaging beast in the eyes of random Ministry employees."

"Kingsley, huh," Snape said, seeming to ponder this new bit of information. "He always seemed to be much less of a dunderhead than the rest of the gormless twits he had to associate with."

"He would agree," Hermione mused with a small chuckle.

Severus raised a brow. "I never got to know him very well. The war made such things… terribly complicated."

"Maybe you should," a deep voice greeted from the gaping hole in the shack. Kingsley stood silhouetted in the moonlight, his robes whipping out behind him as if he was accompanied by his own personal storm cloud.

"Kings!" Hermione exclaimed, jumping up and plowing into him with boundless enthusiasm. Paws, claws, and tawny hide pounced on the wizard, toppling him over as she shoved her head into his chest.

"Oof! Sphinx attack! Help!" he gasped, wrestling her playfully.

Severus watched in fascination as the much larger sphinx allowed herself to be wrestled and pinned. It was like watching a small siamese kitten trying to tackle a smilodon, yet the smilodon was allowing the kitten to win.

"Blimey, Hermione, did you get stronger overnight?" Kingsley sputtered as she groomed the side of his head, knocking off his hat. "Arrrr—enough! Before I lose the skin on my head."

Hermione purred loudly, placing a paw on Kingsley and pinning him down possessively. Snape felt a pang of something rising inside him that he couldn't quite place. The giant sphinx—and had he been anything less than an equally gargantuan specimen of the species—playfully gnawed on Kingsley as though he was her favourite and most treasured catnip mouse.

"Oi," Kingsley grunted, shoving her off of himself as he defended his face from the onslaught of sphinxy affection. "I have news to report that requires I have use of my face."

Hermione lay her head on his lap and looked up at him with her big amber-brown eyes, looking quite mournful about being interrupted.

"Agh, not the eyes!" He covered her eyes with his sash.

Hermione's giant paws twitched, but she remained still with only her tail tip flicking back and forth.

Kingsley sighed, rubbing Hermione on the ears. "What am I going to do with you, riddlesome beast?"

Hermione purred happily.

"One, all of the resident ley lines decided to go on walk-about from Hogwarts," Kingsley reported. "I'm suspecting that's your fault."

Hermione's giant paw thumped against Kingsley's dark face, gently batting at it.

"Second, Mr Ronald Weasley apparently had some sort of arrangement with former Headmaster Dumbledore—his job was to keep you on task and continuing to assist Mr Potter in every way possible. In exchange for his efforts, you, Hermione, were bespelled by the headmaster in such a way that you would remain unable to hold a grudge against Weasley no matter what he did, provided he touch you at least once every three months." Kingsley looked thoroughly disgusted. "It would refresh the spell Dumbledore cast on your beaded bag, and you would instantly forgive him anew."

Hermione grew very still—even her breathing seemed to have stopped. Her tail froze in place as she slowly digested that rather appalling piece of information.

Energy crackled around them as the ley lines reflected what Hermione's stillness did not, arching and scorching to reflect the rage simmering within her, as they fluxed in and out of manifestation.

"What," Hermione began, her voice low and controlled. "What was his reward?"

Kingsley flinched. "You, Hermione, but it didn't quite work out the way they planned. You warded off your parents' cottage, put it under Fidelius and then made it Unplottable to boot. You came to work, never seeing him. And as it got closer and closer to the three month deadline, he became more and more desperate to gain access to you."

"He hates me," Hermione hissed. "Whyever would he want me as a reward?"

Severus growled lowly, showing his teeth. "Wealth, power, and fame. What all those lazy sods who cannot earn such things on their own forever search for, someone who can give it all to them with little to no effort on their own parts."

"We can't even sit in the same bloody room without fighting!"

"But you always forgave him, didn't you?" Kingsley asked.

Hermione's eyes flicked to the side. "Yes."

"Even when you wanted to throttle him to death?" Severus added.

Hermione's expression darkened. "Yes. I lost my bag once. I thought I had left it in the classroom, so I ran back to get it. When I got back to the common room, Ron had it lying beside the chessboard as he was playing Harry. He said I must have dropped it on my way out. I picked it up from the floor and I knew it was mine."

"Severus," Kingsley said. "Mr Potter already cleared your name due to the memories you gave him on the night you were believed to have died. So there are no pending charges against you to worry about. However, Mr Weasley seems either unwilling or unable to provide any further information. He hasn't said so, but I have a feeling there is much more to all this than meets the eye. Your death, or rather your un-death, may not have been part of the plan.

Severus' eyes seemed to go even darker than usual. "Minerva was Obliviated by Dumbledore on a number occasions—namely to forget her mentoring relationship with me and anything she happened to see that would've been inconvenient to his purposes. Ironically, she would just offer to mentor me once more, and he'd have to Obliviate her yet again. I'm not quite sure why I can remember these things now—and why am I so bloody hungry?"

"Memory charms," Hermione answered quietly. "They don't work the same on us when we're in sphinx form. Some of that trickles down to our human side. They just make us… hungry. Or angry."

"I'm both."

"That too."

"Auror Savage would say you're 'hangry'," Kingsley commented with a snort of amusement.

Hermione's tail looped with pleasure. "I like new words… like asphinxiation. I would like to asphinxiate Ronald Bilius Weasley."

Kingsley coughed. "Minister for Magic here. Formerly head Auror. Please do not speak of murder in my presence... even if I do happen to agree to a certain extent."

"If he doesn't answer my riddle, I am allowed to eat him." Hermione pointed out.

"Do you really want to come out as a sphinx by having Rita Skeeter report that you ate Mr Weasley, with or without fava beans and a nice Chianti?"

Hermione drooped. "Point."

"He would give you food poisoning and clog your arteries with unhealthy amounts of bad cholesterol," Severus said, licking his fangs thoughtfully. "The very thought of consuming the likes of him utterly ruins my appetite."

Severus grumped, sitting as his swished in irritation. "But I am still hungry."

"Unfortunately, I cannot let you leave," Kingsley said.

Hermione and Severus gave him an odd look.

"You seem to have forgotten that you have around ten wayward ley lines arching around this poor shack thanks to your combined presences."

"Oh, that," Hermione said with relief. "Wait, how many ley lines did Hogwarts originally have?"

"Five," Kingsley said after a moment, doing a quick mental tally. "One for each tower and one through the heart of the school."

Hermione pondered. "Six at least—I remember getting kind of a fuzzy feeling from below Hogwarts, too."

Kingsley rubbed his bald head with his hand. "Perhaps, after all of the people have left the victory celebration, we can go visit with Headmistress McGonagall. Minerva has a very level head, and I don't think she'd ever intentionally hold anything back from us. Maybe she has a clue as to where we should go on from here—"

"Albus tampered with her mind the most," Severus pointed out.

"But maybe… he got careless. Too casual. If it did it as often as you are suggesting, he might have made a mistake at some point. I've seen it time and time again, in even among the most practiced of wizards and witches. Aurors have to be particularly careful that they don't develop certain habits."

"Hn," Severus murmured thoughtfully. "You may just be right, Kingsley. Albus was very much a creature of habit. Sometimes too much so for his own good.

"I wasn't made Head Auror just for my pretty face," Kingsley mused. "Some would argue that Scrimgeour had an even prettier one—swaying the masses to his impossible cover-up. It took guts to do what he did. Guts and fear. In the end, neither of those saved him. The dance of politics is not my style. I much prefer a good old-fashioned duel."

Severus snorted. "And how many people in the Ministry would be left by the end of the day?"

"I suppose it would depend on how many I chose to send down to fetch something from a certain vault in the Department of Mysteries without a valid permission parchment."

Hermione gasped. "You wouldn't!"

Kingsley winked at her.

Hermione sat on her tail, which Severus was beginning to realise was a nervous habit, like snapping at one's tails. He could almost hear the gears turning in her head, and he imagined she was attempting to add up how many people she had eaten in the line of duty—never once thinking they might have been sent her way on purpose.

"Kingsley may tease, Miss Gr—Hermione," Severus said, correcting himself in his awkward state of being caught between old and new memories, "but he would never deliberately send someone your way to have you dispose of them. He was always a far more of a direct sort than that."

Hermione, seemingly realising that he was easily guessing her thoughts, blushed with embarrassment and covered her face almost coyly with one huge paw.

Severus flushed and turned away, suddenly very attracted to that rather fetching visual. "I hear the Egyptian headdress is your doing, Kingsley?"

"Hrm, yes," Shacklebolt answered. "Why, would you like one too? It can be arranged, and it does come with a rather nice job, benefits, paid holidays to die for, and permission to eat random idiots in the line of duty."

Severus felt his tufted ears perk forward, betraying his thoughts on that offer without his express permission.

"He also pays half your salary in rare tomes and scrolls," Hermione purred.

"You've got yourself a sphinx," Severus agreed instantly, unable to restrain himself. Self-control be damned when his dream job just walked right up and bit him right on his rather beakish nose.

"Damn, and I had to follow Hermione around for an entire week," Kingsley said, pouting.

Hermione rolled over, exposing her vulnerable belly, and Kingsley automatically found himself rubbing it.

"You do realise that your working relationship with two magical beasts is not normal, yes?" Severus arched a brow at Kingsley.

"Normal be damned," Kingsley laughed. "I much prefer odd as long as it works. As your very first job duty, Severus, I order you and Hermione to fix this house—preferably before it collapses on top of us all."

Severus' ears flicked as he listened to the ominous creaking sounds coming from the battered walls. Then he sighed. "As you wish, Kingsley."

"Can we repaint it too?" Hermione asked, interested.

"I refuse to paint anything in pastels."

Hermione made a scrunched-up disgusted face at him for that. "Do I really look like a pastels kind of witch to you?"

Severus stared her over, nostrils flaring, and then he turned away abruptly. "Ahem. Just making sure."

"Also, Severus," Kingsley added. "Be sure you don't come to meet the Headmistress looking like that. I'd rather not see the poor witch having to come to terms with your being alive and you being a greater androsphinx at the same time."

Severus stared at his paws and thought for a moment. "You may have a point. Kingsley, how are you taking this so well, when even I'm having a hard time with it all?"

"I've been working for the last two years with Hermione on an official level," Kingsley replied with a smile. "More if you count the war. Let's just say that I'm more familiar with the sphinxian character than most wizards. I'm even getting applications from a few other Countries due to my rather outstanding reputation to take care of my magical beast Animagi."

Severus twitched, trying not to feel jealous of Kingsley's rubbing of Hermione's tawny underbelly, though he wasn't sure what he was truly jealous of—having his belly rubbed or being the one to rub the other sphinx's belly.

Hermione mrowled, kicking out her legs in pure pleasure at Kingsley's attentions.

"Remember," Kingsley reminded, "I don't want to see either of you at Hogwarts until all the guests have left. The party is still going on, despite all the drama earlier, but we don't really want a coming out explosion. Most people don't even realise that sphinxes really do exist or, if the they do, they think they all spontaneously combust should they stray outside of Egypt. Also, I'd rather you-oh, hey, look at this." Kingsley pulled a scroll out from his robes. "Huh. Auror Savage said it was silly of me to carry around a job contract everywhere in the case I find someone to hire, but I rather think he owes me dinner for this one."

Severus stared at the job offer and contract, his eyes widening as he read over all the details. "Kingsley, you carry this thing around with you everywhere?"

Kingsley shrugged. "I knew that if Hermione kept being Hermione, eventually she would lead us to another recruit worthy of pouncing on immediately. Proudfoot thought it would probably be another dragon. Savage thought it would be chimaera, and then there was me. Just smash your paw on the line there, Severus. If you choose to accept the offer, that is."

Severus narrowed his eyes. "What did you bet, Kingsley?"

Kingsley smiled. "I bet that the only one who could catch Hermione's eye would be tall, dark, and sphinxy."

Hermione flushed, covering her head with her paws in embarrassment.

Severus smashed his paw down onto the magical parchment, accepting the job offer with relish.

Hermione looked between her splayed paws. "What did Augustine bet?"

"Ah," Kingsley said, chuckling. "He bet he would have to give up his post to a larger, sexier dragon. He'll be doing the wee witches and wizards tours of the Ministry for the entire month since he lost the bet."

An expression that suggested true sympathy swiftly passed across Snape's usually impassive face.

Hermione, however, looked somewhat abashed.

Kingsley gave them both a wink. "I'll send your Usekh and Nemes by owl or elf. Do try not to eat them."

Severus huffed. "I do, in fact, have a certain measure of control, Shacklebolt."

"Oh?" Kingsley replied, grinning unrepentantly at his newest recruit. "We'll see who wins the betting pool on that one come morning."

Severus raised a questioning eyebrow but the former senior Auror turned Minister for Magic just chuckled knowingly as Hermione flushed a rather flattering shade of Gryffindor.

Kingsley, who somehow managed to make a certain former headmaster's famous twinkle seem far less sincere, favoured the pair with a courtly bow and spin of the hand, and then he vanished like a spectre through the demolished rubble of the crumbling wall.

"What did he mean by that don't eat the owl bit? Who would do something like that?" Severus huffed irritably.

Hermione chose that moment to stare fixedly out of the hole in the wall.

"Hermione?"

"I might have done something like that. It'd been a terribly long night and I really needed a good sleep. Fortunately, I only managed to snag a few tail feathers because it was an elf owl. Quite tiny and extremely fast. It clung to my curtain rod for hours, trembling, and refused to come back down."

"I suppose we should get to work on this poor old shack," Hermione mused. In a blur of movement she was human again, looking strangely small and vulnerable in comparison to her much larger sphinx-self. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed them as if she was chilled.

Suddenly, Severus was at her side, wrapping his heavy robes around her to fend off the cold, shedding his sphinx form as easily as if he'd been doing it all his life.

Hermione turned and looked up at him, her brown eyes darting from his warm black eyes to his aquiline nose and back.

He pressed his hand to her soft cheek, losing himself in her almost shy amber-brown gaze. "I'm sorry I could not protect you," he said.

"It was hardly for lack of trying, Severus," she replied sadly.

Severus gave her a pained look.

"Look at the bright side, Severus," Hermione suggested. "There are no more obstacles before you other than whichever ones you choose to give yourself. No more evil Dark Lord. No more so-called 'Leader of the Light' pontificating from atop his golden throne. No more teacher and student relationship. Just life." Hermione closed her eyes and turned away. "But perhaps, you need a bit of time to see that you can finally do whatever you choose to do with the rest of your life. You don't need to worry about me anymore."

Snape crushed her tightly against him, making a soft, strangled cry. "There was never anyone but you, Hermione. Even when I was the master and you my apprentice—you were always special, so very important to me. One day, I finally realised that you were a lovely, full-grown witch, and I was a fool to dream that there could be a possibility of anything more between us."

Hermione scoffed. "I think too many people are convinced that the only ones worth anything are the ones who parade themselves around like that pretentious arsehole, Lockhart. I could still kick myself for that year. Don't be so bloody thick, Severus."

Snape flinched. "You can't tell me that you don't have an entire fleet of wizards desperately trying to win your hand."

"Oh, I do," Hermione replied, curling her lip with unmistakable disgust. "All of them so very desperate to marry the Muggleborn heroine of the Wizarding war. None of them can even turn a intelligent phrase let alone answer one of my riddles. Most of them would rather sit on a book than read it, and the rest of them want something I cannot give. Hell, even Augustine gave it a shot, but ended up falling head over heels with Lavender Brown, of all people. And before you give me that look, she's changed rather a lot since Fenrir attacked her during the final battle and left her for dead. She has some terrible scars, but one might actually call her a kind and thoughtful person these days."

Snape gave her a patently disbelieving eyebrow lift.

Hermione shook her head and sighed heavily. "Lots of people started to pair up right after the war. The Ministry was even considering passing a marriage law to 'Build up our numbers and recoup some of our losses after the war, blah blah blah'. It didn't pass, thank Merlin. Kingsley got all up in their faces, telling them that things like forcing people to do things against their will is what got us all into this sodding mess in the first place. He said it much more… fluently and articulately than I ever could. He has quite the silver tongue, despite what he might tell you. I most definitely do not."

"Rrrr," Severus growled. "I could easily eat an entire hippogriff with a double portion of chips on the side. Ugh. I haven't a decent plate of chips in ages. Death Eater spies never get to eat good chips when the very best chippies are always Muggle establishments."

"You know, despite my wanting to gnaw on a certain unlamented ex-Headmaster, he did do you one favour. I imagine that if Voldemort had ever known he had a greater androsphinx at his beck and call, he would have used you as a weapon of pure terror and murder instead of an agent of his will via more subtle means." She waved her wand and began repairing the rather battered walls. "And, had he done so, we probably would have ended up killing each other."

Snape paled. "I… concede to your point." He pulled out his wand, seemingly surprised to see it there, and began to help her rebuild and repair the shack once more. He made a disgusted sound. "This wallpaper has to go. You can tell Albus had his hand in this place. Who plasters their walls with lemon print?"

"Yellow was a common colour for kitchens in Muggle households," Hermione replied. "I was happy my parents preferred—" she trailed off.

"Preferred," Snape prodded.

"Nothing," Hermione said, evading.

"Hermione," he said, not letting go. His ears had turned pointed, the tufted ears twitching with curiosity.

The corners of Hermione's mouth tugged at her expression as her face flushed slightly.

"Mum and dad were painting the kitchen emerald green, and I got into the paint and made all these little silver unicorns all over it," Hermione said in a gush.

"You Slytherined your parents' kitchen?"

"Leave me alone," Hermione hissed, slumping with embarrassment as he chuckled quietly, imagining the Grangers' expressions upon discovering their young daughter's creative improvement to their home decor.

Snape touched her chin, pulling it around. "I don't think I ever plan on doing that again."

Hermione gave him a rather desperate look, her eyes filled with both hope and disbelief.

"I have enough jaded mistrust of this world, Hermione," Severus whispered. "More than enough for both of us. I do not wish to see such things in your eyes. Not when you look at me."

Hermione trembled. "I missed you. I didn't even know it was you I was missing. I couldn't remember. He stole it all away and left me with loneliness. I hungered for something I couldn't place, no matter how hard I tried. I'd roam the halls, endlessly searching for something I couldn't name. Later, on the run—" Hermione closed her eyes. "My parents were dead. I had this obsession with Ron. I could have killed him for leaving us out there in the woods, accusing Harry and me of fornicating in the woods. Even then, it was an empty obsession. It was as if a part of me knew I would always be alone."

Hermione's face darkened. "Harry had grabbed my wand—kept me from hexing him. I almost shifted. I almost… riddled him. I would have eaten him, right there in front of Harry."

Hermione's lips pursed into a flat line. "He touched me, and I forgave him." She pulled out her beaded bag and threw it across the room. "He was our headmaster! We trusted him! He was supposed to protect us!" Her fangs flashed despite her human form.

"He stole away my hope. He took from me the one thing that made me feel safe after my parents—" Hermione said, her voice trembling. "There were times out there when I was sure that I wouldn't survive the war, and I didn't even care. I didn't care because no one would be waiting for me at the end. Who could care for some know-it-all, swotty little Mu—"

Her despair was cut off by the press of lips against hers as a swirl of dark fabric enfolded her. At first, she froze, but as Severus pulled away, his eyes saddened, she wove her hands into his mane of black hair and pulled his head back down.

Severus gave a soft groan, yielding to her rather exploratory and curious tongue, his hands pressing against the cool skin of her back as they found their way under her robes and drew her close to him. There was something rising within him—need, possession, and hunger—and he knew he had never wanted nothing more than he wanted this witch.

They staggered back into the newly-repaired settee, a little breathless.

Snape pulled away from her with agonising slowness. "Hermione—"

"Don't stop, Severus," she replied, her amber eyes glistening as she touched his cheeks with her palms. "Please."

"Are you su—Mphgh!"

Hermione's kiss silenced him, and he took it for the answer he needed. He eagerly explored her mouth, then trailed his swollen lips down her neck, gently nibbling at her skin with his teeth. As he neared her delicate, sensitive ears, he flicked his tongue out, and Hermione gasped, clawing at his back as she instantly arched against him. He growled as she tugged free her blouse, inviting him in for a closer look.

He freed her breasts from their silken confines and covered one with his mouth, his hand exploring the other one as he did so. Hermione's eyes fluttered as she moaned.

"Severus," she breathed his name, her hands rubbing his scalp as he pleasured her. Her delicate fingers rubbed his ears, causing him to loose a deep, guttural growl.

Hermione mewled in response, needfully answering all his questions with one resonating sound of pure desire. Whatever thoughts he might have had—unworthiness or lack of personal comeliness—all them went fleeing as he was filled with an undeniable, aching need.

"I don't care what you say, Potter," a voice hissed as a scraping of a door being opened came from a room over. "That bloody map of yours is wrong. There is no way Severus would be alive after what you told me happened, and there is no way that—Merlin's bloody man-tits, SEVERUS?!"

"Hermione?" Harry squeaked with shock.

Severus snarled, using one movement to cover Hermione with his robes as he stood between them. His black eyes blazed with anger at being interrupted in his quest to claim his witch. "Potter," he hissed. "Draco. Don't the two of you have anything better to do than of sticking your noses where they don't belong?"

Upon hearing the unmistakable venom in the older man's voice, both young wizards instantly paled and in their haste to scramble out of the shack, slammed headlong into each other. Both fell to the floor, knocked out cold.

Hermione peeked out from under Severus' dark robes, her face flushed with embarrassment.

"I find myself feeling rather hungry again," Severus growled, licking his teeth with a flattened, feline tongue.

"You can't eat them!" Hermione protested.

"Perhaps an ankle between them? They both have one to spare," Severus reasoned. "We could get a side of chips and make a meal of it."

"Think of all the paperwork!" Hermione insisted.

Severus narrowed his eyes, looking from the two unconscious wizards back to Hermione.

Pop!

A house-elf dressed in Kingsley's rather distinctive brand of colourful fashion arrived carrying a tray filled with an enormous beef roast, an equally large smoked turkey, and a wide assortment of sides, accompanied by a bottle or three of an exceptional red wine. "Master Kingsley said to bring you foods," the elf announced. "He asks yous to please not eat the good townsfolk of Hogsmeade."

Severus growled, looking at the two unconscious wizards lying on the floor with a disdainfully curled lip. "Minerva was right… you do have quite a penchant for sheer, dumb luck, Potter. Your ankle may live. For now."