Summary: [HG/SS] Crackfic. For as long as she'd been alive, Hermione was sure she had the worst luck ever. AU

A/N: I blame Mulder.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

Trigger warning: Arachnids. Cute and adorable, but still arachnids.

As Luck Would Have It

Diligence is the mother of good luck. - Benjamin Franklin

"Albus, this can't be a part of the prophecy!" Minerva said, wringing her hands. "The Potter family is safe, yes? You made certain of that?"

"They are all living in a secret-kept location, Minerva, there is nothing more I can do for them."

"A secret kept by that fidgety boy, Pettigrew?"

"They've been the best of friends since they were eleven, Minerva," Dumbledore said with a sigh. "Just because your whiskers twitch whenever you think of him—"

"Albus, it's far more than just a whisker twitch! I'm telling you, and I've been telling you, that there is something terribly unhealthy in that group!"

"They are in a safe place, Minerva, and they haven't made a peep of their location. They are as safe as they can possibly be," Albus replied.

"But this, Albus? This isn't about a prophecy, this is murder! Plain, brutal, heartless murder!"

A baby's cry suddenly pierced the unholy silence, and Minerva's eyes went very wide. "Merlin—"

"Minerva, wait!"

The Scottish witch was a blur of motion as she darted up the stairs, leaving Albus alone with the victims of the latest rash of Death Eater murders. He rubbed his temples with his fingers, having seen far too many such scenes play out of late. All of them had ended exactly the same. Entire families were wiped off the face of Creation, leaving no one or nothing alive.

The baby's cries turned to coos as Minerva's voice crooned to an infant.

Except for this time. This time there was a survivor.

"Ah, my bonnie lass, you're alive!" Minerva said as she came down the stairs. "You were born under a lucky star," she comforted the baby as she looked around with confusion. The child was no swaddled infant, and she had on a loose nightgown that looked a lot like adult robes only in soft, plush fabric. She had a halo of riotous curls that sprouted off her head like a tangle of brambles that at any moment might mutate into a Venomous Tentacula.

"Da!" she cried clapping her little hands against Minerva's face.

"Ach, no, my wee lass. You don't know it, but Kendric and Margaret are—well, they loved you very much, my dear." Minerva's face twisted in pain. "My dear Iona. I'm afraid I'm the only family you have left now."

"Minerva you can't possibly mean to keep her. There is a war going on, and you are front and center!"

"I cannot leave her, Albus! She's kin! Kendric and Margaret were one of the few that actually supported the Order. They defied You-Know-Who because they believed! We cannae jist lae 'er tae rot in unknown hands!" Minerva's lilt went up a notch as she cradled the baby against her. "They kept 'er safe fur a body year, Albus! No one but I even know they had Iona!"

Albus frowned. The name hadn't been McGonagall, so that oversight had come as a true surprise. "They're actually McGonagalls?"

"Nae," Minerva said. "Conall's on me mam's side. Mam's name was Ross before she married, but she an' her family were magical.

Albus frowned, unhappy with being unaware of something so obvious yet as simply hidden with the lack of a blatantly Scottish-sounding name. It disturbed him that he'd missed something as big as Minerva having family that had been in the Order without his even realising it, though whether that was what was truly bothering him or that Minerva, herself, had such a strong sense of kin rearing up remained to be seen.

The truth was, most people in Britain didn't pay much attention to Scottish lineage, and that included the purebloods who traced back to the supposed Sacred 28. They never considered other lineages that rooted themselves in a history like the Scots or even Ireland or any other outside country. To many in the magical world, it was rooted in British Wizarding prejudice, so many families that were technically magical up to their eyeteeth were still being treated as if they were half-blood or Muggleborn.

It did not please Albus that he had been caught unawares due to being found guilty of that very same oversight. There were magical people all over the world, and it was ludicrous that "pureblood" magical people were based out of twenty eight predominantly WASP lineages. There were a few exceedingly rare exceptions, like the Shacklebolts and Zabinis, but they were outnumbered.

"Minerva," Albus said. "This is war. You cannot hope to take care of such a young child while dodging scores of Death Eaters."

"I will find a way, Albus," the Scottish witch insisted, hugging the infant to herself tightly. She removed a pendant from around her neck and placed it around the baby's, where it magically resized: a shimmering Scottish thistle. "McGonagalls always find a way."

There was a resounding crack as the witch and baby disappeared.

"Of course we'll take care of her, Minerva," Hollie said as she brushed the sniffling little girl's curls away from her face. "Paul and I have been trying to have children for so very long, you know that."

"Will there be any trouble with the adoption?" Paul asked, smiling warmly as the little girl pressed her hands to his face and looked straight into his eyes.

"Nae, I took care of it," Minerva assured him. "You can sign the papers in the morning."

Hollie squeezed her husband's hand, and he smiled back at her with nothing short of joy.

"I'm sorry this comes at the expense of your great-niece, Minerva," Paul said. "Are you sure you wish us to raise her as just a daughter of a pair of dentists? I know we're Squibs and all, but we could at least—"

"It will be much safer for her, Paul," Minerva said. "Right now, being a Muggle is probably the best protection she could possibly have."

Hollie nodded. "I understand."

"I'm truly sorry, Minerva," Paul said, squeezing Minerva's shoulder comfortingly.

"Kendric and Margaret were so very brave," Minerva said. "As much as I would love to keep her at my side, I realise that it would not be safe for her right now. No one knows that Iona was even born, and that will help keep her safe from Death Eaters."

Hollie shuddered. "I'm almost glad both of our parents moved across the pond. Not that it is any guarantee of safety, but—"

Minerva nodded. "Aye." She tilted her head. "Do you have a name for her?"

"Hermione," the couple said together.

Minerva lifted an eyebrow.

"Shakespearean name," Paul explained.

Minerva smiled a little despite the situation. "It's a beautiful name."

"And Jean," Hollie said, "after Paul's mum."

Minerva hugged them both. "I must go before I cannot will myself to leave."

The couple smiled at her, clearly understanding.

"You know, Kendric and Margaret were trying for a child for so long. Margaret used to tease that the only way they'd get pregnant was if they both drank Felix Felicis."

Hollie's eyes went wide. "Mum said she drank down a whole vial of it once to escape from a rather bad situation. The healers said it was the only reason she managed to survive the beatings, but she always blamed herself for me being born a Squib."

Minerva shook her head. "No, lass. No one knows for sure why anyone is born a Squib. That line of thinking does you no service."

Hollie nodded. "We'll take good care of her," she said to the elder witch.

"We'll love her as our own," Paul insisted.

Minerva's smile was accompanied by the blink back of tears as the crack of her Disapparation carried her away.

"Oh my god! Oh my god!" Hollie clutched Hermione to her bosom as the young child screamed bloody murder at the spectacle of horror before them. Cars lay in their pile up only a few feet away where some drunken sod had tried to play bowling for pedestrians.

As the sirens wailed and the paramedics swarmed all over the scene, Paul ran up, hugging his wife and daughter tight.

"My baby!" a mother's voice cried over the carnage. "My baby is in there!" The paramedics were rolling her off on a stretcher as the injured mother cried out for her child.

Hollie hugged Hermione even tighter.

"I'm okay, mummy," Hermione complained, squirming in discomfort.

"Thank god you didn't try to cross the street just then!" Hollie sobbed, sniffling as she wept in relief.

"Come back 'ere bookworm! You owe me quid for lunch!"

The bushy-haired girl fled across the schoolyard as fast as her legs could carry her.

Just then, bully reached out to grab her, seizing a handful of her shirt, pulling it off. The kids laughed as Hermione shrieked in embarrassment, but her shirt whipped around into the bully's face, got tangled in a dangling flower planter, and the entire kit and kaboodle landed on him, covering him with dirt, random bits of plastic, bright pink begonias, and one baffled-looking squirrel.

Meanwhile, a tiny, frail-looking elderly woman with thick spectacles came out with a broom and whacked the bully about the head and shoulders for destroying her flower planter and interrupting her peaceful afternoon of squirrel watching.

"Jinx, jinx, you're a bloody jinx!" the children chanted.

Hermione fled back into the school, hiding in the once place she knew the loud-mouthed terrors wouldn't follow her: the library.

"It's just a sprained ankle, love," her father chided her gently.

"I'm a jinx!" Hermione wailed. "It's my fault."

"Oh, Hermione, don't you see?" her father said kindly. "A sprained ankle is far better than a broken one."

Hermione's mother eyed the broken window where the mixing beaters has crashed their way through, landing in the nearby flower planter.

She eyed her daughter with a suspicious glance.

"I'm so sorry!" Hermione gushed.

Hollie shook her head. "I'm just glad they missed my head, love. Help me clean up the mess, will you?"

The mail carrier lay flat in the front garden, envelopes scattered everywhere. A white, spotted owl hooted in distress, having been pinned by the unfortunate carrier of land-mail after having been shot out of the sky by a random out of bounds soccer ball.

Hermione stood in the doorway of the house, a look of pure horror on her face. "Mr Wilkerson! I'm so sorry! Do you need me to call 999?"

The mail carrier groaned, spitting out a mouthful of white feathers. "I'm okay, miss Hermione," he grunted, rolling onto his back.

Just then, there was an explosion from a neighbor's home and a water heater shot up from the house like a rocket and smashed into the mail carrier's vehicle, right where he would have been sitting had he not been waylaid by a soccer-ball owl victim.

Fire and steam spewed up from the afflicted vehicle as Hermione ran into the house, yelling frantically for her mum.

Hermione picked up the tiny black kitten from the middle of the street, carrying it back to safety. She set it down as the calico mother ran up and grasped the kitten by the scruff and carried it off into the hedges.

A truck zoomed by, covering Hermione in mud and silt. She sputtered, trying to wipe her eyes so she could see. The truck, having passed her, missed the brightly coloured orange pylons marking the ongoing street maintenance project, and its front tire sank into the exposed hole as the workers went diving in all directions to avoid being run over.

Sirens blared as police cars zoomed to the scene. Police poured out of vehicles, pointing weapons at the runaway truck.

"It's over, Marley!" one of the officers said.

The truck driver, having not worn his seat belt, lay sprawled over the top of another vehicle's roof, could only groan and bleed in response.

As the troll felt flat on his face in the restroom, Hermione yelled in fright and ran straight to the nearest teacher and hugged him tightly, not letting go. The remains of the toilets burst, the doors fell off their hinges, and mirror shards cracked and shattered on the floor.

Severus Snape looked down at the trembling young witch clinging to his person with an unreadable expression—for once, words failing him completely.

"You're lucky it was a feline hair from a real cat and not an Animagus," Professor Snape said as he handed her a vial. "Drink this."

Hermione stared at her lap, but she drank the vial of potion, making a face as the taste made her want to gag.

"Of all the foolish things you could have done," he said. "I should take a hundred points if not for stealing from me wasn't enough, but I think a better punishment would be more appropriate for such a stupid girl who thinks brewing Polyjuice in the girls' bathroom is a good idea."

Hermione winced, staring at her hands.

"Your apprenticeship starts tomorrow, Miss Granger. You are to report to me tomorrow night after the dinner provided Madam Pomfrey releases you. The potions master stood, his robes managing to billow without wind. "This will, of course, be done in the utmost of secrecy, Miss Granger. I do not think a girl, even one as foolhardy as yourself, needs to be told what shall happen if you fail in this."

Hermione shook her head rapidly, silent.

"You're a bloody jinx you are!" Ron blurted loudly as lurid green slime dripped from his body and every other person in the room save for Hermione and the looming potions master at the front of the room.

"Hee-HONK!" Harry said, grabbing Ron's skin in his serrated bill and twisting it like a goose.

Draco kicked over his table with his brand new donkey's rear. Crabbe skittered around on the floor as an oversized crab. Goyle barked and chased his tail, made even more comical by the fact he only had a dog's tail and a human body. Neville sported about fifty-odd Venomous tentacula tendrils out of his head. Seamus' head resembled a Muggle fire hydrant. Pansy's head was—an actual pansy.

"It's always Hermione!" Ron yelled. "Her—haw! HEE-HAW. HEE—HAWWWW!" Ron's face turned into a burro's muzzle as his head transformed completely into a furry, long-eared example of the asinus species—in ginger.

"Detention with me tonight, Miss Granger," Snape scowled. "The rest of of you march your sodden selves up to the infirmary immediately. Five points from you, Mr Weasley, for your mindless accusations against your classmate when, in fact, it was your chocolate frog that landed in your poorly brewed potion to cause this ungodly mess. You will serve detention with Mr Filch for the rest of the month."

HE-HAW!

Quack!

BUKAWK!

Hee-HONK!

Bark!

A flood of assorted animalised students shuffled out the door and up towards the infirmary.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed gustily as the classroom emptied.

"I'm so sorry!" Hermione blurted.

"Miss Granger, it is not your fault that your peers are witless imbeciles," he growled. Then he handed her an old, worn book from the cabinet. "Here, bring this tonight and we will work on page one hundred and seventy two."

"Potion Making When All Goes Pear-Shaped?" Hermione said quietly.

"Would you prefer Potions for Idiots?"

Hermione shook her head wildly. "No, Master."

Severus sighed and shooed her off with an elegant hand. "Tell those cretins that I gave you detention for the rest of the year for befouling the sanctity of my classroom."

Hermione smiled, gathered up her things, and fled the classroom as Snape waved his wand and cleaned up the oozing, dripping mess in an instant.

"Severus Snape!" the wrath of Minerva McGonagall came blowing through Snape's classroom's warded doors with a literal wind, blowing parchments off of his desk. "How dare you give Hermione Granger or anyone a detention for a year! What could she possibly have done to warrant such a horrible punishme—"

Minerva's words died off as she saw Hermione standing at the potions bench, eyes closed as her hands drifted across several unmarked jars of potions ingredients.

"Now, feel the vibration as you listen to the potion," Severus said, his voice low but not filled with the typical venom. "When it is ready, you will hear the bubbling change shift. There. Did you hear it?"

"Yes, Master."

"Now, run your hands over the ingredients. Feel for the tug from the potion to the ingredients. You will feel a tug on what needs to go in. There may be multiples. You must take the one that is strongest or the potion will require more tinkering, and you do not want more tinkering. You want less."

Severus' gaze bored into Minerva as she stood there, jaw dropped to the floor. He said nothing.

"This one, master," Hermione said, her eyes opening. The moment she did, she actually saw Minerva, and she let out a squeal of surprise. She staggered backwards, her working trance and meditation broken with an audible pop. The cauldron started to boil violently.

Severus snarled, his face twisted from neutrality to anger as he slammed a spell down on the cauldron and vanished its contents before it could completely explode. Hermione's eyes widened fearfully with the rise of his ire, thinking she had broken a cardinal rule that began with wasted potion ingredients and ended with being seen doing potions with Professor Snape.

"I'm sorry!" Hermione wailed, looking as if she would bolt from the room with a look of pure guilt and panic.

"Minerva, I do not put wards on my classroom doors so you can blow right through them like a sodding cyclone and scare the living daylights out of my apprentice, you miserable, self-righteous feline!" He moved in a flash, blocking Hermione's way as he caught her in his arm.

Hermione looked up at him, trembling. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Be still," Severus commanded, causing her to freeze in place. He looked her over. "Are you injured? No burns?"

"I—" Her look of panic exchanged for confusion. "I don't think so."

Severus looked over her arms and her face and hair for where the potion may have bubbled over onto her. "You need a proper set of robes and some dragonhide boots for times like this. It was foolish of me to think you wouldn't need them here." He glowered at Minerva.

"No—I'm sorry!" Hermione fretted again. "I didn't mean—"

"Apprentice Granger!" Severus hissed, his voice cutting through her panic like superheated metal. "This was not your fault. You will hold yourself together as befits my apprentice."

Hermione flinched and tried desperately to obey, but she kept looking at Minerva like she was the end of everything.

"Apprentice, gather new ingredients and fetch us some tea. We will begin again after I deal with our unexpected and uninvited guest," Severus said, his voice dangerously soft.

"Yes, master," Hermione scurried off to the storeroom.

Severus' lips curled disdainfully at the Scottish witch. "I hope whatever you need to get off your chest is worth losing over a hundred galleons worth of potions ingredients, Minerva, some of which were from my personal stash. That and you have sufficiently terrified my apprentice so much that she will probably be paranoid that her mediations will not hold when she needs them for the next month."

"I—" Minerva started.

Snape's glare was like unto an eleven year old, only McGonagall was not immune.

"I had no idea, Severus," Minerva said, sitting down in the nearby chair.

"Obviously," Snape sneered.

"I've spent so much time trying to keep her under the radar, Severus," Minerva said in a whisper. "Trying to keep her safe."

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Not that it is any of my business, but why do you even care about one Gryffindor cub versus another, Minerva? That is not not like you to play favourites."

"She's my grand-niece, Severus," Minerva confessed. "Her parents were killed a year before the end of the first war. Death Eaters. Old family friends adopted her. Squibs. They'd been trying for a child for years. She was only one year old, Iona. They took her in. Adopted her. They kept her anonymous and safe, which in my heart I knew I couldn't give her with me. That and Albus—he would have forced me to cut her from my life."

A tea tray came crashing down as Hermione went to the floor in a dead faint.

Severus hissed, rushing over to pick up his apprentice and move her to a hastily transfigured settee. He shot Minerva another glance. "You owe me both potion ingredients and a new tea service, Minerva. Try not to owe me another apprentice by breaking her too."

"I'm sorry!" Hermione cried as hippogryphs flew in all directions, knocking into trees, kicking down the fences, slamming into each other, and stampeding on the ground only to take off to the air and continue their rampage.

Children were screaming. Books were being stomped. Draco took a hoof to the head. A pile of Monstrous Books of Monsters were mauling students in the chaos.

A rampaging hippogriff kicked a tree and a large mother spider, her back laden with fuzzy babies, fell from the tree branches right onto—

Ron screamed bloody murder and tore off down the path back to Hogwarts, little baby spiders flying in all directions as he practically beat on himself to be free of them.

The mother spider, who was a flashy combination of red and blue with spotted dapples of white on her abdomen. Rushed after her distressed spiderlings, frantically trying to put them back on her back. She was, most definitely, not the Muggle variety of arachnid, yet she wasn't Acromantula-I'll-eat-you-now huge either, perhaps the side of a softball, not including her legs. Her legs, which were a flashy red with white stripes, tapered off into black, making her look quite flashy in the "don't eat me, I'm poisonous" warning that most animals knew on sight. Acromantulas, on the other hand, were terrifying ambush predators that blended right into the dirt and would happily murder you if you happened to get too close—as to whether that made them edible, no one in Britain was telling.

Unfortunately, between the hippogriffs, Hagrid yelling orders, children screaming, copies of the Monstrous Book of Monsters being trampled and trying to take bites out of people—the rare magical spider species was getting thrown to the wayside.

Just as Hermione tried to get up and assist with recapturing the hippogriffs, a potion vial came flying out of nowhere and shattered on her face just as a heavy tome came like a chaser and smashed into her face, sending her flying backwards into the forest litter and everything went black.

"Is she okay, mummy?"

"She's bleeding a little."

"Bind her cuts there like this. There you go. Just like that."

Hermione slowly opened her eyes and realised it was past sunset. "Nugh," she grunted, wincing in pain.

"Don't move too fast!" a female voice said. "You got a rather large book to the face."

"We're not fans of flying books," little voices chimed in unison.

"Flying books are bad."

Hermione rubbed her face as she sat up. "What happened?"

"We were sheltering in your hair, and someone saw."

"They brained you with something from their pocket."

"And a large book."

"And a broom handle."

"And a magic rock."

Hermione's vision was still moving, and the blurriness didn't help.

"Guh," she managed.

"Easy now," the female voice said.

Hermione itched her chest and found—

"I have a rock embedded into my sternum," she groaned blearily.

"It's a magic rock."

"It glows."

"Pretty."

Hermione eyed it, trying to focus, but it was just out of her line of sight. "I really am jinxed. Who else would end up with a rock embedded into their bones after a hippogriff stampede?"

"But you can understand us now!" the little voices squeaked.

"That's easy," Hermione muttered. "You are speaking in English."

"I don't think so," one voice said.

"Yeah, I think you're just understanding us."

"People don't really get on with us spiders."

"Even though we do eat their pests."

Hermione's eyes shot open and she stared, her eyes focusing as the swimming image of blur on top of blur focused into a large mama spider with lots of baby spiderlings clinging to her back.

"Whaeeeee?!" Hermione's voice went straight to Molly Weasley level.

But much to her surprise, the spiders sulked and hung their tiny heads.

"She doesn't like us."

"No one ever likes us."

"No one likes us because we're spiders."

Hermione, struck by a strangely heavy sense of guilt, sat up straighter. "No it's just—I wasn't expecting spiders. I mean—I can understand you, and just yesterday I couldn't understand spiders, so I was expecting… well, a human something."

The spiderlings perked and the mother spider eyed her tentatively.

"I, um," Hermione tugged uncomfortably at her collar. "I'm Hermione."

"I'm Arachne," the mother spider said, bouncing a little on all eight legs.

The baby spiders all said their names at once, and Hermione scrunched her face as she tried to understand them.

"I'm sorry," she apologised. "You're all saying your names at the same time! And—it's just that there are so many of you!"

"They don't have real names yet," Arachne explained. "They all just adopted sounds they liked until a real name comes to them."

"Oh," Hermione said, boggling. "I suppose that makes sense. At least you aren't stuck with a name you hate, right?"

The spiderlings jumped up and down excitedly in agreement.

Hermione's fingers touched the silk-sewn cuts on her face. "Oh, did you—"

"We sewed them shut!"

"Mummy showed us how."

"We put venom in the wound to kill the bacteria."

"Not the bad kind."

"The good kind!"

"Does she know there is a good and bad kind?"

"She does now!"

"Crisis averted!"

"Phew!"

Hermione laughed. "You guys are very helpful. Thank you."

"She thanked us!"

"We never get thanked!"

"Yay!"

"We should stay with her, mummy!"

"Yes!"

"It's dangerous out there!"

"We should claim her before another spider comes along and adopts her!"

"Indeed!"

Hermione rubbed her head, feeling a little dizzy.

"I dunno, she may not want spider friends," the mother spider said, eyeing Hermione somewhat dubiously.

Hermione fidgeted under such intense scrutiny. "I'll admit, um, I never really thought about spiders as my friends."

The spiderlings slumped dejectedly.

"But, I'm willing to give it a go," Hermione said.

The spiderlings perked back up. "Mean it?"

Hermione nodded. "I've never seen spiders like you before. The only talking spiders we learned about are the Acromantulas, and they are not very nice."

"Acromantulas tried to eat some of us before," the spiderlings said. "We're poisonous though, so they died. Mumbles has a bite taken out of him."

One of the larger spiderlings with a divot in his carapace sighed sadly.

"That's why we're brightly coloured!"

"Duh!"

"So obvious."

"We want to come with you, though!"

"We promise we won't bite you with the bad venom!"

"Promise!"

"Leg promise!"

"All eight!"

Hermione smiled at them, enjoying their cheerful antics. "Okay. If you promise."

"We do!"

"We're portable!"

"We fit in small spaces!"

"We fit in large spaces!"

"Does she know that?"

""She does now!"

"We survive squishes too."

"Helpful."

"Most spiders don't do well squished."

The spiders looked at Hermione hopefully.

Hermione extended her hand, palm up. "I'd really like to have friends," she said rather wistfully.

The mother spider crawled onto her hand.

"Yay!"

"We like friends!"

"We love friends!"

"Horray!"

"We can hide in your hair."

"No one will notice!"

"Stealthy!"

"Strangely stealthy for brightly coloured spiders."

"Yup!"

"Key to survival!"

Arachne scurried up her arm and nestled at the base of her neck, hidden by Hermione's curls.

"Tickles!"

"Hee!"

"They said you're tickling them."

Severus arched a brow as he took the pipette off the spider's fangs where a drop of glowing venom lay within. "Sorry," he said to the spiderling.

"That's okay!" the spiderling said as it crawled back to Arachne and hopped back on her back.

Hermione grinned.

"Do you realise we have a few hundred thousand galleons worth of Voraxix spider venom?" Severus said as he squeezed the droplet into a vial. "It's beyond rare."

"Really?" Hermione said, boggling. "I mean, this is just one family, and look at how much we have."

"Angry spiders only make one kind of venom, I fear," Severus said.

"Bad kind," the spiderlings chimed in.

"Ironically, one drop of this will go into an entire vat of potion that will keep all the hippogriff victims from scarring as well as the rest of the healing benefits," Severus said. "Dittany will seem like a first year potion by comparison."

Hermione's hand went to her face, which was blemishless even after being cut to pieces by flying glass.

"We helped?" the spiders asked, eager.

"You did indeed," Hermione reassured them, and they bounced up and down, squeaking happily.

The bell rang for the return of students to their dormitories for the night.

"Off with you," Snape said, shooing Hermione away from the counter. I'm sure Potter and Weasley cannot wait to hear what dreadful tortures I have inflicted upon you tonight."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She handed Snape the vial of venom she had collected from her "half" of the enthusiastic spider clutter.

"Does Master Snape want to see a trick?" one of the spiderlings asked.

"This little guy wants to know if you want to see a trick," Hermione said.

Severus arched a brow. "Well, curiosity is alive and well. Do tell."

The little spiderling's multiple eyes glistened just before—

FOOOOOP!

A giant spider stood in his place—so large that his back touched the ceiling.

Severus' eyes went wide and he lunged across the room—

He grasped two large beakers and stuck it on the end of the enlarged spider's fangs. Glistening, glowing venom filled the beakers.

As soon as the venom fillled the beakers, the spider poofed back into his regular, smaller and less disturbingly gargantuan size and scurried up to hide back in Hermione's hair.

Hermione stared down at her master, who was flat on his back save for the two brimming full beakers clasped in his hands. "Master?"

"Hn?"

"Do you need assistance getting back up?"

"I think I'll just lie here and contemplate the gravity of having access to self-enlarging rare magical spiders with exceedingly rare venom components that just stocked us with enough to guarantee your Gringott's account will rival that of centuries old Wizarding families."

"Good thing you get half," Hermione said. She plunked corks into each beaker and placed the beakers carefully on the nearby counter.

"Half? I'm not the one with self-enlarging magical spider friends," Severus noted.

Hermione waved him off in a gesture he realised she'd picked up from him and which he had picked up from Lucius. Probably best not to tell Lucius that little tidbit—

"You've done plenty to deserve it, my master," Hermione said, her hands crossed across her robes in a very familiar gesture. Her fingers extended to pull her outer robe in towards her line of buttons.

Hrm, wonder where she picked that up, Severus thought to himself. Pot, meet cauldron.

"Besides, what am I going to do with millions of galleons, master?" Hermione said as she picked up her book bag to leave.

"Save the world as an insufferable Gryffindor," Snape muttered, still flat on his back on the floor.

Hermione huffed, extending her hand to him. "Not bloody likely," Hermione muttered.

"Language, Miss Granger," Severus scolded, yet there was no heat to it. He took her hand and pulled himself up. "Do tell me if your eight-legged friends have any other undisclosed talents."

Hermione grinned. "I will, if they bother to tell me first. I think they like surprising you."

"Hrmph," he replied. "Away with you, miscreant, and don't forget you are also serving detention with Minerva tomorrow, so she can punish you appropriately for transfiguring your clothes to look like mine."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him as she passed her wand over herself and changed her robes back into her normal, student fare—save for the dragonhide boots that had become her normal goto footwear. Her face changed to something more serious, but her eyes were warm. "Goodnight, Master."

"Goodnight, Apprentice."

Hermione swept from the room, her student robes hanging about her shoulders like the drape of raven wings.

You're a bloody JINX, Hermione!" Ron blurted as he picked up the fallen chess pieces from the floor. "I think all those detentions with Snape are turning you into another sodding dungeon bat!"

Hermione clutched her books to her chest and fled up the stairs to the dorms.

Ron woke to the sound of Neville snoring in between talking in his sleep about vicious, man-eating fanged geraniums. He stared into the darkness of his bed, getting more and more irritated. Quidditch practice was in the morning, and he wanted to be at his best.

After about ten minutes of listening to Neville stop when he clapped only to start up again, only to have Harry take up a glorious harmony, Ron threw open the curtains so he could throw something at Neville's bed curtains—

Ron didn't realise what he was even looking at in the dark of the room, but he slowly saw the multiple eyes and eight distinctively arachnid legs filling in the spaces. Glowing blue-green venom glistened from each fang.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ron screamed shrilly, grabbing his wand and casting spells in no particular order.

The curtains were ablaze as the rest of the room burst from their beds as water spouted from the enchanted grotesques to put the fires out.

"What the bloody HELL, mate?" Harry yelled, wringing out his night clothes as the Head Boy came bursting into the room, wand in hand even as his Patronus went zinging away to the Head of House.

Meanwhile, a tiny blue, white, red, and black spider skittered out the window and away.

Hermione sighed as she tried to brew without her normal protective bubble and pre-brewing meditation. She tried to still her mind, but the mindless chatter of those around her was incredibly distracting. The potions assignment was hard, as was expected from the likes of Severus Snape, but there was nothing about it that wasn't expected for the level they were supposed to be working at. The problem was that there were three recipes on the board, and each partnership had to pick the one they thought they could do best and bring it to fruition.

It was something that would be much easier if in the company of those who took potions seriously, but few did to the level that made brewing with them particularly comfortable. Draco did, but she expected that. There was a part of Draco that seemed to respect Severus, whether it was because of his being the Head of Slytherin House or some other reason she wasn't aware of, she wasn't sure.

They were supposed to be working as partners, but no one wanted to work with her. Her reputation for being a jinx was well-rooted by now and as hard to get rid or as a runaway mint patch. Cutting the plant left the root to grow again and again, and that was the bane of her existence.

So, while she sat there, she struggled to ignore the continual whispers behind her and in front of her. Her almost constant detentions with the "dungeon git" had her pegged as the world's worst potions student and in need of severe remediation. No one, even without the jinx reputation, wanted to be stuck with her as a partner.

When Professor Snape had ordered Tracy Davis to work with her, the girl had taken a Skiving Snackbox, burst out in pustulant boils and fled for the infirmary after having thrown up in her own cauldron. All of it was avoid working with her.

Not that she would make a good partner anyway, she figured. The distractions were driving her barking mad.

Already, her master was trying to dampen the issue with Draco's cauldron which had been sneezed on by Goyle—or rather he'd sneezed into his sleeve and then the entire sleeve ended up in the cauldron.

Gods only knew where that had been before then.

Hermione shuddered.

Meanwhile, Seamus needed an eye of newt for his potion and asked Ron for one from the jar he had in front of him, and Ron being the uber helpful type, scooped an undetermined quantity of them onto a spoon and flicked them towards Seamus. They pinged off his tie and half-rolled down his front and then landed in the cauldron with a splat. Good thing he hadn't started brewing—as if Seamus needed help blowing things up.

Seamus fished the eyes out of his cauldron, glared at Ron, and cleaned the cauldron out as his partner read off the instructions, yet he didn't scourgify it. That was going to cause "interesting" problems later.

Hermione shook her head and decided to do the mid-range potion. She'd brewed the more complicated one forwards and backwards with her master, but that was under far less stressful conditions, and she really, really didn't want to push her luck with the distracting whispering and finger pointing in her direction. What she really needed were a pair of nice earplugs and to close her eyes. If she couldn't see them about to make horrible mistakes, she wouldn't be tempted to raise her hand or help them out, and helping anyone out seemed to end in pain, suffering, and woe. Sometimes that included an extra serving of woe.

"Psst," a tiny voice whispered into her ear. "We can help!"

There was a soft rustling by her ear as her spider friends wove a ball of silk and stuck it into her ear canal, effectively cutting off the insidious gossip line straight to her brain.

Unfortunately, the blissful deafness caused Hermione to miss Ronald's screech of horror at discovering spiders "crawling all over Hermione" and the distinctive plunk of something unidentified landing right in Seamus' bubbling cauldron and Ron's entire rucksack went careening towards Hermione's head.

Hermione went tumbling out of her chair as Ron starting beating her with a book, screaming "I'll murder you! All of you! You're never going to get as big is that one in the dorm!"

Burble.

Burble.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Potion flew in all directions.

Burble, burble, rattle—

KER-BLAM!

SLORCH!

BLAM!

Cauldron after cauldron blew up in a chain reaction fiasco. Flaming slime erupted everywhere, getting in people's hair. Just as Snape tried to cross the room to dampen the literal flames and get a handle on the chain reaction, Ronald ploughed into him with another book as he proceeded to beat the ever-living piss out of Hermione.

Baby spiders scrambled away in all directions as the mother spider took a few beatings for the team, each connect with the book caused her body to flatten and she made a sad squeak of protest. Hermione struggled to protect the mama spider, and wrapped her hands around the arachnid and turned her body as she went into the fetal position.

"Stop it, Ron!" Hermione yelled, wincing as she was beaten by proxy by Ron's blind fury against all of spiderkind, having apparently exchanged sheer terror for a blind, arachnicidal rage.

BOOM!

Another cauldron exploded, this time it clung to the ceiling like something out of the Blob, oozing over the rafters in a pink, gelatinous mass.

Plop.

A line of thick, potion ooze drizzled into a nearby bat, sending it squeaking in terror as the ooze covered its head. The poor animal was struck by the book Ronald was using to smash spiders against Hermione and the floor as he called her everything from a jinx to a wannabe dungeon bat who consorted with various disgusting, unnatural creatures including spiders.

The bat wobbled, splatted against Ron, got a really big whiff of Ron's smoking cauldron, then stiffened and fell into the cauldron, as dead as a doornail.

Burble. Burble.

BOOM!

Ron shrieked as the hot liquid flew all over his robes, his hair, and a three foot radius around his cauldron.

"You're a ruddy JINX!" Ron roared, chucking a box of something utterly random into Hermione's cauldron, which had, at least until that point, remained blissfully untainted.

"Miss Granger!" Snape's voice hissed in warning as his robes whipped around to intercept, but only partially so—

BOOM!

The cauldron exploded, combined with the ooze clinging to the ceiling, and it all came raining down in an impressive spray of sparkling purple blobs of potion-gone-very-very-wrong.

Ronald Bilius Weasley Brought Before Wizengamot For Blowing Up the Hogwarts Potions Lab, Trapping His Classmates in Marriage Against Their Will!

The youngest Weasley boy has been put in front of the Wizengamot after making what had been a careless potions explosion into a nightmare that ended with him hanging from the rafters by his feet as a giant Nyctalus noctula bat and twelve of his fellow students trapped in unwanted magical marriages.

In what has been described as an epic potions disaster that couldn't be replicated even if they tried, aside from the obvious batification of Ronald Bilius Weasley, it was found that he was also trying to kill one of the most endangered and protected species of magical spider in all of Europe—arachnids that have a venom that is capable of both healing and harm, depending on the spider's mood at the time. Between that and Weasley's attack on a fellow student in front of countless witnesses, forcing his professor to throw himself in between them, the trial is guaranteed to be very long and complicated. Since Mr Weasley is not yet of age, the blame for his actions could fall upon his parents, but it is unknown as to what the Wizengamot will decide.

All attempts to change Mr Weasley back into a human form have been met with furious squeaking and failure.

The students who have found themselves unexpectedly married by magic have tried every way possible to annul the bond and break the marriage, all to no avail. Only those in the room who managed not to touch anyone until they were cleansed of the potion residue remain unaffected. The names of the students who have been so afflicted are being withheld to protect their identities as most are not yet of age. Under special dispensation from the Ministry, their names are being kept the same until they graduate from Hogwarts.

As to the crime and the appropriate punishment, only the Wizengamot will know the full details of everything that happened. Rumour has it that Legilimencers are being called in from Bulgaria to examine the minds of those involved. Other rumours have Unspeakables extracting memories for the trial. No one seems to know for certain, and the trial is set for next week.

BzzzzBzzzzt.

"Caught something!"

"Oooo, food?"

"Well, it's not a book to the face!"

The spiderlings huddled on the web.

"Mummy, what is that?"

The tired mother spider crawled out from under Hermione's hair to peer at their find. "That would be a beetle. They are definitely edible. Might have to bite it a few times to get it to stop all that thrashing about."

"Okay, Mummy!"

The spiderlings pounced on the thrashing beetle, trying to sink their miniature fangs into it.

Alastor Moody eyed the activity on the web with an arched eyebrow. "Interesting company you keep, Madam Snape," he said. "Are you up to questions?"

Hermione propped herself up in the infirmary bed. "May want to sit away from me. With my luck, you'd catch something horrible, a piano will fall from the sky and flatten you, or lightning may strike, hitting me but somehow blowing you arse over teakettle out the window."

Alastor harrumphed. "I know I have a bit of a reputation that precedes me, Ms Snape, but—"

"Hermione, please," Hermione pleaded. She stroked Crookshanks for comfort as she snuffled his warm fur. "I've had so much formality in the last week to set my head spinning."

"Alastor," the gruff Scotsman said.

Arachne crawled out onto Hermione's arm and peered at the Auror. "This is Arachne, and those—well, they're her babies but they don't have real names yet."

The spiderlings were very busy trying to pounce, bite, and cocoon the frantic buzzing beetle in their web.

Crookshanks gently took Arachne in his mouth and plopped her down between his front legs and groomed her.

"You'll have apothecaries beating down your door for just visiting rights to those little friends of yours," Alastor said.

"I fear my husband has first dibs," Hermione said with a snort.

"You're taking this marriage pretty well."

Hermione shook her head. "Trust me, there were far worse people I could have touched in that room, Alastor. One of them was a giant bat."

The Auror's eye went wide. "You have a point."

"He has been kind to me, Alastor," Hermione insisted. "He has done anything unseemly or out of turn, and he has not made me feel uncomfortable in any way. And considering that most of Hogwarts would rather treat me with blatant cruelty right to my face, I find that refreshing."

Alastor's eyebrows lifted as he scowled, a twitch of something crossing his face.

"You say your reputation precedes you," Hermione said. "I know exactly how that goes. Believe me when I tell you that Professor Snape's reputation, by far precedes him and that few if any know him for who he is."

"You believe you know him better?"

"I believe I know that part of him that matters," Hermione said.

"What would that be?"

"He is far more than people think, just as I am more than a curse to be talked about as though every bad thing in the world is somehow my fault," Hermione said bitterly.

Alastor blinked, perhaps realising that he, too, had been guilty of doing exactly what had been done to him.

Hermione cuddled the mother spider, pressing her face into the arachnid's soft fur. Arachne purred softly. "She tried to protect me from Ron," Hermione said. "Ironically, I think Ron was trying to protect everyone from the spiders."

"He smooshed us!" one of the spiderlings squeaked indignantly.

"They don't much like being 'smooshed'," Hermione said. "Their word."

"Understandable," Alastor replied.

"Mummmmyyy! Come bite this thing so we can eat it!"

"It's struggling too much!"

Arachne looked over to the almost destroyed web. "Okay, here I come!" she announced. The softball sized mother spider spronged off Hermione's hands and landed on the wriggling half-silked bundle of angrily buzzing beetle. There was a distinct thwack as her venomous fangs pierced the beetle's hard carapace.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! GET IT OFF!" a feminine voice screamed bloody murder as spiderlings flew in all directions and Arachne was punted out the window with an, "Eeeeeee!"

"Mummy!"

"Nooo!"

Rita Skeeter frantically brushed herself over as if to get the spiders off her as Alastor had his wand out and pointed it at Rita. Rita yelled as Alastor gestured with his wand, "Accio Arachne!"

SHOOMSPLAT!

Arachne landed legs first onto Alastor's face and slid down his body comically. "Oh, thanks," she squeaked.

Hermione scooped Arachne up and held her against herself. "She says 'thanks'," she translated, quickly hiding the spider in her hair.

"I don't—" Rita swooned. "Feel so good."

Rita was breaking out in lurid purple spots as she fell over onto the floor.

Dark robes swished as Snape appeared carrying a pitcher of lemonade and a tray of assorted sandwiches. "Dare I even ask?" he droned, staring at the crumpled body of Rita Skeeter quite dispassionately.

Alastor slapped a set of magical cuffs on Rita. "You're under arrest for being an unregistered Animagus, Skeeter. Thank you for really making my day."

Severus arched a brow as he handed Hermione a drink. "Goody." He plucked a glowing blue vial from his robes and handed it to Moody. "You should probably dose her with this before she goes into pulmonary arrest to go along with her arrest."

Alastor took the vial, making expressive eyebrows.

"Antivenin," Severus replied to the unasked question. "Unless you wish to watch her go into convulsions, foam at the mouth, and bleed out from every orifice."

Alastor eyed Snape speculatively. "Tempting."

"Undoubtedly."

"Still illegal."

"Unfortunate, that."

The baby spiderlings made a circle around Rita. "You hurt our mummy!" They all swarmed over her and bit her exposed skin. "You threw her out a window!"

"Oh, dear," Severus said, deadpan. "Might want to um—" He grabbed a large syringe from the tray nearby. "Inject this right into her neck. Pick a nice, throbbing vessel of your choice. Perhaps the carotid—"

THUNK!

Alastor pressed the entire contents of the syringe into Rita's neck vessel.

"That works," Severus said, eyebrows lifting.

"Sn—Severus?"

"Yes, Mr Moody?"

"Thanks."

Severus narrowed his eyes but sniffed and squared his shoulders. "You are welcome."

Poppy came rushing up from around the corner. "I'm so sorry, dear, I had to deal with a bad case of—" Her eyes went from Alastor to Severus to Hermione and then to an unconscious Rita Skeeter with a syringe stuck in the side of her neck.

"What in Merlin's hammertoe is going on here?"

Guilty spiderlings rushed into Hermione's hair and disappeared.

"Let me get this straight, Severus—" Albus said, sucking on a lemon sherbet with more than the usual enthusiasm. "Ronald Weasley tampered with Seamus Finnigan's cauldron, it exploded while you were trying to dampen Draco Malfoy's cauldron after Gregory Goyle sneezed in it, and somehow the resulting potion miraculously didn't kill anyone but ended up clinging to the ceiling."

"Mhhmm," Snape said, utterly expressionless.

"And that was under control until Mr Weasley lost his temper, called Hermione Granger a jinx, threw some sort of Weasley prank into her cauldron while calling her a dungeon bat, the cauldron exploded, and that is why Mr Weasley is now hanging from the rafters of the Auror's holding cell by his feet eating figs and you are somehow now married to Miss Granger as well as twelve other students that happened to touch each other after the explosion."

"Apparently."

"You've tried annulling the marriage?"

"The bond is apparently permanent, sir."

Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose. "Does the Dark Lord know of it?"

"Ms Granger has kept her name under a time release spell for the year of her graduation in order to reduce whatever shame may come to either of us because of this situation due to those who would to assume."

Albus narrowed his eyes. "I see."

"Go ahead and ask, Albus."

"Did you and Miss Granger—"

"No."

Albus stared into Severus' eyes for several seconds but then turned away. "I see." He rubbed his beard and sighed wearily. "That will be all, Severus."

Suddenly, Severus hissed, grabbing his left forearm as a look of pain flickered across his face.

Albus's eyes changed from evaluating to something that could have been sympathy. "Be careful, Severus," he said carefully. "Now even more rides on you ability to keep your secrets safe."

Severus' dark eyes hardened. "I have never lost sight of that, Albus." The Dark wizard stood and fled the headmaster's office in a flutter of his robes.

There was a loud boom as a cloud of black smoke and crackling flames filled the testing room. People coughed and choked, fanning the air as they staggered out of the room. The masters used their magic to rid the room of the smoke and douse the fires to expose a completely charred classroom down to the flagstones.

In the middle of the room, Hermione stood under a bubble of magic, the sphere around her completely pristine. Her eyes were closed as her fingers glided across the cauldron, adding pinches of things as she waited, listening for sounds that only an experienced ear could detect.

Here, while being tested, she had transfigured her robes and footwear to match her master's. Long woolen sleeves with umpteen ornate silver buttons protected her arms from splashes and a pair of black dragonhide boots adorned her feet. Her face was stoic and impassive as her slender hands moved, head tilted, and wand passed over the cauldron just so even as her other hand stirred.

Hermione's head tilted suddenly, and she waved her wand in a rigid motion, incanting something hidden by the Muffilato she had cast over herself to avoid any distractions from the outside—or rather to avoid the outside from hearing what she was doing and attempting to interrupt.

A golden liquid fish jumped up from the cauldron as the contents of the cauldron turned a brilliant gold.

The masters whispered to themselves, stunned.

"Liquid luck," one said.

"Amidst an explosion."

Hermione opened her eyes, her face softening as she came out of her meditative potions trance. Her expression turned into a frown as she realised the room she was in was charred and smoldering.

"What happened?"

Master Rheingold-Abbots pinned the laurels to her apprenticeship pin. "You passed your mastery, Master Granger," she said with a sombre twitch of her lips. "Congratulations."

Hermione's face lit up like the sun.

"She's a sodding JINX!" one of the other apprentices yelled, pointing through the rubble at Hermione.

"Apprentice Farquehart, you will report back to your master and explain to her why you and your peers blew up our testing facility!" Master Hornblower snapped.

Hermione took the Time-Turner from around her neck and extended it to Master Rheingold-Abbots. "Thank you for allowing me to complete my apprenticeship with this, Master."

"As I understand it, you have a long, hard road ahead of you, Master Granger. I wish you the utmost success in completing your task while your peers remain blissfully ignorant." She took the Time-Turner and placed it in a lacquered box and hid it away in her voluminous robes. "Severus speaks quite highly of you, and I do not think that anyone as intelligent as you, my dear, would miss how significant that is in our circle of masters."

Hermione sighed and nodded.

"I will seal your official record here at the Mastery's Hall of Records," Master Rheingold-Abbots said, "along with the memories of your exam. That along with your official registry as an Animagus will be kept here until you are 'officially' of age to graduate, just as you requested."

"Thank you," Hermione said gratefully.

"But to us, Master Granger," she said with a wink. "We'll all know better. Now, shoo. Severus owes you a congratulatory dinner as befits your tremendous accomplishment, if anything for putting up with his rancor for the past few years."

Hermione flushed and fled the testing room, her feet crunching the char and rubble as she left.

"What are we going to do with an entire cauldron of Felix Felicis?" Master Thornberry asked.

"Get lucky," Master Rheingold-Abbot's said, utterly deadpan.

"If you don't mind me saying, Seraphina," one of the other masters said. "I think our friends at the Auror's office could benefit from a few vials. They've been hitting their heads against the wall for a year now, never quite able to catch people in the act."

"Gunther Armin Stonewall," she exclaimed. "You brilliant, brilliant man."

KABOOM!

Seamus and Neville had faces full of soot and hair that stood on end.

"Mr Longbottom. Mr Finnigan," Snape's baritone voice was low and venomous. "There is no Miss Granger here to take the blame this time. To what do we owe this pillar of char and flagrant stupidity?"

"We were trying to reverse the spell that got us married!" the pair whinged together.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "Clean up this horrid mess before I give you detention with Deputy Headmistress McGonagall to go along with the five points from the each of you for compounded stupidity."

"Mr Crabbe. Mr Goyle," Severus hissed, his head slowly turning in their direction just as Crabbe dropped something into his cauldron.

BOOM!

Snape magicked away the smoke and glowing goo, having managed to shield the rest of the room in time. He glowered over them with, if it were to be believed, even more malice than before. "I don't care if you were married to a hippogriff, Messrs Crabbe and Goyle. You will stop trying to make absurdly volatile potions to cure a condition that cannot be cured."

"But—"

Snape scowled.

The two young wizards paled and hurriedly turned their faces away.

"I don't want to be permanently married to both of these cretins!" Pansy wailed.

Severus' expression twisted into a dangerous sort of smirk. "Rejoice, Miss Parkinson. You could be married to the very real ginger dungeon bat."

"Nothing is worse than that—" Pansy yelled.

Snape curled his lip as he stared her in the eyes. "You could be married to me."

Pansy Parkinson paled, immediately shut up, and sat down.

"Now, we if have no further outbursts, please turn to page one hundred and seventy-two."

"You can't possibly think that you're going to convince Fudge to acknowledge that the Dark Lord is really out there, Amelia!"

"Oh, I'm feeling quite lucky today, Chauncey," she answered him with a wink.

"Ssst," Arianna said, pressing something into Amelia's hand. "Don't forget to keep hydrated," she added with a grin.

Amelia smiled at the DoM spokeswitch with a knowing, smug smile. "Of course, my dear." She took in a deep breath and took a long swig from the flask. "Peach green tea, Arianna," she cooed. "You are the best."

"Knock 'em dead, Amelia."

Amelia did a fancy bow, twirling her hand and dropping to one knee in genuflection.

Chauncey exchanged glances with Arianna and sighed. "Fudge doesn't stand a chance."

"Mr Minister," Amelia said. "Why is it that you claim that You-Know-Who has not risen again, when the Boy-Who-Lived expressly detailed his resurrection?"

"Just the musings of a young boy wizard, Ms Bones," Cornelius answered her, brushing her off. "I cannot blame the boy, considering his personal history, what happened to his parents, being hunted by the known criminal Sirius Black—it's perfectly understandable, but the truth is he's wrong."

"Yet, hasn't Albus Dumbledore, the highly respected Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry supported Mr Potter's claims?"

"Supported, yes," Fudge said with a scoff, "but that does not make it correct. He's just feeding the delusions of a boy to gain his favour."

"But what would a man like Dumbledore have to gain from 'a boy wizard' as you said?"

"You've asked enough bothersome questions," Madam Umbridge said dismissively, shoving Amelia away with a not-so-subtle body slam, inadvertently knocking Amelia into Fudge's own bodyguards, and they went tumbling down like bowling pins off the stage and into the fountain. Umbridge looked very smug until a green beam and a red beam flew by mere inches from her face, streaked towards the Minister, ricocheted off the shiny metal mirror on the fountain, pinged off a flower pot, and smashed an overhanging vessel dangling from above. The liquid that had been contained within the vessel spewed downward into the fountain, and the fountain fish transformed into a pod of very confused-looking killer whales, one of which landed directly on top of an equally startled Dolores Umbridge.

The orcas chittered in distress, not designed for being in an ornamental fountain or, in this case, on the floor of a building. As the guards attempted to pull Fudge away from the flopping whales, Fudge slipped and landed right next to Umbridge with a splat.

The hall was utterly silent, save for the distressed whales. All eyes were now locked on Dolores Umbridge's left forearm where the Dark Mark writhed as black as pitch on her pale skin where the fabric of her long, pink sleeves was ripped open.

It would have been enough, right there, with Aurors swarming over the discovery of a Death Eater in Fudge's cabinet and a would-be assassin somewhere on the premises, but then Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore and Voldemort glided silently in through a stealthily silent hole in the wall engaged in what could only be described as a battle in interpretive dance.

The sudden, random spells they had thought had been meant for Minister Fudge suddenly became clear as fire and water whirled around the two combatants as they continued. There was wind howling through, screaming, bending, and twisting as stone fell, metal warped, and distressed cetaceans filled in the cracks.

The two wizards battled on, seemingly completely oblivious to everyone and everything around them. One Auror got hit by a beam from somewhere, ending up as a seal with a ball over his nose. Another had her arm replaced by the tentacle from an octopus. Hysterically screaming bystanders made everything worse by causing panic and pandemonium, obviously thinking everyone wearing black was surely a Death Eater. Three masked people were trampled by invisible creatures, with only the sound of distorted neighing and hoofprints on their bodies to mark the culprits. Meanwhile, a group of people in black robes ran in random directions, pulsating brains stuck to their heads with disturbing black tentacles.

Figures dressed in pure white with crystal-laden headdresses Apparated onto the scene, silently reaching out grasp the Death Eaters under attack by the brain-leeches. Their arms jerked around the Death Eater's necks as the soft tinkle of crystals belied the dire nature of the situation. They Disapparated with a crack as their metal gauntlets squeezed over each victim's head.

Suddenly, the room became deathly quiet as both Voldemort and Dumbledore stared at each other, arms raised, wands cocked at each other just over their heads. Voldemort seemed to abruptly realise that he wasn't where he had started, and that everyone had now seen him for themselves.

He hissed a curse as he blasted out the ceiling, sending the resulting rubble cascading down upon Dumbledore and everyone else nearby as the sharp crack of his Disapparation carried him away.

He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named Witnessed During Minister Fudge's Proclamation

Right in the midst of publically denouncing any and all possibility that You-Know-Who had returned, the once and again Dark Lord made a public appearance at the Ministry of Magic. The Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, attempted to deflect Amelia Bones' long list of questions regarding the terror of the Wizarding World only to be interrupted by a spell from a duel between none other than YNW and Headmaster Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

During the scuffle, shocking revelations regarding Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge, who had been present to support Minister Fudge during his interview. Umbridge bore the Dark Mark on her arm leading to a days long interrogation of Minister Fudge under Veritaserum as to if he knew of her affiliation, if he supported YNW, and if the other people he had appointed to various jobs at the Minister were actually agents of HWMNBM.

Ms Umbridge has most recently been running Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the new High Inquisitor leading to a school with walls covered with various educational decrees that have not seen the light of day in centuries. Reports of her torturing students with blood quills as well as forcing students to learn magic using outdated book study only are coming into light now that Umbridge has been outed as a Death Eater. An organisation called the Inquisitorial Squad has been dismantled when questioning revealed Umbridge was using students to terrorise and torture "impure" fellow students who "did not deserve magic."

A number of students that were forced to leave Hogwarts under Dolores Umbridge's reign of terror have since returned with a full pardon as Headmaster Dumbledore returns to duty.

The soiled reputation of the once and returned Headmaster of Hogwarts has put into question much of the slander that had arisen with his being forced to flee his position mid-term. Compounded by a number of articles written by our former colleague, Rita Skeeter, many believed Albus Dumbledore was unfit for running a school. As the pieces of Hogwarts are being put back together, it had become clear that regardless if he was or not, Dolores Umbridge was indisputably far, far worse.

In the wake of what has been called the Battle at the Ministry, Spokeswitch Arianna Bellwhistle confirmed that multiple Death Eaters have been arrested, some of which are in a permanent catatonic state after falling under the attack of a number of disembodied brain-creatures. The most notable victim of strange happenstance is none other than Bellatrix Lestrange whose upper body has been grafted to that of a pygmy troll that was being held in quarantine in the Department of Mysteries. To add insult to injury, exposure to time sand has aged one half of her face to that of a two hundred year old.

The Wizengamot has been unsure how to sentence many of these admittedly Dark witches and wizards, as punishment seems to have already been dealt in droves, many of which have not been released to the public due to the graphic nature of their afflictions.

There is worse than being grafted to a pygmy troll and partially aged to two hundred?

Let's leave it at yes.

"Miss Granger."

Hermione looked up, startled. The clutter of spiders that were gathering on the rim of her book jumped with surprise. Crookshanks opened one eye and eyed Snape with dispassion.

"How do you do that?" Hermione whispered, looking up at the potions master with a soft expression.

"Decades of avid practice," Snape said with a sniff, managing to billow without movement or wind—disturbingly silent.

"Do you charm your robes to billow?"

"What do you take me for, Miss Granger?"

"A man who likes to billow impressively."

"Such cheek."

"Truth."

"Perhaps."

Severus closed his eyes briefly and regarded her with conflicted expression. "Despite what you have said to the contrary," he said with a slight twitch, "I find myself unable to believe you are even remotely 'okay' with being in my company for anything more than obligation."

"Did you think that since my apprenticeship is over and I have aged far more than my peers thanks to Time-Turning that my choice in who I like to spend my time with would somehow change?"

"Stockholm Syndrome," Severus said dryly.

"Besides, I'm the jinx," Hermione said, her hand resting on Arachne and pausing her petting. The mother spider wriggled under her hand to encourage more petting, which Hermione did. Crookshanks, who was getting the pets from the other hand, did the same, headbutting her other hand to get pets. Hermione frowned and placed Arachne on top of Crookshanks' head and pet them both in a long motion, getting purrs from both of them.

"You are not a jinx," Severus said with a weary sigh. "Anymore than Alastor is an elephant."

"Maybe he's hiding his trunk."

Severus rolled his eyes to give her a sidelong glance. "Not likely."

"Minerva said you'd changed since you apprenticed me," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Not that most people would notice as they tend to see your billowing robes and flee in the opposite direction or blow up a cauldron and end up having to clean a curtain of slime off their eyes."

Severus arched an eyebrow. "Dare I even ask what that ornery feline would think changed in me?"

Hermione took a breath and let it out slowly. "She said you—" Hermione trailed off.

"Yes?"

Hermione closed her eyes. "She said you finally had a secret worth keeping."

Severus was silent.

"Are you angry?" Hermione's voice was barely a whisper.

Severus turned away, walking towards the hearth and sitting in the leather chair.

Hermione reached out to touch his shoulder.

"I need to be alone."

Hermione's hand dropped to her side. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the warmth she normally had, at least for him, was gone. She gathered her books, Crooks, Arachne, and slipped out his door under Disillusionment.

The moment she left, Severus felt her absence, and it affected him more than he'd expected. His fist clenched as his nails dug into his palms. His marriage was a farce, and the sooner he accepted that the better. There was no hope for a real chance or a real relationship, and he was a fool to think otherwise.

After all, he knew what caring for a female really got him.

His lips pursed, teeth grating together.

Pain.

Females rewarded years of hope with nothing but pain.

Let her find her way in life, career, or whatever. Let her find some trivial happiness with some devoted fool that didn't care if she was married to some hook-nosed, bitter Dark wizard.

Lily couldn't forgive, and his mother forgave his father far too much. Both were the ultimate examples of why his relationship with Hermione would, should, never be anything more than one of formality.

Yet, as his gaze fell into the secondary chair by the fire—a chair that had until then only been filled by dust and his phantom self to berate him for all the mistakes in his life—he saw instead Hermione curled up in it, Crookshanks in her lap, a book half-fallen to the floor from her limp hand, and a clutter of brightly coloured spiders piled on top of her like a living afghan.

Idiot.

He should never have allowed her into his chambers. He should never have let her into his—

A distinctive multicoloured spiderling popped out from between the cracks of the leather chair, having apparently hidden itself away there while the rest of his family had left with Hermione. She called him Wedge because he would stick himself in oddball places, between cracks, and even pages of her books, waiting in ambush for tasty things to pounce.

The spiderling stared at him with all of his eyes, and Severus got the distinct impression that he was being evaluated. Hermione communicated with the creatures with ease, so she never doubted their intentions, even amusing herself with listening to them give their mother a blow by blow account of how they ambushed a centipede or some other such tasty dinner spiders liked. Arachne, on the other hand, was a mellow mother spider, content to be Hermione's cuddle buddy, even to the point where she enlarged herself to perfect cuddling size, allowing Hermione to use her as a pillow and even drool on her as she slept. It wasn't that the babies didn't adore cuddles too, but now that they were in a "safe place" with Hermione, Arachne encouraged the babies to explore and find food instead of clinging to her all the time. Still, it wasn't a surprise to find them all covering Hermione as she slept, serving as the living quilt that, unlike real blankets, never fell off or got stolen by bed partner. It was something Hermione had learned to take in stride, with a sort of ease that wasn't typical for anyone faced with a giant wave of highly venomous spiders, but—

Hermione was hardly typical from the get go.

Still, after the spiderlings and their mother had valiantly tried to shield Hermione from being beaten by Ron, which, admittedly probably caused Ron to beat her more to save her from the spiders, she and the spiders had become tightly bound through adversity.

Wedge plopped down on the floor with a squeak and skittered towards him, placed his legs on the cuff of his trousers, and made the long climb up to sit in his lap. He then enlarged himself to the size of a housecat and flopped between his legs, giving off a thrumming spider purr.

Severus slowly drew his hand across the spider's soft, velvety fur. The spiderling worried his fingers with his fangs, tickling his fingers as his other hand stroked his body. He wondered how many magi-zoologists actually knew these spiders could enlarge themselves to fit any space at will, much like the Occamy but with a startling level of control.

Considering he'd never even seen or heard about them before until Hermione had stumbled across them in the forest, almost quite literally—no, the chances that anyone else knew about the spiders enlargeable secret was pretty low. And she had the advantage of having a way to communicate with them, which made misunderstandings far less likely.

Severus had to admit the not-so-little buggers grew on you after a while. They were like eight-legged cats, always in the middle of your business, yet strangely helpful, following you into the loo, staring at you as you brushed your teeth, peering at you from atop the shower—

Admittedly, Arachne wasn't quite as curious as her babies were, content to stick with Hermione wherever she went and rid her of whatever pest insects were bothering her, even to the point of shooting silk at pesky flies on the wing and munching on them contentedly from her shoulder. Who needs insecticide? Psh.

Wedge had apparently missed the memo that his mistress had abandoned ship, and he was purring up a storm as loud as Crookshanks. Now Crookshanks would just show up in his quarters. With or without Hermione. If fact, it was because of Crookshanks that Hermione had first ended up at his chamber door to begin with. And, just like any familiar worth its salt, Crooks could be both a pain in the arse and the most helpful thing you could ask for, depending on his mood. The spiders, on the the other hand, were perfectly happy to eat the bug and leave you the wings for your potions. He had a large jar full of lacewing fly wings, oh so very neatly plucked from said lacewings, sitting in his storeroom.

Hermione's little friends had accidentally caught a few fairies too, but Severus wasn't going to let her know that. Knowing Gryffindors, she was probably raised believing that fairies were all happy, magical creatures like Tinkerbell that sparkled and did no harm to anyone. Though part of him knew Hermione was a potions mistress, and she was hardly oblivious as to where fairy wings came from—the mental image of her face whilst plucking the wings off a fairy while it was still alive, even to spare its life, was hardly a pleasant one.

Sure, the fairy lived to see another day, but it would bitch for days with an annoying, buzzing voice until its wings grew back.

Bothersome creatures. It was no wonder bowtruckles ate them.

But as for Hermione, no matter how much of a positive working relationship they had had, even a positive sort of banter, she was female, and that meant bad news. Lily had been a kind sort to him too, once. So had his mother, and he knew exactly where that had led.

So what if she was of age—hell, even more than of age thanks to her Time Turner useage. So what if she had never once shown a selfish bone in her body? So what if she gave him a hundred small touches that no one, not even Lily, had ever given him back when he was young and stupid?

So now, he was just older and still stupid. He dug his nails into his palms again. He'd believed with all his heart that Lily and he would have been friends forever, and it felt the same—that aching want for something tangible that would last for all time. And part of him was just stupid enough, just desperately lonely enough—to ponder if it could be with her: the one woman who was forced into marriage with him thanks to a potions explosion.

He was just lucky she hadn't tried something desperate to break it like the Draught of Living Death.

Okay, now that would be a bit drastic, even for Hermione. Hell, even for YOU, Severus, he mumbled to himself. Not so unheard of from the likes of Pansy Parkinson, however. She'd already tried to kill herself on three separate occasions in a futile attempt to get out of her marriage to Crabbe and Goyle—not intentionally, but her wild desperation had made her utterly inept potions-wise. Not that Parkinson had ever shown much promise in that area. But now she was making the much-loathed Longbottom whelp look every bit as gifted as Miss Granger.

Then there was the ever-annoying, pain-in-his-arse now known by the moniker the Boy-Who-Lived-Only-To-End-Up-Married-To-Parvati-Patil. Oddly, one Molly Weasley seem too terribly upset over that on his behalf. There was something more to it, he sensed, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care enough to find out.

You would have cared if it had been Hermione that Potter ended up married to, the traitorous voice inside him reminded.

Not that it would have happened with the speed it had taken him to get to her side the moment he had even though she was hurt by Weasley's book beating—Sure, the Weasley brat had gotten a few good whacks in, but the moment Snape had realised Weasley was a boy possessed and ready to murder his classmate over the sight of a few baby arachnids, well, Snape hadn't wasted any time getting to her side.

The rest, as they said, was marriage.

Trust Weasley to somehow make a marriage binding potion by sheer dumb luck alone. Hopefully his luck, dumb or not, would help to keep him alive in holding, otherwise there would be some really brassed-off families coming to pay him a visit, and it wouldn't be with cake and party streamers.

Severus scowled, his mind lowering even further into disgust for himself and any thought of there being relief to the foolish notion that he may not have to be alone. Of course he'd be alone. It was his own damn fault Lily left, and it was his being born that drove his father to drink.

He hissed as his arm burned, and he slumped over in the chair, digging his nails into his arm. He could feel the Dark Mark writhing under his skin like a living thing, only this time, he could feel the Dark Lord's pull—not the summons but something else.

His Lord was pulling on the strength of his knights to make himself whole again. So, he thought, this is the true nature of the Dark Mark. Oh, he could use it to summon—but the real purpose was insurance. Ever one that was marked was but a magical battery for their Dark Lord. Only now, after Dumbledore had apparently weakened him in battle, did the condition of Voldemort make itself known.

He was injured.

Weak.

But not for long. Severus could feel his energy-his life—being yanked away from him.

Did you think I wouldn't find out, Severus? The Dark Lord's sibilant hiss rang in his head.

"What, my Lord?" Severus groaned, on his knees on the floor. Was his cover blown? Was this the end?

"I know it was because of you that my dear Bellatrix was taken by the Aurors," he heard Voldemort crawling around in his head. He gripped his head in pain.

Bellatrix? "No, my Lord, I did not!" Severus replied, never more truthful than that moment.

"Thankfully, I know who my truly faithful are," Voldemort said, the image of Wormtail groveling at the Dark Lord's feet filled his mind. "Even if they are only faithful out of fear."

Severus screamed, grasping his arm as pain like a hundred Crucios hit him. His arm burned. His energy was being sucked out of him. Even in the pain, the irony that it was the truth the Dark Lord did not believe rather than the lie.

Suddenly, Wedge pounced on his arm, his multicoloured body radiating light like a miniature sun. He sank his glistening fangs into his arm, deep into his skin where the Dark Mark was. For a moment, he felt nothing, and then he felt everything.

Roaring flames burned through every vein, and his arm spasmed. Severus beat on the spider with his free hand, driven to protect the Mark, but the spider only squished against his skin, annoyed but clinging to his arm.

The fangs sank in again.

Severus cried out, his body convulsing, teeth grinding, muscles spasming out of his control.

He screamed, feeling the molten wrath of the Dark Lord meeting the stubborn radiance of one, small spider of Light.

Suddenly, Hermione burst through his chamber door, her hair blazing behind her like the snakes of Medusa as her eyes seemed to embody the sun, so full of her magic that it spilt outward from her hair and eyes. Minerva blew in after her, managing to close the door to prevent wayward eyes and ears from wandering by and seeing things that they should not.

Hermione said nothing, instantly throwing herself by his side as her spider army swarmed all over his arm and sank their tiny fangs into his arm even as Arachne seemed to grow—the first time she had ever shown a greater size, and her glowing, green fangs drove deep into his arm. Hermione was cradling his head, preventing his convulsions from injuring his brain. Minerva had cast something to soften the very floor, but Severus could only scream and scream again as every painful memory exploded from his insides.

His father beating him.

His mother slapping him for disrespecting his father.

His father beating him upside the head with an empty whisky bottle.

Lily holding his hand, "I'm Lily."

Lily smiling as he gave her a transfigured rose.

"I don't need help from a Mudblood!"

Lily's eye blazing. "I guess you don't need my help, then do you?"

"Lily, please, I didn't mean it!"

"And why didn't you? You call others the same. Why am I any different? You make me sick, Severus. I won't forgive you any more. I'm tired of making excuses for you. Don't come here again."

"Snivellus! Greasy! Snivellus! Greasy!"

"Hey, want me to pull down his pants?"

"Don't touch them, Prongs, you have no idea where he's been!"

"He just needs to wash up!"

"SCOURGIFY!"

"Help her, please!" he pleaded with Dumbledore.

"Why should I help you, Severus?"

"I"ll do anything!"

"You promised to save her!"

"They put their faith in the wrong person, Severus, rather like you."

He screamed in agony, his last connection to the one bright spot in his childhood gone.

He stared at the boy—Potter's son. He looked just like his relentless bully of a father, but he had his mother's eyes. Even now, she haunted him with remembered pain.

"Lily, why can't you forgive me? I've never been as sorry for one mistake in my life!"

"Look at you Sev," Lily said, one hand going to her swollen belly. "Your black robes. James told me he sawa you in Knockturn Alley. Knockturn! What good ever came out of that place?"

"You friend runs an apothecary there!"

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Who do you think is supplying her with potions and elixirs?"

"She's making them herself?"

"I'm making them. She's selling them."

"You're lying."

"Why would I lie about that?"

"Because you lie," Lily said, her eyes narrowing. "That's what you do best."

"If that is true, then what lie have I told you that has you so angry?"

Lily's green eyes hardened. "That you are or ever were sorry."

Snape's eyes darkened, fingers clenching, teeth setting together in a slow grind. "How is it that you can forgive him but not me, after all he did? To you. To me!"

Lily's face twisted into something that did not flatter her appearance at all. "Because he's not a Death Eater, Sev." She moved quickly—too quickly to track—and ripped open his left sleeve exposing the Dark Mark. Her hand pulled back like it burned.

"That is why I will never forgive you. That is why everything you say is a lie."

She looked him in the eye, furious. "You couldn't possibly know the meaning of what truly matters in life with that on your arm. You couldn't possibly, ever, care for me. Anything you say is just another dirty, twisted lie. I'm only sorry I ever thought you were my friend."

"Lily, it's not—"

Lily Potter turned her back on him and closed the door in his face, saying, "Don't come back, Sev. Ever. I will never forgive you."

"If you could pull your head out of your Gryffindor arse but but a minute and stop spouting out book knowledge like it is the god's honest truth, then maybe you might be able to figure out why your potion just blew up in your face, Miss Granger," Severus seethed.

"It's not fair for you to ask me question based on practical knowledge when all you give me is a book!"

"I give you time. I give you a problem with a solution, and instead of finding the solution, you dig through that book like it will save you!" Severus answered. "It won't. It won't help you! It won't always be there for you, and sometimes, only your own mind will be there to help you!" Severus managed to billow angrily, his face turning a rather unflattering shade of pink on his normally pale, white skin.

"But the book—"

"The book is meaningless!"

Hermione, horrified, clutched her book tightly. "If it wasn't written down, it wouldn't be—"

Snape snarled at her, his hand flashed out and grabbed her book on advanced potion making and threw it into the fire, grabbing Hermione by the collar as she dove to try and rescue it.

Snape stared straight into her panicked, betrayed eyes. "You will not use a book again until you have earned it."

Hermione's eyes stared into the fire where the book burned to ash. Her fist clenched. "I will respect your judgement because you are my master, but right now, I hate you so much."

Snape lifted his head. "Good."

"Are you inept, Miss Granger?"

"No, sir!"

"Do you think you are better than your peers?"

"No, sir," she answered, gritting her teeth.

"Do you think you don't need a book to be in my class?"

Hermione clenched her teeth. "No, sir."

"Then where is your book, Miss Granger?"

"I don't have a book, sir."

"Are you too poor to afford one?" Snape sneered.

Draco and the other Slytherins elbowed each other with smug expressions on their faces, nodding in approval.

Snape's face leveled with hers, his dark eyes boring into her. "Detention with me, Miss Granger, tonight, and every night until you sell your hair so you can afford a replacement potions book."

Hermione's eyes were full of unshed tears as she replied through gritted teeth. "Yes, sir."

"She should just drop out of school, the bloody jinx," Ron's voice muttered to Harry. "Bet she lost her book somewhere and is too ashamed to admit it."

"Why don't you just loan her one?" Seamus asked.

"To the jinx? No way!" Ron hissed. "I don't want any of that to rub off on me."

Other whispers of assent filled the Gryffindor side of the room, and her curls seemed to tremble as if blown by wind. Beakers shattered, and screams filled the room as shards of glass embedded in the skin of the students.

Snape lowered his outer robe, his dark eyes piercing her as the shards of glass dropped off. "Ten points from Gryffindor for your little temper tantrum, Miss Granger."

The bell rang for the end of class, and Snape glowered over the room of whimpering students.

"Bloody JINX!"

Plunk.

A blur of black landed into the mirror-like surface of the Black Lake.

Snape froze, suddenly realising that he was not alone on this side of the castle. It was not like the students to be on this side of the castle thanks to the Whomping Willow. Most of them didn't know its range, and those that knew from experience, the willow had some seriously wicked range.

Deceptively longer range than a rooted tree should ever have—

Snape wondered what the tree was punting, flinging, or otherwise tree-handling into the lake on this particular evening. He Disillusioned himself just in case there were students lurking, but he knew he still had to be careful or the tree would sense him. The tree didn't even need eyes to have dead flawless aim.

Thump.

A—sculpture? —landed at his feet.

"You missed," a familiar voice said with a sniffle.

The Whomping Willow rustled overhead, one of its knobby branches just barely missing his head as it picked up the sculpture and carried it upward. Snape squinted and looked up.

Hermione Granger was sitting in the crook of the willow. She had a stone in her hand, and she was using a small chisel to carve it into a very distinctive hook-nosed effigy.

"He took my book. He burned it. HE BURNED IT! Then, he has the audacity to ask me where my book is, and I'm supposed to be his apprentice!"

She clacked the chisel with a chasing hammer furiously. "It's like he's looking for a reason to brass me off. Embrass me! Put me down! Insult me when I bring a book to study then insults me when I don't bring a book to class—a book he cast into the FIRE!"

She flung the figure into the air and the willow smacked it with a branch with a loud crack. The stone effigy went flying off into the distance.

Plunk.

It landed with a sploosh into the lake—where a very happy squid had one clutched in each tentacle, seemingly playing with them.

"Have to respect him, Hermione. He's your teacher."

"Yes, father."

"Have to respect your elders."

"Yes, mum."

"What do you mean you need another book? We've taught you better than to abuse school materials."

"Yes, father."

"You're in a magical school, can't you just mend it?"

"If there was anything sodding left to mend!"

"Hermione, that's not way to speak."

"Sorry, mum."

"That book was very expensive, Hermione. You had best take better care of this one."

"Yes, father."

"I hate him."

"I HATE him."

Hermione's chisel slipped, gouging into her palm. She hissed, her blood seeping through her fingers as she gripped the effigy. Her shoulders trembled, her hair moving like the snakes of Medusa. Fury rose off of her in waves.

"Respect your elders."

"Even if they don't deserve it!" she yelled, throwing the effigy into the air, and the willow punted it even further into the lake.

Snape grunted in pain, feeling the tug of her unintentional magic powered by the power of her hatred.

Hatred he recognised all too well. Power he knew all too well. It was power that was all too eager to do whatever she wanted, but all the more eagerly if it had a clear path of intent. And nothing—nothing had a clear of path as hate powered by the desperate need of vengeance. He should know. He had a lot of practice in that sort of well-defined hate.

"Snivellus. Greasy."

"Snivellus. Greasy."

"Hey, who wants me to pull down Snivellus' pants?"

Hermione was standing in the crook of the willow, her entire body ringing with the power of her magic, her wand nowhere in sight. Her normally soft, brown eyes were alight with glowing orange and golden fire.

Suddenly the willow touched a branch to her wounded hand. There was a flash of green magic, and the bleeding wound sealed. Sanity seemed to return to her. She touched the branch gently. "Thank you," she told the willow. She slid down the side of the tree to the ground. She reached out her hand to the lake, fingers spread. "Accio hatefully carved effigy of Severus Snape with my blood on it."

A distant splash sounded as a blue whizzed through the air. The carved effigy smacked into her palm, and Hermione gazed on it with a strange, alien dispassion as she willed her emotion deep within—without training, without even knowing that what she was doing. It was something that took most years or the most ardent practice. Blackness filled her eyes, chasing away the light, the warmth, and even the hate that had been there only minutes before. Her lip curled in a sneer, cold—so eerily like himself that it made him shiver involuntarily.

She dug a hole in the earth, not with her hands or even a tool, but through sheer will made form. She dropped the bloodstained effigy into the hole and sealed it with a mere wave of her hand. "I refuse to let you bully me like my peers. I refuse to bow. You will get your yes, sirs and your stupid, to the letter obedience. You will get your silence. Your lack of hand-waving. You will get your perfectly behaved potions apprentice, but you will not, ever make me give up."

She glared into the hole. "Protego." She used her foot to cover the dispelled figure with the displaced earth and pat it down.

The willow gently caressed her cheek with a single branch, and the dark of her eyes faded. She kissed the tip of the leafy branch. "Thank you, my friend."

The willow used a few branches to poke and prod her, tickling her.

And just like that, the Dark witch Hermione Granger was gone.

A parcel wrapped in dark green cloth in the style of the Japanese furoshiki waited for Hermione on the lab table she normally used during her detentions. She saw the bundle and narrowed her eyes at it suspiciously, perhaps thinking it was her professor's and that he'd left it there thinking she would not show up again after their—incident. She looked up to the chalkboard, searching for the instructions of whatever potion she would be doing that evening—sans her book.

There was nothing.

A flash of something crossed her face. Did he think she wouldn't come? Anger rose up as her spine straightened, but then the darkness swallowed her eyes, turning them into onyx shields—as black as space.

Severus struggled to show no response, though part of him recognised the tension in her vaporise under the absolute shields of Occlumency. To someone like him, with a well-earned reputation for being cold, such a thing seemed normal. Even the Dark Lord did not suspect anything. Yet, Hermione—the difference was like night and day.

"Your assignment this evening is to open that parcel, Miss Granger," he said, keeping his shields highly tightened up. You are to read everything within, and then, and only then, we will have a discussion long overdue."

"Yes, sir."

Miss Granger,

I have come to the realisation that I am guilty of doing the very thing I have come to despise above all else, and I have done it to someone who did not deserve my disrespect. You agreed to be my apprentice, but you did not sign up to deal with my baggage, and yet it is my baggage you have been forced to endure, carry, and bear the burden of.

As my own path to apology, I gift you my old book of Advanced Potions Making, which I hope will give you insight into why I was so adamant that what is written in a book is not always the best answer. But, before you dive into it, I would ask you read the other book first. The potions book is yours to keep, but the other I would request you return to me after you read it. You will understand why after, I am sure.

There is much I wish to speak to you about, Miss Granger, but it will all wait until this assignment is done. Take whatever time you need. Our conversation will wait until you are finished.

Yours,

Severus T. Snape

(his seal as Head of Slytherin)

Hermione placed the worn, leather-bound journal into Snape's hands.

Her eyes were a soft, shimmering brown. "You hurt me."

"Yes," he answered quietly.

"I'm not her."

"No, you are not," he agreed.

"Please don't do that again."

"I cannot promise that," Snape admitted, "but I can promise I will do my best to teach you to the best of my ability." He flattened his lips and sighed. "If I do hurt you, it will not be intentional, that I can promise."

Hermione was silent. "I will do my best to be a proper apprentice."

Severus let his breath out slowly. "You are already better than I deserve," he replied, "but when I am done, you will be better than I."

Hermione was trying to cut the Sopophorous beans as the book instructed, and Severus silently came to her side. His fingers gently lay across her hands as he stilled her knife. She looked at him in confusion, but he gestured for her to watch as he used the flat of the blade to crush the bean instead. Hermione's eyes grew wide in admiration. Her eyes lit up with what could only be described as fire as she threw her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. "Thank you, Master!" she cried, burying her face against his multitude of buttons.

For the first time, his hand alighted on the bushy-haired witch's head. "You are welcome."

"I will set this room aside for you," Severus said to Hermione. "This is only for Time-Turning, so you will always have a safe place to disappear and reappear. Use it for nothing else."

"Yes, master," she replied.

"It is a gift the masters gave you," Snape said grimly. "But there is a price."

"I understand, master."

"Time cannot be cheated," Severus explained. "You will age the time you double."

"Yes, master."

"If Dumbledore had not already given you one, I would never have allowed this," Snape clarified.

"Yes, master."

Snape's face twisted. "Are you sure you wish to waste your youth on an apprenticeship with me?"

"It will not be a waste, master."

"You seem so sure."

"I am sure."

"I do not demand this sort of dedication. Attentiveness, yes. Devotion to the task, yes. Not this."

Hermione looked up at him. "Surely by now, my master, you know that more time to study is hardly what I don't want."

"Foolish girl," Severus sighed. "Remember what we discussed. You do not use this room for anything but Time-Turning. That way you will never, ever, overlap on yourself or chance seeing yourself—and you will know never to seek this room out unless you need to use it."

"Yes, my master."

"I've never seen this room, Severus, did you add another storage closet?" Albus drifted over to the new door and opened it.

Severus remained perfectly still.

Lines and lines of potions ingredients filled the space.

"Really, Severus? More potion ingredients?"

"There can never been enough, especially when my other closet was compromised."

Albus arched a brow, stroking his beard. "You potions people are disturbing in your obsessions."

"You doddering old wizards sticking your nose where it doesn't belong disturb me."

Albus sighed at the potions master. "You'd think after all these years, Severus, that you would lighten up a little."

Snape's lips curled derisively. "Tell me that when the Dark Lord is dead."

"Hold still, Ms Granger," Snape said, his voice just above a whisper.

"I am!"

"You are not," he replied. "Take in a deep breath and another, and let all those thoughts running around in your head out with them. The only care you should have is this potion. Not what Weasley is eating or what Potter thinks of you."

Hermione flushed, but she did as she was told, and slowly her trembling hands stilled.

Snape slammed a book down beside her, and Hermione let out a shriek.

"Now we work on your filtering out outside distractions."

Hermione glared at him.

Hermione was asleep, passed out exhaustion next to her cauldron.

For the first time, she had made a difficult potion, not with a book or a recipe scrawled on the board. She had made it by feeling the vibration of the ingredients, felt when it needed more, and responded with what filled the space. She had accomplished the greater epiphany of potions brewing, and the only celebration she had to show for it was falling asleep.

"Miss Granger."

Nothing. It was bad enough that she was Time-Turning to have ample time to study with him, but she was doing it for Albus as well to keep with her already high study regime. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Miss Granger," he repeated, shaking her shoulder lightly.

Hermione mumbled, leaning on his arm instead, fluffing it like a pillow and snuggling into it.

Snape froze in place, taken off guard by a simple, sleep heavy act that she probably wouldn't even remember in the morning. A part of him was discomfited, having not had such a simple act done to him since—

He closed his eyes. It was not fair to keep comparing her to Lily, but he could not help it. Lily was the only bright spot in his life for so very long, and she was gone.

And he was no longer a young wizard with a life ahead of him in which to offer. He had baggage, a reputation that would do her nothing but drag her down into the mud with him. He was a potions master that taught hundreds of mewling, imbeciles that wouldn't know the difference between asphodel and arrowroot—if anything his reputation was to be a dungeon bat forever, forever trying to keep Slytherin children from blowing shite up and embarrassing themselves in front of everyone while hoping they would just blow each other up in private and safe himself the effort.

He had no right to even wonder what life would have been like with Lily by what Hermione was able to do any more than he should judge Hermione by Lily's memory. He closed his eyes.

Hermione mumbled, pulling his arm close and snuggling into his hand, the feel of her skin against his sent a jolt of something alien and—

He clenched his jaw, pulling his arm away from her warmth, his mind screaming at him to put it right back. "Miss Granger, you should be in bed, not plastered over my potions bench."

Hermione lifted her head blearily. "Mmffftgh?"

Severus sighed. "Congratulations on your potion, Miss Granger. It is acceptable. Now, go drag yourself to a real bed before you end up sleeping on my floor."

Too tired to even realise he had congratulated her for her work, Hermione shuffled out the potions classroom, bumping into the door on the way out in her drowsiness.

Severus closed his eyes, touching his arm which still had her warmth clinging to it along with her scent. The space where she had been seemed even more empty. He dug his nails into his palm as he took his conflicting emotions and shoved them away, burying them deep where no one, not Albus, not a Dark Lord, or even himself could find it.

"Happy unofficial twenty-third birthday, Miss Granger," Severus said.

There was a small cake sitting on "her" potions bench.

"You are most fortunate that your genetics age you well," he said. "For better or worse, you can still pass as a student at Hogwarts."

Hermione huffed, making a sound that had become so familiar. Crookshanks jumped up on the table and sniffed the parcel that was wrapped next to the cake.

"Mrrowl," he said deeply.

"That is her birthday present, not yours, furball," Snape admonished the half-Kneazle.

"I've lost count of all the time," Hermione said, sitting by the cake. "Thank you."

"Someone has to keep track of these things," Snape replied, lip curling.

Hermione gave him a look, but her expression softened. "Thank you, master." She tugged on the bundle of cloth that had been carefully wrapping its contents within, pulling on the silver cord that decorated the top knot.

"Mrowl," Crooks commented in a deep feline rumble. He dug his teeth into one end of the knot and tugged impatiently.

"Crooks! You bad puss," Hermione cried, pushing the feline away, but he held onto the end like he'd found the tuna motherlode and didn't let go. "What's gotten into you?" Hermione admonished, glaring at her familiar with a sigh.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and rolled his eyes at the same time.

Crookshanks grasped another end and tugged not so carefully.

"Crooks!" Hermione cried. She snatched the bundle to her and made a few long leaps and sat in the far chair. Crooks bounded after, but was stymied by an invisible barrier of magic.

"Mrrrwl," Crooks pouted.

Snape, amused, tried not to think of what Crooks would do to foil his mistress' attempt to open her present alone.

Hermione halted her attempt to open the bundle. "Master?"

"Hrm?"

"Does Professor McGonagall think I'm a jinx too?"

Severus frowned. "What brought this on?"

"She doesn't really talk to me outside of official tasks, and even after I found out—she doesn't seem to care at all what happens to me."

"Horse hockey," Severus grunted.

Hermione blinked.

Severus waved his hand. "Minerva cares for you far more than she lets on. She is, quite literally, keeping away from you to keep you safe."

Hermione's brows furrowed. "All I know is that somehow my parents, my birth parents, died, and my adopted parents were the only ones who either gave a damn or weren't afraid of me."

"Miss Granger, you know my parents, or rather you know what they were like, and believe me when I tell you that blood doesn't mean shite when it comes to caring about someone. It just so happens that Minerva is related to you, but she happens to care so much that she put you in the care of someone that would keep you safe."

"Safe from what?" Hermione asked in frustration.

"Those who would gladly have taken you as a child and turned you into a pureblood militant sitting on the other side of the war." Severus watched Hermione's eyes fill with horror. "Or, those who would taken you underwing and turned you into something far more insidious for a purpose that makes the Dark Lord's evil manipulations seem obvious."

"Worse than a Dark Lord?" Hermione asked.

Severus sighed. "Let's just say I've seen both sides of the fence, and that each side is equally charred."

"Professor McGonagall doesn't hate me?"

"No. In fact, I'm willing to bet she cares for you very much and regrets she cannot be there for you in any capacity that does not scream officiality."

"I wonder what it could have been like, growing up knowing magic," Hermione said, thoughtful.

"When the war is over, and you are safely out from under Hogwarts," Severus said, "then and only then will you know what the magical world is truly like. This—" He gestured around him to all and nothing. "This is a shade of what living in the magical world is."

Hermione went back to tugging on the knot, trying to release it after Crooks' teeth and slobber upped the difficulty by ten.

"Are you a witch or are you not, Apprentice Granger?"

Hermione gave him a cheeky smile. "It's my only birthday gift. I want to open it with my own two hands."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Gryffindor."

As the gift's feline-assisted knotwork finally relaxed, Hermione let out a gasp as the contents exploded outward into a giant picnic hamper. The lid popped open exposing a multitude of goodies such as smoked salmon, olives, biscuits, chocolate, cheese, and crackers all of which looked as though it had been gathered and put together by hand from one of the local Muggle fishing villages. In the middle of it was a mint copy of Moste Potente Potions, a leather-bound blank journal, and a gift certificate that looked hand-written. "Whaaa—" she gasped. "All of this for me?"

"A certain feline Animagus may have told me how you wished you could go to a certain little restaurant you parents took you when you were eight and what foods you happened to wish for within earshot of Her Tabbiness," Severus said. "It is from both of us."

Hermione's lip trembled as she bit it. She closed the hamper with a click and then flung herself into Snape's arms, wrapping her arms around his chest as she buried her head directly against his endless row of meticulous buttons. "Thank you both so very much."

Snape's hand gently touched her mane of curls. "You are welcome."

"Mrowl!" Crookshanks protested, eyeing the hamper with avid interest.

"You might have to lock that hamper up, as I have no doubt that your furball will have Mr Weasley's degree of enthusiasm in getting to his supposed just rewards."

Hermione beat her head against Severus' buttons.

Voices came from outside the classroom.

"Oi, does this mean we don't have to stay for detention? The classroom is closed."

"If only we could be so lucky," another voice said.

Hermione quickly detached herself from Snape's buttons and grasped the hamper after a few quick steps. She looked to her master for instructions.

"Go, take the night off," Severus said.

Hermione nodded quickly as she mouthed, "Thank you, master." She disillusioned herself, traced a pattern on one of the potion cabinets, and slipped into the passage just as Snape threw open the door of the classroom and snarled at the night's unfortunate detainees.

"We're losing him!" Minerva cried, fighting to keep Snape's body from beating itself into the floor, which would surely make his condition even worse. She kept casting the cushioning charm on the floor, but with every convulsion, she had to stop. "Severus! Don't you give up on us, laddie! Not after all you've been through! Don't you dare give up on us!"

Oily blackness was oozing out of his arm, and the agony of it was traveling through his body as horrific as the Cruciatus.

"Help us!" the spiderlings cried.

"What can I do?" Hermione exclaimed, frantic.

"He needs positive thoughts to help the venom fight the black stuff!" the spiderlings said. "Hurry now!"

"Please hurry!"

Hermione's face twisted in agony. "How?"

"Put your hand on me!" Arachne guided. "I'll help you."

Hermione placed her hand on the spider's back, feeling the warmth spread up her arm like the heat of the sun. Arachne clung to Snape's skin, hooking her leg claws into him to keep from being tossed off.

"Help, mummy!" the spiderlings cried, all of them piled up on top of their mother and Hermione, becoming a living gauntlet that connected Snape and Hermione together with a pulse of golden energy.

Hermione lowered her face over Severus', dropped every shield she had ever been taught— and screamed as the molten agony shared between them, spiraling them down the same rabbit hole of eternal damnation.

"You will not die," Hermione hissed, her hair writhing in the form of magical serpents. They hissed and entwined, striking out as their serpentine bodies danced with the rise of Hermione's magic. Her free hand stretched like spider legs across Snape's pale face, and her palm touched his forehead as her fingers stretched into his hair and over his temples. Her magic, formed into a spear, her will and her intent formed into a blazing weapon. She thrust it deep into the writhing, hissing blackness—

Hermione felt like she was being watched. Severus, she knew, was nearby as always, but he was gathering yellow-eyed wolf daisies and she was gathering wild fanged geraniums. The wild ones were notoriously hard to convince to fork over their fangs, but Severus was off trying to persuade the the yellow-eyed wolf daisies to give up a few petals.

She'd take the wild fanged geraniums any day, thanks.

As she came to the patch of geraniums that had grown insanely after the heavy rain. The mud was all the way to the tops of her dragonhide boots, and she felt like for every step she took, she was sinking down instead. She fought the revulsion of the schlucking sound the mud made as it tried to drag her down, but she slowly made her way to the patch that had been deceptively close.

The geraniums did not appreciate their sunning spot being invaded by a two-legged interloping mammal, and they hissed at her.

"Good thing I brought my secret weapon," Hermione said. She pulled out a small vial of shimmering green liquid and popped the cork, blowing gently over the lip of the vial.

The geraniums perked, interested.

"I will give you some of this very tasty fertiliser that my master brewed just for you little demanding, cranky flowers," she said sweetly.

The geraniums swayed back and forth eagerly.

"Do we have a deal?" Hermione asked.

The geraniums bobbed up and down excitedly.

Hermione poured the fertiliser into her palm and extended it, and every geranium stuck their tendrils in, fighting to get their fair share before the other geraniums soaked it all in.

"Silly things," Hermione chided, her voice softening with her expression. "Hey, ow!"

One geranium bit her as a smaller one tried to gain their fair share unsuccessfully. It hissed at the other geranium, rattling its foliage like a rattlesnake used its tail and sank its fangs into the other geranium, ripping some of its petals.

"That is not very nice," Hermione chided the plant. She used her hand to dig into the soft earth and move the victim over, out of range of the crankier flower. The other flowers rustled at the torn up geranium, seemingly sympathetically. She poured a little fertiliser on her hand and waited patiently for the abused flower to soak it in. The other geraniums watched, seemingly much more inclined to watch than the other, more nasty specimen of floral impatience.

The smaller flower rustled, growing just enough to mend its torn foliage and seemed to give a sigh of relief.

"Neville would adore you," Hermione mused. "If he could get over being around me, anyway. Do you want some water? The ground is still moist, but did moving you—"

Her words trailed off as the geraniums rustled excitedly.

Hermione grinned, using an aquamenti spell to soak the ground a little more. "Who knew you guys really liked mud?"

The geraniums rustled in approval, digging themselves into the moist mud even deeper.

"You know, Muggle geraniums like full sun and well-drained soil," she tutted. "What am I going to do with you lot?"

The flowers rubbed up against her hand— even the crankier one— and promptly shed their fangs into her palm in a neat pile as newer, sharper fangs grew in.

"I guess this will be our little secret," she said with a chuckle. She tucked the fangs away in a small jar and pocketed it. "Thank you, my little friends," she said.

The flowers swayed back and forth as she made her way out of the muddy patch, seemingly in approval of her visit now that they knew she came with gifts. It was only fair, she reasoned. She wouldn't like it if someone walked into her space and demanded her hair without some sort of compensation.

As she slogged her way out of the mud, swearing that it was getting both thicker and deeper, she wondered if this was what happened to the the ancient animals caught in a tar bog in prehistoric times.

A distressed whinny caught her attention, and she was on her feet and running without hesitation. Her master, she knew, would chide her for running towards such a sound. It could be a trap, he'd say. Foolish Gryffindor.

She'd like to think she knew distress, real distress, when she heard it.

It could be a Rakshasa or a Manushya-Rakshasi, her mind reminded her.

In Britain? Really?

Evil is not limited to India, her mind argued. Why did her mind speak to her in Severus' voice. Sheesh.

She promptly told herself to put a sock in it. She had enough things to worry about than man-eaters from India.

As she got closer to the sounds of distress, she realised it was quite real. Not many victims threw themselves into a sinkhole after high rains to lure someone to their death. The earth was churned and broken , looking as though it had simply caved in on itself. The pitiful whinny was coming from within.

Sending out a Patronus to her master, she blinked in confusion as her normally playful otter had been replaced by— did those even exist?!

A winged panther rubbed up against her body and then bounded off into the air, spreading its wings and then vanishing in a blur of light.

Hermione, boggled, but realising there were other concerns, cast a rope out from her wand and holstered her wand safely so she didn't lose it. She wrapped the rope around a thick tree— one that looked like it was safe from falling in or down— and the other end to herself, praying to whatever gods were listening that she didn't end up with the one defective magical rope.

"I may be a jinx, but don't let them suffer for it!" she said, lowering herself into the slippery sinkhole.

A frightened centaur filly whinnied in distress, but she couldn't move. Mud had trapped her up to her human chest, burying the rest of her, save her tail, in thick mud.

"Oh, hey," Hermione said, trying to be soothing. "I'm not going to hurt you. Will you let me help you?" She held out her hands, spreading her fingers to show she had nothing in them.

The filly tried to struggle, but her actions caused the mud to suck her down even more, which caused her to panic, which caused it to draw her in more—

"Hey, hey! Stop! You're making it worse!" Hermione cried, flailing her arms.

The filly breathed heavily, strained by her predicament. Her nostrils flared. The veins in her neck were showing. All signs pointed to the kind of distress that needed to be solved sooner rather than later.

Hermione tried to make herself seem less threatening, but she wasn't sure if it was working. She knew almost nothing about centaurs, and for all she knew, she could be the devil himself—herself—to the poor filly. "I just want to help you out of here, okay?"

Did they speak English?

Idiot, came her mental voice in Severus' voice instead of hers.

Oh, right, she admonished herself. Her brain had seemingly turned off in the panic. Just because she wasn't speaking English, didn't mean she couldn't understand it. Some help you are in a stressful situation, she chided herself.

The filly seemed to be a bit calmer, struggling less against the mud.

Oh to be a roc or something huge that could pull this filly out of the mud— alas her Animagus meditations had been vague at best. Each one had given her different animal traits that did not exist in one beast, as far as she knew. Then again, turning into a dragon would probably freak the poor filly out even more.

Severus, who was doing the meditations with her as a sort of master-apprentice bonding exercise (thanks, Professor McGonagall), wasn't even telling her what he was, so apparently they were matched set of Animagi failure. Hell, if she put all those odd meditations together she'd be some beast with tentacles, wings, and multiple legs. She didn't even have the heart to tell Professor McGonagall that her attempts seemed utterly doomed.

"I want to help you," Hermione said quietly. "Please, let me help you."

Oh, how she wished there was a vial of centaur-calming draught right about then. Maybe she needed to work on that—

After this.

AFTER this, Hermione.

Hermione politely told herself to shut the hell up and focus, with the politely being slightly less so than was expected in polite conversation.

The filly's eyes were wide, but she nodded to Hermione, her ears laid back as she felt her body sinking deeper, even without her struggles.

"I'm going to put this rope around your belly to keep you from sinking, okay?"

Hermione touched the rope, not even bothering to use her wand. It would be just her luck to lose her wand in the slop of the earth. If she thought her parents were mad about her losing a book— the wand replacement would probably get her grounded until she was thirty.

The rope moved under her focus, burrowing into the mud and down and under the filly, moving back up, forming a makeshift rope harness.

"Hermio— Miss Granger, are you injured?" Professor's Snape peered over the edge of the sinkhole.

"I'm okay, but the filly needs to be lifted out!" she replied. I have to free her from the mud, and I can't do that and levitate her out at the same time!"

The potions master's eyes flicked from Hermione to the filly. "I'll help. Here attach this rope to the harness and then you free her from the mud. I'll pull her up."

"But—"

"Do as I say, Miss Granger!"

"Yes, master," Hermione said automatically, wondering how he was going to incant and pull at the same time. He'd have to, even with a levitation spell, that did not guarantee movement, especially upward, for something as massive as a centaur filly. Hovering, yes. Moving, not so much. Mobilicorpus, too, had its faults— and then there was the centaur taboos against magic, not that they thought it was unnatural, but they believed in the tools of the earth and the power of the body that came without wands. Much like how they did not lower themselves to let any human ride on their back, what little Hermione did know about centaurs was from, alas, books.

She fastened the rope around the harness. "Ok, he's going to pull you up, and I'm going to loosen the mud with water so you can be hoisted, okay?" she explained to the filly. She wished he hadn't told the spiders to take the night off and enjoy playing with Crookshanks. Admittedly, Crooks loved playing with her spider-friends and admirably didn't try to eat them.

The spiders seemed to appreciate that.

One ear pointed forward and one remained back, but the filly didn't struggle or seem terribly distressed, or rather, any more distressed.

"Ready?" Severus' voice came down from above.

"Yes!" Hermione called. She was going to have to use her wand. There was no silent, wandless spell for Aguamenti, and with her luck if she tried she'd spout water from her mouth and drown herself.

She pointed her wand at the filly and started washing the mud away from her, making a horrible mess, but it was thinning the thick, impossible goop. The rope from above strained, and she could hear a low grunt, and up the filly went, slowly. The mud had a sort of suction to it, fighting the release of its prize, but Hermione kept the water on her, keeping it driven back just enough—

Schlorrrrk!

The filly was free, legs dangling. She squirmed in the harness, but she was being pulled up. Now that she was free, Hermione used a few more blasts of water to clean the filly's body so she could assist in the exit of the hole, wishing she could just levitate the filly the rest of the way, but knowing that respecting another's cultural beliefs couldn't just be thrown aside just because she thought it was justifiable.

The filly's legs hit the ground above, and she strained to help her own escape, pulling herself up and over the rim.

"An Apparate would be so useful right now," Hermione muttered, cursing the must-be-seventeen rules. Oh, sure, she was actually far from old enough, but not according to her birth certificate.

She slowly began to pull herself up out of the mud and water, feeling the seepage all the way down to her knickers, and that didn't please her at all. She wasn't really a rope climber, usually, so she slipped and bashed her knee a few times, but she wasn't about to stay in a hole waiting for someone to rescue her. As she got halfway up, the rope heaved upwards, and she gratefully used the new momentum to get the rest of the way up.

When she finally got to the top, she pulled to get herself the rest of the way up and the collapsed in a heap, barely able to do more than shake from the muscle weariness, mental fatigue, and loss of adrenaline.

Snuffle.

Snuffle.

Huff.

Warm breath and whiskers tickled her neck.

Wait, she thought. Did centaur have whiskers? She tried to roll over and indulge her curiosity and immediately wondered if that was the best idea she could have had.

A giant panther-like head stared back at her with glowing green orbs for eyes. Sooty black fur, silver whiskers, tentacles rose up from its back. Wings folded across the back— a dark charcoal grey, and then there were the legs.

Multiple legs. Why did everything connected to her seem to have multiple legs?

It was beast crafted by committee, and the members of that committee were obviously high on something a bit more potent than tea leaves.

Her father had often said the wildebeest was a creature that must've been crafted by committee, but what would he have said about this guy?

The filly, which she had forgotten about completely in her exhaustion, wrapped her arms around the beast's scruff and hugged it tight, causing the beast to twist its lips around its teeth in such a grimace of—

"Master?" Hermione whispered.

The beast huffed, sighing in apparent resignation as his tail puffed out like a bristle brush, tolerating the filly's youthful enthusiasm with the exact same expression she would have seen on Severus as a human. Seeing it on such a fantastical beast was a bit of a toss up between reassuring and comical with a hefty chaser of 'please-don't-kill-me-for-thinking-that'.

Hermione reached out to touch the beast's silky muzzle, her palm caressing the velvet fur and stabby whiskers. The beast let out a deep purr, sending a shiver of pleasure from the top of her head down to her toes, even her hair seemingly shuddering in mutual enjoyment.

She pressed her head to the beast, rubbing his ears with her fingers as her breath mingled with his. He gave off a rumbling, rolling purr. "You're beautiful," she whispered.

There was a jolt as their magic flowed together, chased by the mutual relief that each of them were unharmed. It was familiar, whispering like a song from the past that would get stuck in the head. She saw him, panicking as he saw himself in a mirror, freaking out that he was even more of a freak than his students suspected him of.

Animagi were supposed to be animals.

Yet, somehow people believed it could only be Muggle-like "normal" animals.

"Don't be silly," Hermione whispered into his fur. "In a world of magic, who tells us what is normal for magic? Wouldn't a magical animal be more "normal" than a non-magical one? Look at Professor McGonagall. She's a cat, but cats are one of the most magical animals out there. They can walk across a magical line and not break it. They can sense fields, see the invisible—Professor McGonagall is not a normal cat. She's an example of the creme de la creme of feline magic. Look at owls. They are "normal" birds, yet what about them is truly mundane? I think you are beautiful. Your form is magic as magic should be. Beautiful and dangerous. Capable of both great harm and great benefit. Creation and destruction. Magic is neither good or bad; it is grey. What we do with it is what matters, and you— are beautiful."

The beast's glowing green eyes met hers, and then she was falling.

Falling into Oblivion.

Falling into Creation.

Her body jerked like a puppet controlled by invisible strings. She was floating in space, caught in a web of magic rather than silk. She was wrapped in the embrace of magic, feeling the familiar tug of her Animagus meditations, and suddenly it all made sense.

Why her meditations had been so strange. Why she had simply believed it was her own failure in her inability to focus on one animal. She'd been as guilty as her master in believing in all the restrictions humans put on an infinite scope of magic. Her body burst from the cocoon of magical silk, and she landed on all— six legs, her claws digging into the ground as her form became reality. Tentacles unfurled, lashing out like the giant squid's feeding tentacles, complete with the tentacular clubs on each end. She grimaced, her lips pulling back from her elongated fangs even as her sandpaper tongue flicked out over her lips. She shuddered violently as feathers burst through her back as wings unfolded and her tail poofed into a bristle brush-like appearance.

Severus stared at her.

Hermione stared at him.

The centaur filly squealed with excitement and hugged them both, oblivious to the scope of what had just happened.

Snape and Hermione sat by the campfire, surrounded in centaur, their rescue of little Bluebell being the highlight to their day but also the key of acceptance into the herd's social structure. No longer simply tolerated due to some obscure peace treaty, they had earned their way into the herd through the only deed that mattered: saving a centaur, not by some man-made hazard, but the very Earth itself.

Equally puzzling, the centaur treated their beastly Animagus forms as their real bodies, dismissing the human part of the equation as nothing but the larval, primitive form. Yet, as the little filly snuggled up to Hermione, she gave him a warm smile.

Acceptance.

Somehow both of them had found it where they least expected it, but found it they had.

Bluebell was an outgoing little filly, bringing them things to see from her collection. Hermione showed her how to treat the wild fanged geraniums to get their cooperation, and the filly had adopted the runt of the bog, planting it in a large clay pot that she had transplanted it to. Both the geranium and the filly seemed completely smitten with each other.

Bane snorted something under his breath about "silly fillies", but Magorian only smiled, seemingly happy with her interest in the world around her at such a young age. Once they had cleaned off all the mud, she was a beautiful grey with sunlit dapples that made her coat shimmer with an almost blue hue. It wasn't hard to figure out where she had gotten her name. She, like her namesake, was beautiful, just as the carpet of bluebells was across the forest floor.

Hermione gained the herd-name Thistle, and Severus had somehow gained the name Hemlock. He took the name as well as could be expected, but his expression to Hermione was that of a man forced to have a tea party with a young child, only there was no actual tea in the cups because it was just pretend. Yet, neither Hermione nor Snape took their newfound friendship with the centaurs for granted. Being one of the family meant the centaur would not mind their presence in the forest, even when those under the treaty would be scorned. Also, it mean the centaur would sometimes pop in to visit, which would be a welcome thing instead of being in trouble.

Minerva, upon having to witness and register them as Animagi tutted and fussed over them, muttering something about overachievers the both of them. After the registrar fainted thrice merely attempting to officially witness the transformation, both Hermione and Severus had taken turns slamming their heads against the registration desk.

By the time Hermione and Severus managed to leave the Animagus Registry, which was, thankfully confidential to all but officials of law enforcement, and they only went looking if they had a signed warrant. Severus gave the registrar a vial of something for her heart, Hermione gave her a large box of Honeydukes finest chocolate, and Minerva gave the poor witch a tin of her favourite Scottish breakfast tea and shortbreads. Rumour had it that unfortunate witch took the following week off.

As to what, exactly, each of them were, they were listed as "magical conglomeration." They didn't say "unnatural" or "blasphemous" which made Hermione ask if there were any others out there like them— well-hidden and glad of it. She had thought that most believed it impossible and unnatural to be anything but a perfectly mundane, easily classifiable species, so she speculated that the Animagus registry just let people think what they would as it wasn't their job to go around crowing that Mr Walters was a beagle and Ms Flanders was a unicorn.

Well, unless they were out there committing crimes, anyway.

As Severus passed around a hamper full of centaur-friendly foods and gifted the herd some herbal tonics, balms and dressings, he caught Hermione looking at him, but unlike so many other times before, she did not turn away.

After he made sure every centaur had one of their bundles they had made together, he sat down beside his apprentice with a look of consternation on his face.

"Miss Granger, whatever is so terribly fascinating that you find staring at me is the proper course of action?"

She chuckled, smiling at him. "I simply realised something."

"Oh? Do tell," he drawled.

"It took seeing you in your Animagus form to realise that I've trusted you for a very long time. You have a sense of dignity about you I hadn't really noticed until I saw it in a form that had six legs and tentacles."

Severus arched a brow. "You trust me because the beast looked dignified?"

Hermione snorted softly. "No, master. I trust you because you are worthy of being trusted. I may not have seen it back when we had that horrible beginning, but I see it now."

Severus' eyebrows knitted together. "I see."

Hermione rubbed the bridge of her nose in a very familiar gesture. "I think what I'm trying to say is, before I respected you because I had to, but I've come to realise I trust you now because I believe in you. I respect you because you are deserving of respect."

Severus turned his head, staring into the fire. "I don't think I've ever had someone truly respect me unless they pretended to while under duress or laden with some sort of colleague team-building mumbo-jumbo."

Hermione leaned into his shoulder. "Well, master, I suppose now you have at least one. Two if you count Professor McGonagall, whom you always seem to forget actually likes you."

"She is a cat, Miss Granger," Severus said with a sniff. "She shows how much she loathes me by sticking her overlong whiskers into my business."

Hermione snorted. "You are a giant feline with extras."

"Fitting, as I loathe everyone."

Hermione shook her head. "Everyone, huh?"

"Everyone."

Hermione yawned fitfully, sliding down into his lap and closing her eyes just enough to continue staring into the fire. Minutes or hours passed with no word being shared between them and only the chatter of the centaurs around the fire and the crackling of the wood marked time's passage.

As Hermione's eyes drifted closed, the lightest touch of a hand brushed against her hair.

"Except you," Severus' voice said, barely a whisper, so soft it could have been imagined.

Hermione's expression softened as her eyes closed completely, a tug of a genuine smile on her lips.

"You are mine, Severus," the Dark Lord's hissing speech seemed to emit from everywhere at once. "I created you. I supported your rise into a respectful career, and I will unmake you, stripping you down until you are nothing. No one makes me into a fool."

The Dark Lord's power yanked on Severus' magic like a leash, demanding he obey and submit to his own execution. Snape's resistance was weaker, having survived just long enough to not die immediately, but that only seemed to brass Voldemort off even more.

As Minerva struggled to keep Severus from convulsing and hurting himself, Hermione's body stiffened.

Magic is magic, Master. It is neither Dark nor light.

It is all in what you do with it.

Her eyes shot open, and they were black as pitch; power crackled, setting her hair off to writhe as though alive. Her lips pursed into a flat line just before pulling back in a snarl.

"Focus, everyone!" Arachne said. "Help her out, my babies!"

"Yes!" the spiderlings chimed as they gave even more of their strength to the mix.

Crookshanks bounded in, hissing at the cloud of noxious vapour, slashing at it viciously with his claws, and everywhere he swatted crackled with the half-Kneazle's fury and defiance. He jumped into Hermione's lap, lending his strength to his beloved mistress.

The ground beneath them rumbled, bursting as great roots exploded upward, destroying the stone floor in a spray of shattered flagstone, but the roots swirled around Hermione, Minerva, and Severus like a protective shield.

WHUMP!

A knobby root smashed through the blackness.

The attack on Severus relented, if but for a few precious seconds— just enough that Hermione's body was able to focus the magic she had been lent. Her free arm stretched to touch the black, swirling, horror, and the magic seemed to hiss and recoil from her presence.

"He is mine!" Voldemort raged. "He cannot live without me! And he will also die without me." The blackness surged and Severus screamed in agony.

"Bite him again!" Arachne cried.

Crookshanks pounced on Severus' chest, swirling, swatting, hissing at the cloud.

The spiders sank their fangs in again, and the golden radiance strengthened as the venom spread through every artery and every vein. Ooze poured out of his arm, but this time the venom followed it and began to devour the black, Dark magic.

"You will not have him," Hermione hissed, every end of her hair tendrils whipping out like weapons in the dark. Her eyes began to glow emerald green, set in the vastness of space. The ghost of fur, fangs, and claws mixed with tentacles and wings.

The black cloud formed into arms, wrapping around her neck, and they squeezed. "Who are you to defy me?"

The willow's roots smashed through the main cloud as Crookshanks slashed through, making the grip weaken and release in order to reform. Hermione glared defiantly into the living cloud of corruption. Her lips twisted in a defiant snarl. "His. Wife."

She lowered her mouth to Snape's pressing down into their first kiss, her flare of her power expanding with every heartbeat. The spiders radiated even more golden glow as Crookshanks used the willow's invaded roots to launch himself into the cloud, a clutter of spiderlings clinging to his fur and lending him even more power. His body seemed to explode in golden light as he slashed through it with fangs and claws, filled with the power of those around him, and fueled by the wrath of his mistress.

Snape's eyes opened wide as all of his pain and his torture was driven away by the shock of Hermione's rage, wrath, and undeniable love pouring through him and searing every pathway he had with the strength of her need for him, chased by a heavy dose of possessive fury.

"Expecto Patronum," Hermione whispered into the Severus' mouth. A winged panther-like beast rose from her body without the use of a wand, roaring, slashing its way through.

"Expecto Patronum," Minerva said, her voice a rumbling purr of her feline self, a tabby-shaped Patronus rising from her body to join the fight.

"Expecto," Severus whispered, his eyes full of wonder at the furious and beautiful bushy-haired witch that had claimed him— not because of some potions accident but her own, defiant choice. "Patronum."

Shing.

Shing!

SHING!

Shafts of bright white pierced the gloom, scattering the Dark magic that was trying to get its hooks back into Severus. Two tentacled beasts rose up from their bodies and purred, the air thrumming with their power as they rubbed up against each other.

Magick flows

And Magick burns

Magick twists,

And Magick turns.

We are magic:

Both grey light and dark.

We are its pawn,

For its whims we hark.

We do not break;

We can only bend.

We follow Magicks' flow

To the very end.

Through us,

Form is given.

Through Magick's price,

We all are driven.

We give unto you ourselves;

Empty vessels wait.

Give us your blessing,

That we may embrace our fate.

Through us purify what once was grey.

Through us guide what had gone stray.

Magic we are

At Magick's Call.

Magic we will be

When all else falls.

The explosion of searing radiance burned through the thick, black corruptive magic that hung around Snape's chambers. There was the sound of screams mixed with the roars of defiance.

Dark Lord comes,

And Dark Lord goes.

I am Thistle;

This you should know.

Your place here

Is but melted snow.

I am Hemlock,

Paws of night.

I stand against

Your corruptive blight.

My torture at your feet,

Shall be no more.

For a new magic

Sings within my core.

I renounce you,

For I have found,

Something pure

In which to be bound.

The spiders linked their bodies together with their legs with a chain of furious squeaking.

I am Arachne,

And my children blessed.

We defy you

And your Dark magic's best.

We are radiant

Like the passing sun.

We shall burn you,

Till you are undone.

Multiple eyes

And many legs.

None shall spare you,

Despite your begs.

All connected to your blackened web.

All shall burn within your head.

The roots of the willow swirled around them, wrapping them in a close embrace.

Your roots touch so many things.

Avoiding death is your lifelong scheme.

I know you, Tom Riddle, from but a child.

Barely touched by magic, but thoughts so vile.

I feel your touch upon the Earth.

I feel your objects,

Now unearthed.

Let Magick's pawns

Put things to rights.

Let Magick's touch

Destroy your rite.

They all joined together, and in the distance, the equine screams of defiance came from the Forbidden Forest as the centaurs joined their energy to the mix.

Dark Lords come,

And Dark Lords go.

We banish you

like spring unto snow.

Human perversion.

Defilier of nature.

We entomb you now,

Like a beast in a glacier.

The stars will dance,

And the Earth will spin.

But you, Tom Riddle,

Shall never win.

Crookshanks stood on top of the pile, surrounded by the radiance of magic as he became the apex of the pyramid. His back arched, and his hissed, his body filled with magic and radiance, light and Dark, and every shade of grey. His fur stood on end, and he gave an unexpected roar of sound as his body filled with all of the magic they had gathered and focused it like a laser into the void of the Dark Lord's connection to Severus.

In that moment, he was infinite.

In that moment, he was gargantuan, towering above Hogwarts like a feline god.

He was Godzilla, and the Dark Lord was Hedorah the alien pollution kaiju.

Energy crackled up his back and then beamed out from his open mouth, shooting out across the moors in a focused attack.

The Dark Lord's scream came shortly after as the bond between him and Severus snapped with an audible pop and everything went dark.

Silence.

"I told you cats were magical," Hermione's voice said into the darkness.

"I have only one answer for you, wife," Severus grunted.

Her answer was a stealthy snog under the cover of artificial night.

"There will be extra salmon for you, puss," Minerva said in the dark.

"Mrowl," Crooks answered.

Alastor blinked.

"You tripped over a black cat and landed on a Death Eater?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who fell on his wand and impaled himself?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who tried to curse you and ended up turning himself into a hedgehog?"

"Yes, sir."

"This hedgehog?"

The prickly bundle of quills on top of his coffee mug was rolled into a ball, typical of hedgehogs— not so much Death Eaters.

"Uh— huh." Alastor rubbed his temple with one hand. "And then all his Death Eater friends just waltzed around the corner and slipped in the mud."

"Yes, sir."

"And knocked themselves out on the trash bin?"

"Yes, sir."

Alastor took in a deep breath. "How many swigs of that luck potion did you take?"

"Just one, sir."

"Was it an extra long swig?"

"No, sir."

"Hey, boss," a voice said just before John Savage poked his head around the corner. "Did you want a kitten? He's really cute." He plunked a small black kitten in the middle of Alastor's desk.

"Mew," it said.

"Oh, and while I was trying to get him out of muddy hole in an old, run down shack, I found this," Savage said, placing a worm-eaten box with an even older ring in it upon his desk. A dead snake skeleton was caught "wearing" the ring. "Dark magic like something crazy. Oddest thing, though. Half way back here, it just gave up the ghost, let off a screaming cloud of black shite, and then seemed all right after that."

"Oh, hey boss," another voice said as he plunked down a golden goblet. "Gringott's asked me come check out the old Lestrange vault after the door was blown right up because of continuously replicating objects. Found something I don't think belonged there."

"You— just happened to find the goblet of Helga Hufflepuff?"

"Oh, I just thought it had a cool badger on it."

Alastor slammed his head on the desk, startling the hedgehog.

There was a dragging, clattering noise as three Aurors pulled a large cabinet into view. "Hey, boss."

"WHAT NOW?!" Alastor yelled.

"We got an anonymous call to go check out this place in Knockturn Alley," one said.

"We saw these blokes trying to fit inside this here cabinet. Only the door shut behind them.

Muffled screaming and yelling came from within.

"I don't think it did quite what they were expecting."

Alastor waved at them to open the doors. The Aurors aimed their wands at it as the young Auror undid the latch.

An ungodly large pile of Death Eaters, masks and all, fell out of the cabinet. The one on top had something resembling a crown perched on top of his head.

And a canary.

The canary sang a melodious song, oblivious to the current goings-on.

Alastor muttered. "Take these bloody Death Eaters into lock up. Strip them down. I don't want them using a Portkey tooth or anything they might have shoved up their arse. Get them out of here."

"Mew!" the kitten said.

"Chirreee!" the canary sang.

The hedgehog stayed rolled up.

"Oi, where is Auror Stevens?" Alastor asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Filling out paperwork on that giant snake the Muggles caught eating the royal swans."

Alastor blinked, absently petting the black kitten. "What now?"

"Royal family was brassed off that some giant reptile was eating her swans right out of the river Thames, and the Prime Minister suspected magic, so they called Kingsley, who went out there with Auror Stevens and—"

Alastor waved his hand as if to shoo a fly. "Don't even— I'll read the report later. Get out ofhere, and take these numbskulls with you."

"Yes, sir."

The Aurors Stupified and levitated the prisoners out the door.

Alastor sighed. "Tha'ts it. I need a bottle o' good ol' Glenfiddich. Firewhisky ain't gonna cut it."

"Mew!" the kitten said.

"What's your deal, fuzzball?"

"Mew!" the kitten said again, kneading Moody's lap.

"I'm not taking you home!"

"Mew!"

"I don't need a kitten!"

"Mew!"

Moody sighed, stroking the kitten on the head and under the chin. "Fine, you can stay here and guard the Auror's office."

"Mew." The kitten curled up in his lap and purred.

"Poppy, it's three in the morning," Dumbledore groaned. "What's going on?"

"I thought you should know, Headmaster," Pomfrey said. "His friends dragged him here a little while ago. He was screaming and clutching at his head. Mr Potter's scar was bleeding and then it emitted a cloud of screaming black smoke. He was convulsing and crying. Finally got the poor lad stabilised, stopped the bleeding, and he's sleeping peacefully now."

"If he's stable, then why—"

Madam Pomfrey moved the hair away from Harry Potter's forehead exposing his scar.

Well, where the scar should have been or had been.

Dumbledore's eyebrows shot up past his hairline and straight into his hat.

Cosmic Anomoly: New Comet?

A blazing swath of bright light tore across the night sky around two in the morning yesterday, and no one can seem to tell us what it was. While we have multiple cell phone videos, scientists tell us there was no astronomical event that was scheduled, but there is the possibility that we had a large meteor that managed to hide its trajectory until the very end. Some seem to think it was a comet, the visual amplified by our own atmosphere, leaving us with quite a show.

Whatever it was, it was fast, and even CCTV and telescope-cams around Britian could capture was conflicting reports of:

"It was a alien ship!"

"I'm not sure what it was."

"Might have been just a reflection off the clouds."

"Someone was having a really great laser show and they aren't fessing up to it."

Well, whatever it was, it sure was bright!

End of the War!

Death Eaters Expire as Body of Dark Lord Found Trapped in Greenland Glacier

Greenland found an unexpected surprise when they unearthed, or shall we say, un-iced the body of Thomas Marvolo Riddle trapped in the glacial ice of one of the largest glaciers in Greenland. The glacier, known locally as the Helheim Glacier, is named after the Norse land of the dead.

The Muggle science team, which was taking core samples and studying the effects of global warming on the local glaciers, immediately called authorities. However, thanks to quick work of our agents with Muggle law enforcement, the glacier slipped into the ocean and disappeared before the body could be recovered, and the appropriate people were speedily Obliviated after witnessing "the man with a snake's face trapped in ice."

The body, which has been verified as being Thomas Marvolo Riddle, happened to be frozen with incriminating evidence, most of which was not released to the public, save for one— the wand of Tom Riddle, which was verified by none other than Mr Garrick Ollivander himself.

It seems as though some sinister magic bound Mr Riddle to his people, and he was using it to remain alive, despite being trapped in the ice. However, as his chosen people began to die, so did Riddle's lease on life. The officials say his body was frozen solid perhaps a few days before being found— leading us to wonder if the Muggles had been only a few days earlier and the weather been just a little more cooperative, if Riddle would have managed to escape and terrorise us yet again.

Luck, it seems, was not on his side.

Meanwhile, the young wizard formerly known as the Boy-Who-Lived has now been dubbed the Boy-Who-Survived after the Dark Lord's death throes tried to see him dead along with the one who murdered his parents almost two decades ago. When asked about the prophecy involving him, he could only shake his head in bemusement.

"I'm just glad he's dead," Mr Potter said from his infirmary bed. "And I'm glad I had nothing to do with it."

"What about the prophecy that said only you could defeat him?"

Mr Potter leveled our interviewer with a piercing stare. "Don't believe everything said in prophecy."

Meanwhile, in the wake of the most glorious and fortunate end of the war, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore has announced his retirement to travel the world, leaving Minerva McGonagall as the new Headmistress and Severus Snape as the new Deputy Headmaster.

Master Hermione Snape, whose records were revealed after the end of the war, is taking up the position as Hogwarts' newest professor of Potions and Head of Gryffindor House.

For those of you who didn't attend Hogwarts, and I ask you, why didn't you, it is no small bit of news that the married couple are members of the two most notorious rival houses in all of Hogwarts. As for how they ended up married, well, apparently it harkens back to the incident in which Mr Ronald Weasley blew up an entire classroom full of cauldrons and bonded twelve of his classmates in magically-sealed marriages.

As for Madam Master Snape's credentials, after reading the results of the test in person, I can tell you that I'd need a full re-education to be able to understand a lick of it, and that is even before trying to read her published literature detailing the art of balancing the use of wild fanged geraniums instead of domesticated varieties in potion work. Let's just leave it at that.

While many who grew up with Madam Master Snape cite a long history of her being an alleged 'jinx', Hermione Snape could only shake her head and state, "It could have been far worse. Perhaps luck is in the eye of the beholder."

When asked if she held a grudge against Mr Weasley for marrying her to Professor Severus Snape, she grinned, saying, "I think that was the one thing he did right."

In the distant future…

"Oi, spawn of my heart," Hermione said as her wayward son rode a giant spider around in the waiting room. "What did I tell you about scaring the people out in the waiting room?"

Wide, panicked eyes stared at Hermione and back to her son and namely the large blue, red, black, and white spider that was serving as his "noble steed."

"Sorry, mummy," her son said, guiltily.

"Wedge," Hermione said.

The large spider instantly became a small spider, and he crawled up her dragonhide boots, up her trouser leg, and disappeared into her hair.

"Sorry about that," Hermione said, putting on her best disarming smile.

The waiting room was dead silent.

"Hey, Livvy, let's play gobstones!"

"Okay, 'Bastian!" his sister replied cheerily, setting her book into her knapsack oh-so-carefully. A small spider bounced up and down on her shoulder, squeaking. Suddenly, a clutter of baby spiderlings moved out from her bushy hair and joined them, sitting around the gobstones board and literally bouncing with excitement.

The other people in the waiting room slowly shifted over to the other side of the waiting room.

Severus walked by, silent as a black-clad spectre, plunking down a dragonhide pouch. "This might take a while, so if you need to get some food down the hall, go ahead."

"Thanks, father!" Sebastian said, hugging his waist.

"Thank you, daddy," Olivia said, hugging him from the other side before flopping back down on the floor to play the game.

"You will keep watch over the children, hrm?" he said to the spider and spiderlings.

"Yup!"

"Can do!"

"On the watch!"

"Sometimes on a watch!"

"I hope there's biscuits!"

"Shortbread biscuits are the best!"

"Only if Grandma Minerva makes them!"

Severus shook his head and gently scritched the bigger spider under the chin, right under her glowing fangs. She purred in response.

"Don't worry! We'll keep them safe!"

Severus lifted the larger spider up and softly pressed his lips to her furry body. "I believe you." He set her down to join the spiderlings as they watched the children together. His gaze raked across the silent, wide-eyed people hiding on the other side of the room. "Some things never change," he said as he joined his wife. "Snapes can always suck all the conversation and revelry out of any room."

Hermione kissed him on the cheek. "I love you for it."

Severus harrumphed. "Let's get this over with before we all die of stagnation."

Hermione arched a brow.

"He's an imbecile."

"He married us."

"Still an imbecile."

"Ah!" a cheerful voice greeted them. "We're ready for you in room fifteen."

As the green-clad healer scampered down the hallway, Severus rolled his eyes. "He's an imbecile too."

Hermione chortled. "Oh, Severus. You're always such a glorious ray of positive sunshine."

Severus curled his lip. "I burn easily."

"More like spontaneously combust."

"I am not a vampire, my wife."

"Could have fooled me in—mmpghhg!"

Severus glided down the hallway after having stealth-snogged his wife, his robes billowing behind him.

Hermione touched her fingers to her lips and grinned. "Never gets old!"

Ronald opened his eyes to see a very attractive bushy-haired witch sitting in a chair with a clipboard, writing speedily with a quill.

"Whuu— where am I?" he asked blearily.

"St Mungos," the witch replied. "You'll be happy to know that the spell you've been under for the last eight years has finally given up the ghost and allowed for a specialised potion therapy to work."

"Eight years?" he exclaimed, "but I was just in class! My cauldron blew up."

"A few others did, as I recall," the witch said.

"Someone told you?" Ron rubbed his nose with his sleeve. "Bet they exaggerated things a bit."

"Oh, let's just say your reputation precedes you, Mr Weasley," the witch said.

"It hasn't been eight years," Ron said, grabbing the mirror from the table and looking into it. "Look, I don't even have stubble."

"As much as I'd like to see it's a flawless deaging potion, the side effects are not what most people would consider to be worth it."

Ron's hands immediately went to his crotch as he checked himself out. Relief then spread across his freckled face. "All good. When can I get out of here?"

"Well, there is the rub, Mr Weasley," the witch replied. "Due to your rather unorthodox circumstances, you are still, legally, sixteen. Your parents are required to sign for your release."

"Oh, just let me sign the papers, yeah?" Ron said, apparently having not heard what she had just said.

"I'm afraid I'm not your healer of record, Mr Weasley," the witch said. "I am simply the one who made sure you didn't overdose on your curative potion."

"Ah, there you are, Mr Weasley," a familiar male voice said. "Good to see you are up and no longer squeaking."

"MALFOY!" Ron hissed, throwing the nearby water pitcher at him.

Draco sidestepped, eyeing the pitcher with an arched eyebrow. "Now is that any way to greet your healer?"

"My healer is not YOU!"

"I beg to differ. I know every one of my patients here in the magical transformation accidents ward," Draco said, calmly using his wand to clean up the mess and set the broken water pitcher to rights.

"Now is that any way to treat your elders, Mr Weasley," Severus' voice rumbled with his distinctive, acidic disdain.

"Why is Snape here?!" Ron bellowed.

"I fear our part is done, Draco," Severus said to the younger wizard. "I and my wife have an appointment at the Ministry to identify a certain rat."

"Sounds exciting," Draco said.

"You have no idea," Severus said, his black eyes darkening more than usual. "As luck would have it, he managed to survive the end of the war. Alas, he made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most long-lived domestic rat and oh, oops, then the Unspeakables found him."

"Pity," Draco said rather dryly.

"Indeed."

"Muggles seem much more prone to question long-lived animals that shouldn't be living past their prime."

"We must go, do take care of yourself, won't you, Draco?" the bushy-haired witch said kindly. "Please give Luna my regards, yes?"

"You must come and have one of your— witch's nights out, Hermione," Draco said randomly. "Luna really misses playing with your tentacles."

"Draco!"

Draco flushed. "You know what I mean!"

Severus scowled at Draco.

"Come on, Uncle, you know I didn't mean it like THAT."

Severus just rolled his eyes.

"HERMIONE?!" Ron's voice squelched like an old-fashioned radio.

Draco, Severus, and Hermione simultaneously rubbed the bridge of their noses. Hidden under Hermione's hair, many spiderlings did the same, only exchanging nonexistent noses for the space between their multiple eyes.

Hermione leaned in and kissed Draco on both cheeks. "My best to Luna, Draco. Both of you come over for spaghetti night this week."

"Yes, ma'am," Draco said, saluting her with his wand. "Don't punch me."

"I will if you don't show up!"

Shhhhhh… THUD.

Draco eyed the bed where Ronald had been sitting up gawking at them only a few moments before and sighed. "Time to be a healer again," he said, shooing them off. "You two probably don't want to be here when Mrs Weasley shows up."

Hermione and Severus hurried out of the room in a swirl of black wool.

A soft cooing sound alerted Draco and he patted his collar.

He touched something soft and furry that squeaked at him. He cupped his hand around the miniature hitchhiker and eyed the baby spider with curiosity. The spiderling waved his legs at him and squeaked.

"You realise I can't understand you like Hermione and Severus, yeah?"

The spider rubbed herself against his fingers lovingly.

"Oh, very well, just don't scare my patients, okay, Gemma?"

The spider bounced a few times and scurried up to hide behind his collar and under his hair.

Draco paused, suddenly suspicious. "Did Luna tell you to come with me today?"

The spiderling burrowed into his collar and disappeared with a tiny squeak.

"Witches," Draco muttered. "They're so bloody evil."

"And then Molly comes in, and she starts screeching at Weaselbee so high and loud that people were worried the windows would start cracking. I remember her howlers vividly, yeah?" Draco laughed as he passed the salad around.

"Poor Arthur," Hermione sighed. "After all that bad press regarding Ron, now he has to put him through school eight years after he thought it was all done and over with."

"I still haven't decided if I'm letting him back to Hogwarts," Minerva said, her nose wrinkling.

"Why, Grandma?" Livvie asked, doling out food in little dishes for the spiderlings and a litter of smug-looking part-Kneazles.

"He's a positive menace," Severus said repressively.

"He's a hormonal teenage boy," Hermione said.

"As I said, a menace," Severus repeated.

Minerva shook her head.

"Oh, I think it's the perfect punishment for him," Luna said rather dreamily. "He doesn't realise that Hogwarts doesn't have the house rivalry like it used to. He's going to have quite a few new lessons to learn."

"Meanwhile, we still have to keep him in line," Severus said with a sniff.

Hermione just shrugged. "At least now I can take points off him if he tries to cause any problems."

Luna smiled knowingly. "Just have everyone you want to protect from him make friends with a spiderling."

The spiderlings all perked, and the adult spiders rubbed their fangs with their legs thoughtfully.

"We like friends!"

"We love friends!"

"We also love having our fur scrit— ahhh, that's the best." The spiderling cuddled up against Luna's fingers.

Minerva chuckled. "You may be onto something, Luna."

There was a knock at the door, and Hermione called out, "Come on in!"

The door expanded magically as Bluebell trotted in, decorated in her namesake flowers, bringing a few of the herd-foals with her. "Sorry, I'm late!" she apologised. "I had foal-watch because Elderberry hurt her leg crossing the river."

"Please, please," Hermione said, rushing up to take the baskets from her. "The more the merrier."

"We'd never miss spaghetti night with Thistle and Hemlock!" the foals chimed together.

Severus snorted, pinching his nose.

Luna placed more plates out on the counter that was just the right size for standing and eating.

"Oh, I made you some fly spray," Hermione said. "Well, we did together. Severus added some herbs so it wouldn't mess with your noses like that last batch."

"Bless you both," the young centauress said fervently. "This time of year, they are all out for blood, and the stallions do not like smelling like flowers."

"I like flowers," the first foal said.

"Me too!" the other answered.

Bluebell winked at the adults.

"Well, since we are all together. Why don't the young ones lead us in giving thanks before we eat, hrm?" Minerva suggested.

"Excellent idea," Bluebell agreed.

Everyone bowed their heads respectfully.

Stars align

And Magick bless.

We have good food

Without the stress.

Blessed be our family

And those we call friend.

Blessed be those

Who could not attend.

Our thanks to the Earth

For giving us life.

We thank you for peace

And an end to strife.

The all looked up together with smiles just as the door opened and Mr and Mrs Granger nudged their way in carrying trays of assorted desserts. "Sorry we're late!" Hollie Granger said. "Your father picked up the wrong rock."

"I did not!" Paul Granger huffed.

"Yay! Parents are here!" the spiderlings cheered, lifting their forelegs in celebration.

Hermione grasped Severus' hands as she pressed a tender kiss to his lips. "And thank you for this moment, frozen in time. I shall remember it all started with a massive explosion of slime."

Severus' eyes rolled, but a rare smile spread across his face. "I am thankful that on that day, we did not go up in a blaze of botched potion-fueled glory along with the entire classroom."

Hermione grinned with pure mischief in her eyes. "Tut-tut. Who would be here to keep you in line, my husband?"

"Albus?"

Hermione frowned.

"I am truly thankful for you, my wife," he said, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. "Always."

Hermione's smile blazed like the rising sun, and all was well in the world.

(Except for the unfortunate Pansy Parkinson, who was still married to Crabbe and Goyle)

Fin.

A clutter of multi-coloured spiders rush by carrying a sack of Bertie Bott's beans, a quart of Fortesque's chocolate ice cream, a smoked salmon, and a basket of fresh-baked pasties.

"Hurry!"

"Yes, hurry!"

"Hurry, or she'll be cranky!"

"No one likes a cranky Hermione!"

"Nope!"

"She should lay eggs like a spider instead!"

"That would be weird."

"Not as weird as having less than eight legs and only two eyes!"

"True, that is pretty weird."

"Who started the betting pool?"

"Luna always wins. No one wants to bet anymore."

"Oh well! Don't forget the bubble tea!"

The curtains close slowly, guided by multi-legged help.

"Nini!"