The next morning the start of the weekend began with a cold, snowy morning which kept most of the students indoors. It made for a loud and boisterous breakfast in the great hall. A breakfast at which there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of mail being delivered to the Slytherin table. It appeared that every student whom Severus knew to have a parent supporting the Dark Lord received an owl. Not one of said parents would dare to not follow an order from on high directly from the Dark Lord himself.

"Good," he thought, "One less threat for the moment."

The Slytherins did their best, with some certainly better at it than others, to subtly study Hermione as she entered the Great Hall and sat at a random place setting to eat her breakfast among her fellow Gryffindors.

She looked well this morning, her cheeks had a bit color and there wasn't a circle under her eyes to be found.

Draco Malfoy seemed to be the most affected by his letter, his jaw clenching tightly and a sneer of loathing plastered on his face. There was ice in his eyes, even more so than usual as he looked over to the Gryffindor table. Severus wondered if Draco was going to be a problem. He knew that tormenting Hermione was a favorite pastime of Draco's, even more now that he was brown-nosing Umbridge. Was the boy going to act like a petulant child whose favorite toy had been taken away? Would he dare disregard the Dark Lord's orders?

Oddly, in direct contrast to Draco, Theodore Nott was looking surreptitiously at her with what appeared to be curiosity in his eyes and a contemplative look upon his face. Severus knew that the boy had little in common with his father save a name and Hogwarts' house. Theodore was an intelligent, studious, and rational boy, one whose temperament should have seen him placed in Ravenclaw save for his surname. Severus made a mental note to keep an eye on young Nott thinking it just might be possible to save the boy from following in his father's footsteps.

Severus was drawn away from his musing by Minerva who was sitting next to him. In a business-like manner she informed him, "I know you'll be terribly disappointed, Severus, but Dolores won't be joining us this morning, she's been called away to an unscheduled meeting at the Ministry."

The Dark Lord was nothing if not efficient and Severus was willing to bet that this "unscheduled meeting" was, in fact, the Dark Lord's handling of the situation Severus had brought to his attention. Another flicker of relief filled his chest.

Since he could not tell Minerva about his meeting with the Dark Lord, he fell back to his patented dry sarcasm. "I will attempt to contain my disappointment."

Minerva picked up her teacup with a snicker and replied, "You and I both, Severus, you and I both."

The rest of breakfast passed without anything of note. Then Severus watched as Theodore Nott very subtly timed his exit from the Great Hall to coincide with Hermione's. He hit the door first and politely held it open for her.

As she went through, with a slightly puzzled look on her face, she muttered, "Thank you," automatically.

Nott, himself, did not say anything but nodded once at her before closing the door and blocking Severus' view of any further interaction between the two. It was certainly odd on Nott's part, but it did not feel threatening at all to Severus though it did serve to reemphasize his thought that Theodore Nott warranted watching.

Hermione didn't know what to make out of Nott's sudden good manners in holding the door for her, but she thanked him as she would anyone for the courtesy. When he nodded in return she became a bit more confused, none of the Slytherins were ever polite to her, most never even acknowledging her existence.

Her confusion reached its peak when Nott fell into step with her as she walked down the corridor. Conversationally he asked, "How'd you like that last Ancient Runes translation? Finally felt like a challenge, yeah?"

Hermione blinked, keeping her eyes straight ahead on the corridor as she tried to figure out what Nott was up to. Finally answering him she said, "It was. But I…," she hesitated, not wanting to over share with the Slytherin.

"You what?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"I was going to say that I enjoyed it. I like the harder translations."

"Me, too. Did you use the older syllabary by Franzoi in the library as well as Spellman's Syllabary?"

"I glanced at it but ended up using Reese's Runic Concepts and Connections. The drawings are much clearer and I like how it's organized. I'm putting it my list to look for in Diagon Alley over the holidays so I can have my own copy."

"Hmm. I haven't seen that one. I'll check it out next time I'm in the library," Nott said as they reached a junction in the corridor. He paused and Hermione didn't exactly know why she did it, but she paused as well. He gestured the opposite way she was heading and said, "Well I'm heading off to play chess. Couple of us Slytherins and a couple of Ravenclaws have a little competition going. We play most Saturdays, losers from the week before have to bring the butterbeer.

Hermione really didn't know how to deal with this sudden friendliness from Nott. It was most peculiar. She decided to be courteous and play along. "Since you're not carrying butterbeer should I assume you won last week?"

He grinned, again surprising Hermione. Gone was the Slytherin Pureblood haughtiness and he looked like someone friendly, someone fun and approachable, perhaps even someone she might have been friends with had circumstances been different.

Nott straightened his shoulders proudly and said with a smirk, "I haven't had to bring butterbeer all year."

Before she could say anything, the clock tower chimed and he said, "I've got to go. See you around, Granger."

Keeping the moment light she replied with a nod, "Good luck and have fun."

The two went their separate ways, with Nott heading for an unused classroom to meet his friends and Hermione heading back to the dormitory to get her books and notes to use as cover for the meeting this afternoon that Professor Snape had requested all the while trying to sort out what exactly had happened with Nott.

After spending the remainder of the morning studying in the library and then grabbing a quick bite of lunch in the Great Hall, Hermione was standing outside his office five minutes before the time he had requested to meet with her. Her mind was on the odd interaction with Theodore Nott. It made no sense at all.

She shook off the thought as she saw Snape making his way towards her.

She picked up her satchel and smiled at the stony-faced professor. "Good morning, sir."

He raised an eyebrow. "Miss Granger. Prompt as usual I see."

They went inside the office, leaving the door open though Severus threw a strong privacy spell at it.

At his gesture she sat in the chair in front of his desk. She reached in her satchel and pulled out her notebook and a quill to use as cover should anyone interrupt them.

He settled himself in his well-worn chair and nodded at her preparedness.

"Sir, do you have any idea why Theodore Nott would suddenly start being… well, friendly towards me? No disrespect, but no one in Slytherin has ever even been polite to me before, let alone friendly."

"Yes, I do, it is why I arranged to meet with you. You will undoubtedly start experiencing vastly different behavior from your Slytherin schoolmates as of this morning."

"Has something happened?"

"I had an audience with the Dark Lord yesterday," he said simply, not knowing how else to break the news to her.

She paled and swallowed nervously before asking in a near whisper, "He knows?"

Severus nodded. "Yes. And as I had foreseen, he is most intrigued by the situation. He issued a directive to all his followers that you were not to be harmed under any circumstance. He also ordered those with children here at Hogwarts to inform them of the same."

"So everyone knows?"

"No. Only a handful of his most faithful Death Eaters are fully aware of the situation, the rest know only that you are not to be harmed."

She nodded and he could practically see the wheels spinning in her head. "Is V… he angry about it?"

"No, quite the opposite as it may finally be a solution to the fertility and birthing problems Pureblood families currently face. He was, however, livid over the attempt to poison you and harm our child."

She plucked nervously at the feather of her quill. "So what happens now, sir?"

"The Dark Lord wishes to see you in person. I'm to bring you to him on the next Hogsmeade weekend when your absence from the castle will not be noticeable."

Her face went pale and she gasped. "So soon?"

"Yes. Which is why we will need to practice your occlumency as often as possible between now and then."

The thought of Voldemort rifling through her mind utterly terrified her. She had been working diligently on the occlumency exercises but her novice self had little hope of keeping the most powerful dark wizard who ever lived out of her mind. He seemed to have the utmost confidence in her ability to learn the difficult skill in such a short period of time, however, and it gave her the slightest bit of self confidence.

"I've been doing the exercises in the book and I've achieved the meditative plane quite easily, however, it was difficult for me to decide upon a sorting concept. The book suggests things like a corridor of doors or a dresser with many drawers, but I couldn't get either of those to coalesce well at all."

"It should be something familiar to you, something you can call up clearly without much active thought. It needs to be second nature to your mind."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully then asked, "Sir, may I ask what you use?"

For a moment she thought he wouldn't answer and that she had pushed for too much personal information from the private man. That thought was disproved a moment later when he replied.

"When I was first learning occlumency I used the image of the Slytherin common room and all its nooks and crannies as hiding places as I knew it well. However as I progressed in my aptitude in the skill that image quickly became overly limited, finite, if you will, in places to sort my thoughts. So I then began using the potions' class supply closet and its myriad of bottles and canisters. Why do you think that was a better choice than the common room?"

She turned that over in her mind, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth a bit as she did. Then it all came together for her. "Oh. I think I understand now. You can't really rearrange or add onto the image of the common room, but with the closet you could easily add more shelves and more bottles."

"Correct. If you think of the book's examples of a hallway with doors you would be able to either simply add length to the hall or branches off of it as needed. Likewise, the dresser could gain more drawers and grow in size and shape."

"So I need something familiar to me that's easily brought to mind and that I can expand if I need to," she replied absently, shifting through her mind for something that fit the bill. After a moment she met his eyes and smiled. "I've got it…," but before she could tell him what it was he held up his hand halting her.

"Do not tell me, if it is strong enough in your mind I will see it. Now, close your eyes and go through the steps you've learned."

She did as instructed without hesitation.

Severus regarded the earnest young woman in front of him as she began her attempt to clear her mind. More and more he was coming to appreciate her logical, methodical way of thinking, which was in many ways similar to his own. Controlled by fact and process and not emotion both of them were able to conceptually distill the most complicated of mental exercises into its core components.

That she had closed her eyes and left herself completely vulnerable to him at his simple directive did not go unnoticed by him. She trusted him in a way that no one ever quite had before. He tried not to let that damnable feeling of satisfaction creep up his spine yet again in the face of her trust, but was unsuccessful.

He could see the moment when her mind became clear as her face relaxed and she looked positively serene.

Softly, as not to pull her out of the meditative plane, he said, "I'm going to attempt to enter your mind, keep your emotions clear and stay focused on your mental image. Do not worry about ejecting me this first time."

Her chin nodded a bit in acknowledgment. He raised his wand and cast legilimens.

He felt no resistance as he entered her mind, none at all, in fact, which was most unusual. When her mental projection coalesced he found himself in a library, more specifically, he found himself standing in the great domed reading room of the British Library. He looked around inquisitively, her level of detail was incredible. He saw her standing at one of the reading counters towards the center of the room, a large stacks of books next to her while she herself was occupied reading another large tome, her bottom lip again in her teeth.

He approached her and she looked up. "The British Library?" he asked.

"Yes," she said simply then went back to gnawing on her lip, waiting nervously for his critique.

"I would have thought that if you were going to imagine a library that it would have been Hogwarts'."

She shook her head. "I know this one better. Dad and I used to spend hours here every Saturday."

He nodded. "It is a good choice."

She straightened at his praise, relief evident on her face. He paced around the space and gestured with his hand. "All of these books will contain your thoughts. How you organize them will depend upon how your personal internal catalog works. The best use of occlumency is not necessarily the forceful eviction of a legilimens from your mind, but rather the skill of hiding the things you need to keep safe from detection while giving the legilimens access to the things that do not matter. If you can do this well, the person penetrating your mind will be all but unaware that you are using occlumency."

"I think I understand, sir, if you only hide the most critical things and leave everything else available they wouldn't have reason to suspect you are hiding anything at all, especially if you don't resist them looking through it."

"Correct. Now the challenge for you will be to determine what needs to be hidden and how to best do that without drawing attention to it in the process. I am going to withdraw from your mind and you may stop occluding."

He pulled out of her mind gently and she opened her eyes.

"You did extremely well for your first effort, better than I did, in fact."

She grinned and a slight blush bloomed on her cheeks. "Thank you, sir, it helps to have a good teacher."

"Keep practicing so that your library is always in the periphery of your mind and you are able to conjure it and place yourself in it instantly. I will test you at random times without notice to check your progress this weekend. We will meet again on Tuesday evening to proceed to the next step."

She nodded. "Sir, should we come up with an extra-credit project or something to explain why I continue meeting with you? Professor Umbridge isn't going keep believing I need extra tutoring."

He regarded her for a moment and thought about what she said. "While I do not believe that Umbridge will be a problem for us much longer as the Dark Lord is now aware of her annoying interference into our situation, perhaps you are right in suggesting a project. Do you have something in mind?"

"I was thinking about the medicinal potion base we had discussed, I know you said sixteen hours is the best rule of thumb, but do all the secondary brewing processes require the base to have full potency the entire secondary brewing time in order for the final potion to be effective?"

More Masterly level work from someone who hadn't even sat her OWLs yet. That she was able to converse so intelligently with him in his subject, her lack of practical knowledge not withstanding, was appealing to him as few and far between were the individuals with whom he felt comfortable doing so. The project she proposed would be a good way to outwardly excuse her spending time in his presence. He refused to let himself feel anything but professional interest in the idea that she would be around him more often but there was a little nagging sliver of enjoyment in the idea of spending time with someone who neither feared him nor was repulsed by him and that he could hold intelligent conversation with. He absently scratched his chin for a moment before answering her.

"That question will be the basis of your project. Expand upon it and outline how you will brew and test the potions in question. We can discuss it further on Tuesday."

"Thank you, sir, I'll have it ready for Tuesday," she replied and started putting her things back in her bag.

She stood to go and he had a thought of offering her an apprenticeship, quite honestly something he had never considered doing for anyone since becoming a Potions' Master. He asked her before he could stop himself, "Miss Granger, have you considered a Mastery in Potions?"

She stood and put the strap of her bag on he shoulder. "I haven't decided exactly what I want to do in the future, sir. Potions is on my list of potential careers as is healing, which is where my parents seem to hope I'll end up, but I just don't know. And… well… the baby complicates things. I don't know if I'll actually be in a position to commit to a Mastery."

He didn't miss the small frown that she tried to hide.

"I assure you that I will fully support you and our child in any way necessary. Should it become an issue we could perhaps hire a nanny or a house elf so that you will be able to finish your schooling here and pursue the Mastery of your choosing."

"You would do that for me?" she asked softly, hesitantly.

"Yes," he answered simply, feeling something warm unfurl in his gut at the little grateful look she gave him, a something he pointedly refused to acknowledge. Where were all these confounded emotions coming from?

"Th…thank you, sir. Not just for that but for everything you've done. I know this situation is stressful and dangerous, especially given your position in the Order, and I promise I'll do everything I can to not add to that."

He nodded in response, not entirely knowing what to say to that as her guileless concern for him was still such an unexpected thing, and stood as she made ready to leave. When she reached the door he spoke again, warning, "Be careful with the Slytherins. Even though the Dark Lord has put the highest value on your safety, it may not deter all of them."

"I will, sir." And with that she left.

As Hermione headed back to the Gryffindor common room she was lost in her thoughts- of occlumency, of Snape's offer of support so she could finish her schooling, and most certainly of the terrifying notion that she was going to be face to face with Voldemort himself. It was all a bit overwhelming if she were honest with herself.

She passed a pair of first year Slytherin girls in the corridor and it brought her thinking back to Theodore Nott and their strange encounter. She knew better than to take any of the Slytherins at face value, but something was telling her that his friendliness was genuine.

She shook off all her conflicting thoughts as she walked and worked on clearing her mind. Upon reaching the first floor she paused near a window and closed her eyes, letting the vision of her library fill her mind. It was even easier to accomplish the second time around. She pulled herself out of it, leaving it lurking around the corners of her mind.

Her thoughts had moved on to her Arthimancy homework that she wanted to get started on when she reached the common room. She patiently waited for the this staircase, then that staircase to move themselves into position. She had just reached the fourth floor and was waiting for the stairs to the fifth to shift back into place when she smelled something rather foul. She wafted a hand in front of her nose thinking that someone had to be setting off stink-bombs again when she was suddenly very woozy and her brain muddled. She tried to shake it off, thinking she perhaps needed a snack and some water when she saw the stairs to the fifth floor finally slide into place. She shifted her book bag on her shoulder and took her first step up the flight of stairs.

Only there were no stairs and she was falling, her mind still befuddled and not able to get her wand out in time to help herself.

It was lucky for her that someone else saw it happen and a confident male voice shouted, "Arresto Momentum!"

She landed softly four floors down and looked up to see pair of carefully pressed black trousers, a deep emerald cashmere jumper, and a familiar, though completely unexpected, Slytherin face standing over her.

She tried to sit up but the wooziness overcame her and she couldn't manage it. Her brain kept telling her that none of this felt right or natural and she tried to remember what she should do about it.

Her savior yelled at another Slytherin to go get Snape and the girl took off at a run towards the dungeons. He then crouched down and asked in his ever-posh voice, "Granger, you all right?"

"I don't feel so well," she replied even as her uncooperative brain was refusing to remind her what it was she was supposed to do.

"Lie still. You don't look right. Professor Snape is coming."

A sharp cramp filled her abdomen and the pain brought crystal clarity to her mind. She struggled to get her necklace out of her jumper, her fingers weak and fumbling.

She frantically looked up and croaked out, "Poison. Need my necklace."

His sure fingers found the delicate chain around her neck and tugged the pendant out. He watched with interest as she clumsily stuck it in her mouth.

As it had the first time Dumbledore had tried to poison her and kill the baby, Snape's antidote countered the poison and color returned to her cheeks. Her thinking was still out of sorts though and that worried her.

A swirling mass of black fabric filled her vision and it was sudden Snape's familiar face she was looking up into.

The other crouching figure stood back up and proceeded to tell Snape what had happened even as Snape was running diagnostic spells to ensure she and the baby were okay.

Snape's worried eyes met hers and he asked, "Did you eat anything once you left my office?"

She shook her head. "Was fine till the fourth floor stairs, there was a bad smell, now I can't think so well."

"It's type of a confundus charm. It should wear off soon, but we'll let Madam Pomfrey look you over in the meantime," he said as he picked her up in his arms to carry her to the hospital wing.

He had taken a couple of steps when she said, "Wait. Just a second, please."

Snape paused and she turned her head to face the young man who had saved her life and the life of her unborn child.

The tall, handsome Slytherin took a step towards her and waited for her to speak.

Her words were simple, yet completely heartfelt. "Thank you."

He nodded once in acknowledgment and Snape turned to continue heading to the hospital wing. Over his shoulder he said firmly, "We will speak on this later, Mr. Zabini."

She wanted to feel safe, and she did at the moment lying against Snape's chest as his long stride carried them to Madam Pomfrey. But outside of Snape's protective presence could she ever be safe in the castle?

He was tense and angry. She could feel that in his arms and by the harsh set of his jaw. She would be too once the cloud in her head went away.

Dumbledore had tried to end her pregnancy again.

tbc...