A/N: MAJOR HBP SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.

This fic will be HG/SS eventually. Don't like it? Don't read it. This starts on September 1, what would have been the Golden Trio's seventh year at Hogwarts, after the disturbing events of HBP. Kind of a challenge for me to find a way to get the two together and explain everything after what happened. Very fun. I'm still convinced Snape's a good guy.

This starts out short and slow, but will pick up in the next chapter, I promise. I've discontinued the other fic, Reason Enough, because I can't concentrate on that with the looming problem of HBP. Sorry to those that liked it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

by Chibi Animagus

Nothing was ever certain.

That was one thing Hermione Granger had not learned from a book. The past few years had burned it into her able mind like a white-hot poker.

And sometimes, it hurt just as much.

Yet there was something surreal about this morning in particular, from the two boys ambling along beside her, to the dirt path ahead of her. Yes, there was something to be said about travelling to Godric's Hollow on September the first.

Any other year, they would find themselves seated at the long Gryffindor table, helping themselves to treacle pudding, chatting amiably with Nearly Headless Nick and Neville Longbottom, avoiding eye contact with a certain blonde Slytherin, and…

… Snape, she thought bitterly.

But this year, things were different. No one sat in the Great Hall today. No first years would don the infamous Sorting Hat. No flurry of owls would deliver the mail. And although there were some things Hermione was happy to miss, such as Lavender and Parvati whispering behind their hands and shooting her dark looks, four months ago she would not have expected to be so glad that she was not present to see Severus Snape.

Of course, he would not be there anyway; he was being hunted so fiercely by the Ministry that she doubted Snape even had time to sleep nowadays. Yet Hermione had never been opposed to the dark, quiet figure that had surveyed the Great Hall each morning with disdain and scorn. True, he had always treated her harshly, but she had long since forgiven him. There was something about the way he was always swooping about, sneering at their incompetence, putting on such a show to intimidate them all, that made Hermione feel as if she understood something very personal about him, and as she had respected Professor Lupin's secret, she would respect Professor Snape's.

That was not to say that she felt so kindly to him now. What he had done was shocking, inexcusable, and… Hermione had to admit, incredibly disturbing. She knew she had no right, but she couldn't help feeling betrayed, and rather embarrassed, that she had trusted the greasy git for so long, had defended him to her best friends… and now…

Hermione grinned harshly, gaining some sick, twisted pleasure from using the name she had refused to call him all these years. Greasy git. Overgrown bat. Filthy Slytherin. Hermione was only slightly surprised at herself. The man she had trusted as a teacher and a protector (she flushed at that word) had murdered the one man who had trusted him as she had, the one man who had given him a second chance, the greatest wizard of all time. Anyone who did such a thing deserved her unkind words.

A sudden anger flared up inside her, and Hermione clenched her fists, the image of Severus Snape quite clear in her mind. How dare he destroy her hope… that people truly could change. The man was nothing but a filthy, cowardly traitor. Snape had never changed.

No, Hermione thought with grim conviction, if she saw Severus Snape any number of years from now, she would be sure to make him wish he had never been born.