It sucks that I have to have a disclaimer. Ok. I don't own Harry Potter. I'm not j.k. (just kidding) about the fact that I'm not J.K. Rowling. I am not affiliated with Warner Bros. nor do I make any claim to be. Fan writing FAN fiction. Enough said.

Intellectually Correct

Chapter 1: Oranges Don't Have Thorns

Hermione gazed avidly at Ronald's picture, willing herself to love him. Wanting for herself to love him. Waiting for herself to love him. Yet, for all her struggle, she could not love him in the same way that she had before that day.

After all, she reasoned, who was Ron in the general scope of things? Of what ingredients did he consist? Where did Ron combine the articles that Hermione lusted for in a lover? Whence did Ron come into importance beyond being the aide of the illustrious Harry Potter? Why did she feel no more than a sensible obligation to adore him?

She applied her favorite system of analysis, listing five predominant question-words of the English language and creating a query based upon each. Her pen lay limp as she struggled for a how that did not seem redundant. She decided that, as it did not begin with a 'w', she would not deem it necessary for this activity of self-discovery.

Now to answer her own posed considerations, the parchment under her fingers passively interested in what she had to say. Ron: a boy who absolutely worships me. Hermione's ball-point pen (more practical than a quill, as she determined long ago) etched timorously, nervous at what conclusions might come to light in the next sentence. Adores me to distraction, lives and breathes every waking moment about me, since . . . oh, she could not remember when she first saw the signs.

True, the youngest Weasley boy loved her more than he could love anything or anyone else. Vaguely, she remembered how he had once said something to the accord that he would give up Quidditch if she ever wanted it. From him, this was a lot, but as she had told him, she did not want him to do that. It would destroy a part of him that would encourage his passion to divert from her. Strange, though, that she should want his attention to leave her, as she had strived after it for so long.

She suddenly conjured a how question, very lovely. How did she use to believe that she was completely consumed in love for him? It had hurt more than a vivisection to see him going about with Lavender Brown. However, she saw now, all that had been mere puppy love. Now she set about imagining it, she found a scene of domestication involving herself as a Weasley rather farfetched and amusing. A vivid image of the situation clouded her mind.

Ronald sits at the couch, cheering for his favorite Muggle sport of cricket as it blasts from the widescreen telly in the living-room. A foaming, cold glass of amber liquid settles on top of his steadily rising paunch, and every once in a while, the beer splashes over the rim to stain one of his many 'at-home' shirts. Hermione stands in the kitchen, still dressed in the suit she had worn to the office, though she protects it by a hastily-tied vinyl apron. She is sidetracked from making supper by the prospect of a new revelation for one of her many potions experiments.

"Ron, give me a hand, will you? This vial is going to overflow if I don't get someone to stir it constantly."

"Just a minute," replies his throaty voice, which had suddenly become surprisingly gravelly by his fortieth birthday.

Five minutes later, his snores reach her ears, and she sighs.

Here Hermione had to stop. It maddened and sickened her, because she remembered conversations quite similarly pointless and disengaging. He argued as though only for the sake of seeing her get quite frustrated with him. Yet he debated with perfect seriousness, though he lacked method and logical comprehension.

Conclusively, despite the fact that he was physically 'cute', with his luscious red hair and china freckled skin, she knew he could never see things from an intellectual standpoint. This bothered her tremendously. His incompetence was his only challenge, she saw, and, to be strictly honest, she realized a life constantly exposed to that would result in her intense boredom.

She remembered one of the heroes of her youth, Sherlock Holmes, and how his relationship with Watson resembled that of hers with Ron. Holmes called Watson his 'Boswell', in allusion to a famous scientist's favorite bumbling co-worker. Watson played the part of a regular, rather ordinary educated man who merely exemplified Holmes' genius. Sometimes, he did this with much unneeded exaggeration, expressing disbelief and astonishment at every worthy comment made by his friend. Watson adds practically nothing to the duo, only hanging about to support Holmes when the great detective occasionally has a lapse of strength.

Of course, there were some moments while she was with Ron that Hermione definitely felt that she was head-over-heels in love with him all over again, despite his lack of brains and obstinate idiocy. But, when she truly reflected, Hermione knew that it was her own folly to feel anything for her friend, and came to the conclusion that she did not indeed have any non-platonic love for him.

She knew she had been a fool last winter when he left so suddenly, but now she realized how impossible it all was. Why were not Watson and Holmes gay for each other? They were not romantically compatible, and they knew this fairly well. Wisely, Watson got married about five times over the course of his life, so they never had any trouble on that point of their relationship.

Seeing herself allegorically made things much more clear. Hermione felt seized with despair. She had kissed Ron during the last battle: kissed him as though she never wanted to part from him; kissed him as though she wanted to marry him and have children with him; kissed him as though her soul's sustenance depended on his being there for her. She had cried for him last winter: cried as though the end of the world had come; cried for the mere sake of his rejection; cried for his abandoning her. She had hated him for Lavender: hated him for ignoring her; hated the fact that, though unconsciously, he had realized the purpose of her little game with Krum; hated that he was making her pay.

But now . . . now all emotion for him had evaporated. Sometime in the past week, she had dramatically changed. The end she had intended to achieve for all her life (or, rather, the past few years) was attainable. But now . . . now she did not want it.

What did she want? Oh, but she scarcely dared to even think about it. A dead man was the subject of her fierce affection. Oh yes, a man she might have saved. It was he, and he alone, who domineered her dreams nowadays.

She had watched him die, and die in agony: a good man, a martyr who had devoted his life to protecting the memory of a woman he had loved, to selflessly protecting Hermione and her dearest friends, to saving the wizarding world from the peril of a wicked tyrant. He had been a dark knight, a secret crusader, a tall-dark-and-handsome who fought courageously for the sake of goodness.

True, he had been bitter, brittle, and abrasive. But in hindsight, in retrospect, his snarls were clearly a response to all the stress he was under and an obvious way of making sure that he appeared to hate everybody. Some of his comments were actually endearing. "I see no difference" was what he'd said about her teeth-how ridiculous! Of course he was just pretending to be cruel. That was his role. He was supposed to appear the vilest of Death Eaters. If she'd known him in any other context, if he'd just been living a quiet, happy life, he would never have been so nasty. She knew this in her heart of hearts.

The image of him, barely wakeful in a pool of his own blood, burned in her consciousness with guilt and shame. She had not acted for him, had not protected him, had not preserved him.

Now she paid, with a fiery, unkempt, raucous love that (as far as she could remember) she had never experienced for Ron. Even after she saw Ron's naked body for the first time (accidentally, when she walked in on her friend after his shower once), she never had felt such a dreadful desire, such a ravenous lust, such an enduringly horrific emotion.

While it would be clear to any objective observer that she had merely focused her romantic obsession upon another target, Hermione, in the fashion of many (if not all) teenage girls, thought it was progressive emotion rather than transplanted.

To her obvious dismay, she had fallen in love (or so she thought) just a few days too late. Severus Snape had died by the time she came to know of any feelings for him.

She could not presume on either of her male friends (for obvious reasons) nor Ginny. Everyone somewhat expected her to at least become enjoined with Ron rather soon as a token of their advanced relationship. Which, Hermione saw, had not really advanced on her part, but on Ron's. She did not want him. She had no desire to 'advance' her own chess piece one step closer to taking his king. She did not want to even win the proverbial game with him any more, for now she saw the end in sight, the idea of finishing bored her.

No. Hermione had let the only man in existence with the capability to stimulate her as much as she desired die before her own eyes. The thought made her want to call it a day, and slit her own throat, in poignant imitation of his own death.

Oh, now she missed the salaciously delicious voice of her old potions master. Now she relished the idea of visiting the Hogwarts dungeons, though the suggestion also repulsed her. Now she knew a hundred different ways she might have saved him from dying of Nagini's bite. Now she felt a keen interest in going up and snogging him senseless, whether he would curse her afterwards or not.

Admittedly, though, she had always enjoyed potions a great deal, though she dared not confess such a thing to Ron or Harry. She fully intended to keep up with the subject for the rest of her life. Who introduced it to her? Him, who she did not save when she might have, so easily.

The ceiling of her room—the one she had grown up in—seemed drab yet secure. It was desensitizing, yet stifling. A dénouement, yet a starting. Oh, but I am thinking nonsense she decreed. She glared haughtily at the ceiling lamp, the appliance turned off though the shadows lengthened outside the window.

Fall back into daydreaming, she mused, It is not often that you can do this. Think of that hideously dignified nose. Those obsidian eyes. That keen intelligence and sarcastic wit that so appealed to you. Remember what he wore to the Yule Ball? Such elegance you had to notice, even when your eyes ostensibly were glued upon that silly Krum and, covertly, that other stupid Quidditch player who wants to sleep in your bed right now. He had a certain endearing egotistical streak, similar to that present in Holmes. It just was beaten down so much, by the people who treated him ill and who abused his loyalty, that it was barely present in his life. A sad thing, really. He was a great man, and if he had more faith in himself, he might have been even greater.

Hermione spent time reading-up on her teachers, since she knew that Muggle college professors usually publish at least a few books in their lifetimes, so she assumed that her Hogwarts instructors did also. Snape had an amazing amount of literature out on the market, to her great delight. Certain compositions on specialized potions research, yes, along with a few articles in potions journals worldwide on the varying effects of different ingredients and substitutions. She found not only these, though, but detailed compositions on the usage of the dark arts, some literary analysis on various wizard works in comparison to Muggle authors such as Dickens and Dostoyevsky, and even a thin pamphlet on the advantages of philosophic pessimism. Every word was spiked with a certain talent and charm prevalent in no other academic works Hermione ever read, a sort of combination between Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. He was evidentially well-read and quite well-versed in many topics, and even had a short treatise condemning some of Voltaire's theories in favor of d'Holbach's written in French. Of all the languages of the world Hermione adored, it was French. His prolific writings astounded and bewildered her, extending her mind and even inspired her to write a few lengthy (as of yet unpublished) essays in criticism and praise of various aspects he presented. She felt that she knew his mind so thoroughly that she wondered why she had not before considered him as a potential candidate in love.

The age difference. Of course. She, at age eighteen this year (nineteen if counting the time using the time-turner) looked and felt his junior, him thirty-eight by her own calculations. Yet, twenty years was not so great a difference, if one took into account the level of her own mental acumen and maturity of Hermione's brain.

However, she sadly recalled, Snape was in love with Lily when he died. Still, so in love that his last request was to see Harry's eyes—the split image of his mother's, so everyone said. They must have been, if her unrequited lover wanted them to be the last thing he saw in this life. Hermione, though, with the passion that all one-sided lovers declare, knew she could get him to at least trust her enough for shagging, or maybe even a reasonable relationship. If he were living now, she resolved, like the great brave Gryffindor she was, that she would go up to him and absolve her mind of this guilty hiding of her emotions. She would tell him she loved him unconditionally. He might laugh at this, he might cry at this, but, either way, he should know.

All this speculation, she remembered angrily, was fruitless. Snape was dead, never to return. Not that she could do anything about it now!

Somewhere downstairs, the doorbell rang. Hermione paid no attention, instead thrusting her head into her lone pillow and sobbing uncontrollably. It was probably Ron anyways; he had come to call every day since the great battle at Hogwarts, never missing once. Hermione could do without seeing his visage at this moment in time.

Time passed. Ages. Eternities. Hermione lay on her bed, prostrate and unfeeling. Her CD player played something rancorous and buoyant, the exact opposite of her current fluctuating emotions. Madonna, maybe? The Granger girl knew virtually nothing about music, compared to her parents.

Her parents. She had just gotten them back from Australia a few days ago, restoring their memories from those of Wendell and Monica Wilkins and bringing them back to the lives of Dr. Oliver and Augustina Granger. To make sure they had not come to prefer their childless life in Australia, she had Obliviated them as soon as she found them. It was merely a matter of hiding the more recent memories and bringing back the old, hidden ones. While a difficult process, it had paid off, and now her life felt like it was exactly back to normal.

Her parents, when they were her parents, were excellent role models for her future. She wanted to be just like them, in the words of the little cliché so often endowed by three-year-olds.

Father: short, impossibly lean, frizzled yet quite abundant graying hair, a ratchet-like face, wizened and twisted beyond his years . . . but with absolutely the most perfect smile in existence. Witty, bright, and of a scientific mind, he encouraged Hermione's academic awareness and love for learning, also the one who passed on to her his allele for genius. A natural charmer, though he could only look at his wife with a fire and passion that, by right, should not exist on this earth. No man was more ecstatic than he while his arms ensconced his wife. He had only one vice, that of sometimes going to the pub and having a bit too much to drink, but he was the sort who got very silly as opposed to violent, and thus he was easy to deal with once he teetered home.

Mother: taller than Father, a bit more curvy than was generally acceptable in the day's society but not overweight, lovely flowing brown hair, and a quick tongue that often emerged from her pearly, well-kempt teeth. She was of a similarly intelligent mind, and though in IQ was sometimes outshone by her husband and daughter, she made up for her barely lesser intellectualism with a tremendous output of creativity. A hard, industrious worker with a gentle spirit and impeccable tact, she mastered all subjects; writing, painting, sculpting, costume designing, photography, cooking, and music were extended beyond words under her guidance and capability. At times she had trouble pronouncing words, for, like Hermione, no one had taught her reading and therefore she knew virtually naught of phonetics, but her vocabulary was extensive and broad, and her knowledge of Muggle history was the best in England, or so people described it. Her devotion to her husband seemed minimal in public, but, when at home, anyone could see her true fire and adoration for him.

Both parents, Hermione realized, were intelligent, talented, well-bred individuals who cared very much for their professions in teeth, and each other. Neither had any major advantages over the other that were not balanced. Overall, she saw that even though sometimes the couple bickered, their arguments were well-founded and established, and not usually over petty things. Hermione felt a great love for both her parents, and knew that they loved each other as well, and she wished to emulate them in her own marriage someday. This would not happen if she married Ron, this was clear.

A timid footfall came upon the stair, creaking the thirty-year-old floorboards respectfully. Hermione's head rose, and her eyes involuntarily blinked away the thick tears that had collected on her lashes. The step was not Ron's, who usually bounced up two at a time, without the grace and elegance prominent in the steps she heard now. It was not her father; he swaggered up as though he owned the place (which, of course he did). It was not her mother's; she would have just returned from work at this time and not exchanged her high heels for more comfortable brogues yet. Indeed, the perpetrator of the steps intrigued her and puzzled her. A thief, perhaps? But no, though the evening settled rather soon, it was still too bright out for someone to chance such a thing. Besides, the car was in the driveway, she could see from the window, so her parents must be home by now.

A curt knock interrupted her musings. Apparently, even the thief idea was irrelevant. Hermione rose from the bed, straightening her very messy hair and drawing a bathrobe over her skimpy summer pyjamas.

"Coming, coming."

Her hand twisted the knob as she brushed a lock of stray curl out of her face. Then, as she saw who was there, she gasped and fell. Two familiar, sinewy hands caught her arms.

Do review. This story may be rubbish, but it's rather entertaining rubbish.