Hermione had never thought much of the subject of Divination, instead choosing more relevant studies like Ancient Runes. Yet, she found herself wishing for some kind of warning for the events that were about to transpire.

The event in question occurred late one evening. She and Snape had shared a meal at his small dining room table, foregoing small talk and instead eating in comfortable silence. Severus had retired to his Potions room, that she had been instructed not to enter under any circumstances. Deciding to give the man his peace, Hermione settled with a book in the living room. She was ignorant of the passing hours as she delved deeper through the pages and found solace in her knowledge. She was only alerted when great thundering footsteps echoed through the hall, causing her to become curious and crane her head to see her shared living partner.

There was an expression on Snape's face that Hermione only recognized from the classroom. It was loathing. His posture was straight as a board and his hands were coolly at his sides as his robes billowed behind him in the usual Snape-like fashion. He was wearing a black woolen travelling cloak, Hermione noticed. In his right hand, his wand.

It was almost as if he had forgotten her existence. His eyes brushed over as though she was nothing but a cat lounging on the sofa. But something in his mind clicked, and Severus spun on his heel and pointed his wand directly at Hermione.

"Don't you dare. Leave. This. house." He spat. Apparating on the spot.

Hermione let her book fall to the floor. Logically, it would happen sooner rather than later. After all, it had been almost two weeks since she had woken in Professor Snape's bed. It was a snap back to reality for her. It had been easy to pretend that Snape was nothing other than a normal, middle-aged wizard. Living with him, eating with him and reading with him made Hermione forget about the tragedies taking place in the real world. Snape was a Death Eater. He had killed and tortured. He had brewed potions and created spells that had caused pain and sorrow to many.

Yet after he had been fully pardoned after the First Wizarding War, Severus had continued to strut around the castle as Professor Snape and teach minors how to create potentially volatile concoctions. Hermione didn't think that he would have been allowed to return to teach in a muggle school. She was also incredibly glad that her parents didn't know the full truth about Hogwarts.

The Headmaster was a tyrannical wizard who was arguably centuries old. He was a known associate (and maybe something a little extra) with one of the most powerful wizards of all time. It was fair to say that Dumbledore had questionable morals and his decision-making skills were nothing but biased towards his own Gryffindor house. The school itself was filled with menaces that Hermione had come face to face with daily during her time at Hogwarts: a troll, a Cerberus, a basilisk, a Whomping Willow and various other uncountable creatures that lived in The Forbidden Forest or deep beneath The Black Lake. There had been several dangerous individuals that had come through the gates in her time: The literal incarnation of Voldemort, a gold-digging narcissist, a werewolf (who admittedly was the least harmful of the bunch), an escaped prisoner impersonating an Auror and a toad-faced Ministry official who tortured her students.

Compared to those, the threat of detention from Severus Snape almost sounded nice. Hermione now realized that she would rather spend her evening secreting slug mucus than being forced into having tea with Professor Umbridge. Most people at Hogwarts didn't seem to think like that, although most people at Hogwarts didn't seem to continually find themselves in trouble. Perhaps it was all part of the role of being best friends with The-boy-trying-to-live. Hermione wished that she had been given a job description.

It was unnerving that she hadn't heard from Harry and Ron during her time at Spinner's End. It was also terrifying to think of the two boys, wondering around aimlessly without her help. However much Snape had sneered over their "mission", Hermione knew that they had been doing at least something to aid the cause. Not to mention the fact that they were forced to go on the run,  anyway. But he seemed to forget that part.

Living with someone in a tent (albeit a wizarding tent) for months meant you really got to know them. Even if there were some things, you didn't want to know. Ron and Harry were males who were coming to a tender age in which their brain seemed to be in their balls. To put it short, the pair of them seemed to think that women were an educational topic of conversation. Snogging. Breasts. Midnight romps. They seemed to be riveting to the pair. Meanwhile, Hermione was left to solve the Horcrux puzzle.

Ron Weasley infuriated Hermione, and she felt like she had escaped just in time. Hermione had once thought that Ron was attractive. For a very brief period. At least until Ron himself realized that he had half a chance with Hermione, and had began to flirt with her; buttering her up with compliments and making promises that he couldn't keep. She felt like an object. One thing that Hermione Jean Granger was not was an object of someone else's lust. She was sick of Ron ogling her when she was out of the shower. His eyes would trail down her dripping body, and he would lick his lips. Hermione frequently found excuses not to be left alone with Ron. So much so that Harry had taken the hint, and tried to tell Ron that she was no longer interested. If there was something that the Weasleys had going for them, it was their stubbornness.

Hermione sighed and cast a heating charm on her now-cold cup of tea. She longed for the company of Severus, whether he was attending a Death Eater gathering or in his lab, avoiding her.

_____

Severus apparated with a crack, startling the peacocks that were nesting on the grounds of Malfoy Manor. "Bloody birds." Severus grumbled, beginning his walk up the driveway to the house. There were similar cracks and pops in the distance as the members of his brethren answered their calling.

When Severus had first viewed Malfoy Manor, one summer when he had visited his school friend, he had marveled at how elegant the house was. It was built of grey stone, with large graceful windows and creeping greenery that had inhabited the cracks between the walls. The gardens of the manor were in full bloom, and the over-decorated birds stalked the grounds. Abraxus Malfoy had welcomed Severus into his home, blissfully unaware of his blood status. Although tonight, it was not Abraxus but Lucius who was stood at the manor door, welcoming guests. He looked ill. A mere shadow of the man he was, or could have been. Severus had almost depleted his supply of Pepper-up potion and Dreamless sleep on Lucius, yet the man still looked more akin to the bloody-baron.

Waving his wand across his face, Severus summoned his hood and mask, concealing his identity even though it was futile. The Dark Lord knew all (or so Severus allowed him to believe). Even when the man mind raped Severus, he was lead to believe that Severus had yielded under pressure like warm clay. Had he not learnt to occlude so efficiently, then he doubted he would still be alive today. Or perhaps he would be chained up with the wizard Ollivander in the Malfoy dungeon, to be used as a toy by the more adventurous of the brotherhood.

The thought made him ill.

Setting a wall of stone around everything that was Severus Snape, he approached the white-haired man.

"Brother. The Dark Lord will be with us momentarily in the study." Lucius indicated, ever the gallant host.

Severus sneered at his friend, well aware of the approaching footsteps behind them. "Excellent, my brother. You'll join me for a drink after the meeting?"

"I must deny myself that indulgence. My wife would sorely miss me, I'm afraid." There was a growl behind them, and another masked figure pushed his way past Lucius.

Severus continued into the house. The pair had developed a secret code, long ago. "Do you want a drink?" Meant "Is there a problem?" Should one accept the drink, then they were making the other aware of the danger that was sure to follow.

Unlike in his classroom, Severus preferred to enter the Malfoy study without a spectacle. He opted to force as little attention to himself as possible. The hooded figures were stood with their head bowed in a circle. In the center was a character who was clearly petrified and bound, although their face was not visible to Snape. None of them dared to speak. Severus tried to think of anything other than the young witch he had left snuggled against his sofa with a book. He had erected wards as soon as he had left, that would indicate any presence of someone entering or leaving the house. His floo was sealed, and Severus had put a glamour on the outside of his house for safekeeping. It looked to any muggle passerby to be a fire-damaged home, a state of disrepair that was not uncommon in the area of Manchester he had chosen to inhabit.

He wished he could sit with Hermione and read.

The sound of bare feet slapping on the harsh stone floor could be heard, with a burst of cackling laughter that accompanied it. Severus stared at the floor, daring not to look up as The Dark Lord entered the room, with Bellatrix on his heel.

"My friends." He raised his arms dramatically, they were nothing but skin hanging off of bones. Lucius was stood by the entrance to the study; his wife tucked under his arm.

Severus forced himself to occlude. There was no barrier on his mind to deflect any attempts at penetration. No, The Dark Lord would know that Severus had cause to hide. Instead, he left it open. Vastly open.

His mind was like the moors of the West Pennines, green and cold and desolate. The rolling fields of peat and marsh were where the Bronte sisters resided and had inspired the tale of Wuthering Heights. The sky was a dull grey, and there was no birds soaring past or crickets hopping across the marshland. It was utterly devoid of anything. In the distance, there was a light that cut through the low cloud and the cold biting wind. It was drawing and compelling. The visitor in his mind would be so driven to seek out that one memory that they would not delve deeper into his mind.

Genius, really.

"This evening, it has come to my attention that the situation at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is yet again slipping below standard." The man goaded. Like The Dark Lord cared about the education of children. Hogwarts was merely an annoying little fly in the grand scheme of things. Now that Dumbledore was dead.

Severus swallowed, once again thinking of the witch he had left behind. He chastised himself for his idiocy. Professor Dumbledore had been the one who had insisted that he babysit the Golden Trio. The boy who lived. Bile rose in Severus's throat. For seven years he had been forced to head the children off at every turn. Meanwhile, they had done nothing by blame him and scowl at him. Severus had a hint that the golden trio was somehow behind every unfortunate thing that had occurred to him in the time period. He was still unaware of how his cloak had caught fire at the Quidditch match. The Gryffindor princess. It was astonishing how entitled the little witch was. Her need to flaunt her brilliance was still something she rather annoying possessed. The ginger-haired imbecile. Merlin! How he hated the second youngest of the Weasley Dunderhead's. In-fact the only ones he had found remotely agreeable were Bill and Charlie Weasley. The other 6 spawns seemed to get increasingly more idiotic as they were churned out. Except perhaps Ginevra; Severus found it entertaining to watch as she stomped on the hearts of the prepubescent cocksure males in her classes.

"You seem to be keeping your opinions to yourself, Severus." His gaze fixed on the floor, his blood ran cold as a pair of sickly grey, and dirty bare feet came to a halt in front of him. Breathing slowly through his nose, Severus looked up into the startling blue snake-like eyes of The Dark Lord. "Please, do share with us your thoughts on the matter."

In a moment of what could be described of panicked scrambling, Severus tried to recover every morsel of the conversation he could recall. All the while, his external expression remained set in stone.

"My Lord, might I say that while the situation at Hogwarts is unsatisfactory. One must play to one's strengths." He said in a low voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could feel the harsh gaze of Lucius and Narcissa as their masks concealed their concern. The Dark Lord began to pace the circle. "Do continue."

"You are concerned with the former 'Dumbledore's Army.' With all due respect My Lord, they are mere children. They have lost their leaders. Dumbledore is dead. The Potter Boy has abandoned them. Miss Granger is dead. They will yield to you, my Lord." He smirked, playing his role perfectly.

There was silence. One might have heard a Knut drop. There was a flash and a scream that had stolen its way from Severus's lips as the cruciatus curse hit him. There was a gripping pain in his stomach, where the curse had directly hit him. It spread like electric through his veins to every inch of his body, even his fingertips buzzed with the current. His head spun, his shields were tempted to drop, but he fought to keep a hold.

The curse lifted, and Severus struggled to keep his footing. Blood filled his mouth, and he realized he had bit his tongue.

"Do I bore you, Severus?" The Dark Lord was looking at the fireplace with and was stroking a hand across his bald head nonchalantly.

"No, My Lord." Severus stuttered blood landing in little droplets on the floor.

"And yet you do not pay attention to me. Is there something on your mind, my loyal brother? Surely you can share it with us?" He mocked. "Is there a little witch that has caught your heart?" There was the sound of male laughter that echoed around the room.

Voldemort stalked back over to stand in front of Severus. He could smell his breath, a mixture of rotting flesh and something unsavory that Severus recognized from his potions supply closet but couldn't quite name.

Bellatrix jeered. "Awwww Snapey had gone all shy!"

Severus ignored the grunts of laughter from his peers instead of focusing on The Dark Lord. Avoiding his gaze would suggest he had something to hide, and yet Severus was still unable to come up with an acceptable excuse as to why he was distracted.

"Legilimens." The tyrant hissed.

He was back in Cokeworth, a young boy who must have been Severus was returning from school. He had unlocked the door to the terraced house and stepped into the gloomy hallway. His nose was abnormally large but still had its uses. The smell of cleaning products had been the first thing that had indicated something was off. Stepping into the living room, Severus laid eyes on a sight he would never forget. His mother. Dead. Mauled to be more specific. There was blood everywhere. It had seeped into the carpets and dripped down the walls. And there was his father (by birth rite only), with a bucket and a cloth scrubbing at the carpet. The calendar on the wall had been edited, showing today's date 20 years in the past.

Severus crumpled to the floor this time, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He had surprised himself, that this was the first memory that his mind had slipped into. Even so, The Dark Lord was significantly less gentle about entering another's mind than Severus was, and it made the spy feel sick. He promptly spat the blood from his mouth.

There was a chorus of laughter that made Severus feel as though he had taken the wrong potion and was in some sort of overdosed hallucination. His head pounded worse than any hangover Severus had ever experienced, and yet he couldn't bring himself to vomit.

"Sentiments will do you no good Severus." A cold foot kicked his face and held it to the floor before releasing it.

Hauling himself to his knees, feeling his body scream in pain, Severus couldn't wait for the meeting to end.