Professors Snape and Granger,

I am writing because I was told you are the most likely to help Willow Rosenberg. As the Slayer's watcher she is not really my responsibility. However, as someone who has grown very fond of not just Buffy but her friends over the past six years I do care what happens to her. I also could not in good conscience allow her to continue without at least trying to do something in the way of an intervention.

I know you've talked with Tara about her use of magic and Tara's concerns. She confided in me that she contacted you after I dismissed her. As it turns out, she was correct in her concerns and I should have listened to her. As they say hindsight is twenty/twenty. It was rather easy to miss the signs when I was focused on my slayer's health: mental as well as physical. This year has not been easy as far as that goes as you can perhaps imagine. Not that that's an excuse, but Willow other than a few blips has been rather constant over the years. She wasn't summoning demons as Ethan Rayne did while we were young and foolish. Perhaps that should have been a warning in and of itself. I don't know.

As I'm sure you understand, I would prefer the Watchers Council not be involved in her rehabilitation. Tara assures me this letter will get to you in a timely fashion. Please meet us at my home as soon as you are able if you are still interested in assisting her. We should be there at the latest two days from the date of this letter. If I don't hear from you within a week or so I will begin my search elsewhere.

I would completely understand if you do not wish to be involved, but I just do not know where else to turn.

I appreciate your time and consideration. She has potential. I'd prefer it be used for the appropriate side. The rogue slayer was frightening enough. If Willow were to truly lose it and give into the dark again I fear it would not end well. It very nearly didn't this time.

Sincerely,

Rupert E. Giles

He provided them his address and telephone number in Britain.

Severus read the letter first because it had been dropped on his plate due to his name being first.

Hermione sighed to Severus' silent reaction of a scowl.

"I will inform Minerva we will be out of the castle for the weekend."

"Okay. Where will you bring her?"

"It's best if you don't know," he said.

"Okay."

He held up his hand, knowing what was coming. Questions. Curiosity. Wanting answers.

"I know that you want to know. It's most certainly a part of your genetic makeup if that is such a thing genetics determines. I understand your need for knowledge and I think over the past three years I have proven that I am more than willing to answer your questions. On this, though, I could put someone in danger if it's discovered he performs such services. Miss Rosenberg is not the first witch or wizard to take her gifts to an extreme. He will place her with a Wiccan practicing coven as soon as he feels she is ready for that step. Please trust me on this. This once."

She sighed, biting that lower lip that he knew meant she was fighting the urge to argue with him.

Or ask questions anyway.

Truly he loved her desire for knowledge, but this once he could not provide her with the answers.

She opened her mouth as if to say something and closed it.

This happened a couple of times.

He stifled the chuckle that was threatening to come out as he watched her clearly fighting the urge to ask him … something.

"Fine," she said finally. "I wouldn't want anyone in danger because I have information I shouldn't."

"Thank you, my Witch."

"You're welcome."

"Perhaps we can find an article or something you'd like to bombard me with questions regarding as a trade off."

"Really?"

"Yes."

She bit her lip again, as if really thinking his offer over. Discussing research and articles was certainly nothing new for them.

"Anything?"

"I'm going to live to regret this I imagine, but yes."

She chuckled softly.

"What did I just agree to?"

"Nothing you won't enjoy, Severus," she said cheekily and he shook his head, imagining she wasn't lying. Really whatever she wanted to research or discuss with him couldn't be that bad.

"So," he said. "You will trust me?"

"I will," she said.

"Thank you," he said. "I will see if Minerva can get Horace to fill in for me for a few days."

"Mm, he will love that."

"I'm sure he will. Though you being here may be a draw for him."

"Oh?"

"Not very many with your notoriety just disappear for years, Hermione. Someone like Horace would not understand that your knowledge of the muggle world aided you."

"Really?"

"Yes, we'll see."

"I assume you're looking to go after classes today?"

"Yes."

"If she can't get Horace for tomorrow, I can take your classes. I only have fifth years tomorrow, and I could give them some independent study if it conflicts with your classes."

"I will inform Minerva." He leaned in. "We will get her in the right place. I know you are worried, understandably. You know her better than I do and she's one of your friend's best friends. I won't promise we'll fix her. I can't make such a promise and I won't lie to you or the people you care about and for. I will ensure everything possible is done for her, though. I agree with Giles, Buffy could benefit from having someone with her abilities used in the correct way."

"I know," she agreed. "Will you allow me to properly say goodbye?"

"I was counting on that happening, yes."

"You're not on a strict schedule then?"

"Not that strict, no."

"Good to know."

"You know, I would never leave if that was an option."

"I'm aware."

With Severus gone, Hermione found herself with time on her hands. Not that she didn't have plenty to do. She had no papers to grade or anything so she took advantage of a slow night and left Hogwarts after her last class. She wasn't sure this was the right thing to do, but she had to try something. If it didn't work, well at least she could say she tried. It was more than Ron was doing. She understood he was hurt. She got it. She did, but she really hadn't done anything to purposely hurt them. That hadn't been what she'd set out to do. Yes, looking back she should have sent them a letter. She should have asked Severus to. She should have agreed to meet them after Minerva first saw her.

She wasn't the only person in the world to make a bad decision call. This rift between them, though. She hated it. It hurt her heart. No, she had decided probably before she left that she didn't want forever with him, romantically. She never thought she'd see the day that Harry, Ron, and Hermione weren't mentioned in the same sentence and breath.

She didn't mention it often because she knew that Severus thought he was the cause. That without him in the picture, in her life, Ron would come around. So, she didn't want him thinking that was what she wanted. She absolutely did not! She very much wanted her future, the rest of her life, to be with him.

She sighed deeply at the new Weasley home. She kind of missed the old one. So many memories. She knew the house didn't contain the memories, that they were inside of her. Inside everyone who had set foot in the Burrow and been touched by the love that helped make it what it was. She made her way to the door and knocked.

Molly Weasley couldn't hide her shock if she'd wanted to. Hermione guessed that was one of those Gryffindor traits that didn't diminish with time. Hermione couldn't help but smile at that.

"Hi, Molly. I was hoping we could talk if you have a few minutes."

She knew it was hugely presumptuous to address her informally, but she was an adult and she had been functioning in the world by herself for years. She thought she'd earned the right.

"We can," she said, opening the door wider so Hermione could step inside.

It even smelled different she noticed again much as she had the first time she'd been here for Harry's birthday back in July. Hermione wasn't sure how she felt about that. She realized she had no choice in the matter, but she hadn't expected to feel so melancholy for the Burrow the way it had been. It had sort of suited the Weasleys.

"Thank you," Hermione said.

They sat at the table for about ten minutes without a word passing between them. Not even a ‘how are you'. It wasn't exactly awkward, but Molly obviously had no idea why Hermione was here so she wasn't going to initiate a conversation.

Finally, Hermione cleared her throat and took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing .

She said she came here to talk so she needed to get talking.

"I'm sorry if I disappointed or upset you. I know my leaving was selfish, but I had spent the previous seven years being anything but that and I needed to figure myself out. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be in the magical world anymore. This world that I was so excited about being a part of yet really other than a select few did nothing to welcome me. They told me if I told anyone about my parents, what I had done to save their lives because no one else was doing it despite knowing muggles were being targeted. They said I'd end up in Azkaban. They wouldn't let me sit my NEWTs, were talking about another year of school as if I wouldn't know if I was ready or not to sit them. Yet Harry and Ron didn't need to take a delayed seventh year to get into auror training. I helped them pass the first six years! Here I was testifying at countless trials because it was the right thing to do just months after I'd been tortured."

For good measure, Hermione pushed the sleeve of her robe up and worked the buttons so the scars at her neck and on her arm were easily seen.

"I just wanted help with my parents and to sit my NEWTs. I didn't think I was asking for much. I was eighteen years old and helped win a war, helped keep Harry alive, and as my reward I was threatened with prison. I couldn't believe it. To say I was disillusioned was an understatement."

She shrugged.

"I was approached about a job. It was a muggle company but they knew about the magical world. They offered to let me sit my NEWTs and to give me access to their information on memory magic. They offered me a secure place to stay, which after the previous year was necessary for me. I didn't really feel safe anywhere, so a place with security and alarms appealed to me. A generous wage certainly helped as I had nothing, no one but me to feed and clothe myself. I thought I was finally going to be a part of something that recognized my intelligence and ability to research and wanted me. I never really felt that here. Ronald always wanted me to change, to put my books aside as if I could change who I was anymore than he could change his love for quidditch. Something I never asked him to change or stop loving, by the way. I, in fact, went to quidditch matches for him despite my preference to be doing just about anything else. Yet getting him to do something that interested me was like pulling teeth."

She huffed. Now was not the time to get into Ronald's deficiencies as a potential boyfriend. What she'd said was true, though. She glanced at her hands on the table.

"I didn't think about Harry or Ronald. I thought about the adults who used me and once I accomplished what they needed me for: delivering Harry Potter to Voldemort alive so he could be killed. Well, they basically spit me out. I thought about my parents who tried for years to have a child not remembering that they ever even had one."

Her eyes met Molly Weasley's evenly now, swallowing hard as she thought over what she wanted to say. She knew it would strike a chord with the witch. That was the point.

"Can you imagine that, Molly? Even if it was just one of your children. Imagine Ginny having to erase your memories of her and you going through life not remembering you have a daughter." She shook her head, not really expecting an answer. "I didn't write to Severus intending to start a relationship. I admit the idea of exchanging knowledge with the man appealed to me, but I didn't expect that to come of my initial letter either. I wrote to him for assistance that only a potions master would be able to help with. He was the only one I knew of to ask. The rest just happened. I realized after my first letter that he had not told anyone he'd received it. I knew he understood, likely in a way no one else could, that I wanted privacy. That I wanted to be left alone. That I needed time."

She shrugged again, lips thinning as she thought on how to say what she wanted to next. "I love Ronald, but no different really than I do Harry. I can admit it is different and that there was a time I desperately wanted there to be a difference that resulted in romance. That I wanted there to be an us when it came to Ronald and me. He hurt me with Lavender. It wasn't even that he dated her, it was the cruel way he rubbed my face in it. He didn't believe I could get a date to the Yule Ball the year I went with Viktor and was not nice about telling me so. That hurt, deeply. If he thought I was so lacking, why did he want me? He constantly made fun of my desire for knowledge. Never mind that knowledge allowed him to complete school and kept us alive while we were on the run. And while we were on the run. He left us, Molly. He left knowing that we were carrying around a cursed object. Knowing that Harry and I had no more of an idea what to do with it than he did. He left us, knowing that he wouldn't be able to return to us because of our moving every day or so and the wards I set. It was a fluke he returned. He didn't know when he left that he had the headmaster's deluminator. Forget me, he left his best friend to die. Where would all of us be if Harry had died in that tent before we could get the horcruxes? How can I just forget that?"

She was crying now and she didn't even bother trying to stop the tears. She'd talked about this to Severus, but it was different somehow saying these things to this woman. This woman Hermione at one time desperately hoped would become her mother-in-law. This woman who'd been so very kind to not just Hermione but Harry too over the years.

"He loved us so much that he left Harry and me to die, Molly. How could I possibly forget that? And you know it was sheer luck really that got us back to Hogwarts alive. None of us had any idea what we were doing. If he weren't your son. If Harry had done that to Ginny, would you want her to forgive and marry him as if he was honourable?"

Finally she wiped the tears away and sat up straighter again.

"If he can't be my friend any longer I understand. I know my leaving as I did was the wrong thing to do. Now. I didn't at the time. I wasn't thinking about people worrying about me. I was thinking about the others threatening to put me in prison as if I was a criminal. He needs to quit making Harry and Ginny feel bad for understanding that I wasn't intentionally going out of my way to hurt anyone. I needed to figure things out, and I truly didn't think it would take me three years to do that. I truly didn't, and the idea of having Severus pass a message along really didn't occur to me by the time our relationship changed."

"I didn't intentionally leave you to die," Ronald's voice came from the stairs. "I wasn't thinking that clearly. I wish I had been."

"Me, too," she said sniffling. "I mean, me when I left."

She missed this wizard. She really did. She didn't miss the heartache and all of the drama, but her friend. That person. She missed him terribly.

"I just, I thought you were dead or captured. Do you know how helpless that made me feel? Some hero, I can't even save you. I couldn't at Malfoy Manor and I couldn't do it then either. And then to find out you were shagging Snape."

"Ronald Weasley," Molly said from the door to the kitchen. Hermione hadn't even seen her get up; she'd been so focused on him, not his mum.

"Sorry. Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you were threatened with Azkaban."

She'd told him this before, their first time seeing one another. She knew he hadn't really been listening, though. That was just Ron, she didn't take offense.

"And I'm very sorry I worried you for so long."

He shrugged a bit. He was still here, though. He hadn't yelled at her for coming to talk to his mum. He hadn't told her to leave. She took that as a positive sign, a step in the right direction.

"Can we start over maybe, Ronald?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can we start fresh and go from here without the past clouding things? When I said I couldn't forgive, I didn't mean ever or at all. I meant as a girlfriend or wife. I know you didn't mean to do anything, you were scared and that locket was horrid. I get that. I do."

"What did you come here for?"

"I was hoping your mum would listen to me and realize I truly didn't intend to hurt you. I probably didn't go about it in the right way, say the right things."

"Well it would be the first time you went mental."

She laughed. "Yes well. Hopefully you understand why I did."

"Did you ever find your spell? Or anything to help your parents?"

She sighed, shaking her head a bit. She was glad she'd met and been able to help Buffy and hundreds of others while she worked for the Watchers Council. She certainly couldn't claim her time with them was a waste. People were alive because of her research and her being able to get somewhere faster than a non-magical person could. She'd found nothing, though, that suggested what she'd done could be undone. Between Hogwarts and the Watchers Council she knew that she'd had access to some of the best books and articles on the subject of memory and memory magic. "No."

Ron looked in the direction of the kitchen and up the stairs. Hermione presumed Arthur was up there. She'd missed him, too, but she knew if she wanted Ronald to listen she had to talk to Molly Weasley.

"Well you know Mum and Dad love you as a daughter."

"I do," she said. "Well I did."

"That hasn't changed," Ron said.

"No," Molly said. "It hasn't. You will always have family here and a place to call home. Everyone grieves and processes differently, Hermione. We are all very happy you're back and well."

"Thank you," she said. "I've really missed you, Ronald. When I see Harry and Ginny and you're not there or you are but won't talk to me. Well, there's always something missing. A piece that's not where it should be. I hate that. I really do. I hate that I had any part in causing it, but we could have done something really stupid four years ago that meant we couldn't ever be friends. That would have been worse I think."

He sat next to her, sliding his hand over hers. "I hate to say it, but you're right."

She rested her head against his shoulder. Once upon a time she'd craved his touch, being close to him like this. Now, his was just a hand the same as Harry's or Minerva's really. He still smelled the same, but it was no longer home to her. She didn't know when that had changed exactly but it had. "Of course I am," she quipped with a sniffle and he snorted.

"Is he," Ron shrugged, taking a deep breath and shaking his head. "Is he good to you?"

"He is. We fit, Ronald." She shrugged, unsure how to describe it, especially to Ronald. She wasn't sure she quite understood it herself. They just worked.

"I really don't want to hear about it. I mean, I can be happy for you, and I am. I know you deserve probably more than I'll likely ever be able to provide for you without wanting to hear how wonderful you are together."

She smiled, lifting her head from against his shoulder. She breathed in deeply one last time, it was oddly familiar. Odd because she wasn't sure people realized scent played a role in memory, too. She did wonder, though, if she brewed Amortentia now would any of his scents be a part of it? She doubted it. There was very little similarity between Ronald and Severus.

"I might get there with time."

"I understand," she whispered. "I'm not asking you to gossip with me about him. I just ask that you not go out of your way to be rude to him. I do understand that it's not easy, something to adjust to."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." She nodded. This was good. Right? Certainly a step in the right direction. "I mentioned it before but I'll say it again. I would like to use you in a class sometime."

"What for?"

"I think it's important that they realize deductive reasoning can be a part of defense, too. You're wicked good at that, Ronald. You could tell them about chess maybe, and work it into a battle."

"Really?" he asked, brightening at that. She knew she had him then. He'd do it, and she internally screamed with glee inside that really, maybe finally things would be okay.

"Yes!"

"You think I'd be good at that? Teaching stuff like that?"

"I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think so, Ronald."

"Pencil me in then."

She snorted. "Since when do you talk about pencils?"

"I don't know. It's something Harry says," he shrugged.

She giggled softly. She loved that like his father he referenced something muggle without totally understanding its meaning.

"You think about what you'd like to present, tell me when you're ready and then we can go from there."

"All right," he said.

"Ronald," she whispered.

"Yeah."

"I missed you."

"I missed you, too, Hermione. I wish you'd told us, I would have hexed…"

"And ended up in Azkaban yourself."

"Probably."

"It worked out the way it was supposed to. I really learned some valuable things. I helped save a lot of lives. And, well, I made a friend. I've never really done that before, you know? You and Harry were by accident. Neville and everyone else were because I was friends with you." She shrugged.

"You're not that hopeless, Hermione."

"Well, I'm not like you either, though."

"No," he said. "I'm glad you made a friend. Is she okay? Harry mentioned her friends resurrected her, which what the hell were they thinking?"

"I don't know, I'm still trying to figure that out. She seems okay. I'll probably go visit once classes are over and I can spend a few days there."

"Oh, good," he said with a nod. "She must be nice."

"She is, and has a pretty lonely, thankless job."

"You appreciate her."

"I do."

"That has to count for something."

"I hope so."

"It does, Hermione. I'm glad you came today."

"Me, too."

"And to answer your question about starting fresh. Yes."

"Thank you."

"That's what friends do, right?"

"That's what we do," she said.

He nodded then and she leaned in to kiss his cheek. She was so glad she decided to come today. It was spur of the moment because she was feeling lonely, but it was the right thing to do. She was the one who'd disappeared. She needed to apologize. Her relationship with Ron had always been a bit different than hers with Harry. She sort of forgot that for a while there.

Story ©Susan Matthews/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com