"How did I get here...?" Hermione's voice had grown in strength, and so had the audience around her. She felt a bit uncomfortable with all the attention. Especially since there were much more important matters to see to.

"We found you at the manor..." Remus glanced at Ron who had partially laid down with his head near Hermione's hip. The boy had burst into tears when she's said his name and hadn't been able to form any intelligent thought since.

"But it was a trap...I told you it was a trap." Hermione glared at Harry who had taken to sitting at the end of her bed. He lowered his eyes looking as guilty as he felt over everyone's injuries that had followed. "Harry, why didn't you listen to me?"

"We...we wanted to bring you home... the mirror... all this time we had to watch you being tortured and we couldn't do anything...we tried to save you at Hogwarts-"

"After I told you not to." Hermione pressed her lips tighter, "Wait, what mirror?"

Harry leaned down into the bag that he'd brought upstairs to give her some of her clothes and pulled out the scryers' mirror. "This one...it allows you to see anyone...for a short time... though we couldn't see Snape clearly..."

Hermione reached over Ron taking the heavy mirror into her hands. Her mind was swirling with the thoughts of just how much they had seen. She would bet her last sickle that most of what they had seen hadn't even been even remotely telling of what had been truly going on.

Her mouth twitched to tell them, to correct them on everything but a little voice pressed into the back of her mind. Different from before, this little voice was all her own. She wasn't completely clear on Snape's full motivation for helping her, nor why he would go to the lengths he had to protect his intentions. All she knew, something she had come to understand in her brief unadulterated time with him, was that he never did anything without reason. Even drugging her when he could have simply used her fugue state seemed like a calculative move. Like he knew she would be rescued.

Why was he so insufferably brilliant?

Hey brows furrowed in concentration. She was sure she knew how to use a scryers mirror. She had to have read about it somewhere, surely. She made a small face of defeat when the information simply didn't come. Divination had never been a topic she had but any real effort into.

"How do you activate it...?"

Ron perked up shifting his head from the pillow he'd placed by her hip. He hadn't yet noticed the way she would suppress a flinch when he would touch her unexpectedly. Too self focused, he'd just tried to be as close as he possibly could without hurting her in anyway. At least, anyway that he could see.

"Oh, oh!" Ron turned grabbing his wand from his back pocket to point at the mirrored surface, "You tap your wand to the glass and say, Show me, so and so!" Ron was exceptionally eager to show off what little knowledge he had. It was a rarity that usually only came with sports or other frivolous nonsense.

"Show me, Severus Snape..." Before Ron could even process her hand taking the end of his wand she'd already spoken, twisting his heart like a wet towel in need of a dry.

Ron's eagerness went put like a snuffed candle. His gaze turning to Remus and his mother. Why on Earth would she look for him? Was she still under his spell? His brow dug deeper as he tried to fight off the hurt and confusion. It gave him a rather interesting sad puppy dog look but no one in the room seemed to be paying him any mind.

Even without a wand of her own, the mirror reacted to her request. Ron had pulled his hand back as soon he could but the spell had already been cast. The mirror glowed faintly around the edges and Hermione could feel the pull on her magical core. The image swirled into place showing her not Snape but rather the view from beyond his shoulder. She leaned forward just a bit. Her shift revealing what or rather whom he was looking at.

"Luna?" Hermione hissed when both boys pushed off her various limbs to move up to see. Even the adults who had been pensive in their audience shifted closer to the head of the bed to try and get a look.

Harry, thinking quickly, pulled his wand free and pressed it into the mirror, "Projektas Maxima."

The room flashed softly as the room became overlaid with the image of Hogwarts Hospital wing. Snape was standing like a statue near the foot of Luna's bed, his mouth moving but no sound coming forth. Luna was sitting up leaned over with a blanket to her bare chest as Madame Pomfrey worked on her shoulder.

"What happened to Luna? Please tell me you didn't take her with you..." Hermione could feel her throat going tight. The very idea that someone was injured while trying to save her, didn't sit well inside her heart.

"We-" Harry smacked Ron's chest before he could finish but it didn't matter. Hermione had already come to the correct conclusion, as always.

"I think you were right Remus." Molly hadn't wanted to admit that his lofty idea that Snape was somehow looking after the kids at Hogwarts instead of setting them up like lambs for the slaughter but what they were witnessing just didn't seem to lead to any other conclusions.

Luna didn't look the least bit scared though her face did pinch in pain when Madame Pomfrey pressed her wand into the discolored circular scar. She lifted her head as Snape apparently asked her a question, the answer to which didn't seem to make him look any happier.

The image faded out shortly after and Hermione felt like all the wind had been let out of her sails. The power in the mirror was strong, making her feel extremely exhausted. She laid back onto the pillows letting the mirror fall into her lap.

"Hermione..." Remus shifted slightly as though he didn't want to address the elephant in the room. "The mark on your neck..."

Hermione glanced towards him, subconsciously bringing her hand up to rub over the still singed flesh. She shifted when Ron came closer sitting back down beside her knees. The hurt and pain on his face wrapped around her heart like a vice.

"When we first...tried to help you. You were saying some pretty...weird things." Ron interrupted, licking his lips. His eyes shifted to her hand that pulled away from the mark, "That...you wanted your master..."

Remus frowned slightly shifting his stance to pick up the paper that showed the end report made by the mediwitch. He offered it out for Hermione to read before continuing his original thought, "Did Snape put this there?"

Hermione frowned reading the list. She hadn't really been in her right mind at the time and the memories he'd given back to her from her fugue state were still a bit fuzzy around the edges. She could feel the weight in the room shifting and it made her uncomfortable. They had all this information about her. They had seen so much of what had happened to her, but they didn't understand in the slightest. It didn't really sit well with her at all.

"I don't know..." Hermione shook her head slightly offering back the paper.

"You don't have to protect him... we're not going to let him hurt you anymore..." Remus watched her closely frowning when she turned her head away.

Hermione wrapped her arms around her stomach after Remus took the paper back. She truly didn't recall. Not clearly. Though Remus' tone hinted that she might be afraid to speak against the man, she knew that wasn't the case.

"Really, Hermione... we're... we're just worried about you...you-you weren't yourself..." Ron sat back down resting his hand on her thigh unknowingly.

A sudden flash of a memory in the deepest part of her mind curled her stomach and she couldn't help the look that fell over her features when she shifted her legs out from under his touch and up to her chest. Still not trusting her tongue, she merely shook her head and glared at the wall as she tried to capture the fleeting feeling.

"Alright...I think that's enough. Boys I want you downstairs. Remus, you too." Molly was swallowing down her own rising emotion but she was too strong to let it show. "Hermione? How does a nice long bath and a warm hearty stew sound?"

oOo

"Got another for you Madame Pomfrey." The Ravenclaw prefect called out as he led Neville through the doors.

The tall boy was holding his sweater to his face as he came in beside him, though he really couldn't have cared about anything about himself in that moment. His eyes were searching the beds, that were more often than not filled these days. However, as it was only a few days into the new term, they were still mostly empty.

Madame Pomfrey came out of her office with a small huff, glancing at Neville who continued into the room. A habitual occupant of her ward recently, she paid him little attention as she pulled out her quill to sign the boy's hall pass and send him back to class. Neville moved towards the one bed that appeared to be occupied and peered around the side of the privacy curtain.

"Neville?"

"Luna..." The boy couldn't help but smile, albeit a little sadly.

"What did you do?" Luna's voice was floaty, the number of pain potions she was on, making her normally soft voice even worse than usual. She shifted on the bed slightly as he came to stand beside her and reached out with her good arm to take his hand.

"I was just worried about you..." He pulled the sweater away from his face revealing a rather nice looking cut under his eye, "And Alecto was itching for a fight anyway..."

Luna shook her head slightly giving his hand a small squeeze, "That was really sweet of you, but Madame Pomfrey has taken really good care of me."

"Wasn't worried about her..."

Before Luna could respond the woman in conversation appeared behind Neville with a terse no-nonsense look on her face, "Alright loverboy, let's get that cut healed up."

Neville gave her a shy smile before pressing his sweater back to his eye. Ducking his head sheepishly, he moved to the elder's guiding hand sitting down on the bed just across from Luna's. Madame Pomfrey clicked her tongue at him when he pulled away the sweater but Neville just smiled softly at Luna who was watching him lovingly from her bed.

oOo

"That's it, easy now...How's your head?" Molly kept Hermione pressed into her side as they took small steps down the hallway to the shared bathroom. Hermione was doing good but the tremors had started to return making her legs a bit wobbly. She leaned into the matriarch for support but had to constantly adjust the woman's hold away from her bad rib. Even still, the slightest pressure on the healing bone bruise would make her breath skip a cycle.

"It's better...clearer..." Hermione came to a stop near the doorframe and took a small break. She'd never felt so weak before, she was sure there was another potion she should have taken after the one she'd used to clear her head, but she didn't want to risk having an adverse reaction and getting the lot of it taken away. She also remembered Snape's warning about taking too much too close together and she was sure there was no one in that house who could do what he'd done to save her life from potion poisoning.

With a brave smile to Molly, she pushed off again and into the small tiled bathroom. It wasn't much, a clawfoot tub/shower with a toilet and small sink on the one side. She wasn't sure how she was going to make it into the tub safely but she was immensely more comfortable with the witch helping her than either Ron or Harry. She had only taken a small glimpse of her body during her time with Snape and she was sure she looked even worse than she had before.

"That's it...take a rest here. I'll go fetch your clothes alright?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley..." Hermione took a seat on the toilet lid and used the sink as a way to rest herself without pressing her back into the cold ceramic behind. Her entire muscle structure felt like a taut rubber band and she was more than hoping that one of the potions in the kit was a muscle relaxer. She told herself that she just had to get through this then hope to get some time alone to really fully come to grips with everything.

When the woman left, Hermione took a moment to just decompress. She leaned down carefully, holding her head in her hands with her elbows resting on her thighs. Her brain was still coming awake, even with the potion she was sure it was going to take time to truly get back to her full processing power. Something she'd seen on the bottom of the page Remus had given her was bothering her. It had been a list of the active magic in her system. The potions the mediwitch had given her, as well as the curses she had been put under.

She was surprised to finally have an actual name for the spell that Dolohov had cast on her in Fifth year. It translated to the 'Fire Breath' curse. She'd read about it of course, but no book had ever included the manner in which the spell should be cast. Only the theoretics of what it was meant to do. It had been listed as 'neutralized'.

The next spell that had been listed was the spell that she and Snape had been researching. The Enslavic Empermia curse. It had it listed as 'inactive' with the subsequent spell they'd cast as 'active'. She felt that it was incredibly important information but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what was so important about it.

"There we are, a nice fresh set of clothes to make everything feel better." Molly set the clothes on the counter before conjuring a small stool for her to take a seat on. Hermione had lifted her head when she'd returned but she could see the shadow in her eyes.

"Now that we're alone...is there anything you wish to share? Anything that you may want to get off your chest?" Molly gave her a caring smile lightly running her hand up her arm. Her smile going a bit tight when Hermione pulled away from her.

"No... nothing..." Hermione shifted, pulling herself up a bit straighter. She didn't understand why she was so advert to everyone's touch recently but she could tell how much it hurt. She gave her a somewhat forced smile before moving her unwilling hand to take the one that had been offered. She gave it a trembling squeeze, "I'm fine, truly. Just need a little rest... I'll be back to keeping those two boys in line in no time."

Molly smiled just a bit more and gave her hand a hearty squeeze, "They really have been lost without you. It's so great to have you back and safe." Molly patted the top of her hand gently before pulling away. "Let's get you into a nice warm bath."

oOo

"She is, as you suspected, back with Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore looked down from a borrowed frame. His own having yet to be repaired. His blue eyes tracked the man as he paced a well worn path. "You've done good, Severus. Why does it trouble you so?"

Snape paused in his mental marathon to spare a glance up to the wizard who both saved and condemned him. His mouth twitching into a snarl before resting somewhere between contempt and loathing.

"It was too easy."

"How so?"

"The man literally has an army of evil witches and wizards at his command. Very few of whom would have even thought twice about killing a child. Yet he sends 5 new recruits to handle Potter. Aside from Bellatrix, Narcissa, Lucius and myself there wasn't a single one between them that had even cast the killing curse."

Dumbledore's brow furrowed as he too jumped onto a similar train of thought, "Do you suppose, he wanted them to take Miss Granger?"

"To what end?" Snape turned away, why had she suddenly become more important than Potter in the evil man's bid for power. "It doesn't make sense. I'm not seeing something that is right before me."

"Didn't you say that they had brought a replica if the horcrux that had been offered as an exchange? Perhaps we're simply overthinking his motives..."

"Do not play the fool Albus, it didn't work out well for you last time."

oOo

Molly sniffled as softly as she could. She was doing her best but the sight of everything in front of her was threatening to rip her heart straight from her chest. She had helped Hermione into the tub, but with every layer of clothes that had been removed her throat had only grown tighter.

The healer had done well, but the lines hadn't had time to properly fade away just yet. The vine had turned her flesh on her stomach a ridged mess. Even with the proper treatment her skin would always remained marked with the hagard lines. Her arms and legs faired substantially better and Molly was sure that in time, they would fade away. Her back nearly broke her heart, the long sweeping lines deeply driven into her skin. They had been healed yes, but they were far from gone. The warm water only turning the thin skin red outlining their horrific landscape.

She could feel the ridges under her palm as she ran the washcloth over the girls curled shoulders. She had grown substanially thinner than the last time she had seen her. Though that had been many months ago. It pained her to try and massage the knots out of the muscles twitching along the ridge of her collar bone but she did her best.

Hermione had stayed almost completely silent through the entire process. Her body relaxing only marginally to the warm water. She didn't even dare to look down at herself. She couldn't bear the thought at present. The only thing her mind could do was compare the touch of Mrs. Weasley's hand, to the faded memories of another.

Though he'd never taken to washing her, he had touched her in nearly every place the woman did now. It felt strange, unfamiliar but kind all the same. All he'd done for her put into retrospect was starting to weigh heavily on her heart. He had been gentle, he had been attentive, he had been caring. Words she never would have thought would ever be used to describe him were now filling her thoughts. One feeling rose over the rest, bringing tears to her eyes.

He was a good man, an honorable, man.

Molly pulled back when her back jerked with a sob that had bubbled from deep inside her chest. Her brow lined with worry that she may have hurt her. She shifted to pull the girl's hair from beside her face. What she saw was worse than pain; pure heartbreak filled the teen's face and she knew that the reality of everything that had been happened had finally surfaced.

Hermione didn't resist as Molly pulled her head to her chest. The tears that had been silent gained new strength and she finally felt the dam inside her break. The hand that held her head was nice, but it wasn't the one she was truly seeking. Even still, the flood of emotion broke free and she found herself in a torrent of emotion too complex for even her brilliant mind to possibly comprehend.