• 1-In the Eyes of the Beholder
• 2-To Live and to Learn
• 3-The Perception of Truths and Lies: Hermione
• 4-The Perception of Truths and Lies: Snape

Note: To the anonymous reviewer on fanfiction.net for chapter one. Really wish you'd left an email address, but either way, this chapter addresses the issues you had relating to Hermione's appointment as a teacher. The start of this chapter was written before I posted chapter one, and was always intended to relate to the problems of her becoming a teacher. The main reason they are not in chapter one is that I felt it was too much all at once. So, to all readers who may have issues with her being accepted so readily, this should ease your worries.

Hermione sighed and rolled over, glancing at the digital clock by her bed. It was four thirty in the morning and yet sleep was evading her. Perhaps due to the fact that she had fallen into bed around ten o'clock and instantly fallen into a dreamless sleep.

Dumbledore's news had not come as a complete surprise, which in itself, she conceded, should have been reason enough for shock to hit her. The only thing that seemed to be clear, the only fact that she was concentrating on was that her headmaster had not only lied to her, but he had manipulated her.

She was by no means under the impression that Dumbledore was perfect and omnipotent, but she had always granted him the courtesy of assuming that he knew what to do for the best, despite is lack of truthfulness to Harry in their fifth year. It seemed now that she was wrong. While Dumbledore clearly stood by his decision and still believed it to have been for the best, Hermione had fumed in silence, not really trusting herself to speak much for the rest of the meeting. Snape, to his credit, had remained quiet and his face, while not friendly, or sympathetic in the least, had not been sending cursory glares in her direction.

With her thoughts once more in disarray, Hermione realised that attempting sleep again was futile, and rolled out of bed, pulling on her night-gown to ward off the persistent cold of the castle. It was not yet late enough for the house-elves to have started her fire, and she could almost see her breath as she padded into the bathroom.

Deciding that now was as good a time as any to indulge in the bubble bath she had promised herself on arrival, she turned on the taps and added a generous amount of the lavender scented aromatherapy bubble bath Linda had given her as part of her last birthday present. She rarely got the chance to use it, but she loved the scent. The smell filled the air instantly, and Hermione smiled as the steam warmed her considerably, stripping off and entering the tub.

She could feel the water coursing around her, a little too hot perhaps, but she didn't care. She had always, for as long as she could remember, loved to get into the bath before she stopped running the water. There was something about the feel of it rushing by her and heating her up on cold mornings, that she had never been able to explain, but she loved it none the less.

Before the water got teep,eep, and the bubbles got out of hand, Hermione stopped the taps with a flick of her wrist and settled back, allowing the steam and the smell to relax her in a way that her sleep had not. She closed her eyes and refused to let her thoughts drag her into more melancholy hypotheses, and instead focussed on what exactly she was going to tell Ron and Harry that night.

While she had no misconceptions as to how hard it would be to make the transition to teacher, she knew that her hope about her friends' reactions was entirely based on wishful thinking. She knew Ron and Harry like the back of her hands, and she also knew Ginny fairly well. Where they would all likely be delighted for her, although hurt that she had hid it from them, the thing she was most worried about was the way they would treat her now. And she had the feeling that they would try to treat her exactly the same way they always had, and she knew that that was not an option.

After the staff meeting the night before, Charlie Weasley had arrived at her rooms with a smile and a hug, congratulating her on her successes, but the resulting conversation had been a bit of an leveller. While Charlie was relatively new to the position, he had arrived the previous year. It had been a dream come true for Ron to have one of his brothers in the school, there to cheer him on in his Quidditch matches and help when he needed it. However, what her friend had failed to realise, was that Charlie would be treating him in exactly the same way he treated all the students.

The resulting row had been long and had taken a long time to resolve, before Ron had finally conceded that Charlie couldn't show favouritism to him. But the rift had taken time to heal, and that was what Charlie had wanted to talk about. Ron.

Harry, while she knew he would find it hard, would be unlikely to react that badly to her new position of authority over him, but Ron would, undeniably try to treat her the same way he always had. And when the truth bit him, she had the feeling she would be on the receiving end of the Weasley temper. It certainly wouldn't help that they had tentatively attempted to start a romantic involvement at the start of the holidays before her parents had been killed. And while that had been the deciding factor, Hermione knew that there would never have been anything lasting between them. She only hoped that Ron had reached that conclusion as well. The last thing she needed was to add student/teacher relationships to her 'Issues I'll Have This Year' box.

By the time she had stopped addressing her thoughts, Hermione realised that, not only was the water cold, but her skin was wrinkled and the small noises coming from her room were from the fire. Evidently the house-elves were up and about, and that meant that the morning was approaching.

Hermione quickly dried and dressed, opting for a quick drying spell before she attempted to tackle her hair. It was one thing to complain about having to sit still while someone else fixed it, but actually doing it for herself had proven to be worse. No matter how hard she tried, it still took her at least twenty minutes after applying the lotions to achieve the desired look that the hairdresser had taken less than five to perfect. At lest it was shorter than it had been, and there was less of it to tame.

While she had spent money on makeup, she doubted she would ever go through the rigorous routine of applying everything on a daily basis. She had opted for moisturising her skin and adding a little foundation, some mascara and eyeliner, and a little lip-gloss. While there seemed to be no reason for her to do so, and she had always seen it as a pointless act, she somehow appreciated the different feel it gave her to wear makeup. A little like when she was wearing heels (which admittedly wasn't often) she felt her hips automatically swaying, when she wore makeup and straightened her hair, she found she was given that slight bit more confidence to both keep her head up, and in her attitude in general. She really saw little other explanation to her reactions to Snape the previous evening.