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The Halloween Ball	By : rush22 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 8203 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
The Halloween Ball

**Disclaimer**

I own none of the characters
in the story and I�m almost positive that everything is way out of cannon so there is no reason to get upset. J.K.
Rowling gets all the glory because she deserves it!

With that said, I hope you enjoy the story and
if you feel inclined let me know how you like it, it�s my very first fanfic!

Chapter 1

Hermione looked thoughtfully at the
costume hanging from her wardrobe door. What in the world had ever possessed
her to choose this particular outfit was beyond her. She, the well known Head
Girl, �bookworm know-it-all' of Hogwarts and war hero had never shown that
amount of flesh in all her seven years attending the school. She reflected back
on how she had gotten to this point.

'Ginny,' she thought over and over
in her mind. It was her petite red headed friend that had convinced her to go
all out for her costume stating that it was after all a masquerade ball and
that her true identity wouldn�t even be known since she would be wearing a
mask.

'Damn, she got me one that one,'
thought Hermione, there really wasn't a good excuse not to wear the outfit. It
wasn't like she had always lived her life cloistered in high necked jumpers or
never exposed her legs after all she used to holiday in the south of France
up until the previous summer. It was during her holiday that her entire
wardrobe was based around her swimsuit choice of the day and the weather. But
that was in the Muggle world this was Hogwarts. This place was apart of a world
where she had fought tooth, nail, and with her soul quite literally to be
accepted and treated with the respect of a human being not a second class
citizen. She always made sure that any recognition she achieved in the
Wizarding world would be due to the fact that she earned it, not that it was
given because she had a �pretty face� or a �nice body.�

Hermione allowed a small smirk to
flit across her face at the last thought. �At least no one will suspect that
will be me wearing that thing.� Hermione had always maintained since she was
young that the exercising of her brain would all be for nothing unless she
maintained her body. During her primary
school days pre-Hogwarts she had always enjoyed playing sports, though she was
sure that no one here would believe that she had played football or even knew
what a football was. Not that Hermione particularly cared for wizarding sports
if they can call them that, she loathed Quidditch with a passion since she had
never taken that well to flying. She quickly found that since the entire
wizarding world was so single minded about the game; muggleborn students just
ate the game up with a fork and spoon for crying out loud, she was left with
little outlet for her recreation even more so since Hogwarts did not have a
physical education requirement. This left Hermione with one option, running.

Years of running had done Hermione
good. Not only was she left with a toned athletic body and a metabolism that
let her indulge in the fine cuisine Hogwarts provided, but it gave her an
outlet for emotional release as well. During the past years of the war she
found that her usual solace could not be found in her worn edition of Hogwarts: A History or in the library
pouring her release into the form of homework or research, she found that she
could physically release the stress from herself by running. She never felt bad
after running and often found that she could focus more clearly on the issues
at hand now that her head was clear. Hermione found comfort in the metaphor
that when she sweated during her runs it was like getting an absolution on her
soul; letting all her worries, fears, and frustration seep from her skin and
evaporate into the air away from her, in ways it was spiritual for her. She
looked at herself in the mirror hanging on the wall, smoothing her hands over
her stomach and sides, this Ball would be like a coming out party for her,
though no one would know beside Ginny that it would be her.

�Yes this should prove to be an
interesting affair,� Hermione stated out loud to herself and Crookshanks, her
half-cat half-kneazle who was currently lounging a top her school robes pawing
her shinny Head Girl badge like it was a toy.

�Shoo!� she admonished him picking
up her robe while unceremoniously dumping the animal on the floor. Crooks, who
was looking back at his master with disdain in his orange-yellow eyes over his
dismissal, padded over to the door and sauntered out her bedroom door and into
the castle.

Of course
no one was surprised when Hermione made Head Girl; after all she didn�t work
her butt off for nothing. She had made sure that even during the hard times of
war that she maintained her academics to prepare her for what ever future lay
ahead.

She always had faith that Harry and
the Order would prevail over Voldermort and his Death Eaters, but there was
always the chance that the War wouldn�t turn out the way she had hoped in which
she had a developed a backup plan. She had been in contact with several
wizarding schools in various countries that had been more than willing to accept
her on a moments notice due to the impending conflict in the United
Kingdom.

Fortunately the War had ended the
way she wanted it to, with Harry, Dumbledore, herself and Professor Snape all
working together to bring Voldermort�s reign of terror to an end. Hermione had
spent the better part of last year researching ancient spells and combining
them with modern ones that could be used to fracture a person�s magical ability
until the point where the magic would no longer sustain the person�s life
force, thus causing the person to rot from the inside out as their magic left
them. The spells had to work in conjunction with a potion which led Hermione to
spend most of the summer working closely with Professor Snape designing and
developing the potion.

For all the obvious reasons
Hermione wasn�t jumping for joy to work with the most disliked man in Wizarding
world save Lord Voldermort himself. True she had always made sure that she paid
him with the proper respect; he was after all a world renowned Potions Master
and a member of the Order of the Phoenix;
that was good enough for her trust. True the surly man never once treated her
with fraction of the same respect that she showed him, but the man was
brilliant and she was lucky to be studying under him at any level. Harry and
Ron had always called her nutters for defending him; but she knew that they had
their reasons.

Ron�s reasons were always more superficial
that rational; Professor Snape was always biased towards his own house
delighting in the taking of points from Gryffindor at the drop of a hat (�I swear the Git gets off on it �Mione�),
the infamous �I see no difference� comment
about her own cursed teeth during their third year and because he was
constantly focusing his ire towards Harry. No one could deny that Ron wasn�t
loyal to his friends.

Harry�s reasons were a bit more
justifiable in Hermione�s eyes, though she still thought he was wrong. Since
Harry�s day one at Hogwarts, the Professor has been nothing short of murderous
towards Harry. She knew it was due to some longstanding grudge against Harry�s
father and his group of friends known at the Marauders, though Harry was always
mum on the subject. Along with Harry baring the brunt of Professor Snape�s age
old grudge, Harry solely placed the blame for Sirius� death on his shoulders
and no one could reason with Harry otherwise.

Hermione had always felt that Sirius had felt
too cooped up being all by himself in number 12 Grimmauld
Place. The Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore had placed
severe restrictions on Sirius that year, he had yet to be exonerated for a mass
killing that he didn�t commit thirteen years prior and was currently being
hunted by the Ministry of Magic for escaping the formidable wizarding prison
Azkaban. While Professor Snape�s delay in contacting Sirius about the
Department of Mysteries might have exacerbated the situation, Hermione
ultimately felt that the Sirius� own lack of patience and Dumbledore�s tight
lipped dealings along with the Professor�s decisions were what cause the death
of Sirius. The blame shouldn�t rest solely on one person�s shoulders.

�Good
luck that was trying to tell Harry,� Hermione thought inwardly. After the
death of his Godfather, Harry became sullen and withdrawn from everyone
including those that were closest to him. He had felt betrayed at the
information the Headmaster withheld from him and he felt that Sirius had
betrayed him by dying. Harry had focused all his hatred for Professor Snape for
almost a year and a half before finally opening up his feelings to Hermione who
helped him to get past some of his issues regarding everyone�s least favorite
Professor.

It was this advance by Harry that
gave the Order a chance to make decent headway in the War. Everyone knew that
Voldermort would try to kill Harry before he left Hogwarts it was just a matter
of time. In came Hermione�s obsessive penchant for research and quest for
knowledge that led to the creation of her spells and the potion that was
created by Professor Snape and herself.

***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***

Working with the Professor was a
surreal experience for Hermione. She had always admired the man for his
knowledge and felt gratitude towards him due to his work for the Order. She
knew that he had saved Harry, Ron and she on more than one occasion whenever
the Trio felt the need to rush head first into danger though her compatriots
refused to acknowledge that fact. There had been nights at headquarters where
she saw the shape he was in after meeting with the Dark Lord. He�d stumble into
the house, blood and other fluids caked on his hands, face and robes. Usually
his body would be spastic due to the influence of the Cruciatus curse; his
shoulders twitching, his face trying to fight the contortions of his muscles,
various wounds on his person dripping with his own blood. She knew he was a
strong person both in body but in mind as well. He would never make a sound
when Madame Pomfrey would attend to his wounds. She never told anyone that she
had seen the Potions Master on those nights.

Those nights in question were the
ones where she had spent the majority of the day sequestered in Grimmauld�s library pouring over ancient texts and
scrolls. She would remain locked in the musty room well after the house�s other
occupants retired for the night. In order to get her second wind going on those
long nights Hermione would make a trip to the kitchen for a cuppa or a late
night snack. More than a few times Professor Snape would return in a
horrifically unstable condition, most presumably from Death Eater meetings.
Hermione shuddered at what that exactly went on at those meetings, she had
heard whispers of conversations over the years; rapes, tortures, death, but she
had tried to put those thoughts to the far recesses of her mind.

One particular night she witnessed
the Professor come home after one of his meetings, Hermione remembered that
this night he seemed worse off than he had ever before. Hermione watched from a
dark alcove in the hallway as Madame Pomfrey and the Headmaster helped the
struggling man into the kitchen table so that the mediwitch would attend to
what looked like his many severe injuries. After Pomfrey healed the more
serious injuries it looked like the Potions professor was out of serious
danger, Dumbledore pulled her into another room. Hermione had crept closer to
the kitchen her tear stained eyes fixated on the man lying almost comatose on
the table.

�Albus
I don�t think that he can last much longer, this has to be the worst shape I�ve
ever seen him return in,� Poppy stated, fear and distress distinctly punctuated
her every word.

�I
know Poppy,� sighed a tired looking Albus Dumbledore. �Severus knows the risks
well, but I know that he won�t stop until the Light wins or Voldermort kills
him.�

Hermione bit back the tears that
threatened to fall as she looked on the sleeping Potions Master. Severus Snape.
It was funny to her how up until that moment she had never thought of him as
anything more than her teacher. She never stopped to consider what he was
beyond teaching. Sure he was brilliant, but she hadn�t known anything beyond
what she knew superficially. What type of man was he? What types of thing did
he like to do outside of teaching? What was his life like before he became a
Death Eater and a spy? Hermione had made it decision after that night on her
way back to the library she would try to make an effort to get along better
with the Professor while they worked together and try to get to know the man a
little better though she knew that it would be easier said than done.

Hermione thought back to the
working with Professor Snape, or Severus as she had begun to think of him in
her head.

�Miss
granger! The text says to �crush� the asphodel not grind it,� he growled at
her. �Are you trying to ruin a week�s worth of work here?�

Hermione gritted her teeth and
seethed inwardly, this was certainly not going as she planned. Snape was
mumbling something about �insufferable know-it-alls� to himself off in the
supply closet. Hermione took a deep breath and refocused on her work.

The pair had eventually found
themselves in a companionable work mode. Sure there were the occasional
outbursts from Severus over Hermione�s work method, and she usually took it
with a grin and a smile. Hermione began to notice that with the progression of
their project Severus� icy demeanor began to melt towards her ever so little.
On occasion he would ask for her opinion concerning various ideas and methods
and of course he would still snap at her from time to time, but his tone was
laced with more respect for her.

Once the potion and Hermione�s
spell work were complete, the war escalated faster than the blink of an eye. It
was only a few weeks before the final start of term when there was an increase
in Death Eater activity surrounding the town of Hogsmeade
and Hogwarts. The Order had moved into Hogwarts early on in the summer to
prepare the castle for the attack, fortifying the wards and setting up triages
around the area in preparation for the worst.

The final battle came swiftly for
Hermione and her friends. She remembered waking up early on the morning of
August 5^th with a feeling of unease settling in her stomach. She
confirmed the feeling that something was wrong that morning at breakfast when
both Harry and Ron failed to eat anything more than a single plateful of food.
The pair was known for packing enough food away at each meal to feed at least
three people. Hermione�s suspicions were confirmed when she looked up and saw
Professor Snape clutching his arm and looking gravely at the Headmaster.

With a quick speech from Dumbledore
they were off, off to fight for the continuance of their world and the people
living in it. With a quick breath and a firm grip on her wand, Hermione at the
sides of Ron and Harry stepped off of the front steps off Hogwarts and into the
fray.

***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***

Almost immediately there were
spells and hexes flying left and right. Nothing was off limits. The
Unforgivables were being used by the Death Eaters above all others; Cruciatus
and Avada Kedavra were their weapons of choice. Members of the Order and
Ministry Aurors were heavily engaged in dueling with the Death Eaters. Hermione
remembered at one point looking back on the battle and wondering what it would
look like from the air. The incantations coming from each person sent a blaze
of light bursting forth from the wand streaking towards the intended target; it
was akin to a muggle laser show in some respects. Red, green, blue, gold,
orange, the entire rainbow was represented on the battle field and Hermione
wondered at the irony that something so beautiful could not hide what ugliness
lay beneath the darting colors.

Hermione
became separated from her best friends, engaging a particularly stubborn Death
Eater that kept trying to hex her with the Entrail-Expelling curse. The Death
Eater had kept her busy dodging each hex by leaping to the side and dodging
behind the trees. At one point Hermione was sure that he was going to curse her
when she heard some one yell �Expelliarmus.�
Hermione looked up in time to see another Death Eater rush past, looking
slightly confused at what had happened Hermione�s questions were quelled when
the Death Eater turned and she saw his eyes. Inky pools of black stared briefly
into golden ones and she knew in that brief instant that it was Severus that
had just given her the opportunity that she needed. With a whispered Vacuus Aer, an effective choking spell
she had designed herself, she dispatched the Death Eater who was clutching at
his throat grasping for air. She watched as his last breath left his body. That
was just one, there had seemed to be hundreds more.

She looked out and noticed her
friends were all engaged in their own battles. Ginny was throwing out
protective shields to her left while simultaneously using her patented Bat-Bogey hex at anyone who was in her
path. Neville she saw get hit was the Tarantallegra
and the Cruciatus simultaneously;
she tried not to shed tears as she knew that he wouldn�t survive the
combination. She remembers seeing Professor Sprout calling up the plants from
the very earth to trap the Death Eaters in their snares. She saw the fall of
Professor Vector; he took on two Death Eaters and was holding his own until a
third showed up and cast the Avada
Kedavra upon him. Vector never saw that it was Pansy Parkinson that had hit
him from behind.

Silent tears were falling from
Hermione�s eyes and onto her lap leaving dark spots where they fell. She
remembered the rage she felt at seeing Professor Vector fall. She had always
hoped that the Slytherins would turn out better than what everyone thought they
would. Many of them had truth be told. Draco fought along side the Order to the
surprise of the Golden Trio, along with him brought some of the more popular
Slytherins. Blaise Zabini, Millicent Bulstrode were two more of surprised
supporters. There were a few that chose to fight with their parents though.
Pansy not included Draco�s life long body guards Crabbe and Goyle stood their
ground for Voldermort and ultimately died for his lost cause.

The end fight between Harry and
Voldermort was almost anti-climatic in Hermione�s eyes. It had been so long
coming that she almost didn�t remember herself saying the incantation that
caused the potion to activate and begin the decomposition of Voldermort�s
reptilian like body. Hermione still wasn�t even sure how she managed to make
her way to Ron and Harry. Ron was keeping up protective shields as Harry was
blasting through opponents with a single minded goal; Voldermort.

Once she reached the boys she began
blasting through the enemy until the Trio reached its goal. The man that was
Voldermort stood on the ground, Wormtail on his left and Lucius Malfoy on his
right. The maniacal grin on Voldermort�s face was still enough to give Hermione
nightmares to this day. Ron seeing his former familiar Peter Pettigrew,
immediately went to attack the traitorous wizard, putting all his anger into
assaulting the animagus who was responsible for the death of his older brother
Percy during a scrimmage earlier in the summer. Hermione was left with the task
of facing off with Lucius Malfoy, a man whose spawn had caused her nothing but
mental anguish for the past seven years, almost killed her best friend Ginny,
and was responsible for lord knows how many unforgivable atrocities in his
lifetime. The man thought that he was so far above others that he was
invincible. Hermione threw every curse, spell and hex save a few that she knew
at the man. He parried her at every step, threatening her that he would kill
her slowly after he had used her body knowing that the last thing that she
would ever want would to be broken mentally.

Hermione could see in her
peripheral vision that Ron was winning against Wormtail and that Harry and
Voldermort were busy circling each other, each throwing a variety of hexes at
the other. The split second that she took to look at her friends progress was
just enough for Malfoy to hit her arm with a Slicing hex. Wincing in pain as
the blood oozed out of the gaping wound on her arm she turned to stare at the
smiling face of Lucius Malfoy his wand held ready to release what was sure to
be her death. Bracing herself with her wand firmly in her hand she took a
breath knowing that there would be little to no time to fire off her own hex
she waited to be hit. It never came. Instead she heard Malfoy�s anguished
cries. Looking up she saw that a now unmasked Severus Snape had managed to
slice Malfoy�s Achilles rendering the wizard incapable to stand. Relieved but
shaken she looked towards Severus and met his eyes. She had felt a sort of
understanding with him at that moment and then he was gone. She knew that he
had slipped the potion in Voldermort�s strengthening potion before the attack
all she had to do was cast the spell, it was time. Lucius Malfoy�s struggling brought
her back to her current situation. Turning to face one of her most loathed
enemies she aimed her wand at the struggling man before her. Focusing all her
thoughts and anger she said the two words that she vowed that she�d only read
about.

�Avada
Kedavra.�

Two words that when said could
never be taken back. Hermione watched with abject fascination as a putrescent
stream of green light shot from the end of her wand and wound its way around
the form of the elder Malfoy extinguishing all signs of life from the man. He
stopped struggling and then went limp; his body splaying on the ground, his
platinum hair surrounding his head like a halo. The dead man looked like a
grotesque farce of an angel betraying the demon he was in real life. Not
pondering the death of Lucius Malfoy any longer, Hermione made her way to Harry
who was dueling Voldermort.

Hermione noticed that Harry was
tiring himself out, she knew it was time to help end the War. With the
adrenaline coursing through her veins and her wand pointed at her target
Hermione yelled her spell.

�Exuo
Veneficus Putesco Somes!*�

Hermione�s own voice sounded
foreign to her as the words left her mouth; even more so than when she had cast
the killing curse a few moments earlier. Her words had the intend affect on
Voldermort she had designed them for. Almost immediately the spell began to
react with the earlier ingested potion and Voldermort began to falter in his
dueling with Harry. You could tell that something was wrong with him, his body
began to spasm and he began to choke as if his lungs were collapsing, which
they most likely were.

The total
loss of control of Voldermort�s body gave Harry the opportunity that he needed.
He linked arms with Dumbledore, who had just gotten to where they were standing
and aimed his wand at the faltering wizard�s heart.

�Avada Kedavra.�

Those two words ended the
battle. A great surge of magical energy swelled up from the ground and surged
out through the battle field. It brought almost everyone to their knees and
signaled the end of a decades long battle between good and evil.

Hermione hadn�t really remembered a
lot of what happened next. She looked around searching for signs of her friends
and Order members. She looked hard for Severus knowing that if it wasn�t for
him, she would be most likely dead. Harry was leaning against a tree for
support clearly in some sort of shock. Ron was limping towards his friend
leaving a trail of blood behind, evidence that he had sustained some damage
from his duel with Pettigrew. Hermione managed to locate Professor McGonagall
who was attending to injured Order members and Aurors when she saw Severus
standing amongst the injured talking to Draco. A quick shift in his eyes were
all the indication she saw that he noticed her staring before she turned to her
friends, collapsing in their embraces. She woke up three days later in the room
she and Ginny shared at the Burrow.

***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***

Ginny had filled Hermione in on
what happened during the three days that she slept. The entire Order was to be
presented with the Order of Merlin 2^nd Class while Dumbledore, Ron,
Harry, Professor Snape and herself were to be awarded with the same award but
of the 1^st Class variety. It had been revealed that Professor Snape
was working as a spy and a plethora of articles and interviews were being
published about the notoriously private man. Hermione knew that Severus would
most likely shun the added attention.

She along with her companions, were
heralded as war heroes; their faces being plastered on every newspaper and sign
across wizarding Britain.
The trio had found that their annual trip to Diagon Alley was no longer the
autonomous trip that it had once been. All along the street there were witches
and wizards lining up to shake their hands or to touch their robes. Harry had
gotten used to the attention since he arrived in the wizarding world ignored it
for the most part, though would stop to shake hands and sign autographs. Ron,
who always thought of himself as a sidekick, was enjoying the attention that he
received and was always being pulled away from the throngs of admirers.
Hermione for the most part, shied away from the spotlight. She just wanted to
be left alone.

**Author�s Note**

Okay, that was the first chapter
and I hoped it�s well received. This will probably only be a few chapters long
since it�s my first time and I�m quite nervous. The spell I created was my own,
I got the Latin off of an internet translator so I�m positive that�s its not
exact since that how those things usually work. The literal translation of Exuo Veneficus Putesco Somes is �strip
magic, rot the body,� I thought it was clever, but that�s just me. Anyways,
thanks for reading this and I hope to continue
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The Halloween Ball