One Year Later:

Hermione Snape, the youngest Minister of Magic in magical history, stood in her bedroom looking at herself in the full-length mirror. She was wearing a black dress that flared around her knees and a pair of simple black heels. Her make-up was all neutral colors and her hair was left down but spelled into submissiveness, the bedroom door opened, and Ginny Potter poked her head in and sadly told her best friend that it was time to go. Tonks was holding Aibhlinn and little Remy while Remus kept Teddy busy with some muggle building blocks, when Hermione joined them everyone got up and one by one, they apparated to the graveyard.

There were other witches and wizards that stood around the open grave in the small personal cemetery. Thirteen people plus Hermione joined the small pack of people that were paying their respects. Including, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Horace Slughorn and a few other professors as well as business owners and of course the reporters. Hermione lowered her eyes to the coffin and let out of shaking breath, if she had tried harder this wouldn't have happened, if she was smarter, if she'd given up the stupid minister's office and put her whole brain towards finding out a cure for the poison that went through his body. As the funeral continued the more Hermione shook, the bigger the lump formed in her throat and the guiltier she felt for not trying hard enough. Someone put thier arms around her, she lifted her head to see a grieving Draco Malfoy comforting her, that made the flood gates open and she was a sobbing mess.

"It's okay" He whispered, as people started to disperse, and the reporters hungrily took pictures of the mourning son and the crying Minister "He woke up before...and we got to say goodbye"

"I'm sorry" Hermione sobbed "I should have found a cure by now...I'm running out of time, how long until..." She started to sob harder and Draco knew what she was going to say, 'how long until Severus succumbed to the poison too?' it was something that had been haunting everyone since the first death of an inner circle death eater.

"You don't have to do everything" Draco whispered, while she sobbed his eyes drifted over to his fathers coffin that was being closed and he felt his heart break a little more. He hadn't had enough time with his father, there were at least a million things he needed to ask, to talk about and to learn from him but now he was dead.

"I'm sorry, Draco" Hermione whispered "I should have..."

"Shh" Narcissa comforted from behind her "You have done amazingly, you brought my Draco back to me. Thanks to you I won't have to bury my son along with my husband"

Hermione allowed the woman to comfort her more, she knew this wasn't her fault, but she had been flying high from her win of the Ministers office and she'd been cocky and made promises that apparently, she couldn't back up. What Narcissa said about Draco was only slightly true, at Hermione's insistence they pushed potions to strengthen not just his body, nerves and immune system but one to strengthen his spirit, soul and mind and he'd come out of it. However, he also wasn't full inner circle and the potions didn't work on Lucius or Severus, they continued to push the potions and search for answers, but nothing had worked. Then, only two weeks ago, Hermione was told that Lucius Malfoy's heart had given out, he had died only five short hours after he'd woken up.

"Hermione" Molly said as she walked over to her at the gate, she'd been getting ready to head back to her empty house with the now two-year-old daughter "Why don't you come to the burrow?"

"I need to get into the potions lab..." Hermione started but the older woman gripped her arm tighter "Molly, please..."

"Hermione" The woman said sternly "You need to come to the burrow"

"Okay" The younger woman lowered her eyes and followed the woman away.

The burrow was full of people when Hermione entered, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were leaning against a far wall while Tonks sat with her feet up on the table (which got slapped down by Molly) a heavily pregnant Pansy Black was sitting in a rocking chair and Harry and Ron with their wives were around the table. The twins were in there as well as Bill and Charlie, Fleur and Neville Longbottom. Hermione was confused as to why everyone was there seemingly waiting for her; she wanted to go home and get a house-elf to watch Aibhlinn so she could go back to brewing.

"What's up?" She asked, irritation shining through.

"Hermione" Harry said "You've been overworking yourself, trying to run the wizarding world, which you're doing really well at but also trying to raise Aibhlinn and find a cure for Severus" Hermione nodded "We're here to help you"

"But..." She started, Hermione wasn't cocky in her abilities, not now so soon after Lucius Malfoy's death, but she needed to find the cure for the man she loved, she had to be the one to find it.

"No" Remus snapped, effectively cutting her off "No more saying that you can do it, we know that you're more than capable to find a cure but Lucius joined the inner circle only about five or six years before Severus so we don't know what timeframe we have here and you need help"

"Hermione" Luna said, softly "I've been at the hospital and I know that whatever is going on Severus is fighting it but how much longer can he fight?"

"I know foreign, magical sicknesses" Bill pointed out "So doesn't Sirius because we've been out there witnessing them"

"Fred and George are brilliant with just about every form of magic" Ginny added in "They see what most don't" The twins nodded in unison "Harry can make things happen when he wants to and thanks to Lucius Malfoy's help he knows how to present himself better"

"Ginny is great with Charms" Neville said, "I am" He blushed "Now named one of the tops in Herbology in England..."

"But why would you help?" Hermione asked "You hate Severus"

"But I love you" He answered "And no child should go through life without their parents, believe me, I know" She opened her mouth "Without both their parents and you shouldn't have to be a widow at such a young age"

"Severus saved my life" Tonks said quietly "I need to repay that favor"

"It's something everyone needs to repay" Remus said to the room "Without his many sacrifices in the war and leading up to the war we wouldn't have lived through it"

"Stated beautifully, Mr. Lupin" The soft voice of Albus Dumbledore spoke from the door leading into the living room "I think the Order of the Pheonix needs to come together once more to fight another battle against Voldemort, hopefully the last one and this one" He looked from person to person before his eyes rested on Hermione "Is to save one person who I am guilty of ignoring for too long"

"Okay" Hermione answered, she pointed her wand to the roof and a second later a huge stack of files fell out of thin air "These are the files I have" She lifted her wand again and an even bigger stack of muggle notebooks and rolls of parchments rained down on the table "And these are my notes"

"Let's begin" Albus said gravelly as they all moved to the table as one.

Hermione felt better as they all went through her notes. Molly kept them well stocked in meals, snacks and drinks and everyone took turns taking care of the children. Everyone was speaking quietly to one another and before Hermione even realized it, the day had disappeared into night and that gave way to a new day. Pansy was asleep upstairs, and everyone had taken sleep breaks off and on, except for Hermione who insisted that she couldn't sleep. It was the weekend, she didn't need to be at the ministry, and she made it a point that whoever didn't work on the weekends wouldn't be bothered, herself included. So, staying up all night wasn't that much of a problem or that new to her, though she could tell that Molly was worrying. Pansy rejoined them and hopped right into sifting through notes, giggling when she found a love letter from the man to Hermione, which the frizzy haired woman took from her with the threat of death if she repeated what he wrote.

"I honestly never thought anything could harm Snape" Neville said, offhandedly "I kind of assumed he was a vampire or a vampire hybrid of some sort"

"No" Hermione answered, looking through a book in front of her "Just a man"

"Daddy no vampire" Aibhlinn said from her seat on her mothers lap with her food stuck to her face.

"That's right, baby" Hermione said, kissing her cheek. The little girl raised her hand up a bit and a roll of parchment lifted and flew into her tiny fist, everyone watched, impressed with her level of magic at only two.

"Daddy's a werewolf" She said happily, completing the sentence with a growling noise at them, causing everyone to laugh.

"No, Aibhlinn" Hermione explained gently "Uncle Remus is a werewolf, daddy is not. He makes sure that Uncle Remus is healthy"

"Oh" Aibhlinn said, she bit her lip and then held out the scroll to her mother to take "Then Uncle Remus help daddy be healthy" With that she was brought to the bathroom by Molly so the older woman could get her cleaned up.

"What did she give you?" Luna asked, everyone knew that there was something more to Aibhlinn but no one, even Hermione, knew what it was.

"Severus's notes on Lycanthropy" Hermoine said, looking at them "I don't know how they got in there, those were all my notes"

Hermione slept later in the day while everyone either took a break, went to the library at Hogwarts or went home for a little while. When she woke up, Hermione took a nice hot shower and realized that while she wasn't extremely happy, she did feel better than when she was working on the case alone. She'd forgotten how good her friends were to her and vowed that once all of this was over and Severus was back home, she would think of a way to honor her friends the way they deserved. Hermione patted her hair dry as much as she could before pulling it up into a ponytail so it would be easier to work and made her way out to get dressed. She stopped and looked at the picture of her and Severus dancing at their wedding and tears filled her eyes. At this point she wanted nothing more than to have him wake up but at the same time, his waking up was not something she wanted. She knew from her investigations that those affected by this mysterious poison would wake up for about five hours and then just die. They woke up long enough to get their families hopes up that they would be okay, but they weren't. It was the cruelest of Voldemorts tricks.

When she got back to the burrow it was like she'd never left. There was dinner being served and everyone was still sitting at the table pouring over notebooks, files and books taken from various libraries and not all of them were in English. Aibhlinn gave her a hug and showed her some toys that Fleur and Bill had brought over that they'd gotten in France and then she was back to playing with Lily and Remy. Molly told her that her daughter had a nice two-hour nap and was now full of energy and playing up a storm. Then, they dove back into their studying, occasionally someone would mutter something or make a joke trying to ease the tension but other than those few times it was mostly silent. Then the door leading into the living room opened slowly and Aibhlinn walked in. Her large light brown eyes were wide, their color was off and there wasn't any sort of expression on the little girls face and when she spoke her voice was deeper and a little raspy, unlike her normally sweet, high-pitched voice.

"He awakens now" She spoke to the room, everyone turned and looked at the tiny toddler in shock "Five hours to find the cure, but one of you already knows how to for sure, you're not changed but it doesn't matter your sickness will cause the poison to shatter"

"Baby" Hermione walked over to her "What do you mean?"

"What?" Aibhlinn asked, she looked around the kitchen and lower lip started to quiver "Mama...what am I doing in here?"

"Honey" Hermione said "What were you talking about, who..." Her words were cut off by a Patronis of a huge bird flew in through the window and spoke with Healer Sharpes voice.

"Severus Snape is awake"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A/N: Didn't think I'd let you suffer too long, did you? I hope that my grammar and punctuation is better in this than the first story, my writing has matured a bit since then. So, I hinted at it in the first story when Hermione was pregnant but in case you forgot or didn't pick up on it, Aibhlinn is a seer. I thought it would be kind of funny because we all know that Hermione thinks Divination and all that is bullshit and I'm sure Snape would too so why not make their daughter a seer? Haha. What do you think is gonna happen? Please review!