He finds her wandering the halls, in a conscious but absent state, as he has found her every night for the past two weeks, in a ridiculous night gown covered in flowers or something equally frivolous. She takes a different route every night, hoping to avoid him and he wonders when she will just give up and stay in the Gryffindor common room. Evidently her errand, whatever it may be, is worth loosing house points for. It was an odd thing though; she was the goody-goody, the one who followed the rules to a T because she liked them. Maybe 'liked' was too strong a word. 'Respected' was closer. 'Understood'? Perhaps.
She acts surprised when she sees him come around the corner; she does every night. "Professor Snape," She exclaims like this dark abandoned hallway is the last place she expected to see him, even though she knew he had followed her, just like every night. It was the way the dance went. "Whatever are you doing here?"
"I might do well to ask you the same thing Miss Granger." He sighs, tapping his foot impatiently. He says this every night too.
"I guess I just…couldn't sleep." She has just the right amount of hesitation to make him feel like she is confiding in him, but not so much as to reveal that she is attempting to construct a plausible lie.
"You couldn't sleep so you decided that wandering the halls after curfew was the answer." He is tapping his fingers now, he can hardly wait. He wants to see the look on her face when throws a new line into the mix. When he…changes the dance steps, so to speak.
She shrugs.
He waits the allotted amount of time before asking the question that he knows will change things. He can't wait to hear what might slip from her lips while she tries to reply. "Who is he then Miss Granger?"
She gasps. "What-whatever d-do you m-mean, professor?"
Inwardly he smirks. His outward appearance doesn't change. "Well I obviously don't want to be doing this, but I do grow tired of patrolling the corridors, looking for you," It is the first time either one of the, had admitted that they had done more than kept an eye out for each other. "Miss Granger, you, when you know perfectly well that you should be in bed. I am, of course, also obligated by school rules to ask questions if I feel that they need to be asked. So I will ask you again Miss Granger. Who is he?" He glances at her. Her expression is priceless.
"Why-why professor, I don't know what you think is going on, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with a 'he' of any kind." She pauses, looking down at her hands. Before he can say something scathing and completely unnecessary she speaks again. "Except for maybe Him." There is something in her tone of voice that tells him that this Him is said with a capital 'H'.
"Ah." He says, trying to regain his composition and hide his surprise at her confiding in him like this. "Nightmares then?" His voice is gentle, startlingly so. He has known nightmares too. She nods.
"I suggest you see Madame Pomfrey; she can give you something to help keep the dreams at bay." She looks up at him, surprise written all over her face.
"Thank-you." She smiles slightly. Then it dawns on them both that this is the last exchange of its kind they will have if she takes his advice. She adds a barely audible "I think."
Then a second realization dawns on them. It doesn't have to stop if they don't want it to. "Same time tomorrow then?" He asks her casually.
"I don't know what you're talking about sir." She says with a half smile. She'll be there; they both know it.
His expression hardens. "Off to bed with you Miss Granger. Fifteen points from Gryffindor, and don't let me catch you out again."
There is a barely-there ghost of a smile on her face as she replies. "I won't sir." In their minds they both smile, while looking at each other. Things were as normal as they could get if you were fighting through life after a war.
They go their separate ways, each taking with them a bit of the other and the sense that somewhere, sometime in the future, there might be something more there. In their minds it didn't have a name, but you and I, we know what it is.
A little thing called Love.
End