Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related settings, characters, and terminology belong to J.K. Rowling. I am using them for no profit and just for fum
Author's Note: This is something I wrote a while ago that I found, and I decided that I liked it more than I originally did when I wrote it. For those who follow Dark Skies, chapter four is coming. Real Life decided to smack me in the face in several, not-pleasant ways. I'll try to post up the chapter by Tuesday.

Thanks to Lyndsie Fenele for beta-ing. Any mistakes you might find are my own. Review if you like it!

Surprises

Hermione watched as Severus Snape walked past her in the stone corridor. One tentative hand reached out to his disappearing back but she could not find it in herself to call out to him. He turned the corner and was out of sight. She let out the breath she had been holding ever since she had seen him walking towards her, hoping he would stop to talk to her. But he had completely ignored her, scorning whatever fondness she felt for him.

The young woman knew it had been a mistake to tell him that she had been in love with him since her seventh year. Graduated five years, she had kept the secret to herself and hadn't told a single soul, though Professor McGonagall had hinted many times that she knew how her former student felt. Even then, she hadn't confided the secret to anyone, so sure that too many people would find her strange or insane that she cared for a man twice her age that had never said a kind word to anyone except Slytherin students.

She sighed but continued to stare at the end of the corridor, half hoping he would come back around. Severus had firmly ignored her ever since she had taken the Transfiguration position at Hogwarts, and after her confession at dinner the previous night he had refused to even look at her. Marking the encounter as a lost cause, she retreated to her rooms. Sleep would not be forthcoming tonight.

At breakfast two days later, Hermione sat at her spot at the table between Professor Flitwick and Professor Vector. Flitwick was talking to the flying instructor and Hermione couldn't help but overhear their conversation. Cutting her sausage, she zoned her ears in to their words, while trying not to look like she was doing so.

"Where is Severus? Usually he is the first to arrive," Flitwick said.

Madam Hooch smiled and turned to her colleague conspiratorially. "Wouldn't you know it, he's preparing something special for you-know-who."

The short man's cutlery paused in his hands just as Hermione seemed to have stopped breathing.

"You don't mean he actually returns the girl's feelings, do you?" he said in astonishment.

Hooch nodded and smiled smugly. "I do. I knew he was human all along. With such a beautiful, intelligent woman as she, he had to fall for her sometime. It's a wonder he didn't act until Hermione said something…"

Hermione could hear nothing more than the sound of her heart beating in her head after this. And even if her mind wasn't ringing with these words, she still wouldn't have been able to hear because the two professors had lowered their tones to undistinguishable levels.

For a moment, she sat in shock, her breakfast forgotten. He did return her feelings! She couldn't believe it! Severus Snape actually felt something for her, Hermione Granger: former student, Gryffindor know-it-all, Muggle-born, and Harry Potter's best friend! No longer hungry because of such a prospect, Hermione stood from her chair and nearly ran from the Great Hall, unaware that she was beaming. Severus was preparing something for her right now, and she couldn't wait to see him again. Maybe she would throw her arms around his neck. Maybe he would kiss her… It was only a matter of time.

She didn't see him for the rest of the day, and even when she sat down to dinner, she kept her eye on the door for him to come in. He didn't. As she climbed into bed that night, she couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. Maybe her surprise was meant for tomorrow. Now that she thought about it, tomorrow was the first day of Easter holidays. Closing her eyes, Hermione fell into sleep dreaming about her man in black.

A week. Hermione hadn't seen Severus for a week. She knew he taught his classes, but she never saw him between or around those times. He didn't go to meals anymore and he was never in the library or his office. The worst part of it all was that Hermione was afraid that the staff knew more about what he was doing than she did.

During a free period, she was searching the library for a book when she heard Professor Vector speaking in excited whispers to Professor Sinistra in an aisle ahead of her.

Pressing her ear to a bookshelf, she heard Vector say, "He's bringing her here? But such a private man, I would have thought he wouldn't make his life as public as that."

"I know, it's unusual. I just wonder how Hermione will take it."

Hermione didn't take it very well. She only had a vague idea whom they were talking about, but she couldn't help the feeling of dread that was slowly growing in her stomach. Backing slowly away from the bookshelf, she exited the library in a sprint. She had to find out once and for all. Did Severus have any feelings towards her?

She raced down five flights of stairs and flew through the dungeons. Knocking on his office door, she waited and caught her breath. She knocked three times and stood there for five minutes, but no one answered. Where could he be? He didn't have a class right now. The tears were already filling her eyes as she slowly made her way up the stairs to the entrance hall. It felt like her heart had been torn out of her chest, thrown on the floor and stomped all over just to be shoved back into her ribcage. Her eyes filled with salty tears and they fell over her lids forming trails down her pale cheeks as the cycle started over. Just as she made it to the top of the marble staircase, she heard the oak doors open and the sound of boot heels clicking on the marble floor.

Wiping her tears from her eyes with the sleeves of her robes, she turned around to see Severus walking leisurely into the castle. But he was not alone. On his arm was a beautiful blonde woman with porcelain skin and a curvy body. Her robes were thin and silky and clung to every curve. The neck of her robes was wide and bared most of her shoulders. Even from where she stood, Hermione could tell that her own plain looks were nothing compared to this woman, who smiled shyly up at Severus. His eyes were totally focused on his lady in just the way that Hermione wished he would look at her. She turned to flee, but the horrid man called out to her.

"Professor Granger! A moment if you will?"

As she descended the stairs once again, Hermione tried to wipe all remains of her distress from her face, but she knew that her eyes and nose were red from crying and her cheeks were raw from the material of her robes. When she was standing in front of the couple, he sneered malevolently.

"This is Hermione Granger, the Transfiguration professor here at Hogwarts," he told the young woman who offered her hand to Hermione for a handshake. Bitterly, she accepted the hand and shook it. "Professor Granger, this is Aja DuBois, my fiancée."

Hermione immediately released Aja's hand and stared in horror at Severus. He was sneering at her horribly with so much spite and hate that she couldn't believe she had never seen it in his face before. Her heart seemed to have stopped beating altogether and her eyes dried up so much that she couldn't stop blinking.

"Y—your fiancée?" she stuttered in bewilderment. "How—how did you… When did you… How long…?" She couldn't even complete all of her sentences she was so stunned and hurt.

Aja was the one who answered.

"Oh, well, Minerva is my great-aunt and she set us up. We've been seeing each other for about eight months." She looked up at Severus with pure love in her eyes, which made Hermione's heart jump in pain. "He just proposed a few days ago. You're the first person we've told."

"Now, if you'll excuse us," Severus started upon seeing Hermione's devastation. "We have many people to see today." They walked off and Severus made sure to brush past Hermione without an apology. As they started up the marble staircase, he stopped and turned around. In an offhand manner he said to Hermione, who was still standing numb, "We haven't set a date for the wedding yet, but you are invited to come, of course, if you'd like." But of course, Hermione knew he was just rubbing her feelings for him in her face.

As soon as they were out of sight, Hermione stood, panting, where they'd left her. She couldn't believe she'd been so stupid! How could she not have known that he was seeing someone? How could she bloody not have known! They worked together and lived under the same towers, so to speak. As the tears fell from her eyes, blurring her vision and blinding her, she ran. Shoving the oak doors open, she ran onto the grounds. The tears continued to fall as her heartbreak slowly consumed her, the image of the beautiful woman on a hateful Snape's arm burned into her skull.

When she woke up quite suddenly, tears were pouring down her face and she found herself in her dark bedroom.

It was only a dream, she thought almost elatedly, but she couldn't keep the tears from stopping.

She knew it had been a bad idea to tell Snape how she felt about him, but her mouth didn't listen to a thing her brain said and the secret had fallen out like a wet hairball. Plop. And then he knew. He had seemed surprised at first, but had quickly pulled his features into a sneer of indifference. A mocking sneer. Without uttering a word, he had stalked off in a flash of black robes, leaving Hermione tongue-tied and mortified in the middle of the Charms corridor.

Now here her mind was, creating horrible scenarios in her dreams to show her what a mistake she had made. But Severus couldn't possibly have fallen in love with and gotten engaged to Minerva's great-niece, could he? Who in their right mind would want a relationship with him anyway?

Oh, right. She did.

Shoving the bed covers aside, Hermione stood to dress for another day of teaching, though she couldn't get the dream out of her head. Just thinking about the way Severus had sneered at her as he walked off with his fiancée made her heart jump in pain. She never should have told him.

When she entered the empty Great Hall after dressing, Hermione wracked her brain for the date. Was it summer holidays yet? No, Easter holidays would begin soon. She checked her watch. Ah, five forty-two in the morning. No wonder the hall was empty. Taking her seat at the head table, she stared down at the table top, but because food wasn't served until six, nothing appeared on her plate. Madam Hooch finally came in with Professor Vector at a quarter 'til seven and Hermione was still sitting in her seat, picking at her food tastelessly.

"Good morning, Hermione," Hooch greeted cheerfully. When the younger professor grunted in reply, she noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the way her clothes were disheveled. "Are you alright?" the flying instructor asked.

"Oh, fine," Hermione replied wistfully. "Never better." She didn't think the older woman believed her, but no other questions were forthcoming. More students and staff trickled into the Great Hall until at about seven thirty, it was quite full of people. Most of the staff could see that Hermione wasn't feeling well and no one bothered her. At one point, long after her breakfast had gone cold, she looked down the table but did not see Severus. He hadn't come in. Just like in her dream. And then she heard words that made her heart stall in her chest.

"That's strange, Severus isn't here. He's usually the first to arrive." It was Flitwick's voice, and his statement was almost verbatim to her dream.

Hooch's reply was even more chilling to Hermione's frayed nerves. "Would you believe it, he's preparing something special for you-know-who."

Hermione choked on air as she gasped and her fork clanged loudly when she dropped it on her plate. Rolanda and Filius turned to look at her but she was already jumping out of her seat. She tried to seem composed even though her tears threatened to fall, and she didn't hear the elfin man ask if she was alright.

"Excuse me," she said, ducking her head so that no one could see her distress. She made it all the way to the fifth floor before the tears were finally set free, and by then she had no desire to stop them. The words she heard in the Great Hall and her dream swam in and out of her mind's eye until she was certain that they meant the same thing. Alone in the corridor, she allowed her tears to fall more freely than they had that morning and her muffled sobs echoed off of the stone walls. Her body crumpled against the wall and she fell to the floor, hugging her knees.

That was where Severus found her: crouched on the floor, sitting against the wall. By that time, her tears had lessened and her sobs were silent. Hermione heard someone clear their throat and looked up into the eyes of the one man she did not want to see at the moment. His face was exceptionally blank for someone who just found one of their most disliked former students crying in a public hallway. And now that she was also a teacher, she knew she must have looked even more childish.

Severus's face did not betray any emotion. He did not sneer or smirk or make a sarcastic comment like Hermione expected him to. Instead, he offered his hand to her and she took it, grateful for that small amount of contact as he helped her off the ground. She was afraid to say something to him and terribly afraid of what he would say to her. She didn't notice that he was watching her closely as she wiped invisible dirt from the front of her robes.

"You look like you haven't slept," he finally said.

Surprised that he hadn't mentioned how he found her instead, she looked into his face and said, "Well, no, I haven't."

When she didn't say anything more, he started to become agitated. "Well, why not?"

Hermione stared back at the floor again, unable to look him in the face because of the confession she was about to make, despite her head telling her once again what a bad idea it was.

"Because I'm too busy thinking about what an idiot I was telling you that I've loved you since seventh year, because you've obviously been dating Minerva's great-niece for months and have now, or you're about to ask her to marry you in which case she will say yes and I will die a lonely spinster, stupid and heartbroken." After that, the blasted tears came back but she fought not to let them fall even as her vision of the stone floor blurred. Her heart ached with everything she had admitted to him and she waited for his condescending words. She wasn't sure what she was more afraid of hearing: that she was completely stupid for believing such a thing, or that she was right.

Neither of these things happened, so when he let loose a chuckle of amusement, she was almost positive that it was not he who had laughed.

But he had and, startled, she looked at him as he laughed and leaned his weight on an arm propping him up against the wall. Her tears stopped suddenly and she knew he was going to tell her what a stupid little girl she was.

He didn't do that either.

Instead, he composed himself and straightened his robes, looking into her face with an amused smile—if only a slight one.

"I'm not dating anyone and I'm not asking anyone to marry me. I don't even think Minerva has a great-niece. I believe she was an only child," he said, trying to regain his composure and seem as foreboding as before.

"B—but… I heard Hooch… she said…you had a surprise for "you-know-who"," she stuttered back. She even made the quotation marks with her fingers in the air to emphasize "you-know-who". "And I don't think she was talking about Voldemort," she finished.

"No, she wasn't." He sounded annoyed once again, though Hermione couldn't think why. Muttering to himself, she heard him add, "Though she should stay out of my business. Nosy woman."

Hermione pulled a handkerchief out from her sleeve and cleaned up her face. Stuffing the piece of cloth in a pocket, she took a better look at Severus, who was now rubbing his chin and staring at her, though it didn't look like he was actually seeing her. She placed a hand on his arm and watched as his eyes shifted to watch her hand. When she didn't move the offending appendage, he gazed at her eyes.

"Then who was she talking about?" she asked softly, then prepared herself for the sharp "It isn't any of your business, Miss Granger, so if you will…" and then for him to turn and stalk away from her.

Surprising her for the umpteenth time today, he didn't say any of that either.

"If you are still interested, Miss—Hermione, I would very much like it if you accompanied me to dinner this weekend."

"O-of—wait, what?"

"Must I spell it out for you?"

"No?"

"Hm. Interesting." Now Severus stalked away and Hermione had the distinct impression that she had hurt or embarrassed him. But was it possible? Did Severus Snape actually feel emotions such as these? She had never seen weakness from him before and as a student, she had assumed that he could shove his feelings to the back of his mind, thus not having any. And now she saw for herself how wrong she was.

"Wait, Severus," she called running to catch up with his long strides. He paused but did not turn around. "I would love to go to dinner with you this weekend."

Her soft voice was enough to penetrate his thick head because he faced her and said, "Saturday, at eight—if that is desirable for you."

Walking with him at his side as they walked down the stairs, she said, "That's perfect."

As they walked in silence, Hermione beamed happily, but then a thought struck her.

"So, was that your surprise for me?"

Severus looked down at her and she could have sworn she saw his lip quirk up on one side.

"No," he said but he didn't say anything more.

"Well, then…What was the surprise and who was it for?" she asked in exasperation.

"It was for Minerva," he replied, smirking out right now, "and I left a Weasley's Wizard Wheezes brand whoopee cushion on her chair in her office."