Chapter One

She swam, for what seemed an eternity, in ebony eyes, before allowing her gaze to drift over him in his entirety. He was not at all as she remembered. His hair was shorter than it had been in her school days and more fashionably styled, and though it accentuated his nose this only served to make it look as though he belonged to some great aristocratic breed. He leant back in his chair with an ease and elegance she had not known he possessed, and though he was smartly attired, his shirt and waistcoat were incomparable with the button-downed image he had maintained whilst teaching. She also noticed he had attained somewhat of a potbelly, which caused the buttons of his waistcoat to pull taught as he was sat, however she rather thought the extra weight had gone some way to dissipate the gauntness of his appearance, making his face fuller and healthier looking.

'You're gawping Miss Granger, it's really not becoming of a … woman of your age,' he said, and Hermione swore she saw the briefest of smiles flicker over his thin lips. She closed her mouth and stepped towards his table, he motioned for her to take the seat opposite him and she obliged without a word. He observed her for a long while, probably, she thought, in just the same manner she had previously observed him. 'Why are you here?' he asked at length.

She realised there was to be no small talk. 'I … you … I mean …' she stammered. She felt suddenly as though she were back at school, a little girl again. He raised a questioning eyebrow and she thought she ought continue before he became bored with her and disappeared again. 'I came to find you,' she managed after a slow, deep intake of breath, 'for Harry.'

'Potter?' he asked, and now he really was smiling, 'do you want coffee?' he added. She nodded mutely and watched as he ordered, with the utmost politeness, two cappuccinos and some biscotti. 'What does Potter want with me?' he asked.

'Well … you're a war hero, Harry feels he's … somewhat … indebted to you and he wants to return the favour as best he can,' she replied.

'And how is that? With an Order of Merlin and a sack full of galleons?' he asked in a tone familiarly laced with sarcasm.

Her brow creased, 'he's knows it not comparable to the sacrifices you made, but it's something … he wants your efforts recognised and I suppose … well I suppose he feels guilty.'

'That is more like it, Miss Granger,' Snape smirked as their beverages arrived, 'he wants appease himself, not I!'

'If he'd have just known, things might have been different!' she snapped, finding herself suddenly on the defensive. She had rather naively surmised that Snape's opinions of Harry might have altered, as Harry's had of Snape. Though, in hindsight, she realised she had omitted from her belief the fact that Snape was no longer indebted to Harry, he had no reason to like Harry, or even pretend to, for that matter.

'Things could not have been any other way,' he said simply, laughing into his now half-empty mug of coffee. 'I have nothing to apologise for.'

'Perhaps not. But your opinions of Harry are based on the way he acted at school and quite frankly, Professor, he gave as good as he got!' she sighed. 'I was not suggesting you become friends,' she said, scooping the froth off the top of her coffee with a spoon before eating it, 'just a little more courteous,' she said, with a genuine smile.

He looked at her oddly, with his eyes squinted slightly before he spoke again. 'So if it is the case that Potter wants to ensure I get what I'm due, why isn't he here himself? Busy was he?'

'Well,' she began. 'Harry spent three years looking for you, even while he was training to be an Auror and didn't have the money to travel he'd make sure he went to search in every place there was ever a reported sighting of you … he tried, but finally resigned himself to the fact that you didn't want to be found!'

'Just about the most sensible thought the boy ever had,' Snape grunted, 'I would have thought it was evident that I wanted to avoid the limelight your friend was so eager to drown in but… what about you miss Granger?'

'What about me?'

'Why couldn't you let it rest?'

'I …' she hesitated. She could hardly tell him that he had become her project, her distraction from reality … her obsession. 'I just couldn't,' she said. He smirked and looked her straight in the eye. She knew what he was trying to do and averted her gaze. There was a long period of silence in which Hermione busied herself with her coffee whilst deciding how best to approach her next question. Finally she said, 'we saw you die, Professor, the snake and –'

'Call me Severus, miss Granger, I am no longer your Professor,' he said, leaning forwards and placing his elbows in the table.

'Then call me Hermione,' she said, somewhat flustered, 'I am no longer your student.'

'Very well … Hermione, continue.'

'We went back to the shack for your body and, well, you were gone. We saw you die!'

'Hmm… perhaps you saw what you wanted to see?'

'What? We didn't get on but that doesn't mean I would have wanted you to die!'

He smiled again, 'you can tell Potter I'm grateful for him clearing my name, but I don't expect anything else from him except to be left alone.'

This was not the response she had expected. It was rather disappointing, in fact. She had wanted him to return to Britain with her and see how things had changed, how he would be hailed a hero, the new Ministry had offered him a respectable position and indeed he would receive and first degree Order of Merlin and a handsome sum of galleons would be added to Gringott's account. She couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to return, it seemed to her that he was being his usual petulant self, no matter to what degree he appeared to have altered externally, she supposed he was too set in his ways, too set on hating Harry and too selfish to understand that Harry might want to apologise and right, or at least make things more amiable, between them. She looked up to find Snape was eyeing her with amusement, when suddenly he began to laugh. Not the cold, harsh mocking laugh she had become accustomed to at Hogwarts, but a genuine laugh as though he had found something extraordinarily funny.

'You couldn't be further off the mark, Hermione,' he said, concluding his chortling but continuing to smile at her, she realised in the time she'd been daydreaming about his more insufferable traits he had been using legilimens on her. 'You see, here I'm free, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, with… whoever I want. Since that night in the Shrieking Shack I've found a freedom I never had before. For the first time in my life I have no one to answer to… whether it be Voldemort, Dumbledore or whoever. For the first time in my life I'm my own man!'

She gaped at him, slightly taken aback, a small exclamation of 'oh!' being all she could manage. She had never thought Snape might put so much sentimentality into his thoughts.

'And anyway,' he continued, sitting back in his chair and looking suddenly solemn, 'I thought I made it quite clear when I gave Potter my memory that I didn't do what I did for him?'

Hermione nodded, 'I suppose you did,' she replied, 'in that case, I'm sorry I bothered you. I'll leave you be.' She plunged a hand into her pocket in search of her purse, from which she extracted a few coins for the coffee and stood up to leave.

'I bought the coffees,' Snape said, handing her the money back. 'Look, Hermione,' he said, standing also. She'd quite forgotten how tall he was but he not longer loomed over her like he used to loom over her cauldron to inspect her work at school. 'It's not that I don't appreciate your coming here though… I don't understand why you let searching for me consume two years of your life. I had rather thought the dislike was mutual?'

'It is,' she said, swinging her handbag over her shoulder. 'Goodbye… Severus,' she said with a weak smile before turning to leave.

He watched her walk away, admiring her form as she went. In the intermittent years, between the final battle and this moment in a rustic café in the centre of a small Transylvanian village, she had grown from a child into a woman. He had maintained a pretence of disliking her during her school years for the sake of his position as a spy, and though indeed her know-it-all demeanour had been incensing to say the least, there was no doubt that her intelligence had always been somewhat attractive. She disappeared through the door and was lost in the crowded street outside. Meeting with her had been particularly obscure for Severus. He had learned some weeks ago that she was trying to find him and after spending most of this time trying all he could to avoid her he had finally decided meeting with her would be the best way to get rid of her once and for all. He had seen no one from his past life since the final battle, and, as he had told Hermione that was the way he wanted things to be. He had spent two years trying to forget the past, and seeing her had immediately brought all those memories flooding back. He sighed, for the first time in two years he was overwhelmed with loneliness.