Author's Note 1: I don't own Harry Potter. Legalese, legalese. J.K. Rowling does. More legalese and more legalese.

Author's Note 2: I couldn't help but noodle with this after taking it to the cleaners. You can thank Tychesong for that. She's been giving me notes on my chapters, which is ever so nice of her. She's helping this story be better than it is. Also, you should also check out her work. It's really good. ;)

Summery: "We were so foolish, thinking that we could just be friends and only friends. How wrong we were." The muti-chapter story of Severus Snape & Hermione's friendship-turned-relationship. Told fr. Severus' pov, 1st person. AU after the war.

Rating: Mature. Things are going to heat up later.

I walked through the wood of the Forbidden Forest, hands tucked into my pockets, the leaves crunchy under my shoes: One pair of shoes, the sound of solitude everlasting.

I don't know how I really expected people to react when I was reintegrated into society after spending three years in St. Mungo's as a part of my recovery, hovering between life and death, as most people and their reactions have often puzzled me throughout my life, but I still didn't expect what I got once I was freed.

It wasn't expected for me to survive, especially since I had officially died for 24 hours. Of course, everyone has heard of those near-death experiences, the ones during which the person who is playing chicken with the grim reaper either sees a bright light or loved ones. For me, it was both.

When I died, the world around me had somehow started to rise and it shimmered around me like heat waves rising to create a mirage before it all fell away completely. It was then that I tumbled with almost weightless ease into the dark and, then, the light.

I remember using my hand to shield my eyes, hoping that it would help somehow, orient me to my new surroundings like a viewfinder, but it was bright, too bright, the light refracting into my dark eyes as a sort of savage assault. Nevertheless, I continued to try to scan my surroundings, looking for the one person that everyone would expect me to look for, the one person that I sacrificed everything for.

I really was expecting at any moment to catch out of the corner of my eye a shiny banner of red hair, darting past like a startled doe diving into the wood, but I would never see that hair, nor would I ever see that green eyed smile, simply because she wouldn't be the one to greet me. She wouldn't bother to greet me.

Instead, who was waiting for me at that platform? Dumbledore, calmly sitting on a bench, popping a lemon drop into his mouth with an almost casual cruelty as the truth of what Lily and I were to one another suddenly clicked together in my mind, like the gears and lens of a large telescope snapping into focus: Childhood friends. And nothing more.

It could be this that caused me to go back, to run away from the land of the dead like a banshee was nipping at my heels because, even though my soul was weary, beaten and bruised like the flesh of an orange, eager to rest, quite literally, in peace, I knew I couldn't go there with nothing to look forward to and nothing good to leave behind.

Nothing good to leave behind.

I smirked bitterly as I thought of the phrase. A near-death experience often changes a person or at least reveals another part of himself that he had hidden for a long time. For me, it was the desire to be a good person with a nice, lovely life, something that seemed to be an impossible dream before my encounter with the snake, but now was a taunting possibility, except that I had the sinking feeling that it wasn't meant to be.

Whenever I smiled or laughed along with everyone else at a joke that someone made in the staff room, I was met with several disapproving looks, like I was in a play and had spoken out of turn, embarrassing everyone around me. It was confusing at first, but as time went on I realized what the problem was. People had this very permanent view of me as a rather unpleasant potions professor turned Byronic hero with all the dark sulkiness and almost romantic bitterness that entailed.

In other words, they had slapped a label on me, satisfied with themselves that they had figured out the mystery and moved on and when I acted against that label, I was betraying them, turning loose the jigsaw puzzle that was my life, revealing some missing pieces that they had misplaced, which destroyed their accomplishment completely. I wasn't a person to them; I was a grotesque caricature acting out of turn and my worst "act out" to date was that I had survived.

I sighed as I looked out across the greenish gray water of the lake, the castle looming overhead, filled with people who purposefully would avoid me because, whether I was gloomy or nice, I scared them.

I picked up a rock and threw it savagely across the lake, not even bothering to try to make the rock skip across the surface, like I had during my first weeks here in an attempt to achieve a sort of Tom Sawyer-ian sense of child-like wonder and fun. I snorted in disgust at my naiveté.

I was doomed to be miserable forever.

"Professor?" I tossed another rock into the lake as Hagrid appeared to the side of me, looking bashful, shy, scared. The edges of my mouth curled, slightly upset.

"Hagrid," I said simply as I tossed another rock into the lake. I then looked at him, waiting for him to go on.

"It's the staff meeting," Hagrid said, as he quickly looked away from my gaze, terrified as ever. "It's in, about five minutes? And I didn't want you to miss it, as you seem, er, preoccupied and all."

The staff meeting. I had completely forgotten it and there was no way I could miss it, especially this one because it was the one during which the staff, like the good little employees we were, were expected to welcome a new addition to our ranks, one Hermione Granger.

I didn't know how to feel about Hermione joining the staff, as I knew her to be just as responsible and intelligent at the rest of the staff here, and I was sure that she would throw herself into the job with the earnest kind of zeal that one would expect of someone her age, a fresh change from having to endure yet another jaded educator. The only thing that I even slightly worried about was what her reaction would be toward me, but even this seemed unworthy of wasting time thinking about:

More than likely, she'd reject me too.

"What's the last thing on the agenda?"

"I'd have to say the upcoming game between the Hufflepuffs and Slytherin. We need to go over safety and protocol."

"Very well."

As Headmistress McGonagall continued to go over the typical safety procedures that were needed for these games, procedures that I could have recited to you sleep deprived, I gazed once more upon Hermione. She was much the same, with a mane of long, wavy brown hair, highlighted with almost invisible strands of gold and copper, big amber eyes with curly, thick eyelashes, and a perfect heart shaped mouth covered in creamy cherry colored lipstick that made her look like she could have been a 1920s flapper, modeling in a print ad for French cigarettes, smiling a cheeky, knowing smile over the curve of her shoulder.

Certainly, her presence ignited some amorous feelings within me, as I couldn't help but think of running my fingers through the forest of curls near the base of her neck while enveloping her plump, sugared cherry lips with my own, but I dismissed those thoughts as being misleading, materialized from my being alone for so long, not because I was harboring feelings all this time for her. No, it could have been anyone of the female persuasion doing this to me, from Lavender Brown to that dumb, young Weasley girl, although I shuddered upon thinking of the latter. No, perhaps not the Weasley girl, but anyone else was up for grabs in my desperation.

It wouldn't be Hermione though. At least that was what I thought as I gazed upon her adult figure, trying to conjure up the picture of her when she attended her first class with me, but I couldn't as the memory of it had dissolved into an untidy blur of color, like an unfocused kaleidoscope. I couldn't remember what she even looked like back then, the only thing really sticking out about the encounter was my cruel comment about her teeth. I gently bit the inside of my cheek as I thought about it, feeling the first flush of guilt about the incident. She didn't deserve my venom, especially since we were both cut of the same cloth, obsessive know-it-alls with our noses buried in books, but back then I couldn't look any further than my own suffering, lashing out like a frightened blind man with a cane… I should have known better.

I looked back up at her sweet face to see saffron colored light from the fire in the staff room hearth flicker across her regular features, her eyes alight with a focused excitement as she quickly scrawled notes in a parchment filled notebook. As she continued to write I watched as she lightly tapped the base of the quill with her finger and I watched as the ink changed from black to red, realizing that she was using a charmed, multi-ink quill to keep her notes even more organized and tidy.

I used a charmed, multi-ink quill on my first day teaching too.

"So, do we have everything settled?" Minerva asked, breaking me out of my thoughts, as she nodded in Professor Sprout's direction, as Professor Sprout was in charge of the minutes during our staff meetings. Professor Sprout nodded in return.

"That seems to be everything."

"Lovely. And Miss Granger?"

Hermione looked up at Minerva, a warm, grandmotherly look gracing Minerva's features. Minerva smiled.

"Welcome back."

Hermione grinned as the rest of the staff mumbled half-hearted greetings as they were too eager to gather their belongings than to greet Hermione properly, not willing to dedicate another moment to the staff meeting. I watched as Hermione's sweet smile slightly flinched at everyone else's tepid response at her being here to teach. It was almost heartbreaking to watch.

She then, as if the world suddenly slowed down, carefully turned her head to look at me, to see if I would be just as unenthusiastic. In the past, I would have just stared at her, perhaps curling the side of my mouth into an unpleasant sneer before leaving, but I didn't do that this time. I couldn't do that. Instead, without any thought to hiding my feelings, I gave her a small, friendly smile in response. She looked surprised, but pleasantly so, as I swept past her.

As I walked past Hermione and saw her lovely, soft-lipped smile, I felt warm, my skin heating up like chlorine. It was a strange, feverish feeling, but it did not feel unpleasant. It felt . . . different. I looked up at Hermione again, her warm eyes boring into mine and as I smiled at her once more, the feverish feeling that was brewing within my body began to blossom like an ink drop curling within the depths of a glass of clear water, infectious.

And it was then that I let my eyes settle on Professor Flitwick, who was still seated at the table, struggling with his large cloth knapsack, stuffing in books and ink with a sloppy urgency.

I don't know why I did it, as I don't act impulsively, but looking back I think it had about as much logic connected with it as the proverbial young boy who pulls on a girl's pigtails to get attention. I wanted her attention.

There were little, torn up pieces of parchment left on the polished oak table, no doubt abandoned by Professor Dean Thomas, Hermione's former classmate, as he had adapted the nervous habit of ripping up the paper into little shreds a few days into his teaching. I usually found it irritating, but at that moment, it offered me an opportunity.

Using my wand, I flicked a piece of paper at Flitwick.

I flicked a piece of paper at Flitwick, which was the height of stupidity, something on par with what that idiot James Potter would have done, but I did it all the same and what's more? I flicked another piece of paper at him, because he'd been barely stunned by the first one.

He quickly looked up, giving me an accusatory stare, at which I looked behind me, then looked back at him, shrugged and said, "I don't know. Someone's throwing stuff."

Hermione suddenly started laughing, her laugh like an ice cream bell, which she tried to stifle with her small, delicate hand, but the damage was done and she couldn't stifle her laughter anyhow. Flitwick got up from the table, obviously irritated, glaring between the two of us and, before he left, he grumbled something that distinctly sounded like "Youths!" which made Hermione laugh even harder and caused me to crack a smile as well.

Flitwick slammed the door behind himself as Hermione dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, smiling at me all the while.

"Welcome back Granger," I said. I then left too. I didn't want to overstay my welcome.

Over the next few weeks, I didn't register Hermione that much, or at least I pretended not to. I liked to see her welcoming smile flint through the halls like a golden ray of sunshine as she guided her students into the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, her lips either covered in a cherry, plum, or honey colored lipstick or this faintly tinted lip balm that smelled of cinnamon. I also liked to see the different kinds of robes that she would wear, dresses that suited pre-Raphaelite witches, princesses, and fairies, with fabrics like slippery silks, feathery velvets in jewel tones, and plush cashmeres as soft as a rabbits ear. The dresses would hug every curve of her hourglass body, which had become pleasantly plump since the war, like Sophia Loren. She now had more of a healthy glow, making her shine so brightly that I wanted to wrap my arms around her small waist, pull her close and bury my face into her sweetly scented curls, but that wasn't meant to be. At the time, anyway.

We became friends instead. It happened when I was sitting in the small, private room in the south tower that I had discovered during my third year. I was sitting on the stone arch of the window, looking down at the school grounds, the students scurrying around like ants dressed in prep school clothing. I was smoking my Gauloises cigarettes, blowing the curling smoke out the window and thinking about Hermione in the same, strange, foggy way that I used to think about Lily so long ago, picturing her as the sweet, pleasant, perfect girlie-girl that I knew her to be. I liked girlie-girls like Lily, girls who always had a kind word to give, that were never too pushy and were popular among the others because of their sweet, girlish sensibilities. I took a long, dreamy drag from the cigarette that I was currently smoking as I thought about Hermione. I was falling in love with her.

"Crap!"

I jumped from my daydreaming as I saw Hermione run into my room, slamming the wooden door behind her. She leaned against the door, breathing heavily, sweaty strands of hair sticking to the sides of her face as I tried to fan out the offending smoke with one of the books I kept in the room.

"Miss Granger, are you okay?" I asked her as I tossed my cigarette out the window, afraid of accidentally offending her in case she didn't approve of cigarettes, and she certainly seemed the type. Hermione barely nodded at me. Her eyes were wide, flashing and her cheeks were flushed a bright pink, giving me the overwhelming need to protect her.

"I'm fine, it's just, crap!" I winced as she cussed yet again, slightly crumbling the angelic picture that I had of her earlier. "All those students. They can be so rude and obnoxious and I just had to get away from them, just for a little bit. Cretins. I hope they all kill each other."

I stood up from my place on the window, trying not to smile at her last few sentences, as I walked toward her. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shook her head slightly. "No. I'll be fine. I just needed a short break before I cursed one of them into next year."

But I still wanted to help her, perhaps storm on in there on her behalf, set those students straight. "What exactly did they do?"

"It was a pair of Gryffindors," She explained, "They were pulling a prank on a first year, this frail little slip of a boy. Justin Reynolds? It was a jinx that pulled his pants down, showing his underwear to everyone."

My mouth turned into a vicious snarl, as the combination of Gryffindors and pant pulling pranks pushed several of my buttons, for obvious reasons. How dare they.

"Are they still in your class room?" I asked as I made my way toward the door. Hermione rolled her eyes and placed herself between me and the door.

"I'm taking care of it," she said, looking me in the eye, with absolutely no fear, unlike everyone else at the castle. "I don't need you to ride in there and save me."

I then started to become angry with her. I was a prideful man, too much sometimes, but I still didn't like my help being rejected, especially when it was laced with such accusations.

"You Gryffindors," I spat at her, my previous affection for her quickly evaporating like water spilled on a summer sidewalk. "You've always been too stubborn to ask for help. I've been teaching for far longer than you have. I am going in there and I am going to take care of this for you. Do you understand?"

Instead of flinching, Hermione gave me a wry, cheeky smirk of a smile, batted her eyelashes at me and said in a high-pitched, teeny-bopper voice, "Ooohhhh! Ever since I was a little girl, I've always dreamed of having some tall, dark, not handsome man sweeping in and saving me from the overwhelming torment of two third year boys because little old me just couldn't handle it on my own!"

She then started to laugh uncontrollably as I stared at her, confused, stunned, and blinking profusely.

And just like that I stopped falling in love with her, and started to like her immensely. I began to laugh as well as I pulled my pack of cigarettes out of my pocket.

"Bloody hell Granger," I said as I tapped out a cigarette for her to take. "I didn't know you had it in you."

"I guess you just don't scare me anymore, especially since your uncharacteristic paper flicking moment," She explained as she grinned sheepishly and took the cigarette. I flushed slightly.

"And, besides," She continued as she leaned forward to light her cigarette while I flicked on my Zippo lighter. "There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

"Agreed," I said, re-pocketing the lighter as she inhaled a mouth full of smoke. "And where are your cretins now?"

"Tied to their desk chairs, I expect," She said sweetly, blowing out smoke to the side of me. "Especially since I was the one who cast an unbreakable bonding charm on them in the first place." I snorted in laughter.

"Physical punishment?" I said in my typical, silky voice. "You cheeky girl."

We then giggled again as we continued to smoke together like delinquent school children whose friendships were being forged.

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