I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the characters I have chosen to torment in this fic. They all are the rightful property of J.K. Rowling.
AN: I'm going to say up front that I'm sure I messed up on most of the British slang, I apologize for that. Feel free to correct me or offer suggestions. I also probably messed up the Spanish at the bottom, I used a translator so don't shoot me, just give a correction.
I want to thank Loten for turning me onto this particular pairing and hope y'all enjoy reading my attempt at writing.
Ring...ring...ri... "Hello?"
"Uh. Hi? Is this Serverus Snape?" a hesitant female voice came over the line.
"Possibly. It depends on who's asking." He said warily, not used to people just up and calling him.
"My name is Hermione Granger. I moved into you're old apartment, and I guess the post hasn't started going to your new place yet because I have some post for you."
"Just send it back tomorrow. You can write 'forward to new address' on it and it'll get to me." he growled.
"Well.." she said a little uncertainly. "Some of it looks a bit important and one says open immediately. I can just run it over to you...if you're busy or something."
Severus rolled his eyes, glad that she couldn't see him for some reason. "I'll be over in a bit. I have to run a couple errands in that direction anyway."
"Ok." she sounded a bit more chipper, as if glad to have completed her good deed for the day. "I'm still unpacking stuff, so just come on in when you get here."
"I'll do that."
An hour later saw him climbing the front steps to his old apartment. It wasn't a bad place, he'd actually enjoyed his time here. He'd just needed something a bit closer to his job, which had moved across the city. He knocked on the frame of the screen door. Despite her invitation to come right in, he didn't want to scare her.
"I'm in the backroom." Came the female voice from the telephone. "Grab a box when you come through, please."
He shrugged and stepped inside. He shook his head, amused at the dozens of stacks of boxes plied in what had used to be his living room. He grabbed a small box and grunted as he hefted it up from the floor.
"What do you have in here? Bricks?" he asked, moving down the hall to what used to be his office.
"Books. Most likely. If it's really heavy."
He stepped into the room and saw most of the walls taken up by floor to ceiling bookshelves, and a rather young woman kneeling at the foot of one stacking books on a low shelf. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that only barely kept it out of her face. She was wearing a rather small black t-shirt and a pair of low rise jeans.
She smiled up at him and waved vaguely to the rest of the room. "Pick a spot and set it down."
Once the box was on the floor, she stood and brushed her hands off on the legs of her jeans before offering one for a shake. "Hermione Granger. And you must be Mr. Severus Snape."
"Indeed." He replied, shaking her hand briefly. "I like what you've done with the room."
"Thanks. It was like the builder wanted a room for an office or library in this place." She tucked a stray pice of hair behind her ear and gestured towards the door. "Want something to drink?"
"I suppose." He said, feeling a slight twist in his gut as she smiled brightly at him.
"Cool. I have milk, tea, water, some sports drink, and some kind of fruit punch stuff my mom foisted off on me." She said, leading the way to the kitchen.
"Water will be fine. So you got anyone else helping you with this mess?" He gestured to the stacks in the living room.
"Not really. My mom said she'd come over after work, but that's not until later. And my dad's gonna be even later, if he manages to show up. He tends to work later than mum." She shrugged and filled a glass with water for him and poured herself some of the sports drink. "It's mostly books anyway. I gotta get them organized in the other room, and that's not something mum or dad are good at. I mean they know how to organize stuff, they just don't get my system. Which not many people get anyway. I had a couple friends that said they'd try and come help, but I'm sure I'm gonna get a couple calls in a couple hours with some lame excuse about how they can't come help. Which is probably a good thing since they'd just get in the way themselves." She smiled and shook her head slowly at the thought.
He sipped the water. Then shrugged his shoulders. "Would you like some help? At least with the moving of stuff. I don't have much else to do this afternoon."
"Sure." She gave him another smile. "That'd be great. I can do it by myself, but company is always appreciated."
Hermione led the way back to the room she was setting up as her library, amazed that Severus had offered to help her unpack. She'd only really expected him to stop by, grab his mail, and leave. But it was nice and she hadn't lied when she said Harry and Ron were probably gonna call off on helping her out. She grabbed another box of books on her way through the living room, giving him a chance to grab one too. She smiled at his small grunt of effort, though she mostly hid it by walking in front of him towards the back room.
"So what'd you have in here when this was your place?" she asked conversationally as she set the box on the floor and knelt by her previous box of books.
"This was my office, actually. It had the best lighting for it." He looked around curiously. "But this is definitely a good room for a library too. Where would you like me to start?"
"Open a box and tell me what's in it." She said, stacking books on the bottom shelf.
"Looks like Hemingway...Shakespeare...Dante...Jane Austin."
"The classics go on the shelf in that corner." She pointed at the other end of her wall of shelves. "Just start putting them on the shelf left to right from the top down. I'll have to go back and put the final touches on it later, cause my friends have no idea how to pack at all." She chuckled as she went back to work.
"You don't seem to have a high opinion of your friends." He sounded amused as he stacked books on the high shelf.
"I do. I just happen to know that I can't expect much out of them if they're not suited for a particular task. Like Harry, I would trust him at my back in a fight or to get me into trouble. Especially if Ron's around too. And Ron is real good with strategy, but totally hopeless when it comes to dealing with women." She smiled ruefully. "And I'm pretty sure neither of them would have done half as well in school if I hadn't been around to help them."
"So you're in college then?" He asked nonchalantly as he scanned the titles of the books he was slowly filling the shelf with.
"Yeah, I start my second year in the fall. I convinced my parents it'd be easier for me to focus on my studies if I was closer to campus. So what do you do?"
"I'm a chemistry teacher actually. Mostly high school, but I do a two month accelerated course in the summer at the college."
"That must be fun." She said, moving to the next box. "I was contemplating doing a couple summer courses, but figured that it'd be easier to move if I wasn't trying to get to class on time. And homework would have been a nightmare."
She started unpacking a box of college texts onto the bottom half of the shelf next to his.
"It actually is most days, since I teach the advanced chemistry classes, the students tend to be a bit more mature and not as likely to annoy me." He smiled and continued to shelve the books. "So I take it you like to read a bit."
She blushed and ducked her head. "Yeah, just a bit. My friends are always teasing me about it. Saying I'll never find a husband if I always have my nose in a book." She shrugged. "But since neither of them have settled on one girl yet, they don't really have a leg to stand on."
"I see. Well, it sounds like they don't know much of anything anyway. Because plenty of people spend time in bookstores and libraries." He paused and gave her a look of surprise. "I take it your friends don't know you own this book, do they?"
Hermione looked up at the thick volume in his hands and blushed even brighter. "Uh...no they don't. My aunt got that for me as a gag gift of sort when I graduated high school. Said everyone needs to know 'how to get the job done properly'."
"Intelligent woman, your aunt." He said with a soft chuckle.
After that they lapsed into a companionable silence as they slowly filled the shelves with books. The only sounds were of them opening boxes and the whisper of the books sliding onto the shelves.
Severus was amazed at the variety of topics and genres in attendance on her shelves. She seemed to have everything from classic literature to science texts to modern fiction and poetry. At some point she'd turned on the light so they didn't strain their eyes as the sun moved down behind some of the surrounding buildings.
"I must say I have never seen quite so many books outside of a library or a bookstore." He said as he slid the last book onto its shelf.
Hermione shrugged sheepishly. "I've just always liked books, and have found most of them to be useful at one point or another."
"What degree are you working towards?"
"My parents want me to be a doctor of some kind, but I was kind of thinking that I'd do a bit of good in the government." She shrugged.
"Your folks not want a politician in the family? I find that hard to believe. My parents would have been ecstatic if I'd done something more than being a high school chemistry teacher."
"But teachers are always needed." She said with a smile. "You wanna stick around for dinner? Since you were so kind to stay and help me unpack. I was thinking of doing Chinese or maybe pizza."
Severus shook his head. "I'll stay, but there aren't any good Chinese or pizza places that deliver here. If you like Mexican though, there's a nice place around the corner that makes a great burrito."
She thought for a moment before nodding. "That sounds good. Thanks. You wanna order? I'll go clear some space in the living room for us to sit down."
He nodded and smiled as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number for the restaurant. "We want it delivered, or you wanna walk over and pick it up?" he asked, while waiting for someone to answer the phone.
"We can pick it up. It'll be good to check out some of the neighborhood."
He nodded and turned a little as the phone was finally answered. "Hola, Josè. Es Severus. Necesito dos burritos para la recogida. Vente minutos? Gracis. Hasta luego." He hung up and turned back to Hermione who was looking at him in amazement.
"Wow. I don't think I've ever met anyone that spoke Spanish fluently."
He shrugged. "I mostly picked it up from Josè actually. So I know more street Spanish rather than the stuff they teach in school."
"Cool. Can you say anything else?"
"Tu eres muy hermosa."
"What's that mean?"
He smiled at her. "I'll tell you later." He glanced down at his watch. "If you want, we can start walkin' towards the restaurant. I can show you few of the sights."
She smiled and nodded. "Sure. I think my folks will like it that I have someone to show me the sights and who's willing to help me unpack." She let him lead the way out the door and locked it behind them. "So anything I should know about the neighbors? Am I living next door to family with a bunch of small kids?"
"Well, as long as no one else has moved out in the last couple of weeks, Mrs. Hambit in the unit on the end lives by herself with her two cats. I used to shovel her front walk for her in the winter. There was a younger couple next to her, didn't see much of them, but they were pretty quiet. And I think there was a rather well off young man in the one next to you. I say well off cause his parents always looked a bit snooty when they dropped by for visits. But he was pretty quiet too, hadn't lived there too long, maybe six months before I moved out."
"Cool. Maybe I'll see about taking over the snow service for you." She said with a smile. "Or con Ron or Harry into doing it."
A short while later they arrived at the little Mexican restaurant and picked up their food. Severus must have been a regular customer because the two guys behind the counter were happy to see him and their conversation seemed to be rather friendly, though Hermione wasn't able to catch half of what they said.
After they finished eating, Severus walked her back to her place. "So, I know I just stopped by to grab my mail, but this was kinda fun. Would you mind if I stopped by again?" He asked, sounding a little nervous.
She smiled and blushed a little. "Sure. I don't start classes for another couple of weeks, so I'll probably be here most of that time getting this place in order. Drop by whenever."
"Cool. I'll see you around then."
AN: Thank you for reading this, I shall have another chapter up later in the week.