Fifteen years after the Second Great Wizarding War, in the deep dungeons of Hogwarts, black robes billowed and snapped as the potions professor patrolled the classroom.
The students worked diligently and tried to remain invisible to their professor's attention, which created an intense quiet—the professor's favorite kind of classroom atmosphere.
A loud crash broke through the silence and the black robes dove to the source of the sound.
"Miss Taylor, the cauldron is more useful in the upright position and on your work station."
"Sorry, Professor Granger, I don't know what happened—"
"Yes, a careless attitude pairs well with volatile, expensive potions ingredients." Hermione Granger looked closer at the upset cauldron and the materials scattered around it. "A happy accident it seems. You were about to boil red snake scales with elm wood shavings, instead of the instructed willow bark." Hermione addressed the class without raising her voice, "Can anyone tell me what would have happened if Miss Taylor succeeded in her mission?"
A hand shot into the air and trembled in anticipation. Hermione scanned the room and the faces that studiously avoided her gaze. She let out an exaggerated sigh. "Yes, Mr. Longbottom?"
"The gas resulting from the combination would have caused us to leak fluids out every orifice, Professor Granger."
"Ten points to Ravenclaw. Mr. Longbottom, please help Miss Taylor in cleaning up. She will be assisting you for the remainder of the class, and, hopefully, learn about grace and respect for potions-making."
The admonished student bit her lip and practically threw herself to the floor to wipe up the mess. Longbottom cast a stasis over his brew and rushed over to help.
"I don't know what happened," the young witch whispered once or twice to her classmate.
"You were lucky," he whispered back quickly.
The class looked on until Hermione narrowed her eyes at them in annoyance. The focused calm swept in once again. She whipped around, letting a small smile slip onto her face and the robes fly outward a bit more than necessary to conclude the disruption.
Hermione strode into her apartments later that evening, undid the severe bun trapping her unruly hair, and carefully released the line of buttons that secured her in her tailored robes. She continued the ritual of undressing until she was bare and sliding into the waiting hot water of her tub. She'd told the house elves that she didn't need to be waited on and, as politely as she could, banned them from her rooms.
"Thank Merlin for their persistence," she breathed out slowly. Her mind drifted for a while, and her eyes focused mainly on the candles that crowded the shelves around the bathroom. She had considered, upon first moving in, to use candelabras that provided more light and took up less space. She decided she rather liked how Severus Snape had originally planned the bathroom. To survive as long as he did, Snape had to consider everything, think through possibilities, and he was inarguably smarter than most everyone Hermione had ever met, she was sure. So, she reasoned, there must be grounds to kept the multitude of candles positioned just so.
The same thought pervaded her decisions on making the apartment her own. In fact, she kept pretty much everything the same.
It had taken the better part of a decade to repair the castle, to purge wayward curses and burn marks after the battle, but the dungeons remained mostly untouched. McGonagall had given her the tour of Slughorn's old rooms, but Hermione, left to her own devices, wandered one level lower and found Snape's apartments sealed off. When Hermione descended the stairs into her would-be rooms, she felt like an explorer stumbling upon a forgotten tomb. A hollow ache flooded her chest, and, perhaps she shouldn't, but she would live in these rooms.
All wizards knew of Snape's sacrifice, and Hermione couldn't reason why his dwelling place should remain quarantined.
If Severus Snape were to rise out of the grave and blew to his rooms one day, fed up with the fact that the students weren't nearly as afraid of the potions' professor as they ought to be, he would feel mostly at home. Hermione could imagine the sneer on his face as he looked at the fictional novels crowding his potions books; spotted his personal journals laid out across the large oak desk; felt the soft, thick rugs that covered the cold dungeon floors. Her mind whispered onward, what if he saw her languishing in his tub?
Likely, he'd hex her into the grave he'd just vacated.
Goosebumps raced down her arms, and she took that as a sign to quit her bath. She dressed quickly, grabbed one of those damning potions journals, and folded up on one end of the sitting room couch. The spiky script welcomed her, contrary to the infuriating project being written about. It was the very last potion in the very last journal that Severus had ever written in.
It was a unique potion. It took up almost half of the journal's pages, but it was unfinished. It didn't have a title, and its primary function would be to act as anti-venom for magically dark snake bites. Hermione wasn't sure if it was to be a paste or a liquid. She was fairly certain the color would be orange or red. Severus had gotten as far as constructing the potion to resist paralysis and cardiac arrest. He hadn't gotten far enough to save both the victim's mind and senses.
Hermione didn't fault Severus for not making the potion, though it had taken her awhile to settle her feelings about it. She wouldn't have bothered trying to live if it was at the cost of her mind—the thing that defined her—either.
The other part of her was tormented. The ego-centric, righteous part of her was angry at Severus for not taking what he could. If he were alive, in any sense of the word, Hermione would have been relentless in her search for a cure, a remedy that would wake him up so that he could haunt the depths of the school once more.
"Severus," she spoke aloud to no one, and not for the first time, "I could have helped you…" she trailed off. No, he would not appreciate the quibbling sentiments of a well-meaning Gryffindor. "Sorry," she apologized to the empty room. "But I really wish you had asked for help. Certainly there is a scenario in which you could have lived."
Hermione pondered whether it was healthy to hold congress with a dead man.
Severus stretched his legs in front of him as he lounged on the winged-back chair adjacent to the couch and his successor. She furrowed her brow and nibbled on her quill, as she always did. Severus enjoyed watching her puzzle out his work. Admittedly, he had been enraged the first time he saw the brighter third of the Golden Trio touch his notebooks. He had been dangerously close to making his celestial body semitransparent and warning Hermione Granger away from his writings. He'd stopped when he realized that he would never get a moment's peace if the insatiable Know-It-All knew he was dead, but not gone.
He'd taken to wandering the castle when Granger took the liberty of reading his journals. He didn't need to know her immature thoughts about his life's work. Eventually, though, he became curious. Months of walking the same halls he'd been walking his entire life would turn anyone to curiosity, so he began staying in his apartments.
Granger took her own notes about the things she read, and they weren't completely daft, he admitted, as he hovered over her shoulder. He was intrigued when Granger showed signs of going through his entire collection. Good, he'd thought, my work inarguably gets better as the collection goes on.
"Perhaps the apparatuses need to be different. Stone instead of iron? Loose instead of rigid?" Granger asked aloud.
She needs to stop doing that.
Severus noticed that Granger was talking to herself frequently these days. Well, talking to me, he supposed.
She was beginning to have one-sided dialogue in the classroom, too. It was amusing. The students were wary, but they hadn't quite realized that the notorious Severus Snape was the intended audience.
Granger gasped and wrote furiously. Severus bent his knees and sat forward.
Her reading his last potion made him anxious. He touched his neck, torn-up and incomplete. For the first time in his life or death, he was unsure. He had wanted to live, even though his death was a just end; it was appropriate for the wretched things he'd done. But now, there was a chance that one of his brightest pupils would uncover the secret to the formula that would've saved him. He didn't want remorse to be the lingering emotion for the rest of eternity. He considered, again, tossing the journal into the fire.
Hell, she'd taken enough notes that she'd just start from scratch.
A sigh escaped him. Granger looked up directly at him, right through him. Her hair was damp, but slowly frizzing. Her lips were chapped from over-worrying them. Her large eyes seemed to meet his own, and the urge to make himself known nudged at Severus's conscious. But he did not. Granger blinked and continued to work for the next hour, undisturbed.
Severus wandered over to the book case and cringed at the titles of some of the literature that Granger indulged in from time to time, until he heard a book snapped closed.
"Did you look into Poesy of Roman Flora and Fauna? It feels right. There is a book in library that references it; though I think the original text is rare, as are the plants it describes. If it is referenced in Herbologies of the Past, then that means all the plants I'm thinking of are extinct, which would be entirely frustrating." She made one last note in her own journal, stretched and readied for bed. Severus tidied up his area as well. She used to panic and wonder at how the room was orderly after she had stormed through, but now, she hardly noticed. Severus had become quite good at maneuvering objects silently when Granger's back was turned.
Severus swept out of the way as she came over to the desk to stow away the journals. She ran her finger over the spines, and spoke sadly, as if she'd been having a quiet conversation all along. "Well, wherever you are, Severus, I hope you are at peace."
She rubbed her hand over her eyes, tiredly, exhausted, tucked herself into bed, and fell asleep a moment later.
Severus blew out a candle that she tended to leave lit. "Indeed, Miss Granger."