They never speak, never exchange more than a passing nod on the staircases that seem to delight in nothing more than moving the erstwhile couple towards each other. In the old days, they would have lingered during every chance meeting; then, there was never any lack for words, though if he were in a romantic mood there sometimes was a lack of oxygen.
Since she cannot bring herself to speak to him, she listens to him. For the first time in his life, he is popular with the staff and pupils alike, and he demonstrates a patience with his well-wishers that she finds strangely enchanting. He is still the master of sarcasm dressed in silk, but his witticisms lack the old venom. He is happy to be home, she realizes.
Renewing her friendship with Ginny reminds her of why she and the fiery redhead never were very close to begin with. For she is strict and strait-laced where Ginny is all charm and charisma, and she knows that her inner light is a dull thing next to Ginny's obvious sheen. She is Melanie to Ginny's Scarlett O'Hara, and the worst is that Ginny has a decided resemblance to a certain long-gone love of the headmaster's. Watching Professor Weasley's head bend closer to his as they discuss their shared Defense classes, the Muggle Studies professor feels her heart rate accelerating, her palms sweating, her stomach tying in a Gordian knot. When will my penance end? she wonders.
She visits her parents on the weekend, and they make banana pancakes, her father disgustingly spreading his breakfast with marmite instead of butter.
"Dear?" her mother addresses her tentatively. "Are there any nice professors at the school? Anyone who sparks your interest?"
She hesitates, which her mother takes as a promising sign.
"Hermione?"
She bursts into tears.
/
Enough, she decides as she appears with a crack! outside the Hogwarts gates. She is a woman of action, not of moping. She will make a plan for the next year and devote herself to her students in the interim. For she will not remain here a day longer than the last day of the summer term; she has her limits.
She trudges—no, marches—up to the school and up, up, up to the headmaster's tower where the first staff meeting of the month is to be held. She enters the circular office with her head held high and slips unobtrusively into a chair next to Neville Longbottom, who will be taking over for Professor Sprout in the winter term. He greets her with a lopsided smile. Dear Neville, she smiles back, feeling a rush of warmth. The two of them join the general conversation about the upcoming Halloween feast.
"Wouldn't it be nice to make it a ball this year?" Ginny proposes, winking at the dour headmaster. "To celebrate the return of one of Hogwarts' finest?"
He sniffs. "The less attention that my return draws, the happier I will be. However," he pauses thoughtfully, "a ball is not a terrible idea. The school is in dire need of additional funds, now that there is such a large influx of children who were born at the end of the war. We could open the event to the wizarding world for a fee, make it a class reunion or some such nonsense."
"Wonderful idea!" Professor Flitwick jumps from the chair on which he has been standing, his head still reaching no higher than the headmaster's ear. "Brilliant, Professor Weasley!"
"We will need someone to take charge of the planning," the headmaster begins.
Ginny interjects, "There is no one better suited to a task like this than our Hermione!"
The young professor startles. "Oh, no, I couldn't possibly," she says, distressed.
Hagrid nudges her from behind, and she nearly falls out of her seat from the force of his movement. "'Course you can, 'ermione! Never 'eard of a thing you couldn't do!"
"It is settled, then," the headmaster proclaims. His eyes meet hers for the first time in years, but they are unreadable.
Later, as the meeting adjourns, she overhears Ginny asking, "Will you invite the Malfoys to the ball, sir?"
"Seeing as I owe Narcissa Malfoy my life, that is a reasonable assumption to make. Why do you ask?"
"Lucius Malfoy is singlehandedly responsible for the perfectly horrible first year that I spent at Hogwarts," Ginny replies. "I like to know where he will be at all times so that I can avoid him."
He chuckles, the sound rusty from disuse. "You will be glad to know that Lucius lost most of the spring in his step when he and Narcissa were placed on probation following the war. You have nothing to fear from him. Draco has in fact become quite a subdued young man."
"I heard his fiancée passed away very suddenly."
"Yes, it was most unexpected." He frowns. "Draco has not been the same since."
"It must be hard to lose someone you love so much, someone you expected to spend the rest of your days with. I cannot imagine what he must have endured."
The headmaster is quiet for a moment. "I hope you never have to experience anything like it, Professor Weasley." A strange, bitter smile twists his lips. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past."
Ginny smiles uncertainly at him, clearly confused. Meanwhile, the Muggle Studies professor leaves the room with a bounce in her step. It seems that the headmaster has been dipping into her seventh years' assigned reading.
/
It appears that she is indeed the best choice for putting together the Halloween ball. During the next Hogsmeade weekend, she sends her eldest students out into the streets of Hogsmeade to publicize the event. She writes letters full of solicitude and thinly veiled pleas for donations: to Harry, to the school governors, to Minerva, even to Minister Shacklebolt. She works with enthusiastic Professors Flitwick and Hagrid to decorate the Great Hall with enormous, floating pumpkins and candy stations. She cannot decide if the taxidermied Acromantula that Hagrid pawned off of a banshee in the Hog's Head is too sinister a touch for the entrance hall; Ron certainly wouldn't be able to handle it.
The night begins without a hitch. Witches and wizards in fancy dress sail happily into the castle via the spooky boats that Hagrid usually reserves for the first years on the first day of term. The Hogwarts ghosts flit gloomily among the guests, adding local color to the event. Lining the Great Hall are barrels of pumpkin juice—spiked with stronger stuff for the older guests.
She has challenged her students to a Muggle fancy dress contest, and she is amused to see the products of her students' creativity. Little first years bump into each other, covered in white sheets to represent the Muggle notion of ghosts. (Sir Nick and the Bloody Baron are most offended by this.) The older students have more intricate costumes: superheroes, historical figures, literary characters, even a human-sized television set. Distinguished Hogwarts alumni mill among the students, asking questions about their costumes and complimenting her about her handling of the event. She is very happy.
Professor McGonagall seeks her out to join in the general congratulations. "My dear, everyone tells me you are responsible for this remarkable turnout! I am so proud." The two women hug.
"Oh, Minerva, I am so glad to see you! How are you enjoying your retirement?"
"Retirement agrees with me." The older woman cracks a grin. "I've been seeing a great deal of Aberforth Dumbledore lately, as a matter of fact."
"Minerva." The two women turn at the sound of a new voice.
"Severus," Minerva gasps, looking rather shaken. Standing before her, the headmaster looks impossibly tall, impossibly dashing. He is wearing his usual full black, but he has conceded to the spirit of the evening by donning a Georgian-era Muggle ensemble. It suits him better than it has any right to, both women think resentfully.
He nods at them both but remains quiet. His foot taps gently on the floor, in time with the beat of the Weird Sisters' latest song that is blaring from the makeshift stage Professor Flitwick has conjured for the occasion. He is dangerous, the younger woman thinks. At that moment, he reminds her of nothing more than a snake lying in wait for its prey.
At a loss, Minerva looks uneasily between the pair of former lovers. "I was ever so surprised to learn that you are the mysterious Professor Prince, Severus."
"A pleasant surprise, I hope."
"Of course. The school is doing marvelously well. Just look at Hermione's students tonight! You do the school credit, both of you."
"I'm glad I can count on your support," he replies stiffly but not ungraciously. His ex-fiancée gazes at him apprehensively. He wheels toward her abruptly. "You have been standing on the sidelines all evening. Do you not dance?"
In her most deeply buried memories, she spins around the circular office in his arms. He has charmed a Muggle radio, tuned to a station that plays classics, to adapt to Hogwarts' magical network. Sinatra croons, the headmaster leads, she melts.
Returning to the present, she hears Minerva say proudly, "Hermione has been fielding the admiration of the masses this evening. It's no wonder she hasn't had any time to take a turn about the room!"
"Indeed," the headmaster responds. He is about to say more when Ginny appears at his elbow. "I was looking for a 'Prince,'" she says playfully, setting a plastic crown, borrowed from one of the seventh years, atop his head.
"That crown would be better suited for you, princess," he retorts, eyeing Ginny's form-fitting fancy dress outfit: a replica of Grace Kelly's royal wedding gown. The two of them look remarkable standing together: tall, indomitable, aristocratic.
Princess. The Muggle Studies professor's mood deflates swiftly. "I must go," she murmurs hastily. She can hear Ginny calling after her in distress, but she does not stop in her flight up, up, up seven flights of stairs.
/
The repaired Room of Requirement is not the gray room, but her mind is too muddled to note the lack of the particular atmosphere that makes the gray room so special to her. She collapses onto the floor, her body wracked with an ineffable pain. Finally, finally he had begun to acknowledge her, but it was already over. He has a new princess, she thinks. She suspects that she will only ever have the one prince.
"Hermione?"
"Neville?" She sits up, unwinding sinuously from the heap that she had been in on the floor. Her old school friend watches her silently. "How did you get in here?"
He shrugs. "I saw you leave the Great Hall. It looked like you needed a friend. The Room of Requirement has always been kind enough to let me in when I wished."
She offers an unhappy smile. He sinks down onto the floor next to her, continuing, "You want to hear something funny?"
She nods.
"Our final year at Hogwarts, the one after the war—I've never seen you happier than you were then," he says hesitantly. "And, ironically, I've never seen you unhappier than in the first few weeks back here. Although you have been much closer to the old Hermione in the past month."
"That isn't funny, Neville," she says petulantly.
"Funny wasn't the right word, I suppose," he mutters. "Anyway, I can't stand to see you this way. I've been thinking lately about something that happened during our seventh year."
"Hm?"
"I was climbing the stairs near the headmaster's office, meaning to meet with him about some Head Boy business. I saw him at the head of the stairs, but his back was to me. I sped up, and then I saw something that almost sent me falling down the way I'd come."
"What?"
"He was kissing you, Hermione. And you were letting him."
She sighs. "We were dating."
"What?"
"And what of it?" she demands, angry rather than sad for the first time since those halcyon days. "I was of age; he was cleared of all charges. We were in love—"
"But," Neville begins, then stops. "What about Harry's mum?"
"Harry's mum!" she answers passionately. "I wish I'd never heard of her. I wish—" she stops with a sigh.
"Are you still in love with him?"
"Even if I were, it doesn't matter. He has Harry's mum's memory, and Ginny, who basically is the reincarnation of Harry's mum. There's no room for me in that equation."
"Oh, Hermione," Neville says sadly. "I don't understand how all this came to pass, but I'm terribly sorry."
She scoots closer to her friend and places her head on his shoulder. "Do you think they're a couple?" she asks, giving voice to her deepest fear.
"You're closer to Ginny than I am," he confesses. "And I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm still too afraid of him to scrutinize anything he does. He does seem closer to her than to any other staff member, but they are teaching together."
"He's rich now, and he's a widely respected war hero," she whispers. "Ginny is a good person, but she has always had a weakness for that sort of thing. Look at how she pursued Harry for all those years."
"And she has always been successful at getting a man's attention," Neville says slightly bitterly, recalling the first time he attempted to complete his seventh year, when he and Ginny would sit together in the Gryffindor common room, plotting to steal the sword of Gryffindor from the headmaster's office. He had fancied himself in love with the righteous, rabidly inventive witch, but she had been holding a candle for Harry Potter.
"The only thing I don't understand," he resumes after a pause, "is what could possibly attract Ginny to him." He shudders.
She pulls away and bestows upon him a headmaster-worthy glare.
/
As the November chill sets in, she studiously avoids Ginny and the headmaster, and she throws herself headlong into lesson planning. Neville provides silent support, taking the seat next to her at most meals and escorting her to and from staff meetings. When Ginny manages the rare feat of sitting next to her, she devotes herself to the task of finishing her meal as rapidly as possible, hoping to leave the table early.
On Christmas morning, the Great Hall is quiet. The four long House tables have been replaced with a single ten-person table, accounting for the few students and faculty members who remain at the school for the holidays. Halfway through a letter from George Weasley as she slips into one of the few available seats, she does not realize that the person immediately to her left is the headmaster.
"I didn't realize you were planning to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays, Professor," he says smoothly. She starts, the letter dropping into her mug of hot cocoa.
"Damn!" she cries, fishing out the sopping wet letter. "That will leave a stain."
"An understatement if there ever was one," he replies, his lips twitching. "That looks completely unreadable."
"I suppose it means I can feign lack of knowledge of the Weasleys' New Year's party," she confides. "You shall have to back me up if Molly Weasley decides to send me a Howler for not making an appearance."
"I shall do no such thing. If I have to go, then I have no scruples in insisting that everyone else attend and suffer with me."
"You're going?"
"Professor Weasley invited me last week."
"Ah." She wishes that he and Ginny would own up to their relationship and put her out of her misery. Even when she and he had been an item, he had flat-out refused to visit her family at their home.
"I have not seen Arthur and Molly in many years," he says. "Unlike most others, they were always kind to me at the Order meetings during the war."
Unaccountably, her eyes fill with tears. "I do miss them. I haven't spoken to them in years, either."
"Professor Granger! Will you pull a Christmas cracker with me?" a small third year interrupts.
"Me too!" adds another child, followed by a chorus of others.
She must look overwhelmed, for the headmaster decides to rescue her. "Mr. Prewett, Professor Granger is busy with her letter. Hand me the cracker."
The boy is alarmed. "But, sir, there is nothing in the rules that forbids Christmas crackers, and—"
"I haven't pulled a Christmas cracker since the days of Professor Dumbledore," the headmaster says briskly. "You, young man, have been granted the dubious distinction of sharing in this momentous occasion."
The boy's eyes brighten, and the other children crowd around him and the dark professor as they each grab an end of the cracker.
"Thank you," she murmurs to the man next to her, but her gratitude is drowned out by the bang that the cracker makes as it tears in half, giving birth to a disgruntled little pygmy puff.
"Oh!" the girls coo. "What will you name him, Bobby?"
"Prince," the boy decides, scooping his sneering new pet into his pocket. "He looks like you, sir," he explains apologetically before scampering away to evade the headmaster's wrath.
"Spoken like a true Gryffindor," the headmaster remarks wryly. She giggles next to him, and for that shining moment before she remembers Ginny, the world is not too much with her.
"Fancy a walk?" the unwelcome subject of her thoughts asks, copper hair fanning tidily outward from under a warm knitted cap. She looks up at Ginny slowly, loath to quit the warmth of the Great Hall.
"Ginevra," the headmaster begins, exasperated. "Why weren't you at breakfast?"
"Must I report my every action to you?" she retorts teasingly.
"Well, I am the headmaster …" his voice trails off.
"Oh, pish posh! Come, the weather is lovely. Hermione, you must join us! I won't take no for an answer."
"All right," she says, surprising herself. It simply does not do to be alone on Christmas day, she reasons.
"Excellent!" Ginny says happily, pulling her up from her chair. "Let's find you a coat and a woolly jumper! Do you still have the one that mum made for the Christmas after the war?"
The headmaster snorts. "The one dotted with basilisk eyes? Not one of Molly's best works."
"Who wouldn't want to be reminded of surviving a bloody great snake by the skin of one's own ingenuity?" Ginny defends her mother. Recalling his own narrow escape from a snake, the headmaster shudders. "How do you know about that jumper, anyhow?"
"What, pray tell, is that monstrosity?" he asks her, gaping at the black wool interspersed with deep red, menacing eyes.
"It's the annual Weasley jumper," she replies happily, tugging the offending article over her curls and slipping her arms into the sleeves. "After seven years of sending these, I imagine Mrs. Weasley tired of knitting book shapes onto them. Do you like it?" she twirls, the form-fitting top showing off her lithe figure to advantage.
His eyes widen. "It is not … objectionable, but I think I like it better off." He reaches for her, lifting the hem.
"Prince, you're pulling up more than just the jumper!"
"Am I? Silly me. Shall I stop?"
"No. Don't stop."
"Once you've seen a sight like that, you never forget it," he tells Ginny cuttingly.
Ginny shrugs. "Please put it on, Hermione! I'll wear this year's jumper; we'll be like twins!"
The headmaster, feeling quite put-upon, shakes his head as the two women hurry out of the hall.
/
She falls into step a few feet behind Ginny and the headmaster, aiming to gather her thoughts and enjoy the snowy scenery without distraction. She cannot help but recall lines from her favorite Muggle poets as she surveys the snow-laced Whomping Willow, the white-fringed trees of the Forbidden Forest.
"Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended—"
The headmaster's head snaps back to look at her, subconsciously mouthing the next words of the poem. She doesn't notice, for she is lost in her mind's winter wonderland, where she is washed clean of all regrets and revels freely in the soft tufts of snow.
"Sometimes Hermione reminds me of Luna Lovegood," Ginny whispers to the headmaster, shaking her head in amusement.
He makes a little sound—of disagreement? Disgust? Ginny cannot tell. "In this moment, she reminds me of Draco. He spends much of his time these days in study and contemplation."
"Oh, yes! I completely missed him and his family at the ball. The poor man."
"He ought to get out of his head a bit more often," the headmaster criticizes. "Dwelling on has-beens and could-have-beens can lead to nothing profitable."
"Can you truly blame him?" Ginny says sharply. "If I loved a man in the way that he loves his dear dead fiancée, I would always think of him, and if he were alive, I would never part from him. I'd rather be driven to the edge of doom with him than live safely and without him."
"Is that so?" he responds with unwonted passion. "Professor Weasley, you have my respect." They fall silent, and the Muggle Studies professor, having caught the tail end of this conversation, cannot help but read the unspoken censure. Her simple joy is quite spoilt.
Without paying much attention, the trio has reached Hogsmeade village. The little shopfronts twinkle with floating Christmas lights, and the shopkeepers peer out their windows to hawk holiday sales to passersby.
"I'll stop here a moment," she tells Ginny and the headmaster, grateful to find herself in front of a newly opened branch of Flourish & Blotts. She longs for the escape that books alone have provided reliably.
"We'll order a Butterbeer for you," Ginny smiles, steering her companion in the direction of The Three Broomsticks.
She must be taking too long to peruse the tantalizing stacks of the bookshop. It seems like only a minute has passed when she hears the voices of the two Defense professors emanating from the next row over. Ostensibly, they have come to retrieve her, but they dawdle in the Quidditch section.
"What a lovely edition of Flying With the Cannons! I wonder if Ron has it. Hermione would know, I suppose. It's such a pity that she didn't marry him; it would have done wonders for his confidence. He proposed to her, you know."
The headmaster laughs incredulously. "Did he? I didn't know." After a moment, he adds, "So she refused him?"
"She certainly did."
"How long ago was this?"
"Three years ago this winter. I understand why she gave him up; they fought as often as they were pleased with each other. Professor McGonagall might have had some say in it as well. Harry said she was the one who talked Hermione out of an earlier engagement."
Here the pair's footsteps pass out of the range of the Muggle Studies professor's hearing. It is just as well; she feels queasy and overly exposed. She can only imagine what the headmaster must think of her love life. To supplant a man such as him with Ronald Weasley! It does not bear thinking of.
Eventually, her path crosses that of her fellow professors at the register. She purchases several heavy tomes, but alas! She has forgotten her trusty beaded handbag at the castle. Weighed down by the books, her steps drag in the snow as they all walk towards the school.
The headmaster observes her struggle and casts a wordless Patronus, whose form she does not catch, up to the school. Within seconds, a hippogriff, perhaps a descendant of Buckbeak, flies to where they are trudging along the well-worn path.
"A good man, Hagrid," the headmaster notes, bowing deeply to the beast. "Professor Granger, you are tired. This creature will transport you and your purchases back to Hogwarts."
"That is kind of you," she says, glad that he still cares enough for her to wish her well. "I'm not a great flier, unfortunately."
"Which is why I am here to ride with you," Harry says, Apparating into the lane. "Teddy isn't feeling too well, so I thought I'd leave him with Andromeda and have Christmas supper with you at Hogwarts."
She throws her arms around her old friend's neck. "Oh, Harry, what perfect timing!"
"Mr. Potter, I see your savior complex is in working order," the headmaster sneers. Ginny squeezes his arm in a comforting sort of way, which Harry's Auror eyes do not miss. He steps forward to help his former fiancée onto the hippogriff's back, where she wraps her arms securely around Harry's waist. "Fly safely."
As they zoom towards Hogwarts, Harry mutters angrily, "I bet he's planning to seduce Ginny. And it looks like he will succeed."
She tightens her grip on his waist. She wonders if her friend has forgotten that Severus Prince nee Snape once seduced and succeeded with her.