AN: Hugs to all the readers!

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By the time they finished packing away the supplies for the year, Severus only had enough time to give her a tour of his classroom and his office before it was time for dinner.

The meal was a melancholy affair. On the surface, it was enjoyable enough, but inside, it left her mourning all over again. Flitwick, McGonagall, and Sprout all asked her about herself, and she had to pretend she knew little about them in return. Worst was Professor Sinistra, who showed no interest in getting to know her at all, preferring to spend the meal with her nose in a book. It was all just one more painful reminder of what she'd lost.

As for the headmaster, Dumbledore simply twinkled through the entire conversational minefield.

Severus scowled through the entire meal. It seemed the only expression he seemed capable of having while actively Occluding was a scowl. Honestly, it explained so many things.

Most of the meal was spent discussing the upcoming term, with wagers being placed on the House Cup. Severus demurred from joining in the fun, despite the attempts to draw him out. Hermione gathered that it was unusual for the newest professor to attend meals and the others were trying to make him feel welcome with no tangible success.

When the meal was over, he walked her home. Once away from the others, her funk lifted quickly. They fell into an easy conversation about his hopes for the upcoming school year, the changes he'd planned, and her own experiences with both him and Slughorn as her teachers.

"Just don't bully them," she said as they rounded the corner of Gladrags. "Some teachers are like that, needing to feel superior by lording their knowledge over their students."

"Is that what I did before?"

"You? Nooo. You just intimidated them because you were naturally superior. You didn't have to prove it."

He laughed, and she felt as if she could burst from how giddy it made her feel.

He looked at her with an open, honest smile of pleasure and said, "You do realize that your eyes go wide when you lie, don't you?"

"Do they? Damn. I'll have to work on that."

"You should. And you should work on the fact that it's obvious when you're hiding your thoughts as well. I know you've been Occluding me the whole way home."

She wrinkled her nose. "Dumbledore said I should to keep you from being exposed to something that might get you hurt. Sorry, I'm not very good. I've only learned from books. But since we're critiquing, you probably want to work on having more expressions when your shields are up yourself. You look like an angry mannequin."

He snorted. "Duly noted."

"So why have you been trying to sneak a peek at my thoughts?"

He stopped when they reached the steps to her flat. With a mild scowl and a glance down at his feet, he replied, "I was trying to see if you'd had a good time today."

"You could have just asked."

He scoffed. "Too Hufflepuff."

She giggled. "I did have a good time, Severus. I had a very good time. I would really like to do it again."

He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. "So would I. However, I'm not sure when I can get away. The term starts in six days, and it will be chaos after that."

"I'll be around. Surely you can wrangle a Hogsmeade weekend?"

He nodded. "I'll do just that." Waving his hand at the stairs, he said, "Off you go now."

She turned and started up.

"How much character?" he asked, when she'd reached halfway.

"I'm sorry?" she asked turning back.

He lifted a hand and rubbed at the line between his eyes. "You said it added character. I was wondering how much?"

She grinned at him. "Rather a lot, if my opinion counts."

He smiled and backed away. "It does," he replied. "It most certainly does."

She giggled and bounced the rest of the way up the stairs. "Good night, Severus."

"Sleep well, Hermione," he said before disappearing around the corner.

When she was inside, she closed the door and leaned back against it, grinning like a loon. She'd gone to bed the last three weeks fearing that he hated her. Tonight, she would tuck herself in wondering just how much he liked her.

With a bubbling joy in her chest that she hadn't felt in ages, she reset the wards on her door.

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Hermione has just finished ringing up a customer when the bell on the door chimed. She looked up, smiling automatically, but it turned into something far more when she saw Severus bearing down on the counter.

"Professor Snape! I've been wondering when I would get a chance to see you. How were your first two weeks of school?"

"Torturous," he snapped. "I've brought a visual display of my distress." He pulled a fat vial out of his pocket and wandlessly magicked it back to full size. It was a two gallon glass supply jar, empty, but for one, thumbnail-sized remnant of what looked like dried skin. She looked at it, and then at him, tilting her head to the side.

"That," he spat, "Is all that's left of an entire year's worth of boomslang skin."

Her eyes went wide. "No."

"Oh, yes. Yes, indeed." He let out a half-squawk, half-grow of frustration and sneered. "A hundred and twenty galleons worth of ingredients gone in two bloody weeks! I haven't the damned funding to replace it. Half my syllabus is in ruins because the spotty little dunderheads haven't a clue what they're doing! And that's my NEWTs class! It's a complete waste of my time. I spend all day trying to keep the hormonal little berks from frotting each other in the middle of class or dueling each other in the hallways. I'm beginning to suspect they're intentionally trying to poison themselves to death in my class just to get me hauled up before the Wizengamot. The noxious gunk they've spilled on the floor has eaten through the soles of three pairs of shoes. I've had to send to Norway for a pair boots made from dragon hide, and they've cost me a bloody fortune! I've spent more money being a teacher than I've actually earned!"

When his tirade lost momentum, he slumped down into a near-boneless heap on the counter before her. "I hate it," he mumbled from under his hair, sounding small and defeated. "I don't want to be a bloody teacher. Can I come work with you?"

She reached out and patted his head. "Of course you can."

He lifted his head far enough to see her through his hair. "Really?"

"Absolutely. Mr. Applethorn likes you."

His head slumped back down with a thump. "Liar."

"Damn. How did you know? I've been working on the eyes-too-wide thing."

"Too much blinking," he muttered. "Have you had anything to eat?"

"No. I was about to take a break."

"Good." He pushed back up and reached out to spin the jar in a circle. "Want to go get a bite together?" he asked the jar.

"It would be an honor indeed. And you still owe me a pint." she said with a smile. "Mr. Applethorn, I'm off to lunch!"

"Alright, dear!"

She tugged off her apron and hung it on the peg before snatching her bag and hurrying around the counter.

"He always calls you 'dear'…," Severus hissed in her ear as he followed her to the door. "That's a bit familiar, isn't it?"

"Leave off, he's eighty-one!"

"Still…"

She giggled as he opened the door for her.

Once out on the street, Severus underwent a dramatic change. His face grew serious and his eyes began to dart from face to face to face on the busy street. He didn't walk down the pavement, he stalked. Skipping along beside him, she watched as people almost unconsciously jumped out of his way. Hermione felt giddy with delight. This was him. This was the man that had stalked the halls and terrified everyone. This was Professor Severus Snape.

She danced ahead of him and started walking backwards, grinning at him. "Severus! You have gravitas!"

He flicked his eyes at her with startled confusion and then his eyes widened and he lunged forward and grabbed her. "Mind the lamppost."

She settled in next to him with a laugh. "Sorry, I was just excited to see you after all this time."

"Really? So I finally grew into my britches, did I?"

"Yes, but you smile far more often. I prefer this you, you know."

"Do you?" He darted a look at her from the corner of his eye. "How much?"

"Rather a lot, in fact."

"Good," he said. "One does get tired of competing with one's self."

"Oh, there was never any competition. Your other you couldn't have given a pig's arse about me. In fact, there was probably more potion's value in a pig's arse to him."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Remember, you'd been teaching for twenty years by that point, and I was an abnormally annoying student."

"Were you?"

"I was."

"How so?"

"I never wrote a paper under three feet."

"Oh, gods…"

"I stole your ingredients so I could brew Polyjuice potion in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom in my second year."

He stopped dead in his tracks.

"And I set your robes on fire in my first year," she said with a giggle. She twisted around expectantly, looking for his reaction but found he wasn't paying attention to her at all. She followed his gaze and felt her smile freeze in place.

She knew who she was. She'd seen pictures. Nevertheless, she felt sure that even if she hadn't, she would have known Lily Potter anyway. The thick, silky red hair, the green eyes, full of delight, the sickeningly perfect figure for a woman who'd only just had a baby a month before…

…and the way every fiber of Severus's being started to vibrate.

Oh.

Hermione felt a knife of jealousy lodge in her gut. These last two weeks she'd been living in a bubble of happiness at the idea that she'd not only made friends with him, but that there was a chance that it was turning into something more. The man she'd known had been terrifying. The man she'd learned about after he'd died had been tragic and grossly misunderstood. The man she'd met when she'd gone down the rabbit hole had been nothing like what she'd had in her head. He was both less and more. She liked him. She liked him a lot. However, the pin that could burst her bubble was now waving cheerfully and hurrying in their direction.

Of all the other women to have to deal with… How could she hope to compete with this one?

"Severus! I thought that was you!" the woman said in a light and pleasant voice. "I saw you from down the street, but I wasn't sure. You look so different!" She smiled, disarmingly. "And yet just the same. How have you been?"

"I've been well," he replied in a gentle tone Hermione hadn't heard from him before. "You've just had a son, I heard. It hardly looks like it."

Lily laughed and patted her trim belly. "It's obvious enough if you know where to look. Harry's six weeks old now and growing like a weed. He's every inch his father, disobedient black hair and all."

That's right, Hermione snarled in her head. Talk about your husband. Tell us what he likes for supper, why don't you, and then shove off. I've got a date.

"So I hear you're teaching now. I've just been to see Albus, and he told me some wonderful things about you." She gave him a meaningful look that lacked anything resembling subtlety.

No wonder Gryffindors had a bad reputation.

"Did he?" Snape replied. "I am. Teaching. It's—"

Oh, gods. He's actually stammering…

"I always knew you'd go into teaching," Lily said. "Once you straightened up a bit." She sent him a look pregnant with private messages. "I bet you enjoy it."

"Oh, I-I do. Yes. Very much."

"I'm very proud of you."

He flushed to the roots of his hair. "Are you? Yes, well—"

"Who's your friend?"

Hermione felt the weight of her gaze as she was sized up and dismissed with a warm smile. That took skill.

"This is Hermione. She works at the apothecary up the street."

"Does she? How do you do? I'm Lily Potter. I'm an old friend."

"Nice to meet you," Hermione said with the best of intentions. "I'm his new friend."

"Are you? How lovely." She turned to Snape. "So you found a girl who plays with potions ingredients. How wonderful. I bet you get a discount now as well. Very frugal!"

"What? No!" he blurted. "It's not like that at all."

"Isn't it? Oh, I see. So tell me, how's your father? I read about your Mother passing on. I'm so sorry. Did you get the card I sent?" she asked, placing a hand on his bicep. "I hope your father's well…"

Snape shrugged. "I don't know, actually. He's gone to live with my Aunt Peg. I've got the place now."

"Do you? And you're keeping it? I wouldn't, but perhaps the old neighborhood's changed. I admit I never go back there since my parents moved away."

"It's the same…"

"You should come and visit me one of these days in Godric's Hollow. We could catch up a bit, yeah? James is off running errands with Sirius and Remus, and I do get lonely rattling around in that house with just the baby. Marlene's watching him now. My first chance to get out since he was born. Do you remember Marlene from school?"

"McKinnon?"

"That's the one..."

Slowly realizing it was a lost cause, Hermione waited patiently through another five minutes of catching up on old times before she turned and walked back to work. She didn't cry. She was too furious. The more she replayed the entire episode over in her head, the closer to irrational she became. Everything became bound up in it. All of her resentments about her lot in life had been kept at bay these last weeks by the simple hope that was her goofy, smiling Severus Snape. She couldn't stop the reaction to having that small hope dashed.

She'd been back behind the counter for twenty minutes before she saw Severus staring in the window in anger. He immediately stalked back out of sight. It was fifteen minutes after that when he came bursting through the door, carrying a takeaway bag from The Three Broomsticks.

He stomped up to the counter and dropped it down. "Why did you run off?" he snarled.

"I'd always heard three's a crowd," she snapped back.

"It wasn't like that!"

"The hell it wasn't! You told her you liked teaching!" She threw her hands up in the air. "You hate it! That point was as obvious as the nose on your face when I was eleven! And what the hell was up with her 'you should come visit me, my husband's gone, and I'm lonely'? That's as clear an invitation as you're going to get in the middle of a busy street in broad daylight! At least in this part of town. It was humiliating to be forced to stand there and watch."

"That's not what she meant!"

"Don't be fucking stupid, Severus. It might not be what she wanted, but it's what she intended you to think it meant!"

"Lily's an old friend!"

"Lily's a judgmental cow! Didn't you see the way she wrote me off?"

"You don't understand anything!"

"I understand everything!" she yelled. Picking up the food he'd brought her, she threw the bag back at him. "I understand that when you ask a girl out, you do not forget she exists the moment you see someone you like better. It's bloody rude!"

"Hermione…"

"No! Don't! I want you to look me in the eye and tell me what we were talking about the moment before she appeared. I want you to tell me you didn't light up like a chandelier when she smiled at you!"

He stared at her in anger and frustration and obvious, painful remorse. He couldn't do it. She knew it, and he knew it. Dropping the bag back down on the counter, he turned on his heel and walked out with his cloak billowing around him like an extension of his anger.

That's when she cried.

She looked up at the sound of footsteps and found Mr. Applethorn looking at her with sympathy. "Take your meal into the back, dear. A good cry and a bite to eat will make you feel much better."

She picked up the bag, hoping he'd cast a stasis charm on whatever he'd brought for her, and hugged it to her chest as she fled to her workbench with her crushed heart.

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Ouch.