Author's note: Disclaimer back at the start, and many thanks to my beta for this chapter, Mad Madame Me.

Chapter 6

Sunday mornings were worse now that Crooks was sleeping at the end of my bed. Though he was a warm furball during the cold night, and kept my toes from escaping the duvet, he was also an entity that interrupted my lazy lie-in with demands for breakfast. He hadn't been pleased with the tinned Muggle stuff I'd brought home the night before, and as I certainly wasn't going to floo somewhere to pick up specialty stuff. I'd done my research, and I knew he could eat it. Even half-Kneazle, he could eat it.

That didn't change the fact that he didn't want to. So I would still have to give up on my lie-in and morning reading, to instead be cold, miserable, and grumped at. Crooks was probably going to wreak havoc in revenge for my thoughtless abandonment of him, on top of it all. I swore, frustrated, under my breath – I've read that it can dull pain, if you swear quickly enough after an injury, and I hoped it would do the same for cold toes in autumn – and heaved out of bed to search for a pair of clean socks.

Socks found, jammed on. A cold wooden hall, feet slippery on the stairs. Eyes bleary. Crooks bumping up against my legs, as if making me almost fall on my arse would get him food any quicker.

"Pah." I mumbled, too sleepy to make any real noises. I fumbled my way downstairs, and my feet finally did slip on the last step as Crooks shouldered past me. He seemed to have no trouble at all, twisting through the strange hidden pathways of Snape's house. He was off and into the kitchen and I was slipping, sliding comically. I leant my weight forwards, braced my hands on the wall that was in front of me, and let my feet fall heavily and painfully onto the floor.

"Fuck!"

I stood there and sulked for a few seconds, out of grumpy, unhappy spite, but realised that I'd better get to feeding Crooks before he yowled Snape awake. I was pretty sure that Snape liked his weekend lie-ins, or at least his early morning peace, because he wasn't in the living room when I gave it a cursory glance. Nor in the kitchen. I couldn't hear any kettle, or tinkering, or pages turning. The only noises in the world, it seemed, were the soft fall of my sore feet on the linoleum floor, and the stuttered protest of the ring-pull on the can of cat food. I slopped the runny mess into Crooks' bowl, and stepped back. He stared at me balefully, and I stared right back.

"I know you could fill yourself up on all the bugs in this place easily enough, mister." I warned him. "We're both too lazy to get you a tasty breakfast. At least I didn't choose the jellied ones, I know you really hate them."

He sneezed at me, and spent several minutes sniffling around the kitchen cabinets, looking disinterested but always circling around the old takeout container I'd decided to use as his bowl. I didn't feel much like asking Ron or Ginny to come drop off his other stuff, and I certainly didn't want to get dressed and go meet Harry somewhere. It would have to do, even if Crooks gave me a dirty look every time the edge of the container rubbed the fur on his neck the wrong way.

I slumped into a rickety chair that had been placed in the kitchen at some point since I'd moved in, and looked down glumly at my feet. They still felt bruised and sad. My eyes were dry, my head was heavy and aching and wanted nothing more than to be asleep. I couldn't even hear Muggle cars; it was that early. That abysmally, awfully, early. I'd forgotten my wand upstairs, and I really couldn't be arsed to try lighting the stove with matches. Did we even have matches in this place? We must have, but I was damned if I knew where to look for them.

Anyway, tea was beyond me. Time was beyond me. I planned on steeling myself for an uncomfortable trip back to bed. When I had the energy to do anything steely, which didn't seem remotely possible.

I was so dozy and dazed that it took my mind a good half minute to register the sound of Snape's bedroom door opening and closing again. His feet were bare and made a tacky noise as his skin stuck to the lino. He muttered something, and I heard the sound of that kettle touching base with the left burner deep in my bones. Just the promise of tea, soon, made the world seem less traumatic.

He slumped on the wall beside me, and we listened to it boil slowly. Crooks sat down in a corner and began to bathe himself. I felt tame, domestic, and very upset that I hadn't already got myself back to bed. Snape made tea without a word, once the kettle had begun to whistle. I watched the mugs move across the room, fixated on my first hit of caffeine. My mug had only just been placed in my hands, was being lifted to my lips, when the owl hit the kitchen window.

It scrabbled, made very unimpressed noises, and caused a general racket. I glanced blearily at Snape, but he was more or less occupied with his drink, and didn't seem likely to look up anytime soon. His face was hidden by his hair, which hung rumpled and unbrushed.

"Arsehole bastard" I swore. I'd more or less given up on my feet hurting any less, feeling any less cold. I really was just being crabby. I set my mug down on the bench with a resolute thunk, and didn't look back as I bore down on the window – and the owl – with a glare that was probably quite ferocious.

At least, the owl seemed to think so. It quieted down, extended its leg, and pecked my wrist once as I untied the mail before it shot back up into the sky. I returned to my tea, and drinking it slowly, inspected the mail. It was hard, card, not parchment. Fancy. Glittering obnoxiously, with gold lettering.

Ms. Granger & Mr. Snape

No address, just our names. Odd, since most letters, even owl post, required a vague location. That was confusing enough that the Ministry stamp – in gold finery and all – completely escaped my notice.

"Wait, who the hell at the Ministry works weekends?"

My incredulity must have interested him, because he snatched the envelope from my hand so fast I had to steady my tea. It slopped onto my fingers a little, so I made sure to take a good long sip before I paid him any more attention. I was marginally aware of the envelope tearing open.

"More to the point, who the hell at the Ministry thinks we're together?"

I stared at him, forgetting my tea. "What?!"

I grabbed the card back from him. It was an invitation to an official Ministry event, a special dinner for all involved personally in the final battle. The papers had been on about it for weeks, and Luna and Ollivander had been talking about it on Friday; a memorial service at Hogwarts for the Wizarding public, commemorative plaques and souvenir coins, that sort of crud. Things that everyone – even Muggles – used to celebrate victory and grief.

"Oh, it's just that. I thought it was something serious, Severus. But this is just a formality."

"It's a formality that has both our names on it."

I shrugged. "Maybe Harry, or Ollivander, or Luna, or Ron, or that bookstore clerk, or Cho, or... anyone could have found out we were housemates. Anyone could have guessed. Maybe it's just because we live together. Hell, I bet that since the mess after the battle, with Death Eaters and children and Wizards all needing to bej dealt with, there's been some sort of basic tracker on all of us. The Muggles have been testing systems like that for years, now..."

I didn't actually mind the thought that people might see us as a couple. I didn't even mind that Snape had so defensively, so quickly, jumped to that conclusion. What I found most disturbing and suspicious left a sour taste in my mouth. "More importantly, since when has the Ministry been open for business on a Sunday?"

Snape looked at me, and I did my best not to lower my eyes. He had an expression that reminded me of being in Potions class. Of getting the answer wrong. "Obviously, the Owl Postal Service operates on the weekends. The Ministry must be availing themselves of that, to cope with the volume of these cards that must be sent. And," he shook his head sternly, "no more words from you until you've finished your cuppa."

It was still strange to hear him use words like "cuppa" so casually. Even though I was comfortable with him in many other respects. Some of the teacher persona must have been lingering in my mind, all this time, even though I'd thought I was beyond those barriers long ago.

It shouldn't be surprising, anyway. He was an intelligent man; too intelligent to sink into Byronic angst, even after Lily...

He was right. I shouldn't be thinking, until I'd woken up properly. "Deal. I'll sit here, not say anything stupid, while you cook breakfast."

He huffed, turned his back on me, and opened a cupboard, banged about inside with the pots until he emerged triumphant with one just big enough for porridge. "Lazy bint. You're not getting anything special, then."

I shrugged. "You're the one that prefers eggs, you obstinate fucker."

He turned to regard me very seriously for a moment, but I could see a muscle twitching beside his mouth. I wanted to hold out longer, but I couldn't help from laughing. I didn't try to stop, once I started, but I doubt I could have if I'd wanted. After a few seconds, Snape joined me, and we enjoyed a few moments of silliness before I felt breathless, had to stop to breathe, and the mood fell a bit flat.

Snape recovered, and soberly fetched the bag of oats from the pantry cupboard. With his back to me, I couldn't really tell what he was thinking. Whatever it was, he was trying to avoid something. Or he just needed space; it was pretty early in the day for either of us to suffer human contact. I braced myself for the ache in my heels – which was less intense, but still throbbing painful – and headed upstairs to get dressed. Retrieve my wand. Find some books in my pile to lump downstairs, in case he needed space and decided to ignore me for the whole day. Which he did, for part of it, at least. I drafted a note to Harry, about Crook's things. If I sent it Monday morning, hopefully Harry would be able to drop that all off before end of business. If he didn't, I could sneak out a little early to Eeylope's and pick up the necessaries anyway. But it would be nice to save the cash, if I could.

Then, almost on a roll of communicative productivity, I decided to write Ron a letter. It wasn't a very good job, and I was pretty sure that I shouldn't post it then – if at all – but I was glad that I'd finally made an effort to explain myself to him. Conversations hadn't gone well, and he most likely had little to no idea about my actual feelings, my thoughts, my motives. Everything he knew had been shouted from me in anger, or filtered through Harry and Ginny. I had overreacted, I knew. I'd been more upset over my own circumstances, and I hadn't been decent to Ron anymore than he'd been decent to me.

I didn't want to lose one of my oldest friends. I didn't want to make Harry choose between us, either, if things continued. I did my best to be as clear, as honest, and as decent to Ron as I could in the letter. It was, when I re-read it, a biased, emotional, mess of words. I was absolutely not ready to post it.

Writing that took it out of me. I hid it inside one of my Wandmaker's textbooks, and set the whole pile of books down on the floor beside my feet. I sent the quill, ink and parchment back over to the pile of junk I'd found them in, in a corner of the room. Closed my eyes, and took deep slow breaths. Outside the house, I could hear buses and cars and brattish kids rousing slowly. Sunday-slow, like my mind. I really had needed much more sleep than I'd got.

My breath filled my lungs slowly, and slid out again. My hands and feet felt heavy and weighted and full. My arms and legs felt too thin, too weak, to lift them. I should rest a little, regain the energy that I'd lost from thinking about what to write to Ron. I wouldn't open my eyes for a while. Just a little while, until I felt more stable. Then I'd go and see if I'd left my breakfast so late that it'd gone cold and disgusting.

Actually, that was strange. Why hadn't Snape come and interrupted me? Bullied me out of wasting his effort?

In and out. I'd just breathe like this for a moment longer, and then I'd go through, see what was happening with him...

I woke up in the late afternoon. At some point, my leg had shifted, gently hefting the pile of books at my feet into a spray of literature across the floor. My letters to Ron and Harry stuck out of the edge of the Wandmaker's book, looking suspicious and tantalising. I had very little doubts that Snape could have easily tiptoed past during the day, and snuck a look at them. I wasn't that upset at all, at the thought. He knew how I felt about Harry and Ron; I had no secrets to hide there. I supposed that I should have been a little worried, but I truly couldn't have cared less one way or the other.

Knowing for sure that I'd have to make something for myself, and bleary enough from my nap to hate the thought of the effort involved, I compromised to get myself a glass of water. But when I had dragged myself into the kitchen, I noticed that there was a bowl of porridge, and an egg on toast, on the bench, under a stasis charm of some sort. Fresh and hot, and food that I desperately needed.

I turned, found myself some cutlery, and returned. There was a warm soft feeling inside me that was swelling, and I knew that no good would come of it. I tried to tell myself that it would be more sensible to calm down, to give everything time. Time within myself to develop. My feelings were still too raw and fresh. I was worried that they'd come spilling out over themselves.

So I told myself off, and made sure I was calm and clearer headed before I disspelled the stasis. Everything might have been fine, then, but as the spell lifted in a quick smell of burning air, and the scent of the food reached me, a small slip of paper drifted slightly. Caught my eye.

Too lazy to make your eggish toast properly. Hellspawn is shut in your room, hissing. Potions in laundry, do not disturb.

That brought it all right back. The warmth, the strange feelings pressing up inside. My cheeks burned, and I realised I was starting to blush. Oh god, this wouldn't do at all! This was worse than I had thought. I supposed that I should have seen it coming. It had obviously been building for far longer than I had been aware. Maybe even before the incident with the ring.

Oh, fuck it. I was tired, and hungry, and feeling rotten. I felt awful about feeling good about being taken care of. I kept half-guessing. Maybe he'd done it because he liked me, too. Maybe he did it so that he didn't have to deal with me. So that he could retreat away and not have to handle me for the rest of the day.

"No." I said aloud. I stopped all thought from registering, and simply fed myself. My brain would just keep on making stupid assumptions and bad decisions, when it wasn't fuelled properly. Eating wouldn't fix things, but it might help me see the situation in a better light.

Monday was, in all respects, better. I worried less, because I was busy watching Ollivander complete the next step in the wandmaking process. After weeks of theory and practicing – and failing – with the lathe, interrupted by the occasional customer, we were at the point where we were about to breach the core insertion issue.

From what I'd read, there was controversy that had lasted the entirety of wandmaking history regarding whether it was better to seal the cores into the wood and then lathe the shape, or late the shape, then drill a hole, then seat and seal the core.

"The reason I prefer to do it later," Ollivander had explained, "Is that wood behaves strangely, some days, as do core materials. As you've read, a lot of the importance is in the dialogue between the wizard and the wand, not in the wand itself... and in my mind, the small increase in physical stability from early core installation isn't worth the risk. When you find a flaw in the wood," and here he fished around in a box for an aborted, half-made wand shell, "what do you do? If you change the contours or length, you risk making the wand unstable, or unusable by anyone. If you don't allow the wood to show you how to work it properly – as you learnt last week..."

I blushed, and coughed. Even with a pedaled lathe, everything had moved too fast for my eyes. I'd slipped my skew chisel into a knot that I hadn't noticed when I'd chosen that piece of wood, and the handle had flown from my grasp. Bob had halted the lathe as quickly as he could, and I had backed away, aghast and ashamed, my hands in front of my face.

When I'd lowered them, and found myself facing a small chink in the wand's wood, and a far-flung skew chisel, I'd laughed, but felt a sense of dread. I knew that as a teacher, Ollivander would probably be reminding me about my mistake in future lessons. I'd learn better, remember it clearer. But it wouldn't be pleasant.

"... So as I make the only sensible choice: at Ollivander's, we always test the wood, find the right shape, drill a core-hole, and only then commit ourselves to a final core component. Of course we keep the concept of our ideal cores in mind, but it's a fool who doesn't allow for the innovation that the unforeseen can bring."

I nodded. It made sense, efficient sense, given that wand-selling seemed to rely more on having a huge overstock to suit a variable but loyal customer base. Wood was cheap. We could get tax breaks on the core components. We – and it felt good, to think that I'd become part of Ollivander's so completely that I thought in the plural instinctively – had a good name.

I stood as unobtrusively as I could beside Ollivander, and watched as he treadled the wheel himself now. Bob had vanished to places unknown.

"You'll need Bob's help when you try this, but it's always good for a wandmaker to develop his own appreciation and feel for this part. Because we can't use faster, cleaner, newer Muggle machinery, this needs precision..."

I watched Ollivander settle himself at the speed he wanted. Regarded the turning core. Then, he slowed the speed down further. Reached behind himself and to the left, into a tray that had sat on the bench, full of thin metal skewers, with bent rounded loops on the end. Simple, and confusing; they were hollow, and of varied size.

Then, as I saw him spin the end of one over a candle flame, I realised that I had, in fact, seen things like that before. Knew what they were. Cores, for various components and sizes. I'd spent so long recently trying to memorise customers' wands and names that I'd left a gap in my studies.

It looked like meticulous and frustrating work. Ollivander huffed occasionally as he heated the core, held it steadily to the end of the wand, and pressed gently, turning with his feet, never wavering. He slid it in with such well-practised ease that it was half-done before I realised it. He drew the core back out slowly, carefully, and then rested his arm for a moment.

"A glass of water please, Hermione."

I got it as fast as I could, more than a little concerned. Ollivander was old, had seen more than his fair share of trauma. That his hands hadn't shaken once while focused on the job... I wasn't sure if I, even, could hold up for that long.

He seemed to catch onto my thoughts, as he sipped his water and rested. "Well, a lot of it's just perverse bloody mindedness. You learn from experience – and you will ruin several wands before you are anywhere close to finishing one yourself – that if you stop for more than a few minutes, you lose sense of it. Your control begins to waver. A lot of the cost of the wand is right here. Not in the components, but in making sure that they fit and work together."

I nodded. "So for us, the cost is for the hours of labour, and for those that install the cores earlier, the cost is more lost components, and partly hours of work lost to cockups."

Ollivander smiled gently. "Not how I would have put it, but yes. Exactly." He handed the glass back to me, and brushed his hands dry of any condensation on his trousers. He picked up the core, twiddled it between two fingers, then clasped it by the loop at the end and once again began to turn it in the candle flame. "It's boring now, girl, but just you wait until you're doing it!"

I laughed, a little unsure. I hadn't been bored, but it had been feeling as if it had been taking much longer than it truly was. I had checked my watch. We'd only been hunched over the lathe for fifteen minutes or so. But with the repetition and slow motions involved in retracting and reheating the metal core, it was taking bloody forever.

When he had finally finished, carefully withdrawing with an impossibly perfect and slender wooden core sliding from the metal coring tool, I knew that there was no way at all I could possibly turn out something that good without years of practice. It would be clumsy, bloody work.

I found myself looking at Ollivander's hands, scored and wrinkled with so many old scars that it all blended together. My own were a little worn, from the last few years; from camping and fighting and scrabbling all over Hogwarts castle. It was too late for them, because I'd committed myself to this profession so wholly and completely that retreat was not an option.

Ollivander motioned for me to swap places with him. We shuffled around, and he gently set his cored wand into a naked plain cardboard box beside its own insides.

"We keep the cores to plug the ends properly, right? I'm not even going to think about that. If I have to think about putting things back in, I'll go mad!"

Ollivander laughed softly, a dry sound. He patted my shoulder, and handed me a much thicker solid wand, directed me to choose a much sturdier coring tool from the tray beside me.

"It's easier to heat the smaller ones," he explained, "but until you've done it once, you'll have an easier time with this size. Better to see from odd angles."

I lined the coring tool up, and realised what he'd said. Even with the wand spinning slowly, with Bob resting a calming elf hand on my right leg, the angles of my arms, the tension I had to keep in them, to keep things steady...

I was sweating already, and I hadn't even heated the corer up, yet! I sighed heavily, knowing that Ollivander himself had been in my place once. Learning. Fumbling about.

"Oh, and don't think so much about the recipient for your final project. It's better to just focus on not injuring yourself."

I rotated the corer in the candle flame, scowling at its brightness. I'd have no chance of chasing Snape from my mind now. I should have chosen someone – anyone – else for my first focus. But he'd made sense at the time. Probably because my feelings for him had already been developing. Stewing. Now, when I really just wanted to focus on work for a few hours, before he showed up with our lunch, Ollivander had inadvertently redirected my mind.

It was futile, to keep thinking about him. But I couldn't. The painful, bloody, infuriatingly fiddly task reminded me of trying to negotiate with Snape sometimes. Trying to be nice to the man was sometimes like trying to bore my way through a spinning finger-thick piece of willow with a hollow heated skewer. If I made an error in judgement, or was just unlucky, I'd end up like... shit, like that. With a tiny circular hot nick in my left index finger. It stung, but didn't bleed. Wasn't serious. Just in the way enough to be annoying.

"Like that." I said sourly. I didn't want to think about how many more times I'd hurt myself. I re-heated the corer, which wasn't hard, but would, I knew, soon become a too-often-repeated task, and returned to the core itself. Lined everything up with the hole, which took far too long, and following Ollivander's hushed and brief words of assistance, got back to it. I maintained focus easier, listening to Ollivander's voice, but when he suggested that it might be time to re-heat the core again, and I had spent a good four minutes at least carefully retreating, the internal core broke off and came out with the corer.

I blinked at the ragged-edged scrap of wood, and then peered inside the half-cored wand, at the mess that was inside. I could hardly tell how deep I'd actually made it; the wood had separated and splintered a little. I was too unused to things like this to make an accurate assessment.

The shop door opened. Severus's feet fell quietly in the dust of the front of the shop. Ollivander cheerfully put the kettle on, and I set the corer down in the tray I was using for my tools. Rubbing at the nick on my finger, I stretched a little. It had seemed to take ages when Ollivander had been doing it himself, but when I'd become immersed in the process of it, it was as if I'd found another layer of reality. A smaller, centralised, task-oriented reality.

I wondered if all carpenters and tradesmen felt it, or if it was simply related to the scale of the work involved. Whatever it was, I'd have to learn how to take better care of my back. It was too easy to forget my posture, when I was absorbed in finding the right angle to get my work done.

I rolled my head around on my neck slowly. Took my time standing and making my way over to Ollivander and Severus. They were talking about the Ministry's remembrance ceremonies, and I was more than happy to sit and vegetate while they did so. I sat on a chair beside Severus, and reached out for a mug of tea. Accepted a sandwich without paying much attention. While I tried to focus my eyes on distant places in the room, to rest them a little, and ate, snatches of their conversation reached me.

"I'm not sure I like the idea myself, of standing in a sea of grieving kids." Severus agreed. He rolled his shoulders, and made an unpleasant face. "I made my peace with what I had to do years ago. I've been used to the deaths and I've damn well overdone my period of mourning as it is. They need it. But I don't. Their parents don't. It's just another overblown grab for popular opinion and support from the Ministry."

Ollivander nodded calmly, and balanced his mug on his knee for a moment, leaning forwards to grab another sandwich. "You're only grumpy because you can't bring yourself to skip it."

Severus mumbled something that I didn't quite catch, but from the way he shifted, pulled his shoulder back so that I was more included in their conversation, I guessed dozily his general meaning.

"You don't have to go on my account," I reminded him, "I'm old enough to take care of myself."

Severus snorted. "Barely."

I sat more upright, a little riled. "Is there a problem with that, Sir?"

Ollivander cleared his throat, and headed out into the front of the shop. Bob disappeared the teapot to somewhere, and followed. I winced. I could tell, now that I'd scared half the population of the store away, that I had turned cranky in my exhaustion. I hung my head a little, embarrassed, and expected either a confrontation or a lecture from Snape.

"To be honest," he crossed his arms and spoke very seriously, "I have no problems whatsoever with young and bookish women learning to make their way in the world."

I regarded him suspiciously. "You've learnt a lot from teaching girls, Severus. But, my snappishness aside, is it weird at all? I mean, I'm the same age as Harry, and his... I mean, she... er... crap. I mean, isn't it odd, to be sharing a laundry with someone that much younger than you? It only just struck me, that it might be unnerving, you see..."

Severus blinked at me. "Isn't it strange for you?"

"Ah. I see what you mean. Never mind, then. My brain has been drilled out by fiddly metal skewers, you see." I showed him my scratched hands, and shrugged apologetically. People were people, after all, no matter their age. Dolores Umbridge would have been a bratty little shit as a kid, too."

He nodded. "And I'm not going for you as an individual. I'm going for all of you, as students. I've done my mourning, I've sorted it all out, up here." He tapped his head.

"But you lot haven't had the time yet. Given the nature of my behaviour, in that last year, it's probably going to be more important to some than others, that I be there, and look sad and penitent."

I thought about that carefully, looking down at my battered hands. Without thinking, I'd slipped the ring into my pocket before I started to work with the wands. My fingers didn't look incredibly different, but they looked more solid, more real. I wasn't sure if I was quite ready to deal with that. I felt too half-done inside, too incompetent. But I didn't want to make the ring an obvious thing in front of Severus. I sat on my hands before I let myself get too caught up in thinking about it. Before I stared for too long. "So you're going to mourn a different kind of loss."

He shrugged, and nodded without much energy. "Funerals," he said, "are things made by and for the living."

I couldn't really argue with that, though it wasn't something that I'd ever contemplated before. The day, the mourning ceremonies, the presentation of awards, and the lunch and dinner for all invited weren't any use to those who had died for whatever reason.

"Just a ritual, to help our poor scared brains cope with the scariness and horror of death?"

He shook his head. Ollivander, who had obviously been listening in from the front of the store, leaned back into the back room and put in his two bits.

"They're not for fear, dear child. They're for healing, and memories."

Severus nodded. "They're an event that marks things, lets us have a set day for remembering everything. Allows us to talk to others, share stupid little stories. Reconnect."

"Memories, huh." I tapped my feet against the floor, and found myself half looking forwards to seeing all my old surviving classmates again. Being able to discuss the final battle openly, and to just catch up with everyone who'd been too busy. "In a way, then, funerals are more fun than Christmas."

Severus snorted, and gave me a very amused look. "In my family, they've always been more fun, no matter how you look at them."