Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

Ambiguity, defined as the quality or state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly as to the signification of language, arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression".

It was a little before nine in the morning when Snape heard the crack of Apparation directly into his front hallway from his position in the kitchen.

That morning, he had prepared crumpets and jam along with two strong mugs of black coffee. He wasn't sure how Granger took her coffee, but he had left room in the top for her to add milk if that was how she preferred it. Her footsteps, however light they were, carried up the hall, and she was upon him before he had even had a chance to put everything out on the table.

He was as nervous as a cat and he was fairly certain it had everything to do with the pleasant dinner they had shared right before the weekend. He didn't know when he had had become so comfortable around her. For all of his bluster then, however, he was a mess of nerves now in the light of his actions. He couldn't believe how familiar he had acted with her, acting like a close friend when he was certain she did not consider him to be one.

'Good morning!' she greeted brightly, a smile already on her face.

Snape took note of her drastically improved colouring. It appeared she had stuck true to her word and had been eating regular meals. She was still skinny, but at least she wasn't as horribly gaunt as she had been. This pleased him. Even the dark circles around her eyes were slightly less pronounced. He was thankful that she had gotten some sleep the night before, as he certainly had not. If there were any fault of his that he hated above all the others, it was his inability to switch off.

It was perhaps, one of the reasons why; he'd never been able to maintain relationships. Women did not want a man who would immerse himself so much in his work that they were left ignored. And women most certainly did not fall for men who had been snarky and rude to them all the way through school. For those two reasons alone, Severus Snape was not likely to attract the attention of any females.

'Good morning, Miss Granger,' he replied, leading her over to the kitchen table and gently urging her down into one of the chairs.

'Smells good,' she said, offering him a shy smile.

'It's just buttered crumpets,' Snape said, taking the seat across from her and serving himself a crumpet and slathering blueberry jam on it.

'I haven't had crumpets for years!' she exclaimed, taking one for herself and helping herself to a healthy spoonful of jam.

'You are looking much healthier this week,' he commented as he ate. 'How did you go with your Dreamless Sleep dosages over the weekend?'

'I successfully managed to reduce my dosage by two grades over the weekend, and I have high hopes to reduce it by at least one more grade by the end of the week,' she replied with a proud smile, picking up her crumpet and biting into it. 'I also surprised myself a little over the weekend by performing wandless magic again last night for the first time in… well, lets just say it's been a while.'

'That is excellent news,' Snape said, surprised at her progress. Perhaps it would be easier to rid her of her addiction than he thought it would be.

They finished the remainder of their breakfast in silence, and although he had the newspaper spread out in front of him, Snape continued to sneak covert glances at Granger. He was unable to fathom how she had managed to come so far over just two weeks. It pleased him though, to know that her inexplicable desire to prove herself was driving her to work harder at giving up her drug, all for the sake of impressing him of all people. He considered himself the last person who she needed to impress, as he was as bad as she had been once – worse if anything.

Snape sent Granger down to the lab to begin preparing the bench for brewing while he cleaned up in the kitchen. To be honest, it was a relief to send her down there. He needed space to think. These days, every time he thought about Hermione Granger, he only came away irritated and confused. If he had not gone to her bloody flat for dinner the week before, none of this would have presented a problem. Or at least, it could have been delayed a while longer.

He finished up in the kitchen quickly, and headed straight to the lab, walking in to find Granger had set everything up and was already working on the base for the last of the medicinal potions on the list. He had meant to complete the remaining ones on the weekend before she arrived, but had been unmotivated and had left the final one – the Draught of Living Death, untouched.

'I could do that one after you leave today if you'd rather crack on with my project?' he offered, coming up to stand beside her.

'I can actually make this potion in my sleep,' she said with a small grin. 'My first attempt at this when I was a student under Professor Slughorn, was probably my biggest failure in potions to date. Needless to say, I have improved at making it greatly since then. It was in the practical section of my potions final last term.'

'I see,' he said, quietly impressed. It was a difficult potion even for some who had already achieved the title of Master Potioneer.

'If you want to talk to me about the project, I would be happy to listen while I make this,' she said simply, sprinkling crushed, dried fig leaves into the brew and stirring clockwise.

Snape crooked an eyebrow at her but did not respond. He simply sat on a stool nearby, and summoned his journal and books to him, opening up the thick tome before him to the point where he had begun serious research for the potion. Reading over it, he decided to go along with her plan and simply tell her about his research.

'I began this research with no clear direction, simply experimenting with ingredients that were often used to stimulate the brain and restore the usage of the memory centres,' he began. 'After that, I decided that I needed to find a clear direction, and so, I chose to focus my attention on creating a potion to restore memories to those who have had them obliviated.'

'You mean… a potion to cure my parents?' she asked, standing there numbly, staring at him with her mouth slightly agape.

'Them among others,' he replied. 'Over the course of the war, there were quite a few people who were affected by the loss of their memories from an Obliviate. Some were victims of dark intentions, and others accidents. Some were from people just like you – just wanting to keep their non-magical families safe. If you recall, Gilderoy Lockhart was a victim of his own stupidity, but he too would be positively affected by the creation of such a potion.'

'Would it be useful for Neville Longbottom's parents?' she asked, her eyes dancing with curiosity.

He almost smirked at that. She was still the same old Granger underneath all of the insecurity and depression. ' I think that the kind of potion that type of injury would require, is still a little out of our reach for now,' he answered. 'For now, it is this potion that we shall work on, and leave it open later to investigate the possibility for a potion to reverse the effects of torture by Cruciatus.'

She nodded, but did not seem at all deterred. In fact, she appeared to be as pleased as he had hoped she would be after hearing about his project. Snape was inwardly pleased by the knowledge that he was not just put on the earth to be a pawn in the Dark Lord's army, or Dumbledore's either for that matter. He nodded at Granger and looked back down at his journal then, trying not to dwell on the girl within his own mind too much.

'So, what have you discovered so far with all of your researching?' she asked, causing him to look up at her from his work.

'Before I started doing serious research, I had dabbled a little with potion bases that contained important ingredients that target the mind and stimulating memories,' he said, flipping through his journal to where he had recorded the results. 'I found two promising bases there, and have since looked into other ingredients that we could use to incorporate into with those bases.'

'I would be fascinated to take a look at what you've found so far, once this potion needs to simmer,' she said.

'Very well,' Snape replied.

They continued with their work in silence for a while. Snape kept throwing covert glances in her direction, and he could tell that she was doing the same to him. He was not certain any more what he feelings towards Granger were. It was an ambiguity – an uncertainty that was preventing him from being able to concentrate. He did not know what to do in a situation such as this, and constantly tried to ignore it rather than analyse and think about it if he could help it.

He was uncomfortable thinking about the romantic sort of human interaction, as he'd had so little experience being sociable. Hell, he'd only ever been in love once in his life, and it had been such a long time ago, he could barely even remember the reasons why he had been in love with Lily Potter in the first place. She had been pretty, that was for sure, but aside from that and generally being a nice, relatively talented witch, she was no different from a million other witches in the world.

From what he could recall, Lily Potter had been so unremarkable, that he had found her to be interesting, and when James Potter had started to show an interest in her, that had simply fuelled his desire to compete for her affections.

He gave himself a mental shake. Why was he even thinking about romantic entanglements and interaction at all? Well Granger was attractive, now that she was starting to look less gaunt. And she was a kindred spirit in terms of both their intelligence and their desperate desire to prove themselves useful in more ways that those that were predetermined for them. She would not be such a terrible partner…

Snape shook his head. No. He could not think about Granger in that way. For a start, she was nearly twenty years his junior. And secondly, there was not a hope in seven hells that she would reciprocate, were he to feel such a foolish inclination. He looked back up at her and watched as she concentrated on her work. She had her hair tucked behind her ears, and her brow was furrowed in concentration. She was biting her lower lip in that way he had noticed she often did when she was particularly busy brewing.

Twenty minutes later, she walked over to him after she lowered the flame beneath her cauldron and joined him at the bench, sitting right beside him. He looked at her, and was surprised that she was staring at him, rather than looking at his research.

She blushed and averted her eyes immediately. 'This looks promising,' she said, pointing at his notes.

'I have been doing a lot of research on gotu kola, ginkgo biloba, and brahmi,' he said, flipping to the earlier pages of his journal. 'Those are the ones I used for the bases, and there is more research here that describes their properties better, and also show what ingredients do not combine well with them.'

'I think that we'll need to come up with a comprehensive list of ingredients that will both combine with and enhance the properties of those three,' she said, sounding final.

Snape quirked an eyebrow at her comment. She shrugged at him and turned back to read his journal. Snape shook his head. He had no idea what he was going to do with Hermione Granger yet again.

To be continued.