Chapter 12

The new flat was situated a mile and a half from Spinner's End. The neighborhood was quiet and peaceful, it was closer to work, and there was a prettier view from my bedroom window. On the downside, it was a mile and a half from Severus Snape and Coffee Cartel. Not that it made that much difference; I was still spending my time off assisting with the research, and we continued to meet weekend mornings at the coffee shop.

Severus showed up at my door the day I moved in.

"At least the furnishings are better," he remarked, eyeing the bland beige sofa and easy chair in the living room. "Although I shall miss the wobbly director's chair that threatened to fall apart every time I looked at it."

"Not to mention the ghastly lumpy sofa," I added.

"I brought you a housewarming and belated birthday present," he said, removing a gift box from a brown grocery sack.

"That's awfully sweet of you," I said, and immediately cursed my choice of words. Snape was looking distinctly sour at the thought that he could be thought of as anything remotely close to 'sweet'. "Sorry. Let me rephrase that. It was very thoughtful of you."

He seemed somewhat appeased.

"You're trying to dismantle my evil persona, aren't you, Hermione Granger?"

"Your evil persona's been dismantling itself for four and a half years now," I teased, tearing into the wrapping paper.

"Hmpf," he grunted.

"Wine glasses!" I cried as the present revealed itself. "Perfect. Thank you so much! I haven't even checked the cupboards yet to see what this flat has in the way of tableware. Now all we need is some wine."

Snape reached into the grocery bag once more and pulled out a bottle. "The Cabernet you like so much. I trust this will meet with your approval?"

"Absolutely." Not only had he brought wine, he'd brought the very wine he knew I enjoyed. I was even more impressed. Or, a little voice piped in, he just took the easy way out, not bothering to shop for something different.

I ignored the little voice and took the wine glasses to the kitchen to unbox them and rinse them out. Meanwhile, Severus went about carefully casting a chilling charm on the bottle.

"You do realize," he said quietly, "that our agreement ended three days ago, don't you?"

I knew. Today was the third day of October. I'd been wondering when this conversation would take place.

"Does that mean you don't want my help with the research anymore?" I asked, forcing a light tone into my voice. I didn't want an end to the evenings and weekends surrounded by books and parchment and Severus Snape. I loved the interesting reading, the mental exercise of it all. And I loved the oddly pleasurable friendship we shared.

"I don't mean to inconvenience you if you're not interested in helping me any longer," Severus said, with the air of a man choosing his words very precisely.

I glanced in his direction. He was clearly avoiding my gaze. "I've enjoyed it immensely. Continuing wouldn't be a bother, unless you're tired of having me underfoot so often."

"If you want to continue, that would be satisfactory," Snape hedged, tapping the cork of the wine bottle with his wand. It popped off neatly, flying about a foot into the air and landing in his outstretched hand.

Satisfactory? I groaned inwardly. Would it kill the man to admit that he'd enjoyed my presence over the past six weeks? Certainly Snape would have thrown me out on my ear weeks earlier if he couldn't abide the sight of me. He could have simply filled my arms with periodicals to research and sent me packing with instructions to report back on anything I'd learned.

"More than satisfactory. It wasn't much of a punishment for me, as you well know," I pointed out as I placed two of the wine glasses on the counter. Severus poured.

"You were born to be a scholar, Hermione," he said, handing me one glass and lifting the other. "Here's to knowledge."

"And our continued partnership," I added.

There was just the faintest hint of color in his cheeks.

….

The nineteenth of October was my father's birthday, falling exactly one month after my own. It wasn't until I was in a shop, buying a card for him, that I realized I still hadn't received my birthday card from him and Mum.

My heart sank. It was bad enough that we communicated through greeting cards a few times a year. Now they'd forgotten about me entirely? The thought reminded me of the ugly fact that I was the one who had gone out of my way to make them forget me in the first place. I signed the card 'Love, Hermione', addressed it to Dad, and posted it.

Work was pleasantly quiet. I spent most of my time assisting clients through tangles of Ministry red tape and writing summaries of local news to be added to the Monthly Updates sent from London. My staff was performing well: Sondra had cut way back on her gum chewing, Clare dealt competently with a handful of petty offenses, and Dex saw to the usual assortment of minor illnesses and injuries in the clinic.

I called an after-hours meeting one day in early November and assured my staff that it wouldn't last long, as I was just as eager to leave for home as they were. At the close of the meeting, I made an announcement.

"There's one more thing. I want you all—well, you, Dex and Sondra—to be aware of something; Clare already knows about it. Back in August, when there was such a frenzy about Professor Snape, I spread the rumor that he and I were involved. It was an attempt to keep his very ardent and pushy admirers at bay, which was as much for my benefit as his, being as I was living right next door at the time. I thought that if the public believed that he was already in a romantic relationship, then the excitement would die down. Thankfully, it has. And thanks to the direct intervention of a friend of mine, Rita Skeeter of the Daily Prophet has been temporarily muzzled, and that's also helped calm the waters."

"It was Harry Potter," I heard Clare whisper loudly to Sondra.

Sondra looked impressed.

Dex looked bored.

"So Professor Snape's available?" Sondra piped up hopefully.

I didn't particularly want to answer that question, I discovered. I did anyway.

"Yes," I said, and when Sondra squealed aloud, I was quick to add, "but that doesn't mean you should spread the news around. And I don't think he'll be wanting to hear from you, either."

"Oh, I promise, Hermione," she said firmly.

I didn't believe it for a second, but I let it pass.

"Ha! I figured you had better sense than to get involved with that guy." Dex wore a smug expression on his face. "He may be a war hero and all, but he's still just a bitter old curmudgeon, isn't he?"

I was momentarily stunned by the characterization. "Not really. He can be quite engaging."

"Right."

I declared the meeting over, and we all began to gather up coats and belongings. Clare cornered me as I was putting on my coat.

"So no more stalkers hanging about?" she asked, looking pleased.

"Severus hasn't mentioned it," I told her, "but since I'm not living next door to him anymore, I can't swear to it firsthand."

"Of course."

"How's Gavin, by the way?"

"Just splendid, thanks for asking. He's proposed to his girlfriend, you know."

"Really? I know he said he wanted to propose when he returned to town. Brenda, right? Did she say yes?"

"She did, although she says she won't marry him until he finishes fixing up that house of his," Clare confided with a grin.

I laughed. "I can't say that I blame her. The poor girl needs a real closet to hang her clothes in, if nothing else. Not to mention real curtains."

At home, I quickly changed out of my work clothes and into something more comfortable. I was meeting Severus at the pub near his house, and then we would be starting work on the Defensive Spells section of the Klingbeek text. First though, I rifled through the day's post.

There was the usual assortment of unsolicited mail, but tucked in the back was a card. Was this finally the birthday card from my parents? But then I recognized the handwriting on the front of the envelope as my own.

It was the birthday card I'd sent to my father. Stamped across the envelope were the words RETURN TO SENDER, ADDRESS UNKNOWN.

My parents had moved and hadn't even left a forwarding address.

…..

I sent a message to Clare the next morning, telling her that I would be late. Then I Apparated to the Ministry in London and headed straight for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"Hermione!" Harry looked up from his desk in surprise. "What are you doing here? I didn't know you were going to be in town today."

"I'm just here to see you," I said.

"Oh yeah? What's up?"

"I was wondering, Harry. Do you know any Aurors in Australia?"

"Sort of. I met one or two when they came here to deliver an extradited prisoner last spring. Why?"

"Do you think one of them might be willing to track down a missing pair of Muggle parents, kind of 'off the clock', so to speak?"

Harry stared at me. "Your parents are missing? What do you mean?"

"I sent the usual birthday card to Dad and it came back to me, marked 'return to sender, address unknown'."

"Are you sure you put the right address on it?"

"Of course I did," I said impatiently. "Do you think I wouldn't have checked that first?"

"Sorry, of course you did."

"And they didn't leave—"

"—a forwarding address, no. Makes one feel really wanted, doesn't it?" My lower lip quivered; I bit it hard.

The deeper implication set in. Harry looked appalled. "Oh. Wow. Hermione, you don't think that they deliberately—"

"I—I don't—know what to think." My voice threatened to give way completely.

Harry hastily dragged a stack of rolled parchments off the only other chair in the small space, and tossed them on the floor.

"Here. Sit down."

I sat, dabbing at my eyes with the tissue Harry quickly conjured for me.

"Look," he said after a moment or two, "it's the Muggle post, right? You know stuff goes missing all the time. I wouldn't just assume that they moved and didn't want you to know about it. What if… What if they're moving back here? To Britain?"

"That's what Severus thought when I told him about it last night." For one wildly happy moment, I had been relieved and elated, but I still couldn't come up with a reason they wouldn't have shared the news with me. As a result, it had not been a productive evening. I was distracted and worried, and had finally excused myself early.

"Maybe they want to surprise you," Harry offered, apparently at as much of a loss as I was.

"Maybe…" It was possible, I thought. I really, really, wanted to believe him.

"Tell you what: I'll look up the contact information for the Aussies and see what I can do. Can you give me your parents' address?"

I pulled open my satchel and pulled out the returned birthday card.

"Here. Let me know if they're willing to help? I suppose I could hire a Muggle private investigator, if need be."

Harry stared down at the envelope as if willing it to divulge its secrets. Or he might have been looking at what were obviously several dried tearstains.

"Can I tell Ron?" he asked. "I won't if you tell me not to, but I'm sure he'd like to know what's going on."

I nodded.

...

Later that day, I received a message from Harry. He'd been in contact with one of the Australian Aurors, who had promised to look into my parents' whereabouts. It was all I could do for the time being.

A/N: Shorter chapter this time, but angst warning ahead!