Snape paced the grounds outside the castle doors the following morning, a nervous energy sparking through him that made his skin feel electric. To say this was a dangerous endeavor would be a vast understatement.

The Dark Lord saw Miss Granger alive. His followers still loomed at large and quite regularly pillaged villages like Diagon Alley merely for an afternoon out. If they caught whiff that she'd—that they'd—left the sanctity of the castle, he felt quite sure they'd set out like bloodhounds. And this was a risk he was not willing to take.

He caught himself on more than one occasion performing an internal monologue which began, "She is the mother of my child, I must protect her," before biting the inside of his cheek to halt that line of thought. His world hadn't stopped spinning since he found himself at Hermione Granger's front door a mere handful of days ago, but he still had a role to play now. He mustn't lose sight of what he had to do, which might yet entail murdering her ruddy best friend. He'd be a damned fool to think she'd allow him any part in her life if the worst came to pass.

The lazy yawn of the castle doors as they were pushed open broke him out of his argument with himself, to his begrudging relief, and he turned to meet Hermione's gaze. He felt his frown deepen, however, when he took in her state of dress. She couldn't very well head into town dressed like such a—a Muggle.

As if reading his mind, she pulled the cardigan tightly around her bony shoulders almost defensively. "I might remind you that I haven't exactly got robes with me," she said a little haughtily.

He bit his lip and nodded deeply. "Be that as it may," he drawled, "we need an alternative." He withdrew his want and cocked an eyebrow at her weary face. "May I?"

She shrugged and stood still as he transfigured the jacket around her shoulders into a long plume of fabric that draped around the whole of her, a hood masking most of her face. She brushed back the cloth, shaking her hair back, but stopped short when the sunlight caught the color of the sleeve.

"Green?" Her words fell somewhere between a laugh and a cry. "You must be joking."

"Miss Granger, I never joke," he murmured, "not when the sacred Slytherin House colors are involved." He watched as she narrowed her eyes to slits but did not miss the definite upturn of her lips.

"Beggars can't be choosers, I reckon," she said at long last with as much dignity as she could muster.

He offered his arm and she took it. They walked just beyond the castle gates when a thought struck him. "Violet?"

"With Ron and Ginny," she answered. At the cock of his brow, she furrowed hers. "Little as she may be, she's a lot for Ginny to handle right now," she said defensively. "I figured Ron could chase after her a heck of a lot more easily."

Snape opened and closed his mouth a few times before realizing he had no valid counter argument. The idea of his daughter spending any concrete amount of time around that neanderthal made his stomach uneasy but he couldn't fault her logic. He shook his head and turned to her, opening his palms for her to take his hands. "Ready?"

Though she looked as if she wanted to say no, she nodded once. "As I'll ever be."

He steeled himself a hard look at her face, at the set of her jaw and the ice in her eyes. "Hermione, I don't need to tell you that this endeavor—as necessary as it is—is a dangerous one."

She did not blink.

"We shall be in and out in under an hour. I've spoken with Ollivander myself and he'll be closing shop to allow us privacy."

"That's kind of him."

"Hermione, it is imperative that our venture today not be discovered," he said in a breath. "If we are seen by someone—"

"I understand, Professor," she interrupted him, her skin paling all the more. "I understand the risks. Have you thought—well, what about something like Polyjuice?"

"There's not enough time," he sighed. "I used my last—well, no matter. We can't afford to wait for a new batch to brew so our best bet is to keep our heads down."

Silence stretched between them, heavy and oppressive. Warning bells were going off in his mind and yet, he could not think of an alternative. It's not as if Ollivander made house calls.

Her hands fell into is and as staring into her eyes felt a little intimate, he closed his as he told her to prepare herself. With that, the world spun out from under them.

SSHG

It seemed to Hermione that she heard the din from Diagon Alley before she felt her feet even hit the floor. Her stomach dropped and she pressed one hand to it, and one over her mouth, to quell the bile that rose when she opened her eyes.

Snape was watching her very carefully through curtains of onyx hair that seemed arranged to hide his face. "Do you need a healing draught?"

Hermione considered it but, still rather weary, shook her head. "Water, rather, I think."

Whether he conjured a bottle or pulled it out of his robes, she didn't know, but one was soon pressed into her hand, for which she was grateful. She sipped cautiously at it until she felt the coolness of it spread through her.

With a nod, they ducked their heads and started walking. The air, clinging to that summer warmth, felt dense around them and instantly, Hermione's conjured robs made her feel constricted. She resisted the urge to loosen the collar of them around her neck lest she draw attention to herself.

And yet the fear she felt swarming her, making the hair on her neck stand up, was rivaled by a nostalgia she couldn't tame. Glancing up to catch sight of the scrawled words Flourish & Blotts felt like a genuine blast from her childhood. It was both pleasant and painful and she couldn't make sense of it so she quickly returned her gaze to the pavement beneath her feet.

She was momentarily surprised when she felt a hand fall between her shoulder blades but relaxed when she saw it came from the professor. Glancing his way, she murmured, "Every time I think I'm prepared for something, I underestimate what it'll actually be like."

Heavy between them lay the truth that this village, though beloved, was also the last thing she saw when her sense of security within the Wizarding World vanished. And before she could redirect her thoughts, that night loomed in front of her and she remembered.

She'd been walking. She'd had a fight—with Ronald? Gods, she hadn't remembered that. They'd had a fight and she'd taken off and at first, she'd thought of going to Hogsmead for a pint but then that seemed too easy to track, didn't it, so there she was, walking. She'd been walking and a figure was approaching and she was caught by the thought that he seemed to be heading straight for her when, from behind the alley by Tom's pub, a wand cut through the air and sent a stunner her way. To this day, she doesn't know who was behind it. But her eyes never left the figure approaching and even as they closed, she noticed the way his glistening, nearly white, hair shook out of his hood.

She didn't realize she was crying until the same hand on her back pushed her, more urgently now, into Rosa Lee Teabag's on the corner. The room, blessedly, was empty save for an older witch behind the counter with an apron up to her bosom and shock coloring her cheeks. Snape deposited her gently into an overstuffed arm chair before approaching the startled employee.

"I beg your pardon," he said in what Hermione would guess was his calmest tone. "Could we get a pot of peppermint tea?" He leaned in slightly closer and said something Hermione couldn't hear. Whatever it was caused the other woman to nod and bustle around to the door, locking it and pulling the curtains before busying herself with their tea.

"Did you ask her to close shop?" Hermione cried when he returned, immediately embarrassed by the apparent scene she was causing.

"No, Hermione," he murmured smoothly. "I merely rented the room for the half hour. I don't want to put the woman out of business."

The woman—Anna, if her nametag was to be believed—deposited a steaming put and two empty cups before them, pouring tea into each before disappearing behind a curtain in the back.

Hermione blinked at him. She didn't know what to say. He nodded indulgently as if she were deaf and dumb. "Peppermint tea is known to be something of a natural calming draught," he explained.

She lifted the porcelain to her face and let the steam heat her cheeks. The minty scent wafted around her and she couldn't deny that she felt almost immediately calmer. With the calm, her embarrassment seemed to soar. "I'm really sorry," she muttered quickly, setting her cup back on the saucer without taking a sip. "I—I don't exactly know what came over me."

He interrupted her babbling with a gentle hand on her arm. "Hermione, please," he said after a beat. "I can only imagine how difficult this return, to this village in particular, must be and especially after the night you had. We can talk about it if you wish but first, drink your tea. Trust me."

And so she did. They sat in a silence that wasn't altogether uncomfortable and she allowed the heat from the drink to relieve the pinch she felt in her face. It was Snape who spoke again next.

"Is it helpful to talk about?"

Hermione considered this. She didn't rightly know. The past four years had been a whirlwind of survival and through most of it, she struggled merely to put one foot in front of the other, exhausted as she was in her plight to make Violet's life comfortable. And seeing as most of her time was spent with a toddler—a selectively mute toddler—it wasn't as if there was all that much conversation happening at all.

"I—I don't know," she admitted. "I'm not entirely sure what happened back there."

Snape swirled his tea as if it were a glass of wine whose legs he was watching drip down the sides of the china. He remained silent.

She pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyebrows. "I think it's just a lot, you know. All at once."

"Miss Granger," he said at last, and Hermione chose not to correct him this time around. "I don't pretend to know anything about what you're experiencing. Additionally, I don't know what to say that would be helpful and not hurtful."

"You don't—"

"I can appreciate that we—that I—have thrown you head first into…well, into a nightmare."

She bit her lip and met his gaze, though she could tell he struggled with it. "Every day feels like being plunged into icy water," she breathed at last. "Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but all of it hurts. Seeing everyone, seeing Harry, seeing this village, I…." She trailed off, at a loss.

"What will help?"

It was a simple question. It should have been expected, even. And yet, it floored her. "Well, I don't rightly know."

She sipped on her tea. She pondered. She breathed.