Hermione sat on the sofa with a teacup in front of her on the coffee table. The cup was a robin's egg blue colour and had a small chip in it. It was a rather odd choice colour, come to think of it. Maybe someone long ago had wanted to bring some brightness into this home. There were so many things that were bright and cheery. It must have been the same person who had painted the walls in the kitchen yellow. The photograph was once more in the pocket of her jumper, safe from Snape. Merlin only knew what he might try to do to the darn thing, not that she would care or at least that was what she told herself. The compass, however, sat next to her teacup. The dial did not point north but spun around as if it were still seeking something out. Merlin only knew what or why.

She flipped the stupid thing over, growling as she did so, unwilling to look at it anymore.

Severus walked into the room as if nothing were amiss. His teacup in hand and another wretched cigarette was hanging from his lips.

"Must you do that inside?" Hermione growled.

"It's my house, and I can do as I please," he muttered. "Now, if you don't like it, you can leave. I am sure some wizarding family might happily take pity on you. I hear the Weasleys are almost always happy to help whatever stray turns up on their doorstep."

"Then I shall take this with me," she snapped, snatching the compass off the table. The thing was cold and heavy in her hand. "And you will be rid of me and this."

"You won't figure it out," he said, eyes narrowing as smoke billowed off his cigarette around him. "And I don't think someone else would be crazy enough to help you." Severus took a step towards her, the sharp thump of his feet vibrating against the floor. He grabbed her by the arm and leaned over staring at her, his face in hers.

"I will. I figured it out once before, and I will do so again," she spat, shoving a finger straight into his chest and giving him a shove. "I don't need you, Snape, but you do need me."

"So you claim, yet here you are quivering and biting your lip. It gives away far more of your lies than your words hide them. Want to bounce back to the stone ages next time? No one will understand you and will likely kill you on sight. That would help you with your plans, wouldn't it?"

"And you would help me?" Hermione questioned sarcastically. "Keep me safe from them? That would make you feel so mighty and powerful, wouldn't it?'

"When you fell through time, did you hit your head on something or have you always been so snippy with people?" he asked, letting go of her arm and sitting down on the sofa. He placed his feet on the table, next to her teacup.

'Ew,' she thought as she sat back down next to him, sighing.

"So we might need each other," she said through gritted teeth. "But do you have to be so horrible?"

"Takes one to know one, Hermione," he laughed. "We both need something from each other. If you do make it to the past, the Potters will not trust you. And while they might not trust me much either, I will not be a stranger from a strange land, and you are. It's only been a year and I don't look that different than I did then. So, shall we try to help one another and not bite each other's heads off?"

"Possibly, but I cannot promise anything…" Hermione quipped.

"Were you born this impossible, or is it a new talent of yours?"

A couple of sharp knocks on the front door silenced them.

"Shite," Severus growled. "He wasn't supposed to be here for at least another few hours. I assumed that I had time to figure out what to do with you."

His crude language shocked her but didn't surprise her. "What in Merlin's name were you planning to do with me?"

"Stuff you in a bloody closet! I don't even know!" He ran his fingers into his hair and pulled at it.

"You're a bloody arse!" Hermione shouted. "Maybe I should stuff you in a freaking closet!"

"Woman, shut your mouth, or I will shut it for you."

Anger bubbled under her skin, and she fought the urge to slap him.

A voice behind the door took her attention away from Severus.

"Snape, I am just going to come on in, okay?" The person didn't wait for a response.

Hermione stood up, holding out her wand and preparing for the possible attacker. Instead, Remus Lupin stood in the doorway. His hair was longer than it had been when she had known him; it fell into his face and touched his collar. His scars, golden eyes, and the rest of his features were the same, though. He was just many years younger now. He did, however, look just as sad as he had in her time and just as broken. Harry had lost his parents, but Remus had lost his partner. He didn't even know that the man was innocent. She did not have a way to prove it and that was what kept her mouth shut. It was better to be silent and figure out how exactly she could tell him.

"How do you do, miss?" Remus asked. "I didn't know that Severus had friends, let alone someone as pretty as you."

"She's no one," Severus muttered, waving a hand around as he spoke. "Hermione, why don't you go to the back garden while Lupin and I speak?"

"I… don't want to do that," she said, her hands on her hips. "Nor do I have to if I don't want to."

"Considering that it is my house, actually you do."

"No, she doesn't. I have nothing to say your friend can't hear."

Hermione was left with a rather odd feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was Remus different, so utterly different? He was sharper than he had been in the future. Her mind was unable to settle on the information, even in her thoughts.

"I disagree," Severus snapped. "Please, Hermione, go to the garden so Lupin and I can speak."

"No, she doesn't have to," the other man growled.

"Men! Well, at least some of them, I don't know about you, Mr I don't know your name," Hermione snapped, hoping that she wouldn't be caught in her tiny white lie. "From the beginning of time assuming they can speak for women as if we are nothing more than objects to pull down from a high shelf to be played with at their will and set us aside when they deem fit. I will go to the garden so you can have your proper conversation without me listening. But stop treating me like that for the love of all that's holy." She just as quickly softened, "But first, hello, I am Hermione, and I assume your name isn't Lupin or at least your first name isn't. You are?"

"My name is Remus, Hermione, and it's lovely to meet you even if you do keep such poor company."

"Nice to meet you, and I hope that we will see each other again soon."

Hermione fled the sitting room, her face slightly hot with shame and discomfort. It was rather odd to feel that about how those men had treated her—Remus as he seemed to want to be her friend even as he seemed so utterly alone. The few years that she had known him, he had been happy first with Sirius and after with Tonks. Fate had stolen from him the life he should have had, but it might be within her power to give him back some of it. There was no way that she could know which person he would be able to spend his life with or that he would choose either of those people in this life. Time travel gave her a bloody headache, But that didn't mean she should not at least try to make some of the future better for any of them—the people who Voldemort and his Death Eaters had touched. Hermione considered the other piece of information, the photograph in her pocket. The one with the little family that she would have.

Did she want to have that life? And if she did not want to, was there any way to stop it? Or was Dumbledore right about what had happened would happen again?

It was something she rarely ever admitted. It was a silly and childish thing; growing up Hermione had always wanted a family. Children, a spouse, the dog, and the little back garden. But those were silly notions of a life long ago.

Snape's back garden was overgrown or at the very least not well taken care of. There was an old oak tree, grass at least knee high in some spots, and stones just as cracked as those outside the front of the house. Though it did not matter, Hermione needed to listen to what those two men were saying.

'What was that spell the twins had used back when they were trying to listen to the Order? Rats, it wasn't a spell. It was one of their stupid bloody products, and they hadn't been invented yet. The twins were young children right now though they were still likely causing as much mayhem now as they did when they were older, but wait; it couldn't be, now could it?'

Severus Snape had left a window open. That was a perfect place to try and overhear the conversation that was going on inside. Hermione kneeled next to the house in the grass, twigs poking her as she did. She brushed them aside and listened. Severus' booming voice filled her ears.

"Lupin, would you do me a favour and get out of your bloody head whatever it is you're thinking about that woman?" Severus growled, "she's just passing through and she has no interest in anything with you."

"She's not my type," Remus said. "But, is she yours?"

"That matters little. Now, I have far more important things to worry about."

"That wasn't a no."

"It's a, 'I care more about what information you have learned about from your time in Russia. About what remains of the Dark Lord and where it ended up.' Are you going to tell me, or do I have to pluck it from your wretched mind?"

"Pleasant as ever, I see," Remus grumbled. "Your 'friend' has done nothing to help that personality of yours."

Severus said harshly, "What would help my personality is a bloody boot up your arse, but since I can't have that, spit it out or off with you. I haven't got all day to play your bloody games."

Hermione couldn't help but laugh at that comment.

"A potion brewing or would you prefer to get that lovely witch back in your bed?"

"Must you be so lewd, wolf? Even if anything were going on with her, I wouldn't tell you about it. Now to get back on the reason you are cluttering up my sitting room and making it smell of canine, for the love of Merlin."

"The answer to your question? Unfortunately, I found nothing beyond the bit we already knew about many of the lower-ranking Death Eaters fleeing to mainland Europe. I haven't found any leads on them, but I also really wasn't looking for them. It's not my job to."

"Anything else, Lupin?" Severus questioned. "Something else that you could have sent by owl?"

Hermione could see in her head the man's snarling face; maybe he was already very much the man he would one day become.

"Dumbledore asked me to check on you. For some bloody reason, the man cares for you. Even if I honestly do not know why," Remus muttered. "Now I shall be off, and you can tell that poor woman to come back inside. Though I don't know why she couldn't hear this…"

"That's none of your concern, Now, have a good day and goodbye, Lupin."

There was silence for a while. Hermione wanted to straighten herself out and stare at the weeds scattered across the yard. Or maybe she should look over at the twisted fence that separated this garden from the one next to it. To pretend that she had not been listening to the conversation that took place in the house. She did not do that. Her limbs felt as if they were made of stone, and then Severus was standing over her.

"I am not shocked you listened in on that conversation," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Though I did expect you would have done a better job at trying to hide that you did."

"Why did you want me to be out here if you knew I was going to listen in?" Hermione asked, standing up as she did and brushing the grime off her denims. "Or put charms on the room, surely you of all people know one, don't you?"

"I created one and then… Well, it doesn't matter."

She knew what he was talking about. 'Harry had told her the Half-blood Prince had been the one to create 'Muffliato' and Snape had been that… boy? Man? Child? When she looked back with the clarity of time. Her sixth year was long ago, she had been a child, which meant so had the person who wrote those notes in that textbook during his own sixth year. Even if some of those spells had been rather dark, he, like her, was older now. Snape was twenty-two, and she was twenty-four; yet she felt far older, and the lines on his face said the same thing about him.'

"So, why didn't you use it or let me inside instead of forcing me to listen in from an open window like some sort of peeping tom?" she questioned, pressing her hand into his chest. "Because it makes no sense, and you don't seem like the type to do things that make no sense."

"You knew him in the future," he muttered. "I could see it on your face. So while Lupin regularly misses the forest for the trees, even he would understand if you went and blurted something out. Better for him to think what he already does. That I'm an arse. He's a follow the rules type if you didn't know and surely would have no problem with tossing you straight at the bloody Unspeakables without even thinking about it. That would blow whatever chance we have of saving Lily, and I won't allow that. Not for Lupin or anyone else for that matter."

"You were in love with her, weren't you?"

"I am not in love with her," Severus said, staring at the bricks of his home as if they held some unknown secret. "But I loved her. She was like a sister to me and someone who I care for greatly. She's dead because of my foolishness and mistakes, which you already know. If I had known what that thing would do to her, I would have killed myself before allowing any harm to ever come to her. You care greatly for her son, Harry; I saw that. But you are not in love with him either."

Hermione clenched her fists and spoke, "Harry is like the brother I never had and he is or rather was one of my closest friends."

"He's why you came back here. Does he die in the future war that Dumbledore believes will happen?"

"I shouldn't tell you," she murmured and turned away from him. She rubbed her hands back and forth over her arms. "I have likely already told you far too much."

"Didn't you already plan to tell someone, Hermione? Surely you did not expect to go there and never tell anyone, did you?"

"I don't know what I expected… I didn't have a plan one way or another. I might as well have jumped off a cliff without bothering to look down."

"Gryffindors," he laughed, looking at her with those odd eyes of his. They were as black as midnight, though bright in a way. "You are all the same, foolish at best and stupid at worst. Never thinking about how something would affect yourself or others. Is it bravery or a lack of care for your own life wrapped around your bones?"

He was neither a typical Muggle or a Wizard. Severus, like her, was something in between. The half-blood prince indeed. Caught between the world he was raised in and the one he wanted to be in. She studied the man before her. His hair fell around his shoulders. It hung around his face, partly shielding him from her gaze. He was dressed in all black like he had been during all the years she had known him, but he was less rigid now in this time and place. Age might be a part of it, though it might be that the world had not yet hardened him. He still seemed so lost but then so was she.

Hermione could not help but wonder, 'which part of himself made him feel more like a fish out of water?'

That did not, however, change her feelings for the man. He was still a bastard if Hermione had ever met one. "Then what are Slytherins, people who will happily watch the world burn just to save their bloody necks?"

"No. To save their bloody necks and the necks of those we love and care for."

"So if given a choice, you would allow James Potter to die without a thought about it?" Hermione asked, hoping that he would lie and deny it, but this was Snape, and she was downright silly to expect anything different. "Since you neither loved nor cared for him."

"Yes," Severus snapped. "But your world must be very different if you assume he wouldn't do the same when it comes to me if our roles were reversed. A tiger cannot change its stripes."

"Maybe where I am from is different; because I have met Slytherins who have stuck out their necks for others, even for those who they did not care for," she said.

"Surely it was only to protect their lives," he said, leaning over her, looking rather angry as his brows knitted together and his face became pinched. "And they were smart enough to make you believe otherwise. So maybe you aren't as bright as some had let you believe."

"Or maybe you're just a cold-blooded bastard!" Hermione shoved him back out of her face.

"I never claimed that I wasn't, Ms. Granger!" Severus snarled, looking quite a bit like Professor Snape. "What led you to believe such a stupid ignorant idea that I am some kind-hearted creature who cares about people who never gave a bloody damn about me?"

"Because the Severus Snape I knew died protecting people who didn't care about him or even liked him! That's why, but I must be a stupid fool to think you are him or are capable of being him!"

His face crumbled. He did not know the manner or when he would die, but he knew details about his death. No one should know the cause of it. "How? When? Why?"

"I can't tell you, and I have already said far too much," she said and sighed into her hands. "I will figure out the compass myself, and I will be gone. I recommend you do your best to forget that I was even here."

"Hermione, you can't tell a man that he's going to die and then run off like a dog who has been kicked. At least not when you were the one who did the bloody kicking," he replied, clearly not listening to what she had said to him. "Beyond that, what I told you before still holds up. They will not trust you alone, stubborn Gryffindor or not."

"Fine, but you need to stop being so irrational," She held out her hand and put it on his chest, doing her best to ignore that she too was being irrational. "We don't know if the darn thing will ever work, let alone how we can get it to send us where we want it to."

"Says the woman who came from the future. If it didn't work you wouldn't be here and driving me mad."

"Must you be so impossible?" Hermione asked and rocked up on her toes. "So utterly impossible."

"I could say the same about you," Severus mused, leaning down closer to her. He reached down, brushing his fingers down her arm, teasing her. "You are so utterly insufferable, yet you know it and seem to enjoy being so."

"I am not insufferable!" She quipped.

"Yes. You. Are."

Much to her shock, Severus leaned down and asked, "May I kiss you?"

"What?!?" Hermione croaked. "You want to kiss me? Fine, do it." She did not believe that he would do it.

After a moment, he was kissing her. For a second, she was rigid, frozen at the shock of it all, but then she had given into him. Hermione opened her mouth to his invading tongue. She moved her hands up to the back of his neck and slipped her fingers into his hair at the back of his neck. He slipped a hand under her jumper and shirt, resting his thumb on her hip. He pressed it into her sharp hip bone, which stuck out rather uncomfortably. He pulled away from her and rested his forehead against hers. They stared at each other, eyes wide open, taking in every single detail of each other's faces. Hermione noticed the small faded scar that cut across his pale cheek. She reached out, tracing it with her thumb gently, feeling how it was ever so slightly raised. He sighed and wrapped his hand around Hermione's wrist, pulling away from her.

"I don't know why I did that," Severus said, looking up at the sky that was darkening overhead. "I...it was rather foolish, wasn't it?"

He shifted around like a schoolboy caught doing something he shouldn't. He seemed as if he wanted to fold in on himself, to hide away from her and the world around them.

Hermione reached for him, but he pulled away from her touch. "I don't think it was foolish, but what would my thoughts matter on the subject?"

"You aren't, and your opinions do matter. I was just being an arse," he murmured, wiping his face on his sleeve, laughing darkly as he did so and adding. "I don't 'people' very well."

"From what I have been told, neither do I," she sighed. "It's getting cold. Can we go back inside and I don't even know at this point…"

This day had left her with the feeling the world might crumble under her feet. As if she had fallen down a hole into a strange place, she could barely make sense of.

"The compass can wait, but we should go make supper. It's getting rather late anyway."

"We should," Hermione said, turning to face the door back inside the house.

She opened the door, twisting the handle sharply in her hand and pushing her way inside. She rested her shoulder against the wall, untying her boots and setting them aside. She heard the sound of Severus' footfalls hitting the tile behind her. He shoved her gently aside and muttered under his breath, though she could still hear him, "There are a million places you could be and you must be in my way."

It seemed they had made progress, but it appeared that they weren't so far from where they had started. The kiss had been a rather stupid, foolish accident, and she was going to do her very best to forget it even if that was easier said than done.

"I am sorry that my existence seems to cause you so many problems, and yet I don't exist to make your life better or even to ruin it. I came here because I thought it helped tons of people and didn't think it through. Now I have to live with it, and I am sorry you seem to think you're the only one affected by it. But that isn't true," she said. Her frustration filled her tone of voice. "Is there anything you want to say to make me feel worse?"

Severus sighed, "And you think this has been easy for me?"

"No, I don't, and yet we have to try to make this work."

The two of them seemed like two magnets, both pulling themselves closer and yet also pushing away from each other. He made his way past her, digging out pots, a cutting board, and food from their respective cabinets. His hair hung limply around him, and his face was somewhat pinched, his voice filling with snark once more, "If you aren't going to help, please get out of the kitchen."

"You seem to be quite fine by yourself!" Hermione growled.

"You're impossible!" He snarled.

"So are you!"

"It's my house and I am allowed to be. You, on the other hand, are an unwanted guest."

She stalked forward towards Severus and he spun towards her, leaning over her like he wanted to rip her to pieces. Hermione pointed at the centre of his chest sharply, "You are so bloody horrible, so impossible. Why can't you just stop? Is it bloody a special talent of yours or something? I came here throwing my own life away to save you and them, and yet you act as if I am just this great inconvenience that was thrust upon you like an unwanted pet. I am a person, Severus Snape, and it will be best to remember that and treat me as such!"

"You think I should treat you better?" Severus asked, grabbing onto her shoulders and shaking her. "How would you treat someone who landed on your bloody doorstep claiming she was from the bloody future? And then the strange person tells you that you're going to die in the future? If I were sane, Granger, I would take you to the Janus Tickery ward and wash my hands of you. My life would be easier if I did, and if it weren't, it would at least be simpler! You are like the dark fairy godmother that only makes me miserable."

Maybe she should just leave. She found her mind wandering. Would it be better if she walked out the front door and never looked back? It had been foolish to assume that she could just send herself back in time and fix things. Hermione had not thought about how she might do things, and now it was time to pay the piper for those actions. Or it would also be if she didn't see how he was looking at her as if he knew he was upsetting her. As if it was clear as day that he had gotten under her skin and he was enjoying it. Anger bubbled up inside her like a cauldron waiting to explode. Hermione pulled out the compass from her pocket and shoved it into Severus' face, "Then I shall take this with me and be out of your hair."

She turned on a heel. Part of her hoped that he would allow her to leave, and the far larger part hoped he would insist she stay. Severus grabbed onto her arm before Hermione could even reach her boots, dragging her back to him. His touch was like ice, yet it left her with this feeling of flames dancing across her skin. There was something about this man that was inescapable as anything had ever been and would ever be.

"Stay, please," he cried. "I need you just as much as you seem to need me. You're like no one I have ever known before, Hermione, and I think you feel the same."

"Possibly," she muttered. "But that doesn't change the fact you're an arse who seems to get off on making others uncomfortable."

Hermione turned to face him and looked at him, trying her very best to forget about the man he might one day become. The greasy git as Harry called him, though he wasn't greasy now, he sure was a bloody git.

He shifted around. "The same could be said about you."

"Then I guess we are at an impasse."

"That we are," Severus added. "Now, would you like to help me with supper? Afterwards I can dig up some clothes for you. I think you're about the same size as my mother. They will have to do at least until we get something better."

Clothes were not something that Hermione cared much about. More so after the war, but it was another thing she had forgotten about in her haste. She wasn't going to impress anyone, and as long as she had something that sort of fit and kept her warm? She could and would make do with them if she was going to go back further; it was possible that she wouldn't be able to take anything with her. For once in a very long time, Hermione wished that she had asked more questions, but looking before she leapt was something that she had gotten out of practice during the war. Her beaded bag was sitting on her bed in 2003 because she only thought she was going to the Headmistresses office for a chat, not actually leaving. All of her things were packed into it, yet part of her didn't care about them one bit. Things didn't matter in the end.

Together Hermione and Severus got back to making supper. She tried not to think about how upset Harry might be now, once he realised that she was gone to a past that seemed as distant as anything had ever been. She had to do her best to set that aside. Now she had bigger things to worry about, like a future to try and fix.