I hadn't intended to put this first section back up - there didn't seem much point, given that, as and when I do get back to it, it will need a rewrite - but a number of people wrote asking where it had got to, so this seemed the easier option.
Disclaimer: Written for pleasure, not profit
From the Horns of Unicorns
KazVL
Disdaining the carriage and the unfamiliar member of staff sent to meet her off the Hogwarts Express, Hermione left her luggage with them and walked to school, wanting to prepare herself for whatever changes there might have been. But even the boar's head gates looked as she remembered them, as did the castle itself, seeming to tower up into the clouds, part fairy-tale, part ancient fortress.
Careless of the rain soaking her, she stopped in her tracks, refusing to permit the memories to rule her life; the swot of the class of '91 was dead - like so many others.
Unaware of her expression of fierce defiance, Hermione walked up the stone staircase and into the one place to which she had sworn she would never return.
"Hermione, my dear," exclaimed Professor McGonagall, just before she took Hermione in a light hug and kissed her cheek. "You look...well."
"Certainly in better health than when you saw me last," dismissed Hermione. The intervening years had not been kind to McGonagall, who looked every one of her eighty six years and fifty extra - but then animagi tended to age faster.
Professor McGonagall's smile faltered, frozen by Hermione's lack of response. "That's certainly true. Now, take off your outdoor robe, sit, get comfortable. We'll take tea while I bring you up-to-date. I'm delighted that you'll be taking Junior Defence Against the Dark Arts and Advanced Ancient Runes. Here's your timetable. There's a staff meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning."
There was a moment when Hermione was afraid she was going to be sick. Panic sweeping over her, she rose to her feet. "This is ridiculous," she said, in a high, tight voice, "I should never have agreed to come here."
"Very few things that are worthwhile are easy," said Professor McGonagall crisply. "This has been a difficult period of transition for us all."
"Difficult!" Hermione's voice cracked before she shivered and fell silent. Subsiding back on her chair she looked around the headmistress' study. Except for the portraits on the wall there was nothing she remembered: not even Fawkes. Then she saw the photograph of Dumbledore, busy tinkering with one of the mechanical toys in which he had delighted. Half-turning, he waved at her, his blue eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. Hermione covered her mouth with her hands before she regained control.
"How can you bear to...?" She gestured to the wall.
"How could I not?" returned Professor McGonagall, a faint frost in her voice by this time. "You look pale, Miss Granger."
Hermione did not notice the return to formality. "It's this place. I should never have come back. I don't know why I did."
"Because I asked you to. Because you're needed here. Unless you're proposing to turn your back on your responsibilities again."
"I have none," said Hermione in a hard voice.
"You have the rest of the wizarding community. Their children need the best possible education to ensure they never have to face another Voldemort. Because, make no mistake Miss Granger, there will always be those who seek to impose their vision on the rest of us. Now, to work. You have excellent references from Beauxbatons. Your quarters are on the top floor of the East Tower. Call me Minerva. We don't stand on informality in the staffroom. Obviously there have been many changes to the staff.
"Charlie Weasley is Professor of Magical Creatures. He's built himself a sturdy little house close to where Hagrid used to live. Though Charlie spends most of his free time with Winnie."
"Winnie?" said Hermione weakly, accepting the cup of tea Professor McGonagall handed her. Bone china, Earl Grey tea, cucumber sandwiches and scones.
"His dragon. Officially, of course, the school authorities know nothing about her. She's only six months old - fortunately the China Golds don't grow to more than six feet at most or I would have to take steps.
"Professor Vector is Head of Ravenclaw. Cordelia Makepeace is Professor of Herbology and Head of Hufflepuff, Sirius Black is Professor of Transfiguration and Head of Gryffindor."
"Snape must love that."
"Severus is no longer Potions Master at Hogwarts."
"He isn't?" It was as if a natural law had been reversed.
"He retired."
"He didn't look that old," said Hermione with careless cruelty.
"He isn't. Seven years older than Bill Weasley, to be precise. While he's lucky to be alive, he was too ill to continue teaching. Defeating Voldemort cost him dear."
"Not just him," said Hermione in a cold, clear voice. "At least he's alive. Not bad going for a former Death Eater."
Professor McGonagall gave her a sharply assessing look. "You used to have more compassion."
"I used to have a lot of things," retorted Hermione, shivering despite the warmth of the room.
While Professor McGonagall's mouth thinned, she let the subject drop.
Her quarters were small but very comfortable: a study/sitting room, bathroom and bedroom. Plenty of light and bookshelves and heat. More, the East Tower had no close neighbours, giving her additional privacy. With no wish to attract attention, Hermione dressed in her habitual, and unflattering, black - it saved a great many decisions about colour coordinating in the mornings - shapeless trousers, a shirt and her robes, her hair fiercely restrained in a long plait.
Surprised by how nervous she felt, despite the fact she had met the majority of the staff at dinner last night, Hermione entered the staff room. She was quickly engulfed in reunions and introductions and enough goodwill to make her teeth ache. It all felt so false - so forced - although whether the fault was in them or in herself she didn't know.
After several references to the Deputy Head, Hermione listened with half an ear to what Susan Bones, Assistant Herbology Professor was telling her, while scanning the room for another unfamiliar face.
"Professor Granger. A pleasure."
The rich, warm voice rolled over her and Hermione smiled up at Blaise Zabini, Professor of Potions, wondering how she could have missed his good looks during their seven years at Hogwarts.
"Blaise." Another brief, meaningless hug. "So, tell me, who's Head of Slytherin these days."
"Why, did you have a complaint about the previous head, Miss Granger?" inquired a familiar voice.
Damask soft, it stroked along her senses. A sense of inevitability mixing with a perverse pleasure, Hermione turned.
"Professor Snape." His choice of dress hadn't changed since she had seen him last, with a spare glimpse of white at throat and wrist to relieve the dull, matt black of his tailored, floor-length robe. From an adult perspective she could appreciate that it was not only practical but highly flattering. She wondered, in a vague kind of way, which of them had changed - as if anyone could be the same after that last battle with Voldemort.
The ballads only spoke of heroes, rarely of the cost of victory.
"This is a surprise," she continued, her sense of the rest of the room receding as she concentrated on him. "Professor - Minerva - told me you weren't teaching here any more."
"A relief to students everywhere, I'm sure."
She was too busy studying him to think of a tactful reply. Ten years had pared him to the bone; but while spare and austere-looking, with harsh lines seemingly engraved on his face, he looked...at peace with himself.
"You missed your cue," Snape prompted.
"I beg your pardon?" she said, studying him more obviously now.
It was only when she saw his mouth quirk that she realised she had been less than subtle.
"You couldn't give up Hogwarts completely?" she added, taking war into the enemy's camp.
"I didn't have a great deal of choice. As the only surviving Death Eater, it can be assumed that I know of what I speak. It was thought that I might still be of some use." The bitter twist to his mouth was familiar enough.
Hermione glanced across at Zabini. "You're a brave man."
He grinned, his teeth very white against the purple-black bloom of his skin. "The first five years were the worst. Fortunately his position as Deputy Head keeps Severus out of the dungeons - most of the time."
Hermione was too surprised by the affection in the teasing smile Zabini gave Snape to pick up on what she had been told immediately.
"That and the Wards Minerva put on my old quarters," agreed Snape dryly.
"Excuse me, I believe Susan..." Zabini slipped away.
"From what Minerva said I thought you were an invalid," Hermione said bluntly.
Snape's mouth thinned. "Sorry to disappoint you."
"That isn't what I meant," she said quickly, touching him lightly on the arm.
It was then that she discovered the left sleeve of his robe was empty and she realised why Snape no longer taught Potions; he had lost his left arm just above the elbow.
"Oh," she said, stepping back a pace. "I'm sorry." Memory, fickle and often unreliable, reminded her that they used to clip the wings of the ravens at the Tower of London so they wouldn't fly away.
"For what?"
"Don't be obtuse. Your arm."
"Or lack of," Snape said, with no audible emotion.
"Well, I suppose it explains why you were ill - although surely it shouldn't have taken you that long to recover from an amputation."
"No," he agreed, unflinching. "It was probably lack of moral fibre on my part."
"I don't doubt that," she said harshly. Dragging her gaze from his face she discovered that they were the centre of attention and that more than one person was gazing at her with thinly veiled hostility. "You seem to have quite a fan club," she added, poking the tiger with a stick one more time.
"There's no accounting for taste. Have you seen Potter recently?"
"Harry?" A flicker of puzzlement crossed her face.
"You mean there's more than one?" said the soft, mocking voice she remembered all too well from her childhood.
"Oh. Harry. No. I've haven't seen him since..."
A small bell rang and the murmur of voices fell silent as the staff meeting was called to order.