Severus Snape was grading papers in his chambers. The fireplace was crackling and blazing, but wasn't doing much to heat the room. Hogwarts was a drafty castle to begin with and on top of that he lived in the dungeons - not precisely a strategically warm living space. He barely noticed it, though.
Dumbledore, the silly old man, during his life had insisted on Severus moving his chambers many a time, only to receive harsh looks and verbal berating from the potion master. Now it was Minerva who picked up the torch and was always inquiring as to when he wanted to move his rooms. His answer: Never.
It was late and the fire was dying when flying in through the door - no warning, no knocking - was none other than his ex-student Hermione Granger. If it had been anyone else busting into his chambers like they owned the entire castle, they would be dust by now. But Hermione was a special case, in more ways that one.
"Severus!" she exclaimed gleefully, like she hadn't seen him more than a dozen times that day. Which she had. "What're you doing?"
Severus gave her one of his bluntest looks - not that Hermione took any notice. "I am grading papers, Granger, as should you be."
"I finished them," Hermione said with a shrug, dropping down in front of the fire. As always, her feet were absent of sheathing. Snape rolled his eyes, but could not suppress the smallest of grins. The girl never wore shoes - even when she was teaching class! It was nearing the end of her second official year as a professor and no one could convince her to use footwear.
Whenever someone asked, she'd always just say, "I left every last one of them with a friend I knew would take care of them. Unfortunate, isn't it?" But she didn't seem to think it was unfortunate at all, actually. That smile on her face said otherwise.
"All of them?" Snape asked skeptically. He put down his quill and turned his chair to face the rug Hermione sat one. "Or did you simply give them all perfect scores?"
"Of course not!" Hermione said indignantly. She was acting insulted, but Severus knew for sure she had done just that on many occasion. "I read through them all and gave appropriate markings."
"Good girl," he mumbled, turning back to his desk. Next thing he knew a slim shadow was slanting across the page he was reading. "Are you in need of anything, Miss Granger?"
"Actually, yes," she said. "I am in need of you to stop calling me by my surname. Before a year ago, you always called me Hermione. What changed?"
"You ended your apprenticeship. We are professionals," he said dismissively, the way he did when she began speaking nonsense. "Being professors, there is a certain decorum -"
"You call everyone by their first names. Minerva," she cut in. "And Poppy. And Filius. Hell, Neville even got you to call him by his first name." The hurt was definitely there in her voice. "I thought...well, I thought we were friends."
"We are colleagues," he said, trying to sound as detached and uninterested as possible. He continued looking over the paper in his hand and was randomly underlining sentences. In reality, he wasn't paying attention to anything the words read at all. How could he when Hermione was standing so damn close? "A 'friendship' would be inappropriate, wouldn't it?"
"But...you've been my friend for years," she continued, her voice quieter. "I didn't think that working here would change that."
"Then, I'm afraid, Granger, you were wrong," Snape said, plucking a random failing score from his head and decorating the page with it. Whoever Carlisle Wimble was, he was going to be very upset with his grade. "While the occurence of your being wrong, I'm sure, shocks you, it is true nonetheless."
There was a long silence from Hermione. Eventually she shrugged and said, "Okay. Well, I'll just go write my resignation letter now." She began walking towards the door.
"What?" Severus demanded.
Hermione turned, a perfectly innocent look on her face. "I'm going to resign."
"Why?" Severus asked firmly, standing from his chair.
"You said that if we're colleagues, we can't be friends," Hermione explained like it should have been obvious. "So, I'm going to quit. That way we can be friends again."
"Miss Granger, I wasn't offering you an ultimatum -"
"I know," she said with a nod. "But it's the situation, isn't it? What's the point in working here if the only person I care about in this whole school - maybe the world - won't even be friends with me?" She opened the door and was halfway out.
Now Severus felt guilty - which was a difficult thing to make him feel. He was usually remorseless and cold, but this damned girl make him feel bad. It was an infuriating feeling.
"Don't be daft," Severus said with venom, stopping her in her tracks. "Get back in here, this minute, Miss Granger, or so help me, I'll drag you back myself."
Hermione crossed her arms. "No."
"What did you just say?" he commanded with silky danger in his tone.
"I said 'no'. If we're not friends, there's no reason for me to be in your chambers. And I have some pressing matters to attend to. Minerva will have to find someone to fill the Transfiguration post for next year and if would be rude of me not to give her enough time to do so." Hermione, arms still stubbornly crossed, walked out of the room.
But Severus was close in her wake. "You stupid girl," he growled. "You can't just quit your job. It would be foolish and dim of you. It's not as if our friendship is worth your career -"
"But it is!" Hermione snapped, tossing her arms into the air in frustration. "Don't you get it? Our friendship means the world to me!" Then she looked straight into his eyes and he saw the hurt there. "But you've made it painfully clear that you don't feel the same way. So...I'll still resign. That way you won't have to deal with me anymore." She shook her head as he eyes started to sting. "I always knew I was a nuisance. I'm...sorry."
She began to walk away but immediately felt the tug someone snatching the back of her jumper.
"You are the stupidest intelligent person I have ever met," Severus said dryly and spun her to face him again. "Your friendship is valuable to me as well, but I fear our contact may be perceived as inappropriate to those who are not aware of our situation, especially now that you too are a professional."
"So..." Hermione was putting the pieces together. "You think that everyone else will think that you and I are...intimate."
"Not just 'everyone'," he said. "Students. And if students were to be suspicious and write their parents, there would be complaints. While my position is secured, you are new and less so. If one kid wrote his parents that he sees his professors coming and going from each other's offices and chambers, they would blame you."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you just say so in the first place? Your concern is pointless, all of that is my responsability - not yours."
"I did not say it," Severus said through tight lips, "because I knew you would say that."
"It's true, Severus," Hermione went on. "Stop worrying about me. I can take care of myself."
"No," he said tersely, "you cannot. You are too generous, too flexible, and too fragile. Therefore, you cannot take care of yourself."
"What qualifies you to take care of me, then?" Hermione said, her cheeks flushed with annoyance. He was being so...ugh! One second he was acting like he didn't like her and the next he was acting as if he was in charge of her.
Their relationship had been rocky like this for a while. Severus Snape lost his patience more often and would become distant, and then out of nowhere be all fatherly and dictating before retreating back into his little "Snape Corner" as Hermione called it - that place he went that meant no one was allowed near and meant he wouldn't care if you said you were contemplating leaping from the Astronomy Tower.
"Who is qualified to take care of you, if not me?" he shot back. "Was I not the one who stayed with you in the hospital, day after day? Was it not me who visited you constantly just to make sure you were safe and healthy?"
"I'm better now! I don't need your protection! I'm a grown woman, Severus - I'm twenty-one years old for Merlin's sake!"
"I refuse to argue with you anymore," Severus said, turning on his heels to march back towards his rooms. "You say you're a woman and you act like a child. And I have no time for children."
"NO TIME FOR CHILDREN?" Hermione exploded. "YOU'RE A BLOODY SCHOOL TEACHER!"
But he barely took notice as he swung the door shut, locking it twice.
...~oOo~...
Hermione had her advanced Seventh Years the next day and changed the course direction rather abruptly. The subject was written in large chalk letters as he class flowed in. She sat on top of her desk, her bare feet swinging and her teacher robes unbuttoned to reveal a grey skirt and white shirt underneath. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail.
The students of Hogwarts loved their Transfiguration professor. She was fun and loud and a bit off kilter - but in a good way. She often found ways to make lessons amusing, but in the same stroke was a stickler for specific rules. She did not tolerate any sort of taunting or bullying and wasn't afraid to empty every since last point from any House.
Today her students all sat down and looked at the board in confusion.
"Um, Professor?" one boy asked. His name was Jeremy and he was on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. "Why does the board say 'Human Transformation'? I thought we were going to be going into detail about how Alchemy correlates with Transfiguration?"
"That was, indeed, the original plan, Mr. Hemingway. But I felt today needed a change of pace. Good news for all of you, you're note-taking supplies will not be needed for a while yet." She hopped down from her desk.
There was the sound of surprise and relief and students closed their notebooks.
"Today I am going to lecture you all on a form of Transfiguration that has nothing to do with potions or wands. It has to do with a kind of magic that no one can contain or manipulate. This is the power of altered personalities." Hermione said, writing the two words in the board with loud, hard strokes of chalk.
She looked back to her students. They looked confused. "A change in personality can be brought on by a number of things," she went on, pacing as she did. "A specific event, or something of equal influence. But for some reason, unbeknownst to you or me, this changes a person. But the most wondrous form of this is when nothing happens at all and yet people continue to bloody change!"
The Seventh Years looked a little stunned by her outburst. Hermione collected herself quickly. "Is this just the course of nature or, perhaps, it is 'anti-nature' in which man makes it happen as opposed to the earth, but I digress. How many of you have had a friend who suddenly, out of nowhere seemed to became...well, for lack of a word...a right arse."
The kids chuckled but plenty raised their hands.
"How many of the people raising their hands kind of had the inkling that they were arses to begin with, but felt like for some reason one day they just got worse?"
A few hands went down, but five or six were still up.
"Well, I have news for you. You were all fools," Hermione said, making some more of the kids snicker. "And as was I. Because I had a friend who was a git I thought he was different and then he wasn't. So shame on us!" Hermione huffed and dragged her knuckles across her eyes to staunch the tears from coming on again.
"And that," Hermione said with a conclusive tone, "is the strangest transformation of all. The illusion of change when realistically nothing has changed at all - only our perception."
A lot of the kids were nodding, intrigued, but others looked confused.
Hermione shrugged. "Don't tell anyone I never taught you anything you'd use in real life. Now open your books to page 496."
...~oOo~...
It was dinner and Hermione was sitting at the Head Table, her assigned seat beside Severus, but neither of them were saying a word to the other.
One student, her name was Pamela, walked up with her Transfiguration professor with a smile. "I just wanted to say that I loved your lesson today, Professor Granger," she said with a broad smile. "It isn't every day that a teacher can really relate with their students and teach them something that everyone can relate to and understand. Not every professor knows how to do life lessons as well as academic ones."
"Thank you, Miss Baumgardner," Hermione said with a small, tired smile. "I appreciate that. Perhaps I will tie in some more advice during class."
"Everyone would love it if you did," Pamela said, still beaming. "See you next class, Professor!" And the Hufflepuff girl was practically skipping away.
There was a long silence of just eating until Severus asked, "What lesson was she speaking of?"
"Oh, nothing," Hermione said with faux cheer. "Nothing you would understand, anyway."
"I very highly doubt there is anything you could teach that I wouldn't understand," he said with a scowl.
"I simply taught the children how to choose their companions carefully," Hermione said casually. "Because some people, no matter how we perceive them, don't - can't - change."
"Oh dear Lord," Severus said in exasperation. "You taught a lesson about our disagreement?"
"Well, aren't you conceited! Not everything's about you, you know!" Hermione said, sticking her nose in the air.
He ignored her comment. "I have no objections to planting cynicism in the younger generations," he grumbled, "but I would prefer you not use our personal life as an example."
"What 'personal life'?" she demanded quietly so that their neighbors at the Head Table and the Houses couldn't hear. "We don't have a 'personal life' because you are on obstinate git who insists on making everything a thousand times more difficult than it needs to be."
"While I'm supposedly over-complicating, you trivialize," he hissed back. "You take everything with a grain of salt and..." He humphed. "Never mind. It's pointless. You're so stubborn -"
"I'm stubborn? Me?" Her eyes were huge. "You're the pigheaded one!"
"Granger -"
She shot him a look that cut him off on its own. "Call me 'Granger' one more time, I swear to Merlin -"
"Granger."
Hermione abruptly stood up, kicked Severus's chair with enough force to nudge it over, and made a growling, exasperated sound of frustration. By then the entire Great Hall was looking at her.
Grumbling unintelligibly, Hermione marched around the Head Table, gesticulating wildly in her anger, before leaving the Great Hall, the doors slamming shut behind her.
Severus Snape massaged his temples. He must have done something terrible in a past life to ever deserve getting involved with Hermione Granger.
...~oOo~...
Hermione was back in her own chamber and was throwing stuff. Small things like trinkets and picture frames and a stupid pair of shoes that Ron got her for her birthday. She threw books and garment hangers and tossed her files up in the air, letting the parchments crash into the ceiling and explode, raining down on the room.
By the end of it, her rooms were a mess.
She made a mental note to clean up before a house elf could get to it.
That didn't stop her from destroying more stuff.
"YOU STUPID, STUPID, STUPID GIRL!" she screamed at herself. "ARE YOU A GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT OR SOMETHING?"
"Yes, we are," a voice identical to her own said to her right. Hermione turned and found an identical manifestation to herself, only this hallucination was wearing a dark green dress with a square neckline and A-line skirt. She recognized it as the dress she wore to George and Luna's wedding those years ago.
"After all," Hallucination Hermione went on, "why else would we love both Bill Weasley and Severus Snape?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Bill had nothing to do with our...parting. That was all my fault. Anyway, what the hell are you talking about 'loving' Severus? I love him, sure, but not the same way as Bill. Bill was..." She broke off and shook her head, trying to shake away the pang of pain in her chest.
"Are you sure?" Hallucination Hermione asked. "Because I think you're lying to yourself. You love Severus, the same way you loved Bill. But maybe...a little different."
"Bill was my perfect pairing," Hermione said in exhaustion, dropping down into an arm chair whose cushions lie across the room where she'd thrown them. "And I ruined that. I had to, though. But I know now I'm just meant to be alone."
Her hallucination shook its head. "You're wrong. At the time you were meant to be alone. You were too broken, too hurt. But you've healed, haven't you? You're heart and mind are finally in a state that can learn to love someone, in a healthy way."
"Healthy? Healed?" Hermione snorted. "I'm sorry, but may I remind you that you're a hallucination? Healthy people do not have hallucinations."
"That may be so," her imaginary self said with a shrug. "But Severus understands. He's knows you and know know him. Our soul mates almost always start as best friends."
"Severus would hate me," Hermione said softly. "If I told him that...if I told him I care. He'd absolutely freak out. He'd go on about how inappropriate and improper and wrong it was. He's so old-fashioned and the age gap would give him a heart-attack."
The hallucination laughed. "You really do know him, don't you?"
"So do you!" Hermione huffed back. "You're me! We are we! You know him as well as I do, because you are me!"
"That's the kind of talk that gets you sent back to the crazy wing at St. Mungo's," the Other Hermione said.
"Again," Hermione said, louder. "You are a hallucination. The fact that you kind-of exist is enough to send me back to the hospital - my psycho babbling's got nothing to do with it! Just...go away. Please? I'm tired. And frustrated. And lonely."
"Maybe I could conjure up Hallucination Snape," the figment said. "You haven't talked to him in a while."
"Nah," Hermione said with a grimace. "He's just say all the things Real Snape would say and that's kind of what I'm trying to avoid right now."
"How about Hallucination Ron?"
"No."
"Hallucination Harry?"
"If you brought around Hallucination Harry," Hermione said with glower, "he'd just go on and on about Draco, and really, anything lovey dovey right now is going to make me sick. Although...maybe Hallucination Draco wouldn't be such a bad idea right now. I could use his sarcasm and general dislike for everything."
Hallucination Hermione grinned. "Alright. I'll go get him." And she disappeared.
A few minutes later there was a knocking on the door and Hermione stood up to answer it. Standing there, in the doorway was the tall, blonde Syltherin.
"Hello, Hallucination Draco, come on in," Hermione said, opening the door wide enough for him to enter.
The figment of her imagination looked confused. "Hallucination...? Hermione, it's really Draco."
"Ha ha," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "That's what you always say. It's a stupid prank, you know."
"Are you saying that the Hallucination-me is a jerk?" Draco asked, brow furrowed. "That's kind of harsh."
Something wasn't...quite right. Hermione slowly reached out to run her hand through the manifestation, but came into contact with a hard, warm, breathing chest. Just to be such she jabbed him hard in the chest with her index finger.
He said, "Ow."
"Oh," Hermione said, bewildered. "You're Real."
"Indeed I am," Draco drawled, rubbing the sore spot on his chest. "Sorry to disappoint. Were you expecting my hallucination?"
"Actually...yes."
"Then how convienient," he said. "Because now you've got the real deal. So. Snape wrote me while I was at work that you've lost your mind more than usual." He dropped down into a chair in the living space, observing his surrounding with reproach. Who could blame him? There was stuff everywhere. Noticing that the cushion under him was gone, he traversed across the room to fetch it. "So, what gives?"
Hermione crossed her arms, even angrier. Snape was meddling, acting like he was her father, again. "Snape is the one being an arse, talk to him."
"It's you I'm talking to, though. I'm much too lazy to go all the way down to the dungeons to talk to him when I'm already here. Make it quick, I've got things I need to do. I'm meeting Harry for dinner and I would far rather be eating with my husband than listening to you complain about my godfather."
Hermione began to ramble about their argument the night before and about how he was being stupid and stubborn and mean. By the end of it, she was pacing holes into her floor and had a red face.
By the end of it, Draco had checked his watch five times. "So if I understand correctly, you and him are angry with one another because you have truck loads of suppressed feelings for the other?"
Hermione stopped and stared at him. "That's not what I said at all."
"You didn't need to."
"Are you sure you're not a hallucination?"
"Harry would be very upset if I was."
"But...I'm not supressing anything!"
"You could fuel an angry mob with the amount of feelings you're supressing."
Hermione groaned, "Ugh! I am not!"
"Coming from the man who fought off the feelings he had for the same boy for almost a decade...I'd say I know how to spot the symptoms."
"Oh, please," Hermione huffed. "As if you deserve credit for finally admitting you loved Harry. Need I remind you that I'm the one who pushed you to get over yourself and kiss the boy?"
"Fair enough," Draco granted with a barely-there shrug. "But allow me to give you some advice in turn for leading me to be with the love of my life."
"I don't want your advice."
"Yes, well, I'm going to give it anyway and you're going to listen. I have known Severus Snape since I was born - literally. And if there's one thing I've learned about him, it's that he's deadset in his ways, doesn't give a fuck what anyone else feels or thinks, and has a conscience so active that a herd of raging Hippogriffs couldn't threaten him to stray from his morals. So, if you have feelings for him - which don't deny it, I know you do - you need to...well..."
"You're going to say 'get over it', aren't you?" Hermione guessed, her hear sinking.
Slowly, Draco nodded. "Yes. And I hate that I can't give you that happy ever after you gave me, but Snape is just...Snape. It would be impossible. Perhaps you could write that Bill Weasley again?"
"He...he's engaged," Hermione said, a thick wall of sadness forming in her throat. "Molly told me. To an Egyptian girl. I don't want to intrude on his happiness."
Draco nodded in understanding. "I guess...a lot happens in three years."
"Yeah, it does," Hermione said quietly, the backs of her eyes stinging. "But...would you believe me if I said I still missed him like crazy?"
"Oh, I'd believe you," Draco said. "I'd definitely believe you."