I had a thought, dear, however scary
About that night, the bugs and the dirt.
Why were you digging? What did you bury
Before those hands pulled me from the earth?
I will not ask you where you came from.
I will not ask and neither should you.
Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips.
We should just kiss like real people do.
Like Real People Do ~ Hozier (2014)
The halls of Hogwarts, so warmly torch-lit and glowing on her way to Severus' office, now felt cold and far less endearing on their silent march to Dumbledore's. Hermione and Severus walked behind the headmaster shoulder to shoulder but carefully leaving several inches between them, far too aware of that space. She was processing everything that had happened since she'd returned, particularly Severus' rather notable reaction to Dumbledore himself. Not that she could blame him for harboring some kind of ill will – she'd had her fair share of gentle confrontations with the elderly wizard – but she was still wildly curious about what might have caused the unrest.
This brought her back to her more recent tiff with the headmaster. In fact, it was the disagreement which had resulted in him requiring her to swear an Unbreakable Vow. And that vow had affected her ability to disclose anything important to Severus before she left. The memory left a sour taste in her mouth and she frowned, willing it away.
A shadow followed them out of one corridor and then McGonagall came looming out of the darkness, silently falling into line beside Hermione. If Dumbledore took note of this, he made no comment. Hermione felt like a weight had been lifted off of her chest; she and the professor had experienced a fair number of bonding moments during her miraculous – and mistaken – foray into the past, and she felt secure with the woman there. Hermione's qualm's with some of Dumbledore's choices had reached a head just before her departure from the past and it had been McGonagall who had stood beside her – in the shadows – at the end.
They reached the gargoyle before the headmaster acknowledged the transfiguration professor's presence. "Minerva," he said cordially, stepping aside as the stone statue swung open to allow them to enter first.
There was a span of silence after their arrival in Dumbledore's office, but no one took a seat or made themselves comfortable. Hermione noted that Severus was standing straight and tense as if poised to defend himself, and McGonagall looked stern as ever – though she smiled at Hermione and nodded once as if to reassure her. Just when Hermione was fit to burst and ready to clear her throat to force the conversation to begin, it did.
The headmaster looked her over and nodded to himself, then coughed once. "Once again, welcome home, Miss Granger."
Impatient, Hermione resisted the urge to fidget and nodded gratefully. "Thank you, professor."
He squinted then. "I've had nearly twenty years to determine how I might handle this situation if you were to make it back safely, and yet here I am without a clue how to move forward."
Hermione shrugged. "If you mean academically, I've completed my NEWTs. If you mean biologically, I am technically an adult in the wizarding world." She glanced at Severus and took a deep breath. "And if you mean anything else, there's not a lot of moving forward required on your part."
Dumbledore moved to lean back against his massive desk and peered at her over his glasses. "You've not disappeared for any notable amount of time in this year, Miss Granger. One day you were a student, and the next you surface as an adult?" His gaze shifted to Severus. "This would be quite a scandal for Hogwarts to field, you understand."
Hermione hadn't had much time to consider how she might handle moving forward herself, what with not even being sure the time turner would return her to the proper time and not having a longer period to prepare for her departure from the past. Still, she prickled at the way the headmaster was dismissing everything. He obviously wanted things quiet to avoid a scandalous situation involving the school.
Unbidden, words rose in her throat and rolled out of her before she had time to think better of them. "With all due respect, Professor, you seemed to navigate the scandal of Lord Voldemort breaking into the school to steal the Philosopher's Stone quite well." Dumbledore opened his mouth slowly, but she wasn't done. "Or the werewolf professor who was accidentally set loose on school grounds for a night, or the Cerberus you kept inside the school behind one locked door, or the chamber of secrets containing a basilisk which attacked students." Her voice remained even throughout each statement, but rose slightly in volume at the end. "Surely," she continued, crossing her arms over her chest, "if you could dissuade my parents from taking any action against the school or removing me from your classes after I was paralyzed by a giant monster, you could dissuade the Ministry – or whoever you're concerned about in this instance – from promoting a scandal.
There was a pause, and she felt Severus – who stood nearby, but not nearly close enough – lean infinitesimally in her direction. She didn't dare glance at McGonagall, who would either be fully supportive or quite horrified by Hermione's speaking out of line in such a manner to the headmaster.
The old wizard looked at her for a long time, though she couldn't gauge his expression. "Unfortunately," he said finally, and very pleasantly, "It would ultimately be up to Hogwarts to provide verification of your having taken and passed your NEWTs, or of any qualifying time in the school not passed in the last decade."
Hermione felt her cheeks flush, simultaneously surprised by his refusal to budge and completely prepared for it. "Well," she said calmly, "I happen to have been granted a certificate of completion for my final years at Hogwarts, regardless of which decade they took place in." Now she did look at McGonagall, more for support than approval. The witch merely flicked her eyes in Hermione's direction and then back to Dumbledore, but Hermione caught the subtle tilt of the older woman's head. It was a nod. Keep going, it said. Defend yourself.
"Any number of tests at the Ministry could accurately determine my biological age," she continued, emboldened, "And they would update my legal status accordingly. They've already been keeping track to make up for the additional hours I was living while utilizing the time turner as it was intended – for more classes."
Dumbledore pushed off of his desk and stood at his full height, but did not advance on her. "All documentation of your previous time at Hogwarts was destroyed," he said plainly. "It was necessary for the protection of the future. Imagine if one of your friends had seen your name on the student lists from twenty years prior or managed to find a photo of you. Time is not to be meddled with."
Hermione didn't flinch. "I can produce the certificate to the Ministry myself," she said quietly.
Silence. The tension between them seemed to compound on itself until McGonagall cleared her throat, disseminating it immediately. Hermione kept her eyes on Dumbledore as the older witch began to speak.
"As it happens," she said glibly, "Not all documentation of Miss Granger's academic experience here was destroyed."
The headmaster blinked very slowly, closing his eyes and turning his head to face the transfiguration professor before opening them to gaze at her, eyebrows raised.
"You will know, of course, that I keep very detailed records, particularly of students whose academic or athletic achievements have made Gryffindor proud." The witch seemed small and wiry standing alone, but stood straight and radiated a Scottish rebelliousness Hermione had never had the pleasure of witnessing before.
Dumbledore just stared at her. After a disturbing amount of time, he blinked again. "I see," he said simply. "I can call the Minister to Hogwarts for a meeting-"
McGonagall cut in before he could finish. "It's a bit early," she said abruptly. "Perhaps some tea before we floo to the Ministry? The minister will be in office quite soon, you know."
Bolstered by this blatant support, Hermione took the small side-step required to place her shoulder solidly against Severus' and looped her arm under his. Again, he leaned just a bit closer. While he hadn't said anything yet, she noted he seemed to relax against her slightly as if he, too, felt the conversation was turning in their favor.
"Are you certain you want these first steps to be so . . . public?" The headmaster asked simply, clearly intending the bite in the words. "The Ministry may charge you for your irresponsible use of time magic, and they will charge you as an adult witch if you push to be recognized as such."
Hermione opened her mouth, but it was Severus who responded. "Clearly . . . you did not report the incident to the Ministry when it initially occurred, at which time Hermione was a minor under your care. It could be argued that such a failure to alert the ministry was an error in judgment on your part." He paused to take a measured breath. "Your decision to take matters into your own hands and furthermore, to resolve them without the knowledge or assistance of the Department of Time would also be most concerning to the Ministry itself, I imagine."
She noted the use of her first name and smiled inwardly, recollecting the first time he'd ever used it.
"Well," she interjected before anyone else could continue, "This is riveting conversation, but there are two people I need to see or I'm going to lose my mind. It's been over two years."
She let her hand slip away from Severus' but stopped to look at him when he caught it in one of his own. He seemed almost hesitant. "Would . . . you like company?" he asked quietly.
She smiled at him, small but genuine and as reassuring as she could manage. "No," she said firmly. "But thank you." She took a deep breath. "This is a conversation I need to have alone with them."
"So soon?" McGonagall asked, causing Hermione to shift her focus.
She nodded immediately. "No time like the present." Then she set off for Gryffindor tower to find one Harry Potter and one Ronald Weasley, and to try explaining everything that had happened since they had said goodnight to her the evening prior.
Hermione took her seat in the potions classroom and looked up in surprise when Lily sat down beside her. Normally the redhead preferred her own group of friends, but perhaps she was branching out and trying to be friendly. Still, it was a bold move considering this seating arrangement would last them the remainder of the semester. She barely had any time to nod at Lily before Slughorn himself came bustling in – trailed by the remainder of the class – and cleared his throat loudly from the front of the room. "We're going to do things differently this year," he announced, tucking his hands into the folds of his robe and beaming at them. "None of this Gryffindor-Gryffindor and Slytherin-Slytherin seating and partnering." Noting the immediate lack of enthusiasm from his students, he coughed. "There is enough animosity out there in the world," he said firmly. "I'll not be fostering it in my classroom." He then pulled a rolled parchment from his desk and unrolled it. "Everyone, please stand."
The students looked around at each other but all of them complied, some more verbally than others. Grumbles and concerned whispers were rampant – until the professor began reading off his list of partners. Hermione was of two minds about the whole affair. On one hand, she was relieved to be ridding herself of Lily. That sounded unkind, but she was still petrified by the idea of doing something that would result in Harry's never being born, and Lily's perpetual – and insistent – kindness and invitations even after Hermione's numerous refusals were getting a bit unnerving. On the other hand, she'd be paired with a Slytherin. Some of the Slytherin students were quiet and kept to themselves, and some were just as loud and problematic as Draco Malfoy. It was not a promising exchange.
Slughorn stopped simply reading the list of names and began giving directions to individual students to avoid mayhem as people tried to locate their new assigned partners and settle into their seats. He went down the list one pair at a time, telling one student to leave their seat and join another, and gradually things became somewhat less hectic. Hermione watched with only mild interest, her primary concern being the identity of her new partner and not that of anyone else. As the remaining length of parchment in Slughorn's hand dwindled, so did her hopes of a neutral or at least non-combative Slytherin counterpart. A young Lucius Malfoy stood not far away leering at the Gryffindor students nearest him, and other similar characters were spread throughout the classroom, still waiting to be given their unlucky seating assignment.
"Severus Snape," she heard Slughorn announce dryly, his voice getting hoarse from all the bellowing to be heard over student complaints, "Please find your seat beside Hermione Granger."
Equal parts relieved and newly concerned, she glanced up as Snape appeared to her right and dropped his bag under the desk before taking a seat next to her on the bench. At least this Slytherin was one she knew how to handle. Slughorn moved on immediately to his next pair of unsuspecting victims, but his voice fell away to the background as Hermione stopped listening for her own name. She straightened her potions book on the desk in front of her and thought of the partnered potions experiences she'd had and witnessed in the past. There was the potential for good, of course, but images of Neville Longbottom's cauldron boiling over and Seamus Finnegan's exploding directly in front of him floated in the back of her mind. At least she wasn't stuck with Lucius Malfoy or his exact ilk.
Time would tell whether Snape would behave the same in a public classroom as he did in their more secluded corner of the library, where he was quiet at best and horribly snarky at worst. Not being sure held her back from greeting him in any way – not that she would have had anything particularly polite or endearing to say to him, anyways. She was surprised, then, when he said, "Granger," in a measured but cordial word of greeting. He didn't look at her as he said it, eyes on Slughorn and his hands drawing his own potions book from his bag. She wondered if this was due to his usual aloofness or because they were surrounded by Slytherins who might be watching their interaction.
Bizarrely craving a good game of verbal cat and mouse after her long summer spent alone, she quipped, "That's me," rather than returning the greeting with his own surname.
This prompted him to set his book down on the desk in front of him and then turn to face her, very slowly. She changed a glance his way and noted that one eyebrow was raised and he looked entirely nonplussed by her sarcasm. He gazed at her for a moment before returning his attention to the front of the room, where Slughorn had finally retired the damnable sheet of student names and experienced a short – but booming – coughing fit. Everyone around them had found their seats, though there was still a fair bit of disquieted mumbling around the room.
And so began one of the more interesting semesters of her life – Which was saying something, as all of those she'd experienced so far had included some kind of life or death situation involving herself or her closest friends, or the latest adventure, time travel.
The class began in the most droll fashion possible – reviewing required supplies for the semester and ensuring that every student was equipped with at least a passably fit cauldron, mortar and pestle, and quill and parchment. Everyone had a copy – used or new – of the necessary textbook. Hermione's was gently used as there was no sense in purchasing a new book for twice the cost just because no one had ever flipped through its pages. Still, she had chosen gently used over well used, being the book lover that she was. Hermione noted that Snape's own book appeared considerably more used than her own but chose not to comment on the observation.
They turned to page seventeen as instructed by Slughorn and he selected a random student to read a long passage. Hermione, having already read much of each of her books before the schoolyear began, was already familiar with the material. On a whim, she turned to her assigned partner. "How was your summer?" she quipped in a whisper, expecting a glare or another raised eyebrow.
His eyes flicked in her direction and then back down to follow along with the paragraph being read aloud. He had his forefinger on the page and was slowly dragging it downward, following not word by word, but line by line. They both stared at his finger until he reached the end of the paragraph, at which point he looked at her. "Average," he said simply. The pause in the student's reading ended abruptly and Snape resumed his reading along as if nothing had happened.
Hermione blinked and turned back to her own book, refocusing on the subject matter and trying to invest herself in listening to the student. But whoever was reading – their back was to her, and without the sight of their tie she had no idea to which house the student belonged – was doing so in a halting, tremulous fashion, clearly heavily affected by nerves.
Slughorn seemed as acutely bothered by this as the rest of the classroom, as he cleared his throat loudly upon completion of the next paragraph and suggested another student take a turn.
Hermione raised her hand just high enough to be seen, having learned better than to go throwing it up as high as she could in potions class a long time ago. Well, technically a long time into the future, but that wasn't the point. Slughorn lit up at the sight of a willing volunteer and pounced on the opportunity immediately. "Ah! Miss Granger!" Hermione had kept her head down as far as socializing, but had maintained her usual high grades through the end of her last semester and the professors had become familiar with her quickly. "Perhaps the next . . . four paragraphs?" He asked, beaming at her.
She nodded and bent her head to comply.
Severus, who had been following along studiously as the previous student read, took the opportunity to study his assigned partner rather than read the words as she spoke them. She touched one corner of the book as she read, running her thumb back and forth over the stacked pages over and over again as if she wasn't aware she was even doing it. She didn't follow along or keep her place with her finger as he did, and read confidently and clearly for the classroom to hear.
The subject was the ethical sourcing of creature parts, a newer political concern in the past several years and onewhich many magical folk rolled their eyes at. Severus was surprised but not unhappy that Slughorn had chosen it for the class, as they were getting to the age that magical creature dissection and proper part removal, preparation, and storage would be important learning points. Granger didn't stumble over a single word, pronouncing words like syrinx and oropharyngeal cavity with ease and as though she'd read them often before. The textbook was using dragon dissection as an example. "Dragon heartstrings, used frequently for wands and far less frequently as potent potion ingredients, are one subject which has become highly debated in the past decade," she read. "Dragons, once feared and attacked on sight, are now captured and relocated or even rehabilitated in the current century. This is a good thing for the dragons, but a bad one for many magical industries which rely heavily on dragon-sourced materials. Wandmakers, armorers, apothecaries, and many other businesses are finding it difficult to acquire these materials and even more difficult to acquire them from ethical sources." She paused to take a short, measured breath. "See the following page for a diagram of the potential for both good and bad should dragon farming become legitimized."
Her enunciation of the word farming left no doubt in Severus' mind about her opinions on the matter. She was still thumbing the corner of that book, though now she'd stopped reading and looked up at the professor for further instructions. Out of the corner of his eye, Severus saw Lucius Malfoy lift a finger. It was a very casual move but caught the watchful eye of Slughorn, nonetheless.
"Mr. Malfoy," the professor acknowledged, expectant.
Lucius leaned back in his chair slowly, a languid, careless motion which conveyed all of the disrespect and disinterest it was intended to. "If this tome-" he tapped the leatherbound cover of his closed textbook once with the same finger he'd just lifted "-contains more about ethics and farming than potions, I doubt any of us will pass our NEWTs come next spring," he pointed out. His voice was loud enough to be heard, but he still sounded very casual. It helped that he had the effect of silencing most of the individuals around him when he spoke – Gryffindors feared and avoided him and Slytherins either idolized or were irked by him. But all of them had fallen quiet when he was called upon to speak.
Slughorn didn't balk at any of it, the words and the body language clearly bothering him not in the slightest. He merely smiled, though it was a very different smile than the one he'd directed at Granger earlier, Severus noticed. "I was waiting for such a poignant question," he said, taking a step back toward the closet built into the wall behind his desk. He began withdrawing wooden crates intricately stacked with vials, bottles, jars, and all other manner of small leatherbound satchels and containers. Severus straightened; ingredients. He enjoyed his other studies immensely and excelled at them quite easily but was most fascinated and challenged by the many uses – and dangers – that potions and their ingredients had to offer.
"These," Slughorn continued, setting the crates on his desk for all to view, "are for your use this semester." He noted that several students were leaning forward in their seats and allowed them a moment to gawk. "But they cost a pretty penny," He continued sternly, "And aside from that, they came at a price. Some of these are plants and naturally occurring minerals, but many of them were once inside of, or part of, a living creature."
He picked up a dark object which Severus immediately identified as a bezoar. "Do you know where this came from, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked. The question sounded innocuous enough, but everyone knew he had a prepared answer regardless of what his student responded with.
Lucius lounged at his desk. Severus couldn't see his face but imagined it was twisted into a leer. "A bezoar," the older boy said confidently.
"Indeed." Slughorn walked abruptly to Lucius' desk and set the bezoar down on the wood near the young man's hands. "And where is such an item harvested from?"
Lucius was acting as unaffected as he could manage, though the way he leaned back from the professor now seemed a tad affected and far less casual. "Stomach of a goat," he said, shrugging. But he said it too quickly, a notable shift from the slow, intentional speech pattern of just moments before.
"Indeed," Slughorn said again. He was staring directly down into his – now at least somewhat disgruntled – student's face. "And how do you suppose the individual who retrieved it . . . retrieved it?"
Silence. Severus couldn't see Lucius' face from this angle but the young man's head was tilted back some; he was obviously looking up at Slughorn, though he didn't answer.
"It didn't come out of one end or the other, if that's what you're imagining," Slughorn supplied helpfully. He snatched up the dark shape and stalked back to his desk. Comical as it normally would have been to see Slughorn attempting to stalk, the current mood of the classroom was serious and attentive. "You may – or may not – know that the inside of a stomach is not smooth," he said, turning to address the entire room again and leaning back against his desk. "Several bezoars may form in the stomach of a single goat, but they will do so in the folds, where debris is trapped." He held the thing between two fingers and lifted his hand so that everyone could see. "The goat cannot pass the bezoar through its intestines," he continued. "The only way to acquire one – or several – of these, is to kill that goat."
Lucius had the audacity to huff a quiet laugh, but the room was silent and the noise echoed in the pause between the professor's words. "It's just a goat," he said, under his breath.
All eyes, including Severus', turned from the back of Lucius' head to Slughorn's face.
The professor nodded slowly, as if he'd expected this. "So it is," he agreed sagely. "But say I am instructing you in the brewing of a particular potion, and that potion requires one bezoar. How many of you are in this room, Mr. Malfoy?" He didn't give the young man a chance to speak. "Say I have each of you selected pairs share a cauldron and brew the potion together. Even then, how many desks are here?" He spread his hands at the room and moved to stand behind his desk, setting the bezoar back into its proper container with others like it.
"The answer," he said finally, when no one spoke, "Is enough. There are enough of you here to require a large number of any ingredient. And a larger number of individuals in this school, and every school, and the Ministry, and small apothecaries, and at home, and in the magical world at large, who are brewing potions." His eyes landed on Lucius and stayed there before scanning the room. "I'm not asking you not to brew potions, or not to kill the goat," he said pointedly, eyes finding Lucius again. "I'm asking you to respect the sacrifice of the creatures whose bits and pieces you're about to utilize for your own learning, and to make that sacrifice worth something." Again, his gaze swept the room, moving from one student to the next. "You're old enough to understand these things now, and I expect you to do so. There will be no wasting of ingredients in my classroom. If you've a mind to be careless, you can leave now and I'll assist your head of house in choosing another class for you. Accidents happen, but those that can be avoided will be in this room so long as I'm teaching in it. Am I clear?"
Severus was surprised; Slughorn had never struck him as any kind of severe or demanding, and had certainly never taken such a serious tone with the entire classroom. Sure, he'd pulled students aside or asked them to stay back after class for a discussion or to address things, but this was new. He wondered whether the shift was simply due the age of his audience or because of current world events.
Mutters and quiet whispers became rampant in the pause.
"Returning to the newly hatched concept of dragon farming," Slughorn boomed, recapturing everyone's attention and chuckling to himself over his own play on words, "Turn to page forty-two for the aforementioned diagram."
And so they did, and the class resumed.
Severus noticed – in spite of his best efforts not to – that Hermione followed along in her own way and always opened to the right page, but only seemed to scan the words before her. And she continued running her thumb over the corner of the book the entire time it lay open on their shared desk. He couldn't decide if the habit intrigued him or was going to drive him mad.
Later, Severus caught himself rushing to the library in as casual a fashion as he could manage in hopes of beating her there. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed the healthy bit of competition until he found himself tapping his toe at the end of their final class and eyeing the door. Granger was in all of his classes, which was annoying enough. But the professors seemed to have it out for him this year, as not one but three of them had not only instituted assigned seating in their classrooms, but then gone so far as to mix houses. That veritable thicket of curls was next to him far more than he would have preferred – though if he was honest with himself, he didn't even mind her company all that much.
He entered the library at a steady pace, slowing substantially when he caught sight of Madame Pince. She had clearly caught sight of him first, though her warning glare shifted into an approving tight-lipped smile and a curt nod when she saw him slow. Damn, he thought. Damn her, she's probably already here.
And she was.
Perched on the seat with her back against the window, lounging in his corner of his part of the library. Irked as he wanted to be, he recalled the single day last semester when she'd been late and felt a n unaccountable twinge in his abdomen. An entire summer had passed since then – would he really feel at all concerned or bad to have beaten her here? He didn't think so, but couldn't be sure. It felt strangely natural to slide into the corner opposite her and make a smart remark.
"How was your summer?" he asked, careful to keep his voice notably flat.
She continued reading the book in her lap for a few seconds too long to be entirely polite, then hummed thoughtfully without looking up at him. "Useful," she said succinctly, and then appeared to resume her reading.
His initial urge to be irritated with her one-word answer was tempered by the understanding that she'd only done so in response to his own single word, which he'd given her much earlier in the day. It caught him off guard, how well-measured they were as combatants in their game of wits. She kept pace with his sarcasm and delivered witty retorts more often than most Slytherin students he knew. "Scintillating," he mused finally in response, casually opening his own book and leaning back against the window. Every remark felt measured and like he had to consider what he was going to say before he spoke lest she get the upper hand in the conversation. Still, he couldn't resist asking, "What made it so useful?"
Hermione was being very intentional about how much attention she gave him; she noted that her pointed lack of eye contact – or even glancing his way – was having the intended effect on her target. "Hallways and passages are much easier to become familiar with when they aren't choked up with students rushing around them," she said simply. It occurred to her only after she'd said it that she'd just outed herself for staying at the Castle over the summer, something no students ever did.
Snape snapped his book shut with one hand and looked up at her sharply. "You were here?" he asked.
She was caught off guard; he seemed genuinely interested. This was a tool for her to utilize, a weakness. She shrugged, waiting just long enough before answering that she knew it would bother him. "Don't get any ideas about stealing my seat here. I've learned plenty of new shortcuts, and I already knew a few."
He was frowning down at the book in her lap now. His expression was so intense she thought the pages might burst into flames if he'd concentrated on them any harder. "That doesn't happen," he said finally, looking up at her and still frowning, though not nearly as hard. "It isn't allowed."
Hermione took a moment to consider how she might handle this. To answer was complicated; she didn't want to give him any information he didn't absolutely need, and least of all any he might use against her later. To deny him a satisfactory answer was to potentially make an enemy out of him, or lead to his further – and more thorough than she would like – investigating. "An . . . exception . . . was made." She settled for the truth, or that of it which she could give him. Better to tell half-truths well than to be caught in a lie.
He narrowed his eyes at her. It was a bit unnerving, how long it took him to blink. When he did so he only blinked once, then continued to stare at her. "An . . . exception," he repeated. He didn't ask anything else, though the question hung in the air quite obviously from his statement. Actually, there were many questions there, wrapped up in those two words.
Now, how to make him stop asking for more information? "I didn't have anywhere else to go." Not a lie, not even a half-truth. The entire truth, there it was. He blinked again, slowly, but didn't say anything. His eyes narrowed a bit more than before. "My home and my family are . . . gone." She stumbled over the last word as an unexpected jolt of emotion leapt in her chest and formed a small lump in her throat. She'd done so well over the summer, staying focused on studying and working and saving her earnings. She'd set goals, written them down, and achieved them. The ultimate goal was going home, but she tried not to think about that one too much. Instead she poured all of her energy into the ones she could achieve, or the things she could do to help Dumbledore or anyone else get her there. And she'd had her moments, but no major breakdowns. And nothing recently.
She thought she saw Snape's expression soften a fraction, but that couldn't be right. "So," she continued abruptly, "I stayed. And here I am. That's it."
It was clear in his face that her fellow student had further questions, but he didn't ask them. Instead he seemed to relax, and reopened his book. He began reading. After quite some time, and without looking up, he said, "I'm sorry."
Hermione was so surprised that she shut her own book, she looked up at him so quickly. "What?" she choked out, before she could think better of it. She'd heard many, many words come out of her potions professor's mouth, but none of them had ever been even remotely close to sorry. Of course this was a younger version of that man, and a very different person, but hearing it in his voice – even lighter and less gravely than its future self – was too bizarre not to elicit a reaction from her.
His eyes flicked up at her, face hardening as if he assumed she was poking fun at his comment. Then he seemed to recognize that she wasn't, and his expression changed from angry to inquisitive. Gentle, even? "I'm sorry," he repeated, looking at her. "For your loss." He meant it, she could tell that he meant it.
And how could he know? He couldn't, of course the answer was that he couldn't. And yet, somehow, no one had spoken those words to her and even though she hadn't actually lost her home or her family or her friends or her own time, she didn't have them, either. Her face felt warm, and her eyes prickled with hot tears. It made sense that no one had said such a thing or given her their condolences – Dumbledore and McGonagall were the only ones who knew. And yet . . . it felt so strangely fitting, to hear it said that way. Suddenly overwhelmed by emotions and staunchly opposed to letting Snape – of all people! – witness them, Hermione scrambled to shove her book and loose papers into her bag and rose suddenly, blinking several times and willing the tears away. She turned to leave and realized how this must look and how impolitely she was behaving.
Turning back briefly, she met his eyes just long enough to say, "Thank you," before she turned and fled for the safety of her room.
It didn't occur to her until hours later, when she'd missed dinner and spent the entire time shut behind curtains and under covers weeping, that she'd felt opposed to being rude . . . to Snape.