Soooo... You've all been super-duper patient if you're still following this, but after an inexcusably long period of writer's block, the trickle of your lovely reviews that have still been coming in have finally prompted me to crack on with this fic! This chapter has actually been mostly finished for a year, but I now have another 2 in the works to continue. Hope you enjoy!
Severus Snape had a lonely New Year. Not that he minded, he told himself. The point was rapidly approaching when his life would irrevocably change, and he was torn between wanting to make the most of the time in which to continue life as normal, to converse with colleagues and amuse himself with pastimes, and the desire to shut himself off from the outside world, to protect himself and make it easier to bear when he became Hogwarts' enemy number one.
On a Thursday, soon after the spring term began, he was sitting in the staff room in a worn chintz armchair in the corner, reading a copy of Transfiguration Today he'd scrounged off Minerva at breakfast, when there was a knock at the door. Not even raising his head from the page, he carried on reading an article about Animagi, until Slughorn waddled over into view with a student in tow.
'Oh-ho, Severus! Miss Granger here says she has some homework to hand in - I found her loitering outside looking for you!' The old walrus-looking Potions master thrust the girl forward in front of him - she seemed a little subdued, shy almost.
'Oh, yes, thank you sir.' She rummaged around in her bag and awkwardly extracted a lengthy role of parchment. His sharp eye could already see where it started to uncurl, the handwriting was tiny.
'What's this, Miss Granger?' He stood wearily from his seat, eyeing her up and down critically.
'It's that essay on Inferi you set us on Monday, sir.'
He frowned at her. 'That isn't due until next week.'
'I know! I'm sorry, I've just spent so much time on it, and I know how busy you must be so I thought I'd give it to you now, so you have time to mark it...' She seemed to realise she was babbling.
'Fine.' He held out a hand expectantly and she placed the parchment into his waiting grasp. As he took hold of the roll he touched her accidentally, their fingers brushing. In trying not to appear discomfited by it, he cleared his throat awkwardly. 'Ahem. Thank you, Miss Granger. I'll make a start on it before the weekend.'
'Oh! No, please don't work on it this evening, sir. I didn't mean for you to waste your time on it tonight, not on your birthday!'
His dark eyes flared wide open and he stared at her down his nose, scrutinising her face for information. How had she known? Albus and Minerva were really the only staff members who were close enough to him to be aware of the date, and they either knew or assumed he didn't want a fuss made, so he doubted they'd have announced it loudly in the Gryffindor common room that morning. He resisted the urge to squint at the girl suspiciously. She hadn't made a big sentimental outburst about it though, merely mentioned it as fact. That made him even more sceptical, but he tamped the feeling down, reminding himself that all of Hermione Granger's behaviour over the years had demonstrated her to be a solidly compassionate and sensitive creature, if a little keen. However she'd gathered that little titbit of personal information about him, she obviously wasn't using it to make his life more unpleasant. Many years ago, James Potter had sent him an anonymous parcel by owl on his birthday when they'd been students. That is, the package had remained anonymous very briefly until upon being opened, wherein it had exploded and sprayed him liberally with Flobberworm mucus from head to toe, accompanied by an outburst of raucous laughter from four boys on the Gryffindor table.
Snape had once overheard Granger vociferously defending his loyalties to Potter and Weasley; they hadn't seen him coming down an adjoining corridor, and the girl had seemed quite cross with them that they would assume Severus to be anything other than loyal to Dumbledore and the Order. So that made at least one person who might still be on his side next year, although given what he was now Vowed to do, perhaps her belief in him wouldn't survive that long either.
At the word "birthday", he'd grunted at her in vague acknowledgement, watching her cheeks tint with pink as she received little reaction from him to her revelation that she knew a vaguely intimate detail about his life. He'd been sorely tempted to just peek into her mind using Legilimency to see how exactly she'd discovered it, but found himself not wanting to breach her privacy for no real reason. He got the feeling that if he simply asked her, she'd tell him, but he wasn't up for a personal discussion right now. Not here. It had been different in Grimmauld Place, away from the pettiness and the infighting of Hogwarts.
After she'd gone, Slughorn beached himself in another armchair opposite Severus and waved his wand to make the fire roar.
'Fine girl, Miss Granger.' Snape raised an eyebrow at his colleague from under a curtain of hair, now once again absorbed in his Transfiguration journal and irritated at the continuing disturbance. 'Yes, fine girl,' Horace continued. 'Makes sense though - a friend of Harry Potter! Only the best in his little clique, I'd imagine! I'm glad the boy's made friends at Hogwarts, given his... tragic start in life.' Slughorn sat forward in his seat with great effort and Snape could feel himself being observed. 'I don't suppose you've talked to him about his mother, Severus?'
'His mother?' Now that did get Snape's attention.
'Yes, I seem to recall the two of you being thick as thieves during your school years, my boy, attending my Slug Club dinners together. I'm sure Harry'd be delighted to hear more about his parents from somebody who knew them so well. Especially someone who was as fond of Lily as you were...'
'Fond?' Snape quirked an eyebrow at him again. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'Come now, Severus - I was your Head of House for seven years! I might be an old man, but even a Niffler could see the way you looked at Lily Evans.' He beamed conspiratorially at the younger wizard in what was presumably supposed to invoke feelings of male camaraderie. 'And I can't say I blame you - she was a very pretty little witch indeed. Oh, James Potter certainly seemed like a nice young man of course, but I must say I was rather disappointed when no relationship blossomed between the two of you instead.'
Rolling up Transfiguration Today and placing it down the side of his chair, Snape looked at Slughorn for a second then stared into the roaring fire, deep in thought.
'Lily was a... friend of mine. A good friend. She was a good person. I would have been utterly the wrong man for her, even if she hadn't married Potter.'
Severus had initially been intending to downplay the relationship between him and Lily - they had certainly been very close during their younger years at least - but to his surprise he found himself believing his words. He had loved her, in his own way, and while he would never really know if she had cared for him, or could ever have done so, he had the gnawing feeling that it would never really have worked out. He had mentally clung to her during their childhood. Lily had been a port in the storm of his tumultuous home life, and the contrast had made him put her on a pedestal. Now he could look back with adult eyes, he could see he had been too in awe of her; had felt too undeserving. And to be fair, hadn't time proven him right? He had royally fucked everything up and could never make amends, despite all his best efforts.
'Oh don't worry my boy, you're still a mere whippersnapper! I'm sure there's a pretty young witch out there waiting for you somewhere!' Slughorn boomed jovially at him. Severus bestowed him with a tight smile; one pale cheek contorting wryly as he let the old man's unwanted sympathy wash over him. Suddenly Granger's roll of parchment felt oddly prominent inside the pocket of his robes, and finally abandoning his reading material he left the staffroom, excusing himself to Slughorn as he returned to the dungeons to get a head start on the weekend's marking.
Hermione had been glad she hadn't gone with her initial idea of giving Snape a birthday gift along with her essay - just approaching him in the staffroom had been intimidating enough. Everything felt oddly formal with the professor again back in the castle, and it wrong-footed her. She was sure he would have scoffed at some pocket money trinket from Hogsmeade anyway, and to have saved up and bought him something more extravagant would have looked peculiar. She realised she didn't know enough about Severus Snape to get him anything meaningful either, other than he was an orphan who liked Potions. She wondered if he had used Legilimency on her to uncover how she had found out it was his birthday, but he hadn't said anything. She'd felt a little daring letting it slip that she knew. Her research into Harry's mysterious and revered Half-Blood Prince had eventually turned up a fascinating (to her) newspaper clipping about the marriage of a witch by the name of Eileen Prince to Tobias Snape, a Muggle, and later having a baby boy. Ergo, their very own Severus Snape must be the so-called Half-Blood Prince! She had kept that little snippet of information to herself for the meantime, although she could hardly resist the temptation to let the man himself know that she was aware of his alter-ego. If he had seen her memories of the discovery, he didn't seem interested as to why she would have been looking up witches called Prince at any rate, so Harry's newfound prodigious Potions abilities were still safe. Perhaps if he did question her, she could use her knowledge to her advantage. Suggest a trade with him for the information? Her mind immediately led her astray with indecent thoughts of what exactly she might ask him for. She had surreptitiously bought one of Fred and George's Patented Daydream Charms via owl mail, and was itching to use it for something Professor Snape-related.
During her holidays Hermione had spent more time with Nymphadora Tonks, and had been thrilled to learn that the Auror had started dating Lupin, having apparently worn down the lycanthrope's initial resistance. Tonks was very pretty, at least when she didn't give herself a pig's nose or some other peculiar feature, so Hermione struggled to understand why Remus hadn't bitten her hand off, figuratively speaking, the first time she'd asked him out. The disparity in their ages had at least given her some hope for her own dubious romantic interest, but she'd be the first to admit she wasn't exactly a catch for a professional wizard. She was still a bit younger than Tonks for starters - she wouldn't even have finished college in the Muggle world, and didn't have any of the associated life experience. What worldly, grown man would be interested in a bookworm who'd never had a job, or lived independently, or even taken her NEWTs?!
Apparition lessons had been a welcome addition to the curriculum this year, in that it at least provided a distraction, and hinted at a level of adult freedom and responsibility that she yearned for. Although whenever they had a lesson where Professor Snape was present, she had to try very hard to block him from her mind so that she could concentrate on not Splinching a limb or anything else embarrassing. On occasion, when he'd passed her by in the Great Hall and observed her pop clumsily but intact into her destination hoop, he'd given her a brisk nod of approval before sweeping away to bark at some less-fortunate student.
'Sir.' She'd nodded back at him in the split second before he'd gone, smiling in what she hoped was a mildly flirtatious manner, although for all her skill in such matters he probably just thought she was queasy from the Apparition.
Severus was quite aware that his time at Hogwarts, at least for the immediate future, was about to come to an end rather soon. While he obviously had to keep up appearances for his Slytherins, some of whom had well-connected family in Death Eater circles, he was mentally starting to wall himself off from the other inhabitants of the castle, although less generous people might have suggested he'd already been doing so for decades anyway. While Harry Potter was still a main focus of his ire in class, and anywhere else he had the misfortune to encounter the boy, he realised that he had stopped picking on the boy's friend Granger.
To be fair, he told himself, the negative attention he had given her in previous years had been undeserved. He had snapped out of irritation, when he of all people should know how to hold his tongue. Whenever he had berated her overabundant knowledge, recanted word for word from the textbook, he reminded himself afterwards that he had only known she quoted the book verbatim because he himself knew the writing by heart as well. Her personal connection to Potter was really the only thing that got under his skin if he were honest with himself, and he was a rational enough man to realise that that was not a rational thing to hold against her. She just had a habit of drawing in and indulging waifs and strays and oddballs, if half the things he had overheard about her little bleeding heart were true. The house elves still gave her a wide berth in the corridors, he snorted wryly.
Albus had been losing the plot lately, Severus thought. More than usual anyway. The DADA master put it down to the Headmaster's inexorably fatal wounded hand muddling the old wizard's thoughts, on top of the already huge strain of orchestrating the war against the Dark Lord. Snape had mentioned Granger's name in the staffroom one morning, when Horace had been extolling Potter's suspicious new talent in Potions class. Severus had expressed surprise at this, and had questioned Slughorn as to whether Hermione was coaching him while brewing, although he knew full-well that she would whisper bits of advice to Harry and Ron when he had been Potions master, but the boys' efforts had still never matched hers when it had come time to hand in their phials. Horace's reply that Potter's potioneering was beating Granger's into a cocked hat these days had raised Snape's eyebrows.
'Are you certain, Horace?' he had queried his colleague. 'Hermione has never yet been bested at Potions, or anything other than riding a broomstick to the best of my knowledge, by Potter.'
Upon mentioning her name, Severus noticed out of the corner of his eye that Albus shot him an unfathomable glance. Probably disapproving of his use of the girl's Christian name he thought, unsure as to why he had even used it himself. It wasn't forbidden at Hogwarts, especially behind closed doors, although the faculty usually kept things formal with the students face-to-face. Even on the occasions he had spoken to Granger outside of his role as professor, he had never come close to overstepping the boundaries between them.
Snape had the feeling that Dumbledore was watching him surreptitiously up until the older wizard rose from his comfy chintz armchair and made his leave.
'What's up with Albus?' he asked to no-one in particular when his employer was gone. Charity Burbage sidled over and seated herself next to him.
'I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, Severus, but just in case, I thought I'd better tell you...' Softly-spoken Charity was the Muggle Studies professor, a half-blood woman about Severus' age, with a plain but kind face, and a pleasant demeanour, although he'd witnessed her debate issues passionately when roused. He admired her for her ability to be so forthcoming in her beliefs about Muggles and Muggle-borns; something he himself could scarcely afford to do in the current climate. If Lucius Malfoy got so much of a sniff about Severus being sympathetic to Mudbloods, it could put his entire position as a Death Eater in jeopardy.
She touched his arm gently. 'A couple of people have noticed...' she looked a little hesitant, perhaps awkward, but gave him a small, reassuring smile, '...that Miss Granger seems to be paying attention to you lately. Perhaps more than might be... appropriate?' She sat back, watching for his reaction.
'Appropriate?' He stared straight back at her, well-aware of the effect his dark gaze could have on people when applied in a certain way. 'What are you implying, Charity?'
'Oh nothing at all, Severus, of course not! I just thought you should be aware. You know what the school grapevine is like for spreading things though, whether they're true or not.'
'I see,' he said, in a slightly frosty tone.
'It's not you I'm worried about, Severus. At least, not your behaviour. I know you to be a man of great principle-' Here, visions of promising Albus that he would murder him within the year flashed through Snape's mind, nearly making him snort out loud in derision. If only they knew! She continued, '-but you know what girls are like. The teenage heart is a fickle thing.'
Up until then, Severus had viewed his interactions with Hermione Granger, even extra-curricular ones, as her trying to finagle her way further into the grown-up world. Someone of her academic standing no doubt occasionally tired of the banality of her peers and their shallow pursuits, he knew from his own experience. But Charity seemed to be suggesting that the girl's interest might be of a more... personal nature. Burbage must be mistaken. He had on occasions been cordial with Granger, but hardly kind. She had everything going for her - popular, pretty and outgoing, with a good future ahead of her, Lord Voldemort notwithstanding. The idea that such a creature might in some way be attracted to a man like Severus Snape was beyond absurd. He was nothing to desire, and had done nothing to earn it.
'Thank you for your advice.'
'Let her down gently, Severus,' Charity winked at him with an impish smile. 'After all, who could blame her?' She patted his arm again before standing up and making her way from the room.
Was she just flirting with him? Snape blinked at her retreating back. What in Merlin's name was wrong with all these women?