For the next week, Hermione spent every free moment settling into the house. She dusted the mantel, cleaned the corners in the cabinets, and wiped down the banisters. Of course, it hadn't been that dirty to begin with—Severus never would have allowed for that—but with every hour she spent readying the place to live, she felt more accomplished.
He had known she would, the bastard.
She placed wards around the property, but left them open to him. There was no one else she was expecting, and it would be good for someone to be able to get to her.
She hung her clothes in the closet in the bedroom. It was still warm during the days, so she donned a light white dress and tied her hair back with a bow. It felt decadent to indulge in herself in such a way, she noticed, as she gazed upon the artwork adorning the walls. She even danced across the floors a bit, humming to herself. She set her kettle on the stove, ready to be used for a late night cuppa or her morning coffee, and made herself some toast with jam while she worked.
It was the first time in a year that she had true privacy and didn't feel that her heart might collapse in on itself like a dying star. She felt like an apprentice again, preparing potion ingredients and taking notes. As she hauled her equipment from her suitcase into its rightful place in the lab, she felt a keen sense of nostalgia towards the mastery she had earned and never used.
She would be lying to herself if she had said that she hadn't wanted to impress him with the way she could beautify the living quarters, to demonstrate competence in the care she could show to a dwelling he was passing on to her. She wanted to show him that she had grown up and was capable of caring for a house and for herself. Despite his cranky manner, she felt the spark of their history, their shared jokes, their almost-but-never-quite-was. She thought perhaps, though at large she craved solitude, perhaps it would not be so outrageous for them to be friends again.
She avoided admitting it outright, but in the night when she was sweaty and done with her work for the day, she felt, tugging at the back of her consciousness, that she missed him.
As the week clambered on and her confidence rose for the first time in a year as the house took shape, she waited anxiously for him to return, to praise her efforts, to validate what she felt had lately been a rather meager existence.
But half the week had passed and still he had not come.