.

CHAPTER TWELVE
STILL LIFE

When she and Professor Snape slouched barefooted—their legs outstretched under the garden table, mugs at their chests—Hermione thought long about the most oblique and inoffensive way of phrasing the following belligerence: 'I am not stupid enough to mistake a hug and kiss as evidence of anything more amorous. On her mind's tongue, however, the words felt as if she were reciting a line of a book, perhaps even one of the erotic novels she had discovered in her mother's bedside table—Hermione was the first to admit that she'd always had a nosey streak. Worse still, the words were as rancid as any lie. Her heart knew that she was the sort of sod that would mistake her professor's platonic touches for something more. 'Yes,' she thought, 'you are exactly that sort of pathetic sod.' Crucially, when Hermione's continued existence at Spinner's End depended on keeping track of her lies, she thought it best to keep the count as low as possible.

Hermione had decided not to wait around in bed this morning, and why would she? Despite the Fidelius, most mornings she could hear the neighbours rousing, their keening moans, the serrated cry of mattress springs. It filled her with a sort of nausea—not the sex, no, no, the life itself—as any sort of reminders of an existence without magic did. Clearly, she did not have to be a pureblood to feel this way, but it was also a feeling that she'd not experienced before her descent into this disfigured version of herself; it was as if someone had dropped it into her mind like a stone, and she felt its rippling in every thought. Now, with her magic as corporeal as any familiar or friend, she felt a distinct lack of something vital in the sort of existence her parents lived, a life so perilously fragile.

'How do they cope,' she thought, 'knowing they've no time to live?'

And the longer she lay there in bed, waiting for the Professor to bring up her breakfast, her fingers growing pruned while she lazily learned the shape of herself, Hermione realised how remarkably easy it was to think yourself Dark. She was a muggleborn, had a relatively sane upbringing and still, one naïve sentiment and . . .

Once she'd coaxed herself to orgasm—the cramping of her abdomen pitifully short, hardly worth the ten minutes' labour—, and she had basked in the moments of legless clarity it provided, Hermione made her way downstairs. Sighing, as she tip-toed barefoot, she'd remembered how the Professor informed her that her First Blood had finally done in her ratty old house slippers, shuddered at the image.

When she turned the door handle and entered the kitchen, she found Snape, beguilingly dressed in his nightwear. His forest green robe was tied tight at the waist, jaw shaved clean, hair wet and slicked back. He stood stock-still and the porridge on the stove threatened to boil over. It was as if the shock of hearing her come downstairs had frozen him.

Snape's eyes were wild.

'I feel fine,' she'd said, and pried the wooden spoon from him, turned down the hob a touch, and the Professor nodded and after briefly gripping the Formica countertop, the two standing so close that his hair dripped onto her forearm, he moved over. He'd filled the kettle to boil and loaded the toaster with four thick slices of bread. Hermione scraped the glutenous porridge down from the sides of the pot, and soon he'd strode back to her side, and with some confusion, she took the two heavy earthen bowls that he'd handed her and spooned out potions for them both.

'You'd like my gruel too?'

'Penance for my sins.'

'Sorry?'

He said, with a voice so low as if he were afraid of being overheard, 'I will make no excuses but know it won't happen again.'

'Professor, I—'

'Herm—.'

The toaster popped. They both jumped out of their skin as if she'd been caught on her knees behind a tapestry with him. Snape darted away and while he buttered her two slices of granary toast and then two of his own, made the two cups of tea, he'd not confirmed what exactly he was apologising for, and nor did she prompt him further. Of course, it was the hand-holding, the hug, the touch. Hermione was many things but she was not an imbecile.

And when she'd turned the key in the lock and opened the back door, stepping out into the bright garden, squinting, breathing in the cool air—ever fruity from the smell of the nearby river—, she only had to shoot a smile over a shoulder and the Professor had frowned but followed. No, she was not an imbecile at all.

They took breakfast on the weather-beaten, ant-eaten table, sparkling with sunlight, dew, and peeling varnish. Since, Snape had sipped his tea—the mug empty by now if not ice-cold—looking away from her and at the swaying silver birch, his fine hair too damp to shift in the breeze but growing lighter and drier and more chaotic by the minute. Her eyes flickered often to his aquiline nose in profile, and Hermione decided that she did not hate it. Eventually, the empty plates, cups, bowls, cutlery, and half a jar of honey were all vanished to the sink, and he was on his feet.

She had already resigned herself to the sort of silence that had permeated her days before she fell ill. Predictably then, when he stepped beside her and rested a heavy hand on her crown it had sent her nigh into shock; when he'd ruffled her hair a little, said, 'I'm relieved you're well,' she thought she may never breathe again; and predictably, when he swooped down and pressed his lips to the high point of her cheek for a moment and swiftly vanished inside, she felt like she'd been anointed, become something holy.

So, instead of getting straight back to work, the morning of the last day of July Hermione spent outside in the garden in somewhat of a daze, laying in the clover lawn Snape had not had time to cut back; it tickled her neck and ears and poked through the knit of her father's jumper. She could never do the same at her own home back with her parents. Her father's garden was a haven for all manner of insect: bees spent their days gorging themselves on the flowerbeds, and all manner of insect got into the fruit trees: apple and plum, cherry and fig, rendered them diseased year after year, much to her father's constant ire. Hermione would lie on the garden lawn, her father pruning nearby, but would almost constantly be swatting away at her ears.

But, in truth, Hermione counted herself lucky to be feeling anything but the dank warmth of herself in bed. She soaked in the paltry amounts of sun that had decided to grace Lancashire and was determined to do nothing else this morning but watch the clouds and their unaware neighbours flit by the windows—though those instances were few and far between. Certainly, she could have retired to her bedroom and masturbated at the thought of the Potions Master yet again, but she told herself that she'd do well to delay her gratification.

When Hermione had lain out here after breakfast, she'd seen a woman with too much fake tan pass by the upstairs window of number seventy, a naked toddler on her hip, a chunky lemon-yellow mobile phone at her ear; and nothing quite so solid after that: a murmured conversation, the radio, and all manner of arguments between the inhabitants of Spinner's End. Someone a few doors down had forgotten to bring in the dog; another the milk; a woman pled in a language with soft assonance and an elderly man all but screamed his replies; a boy didn't see the point of continuing his secondary school education after the summer if all he was going to do with his life was 'work the slots like Da, waiting for the mill to let him in'.

Professor Snape had stayed away ever since and she hadn't sought him out either. Aside from sleep, this was the longest she'd gone without his company in weeks, but from the intermittent clatter of cauldrons, running water, and his tuneful humming inside she knew he was available should she need him, and back to his old self too. Hermione held no desire to pry further, though: she hadn't the audacity to encroach on this time he took for himself. Though at one point, she had sat up to work out the kinks in her neck and had the life scared out of her when Hermione spotted him pressed up against the windowpane of the kitchen door: his chest, forehead, and nose all pressed against the glass, palms and forearms resting over his head, and his breath blowing plumes of wet, white condensation. At that distance, she could not make out whether his eyes were open or shut, but she could see that he was still in his pyjamas and robe. That was a couple of hours ago now.

Hermione had laid back down and tried to think around these growing instances of atypical behaviour and the only conclusions she could reasonably draw from the evidence of this past month plus the handful of years she spent as his fearful but conscientious student was that, outside the classroom, she simply knew very little about what was typical of his behaviour. Thus, it was a gross fallacy to presume anything to be out of the norm. If the man suddenly started sporting heavily embroidered technicolour robes like Professor Dumbledore, that would certainly be classed as odd, but there were blatant and obvious facts about his personality that all had come to expect. Professor Snape possessed fearsome wit and intellect; he did not suffer fools, be they students or professors, was venomous should he have cause to be; he was a voracious and analytic reader; a creature of habit; and Snape was a dab hand at both Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts.

As a host and as a carer, however, Professor Snape possessed warmth second to none; not even her Head of House doted on her in quite the same way—though, maybe doting was putting it too strongly. But when Hermione had Polyjuiced herself into a human-cat amalgam, in the several weeks that she remained in the infirmary, Professor McGonagall had only visited her once on the first night: she'd pursed her lips, muttered something about animagi, patted her shoulder, and that was that; alternatively, Professor Snape had come after dinner every evening that Hermione was supposed to have a Potions class and lectured to her since neither he nor Hermione trusted Ron and Harry's note-taking abilities.

'God,' she whispered to herself, shaking her head at her forgetfulness.

No other teacher at the school had extended her the same opportunity, not even Professor Binns who, on account of being a ghost, was free when all others were at meals, popping to the loos, bathing, sleeping. These were not opportunities to socialise with the man, and Professor Snape had made no small talk, shut down her every question and query, and he failed her for all practical components of her lessons, but at least he bloody well cared enough about her education to put in the effort! At the time, naturally, she thought he was terrorising her, but she appreciated it now, yes.

And 'Oh my god,' she gasped, sitting up.

Suddenly, it occurred to her why it made all the sense in the world why he would choose to house her for the summer. How had she forgotten about that year, the year the Chamber of Secrets had been opened? How could she have forgotten what had happened when she'd returned to that same sanatorium, a mirror in one hand, and a torn book page crumpled in the other? Perhaps because she was petrified when she was thirteen and would be turned seventeen soon? That it had been years since those events, events that she'd—what? Why was she experiencing so much trouble in recollecting—? And then—

'Bloody hell!'

Hermione had been awake. She had been awake for two months.

As soon as she focused hard enough on that fact, the tell-tale silvery fog of a carefully placed Confundus charm lifted, and a memory of Madam Pomphrey's wand-tip before her eyes.

The basilisk's yellow gaze in the mirror had petrified her but petrified her body as it was in that moment—wide awake, cautious, terrified. Hermione had expected to sleep, but it was unyielding, ill-understood magic that bound her body. For weeks—yes, yes, yes—she'd watched the world flit in and out around her line of sight and could do nothing for her part but observe, rapt. Despite Madam Pomfrey's insistence to Harry on Ron on the contrary, Hermione's brain and soul and magic were all very much aware of anything and everything happening around her in those two months, aware of all the conversations, the events. And again—how could I have forgotten?—Professor Snape flitting in and out of her line of sight, the worry in his eyes and voice, how he spoke to the other patients on their rounds, told them the day, key events, kept them abreast of his progress on Mandrake Restorative Draught.

'You know there is evidence,' he'd said to Madam Pomphrey once, when she'd caught him speaking to Hermione on how to brew a superior Wiggenweld Potion, 'that muggle coma patients can hear what's happening around them?'

'And just as much evidence to the contrary, Severus,' she'd huffed, a weariness in her voice that suggested she'd had this conversation before, that she was merely entertaining him. 'But tell me how many have woken up decades later, thinking they were simply rising from a night's rest! Let us not forget who the Healer—'

'I wouldn't presu—.'

'—is here. These children are not muggles and this is no coma. They have been petrified by a—!'

She remembered his curt reply: 'Am I torturing these children, Poppy, or attempting to keep them sane?'

And kept her sane he had. If she could remember, if she hadn't been Confunded by the likely well-meaning matron, she would have sought out Professor Snape; did he even know she'd been Confunded? And had anyone congratulated him? Any student? In his end-of-year speech, the Headmaster had only thanked Professor Sprout for growing the mandrakes, but not, to her recollection, the man who'd brewed the vast quantities of the Mandrake Draught, that too in a fraction of the time. Had another school year been rounded off by a Gryffindor show of life-saving heroism, every other achievement diminished or, at worst, totally forgotten? It made her nauseous.

Now, Professor Snape brought her favourite biscuits and ensured she never ran low—how he even knew of such thing in the first place, she had not asked, and it would be outlandish to assume he remembered from her infirmary days but perhaps he did—; he read to her all manner of interesting literature; and while the conversation was minimal, he was present and warded off the worst of her stir-crazy thoughts. With her memories back, it seemed like he'd been well-trained for the job. It could have been so easy for him to work downstairs or in his room, or spend his day in the lab, check in on her when he must but otherwise remain aloof. Instead, he kept sentinel over her, kept her sane. He had his loneliness to contend with and mitigate, sure, but the fact that he'd sought her out and made this the norm said everything. It was like the Professor owned some chameleon gene: Snape became all she needed. What more could she have asked of him?

And he was indeed everything she'd never expected and nothing like the man the Gryffindor propaganda painted him as. Hermione wondered what he thought of her, wondered whether the advent of the Other Hermione had spoiled things between them or bettered them, wondered what their tentative regard for one another would even look like by September, or what it would look like in however many years it took her to finish Hogwarts. If she played her cards right, maybe he would stop making fun of her in class. Imagine! One thing she was certain of, Hermione would be treating him very differently and she'd try her damnedest to get Harry and Ron doing the same. Even the thought of their initial bickering made her screech aloud in embarrassment.

When a few hours had passed, when the air was thick with a suffocating humid heat, she heard the door slide open and the sound of Snape's brogues on the pavers. Soon the Professor stood over her in laced brogues, his usual lightweight cape over a suit that she'd never seen him in before. She was so used to the heavy woollen robes he wore at Hogwarts that to see him dressed so . . . relaxed by Snape's own standards, threw her. Was it just this morning that she'd been thinking about what was typical and atypical of him? Because while he was buttoned in as he usually was, Snape—Severus Snape—was wearing a three-piece muggle suit of mottled navy chambray over a blue shirt and blue tie, his usual loose robe of chiffon fluttering around his heels. His fine open hair blocked the sun from his eyes like a curtain as he stared down at her.

He held a glass out for her: the blackcurrant squash she favoured but had run out of two days ago.

'God, thank you,' she said, sitting up with a huff and taking it from him, suddenly realising how parched she was. When she brought it to her lips, she caught a distinctive bitter and botanic scent and saw the pearlescent green sheen. 'Vigour Vial,' she mumbled, taking two large gulps, draining half the glass. 'Thanks; I needed it.'

Snape said nothing to confirm it of course, not that she expected it either. No, he said, 'Get up, Granger. Let's go.'

=/=

Severus watched her, all straight spine and rounded shoulders, necking the drink: three fingers of Ribena, lukewarm water, and half a Vigour Vial. He watched her sweep the grass and clover off that skirt, that skirt made of his childhood bedlinen, blue, and get to her feet. All someone needed to do was to cast Finite at her and she would find her dignity in a pool. It was a definite risk to take her anywhere magical while she was like this but it had to be done.

Granger questioned, 'Where to? This colour s—.'

He stopped her with a slash of his hand before she bestowed one of her witless remarks about his person—last night: 'this is the best tea I've ever had, Professor'; a few days ago: 'you've a wonderful voice for Blake, Professor'. 'And what of every other cup of tea I've made for you?' he wanted to say; 'What of the times I've read you the Prophet obituaries, Heaney's lecturers, Coleridge's Lay Sermons? Was it not just as good then?'.

How outrageous that some seed of companionable ease had germinated between them when his colleagues, whom he lived and broke bread with every day for ten months every year, had drawn lots for the first five he was a teacher: the loser would ask Snape to Christmas drinks at the Three Broomsticks. Of course, it was all fun and games between co-workers—more an extended and eccentric family—but it just threw in stark relief the trust this girl so easily placed in him. Every day when she unblinkingly took another potion he'd concocted for her, he remembered how his colleagues had refused to have his potions stocked in the school infirmary for three years, choosing to trust the inferior drafts of commercial breweries, that was until the Hogwarts governors stepped in, Hogwart's purse on their mind. And 'She has no other option but to trust you, you fool!' he told himself just as often.

Her comments were slowly driving him batty, but the way Granger sounded out the honorific—'sir', 'professor'—often expedited the feeling. Severus was close to just having her call her by name but knew it would be like waking to find oneself in the middle of No Man's Land. Plainly, there was only so much overfamiliarity he could abide without ceding ground and taking his own liberties in return, as humans were wont to do. 'Severus. Just call me Severus,' he thought, and then visibly recoiled. 'No,' he thought, 'absolutely not.' Though, considering he'd decided an occasional peck was fair game, it was only a matter of time. Thankfully, she had the sense to not initiate these things of her own volition because she was, after all, the brightest witch of her age. Obviously, he did not want to think about the Other who said his name with more ease than he'd ever said his own . . .

'Diagon,' he said, and crossed his arms, closing his summer robes around himself, 'and then into Muggle London if need be.'

'We are?' she wheezed. 'Why?'

'It should be obvious,' he said, taking the empty glass from her. 'I take it you're all but ready?'

She cried, 'Yes! I just need to fetch my shoes and bag!' and in a moment, Granger was already halfway up the garden, the soles of her feet red and creased by the grass and embedded with it. 'Just a minute!' Merlin but it was odd seeing her move, run, even lift a glass to her lips without supporting the elbow with a palm. When she'd done that with her teacup last night, he'd almost wept, thinking how he'd been entrusted to keep her safe and healthy during the summer, and would return her to the school broken.

Severus vanished the empty glass to the kitchen and walked to the top of the garden and leaned against the silver birch, which, despite autumn proper being some way away, had already begun its moult. Ever since he'd cast the Fidelius, the magpies had not returned to their nests in the uppermost branches and the blackbirds and sparrows had all but forgotten 72 Spinner's End—he wondered if the neighbours had even realised that they could no longer see the birch either, that its leaves no longer littered their gardens—not that they took particularly good care of them to notice an absence of leaves. He knew owls were impervious to the Fidelius spell—not that owl mail required addresses ever, only names. What peculiar magic this was.

These thoughts entertained him for a few seconds, then he gave in, gave in as he'd done over breakfast, where his eyes were on the tree, planted in his childhood, and his every other sense attuned to Granger as they had been for weeks, every deliberation one where she was at the centre. And given that she'd only just got to the patio door, he watched how easily she slid it back, how she walked through the lounge, tiptoeing around the books and armchairs with that old Prince bedsheet roving around her knees. The curtain stationary and she out of sight, Severus sighed hard enough that it plucked a speckled leaf from a branch hanging in front of his eyes, and he saw it pirouette and fall.

Severus had not done something particularly dastardly in many, many years except, perhaps, relishing every opportunity to put the Potter and Longbottom boys in their place, but that was neither here nor there, really: the birth of those two lacklustre, good-for-nothing pricks had ruined his life. Not even Minerva begrudged him that, but Merlin knows she had plenty of her own petty disputes with students over the years—such was the educator's life. So, Severus did not think himself a particularly immoral person, not in the slightest; he did not steal or slaughter, he did not lie or was particularly sexually depraved; nor had he ever let his perchance for the Dark Arts, and his general magical affinity with the Dark, ever overpower his better sense. 'Well,' he thought, 'that's debatable.'

One thing that was simply not up for debate? While the opportunities had been plentiful over the years, Severus had prided himself on not being the sort of Professor that would tarnish an otherwise respectable standing by fucking his students. He'd seen it more among the staff than he could care to admit; commonly with the revolving door of DADA teachers who could hardly defend themselves against the whims of horny Seventh Years, let alone the Dark Arts. It was a struggle in those early years, that much he could easily admit—the age gap hadn't been so stark, and the purebloods had seen him as quite the catch. Now, over a decade since, it was a different matter entirely. Yet, Silvanus had often called him foolish to not capitalise on his youth and virility, but then Silvanus would.

In the case of Hermione Granger, such thoughts were hardly relevant, though naïve he was not. Magical puberty meant an influx of hormones and she was suffering the adverse effects. His days were liberally peppered with the back of his neck smarting whenever the girl's heart rate spiked and tripped his wards. Granger was a dab hand at his Muffliato, and that's as explicitly he would think on that particular matter, lest he be more damned than he already was. He left her alone enough that she could excise the tension from her system, Merlin knows he'd spent his entire adult life doing the same. A lesser man would not think twice before exploiting her hardship. A lesser man, as he lay in bed at night, seed sprayed up to his neck, would—.

'Stop,' he thought, but the false image of himself had taken root. The lie. The thing that had never happened, but yet his fertile imagination could pull from the gutter of his mind with as much clarity as truth. If anyone had performed Legilimency upon him they would think him the worst sort of letch, because there he was, lying in his bed in the dead of the night, chanting the girl's name as he came. 'Hermione,' he mumbled aloud in time, 'Hermione.' And, as he stood here in the Oldham summer, his cock twitched for the first time thinking of the girl. And this was why he was the best Occlumens that he'd ever known. This is what set him apart from the likes of Dumbledore, who were too lily-livered to give in to their Mr Hydes if only insincerely, if for a mere moment, and not even for the greater good. The thought of bringing himself off to the chit was repulsive to his sensibilities—she was his charge, his student, and he would never betray her trust nor his morals—, and yet he now possessed the image of it. And this was why he did not give in to his mind often, this was why he kept busy at every moment, this was the consequence of his wandering mind: slip once and breed a hundred lies.

He sighed.

Aside from that delicate matter, while Severus was not the one pouring one of Fawkes' tears down her throat, it was Severus who had made sure she would not literally burst at the seams and involuntarily kill herself. The two life debts she now owed him twisted his soul into the awkward niches and alcoves of his heart, and that heart asked him daily when it would expect to find relief. Every time he sensed her magic in the air—to his chagrin, usually when she sought to relieve herself under the cover of a Muffliato—he sensed his own reaching out; knowing no moral code, but simply wanting to alleviate the burden of her every need.

He was far from the uncivilised creature these idiotic students thought: all Severus longed for was some greater level of ease between them here in his own house—the Other had all but demanded he initiate it, and that was enough to seed the paranoia and anxiety that swept through him whenever they were alone. What that ease looked like he'd no idea.

'Is wanting this the worst thing?' his traitor heart asked of him today, sat at his garden table with the vestiges of a hearty breakfast laid out before them—her porridge hadn't been that repulsive. 'It's innocent, Severus. How often a day do you peck Minerva, Septima, Hooch, and Poppy? Twice? Three times? Certainly, more for Minerva. You've politely kissed both cheeks of untold numbers of your graduating Snakes.'

And, really, what hadn't he done for her? He'd collected Hermione Granger's First Blood for Merlin's sake! Not that he'd expected the girl to be blabbering about her menstrual cycle of all things, but he'd have to impose upon her in no uncertain terms that she was to tell nobody of what they'd done in his tiny bathroom upstairs, and in return, he would have to bury the memories so far deep in his psyche that not one impure and depraved touch, nor the most powerful legilimens in the world would be able to find them. If it came to it, he might even extract the memories entirely, forget that he'd been so absurdly blessed to perform such acts of service. When she'd been in the throes of her changes, how many hours had he spent at her bedside apologising silently for that stupid apparition into the bathroom? How often—his gut twisted even now—had he lain sleepless in the night, her traumatised and blood-splattered visage hovering in front of his waking eyes? This two-week labour was far less than he deserved, yes, but Severus also knew he deserved to grant himself a little slack: he had enough control of his faculties and libido that he could lighten up.

Severus saw the drapes of his childhood bedroom twitch. 'Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Just one moment!' she called out her window, and ducked back inside. His chest lurched, and he kicked at the lumpy lawn. He could apparate from her room—any room—but he kept his vigil here.

Severus had spent most of the day down in his potions lab mindfully cleaning away the remnants of all the potions he'd been brewing and taking stock of his ingredients just to escape thoughts of her. Even occlumency, which he'd not employed since the aftermath of that swine Sirius Black's sudden disappearance only served to rid him of the emotion but not the thoughts themselves. Those thoughts told him he was utterly unworthy of her company—what else?—that she would just become another witch fated to die should she get to know him, another witch whose capacity for love would encompass all but him.

Often, in their stifling quietude, he caught flickers of emotion behind her eyes, some spark of thought—likely brilliant, likely revolutionary—, but she never did share it with him, and he rarely felt so sadistic that he'd force her to confess. Last night's talk of Belladonna Dumbledore and Burke's Law was proof that she had mind enough, that it was fated that she would be on Potter's side in the war and that she would be utterly terrifying in her prime. It was also proof that she needed a guiding hand.

And this morning's behaviour was . . . Severus felt he'd reached a tipping point: he'd walked out of his room half asleep and immediately smelled her soap and shampoo on the landing. After that point he was just operating on instinct, suspecting the Other and she had switched places in some tactless ploy, and after he'd actually heard her swagger downstairs and finally walk out his front door, he was euphoric in a way he'd not been in years. It was far too difficult to live under the paranoia of another in his home, another he dare not see or speak to, but knew his every move. That euphoria cut his strings.

'So what?' he said, breathing deeply, feeling himself spiral, spiral as he had been doing for hours. 'So what that you're fondof her? You're fond of many women and, against their better judgement, women are fond of you.' Though, perhaps in the same way that people were fond of three-legged dogs and city foxes. While that was all true, it had been decades since he'd indulged this hunger for new companions outside the school environs, not in his wildest dreams did he think Hermione Granger would suffer this.

The first time he'd felt like this after her death, was when Septima Vector had joined the staff in 1987. Septima, mere hours since she'd officially been introduced to the staff, had cornered him on the stairs after the initial meeting and asked him in her typical taciturn way to seek her out if he were ever in need of a second eye over his arithmancy, already making herself more available and valuable to him than any woman had ever done. That second eye became the first before the month was over, and they collaborated upon all his new potions ever since, and she took a well-earned 25%. Being a mere man, he'd thought Septima was making a pass at him, but Severus had been quickly disabused of that notion catching her making effective use of the quidditch pitch one evening. If Septima wasn't so callously fond of the vagina—namely, and ironically, Hooch's—he may have endeavoured to woo her—even if she had sat her NEWTs when Severus was a mere clot in his mother's womb.

After that, he'd decided to finally befriend Minerva realising that for five years she'd always drawn the short straw at Christmas. Then, mere days after, when he was doing his start-of-term drop-off of the infirmary potions, Poppy had invited him in for tea, expressed her displeasure at coming second to Minerva. Just like that, in the space of a few weeks, Severus had considered himself to have three more friends than he ever thought he would. Still, the emphasis was firmly on friend, and nothing more.

In that regard, he had made do with his Saturday Sex and Spoon with Sinistra; an arrangement he'd annulled when she expressed no small amount of adoration for that fool Lockhart and fell for his sickening passes at her. Severus had gloated enough at him being found out as a hack to burn the decade-strong bridge between himself and Aurora permanently; now they barely acknowledged one another in the hallways. The last time they'd spoke, Minerva had mentioned that Aurora was now seeing a muggle bookseller from Edinburgh, that there were hopes of an engagement this summer. Severus thought himself too honourable a man to be bitter about her newfound happiness, but in actuality he would give, at the very least, several toes to be in a similar position.

Perhaps it was something of an inevitability of this mandatory cohabitation with Granger that he'd grow to become fond of her too, even more so when he was spending every waking hour in keeping her alive; foreseeable to happen even before dealing with her on so intimate a level. He couldn't even discount this being another game of the Headmaster, and the moment the thought occurred to him, the more certain he was of it. This summer was a strategic positioning of his spy, so when things went south—as they would inevitably do¬—and he would be behaving in ways that were counter to all his desires, Severus would have someone among the students, someone with sway to stave off the revolt. Yes, that certainly fit Dumbledore's style.

But, if he was being honest, these things were all by the by. Why? Severus was still smarting from the memories those bastard Marauders had thrown up, still feeling as raw as an exposed nerve. The school term was over, and he still needed some balm, something to make him feel of use, like a person. He hadn't expected Hermione Granger's company to be of any use, but perhaps if he were civil with her that would be enough. Of course, there was no chance of him engaging with the witch on any terms but that of friendship. Merlin, no.

It took her several more minutes but eventually, she got down there with him, that damned bottomless satchel slung over her shoulder, and something with too many straps and not enough coverage on her feet. She'd also taken her dark hair out of her plait and held it with pins behind her ears, and the closer she came the more he realised that she was wearing makeup: a brick colour on her lips and something to make her lashes sooty.

'You look nice,' she said, shuffling her feet, 'so I thought I should . . . y'know, try?'

Severus did not possess any appetite for seeing her humiliated, any desire for her to be made a fool of. So, 'Admirable,' he said, which gave rouge to her cheeks.

'That colour suits you,' she said. 'Navy.'

'And black doesn't?' he said sighing, giving in to his childish whim.

'That is not what I meant at all!'

'Is that not it, at all?'

'Ha!'

'Awful habit.'

'I'm so sorry I took so long, I just—. I—. Well . . .'

He squeezed his eyes shut, wincing. 'If you want to attempt speech, do try to think beforehand.' She narrowed her eyes at him, ceased her floundering. 'Well?' You're such a prick, Severus. You were just bantering via Eliot! Be nice. Make friends.

'My feet are bigger,' she said with aplomb. 'This was the only thing that I could fit into.'

He looked down at her feet and spotted the inch or so of her heel that was hanging off the back of the shoe, her toes gripping onto the sole for dear life. He scowled at the uncouth sight of it, scowled at the visceral memory of squeezing his feet into his father's too-small shoes as a teen. The shock of the sudden memory had him gripping his wand so tight it might have given him water blisters had they not been in an already shoddy state.

And all too soon she was moving closer, standing toe to toe. She'd mourned how she'd shot up in height, but as with everything that had occurred to her figure, it became her. Though she'd been an utterly androgynous and boyish sort of teen, this mature witch, was—as he'd admitted to himself only once in the presence of the Other—an objectively striking woman. Septima would certainly be in for a surprise.

'I trust I don't have to stress the importance of discretion today?' he said, shaking himself out of his thoughts.

'Well,' she said, sighing dramatically, 'there goes my plan of mooning the Daily Prophet offices.' He did not deign her sarcasm with a response though it amused him greatly. 'What a shame.'

'Hold on.'

With her eyes flickering between his and every pane of her face set, she slipped her right hand into his left and twined the fingers, a pulse of her treacle-thick magic plundering him, and then they vanished.

Author's Note: Oh hello there! Sorry about the delay on the chapter – I got married! It completely disrupted my life in all the best ways, but it's taken a little time to get back to writing. So, I thought it'd be nice to spend a lazy morning with our favourite duo, check in and see how they're doing. Next up is a little visit to Diagon. Do let me know how you're all doing too. Until next time! xxx