"What is she doing here?" Severus hissed, his hand cutting through the air in a jab towards the entrance hall. If he'd had hackles, he'd have raised them.

"Why Severus, whatever is the matter?" Minerva asked, turning towards him. Her fork hung in midair as she followed his glare. "Ah, Miss Granger, you mean?"

The woman stood framed by the double doors, dwarfed by them. Her hair was caught up around her shoulders and across her face as though she had just been dragged through a hedge backwards, but Severus would recognise that body, that hair, that stance anywhere. She looked nothing like the calm vision in the mirror, but he couldn't deny that she was Eri, either.

The damned mirror must be broken.

"Surely it's Mrs Weasley by now?" His voice grated past his teeth, weedling and angry.

"Oh, no. No, that didn't last long at all." The Headmistress' voice was tinged with regret, as having the Princess of Gryffindor shack up with a famous quidditch player had been her trump card for many years.

Miss Granger shoved her hair behind her ears with both hands and offered a demure wave at McGonagall across the Great Hall.

Severus saw Peeves flying towards her before anyone at the Head Table could blink, but he was too far away to intervene. Besides, he didn't want to. She was nothing to him. He certainly hadn't spent every night this week tossing and turning, trying to plan ways to get close to her. Just to prove that damned mirror wrong, of course.

She swung to the side as the poltergeist approached, and Peeves flew past, giddily doing a somersault. Before he could find her, Hermione had cast four or five spells. Her wand blurred with the speed at which she cast, shrinking and binding the poltergeist to a pavestone on the 3rd floor for the day.

Satisfied he was gone, she turned her wand towards her hair and cast a quick charm that settled several locks of hair back into place, twisting them up into a respectable… style.

The overall look was still one of chaos, but presentable chaos. Far closer to a certain other woman who had haunted Severus for many years, far from the student.

"You didn't answer my question." He drawled, watching as the delectable former student minced closer. "Why is she here?"

"She's here because the board of governors asked me to ensure you had a ministry approved interview before you began teaching again. I did tell you."

"The students arrive tomorrow." Severus felt his temper and frustration rise, his gaze snapping back to Minerva's.

"Exactly why she is here today. Ah, Hermione, how wonderful to see you."

In truth, Severus was no longer sure what he had signed. He'd been only too happy to have the chance to return to Hogwarts, and his drug of choice.

The forbidden mirror.

Now, however, the thing he most desired was stood opposite Minerva's chair, chatting quietly with her. And tossing him occasional, brown glimpses of curiosity or worry or assessment - something that he couldn't quite discern, something that disquieted him, made goosebumps crawl up his forearms.

He hadn't seen her for years, not since the Medical Wing - when he had thoroughly embarrassed himself. When he had opened eyes he had thought long since frozen to find her warm chocolate eyes staring intently at his throat. He had followed the view down her top to the breasts which seemed to bounce on their own accord as she worked diligently on saving his life. The vision had been enough to make him wonder if he had accidentally been admitted to heaven - until his lower half had jumped to attention. Forgotten for too long, it had ignored all Severus' frustrated, angry demands that it cease and desist and instead stood, proud and tall, beneath the thin Medibay blanket. None of his Occlumency and self-control could save him.

In horror, he watched as she had turned to look at the wound which sliced him from collarbone to pelvis, a gift from someone who had clearly wanted him to stay dead, her gaze nearing the point of no return. Severus had snapped.

He hadn't quite called her a Mudblood, but only because his throat lay in ruins about him.

Instead, his nonverbal, wandless rage had funneled through him and into her, throwing her like a ragdoll across the room, casting open the door, and sticking her like a bug onto the corridor wall, the words 'and stay out' painted in big bold letters above her head.

He had never forgiven himself.

How could he?

He had spent his entire life trying not to become his father and yet here he was, bullying the first woman he saw.

He had refused treatment after that, limping his way out of Hogwarts and abusing the fact that he was still acknowledged by the wards to apparate home to die.

Unfortunately Miss Granger's spellwork held and he did not die. Draco stomached Severus' fury only a few times a week, but each time he brought plate after plate of statised, elf-made food and eventually Severus began eating again.

He had sent an apology to Ms Granger with some flowers. Well, Potions ingredients made up of flowers, of course. He wasn't a romantic. She had not responded. He didn't blame her.

Yet here she stood, far more flesh than the skin and bones he remembered after the final battle.

He could just hear her conversation with Minerva like a low buzz of static at the edge of his awareness, and he tuned in, shocked that he had allowed his memories to suck him in when he could have been listening.

"No, I'm just glad to be back. A moment away from all that chaos."

"I can imagine."

Minerva and Hermione shared a look that thrummed with affection, and Severus averted his eyes. He didn't need the painful squeeze around his chest to remind him that nobody except his Eri had ever wanted him to be there. Hell, given that she was always asleep, perhaps not even she.

The thoughts twisted his face into ever deeper grooves, and the poor table almost started smouldering under the weight of that gaze.

"Hello Professor Snape."

Hermione's cheerful voice broke through Severus' thoughts like a sunrise, and he squinted up against her happiness.

"Miss… Granger?"

"Minerva invited me to conduct a quick evaluation interview with you today." She leaned forward over the sausages, her smile intimate if hesitant. "I don't see why they're having you examined, personally, but then I've known you for a long time." Severus frowned, his mind trying to dissect what she had said - because the words must be hurtful, surely. Nobody had smiled like that at Severus for a long time, not when they meant it. Before he could make his mind up to be offended, she'd continued talking. "So this is really just a formality."

Just a formality.

Still, she was here, she was talking to him. It was more desired social interaction than he'd had in months, and suddenly he was as flustered as a teenager talking to a pretty girl.

Resolutely, he kept his mouth shut and inclined his head. He would not make a fool of himself.

At the gesture, Hermione pulled back. The veneer of formality iced between them, and Severus was rather desperate to pull it away. He hadn't meant to hurt her, but distance clouded her eyes as she turned back to Minerva, discussing the school and its repairs.

Severus felt his skin itch with how much he wanted Hermione's attention back on him.

He needed to apologise for that awful display of anger five years ago, if nothing else. When she'd scorned his thoughtful Potions bouquet he'd been furious, but now, staring at her beautiful form, he could allow that it had been insufficient, not she. He'd risked her life, and by way of apology sent her flowers - with no note! Had he done that to any other witch in Britain he'd have been hauled in front of the court of the Daily Prophet and every gossip in Diagon Alley, if nothing else, but nobody seemed to know what he'd done.

As soon as he was alone with her he'd apologise. He needed to. Her laugh tinkled in his ears as he swore it to himself. This interview may well be a blessing in disguise.