"Wonderful!" Minerva clasped her hands together, startling Vector awake, and stood up. "That just about does it, I think."
"Really?" Hermione looked up through the mad curls and stared directly into his own. "Severus, what do you think?"
"I think it was perfectly acceptable the first time you made us sit through this," Severus admitted. He'd been forced to endure Hermione's demonstration of Burn Salve three times this week, and on the nights she wasn't in Hogwarts he found he couldn't sleep. His mind would flit between her and Eri, comparing and contrasting them. Much to his surprise, the Mirror of Erised must be defunct, or falling down, the charms inside it giving in to the march of age. Because Dumbledore had always said there was no way of escaping the mirror's influence once you'd given into it, but Severus' Eri held no desire for him anymore. He spent his nights tossing, turning, and thinking of how cold and dark his life would be without Hermione. How cardboard and unfailingly mute Eri was compared to Hermione's fire.
It made these moments, when her chocolate gaze wavered and dipped, so much more precious and painful than anything he could have imagined.
"But with the practice, you have achieved a state of perfection, as always." Severus forced his voice to contain the correct amount of grudging compliment, so that nobody would notice how soft he was becoming on the Gryffindor swot. Her eyes shone with pride and gratitude. "However," Severus continued, "if you force us to sit through another of these, I fear my brain cells will start to atrophy and I will become nothing better than a first year student."
For a moment, Hermione just stared at him, and his heart beat in his throat. If she misunderstood… if she took offence… and then she grinned and Severus' worries melted. "Alright, alright. I'm just… nervous. I don't speak well in front of crowds."
"No?" Severus frowned, trying to find a time when Hermione had done just that. "I seem to remember you said a lot of things in class."
"That's different," Hermione frowned. "Nobody is staring at you, expecting you to speak, waiting for you to mess up so that they can laugh over a butterbeer later."
"Nobody will be doing that at your meeting, either." Minerva dusted off her hands. "If we're right, and Martin does seize this chance to have the spotlight all to himself, nobody will be listening to you at all until after the accident."
"Well… exactly." Hermione frowned, her spine wilting slightly. "There will already have been one embarrassment. They'll be expecting another. Any little slip up and I'll have turned my education reform proposal into a farce."
Severus felt the situation beginning to slip away from the rational and into neurosis - he should know, he'd spent several months going around the same topics over and over again, after all - and he stepped forward, seizing Hermione's elbow.
"Trust me," he said softly. "Nobody will laugh at you."
There was a level of threat implied in his tone that Severus had not intended, a sub-text that anyone who laughed at her might find him- or herself incapable of laughter for quite a while afterwards. No wonder the innocent stared up at him with wide, brown eyes, searching for clarification in his gaze.
He imagined he could feel the disgust creeping up her spine as his fingers held onto her, but he was quite unable to loosen them. It was not a hard hold. She could, and no doubt would, slip free presently, with no need for any effort. But the warmth of her skin, blossoming through the shirt and into his fingers like life… he wouldn't turn and walk away just yet.
"Actually-" Hermione started, jolting Severus into the present. "I wanted to ask you something."
Her gaze slipped around him and checked that Minerva and Vector were otherwise occupied - mostly, Severus checked, with getting out of the room before Hermione started her Charms demonstration from the top of the page again.
"Go on," Severus prompted, when Hermione didn't speak. With her demonstration scheduled for Wednesday, Hermione would not see him again. So what could she be asking? If she could write to him? If they could catch a coffee sometime?
Severus' breath seemed to constrict around the scar on his throat, catching his voice there. He swallowed.
Could she be asking him on a date?
As her lovely lips formed words, Severus' heart beat so loudly against his chest, a throbbing buzz in his eardrums that prevented him from hearing her.
"Sorry? Could you repeat that?" He managed to force the words out, though his condition meant they sounded more like a growl than a question.
Hermione flushed, and Severus wondered if she'd just asked him to get out of the way.
"Would you mind coming with me? To the demonstration?" With her free hand she tugged on the sleeve of her jumper, pinching it together and wrapping it like thread about her. "I know it's a lot to ask and you probably have a million other things you'd rather do-" Severus could not think of one. "But I'd feel so much better if you were there. It's your potion, after all. Your recipe." She swallowed, and Severus was close enough to see her throat moving.
She wanted him there at her big career success. This was almost better than an invitation out for coffee, this was… this was fireworks warming his chest from the inside, a dizzy success that Severus couldn't have imagined for himself.
"Well…" he managed to croak out. "But what about Minerva, Vector? They did as much for the project as I."
"I can't really have every teacher I've consulted sit in," Hermione said with a smile. "I mean, I could, but it would look…strange. So, I'm limiting myself to just the one."
"I… Of course. I would be happy to be there for you."
Hermione's face didn't move for a moment as she processed his words, and then she grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Oh, thank you. That means so much. Really!"
He tried to soak the memory of her smile, the excitement shining from her eyes, into the very essence of his brain. This was a memory he could replay in the Room of Requirement on nights he couldn't sleep, and never mind about that darned mirror. He could be happy with the knowledge that once upon a time, the esteemed and successful Hermione Granger had thought she needed him by her side.
"Oh, wait, Minerva!" Hermione's focus switched to the two women who had almost completed their escape. Severus watched, amused at the slump in Vector's shoulders but saddened, simultaneously, by the loss of Hermione's focus. He chastised himself. He needed to learn to be happy with what he had. "I thought we three might go grab a Butterbeer. I'll buy the first round - I know it hasn't been the most simulating work but I really think we might have gotten him."
"Martin should be quaking in his boots," Minerva agreed, a smile growing at the thought of alcohol. Free alcohol, none the less. "Yes, let's go and celebrate! We deserve it. Vector?"
"Absolutely," Vector agreed, grinning at Severus. "Severus, you'll come, won't you?"
Hermione's gaze darted between Vector and Severus, that confused half frown back on her brow.
"Certainly. I don't think my contribution was any less than yours."
Vector's laugh seemed a little exaggerated to Severus, but he shrugged and followed the three women out of the castle and down to Hogsmeade. There was no understanding women.
"No," she agreed, turning back to look at him. Hermione's frown grew deeper. "I think we both did rather well. We'll have to team up again sometime."
Severus blinked, confused. Their interactions had been mostly minimal - there was certainly no part in the project where they had worked side-by-side. In fact, he'd had the exact measurements sent to her through the Floor system so as to be allowed to stay alone, in his room, researching this fascinating new Mood Paint. He could see some incredible uses for it - tattoos, of course, and children's toys if he could adjust the mixture to be water soluble. And for police work - Aurors would love to have this to hand during investigations - far easier and less morally ambiguous than Veritaserum.
"Yes…" he murmured. Hermione fell back to walk by his side, and he spent the rest of the slightly cold and foggy walk warmed by her company, her clever remarks on education, and the banter all three women exchanged once they were all seated around the scratched, worn tables at the Hog's Head.
"So 3pm, Wednesday," Hermione said abruptly, cutting through Vector's babble about some mistake a student had made, when they'd accidentally predicted the apocalypse as occurring last Wednesday, instead of the date of their parents' anniversary.
"I thought the demonstration started at 4?"
"It does," Hermione smiled, but to Severus' trained eye the gesture was strained with something. "But I thought we could grab a hot drink first. I'll be a barrel of nerves otherwise."
"Then 3 it is. I'll Floo in - could you meet me in the Entrance Hall?"
Vector's smile soured as Hermione grinned at him. Severus, baffled, decided to spend the rest of his evening staring into his drink rather than risk angering either of them again. Minerva prompted Vector to continue her conversation and Hermione's foot nudged Severus' gaze back up.
"See you then," she confirmed.
Severus felt a fizz of excitement lodge in his throat that had nothing to do with the alcohol they had consumed. He was turning into a teenager.
He couldn't quite find the derision enough to clamp down on the feeling though. He left it there, bubbling inside him, for the remainder of the night.
