Severus awoke on Monday morning and stretched. For the third night in a row he had slept deeply, not waking, and greeted the day feeling refreshed. Before he died, he had always had trouble sleeping. His nights had been plagued with nightmares, pain, and very little sleep. He idly wondered if most of the world slept this good as he checked the time and decided he should get out of bed. He stepped into the hall and couldn't hear movement from Hermione's room so he made his way to the kitchen to start breakfast.
Flipping the bacon to make sure it was done, he heard a chair slide across the kitchen floor and turned his head to see a sleepy Hermione at the table. He grabbed a large mug from the cabinet in front of him, poured hot coffee into in, and set it in front of her. She gave a slight grunt of acknowledgement before drinking deeply.
Moaning, Hermoine sat the mug on the table. "You, Severus, are a gift from the gods."
"Not a morning person?" Severus was surprised. She always seemed to put together at breakfast when she was at Hogwarts.
"Normally I am, but I was up all night." She yawned deeply. "Being back in that damn shack has made my nightmares of the war resurface."
"I could brew you some Dreamless Sleep if you don't already have some," Severus said. He knew how hard it was to function on little to no sleep.
"No, I'll be fine," Hermione replied. She never kept Dreamless Sleep in the house because it was so addictive. She had to take it for awhile right after the war, and within two weeks could feel her body and mind craving it, so she stopped and promised herself she would only take it if there were no other options. "If they don't go away in a few days, I'll look into taking something."
Severus sat a plate of eggs, bacon and toast in front of her before grabbing his own and sitting across the table from her.
"So," he asked, "what should our day at the Ministry look like?"
"I am sure Kingsley will want to meet with us," she told him. "And then I know he will have Harry and Arthur come down. So far only two other people in my department know about the amulet. Bill Weasley because he found it, and Luna Lovegood, well now it's Luna Longbottom, because she was in my office when Bill brought it in. We'll need to tell them about you.
"I don't know if you remember Luna. She was always a little odd, but she is so smart. And she sees things that no one else does. I am not sure if she is seeing magic physically manifested or what, but she said she could see the magic around the amulet pulsing as it sat on my desk."
"I remember Ms. Lovegood," Severus said. "She was the strangest person I ever taught. She once told me that I had greasy hair because the nargles didn't like me." He gave a quiet snort. "I have no idea what a nargle is."
"She has talked about nargles multiple times around me, and I have no clue what she is talking about either." Hermione shrugged.
Luna was odd, but she loved her anyway. They had grown close after working together for the last five years. "By the way, how many house points did Ravenclaw lose because of that question?" she asked.
"Twenty-five." Ravenclaws were lucky he was in a decent mood that day or it would have been fifty points.
"And how many would you have docked if she was in Gryffindor?" Hermione smiled at him.
"Probably a hundred." Severus laughed. "I had to keep up appearances with the Pureblood families, but at the time I really did dislike most people in your house. Loud, obnoxious bunch of shites; the whole lot of you."
"Hey! I wasn't that bad," she cried in indignation.
"You must be joking," Severus said as he stared at her. "You were one of the worst students I taught over my entire career."
"What?" Hermione sputtered. "How can you say that? I had the highest grade in your class, and scored an Outstanding on my OWL."
"I can say that because I had to grade your damn homework," he replied. "For someone as bright as you, you don't know what twelve inches means. Fucking things went on forever."
"Severus Snape, I can't believe you. Every other teacher loved me."
"They may have loved how smart you were and how quickly you caught on with spells and such, but every single teacher you had complained at least once a month your first five years about how long your essays were in the staff room. It did lessen in your sixth year."
Mouth hanging open, Hermione stared at him. She had thought all of her teachers loved her. Only to find out she annoyed them all the entire time she was in school.
"Oh don't look so wounded, Hermione," he said. "They all still loved you and worshiped the desk you sat upon. They just wished you would have turned in shorter things for them to grade." He couldn't help but be amused by the hurt look on her face.
"I feel like my entire school career was a lie," she whispered.
If she was being honest with herself, what Severus told her had really hurt her feelings. She had always thought everyone adored her. They always praised how smart she was.
"It wasn't a lie. I told you, they loved you. Just hated your essays." Standing up he made his was towards the sink and placed a charm on them to clean themselves. He walked back to where Hermoine was sitting and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Now that they don't have to grade them, I am sure you are everyone's favourite student of all time."
Leaning her head against the hand Severus had resting on her shoulder, she sighed. "Well, that is something. I do adore all of them. Well, all of them except Professor Trulawney. She is a crazy, old drunk."
"I know she has given a couple of prophecies," said Severus, "but I have to agree with you."
Stepping out of the Floo, Severus moved out of the way so Hermione could follow and took in the large circular room. He had never been in the Minister for Magic's office, but it was as opulent as he expected. The floors were covered in thick purple carpet and the room was filled with a dark wooden desk and expensive looking chairs and couches. Kingsley was not in the room, and as Severus looked around he noticed a bookshelf, with one entire shelf full of pictures. Making his way to them, he looked them over.
There was a picture, of what he assumed, was Kingsley's family. He looked to be around seventeen in the picture. Then there were a few of him with different Aurors from his years serving. The largest of these was a picture of him and Tonks. The moving picture showed them smiling, then Tonks morphing her nose to match Kinglsey's much larger one and the two of them bursting into silent laughter.
On one side of the shelf, a picture of Kingsley and Hermoine dancing at what looked like a Ministry ball stood. It was larger than all the other pictures he had displayed and Severus felt a surge of envy. He couldn't think of a single time in his life when he had a women look at him the way Hermoine was looking at Kingsley. He couldn't tell if they were dating or not when this picture was taken. Nothing in her look spoke to being in love with him, just being comfortable.
"That was taken at one of the Victory Balls the Ministry held," Hermione said. He hadn't heard her enter the room.
"They have a ball to celebrate the end of a war?" Severus asked.
He wasn't sure if he was disgusted by the idea, or felt that it was par for the course when it came to the Ministry.
"Well, it is a celebration," she explained. "But it is also a charity event. Every year a new charity is selected and all ticket sales are donated."
"Is this when you and Kingsley were dating?"
"No, this was at the first ball. I was still attending Hogwarts when this was taken."
"I know you were both in the Order, but you seem to be friends, even in this picture. I didn't think you spent that much time together during the war."
"Well, that first summer when we were at Grimmauld Place, he was always around, but we didn't speak too much," Hermione said. "But then the summer when we escorted Harry before he turned seventeen. Well, you remember it I'm sure. It was the night a bunch of us took polyjuice potion to look like Harry?"
"I remember it well," Severus replied.
He hated that night. He had accidentally removed George's ear when the Death Eater he was targeting moved at the last minute and his curse hit George instead.
"I was one of the Harry's in the sky that night. Kingsley took me on a thestral with him."
"And if it wasn't for Hermione's great spellwork, I am not sure we would have made it to the Burrow alive," Kingsley said, having silently come in, and walked over to join them. He wrapped his arm around Hermione, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "I knew from that moment on, I never wanted to be on her bad side."
Watching the ease at which they interacted had another wave of envy crashing over Severus. It wasn't that he wanted Kingsley to keep his hands to himself, or anything like that. It was that he wanted to have that kind of friendship. One where you weren't afraid or embarrassed to let the world know that you were friends.
Sitting in Kingsley's office, they went over an agenda for the day before he Apparated them to Hermione's office, letting them know he would be back later once the rest of the people that would be working on the amulet arrive at work. Deciding that no more people should know about the amulet, he had told her boss that she, along with Bill and Luna, were working on something confidential for him and not to mention it to anyone else in the department. Luckily, this wasn't too strange of a request for the Department of Mysteries.
Hermione's office reminded him of a professor's office at Hogwarts. The walls were a grey stone and it was void of windows. It had a large desk with a comfortable looking chair for her and two wooden chairs facing it. There were bookshelves that were close to bursting on two of the walls. One of the other walls had a fireplace and a door that was currently closed. There were two black leather couches in front of the fireplace with a long table between them. The last wall had a sideboard with a tea service and decanter on top as well as another closed door. This one was bigger than the other leading him to believe it led to the hallway.
"Where do the doors lead?" Severus asked.
"That one," she pointed to the larger door, "leads to the hallway. My office is close to the time room." Turning slightly, she pointed to the other door, "that one is a bathroom. Unlike the upper floors, each office here has their own. It is pretty nice."
"And the couches?" Before Kinsgley's office, he hadn't seen an office with couches any other time he had been to the Ministry.
"We have a lot of group projects in this department. We found couches more comfortable than conference tables. Plus, sometimes we work odd or long hours and it is nice to have a place to nap. We are given a lot of leeway on how our work environments are set up down here. I think it is to make up for putting us below the Atrium."
Severus had just sat on the couch as Hermione started preparing tea when there was a knock at the door. Severus quickly disillusioned himself so she could see who was at her office. Opening it, Hermione stepped aside to let Harry and Arthur enter.
"Good morning, Harry. Good morning, Arthur." She gave each of them a side hug as they walked by her. She shut the door and Severus dropped his charm, coming into view.
"Hello, Potter, Arthur." Severus stood, making his way to them and shaking their hands.
"Nice to see you again, Severus." Arthur said. "I hope you know that as soon as Molly knows you are alive, she is going to want you to come over so she can feed you." Arthur grinned at him.
"She wouldn't be Molly if she wasn't trying to feed all of Britain." Severus replied.
Severus had always liked Molly, even if he was caustic towards her in the past. It was hard to hate someone that cooked as well as she did. During the war he never ate at Headquarters, but Molly always found a way to sneak a shrunken bundle of food into his cloak when he left.
"Hello, Professor Snape," Harry said.
Severus could see that Potter was about to burst with whatever her was holding in. Sighing, he figured he might as well get this over with.
"I am no longer your professor, Potter. Feel free to call me Severus. And you might as well get out whatever it is you are holding in. It looks like you are about to void your bladder."
Harry grinned at him before beginning. "I just wanted to say thank you for everything you did for me, well for all of us, before you died. And," he paused, looking sheepish. "I wanted to apologise for being such a pain in your arse all those years. I am very thankful that you didn't kill me, even though I know you wanted to."
"I am not sure I wanted to kill you, I just didn't want to ever see you again."
Severus looked at the man before him. He still looked just like his father. Or how his father would have looked if he hadn't been killed. His eyes were so like Lily's, but the shape was slightly different. It was strange, before looking at Harry had been painful. Every time he saw him it was like a kick to the chest. He had been a physical reminder that he had lost Lily and someone else had won her heart. Looking at Harry now, he saw a different child than the one he thought he had taught before. He now saw a young man that had lived through horrors, but was a good person. He wasn't the arrogant, attention seeking boy he had always seen him as. Had Dumbledore's curse caused that?
"Can I get anyone tea?" asked Hermione. At their affirmative answers, she levitated the tea things to the coffee table and motioned for everyone to take a seat. "Now that we are all here, let's go over a few things. If you two are able, why don't you come around my place after work? Severus is staying there until he and Harry get the vaults sorted out. I thought we could order pizza and then come up with what we are going to tell people. We already have a story on where he was, but we need something for why he came back."
"Also," Severus added. "We will need to round up anyone that was at my funeral. We will either need to get them to agree to an Unbreakable, or we will have to Obliviate them so they don't remember going."
"I will write out the list of people that were there," Harry spoke. "I have a pretty good idea about who will agree."
"Also, I will talk to Kingsley," added Arthur, "but it would be easier for me if Molly knew the truth. She can always tell when I am lying."
Severus nodded. "That is fine with me."
The two men stood and walked towards the door, both confirming that they would see them at dinner.
Severus and Hermione arrived back at her place with matching pops of Apparation. They had spent all day in her office meeting with Bill and Luna. Draco had also owled the full results from his scan over the weekend so they could all go over it. So far everything about him was matching up with the tome. He was perfectly healthy, and everything he had wrong with him before he died was gone.
Spending the day with Luna had stretched his patience and he was even more impressed with Hermione than he was before. He had no idea how she was able to put up with her random thoughts and talking about creatures he was positive only existed in her head. Luckily Bill was sharp as he had ever been. Bill had started Hogwarts when Severus was in his first few years and he wished all the Weasley's could have been as easy of a student as Bill was. His work was always perfect, and he never acted out in class. And unlike Percy the Pompous, Bill was friendly with everyone. Even Slytherins.
"Do I have to be here for dinner?" Severus asked. All he wanted to do was go to the lab and brew something.
"Well, since they are coming over to see you, I think you should probably be there," Hermione said, glancing at her watch. "They won't be over for at least another hour. Why don't you go to the lab. I will call for you when they get here."
"How did you know I wanted to brew?"
"Because you are an introverted Potion's Master. What else would you do to decompress?" She looked at him like he had asked what one plus one equaled.
"Hmph." He said nothing as he walked out the door towards the lab. Somehow the chit had figured him out.
