"May I have a word, Professor?"

Hermione stood in the doorway of Severus Snape's office in plain black robes, for plain black was all she ever wore these days. The streak of red and gold pride she once possessed now seemed foreign to her, and as such her Gryffindor garb sat neglected on the floor of her wardrobe.

The weary professor glanced briefly in her direction before returning his attention to the unmarked essays on his desk.

"The hour is late, Miss Granger. If you must speak to me, you may do so after class tomorrow."

Hermione gritted her teeth. "Please, sir, if it's not too much trouble I'd prefer to speak with you now."

Snape scowled at her. "Yes, it is too much trouble," he spat fiercely. "Now kindly return to your chambers and I will deal with you tomorrow."

Hermione persisted. "If I don't speak with you immediately, Professor, I will have no sleep whatsoever and will therefore be barely able to speak tomorrow at all."

"Ten points from Gryffindor for your impertinence!" He snapped. Hermione was about to open her mouth with a few well-chosen words about unfairness and misinterpretation, but thought the better of it. Instead, there sat a long and uncomfortable silence in which neither looked at each other and both felt rather foolish. Eventually, Snape spoke again. "Very well! Speak your mind. Make it quick."

Hermione looked down at her hands. She was unsure, now, of exactly what it was she intended to say. What was she to say, after all, to the person who had saved her life and inflicted brutality on her in the same month?

"You hit me," she mumbled lamely. Why, oh why, had she chosen that particularly topic as an opening sentence?

"Yes, I did," Snape countered. His lips parted as if to say something else, but quickly closed again. He was going to let her assess the situation for herself, it seemed.

"It wasn't….. entirely uncalled for," she continued carefully. "What I said was unfair. You didn't deserve it."

"No, I didn't," Snape said slowly. "Nor did you deserve my reaction."

Hermione raised her eyes to study her Professor's face uncertainly. Was that an admission of….. Of what? Guilt?

His eyes seemed to flicker as they met her own. "I am not ordinarily in the habit of forgetting myself in such a manner. I apologise."

She nodded, staring at him thoughtfully. Logically, she realised it was her turn to speak, but her throat seemed to have suddenly dried out. She swallowed.

"Me too."

Snape nodded briskly and shuffled the papers on his desk, apparently ready to dismiss Hermione. "Very good.  Now that we've sorted that out, you will retire for the evening."

"Wait. I wasn't finished."

Snape exhaled loudly in what could have been construed as a sigh. He closed his eyes momentarily and absently ran a hand through his long black hair. It seemed that he was carefully considering her statement as though it was a request for an extended conversation; but Hermione didn't mean it as a request. She sat down on the chair in front of his desk before he had even opened his eyes. When he did open them, they narrowed as he glared at her.

"By all means, Miss Granger," he said, his voice oozing sarcasm. "Make yourself at home."

She chose to ignore the tone in his voice and remained seated, her hands folded in her lap. "You must think me terribly bad-mannered."

"After seven years, one would think that was painfully obvious."

"I didn't mean in general. I was talking about you saving my life. I still haven't thanked you."

"I don't wish to speak of that night. You may consider me well and truly thanked if you leave this room immediately and never speak of it to me again."

Hermione was only slightly taken aback. "What do you mean? Why don't you want to talk about it? You saved my life!"

"Did I not just say –"

"Yes, you did say, and I'd like to know why."

"Because if we have this discussion, Miss Granger, I am certain to say something we shall both regret!" he snapped. Hermione suddenly knew exactly what he'd meant. It was the same reason he had stopped her from going outside in the snow on the night they had met in the entrance hall. The same reason why he had advised Professor McGonagall to ban Hermione from going to the lake. He still did not believe that what he had rescued her from was an accident.

It occurred to Hermione that she did not want to have this discussion with him, either. They were both very quiet for a long time. When Snape spoke up, it was in muted tones with his eyes on the desk in front of him.

"Of course," he said very quietly. "You know it is a conversation we must, eventually, have. When the moment calls for it."

Hermione said nothing, gave no sign that she had even heard him. It seemed he took that as an affirmative answer, for he promptly changed the subject.

"What will you do now?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, though she knew exactly what he meant.

"What will you do now that your parents have gone?"

Hermione shrugged nonchalantly, though it was obvious that her indifference was faked. "Not sure. I'll think of something."

Snape's brow furrowed, as it was wont to do when he was irritated. "Then the arrangements have not been made? That's rather careless." She shot him an offended look, and he amended his words. "I mean that it's careless of Dumbledore."

"Why should it be the Headmaster's responsibility? He has a school to administrate. There are hundreds of students who rely on him."

"Yes, and the last I heard you were one of them," Severus pointed out dryly. "McGonagall's just as bad. If you were in Slytherin –" Hermione shuddered ever-so-slightly – "there would be no loose ends. Your interests would have been taken care of by now."

"It's not their fault. A war doesn't end when the cease-fire is called. There's much to be seen to. My situation will be dealt with eventually," Hermione finished with a kind of resignation that Snape found infuriating. He held his tongue.

"I assume you have relatives to go to?"

"I have relatives," she replied. "I will not go to them." He stared at her intensely for a moment before replying.

"Are they cruel to you?" The question surprised Hermione, especially coming from the man who had done his utmost to make her life, and the lives of her two best friends, miserable for the majority of their school years.

"No. Not exactly."

"What does that mean?"

Hermione chose her words carefully. "We don't see eye to eye. For many reasons."

"I see," Snape said slowly. He did not push further. Not with words, anyway. But Hermione could only bear his eyes burning into her like that for so long.

"During my fifth year I made the mistake of telling my cousin Samantha about Hogwarts," she said simply. She was going to continue with that story, but Snape seemed to understand immediately and so she did not. After all, some memories were best left unearthed. "But it goes back further. Much further. Before I was born. And after."

She knew she was rambling. She knew she should stop. But she didn't.

"Besides, apparently I'm old enough to take care of myself. I'm certainly old enough to arrange a funeral by myself. Aunt Vivian seemed to forget I wasn't old enough to buy liquor until she noticed the lack of wine at my parents' wake and realised she'd have to get it herself. Of course, after a few glasses she'd forgotten again. I told her not to drive after all the alcohol she'd drunk, told her she'd probably have a crash and die, but she left anyway. Maybe she did die after she drove away; she might have and I wouldn't know because apparently I'm too old for letters or phone calls."

Hermione stopped talking then, for she realised she'd said too much. Snape gave away nothing, for he was still staring at her in the same manner he'd been staring at her before her little rant. But she wished she'd stopped talking much earlier.

"It doesn't matter anyway; I attend a boarding school for heaven's sake. Harry spends his Christmases at Hogwarts, I don't see why I shouldn't. And by the time graduation arrives, there will only be three and a half months until I turn eighteen anyway. And then I really will be old enough."

"Old enough for what?"

"Old enough to do without parents," she said without thinking, and immediately regretted it. Snape raised one eyebrow as if to further point out the absurdity of her comment. "I didn't mean that."

"I know."

Hermione nodded, glad that she didn't have to explain herself. In the few silent seconds that followed Hermione considered what was happening. Her thoughts were laced with no small amount of disbelief. Was she actually having a conversation with Snape? Was he actually being civil to her? Was she really pouring out her soul for him to do with whatever he wished? This was the strangest situation she'd found herself in for quite some time, but Hermione found that, oddly enough, she didn't hate it.

Snape seemed to think about his next words before deciding to say them aloud.

"You are burdened and blessed with a maturity and intelligence beyond your years, Miss Granger," he said shortly, as though the mere utterance of such words troubled him beyond the telling of it. Hermione was too shocked at the compliment to even blush. "You appear to have a firm grasp of things which go beyond the comprehension of most students here. I am not speaking of the things you learn in your classes, but things much bigger than that, much bigger than Hogwarts. Even your cohorts, Potter and Weasley, don't truly understand what is happening. You know, of course, that I am speaking of war. The end of the war. And you know, as you knew on the night of the celebrations (even before your owl arrived) that the war is not truly over. That it will never really be over until all who are affected by it cease to exist. That's why you could not celebrate with the others. You carry the weight of awareness and insight on your shoulders, and that is a heavy load indeed."

Half of Hermione wished he would stop talking – trust Snape to bring her meticulously repressed anguish to the surface – and half of her was elated that her feelings were finally able to be expressed (despite the fact that it was somebody else's expression). Though his voice was dispassionate and his eyes never lost their cold clarity, Hermione could feel that not only did Snape mean every word he said, but that he was speaking from experience.

"Add to that the loss of the only two people in this world who truly loved you unconditionally, on whom you could unquestionably depend, and your life is thrown into disarray. Especially compared to the lives of the people around you, who seem to have forgotten there ever was a war in the midst of the euphoria they feel for its conclusion. Even your closest friends appear to go on as if everything is the same as it was. I've seen you in my class. You look at them the same way one would look at the remnants of one's childhood; at some floppy-eared toy you wish you could still play with."

"They're still my friends," Hermione protested feebly.

"I never said they weren't, Hermione. I only said you cannot play with them anymore," Snape said his last words as though he simply forbade it, though Hermione wasn't sure that was how he meant it. In fact, she felt – for the first time in weeks – as though someone was finally on the same page as she.

"When did I stop being the person I used to be?" she asked, but she wasn't really expecting an answer and he didn't offer one. Instead, they brooded simultaneously for a long time, before Snape finally came to his senses and noticed the time.

"It is almost three o'clock in the morning, Miss Granger. I suggest you try to get what small amount of sleep you can before breakfast."

Hermione stood up but didn't leave straight away. "Can I come back?" she asked, before she could stop herself. Snape looked up in surprise. It seemed no one had ever expressed such a wish before. Hermione understood his hesitation and tried to explain herself. "I talk to Harry and Ron all the time. And Ginny. And Hagrid. Numerous times every day. I can't remember a single thing they've said to me in the last three weeks but I've already memorized the conversation we just had. That's not the natural order of things, is it?"

"It wouldn't seem so."

"I just need someone to talk to," she admitted shyly.

Snape stared at her blankly. She turned to leave.

"Tuesday evening after dinner. Make your excuses and make your way to my office. If you are even five minutes late I will leave."

She nodded, pushed open the door and ran from the dungeons to the Gryffindor common room before Filch or Peeves could catch her.