Usually Hermione spent her evenings after dinner tucked up in bed with a good book. Sometimes, when the children had been particularly irritating, she chose a bad book instead, or at least one that wouldn't be hard work. The children were an immensely useful source of trashy fiction, and saved her both the embarrassment and the expense of purchasing them herself.

Lately her reading had taken a turn for the serious and she had been spending her time reading books on Herbology.

She had to find a way to give Serverus flowers, without simply turning up on his doorstep one evening with a bunch of chrysanthemums. She had always been an over-achiever, so she wasn't content to settle for a mere tick on the list by the item 'Flowers'. She wanted something dramatic, but not flashy, something intriguing that would hold his attention in between chess dates.

She hadn't got a clue.

Romance, as practised by the boys, was simply a question of remembering to present the object of their affections with flower three or four times a year: valentines, birthdays, anniversaries, and when they were about to ask for a really big favour. It wasn't that they didn't love their girlfriends, but they did feel embarrassed about showing it in anything other than an offhand, oh here's a bunch of flowers I picked up earlier, sort of way.

It was easy for them: they knew what was expected of them and behaved accordingly.

She was breaking new ground here, and not doing it very well.

Everything she looked at was disastrous. What about rose tea, she had thought? That was a sly way of getting him some flowers. Unfortunately, it was used for hangovers, as a gentle laxative, or to treat mild depression. Buying him some tea would amount to calling him a miserable, dipsomaniac, and a constipated, miserable, dipsomaniac at that.

Rose oil then?

That was used as a treatment for skin complaints and what was delicately referred to as women's complaints. Whilst PMS would provide some sort of excuse for his bad temper, it would only apply for one week in four, and he was clearly irritable all the month round. And he was a man, of course.

So, none of that was looking very useful, and Hermione was seriously contemplating turning up for their next chess date with a bunch of flowers in hand, and trying to convince him that she'd just picked them up from somewhere, and ooh would he like them? As if that wouldn't start him wondering what she was playing at, and then remembering that he'd caught her by the bookcase, and linking the two.

It wouldn't be disastrous, but it would bring a premature end to their game.

By Friday lunchtime, Hermione was standing in the Teacher's Garden glaring at the roses. By this time, she had come to hate the damned things. Why did they have to be so annoying? Oh, they were pretty enough, and the obvious choice for Romance, but every practical use for them involved some sort of socially undesirable condition.

She sighed. It was always aggravating when things didn't go your way.

They were pretty though, she thought, putting a finger out to touch one of the delicate blooms. It was pink, and blowsy, but disappointingly it had no scent at all. It had obviously been bred for looks at the expense of every other quality that made a rose a rose. It was fairly typical of the world, to value looks over innate qualities, but it would never do to give Severus a rose like this.

What sort of rose would be best then?

A black rose would be perfect, apart from the slight problem that there was no such thing. It was only a slight problem, because she could probably transfigure a rose into something darker, but she was reluctant to do that. Giving him something false, something that betrayed its true nature, seemed ominous somehow. Perhaps a really, really dark rose would do.

Whoever had planted the garden had liked their roses. There were pink roses, and white roses, and orange roses, even stripy roses, but they were all at the lighter end of the spectrum. It was only after half an hour scrabbling around in the undergrowth that she managed to find one that was suitably austere – it was small and understated, in the deepest red, and had a wonderful fragrance.

There were only a few blooms, low down on the bush, and she had to kneel down to be able to reach them at all. She carefully severed a half-open bud, and sat back on her heels. This would do nicely; no one could argue that a rose that was so determined to hide away wasn't perfectly emblematic of Severus.

"Hermione, are you alright?" asked Severus from behind her, as if summoned by her merely thinking his name. She squawked in surprise, and twisted round to see him.

"Good god, you made me jump," she said, hand on her racing heart, very much aware of how foolish she looked.

"I'm sorry," he replied. "But I didn't see you at lunch, and I was concerned."

"That was very thoughtful of you," she said. It was more than thoughtful: it was encouraging, and sweet, though she knew better than to say so. Calling Severus sweet would be like a red rag to a bull, and would provoke points deduction and sarcasm.

"Yes… well… I was wondering whether you were still available for chess this evening?" He looked faintly uncomfortable, as if he'd intended to ask something completely different and was nonplussed to find those words coming out of his mouth.

"Oh, of course. I'm fine. I … er… I was just … I wanted a bit of fresh air," she said lamely. "The class before lunch was being particularly aggravating, and I thought that some peace and quiet before facing the next lot would be a good idea. And then I noticed this lovely rose and erm..."

He offered her his hand, and helped her to her feet. She busied herself brushing the non-existent dirt from her robes to give her time to think of something to say.

He was looking at her quizzically. "Fresh air? Don't you know how dangerous that can be, Hermione? I make it a rule to avoid it as much as possible."

"I had noticed," she replied dryly. "I think it's worth the risk though - it's quite pleasant out here."

"There aren't any children here, I grant you, which can only be an improvement on the rest of Hogwarts," he said with a faint smile. "I come here sometimes to harvest the roses for potions ingredients. Fresh ingredients are always the best, and I find that most the rose petals supplied by most apothecaries have lost their potency to an unacceptable level by the time they reach us here, so I've always preferred to collect my own. I don't think I've ever really taken the time to simply look at the flowers."

"Perhaps you'd care to join me," she asked. "There's another fifteen minutes before we have to join the fray, and I was going to spend them sitting on that bench and attempting to reach a state of utter peace that would take me through the afternoon."

"I'm not sure that anything would help with the rank tedium of teaching the first years not to put their fingers in their cauldrons," he replied. "But I would be willing to make the experiment."

Hermione smiled. Once you translated that from Snape to English, that was practically a gushing display of affection.

The seat was wooden and spindly, with its back to the warm red brick, and sandwiched between two rose bushes that scented the air. The sun, now at its noon high, was warm on their faces, and a gentle breeze stirred the bushes into life. It almost sounded like they were whispering to themselves.

Hermione and Severus sat side by side, almost but not quite touching. She was acutely aware of the warmth of his thigh next to hers, and the way that his hand could, if he moved just a little closer, almost touch hers. They didn't speak, but the silence was companionable rather than awkward.

Some words of a poem she had read long ago suddenly sprang into her mind, something about sepulchral statues …. It took her some time to hunt down the quotation, which was being awkward and refusing to be pinned down in her mental library.

Donne perhaps; no, Donne certainly …

And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day

That was it.

Their tranquillity was only broken by the sound of the clock chiming the hour and summoning them to class. Hermione shook herself free of her reverie, and sighed. "There's nothing for it, I suppose. It's back to the grindstone."

Severus nodded and rose to his feet, courteously waiting for her as she stood up.

Hermione, seizing her chance, and in as offhand a voice as possible, added, "You know it's a shame to let this little rose go to waste. Why don't you have it as a buttonhole?"

Surprise, calculation and amusement all flickered across his face, settling on self-congratulation on playing the game so well, and getting his gift of flowers.

She took out her wand and charmed the flower to stay in its present state perpetually. She grasped his lapel and tucked the flower through his buttonhole, and then tapped it to charm it into place. Her hand lingered on his coat, her face tipped up to his. They were so close that he could have kissed her easily, and she felt her pulse leap at the thought of what that would be like.

His hand came up to cover hers in a slight caress, and then turned his lapel to his face so that he could smell the rose. "It's lovely," he said softly. "Thank you."

The sounds of children clattering past on their way to class disturbed them. Severus grimaced, then strode off, leaving her leaning against the pillar with a hand pressed to her thumping heart, ruefully aware of looking like some Victorian damsel, and wondering what this evening would bring.

And what the children would think of Snape wearing a buttonhole to class.

A/N Hermione is thinking of The Ecstacy by John Donne

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.

Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.

As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.

If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,

He—though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same—
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.

This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :

But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.

A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size—
All which before was poor and scant—
Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.

We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.

But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.

We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;

So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.

And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.