Snape felt a surge of relief looking at the letter in his hand, later in his rooms. He was afraid she wouldn't have written back – afraid she would have had enough of him and his cruel ways. Instead, she had embraced this idea.

There was a knock on his door and he knew the only person who would call on him that late was Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore didn't wait to be invited in but pushed his way past the door anyway.

"Good evening," Dumbledore said, sitting down next to Snape on the couch. "What's that?"

"A letter from Miss Granger," Snape said, not bothering to lie uselessly.

"You spent a lot of time with her this past year," Dumbledore pointed out.

"Yes," he agreed.

"You love her," Dumbledore said.

"Yes," Snape said, after a pause. "But I know the rules."

"I know you do, I trust you," Dumbledore said. "Though I wonder now what you will do when this year is up? You no longer need my protection – the protection of the castle." With that seed planted, Dumbledore left Snape alone with his thoughts.

oooo

Hermione bought a wooden box with a magical lock during the first Hogsmeade weekend to put Snape's letters in since the collection had outgrown her bookshelf. At Christmas vacation, Hermione received a letter from her parents saying they were going on holiday and wondered if Hermione would mind staying in the castle for the holidays. Hermione was glad to be staying at Hogwarts and even declined an invitation to the Burrow, wanting a quiet holiday.

The castle was more deserted than any other Christmas she'd seen. It was, after all, the first Christmas without the threat of Voldemort. There were two other Slytherins and Hermione herself. Professor McGonagall had tried to convince Hermione to go to the Burrow, to get out of the castle! But Hermione remained firm. With Voldemort gone, the rules – especially during holidays – were some what lax. Hermione could go to town every day if she wanted to. She could go play in the snow, she could sit by the roaring fire in the library all day, she could stay in her room, she could run screaming down the halls of the castle.

She could not, would not, go to the dungeons though. She would stay away from him because they were doing so well. Snape had hinted in one of his letters that Dumbledore was aware of the true nature of their relationship and that they should not tempt him into any action. They should not give him any reason to suspect they were breaking any serious rules. They should not be alone in the dungeons together when hardly anyone was about in the castle, even if it was platonic.

Hermione knew she could never be in a room alone with Snape and keep it platonic. She missed him. She ached for him. She dreamt of him. She got aroused by the sight of his handwriting (and this made Potions class quite uncomfortable). Perhaps this was why McGonagall was so insistent about Hermione leaving. Maybe she knew it would be hard to resist Snape with fewer eyes watching. Did everyone know about their affair? She shook the thought out of her mind. So what if they did? She wouldn't break the rules.

On Christmas Eve, Dumbledore made it quite clear that everyone was to come to a proper holiday dinner. She decided that it wouldn't be that bad. Snape assured her (via writing of course) that they could simply ignore one another and the dinner would be delicious and swift. He always sounded so sure of him self and made it seem so easy. Hermione knew what was easy – things had come easy to her for her entire life and this, she knew, was not easy. Still, when the night came, she put on one of her nicer set of dress robes (modest yet flattering) and clipped back her hair and went to dinner.

She was early, only McGonagall was there. There were only place settings at the high table and McGonagall motioned her up onto the platform and patted the seat next to her.

"Nice to have you, Miss Granger," she said. "Happy Christmas."

"And to you, Professor," she said.

"Have you any plans for tomorrow?" McGonagall asked, pointedly. Truthfully, she did not and so she shook her head, folding her napkin neatly into her lap.

"I'll just have to see where the day takes me," she said. McGonagall looked as if she would like to say more but the rest of the castle's inhabitants began to trickle into the room until every seat but one was filled.

"Severus, of course, is late," said Professor Sprout a little stiffly. She and Snape had a love-hate relationship. Snape didn't care much for Hufflepuffs but needed the Herbology Professor's flourishing greenhouse for his potion stores. They waited for a few minutes but a timid house elf came in to inform Dumbledore that the meal was ready and so they started. It wasn't but a few minutes until Snape appeared and slid silently into his seat at the end of the table, five seats away from Hermione. The high table looked out upon the huge, empty great hall. She wished at least the table they sat at was round so she could hear conversations better; so she could watch Snape while he ate. She so rarely physically got to see him – she valued meal times. But it wasn't so and so she ate and even accepted the glass of wine Professor Sinestra offered her (she was of age in wizarding U.K., if not Muggle) and drank it in warm mouthfuls, letting the alcohol color her chest and cheeks. After a desert of, what else, plum pudding, the dishes were cleared and she felt for the thin box she'd slipped into her robes and decided to go to the bowels of the castle.

Snape had left the meal as quietly as he'd arrived and so she knew she would be hot on his trail. It had been a while since she'd ventured passed the potions classroom and the familiar smell of the moist stones filled her with an acute sense of nostalgia. She passed the small, sparse room that had once been hers and crept past his office to the portrait that led to his chambers. She knocked though she knew the password – or what it had once been.

He answered, coming to the door instead of calling for her entrance, a sign he wanted to be left alone. But his hard face relaxed when he saw her.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, stepping back to let her in. She smiled at him and stepped in.

"It's Christmas," she said, trying to reason. "Exceptions ought to be made for holidays."

"Perhaps," he murmured.

"Did I interrupt you?" she asked, looking at his disheveled person, the glass of whiskey in his hand, catching the light of the fire.

"I was just writing a letter," he said. "But since you are here, I might as well give you your gift in person."

"I brought yours as well," she said. "May I go first?"

"By all means," he said, sitting down on the sofa. She sat next to him, careful not to touch him, to not place her body too closely to his. She pulled a long, skinny box from her pocket. He took it and, looking at her curiously, removed the red paper. Inside the box was a quill.

"To replace the one you gave to me," she explained.

"This is not any quill, Hermione," he said. "This is…"

"Dragon," she confirmed. "It will last you a lifetime and the ink is internal and easy to fill, so there won't be any mess," she said, reciting the brochure that had come with the purchase.

"I appreciate this," he said.

"I filled it with red ink," she added. "I thought it was more your style." He smiled and reached out, touched her hand. She froze, looked at his skin against her. It hurt to look at knowing she couldn't stay. She regretted the days she wasted – days she could have spent time with him while sick or in the safe house. He cleared his throat and pulled his hand back.

"Maybe you should go to bed, Hermione. Your gift will be there in the morning," he was sending her away now to save them both.

"Can't we just sit her for a few more minutes?" she asked, desperately.

"I'm doing this for you," Snape said.

"And I for you," she agreed, but the irony didn't hit her as funny. "But I'll go."

"Wait," he said, rising and walking to the desk. He rummaged in one of the drawers for a moment before he took something out and handed it to her. "Happy Christmas." She took the box and opened it. Inside, on a piece of black silk, was a ring. It was gold with a small, square cut diamond.

"Oh," she said. "Oh." She took it out and held it in her palm.

"I'm not asking you anything…" he said. "But I wanted to give you something to show my devotion and I hope that when you wear it you will show me yours."

She put it on her ring finger.

"What will I say if someone asks?" she asked. He shrugged.

"Tell them that you're devoted," he said. She looked at the jewelry sparkle in the light from the flames. She leaned up, perhaps negating all of their hard work, and pressed her mouth to his.

oooo

A strange thing happened next. Harry did not return from the burrow on the Hogwarts Express. In fact, the Weasleys told Dumbledore that somewhere between going to bed and waking up to pack for the train, Harry disappeared. By the time everyone was tucking into dinner, Dumbledore had left the castle to look for him, putting Minerva McGonagall in charge. That meant the Snape moved up to fill the position of assistant headmaster for an undetermined amount of time. McGonagall had assured Ron and Hermione that Dumbledore believed Harry was in no danger but had made a hasty choice to flee the return to school and the constant barrage of questions about that fateful battle with Voldemort.

So, class went on while Dumbledore went to find the boy who lived. But the castle was never at ease with Dumbledore absent. No one could match his power, and though the threat of Lord Voldemort had been neutralized, having both Harry and Dumbledore gone was unsettling. People did not linger in the halls and it seemed like someone was always tugging at Hermione, wanting her reassurance as head girl. She passed Andrew in the halls and he looked tired and stressed.

Snape announced that the Hogsmeade trip for that weekend would be postponed. Everyone grumbled but no one seemed surprised. Fights began to breakout in the Slytherin common room and the Ravenclaws didn't talk to one another, focusing on their inner house competition – everyone always fighting for head of the class. The Hufflepuffs always relied on the other houses to set the tone of the school and so they walked around looking confused and abandoned with their ties askew – forgetting to bring their books to class. As for the Gryffindors, they seemed to take it the worst. With the loss of their poster boy, they lost their good cheer as well. Their common room was quiet and desolate. Hermione didn't like to spend time there anymore.

On the seventh day, Hermione really expected Harry and Dumbledore to return but the day passed uneventful, especially for a Friday. Both Andrew and Hermione wandered the castle on patrol that night – they'd been pulling double duty for a while now. When the bells chimed midnight, Hermione felt as if her hopes had been dashed for Harry's return, and so she sat down on the steps in the front hall and pet her head against her knees, letting the tears leak down her face.

"Hello." The voice lifted her head and she looked at Snape who stood before her through the water in her eyes.

"Hello," she whispered.

"May I sit?" he asked. She nodded and he sat on the steps next to her.

"I thought that maybe he would come back today, like last time," she said. "It was a stupid wish, but…"

"No it wasn't," he interrupted. "Your friend, Mr. Potter, he has a destiny that may too big for this place," Snape said. "But I believe that he will be fine, that he will live up to that destiny, even if he does not return."

"Do you think he won't come back?" she asked, shocked by this.

"I can't say," he said. Whether it was because he didn't know or wouldn't tell her, she wasn't sure.

"I've never really been here without him," she said, sadly. She leaned her head against his shoulder and he put his arm around her waist. When they heard footsteps on the marble floor, they pulled apart. It was Andrew headed back to his room. He stopped short when he saw Snape and Hermione sitting on the stone steps together. There was no sound but the grinding of the staircases moving above them. Andrew stared until Snape stood.

"I think it's far past time for you both to be in bed, head prefects or not," Snape said in a low, gravelly voice – as if he was daring Andrew to say something.

"Yes, Professor, thank you," Hermione said, unaffected by this change in him. "Good night." She started up the steps.

"Goodnight, Miss Granger," he said, and then turned to watch Andrew edge himself up the stairs and then sprint to catch up with Hermione. Snape smirked, pleased he still had it.

oooo

Andrew dressed slowly the next morning. He'd been thinking about Hermione and Professor Snape most of the night. Something was unsettling the way that they'd been sitting together on the stairs, their head bowed, talking softly to one another. Andrew knew, of course, that he and Hermione had spent nearly three months alone, together, and it had been a glorious Snape-free three months, but still, if Andrew would have had to spend that much time alone with the greasy git, he would have thought it would have been even more uncomfortable to be around one another.

It looked as if they were friends. No, that wasn't quite right but he didn't know what word to use. Hermione had always been sort of an odd duck. She was a teachers pet and a know-it-all in a way that enraged most Ravenclaws. She was always at the top of the class – in all houses, and his house mates could never understand why she had been sorted in to Gryffindor. Snape was monumentally strange as well. Everyone knew his penchant for the dark side and most believed he had been in league with You-Know-Who, no matter what Dumbledore said. They were like two different sides of the same coin in their oddness. Both were brilliant, both were not very attractive, both were sitting in a precarious place of power among Harry Potter's elite.

Also, Andrew had noticed that Hermione had started wearing a ring. No one asked, she was most standoffish since Harry had fled and no one really wanted a tongue lashing from the head girl (especially the head boy), but there were rumors. The most virile rumor was that Harry had given it to her, but Andrew didn't believe that. Other's thought that Ron had given it to her but Andrew had asked Ginny Weasley when he had caught her out after hours two days ago and she had assured her that it wasn't her brother and that she didn't know a thing about it. Andrew had let her go without taking a single point.

He had thought that maybe it was a muggle boy waiting for her at home or maybe it was just a ring with some sort of family value – he had heard the story of how she and Snape and her parents had been whisked away – hidden by Potter during the summer. That's what he told anyone when they asked anyway but that night, so restless and long, he had revised his theory. He had seen Snape's spindly fingers against the back of Hermione's neck, their knees touching on the stairs. He thought that maybe, just maybe, Hermione Granger and Severus Snape were in love.

oooo

The day Albus Dumbledore came back without Harry Potter was the day that Hermione Granger threw her caution to the wind. She was worried sick about the lack of news on Harry, worried she would never see him again; worried he was done with fame and had thrown himself into obscurity for the rest of time. Hermione stayed out on patrol later and later, sacrificing sleep so she could keep and eye on the quiet castle for any sign of the headmaster and Harry returning. Snape had shifted his schedule so that he patrolled every night Hermione did. They didn't say much to each other but she was always aware of him, a few feet behind her, keeping an eye on her weary form. She appreciated this; she liked to know he was near. She paced, twirling the ring on her finger.

Then, nearly a month after school had reconvened, she was standing at the base of Gryffindor's hourglass, wondering who had lost 50 points since the last time she'd walked by an hour and a half ago when the large wooden doors sprung to life unlocking and creaking open. Dumbledore walked in and when she looked at him hopefully, he shook his head. Harry would not be returning to Hogwarts. She started to weep and when she turned around, Snape was there. She buried her face into his robes in defeat.