PREMATURE DECLARATION

This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and situations elaborated herein.

A/N: Spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers.

Healer Salo stood up from his examination and nodded to his shorter colleague. Hermione glanced from one Mungo's specialist to the other.

"How much do you remember, Mr Snape?" Healer Trewithick asked.

Snape glowered at the woman as Hermione winced. He'd insisted on a private interview with the headmaster that morning and had been very quiet ever since. Obviously he wasn't happy with the world he'd returned to; no job, no home and his possessions discarded due to the Ministry's premature declaration of his death.

"Enough, Miss Trewithick," he emphasised the title, "to know you're wasting your time and mine!"

"Professor Snape," the other man interposed, "Do you remember the details of your injury? Who transfigured you and how? Did he use his wand or a curse?"

Snape pursed his lips and half-closed his eyes.

"Lucius," he said after a frowning half-minute. "There were another eleven Death Eaters there but no one said anything but Lucius."

"So it was a spoken hex?" Salo pressed.

"I don't recall. Lucius was always rather melodramatic. He made a comment about my face mirroring my heart and something about turning me to my true self."

"Did you know what he meant?" Salo asked.

"Obviously, the first part was referring to my unmasking; they'd thought me one of them till that moment. I suppose the second part was a poetic way of saying he'd transfigure me into stone to match my heart." Snape's thin lips curled in a coldly amused sneer and Hermione bit back a snort of laughter.

"You don't recall if he said that couplet Madam Granger heard just prior to your waking, Mr - sorry, Professor Snape?" The female healer leaned forward, twisting a few strands of shining blonde hair around one finger. Snape raised an eyebrow until she blushed, letting her hair drop.

"A couplet?" he frowned, turning to examine Hermione's face with searching intensity.

"You said, as near as I could tell, 'Hearts, as faces, time retraces; Flesh and bone to rock and stone.' "

He looked her slowly up and down, derision in every line of his narrow face.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Miss Granger, but Death Eater meetings didn't normally feature the recitation of poetry and certainly not such a poor attempt as that."

She coloured.

"I didn't imagine it! And it's Madam, not Miss!"

"We're trying to help you, Professor Snape," Salo interrupted again. "It would be to your advantage to cooperate as fully as possible."

"I have told you all I remember of the incident. The Death Eaters apparated at the end of the street. They were Lucius, Rabastan, Bellatrix, Rookwood, Fabian, Torrens, Crabbe, Goyle, Avery, Dolohov and the Carrow twins. I called the students to me and shepherded them to Honeydukes. Several were injured, I saw Kaddrick, Orton and Perks stumble and Baddock fell but I believe the rest made it safely inside. Then my erstwhile colleagues surrounded me and Lucius made the comment I've already told you and the next thing I recall was waking up here."

A heated argument followed. Healer Salo believed the couplet referred to the past, Healer Trewithick to the future. Snape watched the disputants with detached malice. It was clear to Hermione that he had no intention of sharing his own ideas, whatever they might be.

At last Salo turned to him in exasperation.

"Your expertise in these matters is well-known, Professor. Would it not be the case that a new portion of the curse could not be activated without being triggered by contact with the caster?"

"Lucius is in Azkaban. It can be assumed therefore that he's had no opportunity either to visit me himself or to send a proxy. No doubt Miss Granger would know if anyone save herself has touched me since I was brought here."

"It's Madam! And no they haven't."

When the Healers left Hermione did too, setting the watch-wards in seething silence. She didn't trust herself not to quarrel with him if she stayed. Bad enough that he stiffened every time she approached, making it clear how greatly he disliked her company, but he'd been deliberately baiting her in front of the Healers. She settled down with a small pile of books from the Restricted Section. Ginny's confession the previous day had alarmed her. Had Voldemort somehow left a back door in her brain to enable his return yet again?

It took her two hours to calm down enough to return. It took Snape two seconds to wind her up again by the studied way he turned his back when she opened the curtain. She let it fall behind her, barely remembering to reinforce the privacy ward before speaking.

"If I didn't know you loved me, I'd think you hated me."

His shoulders stiffened but his voice was quiet.

"If I didn't know you hated me, I might think that concerned you."

"I don't hate you."

"Growing up has not improved you, Miss Granger. You used at least not to lie."

"It's true. I never hated you – not since I was a silly first year – even when you were completely nasty." She waited for a response that never came. "I didn't! Listen, you wrote that you wanted it to be a comfort, not a distress. It was. Not at first but after a while. Whenever I felt depressed I'd take out your letter and – and watch you write it – to remind myself that someone had - liked me that way."

"You watched me?" he asked, his back still turned.

"Yes."

"Often?"

"Often enough," she muttered, shamefaced.

"Did you ever show anyone else?"

She didn't want to tell him but he would know if she lied. He always knew.

"O-only Ginny, that first time, before I -"

He didn't let her finish.

"I have nothing to say to you. Go away."