AN UNSCRATCHABLE ITCH

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

A/N: Spoilers, knowledge assumed. Thanks to all my reviewers.

It was only the first Saturday in December, but Diagon Alley was already crowded with holiday shoppers. Awnings and shop-fronts had been transfigured to red and green, a seasonal combination of Gryffindor and Slytherin colours that always made him wince, and sprays of holly were strategically placed near sprigs of ivy on store displays. It looked disgustingly Muggle, a testament to how much the Wizarding World had already changed. Just one more thing to get used to.

Professor Snape stood scowling in Flourish and Blotts waiting for an attendant. He'd had Cauldrons and Cuneiform, Potions in Ancient History on back-order for almost a year and the notification of its availability was the first thing all week to cheer him.

There were too many Gryffindors on staff at Hogwarts. Charlie Weasley, replacing Hagrid for a three-year stint, was the least annoying of his brothers and Amory Marchant, a smiling bearded wizard in his sixties, was the first DADA teacher in a decade to be tolerable, but they did tend to gang up with Minerva and Dumbledore in the staffroom. Did they really need a Valentine's Day Ball for students and alumni next year?

The surprise proposal was only slightly mitigated by the surprise announcement that accompanied it. The end of an era had come. The headmaster was planning to retire at the end of the school year to concentrate on his long-abandoned alchemical research. Though he'd strongly supported Dumbledore in all endeavours, both school-related and extra-curricular, for almost eighteen years, he wouldn't be sorry to see him go. Respect had never become friendship; their working relationship had always remained just that. Perhaps he'd even have rejoiced if not for the niggling worry of whom the Board would choose to replace him, Minerva or a probably less bearable stranger.

Black eyes narrowed to slits and thin lips tightened as he scanned the overcrowded shop. He'd forgotten it would be like this so close to Yule. He rarely came to Diagon Alley except for his quarterly restocking of Potions shelves, the only necessities he preferred to select personally rather than Owl-Ordering, and his visits to Gringotts were usually timed to coincide. Other than that he despised shopping and found the false bonhomie of pub and eatery even more insupportable.

"Professor?" From behind him came a female voice, shrill with surprise.

He closed and opened his eyes again. Not her. Not that irritating girl who lodged like an unscratchable itch in his brain after every meeting. It was nine and a half weeks since he'd last seen her during that two-day decontamination operation at Malfoy Manor. He felt again that heaviness in his gut at the memory of how she'd smiled at him so welcomingly, so artlessly.

Foolish girl, to yearn still for his approval. Trusting, guileless, open-hearted child, to imagine his unpleasantness a mask as skin-deep as his looks. Of course he wasn't nice deep down, any more than he'd ever been handsome. Nice people didn't become Death Eaters; at any rate, not by choice. And if they were forced, through their own cowardice or by threats to their family or close friends, they didn't retain their amiability long. Naïve, little, know-it-all, know-nothing innocent, hankering to know him better; if she knew him better she wouldn't want to know him at all.

(That would hurt. No, it wouldn't, why should it? He didn't even like her. She was just a bossy, bratty acquaintance, unbreakable but so easily bruised - so vulnerable yet so strong underneath – such a little Gryffindor. He scowled.)

It had suited the Ministry to name him one of the heroes of the war and he'd acquiesced willingly. Better to spend the rest of his life venerated than vilified, he'd thought, but veneration undeserved was at best an uncomfortable pleasure. What was twenty years work of undoing what he'd helped create? One hundred and twenty years wouldn't be enough.

It had been a mistake to let her so close, to forgive her youth and offer a fresh start to their acquaintance. She'd always been too inclined to paint him in pastels instead of shades. He'd had to put a stop to it that day at the Ministry and return the world to balance, snub her as ruthlessly as he'd done through seven years of her schooling.

The words had come instinctually. He'd even been slightly angry with her for forcing him to say them. He'd never pretended to be other than he was, a sour, sarcastic, retired killer. He'd told her as much that day in his office.

"Alingsworth said you wouldn't hurt a fly," she'd teased and he'd been uncompromisingly frank in his reply.

"I hurt many hundreds in my teens till I graduated to human victims."

She couldn't pretend she hadn't known – but she hadn't known, not really. Hearsay was never the same as experience and what she could forgive or overlook in a confession would have scarred her forever in the living of it. Apart from the final battle, she'd been shielded from the worst. She'd lost no family or close friends, only companions – and she hadn't had to watch them die. She'd seen no torture, no slow breaking of one person to another's will, no using of slave according to owner's whim. Attrition, battle and its aftermath, those were all she knew and he couldn't, didn't, wish she knew more.

He sighed. Seven years his student and so much he'd never taught her, even of the knowledge he'd been willing to transmit. In his pedagogic role, he'd forsaken hearsay for experience. That hadn't been enough either. He'd shown, he'd prompted, he'd guided, but apparently some things needed to be said to be understood. He wouldn't make that mistake again, he'd decided.

The next day, he'd watched her through secretive slitted eyes, watched every glance, every smile, every silent comment she shared with the younger, prettier, pleasanter version of himself he'd pushed her towards. The heaviness was back worse than before, but he accepted it as his due. So young, the pair of them; he'd never been that young, that clean. This was right and all that was left was to rectify his oversight of nine years ago, by telling the next young Miss or Mr. Granger-clone what he should have told the original; what he would tell them all from now on.

He'd begun the next day with a timid first year Hufflepuff. She was Muggle-born too, though otherwise not at all like her counterpart but for the ever-waving hand and ever-ready mouth; she was too tall, too thin, too blond, yet if he closed his eyes he could see in her that bushy, brown head bent still over her work. Ridiculous! As if he'd close his eyes during a lesson, that would positively invite disaster! He'd detained the child after class nevertheless. If a month of lessons hadn't taught her, then it was long past time he spoke.

"What do you imagine is my purpose in asking questions in class, Miss Hernlicote?" he'd sneered as she twisted her sweaty hands beside his desk.

She'd gulped and trembled and finally squeaked, "To see who knows the answer, sir?"

No, not like the original at all. Miss Granger had always had more backbone. Still his eyes had darkened and his voice lowered to a menacing whisper.

"I'm perfectly capable of assessing that from your classwork and homework."

Her mouth had worked and her lip had trembled as she breathed, "Oh."

"Perhaps you suppose it's intended to give students a chance to show off?"

She'd blushed fierily at that, head low, shoulders hunched.

"No sir."

"Perhaps you think it's merely an excuse to award or deduct points?"

He'd watched her jump, glance at him and quickly away. She hadn't dared to agree, though he'd read belief in her eyes. He'd leaned forward, a nasty smirk curling his lips as she shook.

"If you'd use the brains you seem to believe you possess you'd find it obvious. The fear of being publicly examined reminds lazy and inattentive students to come prepared. They are thus less likely to endanger themselves and their neighbours by their incompetence. Are you an inattentive student, Miss Hernlicote?"

"No sir," she'd whispered.

"Then I trust I won't have to raise this issue with you again. That's all."

He'd waved her out and turned to his never-ending pile of assignments to be marked; the inevitable result of pushing his students to their utmost. This little girl wouldn't grow up yearning for his approval. She'd know better.

"Professor?" The voice sounded puzzled now. He hadn't realised his thoughts had preoccupied him so long. He turned around to see it was indeed she – and she was alone. What did that mean?

"Miss Granger," he drawled, looking her over. She hadn't changed; bright eyes, rosy cheeks, wild, brown hair as irrepressible as herself. "Still living at second-hand through your books?"

She laughed. Unbidden, the corner of his mouth twitched in response.

"You can't talk," she retorted. "Still keeping the world at a distance, still stuck in your corner of the dungeons. Don't you ever even go out to see the sky or are you content with looking up at the ceiling during mealtimes?" The Great Hall was be-spelled to show the sky overhead.

"I live the life I've chosen," he answered. 'Not the life I wanted, nor the life I would choose if I could undo the past,' he acknowledged to himself, 'but my choice nonetheless.' "Do you find the sky so absorbing because you have nothing else to look at?"

"I have a boyfriend, if that's what you mean." Her eyebrows arched a question at him, was he still alone? His chin lifted and he looked down his large nose at her.

'I dare you to ask,' his eyes said.

She wasn't afraid but she didn't hold on to grudges either. Or perhaps he was no longer important enough in her life to anger her.

"Ricky said he couldn't buy me a present while I looked on, so he's meeting me here in a minute," she told him.

"He's not buying you a book?" That was unexpected. Obviously, the boy was more perceptive than he'd realised.

"Everyone always buys me books," she explained. "I do like to read, but it's nice to have someone who knows there's more to me than that."

It was his turn to let his eyes ask the question. It wouldn't do to admit he'd known that already. She smiled and something in his chest lurched.

"Just about anything except Quidditch," she said. "And you, Professor? Are you doing your holiday shopping too?"

"I don't need to shop for presents. I find my colleagues are always perfectly satisfied with the same gift each year, three vials each of a special potion of my own brewing."

"Dare I ask?"

'You'd dare more than that,' he thought. 'You've faced poison, basilisk, Death Eaters and me at my most overbearing – and I've yet to see you quail.'

"The only pleasant-tasting hangover and indigestion cure ever invented," he said instead. "The recipe is a well-kept Potions-Master secret, but it's not overly difficult to brew if rather tedious."

"Three vials each? The same amount for everyone?" Her brain never stopped.

"Those who need more barter with those who need less. I stay out of that side of it."

She looked past him. He knew by the brightness of her smile that the boy, her boy, had arrived.

"Brocklehurst," he greeted without turning. "Shall I send your regards to your Head of House?"

"Thank you Master. How is Professor Flitwick?" The boy's arm slid familiarly around the girl's waist and she shifted a little closer.

Twenty years of spying on people whose favourite recreation was torture had given the older man the ability to see any unwelcome sight without wincing. He did not therefore wince.

"Muggle manners," he murmured, raising a disdainful eyebrow. "You told me once, Miss Granger, that you'd never belonged in that world."

She blushed, but didn't move. Her boyfriend frowned and pulled her a little closer.

"I didn't and I don't." She shrugged. "Yet there are some customs I find worth bringing with me." Her eyes lit up in a mischievous smile. "You told me to take control of my own life," she reminded him.

"And you always follow my advice, don't you?" he sniped. "No doubt we shall meet again quite soon enough for any of us," he added as he moved away to direct the elder Shunpike boy to fetch his book.

"Whew, I think he froze me solid," Ricky quipped, watching him leave. "He hasn't changed much, has he?"

"I thought you liked him," Hermione teased.

"Not as much as I like you, love. I haven't changed either."

Returning to the school, chilled and tight-lipped, Snape took his new book to his rooms before going to dinner. As he swept past a group of giggling Hufflepuffs in the corridor he saw that one of them had done something to her hair, a Muggle perm she was explaining to her friends. It stood out in an aureole around her head, still blond but now quite bushy.

"Five points from Hufflepuff," he snarled. "Brush your hair, Miss Hernlicote, you look as if you've been dragged backward through a hedge."

Some things needed to be said to be understood. Other things just needed to be said whether they were understood or not.