"It's strange

But I don't need space from you

And every single thing you do

I like

I've been chased

Maybe I just knew I had to wait for you

Draw a knife and carve a little space for you

It feels nice"

"It's Strange" – Louis the Child (ft. K. Flay)

Introductions were admittedly going more poorly than Eileen Snape had hoped.

"Who in the bloody hell is this?"

His booted toe nudged at the form of the napping toddler, who had curled up on a couple of cushions on the floor, even though the sofa had been available to him.

Snape hadn't been aggressive when he'd poked the sleeping Potter, but all the same, his mother rounded on him and, had she been able to reach, likely would have led him into the kitchen by one of his over-large ears. As it was, she steered him into the other room by pinching the fabric at his shoulder, a black scowl covering her features.

"I know I don't have to tell you not to curse in front of the children, Severus Tobias," she hissed to him under her breath once they were away. His mother remained at the door, with a sharp black eye trained on the two sleeping Potter boys who were camped out in her sitting room.

He shrugged, affecting a lazy expression. "I'm not a professor anymore, I'll say as I please."

"You're in my house and you'll watch your tongue," she scolded waspishly.

There followed a brief, but intense, standoff between mother and son, before Snape, apparently deciding that it wasn't worth it, shrugged again, acting as if he didn't really care.

"Who are they?"

"That's James Potter—"

"Ach!" The dark wizard made an exaggerated gagging noise, which Eileen hastened to shush him for.

"And Albus Potter."

At this, Snape sneered, turning his attention to the tiny form of the napping baby, suspended in a magical sling. Unlike his older brother, he had his father's black hair, but it was straight instead of standing at odd angles. "Albus Severus?" He sneered.

Eileen smirked up at him, but turned an affectionate eye at the baby. "I see Hermione told you about that,"

"She took the opportunity to mock me, yes,"

His mother gave a haughty sniff. "I'm sure she wasn't mocking you—"

"When she told me she was practically falling out of her chair laughing, Mother. I know when there's a joke at my expense," Severus grumbled, looking again at the infant. "And worse, I didn't realise the little blighter resembled me,"

Moving to the cooker to put on a kettle, Eileen tutted, "Nonsense!" She lit the hob with a long match and gathered a tea pot and her preferred blend. "You were far more..."

"Homely?" Snape supplied, with a slight self-deprecating grin.

For that, his mother swiped at his arm. "You'll not call my child homely, Severus, even if you're talking about yourself! I was going to say your features had more character," she finished, her voice considering.

Snape merely snorted at this, "Far be it for me to disabuse you of your delusions, Mam. That's not why I came by today, anyway,"

"Then why are you here?" She asked him, rude as you like.

He looked like he was searching for an answer, but Eileen wasn't kind enough to give him an out. She stared him down until he finally seemed to stoop in on himself, glaring at the linoleum floor. "Just for a visit. But, I can come another time," he grumbled, turning to exit the way he'd come in.

He was snatched by the shoulder of his jacket once more, and this time, Eileen gave him a small shove into one of the kitchen chairs, and an imperious scowl that made it very clear that she expected him to stay for tea.

And if he had been hoping to stay in order to catch a few moments with Ms. Hermione Granger, he certainly wasn't going to give his mother the satisfaction of knowing that he'd wanted to stay all along. Instead, he obscured his emotions the best he was able without using his damaged Occlumency shields, admittedly a skill he no longer claimed absolute proficiency in, and made like he was merely expecting to stay and humour her.

"If you're too busy watching Potter's dubious offspring, I'll have you know, I have an enormous amount of work due by Monday." Severus was sulking now, but he kept his gaze leveled at the larder, secretly hoping that his mother would decide to furnish some of the custard creams she favoured to accompany their tea.

The old witch made a choking sound which he realized after a beat was a subdued giggle. Snape coloured up to his ears.

"You're not so hard to see through, you know," she tittered, waving a teaspoon in his direction. When the kettle whistled, she quickly checked through the door frame to make sure the children were still asleep before she set the tea to steep. In a manner of moments, she'd set his three-sugar brew before him and sat down with her own, adding only a splash of milk to lighten its colour.

The wizard's disappointment must have shown all too clearly.

His mother let him flounder in a bit of a brewing snit for only a moment or two in which she carefully sipped at her coronation cup before she gave him a wicked smirk, one only fit for a Snape, really, and rose to grab a yellow package out of the larder, tossing it before him with a roll of her eyes.

"You're all too transparent, Severus."

Nearly choking, he gave her a look of affront, "I'm not! I survived as a spy for twenty years!"

The old witch laughed at him. Laughed! "Goodness knows how. You can't even fool your own mother," she nudged the package of biscuits over to him and raised an eyebrow. "Well? I can put them back—"

At that his hand snatched out as quickly as a viper striking its prey and swiped the custard creams before she could make good on her threat.

It was a sort of defeat, yes, but, he considered after finishing two, defeat had never tasted quite so good before. After those first two he'd stuffed in his mouth with a snarl, he ate at a more sedate pace, dipping them into his sickly-sweet tea and withdrawing the plastic cartridge almost all the way out of the wrapping.

He pretended that he didn't notice it when his mother rolled her eyes at him.

"This is the first you've stopped by since we went to Spinner's End. I thought I might see more of you," she said after taking a careful sip.

"I stayed for supper," Severus replied, defensively. "Hell, I prepared supper,"

Eileen waved away his words like they were smoke. "That was already the arrangement for that evening,"

He snorted, dunking another biscuit, "Me? Cooking my own birthday supper?"

"Don't be obtuse, I meant you spending the evening with me for your birthday. If I'd given you nothing but a Victoria sponge you'd have been content,"

Snape's lip curled in response, "Incidentally, you didn't provide a sponge,"

"Oh! My apologies," Eileen snarked back, throwing her hands up to emphasize the sarcasm, and, possibly, to mask her hurt feelings. "How ever would you know it was your birthday otherwise,"

"Worry not, Mother. If I couldn't figure out how old I was without a cake to mark my advancing age, I'd still think I was something like seven. Perhaps younger,"

Eileen looked away, shame and sadness suffusing her features. They were both silent for a few moments, lost in contemplations of the years they'd been separated and the cost of their torn relationship.

His mother, especially, looked to be chewing on something difficult and painful. Her lower lip wobbled piteously in a way which Severus was all too familiar with.

He sighed and ducked his head to try and catch her eyes across the table. "Whatever it is, just say it, Mam."

"Did you know?" Eileen asked him, her voice tight.

Snape sighed and leaned back from the table. "You know I have no clue what you're asking. Be more specific. What am I supposed to have known?"

"Did you know your father was living rough while you had the house—"

Severus was speechless. This was what she was concerned with? That he hadn't shared the house with his perennially intoxicated and often violent father?

"I'm going to ask you to stop for a moment and consider what you're really asking me: you expected me to open up the house to him? After the authorities finally granted you a divorce, and put him in jail, you think I ought to have welcomed him back with open arms? Made his sorry life my responsibility in addition to spying and teaching ten months out of the year?"

"Answer the damn question, Severus." She hissed, her black eyes, so like his own, narrowed into slits.

"I didn't know." He bit out, crossing his arms and squaring off against the small woman. "And I didn't want to know.

"And if I had known," he continued, his face defying her to argue with him, "I would have left him right where I found him by the river."

"That's despicable—!"

Severus didn't want to hear anymore. He cut her off.

"You thought I didn't consider the fact that I never had a sibling, Mam? You thought it escaped my notice that every so often, after he'd beat you, the privy would be a literal bloody mess, or that you were crying more than even I could help with?

"I'm sure you didn't think that I saw you burying 'something' out in the garden late at night afterwards…" he sighed, knowing his truth was a brutal one, but needing to say it and clear the air all the same. "I understand if for some reason you need to make peace with your history with him, but I can't. I won't. Not even for you."

His mother sniffed but seemed able enough to stifle her tears. The silence between them was somewhat awkward and was broken when Snape went to reach for another biscuit, just to give himself something to occupy his hands, and realized that the part of the sleeve he'd withdrawn from the wrapper was entirely empty.

Severus frowned in consternation. He'd not had that many... surely four at the most—

The mystery was solved a moment later when a tiny, somewhat chubby, hand entered his field of vision from the side and groped blindly at the now-empty plastic cartridge. With disgust, the first thing Severus registered about it was that it was wet with saliva and coated in a fine dusting of crumbs. He caught it up in his own hand by the wrist in a pincer-grip, trying hard not to touch the slobbery fingers which were grasping for more sweets.

He turned to peer down at the body connected to the arm he held captive and gave the thief his best Professor Snape glower. Mostly to cover for the embarrassing fact that he'd entirely missed the theft as it was happening right below his field of vision.

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

James Potter, perhaps ignorant of the danger the man before him posed, or otherwise not caring one whit, grinned up at the specter that had haunted his parents' time at school, and had bedeviled his grandparents' besides. "Sharing!" He chirped, his tiny voice bright.

He had all the grace and charm of a small child who couldn't fathom any person not liking him. One who had never suffered an unkind word or an unpleasant look.

Severus wanted to hate him on principle. Wanted to badly. Yet he simply, for reasons that were far beyond his understanding, couldn't muster up the energy it would take to snarl and snipe at the precocious three-year old spawn of his hated nemesis.

Perhaps it was because little James wasn't bespeckled. Perhaps it was his Weasley-red hair. Maybe it was the freckles—inherited from his mother Ginny, not a feature Lily Evans had ever borne, or maybe it was the absence of even a speck of green in the boy's eyes... no matter what the difference was, however, he didn't feel the instant stirrings of hatred and contempt he'd suffered the moment he'd set his eyes on Harry Potter in the Great Hall nearly twenty years earlier.

The boy's name was truly unfortunate, that was sure enough... but...

Snape sighed and released the boy's hand, pulling the cartridge out of the wrapper a bit further so he could grab a couple more cookies to shove into the toddler's fat fingers.

Something about the child recalled the mischief of the Weasley twins, his maternal uncles, he reflected, and not quite so much the malevolent trouble he associated with the Marauders for whom he was named.

"That's all you're getting. And next time you'll ask," he drawled, curling his lip in a sneer when the small boy chirped in glee. "Won't you, Fred?"

At this James frowned in confusion. "I'm called James—"

Snape gave him a look full of intent. One probably far beyond James' limited understanding. "That's odd. I just gave a boy called Fred two custard creams. I suppose I'll have those back then," he said, reaching for the biscuits.

James nearly wailed, and hid them behind his back, "I'm Fred!" He insisted, smiling up at the dark man with utter impertinence.

Snape nodded approvingly. "Good lad."

If he was going to have to suffer the second coming of James Potter, he at least wouldn't go around calling the boy by the cursed name.

Eileen gave him a rather long look, "Severus, really,"

"What? I shared with the boy," he returned, his voice even. His eyes tracked him as he ran back into the sitting room with his spoils and sat to play with his Hebridean Black stuffie. "What are you going to tell him to keep him from telling his parents about me coming to visit?"

"I hadn't thought about it,"

"Well, do. It's bad enough for Harry bleeding Potter to know I'm alive without the added problem of him being an Auror—"

Snape's diatribe was interrupted by a distant keening sound, like that of a wounded animal.

Both of the adult's heads whipped around, looking at the small children and seeing that Albus was still asleep in his swing and James was looking as bewildered as either of the Snapes were.

He was, however, the first to react.

The little boy jumped to his feet and ran to the front door, correctly surmising that the sound had come from outside the house, and pounded his little fists against the wood impotently.

Snape moved to follow him, enchanting his face for good measure, into the tried and true alias he'd taken to adopting while walking the streets of Waldweirness.

The sobs grew louder as he approached the same way that James' shrieks did. At first, he couldn't tell what the small boy was yelling, but then it became quite clear when he pulled him away from the path of the door by the back of his shirt and made to step out on the stoop.

The child ran past him, screeching, and launched himself on a crumpled figure that curled in on itself, huddled up on the steps.

"MAIO! MAIO WHAT WRONG?"

Snape wouldn't have known who the figure was had it not been for the wild nest of hair floofing out in all directions from her bent head. James was fastidiously trying to work his way into the witch's arms, but it was as if he wasn't even there. Hermione Granger didn't budge to acknowledge him or move a muscle beyond the shudders and ragged sobs that wracked her small body.

Again making to direct Potter's child away, Snape grabbed him up underneath his armpits and set him inside the door.

"Stay put."

"BUT MAIO," He wailed, inconsolable.

"Go ask her," he said, pointing to his mother, "for some custard creams to share with your 'Maio.'" He directed, not quite managing to contain his sneer at the shortened version of Hermione's name.

Severus didn't wait for a reply, he simply shut the door in the toddler's face and turned to look at the crumpled pile of witch sniveling at his feet.

He stood, rooted to the spot, and stared at her, feeling strongly that he was entirely out of his depth.

He really was useless with crying witches, he thought to himself with a small grimace.

"Granger," Severus started, his voice soft.

This only seemed to elicit stronger wails. Hermione seemed to be trying to angle her body away from him on the stairs.

Oh no you don't.

Snape squatted down next to her with a grunt, his knees and back protesting a bit at the odd position, and grasped her shoulder, turning her torso toward him again.

"Granger—"

"I'm so-so-soorrry," she moaned into her knees, hiding her face in her hands, "I t-t-tried to p-put up a s-silencing spell,"

Snape shushed her. Mostly to no effect, but he did try anyway. "Grang—Hermione... I don't care about the noise: why are you crying on my mother's stoop?"

She only moaned. The sobs had stopped, mostly, but in trying to repress them, she was shaking so hard that it resembled a seizure. He gripped her by both shoulders, almost embracing her, in order to keep her still.

"I d-didn't w-want James to h-hear—" she said, her voice weak and wilting.

"Hear what!? Why are you crying? Not why are you doing it here in particular," Snape emphasized, losing patience.

In truth he was beginning to grow worried. This was unlike her. He couldn't remember the woman crying like this since her fourth year when he'd insulted her teeth. Perhaps there were some tears during the Yule ball he could remember, when the Weasley git had said something untoward about her coming with Victor Krum... but the fact of the matter was that Hermione Granger was not predisposed to weepiness.

"Severus," she groaned, her voice low and miserable, "Severus, they sacked me, they sacked me and I don't know what to d-d-doo," she ended with another almost-wail, her shoulders convulsing under his palms.

"Sacked you?" he repeated, sounding dumbfounded and stupid to even his own ears.

It was all he could think to say. The world was upside down, surely. Hermione Granger was not the kind of witch to lose her job in such a fashion. It simply couldn't happen. Improbable. Perhaps even impossible.

She gulped for air, nodding her curly head vigorously.

Suddenly, realizing that they were putting on a spectacle for the entire street, he rose and hefted her up beside him. "Come inside, this isn't a discussion for out here,"

"I'm not allowed here anymore—" she protested, sounding weak.

"Bugger that, neither am I. They'll just have to tolerate your presence for a few moments more. Come on," He pulled her into the house, ushering her to one of the kitchen chairs beside his bewildered mother.

James crowded around, tugging at her sleeve and trying to push some biscuits into Hermione's hands, as if a couple of McVitie's could solve any problem. It took her a moment, but when she realised what he was trying to do, she accepted them with a watery smile and the small press of her lips to the toddler's concerned brow.

James glanced to Snape for approval, catching the man by complete surprise. After a beat, Severus nodded his head in tacit endorsement.

"Thank you, Fred."

The toddler nodded, his face a picture of solemnity, and gave Hermione's knee a small sympathetic pat, and then he ran out of the room, perhaps knowing that the adults needed to speak.

"F-Fred?" Hermione asked, her voice only slightly stronger now than it had been.

Severus shrugged. "I won't call him—" He faltered. "Well. I won't say it."

"Fred's dead... did you know?" Hermione asked, her face sad for a different reason now.

Snape grimaced, but nodded his head, taking a moment to wave his wand over his face and remove the glamour. "I did. Young Potter," he jerked his head toward the door, "reminds me of his departed uncle more than he reminds me of his grandfather. It's to his credit, really. The twins had their moments where they amused me more than annoyed me. I was sorry to hear of Mr. Weasley's passing."

Hermione only nodded as she gulped for air and rubbed at the corners of her eyes with her shirt sleeves. Her hair was arranged higgledy piggledy around her head in giant disorganized hanks. She wrestled with it, trying to push it to-and-fro with her hands out of her face.

"I'm... I'm really sorry—I can't remember the last time I lost control like that," she mumbled, trying to smooth the hair, frizzing up with static electricity let loose by her untamed emotions.

Eileen looked flummoxed as she set another place setting for a cup of tea before the young witch. "What is this carrying on all about, Ms. Granger? When you left here this morning you were all hale and hearty as ever. It's only been a couple of hours at most,"

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but couldn't seem to get the words out. Each time she began, her eyes would gloss up again and she'd pause, trying to reign in the overwhelming embarrassment she was likely feeling.

After her third try, Severus took pity on her.

"She's been sacked." He answered, dispassionately. At his mother's affronted look, he merely sipped at his tea, now so cold that were it not mostly sugar he may have grimaced.

"Sacked?" Eileen repeated, sounding as stricken and incredulous as he himself had sounded when he'd first heard the news on the stoop.

Snape nodded around another swallow. When he noticed that Hermione wasn't drinking her own, he grasped her wrist and firmly pressed the cup into it before fishing in his jacket with his free hand.

It came out holding a small phial of blue potion. Carefully, he added four drops to her beverage and commanded her to drink it in his most imperious voice.

"Why only four drops, Prof—Severus?" She asked, nearly reverting back to his title after he'd used his 'classroom voice.' "Isn't a phial usually the full dose for a calming draught?" Despite her questions, however, she gulped down the brew, her eyes shining with gratitude.

"I see you're feeling well enough to question my methods, Granger. Surely, a good sign," he smirked back, his voice slightly sardonic. "In answer to your question: a normal calming draught would require the full phial to constitute a complete dose, yes. This is not a normal calming draught."

Her eyes narrowed at him, though she didn't stop drinking, he noticed with satisfaction. Clearly, she did trust him, for whatever that was worth.

No part of him wanted to admit that, in truth, it was worth rather a lot.

"What've you done to it?"

He sneered, "I haven't any idea what you mean—"

Finally, Hermione's cheeks picked up into a small grin, though she still looked harried and sad. "Don't play coy, Mr. Half Blood Prince,"

At that, Eileen's eyes turned a bit flinty and she shot a glare first at Hermione and then at Severus himself, perhaps perceiving a slight.

"What is she talking about, Severus?"

He had the good grace to flush slightly, "Nothing, Mam,"

"Don't you take me for a fool, Severus Snape—"

He gave Hermione his blackest scowl. It figured that she'd be the one to out his embarrassing teenage moniker to his mother.

He tried to hide his irritation with a cough. "I might've styled myself that way. Years ago. Not recently, mind you,"

"The Half Blood Prince?" His mother sneered, obviously finding it completely unamusing. "What kind of self-important, narcissistic braggart—"

He held up a hand to stop her. "I was sixteen and trying to find my place in the world. It hardly matters now what I called myself when I was the kind of stupid whelp willing to accept a Dark Mark on my arm. I'm not that boy any longer.

"What Ms. Granger was getting at," he continued, "was my old potions text. Or perhaps, more accurately, your old potions text, Mother. I amended it rather heavily. Ms. Granger and her friends," he sneered the word, "managed to get their hands on it near the end of my tenure as a professor."

"Harry found it in a cupboard, Eileen," Hermione took up the story. "He didn't know it belonged to Severus, because he'd inscribed that the book belonged to The Half-Blood Prince, rather than using his actual name."

"Ironically," Snape drawled, "it was probably the only time I ever got Potter to pay any attention to my instructions in potions."

At this Hermione scowled at him. "Well, he might've done if you'd been even remotely fair to him in class—"

"Enough!" Eileen growled. "I'll not have you two sniping across my kitchen table,"

Snape rolled his eyes. This wasn't sniping. This was rather normal, all things considered, but his mother had a low tolerance for conflict. It was understandable enough, he considered, given her marriage. "Anyway, what Granger is alluding to are my potions modifications. And you would be correct: I've changed the formula."

Hermione frowned at him, "What've you done to it?"

"How do you feel?" He asked, challenging her to think about the effects.

She sat back in her chair, her eyes half-lidded, and her demeanor far more relaxed than it had been when she'd sat down at the table. She studied her hands for a moment, opening and closing the fingers. "Sort of floaty... there's a halo around everything, but I'm not... I'm not concerned about it,"

"And your head? Your thoughts? Your emotions?"

"They're there, but it's like I'm not... like I'm not touching them," she said thoughtfully. "Before it was like a live wire: it felt like... like anguish. I haven't forgotten that I've been sacked, mind you," she rushed to assure them, "but it's like the current's been interrupted—"

Snape smirked.

"What. Did. You. Do?" Hermione ground out, again. "I obviously trusted you enough to take whatever it was, I just want to know what it—"

"Nothing a fourteen-year-old muggle child from Cokeworth hasn't dabbled with," he said, trying for innocence.

At this, Eileen seemed to realize what it was and she gave him a series of sound smacks to the head with a rolled up Daily Prophet she had sitting at her elbow, "You! Are! Unbelievable!"

"What!?" Hermione cried, finally looking somewhat scared.

Eileen glanced at her, her mouth twisted in some approximation of either fury or extreme irritation, "This idiot boy added something illicit—"

"Illicit!?"

Finally having had enough, Severus slapped a hand over Hermione's mouth and held one palm out to his mother to fend off more blows. He glared at both of them. "Cannabis. I added a tincture of cannabis.

"I'm not some back-alley dealer, Mam," he sneered. "I'm a Potions Master who, until I was presumed dead, was rather celebrated in the circles I was known in. This isn't the same as passing out spliffs to the neighborhood youths—"

"I should hope not!"

He growled in frustration and turned to the witch at his side. "Granger—Hermione—do you feel 'high,'" he asked, "or merely like you took an extremely effective calming draught? One that is, might I add, exactly appropriate for the shock you suffered and is therefore fit for purpose?"

Hermione swallowed and thought about it again. "I... I wouldn't know how it felt to be high,"

Snape sneered and muttered under his breath, "Of course not, not a little old maid like you,"

She glowered at him, but again, the response was rather muted by the fact that she'd imbibed his altered potion. "I think I feel fine," she affirmed. "I'm thinking clearly, I'm not seeing anything weird,"

"See, Mother? She's fine." He crossed his arms and settled back in his chair, giving both women a challenging look.

"That doesn't explain you tampering with potions recipes, Severus— I must have told you thousands of times growing up how dangerous—"

He interrupted her tirade with a sneer, "I am professionally licensed to 'tamper,' as you say,"

Eileen looked like she was ready to snarl at him. "You weren't when you were sixteen!"

"Then I invite you to find a way to go back and tell my sixteen-year-old self that. As it is, you haven't a leg to stand on by giving me the business now." He said, turning his rather large nose up at her.

The tension was broken by a loud giggle coming from between them. Both Snapes turned at the sound and caught Hermione shaking with barely repressed laughter.

"Sorry," she choked.

"Just as well," Snape said, trying to rein in his irritation with the two women sitting before him. "We were far afield of the topic at hand. Why were you dropped like a jar of spoiled armadillo bile, Granger?"

She sobered again, her eyes focused on the cup in her hands. "That's a creative way of putting it."

The damned girl looked like she wanted to cry again after his words hit. Severus felt an annoying stab of what might have been compassion... and regret. Seeing her so sad and defeated felt like sacrilege.

He pried the cup out of her hands, one of his own grasping hers lightly as he refilled her tea for her. Her eyes lingered on his fingers wrapped around her own, a far-away and thoughtful look on her face.

"Hermione, please," he urged, only barely restraining his voice from adopting a pleading quality.

"Someone..." the witch licked her lips distractedly and was blinking rapidly, "Someone filed a report against me.

"I'd never heard of it before. I suppose they're new: Informal Incidences of Ill-Will. Apparently, they're written up against you if you say anything against centaurs, or house-elves, or veela... or muggleborns..."

Eileen snorted and almost began to chuckle with incredulity, "And just what did you have to say about muggleborns, girl?"

"That's just it! I... didn't. Not really," Hermione said, her hands gripping Snape's fingers tightly in her agitation. "I only said to Harry that it was odd that he was being asked to conduct these tax audits against purebloods... but in the report—the way it was written anyway—they made it sound as if I had been suggesting that the Ministry should be investigating muggleborns! I didn't say any such thing—"

Snape squeezed her hand. "I think we all know you didn't," he said, his voice grave. "And as much as I will never be a member of Potter's fan club, I doubt he'd have sold you up the river for whatever it was that you said either,"

"That was the odd thing, Severus," the witch explained, her face set in a thoughtful frown. "I knew that the only person who could have said anything about the conversation was Harry," she blushed, a quite becoming shade of rose, Severus thought distractedly, "we... we used your spell... the Prince's spell: Muffliato. No one else could have heard me say it... And if Harry had been the one to go running his mouth he wouldn't be able to look me in the eyes now...

"It was a different Auror whose name was on the report. Gerald Rudd,"

Snape scowled blackly at that and withdrew his hand to cross his arms against his chest. "I remember Mr. Rudd," he sneered.

"You do?"

"He was only a third year when I was Headmaster. I had him for one term in Potions and another in Defense. A Hufflepuff. Mixed parentage, though that should come of no surprise."

Hermione peered at him with all too evident curiosity. "You look like you didn't like him,"

"When have I been known to like any student?" he sneered.

To this, Hermione rolled her brown eyes. "You look like you especially didn't like him. Why?"

Severus smirked, "Imagine Percival Weasley with a bigger inferiority complex than he already has. Add to that a predilection towards tattling on one's peers with the obvious aim of raising one's own stature, and compound that by not ambition, or greed as you may find in a Slytherin, but in the sincere belief that to be a little talebearer somehow makes the school a better place,"

"I'm not sure I understand..."

"No." Snape shook his head ruefully. "He stopped coming to me early on. I didn't tolerate students routinely informing on one another, hoping to get others punished."

"You did when it was Draco," Hermione muttered, resentment still evident in her voice.

"Draco was a special case, and I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why that was," he sneered back, his voice challenging. "In any case, Mr. Rudd wanted teachers to punish students for simply saying something unkind or mean, even if no one was there to witness it happening, and it seemed that his reasoning was rooted in the misguided idea that the school could have been brought to some kind of standard of perfection if only the teachers and prefects would go around micromanaging all of the students' exchanges and rebuking them for every instance of bullying—"

Hermione sat back in her chair and gave him a rather long look. "You were bullied, Severus. Worse than most. Surely, you can't say that's entirely off base,"

"The bullying I was subjected to by the Marauders is hardly comparable to what I'm describing." Snape's voice was tight, and his fingers were clenched such that the skin over his knuckles was turning white. "It would have been appropriate to reprimand Potter, Black, and their hanger-ons: much of what they did was out in the open, dangerous to the student body—including themselves—and borderline criminal. If all they had done was to call me names, then I'd have been a right ninny to have gone to a teacher running my mouth about it.

"In point of fact, I never did go off complaining when they called me Snivellus," he drawled, distain dripping from every word. "The only reason you even know about it is because of my memories,"

"And Sirius," Hermione admitted, looking a bit shamefaced.

"Yes," Snape agreed, drawing out the s in a sibilant hiss. "Black couldn't restrain himself from letting everyone know about a childish nickname. As if I ever cared all that much about such things. Fucking dolt—"

Eileen shot him an acidic glare and shushed him loudly. "Mind the children, boy. Don't make me go for the soap—"

Snape gave his mother a haughty smirk, "I'd like to see you try. In any case, Granger: what Mr. Rudd was asking for went far beyond punishing dangerous pranks and assault. Mr. Rudd was like Dolores Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad all wrapped up into one package.

"He was admitted in his third year because, even though his father was a muggleborn, his mother was a half-blood from a rather illustrious lineage. I caught him with lists of offenses he'd written up multiple times as headmaster. Worse yet, I had to act on some of them, lest the imbecile got it into his head to go to the Carrows: and he did a time or two before I told him he'd have to come to me directly."

Hermione snorted, "Why would the Carrows care about the tattling of a student who wasn't a pureblood?"

"They didn't." Snape sighed, his face grave. "They were simply sadistic enough to look for any opportunity to punish a student to the full extent of their power. Mr. Rudd was so greedy for retributive justice that he looked for any vehicle to that end."

The witch was almost sputtering now, her face reddening with indignation. "How did he become an Auror if he was in league with the Carrows!?"

Severus shrugged one shoulder. "He was a third year... probably no one knew what he was up to besides myself and the Carrows... perhaps the other teachers knew, I can't be certain... But in the aftermath, who was there to even up that score? Everyone was probably too busy with repairs and recovery. I know if I'd been asked for a letter of recommendation I'd not have provided one for him, but I'm dead, remember?" He asked rhetorically, giving a small smirk. "No one asked me."

By this point, the setting sun cast long shadows throughout the kitchen, and the enchanted lights, timed to come on at sundown, burst to life. Hermione swallowed. Her mouth felt like it was filled with molasses.

"I don't have much time. I have to collect the boys and leave Waldweirness by sundown. I'd question how they would know whether I had or not... but who am I kidding? I'm sure they have some sort of magical signature on me, having worked here for so long."

Eileen peered up at her as she rose, her black eyes looking strangely glossy.

"So, I won't be seeing you here anymore, girl?"

The younger witch returned her sad look with a grim smile. "I'm afraid not... I think you'll like Sandra... she's kind enough. She'll be replacing me in the rota—"

"Like hell!" Eileen suddenly shouted, her voice shrill as she leapt to her feet and made the table shift. Tea sloshed from all of their cups at the commotion. "You helped me when I was Nora, and you helped me as Eileen Snape, and you brought my Severus back to me,"

"I didn't... he came on his own—"

"I'll not have some perky young thing coming by and tutting over me with her disgusting pity! I shan't! It'll be you or nobody—!"

Snape sighed and eyed Eileen with a level look. "What on earth are you suggesting, Mother—"

"You take me out of here, Severus Snape! When I came here I had nobody, and now I have you! I won't live out my days as an invalid ward of the Ministry without a friend in the world!" her voice was nearly hysterical, her hands clawed in her cardigan, twisting the fabric so tightly that it looked like she might rend it in two.

"Eileen," Hermione began, her voice placating, "I thought you'd made some friends here? And perhaps Severus can bring your groceries by himself. If I'm not imagining it, I thought I noticed that he's already been bringing you some things," she looked to Snape for confirmation and he nodded, his eyes somber.

"I won't stay here! I won't!"

Hermione glanced to the dark wizard, the only one of them still seated, her expression pleading. He was looking at his mother with a bit of a grimace, but finally, he reached across the table and grasped her hand. "Sit down, Mam,"

"I won't, Severus!"

"Sit down, will you?" He demanded. At his tone she buttoned her lip abruptly, but her eyes were still obviously glassy with tears. The old witch sank into her chair once more, eyes riveted on her son's.

"That's better," he sneered. "Obviously, I won't make you stay here if you don't want, but—" he held up a palm to forestall further arguments, "we don't have too many options. Nor do we have much time if you want to be out before the new community liaison conducts her first inspection,"

"Why do we have to be out that quickly?" Eileen asked, twisting her jumper in her hands once more.

Snape quirked a lip at her, "I'd prefer they not ask too many questions about where you're going or how your circumstances changed to allow you your independence. As for where: I can take you back to Spinner's End and set you up there—stop, no. Let me finish, Mam—or I have another flat above my own that's empty. Right now it's home to my books and my brewing equipment: and mind you, you'll have to share with that, but I think I can expand it a little to make it comfortable for you."

"You'd do that?" Eileen gasped.

"I just said I would, did I not?" Severus snarled, looking aggrieved already. "Granger, sundown will come in a few minutes," he brandished his wand and pointed it over his shoulder, managing to pack away all of the two boys belongings with a rather impressive flourish. "I advise you to be out of here before then. I have my mother's affairs well in hand now," he continued, more softly now.

Their eyes met, and it seemed as if sadness and a strange sort of wistfulness shone out between them.

Unfortunately, there was no time for it. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

Hermione went and hefted James up into her arms, spelling Albus' sling to wrap around her body so he was strapped to her back, still snoozing.

Eileen was still staring blankly into the depths of her teacup as she made for the door, but Severus joined her before she made to depart, catching up her hand in his own and giving it a small, unexpected squeeze.

Hermione wanted to beg him to agree to see her again. To promise to write. To ask for more dinners shared with Snape and his mother... but she found herself incapable of speech beyond the utterly inadequate: "I'll see you around?"

It sounded hollow and unpromising even to her own ears.

Worse even than when he responded with a small grimace and a non-committal: "Perhaps so."

"Open me up, I let down my defense

I swore that I wouldn't go falling again

I could be faded with somebody new

Rather be sober at home just us two"

"It's Strange" (reprise) – Louis the Child (ft. K. Flay)