It was Monday morning and Hermione had just completed rounds on her patients in the 3rd floor Cursed Maladies Unit. She was finishing a patient's scroll chart when Draco rounded the corner of the records station, he was flashing a large smile at her. Still looks unnatural when he does that, she thought. "Granger, just the witch I was looking for."

Hermione filed the scroll into its designated compartment at the station. She playfully batted her eyes at Draco while clutching a hand to her heart. "Why, Draco Malfoy, you don't mean it! After all this time?!"

Draco pulled up short in front of her, momentarily confused by her sarcasm and the small gasps of the nearby apprentice healers. He recovered well, dropping the smile for a predatory smirk and reached for her waist, pulling her close to him. More audible gasps filled the air near the records station, and Hermione was valiant in her efforts to suppress the laugh that threatened to bubble out of her chest. She allowed Draco to encircle her waist, knowing the group of apprentices were hoping to witness a fruition of hospital gossip: after many years of enmity and slow progressing friendship, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy had finally decided to give in to their baser passions and prove opposites attracted. Both parties currently holding each other had known for months that rumors circled about them, and occasionally found ways to manipulate it to their favor; Hermione's Gryffindor boldness and Draco's Slytherin cunning proved an unproven match in providing the young assistant healers office fodder. Hermione's arms reached to touch the back of Draco's neck, pulling him down towards her face. There was a collective holding of breath in the hallway as more employees slowed their pace to watch. Draco angled his face so that his lips almost brushed against her ear, whispering, "Mother needed me to pass along a message from Snape. He has asked that you attend dinner at his house on Thursday. At which time, you should remind him that owls can send messages just as easily."

Hermione was certain her shudder at his words did not go unnoticed, nor did the tightening of his grip on her hips. She allowed an intimate amount of space to form between their faces before loudly replying, "Yes, Draco. Please tell your mother I would love to attend dinner."

A sigh escaped the lips of a young apprentice, her eyes welling up at the sight she witnessed. Hermione's taps at Draco's neck signaled to him that they had played their roles well and now sought to conclude their performance. He extricated himself from her embrace, straightened the front of her robes, and with signature Malfoy charm began walking away. He winked over his shoulder at her, "I'll floo tonight with all the details."

—xx—

He left. Hermione sat in her chair, as patiently as she could muster, for almost 10 minutes. Severus Snape did not return to the sitting room. She wondered if she had overstepped. They had been having a... thorough conversation. It hadn't been about pleasant topics, but Hermione had been impressed at how easy it had been to speak with him. She had even kept her shields down, invited him into her memories, and he had been...kind. Almost gentle.

When it became apparent that he would not be returning, Hermione called for Winky. "Please convey my gratitude to Severus for an... illuminating afternoon. I'll show myself out. It was so good to see you Winky."

Winky merely nodded at her and Hermione walked to the front door. As she turned the knob, she turned back to the diminutive elf and extracted a small apothecary jar. "Would you please this give to him? Tell him it is for his neck."

She apparated to Grimmauld Place after that, seeking the counsel of her best friend. Harry was happy to receive her, eager to hear how her most recent visit with the formerly deceased professor had gone. Ginny was visiting Shell Cottage, excited to spend time with Fleur and Bill's new baby, but Ron was sitting in the kitchen with Harry. "Hermione! Sick of the greasy git already?"

Hermione tried to school the frown that crossed her features when she realized she wouldn't be able to talk to Harry alone. She stopped trying at Ron's less than polite greeting. "Ronald, we aren't twelve anymore. Do try to show some maturity and respect for a man that very well saved our lives on more than one occasion."

Ron simply rolled his eyes at her but held his tongue. Hermione crossed the kitchen to Harry's open arm. A quick side hug steadied her mood again and she sat in her seat at table, on Harry's right, and then turned to him. "He walked out."

She heard Ron sputter in his seat, but Hermione kept her focus on Harry. His eyes widened a little and then quickly furrowed. "Well...what happened?"

Hermione recanted her visit with Severus Snape. She was only interrupted once by Ron when he demanded to know why she had let him view the memory of Malfoy Manor. Harry's glare at his friend did more to silence him than Hermione's words would have been able to, and she reached the end of her tale. "I asked about your mother, Harry."

She reached over to cover his hand with her own. Given how shocking the depth of Snape's feelings for Lily Potter were, Harry had learned to handle the complicated history with a tremendous amount of grace. Hermione's actions were out of moral support, not guilt. She knew, if Harry had been given the chance to speak with Snape, he would want to know more of his mother-even if it came with a link to the former spy. "I guess it makes sense that he wouldn't know how to talk about her," Harry started. "How do you talk about someone that shaped so many of your life's important decisions? Then have to sit idly as the worst befell them? The guilt must be overwhelming."

Before Hermione could respond, Ron rose from the table. He ran a hand across the back of his neck and looked up at the pair of friends at the end of the table. "I have to go," he said. A sheepish look crossed his face, and then he left for the floo.

"What was that all about?" Hermione asked the now empty side of the kitchen. "Harry?"

"I think he realized he may have more in common with Snape than he'd ever want to admit." Harry said. His face softened and he cradled her hand between his own. "Then again, so do I."

Hermione felt like she'd been hit with a bludger. "Oh, Harry," she gasped. "I have never blamed you or Ron for anything that happened at the Manor."

"I know you don't, Mi," Harry replied.

"Besides," Hermione continued as if she hadn't heard Harry speak. "Snape felt more than friendship for Lily. He took what happened to her differently-the way someone who lost a love would."

"Mi," Harry intoned with a voice that made Hermione pay attention to him. "I have no doubt that Snape was once in love with my mother, and the guilt he has carried for 20 years over her death, has left a cavernous hole in his understanding that it's possible to move past that love. That forgiving himself for what happened to her won't prove that he loved her less, but that everything that came after-all of his actions-sought to honor that love more."

Hermione clutched Harry's hands, grateful that her best friend had matured in ways his rushed and tumultuous childhood could have prevented. "And you and Ron know what that's like? You for Ginny and him with me?"

"I'm not sure it's as simple as that." He smiled warmly at her.

Hermione hated feeling uncertain, unclear, but that was exactly what Harry was making her feel. "What do you mean?"

"It took me a long time, Mi," Harry said. "A long time to realize that there are so many different types of love in this world. And that the rarest, and most challenging, of them is the one that changes itself to be exactly what you need when you need it."

"That's you," Harry took a deep breath at Hermione's minute gasp. "I almost didn't know how to move past what had happened to you at the Manor. We had been alone, together, for months before it happened. Something had shifted between us, and you had stopped being 'Hermione: brilliant, annoying best friend'. It was so much deeper than that."

Hermione nodded. She knew what he meant because she had felt it too. "Then Ron returned, and we went back to what we were. It was what we both needed. After the Manor, everything happened so quickly, and then there we were in the entry of the castle, and you were telling me you would go with me into the Forbidden Forest. You knew what I had to do, but you were willing to shoulder that burden with me. The love, our kind of love, had changed. Again."

Hermione had to pull her hand away to brush and the small tears that had escaped during Harry's story. He had never said any of this to her before-she loved him all the more for saying it now. "I don't think my mother was ever those things for Snape. I don't think he ever had someone to be what he needed, when he needed it. To show him and support him and shoulder his burdens."

Hermione nodded to him. He spoke one last time. "He loved her. She may have even loved him. But their love could never change. It could never evolve and become more than the selfishness that idealistic love pretends to be. It was only ever something wanted, not something needed."

—xx—

Hermione returned home from work and settled on Chinese take away for dinner. It was rare for her to have dinner delivered as she enjoyed the pleasure that cooking gave her. She kept up her flat and did her laundry because they were essential functions of living, not because she sought to hone her skills for a future in domesticity. A lesson Ron had quickly learned in their brief relationship.

After a quick shower and change to comfortable clothes, dinner's arrival brought with it a green flash of flames and the voice of Draco Malfoy. "Granger? You in?"

Hermione has just settled herself on the couch, take away boxes littering the top of the coffee table as his head popped into the fireplace. "I'm here."

"What are you-is that Chinese?" He spoke, eyeing the containers.

"Yes."

"From that place down the street?"

"Yes."

"Is there cashew chicken?"

"Yes."

The flames roared slightly, and Draco Malfoy stepped out of the fireplace. "Scoot over and hand me a fork."

He crossed to the couch. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, by all means, Mr. Malfoy, do make yourself at home."

He ignored her attempt at being put out, settled into the couch, picked up the cashew chicken container and turned to her. "I would think that my work girlfriend would be far more accommodating after that display earlier today."

She shoved him inelegantly with her foot. "I still don't know why you like to play that game with the poor, unsuspecting, young, apprentices. If they ever find out we've been taking the mickey out of them this whole time, I shudder to imagine how uncooperative they will become."

"Oh, shove it, Granger," he suppressed a chuckle. "You enjoy it just as much as I do. It keeps the relationship inquisition away from you, allowing you to keep your mind on your work...and Severus Snape."

Hermione didn't react to Draco's statement, but she did watch as he took a bite of his coveted meal and leveled a direct stare at her. "What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?"

Draco didn't know much of Hermione's search for his mentor, only that she had tried to figure out what had become of him after the Battle of Hogwarts. He knew of her first visit with Snape, and while she hadn't explicitly mentioned it to him, he knew the man had unsettled Hermione in a way he hadn't played witness to since their Hogwarts days. Draco has also been perceptive enough to realize that she had spent the bulk of her day at work distracted, and the shudder that had passed through her when he conveyed the dinner invitation, were behaviors unbecoming of the level-headed witch he now claimed as a friend. "I mean, whatever it is that has happened since he announced his return to you, it has you preoccupied. The man has an insidious ability to take up mental real estate, and it makes him difficult to ignore. I tried. For almost the whole of sixth year. We all know how that turned out."

"He has not..." she started. "The Snape I knew was cold, cruel, and unyielding. He showed no capacity for understanding or compassion, much less kindness. But when I visited him on Saturday, he was anything but cold and cruel to me."

Draco put his take-away container back on the coffee table. He faced Hermione, his voice taking on the bedside tone he used on his patients at St. Mungo's. "Hermione. Severus Snape IS all of those things. He is cold. He is cruel. He is unyielding. He always has been, and I knew the man well. He spent Christmases at my house."

Hermione giggled at the imagery of Severus Snape during Yuletide celebrations. She stopped and smiled at Draco to continue. "But he also looked out for me. He mentored me and taught me how to navigate the world I found myself thrown into. He split his soul to save me. He may not know how to show emotions beyond what he has used to survive, but it doesn't mean he is incapable of feeling them."

"I just wish I knew what he wanted from me." Hermione replied, and went back to her take away box.

"Maybe you'll find out what you want from each other." Draco answered and picked up his dinner again.


A/N: Like it? Love it? Happy early birthday, Harry! Drop a comment, favorite or follow. My heart is so full at seeing this little story reach 100 follows. Thank you all for the continued support. -Archer