"You can have half."

Hermione looked up from the book she was reading to see that Severus was holding out his plate towards her. "Who let you into the Ministry?" she asked as she picked up the smaller triangle, knowing that he needed to eat more, to get his weight back up. When he had shown up on their doorstep, twenty years after the final battle, he had been emaciated, but tightlipped about where he had been and how he had survived. Even now, two years on, he was still secretive about those missing decades, but she gathered that nothing good had happened.

"Your ex-husband vouched for me today. I was surprised to find that he didn't haul off and punch me, though I could see that lingering anger in his eyes."

She shrugged a little as she took a bite of the sandwich. "He was the one who kept insisting that there was something more to our friendship than there really was. And then, it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I looked up to realise that Ronald and I had grown apart over the course of six months. I didn't expect it to happen, but it did."

Severus gave her the tiniest of smiles before he picked up the other half of the sandwich and devoured it quickly. "Life does have an odd way of working, and the twists and turns that it can take still surprise me, even at my age. Though I must say that I'm glad I've learned a little from the mistakes of my past. Amends cannot be given to everyone, but I've been trying to live like I've had a clean slate."

Hermione nodded as she got to her feet and made them both a cup of tea, making certain to add a good deal of sugar to his, knowing that the extra calories would be good for him. "It's hard to erase the past, though. There are things that I've done which I'm not proud of, but I took the lesson from the difficult results. Your lesson just happened to take a little longer than mine did. It happens."

Severus looked away from her to gaze down into his tea, gently swirling the liquid around in the cup as a tense silence fell between them. Finally, he took a deep breath and looked back up at her. "Does the scar on your arm hurt you?"

Hermione wondered why he had thought to bring that up, and she tugged the sleeve of her robe down to cover the back of her hand, knowing that no one could see that horrid word which forever marred her skin. A part of her knew that she was behaving a little contrarily, that if she really wanted to be rid of the looks and whispers whenever her sleeves slipped up her arms enough to reveal the word Umbridge's pen had left on her arm, she would use magic to heal the scar. But she wanted to emulate Harry, to wear her scar with pride, as well. So, she compromised by always wearing long sleeves and trying not to have the ugly word pop into sight too often. "Not really, no," she finally answered, knowing that she had left too long a space between his question and her answer for it not to go unnoticed. Severus had always been very observant, and this would not go without comment.

It took a few beats before the further probing came, and his words were quiet, measured, when he did respond. "Not all hurt is physical. Sometimes the worst pain comes from the mind. You can torture yourself over and over again about the bad decisions you made that led to the scars you wear on your body." His hand reached up to touch his neck, and Hermione winced a little as she unconsciously copied the movement, her mind seeing the nasty scar that Nagini's fangs had left behind. "But it seems like we both have the tendency to torture ourselves with wearing our scars only for ourselves. Isn't that right, Hermione?"

She nodded before looking back down at her work. There was still so much left to do before the meeting tomorrow morning, but now that her train of thought had been interrupted, she wondered if she would be able to find her focus again that afternoon. "Sometimes scars are only meant for us. Some scars need to be kept as the reminder of what we were trying to overcome."

His eyebrow ticked upwards as he dipped his chin, running his hand through his hair. His constant potion making meant that his hair was still lank and greasy, no matter how much he washed it, and Hermione found the look comfortably familiar. It was easy enough to keep her emotions at bay when he looked like the former teacher she had despised, rather than the lost soul who had shown up on her doorstep. She hadn't wanted to sympathise, and later empathise, with him, but over the months that was exactly what had happened. They were both too smart for their own good, and that had burned them in the end. And while she knew that being outsiders had shaped their early childhoods, she was grateful that her parents had at least nurtured her. If Severus had had some crumb of the love that she had been afforded, how different things would have been for him. "You seem to think that it would have been as easy as love."

Hermione rolled her eyes as she let out a huff of breath. "You need to remember the boundaries we put in place when I agreed to help you, Severus. My mind is not to be read without prior warning, and I must give permission."

"You could also learn how to block me."

"I could, but I'm not Narcissa Malfoy. I don't have the time to dedicate to becoming strong enough to block out someone as powerful as Voldemort was, and what hope do I have of blocking out you? After all, according to Draco, you're stronger than that bastard ever was."

His sallow skin darkened in what could be considered a blush, and Hermione smirked a little to herself as she settled back in her chair. "To stay alive as long as I did in that nest of vipers, I had to be smarter, stronger, savvier. I played to my basest instincts, and the hatred and bitterness that flowed through my system only grew as it was fed by people like Bellatrix, and Voldemort, and all the other Death Eaters. But the seed was there, it only flourished with the wrong sort of attention. I am wise enough to recognize that my weak moral fibre was quite literally the devil's playground."

A part of her wondered if he had drunk Firewhiskey before he had joined her today, but she knew that Ron would have smelled it on his breath and caused a larger scene than necessary if that were the case. So the only thing that could explain this honesty was the fact that he was finally starting to trust her a little. "That would be the only thing that I could call weak about you. To survive as long as you did without contact with our world, that tells me you were quite resourceful and strong."

"I also did quite a few things that I wasn't proud of. And before you ask, I will not be divulging what those were. Even if you were Lily reincarnated, there is no way that I would begin to tell you what occurred in the twenty years from the time I was bitten by Nagini and when I ended up on your doorstep. Suffice it to say, I was finally at rock bottom and desperate enough to reach out to the one person who I thought would understand the ambition that led to my downfall."

She nodded, knowing that was as much as she would get out of him that afternoon, and strangely okay with that. There might come a day when he would trust her more, but that also implied that there would come a day when she would do the same. After all, she had held a large part of herself back from him, knowing that there was no way that she could open herself up to someone who had tormented her when she was younger. But there had still been something about his manner that spoke to her soul, made her inclined to be friendly. That had called on her to love the broken pieces of him, despite how Ron and her family would react. She had given up much to strike up a friendship with him, and she still asked herself if it had been worth it. "Pride goes before a fall," she finally managed to say before getting up from her desk and heading over to the window, staring out at the people rushing by, blissfully unaware that they were being watched.

"At least you had a soft landing."

She turned her head back to look at him, giving him a wry smile. "Sometimes a soft landing is the worst thing of all. You don't learn as much from a soft landing." Severus nodded and joined her by the window. She sighed gently when his hand spread out against her back, the warmth of his skin bleeding through her robes to seep into her skin as they watched the people together. There was something soothing about his presence, now that she knew how similar they were at their cores, and she had to fight her natural instinct to lean back against him, to let him know that she would be grateful for this level of contact for the rest of her life and no more. But she knew that her great ambition in life would preclude her from ever being able to be completely honest with him about her feelings.

"Sometimes, that which we want most will never be ours," Severus whispered before he withdrew his hand from her back and went back over to her desk. "I need access to my vault. Will you tell the goblins that I have your permission to do so?"

"Of course, Severus. And if there's anything else that you need, let me know as well. The children have become quite enamoured of having private potions lessons from a master, so I would do anything to make certain that he is well stocked and looked after." It was the closest she could come to admitting everything, and he seemed to know that, since from the corner of her eye she saw him flinch. Turning, she went over to her desk and wrote a quick note to the goblin now in charge of Gringotts, letting him know that Severus was cleared to access his vaults, on her command. "We'll see you tomorrow evening for the next class?"

"Of course, Hermione. And…"

"Yes?"

"Thank you." She gave him a sharp nod, watching him leave her office, closing the door softly behind him. Hermione wished that there was a better way to tell him that she loved him, but other than sharing half their food, or allowing him what was rightfully his, she knew that there was no way that she could let those feeling come to the light. And in the tragedy of their lives, that was perhaps the largest one of all.