It looks exactly the same.
It shouldn't have. There should have been some immediately identifiable sign of Professor Snape's absence, — a different desk, a change to the blackboard, a rearrangement of the ingredients stored on the shelves, something.
But it looked exactly the same, as if he'd simply stepped out for a moment. As she walked slowly past the old familiar desks, pausing by the one that had been her own, she could easily imagine that at any moment she'd hear the rustle of black robes and a cold and sneering —
"Miss Granger?"
Shock trickled icy down her spine but she hadn't survived the War by allowing herself to give in to shock. Her wand dropped from her sleeve to her hand and she raised it as she spun on her heel.
And it was him. All in black except for the touch of white at collar and wrists, just like always, leaning against the door-frame. One eyebrow raised, dark eyes narrowed, just like always. Professor Severus Snape.
But Severus Snape is dead.
Whoever this was, it wasn't Severus Snape.
"Or, I should say, Professor Granger." The impostor inclined his head slightly, the faintest sketch of a bow.
Revelio! The silent spell shot out from her wand and struck him squarely.
And made no difference.
"Revelio!" she cried aloud this time, and when that again had no effect, she shouted it. "REVELIO!"
"Now that's over with," he said with a slight sneer, "Perhaps it's too much to hope you've remembered your manners?" He straightened and his weight shifted as if to take a step towards her.
Hermione levelled her wand. "Stay where you are!"
He stopped, regarded her levelly for a moment, and then resumed his previous stance, leaning against the door. It confirmed her conclusion that he couldn't possibly be Snape. Yes, she was Hermione Granger, friend of the Boy Who Lived, and yes, she'd had plenty of unplanned and unwelcome practice in using offensive magic, but she'd seen Professor Snape duel. Neither she, nor the real Severus Snape, could have any doubt that he could hex her into next week without her being able to stop him.
"If you move again, I'll pin you to that door so hard you'll have the carvings imprinted on your backside as long as you live."
He raised an eyebrow. "If you're planning to continue with your efforts to replace me, you really do need to work on your threats."
Hermione summoned the nearest cauldron, caught it from the air and set it in front of her hard enough to rattle the jars on the table. Keeping a wary eye on the man by the door, she rapped her wand on its side to begin it heating to the correct temperature and selected the first of her ingredients. "I have no plans to replace you."
"Wise."
"Because you, whatever appearance you're currently wearing, have never taught Potions in this classroom."
The eyebrow climbed a little higher, to what Hermione had always privately thought of as Threat Level 3. Threat level 3 boded ill for student who made even the slightest mistake in their potion preparation, but did not necessarily predict an explosion. Threat Level 5, however … when Snape's eyebrow reached Threat Level 5 Hermione had always tried to not even blink, lest she attract his attention.
But this man was not Professor Snape, however accurate the resemblance.
He dismissed her words with a flick of his long, pale hand. "You cast Revelio on me three times in a row. The only appearance I could possibly be wearing is my own."
"Your magic — or the magic of the person who cast the spell on you — could be more powerful than my own."
The eyebrow stayed where it was, but the corner of his mouth curled up. "Hermione Granger admitting there might be someone with more powerful magic than her own?"
"Or someone with one of those odd twists to their magic that turn up every now and again. Or using a new spell that —"
"Ah, not admitting it then."
"Or, more likely, Polyjuice. Whatever the reason, you are not wearing your own appearance. Accio niffle toenails." The summoned jar zoomed across the room to her and she added three of the toenails, giving the liquid precisely two-and-three-quarters stirs counterclockwise.
"What are you brewing?"
"Thief's Downfall," she said shortly.
"Interesting." The eyebrow settled at Threat Level Two, and Hermione wondered if that meant he was intrigued — and if that particular look had always meant that Professor Snape was intrigued, and she'd just never known. "I wasn't aware the goblins had let the recipe escape them."
"They —" haven't. Hermione closed her lips on the word, reminding herself that as much as this man looked like her old Potions Professor, he was not Severus Snape. There was no point trying to impress him with the fact that she'd discovered the recipe for herself, over many months of research and trial and error.
He folded his arms again and leaned more comfortable against the door-frame. "Tell me, Granger, did you perhaps get hit on the head during the final battle?"
She gaped at him. "I … yes, I did, actually, although what that —"
"Then that explains it."
"Explains it? Explains what?"
"I remember you as being far more intelligent. A head injury —"
It slid straight past her guard. Professor Snape thought I was intelligent. And then the ache of pride vanished as she remembered that this man couldn't possibly know what Professor Snape had thought of her. "You bastard!" She picked up the nearest object to hand — a jar of newt's eyes — and threw it at his head.
His fingers barely moved, no wand in sight, and the spell was so quiet Hermione could barely hear his voice. "Protego duo." The jar rebounded and shattered harmlessly against the wall. "As I was saying. A head injury explains why you have not yet hit upon the simple and extremely obvious solution of simply asking me something that only Severus Snape would know."
"Professor Snape and anyone who rummaged through his mind with Legilimens," she snapped.
His eyes narrowed and his voice went dangerously quiet. "Do you really think I could have managed to remain a double agent in the Dark Lord's court for twenty years if there was a wizard alive who could defeat my Occlumency?"
"I know that Dumbledore thought there was a chance there might be, or else he wouldn't have kept his true plan secret," she shot back.
The eyebrow lifted almost all the way to Threat Level 5. "Oh? You think there might not have been some other reason he felt unwilling to share with me a plan which, had it gone right, would have necessitated Potter killing me?"
It was the way he said necessitated that did it: the menacing pause, the sibilance of the word, the way he clipped off the final sound. Hermione answered without thinking with the exact words she would have used if the man in front of her really had been Professor Severus Snape. "There's no other reason he would have let you think Harry really had to die to defeat Voldemort."
"You think too well of him."
"And you think too little!" Hermione snapped, and then remembered she was not, after all, talking to Snape himself. "Whoever you are." It was a weak coda, and from the twist of amusement at the corner of his mouth, he knew it.
"I disagree with your premise, but I concede its logic, given your starting point. Very well. Questions are out. I suppose I have no choice but to allow you to drench me in whatever noxious mess you create in your efforts to replicate Thief's Downfall."
"Which will reveal who you really are, because you are not Professor Snape, and you've just proved it twice in one sentence." She shot a glare at him and added the final ingredient. "Professor Snape would never allow me to drench him in anything."
"You have me at wand point," he pointed out.
"Professor Snape taught me Defence Against The Dark Arts. I've seen him duel. He wouldn't think for a minute that I could be any threat to him."
"However, he might think that wizards duelling is usually quite hard on the immediate surroundings. We are in a room full of breakable jars containing expensive and in a few cases, irreplaceable ingredients."
Actually, that sounded very much like what Professor Snape would think. "I concede your logic," Hermione said. "But don't think that doesn't mean I'm not going to unmask you." A quick charm, another of her own discoveries, accelerated the potion's maturation process. "And if you really were Professor Snape, you'd know — I have never made a mistake in potions." Wand in one hand, cauldron in the other, she advanced on the impostor.
His expression impassive, his finger moved slightly. "Accio handkerchief."
For an instant, standing in front of him, she wasn't quite sure she could do it. He looked exactly like Professor Snape, or at least, the Professor Snape of her classroom memories, before the last hard year had carved lines on his face that had never been there before. There was an eleven-year-old Hermione Granger inside her who absolutely quailed at the idea of tipping a cauldron of potion over him.
There was also an eighteen-year-old Hermione Granger who had faced Voldemort himself, believing Harry Potter was dead and all hope with him, and readied herself to fight to the death.
She hoisted the cauldron and flung the contents in his face.
He closed his eyes an instant before the liquid hit him and the next moment his features disappeared beneath the large, snowy handkerchief he'd summoned to his hand. Hermione waited, wand at the ready, as he slowly wiped the potion off, and then lowered the cloth.
Unchanged.
"Merlin's pants!" She'd made a mistake in the brewing — she must have — the first one ever —
"As well as your threats, you might also like to invest some time into improving your swearing," Snape observed. And then, as fast as a striking snake: "Expelliarmus!"
Her wand flew from her grasp. "Protego!" she gasped, knowing the spell would be weak — if it even took — without her wand. She braced herself for the next strike. It will be an Unforgivable. Perhaps even a killing curse.
His next words were nothing of the sort. "Accio Granger's wand." The slender stick of vine wood flew into his grasp. A twist of the wrist of his free hand and his own wand was in his hand.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
It was her best spell and even without her wand she had some hope, but he deflected it almost lazily. Hermione backed away as he raised his wand. Reach the nearest desk — if I tip it over I can —
"Protego totalum!"
She felt it settle around her, a great wave of magical protection, and realised that he had not cast the spell on himself but on the area where she stood.
"Now." He lowered his wand. "You cannot hurt me, I hope I have given you at least some indication that I have no intention of hurting you. You have established that I am not under the effects of any charm or spell designed to change appearance. Can we, perhaps, discuss this like adults?" He said the last word with exactly the same slight sneer, the twist of contempt, as he'd always used to declare one of her potions acceptable when she knew it was bloody well perfect.
"I saw Professor Snape die," she said, ruthlessly repressing the actual memory of it. Look at me …
The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "The current evidence before your eyes suggests you did not."
"Alright then." Play along. Stay on guard, play along, he'll make a mistake and you'll have a chance. It wouldn't be much of one. She was still shaken by how fast he'd been, how quickly he'd disarmed her. As fast as … as fast as the real Professor Snape. "How did you survive?"
The slightest shrug, just enough to make his black robes rustle. "I don't remember."
"Oh, come on!" Hermione snapped. "You have to do better than that if you expect me to believe you!"
"I don't remember, but Madam Pomfrey found a phoenix feather in a fold of my robes."
"Fawkes," she breathed. "Of course! A phoenix's tears can heal any wound. Basilisk venom has to be as deadly as Nagini's was, but Fawkes saved Harry." She realised she'd relaxed from her combat stance, poised on the balls of her feet. If it looks like Professor Snape … sounds like Professor Snape … duels like Professor Snape … She could hardly believe it, but logic led her inexorably to the conclusion. This is Professor Snape. "Of course he could save you!"
"Why he did we can only speculate." Snape's voice was so low Hermione could barely hear it.
"Professor Dumbledore told Harry that Fawkes came to him because he'd shown great loyalty to him. To Professor Dumbledore, I mean." She paused. "And so did you, didn't you? I mean — you didn't even try to save yourself. Giving Harry those memories —"
He interrupted her, fast as a striking snake. "Have you seen them?"
Hermione shook her head. "No. No-one has, except Harry. He wouldn't even let Kingsley Shacklebolt look at them, and he's the Minister. He tried to insist, but Harry was just very polite and very firm and said that if his word wasn't good enough, Kingsley should just say so." She hesitated. "But … people do know what was in them. I mean, generally. About …"
"About Lily Evans," Snape said flatly. "I know."
"I'm sorry," she said gently.
"I assure you, Professor Granger, I hardly desire your apology." He weighed her wand in his hand. "Are you convinced enough to refrain from attacking me?" When she nodded, he tossed her wand to her. "So, loyalty to Albus Dumbledore, you think that was enough to save me?"
Hermione nodded again. She was starting to feel distinctly wobbly in the knees, so she drew out the nearest stool from beneath the desk and sat down.
"The same could be said for every one of the fifty people who died that day," Snape sneered. "And yet that bird ignored them."
"I don't think Fawkes could do anything for spells or curses," Hermione said. "Or raise the dead. Or he would have been able to help Dumbledore, wouldn't he? It's wounds that phoenix tears work on." She took a deep breath. "We really did think you were dead, sir. Or I would never have left you alone."
He eyed her so narrowly that she thought he doubted her sincerity, and was surprised when he said, instead, "At least you seem to have grown out of your tendency to tearfulness."
"It's been five years." Hermione turned her wand in her hand. "We've all changed." Although you don't seem to have. "Professor, would you like to sit down?"
He raised an eyebrow to Three and said silkily, "In this classroom, Granger, I don't need an invitation from you."
"No, sir," she said hastily. "It's just … you do have a tendency to loom, rather."
He looked rather pleased by her words. "Carefully cultivated, I assure you."
"Yes, sir, I'm sure. But perhaps you might …"
Snape looked from her to the student-scale stools and then back, pointedly. Hermione had the sudden image of Professor Severus Snape perched on one of them, black-clad knees closer to his hooked nose than was comfortable, black robes draped around him, even more like a great black bird than usual, and was forced to suppress an entirely inappropriate giggle. If I start laughing now, not only will he completely misunderstand, but I suspect I won't be able to stop.
"You may be right," he said unexpectedly. "This is hardly a location conductive to a long conversation. Your office would be more appropriate."
"My —"
He smiled slightly. "Yes, Professor Granger, Potions Master of Hogwarts. Your office. Lead the way."
As much as she was convinced, now, that he was no impostor, she gripped her wand a little more tightly at the thought of walking down the dimly-lit dungeon corridors with her back exposed to him. "You, uh, you know the way as well as anyone."
"The wards won't recognise me," he said with a hint of sourness.
"Oh."
Hermione took rather longer than strictly necessary picking up her bag and making sure it was settled on her shoulder just exactly right, and despite her best efforts her steps dragged a little as she crossed the room. Snape stepped out of her way with the slightest inclination of his head, and waited.
"Well, then," Hermione said, and ignoring every screaming instinct, stepped past him and through the door.
Notes: Hi everyone, and thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying it - please drop me a line and let me know!