The small downstairs room was cold, despite the thin trickle of heat emitted by an inefficient Muggle device. Snape regarded it sourly. A warming charm would be a simple matter, and he supposed he could have acceded to Granger's sensibilities and extend it to the Muggles, but that would inevitably lead to the Muggle contraption malfunctioning, and then to the Muggles wondering why they were so comfortable in an unheated room in late December …

He folded his arms more tightly, keeping his Muggle coat tightly wrapped around his body. His Muggle coat, which held in one pocket a cake of scented Muggle soap that Snape was determined to dispose of the second he was out of this place. It had taken every ounce of his self-control to express the gratitude Granger had warned him would be expected, instead of the intense disgust he'd felt. Even in his pocket, the odour of artificial chemicals made his nose itch. The idea of an entire world of Muggles willingly rubbing … whatever those substances were … on their skin was utterly horrifying. For a few moments, he had wondered if someone in the group was unhinged enough to try to murder random members through toxic cleaning products, but he'd rejected the idea. After all, they cheerfully ingest similar poisons of their own free will.

No, it was simply more Muggle idiocy, like the idea that sitting in a circle in a cold and dingy room and reciting the wrongs done to one and the wrongs one had done had any effect at all other than the gratification of bruised egos.

As if she'd been using Legilimency, Granger shot him a sideways glare. Snape raised his eyebrows at her. I am neither sulking, nor sniping, nor snarling, Granger. Granted, he was neither talking nor really listening, but quite frankly, in this dank chill, expecting either was entirely unreasonable.

If the small, still man with the perpetually watchful eyes, Hassan, had spoken, Snape might have been interested in what he had to say, even if he was a Muggle. The man knew what it was like to be hated by those he'd risked his life to save, and he knew what it was like to pretend absolute loyalty to someone you were, at that moment, determined to betray. Not that we can exactly compare notes. Hassan had drawn out the envelope with the book voucher Granger had paid for, and he'd looked pleased. Snape hoped he hadn't been the one with the appalling taste in soap.

"I've got a bit of a dilemma," Granger said, and Snape started paying attention again. Fiona Firesmith, no doubt. I wonder if anyone here will have the sense to tell her to stop trying to befriend her students?

"Lay it on us, sister," Jeremy said cheerfully.

"I've told you about the dreams," Granger said, and Snape stifled a sigh. "The worst one, always, is the one that doesn't have anything to do with fighting. There was someone … I didn't even really know him. He was hurt, badly hurt, he was dying."

Snape carefully did not snort, or roll his eyes. I saw your Boggart, Granger. I know all this. You had no need to trap me in this frigid room to tell me.

And, thank Merlin, you didn't see mine.

It had been … disconcerting, to discover his Boggart had changed at some time over the past, post-War years. No longer Lily's son, dead — the ultimate failure of his pitiful attempt to make up for the mistakes he'd made. No, for some bizarre reason, Hermione Granger is my Boggart now. Granger as he'd last seen Charity Burbage, in the final seconds of her life.

Please, Severus … we're friends …

Snape closed his hand over his aching arm and turned his mind away from memory and back to Granger's voice. "There wasn't anything I could do," she continued, which again, Snape knew. There wasn't anything anyone could have done at that point. Even if I'd sustained those injuries in St Mungo's waiting room, I would have likely died. "I thought he was already dead, although he wasn't, not quite. And I had my mission, didn't I? I left him. Just lying there, I didn't even try to help him, I didn't even check to make sure he was really dead, or lay him out a little. And then, not long ago, I found out that someone else did help him. That he made it. And it makes me hope that I have a chance to make it right, what I did, just walking away from him. But I don't know if I can."

Make it right. Such a Muggle concept, proving for once and for all that Granger's frequent and continued association with them was leading her to dangerously inappropriate and inaccurate habits of thought. For one thing, leaving a man who was either dead or dying in order to kill a madman determined to destroy us all is hardly something to feel guilty over.

For another, one cannot 'make right' events in the past without a Time Turner. Make right, make up, make amends — selfish sentimentality designed to salve a tender conscience. It stung to know that those moments when she'd snorted with laughter at his jibes and barbs, when she'd spoken so honestly about her family — honestly enough to make him consider, even if only for a moment, telling her something of his own parents — nothing but illusion, nothing but Granger confecting the appearance of what might have passed for a friendship —

No. It did not sting. That would imply that he was hurt by it, disappointed, that he had hoped … And I know well enough not to hope. He was furious with her, that was it. Incensed by her deception. Contemptuous of her self-reflecting pity.

He interrupted her tedious prattling. "What makes you so sure you have the right to do anything?" Snape asked coldly. There was a soft murmur of protest from a few of the Muggles. He ignored it, turning in his chair to look directly at Granger. "You wish to make yourself feel better about your choice. If, as you insist, you have his interests at heart, shouldn't you instead consider what he would wish? Perhaps he has no desire for your self-interested interference in his life. Perhaps, Helen, he doesn't wish to ever see you again."

Granger looked utterly stricken. "I wasn't … I wasn't under that impression."

Mark cleared his throat. "Are there people you know in common? Someone you could ask, to find out what this man might prefer?"

Granger's shoulders slumped a little. "Yes, perhaps."

Snape felt an odd sense of dissatisfaction at her defeated tone. Most unlike Granger. Snape sat impassively, and Hermione in utter silence, as Anne, and then Evan, wittered on for a while about their regrets, although neither of them has anything significant to be regretful about as far as Snape could see. He wondered what they would say if he laid bare his own deeds. Hassan might understand, although Snape would have to find out more about the enemy in the Muggle war to be sure.

After the meeting concluded, Hermione led the way toward the front door and not the quiet corner at the rear where they usually Disapparated. Snape followed. Her apparent obsession with fish and chips eaten in the cold was irritating, but he was prepared to tolerate it. And I'll probably be warmer in a howling gale with a warming charm than I was in that room.

A few steps outside, and Hermione turned and folded her arms. "Why are you following me? I thought you never wanted to see me again?"

He frowned. "I merely posed a hypothetical question."

She shook her head, mouth tight, grimly silent.

Snape shrugged. "If you chose to take it otherwise …"

"You absolute, unmitigated arse," Hermione shouted at him, the words whipped past him by the wind. "You weigh your words to the ounce as carefully as you weigh Potion ingredients!"

"Granger, is this really the place to —"

"Muffliato!" The wild flourish of her wand made him flinch back instinctively. "Those people might be 'just Muggles' to you, but they're my friends and you just slapped me in the face in front of them! Do you have any idea of how humiliating that was?" She gave a small, bitter laugh. "Of course you do. That's exactly why you did it, wasn't it?"

Snape pulled himself together and drew himself up to his full height. "I merely wished to point out to you that your assumptions, Granger —"

"It's Professor Granger, or Hermione!" she screamed at him. "I don't care which you chose, but pick one!"

"Hermione." The name was out before Snape realised he had made a choice. "Hermione. You owe me nothing. I will not have you paying some imaginary debt to me — tolerating the company of a man you despise out of some misguided guilt. If that is what you are doing, then yes, I want no part of it." His mouth curled in contempt. "I will not be the pitiable subject of your charity project."

She would turn, now, she would walk away, and Snape would be pleased to see her go, pleased to be free of her, he was determined that he would be pleased … Free of the interfering busybody, free of this charade, free to enjoy peace and quiet and solitude …

Hermione's lower lip quivered and then her face contorted on a gulping sob. She lowered her head and scrubbed furiously at her cheeks with the cuff of her coat. "You are a git. An utter git."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Not an arse?"

"Both," she shot back. She took a deep breath and looked at him again. "I don't tolerate you, Severus, although there are definitely times when I endure you. And as hard as you try to make me, I don't despise you, either. But if you keep trying to make me dislike you, you might succeed. Fair warning."

The icy winter air held the tang of salt as Snape took a deep breath. "I don't tolerate you. I don't endure you, either. Hermione."

She wiped her eyes again, and heaved a shaky sigh. "Don't do that again. I won't put up with it."

"Understood," Snape said quietly.

Hermione summoned up a watery smile. "Come on, then," she said. "Or the chippy will be closed."

He would have been pleased, Snape was certain, if she had simply turned on her heel and stormed away, and left him in peace. He knew he would have been pleased. There was no reason in the world for him to be glad that she hadn't.

And yet, surprising as it seemed, he was.