She walked into the Headmaster's Office with a spring in her step. It had taken weeks of scheming, but she had earned victory. The headmaster had agreed to give her a ten-minute window. And the best part was that it was all above board. No fear of detention to spoil her moment. You didn't have to break the rules to have fun. It was far more interesting to bend them to your will instead.

She walked over to the row of portraits, narrowing in on her target. The snore was deafening. She sighed in frustration. From all the stories she had heard, she would have thought that such a low trick was beneath Severus Snape's dignity. But she was at an age now where she was discovering that her parents didn't know everything. She certainly didn't know everything. She was still determined to try.

She settled in, beginning a staring contest with closed eyelids, with a person who seemed completely oblivious to her presence. She wondered if a portrait's painted eyes were really the source of their vision. If a painter somehow imbued each limb and organ with the function of the original human being. It seemed rather unlikely. With that in mind, she was careful not to fidget or look nervous or impatient. She took a book out of her bag, keeping the cover face-down and out of sight. If he was anything like her, it would drive him crazy with curiosity.

When her ten minutes were up, she closed her book with a bang, and practically skipped out the door with a smile. It was a slight exaggeration, but only just. It had been a pleasant ten minutes. She couldn't have found such quiet for her reading anywhere else in the castle. And she was only a little bit disappointed. She hadn't expected results on her first visit, not really. She was a pragmatic girl. That was why her agreement with the headmaster covered the next four Tuesdays as well.

'That girl was back again.'

Headmaster Longbottom ignored the growl in Snape's voice with the aid of years of practice. He had become immune sometime around March. He didn't even flinch internally anymore. 'Was she?'

'You know she was. She had the password. You left a child unsupervised in your office.'

'She wasn't unsupervised. I'm sure you watched her like a hawk.'

The portrait's expression became even more brooding.

Neville sighed. 'She has a name.'

More silence.

He went back to scribbling through his mountain of paperwork. This was how their "conversations" often went, peppered with big stretches of silence. It worked for them. Snape thought he gained power by refusing to engage, but Neville thought that he gained power by having the courage to speak his mind. Both things were true, but the real power came when they switched roles. That was why Neville reserved the silent treatment for emergencies. He was working hard at keeping this situation as far from an emergency as possible.

'She was wearing a Hufflepuff uniform.'

Neville smiled. 'My wife is a Hufflepuff. It's a noble house.'

'Who is the infernal brat?'

For the first time Neville Longbottom had a real upper hand over Severus Snape. It was a day he had never thought would come. He allowed himself one glorious moment to take it in. Only one. He didn't want to push his luck. 'I'm afraid I can't tell you. I've been sworn to secrecy. If you want to know, you'll have to ask her.'

That provoked a sneer. 'Did you pinky swear, Longbottom? It seems Minerva vastly overestimated your maturity when she passed over this office.'

Neville shrugged. 'She's my goddaughter. I can't deny her anything. And I think that Minerva knows exactly how much maturity and sentimentality we have between the two of us. That's why our relationship is such a model of professionalism.'

Neville didn't have Minerva McGonagall's wisdom. Before today, he could have sworn Snape didn't have an ounce of sentimentality within his frame. It was disconcerting to find that he had been wrong.

His goddaughter was waiting outside his greenhouse the next morning.

'Good morning Uncle Neville.'

'I won't tell you anything.'

'But-'

He shushed her, pointing to the sleeping mandrake. 'I think that's the only fair way to do this.'

She gave an exaggerated sigh. 'Oh fine. I doubt the two of you are bosom buddies anyway.'

'No, I wouldn't say so.' As his chuckle faded away, he turned his serious face on. 'Are you sure about this sweetheart? I don't want to see you get hurt.'

She patted his shoulder condescendingly. 'Don't worry about me. I have everything under control.'

Ask her. He couldn't recall the last time he had needed to stoop to asking someone a straight forward question. He only asked questions when he already knew the answer. To taunt, to startle, to make someone squirm.

As a portrait, eavesdropping was so easy it had become dull. There were a million ways to hide conversations from the portrait gossip line. People were just too lazy or naïve to try. Especially students. But he only eavesdropped directly on things that he was disinterested in. For the things that mattered, he had to be more circumspect. He refused to tail the girl around the castle, making a spectacle of himself. And there was no one, alive or dead, that wouldn't smirk at him in an infuriating way before deigning to reveal the girl's identity. But the girl kept coming back for a reason. She wanted something from him. So he decided to bide his time and wait for her to crack.

She was uncrackable. She had made her third visit to the office today. Hadn't even glanced in his direction. Just headed straight for the Headmaster's chair and made herself comfortable, flipping through a tawdry tabloid magazine. That magazine made him question his initial assumptions. Would a daughter of Hermione Granger be caught reading that trash? There were no obvious physical characteristics he could settle on. She was a brunette, but that was a common colour, and her hair was straight. She didn't seem as pale as a Malfoy should be. But then, who was to say that she was even a Malfoy? The girl wasn't the firstborn. He had counted backwards and forwards. Granger had delivered her first child seventeen years ago. Its graduation ceremony had already passed by, and he had never set eyes on it. This girl was only eleven. She had the unmistakable dewy-eyed look of a first-year. She could have a different father. Or a different mother. She was a Hufflepuff, after all. Perhaps he had been wrong in attributing her curiosity to genetics. Perhaps she was just an ordinary eleven-year-old witch who had latched on to a figure from a history textbook.

On her fourth visit, she realised Snape's eyes were open and wide awake. No more fake snoring. The eyes were familiar. If she squinted just right, she was reminded of her older brother. Of tickle wars and eating contests. The way he ruffled her hair and caller her 'kid'. It was startling and incongruous, in a way that she found amusing. She had grown up hearing horror stories about the ghastly Potions Professor of her parents' childhood. But now that she had seen those eyes, she knew that she could never find this man intimidating again.

It was her fifth and final visit. Something had to happen today, or she couldn't come back. She just had to let go of her pride. Her silly, stubborn pride. She spent an extra minute at the bottom of the stairs psyching herself up, and she gripped her notebook tightly. When she reached the desk, she opened it up, ready to pick one of her pre-written questions. It was a lame thing to do, but she needed the support of yesterday's version of herself, the one that had been more self-possessed and less shaky in the knees.

A low voice interrupted her thoughts. It was only a whisper, but she heard it clearly. 'Who are you?'

She smiled. She had him hooked. 'Artie Granger-Malfoy.'

'Artie?' The horror was profound.

'Just a nickname. Care to guess what it stands for?'

Artie experienced her first real Severus Snape void of silence. This wasn't the absence of attention, the quiet from their previous meetings. This was an active, malevolent silence. It filled her with glee.

He did not care to guess. He could afford to be patient now. That smile had told Severus Snape what he most needed to know. She lived a dull ordinary life. There wasn't a blip of danger on her radar. He let out a breath he had been holding in throughout his whole life and death. She didn't notice.

The girl, his granddaughter, started prattling away at the speed of light. He wasn't a man, just a portrait stuck to a wall. He had no choice but to listen.