When Hermione arrived at the door to his classroom the next evening, she'd have thought she would feel calmer than she did. They had spoken the day before - she knew that he wouldn't hurt her. Still, she found herself pausing to steady her breath, and attempt to calm down her frantic pulse.

Without warning, the door lurched open, and her dark haired Professor held it, eyebrow raised. "You do know that I can hear you coming towards my door, correct?"

She blushed pink. "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry - I simply like to pause to collect my thoughts."

"Then do so before you get here."

He slammed the door shut behind her, and the brunette raised an eyebrow in a mockery of his own. "Honestly, you'd think the door had done something to offend you."

The scowl deepend. "It doesn't need to. Enough things offend me."

"Do I offend you?"

"On a near daily basis. Now, you said yesterday that you trust me?"

She gulped. "Yes, sir…" she managed.

"Has anything happened for that to change?"

"No, sir."

He nodded, and walked across the room to his office door. "Come with me, then."

He led her into his office, and she gasped at the transformation. His desk and chairs had been removed, and the bookcases shrunk and moved into one corner. Instead, she saw soft rugs and beanbags on the floor, looking more like a muggle meditation retreat than a magical school full of old tradition and scholarly propriety. The scent of lavender filled the room, and it filled the girl with an immediate sense of calm. She inhaled deeply, her breathing slowing as she took in the room before her. It was lit softly with tealight candles scattered around the perimeter of the room. Now, in this light, the room itself appeared less empty of personality. Now, she could see the subtlety of the dark curtains - instead of black, they were a very deep green. The wood of the remaining furniture was a deep mahogany, wonderfully matched to the shelves on the walls that had likewise been shrunk, the many specimens removed for the evening. She saw, now, that the walls were an off-white colour, and with the wooden floor peaking out from the gaps in rugs and cushions, the room looked more delicate and refined in design. The removal of the dim lighting, cramped appearance, and disturbing samples made the room much less frightening, and Hermione wondered if the usual aspects of the room were purely for his teaching persona, or merely signs of his interests. She frowned slightly.

"Has there always been a window here?" she asked.

"Yes," Snape replied. "I usually have it hidden."

"Why?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Because I have delicate potions ingredients in here, many of which are very valuable and sensitive to light."

She nodded, accepting his explanation, and he kicked off his shoes and shrugged off his outer robes.

"You'll want to get comfortable."

She followed his example, removing her warm outer robe and shoes, and following his example to seat herself cross-legged on one of the beanbags. To her surprise, the room was warm, pleasantly so, despite the fireplace not being lit and the room being in the dungeons. She made to question him, but one look at his face immediately caused her mouth to shut. He was looking almost as scary as Neville claimed him to be, and she shrunk in on herself, muscles tensing. Without warning, he closed his eyes, posture as perfect as she'd come to expect from the man. He folded his hands across his lap, and she imitated his actions, hesitating before she also closed her eyes.

Minutes passed.

What is the purpose of this?

Maybe if you shut up and let yourself experience it, you might understand.

But how do I know what to experience, if I don't know the point of the exercise?

"Stop thinking."

"How?" she asked.

"Just give yourself permission not to think. Remind yourself that you don't need to focus on anything, and let your mind go."

She scowled and fidgeted, but did as he requested, her eyes closing once more despite her irritation.

She focused on not focusing on her thoughts, eventually finding herself losing her task completely. Her mind took her on a journey - not focusing, hating that she wasn't managing to do the task as requested. Her feelings in Herbology when she couldn't match up to Neville's success, the worthiness that she had always strived for through her academic success. Wondering if her parents would still be proud of her if she didn't graduate at the top of her year. What grades did Snape get? Was he at the top of his year too, or did he merely have a talent for Potions? What had led him to pursue that particular study? Would she one day be able to master the subject as thoroughly as he had? Did she want to? What other studies did she want to pursue?

What career path did she want to take? Where did she want to live, what did she want to do?

The thought kept coming and then going, never settling, and Hermione started when a bell began to lightly chime.

"You can open your eyes now," a smooth baritone murmured quietly.

She opened her eyes, and straightened from the slumped position that she had fallen into. Everything was blurry, foggy, and it seemed like an age had passed. She had no concept of time, or real connect to the thoughts that had rushed through her, and her whole body hummed with a sense of true, undisturbed calm. Severus handed her a mug of tea, and she took hold of it carefully, aware of her every move.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"8 o'clock."

She frowned. "It's only been an hour?"

He chuckled softly. "Yes, Miss Granger, it has only been an hour."

"It seemed like I was in a trance. I thought hours had passed, or only minutes."

He nodded. "That was the aim we were hoping to achieve."

"To become disconnected from reality?"

"For a short time, yes. When you practice this, you practice allowing your mind to drift without your guiding it, to focus on the things that it needs to bring forth, and then to put them away as new connections are formed. After allowing your mind an uncontrolled reign for a period of time, when you resurface you find your thoughts to be less overwhelming. In short, you have more control over yourself and can maintain the same sense of calm for a while afterwards."

Indeed, her Professor did look calm, true calm. The calm that she usually witnessed him project was one of practiced control and discipline. It certainly wasn't a joyous calm, and now that was an apt way to describe him. He appeared almost...happy. Truly happy. Happy within himself, without requirement for an external cause. This lifted Hermione from her place of wonder and peace, and elevated her to a place of true beauty, watching as the frown lines became smooth and his lips lifted. The tension left his jaw, and his eyes were alight. He looked so much younger, younger than she ever would have expected.

She knew that he had been at school with Sirius and Remus, but the two of them had also aged long before their time. Now, she could see him as he was; an intelligent man in his thirties. Comfortable, he seemed so much more on the same level as her, and for the first time she felt that they were in the same age category to be considered friends, acquaintances, or colleagues. She felt that she could get to know him as a person rather than object of admiration or fear.

Hermione smiled softly as she drank her tea, and when their eyes met over their mugs, the light in his stayed. He smiled, too.

He saw her to Gryffindor Tower afterwards, and this became a habit in the month following. He would be his usual caustic self in front of others, snarking worse than usual even. She lost so many house points that it added to her infinite humiliation amongst the blatant racism and nepotism of the Wizarding climate. The world was shrinking around her, the school itself becoming more and more hostile by the day. Ginny and Neville alone continued to stand by her, the other students were either hostile or sympathetic. None of them were willing to help her, and so she drew closer and closer to the two Gryffindors. The others in their house were more likely to offer surreptitious smiles in the common room, but that in itself filled her heart with sorrow.

No, the light in the dark had become her sessions with Professor Snape. They had continued with a twice weekly regime, and with 8 further sessions under her belt, Hermione had started to look forward to their time together. After the learning part of the evening was over, Severus would discuss other subjects with her, often Potions although not limited to. They would generally talk about subjects that she was studying, and Hermione became more and more curious whether their interests were the same, or his pool of knowledge was large.

He would also come and find her if she'd locked herself in her chambers, be it from terror, fury, or simply a lack of noticing the time. He had taken to shooting paper aeroplanes from his window across to hers, only a couple of words at a time, but they made her smile.

In fact, she was wanting to hide in her chambers on one particular day, but was also frightened that any notes she would receive would be… strange, on this particular day.

It was February 14th, and breakfast was a noisy and raucous affair filled with giggles and blushes among the younger years, and some overly heated glances between the older students who lacked in all attempts at subtlety. Hermione was certain that she had learned of three new relationships that meal alone, simply by catching the phenomena of a classmate being undressed by another classmate's eyes.

She sighed softly into her tea, staring at her nibbled toast. Valentine's day was always a day that gave her a shot of sadness and longing, from a feeling of being left out at first, to a feeling of loneliness, and a hole inside her telling her that there must be something wrong with her, that there was a reason why no one wanted her. Too ugly, too frizzy, too bookish, too boring…

Too much mudblood.

The thought was pushed aside the moment it came into recognition. Professor Snape's tone as he had admonished her repetition of the Death Eater beliefs had cemented his beliefs very securely, and Hermione was able to trust in such a way that she couldn't trust herself. Without thinking, she looked up to find him at the head table.

He was scowling even more than usual, the frown almost hitting the untouched bowl of cereal in front of him. While the day so far was much more subdued than in some years previously (Professor Lockhart being a particular issue) the day was always a bitter reminder to anyone who was alone or unhappy that they were, well, alone or unhappy. Maybe even both.

Hermione cocked her head slightly. Was he alone? She'd never thought to ask; not that she thought he would answer. All she knew was that he and Professor Vector were most assuredly not an item. But, she mused, he was a young Professor, and quite attractive when he wasn't being a complete git… surely he must have someone?

Sadness seeping through her veins, a thought suddenly hit her - the Professors were in the castle on Valentine's Day, same as any other day in the school year. Yes, they would take an evening off every now and again - Hermione knew from her Prefect days that there was a rota for staff that would be bound to remain in the castle, and those who were free to escape. But that meant that many of the staff would be spending the day, and night, in the same halls as amorous teenagers unfocused on studying, and attempting to sneak out after curfew to get up to Merlin knows what…

Come to think of it, she'd never seen a Professor's significant other in the castle at any point, and yet she knew that some of them were married or otherwise entangled.

To her surprise, that was the moment that an owl landed beside the Professor's breakfast, sticking its leg out in a quite Snape-like fashion of irritation and dignity combined. Severus Snape stared the owl down for a few tense seconds before finally taking a letter tied to the bird's leg. This left another letter attached, and Hermione's brow furrowed, before seeing the creature hop over to the Arithmancy teacher and offering her the same treatment, only accompanied by a nuzzle as the woman handed it a snack.

The younger woman smiled, watching the owl fly away and leave the two cousins with matching red envelopes. Hermione supressed a laugh as she witnessed a shared eyeroll between the two before they opened their post in unison. Maybe from a relative then, a well meaning grandparent or aunt…

"Hey, Ginny?" Hermione prodded her sleepy friend.

"Yeah, 'Mione?"

"Have you ever seen a Professor here have a partner to come visit? For Valentine's day or such like?"

The ginger snorted. "Nope. Don't think that much about their boning habits to be perfectly honest with you."

"Ginny!" Hermione exclaimed, while Neville turned a nice shade of beetroot and choked on his bagel.

"What? They're adults 'Mione. They're gonna be boning someone. Maybe even each other…"

Hermione shuddered, thinking of the impropriety of Flitwick getting it on with Madam Hooch, or Dumbledore making a play for Professor Carrow. No, that was way too much horror to consider so early in the day, and she made her way to leave, determined to grab some study time before class.

Sadly, the large pink envelope brought to Ginny didn't escape Hermione's notice, and nor did the spiky scrawl on the front.

It was even adorned with a heart over the 'I'.

The day became steadily worse from there onwards, as Hermione broke a teacup from placing it down too roughly through her frustration at the dark text in her secret chambers. She growled, ripping spare parchments towards her as she furiously scribbled thoughts down only to screw them up into a ball and chuck them into the fireplace forcefully. No matter what she tried, it wouldn't work, and she was already on the verge of tears when a knock sounded on her door.

She ignored it, and the knocking continued.

"You'd better let me in," a familiar voice called. "Or you're going to find yourself in detention for a very, very long time."

Despite herself, Hermione snorted, and rose to her feet, opening the door in a fluid gesture of negative energy.

"Oh?" she asked. "I think that would be a lot worse for you than it would for me."

"Is that so? I'll simply have to step up my game where it comes to noisy, disrespectful Gryffindors."

She sighed, and bit her lip as she opened the door further to allow him in to the mess she'd created of her living room.

She felt an intense embarrassment shoot to her stomach as he took in the catastrophe of books, notes, stray quills, and a smashed teacup. Wordlessly, he set everything back to rights, seating himself in his usual spot and calling Spiffy to bring more tea.

"So, the Valentine nonsense, or simply PMS?"

She stared at him in shock, fighting the urge to hit him as her face coloured red and his lips twitched upwards.

"Why exactly are you here?" she asked coolly. "Come to make my day better?"

He snorted. "Actually, your noise has once more interrupted my time alone, which of course is very necessary when surrounded by fools more prone to idiocy than any other day of the bloody year. Children sneaking love potions or contraceptives. Teenagers engaging in lewd activities in the bushes…"

"Cock up your arse, or merely a hemorrhoid?" she shot at him, and his lips twitched once more.

"I can assure you, I've never walked the same road as Albus Dumbledore."

She sniggered. "Really? I always thought you two had a thing going… very close, you know? All that time alone when you'd give him report…"

"Alas, if I were on my knees, it was always for very different reasons."

She sighed softly, sobering at the thought of the reasons why he would give reports in the first place.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That was inconsiderate."

"Yes it was, but it was also funny."

He lifted up the now neatly organised pile of parchment and raised an eyebrow. "Can I assume that your frankly foul temper is due to this?"

She sighed, and nodded. "To be honest, I think the day itself doesn't help - I was in a bad mood already. But this has just tipped it over the edge."

He frowned and bit his thumb. "Is your translation spell not working?"

"No, the spell works fine. It's a more involved part of the text that I can't decipher. It appears to be written in some form of code."

He reached for the book. "Which page?"

"87."

If he was surprised by the topic, he didn't show it. He took a look at the page, eyes widening as he reached the passage that had Hermione in fits of frustration. "Have you tried a different translation spell?"

"Of course I have!" she snapped. "I've tried every possible language to translate to - all of them in the book from the library. Due to the age of the book, it is definitely and old text, however none of the old languages provided in Translation Spells have anything to offer. It's infuriating!"

He ignored her attitude, and twiddled a lock of his hair. "So it's probably a language not in the books - what makes you think that this is in any way written in code?"

She took a couple of deep breaths, and calmed herself to sit beside him and reach for one of the pieces of parchment where she had copied out the passage and began to mark it with notes. "The text contains letters from Anglais, Latin, and Ancient Greek. It doesn't form coherent words from any of the aforementioned languages. It also doesn't seem to be as simple as a basic replacement cipher - it isn't as though some letters have been interchanged for the foreign equivalent. Presumably, this would have required the user to have access to the code itself, or to have a device that will fix it into a readable format. All manual methods that I have tried have been incorrect."

He raised an eyebrow at her, hair tucked behind his right ear. "What exactly makes you a master of cryptography, Miss Granger?"

She straightened up and smiled as she told him haughtily, "I've attended Cryptography groups and seminars over the last three summers at my parents', along with Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics."

"That does not surprise me."

"You say it as if that's a bad thing," she said sadly.

"I'm not saying that knowledge is bad, Miss Granger, but it surely cannot be your only interest in life."

She shrugged, suddenly feeling very insecure. "I've never been that good at anything else. Academic pursuits have always been my place of comfort."

"And yet you are frustrated that you can't solve this?"

She felt tears well up in her eyes, and wiped her hand across them roughly. "It's not the puzzle that frustrates me, or the task itself. It's the fact that I'm not good enough to manage it, that I've spent so long learning and I'm still not good enough. I try so, so hard-" she broke off with a sob, and a handkerchief appeared in front of her and she choked out a laugh.

"I want this one back," he told her sternly. "I can't have you commandeering all of them, or what will happen if I catch a cold?"

She laughed again. "Then I can provide you with one for once."

He pressed a hand to his chest. "Providing me with one of my own handkerchiefs? I am touched by your generosity, Miss Granger."

With her eyes cleared up and her nose only slightly sniffly, she offered him a warm smile as she turned back to the parchment. "I don't even know where to start," she mused. "I can't even take this to the library to pursue, because I don't know what I am looking for. I've read all of the available books - there really aren't many at Hogwarts - and I know that none of them hold the answer for this. They're basic, very much so, and this is very much not."

He nodded consideringly. "I'd advise speaking to Professor Vector about this."

"Really?"

"Yes. She would be uniquely qualified here to help you. Arithmancy and problem solving are her area of expertise…"

Hermione slumped again. "I wasn't supposed to talk about this project with anyone," she told him. "Professor Dumbledore told me to keep it secret."

"And yet you've told me?"

That stumped her, and she froze before speaking. "You happen to be around every time that I need help. You have been… invaluable to me since my return to Hogwarts."

"Don't tell the first years that, they'll lose their fear of me."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

He handed her back the book, and patted her on the shoulder. "I'll ask Septima myself, out of personal curiosity, and let you know via the usual method if I have anything to share."

"I shall keep an eye out for owl-less post," she quipped. "Now you'd probably best go and actually relax before your reign of terror."

He paused, as if either reluctant or surprised at being dismissed in such a familiar manner. Then, he smiled, and grabbed the outer robe that he'd tossed onto her armchair.

"Then you'd best keep quiet, witch."

Her mood had been sufficiently lifted that when he left, she was able to return to her task with much more enthusiasm, and a lot less focus on the dastardly holiday and the misery that the day entailed.