December 15th
The last day of of term arrived and brought with it an abrupt change in the weather. Although the last few days had been eventful - at least, from the perspective of the students - they had also been rather dull and nondescript climatically speaking. However, the morning had brought crisp, clear air and a refreshing chill that promised a dry trip to Hogsmeade station for those pupils returning to their families for the festive season. The Hogwarts Express was also returning most of the adult visitors to their other lives; Harry, Ron, Cho and the other Quidditch players were heading back to London and then on to whatever work and Christmas had in store. The previous evening had, in fact, been the only proper reunion that the old school friends had achieved given the current demands on their time, and what had started as a quiet meet-up had quickly degenerated into a full scale party. Only the fact that Hermione had remained vaguely clear-headed enough to cast some well-timed, and much-needed, silencing charms, had prevented the wrath of authority in the dread person of Argus Filch from descending on them.
She refused to feel guilty about taking an evening off; in point of fact, a relaxed evening in the company of good friends had considerably lessened her feelings of tension and had provided the ideal opportunity to suppress any worrying feelings that might still be lingering from the Yule Ball two nights ago - although there had been the inevitable teasing about her dance with Snape. She had been a little surprised to find that whilst neither Harry nor Ron spoke of their former Potions Master with affection, most of the vitriol seemed to have disappeared.
"He was a git at school," Ron had said idly, "and I expect he still is one, but I hardly wake up every morning plotting my revenge on him. Voldemort is gone and life moves on. And you should be grateful. After all, I could have tried to console you like I did at the Valentine's Ball in our final year."
He had grinned wickedly and Hermione had felt herself blush. Cho and Ginny had immediately picked up on that and the story was told - at least, the heavily edited version - despite the apparent softening of his attitude to Snape, she hadn't thought that Ron was quite ready to know exactly who he had tried to kiss that night - amidst shrieks of laughter, and the conversation had moved on.
Memory, both recent and not-so-recent, now curved her lips into a smile as she negotiated her way down the main stairs, book in hand, through a melée of trunks and animal cages and milling children. At the foot of the stairs, looking for all the world like a policeman on point duty, was Peregrine Queroz. He was intent on trying to corral small groups of children so that they could be dispatched to the station; the children appeared to be equally intent on defeating him, darting here and there to exchange comments and insults with friends and enemies. Queroz's normal poise was beginning to look a little worse for wear and a Muggle phrase about herding cats came into her mind. He smile became wider as present amusement took over from past reminiscence.
He noticed her picking her way down the stairs, and paused to make an elegant small bow to her.
"Hermione, how lovely to see you. Please forgive the chaos." He gestured to the stairs and hall.
She finally made it to floor level and to within comfortable speaking distance of him.
"I see they've left you to it then."
He pulled a slightly comical face.
"Yes, indeed. Even Professor Snape was adamant that he had urgent house business to attend to this morning."
I'll just bet he did.
"Ah well, it'll all be over by dinner," she said encouragingly.
"And peace will descend," he added with a gentle smile.
"Oh yes," she agreed. "I must say, I do enjoy the castle more when it's quieter."
The last words were spoken with increasing volume, as something feline and something avian suddenly decided to engage in a competition to demonstrate whose dignity had been most comprehensively and loudly outraged.
Queroz looked regretful.
"I think I'd better erm...,"
She nodded.
"I think you'd better as well. It sounds as if it it's about to get nasty."
She was about to move away and then paused as Queroz lightly lad a hand on her arm.
"Are you staying here over the holidays?" he asked.
She nodded, although it was impossible to ignore the mayhem building up on the other side of the hall.
"Excellent," he said happily, "Shall I see you at dinner?"
She nodded again, as an ear-splitting squawk testified to the superiority of paw over beak when it came to launching offensive action through a confined opening.
"I'll look forward to that, at least," he said ruefully, and then darted over to deal with a pair of indignant familiars and tearful owners.
Hermione threaded her way to the edge of the throng and headed for the sanctuary of the dungeons. The rest of the day in the lab, and then a peaceful dinner in the Great Hall with Queroz; a very civilised start to the holidays, she thought. If nothing else it would distract from the Russian roulette of Snape's moods and the fact that she had absolutely no feelings whatsoever that she needed to conceal from him.
When she reached the lab she was surprised to see that the wards had already been removed. Given that Snape had pleaded urgent house business to avoid the supervision of the departing pupils, she had assumed that he would use the same excuse to stay out of the lab. Instead, when she cautiously opened the door, she saw a rack of neatly labelled sample bottles sitting on the edge of the workbench.
Curiously, she put her book down and picked up one of the bottles. It was labelled in Snape's hand, no more legible for being small. Even after ten years of only sporadic written contact, she could read his writing with surprising ease:
Shampoo/Rinse Base: cider vinegar; actives: thyme, cedarwood, nettle, sage.
She put it back and picked up another and read:
Shampoo Base: glycerin, jojoba; actives: cypress, cedarwood, rosemary.
Intrigued, she pulled out the stopper and sniffed at it. It was pleasantly herbal. Looking at the actives she guessed that it might be for oily hair although it was lacking the geranium or lemon that she might have added to give it a more feminine fragrance. She sniffed again. It definitely was rather nice, she thought, and somehow familiar although she couldn't place it; perhaps it was just that she had been working very closely with these types of ingredients. She was about to pick another bottle from the rack when a movement behind her disturbed her.
"I trust it meets with your approval," Snape said, with a touch of sarcasm.
She put the bottle down slowly and turned.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here today," she said carefully.
"Really?" He sounded surprised. "I was under the impression that you wished for me to 'come and do something to actually help'. Wasn't that how you put it. In fact," he consulted the clock in the room pointedly, "you appear to be somewhat late."
She gritted her teeth. Clearly the roulette ball had fallen into the section marked 'supercilious bastard' rather than the one marked 'responsive dancing partner.' She tried not to sigh. Or scream. Either would have worked for her.
"I was told that you had urgent house business to deal with this morning."
He raised an eyebrow.
"By whom?"
"Peregrine, if you must know. I saw him in the entrance hall as I was coming back from the library. Which, again if you must know, is the reason why I am later than usual."
She cursed herself for giving in to the temptation to explain her whereabouts to him.
" Professor Queroz," he gave the name a nasty stress, "is obviously the final authority on my commitments for the day."
Now, what did he have against Queroz, she wondered wearily, other than the obvious fact that he was the DADA teacher. She found that she didn't have the energy to push the point. He was here, apparently willing to help, and given the time pressure, she wasn't about to turn him down, no matter what sort of a mood he was in. She ran her hand through her hair.
"Shall we get on with it then," she suggested. "I need to start looking at facial masks. I think I can work on a variant of the basic moisturisers."
He nodded curtly and turned away, busying himself on the other side of the room.
The morning passed and as Hermione became more absorbed in her work, her irritation with Snape faded to the extent that her comments to him were more abstracted than irritated. Snape, concentrating in his turn, also appeared to become less touchy, so that by the time the house elves brought in a plate of sandwiches and fruit for lunch, their conversation was tolerably civil, if somewhat guarded.
As she picked through the grapes, and drank the coffee that had materialised, she could feel the pull of recollection, reminding her that once, sessions like this has been pleasant, relaxing, comfortable. She wondered when that had been lost; how it had been lost, and why she should be feeling such an acute sense of regret. Snape, himself, was absorbed in some property of his own coffee. She wondered what he was thinking. Part of her hoped profoundly that he wasn't counting the days until she would be out of his hair, although, she acknowledged, that he probably was. That same part of her was wishing that they could recapture at least some of the old ease; not all of it, of course not, that would be completely inappropriate and unwanted, no doubt. But just a little part of it, maybe.
She sighed, and the noise seemed to catch Snape's attention. To cover it, she coughed a little and then recalled that she had never answered his very first question to her.
"I must say," she started, a little awkwardly, "the shampoos seem very nice." A sudden thought struck her. "Are they the samples for the men's range?"
There was a grunt which might have been a yes.
"Have you been testing them as you go along?" There was enough scientific curiosity to justify asking the question, she thought a little wickedly.
There was another grunt, this time with even less enthusiasm.
"And?" she pressed.
"And I appear to be clean," he said eventually.
I'll take that as a ringing endorsement then.
December 16th
The coffee steamed, swirling into barely perceptible tendrils above his mug as the chill dungeon air defeated any heat from the stove. The disadvantage - one of the disadvantages, and he was hard-pressed to think of any real advantages - of this work on cosmetics was that no heat was generally required in the basic preparation; absent the usual blast furnace of burners under cauldrons, December came with a vengeance in these depths of the castle.
It was still early - very early - and frost patterned the high windows of the laboratory, fracturing the light into a diffuse haze; the ice fractals spread across the glass in an etched arc that denied any coherent view of the landscape beyond.
The sun was barely risen and what light did make it through the frost was pink-red with morning; Snape was working by candlelight at the moment, testing out some ideas that had come to him when he awoke. Combinations of scent and moisture, fruit-based exfoliates. He refused to speculate upon the reasons why his dreams now apparently encompassed the textures and combinations of skincare - and refused to consider whether this was indeed an improvement on nightmares of darkness.
The scent of coffee masked the less-than-pleasant odour of the mixture he was working on; the end result was subtle, faintly wooded with some citrus at the back of the scent, but this particular step on the route to the finished product was less likely to win prizes. The bowl in front of him was filled with a loosely cohesive dull white mixture which would, eventually, be a shaving cream.
Snape almost smiled to himself as he recalled Hermione's rather startled expression when he had reluctantly suggested adding this particular product to the lineup - she had blinked and asked what the point was; surely shaving was a chore that wizards dispensed with by magic? He had been certain that she was biting her cheek to stop herself from making some comment to the effect that only masochists - such as himself, for example - would actively choose to use a razor. They had had a similar conversation when discussing the women's products line-up, when she had included a foam in the list of products and then almost immediately dismissed it - a charm was considerably more effective.
Snape himself had had to bite his cheek to ask why, when charms were so much more effective, he had had to endure a procedure that still featured in his nightmares at the hands of her fellow students back ... then. He wondered whether Hermione had realised what he was thinking when she had added that some witches did experiment with Muggle options but, in general, not for long enough to make it worthwhile creating such products. They were, after all, short enough on time.
That discussion - on the product line up - had been almost their only conversation until yesterday. Perhaps it was the absence of students, perhaps it was simple inevitability, but at some point yesterday afternoon in the lab they had passed once again from awkwardness that bordered on hostility into a closeness that was at once more and less than friendship. Perhaps it was no more than understanding, as though some shift in atmosphere, in time, in actuality, had realigned them. As though something had cut through ten years of time without cutting through the experience of those ten years and had simply found the match again; the connection forged in an intimacy of adversity a decade ago.
Nothing particularly special had occurred - no trauma, no sudden crisis of realization; they had simply been working, and then had sat down for lunch.
A couple of comments about work had been exchanged as they started to eat, and then Hermione had fallen silent for the moment, watching him. He had assumed that she was looking for any indication that the samples he had tried were having an effect. He could, of course, have assured her on the point - he had made the damn things, after all. However, he hadn't been particularly inclined to begin to discuss whether his skin and hair felt any better than they had done with the soap he customarily used. Such a discussion would require him to admit that they did and he had rather thought she was having quite enough fun with the conversation as it was. Lunch had continued and with it the conversation ...
He picked an apple from the plate of fruit on the low table between their chairs, spinning it between his fingers idly. He considered various comments, thought of a number of things to say, then discarded each as painful small talk. He disliked the entire concept of small talk, avoiding it where possible, and regardless of that dislike was loathe in any case to begin to employ it with Hermione. They knew too much about each other to diminish that knowledge with superficiality; had known too much about the other, perhaps. He wasn't entirely certain they still knew each other, although the fundamentals were unlikely to have changed. His certainly hadn't; Hermione might, perhaps, have done - the decade after 18 would always be rather more affected by change than that after 38.
The morning's work had gone surprisingly smoothly; the irritable friction that had characterised their meetings - those that he had been unable to avoid - over the last few days appeared to have left on the Hogwarts Express, along with the students going home for Christmas. Work was a great leveller. He had been in two minds as to whether to come down to the lab today; he had work to do, marking and preparation for next term that he generally preferred to get out of the way at the start of the holidays. Once that was done, he was free to carry on with his own experiments, to follow his own research, without the constant refrain at the back of his mind that work remained to be done before the holidays were over.
Hermione seemed more relaxed, less inclined to pick a fight with him. The fact that his own more relaxed mood might have contributed to that didn't occur to him.
The coffee cooled as they sat in silence with their thoughts. A spark from the stove, crackling in the confines of the soot-black box, brought them out of their respective reveries, and Snape shook his head as he rose from his chair.
"Hermione, shall we?" he indicated the work before them with a sweep of his hand and, surprising them both, extended that hand to Hermione to pull her up out of her chair.
Before he continued with his own work, though, he peered over Hermione's shoulder to see how her work was progressing. The notes covering her desk were neat and precise, in familiar handwriting, and detailed a series of processes and ingredients. As with her other products, she had taken his original basic recipes
"Would the jasmine not work better in this sequence?" he asked idly, tracing a set of steps with a finger. Hermione glanced up at him over her shoulder, shaking her head.
"The combination doesn't work as well in the final scent. The difference in efficacy is minimal and, as this isn't exactly a cure for Crucio, the scent will matter more."
The methodical explanation, and the glance, fired the memories that had re-established themselves over the last few days. He had seen that expression, that glance, but on his own face. Looking down at him, not up.
"It's been a long time," he murmured, not quite aware that he was speaking aloud. A strange expression, almost quizzical, partly disbelieving, chased across Hermione's face. Then she nodded.
"Mmm," she said, a noncommittal sound that could almost be taken for agreement.
"Do you -" she stopped.
"Do I think about it?" he asked, and she nodded again. He paused for a moment's thought, looking carefully at her. In the end, honesty won out - she deserved it and he couldn't remember the last time he had felt even vaguely inclined to soften his responses.
"No, not really. Not until recently. It would be a waste of time and energy, and achieves nothing." He wondered whether she would expect him to ask the same but thought, perhaps, that she wouldn't. And she didn't, simply nodding yet again at his words.
That was where they had left the conversation, and lunch; work resumed in silence, a rather more comfortable silence than before, regardless of the somewhat unfinished topic. Perhaps because the conversation was unfinishable.
Another conversation had picked up in the evening, less personal and wide-ranging; Snape realised with a start, as he took a sip of coffee, that he had missed that sort of conversation - the rest of the staff were, of course, ready to converse if he chose to take them up on it. Occasionally he did so, but time and teaching and perhaps inclination had narrowed their interests such that conversations were, in general, predictable. He had missed the pleasure of a conversation that simply flowed without obvious limits or edges, that didn't inevitably return to a comfortable centre.
Snape shivered and crossed to the stove to pour himself more coffee; it was cold this morning.
December 17th
By the time she opened window number seventeen of her advent calendar, Hermione was actually beginning to believe that it would be possible to meet Parvati's deadline. The departure of the students had lessened not only the distractions, but also the sense of tension in the dungeons. Today had been - well, the only word for it was "pleasant". The warm, relaxed feeling of the previous afternoon had unexpectedly spilled over, and the day had been happily productive. And she had even been able to indulge in the luxury of leaving a little early to return to her rooms and change before dinner; hitherto, in the absence of a special occasion, dinner had simply served to punctuate one long lab session.
Changing for dinner necessarily entailed a shower - and a perfect opportunity to test the latest shampoo (bladderwrack extract and rosemary oil), conditioner (chamomile and orange flower) and cleanser (palmarosa, neroli, lemon, frankincense and Dead Sea Salt). It then led on to sorting out her laundry for the House Elves and - earlier today than usual - opening the door of the advent calendar. After that came clean, if not very elaborate robes, and giving her hair a thorough brush.
Although she habitually wore her hair tied back, it was still long and bushy, which meant that "a thorough brush" was a considerable undertaking. Taking an armful she swept it all over to one side and then divided off a small section, working with firm, even strokes from the ends up to the roots. The rhythm of it was soothing, allowing her mind to drift for perhaps the first time since she had arrived at the school nine days ago. In the helter-skelter of Quidditch matches, Balls and reunions, not to mention the worry of the impending deadline, it seemed as if she had been there longer. Certainly she felt curiously unsettled; far more so than she had been expecting even allowing for the fact that ten years had passed.
She sectioned off another piece of hair.
Maybe it was the fact that nothing seemed to have changed that much; that dislocating feeling that if she turned around without thinking Neville Longbottom would be lying on the floor with Draco Malfoy and his coterie laughing in the background. Neville Longbottom ... She started on the next section of hair. Neville Longbottom who had been single-handedly responsible for the most unnerving experience of her school career. And, if she was honest, probably the one with the longest lasting effect.
Recollections came, unbidden; moments of terror and frustration, moments of desperation, and moments like today where two people worked in quiet harmony, the almost physical pleasure of understanding without needing to be told. Recollections of hands, cutting, knife blade coming down in time with the brushstrokes, hair parted by hands not her own, stroking and holding...
She tugged abruptly at a tangle.
Well, she added, the experience with the longest lasting effect on me, at least if you count ongoing adolescent daydreams. It didn't appear to have had the slightest long-term effects on the other participant. Not, of course, that that was bothering her; it was more than reasonable to expect that he wouldn't want that referred to.
She moved on to the next section, pulling with more than usual vigour.
Yes, of course, it was reasonable. But courtesy might have dictated some acknowledgment that they were more than casual acquaintances. Not that one would expect courtesy from Snape, naturally. But still.
Her throat was tight and tears were stinging the back of her eyes. She put down her hairbrush and blinked angrily at the mirror. It was wholly illogical to be upset over the predictable - expected, even - behaviour of someone who had no particular reason to behave differently. It had to be a reaction to the strangeness of the situation, to the varied resonances of days past. Yes, that was what it was. Adrenaline coupled with fatigue and stress. Once the cosmetics were delivered she would feel better.
"This is ridiculous," she said aloud, taking a deep breath. "There's absolutely no reason why he should affect me in any way."
"If you say so, dear," remarked the mirror.
Hermione jumped, and then glared at the glass. She picked up the brush and returned to work.
It was ridiculous. And there was no reason why he should affect her. No reason why the memories of old understandings and old warmth and old touches should be any more that that; memories.
She came to the end of her ritual, and shook her hair. It fluffed out, crackling around her head from the friction of the hairbrush. She put down the brush and sighed. Maybe the memories were best left buried, but there was no denying that they had worked well together for the last couple of days. Perhaps they could end up friends. Of a sort.
XXXXXXXXXX
Dinner began promisingly enough. When she arrived in the Great Hall there was a spare chair next to Queroz - as there usually was, she wryly admitted - but for once this chair was also next to Snape, which meant that, for about the first time since she arrived, she was seated between Snape and Queroz. Not that this was a cue for a flow of witty banter from Snape; he ate his dinner in as much of a silence as if she had been sitting at the other end of the table. Perhaps it was just her imagination that the silence was less hostile that on previous nights.
Queroz, on the other hand, was his habitual charming self, ensuring that her glass was full, that she was happy with her meal and asking about her day in the lab. She had merely told him that she and Snape were working on a project together; she hadn't felt up to telling him that the project was a cosmetics line for a woman's magazine. There would be far too many explanations involved.
Over the course of the evenings, Queroz had got out of her that she was a lecturer in ethics, but that she retained an interest in potions and the history of magic in general. He had, no doubt, got the received standard version of her history from the other teachers, Minerva McGonagall in particular, who had always been poor at concealing her sense of satisfaction at the heavy Gryffindor bias in the defeat of Voldemort.
The meal finished and silver coffee pots began to appear on the table, together with tisanes and a novelty teapot in the shape of Hagrid's Hut, which appeared in front of Dumbledore. Hermione was expecting Snape to simply leave the moment he was able, but instead he reached for a pot and poured himself a cup of coffee and then, to her surprise, moved slightly towards her with a half gesture. She pushed her cup towards him, and he filled it.
"Thank you," she said softly and then added, "I thought you preferred your own coffee though."
"I do," he said shortly. "However, tonight I decided to remain in the Hall and suffer the House Elves' dismal attempts."
Small plates of sweetmeats were now appearing in front of the diners. Hermione pushed one towards Snape.
"Perhaps a petit four will make it more acceptable."
His face twisted.
"I doubt it," he said. "The addition of copious quantities of sugar in any form rarely improves coffee."
He fell silent again, and Hermione was left to speculate what had prompted him to stay. her speculations did not get very far before they were interrupted by Queroz on her other side.
"Hermione, might I ask you something?"
"Yes, of course. What is it?"
For some reason, Queroz appeared to have difficulty phrasing his request. He looked down for a moment and then directly at her, with a strange seriousness.
"Hermione, I know you are interested in all things magical. I was wondering ... that is to say, I have some etchings and I wondered if you would be interested in seeing them one evening."
She blinked.
"Etchings?" she echoed, in disbelief.
Beside her, it sounded very much like Snape was choking on his coffee.
"You are joking, aren't you?" she said after a moment.
Queroz looked confused.
"Why no. Whilst I was travelling last summer I happened to pick up a very fine set of the plates used in Norton's Ordinall of Alchimiy. I thought you might be interested in seeing them."
Hermione had to pause another moment to be sure that he wasn't joking and then she relaxed.
"I'd love to see them," she said warmly. "I'm sorry, I thought for a moment you meant ..." Queroz was looking at her faintly quizzically, "well, it doesn't matter what I thought you meant. I'd love to see the plates."
He looked relieved.
"And perhaps, afterwards, we could have some dinner, maybe? Here, or somewhere in
Hogsmeade? Whatever you wish."
Still rapt in the idea of seventeenth century alchemical engravings, Hermione missed a knowing look passing between Minerva McGonagall and Ermengarde Sprout.
"That sounds lovely," she said, "thank you."
"When would be convenient for you?"
Hermione thought.
"I'm pretty busy in the lab for the next few days, and I'm having supper with Minerva the day after tomorrow." She turned to Snape, who was breathing normally again, but scowling at an innocent petit four. "Severus, are we likely to need to work into the evenings over the next couple of days?"
"Why ask me?" he snarled. "I can't imagine you'll let a small matter of a previous commitment get in the way of your social life. Do as you please."
He viciously pushed his chair away from the table and stalked out of the Hall. Hermione was startled by his sudden change of mood and uncomfortably aware that Queroz was waiting for an answer.
"Um," she said indecisively, still looking in the direction that Snape had taken.
"Don't let him bother you," said Queroz gently. "I'm told he's always a vicious bastard."
"Not always," she said absently, "sometimes he's quite tolerable."
"If you say so." Queroz sounded frankly sceptical.
"Look," she said, making a decision. "This project only has another four days to run. After that I won't be so distracted. Suppose we leave it until then?"
"After that will be fine," he said, "I was hoping for your undivided attention anyway. I will look forward to it and I shall be counting the days."
