Chapter Six: In Which We Go on A Date

Half an hour later, Hermione was sitting in the Three Broomsticks wearing a compromise outfit. Flattering slacks, a moderately daring sweater, and her hair long and loose had finally bridged the gap between putting it all out and hiding it all away.

She had sat where she could watch the door. At the stroke of 7:30 it opened, and she was disappointed to see it wasn't him. Then she was shocked to see it was. He was older now. Well of course he's older; it's been seven years. A little gray had begun to show at his temples, and what shocked her more, his hair was stylishly cut and clean. Really clean, squeaky clean. His nose was still large and hooked, but in her mind's eye it was enormous, dominating his whole face. Now it was just a nose. More wrinkles lined his eyes and mouth, but the hard, perpetually angry lines had softened with time. He was wearing blue and khaki, not a trace of black on him. Granted, he wasn't handsome, but he wasn't the horror show she had expected, either.

He smiled (Smiled!) at her. "Hello."

She sat gobsmacked for a second and then composed herself. "Hello, back. Please sit down." They looked at each other for a moment.

Finally he spoke: "Would you be more comfortable if I looked like this?" and the Greasy Git of her memory was back, and then gone.

"How did you do that?" Her eyes widened.

"It's a kind of reverse glamour I always used to use on you Gryffindors. It helped to keep you in check during class. You should have seen what Moody looked like to the Slytherins."

"I'll admit that's how I remember you." Although it wasn't quite, something was missing, but she wasn't sure what exactly, probably the black fluttering robes. "But I like this view better."

He smiled gently. "I happen to like this version of me better as well." Rosmerta came around to take their order and managed to keep from staring too blatantly at them.

"Sooo…" he said.

"Yes."

They sat in an awkward silence. She decided to bite the bullet. "I'm not really looking to get married, but I love my job and don't want to leave."

He looked back at her. "Cards all up front at once, then?" He took a sip of his drink. "I'm also not interested in getting married, but I like my life, I like my comforts, and I don't want to give them up. I'm not interested in learning French, and as much as I keep thinking about Australia…"

He trailed off when he saw her eyes go wide, "What?"

"I'd been thinking about moving to Australia as well. I moved my parents there when we went after Voldemort, and they liked it so much they stayed."

"Well that would have been a laugh. Both of us leave Britain and end up there."

"Why Australia?" she asked, genuinely curious as to what about it would attract Snape.

He smiled at her again, "Sunshine, beaches: I thought I might take up surfing." The image of him on a surfboard was amazing but plausible to her. Then the image of the Greasy Git on a surfboard, robes billowing in the ocean breezes, flitted through her mind. The resultant laugh and swallow caused her to choke on her drink.

When she could breathe again, she said, "You're kidding right?"

He smiled yet again. Who on God's Green Earth knew he could do that? Hell, who knew he had teeth? "It has been known to happen."

"Forgive me for saying this, but not by any of us."

"True." He gave her an explanatory gesture. "It wasn't like being your best professor pal would have been a particularly good idea. Albus wasn't very good at keeping people who would report back to the Dark Lord about me out of Hogwarts. And when you begin teaching at the age of twenty, they make sure you don't fraternize with the students."

"I do know that." She certainly remembered a very stern conversation with McGonagall about how many of the seventh years were not all that much younger than she was, and most of them thought she was a hero, and she was not, under any circumstances, to become too familiar with any of them, especially the boys, but these days the girls could be trouble, too.

"What are you teaching?" he asked as Rosmerta deposited their drinks.

"Arithmancy, and for a few of the very best seventh years, basic wandless magic."

"I had been wondering a bit about that since I read your book…" And from there the conversation wandered into esoteric magical theory.

An hour later Hermione became aware of the time. "I'm sorry, but I have to meet Harry at nine."

"How is the Prat Who Lived?"

Her eyelids lowered slightly, "He's doing lovely. He teaches the position you once wanted oh-so-badly."

"Girls Quiddich?" he asked with an entirely straight face.

Hermione blinked hard, and then began to grin. "Who are you?"

"That, I think, is something you may get to spend the rest of your life figuring out."