A/N: I'm sorry, I realized I haven't put up my usual disclaimer. This story is, like all the ones I post, completed on my hard drive and just waiting to meet you. Expect an update everyday or every other. :) Reviews make me happy, and are the only method of payment I receive for my attempt at entertainment. Enjoy!

Chapter Three

Severus pulled the chain over the bowl and felt the never-used-to sensation of being twirled down the toilet and into the Ministry. The case he was working on wasn't going to solve itself and he had to retrieve some files from Animagus Registration.

As he billowed his way down the center of the hall, he caught the faintest glimpse of a familiar brown mop. One curl, really, but it was all he needed. Hermione Granger was here and he got the feeling she knew he was here as well. But contrary to her usual behavior, she didn't run to him, she ran away. Odd.

Shrugging, but curious, he detoured from his path and followed down the side hallway where the curl had gone. He hoped he hadn't offended her when he saw her last.

Nothing was to be found around that corner, but he could still smell the latte and Sleakeazy's that meant Granger. As a receptionist peered curiously at him, he stopped, pretending to be lost and engaging her in conversation, keeping an eye out for his curl. Sure enough, after a moment had passed, he saw the brown shade out of the corner of his eye as it hovered for a moment and then darted again down a different hallway.

He felt like it was a game of cat and mouse. But was he the cat? Or the mouse?

He followed her again down the hall, keeping an eye of the back of her bushy head through the throng of people, stopping this time at the men's to watch her. Surely, she wouldn't follow him there. After relieving himself, he quickly slammed the door open as though he was starting a Potions class and off went the brown haired mouse. What in the name of Merlin was she doing?

Snape walked up to the nearest corner. Ever so slowly, he peered his head around the corner, only to see the brown eyes Miss Granger peering back around the wall.

His eyebrow rose.

She gasped.

Her head disappeared and once again she was off.

Deciding he had enough of this, Snape turned back where he came from to retrieve his files. Miss Granger WAS an odd duck, and she would eventually tell him if she needed him for something.

Surely she couldn't be angry with him. Surely.

He knew she was following him while he flipped through the relevant files on rabbit transformations – only an Anigamus would leave messages in someone's carrots, he assumed – but she never spoke up and so he ignored her.

Back at Grimmauld place, Hermione was sipping tea with Sirius, trying to calm herself. It was kind of him to invite her back to review her work on the portrait. She knew she would get it removed soon and needed to check the space for hexes and curses. Well, spell curses, at least. She knew very well there were verbal ones to be found. Damn portrait.

Grabbing a bite to eat was first on her mind because she hadn't ate one speck all day. She spent it following Severus, and she had no idea why. The wizard must think she was barmy. But it wasn't her fault, truly.

She had walked into the Ministry, fine as you please, when she saw him stepping out of the Floo. Something about the billow of his robes and the flippant toss of his hair called to her. She had to follow him. But she still didn't know why. Not wanting to seem like a crackpot, she stayed out of his sight. She had thought. Who was she to think that she could out spy the master spy himself? The game was up when he followed her down to the men's room. No one ever came down that hall on account of the exploding toilets, and as she expected, peering back to see if he was still following her, who should be staring back but those fathomless black eyes? So she did what any good Ministry trained, war hardened heroine would do.

She ran for it.

Now sitting in Sirius's parlor, it all seemed quite silly. Following Snape. What a notion. Quite off her rocker. She was going to have this cuppa, and settle down for a few hours of curse breaking. She had no idea how to explain her behavior if he asked her. Oh god. He was going to ask her about it, she just knew it.

"How are you feeling, Hermione?"

A shrill squeak was barely sequestered as Sirius startled her out of her musings. "Oh! Fine. Fine, really. Okay, well, not fine, but as fine as can be under the circumstances I suppose, so fine."

"I'm going to assume that's not fine," said Sirius as he sat next to her on the sofa, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Tell Sirius all about it."

Releasing a deep breath, Hermione told him. About feeling restless and twitchy, and how she was acting on all sorts of strange behaviors. She felt odd and unsettled and had no idea why.

Sirius sat back against the couch as though pondering her problem. He knew it was the effect of his spell. She wouldn't completely feel herself again until she was with Harry. There had to be a way to make that happen.

"Well, Harry is your best friend, Hermione. Perhaps he is better suited to talk to you about this. Let me go see if he is free."

Great, even Sirius though she was crazy.

Harry came through a few minutes later, looking freshly clothed and brushed with Sirius behind him, flattening out a few wrinkles from the back of Harry's robe. Harry plopped down next to his friend without so much as a 'hello' and waited for her to tell him her problems. It wasn't very often that he could be her shoulder for a change but if she allowed him to be, he would.

With another sigh – why did she have to completely repeat herself? Couldn't she get a Dictoquill or something? – she ran through the entire story again with Harry. The strange feelings, the smells, the quirks. But the end of it, Harry was looking quite alarmed.

"And you're not, you know, in a family way?"

Hermione just glared.

"Right. Well. Have you been on the wrong end of someone's wand?"

"Honestly, Harry," she told him as she rolled her eyes, "I'm a curse breaker. And I'm practically a hermit. When I'm out, I'm with you or Snape. Have you seen anything suspicious?"

Harry deflated. "Well, no. What about Snape?"

"I have no idea," said Hermione with a shrug and a nervous titter. "I haven't really talked to him much lately. Just a bit while I was in Flourish's and feeling a bit off but it wasn't for that long, and he probably thinks I've gone round the twist after I kept following him at the Ministry today."

"I'll Floo him. We should talk to him. If anyone has noticed anything, it's Snape."

Neither heard Sirius huff behind them. Blast them and their idea to call Severus! That man was worse than a werewolf when it came to sniffing out something, and he was the last person Sirius wanted around. Something wasn't right between him and Hermione and if Sirius didn't know better, he would say Snape was interested in the girl. But that was preposterous. Snape only had eyes for Lily.

Then again, Sirius himself mused on the similarities between his departed friend and Hermione.

Dammit.

"You know you can call him Severus now, Harry. He isn't your professor. In fact, you have more seniority in the Ministry than he did. And do you really need to talk to him? We could just send him an owl or something…"

"Snape must be a very busy man," added Sirius.

Harry crossed his arms in a way that let Hermione know they were not going to win. He could be worse than Molly sometimes, and you'd never know he didn't grow up with the overbearing matriarch.

"What if you get worse? Every day it seems as though things have changed for you, and I'm not going to risk your health because you are feeling bashful. You two have been partners, there is very little about you he doesn't already know."

Hermione thought about that one time, frantically changing her robes in front of him after being splattered with a dungbomb as she and Severus were chasing a subject. If only you knew, she thought.

"Fine. Do your worst."

Once again the fire glowed green as a harried looking Snape came through, unbending his tall frame as he stepped out of the small grate. "I was summoned?"

"Yes, Snape. Something seems to be wrong with Hermione."

Severus gave her a cool once over. "I had noticed."

"You had noticed? What do you mean you had noticed? There is nothing wrong with me!" spat an angry Hermione, though her eyes never left his face. She couldn't mention it, but the tingles and chills and sense of plain wrongness left as soon as she saw Severus.

"It's a commonplace behavior for you to be following people around the Ministry? You're a Gryffindor. You don't follow anyone. You chase them."

She gave him a glare but remained silent. Briefly, Harry touched on all the issues that she had been experiencing over the past few days. And of course, Snape asked the exact same questions. Had she been injured? Was anyone mad at her? A client, perhaps? Had she seen anything or held anything unusual lately?

No, no, no, and no. Nothing had been out of the ordinary. She had met Harry for lunch, gone to work, come here, picked up a few books and went to the Ministry. She noticed the unusual behavior after dining with Harry, but nothing was wrong with him.

No one had noticed during this part of the investigation that Sirius had slipped away.

Snape sat down in front of Hermione, slowly taking her hands in his, ignoring Hermione's soft sigh. He gazed at them intently, before feeling up her arms, her neck, and her face. "I don't see anything," he murmured, soaking in the velvet of her freckled skin, and the silken feel of her chestnut tresses.

"I feel like I'm going to faint," she told him, a flush rising to her cheeks.

He quickly backed away and resumed his formal posture. "Would it be alright if I wand scanned you for Dark magic?"

"Of course, Severus. Of course. You know I trust you."

As Hermione was being evaluated by her partner and questioned by her friend, Sirius watched them from the doorway. Harry was looking particularly fine tonight in the new robes Sirius conveniently had after Harry's unfortunate spill coming through the fireplace, but Hermione barely noticed. Harry's hair was mostly tame, and his eagerness shown out of him like a light from his arse. But nothing from the witch.

But he knew. He could tell how she perked up when Snape touched her. He knew that hitch in her breath, that pause of her heart. He knew it. But what he didn't know was why it was for Snape and not for Harry. Or what to do about it.

After everyone had settled down, Snape remained with Hermione on the sofa, Harry sitting on the floor nearby and Sirius sulking in the doorway. They sat talking for some time, Hermione's hand resting gently on Snape's thigh, Snape himself silent.

He watched the hand on leg. That delicate hand with the long tapered fingers. That forbidden hand. The hand touching him, without provocation. He could fall in love that hand.

Hermione grew silent as she noticed Severus wasn't participating in the conversation. "Severus?" she called gently. "Are you with me?"

"Always," he automatically responded. "And I have something for you."

Interest piqued, Hermione sat up a little straighter, removing her hand from his person. Snape reached in to an inner robe pocket, removing a small box. Taking it slowly, Hermione looked it over before opening.

Inside laid a black leather cord with a natural stone pendant. It appeared to only be polished and its green glistened in the firelight. "Severus, it's beautiful. It is jade?"

"It is," he affirmed. "Taken from the lay line around Beijing. Known for its protective properties and its unusual dark green color. When Potter told me you had been experiencing some trouble, I brought it with me, hoping you would wear it."

"Of course I will," she told him and lifted her hair for him to fasten it around her neck.

Sirius almost growled from the doorway, witnessing the display in front of him. Why Snape? Why? Did the girl not even realize what was happening?

"That's a pretty rare gem, Snape."

Snape agreed. "Albus gave it to me."

A strange silence descended and not even Sirius asked why Dumbledore had seen fit to offer such a rarity to Snape. A rarity with strong magical protections.

The three men knew what it meant that he was passing something of such significance along to Hermione. Hermione, for once, was the one without a clue and Harry didn't feel the need to inform her right then.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather keep it?" she inquired.

"I'm sure. It needs a new home. I can watch after myself for a while. You need someone to watch after you for a change."

She gave him a slow smile while fingering the small stone's rounded edges. "Thank you, then. It's lovely, and I'm afraid I'll put it to more use than I should."

"Of that I have no doubt."

Hermione rolled the stone around in her hand, trying to suss out her emotions.

Soon her hand found its way back to Severus's thigh, Sirius found his way to the liquor and Harry found his way home.