Since they were now colleagues, it was far easier to find a moment alone with Professor Granger-Weasley.
"Come in Severus," she said. It was early October, a Thursday evening. They'd been back at school for just more than a month now, and Severus had managed to slide back into his old position as Potion Master with alarming ease. Even establishing professional relationships with his former students on the faculty had not caused him too much bile.
"Who's on the pitch tonight?" asked Severus, watching her glance out her office window which overlooked the Quidditch Pitch.
"Gryffindor," she answered. "Harry's flying again …"
Severus followed her gaze. "Speaking of Harry…"
She studied him a moment and smiled thoughtfully. "What about him?"
"The night of the fire…after the children were out…he tried to go back again."
Hermione's gaze turned, if possible, even more thoughtful.
"And you think I know why?" she asked carefully, unwilling, it seemed, to show her hand.
Severus waved his wand at a small ottoman and transfigured it into a solid straight-back chair with a comfortable cushion. He turned it around in front of her desk and straddled it backward.
"You know," he said, "because you read. You would have wanted to borrow his books…you would have picked them up while you were there."
Hermione's eyes had widened in surprise, then narrowed in concentration.
"He showed you?"
"No," he put out quickly. "I was there just the one time, at Christmas when Albus was sick, looking for something to read while he napped."
"He was very thorough…obsessed, almost. Did you….?" She stopped, looking at her colleague shrewdly.
He sighed. "Most Potente Potions? Yes. I did."
"Why are you telling me this now?" she asked, still regarding her old Potions professor carefully.
"I need your help. I am hoping you could help me determine the titles I need."
"You want to rebuild it," she said. If she was surprised, she didn't let it show. "It will be a huge undertaking—he started collecting them right after the war."
He nodded. "I have already contacted the Prophet and have ordered back issues going back 12 years. I know he had Muggle and other wizarding sources as well, but those will have to be filled in when the first task is complete."
"This will mean the world to him," said Hermione. She had been watching Harry carefully of late. She was reasonably sure that Severus and Harry, though they had certainly become firm friends since the fire, if they weren't friends before that, had not crossed the invisible line between friendship and…well…something more.
"He was willing to risk his life to get back in there...at least in the heat of the moment." He had risen from his chair and was staring out the window toward the pitch now. "I am glad he still has flying." He left unsaid he seems to have lost nearly everything else.
Hermione hesitated. "Severus…it's been well over a year now since the accident. I would think enough time has gone by."
"He's still mourning," answered Severus without hesitation. He did not bother to challenge her unspoken assumption.
"He's not mourning Ginny," countered Hermione.
He turned toward her, regarding her carefully, then looked out toward the pitch yet again, watching the flyers sweep low and high, watching one particular shape as it arced and spun and dove at dizzying speeds. He turned and removed a roll of parchment from his robe and approached Hermione's desk.
"I've made a list….of people who seem to have some importance in Harry's life." He handed her the roll and she spread it out on her desk, smiling as it lengthened. "I have attempted to add a book title or at least a category behind each name. You knew Harry well these past years. Perhaps you could edit this list for me?"
"I'll sign another copy of Hogwarts," she said quietly as she scanned the list. She got to the bottom and looked up at her colleague. "Can you give me until this time tomorrow?"
He nodded. "You will keep this just between you and me, will you not?" he asked.
"Ron knew about his library," she said carefully. "It might be helpful to include him."
He nodded. "Thank you." He was nearly at the door when Hermione stopped him with a question.
"Has he told you about Ginny?"
Severus turned around.
"No," he answered. "Though it is clear that theirs was not the type of marriage I thought it would be."
Hermione stood and walked to the window, looking out over the pitch as she spoke.
"They were very young when they married, and Ginny soon found that being married to the Boy Who Lived wasn't everything she dreamed it would be. I think she wanted to be known for her own talents and abilities, not just for being Mrs. Harry Potter." Hermione paused to watch a figure streak across the Quidditch pitch, then turned back to look at Severus.
"Harry didn't want to play Quidditch then. He wanted to settle down and raise a family—he wanted all the things he'd always been denied—a home, a family, safety and security. But Ginny wasn't ready. He didn't follow up on the try-outs he was offered—he went to the MLE instead. His position made it easier for her to get try-outs…not that she wasn't a brilliant chaser. She was."
"Harry didn't want her to play Quidditch?" Severus had taken an involuntary step toward his former student.
Hermione shook her head. "No, not really. It took her away from home for long periods at a time. But she did play, for all of their married life, in fact. Ginny took a leave from the Harpies to have James and Albus. She wasn't at all happy about it, and after Al was born she'd been replaced by a new upstart and was bumped to the reserve spot. I think she blamed Harry for that. He was so taken with those children. She got pregnant again a year later, but this time kept flying. She lost that baby…miscarried… and Harry was devastated. When she got pregnant with Lily, he insisted she quit. She did."
Severus stared at her, trying to put together this puzzle of a marriage. Hermione had sat down at her desk again and was looking intently at the scroll he had prepared.
"There's more…?" he asked.
"Yes..." she began, then seemed to think better of it and closed her mouth. He waited patiently. Finally she sighed and looked up at him.
"She came to me when Albus was a baby. She told me about Harry's …" She stopped, apparently struggling with the words, then swallowed and looked Severus in the eye. "She told me about Harry's obsession with you." Severus took a step backwards and straightened his back.
"Obsession? I hardly would say that Harry had an obsession…"
"She found the book. At that time, it seems he was only keeping the one. He was cutting articles out about everyone, but you were the only one who merited a book."
Severus' mouth dropped open and he made an effort to close it.
Hermione smiled. "Harry tried to cover. He told her that Most Potente Potions was the first of many to come…that he had plans to document all of his friends' lives. But I don't think Ginny believed him. It did seem odd that when documenting his friends' lives, he would start….." her voice trailed off. Severus finished for her.
"With me."
She gave him a significant look.
"She wrote to me once," said Severus. He had sunk back down onto his transfigured chair. "Before they were married. She said he was shouting my name in his sleep. I wrote back to her from Patagonia…I told her it was natural. I was a Death Eater. He watched me kill Albus. He was there when I nearly died."
He was lying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, bleeding profusely, gasping for air and hoping beyond all hope that the damn bezoar would work in time, that the coagulants he had taken before coming to his master would kick in before he bled to death. Unbelievably, Potter's face had swum into focus above him and he'd managed the strength to grab onto him, to pull his face down toward him. Potter's face….he'd looked 100 years old that day… There wasn't much time…so he'd forced the memories out of his very pores, out at the boy, all the knowledge Albus told him to share, told him the boy needed in order to defeat the snake-Lord. And Potter had taken it, held him, held his eyes while from behind him the Granger girl had gathered the memory strands into a vial while Potter's fingers dug into his shoulder, while Potter's weary green eyes—Lily's eyes—held his own.
When it was over, when he was able to inhale lungfuls of the stale air of the old house, Potter lowered him to the floor.
"I'll be back when it's over," he whispered. "Hold on."
Hermione had handed him the scroll after dinner in the Great Hall the next evening. Harry was living in the castle now, with the children, and while Lily still clung to Harry and didn't wander about, James and Albus had become favorites among the teachers. Albus found an unlikely home in the Potions lab. He'd sit on a stool across from Professor Snape, watching the cauldron boil, occasionally being allowed to stir or to add ingredients. Mostly he watched and asked questions. And mostly Severus worked and answered them.
Harry had learned to check first with Severus if Albus had gone missing. Severus never sent him home. He kept him in the dungeon until Harry fire-called or came down in person to fetch him. Curiously, while Albus was with him, Severus was never reminded of James Potter, as he had been in the "Harry at Hogwarts" years, even though Albus resembled his grandfather almost as closely as his father did.
So this evening, as Severus unrolled the parchment from Hermione at his desk, he was not surprised to see Albus' head poking around the corner and then hear the stool being scooted across the stone floor toward the simmering cauldron on the tabletop.
"Dreamless Sleep for Madame Pomfrey," he said before the boy could ask. Albus closed his mouth.
"Is it s'posed to be purple?" asked the boy after a moment.
"Extremely purple," answered Severus. "How is the boil now?"
"Rolling," answered Albus, quickly.
Severus checked the timer on his desk. "Watch it for four more minutes. When the timer goes off, I'll turn off the flame and you may stir the potion, slowly, for one minute."
"Clockwise or counter?" asked the boy, picking up a stirring rod and practicing the required motion in the air.
Severus smiled. Vaguely, he wondered if Harry would have known to ask…even now.
"Clockwise," answered Severus softly. He returned to his scroll, knowing that the boy wouldn't touch the potion until he heard the timer. Hermione had edited the list rather heavily, crossing out a few names and adding others, but only one name surprised him. Next to Charlie Weasley, beside Dragon Breeds of Africa, she had written in "Draco Malfoy."
He looked at the name, stared at the name. Draco Malfoy had been saved by Harry Potter during the final battle and in turn, his mother had saved Harry. Draco and Potter had never been friends, but at the end, Potter had pulled him from the fiendfyre that consumed the Room of Requirement. He knew Draco was married now, and the father of a boy Albus' age. He wondered if Harry and Draco had any contact.
The timer on his desk went off and Albus looked up at him expectantly. Severus spelled the fire off and watched as the boy carefully stirred the potion—clockwise, of course. While he looked amazingly like his father, except for the surprising smattering of freckles across his nose, it was hard, at times, to see his father in him.
"Done!" exclaimed Albus as another timer went off.
Severus looked up just as Harry Potter walked into the room holding Lily, with James trailing behind him carrying a small broomstick.
"Helping Professor Snape again, Al?" he asked, walking over to sweep his small son off the high stool. He looked down into the potion and squinted at it.
"Dreamless sleep, Severus?" He looked inquiringly at the potions master.
"Right in one, Potter," answered Severus as he rolled up his parchment and tucked it into a drawer.
"Can we ask him now, Dad?" asked Albus in a whisper loud enough for Severus to hear.
"Sure." Harry glanced over at Severus. Severus let his gaze travel from Harry to the boy.
"It's my birthday on Sunday. We're having a party at th' Burrow." He looked at Severus expectantly. Surely he didn't want…
Harry's face struggled to suppress a smile as he watched a look of abject horror cross Severus' face before he replaced it with his patented look of calm neutrality.
"Indeed?" he responded. "And how old will you be?"
"Six!" exclaimed Albus. "We want you to come! Dad said it was fine and I already asked Grandma Molly but you can't wear black 'cuz it's a birthday, not a funeral…that's what Uncle George says anyway…"
"I…I…" Severus looked from Albus' excited face to Harry's amused one. Even James looked excited.
"We do want him, don't we James?" Albus turned to his brother, pleading.
A very Weasley-like grin lit up James' face. "Sure!" he said. "You'll bring a present for Al, won't you?"
All three Potter men looked expectantly at Severus.
"I will be there." Al's face lit up in a big smile and Harry looked a bit relieved.
"2 o'clock, then?" said Harry. "You can floo from our quarters."
Severus nodded. He was becoming a weak, sentimental old fool, going to children's birthday parties. He wondered briefly how many Weasleys there were nowadays and where he was going to get something to wear to the party.