Severus stayed in Miss…Professor...Granger's care for several days while his bones finished mending and he worked to regain the muscle strength in that wing. During this time, he was astonished, to say the least, when he learned about the woman that his former pupil had become. First of all, she was nothing but kind and caring to the stray bat that she had rescued. He had never been as pampered in his life as he was for those first few days under her watch. She held him, stroked him, and called him a handsome fellow – Him! - all while she fed him juicy exotic fruits that she had apparently acquired in trade from Longbottom.
Yes, he was quite aware of the irony that the fruits of that particular boy's labor were kept him alive and well. The lad had been a disaster in the potions lab as a student, but Severus had to grudgingly admit that he was definitely more than just proficient with his work in the greenhouses. After all, the fruit that came from his personal stock was leaps and bounds better than the general stock that he normally received from Lonny and the other house elves. He only wondered what Granger had to give up in return for such bounty.
Surely she didn't….? They weren't…? Severus had to wonder - especially since he had seen Longbottom out on the grounds and in the greenhouses many times when he had been out flying. Even he had to admit that the boy…the man…was quite different from the terrified, chubby nuisance that he had once tried to teach in class.
Therefore, maybe he and Granger really were together now. They had always been friends, after all. He rationalized and his curiosity flared as he vowed to find out…even as the thought caused a strange little niggle of displeasure in his gut for some reason.
Consequently, he was quite pleased when Longbottom visited Hermione's room himself one day to deliver some more fruit for the recovering invalid. It was then that Severus realized that his fears about a relationship between the two Gryffindors were groundless. After all, the lad could not even go five minutes without a mention of Miss Abbott, his apparent paramour.
Meanwhile, during his recovery, Severus also attended class with Professor Granger. He would joyfully glide down the corridors and stretch his wings (since it was entirely too cold and stormy to exercise them outside) before he joined her in the classroom on the special perch that she had magicked up just for him. It was there that, after being around people again for the first time in five years, he learned a few things about himself.
The first was that he did not hate the society of others as much as he thought he did. After all, he found that he could tolerate Professor Granger much easier as an adult than he had ever been able to while she was a student. Also, surprisingly, he realized that he did not even mind being around children again, either. In fact, as he watched Granger teach, he was finally able to admit for the first time that he had been a right bastard as a professor!
Of course, he had justified it back then by with the argument that he had to put up a bit of a front for the Slytherins. Yes, that was partially true. However, in reality, he knew that he had simply liked the feeling of power that he got from putting the students – especially the Gryffindors – in their place. However, he did not have to use the Muggle practice of psychoanalysis to know that it was a knee-jerk reaction to the bullying that he himself had experienced from James Potter's Gryffindor gang. He also knew that it had been worse when the man's son had come to Hogwarts. The boy had simply reminded him too much of the father…and Severus had made him pay for his father's sins against the boy that he, the professor, used to be. He had also included the boy's friends in that payment plan, as well. Then he remembered how, despite all that, the boy and the girl still tried to save his life that night in the shack. At that realization, the little worm of guilt that Severus had been feeling around Granger suddenly grew to snake-size, instead.
While he watched from his perch while Professor Granger taught her classes, he was surprised when he often felt a…pang…for what could have been. After all, the woman's teaching style could not have been more different from his own! In her classroom, the same one he used to preside over, she made continuous rounds while the students worked. She checked on each and every student's progress while she also offered words of encouragement and/or advice - instead of the acidic remarks that he would have found necessary to impart. As a result, her classes thrived. There was no other way to describe it. He had observed lessons from all years..and all Houses...and they were all successful.
Even when her own version of Longbottom, a young lad she politely addressed as Mr. Dornoon, blew up a cauldron, Professor Granger just sighed and vanished the mess. Then, instead of yelling or berating the boy, she simply asked him what went wrong. When he could not tell her, she had him go back through the steps one at a time until he told her that he had added an entire spider eye instead of a pinch of a powdered one. He then smacked his own forehead in disgust when he realized his mistake. The professor did smile slightly at that action, but she did not laugh. She did however tell the boy that he would need to join her in the potions lab that evening – not because he was in trouble, but because he needed the practice to learn how to brew that particular potion correctly. The boy simply nodded because he knew it was the truth and it was evident that he bore his teacher no ill will in the process.
Severus had to admit that the entire situation had been handled smoothly from beginning to end without any raised voices, laughter, or jeering from anyone. What made it even more amazing to him was the fact that Mr. Dornoon was a Slytherin...and a cousin of the Malfoy family. Severus knew that Granger had far more reason to hold a grudge against that House and that family than most…and yet she had treated the lad just like she had the Lions that she had taught in the previous class.
In fact, one of the Gryffindors – a lass, at that – was also told to come to work on her potion again in the evening when she could not get the thickness right, no matter what she did. Therefore, it seemed as if no favoritism or special treatment occurred in this professor's classroom. It was all unexpected enough that it certainly made Severus pause and reconsider…well…a lot of things actually. However, it was the first time that he had ever really wondered if he could have done things differently in the classroom. Would things have been better if he had treated all of his students the same? After all, even if Slughorn did play favorites with the students who were influential in some way, he was always at least fair to the rest of the students, as well. After all, he had even given young Severus a chance!
Bat Severus watched the Granger girl…woman…in her chambers, as well. He soon realized that he had never been in a position to casually observe a woman at leisure in her home before since he had never been in a long term relationship. Even though there had been the occasional distraction of an one night stand in his past, his lifestyle as a boarding school professor and a double agent really had not promoted the level of domesticity that he found with her. Therefore, he found that he was fascinated with watching the little things that she did in her free time away from the students.
First of all, he realized that she talked to him a lot. Him! In fact, he often got the distinct feeling that she was lonely…why else would she spend so much time talking to a bat, of all things? When she was not talking, however, she was working...and the woman worked hard! He noticed that she continued to sing those Slavic songs that first caught his attentions while she did her manual and menial chores, but that she was almost eerily silent when she worked on her intellectual pursuits.
He also watched as she piled her unruly, but certainly not unattractive, mane on top of her head and as she absentmindedly twirled the curls that always fell out of their restraint. He watched as she lounged by the fire as she read for pleasure or marked student papers. He watched as she sipped her tea or nibbled on a biscuit.
He would not, however, allow himself to watch her in her bed chamber. He felt that it would be taking his liberties too far and that she might not be able to look past that kind of behavior if he ever figured out how to communicate with her. After all, once she realized that her bat friend was really the dreaded Severus Snape, things were going to be difficult enough without having to contend with any past indecent behavior towards her on his part.
However, there was still that one memorable occasion when she came out of her room, shirtless. She was wearing a bra, but he...even as a bat...had still been distracted by the mounds of soft flesh on display. However, that was before he saw the remnants of her wartime experiences the covered her body. Severus had never seen someone as heavily scarred as he was before (courtesy of both his father and the Dark Lord's punishments) – except for possibly Mad-Eye Moody and Professor Kettleburn. However, they had both been men. Somehow seeing the knife marks and other numerous scars across Granger's otherwise delicately feminine neck and shoulders seemed so wrong. However, then he saw the rest and if a bat could growl in anger, he surely would have.
First, he saw the unmistakable result of Dolohov's curse from that infamous night in the ministry. The heavy purple slash diagonally bisected her abdomen all the way from under her right breast down to her left hip. Even though he had not known the extent of her injuries, he clearly remembered the night she received them because, while the others were mourning the Black mutt, he was in the lab making up potions and salves for her and her other injured friends. Nevertheless, he had not seen the wound in person, and therefore, he had no idea that her injuries had been so severe. Judging from the look of the scar, Hogwarts could have lost Granger that day. Where would Harry Potter have been then?
He then saw the scar carved into her forearm and everything else paled in comparison. He just stared at that hateful word as he thought about who had given it to her and how it had happened. During his ill-fated stint as Headmaster, he had heard from the Carrows about the Trio's capture by snatchers...and about their subsequent escape from Malfoy Manor...as well as the furious punishments that the Dark Lord had doled out because of it. It was then that he also suddenly remembered Granger's disturbingly altered appearance that night he had laid dying on the floor of the shack. His thoughts were interrupted, though, when he finally saw the curiosity in the look she gave him when she noticed how intently he seemed to stare at her arm.
She quickly recovered, however, and shook her head before she spoke to him in a bit of self-deprecating sarcasm. "Yes, I am well aware of how attractive they are. Therefore, is it any wonder that I am single? Viktor didn't mind too much because he had so many scars from Quidditch himself. However, nobody else seems to be man enough to handle the sight of them for too long...not even when they are just on the pull." She sighed and Severus saw the sadness that momentarily clouded her eyes before she shook her head again and continued in her normal tone.
"Anyway, I just came back in here for my book. I have decided to relax with it in a bath in an attempt to forget all about those terrible First Year essays that I just read." She shuddered before a thought occurred to her. "Do bats bathe at all?" she asked as she paused to stroke his ears. Severus had to wonder if it was just his imagination or did her fingers really seem to slip down on purpose to stroke the scars on his neck as well? "Hmm…I actually don't know…I had better research that." With those final words, the woman turned away and grabbed her book off of the lounge before she disappeared back into the bathroom - as she left him alone with his dark thoughts – and the now basilisk-sized guilt that squirmed inside of him.
Severus did not quite realize that after that incident, she watched him as closely as he watched her. In fact, it was not long before she drew her own conclusions about exactly what had happened – especially after she saw Lonny's reaction to the bat in her chambers. Consequently, she soon knew the who and the what, she just could not figure out the why or the how. Nevertheless, she assumed that there was a reason for it all...and she simply decided to wait and see what happened next instead of taking action herself. She did continue to pamper the poor beast, however. Even if her newfound suspicions turned out to be correct, in one way or the other the animal obviously needed some love and affection in its life.
One day, about a week after the strange incident with the scars, the Potions Mistress informed her bat companion that it was time to brew the complex Wolfsbane potion for both Miss Lake and Miss Peterson. Miss Lake was a first year student who had been another victim of Greyback's sick obsession with children back when she was only five years old. Miss Peterson, however, was a third year student who had been bitten when an unknown werewolf had attacked her isolated village towards the end of the war. However, despite some grumbles which she instantly and publically put down, Headmistress McGonagall had welcomed them both to Hogwarts with open arms - especially now that she had a competent Potions Professor who was more than capable of brewing the potion every month for them both...and Mr. Alders, as well.
After all, the man was the kindly owner of the bookshop in Hogsmeade who had been bitten during a previous attack on the village. He had still come with Aberforth to fight for the Light at the final battle, though. At any rate, Hermione had always liked the man and was happy to ease his burden a bit – especially since all it took was a little time and a potion.