THREE: Convergence

"Hard day, Neville?"

Neville Longbottom, newly apprenticed to Professor Sprout, did indeed look worse for the wear as he slid into the seat beside Hermione at the staff table. His hands and face were clean, but there was the distinct scent about his person of sweat and manure; his light brown hair was ruffled, his eyes harried.

"I've had better," he admitted, reaching for a large dish of mashed potatoes and heaping a generous portion onto his plate. "One of the second-years didn't fasten her earmuffs properly and got an earful of Mandrake. It wasn't pleasant. And nearly half of the fifth years took some bad bites off of a Fanged Geranium. It's in a horrid mood this season." He pulled a platter of steak toward him and added a thick slab to his plate.

"Horrid," Pomona agreed, taking her seat on the other side of Neville. "He's quite right. It's the humidity; they like the drier years best."

It was, Hermione agreed, too humid for her liking. The sheer number of bodies packed into the Great Hall drove up the temperatures, despite the many cooling charms cast over the place. For September, it was unreasonably hot.

"How was your first day, Hermione?" Neville questioned, now digging into his food with ferocity reminiscent of Ron. This was an uncomfortable thought, however, so she pushed it away and glanced out over the students instead.

"It could have been worse," she said, helping herself to green beans. "My first years were a bit afraid of me at first; I think they've all been brought up to fear the Potions lab. Some of them even thought I might be Professor Snape. Clearly, they've got a bit of History to learn." She rolled her eyes as Neville chuckled. "No explosions, though, and I suppose I ought to count myself lucky. As I recall, in my first Potions lesson, someone melted straight through their cauldron." She shot a sly grin at Neville, who turned a bit red and busied himself with his steak.

Minerva arrived then; she seated herself on Hermione's other side, at the centre chair of the staff table. "Indeed," she said. "I'm sure Severus would be glad to reminisce at length about the many dunderheads who frequented his Potions classes."

Hermione stole a glance past Minerva, down the long High Table to the very end, where the brooding Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor sat, already finishing off his plate of food. "I'm sure Professor Snape would be glad to do nothing of the sort," Hermione corrected in an undertone. "Not to me, anyway."

Neville looked up from his food, now that memories of his past Potions lessons had been safely stowed away. "Don't know why he's so fussed," he said. "You'd think he'd be a bit grateful to you, you know. Not very grateful, but a bit."

Hermione poured gravy over her potatoes. "I don't mind."

She didn't have to look at Neville to see his indignant expression. "You don't mind?"

She shrugged. "No, not really. I got my way, didn't I? I didn't expect him to thank me on bended knee."

Snape rose and swept away. Briefly, Hermione glimpsed Crookshanks following after him, tail twitching jauntily in the air.

"Was that…?"

"Crookshanks? Yes." Hermione shook her head. "It was like that during seventh year, too. It's odd, isn't it? I'm sure he thinks I'd just put Crookshanks up to it, to keep an eye on his health, but Crookshanks just seems to like him. I think Severus must be seeing more of my cat than I am these days." Hermione frowned at this while Minerva and Neville leaned back a bit to watch the cat go. "He's never taken to anyone like this before. I mean, goodness, he still has a thing against Ron."

"I reckon all of us have a thing against Ron once in a while," Neville said darkly. "He can be a bit of a prat."

Hermione swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Neville, perceptive enough to sense that she didn't wish to pursue the subject at all, merely smiled at her and went back to his food. Hermione cut up her green beans into bite-sized pieces, not really hungry anymore.

She trusted her cat; she had from the first day she'd met him. He'd been her faithful companion over the years, the loyal pet who offered her comfort when she suffered at the hands of stupid boys or cruel remarks. He was getting on in years, she thought—he hadn't been young when she'd bought him—but the half-kneazle heritage seemed to keep him vivacious. His judgment had always been sound, and there was clearly something about Snape that he liked.

Just as there was something about Ron he'd never quite accepted.

She was halfway through her meal when the cat in question leapt into her lap, purring. There was a slip of parchment tucked under the thin leather collar around his neck. Tugging it out, she unfolded the small note. She would recognize the spiky handwriting anywhere; it was familiar enough from the seven years in which Professor Snape had graded her papers.

Call off the cat. I don't know what you hope to gain by having the beast follow me around, but I grow tired of him.

She snorted. Neville glanced at her, eyebrows raised. She merely shook her head and turned the parchment over, pulling a quill out of her bag to write a reply.

Crooks just likes you. He is yet another friend, I'm afraid, who cannot be persuaded to do anything.

As soon as she'd tucked the note back under his collar, Crookshanks leapt down from her lap and departed the Great Hall.

"You're quite right about him, Hermione," Minerva said, watching the cat go.

"What about him?" Hermione asked, going back to her potatoes.

"He doesn't seem inclined to speak to any of us anymore." She exchanged a glance with Pomona, who nodded in agreement. "Mind, he's polite enough. But some wounds…well, I suppose we will never be bosom friends, after what transpired while he was Headmaster."

"You didn't know, Minerva," Pomona interrupted promptly. "None of us did."

"It's unfair," Hermione sighed. "He's done so much, and received nothing."

"He received an Order of Merlin, First Class, that's something," Neville pointed out.

"Medals are not typically sufficient to relieve loneliness," Minerva said delicately. Neville tried to cover his bemused look.

"Haven't you tried talking with him?" Hermione asked.

"Often," she replied. "I can't tell if he's found some measure of peace, and doesn't wish to discuss it, or if he simply finds us to be dissatisfactory company."

There was a moment of subdued silence, and then Neville spoke up. "This is too heavy for me. How's Harry, Hermione? I haven't heard from him recently…"

"Oh, he's pleased," Hermione said, still frowning. "Haven't you heard? Ginny's expecting again."

Neville's jaw dropped. "You're kidding!"

"Another boy," she said, and now she felt a tiny spark of joy in her chest, remembering Harry's wide grin. "Ginny wanted a girl, but she figures they can always try again."

"Wow," Neville mused, poking at his potatoes. "Good for them."

"How's Luna?" Hermione asked. "Still travelling?"

"Yeah," Neville replied, smiling ruefully. "I get a letter every week about another clue to the whereabouts of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. She reckons she's getting close, now."

Hermione stifled her laughter.

The bloody cat wouldn't leave Severus alone.

It had been a week, and it was still following him around as though he was its master, and the girl was a long-forgotten parcel of cat-nip. Despite his many attempts to keep it out, it had followed him all the way through to his sitting room this time, and was curled up before the flameless hearth, watching him with yellow-brown eyes that reminded him vaguely of the thing's mistress.

A pleasant idea occurred to him, one that would rid him of the beast at least for the night. He got to his feet, and it immediately followed, stretching languidly, its eyes on him. Purposefully, he strode out of his sitting room, and it bounded after him. It purred as he set the wards back in place around his office once they were out, and then kept close to his side as he made his way to the dungeons and the quarters he'd once inhabited.

It seemed eager enough to follow him; he would see if it could be persuaded to stay in her rooms, with its mistress, once he arrived there.

Once Minerva had given him back the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, he'd taken up residence in the first-floor rooms adjacent to his classroom. He believed in the power of association, and the rooms there were harmless; there were rough memories in the very stone of his dungeon rooms, and Minerva had politely satisfied his request to move. Though, he supposed, there was nothing she wouldn't do for him at this point. The guilt on her was tangible, like the whiff of cooking sherry given off by Sybill. She would never accept that it had been essential for her to lose all faith in him that year, to withdraw all trust. That the Dark Lord would have believed nothing less, and that Severus would have been in greater danger had she kept her confidences with him.

He wouldn't have survived, but then, he wondered now and then what survival really mattered, when there was nothing particularly satisfying about his continued existence. He had his small pleasures, he supposed—his research, a decent book, a bad paper to mark up with relish—but his life had lacked direction since the war ended, and he was simply…waiting.

The air down here was colder; the cat let out an unhappy little noise from its throat, as though it wasn't fond of the chill. He resisted the urge to berate it aloud, to talk to it at all. It had been that action, he was sure, which had endeared it to him, and he wouldn't have it getting more ideas. Reaching the door to what had once been his old office, he knocked sharply. Granger's tired voice called for him to enter.

He stole a glance at his watch as her wards dropped. It was barely ten o'clock, but she sounded bone-weary, and it was only the first day of classes—surely it hadn't been that tiresome? He turned the doorknob and stepped inside, the cat close at his heels.

She glanced up, and he noticed the twitch of surprise in her features as she greeted him. "Good evening, Professor," she managed, in what was a hearty attempt at cheer. "And Crookshanks. Nice of you to visit, you bloody git." The cat pranced to her and jumped into her lap. She let out a quiet laugh, stroking the furry head of her beast as he purred, while Severus watched, feeling every inch an intruder on a very old relationship.

He caught the flash of a scar on her forearm; he made to move closer on the pretence of dropping into the chair in front of her desk in order to get a closer look at it. The sleeves of her starched white, button-up shirt were rolled up to the elbows, and there, just barely visible, a pink scrawl on her pale skin—

As he sat, however, she began rolling down her sleeves, starting with the arm under scrutiny. "What brings you here, Professor?" she asked, fastening the buttons back at her wrists; she glanced at the clock, noting the time with something like distaste.

"Returning your errant familiar. What else?"

She didn't remain cheerful; she returned his look with a disgruntled one of her own. "I'm not putting him up to it, I swear, so you can stop looking at me like that right this instant." Her voice rose near the end, halfway to a shout.

She leaned back, letting Crookshanks leap down and go to a bowl of food in the corner. He considered her—they were having entirely too many of these staring matches—and, contrary to last week, decided that she was not lying. She'd affected this air of cheer wherever she went these past few days, but now there were no airs about her at all, just the unhappiness he'd glimpsed when she claimed to have returned to Hogwarts for nostalgia.

He raised a single eyebrow in response to her outburst, and she coloured up immediately.

"Are you finished?" he asked.

She sighed, and the animosity left her, shoulders slumping in the wake of its departure. "I'm sorry," she murmured, glancing down at her desk in clear embarrassment. He followed her gaze and spotted the long bit of parchment she was looking at, which looked as though it might have been abused at her hands. "He just likes you. I've no idea how to get him to stop."

The silence ticked by for a moment, a moment in which she didn't look up at him, merely continued to stare at the parchment, a small frown on her lips. Crookshanks returned to the pair of them, this time opting to leap into Severus's lap, and he accepted the cat grudgingly, letting it curl up there.

With an effort, he did not tell her to lock it in its cage. "I suppose there's nothing you can do about it," he acknowledged, nodding slightly to her. "I shall have to learn to live with the beast."

A brief smile flitted across her lips. "He has a name, you know."

This, he ignored. "Has he shown such dispositions in the past?"

"You won't like it, but he adored Sirius." She shrugged at his scowl. "But otherwise, he only puts up with me. Kind of grouchy with everyone. He's never really…you know, stalked anyone before, though. It's terribly bad manners. I suppose he's trying to make a point, but I've no idea what he's got in mind." She watched her cat thoughtfully.

They sat in quiet for a moment, both pairs of eyes on the cat, before she broke the silence. "Can I ask you something?"

He considered it, measuring the wary, hopeful look on her face. "If you must."

"How has it been," and this was not a demanding, eager question, but a hesitant inquiry, "since the war ended? I mean…" She sighed impatiently. "How have you been, these last few years? I'm not trying to pry, I just…" She trailed off.

He didn't think she'd lost her nerve, only that she'd realized, halfway through, that she hadn't framed the question properly. There was something amusing about the way she didn't squirm, waiting with shoulders squared for him to bite off a nasty retort.

"Quiet," he said. Her eyes widened a bit, as though she was surprised he'd answered at all. "It has been very quiet."

She nodded, hurrying through the motion, as if it might convince him to elaborate, but his patience was at an end. If he had been a different man, he might have gotten away with asking the same in return; they might have sat an hour or two, telling stories of their divergent lives from these past several years. He might have learned how she came to look so careworn, whether her health in jeopardy. He was, however, only Severus, and her confidence was not for the likes of him.

He moved Crookshanks from his lap, the better to stand. She didn't follow suit.

"As enlightening as this has been, I have other trials to endure in the form of marking tonight," he said. "If you'll excuse me, I'll bid you good night, Miss Granger."

To his relief, the cat seemed willing to stay put; he'd returned to his mistress, leapt onto her lap, and claimed her attention, as though sensing all was not well. Severus was at the door when her quiet voice halted his footsteps.

"It's Hermione." He turned to see her brush the hair off her forehead, and give him a quizzical, weary look. No blush climbed her cheeks this time.

"Hermione," he allowed. "Good night."

He swept from the room, the familiar prickle of wards rising behind him.