Sometimes, he thought they might be friends. He didn't have friends, so he didn't really know.

Well. He used to have friends. Lily had been his friend when he was a boy, and Lucius had been his friend in school. And Narcissa, the youngest of the Black sisters, to a point. (It was good policy, back then, to avoid the Black sisters—Andromeda, the eldest, clashed with her sisters and her parents constantly, and Bellatrix had always been crazy. Narcissa had been not-awful to him, though. By his standards, in school, that was practically dating.) Regulus Black had been a few years younger and almost a friend, too.

Hermione Granger, though. Now that was an odd thought.

He'd asked her her age because he was a curious idiot, and, like most his questions, she'd answered simply and honestly and without getting offended when she had every right to do just that. And she was old enough that, if she'd lived her life like a normal person, she would have been at Hogwarts with him as a student.

Even with having to see her throughout the week as a student, a frizzy-headed thing carrying too many books around, that put her squarely in the fair game category. If he'd known her in school, he would have asked her out, blood status be damned. He hadn't adopted that particular prejudice (and then only to blend in) until a year or so after he'd left Hogwarts.

She was like Lily only better. She was alive, for one. And she had shadows in her, like he did. Lily had had shadows, too, but she'd denied them. Vehemently. Hermione accepted them. She didn't cherish them, she didn't proudly pull them out and show them off (her reaction to Moody's taunting was an example there), but she didn't hide them.

It was this train of thought that led him to her doorstep one blustery morning. He didn't have to be back at the school until late Sunday (an appointment with Blaise Zabini, probably to discuss supplementary Charms instruction over the Christmas hols). He'd made the decision to try to be her friend. If she'd let him. If he could get around his own ineptitude and proclivity for putting people off.

Gods, this was a stupid idea.

"Snape, hello! Why did you knock?"

"It seemed rude to let myself in when I'm… not injured."

"Oh. Well. I did give you a key, you know. You're welcome any time."

He blinked and followed her into the kitchen. He was welcome any time? That didn't happen. He had a standing invitation at Malfoy Manor, but that was more of a mutual alliance than a welcoming friendship.

"I was just writing you a letter, actually," she said, then folded the parchment up before he could see.

They'd been exchanging letters fairly regularly, all things considered. Once a week, maybe twice if there was a particularly atrocious article in the Prophet or something worth talking about in one of the trade journals they both followed. Last month, she'd sent him an excellent notated copy of Transfiguration Today that he'd very carefully hidden from Minerva when she came for tea. (Most of the marginal comments had not been the least bit polite.)

They sat in the living room, settling into comfortable chairs, and she put out tea on the coffee table. He might've been the one to show up, but she didn't even ask him why he was there. They just sat, trading opinions on the articles they read and then switching magazines so that they could argue about whose observations were right. They were halfway through a potential improvement for Wolfbane (him writing out possibilities and books to consult, her creating a new arithmantic algorithm specifically for the experiment) when a half-serious argument about who got the last slice of pizza brought them up short. It was nearing midnight.

When Snape, Severus—Sev?—left, it had been nearly twenty-four hours. A full day's worth of impromptu visit. Hermione hadn't felt a moment of it pass. In fact, if it hadn't been for the owl from Minerva asking where the hell he'd got to, they might not have pulled their heads out of the conversation at all.

It was so easy to talk to him, which was odd: He was snippy and tended to back up arguments with insults when he began to realize she was winning.

And his accent, ingrained after so many years of practice in the Slytherin common room as a boy and perpetuated by habit, slipped back to its Manchester roots when he was impassioned and away from Hogwarts. (Or in pain, she'd noticed in the past few months, though she'd tried not to think about that overmuch.)

And he'd told her a sweet story about having less than a handful of friends as a child, and how his best friend (who had died long, long ago) had called him Sev. And the insinuation had been that she could call him Sev, if she wanted to.

He could cook, too. He'd made them a wonderful sort of burrito thing, spicier and more flavorful than it had any right to be, for lunch.

And he looked quite dashing with a five o'clock shadow, which had begun to come in sometime around midnight.

She'd wanted to strangle him through half the day. He was infuriating. He played devil's advocate just to get a rise out of her, taking the most ludicrous stance on a topic and belaboring each sodding point until he just couldn't take it anymore and cracked up at her expense (or, very rarely, she sussed out what he was up to and smacked him with a book).

Yet even when she had had to physically sit on her hands to keep from grabbing him around the shoulders and shaking him, she'd enjoyed every minute of it.

\\

By December, she was a fixture at the table during Order meetings. She still felt awkward, and she could tell that the others would prefer she stood at the far end of the room, but Dumbledore had made it all very clear to them. He asked her questions, involved her in discussion. Moody liked her even less than he had previously, assuming she worked from the sidelines, doing arithmancy and occasionally helping as a Healer.

Hermione sighed. There was another meeting in an hour and she doubted the headmaster would be in attendance, which meant the hostility pointed in her direction would be more overt than usual.

She locked up her flat, set the wards to alert her if anybody showed up while she was away, and Apparated to the front step of Grimmauld Place. Sirius Black let her in with a gruff nod, which she returned. She wasn't quite able to meet his eyes—she knew how he died, after all. And she didn't plan to do anything to prevent his death.

The kitchen was empty when she arrived, and she started making tea. Sirius had gone up the stairs into the house after letting her in, but she definitely didn't mind.

She set the tea out and sat in what had become her usual chair. It was at the far end of the table, still close to the fireplace. From the right angle (or the wrong angle, really), she was mostly obscured by the light, reduced to a silhouette. She did all she could to obscure herself. Dumbledore refered to her as Samantha Barnes and she'd asked everybody to call her Sam. Severus was the only one who had recognized her. Nobody was looking for Hermione Granger in the meetings, and Dumbledore had set them all up to see somebody else; Severus was just a special case. That didn't mean she shouldn't be careful, though.

Hermione had dressed in her not-quite-a-disguise. The braids and beads in her hair. Dark jeans tucked into her dragonhide boots. White button-up under a gray vest. She liked the vest because it had hidden pockets, good for all the little things that would've gone in a purse. She'd acquired robes, which was odd sometimes when she got to thinking about it. She wore them as a part of her everyday clothes, not even the way she had at school where they'd felt like a long coat she never took off.

She wasn't as singular in her robes as Severus, but she had favorites. Today she'd worn her favorite because she had to go sit in a meeting with Sirius Black and not tell him she was sorry for how he had died—how he would die.

The robe was charcoal gray, a simple cut, showing her silhouette without clinging. There was a bit of a collar, a very slight squaring of the shoulders at the top of the sleeves. The sleeves draped away from the elbow. There were nine silver clasps down the front, the first one at her collarbones and the last one just below her pelvis, giving her feet and legs room to move even though the robe continued down to mid-calf. There were large, Celtic-looking designs to break up the expanse of dark fabric, swirling over the hem at each wrist, decorating the collar, and on either side of the gap at the bottom of the robe after the clasps ended.

Not nearly as dramatic as the black expanses of Severus's teaching robes, nor could it touch anything Dumbledore wore, but it suited her. There were secret pockets in the sleeves of the robe, too.

Tired of herself for sitting there thinking about her clothes, Hermione poured herself another cup of tea and scowled at it for awhile.

Slowly, the Order arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were first, Mrs. Weasly immediately beginning to make dinner. Mr. Weasley chatted to her politely about the morning's Prophet.

Sirius joined them in the kitchen shortly after Lupin arrived. Tonks, who liked Hermione fine but didn't seem to care for Sam Barnes much, sat between Lupin and Mr. Weasley. Moody sat across from Tonks. Kingsley sat next to Moody, but made polite conversation with Hermione (which was nice of him). Dedalus Diggle sat across from Hermione, putting his copy of the Quibbler up between them so that all she could see was the top half of his top hat.

The rest filed in and it was much the same. She didn't work with any of them. They knew that Dumbledore trusted her, but that was all they really knew about her. She'd even played mediwitch to a few of them, but it didn't earn her anything but politeness.

Hermione was just beginning to get annoyed with them all when Severus entered. The room didn't go quiet, but the part closest to him did. He entered with Minerva, nodding politely to something she'd said. Minerva was greeted cheerfully and took her place at the other end of the table from Hermione, near where Dumbledore normally sat. The pocket of silence followed Severus down the length of the table; nobody greeted him, at least not aloud. Hermione sent her usual friendly brush of mind against his Occlumency shield, and was surprised but pleased when he reciprocated the gesture.

The meeting when downhill from there.

It was remarkable how uncomfortable the kitchen could be. She spent hours at Grimmauld Place, usually solitary hours. She would brew in the cellar, then adjourn to the kitchen for some tea and brandy while the potion simmered or set or rested; whatever it needed to do. Those were comfortable hours. The kitchen was large, dominated by the long table. There were pots and pans everywhere, bread left out under dish towels. It was homey. She remembered Christmas of fifth year at Grimmauld Place, sitting in the kitchen on Christmas morning, happily chatting with everybody and thanking them for the presents. None of that welcoming ambiance was present during the meeting.

First, they'd discussed the latest mysterious death, her most recent name on a slip of paper from Dumbledore. It had been a wizard who worked in the Records Office.

"He was Marked Tuesday last," Severus confirmed. He stood behind her chair, surprisingly. She wondered when he'd left his place against the mantle.

"I suppose you were present for that soiree to follow?" Moody asked nastily.

"Naturally," Snape replied almost blandly.

Sirius said something scathing, and Hermione could feel Severus's responding sneer. Minerva moved the meeting along before anybody drew their wand.

"Rumor at the Ministry is that Dumbledore has been having these people killed," Kingsley said. They'd been away for the topic long enough that Hermione had hoped it wouldn't come up, but the staid tone of the Auror's voice caught everybody's ear. She knew Severus had a hand on the back of her chair from the way the wood moved as his fingers tightened on it, and she loved him for it.

"Has he been having them killed?" Mr. Weasley asked, looking up and down the table. His eyes lingered on Severus, or maybe on her, for a breath longer than on anybody else.

"Would you want to know if he had been?" Hermione asked, staring down the table at nobody in particular.

"What do you mean? Of course we would," Tonks said indignantly. They were all looking at their neighbors now, knowing that if somebody in the Order had been playing assassin, it would be one of them in the room. They were the core, the ones with the best positions to influence and recruit.

"This is a war, girly," Moody said, both his eyes fixed on her. She didn't like it. "Not knowing about something doesn't make it not happen."

"So you'd want to know that one of the people in this room, a friend maybe, goes out to do murder under cover of dark?" She wondered if they'd hear the self-recrimination, or if it would just be Severus noticing. He always noticed. (He never brought it up, of course; she could just tell from the way he looked at her when he thought she wouldn't notice.)

"I'd like to shake their hand," Moody said, so lightly, so off-the-cuff, that she thought she might be sick. He noticed and glowered at her. "Grow up, Barnes. This isn't a time for innocence. Dumbledore might have you tucked away brewing potions—" And there he paused to give Severus a dirty look, implying, of course, a dereliction of duty since he wasn't the one brewing the majority of the potions anymore. "—but I'm sure you've noticed how many of us come back bleeding.

"We might be the Light facing off against Dark wizards—" Another glare for Severus. "—but it's never that simple. The world is made of gray areas. I don't give a shit for your morality, or whatever it is. Some people in this room—" Surely not her. "—have seen the reality of this fight. Even the Light has to cast shadows."

"How very poetic," Severus said scathingly. Moody's focus shifted up from Hermione to Severus, and the familiar argument played out. Moody didn't like Severus, never had. He could only see the young Death Eater. He was almost as bad as Sirius when it came to pointless taunts and old grudges, though he restrained himself from hexing better than Sirius ever did.

Hermione found herself profoundly thankful. Without a doubt, Severus had distracted the old Auror on purpose. She'd been about to snap at Moody, and that wouldn't have won her any favor with the others.

"You know," Severus said, taunting Moody now, "the Death Eaters have taken to calling—whoever it is—Dumbledore's dragon. Fitting, don't you think? All that fire."

His mind brushed hers. She almost jumped at the contact, the relief of it. She felt like she was a guitar string and somebody was turning the tuning pin, winding her tighter and tighter, too tight; she felt like she was going to snap, and then his mind turned the pin the other way.

"Yes," Moody snarled back at Snape. "I like that. A flaming dragon descending on all those bearing the Dark Mark, charring them off the—"

"Enough," Minerva said from the other end of the table, looking pale. Hermione wondered if it was because she, strangely enough, seemed to like Severus, or if it was because Moody had sat forward in his chair enough that he was a breath away from surging to his feet. "We have other things to talk about tonight."

Hermione held onto her contact with Severus. They were just brushing minds, like fingers touching under a table. No communication, just contact. Support.

That night, back at her flat, she didn't dwell so much on the conversation from the meeting, but on that support, the relief in the looming presence behind her chair. She nursed a glass of red wine, settling into her favorite reading chair sans-book for a good think.