Complexities

By Bambu

~o0o~

Chapter Five:  Justice Prevails

That afternoon, for the first time in weeks, Hermione took a long soak in the bath, depilating and pampering herself.  She’d felt so tainted as a result of Smith’s betrayal and attack, that her bathing rituals had been perfunctory, focused more on the need to scrub the intangible stain from her skin than to enjoy the ritual.  However, after using the Pensieve, she could think about the assault more objectively, without the emotional horror attached to the fact that it had happened to her.  She felt far more like herself than she had in weeks, and while she knew what had happened, she no longer felt broken by the events.  Hermione dressed for dinner in the Great Hall with care, choosing her favorite pale blue, spring robes.  It would be the first time after the Wizengamot proceedings that she’d eaten with the staff and those few students who’d remained at Hogwarts over the Easter holidays, and she was a trifle uneasy.

When she entered the Great Hall, the DADA instructor immediately noticed that the room was set up in a similar fashion to the arrangement during the Christmas holidays.  The House tables were pushed to the side and a large round table was placed in the center of the large room.  There were only a few students who’d remained this year and half the faculty.  Without realizing that she was doing it, Hermione’s eyes sought the platinum-haired wizard who had begun to occupy her thoughts with increasing regularity.  But he wasn’t in the room.  He might be late, she thought reasonably as she made her way to Snape’s side, and took note of the wizard’s fierce scowl.  He welcomed her with a nod, but his surly expression remained firmly fixed.  She hadn’t seen such a look on his face since her return to Hogwarts as a member of the staff, and she wondered what was wrong.  Before Hermione could ask however, Dumbledore entered and the meal commenced.  With the presence of the students, Hermione couldn’t ask her dinner companion what was wrong, and wondered if it had anything to do with Draco’s absence.  The blond had not come to dinner.    

As the students left the Hall, Snape also rose to depart.  He’d been sullen and uncommunicative during the meal, and Hermione was unwilling to let such a good friend push her away.  Harry and Ron didn’t call her a mother hen without reason.  So when Snape left the Great Hall, Hermione followed hard on his billowing robes.

“Severus, wait.”

He ignored her.  The return of the brooding Potions Master was complete as he stalked toward the dungeons, head bent, hair straggling forward screening his face.  Hermione felt a little bit frantic at the change in her staunch ally.  Their friendship had been hard won and she wasn’t going to give it up easily. 

“Severus, I want to talk to you.”

He whirled, his onyx eyes narrowed, lips thinned to a straight line.  For a moment she felt as if she were fourteen again and he was about to utter a scathing remark or dock house points. 

“Go back to your room, Miss Granger.  I’m in no mood for company.”  He turned, and resumed his long-legged pace toward his chambers, his robes sweeping against the stone floor.

She’d be damned if they were going backwards.  Tossing her lengthening curls back from her face, Hermione dogged his steps all the way to the dungeons and the private entrance to his rooms.  As he raised his wand to give the password, Hermione confronted him.

“I don’t care if you’re in the mood, you old bat!  You’ve been my friend when I needed it most, and I don’t give up on my friends.  Now what’s wrong?”  Hermione clenched her fists and leaned toward him, her eyes sparking with fire.

Severus Snape had few friends in his life, and, although he was in a foul mood, he didn’t want to lose one over something she’d had no control over, so he submitted to the fiery witch’s demands and muttered the password “Longeavus chiroptera,” before storming into his sitting room.  He ignored her sudden laughter as she followed him in.

Snape strode to his hearth and stared into the flames, fuming. 

“Is there something I can do to help?”  Hermione’s voice softened as she realized how distressed the wizard was.  She hated to see him retreat into his isolation.  He did it every so often, the results of having lived for years during which he only had two or three people he could trust, and, even then, he most often kept his thoughts to himself.  In typical Gryffindor fashion, she’d assiduously worked to overcome that handicap, his friendship like a fine brandy, scorching and warming to the tips of one’s toes. 

“You’ve helped quite enough, Hermione.  There is nothing wrong, other than the fact that I’ve lost my apprentice and I’ve grown used to his assistance.”

“…your apprentice!  Where is he?  Is he all right?  What’s happened?”  Hermione’s mind reeled with the information that explained Draco’s absence at dinner all too clearly.  He was gone.  Her throat thickened with the sudden and inexplicable desire to cry.

Snape turned to face her, taking in the wild disarray of her curly mop of hair, the utterly stricken look on her face and the slump of her shoulders as she reacted to a shock that she hadn’t expected and didn’t quite know how to handle.  Her distress assuaged his anger, and his keen mind roiled with speculation.  “It seems that the presiding members of the Wizengamot were so impressed with Mr. Malfoy’s willingness to help one of the heroes of the Final Battle – that would be you – and testify on your behalf, not to mention his demeanor at the trial, they have expedited their investigation into the Malfoy Estate funds.  This morning the Ministry’s owl arrived with the partial resolution.  His grandparents’ estate is no longer in question and their bequeathment has been restored to Draco.”  Snape carefully watched Hermione’s reaction to his news. 

“I see.”  Hermione was pleased for Draco that part of his inheritance would be returned to his control, but her heart felt as if it had been clamped in a Devil’s Snare without light.  She listened to the rest of Snape’s explanation with partial attention, her mind reeling a bit at the unexpectedness of the high court’s decision.

“In addition, the Wizengamot has apparently sanctioned the Ministry’s ‘sanitizing’ of Malfoy Manor.  They have declared it habitable and returned the house and grounds to Draco’s hands.  He was required to go to London to meet with the head of Magical Law Enforcement in order to sign the necessary documents.  I do not expect that he will return to Hogwarts.  Indeed, why should he?  It is not as if there is anything here for him.”

Hermione flinched with his last statement, confirming Snape’ suspicions that the young witch was more susceptible to Draco than she’d ever let on.  He watched her square her shoulders and tilt her chin, recognizing the same determination to face this newest piece of information in the same manner that she’d faced difficult situations for over a decade… and the Smith debacle in recent weeks.

“Oh!  Well, I’m… I’m glad for him.  He deserves to have his home returned to him.  I… I’ll help you on the weekends if you’d like.” 

Snape weighed her offer.  “That would be acceptable.” 

They lapsed into silence for a time.  Since the ordeal with Smith, Hermione and Snape had occasionally spent an evening in front of the fire in his sitting room, snuggled cozily in separate armchairs discussing a new book, or some current research.  On an even rarer occasion, Draco had stopped by and the three would engage in a brief, heated debate about… well anything and nothing.  In public, the two apprentices had conducted themselves in a manner entirely befitting paragons of British reserve, but in the privacy of Snape’s chambers, every encounter between witch and wizard had been heated.  In each instance, Draco had stopped mid-tirade, there’d been a discomfiting moment or two and either he or Hermione had hastily departed citing the lateness of the hour or extra essays to mark.  None of those present had ever spoken about the encounters after the fact.

Not particularly wise to the entangling maze of human relationships -- two decades of espionage-induced caution to the point of celibacy was stunting in a number of areas -- Snape had begun to suspect that Draco and Hermione were engaging in a peculiar form of courtship.  Now, with Draco’s departure, the ex-spy might never have the opportunity to verify his hypothesis.  Although, glancing at the witch seated in her customary chair, the abstracted expression on her lightly freckled face was a fairly clear intimation that her emotions were entangled.  She was unusually quiet.

Hermione had been startled by the news of Draco’s departure.  Moreover, she was unsettled by the strength of her reaction to this turn of events.  On the one hand, Draco deserved to have his home returned to him and she was honestly glad for him.  He’d never taken the Dark Mark, and his mother had died rather than coerce him in that direction.  Narcissa Malfoy might have been any number of things, elitist, superficial, self-absorbed, but she had loved her child.  Her husband’s incarceration and the loss of the family’s prestige had been an almost insurmountable blow to Narcissa’s self-esteem.  She had refused to allow Draco to follow the obvious path of destruction for the Malfoy family’s future, even if it had meant standing up to her psychopathic sister.  Hermione had been impressed by the aristocratic woman’s strength of purpose, even in the face of death.  That Draco had been punished by the Ministry of Magic for his carefully held neutrality in the Voldemort War was entirely unjust, especially in light of his mother’s sacrifice.

Hermione sighed deeply.  She’d grown used to seeing Draco daily, even when he annoyed her.  And he’d always annoyed her, until recently.  The blond prat reminded her of a puppy, a golden retriever, who chewed your shoes in an excess of boundless enthusiasm to gain your attention and approval.  Every time the puppy would reduce a pair of shoes to a soggy, tooth-riddled mess you were furious, but then it would turn its huge, grey eyes in your direction and do something utterly disarming – like saving you from a lunatic – and, after a time, your heart melted at its rather annoyingly endearing antics. 

Hermione shook her head at the fanciful direction her thoughts had taken.  Draco wasn’t a dog and she certainly didn’t love him.  She’d tolerated him, even when he’d been beastly to her, especially on Valentine’s Day.  In all fairness, he had attempted to talk to her that fateful day when Smith had attempted to subjugate her.  She had been certain Draco had intended to apologize.  Hermione felt an unaccustomed ache in her chest at the thought that she wouldn’t have an opportunity to see him any more.

Brought out of her reverie by a crackle of flames and the shifting of logs, Hermione looked across the room to see Snape watching her.  His face was tired and worn, and she knew that he felt Draco’s loss as keenly if not more than she did.  “I’m so sorry, Severus.”

“Do not concern yourself, Hermione.  It was bound to happen, and it is his heritage.  I think these two years have perhaps taught him a number of things.  But before I begin to wax philosophical on this point, I think I plan on getting pissed.  Would you like to join me?”

“Yes, I think I would.”

And so, Hogwarts’ resident Potions Master and DADA Instructor shared a bottle of Old Ogden’s Firewhiskey late into the night, their ruminations equally melancholy, their hearts equally sad.  When Hermione Floo’d back to her chambers, she staggered to her bed and, for the first night in weeks, courtesy of a Pensieve and Old Ogdens, she didn’t have nightmares about Smith’s assault.  Instead, she had vague dreams of a platinum-haired, grey-eyed wizard whose indefinably masculine scent and strong arms had made her feel safe. 

The remaining Easter holidays passed rapidly as Hermione prepared for the new DADA instructor to arrive.  The Saturday before the students returned for the start of Summer Term, and exactly thirty-eight hours after Hermione had learned about Draco’s departure from the school, Albus Dumbledore held a small reception for the new DADA Professor.  He hadn’t told anyone, other than Minerva McGonagall who it would be, and Hermione was extremely nervous about it.

As Hermione entered the staff room, it was filled to capacity with faculty, assistants and staff.  She sidled to a corner, seeking solace in the company of the Potions Master.  Snape’s calm demeanor relieved her fears, and she could tell that he had a fairly good idea of who Dumbledore had talked into taking the position. 

To pass the time, Snape filled Hermione in on the owl he’d received from Draco that morning.  The Malfoy heir had been long-winded and irate at the disregard the Ministry of Magic’s minions had shown his ancestral home.  They’d been thorough in their investigation and search, it had taken months, and Draco was livid at the state of the Manor.  Snape noted the sparkle in Hermione’s eyes as she didn’t mince words in venting her annoyance at the Ministry’s high-handedness.

After several minutes the door opened and Dumbledore entered, followed by a familiar and entirely trustworthy redhead.  Hermione’s involuntary and gleeful shout of “Bill!” hurt Snape’s ears, and he chastised himself for not having had a wager in the staff’s betting pool.  He’d have won a tidy sum.

Bill Weasley turned swiftly to find the witch he thought of as a second little sister, and seeing her making her way through the crowded room, he moved in her direction.  When he’d reached Hermione’s side, he grabbed her in a huge hug, looking beyond her to the watching Potions Master.  Bill and Snape had managed a serviceable working relationship during the war years, and when Ron had owled his eldest brother the details of Hermione’s assault, Ron had been surprisingly enthusiastic about Snape.  “Hey, ‘Mione.  How are you?”

“I’m well.  I’m so glad to see you.  How are Fleur and the kids?  Did they come with you?”

“They’re at the Burrow.  Mum’s having a field day, playing with the kids and coddling Fleur.  You know we’re expecting another one, don’t you?”

“Oh, Bill!  Congratulations!”  Hermione hugged him, delighted to hear some good news.

As Bill caught Hermione up to date on his family, other staff members moved closer, angling some time with the former Head Boy and all-around favorite.  He would be a most welcome addition to the staff. 

Snape made his way to Bill Weasley’s side, and offered a hand.  “Mr. Weasley, welcome to Hogwarts.”

“Why, thank you, Professor Snape.  It’s an honor to be here.”

“Most of the staff uses first names with each other in private, Bill.  I would not object to your calling me Severus.”

“Erm… I think it will take some getting used to… Severus.  Just as it will take some time until I can call the Headmaster, Albus.”

“I believe it took me a good many years before I was comfortable doing exactly that.”  The corner of Snape’s mouth quirked up in what passed for a smile.

Bill was unaccustomed to the kinder, gentler Snape, but welcomed the change.  He shook hands with the Professor and noticed that Hermione beamed at them both.  Over the course of the next hour, Molly Weasley’s son wondered just what the relationship was between the Potions Master and the DADA Apprentice as they said their goodnights to their colleagues.  Bill’s youngest brother had written about the Potions Master’s unprecedented kindness to Hermione, but Bill had thought that Ron was exaggerating as he was wont to do.  When Hermione gave him a last welcoming hug, and then left the staff room with Snape, Bill wondered if there was more to their friendship than it seemed.

“They are just very good friends.”  The gentle voice of Albus Dumbledore startled him, and the eldest Weasley son turned to look at the Headmaster.

“Ron told me to keep an eye on her,” he began in explanation.

“I’m not surprised in the slightest.  She is far more precious than she knows.  It’s her great capacity for loyalty and forgiveness as much as her intelligence and courage, I think, that engenders such a depth of devotion.”

“She’s like a little sister to me, you know, Professor… Albus.”  Bill still felt awkward using Dumbledore’s first name.

The aged wizard smiled at the young redhead and, for a fleeting moment, Bill wondered if he was going to earn house points for Gryffindor for having been clever.  It was a distinctly surreal moment in which the lines of past and present blurred.  The Headmaster’s words brought him firmly back to the present.  Bill ran a long-fingered hand through his long, auburn hair and learned that, even after the war, Snape had a champion in the rheumy-eyed wizard. 

“That’s a very good way to describe what many feel about her.  Severus would never jeopardize their friendship.”

“May I ask you a question about that night, Albus?” Bill decided that the familiarity got easier with more frequent use.

“If it doesn’t compromise Hermione in any way, you may.”

“Is it true that Draco Malfoy…”  Bill hadn’t really credited his little brother’s story.   The Malfoy heir had made his little brother’s and his friends’ lives hell during their school years.

“I know what you will ask, and yes, it’s true.  Without Mr. Malfoy’s timely intervention Miss Granger would either be under the Imperio’d control of Mr. Smith or worse.  As I mentioned, she is more precious than she knows.”

“Even to Malfoy…”

“That is for Mr. Malfoy to realize and not for me to divulge.”

“Of course, I was only surprised.”

“I believe you will not be the only one, Bill.  Give my regards to Fleur when you speak with her and, of course, to your parents.  If you’ll excuse me, I must walk Minerva to her chambers.”

Bill watched the elder statesman of the wizarding world cross the stuffy little staff room to McGonagall’s side and lightly touch her elbow.  She turned immediately and smiled at Dumbledore before they left the staff room.  After that, the reception was essentially over, and the remaining faculty drifted off in ones and twos.

Tiny Filius Flitwick offered to walk the newest faculty member to his quarters as their rooms were along the same corridor.  Bill accepted eagerly.  The Charms professor had always been a favorite.  As the two wizards happily companionably as they ascended the stairs of the Faculty Tower, Bill was thinking how happy he was to be home.   

Bill Weasley had been looking for a position to return to Britain, and the goblins at Gringott’s weren’t interested in alternate career possibilities for their preeminent curse-breaker.  Bill wanted to bring his family home, so that his and Fleur’s children would have the chance to grow up near their cousins and grandparents, rather than traipsing around the globe with their peripatetic father.  When Dumbledore had made the offer, it had been accepted with alacrity.  Bill and Fleur would stay at the Burrow – to Molly Weasley’s delight -- long enough for them to find a house in Hogsmeade.  Dumbledore had agreed that his newest DADA Professor could reside in the castle from Mondays through Thursdays, departing for his home after classes on Fridays.  If the arrangement worked to everyone’s satisfaction then, after the first year, they would negotiate a five-year contract.  Bill was delighted with the position for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which had been the relief shining on Hermione’s small face.

And thus, for a time, life continued in a curious sort of limbo.  Hermione and Bill made an exemplary DADA team.  The newest DADA Professor’s idea of a work space in the DADA office was an odd sort of wide plank resting on two trestles.  It was the farthest thing from Smith’s pretentious desk as he could get and still have a flat surface to work on.  Bill’s desk was always stacked with parchment and the floor beneath it littered with specimen tanks.  He was an excellent instructor, and the cachet of his having been an active curse-breaker gave him a stature within the school which granted him popularity and earned his students’ attention. 

Hermione laid the worst of the spring’s events to rest with only occasional moments of insecurity to plague her.  She continued to have nightmares sporadically and to question her reactions to people around her, but realized that, for the most part, her instinctive assessments were accurate.  It was at this time that she began to have infrequent dreams, almost as unsettling as her nightmares, of a grey-eyed blond with a sneering mouth.  It was only in these dreams she felt safe and somehow precious within the embrace of the taut band of arms.  When she’d awaken, she never quite remembered anything more than quicksilver eyes, a hint of cloves and a yearning in her heart. 

Every few Saturdays, she, Tonks and Millicent managed to find the time to have lunch, and Hermione was continually surprised at how well she got along with the former Slytherin.  Hermione had even been able to bring Edward Bullstrode to The Three Broomsticks one Saturday.  Young Edward had basked in his sister’s presence, and the following week his Patronus had glowed so brightly that his classmates had needed to cover their eyes. 

In her moments of introspection, late at night before sleep claimed her, Hermione reflected upon the fact that if it hadn’t been for the chastity charm, Smith would have been successful in raping her and suborning her will -- the long-term effects of his abuse would have been far more haunting than what she’d been left to deal with.  The fact that Hermione had taken protective measures helped to retain some of her battered self-esteem.  She even made an offer to Poppy Pomfrey to devote some of her free time to counseling Sixth and Seventh Year witches about the chastity charm as an adjunct to the mediwitch’s contraceptive seminar.    

The chastity charm had done exactly what it was supposed to do in case Hermione had been captured and rendered insensible.  And in a very real fashion, she had been rendered insensible.  The harsh reality was that, even though the Voldemort War was over, there would always be twisted individuals who would take advantage of unsuspecting witches or wizards for their own ends. 

In its most simplistic terms, Hermione realized it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between the good guys and the bad.  Severus Snape was a prime example.  Draco Malfoy appeared to be another.  A year ago, she would have never thought of him as a hero… despite his pretty, matinee-idol looks.  But he had saved her.  Draco had proved his trustworthiness in the most material of ways… through his actions.  It hurt Hermione to hear how many people in the wizarding world treated him like a pariah.  He was a hero... her hero.  She wished she could tell him, but he was gone, and they’d never been friends or even friendly enough that she felt comfortable writing him such a personal letter.  Still, she couldn’t keep herself from looking for Draco around every corner of the castle.  She looked for him in staff meetings, and at meal times.  Hermione waited to hear his drawl at school-wide events.  And she chastised herself when she was disappointed at not finding him, at not hearing his upper-class diction uttering some scathing comment. 

As the Summer Term progressed, a benign sort of calm descended upon the castle and its inhabitants.  Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape were all relieved to notice that Hermione had begun to relax in the secure atmosphere enhanced by Bill’s arrival and the seamless transition from one professor to another in the DADA classroom.  McGonagall raved about how the dear girl was blooming, while Snape and Dumbledore noted that while the light might have returned to her eyes, there was a watchfulness that hadn’t been there before.  And only Snape noticed that Hermione looked at Draco Malfoy’s empty seat at the High Table whenever she came to a meal.

Hermione had been true to her word and worked with Snape every weekend, assisting him in the preparations for the upcoming week’s classes.  On Sunday evenings, he would read Draco’s letters aloud to Hermione, watching her reaction to the young man’s words.  Draco, who Snape had never before considered a particularly good correspondent, had taken to writing to Snape twice weekly.  The Potions Master thought that he could read between the lines as well as the next wizard.  There was always an unwritten question contained in the parchments he received from Malfoy Manor. 

And while he read the letters to Hermione, Snape watched her face, the grimacing the spark of anger as she reacted to the difficulties Draco was encountering in the renovations of his ancestral home.   The Malfoy name no longer commanded the respect it once had, and finding craftsmen to perform the work at the Manor had been difficult, nigh on impossible.  Snape smirked when he heard Hermione’s sigh when he’d finish a letter.  She did this each and every time he finished a letter, as if reluctant for it to be over.  Old habits die hard, and two decades of subterfuge had left their mark on Severus Snape.  He was deft at fitting minute details into a cohesive picture, and he was certain that the picture he had completed was exactly how the pieces were meant to fit.  Draco Malfoy didn’t write to the Potions Master of Hogwarts because of their close friendship.  No.  Draco wrote to the Potions Master of Hogwarts because he was the link to Hermione Granger, and the young wizard missed her… perhaps as much as she missed him.

After several weeks, Snape noticed that Hermione had begun to show signs of actually pining for the arrogant Malfoy.  Being a Slytherin, he bided his time, and cursed his own stupidity in becoming involved.  He swore that Albus Dumbledore was rubbing off on him.  Still, Snape waited and continued to catalogue the symptoms of Hermione’s repressed yearning.

Then, late one Saturday night, several of the staff was returning from Bill and Fleur Weasley’s housewarming in Hogsmeade, and Snape and Hermione were at the back of the pack.  They hadn’t said much to each other since they’d left the Weasleys.  Each was reminiscing about the rather heated argument Hermione had had with Percy Weasley during the party. 

The argument had begun when, in response to a critical comment made by Hermione regarding the Ministry’s wanton disregard for Malfoy property, the sanctimonious Weasley had attempted to justify the abuse and scold her for her unseemly position.  Percy’s disapproval had stemmed from Hermione’s questioning the authority of the Ministry, and the fact that she had inside knowledge of Draco Malfoy’s current circumstances.  That she, a Muggleborn witch, should have any connection with the pureblood scion of one of the oldest families in the Wizarding world had been shocking to Percy’s rigid sensibilities.  He’d been rather pleased to put his youngest brother’s friend in her place, and he hadn’t been tactful.  Hermione’s anger had grown as she watched his pinched mouth spew his blindly accepted, Ministry-spawned rhetoric.

The fiery young witch who’d materially contributed to Voldemort’s defeat and the toppling of a barbaric, centuries-old pureblood custom had narrowed her eyes in the face of Percy Weasley’s prejudice, and had proceeded to verbally eviscerate him in concise and cogent terms.  When she’d heard George Weasley’s shout egging her on, Hermione had been horrified to realize that her heated rebuttal had drawn a sizeable crowd.  She’d turned to Percy and said scathingly, “I once believed that you would learn to use your brain for something other than measuring the thickness of imported cauldrons.  I no longer think it sufficient for even that distinction.”  

Hermione had stormed into the back yard and sought out her hostess, offering her apologies.  Fleur Weasley had merely laughed in her musical voice and waved her off.  The part-Veela had more than enough experience with her brother-in-law’s manners to forgive Hermione’s outburst.

And now, hours after the altercation, Hermione sighed… again. 

“Are you going to tell me what you are thinking, Hermione, or are you going to continue to make that wheezing noise?”

“Sorry.  I just keep thinking that…”  She stopped for a moment, lost in thought. 

Snape stopped walking as well, and waited for her to speak.  It didn’t take long.

“Do you know how much the Wizarding world owes you?  How much I owe you?  Not enough people recognize that… or thank you for what you’ve given up.  You’re one of my heroes, Severus, and I’m so glad that you’re my friend.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.  You know, I wish… I just wish…”

Snape arched his eyebrow.  It seemed that Percy Weasley’s narrow-mindedness had shaken loose the detritus in his young friend’s mind.  Snape had wondered when Hermione would get around to voicing her thoughts about Draco, and he was the safest person for her to confide in.  The cover of darkness was probably the easiest place for her to open up.  “Yes, Hermione?  Just what exactly do you wish?”

“Do you know how many people made nasty comments about Malfoy tonight?  More than half of the people who were at the party.  Not including that git, Percy.  Draco is not his father, and even if he wasn’t very nice to me in school that doesn’t mean…. But we’re not in school any longer.  I just… I just wish that I could explain…”  She trailed off for a moment, and Snape simply waited once more.  Hermione wasn’t known for shirking from a responsibility or the truth when she finally saw it.  “I just wish I could tell people that Draco Malfoy is a hero to me.  I hate that they denigrate him.  They say such vicious things.  Oh, Severus, I didn’t think I’d ever say such a thing in my life, but I miss Draco.”

“I know you do, Hermione.”

Her head whipped up and she sought his eyes in the moonlight.  They were deep, black, and enigmatic.  Hermione’s voice was sharp, “How?”

“I know you, Hermione, and I was there for the birth of your affection… I believe it might have begun around the time that a stray Densaugeo  hex hit your teeth.”

“What!?  No!  We hated each other…. Well, he hated me.”

“I do not think he has ever hated you.  You confused him… I think you still confuse him.  You represent everything he was raised to hate, and yet you are the personification of everything that he has been raised to desire in a witch.  He tormented you to the degree that you tormented him: incessantly, continually, and with every fibre of his being.  He was jealous of your friendship with Potter.”

“Yes, but, Severus, I offered him my friendship.  He spurned it.”  Hermione blinked to cover up the embarrassing fact that tears had welled in her eyes at the memory of just how often Draco had charred to dust the olive branches she’d extended. 

Snape’s dark rich chuckle floated on the night air.  “If you had noticed, Draco’s tormenting of you in the past few months was only an effort to focus your attentions on him.  Think back.  When was he the most vitriolic?”

They resumed their walk back to the castle as Hermione scoured her memory for the recent times that Draco had been the most caustic.  “Well immediately after I came to Hogwarts…”

“And who were you dating at the time?  I seem to recall seeing pictures in the Daily Prophet.”

“Oh… I’d forgotten.  It was only three dates, Severus.”

“But it was in the paper, Hermione, and Draco read it.”  They strode on for a moment, Snape allowing Hermione time to align her intellect with her emotional response to the conversation.  “When next?”

“Erm… Oh!  The Christmas holidays when I received the gift from my Secret Admirer…” she shuddered delicately, “if I’d known they were coming from Smith I’d have Incedio’d the lot.  I turned everything over to Tonks, you know.”

“I know.”  They were both silent for a moment, before he continued, his voice soothingly persuasive.  “Be that as it may, I seem to recall some rather vicious comments that Mr. Malfoy made to you at breakfast on Christmas morning… after you’d opened your gold-wrapped gift.”

Hermione’s eyes blinked a few times, assimilating the evidence that Snape was presenting.  A frisson of recognition shuddered up her spine.  It appeared that Snape was right.  She was both afraid of that fact and terrified that he might be mistaken.  “That still doesn’t mean that he wants anything to do with me, or that he misses me.”

“Would you like to know if he does?”  This was the key moment, the turning point between nebulous attraction and avowed interest.  Snape sauntered toward the imposing edifice whose flickering golden lights welcomed its children home from a long day abroad.

“Yes, I think I would.”  Hermione said as they reached the entrance to the castle.

Snape reached for handle of the door, “Allow me.”

“Of course.  Thank you.”

“You are more than welcome, Hermione.” 

The two friends parted company at the head of the stairs leading to the dungeons.  Snape had a rather smug smile.  He was certain that Hermione hadn’t realized just what she’d given him permission to do.  Basking in the success of subtle manipulation, Snape decided to strike while the Snitch was within his grasp, and write a letter to his former Apprentice.

~o0o~

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