Chapter Three

Snape was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug in one hand and the Daily Prophet in the other. His lips were drawn together into a displeased line, and a deep furrow marked the midway between his dark eyebrows. Her eyes lingered morbidly over the pink patch of exposed skin on his throat; his collar had been unbuttoned to prevent the stiff material from grazing against the fragile skin. The very faintest of marks were visible, as though something was lurking beneath the skin, and she shuddered.

Last night, she had lain awake for hours, thinking about the blood bubbling through his fingers as he had pressed his palm against his neck before racing from the room to thunder up the stairs. Shocked, she had stood and stared at the trail of speckled dots on the carpet. The sound of the bathroom door hitting the wall had roused her, and she had hastily followed. He had been hunched over the basin, his shoulders jutting up as he gripped the edges of the sink, and his head was bowed; he struck her as looking like some eager vulture or similar bird of prey, lowering its head to seek its prey. Swallowing nervously, she had stepped further in and caught sight of the red handprints and streaks on the white porcelain and the smear on the mirrored door of the cabinet from where he had straightened it to study the wound.

"Miss Granger," he said lazily while scanning the writhing print on the paper. "Stop gaping like some landed trout and sit down."

She jolted out of her reverie; years of instilled response rose up at his call, and her feet marched her over to the table. With her hand on the back of the chair, she hesitated at her strange and worrying ability to accept such oddities, and she frowned as she pondered her subservience. Her knuckles were white and protruded from her thin and wasted hand; it barely seemed recognisable as it gripped the chair.

Hermione was aware of Snape sitting so snugly in her home; his presence almost burned her skin, and he seemed more real than the familiar settings that had previously comforted and protected her. Unsure as to how to deal with the weirdness of it, she walked away from the table to the stove to peer into the saucepans that rested on the hob...one act of defiance, a foundation stone to bolster her flagging resolve. One held the white, fluffy remains of a poached egg, another, a dried collection of beans, and the last made her gag...tomatoes! The clumps of chopped tomatoes glistened in the bottom of the pan, and she couldn't stop the images of exposed, spell-ravaged muscle flooding her mind. Her eyelids slammed shut, and she turned away. From behind her, she heard the rustle of pages being turned and the soft plinking sound as the grill cooled.

"There is some breakfast for you," Snape said, his voice striking her ears and making her jump. "It's under the grill, keeping warm."

Over the years, he had gained the ability to use his peripheral vision to discern those subtle signs that people sometimes let slip when they thought they went unnoticed. From the corner of his eye, he had seen her frown and pale as she stood by the chair, and then a flicker of distress had flashed across her thin face before she had turned sharply, striding over to study the leftovers from his earlier cooking. While she grimaced at the dirty pans, he sipped the tepid coffee; it was strong and sweet, not his usual early morning drink, but he found that the instant coffee was harsh and bitter without it.

Once he was finally free, one of the first things he would do was discover what brand of coffee the house-elves used; nowhere else had he had coffee that satisfied his need so completely. Many students owed the fact that they had survived his classes with nothing worse than the edge of his tongue...and that the only red streaking their homework had been the ink from his quill...to his early morning jolt of liquid humanity.

The mug hovered against his lips as he pondered those quiet hours in his private study, marking papers and losing himself in the delusions and deviations of his students' literal appreciation of potions. It had been a remarkable balm, that scratching across someone's homework, to let his anger and frustration seep out and into the parchment. Each stroke was a slash on the flesh-coloured paper, each ink-filled groove a bloody welt, and each full-stop a stab at the futility of teaching the young. The rare gems, such as the trembling woman before him, had placed dazzling delights in front of him, and he had despaired that, sometimes, such minds were wasted in Gryffindor pride.

For all that had bothered him, his one grace...and it was a petty one, he would readily admit...was that Harry Potter had not had his mother's skill and had been truly terrible at potions. He had come to really relish marking Potter's efforts.

"Where did you get the food?" she asked, feigning interest in how he had managed to cook for them. The rustling stopped, and she turned to glance at him through the corner of her eye; she almost smiled as the Daily Prophet moved up to cover his face from her scrutiny. Her indifference evaporated at the image of Snape hiding his discomfort behind the periodical. She turned to face him, her arms crossing, and she persisted with her enquiry. "The cupboards were empty last night."

The mug slammed down on the tabletop, and the paper fell onto his lap. Despite the slight colour in his cheeks, he seemed as disdainful as ever. "I could hardly have gone down to the shops, could I?" he said in the haughtiest voice she had ever heard him use. "Use your brain, girl." He threw the paper down in such a way that the headline was aimed at her.

'Hunt for Death Eater Allies' was the bold headline. The words lured her over, and she plucked up the paper. Her eyes glanced through the text, pausing over the relevant words... 'wizards must be aiding and protecting wanted criminals', 'life in Azkaban for those corrupted individuals supporting the last of the Death Eaters', and 'those at large will be found '.

She looked up sharply, a frown marring her features, and Snape watched her teeth worry her lower lip. "But you're not really a Death Eater," she said softly.

"Don't be imbecilic!" he spat out.

He saw her inhale and her lips form the start of many retorts, and then she snapped them together. Remorse crept sluggishly though his stomach; she couldn't have known that he had once been charged and had pled guilty to being a Death Eater, and her naivety, although bordering on stupidity, reflected her innate sense of fairness, and as such was nothing to scorn, but his anger and own frustrations made it impossible for him not to respond harshly.

The smells emanating from the kitchen were sickening, and she once again squeezed her eyelids shut, painfully so, until lights blossomed in the darkness. A scream burrowed its way up her throat, compressing her chest and heart and lodging next to that frantic organ. Her head felt so heavy, her skull was crushing down upon her, and her few thoughts were scattering under the pressure. She was an accessory.

After the revelation in the kitchen about her criminal deed, she had gone to her room and left Snape to stare at the coffee rings on the table. He knew that he should just slip away, but some need quashed any plans to flee, and if he was found, and they befuddled the truth out of him, they would then come after her. It was a mess. The more he thought, the more his throat itched, and the more it itched, the more he ached to scratch at it. Realising that there was no peace or point in pondering his dilemma, he collected together the dishes and washed up. The soapsuds tickled his forearms, and the warmth of the water soothed his hands, and while he washed away the dirt, he wondered if he could ever be as clean.

oooXooo

What had she done? The question circled her head like vultures over a dying beast. Sighing in frustration, she thumped the pillow. So much for acting on good intentions, she groused while flinging herself backwards on the duvet. And to top it all, for someone who's been nothing but a dark cloud on my horizon. But did he deserve the fate that the Ministry would impose? After all that he had done, was he really the same as the others? Her mind drifted over the snatched glimpses of his life through his memories, all that tragedy and strife, abandonment and loss... How would she cope if everything she had was either stolen or destroyed? But then... What of Voldemort?

oooXooo

After a quick search, he located a pen and a pad of paper near to the phone in the hallway, and with a coffee refill, he sat down at the kitchen table. Taking a breath and ignoring the itching in his neck, he filled the blank page with all the ingredients and steps involved in brewing the potion that should have spared him the consequences of Nagini's bite. It was a complicated potion; the method had evolved several times from the one he had hastily created due to the fact that he had had to imbibe it once a day rather than the one large dose that Arthur had swallowed. As a result, any one of the ingredients could have reacted with the snake's venom to produce this unexpected result. If only he had had the time to explore it more fully before resorting to using it.

Studying the list until his eyes burned with the effort, he was dismayed to realise that nothing should have conspired to prevent his healing...so what was at fault? Flinging the pen down in disgust, he sat back in the chair and stared out of the window. The tips of the hawthorn in the garden swayed in a strong breeze, and the clouds slipped past, taking the threat of rain with them. Perhaps he should have died on the dirty floor, bleeding onto the floorboards of the Shrieking Shack?

His melancholic musings were interrupted by movement in the corner of his eye, and he saw Hermione standing in the doorway. She looked pale, and it was clear by the way her hands writhed around each other that some anxiety gripped her.

"I've just come to get something to drink, Professor," she mumbled before walking over to the sink.

"As I said last night, Miss Granger," he replied softly, "I am no longer your teacher."

She paused in the process of selecting a glass from the cupboard, and that same look of disorientation flickered across her face. An inspiration wriggled through his frustration and despair; perhaps some focus would help clear her mind?

"However, in saying that, I feel that you hardly need any more teaching anyway."

If he had slapped her, he doubted that she would have looked as surprised; her mouth was a perfect 'o' and her eyes were wide and shimmering beneath eyebrows trying to disappear into her hairline. Smirking, he looked at her more thoughtfully. He needed some assistance, some help to recreate the potion that he had hastily concocted after Dumbledore's warning about Nagini.

"Does this house have a basement?"

"No," she answered with the hint of a returning question in her voice.

"Does it, by any chance, possess an attic?"

"Yes, we boarded it out some years ago." She stepped away from the sink, the empty glass still held in her hand and an eager expression on her face. "Why?"

He sighed and gesticulated towards his throat. "I need some space and time to discover why my precautions seem to be crumbling and the opportunity to remedy the situation. I am going to turn your attic into a makeshift potions lab."

As expected, he saw a flutter of academic interest in the depths of her eyes and the slight blush of excitement on her cheeks...he had presented a challenge, and all her instincts had risen up.

Over the next few hours, they planned how to acquire the equipment; the lab would need more than just a cauldron and a student's potion kit, and it was decided that Hermione would visit Diagon Alley for the essential accoutrements and basic ingredients on the pretence of preparing for the next academic year.

While Hermione was shopping, Snape added protective wards to the attic space, strengthening the walls and floors and charming the room to be as non-flammable as possible. Ventilation was another issue, and he created an opening in the wall which separated the attic from the chimney flue. He then removed a one-foot-squared section of the roof directly above his intended workspace and charmed the opening to only allow air through it. When he was working, he would create a magical brazier in the makeshift hearth which would draw fresh air in through the hole in the roof as the hot air rose up through the chimney, thus any fumes would be automatically drawn away from the attic and released harmlessly into the outside air with the benefit of continual fresh air for the brewer.

Living in a Muggle house had given Snape a valuable insight into what worked well and what didn't, and although dribbling candles was seen as the most esoteric way to light your way to brewing, it was an electric light bulb that offered the best lighting. He located several plug sockets, and after a good rummage through a store cupboard, he found several extension cables, and so all that was lacking were three 100-watt light bulbs and three sturdy lamps. Satisfied that the attic was as close to a potions lab as he was going to get, he returned to the kitchen, made another hot drink, and waited for Miss Granger to return.

oooXooo

Diagon Alley was eerily quiet. Hadn't the streets rung out jubilantly the last time Voldemort had been defeated? People seemed to rush from place to place, not stopping to make conversation and seemingly absorbed in their own purpose. The low-lying mist swirling and clinging to the hasty shoppers did nothing to lift the sombre quality of the normally frenetic alley. Her stomach roiled, and she had an unpleasant surge of adrenaline which made her skin tingle and her palms slick with sweat. Swallowing rapidly, she tugged down her hood and made a beeline for the Apothecary.

Odd shadows hidden within the mist made her jump, and with each passing moment her agitation increased: the scuttling shoppers passed her, and she wondered if they knew what she had done. Were they scurrying off to alert the Aurors? The small shop was a lighthouse in the descending fog, and she aimed for it as any wary and weary captain would.

The bell jingled merrily as she pushed open the door, and she felt relief flood her as the door clicked closed behind her. The brass handle felt wonderfully cool in her hot hand, and she took a few moments to collect herself, feeling mildly surprised that she had felt so disorientated and exposed while in the street.

The smell of the shop assaulted her. It wasn't a bad smell as such, just an overpowering collection of confused scents. It was impossible to identify each one, but it inspired certain flashes of recognition; the lemon tang of Bergamot, the dry, musky smell of dried shrivelfigs and the cloying, earthy smell of toadstools. It made her nose tingle. The shop was basically five massive sets of drawers; one single column of deep drawers rested snugly against the far wall, and two, double-sided columns dominated the room, leaving narrow, claustrophobic aisles between them.

The drawers were made from some dark wood, and they lent the shop a dark and mysterious ambience. Flickering lanterns lit the way in the gloomy aisles, and the whole esoteric charm was emphasised by the bushels of dried, unidentified plants hanging from hooks and snatching at the patrons as they squeezed down between the towering stacks. Despite the oppressive atmosphere, Hermione inhaled deeply and smiled as she worked her way into the shop.

"May I help you there, Missy?" asked an elderly and bent man, his bald pate glowing in the light and his face shadowed in what would be in a rather malevolent way had not his face been round, fat and extremely jolly.

She smiled at the man behind the long counter and reached into her pocket to withdraw the list she and Snape had laboured over. As she handed it over, he smiled, whipped out a pair of glasses and carefully placed them on his nose. There were a few moments of silence while he studied the document before he placed it carefully on the counter.

"Shouldn't take too long to gather this all together," he said confidently, and he withdrew his wand with a practised flourish. "If Madam would care to wait?"

Hermione smiled and nodded. A small, three-legged stool rested at the near end of the counter, close to the window, and she settled herself on it while the owner waved his wand and began to mutter under his breath. At his request, glass alembics, boiling tubes, cauldrons and mortars clattered and clinked as they flew through the air to line up neatly before him. Chopping boards and stands, knives made of various metals...and even one made of bone...bowls and flasks, phials and pipettes, various thicknesses of muslin cloth, crucibles and tongues, glass tubing and bungs of differing sizes. She was staggered. On paper, it had seemed relatively straightforward, but laid out on the counter, the sheer mass of things was daunting. The owner gave the gathered army of utensils a quick glance and, with an exaggerated wave of his arm, reduced the battalion into a small heap no bigger than shoebox. A small giggle erupted from her at her foolishness.

The ingredients, though numerous, were far more easily managed, as many were already packaged into brown paper bags, and it was only a matter of mere minutes until she was standing and pulling out her purse to pay the owner. With everything neatly stowed in a basket, she bade the smiling man a farewell and slipped reluctantly out into the murky street. She was pondering whether to risk Apparition or stick with Muggle transport when she caught a snippet of gossip from a group of elderly witches talking conspiratorially in a doorway.

"Yes; and good riddance to such filth!" said a stumpy, dark-haired witch, rearing up like some bantam and daring the world to disagree with her. "He was a terrible blight on Hogwarts; my youngest grandson was terrified of him, and it looks as if he had good reason to be. From what Harry Potter says, the Dark Lord killed him himself."

"Oh," uttered another, her eyes riveted to the one with the secrets. "He's dead then?" She became flustered under the intensity of their gazes and waved a hand dismissively. "I mean that they never found him, did they?"

"Well, I heard that Snape's isn't the only body what is missing," said the bantam smugly. "That quite a few of the dead have disappeared, taken by some people as of yet unknown."

"Utter tripe!" spat out the thinnest and oldest of them. "What on earth would anyone want with them?"

The smug woman eyed her dismissive companion coldly, and after a few moments she smiled sweetly, as one does before dropping a bombshell. "Well, Lavinia, some would want revenge upon those who had injured or possibly killed their loved ones. Or perhaps someone would use them to show the others what would happen to them when they are found."

Lavinia spluttered and shook her head. "But it's just a corpse, hardly capable of feeling anything, and do you really think that the others would care about the things done to their dead comrades?"

The story teller gave a tinkling laugh and gently pulled on Lavinia's arm, drawing her closer for the juiciest morsel. Hermione pretended to rearrange the packed items so that she could listen in.

"There are ways of extracting memories from the dead," she whispered. "The Ministry would be very keen to get their grubby mitts on some of those dead Death Eaters, don't you think?"

The flustered woman bobbed on the spot and looked perplexed. "But that's a myth, isn't it?" Her small eyes darted from one woman to the next. "I know that they tried it years ago to help bring cases against the Death Eaters from before, but they never managed it."

Lavinia was staring through her cautious cohort into her own musings, her neatly plucked eyebrows distorted by a deep frown, and her lips worked as she pondered. "They never actually said that they hadn't managed to find a way."

"Exactly!" exclaimed the gossipmonger triumphantly. "No one ever did question Crouch's endorsement of the Killing Curse back then."

Hermione's fingers paused in their pointless rummaging. She stared at her fingertips resting against the edge of a brown parcel, and the whispered words worked through her mind. Discomforted by their ramblings, she left them to their chatter and made her way home.

oooXooo

Snape eyed the table thoughtfully. It was sturdy enough and had the right dimensions, and he knew that he could move it into the attic with the minimum of fuss and stress, but its presence would no doubt generate questions. But it was so ideal, and the thought of borrowing it so tempting.

The rattle of the key in the lock interrupted his appreciation, and he watched as the elderly lady stepped in, tugging on the tartan trolley. With a clatter of wheels, she manoeuvred it into the middle of the small kitchen and pushed the door closed. After untying her headscarf and unbuttoning her coat, she flicked on the kettle and mumbled as she sat down to unzip her warm ankle boots. He could smell her face-powder from where he sat, and somehow, he was comforted. While the kettle boiled, she prepared a pot and gathered together cups and saucers, and as she hummed a merry tune, he wondered if she felt some companionship too, even if it was down to a charm.

"While it brews, come 'elp us put the shoppin' away," she requested, and he quickly obliged. Soon, her shopping was away, and a neat pile of food grew on the table for Snape to take with him back to Miss Granger's home. They sat down and sipped their tea, and in the silence, Snape took to examining the table yet again. He ran the palm of his hand over the smooth, slick wood, relishing the warmth of it beneath his skin; it was a glorious refectory table.

"My 'Arold made me that when we were courtin'," she said rather solemnly before a smile shattered her melancholy. "'E said that if 'e was going to get his feet under a table, then it was goin' to be one that 'e liked." Her smile slipped, but some of the joy of her past lingered in her eyes. "Seen a lot, that table 'as." She took a deep gulp of tea and sighed softly. "Rarely use it nowadays," she admitted sadly.

Snape flattened his palm over the table possessively and glanced up at the woman; he reasoned that such a beautiful thing should be used, and he considered its enforced laziness to be the highest of sins. His mind was made up; the table would go to the attic, and questions be damned!

"In that case, might Miss Granger and I borrow this table for a while?" He watched her face go through several expressions, and then she finally smiled and reached out to pat the back of his hand.

"'Course," she said, nodding in agreement. "I know that she misses her mum and dad. All tears she was when she got back from seein' 'em off," she said, her voice laced with sympathy. "It's nice that ye've dropped in to check on 'er."

Snape sighed and placed the cup back on the saucer. He looked at the old woman slurping her tea and felt the urge to tell her the truth, "Actually, I was abducted by Miss Granger, who in a fit of misplaced camaraderie thought fit to save me from the hordes of grudge-ridden Aurors about to descend upon me to make my life even more of a living hell." He knew that he was being silly, but his life suddenly felt so surreal. He let out a small, quickly smothered chortle while she sat there, oblivious to his mental ramblings. "I'm sleeping in her spare bedroom while we both slip into the madness that is 'trying to cope'." He sobered at the ironic thought and looked down into his tea. They weren't coping, and his idea to get Hermione to help him had deeper connotations than merely helping her to focus her mind: without a way to permanently heal Nagini's wound, he would either very slowly or very quickly bleed to death.

After tea, he thanked the neighbour and stealthily levitated the table and shopping from her kitchen and into the Grangers'. The food was hastily transferred from one table to another, and the new Potions bench was manoeuvred up into the attic, although a slight modification had to be made so that it slipped through the attic hatch. The table looked magnificent in the middle of the attic. The evening sunlight speared through the vellux windows and made the dark wood glow sumptuously. He ran his fingertips over the highly polished surface and smiled to himself; it was most certainly worth Miss Granger's indignation.

oooXooo

Muggle transport had never delighted her; it was slow, smelly and suffocating. The basket had come in useful, and the strange smells emanating from it had meant that no one had sat next her on the bus, but the looming presence of other passengers as they stood in the aisle had still made her feel enclosed and trapped. The narrow windows were open, but if any fresh air sneaked through, none of it reached her desperate lungs. Hot and bothered, she found that she had little remorse for the people who were jarred and scraped by the basket she carried as she passed down the bus and out into the cool, delicious air. With a hiss and billowing exhaust fumes, the bus screeched away from the bus stop; Hermione adjusted her grip and followed the gently curving road to her house.

It was amazing just how exhausted she felt; the white uPVC door had never looked so welcoming. Locking the door behind her, she placed the basket on the floor, intent on removing her coat and the shoes that seemed to pinch her toes, but some scent made her pause. Inhaling in small doses, she stepped towards the kitchen, lured by a delicious, mouth-watering aroma, and peeled off her coat as she went. With wide eyes and twitching nose... and a huge degree of bemusement... she watched Snape as he bent over the hob to drop something into a saucepan and then stir the mysterious concoction furiously. Steam rose up from the pans that bubbled away happily, and it swirled about him as he worked with what at first glance appeared to be contentment. She looked again, studying him more carefully, and she felt that disturbing flicker of fear as she processed something so uncharacteristic. His efforts, combined with the steam, had put some colour into his cheeks, and his usually sallow skin looked healthy and radiant. He must have washed his hair at some point because it framed his face rather than hung limply around it, and she noticed that the black had blue undertones like the wing on a raven. The jacket had been cleaned and buttoned up to highlight how lean he was, and the material of his trousers clung shamelessly to his calves and thighs as he moved from hob to sink and back again. Swallowing past a dry throat, she followed his movement with greedy eyes, and the way he held the ingredients over the pans in that long-fingered and graceful grip made her shudder.

Confused, she turned back into the hallway and hung her coat up. It must be the stress, she reasoned. That was it! Hadn't she read somewhere that stress causes bizarre and unexpected reactions? Content with her explanation, she returned and managed to ignore said bizarre reactions.

Dinner had been amazing; it had been some kind of lamb stew served with new potatoes and buttered cabbage. She had never felt so hungry as she took in the chunks of meat, salivated over the thick, rich gravy and watched the butter slowly slip down over the greens. Her stomach had growled impatiently, informing her in no uncertain terms that no mental or emotional anxiety would be allowed to deprive it of such a feast. Between mouthfuls, she had pestered him about the herbs he had used, and he had discussed the recipe as though cooking thrilled him as much as potion-making. His laugh at her shocked expression had made her feel warm all over; thankfully, he mistook her blush as being in response to him laughing at her, but it was in fact because she had found that laugh of his to be quite... nice. And if she were honest, that had really been the most amazing thing about the meal: that they had talked nicely. No talk of Quidditch, no mad ramblings about why they had to do homework, no looming shadows of terror and no feeling that she was talking to herself. She had enjoyed the whole experience.

Once the dishes had been hand-washed and dried, they sat in the front room, drinking coffee and discussing whatever sprang to their minds. Snape relaxed into the softness of the sofa, his head tipping back to rest against the cushion, and closed his eyes. The evening had been most pleasant. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed cooking, and judging by the way Miss Granger had eaten her food, she had enjoyed his cooking too; her enjoyment of the food had more than paid for his effort.

It was almost eight o'clock when they were ready to transfer the Potions equipment and supplies to the attic, and Snape felt a thrum deep in his gut: the lab would be complete, and Miss Granger would see the table. Sure enough...

"That looks familiar!"

"Does it?" he replied innocently.

He could feel the intensity of her glare burning the back of his head, and he slowly turned to face the full effect. He almost sniggered at her stance. Hands on hips, lips pursed and eyebrows tugged together, she was just one move away from tapping her foot, but given all that, she managed to express her anger very well.

"That looks like Mrs Cooke's table."

"That's because it is Mrs Cooke's table."

"What have you done to my neighbour?" she demanded hotly, colour rising in her cheeks.

"A mild befuddlement charm; it will do her no harm."

"Why?"

"Because given her age and state of mental acuity, I hardly needed to cast a stronger version of the charm."

"No," she said carefully, and despite his outward appearance of innocent observation, inwardly, he smirked at her treacherous, innate, dark humour threatening to breach her sense of propriety. "I meant: why did you charm her at all?"

"I needed someone to get some supplies; I couldn't leave for fear of being seen, and I summated that you would not feel up to a jaunt to the local grocery store." He watched her expression and saw her begrudgingly see the logic in his argument; it was sometimes so easy to argue with the intelligent, their logic got in the way.

"I guess not," she said reluctantly. "Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, and her eyes rolled in sarcastic despair. "I overheard in Diagon Alley that they're convinced that you're dead and that your body was taken so that the Ministry could extract your memories." She snorted at the stupidity of it and brushed loose strands of hair from her face; she failed to see Snape stiffen and pale at her glib recollection of the gossiping women's conversation. By the time she turned to look at him, he was calm, the cold and aloof man she had always known, and although she was dismayed that the earlier mood had fled, she felt some comfort in the familiarity of his stance.

"A ridiculous notion, indeed," he replied coolly. "But the assurance of my demise will be most helpful."

Despite her earlier objections about the table, he noted with some smugness and relief that she took to slowly caressing the dark wood while she laid out the potions equipment upon it. He had not had this feeling of companionship in quite some time, and he found that as the evening progressed, he felt more and more relaxed.

So it was that just before eleven at night, the Potions lab was in precise order. Hermione had found some spare lamps, and despite that they were all different, they cast more than enough light to satisfy Snape's critical eye. The main cauldron was slowly lowered into place, carried out with an almost solemn sense of tradition, and Hermione felt a thrill as she took in each detail: the row of phials, the boiling tubes glinting in the lamplight, the conical flasks and the retort stands, the fat alembics glowing, and the three cauldrons of varying sizes that seemed so hungry and eager to be used...it was beautiful!

Fatigue settled in like a sudden fog, and with a weary smile and a goodnight to Snape, she turned and made to leave. He watched her go; her face was pale with exhaustion, but the kind that comes from effort and not depression, and he was gratified that some aspect of his plan was having the desired result.

"Miss Granger," he called out.

She stopped by the hatch and sleepily faced him.

"I have said that I am no longer your professor," he said with feigned asperity.

She smiled at his tone. "Goodnight, Mr Snape," she said softly, and then she was gone.

For some reason, her use of his title disappointed him, but then he berated himself harshly for his moment of weakness. Battling the rising disgust he felt at his disappointment, he switched off the lamps. In the dark, he sighed and idly scratched at his tingling throat. But it had been so long since he had felt human, since he had felt anything other than vile bitterness and hate.