Two

Acknowledgements: much thanks to my wonderful beta, Subversa, whose encouragement and kind words are, as ever, invaluable.

Disclaimer: nothing recognizable from the Potterverse belongs to me and I make no money from this. The story, however, is mine.

Messrs Flourish and Blotts had agreed to delay their departure by one week in order to show Ms Granger the day-to-day running of the business. She applied herself enthusiastically to the task, earning encomiums from both the elderly gentlemen. When they finally left, they presented her with a magnificent bunch of flowers, a fine selection of chocolates, and a good bottle of Bordeaux ("to share with your young man"). She closed the shop on the Saturday evening with a sigh of relief, locking the door on their departing forms and installing some new, freshly-redesigned wards. They seemed the types to come back and interfere.

"Thank Hecate for that," she sighed. "Incompetent old farts," she added for good measure, childishly raising two chubbies towards the door.

Indeed, the outgoing proprietors had left the business ailing. Each evening, after seeing the children into bed and one of Ron, Molly or Arthur installed as babysitter, Hermione had returned to the shop to review the accounts. F&B had overbought, undersold, made stupid investments, indulged in a dangerous degree of bad planning, and traded too much on their name rather than on serving the market. In the deeply conservative wizarding world, such a strategy could carry a business a long way, but not an infinite distance. There were one or two rivals appearing, and the old firm was sure to suffer if she didn't do something fairly drastic.

She went back into the office – her office now.

"Good evening, ghost," she said whimsically, feeling a slight movement of air where there should have been none. There was no reply, of course.

The office needed to be redecorated. Hermione shrank one of the desks and put it away neatly in a cupboard. She repositioned the other, upholstered the chair in a more pleasing fabric, changed the colour of the walls with a nonchalant flick of her wand, and sat down with her bottle of wine and a glass. From her pocket she took a very small object. "Engorgio!" she muttered, and before her was a large sheaf of notes that she had spent the week compiling. She poured herself a glass and began some serious planning.

On Monday morning, she was briefly perplexed to find her pages re-ordered on her desk, but as she'd drunk half the bottle by the time she'd finished, perhaps she wasn't so very sure about the order she'd arranged them in, after all. Looking at them again, she found that one or two of the juxtapositions suggested measures she hadn't thought of before, but which in the light of day looked likely to produce good results.

Time passed. Hermione threw herself into her job. Hugo and Rose went with her once or twice on a Sunday, but it wasn't much of a success. Rose grew bored quickly, and Hugo lost himself, frightening Hermione more than she cared to admit. When she found him, in an upstairs room near the absolute back of the building, he was deep in a lavishly-illustrated book about dragons, laboriously reading the text out loud while admiring the pictures.

"Oh, Hugo! I've been looking everywhere for you!" cried Hermione, hugging him fiercely in a mixture of relief and pride. "I didn't know you could read so well, darling! Where did you find the lovely book?"

"The ghost left it for me," he answered matter-of-factly.

"Ghost?" she said, paling a little. Mysterious presences were one thing when she was involved, but when they chose to interact with her five-year-old son....

"Yes, Mummy. I've never seen him, but I know he's there. And when I found this book, I knew he must have put it there for me."

Hermione breathed a little more easily. Hugo must simply have found the book and invented a benefactor – ghosts couldn't handle material objects, and she knew there were no intruders in the place. Her wards would never let anyone pass undetected.

"Would you like me to buy you the book for Christmas?" she asked, and then had to spend the trip back down to her office explaining why she had to buy books when she was the boss of the bookshop.

Harry dropped in frequently. He was pleased to see the rapid progress Hermione was making. The old shop was becoming brighter and livelier, cleaner and more active without losing its old-world charm. The employees were looking more cheerful than anyone had ever seen them. Hermione had gone out of her way to motivate them by introducing staff meetings during which they were invited to discuss her innovations and suggest improvements and initiatives of their own. She delegated responsibilities and rewarded performance.

Mr X, as she called her other employer, did not show his face. He limited his involvement to requests for books and the arrangement of transfers from Gringotts in payment. He appeared to be a voracious and eclectic reader. That was all Hermione knew of him. He sent neither suggestions nor advice. It seemed that he was going to wait for her probation to end and then give his verdict. Harry said she had nothing to worry about, and Hermione thought he was probably right, but she fretted nonetheless.

She continued to work late, often spending the time on what she regarded as her personal project: the cleaning, cataloguing and valuing of the contents of all the rooms left untended for decades. Strange things happened sometimes. If she fell asleep at her desk, she would wake to find the fire banked up or her cardigan draped round her shoulders so she wouldn't get too cold. A lost notebook would turn up unexpectedly, sometimes with the pages rearranged, as they had been that first night, so as to suggest a train of thought which would prove valuable. She could never trace the perpetrator, but grew convinced, after some initial nervousness, that whatever it was meant her no harm.

A month into her tenure, she called her two deputies into the office to look over the books with her.

"Miss Bannister, Mr Crun, I find that there are some discrepancies in the figures for this month. Can you help me, please?"

They bent their heads over the books, scanning the pages rapidly.

"Oh, that," said Mr Crun.

"What?" said Hermione.

"Well," said Miss Bannister, "there's always been a bit of a problem with pilfering, you see. Mr Flourish and Mr Blotts just set aside an amount in the budget each month to cover it."

"I am not Mr Flourish. Nor am I Mr Blotts," replied Hermione grimly. "I am not simply going to write off this amount of theft. We need to put measures in place."

"Oh, but Ms Granger, "protested Miss Bannister. "We'd have to charm every single book for theft detection. It would take up far too much time."

"It wouldn't be very cost-effective, surely?" wheedled elderly Mr Crun, who while being adept at charming the ladies into parting with their Galleons, was also rather fond of his lunch breaks and kept to his hours of employment with admirable precision.

"I'll see what I can do," responded Hermione in a mild manner which set them on immediate alert.

Within two days she had worked out a way of installing a theft-protection charm in whole shelves of books at a time. A simple pass of the wand by the cashier after payment would disable the charm. Any book being removed from the premises without passing over the payment desk would set off a cacophonous alarm.

Two days after installation, the alarm went off. Books fell to the floor all over the shop as people clapped their hands to their ears. Hermione moved swiftly to the doorway, where a tall man had been detained by a magical barrier. She put a firm hand on his arm.

"Excuse me," she began, only to trail off into an astonished silence when she looked up into the irritated black eyes of Severus Snape.

There he stood, large as life and twice as ugly, three books held quite openly in his grasp. No one had seen him for over ten years. No one knew where he had gone after the trial had cleared his name. He had simply vanished off the face of the earth; even his Order of Merlin had had to be awarded in absentia. And yet, there he was, glaring in the way she remembered so well.

Hermione was lost for words for a minute, but as the alarm continued to sound and customers began shouting complaints over the top of it, she pulled herself together and cancelled the spell.

"Would you come with me, please?" she said to her former professor, and led the way to her office.

She simply could not believe that he was there. It was even more unlikely that he should be stealing – and so openly, at that. She didn't know what to think. She closed the door behind them and turned to look at him.

He had walked to her desk, where he laid the books down before returning her gaze impassively. He had not changed very much. Still gaunt and sallow, still black-clad, but his hair, longer now and tied back at the nape of his neck, was clean and shot with strands of silver. There were a few lines around his eyes to add to those she had always seen carved into his features, but other than that he seemed to have aged well. He arched an eyebrow at her, and she realised with chagrin that she had been staring. She cleared her throat.

"Um, Professor Snape – this is something of a surprise," she said. The inanity of her words was met with a slight lift of the eyes. She felt acutely uncomfortable. With a gesture towards the books, she continued, "Would you mind explaining...?"

He didn't reply, and she began to feel annoyed. It wasn't for her to feel awkward in this situation. He had been caught walking out of her shop carrying books for which he had not paid.

"Sir, if you cannot account for this incident in a manner which satisfies me, then I shall be obliged to call for an Auror to take you into custody. Theft is no longer tolerated on these premises."

Still he gave no answer, but he uncrossed his arms and reached for a piece of parchment and a quill that lay on the desk.

I do not speak, he wrote.

Her eyes flew to the knot of scar tissue just visible above his collar. Now she felt even more uncomfortable.

"Oh. I – er – excuse me. Can you please tell me, nevertheless, why you were taking the books, Professor?"

The books are mine. I am no longer a professor.

His script was swift, crabbed but strong, the down-strokes harsh.

She frowned. "What do you mean – 'the books are yours'?"

Gringotts sends my order with payment each month. I have not received my books this month, though the transfer has been made. These books are mine.

Hermione's mind went into overdrive. "Oh, good grief! You mean to say, you're Mr X?" she blurted before she could stop herself.

He snorted.

She didn't know for the moment how to continue in the face of the revelations piling up in her face. She settled for the easiest thing first.

"Just a minute, please, Prof... sir." She went to the door and called for Miss Bannister. Without admitting the woman to the room, she enquired about the order.

"Oh, but you had us so busy with the anti-theft charms that there just wasn't time," whined the shop assistant.

"There wasn't time," repeated Hermione scathingly, "to parcel up three books and send them over to Gringotts for the proprietor of the place where you just happen to work?"

Miss Bannister blanched.

"I am not very impressed," snapped Hermione. "Nothing of the sort will happen again. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Ms Granger," quavered the other woman, suddenly realising that there was steel in her generally amiable boss. Hermione shut the door in her face.

"I'm so sorry," she said simply to Snape, who had stayed where he was by the desk. "I'll see to your order personally from now on. Just my luck to catch my boss with the new anti-theft charm," she said ruefully.

It is a good idea.

"Thank you," she said, blushing at the first bit of praise she could ever remember receiving from him. "Though I can't claim originality – most Muggle shops have something of the sort. Well, as you are here, can I offer you anything?" He shook his head. "Would you like to see the accounts and review the plans I've been drawing up for the business?"

By way of answer, he seated himself behind the desk and waited while she retrieved her papers. Summoning a chair for herself, she sat at his elbow as he rapidly scanned the sheets. As he was silent and concentrating, she was able to examine him closely. Her first impression held up on closer scrutiny: he had aged well indeed, yet there was an air of something indefinable – melancholy, perhaps – which she could not remember ever having associated with him before. He seemed no less harsh on first view, but sadder. She was brought back from her contemplation by a scribbled question being thrust under her nose. His eyes said, "Pay attention, Miss Granger!" with just as much irritation as his voice ever had in class. She blushed and applied herself to the task.

Two hours passed swiftly in his company. She had to send out for sandwiches as they worked through her lunch hour, and though there was no conversation over the meal, she did not find his presence made her uncomfortable. The questions he scrawled were pertinent; any answers he gave were challenging and provoked fruitful trains of thought. It was invigorating.

When at last he indicated that he was ready to leave, Hermione rose from her chair with regret, though she felt she had acquitted herself reasonably well. He half stood, but then sat down again and reached for a scrap of parchment. There was a moment of hesitation, but then he took a deep breath and wrote, Is there anything you wish to ask me before I go?

Hermione floundered momentarily. There were so many things she wanted to know. She had dozens of questions tumbling around in her head, all clamouring to be answered. But she didn't want to push her luck too far, despite the apparently open invitation.

"How have you kept yourself?" she asked at last. "Why did you buy this place?"

Potions. Patents. Royalties. Investments, he wrote tersely. Books are my solace.

She wondered if he knew how much of his depth of loneliness he had revealed in that last word. Something in her reached out to him.

"I know what you mean," she ventured.

Perhaps you do, he returned, with a searching look at her.

"Will you come here again to review the business records, or shall I send them to you via Gringotts?" asked Hermione, feeling that more hung on his answer than she was prepared to think about.

He hesitated again before writing, I will come. There is no need to send me my books. I will collect them.

"May I tell Harry about you?"

He closed his eyes, and the groove between his eyebrows deepened.

I will tell Potter.

And indeed he did. Harry barged into Hermione's office the next day, unable to contain his astonishment. He went over and over the brief meeting he had had with Snape in Padma's office. He was gobsmacked that Snape was still alive, rich, and his business partner. He couldn't get over the man's silence. Hermione heard him out. Her own astonishment and mixed feelings were still roiling in her head. Snape's silence had affected her more than she would admit aloud. That voice had been so much a part of him – so infinitely expressive, even if what it was expressing was usually some degree of disapproval – and now it was gone. He had lived without a direct means of communicating the nuances of his thought to a receptive listener for over ten years. How dreadful that would be, she reflected. She herself often felt frustrated at having nobody with whom to discuss her intellectual pursuits, but to know that discussion would only be through the laborious means of writing, even if there were an interlocutor to hand – that would be so much harder. The spontaneous give and take of a spirited discussion was such a rich and rewarding thing.

"Oh, but he wants his involvement kept a secret for now at least," said Harry, unnecessarily.

Hermione saw him out with relief.

Her life quickly settled to a new routine. She worked long hours, devoting most of her energies to the business she was quickly growing to love. She watched with pride as her improvements took and restored the old place to prosperity. Some of her schemes were more charitable than business-orientated, but she felt justified in implementing them for the sake of F&B's reputation. One such was when she engaged a book-binder. Sixty per cent of his time was to be spent lovingly restoring customers' antique favourites at great expense; the other two days were for furbishing up second-hand school books.

Why?

Was the abrupt note scrawled in the margin of the letter she had written to Snape informing him of this step, and which came back to her by return owl.

To ensure that children who cannot afford to buy the whole range of expensive new books may still take pride in their possessions, she replied. I still remember how Ron and Ginny suffered over having such shabby things.

Go ahead, he answered.

Away from work, she spent as much time with the children as she could. Rose was doing well at school, though she preferred sports and handcrafts to anything else, and Hugo was making spectacular progress, for which he was often cruelly teased, especially by children older and stupider than him. Hermione's heart ached for him. She recollected all too well how she had been ostracised and mocked for her intelligence. She gave him what support she could, thankful that he was at least in a school where his emerging magical abilities were recognised and understood. She tried to make her darling, sweet little boy feel that his mind was a beautiful thing, and not be afraid to use it. But sometimes, alone in the shop after the children's bed time, she wept bitterly for his suffering. When Rose played Quidditch on Sunday mornings, Hermione sometimes took Hugo with her on an expedition to the back rooms of F&B (she thought of it so often under this title that she was beginning to wonder about changing the sign over the door). She no longer worried about Hugo getting lost. He would be sure to turn up somewhere with some fantastic tome or other on his knees. He always claimed that the 'ghost' had found him these books, and it became something of a joke between them.

Apart from the odd evening with Harry and Ginny, or a few hours at the Burrow, Hermione had no social life. Her mind was on her job. She told herself she didn't care.

Mr Snape, as she was learning to think of him, came a month to the hour after his first visit. As before, they spent a couple of hours going through Hermione's accounts and progress reports, then reviewing her plans. Afterwards, they drank tea in a silence that was companionable rather than awkward. They shook hands when Snape left.

He returned three weeks later, on the Friday. It seemed he had a need for some books sooner than he had anticipated. While Hermione alternated between dealing with paperwork at her desk and helping out in the shop, he settled in one of the armchairs she had installed in front of the office fireplace and became absorbed in one of the volumes he had selected. He was still there at closing time.

Hermione looked at him inquiringly when she returned to the office to tidy her desk.

Are you going home now?

"No, I thought I might inventory another room upstairs this evening. The kids are with Ron for the weekend."

You have no plans to go out?

"No." Hermione flushed uncomfortably. "I don't 'go out' as such," she admitted, wondering what devil was prompting her to tell him things that couldn't possibly interest him.

I was thinking of visiting some Muggle bookshops. I understand that some stay open late in the evening. Would you care to accompany me?

His expression was not exactly friendly, but the invitation was as welcome, she found, as it was unexpected.

"Thank you! I would love to," she told him with a frank smile.

She hung her work robe on a peg, grabbed her jacket and handbag, and led the way out of the shop. He nodded approvingly at her wards, then offered his arm in an old-fashioned gesture. Why not? she thought, feeling slightly flummoxed by the turn of events. But a Friday evening spent in purest book-lust with a fellow enthusiast at her side sounded like a holiday to her.

The following Friday, they did it again. He was always formal, never warm, but she found that even without his speaking they could communicate reasonably well. In fact, it got easier all the time. He was a master of the speaking look, and twice on that second outing, he made her laugh.

Christmas appeared on the horizon, and F&B became phenomenally busy. Hermione had selected various tactics and gimmicks from the Muggle world to entice customers, and late opening on Fridays and Saturdays during December was one of them. Snape's visits to collect his books were sadly curtailed.

Then came Christmas Day. Hermione went to the Burrow with her children. They had been delighted with the little trinkets concealed inside their stockings, and were alight with anticipation of their 'real' presents, which they would be opening with their grandparents and multitude of uncles, aunts and cousins. As they prepared to Floo to the Burrow, Hermione once more thanked Fate that she had been able to keep a good relationship with her in-laws. They had been her surrogate family for twenty years, and it would have destroyed her to lose them. She knew couples whose marriages had died and who had been incapable of exchanging a polite word afterwards, but she and Ron were still good friends. At the basis of their marriage, there had always been that to rely on. Still, it was a cruel blow when he came into the living room with his arm round Gabrielle Delacour.

Once again, Hermione had to put her thoughts and feelings in a box for the duration. It nearly killed her to do so, but by the end of the day it seemed she had put on a sufficiently good show to fool most people. The kids begged to stay the night, since Teddy and Victoire were both there to share the fun, and she was glad to give permission. Ron saw her out into the garden, his face showing his concern.

"Did nobody tell you?" he asked.

"No, nobody did," she said tightly. "It's probably my fault, Ron. I've been so obsessed with the shop, and with the kids when I'm not there, that I haven't had time to notice much else."

"I'm so sorry, 'Mione...."

"Oh, don't be sorry, Ron. I'm just surprised. I'm happy for you. She's a sweet girl. Don't worry about me – I'm just a bit tired. I'll be perfectly okay tomorrow. Good night."

She gave him a peck on the cheek and Disapparated. But not home. She went to the bookshop, where she let herself in, carefully re-erected the wards, went into her office, hung her coat up, sat down at her desk, and began to cry.

She cried until there were no more tears in her and she fell into an exhausted sleep with her head pillowed on her arms.

Waking some time later, she registered some dull surprise that the room was warm, whereas it had been cold before, and that someone was sitting by the fire. She shook her head to clear it, and regretted her action immediately – she had the world's worst headache. With a groan, she tried to focus on the other person, who had risen and was approaching her. It was Snape. He pressed a small phial into her hand. Sniffing the contents cautiously and recognising a powerful analgesic, she downed the lot in one gulp and shuddered. Snape had returned to the hearth, where he appeared to be pouring tea. Hermione rose stiffly from the desk. The phial was taken from her and her fingers were wrapped round a large, hot mug. Firm hands pushed her gently into an armchair.

There was silence. Of course there was silence – Snape couldn't speak. But as Hermione revived, she became aware that he was watching her closely.

"I must look awful," she said at last, raising one hand to push at her hair.

He nodded his agreement, though his eyes creased in a hint of a smile.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, attempting to divert his attention from her no doubt ghastly appearance.

He gave her an I own the place look. Then he took a pad and pencil out of his pocket and wrote, The question would be more pertinently asked of you. Why are you not with your family?

"I... they... it's just that..." Hermione faltered, exasperated with herself that she was tearing up again. She breathed deeply to master her voice. "I had a bit of a shock. I needed to get away for a while. The children are with their cousins, having fun."

Shock? he prompted.

Of a sudden, Hermione found that she was unburdening herself to this most unlikely of confidants. She feared that he would think less of her, but his expression remained neutral, his eyes not sympathetic, but not unkind either. That was good. She thought that sympathy might have undone her completely. She told him everything, finishing with how seeing Ron in love had made her feel so profoundly alone and incompetent at life that she had run for refuge.

You have friends.

"I know. But it's not really enough. I can't share all of what I am with them – I never have been able to. And now I'm seeing Hugo already enduring the same treatment I got at school, and it's making everything come back to me tenfold, somehow." She sank her face into her hands, bending until her forehead almost touched her knees, but she looked up when she felt an insistent touch on her shoulder.

You should go out more. Meet people.

She wondered at the strange look in his eyes as he handed her these words.

"I do, from time to time. Ginny and Harry set me up from time to time. But they're all ex-schoolmates, ex-colleagues, or idiots. And the categories are not mutually exclusive," she added sourly, which elicited a snort of agreement.

They sat a while. Hermione remembered that it was Christmas, and felt for the lonely man opposite her. She, at least, had had friends and family around her for the festival.

"I have something for you," she said, rising and going to her desk to retrieve a beautifully-wrapped parcel from the top drawer. She placed it in his hands. "Open it," she urged.

He started slightly and then slowly undid the black satin ribbon, which he rolled up and pocketed, then the green-and-silver Florentine paper. His fingers briefly stroked the polished walnut box before opening it to reveal an elegant fountain pen. He stilled.

"Do you like it?" Hermione asked anxiously.

He moved his head in a gesture she realised would have caused his hair to swing forward and disguise his expression in the days when he still wore it loose. Lacking that refuge, he turned his face away, but not before she had seen that his eyes were moist. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had given him a gift. On a deep, slightly shaky breath, he reached out and squeezed her hand. She returned the pressure before they both let go.

It is perfect, Hermione, he wrote. Thank you.

"You're welcome. Happy Christmas... Severus."

Author Note: "raising two chubbies" – making a V-sign, a rude gesture invented by the English to infuriate the French during the Hundred Years' War, and still popular.