Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Hermione sat in her sunroom in a recliner, her feet bare and resting over a towel. This was her favorite room. It was rectangular and had windows bordered with rich mahogany wood. They spanned the three walls of the room which jutted out from the rest of the house. The ceiling was made of glass. Hermione had gone to great lengths to have it installed. It was one of her indulgences since becoming financially independent.

As she reclined, Hermione studied the bright blue sky above her. It had a few fluffy cumulus clouds floating across it. The day looked cheerful and bright.

A voice brought her out of her thoughts. "Miss Granger, what color would you prefer today?"

Hermione craned her neck to look at her pedicurist. His bleached blond hair fell to his shoulders usually, but today he had it tied behind him in a pony tail. He smiled at her as he awaited her answer.

"How about blood red?" she asked.

Her mood was dark and other than black, that was the only color that had any appeal to her at this time. She really didn't want black toenails for the week.

"Very well, Miss Granger," Jonathan said as he reached for the desired color.

Hermione lay back again and stared at the ceiling, thinking of her visit to Cecil Nottingham that morning. She had waited for him in his study at his home. He had entered dressed much the same way he had on the day he had visited her, minus the top hat. Turning, she had given him a wide grin.

"Good Morning, Cecil," she said.

"Hermione, if anyone can find it, it's you."

Hermione's memory dissolved and she came back to the present. Her meeting with Cecil had been pleasant enough, but she had hated to make such a report to him. She had felt like an utter failure for not even having a small lead on the book. Cecil Nottingham had been incredibly understanding, but she was being paid for results, not apologies.

She looked up at her pedicurist as he began to apply the blood red polish to her now perfect toes. Regular pedicures were yet another indulgence she allowed herself. Since her bookstore and book hunts had gone so well, Hermione lacked for nothing. Having money certainly had its advantages. If she wanted something, she never needed to wait. But most of her indulgences were physical ones. A great pedicure, a nice house, a beautiful wardrobe, these were the things she indulged in. However, she would give it all up for the love of a good man.

That brought her back to her foul mood. Not only had she been upset with her conversation with Cecil, there was also the fiasco of her date gone wrong the night before. She was at her wit's end. In the last two years, she must have dated every available bachelor in London, but no one had struck her fancy.

At first she had simply enjoyed the attention, but now she longed for something more. Good looks were one thing, but she wanted someone she could talk to on her level. That had been the problem with Ron when they had been dating. She loved him dearly, but she had constantly had to dumb herself down for him. He was a wonderful man, but their differences in intellect had just been too great for Hermione. Having imagined herself using a limited vocabulary and having to explain obvious details about her work for the rest of her life had proven to her that Ron was just not right for her. They had amicably ended their relationship and, luckily, had remained good friends.

Ultimately, she longed for the kind of man who would sit in front of the fire and discuss his favorite book, or the latest developments in Potions, or the new Charm that had been discovered just last week.

She knew of no one who held such interests. Well, almost no one. She knew of one person, but he was unattainable. She knew in her heart that Severus Snape could keep her interest and they would have no problem understanding one another. She sighed. Snape had all but disappeared since the war. She had secretly found out where he lived a long time ago. This odd desire to be with him had been going on for quite a while now. She'd had an unhealthy attraction to him ever since the end of the war.

Immediately following the war, Snape had resigned from Hogwarts and, few knew of this, had bought a cottage north of Hogsmeade. It was at the end of a remote road that no one had ever thought to travel. Through Hermione's connections at the Ministry and her experience with her job, she had located the bill of sale and had done some detective work.

After some careful scrutiny, Hermione had found out that Severus never left his home. He'd had everything sent in by Portkey or owl. He had silently disappeared from the Wizarding world, and it seemed that she was the only one who had noticed.

She had casually brought up the subject to Harry and Ron, but they really hadn't cared where Snape was. They were happy that he had survived Nagini's attack, they were relieved that he had been secretly on their side all along. In the end, however, neither one had had any interest in kindling a friendship with the dour man who had made their school years horrible.

She mulled over Severus' apparent rise from the dead. Unbeknownst to any of them, he had suspected that he might be poisoned by the giant snake and had been taking antivenin for a year. He had swallowed a Blood-Replenishing Potion before the battle had truly begun. Immediately after Nagini's attack, he had somehow downed another dose of the antivenin before the Golden Trio had even emerged from the tunnel. In all of the confusion, the discarded vial had never been seen by any of the three of them.

So even though Severus had passed out in a pool of his own blood, having been believed dead by Harry Potter and his two friends, he had ultimately been able to survive. When he'd come to, he had struggled to fish a strengthening solution out of his pocket. He'd barely been able to uncork it. After taking it, he'd had enough energy to stagger back to Hogwarts through the tunnel from the Shrieking Shack. The strengthening solution had been able to sustain him for a little while, and he eventually had stumbled into the Great Hall long after the battle had been won.

Of course, with all of the death and destruction, the Hall had still been filled with battle weary. Severus had braced himself against the door before he'd fallen to the ground while the entire population in the Great Hall had stared at him, in dumbfounded silence.

Thank heaven for Poppy Pomfrey. She had kept her wits about her and had rushed to his side. She had conscientiously helped to heal the gashes in his neck as he had lain on the floor, unconscious.

Ultimately, his injuries had only kept him in bed for a day or two. The antivenin had certainly done its work and he had healed quickly. Thanks to Poppy's quick attention, his neck had only had a few small lines of scarring from the huge bite that the evil snake had taken out of the side of it. All in all, it had been a miracle. A miracle mostly of Snape's doing, but a miracle nonetheless.

As soon as Snape had been able to leave the infirmary, he had marched up to Minerva's office and had turned in his resignation. Minerva had tried to convince him to stay, but he would have none of it. Hermione had secretly thought that he could not look at the faces of all of those who had hated him for so long, never knowing if they truly believed him or whether they were just following the crowd and the articles in the newspapers. He had never been seen by the Wizarding world again.

Yes, Severus Snape had disappeared, and no one had cared. No one but Hermione, that was. She had always admired him. She had struggled when he had killed Dumbledore, but even then she'd had a nagging suspicion that all was not as it had seemed. Of course, she never could have said anything like that to Ron or Harry. She would have been dragged to St. Mungo's, and she had needed to be there with her boys to help them out in the search for Horcruxes.

In any case, although she had known Severus had killed, she had not been able to wrap his duplicity around her mind. She had felt that someday they would know the truth and that Severus Snape would not turn out to be the evil person everyone thought he had been. She had known Snape was devious, but Dumbledore had had so much trust in him that she couldn't help but wonder what the truth really was.

Also, from Hermione's perspective, he had always seemed to be loyal. While staying at Grimmauld Place, she had gotten to know him a bit better than her friends had. She had always been a night owl and had loved to sit in the study, reading until the wee hours of the night. Most nights, Severus had been there too. That's when she had taken to calling him Severus for that matter. Well, she had been calling him that in her mind, at least, since then. She had known he would have scowled and bitten her head off had his first name ever come out of her mouth while she was still his student. She smiled to herself thinking of those days long gone.

He had always frowned when he had seen her in the study, but her presence had never sent him looking for another place to read. Hermione had suspected that he had spent his evenings at Grimmauld Place simply because he had not wanted to spend them wherever it was he had spent his summers as a teacher. Later on, after the war, she had discovered Spinner's End in her search for Snape. She had not been surprised to find him nowhere near the old run down home and had been even less surprised about that summer of quiet study.

Severus and she had usually sat quietly, not really ignoring each other, but in companionable silence, if it could have been called that with Severus Snape. Sometimes she had come across something that she had been reading that puzzled her. She had usually asked him about it. He usually had huffed at her and explained it and then the two of them would go back to their individual study.

She really couldn't describe these sessions as friendly, but they certainly hadn't been hostile, and Hermione had grown to know a different side of Severus Snape. She had learned about the quiet, contemplative man that he was. She had seen him when he wasn't barking orders, or screaming insults, and she had thought that deep down, Severus Snape was a person that no one really knew. She had always wanted to get to know him better.

Coming back to the present, she realized that she wanted to get to know him better even more now. Having dated the entire population of Britain, she could assure herself that no one would be a better companion to her than Severus Snape. If only she could convince him of that.

She smiled to herself, thinking of the reaction she would get if she suddenly showed up at his doorstep.

"Hey, Sevvie, how's everything going?"

She was sure he would hex her back to her house so fast that she wouldn't know which way was up.

No, she needed a plan . . . a good plan . . . a plan that he would not see as desperation or pity. Merlin, she knew he hated being pitied. She definitely would rue the day he thought she pitied him.

The thing was that she didn't pity him. She felt compassionate about his situation, but was well aware that he had first gotten himself involved with the Death Eaters of his own free will. Then, when he had decided to turn on them, he had made the decision to work for the good cause until the very end. If anything, she admired him. She knew a lesser man would have run and hidden from such a horrible existence, but he never had.

But what could she do to entice him to spend time with her? He would scoff if she just showed up on his doorstep. She needed a good reason to be there, a reason to ask him to spend time with her.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place, and she knew exactly what she would do. She would seek out his help in finding the Potions text that Cecil had commissioned her to find. It would accomplish two tasks at once. She could use another pair of eyes and a sharp mind on this search. None of her other searches had vexed her so much. His experience as a Potions master would be immensely helpful, and perhaps, being a Potions master, he might even know something more about Horatio Holt and his tome.

She smiled to herself as she plotted how she would go about winning Severus Snape's heart. She just hoped that he wasn't so far gone, separated from everyone and everything, that he would allow her into his secluded world.

A/N: Next up: Hermione seeks out Severus.

Ah, the fun begins. Will Severus help her or will he choose to remain secluded in his little sanctuary? Only an update and a huge amount of snark can give us the answers. Thank you all for reading and reviewing. Many thanks to my beta, who will have to wait to bask in her glory until after the challenge has ended.