Malum Quidem Nullum Esse Sine Aliquo Bono

Severus sat in contemplative silence, wasting a perfectly good scowl on the paperwork spread out before him. Hermione's charmed window kept out the yowling wind brought in by a heavy storm, but he could breathe in whole big lungs full of salt-scented air. With a muttered expletive, he threw his quill down and cobbled together the folders, throwing them down on the floor for another time. He now hated her distributors as much as she did.

Bored, Severus scanned the remains of the previous night's takeout Thai food. There had been plenty of it, given that 'the boys' refused to even taste it. Philistines. The first spoonful of Tom Khar Kai, or spicy chicken soup in coconut milk, had been a seminal moment in his life, and Severus wondered how he'd lived without it before. The foamy pink noodle dish... not so much. He had made a motion to rename it mee-crap, but Hermione was not amused and was unwilling to second the motion.

Strangely, Thai food came with a Chinese Fortune Cookie, not that she seemed surprised, but Severus was disinclined to dispute the flaw in that logic. His fortune had read, 'You will find yourself on a long journey.' Claptrap like that called into question the honor of ancient Chinese wisdom and whether 2, 8, 11, 13, 24, 26, and 35 really were his lucky numbers.

Hermione had giggled in a most unbecoming manner and revealed her secret destiny was to 'Meet new and exciting people in bed.'

Severus had quickly proposed a trade. Obviously, he had gotten the raw end of the deal. Not that there was any surprise in that. And to add insult to injury, the hardtack cookie was both completely unpalatable and a chore to swallow. How typical.

Her girlish giggle was the only time Hermione laughed, much less seemed to relax.

To say relations were strained between them was like saying Fluffy was just a dog. And Hermione hadn't stayed long after dinner. He knew repairing the damage done to their tenuous relationship would be slow going and much more difficult than the falling out they had when he first edited her reports, but Severus was a patient man. He could wait her out as long as necessary. It wasn't as if he had anything better to do. And getting her off the Liquid Sunshine would do a lot to further his aim.

A smile tugged at his lips as he wickedly envisioned the polar ice cap of indifference around her heart melting. Her sex drive returning. He smirked. A happy, healthy, and naturally passionate Hermione would be a much better Hermione for everyone concerned. 'Everyone concerned' namely him. Damn anyone else.

He shook his head, hoping that such romantic sounding thoughts would somehow tumble out from between his ears. All he could do was be patient and give her time to adjust. Though the very idea that he was being this kind and considerate toward a witch he wasn't even bedding made his lips curl. Every day made him more and more amazed by how wrapped up in little Hermione Granger's world he'd become. If Albus were alive, he'd be as happy as the day he'd discovered something called a ring pop.

Granger had been a student just like any other. She wasn't likely to melt a cauldron or blow up the lab, and under those circumstances, she should not have garnered much of a second glance. She should have been another faceless name on an attendance sheet. But she wasn't. Had never been, if only because of the company she'd kept and the fact that she was disturbingly talkative in class. And annoyingly correct. But still, she was Granger, first row, third seat from the left, Outstanding, graduating class of 1998. She shouldn't have been anything more than that to him. Or at least, she hadn't been. Shouldn't have been.

And yet, she was. Every day, he stared at the same four walls, and yet, they were so disturbingly different from the same four walls they'd been just a few scant months ago, that somehow every fucking thing about his life was so different he wondered what the hell had happened to cause all of this. Granger should have been a named storm. She invaded and upset everything, from his stacks of luxury comfort items, to his absurdly high thread count bed sheets, to the work that shaped his life and gave meaning to it...

It wasn't the work. Severus frowned and repeated the thought back in his mind. It had never been about the work. How the hell had Hermione Biggest-Swot-on-Earth Granger given a meaning and real sense of purpose to his life? That was disturbing. He'd always been of the firm conviction that neither a person's self-worth nor existence should ever be tied up in another. Such relationships were unhealthy and unequal. Well, nothing about his relationship with Hermione was equal. If he had to term it anything, it would be co-dependent.

With a deep mental sigh, Severus closed his eyes and began to meditate. Fucked up dysfunctional relationships were familiar grounds. He had a whole lifetime's worth of experience with them. He could deal with this. He could deal with his persistent and invading wife.

Heavy shuffling footsteps in the hollow corridor immediately snapped his attention to a guard's presence. It was most definitely not his Hermione. She favored practical flats that she could slip off immediately so she could put her perpetually ice-cold feet into his bed covers. They produced a light tapping sound. When she wanted to sneak up on him unawares and stare at him through the jailer's slot, she wore trainers. Vixen.

Severus slid his eyes to the door frame as the footsteps halted just outside his door. A pair of watery blue eyes heavily framed by dark curled lashes peered through the slot. Without seeing the rest of his blunt features, Severus noted Mulciber's eyes were downright feminine.

"Uh... Professor?"

He allowed his lips to curdle in disgust. When he wasn't Prisoner 11652, he was the Professor. Severus wasn't sure he knew which title he loathed more.

"I, uh, brought your book back," Mulciber stuttered as he entered the cell. "You were right, I did like this one."

Severus wasn't as hard up for company as he once had been before Hermione had entered his life, but he wasn't going to turn down the opportunity for a delightful chit-chat. He scowled to himself; Minerva would have loved that. The old biddy had spent years trying to warm up his spirits by being his friend. She had been operating under the mistaken assumption that Severus was in need of a friend, or a hug, or a cup of tea to make all the hurts and ills of his life melt away. Perhaps she thought they'd settle into a routine and trade stories and gossip like the other hens. It had taken quite a long time before Severus was able to disabuse her of that notion, and while he was perfectly content to sip her tea and eat all of her chocolate digestives, he was in no way her friend. Nor would he ever be. Gryffindors were always so stubbornly pig-headed when they saw an underdog to champion that they never bothered to ask whether their help was wanted. They were nearly as bad as Hufflepuffs. Though he had cultivated his relationship with Pomona, because she cultivated his herbs. It would never do to piss off that witch, not when she could so easily plot something so nefarious as switching his Queen Anne's Lace with Water Hemlock. Not that the mud-smeared witch would ever do so.

Severus frowned. He needed to stop his thoughts from dwelling on ghosts of his past. What was done was done. He'd never stalk those halls again, or trade dirty jokes with Rolanda, or swap barbs with Poppy, or practical jokes with Filius, or replace all of Albus' stashes with sugar-free candy. Which was all really for the best, because he hated that miserable place.

Severus beckoned the boy to sit in the black leather armchair. It was, after all, the finest seat in the house. Billy sat uncomfortably, unaccustomed to the wizard he still thought of as his Head of House offering him a seat. From one of the small white boxes stuffed with red tissue paper, Severus began pulling out the charmed teapot and other items he needed. Wisely, Billy managed to keep still and silent as the wizard worked. He knew better than to distract him when he was brewing, even if it was a pot of tea.

"I don't have milk to offer you, so I'm making Darjeeling," Severus drawled over his shoulder. Billy liked his tea with an extra splash, but figured pouting would get him nowhere, or could possibly land him somehow in detention with the Professor.

"No problem, sir. I drink it without all the time." Billy cocked his head to watch him work, noting that the Professor wasn't even listening to him. He probably hadn't wanted an answer either.

His Head of House had always been larger than life. Especially so to Slytherins who whispered frightening stories of his prowess in the Dark Arts to the younger years. Once Billy had become a seventh year, he realized that the same fantastic stories he had been told about Snape when he'd been a first year had reached epic proportions as they were handed down to the next generation.

Professor Snape was an ancient hybrid vampire of unspeakable power. 'Half-Blood Prince of Darkness,' they called him.

Professor Snape was hatched from a harpy's egg. He had no navel, and could fly.

Professor Snape was dying from a curse that kept him pale and nasty. The counter-curse required him to feed off of the hearts of small children who irritated him in class.

Professor Snape was an incubus who used his demonic voice to lure witches into his bed, and there hadn't been a single virgin to graduate Hogwarts since he started teaching.

Professor Snape was the Dark Lord's favorite.

Billy wasn't one to admit when he was afraid; so he didn't. He would say he respected Professor Snape a lot. The respect might have been born out of fear, but he was admitting to nothing. Not ever. And he certainly wasn't going to decline tea, even as he studied the hands that prepared it, looking for any sign that Professor Snape was going to poison him.

Billy quietly accepted the proffered teacup when offered and took an orange spice wafer politely. He sighed in mild relief when it was obvious that the tea was just that: tea. Not that the Professor of Slytherin House yore needed to poison him, because he had heard once that Severus Snape could steal a wizard's soul right out of his body just by locking eyes with him. Nah, he assured himself, scratching the back of his head, that was just rubbish.

Years watching the Professor had taught Billy that he was just a wizard like any other, even if the rumors still could be heard in his brain. For one, Billy had been there when the prisoners had been stripped and deloused, so he knew for certain that he had a belly button. And while he supposed the Professor was swinging something witches found impressive, it probably wasn't bigger than Hagrid's. And since he'd begun borrowing books from him, it was almost as if he were a decent sort... and the tea was kind of nice.

The Darjeeling was perfectly light and floral, Severus reflected, as he tilted his head back to rest propped up on the sleigh bed. The charmed teapot was the wrong way of going about making a decent cup, but it served his purpose, functioning as both a kettle and teapot, and he was hardly in a position to argue. It was also his only source of hot water, so he never argued. In the evenings after Hermione left, he filled it and waited until it made a false whistle, signaling it had just hit the ideal temperature and had not yet set to a boil. Then he stoppered his sink, poured the hot water in, and washed himself. Thankfully, Hermione had never dropped by late at night and unannounced. His eyes closed in quiet contemplation, wondering if she'd enjoy the show.

Billy shifted nervously, uncertain what to do with himself as the Professor seemed to have fallen asleep, his tea practically untouched.

"Uh, sir?" Billy made another attempt at returning the Professor's paperback. He held in one sweaty hand the book, as the thick fingers on his other hand grasped the delicate saucer. Billy was justifiably nervous about holding the china. It was dainty and fragile-looking, and he knew if he wasn't careful, he could easily break it, but if he didn't hold on firmly enough, he might spill the tea or drop it on the stone floor, where it would certainly shatter. Which just made him more uncomfortable and his palms sweat, because it wasn't just Professor Snape's china, but a gift from Ms. Hermione as well.

Severus' eyes snapped open, sharpening at once on the boy who'd managed to gobble all the rest of his orange spice biscuits.

Severus accepted his book back and lazily gestured towards his library, offering the eager boy another. Life as an Azkaban guard was about as boring as an inmate's. He thought of what conversation in which he might engage the boy, but could not find a topic of interest that they shared. Those conversations were better saved for Hermione.

Hermione...

"You may borrow another book, if you'd like," Severus pointed to the overstuffed shelves of Muggle literature. Hermione had said she chose them because it was the only way she was certain she was bringing him titles he hadn't read, but he still suspected she was trying to get him to take an interest in 'her people.' Though why the witch still referred to them as 'her people' was beyond his ken. The moment Severus was old enough to hold his first wand, he divorced himself as much as possible from all things Muggle and had rarely looked back.

"What about this one, Tess of the... uh..."

"D'Urbervilles? Not worth the ugly cheap Muggle paper it's written on. Unless you like reading about destitute milk maids maltreated and abused because of their blood status?"

Severus gave the young man a piercing glare. Billy Mulciber was correctly sorted into Slytherin. Like many of his fellow Slytherins, he'd been much too mischievous to fit into any other House; however, mischievous wasn't the same as cruel. But then, Slytherin House had been chock full of witches and wizards without a cruel bone in their body. It was that ten percent that ruined it for everyone else.

By Severus' second year of teaching, he'd cottoned on to the real method behind the madness. The Houses were always equal. Children were organized less on their natural inclinations than the needs for bedding and adequate class sizes. Eleven-year-olds were so malleable, and seven years of nurturing only reinforced what they'd been told about themselves. That 'magically' some tatty, singing bonnet divined what lay in the deepest recesses of their souls. What utter bullshit.

"No, sir!" he piped up hastily, snapping Severus out of his woolgathering. Jonas was smart to send him away; the boy was too soft. He wouldn't have lasted a season with his brethren.

"Well, if you liked Dumas' Musketeers," Severus said dryly, "you'll probably enjoy Ivanhoe on the second shelf."

"What about this other Dumas book?" he asked, looking up questioningly.

Severus grimaced at the book he was fingering. Hermione was obviously trying to make a statement through her choices of Muggle literature. And as always, it was made with all the subtlety and finesse he'd come to expect from the average Gryffindor.

"You can take that one, too. And I'd prefer not to see it again, if you don't mind. I don't care what you do with it...Vanish it, burn it, drop it in the North Sea for all I care, but take it with you."

"Wouldn't Ms. Hermione mind?"

"I dare say she'd preen herself in triumph if she knew about our little book club, but let's just keep this to ourselves. Now, take that book and whatever else strikes your fancy and leave, boy. But I'm warning you, if I find any more traces of chocolate on the pages, I'll send Ms. Hermione after you, and she's much less forgiving than I am."

"Sure thing, Professor!"

The boy left crumbs in his armchair and a nervously muttered, 'Thanks for the tea,' and Severus let him go without a chiding word, even though he longed to. There was a certain level of amusement to be had by snapping at his jailers.

Severus washed up and dutifully put his tea things away.

He climbed back into bed and listened to the sounds of the sea and the whooshing of the wind and passed the late afternoon with his favorite new distraction. It was always best to get that sort of thing out of the way before Hermione visited him in the evenings. It put him in a much clearer frame of mind, and well, if he just happened to get lucky, a little extra stamina wouldn't go amiss.

He closed his eyes and imagined her stepping into his cell wearing those rhinestone studded heels again...

*

A/N:

Chapter title: Malum Quidem Nullum Esse Sine Aliquo Bono - There is, to be sure, no evil without something good. (Pliny the Elder)

So many thank yous and a heartshaped box of Honeydukes truffles for Christev20 for betaing this chapter.