Tables

A/N: My thanks, as always, to my alpha- and beta-readers, Anastasia, Lady Karelia, Annie Talbot, Indigofeathers, and Mia Madwyn.

A note on the chapter art: I saw this lovely image of an animal shelter volunteer, and its tenderness and poignance absolutely captured my heart. I did my best with PhotoShop to protect her identity.

First of all, if anyone has any objections to this image being used as art, please email me at ariadne dot snape at gmail dot com and I will remove it instantly – but I hope you don't object; please read on.

Second thing: Please consider making a donation to your local animal shelter – of money, food, blankets, toys, or time – and please, please consider adopting a shelter kitty. Wee kitties like Mimi shouldn't have to brave the cobblestones of Knockturn Alley all alone at night. /end PSA

Summary: Conversation and confession.

10: Tables

"You buggered my soul on the altar of your guilt, you fucking, self-expiating whore."

"Excuse me?!" Hermione, eyes blazing, was on her feet, her wand pointing straight at him.

-----

"What did you call me?"

Severus had done quite enough time held at wandpoint by the irrational, and he jerked his chair back with a fair amount of deliberate noise, snarling, "Not you, you idiot. You lack the prerequisites for buggery."

"Then who – oh, Merlin, I can hear you – but – who are you talking about?"

"Who is none of your business," he growled, easing himself silently out of the range of her wand.

Her wand point followed his voice. "This is my home, is it not? And why can I hear you?" Her voice held a tinge of hysteria.

Bloody hell. This being heard business would clearly require some refinement of his stealth. For now, he stopped moving and nodded, his eyes cold. "It is. And I've no idea."

"Then of whom were you speaking?"

He said nothing.

"Oh. Of course." She dropped her wand and ran her free hand through her tangled hair. "Dumbledore."

Severus nodded.

She seemed to hear him, and her demeanor sagged. "Professor Snape, I – I'm so sorry, but I never got your memo. I would have done whatever you..."

His tone was icy. "The impossible is quite academic at this juncture."

She seemed to be waiting for something.

"Well?" The word was clipped.

"I – nothing. Just..." She looked away from where she knew he was standing and into the shadowed hall. "Nothing. Your voice. I don't know."

"I shan't trouble you any longer."

"Meee?" The kitten was pacing on the table. She reared up and paused, as if measuring whether she could jump to him.

"You're... you're leaving?" Hermione's gaze fell on Mimi. "But..."

"My business here is now moot. Good evening." He strode toward the door, and Mimi jumped down from the table and followed.

Hermione scooped the kitten off the floor. "But where will you go? And why can I hear you now? And... what about Mimi?"

"If I'd known it would result in resurrecting your schoolgirl habit of incessant questions, Miss Granger, I'd far rather..." But would he really rather have remained in silence? No. Refusing to lie, he extended his hands for the kitten and waited, forgetting that being heard did not necessarily imply being seen. "My cat, if you please."

Mimi rubbed her head under Hermione's chin and purred.

"She seems to want to stay here, Professor."

"She will do as she is bidden."

Hermione laughed shortly. "You don't have much experience with cats, do you?"

"You yourself pointed out, however rudely," he paused to let the word twist in her conscience, "that she is my familiar. As such, she will obey."

Hermione nuzzled the kitten sadly. "If you force her, she might, unless she has better ideas. Cats often do."

Silence.

Hermione rested her cheek on Mimi's head for a long moment before speaking. "You're determined, then? I might be able to provide –"

"I need nothing you might provide."

"Fine." With a sigh, she set Mimi down and stroked her forehead with a wistful finger. "Good luck, little thing. You're going to need it."

"Come, Mimi." He reached for the doorknob. "Goodbye, Miss Granger."

She said something he couldn't quite catch, and he huffed. "Do speak up, girl."

"I said, and please don't call me 'girl,' that I wish you'd stay."

"Meee!" Mimi twined around Severus's ankles, thoroughly twisting his cloak around them.

"Get your own familiar, Miss Granger."

Her eyes flashed. "I have one, thank you; anyway, I meant both of you."

Again she seemed to require an answer.

Exasperating. "Your persistence grows tiresome. You've some ulterior motive." He reached down to untangle his cloak. Mimi had trapped a substantial fold under herself and flopped onto her back to bat at his hand.

"Oh, well... I do have one, of course, it's just that I... I'm not sure you'll believe me."

"I shall have no opportunity to decide if you refuse to speak." He nudged Mimi off of his cloak with his foot and picked her up.

"Meee?" she said, twisting around to blink at Hermione.

Hermione took a deep breath. "I think, Sir, that I miss you."

He snorted. "Sentimentality, Miss Granger? Your mind is addled."

"Whose wouldn't be?" Hermione muttered.

"You don't have the first idea who or what I was – or am." She thought she missed him? His first instinct was to find insult, but he couldn't quite twist her words to make that fit. Not knowing how to respond, he rumbled ambiguously.

"I'm sincere. Not that I have missed you, particularly, because I haven't, but now that you're here, I'm certain I miss you now." She leaned on the wall, her weariness etched under her eyes, her smile a shadow of his self-denigrating smirk. "I'm not saying this well because I scarcely understand it myself, but..."

"On that we agree."

"No, please, hear me out – you were there. You remember, as an adult. Not like the boys, not like the parents, or the other teachers. You saw everything. You saved everything - everything. We'd all have been lost, if not for you. And not very many people since the war seem really to understand what you did, or why, or even want to remember you at all. I'd like to think I do, or could, but I'm sure I only have part of it..."

"Your point, Granger?"

"I'd like it if you wouldn't leave, at least not tonight. It's late, I'm in dire need of sleep, and if you've nowhere to go, why not stay here? At least until tomorrow?"

Mimi looked at him expectantly.

Blasted cat. "Why should I?"

"Because I'm asking you to?"

He snorted again.

"Or, if you prefer, because you owe me."

His tone burned with ice: "I owe no one."

Hermione smiled quietly. "You're wrong. Please stay, Professor, if for no other reason than as partial repayment for what I am sure was an entirely inadvertent trespass. You've doubtless realized I'm not particularly shy, in some ways, but I adamantly reserve the right to determine who does and does not get to see me naked. It's only fair."

Thoroughly confused, he took recourse in another rumble.

"Conversely, you could say that I owe you."

"You've no debt to me."

"That's a load of tosh, but if the reasons for that aren't obvious, then a full explanation would take hours, and I'm ruddy exhausted."

"I release you from your debt," he said, turning away to escape wherever this conversation was going.

"You can't, Professor – it's voluntary."

In spite of himself, he snapped, "Explain."

"If you'd wanted to hurt me, even destroy me, you could have done, easily. You didn't." She shrugged as if in apology for having to explain something that simple. "Even hell-bent on revenge, you protected me, in a way, and I respect that."

Damn the witch and her twisty logic. He made a mental note to revise his earlier conclusion that she lacked the requisite equipment for buggery.

"Please, Professor Snape. It's late. Leave debts out of it. I'm merely offering you and your familiar a place to stay. It's nothing, really."

"Nothing, you say?"

"Nothing at all."

Nothing was something he could accept.

"Very well."

---

He leaned against the headboard in the spare room, hands clasped around his knee, idly watching Mimi wander in and out. His thumb worried the hole at his knee.

When he realized what he was doing, he finally thought to repair it. Drawing his will and magic from the air around him, he whispered, "Reparo." Mimi's ear twitched as she peeked around the doorframe.

He chuckled.

If Mimi hadn't so obviously heard him – physically heard him – he might have realized that Mimi's scratch was gone and, along with it, the permanent damage done to his throat by long-ago fangs.