Tufted Ears, Bushy Tail

Disclaimer: I own nothing. JKR owns it all.

A/N: This story is A/U. Disregards the end of HBP and DH entirely. Written for liagiba84, who gave me the prompt.

Three weeks into his capture, Severus Snape decided that the only thing keeping him sane was the chattering Eurasian Red Squirrel that would come to the tree outside his tiny window and look in on him. Some days she would climb up the tree using those sharp little claws and hang upside down, looking in on him and chattering loudly. Others she would sit and eat bits of nuts or berries. Due to the warding on the little shack where Severus was imprisoned, she could not toss him any food, although Severus swore it looked like she wanted to. He couldn't say how exactly he knew the little red rodent was female, since there is no size difference between females and males, but he just knew.

He had food and water; the table in the shack was spelled to give him basic food as well as enough water to drink, but there was absolutely nothing there to entertain him. He was alone with his thoughts. Severus had been betrayed to the Dark Lord by Micah Fenwick, a new member of the Order of the Phoenix. Not deliberately, no, but he was captured, and Voldemort had broken into his mind easily enough.

Lucius had been told to kill him, but he was apparently hedging his bets and had only imprisoned Severus here in this shack in the middle of an Unplottable piece of Malfoy land. This did rather impressively remove Severus from the equation and was severely damaging to the side of the Light.

Hermione Granger had been given the task of Arithmancer for the Order. She had decided to do as Dumbledore had suggested and do a self-study of the seventh year material along with the sixth year classes she was taking. She was given the Time-Turner to help her complete her studies.

She took her NEWTs along with the seventh years and, of course, passed them all with flying colors. She got extra credit on her Transfiguration exam for her Animagus transformation. Dumbledore found a way for her to register but have it hidden from the public, so very few people knew that she could transform at all.

Due to this intensive bit of studying, Hermione had distanced herself a bit from Harry and Ron. It wasn't intentional, but Ron and Lavender had gotten very serious, and after examining her feelings and realizing that she was jealous of being left out, Hermione had decided to be the better person, and in doing so, she had discovered Lavender was quite a talented witch and a far better match for Ron than she. But Lavender certainly wasn't an intellectual, and therefore, with Hermione so busy with so much study, they had become friendlier, but were not together very much.

Harry and Ginny had given a relationship a go and realized that Harry wanted to have the entire Weasley family, not Ginny in particular. Ginny realized she liked the idea of Harry Potter more than the reality of being with Harry Potter. They decided to stay friends. Ginny was happily dating Dean again, and Harry had paired up with Luna. Although Luna saw far more than people gave her credit for, Hermione still was too busy to truly be a friend. With both boys entangled in their relationships, as long as they saw Hermione was around when they expected her, they did not do too much else to keep as close as they would like.

During this time, Hermione had become much closer to the slightly older members of the Order. Remus had, unfortunately, been killed on one of his missions to the werewolves. Harry had still not forgiven Dumbledore for that one, less after Hermione had shown them an Arithmantic calculation that showed his death as a probable outcome. After that death, Hermione did the Arithmantic calculations for all of their bigger missions.

Hermione had managed to predict the outcomes for many of Severus's missions, and so he began to trust his former student. He had her help him with the potions for the Order, and they would spend many hours just talking about anything, literature, old movies, music. They discovered they were both fans of The Doors and The Eagles. They argued over the romance of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. They were quite certain George Lucas had to be a Squib at the very least.

The day Severus was captured, she was devastated. The calculation she had run for that happening had an unknown variable. Of course, that unknown was Lucius. Had he not been involved, Severus would have been able to overpower the Death Eater assigned to kill him and would have returned.

Dumbledore had, of course, declared that they were not to search for him. They still had to figure out a safe way to remove Hufflepuff's cup from the Black vault, although they were leaning toward using Tonks to do so, and they needed to get Nagini away from Voldemort. That was part of what Severus had been attempting to do when he was imprisoned. Luna had figured out an easy way to get the Horcrux out of Harry. She just found a Dementor (no one asked her how) and then, once it had sucked out the piece of Voldemort's soul, she used her Patronus to scare it off. Since the Dementors fed on souls, eventually that piece of Voldemort's soul was destroyed.

Hermione decided to find Severus on her own. She figured out a way to use a piece of his clothing to do a modified Point Me Charm and headed off, once more using the Time-Turner, so that no one would notice she was gone. She found him after three weeks and used her Animagus form to try to communicate with him. But try as she might, she could not break through the Malfoy wards.

Hermione visited Severus every day, sometimes twice if she could. She was not sure how to get him out; there was another unknown variable in her calculations. That changed one day during the fifth week when Draco Malfoy tumbled into number twelve, Grimmauld Place. His mother had apparently asked for the protection for her family and shoved him through the Floo. He had a horrible story of torture and pain, since he had found that he had no stomach for murder. Voldemort had ordered Lucius to kill his son and was giving him permission to have another heir. Narcissa was a bit opposed to the idea. No one was sure what happened to the elder Malfoys after this bit of defiance. They were presumed dead.

At the beginning of the sixth week, Hermione asked Draco to accompany her out to the shack. Her calculations had told her that this was the best day to do so. He helped her to bring down the wards and was pleased to do so because these were his father's magic, and they were still strong, indicating to Draco that at least one of his parents was alive. Hermione instructed him to return to Grimmauld Place. She would return as soon as she had fetched what she came out to retrieve.

As usual, Hermione ran up the tree in her Animagus form, but once at the window, she leapt inside. Severus was startled. He was flabbergasted when she ran up to him and shifted forms. He figured he was hallucinating, that he had missed a poison in the food.

"I'm real, Severus. I'm here, I would never leave you!" Hermione declared.

"I'm surprised Albus gave you permission," he replied, unwilling to believe that this witch had risked all of this for him.

"He didn't."

Hermione looked at Severus, but when he didn't give her any indication, by word or by facial expression, that he was pleased that she had done so much for him, her heart broke. She had spent the last six weeks realizing that she loved the dour man. She loved his wit, his passion for his work and his friendship. She would have risked anything for him, which was why she had done what she did. But after he made no comment, and his expression didn't change, she figured he did not feel the same.

She began to turn around, to lead him out the door and out to freedom, when he reached out for her.

"Hermione, I... I... Please don't leave me!"

"I would never, Severus. I came every day once I found you." She smiled encouragingly at him.

"I know, love. I thought I was insane, thinking a little red squirrel was so much like you, but I guess I was right." Amazingly, Severus was looking rather shy at this.

"Love. You called me love. Do you mean it?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, yes I do. I should have told you earlier, but I thought we had time. But I guess none of us has our days purchased," Severus responded earnestly.

They looked at each other and drew closer and they kissed, and it was awkward and lovely and passionate.

They drew back slowly and headed out the door. They knew they had to return to Grimmauld Place, but now they could do it with lighter hearts.

Dumbledore was unable to keep his righteous indignation flowing when he saw the new calculation showing the war was sure to go in their favor now that Severus had returned.

A/N: I know, Severus is a bit OOC at the end, but he had been imprisoned for six weeks with only a squirrel and his thoughts for company.

Thanks to Annie Talbot for the beta.