Chapter 2

Severus Snape, only two nights out of St Mungos and still very shaky on his skinny legs, cursed the idiot driver who almost knocked him over and steadied himself before heading for an old and favourite takeaway. He'd exhausted himself the day before, unpacking old boxes and trying to make some sort of order out of the chaos that was his old house in Spinner's End, and today he was determined to take things a little easier. And that meant not cooking. But while he'd often visited the house while he'd been teaching at Hogwarts, he'd not been out for a meal for at least six years, and a lot can happen to an area in six years. The streets were the same, but the little shop around the corner where he'd bought milk and bread (when milk still came in bottles) was now an interior decoration salon. He'd stood in front of it yesterday, his eyes wandering over the "subtle gold prints" and "tasteful faux-fur covers" draped artistically in the window, then he'd cursed silently and headed home.

Today, though, he was starving. His hidden stash of biscuits had almost run out, and there was nothing else in the house except some very tired tea leaves. The mice had even got into the boxed home-made Christmas Cake Hagrid had insisted on giving him two years before, when he was still a member of the Order of the Phoenix. At least that helped explain why there weren't any mice any more.

So now the wounded warrior pulled a long black overcoat around his shoulders and headed for the brighter lights towards the city centre. He hoped the old Fish and Chippie was still there – a chip buttie would go down very nicely, and Merlin take the inevitable indigestion afterwards. If pressed, later, he might have admitted that his mind wasn't 100% on the traffic, but more like 99% on the impending hot and greasy repast, but that didn't stop him shaking his fist at the car that had come so close and restraining his own desire to cast a fast Crucio on the driver.

To Severus's surprise, the car slowed and then stopped. With a slight wiggle on the way, the driver backed the car up to beside him, and the window hummed as it wound down.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir, I w... Professor!"

"Miss Granger. I should have known. I would take points from Gryffindor for your reckless behaviour, but I fear the gesture would be wasted."

Hermione engaged the brake and hopped out of the car. She walked around to the footpath where the man stood, unable to believe that he'd appear so soon after she'd been reading about him. For a long moment she looked at him, until his beetling brows met and his scowl became almost palpable.

"Have I grown an extra nose, Miss Granger, that you find my face so fantastical after all this time?"

"N... no, sir. I just wasn't expecting ... of all people ... although I suppose it makes sense, it's just that no-one would believe me." Hermione realised she was babbling and took a deep breath. "I do beg your pardon, sir. I wasn't watching as closely as I ought to have been, and I'm rather glad you've not been injured."

"As am I, Miss Granger. Now leave me to go about my business."

She hesitated at that dismissal, unwilling to leave the man in the cold like this. "Could I ... Perhaps I could drive you somewhere, Professor."

Severus Snape would normally not have even considered such an offer. And especially from a young lady who had so very nearly hit him. But his back was aching, and his strength, not yet recovered from Nagini's bite, was fading fast. He shook his head at his own frustrating physique and then looked up with the most supercilious stare he could muster (one he had borrowed in its entirety from Lucius).

"You may. This once. Take me to the Fish and Chip shop on High Street, next to the old Library, then you may drive me back afterwards." And he walked slowly up to the car and allowed her to open the door for him and help him into the passenger seat.

Hermione got back in the car, still dazed by the encounter. She drove carefully, turning into High Street then scanning the road left and right for the expected shopfront. Halfway down, though, they both spotted a sign that told them the shop's fate.

Council redevelopment. This Library will be closed and relocated to the Riverside Drive complex as of July 1998.

And to the left of the old Library lay the Indian takeaway Hermione had remembered from her previous trip. Past the library lay the remains of the council buildings, dark and forbidding under the sombre February skies.

Severus's head sank onto his chest, the last of his strength ebbing out with the hopes of the longed-for meal. He would later blame the tiredness and the pain, but a small tear edged out of his eye and he didn't even notice it. But Hermione did. She knew he had been in hospital for eight months, although she hadn't heard he'd been released. But she also knew, from her contact with other casualties of the War, that the healing (both physical and mental) would drain the body quickly of whatever energy it had. Her mind made up, she backed the car in a perfect reverse-park manoeuvre into the one remaining spot outside the "Balti Botti" and pulled on the handbrake as she moved the gearstick into "Neutral."

"You don't like Indian food?"

He sat in silence for a few heartbeats, the question sinking into his brain until he realised he was supposed to answer it. "I've not had it very often. And I'm not fond of spicy food."

His companion, seeing the dark circles under his eyes, knew what was necessary. "Will you excuse me, then, sir. I'll fetch something suitable, and you can come back and eat with us. This food's best when it's shared between people. And I don't think I should leave you alone tonight until you have eaten. You look like a puff of wind might knock you over." She let herself out of the car, shivering as the cold of the evening sank in, and wrapped her scarf around her neck tightly as she hurried into the brightly-lit shop.

Five minutes later, Severus was bored and starting to get cold himself. The lights in the takeaway beckoned him, and he let himself out of the car and walked slowly and purposefully into the warm area and over to where Hermione was balanced on a chair and perusing a tattered copy of some womens' magazine from several years before. (How Will Maggie keep busy with no Politics? Kids love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory more than the Five! Princess Diana's AIDS funeral compassion. Lose a stone before Christmas!).

"Does that rubbish really amuse you?" he drawled, then jumped back as she leapt to her feet, her hand holding a thin stick out past him. For a moment he thought it was a wand, then he saw she was pointing the car key at the window.

"If you're not in the car, I have to lock it, or someone will steal it." She watched for a double flash from the blinkers, then sat back down and looked up at him. "You might as well sit down. They'll be another ten minutes at least."

He sat opposite her, and she smiled at him over the magazine which now lay between them. "And no, for the record, it intrigues me." She waved her hand at the glossy coloured pages, currently open to a display of womens' makeup. "I can't understand why so many women spend the fortunes they do on this stuff. Most of it just replicates what a decent diet and exercise will do anyway."

"People want to find fast solutions," he surmised. "They want in a moment what would otherwise take weeks. Your 'diet and exercise' requires commitment and discipline – a tube of lipstick and a wave of powder take a couple of quid and a mirror."

"You're right. But it's still scarily fascinating." She shut the magazine and rested her elbows on the table, her knuckles cradling her chin. "I'm surprised also to see you living back here, sir. Does the town hold as many good memories as it does bad?"

He looked deep into her eyes to determine whether she was stirring him, but saw only compassion and care. "Miss Granger, my house is here. I have nowhere else to go. And my parents are long dead and their pain with them – the house is only a repository of books and clothes now." His eyes almost managed to convince her, but a touch of pain behind them told her the bitter truth – that he tolerated the memories only because anywhere else would be worse. His voice continued, though, the acrimonious note marring its velvet tones only slightly. "They said they couldn't do anything more for me at St Mungo's, and while I was exonerated and cleared at the trial, for some reason the Council won't let me teach at Hogwarts. Not for a few years anyway. And I don't think I'm quite up to teaching again yet. So I'm at home. Reading. Resting." And becoming bored out of my skull. "But enough blather. Miss Granger, you ought to be at work. Or teaching. Or studying. Why aren't you?"

Her eyes, which had looked into his honestly and candidly, flicked away, and he was surprised to realise it discomposed him. He did not look away himself, though, and waited until she brought her gaze back to meet his, then held that gaze until he knew she was incapable of lying to him.

"I'm lost."

He said nothing. Years of observation had taught him that the less he said, the more people tended to talk. It had stood him in good stead for gathering information for He-Who-Was-Now-Dead, and Severus was not going to change a tactic that worked so well. And it did once more.

"I fought so hard, for so long." Hermione was losing herself in that look, which she knew was reading the secrets of her soul from the backs of her eyes. She couldn't look away from him. She could feel things moving, stirring, being dragged from the depths of her heart where she'd locked them almost a year ago, and unbidden they rose to the surface and revealed themselves. Thoughts she'd not realised she had. Thoughts she'd not realised she'd buried deep and dark, where they should have been safe. And now...

"I did what I could. Helped Harry. Searched. Put my own needs and wants aside while we fought. And when it was all over, there was this big, bleak darkness ahead of me, and I didn't know what to do. I'd been the 'smart one' and 'that clever girl' and suddenly I didn't need to be that. And Ron wanted us to marry and settle down at once, but I didn't want to be a wife and a mother straight away either. So I ran.

"And I ran away from magic, and away from the Wizarding World, and tried to be a normal person for a while. But I couldn't do that either."

She bit her lip and brutally suppressed a sob which was trying to rise in her. Severus hadn't realised, but his hands had slid across the table to take hers, and she was clutching his fingers like someone drowning. The darkness in her soul called to him, and he willed her to continue, but the moment was lost when the proprietor bumped into their table and jolted them out of their trance.

"Yer dinner, Miss. And yer drinks." The young Pakistani cook smiled to see two people so caught up in each other and waved the dinner containers under their noses.

The two lost souls blinked simultaneously, and Hermione turned and smiled at the proprietor, who handed her the bags. She rose and started for the door, then turned back and looked at Severus.

"All right, Miss Granger. Just a moment." Severus pushed himself stiffly out of the chair and started towards the door, which he held open for the young woman. She fumbled at her keys until they set off the door locks, and Severus opened the rear left side door for her to gently place the takeaway, then let himself in the front door while she went around to the driver's side.

Hermione slipped in and fastened her seat belt, then put the key into the ignition. She paused then, thoughtful, then turned and faced her old teacher.

"It's Hermione. And as we're no longer at school, may I?"

"You may, Hermione."

"Thank you, Severus." And she started the car and headed to the old Children's Home.