Chapter 3

Severus did not ask which way Hermione was driving, but her brain finally worked enough that she realised she ought to at least warn him – but how, without revealing what she had read? She reached for the radio and turned it on low; a soft blues singer crooning into the space between them. Rain started falling heavily, thudding like fingertaps on the roof and windscreen, and she increased the wiper speed in a half-successful attempt to see.

"Dammit, we won't be able to paint tonight if it's so damp." Hermione threw out the line in frustration, then glanced at her passenger, sitting damply beside her. She tried not to let her voice get too bright as she continued, "Luna Lovegood has bought an old Children's Home outside the town, and we're doing it up for the orphans from the War. It's hard work though – that's why I'm bringing us dinner." The black figure beside her sat absolutely still, and she ploughed resolutely on. "It looks like it was half-reasonable once. But I should think it's been closed for years."

"Seventeen."

She looked at him, then back to the road. It was as if the word had come out of a stone statue, but she needed to make this look natural, so she kept going. "That long! It's easy to believe – the kitchen looks like something out of 'Oliver Twist'. Was it very busy, when it was running?"

"I don't know." The blatant lie slipped far too easily out of his lips, and he wrapped himself in his darkness even tighter. "The records should show. If they still exist."

"No, not any more." Too fast, he'll suspect something. "The place was nearly empty when we got it – just a few old counterpanes and posters. I hope it closed for the best reason."

"And what exactly would be the best reason?" He didn't add you insufferably curious know-it-all, but she could feel it hanging in the air between them.

"Oh, that the children all got to go back to their families, or to somewhere where they were loved, and the services weren't required any more."

"I think you'll find, if you were to go through the town newspaper archives, that it closed because the laws changed." Severus shifted in his seat, the dampness across his shoulders now an ache that heralded early arthritis. Or rheumatism. Or something. "The authorities weren't allowed to take the children away any more, not even if the kids were getting beaten or had their hands ironed – or if they were being made to live under the stairs like your friend Potter. Only in the worst cases, and then they'd go straight to a foster home. So this sort of a halfway house became redundant, and they closed it."

He turned his face to the window, the town landscape now replaced by the grey hedgerows dripping in the downpour. "And good riddance, too."

The car pulled into the driveway of the Home, and Hermione braked carefully against slipping down the slope. Severus made no move to get out, though, and was still staring out the window at the entrance that he hadn't seen for twenty years. Except in his nightmares. She gently laid her hand on his shoulder, horrified at how damp it was – that coat was no more waterproof than a paper napkin. The warmth of her hand seeped through the fabric and touched a small part of his brain as well – he shook his head and turned to her.

"Hermione, don't lie to me. You knew I had been here. Did you bring me here on purpose?"

"No, I brought you here because it's where I'm working. Do you think I deliberately sought you out on the streets of the town, stalked you and followed you so that I could drag you here?" The cold and her hunger gave her voice an edge he had not heard in some time, and he smiled that it was being directed at him for once, instead of complaints behind his back. It was not a nice smile.

"Then I'll come and eat your food, and spend time with Miss Lovegood, and see the old place. But don't expect that I'll like it. Any of it." And he shook off her hand and opened the door into the rain, pausing only to grab the dinner from the back seat before he dashed up the stairs and into the entrance hall.

Luna came out of the old staffroom, rubbing her hands in anticipation. "Goodness, Hermione, I'm so glad you're back – I could hear plimpies in the walls, I'm sure of ... Oh my! Professor!" She looked the newcomer up and down with avid curiosity and a complete lack of dislike. "Won't you please come in? You're dripping, and I have the fire going. Did you come with Hermione?"

"I have your dinner." He held out the bags, their contents issuing a light and spicy odour of total deliciousness, and Luna restrained herself from leaping at him and grabbing the lot. Severus's hand was beginning to get numb from the plastic handles digging in, and he pushed brusquely past the young woman and into the room she had emerged from.

In all his years of attending the Home, Severus had never actually been into the staffroom. His entire knowledge came from the occasional opening of the door as he had passed, and once when he had been sent to find Matron when two of the other children had beaten him up again – he'd stood in the doorway that time, but he hadn't been in a state to notice it. Now, though, he walked in and mechanically placed the bag on the table in the middle, then turned around slowly and saw the artwork that had been a very recent addition to the walls.

Three of the walls were painted a light blue that had no resemblance to the Institutional Grey-Green he had grown up with. The cornices were picked out in gloriously-bright yellows and pinks, and vines of an assortment of green twined down the walls, around the windows and over to the door in Art-Nouveau-style. Pixies and elves peered out from behind the vines, their mischievous eyes catching his, and small flowers dotted the creeping green. None of it moved – it wasn't imbued with the same enchantments that kept the portraits at Hogwarts animated – but the whole thing seemed alive, as if the joy of the artist had infused the work with her own joy.

It was the wall against the corridor that held his gaze for the longest. In a style that some might call Luminism, a scene of distant mountains and a lake were illuminated by a light that seemed to make the entire thing glow. Perched at the side of the lake was Hogwarts, its reflection only slightly broken by the merpeople depicted frolicking in the waters. Deer walked down the sides of the hills to drink in the waters, and in the foreground the Whomping Willow peacefully shaded rows of neatly-sewn plants, and small creatures frolicked in its branches.

"Do you like it, Professor? It came to me in a dream, and I know it's not realistic..."

Severus turned to the blonde, his eyes brimming with tears that had not been allowed out since he was a child. "It's beautiful. You truly have a gift." He paused a moment, unwilling to say more while his heart spasmed with feeling, then turned back and silently started unpacking the food.

Hermione followed with a tray of drinks he had forgotten and looked at Luna, who was smiling beatifically with the joy of praise deserved. Shrugging, Hermione placed the drinks at the table and then headed back out to the kitchen for the extra plate and cutlery that was now necessary with their unexpected guest. Her mind, though, reeled at the praise she had heard. In all the years at Hogwarts, or in Grimmauld Place, she had never once heard Severus give anyone (but the occasional Slytherin) any sort of compliment.

Her hunger started to make itself seriously annoying now, and she hurried back with the implements and sat herself at the end of the table beside Luna. Severus had a plate piled with food and was poking at the Lamb Korma with suspicion, and Luna was explaining the various dishes. Hermione noted with amusement that the two had also progressed to a first-name basis.

"You'll be wanting to try the Butter Chicken, Severus. It's not spicy at all, and it's very satisfying. And the yellow rice grains - they use saffron." Luna made sure the condiments were close by, then tucked in herself with gusto. "It took me a while to get used to all this colour, but the taste is rather lovely, don't you think? And I'm wishing Hogwarts had a more varied diet now – surely the Patil sisters could instruct the house-elves."

"And this green substance, Luna?"

"Dhal. Hermione, I can't remember – what's in it?"

"Lentils, cooked with spices. It tastes a lot better than it sounds", she replied. "Although that very much depends on the cooks." Hermione laughed at herself, as one of the meals she had tried to cook while the Trio were on the run had been dhal. She'd managed to burn the bottom, and all the spices she could add didn't disguise the flavour, but Harry had managed a bowl and Ron didn't seem to notice at all. She'd barely been able to choke down three mouthfuls and had been horribly hungry the next day. "I've always wondered why we don't have cooking lessons at Hogwarts. Or art, or writing or drama."

"There's far too much to learn anyway, Hermione," Snape responded. "I remember you had to resort to a Time Turner in your third year, and that was wearying enough. And most of those skills are either covered by Charms, or taught to students by their parents. No, there's a full curriculum in just teaching young Witches and Wizards to control and make suitable use of their magic; teaching those who have come from Muggle backgrounds like yourself, taming those from full magical backgrounds who have been learning all sorts of bad habits from their parents. But I take your point – there is a loss of the creative arts, and perhaps we have suffered for it." He reapplied himself to the food, pleasantly surprised at the flavours and textures, and ate solidly for the next few minutes.

The food, the warmth from the fire, and the absence of those he would call "dunderheads" brought Severus back to himself eventually, and he lay his fork down and drew himself upright in an attempt to maintain his dignity and hide his obvious enjoyment of the food. His gaze swept over the two women in front of him, who were discussing the placement of the children's paintings they had discovered, and they became aware of his regard and looked up. Drawing a deep breath, Severus spoke.

"Luna. Hermione. I apologise. I am not myself these days and have a far-too-sensitive emotional trigger. I snapped at you, Hermione, because I immediately suspected you of meddling when all you were doing was trying to be helpful, and I was very rudely silent earlier when we started eating. I can only blame my own tiredness and the state my body is still in after all these month. Please do not take it amiss that I have been tiresome, and I shall try to be a better guest." The women looked at him, then at each other, and Hermione reached across and took Severus's hand.

"Apology accepted, Severus. And we're all rather scarred, too. It's too easy to forget that, but it's true." She paused, then continued. "And I have not been totally frank with you either. We did discover you had been here. It really shouldn't have been such a surprise to run into you in your own home town. But neither of us will tell a word."

"No, not a word," Luna responded. "But we'd be happy to have you stay here, or visit. Would you like to help?"

Severus was going to say "No, thank you." He was going to have this as his last moment ever in the Home that had been a refuge and a disappointment at the same time. But the tentative offers of friendship from the two women facing him were too precious to ignore, and their hospitality had drawn him into a place where he would be welcome.

For too many years he had been "the grumpy Potions Professor" that no-one had befriended. His bitterness had left him rejecting the few offers he had had (he still regretted ignoring Lupin's hand when the werewolf had come back to Hogwarts to teach), and it had been a lonely existence. And these two knew it all. Every last little part of his past, his lost love, his pathetic mother and the bastard that had been his father, and they were still offering to be his friends.

His mouth opened, and words he never expected to say tumbled out. "Yes, I'd like that very much. What needs doing?"

"You could advise us on the boys' dormitory," Luna responded in her usual blithe fashion. "There's so much I don't know about boys, and you do. And didn't you spend some time there?"

"I don't care to remember it." The grump was back, but not quite as convincing as before.

"Then perhaps you can make it so that it's not such a sad memory for the lads." Luna reached for the last piece of naan and used it to clean her plate. "I'd do one of my pictures, but I don't think they'd be quite suitable. And I'm not certain that nargles are the right colour for a boys room. And then there's the play room."

"Nargles..."

"Yes," Hermione jumped in. "You mustn't use nargles. Completely unsuitable." And the light in her eyes danced as she tried not to laugh at Severus's attempt to be polite and not snap at Luna for her creatures. A rattle on the window had them all look to see the rain now pelting against it. "I should drive you home now, Severus – it's far too far to walk, and you'd just get wet again." She started to gather the empty containers, but Luna stopped her with a hand on her arm and started to shoo her out.

"You brought it all – I'll clean up. I'll see you in an hour or so." Luna piled the plates up high, and with a quick guilty "swish", she enchanted the empty plastic holders to follow her down to the kitchen while Severus put on his still-damp coat and Hermione her own macintosh.

They walked back down the hallway in silence and out to the porch. The rain was driving at an angle, lit up by the front light in an eerie cone of luminosity, and beyond the light sat the car. Hermione's key once more lit up the blinkers as the doors unlocked, but somehow she felt hesitant to run through the rain. The evening, while starting awkwardly, had been surprisingly pleasant, and she was reluctant to end it.

Hermione turned to Severus just as he looked down at her. She stepped towards him, her hands reaching for his shoulders.

"Severus..."

"We're not going anywhere."