Three

With a week to go before the first of September, Hermione found herself at a loose end. Her lesson plans for the term were completed in detail; the curriculum for the year had been set out and approved. All that was left was to don her teaching robes and appear at the High Table for the Welcoming Feast, and even she felt that arriving seven days early was a trifle premature. So, with nothing of her own to trouble her and the ever-inescapable feeling that she ought to be doing something useful giving her a bad case of the fidgets, she set out to be helpful, knowing that the rest of the staff, now mostly returned from their holidays, would still be snowed under with preparations.

And, if truth be told, she was feeling a little lonely.

Pre-term turmoil was keeping everyone preoccupied, and she had exchanged barely a word with anyone for ages, not even Professor Snape who, she discovered, had taken over the suite of rooms on the other side of the corridor from hers.

This discovery had been made alongside the not-so-new revelation that partaking of Aberforth's home-brew, while a good idea beforehand and a stroke of genius during, turned out to have been a move of catastrophic recklessness afterwards. The morning after that notable visit to the Hog's Head, Hermione had woken feeling a bit on the pasty side and wondering whether she had imagined weaving her way back to the school clinging to Professor Snape's arm and singing some stupid song about pixies. She cringed a bit when it came back to her how insistent she had been that he hear the song. She hoped she hadn't actually invited him into her rooms to put her to bed, but she had, unfortunately, a tendency to remember quite accurately everything she did while drunk – once her brain started to reassemble itself. Thus, when she eased open her door and gingerly peered into the corridor, squinting against the dim light, she was relieved to see the door opposite firmly closed. Balancing her head carefully on her shoulders, she eased out and began the long totter to the lakeshore, which seemed like the best place to go (via the kitchen for a vat of coffee) to nurse her hangover. The sound of a door handle turning was not, at that moment, particularly welcome.

"Miss Granger."

She stopped and placed a hand on the inconsiderately swaying wall.

"Oh, hello Prof ..."

"Never mind that," he snapped. He looked intently at her for a second then whirled and stepped away, only to return before Hermione had screwed up enough courage to continue inching forward. He thrust a glass of blue liquid at her. "Drink."

"I really don't think I could, thank you, Professor," she choked.

"Whereas I, on the other hand, am convinced that you should and you will – if only to spare me any more pixies. This will deal with the hangover and help protect you from whatever Aberforth's been dosing his beer with. Remind me to take a sample next time."

He strode off down the stairs, his footsteps offensively loud.

Hermione looked dubiously into the sparkling drink. She took a careful sip. It wasn't completely disgusting. "The trouble is," she said querulously to the empty corridor, "I don't actually know any songs about pixies when I'm sober." She downed the rest of her potion like a good girl, spelled the glass clean, and bent gingerly to place it on the floor outside Snape's door before taking the same path down to the main body of the school. "Hang on!" she said, stopping half-way. "There's going to be a next time?"

Since that encounter, however, she had seen only fleeting signs of Snape or, more accurately, she had ignored everything beyond her books. Now she was at a loose end, she wanted company and occupation, but it seemed none was to be found. She knocked on all her colleagues' doors with offers of help, but each time was effectively told to run along and play. Fair's fair, she told herself. She couldn't really expect the world to be at her disposal when she wanted it to be, but she couldn't help feeling a little disgruntled when even Argus Filch turned down her offer of fine-tuning the protective rune-belt she had made for him.

"I'll see how it goes for a few weeks, Professor Granger," he said, settling the belt firmly into place as he got up from where he was crouching. "What do the Muggles call it? A road test?"

Mrs Norris came to headbutt Hermione's ankles, as if to show off her pride in the matching green collar she wore. The runes inlaid into the leather gleamed with subtle enchantments.

"Fair enough, Mr Filch," Hermione sighed. She glanced at his toolbox on the floor; a crowbar was wedged into the corner of the lowest step in a flight of stairs that had been sticking from time to time. "Are you doing repairs?"

"Trying to see what the problem is," he replied. "Probably just a bit off-kilter. The whole castle's been a bit out of sorts since the battle. Hardly surprising. But the Headmistress wants me to have a look-see." He grasped the jemmy and heaved the top of the step out of place. "Mind your toes, Professor."

She stepped back as he eased the worn stone gently down, laying it on a bit of sacking. Peering closely, he hmphed.

"Gravel and grit everywhere. See that, Professor?" He pointed to the fine grit wedged into the seam of the step where it joined the banister. "I'm probably going to have to do the entire flight," he grumbled as he rummaged in the toolbox for a set of brushes and fine scrapers.

"I could lend a hand ..." Hermione offered.

"I prefer to work alone," Filch snapped. "I'm quite capable of doing this."

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to imply that you weren't!" She was mortified.

Filch pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket and shook it out, upon which it puffed up into a thick pad which he dropped onto the flagstones. He glanced at Hermione, where she stood twisting her fingers together.

"Headmistress thought me knees could do with a bit of TLC," he grunted. "No offence taken, Professor. But you should get along."

He knelt on the cushion and bent to his task, teasing the grit out of the stair with all the care of an archaeologist. Hermione began to move away, but as she did so, light from a window behind her fell across the step, bringing out a pattern scratched faintly in the old stone. She frowned and knelt beside the caretaker.

"Professor," he warned.

"No – no – look!" She ran her fingertips over the marks, trying to work it out. Frustrated, she closed her eyes and the pattern leapt to life under her hands. She drew in a sharp breath. "Runes!"

"Yes," said Filch, bending back to his work.

"What? You've seen these before?"

He sat back on his heels.

"They're all over the place. And now will you let me work, Professor?"

She ignored his irritation and conjured some fine paper and a wax crayon, with which she made a careful rubbing of what turned out to be a vine-like design weaving in and out of itself like the movements of a dance. Eventually she sat back with a pleased sigh to look at something that would surely keep her happily occupied for a few days.

"Finished now?" Filch said acidly.

"Oh, yes – thank you, Mr Filch. Thank you so much!" He blinked, disconcerted, as she beamed at him.

"Yes, well. Go on, then."

Hermione risked giving his arm a pat and then skipped off, her paper rolled up in her hand. A few productive hours in the library would see her right, she thought. However, as she raised a hand to pull the library door open, Minerva McGonagall appeared like a pantomime devil, from nowhere,

"And where might you be going, Professor Granger?"

"To do some research! I just found some ..."

The Headmistress pushed the door firmly closed and leaned on it.

"Oh, no you're not, Miss Granger!"

"Oh, yes I am, Professor! You see ..." Hermione, filled with enthusiasm, brandished her exciting find. The Headmistress extended her hand.

"I think I'll take that for now, Miss Granger."

"What? But ..."

"Hermione." McGonagall fixed her with a stern look. "Your dedication to your field of study is most laudable, I am sure, but you have not seen daylight for a week and it shows. You even, unless I am very much mistaken," she added critically, "have a spot."

"But ..."

"But me no buts, young lady. Just give me the paper. I will make sure you have it back. For now, however, I would prefer you to get some fresh air." This was said with the clear subtext: proceed outside, proceed directly outside, do not pass Go, do not collect £200.

"But ..."

"Come, now, Hermione. It's a beautiful –" she leaned sideways to look at the darkened window at the end of the corridor, "– wet day outside. Perfect for a walk."

Sometimes one just had to recognise defeat.

Hermione surrendered her precious parchment with a bad grace and slouched back to her rooms for a hoodie.

Reluctantly, once outside, she found she had to admit that oxygen made a refreshing change. Fine misty drizzle – more a hanging dampness in the air than actual rain – lent a quality of stillness to the day, enhanced by the soft grey light that muted all the colours around her and eased the headache she realised she'd been carrying for days. She breathed deeply, shoved her hands into her pockets, and set off to walk the long path round the outside of the castle. Widdershins, of course, just for the hell of it.

She was nearly at the turn down to Hagrid's cottage, and feeling a little blue that she couldn't go down and beg a cup of tea from him, when she became aware of the sound of hammering. It seemed to be coming from a rocky dell on the far side of an outcrop that overlooked the Forest. Intrigued, such workmanlike sounds being rare in a magical environment, she clambered to the edge and looked down, to see that the floor of the hollow had been flattened and paved, and now a sort of open-sided barn was under construction. House-elves in waxed canvas wraps, and a couple of goblins seemingly indifferent to the weather, toiled with hammers and saws, and up on the roof, setting tiles into place was ...

"Oh, hello Professor Snape," murmured Hermione.

One foot on the rung of a ladder, and the other knee up on the edge of the roof, his legs and backside were perfectly moulded by a pair black jeans, while a damply clinging black t-shirt did nothing to conceal a long, lean back, strong shoulders and sinewy arms. Professor Snape in civvies was an unexpectedly cheering sight, Hermione decided. She settled down on a rock to watch the work. Every so often, Snape would impatiently tuck his hair behind his ears, but inevitably it fell forward into his eye again. At last, he shoved a hand into his pocket and yanked out a length of string – all boys always have a length of string in their pockets – with which he achieved a rough pony tail.

"Are you going to sit there gawping all day, or are you going to come down and impart the barrel-load of helpful comments that are no doubt clamouring to be heard?" demanded Snape without looking at her. He climbed down the ladder and stretched. "Tea break!" he called to his helpers. "Well, Granger?" he said, finally turning his beaky face up to her and raising an eyebrow. "There's probably a spare mug around here somewhere."

Hermione, uncomfortably aware of having been caught out, and conscious that her own hair under the influence of the Scottish weather was now at its disastrous worst – a combination of mad frizz and untidy rat-tails – scrambled down to where Snape was pouring tea from a thermos.

"Thanks, Professor Snape," she said.

"I think that, considering you've spent the past half hour ogling me in a wet t-shirt, you might drop the honorific," Snape said drily.

She blushed.

"I can hardly address you as 'Snape'," she protested. The warmth of the mug felt good to her chilly fingers.

"I call you 'Granger'," he pointed out. "And I think 'dearest, darlingest Severus' should be kept for special occasions, don't you?"

Her blush deepened to crimson.

"Sorry about that," she mumbled, studying the surface of her tea.

"You're an affectionate drunk," he replied indifferently. "There are worse things. Well, perhaps not in the case of Goyle senior. That was a night I'd rather forget."

Hermione giggled. "You're in a good mood," she said.

"Mmmm."

She waited in vain for some more conversation to happen, until at last the compulsion to fill the vacuum overcame her.

"Why ...?"

Snape smirked, victorious. Hermione huffed, but now she had started, she would finish.

"Why are you building this shed thing?"

"Most of the creatures Hagrid has on order are, regrettably, things it would be wiser not to take inside the castle. And I really don't see why I should have to teach in the rain, no matter what great and glorious traditions have dictated that resistance to pneumonia should be a prime qualification for this job I've been lumbered with."

"Seems reasonable."

"Not according to the Bursar."

"We have a Bursar?"

"She's usually called the Headmistress, aside from those times she's got her claws clenched tightly around the purse strings."

Hermione snorted. "Why are you building it like this, though? It's got to be more effort than ..."

"Magic? Of course it is. How were your COMC courses, Granger?"

"Inconsistent," she answered. "To say the least."

"So your knowledge of the field is ..."

"Inconsistent."

He nodded.

"So, would you know anything about the Giant Patagonian Lunar Bile-Moth?" She shook her head. "The Kensington Rat-King? The dwarf Lava Bittern?"

"Good lord! No, nothing."

"Neither did I until the suppliers sent me a copy of the order list," Snape said sourly. "'Motley' is one word for Hagrid's idea of a syllabus." He took a large swallow of tea.

"But why ...?"

"Because one thing all these animals have in common is a strong and unstable magical aura. I would rather not be teaching under an enchanted roof when a blast of magic decides to randomly undo the joists."

"Better to trust in nails, then."

Snape shook the last drops out of his cup and screwed it back on the thermos. "No magic anywhere in or near the construction until it's finished."

"Can I help?"

"No."

"Oh, but ..."

"No, Granger. You can sit here making snide comments, if you like, but your help is not required."

Hermione abruptly lost her temper.

"Why won't anybody let me do anything?" she snapped. "Anyone would think I wasn't wanted around here!"

"If it were up to me, I'd send you up that ladder like a shot and stay here where it's dry. However, the Headmistress' orders are clear ..."

"It's her fault? That's totally unreasonable! Why don't you just ignore her?"

Snape sauntered over to the foot of his ladder, where he turned and looked back at Hermione.

"Put it like this, Granger. McGonagall's threats may lack finesse but she's fully prepared to back them up, and given that I prefer not to have my balls grilled and served up to me on a piece of toast, I choose to take her seriously this once. She seems to think you need a holiday."

Hermione huffed and sat on a pile of tiles. "That's ridiculous."

"Why don't you bugger off and play with your little friends? They've seen nothing of you for weeks," Snape asked from the top of the ladder. All she could see of him was one foot, which quickly vanished up onto the roof proper.

"They're busy."

Snape's head appeared over the top edge of the tiles. "Are you telling me Weasley's actually managed to find something useful to occupy him?" he asked incredulously.

"I wouldn't go as far as 'useful'."

He disappeared again and a couple of tiles settled themselves into place.

"If that's a conversational gambit, it's failed. I'm not going to ask about Brainless and Gormless."

She giggled.

"That's how you think of them?"

"You don't?"

"Certainly not! They're my friends."

"Hufflepuff."

"There's no need to get nasty."

"There's always a need to get nasty."

"That's just entertainment – not necessity," Hermione teased.

"Why don't you go away and knit, or something? Let a man work in peace."

"That's not a bad idea, you know."

His head appeared again. "You really knit?"

Hermione jumped to her feet. "I'll just run back and get it, then I can keep you company all day while you work!"

"Merlin preserve me," he growled.

"You can tell me all about Hagrid's order sheet."

A tile smashed to the flagstones below.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," said Hermione.