Chapter 9

Living hands clasped the glass. Tentative hands. Gentle.

Centuries frozen as if in ice, melted with a single touch brimming with hope and need.

Yes. Now.

Her body shivered as she passed through the mirror. Beyond the barrier and into the gap between space and time. The light filled her up, pristine, the colour of a Patronus, shimmering like a memory.

Here lay the conjunction of all the worlds, the place where they blended again into one another. Undulations of movement as each world unfolded and unfurled before her. She floated suspended at the nexus of the universe where there was nothing before her but possibility.

Just ahead lay the ribbons of chance and choice that began one fateful morning a thousand years before. Each one carried an element of the original, only deviating in time to gain a life of its own. Separate, and still connected at the point of origin.

She was overwhelmed. Her preconceptions dissolved in the face of so many worlds apart from her own.

No words existed here. No language. Only streams of life flowing from their source. Infinite. Immeasurable. Each tinged with their own unique hue.

She searched for him, plumbing each world, one by one. Finding her way. Tasting each one before moving on. Navigating the rivers.

She thought for a moment that she'd found his world again, but she couldn't find him there, and so she went on, looking at each strand just for a moment, just to see if she could catch a familiar glimpse that would tell her she had found the right place. Each one, an echo of the world she knew, but different. Some, so similar that she might not know it wasn't hers until she looked closely. Others, like Severus's, visibly different on the surface and, perhaps, in philosophy as well.

And two that made her heart ache.

Here, beneath the setting sun, Hogwarts stood. Deserted. Echoing with emptiness, the grounds overgrown. She knew without knowing how that he had never lived in this world, and she wondered what happened to the witches and wizards who were meant to be educated here.

It could all end, she thought. We always feel so sure of ourselves, but we could all disappear.

She paused for a moment between the worlds and let the white light succour her until she could move on to the one world she hadn't yet checked.

And there she was, looking through a window in a high tower in a Bulgarian castle. She saw Severus and gasped. He sat, looking calmer than she'd ever known him to be. Experimenting. Books open on the table behind him. Cauldrons simmering on the table in front of him, soft ochre smoke painting swirls in the air. So peaceful. The door opened and he looked up, face lit with joy. In walked Lily Evans, carrying ingredients, and joined him at the table. He leaned over and left a lingering kiss on her lips.

Hermione crumpled to her knees, watching them...her unspoken fears come to life. There was meant to be a world in which they found love with one another. She hadn't wanted to let herself consider that there might have been someone else (Lily... Lily Evans) with whom he might have found joy.

"Selfish, Hermione," she thought to herself. "You have to find him. It doesn't matter if he wants you, if he loves you.

He needs you. Your Severus needs you.

Go back and find him."

The Great Hall was teeming with people, but it didn't matter.

"Out!" he shouted to the cluster of pupils sitting around the Slytherin table. They leapt up and scurried out, pushing the enormous doors closed behind them. Severus cast a locking and silencing spell on the doors and ran to the head table, slipping into the nook where the portraits sat.

"Severus! What is happening?" Slytherin was standing at the edge of his frame, looking for all the world like he would leap outside it if given the chance.

"Potter and his friends broke into Gringotts early this morning," he said, "and broke out on a dragon."

Leave it to Potter to find a way to be dramatic whilst in hiding.

"A dragon!" said Gryffindor, a wide grin splitting his face. "Fantastic!"

Slytherin snorted, but Severus could see the affectionate glint in his eye despite the scowl.

"It's coming to a head soon, isn't it, Severus?" asked Ravenclaw softly.

"The Dark Lord is on his way to Hogwarts." He shivered. "He intends to end it tonight."

"Do you have a plan for getting the memories to Potter?" asked Gryffindor.

"I have to find him first," said Severus.

Just then, a searing pain shot through his left arm. The Carrows. They had called him. They had the boy.

"Severus?" Hufflepuff's voice. Concerned.

"They have Potter. Now. Somewhere in the castle. I must go."

"Severus," called Slytherin. "You make us proud."

He nodded, choked for a moment.

"Thank you," Severus whispered. "Thank you all."

He turned back to the enormous doors, flung them open, and raced in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower.

battle has begun and the glass in which we live and breathe rattles with the sounds of war.

I feel the castle shake and reach out for the others as they reach for me.

"The Hallows are not part of Hogwarts in this world," says Godric. "We cannot depend on the walls of this place to protect or guide them."

"No," says Rowena. "But if they do have control of the Hallows here, I hope they use them well."

I whisper our wish on a current of light and send it into the ether.

The portal swirled with colour and cacophonous sound; a storm was brewing at the intersection between the worlds.

Find him. She had to find him.

Start again, Hermione. One stream at a time, slowly.

Her fingertips brushed against the surface of the mirror again, starting with the deep blue, familiar and comforting to her as her own world. For a moment, she felt bathed in water. Another breath, and she let her fingers move into the greener hues, dry earth below... she let her eyes sweep over the cemetery in that world. Deserted. The castle on the hill was quiet.

Another breath and her fingertips moved past the yellow hues past the orange and into the red. She gasped. The air was hot, but she shivered. There was the ruined castle. Hermione huffed in frustration.

Too far, not here.

Back to the strip of orange. She dipped her fingertips into the stream of colour, and while it was hot, she could still breathe. She could see, as if through a window of the castle. Movement. Excitement. Students out of bed long past curfew.

The orange light of spells cast. Aggressive spells. With wands.

Hermione shuddered.

A shout, and without warning, a body flew out of a window. Glass exploded everywhere, and for a moment it looked as if the shards were cushioning the body as it plummeted towards the ground below.

Black clad, dark haired.

Oh, god.

"Severus!" she shouted, but she knew he couldn't hear. She could see him, but she couldn't step into his world. Her thoughts skittered wildly. In despair, she tried to burst into his world through a piece of shattered glass. But the shards fell too quickly, and she remained frozen with the horror of watching him fall.

She braced herself. Waited for his body to plunge to the ground. Crushed on the rocks.

Instead, he twisted his robes until they flowed behind him, and slashed his wand across the sky. Impossibly, his body began to rise, even as it sped across the grounds. Flying.

"You never said you could do that," muttered Hermione. She sank to her knees, gasping for breath, tears streaming down her face, still watching as he flew far from the castle.

She might not be able to join him, but she could follow. As if on wings of her own, she tracked his descent into the heart of the Forbidden Forest.

"Severus," she called out, and for a moment, she thought he might have heard her voice, carried through the trees on the wind. "Severus, I'm here!"

He shivered, and she wished she could touch him, wrap her arms around his thin body and warm him again. But she stayed imprisoned in the space between worlds, searching, searching for the doorway, a way into his universe where she might hear his voice again, and he, hers.

"Hermione," he whispered." His lips formed the shape of her name as he paced through the trees, restless. He hadn't forgotten then, she thought. In the dark of the night, he thought of her.

"There has to be a way in, Severus," she muttered, though she knew he couldn't hear. "I'll find it."

But an hour passed, and then two, and there was no reflective surface through which she could step. She could only hover there, watching him, listening, trying to send her warmth through the night air to wrap around him like the cloak that surely was meant for him.

Finally, another wizard, dirty and careworn, approached him beneath the shade of the trees.

The other wizard spoke, and both Hermione and Severus shivered.

She saw Severus's eyes darken, but he only bowed and made his way out of the forest. Hermione followed, as if tethered to him by a shaft of light she could not see. Finally, he entered a battered building and climbed the stairs slowly, one by one.

Abruptly, Hermione felt as if she'd been shoved beneath a pane of glass, watching the scene from below transparent floorboards. She pushed up against them but they held fast.

She still couldn't hear, but could see Severus, standing stiffly, looking as if he was trying to persuade the other man...the snakelike man...of something important. Desperately. The Dark Lord (for it must be him...who else could look so vile, so evil?) fingered his wand...Elder wood, long, and pulsing with power.

The Elder Wand.

It couldn't be. The Elder Wand was part of Hogwarts; it couldn't be in the hand of this wizard. What did it mean that the Darkest wizard in a thousand years held that wand in his hand?

Hermione whimpered and looked at Severus. His face was deathly white. Frozen. She had never seen such a look on his face, never dared to imagine such profound terror even after waking from nightmares of his grisly death.

Severus wasn't looking at the other wizard anymore, but at the enormous snake coiled in a cage of magic suspended in the air. He raised his wand as if suddenly aware of some danger, and she cried out, forgetting everything apart from the knowledge that something awful was happening and she had to get to him, had to help him.

"Severus!"

All at once, the Dark Lord slashed his wand through the air and the snake tumbled free. Hermione couldn't hear it, but it didn't matter. Severus's silent cry of pain rent her, cutting her until she was certain it was her blood staining the clear barrier, her blood rushing from her body, her heart torn from her chest, torn to shreds.

Through the veil of red (his blood, it's his blood), she could see the wizard leave, his snake gliding behind him. And before she knew it, another wizard was there. The young wizard from the forest, Harry, and his friend...the other Hermione. She could see Severus reach out to him, whispering something, the look on his face urgent, as a luminous substance poured from every pore of his body. It mixed with the blood on the floor, the tears falling from his eyes, scarlet and shimmering silver, combined on the barrier, and, unthinking, Hermione ran her fingertips over the surface and felt it ripple and give.

Blood, memory, and tears. Heart, mind, and soul. Finally, a mirror through which she might pass.

Harry and the other Hermione lingered too long, and Hermione wished she could forcibly throw them from the room.

"Severus!" she shouted when the room was finally empty apart from the lone wizard whose lifeblood was pumping from his veins.

"Severus!"

And thrust her arms through the pool of blood and tears and soulful memory to pull herself into Severus's universe, to his side.

He wasn't moving, though the blood was still pulsing from the bite on his neck.

"I'm here," she whispered, and laid her hands on the wound, her tears bathing the wound and mixing with his blood, blending with his memories. She sat with his head in her lap, whispering healing spells and his name, over and over and over again until she could no longer tell one from the other.

Severus, please come back. Severus, stay with me. Don't go, she murmured, until she felt him shudder and take a breath at last. His pulse was weak, but it was there. No telling how long he would last without expert help.

"Hang on, Severus," she whispered as she slipped her arms beneath his limp body and slid him into the portal. With strange ease, they both passed through.

"Help me!" she cried to the Founders, or to anyone who might hear. "Help! I have him, but I need help!"

The space between worlds spun as if in the midst of a cyclone. Noise and air...rage and pain from seven worlds, from a thousand worlds, from infinite worlds where frightened people harmed one another for power...pounded the air around them.

"He finished his job!" she shouted. "Let him go! He needs help! Let me take him with me!"

The light deepened, orange and angry.

"Enough," murmured a man's voice. Familiar. "He's done enough."

And the tumultuous light retreated, bringing in the tide of blue that Hermione knew was their only hope. She stumbled towards it, taking the trail she knew led out and back into her world.

"Please," she whispered, though this time, she couldn't say to whom.

As if in answer, another portal appeared: a thin line of blue light, then a shimmering pane of glass, and finally, a luminous doorway. She didn't stop, couldn't, just walked right through, landing in the middle of the infirmary where Matron Pomfrey stood, frozen for only an instant before bursting into motion, lending her help and her healing to them both.

The first time he woke up, all he knew was white hot pain, shrieking through his veins, blotting out every other sensation as if a fire had indeed obliterated everything he was and had ever been, leaving only searing heat and ashes. He might have tried to cry out but no sound came from his throat.

He woke later to a more muffled pain, thoughts tumbling now with fragmented images he hadn't the will to decipher. Beneath the fog thrummed urgency and a sensation of running, though he knew he was still. Soft hands settled him and sounds which might have been words brought silence.

Other awakenings came later, like shafts of refracted light, moments when he surfaced from the depths of sleep and echoing pain into the brutal noise of voices and bustling feet. As soon as it became too much (it was always too much), he would fall again into blissful sleep. Mindless, but peaceful.

He would thank whoever sent him there, if only he could stay awake long enough.

Finally, he surfaced from a web of dreams (red-tinged spells and fangs; silver memory sliding to the wooden floor and green eyes turned brown), for the first time nearly free of pain. Thin morning light tickled his eyelids and the rhythmic sound of her breath (it must be hers) puffed against his cheek. He moved an arm gingerly and swept her hair from where it lay across his face.

He nearly laughed with the improbable joy of it.

"It's good to see you with your eyes open," said a familiar voice.

Poppy Pomfrey. Not in robes, but a long tunic, a caduceus embroidered on the front like a chest plate. Despite the unfamiliarity of her costume, he relaxed to the comforting image of a Healer at the foot of his bed.

He must have moved again because she huffed in that imperious way all Healers had, and so he lay still again.

"Stop that. And no talking for at least another twenty-four hours," she said sternly. "It's been nearly a week since Hermione fell through that window with you in her arms, and both of you covered in blood."

As if it had been his fault he'd dirtied her pristine hospital floor. His chest warmed with the familiarity of it, though this woman was a stranger.

"You must give your throat more time to heal. That was a nasty bite." The matron frowned and fiddled with the edge of his blanket, smoothing it down though it didn't look wrinkled.

Nasty bite was certainly one way to put it, Severus thought.

He'd watched the Dark Lord dispose of his followers (and enemies) with the serpent more times than he'd care to count, but in all honesty, he'd hoped his own execution would be meted out with the altogether more dignified Avada Kedavra. Clean. And final.

Six months ago, he would have said he preferred that sort of death. But now? Now, the woman who had pulled him from his fate was sound asleep with her head on his pillow. If he reached out his hand, he could even stroke her cheek.

He was alive, and for the first time in forever, he was not alone. It was so much more than he had expected and nothing he would have ever believed he could ask for, but he'd take it. With both hands.

"I'm Matron Pomfrey," the older witch said, and he pulled himself from his thoughts to nod. "We're going to have to wait for Hermione to wake up again to get properly introduced," she continued. "Poor girl was too frantic when she got here to do anything more than hover and shout directions at me. As if I need instructions in healing from a potions apprentice. Honestly." She sniffed. "And of course you were in no condition..."

She cleared her throat and he inclined his head in agreement. He had undoubtedly been in no condition. No condition at all.

Severus brought his free hand, the one not trapped by the glorious weight of Hermione's body, to his throat. A wide bandage was wrapped around his neck and even his own fleeting touch made him flinch. In a flash, he saw Nagini, her wide mouth, those enormous teeth, coming at him. He struggled to breathe.

"Now, now. Take it easy," Poppy murmured. Skilled hands gently moved his away from the wound and, in a flash, brought a potion to his lips before he could turn away. Reflexively, he drank. She might not know him, but he knew her. She was trustworthy.

He slept.

When he opened his eyes again, the room was bathed in firelight, softened by the diffuse glow of the moon. Hermione was awake, sitting by his bed, reading.

"Hello there," she said softly, and his heart ached at the sight of her red-rimmed eyes, bruised from exhaustion and worry.

He tried to smile and grimaced. It hurt to move. Merlin, it hurt to breathe.

"Matron Pomfrey says you'll start feeling better by tomorrow morning, and that your healing should continue smoothly from then on."

He lowered his eyelids in acknowledgement. It was enough for now to see her. To hear her voice, and to know that he had survived. A small miracle, or a large one, perhaps.

"There are a lot of people who are going to want to meet you," she was saying, and he raised his eyebrows. "Not today, though."

Not today.

Today was for more sleep and marking the incremental retreat of the pain.

Tomorrow would be for finding his voice again, for questions, and, perhaps, for a few answers.

"How is he?" asked the headmistress.

Hermione looked up from her book and slipped a bookmark between the pages to hold her place.

"Better," she said. "He's healing remarkably well, considering it's only been two weeks since the bite. He's been using his voice and it gets easier each time he tries. The potions seem to be making all the difference."

McGonagall pulled up a chair next to Hermione.

"He looks wretched," she said.

"Apparently war does that to a person," snapped Hermione, and the headmistress laid her hand on her forearm.

"No offense meant," she said, soothing her with a touch. "I just can't remember ever seeing someone looking so battered."

"And exhausted."

"You're giving him some stiff competition there, my dear," noted the headmistress.

Hermione looked at Severus, sleeping peacefully after a difficult afternoon of speaking and walking in loops around the hospital wing. The dark circles beneath his eyes had started to fade, but nothing could mask the sharp line of his cheekbones and the sallow cast of his skin. She hadn't been able to reach him through the portal for months; who knows how much he'd been sleeping and whether he'd even taken care to eat properly.

"It's only been a few weeks for me. He's been at it for years," she said softly. "Can you imagine?"

The headmistress shook her head. "It's like seeing the darkest chapters from our history books come to life," she said. "Battles and Dark Lords and spies."

"I don't even know how it ended," said Hermione. "I dragged him back through the portal, but the war was still raging when we left." She looked at McGonagall. "He's been thinking about it. He hasn't asked me to try to find out; I think he might be afraid it'll appear ungrateful. But I think he needs to know."

"Of course," she said. "You have the mirror?"

"With me all the time," Hermione said. "Though I had wondered whether the Founders in the stained glass might be able to find out..."

"I shall ask them and report back," said McGonagall, and Hermione felt a wave of relief. Severus had waited long enough. When he woke up this time, she wanted to have something to tell him about what he'd left behind, something to reassure him that what he had sacrificed hadn't been for naught.

"Headmistress?" Hermione said before the older woman could rise to leave. "What happens next? After he's healed, I mean."

The other woman paused. "This is unprecedented, of course. The Ministry must be consulted. As far as our universe is concerned, he doesn't exist."

McGonagall wrinkled her brow, thinking. "On a purely practical level, he is in possession of a wand, and that, of course, cannot be permitted." She raised her eyebrows and sighed. "Never mind. It will all be sorted. It simply takes time and patience."

It would, of course, thought Hermione.

The headmistress left in a swirl of long skirts, and Hermione turned back to Severus.

"If that old biddy thinks I'm going to allow her to lay a single one of those spidery fingers on my wand..." The voice from the bed was still a bit raspy, but the words were quite clear. "...she's even more delusional in this universe than in the one I just left."

He'd made it to a chair, at least, but he hated facing her when he was still so weak. Hermione sat alongside him, a tight smile on her face.

The headmistress had visited him, of course, and once or twice he'd even been awake to greet her. But this was the first time they would meet as peers, the first time he would look her in the eye since he'd been chased out the castle window.

It wasn't really her; he knew that. His Minerva McGonagall was back in his universe, hale and hearty, if the report of the Founders could be believed. His world was in shambles, but at least Potter had prevailed. The Dark Lord was, at last, vanquished. And he had survived, but was more dislocated than any person, wizard or not, had ever been.

Minerva sat opposite him, or perhaps he should call her Headmistress McGonagall. He had only recently been introduced, after all. It was... bizarre, he thought, to see this witch look at him with curious eyes and not with the rage filled ones that had chased him from the castle behind hexes and jinxes.

He suppressed an overwhelming desire to explain, to show her the layers beneath his façade so that she would understand him at last.

But this Minerva had never known Severus Snape. She hadn't taught him and hadn't ever struggled with Dumbledore's decision to trust him. This Minerva had never felt betrayed by him.

"I understand you are making a fine recovery," she began, and Severus was grateful to her for breaking the ice.

"Yes," he said, "I am. And I am enormously grateful to your staff for their excellent care."

"It is our privilege and our responsibility, both, to provide aid to one in need, Mr Snape."

He nearly corrected her. But here he wasn't Headmaster Snape, or even Professor Snape. This society was, he reminded himself, different in countless ways from the one he knew. He was truly a stranger here.

"Call me Severus," he said, and she smiled.

"Thank you. You may call me Minerva. I understand that in your world, you were a professor at Hogwarts for many years. And headmaster."

"I was," he agreed.

She tilted her head and looked at him with a gaze that was all too familiar.

"I realise that you are not acquainted with our culture and customs, Severus."

"No, I am not," agreed Severus. "I look forward to learning more. Hermione has explained some elements, but your world is vast. As is mine."

"Indeed," said McGonagall, brushing an invisible piece of fluff from her skirts. "I'm sure that you will enjoy perusing the history section of our library and discussing our ways with Hermione, as well as the other staff members. However, today I do have another order of business to address. Now that you are on your way to recovery, we must discuss how to proceed," she said.

"Proceed?" echoed Severus, glancing at Hermione, who sat beside him.

"Well," said the headmistress, "I can deter them until you regain your full strength, but the Ministry must determine what is to be done with you, mustn't it?"

Alarmed, Severus attempted to stand. He hadn't escaped the clutches of not one, but two masters, only to be led into the maw of another.

"Thank you, Headmistress," he said as he struggled to his feet, shaking off Hermione's hand on his arm attempting to settle him back in his chair. "As you so astutely noted, I am unfamiliar with your culture and customs. Nonetheless, I am not about to put my fate in the hands of your Ministry."

He turned to Hermione. She, too, had risen to stand alongside him. An ally, even here, in a world where the government's steady, guiding hand had gone unchallenged for centuries. His ally, despite being raised in this world's culture, taught this world's mores.

"I'd rather take my chances with the Wizengamot in my world, Hermione," he said. "I'll go back and face them all before I'll let your Ministry determine what is to become of me."

Hermione looked frozen only for a moment before she nodded once as if she'd made a decision.

"Is there any possibility that an exception can be made for the obviously extraordinary circumstances, Headmistress?" she asked, but it was clear she knew the answer.

"Our world is changing, Hermione, don't doubt it. But I cannot imagine that the court would consider permitting a wizard to carry a wand, and you know as well as I do that he would never obtain employment without a portfolio in hand from the Ministry."

Hermione turned to him, deflated.

"You wouldn't; she's right," she said. "Everything is tightly regulated. Everybody has work, but..."

"But nobody is allowed to decide for themselves," he said.

"The most rigorous methodology available is utilised in the determination of education, profession and partner selection," said McGonagall, and Severus nearly laughed aloud.

"Arithmancy or Divination?" he asked. "Or, perhaps, Astrology."

"Astrological projections have a seventy-six percent accuracy rate..."

"So nobody is allowed to make their own mistakes, then," he said, interrupting her again.

"Why on earth would we want our young people to make mistakes?"

Severus paused, thinking back to the teenager who wanted nothing more than to be powerful; the young man who regretted and repented errors in judgment made out of arrogance, and the man who spent a lifetime attempting to mend what he had broken.

"Why would we want to make mistakes?" he repeated, taking Hermione's hand in his. "So we can learn from them."

It took a few more weeks until the Matron deemed him fit to leave. Weeks filled with a grumpy Severus complaining about the speech therapy and the physical therapy that, while agonising at first, did rehabilitate him with astounding speed.

Between visits from the specialised Healers, the Matron left them alone. The castle was nearly empty, and the hospital wing was deserted apart from the two of them, spending most of their time reading together and talking. Daylight conversations felt sometimes like lessons, going over what they hadn't had the luxury of time to do when Hermione had been in his universe. His world's history, customs, culture, and hers.

Late at night, though, when Matron Pomfrey had retired to her rooms and the castle was completely quiet, they would lie side by side on his bed, whispering about childhood hopes and adulthood dreams. They never spoke directly about one another and who they might be to each other, but of themselves, fingers threaded together, conversations ending with the gentle rise and fall of his chest under her cheek and his hands caressing her hair even as they slept.

Finally, the Matron deemed him well enough to be out from under her watchful eyes, and McGonagall moved him to rooms down the hall from Hermione's chambers.

"Take your time," she told him. "Regain your strength. You don't need to make any hasty decisions. I am the headmistress of this school. I have the prerogative to house you at my discretion." She smiled. "The Ministry will wait."

Before he could speak, Hermione did. "Thank you," she said, grateful for the gift of time. More time.

He had nothing of his own, save the clothes on his back, and those had been ruined. Transfigured robes had done the job for a time, but now he was going to be roaming the castle, maybe even leaving it. So she went into Hogsmeade and purchased the necessities. Settling him into his rooms was a simple matter, and then there they were.

Both of them awake. Nobody at imminent risk of dying.

Alone.

Hermione tried not to giggle.

"What is it?" he asked, confused.

"I think it must just be relief," she said, letting a wide smile bloom on her face as she collapsed into a chair. "When I was in your world, it was in the middle of a war...both times. And ever since you've been here, it's been all about getting you well, hoping you'll heal, and then worrying about the Ministry. This is the first time..." She paused to take in a long, deep breath.

"This is the first time we can just be. Without interruption. Yes." For a moment, he looked as lost as she about how to be, what to do, with no urgency pressing them into action or escape. And then it occurred to him that while he had no established existence in this universe, she did.

"Don't you have work to do?" he asked.

"The students have gone," she answered, "and I do have my potions project, but that's ongoing."

"Oh?"

"I'd almost forgotten that you're a Potions master," she said, smiling. "Do you mean to suggest that you'd rather discuss my Master's project than browse the library or walk the grounds?"

He reached for his new robe and swung it round his slim shoulders. "I assume that those activities are not mutually exclusive," he said. "I would dearly love to hear about your project. It's been too long since I've been in the lab. Fresh air and the library will undoubtedly come in handy as we work, wouldn't you say?"

"I would," she agreed.

And so it was that when Hermione Granger and Severus Snape swung open the door to the potions lab, hand in hand, Lily Evans looked up to greet them.