Chapter Five

She considered him, the firelight glinting off his hair and the swirling amber liquid in his glass, his long legs clad so improbably in blue jeans, stretched before him and crossed at the ankle.

"What is your house like?" she asked.

He snorted. "Only twenty-one questions to ask, and you waste one on what my house looks like?"

She shrugged, only slightly embarrassed. "I'm curious," she replied.

"Old and ornate, decorated only in black velvet. Except the interior of my coffin, of course," he said. "Which is blood red."

She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Severus," she said. "It's just a question. And I'm honor-bound to answer all twenty-one of yours."

It was a child's game, really, this 'Twenty-One,' meant to be taken with an Oath of Honesty, but as neither Severus nor Hermione trifled much with Oaths these days, they skipped the charm and simply asked their questions.

Hermione could not put her finger on exactly when they had begun to spend more time on 'Twenty One' than on discussing potions theory, but tonight they had dispensed with potions entirely, moving directly into the game as soon as they had been served.

"It's a terrace house," Snape said, looking over her left shoulder, a habit he displayed, she had discovered, whenever he felt particularly vulnerable. "Brown and brick and entirely indistinct. It is of Muggle construction," he said, "but I have added wizarding components over the years of my tenancy...hidden doors, Extending Charms, and the like. It once belonged to my parents."

She nodded, trying to imagine it. It was, of course, sufficient as an answer to the question she'd asked, but there was so much more she longed to know. Did he have a Floo Connection? What color was his bedroom? She supposed, if she were honest, that she was looking for some glimpse of who the man might be in private, away from all the crushing expectations of ex-students and warriors, historians and magical solicitors. It seemed, however, that he was loath to discuss the details of his home life, and she was not going to waste any more of her questions trying to make him.

"Your turn," she said, sipping her wine in an attempt to fortify herself.

Snape raised an eyebrow, as if surprised to find that she would let the matter of his house go so easily. "Why the Ministry?" he asked, the ghost of a sneer on his face.

"The Fountain of Magical Brethren," she answered promptly.

"The Fountain...?"

"I saw it for the first time during my fifth year...and stop all your eyerolling...I was already long past S.P.E.W. It was just before the Battle of the Department of Mysteries." Here, she paused and felt her attention drift from her long-ago impressions of that statue.

"Does it ever feel strange to you to hear the names they've given these... these events in our lives? To me, that will always be the night we lost Sirius. To everyone else, it is 'The Battle of the Department of Mysteries.'" She rolled the stem of her glad between her fingers.

"You are not permitted a question until you have answered mine," Snape said, his face inscrutable. "And I believe you have pointed out in the past how foolish it is to waste them on questions that can be answered with yes or no."

"It wasn't truly a question, I suppose," she said a bit sharply. "Just a bit of vocal woolgathering. In any case, The Fountain. I don't know if was the night I saw it that caused it to make such an impression on me...all that fear and pain and righteous Gryffindor anger...but it seemed... Severus, it seemed so wrong to me."

"The Fountain of Magical Brethren seemed wrong to you?" he asked incredulously.

"No, not like that, not like you're thinking. It seemed wrong that the Ministry would dare display such a thing, dare hold this idea up to the world that had nothing to do with what they actually stood for. Stand for. Presently. And I knew then that it would be my life's work to try to make that fountain a fair representation of wizarding law." She paused, and he waited, seeming to know that she would go on. "I don't mean those insipid looks on the faces of the magical beings, of course," she said. "Just the idea of brethren. Equals."

"Had much luck with that?"

"Don't be an arse. I said my life's work. I haven't even reached middle age."

Something flickered across Snape's face...just barely there and then gone.

"How old are you now?" he asked.

"Not your turn," she replied.

"Cheeky."

She grinned. And then the questioning fell to her, a moment that always paralyzed her. There was so much she wanted to know that it could barely be contained in questions, and there seemed to be a good deal of political maneuvering between them as the game wore on...a trading of personal and impersonal questions, sharp questions, painful questions that could only be reached after more mundane ground had been covered.

Well, turn about was fair play, she supposed. "Why potions?"

"Why not?"

"That's not an answer."

He took a slow sip of his drink and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Are you telling me that you've forgotten the reason I came to teach at Hogwarts?"

"I'm not asking about Hogwarts. I'm asking about now."

He sighed. "Because I excel at potions."

"So, because it's easy, then?" If she felt the slightest bit of disappointment in his answer, she quickly buried it. It wasn't as if the man didn't deserve something easy in his life.

Snape made a plosive sound with his mouth. "If potions were easy, why would we have chosen to take a class on them? Wouldn't we have long since learned everything there was to know? No, potion making is not easy, Hermione, and if it were, I'd have lost interest years ago."

"But you said..."

"I said that I practice potioneering because I am good at it. I do not have a grand passion for it, no story of some pivotal moment in which I decided to commit myself to potions forever. It is simply something that I do well. It seems to me that most people enjoy the things they are good at."

"Do they?" she said. It seemed to her that there was some flaw in this particular statement, but between the wine and the force of his personality, she could not seem to come to it.

"Indeed," he said. "It is also the reason I spent so much time castigating hapless students. I'm rather good at that, too."

She smiled, allowing him to close the subject. "I can't argue with that."

"You don't agree?" he asked. "Surely you take pleasure in your aptitudes."

Suddenly, the flaw seemed clear. "You were an excellent spy," she said, "though I doubt you took much pleasure in it."

His face tightened. "That's in poor taste."

"It is," she said. "But it remains true. I was good at managing hotheaded young boys. Doesn't mean I enjoyed it."

"Oh, but you did," he said, leaning forward and looking rather predatory.

"Beg pardon?"

"You do it to this day. You married one."

Hermione gave him a long, level look. "Perhaps we should get back to the game."

"Perhaps we are finished with the game."

She put her glass down with unnecessary force, sloshing some of her wine onto the wood. "Oh, for Merlin's sake," she said. "We can have a disagreement, Severus. We can even both be deliberately unkind...and I will be the first to say I'm sorry. Which I am. I picked a poor example, and I will endeavor to be more thoughtful in the future. Now ask me a damned question."

Hermione's blood seemed to have collected entirely in her face during this little speech...she could feel it pulsing in the tips of her ears...and her heart beat madly as she waited for his response.

Snape uncrossed and recrossed his ankles. "One of the things I like most about you is that you sometimes forget to be 'thoughtful,'" he said quietly. "I would be most disappointed if you suddenly began being politic with me."

She nodded, somewhat appeased. Relieved. Something. Her heart began to approximate its normal rhythm once more.

"Which, of course, leaves me with the right to say any fucking thing I please." The corners of his lips turned up in a smirk, and he eyed her, as if watching for her shock, or her protest, but she made none.

"What do you like, Hermione?" he asked.

The question surprised her. You, she thought, sudden and unbidden.

"I like a great number of things," she said. "I could have said ice cream, and it would have satisfied your question. You should be more careful in your phrasing." Her words seemed to tumble out of her, buying time and covering that one traitorous thought.

"Fair enough," he said. "Imagine that you'd never seen the Fountain of Magical Brethren. Hell, imagine that there had been no 'Battle of the Department of Mysteries' in your fifth year. What would you have done with your life?"

"If there had been no Voldemort?" she said.

"I would have said, 'if you'd had a choice,' but perhaps they amount to the same thing."

She took a moment to think over his statement. Perhaps they did mean the same thing. Certainly, she could see that they did for him.

"I don't know," she said simply, honestly.

"Surely there were things besides fighting losing battles that you enjoyed."

She gave him a sidelong glance. "In the spirit of politics, I'm going to ignore that. There were a great many things I enjoyed. A great many things I excelled at, if I'm to abandon modesty as well. But I think it has always been the things that didn't come easily that intrigued me. I love Arithmancy...an equation so complicated that it feels as if my brain is burning with the effort. And potions...the seemingly capricious ways that ingredients interact, so difficult for me to intuit. The struggle was part of what made it worthwhile."

"Which is why, I presume, you worked so hard at broom flying."

"Oh, come now. I think everyone's allowed a few things that they simply don't like."

"I can think of quite a few things I don't like, but I wasn't trying to convince anyone that the hardest things were the most fun."

"Maybe not always the most fun... but the most worthwhile in the end. I know you see what I'm saying, Severus. You're just being difficult."

"Ah, but you prefer the difficult things, isn't that right?"

She shook her head with a kind of exasperated affection. "Difficult, I said. Not impossible."

***

It was sometimes jarring to arrive at home after these little excursions. It was as if she had literally been someone else for a time, and coming home felt a bit like having to put her real self back on like a poorly fitting robe. It wasn't fair, she knew, feeling this way. She loved her home; she loved her life. There was really very little sense in imagining what might have been if her childhood had been different. Her childhood was a fixed quantity, and the life that had sprung out of it was her own.

She opened the front door quietly, in case Ron had fallen asleep amidst his papers again...really, she should take more of an interest in his work. She could take on some of the marking at night. There was no need for him to work till all hours...but he was not in evidence. Already in bed, she supposed. Which was just as bad. She shouldn't go out gallivanting at night, leaving him to fend for himself, to have to go to bed without her. Not that a grown man shouldn't be able to spend an evening alone, for Merlin's sake. It wasn't her fault that he'd refused to learn to cook and subsisted on takeaway when she wasn't around. And besides, he'd spent the last ten years tutoring only his own two children. Perhaps it was good for him to take on a full workload for once. She'd been shouldering one since they were eleven.

She entered their bedroom to find him sleeping, a peaceful slackness to his face that she knew even in the darkness. She undressed quietly, casting Cleaning Charms on herself in lieu of her normal bathroom routine so as not to wake him.

"'Mione," he said as she slipped between the sheets. "Mmm. You're late again."

"Sorry," she whispered. "I'll try to remember to use the Tempus Charm next time."

"S'ok," he said. "Come here." He rolled toward her, slipping an arm around her waist and nuzzling her right shoulder.

She froze.

He pulled her tighter. "Cold out there? You're all tensed up."

"It's cold, yes. It's nearly December." Give yourself time, she thought. It doesn't mean anything. You'll be better in a minute.

"Well, let's get you warm," he whispered, his easy, boyish lasciviousness as familiar as his sleeping face had been. She closed her eyes.

His hand roamed over her torso, settling on her left breast. Her skin seemed to crawl at his touch. She squeezed her legs together tightly. What the hell was wrong with her?

"Ron," she said, more sharply than she had intended.

"Mmm?" he replied, squeezing her nipple. It was all she could do not to bat his hand away. This is me, this is mine, don't touch!

"Could we... not do this tonight? I'm not feeling up to it."

"Too much to drink with old Snapey?" he said, his voice half-amused and half-accusing. His hand left her breast, but it still roamed searchingly over her stomach. She longed to turn over, to squish all the parts of her that he wanted against the mattress and be simple and autonomous, if only for a little while.

"No, just... well, maybe a little, but mostly I'm just tired from too much thinking."

"Too much thinking," he mumbled, seemingly content to drift directly back into sleep. "That's my girl."

She was grateful, then, for his simple tastes, food and sleep and sex. Where one was denied, another would suffice. He was a good man, she knew. A good father, and a good husband. But when his breathing was slow and even, she did turn over, casting off Ron's arm and burrowing her face against her pillow. It was terrible, but in her confusion and distress, she imagined that her firm, smooth pillow was Snape's chest, her cheek pressed against the coolness of his bare skin.

***

The next morning, the light streaming in through the kitchen windows, glowing on the old wooden floors, was so clean and bright that it hurt her heart. How could she have doubted this life, with its chipped old table that had seen so many family breakfasts, so many celebrations? This was home, and she was grateful for it.

She'd been drunk, she decided. Wine did sometimes cause her to get maudlin and strange, and perhaps the heavy tone of her conversation with Severus and the references to the Voldemort years had encouraged her odd state of mind. The only consolation (besides Hangover Remedy), she thought, was that she had neither said nor done anything irrevocable. Her mind drifted back to that simple word...you. Thank Merlin she hadn't said it aloud.

And then, too, Professor Potage's useless little class was drawing to a close. There were only two meetings left before the end of term. She was sure that her sudden... attachment to Severus had to do with the fact that he would very soon be passing out of her life again. She could hardly imagine that he would want to continue their acquaintance once the class ended...not that their little get-togethers had been entirely about potions per se, but Hermione imagined that Snape must see her (as she did him) as a temporary visitor in his life, unexpected if not unwelcome, but unable to stay.

So, yes, she supposed these strange feelings simply stemmed from the impending loss of their friendship. She'd always had trouble letting things go. It probably had something to do with her parents.

That being settled in her mind, Hermione set about preparing an elaborate breakfast of the sort she usually only bothered with for the children's sake. And if there was a hint of apology for the night before in the eggs and bacon, it was not one she would speak aloud.

It would be a good day to sit down and really write to the children, she thought. They'd shared a few quick notes recently, but Hermione was overdue for a full account of Rose's dress for the Yule Ball (Yule Ball...in her third year! The girl really did take more after Ginny) and Hugo had gone quiet on the subject of Arithmancy lately, which worried her.

She was humming lightly to herself (a repetitive tune of her own devising) when Ron entered the kitchen, wearing baggy blue pajama bottoms and scratching at his head bemusedly.

"Practicing for the hols?" he asked her, smiling. "You know, I think it's supposed to be like riding a broom...you never forget how to do it. Not really."

He reached over her and plucked a piece of bacon out of the sizzling pan and popped it into his mouth. She'd seen that trick at least half a million times, as it entertained the children greatly, but now, instead of exasperated amusement, Hermione felt as if all her light-heartedness had suddenly run out of her, like the air from a punctured balloon.

Who was this man? Who cast Impervius Charms on the inside of his mouth in order to eat raw bacon out of a hot pan? In whose world did that qualify as charming? She considered extinguishing the flame, as there was no point in cooking...was there?...if Ronald was content to eat the food raw.

"I didn't hear you come in last night," he said from around the bacon. "Did you have a good time?"

Didn't hear... Didn't hear? So he could paw at her like an animal without even bothering to rise to consciousness?

Some distant part of Hermione's brain insisted that she was being ridiculous. She hadn't wanted to wake him...it was good that he'd slept through her arrival, or at least had no memory of it now. And if his subconscious mind found her desirable still, well, most wives would find that reassuring if not thrilling.

But her annoyance far outweighed whatever sense that small voice was making. She pursed her lips into a thin, hard line.

"It was fine," she said, plating the food with unnecessary force and sliding it down the counter to him. "Just fine."