Part I: Chapter 2: Home for the Holidays

Chapter 2: Home For the Holidays

Hermione watched the end of the Christmas movie with tears on her eyelashes; she felt silly, but she cried at the same movies every time she saw them. The empty pint tub of chocolate ice cream lay on its side on the coffee table with a spoon protruding from it; the weight of the spoon had been too much for the cardboard container and it had toppled over when she had set it down. The china teapot which had been full of homemade cocoa was empty, as well. Stretching, she spoke to Crookshanks. "I think it's about time for us to go to bed, don't you, Crooks? I want to be up early to begin revising."

The orange furball with a squashed face lifted his head and blinked at her, having been mollified by a can of real tuna tipped into his bowl. He had since cleaned himself, spreading the essence of tuna fish over his entire body, and was prepared to move his nap from the sitting room sofa to the bed upstairs.

Hermione jumped when the doorbell rang. Looking at her wristwatch in something of a panic, she stood up, her heart pounding. Who on earth would be at her door at ten o'clock at night? Furtively, she crept from the sitting room into the hallway, placing her eye to the peephole.

Nothing but blackness.

She started again when someone rapped sharply on the door. Her heart now felt as if it were thumping in her throat.

"Miss Granger?"

She knew that voice.

Oh, surely not.

More pounding on the door, now impatiently.

"It's Professor Snape, Miss Granger. Kindly open the door."

For the love of Merlin! What had she done that was so bad that Snape pursued her from Hogwarts?

As she stood in the hallway, her wand at the ready but her mind blank of initiative, she heard a muttered imprecation, followed by the Muggle locks on the door twisting to disengage. At the same time, the wards she had placed came tumbling down as if they had been cast by a firstie. The door swung open, and Severus Snape swept into the hallway.

"Stupid little girl!" he snarled, slamming the door shut behind him. "Do you think it is a good idea to have me standing upon your doorstep entreating entry for all your neighbours to hear?"

Hermione gaped at him, her indignation nearly robbing her of the power of speech. She stood in her front hallway, her hair twisted up in a clip, wearing her oldest joggers, with colourful Winnie-the-Pooh slippers on her feet and her wand clutched at the ready in her hand.

Before her towered her Potions professor. His face, usually pale, was reddened from the bite of the icy wind outside, which also accounted for the disarray of the longish black hair. He wore a heavy black travelling cloak over his usual school robes, and his black boots were crusted with snow, which was melting and pooling on the hallway tile. Much more striking, however, was his physical attitude; as if in answer to his vexation, power radiated from his figure in waves, the flashing of his dark eyes and pronounced sneer accentuating the unwisdom of annoying him.

"No!" Hermione responded, her own irritation making her rather reckless. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to be on my doorstep at all! Why were you? What are you doing here? No one invited you! Go away!"

Snape's lips thinned at the disrespect of her tone. In answer, his eyes glittered dangerously. "We may not be at Hogwarts, Miss Granger, but I am still your teacher. You would do well to keep that in mind – unless, of course, you want to spend the first week after the New Year in detention with me."

Now Hermione's mouth dropped open. "You can't do that! I'm in my own home! I will say what I please!"

Snape reached into his cloak and drew out an envelope which he then held out to her. "As you will," he replied indifferently. "You may refer to me as 'sir' or 'professor' and do so in a tone of respect, or you may spend your evenings in January sorting pickled newts without gloves."

Hermione clamped her mouth shut and glowered at him stormily. His lips stretched in a thin, triumphant smile, and he looked down at the envelope in his hand.

"Professor Dumbledore has sent a letter to explain my presence," he stated.

Hermione wordlessly snatched the envelope from his hand and ripped it open, reading the headmaster's words with furious indignation.

My dear Miss Granger,

Albus Dumbledore

Hermione crushed the parchment in her hand, staring at a spot on the floor, her cheeks flushed red with mortification. Dumbledore had been aware of her change of plans? Did that mean he was also aware of the reason for the change? Did Snape know? Was the hateful Potions master aware that Hermione's so-called boyfriend had taken up with another girl, to her ever-lasting humiliation? Was she going to have to endure his taunting for the next week?

Dropping the wadded parchment into the snow-puddle on the floor, Hermione turned and walked away from Snape without speaking a word to him. With narrowed eyes, he watched her go.

Turning to the door, he engaged the Muggle locks and warded it carefully from within. He had already placed wards on each window of the house, which had taken him over an hour in the raw wind. He had found no sign, thus far, of danger in this Muggle neighbourhood. The job of protecting Miss Granger should be a sinecure.

Hermione came back into the hallway, a steaming mug of fragrant tea in her hand. Extending the mug to Snape, she said, "You can hang your cloak on the coat tree behind you."

He took the mug from her, and she withdrew her wand, murmuring "Evanesco" to remove the melted snow from the hallway floor. She left him again, only to return a few moments later, her arms laden with blankets and a bed pillow.

"Go on then!" she said impatiently. "Take your cloak off before you catch your death of cold!"

Snape set the mug of tea on the hallway table, removed his cloak, and then hung it on the wooden structure from which Miss Granger's own school cloak was hanging.

"Come with me," she said and led the way into the back of the house.

The room they entered was fabulously warm compared to the environment outside. It was furnished with a long sofa, facing the hearth; the sofa was flanked by matching armchairs. A rack of Muggle electronic devices were arrayed against one wall. Miss Granger's familiar was imitating a furry ginger cushion at one end of the sofa. The girl tossed her armload of bedding on the unoccupied end of the sofa and turned to face him, her own expression closed.

"You can sleep here. Help yourself to what you need from the kitchen; it's through there." She nodded her head toward a darkened doorway, through which Snape could discern glowing red numbers on a large white stove. "The bathroom is the first doorway on the right in the back hallway. I'm going to bed."

She paused only long enough to scoop up the cat and she left the room; he could hear her climbing the stairs and was treated to the sound of her conveying her feelings by slamming her bedroom door.

"Good night, Miss Granger," Snape murmured with sardonic amusement, seating himself before the fire and beginning to sip the excellent tea.

Hermione woke to the sound of strangled shouts, her heart pounding a tattoo in her chest. Crookshanks was standing on the end of her bed, his ears pricked keenly forward. Arming herself, Hermione crept to her bedroom door and stopped to listen, but heard nothing save for the beating of her own heart. She opened her door and moved out onto the landing, listening with all her might.

The sounds became audible again, and she recognized Snape's voice. It was Snape making those dreadful noises – was he being attacked? But he was not forming intelligible words.

It dawned on her, then. He was dreaming – or, more likely, having a nightmare.

Hermione stood for several moments on the top step, irresolute; very soon, the noises stopped and Snape was quiet again. After a time, she slowly made her way back to her bed.

The next morning, Hermione woke up with a headache. She had no potion for a headache cure available to her, so she would have to settle for whatever pain reliever her mother had in the medicine cupboard in the kitchen. Pulling on an additional oversized sweatshirt over the one she already wore, she shoved her feet into her trainers and made her way down to the kitchen; Severus Snape was in her house, and she would not care to appear again in his presence whilst wearing her Winnie-the-Pooh slippers, no matter how warm they were.

Shuffling into the kitchen, she was somewhat surprised to see Snape sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and the Daily Prophet. He wore his customary black teaching robes and a high-collared black coat and black trousers; on his feet were his black boots. Though his hair did not appear to have been washed, it had been combed, which was more than Hermione could say for her own appearance.

Without stopping, she continued past him to the cupboard where her mum kept aspirin and bandages and sore throat lozenges.

"Good morning, Miss Granger," Snape said.

Hermione waited for additional comments, perhaps regarding her appearance or the lateness of the hour, but none were forthcoming. She found a bottle of pain reliever and took it down from the cabinet, popping off the top and shaking out two tablets.

"What is that?"

The pain behind Hermione's left eye throbbed once. "Not that it is any of your business," she said, "but it is a pain reliever. I have a headache."

Snape made a derisive sound. "Don't swallow that rubbish. I have a headache cure potion. Wait here."

Hermione did not argue; in truth, a potion worked much more efficiently than Muggle tablets. She replaced the pills in the cupboard and moved over to sit down at the kitchen table, thankfully pouring herself a mug of tea from the china teapot before her. She was stirring sugar in when she noticed four Galleons stacked in the middle of the table.

Snape entered the kitchen again from the sitting room with a small glass phial in his hand. Hermione squinted at him because the wintry morning sunlight hurt her eyes.

"What is this?" she asked, indicating the gold.

"Drink this straight away," he said, handing her the potion.

Hermione recognized the smell when she popped the cork from the phial; this was the headache cure potion they had learnt to brew in fifth year, and which Madam Pomfrey doled out in huge quantities to a school full of angsty teenagers. She drank the potion and stood to rinse the phial at the sink.

"I will do it. Drink your tea," Snape said, holding his hand out for the container.

Hermione settled back into her seat and gratefully drank her tea. When Snape seated himself again across from her, she repeated her question.

"Why is there gold on the table?"

Snape inspected her for a moment. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he went back to reading the newspaper. "There is gold on the table to pay for my food and drink while remaining as your guest." The last word was accompanied by a sneer.

Hermione may have been brought up in the urban sprawl of London, but her parents had instilled good home training in their only child. The notion that a guest in their home should even offer to pay for his food was a shameful one. Professor Dumbledore bade her to make Snape welcome, and here he felt as if he had to pay his way – as if this were no better than a boarding house!

Hermione's face burned, but she kept her voice neutral as she said, "There is no need for that, sir."

Snape did not reply, but studied her surreptitiously over the newspaper. She was pale, with a pucker between her brows which indicated to him that the headache cure had not yet relieved her discomfort. Perhaps she was beginning her menstrual cycle – in which circumstance Dumbledore would owe him two bottles of cognac, rather than one! – and if that were the problem, she would need a diuretic as well as the headache cure to relieve her. The light sensitivity, however, seemed to indicate a migraine; in that case, he could only hope to make her more comfortable until the headache passed. Very little, short of narcotics, assisted in such cases, and he did not have those sorts of potions with him.

To test his theory, he slid the plate of toast to her. "You should eat."

She shook her head, her lips pressed close together. "Food sounds awful."

A vehicle passed by the house on the street, its radio turned up so loud that the table vibrated with the booming bass line. She covered her ears in distress and applied pressure to her temples.

Snape hid his alarm at the sudden loud noise; the child did not seem to think the music was out of the ordinary, so he did not comment. He rose quietly and went to survey the area in front of the house through the window curtains. Convinced that there was no danger, he returned to the kitchen doorway and studied his student.

"Miss Granger, have you had migraines before?"

"Once." She looked quite nauseous. "It was just like this."

"What helped you to feel better that time?"

"Soft music and a darkened room. I slept on and off until it passed."

The professor and his student spent an oddly companionable first day of their mutual confinement in the Grangers' home. Hermione lay upon the sofa, with a warm, damp flannel over her eyes, and listened to classical music from one of the electronic devices on the wall. Occasionally, people would talk, or adverts would come from the machine, but most of the time it was very pleasant classical music. Snape sat in one of the armchairs, reading by the light of his wand tip, periodically renewing the warming or dampening charms upon her eye cover and watching over her while she slept. As the Head of Slytherin House, this was not the first time he had been in charge of a sickly student, though he had certainly never before looked after one in her own home.

The early winter twilight had passed into full darkness before she sat up. Snape was in the kitchen, preparing sandwiches. When he came into the sitting room and found the sofa empty, save for the blanket she had used, he moved to stand outside the bathroom door just long enough to determine that she was using the facilities and then returned to his armchair, where he proceeded to eat a sandwich.

Hermione emerged from the bathroom having emptied her bladder and feeling wrung out, but the pain in her head was gone. She saw Snape sitting in his chair, continuing to read by the light of his wand. He had been remarkably kind to her: settling her comfortably on the sofa, making sure her eye cover was warm enough, answering her periodic questions regarding the time or the location of her cat with matter-of-fact patience.

Snape turned slightly in his chair to look at her as she stood by the bathroom door, looking at him. "How do you feel?"

"I'm better, sir, thank you." She walked back to the sofa and seated herself.

"Could you eat a sandwich? Or would soup be better?"

Hermione looked at the sandwich on his plate and her stomach growled. "A sandwich, I think – but I can make my own."

Snape extended the plate, offering her the untouched half of his sandwich. She did not want to take his food, but she was so hungry ... the amused quirk of his eyebrow made her utter a faint laugh and snatch the sandwich.

"I am very hungry," she admitted.

"Then you are feeling much better," he stated calmly, rising and going back into the kitchen.

That night, the sleeping potion Snape had induced her to swallow allowed Hermione to sleep through the night, undisturbed. He, however, thrashed and muttered in his sleep as he always did, this time unheard by any save the watchful Crookshanks.

A/N: Beta reading thanks to Snarkywench and Brit-picking kudos to MagicAlly.