1

I suppose the story starts the day Miss Granger appeared on our doorstep. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she was holding a sodden handkerchief to her nose as she sniffed miserably. She was the very picture of a broken-hearted girl.

It was a rather wet and messy picture.

Snape had just closed his eyes for a quick nap when a knock on the front door interrupted his progress. Annoyed, he tried to ignore it, but it came again. Salesmen and missionaries rarely stayed to knock three times, so when the rapping occurred once more, he got up to confront the hapless visitor.

Opening the door, he was suddenly attacked by mound of bushy brown hair.

"Oh, Harry!" the hair wailed, clinging to the front of his robes.

Snape pulled his head back as far as it would go, trying to make out any distinguishing features. Slowly it dawned on him who it must be.

"Miss Granger?"

The effect was instantaneous. The brown-haired witch jumped back and looked up at him, her watery eyes wide with mortification.

"Professor! I'm sorry, I thought..."

"Yes, it is fairly obvious what you thought," Snape said, cutting her off. "I think it is a safe assumption that you are here to see Harry?"

She sniffed and nodded her head, bringing the handkerchief up to wipe her nose. Snape tried not to be obvious in his disgust, but he quickly stepped back and gestured for her to enter.

She stepped by him quickly, and as he closed the door, he heard her yell for Harry.

Harry appeared looking quite alert and worried, even though only his head and one arm were through his t-shirt and his hair was not even close to being a style other than bedhead.

"Hermione! What's wrong?"

Without warning, Hermione sprang at him, nearly knocking him over as she started sobbing on his partially-covered chest.

Harry looked to Snape, who indicated he knew nothing, before looking back down at the sobbing girl in his arms. Stroking her hair away from her face – and his – he made soothing noises and rocked her gently until she started calming down.

When she was back to sniffling, he gently asked, "What happened?"

Snape could see from his angle that Hermione was ready to start sobbing again and felt it expedient to distract her from such an annoying activity.

"Shall I make some tea?" he asked.

Hermione started, looking over at Snape as if he were a boggart, but nodded all the same.

"Yes, please," she whispered at the same time that Harry nodded gratefully.

Snape made his way into the kitchen while Harry led Hermione over to the sofa. Sitting down, Hermione curled up next to Harry, resting her head on his chest again as he wrapped his arms around her. She didn't say anything for a few minutes.

"I found Roger in bed with another woman," she finally whispered, not noticing that Snape had returned with the tea.

Snape raised his eyebrow in interest. Normally he didn't care about the affairs of others, but he'd been isolated for a long while, and this was looking to be a distraction from the mundanity. Besides, it would probably be more interesting than EastEnders.

Harry, meanwhile, had tightened his grip on Hermione as a fierce look came over his face.

"After I... That sorry son of a bi..."

Hermione sat up, cutting him off.

Her chin wobbled. "Did you know about this, Harry?" she asked accusingly. Snape observed Harry closely wondering how Harry would extricate himself from this one. He never had been good at dissembling.

"No. I suspected, but I never had any proof," Harry said honestly.

Hermione surprised Snape by accepting that with a nod before curling back up onto Harry. He had thought Harry was in for it. Of course, he hadn't observed Harry's relationship with Hermione this closely before, and Hermione was admittedly very different from the other women who passed through Harry's life, in both relationship and personality.

Hermione sniffled again, bringing up the linen to wipe her nose awkwardly while still firmly burrowing into Harry's chest.

"She was beautiful, Harry," she whispered miserably. "Perfect hair, perfect breasts, perfect smile... she had everything I lack."

Harry seemed at a loss for words and looked to Snape for help. Sniggering very quietly at the irony of Harry asking him for help on such a matter, he smoothly said, "And I am sure you have everything she lacks: intelligence, honor, bravery, loyalty..."

He stopped talking as Hermione looked over at him once again as if he were her worst nightmare. It was getting rather insulting. She gaped at him in silence, and he responded with a raised eyebrow.

Realizing she was staring, she turned back to the comfort of Harry's chest before letting out a big, shuddering sigh and then raised herself up into a proper sitting position.

Wiping her eyes with her wrists, she collapsed onto the sofa back, looking at the wall with blank misery.

"Well, it doesn't matter if he realizes she's a twit or a tart. There's no way I'm going back to him."

"I should hope not!" Harry said forcefully. "You're more than welcome to crash here till you've recovered."

Hermione smiled wetly up at Harry. "Really? You wouldn't mind?"

Snape tried to catch Harry's eye to tell him he minded, but to no avail. Harry was studiously avoiding looking his direction.

"Not at all. I'll even go over and collect your stuff, if you want."

Hermione smiled more fully before starting to cry once more. Through her tears she managed to say, "Thank you, Harry! I would really appreciate that."

Harry nodded as if it was a done deal and then looked at Snape with a hard glint in his eye. Snape was suddenly glad he wasn't this Roger fellow and was oddly proud that Harry was his son.

After a strengthening dose of tea, Harry left for Miss Granger's to collect her stuff – and probably a few of Roger's more personal items as well. Unfortunately, that meant that Miss Granger and I were in the flat together. Alone. And she was still sniveling.

She sniffed. Repeatedly. She was trying not to, as it was embarrassing enough to have broken down so completely in front of Snape of all people, but she couldn't help it.

She knew she looked like one of those foolish, heart-broken women who can't understand why the world is such an unfair, horrible, no-good place, and why did it have to pick on poor little them, but in reality, she wasn't heart-broken. Mortified, angry, humiliated and disgusted, but not heart-broken.

Roger had seemed like a nice enough fellow, and he'd been fantastic in bed, but their moving in together had been his idea. He'd been the one to pledge his undying affection. He'd been the one who wanted to pick out china patterns. He'd been the one who had fooled her into thinking he gave a damn about her while living up to his name with who knows how many others on the side.

She felt like an idiot. A clueless, brainless, naive, dolt of an idiot, and that just wasn't a nice thing to feel. The worst bit was that she had really believed him. She had believed every lie he'd uttered about her being beautiful to him, him loving her brains, her being perfect just as she was... She couldn't have been more gullible.

No, she was not suffering from a broken heart. She was suffering the loss of her pride, which was much, much more painful.

And then, to top it off, the one person whose respect she'd always yearned for – and had always been denied – was watching the most humiliating moment of her life. The only way it could get worse was if she looked up to see him pitying her, so she didn't look up. She kept her eyes fastened on the thoroughly-soaked handkerchief in her hand and tried to stop her sniffling.

"Is Roger really worth such misery?" Snape said, startling Hermione out of her avoidance. She looked up and was surprised to see Snape smiling sardonically.

In her misery, she had forgotten that Snape was incapable of pity. She'd also forgotten that pity was not the worst thing in the world to suffer when vulnerable.

Quickly looking away so as not to either hex him – which would have been unfair as he was still wandless – or burst into tears, she bit her lip and tried to compose herself.

After only a few moments, she responded, "Obviously not, but that doesn't mean I can just shut off my emotions, sir." She had calmed herself enough to look over at him again and found he was now looking bemused.

"I thought you learned Occlumency during the war."

Hermione pursed her lips angrily, but then closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her face was devoid of emotion.

"The problem with Occlumency, sir, is that while I may be able to hide my emotions from others, it doesn't stop me from feeling them." Her face became suffused with anger, resentment and suffering once more as she dropped her shields. "It just adds to the burden right now, and I can't be arsed to do so for your comfort alone."

She was surprised when he chuckled and relaxed back into his chair.

"Well, it was worth a try anyway," he said, lifting the teacup to his lips in a surprisingly dainty move.

She snorted, but decided to copy his action, albeit with a little less grace as her hands were trembling slightly.

They sat there in relative silence for a few minutes before Snape once again broke through her thoughts.

"If you want revenge, I know of a few that are quite potent."

She looked up at him in surprise, which quickly turned to distrust.

"I'm not going to poison him."

He raised his eyebrow and curled his lip in obvious amusement. "And I would never suggest something so crude, unless by poison you are referring to any potion. Dosing him with Amortentia so that he falls in love with the twit would be a very suitable revenge I expect, although it would take quite some patience to see it come to a satisfying conclusion."

She raised an eyebrow, thinking it over with interest before slowly shaking her head. "No. What if he's already in love with her? It would be a shame to waste a potion like that when I could just watch with a clear conscience."

He bowed his head in acceptance, though his sly smile was still in place.

"Well, in that case, the revenge that first came to mind is seemingly perfect." She waited a long moment for him to speak, and just when she thought she'd have to ask, he smiled deviously and said, "Be happy. It is a truly excruciating torture, especially if he does have feelings for you. Even worse would be to be happy on the arm of someone else."

She looked at Snape – really looked at him – and came to a few surprising conclusions, although she shouldn't have been surprised knowing what she did about his past.

"That's quite devious."

He bowed his head graciously.

"But it seems to me that it would only work if he really felt something for me."

"Are you upset at him because he broke your heart?" Snape asked, and it seemed he was genuinely interested.

Hermione fidgeted slightly and admitted, "No, not really. I was fond of him, but I'm more upset because he managed to pull the wool over my eyes."

Snape smiled. "Precisely. If you find a man, or woman," he added thoughtfully, "to parade around with immediately, then you will essentially be doing unto him what he did unto you."

Hermione looked down at her tea thoughtfully. After a moment of watching the translucent liquid, she sighed.

"It does have enormous appeal, but at the same time..."

Still focused on her tea, she didn't notice Snape raise an eyebrow in curiosity until he asked, "At the same time?"

She looked up at him resolutely. "But at the same time, that would put me on his level. I have no wish to be down there."

She took another sip of tea and looked up again. "No, I'll do one better. I'll forgive him and wish him the best of luck."

Snape smiled sardonically. "Do you really think that's a revenge?"

She eyed him shrewdly. "Why do you think Lily forgave you?"

She knew she had hit her mark when he dropped his smirk rather suddenly and glared at her.

"Fair enough," he said.

Snape looked at her and tilted his head just slightly to the side. "So how do you go about forgiving an unfaithful boyfriend?"

Hermione blinked. That was not a question she would have expected Snape to ask, but then again, this was not a conversation she had ever expected to have with him. Harry had obviously been a mellowing influence on him. She almost regretted having avoided their home for the most part.

Shaking herself out of her stupor, she shrugged and sipped her tea. "Well, I suppose I'll go over there and tell him so." When Snape raised a skeptical brow (she wondered if that muscle got more exercise than any other), she smiled artfully and added, "After Harry has brought back my things, of course. I wouldn't want to interrupt any delicate undertakings that might be going on."

Snape smiled approvingly. "Of course. Packing is a rather private occupation for most people."

Her smile had a rather sharp edge to it as she nodded politely and replied, "Yes. And it tends to be terribly messy."

She was amazed at what a difference a full-blown smile made to Snape's face.

I'll admit I had underestimated Miss Granger. I almost wish I had volunteered to go with her just to witness Roger's reaction to the Forgiveness Revenge, but as it would have been misconstrued as concern for her well-being, I refrained.

However, I did manage to arrange being in the same room when she told Harry the tale. It seems she went one better than just forgiving the idiot; she made overtures of friendship to his lingering bedmate. From how she told it, that made Roger wince, a fact that neither of the women missed.

I'll admit to being curious as to what Miss Granger had in mind when she befriended the twit, so I wasn't as upset with the prospect of her company over the next few days as I had been at first. Of course, none of us knew her stay would be an extended one. Nor did any of us foresee the consequences that it would bring.