Chapter Three

Thanks to miraba for the beta.

Disclaimer: Not mine to the nth degree.

Warning: The naughtier elements start in this chapter.

Chapter Three

To Hermione's great dismay, she keeps running into Viktor Krum.

She had received an Owl from him the same day she literally ran into him in Diagon Alley. The note was brief and polite and merely asked how her day went, but Hermione decided not to reply to it in hopes that he would take the hint. She feels awful about it – her mother would tell her she was raised better than that - but she can't find the inner strength to deal honestly with his odd interest in renewing their friendship. There are so many other over-taxed relationships she has to deal with without adding a new one to her roster.

Two days later, she learns that Viktor did not take the hint. On Friday morning, she is picking up a few files from the Department of Games and Sports when she meets him again. He is with Oliver Wood, who has become assistant to the department head since his early retirement from Quidditch due to an untreatable spinal injury, and Harry, who looks unhappy as he always does when he gets caught up in inner office socialization.

"Herm-own-ninny!" Viktor assaults her with that open smile again. "We were just going to lunch. Would you like to join us?"

"Oh, I don't know." The last thing she wants to do is have lunch with them, and it has nothing to do with the fact that they will probably talk about Quidditch the entire time. "I'm rather busy today. I have a proposal due to Fenwick on Monday."

Oliver smiles brightly at her. "Oh, sod Fenwick. I'll deal with him. You should come to lunch. You can fill us in on how preparations for the World Cup are going."

Harry gives her a wide-eyed, pleading look. "Yes, please, Hermione."

The three men watch her expectantly. Hermione sighs. "Okay. Let me get my coat...."

Lunch is a bizarre and uncomfortable affair. The discussion is as Quidditch-related as she expected. She makes an occasional contribution to the conversation about the Muggle-relations aspects arrangements for next World Cup, but she is mostly distracted by fact that Krum's attention is excessively focused on her, that Harry's attention is excessively focused on Krum, and that Oliver keeps glancing between the three of them as if trying to make sense of the undercurrents.

Eventually, Viktor excuses himself from the table and disappears in the direction of the restroom.

"Seems a bit off, doesn't he?" Oliver asks when he is gone.

"Does he?" Harry murmurs. He is looking in the direction that Viktor has gone with the same focused, suspicious look he used to direct towards Snape.

"You don't see it?"

"He is a bit off," Hermione agrees. Very off. Much different than the awkward, shy Viktor she knew as a teenager.

Oliver shrugs philosophically. "I guess that's what too many Bludgers to the head can do to you."

No one replies to that, as Viktor is making his way back to the table. Mercifully, lunch seems to end then, and they all scoot out of the booth. There is hand shaking and polite good-byes, but this time Hermione isn't left alone with Viktor. Harry hovers nearby as Viktor takes her hand in both of his and speaks to her in a low, intimate voice.

"Perhaps we can have lunch alone sometime, Herm-own-ninny."

"Perhaps." She glances over her shoulder at Harry. He is watching Viktor with a dark look. "But I have to get back to the office."

Viktor gives her that open smile again, but this time it is more intimate and too familiar. "I will Owl you then, yes?"

"If you would like." Hermione extracts her hand from his, hoping that he will take the hint this time, but not entirely sure he does. She hurries over to Harry, and they both Floo back to the Ministry.

"He trying to get into your knickers," Harry says when they emerge from one of the fireplaces in the Ministry atrium, covered in soot and Floo powder.

Hermione nods and brushes some soot off of Harry's shoulder. "I know, but don't worry about it. My honor isn't in any danger."

"It's not that I don't want you to be happy, Hermione, but..."

"But it's awfully forward of him?"

Harry nods.

"I know." Forward and somehow unnerving. She would have never imagined that the unimposing boy she knew before would have turned into such an aggressive adult. And that smile.... "But I am a big girl, Harry. I'll take care of it."

"If you need me to do anything...."

Hermione smiles at his ridiculous over-protectiveness. "I'll be sure to let you know."

That night there is another Owl from Viktor. She sets it aside and does not reply, ignoring the twist of guilt at her own cowardice, telling herself that it had everything to do with what Ron would have wanted and nothing at all to do with Viktor's smile.

*****

The next day is Saturday, and Hermione wakes from a nightmare just before dawn. It's an old nightmare, a remnant of the war, a clinging, oppressive dream of running through the twisting bowels of a network of caves, following the swirling cloak of the wizard in front of her, desperate and terrified, worried that Harry and Ron are dead. It clings to her and won't let her to go back to sleep, so finally, just as the sun is rising over the horizon in a flare of reds and oranges and golds, she gets out of bed.

She takes a shower, has tea and a bit of breakfast, and then makes a batch of lost dog fliers. She spends the rest of the morning walking the town with the dog, putting them up on community bulletin boards, in shops and restaurants, and on the few kiosks around the town. Then deciding that it was too beautiful a day to stay inside, even if the mild fall chill did take what feels like a huge arctic drop the night before, she and the dog walk up to the Tor.

She hasn't been up to the Tor since she found the dog and she feels nearly happy as she follows the footpath up the steep slope, despite the burn in her lungs and legs. From the summit, she feels like she can see the whole of Somerset when she gazes out across the mottled patchwork of fields. Even with the cold wind lashing her face and the tourists getting in her way, there's a sense of peace here, like she's somehow close to Ron. She likes to pretend she isn't taken in by the stories that the Tor is an entrance to the underworld and the kingdom of the Fae, and logically she knows they are merely myths, but sometimes she can't help but wonder if there's any truth to them, if maybe she couldn't find an entrance if she looked hard enough.

But it's only a passing fancy, a fantasy born of mourning and sadness, and she usually feels ridiculous to have even considered it once she returns to the town. But up here in the wind, with the wide blue sky over head and the Tor under her feet, with that feeling of peace enveloping her, she's willing to give up a bit of her rationality, if only for a little while.

And then the dog, who had been sitting quietly at her heel, leaps to his feet with an excited whimper and strains at the end of his leash. Hermione suddenly realizes that her peace is about to be shattered.

"Do you plan to infect every aspect of my life here?"

Irritated at the sarcastic bite of his voice, Hermione turns to find Snape standing behind her in his Slytherin scarf, scowling at her as if she is something he has to scrape off of the bottom of his shoe. The cold has raised the color on his cheeks, and sunlight gleams in a halo on the crown of his greasy head, and he looks nearly human.

Nearly.

"I might ask the same of you," she says, returning her attention to the sprawling country side. She has come up to the Tor because it makes her feel at peace and she refuses to let him ruin that, but with him here, the Tor has suddenly lost its magic. Now it's just a bloody big hill in the middle of an ancient marsh with just enough history and myth to make it a decently large tourist attraction.

"Leave, Granger."

Hermione sighs. Snape's acidic presence has curdled her peace like old milk.

"No." Hermione turns back to him, pulling on the dog's leash to keep him from leaping on Snape. "It's a public park."

"I'm not talking about the park." A gust of wind rushes across the Tor, tearing at Snape's long coat, whipping Hermione's hair in her face. "I'm talking about Glastonbury. Leave."

"No," she snaps. "I have as much right to be here as you."

She gets a good grip on the leash and marches right past Snape, all but dragging the dog behind her. Thankfully, the dog follows obediently, even though he whimpers as if she's broken his heart, and she charges down the hill. All the way back to her flat, she curses Snape and fate's sick sense of humor and anything else she can think of that might be blamed for this ironic little twist in her life.

Hermione has no nightmares that night. Instead she dreams that she can see the crown of Snape's head between her knees, and he is using his sharp tongue in more productive ways than for lashing out with mere insults. When she grabs a fistful of his greasy hair to better direct him, she wakes, panting and shivering, and decides that between the nightmares and the erotic dreams, she'd rather have the nightmares.

*****

Saturday evening, Severus discovers that Granger has put up lost dog fliers of her own.

He notices the first one in the grocer's, tacked to the bulletin board near the door as he is walking out and ends up standing in the doorway, glowering at it until a mother with a small boy in tow tries to leave.

"Excuse me, sir," the woman says politely, but Severus fixes her with his best glare, rips down the flier, and storms through the door, leaving the mother gaping behind him.

He spends the next quarter of an hour wandering in and out of the shops along the street, taking the fliers down as he goes, only to turn a corner to find them on lamp posts and kiosks and tacked to the occasional wall.

The wretched woman. He was never going to get rid of her.

Walking the town tearing down fliers is considerably less enjoyable this time, probably because he isn't completely pissed. It takes an hour just to remove them from the High Street alone, and then, when he is down near Glastonbury Abbey, pulling down the last of her fliers – the ones he can find, anyway – he is nearly bowled over by two hounds.

They come at him, yipping excitedly, eager to greet him, pulling at the ends of their long leashes, their owner jogging behind them in a cheerful trot. Severus jumps back against the kiosk, a flier clenched in his hand, suddenly overcome by the images of his dreams: running across a field, the moon high above him, the smell of earth in his nose, and the prey, running in terror, reeking of blood and life and...

"Get these mongrels away from me!" Severus snarls, trying to escape the overwhelming joy, the intense freedom of those dream-memories, even though he is suffering the indignity of being backed against a kiosk by two huge, drooling hounds.

"William, Liam!" their owner calls, tugging on their leashes. It is the old man from the pub, garish orange sweater and all. "Down, lads. Heel. Not everyone likes to be licked to death."

The beasts relent, sitting on their haunches obediently, but gaze up at Severus with avid wonder, as if he's a deity in need of worship, their tails thumping the pavement. The idiot dogs. Don't they know that he'd all but laughed himself to the point of asphyxiation when that mongrel Black fell through the Veil?

"Sorry about that, mate," the old man says. There is a cigarette hanging precariously out of the corner of his mouth. "They like you! They always recognize a dog lover."

Severus, in attempt to retain his dignity, straightens and pulls away from the kiosk. As an afterthought he balls up Granger's flier and shoves into his coat pocket. "I am emphatically not a dog lover."

"No?" The old man shrugs. "Well, no one is perfect, I suppose. Mind if you let me at the kiosk? Someone's been taking down my lost dog posters."

Severus sidesteps the hounds and gestures at the kiosk with a sneer.

"Cheers," he says and tacks up yet another lost dog poster.

Severus has to restrain himself from groaning.

"Have a good night, yeah?" the old man says with a jolly smile and a wave of his hand, and leads the hounds off along the street. They glance mournfully at Severus as they go, and he has a sudden urge to take out his wand and curse them within an inch of their lives.

Severus turns back to the kiosk and the new lost dog poster and sighs in exasperation.

"Like bloody Sisyphus up the bloody hill," he mutters and checking to ensure that the old man has disappeared around a corner, he rips the poster down and throws it in the nearest rubbish bin.

A dog lover indeed.

*****

Monday evening, when Hermione stops off at the grocer's after work to pick up something for dinner, she notices that her flier, and only her flier, has been removed from the bulletin board.

"None of us took it down," says the teenaged girl who is working the till when Hermione asks about it. "That wanker with the greasy hair and the black coat, he did it. Saturday night, I think."

Greasy hair. Black coat. Right. Snape.

"Thank you," Hermione says through a clenched jaw and stalks out of the shop. By the time she has walked the block and a half back to her flat, she has discovered that the other fliers have been taken down as well. She is in a fine state, shaking with anger, silently running through a list of hexes she could cast on the miserable bastard. She storms up the stairs and pounds on his door, but he doesn't answer. She continues up to her flat, throws the entire bag of groceries into the refrigerator without unpacking them, and storms into her bedroom to change.

In a pair of jeans and a fuzzy fleece jacket, she grabs the dog to take him for a walk, hoping that she meets Snape along the way so she can give him a piece of her mind.

She doesn't hope in vain.

There he is, coming up the street just as she steps outside, head down and hands in his pockets, the Slytherin scarf tossed casually around his neck. Narrowing her eyes, she marches towards him, pulling the dog along.

The dog barks happily and hurries forward. Snape draws to a stop and looks up, a moue of distaste curving his mouth into a frown, his eyes narrowing in disgust as they flicker between Hermione and the dog.

"You miserable, wretched excuse of a wizard!" she shouts as soon as he is in earshot. She is vaguely aware of other people on the street, returning home from work, walking their pets, doing their shopping. She is also vaguely aware that eyes are already beginning to turn towards her, that people are stopping to watch. One fellow even seems to be following her, strolling along not far behind, his dogs trotting at his side, probably already setting his mobile to camera mode in order to film the show.

She hopes he enjoys it because she is about to throw a fit of epic proportions, an irrational, hysterical, satisfying fit. It's been one of those days. One of those long, tedious Percy Weasley-filled days, with meeting after meeting after meeting, no lunch, and acrobatics in the corridors trying to escape one of Arthur Weasley's good natured visits. She's probably radiating fury at this point – she certainly feels like her anger is going to burn her up from the inside out – and Snape's childish antics are the fine, nearly insubstantial straw that has just this very moment broken the camel's back.

Snape raises an eyebrow and takes a step back as the dog lunges eagerly towards him. "I'm sorry, Granger, is something bothering you?"

"You know exactly what is bothering me. You took down my lost dog fliers!"

Behind her, someone clears their throat as if trying to get her attention, but she ignores them, could care less what they want. She's busy right now, and they can bloody well wait for her to finish.

"Why would I do something like that?" he says, his voice full of mock innocence. "I want nothing more than to see that needy mongrel go."

"Don't play dumb, Snape! The shop girl at the grocer's said you'd been by and took it down."

That annoying someone clears their throat again.

Snape smirks. "She must have been mistaken."

"Oh, you're insufferable! You know I only have a couple more days to find his owner, and I know in your petty, sadistic little mind, taking down my posters is probably some kind of malicious, convoluted plot to get me thrown out of my..."

That someone clears their throat yet again. "Excuse me, young lady."

On impulse, Hermione whirls around. "What?" she shouts.

There is an elderly gentleman standing behind her in a tweed coat and a sweater vest so horrific a shade of orange that Dumbledore would have worn it over his robes every day. He has great wispy eyebrows and a mass of white hair and he looks like a character out of a children's book. He is completely unaffected by the fact that Hermione has just whirled on him in a paroxysm of anger that should have been spent on Snape, and the shock of seeing his sanguine demeanor in the face of her temper tantrum shames her back into reason.

When he sees has her attention, he smiles at her brightly. "Yes. Hello, there. I believe you have my dog."

Hermione blinks and looks down at the dog, noticing for the first time that he has forgotten Snape and is happily reacquainting himself with two other nearly identical hounds on the end of the elderly man's leads, his tail wagging madly. "Oh," she says. "Sorry."

"That's all right. Lover's tiffs can be like that."

Hermione blinks again. "But we're not..."

"I'm just glad you found my Rupert," the elderly man continues blithely. "The lads and I have been missing him something awful."

All three dogs swiveled their ears at the sound of their name.

"Oh, yes. Glad to be of help." Hermione takes a deep breath and gives the old man a friendly smile in hopes of making up for all of the shouting. "I found him outside my flat last week in the rain. He looked so pathetic, I couldn't help but to take him in."

"You're very lucky this lovely young woman came along, aren't you, Rupert, you wicked boy?" the old man chides, but the dog only looks up at him adoringly and wags his tail. The old man turns to Hermione again, beaming, and takes the lead from her slack hand. "I am quiet grateful, Ms....?"

"Er, Granger."

"I'm quite grateful, Ms. Granger," he says, reaching beneath the lapel of his coat as if to pull out a wallet. "If there is anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask."

She holds out her hands to stop him before he can pull anything out. "No. It was nothing," she says, thinking the whole affair was nothing but a headache. "I'm just glad I found his owner."

"Then my deepest thanks," he says, withdrawing his hand from his jacket. "And I mean what I said. Anything I can do to help. I'm always around, so all you have to do is ask."

"Thank you, but I don't think that will be necessary."

"If you say so," he says, then nods towards the place where Snape was standing earlier. "I believe your young man has left."

Hermione glances over her shoulder to see that Snape has, in fact, disappeared, the bastard.

"He's not my young man," Hermione says, turning back to the elderly gentleman, but he, along with his three hounds, is disappearing around the next corner.

A gust of wind blows down the corridor of the street, tossing up leaves and bits of rubbish in its path. Hermione shivers, but she isn't entirely sure that it's because of the wind.

*****

Hermione dreams about Snape again.

She dreams that her legs are wrapped around his hips, and his arms are braced on either side of her shoulders, and they're fucking, swift and hard and rough. He's panting and she's keening, and they're both sweaty and hot and pleasure drunk. She's teetering on the edge, so close, and she urges him on, gasping out encouragement between thrusts: harder, faster, deeper. Surprisingly, he obeys; his hips jerk forward, pushing harder and faster and deeper, and then the orgasm takes her, flows over her, through her, and it's everywhere, flooding through her limbs, vibrating into the very tips of her fingers. She calls out his name-

She sits up, her heart pounding so hard she is sure the sound is echoing through the silence of her apartment. She runs her hands through her hair, pretends her whole body isn't tingling with the intense realism of the dream, of the way Snape's bony hips fit so nicely between her legs.

Hermione squeezes her eyes shut and pushes the images and dream-sensations out of her mind, refuses to acknowledge that she has had another erotic dream about Snape.

When she thinks she's won the battle with her body's mutinous arousal, she throws the blankets back and slides out of bed. Crookshanks raises his head and gives her a filthy look for waking him before he rolls onto his back, feet sticking up in the air, and throws one paw over his eyes.

Just as Hermione is about to give him a good scratching behind the ear for being so adorably manipulative, she sees something out of the corner of her eye, flashing outside in the darkness. Hermione moves to the window where she stands for a long while despite the cold pouring through the glass over her sweat-drenched body, and stares in awe at the Tor rising up over the town.

It is glowing, burning bright like the sun, and this time, she is certain that what she sees is no trick of light.