Chapter Eleven

A/N: Everything you recognize belongs to JKR. I am, as always, filled with gratitude for my beta, Shellsnapeluver. Please do not eat any mushrooms based on my descriptions. :)

She sat up with a start at the sound of Dumbledore's voice and the sight of his green face peering out from the guttering flames. Where was she? And how long had she been drooling on Snape's shoulder?

"Good morning, Severus, Hermione," he said sternly. "Severus, I suggest you send Hermione back to her room at once. The house-elves are in a dither about where to deliver her Christmas presents."

Christmas? Oh, dear God. Had she slept here all night?

Snape blinked and said calmly, "Certainly, Albus. Is that all?"

"Yes," the Headmaster said. "That is all. And Happy Christmas." Then he was gone.

"I'm so sorry, Professor Snape. I didn't mean to--"

He waved his hand dismissively. "To what? To be the only person in this castle who showed a modicum of concern for my well being? Think nothing of it. You're forgiven."

She stood and stretched silently, having no idea how to reply. This was Snape as she had never seen him, and she had the urge to flee before he suddenly began firing curses at her.

She folded the blanket, laid it on the couch and gathered her school bag. "What time should I return?" she asked.

"Return?"

"For my lesson?"

Snape shook his head. "It's Christmas, Miss Granger."

She nodded, feeling oddly dismissed.

Heading for the fireplace, she paused and looked back. "Happy Christmas, Professor Snape."

"And to you." His face remained blank, but there was no venom in his voice.

She stepped through the flames.

***

She appeared in the Great Hall for breakfast but did not look at him, instead nodding curtly to the Headmaster as she took her seat at the Gryffindor table. She ate alone, as had been her custom throughout the holidays, though he took no pleasure in it as he had before. Despite the fact that the table had been greatly reduced in size, she looked very small sitting there.

Beyond a cursory, 'Good morning,' Dumbledore did not speak to him at breakfast. Snape exchanged pleasantries with the rest of the faculty and ate his meal quietly. He was not fond of these holiday meals and their forced conviviality. He would have preferred to eat in his chambers, but had thought it best not to anger the Headmaster any further today.

When he had finished eating, he wished his colleagues a Happy Christmas and quickly left the room, climbing the many staircases to the Astronomy Tower. A thick blanket of snow had fallen overnight, and he wished to look over the grounds, wiped clean of students and their debris. He enjoyed the thick, silent feel of the school covered in snow. It made him feel safe, as so few things did.

Wrapping his cloak about him tightly, he stepped out onto the Tower. The air was bitter with cold, but it felt cleansing. Whatever he had endured, he always felt scoured and renewed by the harsh winter winds. The Forbidden Forest looked glassy with ice, and he was struck by the idea that a very different type of Transfiguration had occurred in the night. Everything appeared changed. What was usually Hagrid's dilapidated hut was naught but a hill, and the Black Lake had been charmed white with ice and snow. He leaned against the battlements and breathed deeply, feeling the wind slice his throat and bite his lungs. Though part of what he loved in seeing the world made fresh was the sense that he was the only solitary soul to witness it, he wished vaguely for Miss Granger and her insufferable chatter to make the day feel truly like a holiday.

As if he had conjured her with his thoughts, he saw her crossing the grounds, a bright speck against the endless expanse of white. She wore her heavy cloak over her robes and a scarf in her house's colors, and her hair was whipped by the wind into a moving chestnut cloud. He smirked slightly. It reminded him a bit of the Whomping Willow. He was sorry that he had not accepted her suggestion of a lesson. He had no wish to mark essays today or to brew tedious potions for the hospital wing. He'd had no family with whom to celebrate the holiday in years, no gifts to exchange, no holiday meal outside the Hogwarts feast, and yet he often felt some strange wish to set this day apart from all the others. To teach her today might have been almost festive.

She turned toward the lake and charmed a hole into the snow. Slowly, a bench appeared where moments ago there had been only a slight rise in the smooth expanse of white. He watched as she settled herself, apparently content to sit and watch the snow blowing across the iced surface of the lake. Refusing to give any more thought to the idea than to decide firmly upon it, he turned from the battlements and made his way back to his chambers.

Once inside, he strode to his sitting room and quickly scanned the shelves for the book he wanted. He felt an uncommon desire to hurry, in case he should miss her, for this would be an excellent opportunity to instruct her on edible plants and fungi. No one else would be out on the grounds in this weather, and he could give her a practical lesson without risking anyone's curiosity. He seized the book he sought and hastened out onto the grounds.

The light was nearly blinding, reflecting as it was off the acres of snow. He stopped and squinted, his eyes searching for a familiar burst of color. There. She had remained on the bench, heedless of the wind and cold. Once again, he was stuck by how small she looked, a bright, tiny speck against a large and rather unforgiving tableau. He trudged through the snow toward her.

"Miss Granger," he said, startling her from her thoughts.

Her head jerked up, and she smiled at him. "Professor Snape. I was just out enjoying the weather."

He snorted. "You'll be lucky if you aren't frozen to that bench. Are you dressed appropriately?"

"Pardon?"

"Are you cold?"

"No, sir. I cast a Warming Charm. I... I like to look at the snow. The world seems clean again. New."

He nodded curtly.

"I wondered if you might like a lesson on edible wildlife. When you have finished admiring frozen droplets of water, of course."

She gave him a long and somewhat amused stare. Finally, she rose from the bench. "Certainly, sir."

"Good. Come." He slogged through the snow toward the Forbidden Forest with Miss Granger in his wake.

Once they had reached the cover of the trees, where the snow lay thinner upon the ground, he used his wand to clear a patch of undergrowth.

"What do you see?"

"Beech trees. Leaf debris. Slush. Mushrooms."

He looked at her disdainfully. "And what, pray tell, of all of this is useful?"

"Well, beech wood is sometimes used for wands, though not very often. And the mushrooms, I guess? Though I wouldn't know what would be safe to eat."

"At the base of the beech tree, it is common to find a plethora of mushrooms that are edible, should one find oneself in need of food. Here," he said, pointing to an orange, thin headed mushroom with blunt blue veins, "is a Chanterelle. It is edible and fairly palatable. Do you see others?"

"This," she said, indicating another of the mushroom he had pointed out.

"If you ate that, Miss Granger, you would be violently ill within the hour." He nudged the mushroom over with his foot. This is a Jack o' Lantern mushroom. Notice that it has very fine gills instead of veins."

She bent and peered at the mushroom. "I see."

"Remember it," he said. She nodded and looked as if she wished she had some parchment.

"If you are relying on mushrooms for food, Miss Granger, you very likely will not have your notes available. You must commit these things to memory." He cleared away a bit more snow.

"This," he said, pointing at a ridged and pitted mushroom, "is a Morel mushroom, also found in beech woods. It is safe to eat, but again, take care not to confuse it with the False Morel." He sliced the mushroom lengthwise with his wand, showing her the hollow stem of the Morel. "A False Morel will be filled with a cottony substance. To consume it would be fatal."

"Professor Snape?" she asked, and her face was as serious and focused as it would have been if he had been explaining the steps involved in brewing the Draught of Living Death.

"Yes?"

"Is this--I mean to say, did Dumbledore put this on my course of study?"

"Are you asking me if I would have chosen to spend my Christmas holiday looking at mushrooms in the snow?"

She glared at him, but her voice was calm and serious. "I'm asking you if you think I'm going to be scrounging in the underbrush for food in near future."

"You know very well that I have no idea what the Headmaster's plans are for you."

"I'm not asking what you know. I'm asking what you think."

"He asks me not to think. Double blind, Miss Granger."

She looked at him for a long time, so long he wished to look away but did not.

"I don't wish to endanger you or myself. But it seems an insult to both of us to imagine that we cannot see what this must mean," she said.

"Which only serves to highlight the importance of this lesson," he replied shortly. He hated himself slightly in that moment. It was clear what all this meant: the disguises, the Occlumency, the Shield Charms, the lessons in food and mediwizardry. She would be going on the run. And yet, he would not--could not--speak to her about it, could not reassure her. He could only teach her.

She nodded and cleared a larger space in the snow for them to sit. He lowered himself slowly, dreading the way that the cold would seep into his joints, but found, to his relief, that she had cast Cushioning and Warming Charms on the frozen ground so that they could work comfortably. He crossed his legs and opened the book.

"Here is a list of mushrooms common to Great Britain," he said. "I chose beech woods, not only because they are readily available for study, but because they are common, and because I have no expectation that you will be able to commit the entire text to memory. It seems best to me that you focus on a single habitat."

Miss Granger took the book into her lap and hunched over it. Her eyes darted quickly over the text, back and forth.

"Accio Mushrooms!" he said and nearly laughed when the two of them were pelted with flying fungi. She did laugh, and the sound pealed like bells through the winter wind.

He watched as she picked up one of the bright orange caps and inspected it. "Jack O' Lantern," she said, laying it aside.

"Mark it, Miss Granger. You wouldn't want any dunderheaded companions you might have eating it by mistake."

She looked at him sharply, then smirked and vanished it with her wand. He nodded, and she chose a purplish mushroom with a convex cap, turning the pages of the book as she scanned for a match.

"Wood Blewit?" she asked him.

"Indeed. You'll want to cook it, but it's edible. Some people quite enjoy them."

She set it in the folds of her robes where they had pooled in her lap. She took up all those that resembled it, and after inspecting them carefully, added them to the pile.

She worked tirelessly, taking up mushroom after mushroom, comparing them to the book and then vanishing them or adding them to the growing mound in her lap. He watched her as she worked, occasionally confirming her identification or adding a comment about preparation or flavor. Her brow was furrowed, and her hair whipped madly into her face. Several times she stopped and wound it into a knot at the base of her neck, but strands and finally whole chunks would be torn free by the wind, and they danced merrily about her head. She batted at them distractedly. Her cheeks and nose were flaming pink, chafed raw by flying snowflakes. This is what he liked most about her, he decided. Never once did she complain of the elements or ask how long they would have to do this. She simply set about the task with competent interest, determined to complete the lesson before her.

When the pile of mushrooms around her had been reduced nearly to nothingness, and the pile in her lap had grown to what might be considered enough to feed three desperate teenagers, he stopped her.

"Well done," he said, blocking the hand that had reached out for one of the few remaining mushrooms. "That one, of course, is Fly Agaric, the storybook mushroom. Quite easy to recognize and quite poisonous. Vanish it." She complied and turned toward him. A lock of her hair brushed across his mouth.

"The next step in the lesson, of course, after positive identification, is--"

"To eat one," she said.

"Quite."

She poked around in the pile, choosing a Morel. She sliced it tip to end with her wand and inspected the hollow stem.

"No cotton," she said. "And the gills are disambiguated. It should be fine."

She cut a section of the mushroom and raised it to her lips. Suddenly, he was seized with panic.

"No!" Snape said, and she nearly dropped it.

"What? You agreed with me! It's a Morel."

"Let me." He reached for the mushroom, but she shook her head vigorously.

"No. Your life is far more valuable than mine, Professor. I'll eat it."

"No one eats it," he said firmly.

"Are you mad? You said yourself, it's part of the lesson! What is the point of teaching me to find the food if I can't then consume it? I trust my work, Professor. I'll eat it."

"If you trust in your work, then you should have no concerns about my--"

"No--Look. You..." She looked at him carefully, as if to decide how he might interpret her words. "You take enough risks on my behalf."

It stopped him cold. He remembered the way she had looked at him the night before. Her eyes had scanned him so thoroughly and systematically. She'd searched him, not just for blood, but for pain, he felt certain, remembering how her gaze had lingered on his face, weighing the expression there. And then, how limply she had fallen back on the cushions, relief so evident in her posture.

"We'll both eat it," he said. Strange notions danced through his mind--of the Muggle Shakespeare, and the two of them ending up dead in the snow like some perverse Romeo and Juliet. He found the image oddly comforting.

She nodded and sliced the mushroom again, handing him a sliver that matched her own. He chewed and swallowed, his eyes never leaving her face as she did the same.

"Now, what?" she asked.

"Now, we wait."

They sat in silence, watching the snow falling from the tree cover. A few winter starlings darted between the branches. She leaned back, propping herself on the heels of her hands. "How do you usually spend the holidays?" she asked.

"Pardon?"

"How do you spend the holidays--when you aren't teaching insufferable Gyffindors how to survive in the woods?"

His eyes darted to her face, and he saw that she was teasing him. Impertinent little chit. He smirked and shook his head at her. "I usually complete the far more enjoyable task of marking student essays," he said, and she grinned.

"You always stay here?"

"I dislike cooking for myself," he said simply.

Their silence resumed, punctuated occasionally by the creak of the icy branches and the shuffling of animals deeper in the woods. The sun was high overhead, but it was shady on the forest floor where they sat.

"And you?" he asked finally.

"I grew up outside London," she said. "My parents are dentists. That's a kind of Muggle tooth doctor."

"My father was a Muggle," Snape said quietly. "I know what a dentist is."

"Oh!" she replied. "I didn't know that. Well, my parents close their practice for a few days at the holidays. We do the traditional things. Lots of food, presents, and the like."

For a moment he pitied her, far from her family on Christmas day, eating mushrooms in the snow instead of warm holiday meals prepared by her mother.

"I thought I would be quite homesick," she said suddenly. "But I've enjoyed the respite. It's very odd to go back to a world without magic."

"Indeed," he said. "Many Muggle-borns have difficulty with that."

"Do they? I find I have very little idea what to expect once I leave Hogwarts."

"Most find that they have a preference for one world or the other and choose accordingly. As you said, it is difficult to live in between."

He did not point out to her that it was wartime, and that she would likely have very few choices once the Death Eaters rose to power: give up magic and live in hiding, or fight and live in hiding. He also failed to point out that her choice had been effectively made the night she married him.

"Yet, you grew up in between," she said, oblivious to his thoughts.

"I did," he said shortly. "I prefer magic."

"As do I, I think."

He was not surprised by her statement. Rarely had he seen a Muggle-born take to magic as she had. It was not just her talent for it, but the way she had steadfastly remained friends with Potter, taking up a prominent place in a magical war that had existed long before she knew of magic, long even before she was born.

"I think we can now safely assume that we are not going to die painful deaths by mushroom poisoning," he said, pushing himself up off the ground, as he had no wish to discuss his rearing any further.

He offered her his hand to help her up, and she took it. As she stood, the heap of mushrooms fell from her lap. Just as she bent to brush them from her cloak, a huge gust of wind tore through the trees and ripped her hair free from its knot. She squinted as it flew before her, effectively blinding her. She released his hand, raising both of hers to her face to control her flying mane, and he gazed at her in amusement as she battled her hair. He felt such a rush of affection for this silly, impossible girl; this lovely, insufferable girl; his brave, Gryffindor girl, that he reached out and used both hands to tuck her hair behind her ears. And then, cupping her jaw in both palms, he bent and kissed her.

Her lips were icy cold, and he sought the warmer depths of her mouth with his tongue. Her hands parted his cloak, and she stepped toward him, threading her arms around him, tucking herself more firmly into his grasp as their kiss deepened. He heard the rushing, inexorable sound of the wind, or perhaps it was the rush of his pulse in his ears, as every part of him seemed suddenly to have awakened.

What in bloody hell was he doing?

He released her sharply and took a step back.

"I apologize, Miss Granger. That was most inappropriate."

"Inappropriate?" she stammered.

"I--forgive me." He thrust the book into her hands. "Keep it."

She took it, still looking at him with naked confusion. He brushed past her and strode from the woods toward the castle.

"Professor Snape!"

He heard her calling over the wind but continued without looking back. What could he have been thinking of? Kissing a student? Not a student-- your wife! His mind gibbered and justified. Your wife. He thought again of how tiny she had looked alone in the snowy expanse of the grounds.

That girl would be his undoing.