Part the Third: Greece and Rome

Disclaimer: Continues to be not mine.

Part the Third: Greece and Rome

Hermione does not find a wand that works in Bucharest.

She goes through an entire selection of black market wands while two large, unpleasant looking wizards loom over her, but she does not find a single wand that works properly. Snape does not allow her any time to enjoy Romania afterwards and herds her onto the next train to Athens, claiming there is another black market seller there.

Hermione doesn't find a second wand in Athens either, but before Snape can bully her into going anywhere else, she puts her foot down, literally, in the middle of a busy Athenian street during the early morning rush.

"No," she says, crossing her arms and ignoring the dirty looks the pedestrians are giving her for interrupting the flow of traffic.

Snape stops and turns around, giving her the earwax and vomit look. "No what, Granger?"

"I'm not going anywhere else until I can take some time to sightsee like I was able to do in Poland."

Snape rolls his eyes. "We don't have time for this."

"We don't have time? You're dead, and I'm a criminal. We have nothing but time. And, look!" She points towards the Acropolis rising over the city where the Parthenon sits in all of its noble and ancient splendor. "That's the Parthenon. It's a monument of both magical and Muggle importance, and you want to drag me off to some other back alley, illegal wand dealer without letting me take time to visit it."

Snape looks towards the Parthenon as if he hasn't noticed the huge bloody Greek temple looming over them for the past two days. "You want to visit the Parthenon."

"Yes. And the other temples on the Acropolis, the Agora, the museums, and possibly the Piraeus. And then I'd like to visit the towns in Peloponnesus, and then..."

Snape waves her off impatiently. "Yes, yes, I get it, Granger. You want to play tourist."

"As a matter of fact, I do. They've taken everything else from me, and I'm not going to let you take any joy I may get out of traveling, too. And speaking of traveling, why are you..."

"Oh, I'm tired of your ceaseless nattering, Granger. Do as you wish." He gestures at the Acropolis in annoyance. "Go play tourist until your heart's content. Limit yourself to one wand. Get caught and dragged back to England to be stripped of your wizarding rights. See if I bloody care. I'm done with you."

There is a certain finality in the way he whirls about and stalks off through the crowd, shouldering the other pedestrians aside. Hermione watches him go, exasperated and nettled and just a bit hurt, which is entirely ridiculous, because he has been nothing but unpleasant and patronizing and vitriolic since the first day she met him, all those years ago in first-year Potions. She's almost certain he's just abandoned her forever on an Athenian street, which is entirely acceptable to her, she decides, since she now has a wand which they cannot trace, and there is no one to bully her. She can relax long enough to enjoy traveling, since her hands are tied where the tracking magic and her stolen life are concerned.

Yes, it's better this way, she decides and purposefully sets out towards the Acropolis, determined to play tourist until her heart's content, just like he said. As she wanders amongst the ruins, gazing up at the optical illusion of the Parthenon columns and reading about the history of the other temples in a guide book she picked up in a nearby shop, she almost completely manages not to think about the fact that she is once again alone.

To her surprise, she finds Snape sitting in the lone rickety chair that passes as the lobby furniture in the hotel when she returns that evening.

Part of her wants to slip away before he sees her and carry on her traveling alone, but the other part that is homesick and lonely doesn't let her, assuaging her pride by pointing out that he is the one that is sitting there waiting for her to return to the hotel and not the other way around.

"I thought you had left," she says, approaching him with her best courtroom voice and stature.

"What gave you that idea?" he says, closing the French-language newspaper he is reading.

"The part where you stalked off in a snit like a sullen little boy."

Snape huffs. "Says the woman who stomped her foot like a child in the middle of the street because she wasn't getting her way."

"I was just following your example," she says with a shrug. "Besides, I thought you were done with me."

"I should be," he says, standing and tossing the newspaper into the chair. "But I could hardly leave you on your own, or you'd be back in England, Stupefying Ministry officials for bits of hair to break into the Department of Magical Games and Sports in order to free the Snitches or something equally ridiculous."

Hermione frowns. "Don't they sell Snitches at the Quidditch Supply Shop?"

"Your fixation on minutia borders on obsession, Granger. I've taken the liberty of booking our rooms again for tonight."

"How thoughtful of you," she mutters and heads for the lift.

Snape follows, stepping into the small space of the lift without the slightest bit of discomfort and punches their floor number. Hermione notices that he smells nice, clean and a bit musky and appealingly masculine. Then, shaking her head to chase away that thought, wherever it came from, says, "I'm going to the National Archaeological Museum tomorrow."

The lift opens onto their floor, and Snape hands her the room key. "Fascinating."

Hermione slips it into the lock and opens the door, but before she steps inside, she says, "Snape."

He pauses in the process of stepping into his room. "What?"

"You can come, if you'd like," she says, then can't help adding, "because, you know, if you take some time to enjoy sightseeing, you might find yourself appreciating it."

Snape sneers and gives her that special look he used to reserve for Harry, then disappears into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Nevertheless, she finds him in the lobby the next morning, ready to go.

She's so pleased, she doesn't stop to wonder why.

After a few days in Athens, during which Snape tags along with her to museums and temples, commenting snidely on this or that, almost literally dragging her out of the Numismatic Museum of Athens, insisting that piles of ancient coins couldn't possibly be that interesting, she decides it's time to move onto the Peloponnesus.

He doesn't argue, but when they set out on their first excursion in Sparta, he's the one attempting to direct their itinerary for the day. They end up fighting about it when he refuses to let her see the few ruins of the ancient city because he insists the Byzantine Mistra is more interesting. Once they negotiate an itinerary that is acceptable to both of them, but which requires an extra day, they do enjoy themselves, and late that afternoon, she's the one dragging Snape out of a museum instead of the other way around.

And that turns out to be the pattern for the remaining time they spend in Greece – they can't go sightseeing without an argument about where to go, but when they get there, they enjoy themselves, assuming they can agree on a time to leave. She finds that not only can Snape hold a decent conversation, but she also enjoys them, even if half the time they dissolve into arguments and, on occasion, bouts of childish name calling.

It's bizarre, utterly bizarre, and strangely, kind of fun. None of her friends would have ever let her spend five hours in a museum, let alone would have spent them with her, except for maybe Luna, and after the time she, Ginny, and Luna took the kids to the British Museum and were thrown out because Luna insisted that one of the mummies was still alive and tried to release him from his sarcophagus, she declared Luna the last person she would ever visit a museum with again. Her friends also wouldn't discuss what they had seen with her, or take the same amount of interest, and at the end of the day, she decides she likes having someone to share these sorts of things with, even if he tends to have all the maturity of a sullen five-year-old.

She's enjoying herself so much with Snape that she goes whole hours without feeling pangs of homesickness, and when the question of why Snape is helping her or traveling with her or whatever it is that he is doing with her surfaces, she pushes it away. She's sure Snape has his own reasons, and they are probably selfish, but she doesn't want to ruin her enjoyment with minutia.

She's doesn't want to develop an obsession, after all.

Then, one day, she notices that things are beginning to change on some subtle level.

In their hotel in Patras, where they are spending the night before catching a ferry to Italy the next morning, they have one of those moments you see in romantic comedies, in which the heroine is stepping out of the shower at the exact same moment at which the hero is stepping into the bathroom.

They both freeze where they are. She has the towel in one hand, but it hasn't come anywhere near her body yet, and Snape has the requisite deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, but he hasn't started retreating from the room yet.

A little voice in the back of her head reminds her that somebody has to do something; they can't stand there for the rest of their lives staring at each other in embarrassment and shock. So Hermione breaks out of her paralysis, blushes bright red from head to toe and pulls the towel to her chest.

"Get out!" she shrieks, grabbing the shower curtain and pulling it in front of her for good measure.

Snape stares at her a second longer, then ducks back into the other room without a word.

Hermione is fairly sure that he let his eyes linger a moment too long on purpose, which is sort of disturbing, but even more disturbing than that, she is also fairly sure she doesn't mind.

In Pompeii, after they have spent the better part of the morning arguing about which parts of the ancient city to visit, Hermione notices that something is different about Snape. She is unable to pinpoint exactly what it is as she watches him stride ahead of her down the Via Abbondanza in a snit because she won this round, boots tapping out an angry rhythm on the ancient flagstones. Then, when he pivots sharply to enter one of the reconstructed shops and his hair whips about with the same easy swing as his coat, she realizes what it is.

Snape has washed his hair.

In Venice, she notices that when Snape isn't in one of his moods, he opens doors for her and pours the wine into her glass when he orders a bottle at dinner.

She also notices that washing his hair was not a one-time affair.

In Florence, she catches him looking at her cleavage as she is taking off her coat in a restaurant, but that's okay, because in Assisi, he catches her staring at the dip of his collarbone at the base of his throat with interest.

They finally run out of money in Rome.

They sit in the Piazza Navona on a bench across from the Fountain of Four Rivers. It is four days before Christmas, and Hermione isn't sure how they ran out of money exactly, though it might have been the meals accompanied by the local wines, the hotel rooms, and the illegal wand she bought in Poland. She is eating half a slice of pizza while idly studying the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian oblisk that makes up the architecture of the fountain. The pizza is what amounts to the last of their cash; she has torn it in half in hopes that Snape will share it with her, but he has refused, claming that he isn't hungry.

He is sitting beside her, stiff with irritation as he scowls at the pigeons, the artists, and the few tourists who are braving the cold, and when Hermione offers again to share the other half of the slice with him, he scowls at her.

"I told you I'm not hungry," he snaps, focusing his black gaze on a pair of teenagers strolling past them, holding hands. The pair exchange nervous glances and quickly move to the other side of the piazza.

"Oh, honestly. There's no reason to go hungry."

"I am not going hungry. I am simply not hungry." He redirects his gaze to a cluster of pigeons waddling towards them, eyeing the pizza and cooing hopefully. "Now finish the rest of your meal."

Hermione frowns and carefully rewraps the slice in the wax paper, her appetite gone. She knows he's lying. He's obviously letting her have their last meal, and she just doesn't know how to feel about that, other than confused. The fact that she knows how to solve their money problems doesn't help, but she doesn't expect the warmest reception to her idea. But they'll freeze to death tonight if they can't find a way to pay for a room somewhere – warming charms only go so far – and should they survive the night, they will go hungry tomorrow.

Hermione sighs. She shouldn't feel so nervous about this. She isn't his student anymore, she won't get detention, and she can certainly hex him if she needs to sort him out. She has a perfectly viable solution, and really, there was nothing to be done for it other than just putting it out on the table and seeing what he says.

His bark has always been worse than his bite, anyway.

"I have a way to get money," she says at last.

Snape turns his head just enough to look at her out of the corner of his eye. "How?"

She slips a Galleon out of her pocket and shows it to him; his scowl is automatically redirected at her again. "You said you didn't have any more money."

"I don't. This isn't a real Galleon, not any more, anyway."

Snape raises an eyebrow and waits for her to explain.

"This is one of the Galleons we used in fifth year to let the other DA members know when our meetings would be."

"A Protean Charm." He looks almost... impressed. "Like the Dark Mark."

"Yes, well," she says, suddenly embarrassed. "That's where I got the idea from."

"And how exactly will your Galleon make money?"

"I can contact Harry. We changed the Protean Charm so that if I enter the geographic coordinates, he could meet me where ever I am."

His expression shutters almost immediately. "No. Absolutely not."

"Look, we're in sort of a bind here. Besides, I can meet him alone. He doesn't need to know about you."

"Don't be ridiculous, Granger. And what happens if Potter doesn't come, but a cadre of Aurors, ready to arrest you? No, if we summon Potter, I'll go with you."

"So you're not adverse to the idea."

"On the contrary, I am completely adverse to the idea. However, we are in a bind, as you put it, and I don't relish freezing to death on the streets tonight." He paused to focus his glare on a woman strolling past, talking loudly on her mobile. "Just summon him and have done with it."

"If you're sure..."

"For Merlin's sake, woman, stop rubbing salt in the wound," he snarls, then snatches up the slice of pizza. "And stop monopolizing lunch."

He gets up and stomps off to the other side of the piazza to scowl and pout and eat his pizza. Hermione wishes that just once he wouldn't couch his answers in token protests or hide them in complaints.

Harry catches up with them a few hours later as they are wandering aimlessly through the Roman Forum. They've cast warming spells, but as the temperature falls, they are becoming less protective. Hermione has begun shivering, and Snape looks distinctly uncomfortable, huddled down into the collar of his coat as he is.

"Harry!" she cries when she sees him coming around the Arch of Titus and rushes into his arms.

Harry picks her up and swings her around. "You're all right!" he says with a grin as he sets her down. "We were so worried. Why didn't you contact me before this?"

"I didn't know what was going on and didn't want to draw any attention to you."

"As if he needs the help," Snape says from behind them.

Harry takes one look at Snape striding towards them and says, "Where did you find Snape?"

"She knocked me over in Budapest and drew me into her web of dastardly crime."

"Don't listen to him. He came willingly." Hermione pauses, suddenly suspicious; Harry is far too sanguine about meeting a man they both saw die. "Why aren't you more surprised that he's alive?"

Harry looks to Snape. "You didn't tell her?"

Snape raises an eyebrow in Harry's direction. "And excuse you from the task?"

Hermione turns to Harry, hands on her hips and furious. "Excuse you from what task?"

Harry shifts from foot to foot nervously. "Remember when we left Snape's body in the Shrieking Shack because we thought he was dead? Well, when I went back for his body, he was alive. He wouldn't go to St. Mungo's or even to Madam Pomfrey, so I ended up helping him get better."

Well, there is the rest of the story Snape didn't tell her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Harry shrugged. "He asked me not to tell anyone."

Hermione is still a little irritated that Harry hadn't told her, but since she's come to know Snape a bit better over the last few weeks, it would have been perfectly in character for him to want to hide from the post-war fracas and perfectly in character for Harry to help him do so.

With a sigh of defeat, Hermione nods. "Right. Well, I hope you know you were both very stupid. You could have died," she says, wagging her finger at Snape like the old woman in Krakow. "And you," she says, turning her finger on Harry, "you could have killed him."

"And neither happened," Snape snaps. "Now let's go somewhere warm and have dinner. Potter, it's on you."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Harry says with a grin as Snape brushes past him, and Hermione can only marvel at how far they've come since the war.

They find a restaurant near the Coliseum that has heat and a fantastic menu. Hermione tells Harry about what has happened since the last time she saw him in Paris, where he met her with Muggle Euros and the small beaded purse she used during the war, packed with clothing and supplies. He tells her about the tracking legislation and the protests of the general citizenry, about the united front of the Aurors against the orders to exile Hermione, and about the efforts the Order is making to get the legislation thrown out and Hermione allowed back in. Snape, for his part, orders the best merlot the restaurant can provide and spends the entire meal making his usual sarcastic comments about the Ministry and the Order and, when he runs out of ammunition for those things, Harry.

Eventually, Hermione pops off to the loo, and when she returns, Harry and Snape are speaking in low serious tones. Hermione thinks nothing of it until she gets close enough to hear them.

"...life debt? That's ridiculous. You don't need to repay a life debt to me. If anything, I should be repaying one to you."

"That isn't how life debts work, Potter."

"Well, life debts are stupid, and if that's the only reason why you're helping Hermione..."

Anger floods Hermione. Anger, and hurt and something that feels like humiliation.

"Excuse me?" she snaps.

Both men jerk their heads up in surprise.

Harry, she knows, is somehow vaguely responsible for this situation, but Snape is the real culprit. She had no idea why he was helping her, but there was a small, naïve part of her who wanted to think he did so for reasons that weren't quite so selfish, but now that she knows for sure, she wants nothing to do with it. "So, you're helping me in hopes of settling the life debt."

"Granger..." Snape begins.

"No, shut it. I've heard enough," she snarls and, grabbing her coat, stomps out of the restaurant. The sharp cold distracts her from her hurt a bit, and as she wanders back towards the Coliseum, shivering, she tries to fight back tears of anger and hurt.

Then from behind her comes Harry's voice, calling her name.

She glances over her shoulder to see Harry jogging across the street and Snape following behind him at a more leisurely pace, so she steps up her own, not exactly interested in speaking to either of them at the moment.

"Hermione! Wait!" Harry calls breathlessly as he catches up to her. Then he's beside her, breathing heavily. "Please, stop for a minute."

"I need money, Harry. Enough to go to the States." She's pulled the States out of thin air but it's as good a place to go as any, since home is denied to her now.

"Hermione, I think that's a little bit further than..."

"Right now, I don't care what you think. My life and my career have been stolen from me..."

"Ron and I are going to get that sorted out."

"And I've been traveling with a man who's using me as a tool to repay some idiotic debt you know doesn't even exist."

"That's what he says, but Hermione..."

"Money, Harry. A lot of it. Enough for me to enjoy myself traveling in the States. I'll pay you back once the Wizengamot rescinds their decision to exile me, and I can go back to work."

Harry grabs her arm and forces her to stop. "Fine. I'll give you what you want, but under one condition."

"What's that?"

"Snape goes with you."

"No. I can take care of myself. I want nothing to do with him."

"I know you can take care of yourself, better than me or Ron, probably, but I would rather you not have to do this alone, especially if you really are going to go to the States. The tracking magic was legalized there last week, and I want someone with you who will watch your back."

Hermione stares at the Coliseum, lit by dozens of flood lights and bright against the night sky. "And if I say no?"

"Then I won't give you the money."

Hermione glares at him, absolutely furious that Harry is bribing her this way, but until she's reinstated, she's at his mercy. "You should have been sorted into Slytherin, Harry."

"Well, it's not like the Sorting Hat didn't try."

Snape has finally caught up with them, and when he sees them, Hermione with tears of fury in her eyes and Harry with a solemn gaze, his eyes narrow with suspicion. "What?" he says.

Hermione looks away, but out of the corner of her eye, she can see Harry grinning nervously at Snape. "Ever fancied visiting the States?"