Written for spottedcat on the forums as part of a story swap. This story doesn’t fit into the Textures of Darkness/Little House ficverse.
I’d also like to wish MADJH a very happy birthday, and beg her forgiveness for giving the same gift twice. >.>
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“What are you doing here?” Hermione asked, dripping water onto the beige carpeting of her flat, not bothering to shut the door behind her. Ron stood barefoot in the narrow entrance hall, his shoes and socks scattered into the walkway, his coat on the peg and his scarf half on the floor.
“Wanted to see you,” he said. “It’s been forever.”
“It’s been five days.” She eyed the half-eaten piece of toast in his hand. “I’ve been working. I bet you didn’t clean up after yourself, either. Did you even put the butter back in the fridge?”
He paused in the process of taking a bite, glanced over his own shoulder. “I…” he looked back at her. “It’s nearly ten. Why weren’t you home? And shut the door, you‘re letting the cold in.”
“Why did I ask you not to come over this week?” she demanded, leaving the door. “What have I been talking about? What should you be working on?”
He shook his head, snorted. “Nobody’s staying late for the Mattly affair.”
“Nobody on your end, maybe,” she said. “I’ve worked fourteen hours the last three days. Trying to work out the spell combinations, trace the roots.”
“You’ve been at the Mattly house, then?” he asked. She thought he sounded suspicious.
“Yes.”
“There were no guards there. They came back through the Ministry at five.” His voice was getting louder. Normally she’d cast a spell to muffle it. Tonight it didn’t seem worth it. “You shouldn’t have been on site.”
“They shouldn’t have gone home,” Hermione retorted hotly. “The damn Ministry wants these spells so fast, they can keep their guards there while we work.”
“I don’t think you were there,” Ron said, advancing on her. “I think you were out.”
“You know I wasn’t,” Hermione snapped.
Ron’s ears went red, and he leaned down at her. “I DON’T KNOW YOU WEREN’T,” he roared.
“No? Which is it this time, jealous because you can’t have me at your beck and call, or jealous that I get paid twice what you do?” Hermione felt her nails biting into her palms.
“Don’t bring my job into this!” Ron wasn’t shouting anymore. He was glaring down at her, drawing his anger around him indignantly. “Who were you seeing?”
It was too much. Too much work, too many hours alone in a creaky old house, focusing her attention on fading spell traces. Too much trying to forget the war, trying not to curse anyone who walked through the door, just because she was jumpy and alone and it was dark and the guards had gone home. Too much from Ron, who should have understood all that. “FINE. Fine. Believe what you will. Just get the hell out of my flat, and don’t come back. Ever. We’re through.”
And as she let the door slam behind her as she left, she knew they were.
It was a depressing thought.
Rewrapping her cloak around her, she trudged off down the street, her feet slipping and skidding away from her despite the heavy treads on her boots. Her flat was above the little storefront she shared with her two partners in their business - a magical detection agency of sorts.
At least, that’s how she justified living in Hogsmeade. It had nothing to do with the hulking presence of Hogwarts, of course. And now, upset as she was, she wasn’t storming off to the school. She was just storming, and her feet kept sliding in that direction. It was downhill, and downwind.
And maybe it was home.
But graduated students weren’t supposed to think of the castle as home. It was childish. It was weak.
It was utterly foolish, and there was no force strong enough to drag her through the oak front doors tonight. She’d shown enough silliness with Ron. Certainly shown enough stomping through town in tears.
So instead of walking to the school, she veered off as she passed the lake - that must have been it, she must have wanted to watch the snow blowing in twisting swirls across the black ice. Of course. That’s why her feet had brought her through the front gates and up the road.
She flopped down in the snow on the shore, staring out into the darkness. The lake had frozen over since the last snow, clear, solid ice. Perfect for skating - but tonight’s storm would bury that.
Just as well. She and Ron wouldn’t be skating here anymore.
“Well, well, well…” the deep voice startled her, making her twist around. Snape looked down at her from only a few feet away. “Who have we-” he cut short, squinting down at her. “Miss Granger,” he said stiffly. “I apologize.”
She managed a twisted smile. “No need.” Her voice came out choked, forcing her to draw a ragged breath. “It’s reasonable to assume only a student would be sitting here.” She was crying. The tears slipped out without permission, unreasonably sparked by another human, any other human. She kept her face still, hoping he would not see them in the dark.
He stared down at her for several long seconds. “Are you alright, Miss Granger?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. It’s just…just the wind…” and then she started sobbing. “…and I’m tired. The Mattly case - it’s been in the Prophet…you’ve probably read about it…”
She buried her face in her hands, turning away from him, determined that if she had to sob, she would at least do so silently. Snape’s feet crunched on the snow, and she hoped he was going away. Instead he sat down next to her.
“Your agency has been doing magical investigations, have they not?” he asked evenly.
“We-” she wiped her eyes. “We have. It’s - it’s my case - actually. I’ve been - working long - long days.” He made an encouraging noise, and she broke. It really had been that long since someone had listened to her. “And Ron - Ron was at my flat - and he wants me to be there whenever. He thinks I should just get off - work, like he does. He doesn’t understand that my - my business doesn’t run without me there.”
She was babbling now, lost, shivering and quite unable to stop. “And he accused me - accused me of cheating on him again - accused me again, not cheating again, but he knows - knows I’d never. So I left. Told him to get out, and stay out - and I left.”
He sat silently beside her until she’d stopped crying, and started to notice that the snow had melted through her cloak and her butt was beginning to feel very damp from sitting in it. When she shifted uncomfortably, he spoke again, just as evenly.
“Perhaps you should come inside. It is cold, and late.”
“I-” she started to protest. But Ron was probably still in her flat, and she wasn’t up to facing him, or the walk through the village, for that matter. And the lights of Hogwarts were so familiar, so inviting.
“Okay.”
Snape stood, helped her to her feet. They walked up to the castle in brooding silence. The hallways were deserted, except for the occasional ghost, and a solitary Prefect.
Snape exchanged curt nods with the Prefect and led her down to the dungeons. Hermione looked around with interest. “Were these your quarters when I was here?”
He nodded. “It’s convenient to the Slytherin Common Room,” he explained in a particularly cold tone of emotionlessness that seemed to be his way of being civil. He waved his wand, making his door appear out of solid rock. “I was…relived that Slughorn had not inhabited them in my absence.”
Hermione could see why they suited Snape “ and why they wouldn’t have suited Slughorn at all.
The sitting room was brightly lit with a fire and several lamps. Bookcases, the occasional sketch of a rare specimen, and candleholders used most of the wall space. He had two straight-backed chairs and a low wooden table, a worn brown rug, and stone floors. There was a small Christmas tree in the corner, which surprised her.
He did not give her a great deal of time to look around. Instead he conjured a terrycloth robe. “Go take off your wet clothing.” He gestured to a door across the room. “Hang them on the hooks in the bathroom. They have a laundry charm on them.”
She eyed him doubtfully, and he glared at her. “You will not sit down on my chairs soaking wet, Miss Granger. I had the presence of mind to cast a waterproofing charm before I sat.”
“Sit down,” he said when she emerged, gesturing towards a tray of tea things on the table. “Help yourself.”
“Do you usually invite women you find sobbing on the grounds in for tea at eleven o’clock in the evening?” she asked, sitting down and carefully tucking the robe around her.
“I don’t make a habit of allowing former students to freeze to death on school property. They are welcome to expire elsewhere if it pleases them,” he said neutrally, sipping his tea.
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you find many of us, then?”
“More than you would expect. Many find Hogwarts a place of refuge.”
She finished her tea in silence, eyeing the Christmas tree. It was largely undecorated, but every now and then she would see a fairy. They all seemed to move with an odd slowness - she eventually noticed that one had an injured wing.
“You seem to make a habit out of saving wounded things.”
He followed her gaze to the tree. “I give them someplace safe from the students. They decorate my quarters. It is a fair trade.”
“And me?”
“You are a pretty young woman. A freshly single young woman. Perhaps you will be grateful to me,” he said expressionlessly, meeting her eye.
She studied him for a moment and decided he was joking.
But he had brought her mind around to the topic she had been avoiding, the topic of Ron. “He just hasn’t been the same lately,” she said, wondering why she was telling him, of all people, and deciding it didn’t matter. He gave every impression of being willing to listen. “During the war he grew up. Got more comfortable. And now it’s like…like he’s regressing or something. Everything upsets him.”
“Some people,” Snape said, with as little emotion as he’d said everything else, “are suited to war. It brings them alive, gives them something to do that only they can. When the war ends, they’re at loose ends.”
He looked at her intently. “Potter is content to putter around, enjoying the slightest of amusements. You have a career you enjoy. Others find that they have something to hold them, a place, or a calling. Weasley has not, perhaps, made his peace with peace.”
“Perhaps,” she said softly.
“It is unhealthy to support without being similarly supported,” he said. “Your relationship was unbalanced.”
“Our relationship was doomed,” she said bluntly. “That doesn’t make it hurt less.”
She finished her tea and set it aside. Snape did the same. “I must teach in the morning. If you think Weasley will be waiting for you, you are welcome to sleep in the guest room.”
“You have a guest room?” she asked, stopping herself from asking whatever for?
He strode across the room and through a doorway, Hermione getting to her feet and trailing after. The room was tiny and crammed full of books. He flicked his wand a few times; the bookshelves moved closer together, the chair transformed into a bed, and the lamp lit itself.
“I do now.”