Chapter Text
“So, this is where we part ways?"
Ron was standing a half-step off the curb in front of their shared apartment. It was like that with him--only half measures when she would have appreciated someone going through the trouble of it all. Hermione slid her trunks into the boot of the car before closing the latch. She forced herself to take a steadying breath before turning to face him.
“Have you changed your mind about me going back?”
A week's worth of ginger stubble peppered his jawline as his thick brows knit together. He was roguishly handsome. Hermione's heart gave a painful pang as his pause solidified what she already knew in her heart. She wanted to place her hands on his face and have him draw her close, but she wanted her dream career more. “You’re still my best friend. I’m coming back for the holidays, and we can revisit the idea again.”
His exclamation of consensus gave her hope they could work it out. Still, when he didn't move to stop her from climbing into the cab's passenger seat, she knew that there would be nothing to rehash when she returned to London.
She couldn’t live her life in halves.
Hermione ripped the canvas coverings down from where they had been tacked up against the window frames. A heavy layer of dust fell, and she found herself coughing as the essence of Hogwarts stirred up a frenzy in her lungs. She had insisted on a classroom that overlooked the quiet stillness of the lake. McGonagall was not hard-pressed to give it to her. It had brought her such peace when she was here as a student. Thankfully, this side of the school had largely survived the battle and didn't require many repairs.
She glanced around at the bright classroom taking in the space she would now be teaching in as Hogwarts' newly-hired Muggles Studies and Relations professor. Her sensible Mary Janes clacked against the flagstones as she crossed the room. Every movement sent a vortex of dust into the stagnant air. With the windows bare, the particles reflected in the sun glittered magically compared to the thick sheen on every surface around her.
“Bollocks,” she cursed to herself.
Classes started Monday, and she only had this weekend to tidy and make ready for the fifth-years that were headed her way. She swept up her curly hair into a messy bun on top of her head and shucked her robes off. No time like the present, she thought to herself with resolve.
Hours passed as she rearranged and Scourgified every inch of the classroom down to the baseboards until it no longer resembled the broom cupboard she first set foot into. However, she had run into another problem. She only had nine functional desks when her class roster predicted fourteen students. Honestly, she had not expected that many. It had been three years since the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's defeat, but it was still a fresh wound that continued to bleed for some. Many families withdrew their children out of the school, afraid that a new menace was lurking. The Ministry of Magic had reported copycats taking advantage of the tenuous peace held between what was left of the Death Eaters and the rest of the wizarding world. So far, nothing of the sort had occurred. With McGonagall as Hogwarts headmistress, the security and wards around the castle were even more robust than they had been leading up to the battle. Still, fear drove paranoia.
She didn’t want to borrow the missing desks from another classroom and leave a fellow professor high and dry. She recalled seeing more in the storage rooms down in the dungeons where the extra supplies and odds and ends that were temporarily displaced were kept while construction continued. Pulling the classroom door shut behind her, she set off down the hallways she knew like the back of her hand. The air around her turned drafty and dropped ten degrees as she descended further under the lake in the Slytherin common rooms' direction. When she was younger, this area of the school used to creep her out. She was an endless sun creature, but now the damp quiet offered solace.
McGonagall had graciously Transfigured an old closet into apartments for her. It was more room than she probably needed, but it gave her a beautiful view of the lake floor. At night, the reeds shined with a bio-luminescence that helped her drift off to sleep amidst the quiet, persistent thoughts of restlessness she felt rolling around in her skull.
She was startled to see the former Potions classroom door ajar and a warm glow emanating from within. She hadn't had a chance to review the new faculty list that McGonagall has posted in her office. The new professor must be inside setting up as well. She knocked softly, intending to introduce herself. When nothing but silence met her, Hermione pushed through the open door into the classroom.
Although the room didn't possess a fireplace, someone had magically lit a fire in the room's center. It was the source of heat and light Hermione had noticed before. Several candles around the room flickered with a soft, yellow flame, effectively chasing out the dank that the dungeon had always held previously. Specimens still lined the walls, although it was clear that the collection had been added to.
“I don’t recall saying you could enter.”
The carefully controlled voice spoke from the classroom's shadowy back corner, where a door led into one of the more extensive storerooms. It had been approximately three years since Hermione had heard that deep, menacing baritone that it seemed impossible to be hearing it now. After all, Severus Snape was dead.
Nevertheless, it was a voice that she was not soon to forget. She watched in stunned silence as Snape's towering figure stepped into the room illuminated by the fire in front of him. His black hair hung in a dark curtain around his angular face—although not as oily as she had remembered. His robes were cinched tight at his neck, causing his already imposing form to appear even more severe. She would have thought he was a ghost if it weren't for the brilliant flash of anger in his black eyes.
"Pr-professor, I--." Hermione felt her mouth fall open in shock. She had witnessed, helpless, from her hiding spot Snape die that night three years ago in the Shrieking Shack. Yet, here he was standing before her in the flesh.
“Close your mouth. You are not some addle-brained guppy,” Snape said harshly.
Hermione felt her jaw snapping shut with a painful clack of her teeth. He didn't look dead. In fact, his skin wasn't nearly as sallow as Hermione remembered. Color had leached back into his pale cheeks, giving him a more well-rested, almost youthful appearance.
“Why are you here?” she heard herself say, seeking a stable surface blindly with one hand. Her knuckles rapped painfully against a nearby desk, and she leaned against it.
Snape’s mouth twisted into his familiar sneer. “This is my classroom, Granger. I’m sorry to disappoint you with the false tale of my untimely demise, but this is still mine, and as I have stated before, I did not invite you in.”
Belatedly, Hermione remembered her manners and struggled to backtrack. “Forgive me, I did not mean to be offensive. I only meant to say how...how are you here?” She averted her gaze. “That night in the shack, we were certain you were g-gone. Nagini b--”.
"I am well aware of what happened that night," he cut her off. "What transpired afterward is of no concern to you."
Hermione felt herself prickle. It seemed a near-death experience had done very little to thaw Snape's icy demeanor. "Nevertheless, I'm relieved to see you alive and well. I'm eager for the opportunity to get to work together," Hermione continued, leading their conversation in a different, hopefully, safer direction.
Snape’s heavy brow drew together. “Work together? What are you prattling on about?”
Hermione stood up straight then, fixing Snape with a broad smile. "Oh! You haven't heard then? I'm the new Muggles Studies professor."
“Of course you are,” came the quick, sardonic reply. “Minerva is allowing anybody to teach these days, I see.”
Her neck flushed with heat as she stared down Snape. He was the same cruel, ill-tempered man as before. She was stupid to assume being his colleague rather than his pupil would garner an ounce of respect from him. Still, she had foolishly hoped.
Snape turned back to the storeroom he had come from, effectively dismissing her as if she were as trivial as a fly.
"As always, it's been eye-opening speaking with you. I suppose I'll see you at the Sorting Ceremony," she quipped, stalking out of his classroom without a backward glance.
By the end of the evening, she had been successful at hunting down the missing desks she needed. After her short exchange with Snape, she felt driven to motivation. As a result, her classroom shone and sparkled, and she was the one left covered in grime and cobwebs and an aching back to boot. She dreaded the journey back downstairs to her dungeon chambers lest she ran into Snape again.
Mercifully, the Potions door was shut tight as she passed, and no light seeped from the crack below. Hermione's apartments were just around the hallway's corner. She slipped quietly inside after a whispered 'pumpkin juice’ to her guarding portrait. The room opened up into a modest studio with an attached kitchenette and full bathroom off to the left.
Her trunks had yet to arrive from London with her belongings. For the time being, the house-elves had stocked her linen chest with items presumably borrowed from the Slytherin common rooms. The deep emerald sheets that stretched across her full-sized bed were soft as silk, and she couldn't wait to rest her tired body between them.
Much like the floor-to-ceiling windows behind her bed, the bathroom also held a marginally smaller porthole view of the lake bottom. She sat and stared out into the murky, ink-blue water as the bath filled up around her. Hermione should have pushed Snape to disclose more. He couldn't be alive. Nagini's bite killed others within minutes, and she was sure he was a goner when they had retreated that night.
She finally shut off the tap before sinking further under the hot water. She blew exasperated bubbles with her mouth fretting over what she couldn’t figure out. She would have to interrogate McGonagall the first chance she got. If there was antivenin potent enough to restore life to a victim after a venomous bite such as Nagini’s, she needed to know about it. Moreover, her thoughts continued to stray to Snape’s reaction to her new teaching post as she washed her body with a lavender-sage scented soap and loofah. It was reaching to say he would have been pleased to see her teach at Hogwarts, but his outright disgust at the idea was disheartening. She had been an excellent student even by his lofty standards.
She sighed heavily, surging up to rest against the back of the dated claw-foot tub. Worrying about his opinion of her was only a lesson in futility. She would just have to prove her competence as a professor with action. After toweling off, she sat at her small desk and penned a short letter to Harry. Snape's survival was undoubtedly a secret until the school year started, but she needed to tell someone who would care. She signed and stamped the letter with the intention of delivering it to the owlery the next morning.
After her long day of back-breaking labor, Hermione didn't have much energy outside a cup of tea and biscuits for dinner. She crawled between the soft sheets and stared blearily out at the pale, luminescent reeds that swayed in the lake's deepest currents. Her last coherent thoughts centered around a memory she conjured forth of Snape sliding, bonelessly, down a wooden banister with tracks of neon venom rippling through the veins beneath his skin.