an unlikely match...

\"Hello Austere.\" Severus said shaking his brother\'s outstretched hand, his eyes trailing to a still seated Hermione. He felt his breath catch as he saw her.

She wasn\'t much older now but she appeared more sophistid. Hd. Her hair fell in long waves down her back, her dark eyes were more pronounced, still full of questions he guessed. Her frame was slightly taller, she seemed more comfortable in her body. She was really a woman now.

She must have noticed his staring because she now looked directly to him and he quickly shifted his gaze back to Austere who met his brother\'s penetrating eyes evenly.

\"How is Mother?\" Snape mumbled, his dark voice filling the room. Hermione busied herself with looking at her wineglass. She took a deep breath, feeling flushed.

Austere shrugged looking cheerily to his older brother, \"She\'s tired, and she\'s missed you terribly. She\'ll be down for dinner shortly. Why didn\'t you return for Christmas dinner last year?\"

Snape\'s eyes went to Hermione a moment and then back to Austere\'s before he answered. \"I had prior obligations.\"

\"I understand.\" Austere ran a hand through his cropped hair and offered a weak smile. So far so good. \"Charlotte? Would you mind bringing out some wine? My brother is here.\"

Charlotte appeared suddenly from the door and Hermione waited for the traditional once over to occur from Severus as she swept past him. He didn\'t bat an eye. Hermione found this all too intriguing.

Perhaps Harry and Ron were right, perhaps Snape did bat for the other team. She had never seen him interested in any girl that she could remember. He was a fairly good dresser, polished to some- if you didn\'t count that dreadful hair, although now it appeared a bit softer. Must be the lighting.

Charlotte set her tray down by Hermione dramatically pouring from the wine bottle into the sparkling glass. The rich, red drink poured in as she swirled it a bit to give it some air. Hermione frowned slightly, thinking over the option of Severus being into men.

\"Here you are sir.\" Charlotte said sweetly to the newcomer as she passed him the drink, her eyes batting flirtatiously. Austere grimaced and Hermione rolled her eyes from the couch as she took a long sip from her champagne glass.

Severus took it roughly, nodding to her as if dismissing her. Charlotte looked a bit taken aback but nodded back and left the room, looking a bit miffed. Hermione stifled a giggle.
Taking a sip himself Severus still leaned against the doorframe, looking surprisingly casual. Hermione supposed his bags had been taken up to his room already.

He and Austere talked back and forth a bit, quietly so that Hermione wasn\'t included. She took this time to observe the both of them. Her dark eyes intent on finding similarity.
Severus was a good inch or two taller than Austere, and looked to his younger brother severely. His lips barely parted when he spoke in hushed tones, his dark eyes flicking back and forth as if searching Austere\'s.

Austere wasn\'t bad himself, obviously he had the upper hand of youth and Hermione had experienced him first hand in bed. He was surprisingly talented in that area as well. He always seemed to enjoy himself and Hermione had to agree she never fell asleep unfulfilled. She looked to her lover then, smiling wistfully as images of their wedding flew into her head. He\'d look splendid in a tuxedo.

Austere himself shifted back from foot to foot, looking to Severus with almost intimidation. He was thin like Severus, but had a certain rogue charm about him that eluded Snape. Austere was sweet and charming, Severus was darkly sexy.

Hermione surprised herself thinking that, she hadn\'t really thought of Snape as sexy until her seventh Year at Hogwarts. She couldn\'t deny that at times she had been caught up in the fact that past his rude facade he had to be delicate, sexy, powerful. She never found out though, in fact the more she thought about her emotions pertaining to Snape in her last year at Hogwarts, the blurrier things became. She supposed it had to be the champagne.

\"And how is the Muggle medicine game Austere?\" Snape asked bitingly after a long sip of wine, his voice loud enough for Hermione to hear. \"Still a nurse?\"

Austere\'s smile faltered as Hermione bit back a smirk, \"I\'m a doctor Severus.\"

\"Of course.\"

Austere shrugged, knowing full well he shouldn\'t push Severus, the man was volatile. Hermione suddenly feeling quite left out gave a small cough to remind Austere that she was still there. Austere and Severus looked over to the fetching fiancée and smiling widely Austere motioned for his brother to follow him.

\"I wrote to you of Hermione, my fiancée.\" Austere said, as Snape and he made their way over to the brooding young woman. She stood, taking his hand and faced her old Professor. He was just as intimidating as he had been three years ago when she had graduated.

\"Do you recognize your old student?\" Austere said playfully, holding Hermione\'s hand as she forced a smile, looking uncomfortably to Severus. His bottomless eyes drank her in and finally he spoke darkly.

\"Yes.\"

Their eyes locked a moment, black on brown and she suddenly felt very flushed. She couldn\'t directly recall why she was feeling so flustered all of a sudden and feeling herself being watched by Austere she held out her hand to shake Severus\' and softly spoke.

\"Hello Professor Snape.\"

His eyes did not leave hers as he dismissed the hand she held outstretched to shake. Gods she had grown up to be quite lovely. His voice was as even as hers when he replied.

\"Miss Granger.\"

Austere bust out laughing then, his dark rumbling chuckle reverberating off the roof of the polished room. Hermione and Severus broke the gaze to look at him. Finally after wiping the tears from the corner of his eyes he looked to the both of them.

\"Professor Snape? Miss Granger?\" Austere started snickering again, \"Honestly. We\'re all grown adults here, I believe using first names would prove to be less awkward.\"

Hermione immediately disagreed. The mere thought of calling her old Professor Snape, \'Severus\' was bizarre. She could see his dark eyes reading that he agreed entirely.

\"And how are you Miss Granger?\" Severus drawled, his dark eyes looking to her own somberly. Up closer to him she could detect the fullness of his lips. My. Austere\'s lips were nothing like that. His familiar sandalwood scent wrapped around her like a sudden blanket. Memories of Hogwarts flew before her eyes.

\"Erm...fine thanks.\" she brushed some stray hair from her face and going slightly pink added- \"And yourself?\"

Snape shrugged lazily, \"Tolerable.\"

Both shifted their eyes to the ground, feeling considerably awkward. Austere noticed this, looking to them curiously. Suddenly Charlotte appeared from around the corner looking to Snape in particular as she spoke.

\"Dinner is ready.\"

* * *
To say that a meal with the Snape family is friendly and warm would be a very large lie. Hermione and Austere were on one side of the long table, while Lady Snape sat at one end and Severus across from Hermione. The chair at the other end of the table Hermione guessed was a monument to the fallen Lord Snape.

The ng rng room was magnificent. Candles positively filled the table, along with every food possible. Butlers and maids from all over came to give Hermione her courses and she couldn\'t help feel as if she were being scrutinized.

It didn\'t help that Snape was being considerably cruel to his own mother, ignoring her as he buttered his bread and drank his wine.

\"How are you enjoying your teaching position at Hogwarts son?\" Lady Snape had started out, looking to him cheerily. She had been seated at the table when the three of them arrived. Her eyes had brightened the moment that she laid eyes on her phantom son.

\"It\'s tolerable.\" he answered, giving Hermione a meaningful look. She was too busy trying to avoid his eyes and that she knocked over her wineglass. She blushed embarassed and apologized profusely to the house elf that came to clean the mess up.

\"Don\'t worry about it Miss Hermione.\" Knoll answered, looking to Hermione with large, glassy green eyes. \"I is happy to clean up.\"

Snape saw Hermione\'s features contort as she tried to bite back a speech from S.P.E.W. She desperately wanted to as Knoll if she was really happy to be cleaning up for someone.

\"Thank you.\" She said handing the small house elf her empty wine glass. Knoll nodded, giving Hermione a large smile and scampered off towards the pantry.

\"Do you really converse with those creatures Hermione?\" Austere asked her gently, \"I mean. They\'re only house elves.\"

Hermione had looked to him incredulously. She supposed that he was only acting this way because his older brother was around, but still.

\"I treat everyone with the respect they deserve.\" Hermione said, deliberately not meeting Snape\'s gaze from across the table. She went back to her meal, eating it delicately as possible feeling all eyes upon her.

Austere suddenly spoke up, a bit embarassed. \"So Severus, found anyone special to spend the rest of your life with?\" he emphasized his words with a hearty laugh that no one joined in on.

Hermione saw Snape\'s knuckled go white as he gripped his fork and she herself almost choked on a breadstick. Snape\'s furious eyes swept to Austere\'s, the candlelight giving him an unearthly glow in those orbs of his.

\"No.\"

Hermione winced at the coldness in his voice, her stomach churning as she tried to eat. Why did he have to affect her this much?

\"Oh.\" Lady Snape looked taken aback. Hermione wanted to tell her to stop asking Severus questions he obviously didn\'t want to discuss- least of all in front of her; a know-it-all ex student. Another sip of wine and a sigh later Snape spoke.

\"Do you still correspond with Potter and Weasley, Miss Granger?\" Snape asked her, looking to his own dinner plate. Lady Snape raised her own eyebrow at the use of the term, \'Miss Granger\' but didn\'t say anything to oppose it.

\"I do.\" Hermione said casually, \"They\'re attending the wedding, actually.\"

Snape grimaced. \"Of course they are.\"

\"That reminds me dear.\" Lady Snape said dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin, \"Who is to be your maid of honor?\"

\"Ginny Potter. Ron\'s sister.\"

Snape grimaced again. The whole Weasley clan bugged him. And now to think, she was married to Potter. He prayed their offspring would never be accepted into Hogwarts- perhaps he would luck out and they would be Squibs.

\"Ahhh what are the elusive Potter and Weasley up to now? Besides marriage of course.\"
Hermione smirked, feeling a bit calmer. \"Well, Ron\'s not married, he\'s on some famous Quidditch team, and he\'s always dating supermodels.\" She saw Snape smirk as she rolled her eyes. \"And Harry, well evidently he and Ginny got married and he\'s become Auror.\"

Snape nodded, watching her as she spoke. Austere ended up breaking in about some story from the office he had encountered. While Lady Snape seemed to be at rapt attention, Severus noted Hermione looking boredly to her dinner plate.

He looked to her quizzically, ignoring his brother\'s engrossing tale. Finally manners getting the better of him he looked to Austere and feigned interest.

Only moments later Lady Snape broke the silence that had suddenly fell upon them with a small clap of her hands. The three of them looked to her curiously.

\"Austere, Hermione..\" she said dramatically, \"Do tell Severus of how you two met. I don\'t believe he\'s heard the delightful story.\"

Hermione blanched, gripping the edge of the table as Snape gave her a quizzical look. \"Oh, I don\'t think he\'d really be interested, I me-\"

\"Come now dear,\" Lady Snape said grinning. Hermione wondered what Severus looked like if he smiled. \"Don\'t be shy.\"

Hermione winced and before she could clumsily reply Austere had already launched into his version of the tale.

\"Actually we met in Diagon Alley.\" he saw Snape\'s surprised look and smiled, \"I know I know, you\'re wondering what I was doing there, being a chosen Muggle. But I find, that if I use certain magical elements in my medicine for my patients, they heal much quic-\"

Snape frowned deeply, obviously this comment upset him. It had struck a strange chord with Hermione as well. \"And no one in the Magical community has opposed this? No one has questioned any of this at all?\"

Hermione looked to Austere suddenly curious, he had never really mentioned anything past the fact that he had healed so many. She had been so happy for him when he healed his patients she hadn\'t really questioned the validity of his theories. Perhaps she had been in a drunken state of happy lust but now she was starting to see Austere was not quite the man he had started out to be.

Austere looked nervous a moment, his gaze shifty. \"Well, no ones come to me about it if that\'s what your implying.\"

Severus went to speak more about this when Lady Snape urged Austere to continue with how Hermione and Austere met. Austere looking relieved smiled and patting Hermione\'s hand on the table continued.

\"We bumped into each other at Diagon Alley, me buying supplies and Hermione as well. She apologized again and again and helped me pick up my parcels. I was dumbstruck. Here was some young, beautiful witch and she was being kind to me!\"

Hermione smiled sweetly as he looked to her fondly. Severus tried to contain the urge to gag. Down went another gulp of the wine. He was growing more and more furious with every passing minute, something he didn\'t know was pissing him right off. Austere was still babbling.

\"I told her it was alright, and asked her out for a drink. I remember she was wearing a light blue blazer, and her hair was down all about the place.\"

Hermione winced a bit, the smile still on her face. She had been wearing a gray coat at the time, but never mind. Severus rolled his eyes, finishing the last of his drink. Gods just stop talking...

\"-I introduced myself to her and she looked a bit surprised. It was then that I learned she had been a student of yours Severus. I asked her to have a drink with me and she finally agreed, although I tell you it wasn\'t easy.\"

Hermione blushed a bit and Severus saw his brother and she had their hand intertwined. Snape felt a bit queasy and wished his brother would stop talking so that he could go to his room and sleep, all of this was quite dull and annoying to him.

\"So eight months later I proposed.\"

How bloody lame.

\"Quite quick wouldn\'t you say?\" Severus said darkly, drumming his hands atop the dinner table. Hermione noticed he had barely eaten anything. \"The proposal. I mean.\"


\"Well,\" Austere said grinning and looking to Hermione momentarily. \"When you know you love someone, marriage seems next step. I want to spend the rest of my life with
Hermione.\"

After that sappy comment Snape went back to picking at his dinner, not meeting anyone\'s eyes and sulking. Hermione noticed that he still had that rigid posture, and that almost permanent sneer transfixed upon his face. Some things never changed.

Lady Snape smiled a bit and then looked to Severus smiling gently. \"Well Severus, I hear that Hermione was one of your students. How coincidental.\"

\"Quite.\" Snape looked to Hermione bored a moment and then back to his Mother. \"She was in my potions class.\" Lady Snape nodded and he went on in a dull tone.

\"She was a silly know-it-all friend of Potter\'s. Always had her hand up in the air.\"

Hermione\'s eyes blazed and she quickly interrupted, \"And he was a miserable sullen Potions Professor with a penchant for deducting points from any house that wasn\'t
Slytherin.\"

Austere and Lady Snape\'s eyes widened a bit as Severus and Hermione\'s eyes locked, both furious for some strange reason. Soon the two of them were almost leaning over the table, snarling at each other and tossing back memories.

\"She never shut up for a moment!\"

\"He never stopped sneering and glaring!\"

\"She snuck into my private storage.\"

\"He made fun of my teeth!\"

\"WELL.\" Austere suddenly interrupted, Severus and Hermione looked to him breathlessly. \"I think some tea would be lovely. What say you all?\"

* * *

\"Well that was embarrassing tonight.\" Austere said, as he and Hermione were in her room. \"Honestly, getting into a screaming match over dinner? And then humiliating each other during tea?\"

Hermione shrugged, quite angry that Austere was automatically taking Snape\'s side. She started to unzip her dress, quite ready to retire for the night. Snape had been completely unreasonable. Great. Stuck with Severus Snape for two weeks and he was overly spiteful. She was really beginning to loathe him.

Austere looked to his young love and sighed, \"I\'m sorry luv. Thank you for putting up with Severus tonight.\" Hermione shrugged and pulled a nightdress from the dresser and began undressing.

\"It was fine. Dinner was lovely.\"

Austere looked to his young future bride and frowned, \"But?-\"

Hermione looked exasperated. \"But, I think it was horrible the way that Severus treated you and your Mother tonight.\"

\"Hermione you don\'t know him like Mother and I. Severus has always been this way. You\'ll come to accept it in time.\"

Hermione frowned, folding her newly doffed clothing, pulled on her nightdress and looked to Austere confused, \"I don\'t want to accept it Austere. He was horrible to everyone.\"

Austere sighed heavily, loosening his tie and looking to Hermione tiredly. \"Listen Hermione, he\'s not going to change for anyone, especially not for you.\"

He hadn\'t said this comment to hurt Hermione. It had been a way of saying that Snape simply wouldn\'t change, not for any newcomer in the Snape-clan, not for anyone. But he saw the hurt in Hermione\'s eyes and tried vainly to change the subject.

\"Anyway I think we should set Snape up with Charlotte. Try to get him a bit more cheery.\" Austere said a stupid grin on his face as he gave her a look that read, Well? Whadda ya think?

Hermione didn\'t know why but this idiotic suggestion pissed her right off. She supposed it was her jealousy of Charlotte\'s beauty, or the way that Severus had treated her this evening or even the way Austere had been gazing at Charlotte when he believed Hermione hadn\'t been watching.

\"I think that would be a truly stupid idea Austere.\"

He looked to her darkly, his eyes brooding and suddenly Hermione saw him not as Austere, but as Snape\'s brother. \"That doesn\'t really sound like you at all \'Mione. Normally this sort of thing would excite you, a project of sorts.\"

\"Your brother\'s lonliness is not a project Austere.\" Hermione spat angrily, pulling on her nightclothes. \"And you\'d be cruel to force Charlotte on him.\"

Austere was looking at her queerly, trying to place just what the hell had transpired. \"Since when do you know anything about my brother? Or of Charlotte for that matter?\"

Hermione sighed, how typical. Snape had made her schooling life hell and now he was here to do damage to her adult life- Good job Sev. \"I only know that your brother is a solitary man. And Charlotte, neither of us know anything about her.\"

\"Evidently I know a lot more about him than you do.\"

Austere looked to Hermione angrily, not knowing why exactly but more for the fact that she was right. She crawled into the bed and looked to her fiancée exasperated. How could one family be so distant from one another?

Austere flicked off the light for her room and shutting the door behind him offered a solemn.

\"Good night \'Mione.\"

* * *
Hermione had just settled down in the bed, still a bit angry at Austere for all his idiocy this evening, and wondering why the hell Severus had been acting the way he was when she rolled over onto her back and looked to the ceiling.

Austere was on the opposite side of the manor and she contemplated sneaking out to go and see him. She frowned, dismissing the thought a moment later. If Lady Snape caught her- she didn\'t want to think about getting on her bad side as well as Severus\'

Just as that thought flew into her mind, she heard a loud \'popping’ sound and suddenly the infamous hated brother Severus himself was standing in her room, muttering to himself.
His back was to her in the dimly lit room, he looked rather tired from the way he began to fiddle with his cloak and finally dropped it on a nearby table. He was sighing and muttering to himself again, but Hermione\'s attention was transfixed as she realized he was
unbuttoning his shirt.

Wait.

He\'s unbuttoning his shirt! DO SOMETHING! THIS IS PROFESSOR SNAPE! her mind screamed. But all she wanted to do was see what he looked like, and so she sat in the bed hidden in darkness and watched him.

When the buttons of his shirt had been undone he gently slipped it from his shoulders and onto a nearby table. Hermione silently gasped and took in the milky color of his skin, believing it would be smooth to the touch. His dark hair looked so dashing in contrast, and she found herself gazing at his form.

Here he was, feared Potions Master half naked and...really quite delicious. She felt her lower abdomen tingling, Austere most definitely wasn\'t this...delicate. That was the word. Delicate.

Suddenly she heard faint clinking and realized that he was fiddling with his belt to his trousers. Alarms began to go off in her head now. She pulled the blanket around her tighter and in a voice stronger than imagined she finally spoke.

\"Professor?\"

In all her life, Hermione had never seen a man jump that high before. He jumped a good foot in pure surprise before reeling around on his heels squinting in the dark room towards the direction of the voice, picking up, pulling on and doing his shirt up quickly.

\"What the hell do you think you\'re doing in here?\"

Hermione gaped at him, had he just barged into her room and asked what she was doing here? Was he drunk? He awaited her reply, his figure almost invisible in the room that matched his attire.

\"Excuse me?\" Hermione said angrily, \"This happens to be my room.\"

She heard him shuffle a bit in the dark and suddenly the room was alight and he was there only a few feet from her. She squinted at the new light and pulled the blanket around her shoulders until she was sure she was covered respectfully. He caught a glimpse of her breasts under her nightshirt before she pulled the blanket around her. He felt a familiar tingling in his groin and sighed darkly. What the hell was she doing here?

Snape himself had left the two top buttons of his shirt undone. This alone was causing Hermione to become hot and bothered, and she tried to stop it. They hated each other quite openly. Snape was looking to Hermione crossly as he stood, arms overlapping and giving her a look that surely entailed death.

\"Actually Miss Granger,\" he said darkly, \"This happens to be my room.\"

Hermione frowned, he had to be drunk. She noticed as Snape\'s attention was drawn from her body to around the room and he shook his head. He looked utterly furious.

\"Gryffindor colors, I should have known.\" suddenly rapt attention was drawn to the young girl in his bed. Hermione felt suddenly scared to death, looking to his dark eyes.
\"You\'re not even her blood relation and she gives you my room.\" Snape spoke slowly, and to Hermione sounded like a spoiled little boy who didn\'t get his way. \"Shows how much I\'m appreciated around here.\"

He narrowed his eyes at Hermione, daring her to speak. Not one to back down from a challenge she obliged. Evidently Lady Snape had put Hermione into Snape\'s old room and his feelings were hurt. But that gave him no right to barge in on her in the middle of the night and get angry with her.

\"It\'s not that you\'re not appreciated sir.\" she said respectfully, knowing full well that she could call him Severus if she wanted to- which she most certainly didn\'t.

\"You don\'t seem to appreciate anyone yourself. You\'re own Mother longs to be closer to you and you push her away. You\'re brother offers friendship and you dismiss it. Are you so taken with your own isolation that you care for no one else?\"

She saw his eyes harden with every true word spoken and she noticed his hands balled at the sides of him into tight fists, almost shaking with anger.

\"Not that its any of your business Miss Granger, but I did care for someone. Even a monster like myself can love. Although unlike you I am not blinded by it.\"

Hermione gaped, she certainly hadn\'t meant to insinuate that Snape never loved. He was a human being after all. She longed to say something-anything that would ensure he understood that.

\"I-\" Hermione started, a loss for words for the first time in her life. \"I erm...\"

He seemed angrier than she had ever seen him and in a suddenly fluid motion he had waltzed over to her, grasped her arm under the blanket and was walking her to the door. She tried to cover herself and looked to him in shock, still disorientedkingking up and seeing her former Professor undress and not look half bad was causing her to be a bit slow.

\"I won\'t have some know it all Gryffindor sleeping in my room. In my bed no less. Accusing me of something she knows nothing about.\"

Hermione didn\'t know why that comment suddenly sealed the fact that she was being thrown out. You\'d think him pushing her to the door would have been the obvious give away. She tried to pull from his grasp but he was proving to be much stronger than she ever gave him credit for.

\"But, I\'ve nowhere to sleep.\" she offered weakly, still groggy from sleep and rather dizzy from being pulled from her bed and shoved to the door of the warm room.
Snape scoffed at this, opening the door and shoving her into the cold and dark hall gave her a sickening smirk.

\"You seem to know everything Miss Granger.\" he said darkly, his eyes capturing her own, \"See if your brilliant mind can find you a room to sleep in.\"

With that the large oaken door slammed in her face, and Hermione suddenly understood why it was so easy for people to hate a man like Severus Snape. She was becoming one of them.