All's Fair in Love and War

There’s No Place Like Home

Hermione continued to live and work at the Leaky Cauldron for the few weeks preceding the beginning of term. She existed in an almost dreamlike state, enrapturing everyone she met and floating around as though she had been dosed with a particularly potent sample of Cheering Potion. Hermione politely declined the raise that Tom offered her to stay in lieu of the rapid change in her quality of work.

The day before she was scheduled to board the Hogwarts Express from platform 9 ¾, Hermione took a daytime trip to Diagon Alley. The young witch spent a generous proportion of her savings on potion ingredients from the Slug and Jiggers Apothecary, as well as multicolored ink, super-resilient, eagle-feather quills, a large stack of parchment, an impressive pewter cauldron and, of course, enough books to fill a small library. She had also kipped into the Magical Menagerie where, thinking guilty of what Ron’s reaction would be, she shelled out a small amount of money (thirteen Sickles) on a new pet to replace Crookshanks, a rat she called Nerva. Satisfied, she returned to the Leaky Cauldron and happily went about the duties of her final day (Tom, dismayed to find himself losing such an asset, put her to work twice as hard).

But as she lay in her bed that last night, magnetically attracted to the ghostly silhouette of the full moon pressing against her curtain, a knot of anxiety began to tighten in her belly. What’s wrong with me?, she thought. I have all my equipment, my books. I’ve always excelled at whatever I’ve done. Hogwarts is like a second home to me. Why do I feel so nervous? But the answer, unable to resist the draw of the question, came to her mind unbidden.

Severus Snape.

Hermione hadn’t seen the Potions master since the day she’d graduated from Hogwarts, just over two years ago. For months following her rejection she was reclusive and antisocial, locking herself in her room and burying herself in her studies to avoid pining over the Dark wizard. It was as if she’d been slapped by the Dark Lord himself when she looked around herself one day, at the world that had been passing her by as she mourned her unrequited love. Everyone had a career, a family, a life. All of her closest friends, who had long since given up on her, had made the best of their years at Hogwarts and had subsequently become invaluable to the wizarding society. She was the witch who had had the highest expectations attached to her name, and it was she who had become nothing. She was a disgrace. And it was all his fault.

Unwilling to allow the memory of a man she had once loved to continue dominating her life, Hermione pushed the Potions master from all conscious thought and emerged into the world, a butterfly breaking forth from its cocoon. But no matter how hard she tried, she could never fully commit herself to the task at hand; she had never failed at anything she had attempted before, and rejection hit her hard, stealing her confidence. For the next year and a half, the most sought-after witch of her time worked a string of low-income jobs, making barely enough to sustain her lifestyle.

But I don’t love him anymore.

Her stomach clenched tightly as the thought drifted into her mind. Of course she didn’t love him anymore. It had been two years, and she had no room in her heart for the man who had no room in his bed. It was he, after all, who’s brought this upon her, and she refused to spare him even a single thought. He had been buried deep into her psyche long ago, too deeply to ever emerge.

But how would she explain her longing to return to Hogwarts? Why she had accepted no lovers, never had a boyfriend… remained a virgin? Truthfully, Hermione didn’t know how the Professor would react to her, nor how she would react to him. There was one thing she was certain of, however: she would not, under any circumstances, fall for him again.

He had his chance, Hermione assured herself angrily, whipping her covers off. If he wanted me, he should have taken me when I was willing.

Satisfied with the winning argument of her internal monologue, Hermione turned her back to the window, trying to forget the sight of the moon peeking through her curtains. There weren’t any windows in the dungeons, after all.

-----x-----

The following day, Hermione boarded the Hogwarts Express from platform 9 ¾. Most of the teachers had already arrived, but Dumbledore had permitted Hermione to arrange her affairs before beginning her post. Later that afternoon, she boarded the train after having bid Tom a tearful farewell. He watched as she packed her trunks into the Muggle taxi, grinning inwardly, hesitant though he was to let her go. But he knew that Hogwarts could use someone like Hermione Granger a lot more than he and the Leaky Cauldron could.

The journey there was hardly eventful, with the exception of a few minor disturbances. To Hermione’s delight, both Professors Sprout and Flitwick had also opted to ride the scarlet steam engine to the school, though they didn’t get much time to catch up before the students began to cause trouble. Somehow, a group of fourth-years had managed to charm their Chocolate Frogs into life (a feat for which Professor Flitwick was proud), who kept rallying together in an attempt to kidnap the rest of the Chocolate Frogs from the trolley cart.

When they arrived at Hogwarts a little after twilight, Hermione wanted to take her trunks straight to her room and set up, but an eager house-elf insisted that she attend the beginning of term feast instead. Hermione nearly burst into tears when she saw the tiny creature struggling manually to drag the suitcase down the stone landing. She cast a quick floating charm on them before skipping off to dinner.

Dinner wasn’t much different from the usual feast, with the exception that the Sorting Hat had stopped predicting the school’s demise in the two years since she had heard its song. She did, however, take an appreciative note of the height difference. She was so accustomed to sitting at the table with her fellow Gryffindors, chatting contentedly about timetables and Quidditch, that it came as quite a shock to be sitting here among her professors—no, colleagues, she had to remind herself. The mysterious absence of the Potions master made the adjustment a far smoother one that she had imagined.

After Dumbledore had turned the yawning and contented students in for the evening for a few well-chosen words, Hermione wished the other professors a friendly ‘good night’ before heading down to her own room, which was conspicuously – no, logically – located in the dungeons. She was both pleased and a little distressed to see that all of her things had been put away for her, and Nerva gazed perceptively at her through the bars of his cage.

Hermione circled the room slowly, the stone walls sliding beneath her fingertips as she checked them for texture, pausing every few steps to listen for signs of a draft. Her new bedroom was sumptuously furnished, the deep, cherry hue of the wooden desk, chairs, bookshelves and bed frame offsetting the scarlet and gold theme aesthetically. A fire crackled merrily in between the two bookshelves, dividing the room into strips of tawny light and deepest shadow. After she had paced around the entire room twice, she noticed a wooden door, wedged between the foot of her bed and a bookshelf on the opposite wall. Deftly, she wedged in between and was a bit surprised to find that this second room was, in fact, a laboratory.

Bookshelves lined one entire side of the room and ingredients, labeled neatly on a frail-looking metal shelf, the other. Her cauldron had been placed in the middle of a small table in the center of the room, which was surrounded on all sides by a bench. There were four working counters – one on each side of the table upon which the cauldron was situated – forming a large, wooden square around the center table and the benches, separating the shelves from the main working area. Hermione shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms for warmth. The rumors were true – the dungeons really were drafty.

The witch had turned and was about to leave when she spied a second door, opposite from the one that led to her room. Curious, and deciding that it would be prudent to examine the entire work area beforehand, she pushed it open and stuck her head around the door.

Oh, my God.

There, clad in nothing but a pair of silken black boxers, stood her former Potions professor. He didn’t seem to notice her as she watched him, transfixed and unable to move, cleaning and organizing stacks of parchment and bundles of quills in preparation of the beginning of term. Hermione watched his chest rise and fall with each breath, his muscled abdomen tightening as he paused to contemplate the extent to which he precious lab would be destroyed this year. Her eyes remained locked on his chest, unable to tear them away, even as her panic rose with the realization that every lingering second increased her chances of being caught. Though he wasn’t buff or powerfully built by anyone’s definition, there was a certain wiry, lean look to him that indicated good physical health. Hermione’s eyes were drawn, like the polar ends of a magnet, to the telltale ‘V’ that carved its way to that sacred place below.

In that vulnerable moment he looked up and saw her standing there, her face violently red and looking vaguely as though she might faint from embarrassment. His dark eyes belayed shock and bewilderment to find a former student of his, let alone this former student, spying on him in his private chambers as he stood there, speechless, prone, nearly naked. He strode towards her after a few moments spent in a silence fraught with awkwardness, staring down at her from an imposing height.

“Er—Professor—“ she stammered.

“I expect that you have a perfectly plausible explanation for breaking into my private quarters after hours, do you?” he snarled, seeming to lose himself.

Hermione flushed indignantly, her excuses quite forgotten. “I’m not a student here anymore, Professor Snape! I—I was just coming to introduce myself—“

“I believe I have already had the misfortune of being grave with the knowledge of your existence,” he responded tonelessly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—“

Without waiting for a response, he slammed the door slut and Hermione could hear him placing wards on the room to keep her from disturbing him again. Enraged, she stomped back to her own room and slammed the door behind her – hard.

She stood there for a moment, silent, her heart racing in her chest as anger stacked up inside of her – at the Dark Lord, at Severus, at the circumstances his rejection had left her in and the way fate was toying with her like a puppet. The witch let out a small shriek of indignation before climbing into her four-poster bed, too angry even to change into her pajamas.

There’s no place like home.