*
Adolescent
*

Zev slept with Remus and Hermione every night for a week in the seven days before she left. Kieran and Ruel were forced to promise her three times daily that they would floo if anything went wrong and, more importantly, they could take care of any emergencies that arose. Remus kidnapped her away to Ginny and Nymph's the afternoon before she was scheduled to leave and used what was normally their time to grade papers in companionable silence for a sordid, brilliant three hours of good-bye sex.

It took the edge off just enough for her to bait the bear, eyeing Snape's ever-present robes skeptically and pointing out, "New Mexico is a desert."

He surveyed the dress that Ginny and her had shopped for in anticipation of the trip. It was a simple sundress with a slight V neck, sleeveless except for a slight fall of material, knee-length. Made of a bright, although not glaring, red Ginny had assured her it complimented all the color she'd gotten spending her days outside with students and the animals to which she was introducing them. Her hair was tied back loosely with a ribbon that matched the dress, hiding the raido ruin, but more fully exposing the phoenix. The porlock and the two names on her wrists were on full display, with the devil's snare sneaking out and the bottom of the thestral only visible enough to suggest something unseen. Snape ventured, "Not a nudist colony?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. She slung her bag over one shoulder. "Prude."

She began walking to the end of the wards, the swishing of his robes giving away his location as directly behind her and to her left. As soon as she stepped through the magical boundaries, she turned to him, "See you in a second?"

He tipped his head. She Apparated.

The desert wasn't quite as hot as she had expected, sun soaking into the material of her dress and down, underneath through the skin. Still, it was hot enough that she suspected Snape of being quite miserable. Two seconds after appearing, and he was standing more stiffly than usual, even for him.

She turned herself toward the only building in sight. "Shall we?"

He moved without answering. She followed. The complex was solitary, but large, an almost unending conglomeration of stucco and red clay. Hermione felt the pull of the wards the second they stepped through. Almost instantaneously, a man and a woman appeared, walking toward them. The woman was tall, Hermione estimated about six four. Her hair was a light brown, cropped close to her head. Her eyes, nose and chin were sharp and her mouth seemed overly large on her face, but her smile made up for it, transforming her features into the human version of unadulterated warmth.

The man, who Hermione could only assume was her husband and Snape's colleague, wasn't as tall, but he was close. Unlike the whippet frame his wife carried with grace, his stature was matched by a considerable bulk. His eyes were blue and deep set, his hair a mess of white curls too long unshorn. His smile matched his wife's however, making Hermione oblivious to the rest.

Snape and Hermione caught up to the greeting party quickly. The man held out a hand, which Snape took. "You must be Severus. I've been hoping to meet you for a long time now."

"I assure you the feeling has been mutual." Snape shook the man's hand firmly, before repeating the gesture with his wife. He turned slightly to where Hermione was standing. "This is…a friend, Hermione Granger. She was the one to contact you. Hermione, Paulo and Faelle Alva."

Hermione indulged in the pleasantries of hand-shaking. "Lovely to have a face to match up with the names. My partner, Remus Lupin, sends his sincere thanks for all your help in helping clear up his bout of silver poisoning."

Faelle's smile changed ever so slightly. "Amazing he survived so long as he did, really. Paulo's been working with the samples of blood Severus sent us, hoping to adapt the condition to a more reasonable vaccine against the poisoning."

Snape spoke up. "I've been studying the latest notes you sent, perhaps some time this evening we could go over them. I have some thoughts on the nature of silver itself that I think might be of use?"

"Of course," Paulo assured him. "But first let's get you inside. Something to drink?"

The four made their way inside the complex, the subtle magic of Cooling Charms blowing over their skin as they stepped past the door. Paulo and Faelle called out to people and made introductions as they went along. For the most part, Hermione forgot names the moment they had been dropped. She was preoccupied with the way Snape reacted to Faelle. The way he offered his arm on the journey inside and didn't flinch when she took it. The way he didn't bite at the inside of his lower lip as though fighting to keep his wit in check when she spoke. The way that he actually smiled back, albeit briefly, when she concentrated her grin solely on him.

Obviously, Faelle's alternate form didn’t bother him as much as Hermione would have assumed it did. As much as a smile from him was what this whole enterprise was about, Hermione felt her fingernails digging into her wrist as it stole over his lips. When it vanished, she looked down to find small pockets of displaced skin along the R-E-M of her tattoo.

She rubbed the redness away as much as possible. She didn't want evidence of things she didn’t even understand for other people to see.

*

Hermione made her excuses and escaped back to the quiet of the hotel shortly after dining with the Alvas. Snape stayed to talk shop with Paulo.

She was in the hotel's pool by the time he came back, long after the pool's "closing" hour. Just herself, the water, the nighttime stillness of the desert. He was there, sitting in a chair off to the side when she came up from beneath the water's surface, wet and blind and panting. She flicked the water away from her eyes and opened them, offering, "Come in."

His refusal was not unexpected. "At least your feet," she urged.

She slipped on the bottom of the pool and went back under when he toed off his shoes. By the time she regained equilibrium and got herself straightened, he was folding his robes neatly, placing them on the poolside table. He slid his socks off and tucked them into his shoes before sitting at the edge, pulling his pants to his knees and testing the water with his toes. After a few quick dips, he plunged. "Slightly cold."

"You get used to it, then it feels good."

"You had to pick a Muggle inn. They're all looking at me as though pigs might erupt out of my arse at any moment."

Hermione refused to be flustered by the uncharacteristic use of vulgarity. "I think that's more about the fact that you're wearing wool in the middle of the desert than anything else. Honestly, I don't blame them."

"I'm not the one who's used her skin as a graffiti canvas."

Hermione could see the regret creep across his skin, pale and curdled. It didn't stop her from responding, "Fuck. You."

"I'm sorry. You have the right to do whatsoever you please with your own skin, of course."

"As a matter of fact, Professor," Hermione worked it into a three syllabus curse, "I do."

"Please, Miss Granger," he was pleading, if in a dignified, aloof sort of way, "I should not have said that. I think we both realize that I haven't a limb to support myself upon when it comes to the branding of one's own flesh."

The admission was kind enough -- painful enough -- that Hermione accepted it in the nature it was given. "I will give you that my way of dealing with loss has not necessarily been the foremost psychologically recommended manner of going about things, but you haven't left Hogwarts since the end of the war. Not even for a night, a week, nothing. I'm liable to throw your own stones back into that rather fragile glass house you're presenting me."

Snape swished his feet in a circular pattern. "The last time I left Hogwarts, a somewhat misgiving Albus Dumbledore was the only person to allow me back. Now that I've watched the only man willing to forgive my mistakes be rent to death by a bloody psychopath, how can I be sure that I will be welcome when I return this time?"

"The only way I can keep believing that they'll lower the wards at the school for me, even knowing that I'm not one of them." Hermione drew her eyes away from the hypnotic ripples being created by the activities of Snape's restless feet.

"And that is?"

"You're going to laugh."

"I assure you, I'm much too tired to indulge in such reactions."

"Your word of honor?"

"As a Slytherin."

"Be scary and ironic on your own time," she chided, and gave him the answer, "hope."

"Hope?" He sounded disappointed.

She almost wished he'd laughed. "Something I'd forgotten when I kill- when Harry and Ron died. It's…quite useful, as it turns out."

"I've never-"

"I know." Well, not really, or at least, she hadn’t known until that moment, but it made sense. A man without hope will join someone who promises him that, regardless of what the promise costs. A man without hope will turn his back on those who would kill him for it. A man without hope will stagnate.

"I don't know how-"

"You can learn."

"I'm not much of a student." He sneered it, but Hermione could smell his fear just as clearly as if there were actual wolf blood running the length of her veins.

"But I'm an excellent teacher." Hermione, considering the matter settled, pushed off the edge and glided away from him, toward the other side of the pool. She kept returning.

*

At the end of the week she hugged Faelle and Paulo, promising to write and send pictures of all the people they'd heard so much about. They, in turn, promised to keep her updated on any and all events at the complex. She allowed Snape several moments alone in which to say his own goodbyes, only marginally curious of what they consisted. The two of them made their way silently to the edge of the wards.

Hermione stepped past the wards, ignoring the slight tickling sensation of being allowed through. She turned to Snape, intent on saying, "Well, ta," or something equally blithe. "Thanks for letting me…"

He should have been difficult about it. Should have mocked her inability to finish a sentence or given her options of completion. "I believe that's my line."

"You can't ignore me when we get back." She meant it as a command. It came out like fear.

"I never could, Miss Granger," he mocked lightly. "Your hand was always waving in my face."

Hermione rephrased, "Then you can't hate me when we get back, either."

"No, that was never my end of things," Snape returned softly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Liar."

"You were Potter's girl from day one, there was no other way for it."

Hermione, who had started listening at some point that she didn't remember, heard proof of what Minerva told her in his scathing, bitter, wounded elocution of Harry's last name. "First off, I thought Harry was a reckless idiotic boy until he saved my life from that mountain troll Quirrell let in our first year. He only had to do that because he and Ron had hurt my feelings so badly I was crying in the washroom when it was announced that we needed to return to the dorms. Secondly, Harry was taking notes that first day, when you ragged on him for not paying attention, he had good reason to feel a bit spiteful. Thirdly, even knowing that you were a complete wretch to my two best friends and that you grossly and blindly favored your own house I still wanted nothing more than to hear you say I had done well until my fourth year. After that, admittedly, you had managed to piss me off enough that I didn't care what you thought, but I still didn't hate you. You project things so that you won't have to deal with other people. So long as the three of us 'hated' you, it was perfectly fine for you not to like us back. For your information, Professor, Harry admired you. He didn't like you, but he did admire you. Ron thought you were a bloody arse and probably did hate you, but only because you pushed him to it. Given the chance, Ron preferred to be friends with people."

Somewhere in the middle of her diatribe, Hermione had advanced on Snape and was now standing mere inches away from him, close enough that when she inhaled, they touched. She stumbled back a bit, surprised. "I think you may have hit a nerve."

He didn't apologize, exactly. "Potter was a nerve. Open and constantly being poked. When I came to school…my father was a Slytherin. And I hated my father. Bastard abused my mother on top of gambling away a fortune, and the honor of a name older than Hogwarts. Everyone knew that the heroes were always in Gryffindor, so where did I want to be? I was eleven years old. Every eleven year old escaping from somewhere wants to end up somewhere better.

"I met Lupin on the platform. We were both too shy to even introduce ourselves, but we waited with each other. My mum had dropped me off, but couldn't stay, since she had work to get to, and Lupin's family was gone as well by the time I got there. He let me stand by him, discounting the fact that my robes had been bought second hand and looked as though they'd been worn by every single Weasley sibling before they got to me. I wanted to be his friend.

"We boarded the train and the first compartment we got to had already been claimed by Black and Potter and Pettigrew. There was room for more, but Black and Potter were only willing to allow Lupin in, seeing as how he didn't look, 'like he stole his robes from the dust bin out back of the station.'

"I hated Lupin for not protesting more than I've ever hated him for trying to kill me while transformed into a creature who knows no better."

Hermione commented, "And those four were sorted into Gryffindor."

"And I Slytherin," Snape finished.

"I wish you had known Harry," Hermione told him. The sadness that gripped her whenever she thought of things she wished for Harry stung at the corners of her eyes. "I think you might have liked him."

"I suppose you think the same of Weasley and me."

"Oh, no," Hermione whispered, still swallowing tears. "No, I know the same of you and Ron. The boy you just described could have been Ron, excepting the family issues. He had his own kinds where that was concerned."

"I was equally blind with my own house." More non-apologies. "Sinistra was actually up for head of Slytherin when Artuad retired. I petitioned Albus for it in the rather vain hopes that I might…"

"You did. Millicent. And Graham and Adrian. It was hardly their parent's influence that brought them to Dumbledore."

"For every one of those I can name you three that I failed. Parkinson, Zabini, Crabbe, Goyle, Higgs, Flint, Baddock-"

"People cannot always be changed."

"Children can be changed," he argued. "Malfoy."

"Was corrupted at the core by his father."

"One's family is not the determining factor in one's actions."

Hermione pressed her lips together. "Just because Gryffindor heroes are the only ones that anybody ever talks about doesn't mean they're the only ones who exist, Snape." She leaned up for what was becoming her customary peck of leaving. "You're Millicent's hero, and you were Graham's and Adrian's. You're most definitely the hero of all the children at my school and at the complex we just left, and every bit as much for the adults there. Even Remus. Who is sorry he hurt you, even if he doesn't know all the ways in which he did. He wouldn't have sent me with you if he wasn't, desire to see me leave or no."

Snape drew himself up. "If they work, I'll send the improvements Paulo and I theorized on for the Wolfsbane."

"No, you'll bring it," Hermione left no room for disagreement. She Disapparated before he managed to find any.

*

Hermione hadn't even made it properly into the Common Area of Zev's dorm when she was pelted with hugs from every side. Zev impacted her directly from the front, wrapping his arms around her waist from sheer momentum, Ginny took the left side and Nymph the right and though she couldn't see him, Remus was solid and whole against her back.

Ginny announced, "We missed you."

Hermione twisted her head to kiss Ginny's cheek, "Me too, love, immensely."

Nymph pulled away, leading them all to the couch. "Tell us about it! What's New Mexico like? Was Snape a bore? Is the complex like the school? Did you meet-"

Ginny clapped a hand over Nymph's lips, "Did you have a good time?"

Hermione settled herself practically on top of Remus, who didn't speak a word of protest. "I did. New Mexico is lovely, very different from here. Snape was a perfect gentleman, and no, the complex is more of a research facility than a school. American werewolves are generally left alone so long as they aren't killing or infecting people, so there's no reason to create this kind of institution over there. I met Faelle and Paulo and they're both brilliant. Paulo and I took tea together several days to chat about human-werewolf relations, particularly in regard to pack mentality. I learned loads from Faelle, who actually raises mooncalves(7) of all things, says they're very calming while transformed. What trouble have you lot been making in my absence?"

Zev dove right in, "Remus has been teaching me how to fly! On a Firebolt! And he says that it belonged to Harry Potter! Did it? Really?"

"Yeah, baby," Hermione reached to push the hair out of his eyes, "it did. Harry would have loved teaching you to fly on it, but I bet he trusts Remus every bit as much. Harry really liked Remus."

Zev looked suspicious. "How come none of you ever talk about him, if you knew him well enough to have his broomstick?"

"We…" Hermione floundered, only to be saved by Nymph.

"Because we all miss him, very very much, and sometimes, when you miss someone who's never coming back to you, it makes you sad to talk about them."

"Oh." Zev thought about this for a bit. "I didn't mean to make you sad, Min."

"I know." Hermione summoned up the best smile she could manage at that moment. "If you want, sometime I'll show you the pictures I have of him. There's a lot of Ginny's brother Ron, too."

"I know who Ron Weasley was. Professor Tempus thinks it's really important that we know all about the Voldemort Wars. You're all really big heroes, I know, you're in the books that people wrote after the war was won and my parents used to talk about you all the time. Even Remus, and he's a werewolf."

"Especially Remus," Hermione corrected. Behind her, Remus pressed a kiss to the crook of her shoulder.

"Was Harry as nice as all the books say? His hair looks kinda like mine, it's always messy."

Ginny intervened, "Harry was the best friend you could ever have and probably a worse enemy. He was sweet and funny and very very loyal. His hair was messier than yours, and whenever somebody would try to cut it, it would just grow back immediately."

"I loved his hair," Hermione told Zev. "It was soft, and very much a part of him, and I loved every part of Harry."

Zev asked, "Do you love mine like that?"

Hermione pulled Zev to her. "And more, baby."

Remus' arms made their way around her and squeezed the scrawny ten year-old to both of them. Nymph cooed. Hermione heard skin contact skin and knew that Ginny had smacked her. Hermione giggled into the fine strands of Zev's hair.

*

Remus couldn't let go of her, not even to eat. She was fine with it, since it meant he appeared to be the clingy one, rather than her. Somewhat noble of him, actually. As soon as they were back in her room, door warded, Hermione concentrated all the touching she'd been holding in toward one surge of contact, pressing her body to his, mouth to mouth, breasts to pectorals, waist to waist. Without allowing for much room, both of them managed to shed their clothes.

Remus was already hard and she was long past wet and it was obvious they weren't going to make it to the bed so Hermione hooked her arms around Remus's neck and pulled herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist and allowing him to push her back up against the door for support. It didn't take long for Hermione to be keening into the place where Remus's shoulder curved up into his neck, for him to drive his fingers into her back and repeat, "Missed you, missed you, missed you."

He let her down slowly, holding on while she double checked that her legs still worked. When sturdiness had been coaxed back into her limbs, they chanced the several steps needed to make it to the bed, and collapsed. Thankfully Remus had thought ahead and turned down the sheets so that all they needed to do was pull them up over themselves and cuddle into a warm state of post-sexual languor.

Remus opened the conversation they most definitely had not been having in front of other people with, "Severus was a perfect gentleman? Was he drinking out of his own flask the entire time?"

Hermione let the laughter bubbling from her stomach upward free. "Can you keep a secret?"

"I've been known to keep one or two of those in my time," Remus let the drollness of his tone convey the rolling of his eyes that Hermione couldn't see.

"It was a rhetorical lead-in, Remus."

"Yeah, well, it was a stupid rhetorical lead-in. What secret am I keeping?"

"The secret of why Snape hates you."

"Um." Remus's index finger skittered over her shoulderblade. "I don’t know how to tell you this, but…"

"Not that reason, dip. The reason you don't know, hence making it a secret and thereby something for which he would poison my dinner with untraceable slow-acting poisons and never feel regret about it should I tell you."

"He'd poison his own dinner first, but I see your point. At the very least, my life would be forfeit."

"And then what would I do?" Hermione nipped at the hollow of his throat. "But you won’t tell, so all this is moot."

"Tell me your secrets, gorgeous."

"He wanted to be your friend. The two of you were standing on the platform together and he thought you might be a friend, but you let Sirius and James turn him away."

"How irrevocably Severus is that? He hates me for bowing to peer pressure more than for trying to kill him."

"About that," Hermione mused, "I don't think werewolves bother him. At least, not in the way we all supposed."

"I've suspected that for a bit."

"Could've let me in on it."

"I thought you knew. You see the way he treats Zev as often as I do, maybe more."

"Yes but it's always an uphill struggle to get him near this place."

"Because it's a community. One that he doesn't belong to, and he figures one of those is enough."

"He belongs to Hogwarts," Hermione protested. "Minerva would be lost should he decide to leave."

"Minerva, as much a force as she is, does not a community make, dearest."

"Still."

Remus let it drop. "I'm working at trying to be the friend he thought I could be that day on the platform. It's much harder now. Then I would only have had to stand up to James and Sirius, now I have to stand up to all his memories. It doesn't help that he's absolutely clueless as to what, exactly, a friend is. Albus was as much of one as he ever really had and I think my overtures seem patently like seduction of the Death Eater sort."

"Yes, well, they would have provided him his own community," Hermione pointed out.

"We can provide a community of his own," Remus hissed, more sincere than angry.

"Can you?" It was a second before Hermione even realized what she had asked. "Shit. I didn’t mean that."

"You must be the only witch in the world who wants to transform into a death-bringing beast once a month."

"I was bloody well apologizing, Remus."

"If someone came here to take you away, to hurt you, to touch one hair on your head, do you for a second think we wouldn't tear them to pieces? With or without claws, we would. What else can you possibly ask of us?"

"That Zev not get that look in his eyes, the way he does sometimes when he first wakes up, like he's gotta keep me in his sight no matter what or I might up and disappear, off to find a better gig. Or that you not send me places with Snape because you think I need more than you do, because you think I'm better than you deserve. I know you don’t mean it, anymore than Zev does, but just because I can leave doesn't mean I want to, just because I don’t have scars that I clawed into my skin doesn't mean mine weren't self-inflicted. If the rest of the wizarding world is going to condemn me as a werewolf -- and they have, don’t doubt it for a second -- I ought to at least have the right of being one. But I don't."

"Min." Remus squeezed until she couldn't breathe before loosening up. "Min, I sent you with Snape because…because if the wizarding world is going to condemn him as a Death Eater, and it does, then he ought at least to have had the right of actually being one."

"Oh." She wished he were still squeezing her, allowing the tightness in her chest to be explained away.

"I should've said that earlier, maybe."

This wasn't his fault, so Hermione shook her head, her lips brushing his skin. "I shouldn't have assumed to understand your motives."

"I care about the both of you. Admittedly, perhaps more you than him, but still, I just wanted to help."

Hermione gifted him with, "You did. We yelled at each other a lot, mostly, but that's how we are."

"And I only feel you're too good for me in the universal way that everyone feels their lover is too good for them. It's nothing to do with the werewolf issue. You do it too, so you haven’t a bit of room with which to argue."

"I have a ton of room," Hermione argued for argument's sake, "just none with which to win."

Remus chuckled. "I'm glad you're back."

"Mm," Hermione closed her eyes, giving into the lull of sleep, "missed you."

*

As usual, it was Zev who noticed Snape first. Hermione was beginning to wonder if she should have the kid tested for Empath Magic.

It was the dinner hour, and Hermione was seated in her faculty chair, up with the rest of the professors. Snape chose to sit next to Zev at his dorm table. He glanced up at Hermione to apologize, but found her writing books of gratitude with her expression. He tightened his lips in apparent understanding and mouthed, "After."

When the students had been lined up and lead back to the dorms, Kieran having mercy and sending Zev's dorm last, Remus suggested, "I could wait for you in our rooms."

Hermione killed that line of thinking with a, "Hardly."

Hermione made her way to Snape, Remus at her side, "Faculty lounge?"

Snape drew a flask from his robes, "I just came to bring this."

Hermione was undeterred, "Faculty lounge?"

Snape didn't answer, but when she stepped past him, he followed.

Hydrea and Ruel were in the lounge, grading papers and arguing over the last school Quidditch game. From the frustrated glare Hydrea threw at the door when she walked in, Hermione sensed the argument was nearly to the point wherein the indicated sexual tension found resolution. Hydrea's face smoothed over when she caught a glimpse of looming black behind Hermione, "Severus?"

Snape stepped into the lounge. "Miss Jigger."

Hydrea hadn't been at dinner, something about a potion that needed supervising, so Hermione let the two of them have their catch-up chat. Hydrea informed him how classes were going, he asked her some questions in order to ascertain the quality of her education, Hydrea rushed in and hugged him and then disappeared before he could retaliate in any way. Hydrea's timing of everything was a testament to just how well she knew the man.

Ruel looked at Snape with the equivalent of a shrug played out across his face and loped out to find his erstwhile girlfriend. Hermione watched his profile, watched how his eyes narrowed ever so slightly and then quickly returned to normal. Remus took the bottle Snape was still clenching, and sniffed. "Basil?"

"Two leaves, whole," Snape confirmed. "It should help deaden the taste."

"It certainly helps the smell. What else is new?"

"Ground cactus. An American branch of the mimbletonius family. The Brewer at the compound uses it for concussed patients who are having trouble recalling events around the injury, or anyone displaying amnesiac tendencies."

"And that won't interact badly with lobalug(6) venom?" Remus didn't sound suspicious, just curious.

"It shouldn't," Snape's words were slow enough to make it clear that this was a danger, "there's only enough venom to deaden some of the wolf's impulses, it slows the heart, that kind of thing, so that the blood drive isn't so forceful. Technically nothing other than a separate venom should be able to affect the lobalug at that level, but this is all theoretical. Of course, I folded in a bit of dried billywig(11) stings to help with the pain, and I will admit that reactions between those and venoms is drastically under-researched. There's no reason they should set each other off, but the possibility remains."

"If something does go wrong, something that our precautions can't take care of, you can fix it, correct?" Hermione didn't want to doubt Snape's abilities, but being an on-again, off-again academic, she was well aware of the potential pitfalls of theory.

"Probably." He continued at the expectant look Hermione purposely gave him, "I have four separate antidotes for lobalug venom. One should clear up the problem."

"It'll be fine." Remus's optimism, faux or otherwise, effectively ended the conversation. "What's happening at Hogwarts? Minerva is the world's worst correspondent. Well, second worst, I wouldn't let anyone usurp your spot."

Snape seemed on the edge of sniping something nasty back until he caught the look of fond affection on Remus's face. His lips quirked in what Hermione could only guess was an attempted smile of acknowledgement. "We're busy. You're familiar with the word? Or shall I get myself to the library and pick up a dictionary for you?"

Hermione let them battle each other with syllables and phrases for a while before jumping in, leaving all three of them amused and informed and oddly satisfied when Snape finally flooed out in the far too wee hours of the morning.

*

Hermione wasn't entirely sure which of the three of them it shocked the most, her, Remus or Snape, but the upgraded Wolfsbane worked. There were kinks, but Remus not only felt cognizant the whole evening, he remembered everything. "Even the change," he stressed, which normally just consisted of a whole lot of, "Hurt like bloody hell."

"Still hurt?" Hermione wasn't sure giving the kids a batch that would allow them to clearly remember the agony of transformation was a fantastic idea.

"Not nearly as much. It's hardly something I would do for fun, but better."

"Anything bad I should know about?"

"Still tastes like day-old dragon refuse."

"Your descriptive abilities overwhelm me."

Remus wiggled his eyebrows. "Just saying, the basil's not exactly living up to its promise."

"If that's it I'm going to owl Snape, tell him to change next month's batch over."

"You should-" Remus started before changing his train of thought. "He deserves a thanks in person."

"Want me to go to Hogwarts?"

"No," the pitch of Remus's voice was off, "what I want is to go to Hogwarts myself, say thank you to this man who could be my friend myself, take you with me, maybe hit Hogsmeade afterward. That is what I want."

Hermione stepped back a little at the repressed anger bleeding from him. "We could-"

"We can't do anything. Not without risking this whole school. Zev."

"Nobody except us-"

Remus pulled her to him, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go mad on you."

"It was really about time," Hermione told him.

"Been waiting?"

"You branded yourself an outcast once for the freedom it afforded you," Hermione observed. "How could I not expect this? I just wish there was something I could do about it. If you… I mean, I could talk to Zev, see how he feels about moving. Faelle and Paulo said they'd set me up anytime I wanted, and New Mexico doesn’t have movement prohibiting laws."

"And leave everything that matters to you behind?" Remus chided, pushing her slightly away from himself.

"You matter more," she argued, possibly as surprised by the words as him.

"What would Severus do?"

It should have been easy to dismiss the question. To figure he would do as he'd always done. To not care. "You still matter more."

"I love you, too," Remus said for her, "but it would leave him with…with Minerva and his fractured sorta-kinda academic familial relationship. I couldn't…look, I know we were enemies. He's the man who made it impossible for me to choose anything but branding, and yet, in spite of that, I'm over it. He's everything I have left from my youth. I can’t walk away from him now anymore than I think he could walk away from me."

"All right," Hermione conceded, "so we can't leave here."

"No." For all that it was his own decision, the trapped look in Remus' eyes remained.

"I'll see if Snape will come here, then at least you'll get half your wish." Hermione hoped he didn't notice her own awareness of the insufficiency of the offer.

"You still working on those field trips?" The question would have been conversational, had it come at any other time.

"Diligently," Hermione promised.

"I know," Remus turned his head to the side, away from her, "I know everyone is gonna want to go to the Quidditch game, but." He bit his lip. "I'd really like to see Oliver and Katie play. It's not fair of me, to ask, I know. I'm sorry, only-"

"It's fine, I'll tell them Oliver and Katie requested you and get them to lie if questioned. They'll be on the up and up with it, they'd love for you to see them play. They ask about you every time I manage to make a game, truly."

Remus's smile was obviously a product of great effort, "Thank you."

"Anything for you," she'd once told Harry that, once whispered it in his ear, loud enough for Ron to hear, loud enough for him to know she meant the both of them. Harry had kissed her and blithely answered, "Same," and Ron had hooked himself around her so that she would understand that Harry was speaking for him. They'd often been of the same mind when it came to her.

Remus pressed his forehead to hers, "Everything for you."

Hermione drew a breath in, ushering in the feeling of movement. Ron's arms were still wrapped around her, in some ways, holding on, keeping her safe, but Remus was here, real, the next part of things, the next part of Harry's unspoken "anything." "Yeah," Hermione whispered, "that was what I meant."

*

Snape remembered Zev's birthday. Remembered, and showed up, and brought the newest game from Zonko's; the one that was so popular Hermione had been willing to sell body parts for it and still hadn't managed a purchase.

For a brief, awful second, Hermione hated him for being something she couldn't ignore anymore.

Then half of Zev's dorm mates were on top of him, trying to get in on the game. Zev was grinning, hugging a thoroughly uncomfortable appearing Snape and Hermione was too content to expend energy on hatred. Zev disengaged in order to return to his newest possession. Hermione drew up behind Snape, "Coffee?"

"Spiked?" Snape's expression didn't waver, but there was an edge of pleading to the request.

Hermione smiled, aware that he couldn't see her. "I'm sure we can rummage up something."

Hermione glanced quickly in Lyla, the dorm mother's, direction. Lyla mouthed, "Under control," and made shooing motions at her. Hermione didn't wait around for her to change her mind, gathering up Snape and snagging Remus on her way out.

As Hermione was setting the pot to brew, Remus engaged Snape in conversation. "How'd you get that? Seriously, Min's been on a waiting list for weeks now and we're under the impression that the four horsemen'll probably ride on past here before we get our hands on one."

"Four horsemen?" Snape's ability to distract a questioner was practically legendary.

Remus was tenacious, though. "You really should've taken Muggle Studies, you would've enjoyed the apocalypse unit. Muggles have much more imagination in that area than we do, really. The game. Your possession of it."

"Was a roundabout thing," Snape tried.

Hermione turned around to add the weight of her stare to Remus's.

"I was owed a favor," Snape added.

Neither Hermione nor Remus was mollified.

Snape turned his head to the side. "It will upset you."

Hermione frowned. "I told you no more trading sexual favors for store-bought merchandise."

Snape's eyes widened slightly. Hermione picked up where she'd left off, "No, not that? All right, well the same goes for selling illegal potions, or pimping out your students, or-"

Snape cut her off. "I shared something that was left to me."

"Gave one of the twin's potions away, did you?" Hermione returned to her task, pouring coffee into three cups.

"How do you know about that?" Snape sounded more tired than suspicious. The lack of animosity soothed Hermione. She served a cup to Remus and one to Snape, taking Redda's communal rum down from the pantry and splashing some into all three cups.

She sat down. "Ginny and Charlie. Charlie was the executor of all the Weasley wills, being the eldest Weasley alive. The twins left all their inventions to the professors who most directly influenced said products. The ones that were meant to go to professors already dead were given to Minerva for safe-keeping."

"With the provision," Snape instructed, "that they be used wisely."

Remus snorted into his cup. Coming up to two curious faces he supplied, "Fred and George. Wisely. Just not the kind of thing you expect to hear in the same sentence."

Hermione closed her eyes for a second, letting the wave of sadness sweep over and past her. She opened them. "So you traded one of the potions for a copy of the game?"

"Not exactly." Snape took several quick sips of his drink.

Remus leaned back against his chair before stiffening slightly. "Merlin, Severus. That's brilliant."

Snape winced. "I assure you, it was less brilliance and more lack of a plan that lead one thing into the next."

"All the same, that's practically Marauderish of you."

"Maruaderish?"

Suddenly bashful, Remus paid careful attention to the table. "Oh, just something me and my friends used to call ourselves."

Hermione watched Snape digest that while pretending to sip at her drink. She swallowed more than she should have when he finally said, "Ah."

She chose that moment to cut in, "Anybody mind telling me exactly what Snape did?"

Remus brought his face up. "He gave Zonko's the potion in order to create something new with, in this case, the game. I'd imagine the potion works as the basis for the visual experiences associated with the game. Anyhow, he knew that whatever they did it would be hard to use one of the Weasley's products and not come up with a winner. He just made sure one of the games would be held aside for him when the time came to give it to Zev."

Snape verbally waved Remus's admiration away. "I was merely determined to show the two of you up."

Irrationally, Hermione felt a pull to slide herself over the table and kiss Snape. She rubbed at her eyes and stayed put. "Good job."

"Oh, absolutely," Remus agreed. "However, as that was a formal declaration of war, don't expect your next victory to come so easily."

"I positively quake with worry," Snape tossed off.

"You should." Underneath Remus's soft jocularity there was a subtle pitch of something feral.

Hermione tested the words for double entendre. When she found it, she was the one quaking.

*

Hermione owled Snape, "Have to take a trip into Diagon, mind accompanying?" It made Minerva happy when Hermione managed to wrestle Snape from his traditional stomping grounds.

Unsurprisingly, he wasn't willing to come without a fight. "Can't handle humans on your own?"

Hermione fired back, "At least with werewolves I can see the teeth."

He must have felt the truth of that statement, as his next missive was a harmless, "Thursday, fourteen hundred?"

She persuaded him to move it up an hour and arranged a meeting place in between Hogwarts and wereworld, the staff's nickname for her school. Kieran had coined the phrase out of frustration at the rather ambiguous title "The School." It had caught on slowly, but completely.

In the spirit of compromise, seeing as how she had been the one to drag him out on what was essentially her errand, Hermione nudged him away from Magical Menagerie, where she had an order of Knarls(5) awaiting her. Instead she chose the direction of a shop Hydrea had told her about, a hole-in-the-wall near to Knockturn that tended to procure potion ingredients that were rarely on hand.

Snape turned to her at the door, "You know this place?"

"Hydrea."

He stepped inside. She let him browse, trying her best not to peer over his shoulder. The way he picked up bags of powder, felt their weight and immediately knew whether or not there was quality inside, the way his nose twitched slightly at each ingredient he perused, the way he looked as though he had completely forgotten about her, it all made her heart quicken. Left alone to pursue his passion, the ease with which it came to him unfurled something within him. It was like watching Harry on his broom, or Ron at his chess set, only without all the tension.

She snuck up to the counter to purchase one of the ingredients he had left behind with the tiniest look of regret. She planned to use it as a bribe to convince him to share ice cream with her.

Snape had bought several things on his own and they were heading to the Menagerie when a woman caught hold of Hermione's arm, nearly spinning her around with the force of her yank. Hermione pulled her arm out of the woman's grasp and to herself immediately, "Excuse me?"

"You're that werewolf bitch, the one who thinks those animals should be allowed anything other than a silver bullet to the head."

Hermione, ready to reply with a nonplussed, "Yes?" was stopped by Snape's cold, sharp, "At least the werewolves have hearts twenty-eight days out of the month. When was the last time the same could be said for you, madam?"

The woman gave Snape a cursory glance, as if only just noticing him, and spat, "What, now you keep Death Eaters to defend you and your monsters?"

"Only those who received the Order of Merlin, First Class," Hermione parried, amazed that her voice could sound so steady. Werewolf prejudice was everywhere. Hermione had trained herself to allow it to slide over her, through her, past her. She didn't ignore the danger, she just didn't let it touch her if it wasn't to some purpose.

She'd forgotten about people's reactions to Snape. That he kept to himself for reasons other than a somewhat abrasive personality and force of habit. Remus's explanation, his insight into Snape's appearance as a Death Eater rather than existence as one, rushed through her head, causing her a moment's dizziness. The woman was still talking, her voice low and mean, but Hermione wasn't paying attention. She didn't matter. She was just another person who thought Hermione was a werewolf. Another person who thought Snape was a Death Eater. Another person.

Not one of them.

Hermione cast a quick Quietus and moved away, letting Snape handle defense when the woman started to come after them, hoping he knew what was appropriate to use in the middle of Diagon. Trusting that he did.

Whatever he did stopped the woman, and while the stares had increased overall, they made it to the Menagerie without further incident. She counted the Knarls and conversed with the girl behind the counter about a new breed of magical birds she had heard was being engineered in New Guinea. She picked up a toy for Pandorus and Guinevere, made her purchases, and stepped outside. Snape was waiting for her, leaning up against the front of the building, reading one of the labels of a newly acquired ingredient. "Ready?"

Hermione rustled in the pockets of her robe and found the ingredient she had bought for him. "I was going to use this as a bribe to get you to share a bowl with me at Fortescue's."

"Not feeling up to staying any longer than absolutely necessary?"

Hermione put the small container in his pocket. "Not feeling up to playing games. Come with me because…because we have a lot in common, or because you like me, or because ice cream sounds good. Something that's not because you want what I can give you."

"You needn't-"

"You defended me to her. Without even thinking about it. You couldn't've, it was too fast. You just…acted like I was something that mattered to you, automatically."

"And what if I chose to eat ice cream with you because I do want what you can give me?" Snape asked quietly.

"It sounds a little more substantial when you say it," Hermione admitted.

"I'm partial to blueberry."

*

The defined taste of frozen blueberries stayed on Hermione's tongue for a week, waking her up in the morning, causing her to swallow suddenly in the middle of lectures, distorting the taste of Marissa's dinners. In a desperate attempt to rid herself of the psychosymptomatic reaction, Hermione insisted that her and Remus move their normal grade-session meeting place from the faculty lounge to her room. In the middle of trying to figure out why one of her third years thought the Ashwinder and the Sphinx were related, Hermione threw away all the tact she'd been storing inside and blurted out, "What would you say if I told you I've been thinking about kissing Snape?"

"Oh, thank Merlin." Remus nearly collapsed onto the desk, looking as though he was Atlas, and somebody had just offered to hold the world for a minute or two.

"Y'know, if you wanted to be rid of me that badly, you could've just mentioned something. I'm quite good at taking a hint. Usually," Hermione added, hoping she hadn't been missing scads of them.

"Wrong source of relief."

Hermione played the conversation back. "Oh. You too?"

Remus nodded, "Months now."

"The way he uses his hands when he talks about potions, like he's actually making them?" It was kind of nice, having someone to chatter with this about. It should have been weird, but Harry and she had discussed Ron's fingers all the time. At least, all the time when they weren't feeling dirty. Then other parts got equal play time. Ron and her had indulged in fantastic sex fantasizing about Harry's stomach. Observational talk was something of a kink with her.

Remus grinned. "How about the face he makes right before he's about to tear someone a new one? The one that's practically innocence itself."

"Yeah, and there's the way you can just kinda see his hips when his robes move. Sometimes I think if I ever actually got under there, I'd be disappointed, like maybe it's the tease more than anything."

"It's the neck with me, because it's right underneath all those buttons, just a simple one-two-three and you'd be looking at it, but you never are."

It was a girl thing, Hermione knew, but, "I want to brush his hair."

"I want to tickle him. I've always wondered if he would actually laugh. It's so hard to get him to, unless you're matching him inch for inch for pure lack of verbal mercy."

"I want to hold him, and see if he'd let me hold on," Hermione dared.

"I want to blow him, and see if he'd be appreciative," Remus one-upped her.

"I want to watch."

They both panted for a few seconds at the imagery they were creating for themselves. When she could string more than one word together, Hermione asked, "Are we being serious?"

"This is going to sound odd, but when I think of sharing you with him, of sharing him with you, of being shared between the two of you, it doesn't seem much like sharing at all. Not in the compromising, have to give a little to get a little way."

"Maybe if this weren't me it would sound odd. But uh…done this before, remember? Sometimes things just aren't meant to be structured by everyone else's binaries and preconceived notions."

"It must have been difficult, at times," Remus probed.

"Every relationship has its pitfalls. Sometimes ours were about jealousy and issues of three-way dynamics. More often they were about the fact that one of us was pissed off about something another did, same as most people. We just learned not to take sides."

"Maybe we are serious."

"We should know, before we royally fuck things up and never see him again. I…that wouldn't work out for me," Hermione understated.

"He's going to be hell to convince." Remus tugged at his ear ruefully.

"That sounds pretty serious."

"As Quidditch," Remus told her with a solemnity at which she couldn't help but laugh.

"Professional Quidditch, even."

"Even," Remus agreed.