A/N: As promised, here's the next chappie. don't be too cruel, I'm still rusty and did not take the time to beta this (however I do thank and love the wonderful Perry Downing for the inspiration!) )

Chapter 5

Hermione rather thought she should be nervous, heading off to actually work for Professor Snape, but she still felt that quiet coldness that had fallen upon her after the war, and then settled in when she received notification of her parent's death. It was that quiet chill that had finally driven the last wedge between her and Ronald, actually.

He was trying desperately to move on with life with the typical Weasley warmth and aplomb, but Hermione just couldn't. Her life had fundamentally changed. She was so completely different-minded on the way to get through her grief than Ronald, and neither of them could find the way to be as close as they had been before.

Unfortunately, that chill turned into a bitter freeze as she realized the futility of her lifelong dream to work for Magical Creature rights. As soon as the Wizarding world had a chance to set things right and start over with a fresh new Ministry, they'd just brought everyone back to where they had been and hoped the chaos and destruction from the war would just magically go away.

If she thought the beaurocratic red tape was going to be a challenge before the war...she shook her head and shrunk the last of her necessities into her ever-present and ready beaded bag. Everyone was ridiculously holding on to their antiquated views ever more strongly, now.

After the private investigator charged with sending her information on her parent's whereabouts in Melbourne informed her of their fatal accident, Hermione just didn't have the energy to fight, anymore.

What was the point?

With a quick twist, she Apparated to Hogwart's front gate.

It was pouring.

It was the Western Highlands in summer, of course it was pouring. With a long-suffering sigh, she threw up an umbrella charm, a drying charm and a water-repellent charm to survive the walk up to Hogwarts as presentable as possible.

"Ooh, look at you with your pretty magic. Saves me the trouble of holding an umbrella over yer head, at least."

"Oh!" She jumped back at least a foot in surprise at Filch's sudden arrival to unlock the gates. Hadn't she read somewhere that the gatepost had a secret tunnel? Perhaps the caretaker used this to get the jump on unwelcome visitors.

Then again, he did have a second umbrella hanging from his belt.

"Good afternoon, Mister Filch. Thank you for meeting me on this dreary afternoon."

He nodded and started down the cobbled path to the school, "Oh, you should've seen it this morning. Pissing buckets, it was."

She navigated several slick stones and tried to keep up with his brisk pace, "Mmm. H-how is Mrs. Norris?"

His wizened old face turned from his normal soft sneer, to a hardened frown. "She's gone missing. Ever since that lunatic beat my poor castle to pieces, she's gone."

Loss. Here was a man with a loss, and she could empathize. "I'm very sorry, Mister Filch. I lost my Crookshanks last summer. He ran off at the Weasley's wedding before—well, you know."

He stopped walking and turned a sad face to her. "Mebbe they're running around the Forest together."

She nodded, not pointing out that Crookshanks would have had to have traveled from Southeastern England to Western Scotland by himself. Not that he couldn't … but the likelihood … She smiled and followed him on.

It was odd, being back here. Everything looked perfect, like nothing had ever happened. No boulder was out of place, no telltale stench of war, no exploded earth or hex burns on the castle walls...

It felt strange.

She saw the final battle in flashes of memory as she walked by each place she'd been before, almost as if she'd lived in another time. Hogwarts was at once intimately familiar and exotically foreign to her with these new feelings of displacement.

Mister Filch was waiting at the main doors as she climbed the entry steps. His voice echoed out roughly on the rainy August afternoon as he spoke, "The Headmaster has changed your meeting location from his office to the third floor corridor." With a sneer he remarked, "I'm sure you remember the way."

She just stared blankly at him. Didn't they just share a moment over their lost cats? Why had he suddenly turned nasty? Her voice hardened as she replied, "Thank you, Mister Filch," over her shoulder as she sailed past.

It wasn't like she'd ever done anything against him, but that was par for the course for Hermione Granger. One wrong move—or kind of heritage—and be judged by it forever. She took a deep breath and sighed it out, removing herself from the slight as she climbed the moving staircases.

As she reached the third floor corridor, she stopped to orient herself and listened for any sign of where her new employer could be.

His voice came up out of nowhere and nearly scared the Dickens out of her. Twice in one day, what was becoming of her?

"I see Argus delivered my message."

She winced and turned around, smoothing her face into a professional greeting, but was momentarily thrown off track by Professor Snape's unusual appearance.

He was wearing gray.

It was actually quite nice to see him in something other than unrelieved black, and made her wonder if perhaps this might be an indicator of the change in the man from what she knew...before. Shaking her thoughts free, she addressed him with a smile,

"Headmaster. Lovely to see you again." Stretching out her hand, she waited until it was obvious he didn't want to return the greeting before retracting her arm as if nothing were out of place. She cleared her throat to try and regain his attention, but he was looking over her left shoulder. She shifted slightly to the left and said, "So. Where do we start?"

Interestingly enough, Snape had never sneered during his lack of greeting. He'd just seemed entirely too preoccupied to return it. His reverie broke from staring down the hall and he turned his head down to her abruptly. "Here, of course."

She blinked. "Of course." Why would she have asked such a silly question? Determined to move forward, she asked, "Would you be so kind as to explain why we are on the third floor, then?"

He must have gathered a bit of her tone, for his only response was a mild glare and a muttered, "Impertinence."

Hermione sighed. Was this, then, what she could expect from him? Complete disregard for the person in front of him and muttered invectives? Willing herself to push forward and try one more time, she started, "Professor Snape-"

He quickly interrupted her with a sharp, "Severus."

Her eyebrows snapped together in confusion, but tried again, "Professor-"

"Severus." His tone was such that she really shouldn't argue. All right then, fine. She sighed again and with a very level look, replied, "Severus, then. And you called me impertinent. I am, apparently, here at your specific request. What do you want me to do?"

His eyebrows worked a bit, but she seemed to have finally gotten his attention. Good. She reached into her bag for a dicto-quill and a spiral notebook, setting them aloft beside her with a flick of her wand.

"For starters," He glared at the acid green quill and gave it a very interesting look that spoke of disgust. "For starters, you can put that thing away. I am by no means a dictator, in any sense of the word."

With a dubious expression, she flicked her wand again to banish the quill and pad back into her beaded reticule. "Could have fooled me."

He narrowed his eyes and rejoined, "I can also do without the snide comments."

She favored him with a bark of laughter that showed him just how ironic she thought his statement to be. He favored her with a patented Snape Glare.

He took a deep breath, straightened up and tugged his atypical gray teaching robes down in a manner that suggested he was done with that topic. She waited.

"I wanted us to meet here because other than the girls' bathroom, this is where your adventures here began."

He had her attention, now.

"Your focus here will not only be to handle my ministerial and gubernatorial relations, but also to help me make some rather important changes to the way things are done at Hogwarts. As your first task, I want you to sort this corridor into a first year dorm. Boys that way, girls this way, or whichever. We will maintain houses, but children will no longer be sorted wet from the boat. They will be sorted as second years. This will allow them ample time to make their year friends without house prejudices getting in the way."

She was stunned. This was indeed something that had been bothering her about the Hogwarts system. If she'd only been able to wait and study the houses before committing, but… "How will we keep track of points?"

"Points, Miss Granger?"

She raised her own eyebrow to match his. Tilting her head at the absurdity of his using her surname when insisting on his given one, she countered with, "Hermione."

He nodded distractedly and twirled his hand, wordlessly asking her to continue.

Taken aback at this weird form of Snape before her, she clarified, "One of the few things I was proud of in my first few weeks of school was my ability to gain points. I could at least curry favor with my fellow Gryffindors with that, if not my winning personality. If another Muggleborn comes through and has no idea who's who, they'll be in a similar situation."

A spark lit on Snape's face and she was again surprised. "Ah! Exactly! With your usual precision, you've hit the nail straight on the head—"

"Erm—"

"—Children are forced into a role entirely too soon and if they've not been brought up in the same groups as others – trust me, this also happens in pureblood and half-blood families, not just muggleborns – then they feel ostracized. If we can make the entire First Year band together, regardless of House, then by the time we do sort them, they'll already have interhouse friendships."

Hermione was poleaxed. An excited and… passionate Snape was something she'd never thought she'd see. He'd not answered her question on points, but at this moment, she wasn't sure the 'point' was worth pursuing. Snapping her mouth shut, she shoved the weirdness stirring inside of her down into an unmarked shelf in her brain. "While I think that's absolutely brilliant, you just said you want me to sort out an abandoned part of the castle into a fifth dorm...in two weeks?

He turned away and started pacing, as if his excitement were difficult to contain, "Yes. If anyone can do this, you can." She was about to refute this vote of confidence, but he steamrolled right over her, "Call on the house elves or Argus if you need anything. Magic will be sufficient and likely to do the rest."

Magic? "Right. I just happen to know all those spells." Where on earth did this man get his ideas?

He nodded at her words and ignored her sarcasm. "Good. I'll see you in the great hall for dinner then."

At that, he swept away and left her standing, completely flabbergasted, in the once-forbidden corridor.

She snapped out of her gobsmacked expression and looked around. All right then. Time for an inventory. Pushing up her sleeves, she snapped out the dictoquill and set to work. Never let it be said Hermione Granger didn't rise to the challenge.

And just what the hell was that Jane Eyre reference about? She blushed and kept walking.

xoxo

A/N: Ok, it's short, but interesting, yes?