A/N: Allow me to remind you all that this story has a sequel. Keep an eye out, and it'll pop up within the week. Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed!

Chapter 4

The strange situation that the Professor and I found ourselves in grew even more off-the-wall as the day progressed. As he made the tea, I sat in the sitting room, one eye on Eileen as I wondered how on earth I had managed to do something so awful, so horrible, as to shove myself into his mourning.

The shame of it made my face blaze and I swallowed, fighting back tears of mortification.

When Snape returned and jerked his chin for me to follow, I took the box of ashes from the windowsill and approached him with a grimace.

"I am s—" I began, but soon found myself with a face full of my own wand.

"Do not," he snarled. Black eyes narrowed with anger and what looked like disappointment. "You've made your bed. Now lie in it."

I didn't deserve his forgiveness or even toleration; it felt unnerving to receive it. I nodded once and eased my way past him with a mumbled, "I didn't mean it like that."

He jabbed me in the back with the wand, directing me to a peeling door with a small uneven hole cut out of the bottom left corner for the absent cat. I stepped over the threshold and surveyed the garden – or what was left of it, if there ever was one in the first place. Weeds were growing furiously, and the privy near the back fence was held up by a number of damp, thick planks of wood. There were nails sticking out of the planks.

Still, though, there were signs of life. A slight shimmer in the air along the right side hinted at masked content – potions ingredients, I assumed – and the chairs near the back steps were sturdy and strong. Snape sat in one and pulled out a rusty stool from beneath the other; he directed the tea tray to land on it, then waved his hand between where I stood on the top step and the other vacant chair.

"Sit," he ordered gruffly, digging in his pockets and producing a packet of tobacco and papers. When I cocked an eyebrow from my place opposite him, he rolled his eyes. "What?" he asked, his fingers busy with packing the cigarette. "Too uncivilised for you?"

I scoffed and clicked my tongue. This was England in the late nineties, after all. My own father had only quit a handful of years ago, though his own habit was far more sporadic – for the teeth, he used to say. "Hardly! I just didn't take you for a smoker."

He chuckled, a dark, dry sound. "Look around you, girl. You're not in Hampstead anymore."

Leaning back in the chair, I allowed a soft snort to escape. My fingers curled around Eileen's box then traced small circles on the lid. I looked up just in time to catch deep ebony eyes following the movements of my fingers, though he turned his head to the side to light the cigarette as soon as he became aware of my scrutiny.

"Not a spell?" I asked the back of his still damp hair as he clicked a nondescript blue lighter.

"It's therapeutic," he said shortly. "Don't ask questions."

"Why not?"

He sighed and tipped his head back to rest on the chair; with closed lids, he blew the smoke above our heads. He muttered something under his breath, and I smiled faintly when the smoke took upon shapes: a phoenix here, a centaur there. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Snape remained silent. I took the hint, albeit reluctantly, and it was only when he'd finished the cigarette and started to pack another that I spoke again.

"Would you…" I paused, shy when he looked over at me, his upper lip curled.

"Are you going to ask another question?"

"One. And if you don't want to answer it, then I'll shut up."

"Ha," he said, "I'll believe that when I see it."

"I can be quiet," I threw back. "I just wasn't sure – I thought you might want to talk instead of—"

He made that sarcastic little, 'Ha,' again, and lit the second cigarette. He took in one deep nicotine-laced breath, and shrugged. "I don't know what I want," said Snape, his eyes fixed firmly on the blue sky. There were no clouds, apart from the normal slight haze.

I stared at him, stunned at the admission. Here before me was a man – a gruff, blue-collar man – and not the austere Professor that had wielded power over me for so many years. I didn't quite know what to make of it; it made me feel suspicious and young, and I should have obeyed that niggling feeling and left right then and there.

The carrot dangled before me was, however, too interesting to refuse. He was baiting me, and he knew it, though I had the inkling that if he truly wanted me out, he would have done so when he first found me in the church.

He opened his mouth and a doe formed from the smoke. He sighed again, though I did not understand the significance behind the sadness in the sound. "I find," he said, "that having company on one of the worst fucking days of my miserable existence is not the bag of shite that I initially assumed it would be. Even if," he added, shaking his head at my mouth, open from the surprise of his colourful speech, "the company is you."

The warmth his words sparked prompted a slow, pleased smile to make its way onto my lips. He looked away. "I'm glad that you're going to suffer my presence, sir," I whispered.

"Stop calling me 'sir'. It's really bloody irritating."

I nodded easily. "Done. And…"

"Ah. The inevitable question – the only question, yes?"

I set my shoulders and said primly, "Like I said – if you don't want to answer it, then I won't ask anything else."

"Hm. Spit it out, then." Snape drew in deeply from the cigarette, blew out a long curl of smoke that arranged itself into what looked like a snake, and then flicked it to the ground. The glowing red tip was still faintly visible from where it lay nestled in the weeds. My right leg bounced restlessly; I wanted to get up and stamp on the cigarette, but I forced myself to stay seated, blatantly ignoring the way Snape looked to be hiding a faint, smug grin.

"Would you…" I started, then took a sip of fortifying tea. It was unapologetically black. He gave that small grin again and I had the exasperated feeling that must've spawned from passing a test that I hadn't intended to take. "This is shit tea, you know," I declared, my lips quirking when he barked out a gruff laugh. He didn't smile, nor did he allow the laugh to taper off naturally – he caught it almost instantly, but I was glad to see his eyes were bright. He was with me, now, not somewhere far off with demons to haunt his steps.

I brushed aside the inner rebuke, inspired by discovering this possessiveness that I felt towards him and his emotional state, and instead embraced it. It wasn't like there was anyone to police it – Snape didn't seem perturbed by the presence of a now-former student in his back garden, holding his mother's ashes, and I wasn't about to question why, even though to do so would've been prudent.

Questioning it would be endangering it and I knew then that I could not allow that to happen. I raised my chin and met his gaze. "Would you tell me about your mother?"

Dark eyes darted to the box, then back to my face. "Not the Headmaster? I'm shocked." I shook my head, knowing full well that I'd never know the real reason why we saw the body of Professor Dumbledore lying so awkwardly splayed on the ground beneath the Astronomy Tower. It was bigger than me; asking about it would have wasted time, and so I didn't.

His scowl deepened and his fingers twitched. I offered the box of ashes to him, sucking in a breath when his frown softened and he took it out of my hands. Calloused thumbs began to smooth over the surface, and he swallowed. "I'll need another smoke. And a drink."

I shrugged and rose, walking back into the kitchen to open cupboards until I found a dusty bottle. Figuring that we could use our tea cups, I returned to the garden and held it out for his approval. Snape shook his head, bemused.

"Of tea," he explained, snorting when I huffed. "You didn't ask."

"Have some of both, then." I poured in a splash of the whiskey followed by the bitter tea. He drained the cup and held it out. Again I mixed the alcohol and tea, and again he finished it in a few large mouthfuls.

"And the smoke?"

"I don't expect you to roll it, girl," he sneered. "I bet you've never had—"

I glanced at him from beneath my lashes, already halfway through assembling the cigarette. "What? Never had what?" I chose not to give a brief overview of when I'd taken advantage of an inebriated uncle last year, taking his smoking accessories from under his nose to tick a mental box. I finished rolling it, then passed it to him.

He took it without comment. "Light it, if you please. My hands are busy."

"I will not," I protested. "Dig your own grave."

Snape lifted one shoulder then summoned the lighter.

…

"She was cold," said Snape. "And warm, too, I suppose. A woman of opposites." He paused and took a long drag from the cigarette; this time, a sly-looking fox prowled around us before it disappeared into the sky.

"Was that her patronus? A fox?" I asked. He gave me a long, sideways look. "Sorry."

"Quite."

"So – was it?"

Snape scoffed and smacked his lips together, vanishing the now-finished cigarette. To my relief – for it wouldn't have been prudent to cast a Bubblehead charm, surely – he reached for another drink instead of a smoke. "I don't know. She couldn't cast one – wasn't powerful enough, or at least she wasn't when I came into the picture. But I've always thought that if she could…"

I stayed silent and, judging by the quirk of his eyebrow, inadvertently passed another test. He took a sip of tea and continued with, "She married Dad not long out of school. She was too young to really see, to really know…"

"To see… what?"

He rolled his shoulders and tossed me a scowl that could only mean he was being honest. "She saw what made him different – but she didn't really see it. She was nineteen; how could a nineteen year old know that the bloke who went along to the union marches and gave her pretty things that still smelled of their upper class owners... How could she have known then, what he was truly about? In any case," Snape muttered, his black eyes focused on the falling-apart privy, "she found out soon enough."

"You think she was naïve, then."

"Ha!" he barked and then tapped his fingers on the box of ashes. "No. Not naïve. Young." Snape gave me an ironic look, as if to draw parallels between the woman in the box and my own too-trusting self. "She was young. And then…"

"And then?"

"And then she wasn't young," he said simply. "My parents… they had uses for each other. I realised it, when I was old enough to understand it. Mam had a use for Dad – drunken, poor bastard that he was. And Dad had a use for her – though I don't think I'll tell you about that."

"I suppose you won't." But it was glaringly obvious. The Professor slunk around the house and hardly made any noise – he was far too natural, too practiced at it, for his actions to have been born out of anything other than learned fear. He shrugged again.

"Her family disowned her when she married him, which was probably part of his appeal… She didn't have anywhere to go, had no skills, no confidence. They were happy for a while. And then they weren't."

"Were you ever happy?" I asked daringly, somehow sensing that his protests about my curiosity were all for show. For all of his snide exasperation, Snape's cheeks flushed a light pink. It took me a moment to deduce that the flush was from satisfaction – he wanted the distraction.

He thought over my question for a long while; I began to fidget in my seat, though he finally muttered, "I was. And even when I wasn't, it was a… comfortable kind of unhappiness."

"It was all you'd ever known," I suggested quietly, remembering when the teasing comments made from classmates at my brash displays of cleverness made me feel at home in Hogwarts, rather than the opposite. It was something I was used to – I knew, from primary school, how to hide away in the library, and I certainly knew how to eat on my own at lunch. After hurtling through the newness, the unfamiliar, it felt easy, if completely disappointing, to be the odd one out again.

Nodding, he exhaled heavily. "Everyone else here is poor. Everyone else has parents that yell loudly enough to be heard on the street. All the other fathers spend most of their pensions on the drink. When the houses here go on the market, ready to be snapped up by some hoity-toity fuckwits—" I laughed at that, and he paused long enough to smirk, black eyes glittering far too dangerously, "—they have to replace the wallpaper because the stench of cigarettes gets into everything."

The story was changing; I could see it in the way his upper body tensed. Irritably, Snape pushed back his shirtsleeves, evidently uncaring about displaying the stark, harsh Dark Mark. Following his lead, I folded my legs under me so I could swivel around in the chair and face him fully. "Go on."

He did so without hesitation, swiping one finger across his forehead to push the hair out of his eyes. One quick huff heralded his hands busying themselves behind his neck, and when he turned to me again with his hair tied back, I forced myself to stifle a small sigh of pleasure. Did he know how it softened his features? Did he realise that, with his hair pulled loosely back, I found him attractive? I had never seen him thus – with his face bared to me, the intensity of his eyes given free rein to leave me breathless. And attractive was the right word for him, I thought; he was attractive in a way that most men would never be – magnetic, even, for I could not manage to pull my gaze away from his, now that he was really looking at me.

"Hogwarts was a nightmare," said Snape slowly. "In those days, even the pureblood Gryffindors were poncy bastards. If you didn't reinvent yourself, then…" He narrowed his eyes, turning his head to stare into the distance with thoughtful pursed lips. I wondered who he was thinking of – who was it that had managed to reinvent themselves successfully, leaving him by the wayside? For he was still here, after all; he still returned to this old, musty house.

Someone had left him behind. For once, I didn't want to know who.

"It matters not," he said eventually. "Dad died just before my seventh year. I thought Mam might be relieved, but she was worse. She had nothing." It was left unsaid that Eileen hadn't classified her son as something that she still had to pull her out of the fog, and I winced, uncomfortable with how loveless his childhood had been compared to my own. "She died of cancer," he said then, looking down at the box. "Of the lung - in case you hadn't guessed."

I refrained from admitting that I hadn't guessed – I'd come as far as assuming it was either something to do with her lungs or her liver, but hadn't wished to think on it further.

With one deep breath, I continued taking liberties with a hesitantly spoken, "How long was she in hospital?"

"The hospice," he corrected me with a wag of one long, white finger. "She was in the local hospice from…" Snape tilted his head, examining my face. "Your third year. Before that, she was in and out of hospital since before you lot even walked through the doors."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, catching my hand as it reached out to touch his on pure instinct. He stared as I folded it back, tucking both hands safely away.

"Yes," said Snape. "I think that you actually are. Why?"

"I don't know, really."

"That's a load of wank," he sneered. "You're a crusader, Granger." Flicking off some invisible lint, the Professor began to work on rolling another cigarette. "Are you crusading right now?"

"No!" I exclaimed. "I don't really know what I'm doing, or why I'm doing it – I wanted to see you, to just… to know. And then when I read… when I read…"

"When you read?" The unlit cigarette sat in his lap, forgotten.

"I read the funeral notice in the paper," I admitted carefully. "It said they needed mourners…"

Surprisingly, Professor Snape only nodded once. His face was held tightly in a blank mask; it only lasted for half a minute before he raised one weary hand and rubbed at his eyes, his mouth, his forehead. Tossing propriety over the back garden fence, I finally allowed my hands to dart forward and gather his within my smaller grasp; he drew breath and closed his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Professor." My thumbs rubbed over the cool, smooth flesh of his hands. I felt a forbidden twinge within my heart as I soothed his skin; he avoided my gaze, but his head tipped forward slowly, anything to avoid looking back at me. I began to feel the slightest pressure on my hands, and watched, transfixed, as he slid his fingers through the gaps until he was holding onto my hands with a firm, unwavering grip. His knuckles were white from the effort; surely I would have bruises, but I could no more disengage than I could walk away.

We sat together in the back garden, our hands clasped, and the warmth of the sun slowly left the untended place. It grew cold and dark, but still we sat, until he cleared his throat and finally spoke.

"When are you due to return?"

"I've been sending Ron a patronus every night at ten," I answered.

He turned in his seat and moved forward slightly until our knees met. I realised with a pounding, unsteady heart that I could have found his mouth if I were to tilt my head just high enough – I could have placed my lips on his, given him comfort, offered him a reprieve. And it seemed like it was what he needed – when I gathered enough courage to meet his gaze, Snape's eyes were fixed upon where one sharp canine was sinking into my lower lip.

When he opened his mouth, I held my breath. "Coming here was a very foolish thing to do. You could've been wrong."

"I could have," I allowed quietly. "But I wasn't."

His smile was soft and wry, but it was there, tilting his thin lips just slightly to the left. "I did not wish to be alone today. And I wasn't."

Unsure of myself, I smiled faintly. "No."

"You came," he stated. "For the funeral, and for me."

"I did." I wet my lips and dared to push myself closer.

"I am glad of it," he murmured. "If it was to be anyone at all, I am glad that it was… is you."

"Are you?" I gave a short huff of disbelief. "Do you want me here?"

"Oh," he sighed, his shoulders sagging as he leant forward to rest his forehead on my shoulder. I let out a long breath and nudged him once with my cheek then slowly disentangled one hand and stroked it over his head of fine, silken black hair. "I do want you here," he said. "I do. Very much."

Gods… I could smell him – the staleness of the cigarettes, the clean tang of his hair. His breath was warm; it hit my skin of my neck in gentle, measured waves. The rest of his body stayed stiff and tense, but the trusting way in which he leant on my shoulder, the heavy weight of his forehead, was welcome.

It came to me then that I seemed to be completely at peace with his closeness, despite never experiencing it before.

I didn't want him to move.

Still, after a handful of minutes, he pulled away just far enough and—

"Thank you."

"Oh, gods," I whispered, then laughed breathlessly, for I now knew what it was to feel the softness of his thin lips pressed to my cheek. He kissed my cheek again and I sighed with the pleasure of it, turning instinctively to search for his lips, hoping against all hope that he would take pity on me and kiss me full on the mouth.

I saw his flushed cheeks and the firm set of his lips, and when his eyes met mine, I frowned, unable to understand the flatness there, the remoteness that—

"I apologise, Hermione. Obliviate."