December Underground.

I

'This is what I thought,

I thought you'd need me,

This is what I thought,

So think me naïve.'

-Prelude 12/21

He didn't expect to hear a knock on his door this late at night, let alone at all. Most people had learned over the last few months that he'd rather be alone.

People only really saw him when he taught. Other than that he took his meals in his chambers and wasn't seen around the castle. Except by those unfortunate few who broke curfew on Mondays and Thursdays.

"Who is it?" He asked.

"Certainly not someone you expect." A familiar voice answered.

His lip curling, her went to the door and opened it. A young witch of slender frame and attractive build was waiting outside, her hair as out of control as ever.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, hearing the sneer in his own voice.

"They told me that you'd locked yourself away down here." She said, avoiding his question and inviting herself into his office. "I thought I'd come see for myself if you'd really forgone human contact."

He ignored her jibing tone and closed the door.

"I don't remember inviting you in." He said coldly.

"You know, I can remember a time when I didn't need an invitation to come visit you." She replied, her tone just as icy.

"Well that was before Weasley, wasn't it Miss Granger?" He snapped. Hermione frowned.

"That's neither here nor there and is definitely not why I'm here." She said while helping herself to a seat at his desk.

"Well its' definitely somewhere in between and quite frankly I couldn't give a damn about why you're here if my fate depended on it." He walked past her, purposefully refusing to sit with her and began to put away the books he had been perusing.

"You know, you can't hide from me down here forever." Hermione said, her voice flat.

He placed a book on a shelf and snorted with disdain.

"I am most certainly not hiding from you. If I was do you think I would have let you in?" His voice was a sarcastic drawl.

She sighed in annoyance and he spared her a sidelong glance. She was as attractive as ever, especially since, with the way her legs were crossed, her thigh was peeking out from under her skirt.

"You can't blame me Severus." She said, her tone trying to reason with him.

"It's Snape, Granger." He snapped. She rolled her eyes and he went back to placing his tomes onto their shelves.

"How could you possibly blame me?" She asked the question this time instead of just saying it.

He ignored her.

"I thought you were dead." She added, as if this explained everything.

"Did you ever see a body?" Once again a sneer covered his voice.

"No, but you were missing so I had to assume that you were gone."

"Assuming is only good for making an ass of your self. I came back."

"After three years! Did you honestly expect me to wait three years after the final battle for you to come back?" She asked without hesitation. Obviously Hermione had planned this conversation long before she had gathered the courage to execute it.

"Without a body or a witness you had no reason to think me dead. I returned as soon as I could." He growled, placing the last book onto it's shelf and relenting into sitting across from her at the desk.

"Severus obviously you resent the fact that I was seeing Charlie when you returned but that's no reason to lock yourself away in the dungeons only coming out for nothing more than teaching and round for over seven months! You didn't even come out for Christmas!"

"Snape!" He snapped again when she called him by his given name. "an what I choose to do is no concern of yours, Weasley might get jealous." He snarled.

"Weasley can do whatever the hell he wants; we broke up over four months ago." She snarled back.

Snape regarded her with mixed curiosity, for the first time in the evening his interest was piqued.

"Why are you here Granger?" He asked.

"Hermione." She corrected.

"Granger." He repeated more forcefully this time. She rolled her eyes.

"If you choose what I get to call you then I choose what you call me."

"True but you failed to acquiesce to my request so I will continue to call you Granger." He shot back. At this point their argument was beginning to become quite heated.

"Fine then, Snape, call me Granger."

"Nice try." He quipped. "Reverse psychology doesn't work on me, I'm a legilimens, remember?"

"Is it that hard to just call me Hermione?" She asked as if she could not believe how difficult he was being.

"Why are you here?" He repeated, once again sidestepping the issue.

"I thought that maybe if someone came down and offered you some company then you might stop being such a shut in." Her voice was oddly suspicious.

"No, you thought that if you came down here you might have a chance of coercing me back into your clutches." He said, quite matter-of-factly.

"Don't say it like that and stop doing that." She warned, knowing tha the was reading the forefront of her mind.

"So you don't deny it?" he questioned.

She didn't answer.

"Well if you expect me to welcome you back and forget all old scorns in an instant you're incredibly naïve."

"You think I'm that foolish? I don't expect everything to be well with a snap of my fingers." She said while performing the action. "I did think that we could at least attempt some form of reconciliation.

"You sound exactly like a textbook. It's good to see that besides abandoning me nothing has changed." He said words stinging like a wasp.

Hermione breathed a sigh of exasperation and rubbed a hand across her brow.

"Why don't we put petty insults aside?" She suggested.

"I suppose we could do that before I end up being called the ever so clever greasy git, that one never gets old." He drawled.

"Can I ask you one thing? There's just one thing I want to know from you."

"What?" He barely grunted.

"Why did it take you three years to return once Voldemort was defeated?"