Hermione felt that she and Severus soon fell into a comfortable routine. She wouldn't call it dating, per say. (How would Severus react to that? How would her friends react to that?). They kept their friendship on a fairly private level, often just sharing meals or evenings together at the other's flat.

A few weeks into this arrangement saw their first real argument. They were quietly reading together late one evening when Severus casually asked what Hermione was doing that weekend.

"I thought we might go to the theatre together," he said quite pleasantly.

Hermione mused over it a minute until it came to her. "I'd love to, but I almost forgot. Harry, Ginny, and I had plans to go to the country for a little weekend getaway. We had it planned ages ago, but I had forgotten about it till today." She paused and proceeded with hesitation. "Would you like to join us?" Hermione held her breath, and she was right to do so.

Snape sneered at her. "Hardly. I spent enough time with those blockheads while they were in school. There is no way I will voluntarily do so on my free time."

And with that Hermione lost her temper. "Those 'blockheads' are my friends, thank you very much. I will not stand by and listen to you insult them." With not so much as a goodbye, she disappeared with a pop.

Damn, it, thought Severus. As much as he didn't fancy the idea of spending time with Hermione's friends, he realized that was probably not the best thing to say to her. And calling them blockheads was probably not very bright either.

Come to think of it, her friends had actually done well for themselves considering. Potter had a decently high ranking job in the ministry for someone his age and had married the Weasley girl. Snape supposed that would qualify as successful.

Successful. The word triggered a memory in the back of Snape's mind. He got up and got a cup of tea as he tried to recall exactly what was nagging him. Successful friends . . .

Ah. He had once made a similar comment to Kathleen who flipped out quite like Hermione just did.

*flashback*

They were spending an evening at her parents' house for their annual Christmas party. It was quite tedious for Severus who didn't really know anybody except for Kathleen and the hosts who were quite busy attending to their other guests. He therefore found himself sitting at a table by himself with a drink in his hands while Kathleen mingled about catching up with old friends. She had tried to talk him into walking around with her, but he had declined.

After a time, she came and sat down with him and set a small plate of food in front of him. "Eat something, Severus, you must be starving."

Severus accepted the plate, but merely pushed the food around a little bit. "How much longer is our presence required here, Kathleen?"

She lightly punched him on the shoulder. "It's not all that bad. Oh, look! There's Sally. We were best friends growing up." Kathleen waved the girl over. "Do say hi and be nice."

The girls greeted each other with a kiss on each cheek and moved to sit down at the table with the potions master. "Sally, I'd like you to meet Severus Snape. Severus, this is my dear friend Sally Owens."

Sally's blue eyes went wide in recognition of the name of the famous war hero, but soon broke from her glazed-over look and shook the older man's hand. "Absolute pleasure to meet you, sir."

"Charmed, I'm sure," he replied dryly, but was rewarded with a sharp nudge in the side from Kathleen. He managed an awkward smile, but really hoped the two would just continue conversing among themselves.

"Sally, what are you doing now? Last we talked, you had taken up an apprenticeship in . . . charms?"

Sally flipped her blonde hair out of her face. "Yes, I started in charms, but the master and I soon realized it was a bad idea. He quickly referred me to potions and I've been studying ever since. I must say that I'm quite excited to make your acquaintance, Master Snape. I follow your work quite closely," she turned to the man in question with enthusiasm.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Wonderful to hear," he replied with almost no emotion.

"Excuse him, Sally, he has a bit of a headache this evening. I had to drag him along," Kathleen said with a subtle leer in his direction. Severus knew she didn't like making excuses for him. A part of him felt slightly guilty for being so anti-social at her parents' gathering, but he just really did not wish to be here.

The two girls continued talking for a short time, then Sally rose to leave. They embraced with an exchange of promises to keep in touch and it was once again just the two of them. Severus could feel the glare emanating off of Kathleen and therefore avoided looking at her.

"Severus," she began with a warning in her voice. "Is it really that difficult for you to be even a little bit polite and, dare I say it, accommodating to people you meet here?"

His eyes narrowed in her direction. "Yes, it is, especially when I didn't want to go somewhere in the first place. I have little patience for accommodating your little friends who barely know what they want to do with their lives, much less could offer any intelligent conversation on the subject of potions to one such as myself."

Kathleen's eyes flared in his direction, and for just a second, he was slightly scared. "My little friends as you so put it, are just that, my friends. And that, at this very moment, is more than I can say for how I feel about you." Before Severus could argue with her, she had stalked off into the crowd.

Snape had sat around at the table for awhile before realizing she wasn't coming back. He debated telling her parents thank you and goodbye before leaving, but then realized that either Kathleen had already explained the situation to them which would make talking to them very awkward, or he'd probably have to explain it himself which was not appealing in the list. With that decided, he disappeared from the party and ended up in his kitchen where he quickly found a flask of Firewhiskey.

*end flashback*

It had taken Snape a good week to get Kathleen to talk to him again and convince her that he was just in a really bad mood that evening and hadn't meant anything he'd said.

But looking back on it, it wasn't totally true. He didn't really care for her friends and that seemed to be quite a problem in their relationship. It was obvious that Hermione felt the same way about her friends as Kathleen did hers.

Snape considered this for a moment. Come to think of it, he hadn't known Sally well enough to make a judgment as to whether or not he liked her. On the other hand, he had known Hermione's friends for years, and hated them for most of them.

But was there any hate left to be found there? His hatred from Harry stemmed from his love for the boy's mother, but Snape had found that the pain of Lily had been numbed by the affection he now felt for Hermione. There was no other reason to dislike the boy, and, as he looked back over the past few years, the short interactions they had, had actually been, dare he say it, pleasant.

The only reason he originally felt a dislike for Ginny was because of her association with Harry. And when you got right down to it, she was a smart witch. He winced, thinking of her Bat-Bogey hexes.

He pondered it for awhile longer and then, with the realization that he was at least slightly in the wrong firmly in place, he decided to try to go find Hermione. She was probably at the Potters'. This would be the true test.

XOX

Hermione had gone straight over to Grimmauld Place. Ginny was the only person who currently knew of her budding relationship with Severus and she really needed her friend. The red-head had wanted to tell Harry because she didn't think she could keep a secret from him, but after the stern look she received from her friend, she made it a top priority in her mind to keep it from him. She felt slightly guilty, but knew that withholding the information from Harry wasn't going to hurt him and it was Hermione's right to tell him when she pleased.

Ginny answered the door and immediately ushered the upset older girl. She sat her down in the dining room and went to put the kettle on. While she waited on the water to heat, she sat down next to her friend with an inquiring look.

"Is Harry around?" Hermione asked suspiciously before she began. Ginny shook her head. "Alright. Well, if you haven't already figured it out, it's Snape." And Hermione laid the whole thing out for her friend.

Ginny thought on it while the kettle went off and she made tea. She handed a steaming mug to Hermione, "You do realize, Hermione, that if you had brought him along, you would have had to explain to Harry and the whole trip could have blown up in your face, right?"

Hermione cringed. "I thought of that after the fact, but yes. What I really need to do is talk to him about coming clean with more people first, huh?"

Ginny nodded and was about to say something else when there was another knock at the door. "Sorry, just a minute, Hermione."

She dashed off to the door and Hermione was surprised to hear the deep voice of Severus.

"Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Potter, but I was wondering if Hermione is here?" he asked with more politeness in his voice than Hermione had ever thought she'd hear.

"Please, Professor, you can call me Ginny." She chanced a glance to the dining room and received a nod of affirmation from the other girl. "Yes, she's just in the dining room. Right this way."

He nodded curtly and followed her. Upon reaching the dining room, Ginny felt she could cut the tension with a knife and therefore quickly made an excuse about tending to Lily and slipped out.

Snape was now faced with working up everything he had planned to say. "Hermione, I, uh, well, you see,"

"Severus, I was wrong," Hermione interrupted. "It was wrong of me to expect you to automatically adjust to having my friends in your life just because I am. It is also unreasonable to expect you to start liking them without having spent any time with them outside of the classroom and in social situations. And to ask you to spend a whole weekend with them was just a ridiculous idea."

Snape didn't know how to respond. He hadn't anticipated her apologizing at all. Well, then he didn't have to, right?

No, that wasn't right. What was it that Albus had always said? It takes two to tango. There were always two sides to an argument and it was his responsibility in an equal part of this relationship to admit his own wrongdoing in this situation.

"You are right, Hermione, but I also need to apologize. I thought it out this evening after you left and realized that my initial dislike for your friends is no longer valid and that I should give them a chance as people, rather than the students I had years ago. Perhaps joining them this weekend is not ideal, but perhaps if we invited them over for dinner sometime next week?"

Hermione smiled and reached up to kiss him on the lips just as Harry Potter appeared before them.

A/N: I know, that's pretty evil of me, but I'm on a roll with writing right now. You might just get lucky with another chapter sooner rather than later.