Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, I wouldn't be a penniless grad student. Please don't sue me.

So, yeah. It's all about my beta. My best friend and beta, more specifically, who is an absolute saint and who asked me to write a story in which Lupin resurrects for her Christmas present. I felt bad for her, since she's even crazier about Lupin than I am about Snape, but I'm just not that creative. Hence you get a Christmas-themed HG/SS story instead. I don't know yet how long it will turn out to be—probably relatively short--but I hope to have it finished by mid-December. If you don't like it, blame my lack of talent rather than her outline for the plot.

It's a poor substitute for a healthy, thriving, naked Lupin, I know (inasmuch as a werewolf can be healthy and thriving). But at least there will be a naked Snape. I'm pretty partial to that vision, myself.

---------

Early November

Hermione drained the last of her butterbeer, feeling so happy as to be almost giggly. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt cozier or more contented. She had Harry by her side and Ron across from her, both in excellent moods and laughing happily themselves. The whole of Hogwarts' staff, and many students in addition, nearly overflowed through the walls of the Three Broomsticks for Professor Flitwick's party. The jovial clamor had begun to reach deafening levels.

"Want another butterbeer, Ms. Youngest-Charms-Professor-in-the-History-of-Hogwarts?" Harry teased her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Ron, sitting across from them in one of Madam Rosmerta's more modest booths, shot her a beaming smile.

"I'm fine, Harry. I think I've had enough. And remember"—she raised her right index finger in a mock reprimand—"I'm not a full professor, so you can't accord me that honor yet. I've still got another year of my apprenticeship, and Flitwick's only retiring to part-time teaching after the holiday break."

"But you'll be teaching first through fourth alone!" Ron protested. "That's over half the classes. And with Flitwick off to be the new editor of the biggest Charms journal out there, it's not like he'll be around to help you much. Shouldn't all that qualify you as a full professor?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not quite. Not until I've finished my apprenticeship, since it's the practical portion of the curriculum. Then the university officially grants me my degree. Then he'll retire fully and turn all the classes over to me."

Ron waved her off disinterestedly. "I don't care about the details! Point is, you'll be one of the youngest people ever—witch or wizard—to become a professor at Hogwarts. That's bloody amazing, Hermione!"

Harry nodded in agreement, a dazed expression in his glowing green eyes. "As if doing four years' worth of university in half that time wasn't enough work!"

Hermione felt tears entering her eyes. She'd worked harder than she'd ever imagined she could at university, feeling the need to compensate for her lack of an orthodox seventh-year education. She had been fortunate enough—and remained tremendously grateful—that the Ministry of Magic had allowed her return to Hogwarts, finish her last year, and sit the N.E.W.T. examinations. She'd had nothing to offer them but her earnest assurances that she'd studied sufficiently during her year of absence to warrant a chance to return.

Wiping hurriedly at her eyes lest the boys make fun of her sentimentality, she rose and said as discreetly as she could while still making herself heard, "I need to use the restroom. I'll be right back."

"Sure you don't want another?" Ron cajoled, indicating her butterbeer as he raised his hand to flag down a flustered Madam Rosmerta. Hermione shook her head. She felt a bit on the woozy side already, despite the hearty meal she'd eaten before they'd drunk their first round.

Taking a deep breath, she dove straight through the crowd, muttering, "Excuse me, pardon me, so sorry," feeling terrible every time she bumped into—or bounced off of—another person. She'd nearly made it to the back of the building when Hagrid, attempting to rise from a bar stool that creaked precariously under his weight, inadvertently sent her flying.

Stifling her natural reaction to cry out, Hermione gasped and found herself reeling unavoidably in the direction of Professor Snape. She'd been amazed when she'd seen him grudgingly enter the building an hour or so earlier, a mutinous expression on his face for all to see. She had no doubt that he'd argued vehemently with Headmistress McGongall in the hopes of being allowed to skip the party; no doubt he would have considered it a long-awaited perk of his promotion to Deputy Headmaster. But both the Headmistress and Albus Dumbledore—in the incorrigible form of his sparkly-eyed official portrait, who wandered freely about the castle—had obviously brought Snape under their control somehow.

Hermione would have amusedly busied herself with wondering about the nature of their threats if she hadn't been so chagrined at being hurled headlong into his person. The forbidding Potions master turned on his heel at the impact of her elbow with his back. His hand shot out and grasped her wrist, steadying her, while his eyes pinned her. His grip felt surprisingly strong for someone who had lain on the brink of death for nearly a year while the Potions experts at St. Mungo's perfected their antivenin.

"I'm so sorry, sir," she said immediately, dizzy from the heat exchanged between their skin. "It was very clumsy of me." He seemed to have made a full recovery, she noted; his hands were steady, and his forearm, just barely visible under the sleeves of his robes, was smoothly muscled.

"Hermione!" boomed Hagrid, reaching down a comforting hand the size of a dinner plate and patting her rather too forcefully on the shoulder. She caved under his weight, relieved when Snape increased the strength of his grip and drew her carefully away from the inebriated half-giant. "Di'n' see ye there. Yeh all righ'? An' you, Professor Snape?"

"It's no problem, Hagrid," she assured him as Snape simultaneously replied in a quiet tone that carried sonorously despite the din, "I believe there was no harm to either Miss Granger or myself."

"Got ter be gettin' back," Hagrid said, giving her a wink, "but yeh be sure ter have a good time! An' y' too, Professor!"

Hermione bit back a smile at the evident stumble in Hagrid's stride. He lumbered out, sending people flying this way and that like the bow of ship parting water.

Snape had released her hand, which Hermione registered with a disappointed flutter in her stomach. Turning to face him directly, she cursed herself for allowing her eyes to linger on the deliciously broad shape of his shoulders and the way his dark eyes glowed in the restaurant's shadows. The deep brown in them seemed to melt and reflect light like the bitterest chocolate.

"Sorry, sir," she repeated—rather too breathily, she feared.

"Do be more careful, Miss Granger," he murmured. Hermione was momentarily stunned that he hadn't chided her more harshly. She saw his eyes flicker toward Ron and Harry and followed his gaze. The boys were so deeply involved in their conversation that they leaned toward one another across the table. Ron said something to Harry with a repulsive look on his face that seemed to screw his features into a terrible grimace, and Harry burst out laughing raucously.

Snape's eyes returned to hers, and he raised an eyebrow. Realizing that she'd spent a good ten seconds watching him as he watched others, Hermione flushed even more brightly than usual, the combined effects of alcohol and Snape's heady, nearby presence, and made her escape to the restroom.

Bursting through the door feeling as though she was on fire, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief once it had shut behind her. She locked the door hastily and went straight to the sink, pulling back her snarled ponytail with one hand while splashing cool water over her face with the other. When she raised her head to examine her reflection in the dusty mirror overhanging the sink, she was relieved to see that while her cheeks were still flushed the telltale rose of arousal and alcohol, the intensity of the hue had faded somewhat.

She'd shrugged out of her heavy autumn coat a couple of hours before, but she felt the need to take a handful of the material of her simple dark-blue tee shirt and peel it away from her skin. The rush of cool air over her stomach calmed Hermione, but there was no escaping the fact that Snape had had the power to render her speechless and thoughtless since her sixth year, and her lustful preoccupation showed no signs of abating.

A few moments passed as she cast a much-needed cooling charm over herself and saw to other pressing needs. Feeling collected and poised once again—or as close as she could hope to get—Hermione unlocked the restroom door, heaved it open, and headed back to her seat. She was surprised to see that in the few minutes she'd been away, a large portion of the students had cleared out, likely to continue the party back in their House common rooms. It was predominantly teachers who remained, gathered into small clusters suffering from varying levels of visible intoxication.

She approached their booth at a leisurely pace, veering aside briefly to examine a beautiful, silk-covered, embroidered screen she'd never noticed before. Running an appreciative fingertip along the stunning, brightly-colored depiction of a mother and young child, Hermione only belatedly realized that she could hear Harry and Ron's conversation. Their voices carried clearly now that the noise level had dropped.

"...but c'mon, Harry, she's got to be kidding herself," Ron was saying through a mouthful of liquid. "It's bad enough she's spent the past two years locked in her room studying. 'S worse than when we were in school wif her, for Merlin's sake." She heard him gulp the remainder of his drink and belch loudly, and she shuddered.

"Wouldn't be so bad if she'd get out once in a while," Harry mused, slurping at his own drink, "or at least spend some time with us and Ginny, but she's really let herself go."

"Mus'f gained a stone, 't leas'," Ron continued on, his words increasingly muddied by drink. "Wha'd she eat, 'ookshanks?"

Harry snickered, a vile sound that felt like it cut straight through her throat and sucked the breath out of her, and slurped again from his mug. "Fills out her Muggle tops better now, though, doesn't she?"

Ron snorted before gulping, swallowing, and retorting, "Easy, mate. You're dating my sister, remember?"

"I meant nothing by it. Just saying, Hermione could stand to get her head out of her books and go for a walk once in awhile. Maybe shave her legs and put on a shorter skirt while she's at it!"

Hidden from their view, Hermione glanced down at her long, comfortable, dark-brown woolen skirt, biting her lip. It hadn't looked so drab in the Muggle department store. And, more importantly given that she worked in a drafty castle, it had looked warm.

"'ermione, wear a short skirt? Like a girl? Dream on, mate. She could give tha' old bat Pince a run for 'er money some days, I swear."

Hermione moved away from the silk screen, afraid she might collapse against it and damage the exquisite embroidery. She felt as though a vice had been clamped around her chest and was pressing down on her, inexorably and cruelly. Her eyes began darting wildly around the rear of the restaurant, seeking an escape.

She had no idea how she would justify her mysterious absence to the boys without broaching the topic of what they'd said; she would devise an excuse later. All she knew, at that moment, was that she needed to flee before she began crying openly at the staff party in front of faculty who, she was fairly certain, had already managed to listen in on Harry and Ron's conversation as well.

She couldn't believe that Ron, who'd practically begged her to date him, was speaking so ill of her. Granted, they'd both recognized from the beginning of the relationship that what they'd mistaken for chemistry was tension of a different sort, of an irreparable divide in personality that was only destined to drive them both to misery; but she'd thought they had parted on excellent and amiable terms. It had been nearly two years, and Hermione had finally felt as though they were regaining the ground of their friendship and putting behind them the awkwardness of their ill-advised romantic interlude.

He'd been her first time. She hadn't naïvely assumed that it would be anything life-altering, but she also hadn't thought that she would ever come to regret it so deeply. There had been only one boy since then, an exchange student at university who was a year younger and adorably disconcerted by her presence. She'd been charmed by his apparent infatuation until discovering that his attraction lay in her resemblance to the girlfriend back home who'd left him abruptly when he'd announced his intention to study abroad. Hermione had broken it off then, encouraging him to reestablish contact with the young woman who so obviously still held him under her thrall.

Harry continued to laugh, each crescendo driving a knife deeper between her ribs. The mortification was unendurable.

She caught sight of Madam Rosmerta returning through the kitchens, a slight fog covering the spectacles that were slung around her neck by a thin gold chain, resting comfortably on her ample breasts. With any luck, her glasses were fogged because she'd snuck a moment outside, exiting through an employee entrance in the back. Hermione was about to take a desperate stab at covertly entering the kitchens when Ron, his words now slurred almost beyond recognition, delivered his final blow.

"No point in 'er puttin' on a skirt anyway. Not like anybody's gonna want to get in that skirt, y'know?"

He brayed a laugh at his own joke. Hermione heard the liquid spray from his mouth and imagined the trajectories of the various droplets sending them in all directions. The boys' laughter stopped instantly, but she wasn't left to wonder at the reason for very long.

"Merlin!" she heard Ron gasp.

Harry echoed the exclamation with sudden seriousness, slurring rather too loudly, "Sorry, Snape. We di'n't see you there."

"Wha're you doing at a bar, anyway?" Ron demanded, his foolishness returning. "Haven' you got anywhere else t' slither 'round?"

"Ron, c'mon," Harry said reprovingly. "He was trying to leave and you spit on 'im, for Merlin's sake."

"Sure 'e's been sprayed wi' worse," Ron retorted, snickering at his own innuendo. "'sides, 'e's seen Hermione. Bloody works wif 'er."

Hermione found it rather ominous that Snape, who'd apparently just been covered by Ron's butterbeer-laced expectoration, still hadn't spoken a word. She anticipated the forceful, driving sound of his retreating footsteps as he stalked out of the restaurant. Instead, after a long moment during which she imagined him looking down his nose superciliously at the two boys, he replied silkily, "Indeed. I commend you, Mr. Weasley, for remembering in your drunken stupor the name of your friend, let alone her place of employment."

"Well, c'mon, then," Ron nearly bellowed. "See, 'arry? 'e knows wha' 'm saying. Hermione's totally let herself go. Even Snape agrees."

"I do not recall agreeing with that statement." Snape's voice had lowered.

"C'mon, Snape. You've got eyes, haven' you? She looks like my great-aunt. You see that skirt she's wearin' tonight?"

"Miss Granger, to the best of my recollection, is appropriately and professionally dressed for every occasion." The acidity of Snape's tone was definitely increasing in strength. Hermione was floored to hear him follow with: "Perhaps you ought to consider remotely approaching Miss Granger's level of education and accomplishment before assuming yourself to be in a position to judge her, Mr. Weasley."

"Just because Ron and I di'n't go to university or get an apprenticeship doesn't automatically make us stupid," Harry interrupted angrily.

"Despite all evidence to the contrary, Mr. Potter?" Snape drawled. Through the tears drying in her eyes and her short, tortured breaths, Hermione found herself cracking a smile. She had no idea what she'd done to deserve Snape's vitriol on her behalf, but she knew that nothing but his compliments could possibly have ameliorated the sting of her friends' words.

"You callin' me an idiot, then?" Ron demanded belligerently.

"Nothing so lenient, Mr. Weasley. I am calling you an imbecile, an egotistical, shallow-minded, self-important fool who would be unable to recognize an intelligent and attractive witch if she beat you upside the head with your own wand. You should be so lucky as to have Miss Granger's attentions, especially of a romantic nature, fall in your favor."

The boys fell silent. Hermione eagerly imagined their mouths hanging open in stupefied shock. The telltale footfalls of Snape's retreat echoed through the rapidly emptying room. A moment later, she heard the door open and shut behind him and the accompanying gust of cold air rush into the room.

Hermione hardly heard the nasty, scathing things Harry and Ron muttered as they took their leave, having apparently forgotten all about the fact that she was still somewhere in the restaurant. She leaned against the wall and exhaled shakily before gathering her coat from their booth and donning it slowly.

She was contemplatively pulling on a warm knitted beret and her Gryffindor scarf when Madam Rosmerta called from behind the bar, "All right there, Hermione? You look a little shocked."

"I'm fine," she called back with a friendly wave goodbye. "I just realized something a little startling. Really, that's all. Have a good night!"

"You too, dear!" Rosmerta called, beaming at her like a protective aunt. Hermione stepped out into the crisp night air to confront and contemplate her realization all the way back to Hogwarts.

She owed Snape—immensely.