A Matter of Honor
by Amy McWilliams (McAmy)

Book 3: Love and Honor

Chapter 4: An Afternoon in Hogsmeade

Before she knew it, it was September 1st, and Hermione was facing the arrival of the students of Hogwarts. Her students. Teaching Arithmancy, she would have only third years and up, and for a moment, she wished that she were facing first years. Even though she had spent two years at university, she was only a couple of years older than her oldest students; she had friends their age--for that matter, she had shared a common room with the upper-level Gryffindors she would now be teaching.

Trying to get a grip on her nerves, she had spent the morning going over her first day's lesson plans…again. She had two sections of third years on Mondays, with the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins just before lunch and the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws just after.

She had lunch with Remus (while the professors ate together for breakfast and dinner, lunch was an inherently casual affair, with people generally eating in their own quarters as they worked), which they took in Hermione's sitting room. Crookshanks had insisted on sniffing him throughout the meal--Remus had shown more patience than Hermione, who threatened to shut him in the bedroom--but when they moved to sit by the fire, Crookshanks climbed into Remus's lap and promptly fell asleep, purring loudly. "I guess you passed inspection," she noted, as Remus smiled and stroked the cat.

After he had gone, she looked over at her piles of teaching materials and decided that maybe it was a better idea to take a break from them than to work herself up any more by going over her plans one more time.

Perhaps she'd stop by the dungeons to check the stores she would need for her latest experiment, and then go for a walk on the grounds.

As they'd settled into a routine over the summer, Snape had volunteered her old workroom, so that her experiments wouldn't have to sit out unprotected once school began. He had handed her the key on a small ring, and she saw three others hanging with it. One, she knew, was the door to the classroom, and another to the storeroom. The other one…

"What's the fourth key?" she had asked, looking at it closely. It was small, and seemed fairly ancient, with a rune inscribed at the top. She didn't recognize it.

"That is the key to the special stores. I'll show you the wards as well, once you've set up your things," he had said, matter-of-factly, and returned to his cauldron.

Feeling her gaze still on him, he had looked up. "Professor Granger, you didn't think I would make you ask me for ingredients with which you've been freely working for the past three years, did you?"

She had mumbled a response and quickly gone into her workroom.

Even though she had a key, Hermione still knocked at the classroom door, letting him know that she was there. There was no answer this time, so she let herself in. She heard him moving in his office, but the door was closed, and, not wanting to interrupt, she set her things down in the workroom and returned to the storeroom to retrieve a few ingredients she would need.

"Miss Granger, is that you?" she heard his voice call out as his office door opened and closed.

"Yes, it's me," she replied, coming back into the main room.

He was wearing a light cloak. "I assumed you'd be going over your plans for class tomorrow," he noted with a hint of mockery--no, humor--in his tone.

"I've done with that for the day," she answered. "If I look at them any longer I'll just be more nervous." She moved back towards her workroom.

"If you're looking for a distraction, perhaps you would like to accompany me?" he began, and she turned to look at him, hoping that she didn't look too surprised. His lip curled slightly--amused?--as he explained, "I'm going into Hogsmeade to retrieve a few things for the first week of classes. I need the ingredients fresh." He waited, an eyebrow raised as if…in challenge?

"That would be great," she said. "I need a few things myself…" She waved her wand after shifting the vials to her left hand. "Accio cloak! Accio purse!" She locked up her workroom and they passed out of the classroom (with Snape locking all the other doors behind them) just in time for her cloak and coin purse to come flying down the hallway into her hands.

Draping the cloak about her shoulders, she turned to Snape. "Shall we?" she asked, and they set off for Hogsmeade together.

When they finished shopping at Dervish and Banges, their packages safely stowed in miniature form in the pockets of their cloaks, they headed back outside into the early autumn air, warmed now by the afternoon sun. It was a beautiful day, and Hermione had enjoyed the walk, talking about various articles, experiments, the Sorting Feast. Part of her couldn't believe that she was spending the afternoon with Snape, and the rest of her thought that her heart might never beat at its normal rate again.

At one point, as she examined a jar of dried eyes of newt, he had come up behind her and noted, "No, these are too old…this one is positively clouded over." She had only nodded, because the feel of his sleeve brushing her shoulder as he'd pointed to the eye in question--the sound of his voice just behind and above her ear--had left her breathless.

She was just chiding herself for behaving like a schoolgirl with a crush when he spoke again. "Would you like to stop in The Three Broomsticks for a drink, Miss Granger? I believe we have plenty of time, unless you wanted to get back to your experiment."

But he was teasing her again, and she smiled in return. "A butterbeer sounds delicious."

He held the door for her, and as she entered ahead of him, Sirius rose to greet her, not noticing her companion. As Snape came through the door, Sirius stopped, his face changing in an instant. He looked back to Hermione.

"All right, Hermione? I didn't expect to see you today."

"Fine," she answered, in what she hoped was a light tone, "just doing some shopping before the students arrive tonight."

Sirius's eyes shifted back to Snape. "Black," Snape drawled, in a softly dangerous tone. Sirius only nodded in recognition.

Then, to Hermione, Snape said, "Miss Granger, if you wish to join your…friend…" but Hermione interrupted, speaking to Sirius as though she hadn't heard Snape.

"Well, we'd better find a table. It was good to see you, Sirius."

Sirius's eyes narrowed, flickered to Snape, and then he muttered a "good-bye" and left.

Hermione waved at Rosmerta and chose a table, unfastening her cloak and draping it over the back of her chair before sitting. When she finally looked at Snape, now seated across from her, she ignored his almost-suspicious stare and said, "Do you know how long it's been since I've had a butterbeer? It must be a year. I just couldn't find any place at Mywoods that served anything as good Rosmerta's."

They had returned to Hogwarts in the late afternoon, and Hermione had left her new purchase in her workroom (stopping also to re-shelve the stores she had selected earlier) and headed to her rooms to write some letters and dress for dinner, leaving Snape in the dungeons alone.

He closed the classroom door behind her and went into his office, spelling the fire alight and putting the kettle on out of habit. He sat behind his desk and stared ahead, not seeing. The annoyance of running errands in Hogsmeade had turned into a day that had left him with much to think about.

He had asked her to accompany him on a whim (though he knew that she would never believe he ever acted on whims), and was surprised when she so quickly agreed. "She must truly have errands of her own," he had thought to himself. And she had chosen a few things, but nothing that couldn't have waited. The only ingredient she had purchased had been fresh salamander blood, and she could have asked him to buy that for her, if she had wanted.

When he'd leaned over to point out the poor condition of the eyes of newt (usually Dervish and Banges were much better about refreshing their stock, but he had let it go without comment), he could have sworn that he heard her hold her breath for a moment, that her face was slightly flushed even before they'd gone outside into the cooler air.

And oh, how she had smiled at him.

He had suggested The Three Broomsticks because he wasn't ready for the afternoon to end. Seeing Black, he had become unaccountably angry (well, perhaps not unaccountably, but he knew it was a more violent reaction than he'd had at other times). But when she'd dismissed the man so perfunctorily, ignoring his own snarls and insisting on a second round of butterbeer (he usually avoided butterbeer at all costs, but she had so enjoyed it)…. Their conversation on the way to Hogsmeade had been familiar, easy, two colleagues discussing work. But on the walk home, she had talked of her parents, told him about her own first day at Hogwarts, her own Sorting…spoken to him as if she considered him…what, a friend?

He was amazed. It seemed to be the only word he could find for it. And what was more amazing still was the fact that he couldn't remember the last time he had been…happy.

Not surprisingly to Snape, the emotion was short-lived. Mordred arrived with bad news from a Death Eater contact. The trail had gone cold. And he would be stuck Sorting first years and teaching idiot students, unable to help search for the foreseeable future.

Hermione's happiness didn't dissipate as quickly. As she headed to the Great Hall, where the other professors would form at the head table before the students arrived, she felt almost as excited as she had when she had been Sorted.

Most of the other faculty members were there already; Heads of House had to meet beforehand, she remembered. She slowed for a moment as she walked down between the student tables. Her afternoon with Snape had made her forget that they would now be at the head table, and she wasn't sure where she would be expected to sit. Usually the professors, she knew from her days as a student, sat in the same spots at every meal, but she didn't know if it was based on some sort of hierarchy, or habit, or both. She knew Hagrid would sit at the end of the table to Dumbledore's left, and there were a couple of empty seats there. Vector had sat on that side as well. But all of the teachers she spent the most time with were on the other side of the Headmaster.

At that point, Remus saw her entering, and motioned for her to come and sit next to him. She arrived at the table about the same time as Professor Sprout, who reached for the chair across the corner from him. Hermione headed for the next available seat, but Professor Sprout said, "Oh, no, dear, swap with me. Otherwise, I'll have to talk at Madam Pomfrey across your plate!"

Sitting down with Sprout on her right and Lupin around the corner on her left, Hermione was pleased not to be in the limelight. She greeted Remus and looked down the table to his left: Snape, Hooch, Flitwick, McGonagall, and Professor Dumbledore. She caught Minerva's kind look as the woman rose to leave for the entry hall, where she would greet the first years. Flitwick rose as well, to move the stool and Sorting Hat onto the dais, and Madam Hooch and Snape were watching the older students coming to take their seats.

Snape hadn't looked at her since she'd arrived, and her happiness waned just a little. When she thought to herself that he would of course be on his best intimidating behavior for the arriving students, she felt better. But there was still something in his face that told her this wasn't simply his usual dour manner. Her speculation would have to wait; the first years were nervously entering the hall. Maybe later she'd be brave enough to ask him what was bothering him.

A/N: Having read Madam Otaku's "A Day in the Life of Severus Snape," I am more amused than ever that My Snape would suggest a stop in The Three Broomsticks.

On to Chapter 5