Chapter Text
“Mister Snape?”
Severus turned towards the voice and was immediately pinned by a stare from a fierce pair of brown eyes and a slightly angry, slightly gleeful expression.
“Yes?” he asked, although he was not sure he wanted to know the answer.
“Francine ate the crayon I wanted to use,” said the young girl.
Severus relaxed. Now this he could deal with.
“It was the only orange one and I need to colour the sun,” the girl continued.
“Couldn’t you colour the sun yellow?” he offered.
He was met with a scathing look.
“The sun...is orange,” was the reply.
“My mistake,” Severus said.
“Can you make her give it back?” the girl asked.
“It’s a bit difficult if the crayon is in Miss Quint’s stomach,” he said.
“When our dog ate my Easter egg that had Princess Caliope’s crown in it my mummy put her finger in his mouth and he spewed it up,” said the girl.
“That was a sensible option,” agreed Severus. “But I won’t be doing that. You’ll have to make do I’m afraid, Miss Dexley, with yellow.”
He watched the face of the aforementioned Miss Dexley begin to crumple and he sighed and reached behind him.
“Here you go!” Severus said, “I forgot we had an extra orange.”
He handed the transfigured crayon to the beaming girl and watched her walk away. He had an excruciating pounding headache.
Severus ignored the pain and made his way through the very low, very small desks until he reached the crayon glutton.
“Miss Quint,” said Severus. “Did you eat the orange crayon?”
“Yes, Mister Snape,” said Miss Quint.
“Why?” Severus asked, squinting slightly as the headache began to snowball delightfully into the starbursts of light that signalled an oncoming migraine.
“I thought it would taste orange,” said Miss Quint. “But it tasted like all the others.”
Severus looked down at her desk to see a number of well-gnawed crayons. His headache roared behind his temples.
“Please don’t eat crayons,” said Severus. “They aren’t good for you.”
“You’re going to die now,” said the boy at the desk nearby, in a cheery manner.
“No I’m not!” cried Miss Quint.
“Yes you are!” the boy insisted.
“I’m not!” insisted a sobbing Miss Quint.
“Nobody’s dying!” snapped Severus. “Just don’t eat crayons.”
Mercifully, the bell rang.
There was a moment of pure chaos and an overwhelming sense for Severus of too many small humans in the period immediately following the three sharp trills.
The anarchy unfolding around him was like a zoo.
A human zoo.
A zoo of very small humans.
He watched the small humans pick up small backpacks from their small cubby spaces and wave their small hands at him as their small legs took them from the classroom.
Fuck, he needed a drink. Not a small one either. A very big one. Severus suddenly remembered that he had the Ministry function that night, whereupon he would have many drinks, small and big. This thought cheered him somewhat.
He began drawing the shades of the classroom so he could tidy it with his wand and not manually like an idiot. As he pulled the last one down there was a knock on the door. Severus rolled his eyes.
He opened the door.
“Yes?” he asked.
A woman stood there, smiling and holding the hand of Miss Quint.
A parent. Fuck-a-doodle-doo.
In many ways teaching the nursery class reminded him of Hogwarts. For example, his students were also barely literate, couldn’t be trusted with sharp objects, and had a flimsy grasp on arithmetic. But there was one way in which it didn’t: the constant interaction with parents. He hadn’t thought about that factor, and if he had, he probably would have run screaming from the job. Which he really should have done anyway. Give him a Death Eater meeting over a Parent and Teacher meeting any day. One of them had unbearable consequences from a demanding overlord and the other was a Death Eater meeting.
“Mrs Quint,” Severus said.
“Caroline,” said the woman. “Please, call me Caroline.”
“Of course,” said Severus. He remembered her name just fine. He just felt that continually pretending to forget it would put her off wanting to talk to him. It was yet to do so.
“I wanted to say thank you so much for your work with Francine,” said Mrs Quint.
“All right,” said Severus. He paused. Was that it? Was the conversation over?
She laughed. “She really has grown in confidence this year.”
There was a pause while the woman looked at him expectantly.
“Wonderful,” said Severus. “Goodbye.”
He shut the door, ignoring the look of surprise on the face of Mrs Quint, and the broad grin worn by the smaller genetic version of her.
Parents. Completely pointless.
With a flick of his wand he began to tidy the room. Chairs flipped themselves upside-down on each desk, crayons and pencils flew back into their containers and scattered pieces of paper stacked themselves neatly on the back table. After the room was once more meticulous he peeked out of the window through a crack in one of the blinds. Three women waited outside the classroom, chatting to each other.
Fuck that, Severus thought to himself and Apparated home. They’d eventually give up.
He had a shower and washed his clothes in his brand-new washer/dryer. Washing machines, Severus had decided, were infinitely superior to having underwear blasted by cleaning spells. There was less risk, for instance. With the other option, there was always the possibility that the spell had left latent remnants of magic in the fabric that sat right next to one’s unmentionables. The last thing he needed was his cock being transfigured into something that wasn’t a cock. He quite liked his cock. And he was looking forward to other people liking it as well, once he sorted out his life and met someone that didn’t loathe him instantly on sight.
Severus found his black woollen robes right at the back of the cupboard, under a stasis spell. They were very purposely hidden behind a long pea coat. Not for any type of subterfuge-related reasons, but to make sure they weren’t always visible to him. He found the sight of them triggered a lot of uncomfortable feelings he wasn’t altogether sure that sober him wanted anything to do with. He sighed as he pulled them out. He may as well get ready and get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible.
His robes felt strange to put on. He hadn’t worn them in a year. Not since the last Ministry function where he’d splinched the top of his finger off as a result of an inebriated Apparation. But not this year. He tucked a vial of Sober-Up into his robe pocket. So long as he remembered to drink it before he tried to get home he hopefully wouldn’t lose the top of anything else.
Entry to the event was the same as the year before. The same jiggling, time-activated portkey with the same message suggesting he wear a poppy for remembrance. As he had last year, it was ignored. Why they believed he required a botanical-based memory prompt to keep fresh the years of horrors interspaced with ennui (sometimes even horrific ennui) he had no idea. What he needed, thank you very much, was something to stop him remembering. Hence the alcohol.
The portkey began to insistently hop up and down on the table and he reached out and clasped it between the fingers of his right hand.
He was met by the same supercilious wizard checking names and he could hear the sounds of music underlying a constant hum of conversation. There was laughter too. Severus steeled himself, tugged nervously at each of his sleeves, and entered the room.
He needn’t have worried. His entrance went unnoticed.
Although that wasn’t entirely correct, actually. His entrance was noticed but was then apparently ignored. Severus stood at the edge of the room briefly while he tried to weigh up what was worse. He decided it was the latter. Having made that depressing conclusion, he went to obtain a very strong drink.
Alcohol secured, he slunk to a side wall and leant up against it, watching the crowds. He could see Potter and Weasley in the middle of a large group of people. They were all laughing. So obviously they were all idiots.
“Hello Severus,” said a voice. “Glad you could make it.”
Severus turned abruptly to see Minerva.
“Hello,” he said.
Before he could say anything else, she smiled the same polite smile he knew she reserved for people like Gilderoy Lockhart.
“Lovely to see you. Have a nice evening.”
And she was gone.
Severus’s gaze followed Minerva as she made her way towards Potter and Weasley and then there was a lot of very unnecessary hugging and even more laughing.
Severus glumly tipped back the glass and downed the contents in one gulp. It refilled immediately. He sighed. He would give them an hour. An hour was more than enough reparation for the pension. One hour and he was gone. He could do one hour. One hour was nothing. One hour wasn’t even half the time one could spend helping Lucius pick out a cane that matched his hair and eyes.
Potter and Weasley turned and shouted. Severus followed their gaze and realised that Miss Granger had arrived. She was wearing a rather plain, but fitted, navy evening gown that skimmed her calves. Her feet were encased in some type of flat, golden sandals with long straps that crisscrossed up her legs. The crowd made its way over to her and there was more unnecessary hugging and laughing.
Severus sneered and looked away. He gulped down another mouthful of whatever the hell it was the glass kept offering him. It filled again, suggesting it was the only item in the room that had recognised his existence and also his need to become very inebriated, very quickly.
When he turned back he started slightly in surprise. Even from across the room, he could see Miss Granger looking at him. Before his astonished eyes, she lifted one hand in what he assumed was some type of acknowledgement. To the equal astonishment of the rest of his body, he felt his own hand lifting in response.
Well. That was unexpected.
Equal parts surprised and mortified, he turned and slipped away to another corner of the room, got some food and came across more former colleagues and students, experiencing the same interaction with them as he had with Minerva: a neutrally friendly greeting that he only had time to briefly respond to before they made some excuse and moved on. It was excruciating.
One hour.
He only had to get through one hour.
Severus decided to go out onto the balcony and have a cigarette. That would kill some time before he was forced to return to the ballroom and to....well....to whatever it was that was happening there.
As he walked out onto the balcony he realised that it was already occupied.
Miss Granger was sitting outside, feet up on the table, the gold straps running up her calves partially undone and headphones in her ears. At this proximity, he could see the navy dress wasn’t plain at all. There were patches of navy gauze here and there that he could see her skin through. Severus stopped suddenly, unlit cigarette still dangling from his fingers. He decided to escape before she noticed him.
“Hello Professor Snape,” said Miss Granger.
Too late.
Fuck.
“I’m not a Professor,” he said. “Had you forgotten that, Miss Granger?”
“Please don’t call me that,” she said. He observed her remove the earbuds and loop them into a tight ellipse. “It infantilises me. I’m not at school anymore.”
Severus didn’t say anything. He really wanted to smoke his cigarette in silence. Precious, precious silence.
“You could call me Hermione,” said the woman who apparently wasn’t Miss Granger anymore.
He blanched. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Too much?” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said. “It also suggests an air of familiarity between us that is blatantly false.”
“But we are familiar,” she argued.
“Not in a friendly sense,” countered Severus. “I’d hardly want you to refer to me by my first name.”
“Well I’m not calling you Snape,” huffed the girl (woman?).
“I am completely happy with you not calling me anything at all, Granger,” said Severus. He flicked his fingers and the cigarette lit. He drew in a deep pull of the smoke as he walked towards the balcony rail. Perhaps she was one of those people who loathed cigarette smoke and would be disgusted enough to leave.
“How long are you staying tonight?” he heard her voice next to him.
Blast.
“One hour,” said Severus.
“Generous,” said Granger. “I am giving them forty-five minutes.”
“Fine,” said Severus. He wasn’t quite sure why he was actually engaging in this conversation but he supposed it passed the time.
“So. What are you doing?” she asked.
“Smoking and being forced to engage in awkward small talk,” he said.
Granger clucked her tongue with an irritated sniff. “I don’t mean now. I mean in general.”
He smirked as he flicked some ash onto the marble floor and Vanished it. “Smoking and avoiding being forced to engage in awkward small talk.” He said.
She laughed out loud. “At the very least you are consistent.”
“Consistently avoidant,” he added.
“Would you like to know what I’m doing?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Why are you being such a dick?” Granger demanded.
“Why are you trying to force someone to talk to you who is obviously uncomfortable with the idea?” Severus retorted.
There was a moment of silence.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry I was doing that.”
He shrugged. Everyone did. He didn’t tend to call anyone out on it and was a little surprised at himself that he had. And perhaps even more surprised that she’d apologised.
“Sometimes I’m like that,” she continued, obviously forgetting she had just apologised for trying to coerce a conversation out of him. “I thought I was getting better at it, but being back here made me nervous.”
“Back at the Ministry?” he asked in spite of himself.
“Back with magical people,” said Granger.
He turned to her. “You left?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He eyed the obviously nervous young woman. Good on her.
“You gave me the idea,” Granger said, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Did I?” He didn’t remember doling out advice the last time he saw her, but he had been a bit sloshed at the time.
“I assume you were too drunk to remember it,” said Granger.
“Cleverly deduced,” said Severus. “I wasn’t too drunk to remember your Second Class though.”
Granger flushed a mottled red. “Fuck you,” she hissed at him. “You are a dick. Fuck off.” She jammed the earbuds back in and turned away from him.
Severus was a little unnerved to discover he felt bad about hurting her feelings. That was unexpected. But then again, he almost revelled in her anger. It was his first interaction of the night that was something other than faux niceties or polite indifference. At least he’d stirred some type of emotion in her. He mattered to others so little now he could have stripped naked in the middle of the Ministry and barely would have drawn a glance. But here, with her, he almost felt like his old self. The moment of insight came and went and left him feeling somewhat rueful.
Irritated with himself, he Vanished the last of his cigarette and walked back towards the chair she was once more settled in, resolutely ignoring his approach.
“You should have gotten the First Class,” he said finally. “You have the right to feel hard done by.”
She looked up at him suspiciously, and he sat down somewhat awkwardly in the chair next to her.
“I mean it,” he said.
Granger took the buds out again and twisted them around her fingers.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “You’re the only person I wanted to talk to at all here, actually. The only person that seems to think everything is as fucked up as I do. But even you don’t respect me.”
“Why do you care if I respect you?” Severus asked. “It’s blatantly obvious my opinion isn’t worth much.”
“I don’t know,” said Granger. “It’s still worth something to me.”
“Hmm,” said Severus noncommittally.
There was a slight buzzing noise and they both looked down.
“My alarm!” said Granger. She pulled out her wand from a cleverly hidden pocket in her dress and tapped it against the chair. “That’s time then,” she said happily.
“You set your wand to vibrate instead of chime?” Severus asked.
Granger looked uncomfortable. “Yes, well, you know, it’s a pretty standard spell.”
“I’m sure it is,” he said with great amusement, as a scarlet flush that started on her neck crept up to her cheeks. He’d been Head of House for a few years shy of two decades. He knew exactly how standard that kind of spell was. Particularly in the girls’ dormitories.
“Are you going to stay your full hour?” Granger asked as she began to tie the golden straps of her sandals around her ankles.
“Perhaps,” said Severus. “Time for another cigarette at least.”
He opened his hand and a cigarette appeared there. Granger watched.
“They’ll still kill you,” she said.
“I remain ever hopeful that is the case,” Severus retorted.
She grinned. “See you around, then.”
“Maybe next year,” he found himself saying.
“Oh, I’ll be here,” said Granger. “Will you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I will.”
“It’s a date,” Granger said. “I’m joking of course,” she added hastily and Severus realised his shock at her comment must have shown on his face.
“I’ll wear something pretty then,” he said smoothly, hoping to regain control of the situation.
Her smile materialised again. “Please see that you do,” she said. “Something that brings out your eyes.”
“Black then,” he said.
“Perfect,” she said. “See you next year, PS.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, choking slightly on the mouthful of smoke he’d just inhaled.
“I can’t call you Professor. I’m not calling you Snape. PS it is,” she said.
“How ghastly,” he said.
“Then it is Perfectly Suited,” Granger said triumphantly.
Severus glared at her, ready to retaliate, but before he could she shot him another quicksilver smile and Apparated.
Alone on the balcony he allowed himself a wry smile.
Perfectly Suited.
He scoffed to himself. It had probably been the high point of the evening. And wasn’t that pathetic.
Pathetically Solitary
He sighed and finished his drink.