Under the Northern Star

Hermione arranged a quick smile on her face, her hand still on the back of the chair.

'Professor. I had no idea you enjoyed this type of entertainment.'

'I'm not your professor any more, and I don't.'

'Fine. Well, I'm here to eat because I missed dinner. I'll find another table and leave you to...your drink.' Hermione glanced at the glass of golden liquid on the table in front of Snape. It seemed to amuse him.

'You think I've gone alcoholic?'

'No, of course not.' Hermione blushed. 'This is a bar, after all.'

A waiter hurried over and forced the chair from her hands.

'Ja mitä saisi olla?'

'Oh no, I was actually -'

'Ah sorry, English. What can I get you?' The waiter took out a small pad and looked at her expectantly.

'I really wasn't -'

'Tonight we have fried fillet of reindeer with game sauce and fried potatoes, grilled salmon with tartar sauce and boiled potatoes, and chicken pasta.'

'Actually, I'm not -'

The waiter looked from her to Snape. He seemed to think she was somehow troubled, as he leaned over to whisper to Snape, 'Does your wife need more time to decide, sir?'

'Come on now, darling, how about the fillet of reindeer?' Snape said in a mock-sweet tone, his black eyes glimmering with malice.

'Grilled salmon, please,' Hermione said between gritted teeth and sat in the chair the waiter was thrusting against her leg. 'And water, please.'

The waiter nodded and hurried away. Snape sipped his drink, looking highly entertained.

'I did intend to have a private dinner,' Hermione snapped and spread a napkin in her lap. 'But you're obviously not opposed to company.'

'Don't even try to pretend you aren't burning to throroughly interrogate me.'

'I most certainly am not,' Hermione said, swallowing the questions she had intended to shoot at him.

The waiter came back with a jug of water and a salad plate, which smelled of Italian dressing.

'There you go. Enjoy your evening, madam, sir.'

Snape inclined his head, but his eyes were still on her.

'So, what did Potter say when you rushed to tell him that I'm still alive?'

'I haven't told him,' Hermione said and tasted the salad. The flavour was strong, but it was good.

'Singularly unbelievable from a tattletale like you.'

Hermione bit her tongue and counted to ten. Don't succumb to his taunting. He enjoys it - just remember what Harry went through in Potions.

'I haven't told anyone,' she said simply and ate another forkful. The salad had made her ravenously hungry, but she didn't dare gobble in front of him.

'In my experience insufferable know-it-alls rarely change. I bet you have a letter already written.'

'I don't!' Hermione spluttered so angrily that a piece of cabbage flew on the table. 'I have some tact!'

'The kind you showed when you ran to McGonagall to tattle about Potter's new broom in your third year?'

'That was ages ago! Besides, I thought a murderer was after Harry, and I was just thinking about his safety.'

'Of course,' Snape said quietly. 'And that is your problem, Miss Granger. You feel obligated to engage in every possible situation to educate and enlighten the great unwashed who could not even breathe without your mindful instructions.'

Hermione was so hurt by his words that she had to escape behind the glass of water. This was by far not the first time he, or someone else, had called her that. Maybe she had been a know-it-all. So what? She had always meant well.

'I don't see why you have such a sudden interest in Harry's welfare,' she said bitterly and put down the glass.

'I don't. I was merely demonstrating my point on why I believed you to have tattled about me.'

She didn't reply, just finished the salad, looking resolutely away. Snape was quiet as well, but his glass clinked occasionally against the table.

The waiter came with the food a painful ten minutes later. The salmon smelled delicious, but Hermione concentrated on the two potatoes first. She could feel Snape's eyes on her, and it irritated her to no end.

'Do you plan to stare at me for the whole evening?'

'I'm still waiting for the interrogation.'

Right, I've had it. I can play this game, too, Mr Snark.

'Oh, good!' Hermione said merrily. 'Why are you here? Have you been here all this time? How do you make your living? Are you still in contact with the wizarding world? Does anyone know you're still alive? Do you still hate Harry? Do you know he now considers you one of the bravest men he's ever known and plans to name one of his children after you?'

'Don't you feel so much better now that you've managed to give in to nature?'

'Yes!' Hermione popped a piece of salmon in her mouth and smiled warmly. 'And I have all night, Mr Snape. Go on.'

Snape studied her for a while with a thin-lipped smile, his slender fingers twirling the glass slowly on the table. Hermione remembered his skills in Legilimency and broke off their eye-contact by focusing her eyes on his mouth instead. Snape let out a soft sniff.

'I'm here because I've just completed a teaching assignment in Russia, and this was the easiest way out. No, I haven't been here all this time; after the incident in the Shrieking Shack I apparated to London and stayed in a small Muggle hotel for a while. When I was well enough, I travelled to France, then moved to Italy, then to Malta, Morocco, Greece, India, and onwards. I make my living teaching Muggles. I am not in contact with anyone in the wizarding world, although I do read the Daily Prophet regularly, and to my knowledge, nobody knows I'm still alive save the one person who is currently gazing at my lips. My feelings on Potter have not changed, and if he plans to name his snotty offspring after me, I will change my name.'

Hermione was quite overwhelmed by the amount of information, but she held a blank expression and only withdrew her eyes from his lips.

'Isn't it quite ridiculous to keep holding a grudge at your age?' she said lightly and ate the last piece of the first potato. 'Especially as Harry has now changed his opinion of you.'

'I don't care what Potter thinks. I have never found anything admirable in him, and I never will.'

'You know, for such a clever man, you are pitifully bitter.'

Snape didn't seem taken aback by her arrow. He took another sip of his drink, his black eyes glinting through the glass.

'Do tell me what marvellous things Potter did that earned him so much admiration and love? I'm all ears.'

'He conquered Voldemort.'

'No, he didn't. Voldemort was killed by his own rebounding curse.'

'But Harry fought him, more than once.'

'So did many others. What makes him so special?'

'Maybe the fact that he was an innocent boy who was the prey of the darkest wizard of all time against his will.'

Snape leaned forward.

'You still don't get it, Miss Granger. What did Potter ever do that set him apart from, say, you? In every occasion he was helped by others or the circumstances were lucky. He never won a battle with his own skills or his own mind. Whereas you -you did a great deal with your skills. You basically held Potter up. Yet he is glorified, considered special, and hailed a hero. Can you deny it?'

Hermione didn't look at Snape. She was not going to let him win, even though logically speaking, his words made sense. She poured herself more water, her mind working feverishly.

'But Harry chose to die voluntarily to destroy that piece of Voldemort's soul in him. If he hadn't done that, nobody could have killed Voldemort. You can't deny that it was heroic.'

'Yes, in this world that favours death as the highest form of sacrifice or nobility it likely was so. But what if the Golden Trio had been only Potter, or, I shudder to say, Potter, Longbottom, and Weasley? What if I or Dumbledore had not lifted a finger to protect him in all those years?'

'I get your point,' Hermione said crossly. 'I just think you're being too hard on him. He tried, and he really did the best he could.'

'Nonsense. That was exactly Potter's problem. Everybody kept patting him on the head, and nobody really challenged him or forced him to become his own man. His story is the story of one extraordinarily lucky circumstance after another. You must pardon me for not seeing anything admirable in that.'

'Fine.' Hermione laid her utensils on the plate. She was not used to being overpowered in a debate. 'Can we possibly talk about something else than Harry?'

'You brought him up.'

Sweet cooked salmon, the man was annoying! Hermione did another count, this time to twenty.

'How come you continued teaching? I thought you hated it.'

'Dunderheads, yes, but every now and then you get a student who has enough spark to keep you going. It happens less with Muggle children; many of them have concentration issues due to TVs and video games, but even they have the occasional stars.'

'What do you teach?'

'Mostly English, Chemistry, and History. Sometimes Maths.'

'That's quite a wide range of subjects.'

Snape leaned back in his chair. He was dressed in a black Nehru jacket and black trousers, but he still reminded her of the bat-like man in the black cloak, sweeping through the castle corridors.

'The amount of knowledge required from an elementary school teacher is next to nothing. It is an easy task for a well-educated mind. You should know.'

Hermione nodded uncertainly and leaned back to allow a waiter take her plate away.

'Dessert, madam?'

'Just an orange juice, thank you.'

'Another dry sherry for you, sir?'

Snape shook his head.

The waiter balanced the empty water glass on the plate and dashed away. The dance floor had been filling gradually during their conversation, and now there were at least a dozen couples on it. Hermione watched a young couple nearby smile tenderly at each other, and the familiar tightening settled again in her chest.

She had loved dancing with Ron. He had blossomed into a man at the age of 19, and all the teenage lankiness had vanished. He had been big and safe, and she had loved burying her head in his chest. She had even bought a gramophone, and they had often danced quietly for hours in the long winter evenings. Nothing fancy, just leaning on each other.

Her eyes welled uncontrollably and she was thankful for the waiter, who squirmed between the tables with her orange juice.

'Thanks, and please put everything on my bill. Hermione Granger, room 12,' she half-whispered and raised the glass on her lips. The juice flowed down her throat, sour and strong, and gave her an excuse to cough and brush her eyes.

'You surprise me.' She heard Snape's voice through the music. 'I never considered you a sentimental person.'

She looked him straight in the eyes, her lips trembling.

'You may pride yourself with always hiding your emotions. I don't -I believe emotions are essential to being a decent human being. And when you have lost someone you loved with all your heart, there is nothing shameful or wrong in feeling sadness for a considerable time afterwards.'

Snape's fathomless eyes bored into hers. She couldn't read his expression, but he wasn't sneering.

'My survival depended on my ability to keep my heart away from my sleeve.'

'Yes, but Voldemort is gone, and there is no threat or reason any more to keep pushing away that what makes us human. I miss Ron, and every day I encounter situations and details that remind me of him. And yes, I will cry and be sad, but with time, it will lessen. That is human, too. I would imagine that you of all people would understand.'

It was a mistake. Snape's eyes flashed, and his body rigidified.

'Keep me out of your psychobabble!'

A-ha. Obviously, this was her weapon to block him from tormenting her, or even a possibility for her to turn things around. She put her glass on the table and leaned forward.

'Nonsense, Mr Snape. Now that we're here, I'd really like to discuss your relationship with Lily Pot-'

She was halfway through the word when Snape seized her arm. His black eyes were alight with ominous fire.

'There are paths where you will not go, Miss Granger. This is one of them.'

'And you're allowed to go down the same path for me?' Hermione whispered, staring at his white face, which was very close. 'You have the right to needle me about Ron and my grief, but I don't have the same right with your grief?'

Snape didn't let go of her arm, and they remained in position, glaring at each other.

'Täälläpä on suloinen pariskunta!' someone chirped, and the branches of a plant were swished aside to reveal the singer of the band beaming down at them. 'Olettekos te häämatkalla?'

'What?' Snape said, furrowing his brow and letting go of her arm.

'Oh, I see, you're foreigners! Are you on your honey moon?'

Everybody cheered, and Hermione blushed to the root of her hair.

'No,' Snape began, but the man seemed to be on such a cheerful mood that he was hardly listening.

'You were gazing at each other so romantically that I say we simply must see you on the dance floor. Come on!'

Everybody clapped, and some people even stomped their feet. The singer nudged Hermione and winked at Snape, gesturing to the dance floor where people had moved aside to let them in.

'Don't be shy, now!'

'We aren't -,' Hermione began, but Snape stood up, his face unreadable.

'The man is not sober. Let's go before he draws even more attention to us.'

And before Hermione could even blink, she found herself being guided towards the dance floor by Snape.