She could almost pinpoint the exact moment that she first noticed Severus Snape.

Not Professor Snape, the Potions Master. Not Snape, the Death Eater and Order spy. Not even Severus, the friendly colleague.

It was the spectacles that first made Hermione Granger notice Severus Snape as, well, as a man.

It was during the first staff meeting of the term for Hermione’s fifth year teaching Transfiguration when Minerva passed around a stack of parchment for each member of her staff to examine. Hermione happened to look up from her paperwork to see him reach into his robes and pull out a small pair of nondescript reading glasses. She had watched, transfixed, as Severus opened the wire frames and slipped them on. He must have sensed her eyes upon him, for he looked up, meeting her gaze through the lenses. His eyes seemed larger and, impossibly, darker than she could ever remember seeing them before. The barest hint of movement drew her eyes to his lips, which were drawing downward into the beginnings of his familiar sneer. Embarrassed to be caught staring, Hermione had looked away for a moment. By the time she had dared to look up at him again, the spectacles were gone.

It was weeks before they made a reappearance.

-~*~-

Hermione sighed as another lock of hair slid free of the up-twist she had struggled to perfect that morning. The hair slid into her eyes, and no amount of aggravated blowing managed to budge it for long.

As she moved through the dungeon corridors, Hermione cursed under her breath. First at the large, cumbersome boxes precariously balanced in her grasp, then at the person responsible for her current predicament: Minerva.

Stopping just in front of his office door, Hermione added a third to her list of annoyances. Severus Snape.

If he'd only agreed to meet in her office when she'd requested it earlier that day, she wouldn't be here now, but no, the cranky man had refused her suggestion that they meet to discuss the latest (and rather large) project that Minerva had seen fit to foist upon her Transfiguration Mistress and Potions Master.

His reply to her owled invitation had been succinct and to the point. The spiky "No." was scrawled across the bottom of her parchment as if he had issued her a failing grade.

Never one to take no for an answer, especially when it would mean double the workload for her, Hermione had gathered up the boxes of material sent by the Ministry and stomped her way down to the dungeons.

The office door was ajar. Hermione didn't bother knocking - it wasn't as if she had a free hand anyway - and pushed the door the rest of the way open with her foot.

Severus looked up from the small piece of stiff, yellowed parchment cradled in his hand, his expression shifting from minor annoyance at the interruption to the carefully blank mask he favoured when speaking with her of late. Perched, innocently enough, on his nose were the pair of spectacles that Hermione had, if she were going to be honest with herself, thought of fondly over the last few weeks.

The hand holding the parchment twitched as Hermione crossed the room and dumped the boxes onto his desktop with a huff. If she happened to lean forward a bit more than absolutely necessary in the process and managed to catch a glimpse at the front of the small parchment, enough to see that it was actually an aged and worn photograph ... well, accidents did happen.

With a deliberate casualness that she couldn't help but find suspicious, Severus flipped the photograph upside down and slid it under a stack of essays.

"I can't imagine that you've come all the way down here with that load purely for a social visit, so let's cut straight to the point. What is all that, and more importantly, why would you think I would want it deposited on my desk?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and turned to inspect the pair of uncomfortable chairs arranged in front of his desk. This was going to be a very long evening - or a very short one if Severus had a say in it. Either way, she wasn't about to spend it sitting in one of the torture devices he kept around for misbehaving students. She transfigured one of the chairs into a duplicate of the one behind her own desk, then settled in. Her pleased look disappeared when she realized that he'd removed his glasses while her back was turned.

"You'll be putting that back to rights before you leave," Severus muttered, ignoring her saccharine, "Of course, Professor Snape," to poke an accusing finger at the box at the bottom of the pile. "This?"

"As I wrote in my letter earlier today, the Ministry is insisting on a tenth anniversary victory celebration here at the school this summer, and Minerva only agreed under the condition that she be allowed to make all the arrangements." Honestly, didn't he even bother to read it? Hermione shifted forward onto the edge of her seat and began to arrange the boxes of Ministry paraphernalia across the top of his desk.

"I seem to recall replying in the negative to that same missive. Therefore, my earlier question remains the same. What is all of this doing here?" Severus batted her hand away when she tried to shift his stack of essays to the side and out of her way.

"Because, Minerva doesn't have the time to organize a Ministry-approved tenth anniversary gala event, so she delegated it to part of her staff. Namely, you and me." Hermione opened the closest box and carefully peered inside. "Catering information."

"Don't be silly, there is no need for caterers. This is the sort of thing the house-elves live for," Severus scoffed, then sneered at her. "Do not take that as encouragement, I'm still not helping."

"Why not?" The house-elves would enjoy a chance to show off their culinary talents, she was sure he was correct about that. She made a mental note to talk to Minerva about some sort of extra compensation since the gala would be during the summer, and therefore outside the terms of the elves' usual contract. The matter of catering dealt with for the time being, Hermione opened another box. "Music."

"I don't have the time, either."

Hermione gave him the look she usually reserved for skiving students. Severus met her look with one of his own for a long moment, then waved a hand at the box of pamphlets. "If the Ministry has given them its seal of approval, then every band mentioned in that box is going to be utter rubbish."

"Quite possibly, yes, but short of asking the Weird Sisters back -" Hermione paused to fully appreciate Severus' shiver of disgust "- I haven't another suggestion."

"I have one. It involves telling the Ministry and Minerva exactly where they can-"

"Oh look, another box," Hermione quickly interrupted. This one was the largest of the lot, and closer to Severus' side of the desk than hers. It was also Spellotaped to within an inch of its cardboard life. Hermione came around the desk and reached across Severus to grab his letter opener. As she attempted to slice her way through the bindings of the box, she noted the way he shifted in his chair, as if trying to put space between them.

"If you're really this determined not to take on a few extra duties, why in the world did you agree to be the acting Deputy Headmaster while Filius is on sabbatical?"

"Agreed? Is that what that harridan is telling the rest of the staff? That I gladly agreed to fill in when Filius decided to fart off for a year to find himself?"

Hermione suspected there was no correct way to answer that. "Yes?"

She thought she heard him utter under his breath a string of swear words so vile she immediately filed it away for future use.

"I had no choice in the matter; it was a clause in my contract. Minerva insisted upon it and a few others when she rehired me, to prove to the board of Governors that she had every faith in my abilities to teach the youth of our world or some other codswallop. I should have known then that it would come back to bite me in the arse." He frowned and gestured that she should hand over the letter opener.

She had to admit, he was much more precise with his cuts.

The box exploded open in a shower of large, chunky confetti that covered the desk, the floor and both of them. Most of the pieces trembled and moved, attempting to position themselves at the top of a stack of the others. This seemed to cause the whole mess to continually shift and vibrate.

Hermione snatched a piece of the parchment that had come to rest precariously upon the bodice of her robes.

"It's a name. They're all names. Names and titles." To keep her treacherous fingers from reaching for a large piece that was nestled in Severus' hair, she dug around inside the box until she found a note. "Potential guests. We're to sort through them all and make a proper guest list. Someone has charmed the more important names to stand out, lest someone accidentally be forgotten. And there's a note here for a Mortimer Smythe, reminding him to label the box with a warning that the contents are under pressure."

Severus ran a hand through his hair, dislodging the parchment, and drawing her attention to the barely visible threads of silver hidden amongst the black, especially around his temple. "I trust he forgot?"

Pleased that he hadn't automatically assumed that she had somehow missed such a warning, and slightly shaken by the nearly overwhelming urge to smooth down his rumpled hair, Hermione could only nod in response.


-~*~-


The next time Hermione approached his office door she had a bulky folder full of Ministry notes about potential event speakers. It seemed everyone and their familiar wanted to "just say a few words" at the gala, and the Ministry had forwarded each and every request to Minerva.

Who, in turn, forwarded them to Hermione.

And Snape. Who was not waiting in his office as she had requested that he be when they spoke at lunch.

Damn that man.

Hermione closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, held it until the urge to stomp her foot like a child had passed, and then released it in a rush.

"Fine. I know last time didn't exactly go swimmingly, but I didn't expect him to stand me up ..." She blinked at the phrase that passed her lips, then snorted and rolled her eyes. "I'm whinging as if I've been ditched for a date."

She crossed the room and set her folder atop the desk, snatching up his quill and looking for a scrap of parchment so that she could leave him a note to let him know he hadn't managed to get off the hook that easily. When there was nothing obvious to write upon, she opened the center drawer of his desk and looked over the contents, not wanting to dig about in his private things too much.

There, face up and at the top of the surprisingly messy pile of parchments, broken quills, ink bottles and other paraphernalia, was the photograph Hermione had caught the barest glimpse of the other day.

Unable to stop herself, she reached down and lifted the photo free of the drawer. It was a Muggle photograph, and old if the yellowing of the colors were any indication. Several faint lines showed that it had been folded or creased in the past, then carefully straightened out again.

It was a picture of a family of four - she assumed they were a family, they all had similar features - standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. The mother and father were smiling. The younger daughter, with brown hair like her father, was tugging on her mother's hand and looking rather petulant. The other daughter was pointing at the French monument and grinning at the camera, her red hair shining in the sunlight.

Hermione held the photograph closer to her face, tilting it into the light so she could squint at the features of the redhead more closely.

She knew that face. Well, an older version of it, at least.

The door opened and Severus froze at the sight of her behind his desk, obviously holding the very object that he had removed from her sight the last time she'd been in his office.

He stepped into the room and quietly shut the door behind him. "Please tell me I did not just catch you snooping through my things."

She had expected him to rage at her for invading his privacy, and she probably would have let him, considering she had been caught red-handed, so to speak, but this calm non-abrasive Severus was throwing her off guard, and Hermione wasn't sure what to do in response.

"I was looking for a scrap of parchment with which to leave you a scathing note for missing our appointment, but your drawer is a mess." Obviously, when in doubt, her default response was to go on the offensive, it would seem.

Severus merely arched a brow at her as he crossed the room. Once at her side, he gently removed the photograph from her hand and replaced it in the drawer.

She swallowed hard, waiting for the explosion that was sure to come.

"I was dealing with Mister Merriweather and Mister Bryton. Pomona found them behind Greenhouse Four with an illicit potion."

"Oh."

Severus continued to stare at her for a long moment; then, with a put-upon sigh, he gestured toward the chair she had taken last time. "I do have things to do later this evening, Hermione. The sooner you begin, the sooner I can tell you to leave me be and get to them."

Hermione remained standing and nibbled on her lower lip.

"I'm going to regret asking this, I know I will, but what is wrong now?" Severus pulled out his chair and sat, once again gesturing that she should do the same.

"It's just ... aren't you going to - to yell? Rage? Look at me disapprovingly, even?"

"Do you want me to?" Severus continued when Hermione shook her head in the negative. "Will it make you feel any more guilty than you already do?" Again, another negative, although this one was slightly more hesitant. "Then what purpose would it serve? I trust you won't do it again, or at least I won't catch you doing it again, correct?"

She almost replied with a "Yes, sir," like a thoroughly chastised schoolgirl, before remembering that she was an adult and Severus' colleague now. A thoroughly chastised colleague. "Yes, Severus."

He seemed to relax, leaning back in his chair and letting his posture soften slightly.

"It's a lovely picture. Who is it?"

"Bloody hell, woman!" Now there was the glare she had been expecting earlier. "Are you purposely trying to provoke me?"

"No." Maybe. "I was just curious. The one girl does look a bit fam-"

"Yes. It's Lily Potter, her parents and that wretched sister of hers." He sighed and rubbed his temples. Clearly, she should abandon the topic and focus on her original reason for being in the dungeons in the first place.

"You keep her picture in your desk?"

His tone was clipped. "Of late."

"Why now?"

"If I tell you, will you let the subject drop?"

Hermione leaned her hip against the desk, not far from one of his hands, and nodded. Considering he didn't need to tell her anything and was being uncharacteristically forthcoming with information, she thought herself rather lucky.

"I've never been to Paris."

She waited, expecting there to be more to that statement. There wasn't. "You've never been to Paris."

"No." Hermione watched as the hand nearest her hip twitched, then Severus reached out to replace the quill she had dropped earlier.

He looked anywhere but at her as he continued. "There were no - family vacations when I was a child, and after I - well, there wasn't much of an opportunity for pleasurable travel after that."

"So, you want to go to Paris, then?"

"I am going. As soon as the last little cretin gets loaded on to the train this summer, I'm leaving. Which is why, as I've told you numerous times, I can not help you with the Anniversary Gala. I shall not be here."

Hermione laughed and had the audacity to perch her bum on the edge of his desk. "I don't think Minerva is going to take no for an answer, Severus. What if I offer you a deal? You help me organize this mess, and in return, I will help you find a way out of actually attending."

She gave him a look that plainly said she was pleased with the brilliance of her offer. Severus returned it with one of his own, one that said he was clearly unimpressed.

"Between the two of us, I'm sure we'll come up with something foolproof, that even Minerva couldn't argue with, and then you will be in Paris, guilt-free."

Severus harrumphed. "I assure you, guilt is the last thing I would feel if I were to miss this monstrosity."

Deciding to take that for consent, Hermione pulled the folder of potential speakers across the desktop so that it was in front of Severus. "Here we go. There are two hundred and ninety-two individuals who have asked to speak during the Gala. Obviously, a vast majority of them shall end up disappointed."

She flipped the folder open and handed him the first piece of parchment.

"I thought we might use a color-coded sorting system: green for definite speakers, yellow for the maybes and red for the absolutely nots. Once we've got them sorted by color, we can see if we need to weed them down anymore. What do you think?"

Severus held the parchment out nearly at arm's length. "I think your handwriting has degraded into chicken scratches since you were a student. Can you even read this?"

Hermione snatched the parchment away while giving him her version of the evil eye. Before she could reply, there was a knock at the door. She stood up and smoothed her robes as Severus told whomever it was to enter.

The seventh year prefect seemed relieved to find her in Severus' office, and he quickly explained that someone had recalled seeing her head down to the dungeons earlier, and that she was needed in the Gryffindor common room.

With a quick reminder for Severus - "Two hundred and ninety-two. Unless you want to be at this all night, I'd get started." Hermione quickly followed her prefect up to Gryffindor tower.

-~*~-

Things took longer to deal with than Hermione had hoped, so it was after curfew before she was able to make her way down to the dungeons once more.

It was late enough that she thought Severus had probably given up on their project and returned to his rooms for the night, but with any luck her folder would be on his desk still.

She was surprised to see a soft light coming from under the office door. Moving quietly, she opened the door and entered the room, pleased that Severus was still seated at his desk.

He was reading one of the speaker biographies from the Ministry, his reading glasses in place. Hermione was struck, once more, by how attractive she found him like this.

In another fit of honesty, she admitted that she found him attractive most of the time. Perhaps not when he was snidely telling off one of her Gryffindors and taking an astronomical amount of House Points, but definitely when he took the time to ask her how her day had been in the staff room, or when he passed her a bowl of her favourite pudding at dinner. Oh, and the all-too-rare occasions when she had seen him smile.

Even before the precious spectacles had made their first appearance, Hermione had treasured those all-too-brief smiles.

Severus looked up to find her frozen, halfway across his office. He frowned, then tapped his wand at the parchment in his hand before setting it in one of the four piles atop his desk. "Don't just stand there. Contrary to what you seem to believe, I'm not about to finish this on my own."

Hermione hesitated for a moment, then moved to his side, taking up her earlier position perched on the desktop. She noticed that he seemed to stiffen in his chair, posture impossibly straight, even for him.

"How far did you get?"

"Perhaps two-thirds. Most of these are inappropriate. There are thinly veiled salesman wanting to pitch to a large captive audience. Even worse are the politicians, who did nothing but stand in the way during the war, and now want to link their names with the victory."

They shared a moment of annoyed silence at that, before Severus pushed his chair away from the desk. "I believe I've done more than my fair share of the work this evening. I shall leave you to it."

He reached up to remove his glasses, and Hermione acted without thought. Her fingers gently touched the back of his hand. "Don't."

His skin was warm to the touch; she didn't know why that seemed to surprise her. Slowly, cautiously, her fingers moved, covering more of his hand until she was holding it, her thumb caressing his palm.

Severus visibly swallowed. "I don't like to wear them. They make me look like someone's grandfather." He blurted the last out, as if unable to keep it in. His voice was softer than she was used to hearing from him, almost ... unsure and seeking reassurance.

"I like them," was her simple answer. I like you.

"All right," he breathed. He began to lower his hand, and Hermione thought to draw her own back, but Severus closed his fingers upon her, capturing her thumb.

-~*~-

The last of the carriages containing the students had barely departed when Hermione began to hurry down the stairs toward Severus' quarters. Clutched in her hand was a small box, carefully tied with twine.

The door opened easily at her knock, and Hermione smiled once again at being granted such free access to Severus' sitting room. The man in question appeared after a moment, and through the open doorway he had just come from Hermione could see an open suitcase on the bed.

"Already packing?"

"I should have started last night, but you did keep me up rather late discussing Mettlecorn's article."

Hermione felt her cheeks flush at the memory of the evening before. After their discussion, which had nearly turned into an argument, there had been the kiss goodnight. Which had turned into several - steadily more heated - kisses pressed up against the door, before Hermione had left, well after one in the morning.

"This is for you." She held out the box.

Severus looked from the box, to her, and back again, before cautiously reaching out to take it. He untied the twine and opened the lid. Nestled inside the box was a map of some sort.

"A wizarding map of Paris. It's supposed to show all the wizarding sights and highlights, as well as the Muggle ones." She bit her lower lip, anxious to see if he'd like it or not. "You don't have one already, do you?"

"No, I - No. Thank you." He pulled the map free from its box and tucked it into his robes. "I haven't seen Minerva today. Last time I saw her she was still trying to convince me to stay for the Gala. Since she's not down here demanding that I remain at the castle, can I assume you talked some sense into her?"

"I spent this morning going over all the final details with her, and finally convinced her that our presence was not necessary the day of."

"Our presence?" Trust Severus to pick up on that one little word.

"Yes, well, you see, I've never been to Paris."

The look he gave her made her heart sing as Severus pulled her into his arms and kissed her as if he'd never let her go.

The End