They are having coffee. It is close to five and the street lamps are starting to come on, the little white lights shining like tiny beacons along the streets, making Paris feel even older than it is. The air is cooling and she has pulled her poncho on to keep her shoulders warm, cursing her decision to wear the sundress instead of something warmer. Across from her, he is slowly sipping his coffee, his large hands wrapped around the wide white mug and the steam making his harsh features soften ever so slightly. It has been almost an hour since they sat down and little has been said, but there is a comfort in their proximity, a familiarity that she has missed.

Earlier, while coming down the steps of the Louvre, she had run into him, literally run into him. He had been going up the steps, headed towards the galleries, and in her haste to get to an appointment at the consulate, she had ran into his shoulder. Surprised hellos had been uttered, she had smiled at his familiar face, and he had invited her to coffee at the café they had frequented often on their trips to Paris. It had seemed like fate and she hadn’t been able to decline.

It is almost dark, now, and the soft lights are casting their shadows along the cobblestones. They had been here before, three years earlier, drinking the same coffees at the same table and relaxing after a particularly exhausting Ministry mission. She had been thinner and he had been paler. His hair had been longer, and on that particular day it was a disturbing shade of green, having been the target of a hex from a slightly irate witch. The memory of it brings a smile to her lips and she laughs softly.

“What’s going on in that head of yours over there?” he asks and she smiles wider.

She’s always loved his voice, the texture of it silky like satin sheets. That voice has said many things to her, some nice, some not so nice, and some that the memory of would always make her blush. She can sense the heat on her cheeks. “I was remembering the last time we were here,” she says.

He tilts his head just as he always does when he’s thinking. He groans as the memory comes to him and he runs a hand through his black hair, as if reliving the incident. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Tonks for that hex. It took weeks to get my hair back to its original color.”

She laughs. “I remember. We had to go to the de-briefing in London and it was still green. Ron couldn’t stop laughing.”

He smiles slightly, a gesture that only she would be able to notice. “Ah, yes, Weasley. If I remember right, Tonks hexed him as well.”

“He ended up with purple hair by the end of the night.”

“She was a little liberal with the hexes.”

“She’d just battled a nasty hive of vampires. You’d have been liberal with the hexes as well.”

“I usually am when it comes to Weasley.”

She laughs loudly and the secretive smile he reserves only for her forms on his lips. They are quiet again as the silence of a year apart descends upon them. He finishes his coffee and the waiter, ever attentive, strides across the patio to refill his cup. She watches this exchange and shakes her head when he turns to her with the pot. “Merci, no,” she says and the waiter leaves.

“Where have you been the last year?” he asks suddenly and the question throws her off guard. She has been hoping for more time, to first learn where he has been, why he hasn’t called. However, as is usually the case with their relationship, he beats her to the punch.

“I was in America for a short while, staying with some family in an effort to forget about Romania.” He nods at this – he understands – and she can’t help but remember that night in the small village near Transylvania. The werewolf, the understanding of who it was, and the evil knowledge that there was no way out, that she had to kill him. She had cried every night for a month after that and finally she had needed a break, a time away from the job she had once loved. “After that, I wandered around the country. I spent the last six months in Ireland in a cottage near Galway just being by myself. I came to Paris to see about a position with the consulate. I was headed there when I ran into you.”

He is studying her and she looks away, fearful to meet his eyes and the emotions that are residing within them. So much was left unsaid between them, so much was left undone. Even with the past behind her she still feels the emptiness that leaving him planted within her and it tears at her heart to be this near to him.

“You ran away.”

It is not an accusation, it is a statement of fact and she is unable to refute it. Instead, she lifts her eyes from the table but still does not meet his gaze. “Sometimes, it’s easier to run away.”

“What about in a bear attack?”

He is teasing her and she finds herself loving it. She smiles at him. “Perhaps not so much in that instance.”

He smiles and reaches out his hand. She stares at it, afraid to take it for what it might mean. “It is not often that I say this, as you would know, but I have missed you, Hermione. I was only waiting for you to come home.”

Her eyes connect with his and she sees in them what he sees in her: strength, power, love. She has loved this man for what feels like a thousand years. She was lost for a year and now, in a café in Paris, she has found what she was looking for all along. She takes his hand and the caress of his thumb along the back of her hand sends sparks throughout her body.

“I’ve missed you, Severus. Perhaps more than you’ll ever know.”

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Author’s Note: At no point in time will I ever own Harry Potter. That’s all J.K. Rowling’s job. However, I do own a Harry Potter Gryffindor scarf and somehow, that’s enough. Bain sult as!