Hermione found herself staring into the mirror and looking forward to the end of term with an intensity that would have been totally foreign to the eager pupil she had once been. Several days of entertainments were intruding on the ever-shortening time left before Parvati would arrive to claim her perfumed and bottled pound of flesh. Add to that the effort of handling a student body over-excited by the presence of several celebrities and the suspension of normal classes, and a sour-tempered Snape - made even more so, presumably, for the same reasons - and she was beginning to feel more than a little strung out.

Tonight was event number three in the current Season; the Yule Ball. She dragged a brush unenthusiastically through her hair and wondered whether she should wear it up or down.

It wasn't that she didn't appreciate and support Dumbledore's enthusiasm for parties, but there ought, she mused, to be a limit somewhere.

Snape had been avoiding her since the Quidditch match; at least he hadn't appeared in the lab - although a neatly labelled rack of prototypes for the men's range had disappeared from the workbech, so she assumed that he had been in, or Dobby had developed a new interest in personal grooming - and he had always managed to be several people away from her whenever they were both constrained to appear in the same public place. He had certainly not made any attempt to even acknowledge her at the meal the previous evening; he had appeared more intent on glowering alternately at his food and at the world in general and then vanishing at the first opportunity that had presented itself. Not that she had been too much later leaving herself, of course, but it was the principle of the thing. Only the conversation with Queroz prevented the evening from being unaccountably dismal.

And, if he hadn't offered to escort to the Ball, she would probably have been without a companion for tonight as well.

**********

After some more thought, she had decided to wear her hair up. It was elegant and a couple of charms secured it firmly. It also perfectly complemented her outfit; a pencil straight skirt, worn with a high-necked fitted jacket, both in black velvet, with the collar and front fastening delicately embroidered with twining gold threads and sparkling jewels. Since her last year at school she had had a taste for understated elegance, and there was no question that this was both.

Queroz's eyes sparkled when she opened the door to his knock. He took her hand and bowed low, brushing his lips softly against the back of it.

"You look magnificent, my dear," he murmured. "Simply exquisite."

Hermione smiled in response, feeling a gratifying mixture of flattery and satisfaction. The compliments sounded well coming from an attractive man; they were certainly not terms she would ever expect to hear from Snape.

Queroz swept her through the castle and into the Great Hall and a warm wash of welcome and compliments. They made their way through the crowd and up to the top table, passing Snape as they took their places. He simply scowled at them and looked away. Hermione sighed more loudly than she had intended to, and Queroz tightened his grip on her arm.

"Don't let that bad-tempered fool upset you, my dear," he said softly.

A spark of anger lit within her. She wasn't about to let Snape's sulking ruin yet another evening.

"Don't worry," she replied, "I have every intention of having an excellent time."

Queroz laughed, a gentle musical sound.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, holding the chair away from the table so that she could sit down.

Once the feast was over and the tables moved back, the main purpose of the evening could get underway; the dancing. Queroz was, naturally, the first to lead her out onto the floor. Hermione was hardly a regular party-goer but a working life at Oxford involved fairly frequent formal occasions and ensured that her dancing skills were not allowed to get completely rusty. Whilst she knew that she wasn't an expert, she thought that she gave a reasonable account of herself on the dance floor. Queroz was an easy partner, graceful and sure on his feet. She had little difficulty in following his steps and was very soon beginning to enjoy herself, forgetting Snape and his impossible moods.

"You dance beautifully, my dear," said Queroz over the music. "Where did you learn?"

So much for forgetting.

"I learnt in my last year at school," she said, a little evasively. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"It was a good idea," he confirmed. "There are few things more delightful than sweet music and a beautiful woman."

His hand between her shoulder blades pulled her infinitesimally closer, and then the song finished, the dancers separated and everybody clapped. Before Queroz could say or do anything else, another voice interjected.

"My dance, I think."

Queroz gracefully moved back, the band started up again and Hermione was pulled into the embrace of Harry Potter.

She smiled in genuine pleasure.

"Harry, how lovely. I was beginning to wonder if I would get any chance to talk to you at all whilst you were here."

Harry Potter, still small and wiry, as befitted a Seeker, but now with the marks of an adult in his face and bearing, laughed wryly.

"So was I. Albus has had us doing Quidditch clinics the last couple of days. I'm exhausted. I don't know how Hooch has the energy to do it every day."

"Well, Hooch isn't 'a celebrity'." She gave the words a familiar twist.

Harry pulled a face.

"He's still as cheerful as ever, isn't he?"

Snape again.

"You've been talking to Snape?"

"Mmm." Harry paused as they changed direction to avoid colliding with another couple. "Ron and I were running the Slytherin clinics today. They have some promising players, if they can just overcome their urge to kill the opposing team."

"Isn't that what Quidditch is about?" she teased, feeling an odd reluctance to discuss Snape with Harry.

"Not officially," he returned with a grin. "Anyway, Snape was supervising the clinics - presumably he thought we were going to poison his team or something. He didn't say very much, just glared a lot. It was quite comforting in a way. I don't think I could have handled it if he'd come over and given me a manly hug or something."

Hermione choked and missed her step at the vision. Fortunately for the rest of the dance floor it was the end of the dance and impulsively, she pulled Harry into a hug.

"I've missed you," she said. "We should get together more often."

A hand on her shoulder made her jump.

"Unhand that woman, Potter. There are other, more deserving, partners in line."

Ron Weasley pulled her away from Harry and on to the floor for the next dance. After that, she barely had the chance to sit down. Ron, Harry, Dumbledore, Queroz, Zacharias Smith and Roger Davies all danced with her. Even Oliver Wood partnered her once, although she could have sworn that he kept nervously glancing in Parvati's direction.

The thought of Parvati brought her back to the subject that had been hanging around on the edge of her consciousness all evening: Snape. Hanging around was the word, she thought. She had been expecting him to evaporate as soon he was able, true to form, but instead he had stayed, prowling the edge of the Hall, scattering students as he went, never participating but always floating on the edge of her vision, a black speck like the beginnings of a migraine.

Eventually, the combination of the heat and early warnings of sore feet made her move away from the main crowd, intending to make a quiet exit. She was almost there when a voice made her stop.

"Leaving so soon, Miss Granger?"

Snape had come up behind her. She stopped and turned.

"I think so," she said. "The Ball seems to be winding down."

This wasn't strictly true; the younger pupil contingent had mostly left, but the older pupils and the adults were still going strong.

Snape stood there, just looking at her. He was wearing his dress robes, almost indistinguishable from his normal attire.

"Did you want something in particular?" she asked eventually.

"I wondered if you would care to dance, but you appear to be leaving."

The request, if it was one, was delivered so flatly that she wasn't quite sure of her ground. Firmly, she tried to ignore the fact that her heart hed leapt, just a very tiny amount, at the thought.

"Are you asking me for a dance?" she said cautiously.

He shrugged.

"I suppose so," he said indifferently.

Typical Snape finesse, she thought.

"I would be happy to dance with you, Severus," she said, stressing his name just a little.

"Very well then," he said, turning and moving back towards the centre of the Hall, waiting for her to join him.

She stepped up close to him and he took her in the classical ballroom dance hold, holding her right hand, his own right hand just above the small of her back, in between her shoulder blades.

And her body remembered. Remembered the lessons, the steps, the way he controlled their movement, the way the slightest pressure from his hand moved her body now one way, now the other, all synchronised with the pulse of the music. All her partners that evening had been competent - a pleasure to dance with - but with none of them had she felt this physical response that almost by-passed the conscious direction of her mind. Her left hand was on his upper arm; if she moved it to his shoulder and along to his neck she knew what she would find there, how it would feel. Her body remembered.

Her right hand was held in his left, palm to palm, his hand strong and confident, his skin warm. She wondered if she could pick up a faint woodsy smell from him - cedarwood or maybe cypress - but it was hard to tell. Virtually every person in the room had applied some form of scent that evening and the increasing body heat meant that the air was full of volatiles; it was hard to identify any one in particular.

Snape said nothing as they danced, just looked past her to a point in the middle distance, but it didn't matter. Her body remembered what her mind was busy denying.

When the dance finished, he released her and walked away, leaving her standing there, momentarily disorientated, aware that her heart was beating faster than normal; certainly faster than was justifed by the mild exertion on the dance floor.

Damn, she thought slightly incoherently. Just when she'd managed to get herself into a nice routine of being irritated by the man, one innocuous social encounter left her gaping like some stupid adolescent. So what if she was still attracted to Snape; it was hardly going to improve their working relationship to resurrect the memory of a ridiculous crush brought on by totally exceptional circumstances. Not when she'd gone out of her way to make sure that her letters were all polite and professional and, above all, adult.

Adult, yes that was it. Whatever she might feel herself, their relationship needed to be adult and professional. There was nothing else that he needed to know.

The band was still playing. She shook herself. It was definitely time to leave before Ron or Harry or Queroz spotted her standing here like an idiot and wanted to know what was wrong. This was not something that she needed to share with any of them.

It was already quite complicated enough.