The last day of of term arrived and brought with it an abrupt change in the weather. Although the last few days had been eventful - at least, from the perspective of the students - they had also been rather dull and nondescript climatically speaking. However, the morning had brought crisp, clear air and a resfreshing chill that promised a dry trip to Hogsmeade station for those pupils returning to their families for the festive season. The Hogwarts Express was also returning most of the adult visitors to their other lives; Harry, Ron, Cho and the other Quidditch players were heading back to London and then on to whatever work and Christmas had in store. The previous evening had, in fact, been the only proper reunion that the old school friends had achieved given the current demands on their time, and what had started as a quiet meet-up had quickly degenerated into a full scale party. Only the fact that Hermione had remained vaguely clear-headed enough to cast some well-timed, and much-needed, silencing charms, had prevented the wrath of authority in the dread person of Argus Filch from descending on them.

She refused to feel guilty about taking an evening off; in point of fact, a relaxed evening in the company of good friends had considerably lessened her feelings of tension and had provided the ideal opportunity to suppress any worrying feelings that might still be lingering from the Yule Ball two nights ago - although there had been the inevitable teasing about her dance with Snape. She had been a little surprised to find that whilst neither Harry nor Ron spoke of their former Potions Master with affection, most of the vitriol seemed to have disappeared.

"He was a git at school," Ron had said idly, "and I expect he still is one, but I hardly wake up every morning plotting my revenge on him. Voldemort is gone and life moves on. And you should be grateful. After all, I could have tried to console you like I did at the Valentine's Ball in our final year."

He had grinned wickedly and Hermione had felt herself blush. Cho and Ginny had immediately picked up on that and the story was told - at least, the heavily edited version - despite the apparent softening of his attitude to Snape, she hadn't thought that Ron was quite ready to know exactly who he had tried to kiss that night - amidst shrieks of laughter, and the conversation had moved on.

Memory, both recent and no-so-recent, now curved her lips into a smile as she negotiated her way down the main stairs, book in hand, through a melée of trunks and animal cages and milling children. At the foot of the stairs, looking for all the world like a policeman on point duty, was Peregrine Queroz. He was intent on trying to corral small groups of children so that they could be dispatched to the station; the children appeared to be equally intent on defeating him, darting here and there to exchange comments and insults with friends and enemies. Queroz's normal poise was beginning to look a little worse for wear and a Muggle phrase about herding cats came into her mind. He smile became wider as present amusement took over from past reminiscence.

He noticed her picking her way down the stairs, and paused to make an elegant small bow to her.

"Hermione, how lovely to see you. Please forgive the chaos." He gestured to the stairs and hall.

She finally made it to floor level and to within comfortable speaking distance of him.

"I see they've left you to it then."

He pulled a slightly comical face.

"Yes, indeed. Even Professosr Snape was adamant that he had urgent house business to attend to this morning."

I'll just bet he did.

"Ah well, it'll all be over by dinner," she said encouragingly.

"And peace will descend," he added with a gentle smile.

"Oh yes," she agreed. "I must say, I do enjoy the castle more when it's quieter."

The last words were spoken with increasing volume, as something feline and something avian suddenly decided to engage in a competition to demonstrate whose dignity had been most comprehensively and loudly outraged.

Queroz looked regretful.

"I think I'd better erm...,"

She nodded.

"I think you'd better as well. It sounds as if it it's about to get nasty."

She was about to move away and then paused as Queroz lightly lad a hand on her arm.

"Are you staying here over the holidays?" he asked.

She nodded, although it was impossible to ignore the mayhem building up on the other side of the hall.

"Excellent," he said happily, "Shall I see you at dinner?"

She nodded again, as an ear-splitting squawk testified to the superiority of paw over beak when it came to launching offensive action through a confined opening.

"I'll look forward to that, at least," he said ruefully, and then darted over to deal with a pair of indignant familiars and tearful owners.

Hermione threaded her way to the edge of the throng and headed for the sanctuary of the dungeons. The rest of the day in the lab, and then a peaceful dinner in the Great Hall with Queroz; a very civillised start to the holidays, she thought. If nothing else it would distract from the Russian roulette of Snape's moods and the fact that she had absolutely no feelings whatsoever that she needed to conceal from him.

When she reached the lab she was surprised to see that the wards had already been removed. Given that Snape had pleaded urgent house business to avoid the supervision of the departing pupils, she had assumed that he would use the same excuse to stay out of the lab. Instead, when she cautiously opened the door, she saw a rack of neatly labelled sample bottles sitting on the edge of the workbench.

Curiously, she put her book down and picked up one of the bottles. It was labelled in Snape's hand, no more legible for being small. Even after ten years of only sporadic written contact, she could read his writing with surprising ease:
Shampoo/rinse: Base: cider vinegar; actives: thyme, cedarwood, nettle, sage.
She put it back and picked up another and read:
Shampoo: Base: glycerin, jojoba; actives: cypress, cedarwood, rosemary.

Intrigued, she pulled out the stopper and sniffed at it. It was pleasantly herbal. Looking at the actives she guessed that it might be for oily hair although it was lacking the geranium or lemon that she might have added to give it a more feminine fragrance. She sniffed again. It definitely was rather nice, she thought, and somehow familiar although she couldn't place it; perhaps it was just that she had been working very closely with these types of ingredients. She was about to pick another bottle from the rack when a movement behind her disturbed her.

"I trust it meets with your approval," Snape said, with a touch of sarcasm.

She put the bottle down slowly and turned.

"I wasn't expecting to see you here today," she said carefully.

"Really?" He sounded surprised. "I was under the impression that you wished for me to 'come and do something to actually help'. Wasn't that how you put it. In fact," he consulted the clock in the room pointedly, "you appear to be somewhat late."

She gritted her teeth. Clearly the roulette ball had fallen into the section marked 'supercilious bastard' rather than the one marked 'responsive dancing partner.' She tried not to sigh. Or scream. Either would have worked for her.

"I was told that you had urgent house business to deal with this morning."

He raised an eyebrow.

"By whom?"

"Peregrine, if you must know. I saw him in the entrance hall as I was coming back from the library. Which, again if you must know, is the reason why I am later than usual."

She cursed herself for giving in to the temptation to explain her whereabouts to him.

"Professor Queroz," he gave the name a nasty stress, "is obviously the final authority on my commitments for the day."

Now, what did he have against Queroz, she wondered wearily, other than the obvious fact that he was the DADA teacher. She found that she didn't have the energy to push the point. He was here, apparently willing to help, and given the time pressure, she wasn't about to turn him down, no matter what sort of a mood he was in. She ran her hand through her hair.

"Shall we get on with it then," she suggested. "I need to start looking at facial masks. I think I can work on a variant of the basic moisturisers."

He nodded curtly and turned away, busying himself on the other side of the room.

The morning passed and as Hermione became more absorbed in her work, her irritation with Snape faded to the extent that her comments to him were more abstracted than irritated. Snape, concentrating in his turn, also appeared to become less touchy, so that by the time the house elves brought in a plate of sandwiches and fruit for lunch, their conversation was tolerably civil, if somewhat guarded.

As she picked through the grapes, and drank the coffee that had materialised, she could feel the pull of recollection, reminding her that once, sessions like this has been pleasant, relaxing, comfortable. She wondered when that had been lost; how it had been lost, and why she should be feeling such an acute sense of regret. Snape, himself, was absorbed in some property of his own coffee. She wondered what he was thinking. Part of her hoped profoundly that he wasn't counting the days until she would be out of his hair, although, she acknowledged, that he probably was. That same part of her was wishing that they could recapture at least some of the old ease; not all of it, of course not, that would be completely inappropriate and unwanted, no doubt. But just a little part of it, maybe.

She sighed, and the noise seemed to catch Snape's attention. To cover it, she coughed a little and then recalled that she had never answered his very first question to her.

"I must say," she started, a little awkwardly, "the shampoos seem very nice." A sudden thought struck her. "Are they the samples for the men's range?"

There was a grunt which might have been a yes.

"Have you been testing them as you go along?" There was enough scientific curiosity to justify asking the question, she thought a little wickedly.

There was another grunt, this time with even less enthusiasm.

"And?" she pressed.

"And I appear to be clean," he said eventually.

I'll take that as a ringing endorsement then.