The coffee steamed, swirling into barely perceptible tendrils above his mug as the chill dungeon air defeated any heat from the stove. The disadvantage - one of the disadvantages, and he was hard-pressed to think of any real advantages - of this work on cosmetics was that no heat was generally required in the basic preparation; absent the usual blast furnace of burners under cauldrons, December came with a vengeance in these depths of the castle.

It was still early - very early - and frost patterned the high windows of the laboratory, fracturing the light into a diffuse haze; the ice fractals spread across the glass in an etched arc that denied any coherent view of the landscape beyond.

The sun was barely risen and what light did make it through the frost was pink-red with morning; Snape was working by candlelight at the moment, testing out some ideas that had come to him when he awoke. Combinations of scent and moisture, fruit-based exfoliates. He refused to speculate upon the reasons why his dreams now apparently encompassed the textures and combinations of skincare - and refused to consider whether this was indeed an improvement on nightmares of darkness.

The scent of coffee masked the less-than-pleasant odour of the mixture he was working on; the end result was subtle, faintly wooded with some citrus at the back of the scent, but this particular step on the route to the finished product was less likely to win prizes. The bowl in front of him was filled with a loosely cohesive dull white mixture which would, eventually, be a shaving cream.

Snape almost smiled to himself as he recalled Hermione's rather startled expression when he had reluctantly suggested adding this particular product to the line up - she had blinked and asked what the point was; surely shaving was a chore that wizards dispensed with by magic? He had been certain that she was biting her cheek to stop herself from making some comment to the effect that only masochists - such as himself, for example - would actively choose to use a razor. They had had a similar conversation when discussing the women's products line-up, when she had included a foam in the list of products and then almost immediately dismissed it - a charm was considerably more effective.

Snape himself had had to bite his cheek to ask why, when charms were so much more effective, he had had to endure a procedure that still featured in his nightmares at the hands of her fellow students back ... then. He wondered whether Hermione had realised what he was thinking when she had added that some witches did experiment with Muggle options but, in general, not for long enough to make it worthwhile creating such products. They were, after all, short enough on time.

That discussion - on the product line up - had been almost their only conversation until yesterday. Perhaps it was the absence of students, perhaps it was simple inevitability, but at some point yesterday afternoon in the lab they had passed once again from awkwardness that bordered on hostility into a closeness that was at once more and less than friendship. Perhaps it was no more than understanding, as though some shift in atmosphere, in time, in actuality, had realigned them. As though something had cut through ten years of time without cutting through the experience of those ten years and had simply found the match again; the connection forged in an intimacy of adversity a decade ago.

Nothing particularly special had occurred - no trauma, no sudden crisis of realization; they had simply been working, and then had sat down for lunch.

A couple of comments about work had been exchanged as they started to eat, and then Hermione had fallen silent for the moment, watching him. He had assumed that she was looking for any indication that the samples he had tried were having an effect. He could, of course, have assured her on the point - he had made the damn things, after all. However, he hadn't been particularly inclined to begin to discuss whether his skin and hair felt any better than they had done with the soap he customarily used. Such a discussion would require him to admit that they did and he had rather thought she was having quite enough fun with the conversation as it was. Lunch had continued and with it the conversation ...

--

He picked an apple from the plate of fruit on the low table between their chairs, spinning it between his fingers idly. He considered various comments, thought of a number of things to say, then discarded each as painful small talk. He disliked the entire concept of small talk, avoiding it where possible, and regardless of that dislike was loathe in any case to begin to employ it with Hermione. They knew too much about each other to diminish that knowledge with superficiality; had known too much about the other, perhaps. He wasn't entirely certain they still knew each other, although the fundamentals were unlikely to have changed. His certainly hadn't; Hermione might, perhaps, have done - the decade after 18 would always be rather more affected by change than that after 38.

The morning's work had gone surprisingly smoothly; the irritable friction that had characterised their meetings - those that he had been unable to avoid - over the last few days appeared to have left on the Hogwarts Express, along with the students going home for Christmas. Work was a great leveller. He had been in two minds as to whether to come down to the lab today; he had work to do, marking and preparation for next term that he generally preferred to get out of the way at the start of the holidays. Once that was done, he was free to carry on with his own experiments, to follow his own research, without the constant refrain at the back of his mind that work remained to be done before the holidays were over.

Hermione seemed more relaxed, less inclined to pick a fight with him. The fact that his own more relaxed mood might have contributed to that didn't occur to him.

The coffee cooled as they sat in silence with their thoughts. A spark from the stove, crackling in the confines of the soot-black box, brought them out of their respective reveries, and Snape shook his head as he rose from his chair.

"Hermione, shall we?" he indicated the work before them with a sweep of his hand and, surprising them both, extended that hand to Hermione to pull her up out of her chair.

Before he continued with his own work, though, he peered over Hermione's shoulder to see how her work was progressing. The notes covering her desk were neat and precise, in familiar handwriting, and detailed a series of processes and ingredients. As with her other products, she had taken his original basic recipes

"Would the jasmine not work better in this sequence?" he asked idly, tracing a set of steps with a finger. Hermione glanced up at him over her shoulder, shaking her head.

"The combination doesn't work as well in the final scent. The difference in efficacy is minimal and, as this isn't exactly a cure for Crucio, the scent will matter more."

The methodical explanation, and the glance, fired the memories that had re-established themselves over the last few days. He had seen that expression, that glance, but on his own face. Looking down at him, not up.

"It's been a long time," he murmured, not quite aware that he was speaking aloud. A strange expression, almost quizzical, partly disbelieving, chased across Hermione's face. Then she nodded.

"Mmm," she said, a non-commital sound that could almost be taken for agreement.

"Do you -" she stopped.

"Do I think about it?" he asked, and she nodded again. He paused for a moment's thought, looking carefully at her. In the end, honesty won out - she deserved it and he couldn't remember the last time he had felt even vaguely inclined to soften his responses.

"No, not really. Not until recently. It would be a waste of time and energy, and achieves nothing." He wondered whether she would expect him to ask the same but thought, perhaps, that she wouldn't. And she didn't, simply nodding yet again at his words.

--

That was where they had left the conversation, and lunch; work resumed in silence, a rather more comfortable silence than before, regardless of the somewhat unfinished topic. Perhaps because the conversation was unfinishable.

Another conversation had picked up in the evening, less personal and wide-ranging; Snape realised with a start, as he took a sip of coffee, that he had missed that sort of conversation - the rest of the staff were, of course, ready to converse if he chose to take them up on it. Occasionally he did so, but time and teaching and perhaps inclination had narrowed their interests such that conversations were, in general, predictable. He had missed the pleasure of a conversation that simply flowed without obvious limits or edges, that didn't inevitably return to a comfortable centre.