Etchings.

Etchings.

The damn fool had invited her up to see his etchings and hadn't even had the bloody courtesy to understand what it was that he was saying. Obviously Queroz hadn't paid much attention to any form of Muggle Studies, although he did appear to be trying to study one particular Muggleborn rather more closely.

Snape was in the lab early again, and it was colder still this morning; he had transfigured his mug from stoneware to insulated steel in an effort to stop the liquid from going cold within seconds - a trick he had noticed amongst Muggles, although they had to purchase such mugs rather than simply modifying an existing one. No matter how it was achieved, the theory was sound and the coffee was kept hot.

Rather like his temper this morning. He had torn several doors from the ridiculous advent calendar that Dumbledore had given him, having forgotten entirely about it over the last few days. Ripping thin cardboard was not, however, very satisfying.

Pounding tears of frankincense, however, was much more satisfying - not least because it was also rather productive. The dried resin shattered into long shards at the first blow.

Etchings. Bloody etchings. She was probably going to see his etchings this evening - he hadn't felt inclined to hang around and watch Hermione make a date with that bloody fool of a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. To add insult to injury, the man probably knew next to nothing about the Dark Arts in practice. Where the hell had he been during the war?

The shards in the bowl were lessening now, settling and reducing as he continued the rhythm of pound-scrape-crush of pestle and mortar.

What did she see in the man? A pretty face and a pretty personality? And why did he care? She would be gone by Christmas anyway, back to family and friends and back to lecturing and they would do no more than exchange cards and the very occasional letter for a few years until even that contact dwindled to nothing.

The resin was a powder now, fine dust sparkling slightly in the early morning light.

Everything was cyclical - what had been was what would be, and he had been fine with what had been. So he would be fine with what would be.

The scent released by the resin dust probably did as much to calm him down as did the physical effort involved in reducing the resin to dust and, by the time the resin was ready to be steam distilled, Snape was rather less tense than he had been when he had woken.

As the resin needed to settle before distillation, Snape headed up to the Hall for breakfast. He wasn't entirely certain he was in the mood for company but, equally, he was surprisingly hungry.

Few enough people had made it into breakfast that Snape found a comfortable corner of the table away from conversation at which to settle and begin to sip at his second cup of coffee of the morning; a bowl of porridge cooled in front of him. The soft white of the cereal, studded with apples and raisins, was warmly scented with cinnamon and rather soothing.

He was staring absently into the bowl, stirring the mass with a spoon to cool it a little before eating, when he was aware of movement by his side and someone settling into a chair next to him. He frowned at the bowl, his head down, and tried to settle back into the vaguely warm and tired comfort of the moment before. His hair had settled in front of his face as he looked down, a curtain to shut the rest of the world away.

Only this time he was not particularly successful at shutting out the world - or the world, and this particular representative, was not sufficiently aware to realise it was being shut out.

"Morning, Severus. It's beautiful outside, the snow's frozen over. Sparkling wonderfully. Do you recommend the porridge this morning? It looks good, I was trying to decide between porridge and the bacon and eggs on my way up to the Hall."

The idiot with the etchings. The calm mood induced by crushing defenceless resin abruptly dissolved.

Apparently Queroz didn't actually require a response - or wasn't inclined to wait for one.

"What have you been doing with your hair? Been experimenting with some of your concoctions? Noticed last night that you'd been doing something - Minerva mentioned it, so I looked and do you know, she's quite right. You are looking a lot better, Severus."

Snape contemplated silence. Contemplated a monastery. Never mind the minor detail of a lack of any belief in a deity, monasticism was starting to look like a very attractive option.

"Can't believe Hermione agreed to go out with me - she's a gorgeous girl."

"Woman."

"I beg your pardon?"

"She's a woman, not a girl."

"Oh, right. Of course. I thought I'd take her into Hogsmeade, Albus mentioned a restaurant there a couple of evenings ago, I'll have to ask him what the name was again-"

"Excuse me."

Snape left the Hall abruptly for the second time in twenty-four hours, his earler temper back in full force. The hunger that had driven him up to the Hall was edged out by a knot of annoyance and jaw-clenched irritation. Fury was mixed in there as well, but he chose not to acknowledge it.

The man was a moron.

The door to the lab thumped open and banged against the wall as he stalked down the steps to the benches, his robes swirling behind him. Hermione was already in the room, had obviously elected not to eat breakfast with the staff this morning. The upset vial and spreading liquid on the bench in front of her suggested that she had been startled by his appearance in the lab.

Her words confirmed it.

"What the hell are you doing? Do you have any idea how much work you've just messed up? Why are you stalking into here as though you have a class of first years to terrify?"

A note of terrified anger threaded through her words. He really had scared her; an apology was in order, although he wasn't particularly inclined to voice it. He settled for an apology by action instead, moving over to her bench and cleaning up the mess he had created remotely and efficiently re-starting the process of making the shampoo sample.

Hermione stood back and stared at him as he worked silently, eventually joining in where she could. They worked together for an hour before she spoke again, when the sample was almost complete and ready again.

"Are you going to tell me what the problem is?"

A minute passed, then two. Snape stoppered the last vial of the sample and set it carefully in a stand on the side.

"Your boyfriend is more of a morning person than I am inclined to deal with. I made the mistake of going to the Hall for breakfast, not something I think I will repeat these holidays."

"My boyfriend?" Hermione's voice was genuinely puzzled.

"The Quidditch playing Romeo who invited you up to see his etchings." The words were punctuated with sarcasm. "Or do you have more than one?"

Hermione blinked at him.

"What are you talking about? Peregrine's a friend, certainly, but he's hardly a boyfriend. I barely know him."

"Something which he's determined to redress, clearly. Why else do you think he invited you to peruse his etchings?" Snape was across the lab now, beginning to assemble the apparatus for distilling the frankincense.

"He doesn't know what that phrase implies for Muggles - he's just being thoughtful, he knows I'm interested in the history of alchemy. Just because you clearly don't have any inclination to indulge someone's interest, don't automatically assume that doing so indicates ulterior motives!"

"Oh, grow up. The man's only interested in indulging one thing - why else the dinner for two in Hogsmeade? Come to that, he could easily show you the etchings somewhere other than his rooms. It doesn't matter whether the man understands Muggle idioms, he's clearly capable of coming up with the same idea independently."