"Hello," Hermione greeted Sagitta as she entered the room, the girl obviously upset she'd let her come in now.

"I thought you were dad."

Smiling gently, the elder witch let out a heavy breath and closed the door, leaning against it so that she didn't get too defensive.

"What's that?" The black-haired witch questioned her step-mother with a vacant wonder and nod towards the gift in Hermione's hand. 

"A gift, for you."

Handing out the parcel, the girl stood from in front of her fireplace and suddenly halted, "It's not cursed, right?"

"No," Hermione laughed agreeably, furthering her outstretched hand.

Taking the wrapped present with a pout, Sagitta slowly undid the coverings and found a plain box that she soon tore open as well, pulling out the contents with care. Her hands stopped before Hermione could see the small gift, though she did meet the girl's black eyes drowning in their surprise.

"You got me a glass marble?" She asked in confusion, twirling the now visible sphere in her delicate hands.

"It's not just any glass marble, Sagitta," Hermione said animatedly, "You can control it with your wand so it floats and it sends anything it hears into your ears."

The girl's eyes lit up a bit until she saw Hermione then the black orbs again looked down-trodden.

"Why would you give me this?"

"As a peace offering. You don't deserve the way I've apparently acted towards you. Even if you don't like me, I should not have replied in the likes."

The younger witch looked wearily at the elder, one who looked very serious in what she was saying.

"I still don't like you."

"I understand," Hermione spoke stoically, though it did hurt that there seemed to be little change in the girl.

"Well," the girl looked at the woman warily, "You can go now."

"Right," the brunette muttered and rolled her eyes on the way out. 

Finding Severus cooking instead of reading the Prophet, Hermione entered the kitchen and watched from near the doorway as he busied himself. She watched him with little mind to the fact he probably did not know she was there, her brown eyes following each move the wizard made. 

She had only been in this world for three days, and the most solid thing about it all was that she was still friends with Harry Potter. Severus, Draco, Ron, everyone else around her was different, and the fact that people who hated her before found joy in her presence made her spine feel like liquid. Watching Snape cook was like watching him brew in Potions over the five years she had possessed him as a Potion's Master. It was entrancing to see the works of the man's fluid movements, as if brewing and cooking were as simple as breathing for him. She envied such a skill, Potion's being her worst subject even if Hermione had still remained at the top of her class. Her mind wandered over the years and melancholy set in as guilt also played into her head.

She was here, watching a living Severus Snape cook for their family meal while back where she came from her friends were still fighting a war that she only had seen two snippets of in the past three days. It killed her to know that there was nothing she could do to help from here... though from the looks of it they still had her. 

If she did still live there, and they still had her, then that significantly decreased her guilt, but they would move on. Those there knew not that she was suffering here in this word of an utterly backwards life. She belonged neither there nor here, and that's possibly what bothered her most. 

Hermione had taken another witch's place in this world when she had one somewhere else, though the only person who missed this Hermione was Harry. He didn't know what she'd done, in retrospect, he only knew that she was not Hermione Snape, she was Hermione Granger. Those two women who varied so differently, it seemed.

Warring her thoughts, the brunette suppressed her inevitable guilt at what she'd done to this witch's life. It was't like she was ever going to get it back. 

"Hermione?" The liquid voice startled her from her pensive state.

"Hm?" She asked suddenly, finding her husband staring at her as he leaned against the counter, much unlike him.

"You were staring as I cooked, you haven't done that since the day we married."

Cocking an eyebrow at the odd statement, Hermione walked away from the wall to the middle of the kitchen where Severus stood a meter away against his counter. 

"What do you mean?" She asked hopefully, her hope being that he wouldn't think it weird she was asking of her own memories. Memories they shared with one-another.

"Don't you remember?" He said with a stupid grin, one that Harry usually wore, never this dark wizard before her. "I was making us a late-night meal after we'd gone to the ministry in your haste to be bonded and have it over. You stood, nearly right where you stand now and told me, 'Do not expect anything of me, Severus, for I expect nothing from you.'"

Feeling slightly sick at her rather horrid tone, she quickly wondered exactly what side of Hermione Severus had known. Her other self seemed rather two-faced for lack of a better phrase. 

Caught up in her guilt for her twin, Hermione smiled apologetically, "I am so very sorry for that."

"I still do not expect things from you, unless that dynamic wishes to change?"

Wanting to say yes, Hermione meant to, she very readily did, but the intrusion of a younger witch made it all the more impossible.

"Is supper ready yet, father?"

"No, darling," Severus responded, though his own black eyes never left the elder witch's.

"Hmph," she responded, and her presence didn't last long meaning that Hermione had not escaped from her own question yet.

She didn't want the dynamic of her relationship with her cordial husband to change. If she even thought of romanticizing it, she would see Snape, the utterly horrible man she'd known her first through sixth years and so on. There was no difference in her mind's eye. 

"No," she said against her earlier judgment, but in favor of most recent thoughts, "What's for supper?"

-

After the meal, Hermione and Severus were in the library, reading their respective books on respective furniture, as Sagitta was back in her own room, probably reading as well. So, the house was quiet with the sounds of pages turning every so often being the only noise to fill the entirety. 

Though, soon, Hermione's focus lay not with the book on her lap, but the man across from her who was far too engrossed in his own literature to pay any attention to her sudden decision to stare at him. His features were extremely focused on his book, the reading obviously good as he turned yet another page, the fourth in a single minute. Hermione laughed to herself, keeping the noise hushed and her smile hidden behind her unread book. She wanted to hate this Severus Snape who's silver ring was wrapped around her ring-finger, his own gleaming with another turned page. His nose, as hooked as ever, hung over the book he read, black eyes going from word to word, sentence to sentence, absorbing information that he would keep within the arsenal of his mind for what Hermione was sure would be forever. This man was different from the other she knew, he was cleaner and more proper, but he was still Severus Snape, a man who had tried to give up Harry. He hated the Golden Trio for some unbearable reason. Hermione hated Severus Snape, yet her heart tugged her towards him, though her body did not move. Her feet ached to go forward, back poising to stand, yet she made no move to do such a thing. Hermione stayed put, her eyes the only part of her that dared to touch Severus Snape knowing that an undoing would come from true contact.

Hermione would certainly lose herself were she to give into the feeling of him, were she to allow that man to embrace her further, to let his lips caress her own. 

She would lose, and Hermione Granger never lost.

Hermione stood as she felt herself lose the battle inside of her just a little, despite how much she didn't want to. Her footsteps took her close, seating herself next to her husband. The dark man finally looked up from his literature at the closeness of his wife and raised an imperious eyebrow to her.

"What are you doing?"

As Hermione was in some sort of strange stance, leaning over him as if to make contact, the man suddenly stood and broke her from whatever it was pulling her towards him.

"You must stop this!" He spoke forcefully, his words not drawled nor were they kind like she'd known this version of Snape to be on occasion. 

"Stop what?" Hermione asked innocently, her hands dropping down to her lap from their rejected stasis in the air.

"Your need to torture your husband! Do you want me or not Hermione?" He asked her blatantly. "You keep changing like night and day, you seem to have this affinity for me one moment then it drops in your words, and yet I have no idea if any of what you say is true? What has brought upon this, I know even less than your intentions. It is driving me mad."

Hermione cringed at the rightly perturbed Severus Snape, his bite hidden, but his bark was certainly loud.

"I don't know what to say," she replied stoically.

"What are your intentions, Hermione? Can you answer me that? Or do you not even know?" Severus asked with a bit of his Slytherin snarl coming into play.

"I just want to keep living in peace, like we have been."

"I don't know if I can do that, Hermione. We have been just fine these past two years, but now I think differently! You're unsettled as of late, it's unnerving for me to even look at you and see something different in your eyes, though I've no idea what it is," he told her in frustration.

Hermione knew what it was, though she never imagined he would be able to see such a difference when technically, there was none.

"I went through hell after my first and last relationship before you, Hermione. I have no interest in getting hurt like that again."

"I understand, but--" Hermione was rather glad for his interruption as she wasn't sure what she could have said to make anything better at that point in time. 

"No, you don't! I am going to ask you one last time, Hermione: What is it you're doing?"

She had to think hard about this, because if she ever did find it in herself to love this man before her, telling him no now would ruin any chance that would come of that. Hermione, however, knew that she should not expect such a thing from him when he reminded her still of the man who ruined her best-friend's life. Severus Snape was not the man she was meant to love, and Hermione Granger firmly believed that.

Her response started to form on her lips as the rise and fall of his chest caught her eye. The brunette watched the dark wizard's black robes fall around him and his long hair curtain the redness that the temper had brought out. Still, she couldn't get caught up in the sheer power of him, the strength and attractiveness he had past his disbelief in those thoughts. Hermione could not give in, not to a traitor.

"Nothing, I do not want a relationship with you, Severus, beyond what we have," she told him forcefully, her hands digging into themselves at her sides, every part of her cringing as he looked at her with a blank and pitiful expression.

Shaking his head, Severus huffed and left the room, heading upwards if his heavy footfalls were any indicators. 

Hermione felt correctly that she'd be sleeping in the guest-room that evening. 

A/N

I know I'm neglecting this book... that'll keep happening for a while as I publish on two different sites. Weekly update shan't fail, however, that I can promise. 

Love you all!!!