"I'm sorry, Mrs. Granger, but Mrs. Standish-Bender says she will be delayed by about ninety minutes. You can come back or if you'd like to walk around the museum while you wait I can give you a pass."

"Oh, that would be lovely, thank you," Hermione said to Claire Standish-Bender's assistant. Her name, judging by the nameplate at the desk, was Stacey.

Stacey smiled. "Mrs. Standish-Bender said she thought you might like that option."

"Very much so."

Hermione wasn't surprised Claire had gotten that impression from their few conversations this week. She'd gushed at the opportunity to meet her here today, lamenting only that it was business not pleasure finally getting her through the doors of Chicago's Art Institute.

She was here to have Mrs. Standish-Bender look at, and possibly authenticate, a painting that a family was arguing over in probate. The painting wasn't magical, so it was beyond DMLE's jurisdiction, but Hermione hadn't felt right just leaving it. The wizard the painting had been left to was stating it was a copy and therefore less valuable than another item a different relative had been left.

Who knew magical people quibbled over the same things muggles did?

No one else in the DMLE knew what to do with it since it wasn't a magical painting. So, Hermione had taken it upon herself to look up someone in the area who could authenticate the painting in question. That led to her few conversations with Claire Standish-Bender over the past week or so. She was rumoured to be one of the best authenticators in the world so for her to take this appointment meant a lot to Hermione.

She took the offered admittance pass to the museum Stacey gave her, regarded the current time with a glance at her wristwatch, and excitedly set about touring Chicago's Art Institute.

It had been years since she had been to a museum. Her first or second year of Hogwarts maybe. So ten years? She'd forgotten how much she loved art. She and her mum would talk about various paintings or statues as they browsed, wondering what the artist was thinking when they made the item. The first time she'd had lunch at the restaurant with her mum she'd been five or so and had felt so grown up.

Unfortunately, ninety minutes wasn't nearly enough time. A fast pass through the couple sections she knew she'd love, only really stopping to gape in awe for any length of time at one or two paintings and she was heading back toward the business offices. She didn't want to. She could spend days here and probably not see it all.

She absolutely had to come back here on her own time. Would Cade like it, she wondered? He was probably too young. So Pispy would have to sit with him, which meant Hermione likely wouldn't do it. She didn't like the idea of Pispy being the one to spend the most time with her son. She already spent nine hours a day with him, sometimes more if she was delayed at work.

"Did you enjoy your visit?" the assistant asked when she returned to the business offices area and was walking Hermione back to what she presumed would be Mrs. Standish-Bender's office.

"Yes, I did not have nearly enough time though! Then I could probably spend all day here and not have it be enough time. My son would absolutely love that antique model car exhibit you have on the first floor. I'll have to make it a point to come back some Saturday or an evening while you still have it showing so he can see."

"Oh, yes, the children do seem fond of that one. I hope you're able to make it back."

Stacey opened the door they'd stopped in front of then. The nameplate on the wall beside it identified it as her destination.

Hermione smiled brightly at Claire Standish-Bender as she stood. She'd seen a few pictures of her when researching a way to authenticate the painting so recognized her from them. They'd talked a few times over the phone over the past week or so since the ridiculous will disagreement crossed her desk. She'd been so nice to Hermione, answering her questions on whether her decision would be legal and binding, and so on. She'd been very excited at the prospect of authenticating an original Richard A. Chase, a native Chicago artist. So the authenticator wasn't doing it just out of the kindness of her heart. That didn't matter to Hermione.

Hermione offered her hand politely to the other woman, which she took. Despite being the department head, these types of errands typically fell to Hermione because she was the only muggleborn witch or wizard in the department. The rest of her staff just didn't know how to … interact with muggles very well. She'd tried to send them out on these types of errands, and it had to this point not ended well. No breach in the Statute of Secrecy had occurred, but her agents had come back flustered. In a couple of cases feeling very dense, which Hermione didn't want.

She'd have to gradually work with each of them to get them better acquainted. Like London, Chicago offered so much muggle culture! She couldn't imagine not partaking in both worlds' offerings.

Mrs. Standish-Bender's assistant stepped away from the doorway and closed the door behind herself. After their introductions and small talk about the hectic feeling of the past few days, Hermione handed over the cylinder that held the rolled up painting that was the reason for their appointment and then took a seat.

"And you are all right with me keeping it for a while so I can authenticate it in between other projects?"

"Yes, of course," she said. "I informed the person involved that I'm bringing it to be authenticated and that you are doing this as a kindness."

"Excellent," she said, writing her a receipt for the painting in question.

"I really appreciate you doing this. I know it's outside your normal duties."

"I admit it's the possibility of an unknown Richard A. Chase that has me accepting. He was a local artist and, well, it's been years since anything unknown of his has been found. It would be quite the coup if it turns out to be real."

"Whatever your reasons. I appreciate it. It's kind of ridiculous. I have no siblings or immediate family who would lay claim to my parents' belongings, but I just can't imagine quibbling over such things."

"I can't either. I'm very lucky that my brother and I get along."

Claire went on to tell her about neighbours she'd grown up with who'd fought over everything, evidently right down to the individual crystals in their family home's front foyer chandelier. Hermione laughed at the craziness of that. The value of two paintings didn't seem quite as ridiculous as chandelier crystals.

"You know, I was supposed to do some work at the British Museum a few years ago." This came as it was clear their time together was drawing to a close. Hermione had really taken up too much of this woman's time as it was.

"Oh?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, I'd really been looking forward to it. My husband and I were kind of excited to make a second honeymoon out of it. Well, a first honeymoon really. We eloped so didn't get much more than a long weekend at the Wisconsin Dells, which was nice. Don't get me wrong. If you've never been I'd recommend it, you mentioned a son. He'd have a blast I'm sure. We had a great time, and I still look back on that long weekend fondly. It just wasn't what I expected for my honeymoon. That sounds terrible, but the way I grew up I was expecting Paris or Rome, maybe Hawaii. Something glamorous, romantic, and exotic. It was closing in on our tenth anniversary when I got the offer so I made arrangements to take an extended trip above and beyond work and everything."

"Oh," Hermione said. That was kind of sad. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you. It's all right. My parents didn't approve of my husband, so all those glamorous dreams I had were somewhat out of reach. I had just graduated college and he was still starting out with the job he has now, so trips abroad were rather out of our price range at that time," she said with a shake of her head. "So we had been looking forward to finally doing something romantic, just the two of us."

Hermione's interest was incredibly piqued at that. Claire Standish-Bender was … an attractive, successful, and obviously well put together woman. Hermione tried to picture who she'd marry that her parents wouldn't approve of. They must be happy if they were thinking of doing a second honeymoon ten years later. She'd said husband today, not ex-husband so that suggested they were still married. She then tried to imagine her parents not supporting her if she had chosen to marry Ronald. They hadn't been crazy about him, but they trusted Hermione enough to not just settle for the first man who came along.

Sadly, without the war she might have done just that. She'd come to learn over the past few years that she deserved so much better than what Ron had given her. It wasn't about financial means either.

"Anyway, it was canceled. Political unrest or something. I didn't remember hearing anything on the news, so assumed it was something covert or internal. I sort of forgot about it until hearing your accent while we talked on the phone to schedule our appointment. And with everything going on right now, flights being canceled everywhere it brought the memory back."

"Mm," Hermione asked, guessing she already knew the answer to her next question. "When was that?"

"Spring 1998. The trip would have been a little before our actual anniversary, but we didn't care."

"Oh," Hermione said with a slight nod.

That was the answer Hermione expected her to give. Things were pretty bad at that time. She hadn't realized tourists had been warned away. Interesting. She supposed it made sense, but she hadn't heard of that until now. Of course she hadn't really known anyone other than her parents who had been outside of Britain at the time either. And since her parents didn't know about her until after the war's end, well they wouldn't have been apprised or suspicious of anything going on.

"I was away at school in Scotland at the time, so I guess I'm not sure what was happening. I am very sorry you missed your trip, though." She didn't know what else to say. She did feel bad. She hadn't stopped to think about the war, a magical war, affecting other things. Like this person's planned vacation.

"Me, too," she said. "We'll get one in sometime. Maybe for our twentieth-fifth. That gives us twelve years to come up with something."

Hermione laughed lightly at that. It made her like this woman even more that she was so good-natured about her trip being canceled. Some people would have been furious, and perhaps she was at the time.

"Are your parents good now? With your marriage and everything, I mean?" Was that too personal? The woman had brought it up, so she didn't think it was.

"Oh yes. I'll admit that it took them a few years. He wasn't at all who they envisioned for me. We started dating toward the end of our senior year of high school. He was the bad boy that every good girl's mom would warn to stay away from. They thought he was a phase. I think they assumed I'd go away to college and meet a nice lawyer or architect. And then I wanted to major in Art," she shrugged with a bit of a frown. Hermione felt a little bad she was making her think about these things from over ten years ago. "I know, now, they were trying to look out for me. I hadn't dated a lot, really anyone, before John. It's not as if we got married right out of high school three months after we started dating either. It was years and there was sporadic contact in there. It wasn't like now where you can call someone at any time and it's no big deal to be a couple hundred miles away. There was no email or anything like that. I think if I'd majored in something more concrete to them they might have been better about it. It is what it is, and I don't regret it. We have taken our kids to the Dells and stayed in the cabin we rented for our honeymoon a few times. They thought that was fun. I guess that's not something we could do if we'd gone to Paris or something."

Hermione nodded. She was aware what things were like in the eighties. Her parents had told her if nothing else. Not to say she knew what America in the eighties was like, but still. She had an idea. She knew there were no cell phones or internet.

"Oh, well, good," Hermione said. That made her happy that ten years later her parents still didn't like her choice in husbands. That would be … stressful, for all concerned!

Yes, she could see where parents would get concerned for their daughter majoring in Art if they weren't sure what she was going to do with such a degree. That combined with dating someone they didn't approve of. Hermione imagined the reputation Claire had built for herself over the past thirteen years or so (she'd read Claire graduated from University of Illinois in 1988, which made sense for her tenth anniversary to be in 1998) let them know their concerns had been unwarranted.

"I'm lucky. I adopted my son when I was eighteen. He lost both of his parents in an accident. My parents didn't bat an eye at my doing so. I know parents of other friends would not have been so calm or accepting."

Of course, Hermione had already adopted Cade by the time she'd gotten her parents back so they didn't have much of a choice. Other than telling her they didn't want to see or talk to her again.

"How old is your son?"

"Three and a half."

"What a fun yet very trying age."

"I've been finding that, yes. Thankfully, he loves to learn so at least I can help with that. We've only been here a few months, and it was so crazy starting a new job, finding a place to live that was within a neighbourhood of decent schools for him at least to start, and so on at first. The time change really affected him, I swear it took him a month to sleep all night again. And forget the idea of taking a nap because he hadn't slept well the night before! So I feel as if we have this huge, new city available to us, and I've done next to nothing with him. I was telling your assistant that I'd like to bring him back to see that model car exhibit. I won't let him near anything else. I know better than to let him walk around priceless paintings or furniture, but he'd love those cars. I'll have to come back by myself to look at the rest."

"Hermione," she said, reaching into a desk drawer. "May I call you that?"

"Of course."

"Good. I'm Claire."

She liked this woman. She wasn't sure why. From her perfectly styled hair down to her well-manicured fingernails and put together outfit, she was someone Hermione shouldn't like. She was one of those polished women that Hermione always felt … intimidated by because no matter how hard she tried she couldn't tame her hair to the point of remotely looking even close to the way Claire's did. She dressed better now, had to for her job. She was never going to be the type to go to Nordstrom's and buy the season's latest styles. She preferred comfort and tried and true styles. Claire was confident without coming across as bitchy or full of herself and Hermione liked that.

"Here," she said, handing Hermione three complimentary passes to the museum.

"Oh," Hermione said brightening. "Thank you, Claire, but really I didn't mention it as a way to get you to give me tickets."

"I'm supposed to give them out to clients. Honestly, I'd rather know a set goes to someone who will actually enjoy the exhibits versus someone who won't even use them or hands them off to one of their clients. Technically, you are a client anyway. So, please bring your son and your husband or a guest. My son is six so a little older than your boy, but he loved the model car display. If it makes him appreciate art as a result then all the better. That's admittedly what the attraction to that exhibit was. It might draw people who wouldn't otherwise come here. If they like what they see, they might come back even when the model cars are gone."

"I know Cade would love it. He'd see them as big Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars. You won't get in trouble?"

"No," she said.

"Thank you," she said, glancing at the tickets and taking them after a moment's hesitation. "That's very generous. We will love it."

"I'm glad. And if it helps put a smile on your son's face all the better. I'm sorry for his loss, but glad that you stepped in. That had to be hard. You were so young yourself."

Claire had no idea.

The British Ministry of Magic had requested that any capable witches and wizards should step in to take in children left parentless as a result of the war. In some instances the parents weren't deceased but instead imprisoned in Azkaban. At over eighteen but technically still a student she wasn't required to adopt anyone, but she'd gone to one of the orphanages to look. She had no idea why beyond that she didn't want the children affected to be just faceless names. She wanted to see who was getting left behind. Proof that while they'd won there'd been a cost to both sides.

She'd been drawn to Cade for some reason. She hadn't wanted a baby at just eighteen herself. No one was taking him, though. He was a Death Eater's son and his mum was not from Britain, which evidently made him less than in some people's eyes. Hardly anyone would even look at him let alone entertain the notion of taking him in. She'd held him and knew that this was the child she should take.

Here they were, making it work somehow. It wasn't easy. She had Pispy but otherwise was on her own. Her parents were still in Australia, their memories returned to them. They had a few years left to work, deciding to finish out their professional lives there rather than move again. They told her that they'd talk when the time came about where they'd be relocating. The fact that they didn't hate her for what she'd done and possibly wanted to be close to her and Cade made her heart swell. They'd admitted to her that they were kind of glad she'd been presented with the opportunity to adopt so young. They'd had her when they themselves were older and were worried by the time she'd get around to giving them grandchildren they'd be too old to enjoy them.

She realized they probably would have felt differently if she had actually given birth to Cade, but they certainly didn't treat him any differently than they would if she had. To her parents, Cade was their grandson. As it should be, of course.

"Now I just have to worry about him wanting me to buy models of all of them for him to put together."

"Just leave your wallet at home."

"Fat chance I can do that! Thank you again, really, and it was such a pleasure to meet you. You know, put a real face and not just a picture with the name and voice. I do have to get back."

"You're welcome and you, too. I'll call you when I'm done with the painting, and maybe we can meet for lunch or something instead of here. There's a restaurant that if you haven't been. Well, everyone should go at least once. It's called Ed Debevic's. Their waitstaff are all trained to be rude and sassy. It's a bit shocking, but our kids love it. So does my husband, truthfully. It took me, raised with very strict etiquette and manners, a visit or two to not hate it."

"I'd like that," Hermione said. She really would. "And if you ever get. No, no, forget that. When you get to Britain and want a local's tips, give me a call. I'd be happy to steer you in the right direction."

"Thank you," she said.

They made a bit more small talk before Hermione left her office with the witch very much looking forward to picking up the item being debated about whenever Claire was done with it.

An invitation to lunch meant Claire liked her, too. Making friends was something Hermione was getting better at, but still wasn't proficient. So she was pleased that the meeting had gone as well in Claire's eyes as hers.

She found her way to the exit then, sliding the tickets Claire gave her into the outer pocket of her briefcase. She stopped walking when she realized she was about to bump into someone. Her eyes widened in recognition at about the same time his did.

"Mr. Snape," she said, offering him a curious smile. Three days in a row. What were the odds? And why did he always smell so good? It wasn't overpowering as if he bathed in like some people did. This close to him, though, she'd noticed it the past couple of times, too.

"Granger," he drawled.

Her eyes fell to the camera in his hand. She'd never in her wildest dreams imagined seeing Severus Snape holding a muggle camera. A very nice muggle camera at that. She tilted her head. A friend of her dad's was a photography buff and he'd be envious of the setup she saw Mr. Snape had.

"Taking pictures of art?"

"Something like that," he said, and she frowned a bit. What kind of answer was that? "And you? Eyeing something for your walls?"

She paused. Did he make a joke? She'd never in a million years imagine that question coming out of his mouth. She gave a soft laugh.

"Oh, yes, you caught me. I'll be back after midnight in my black cat burglar suit. No, I was just dropping something off that needs to be assessed for work. I'm headed back there now. To work, I mean," she said, gesturing in the direction of the exit she was obviously heading in when they bumped into one another. Again.

"I am here for work as well," he said.

"Oh? So, I shouldn't tell you about the antique model cars exhibit."

His eyebrows arched just a bit.

"Model cars?"

He sounded … intrigued.

Interesting.

Maybe it didn't matter how old the boy was.

"Yes, someone's personal collection of model cars is on display. It's rather impressive from the sounds of it. I didn't do more than glance at it as I wanted to see the art today."

"As interesting as that does sound, I am not here to browse today."

"I was going to come back over the weekend, I think."

The statement was out before she could censor it. It just came out. Did she really just sort of offer him to join her?

Silence.

Well, this wasn't weirdly uncomfortable or anything.

"I have an extra pass if you'd like to join me and use it," she said.

His right eyebrow shot up a bit more than it had at the mention of the model car exhibit. On Severus Snape it was a huge reaction. On most others it would be barely noticeable. He hadn't said no or hexed her for the audacity of thinking he'd want to use it. With her. So she plowed forward with the offer. She was a Gryffindor after all.

"About noon on Saturday? Meet here at this same entrance out by the lions?" She pointed in the direction of the lions, though they were impossible to miss. "Does that work for you?"

He scowled with a shake of his head, glancing past her. Was he here with someone? For someone? She had no idea what he did for a living. "Fine."

"Excellent. See you then," she said brightly, pleasantly surprised he'd agreed. She headed toward the exit then, not giving him the chance to take his acceptance back. Outside again she went on her way down the steps and past the lion statues that would take her to Michigan Avenue and back to work.

Did she really just make a date with her former professor?

He had agreed, so if she was crazy, so was he.

Was it a date?

Probably not since she was bringing Cade. Would he be mad that she sprung her toddler son on him? She hoped not. She thought it would probably be good for Cade to see someone magical besides only Hermione. Annie was magical, of course, as was her son Bruce, but it was different. They were American and didn't quite understand what the war had been like.

Story ©Susan Falk/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com