Disillusioned, he stood next to a tree outside the school. It was much nicer than his had been, but that was he imagined because her parents did well for themselves. He'd seen their home and the muggle automobiles they drove to know this was fact. Never mind that each of her parents had their own automobile. His parents had shared one and it had seen better days even before Severus' birth.

He recognized her immediately.

The hair, even at this age, gave her away.

Not to mention the look she carried of someone who didn't quite fit in even this young. It was something he was very familiar with. He was sorry she knew it, too. It made for a lonely existence, he'd been lucky to have met Lily before Hogwarts. He had at least had someone positive in his life for a couple of years. She'd had to wait until an encounter with a troll when she was twelve to get her first real friends. He walked from the school a ways, far enough that he could apparate without being seen or heard by anyone and arrived near her parents' dental practice. They worked on muggles' teeth, something he wished his parents' had cared enough to invest in with him. By the time he'd finished Hogwarts, things like muggle dentists and being physically appealing enough to court a witch were far from his mind.

He knew by now that her mother picked her up from school and brought her back to the practice for the rest of the day. So he made his way from his apparition point toward their office. It was nice enough today that she should be allowed to go outside and play. It was here that she spotted her rather dour potions professor for the very first time and they had their first conversation. (He had seen her previously, but she was not aware of those instances other than the memories he'd shared with her.)

"Hello," she said, lifting her eyes from the magazine she was paging through as he walked by. Despite their practice being here the street wasn't swarming with people, so a man walking by would catch her notice.

He nodded ever so slightly in response.

She tilted her head to the side as he'd seen her do as a teenager many times and scrunched her nose a bit.

"Did you know that bats are the only mammal on earth that can fly?" she asked?

He scowled at her question. Why would seeing him make her think of a bat? Barely five-years-old and already she was insulting him. Was this the type of response he could expect from his mate? He wasn't wearing his robes. Oh, he knew what others said about him, but she didn't have that information yet.

This is a fool's errand!

"I did," he said, deciding to see where she'd go with this line of thought. She'd never been rude to him as a student so he didn't imagine her parents would have allowed her to be as a younger child either. Of course, what she stated wasn't entirely true. He could fly, but it wasn't natural to be able to do so. Even in magical terms. He knew that.

"They eat bugs," she said with another scrunch of her nose.

"You are correct," he said simply, lips tightening. So she wasn't comparing him to a bat or making fun of him it seemed.

"They sleep all day, though."

"Also correct," he replied, wondering where she was going with that statement. He could tell by the look in her eyes, so familiar to him even though she was much younger that she was thinking something.

"How do they see the bugs to catch them?"

Ah.

"What is your fascination with bats?" he asked.

She stood then, closing the short distance between them, and held up the magazine she was paging through. Featured on the page she was looking at was a - clearly - enlarged picture of a bat hanging upside down. Even he had to admit it was a magnificent animal.

"I've heard that they have an exceptional sense of vision and smell, as well as something akin to how dolphins communicate. The slightest sound is heard by them. I would imagine even bugs make noise while moving. You and I may not be able to hear such a noise, but I bet they can," he said, nodding his head at the depicted bat in her magazine.

She bit her lower lip, an act so familiar to him. It was interesting to see her do it even at this age.

"I want one."

"A bat?" he asked, stifling his amusement.

She nodded.

That was unusual for a girl, at least he thought so. What he knew about five-year-old girls was next to nothing, though. The only child he'd ever really been around was Draco, and this child was nothing like his godson.

He looked to the door leading to her parents' practice. "I'm sure your parents will take your wishes into consideration."

She scrunched her nose again with a slightly disappointed look in her eyes. Evidently, she'd already presented her idea of a pet bat to them and they'd nixed it. He couldn't say as he blamed them.

"Why do you want one?"

She huffed, sounding put out by the question and he couldn't help but chuckle to himself. "I want to see how they catch the bugs!"

"Of course," he said with a nod.

Already wanting to know the answers to everything. He wasn't sure that was enough of a reason for her parents to buy her a bat, and as far as he knew she didn't have a pet bat so he assumed she got over her bat infatuation eventually and moved onto other things. Never mind if she had a pet bat it wouldn't have to hunt so she'd never truly find out how bats catch their prey.

"Their wings are structurally similar to our hands, did you know that?" he asked?

She shook her head, seeming to process what he said by staring at her hand and then at the picture of the bat in the magazine she was looking at.

"They are of the Chiroptera order."

"You're funny," she said with a soft giggle.

"You think so?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They're just bats, silly!"

"Well, I can admit no one's ever said that to me before, but I'm glad I could make you laugh."

He withdrew his left hand from the pocket of the denims he wore and with it a coin fell on the ground.

She picked it up and held it out to him with her left hand.

"Keep it."

He wasn't sure if anything would happen if he touched her left hand even with his right hand or if it had to be his left hand, too. He wasn't going to find out either. The least the Fates could do was give him an instruction manual if they were going to connect his soul to someone on the low end of what some might consider to be a generation younger than he was. He wanted her trust, nothing more, and he'd be damned if he did something to alter her life.

Certainly, though, if their fingertips touched as they would have to do while exchanging the coin she'd feel his magic. She wouldn't know what it was, but she'd feel it and he couldn't have that. As far as he knew, Hermione Jean Granger knew nothing of magic until she got her Hogwarts letter. He could not alter that. He was not here to alter events, merely for her to know he was someone she could trust once these memories were returned to her. Assuming he went ahead with the plan to do so.

She scrunched her nose again, biting that lower lip as well, and looked from him to the coin. Then her eyes brightened when she seemingly realized he really meant she could keep the coin.

"Have a good day, Miss."

"Granger," she supplied.

"Miss Granger then," he said, wondering what it was to have no fear about giving out her name so freely. Even as a child the age she was it'd already been beaten into him that he was not to tell anyone anything about him. He bowed his head politely and whispered something as his head was lowered that would cloud the memory of their conversation for now. She wouldn't even remember how she came by the coin, but he couldn't resist letting her keep it.

She sat back down on the walkway, setting the coin next to her while she returned to paging through the magazine.

The irony of choosing to see her today when she was reading about bats was not lost on him. Evidently, the Fates had a sense of humor, too. He reached for his medallion then, letting his fingertip find and then slide over the groove to return to his chambers and his present day again.

July 1996

Traveling so far into the past took its toll on his energy he noticed. This time and the last he'd been exhausted upon his return. He wondered what difference a longer trip would make? Was him going for such a brief moment in time causing the exhaustion? He wasn't sure, but he had no desire to stay in the past any longer than he had so far. He wasn't out to risk altering events, he just wanted an imprint of positive conversations between them throughout the years so that if he decided to return the memories to her she'd realize he was trustworthy. He skipped the Ogden's tonight, opting for a quick shower before heading to bed instead. It was a good thing he hadn't been called by either master this evening. Yet another reason he had to keep his trips to the past brief and to the point. He wasn't sure how the Dark Mark would work if he was in another year.

September 1996

He wasn't sure how long returning the memories would take. He watched her face, though, for any sign of distress. He knew each and every memory he was sharing with her today by heart. He'd had to watch them as he connected them to the book. She wasn't familiar with them, though, of course. He wondered where she was in time at the moment.

Story ©Susan Matthews/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com