Chapter Text
Hermione Granger would probably always remember the day she and her two best friends, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, assisted to their first Order meeting.
It was true the excitement of finally being part of "something big" – as Ron called it – and the sense of finally being treated as adults had played an important part to imprint the memory within all three of them. But Hermione had to acknowledge that for her there had been another - outwardly irrelevant - detail that had secured her record of the evening in her mind. This fact had been, as ridiculous as it sounded, that it had been the first time she had noticed Severus Snape not as a teacher, not as an abstract genderless presence of Hogwarts - as could be Peeves, but as a man.
It hadn't been an earth-shattering revelation, nor had it unbalanced her world, but it had certainly been unexpected enough that she had surprised herself turning it over in her mind for the following few days. It had occurred in such an inconspicuous moment and in such an inconsequential situation that sometimes she even doubted the scene had happened at all.
That evening, at the end of the summer, she had followed an excited Harry and Ron into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place – where the gatherings were always held. Wonder of wonders, after more than a year of insistent complaining - both from their side, to get in, and from the other side, to keep them out - suddenly they were summoned. Their youth had suddenly no longer become a problem. Hermione strongly suspected that it was simply a gesture of the Headmaster to push Harry out of the depressive mood he had fallen into after the death of his godfather.
Be it as it may, the hall that evening had already been crowded with Order members. Hermione, having been the last one to enter the room, had remained for a few moments behind the boys with an uncertain smile, who had already begun to greet energetically an equally enthusiastic Tonks. It had been at that very moment that she had noticed a presence on the corner on her left, which she had thought empty until then, and had turned towards it. Her eyes met her DADA teacher leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. His ever-present black cloak acted as the perfect camouflage in the poorly illuminated hall. Harry or Ron would have turned their face away as fast as possible but Hermione thought he deserved a "Good evening" or, at the very least, a nod. However, the greeting caught in her throat at finding that his eyes, instead of glaring at her with their characteristic coldness, were sweeping over her apraisingly.
Hermione felt immediately self-conscious. She had tensed, expecting some snide remark, as he had been opposed to their joining to the Order from the very beginning. Instead, his eyes had met hers for a moment before, noticing his stare was reciprocated, he looked away, instantly regaining his initial aloofness. Nobody that looked at him would have guessed him to have noticed anyone else around him.
However, that contemplative stare he had fixated on her face had unbalanced her more than any other disagreeable expression would have, even taking into account that in the whole it all had happened in less than five seconds. For she, before having the chance to react, had been dragged into a bear hug by a distressed Molly Weasley, effectively cutting her line of sight and thought. The latter had only been resumed three hours later, while lying awake on her bed, reproaching herself at being so naive that a simple curious look could disturb her so.
As time went by, the initial puzzling sensation - had Snape really checked her out? or sized her up? - had been receding, and the whole incident had become just a niggling thought, rarely remembered thought not completely forgotten.
How little she expected to be subjected to a situation in which she would have to recall the incident if only to reassure herself that a man, an actual human being, with feelings and fears, lurked somewhere behind the black cloaks and dark frowns.