Title: The Apprentice.
Chapter: 1 – Arrival
Author: LizzyUnexpected
Rating: R/MA; HG/SS
Warnings: None Yet
AN: Just a little fic that's been on my mind for... well months really. And I plan to make it longer, I promise :) There will be smut in this, and it is relatively DH compliant, but disregards the Epilogue and Snape's death, obviously.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, they belong to J.K Rowling. And if I did own it, Snape would have nevereverever died.
Hermione stood in front of her long mirror looking over herself, thinking. When Am I not thinking? I can't shut my bloody brain off! She was lost in her thoughts and didn't notice the time until her cat prowled up to her, awakening her from her daze. She looked at the cat and sighed, reaching down to pat her orange furriness before she finished buttoning her shirt. Pulling her hair up as she walked out the door, her shrunken trunk in her handbag, she locked her small London apartment for the year and apparated to the gates of Hogwarts, a place she hadn't been in over eight years. The buildings hadn't appeared to have changed; Good, she thought to herself, It would break my heart to see it turn into some theme park for magical folk, I'm glad they're keeping tradition. She smiled and smoothed down her pencil skirt confidently, making her way up to the castle stairs.
She had been dreading this day since she had been accepted as Severus Snape's potion's apprentice. She was thirsty for knowledge, and somehow, her job at the ministry had her bored senseless, seeing the same dreary buildings and the same dreary people every day wasn't as brilliant as everyone made it out to be. So, being the headstrong, twenty-eight year old that she was, she quit. She loved potions, but she wasn't sure she was going to cope with Snape. He was tolerable and she didn't exactly hate him, but she didn't like him either. He was a git, a jerk, an arse, whatever terminology you could think of for a emotionless dungeon bat, that was what he was to her.
Being so lost in her thoughts, again, she didn't see the dark man join her in step. Severus looked over Hermione with a slight smirk tainting his usually harsh features. She had grown into a woman, and most probably the most annoying, stubborn and conservative woman in the history of his past students. He frowned when he noticed that she never noticed him, so he cleared his throat softly, to gain her attention;
"Miss Gran-" He started, but he was interrupted by a yelp as Hermione jumped away from him and clutched at her heart, as if it was going to explode.
"Holy fuck!" Hermione blinked and shook her head in confusion, noting never to say that word to his face again, because his brow raised and he almost laughed, and Merlin forbid the day that Severus Snape actually laughed; "Where the bloody hell in Merlin's name did you appear from?"
At this, Severus chuckled slightly, and Hermione winced as her hair stood on end from the sound off his smooth, velvety voice, she thought it may be from how she hadn't heard him speak since she was by his bedside in hospital after she had administered the potions that saved his life, and all he told her was to 'get the hell away from him.' Snape almost smiled. Almost. But he cleared his throat and nodded a little;
"I didn't appear from anywhere, Miss Granger. If you, perhaps, were a little more observant, than you would know that. But it appears that nothing has changed, going off into your own little world once again," With that, he took her by the elbow, not forcefully, but hard enough that she jumped in surprise and followed him, her skin prickling at his touch. She wondered why the hell he had such an intense effect on her, it was unwelcome, yet whenever she was around him her palms would sweat and she found the need to look away from his piercing gaze. She gnawed on her bottom lip, a bad habit she had gained during her long nights of waiting for Ronald to come home from his romps, lipstick on his collar, and perfume lingering in the air. She knew what he was doing, but she never confronted him, not with his drinking problems. He had let fame get to his head, he was a celebrity, so why couldn't he enjoy the pleasures of celebrities. It became too much for her eventually, so she just packed up and left, he hadn't talked to her in seven years, and frankly, she didn't really give a shit. That Ronald Weasley was not the one she loved.
Severus had pulled her into their shared common room and let her go, and she jolted slightly, "Thankyou for being so... Gentle." she smirked and put her bag down and looked around the room. It was stylish, and their were book cases adorning the walls, the colours of thousands of books spines, brightening the dungeons in their own special way. The furniture was dark mahogany and the fabrics a dark Slytherin green, as she expected.
Severus sighed a little and handed her a piece of paper, his breath hitching as their hand's touched, "Well... Ah... Here's the potions that I expect to be brewed by tomorrow... My personal lab is down the hall, third door to the left, my bedroom, which you will not enter under any circumstances, is second on the right, the study, first on the right, your bedroom, first door on the left, and the... shared... bathroom," he seemed disturbed by this, "Next to your room, second door on the left. I shall see you later, we'll be having dinner in our common room tonight, since school doesn't start until after the weekend." With that he stalked from the room, leaving Hermione to her thoughts and her fantasies once again.
He had changed... He was somehow, kinder, and in a way, even though he had been ten years younger when she last saw him, he looked more youthful, as the stress had been lifted off his shoulders with the downfall of Voldemort. He no longer had a sickly pale look to him, his skin looking pinker and healthier. His eyes had brightened, still piercing, and it almost looked as if he hadn't really sneered, or frowned in years. His hair looked silky and the roots where gathering some white hairs at the ripe age of forty seven. He looked better, and she couldn't help but smile at the thought that this apprenticeship may not have been such a bad idea at all.
