Disclaimer: Not mine - all that is recognizable is JKR's and anything that seems unlikely is mine. :D I only worship all that JK wrote.
Lover I Don't Have to Love
Chapter One: I Picked You Out
Stumbling down the stairs of headquarters like she normally did this early in the morning without her coffee, Hermione was not in the best of moods nor was she paying much attention to the stairs in front of her - rather just going with the flow of her legs and the slow descent. Off in her own world she didn't really need to pay attention to whatever might be happening in the real world so she obviously did not see her former potions' professor coming up the stairs. Well, frankly she ran into him really. Tumbling down the stairs she almost went but lo and behold, her professor caught her. She blinked for a moment, still a little dazed and then pulled her vision up to Professor Snape's eyes.
"Well, hello sir." She said this rather airily, and Snape couldn't mask the look of confusion on his face quick enough. He abruptly put her upright and told her to "watch where you're going, as next time I won't be there to save you." Hermione rolled her eyes, clinging on to the banister as she watched him brush by her in an effort to get up the stairs. The man really angered her but at times Hermione just couldn't help admiring him, this being one of the times in which she didn't. Go figure. Hermione mumbled something inarticulate back at him over her shoulder and continued in her search for the rich flavor of coffee, cream, and sugar in a deep coffee mug.
Thankful that she actually made it down the stairs without running into anyone else (that being because no one really here were early risers), Hermione went to make herself some of the best coffee in the world and pour it steadily into her deep coffee mug. As Hermione proceeded to make her own coffee she found that someone already had. She huffed, looking through the glass container she held in her hands. Blast him. Snape was the only one up at this hour so it had to have been him... Hermione sighed and poured the coffee into her mug and sat down at the table. Dropping two sugar cubes in and a dash of cream, Hermione also noticed that someone had left these out for her and another spoon to stir her coffee with. "Oh such a gentleman, I tell you what." Hermione rolled her eyes for the second time that morning and stared at the spoon. "God damn him, really." Hermione was aware of the footsteps coming down the stairs and hoped that it was Lupin. Though, by taking a peek and seeing a mass of black robes, she knew it wasn't him. "Blast. Is nothing going right today?" She flung the offending spoon at the doorway and almost hit Snape as he walked into the kitchen with a briefcase and his cloak.
"Having an argument with an inanimate object, Miss Granger? Do I have to floo you over to St. Mungos before I even make my own way out the door?" He set his briefcase down in another chair along with his cloak and sat down across from her. He folded his arms across his chest and smirked.
"No, just venting my frustrations on it. It was a shame that it missed you as you walked into the kitchen... Then you would've been the one to go to St. Mungo's with a welt the size of a biscuit on your face, sir." She smirked right back at him, a little gleam in her eye as she sipped her morning coffee.
"My, my, it would do you no good for yourself if you were to try and maim me before school starts again. I could take points off you know."
"Ah, are we forgetting that you no longer hold your position as Potion's professor, sir?" This was going to get fierce.
"Quite the contrary, Miss Granger." He held up a finger as he reached into his briefcase to pull out a sheet of parchment. He slid it in front of Hermione, sneering with all his glory. "I've been allowed back in."
Hermione gazed down at the authentic and offending paper in shock. Damn him, damn him, damn him! That man was so infuriating, "But how, sir? Surely the Ministry and the Board would see that you are unfit to teach again..."
"Ah, but hassling students is anything but fit for the Board."
"But you've forgotten that you, sir, are guilty of murder." She looked at him with seething anger. He had killed Albus Dumbledore last year and was on the run until he came into the Ministry alone and confessed everything along with a confession from Dumbledore's portrait that it had all been planned. She still hated the man.
"It seems that you yourself, Miss Granger, have forgotten that all charges have been dropped and I have been proven innocent," he mimicked his hands into praying and Hermione swore she saw a halo slipping off those devil horns, "by Dumbledore himself."
"It doesn't matter to me, as I still see you as a manipulative bastard. You won't be gaining any of my trust back.."
"Miss Granger, don't flatter yourself. I don't need your trust. And go on believing I'm a manipulative bastard," He picked up his stuff, pulling his coat on, and walked over to her, kneeling beside her and whispering against her ear sending chills down her spine, "for by the end of the year," he paused his hand lightly touching her arm, emitting a spark from his fingertips to her shirt sleeve, "you will think nothing else of me..." He stayed there for a moment, kneeled beside her, his breath tickling her skin. Then he abruptly stood up and made an exit just as Professor Lupin walked in to have his morning oatmeal.
Even though it was comfortably warm, Hermione felt freezing...