After the sorting ceremony had ended, Professor McGonnagal took her seat next to Dumbledore and leaned over to him.
"Where is Severus?" Dumbledore waved one hand in front of him and the tables filled with food and the sounds of excited first years talking about what they thought the year held for them.
"I have no idea Minerva, usually Snape is one of the first ones to be here." Minerva sighed and started collecting food on her plate.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were laughing, enjoying the company of the first years and laughing when the first years jumped when the ghosts decided to make their appearance.
"Hello Sir Nicholas." Harry smiled.
"Good evening Harry Potter, did you have a nice summer? Ready for Quidditch to start again?"
"You bet!" Harry grabbed a chicken leg in front of him and began chewing. Ron leaned over the table and Harry and Hermione followed lead.
"Guess what I heard at Diagon Alley a few weeks ago?"
"What?" Hermione flipped some hair onto her back.
"I heard that Snape took a vacation to America."
"Oh my God, do you imagine Snape even knows how to relax?" Harry and Ron laughed at Hermione's question.
"I could just see him, threatening everyone who says hi to him, that he'd turn them into a toad." Harry added.
"That reminds me." Neville said, who was seated next to Harry.
"What's that?"
"I don't know where Trevor is."
"Oh Neville." Hermione sighed. Harry looked at the teacher's table.
"Hey guy's? Speaking of….where is Snape?" Hermione and Ron looked at the table and shrugged.
"Maybe he apparated himself to pieces when he tried to leave the states." Ron said with a mouth full of potatoes. At that moment, they heard a voice scream outside the closed doors that led into the Great Hall.
"Whoopsy Daisies!….Ouch!" There was a loud thud and everyone crained their necks to see what made that noise. The doors flew open and in waltzed a smiling Professor Snape. The whole hall fell silent. Snape started laughing.
"Snape fell down…went BOOM!" He exclaimed as he took his seat at the teacher's table. He looked over to Minerva.
"How you doin?" He winked. Minerva blushed and Dumbledore stifled a giggle as he turned towards the potion professor.
"Nice to see you made it, Severus."
"Hey, word up!" Snape answered, everyone in the hall burst out in laughter. Hermione, Ron and Harry were almost rolling out of their seats they were laughing so hard.
"What happened to Snape?" Ron tried to talk. Harry and Hermione just shrugged their shoulders because if they were to even try to talk, laughter would escape them.
**********************************
Everyone had side aches from laughing so hard when dinner was over. When the Gryffindor's got to their common room, everyone kind of fell down from pain. After a while, everyone started filtering out to their rooms. The only people left in the common room were Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville and a few newcomers.
"So you're saying Professor Snape was never like that?" One kid asked.
"No, never. He was the darkest teacher here." Hermione said, lying across the sofa chair she was sitting on, facing the fireplace.
"I'm Kenny." The kid finally said.
"Hi Kenny, I'm Hermione, this is Harry and that's Ron." Harry and Ron had started playing Wizards Chess and were too involved in their game to notice anyone was talking around them. Kenny smiled and stretched.
"Well I'm getting tired, I think I'm going to go to sleep." Kenny stood up and left the room, followed by the other first years.
"What do you guy's think happened to Snape?" Hermione asked Ron and Harry.
"Knight to E-5, I don't know Hermione, maybe he met a witch there that put a happy-go-lucky spell on him." Ron answered, pausing for a moment to look up at her. Harry let out a giggle before he put his move in, Hermione just smiled. She wondered what potions would be like tomorrow with the new Snape.
**********************************
The next day, everyone sat in the dungeon class room, chatting away. Hermione noted to Harry and Ron that Snape hadn't showed up yet, maybe he was back to normal. Then the doors burst open, in walked Snape. He was walking with a heavy limp and started rapping.
"What? My name is. Who? My name is. What? My name is Professor Snape! Hey class! How are you all doing?" The class was silent.
"Oooh, are we playing the silent game? Can I play too?" The class smiled nervously.
"Oh, I get it. O.k, well, why don't we try something new and let's go around the classroom and tell each other how our summer was? Harry, you can start." Snape smiled at Harry, he sat there, dumbfounded.
"Um….well…I spent most if it over at Ron's, just hanging out, I guess."
"That's cool. Sounds like you had fun. Hermione? How was your summer?"
That had to be the first time the class actually kept quiet throughout the whole hour. The class ended and the students hurried out into the hall, while Snape stood behind the crowd, wishing everyone goodbye.
"Can you believe the homework assignment he gave us?" Hermione exclaimed.
"Only you would complain." Ron said, smiling.
"Shut up Ron, this is serious, if all of our assignments are going to be like this, we aren't going to get anywhere!"
"I don't think we really care, I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to do a essay on our favorite animal in the zoo and why it's our favorite animal over writing a essay over the twenty uses for bezels?" Harry said, Hermione just rolled her eyes. They were surprised when they heard a cough behind them and turned around to see the potions master behind them. He reached out and grabbed Hermione's nose.
"Got your nose!" He yelled. Everyone in the hallway stopped to look, Hermione looked to the ground, took Snape's arm and pulled him out of the hall into a corner. Harry and Ron followed.
"Snape! What has gotten into you? Have you gone insane or something?" Ron touched Hermione's arm.
"What are you doing?"
"Don't touch me, Ron." He quickly removed his hand and stepped back where Harry was.
"Well, Hermione, I'm glad you asked. While I was on my trip, I realized that I am a poor tortured soul and I needed to fix that."
"You got scary, that's what happened!"
"I did?" Hermione nodded. Snape put his head down and sniffed.
"Snape, what's wrong?"
"N-nothing." Hermione looked at Harry and Ron and mouthed 'Is he crying?' Snape pulled away and went walking down the hallway, head bowed.
*************************************
Throughout the day they didn't see much of Snape, and when they did, Snape avoided them as much as he could.
"Oh, great going Hermione, look what you did to him now?" Harry mumbled as they walked to the library.
"I just told him the truth, that's all." Hermione stared at the back of him as he walked in front of them.
When dinner came, they didn't see Snape at the dinner table and he didn't even show up late like he did the night before.
"I hope he's o.k." Hermione said, picking at her food.
"What do you care?" Harry said, shoveling his food into his mouth and refilling his plate with the cherry pie that sat in front of him.
"Oh come on Harry, I don't want to be the one liable for Snape's depression."
"Wasn't he depressed before?" Ron asked.
"Well, at least he took the care of mocking and making fun of us whenever he could." A few minuets of silence passed through the three. Hermione stood up.
"Where do you think you're going?" Harry asked.
"I'm going to find Snape." She didn't let the two boy's get any word in before she left the dinning hall and made her way down to the dungeons.
She got to Snape's office and knocked. She heard a quiet 'leave me alone.'
"Snape? Please let me talk to you."
"Go away."
"Don't make me come in." The door opened a few inches, Hermione pushed the door and poked her head inside of the room, half of it was painted yellow, the other half was still shades of gray and black.
"What have you done to your office?" Hermione asked, continuing to enter. Snape had his head on his desk.
"What's wrong, Professor Snape?" He hesitated before putting his head up, he looked at Hermione and took in a breath.
"You know, Hermione, I have feelings too."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Snape studied Hermione closely.
"You…you didn't?" Hermione laughed. She felt nervous around Snape, she wasn't used to the nice side, she expected him to take points away from Gryffindor in a snap if she opened her mouth, but she couldn't help but speak.
"No, I didn't." Snape smiled real big, stood up and jumped over his desk.
"Whoa, that is nice to know." He held his arms out. Hermione looked at him weird.
"Hugs are free." He said, taking a step forward.
"Oh, no, I couldn't-" It was too late, Professor Snape had ran up to her and embraced her in the biggest bear hug she had ever felt in her life.
"You're the greatest, Hermione!" He said, finishing the bear hug.
"Sure….um…one thing." Snape pulled away, allowing Hermione to take a step backwards and straightening out her clothes.
"What's that? Anything for Hermione."
"Could you not call me Hermione?" Snape nodded sadly, he looked like he was about to cry again.
"Oh, no, what I meant is call me Granger, or something that's not my name…it just doesn't seem right to have you call me by my first name." Snape brightened up.
"Of course." Hermione smiled, he smiled back. She turned to leave the room. Just as she was about to close the door, Snape called her.
"Yes, Professor?"
"Have a good night Her--Ms. Granger." Hermione nodded and continued walking back to the Gryffindor area.