Title: Occlumency Askew

Yes it is all JKR's no its not mine.

Plot summery: HG&SS Gryffindor brain tries to one- up the sly git. Dumbledore gets involved when he needs them to cooperate to make some potions for the remaining death eaters (Voldemort's been vanquished) Dumbledore hopes Hermione can snake her way into the snake's heart.

One

Hermione sat in potions class between Ron and Harry, who were leaning in front of her arguing about quidditch as is she weren't there. It was the same old stuff every day. At the moment she was contemplating Snape's reaction to being thrown over a high cliff- he had just taken 10 points from Gryffindor because she answered too many questions right and "crippled the other students' self-esteem"- yeah, like Snape needed help with that.

"Harry pay attention!" Hermione grabbed his hand before he seriously messed up his potion. They were making occlumency bane, a powerful potion that broke down every wall of defense in a wizards mind- no matter if they were Harry Potter and had taken private lessons with Snape to prevent Voldemort from entering their minds- this potion, as Snape had so lovingly put it, "would render Potter as helpless as Longbottom on his potions NEWTS."

Hermione finished her potion with half the period left, and sat for awhile watching it darken from green to black, than harden into a solid block that looked like glass and felt like dough. Malfoy finished his potion and looked up. He smirked at Hermione's block at first, but then shock registered on his face and he blurted out "bloody Merlin!"

"Where's the fire, Mr. Malfoy?" asked Snape calmly, without looking up from the paper he was busy failing.

"Sir, Granger… Granger- eh- screwed up her potion."

Snape's head snapped up. He stared at Malfoy for a second, thinking he was trying to get attention as usual with one of his relentlessly irritating outbursts. But Malfoy stared right back, so Snape turned his head slowly to look at Hermione. She seemed quite calm and sure of herself, bloody overconfident Gryffindor. But when Snape looked at what was lying in the vial on her desk, his jaw twitched slightly in surprise.

"Ms Granger, are you aware that we are making the occlumency bane?"

"Yes, sir"

"Are you further aware that it should, shall we say, not be a solid block of black glass?"

"Yes, sir"

"And that it should in fact look like Mr. Malfoy's?" he asked, indicating the steamy green liquid that sat in a corked vial on Malfoy's desk.

"Yes, sir"

"I see," Snape said simply, and turned his attention back to the paper on his desk. He wrote Fail in large print across the top and went on to the next paper. This was clearly not the response Hermione wanted. She shifted in her desk, and cleared her throat. Snape ignored her.

"Sir?"

He put down his quill and looked up irritably. "Yes?"

"This is a different kind of occlumency bane. I've been researching occlumency, and this is a much more efficient and powerful potion."

"As much as I'm sure a studious little Gryffindor girl would love to discover a more "efficient and powerful" mind reading potion, I assure you none exists."

"I beg to differ."

Snape cracked a mocking smile and looked at her with anger flashing behind his eyes. "Explain it to me in detention."

The bell rang, and many of the students had to recompose themselves before they brought their potions up to Snape's desk. A few whispered as they left, "Can you believe Hermione got something wrong?" "Nah, there must be an explanation." "Maybe she's finally cracked. All the pressure and everything." "Who hasn't cracked around Snape?"

Hermione was the last to leave. She placed her potion on Snape's desk as they exchanged questioning glances. Hermione turned her back and left, and once she was in the Gryffindor common room she smiled. I'll give him the biggest bloody shock of his life, she thought, as she anticipated her first detention. She fell asleep on the couch in front of the fire.