Summary: War hero Severus Snape, suffering from an overabundance of unwanted admirers, seeks out the help of wizarding journalist Hermione Granger. His request leads them into a game of wits, one where Snape slowly begins to realize that, for the first time, he might not be able to win.
A/N: This was written for the Competition Challenge by AeroBabe. My pairing is Hermione/Severus, my genre is parody (used within the story rather than throughout), and my prompts were Games, Learn, and 'Losing my Religion' by the Glee Cast.
Rated 'T' for language and sexual implications.
Thank you Aerobabe for holding this competition, and thank all the rest of you for reading.
Enjoy.
Snape vs. Owls
Severus Snape, ex-esteemed Potions Professor, ex-Most Reviled Headmaster of Hogwarts, Order-of-dreaded-Merlin First Class for Despicable Deeds During the War, drew his wand with nary a thought and shot a curse at the offending object that had somehow just flown through his warded window.
The owl gave a squawk. A few feathers scattered. Enough for 2 points, but hardly more. The owl gained 3 for managing to deliver the letter, but no extra points for creativity or style.
"Oh, bugger off, you're fine. And no, I do not want whatever piece of trash letter you've carried halfway across this damned nation. Begone!"
The offending letter was left amongst the pile that sat precariously close to the fire. The offending owl, sensing that perhaps he was not to get the treat usually so graciously offered to him, set out through the window on his long hungry trek.
Snape, not bothering to open the letters, grabbed a good handful of them and threw them into his fire. He closed the window again, even as the heat of the flames stifled the room and transformed it into a furnace.
There was a sharp knock at the door.
"Please Dear God, dear Merlin, dear whoever, let it not be an owl," Snape muttered as he closed in on the front entranceway. For he had been tricked in this way before. Owls did not take kindly to closed windows or warded houses. That owl had gained a good ten points for his team.
Instead, it was an arrival he had both hoped for and dreaded.
On his doorstep, standing patiently as he ever saw her was a grown-up version of Hermione Granger. She was sharply dressed from the 2-inch heels of her sensible shoes to the pencil skirt and the blue silk blouse under her jacket that brought out the warm tones in her eyes and hair. The hair itself was strained back from her head, braided once or twice and spun about together into a tight bun. It was oddly satisfying to see such offensive hair caged so, and also slightly disappointing.
"Miss Granger," he intoned as if she was the last thing he wished to find on his doorstep. "Do come in."
"Mr. Snape, how pleasant to see you again," she said genuinely.
He journeyed back to his dining room, despite its heat, and gave the barest of gestures for her to seat herself.
If she was awed or surprised by the piles upon piles of letters and parcels in his house, she kept it remarkably well-concealed, especially for a Gryffindor.
Not giving her any further time to acclimate herself, he took the offensive.
"Your recent article in The Quibbler, Miss Granger, would you deem it a success?"
"It accomplished what any parody hopes to accomplish. It caught the attention of the readers in such a way that its message cannot be ignored," she spoke with her usual passion, such passion he had nearly forgotten about.
"So you really truly do not care about the fashion of house elves."
"Only in so much that their fashion speaks of their means and lack of freedoms," she replied with much grace, then gave a small laugh. "I must say, I did not expect you to interrogate me over that article. From your letter I had thought you rather admired my cleverness, and I assumed it was the reason you sought me out, above any others, to write your interview."
He had thought, since the tone of her latest article that she would, in her verbal conversation, bite with the same sarcasm that pronounced her written language. He had been secretly hoping that she would play such a game with him, and that he, having had much more practice, of course, would win. How did she know, then, that the one thing he could not abide was that truthful sincerity such that Albus Dumbledore had wielded against him?
"I chose you, over the numerous magazines and newspapers vying for a word with such an esteemed war hero such as myself, because I thought you might be able to help me with a little problem."
"Would that problem have to do with the fact that my seat is made uneven by letters, that your table is covered in letters such that, if you indeed had offered me tea, I would be unable to see my cup, much less balance to take a sip from it?"
Snape summoned the tea set from beneath the letters, not because she had implied she wanted some, but because he needed something to do with his hands while she stared at him so.
He sighed heavily, as if levitating a full tea cup was the most inconvenient request he had ever received. Why she even wanted hot tea when the room was as stifling as it was remained a mystery.
"My problem, is not merely the letters themselves, nor the owls too clever for their own good" and here he shot a look at thea former student who had also been far too clever for her own good "but the women and none few men, who seem adamant on writing such trash." Here he flung a handful of letters from the table into the fire. Ash tumbled out as the new weight upset the fire, satisfying his need for dramatic effect.
"If I may?" she asked, and he turned back to see her breaking the seal of one such offending article.
"I think not," he said, banishing it from her hands. It flew past her teacup, which towered precariously on a stack of letters, and into the fire. Miss Granger gravely saved her teacup from spilling and took a sip from it, prim and proper as if she had not just tried to pry into a man's personal mail.
He continued, "You do not need fodder to humiliate me with in order to alleviate the problem."
Her eyes lit up.
"I take it then that most of these attentions are romantic in nature?"
Oh, but she was having a grand time of it, he could tell, and was certainly playing the game now. Now that he was at somewhat of a disadvantage in requesting her help. The shrew.
"Unfortunately, yes," he intoned as calmly as possible at this juncture.
"Then I see two possible solutions. One, you have taken a vow of celibacy, in accordance with Christianity or Druidry, which makes any such further attentions quite rude, whether they believe in said religion or not."
He snorted. He may as well though, considering he had not bothered to find a one-night-stand in quite a few years.
"Which does not take into account my own lack of religion. While as alluring as pretending to have found god or nature and to forsake the company of humankind sounds…I find I am still not ready to give up on certain possibilities."
Miss Granger raised an eyebrow. The Miss Granger he had known would have been too overcome with curiosity to let such a thing slip, but it seemed she had changed a bit, and she forged on. He swallowed, and wondered at the heat that beat upon his skin. Damn fire, damn birds, he thought.
"The second option is thus: you have already found the love of your life, of whom you dote upon so sickeningly that you would be very disappointed in anyone who did not respect your new-found happiness. Romantics respect romance. That is one reason they admire you so, your unheard of level of devotion to one woman. In this case, once you have chosen your new sole object of desire, only those who have issues with sanity would continue to write. In which case there would be a great deal less of such letters and it would be much easier to make a solid case for the Aurors to investigate the sanity of those admirers."
Damn, so she had discovered his complaint at the Auror's office then. Of course she had done her research before ever agreeing to meet with him, this was Miss Granger, after all. The gall of her, making him play the fool while she knew all along what his problem with the letters was all about!
"You say these things as if the public would care about my reaction to their actions; as if one simple statement will deter them for good, when they had thus far been quite persistent. And such reckless persistence I do find quite insane."
"These letters are proof enough that they do care what you think, but what you think must be made public, and have enough power of closure. People like a happy ending. For as long as you wallow alone in your house, they will continue in hope that they will be the one to change your mind."
"Isn't there just a way to tell them to bugger off and leave a poor man in peace?" he lamented at the ceiling.
"I think you would've already tried the direct route if it was possible. After all, when the direct route doesn't work, the smart ones do not merely give up, but instead try a different more subtle approach."
He had an inkling she wasn't just talking about the way she had written her recent article, the house elf version of a witches' weekly fashion column, but shoved the thought to the back of his mind.
He threw another bunch of letters into the fire. He didn't care now if he sweated his life away and the growing sheen of perspiration across Miss Granger's brow humored him. She had even calmly taken off her jacket, but had not voiced a word of complaint. She had even taken a few more sips of her tea, as if the heat had not bothered her in the slightest!
An owl pecked at the window, but the ward seemed to be holding up. He leaned back into his seat and took a sip of his tea. He found it surprising cool, and it took him just a second to find the culprit. Miss Granger had iced the tea. When had he been distracted so to let this pass by his watchful vigil?
"Is that a scoreboard?" Miss Granger asked, aghast, finally shocked enough to let down her guard. He took a second to admire her look of surprise, the derision that would surely follow…
"Yes, unfortunately I seem to be losing."
"Against owls?" but there was no derision in her tone. Instead, she turned back to him, a mischievous look lighting her face, curling her lips up into a smile.
"If I help you out, would you add me to the board? I find I miss the thrill of competition for the House Cup." She settled her lips firmly again, seriously.
He sighed even more dramatically. "You earned far more points than anyone else and were still disappointed when you received none in my class."
"I did answer most of your questions correctly. The least I'd expect was a point or two." A tug at her lips was the only hint he needed to see she was playing, but was she playing with or against him?
"When a correct answer from you garnered four or five in any other class? No, I was merely trying to even the playing field."
Something tumbled down the chimney, squawked when it met the high-burning fire and threw itself at Miss Granger in a flurry of ash and feathers. She rose and pointed her wand in defense.
Snape snapped the object back from her like it was a bludger, opened the far window and let the owl continue in its projectile motion out back into the tepid day. This time he had managed to not let it drop off the letter. Ten points to him and zero to the owl.
Now he warded the chimney as well. Miss Granger did not sit back down.
"Have you killed any of them?" Miss Granger asked with a hint of awe and fear in her voice.
He snorted. "Don't be silly, that would cost far too many galleons." Not that he didn't have the gold to repay the grieving owners.
The image of his new piles of gold in Gringotts caught his attention. Galleons were attractive. He'd never had many galleons, and in the same instance he had acquired piles of them he was deemed suddenly worth pursuing…"If I were to lose or donate my fortune…"
She caught on quickly, but shook her head.
"It might deter some of your admirers, but far too many like you because you are a hero, not because of how many galleons you possess. Face it, Severus Snape, you're a stud. A tough, dangerous wizard with a heart of gold. A persevering, devoted, misunderstood soul."
"Surely not those who I've taught…" And here he stood up as if to fan the flames of the fire, but remained caught by her words.
"Unless these letters are all from ladies as old as my aunt and grandma, there must be quite a few of your former students amongst them."
The sweat had formed wet spots on her blouse beneath her shoulders. From his position he could smell her. He had known the heat would drive her to aggravation, but had forgotten how it would affect him as well, witnessing her shirt as it clung more and more to her curves. The heat was no longer outside of him, bearing down as other forces had bore down on him all his life, but was now within him, coursing through his veins in such a way.
Could she still be ignorant that she affected him so? No, he shouldn't underestimate her, even if it meant he would be called a pervert and hexed by the witch for acting now. She was still here after all, even as he closed in on her and spoke sweet poison into her ear.
"It seems there really is only one solution."
Yes, only one solution for him. She was the only person he had thought of when prompted to find an able mind to work with him to find a solution. And he had admired her article; the cleverness of it, with her intelligence that she wielded to accomplish her goals in unusual ways. She was not wasteful of her talents.
"I wondered when you might pursue this possibility," she said, her breath betraying the quick rate of her heartbeat.
"You have played me," he said as he descended upon her lips. He took them slowly, sweetly, teasing both their hearts with such languid restraint.
She broke away only briefly, to speak into his ear with a breath that moved quickly between the words.
"Only to get you to see that you are indeed an attractive man and that I am not too young to keep up with you!"
"And you called all this subtle?" he waved his arms around at the plethora of letters.
"I only helped it along a bit, a few multiplication spells, encouraging some acquaintances to continue to write to you…And it worked out quite wonderfully, wouldn't you say?" she nipped at his lips.
"You clever, clever woman," he said, looking down at with a hunger in his dark eyes.
"Shall we say a hundred points to Miss Granger then?" she asked cheekily.
He acceded to her small victory and led her up the stairs.
A third score appeared on the board and as the evening progressed Miss Granger earned an astronomical amount of points that put her career at Hogwarts to shame.