Hermione ran, sobbing gracelessly, into the dungeons. She needed to be someplace cold, someplace punishing…because she should be punished! It was all her stupid fault! Stupid for not being good enough, for getting her hopes up over Ron; how could he ever be expected to like her, to think of her as a girl and not a talking encyclopedia sister? Hermione saw a darkened alcove and dived for it pulling a thick red curtain over the area. Tears still streaming from her eyes, curiosity got the best of her. Thick red curtain? Where had that come from? She stepped back into the dungeon passageway and let out an involuntary gasp. The alcove was nowhere to be seen! She quickly stepped through the wall, and there she was again, behind the red curtain, able even to see out into the passageway! The marvels of Hogwarts never ceased to amaze her. The castle was like a living entity, always growing new secrets and revealing them unexpectedly.
Satisfied that she could not be seen, Hermione began to cry in earnest. She took off her robes and laid them on the cold, hard floor, as her body was silently wracked by sobs of an enormous violence. The images danced in her mind… Ron blocking the goal, Gryffindors cheering triumphantly, and then, oh and then… At this point her body again became uncontrollable and her sorrow seemed to know no bounds…Lavender's tongue…Ron's strong arms around her…his enthusiastic response… the deafening cheer of the accursed Gryffindor Common Room…
Hermione lay in the cold alcove, crying for hours, welcoming the frigid air's gift of numbness. She only wished it could numb the pain in her heart. Finally, she sat up, rubbing futilely at raw eyes and cold cheeks. She pulled a mirror out of her book bag and grimaced. She looked like the Grim Reaper. If such a thing existed. Her eyes lit up for a moment in curiosity; a new idea to study! The perfect distraction from these wretched emotions, these sickening feelings. She would seek out the library as her next point of refuge. She would stay there all night if possible. But how to do so without getting caught by Madam Pinch?
Glancing up, Hermione was struck by a brilliant idea. She eyed the red curtain critically. It was rather large, tethered to two hooks on either side of the entrance to her alcove. She glanced into the corridor; no one appeared to be around… Acting quickly, Hermione unhooked the curtain and stuffed it into her bag, with a little help from her wand. She then began briskly trotting through the dungeon, back up to the staircase that would eventually lead her to the library.
And then promptly ran into a solid wall of darkness. Hermione, trembling, looked up into the infinite eyes of Professor Snape. His eyes seemed cold and calculating, and she was certain he could see the red blotches around her eyes and the dried tear trails on her cheeks, as well as the dirt on her robe. Bitterly, she realized that she probably looked the epitome of a Mudblood. Sadly, she thought back to a time when Ron had defended her from the term- and was abruptly stopped by a sudden surge of heat as cold lips closed over her own. She could taste the salt of her tears as Snape gently warmed her mouth. His arms had somehow reached behind her, and now one was pressing into her back, the other curving around the nape of her neck. Shocked, she did what any hot-blooded, emotionally wounded female witch would do. She kissed him back.
It lasted for a century, it lasted for a second, it never happened, it was the experience of her young life. All she could feel was the heat, and it tasted like fire and burnt her in the most sensuous manner possible. She arched her back, fingers trespassing his body and gliding to his smooth charcoal hair. She drunk until she was sated, filled with the unique essence of the man who held her so tightly and tenderly in his arms. Finally, she pulled away. His eyes gazed at her with wonder. She looked back at him in bewilderment, and suddenly his eyes returned to their normal icy black.
"Never cry in front of me again, Miss Granger. As you can see, there are certain repercussions that would be prudent to avoid…"
After this statement, Professor Snape billowed away into the darker recesses of the dungeons, leaving a very confused Hermione to walk up to the library with a head full of a million thoughts… and not one of those thoughts contained a Ronald Weasley.
Ron twitched, in the middle of snogging Lavender's face off. Something felt weird. With a shrug, he turned back to his previous action, never to know that in that very moment, he had lost Hermione Jane Granger forever.
