Here's the next installment of our story. I see a few of you have followed, a few have favorited, and my favorite few of you have left reviews ;) I thank you all! I hope this chapter brings some more of you quiet followers to leave me your thoughts. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Obviously, the Harry Potter series and its characters belong to the wonderful JK Rowling. I only borrow them on occasion.

Chapter 2

Severus Snape froze in his tracks, slowing turning to face the person who had emitted the much-hated word. As it was, he hated interacting students during the school year – he despised seeing them during the holidays, and thankfully it was an extremely rare occurrence.

Hermione Granger. Of course. Anyone else would ignore him, pretend they hadn't seen him, maybe even hide to make sure he didn't see them (as if he'd give any Hogwarts student a second glance anyway). But not her. No, not Hermione Granger.

"Miss Granger," He sighed, his best student-repelling sneer on his face. "To what do I owe the pleasure."

It wasn't a question. No, he wanted it clear that the pleasure he'd resigned himself to facing wasn't welcome at all.

She blushed, and he chuckled inwardly at realizing she probably hadn't even meant to call out to him. He loosely understood what had made her do it – it wasn't every day you ran into a Hogwarts teacher in muggle London, after all.

"Um, how are you, Professor?" She stepped closer, and Snape registered amusedly that the boy she'd just been talking to was staring at him with what could be called thinly disguised hatred for interrupting their conversation. He smirked at the boy, and he turned away, embarrassed. Oh, teenage lust.

"As well as I ever am, Miss Granger. I can see you're enjoying," He put particular emphasis on the word and looked again at her male companion, relishing in her deepening blush. "Your summer."

"Oh!" She looked back at her friend and shook her head. "No! I, well, yes, but, but…"

"I assure you Miss Granger, I have no interest in your vacation exploits," He smirked again at the boy. "One way or the other."

She looked a bit angry now, and he wondered if the absence of Hogwarts' strict rules and points system was enough to make lash out at him.

"Of course, sir," Granger said simply, keeping her composure but for the blush on her cheeks and the embarrassed animosity in her eyes. "I apologize for imposing my presence on you when you're so clearly enjoying your holiday," She glanced at his dark Muggle clothes, so similar to his normal teaching robes, and raised an eyebrow.

He almost laughed. Almost. The little chit.

"Since we are not at Hogwarts, Miss Granger, I will let that slide."

They stared at each other for a few more moments, until the impatient boy next to her cleared his throat.

"Uh, sorry," He said as they both looked at him sharply, and avoided the Potions Master's eyes, smiling at Granger. "Just, Hermione, I-I should get going. But, like I was saying, I'm meeting some friends tonight in Shaftesbury, at this pub, and-"

He listened, amused, as the boy all but begged Granger to meet him at some seedy place or other in central London, and fought back the urge to roll his eyes at the teenager's desperation. The girl certainly had a lot of faults, but being this gullible certainly was not one of them.

Finally he was gone, and Granger turned back to blush at him.

"Well, sir, I'm sorry for calling out to you. I was a bit surprised to see a Hogwarts teacher in Kensington."

"Yes." Snape ignored the apology. "I see your little friend has been frightened away, Miss Granger. Perhaps you were too harsh in your rejection," He smirked.

She frowned, looking puzzled.

"What? I-I don't think so, sir. I'll see him later today, after all."

What? She said yes to his invitation? How had he missed that?

Granger was looking at him carefully, as if determining whether or not he was mad. "We, we were just discussing it, Professor. Didn't you hear-"

"I had no interest to listening to the desperate attempts of a nervous teenaged boy trying to ask out a pretty girl," He sneered. "I'm sure you know I get quite enough of that at Hogwarts."

She blushed again, but in a different way now, and Snape realized angrily that she was trying not to be pleased at his assessment of her appearance. At least Granger had the sense not to say anything.

"Of course, sir."

"I assumed," He continued, his voice biting. "That you were intelligent enough to spur the obvious lewd advances of randy schoolboys."

She looked shocked. "What?! Lewd? Rand-" She stopped herself, blushing at the word, and squared her shoulders determinedly. "I-I thought he was perfectly nice, Professor."

He chuckled at her, darkly. "Of course, Miss Granger. As you wish, then. If you appreciate the attention, who am I to judge you for it. Good day to you."

And with that, Snape turned around and walked away from her, cursing this morning's urge to have some muggle coffee but inwardly savoring the gaping, offended girl he left behind. Oh, the amusing perks of teaching hormonal youngsters.

As he walked into the café, however, his thoughts turned back to the fact that Granger had seemed to think it was a perfectly good idea to go out with that stranger tonight.

Damn it. He hadn't looked closely at the boy. Of course, he looked like a normal, if somewhat pathetic, young man. But who's to say he wasn't in disguise? He flashed back to two months ago, to that nebulous feeling of sorrow at seeing the ugly scar on the girl's chest from Dolohov's curse at the Ministry. She'd been in the hospital wing for more than a week, in quite some pain for most days, and despite his and Poppy Pomfrey's best efforts to heal the injury he knew she'd have the unsightly scar for the rest of her life.

She'd cried out sometimes in her sleep, as he stood over her examining the cut and trying to determine what dark curse had been used to inflict it. He wasn't sure if it was pain or nightmares, but he couldn't help but feel some guilt at his inability to stop the six students from running off to the Ministry.

Potter deserved what he got. He acknowledged vaguely that the death of the boy's godfather was more than he would've wished on him, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry about Sirius Black's death, or about Potter's newfound misery. The foolish boy had run off with no thought whatsoever, and if it took all this tragedy to teach him a lesson, then he dearly needed that lesson. The others had followed him willingly, volunteered even, if the story he'd heard from Albus was to be believed, and were as foolish as Potter. But he knew from Albus and Potter himself that the girl had tried to stop him, had urged him to floo Black's house before running off to the Ministry, and had finally gone with him probably out of duty to her friend. And if anybody understood duty, it was Severus Snape. And it was that line of thought that led him to believe that out of the six stupid children, Granger deserved that sort of injury the least.

What if she got hurt tonight? Evil wizards weren't even the only danger out there. Violent muggle boys could hurt her just as much, and even though she was reasonable at fighting magically he wouldn't put it past Granger to refuse to use her wand to help her, out of fear of being expelled from Hogwarts for underage magic.

Fuck. He racked his brain for the name of the place where Granger had agreed to meet the boy. Why must Gryffindors be so reckless?

Snape had offended the girl his fair share of times, but he'd be the first to admit that she was the most tolerable of the Golden Trio. There was too much to be said for his hatred of Potter, and although the Weasley boy had at first incited in him a grudging patience, out of respect to his kindhearted parents, he'd quickly shown himself to be just as stupid and temperamental as the friend he followed around, without even the admittedly weak excuse of being "the Chosen One". But all he had against Granger was her annoying need to be the most intelligent at everything, and to do so without the slightest subtlety or humility. And an irritating thirst for knowledge, he could handle. He himself had wanted to be top of the class when he was a student, and although she went about it much more vexingly he couldn't fault the girl for wanting to show she was smart. Especially when so many of their world underestimated her because of her blood status.

And it was with that grudging acknowledgement of an obligation to Hermione Granger, as one of his less insufferably dunderheaded students, that Snape apparated back to his house and resolved to head to Shaftesbury Ave. later that day.

Well there's my Snape POV! I hope I did him justice. Such a hard guy to write. I keep wanting to use the same words over and over..."sneer", "insufferable", and a lot of "blushing/flushing" from those subject to his presence. Oh well. I'll keep my thesaurus handy next time.
And maybe you guys could include some Snapey adjectives in the review I'm sure you were about to so nicely leave me :P
Thanks for reading! Next chapter should be up in a few days.