Chapter 3:

Meltdown!

As she sat in the cool chamber, she found her tears drying up at the thought of her brash encounter in that Potions Class. A smile touched her lips and she pulled her eyes away from Ron and the Quidditch pitch. A strange feeling welled up inside of her, and her heart began to pound.

-oooooooooooooooooooo-

Professor Snape sat at his desk, poring over an essay, when Hermione made her way over to him after class. She was prepared for anything that he would say to her, and she felt what little adrenaline she had left in her system begin to course through her body. She could handle a little detention. In fact, she welcomed the challenge.

"Sir?" she said calmly, brushing her hair to the side. "What do you want me to do for my detention?" She wanted so badly to give off the air of confidence, just to annoy the hell out of him.

The professor looked up from the essay and glared at the young woman. "Sit," he said, gesturing at a chair in front of his desk.

Hermione sat, rather shocked that she was going to be simply sitting across from her teacher that was obviously going to lecture and yell at her due to her uncharacteristically vulgar remark, as if they were going to chat over a cup of tea. He turned back to his essays, silently, eventually scrawling a large 'F' on the top of the parchment. Scoffing at the essay, he thrust it into a pile and then began reading a new one. Apparently, he did not take notice that she had sat down and was patiently awaiting her punishment.

She waited for a full minute, until she then said, "Sir?" once more.

He did not even peer up when he spoke to her. "Miss Granger," he said, "do you enjoy disrupting me while I work or is your need for male attention not satiated without dear Mr. Weasley by your side, honest and true?"

She drew her breath inward sharply on the word 'honest' and almost responded rashly, stopping herself before it was too late, and willing herself to keep composure. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and fidgeted a little. Then, she took a deep breath and said, "Why did you take House Points from... him... and not me? It's not like it even makes a bit of difference who gets the points taken away."

Snape looked up, and Hermione expected him to be livid. Instead, he just wore a peculiar expression and said, "Your silly breakup has been the talk of half of my classes for the past day and a half. It's very safe for me to assume that you weren't the cause of this idiocy."

"Well, no," she said calmly, thinking about it, before snapping back to reality and saying, "Not that it is any of your business... sir."

"Lower your defenses," he said drearily, "I could care less about your silly relationship with that boy." He then went back to grading papers.

Hermione shifted uneasily in her seat. Why was he keeping her here, when the entire purpose of her visit was for him to give her a detention for acting out in class. "Sir, I was the one who... well... said that in class today."

"Would you have called me a, what was it? A bloody... fucking prick, was that right? A bloody fucking prick. Yes, that's it. Would you have even thought to utter that in my class if you were happy and merrily loving a Weasley?" he said sardonically.

Hermione scowled at him. "I've thought of a great many things that I'd like to say to you." she said, an iciness in her voice to rival his.

"Touche," he said, giving her an upward glance. "I've thought of a great many things that I'd like to say to you. However, I do somewhat enjoy my profession and wouldn't want to risk it. So 'insufferable know-it-all' will just have to do for now."

She was now beside herself. Composure thrown aside unceremoniously, she stood up and said, "Oh, why don't you go down to Malfoy's level and call me a Mudblood." Her voice was scathing, and she knew she was risking at least a suspension or 1,000 House Points for speaking in this way to her professor, but she felt that he, too, had crossed the line.

Well, at least she crossed her own personal line.

"Don't even stop there," she said, her voice rising. "Call me filthy, call me ugly," she said, throwing her hands up in the air, abandoning all self-control. "Call my parents worthless filth, call my family useless and a hindrance, call me overeager, call me... call me..." Suddenly, she was losing it, and all she could think about was the note in Lavender's girly handwriting, beckoning Ron back for sex, sex that he'd promised Hermione that he didn't have, and how she couldn't ever look at Ron the same way ever again... that she had been a fool enough to place her trust, hopes, and future in a person that could barely keep it together himself...

"Call me an idiot," she said softly, bursting into tears. Her heart was pounding madly, and it was no longer fun to try and annoy her rude teacher.

Professor Snape looked down at the sobbing figure with a pained look on his face.

(A/N: Chap. Title is by The Aquabats)