Chapter Three: Kiss Me Deadly
The following morning, Snape awoke in darkness, still in the armchair and with the tumbler empty on the table by his side. A quick glance at the floor revealed the Ogden's bottle, also empty, lying on its side, a few damp spots on the flagstones beneath its neck. Rubbing blearily at his eyes, he fished around down the side of the seat cushion and extracted his wand. It was still early but he'd probably need a good while to get himself into a presentable state before his first class. Which he realised was fourth-year Gryffindor and Slytherin. How irritating. Tempted to Scourgify his own mouth to eradicate any lingering taste and residual odour from his overindulgence the previous evening, he washed and dressed in a clean set of robes, his usual black. Adjusting the sleeves, he swirled his cloak about his shoulders and headed off out through the dungeons to the classroom, stopping off at his store cupboard to collect a few necessary ingredients for the morning's lesson. He was still irked by the theft of several items from his stores recently. A fastidious man, Snape knew his entire inventory by heart, and was beyond annoyed that not only did somebody have the gall to steal from him, but also the nature of the missing ingredients troubled him. Boomslang skin was horribly expensive, and whoever was brewing Polyjuice Potion, he would bet a month's salary that it was for some nefarious purpose. Potter again perhaps, but Snape couldn't fathom what use the boy might have for it in the tournament.
Thoughts of Harry Potter led to an image of Granger popping into his head - doubtless the brains behind the brat's operation. Curse the girl. He wished he'd had the wherewithal to use Legilimency on her as they'd crossed paths on the stairs. She was up to something as well, he'd bet twenty Galleons on it. Despite dreading taking the class even more than usual, Snape actually realised the time went by quite quickly. By some miracle, no-one blew anything up, or boiled their potion dry for a change. He was going to run out of befouled cauldrons for the students to clean during detentions at this rate. To his pleasant surprise, Granger had kept an uncommonly low profile for the entire sixty minutes. In fact she barely raised her head at all in class, never mind her hand, for once. He decided he didn't care. In fact, if she kept her mouth shut for the rest of the year he'd be a happy man. Relatively speaking.
That morning, Hermione woke with a start. She hadn't heard Ginny and the others make it back up to the dorm at all last night, at whatever unearthly hour they'd eventually rolled in! Obviously thinking about goblins had put her out for the count. Goblins. She had a hazy memory of a dream about goblins. Scrunching up her face with effort, she tried to recall it. Dancing at the Ball - so far, so expected. Dancing with Viktor, who took a drink of Butterbeer and turned into Professor Snape. The dark wizard had grabbed her arm and spun her across the dancefloor aggressively. Mid-pirouette, Snape turned into a goblin, who told her that she'd better keep her hands to herself, before turning back into Snape again, albeit now dressed in Durmstrang robes. The music changed and the band started playing a slow song that Hermione vaguely recalled as one by the Hobgoblins that Ginny had tried to get her to listen to recently, although she couldn't make out any of the words. Snape-Krum had put his hands on her waist and pulled her towards him, his face getting closer and closer until-...
Merlin's beard! Did she really have a dream about kissing Professor Snape?! No wonder she'd woken flustered! She couldn't imagine what it was about the events of the previous evening that had prompted such a thing. She cursed the fact that she'd dropped Divination that year - a little insight into her dream's meaning, if any, might have been handy, mumbo jumbo or not.
Realising with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that her first lesson that morning was Potions, she dressed hurriedly and made her way to class, keeping her head down and avoiding everyone, certain that the flush of embarrassment she felt was writ large all over her face. Harry and Ron seemed bemused by their friend's sudden change of mood, but the pair failed to extract more than a cursory greeting from her as they settled down to work, and after a couple of attempts at making conversation they soon gave up.
Only on a couple of occasions when Hermione was certain Snape was busy working away at his own desk did she risk a quick glance up. He seemed perfectly normal. For Snape, at any rate. His long dark hair fell limply over his face as he scratched away at a piece of parchment with a spindly black quill - no doubt some unfortunate first-year's homework - with enough red ink to qualify as an essay in its own right. She chanced another look at the professor. His hands moved to dip the quill in the ink pot again, and she found herself appreciating the efficiency of his movements; not an ounce of wasted energy, his sinewy fingers coiled around the feather like a serpent. She recalled the feeling of those elegant hands in her dream last night, and abruptly buried her face back into the textbook they were working from as she felt her face flush burning hot again. She didn't think that anyone else had noticed, thank Merlin.
As the bell rang for the end of class, Hermione stuffed her books, stationery and equipment back into her bag hurriedly and fairly ran out of the classroom, not waiting for Ron and Harry, who turned to each other, shrugged, and carried on arguing about which one of them had gotten the newt eyes out of the cupboard, and who should be the one to go and put them back.