The Plant
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As she pressed her hands against the sides of the newly repaired pot, Hermione felt herself walking down an echoing hallway.
The voice in the house was gone. All that was left was silence to magnify the memory of when she'd first held the pot. She thought of him, of the way he scoffed at the fern, and a small smile played on her lips. How could she have forgotten this?
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Hermione inched down narrow Hogwarts hallways toward Snape's office in small, overly careful steps as to not step on the hems of her school robes. She hugged a small orange terracotta pot to her chest as it it were precious, precious cargo. The pot contained a small fern plant, its tendrils partly open, spindly and delicate like something out of a painting. When she came close to his office, the eager student stopped and adjusted the way the leaves were positioned for aesthetic effect. Snape seemed the type to appreciate those types of things, she thought. His office and classrooms were always impeccably arranged for maximal authority.
Staying close to the wall, she continued along her way slowly, picking off any unsightly petals—which seemed to be a never-ending chore. As soon as every yellowing leaf was picked away, some other imperfection caught her eye, and she felt compulsion to pick those away as well. First it was the yellow ones, then the irritatingly small ones, then the asymmetric ones.
Like an artist, she could not find a state of perfection. Stop, she scolded herself; there weren't going to be any leaves left if she kept going.
Suddenly, faster than she could process, her body met an unexpected sharp force. Ramming against something blonde and gasping, she fell back, potted plant flying out from her grip. The clay slammed into the floor with a crash. Hermione was on the floor, disoriented and horrified. Her fern lay in the distance on the dungeon ground.
"Watch where you're doing!"
"Oh my, Hermione. I'm terribly sorry!" a meek melodious voice called.
She looked at the other girl and felt incredible annoyance. Luna Lovegood, what a careless fool of a witch! Taking a deep breath, she calmed her temper and forced a stiff looking smile. "It's all right, Luna. A simple Reparo will do," she said.
Hermione took the fern out from the shattered pot and spilled soil. A wand wave forced the pot back together and filled it with every last crumb of dirt from the floor. She placed the fern in the fixed pot and pushed it into place. The previously pert and beautiful plant now looked rather pathetic.
"Here," Luna quickly offered, "I can fix it up!"
She spoke some sort of musical spell and tapped her wand to the beat on the rim of the pot. The fern's crushed fronds immediately straightened again, sprouting a few new leaves in the process. The stalks which hung together by a single twisting filament healed with the halves joined in opposite directions. The bottom leaflets faced up and the top ones faced the floor. Luna tapped at it again, but they stubbornly refused to be righted.
"Wow, bugger," she muttered, breathy and thin.
Hermione wrinkled her brow. "How did you do that? What kind of spell is that?"
"Plant healing, my dad taught it to me. Really sorry about it looking a bit odd." She pointed to the unnatural stalk. "Oh well, just going to have to grow a new one."
Picking up the pot, Hermione stood up. Her face was marred by a small scowl that spoke of her displeasure at someone knowing more magic than her. Luna soon followed suit and shook her long messy hair as she got to her feet.
"Um, thanks," the brown-haired witch muttered halfheartedly. She looked at the twisted stalks with disdain.
As if reading her mind, the other girl stared directly into her eyes and said, "They'll like it."
"Who?"
"Whoever you're giving this to. I'm sure they'll love it. It's unique!"
She snorted at the reassuring comment. As if Snape could love anything.
"It's fine, Luna. It really is," she said absently as she turned away. Luna shrugged and continued upward out of the dungeons. After a few steps, she spun around and stared after Luna. The younger girl was skipping, each step springing full of joy before she reached the stairs.
One foot in front of the other, she navigated the maze-like dungeons toward his office. The empty halls echoed with each footstep, bringing a tightening anxiety to her chest. There was no reason to be afraid, she knew that much logically. He'd already said yes to her request for a letter of recommendation; there was no reason for him to reject her gift or her new request. And yet her heart thumped painfully as she approached his door.
At the door, she hesitated before knocking; much less than when she came last, but still a fair bit. Once she found the courage to rap on the heavy wooden door, she immediately took a step back and hugged the clay pot. She stood almost a meter back as if expecting him to open the door himself.
A muffled "yes" came from the door frame. There was no mistaking the irritation in his deep voice. Hermione stopped, wondering if she should run back to Gryffindor Tower. Her fingers traced the rim of the pot as she thought about simply leaving the pot beside his door with a note. As she was deep in contemplation, the door suddenly swung open. She jumped, very nearly dropping the pot again.
"Are you going to stand there forever, Miss Granger? If you have no intentions of entering, I suggest you scamper away and leave me to my work," he said softly, barely audible from her distance.
Hermione nervously entered the office.
The room was dim, lit only by a few tall white candles around his desk. Their flickering light cast strange glints on the many jars behind him, illuminating their edges but not their contents. The glass vials and jars were neatly stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. She quietly stepped forward and sat down in the chair opposite him, clearly stiff with unease.
"Is there something you require, Miss Granger? I have already told you—"
"No sir," she quickly answered, unintentionally cutting him off. Snape narrowed his eyes and regarded her with undisguised impatience. The professor bore through her with his exacting gaze while he scribbled something on the essay he was grading, as if to finish some thought she'd interrupted. He picked up the parchment and sat it on a pile to his right, cold eyes never leaving Hermione. She swallowed involuntarily, palms becoming cold and clammy. "I—I just—" she stammered, shaken by his steady attention.
He sneered, set his quill down, and crossed his arms over his chest. The gesture only made her more tense, which she suspected was his intention all along. Suddenly feeling silly, she became determined to not fall prey to his amusement. She placed the pot on his desk and forced herself to spit out her words. "I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to write a letter for me. I wanted to give you this fern to show my appreciation." Hermione stumbled over her words slightly and added, "And I really do appreciate it!" as an afterthought.
Snape briefly swept his gaze over the plant, pausing at the odd backwards leaves. He looked quite unimpressed.
"It won't suffer in the dungeon without light, won't grow all tall and starved-looking. It'll be quite nice once it grows, I promise. It's a fern, yeah." She continued, rushing her words at full speed then wincing as she realized she hardly made sense.
"That much is obvious," he cut her off.
His student sucked in a nervous breath and rambled onward, "Well, sir. I just was wondering—you know—"
"No, I don't know, Miss Granger."
"Well, I—what I meant was—" the words seemed to knot together as she tried to stay coherent under his dismissive sneer. The chill of the dungeons suddenly seemed to creep up on her, causing her knees to tremble. Snape only added to her rising panic as he stared at her silently.
"Sir," she calmed herself down and dictated slowly, "my application requires the proposal of a specific research project. I was wondering if—"
"If you could trade your plebeian fern for a bit of my divine inspiration?" he smirked maliciously as he interrupted her. "And why should I help you anymore in this ludicrous endeavor, Miss Granger? Surely Professor Slughorn would be the one to speak to. He is—ah, what it is they call them these days—the Potions Master?" Words long and drawn out, he took every available syllable and pause to mock her. Hermione creased her brow at his condescension; she refused to be intimidated by his petty words. Two can play at this game.
"But sir, I would like my proposal to be relevant. Professor Slughorn hasn't been actively brewing or researching for very many years now. Surely your expertise is much more up to date. Unless you feel you're not—" She purposely paused, hoping she could challenge his ego.
"Unless what?" Snape muttered icily, daring her to insult him.
The bait was taken. Looking at him with her most innocent eyes, Hermione pretended to completely misinterpret his demeanor. "Unless you are too busy, sir. I would understand completely if you were!"
The wizard leaned back in his chair and considered her for a moment, shifting his expression from one of barely concealed irritation to amusement. He tapped his long, raw-boned fingers on the desk and gave her a small smirk. A glint in his told her that he was fully aware of her poorly executed attempt at manipulating him. "Well played, Miss Granger. One would have not suspected such an attempt from a Gryffindor." Hermione smiled sheepishly but quickly resumed her clueless face as he continued, "But don't feel too satisfied with yourself, you've absolutely no subtlety."
"And will you be teaching me that as well, sir?" She ventured.
Instead of scoffing at her, he laughed. "See me after class this Friday. I shall have a project in mind by then."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" Hermione burst into a huge uncontrollable smile and stood up quickly, knocking her chair backwards in the process. Snape snapped his eyes shut at the disturbance of wood falling on stone and scoffed at her.
"Get out of my office before you knock over something important," he said tersely, waving his hand for her to depart as soon as possible. But the bite in his tone was half-hearted. Obediently hurrying out, Hermione could feel her whole being swell with joy. For the first time all term, she felt hopeful that she was a step above everyone else, that she had some solid plans for the summer and for advancing herself. Her proposal was going to beat out all those other students; she just knew it.
The dungeons seemed sort of quaint and beautiful all of a sudden. She thought she heard him mutter "stupid chit" to himself as she cross the doorway, but it just made her smile even wider. She'd stared down the fearsome Professor Snape and lived to tell the tale. And, if only for a brief moment, she swore that she'd seen respect in his eyes.
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