A little of your time
Chapter 4 -Are you good at Potions?-
~Hermione~
Hermione bit her lip and shuffled over towards the advised seat. The brown-haired boy gave her a timid smile, and she was surprised how much he resembled her friend Neville.
"Hi!" he whispered, when she slipped into the seat next to him. "I'm Frank Longbottom. Don't mind too much what the old hag said to you. She's like that all the time."
"Hi!" Hermione smiled back. "I'm Géraldine Henshler. Thank you."
"Are you good at Potions?" he asked hopefully.
"Oh, I –" she blushed a little, "I'm not too bad, I suppose…"
"That's more than I can say about myself," Frank sighed mournfully. "I always blow my potions up or spoil them one way or another. The others aren't too fond of working with me because of that. I'm sorry you're stuck with me for this lesson."
Hermione smiled at him. "Don't worry, Frank. I'm sure we'll manage."
He shot an uncertain glance at her. "That would be gravy."
~oo~
"Today we'll brew the most powerful Sleeping Potion we know of," Professor Figg declared. "Who can tell me, by what other name that potion is called? Yes, Mr. Snape?" she said and Hermione nearly dropped out of her seat.
She had not looked at any of the other students so far and the knowledge came as kind of a shock to her. Across the room sat the teenage version of the greasy-haired man who had caused all this trouble in the first place.
"It's also called the 'Draught of Living Death'," he declared in a voice that sounded strangely younger, but all too familiar to her as well.
"That is correct, Mr. Snape," Professor Figg smiled at him. "Please write the ingredients and instructions to the board, will you!"
Still in shock, Hermione watched, as Severus Snape rose from his seat and headed towards the blackboard. Frank, who had followed her gaze, sighed in frustration. "Snape," he declared mournfully, "an insufferable git, you'll see. He's Slytherin, of course. Bloody good at Potions, but –"
At this his explanations were interrupted by the sharp remark of Professor Figg, who glared at them dangerously. "I didn't pair the two of you up with each other to have my lesson disturbed by chattering. Five further points from Gryffindor – each."
The Gryffindors groaned at that and Hermione drew in a sharp breath.
"Mr. Longbottom, you will assist me in testing the potion later on and Miss Henshler –" Figg glared at her, "if you have finished gaping at Mr. Snape, do you think you could manage to tell us which ingredients are required?" she mocked.
Hermione blushed a terrible shade of crimson at that statement. There was a lot of sniggering from the Slytherin side, whereas she got some very odd looks from the other Gryffindors.
Snape turned towards her, his eyebrows arched in surprise. Though his lips curled into his trademark sneer, Hermione was surprised at what she saw.
He was tall and lean, like his future self – almost slim, but his skin was not sallow, though still very pale. He wore black, as usual, but in this time, there was the Slytherin house-crest at the front of his robes. His hair was cut a little shorter and was not as greasy as it would be her days. It barely reached to his shoulders. He did look a great deal better than he would in the future. His beetle-black eyes seemed to seek her out. They fixed her gaze with an intense stare that made her head feel all funny. She noticed, there was far less bitterness in his eyes now.
"Miss Henshler?" the Professor requested and Hermione snapped out of her inspection. "Oh—erw – er- yes, yes .." she stammered, burning with embarrassment.
The Slytherins were howling with laughter, by now. With the exception of Snape, who watched her out of narrowed eyes, as if wondering what to make of her strange behaviour.
"Mr. Snape – go to the board, please," Figg ordered and with a last odd look in Hermione's direction, Snape turned away.
"Well, Miss Henshler?"
Hermione started to name all the ingredients she could remember to be used on the potion. But it was certainly of no help to her that she heard her own-time-Snape's voice echoing in her mind the whole time. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death."
The Snape at the blackboard listed the ingredients as she recited them to him. And as he stood with his back turned towards her, writing instructions to the board in his familiar flourishes, it was not too difficult to imagine everything was all right again.
Professor Figg~
Against everyone's expectations, the potion in Mr. Longbottom's cauldron actually turned out to the right colour, for once. So when she approached their desk, at the end of the lesson, Arrabella Figg raised her brows in surprise at the sight of the softly simmering pale blue liquid. Perhaps this new Gryffindor-girl was not a ninny, after all.
"That seems to be in order," she remarked shortly. "As the lesson is now almost over, we won't be testing the potion, Mr. Longbottom."
The boy's face lit up with unmasked relief.
At this she turned back to face the class again. "I expect you to write an essay about this potion and its possible side effects as today's homework. But make sure, it is no shorter than at least one roll of parchment. Clean up now – everyone."
~Hermione~
"Thank you, Géraldine. Thank you so much for your help," Frank muttered gratefully, as they collected their equipment.
"Oh never mind, Nev-erw- Frank," Hermione smiled at him. "I guess, we worked well with each other."
They started to clean up their desk. Frank took the remaining ingredients and bottles back to the closet, while Hermione collected the used beakers and vials and walked over towards the water basin.
While cleaning she stood with her back to the classroom and therefore could not see anyone, when another, quite familiar voice drawled. "Well, I wonder, for what personal-reasons the little slut had to leave her old school."
She did not dare to look up towards the Slytherin side, but listened.
"What makes you so sure about her being a slut?" this was Snape's voice. She noticed, there was a trace of anger in it.
"Honestly, Severus," the first boy sneered, "for being one of the top students, you can be quite an oaf, sometimes. Didn't you see how she stared at you earlier?"
"So what?!" Snape shot back at the other boy.
Hermione had to swallow at that comment. Damn, it all, if only she had gotten a grip on herself, earlier. She did not even dare to think about what her strange behaviour might have looked like. To stare at Snape like that. Losing ten house points at her very first lesson. 'Brilliant move, Hermione,' she said to herself in frustration. 'Really bloody brilliant.'
As they left the potions classroom, a pretty red-haired girl approached her; she was accompanied by Frank and a few other boys. "Hi! Géraldine, wasn't it?" she asked and smiled at her. "I'm Lily."
A/N: Thank you for all the reviews. I'm happy, you want to read more of my story.
Thanks to Misao and SilentG for revising this chapter.
I suppose, everyone recognized the sentence that I said to be echoing in Hermione's mind, as one of the first book. (Chapter 8 / Page 103 / ll.10 to 12)
Yes, this is going to be a Severus/Hermione story and you can be sure, there is romance to come. I just don't want to rush things.
*Star Angel* Thank you for the first review to my first ever story.
Serpentina