Dark Lord's Gift, Chapter 4

(Thanks for all the wonderful reviews; I'm sorry that I haven't updated in a while, I was busy with school and other stuff…)

Severus walked Hermione into the washroom and took a deep breath before looking around not knowing how to conduct himself considering that he had a former student in his arms. He released her and she began to fall forwards. Hermione was surprised when she felt her professor's strong arms circle her waist and pull her to lean against his chest while he still held a firm grip on her arms.

Severus took a glance at the clock on the wall, being a spy he always had to know the time, since timing was everything. It was already four thirty in the afternoon- where has the day gone he thought.

He looked away from the wall and spoke to Hermione's back. "It's been a long day, I need a shower, and I'm sure that you'd like one too, if you had any part of Lucius' disgusting body touching you. You can use this washroom; I'll be in the washroom in my old bedroom next to this room if you need anything. I will call on my female house-elves to wait on you. If you need any thing they will come and get me." He turned his head towards the door and gave a shout the startled Hermione, "Darce, Dina, Jack, Betty, Jane!" Five house-elves immediately popped in front of him.

The three females wore black skirts with white blouses and a black tea towel over it as a vest. In the middle of the towel was a crest with bearing two intertwine green snakes, the dominate snake was wearing a golden crown. The two snakes were encased inside a lion's claw. Hermione immediately recognized it as Snape's crest considering that she had the same crest tattooed into her neck. Now seeing a larger version of the crest she had to admit that it was quite lovely.

The two male house-elves were wearing black pants, white shirts and tea towel vest that matched the girls.

Severus turned Hermione in his arms so she was facing him. He kept a firm grip on her elbows to keep her steady. He didn't know why but he was a bit nervous about her reaction towards his house-elves.

"These are my house-elves," he said, "Darce is the head elf, he is a descendent of the Prince family's elves. This is his wife, Dina, and their twins, Jack, and Jane, and their youngest, Betty." Severus turned his head to his elves, "This is Miss Granger, and she will be staying here with us for a while. Dina, and Jane, please bath her and attend to her every need. Darce, I need you to go to my Lab and get some healing potions so I can attend to Miss Granger and my injuries, once we are clean. Jack can you go to the kitchen and prepare something for us to eat?" Severus turned to Betty and regarded her for a minute, "Betty I need you to go to town and purchase some clothing and whatever female necessities you think Miss Granger will need."

Hermione stared at Snape in shocked, not only did he dress his house elves properly but he spoke to them civilly, and did he just say please? Now thinking about it, Hermione didn't think she ever heard Snape say "please" before. She notice that he was staring at her with a raised brow, waiting for a reaction on the appearance of the house-elves, especially since he knew that she did the whole SPEW thing in her fourth year. "Why are they wearing clothes?" she asked not knowing what to say.

Severus chuckled. Hermione was even more shocked, but she liked the deep, rich sound of his chuckle. "I make them wear clothes, Miss Granger, I won't have them strutting about in just tea towels like my mother used to do- even if she had just one elf to cloth. Anyways the clothes help protect them when they help me in my Lab."

"You let them help them in your Lab, you hardly let anyone in your Labs let alone work with you."

"You're right about that, but what happen to your elf rights. Why wouldn't I have them in my Labs they contain a strong element of magic. Once properly trained they can work just as well, as any witch or wizard. Take Darce here, when I inherited him he only knew how to cook and clean for his master. I decided to teach him potions and other sorts of magic. He was able to learn how to control and use his magic properly. I usually get him to help me with potions that need multiple workers. Dina is also trained and now she is training the twins and Betty."

Hermione never heard Snape talk so casually before, "Wow!" she gasped in awe, "I would never had thought that-"

"You would never have thought that I was capable of treating anyone or anything like the way I treat my house-elves and I assume that you also think that I am a cold hearted black soul vampire."

"Well not the vampire part" Hermione admitted, "its not possible, since all the things that we learned in Defence against the Darks Arts I would have been able to noticed it if you were a vampire."

Severus laughed at this and Hermione was surprised when her stomach did some sort of back flip at the sound of his smooth deep laugh. She secretly hoped that she would be able to hear him laugh more often.

"You actually taught them magic?" she asked wondering why he had looked at her in disgust when she showed him her SPEW idea during her forth year.

"Yes I did. It was actually quite enjoyable since they did want to learn unlike the students at school." He answered coolly.

"I liked learning in your class" she admitted meekly feeling like a first year again.

"You, Miss Granger, would like any class no matter who or what teachers it as long as you would be able to show off your knowledge."

Hermione blushed, "That's not true! I didn't like Divinations and I never will!"

"That's only because the teacher doesn't know anything about the subject, and the entire subject is based on luck. The professor herself has no control over her actual gift, the only reason that she is on staff is that if she has a prophecy is that at least she'll have it within Hogwart's grounds so hopefully one of the Hogwarts's staff would be able to hear it to Dumbledore. Well that's was the plan anyways."

"Sounds like you're not found of the subject yourself professor." Hermione shot back.

"That may be so, but you must have been deeply upset when you found out that Divinations is not a subject that you can learn out of a book. Tell me, was the reason you dropped out of it because you couldn't learn up on the subject and challenge the teacher's knowledge with your answer and silly questions?"

"Do you think that I was challenging you when I would try answering your questions?"

He looked at her for a minute before answering in a calm voice, "Sometime it would seem like that, yes. Yet, other times, it was obvious that you were trying to prove to everyone that muggleborn can be just as good as any purebloods."

Hermione blushed again at his remark, and silence fell between them. After a minute they were both woken out of their individual thoughts by a small cough. They both looked to see Darce and Dina standing before them.

"The Miss' bath is ready here, and your bath is ready in the next room, Sir, the showers, are running Miss, so you can rinse off the bulk of the dirt before bathing Miss and the same for your washroom sir."

"Thank you Darce" Severus said nodding towards his elf who left the room.

Severus leaned forward and whispered into Hermione's ear. "I will leave you here, Miss Granger. Dina and Jane will take good care of you, if you want anything just send for me." Nodding slightly towards the elves Severus seated Hermione in a chair by the tub before leaving the washroom.

Hermione took her time looking around the washroom noticing how weak she was. She felt herself being lifted to her feet by magic and notice that Dina and Jane were leading her to the shower. She decided to take the time to observe her surroundings. She had never seen such a beautiful washroom. The bathtub looked like a miniature swimming pool.

Still deep in thought she allowed the house-elves wash her off in the shower. 'Oh Merlin' she cringed 'from all people to see me naked, Professor Snape, but yet again he was being extremely kind to her. Though he had probably seen plenty naked women working for Voldemort, none the less,' she thought, 'It was Professor Snape, Oh how embarrassing!'

Once clean the house-elves lead Hermione to the bath to relax. A faint red coloring made Hermione let out a small groan 'how can I forget? Just great! Not only am I am stuck in my professor's house but I am in the middle of my period.' Hermione sat there agitated with her fate, not being able to relax, 'how am I going to get around this without dying of embarrassment-mind you dying sounds more pleasurable then asking Professor Snape for female products.' She thought.

Severus paced the room not knowing why he was so nervous. The clock chimed eight. He knew that he didn't leave her to take his bath till nearly six, for they were too deep in discussion for him to do so earlier but now it was eight. 'Does it really take that long for a woman to bath?' He thought. He was able to bathe and heal all his wounds already and was pacing like a green boy for the past while- what was taking her so long?

Severus stopped in mid pace when he saw drops of blood in the area he was with Miss Granger before. 'She must have some nasty cuts that dripped on the ground like that.' he thought as he cleaned the mess with a flicked of a wand before heading towards the door of the washroom.

Hermione was slowly helped out of the tub by the house-elves and was dried by a drying spell. Hermione quickly grabbed a neatly folded towel from the shelf and wrapped it around herself before sitting on the chair near the tub. 'Thank Merlin it's black.' Hermione thought. Hermione looked up in shock when the house-elves held up presumably one of Snape's white shirts for her to wear.

"I can't wear that." She said blushing.

"Don't worry child, Master won't mind. Put it on so you can join the Master for dinner in his room." Dina told her in a motherly fashion that reminded her of Mrs. Weasley.

"I can't!" Hermione cried, "I can't wear it, and I can't go out there. I just can't!" Hermione stated turning redder then before.

A knock on he slightly opened door caused Hermione to jump.

"Miss Granger, are you covered?" Severus called through the opened door.

Hermione didn't answer him keeping her gaze on the ground. She was mortified when she heard Jane answer him. "She's covered Master, but she's giving us trouble."

"Jane!" Scolded her mother.

Severus who was tired of waiting around walked briskly into the room noticing how uncomfortable Hermione looked.

"Jane, why don't you bring one of my shirts for Miss Granger to wear for now?"

"We tried getting one of your shirts on her Sir, but the Miss just cried and said "No"' Jane replied glaring at Hermione looking remarkably like her master.

Severus gave his elf a glare which cause the elf to visibly shrink, "Dina, I think Jane is being a bit edgy, I'll deal with Miss Granger from here. Thank you for your help."

Severus watched his elves leave the washroom before turning back to Hermione.

"Miss Granger, it's just a shirt, surly it won't be contaminate you even if I did wear it. Why can't you wear it?"

Hermione's eyes were glistening with tears but she didn't say anything, finally she whispered "I can't"

"But why Miss Granger?"

"Because I just can't!"

"Don't be difficult Miss Granger!" he sneered at her, and then it hit him. "Oh!" he said stupidly as it dawn on him why she wouldn't want to wear one of his shirts, especially since it was white.

Hermione noticed that he was staring at her, and she slowly lifted her head and their eyes locked. Something passed between them as they gazed into each other eyes, yet neither of them knew what it was. It seemed like they froze in time as sparks of life fluttered through their eyes into each other.

Severus seemed to recover a bit, but kept the gaze none the less, he knew for some odd reason that he couldn't look away. Her trust in him shown forth in her hazel eyes and he did not want to lose it, although he did not know why.

Keeping his eyes locked on hers he slowly pulled his shirt over her towelled body and did up the buttons.

"No," she whispered with teary eyes, "I'm going to get it dirty."

Severus decided to take the matter into his own hand and try spare her some embarrassment. "It's alright," he whispered softly into her ear, "it's only a shirt."

Hermione chuckled at this, and Severus took her hand and pulled her to her feet. In a swift movement his hand reached under the shirt and pulled the towel away without breaking his eye contact with her. Hermione let out a small gasp, embarrassment shone forth through her eyes.

"hush…" he whispered putting one of his long delicate fingers to her lips to quiet her. "I told you it's alright. It's only a shirt, I'm not going to have you sitting stiff as a rock all night because you have a rough towel under your clothes."

Hermione tore her eyes from him and looked at her feet not knowing how to react to what was happening.

"Betty should be back soon, Miss Granger." He told her as he press his hand into her lower back and guided her out of the washroom and into his bedroom.