Chapter Four: Potions and Perfection

"Miss May," began Slughorn, just as Hermione had taken her seat in the dungeon classroom beside Lily.

"Yes Sir," replied Hermione shortly.

"I was rather hoping that you would sit beside Mr Snape in my lessons," he said, indicating that his statement was neither a question nor an observation, and merely an order.

"Is there something wrong with me sitting here sir?" she asked as she looked to back and forth from Lily, who was sat to her right, and Slughorn who was stood at the front of the room.

"Well not directly no," answered Slughorn, his yellow eyes which were buried somewhere beneath his chubby face, gaping at Hermione intensely. "It's just I was thinking that it would set a good example if the Head Boy and Head Girls sat beside one another."

"You can't put a Slytherin and a Gryffindor next to one another!" protested Sirius who was sat next to James at the back of the classroom.

"Don't be absurd boy," snapped Slughorn dismissively. "In my classroom I have no time for silly house quarrels; all that matters in here is that you all receive the best grades that you possibly can."

Sirius "harrumphed" and sunk into his chair before sending a snarl Snape's way.

"Pip-pip, Miss May," ordered Slughorn quickly as he slapped his chubby hands together as so to motivate Hermione into moving from Lily.

"Is this really necessary?" said Hermione with an exasperated sigh. "I hardly think it matters who we are sat by."

"Are you looking to get yourself into bother on your first day Miss May?" quizzed Slughorn with a frown.

To Hermione, Slughorn was not at all as forbidding as he thought himself to be, and compared to the treatment she was used to in her Potions lessons from Snape, this was an easy ride. Slughorn would not be scaring Hermione any time soon.

Not wanting to cause a scene, and actually looking forward to the prospect of sitting beside Snape for the remainder of her time in this year, Hermione picked up her belongings and took up a stool beside the dark haired wizard, who for appearances sake, was pretending to look sickened by the new seating arrangements. Hermione gathered however from their brief chat the previous night, that Snape liked her as much as she liked him.

"He's an imbecile," whispered Snape as Slughorn began his lecture on healing potions. "Just ignore him."

"I think that he supposes himself to sport some sort of forbidding presence," agreed Hermione, "but believe me, he's nothing compared to what I'm used to."

"Did your old Potions Professor give you a hard time?" asked Snape, who despite being lost in conversation with Hermione, was still able to scribble notes down into his battered old text book, that looked as though it had been spun around in a washing machine several times.

"Something like that," replied Hermione shortly, feeling uncomfortable about talking with regards to the older Snape to his younger self. It was too complicated a discussion even for her!

"The thing you have to understand with Slughorn," informed Snape with a disdainful glance towards their Professor, "is that he's a fame seeker of sorts. If you're from a rich and famous family, he suddenly wants to be your best friend, and if you can brew a good Potion he'll be as nice as pie."

"I take it by the tone of your voice that you don't agree with his teaching methods?"

"Not at all!" said Snape firmly. "Very few respect him because all he does is fish for success and he holds no sort of house morals. He's supposed to be the Slytherin Head of House and yet doesn't portray any such characteristics, nor does he embrace our house prejudices as he should."

"And is that such a bad thing?" inquired Hermione with a thoughtful expression. "I mean sure its great to have a bit of healthy competition with the other houses but what's occurring at the moment is not healthy."

"I understand your comprehension," mused Snape, and Hermione could not help feeling elated that Snape, no matter if he was younger, had just agreed with her about something.

"And what about you," asked Hermione out of curiosity, "how would you be better than Slughorn?"

"I'm not saying that Slughorn isn't a good teacher," said Snape, "because he is. I just think that to be successful in the workplace, one needs to be firm and emotionally unattached. That way, nobody expects any niceties from you, and you can simply do your job without having to deal with the problems that occur with pleasantries."

"That's a very cynical way to look at it," expressed Hermione with a sigh as she suddenly understood the older Snape a little bit more. He was as cold as he was and hurtful, simply to ensure that nobody would ever expect anything but Professional Guidance from him. By cutting himself of from niceties, and by extension the rest of the world, nobody would ever question him and his role as a double spy would be safe.

"You seem a little distant today Miss May," said Snape, his silky voice penetrating her thoughts of her Professor back at home. "As though your thoughts are elsewhere…"

"No, I'm fine," reassured Hermione as she looked into the dark black eyes of Snape, noticing the familiar mystery about them as she did so. "Should we begin brewing?"

"Yes I suppose we should. Are you familiar with the Murtlap Potion that Slughorn has assigned?" he asked and Hermione shot him an expression which he read as: "yeah duh!"

"The Murtlap Essence is a solution of strained and pickled Murtlap tentacles which if brewed correctly should turn yellow in colour," she began in her best know-it-all voice. "It soothes and heals a myriad of cuts and other wounds, and is used often in medical environments to cure those who have been involved in ferocious duels."

"I'll take that as a 'yes' then, Little-Miss-Know-It-All," he teased with a smile.

Although Hermione saw Snape's smile and therefore realised that he was joking with her rather than demeaning her like she was used to, she couldn't help but feel that familiar sense of anger towards him.

"I was joking," explained Snape quickly, as he noticed her brow furrow in dismay.

"Yes well it wasn't funny," retorted Hermione as she began slicing the Murtlap tentacles into long, thin strips.

"Stop!" snapped Snape, pulling the knife which she was using out of her hands. "What on earth are you doing?"

"Cutting the Tentacles," answered Hermione incredulously with a gesture towards the long strips of green slime.

"You are slicing them Hermione," reprimanded Snape, who if he would have not said 'Hermione' and instead 'Miss Granger,' would have sounded too like his older self for comfort.

"Yes and what's wrong with that?" asked Hermione as she remembered that it was Professor Snape himself who had shown her that it was better to slice than dice Murtlap Tentacles.

"The book says that we are to dice," informed Snape as he highlighted the textbooks instructions with his forefinger.

"Honestly, it's better to dice. My old Professor told me that, and believe me, he knows what he's talking about."

"One minute you tell me that you're old Professor was a cold fish who you find rather sardonic, and then the next you're singing his praises," stated Snape with a confused expression.

"He's complicated," said Hermione as she looked over the younger Snape. "I guess that he's just a little misunderstood. He berates his students so that they thoroughly understood when they are wrong. By doing so," she continued, "students know where they stand all of the time."

"And where do you stand with this Professor of yours," Snape asked, sensing a little unease in Hermione's voice as she spoke of the man she once knew. "How does he treat the girl-who-knows-everything?"

"I think that it's fair to say that there is only one other who he is more of a bastard to than I," she explained as her thoughts drifted to her last Potions lesson with the older Snape. As it had been since her first lesson with him, Snape had humiliated her every time she raised her hand to respond to one of his more difficult questions to which very few knew the answer to. Yet his treatment of her was nowhere near as bad as Harry's. It seemed that the only person he despised more than the know-it-all, was the boy-who-lived.

"There must be a reasoning behind his treatment of you Hermione," Snape explained, not realising that he was actually sticking up for himself. "Maybe he berates you to set an example to the others."

"Maybe," conceded Hermione. "I just don't get him."

"Well if it makes you feel any better, you have my word that if ever he crosses my path, I shall hex him on your behalf," Snape said chivalrously, his eyes never leaving the ingredients that were sat beneath his hardworking finger tips.

'If only you knew,' she thought with a smile as she watched him work.


"You and Snivilus seemed to be getting on a little too well," stated Sirius as the Marauders sat out in the school grounds eating a picnic which the House Elves had kindly prepared for them earlier.

"And?" retorted Hermione. "I like him."

"In what way?" pushed Sirius.

"As a friend," said Hermione firmly, even though she knew that her heart seemed to beat a little faster when she thought of him lately.

"Harry just ignore Sirius," informed James whose head was on Lily's lap whilst she ran her hands though his hair. "He's just jealous that it's Snape who's receiving your affections not him."

"Harry?" exclaimed Hermione looking around for her spectacled friend.

"We'll your one of the boys now Hermione, and seen as though Lily's called Larry, you can be Harry."

'This is going to be weird,' thought Hermione but thought it best, for obvious reasons, not to vocalise her concerns.

"Boy's haven't you got Quidditch Practice?" asked Lily as she glanced towards the maroon strapped watch that lay on her right wrist.

"Oh geesh, yeah we have!" said a started James as he jumped up and out of Lily's lap. "Come on then get a move on!"

Instantly, the boys all gathered there belongings from the blanket which they were sat on, and thrust them hurriedly into their bags.

"See you later girls!" called Remus as the exceedingly late trio ran off towards the Quidditch pitch.

"What is going on between you and Severus 'Mione?" asked Lily once the boys were firmly out of earshot.

"Nothing," protested Hermione.

"But you do like him, right?"

"I'm just getting to know him, but yeah, I like him."

"Anything more than that?" inquired Lily with a knowing expression.

"I'm beginning to see the…attractiveness of him shall we say," replied Hermione who knew that what she was saying was so wrong on so many levels.

"Do you think something could happen between you?"

"It can't," stated Hermione firmly.

"I can tell by the way he looks at you that he's completely smitten Hermione," said Lily, her big green eyes searching the brown of Hermione's for an answer.

"He is?" inquired Hermione, who was reluctantly excited by this notion.

"Totally, but Severus is hard work to keep happy."

"I can imagine," giggled Hermione at the thought of Professor Snape's face if he knew what she was doing.

"So all I'm saying, is that if you do pursue something with him, tread extra carefully."

"Let's just see how things go first. I don't think anything would, or could, happen."

"Stranger things have happened," mused Lily, "and between stranger people."

"What like you and James?" teased Hermione, who was both trying to change the subject and attempting to find a little bit more out about her best friend's parents.

"Oi you," rebuked Lily, "me and James are great together."

"How long has it been?"

"Almost a year since we first got together," said Lily.

"Wow, that's a long time to stay with somebody at our age."

"We just fit 'Mione, you know. We're the same. Haven't you ever had that with someone?"

"It's sort of like that with Severus," confessed Hermione in return. "It's weird though because he's not my type in terms of looks but we are just so alike personality wise. He likes all the things I do, and I don't every think I've known a boy who I can relate to on so many levels."

"Well then what's stopping you?" asked Lily who was so obviously keen on playing cupid.

"It's only been a couple of days and we're just starting up a friendship. Anything more would be well, complicated."

"Hermione time is never on or side," stated the red haired witch.

This statement fell upon Hermione like a ton of bricks as she realised that Dumbledore had said this to her just before she left her time. Maybe she should listen to what the Headmaster had said and what Lily was saying now? Maybe it was time for her to ignore her logical qualms and give into her hearts desires?

"I'd better be heading back to my rooms," said Hermione who suddenly had so much to ponder on.

"Okay," replied Lily. "We haven't got anymore classes today, but I'll see you over the weekend alright?"

"That'd be great," returned Hermione before heading off to her rooms, her mind quarrelling fiercely with her heart.


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