Hermione stopped herself from climbing the stairs up to the Gryffindor common room. She had run away crying too many times and she needed to face her problems head on like Harry always did. She took a deep breath, and with all the pride she had, walked back to Professor Snape who was watching her every move. Of course she couldn't meet his gaze but she kept her head up until she reached her Potions Master.
"I would appreciate it if you could take me to my room now." She wiped her tears on the back of her hand. Luckily, Snape did not say a word but turned to lead her to her new home. She followed his quick pace with some difficulty; the Potions Master was much taller than Hermione.
As Snape led Hermione through a large landscape painting of the black lake next to Hogwarts, he muttered, "Finite Immendo."
It seemed that the teachers all had a common room that they shared for Hermione spotted Professor McGonagall entertaining Cho Chang with a cup of tea, small smiles plastered on their faces. She noticed the teacher and apprentice catch sight of them walking in and stared with wide eyes at her tear stained face, following the intimidating Professor Snape. He did not seem like he was in much of a good mood that day but Hermione knew that if she gave up too quickly, which she always vowed never to do, then she would lose his respect for her as his student and hopefully, if he wanted to keep her, his apprentice.
There were two spiral staircases at the far end of the common room, one led up, and the other led down. Snape turned to Hermione to make sure she was following him, after his glance, he continued to walk towards the spiraling staircase that must have led to the dungeons. She followed after him into what led to a long dark corridor with two doors opposite of each other and one door facing the entrance that she assumed led to either the Slytherin Common Room or the Potions Classroom, Hermione hoped it was the latter. He led her to the door on the right and opened it for Hermione to enter. As soon as she walked past the threshold into her own private quarters, she heard the door slam shut behind her. She flinched slightly but made her way through a small living room and walked into her new bedroom. Her belongings were all unpacked in the dressers and closet. She saw the shoes that she had been so desperate to find and laughed bitterly at them.
"Well you're useless to me now." Hermione sat on her bed.
She needed to pull herself together, she needed to play along with Snape or she knew she would never be able to have a chance at teaching, so long as Cho was still apprenticing with McGonagall. She sighed and leaned back, she just needed to relax. She would not give up and prove Snape right about his comment that he made earlier that she was incompetent.
Hermione stood up and slipped off her clothes and found old ripped up pair of shorts and a large, oversized T-shirt that she used for painting back at home when she was living with her parents. Walking into the bathroom, Hermione summoned a hair clip from her belongings set on the vanity. She quickly parted her hair on the far right side, swept up her side bangs behind her ear and twisted her hair into the clip. A small trestle of curl fell out of the clip on the left side of her hair, helping to frame her face with her bangs. She decided she would leave the makeup on, realizing that she should probably take more care into her appearance now that she was an adult and not just a silly school girl. Although she couldn't really talk since her outfit of choice was more raggedy that even Mr. Filch's attire. She smiled, in the future; she promised herself that she needed to take more care of her appearances.
The sun was fully up, Hermione could tell by the humidity and heat rising in the dungeons. She silently applauded herself for being smart enough to wear light clothing. Hermione could never forget the end of term exams in the Potions room, they were absolutely miserable with the humidity and heat of the oncoming summer. Hermione looked at the clock on the wall in her bedroom, it was seven thirty. Had it really been that long since she had woken up? She shook her head and walked out of the room that Snape had led her into. She saw the door that she had assumed was the Potions Classroom and had tugged at the handle, attempting to open it. Hermione decided to use her wand,
"Alohomora!" she called.
She sighed, frustrated as the door wouldn't budge. Deciding to go the long way, she whipped around and stomped up the steps that led to the teachers' common room, glad to see that Cho and Professor McGonagall were gone. She took a moment to look around; the room was decorated in all the house colors: green, red, blue and yellow. It was an eclectic mismatched room but it screamed warmth and coziness. She hoped to have better experiences there than the one she had had that morning. Pushing the painting open, Hermione walked to the staircases that led down to the dungeons. After a few flights, the humidity and dankness met her with fervor. The familiar hallway that she had walked through so many times in the past with Harry and Ron brought so many warm memories to her… she couldn't help but remember all the times that they would spy on Snape with the invisibility cloak. It seemed that when something went wrong… they figured that it was immediately Snape's fault. She smiled to herself, how wrong they really were.
Hermione had to remind herself that underneath the hard exterior of Snape's character was a kind-hearted man that lived through so much and ultimately determined the outcome of the war by his valiant loyalty to Dumbledore. She kept running these thoughts through her head, trying to eliminate all the fear that was rising in her chest as she pulled open the door to the Potions classroom. Professor Snape never looked up from what he was doing; she assumed he was planning a lesson.
"Leave my breakfast on my desk," he mumbled, figuring Hermione was a house elf.
"Sir?" Hermione folded her hands behind her back, waiting for him to notice her.
He lifted his head to see his former student in her most ragged attire with her hair pulled up lazily, but gracefully. An oversized shirt fell off her shoulder, showing off her petite collarbone. Her shorts were littered with splashes of muggle house paint and were ripped countless of times over, "I thought you wouldn't come back, Miss Granger."
She gulped down an insult that she wanted to throw out and instead walked over to the closet behind Snape, she turned to him before she opened the door, "I am your apprentice Sir, and if the first thing I need to learn is the ingredients you want me to sort through, then I will gladly follow your instructions."
He raised a brow, "Granger why are you so eager to make a fool out of yourself?"
Hermione bit her tongue, "I am just trying to follow your orders, Professor. You told me I shouldn't be dressed up to clean out your potions closet, so here I am…"
Snape stood up quickly out of his seat and towered over Hermione, "Are you trying to be smart with me, Miss Granger?"
She shook her head and met his gaze, trying to remember her earlier thoughts about how Snape was a good man, but at the time… she couldn't remember any reasons why, "No, but as your apprentice, I must do your bidding and become slave to your menial chores that you are too lazy to do!"
She clapped a hand over her mouth… just that morning she was speechless in his presence, and now she couldn't keep her mouth shut with insults wanting to spill out left and right. She smiled to herself, that's what he gets when he makes a Gryffindor cry.
"Why you insolent, little-"
"Breakfast is served Mister Snape." A small house elf came in with a tray of enough food to feed two people and Hermione did not fail to notice this but backed away from her now distracted Potions Master and retreated into the closet full of ingredients. She was rather hungry herself but refused to be the one to ask for food in front of him.
Why had he ordered for two? Did he lie to me and expect me to be back? She smiled to herself. Although Snape could be extremely nasty to her, she knew that somewhere… underneath his thick exterior and sheer laziness, she knew that he had a heart, albeit, a small one, but a heart nonetheless.
"Granger," Snape called from his desk, "May I have your wand?"
Hermione clenched her fists… she finally reached the top of the ladder to the highest shelf and had pulled out her wand to do clean up when Snape called her. She ground her teeth but climbed back down, not wanting to anger him again.
"May I ask why, Sir?" she questioned him before handing her prized possession over.
Snape snatched it out of her hands before answering, "You need to organize and clean the closet out by hand."
Hermione's eyes widened in shock and sheer anger, "Professor that will take me all day without magic! Don't you want to start prepping me on your lectures? Aren't apprentices supposed to help the professor in lectures and learn how to teach a class?"
His eyebrows raised, "Lower your tone and remember your place, Miss Granger. You are my student."
Hermione balled up her fists and stood up straight, "I was your student, Professor."
Snape didn't even look at her as he placed her wand in a drawer in his desk and kept writing out a lesson plan, "An apprentice's purpose is to be taught, so I must disagree with you, Miss Granger, you still are my student for I am still teaching you now."
Silently, with all the strength she could muster, she walked and stomped her way back into the storage closet to start cleaning it out. It took Hermione an hour and a half to clear out all of the vials and jars of ingredients and liquids out of the closet and into the classroom so she could clean all the dust and grime that had built up on the shelves over the year while Hogwarts was uninhabited.
Once the last jar was cleared out, Hermione climbed down the ladder, sweat glittering lightly on her forehead, "Professor, do you have a rag that I can use to clean the shelves with?"
Without giving her a single glance, Snape flicked his wand towards the other side of the room where a cabinet opened, "There is a rag and a bowl that you can fill with water in that cupboard."
Hermione sighed, putting her hands on her hips, "You're not even going to fill the bowl up with water for me?"
Snape stopped writing, "Miss Granger, are you going to interrupt me on a regular basis?"
She blushed, embarrassed at how much attitude she was giving, Snape truly brought out the worst in her, "But-"
He rolled his eyes, "You have much to learn if you haven't caught on by now that you don't have a wand to use. Now I ask you, where is the closest place you can find water?"
"The girl's bathroom…" Hermione muttered and walked to the end of the room, picked up the bowl and sauntered outside of the classroom to fetch some water.
After returning, Hermione brought the bowl and rag into the closet and started wiping and rinsing… over and over again. She had forgotten what it was like to clean the muggle way… she had become too accustomed to her wand and the easy way out. It made her appreciate her ability to use magic when all the muggles couldn't.
"Miss Granger, I hope you are not cleaning with dirty water in your bowl." Snape called ten minutes later.
Hermione was so flustered that she didn't realize the dark brown water splashing around. She sighed, she had almost finished wiping everything down.
"You need to keep refilling with clean water Miss Granger or you will be washing the shelves with liquid dirt." His scolded.
She angrily climbed down the ladder with the bowl and dumped the water down the drains in the classroom and exited to the girls' bathroom once more. She repeated this process for each individual shelf. Why was Snape doing this to her? Was he angry with her? She couldn't understand why he was making her do something so unimportant to the actual subject of Potions when he could have a house elf do it much more quickly than she could… and probably do a better job. She lost herself in her thoughts until she was awoken by Professor Snape calling to her once more,
"I think you need a break now, Miss Granger." It was more of a command to stop rather than a suggestion.
Welcoming it, Hermione climbed down and walked out of the closet to see a desk that had lunch set out for her on it. The breakfast platter still had been untouched since that morning but Hermione was grateful that he had had lunch brought for the two of them, "Thank you Professor."
She sat down to the desk and shoveled the food into her mouth, taking large gulps of pumpkin juice in between bites. Snape stared at her, obviously amused, "Well, well, Miss Granger, you didn't even wash your hands before your stuffed your face like a pig at a Christmas Feast. Not quite the manners one would need to keep up your title."
Hermione looked up at her Potions Master, trying to swallow her mouthful and took another large swig of her pumpkin juice, "Title, sir?"
"Gryffindor Princess?" Snape muttered, sarcastically.
Hermione swallowed hard and wiped her mouth, very unladylike, with her arm. Dirt littered her face and clothes and her hair started to become greasy. She was definitely not a princess today, she mused, smiling, "I guess I'm not what I seem to be."
After Hermione finished her lunch, she decided she would rather sort through the ingredients in the classroom rather than in the dark closet with a candle that was making it sweltering hot. She sat on the floor next to Professor Snape's desk and categorized them by substance, rarity and size. Once put into categories, she then proceeded to alphabetize the ingredients. Some of the labels were fading and Professor Snape had given her some new ones to re-name them clearly. Once she decided that everything was in order and she had to start placing everything back, Snape looked up at her with a face that Hermione could only read as Are you serious?
"Have we not learned anything at all? You lack some serious common sense." Snape scolded.
She rolled her eyes, sick of all of his insults and indirect instructions, "What did I do wrong now?" She tucked a stray piece of curl behind her ear and frowned.
Snape stood up and grabbed a vial of wormwood out of her dirty hand, "Do you not see how dusty and filthy these jars are? They need to be cleaned as well."
Hermione closed her eyes, trying to count to ten, as she had always instructed Harry and Ron to do when they were angry. She took the vial out of his grasp and sat back down with a new bowl of water and her rag and began to wipe off the hundreds of jars and vials that lay before her. They sat in a more amiable silence than what had previously existed before lunch. Snape didn't seem to be nearly as angry at her as he had this morning.
"Miss Granger?" Snape questioned to his apprentice on the floor next to him.
She stopped what she was doing and looked up at her Potions Master, "Yes Professor Snape?"
He didn't look back at her, "I'm curious as to why you wanted to be my apprentice. I was convinced that no one would take up my offer."
He almost looked pleased that she had wanted to take an apprenticeship from him. Hermione bowed her head, her real reason behind her agreeing to be his understudy was not the answer he would want, she knew that for sure, "Well… Hogwarts never offers opportunities like this and I missed the school dearly…"
Snape glanced down at her for short moment, "Clearly, I must have underestimated you, Miss Granger."
Hermione smiled wider than she had in a long, long time, "Why Professor, is that an apology?"
He sat up straight and glared at her for a while, "You missed a spot." He gestured towards the jar that she was cleaning.
She rolled her eyes and finished cleaning the containers for the ingredients and proceeded to start loading them back into the closet the way she wanted since Snape never specified an exact approach.
"Alright, Professor, I am finished." Hermione smiled happily, she was proud of her hard work that had taken her all day to complete.
The sun had set and candles littered the Potions classroom… it looked so magical to Hermione, as if she was a first year again. She thoughtfully glanced around and realized that nothing had changed… everything was in its place and it seemed like nothing had aged since her first day of class. That was except for her Professor. A thin, silver stripe of hair glittered in the candlelight amongst the charcoal black that was her Potion Master's, reminding Hermione that nothing and no one was immortal. Although his hair had seemed to change somewhat, his face had been more kind to him over the years, rather than how Sirius and Remus, who were the same age as Snape, had aged much more dramatically. They had had deep wrinkles and dirty grey strands littering through their hair.
He glanced up at Hermione, looking exhausted from writing lectures and lesson plans all day, and smirked, "I believe you are excused."
She pulled up a chair next to him, watching him write on one of the many pieces of parchment he had scattered on his desk, and as always, his hand writing was perfect, "Professor?"
He sighed, "You're still here, Granger? What do you want now?"
She touched his arm to get his attention and his head shot up as soon as her fingertips came in contact with his coat, "I am confused… why did you have me do all this dirty work, without a wand, and not help you with all of this?" she motioned towards the stack of unorganized notes
He uncomfortably shifted in his seat, retreating his arm away from her touch, "If you truly want to learn how to teach Potions and learn how to manage all the classes, the first thing you MUST know is where every single ingredient is located. You can't spend ten minutes trying to sort through jars… messing up and cluttering the shelves to then make it more difficult for yourself."
Hermione looked stunned, wondering why she never understood that that was why he wanted her to clean out his closet, "Oh I see."
"Where would I find Asphodel, Miss Granger?"
"Top shelf on your left, three rows down next to Amberwood."
Snape raised an eyebrow and smirked, "I stand by my decision to make you organize it by yourself, without magic."
Hermione smiled and realized it was getting later than she realized. She glanced up at the clock behind Snape, "Eight o'clock!" she appeared horrified, "All of the students should be arriving off the train right now!"
Snape woke from his reverie and sleepy state, "Damn it." He muttered and stood up, straightening all of his papers and left Hermione behind.
"Wait!"
He stopped in the doorway to the corridor in which their rooms resided in, "What is it now?"
"My wand, Professor! I need to get ready for dinner!"
He sighed and whipped out his wand, making the drawer unlock and levitated her wand for Hermione to grab, "You honestly think you are going to make dinner in time? Not even magic can make you presentable in your current state." He left her alone in the classroom; tired, dirty, and extremely hungry.
"Just when I thought he had a heart," She kicked his desk, trying to make herself feel better.
She retreated to her room and took a cold shower followed by a long hot bath to relax in and went to bed, too tired to care about her growling stomach anymore.
