Chapter Four
-Number 374-
Draco, being more of a Slytherin than I could have hoped for, managed to get Snape's password for his chamber. That wasn't quite enough, though, and it took me two solid weeks of dabbling around in the Restricted Section to research enough about ward-breaking to get into his chamber. I almost considered calling Bill in to do the job, but I decided that that probably would have either been overkill or cheating.
"Are you sure that you know what you're doing, Granger?" Draco hissed, holding a steaming cup of coffee. We were both under the Invisibility Cloak, and it was four in the morning. I was sweating from the effort of going around his wards. Honestly, the man was more heavily guarded than Gringotts. I wouldn't have been surprised one bit to find a manticore guarding his sitting room.
"Got it," I said in reply, motioning for Draco to follow me through and stay under the Cloak. We passed through the old man's portrait like it was nothing and came to find ourselves in Snape's beast-less sitting room. "This is horrifying," I whispered. There were books everywhere– lovely, precious, rare books– but they were sitting open on tables and chairs, sitting on the floor, and stacked on the bookshelves in complete disarray.
"Think this is bad? You should see his house," Draco said.
You've seen his house? I wanted to say, but instead I said, "Give me a second, I need to do something about this. He should be fined for crimes against books."
Draco paused as I swished my wand, uttering a spell I'd created specifically for organizing books. It cleaned them of both dust and moisture, flatted the pages and returned the spines to their original stiffness, and stacked them in alphabetical piles. From there, it was only a matter of Levitating them into their proper place and Transfiguring Snape's most worn-looking armchair into another bookshelf.
There. That was much better.
"Granger, do you ever realize that some things you do aren't considered normal?"
"Yes. I stopped caring a while ago. And call me Hermione, please. I know your hair routine in the morning. We've reached that point."
"I do not have a hair routine," Draco replied haughtily. I shrugged him off and made sure not to bump the coffee as I steered us around the new bookcase– oops, had I put that in the middle of the room with a Permanent Sticking Charm?– and into Snape's bedroom.
"Into the lair of the sleeping beast," I whispered, pushing the door open. I could almost feel Draco roll his eyes.
Snape's bedroom was just as bad as his sitting room had been, with books, clothes, and tea mugs everywhere. It was obvious that he never let the house elves into his chambers. I would have organized the books in this room, too, but I didn't want the flapping of the pages to wake him up.
"You or me?" I asked, my voice barely a breath. Draco poked me in the back. I was to be the sacrifice, then.
Silently, I slipped out from underneath the Cloak. I chose a few bits of garbage to Transfigure into a breakfast try, complete with a vase and a dead flower. Draco's hand was momentarily visible as he handed me the cup of coffee, and I set it on the tray. Draco silently moved to the nightstand and took Snape's wand. That wouldn't save me against wandless magic, but I hoped that with Riddle gone, Snape would be a little less hair-trigger.
I looked down at him, surprised to find that he didn't scowl in his sleep. His face was relaxed, the lines almost invisible, and he almost looked like a man his age should. I noticed that yes, his hair still wasn't greasy, and the way his arms curled around his second pillow was… cute, in a word.
Cute my arse, I said to myself. Snapping out of it, I took a deep breath and yelled "Rise and shine, camper!" Snape bolted upright and grabbed for his wand frantically, his eyes wide open. He wasn't wearing a shirt. "Have we got a day planned for you!"
"Granger," he growled, making me out in the dim lighting. I beamed at him.
"Professor Snape! As our favorite teacher, we've decided to treat you to breakfast!"
"Get out of my chambers!" Snape snapped. He pulled his sheet up to try to cover his torso. It wasn't anything like the torso of the shirtless Snape in my dreams. That one was buff and distinctly Krum-esq. Snape's chest was all wiry muscle, with little black hairs running down to… well, I assumed that he was wearing pants of some sort. I hoped.
"But Professor! I made coffee for you!" I exclaimed. I shoved the tray forward under his nose.
"If you think for one second that I'm going to drink that, you're…" he trailed off and looked down at the coffee. The only way I could make the Compulsion Charm work and not affect Draco and I was to make smell the trigger, then curse ourselves so that we couldn't smell anything. Unfortunately, Snape's rather large nose meant he had no chance of being able to resist the charm.
"Drink up!" I said merrily. A second later, Snape slammed the empty mug back on the tray, which fell from my hands to add to the layer of mess on the floor. Honestly, the only reason it didn't smell was probably because I couldn't smell anything at the moment.
"Miss Granger, what did I just drink?" Snape asked, rising from his bed like a panther. He stood toe-to-toe with me, glaring down his nose. Yes, he was rather tall, wasn't he?
"Coffee, sir," I said. "Honestly. Just coffee…." and a harmless little potion.
"Do you know what happens to rowdy young Gryffindors who come into my chambers at night?" Snape purred, leaning even closer. Considering the fact that his face was inches from mine and he was dressed only in a pair of silk black trousers, this made quite an impact on me. However, I wasn't willing to let him one-up me, so I gave Draco the signal. A second later, Snape's wand arched over our heads.
"Oh look! Your wand!" I exclaimed. Snape, who'd sensed the movement, dove for it. Draco and I hightailed it out of there. I threw up multiple shields behind us, just in case.
"I think we're safe," I panted when we were once again in the hall and under the Cloak.
"I can't believe that Snape didn't hex us. He must be getting old."
He's not that old… I thought, the picture of his bare chest still in my mind. Get a grip, Hermione! I chided myself. Hormones, much?
"Come on, we better get back to the common room before he puts some clothes on," I said.
"You don't think he'd follow us in there?" Draco asked. "He's been in there before."
"Well, I've been looking into wards that can be keyed to a specific person, so if the hair I have here really is his we won't have anything to worry about."
"The Dark Lord didn't stand a chance, did he?"
I smiled. The death of a man shouldn't have made me happy, but Riddle was a special case. We'd hunted Horcruxes for months, only to have Harry die at the Final Battle… then come back to life and kill Riddle once and for all. Dumbledore had come out of hiding after he'd faked his death, and we'd been able to save Snape… though that had been after Harry had shared his history with all and sundry. Luckily for Snape, no one seemed to care much about his doings, so long as he stayed within the confines of Hogwarts, among old friends and preoccupied children.
So, all in all, the war could have ended worse. But it didn't. We'd rebuilt the damaged part of Hogwarts for the new school year, almost all of the Death Eaters had been hunted down, and I'd been able to convince Ron and Harry to come back and finish their schooling. Which, let me tell you, was no easy feat.
-Number 309-
I knocked and, after a pause, was called in to McGonagall's office. "Hello, Hermione, please have a seat. Would you like some tea?"
"Yes, please, Professor," I said, sitting down across from her desk. "How have you been?"
"Good, good. But I'm getting old, you know. My chest was never quite the same after those Stunners got me."
I frowned as she poured me some tea and handed it over. "Couldn't St. Mungo's do anything for you?"
"Oh, they did plenty, but the truth is that my body's just not what it once was," Professor McGonagall said.
"But you're not old! You're only…" I trailed off. Someone had mentioned her age, once. She was nearly half Dumbledore's age.
"A number far to high to admit," she said, chuckling. "But we're not here to talk about me. We're here to talk about you. Hermione, what are your goals for the future?"
I took a sip of my tea to stall. Good question.
"Harry and Ron are becoming Aurors, and Neville said he's decided to apprentice with Professor Sprout."
"Has he really?" I asked. This was news to me. My Head of House nodded. "I'm happy for him," I said honestly. He loved plants. Him and Sprout would be happy as kittens with catnip down in the greenhouses together.
"So what about you, Hermione? Do you have any ideas?"
"Well, I was thinking about working in the Department of Magical Cooperation, or possibly the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures." I paused. Professor McGonagall didn't interrupt. "I was also considering working at St. Mungo's, or coming back here to teach whenever a position opened up."
"As for your first two options, I won't voice my opinion on the Ministry," McGonagall said, sniffing. I looked at her in surprise, but she continued. "Working at St. Mungo's, whether as a healer or a nurse, could be a very promising career. It would be very challenging, but I think that you would enjoy that. As for working at Hogwarts…" she trailed off.
"What?" I asked. Did she think I'd make a bad teacher? Did she think that I was bad with kids? What?
"Well, it isn't out in the open yet, but Irma Pince is retiring at the end of the year. She declared that after she was finished cleaning up the mess that the Death Eaters made of her library, she was done for good."
"Oh," I said. A librarian. It wouldn't be something I hated, but… I'd been hoping for something a little more challenging than stacking books and harassing students with overdue books.
"Not only that," McGonagall continued, "but Professor Slughorn is planning to go back into retirement after four or five years. If your interests lie in potions…"
"Oh!" I said, lighting up. "I love potions! I didn't consider it because I assumed that Professor Snape would go back to potions once Professor Slughorn left."
"Professor Snape is quite happy to stay as he is, I believe. However, as I was saying, if you took the open position at the library, you could do an extended apprenticeship with both Professor Snape and Professor Slughorn. That way, you have a few years to grow a bit older, and the students won't see you as one of their own."
"I don't think Professor Snape would want me as an apprentice," I said. "Couldn't I just do it with Professor Slughorn?"
"I'm sure I could persuade Professor Snape, if you would be agreeable to being tutored under him," McGonagall said. She looked quite smug. I wondered what she had to blackmail Snape with. "However, you have time to think about all of this."
"Thank you, Professor. You've been really helpful," I said.
"Ah, but there's one more thing, Hermione…" McGonagall said as I started to stand. I sat back down. "You see, I know that you would love teaching, but there's one problem…"
"What's that?"
"You may recall… your second year, you never took your final exams."
"What?" I said, honestly not understanding. Then my brain caught up. "You mean the ones the Headmaster canceled?"
"Yes, those are the ones." McGonagall shifted in her seat and adjusted her glasses. She wouldn't look me in the eyes. "You see, to become a teacher at Hogwarts, you must have completed all of your exams. All of them. It wouldn't be fair for you to take them now, as you could easily cover all of the Second Year material in a weekend… I recognize that this is in no way your fault, of course. But, rules are rules…"
"Oh," I replied. It was all I could manage. My dream job handed to me on a silver platter only to be ripped away again. Couldn't she have warned me before telling me?
"I'm very sorry, Miss Granger," she said. I nodded and stood up.
"It's okay. I'll think about St. Mungo's and the Ministry jobs. Thanks for talking with me."
She didn't reply. I reached for the handle of the door when I heard a crash. I whipped around to see that McGonagall had dropped her tea. She fell to the floor, hunching over, and I rushed over to see what was the matter.
"Professor!" I exclaimed, trying to get her back up into the chair. "What's wrong?" She was a lot heavier than she looked. I tried one more lift before I realized how pale she was, that her limbs were getting longer. Her nose was growing and her hair was shrinking back into her head, becoming black, greasy, and unfortunately familiar.
"Professor Snape!" I exclaimed, jumping back. "You-!"
"A moment if you will, Miss Granger," he said, hauling himself into the chair. He looked exhausted.
"Is that how Polyjuice normally affects you, Professor?" I asked, slightly concerned. I wasn't concerned enough to get any closer to him, however, in case he decided to bite. I'd been waiting for him to strike back, going about my daily routines with a healthy dose of paranoia, but it'd been three week since I'd given him the coffee. I hadn't been sure that he was going to continue playing. I'd feared that we'd crossed the line.
"No, of course not," he snapped.
"It was Polyjuice, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Yes, you insufferable girl. It was from Mad-Eye's stash… I believe it was well past its shelf life."
"You're telling me the greatest Potion's Master in England accidentally took an expired potion?"
"Of course not," he snapped again, sitting up straighter. It seemed as if his energy had returned. "A glamour of this size would have never worked, and I wasn't about to spend weeks brewing it when I have considerably better things to do with my time."
"Makes perfect sense," I agreed. He glared at me. "So, what's your cross-dressing name?"
He only looked confused for a second before he looked down at himself. McGonagall's robes were stretched in all the wrong places. I honestly didn't know how he could sit there and not notice them. "A pity you hadn't the foresight to bring a camera," he said, Transfiguring them back to his traditional black.
"There's always Pensives…" I said. I turned to leave again.
"And where do you think you're going?"
"Um, to dinner?"
"I think not. Sit down. I'm not finished with you yet," he said. I sat down dutifully, if not a little confused.
"What else is there?"
"You future, for one. Professor McGonagall was called away on family business, so I volunteered to keep her appointment with you. She agreed so that I could offer you the joint apprenticeship. It would be a lighter workload, but spread out over more time. You'd have to run the library and keep up with whatever work Slughorn and I set for you. Slughorn, no doubt, will have you doing his dirty work for all five years."
"Like grading essays, you mean?" I said. He ignored me.
"Slughorn himself is unwilling to take on an apprentice by himself, but I'm too busy to apprentice for Potions while teaching Defense and being the Head of Slytherin House. Slughorn's teaching would focus on the teaching aspect… or what passes for his teaching," Snape muttered, "and I would teach you the more advanced potions and how to handle extremely reactive ingredients and the like."
"So, the exams thing was a joke?"
"And a weak one, at that. For the brightest witch of your age, you're uncommonly gullible."
"Hmpft," I replied. "What would your mother think?"
"This meeting is over. Think carefully about your choices." Snape stood up and opened the door for me. I got up, and he said, "Oh, and that was a clever little potion you slipped into my coffee that morning. Luckily, I caught on quickly, else I would have been burping the ABC's in the Great Hall whenever one of my colleagues called my name. Also, my sitting room has never looked better." I smiled, glad that he appreciated it. "But, detention, Miss Granger. Tomorrow, after lunch, my office. Try to eat something, so that your growling stomach doesn't pester me all afternoon."
I hmpft-ed again and barely restrained myself from stomping to the Great Hall. Tomorrow was a Saturday, and a Hogsmeade visit. Like I had nothing better to do than to grade his essays.