A/N: Thank you soo much to all who reviewed. I can't tell you enough how much reviews really do inspire me and spur me to keep writing if I know you guys are enjoying it :) I absolutely love hearing your feedback. They are all awesome :) Also a thank you to everyone who favorited, followed, and is reading this story! Thanks again! Keep 'em coming! And also I apologize for the long wait for this chapter but I had a bit of writer's block and life got busy for some reason.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the great Joann Rowling and I unfortunately own none of it, just playing with her wonderful creations.


The next day in detention was virtually the same- minus the almost kissing yet again on her part. 'Stupid, stupid Hermione. Control yourself. I know it's hard to around him but take it slow!' She had walked in promptly at seven, he instructed her to scrub cauldrons-carefully, without mishap this time- while he sat at his desk as usual and she on the floor quietly until it was nearing a quarter to nine, to which he murmured her departure.

And she also did practically nothing all day; she hadn't talked to a soul since the night before, as all her friends seemed to be all caught up in their own lives be it practice, homework (not likely, she mused), or hanging out with their other friends, she didn't know, on account of not talking to them, much less asking them. This was not the first time she had spent her whole day alone however; when her friends knew she was busy with schoolwork, they didn't dare bother her, unless they wanted to risk the chance of being hexed by an equally stressed and flummoxed Hermione. She had conversed with Snape in detention tonight of course, but even then it was only a few choice words from her, and grunts, grumbles, and short, snappish terms from him. So he didn't really count.

Thinking again of her uneventful day, perhaps they knew she was busy doing homework and didn't want to be disturbed (which was mostly true, as that's what she spent all her time doing up until detention that night) or maybe it was yesterday and the way she had reacted to seeing Snape in Hogsmeade and they thought she was going mad so they decided to leave her be. Whatever the reason, she was, in lack of a better word, bored. And lonely, she supposed. She didn't want to mull over a certain dark, alluring man as it would just put her in a depressive mood- it seemed her 'getting to know Snape better' plan was not going as well as she had hoped. She was foolish really, she thought, to even try to crack a millimeter of the perplexing and impenetrable man's façade.

Now that it was Monday, a school day, and the weekend was over she was up early, sitting in the Great Hall already eating breakfast, cheerily waiting for her friends to sleepily show up. For some reason she felt in a good, chipper mood today, and couldn't wait to finally see her friends after a very long, mind-numbing, Snape-filled weekend. Perhaps it was because she had hope her plan might finally go underway today, or maybe it was because she had potions right after breakfast, possibly both. Looking up and spotting the boys shuffling in, she grinned.

"Hey, Hermione," Ron dragged out through a yawn which was ungracefully concealed.

"Hey boys," she smiled.

They sat down in unison, appearing disheveled and extremely tired, both looking as if they would drop their heads down on the table any second and fall asleep right there in the Hall.

Immediately noticing this, Hermione's brows furrowed, "Um, everything alright?"

Their heads had been bobbing up and down on the verge of sleep, and at Hermione's sudden inquiry, they both abruptly looked up simultaneously. Hermione held back a laugh at the two and continued to look at them, her eyes shifting from one to the other, curious as to why they were so exhausted.

"Yeah," was all Ron gave while rubbing his eyes, "Fine," he said through yet another yawn before finally folding his arms together on the table and plopping his head in-between, successfully falling asleep. Harry briefly looked at him before looking back at Hermione.

"We had to finish that essay for Snape's class. It took pretty much all night."

"Since you weren't there to help us any," Ron mumbled, his voice muffled from his arms still hiding his face. Apparently he hadn't fallen asleep. Hermione knew what essay they were talking about; she had done it during the weekend, amongst her other pile of homework she hadn't had to necessarily get done yet, but had wanted to get a head start on. She had nothing better to do at the time anyway. Snape had had them write only a foot on all the uses of valerian sprigs and lavender together, to be due the following Monday. It was fairly easy, to her anyway. Evidently it took them all night.

"It's not my responsibility to always just give you all the answers, Ronald; if you just thought about it and, gods forbid, actually read a book once in a while, it might come to you," Hermione said heatedly.

She wasn't yelling at Harry as much as she was Ron. She knew Harry's was most likely closer to a foot than Ron's, whereas he had probably only written two lines before finally succumbing to sleep onto his parchment, drooling, which had definitely happened before; more than once in fact. Snape would surely, and has, set his parchment to flames after seeing the many numerous, mysterious stains on it. Smiling slightly ruefully at the thought she looked down at Ron. He hadn't even moved his head. Hermione sighed and shook her head faintly; perhaps he had finally fallen asleep. She looked back at Harry, who looked like he wanted to be doing exactly what Ron was doing. Holding his head in his hand, his eyes closing every few seconds, seemingly unaware that his hand was now pushing his glasses farther up his nose and making them look askew.

"Well, I had plenty of time to do mine, seeing as I had nothing else to do," Hermione said.

Harry opened his eyes and looked at Hermione, dropping his hand from his face to his lap.

"Sorry we didn't exactly see you all day yesterday, Hermione, we just didn't know if you were busy or not. And after we woke up late yesterday from being out late on Saturday, we practiced a bit more for quidditch, the season's coming up you know, then had to cram in for that essay," Harry explained.

"It's alright, I'm not angry or anything, I just wish I could've had some social interaction," Hermione muttered.

"Snape doesn't exactly count does he?" Harry smirked.

Hermione smiled, "Not when all he does is glare at me and call me insufferable, no."

Harry finally began putting breakfast onto his plate before asking, "How are your detentions going anyway?"

Hermione looked up, "They're…It's…well it's how you would expect."

"Gruesome?" Harry laughed.

Hermione laughed, "Well, he's actually not that bad; he just ignores me for the most part really." Her smile fell.

"What does he have you do?" Harry asked, about to shove toast into his mouth until Ron suddenly shifted in his sleep and bumped his arm, causing it to fall onto Ron's still snoring head on the table. Harry only gave him an irritated look which he wouldn't see and reached for another, leaving the other piece to lay perfectly atop his head.

"So far he's only had me write lines and clean cauldrons," Hermione shrugged.

"Oh. That's not so bad then, I guess. It's only been a few days though so far. He might hang you from your toes soon," he said around his toast.

"I highly doubt that, Harry," Hermione giggled. "And anyway Filch would be the one to do that; Professor Snape's not so horrible."

Harry shrugged, and looked back down to Ron who still had yet to move.

The Great Hall gradually grew louder with the arrival of more students, and realizing she had yet to look up at the High Table, turned her head in that direction carefully, expecting to see said professor there, only instead to see his spot empty. She realized she felt a pang of disappointment at his absence. She then noticed that breakfast would be over in a couple of minutes, and that he was not late but that it was just one of those days he was just not coming, and her sadness grew.

Hermione had barely tucked into her meal since Harry sat down. She wasn't all that hungry. As Harry finished and soon students began getting up to make their individual way to their classes, they both noticed Ron was still somehow napping amongst the loud Hall. Harry gave Hermione a devious look before shrugging his shoulders again and turning to leave the Hall. Hermione threw a discouraging look aimed towards his back but after turning to give Ron one final glance she decided perhaps it wouldn't hurt if he learned a little lesson.


He had slept in. Purposely. He wouldn't have been able to stand sitting there this morning with her gaze so obviously and indiscreetly pointed towards him as it always was during meals. Since missing breakfast intentionally he slowly went through his morning routine, dreading another day filled with her. He couldn't stand to see her any more than he absolutely had to. Although it sounded as if he wanted nothing to do with the girl, he knew deep down the exact opposite was the truth. He wanted to see her, wanted to talk with her, wanted her company, wanted her. But it would not happen. Could never happen.

He sighed. He had to admit it to himself. He…liked her. Admired her. He could even say he was… attracted to her.

'This has got to stop.'

Why did he always fall for the wrong women? He never even had a chance with the first one and now, well now he didn't have a chance with her, either.

Thinking back to Lily he remembered how he had been with her around. Friendly, helpful, charming- as much as he could be anyway, he grimaced- overall a much better person than he had ever been. And they had been…friends. At least for a while, anyway, until he screwed that up. Like he screwed everything up. After that his personality had turned down a dark road, and he never wanted to be close to another person again if it meant they would all just eventually leave him. Not wanting to think down that road though Severus redirected his thoughts. He then thought if he acted the same way towards Hermione, perhaps they could become…acquaintances of some sort as well. She had, for some reason, always been decent to him and also stuck up for him whenever her dunderhead friends were talking about him- always in a negative way of course- just like Lily had done countless times.

'And now you are comparing her to Lily. She is nothing like her- and yet she is at the same time. Highly intelligent, a muggle, beautiful, kind, caring, passionate…but she would never ditch those friends of hers, even if they had called her a mudblood. Oh, she would be furious for a while, alright, but she would forgive them. She always forgave. How foolish yet endearing of her,' he sneered.

He decided if anyone gave an ounce of attention to him, seemed to care for him like she did, and even defended him unlike anyone ever did in his entire life – 'besides Lily'- he scowled, he may want to be a little kinder to that person. Since she was not Lily, she would not leave him. Hopefully. After all, the war was over; he didn't have to keep up this pretense anymore.

'I suppose it wouldn't hurt… I don't have a shot in Hell with her anyway.'

That's not to say he still wouldn't be a bastard to the other little shits that annoyed him, however.


Finishing tying up his cravat he walked to his classroom in time for his first class to file in, all with a glum look on their face, obviously not happy their first class of the day consisted of potions with him. He smirked; he wasn't happy to be there either. Standing at the front of the room he watched as they shuffled in single file and made their way to their individual seats. Soon his eyes landed on a certain bushy-haired head, right behind a messy dark-haired one he despised. True, he didn't have to show his obvious dislike of Potter to impress the Dark Lord anymore, but he still didn't have to like the arrogant prat. Shifting his eyes back to Hermione he watched her sit, not looking up, being in conversation with Potter. He narrowed his eyes. Where was the orange one?

His thoughts were interrupted as the door banged open once more, Weasley rushing in, huffing. Ah. There he was. Severus frowned, and glared at the other boy he despised almost as much, if not more now for his previous relationship to Hermione and how he had so unregretfully disrespected her when he didn't come anywhere near to deserving her. No, he was not jealous. Not at all. It didn't help that the boy was an even bigger dunderhead than Potter.

"Sorry, sir," he mumbled. "Guess I overslept."

Snape made a noncommittal grunting sound as Ron took his seat next to Harry, glaring at both him and Hermione. Severus heard Harry laugh quietly and then whisper, "Sorry, mate. We just didn't want to interrupt your beauty sleep."

"Very funny."

"Well Ron, I guess you should've gotten your homework done sooner," Snape heard Hermione hiss heatedly, not helping but overhearing.

Becoming interested in their not so subtle conversation, Severus continued to listen, "I got it done! At least I did it! You could've woken me up! Now I was late and Snape's gonna say one of his sarcastic comments, take points or…or give me detention!" He noticed Weasley's face was getting as red as his hair. He smirked once again; he wasn't going to say one of his "sarcastic comments"- not yet, anyway. He decided it might be more enjoyable to continue to listen in on their conversation until they realized he was. And then he would say something sarcastic.

"It serves you right, Ron. You really need to take your studies more seriously. How do you expect to become an auror if you keep this up?" Hermione scolded.

"I really don't think I'll ever need to know the twelve uses of dragon's blood, or what the difference is between monkshood and wolfsbane, or ever make any bloody potions while on the jo-,"

"And that, Weasley, is exactly why you will fail in life- never taking anything seriously, failing nearly all of your classes, and what's more arriving late because of your tendency to… "oversleep". That will be twenty points from Gryffindor for your late arrival and also for your disrespect. You're lucky I do not give you detention for the rest of this school year," Snape decided to finally butt in.

The Slytherins in the room snickered, and Snape sneered.

He saw Weasley glare hard at him before grounding out, "Sorry, Professor."

Snape glared back emotionlessly, before instructing them to hand in their essays as he stalked back to his desk to sit down.

Everyone began to pull out their finished essays from their bags, Hermione taking out her longer than necessary one and glancing over at Ron's three-sentence drool-stained parchment. She rolled her eyes. Typical.

Students began filing up to Snape's desk, one-by-one, handing in their scrolls. Hermione filed in line, letting others go in front of her as she was quite nervous to be so close to the professor once again. Ron and then Harry sluggishly filed behind her, the last ones in line. She grew anxious as she noticed he was personally taking everyone's parchments from their hands, his eyes glazing over each and every one, casually looking up every so often. She gulped quietly. As Hermione was getting closer toward his desk, she realized her hands were shaking, feeling and hearing the parchment in her hand crinkling. As she was next, and the girl in front of her turned to go back to her seat, she took in a deep breath and looked straight at him. He didn't look up to her, his eyes still glued to the parchment that had just been handed in, his eyes skimming over the words quickly. Hermione walked right up to him and thrust her paper at him for him to take, silently cursing her still shaking hand and her so-called Gryffindor bravery. His eyes suddenly burned into hers, and he slowly reached out; Hermione softly gasped as she felt his touch briefly on her fingers, feeling his warm, rough skin from brewing potions for hours on end before it was gone as quick as she felt it, and Severus inwardly smirked at eliciting such a reaction from her. She saw he was now staring at her once again and waiting for her to sit down, but without the usual cold glare, his face looking more indifferent than anything. It was not lost on Harry or Ron at the very brief exchange, both still standing behind her, but both silently dismissed it as nothing more than just student uninterestingly handing in her assignment to their teacher. Blinking, Hermione looked down swiftly before turning around, not being able to look into his face any longer without him fully seeing her flush and headed back to her desk hastily, now fully aware of and, trying to cease, her rapidly warming face.

Ron reluctantly handed in his as soon as Hermione departed, his face still red with irritation. Immediately seeing his disgusting stain-covered parchment, Severus looked up.

"I don't believe this is the first time you have handed in an essay partially finished and covered in questionable substances, Mr. Weasley. I believe I was being kind when I allowed your tardiness and obnoxious comments to slide, however, being late, rude and not doing work I assigned to you? Tut tut. I believe you just bought yourself a detention, Weasley." Snape simply gave him an evil smirk as he finished his reprimand and Hermione could tell that, even from looking behind and not exactly seeing Ron's expression, he was furious, and his face was most likely turning red out of anger and embarrassment, if his clenching fists were any indication. Snape dramatically set his parchment up in flames, then banished the ashes on his desk with a swift flick of his wand, his glare never wavering.

Ron smartly stayed silent, choosing to turn around and slump back down in his seat. Hermione did not say anything, as it was deathly quiet in the class and she knew if she even whispered everyone would hear every word she said. Harry simply threw his parchment onto Severus's desk, not waiting for Snape to grab it also not wanting to be the only one standing up there any longer and nonchalantly spun around. Snape surprisingly said nothing, simply smirking at his retreating back. 'Arrogant arse.'

Snape snatched Harry's paper up and gathered it into the pile he had neatly stacked before snapping at them to get to work after scrawling the instructions on the board with his wand.

The room was filled with quiet murmurs and conversations as everyone settled to work on their potions after getting up to gather supplies, and being too focused on their own concoctions and chatter Hermione could finally speak without every student turning their head her way.

But as her mouth opened, Ron beat her by saying under his breath, "Such a nasty old git."

"I guess you'll be seeing Hermione tonight in detention, then," quipped Harry.

"You're lucky it's only for one night!" exclaimed Hermione. "I walk around the castle doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I get a whole month!" Hermione added the eel's eyes before muttering, "Personally if it were me I'd give you at least a week."

"Hey!" Ron exclaimed. "It was your guys' fault! If you two would've woken me up, I would've been here, on time, and handed in my, erm, essay." Ron finished meekly.

Harry could see this argument coming from a mile away, and mentally groaned as he could've recited Hermione's next words in his head, "Oh, don't you go blaming us for your mistakes again, Ron. You should've done your essay sooner, then you wouldn't have fallen asleep and then you would've been here on time."

Ron kept silent, glowering into his mediocre-made potion. "Anyways," Hermione continued, "It's only for one night, Ronald. I think you'll live. Quit your whining. How do you think I feel?"

"Hopefully," Hermione slightly jumped then froze at the deeper, masculine voice near her ear, "Learning your lesson by now, or anticipatingly soon."

She shivered at his proximity and he once again mentally chuckled. "You talk far too loud for your own good, Miss Granger," he said lowly, moving closer behind her so that only she could hear. Hermione couldn't breathe. "And I would think that you are…enjoying…these detentions much more than you let on, wouldn't you agree?" She didn't say anything, or even glance at him, choosing to stare into her cauldron and stir her potion the correct number of times- exactly 15 clockwise, 3 counter-clockwise- until she felt him finally move away. She let out a breath slowly.

"Twenty more points from Gryffindor," Snape directed towards Ron as he moved away from their table, and Ron swore under his breath, the other Gryffindors in the room groaning and complaining quietly, shooting him accusatory glares. Reaching a hand up to run his fingers through his hair, his hand met tiny, hard crumbs, and retracting his hand, shook his head, "What in the bloody-," Ron began becoming frantic, shaking his hair, not knowing what it could possibly be and swearing even more and shriller, Harry letting out a loud guffaw into the room.


A/N: This isn't at all where I was expecting to go with this chapter, but I guess that's what happens when you don't have an outline of the story before and it just writes itself, lol. Yes, I know, another filler chapter, but, trust me- I'm just as excited to finally get to the good stuffs as you are. ;) Baby steps.
Also, tomorrow is my birthday, just to let ya know, so I think you all know what I would like for a present (hint, *cough hint).