A/N: JKR is Gru, and I am naught but a poor wee minion.

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Snape pondered in his quarters, chin in his hands, staring into the empty fireplace across from his raggedy plaid sofa. He was good at pondering. He spent enough of his free time at it that he'd better be.

Hermione Granger had it bad for him. She wanted him. Craved him. Craved his goodies. His milkshake was now...right now...bringing her to the yard. He knew all that, because he'd seen some positively vibrant scenarios in her mind. (Also completely unrealistic. He'd never act like that in a million years!) It seemed that while he had been cleaning her room for her, her mind had scaled several Mount Everest's worth of filth.

There were two possible reasons for this insanity. Number one: she was actually insane. He mentally scratched that one off the list right away. She was overbearing and annoying, but certainly not lacking when it came to functional grey matter. Even he couldn't say that about her. Hogwarts professors could not afford to be loopy. That left number two: she was, somehow, seeing him differently. Through new eyes, as it were.

He shook his head. He had never heard of such a thing before. Oh, there were all manner of potions, and spells, and charms, and even transfiguration methods, to disguise the true nature of one's appearance to others, but only one known way of altering one's own perception. Videre Dissimiliter was a potion popular with dissatisfied spouses who wanted to pretend in general, and during marital relations in particular. Not only was he absolutely positive that Hermione Granger had imbibed no such potion, he was also positive that she probably didn't know of its existence. She seemed much too innocent for that.

Well, she was intelligent. He supposed she might have figured out a way to spell her eyes to reflect an altered version of reality. But that didn't make sense, either. If that were the case, why would she be acting so out of sorts? She was like a skittish kitten around him.

He picked up the hand mirror lying next to him on the sofa, and as he did so, he almost felt the wretched thing shrink in his hand. This told him everything he needed to know, even before he saw his reflection. Nothing had changed with his appearance.

Sighing heavily, he flung the thing at the wall, watching it splinter into a bajillion pieces with an air of self-satisfaction. He didn't normally indulge in such destructive ways of venting his irritation, but he felt this warranted it.

Because he was irritated, dammit. He couldn't shake the feeling, irrational though it was, that he was somehow being made fun of. He hated the idea that an imposter version of himself was running rampant through Granger's brain. Any second now, the universe would find a way of screeching the metaphysical equivalent of, You ugly, presumptuous fuck! That's not you in her mind at all! It's someone else!

He didn't know whether this would come in the form of mirror-cracking, plant-wilting, or even showers of locusts, and he didn't want to find out.

Really, destroying the mirror was a good precaution.

It took a good few hours before he was able to pull himself out of his funk, and even then, he only accomplished this by telling himself that, at the very least, he now had a grading slave for the entire school year.

A satisfied smirk crossed his face as he plotted more ways of using Granger's inexplicable attraction to him to his advantage.


Hermione plopped down with a book. She didn't usually plop, but she wanted to savor the distinctly dust-free, cleaned-by-Severus duvet. The experience was everything she thought it would be, and she stood up and plopped back down several times in rapid succession.

Making a little happy sound, she opened her tome to the first chapter.

Videre Dissimiliter

Do you dread doing your duty? Does the thought of having to look upon the flabby body of your partner before, during, and after - disgust you? Does his hairy - fill you with contempt? Is it hard to go to your happy place with his - and groaning? Look no further! This potion is for you. It's not cheap, it should only be brewed by professionals, and it tastes like roasted, sun-dried toads, but it is instantly effective upon ingestion, replacing the man or woman - above you with your ideal mate. No one need be the wiser!

It went on from there, but Hermione stared, ignoring the rest of the page. She had never heard of such a potion before, but she supposed a lot of people used it. Whatever worked, right?

Giggling, she surveyed the rest of the small print. There were an awful lot of blanked out words. Well, she had found the thing in the school library, after all. She supposed blacking parts of it out was Pince's concession to leaving it in the fifteen-and-over section rather than the Restricted Section.

Shaking her head, she began to flip through the chapters. She wanted to find out if any other methods for altering one's vision existed. Perhaps she had eaten something tainted. Or touched something with the ability to turn greasy, weedy slime balls into hulking Fabios. Heck, if she could figure it out, she'd market the stuff and make millions. She'd put WWW out of business. She could lie abed past ten am (which was when her brain began to function normally, if given the chance to rouse itself) and occupy herself with her favorite hobby: light reading.

Visions of glory swept through her mind, but it soon became clear upon flipping through the rest of the book, that nothing useful was to be gleaned from this work, at least.

She had the sinking feeling that what she was looking for didn't exist. She knew she hadn't drunk any Videre. Potions that difficult to make were considered controlled substances, and could only be purchased from registered apothecaries. Unless someone with nefarious intentions had been dousing her morning pumpkin juice, which she highly doubted, the answer lay elsewhere.

It had been a long day, and it was barely noon. She wanted to delve deeper into this mystery, but first, a nap seemed in order.

She put the book aside, dove into the blissfully clean sheets, and proceeded to pass out.

A/N: So now they're both trying to figure out what's going on. Which one of them, if either, do you think is on the right track? ;)