Chapter 10: In which sneaky plans are made and a party takes place
Hermione lifted her head from the pillow still half stunned.
"What do you mean?" She asked, hoping he had finally come up with a solution.
"Well, we could try and find the Room again and ask it for our hearts desire. I'm not sure if it would work for you as it has already given you what you wanted – much to Hermione's embarrassment he snickered rather loudly at this - but I think if I asked for my heart's desire it might let me. And considering that what I want most at this precise instant is to get out of your far too full brain it might just work… he trailed off hopefully.
"I don't see why not" said Hermione sitting up and grabbing her clothes. She ran down the stairs into the common room (thankfully it was still empty as classes had not yet finished) and raced past de Fat Lady to the place where she had fallen through the wall.
She stared at the place where it should have been and tapped the wall. Nothing happened.
"Try again" said Snape anxiously.
She kicked the wall. Still nothing happened. Hermione glared at the stones and rubbed her poor abused toes which she had smashed against the wall.
"It's not there" she growled.
"Don't tell me" said Snape, sarcasm dripping from each word. "The castle must have reorganised again. It is nearly impossible to find anything in this place if you don't ask the portraits."
"Well we can't jolly well go and ask them, they'll just go and tell McGonagall we're looking for it" She snapped back and slid down the wall to sit on the cold floor.
"We could try checking around the castle" he said.
"Oh shut up, that won't work" said Hermione sucking the end of hair and thinking.
A second later she jumped to her feet. "The Marauder's Map" she exclaimed.
"Now you only need to get it from Potter" said Snape sounding doubtful.
"Bother it". Hermione was not amused. No way was Harry going to lend her the map after the way she and Snape had treated Ron. She was just going to have to steal it.
Snape was rather pleased at her new found Slytherin tactics and silently laughed as she stormed down the corridor avoiding all the people that were just coming out of class.
Muttering the password to the Fat Lady she ground to a halt as Harry and Ron blocked her path.
"What on Earth is your problem Mione?" said Harry, crossing his arms.
Hermione was frantically trying to come up with some kind of excuse for her behaviour. She did love them like brothers but sometimes she just wanted to strangle them.
"Ummmmmmm girl problems… you know what that can be like" she stammered going red.
The boys went an unflattering colour of green and backed away like she was going to bite them.
"Ah ok, well then I guess we will just leave you alone until you feel better" they said and started backing away.
"Are you coming to the Halloween party?" said Ron using his best puppy-dog eyes.
"Hmm yes" said Hermione that had completely forgotten about Halloween even although she had spent the day surrounded by pumpkins, bats and other not -so-nice-to-look- at animals.
The boys rushed off talking loudly about crazy girls.
"Oh for Heaven's sake, you'd think men would get over a little bit of blood every month" groused Hermione to a silent Snape that was trying his best to avoid a conversation on that topic.
Rapidly changing the subject Snape started to create a plan that would let them get the map.
They decided to do it the easiest way and avoid asking Harry for it as it would only make him suspicious so after arguing for a while they managed to agree on the fact that the best way was to go down to the Halloween party and when everyone was too busy dancing and drinking they would just have to sneak up to the boys dorm and steal the map (or borrow as Hermione told Snape who had different ideas on the policies of giving something back once it was in your power).
Hermione dragged her feet to her dorm where all the other girls were already primping and getting into their outfits. There was a sexy fairy, a sexy vampire, a sexy healer and a sexy cat. Hermione groaned and flopped down on the bed covering her eyes. It wasn't that she minded people wearing ultra-revealing outfits it was just that she couldn't be bothered to spend the entire night casting warming charms on herself because her dress showed more than what it covered.
Lavender was twirling around the room, her fairy wings letting off great clouds of pink glitter everywhere and her breasts practically hanging out of the skimpy dress.
Hermione sniffed and pointed her nose up in the air. Snape gagged at the pink monstrosity. She instantly felt better.
"You should be getting ready" said Snape "I hope for your own sake you haven't decided to wear anything like what they are wearing" he said nastily.
"It's not like you would have to wear it" Hermione grumbled, knowing very well that she wouldn't wear anything like that even if it was the last dress on the world.
"No I wouldn't but I would feel the pink glitter seeping through your skin" he shuddered as he mumbled something about stupid women and their stupid manias of wearing costumes that wouldn't cover a three year old.
Hermione grinned, waved to the other girls that were already leaving and pulled out her costume (she had finally managed to remember where she had stashed it after she had unpacked her trunk at the beginning of the year)
"This is worse than pink" shouted Snape horrified, looking at the thing she held in her hands.
"You are not wearing that! I will hex you myself if I am forced to bear being in someone that is going to wear that, that, that…. THING!. Hermione could feel him glaring at the costume, his eyes boring a hole through her head.
"It's a giant pumpkin!" shouted Snape at the top of his lungs "That should be illegal".
"Oh so what do you propose Mister Perfect?" she scowled starring lovingly at the enormous orange thing in her arms.
"Anything but that" he pleaded desperately.
He shouldn't have said that.
About half an hour later a very Snapish looking Hermione billowed down to the Great Hall. Snape's coat trailing behind her like a black cloud and her dyed black hair swirling in the constant breeze that always seemed to fill Hogwarts's corridors. Needless to say, Severus Snape was not amused.
Hermione on the other hand found it kind of satisfying to watch the youngest members of the school flee in terror thinking she was the detested-by-all Potions Master (which she was in a way).
"You're a bad influence on me" she giggled to Snape as he pouted and refused to speak.
The boys were stunned to see her like that. Ron found it hilarious and spent the next ten minutes telling everyone that came near them that he just wished that Snape could see what she was wearing. Snape started considering homicide.
The Room was decorated with floating pumpkins and candles and there were bats flying around. Combining that with the stormy looking sky that made up the ceiling of the Hall it was the perfect setting for a Halloween party. The ghosts had been invited and were gliding around leaving the unfortunate people that accidentally passed through them shivering in their cold trail.
Most of the pupils and teachers were dancing to the band that was playing at one side. Hermione and Snape grimaced at the same time as a drunken Hagrid tripped by, dancing with Professor Sprout.
Ginny grabbed Harry by the hand and dragged him to the dance floor winking at Ron as she led him away.
Ron pulled a very unwilling Hermione behind them. He clasped her in his arms and did his take on the waltz (that is, a lot of feet trampling and no sense of rhythm waltz) and led her around the room. He had been drinking before they had arrived and that made him bold. As they twirled around the room his hands inched themselves down to her bottom. Hermione froze.
Snape was furious and proceeded to shrink his balls with Hermione's wand. Hermione who was practically foaming at the mouth silently approved of what Snape had done. As Ron cupped his groin area with his hands looking up at Hermione with pleading eyes she kicked him rather hard on the shin and stormed away leaving half the school gaping at her retreating figure.
"And that is the way to leave in style" smiled Hermione glancing back and making sure nobody was following her as she climbed into the Gryffindor Common Room.
It was common knowledge that the boys couldn't go into the girls room but the girls could go into the boys (not that they ever did, after all the smell of stinky socks reached the Common Room) so Hermione tip toed gingerly up the stairs ignoring Snape's comments on how she was as silent as an elephant in a stampede. (Well she was, he grumped)
Covering her nose and mouth with her hand, Snape used the right hand to rummage in Harry's trunk.
He grabbed at a piece of paper and grimaced as he chucked a Muggle porn magazine on the bed. Hermione snickered and holding her breath started helping him.
No, not a book, no, not a half chewed piece of parchment, no, not a photo of Harry and Ginny... and finally they managed to find the map.
Gasping for air and stuffing all the things back in the trunk they fled the scene of the crime like if the boys' room was Chernobyl (the air probably was poisonous, not that they ever noticed).
Spreading the map out on her bed, Snape inspected it curiously and began looking for The Room.
A while later a triumphant Hermione found it on the third floor of the East Tower.
They raced across Hogwarts, billowing (Hermione had completely forgotten she was still dressed up as Snape) ignoring all the drunk portraits that were stumbling into each other's frames and giggling and huffing and puffing up the stairs the finally managed to reach their destination.
Catching her breath, Hermione stood up straight and pressed her hand against the wall…
I hope you like it. I will update whenever I can because I really, really have to study (I always say the same even although I will probably end up doing everything the day before the exam.. :S)
Thanks to everyone that is following this story and to all the people that are leaving reviews.
xSerenityIsn'tAlwaystheAnswerx you said that I made you love that pairing, that comment just made my day ;) Love, love Snamione, they will always be my OTP and people sharing this opinion never stops thrilling me.