COLD LOATHING

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.

A/N: Spoilers to OotP, not HBP-compatible. Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle.

Alerts, review notifications and PMs are not working, but reviews will be visible onsite. I will reply to all when the system unfreezes.

Bent over the student samples of Ethereal Elixir handed in that lesson, Professor Snape waited as his seventh year class packed up. When the first pushed open the door to leave, he spoke.

"Potter, a word."

Harry Potter swung the bag back off his shoulder and glared at his teacher, who was turning a vial up to the light and shaking it dubiously. It was supposed to be violet and the consistency of thick cream. It looked more like plum jam.

It was a war between them still, as it had been the previous year. Harry wondered whether to clear his throat or attempt to leave as the greasy git set that vial aside, made a notation in his marking book, and picked up another. Being the first to make a sound would be a defeat, but outright disobedience would bring evenings of enforced silent scrubbing. That would be a defeat too.

Everyone else had left the room by the time Snape finally looked up, scowling, and paused to ward the room.

"Next week, I'll start teaching my wife Occlumency. She'd like you to join the lessons."

Harry stiffened, wishing he had a death-dealing Basilisk stare in his repertoire. Grimly, he shook his head.

"I haven't forgotten how our last attempt ended either," Snape said. "But your continued ignorance endangers the lives of every member of the Order, myself included."

Harry's lips curled in a nasty smile. Good.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Potter?" Snape drawled, his beady eyes looking over his antagonist with cold loathing. "Even though it means that Hermione and her defenceless parents would be tortured along with me. How many more friends do you intend to lose?"

Emerald eyes blazed in a white, set face. Harry's short-bitten nails cut into his palms, but he said nothing. The hateful voice continued.

"The Weasleys? Lupin? Miss Tonks?"

"Your fault … Sirius!" Harry snarled.

"Was it? Was I the one who didn't practise? Was I the disobedient fool who went further and further into a dream-vision he was told to ignore? Was I the one who rushed off into a trap instead of trusting an Order member to take care of it? Who was it that almost got your friends killed, Mr Potter? Which of the two of us bears that responsibility?"

Harry's eyes didn't fall, but his lip trembled.

"You'd never helped us before," he said.

"You never asked for my help – or wanted it."

Harry leaned forward with clenched fists and accusing eyes.

"That's not true! What about in fourth year, when I told you I needed Dumbledore and you wouldn't fetch him? And by the time we got back to Mr Crouch, he'd been killed and Transfigured away."

The Potions master's eyes narrowed with the effort of recollection.

"What are you gabbling about? I knew Dumbledore would be out in a moment. I was hardly going to explain to a student that he'd stopped to use the facilities."

Harry stared at him.

"How was I supposed to know that? I thought you were just playing silly-bu …" He folded his lips and hunched his shoulders. "I did try to tell you in Umbridge's office. You didn't give any sign you understood."

"Perhaps you just didn't have the brain to recognise it," the other sneered.

Harry cast his mind back. All he could remember was Snape telling him he was shouting nonsense, then telling Crabbe not to hold Neville so tight that he choked him because he didn't want the paperwork, then leaving. Wait –telling a Slytherin not to hurt a Gryffindor? Oh.

"I'll think about it," he muttered.

"Respect, Potter. You call me sir or professor."

"Sir." Harry bit off the word savagely and picked up his bag.

"You have until next week," Snape said. "We'll expect you in my office on Monday night at eight." He removed the wards and picked up another vial. The potion had separated into gluggy orange clumps in a muddy liquid.

"D, of course," he muttered, his lips curling. "You forgot to turn down the heat after adding the wintergreen, Potter. Perhaps I should schedule you for Remedial Potions as well. You'd have ample time if you gave up Quidditch."

Harry gritted his teeth, reminded himself that it was an empty threat, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Harry fumed all day, avoiding even Ron. As curfew approached, he slipped out in his Invisibility Cloak and wandered the halls till he was sure they'd all be asleep. It wasn't until next morning's breakfast, therefore, that he became aware he was not the only Gryffindor to have had an interview with Snape that day.

"He said what?"

Neville ducked his head, pushing a bite of oozing fried egg around his plate as Harry stared at him.

"He said he might let me join his class again. If I spend all week brewing sixth year potions with Malfoy and don't melt any cauldrons and continue after that twice a week for the rest of the year, he'll take me on probation. Because I'm okay at Herbology and there's lots of it in Potions and he said something about general improvement and showing the brains Professor Sprout always insisted I must possess."

"He was having you on. You know he doesn't take anyone who got less than O in their O.W.L.s," Harry said.

"This is Snape, Harry, not Ron's brothers. He's not exactly a joker, is he?" Neville glanced up briefly from his plate. "He asked if he was still my Boggart and I said, 'no', of course, because he's not half as scary as Bellatrix, and he said he'd see if growing a backbone made me any less abysmal." He attempted, without much success, to reproduce Snape's sneer on the last word.

"But why? He loathes you almost as much as he does me."

"That's easy," Dean cut in. "I bet it was Hermione. Ron says Hermione's already bossing Snape around. She told him so yesterday."

Harry shook his head, his forehead and lips puckered in disbelief. Snape hated Hermione, he always had. Just because they were married, didn't mean he'd be any nicer to her. Where was Ron anyway? He looked around the Hall and saw him near the door, chatting up Hannah Abbott.

Lavender laughed, a silvery, malicious tinkle.

"She's got what Snape wants, doesn't she? And I bet he never thought he'd find such a willing – partner."

"I suppose she must have been crushing on him for years," Parvati said. "She was very secretive though. We never guessed it."

"We've always known she'd do just about anything for good marks," Lavender said. She hadn't forgiven Hermione for disapproving of her fling with Ron the previous year.

"Think he'll be in a better mood now he's getting some?" asked Dean, adding as his dorm-mate turned on him with fists raising. "Hey, no offence, Harry. They can do what they want, can't they? They're married."

Harry's stomach clenched in a tight, hard knot. He didn't even want to think about that, let alone talk about it. It wasn't right. It just wasn't. Hermione and that – that greasy, slimy, foul, sarcastic git. He changed the subject.

"Malfoy wouldn't help you," he told Neville. "He hates us."

Neville shrugged and looked across at the Slytherin table. Malfoy made no pretence of not watching them. He winked and smirked. The knot in Harry's stomach clenched tighter.

"He said maybe he was kissing up to the teachers like a good Slytherin should," Neville said doubtfully.

"Hah! There are no good Slytherins."

Surprisingly, Neville blushed.

"I said something like that too. And he went all stiff and polite, like he did last year, and said he could see it was going to be so nice working with me, he could hardly wait."

"Don't do it, mate," Ron said, arriving at the table and plopping himself down next to Harry. "It's a trick, isn't it? It has to be."

"A trick?" Neville said.

"Yeah, I've been thinking about it all night and I think I have it figured. They're trying to infiltrate us, and then, as soon as we let down our guard – wham! They'll turn on us and hand us over to the enemy. Think about it! Why else would Snape want to marry Hermione? He sure as heck never liked her."

Harry nodded emphatically. Now someone was talking sense. A post owl dropped his copy of the Daily Prophet on his toast, scattering the slices. He fumbled in his pocket for a few Knuts.

"Oh, for Circe's sake, Ron, give it a rest." A few seats down, Ginny had caught the tail end of the conversation. "Snape's not going to hand Hermione or any of us over to Voldemort. Don't you think Dumbledore's had sixteen years to figure out whose side he's on? And don't start talking about evil Defence teachers! None of them lasted a year."

"But Snape hates Hermione. He laughed at her teeth that time Malfoy hexed them." Ron pointed his buttered roll at her, then took a big bite.

"People change." Ginny tossed her hair back from her face to glare at him. "She told me you used to call her a nightmare, but that didn't stop you becoming friends. If it doesn't bother Hermione that he used to dislike her, it shouldn't bother you. He must care a bit if he's all right with her staying friends with us. And he is; he told me so when I asked him." She grinned reminiscently. "Actually, he said he's not her keeper and why did I expect him to be?"

Harry's mouth fell open, his rolled-up paper loose in his hand. Was everyone cosying up to the greasy git now?

"You asked him? When?" he demanded, dismissing the rest. It was obvious someone must have Confunded her.

"After class yesterday. He said we should have afternoon tea with her on Sundays, because she can take a break then for a few hours, instead of trying to buttonhole her between classes, when she's preoccupied."

"Will he be there too?" Neville asked doubtfully.

Ginny laughed till she coughed.

"You don't think he wants to spend time with us, do you?"

Shaken, Harry retreated to his paper. It wasn't likely to be any more sane than his companions, but surely it couldn't be worse. He unrolled it to the front page and gasped. Under a banner headline was an unflattering picture of Hermione from surely two or three years ago, her bush of hair blowing as if in a high wind. Beside it was a distant view of a thin man in black with lank hair, his back to the camera.

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

Notorious heartbreaker Hermione Granger, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent, who at fourteen flirted and fled both Harry Potter and Bulgarian Quidditch star Viktor Krum, has added another scalp to her list. But this time it seems the audacious teen has been caught in her own honey-trap. It won't be so easy to leave a husband behind, especially one with such a nose for poisons.

In a suspiciously hasty marriage, the tear-away teen and her teacher, Hogwarts Potions master and head of Slytherin, Professor Severus Snape, tied the knot in a private ceremony barely days before the start of the school year, allegedly to allow the unqualified teen to apply for a post as Hogwarts Defence Against Dark Arts teacher. It will surprise no one familiar with his previous history of eccentric appointments that this was apparently with the foreknowledge and consent of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

Harder to explain is the Ministry's apparent stamp of approval on this very peculiar match...

Wordlessly, he handed it to Ron, who read it, dropped it as if it burnt his fingers, then picked it up and began crumpling it into a ball.

"What?" said Ginny, watching him. He shook his head, waving vaguely in the direction of the Head Table, and crumpled harder. "What is it? Is it about Hermione?" She leaned past Colin and Dean and grabbed it from her brother's hands, smoothing it out carefully.

"Hermione is going to kill Rita," Ron said with conviction.

A/N Ethereal Elixir is not canon. The suggestion that Snape was fobbing Harry off because Dumbledore was in the loo first came from Whitehound. It fits well with Dumbledore's rapid appearance, but cannot be proven. The message in Snape's warning to Crabbe is also not my original thought, but I don't know whom to credit.

Hermione was, of course, fifteen when she met Viktor, but Rita's always been rather careless with the truth.