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Chapter Ten – The Detention

"Miss Granger, how nice of you to join me." Snape drawled not looking up from the essays he was furiously marking with huge amounts of green ink.

"I'm sorry sir. I fell asleep." Hermione told him as she walked towards his desk. Snape still didn't look up.

"I think perhaps you should have earlier nights, Miss Granger, if that is what it is going to take to make sure you are on time." Snape said snidely.

Hermione felt a swell in the bottom of her stomach that she expected was from anger. She was furious with him, how dare he suggest having earlier nights? It was his fault she was tired anyway!

"Perhaps you shouldn't be out so late at night, Professor Snape, if that is what it is going to take for you to be in a healthy condition when you return to the school." Hermione spat suddenly, her anger momentarily blocking out her rational side.

Snape's head snapped up and his deep black eyes met with her brown ones. For a second Hermione forgot everything except those beautiful, never-ending black orbs. Hermione caught herself staring, broke off the eye contact and mentally shook herself. She aimed her eyes at the floor and she missed the smirk that played at the corner of Snape's lips.

"Sorry sir. That was out of line." Hermione mumbled, still looking at the floor.

"Indeed it was Miss Granger. I don't know who you think you're talking to in that tone of voice but I assure you that you will do well to remember that I am your Professor and you should have more respect than that for a Professor." Snape shouted.

"Sorry." Hermione mumbled again.

"Yes you seem to say that a lot but how do I know you mean it and it's not just lip service?" Snape inquired as he raised an eyebrow. "How about your punishment?"

"Huh!" Hermione said not very eloquently.

"You didn't think you could turn up to my lesson late, shout at me and then run out of my lesson and get away with it do you? What did you think you were going to do in a detention, make idle chit-chat with myself?"

"No but..." Hermione said.

"Good. Now in the cupboard there are some filthy cauldrons that I save especially for my detentions. I would like you to clean them and then when I am satisfied with your effort, you may leave." Snape smirked.

Hermione spun on her heel and stalked over to the cupboard and flung open the large cupboard doors. She was greeted with an avalanche of filthy, goopy cauldrons. Hermione was knocked over by the last cauldron and landed on her bum with a thump.

Snape snickered quietly, but loud enough for Hermione to hear it. When Hermione had turned to glare at her snarly Potions professor, he had his head bent over the essays he was marking.

Hermione groaned and stood up. She patted her robes down and felt a thick cold liquid stick to her hand, Hermione twisted the bottom of her robes around to find a dull purple potion sticking to her. The potion smelt foul and where the potion had come into contact with her hand there was a red rash developing.

Hermione pulled her wand and raised it up to cast a cleaning spell but before she could swish and flick a strong hand wrapped around her wrist. Hermione gasped in surprise.

"What do you think you're doing?" Snape hissed.

"Cleaning my robes of this filth." Hermione hissed back as she tugged her wrist out of Snape's strong grasp and cast a cleaning spell on her robes.

"I will have that." Snape told her as he snatched her wand from her hand after the potion had disappeared from Hermione's robes.

"What?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"You didn't think that I would let you use magic to clean the cauldrons now did you?" Snape asked sarcastically. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him but mumbled a quiet 'no'.

"Good." Snape told her as he spun on his heel and stalked back to his desk. He then used Hermione's wand to magic a rag and bucket of grey water in front of her, Snape smirked at the look on Hermione's face.

Hermione sighed heavily so that Snape could hear her and knelt down to dip the rag into the water and began to scrub away at the potion that was stuck fast to the rim of the cauldron.

"Damnable man….who does he think he is?...Making me clean these cauldrons...like a common house elf...no... like a slave." Hermione muttered to herself as she worked.

"Miss Granger, I suggest you keep your opinions inside that bushy head of yours." Snape snarled. Hermione reddened in anger but bit her tongue.

She turned back to the mountain of cauldrons she had to clean. How was she supposed to clean twenty-odd cauldrons before the end of this evening, surely this many would take her a week?

An hour later Hermione leant back against a table leg and sighed. She inspected the seven cauldrons she had scrubbed so clean that she could almost make out her reflection.

"Finished?" Severus drawled from behind her. Hermione jumped, she hadn't heard him move from his desk.

"Not quite." Hermione told him, she didn't have the energy to respond to Snape's snarly comments.

"You can go." Severus told her quietly.

"Huh?" Hermione asked ineloquently. Was he really letting her go?

"Leave." Severus repeated a little forcefully this time.

"Why?" Hermione asked, quite confused.

"Because I say so." Snape said impatiently. Hermione cocked her head to the side as she examined her potions professor with a little more detail. She could understand why some of the girls in her old dorm room - Lavender Brown mostly- had a slight crush on him. He was tall and lean, even though his body was hidden underneath a vast cascade of black robes. His skin on his face was a pale milky colour and it was so smooth any model would have been jealous, however as Hermione's eyes trailed down towards Snape's neck she could detect numerous silvery lines that Hermione guessed were scars.

Severus cleared his throat and Hermione was drawn out of her daydream. Her eyes snapped up to meet his own ones. Severus raised his eyebrow and a small smirk danced across his thin lips. Hermione spun on her heel and quickly walked out of the dungeon before he could change his mind about letting her go.

Hermione almost ran through the dungeon's corridors before she stopped. She had left her wand with Snape. Hermione almost considered leaving it with him but knew that she would need it over the weekend to either complete her homework or to do another task. Once again Hermione turned around again and stalked back towards the potions classroom. Hermione reached the door and knocked for, what seemed like, the one-hundredth time that day.

"Enter Miss Granger." Snape said knowingly. Hermione walked into the room and stalked towards Snape's desk.

"You still have my wand." Hermione said shortly.

"I believe I do." Snape told her cooly as he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out Hermione's wand. Hermione reached forward and pulled it from Snape's grasp. For a second their hands touched and Hermione's stomach jumped and flopped back down again. She could feel her face get hot, she looked up into the face of Snape and he raised an eyebrow inquiringly. Hermione pulled her hand away, angry at herself. Why had her body reacted like that towards the man she hated most in the world? She spun on her heel again and walked to the door but stopped and glanced back at Severus.

"You know what?" Hermione asked.

"What Miss Granger?" Snape asked in a tired voice, but really on the inside he was intrigued as to why she would want to be talking to the bat of the dungeons for any longer than was necessary.

"You haven't thanked me." Hermione told him.

"And what would I have to thank you for?" Snape asked, smirking.

"For saving your life."

Snape raised an eyebrow at her, but there was no smirk playing at the corners of the mouth like there had been before. Hermione shrugged and closed the door behind her as she walked out of the classroom.

"Thank you, Hermione. Thank you." Severus told the empty room.

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