Author's Note: Two more chapters going up at once; this one and the next were edited together as a single chapter but then I decided that a 5,000-word chapter is a bit ridiculous, so I've broken them up to be a little more manageable.

The sun had been streaming through her window for hours and was quite high in the sky by the time Hermione finally roused from sleep the next morning. She thought back to the events of the night before and wrapped her arms around herself in her bed. The expression Professor Snape had borne on his face was one she'd never seen from him, not in all her years in his classroom. He'd looked like he wanted to hurt her, or... Or what? She shivered. Any other possibilities did not bear considering. And he'd been exhausted from spending a night dissembling in front of Lord Voldemort. She wondered what that must have been like for him and then decided it was likely best she didn't know.

She'd slept completely through breakfast, and by the time she'd dressed and done a reasonable job of taming her hair, it was time for lunch already, as the rumbling in her stomach made clear.

When she arrived in the Great Hall, Ron, Harry, Ginny, and several other Gryffindors were already there—finishing up, by the looks of it.

"Hey, sleepyhead!" Ron called to her cheerfully. She rolled her eyes indulgently and took a seat next to him.

"Ronald Weasley, how do you know I was sleeping? I might have been studying, for all you know."

He grinned. "Because I looked for you in the library, and I looked for you in the common room, and I happen to know you hate bathing before noon, so that leaves one place you could have been: Bed!" He finished triumphantly. "Am I wrong?"

She sighed, with the corner of her mouth quirking up just a bit. "Congratulations, Mr. Holmes."

This got a laugh from Harry and Ginny, sitting next to each other on the other side of the table. Ginny asked, "Late night, Hermione?"

She shrugged lightly. "Studying."

Ginny lifted an eyebrow, but didn't press her friend. "New topic," she said. "Come to Hogsmeade with us this afternoon! You spent all night studying, so you can surely take this afternoon off!" Hermione pursed her lips together, and Ginny said, "Come on, you need a break."

Hogsmeade. Hermione had almost forgotten. She was sorely tempted to go; it sounded a lot better than spending another night with Snape probing her mind and berating her. She wondered if she could reasonably beg off from her Occlumency lesson… but then she thought about her professor's likely reaction were she to try to do so.

Besides, she'd done quite a bit of practicing lately and had to admit that she was looking forward to putting her efforts to use. I think he'll find that invading my mind isn't quite so simple as he's accustomed to, she thought with grim satisfaction.

So with regret that was only partially feigned, she shook her head. "I'm sorry; I'd really love to, but I just can't." She didn't elaborate further, even though her friends looked at her expectantly. Let them wonder, she thought, tired of trying to come up with excuses for her whereabouts. I'm not accountable to you lot.

Ginny looked skeptical but only said, "Well, if you change your mind..." And then, brightening, "But, you and I do need to discuss Ball stuff sometime soon." She punctuated this with a wink, and a meaningful glance at Harry.

"Oh Gods, my gown! I'd nearly forgotten!" Hermione hesitated, then said, "Look, maybe tomorrow afternoon?" Or maybe never? Hermione felt irritable every time she even thought of the Ball. She wished she'd never agreed to go with Ron. It seemed to have only reinforced his idea that they were destined for each other, and it would only make the inevitable letting-down that much more difficult.

She'd thought of breaking up with Ron prior to the Ball; then she wouldn't have to go at all and could avoid all of this silly nonsense entirely. But she felt that was too heartless and cold even for her. Only a few months ago, she'd been considering a future with Ron, a future with a wedding gown, and a home together, and little ginger-haired children. Considering it without much excitement, granted, but considering it nonetheless.

What's changed since then, Hermione? An obvious answer lurked, but she refused to think about that. Things had changed; that was the important thing. She'd simply have to accept it. And so would Ron… eventually.

Ginny laughed. "Hermione, you're impossible. The Ball is next weekend and you're only just thinking about your gown! Honestly!"

"Yeah, honestly!" Ron added, sounding somewhat hurt. Hermione gave him a reproachful look.

"Ron, come on. You know me. I'm just not a... gown-planning sort of girl."

This mollified him somewhat, and Ginny, looking amused at this exchange, said, "Tomorrow, then!"

With this agreed upon, the friends parted ways. Hermione headed back into the castle, while her friends made their way to Hogsmeade. Stupid Ball, she thought darkly, as she took the stairs back to Gryffindor Tower. Stupid Ball, stupid Ron, stupid gown.

There were four hours left until her lesson with Snape. When she got to her room, she seated herself on her bed in a lotus position and took a deep breath. Four hours to practice. Four hours to make her mind as opaque as she could. Four hours to clear her head of all thoughts. Thoughts of Ron, thoughts of Hogsmeade.

Thoughts of her Potions professor and the way he'd looked at her the night before.

Hermione arrived at the appointed hour for her lesson, not entirely sure what to expect. When Professor Snape opened the door and she saw him, a faint flutter stirred in her belly, but she stifled it instantly, almost without thinking. She was prepared for this lesson; she was ready. She would not permit herself to be thrown off-kilter by misbehaving emotions.

Snape, for his part, was as cold and composed as usual, if not more so. His lip turned up in a faint sneer when he saw her; it was a contemptuous gaze, there was no mistaking it. This was the Snape she was familiar with in the Potions classroom. Not the haggard, stumbling man she'd helped to this door the previous night.

He inclined his head towards her and then said, "Miss Granger," with a trace of sarcasm. "Another minute and I'd have had five points from Gryffindor."

There was no sign in his demeanor of what had passed between them. All right, so that's how it's to be, Hermione thought. To be honest, she felt somewhat relieved. It was better for them to be back in their usual roles; the self-assured instructor, and the competent student. Nothing more.

She calculated her response carefully: "I believe I am on time, sir." It held the faintest hint of impudence. She'd learned the past few weeks in Snape's classroom that this was enough to warrant harsh mockery and punitive consequences from him there. But here, he only cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Indeed."

Her theory was confirmed, then: He was different when it was just the two of them alone. His behavior in the classroom was… an act? Or something else? She couldn't be sure, but felt a certain amount of relief, regardless.

She entered his private office, and he closed and warded the door behind her. "In front of the desk, please, as before."

She stood where he directed her, taking her position with her back to the large wooden desk. She realized that she was twisting her hands together nervously, and stopped it by clasping them together instead. To her embarrassment, Snape noticed this; his lip twitched knowingly.

"You're going to have to control yourself better than that, Miss Granger."

While he spoke, Snape had moved closer, facing her from only a foot away. He was close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body; could smell linseed on his hands from some potion he'd been brewing. She stifled the treacherous fluttering in her belly again and forced herself to meet his eyes.

He waited for a long moment before speaking, his voice quiet and cold. "Miss Granger, I am going to attempt to view a particular memory, just as before. And I want you to keep me from doing so, just as before. However, this time I want you to use Occlumency, rather than your crude show of brute force."

Stung, she opened her mouth to reply, but he carried on, "If you use means other than Occlumency to keep me out, you'll spend next Saturday night on your knees scrubbing my classroom, is that understood?"

Snape had expected—hoped—to goad her to anger, but instead, to his irritation, she only returned his stare with one of her own and said, "Understood."

Snape had spent a considerable length of time that morning and afternoon sitting at the desk in this very office, thinking about his upcoming lesson with Granger. After the preceding evening, he'd been inclined to cancel it entirely, but he had dismissed that impulse as rash and immature. She was a mere girl; he had no need to run and hide from her. No, the lesson would proceed as scheduled. He'd enter her mind, and she'd try to keep him out, and undoubtedly she would fail. The thought had sent a frisson of pleasure through him: Yes, she'd fail. He'd make her fail.

Pursuing this train of thought, he'd considered which memory to target. Nothing recent. He'd had more than his fill of watching her adolescent fumblings with Weasley, and the thought of examining her memories of any of his own... recent interactions with her turned his stomach. He'd snarled at himself in disgust, remembering some of the things he'd done.

No, absolutely nothing recent. And then an idea had uncoiled inside his mind—a nasty idea, but perhaps an effective one. He knew the memory he'd force her to show him: an embarrassing memory, a humiliating one. One she'd certainly not want to relive, especially not with him.

This had nothing to do with his personal pleasure. He was merely teaching her to successfully Occlude. Defending herself from having this particular memory violated would be highly motivating for her. It was good instruction, nothing more, nothing less. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he'd nearly lost control of himself in a public fucking hallway with her, nor with her increasingly frequent appearance in his dreams. No, those things did not bear thinking about, because thinking about them—considering them, dwelling on them—was dangerously close to admitting that he was indulging a need to punish her... to punish her for the sin of his lust.

He had no such need. And so this was certainly not a punishment.

With no warning, he murmured, "Legilimens," and Granger took a sharp breath as he entered her mind.

Her defenses seemed somewhat stronger and better-organized than the last time, but she remained unable to keep him out. He pushed more and more deeply, searching for a memory he knew to be there.

He moved quickly past all of her recent experiences with Weasley and Potter, her thoughts about her classes, her summer holiday, going further and further into the past. This memory should hold powerful emotional resonance; it should be relatively easy to locate. And then… yes. He found it, and simultaneously she realized what he intended to view.

Hermione nearly thrust him out of her mind before she could stop herself. Anger filled her, roiling and surging like a tidal wave, powerful and consuming, and she knew she could use that power to shove him out of her mind; she knew she could, and she wanted to, so badly. But that was against the rules.

You have no right! The thought struck him like a physical blow.

He heard her breathing deliberately, and he could sense her attempts to calm herself. He felt a smirk tug at his mouth. I'm going to make you fail, girl.

The memory Snape had chosen to violate was one she had deliberately not thought about for years. It was three years prior, and she was still really just a child, standing amidst her friends in the middle of Snape's Potions classroom. In the memory, she covered her mouth with her hands, trying to stop anyone from seeing that a misplaced hex had made her teeth grow wildly out of control. Snape felt her embarrassment, her shame, her overpowering desire to hide her overgrown teeth away. And then Weasley—the thought that boy has done a thousand times more to hurt her than I ever have briefly crossed his mind—made her show herself to him.

He sensed a thread of relief in her thoughts then, woven in with her overarching humiliation; relief that at last a teacher, a professor, would see what had happened and would help her. With faint surprise, he found that she had trusted him; that even though he frightened and intimidated her, she had trusted him as a professor. Trusted him to do the right thing.

He watched the memory unfold in her mind, heading inexorably for what they both knew happened next; for Snape to take her misplaced trust in him and crush it, destroy it. Destroy it completely.

No more than she deserved, he thought. She should never have trusted me. Not then, not now.

Hermione, inside the memory along with her Potions professor—why? why this one? why is he doing this to me?—knew that she had to pull herself together, to regain control before they reached the end, because having to watch her previous humiliation alongside the man who had caused it, alongside this man, would break her. Break her completely. Break her in a way that Cruciatus never could. And so she had to stop him before they got that far.

Come on. You can do this.

With considerable effort, she quelled her panic and cast her mind back to her endless hours of practice over the past few days. She summoned the cool white mist, as she had done so many times before, and found to her faint surprise that the memory she was inside... faded slightly. It was the difference between acting in a play and being a member of the audience. She was in the audience now. She was outside, separate. Excitement rose within her, but as soon as it did, she felt herself being sucked back into the memory. No. She forcibly quieted her mind again.

White. Nothing.

Snape was startled to find the entire memory receding from him, the colors fading, the sound diminishing. What the hell is she doing? A haze of white descended over the scene. He pushed harder and deeper into her mind, attempting to retrieve it, but there was nothing for him to grab on to, nothing for him to pull out. It was just... gone.

She was a seventh-year student. She should not be able to do this. Yes, he'd instructed her in the technique, but she should not have mastered it so quickly; he should have been able to easily penetrate her defenses. He heard himself snarling under his breath, and then, finally, he pulled out of her mind completely. She looked back at him with wide eyes and tear-stained cheeks. He hadn't realized she'd been weeping; he wondered if she realized it herself.

Hermione saw the naked fury on Snape's face, and matched it with her own, her face lit with anger.

"How dare you!" she said, stepping back from him. "How dare you!"

He advanced on her, backing her against the desk and closing the already-short distance between them to no more than a few inches, his arms folded imperiously over his frock-coat.

"How dare I what, Miss Granger? How dare I attempt to teach an ungrateful chit something that might possibly save her fucking life? It is an excellent question, I must admit. Perhaps you have an answer for me, since you apparently know better than I how to teach Occlumency!" He saw that her jaw was trembling. He found that he wanted her to cry; he wanted to reduce her to that.

But she wasn't crying. Her eyes were narrowed in fury. "How dare you show me that?" she spat. "There are a hundred, a thousand other memories that you could have used for this... this lesson, but instead you chose this one. Why? Why? It's because you enjoy humiliating me, isn't it? Because you hate me. Why don't you just say it!" Her voice rose to a shout. "Say it to my face!" she cried, and she pushed against his chest, trying to shove him away from her.

Snape caught her hands and held her wrists tightly. She tried to pull away but he was too strong.

"Let me go," she whispered. Oh Gods, I've pushed him too far. She felt a thrill of panic. Snape's face was twisted in anger, so different from his usual cold, controlled expression that he was barely recognizable.

"Do not," he breathed, "presume to know my mind. You know nothing—nothing—of me. Nothing."

He pulled her hands towards him, forcing her to take a jerking step in his direction. For a split second, she saw a trace of the look he'd had on his face the night before, and her eyes widened. But then he released her hands, and she pulled them back towards herself as though he had burned her.

With obvious effort, he composed himself enough to say, "I will decide if these lessons are to continue, and if so, when the next one will be."

Hermione managed, "Yes, sir," with a shaking voice.

"Now... get out of my sight."

She said, "Gladly," but by that time she was nearly over the threshold, and she did not think he'd heard.

That night, lying in bed, Hermione thought about what had happened, replaying it in her mind.

When she'd seen his face contorted in rage, she'd been angry at him, and a little afraid, but she'd also been… what, exactly?

She relived the moment, turning it over and over in her thoughts. Angry, yes; oh Gods, she was angry at him. But she'd felt something else… a thrill of adrenaline that wasn't just the result of anger. She'd been… excited. Excited that she'd made him feel something. Even if that something was rage.

But that did not bear further analysis or consideration. If Snape's plan worked, they'd destroy Voldemort in a few short weeks. That was the important thing. Not Snape or his feelings about her. Or hers about him.

It's Snape, for Merlin's sake. It's ridiculous for me to even be entertaining these thoughts about him in the first place. Not that there are any thoughts to entertain.

She turned over in bed and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.