A/N: Special thanks, as always, to Anastasia (she without whom no words would happen), AnnieTalbot, Indigofeathers, and MiaMadwyn.
26: He Began
"Wake up."
-#-
"Just… just keep him inside, okay?" Hermione slipped out of Hagrid's door before he could question her any further and ran for the castle, ignoring Crookshanks's yowls of protest which were audible even through the thick walls of Hagrid's hut.
As she raced across the grounds, stomach growling furiously, she had the completely inane thought that if she missed too many more meals her younger self would discover that her uniforms no longer fit properly.
She skidded to a halt before the door that marked the entrance to the castle's lower levels. Bugger. She hadn't been studying properly; her older self knew the material – but would her younger self be prepared for exams?
No time to think about that now.
Smoothing her hair as best as she could and adjusting her tie so she didn't look as thought she'd arrived by Thestral, she took a moment to let her breathing even out before braving Potions class.
She joined the other students who were chattering in the corridor as they waited. Was Neville always so pale before class?
The door opened, and the students hushed, filing quietly into class.
She took her accustomed spot and removed everything she'd need for class from her school bag.
Well, almost everything.
She didn't suppose that she'd find an extra measure of courage in her bag. Or a draught of don't-look-him-in-the-eye. Or a… oh, hell.
"Miss Granger, unless you are attempting to hide your familiar in your satchel…" His voice was softly dangerous.
She shook her head and straightened in her chair, careful to keep her eyes on her textbook. She dipped her quill and willed her hand to be steady as he began the lesson.
She managed to keep the tell-tale feather from quivering overmuch as he outlined the potion they would be brewing that day, and she forced herself to keep writing.
Her younger self would need the notes, and it was an excellent excuse not to look up lest she find him watching her.
Or paying her no heed at all.
She didn't know which would be worse.
She kept writing, wondering whether the Slytherins had always made this much of a murmuring, shuffling racket or whether her nerves were just doing a good impression of piano wire.
"No answer, Miss Granger?"
She heard him cross his arms – the sound of wool on wool almost a shriek in her mind – Definitely piano wire. Damn. What was the question?
She didn't need sound to tell her that, when she'd had no response, he'd lifted a scathing eyebrow.
Or sneered.
"Very well. Malfoy, what are the four uses of…"
Bugger, bugger, bugger.
She focused very hard on his every word for the rest of the introductory lecture, but he asked no more questions.
As the students moved to collect ingredients and set up their cauldrons for brewing, she cast a careful look toward the front of the room.
He sat, stone silent, as the students milled about, his eye flicking professionally from student to student, his watchful gaze cataloging their every move, already calculating their marks for the potion.
She'd never realized how difficult it was to behave naturally when you were trying to behave naturally.
How did he survive all those years as a spy? she mused, waiting for Pansy to finish with the dragonfly wings.
Draco muttered something to Pansy and they both shot her a look and smirked.
What was that about? she wondered, her hand going automatically to her hair.
"Miss Granger, need I remind you what a single human hair will do in this particular potion?"
"It will render it useless except as a base for Felix Fe–" Shite. She wasn't supposed to know that yet.
He interrupted her even as she broke off. "I did not ask you for a treatise, Granger. Yes or no would suffice."
"Yes, sir. No, sir."
"'Yes, sir. No, sir.'" Pansy echoed in a high-pitched, overly tremulous voice.
The Slytherins laughed.
Their laugh cut off as it always did whenever the professor shot them a mild glance.
Silence followed, and she had no choice but to look up.
He seemed to be awaiting something.
She was careful to look at the bridge of his nose as she said, "I'm sorry, sir."
"Tie your hair back." He turned to inspect the layout of Parvati's ingredients, his cloak rippling a remonstrance behind him.
She hastily counted dragonfly wings and hurried back to her seat, trying to remember whether he'd ever told her to tie her hair back before.
He'd probably never needed to.
She twisted her hair back and stuck a spare quill through to hold it.
-#-
His hand paused on Mimi's fur as she slept, curled, on his lap.
Her hair…
Just an impression of it slipping out of a knot at the base of her neck, falling forward toward her cauldron.
His fingers twitched, waking Mimi, who blinked sleepily and stretched.
"Tie it back, Hermione," he whispered to her empty living room. "Tie it back."
-#-
Hermione was counting counterclockwise stirs when a shadow fell across her lecture notes. She held her breath, fearing that the professor had decided to haunt her brewing.
Then she noticed the shape of the shadow.
Unless Professor Snape had suddenly sprouted a pair of pointy ears… she glanced at the high window.
Crookshanks was meowing silently behind the glass.
She closed her eyes and exhaled, blowing a long strand of hair out of her face. She'd known Hagrid was too soft-hearted to listen to his yowls for long.
Hoping that the professor wouldn't notice – As if he doesn't notice everything – well, technically, Crooky isn't exactly inside… – she bent to her lecture notes to double-check the next few steps.
"PERFSSR SEZ 2 TYE IT BAK."
She stared at her notes then glanced back to the window, where Crookshanks was trying to climb the glass.
How did Crookshanks know?
Blindly, she fumbled in her bag for a hair tie and straightened to find Professor Snape reaching into her cauldron with a bare finger.
Her breath caught at the memory of those hands in her hair.
Those hands...
He pulled a long, curling strand from the potion.
"Congratulations, Miss Granger," he said softly, yet with enough power that the entire class fell silent. "You failed."
She nodded, her throat closing against tears. "I know," she whispered.
His hands…
She hugged her arms to her chest and hunched in her seat. I know.
-#-
Severus exhaled and took a long sip of brandy.
Mimi climbed to his chest, sniffing the vapours and drawing her head back.
"When are you going to let her come back, little thing?"
"Meee?"
He glanced at the cereal on the side-table.
The letters shuffled around to read, "KITTEH HALP SPIRRIT."
"Is that you or her blasted Kneazle?"
"CRUKSHANX."
He blinked slowly, his mind quietly formulating a plan.
After a moment, he spoke very softly. "Mimi, I need you to pay very close attention."
She peered at him with adoring eyes.
"Tell Crookshanks to tell Hermione…"
-#-
As her classmates continued their brewing, Hermione scratched endless repetitions of "I will tie my hair back properly" on the four-foot scroll Professor Snape had handed her – with instructions to cover it by the end of the period.
"I will tie my hair back properly. I will tie my hair back properly. I will tie my hair back prFSSR SEZ 2 AD BAMAYTO SEED."
Hermione shoved her chair back. What the…
"BAMAYTO SEED WIL FIX POSHUN. PRFSSR SEZ 2 SMSH WIF SILVUR KNYF. MIMI SEZ PRFSSR LYKE UR HAYR BUT NOT IN POSHUN."
Her eyebrow arched and she turned her head to the window.
Crookshanks was staring at her as if he could melt the window glass by force of will.
"Mimi?" she mouthed.
He blinked at her.
"You can hear Mimi?"
Her punishment lines unfurled to read, "KITTEHZ HALP SPIRRIT."
Her heart swelled, and she mouthed, "Tomato?"
Crookshanks blinked again.
Hermione's eyes mouth twitched, and, glancing around the classroom to make sure there was adequate motion to cover her, she slipped from her seat and headed for the shelves that held the seeds.
-#-
Demetrios was humming softly, conducting the Archive with fluttering hands and a fennel frond, when he heard a small shuffling from Hermione's permanent record.
He opened his eyes and peered through the rainbows of light dancing off the mirror ball and reached for the "Minor Infractions" file.
Nothing new.
He put the fennel down and rifled through the file box.
The fennel continued to twitch rhythmically on Hermione's desk.
"Oh, do stop," he murmured, looking for something new in the box.
No new files.
Frowning, he floated upward, twisting himself upside down for a better look.
"Ah, there you are…" Shoving both hands to the bottom of the box, he pulled out a small, tightly folded parchment to which was affixed a rusty paper clip.
-#-
"Notice of Special Merit:
Dear Miss Granger,
Professor Snape has notified the staff that you are to be awarded this Notice of Special Merit for your discovery of the counter-active properties of Lycopersicon esculentum (common tomato) to human hair contamination in low-acidity potions.
He refuses to convey his respects in person; this note will have to suffice.
Sincerely,
Professor M. McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
P.S. If I may add my personal congratulations, my dear? I am delighted in your achievement and wish you continued success in your fourth year."
-#-
"Oooh, the love apple… how charming! How utterly, perfectly charming...."
Demetrios swept to the Floo, chuckling.
"Dr. Hermione Granger, please."
"One moment…"
Footsteps.
"Well done, Severus."
A small chuckling movement from the flames. "I rather thought so."
"I assume that the wondrous cereal is still conveying past thoughts from the most excellent Crookshanks?"
"Indeed."
"And what means are you using on her end?"
"It seems I set her to writing lines as punishment."
"For her untamable hair?"
Silence. Then, "Obviously."
"How excellent!"
A grumbling noise.
"When did you discover the properties of the tomato seed?"
"During my tenure as Headmaster, I conducted what private research I could."
"As your duties allowed, mmm?"
"I was unable to publish the results for obvious reasons."
"Death will sometimes do that," Demetrios agreed tactfully.
The flames acknowledged Demetrios's tact with a slight nod. "The diversion proved welcome."
"I'm sure it did, Potions Master."
Another silence, followed by a quiet, "Librarian…"
Demetrios murmured, "Yes?"
"We will get her back, of course."
He smiled softly. "I've no doubt but that we will… in due time..."
"Has this sort of… inadvertence occurred before?"
"Mimi's intervention with my owl, you mean?"
"With that blasted coin, yes."
"Mmmm, no, not to my knowledge."
"It's been in your possession for…"
"Aeons, of course."
"Ah."
Demetrios watched the flames flicker hesitantly. He waited.
Finally, he said, "Was there something else, Severus?"
"No. Nothing."
Demetrios sighed. "For a former spy, you're a terrible liar."
"I simply want to know when."
"Athena's wisdom will prevail."
"Athena." A snort from the Floo.
Demetrios chuckled. "Contemporary wizards ignore the things of the gods sometimes at their peril. They do make life…"
Another snort. "Easier?"
"Great Apollo, no, not easier; quite the opposite, in fact… but in the face of the unknown, I at least have my gods, whereas you…" Demetrios opened his hands.
"I'm a wizard, not a polytheistic relic."
"Well, of course you are, my boy… but which of us is happier, I wonder?"
A consternated silence from the flames, then, "One wonders how she refrains from strangling you."
"I'm sure it helps that I am already dead, Potions Master, whereas you…"
The connection ended.
Demetrios shook his head, his hair trailing softly around him like a psychedelic halo. "… are also dead. And perhaps you'll stay that way. But perhaps…" He laughed, and the Archive swelled with sound.
He spun in place, bobbing in time with the low bass beat. "Mmm…. 'Whether you're a brother, a wife or you're a…' polytheistic relic… oh, my word… well, no time but the present… not without my owl, anyway… to examine the Bast files… there's nothing relevant there, of course; still… 'I'm goin' nowhere… somebody help me…'" He stopped and hovered at the threshold to Hermione's office. "Hmmm…"
He spun and zoomed toward the Herbology section, where, as he'd suspected, several recently extinct heirloom tomato plants had reappeared, laying vigorous claim to several extra feet of space, jerking their branches back and forth with exaggerated self-importance.
He threw back his head and laughed.
Floatnotes:
1. Demetrios's soundtrack for this chapter is "Stayin' Alive," by the BeeGees. Egad.
2. The tomatoes are a gift for Droxy. They were called "love apples" during the Renaissance. They have nothing to do with the blackbird.
3. You didn't think I'd forgotten the blackbird, did you?
~ A.