Hey Everyone,
I hope the story hasn't become too boring. Thanks for all your wonderful reviews. Enjoy and happy story hunting.
Snow
Narcissa,
I hope I can still call you that? I know I must be silly but I am a little self-conscious of the people I care about and our relationships, especially after last year when Draco become so… different. I hope you are not angry with me. I know you will tell me you are not but I can't get over the distance there has seemed to has inserted its self between you and me. You are a dear friend, one of my dearest. I know it is strange to befriend a child the same age as your son, but you are a friend to me. I don't have many. I only have Draco, Harry, Luna, and maybe Ron. Then there is you. I can't help but place you also in the category of guardian. You have helped me, befriended me, and then taken my entire family under your protection.
I could be rambling because it is three weeks into school and I am already exhausted. I am actually grateful everyone sent their gifts this year and I absolutely love the book you gave me, Mind and Magic: Strength in shields, and power in your mind. I have made it half way through the book and I have discovered a few things I wish not to talk to my friends yet. One is wandless magic. It seems that the stronger your mind the possibility of preforming wandless magic increases. Is it alright if we keep this book between you and me, our little secret until I have tested it? I don't want the boys trying something and then accidently blowing something up.
I have done something frightfully stupid. I can't tell you without permission but let's just say I put too much on my plate. I… I wish I could tell you. I'm tired of not being able to share with another person something important. It eats away at you day by day. The only person I could think of who can understand this would be you. I don't know. I see you and I see a beautiful, strong, loving woman with a secret. I have always seen it. If you don't have one, then please forgive me if I over stepped. Oh listen to me in my exhausted state. Yes I will send the letter, I wish for our bonds to strengthen once more, but please be gentle. I am quite embarrassed.
Your Friend,
Hermione
Hermione went to the owlry and attached the letter before she lost her guts.
In the three weeks she has been traveling in time, reliving parts of the day elsewhere, she has come to notice a great many things. She used one afternoon to take her notes, but looked around. She saw her classmates, some growing into their features, and some… growing into their zits. She had to laugh at that as she saw Crabbe with a huge, blasted blemish right on his forehead. He had tormented her for years and now it was her turn. She had begun to experience the hormonal change and began to use muggle soaps to clean her pores and a combination of magical creams to make her skin healthy and blemish free. She dare not use a potion like Lavender and Pansy do. One day she was afraid their bodies might become acclimated to it and they would have to live off of those things. No, she wanted just to cleanse and fight surface blemishes with soaps and creams, never anything that went on the inside.
She was watching her classmates and almost scoffed out loud as they primped each day to catch the eye of the male persuasion in the castle. Then it made Hermione think. Who would she want if she wanted someone? She looked about her in class, she had taken to sitting in the back as she was always charging into the room just as class started taking a seat. Blasted schedule! She saw Harry. He was cute, actually he was quite handsome in his own way. The way of a reckless do-gooder with a hero complex. Yes, she admitted this to herself, but she knew it was because he had no one, nothing to live up to other than a memory. He fought so hard to be sure that he was seen for his deeds, and not his name, and certainly not his legend with You-Know-Who. No, if she engaged with Harry any kind of relationship she would have to fight every other admirer, and then a destiny. No, best to be a friend. Draco, she blanched. His kiss over the summer was… well it was not for her. It was nice and soft, but she felt nothing and then he tried to go further, and she over reacted, and slapped him, a boy who liked her, but all she saw was a brother. He was her savior in the first year of Hogwarts, and befriended her against all social protocols, and she loved him for it. She was loyal, she would do anything for Draco with in logic and reason, but she just didn't feel that… with him. Hermione's gaze swept the class and it was and interesting sensation that struck her when she looked at Luna Lovegood. She was like an angel. She was beyond beautiful both inside and out and for the first time in her life she wondered what it would be like to be kissed. She was moderately shocked to find that she thought that about her best girlfriend and not one of her best boyfriends. She pulled her eyes from the sweet blonde and dragged then to Ron. NOPE! Nothing. Her gaze went back to the blonde girl and she watched her.
"Answer the question Granger!" Snape sneered down at her. She fought to smile for she knew this was an act, she knew how he really was and he was a fabulous teacher, just not here so she looked him straight in the eye.
"To get the drought you ask you must stir the cauldron for three minutes in a clockwise direction then reverse for another 3 and then alternate each turn for one minute," She held her breath. She barely focused on the lesson and she hoped she was right. Snape looked at her with a raised eyebrow and went on to his next victim swooping over Ron like a bird of prey over a mouse. She sighed and went back to her notes trying to concentrate but Luna took potions a year above her year group. She was already advanced but lacked basics because her mother used to brew before she was… Hermione swallowed hard and then Luna looked toward her and smiled. Hermione smiled but quickly shoved her nose toward her notes refusing to move them again. She liked Luna it seemed. Well that was a development.
She waited for dismissal and she was already packed ready to dart to the next class when she heard a nasally, yet deep voice of her professor call her back. She waited for the sympathetic glances to pass as each and every person filed out of the room. Snape waited and then locked the door and cast a muffaloto on the door. His entire demeanor changed. This was the Snape she knew.
"You look haggard Hermione," Snape said as he put the potions essays on his desk in a neat stack. All she could do is let her shoulder slum and nod.
"Do you need to stop this double schedule you have going? I am not as coldhearted as I come across. I can see it effecting you," he said with his back straight and a scowl on his face. If anyone came through that door they would have thought he was reprimanding the girl. But she shook her head.
"I just haven't heard from Narcissa. I wrote her a few weeks ago, and I am very worried," Hermione said in a small voice. Then Severus Snape went to the girl and knelt in front of her. He looked at her and he saw the image in Narcissa's Mirror. She saw the beginnings of the young woman she fell in love with and then he stood with his arms behind his back.
"I am unaccustomed to providing…. Comfort Miss Granger. So please if you need to talk, or work on your shield, I will be available," Snape said in a tight voice trying hard to give the girl an outlet to her concerns. Hermione nodded and turned to leave after offering him a smile. He hated physical contact, and he loathed kindness between student and teacher, but in that moment they both came to an agreement. If she needed him, she could go to him, but she still might go to Professor McGonagall first.
