* 36 *

The next time Snape and Hermione would be alone together was barely two hours away. This time, neither party alerted the other. It was assumed that after their meal (this time lunch instead of breakfast), just like the previous Saturday, they would meet in his room.

Over that lunch, Harry began to wonder how much of his sanity it would drain for him to keep worrying about a progressively worse and worse issue, one he seemed to be no closer to solving than he was several days ago.

Ron, on the other hand, was blissful, especially after the flirty moments he had shared with Hermione merely half an hour before. Harry spotted his friend's eyes flickering to watch her whenever she wasn't looking the redhead's way.

Hermione also seemed strangely gratified. Harry didn't find it humorous that this appeared to be the new normal: his two friends merrily busying themselves while he had a million and one thoughts shooting through his brain, meeting his skull, and bouncing off in the other direction again.

Then, when he saw Hermione's eyes cursorily shoot over to Snape, he was alarmed to see the Potions professor looking straight back.

Something in him snapped.

Ron took no notice of this. As soon as breakfast was over, he left to go take a nap, and Hermione was quite apparently rushing as well.

She got as far as the hall before Harry caught up to her. But he played it off far more casually than it was actually possible for him to feel at that moment.

"Hey, Hermione," Harry said.

"Hi again Harry," she returned distractedly. She didn't rebuff him, but she was obviously quite nervously looking at a nearby clock.

That was it. He'd had enough. Her behavior was just too out of the ordinary, and he wasn't playing games anymore, or waiting for the perfect setting and the perfect time to ask her with the most perfect wording.

"Hermione, I need to ask you something," he said plainly.

Immediately, Hermione tangibly tensed up. Normally she wouldn't be so anxious about talking to Harry, even unexpectedly like this, but he had a look in his bright eyes that captured her utmost attention. "Y-yes, Harry?"

Harry's eyes shone with seriousness. "Why have you been meeting with Professor Snape?"

Hermione's jaw dropped. If her arm hadn't been crossed over her chest and idly thumbing at her vest when he asked this question, she feared her jaw would continue all the way to the floor.

Her mouth opened, then closed again, opened, then closed again. She flapped her lips like a mackerel, trying to come up with an answer on the spot. She had had no idea he knew anything about their meetings, much less would say something about it.

Had he seen them after class? Had he seen them in the halls? Had he seen them outside?

Had he seen them going up to Snape's room?

The answers to these questions were incredibly important. Each of them was an individual piece of the puzzle in being able to come up with a satisfying excuse that would cover all of them.

She fumbled around with her vest a little bit more before realizing she couldn't afford the luxury of musing about which explanation would be most fitting. Her time was running out, and fast – as she made him wait longer, Harry's increasingly perceptive eyes bored into her harder.

Hermione quickly thought of something, but it was before she had had the time to check it through for inconsistencies. "R-remember when Snape's stores were depleted when Barty Crouch masqueraded as Mad-Eye Moody?"

Harry nodded, but his globes implored her to continue.

"Well, I've been helping him replenish his supply," she said anxiously, inadvertently speaking faster and faster as she went on. "A lot of really valuable ingredients were depleted, you know." It wasn't a lie, but it was not at all the whole story.

Hermione looked into Harry's bright eyes, and by what lay inside, she could tell he wasn't completely satisfied. She wagered the quickness of her voice had put him further on alert, as he now gazed at her askew, as if analyzing every single signal she was giving off to the best of his ability.

She realized that, in order to convince a watchful eye like that of her best friend, she would have to give out a bit more information than what she had to make it all sound more believable.

"And so I've been meeting with him. And sometimes we go outside to collect for his stores; you've maybe seen us," she added, though she deathly hoped he hadn't. When they had gone outside, gathering ingredients for potions had not really occurred to them…

"Yes, I have," Harry affirmed, giving confirmation to her fears. "I was definitely wondering what that was about."

Hermione's heart sank. I thought we were being a lot more careful than this, she scolded herself. Her mind was filled with disdain for her unseemly carelessness.

"I also have been taking extra lessons with him," she blurted as an aside in a knee-jerk reaction to his still-questioning face. Then she cursed herself in her mind. Adding that so suddenly was probably so suspicious that it likely couldn't even fool Ron, let alone Harry.

"Really?" Harry asked, his brows rising. He digested this for a few moments. His mind was turning all of its gears at once.

"Why did he ask you instead of someone else? I thought he didn't like any Gryffindors. Why not ask Malfoy to gather ingredients or help him after class?" he suggested charily.

Hermione sucked in a breath as she realized he really wouldn't make this easy on her. "Because…" she started, but she noted that she really had no fast answer to that. "Because Draco was…busy…and I'm a rather good student in his class," she explained weakly, quickly running out of steam.

She would have to remember all of this later to a T. Her breath nearly began to tremble, but she had to hide that from him, too; it would make it all too obvious that she was deathly nervous. She was completely unprepared for this rational showdown in the midst of being distracted by daydreams about a meeting that was clearly not logical in the slightest. She scolded herself fiercely that Harry had been given the upper hand.

Harry agreed that she was a good Potions student; there was nothing suspicious about that part. But how did she know Malfoy was "busy"? And if he wasn't, why was she lying about the real reason he had chosen her instead?

"Malfoy's busy? With what?" he asked, puzzled. "I see him fairly often, actually," Harry continued with a forcibly nonchalant air, putting his hands in his pockets and continuing his relentless gaze.

Hermione felt like she was going to have heart palpitations at this rate. The wizarding world may scoff at the term ("surely only those with weak magic or a dreadfully unaccomplished healer would die from such a thing"), but a heart attack was a very real form of passing in the muggle world, one that seemed all too haunting and dear to her at that very moment.

"Quidditch. He's been awfully focused on Quidditch lately, on his position as Seeker," she said, anxiously thumbing her robes as she spoke. But as soon as it was out of her mouth, she wanted to stomp on her own foot. Why did she mention Quidditch, of all things? That was one thing Harry would always know more about than she did.

Harry's eyes were narrowed, but he pondered this for a moment. As he did, he didn't notice Hermione wallowing in her own self-hatred a meter in front of him.

Malfoy is in fact a Seeker. He could very well be too busy to help Snape…or perhaps he even downright refused, saying it wasn't worth his time. But I can't imagine him speaking to Snape like that.

"Hermione," Her best friend said. She looked up, but bit her lip. She could not stand to wait any longer to hear his next words.

Harry gave her a sideways glance, as if sizing her up. "I'm going to be honest. You had me worried, about what could be happening."

He believed her, at least a little bit. His mind was not completely satisfied, that was for certain. But what he had been imagining just seemed unlikely as he came face-to-face with her about it like this: he had been thinking that their meetings were perhaps something terrible or that boded ill for the safety of others.

But how could they be? Hermione wasn't a malevolent person.

"I-I understand, Harry," Hermione said, then straightened and put on a forced offended tone. "I'm sorry there was ever any doubt in your mind about me."

Harry's lips formed a line. "Hermione… I didn't mean it like that." She looked so nervous and out of sorts, and it was all clearly because of his inquiry; she had been just fine, even jubilant, before. He wanted to make her feel better about her best friend's doused suspicions after just having made her spirits plummet.

"Come here," he offered diffidently, keeping his arms low but opening them just a little past his sides to accept her.

"No, Harry," Hermione said almost immediately. His face fell.

To Harry, it looked like she refused because she was upset with him ever suspecting her of ill deeds. But to Hermione, it was simply a defense mechanism, because she was almost visibly shaking, and if she hugged him, he would feel be able to feel it all too clearly. She also didn't want to prolong the conversation any longer than it already had gone on.

She was aware this probably hurt his feelings, but she tried to reason with herself that it was necessary in order for her to continue with her plans for the day. She was already running many minutes late now. Thinking she was upset with him would probably keep someone like Harry from trying to pry further into business that wasn't his.

To keep up appearances, she rushed ahead and stomped off past him, brushing him lightly to the side for extra show as she moved.

Harry turned and looked after her, now made more concerned about the insensitivity of his own accusations than about her meetings with Snape.

His mind scolded him.

I'm sorry, Hermione.