Prologue
Severus Snape loved musical theatre. If you asked him he would deny it, but the signs were there if you knew what to look for. A little drawer in his desk, hidden not by magic but by a secret panel (heavy wards being a sure fire way to attract attention, but most magical folk were completely oblivious to muggle tricks) contained all the programmes and tickets from years' worth of secret trips to the West End in London, or to local theatres such as the Alhambra in Bradford or the Lowry in Salford. The serious professor had a longing for the emotion, the drama, the unrestrained flamboyance of it all! For the consummate Slytherin, was it really surprising to harbour such a colourful guilty pleasure? Not a single soul knew about his secret obsession, although his colleagues did sometimes pause over his more… eccentric language from time to time. Telling a 3rd year to walk like a man? Or musing about opening a restaurant in Santa Fe? Not your typical Professor Snape.
It had all started with Rent. As he recuperated from the horrific snake bite that had left him bedbound for weeks, whilst Harry Potter fought for his freedom, he had listened to the Original Broadway Recording of the then-new musical, relishing in using CDs as he no longer had to hide his muggle habits. The CD had been presented to him along with SPICE (by the Spice Girls, insufferable), Step One (by Steps, minutely better) and Cats, the original cast recording, among others by an amused Hermione Granger. Well, he had asked for something to banish the oppressive silence of his house in Spinner's End, and he wasn't yet capable of nipping out to purchase his own choice of music (his old collection having been destroyed while Pettigrew occupied his house the previous summer). He supposed that she felt sorry for him seeing as she had left him to die on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, but one couldn't ever assume the motives behind the insufferable know-it-all's actions.
Hermione Granger loved musical theatre. Her parents had always wanted a well-rounded education for their only child, and so had taken her to museums, libraries, National Trust properties and musicals with equal enthusiasm. It may have been Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at age 5 that started her obsession, or watching old videos of High Society, Oklahoma! and Carousel with her grandparents that did it. Whatever first sparked the flame, she was a well and truly paid-up member of the world of musicals. The only drawback in attending Hogwarts had been that electricity didn't work in the castle, so her extensive cassette collection had to be left with her parents. She knew that it wasn't the coolest of hobbies, but this didn't stop her longing - it just made the holidays all the sweeter for the trips out with her amused parents.
It had been a little joke to take a couple of soundtracks for Professor Snape to listen to as he recovered. Hermione thought that the righteous anger and passion in Rent might spark some of the fire that was lacking in the man since his brush with death, whereas Cats was just too wacky to resist. She had, of course, provided a good stock of the music he actually liked such as David Bowie, Pink Floyd and ELO to please the grumpy man. Hermione never did learn what he thought of her choices, but they hadn't been thrown in her face (which was a relief), instead earning her an almost smile disguised as a sneer as the door closed behind her.