Chapter Six: Never forget to bathe pt One

The weekend was filled with quiet reflection time for Hermione. Which was both good and bad. The whole dorm used Saturday for all things Qudditch! Gryffindor verses Hufflepuff, whom were the leaders at the present. So while the rest of her housemates were cheering on their team, Hermione used the time to have a lay in. Then a nice long and uninterrupted shower. Caught the tail end of breakfast and picked few items to snack on later. Then returned to the quiet of the all but abandoned common room. She sat out in front of the fire place with all of her books and study materials spread out on the floor, as she leaned against the couch, hoping to get a good head start on the week ahead.

And all in the world would have been perfect if only she didn't keep getting distracted by very unrealistic fantasies starring herself and one surly potions professor. Most in which were harmless, holidays in historical cities absorbing the culture and each other's responses to the knowledge gained. Or trips into bookshops or libraries. Or her favorite one was in a unknown cozy cottage sitting together on a couch cuddled against one another while reading by fire light. She would let out a longing sigh.

Then there were those not so innocent ones. The type that left her breathless and flushed. She quickly dispelled those ones, mostly because she was scared to follow down that particular train of thought. It was one thing fantasize about spending intellectual time with the wizard, it was a completely different beast to long for intimacy in any shape. For just like the praise she seemed to always crave from him, she would be left wanting. After each relentless fantasy, she would throw herself more into her studying, in the hopes of putting the irrational images from her already crowded mind.

#9

Hermione strolled into the Great Hall for dinner, there was an air of confidence mixed with bravery residing within as she walks up the length of the hall down the center aisle. Students eyes following her stride. Hermione's eyes locked on to the dark gaze of her professor. There was a shocked but equally heated tint to them. Hermione unconsciously licked her lips as she made her way up to the head table, where all of her professors looked on with silent anticipation. She rounded the table and stood behind the potions professor. And in a confident voice that she couldn't remember herself ever having said,

"I'm tired of waiting, Severus."

He looked at her with indignation, even if she was reasonably sure it was only an act. She pulled the larger man to his feet and threw her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a deep kiss. If there were sounds coming from the populous, she couldn't hear them. As she felt herself inside a bubble of happiness being wrapped tentatively in the arms her professor, whom was doing his best to restrain himself for the sake of the public.

Hermione shook her head hard, as someone touched her shoulder, just as she stopped in the door way if the Great Hall.

"Hermione, you alright?" She turns her head to the side to see Ginny standing beside her. She noticed that the red head was beaming. Must have meant their team was victorious.

"Yeah, just got lost in thought." Hermione said softly. Trying not to let the reaction the newest fantasy invoked show in her features.

"Well that's what happens when you spend all day with books." She said jovially, she threw her arm over Hermione's shoulders and the pair walked in to supper time, while Ginny filled her in on the great win against Hufflepuff. All the while, Hermione would let her gaze fall to biggest distraction she has ever had, and fighting the blush that followed.

#9

Sunday was much of the same, but the location had changed to the library. She needed to regain focus. While she reread the sections of her texts that they were slated to learn this week and making general notes on the subject. Normal prep work for her. But the images would flow freely every time. She had to keep herself from falling into the trap of seeing Professor Snape cornering her in the stacks and begin to snog her senseless against the shelves.

She was horrified about how she would react when she returned to the dungeons for classes and detention. Meal times she could resist the urge, if only slightly, to openly gawk at him. But in a situation where he was her sole focus, she was unsure how to handle. Left with no other solution she made her way down to his office after dinner on that evening.

While she was hesitant to knock, she truly did need some assistance. She summoned her Gryffindor bravery and knocked. She half expected there to be no answer seeing as it was the weekend and the staff didn't have to be made available for office hours. She heard a muffled and begrudgingly invitation to enter.

"Miss Granger, why am I not surprised?"

Hermione blushed at the comment and possibly being so close to object of her current desires. "I have been noticing a slight reaction to the potions." This got his undivided attention, she continued. "What I've been experiencing is an unexplained attraction to uh someone and it's affecting my thoughts. Kind of like it's taking over all my attention." She felt so ridiculous telling him this.

"You're a teenager." Was his only replay. She stared at him repugnance. How dare he just disregard her in such a way.

"I can personally attest this isn't some hormone filled attraction. I work very hard and my focus doesn't not wain due to imbalance of chemicals in my body. This is other worldly, in its distraction. I'm not making these scenarios up for my pure amusement. They are so distracting that I literally cease any activity while I'm overcome." She was slightly furious but mostly embarrassed, as certain things kept assaulting her mind. She couldn't help but look at his lips and his hands. Things that in her (growing more and more inappropriate) fantasies were bringing up the amazing sensations that she could only assume would come from them. "I'm sorry for my outburst." She said after realizing that it wasn't his fault that she was feeling this way. "I was hoping there was a way to build a resistance to the effects."

He considered her request, as if he understood her quandary and took pity. He let a sigh. "I hate to disappoint you. But there is no way to build an immunity, so to speak to the effects of potion making." Hermione felt a sense of doom sprout through her body. "All I can recommend is to thoroughly bathe after every brew session, clean your clothing often or only wear one designated outfit whilst, as to not contaminate your entire wardrobe and to find scents that will help you clear your nasals cavities, but not strong enough to give you a headache." He walked them into his lab and pulled out a small vial of liquid which was closed with a stopper. "Try adding a drop of this to a handkerchief, cuff of your shirt or something you can wear around your wrist that you can take a small sniff of when the effects become too strong."

While he was rude in the beginning of their conversation, she felt an immense gratitude for his solution. She took the vial graciously. "Thank you, Sir." She thought back to all her items in her trunk that could work as a diffuser. And thought of something perfect.

"Off with you." He said with just the slightest hint of softness in his voice.

#9

Hermione reluctantly went through her Monday in a daze. Due to the fact that even in her sleep, she couldn't escape her fantasies. In fact in her dreamscape, the actions there within felt more real. She was never so grateful for the silencing charms placed on the canopies around their beds. Because she could only imagine the embarrassing moaning she may have let out while she dreaming the most delicious dreams.

She was grateful that most of her professors contributed her exhaustion to the unfair detention, that they didn't even call her out on the unusual behavior. By lunch time she was dragging so bad that she went to her dorm to sleep through lunch instead of eating. She went to clear out the pockets in her robe and found a small folded up piece of paper. She opened it and found out it was the charm that Professor Snape had given to her with the incantation for the detection charm. She had already commited it to memory, but for some odd reason she clenched it to her chest and then carefully placed in a small keepsake box in the bottom of her trunk, as if it was something special that needed to be handled with care. Then she felt like that the reason for the odd behavior was most definitely because she was sleep deprived. She took off her shoes and crawled into her bed and fell asleep.

Waking a couple of hours later, realized that she wouldn't probably be able to return to her dorm before her detention that she dug into her jewelry box and found a small bracelet made of lava stones, that her parents bought her when they were on vacation in France and the small vial Snape had given her. Then she went down to the library to catch the tail end of her free period.

While she enjoyed her other classes, she was distracted. She knew that she still had the 3 drinkable potions and the vapor potion left and she wasn't sure how she was going to handle the last potion. She spent the last of her classes and most of her supper time was spent going over and over her notes on the potions and making a list of questions for her professor about the beast, Amorentia. Then would get even further distracted when any thoughts of him. But try as she might, Hermione found she couldn't chase away the fantasies. It was after one particularly inventive fantasy, that she somehow caught eyes with the man in question staring at her. She wondered if he was monitoring her actions, check for symptoms she had told him she was having, to see if he could observe any reaction to exposure. It actual made her heart skip a beat, at the thought that he may actual care for her health in someone way. With that egregious thought she cleaned up her things and left the Great Hall for the dungeons.

A/N: If you read the title this is a two part chapter. I did this because there were some things I really wanted to give more time to and not worry about the chapter becoming too long. I promise you that it will be worth it. I also wanted to use this author's note to do a check in and hope that you all are enjoying the story. This was a silly mind child that was hidden in my folders and I wanted to see if it would be enjoyed by the masses. I also anticipate that this story will be on the short side. I had thought for it to be nine chapters, but I think that won't happen. We will see.