Hermione stormed into the Headmasters office with a scowl planted firmly on her face as she threw her bookbag down hard on the ground beside his desk. He barely even looked up at the commotion as he piloted the quill quickly across parchment; a brow merely raised in question.
It had been exactly one week since the students came back and Hermione was integrated back into the schooling system, albeit she didn't dine in the hall for any meals and she spent more time hanging around Severus in the headmaster's office than anywhere else but at least she was learning. She chose not to take meals with the other students because the fact of the matter as soon as she walked into the hall whispers started flowing freely and all eyes landed upon her. She was the hot topic now and the fact she was seen with Snape more often than anyone else was scandalous in the eyes of the students. What really had become of the meek, studious Hermione Granger who cared for nothing but learning and traipsing along behind the famous Harry Potter? That was the question on everyone's lips.
Rumours had started flowing thick and fast hours after the students set foot back into Hogwarts mostly thanks to Ginny Weasley who had obviously heard something off of Harry and Ron about her disappearance and was ultimately surprised to see she had turned up to Hogwarts unscathed and in good spirits which was nothing at all like the picture Harry and Ron had painted at all. They had been convinced Snape had abducted Hermione to do dark and deprave things to her and dangle her in front of them like a proverbial carrot.
Some students said she was pregnant to the Dark Lord and Snape had to keep watch of her which was preposterous given his stance on her kind. Others said she had married Snape to get better grades. She only rolled her eyes because as if she needed to do that.
Others just rolled their eyes at those two statements and were convinced that she was merely under the Imperious Curse and nothing more because how could someone as unassuming as Hermione Granger be sleeping with or befriend the very surly potions master turned headmaster?
There was one rumour that had just started this morning that she had been gifted to Severus by Harry Potter in lieu of sparing his life and not a single person had actually hit the nail on the head.
They all gave her a wide berth, worried with her association to Snape and what power she may actually have within the school if she did have any type of decent relationship with him. But what happened today really upset her and she didn't know how to take it. She hadn't yet told Severus but was about to unleash. Was it a well-hinged threat, or just the Slytherins talking shit as they usually did?
"A few seventh year Slytherins corned me today and said I were nothing but a filthy slut trying to worm my way into circles in which I were not wanted nor welcome and if I didn't cease to stop the path I was on, I should sleep with one eye open." She scooted around the same side of the desk he sat on and boosted herself up onto its sturdy tabletop almost sending his ink-pot flying, and sat, legs swinging gently.
He stopped scrawling and looked up, concern etched in every line of his face as what she had just said weighed heavily upon him and this was the reason he didn't want her congregating within the mainstream of Hogwarts and attending classes. He knew how mean kids could be and he knew they would have nothing nice to say about the situation but he didn't think the majority of the trouble would come from the Slytherins; not when he was involved but it seems he thought wrong.
"It was Draco, wasn't it?" He whispered laying the quill down atop the parchment and interlacing his fingers and placing his hands on the desk.
"Actually, it wasn't. Well, he was there but he sort of hung back and wanted nothing to do with it. Zambini, Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson but this time as much as it kills me to say it, Draco is merely guilty by association."
Of course, Draco didn't say anything, he was smarter than that and he knew better than to butt in where he knew he wasn't wanted nor needed and for once kept his overly large and overly opinionated mouth shut. He would ensure he praised him for that at some stage.
"And at any time did you feel as if you were in danger?" He asked in a curious upward inflection looking up he saw nothing but milky white thighs, her skirt falling only mid-way down them and he quickly averted his gaze; she really shouldn't sit there like that.
It was strange. He spent more time with Hermione than anyone else in this world. He felt as if he had a duty to keep her safe. He was worried beyond measure that eventually the Carrows would lay their hands on her when he let his guard down because it seemed they had something against her. Perhaps, they wanted to upset him and to do that was to get to Hermione. And perhaps he felt that way because if he didn't convince her to go with him, she wouldn't have ended up back here at Hogwarts.
They shared a bed in some weird, twisted relationship that they had. Both coming to accept the oddness of the situation but neither talking about it. It just sort of happened in an organic way and it was hard to wrap his head around. Sharing a bed with a student wasn't exactly in the realm of normality but he didn't mind; he liked the company actually.
When he first set out on his plan of befriending the girl and turning her against her friends, he was going to drop her like a lead weight after he had escaped and never look back again but something changed. A paradigm shifted and by some grace of Merlin and he took her with him, and he really didn't know why. In his head, his entire plan was the turn her against her friends, fuck her once or twice to really get into her head and then leave, thus showing her she should never have trusted anyone in her life and especially not him. But now, now… Now he might have slightly cared about her and didn't want to touch her sexually for fear of breaking her heart at some stage; he couldn't handle that. To see her sad, that was. To be the reason she spilled her tears would be unjust when in the grand scheme of things, he was not worth that and he never would be.
So yes, he cared about her. He liked her. He loved being in her company but maybe that is as far as it went and that is where it stopped. They had never shared a kiss as much as he would have loved to, he knew he was not worthy of the sentiment. She deserved so much better than him and what he could give her. Fuck, he didn't even know who's side he was on if he was being honest let alone dragging her into this whole mess.
She was in essence still a child, albeit a headstrong one who knew exactly what she wanted in life but still nevertheless a child. Maybe he liked her because she reminded him of another vivacious headstrong Gryffindor who also knew exactly what she wanted in life; their similarities in personality were striking, to say the least.
Even if he did want more he had no idea how she might have felt on the subject. Of course, as if she would want the surly, angry and often difficult Potions Master that made her life hell for years prior, no, of course, she wouldn't.
"Severus?" Her soft voice met his ears, pulling him from his revere that he hadn't even realised he had fallen into, not even listening to a word she had actually said to him.
"Hmm? Yes?" He asked abruptly, mentally scolding himself for tuning out from what she had said.
She sighed deeply and repeated what she previously said, "Not particularly. I didn't get the vibe they were out to hurt me only to intimidate me and the way Draco was skulking in the background looking as if he wanted to throw up his lunch while they confronted me, I don't think he would have let them." She finished off by pushing an errant curl behind her ear and leant back slightly on the desk resting her hands behind herself and letting them take her weight.
He rested a hand on her bare knee in a comforting gesture, her skin warm and soft to the touch and his fingers twitched involuntarily. It felt so right but he knew deep down it was wrong and he didn't deserve to touch her.
She looked down at his hand curiously, this was the only real sign of comfort or affection he had ever really shown her, and it took her by surprise. She didn't push his hand away instead she welcomed the soft touch of a gesture upon her knee and that surprised him.
"I really think you should pull out of classes, Hermione. This isn't like the Hogwarts you once knew… Not with the Carrows haunting the halls under the direct order of the Dark Lord. It's run like a regiment. You've seen some of the punishments they have dished out. You know the place is going to shit and you know how dark the lessons have become. Why you would want to be privy to any of that I will never know."
Soft fingers caressed bare knee rhythmically in small circles before gently stroke upwards along her milky white thigh. He didn't know why he was doing this, but he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted. He was surprised that she didn't stop him or pull away; he was certain she would be repulsed by him.
She looked down at his hand and back to him. She didn't know how to process this. Was this going to lead to their first kiss? She couldn't the explosion of goosebumps that started at her knee and sent a chill down her spine.
He stood, towering over her a single finger placed under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. "If you want me to stop, tell me now."
Silence. You could have heard a pin drop.
How could someone so young, someone so beautiful wants someone so morally corrupt and so maleficent? It didn't make sense to him at all.
He leaned forward and lips pressed lips with the gentlest touch he had ever felt from another human before and felt her almost melt against him, clutching him tightly almost as if her life depended on him. Her eyes fluttered shut in the moment of bliss and he did the same not long after.
An arm wrapped gently around her waist pulling her closer closing any remaining gap between them his other hand sat gently on the delicate skin of her cheek and he deepened the kiss to new heights. He didn't know if she had ever kissed anyone before or If he were her first but for what it was worth, she was pretty amazing at it.
She wrapped both of her arms around him feeling the radiant heat from his body and she let instinct take over. For weeks she had wanted this moment, just to see what it would be like to kiss him, that was. She wanted to know if he were any good at it and so far, she wasn't disappointed.
He moved the hand from her cheek down to her bare thigh and slid it up under the hem of her skirt and she froze a touch against him as he did so. She didn't know if she really wanted her first time to be in the Headmasters office, but she would go with the flow.
She liked Severus. She really did. He was dark and alluring but at the same time closed and calculating. He was intelligent beyond measure and nothing scared him much. He was great at anything he put his mind to and even greater at things he had a passion in.
But, he was perhaps too closed. Locked up like the chamber of secrets with no intentions of letting anyone in and she bet every galleon in her vault that she could spend years chipping away at that tough exterior and never get through it.
She wasn't sure why she liked him so much. Perhaps she had seen another side of him over the past few weeks and realised he wasn't as cold as she had once believed but there was still an icy exterior at times.
She didn't like the fact he was a Death Eater. She hated that fact, actually. But deep down in her heart of hearts, she knew there was a good person beneath the tough outer shell and she knew perhaps he was doing what he had to do to get him through whatever he needed to get through.
She brought herself back to the moment, moaning gently against his lips just as he broke the kiss abruptly.
The scraping of the stone gargoyle outside of the door alerted them to the fact someone was on their way to his office. She jumped off of his desk and straightened her skirt, smoothing her hands over her herself she grabbed her book bag and hoisted it over her shoulder.
Giving him one look over her shoulder he had already gone back to scraping quill over the parchment and she wondered what he was thinking.
Severus looked up to see Hermione leaving the room and Minerva entering. He hated himself for what he had done. A lapse of judgement in a moment of weakness and it would never happen again. It couldn't. He couldn't encourage the girl. He had to cut himself off from her completely because at the end of the day if anything happened to him and it was likely she would be left broken-hearted and wondering what she could have done to change the situation much akin to what he had done since Lily Potters death.
He growled deep in his throat, threw his quill down and looked up. "And to what do I owe the displeasure of your visit, Minerva?" He spat bitterly as if her name were poison in his mouth.