Chapter 7


Damn it!

He can't ignore it now!

One more month has gone by, three tasks have also happened, with only the fourth and final remaining, and he still believes that he can still keep on ignoring the world connected to his deepening Mark, by distracting himself with potion brewing? Potion brewing has been insidious, it seems, covertly keeping him from preparing himself for the most probable outcome, under the guise of being a relaxing distraction.

Damn it!

He really can't ignore it now!

He can't ignore that he got relaxed, that he allowed hatred and disdain to be a part of his everyday life since Potter started school here, and that could very well be the end of him, if the Mark on his arm is anything to go by. He has the unshakable feeling that soon, and very soon, the meaning of his darkening Mark will be revealed, and if he is found undisciplined to his own faults, the end will consume him.

Damn it all, he swears once again, this third time, allowing his inner emotions to translate onto the outside, and manifest through the movements of his body. Short angry breaths leave his nostrils, one after the other, causing his chest to rise and fall as they do. The length of his fingers on either hand, roll into the palms of his hands, to form frustrated fists, as his teeth tightly come together behind his closed lips. Losing composure like this, is not like him, but he has to do it, because he's upset with himself!

He truly is.

His idiocy is astonishing, because not only has he let himself go, ever since Potter started school here, he has also failed to prepare himself properly, since the appearance of the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup. On top of all that, when he ought to have started making the necessary moves to train himself for his role –as Dumbledore had counselled him one night, not too many weeks ago- he chose to distract himself by means of brewing potions alongside a girl. And how can he not be upset with himself over that?

As it is now, who knows if… If the Dark Lord will magically appear in front of him at any moment? And if he does, how will he, Severus Snape, be able to look at the face of Tom Riddle, look into his eyes, and not express hatred which has so easily been a part of him since Potter began school at Hogwarts? He has allowed contempt and hatred to flow so easily from him, that truly, if he were put in the same room as the damned man who murdered the only source of wonderful memories that he has known in his life, he wouldn't wager on his ability to keep his emotions hidden. Not as he is at the moment, no.

And damn Potter as well, while he is at the point of damning everything! That boy, just as his father before him, has been a grainy stone underneath his skin! Were it not for him-

'Professor?'

Surprised and confused all at once, he sharply turns his whole body, from his head to his feet, towards the door. His hair belatedly catches up with the movement of his body, coming to hit both sides of his face, and contributing to his sudden agitation, that he slightly jumps on the spot. When he realises that it's only Miss Granger, anger replaces agitation, firstly for the fact that he doesn't know how long she has been observing him from the door, and secondly, for the fact that she has on a worried expression.

His anger, mostly fuelled by the feelings of confusion and surprise that he quickly discarded for the short, sickly thrill of agitation, drives him in long strides to the door, and before he knows exactly what it is that he is doing, he has roughly dragged her into the room, held her in place with his free arm, and closed and locked his office. By the time that he realises what he has done, he also realises that he can't undo what he's done, and should rather carry on in the spirit of anger, to interrogate her. Instead of accepting his slip-up, he will simply continue as though it had been his plan to do this all along.

Telling himself that, he swiftly rounds to be in front of her, invading her personal space, just as she invaded his personal time. Only she knows how far back she's seen into his private and sensitive moment.

'Why didn't you knock?' he demands to know.

'I did, Professor,' she answers, sounding afraid even to do so. 'You didn't seem to hear me, that's why I called you.'

Never once in his life, did he think that he could ever feel sorry for someone like her, someone so ready to show off what they know and have, leaving nothing for the others to showcase, but apparently, he thought wrong. He is looking at her now, seeing her eyes blink more than they should, noticing how much her head is pulled back from his proximity, and feeling the tight clenching of the muscles of her arm under his hold, and all he can think is that he frightened her.

He frightened Hermione Granger. That makes him feel wrong. Wrong, because it hadn't been his intention to.

Had it been his intention to make her react a certain way, he wouldn't have a problem with her feeling frightened by his attack. It hadn't been his intention, however, and that is why he feels wrong, if he can use that word. Really, he would not normally care about causing a fright in a student, and yet, something from his own not dealt with emotions, and the extraordinarily frightening path that Dumbledore has advised him to set on, (that's if the worst should come to be) makes him feel a much uncharacteristic touch of sympathy for the girl.

He attributes it to the fact that he too, is frightened of what could be his reality in the future, that he can feel something as compassion for the girl's current fright. For that reason, he oddly feels compelled to apologise to her, and so he carefully releases her, and then steps away from the personal space. That is the best of an apology that he could ever give her.

'I will no longer supervise your brewing,' he finally says in a restored tone, only to cover up what had just happened between them.

He also needs to get the conversation going along between, so that it can be over with as soon as possible without the aid of magic, but more importantly, he needs to distract her from what just happened between them and his apology.

'Did I do something wrong?' she hastily wants to know, her expression changed from fright to panic.

What a wonder. Not necessarily a good wonder, but a wonder all the same.

She must always be expecting him to throw her out, it appears. It's a good thing, though, he reasons, because it means that she will never attempt something as foolish as to sabotage his potions. This being the case with her, it then means... Dear magic, no, he can't think this way, but... Especially in this moment, his discomposed moment, he hates to even consider the thought... Except, ugh, damn it! He believes that he can trust her to brew the potions that he might have to take in the future. He doesn't trust her, but with potions, he could not trust anyone better.

'Settle yourself,' he says to her. 'I simply have a new engagement, which does nothing to concern you in the least.'

For his own discipline, he will have to use the free periods with Miss Granger. Evil knows that should Riddle rise again - he's sure that there are at least three methods that ensure life extension -he has yet to discover texts on Dark Arts that keep someone invincible, he might need an array of potions to keep him steady and focused. In the unlikely event that he cannot discipline himself in time, he should need a potion and several others to help him along in that way. Essentially, by using his free lessons to isolate himself, he will be benefitting in three ways; firstly keeping Miss Granger as a lookout in his office, while he is concealed away, secondly working on disciplining himself, and lastly, having potions of enchantments made for him.

'You will in any case not be brewing base potions anymore,' he continues to make it a little more clear for her. 'I will present you with a new list of what to brew in my absence.'

Sombrely -surprisingly too, by how instantly she falls in line with him-, she nods to say that she understands. After nodding, she gathers herself high, probably restoring her own composure that way, and begins to walk past him, to the place where she normally works. It hits him in the stomach, her action, because… When did that happen? When did she grow comfortable with him? All they did in the last months, was brew together in nearly complete silence, separated from each other by distance, but now she is apparently comfortable with him?

What has he done to inspire that in her? Or is he reaching, perhaps?

Is the term 'comfortable' a reaching stretch, so very far from what it really is with her, when she has only really moved on from feeling frightened by him, to wanting to be away from him as soon as possible? Surely he is being ridiculous. Surely the threat of Riddle becoming a reality is playing with his emotions, putting them at an unbalance. There is no manner in which Miss Granger would ever feel comfortable enough around him, to think that she could remove her complete attention from him when she pleased, without his permission. There is no manner either, in which he would have inspired a relationship of comfortably working around one another, for her benefit. So then, could it be that she is growing immune to him, little by little?

Oh, he hopes to dear magic not.


26Chapters


'Do you understand why chilling is important for these brews, Miss Granger?'

To an outside party, even to Miss Granger herself, his unplanned question, presented so unexpectedly, would seem like a door that he is opening, to test her on her knowledge, or the very least, attempt to educate her on something new, when really, it is only for himself, and himself alone.

The sound of his voice close to her, obviously jolts her out of her quiet concentration, making her spin her head in the direction of his voice, to confirm that he really is there. As her eyes come to rest on his just a step away from her right side, they enlarge just the slightest, and he cannot be bothered to wonder if they get that way, because his sudden presence is something that surprises her, or because she is frightened of him being so close to her. His only concern for the time being, is that she answers his question, and then he can move onwards from there.

'Uh… Professor,' she says, clearly convincing her mind that her eyes are seeing correctly before she proceeds to answer him with, 'I have an idea.'

Well of course, she has an idea. He very well suspects that she did research on potions that need to be chilled, after the first afternoon when she learned what she was to be doing in here. That being the most probable case, she probably had enough sense not to vomit her acquired knowledge into his unwilling ears.

'Keep your idea unknown to me,' he advises more than tells her. 'I will tell you why, if you move over.'

Although worth taking note of, the way she carefully shuffles her feet to the side to make space for him on her left side, he chooses to think nothing of it. As he has expertly done in the past three months and a half, not to linger on her working stance and wonder why it is that she chose to occupy her free time with brewing potions, he will also expertly deem it nothing to concern him, what is currently going on her mind about him, as she fearlessly makes room for him next to her.

Rather, he deftly starts on the remaining ingredients as he begins to explain to her the science behind chilling an incomplete potion. Including her here and there, by asking her to pass him this item, or take over the measuring spoon from him, while he reaches for something on the other side of her arm, he makes sure to speak as patiently with her, as possible. He has no doubt that she would –either way- absorb his words, whether he speeds through his explanation or not, but for the reason that all this, he is doing it for himself, he is setting it at his own pace, in a tone that is most convenient and guaranteed to get him to his goal.

The thing is, he has quite a need to distract himself wherever possible. The classes that he gives all day do well to distract him from, but it is the time in between the lessons that he has found to be quite troublesome for him. During the free lessons, his mind would easily stray to the reality of the darkening Mark on his forearm, added onto Karkaroff attempting to corner him at every opportunity that they happen to meet, and that would work his mind into an abyss of thoughts he hasn't had since years back. So instead of allowing that pattern to continue as it has been doing for the past week, he should rather occupy his time.

Today, thanks to it being the first free lesson of the week, he has a mental, verbal and physical escape, in the excuse of aiding Miss Granger in brewing. If he will continue to do this for every free lesson that they have, he has no idea of just yet, but for now, it is enough for him that he can occupy his mind, and keep it away from tangling itself into a world of thoughts that wear him down more than a weight charm ever could.

'… Muggle wineries are a small example…' he continues his explanation of the purpose of freezing some potions.

He already told her that all ingredients having active properties within them, and that as long as the ingredients are manipulated properly, the active properties continue to work as they should. He explained to her that unless they are forced to stop, by manipulation, the properties will continue to react and function as they were taught or manipulated to do. That is how he arrived to the point of using Muggle wineries as an example, because while wine, even wizard's version of that, is easily pronounced ready to be consumed after production, the process of production has made it so that even though the manual processing has ceased, the formulas set in place to make the various ingredients react to each other, keep on in their journey until the moment of digestion. Why else does she think some wines are left to mature for so long, and in doing so, they never go stale?

He goes on to pass on to her that in freezing some potions in the beginning processes, it is essentially stopping all activity of properties, until the next stage is ready to be engaged, otherwise, if left to continue their process, the joining ingredients will be left too far behind in the process, to adequately catch up. Using the example of adding an egg to already boiled water, as opposed to placing an egg in cold water due for boiling, he makes it clear to her why once the next stage is ready, the frozen potion properties may be reactivated, and then continue to function in accordance with the other ingredients. It is quite vital for her to remember that during the freezing process, every movement of every property is stopped, until such a time as a timely intervention can be done, to prevent a catastrophic reaction from happening.

'That's more or less what I thought,' she tells him after his explanation. 'But, why did you tell me this, Professor?'

Because her question is the last thing that he could've expected from her –a challenge as to why information is given- he pauses the motions of his hands, to look at her. While looking at her, wearing only she can see which expression is on his face, he is tempted to forget that he is doing all this for his himself, and show interest in asking why she asked to start brewing potions in the first place.

But then, if he did that, would he like the answer?

Or more appropriately, would it only serve to add more strands of unease to his fidgeting soul? Upon Igor's ceaseless complaints and fears, the biased Tournament, and his own Mark, is he truly willing to add the woes of a young girl, most likely going through puberty? Magic forbid that he asks her, and she starts on about Krum being the grand subject of her heart. No, ask her, he will not do.

'I find it odd that you never asked me why you had to chill these base potions,' comes out of his mouth instead of a question.

'It's only that you never allow me to speak to you,' she says, somewhat timidly, 'so I wondered why you spoke to me now.'

'It is not for generosity's sake, I assure you,' he firmly assures her.

Inadvertently, she provided him with this means of a distraction by begging him to be here, however, it would be stupid of her to start thinking that he has his opinion shifted in her favour. Worried about the darkening of his Mark he may be, but not anywhere near wishing for there to be a change in regarding each other from now on.

It looks like she wants to say something in response, something to perhaps, question him about his motive, but in the end, all she does is nod. She then waits for him to pick up with his hands again, so that they can continue with their brewing, which they do. This short unexpected interaction in no way changes his view of her, however, there is something worth taking note of; she is really dedicated to concentrating on brewing. Oddly, he could almost say that she is passionate interest in brewing, because in the absence of approval and academic marks, what else could occupy as her drive to continue as she is? Or perhaps, he is beginning to lose his mind. The possibility is there, however removed he may think himself to be.