DISCLAIMER in Chapter One.
NOTES: Hope this was out quick enough for all of you. I'm trying to churn out as many chapters as possible before I go on holiday again at the end of this week.
Patricia Wilson's help was indispensable in this chapter. All hail the Queen!
Saavik: I'm glad somebody noticed that I left Ron out. To answer your question, something happened during the war concerning Ron that was the main reason Harry and Hermione wanted to leave the wizarding world. I can't tell you what it was right now, but rest assured that you'll find out soon!
***
There was a carriage parked on the lawn of Hogwarts in a place usually reserved for visitors, and some inner instinct made Hermione stiffen.
"You have a free carriage?" she asked tartly. "I thought you lent them all to the Ministry."
"I did." His voice was as taut as hers, and it did nothing to ease her mind. "The carriage belongs to Draco Malfoy. He's been covering the Potions lessons."
"So why am I here, when you obviously have all the help you need?" She swung round and glared at him, two brown eyes meeting two black ones, an equal amount of anger in both pairs.
"I've told you," he said sharply, "I wanted you here. You are the best one for the job, and you'll be a good teacher. You have endless patience. And you love children."
"As I recall, there is little love OR patience in Malfoy," she snorted angrily. "No doubt he's been terrorizing the students into a blind panic."
"All the teachers had full schedules, what would you have had me do?" he demanded angrily. "Draco offered to help, and I was very grateful!"
Hermione had heard enough and stormed away. Yes, Draco Malfoy would have offered to help. His father had died in the War as an open supporter of Voldemort, and ever since then, Draco had tried to prove beyond all doubt that he was in full support of the Light. It made Hermione sick, the way he constantly sucked up to the Ministry. Plus, he insinuated himself into Hogwarts on every conceivable occasion, and this one was an opportunity too good to be missed. The students were the last of his worries.
Her burst of rage was stifled as the great doors opened and all the students eating dinner looked up in interest. She followed Snape up to the teachers' table and took a seat on his right. Snape remained standing and tapped a glass with a spoon for attention. An instant hush fell through the Great Hall. Snape cleared his throat.
"I am pleased to welcome a new addition to our staff," he said. "Please welcome Professor Hermione Granger, who will be our new Potions teacher until we can get a more permanent one."
The Hall exploded with noise. Hermione was very well known in the wizarding world, and these students had obviously heard of her. Snape sat down with a sigh of relief. Hermione felt a tap on her arm and turned to her right to face Draco Malfoy.
"You are here at last, Hermione," he said tightly. "Welcome to Hogwarts."
"Thank you, Draco, but I need no other welcome than the one I have just received. I am home!" She stressed the word, a word should would never have used in any other circumstance at this place. "I am here to teach the students, and I intend to begin right away!"
"I just hope you're up to the job," sighed Draco. "It's a challenge, getting these rambunctious students to settle down and learn."
"Oh, I only hope that I don't disappoint them, coming after you!" Hermione was deliberately over-friendly in her speech, flattering and pleasant, and it did not please Draco. Perhaps it did not please Snape, either, because he stood to leave the table.
"I'll speak to you later, Miss Granger," he said with an angry quiet as he left, and she nodded distantly. He certainly would, but not before SHE had spoken to HIM.
"Excuse me, Draco." She left the table and walked the well-remembered path to the cool and silent dungeons, where she saw her trunk there on the stone floor, seeing also that Snape had walked into his office. He glanced at her but continued, leaving the door open in silent invitation- although she needed none.
"How could you let that idiot teach here?" she demanded to know, shutting the door firmly behind her as she entered. "Isn't their grief at losing Minerva enough, without subjecting them to the terror campaign of that buffoon?"
"He was the only one available on immediate notice!" Snape said tightly, turning away.
"And you!" she exclaimed scathingly. "I remember you telling me that you would never let another person use your lab unless you were absolutely sure they knew what they were doing!" She leaned against the door, folding her arms and watching him coldly.
"I never thought a situation like this would arise. And neither did you." She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut in sharply before she had a chance. "For your information, Draco is a completely competent Potions Master. It's just his lack of people skills that make him a terrible teacher. But he does know what he is doing."
"You're a fine one to talk about people skills!" she tossed back at him. "In any case, Draco's abilities are inconsequential. Now that I'm here, Draco can go."
"You expect me to simply pack him off?" Snape looked at her with no interest, almost bored. "He would be offended beyond words."
"Then offend him!" she advised sharply. "You ordered me here, and now that I have seen the students at the mercy of Draco Malfoy, wild horses couldn't drag me away. I intend to teach the students, and I'll suffer no interference!"
"Restore the school to normality, and I promise you that there will be no interference. But remember that I am Headmaster of this school. I won't countenance any trouble!" He stood facing her, arms crossed over his black robes, the black eyes glittering with impatience.
"Normality is an unusual commodity in this place," Hermione scoffed, returning his stare with an arrogance of her own. "And what makes you think there will be any trouble?" she added with a smile. She was mocking his power, defying him, and his gaze became more intent.
"I only have to look at you," he assured her in a low voice. "You don't need to do anything at all. You were born to be trouble, with your wit and intelligence. I recognized trouble from the moment that you stepped into Hogwarts, when you were only eleven years old."
"And you were very thankful when I left," she said woodenly.
He inclined his head in agreement, his smile without humor.
"Well, don't worry," she said with a forced lightness. "A few weeks and I'll be going back to my own life, and I'll be out of your way." That last phrase came out almost against her will, seeming to fall from her tongue unbidden. She would have given anything to withdraw it, because she saw his eyes flare with a kind of unholy joy.
"You have not forgotten, then, Miss Granger?" She turned to the door, refusing to answer the silky question.
"Where am I to sleep?"
"Your old room is ready- as it was."
Startled, she turned back, staring into his shuttered face.
"As it was? After almost seven years? Minerva told me when I last spoke to her that it had been turned into an extra classroom."
He nodded absently and turned away, beginning to leaf through the papers on his desk.
"She had it changed. I was away at the time. I had it returned to its original state when I returned."
"Why?" She found her heart fluttering in her throat, a flicker of feeling stirring, and she silenced it at once.
"Why? I don't like change, as you very well know. I'll have your trunk brought to your room," he finished, coolly dismissing her.
She was glad to go- the dark office intimidated her, reminding her of the number of times she had stood there as a trembling girl, while Snape sat behind the desk, berating her. Let him try it now!
She walked along the close, narrow passage that led to her own room, remembering each door, each portrait, every small flickering torch that lit the dark corridors 24/7. The dungeons had been built in the manner of the old castles, rambling haphazardly underground, and Hermione saw them now with truly adult eyes.
Almost opposite her room, the long door of a small, dark storage closet caught her eye, and her heart thumped as she recognized it. Crowded, dark, and confining it had terrified her in the years she had worked here.
Hermione walked towards it and opened the door, facing her ghosts with tight lips, and then stopping in astonishment. It was painted white inside now, and the potions ingredients assembled on the many shelves were labeled and neatly organized. A torch burst into flame automatically as the door opened, and her ghosts vanished as if they had never been. If Snape did not like change, he had certainly made an exception here, had wiped out a part of her past that still haunted her mind, a day when Snape had made it clear that he would one day rule Hogwarts, a day when he had firmly taken Hermione under his protection.
She walked in a kind of daze to her room, her mind only vaguely noting that it truly was as it had been. Even her small treasures had been brought back from the storeroom and replaced exactly in their original positions. Ashie! Hermione smiled, fingering the small objects that belonged to her past. Ashie, an unusually intelligent and articulate house-elf, had always been fond of her. Hermione wandered to the bookshelf and gazed at the huge tomes, but her mind was still outside the room, seeing the past and her trial by terror.
It had been a few weeks after coming to Hogwarts to help Snape that Hermione had been left alone in the dungeons to complete a batch of Veritaserum, while Snape went to Hogsmeade to stock up on ingredients. Hermione had just entered the storage closet when Peeves had slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. She had been trapped in the closet.
At first, as Hermione had realized she was trapped, leaving her in darkness, she had remained defiant, standing against the wall, waiting for her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness, trying not to hear Peeves' cackling as he had zoomed away. But the blackness was total, confining and suffocating, and she had begun to cry, softly at first, but then with deep shuddering sobs that threatened to choke her. She had felt for the door and hammered on it in growing panic, knowing that the dungeons were deserted and no one could hear her.
She began to scream, falling on her knees by the door, surrounded by darkness and a slowly creeping silence that only her cries of terror kept at bay, but no one had come.
Then Snape had returned. Hermione hadn't heard the sound of his boots striding along the passage, had heard nothing of his savage voice. Only the feel of his arms as he lifted her, tear-drenched and dirty-faced, to hold her against his chest, had awoken her to the fact that she was free.
He had stormed all the way to the Headmaster's office, his pitiful burden cradled against his chest, murderous rage in his dark eyes, and he had burst in upon Dumbledore and Minerva as they had sat taking tea.
What Snape said then, Hermione never knew, for she was too hysterical to follow his savage speed, but Minerva had paled at his obvious wrath, and even Dumbledore had fallen silent before such rage. Following that incident, Dumbledore had proceeded to expel Peeves from the castle, never to return again.
Grim-faced, Snape had taken Hermione outside, where they walked around and around on the grounds for a long while. Gradually, her shuddering had stopped, as the gentle breeze blew through her hair and caressed her face, the sun warming her fear-chilled skin.
Finally they came to a stop at the edge of the lake.
"You are free, little one," Snape had told her quietly, "free on the grounds, under the sky, the wind in your hair."
"Why did you leave me so long?"
She had turned her head and timidly touched him as he looked down at her tear-stained face.
"I was still in Hogsmeade. Ashie ran all the way there to get me. It will not happen again."
Gently he had removed her hand, looking for a moment at her thin, pale fingers, and then he had turned for the castle, silent and stern, but a haven of comfort and protection. Not that it had made her very much more happy, only perhaps a little more secure, for he had continued in the same manner as before, cold and aloof, ignoring her, speaking to her only to give her potions instructions, and she had no doubts whatsoever that she was not welcome in his dungeons.
***
Please R/R as usual!
NOTES: Hope this was out quick enough for all of you. I'm trying to churn out as many chapters as possible before I go on holiday again at the end of this week.
Patricia Wilson's help was indispensable in this chapter. All hail the Queen!
Saavik: I'm glad somebody noticed that I left Ron out. To answer your question, something happened during the war concerning Ron that was the main reason Harry and Hermione wanted to leave the wizarding world. I can't tell you what it was right now, but rest assured that you'll find out soon!
***
There was a carriage parked on the lawn of Hogwarts in a place usually reserved for visitors, and some inner instinct made Hermione stiffen.
"You have a free carriage?" she asked tartly. "I thought you lent them all to the Ministry."
"I did." His voice was as taut as hers, and it did nothing to ease her mind. "The carriage belongs to Draco Malfoy. He's been covering the Potions lessons."
"So why am I here, when you obviously have all the help you need?" She swung round and glared at him, two brown eyes meeting two black ones, an equal amount of anger in both pairs.
"I've told you," he said sharply, "I wanted you here. You are the best one for the job, and you'll be a good teacher. You have endless patience. And you love children."
"As I recall, there is little love OR patience in Malfoy," she snorted angrily. "No doubt he's been terrorizing the students into a blind panic."
"All the teachers had full schedules, what would you have had me do?" he demanded angrily. "Draco offered to help, and I was very grateful!"
Hermione had heard enough and stormed away. Yes, Draco Malfoy would have offered to help. His father had died in the War as an open supporter of Voldemort, and ever since then, Draco had tried to prove beyond all doubt that he was in full support of the Light. It made Hermione sick, the way he constantly sucked up to the Ministry. Plus, he insinuated himself into Hogwarts on every conceivable occasion, and this one was an opportunity too good to be missed. The students were the last of his worries.
Her burst of rage was stifled as the great doors opened and all the students eating dinner looked up in interest. She followed Snape up to the teachers' table and took a seat on his right. Snape remained standing and tapped a glass with a spoon for attention. An instant hush fell through the Great Hall. Snape cleared his throat.
"I am pleased to welcome a new addition to our staff," he said. "Please welcome Professor Hermione Granger, who will be our new Potions teacher until we can get a more permanent one."
The Hall exploded with noise. Hermione was very well known in the wizarding world, and these students had obviously heard of her. Snape sat down with a sigh of relief. Hermione felt a tap on her arm and turned to her right to face Draco Malfoy.
"You are here at last, Hermione," he said tightly. "Welcome to Hogwarts."
"Thank you, Draco, but I need no other welcome than the one I have just received. I am home!" She stressed the word, a word should would never have used in any other circumstance at this place. "I am here to teach the students, and I intend to begin right away!"
"I just hope you're up to the job," sighed Draco. "It's a challenge, getting these rambunctious students to settle down and learn."
"Oh, I only hope that I don't disappoint them, coming after you!" Hermione was deliberately over-friendly in her speech, flattering and pleasant, and it did not please Draco. Perhaps it did not please Snape, either, because he stood to leave the table.
"I'll speak to you later, Miss Granger," he said with an angry quiet as he left, and she nodded distantly. He certainly would, but not before SHE had spoken to HIM.
"Excuse me, Draco." She left the table and walked the well-remembered path to the cool and silent dungeons, where she saw her trunk there on the stone floor, seeing also that Snape had walked into his office. He glanced at her but continued, leaving the door open in silent invitation- although she needed none.
"How could you let that idiot teach here?" she demanded to know, shutting the door firmly behind her as she entered. "Isn't their grief at losing Minerva enough, without subjecting them to the terror campaign of that buffoon?"
"He was the only one available on immediate notice!" Snape said tightly, turning away.
"And you!" she exclaimed scathingly. "I remember you telling me that you would never let another person use your lab unless you were absolutely sure they knew what they were doing!" She leaned against the door, folding her arms and watching him coldly.
"I never thought a situation like this would arise. And neither did you." She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut in sharply before she had a chance. "For your information, Draco is a completely competent Potions Master. It's just his lack of people skills that make him a terrible teacher. But he does know what he is doing."
"You're a fine one to talk about people skills!" she tossed back at him. "In any case, Draco's abilities are inconsequential. Now that I'm here, Draco can go."
"You expect me to simply pack him off?" Snape looked at her with no interest, almost bored. "He would be offended beyond words."
"Then offend him!" she advised sharply. "You ordered me here, and now that I have seen the students at the mercy of Draco Malfoy, wild horses couldn't drag me away. I intend to teach the students, and I'll suffer no interference!"
"Restore the school to normality, and I promise you that there will be no interference. But remember that I am Headmaster of this school. I won't countenance any trouble!" He stood facing her, arms crossed over his black robes, the black eyes glittering with impatience.
"Normality is an unusual commodity in this place," Hermione scoffed, returning his stare with an arrogance of her own. "And what makes you think there will be any trouble?" she added with a smile. She was mocking his power, defying him, and his gaze became more intent.
"I only have to look at you," he assured her in a low voice. "You don't need to do anything at all. You were born to be trouble, with your wit and intelligence. I recognized trouble from the moment that you stepped into Hogwarts, when you were only eleven years old."
"And you were very thankful when I left," she said woodenly.
He inclined his head in agreement, his smile without humor.
"Well, don't worry," she said with a forced lightness. "A few weeks and I'll be going back to my own life, and I'll be out of your way." That last phrase came out almost against her will, seeming to fall from her tongue unbidden. She would have given anything to withdraw it, because she saw his eyes flare with a kind of unholy joy.
"You have not forgotten, then, Miss Granger?" She turned to the door, refusing to answer the silky question.
"Where am I to sleep?"
"Your old room is ready- as it was."
Startled, she turned back, staring into his shuttered face.
"As it was? After almost seven years? Minerva told me when I last spoke to her that it had been turned into an extra classroom."
He nodded absently and turned away, beginning to leaf through the papers on his desk.
"She had it changed. I was away at the time. I had it returned to its original state when I returned."
"Why?" She found her heart fluttering in her throat, a flicker of feeling stirring, and she silenced it at once.
"Why? I don't like change, as you very well know. I'll have your trunk brought to your room," he finished, coolly dismissing her.
She was glad to go- the dark office intimidated her, reminding her of the number of times she had stood there as a trembling girl, while Snape sat behind the desk, berating her. Let him try it now!
She walked along the close, narrow passage that led to her own room, remembering each door, each portrait, every small flickering torch that lit the dark corridors 24/7. The dungeons had been built in the manner of the old castles, rambling haphazardly underground, and Hermione saw them now with truly adult eyes.
Almost opposite her room, the long door of a small, dark storage closet caught her eye, and her heart thumped as she recognized it. Crowded, dark, and confining it had terrified her in the years she had worked here.
Hermione walked towards it and opened the door, facing her ghosts with tight lips, and then stopping in astonishment. It was painted white inside now, and the potions ingredients assembled on the many shelves were labeled and neatly organized. A torch burst into flame automatically as the door opened, and her ghosts vanished as if they had never been. If Snape did not like change, he had certainly made an exception here, had wiped out a part of her past that still haunted her mind, a day when Snape had made it clear that he would one day rule Hogwarts, a day when he had firmly taken Hermione under his protection.
She walked in a kind of daze to her room, her mind only vaguely noting that it truly was as it had been. Even her small treasures had been brought back from the storeroom and replaced exactly in their original positions. Ashie! Hermione smiled, fingering the small objects that belonged to her past. Ashie, an unusually intelligent and articulate house-elf, had always been fond of her. Hermione wandered to the bookshelf and gazed at the huge tomes, but her mind was still outside the room, seeing the past and her trial by terror.
It had been a few weeks after coming to Hogwarts to help Snape that Hermione had been left alone in the dungeons to complete a batch of Veritaserum, while Snape went to Hogsmeade to stock up on ingredients. Hermione had just entered the storage closet when Peeves had slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. She had been trapped in the closet.
At first, as Hermione had realized she was trapped, leaving her in darkness, she had remained defiant, standing against the wall, waiting for her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness, trying not to hear Peeves' cackling as he had zoomed away. But the blackness was total, confining and suffocating, and she had begun to cry, softly at first, but then with deep shuddering sobs that threatened to choke her. She had felt for the door and hammered on it in growing panic, knowing that the dungeons were deserted and no one could hear her.
She began to scream, falling on her knees by the door, surrounded by darkness and a slowly creeping silence that only her cries of terror kept at bay, but no one had come.
Then Snape had returned. Hermione hadn't heard the sound of his boots striding along the passage, had heard nothing of his savage voice. Only the feel of his arms as he lifted her, tear-drenched and dirty-faced, to hold her against his chest, had awoken her to the fact that she was free.
He had stormed all the way to the Headmaster's office, his pitiful burden cradled against his chest, murderous rage in his dark eyes, and he had burst in upon Dumbledore and Minerva as they had sat taking tea.
What Snape said then, Hermione never knew, for she was too hysterical to follow his savage speed, but Minerva had paled at his obvious wrath, and even Dumbledore had fallen silent before such rage. Following that incident, Dumbledore had proceeded to expel Peeves from the castle, never to return again.
Grim-faced, Snape had taken Hermione outside, where they walked around and around on the grounds for a long while. Gradually, her shuddering had stopped, as the gentle breeze blew through her hair and caressed her face, the sun warming her fear-chilled skin.
Finally they came to a stop at the edge of the lake.
"You are free, little one," Snape had told her quietly, "free on the grounds, under the sky, the wind in your hair."
"Why did you leave me so long?"
She had turned her head and timidly touched him as he looked down at her tear-stained face.
"I was still in Hogsmeade. Ashie ran all the way there to get me. It will not happen again."
Gently he had removed her hand, looking for a moment at her thin, pale fingers, and then he had turned for the castle, silent and stern, but a haven of comfort and protection. Not that it had made her very much more happy, only perhaps a little more secure, for he had continued in the same manner as before, cold and aloof, ignoring her, speaking to her only to give her potions instructions, and she had no doubts whatsoever that she was not welcome in his dungeons.
***
Please R/R as usual!