Chapter 1: Opening Moves

Hermione wasn't at all shocked when Snape--- on a veryflimsy pretext--- gave her another detention the next class.

"I can't believe it!" said Ron as she joined the boys in the corridor. "You never get detention--- and that's twice in a row!"

Despite her resolve of last Friday, Hermione decided that the boys would believe at least part of the truth. "He seems to need an assistant with one of his experiments---"

Harry rubbed his forehead, frowning. "So why doesn't he just, well, ask?"

"Because he's Snape, that's why," Ron said in disgust.

Hermione bit her tongue hard. It wasn't exactly possible to defend the man... but she had to admit that the taciturn and near-obsessively focused individual whose lab she shared was a completely different side of their cruel and sarcastic professor. And, the truth was, she wasn't sure that Harry and Ron would understand the difference. They hadn't even been able to tolerate her for the first weeks they'd known one another.

That was the curse of being very, very intelligent. People didn't understand the difference between the frustration of trying to get a point across to a mind that just didn't get it, and genuine disdain. And sometimes, it was pretty easy to forget the difference yourself.

But she couldn't just listen to Ron put him down either. "Well, he can't exactly admit that one of the only students good enough to assist him is a Gryffindor, can he?" she asked.

Ron gave her a look. "I think you've been spending too much time with him--- some of that snobbishness is starting to rub off. Faery Queen!" This to the Fat Lady, who swung open to let them into the Gryffindor sanctuary.

"I wouldn't talk if I were you, dear," the portrait said sternly as they passed.

"Don't they have that expression in the wizarding world, Ron?" Hermione asked innocently at her friend's baffled look, while Harry tried to smother a laugh.

*****



By the end of the month--- during which she received a detention following every Potions class--- the Slytherins had begun to scent blood in the water.

"Hey, Granger," Draco Malfoy sneered as they passed each other in the hall, "detention again? Doesn't look good for your chances of being Head Girl, does it?"

"Nice to see Little Miss Perfect come down from her high horse!" said one of the other Slytherins, a girl Hermione didn't know.

"Ooh!" said Pansy Parkinson, clapping a hand to her mouth and squealing in malevolent delight--- her beady little eyes fixed hopefully, Hermione noticed, on Draco. "Maybe she figures on---" she leaned close and whispered something to Draco.

Draco pounced on whatever it was with all the speed of a snake on a lame rat. "So that's your secret, Granger--- going to sleep your way to the Head Girl's badge?"

Ron, walking next to her, would have gone for Malfoy's throat, but Harry held him back, glaring darkly at the pale-faced boy. It would be just like that Slytherin scum to arrange for Ron to get a detention for fighting over something he'd had said.

Hermione turned to Malfoy with the air of someone only noticing a rather unpleasant object for the first time. "Well, I wouldn't know--- sleeping my way into a position of power seems more a Slytherin pastime, wouldn't you say, love?" She looked from Draco to Pansy with a slow insinuating gaze, then firmly grabbed hold of Ron's other arm and the three friends swept off.

"Wow!" said Ron when he'd recovered himself. "That was dead brilliant, Hermione!"

Harry, though, looked worried. "I wonder what Snape's game is?"

Hermione shook her head impatiently. "I told you, he just needs an extra pair of hands on the anti-lycanthropy potion, that's all." She settled her bag on her shoulder. "Anyway, next week's Christmas--- he ought to be done by then, I'm going home for Christmas, and after the holidays it should all blow over."

"Oh, God!" Ron smacked his forehead, stopping dead in the hallway. "You're leaving--- but Harry and I are staying over! Do you realize what this means?"

"What?" Harry regarded him with some curiosity.

"What if Snape tries to enlist one of us?"

Hermione smothered a giggle. "Don't worry, Ron, he's only singled me out because of my top marks--- I seriously doubt he'd use a Gryffindor if he had a better option."

"Especially," said Harry with feeling, "one of us three."

*****

Though very few people would have believed it, Christmas was Severus Snape's favorite time of the year.

Not, of course, that he enjoyed any of the festivities--- the decorations and the feasting were his least favorite part of the holiday. But at Christmas, the halls of the school were almost empty. He had no classes to teach and plenty of time for his experiments--- and the early nights and cold reminded him of the best parts of his family home....

It was usually quiet at Hogwarts around the holidays--- the students took their raucous behavior outside to throw snowballs or whatever else children did. Not that he'd ever known....

Which meant that the halls themselves were peacefully deserted--- and especially the corridor outside his rooms, the Potions classroom and his office and the small suite down the hall from those rooms that was his.

A rock to crawl under. That was how he thought of his rooms in the dungeon, at any rate. It suited him, given what kind of things usually hid under rocks.

Something slimy, ugly, loathsome... whispered a corner of his mind as he flipped through the notes that he and Granger had taken before the holidays. All words that aptly described a former Death Eater.

He forced his attention back to the parchment, covered with calculations and observations in Hermione Granger's precise type-script tiny hand. Surprisingly good notes, too, near-professional quality.

But then, he expected no less. He wouldn't have used her as an assistant otherwise. No, despite the face that his subterfuge forced him to show to his students--- the assumed preference for Lucius Malfoy's lazy get--- if he had to select a favorite student, it would have been Hermione Granger.

For a moment, he allowed himself a brief guilty fantasy of what his life could have been: research, study, working with bright young minds like Granger's--- and only the best students, those worthy of his knowledge---

"Ha!" He tossed the parchment onto the desk in disgust, sank back in his chair and stared unseeing at the fireplace that he always left empty despite the cold. Worthy--- yes, worthy, of a Death Eater's knowledge! That was a bad joke. And all those little Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who thought him cruel and vicious--- they never dreamed he was doing them the greatest favor imaginable. Keeping them at a distance... and toughening them for the battle ahead. And the Slytherins, so smugly certain that their Head of House would cover for them, never dreamed that every point he gave them undeserved, every time he overlooked an error or covered up a fault was one more handicap, one more crippling of whatever native cleverness and wit they still possessed, making them that much less capable of surviving in the real world. The few of that lot with any brains at all he was careful to single out, to direct away from the cliques of baby Death Eaters that infested the Serpents' Den--- and careful not to offer them the same easy path he did the others.

Yes, at least he could serve some purpose.

As if that thought had been a signal, the fireplace sputtered and crackled--- and, almost without warning, a roll of parchment--- black on black sealed in black--- spat itself from the flames to land at his feet.

Snape regarded it with loathing. "Lucius," he muttered, "must your every act advertise your allegiance to the world?"

But the sarcasm didn't make the offensive message disappear--- not that he'd held out much hope. His fingers twitching in disgust, he picked up the roll, examined the seal.

At his touch, the black wax glowed green, the Dark Mark standing out in sharp relief against the dark paper.

Snape sighed, feeling his stomach churn. He should have known--- if Potter and his rabble didn't manage to spoil one of the few peaceful times in his life, Lucius Malfoy would. He broke the seal.

"Your presence is requested," (the invitation read) "for a holiday celebration at Chateau Malfoy tomorrow evening at 8:00. Informal; RSVP acceptance only."

He swallowed against the bile in his throat. So: there was to be a Dark Revel, one of the entertainments that Lucius and his petty follower had always enjoyed. And without their Lord's presence. The Malfoys' estate in France would be a good place for that kind of thing, too--- the French wizarding community had been too little affected by Voldemort's depredations to be as watchful as the British.

His stomach heaved again. Even in the days when he'd been a loyal Death Eater, devoted to the New World Order and the power that Voldemort offered... even then, he'd disdained the petty lusts and short-sighted, sadistic pleasures that men like Lucius enjoyed.

And it was downright humiliating how long it had taken him to realize that those cruel pleasures were far more the true face of the Death Eaters than the dark knowledge he'd embraced.

He'd avoided those gatherings in the old days--- but he had no choice but to grace this one with his presence.

RSVP acceptance only.

Meaning: you're either with us... or against us.

He rolled up the parchment with a heavy sigh, summoned his own letterhead, and scratched a response.

"Delighted, Lucius," he muttered. "As you bloody well know."