Second Watch
Hermione was lecturing the fifth year Ravenclaw and Slytherin students about the virtues of pig's toe for apparition powders - it was a system she had perfected herself, and she was quite proud of it.
"Using too much, however, creates a highly unstable compound which has been known to cause everything from minor burns to permanent vanishing," she said, and she ground a bit to demonstrate the proper consistency. As long as she talked about something she understood, as long as she avoided thinking on and analyzing a certain eight years of her life, she seemed to be all right.
One of her students raised a hand. It was a blonde Ravenclaw, one she rather favored for being Muggle born, like she was. "Yes, Emilia?"
"What would happen if you blended a filler in with the ground pig's toe?"
"Excellent question, Miss King. You mean using something to stretch the pig's toe, to take up extra space in the compound without overusing the substance itself. I have, in fact, tried to blend a bit of ground unicorn horn in with it, which as we all recall is the most stable powder in magic, but to no avail."
"Have you tried cornstarch?" Emilia asked, quietly.
"Cornstarch?" Hermione repeated, uncomprehending. It was a simple question, yet blending magic and non-magic compounds was something she had remarkably little experience with. She'd lived a life without a wand for so many years that she couldn't help but have to rethink these things.
"It's a neutral powder used in Muggle cooking. My mother uses it."
"I . I don't know, Miss King. Combining magical and Muggle substances is often risky. I will look into that, however. Thank you."
"Doesn't she know anything at all?" muttered a red haired Slytherin, one she recognized as a favorite of Snape's, to the girl beside her.
"Miss Haverflash, if you have something to add to the class you will raise your hand," Hermione snapped, without looking up from the experiment she was setting up. "And five points from Slytherin for that insubordination."
Had it been another house that had just been punished, Hermione would have thought that sounded frighteningly Snapelike.
Emilia's question burned in Hermione's mind the rest of that afternoon and night. A botched potions lesson - looking like a fool in her own chosen profession - was unbearable. By the next morning, she had decided to brave one of her greatest fears.
She entered the Great Hall through the teachers' door, near the head table. Juvenile though it seemed, it still gave her a thrill, like she were breaking several school rules at once.
Severus always sat in the chair on the far right: Hermione remembered that from her days as a student. Half frightened, half excited, like a child about to do something she knew she shouldn't, Hermione chose the seat beside his. It was Professor Flitwick's usual place, she knew, but he had always been so amiable she was sure he wouldn't mind. How could he mind, after all, being spared a meal with Snape?
The smell of bacon frying filled the Great Hall long before it appeared. She could imagine her mother's porridge back home, and eggs with just the right amount of salt. Outside of her fantasy, Hermione wished for the millionth time she could find a cup of decent coffee in all of Hogwarts.
Severus came in, late as she might have expected. She could only assume that that was the best way for him to avoid unnecessary banter - and she would have been right.
"Miss Granger," he said, trying to hide his shock as he sat down beside her.
"Professor," she said, sounding more like the child he remembered than she looked. "I was hoping you might be able to answer a question for me, as the former Potions Master."
He looked at her suspiciously. It was almost funny that someone had to ask his advice on something, anything. He sincerely considered telling her to figure it out on her own (she was, after all, more than capable): he even would have considered deducting points from Gryffindor if he still could, just to make his point.
"On what subject, Professor? I haven't got all day."
She was silent for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts as much as possible.
"Is it about your classes? I am willing to go over your lesson plans, if that's what you'd like. Though I must say, it would be a waste of my time. You are a competent Potions Mistress. You even seem to enjoy the subject--"
"No. It's not that," she interrupted quietly.
"Then spit it out, Miss Granger." He reached for the salt, brushing the edge of her plate with a bilious black sleeve.
She hesitated an instant, and then dove in full force. "One of my students asked me a question I was unable to answer," she stuttered, with undue haste.
"And you hoped I might ease your feelings of inadequacy." He sniffed disdainfully. "How good of you to think of me. Well, Miss Granger, I'm afraid no-one is responsible for that save yourself."
Minerva, on her other side, handed the plate to Hermione, who elegantly chose a few strips of bacon, while missing the half smiling glance the woman gave her. "It was about using Muggle cooking ingredients in apparition powders."
"Muggle . cooking ingredients?"
She did her best to keep from rolling her eyes at him: she was treading dangerous territory already. "The use of cornstarch as a stable filler for pig's toe."
"And who was it, Miss Granger, that asked this ingenious question?"
"Emilia King," she said, gesturing with her water goblet at the Ravenclaw table.
He looked at the girl over the rim of his own goblet. "May I suggest that you not listen to the culinary wonderings of a Muggle born? They are almost always incorrect in their assertions, little or great. Oh, and you, Professor Potter: what might you have to say about Muggle practices? Perhaps those concerning divorce?"
Suddenly, bacon and eggs did not seem so appealing. In fact, the very sight of it made her a little ill. She could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes again. Swearing silently, Hermione excused herself to Minerva and disappeared though the back doors.
She's a Muggle who knows Magic, Severus thought to himself, taking a deep swallow of his rancid coffee. No better than any of the other Muggle born.
"Alohomora," Severus said, unlocking the door of his office: there was no mistaking Albus Dumbledore's knocking.
"Severus, you have a lot of explaining to do concerning your pointed comments to Professor Granger."
"Call her what you will, but she is still a Potter," Severus said, icily. "Unable to deal with not getting their way."
Albus was still standing in front of the great, black desk, which gloomily dominated the eerily green office. "I will not have your personal grudges against James Potter interfering with the efficiency of my faculty, Severus."
"This is not about James," Severus spat. "Hermione Potter was always an upstart. And I will not pretend she is not the reason I was finally . awarded my position, Albus."
"You aren't upset at having been replaced so quickly, are you, Severus? It was you, after all, who taught the girl potions in the first place." Dumbledore was tipping his head to glance over his glasses at him, letting his voice become increasingly denigrating.
"She is a competent Potions Mistress, as I have said before, no matter how much remains for her to learn. And just what is it I have to explain?" He may have had to report his ultimate actions to the Headmaster, but Severus Snape was not a man used to explaining himself, and he was getting impatient.
"I will be teaching her first period while she collects herself. That is twice now you have reduced your fellow teacher to tears. She is no longer a student to be bullied into compliance."
Snape set down his quill and stood up to look Albus Dumbledore in the eye. "Isn't she?"
"Do not try to intimidate me, Severus. You of all people know I am not someone you want to have as an enemy."
"What is it I have to explain to you?" he repeated, with forced smoothness.
"Not to me, Severus. To Miss Granger." Albus' usually twinkling eyes were steely: it was a look Severus knew well from darker days, when his unorthodox and unrevealing style had moved the Headmaster to ire. Albus turned to go with a swish of his robes. "And I will know if you do not include an apology."
Severus sat in his office, deliberately delaying from going to see her. He was not the sort of man who took an apology lightly - especially when that apology came by order. Still, Dumbledore was right: he was not a man to made an enemy. He paused in the corridor on his way to scold a gaggle of first years, moving through the halls like a frightened herd, muttering after them under his breath.
It was strange to him that the potions classes were no longer taught in the dungeons, but she had insisted almost immediately upon her arrival. It had meant a few especially powerful incantations on Flitwick's part, but here was her office, neatly located on the first floor.
"Go away, professor," Hermione called when he knocked at her office door.
"Professor Potter," he said, through the door. "I do not wish what I have to say to be heard by the entire school. Open the door!"
She threw open the door, but didn't look at him. He shut it and stood on the rug just inside the office while Hermione rushed over to her desk to rearrange papers.
"I have come to issue . an apology," he said silkily, speaking barely over a whisper.
"Well, you should." She considered punctuating the sentence with his name there, but the last thing she wanted was to be on a first name basis with Severus Snape. She kept pretending to be busy, just so she didn't have to look at him.
He looked around the office: it was decorated in rich blues and regal purples, and almost nothing in the office was enchanted - even the fire looked real. She really was a Muggle who happened to know magic, he mused. The entire place smelled of potions he knew altogether too well and the weak coffee the house elves made, as well as a Muggle perfume that must have been hers. He made no effort to speak, not even to apologize correctly.
"Why do you resent me so much?" Hermione demanded, spinning around to face him, finally fed up with his silence. "Did I wound you in some past life? Forget to return a library book you wanted? Publish a theory before you could?"
Snape made a growling sound in the back of his throat. She may have grown up a bit, but Hermione Potter - Granger, he reminded himself - had changed her style not a bit: she was every bit as blunt as she had ever been. "I do not resent you on a . professional level. One might even say I respect your work. No, professor: I resent a decision you made nearly eight years ago now."
"Harry?" Hermione guessed, incredulously.
"Yes, of course." He stalked over to the desk where she had ceased to pretend to work. "Now it's my turn, professor. Why did you choose Potter over Weasley? He would be the more logical choice, given your . temperament." He spoke smoothly, choosing his words precisely, and she could feel his eyes on the top of her head. This verbal thrust and parry was thrilling for him, unheard of in these dark halls of Hogwarts.
Hermione hesitated a moment, but the words came spilling over her lips before she had a chance to check them. "Because Harry offered more. I never wanted fame, or my picture in the paper, but at least it meant they accepted me." She hadn't looked at him while she was speaking, but now she met his gaze straight on. "And now it's my turn. Why do you hate Harry Potter so?"
"The answer to that is of a rather . personal nature." Evasive as ever, he ran his fingers along the edge of her desk, then rested his palm on the surface. "My debt here is paid."
He bowed, an effort archaic even in the wizarding world, and swept out of the office in abrupt but characteristic fashion, shutting the door a little too hard behind him. She looked down at her fingers, nervously picked at, the nailbeds nearly destroyed, and then her eyes caught on something: there where his palm had been, wrapped in cheesecloth and tied with plain, brown twine, was exactly three ounces of Muggle cornstarch.
Hermione was lecturing the fifth year Ravenclaw and Slytherin students about the virtues of pig's toe for apparition powders - it was a system she had perfected herself, and she was quite proud of it.
"Using too much, however, creates a highly unstable compound which has been known to cause everything from minor burns to permanent vanishing," she said, and she ground a bit to demonstrate the proper consistency. As long as she talked about something she understood, as long as she avoided thinking on and analyzing a certain eight years of her life, she seemed to be all right.
One of her students raised a hand. It was a blonde Ravenclaw, one she rather favored for being Muggle born, like she was. "Yes, Emilia?"
"What would happen if you blended a filler in with the ground pig's toe?"
"Excellent question, Miss King. You mean using something to stretch the pig's toe, to take up extra space in the compound without overusing the substance itself. I have, in fact, tried to blend a bit of ground unicorn horn in with it, which as we all recall is the most stable powder in magic, but to no avail."
"Have you tried cornstarch?" Emilia asked, quietly.
"Cornstarch?" Hermione repeated, uncomprehending. It was a simple question, yet blending magic and non-magic compounds was something she had remarkably little experience with. She'd lived a life without a wand for so many years that she couldn't help but have to rethink these things.
"It's a neutral powder used in Muggle cooking. My mother uses it."
"I . I don't know, Miss King. Combining magical and Muggle substances is often risky. I will look into that, however. Thank you."
"Doesn't she know anything at all?" muttered a red haired Slytherin, one she recognized as a favorite of Snape's, to the girl beside her.
"Miss Haverflash, if you have something to add to the class you will raise your hand," Hermione snapped, without looking up from the experiment she was setting up. "And five points from Slytherin for that insubordination."
Had it been another house that had just been punished, Hermione would have thought that sounded frighteningly Snapelike.
Emilia's question burned in Hermione's mind the rest of that afternoon and night. A botched potions lesson - looking like a fool in her own chosen profession - was unbearable. By the next morning, she had decided to brave one of her greatest fears.
She entered the Great Hall through the teachers' door, near the head table. Juvenile though it seemed, it still gave her a thrill, like she were breaking several school rules at once.
Severus always sat in the chair on the far right: Hermione remembered that from her days as a student. Half frightened, half excited, like a child about to do something she knew she shouldn't, Hermione chose the seat beside his. It was Professor Flitwick's usual place, she knew, but he had always been so amiable she was sure he wouldn't mind. How could he mind, after all, being spared a meal with Snape?
The smell of bacon frying filled the Great Hall long before it appeared. She could imagine her mother's porridge back home, and eggs with just the right amount of salt. Outside of her fantasy, Hermione wished for the millionth time she could find a cup of decent coffee in all of Hogwarts.
Severus came in, late as she might have expected. She could only assume that that was the best way for him to avoid unnecessary banter - and she would have been right.
"Miss Granger," he said, trying to hide his shock as he sat down beside her.
"Professor," she said, sounding more like the child he remembered than she looked. "I was hoping you might be able to answer a question for me, as the former Potions Master."
He looked at her suspiciously. It was almost funny that someone had to ask his advice on something, anything. He sincerely considered telling her to figure it out on her own (she was, after all, more than capable): he even would have considered deducting points from Gryffindor if he still could, just to make his point.
"On what subject, Professor? I haven't got all day."
She was silent for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts as much as possible.
"Is it about your classes? I am willing to go over your lesson plans, if that's what you'd like. Though I must say, it would be a waste of my time. You are a competent Potions Mistress. You even seem to enjoy the subject--"
"No. It's not that," she interrupted quietly.
"Then spit it out, Miss Granger." He reached for the salt, brushing the edge of her plate with a bilious black sleeve.
She hesitated an instant, and then dove in full force. "One of my students asked me a question I was unable to answer," she stuttered, with undue haste.
"And you hoped I might ease your feelings of inadequacy." He sniffed disdainfully. "How good of you to think of me. Well, Miss Granger, I'm afraid no-one is responsible for that save yourself."
Minerva, on her other side, handed the plate to Hermione, who elegantly chose a few strips of bacon, while missing the half smiling glance the woman gave her. "It was about using Muggle cooking ingredients in apparition powders."
"Muggle . cooking ingredients?"
She did her best to keep from rolling her eyes at him: she was treading dangerous territory already. "The use of cornstarch as a stable filler for pig's toe."
"And who was it, Miss Granger, that asked this ingenious question?"
"Emilia King," she said, gesturing with her water goblet at the Ravenclaw table.
He looked at the girl over the rim of his own goblet. "May I suggest that you not listen to the culinary wonderings of a Muggle born? They are almost always incorrect in their assertions, little or great. Oh, and you, Professor Potter: what might you have to say about Muggle practices? Perhaps those concerning divorce?"
Suddenly, bacon and eggs did not seem so appealing. In fact, the very sight of it made her a little ill. She could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes again. Swearing silently, Hermione excused herself to Minerva and disappeared though the back doors.
She's a Muggle who knows Magic, Severus thought to himself, taking a deep swallow of his rancid coffee. No better than any of the other Muggle born.
"Alohomora," Severus said, unlocking the door of his office: there was no mistaking Albus Dumbledore's knocking.
"Severus, you have a lot of explaining to do concerning your pointed comments to Professor Granger."
"Call her what you will, but she is still a Potter," Severus said, icily. "Unable to deal with not getting their way."
Albus was still standing in front of the great, black desk, which gloomily dominated the eerily green office. "I will not have your personal grudges against James Potter interfering with the efficiency of my faculty, Severus."
"This is not about James," Severus spat. "Hermione Potter was always an upstart. And I will not pretend she is not the reason I was finally . awarded my position, Albus."
"You aren't upset at having been replaced so quickly, are you, Severus? It was you, after all, who taught the girl potions in the first place." Dumbledore was tipping his head to glance over his glasses at him, letting his voice become increasingly denigrating.
"She is a competent Potions Mistress, as I have said before, no matter how much remains for her to learn. And just what is it I have to explain?" He may have had to report his ultimate actions to the Headmaster, but Severus Snape was not a man used to explaining himself, and he was getting impatient.
"I will be teaching her first period while she collects herself. That is twice now you have reduced your fellow teacher to tears. She is no longer a student to be bullied into compliance."
Snape set down his quill and stood up to look Albus Dumbledore in the eye. "Isn't she?"
"Do not try to intimidate me, Severus. You of all people know I am not someone you want to have as an enemy."
"What is it I have to explain to you?" he repeated, with forced smoothness.
"Not to me, Severus. To Miss Granger." Albus' usually twinkling eyes were steely: it was a look Severus knew well from darker days, when his unorthodox and unrevealing style had moved the Headmaster to ire. Albus turned to go with a swish of his robes. "And I will know if you do not include an apology."
Severus sat in his office, deliberately delaying from going to see her. He was not the sort of man who took an apology lightly - especially when that apology came by order. Still, Dumbledore was right: he was not a man to made an enemy. He paused in the corridor on his way to scold a gaggle of first years, moving through the halls like a frightened herd, muttering after them under his breath.
It was strange to him that the potions classes were no longer taught in the dungeons, but she had insisted almost immediately upon her arrival. It had meant a few especially powerful incantations on Flitwick's part, but here was her office, neatly located on the first floor.
"Go away, professor," Hermione called when he knocked at her office door.
"Professor Potter," he said, through the door. "I do not wish what I have to say to be heard by the entire school. Open the door!"
She threw open the door, but didn't look at him. He shut it and stood on the rug just inside the office while Hermione rushed over to her desk to rearrange papers.
"I have come to issue . an apology," he said silkily, speaking barely over a whisper.
"Well, you should." She considered punctuating the sentence with his name there, but the last thing she wanted was to be on a first name basis with Severus Snape. She kept pretending to be busy, just so she didn't have to look at him.
He looked around the office: it was decorated in rich blues and regal purples, and almost nothing in the office was enchanted - even the fire looked real. She really was a Muggle who happened to know magic, he mused. The entire place smelled of potions he knew altogether too well and the weak coffee the house elves made, as well as a Muggle perfume that must have been hers. He made no effort to speak, not even to apologize correctly.
"Why do you resent me so much?" Hermione demanded, spinning around to face him, finally fed up with his silence. "Did I wound you in some past life? Forget to return a library book you wanted? Publish a theory before you could?"
Snape made a growling sound in the back of his throat. She may have grown up a bit, but Hermione Potter - Granger, he reminded himself - had changed her style not a bit: she was every bit as blunt as she had ever been. "I do not resent you on a . professional level. One might even say I respect your work. No, professor: I resent a decision you made nearly eight years ago now."
"Harry?" Hermione guessed, incredulously.
"Yes, of course." He stalked over to the desk where she had ceased to pretend to work. "Now it's my turn, professor. Why did you choose Potter over Weasley? He would be the more logical choice, given your . temperament." He spoke smoothly, choosing his words precisely, and she could feel his eyes on the top of her head. This verbal thrust and parry was thrilling for him, unheard of in these dark halls of Hogwarts.
Hermione hesitated a moment, but the words came spilling over her lips before she had a chance to check them. "Because Harry offered more. I never wanted fame, or my picture in the paper, but at least it meant they accepted me." She hadn't looked at him while she was speaking, but now she met his gaze straight on. "And now it's my turn. Why do you hate Harry Potter so?"
"The answer to that is of a rather . personal nature." Evasive as ever, he ran his fingers along the edge of her desk, then rested his palm on the surface. "My debt here is paid."
He bowed, an effort archaic even in the wizarding world, and swept out of the office in abrupt but characteristic fashion, shutting the door a little too hard behind him. She looked down at her fingers, nervously picked at, the nailbeds nearly destroyed, and then her eyes caught on something: there where his palm had been, wrapped in cheesecloth and tied with plain, brown twine, was exactly three ounces of Muggle cornstarch.