Dawn
Hermione had not spoken to Professor Snape in several days, not since the breakfast conversation about cornstarch. She was glad, too, because it had left her feeling remarkably odd, as if she had just read only the middle chapter of a book. But she had at last begun to play around with the powders, and she had high hopes for the compound.
She had realized that her best chance would be to consult a wizard more experienced with potions than she was, which meant she would have to find him. She had last period off, but as luck would have it, he did not. She wandered down into the dungeon, where he had kept his own office though Potions had moved.
"I believe it is customary to knock before entering, Miss Granger," he said without looking up. "But as you are already in, sit down."
The class consisted of Ravenclaws and Slytherins, who were, of course, sniggering at Severus' comment against her. Obviously, they enjoyed his cruelty as much as he did. She found a chair in the back of the room and tried to pretend she was not there. It felt too much like her own school days for comfort.
"As we discussed yesterday," Severus said, abruptly. His voice was soft but deadly, and the entire class went silent. He hadn't even looked up from whatever he was writing, but each student was staring straight at him, waiting to hear what he had to say. "Death Eaters are the followers of Voldemort. Mr. Palmer, name two unique qualities of the Death Eaters."
"They bear the Dark Mark," the boy mumbled, uncertainly. "And they . they . I don't know, sir," he finally said to his parchment.
"I see," he growled. "One point from Ravenclaw. Miss Haverflash?"
"They are entirely subject to the will of their lord," she said, with a little too much relish. Hermione was shocked that Severus was able to speak so frankly about a topic so close to home: he himself had once been one of them.
"Excellent," Severus said, nodding. "Death Eaters are indeed forced to obey their master, there is no question. When they walked free, Voldemort was able to call them to him though the Dark Mark that each of them bears still today."
"Are they able to administer the Kiss of Death?" Watching Severus pace before the blackboard, Hemrione had not seen who had asked the question.
"No, you dim-witted boy," he snarled, as if the question was a personal insult. Severus had stopped his pacing. "I should take points from your house simply for your stupidity. Never mistake Death Eaters for Dementors."
"What is the Kiss?" asked a Ravenclaw.
"The Kiss of Death," Severus pronounced, his voice a bit louder than usual. "Is the final act performed by a Dementor upon a prisoner, in which the soul is slowly sucked from the body. The Dementor places its foul lips on its prisoner, and draws forth the trembling spirit in the purest form, leaving the body behind, its face more often than nor twisted with sheer horror and the deepest pain imaginable. The Kiss is worse than death, for the soul is forever forfeit. As the soul is drawn out, slowly, by the mouth of the Dementor, the victim writhes like a ring of smoke moved by a breath, and then is eternally still, though his breathing may be heard for seconds afterward, ragged and raw. It is more painful than Crucio, more deadly than Avada Kedavra, and I have seen it done."
Severus' eyes were distant, as if he had stopped teaching and was, for an instant, actually watching the Kiss be administered. Hermione felt she needed a shower: not for the actual image of death he had created, but for the image she had seen in her mind of quite a different experience. Something in the roughness of Severus' voice, the way he described the Kiss, had been disturbingly arousing, and Hermione had to cover her eyes with her hands to get the images of writhing bodies out of her mind.
This is Snape, she screamed inside her mind. And he is describing the deaths of thousands of prisoners - deaths he has watched, even helped along .
The echo of his voice was pierced by that of one Emilia King. "Why would anyone join them, if that's their fate?"
"Voldemort," Snape answered quickly, as if he had already heard the question in his mind before she had asked it. "Offers much. He offers the deepest desire of your heart, and for many this promise is enough."
The classroom was silent: even the Slytherins had stopped whispering among themselves to stare at the professor, who had barely moved since he had finished speaking. What Hermione could not help but notice, however, was that his eyes had settled upon her. The air in the classroom was suddenly stifling, threatening to choke her with embarrassment. She fought a shiver and decided her request could wait until dinner, and slipped out the door and into the cool, calming air of the Hogwarts dungeons.
It was there that she stood and tried to calm herself, pressing the backs of her hands to her cheeks. She heard the class begin to talk amongst themselves again: she had time to think that she ought to get going before a dark shadow emerged from the classroom.
"Professor," Snape said, in his characteristic soft voice. "A word." She turned around to face at him and knew her cheeks had suddenly gotten quite pink again. He was not looking at her, and his hands were twitching, well, nervously. "I am . sorry if I have offended you. I have seen much Dark Magic --"
"You didn't offend me, Severus," she interrupted, noticing only after she had said it that she had used his given name. She hesitated a moment, wondering if he had noticed, too, but he seemed not to, or at least not to mind. "I guess I just wasn't feeling well enough."
He nodded, and swept back into his classroom.
How odd.
Hermione walked back to her office in silence, thinking about what she had just seen and heard. And felt. Severus Snape's words had stirred feelings in her she had not felt since her divorce - both because she lacked the two men she had ever loved, and because she had pushed away any inclination to avoid a relapse. Yet there she had been, listening to - to a former teacher, a colleague, with her mind wandering to places it had no place going.
Not only that, but he had actually followed her out to the corridor to apologize: to actually apologize, not just "pay a debt." This was very nearly too much to take in. She walked toward her office, dodging children on their way back to their houses before dinner, ignoring the noise of the hallway as she tried to get her mind around what had just happened.
"Minerva," she said, coming out of her daze at the sight of her friend and mentor. "The strangest thing just happened to me."
Minerva seemed remarkably nonplussed. Bored, almost. She shrugged, and said, "Mr. Boyd has been returned to his original form, and everything he ate is being tended to by Professor Sprout --"
Hermione shook her head vehemently. "Severus just apologized to me. I sat in on his class, but I had to leave early. He thought he had offended me, somehow, and he followed me and apologized," she said, the words spilling out too quickly.
Now, Minerva looked interested, even confused. "But Albus hasn't spoken to him in over week."
"What does Professor Dumbledore have to do with this?"
"It was he who suggested Severus speak to you after he . made you cry."
"He didn't make me cry," Hemrione argued, rather unconvincingly.
"But Severus did this entirely on his own," Minerva continued. "How exceedingly strange. That's not like him. Oh, he's a good man, Hermione, don't think otherwise," she said, seeing Hermione's expression. "But if you will excuse me."
Without waiting for an answer, she swept away, her emerald green robes flowing behind her, revealing a long plaid skirt. Too many strange things were happening, including Minerva's behavior, and Hermione helped herself to two Muggle aspirins as soon as she got to her office.
She sat in her office, then, fiddling with the pig's toe and cornstarch. She had worked it out first mathematically, doing the calculations over and over on paper and in her head. She had tried in a small scale, but not with enough powder to determine if it was effective. Really, she was waiting impatiently for dinner, so she could ask Severus to go over her calculations with her: despite his odd behavior of late, he was the only person she trusted to check her work. As she sat, quietly playing with the powders in her pestle, she heard the hooting of an owl.
Above her, swooping in the open window, was Hedwig. She would have recognized that owl anywhere from the many years they had lived together. "Harry?" she whispered, choking on the word. She felt tears pricking at her eyes with the sudden thought of him.
Hedwig settled on Hermione's desk, hooting happily. She nipped her finger affectionately: Hermione wondered if Harry had explained why she wasn't coming home. As she opened the letter tied to Hedwig's leg, she found it was written in Harry's handwriting, which made Hermione wipe away tears. The stationary was one she had given him for Christmas several years ago, cream colored with 'HP' watermarked in one corner.
Setting the letter aside so as to delay the moment, the moment she read his words, heard tem in her mind. She gave Hedwig a treat, hoping she would stay for a little while. It was dated that morning, Friday the third. He had addressed it with her full name, Hermione, instead of the nickname he usually used for her. That alone drew a little sob from her. She ran her fingers over the words as she read them, feeling the grooves of his favorite quill: she recognized the heaviness he wrote with when he used it.
"The Ministry is having trouble determining your assets, since nearly all of what you own isn't magical. They asked me to have you come and help figure it out as soon as possible. I told them it was the school year, but they insisted I write. I hope you are well. Take care and see you soon, I suppose. Harry."
Not even a closing pleasantry. Hermione supposed she could leave for a weekend without being missed too much: she would speak to Dumbledore that night. For now, however, she locked her door, put her head down on her desk, and let herself cry until dinner.
A few hours and several redness removing charms later, Hermione went down to dinner. She was late: even Severus was there already. She snuck over to him and crouched behind his chair. "Professor?"
"Why on earth are you sneaking about, Miss Granger?" he barked, without looking at her.
Her first impulse was to run away. He still frightened her, no matter what she tried to tell herself, and she was embarrassed by her thoughts of earlier. "I need your help," she muttered. And then she forced herself to say his given name. "Severus, please."
He set down his flatware with an audible clink and turned to look at her. "What do you want, Professor?"
"Check my calculations. I think I've figured it out." She hoped he knew what she meant.
There was a long pause before he manages to force an answer past his lips. Even then, his words came out in a rush, a snap flood. "Your office, tonight, eight o'clock. Now sit down."
He arrived at her office at an alarmingly punctual eight o'clock, with his wand in his hand and a scowl on his face. "If I am to be subject to your demands," he growled. "I request we do this someplace with better coffee."
Too (pleasantly) surprised to argue, she allowed him to apparate them both to the pub in Hogsmead. She had not been here since graduation, with Harry and Ron, for one last Butterbeer before the Hogwarts Express took them back to London and reality. The floor was sticky and the air thick with ale - just as she remembered. There was a wizard leaning against the bar, talking to a witch in red robes and too much eye makeup, and a group of witches at one booth who were talking and laughing far too loudly. She could smell the scent of coffee making its way though the smoky barroom.
Severus stormed over to an empty table in the corner - it seemed to have been waiting for him. People scattered from his path as he moved. She would have, too: he was an intimidating figure in black, like the angel of death on a firstborn, still brandishing his wand and holding it a little too tightly. She realized that he was waiting impatiently for her beside the table, and she walked up to meet him. No-one got out of her way, however: she must have looked as submissive as she felt.
Severus pulled out the chair for her and tucked it beneath her as she sat. She couldn't remember the last time a man had done that for her. He ordered for her, too: a raspberry cappuccino, which made her wonder how he knew that was what she wanted.
"The coffee here is bearable, unlike that at Hogwarts," he said, more to himself, she felt, than to her. While the waitress was gone, she pulled out the cards she had in her pocket. They contained the ratio of cornstarch to pig's toe, as well as all her work. "I'm not going over them," he snapped, without looking at her. "The correct ratio is 4:5:1. Anything else is far too volatile to be of use."
"The correct ratio is 3:5:1. It's far more effective. If you would look at what I've done --"
"That high a concentration could kill you, professor." Severus was mildly annoyed with her. She had kept him from a peaceful evening alone at his usual table here, and now she wasn't even going to accept the advice she claimed to want so desperately. "You are just like every other Muggle born I have ever met," he snarled, with rare unchecked feeling. "And what's worse, you're a Gryffindor. People like you never listen. I knew a girl like you once, who never knew what was good for her: a Potter from the day we were sorted."
"Potter?" Hermione sputtered, though he obviously wasn't about to stop.
"All you Muggle born are the same, headstrong fools," he continued, banging the table with the palm of his hand. "never stopping to consider the consequences of your actions." He leaned back in his chair and took a long sip of the coffee the waitress had just brought him. Hermione was sitting, her lips parted in shock, her hot coffee burning her fingers unnoticed.
"Shut you mouth, you silly girl --"
"Why do you have to be so mean all the time?" she demanded suddenly, her voice far louder than she had intended.
"I would call myself many despicable things, professor, but mean would not be among them." His voice was far calmer now, and soft, almost as if his rail against the Muggle born had not happened.
"You are so!" Hermione continued, sounding very much like a little girl, even to her own ears. "Don't you remember how you treated Harry?"
"I do not recall ever being mean to that disruptive, cheeky, attention seeker."
She should have defended him, but she somehow didn't feel up to it. "Or me? Don't you remember making fun of my teeth?"
"You deserved it." There it was again - that hint of amusement.
"So you do remember!"
His black eyes glittered behind his curtain of hair. "I'm still not going over your calculations."
Hermione was furious. She had not raised her voice to anyone in years, but her temper got the best of her. "What is it you want to hear?" she shrieked. No-one so much as looked up: even Severus seemed unsurprised by her outburst. "That I got married to feel accepted, and cheated on my husband to feel wanted? That I never should have pretended I felt more than friendship for either of them? That I fucked up, and now I've lost my two best friends, and torn them apart from each other as well? That I ran away to Hogwarts to escape what I had done? Is that what you want?"
She leaned over the table, her hair falling into her eyes and blowing as her breath came in gasps, winded from such an emotional outburst.
Severus' fit of sadism had passed, drained away like a hot bath. The fury in Hermione's eyes has roused him in the strangest way: he even felt . sorry for her. How odd.
"We will try the potion your way this evening. I myself have been trying to uncover a more stable way to apparate, one that could be used by everyone. I have always preferred the subtle science and exact art of potions to spells and wands."
She was still panting, half of rage and half of astonishment. Had he just agreed to do what she wanted? More than she wanted? She took a deep breath and a sip of coffee, never once dropping his gaze. "The real beauty is the simmering cauldron and its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins."
"Indeed, Hermione." He had used her given name only once before. It felt strange to say, sounded strange with his voice, like an invasion of carefully protected privacy, but not unwelcome. He liked saying it, he thought, before he could stop himself. He was still leaning back in the chair, knees apart. He could smell her perfume, stale in this late evening: it was a Muggle scent he had only ever smelled on her. "You paid attention in my classes."
"I memorized my notes."
He looked at her for a long time, not saying a word. Unbidden, the thought came to him that she had gotten pretty since she had left her days as a student. "There is a power to the creation of potions," he said, idly swirling the dregs of his coffee in the cup. He leaned on the last consonants of his words, lingering too long as if top make them last. "The ability to enchant, to entangle human minds; to bend and remold, to blend, to witness the merging of two benign fluids as they become one, powerful potion that can alter the world, the changing of two colors into a third ."
Severus' words had moved something within her, like his words earlier that day, creating an image in her mind she would have blocked out. She felt herself drawn to him in a way she couldn't explain, didn't want to be. And yet as he spoke, she could feel the power he possessed, the sheer brilliance of the man before her.
She realized belatedly that he had locked his eyes into hers once again as he spoke. They glittered without the malevolence she had always seen there, but something else, something she didn't recognize. Their gaze was broken at long last by the return of the waitress, who poured Severus another cup. Avoiding his eyes, Hermione watched the steam twist to the ceiling. She saw him sip at it, thought it must have been too hot. He had barely touched it before he muttered:
"Tonight, in your office, where we can be alone and unobserved, we will try your new potion, Miss Granger."
"Hermione," she corrected.
"Hermione," he parroted, low in his rich register, almost ferally, as he reached for the bill on the table and drew out a few Galleons from his robes to pay for it.
"I am perfectly capable," Hermione snapped, snatching the parchment from him. "I do not rely on anyone to support me, thank you."
She pulled out her purse and sorted through for her Galleons among the Muggle coins and bills she had stuffed into it. As she did so, it occurred to her just where it was she would be apparating to tonight.
Hermione had not spoken to Professor Snape in several days, not since the breakfast conversation about cornstarch. She was glad, too, because it had left her feeling remarkably odd, as if she had just read only the middle chapter of a book. But she had at last begun to play around with the powders, and she had high hopes for the compound.
She had realized that her best chance would be to consult a wizard more experienced with potions than she was, which meant she would have to find him. She had last period off, but as luck would have it, he did not. She wandered down into the dungeon, where he had kept his own office though Potions had moved.
"I believe it is customary to knock before entering, Miss Granger," he said without looking up. "But as you are already in, sit down."
The class consisted of Ravenclaws and Slytherins, who were, of course, sniggering at Severus' comment against her. Obviously, they enjoyed his cruelty as much as he did. She found a chair in the back of the room and tried to pretend she was not there. It felt too much like her own school days for comfort.
"As we discussed yesterday," Severus said, abruptly. His voice was soft but deadly, and the entire class went silent. He hadn't even looked up from whatever he was writing, but each student was staring straight at him, waiting to hear what he had to say. "Death Eaters are the followers of Voldemort. Mr. Palmer, name two unique qualities of the Death Eaters."
"They bear the Dark Mark," the boy mumbled, uncertainly. "And they . they . I don't know, sir," he finally said to his parchment.
"I see," he growled. "One point from Ravenclaw. Miss Haverflash?"
"They are entirely subject to the will of their lord," she said, with a little too much relish. Hermione was shocked that Severus was able to speak so frankly about a topic so close to home: he himself had once been one of them.
"Excellent," Severus said, nodding. "Death Eaters are indeed forced to obey their master, there is no question. When they walked free, Voldemort was able to call them to him though the Dark Mark that each of them bears still today."
"Are they able to administer the Kiss of Death?" Watching Severus pace before the blackboard, Hemrione had not seen who had asked the question.
"No, you dim-witted boy," he snarled, as if the question was a personal insult. Severus had stopped his pacing. "I should take points from your house simply for your stupidity. Never mistake Death Eaters for Dementors."
"What is the Kiss?" asked a Ravenclaw.
"The Kiss of Death," Severus pronounced, his voice a bit louder than usual. "Is the final act performed by a Dementor upon a prisoner, in which the soul is slowly sucked from the body. The Dementor places its foul lips on its prisoner, and draws forth the trembling spirit in the purest form, leaving the body behind, its face more often than nor twisted with sheer horror and the deepest pain imaginable. The Kiss is worse than death, for the soul is forever forfeit. As the soul is drawn out, slowly, by the mouth of the Dementor, the victim writhes like a ring of smoke moved by a breath, and then is eternally still, though his breathing may be heard for seconds afterward, ragged and raw. It is more painful than Crucio, more deadly than Avada Kedavra, and I have seen it done."
Severus' eyes were distant, as if he had stopped teaching and was, for an instant, actually watching the Kiss be administered. Hermione felt she needed a shower: not for the actual image of death he had created, but for the image she had seen in her mind of quite a different experience. Something in the roughness of Severus' voice, the way he described the Kiss, had been disturbingly arousing, and Hermione had to cover her eyes with her hands to get the images of writhing bodies out of her mind.
This is Snape, she screamed inside her mind. And he is describing the deaths of thousands of prisoners - deaths he has watched, even helped along .
The echo of his voice was pierced by that of one Emilia King. "Why would anyone join them, if that's their fate?"
"Voldemort," Snape answered quickly, as if he had already heard the question in his mind before she had asked it. "Offers much. He offers the deepest desire of your heart, and for many this promise is enough."
The classroom was silent: even the Slytherins had stopped whispering among themselves to stare at the professor, who had barely moved since he had finished speaking. What Hermione could not help but notice, however, was that his eyes had settled upon her. The air in the classroom was suddenly stifling, threatening to choke her with embarrassment. She fought a shiver and decided her request could wait until dinner, and slipped out the door and into the cool, calming air of the Hogwarts dungeons.
It was there that she stood and tried to calm herself, pressing the backs of her hands to her cheeks. She heard the class begin to talk amongst themselves again: she had time to think that she ought to get going before a dark shadow emerged from the classroom.
"Professor," Snape said, in his characteristic soft voice. "A word." She turned around to face at him and knew her cheeks had suddenly gotten quite pink again. He was not looking at her, and his hands were twitching, well, nervously. "I am . sorry if I have offended you. I have seen much Dark Magic --"
"You didn't offend me, Severus," she interrupted, noticing only after she had said it that she had used his given name. She hesitated a moment, wondering if he had noticed, too, but he seemed not to, or at least not to mind. "I guess I just wasn't feeling well enough."
He nodded, and swept back into his classroom.
How odd.
Hermione walked back to her office in silence, thinking about what she had just seen and heard. And felt. Severus Snape's words had stirred feelings in her she had not felt since her divorce - both because she lacked the two men she had ever loved, and because she had pushed away any inclination to avoid a relapse. Yet there she had been, listening to - to a former teacher, a colleague, with her mind wandering to places it had no place going.
Not only that, but he had actually followed her out to the corridor to apologize: to actually apologize, not just "pay a debt." This was very nearly too much to take in. She walked toward her office, dodging children on their way back to their houses before dinner, ignoring the noise of the hallway as she tried to get her mind around what had just happened.
"Minerva," she said, coming out of her daze at the sight of her friend and mentor. "The strangest thing just happened to me."
Minerva seemed remarkably nonplussed. Bored, almost. She shrugged, and said, "Mr. Boyd has been returned to his original form, and everything he ate is being tended to by Professor Sprout --"
Hermione shook her head vehemently. "Severus just apologized to me. I sat in on his class, but I had to leave early. He thought he had offended me, somehow, and he followed me and apologized," she said, the words spilling out too quickly.
Now, Minerva looked interested, even confused. "But Albus hasn't spoken to him in over week."
"What does Professor Dumbledore have to do with this?"
"It was he who suggested Severus speak to you after he . made you cry."
"He didn't make me cry," Hemrione argued, rather unconvincingly.
"But Severus did this entirely on his own," Minerva continued. "How exceedingly strange. That's not like him. Oh, he's a good man, Hermione, don't think otherwise," she said, seeing Hermione's expression. "But if you will excuse me."
Without waiting for an answer, she swept away, her emerald green robes flowing behind her, revealing a long plaid skirt. Too many strange things were happening, including Minerva's behavior, and Hermione helped herself to two Muggle aspirins as soon as she got to her office.
She sat in her office, then, fiddling with the pig's toe and cornstarch. She had worked it out first mathematically, doing the calculations over and over on paper and in her head. She had tried in a small scale, but not with enough powder to determine if it was effective. Really, she was waiting impatiently for dinner, so she could ask Severus to go over her calculations with her: despite his odd behavior of late, he was the only person she trusted to check her work. As she sat, quietly playing with the powders in her pestle, she heard the hooting of an owl.
Above her, swooping in the open window, was Hedwig. She would have recognized that owl anywhere from the many years they had lived together. "Harry?" she whispered, choking on the word. She felt tears pricking at her eyes with the sudden thought of him.
Hedwig settled on Hermione's desk, hooting happily. She nipped her finger affectionately: Hermione wondered if Harry had explained why she wasn't coming home. As she opened the letter tied to Hedwig's leg, she found it was written in Harry's handwriting, which made Hermione wipe away tears. The stationary was one she had given him for Christmas several years ago, cream colored with 'HP' watermarked in one corner.
Setting the letter aside so as to delay the moment, the moment she read his words, heard tem in her mind. She gave Hedwig a treat, hoping she would stay for a little while. It was dated that morning, Friday the third. He had addressed it with her full name, Hermione, instead of the nickname he usually used for her. That alone drew a little sob from her. She ran her fingers over the words as she read them, feeling the grooves of his favorite quill: she recognized the heaviness he wrote with when he used it.
"The Ministry is having trouble determining your assets, since nearly all of what you own isn't magical. They asked me to have you come and help figure it out as soon as possible. I told them it was the school year, but they insisted I write. I hope you are well. Take care and see you soon, I suppose. Harry."
Not even a closing pleasantry. Hermione supposed she could leave for a weekend without being missed too much: she would speak to Dumbledore that night. For now, however, she locked her door, put her head down on her desk, and let herself cry until dinner.
A few hours and several redness removing charms later, Hermione went down to dinner. She was late: even Severus was there already. She snuck over to him and crouched behind his chair. "Professor?"
"Why on earth are you sneaking about, Miss Granger?" he barked, without looking at her.
Her first impulse was to run away. He still frightened her, no matter what she tried to tell herself, and she was embarrassed by her thoughts of earlier. "I need your help," she muttered. And then she forced herself to say his given name. "Severus, please."
He set down his flatware with an audible clink and turned to look at her. "What do you want, Professor?"
"Check my calculations. I think I've figured it out." She hoped he knew what she meant.
There was a long pause before he manages to force an answer past his lips. Even then, his words came out in a rush, a snap flood. "Your office, tonight, eight o'clock. Now sit down."
He arrived at her office at an alarmingly punctual eight o'clock, with his wand in his hand and a scowl on his face. "If I am to be subject to your demands," he growled. "I request we do this someplace with better coffee."
Too (pleasantly) surprised to argue, she allowed him to apparate them both to the pub in Hogsmead. She had not been here since graduation, with Harry and Ron, for one last Butterbeer before the Hogwarts Express took them back to London and reality. The floor was sticky and the air thick with ale - just as she remembered. There was a wizard leaning against the bar, talking to a witch in red robes and too much eye makeup, and a group of witches at one booth who were talking and laughing far too loudly. She could smell the scent of coffee making its way though the smoky barroom.
Severus stormed over to an empty table in the corner - it seemed to have been waiting for him. People scattered from his path as he moved. She would have, too: he was an intimidating figure in black, like the angel of death on a firstborn, still brandishing his wand and holding it a little too tightly. She realized that he was waiting impatiently for her beside the table, and she walked up to meet him. No-one got out of her way, however: she must have looked as submissive as she felt.
Severus pulled out the chair for her and tucked it beneath her as she sat. She couldn't remember the last time a man had done that for her. He ordered for her, too: a raspberry cappuccino, which made her wonder how he knew that was what she wanted.
"The coffee here is bearable, unlike that at Hogwarts," he said, more to himself, she felt, than to her. While the waitress was gone, she pulled out the cards she had in her pocket. They contained the ratio of cornstarch to pig's toe, as well as all her work. "I'm not going over them," he snapped, without looking at her. "The correct ratio is 4:5:1. Anything else is far too volatile to be of use."
"The correct ratio is 3:5:1. It's far more effective. If you would look at what I've done --"
"That high a concentration could kill you, professor." Severus was mildly annoyed with her. She had kept him from a peaceful evening alone at his usual table here, and now she wasn't even going to accept the advice she claimed to want so desperately. "You are just like every other Muggle born I have ever met," he snarled, with rare unchecked feeling. "And what's worse, you're a Gryffindor. People like you never listen. I knew a girl like you once, who never knew what was good for her: a Potter from the day we were sorted."
"Potter?" Hermione sputtered, though he obviously wasn't about to stop.
"All you Muggle born are the same, headstrong fools," he continued, banging the table with the palm of his hand. "never stopping to consider the consequences of your actions." He leaned back in his chair and took a long sip of the coffee the waitress had just brought him. Hermione was sitting, her lips parted in shock, her hot coffee burning her fingers unnoticed.
"Shut you mouth, you silly girl --"
"Why do you have to be so mean all the time?" she demanded suddenly, her voice far louder than she had intended.
"I would call myself many despicable things, professor, but mean would not be among them." His voice was far calmer now, and soft, almost as if his rail against the Muggle born had not happened.
"You are so!" Hermione continued, sounding very much like a little girl, even to her own ears. "Don't you remember how you treated Harry?"
"I do not recall ever being mean to that disruptive, cheeky, attention seeker."
She should have defended him, but she somehow didn't feel up to it. "Or me? Don't you remember making fun of my teeth?"
"You deserved it." There it was again - that hint of amusement.
"So you do remember!"
His black eyes glittered behind his curtain of hair. "I'm still not going over your calculations."
Hermione was furious. She had not raised her voice to anyone in years, but her temper got the best of her. "What is it you want to hear?" she shrieked. No-one so much as looked up: even Severus seemed unsurprised by her outburst. "That I got married to feel accepted, and cheated on my husband to feel wanted? That I never should have pretended I felt more than friendship for either of them? That I fucked up, and now I've lost my two best friends, and torn them apart from each other as well? That I ran away to Hogwarts to escape what I had done? Is that what you want?"
She leaned over the table, her hair falling into her eyes and blowing as her breath came in gasps, winded from such an emotional outburst.
Severus' fit of sadism had passed, drained away like a hot bath. The fury in Hermione's eyes has roused him in the strangest way: he even felt . sorry for her. How odd.
"We will try the potion your way this evening. I myself have been trying to uncover a more stable way to apparate, one that could be used by everyone. I have always preferred the subtle science and exact art of potions to spells and wands."
She was still panting, half of rage and half of astonishment. Had he just agreed to do what she wanted? More than she wanted? She took a deep breath and a sip of coffee, never once dropping his gaze. "The real beauty is the simmering cauldron and its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins."
"Indeed, Hermione." He had used her given name only once before. It felt strange to say, sounded strange with his voice, like an invasion of carefully protected privacy, but not unwelcome. He liked saying it, he thought, before he could stop himself. He was still leaning back in the chair, knees apart. He could smell her perfume, stale in this late evening: it was a Muggle scent he had only ever smelled on her. "You paid attention in my classes."
"I memorized my notes."
He looked at her for a long time, not saying a word. Unbidden, the thought came to him that she had gotten pretty since she had left her days as a student. "There is a power to the creation of potions," he said, idly swirling the dregs of his coffee in the cup. He leaned on the last consonants of his words, lingering too long as if top make them last. "The ability to enchant, to entangle human minds; to bend and remold, to blend, to witness the merging of two benign fluids as they become one, powerful potion that can alter the world, the changing of two colors into a third ."
Severus' words had moved something within her, like his words earlier that day, creating an image in her mind she would have blocked out. She felt herself drawn to him in a way she couldn't explain, didn't want to be. And yet as he spoke, she could feel the power he possessed, the sheer brilliance of the man before her.
She realized belatedly that he had locked his eyes into hers once again as he spoke. They glittered without the malevolence she had always seen there, but something else, something she didn't recognize. Their gaze was broken at long last by the return of the waitress, who poured Severus another cup. Avoiding his eyes, Hermione watched the steam twist to the ceiling. She saw him sip at it, thought it must have been too hot. He had barely touched it before he muttered:
"Tonight, in your office, where we can be alone and unobserved, we will try your new potion, Miss Granger."
"Hermione," she corrected.
"Hermione," he parroted, low in his rich register, almost ferally, as he reached for the bill on the table and drew out a few Galleons from his robes to pay for it.
"I am perfectly capable," Hermione snapped, snatching the parchment from him. "I do not rely on anyone to support me, thank you."
She pulled out her purse and sorted through for her Galleons among the Muggle coins and bills she had stuffed into it. As she did so, it occurred to her just where it was she would be apparating to tonight.