It was the following potions class, and Hermione had maintained her distance from Harry and Draco for as long as she could. She even quickly chose Neville as her partner to avoid having to be near one of the two. Also, she acted as if she had never even spoken to the Potion's master about the unknown plot that had been forming that involved the two of them. 'If he wants to be an ass, let him be uninformed. No skin off my back!' She thought to herself as she made sure Neville didn't drop too many dungworms into the mix.

Today, Snape had them manipulating the sensitivity potions that they had been working on the past weeks. This week, they were to choose two senses and try to combine them. After going through the practical labs on this, they were then to manipulate the potions to different degrees of sensitivity for each sense. You could enhance your sense of taste and touch, but you could make the enhancement of touch more dominant than taste. She and Neville were combining sight and sound.

She planned to continue to spy on Harry and Draco (maybe this potion would help) and find out what was going on. Know the enemy. Become better prepared. Than make a plan and make sure that theirs backfires. It'd be even better if it backfired onto Snape a bit.

'Why him of all people?' She asked herself as Neville began to, first, stir the wrong way, and second, drop in a whole fig leaf instead of half of one that had been mixed with dragon's blood. Since she wasn't paying attention to her partner, (HERMIONE!! NOOOO!!!) she missed all this activity. Still thinking of Snape, the potion boiled over. This got her attention. Snape made his way over to the pair.

"Miss Granger, I suspect that with you as his partner, Mr Longbottom would keep from destroying yet another caldron this year." He hissed. After those words, both were distracted to the potion that was now looking like it would explode any minute. And BOY did it!!!

The potion fell on almost everyone in the room, and its effects remained completely oblivious to the students. Snape, however, knew exactly what was about to happen. Immediately upon feeling the potion on his skin, which didn't burn even though it had been over a fire the past half hour, he became aware of Hermione's thoughts and feelings. A few of the things that the Longbottom brat screwed up had turned the simple potion of manipulating many of the senses of the pairs choice (which must have been sight and sound from the smell of the ingredients) into a projection concoction.

The way that this particular potion worked was that upon contact with skin, it absorbed into the perception nerves in the brain and gave that person a temporary mind meld with the person they last thought of. He could immediately feel the inner workings of one Miss Hermione Granger. Hear her thoughts, and feel what she was feeling. And the scary part of it, he could tell that she was feeling his. 'Damn! So much for that fantasy tonight.' He thought, unable to catch himself before seeing her reaction.

She sat their wide-eyed, unable to say anything. The thing was, she knew exactly who was included in that fantasy. She blushed furiously. So did Neville, Snape noticed. 'Damn! Longbottom must have had his focus on me when the potion came into contact with his skin!'

Hermione noticed the change in focus in his mind, and turned towards Neville, who couldn't move if Voldemort himself were standing in front of him. She looked back up to Snape, and made sure her thoughts were loud and clear to him. 'That'll learn you to bully him!'

Snape glared at her for a moment, "You will all remain where you are. Miss Granger, Mr Longbottom, come to my office so that I can arrange your detention. The rest of you, get to work!" Unfortunately, there was no immediate cure. You had to wait for the nerve endings to shift back to normal. Snape used his wand to quickly clean up the mess. Usually he would have the students do it, but he didn't want to risk another mishap from a student at the moment.

They left the class; some students were looking back from Snape to Hermione. Looks like the two of them were not the only ones who could sense each other. Being the center of attention because of the explosion, many of the students were looking their way. Snape shut the office door. Looking at both students, although trying to keep his eye off of Hermione, he leaned against the door. He stalked to his desk. With a flick of his wand, the occupants were cleaned up. The three continued to look at each other; one with downright discomfort, one with absolute astonishment, and the final with flat-out fear (alliterations are always agonizingly arduous!!). Hermione was the first to break the silence.

"Sir, I don't think that we deserve a detention for what I was thinking. It's highly unfair. I cannot control my thoughts sometimes." Hermione said.

"Learn to do it, Granger. I have." Snape hissed.

"Ya. You gave me an excellent example of that a second ago." Hermione said, not caring that she was talking back to a teacher.

"10 points from Gryffindor. You will respect my authority!" Snape said, sounding very like a cartoon character that Hermione had seen on TV during the summer break. She tried to stifle a giggle, she really tried. Snape knew exactly what she was thinking, and therefore, so did Neville, who came out of his trance and almost giggled despite himself. 'Professor Snape. A cartoon! Hee hee hee!' He thought, but since neither Hermione nor Snape could hear him, they could only stare at him in confusion before realization took over.

"Stop your giggling this moment, Mr Longbottom. The situation is not funny!" Snape said. Neville stopped giggling, but he would have to ask Hermione about that cartoon once Snape could stop reading her mind.

"Miss Granger, why were you not paying attention to your simpleton partner? You usually enjoy displaying your vast knowledge using your Gryffindor facade to be charitable." Snape said.

"I was distracted." She said. But she thought, 'because I was thinking about the dare that Harry and Draco were performing, and I was distracted. I'm not going to say this out loud, even though I know that Neville and most of the class will know about it anyway whether I do or not.'

They heard a gasp come from the room next to them. Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing that the ones who gasped had heard any one of their thoughts. 'This was going to be a looong day.' He thought.

"How long do the effects last, sir?" Hermione asked.

"It could be as short as a few minutes, or as long as a few days, Miss Granger." He said, suddenly wanting to fling himself from the astronomy tower. "Depending on the strength of the potion, and depending on the exposure to it. Luckily, the effects will not last much longer with the rest of the class, but the three of us, the exposure was, I'm afraid to say, much larger." He replied.

Hermione let go a breath that she wasn't aware of holding, and looked back at him.

There was a few moments of tense silence. Both herself and Neville couldn't hold it back anymore.

"Damn!" They drawled together.



A/N: So now, Hermione can read Snape's thoughts. Snape can read Hermione's. NEVILLE CAN READ SNAPE'S THOUGHTS!!!!!!

Now what about Draco and Harry? This may add a bit a fuel to the fire. Will it aid them in their quest?

For those of you who are not familiar with the cartoon. . .it was South Park. The line, I believe, was from the episode where the 10-year-old Cartman took over as a police guy. I think. I'm not sure.

Sorry 'bout the long wait. Been working a lot. Vacation? Maybe later.

Moira McDuff: Cats and Dogs? Hmmm. Don't give me ideas. It could prove dangerous.