Chapter 10: Best laid plans
Sunday morning dawned bright and early, not a hint of cloud in the sky, unlike the heavy clouds of tension and negative feeling hanging over the halls of Hogwarts. England seemed to be enjoying an Indian Summer, which of course was no guarantee that the English were enjoying anything. In fact this glorious Sunday, none of our protagonists are very happy - neither Hermione Granger in her room, nor Harry Potter in the kitchens, and not surprisingly Severus Snape in his office.
All have been awake since before dawn, and the nameless dread that settles in the darkness of night, when the world is silent and empty, had yet to lift from any of the three. However a small stream of delight flowed through the castle with the early-morning sunbeams. Unfortunately it was not as pure as the rays of sun which sped it along, as it was malicious glee belonging to none other than Draco Malfoy. He had been awoken by an owl at the room of his window, delivering a private note. Private because it bore the dark mark on its seal. And after reading it he had begun to plan.
* * *
The cause of Hermione's unhappiness was fairly trivial this morning, when compared to the ordeals she had endured the past few days.
Preparing to skip breakfast and head down to Severus's rooms for an early start - she knew he would be awake - she had remembered to grab the promised copy of Wuthering Heights. Which was the cause of her current distress.
She knew Severus was a proud man, and suddenly began to wonder whether he would consider the Heathcliff parallels (although she had not mentioned them, he was undoubtedly intelligent enough to notice them) offensive. She didn't want to give him any cause to push her away, because she knew that he would certainly try to. A man with a death-wish doesn't like to make emotional attachments.
Which left her with a dilemma - back out and pretend she had forgotten or hand it over? The former option lacked merit because he would sense something was up, that she was lying, and it also galled her, as in seven years she had never forgotten a single item she needed for his lesson. The latter offered almost unrivalled potential for insult and ultimately rejection.
It was quite a dilemma.
And it was particularly upsetting because she had walked away from Potter on a power-induced high, and had returned to her room without feeling the need to dissolve into tears. True she had locked her door securely and slept with her wand under her pillow, but those were precautions she would now take for the rest of her life, and weren't such a bad idea anyway.
Even when she had come down of her trip, she was still left with that residual feeling of confidence and surety. For a person who had always been so fiercely independent and in control of her surroundings, the past few days of self-doubt and insecurity had been awful to endure.
She had so nearly got firmly on the road back to The Way Things Were, only to loose her footing over a book. It was crushing.
But she wasn't going to cry again.
* * *
Snape for his part was sitting in his office working himself into as near a frenzy as a man who has spent all his life suppressing emotion to the darkest recesses of his mind could. That was to say that he was fidgeting in his chair, rubbing his hands together, then interlacing his fingers together, then steepling them under his chin, and so on in a ceaseless display of fluid motion. He was suppressing the urge to pace, to lash out, to attack simply anything and everything.
He didn't pride himself on self-restraint without cause.
For his part the cause of his anxiety was also trivial, had he only known it, as it was the same as Hermione's. Since Saturday morning when she had responded to an invitation to be in his company rather than his command, he had maintained a continuous link to her emotions. He told himself it was necessary to monitor her welfare, however in truth he knew it was because he wanted to possess her mind, body and soul.
But pale reflections of her emotions, reduced and dimmed over distance, was all he could allow himself. It was barely enough.
However, at this moment he was torturing himself with what terrible events could be causing the feelings of indecision, fear, anger, sadness and humiliation currently welling up in Hermione. What was Potter doing or saying to her to make her feel this way?
More importantly, what could he do to help her? Had he pushed her too hard, too early into something she was not yet ready for? Was this his fault? Surely she hadn't been foolish enough to talk to Potter alone? But seclusion was necessary for what needed to be a very private talk.
And so his thoughts rolled on, until he felt Hermione's emotions suddenly lurch. It usually indicated she was moving, focused on not feeling but thinking, suppressing what emotional turmoil was going on inside her head to get on with her daily life.
And in a way the silence was worse.
When he had just convinced himself that her emotional blackout was the result of the situation she found herself in being just too terrible to register, and jumped to his feet to find and save her, Hermione walked through his classroom door.
Snape leapt up and hurried to his office door, managing to get out "are you alright, Hermione?" as he stepped out of the door.
Hermione simply felt confused as she said "Of course."
In what seemed like a heartbeat he had crossed the distance between them and was holding her with one hand on her shoulder and one hand tilting her chin up so she had to look at his face. Despite his proximity and what could have been a very restraining hold on her, she felt no fear, only the concern flowing of him, concern for her.
"Are you sure?" he asked softly. She simply nodded.
"I felt your fear just now, and I thought . . ." for the first time in a very long while, words simply failed him.
He released her chin, and she let her head drop. As she leaned forward into his embrace he put his other arm softly around her shoulder. It seemed an eternity since she had felt so safe, so protected.
"I'm so glad you're safe." He whispered into her hair, followed by a gentle kiss to the top of her head, so light it could have been imagined.
Suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that he actually cared about her, perhaps even loved her, she grasped the front of his robes with both hands and began to weep. She let her legs collapse out from under her, trusting that he would hold her, and she cried, until they ended up as a tangled heap on his classroom floor.
As she wept Snape merely pulled her closer, sensing that to push her away from him now would be a grave mistake. It didn't matter that she was a student, virtually sitting in his lap, or that he, as a teacher, had his arms around her and his face resting in her hair, with the classroom door wide open. All that mattered right now was that she needed him.
She didn't need him as a commodity, or a convenience, or to be used or manipulated then disguarded, she needed him as another person. As someone she could lean on, trust in, and not be judged by. It was a long time since he had been required, or rather felt compelled, to give comfort to another human being. And he had forgotten just how wonderful it felt to be needed.
Enveloped in this parody of a lover's embrace, brought about by an act as far from love as was possible to imagine, Snape began to drift away to dreams of the world that might have been, if only . . . Carried by the sweet smell of patchouli in her hair and the warmth of her body he let himself imagine what could possibly be, but never would or should come to pass.
Words of reassurance and love formed on his lips - he wanted to tell her that he would protect her, that he would never let any harm come to her again, that everything would be alright, that she'd never need shed another tear, that he would love her for all eternity, and she never need be afraid again. But he knew those absolute promises were not in his power to make and keep.
So he said nothing, and kept the sweet nothings inside of himself, and simply rocked her gently from side to side, like a little child until her sobs began to subside.
* * *
Down in the kitchens, Harry was eating an early breakfast as the house elves scurried round preparing the four tables for the Sunday morning breakfast that would begin in a little over two hours. He had been sitting in the common room when the House notices for the day had been delivered by a Hogwarts owl. This was common practice to save the teachers work running after students when they were all so busy. Prefects checked the notices and handed the individually addressed ones to their recipients before or at breakfast, and general notices were displayed and pointed out in the common room.
However when the common room was empty, there was nothing to stop Harry checking the notices out of curiosity, which was how he came to find that there was a notice addressed solely to him amongst the bundle.
Opening it curiously his heart missed a beat when he noted it was from Dumbledore. When he read it properly and realised Dumbledore wanted to see him in his office at 10am, he forgot to breathe. This looked bad, despite what Hermione had told him last night, for Harry knew full well that Dumbledore was aware of a great deal of what went on in his school, without needing to be told.
Harry had figured out due to an incident in the sixth year that Dumbledore wasn't infallible, and that when he didn't know he just gave a good mysterious twinkle and winged it. Yet mysterious-find-out-as-I-go-but- clueless and mysterious-didn't-think-I'd-know-that-and-don't-ask-how-i-do- omniscent were so similar in the twinkliness that he could never really be sure.
All he could do was run over his responses, alibis, and remind himself of Hermione's assurance that she had reported nothing to him, and that if he actually knew and intended him to punish him, he would have been dragged of by now.
He was only sure of two things right now.
The first was that there was nothing to do right now but stay out of the way, and show up on time. And brood until then.
The second was that he wasn't letting them throw him out without a fight. This was his home.
He took a casual sip of his morning tea, and sat back.
* * *
Back in the dungeon, Hermione's sobs had finally slowed and her breathing returned to normal. She had cried not for the pain she had felt, but for what she had lost, the innocence, the security, the certainty, the safe haven and the simple view of the world where good won over evil.
She was still holding the paperback that had caused the outburst initially in her hand, and Snape had to prise it from her fist. Looking at his prize, he chuckled softly, the vibrations running through her body, before muttering,
"I see you've brought my homework."
She just sniffed and buried her face in his robes a little further.
He lifted her slight frame easily and set her on her feet, brushing the hair out of her face, but leaving her to straighten her own robes. He extricated himself carefully from his grip, and led her by the hand into his office, and sat her down. He realised she was still shaking, so moved away to pour a glass of calming potion. He always kept a supply in his office, not that children had a habit of going into hysterics in his presence, but should it ever occur he wanted them to end as soon as possible.
Only adding a few drops to water, he handed her the glass and watched as she drank it without even asking what was in the glass.
Once the potion had taken its effect a little she leaned back in the chair and said with a half smile,
"Only calming potion has that distinctive yellow colour and smell of attar."
Snape smiled back, his lip curling in his habitual teaching sneer. "And veneno funus. Its smell is often listed as roses, but that is a misnomer for attar."
"Isn't a detail like that important? I mean, shouldn't they make sure it right?"
"One would think so, but perhaps we share a different worldview to the . . . rest of the world."
"Probably."
"Veneno funus is undetectable one hour after death, so it is a highly illegal poison. This means that very few accredited authors/researchers are allowed to do any research on it, so accurate details are hard to come by."
"Then how are you so well informed?"
"I have a vial, enough for one dose, locked in my rooms. For personal use, were I able."
"Oh, here we go again."
"We did have a deal. I intend to hold you to it."
"I agreed to alleviate your suffering if you helped me get my life back. Does collapsing into tears on your floor look like you help up your end of the deal?"
She was remarkably laid back through this bartering over his life, but then that just showed that he brewed a good calming potion. Just then her stomach growled.
"You should head up to breakfast. Get changed, if I'm not mistaken, those are yesterday's clothes, and come back in a bit. We'll carry on then."
"I refuse to kill you, and you send me away. Slytherins truly are perverse."
She had a wry smile on her face, her head cocked to one side, giving her a rather indolent look, relaxed but intent on him.
"And Gryffindors truly are arrogant. I'm sending you away because you smell."
She made a small noise half way between indignation and disbelief.
"Miss Granger," he continued in mock seriousness, "you should learn that no insult is below my level. Now go."
She went. Grinning. But she went.
In fact, between the calming potion and the knowledge of just how deeply Severus Snape cared for her, she was deliriously happy. Relaxed and satisfied, she walked lightly, which was how she came to collide head on with Draco Malfoy, his goons at his elbows.
"Well," he drawled, "if it isn't a mudblood where she doesn't belong. What's going on here, Granger?"
"Go to hell Malfoy," she spat, more intimidated than she cared to let on.
Malfoy moved a step closer. "On my way, mudblood, but not for a good while yet. What's wrong, am I spoiling your afterglow? Now you've tasted the pleasures of the flesh, you'll have whoever'd take you? Is Snape really that desperate? Desperate enough to fuck the mudblood Gryffindor whore that the worst enemy of his Master had first? Can't make for good sex, you know desperation."
Another step closer. Almost touching her now. Inside she was screaming with fear, pleading to any deity that could hear that this was too unfair, howling for Severus to come and save her.
"Y'know, I'm always available,"
"Not interested." The calming potion was imposing an artificial calm on her manner and features, not allowing any of her inner turmoil to come out. And her equilibrium really seemed to be irking Malfoy.
At a flick of his finger, Crabbe and Goyle moved to each side of her, and Malfoy had pushed her back against the wall of the corridor, when a harsh voice sounded;
"Let her go or die."
No-one who heard it doubted the seriousness of that voice. The three Slytherins moved away to reveal Snape standing there, wand drawn, a look of homicidal fury written in ever line of his face.
"Go." He commanded, and they went.
"Are you alright?" he asked much more softly, pocketing his wand. "What were they up to?"
"I think Malfoy's father must have put him up to testing me and my reactions. It's the support we need for out theory that's totally objective." Thinking was much better than thinking.
Snape nodded, looking at her like she was going to collapse, or cry, or run. So she smiled and told him, "I'm not making your mistake. I'm not going to give them my life in any way shape or form. But I would like it if you walked me back to the tower."
He gave his assent with a nod, and offered her his arm. As they walked, it became obvious that he had cast an invisibility charm around them, because no-one even looked at Hogwart's most hated professor walking arm in arm with Hogwart's brightest star, both smiling.
He stopped just before the portrait hole and murmured, "I'll wait by the corner there. Take as long as you like."
Hermione nodded her thanks, and walked into the tower.
* * *
Harry paused at the stone gargoyle to give the password ('aniseed balls') and stepped on the moving staircase that took him up to the waiting room outside Dumbledore's office. Immediately the door to the circular office opened, and the Headmaster's voice called him in.
"Ah, Harry," he said welcomingly, and pointed to a chair. "we haven't had a chat in ages. How are things?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He was perfectly aware that Dumbledore's demeanour could change at any moment, and that he wasn't safe until he made it out of the room. Not even then. But it was a good start to the conversation.
"As good as they can be when the resident megalomaniac has a hit list with you at the top of it."
"Yes well, but otherwise?"
"Fine, Quidditch and NEWTs are keeping me busy."
"I see. Well there might be one more item to add to that list in the future, if you were willing?"
"Don't see why not." Anything that kept him out of Hermione's way was good in his book.
"You are aware of Professor Snape's role as a double agent, yes, of course you are. Well he has been requested by Voldemort to give you an initiation to the Dark Arts, for purposes yet unknown. We think he is planning something major, something involving these lessons for you. To gain more information, we need to play along. Voldemort had no way of verifying what goes on in the lessons, but he can tell if you have them.
"So what I plan is to set up the lessons, and have Professor Snape instruct you in some more obscure methods of defence, to give Voldemort the impression that Professor Snape is following instructions. With your agreement of course."
"Sounds like it could be interesting."
"Good I'm glad you see it that way. I know the two of you have your differences, but we all have to make sacrifices to get along."
Harry just nodded.
"Well I expect you have Quidditch practice or some such thing."
"Yes, I do."
"Then don't let an old man hold you up."
"Good day, Headmaster." With which words Harry got up and left.
Dumbledore stared after him with a worried look on his face. The boy was relieved to be going, which meant he had something to hide, and his manner had been withdrawn, indicating he hid it out of guilt and fear of discovery.
He didn't know what it was, but he had an idea. Severus had not divulged the identity of Miss Granger's attacker, apparently she had refused to tell him a name, but Dumbledore was sure that Snape knew.
And now Dumbledore had a feeling he knew too, and he didn't like the conclusions that feeling led to.
He didn't like them at all.
* * *
Snape waited patiently for half an hour for Hermione to emerge once again from the Gryffindor tower. He escorted her back to his rooms where they began working on their theories and research again after a proper breakfast.
It was to be the start of a pattern of co-working that was to settle over them in the weeks to come, work that looked as if it was going to be highly fruitful.
And it was only that evening after Hermione had gone, if the feeling of her in the room had not, that Snape realised what had happened today.
Instead of pushing her away as he intended, dissuading her from loving him, he had pulled her closer to him, and lost the last vestiges of his reserve in the process. From here on in, they were inexorably linked.
He smiled as he felt her emotions free-fall into sleep. When men make plans, the gods just laugh.
A/N:
Okay - veneno funus means literally 'force death by poison'
The 'when men make plans, the gods just laugh' is a quote from somewhere, but I can't remember. If you know, let me know too. It's bugging me.
Prepare for a rather large time jump (2-3 months) next chapter - tardis at the ready then . . .
And to 'Unstable' thanks for the review - you are the reason that I'm updating at 1.30 am, oh yeah, and I'm an insomniac. But write more anyway . . . as for plot, I've read lots of other HG/SS fics and wanted to do something different.
If you want really different, though, check out Voldemort being defeated by a kick to the balls in Geena's 'A Perfect Match'. It was surreal for me!!
Lol - Photis.
Sunday morning dawned bright and early, not a hint of cloud in the sky, unlike the heavy clouds of tension and negative feeling hanging over the halls of Hogwarts. England seemed to be enjoying an Indian Summer, which of course was no guarantee that the English were enjoying anything. In fact this glorious Sunday, none of our protagonists are very happy - neither Hermione Granger in her room, nor Harry Potter in the kitchens, and not surprisingly Severus Snape in his office.
All have been awake since before dawn, and the nameless dread that settles in the darkness of night, when the world is silent and empty, had yet to lift from any of the three. However a small stream of delight flowed through the castle with the early-morning sunbeams. Unfortunately it was not as pure as the rays of sun which sped it along, as it was malicious glee belonging to none other than Draco Malfoy. He had been awoken by an owl at the room of his window, delivering a private note. Private because it bore the dark mark on its seal. And after reading it he had begun to plan.
* * *
The cause of Hermione's unhappiness was fairly trivial this morning, when compared to the ordeals she had endured the past few days.
Preparing to skip breakfast and head down to Severus's rooms for an early start - she knew he would be awake - she had remembered to grab the promised copy of Wuthering Heights. Which was the cause of her current distress.
She knew Severus was a proud man, and suddenly began to wonder whether he would consider the Heathcliff parallels (although she had not mentioned them, he was undoubtedly intelligent enough to notice them) offensive. She didn't want to give him any cause to push her away, because she knew that he would certainly try to. A man with a death-wish doesn't like to make emotional attachments.
Which left her with a dilemma - back out and pretend she had forgotten or hand it over? The former option lacked merit because he would sense something was up, that she was lying, and it also galled her, as in seven years she had never forgotten a single item she needed for his lesson. The latter offered almost unrivalled potential for insult and ultimately rejection.
It was quite a dilemma.
And it was particularly upsetting because she had walked away from Potter on a power-induced high, and had returned to her room without feeling the need to dissolve into tears. True she had locked her door securely and slept with her wand under her pillow, but those were precautions she would now take for the rest of her life, and weren't such a bad idea anyway.
Even when she had come down of her trip, she was still left with that residual feeling of confidence and surety. For a person who had always been so fiercely independent and in control of her surroundings, the past few days of self-doubt and insecurity had been awful to endure.
She had so nearly got firmly on the road back to The Way Things Were, only to loose her footing over a book. It was crushing.
But she wasn't going to cry again.
* * *
Snape for his part was sitting in his office working himself into as near a frenzy as a man who has spent all his life suppressing emotion to the darkest recesses of his mind could. That was to say that he was fidgeting in his chair, rubbing his hands together, then interlacing his fingers together, then steepling them under his chin, and so on in a ceaseless display of fluid motion. He was suppressing the urge to pace, to lash out, to attack simply anything and everything.
He didn't pride himself on self-restraint without cause.
For his part the cause of his anxiety was also trivial, had he only known it, as it was the same as Hermione's. Since Saturday morning when she had responded to an invitation to be in his company rather than his command, he had maintained a continuous link to her emotions. He told himself it was necessary to monitor her welfare, however in truth he knew it was because he wanted to possess her mind, body and soul.
But pale reflections of her emotions, reduced and dimmed over distance, was all he could allow himself. It was barely enough.
However, at this moment he was torturing himself with what terrible events could be causing the feelings of indecision, fear, anger, sadness and humiliation currently welling up in Hermione. What was Potter doing or saying to her to make her feel this way?
More importantly, what could he do to help her? Had he pushed her too hard, too early into something she was not yet ready for? Was this his fault? Surely she hadn't been foolish enough to talk to Potter alone? But seclusion was necessary for what needed to be a very private talk.
And so his thoughts rolled on, until he felt Hermione's emotions suddenly lurch. It usually indicated she was moving, focused on not feeling but thinking, suppressing what emotional turmoil was going on inside her head to get on with her daily life.
And in a way the silence was worse.
When he had just convinced himself that her emotional blackout was the result of the situation she found herself in being just too terrible to register, and jumped to his feet to find and save her, Hermione walked through his classroom door.
Snape leapt up and hurried to his office door, managing to get out "are you alright, Hermione?" as he stepped out of the door.
Hermione simply felt confused as she said "Of course."
In what seemed like a heartbeat he had crossed the distance between them and was holding her with one hand on her shoulder and one hand tilting her chin up so she had to look at his face. Despite his proximity and what could have been a very restraining hold on her, she felt no fear, only the concern flowing of him, concern for her.
"Are you sure?" he asked softly. She simply nodded.
"I felt your fear just now, and I thought . . ." for the first time in a very long while, words simply failed him.
He released her chin, and she let her head drop. As she leaned forward into his embrace he put his other arm softly around her shoulder. It seemed an eternity since she had felt so safe, so protected.
"I'm so glad you're safe." He whispered into her hair, followed by a gentle kiss to the top of her head, so light it could have been imagined.
Suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that he actually cared about her, perhaps even loved her, she grasped the front of his robes with both hands and began to weep. She let her legs collapse out from under her, trusting that he would hold her, and she cried, until they ended up as a tangled heap on his classroom floor.
As she wept Snape merely pulled her closer, sensing that to push her away from him now would be a grave mistake. It didn't matter that she was a student, virtually sitting in his lap, or that he, as a teacher, had his arms around her and his face resting in her hair, with the classroom door wide open. All that mattered right now was that she needed him.
She didn't need him as a commodity, or a convenience, or to be used or manipulated then disguarded, she needed him as another person. As someone she could lean on, trust in, and not be judged by. It was a long time since he had been required, or rather felt compelled, to give comfort to another human being. And he had forgotten just how wonderful it felt to be needed.
Enveloped in this parody of a lover's embrace, brought about by an act as far from love as was possible to imagine, Snape began to drift away to dreams of the world that might have been, if only . . . Carried by the sweet smell of patchouli in her hair and the warmth of her body he let himself imagine what could possibly be, but never would or should come to pass.
Words of reassurance and love formed on his lips - he wanted to tell her that he would protect her, that he would never let any harm come to her again, that everything would be alright, that she'd never need shed another tear, that he would love her for all eternity, and she never need be afraid again. But he knew those absolute promises were not in his power to make and keep.
So he said nothing, and kept the sweet nothings inside of himself, and simply rocked her gently from side to side, like a little child until her sobs began to subside.
* * *
Down in the kitchens, Harry was eating an early breakfast as the house elves scurried round preparing the four tables for the Sunday morning breakfast that would begin in a little over two hours. He had been sitting in the common room when the House notices for the day had been delivered by a Hogwarts owl. This was common practice to save the teachers work running after students when they were all so busy. Prefects checked the notices and handed the individually addressed ones to their recipients before or at breakfast, and general notices were displayed and pointed out in the common room.
However when the common room was empty, there was nothing to stop Harry checking the notices out of curiosity, which was how he came to find that there was a notice addressed solely to him amongst the bundle.
Opening it curiously his heart missed a beat when he noted it was from Dumbledore. When he read it properly and realised Dumbledore wanted to see him in his office at 10am, he forgot to breathe. This looked bad, despite what Hermione had told him last night, for Harry knew full well that Dumbledore was aware of a great deal of what went on in his school, without needing to be told.
Harry had figured out due to an incident in the sixth year that Dumbledore wasn't infallible, and that when he didn't know he just gave a good mysterious twinkle and winged it. Yet mysterious-find-out-as-I-go-but- clueless and mysterious-didn't-think-I'd-know-that-and-don't-ask-how-i-do- omniscent were so similar in the twinkliness that he could never really be sure.
All he could do was run over his responses, alibis, and remind himself of Hermione's assurance that she had reported nothing to him, and that if he actually knew and intended him to punish him, he would have been dragged of by now.
He was only sure of two things right now.
The first was that there was nothing to do right now but stay out of the way, and show up on time. And brood until then.
The second was that he wasn't letting them throw him out without a fight. This was his home.
He took a casual sip of his morning tea, and sat back.
* * *
Back in the dungeon, Hermione's sobs had finally slowed and her breathing returned to normal. She had cried not for the pain she had felt, but for what she had lost, the innocence, the security, the certainty, the safe haven and the simple view of the world where good won over evil.
She was still holding the paperback that had caused the outburst initially in her hand, and Snape had to prise it from her fist. Looking at his prize, he chuckled softly, the vibrations running through her body, before muttering,
"I see you've brought my homework."
She just sniffed and buried her face in his robes a little further.
He lifted her slight frame easily and set her on her feet, brushing the hair out of her face, but leaving her to straighten her own robes. He extricated himself carefully from his grip, and led her by the hand into his office, and sat her down. He realised she was still shaking, so moved away to pour a glass of calming potion. He always kept a supply in his office, not that children had a habit of going into hysterics in his presence, but should it ever occur he wanted them to end as soon as possible.
Only adding a few drops to water, he handed her the glass and watched as she drank it without even asking what was in the glass.
Once the potion had taken its effect a little she leaned back in the chair and said with a half smile,
"Only calming potion has that distinctive yellow colour and smell of attar."
Snape smiled back, his lip curling in his habitual teaching sneer. "And veneno funus. Its smell is often listed as roses, but that is a misnomer for attar."
"Isn't a detail like that important? I mean, shouldn't they make sure it right?"
"One would think so, but perhaps we share a different worldview to the . . . rest of the world."
"Probably."
"Veneno funus is undetectable one hour after death, so it is a highly illegal poison. This means that very few accredited authors/researchers are allowed to do any research on it, so accurate details are hard to come by."
"Then how are you so well informed?"
"I have a vial, enough for one dose, locked in my rooms. For personal use, were I able."
"Oh, here we go again."
"We did have a deal. I intend to hold you to it."
"I agreed to alleviate your suffering if you helped me get my life back. Does collapsing into tears on your floor look like you help up your end of the deal?"
She was remarkably laid back through this bartering over his life, but then that just showed that he brewed a good calming potion. Just then her stomach growled.
"You should head up to breakfast. Get changed, if I'm not mistaken, those are yesterday's clothes, and come back in a bit. We'll carry on then."
"I refuse to kill you, and you send me away. Slytherins truly are perverse."
She had a wry smile on her face, her head cocked to one side, giving her a rather indolent look, relaxed but intent on him.
"And Gryffindors truly are arrogant. I'm sending you away because you smell."
She made a small noise half way between indignation and disbelief.
"Miss Granger," he continued in mock seriousness, "you should learn that no insult is below my level. Now go."
She went. Grinning. But she went.
In fact, between the calming potion and the knowledge of just how deeply Severus Snape cared for her, she was deliriously happy. Relaxed and satisfied, she walked lightly, which was how she came to collide head on with Draco Malfoy, his goons at his elbows.
"Well," he drawled, "if it isn't a mudblood where she doesn't belong. What's going on here, Granger?"
"Go to hell Malfoy," she spat, more intimidated than she cared to let on.
Malfoy moved a step closer. "On my way, mudblood, but not for a good while yet. What's wrong, am I spoiling your afterglow? Now you've tasted the pleasures of the flesh, you'll have whoever'd take you? Is Snape really that desperate? Desperate enough to fuck the mudblood Gryffindor whore that the worst enemy of his Master had first? Can't make for good sex, you know desperation."
Another step closer. Almost touching her now. Inside she was screaming with fear, pleading to any deity that could hear that this was too unfair, howling for Severus to come and save her.
"Y'know, I'm always available,"
"Not interested." The calming potion was imposing an artificial calm on her manner and features, not allowing any of her inner turmoil to come out. And her equilibrium really seemed to be irking Malfoy.
At a flick of his finger, Crabbe and Goyle moved to each side of her, and Malfoy had pushed her back against the wall of the corridor, when a harsh voice sounded;
"Let her go or die."
No-one who heard it doubted the seriousness of that voice. The three Slytherins moved away to reveal Snape standing there, wand drawn, a look of homicidal fury written in ever line of his face.
"Go." He commanded, and they went.
"Are you alright?" he asked much more softly, pocketing his wand. "What were they up to?"
"I think Malfoy's father must have put him up to testing me and my reactions. It's the support we need for out theory that's totally objective." Thinking was much better than thinking.
Snape nodded, looking at her like she was going to collapse, or cry, or run. So she smiled and told him, "I'm not making your mistake. I'm not going to give them my life in any way shape or form. But I would like it if you walked me back to the tower."
He gave his assent with a nod, and offered her his arm. As they walked, it became obvious that he had cast an invisibility charm around them, because no-one even looked at Hogwart's most hated professor walking arm in arm with Hogwart's brightest star, both smiling.
He stopped just before the portrait hole and murmured, "I'll wait by the corner there. Take as long as you like."
Hermione nodded her thanks, and walked into the tower.
* * *
Harry paused at the stone gargoyle to give the password ('aniseed balls') and stepped on the moving staircase that took him up to the waiting room outside Dumbledore's office. Immediately the door to the circular office opened, and the Headmaster's voice called him in.
"Ah, Harry," he said welcomingly, and pointed to a chair. "we haven't had a chat in ages. How are things?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He was perfectly aware that Dumbledore's demeanour could change at any moment, and that he wasn't safe until he made it out of the room. Not even then. But it was a good start to the conversation.
"As good as they can be when the resident megalomaniac has a hit list with you at the top of it."
"Yes well, but otherwise?"
"Fine, Quidditch and NEWTs are keeping me busy."
"I see. Well there might be one more item to add to that list in the future, if you were willing?"
"Don't see why not." Anything that kept him out of Hermione's way was good in his book.
"You are aware of Professor Snape's role as a double agent, yes, of course you are. Well he has been requested by Voldemort to give you an initiation to the Dark Arts, for purposes yet unknown. We think he is planning something major, something involving these lessons for you. To gain more information, we need to play along. Voldemort had no way of verifying what goes on in the lessons, but he can tell if you have them.
"So what I plan is to set up the lessons, and have Professor Snape instruct you in some more obscure methods of defence, to give Voldemort the impression that Professor Snape is following instructions. With your agreement of course."
"Sounds like it could be interesting."
"Good I'm glad you see it that way. I know the two of you have your differences, but we all have to make sacrifices to get along."
Harry just nodded.
"Well I expect you have Quidditch practice or some such thing."
"Yes, I do."
"Then don't let an old man hold you up."
"Good day, Headmaster." With which words Harry got up and left.
Dumbledore stared after him with a worried look on his face. The boy was relieved to be going, which meant he had something to hide, and his manner had been withdrawn, indicating he hid it out of guilt and fear of discovery.
He didn't know what it was, but he had an idea. Severus had not divulged the identity of Miss Granger's attacker, apparently she had refused to tell him a name, but Dumbledore was sure that Snape knew.
And now Dumbledore had a feeling he knew too, and he didn't like the conclusions that feeling led to.
He didn't like them at all.
* * *
Snape waited patiently for half an hour for Hermione to emerge once again from the Gryffindor tower. He escorted her back to his rooms where they began working on their theories and research again after a proper breakfast.
It was to be the start of a pattern of co-working that was to settle over them in the weeks to come, work that looked as if it was going to be highly fruitful.
And it was only that evening after Hermione had gone, if the feeling of her in the room had not, that Snape realised what had happened today.
Instead of pushing her away as he intended, dissuading her from loving him, he had pulled her closer to him, and lost the last vestiges of his reserve in the process. From here on in, they were inexorably linked.
He smiled as he felt her emotions free-fall into sleep. When men make plans, the gods just laugh.
A/N:
Okay - veneno funus means literally 'force death by poison'
The 'when men make plans, the gods just laugh' is a quote from somewhere, but I can't remember. If you know, let me know too. It's bugging me.
Prepare for a rather large time jump (2-3 months) next chapter - tardis at the ready then . . .
And to 'Unstable' thanks for the review - you are the reason that I'm updating at 1.30 am, oh yeah, and I'm an insomniac. But write more anyway . . . as for plot, I've read lots of other HG/SS fics and wanted to do something different.
If you want really different, though, check out Voldemort being defeated by a kick to the balls in Geena's 'A Perfect Match'. It was surreal for me!!
Lol - Photis.
