The following chapter has the beginnings of a Snape/Hermione relationship. I'm not going to tell you if it blossoms, but I'm just warning you.
--Rune
Hermione made her way down to Professor Snape's office at ten minutes to five and for some reason she was extremely excited. But she didn't know what she was more excited about, the fact that she will be helping cure the Hogwart's staff of this mysterious spell or the fact that she'll be near him.
She approached his door and quickly tapped three times, just as she was instructed. Snape promptly opened the door and Hermione's heart flip-flopped. He was dressed in burgundy robes, quite out of the norm and his hair was jostled and still greasy and still in his face; Hermione really wanted to fix that.
"Good evening Miss Granger, I hope I am not keeping you from your studies but I really need your assistance in this process because, unfortunately, you are my best potions student." sniveled the former Death Eater. That comment didn't exactly compliment Hermione but she let it slide, after all she is a student.
"Well, I appreciate the opportunity and the, er, compliment, I think. Whatever is going on, I hope we can find out who is doing it and fix it before it becomes a bigger problem. Do you think classes should resume tomorrow?" Hermione followed up, unpacking the items she brought: three hairs, a piece of cloth and a spectacle-shaped piece of glass. "It was really hard getting this stuff without the respective teacher noticing, especially Professor Dumbledore, that's why I could only get a piece of his robe."
She looked up at Severus who had a disgusted look on his face. She realized that he felt she didn't fear him, on the contrary, she might actually…At that, Snape shrugged out of his trance and said, "Classes will go on as normal. We cannot let the rest of the staff aware of what we're up too. Bring the items over to this table so we can put them in the cauldron. By the way, your dreadful friends don't know you are here, do they?" He caught her off guard.
"They are not dreadful! And yes they do know I'm with you, they just don't know what we are doing." Hermione snapped back to the Potion Master's surprise and she almost felt she made a mistake by the look he gave her, but she was ready to stand her ground.
In an almost eerie calmness Snape told her never to disrespect him like that again or he would be forced to administer severe punishment. Hermione found that a little thrilling.
Hermione dragged her toe across the ground very child-like and apologized. Snape straightened his robes and walked over to the cauldron. Hermione was falling more in love with him every minute.