Man to … man?
Chapter 1
A/N: A song I heard on the radio this morning inspired this story. It is called "Man to Man" and is sung by Gary Allen. I'll include the lyrics at the end of the story. I expect the story to take three to five chapters to complete. It will also be SS/HG in that they are the two main characters, though we might not see any lemons here. The story is not really a song fic, but a recognition of the universal situation in the song.
Usually, I read the longer stories, so I appologize that this story will have such short chapters. It could be written as one longer chapter, but if I did that I would never post it. So the chapters will be shorter, but updated as frequently as my five month old will let me.
Disclaimer: I will say this once. My initials are not JKR. There. End of Story.
The door to the Potions classroom slammed home. And, for once, the surly Potions Master was not responsible. Severus Snape, the resident door slammer of Hogwarts, looked up from his pile of second year essays with a frown wondering who was insolent enough to be slamming his door.
What he saw was a young woman with long brown hair and flashing eyes dumping her unusually heavy school bag on the nearest table with shaking hands. She looked as if she could throw a cast of Unforgivables and burst into tears simultaneously. The incongruity worried him. As powerful as this particular witch was, he very rarely saw or heard of her losing control of her emotions, Draco Malfoy aside.
"Miss Granger. Is there some reason why you feel the need to test the mortar around that door?" His tone held an almost indefinable trace of humor in its sarcasm.
"I have found, Professor, that quickly shut doors tend to be a good deterrents to most humanoid demons." Hearing the snip in her voice, she turned to her Professor. He could see the mentally tally in her mind as she calculated his most likely response to her sardonic levity.
"Is that technique currently being taught in Defense?"
She quirked her head at him, barely allowing her smile to show. "No, Professor. That theory was formed on… personal… observation."
Severus wondered how often she had fought this particular 'humanoid demon' in researching this theory. "Hmmm. I imagine that you have a reason for coming down here now. You have nothing brewing, nor are you scheduled to be doing any for another week."
When she nodded, he noticed that her temper had mutated again to some form of calm fury. However, her eyes were still bright. "I know, Professor. I was hoping you would allow me to start one of my trials this evening."
Severus knew that, theoretically, her experiment was ready to commence, but he was concerned that in her current emotional she would not be able to keep her mind on her experiments.
"Your schedule will be kept to, Miss Granger. However," he looked down the nose that she used to think of as 'terribly hooked', which now, from the vantage point of several more years was now 'aquiline', "there are several potions that need to be prepared for tomorrows third year class. If you are still in need of a 'distraction' from your 'human demon'" and here he sneered at the thought of the – extremely – messy potions that were needed, "you may prepare the more, rudimentary, potions."
Hermione shrugged her shoulders. Right then anything, even preparing potions for the Potions Masters third years, would be better than being up in the Gryffindor common room with – him.
"That's fine." She followed his eyes to the potions ingredients laid out on the workbench. She sighed silently wondering when she would be calm enough to face the crowd back in Gryffindor. Right then, the coolness of the dungeons fitted her mood perfectly.
Professor Snape silently watched the girl over his grading as she went about her tasks. The thought of a goody-goody Gryffindor voluntarily spending time in the dungeons still made him uneasy, but she was different. She was precise, quick and, on nights like this, silent. If there was someone he had to have around, it was good they possessed that third quality.
Though, by the look on her face, he was glad that he was not the one she was directing her anger towards.
It was several hours later when he looked up from his grading and noticed that she had fallen asleep over a book while waiting for the last potion to finish brewing. He stood up, being careful to not scrape the chair across the floor stones. As he hovered over her, he could see her frowning even in her sleep and her eyes moving and twitching as they followed a dream. Clenching his jaw, he scooped her up in his arms, noticing that she was just a little heavier than she looked. The door to his office opened as he approached it. Somehow, it was aware that the Masters arms were occupied and that he could not be bothered with something as trivial as opening a door. Convenient that, when he had his hands full of ingredients or bottles. The door closed behind him as he stepped through.
He was just covering Hermione with a blanket when he heard his door slam open for the second time that evening.