Disclaimer : Dear Lord, it's been ten chapters. You already know I don't own any of this shiznit!!
SLYTHERIN BOYChapter Ten: In Your Element
Hermione sighed. The Gryffindor Common room was likely one of the most boring places that had ever existed. Unless, of course, you liked hours of conversation about Quidditch or watching random explosions from the students like the Weasley twins, who enjoyed blowing things up.
Hermione, liking neither of those things, left Harry and Ron, who were talking about the dynamics of the Wronski Feint and picked up her bag, heading towards the library.
Walking in, she saw Severus in the corner. (Snape in a Library. I should have suspected he spends his free time here.) Hermione thought. He was fiddling with something in his lap. As this thought crossed her mind a sudden dirty image jumped into her head. (Oh god.) She thought. (I'd expect that sort of thing from Ron. I had better keep my thoughts in check. Damn hormones,) she thought.
She walked over and sat down on the window seat he was in. "What are you doing?" she asked. He scowled at the camera in his hand.
"It's jammed," he said. "I already rewound the film, but I can't get the door open," he scowled again.
"Here, let me try," Hermione said. He handed the camera to her, and she examined it. It was a nice camera, it looked expensive. The real deal, like something a photographer would use. It had a small lens on it, but at his feet she saw a black plush bag with a few larger lenses peeking out.
"I had no idea you were into photography," Hermione murmured as she pulled out her wand.
"Don't spell it!" He said. "What are you doing?!" He snatched it back, holding it protectively. "You might break it!"
She smirked at him. "Wow, so Severus Snape actually has a safety blanket, then, does he?" she said.
"Shut up. It's not a safety blanket, it's not some stupid toy that a child would drag around because they're emotionally attached to it," He sneered at her. "It's an expensive piece of photography equipment! It's a tool and if you break it then I have nothing fun to do in my life anymore," he said.
"I don't believe I've ever heard you use the word fun before," Hermione grinned at him. He frowned. "I promise not to break it." She said finally. "I know what I'm doing. Trust me," she said.
He looked at her thoughtfully. "Fine." He narrowed his eyes and handed it to her. "If you break it, you are reimbursing me." He smirked. "With interest."
She shook her head at him. "Whatever." She said. She looked at the camera. It was sleek and black with a little electronic-like window and several buttons on it. She didn't have a clue how to work it. But, looking at the door, she could see that the button next to it was supposed to open it. She pushed it. Nothing happened. She pushed it again, harder. Still nothing.
"You think I didn't try that?" He shook his head at her. "What do you take me for? My intelligence level is slightly higher than Vincent and Gregory's, thank you very much." He said.
"Who?" she asked, blinking. He looked at her. "Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you catch my drift." He blinked. "I was under the impression that Potter's Posse was familiar with the two of them."
"Well, yeah. I've never heard anyone call them by their first names before, though. Everyone calls them Crabbe and Goyle." Hermione shrugged.
"Yeah, they don't like that. It makes them feel disrespected because people don't think they're good enough to use their given names. It's caused a sort of dislike of Draco before, but they'll never tell him that because they don't want to start a feud between their families, as Draco's father is quite powerful." He said. She blinked at him.
"Really?" she asked. "How do you know that?"
He looked at her. "I'm the head of their house," he said simply.
"So? McGonagall's our head of house but people don't, you know, tell her stuff." Hermione said.
"That's why currently Gryffindor is a waste of a house." He said. "That's one of the reasons I dislike Minerva McGonagall. She has no connection with you. You don't feel like she's on your side, and thus nobody will go to her for help or mediation. That's one of her job requirements that she doesn't fulfill. When Albus was head of Gryffindor house, he was fabulous. Students flocked to him for advice." He looked at the camera in her hands. "I thought you were going to fix that?" he asked.
Her attention jerked back to the camera in her hands. "Oh. Right." She said. She pulled out her wand. "Aperire," she said, pointing her wand at it. The door flipped open, revealing a round plastic container with a slot where the film had protruded before he had rewound it.
"Excellent," he said, taking the camera back from her. He pulled the film out, dropping it into the black bag at his feet. He reached in and uncapped a little plastic container and pulled out a new roll of film. She watched as he pulled the brown end of the film from the little round plastic tube and hooked it onto a peg on the inside of the camera before clipping the tube into a space on the other side. He closed the door. He picked up the camera and pointed it at her.
There was a mechanical whirr and she watched as the lens moved in a little bit. He stuck his hand out and turned the lens a little with his hand.
"Say cheese," he smirked. She smiled. "Colby Jack," she smirked. He clicked the button and she steadied her eyes against the flash, watching as the shudder inside the camera closed. There was a whirring sound momentarily, before it went silent again.
He put the camera down in his lap and looked at her. "Where'd you learn that spell?" he asked.
"Colin Creevey," She said. "He's the school photographer. He's very good, really. But before he got his new camera, he had this old piece of junk camera that was falling apart. The door wouldn't ever close, so he got some spellotape to keep it closed. Every time he wanted to open it again to get the film out he had to use that spell, because you can't just pick spellotape off of things. Then he'd end up taping it closed again after he put more film in." She smiled.
"Tough luck. He got a new one, though, you say?" He asked.
"Yeah. A real nice sleek one. It's like yours, only I think it's a lot older. He probably bought it second-hand. But it works for him." She said. "I had no idea you were into photography."
"Yes, well." He said. "It's just a hobby. Usually what I end up doing is…" he trailed off, apparently deciding that he didn't want to share.
"What do you end up doing?" She asked, suddenly curious.
"I like to paint," he said. "I like to take pictures of things and then paint them." His ears turned red. He looked embarrassed.
"Are you any good?" She asked, not failing to notice his sudden shyness about the subject.
"Oh, I don't know about that." He said. "It's just for fun."
"Could I see some?" She asked. He looked at her through the corner of his eyes. "I don't know," he said. "I've never showed anyone before."
"Well, if you don't want to show me the paintings could you show me some photographs?" she asked.
"They're not wizard photographs. They're muggle ones. They don't move," he said.
"I would still like to see them," she said. He frowned, apparently unsure.
She looked down, and something caught her eye. There was a zippered pouch on the side of the little black bag that the other camera lenses were in, and she could see the ends of a stack of photographs sticking out of it.
"Hey, there are some right there," She said, reaching down and yanking the pictures out.
"Don't!" He said. "Those are mine!" he looked angry, reaching out a hand as if to grab them back. She dodged his hand and looked at the stack. She was shocked to see the first photo was of herself.
"What?" She said. "Hey, this is me," she looked at him. He dropped his hand jadedly and looked embarrassed.
"Don't take that the wrong way," he said.
She looked at the photo again. "I don't remember having my picture taken. Especially by you, I think I would have recalled that," she said.
"I don't tell people when I'm taking their pictures. It ruins the moment. You were in your element. It was beautiful." He said, frowning at how sappy his words sounded. She looked at the picture again.
It was a very beautiful image. She was sitting at a library table, and there was a soft light from the lantern next to her. There were three or four open books sitting next to her, and she was holding a quill, writing on a slightly crumpled piece of parchment. He had somehow managed to get just her and the faint glow of the lamp in the image, everything outside of that was totally black.
Hermione looked up at him. "This is a fabulous photo," she said. His ears turned red. "No, it's not." He said.
She pulled her photo off the top of the stack and placed it on the seat in front of her, before turning to the next picture. She was surprised to see that it was Neville Longbottom.
He was surrounded by green foliage, apparently in the one corner of the greenhouse that was completely covered in plants. He had his hands in the rich earth and a tiny green sprout with a yellow bud on the end was in front of him. His hair was slightly mussed and there was a brown smear of earth on his cheekbone. He was wearing beige overalls and a blue t-shirt. Hermione was surprised to see that where there had been soft, puppy fat looking flesh on his arms when they were younger, there were now visible muscles. On further examination, she realized that Neville had, indeed, lost a lot of weight since their first year, and thinking on it, she realized it was probably from hauling dirt and fertilizers to the greenhouses, helping Sprout out with the manual labor required in a greenhouse. He had become fit beneath all their noses and they had never even noticed. The lighting in the picture was radically different than from in the picture of her, the sun was bright and the image was well lit. The sun seemed to catch in each leaf of foliage in the image, and giving it a green, gem-like appearance. It was Neville, as she had never seen him before. In his element.
She suddenly realized what Severus had meant when he had said t hat he had taken the picture of her when she was in her element. 'It was beautiful,'. He had said. Looking at Neville, she saw what he meant. To see someone in their element, to see them doing the one thing that made them truly happy. For her, it was learning, it was studying, it was grabbing as much knowledge as she could get. For Neville, it was working with plants, making things grow, seeing those green-gem plants every day and loving every moment of it.
And it was beautiful, indeed.
"You're right," she looked at Severus. He looked puzzled. "What?" he asked.
"It is beautiful." She smiled as his ears turned red again. "You're modest. I like that. And a few weeks ago, I would never have pegged you as a modest person," she grinned at his scowl.
She looked at the next image. The shock of white-blond hair alerted her immediately that it was Draco. She frowned, but looked closely at the image anyways. Draco was sitting in a chair, in what looked to be the library. It was a large, green plush armchair in front of a big bay window. He wasn't wearing shoes, and had his sock feet pulled up onto the chair. His arms were around his knees, hugging them to his chest. His chin was on his knees, and he had a strange melancholy look on his face as he stared out the window. She could swear that the light was catching in his eyes in a way that signaled tears about to roll over his eyelids.
Hermione looked at Severus. Then back at the image. Then back at Severus. He blinked. "Are you alright?" He asked, lifting a black eyebrow at her.
"Malfoy looks like he's about to burst into tears in this picture," she said. He leaned over to look at the photo.
"Oh, yeah, that. He'd just been talking to his father. He's still debating on whether to join the deatheaters or not. He doesn't want to, the prospect of it eats him up inside. But if he denies his father that, he'll be disowned from his family, if they don't kill him. You all assume that he's a deatheater already, but that's because he doesn't want news to reach his father that he isn't harassing the muggle borns. Not that he likes you three or anything. He does dislike you intensely. But I think that's mostly jealousy that you guys have it so much easier than him."
Hermione was surprised. She looked at Severus. "You think Malfoy has it harder than Harry?"
Severus blinked. "I don't think it. I know it. Sure, the Dark Lord is after Harry. The Dark Lord wants to kill Harry. But the Dark Lord is not Harry's father. And the only person who has ever pressured Harry to join the deatheaters was Voldemort, and that was only one time. Draco has been pressured his entire life to join a group he doesn't believe in. And he knows that he has two basic choices. Kill or be killed. He doesn't want innocent blood on his hands any more than you do. He doesn't want to be a murderer, but he doesn't want to die, either. The deatheaters don't approach people to join until they've graduated, but you can be earlier initiated if you go to them yourself. As such, they won't come for Draco until the night of his Graduation. I'm trying to convince Albus to offer Draco a post at Hogwarts so that he can reject the offer of them and still be safe by staying in Hogwarts. There's really no other safe place for someone who says 'no' to the dark lord to stay." Severus told her.
She nodded. Suddenly, there was the loud ringing of a bell. They both jumped.
"Lunch Time," she smiled. "You know, you could sit with us if you wanted to," she said. He lifted an eyebrow. "I don't know about that. Your friends are jocks. I've never had much patience with that." He said.
Hermione laughed. "Suit yourself, then. I know I'd be glad to hear something talked about other than Quidditch." She smirked.
He sneered. "Quidditch. I used to play Quidditch. Damn Quidditch. I couldn't stand Quidditch players even when I was one." He shook his head.
She was puzzled by his words, but before she could inquire, he had packed up his camera and walked off.
****
At Lunch, she sat down at her table. In a few minutes Snape walked over to the Slytherin table. She saw him glance her direction and they locked gazes for a moment before he sat down across the hall from them. She shrugged. Whatever.
She smiled as Neville sat down.
"You know what I've noticed recently, Nev?" She said. He looked at her, and Harry and Ron glanced over, curious.
"What?" Neville's Liverpool accent had faded a bit, being around so many different dialects for so long.
"You're looking really buff these days," she said, smiling at his shocked expression. Ron choked, spraying peas all over the table. Hermione laughed.
"Are you serious?" Neville said. Lavender and Parvati were looking at her as though she'd gone nuts.
"I'm serious," Hermione said. "It must be from all that work you do in the greenhouse. Apprenticing Sprout and everything. I bet she has you doing all the dirty work, like lugging around those huge fifty pound bags of soil," she said.
"Well, yeah. And manure and other fertilizers, of course. And when we get new plant shipments, I'm the one who has to break open all the boxes and everything. With a crowbar, I swear to god they must nail those things shut with a hundred nails, it takes forever. My whole body aches after that. And then there are times when we get really big plants, like the Hungarian Man-Eater or the Roxanne's Frogthroat. The Man-Eater was like ten feet tall. It tried to eat me about eight times while I was planting it. I was about to go get a shovel and beat it into submission. I finally got it to stop once I assured it of my dominance, though. And the Frogthroat was like fifteen feet tall; of course I was the one who had to plant it. Professor Sprout could if she wanted to, she just doesn't want to have to bother with such an ornery thing, and if you even look at it the wrong way it starts screaming at you. I think Trevor thought I had disowned him that week, but really I just wanted to be as far from amphibians as possible. That old thing has calmed down a lot, though. They take awhile to trust you, but once they do, there's not a more beautiful plant around. When it blossoms, it gets these huge violet flowers." He smiled at them. They were surprised.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had never known Neville all that well. Hermione tutored him in Potions and Harry and Ron shared a dorm with him, but they had never really become good friends with him. In fact, he didn't seem to be good friends with anyone. It was always just Neville and Trevor the Toad, and no one except Hermione had really noticed that he was in the greenhouses during ALL of his spare time.
But now that she had pointed out his newfound fitness, the other girls were looking. "Do you really have muscles under there, Nev?" Lavender asked. Neville blushed.
"Oh, I don't know about that." Neville shook his head. Hermione reached over and pushed his sleeve up. Though he was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt under his robes, they could see the outline of his muscles under his shirt.
"My god!" Parvati said. "You really have buffed up. I'm so surprised!" Hermione shot a lot at Parvati for her rude comment.
"You look fabulous, Neville," Ginny Weasley beamed at him. He blushed and stammered something, unused to having all this attention. Hermione grinned. Strange that Severus should notice something in his very least favorite student that said student's own friends had never even realized. Of course, then again, Severus always seemed to see things that others didn't. He'd known about Quirrell ahead of time, known that Lockhart was a moron ahead of time, Known that Lupin was a Werewolf, and had an obvious dislike for Mad-Eye Moody, who had ended up REALLY being Barty Crouch Jr., a convicted and supposed dead Deatheater.
Hermione realized she had never finished looking at the stack of photos. She would have to hunt Severus down and check the rest of them out. Maybe she could even get him to show her some of his paintings!
****
A/N: I know, I know, I'm evil and terrible and horrible for not updating sooner. I swear to god I sat down to write several times but nothing ever came out! Then I got this inspiration, so here you have it. Please enjoy! And PLEASE review!!!