Chapter Four: Awkwardness
or
'Enter the Yenta'
"Miss Granger?" Severus asked in surprise. Her lithe body had collided with and was now lying on top of his, not an unpleasant feeling in the slightest, except where their foreheads had bonked together. Quickly he put the growl back in his voice. "What are you doing out of your dormitory?" She leapt off of him as if electrocuted.
"Professor! I'm sorry, I didn't see-"
"Where you were going? That much is perfectly obvious. Why are you here?"
"I- I wasn't feeling well and I was going to-"
"Madam Pomfrey's?"
'Damn him anyway,' Hermione thought. The way he finished her sentences irritated her more than anything she could imagine. "Actually, she is away for the evening. Is the matter one you could describe to me? I take responsibility in her absence for the ailments of the students."
'I'm being nice?' Severus wondered at himself.
"No, sir, that's alright. I'll just go back to Gryffindor Tower if that's okay." A stray beam of light illuminated Hermione's small figure and Snape noticed she had sustained a few scratches in the fall when she crashed into him.
"Absolutely not, Miss Granger. I suggest you examine your left elbow and come with me."
"Oh. It's only a scratch, sir. I'll be okay."
"Not unless you permit me to clean it out. Are you aware of what sorts of bacteria dwell on a stone floor?" Nervously she seemed to tremble as she shook her head. Snape relished the growing horror in her face as he detailed the gruesome possibilities: "Considering that Hagrid takes the sick animals through this corridor to my office, I expect there's probably a few different strains of anichritis germs frisking about down there. You don't want your arm to turn into a paw, do you? Or perhaps chronic incandescence virus, that would be interesting, if moderately incurable, and of course there's always that mutated chancre carried on the paws of abridons-"
"Alright, sir!" The poor girl looked absolutely ashen.
"It would be more proper to thank me, Miss Granger. I could just let your hand rot off."
That was definitely a mistake. The poor sixth-year burst into frightened tears, probably caused just as much by exhaustion as by his provocation, judging by the circles under her eyes, but Severus still felt like he'd kicked a baby rabbit. Sighing deeply, he atempted to seem at least moderately humanable: "Come along. We'll get that patched in no time."
"Leave me alone!" she cried, running off down the hallway in the direction she had come. Severus, being rather taller, easily caught up just as she crashed into a suit of armor and began to cry again. "Go away!" she pleaded in a scared, wounded fury, brandishing the knight's heavy battle-axe.
"Neptunus!" Snape whispered under his breath. "Or what? You'll hit me with that fish?"
Hermione looked down at the weapon she held, only to discover it had transformed into the oiliest, thickest, most disgusting dead haddock she'd ever seen.
Whether from the shock of seeing the fish or from the smell, Snape would never know, because she merely fainted dead away. A rather remarkable curseword escaped his lips and he bent to pick up the unfortunate girl.
She was surprisingly light and her arm easily fell over his shoulder. Severus remembered to turn the haddock back into a battle-axe before he left, lest Mrs. Norris unwittingly feast on a Gothic weapon of the fourteenth century.
As hard as he tried to reflect on how unbearably Gryffindor it was of his pupil to go running around in the dark like that, Severus kept finding unwelcome thoughts creeping between his ears. Thoughts like 'her hair smells of strawberries' and 'I wonder how she lifted that battle-axe,' frolicked about like mice. She let out a tiny sigh as he adjusted his grip on her, and the soft little sound seemed uncomfortably close to his ear. He wouldn't have encountered another being in the halls for all the gold in Gringotts at that moment.
At last they reached his classroom, and from there his Spartan office. A second's glance proved there was noplace short of the desk where he could lay her down, and a table in the classroom would likely seem just a little bit on the arcane side if she woke up. Reluctantly Severus mumbled the password and stepped through the secret door in the back of the office that led to his private chambers. At last he could divest his shoulders of this know-it-all burden, though she really wasn't all that bad to carry, nice and warm against him and very soft-
He shook his head violently as if to send that unholy thought flying to the winds. Carefully, so as not to wake her and shock a year off her life, Severus laid Hermione gently down on the fat couch in front of his fireplace. It was then that he experienced one of the more horrific moments of his life.
She was hanging on to him.
Severus tried to disentangle the unconscious girl, but she whimpered in her sleep and actually clung tighter. Finally he gave up, relented, and sat down on the couch with her head leaning on his shoulder like a tiny child. Actually, it wasn't that bad with her asleep that way. Her notorious bushy hair was back in a ponytail for sleeping, her winter nightclothes more than satisfied the demands of modesty, and the confiding way she actually seemed to cuddle closer to him was strangely pleasurable. At that moment she wasn't thinking about how offensive he was in class, or about his past or appearance or anything else. Hermione was just obliviously comforted by his presence. After a few minutes he put aside the feelings about her behavior in class, her detestable pair of friends, and even the endearing way she bristled when he picked on Longbottom. As much as he was holding and comforting her, he was comforted by her unconscious trust. And she really did smell nice. Being a Potions master, Severus had a very fine-tuned sense of smell. Strawberries were also his favorite fruit.
A bit of her wild hair, having gone AWOL from her ponytail, brushed his face. Snape blew it away and immediately remembered who this girl in his arms was. Carefully he untangled her arms from his shoulders and put her gently down on the couch. Going to the cabinet by the bookshelf, he took out a few vials and one medium bottle of various potions. With the sort of detached, exact gentleness he used for helping Hagrid mend hurt or sick animals, Snape used a clean washcloth to apply the healing solution from the bottle to Hermione's arms where the scratches were.
It stung. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten that.
With a little cry like that of a surprised kitten, Hermione woke and looked up at him in shock. Just before she could make another sound, Severus pressed a finger lightly on her lips.
"Shh," he cautioned. "This particular solution is highly volatile. A loud enough noise could blow your arms off."
That was bullshit, of course, and she would probably realize that as soon as the shock wore off, but Snape really didn't want her to talk to him yet. He at least wanted to give the bushy-haired, statlingly leggy creature on his couch a moment to at least moderately compose herself. This was not so much out of kindness to girlish –no, womanly- dignity as it was to his own shredded nerves. All it would take was one terrified shriek from the Granger girl and Snape knew his already short temper would cause him to verbally wound his student beyond repair.
The mere fact that he was being this considerate, to use a Muggle phrase, scared the crap out of him.
Hermione's arm trembled. Severus remembered just how much that stuff stung, leaned over, and gently blew on it.
She looked him directly in the eyes then, and his heart easily changed rhythms. She wasn't afraid, just very surprised and –dare he imagine, a little pleased?
"Thank you, Professor Snape," she said quietly.
"'Allo, Sevvy!" a stridently cheerful voice called, just as the door was unceremoniously thrown open by Albus Dumbledore. "Dear me, Miss Granger! What's happened to your arm?"
"I fell in the dark and Professor Snape was helping me," Hermione glibly covered up the incriminating details. Severus was amazed at how quickly she was able to be calm again.
"That was good of you, Severus," Albus remarked, a mischievous grin making his blue eyes sparkle. "I have someone here for you to meet, actually, so why don't I walk Miss Granger up to Gryffindor Tower? Would that be alright with you, Hermione?"
"Of course, Professor Dumbledore."
"Severus, these are John and Cassandra Tyler, the dispatch from America."
"Of course," Snape replied, standing up and shaking hands with the red-haired man and his wife. It was actually fairly imperative that Hermione not realize these were two Aurors here, just as imperative that she not find out he was spying against Voldemort.
"You must be Professor Snape," Cass greeted amiably. "I've just finished your monograph on lacewing extract from 1993, found it most informative."
How was it that women accomplished that? In the space of a minute, both Hermione Granger and Cassandra Tyler had just been able to deceive without technically lying, expertly. Severus wondered how it was that females were so effortly deceptive. Spying was almost the hardest thing he'd ever done.
"And you'll be Hermione Granger, from the sixth-year class?" Cass inquired, shaking the student's hand. "Your paper on Animagi throughout the history of magic was one of the best dual-subject term theses I've seen since I got ahold of Minerva McGonagall's essay from the Daily Prophet essay contest in 1964."
"Thank you," Hermione gasped, surprised. Severus knew that student papers for the fifth year and above were archived, and it was common knowledge that they were only read by what students termed 'academic sticks-up-the-arse'. It was actually something of a humorous stereotype. In mentioning it, not only had the American insured that Hermione would not mention it to any other student for fear of being thought a braggart, but she had likely also convinced her she was merely an academic working with him on some potion or other. "Are you from the Col- I mean America?"
"Yep. Pittsburgh. John an' me are sort of adding this trip onto our honeymoon."
"How long have you been married?" Snape inquired.
"Almost nine months," John announced proudly, slipping his arm around his wife.
"Well, I'd better be getting back to my room. It was nice meeting the two of you."
"And lovely to meet you, too!" Cass replied just before kissing John again. Albus offered the Gryffindor girl his arm.
Just after Albus and Hermione left, Severus heard whispers and giggles out of the American newlyweds. He had turned away in mild disgust from their enthusiastic snogging, and now he was faced with mischievous grins.
"I understand you're from the American Aurory?"
"Yes, we're both forensic operatives. Now, the organization of the Death Eaters..."
After that, the Tylers were all business. Severus found them both to be incredibly intelligent, with Cass doing more of the talking and John devising more of the strategies. It seemed that Cass had actually studied more forensics and more formally, and John had more on-the-job experience, in addition to the fact that he had been born a werewolf and she had only been bitten about a year or so ago. It was the contrast of an Academy-educated operative and a tracker with years of teaching handed down from his family.
The fact that the Tylers were so obviously in love with each other it practically dripped off them wasn't nearly as nauseating as Severus usually found such things. It added an edge to their work, as they finished sentences for each other, working out problems with two minds instead of one. In three weeks he found out more of their history, how they had met at a rock concert, of all places, how John had saved Cassandra's life from the werewolf who had bitten her, and how they depended on each other for different things. Cass was Muggle-born, the daughter of a college professor, and the easy way she tolerated and even responded to Severus' sarcasm was infuriatingly refreshing after his students' cowering. John's family was almost nothing but werewolves, and he had grown up the second of four brothers, sons of a widower. Cass had to help him not only with details about the life habits of Muggles, but of females as well. They often leaned on each other when working, Cass reading softly aloud to John and he illustrating diagrams of ideas and maps from her words.
It was a little like watching his parents work had been.
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"She has a crush on him, maybe more."
"How d'you tell?"
"I just do."
"I think he fancies her as well."
"Fancies, m'love? Already you're talkin' like a Brit."
"So're you," John protested, kissing Cassandra. "Albus invited us to the Hogwarts Yule Ball next week."
"Shall we go?"
"Wasn't that what I was asking you?"
"Oh, of course. Do you want to?"
"You like to dance."
"That's right." Cass finished tying John's tie for him. "I guess we shall."
"You know what? I love you."
"I love you, too."
Five minutes later they turned into a pair of wolves.