The Perfectionist
By Mykerinos
Chapter Eleven: Making up
Hermione sent an owl that afternoon.
"I'm not coming tonight." it said. It was scribbled a bit sloppy, since
she had still felt angry. Which was one of the reasons she wasn't coming
also.
The response came faster than she
had expected. A few minutes later, when she was on her way to the Great
Hall for dinner, she heard Snape's icy voice from behind her.
"What's this?"
Hermione turned to face him and saw
he was holding her message.
"I'm not coming," she answered simply,
suppressing the anger that welled up inside at the sight of him here.
"Don't be silly, I thought I was
very clear last night about making sacrifices," he said loudly.
"Yes, you were extremely clear,"
she agreed, "but I'm not coming,"
She saw he had difficulties controlling
his anger, and somewhere she found this very amusing. He probably wasn't
accustomed to students standing up against him. Smiling irritated him even
more, and he grabbed her arm firmly, and dragged her into a nearby class
room.
"We had an agreement," he said. "That
we'd practice every night. You can't just cancel,"
Hermione got pretty agitated now
as well. What was he thinking? "Well, I'm not coming." she said again.
"I'm sorry, but what part of it do you not understand?"
"Watch it, Granger, I might be your
partner in that contest, I'm still your teacher," he whispered dangerously.
"Oh, so you do realise we're partners?"
Hermione said, growing less scared of him with every second. "Because you
haven't really been treating me like one should treat a partner, have you?"
"What are you talking about?" Snape
asked in an annoyed tone.
"I'm talking about the fact that
you didn't even apologise for being so rude to me the other night!" Hermione
yelled. "That you didn't even thank me for saving your ass this noon!"
He gave her a weird look. "I'm not
going to beg--"
"For almost 7 years you've been my
teacher, and never, I repeat, never have you ever given any
sign of approval! I'm not asking you to beg, I'm asking for a bit of respect!"
Hermione crossed her arms and looked away, angrily.
The room fell silent again.
- -- - -- - -- -
Severus gritted his teeth. He realised
two things. The first thing was that if he didn't apologize right now,
the Granger girl would step out of the contest, Remus would win, and his
pride would be all ruined. He couldn't let that happen.
The second thing though, was that
if he did apologize, if he, Potions master and most-feared professor
of Hogwarts, would apologize to that Granger girl, a student, everybody
would find out, nobody would longer fear him, and his pride would be ruined
anyway.
That was a difficult choice, and
Severus felt his teeth ache as he gritted them even harder. He had seen
this coming, and he had tried to evade it by being stern, by scaring her,
but obviously he had crossed a line somewhere, which had turned the girl's
fear into anger.
He looked at her. She didn't look
very scared. Yelling at her and deducting more points probably wouldn't
help. Snorting would just make the situation worse. Oh Merlin. He was stuck.
He just stood there, thinking, when
Granger eventually gave an annoyed sigh, and walked to the door to leave.
"I really don't see what's so hard," she said.
Severus sighed also, and grabbed
her shoulder just in time. "Wait," he muttered. She looked up, surprised.
Perhaps she was right. She didn't
really look like someone who'd go blabbing so easily. In fact, he hadn't
heard one rumour about him since they had started training. She had never
tried to take pictures. Had never tried to embarrass him in any other way.
So why would she take advantage of this?
"I apologize," he said through clenched
teeth, "For offending you,"
A pair of brown eyes stared at him
expectantly. "And?"
"And thank you for helping me out.
Are you satisfied now?" he asked.
Suddenly the girl looked a bit brighter
again. "I am," she answered, and left the room, secretly smiling. "See
you tonight, professor!"
Severus gave a sigh.
TBC