"Good morning," Hermione Granger said as she sat down to breakfast with her best friends Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.
"You're too cheerful in the morning," Ron complained, yawning deeply into his plate of scrambled eggs and fried toast. He looked as though he had just woken up. There were pronounced bags under his eyes and his hair looked as though it had been severely tousled by a freak hurricane. "How can you be so awake when we had an astronomy exam last night? We were up there forever."
Hermione just shrugged and took a book out of her bag, figuring that a grumpy Ron and a Harry who had already fallen asleep, by the looks of it, wouldn't make the best company. She was proved correct as Ron ate the rest of his breakfast in silence and Neville Longbottom joined Harry in slumber land.
Hermione smiled secretly to herself, flipping quickly through the pages of the novel. There were times when a Time Turner, stolen back from McGonagall's desk, came in handy. The coast of the lake also proved to be a quite nice place to nap early in the morning.
Her classes, however, were driving her mad. She didn't see how it was possible that her seventh year would be easier than the rest, or how she would practically learn nothing if she didn't do the homework. Lessons usually ended up revolving around the Final Battle with Voldemort, which Harry, with an ever inflated ego of the likes that even Malfoy had never exhibited, had grown to call "a mere scuffle". Somewhat against her will, Hermione began to pour over books from the N.E.W.T.s recommended reading list, especially during class and particularly during the umpteenth, oh-so-embellished telling of Harry's last face-off with Tom Riddle. Harry had told her in secret that he was glad that his scar was gone. Hermione didn't believe him. Nor did she really care.
She had more important things to worry about. N.E.W.T.s, which were coming in less than a month, for one. Everything else, for another.
The only two that seemed to share her opinion on the hackneyed tale were, by no surprise, Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape. The remaining Slytherins at Hogwarts either were awed by Potter - a feat not deemed possible before the war - or just couldn't articulate anything otherwise. Even Goyle, Draco's only remaining sidekick, seemed to have developed a slight admiration for Harry.
Yes, Hermione loved him, but, to tell the truth, he had developed a nasty habit of grating on her nerves. She preferred it when he was back to his old self, the Harry he had been before Cedric died, or how he was currently: asleep.
She took a quick glance at her timetable and nudged Harry in the ribs. "Come on, you two." Ron snorted into the remains of his breakfast. "Charms is first class. Then we have double Potions after lunch."
They both groaned in unison.
Hermione just sniffed and shoved a frizzy curl behind her ear. "Potions is the only class I look forward to, anymore. At least we actually learn something."
The morning passed in a dull haze, exactly as Hermione had expected. She felt so brain-dead that she left lunch early and arrived in the dungeon fifteen minutes before class was to start, breathing a deep sigh of relief as she spotted the cauldrons set up on each table.
"Miss Granger."
Hermione jumped, startled. She hadn't even noticed that Snape was there. But there he was, sitting behind his desk with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at her over the severe hook of his nose.
"May I ask what you are doing in class so early?"
Hermione shrugged, feeling her face begin to burn. "I-I had nothing to do, Professor. I thought that I might get a start before the rest of the class came in."
"You thought incorrectly, then," he said immediately after she finished, almost interrupting her. "I will not have you finishing early in class and disrupting the other students."
"But, sir-"
"Yes, you will, Miss Granger." Hermione suddenly had the familiar thought that he could read minds. Which was actually true, but she would know if he was reading hers. It would be obvious. Wouldn't it? "Now please leave until lunch hour is over, and return with your classmates."
Hermione sighed and dipped her head. "Yes, sir." She began to walk toward the door, but stopped herself. "Professor…" she turned around and Snape looked up from his desk, the familiar sneer pasted across his face. His black eyes glittered in the torchlight and his features seemed to be soft and malicious at the same time. "Is something wrong? I would think you would be happy…after all that's happened."
"Everything takes time, Hermione," he said sullenly, turning away. "It is none of your business, anyway. I suggest that you leave now. I will see you in class."
She knew that he disliked her. He always had, and she was certain that he always would. Despite the fact that their brief stay at number 12 Grimmauld Place had brought them to familiar terms, it was still obvious that there was something about her that rubbed him the wrong way. He rarely called her Hermione, it had only been three or four times, now, and none of the occasions had been a happy one.
As she returned to the Great Hall she couldn't suppress the nagging feeling that something was wrong. However, the feeling vanished when the cold cordiality of the Potions classroom reappeared, and with it Snape's disregard for her want of good marks.
"Miss Granger, please stop doddling. You are falling behind. Perhaps I should have allowed you to start early just so you wouldn't keep me here an hour after everyone else has left."
"Miss Granger, would you please pay attention to the time. If you put one more ingredient in late again, I will be forced to fail you." With a sardonic smirk that twisted the corner of his mouth, "Much to my displeasure."
Each comment was barely a whisper on his passing, and each one caused her ears to redden and her focus to slip away from what he had suggested. Instead, she kept imagining throwing the cauldron at his head and watching happily as he screamed in pain and crumpled in a heap on the floor. Well, she thought. At least I'm learning…somewhat.
Snape gave his typical seventh year speech as the end of class approached: generally, how disappointed he was in their results and a threat to repeat the potion next class. Unknowingly, Hermione was mouthing along with his words, never missing a beat.
And he saw her.
"Miss Granger, stay after class. Everyone else may leave."
A few people sniggered as they walked past. Ron and Harry gave her puzzled expressions, and Ron threw her a note that said one word: "escape", but she just sat there as the rest of the students filed out and left her to her doom.
All too soon, the door shut and Hermione was left alone with Professor Snape in his classroom. He stood in front of her, towering above her seated position, with his shoulders drawn straight in a pride she thought he too often possessed. There was so thick of a silence that an infant's sigh would be audible, a whisper deafening.
When he spoke, his smooth voice was tangled with an anger that Hermione had heard much too often in her short time in his presence, and never heard used toward her.
"Do you find something amusing in the failure of your classmates, Miss Granger?"
Ice and venom. Hermione shivered, convinced that she could see her breath in the air, fading into the shadows of the classroom that so cleanly melted into Snape's dark figure.
"No, Professor," she said quietly, her eyes falling to her lap to gaze at her hands: so tightly woven together that the knuckles had been bleached white. Her thumbs stroked each other absently, trying to rub warmth into her skin where it was not possible. With who it was not possible.
"Then what possessed you to mock me, may I ask?" For some reason, she could not gather the courage to meet his eyes. Her hands were neither beautiful nor interesting, and the resentment in his pitch seemed to be something that would draw her gaze, not repel it. "The careless mouthing of my chagrin. Is it something I do to entertain, rather than ingrain an understanding in my students' minds?"
"No, sir." She swallowed. Her saliva tasted like a mixture of blood and bile. "I apologize. I did not mean to."
"Many of the worst things in life are done without the knowledge that one is doing them," he replied, turning around so she was safe to look up, eyes snagged in the linen of his robes rather than the trap of his ruthless eyes. She bit her tongue to hold back the accusation of his use of a false analogy. Mouthing his words mistakenly during class was incomparable to, say, accidentally causing the end of the world. Well, of course, the two might have been synonymous in his mind.
"This has gone too far," he continued, hands grasping each other behind his back. "I will not be mocked in my classroom, nor talked to by a student as if I were an acquaintance, a friend. Especially by a Gryffindor." He spat the word like a curse, and Hermione felt the hair bristle on the back of her neck as he turned back around. However, her eyes did not fall. "Careless disregard for the rules, inattention during class…should be enough."
Hermione swallowed convulsively. "Enough for what?"
"To expel you from my class."
Hermione shot to her feet, knocking one of her books to the floor. He cocked an eyebrow at her as if to say 'see what I mean?' but she ignored him. All the blood raced to her face, and she felt as if her body was alight with tortuous flames.
"What do you mean expel me from you class?" She picked the book up from the floor and threw it back on the table. It slid to the edge and tipped dangerously before settling back into a comfortable position on the tabletop.
"Exactly what I said, Miss Granger." A smirk had sprung to life on his face again, alighting it with his famous sadistic glow. His loathing for her was almost palpable. "Do you need me to define the words for you?"
"You can't do this!"
"I believe I can. It is my class and I can do what I please. And with the evidence I am given, I believe that I have more than the grounds to expel you completely from school, if not just from Potions."
He lifted his hand and Hermione stumbled back, stricken with disbelief. A thin silver chain was interwoven between his long, pale fingers, and dangling from the center was a tiny hourglass, the sand resting undisturbed on the bottom, and it gleamed dimly in the torchlight. Almost cheerfully, as though it wasn't aware of the scene around it, as though the hand that held it was still the soft, feminine one of Hermione Granger and not the spidery fingers of Severus Snape.
"Where-where did you get that?" Hermione asked, ashen-faced. Her bag, she had put it in her bag. She had been careless, just slipped it in there with her books and schoolwork. He wouldn't have found it unless he rummaged in there. Unless…
The book. He gazed at it thoughtfully before sliding it back to her across the table. She put it back in her rucksack, pretending that this wasn't really happening, pulling a charade in which she was not in trouble. The chain had slipped between the pages of her book, the one she had dropped and set on the table. He was right, she was being careless…
"If you leave this classroom…" Snape began the proposal like he was making a deal with the devil rather than a young, despondent woman. He leaned forward slightly, letting his shadow loom across her bushy-haired head. "Without complaining to anyone, including me, I will destroy your little secret and not share anything about it with Professors McGonagall or Dumbledore."
"But what about N.E.W.T.s…" Hermione asked, her voice choked. He stared at her with as much of a lack of sympathy as she thought possible, and fresh tears began to spring to her eyes.
"That's simple enough. You simply will not take it, and it will not harm your final scores. However, you will receive an incomplete for this class."
"But-"
He dangled the tiny charm, the Time Turner, over her head. He mocked her, and deliberately. "I would think that I am doing you a favor, really. I expect more gratitude than this."
She climbed to her feet and shoved everything she owned into her bag, not saying a word as silent tears spilled from her eyes. He had backed toward his desk, leaning against it casually with his feet crossed in front of him. She refused to meet his eyes.
"I won't come back," she said determinedly. Her voice had lost the edge, and the conviction in her tone was held back by a strangled sob. "I suppose you're happy to hear that."
"Not as much as you might think."
Hermione ignored his answer, determining it was best to not hear the words that she didn't understand. She flung her bag, which looked as if it was nearing its bursting point, over her shoulder and started for the door.
"Have a pleasant life, Miss Granger," he said quickly, passing the Time Turner between his fingers.
"You're a monster." The door slammed shut behind her and the torchlight flickered in her wake.
He was left there in the silence, alone with the putrid ghosts of botched potions mingling with the sour smell of rust. Snape tossed the hourglass on his desk and it rolled across the paper, tinkling lightly as it fell to the wooden surface and stopped as its chain caught on a discarded quill.
He let out a sigh and again entwined the silver in his fingers, drawing the bit of cold glass up into the hard warmth of his palm. "Yes, Hermione," he whispered, gazing at the keeper of time, an object so small that could change so much. That could save him from himself. "I know."
Phew.
Thanks to: StuntChini (Great! I'm glad I've attracted someone who's not an SS/HG fan, it's a hard thing to do without getting flames :)), Akasha Ravensong (:)), Kailin, krisleigh, xxGinnyxx, and Anarane Anwamane for reviewing.