Hermione was weighed down with bags, suitcases, and her cat's cage, but Snape made no move to relieve her of her load. He just remarked that she should have performed a shrinking charm, when she told him that she had. He just rolled his eyes and still refused to help.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she dropped her bags on the thickly carpeted floor of his private quarters, looking around with mild interest. The living room was rather unremarkable, dressed in black, gray, and dark green, with only a few sofas and a marble fireplace to make it seem livable.
She was slightly disappointed; she had not expected the rooms of the most mysterious person at Hogwarts to be so…bland. Fortunately, the Manor sounded a bit more promising, even if the name did have a depressing ring to it.
For a warm summer day at the end of June, the room made it feel as if it was the middle of winter. She absently wished that she had worn a jacket, while the Professor looked quite warm (and smug) in his traditional school robes with a black cape tied around his shoulders.
"Are you ready to go, Miss Granger?" Snape asked, taking a silver chalice off of the mantle of the fireplace and holding it toward her.
She took a handful of Floo Powder and looked at him expectantly. "Actually, no, I think I forgot something."
Severus looked at her bags with an uplifted brow. "Surely you're joking."
"Actually, yes." She swirled the dust around in her palm. "So, tell me where we're going again, just so I don't end up on a different side of the country from you."
Snape let out a sigh that immediately pricked at Hermione's nerves. "Reynold house, the home of my groundskeeper. We'll take a carriage from there. There's no Floo access into my house, and it is warded against Apparation. All in safety, of course. "
"Of course," Hermione grumbled, slinging her bags up to the crooks of her arms once again and wondering if she would be able to fit into the fireplace. "You have no idea how much I hate to ask, but would you mind taking Crookshanks's cage? I don't want to drop him."
Snape stabbed a thumb in the carrier's direction, bemused. "I suppose you mean that thing. What's its name, did you say? Crookshanks?"
"Yes, and please do take him. He wouldn't be very happy with me if I dropped him at the grate of some random home."
The corner of Snape's lip twitched downward, and Hermione suppressed the want to ask him if he had some sort of facial spasm. Her lower back was beginning to ache terribly, and the fire that had been lit had warmed her quickly past comfortable to over-heated.
"Really, I thought he'd be thrilled to escape his owner." Snape overcame his obvious reluctance and took the carrier from her hand, holding it out in front of him as if it was a soiled diaper.
"He's not diseased, Professor."
"And you can prove this to me…how?"
Hermione let out a frustrated sigh. "Okay, I'm going. If you don't show up in two minutes, I'm coming back and hexing you."
"Hold your tongue, girl. I'm doing you a favor."
"So you keep telling me." With another reluctant groan, Hermione tossed the Floo Powder into the fireplace and the flames leapt up, burning an emerald green. They licked the corners of the marble, resembling squirming snakes trying to slither up from the fire to the mantelpiece and touch the marble with forked tongues. Little black beads of empty space glistened at the top of each flame, resembling two bleak eyes. Severus must have made the Powder himself.
"Reynold house," She said clearly, tasting a dusting of ash as she stepped into the fireplace. The flames tickled at her feet and robes for a second and she tucked her elbows into her body, trying to flatten her bags into herself. Things could be hellish if she got snagged on anything.
A feeling of queasiness wormed into her stomach as she felt herself spinning past Floo grates and different houses, catching single syllables of conversation and gathering views of hundreds of different colors of stone and brick. As soon as she stumbled out of the fireplace and into the living room of the Reynold house, she dropped her bags to the wooden floor and fell to her knees, clutching her stomach and trying to breath deeply.
Hermione dipped her head beneath her knees and inhaled, trying to steady the swirls of color that raced in front of her eyes and the tiny demons that tugged at the lining of her stomach. She finally decided that Floo was definitely not her favorite way to travel, and she might have preferred Splinching.
A stiff pressure on her shoulder jolted her back to her surroundings, and she heard an irritated hiss from her poor cat as Severus simply dropped the carrier on the ground next to her kneeled form. He neither inquired on if she was all right nor did he give her a hand to help her to her feet. He might be a teacher, Hermione thought, and a Slytherin, but there was no reason why he couldn't be a gentleman.
"I thought that purebloods were supposed to be chivalrous," she muttered, glaring at the back of his cloaked legs through strands of her bushy hair as she recovered the ability to stand.
He ignored her comment and instead said, "Get up. The carriage is waiting." He walked through the doorway and to the left, apparently opening a door as a fresh, cold breeze swept past where he was standing and into the room, tugging at Hermione's robes and hair. A chill swept down her spine and an owl sitting on a perch in the corner regarded her with a cocked head.
Strangling a frustrated scream, Hermione climbed to her feet and swayed, steadying herself with a grasp onto a weak-legged sofa that seemed to wither under her touch. A low growl came from the carrier on the floor and Hermione took it up with her bags, muttering apologies that the cat thoroughly ignored.
The carriage ride was silent, and so was the driver who sat outside with the horses in the rain-fresh air. The climate was unsettling as well as the quiet, and Snape sat in a corner of the seat and regarded the scar of the Dark Mark on his arm, touching it tenderly as if it was a fresh wound rather than an old memory. Hermione watched him blankly, not daring herself to speak ill or otherwise, in case he decided to forgo his decision and send her back to her parents.
The carriage jolted over each stone and lump in the road, making her eager to wish that the Professor owned a Muggle vehicle. A bicycle might have even been preferable. But he was old fashioned, from his clothing to his style of life, even if his manners were not.
With a soft whinny in unison from the deep black horses, the carriage rolled to a stop, rocking back from a stone that had lodged itself in between the road and the edge of a wooden wheel. Hermione brushed the black velvet curtain back and looked out into the world, into the land of Snape Manor.
The gardens…she had been expecting a small courtyard with a few rosebushes and perhaps some wildflowers clinging to high, stone walls. Instead, the land reached on for what appeared to be miles, sprawling into rolling hills and meadows that were tinged a dull green. The day, which had been hot and clear when they left Hogwarts, had turned a bitter, heavy gray that threatened a late afternoon rainfall, and the air had a tenuous chill that seeped through Hermione's robes and pulled on the hairs on her arms, not so much from the cold than from the mystery whence it came. A lingering mist of winter in the middle of the summer teased the senses, sending thoughts rolling on their heels and confusing any logical sense.
Closer to her, hugging the road and sprawling to waist-high, ancient fences that were similar to those found in pastures, were bushes and plants of every imaginable specie and shade of green, gray and brown. Thorns stood proudly on vines and roots hugged the ground for stability, trying to make sense of this land that seemed to leak poison into the soil.
It was obvious that the grounds had once been beautiful. Now, however, it seemed that everything was either dead or was dying a long, lingering death. A breeze caught some brown decay of leaves and swirled them mockingly through the branches of what had once been a mighty oak, looking like it was going to put them in their rightful place put dropping them back to the ground. The brittle limbs seemed to sag with disappointment, and the molted blooms of flowers hung their heads to the ground in shame. Hermione's heart swelled with pity and she bit her tongue, not willing to say anything to spite the Potion's Master.
The façade of the manor itself was lost to her as she was at the entrance, unable to see the house in its entirety. But its very stones, as she approached, seemed to swell in self-importance and she had the very odd feeling that the house was larger than she could imagine. Wordlessly, the door opened with a saddened groan and filled the darkened entrance hall with weary light.
The house was old. Very old. The cool breeze through the door made it give loud, wheezing breaths, and its marble and stone bones were strong but ancient.
The surroundings hung in shadow, the frugal sun only choosing to brighten the particles of dust that had flung into the air.
It was cold.
And dark.
And lonely.
"Lumos," Snape muttered as he threw his cape to the side. Hermione watched as the noble coat rack bent to catch it on its hook, its carved outline gilded in gray from the open door. She shivered.
Suddenly, hundreds upon hundreds of candles lit, filling the massive entrance hall with flickering, almost cheery, light. Flinging her head back, she noticed that the ceiling rose to such impossibly heights that she couldn't see it, and she would have suspected that there was none at all except for the fact that it refused to drizzle in Snape's entrance hall.
The room was circular and carved completely of white marble edged in silver. A staircase swept before her, dignified and wide, and when its steps reached the wall it hugged the circular form, creating a round balcony that hung over the hall. Above the balcony, the walls seemed to simply…end, even though there appeared to be no ceiling. There was a probability that it was charmed to be bleak and shadowed, somewhat like the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but something made Hermione doubt that.
There were three sets of double doors, all with plaques that held the names of their relative directions, except for the south, which would have been the entrance to the Manor. The north room's doors were open and it looked as though the forgotten sun was shining through, accompanied by wonderful smells that made Hermione's stomach rumble greedily. The hearty scents of roast pork, potatoes, cheese, and mingled with the tang of various fruits, floated through the air and pulled desperately at her nostrils, demanding her attention.
"Hungry, Miss Granger?" Snape asked with a lifted eyebrow, looking pointedly at her stomach.
She blushed. "A bit."
"Dinner will be served in a half hour. Go change, and I expect you to arrive punctually. Beatrice."
Hermione examined him with an odd look, wondering why on earth he had suddenly called her Beatrice, until she heard a loud cracking noise and a house elf, slightly pink in color and a bit stouter than any she had seen before, appeared before them.
"What is the Master wanting of Beatrice?" she murmured, eyes cast down at the floor and wringing her clothing - a black tea towel - in her hands. "Master, Master, wonderful Master that looks down upon Beatrice with eyes. Eyes…"
Hermione shuddered, suddenly reminded of the treasonous house elf Kreacher that had been a contributor to Sirius's death. She shot a weary glance at Snape, but he didn't take a moment to look at her.
"Beatrice, please lead Miss Granger to the guest rooms in the upper east wing. Make sure she is settled and then tell the others of her arrival. I will not have her imposed upon while she is a guest here."
"Yes, yes, whatever the Master says. Is there anything else the Master wants?"
"That will be all." He glanced at a clock that was mounted against the wall, and looked like it was made of pure gold, and pursed his lips. "Miss Granger, I will meet you here in twenty-eight minutes. I will see you then." He swept across the room and exited through the West door, the black trail of his robes the last sign of him before he disappeared.
"Miss must follow Beatrice," the elf said, slapping her bony hand on her leg and beginning slowly up the stairs. Hermione picked up her bags (with the thoughts that unhelpfulness must be a disease in the Snape household) and followed the tiny thing up the stairs, not finding it too hard to slow her pace in her ebbing energy.
Crookshanks was actually quiet. Hermione managed to sneak a view of him to make sure that he was still awake and…erm…alive, but he just stared at her with yellow eyes, obviously fine, though the position of his ears made it quite clear that he wasn't very happy to have been caged up for so long.
They took the left partition of the stairway and soon passed into a darkened corridor, and Hermione suddenly had the odd feeling that she was back at Hogwarts. Medieval suits of armor lined the right side of the wall, and she heard them squeak and groan as they looked after her in curiosity. The subjects of a few scant portraits muttered among themselves, pointing obviously at her as she passed. She was a bit flustered by all the attention.
"Surely the Professor has had guests before," Hermione murmured so only the elf could hear her. She continued to walk but the twitching of her bat-like ears told Hermione that she was listening. "And I should not be the subject of so much gossip."
"Beatrice is sorry, Miss, but it is unusual. Master rarely has guests, and never women. No, never. Poor Master, keeps to himself too much. Poor, poor Master…"
"Erm, right," replied Hermione, slightly unnerved by the fact that she was probably the first woman in the household for quite a number of years.
They took a left and wandered down a hallway that was remarkably similar to the one they had passed through earlier. It was then that Beatrice began to mutter to herself.
"Blasted halls with blasted wizard magic. Can't find blasted room when Beatrice wants to. No, blasted room…"
Hermione was beginning to wonder whether the elf lived in a space in the wall with a pair of old trousers when they came to a stop in front of a plain wooden door. It was remarkably modern and looked out of place in the stone walls, and she couldn't help but think it was made of plywood. The only thing that seemed somewhat…less modern…about it was the doorknob, which was made of cloudy brass with a snake winding around its handle and delving into the door. How typical.
"This way, this way. Miss Granger must be happy for the Master."
Hermione made a face and the elf opened the door, allowing her into a small living room that was packed comfortably with overstuffed furniture in green leather. The walls were a plain shade of white - better than black - and against the far wall two marble trees bent over, forming a fireplace. Hermione frowned at the small, empty bookshelf in the corner, doubting that it would be big enough to carry all the books she had brought.
"There, there," Beatrice ran through a door by the bookshelf and they walked into an extravagant bedroom, complete with a bathroom through another door. A canopy bed sat in the center with saintly elegance. Its velvet draping was also a shade of green, but darker and with the multi-colored spectrum of velvet. Black satin pillows were stacked high at the head of the bed, and the sheets and blankets appeared to be made out of satin and velvet, also.
But it the walls and the floor that amazed her. Completely made out of black marble, it was brightly polished so that if Hermione looked down, she could see her reflection on the floor. They had the power of a shadowed mirror, and the curved carvings at the junction of the ceiling sparkled with what looked like diamonds and emeralds. The Snape family had really outdone themselves.
"Dressies," Beatrice hissed, snapping her oddly shaped, rose-colored fingers. The dresser, made of dark wood and stuffed idly in the corner, seemed to spring to life and its doors shot open, revealing a bounty of old-fashioned gowns and shoes.
"You've never had a woman guest before?" Hermione questioned, stepping toward the bureau carefully. She pulled gently on the skirt of one made of pale yellow silk and tested it between her fingers, as if trying to determine whether it was real. Underneath it sat a pair of matching shoes, which looked nothing if uncomfortable.
"Oh, no, no, no, Miss Granger. This was the room of his great-grandmother. She died a long, long time ago."
Well, that was a comforting thought. "In this room?"
"Oh, no, in the dining room. Miss Granger shouldn't worry, great-grandmother prefers the west wing."
"So she is a ghost," Hermione sighed. "I should have known."
Beatrice slapped her hands over her mouth as if she had said something wrong. If she had, it was a delayed reaction. "Miss Granger should not go to the west wing!" she wailed, hands clasping around her own throat. "No, no! Miss Granger must stay away!"
"Hermione lifted an eyebrow. "Why?"
"It is forbidden! West wing is forbidden. Promise Beatrice you won't go there. Promise her. Beatrice needs a rope. Where is a rope?"
Before Hermione could ask why on earth she needed a rope, Beatrice rushed to the curtains that covered the windows and began to knot the end of the chord into a loop. She then began to slowly place it over her head.
"What are you doing?" Hermione yelled, rushing toward her and snagging the rope from around her neck. "Trying to kill yourself?"
The house elf sniffed pitifully, looking down at the ground. "Yes, because Beatrice is bad. Beatrice told Hermione Granger to not go to the West Wing, and now Hermione Granger will."
"Did your master tell you to do this when you did something wrong?" She crouched down and awkwardly placed her arm around the tiny shoulders, hoping that she could provide a small comfort.
She shook her head rapidly and blew her nose on the towel, wiping at her eyes with the back of her little arms. "No, not the Master. Master would never be mean to Beatrice. Master's not mean."
Hermione snorted, but the creature continued. "Ever since she came. It's her."
"Who? His great-grandmother?"
The elf shook her head again, then sighed. The knot at the end of the curtain chord untangled itself and fell perfectly still. "Beatrice thanks Miss Granger for helping through a crisis. Beatrice just gets silly sometimes." The tears were gone from her eyes and it was as if they had never been there. The tone of her voice was now almost cheerful. "Now Miss Granger must dress for dinner!"
With great embarrassment, Hermione looked down and realized that she was naked. This soon changed, however, when she found that she was now wearing the yellow dress she had been admiring earlier and that it fit her perfectly.
The house elf smiled at her, though it was staring at her hair with great foreboding. "Nothing Beatrice can do about that rat's nest now. Dress will do."
Little hands shoved into Hermione's back as the elf pushed her out of the bedroom and across the living room to the door. "Go! Go!" Beatrice cried desperately. "Master will not be happy if Miss Granger is late!"
Thanks to: Lacwing (wow, I think that's the longest review I've ever recieved. I don't know if I've ever actually come in contact with the "original" B&tB, though what you described sounds very familiar the one written by Robin McKinley. Not your sister's one, the other one. I also don't think it's really in Snape's character to belitte him so much as to propose to her everytime he sees her :)), Loah, Joshua Glass, crudedly (yes, I know what you mean :) ), little-lost-one, Meriadoc / Celithrathien (there actually is some logic behind his actions. But you'll find out later ;) ), Zvezdana, Aindel S. Druida (get well soon!), Chibidaima (or suicidal. Whatever you want), krisleigh, Ariana Althena Evergreen, StuntChini, Cecily, Akasha Ravensong, aNNiiesNapez, Luna Writer, Dues Ex, yeoldecrazy1.
I love recieving cookies, by the way. My family is on the Atkins diet (besides me), and we are lacking in serious sugary sweets.