Chapter Three: Mixed Emotions
Hermione had never felt so many mixed emotions that night. As she put on her nightdress and spread her blanket out on her bed she couldn't help but feel that she would have loved to just let him die. After all the times he had called her those awful names with a smirk on his face, she didn't seem to care whether Snape lived or died. Then after a while, she was wondering what would happen if he was gone. Dumbledore was the one that sent her there and he would have known that she would not let him die because he knew she could make the potion. She didn't want to get into trouble with the Ministry of magic. But every time she thought about what was the right thing to do it always came down to the fact that she had done the right thing, no matter how much she wanted to do the exact opposite.
When she got up the next morning she had expected to be awaken by Lorish, but the only reason she woke up was the bright ray of sunshine coming through the window right next to her bed. Although it was dirty, it was letting in light, which was something of a rarity in Snape's house. When she had woken, she had false hopes that when she woke up it was all going to just be a bad dream, but it was very much reality.
Hermione quickly got dressed and headed to the potion room to check on its progress. To her surprise, it was doing just fine. She stirred the potion a few times, added some more ingredients and turned to exit the room when she landed right on top of Lorish.
"Oh! Sorry Lorish. What is it? Is it Snape? Is he all right?" Asked Hermione in one quick breath. It surprised her that these words had come out of her mouth.
"He is fine Miss. He is eating breakfast in his bedroom and requests your presence there immediately." Said Lorish with a smile that didn't seem quite so genuine.
"Certainly." Said Hermione and was making for the door to leave for Snape's room.
"Will you be needing directions Miss?" Asked Lorish just as she was opening the door.
"No thank you Lorish. I know my way around a little better now, thank you." Hermione said coolly and left the room.
When Hermione knocked on the door she heard no answer and just proceeded to walk in.
"Er...Professor?" Hermione said softly
"Granger! What are you doing in here?" barked Snape.
"Lorish said you needed to see me..." She said, wondering why Lorish would have lied to her. "I can see that you don't so I'll be leaving to go eat breakfast now. Bye Sir." Said Hermione.
"Wait...Granger. There is something I need to ask you." Snape said quickly.
Hermione retraced her steps back to Snape's bedside.
"Yes Professor, What is it?" Said Hermione, trying to be as civil as possible. She had so many other things on her mind, she did not want to try and have a decent conversation with Snape.
"I was just wondering..." Snape said, sounding extremely vulnerable, "If professor Dumbledore told you anything about my condition? He shouldn't have brought you here to begin with, but anyways...I only know that I have been bitten by a rather deadly snake and you are the only person who can help me...of all people" he added bitterly.
Hermione's thoughts raced back to the letter from Dumbledore and the worlds flashed in her head over and over again...
I must inform you that Professor Snape is in grave danger. If he does not receive this potion as soon as possible, he will...well he will not be teaching at Hogwart's next year. Don't tell Severus this, as it will make him very uneasy.
"Um... he did tell me a small bit, but its nothing important. I really need to go have some breakfast sir, I'm feeling a bit light headed." said Hermione rather quietly hoping for Snape to not have heard her.
"DAMN IT GRANGER! I know you know something or you wouldn't have brought up the fact that if I didn't take that potion I would die, now tell me what you know or leave!" shouted Snape.
Hermione looked as though she was going to cry again, but she fought back the tears.
"Professor Dumbledore has told me to tell you nothing of your injury and I will respect that! It is better if you don't know anyways." She said hoping she could just run out there and never come back.
"Granger..." Snape said with an evil grin on his face, "I am ordering you to tell me!" he said menacingly.
"It is not in your place to order me around Professor!" Hermione said coolly, showing no signs of rage yet.
"Please..." Snape said. Suddenly, his tone had changed, and he sounded as though he was pleading.
Hermione had never seen him like this before. "Tell me what you know Granger." He asked in a polite tone, something he never used.
"All right, but only if you promise to be civil to me while I'm here, meaning no use of the M word!" she said.
"I don't make promises I can't keep Granger..." Snape said with a slight smile.
"Fine. Good bye Sir." Hermione said as she got up to go to the door and leave.
"WAIT!" she heard Snape say. "Fine. I'll be civil. Now please tell me what you know." Snape begged.
Hermione was surprised at Snape's sudden vulnerability and his begging to learn information. Snape was the kind of man who happened to know 'all' the answers.
"Oh, all right. I don't know quite how to put this Professor...Dumbledore wrote something rather important in this letter here." She said as he reached in the pocket of her sleek black robes.
She handed the wrinkled piece of parchment over to Snape. She was very nervous and didn't know what his reaction would be. It basically said that Snape would die if Hermione wasn't there, which was something she was pretty sure Snape did not want to hear.
Hermione looked at Snape as his eyes rolled across the parchment taking in every letter. He finally looked up at Hermione with a very fearful look in his eyes, though his face wasn't showing any emotion. She knew he must be scared, although that was something he would never admit out loud or to himself for that matter.
"Well...off to breakfast Granger." Snape had said nonchalantly. He was pretending as though nothing had ever happened and hadn't read the letter.
"But Sir, did you understand what Dumbledore wrote just there?" Hermione asked pointing to the piece of parchment. "You might d-" she started, but couldn't bear to finish.
"Granger, I can assure you that there will be no dying in this house anytime soon!" Snape had said rather loudly, but the look of fear was not leaving his face.
Suddenly, Hermione had found herself walking over to Snape's bed. Without realizing what she was doing, she sat down directly opposite Snape and said, "Professor, I'm going to make sure you don't die. I won't let that happen." She said seriously and had really meant it.
"Granger, get out...now." He had said breathlessly.
Hermione was confused. She got up and left the room. She had done her best to try and convince Snape that he wasn't going to die. After all that was all she could do at this point.
Although Snape would never admit it, he had felt complete comfort when Hermione had said those words. For the first time in his life, he felt like he could absolutely trust this person and would lay his life in her hands with no regrets.
As Hermione was sitting at the dining table, eating her cold porridge, an image of Snape suddenly appeared in her mind, she was staring at his eyes while she was reading the letter. They were still dark and cold, but a tinge of fear could be found in their depths. Hermione thought about this all through breakfast, paying attention to nothing else. She had for the first time in her life felt sorry for Professor Snape, the one person in the world that she hated the most.
After breakfast Hermione made her way to the potions room. She had added some ingredients according to the moon cycle and left the potion to stew in its cauldron. She thought she would go see Professor Snape again, but that would only make her look him in the eyes again, which she couldn't bear to do. So, she went to the living area, straightened up her bed and walked over to a nearby bookshelf. All of the books in Snape's house had all been about complicated potions or dark arts. She was getting rather bored stuck up in his house, so she decided to call Lorish, to see if there was anything for her to do.
"Lorish! Lor..." but before she could finish, she heard the familiar whish of Lorish appearing right before her eyes.
"Yes Miss. What can I do for you?" Lorish asked, sounding proud.
"Um...hello. I was wondering whether there was anything I could help you around the house with? I'm running out of things to do." Hermione asked politely.
"As a matter of fact Miss there is something you could do... actually never mind Miss. It is extremely disgraceful for a house-elf to ask something of a superior..."Lorish said, his voice wavering with every word he said.
"Well Lorish, I can fix that. I order you to give me something to do!" She said with a menacing grin. She had a knack for finding a way around the rules.
"Ah...I see Miss!" Lorish said with a large, toothy smile, "I needed to clean the lower dungeons, but I also need to help Master Snape with anything he requires, since he is so ill. Could you...I mean if you want to...help Master Snape while I scour the dungeons?" He asked expecting a 'no.'
"Well..." This was the last thing Hermione wanted to do, but seeing the look on Lorish's face made her melt in his round, buggy eyes.
"Of course Lorish... anything you need!" she said with a false smile.
Hermione gloomily made her way upstairs to Snape's room. Once she had offered her assistance to Lorish, she could not take it back, but the last thing she wanted to do was see Snape again. Even though he was beginning to soften she was a bit unnerved around him.
When she finally reached the door, she didn't bother to knock, seeing as Professor Snape must've been napping. The door creaked open a few inches and Hermione stepped into the pitch-black room. There were no windows in Snape's room, only two candelabras on the wall. She pulled out her wand and muttered, "Lumos!" and her wand tip ignited with a fountain of golden light. She could see that Professor Snape was lying in bed with his eyes closed, sleeping she assumed.
Just as she made her way to the door, intending to leave, she heard the shifting of his body in his bed and the groans of a man just waking from a short nap. Hoping to make her way out undetected, she tiptoed slowly and opened the door hoping to make no noise.
"Granger! What in bloody hell are you doing?!" Snape shouted, utterly stunned at having an intruder disturbing his long overdue sleep.
"Well Lorish asked me to check up on you..." Hermione squeaked, hoping for him not to get mad again.
"Fine. Well If you are here, could you get me some water. The pitcher is over there on the dresser." Snape asked, trying to sound as civil as possible.
"Sure Professor." She said lightly as she poured some water into a handsome silver goblet. She noticed it wasn't cold, so she whipped out her want and said, "Articia Wattrus!" and she could feel the goblet's exterior become cold in her hands.
She walked over to Snape and handed him the water. He accepted it grudgingly, his hands shaking severely.
"Can you move all right...I mean, is everything better? Are you feeling ok?" She asked sounding a bit worried; after all, he had collapsed only not too long ago and almost died.
"Enough with the third degree Granger, I am quite fine. You can leave." Snape said sounding falsely annoyed., but Hermione wasn't buying it.
"You must be getting quite bored, not being able to leave your bedroom now, sir." Hermione stated.
"No, Granger. As I said, you may leave. I am quite capable of finding more amusing company." He said grumpily.
"I know you are lying, sir. You look very bored. Why don't I just go downstairs and grab that game of Wizard's Chess, I saw it on my way in and we could play a game, eh?" She suggested with a cheery smile.
"Why don't you just leave and I'll get on with my nap?" He said with sarcastic tone, "LEAVE!" he finally added, sounding very serious.
"Well, you must want something to do, sir. Please I can just go get the game..." she suggested once again.
Snape was beginning to realize that Hermione was not going to back down on this one. If he kept telling her to go it would only want to make her stay more. He was very bored, but he didn't fancy spending time with her...usually he just poured himself over the latest editions of his Potions magazines. He was hoping she would back down, but then again, she was Potter's friend and was always extremely persistent.
"Fine..." he said slowly, "Go get that ruddy game. I'm only playing one game, then... you leave." He finished, adding emphasis to the words 'you' and 'leave'.
Hermione hurried downstairs and had Lorish help her bring the game to Snape's bedroom. She entered Snape's room and flung herself onto the foot of Snape's bed. She set up the board on the bit of bed between them and began to play.
Time passed and daylight faded and they found themselves playing not one, but 9 games of Wizard's Chess.
Snape barely spoke during the games, but since he kept setting the game back up, Hermione kept playing. After the first 5 or so games Snape and Hermione struck up a conversation and found themselves talking about everything from potions, to S.P.E.W. ("Oh really, Hermione! What an idiotic idea!" was Snape's response to her S.P.E.W. speech).
When they both realized what time it was, they put away the game and Hermione instructed that Snape lay down because he was starting to run a fever again.
As Hermione placed her warm, soft hand against Snape's sweaty forehead, an impulse of something very strong swept over the both of them. They didn't know what is was exactly, but it was extremely powerful.
Hermione conjured up a damp rag with her wand and began to pat Snape's forehead with it, hoping to soothe him a bit more so he could get some decent sleep tonight.
When Snape saw Hermione's gentle hand sweeping across his face, he felt something again, that same something he felt not two minutes ago.
He was leaning in to her face, not even realizing it. When he finally got back to reality, he found himself so close to Hermione's face, that he could see every fleck of gold in her eyes.
An urge was deepening in the pit of Snape's stomach. He didn't know if she could feel it too or if it was even real.
He was moving still closer to her face. He could now feel her hot, damp breath against his warm cheeks.
He didn't know why, but he had wanted to...kiss her or just be near her...
Don't be stupid Severus, you idiot! Get away from her! She's a MUDBLOOD and she's GRANGER for that matter! Back away now!, he thought to himself, but before he could be the one to back away, Hermione sprung up off of the bed and found herself rushing out of the room without saying a word.
While running down the steps to hurry and go to bed she didn't know what to think. Certainly she was hallucinating. Professor Snape hated her so much and she had known that since the day they had met and especially realized it every time they were together...except for tonight.
She thought was Snape was going to kiss me!?
Hermione did not have any idea what was going through his mind, if he really wanted to or if Hermione screwed up the potion she had administered earlier horribly and was making him do odd things, but it felt so wrong to her. The thought of his lips touching hers, raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
She quickly dressed into her nightgown and laid back on her bed, staring up at the blank ceiling, trying to find anything else to think about except Snape.
She kept thinking what would have happened if she hadn't left the bed at that moment. Would he have actually kissed her? Would she have let him?
Every time she played out different scenarios in her mind, they all ended up feeling very wrong in her mind.
If she had let him, she would have regretted it for years to come. They were so different, like night and day, pumpkin juice and fire whiskey, like dead and alive. No matter which way she put it, they were two complete opposites, not to mention the incredibly large age difference.
Incidentally, the fact that he was her teacher never even crossed her mind. She hadn't thought of the fact that things would be so different once they both returned to Hogwart's and had to face each other in class.
Before she drifted off to sleep one last thought entered her mind, a painful realization.
I can't stay here after this. I have to leave. I am going to pack my trunk first thing in the morning and I'm going back to Hogwart's. Someone will surely be able to finish the potion...And after that she fell into a dreamless sleep, hoping that when she woke up, she wouldn't remember anything, hoping, she wouldn't see Snape's face that close to hers ever again.