Disclaimer: I am not J K Rowling. If I was, then this would have been in all the shops and I would be rich, rich beyond my wildest dreams... (trails off into happy daze)
Chapter Five
A few days later found Hermione in the laboratory creating a blood boiling potion. Severus watched as she slid light dragon hide gloves onto her elegant fingers, then took out her ingredients and began to work.
He could not fault her on this- the merest touch of the blood boiling potion on a person's bare skin would be fatal. The potion instantly seeped through the skin and into the body, rushing through the veins and arteries. Carelessness in a situation like this would mean a slow, painful death.
Although no doubt Hermione was aware of this, the woman did not falter. The potion was completed in record time, and when she finally handed it to him, lethal perfection in a bottle, he could not fault it.
Severus opened his mouth, paused, closed it again and gave the beautiful woman before him a terse nod. He then turned away to add it to the growing store of flawless potions in a set of shelves built into the wall.
"That's it?" Hermione asked him, calm voice shaking slightly with anger.
"Yes. What else is there?"
"No corrections? No insults? Nothing?" Severus looked up, searched his mind for some kind of derogatory comment, and found nothing. He could fault nothing- neither potion nor creator. Especially not creator, he thought with an inward sigh.
"So why do I not deserve any praise?"
With these words, Hermione had inadvertently made a breakthrough. Severus Snape had not been unable to answer a question since... well, since his early teens.
"That was a question, Severus," said Hermione dangerously, "and I expect an answer."
"I..." he started. "I don't know, really. Habit, I suppose."
Hermione stared at the man that was looking at the ground, avoiding her eyes. She too was slightly unsure of what to say next. This, however, was not due to lack of things to say but from the actions to choose from.
Should she sternly remind him that he had never taught her before, and lose the advantage that she seemed to be holding him at this precise moment in time? Or should she just go along with whatever he was saying, and find out more about this fantasy world he always seemed on the verge of telling her about
The woman decided eventually to do the latter. After all, he could slip, and then she would be able to have many a laugh as his expense.
"Why did you never praise me in this past that you beleive exists?"
Severus found that this new Hermione that the Dark Lord had engineered seemed to have a very unpleasant habit of asking him questions that he could not answer. The only solution that his mind could provide was the simple, unpleasant truth; that he should have praised her more.
"You associated with people I did not like. I have no better explanation. You will forgive me."
"Possibly. Will you start to praise my work now?"
Thinking quickly, he decided that the least he could do was turn the situation around, so that he at least was on the offensive.
"Because no matter what you do, no matter how perfect, what you want it for can never be so. You have been making a series of potions that can only be used for evil purposes. You want praise because it encourages you, makes you feel that what you are doing is good. It is not. I will not encourage the actions of a person like you."
Hermione gasped. Nobody had ever insulted her like that before.
"I will have you killed! You cannot speak to me like that!"
"But of course," sneered the man, "have me killed. You are nothing but a spoilt princess used to getting her own way. You need to learn that any person with sense and dignity will see you for what you are. If you saved me because you just wanted another person to worship you, then I don't know what you are waiting for. Do what you will."
Hermione stood, shaking in rage, for just one moment. Then, with a shriek of fury, she flung her hands above her head.
Severus was jerked into the air like a puppet with its strings being pulled. He slammed into the wall, and Hermione head a loud 'crack' as his head collided with it. He slid down the wall to fall to the ground with a thud, then lay still.
Hermione paused for a moment, breathing heavily, watching the body as it lay on the ground.
Swaying slightly, she made her way over to it, and prodded it with one of her feet.
It did not move.
She bent down and touched the cold skin of Severus's face.
He lay still.
As she watched, a trickle of blood slowly ran down his forehead, stark again the flawless white skin.
She had killed him.
Tears came unbidden to her eyes, and she tilted her head back slightly in an attempt to stop them falling. She had killed him.Hermione sat on the floor beside him for a few moments, repeating that phrase in her head, putting it different ways each time.
I killed him. He's dead. I murdered him....
Hermione had killed before, of course. Voldemort, ever the loving father, had provided mudbloods and muggles of all ages, sexes, shapes and sizes. She had tortured and killed them without hesitating.
She thought back to how they had looked, cowering before her, screaming and jerking on the floor and then, eventually, lying still.
They had not mattered to her. She had thought of them the same way as she did the beef that she ate for her dinner; meaning nothing to her personally, just the faint knowledge that what had once been alive was no longer so.
Severus was different. She had known him, even if only for a few days. And he had said one (admittedly now small) thing to anger her, and she had killed him for it.
A sick feeling of guilt slowly rose in her stomach, and suddenly she began to pray that by some chance she had been mistaken, that he was not dead. Hermione leant over the man once again, and touched a finger to his cold neck.
One, two, three... she counted, hoping that on one beat she would feel a movement beneath her fingers, something to tell her that he was somehow alive.
Four- there! The tiniest beat, but enough to reassure her that something could be done. Hermione was a very competent healer. Voldemort had taught her how to heal all types of injuries. After all, it could save either herself or even him one day. Death was the only thing that she could not change.
Slowly, so as not to cause any more damage, Hermione levitated the limp body from the ground. She carefully guided it back into Severus's room, taking care to set it down on the bed as gently as she could.
Sitting beside him, she gently moved his no longer greasy hair aside, and muttered spells that would heal the crack that the impact of the wall had caused on his head. Closing her eyes, she sensed the pain and the hurt in his body and focused on chasing it all away.
Finally, Hermione whispered a waking spell and Severus sat up with a start.
The last thing that Severus Snape had expected to see in his life were the angry eyes of his ex-student. When he woke to those same eyes, now carefully empty of emotion once more, he could not have been more surprised.
"I thought that you were going to kill me."
Hermione paused.
"I never meant to kill you, just teach you a lesson." She very much hoped that her eyes did betray nothing of her emotions. "You have much more to teach me. I think... I think I will go now. I expect to see you in class tomorrow."
She stood and quickly left the room.
Severus lay back on his pillows with a smile. The incident, apart from showing that he needed to be far more careful, had taught him a very important thing; Voldemort had failed. No matter how much he brainwashed her, now matter what he said, Hermione would never really change.
Even now she probably had no idea why she was behaving as she did. After all, she was sure to have been taught to kill in cold blood. But she was still the same person at heart that she had always been, and in the end, that was all that mattered.There was still hope...
Hermione paced her room, trying to clear her mind. There was something wrong with her, some spell that the man had cast somehow. All that she knew was that when she had looked into those dark eyes when Severus had awoken, her heart had sung.
Hello all. I have just one thing to say in this note, and that is that because of school, updating is getting harder to keep up with since I have two fics on the go. Holding that is regard, it is possible that I may only be able to update this fic every other week. HOWEVER, I am going to do my best to update every week as promised before. Just don't be mean if I don't!
Hint: reviews=happy me=eager me to write more=faster update=happy you. Geddit?
Now onto the thanks!
Elnora- I GET IT! That is such a clever thing to pick up! I would so not have got that. Very interesting insight. You must actually be thinking when you read this! Thanks!
Stargazer starluver- thanks! Are you happy with this lot?
Squasher- I could never go wrong? Aww, that's so sweet.
Niko goldeye
Fan-rei- Hermione is not too harsh on Sev because a) he has stuff to teach her, and b) although she has been brainwashed, she is still intrinsically the same person she always was. She was keeping up appearances earlier, and gaining respect, but in general she is not too harsh a person.
Lover Not a Fighter- thanks! Being high is fun, although not the mood I really write this fic in. My other running fic I can only write when high- it just doesn't flow otherwise!
Sophianwin- er, hate to tell you this but a romance is the only category I can actually put this fic into. I am still unsure as to what to put for the second. I would have written it as a mentor relationship if I could have done, but I want to take this plot places, and, since I am inpatient, I am doing it relatively speedily, so the relationship sort of has to be a bit basic.
Christieanne-anna
I've written this fic for you. Now please can you all do your bit and REVIEW!
Thanks for reading!