"Ginny needs something. She seems a bit, lost, doesn't she Severus." he had said. "She's a bit like you, in that way. It would do you well to befriend her, I dare say." he said.
"I do not befriend students. She is, against my hopes, the best choice." Snape had snapped.
"Oh, posh. She is excellent Snape and even you could not loathe her." Dumbledore dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "We'll tell her after dinner." And so they had. He found himself watching her. They way her hair shone. They way she wrote and walked and spoke. He looked forward to her class times and to the grading they had scheduled together. He didn't have any delusions of her having feelings toward him – that would be silly, but for the first time ever, he had begun to think that being with someone, being with her, might be better than being alone.
Ginny was beyond nervous as she waiting in the empty dungeon for her first class to take place. She had decided to wear her lab robes over her uniform instead of her student robes. She didn't want to wear just anything but she didn't want to rub it in their face that she was a student just like them. She felt that the lab robes were a nice medium.
When her class filed in, a mix of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, they looked more relieved than anything else.
"You're all probably wondering where professor Snape is." she said. "He's away doing business, and I'll be taking over Remedial Potions for the rest of term." she said.
"Aren't you a student?" One of the Hufflepuffs asked, a second year she didn't know.
"I'm Ginny Weasley, I'm a sixth year Gryffindor." she said. "I know it's probably a bit odd to be taught by another student but I assure that I know what I'm doing. Also, I answer to professor Snape. If you earn a detention, you'll be spending it with him, not me." she said. "I don't expect any problems." she added. She waved her wand at the blackboard and the ingredient to a simple plant growth potion came on the board. "I thought we'd start of simple so I can get a gauge of where all of you are at." she said. It took a while before the students realized that it was safe to ask questions, even ones that seemed to be stupid. No one received detention or lost any house points. Most of the class turned in decent looking potions at the end of class. She assigned them a short essay.
The next day, her second class came in. In it were both Harry and Seamus.
"Oh, Harry. I thought you were doing well?" She asked. He shrugged.
"Snape hates me." he said. "I heard you were teaching this." he said. She blushed slightly.
"I think, Harry, that you more want to upset Snape then you are bad at potions. Let see if we can't get you out of here, okay?" she winked and started the class.
The next night, she was sitting in the empty classroom with a desk full of multi-colored vials and a stack of essays. She knew which potions were right and which were questionable and which were flat out wrong. She didn't know if she was supposed to judge it by color alone or did Snape actually test it one something... and if so on what? Plus, she didn't know how many points the essays were worth, it was nowhere in the lesson plans. She had read them twice. She didn't know when Snape was due back, but he had mentioned help if she needed it. His desk chair was soft, and she sat in it while she waited, working on her essay on the Troll revolution for History of Magic. The chair smelled of him. He smelled of cinnamon spice, and of the earth just after rain. He did not smell mean, or greasy, or evil. He smelled comforting and, to her, safe and solid. She didn't remember nodding off, but she heard the door open, wood scraping against stone, and opened her eyes wearily.
"Virginia, it is past curfew." he scolded, moving to stand in front of her.
"Is it?" she said, standing. "I'm sorry. I wanted to grade these but I didn't know how, and you mentioned... well, I didn't know when you'd be back." she explained.
"That's no excuse." he said. "I bid you goodnight."
"Professor, what about the grading?" she asked and he raised his eyebrow.
"Eight o'clock tomorrow." he said. She reached for her bag on the floor and he bent to pick it up for her. His sleeve stretched back and she saw a long, bleeding gash on his arm.
"Professor, you're hurt!" she exclaimed.
"It's nothing." he said, thrusting her bag at her.
"Please. I grew up with six brothers. I know how to heal scrapes." she said, pulling her wand out of her hair, so that the curls tumbled down around her, glinting in the candle light that barely lit the room.
"Miss Weasley, I assure you worse things have not killed me." But she had already grabbed his wrist and pushed the sleeve up. Her fingers burned his skin. He wanted to jerk his arm away but the look on her face was so intent and she was touching him. He couldn't bring himself to end the contact. She pointed her want at the gash and muttered the spell. His gash knit itself up and only a thin red line of dried blood remained. She ran her cool finger over the line to soothe away the last of the burning.
"There." she whispered. He looked at her, and swallowed. She gazed back, steadily.
"Ginny," he said but she just smiled.
"Good night, Professor." he watched walk away. He wasn't sure what he would have said to her anyhow.