THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
By: Scatterheart
A long time ago in a campus far, far away…Section Three
"... and take out your books and read chapters sixteen and seventeen," Professor Severus Snape finished, swooping in his usual manner like a raven to his podium and occupying himself with a fresh pile of student papers.
From the second desk in the third row, Neville Longbottom creakily opened his Potions Handbook and nudged Hermione, who sat beside him. "I didn't read chapter fifteen so I have no idea what's going on," he whispered.
"Chapter fifteen was about the alternate properties of wormwood. It was just a review of what we read before break," Hermione replied, flipping through the pages of her own book.
"Before break? But I forgot everything from before break!"
"Neville, that was only three weeks ago..."
"Can I borrow your notes?"
She had already known this was coming. "Fine," she said automatically. "But you have to give it to me by tomorrow morning."
"Miss Granger," a deep voice called from the front of the classroom.
Hermione sighed to herself, but in the back of her brain she had known that this had been coming as well. Seven years of sitting next to Neville in Potions had thoroughly accustomed her to Snape's warnings and threats of detention. Their words were a ritual to her now, like a famous script being rehearsed on a daily basis.
"Yes, Professor?" she said absently, her attention not leaving the chapter in front of her: The Advanced Medicinal Uses of Wormwood.
"Are you helping Neville again?"
"I'm sorry, Professor."
"Mind your own business before I take ten points from Gryffindor."
"Yes, Professor." She peeked at him from the corner of her eye and saw that he, too, had not diverted his focus from the work on his podium. Suddenly, it struck her as unbearably funny, this near decade of identical dialogue being mechanically thrown back and forth, and a giggle bubbled up to her lips.
She found herself instantly staring into Snape's black pupils.
"Tell me, Miss Granger, what you find about wormwood that is so funny," Snape said.
Hermione felt Neville's confused poke in the side of her arm. "What the hell is the matter with you, 'Mione?" he hissed.
"I'm not asking you," Snape snapped to the boy, his glare not leaving Hermione. "Miss Granger?"
"I'm very sorry, Professor," Hermione said, a grin still pulling at her cheeks.
Snape met her grin with a particularly nasty sneer. "Yes, you certainly look very sorry. Twelve points from Gryffindor."
"Why not twelve and a half points, Professor?" Draco Malfoy queried from the back of the classroom. "Why not twenty-one and eighty-nine ninety-fourths points? Why not—"
Hermione dissolved onto her desk in a fit of laughter. Neville was right, she thought distantly through her mirth. What in the world was the matter with her, indeed.
"Apparently seventh years no longer consider the point system to be of any importance," Snape mused darkly. "I suppose I will just have to add chapter eighteen and nineteen to the homework for today." He stepped off of his chair and walked levelly to Hermione, his cloak swirling behind him.
Hermione gulped down another wave of laughter that was threatening to consume her, and managed to keep a straight face as the Potions Professor towered in front of her and crossed his arms. "Uh, you don't have to give us any more work," she said.
Snape cocked an elegantly arched eyebrow. "I don't have to, you say? Since when were you my superior, Hermione?"
"I speak on the behalf of the class."
"Really."
"Um... ow."
Neville had given her a painful jab to the ribs. "Don't mind her. She's gone barmy, Professor Snape," he stammered.
"I think I saw her drink ten glasses of butterbeer last night," Malfoy interjected. "She must be nursing a terrible hangover—"
"Shut up, Mr. Malfoy," Snape cut him off curtly, "before you spend the rest of the week scraping frog guts from second year cauldrons." He turned Hermione. "Miss Granger, I give you two options." His voice was rumbling, like the purr of a big cat. "You may either excuse yourself to Madame Pomfrey's and regain your senses in the hospital ward, or you may remain in my class and keep whatever ails you to yourself. Do you understand me?"
"Yes sir! I mean, Professor."
"What will it be?"
"I'll stay here."
"Then read." He uncrossed his arms and slowly pushed the textbook to her with both hands.
As Hermione straightened the book in front of her, she brushed her fingers along the sides of his; they were dry and warm under her perfectly moisturized fingertips.
Snape jerked his hands back as though he had just been electrocuted. His gaze darted fleetingly to Neville, but the boy was busy retrieving a pocket dictionary from his book bag.
"Miss Granger..." Snape said. His eyes narrowed at her, and Hermione saw that his jaw was tight. "Watch yourself, Miss Granger." He swooped away amidst an unfurling length of black fabric.
A minute later, when the classroom had fallen back into its deathly silence, Hermione released the breath she had been holding, and inhaled shudderingly. Her skin was burning where she had touched Professor Snape. She trembled. What frightened her was not the fact that she had actually touched him, but because she didn't know if her action had been only a harmless accident, or something other than that. And his hands had been so warm, and his stunned reaction afterward had been so… genuine. She knew now that the cartoon villain who had prowled through the dungeons every day of her seven years here was human.
That thought frightened her the most.
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