Lost Perspective 5
READ MY MIND
By Bellegeste
Author's note: I have always felt that Snape and Hermione would be intellectually compatible… so if and when they ever got talking, it would be serious… You have been warned!
Chapter 6:SNAPE : HERMIONE
December 1998
Diagon Alley
The pot of Floo Powder was like a 'worry ball' in her hand. Every time Hermione's fingers sought the warmth of her cloak pocket, they closed automatically around the small, glass container, turning it over and over, her thumb stroking the smooth dome of the lid, caressing the curving belly of the jar.
It was a while since she had travelled by Floo. It wasn't that the Africans didn't have a network - they did - but many places didn't have flues, as such, so the spell had to be more complex. The system, however, was prone to failure, especially in the more rural areas. The nomads, the Tuaregs in particular, were the prime offenders: they would register for Floo access but then move on without notifying the authorities, so that, instead of arriving at their latest settlement, you would find yourself dumped in the cold, charcoal embers of an abandoned campfire in the middle of the empty desert…
Mainly, though, it had been the smell which discouraged Hermione from Floo transport - a smell which combined the heaving turdiness of blocked drains with the smoky, charred tang of a sanitary incinerator, and the rank fermentation of rancid silage. From an ecological point of view she could not fault the practice of burning sun-dried nuggets of camel dung, or even the rugby-ball sized Erumpent 'buns', but the smell made her want to hurl.
The grease-laden, cabbagey fug of the Leaky Cauldron, which clogged her lungs like broth after the clear air of the snow-bright Alley, wasn't much of an improvement. For a moment she felt almost nostalgic for a thorn-skewer brochette of spit-roasted Dik-dik, hung for too long (by Western standards) in the African heat, dripping gobs of pus-coloured fat in all directions as she waved away the insistent flies. The Cauldron's 'Specials' board today offered an alliterative choice of 'Badger Burger Bap' or 'Goujons of Grilled Goat'. Hermione passed on those and ordered a Butterbeer.
Sitting at one of the dark, oaken trestles in an alcove, out of the way of the main hurly-burly of the inn, she watched the clock snail through the minutes. She had decided to make herself wait until late afternoon before she took the Floo. It wouldn't do to appear too eager. And, in any case, Harry would want to catch up with his father before she arrived on the scene.
All morning she had been rehearsing conversations in her mind, but they all hinged on one crucial question - was Harry ready to forgive her? And she simply did not know the answer. She had to deduce from Snape's invitation that Harry was willing to speak to her. Had they discussed her? They must have - she was realistic enough (as opposed to egotistic) to assume that her name must have cropped up at least once during the past couple of years. Had Harry told Snape how she had felt? That would be so embarrassing, but no, she was a grown-up now, she would rise above it… So, did Snape know the reason for their quarrel, or not? Something inside her, some sixth-sense, gut feeling, woman's intuition, whatever you want to call it, told her that he did not. Something about the way he had reacted yesterday at Flourish and Blotts… If he had known, surely his attitude would have been more patronising, more superciliously disdainful? He could have really rubbed her nose in it. And yet she had detected a trace of uncertainty in his manner, of guilt even. Then later, at Fortescue's, had he, in his clinical way, been trying to bring about a reconciliation between them?
She sipped her Butterbeer and tried to concentrate on what she was going to say to Harry. She didn't dare think about Snape.
X X X
December 1998
Snape Cottage.
Hermione stepped out of the fireplace and almost tripped headlong over Braque. The giant tuatara lay sprawled on the hearth, his craggy body wrapped like a low, concrete wall around the brass fender, snout wedged up against the scuttle, inhaling the peaty drag of coal dust, plated tail resting lazily on the log basket.
Uttering an 'Oh!' of surprise, Hermione teetered between falling forwards on top of the huge, basking lizard, or backwards into the fire where the mild, green Floo flames had already ceded to conventional, hot ones.
"Keep absolutely still, Miss Granger!"
That's easy enough for you to say, thought Hermione, wobbling. You needn't sound so worried; I'm not going to squash your precious pet. As the whip-like, purple tongue flicked in and out, Hermione very carefully lowered herself into a squatting position and held out her hand for the lizard to 'taste'. She had the illogical feeling that the darting probe was sensing not only her lack of hostility or fear, but her entire being, mapping every pore and crease and molecule of her existence, and storing it away in some instinctual, reptilian repository. A blue eye fixed her in sharp focus and blinked. He's got my photo on file now too! With a series of guttural clicks, which seemed to originate deep within the stonework, Braque sank his head once more to the floor and resumed the arduous task of heat absorption.
Hermione straightened up and stepped over the recumbent lizard into the room.
"I see you still have a talent for ignoring advice," commented Snape coolly, coming to greet her. Harry was nowhere to be seen.
Oh, don't start, just don't start, she thought, cross already, furious at herself for her clumsy entrance. But she decided to forgive the sarcasm.
"Thank you for inviting me, Sir. I hope it's alright - my turning up like this. I should have sent an owl."
They eyed each other warily.
"I think we can dispense with the social niceties, Miss Granger. Who are you trying to impress? Your wiles will be wasted on me."
The function of 'social niceties' is to ease rude people through awkward situations like this! Hermione cast about for small-talk, and her gaze fell - not literally this time - on the sleeping reptile.
"So this is Braque! Harry's told me about him. But I'd no idea he was so big!" she exclaimed, nodding enthusiastically down at the cliff-like form. "Harry always said he was a monster, but… He's really magnificent! And isn't he in fabulous condition?"
Her credibility restored, Hermione felt she was back in the running. Snape, she noted with a secret purr of satisfaction, was disconcerted - but only briefly. He rallied fast.
"And in what respect, Miss Granger, are you qualified to assess the health of tuatara? Have you added herpetology to your list of accomplishments? Another string to your bow? Ought I to be congratulating you?"
How could he make a few simple questions sound so scathing? She'd show him!
Hermione assumed an air of confidence:
"Bright, unclouded eyes, no outward evidence of scale rot, mite or tick infestation; no milkiness in skin colouration, no signs of calcium or Vitamin B12 deficiency, ample fat deposits in the tail zone… shall I go on, Sir?"
"That will not be necessary." He motioned to one of the low chairs. "Take a seat…"
Hermione settled herself with what she prayed was a modicum of elegance, and looked over at her ex-professor. She wondered how many hundreds, or thousands, she would have to count to, before her heart stopped fluttering in her chest like a flock of panicking flamingos. He returned her gaze steadily.
"You are waiting for me to pass comment on the extent and relevance of your knowledge," he stated (correctly), not without a trace of amusement. "You always did crave recognition for your undoubted abilities."
Now was that a jibe or a compliment? Hermione decided that if he wanted her to show her mettle, she was up to the challenge.
Challenge? No, wait, this wasn't supposed to be a contest, a confrontation. It was a normal conversation between two adults, neither of whom had any possible hidden agenda… Who was she trying to kid? Shouldn't she be trotting out her prepared speech? Now that it was crunch time, her nerves had turned to papaya pulp. And where on earth was Harry?
"Not 'crave', Sir, 'deserve'," she said softly. She saw his brow pucker. "As for the lizard… We were stationed at a campement near Djiguibombo - that's in Dogon Country - for almost a month," she told him, resigned to the idea that they were going to have to engage in preliminary conversation. "The wizard chief there owned three Crested Alliguana. I know they're not the same as Braque, Sir, but they do share reptilian characteristics. The female was surprisingly tame - I got quite fond of her, in a way. She was gravid, you know: it was a shame I wasn't there long enough to see the birth. I learned a fair bit from Chief Kombolé himself, and I looked up various details - about the Alliguana, and the local fauna in general. Or else I took samples to look up later. I like to be well-informed."
"So I recall."
It was what had singled her out from her peers - an unslakable thirst for information; and the intellectual rigour to process that information once acquired. A laudable combination…
"And, apart from anything else," Hermione continued, conscious that she was gabbling, but unable to stop herself, "I wanted to know exactly what gruesome creepy-crawlies I was tipping out of my shoes every morning. You know, whether I was supposed to scream and run, or catch the stupid things for breakfast. Even now I'm back in England, I still find myself checking my boots for scorpions."
Some day she might reveal the truth, but now was hardly the time. Snape's accident with Eamon, the Valera Viper, had shaken her so badly that she had vowed to revise the entire antidotes section of the syllabus. What had begun as a kind of academic penance for letting her concentration lapse in a couple of lessons, had developed into a compulsion in its own right. The textbook on toxins was lavishly illustrated with pictures of venomous snakes, spiders, frogs, jelly-fish and stinging insects - Hermione had studied them, at first with a morbid, fearful curiosity and, later, with growing interest.
Underpinning her unlikely fascination was the fact that this subject was dear to Snape's heart. In the lonely evenings in the library at Hogwarts she had tried, unsuccessfully, to banish Snape from her thoughts, while at the same time allowing herself to indulge in a secret liason: studying the snakes brought her closer to Snape. In sharing his passion for the poisonous creatures, she was entering into a clandestine communion. She needed to know him, and, in his absence, this was the nearest she could get.
The transparency of her self-delusion made her smile, sadly and with resignation. She had pressed her heartache between the pages of the book along with the snakes, until it was two-dimensional – flat and dry and fragile.
By the time she sat her NEWTs Hermione could distinguish a Rinkhals from a Boomslang at a glance; she had learned the formula for the Barrier Balm that would enable her to handle an Arrow-poison frog without succumbing to the lethal fluid secreted through its skin; and she could prepare and administer the anti-venom for any species named in the text. She knew which toxins were destroyed by heat, retarded by cold, neutralised by acid or alkali; she knew - now - their effects on the body…
If Eamon ever bit Snape again…! She'd… she'd… well, she'd do pretty much what Quig had done, she thought wryly - but she'd be kinder about it!
If, as an adjunct to her heroic 'saving Snape' daydream, she had picked up some incidental facts about reptiles, that was no bad thing. So what if she knew how to diagnose egg-retention in a Snapping Turtle, or how to determine the sex of a snake using a lubricated probe, or whether Spiny Lizards prefer Mugworms to Waxmoth larvae - the information would come in handy sometime. It had stood her in good stead when she was in Africa. And again today. She had known that Braque was a spectacularly healthy specimen.
Snape was still contemplating her. He was less gaunt than she remembered, less strained, his skin was not as sallow – as though, for once in his life, he had stepped foot out of his dingy, candle-lit dungeons and into the fresh air. Of course, he had been travelling too. That would explain it. She couldn't fathom his expression: it was not critical (for a change); she would almost have called it 'entertained' but there was an element of caution there too – as though he might have laid a trap and was treading carefully, waiting for her to spring it. It made her nervous: a film of perspiration was developing between her breasts. And where the hell was Harry?
Snape deftly caught her glance as it travelled over his shoulder towards the door.
"My son has been delayed," he told her, "but he will be arriving shortly. I assume that is who you were looking for."
Hermione flushed - she hadn't intended to be that obvious; she kept forgetting that Snape had been a spy and was more than usually observant. He must think her awfully rude when he had made the effort to be, by his standards, polite. For Snape, this was positively gracious! The proprietorial way in which he now referred to Harry as 'his son' and not by name, brought a lump to her throat.
"I could come back later," she offered.
"As you wish." He was not going to detain her.
At that moment the door swung silently open. Relief flooded in to sweep the conversation off its stilted feet and into a more natural flow: Harry to the rescue! Hermione half rose out of her seat to welcome him, but the new arrival was not Harry. It was Quig.
The elf was carrying an oval, wooden tray, inlaid with a marquetry design of tessellated leaves, interlocking like an Escher engraving. His progress across the room was painstakingly slow and measured as he concentrated on not spilling the hot tea: with each rolling step it sloshed to the very lip of the spout and then dipped back again, like a timid brown vole wavering at the entrance to its burrow.
Quig plonked the tray down on the floor between them - negating his earlier elaborate care - and, as soon as his hands were free, signed something sharp and, by the look of it, admonitory. Then, with a final nod to Hermione, drawing himself up with dignity to his full, tiny height, he stumped out.
Loath as she had been to drag her attention away from the beach-combed, brain-coral features of the aged elf, Hermione had found herself watching Snape's hands. Their reply had been smooth, fluid and - what was the word Harry had used? - minimal, his long fingers stroking the silent shapes into meaning.
"It seems I am a negligent host," he said, handing her a cup of tea and dismissing Quig's remonstrance with a tolerant quirk of the eyebrow. Harry had always said that, for some obscure reason, Snape let the elf get away with murder. "He bids you 'G-day'!"
He pronounced the word with distaste, the Australian intonation sounding alien on his lips. Hermione didn't want to let herself get side-tracked by his lips…
"So, Miss Granger, - Africa?"
The point had long gone at which she might have casually exclaimed: "Oh do call me Hermione!" It appeared that she was stuck with Miss Granger. At least it kept everything on a formal footing. She guessed that this would be no light-hearted chat about the food and the weather; unlike Lupin - dear old Remus! - Snape would not be paying her awkward compliments about her hair. This would probably be more akin to an interview. Or an interrogation. She took a deep breath.
"Yes, Sir. West Africa, to be precise."
Now what had she said wrong? She recognised of old that momentary furrowing of the brow, the slight pursing of the lips, the thoughtful, intimidating pause…
"If that is your notion of geographical precision, Miss Granger, I can only hope that you were not employed as a guide… It is my understanding - but, naturally, I cede to your superior knowledge - that West Africa covers an area of hundreds of thousands of square miles and incorporates the separate nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali, to name but a few. Need I list them all? Now, would you care to be a little more precise?"
Hermione gritted her teeth. If he wanted to play at pedants she was happy to oblige; she wasn't going to let herself be brow-beaten.
"As you wish…" she replied, deliberately echoing his own phrase, and checking to see that he acknowledged the fact. It was defiant, but what could he do - give her a Detention? "OK. Let me see… I initially travelled out to Senegal and met up with the Wizard-Aid team at Yoff - their HQ is at the wizard village there, on the outskirts of Dakar. I stayed there for a week of introductory training, then we moved on through Mali via Bamako and Mopti, then by pinasse along the Niger to Konoumé, and on to Timbuktu. From there we went north into Tuareg territory for a couple of weeks. After that we came south again and spent most of September in Dogon Country, visiting the communities along the Bandiagara escarpment. For the last three months I was based at Nazionga-Saghrir in southern Burkina Faso - do you know it, Sir? Professor Lupin said that you and Harry had been to the snake sanctuary. That's in the Forêt de Sissili, isn't it, not far from Nazionga? Is that precise enough, Sir?"
She couldn't disguise the note of challenge that, despite her earlier resolve, was creeping into her voice.
Snape had been listening attentively, his expression focussed, mapping her route in his mind as she spoke. He seemed taken aback to have two questions fired at him in short succession.
"A marked improvement, Miss Granger," he said, answering her second question first. "And no, we confined our visit to Sissili itself. Wizard-Aid is an international organisation, is it not?"
Hermione, sipping her tea, nodded, wondering how, precisely, he intended to deride the charity's work and objectives, but the next question in the interrogation was directed more specifically at herself. She was surprised that he cared enough to ask.
"With your NEWTs results, the field of employment must have been wide open. What impelled you to join Wizard-Aid? Why Burkina Faso? It is hardly the career that the Hogwarts staff had envisaged for you."
No? What had they marked me down as? A librarian? A Lab rat? A teacher? An academic?
"Well, they approached me, Sir. I suppose I fitted the criteria they were looking for."
"The criteria being…?"
"Um, recent experience in a wizard school, preferably Hogwarts, understanding of Muggle society, organisational abilities, relevant linguistic skills - that sort of thing, Sir."
"You're not going to tell me you now speak Hausa?"
His eyes flashed incredulity, and she could have laughed out loud. It delighted her that he could even think her capable of such a feat.
"Inaa jin ingiliishii e faransancii kawai. Ban gaanee ba," she quoted, unable to resist showing-off, just to see the look on his face. She was not disappointed. "Or, if you prefer it in Arabic…" she continued, "Ma-atkallam arabi. Tatkallam faransi aw ingleezi?"
She knew she was being insufferable, but it was just too delicious, seeing Snape momentarily lost for words.
"Bog-standard guide-book phrases?" he scoffed.
"Did I claim otherwise? I made a point of mugging up the words for 'I don't understand', 'I don't speak (whatever language it was)' and 'do you speak English or French?'" she explained, defending herself but not wanting to appear too obnoxious. "It saved me a lot of trouble. I should have learned to say 'You surely don't expect me to eat that' too," she ended, daring to risk a touch of humour. Had she just cracked a joke - even a lame one - with Professor Snape?
She'd trotted out the well-worn, stock sentences that she'd been using daily for the past five months, without adapting them. Now she reproached herself for that omission.
"You speak French?" Snape unerringly picked up on the one point she had hoped he would overlook.
"Not very fluently," she lied. What possible reason could she give for having gone to all the effort of spelling herself with Linguascio? Sir, I was so besotted with you that I decided to learn French and read Rimbaud? It sounded pathetic! "My parents took me on holiday to France a couple of years ago - a week in Paris to climb the Eiffel Tower, 'do' the Louvre, that sort of thing, and then on to 'the Chateaux of the Loire'… I learned a little. The Wizard-Aid people were impressed though. It came in useful, what with French being the lingua franca in most of West Africa. The French colonial influence is still very strong…"
"I do not require a lesson in History."
"No, Sir."
She had really irritated him now. Beneath his veneer of civility she sensed conflict and a taut self-restraint. It must go against the grain not to yell at me, she thought. He must think I'm a silly, insolent, prattling show-off. At least he's trying not to behave like a teacher…
And Snape, regarding Hermione sitting opposite him, saw a young woman, vibrant with energy and enthusiasm, intelligent, articulate, committed, sincere, full of youthful idealism and optimism, capable, dynamic, intrepid, with a ripening maturity and confidence - and he too was impressed.
"It seems we have time to kill. You might as well tell me about the Wizard-Aid project," he said, sounding bored.
Ever since she had got back, people had been asking her about Africa - about the weather, the heat and dust, the peculiar food, the bug-infested accommodation, her wizard colleagues, the animals, the local entertainment – the traditional griot singers and the exotic mask dances. Her mother, unused to the concept of Drying Charms, had fussed about how she had kept her things dry during the long rainy season. It was as though they thought she'd been on holiday. No one had wanted to know about her actual work - until now. Hermione barely knew where to start.
"The project is attempting to address a problem that has long been apparent in the wizard community in West Africa," she began, nerves making her pompous. "Well, actually I gather it's a problem throughout the third world to a varying degree, but I can only speak for the countries I covered. It's to do with the integration of tribal magical and mystical beliefs into mainstream culture, Sir."
She stopped, thinking that most audiences would be content to leave it at that.
"Go on," he said, encouragingly.
She sensed his eyes upon her, perusing her like a document, reading the fine-print. Checking for errata, she thought. She was definitely on her mettle now; she launched another volley of factual detail. She felt safer with statistics.
"The thing is, Sir, it's such a multi-cultural society out there. Which is good, don't get me wrong, but it complicates things. There are so many different tribal customs that virtually anything goes. In Burkina Faso alone, about half the Muggle population is Muslim, and the other half are mainly animist with, maybe, 10 Christian. There are so few recorded wizards that the numbers aren't statistically significant. In just the one country there are six ethnic groups and five African tribal languages, and that's without the regional dialects. The 'Sanjinn' - that's what they call Muggles, Sir; it means 'without magic' – live side by side with the wizards in many places. They can be completely integrated - even to the extent of being open about their magic. Sometimes they are almost indistinguishable."
"Are you saying that the Muggles are developing magical powers?" Snape asked doubtfully.
"No, it's not that." She checked again, but he actually seemed to be getting interested now. "They have a saying: 'L'Afrique, c'est mystique' - it's that the Sanjinn i.e. the Muggles' tribal belief system encompasses animism, fetishism, ancestor and spirit worship; they believe in devils and 'ju-ju' and voodoo; each tribe has their own witch-doctor or medicine man - even the Muslims have their Marabouts - who are supposed to have real magical powers. They cast 'spells' and prepare 'charms' and gris-gris - they're amulets - to make you invisible or invulnerable… And all this is accepted as a normal part of everyday life."
Hermione paused, aware that she wasn't explaining the issues very clearly. It was such a vast subject.
"And the role of Wizard-Aid in all this?" prompted Snape.
"Oh, yes - sorry, Sir. I'm getting to that. The Burkinabé Ministry of Magic has identified a worrying trend: an increasing reluctance on the part of Sanjinn families to allow children who show genuine magical aptitude to be given proper wizard training. There is already a tradition of apprenticeship to the local Marabout, but that is very selective - apart from the fact that he may not even be a real wizard at all. A great number of children with wizard potential are simply falling through the net and never getting the chance to develop their skills."
"Is it not the Ministry's responsibility to identify such children? Do their parents not want to cultivate their abilities?" Snape asked, still observing her intently.
Hermione wished he wouldn't look at her like that. She felt as though she should be checking her presentation for mis-spellings and typos… Flicking her hair back, she tugged down her sleeves which, somehow, in her enthusiasm, had been pushed up to her elbows. Snape, she was sure, would have noted her bare arms, and marked her down as scruffy and unprofessional.
"For one thing, the Ministry there isn't nearly as efficient as Hogwarts is about getting in touch with the children. They claim they can barely keep track of the population. It's as though they're not trying… We're not allowed to say this officially, Sir, but the Ministry is basically corrupt. If you think Fudge and his lot are a bunch of self-serving hypocrites…"
Snape's eyebrows lifted at this, and his lips twitched, but he didn't comment.
"…and as for the parents - well, the level of education can be very low, especially in the remote rural communities. Most of them couldn't read a letter, even if they were sent one. When a child manifests signs of latent magical powers, the parents are more than likely to believe that he is possessed by the djinn. It is very difficult to persuade them that it is a talent to be trained and nurtured."
Hermione couldn't hide her frustration. Time and again her well-intentioned approaches had been rebuffed by uncomprehending Sanjinn, who preferred to entrust their children's future to the charlatan clutches of the tribal witch doctor.
"So, you have, I take it, been establishing a structured educational programme for wizard children, and trying to sell the idea," Snape summarised, teaching skills coming into play.
Hermione looked at him gratefully.
"Yes, Sir. I was there mainly to help with the administrative side of things - obviously, I don't yet have the experience to do much else – but I think I may have made some useful contributions, in dealing with the Sanjinn, for instance, or making comments on the suggested syllabus."
She wasn't fishing for compliments; Snape didn't offer any.
"Do you have any evidence of corruption within the Burkinabé Ministry of Magic?"
"Nothing tangible, Sir. That's part of the problem. It's mainly that they are so uncooperative, when one would expect it to be in their interest to do anything they can to support the project. The general feeling is that they are exploiting the rules on the 'Misuse of Magic for Personal Gain' to maintain their own positions. If there were more trained wizards about, they would lose their elite status. And again, there's a huge question mark over the whole issue of respect for magical ethics - it's the same dilemma that wizards everywhere face, but somehow it seems so much more immediate when the communities' lives are so closely linked. In some regions the standard of living is so poor that it would be an irresistible temptation for wizards to sink a few magical wells, or work some mineral extraction spells at the mines, or just to get the millet to grow when the rains fail…"
For months the injustice of a system in which magic was not permitted to be used to better the lot of the Muggle population, had been festering within her. Barbaric tribal ceremonies, primitive living conditions - the whole African experience - had come as a major culture shock to Hermione. With everyone else so far she had striven to give her account of her trip a dynamic, positive, worthy gloss, but now in the soul-stripping glare of Snape's undivided attention, spurred on by his pertinent, if terse, questions, her honest, anguished impressions of Africa spilled out.
She found herself painting a despairing, heart-felt picture of the seemingly insurmountable environmental problems faced by the tribesmen: soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, water pollution, loss of bio-diversity – all apparently exacerbated by climate change, and beyond their control; she railed against political issues: poor governance, corruption, tribal insurrection, instability, destructive policies on logging and oil extraction; she vehemently decried the deplorable standards of public health care and the terrifying catalogue of crippling diseases endemic to the region: Dengue Fever, Diptheria, Aids, Malaria, River Blindness, Bilharzia …
…Hermione could hear herself reeling off the list, ranting on her soap-box, in her own fever of moral outrage…
"Oh, heck, I'm sorry, Sir! I've been going on about myself all this time. I do tend to get carried away…"
"You are passionate about your work, Miss Granger. There is no need to apologise. Such dedication is admirable."
She couldn't believe she had been pouring her heart out to Snape. No, she could believe it - that was the ironic thing. She had always felt she would be able to talk to him, given the chance. She had just never expected him to listen. But he had listened; he'd even asked questions; he'd treated her like an adult. Suddenly she became self-conscious. It struck her forcibly that, apart from Quig, they were alone in the house, together. She was acutely aware of his physical presence. His closeness. If Harry didn't come soon… A diversion was urgently required.
From her pocket she produced a diminutive container, smaller than an acorn. It was delicately carved from a dark, tropical hardwood, highly polished and with a tight-fitting lid. It lay in the palm of her hand, glinting with mysterious promise, like a shiny, magic bean.
"This is for you, Sir," she said, holding out her hand.
"For me?" The interest in his eyes was instantly replaced by suspicion. Harry had said his father wasn't accustomed to friendly gestures - Hermione rushed to explain before he got the wrong idea.
"It was actually given to me, Sir, but I thought you'd know what to do with it. You'll make better use of it than I ever would. Be careful opening it, Sir."
"What is it?"
"Powdered Nundu claw."
Hermione could have sworn that he actually stopped breathing. His grasp on the tiny box tightened and his eyes glittered with suppressed excitement.
"If you open the lid, don't sneeze or anything, Sir," she said lightly, trying to diffuse the moment. "That stuff's precious."
"An understatement if ever I heard one," he muttered, transfixed by the container. How many wizards in the world had ever seen one of the elusive, giant leopards, let alone acquired one of the highly-prized, unimaginably potent, magical claws? How many wizards did it take to even catch a Nundu - over a hundred? How did they elude its lethal breath? Finally he looked up at Hermione - she would not have thought it possible for those dark eyes to radiate such warmth and fervour.
"You're sure you want me to have this, Miss Granger? Do you fully appreciate the value of this powder? How in Merlin's name did you come by it?"
"I want you to keep it, Sir." She almost added 'for old times' sake'.
"Thank you," Snape said, very quietly indeed.
End of chapter. Well?
Next chapter: HARRY : HERMIONE : SNAPE . Is three a crowd?
