She didn't really need to bring anything with her save her wand, but she wanted to be prepared for anything. She put a few quills and some ink in her bag as well as a few spare rolls of parchment and two books in case she was made to wait at all. She also slipped her time turner around her neck. It seemed to be just as much a part of her uniform as her Gryffindor tie these days. Feeling prepared, she stepped out of her room and went to the Great Hall where she was to meet Severus.
She was on time exactly but he was, of course, already waiting for her. He smiled a bit when he saw her approaching and she relaxed. He was happy to see her. She walked up to him and he laid a warm hand on her shoulder.
"Hello, Hermione." he said. "Are you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." she said. "Thank you for accompanying me."
"I've been looking forward to it. Your tests start as soon as we arrive and should continue for most of the day." he explained. She'd heard all of this before but it was a comfort just to hear his voice all the same. He looked as he always did – black robes and highly polished boots and that was comforting too. "We'll probably miss dinner, so I thought perhaps we could eat in the city before we return."
"I think I should like that… If I'm still alive by then, that is." she said. Her nerves were beginning to assert themselves in earnest now.
"I wouldn't worry. You know everything you need." he said. "Come along now, we have to hurry." he said. They were going to apparate from the gates of Hogwarts into the apparition room of the Ministry of Magic. Hermione had been rather proud to be the first of her year to learn to apparate correctly and the first to pass the test. At the gates, he leaned down at placed a kiss on her lips. She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his neck. The castle was now out of sight, yet they were still miles from town. They were actually, for a few moments, alone and he was going to take advantage of it. He nudged her mouth open and slid his tongue inside, pulling her body flush against his. This, this was what she'd been waiting for.
"Oh, Severus." she said, pulling back to look at him. "I was afraid…"
"If I could have been with you everyday I would have." he said.
"I know." she said. "Let's get this over with, shall we?" He nodded, kissed her cheek one last time and then they disapparated with a pop. Severus had held her hand so she didn't accidentally wind up in the wrong place. Apparating always made her a bit dizzy, a little disoriented, but Severus didn't give her time to recover before he yanked his hand away and started briskly walking away with a snarled, "Follow me." She understood that in this place he was a put upon professor taking a know-it-all impatience student to take exams early. He was not her lover. She followed trying not to believe the practiced persona of hate he had slipped into. She was lead through a maze of rooms and people and flying memos trying to soak it all and still focus on the task ahead of her. They stopped to have their wands inspected. She saw a few people she recognized from the order but did not acknowledge them as they did not to her. Why would they know her? Finally, Snape slowed and knocked on a door. It opened and inside was a large room with a long table. There were seven witches and wizards seated at the table who watched her come in. A few had soft smiles on their faces but two looked impatient and unpleasant.
"State your name." One of the wizards said. Snape stepped to the side and sat in a chair, content to watch with a scowl.
"Hermione Granger." She said her voice confident. She could do this. She hadn't thought Snape would stay and she was glad he did.
"Do you swear you are taking these exams of your own free will with now outside help or inside information?" the same dour man said.
"I swear." she said. He pushed a magical contract towards her and she picked up a quill and signed her name. The contract glowed for a moment and the curled up and sealed its self with a wax seal bearing the Ministry Crest. The witch to his right took the scroll and placed it an out box where it disappeared. Hermione found this all fascinating. She was an expert in most magical fields but it was the every day tasks that still interested her because she'd grown up muggle, after all.
"You will take eight exams: Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures, Astronomy, Arithmancy, and Defense against the Dark Arts. Each test will be one hour in length with the exception of potions which will be 75 minutes to allow for brewing. You will have a 10 minute break between each exam, 30 minutes for lunch. A different wizard will proctor each exam. Do you have any questions?" he asked, dryly. Overwhelmed as she was, she shook her head. "Excellent. Which exam would you prefer to start with, Miss Granger?"
"Potions, I suppose." she said, wanting to get the longest one out of the way.
"Very well then." this was Snape who stood and walked to a table in front of her where a cauldron had appeared. "I shall be in charge of this exam." She'd been wondering why there were only seven wizards and eight exams. She was relieved and scared all at once. She knew that Severus would not be unfair to her but would be as hard on her as any other student. She nodded.
"I'm ready." She assured the panel. The potion he assigned her, she saw with horror, was one she'd never brewed before. They'd brewed it in class after she'd stopped attending. Of course she'd read the notes but she lacked the actual experience! She forced herself to calm down. Brewing was brewing and panic had no place in a potions lab. In front of her were all her ingredients measured out. All she had to do was cut them or pulverize them correctly and remember what order they went into and at what time in the brewing process. It seemed like a lot but she did have a somewhat photographic memory. She surveyed the ingredients. Mandrake root went into the base of water first and always was cut into fine slivers. She set about doing that. The first three ingredients went in together and then there was a… a ten minute pause. The ingredients needed to seep before the… shoot, what was it? The dragon scales! It had to seep before the dragon scales went in. Then it all flooded back, the precise type font of the notes from the charmed quill in emerald green ink. She remembered. She would be fine.
By lunch she was already exhausted. Snape had neither praised nor condemned her potion when she'd handed him the final product in a sealed flask. He mere pocketed it and sat back down. She was allowed to sit quietly for ten minutes while the next test, care of magical creatures, was prepared. And so it went. They all filed out and left her alone for her lunch, even Snape. They provided her with a sandwich and a bowl of soup and a mug of Pumpkin juice. It was obviously government food – a concept that didn't change with either world. She ate it without complaint for she'd skipped breakfast and was famished. She did, however, appreciate Hogwarts food just a bit more. She'd come to the school a knobby eleven year old who'd always forgotten to eat in lieu of homework or reading. Regular meals had done her a world of good. Not that her parents hadn't fed her but they weren't unlike her daughter. The quest for knowledge often did not involve nutritious meals.
She'd saved transfiguration for last. She'd figured by the end of the day she'd be exhausted (the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests were aptly named) and she wanted to be able to know the subject backwards and forwards. The dour wizard from the morning was to proctor the exam. Before it started, he looked over the rim of his square spectacles at her.
"Professor Snape informs me you've been teaching this subject at Hogwarts?" he asked.
"Yes, sir." she said. She wanted to add it was the reason she was taking these bloody awful exams early in the first place but she kept her mouth closed.
"That's highly unorthodox, don't you believe?" he asked.
"Perhaps, but I have full faith in Headmaster Dumbledore." she said, which was the truth.
"Very well," the man said, grumbled really, and then, an hour later, she was done and Snape was quickly ushering he out of the exam room. She didn't know what to say. She felt a little shell-shocked. The dour wizard had pronounced her done and then all the wizards had stood and Snape was pushing her by her shoulders out of the room. The halls of the ministry were mostly empty – it was a weekend and getting late – and Snape said nothing until they were in the apparition room.
"Would you rather return to the castle or continue with our meal plans?" he asked, looking at her.
"I… I'm not… I don't…" she tried to speak but was so tired. She was hungry, too and he was looking at her with an almost amused expression.
"Dare I say you're speechless? An event I never dreamed would occur." he said. "I shall try to simplify the question for you. Food or sleep?"
"Food." she said, still having enough wits to glare at him. He took her hand again.
"Diagon Alley." he told her and she nodded. They disapparated.
She quite expected him to lead them to the Leaky Cauldron but he didn't. "Take off your school robes." he said, undoing his outer robes so he was left in his slacks and vest. She obliged.
"You want to eat in Muggle London?" she asked.
"I thought we would be less noticed there." he said. He took her robes and draped them casually over one arm. They were just fabric, nothing remotely interesting or peculiar that way. They moved out of the alley and into the near summer nightlife of London. She felt at home, oddly, among non-wizarding people even with Severus at her side. "I figured we'd just stumble upon something." he admitted.
"On a Saturday night? Severus." she reprimanded lightly, revitalized by the change in scenery. "There's a nice Italian restaurant around the corner. My parents and I usually eat there after they pick me up from the express." she explained. She led the way, Severus keeping his hand on her back as not to lose her. "You have muggle money, don't you?" she asked, as an after thought. "All I have is wizard."
"I thought ahead, Miss Granger, yes." he said, slipping into Professor Mode at the insult to his intelligence.
"Sorry." she said, though she wasn't, really. He looked like he knew. They entered the restaurant and were told by an acne faced boy it would be about fifteen minutes. Severus looked a little miffed at the waiting.
"Why can't they just expand the restaurant – add more tables?" he asked. She looked at him.
"Muggles wait." she said, pointing to a stone bench just outside the door. He sat down. It was a beautiful London evening. It was nearly June and spring was in full force. There were flowers everywhere and the air smelled clean and sweet. She wasn't even cold without her school robes which Severus had laid across the stone bench before she sat so her bare thighs wouldn't be cold against the porous stone. She closed her eyes against the glare of the setting sun. She'd spent a summer in the states once, with her mother's sister and a cousin that'd been about her age. It was a few years before Hogwarts and she'd liked America except for how quickly it got dark. Summer twilights were supposed to linger for hours – they always had. Nine o'clock was not dark at home and she'd missed the way the sun set always lulled her to sleep. Now, she let what was left of the sun linger on her skin while she waited for their name to be called.
"You did very well today." His soft voice lulled her out of her nostalgic reverie.
"I thought I was weak in magical creatures and I'd never brewed your potion before and my star charts were sloppy at best." she said.
"Your potion was fine." he said. This was high praise from him. She moved her hand so that their fingers brushed slightly. Even in a society where no one knew he was her professor, she was still a teenage girl in a school uniform and he was still a man pushing forty. They would never be just right together. She pushed the thought away. "Though you were right about Magical Creatures. Not your strongest suit."
"I love Hagrid but…" she shook her head. "Did they tell you when the results will come in?"
"Tomorrow morning." he said and her eyes snapped open.
"So soon?" she asked. "It takes all summer, usually."
"Only one to grade." he said and she nodded.
"Then what will happen?" she asked.
"I suggest you demand that Albus start paying you for your services." he said and she laughed.
"I just might do that." she said, and her tinkling laughter made him smile as well. Hermione's name was called over the speaker (she'd explained that Severus wasn't a normal muggle name) and they were led to a small table where they enjoyed a small meal and Hermione spent the better part of the evening slipping her foot out of her shoe and running her toes up and down his leg.
Soon enough, though, it was time to return to the school. They made their way sullenly back to Diagon Alley. "I wish we could stay away for a while. My break from school wasn't very relaxing." she said, as he tapped his wand across the pattern of bricks that opened the portal back to the wizarding world.
"Perhaps in the summer we can go away." he said. She looked at him.
"Will you still be around in the summer?" she asked, though she didn't mean him specifically, but him wanting to be part of her life.
"Will you?" he countered. "I think we need to have a real discussion about this before we return." he said. They'd flirted all through dinner but now, outside of the cover of the muggle world, reality was reasserting itself. He steered her away from their original destination, the Leaky Cauldron, and too a small park she'd not noticed before, just behind Gringott's. There was a playground as well as a patch of grass but it was late and the park was mostly deserted. They sat down on a bench. "Try to remain impassive." he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean this can't look like a lover's quarrel." he said.
"Are we going to have a row?" she asked, angry and sad at once. Fighting with professor Snape was nothing new, but they'd yet to really have it out since becoming, as he said, lovers.
"I want you to know that I do not routinely sleep with my students." he said.
"Nor I with my professors." she said.
"What I mean is… I don't routinely sleep with anyone, Hermione. You're the first one in… years, I'd say, that I've wanted anything to do with." She could see what he was trying to do. He was trying to tell her that she was important to him in his own garbled way. "I would like for that feeling to continue."
She wanted to reach out and hug him but she knew she couldn't so she would have to choose her words wisely. Words, she knew, were the most powerful tool she had. She'd always been a good writer but generally set fiction aside for academia. Now, she wanted to speak poetry to him but she knew that life rarely turned out like poetry.
"Severus, I'm not going anywhere. Going away, I've learned, in this world isn't like going away in the muggle world. It takes time to travel when you're a muggle. There is a whole subculture of humor pertaining only to long, family car rides." she said. He looked at her blankly. "See? You have no idea what I'm even talking about. What I mean is, anywhere I go I can always floo or apparate back to you at the end of the night."
"No one will ever accept you and me together." he said, drearily.
"I think you ought to give people more credit." she said. He said nothing, but looked at her almost fondly in his own way. "So, Professor, did we just decide to try and make a go of it? To tell all obstacles to piss off and start an actual relationship?" she said in a teasing tone.
"Language, Miss Granger." he said, standing.
"Oh, bugger off you wanker." she said merrily and they apparated back to the gates of Hogwarts.
He saw her to her rooms and bid her a pleasant good night. Harry and Ron, who'd been waiting for her outside the portrait of the ballerina, stared after him with open jaws.
"That was… did Snape actually say something nice?" Harry asked, looking at Hermione who wished they'd just go away so she could take a bath and go to sleep (or at least toss and turn in peace worrying about her impending exam scores).
"Snape was most companionable today." Hermione said, climbing through her portrait. They followed, uninvited. She shucked off her robes and found a hair elastic to tie up her hair with into a knot on the top of her head.
"I doubt that." Ron said, snorting.
"I don't want to argue about this." she snapped. "And my horrifying exams were fine, thank you for asking." she said.
"Oy, sorry Hermione." Harry said, elbowing Ron who was about to snap something back. They'd never gotten over their constant bickering. "When do you find out results?"
"In the morning." she said.
"Then you won't be a student anymore?" Ron asked, absentmindedly rubbing his ribs. "That will be strange."
"I've not been to classes in months." she reminded him, undoing her tie and kicking off her shoes and socks. "Not to mention teaching your class and grading your papers. You do a lot less well when I don't help." she said.
"You're telling us." Harry said. "I think what Ron meant was… you'll be a full professor. You'll probably not even sit with us at meals or come in our common room or…" He faded off. "You were always years ahead of us anyway." He sounded resigned and neither Ron nor Hermione had a response. Hermione had always been more mature but Harry was ahead as well. Ron… well Ron was taller then the both of them, at least.
"I don't know what's going to happen." she said and it was the truth. Just a few days ago she'd had no idea she'd be taking her exams and now here she was finished with those and waiting impatiently in the limbo of her displacement. Her affair with Severus was just another straw placed precariously on the camel's back. She was suddenly too exhausted for words. "I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning." she said, pointing at the door. They nodded and slipped out of her presence. She finished stripping and took a quick shower instead of the hot bath she'd planned. She dried her hair with a charm, slipped on her summer nightgown, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
She woke up early. It was Sunday so she once again had no classes to teach. Part of her wanted to go find Dumbledore right now and demand to know what he planned to do with her but the logical side knew nothing would change until her scores arrived. She dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt – she felt like being comfortable in her endless wait – and sat in her sitting room trying to read until it was time for breakfast and the owl post. She was one of the first in the Great Hall and she sat nervously at one of the end seats of the Gryffindor table; the end closest to the long staff table. She wanted answers as soon as she received her marks, even if that meant leaning over Dumbledore's breakfast to get them. Slowly, students came in and sat down. She wasn't hungry in the slightest but piled her plate with food when it appeared in front of her. Harry and Ron knew better than to talk to her when she was that fidgety and when her mouth was set in such a thin, straight line.
Most of the school didn't know that Hermione – Professor H as the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had taken to calling her in jest and out of respect – had taken her tests and was waiting impatiently for the results. She glanced up to the staff table. Dumbledore was enjoying his pile of fluffy eggs with a somewhat alarming vigor for a man of his stature. Snape who rarely came to breakfast (especially on Sundays) was not there. This frustrated her for some reason.
Then it was there. The screech of owls. She promptly climbed up on to the bench and leapt up to grab the envelope the moment it left the barn owl's talons. People where watching her make a spectacle of herself but she cared little. She tore open the ministry envelope and read the results standing with her foot half on Neville's toast.
"Well, girl, don't make us wait." Dumbledore called gaily out into the hushed murmur that the Great Hall had become. "Read it out!"
"Potions: 99. Transfiguration: 100. Charms: 100. History of Magic: 98. Care of Magical Creatures: 96. Astronomy: 100. Arithmancy: 100. Defense against the Dark Arts: 100." she read out into the now silent hall. She looked up in awe at the head table who was staring at her with mouths full of food half open. And then Harry was clapping and the staff was clapping and the Gryffindors were screaming and stomping their feet and then the whole school – save a few surly Slytherins – were applauding and watching her with envy.
"Well done." Dumbledore was yelling. "Run and tell Minerva. Go on!" he said, pointing out of the hall and she laughed and nodded and left the clamor with her results in her hot little hand. She'd done amazingly well. To score perfect scores on five out of eight was unheard of and her lowest score was a 96. She couldn't think straight. She nearly screamed "Poinsettia" and calmed herself before she went into McGonagall's room. The old lady was in bed with Severus at her side and they were talking quietly but stopped when they saw Hermione standing there grinning stupidly flushed and sweating from running up several flights of stairs.
"They came." she said, grinning. Snape stood and snatched the results from her hand and read them over quickly.
"My heavens." he said. "Hermione, this is…" there were not words. "Minerva." he said and handed her the now rather rumpled test results.
"Miss Granger this is… these are… she beat YOU, Severus!" McGonagall said laughing. "By three points!"
Severus reached for Hermione and picked her up and spun her around a few times before crushing her into a hug, Minerva be damned. She couldn't help but laugh as the room spun; the only constant being Snape's genuinely happy face just centimeters away from hers. Finally, he set her down and she hung onto his arm for a moment while she righted herself. McGonagall watched without expression but wisely said nothing.
"You can do whatever you want." he said, looking down at her. "With these scores you could rule the world."
"One step at a time now." she said. "What happens next?"
"You finish the year." McGonagall said.
"I don't have to continue classes?" she asked.
"No." McGonagall said. "I should think not. Professor Snape and I were just discussing your options." she admitted. "I've decided not to return to Hogwarts and I will move out of the castle as soon as I am able." The happy mood faltered a bit.
"I'll miss you very much." Hermione said and the elderly woman smiled at her.
"And I, you." she said. "Though I cannot speak for Headmaster Dumbledore, I assume you can stay on here for at least next term while you decide what you want to do." Hermione nodded, glancing coyly at Snape.
"I would like that." she said.
The rest of term – only four weeks before the rest of the students took NEWTs and end of year exams – flew by quickly with the lightened work load. She took a great joy in teaching that she hadn't before with all the stress. She thought she might have to proctor the exams she herself had just passed but none of the Hogwarts did in fear of favoritism. She spent the week of NEWTs down in the dungeons with Severus, sharing meals and catching up on lost time.
The first day they'd stayed apart, still unsure of the rules. But when he didn't go to dinner, she wandered down to find him and he was in his office eating biscuits and drinking lukewarm tea.
"I brought you a plate." she said, shyly, knocking on the slightly ajar office door. He was grading, of course, something she needed to finish but was waiting until the morning when everyone was busy. He looked up.
"How thoughtful." he said, motioning her inside. "Put a warming charm on it, perhaps I'll eat it later."
"All right. I just wanted to check on you." she said, setting the plate down and heading for the door, disappointed.
"Stay." he said and she paused. "I don't have to… we could go…" he said, glancing towards the door the led to his chambers.
"Okay." she said. Because, Merlin, they had been so good. They had been polite and respectful of personal space even when alone. Now she'd passed her tests that made her of age in any sense of the word. In fact, she'd sat at the staff table tonight for the first time even though the seat next to her had been conspicuously empty. The food was forgotten. The grading ceased to exist. He was already pulling off her clothes before he'd locked all the doors and pushed her down onto the sofa. He wove her hands into his hair and shuddered lightly as he caught her neck in his teeth and sucked slowly. She would have a mark there. She would have several marks. He loved to mark her – as if to leave physical evidence of his presence there.
"You're mine." he growled into her neck. She whimpered and tore at his clothes. He whispered a spell and suddenly the clothes were gone and she thought vaguely that she would have to learn that spell but then he was there between her legs and she was arching up from the cool leather of the couch and he was above her bobbing up and down and when she came she saw colors that didn't have any names.