Well here is Chapter XVII. I hope you will all see fit to review my story. I hope you all enjoy it.
I will do my best to update as soon as I can.
January 7th, 1998
I didn't get slobbering drunk tonight. Over the last two weeks I had come to actually enjoy -I hesitate to use the word and shudder at the very least- Miss Granger's presence. I like to pretend that she enjoys being around me as well though I doubt it.
She'd already come and been this evening. She smiled at me. I often caught her smiling at me though I do not think she knows that I know she smiles. It shocked me. Very few people have ever smiled at me. I wasn't pleasing to look at and I never smiled in return. When I told her I would let her do the actual brewing she'd gotten all wide eyed and she actually hugged me. I must be growing soft and weak because I had put my hand on her head and I had felt a smile tug at my lips. If it had been any other person I would have pushed them away. When she realized what she was doing she pulled away and grinned shyly and sheepishly but didn't look the least bit like she minded that she had just hugged her greasy git of a potions master.
It pleased me to see her so silent. Though I admit that the sound of her voice pleases me and I would here her speak even if I was deaf and I would see her radiant beauty even if I was blind. I would never say that to her. Her cheeks had turned a light pink and she apologized while examining her feet. I was beginning to wonder what had gotten under Miss Granger's skin. Ever since her recovery she had been much more friendly toward me. She must think that I took her to the Hospital Wing and she feels that she owes me for it. Little does she know that Dumbledore was the one who took her to the Hospital Wing. But in the past she had stood up for me. It made me feel pleased and slightly amused when she stood up for me. It reminded me of my love, my Jane. She even hugged the same way Jane had and she seemed very aware of what had happened and what was going to happen even though I was certain that no one had told her of Jane and she had no way of knowing. But it seemed that we both shared a lost love that we would not be able to have. I have to wonder whether it is Potter of Weasley.
NO SEVERUS! She is not Jane! Jane will be back. She will tell me when she is here again. My Jane could not be Hermione Granger. I could see no feasible way they could be the same person and if she was she would have told me by now.
Hermione Granger
January 8th, 1998 - Friday
I flopped down in the arm chair and dropped my bag next to me before sighing.
"Is that a sigh of delight or a sigh of exhaustion?" Harry asked handing me a cup of tea.
"Yes," I replied simply and took a sip of the tea. "Thanks Harry."
"Knock. Knock," Remus called poking his head through the painting.
"Come in Remus," I said grinning at the werewolf.
Remus flounced in and hugged me as if it had been twenty years since he last saw me. That is the way he always greets me now. It was nice.
"So how is the potion brewing with Snape going?" Remus asked winking at Harry when he thought I wasn't looking.
"Really well," I answered. "Professor Snape let me do some of the brewing today."
"That's not what I meant Hermione. I meant how are things going between you and Hogwarts most infamous potions master?" Remus stated with a devilish grin.
"I know very well what you meant Remus. But as surprising as this may sound, I do not go down and snog my potions master senseless. I do not know what he thinks of Hermione Granger nor do I know much of what hell he has been through over the last twenty years. All I know is sixteen of the years were spent teaching at Hogwarts and that I found out because of Umbridge," I said. I wish I could go down and snog him senseless but I wouldn't tell Remus that because he would tease me.
"Tea, Remus?" Harry asked offering a cup to him.
"Thanks Harry," Remus said and he took the cup.
"Remus, I was wondering if you would be willing to go and see what you can find out about his opinion of me?" I asked batting my eyes sweetly and making them appear larger and rounder.
"HELL YES!" Remus said and he seized my hands. He hopped a bit in front of me. "I've been waiting for you to ask."What do you want me to ask Severus about?"
I giggled. I was glad that Remus seemed so enthusiastic about helping me.
"Well I think first of all you should give him some pretext for being there. I doubt he'd believe you stopped by for no reason or just to talk. He'd put his guard up and be careful of what he'd say. After that Remus just do not, or at least try not, to toe the line of prudence. Remember Severus is a very PRIVATE person. In fact you might consider taking a bottle of Fire Whiskey with you," I said. I knew my love drank for I'd seen the bottle on his office desk and it had been half empty. I wasn't sure how much or how often though.
"Well I'll just slip down and see Severus then," Remus said grinning jovially. "Actually I need to ask him about my Wolfsbane Potion since I have to take it tonight."
Severus Snape
I sipped at a glass of Fire Whiskey. I wasn't planning to get slobbering drunk but it was happening just the same. The Fire Whiskey burned when it hit my stomach.
"Severus," a voice called from the door that led to my office.
I growled. Remus, that moron, was calling me. What did that imbecile need now?
"What do you need Lupin?" I called at the door that led to me office. My stomach burned again, the pleasant burning from the drink.
"I came to see how my Wolfsbane Potion coming?" Remus asked poking his head through the door before slipping the rest of the way through. "You didn't bring it yet."
"It is not finished," I snapped. I downed the last of the Fire Whiskey reveling in the burning in my stomach.
"How was your day Severus?" he asked smiling nervously.
My eyes narrowed. What was he up to? "Why do you ask?"
"I figure it's time we put the past behind us, buried the hatchet. I have been trying for years," Remus said slipping closer.
"What is you motive?" I asked giving him a nasty narrow eyed look. Remus had tried to befriend me dozens of times over the years. Each time I'd told him the same thing. Bugger off! So perhaps he just was proposing the same thing he had been for the last twenty years, ever since Jane disappeared. But Jane was coming back to me. I wait for her.
"Why would I have a motive for wanting to be your friend? I've been trying to be your friend for the last twenty years or did you forget that little fact?" Remus asked with a hurt look. "I brought some Fire Whiskey with me."
"Are you hitting on me?" I asked whipping my wand out and pointing it at him. The sicko might be. He better not.
"NO!" Remus said. "I just want us to be friends. I've told you before that I don't see you that way."
"Good because I am not GAY! And I would hex your testicles off if you were hitting on me," I slurred shaking my wand at him in my drunken state.
"Fire Whiskey, Severus?" Remus offered as I shoved my hand back into a pocket.
I grunted and thrust my glass toward him. Remus grinned and opened the bottle to dump a liberal amount into the glass.
"Thanks," I said taking a huge gulp. I was surring worse than usual. "Take a ssseat."
Remus sat quietly and carefully in the chair next to mine. "May I have a glass?"
I flicked my wand at a cabinet and it zoomed out and into Remus hand.
"Thanks," Remus said and poured some Fire Whiskey for himself. "How was your day?"
"Spending my day with the dunderheads that have been allowed into this school always makes my day a living hell. Saturday and Sunday are the best days of the week," I said slumping in my chair and sipping more whiskey.
"But on weekends Miss Granger is coming in and making up work she missed while being incapacitated in the Hospital Wing," Remus said casually taking a sip of his Fire Whiskey.
"Miss Granger is not a dunderhead. She is far more tolerable than the range of idiots in the rest of my classes. One might even go as far as to say she is a 'joy' to teach if I still felt joy that is," I slurred lifting my arm to look at the bracelet. I never took it off. It made me feel close to her though I knew not where my love was. I glanced up at the mantle. Jane's clip and last letter as well as a box that held every note she'd ever written to me. Pictures of us at the Halloween ball hung neatly above the mantle.
Why did she, Miss Granger, end her notes to me with the word love? I'm sure it was force of habit for her to sign letters that way and she wasn't even aware that she'd written it to me though I like to pretend she did so out of true affection. Wishful prayers on my part and in my heart. Miss Granger wouldn't and couldn't love me, though I knew better than to deny to myself the fact that I was beginning to feel more for her than I should for a student, but I would never consciously admit the fact to anyone else.
"What else do you think of Miss Granger?" Remus asked taking another exceptionally tiny sip of Fire Whiskey. I guess he was not a big drinker.
I took a huge gulp before answering. The whiskey was doing wonders on loosening my tongue. "Miss Granger is the first female whose company has left me with more than a feeling of disdain for the finicky creatures in twenty years. She provides intellectual, stimulating conversation and is very capable of defending her beliefs in why her theories would work. I must say she helped give me an idea for a potion that might be able to end lycanthropy. I mean no transforming at the full moon and all that nonsense. A few of her ideas are sheer idiocy but she refuses to let go of them. Teenage stubbornness," I said and took another large gulp of my drink.
"So you like Miss Granger?" Remus asked taking another very tiny sip from the glass.
"I do not dislike her though I do not know whether I like her. She is in no way displeasing to be around. She reminds me of..." I stopped speaking then before I risked saying too much. My honesty was surprising. I was very drunk. No other explanation.
"Jane?" Remus questioned gently and softly.
I nodded. I might as well stop blaming him for delivering my loves farewell note. It really was not his fault but I had been looking for a scapegoat and Remus had conveniently been there.
"She reminds all of us of Jane. She is just like her. She looks like her, behaves like her, and likes the same variety of guys. Viktor Krum looks like a younger version of you. Jane was my best friend and Hermione's best friend is Harry. Harry and I both have reasons to hide who we are from public eyes. Harry because he is the boy who lived and I for being a werewolf. It is most fascinating. Really," Remus said sipping again.
"Apparently Hermione enjoys going out with assholes instead because Mr. Weasley is remarkably like Sirius Black. At least in the way they treat women. They are both apt to pick on the girls they like and not understand why the girl they like dislikes them. They think they are wonderful without realizing how irritating and vapid they are. I'd never treat a woman the way Black does and did."
"You know she only dated him for a short time before she knew she wanted to break up with him. But the accident happened mere hours before she planned to break up with him. She broke up with him almost the moment she saw him after she retu...uh...recovered from the accident," Remus said grinning.
"Are you always full of the latest gossip? You really are scary sometimes you know," I said shoving the glass toward him. "More."
Remus topped the glass off before sipping at his own again.
"Yes, I am well aware of most of what is important to the students, academic and non academic. All the girls of every house, including a few of your Slytherins, come and cry on my shoulder, although the Slytherin girls only come when you are busy or not to be found. I know, from them, that you have quite an illustrious reputation with the more angsty females of your house and from what I hear there are more than enough to go around. But all the girls from the other three houses like to come and talk to me. We have a little party most Saturday afternoons."
"Wait here Remus," I slurred as I stood up and went to my office and into my private lab and ladled some steaming potion into a goblet before removing the potion from the cauldron. I walked back to my sitting room and shoved the potion up under Remus' nose. "Drink it!"
"It smells bad," Remus griped as he delicately took the goblet.
"I imagine it tastes awful as well," I said smirking delightedly at him and filling my glass with more of Ogden's Old Fire Whiskey. "It's a good thing Miss Granger is so smart and clever at potions. If not I think some students would end up becoming vampires after Black's lesson. I'll be so hung-over in the morning. It will be a miracle if I am able to work on it in the morning."
"You know I have a Hangover Remedy up in my rooms. Remember the headmaster insisted that you make a full batch of it for each member of the staff. I guess you have thoroughly depleted yours. But not everyone drinks quite like you Severus," Remus said taking a sip of the potion. He grimaced. "This is so gross. Is there nothing you can add to improve the taste of this revolting potion?"
"Sorry, adding a flavor may make it useless," I said. It was highly entertaining to watch Remus make faces at the nasty flavor. I knew that I could add spearmint. The book said so but it was so much more fun to torture him. "Drink it faster."
Remus downed the rest of it quickly. I laughed outright at the look of revulsion that graced his face.
"Do you always take pleasure in the pain of others Severus? And you are not Sorry," Remus snapped before setting the goblet down on the table next to him.
"Not always but often, especially when it is you. You'd laugh it you could see the look you get on your face too," I remarked downing the last of the whiskey. I picked up the bottle and tried to pour some more. Nothing came out. I felt my eyes widen and lips puff out into a pout.
Remus giggled, "Now who's unhappy?"
I must have looked extremely pathetic, "The Fire Whiskey is gone." I pouted and looked at the bottle furiously.
"Yes there is no more Fire Whiskey," Remus said keeping straight-faced.
"Where's the Fire Whiskey?" I demanded standing up, or at least trying to, I sort of wobbled before collapsing back in my chair.
"There is no more Fire Whiskey," Remus said firmly. "I think you've had enough anyway."
"No! I want more!" I knew I sounded like a bratty child begging for sweets but I could care less.
Remus came over and helped me to stand. "Come Severus, let's get you to bed."
I passed out halfway between my chair and my bed.
Well there you had it. Chapter XVII. Please press the review button and send me something nice about my story. If it is not nice then I do not care.