Touch the Air Softly
by Jessa L'Rynn
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. J.K. Rowling created them and writes them with a genius that has never been equaled. Warner Bros. owns the right to do dumb things with them and doubtlessly will once Jo's finished with them, unless she kills them all. I try to fight the urge to put words into other people's visions. But every once in awhile, something yummy like this comes along and I find myself committing what I have been told is both crime and honor. With all due respect to Jo Rowling and her marvelous world, here is my attempt to "steal from the best".
Chapter 10: Glass Bottom Boat
Snape looked up from his notes as the second class filed in and felt his jaw tighten and his teeth clench of their own accord. He counted runny little brat noses without really taking in their faces, though his eyes did stop, again without his permission, to gaze ever so briefly at the Head Girl's bushy hair.
He wanted more than anything to give her another detention. He felt he could justify it - she had walked out of the last one, after all. But he didn't trust his own motives and there was no way he was willing to risk that without being one hundred percent certain that his decisions would stand up to the scrutiny of both McGonagall and Dumbledore.
He opened his lesson plan book as the class fell silent. For a few minutes, he was determined to stand up and tell them some useful information. A momentary lapse of reason, however, hit him when he met Hermione's eyes by accident across the room, and he was assailed by the delicious idea of an elegant and sleek head girl taking him by the hand and leading him away some place more pleasant.
"Right," he said, shaking his head, desperately coping with the images in his mind by talking right off the top of his head. "You don't want to be here and neither do I. None of us has a vast quantity of time to waste, as you are meant to be studying for your NEWTs this year and I am meant to be properly teaching you to prepare for them. The day this subject turns up on a NEWT is the day we move the school to Diagon Alley." He paced back and forth in front of the class for a minute that felt like ages. "Therefore, your fellow classmates will be joining you henceforth as I do not wish to go through this more than once at a time. I will at each class assign a chapter. You will, for the next class, review it and all relevant reading. This does not mean, Miss Granger, that you have to read 'Origin of the Magic Species,' though I've no doubt you have already done so. Seven times."
He shook his head as the image of Hermione rising angrily from her chair and drawing him into an embarrassing position rose behind his eyelids. When it cleared, he continued, this time stopping to take a piece of parchment that Thomas was trying to hand to Brown on the far side of the room. "Your eyes are like pools in the summer sun," he sneered. "What?" he asked Thomas, "stagnant and drying out?" Thomas shrugged and gestured to Finnigan on his far side. Finnigan attempted to hide behind his book. "Ten points from Gryffindor," he said and was surprised to hear that his voice sounded, rather than his usual flippant and cold, rather exasperated. Too much time around Minerva, no doubt, he thought, grimly.
"As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted by Shakespeare and his paramour, I will assign chapters, you will read them. The next class, you will be prepared to discuss them at length and answer questions. Anyone answering more than one question incorrectly will be required to do the homework. Everyone will be participating. Potter, put that down." He had seen the motion out of the corner of his eyes, but it wasn't until he turned around completely that he realized Dumbledore's Golden Boy had actually taken his wand out of his pocket and sat it on his desk. "What is that for?"
"It was poking me," Potter said calmly. Snape stared at him. That was the irritating thing about Potter (one of the six thousand or so irritating things). You could, by sheer trickery, pull details out of him, but if he decided to lie to you, you really couldn't get the actual truth out of him. Even Dumbledore and the Dark Lord had run into this problem, but neither of them believed the other had the problem. Occlumency be damned - as usual, the child did it by sheer ignorance of the impossibility of it. Dumbledore had a distinct advantage in these situations - Potter felt no compunction about lying to the Dark Lord and his body language no longer betrayed him as it had when he was a child. Dumbledore usually could guilt the information out. Snape was, through his own actions, on the Voldemort end of the spectrum in Potter's universe. After a moment of using the technique that had worked before Potter became so damnably fearless, he turned away and looked back at the rest of the class.
Weasley had his wand out too, now, following Potter's lead. Granger's had been on the desk to start with - the girl was too intelligent to risk the delay. "Moving on from the typical Gryffindor hysterics," he said dryly as several of the other children twitched toward their wands. "We will be reviewing Chapter Three on the Magical Children Protection Acts at this time. Who can briefly - briefly, Miss Granger - summarize that act for the class."
Granger's glare caught his eyes for only a second, but the blow was almost physical and it was completely staggering. He took a second to glance around the room and selected Boot of Ravenclaw.
"Act I states that, as magic exists to protect the magical, it can and should be applied to magical children. It justifies, basically, the rest of the document which lays a series of charms on all magic children, preventing certain kinds of violence against children."
"Precisely. The charms prevent harm that can be prevented. An adult may punish you but not beat you severely - any attempt will produce a sharp electrical shock. You may wish to note this in defense of the underage. Once you reach seventeen, the geis is lifted. Mr. Potter, how is it formed?"
"It was created by Merlin and has been expanded by powerful wizards as the age of accountability has increased in the magic world."
"You should be more specific, Mr. Potter. Five points from Gryffindor." He looked, astonished, at the smile that appeared on Potter's face. It wasn't a nice smile, but it did seem to be somewhat relieved for some reason. Snape rolled his eyes. He fervently wished the floor would swallow him. Or, as he was a sensible person who rarely made silly mistakes anymore, he wished the floor would swallow THEM. A brief sigh, and his quizzing continued.
Hermione turned and smiled at Harry, who had stopped fingering his wand menacingly. It was Snape, she had told him, but Harry had to have proof. Harry grinned at her and turned to Ron to say something, but the tall redhead had gone stark white and his head was in his hand. Hermione frowned, and looked nervously around the room, searching for their impending doom.
Snape was quizzing the Ravenclaws about certain aspects of the Magical Children act (while welcome in many aspects, it also struck Hermione as somewhat invasive). Ron had turned toward the window and was gaping at it.
"Clause 7," Snape was clarifying, "prevents voluntary or involuntary procreation among magical children. The geis is lifted if marriage is accepted voluntarily by a child, but it is otherwise impossible to molest a magic child."
"Can still crucio one," Harry snarled. Hermione was about to reach over to comfort him when Snape rounded on him.
"Thank you, Mr. Potter," Snape snapped, his black eyes blazing and his chin held high. "This is an example of yet another reason why the unforgivable curses are referred to as 'unforgivable' - they can be utilized with impunity. Their use, even if they fail, is of course, subject to a term of stay in Azkaban prison."
Harry and Snape glared at each other, and even the air seemed to want to get out from between them. Their classmates were leaning over in their seats, watching as Harry started to get up. He seemed stuck somewhere in the process of jumping to his feet and providing a round example of things that weren't punishable by Azkaban but could still make a sensible person hate his life. Ron, who was usually the first now to talk sense into Harry, was not paying any attention, putting Hermione in what she felt was an awkward position.
The suggestion in her mind that she get between them scared her quite a bit. The second suggestion was one from her mad dreams of late, the idea of bringing Snape's head down to meet his full lips with her own, her eyes closing slowly under the onslaught of his warm, moist tongue...
Harry sat down. "Thank you, sir," he said through clenched teeth. "I really needed that imformation."
"Anytime, Potter," snarled Snape. "Ten points from Gryffindor for interrupting."
Harry nodded, and the class breathed a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Hermione was sitting in her seat, gasping for breath, shaking her head and trying to figure out when she had gotten so insane. Snape didn't have full lips. He had thin, angry, almost snow white lips, and he was glaring at her with them right now.
Where did these stupid ideas come from? She wondered if maybe a romance novel had taken up residence in her head and was supplying random words that fit romances, but definately not the situation. She glared haughtily back at Snape, who ignored her completely. She looked around. Oh, he wasn't glaring at her, he was glaring at Ron.
Ron handed her a tawny school owl with a note tied to its leg and said, "Whatever you do, don't go without an escort."
Hermione stared at him and took the owl, working to get the note off its leg while Snape deducted more points from Ron for having an inexplicable owl in class. Hermione sighed. She would never admit it, not to anyone, not even to Harry, but this was one of the reasons she had recovered from their breakup so easily. Ever since the hideous encounter with the brains in the Department of Mysteries at the end of fifth year, Ron had acquired a pronounced tendancy to get weird some times, and what Muggles called a sixth sense (and wizards called second sight) that was both as random as Colin Creevy's personality and as mind-bogglingly accurate as Trelawney's wasn't. He had become a little more Luna-like than the stoic Hermione knew how to handle and so, though she loved him, she was happier to see him with someone who could truly understand him. Which she didn't, especially not right at this moment.
She opened the letter without hearing Snape, desperately afraid that something horrible had happened. How often did an owl turn up any time other than breakfast at Hogwarts when it hadn't been explicitly instructed to do. No, she only got owls from two places anymore, and it wasn't likely to be a good sign either way.
"I said, Miss Granger, what are you doing with an owl post in my class?" Snape's voice finally came through her distraction.
"I'm not sure, sir," she said. "It would be important, though, wouldn't it, to arrive so late in the day?"
"Then you'd best read it. That'll be another detention for you, Miss Granger, tomorrow evening, I think. Class dismissed."
As everyone filed out of the room, Ron and Harry leaned in on either side of Hermione to read the note over her shoulder, while Neville pulled up the nearest chair and waited patiently, too. Hermione carefully schooled her expression, hoping Snape would go away and let her be upset by whatever the news was in peace, but he stood there dithering with his books, picking at his robes, and generally making a nuisance of himself. Somewhere inside her, the mad woman who had written Snape in as the man of her dreams was delighted with this whole prospect. Hermione had been fighting her affection for him for years. This wasn't about to stop her.
As she read the letter, she was surprised to find that, while it was very important and time-sensitive, it wasn't something that couldn't wait until tomorrow morning. Unless maybe her parents thought she'd need extra time to make the decision, or arrangements or something.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," said Harry. "About your great-aunt and everything," he added in a quiet, sympathetic voice.
Hermione smiled at him, gratefully. "I never actually knew her, Harry. She was very very old when I was little - I used to go see her on holidays, but I haven't really talked to her in awhile."
Neville reached out a sympathetic hand and put it on her shoulder. They heard a loud noise from the front of the room. Snape had apparently dropped his books and was carefully picking them up. Hermione frowned. "She was always fond of me, though, you know. Said I looked like her little girl. Her "little girl" is older than my dad, I think."
Ron smiled. "Maybe there's wizard blood in your family, after all, Hermione. How old was she?"
"A hundred and one, mum's letter says," Hermione said. "Not old enough for wizard blood, Ron. Besides," she smiled a mischievious little smile and looked at all of them. "I am proud to be a pure Muggle-born."
Ron laughed and hugged her, Harry clapped her on the back. Snape dropped his books again. "Do you need some help with that, sir?" she asked sweetly.
He glared at her. "No, thank you, Miss Granger. Have you quite finished your so-called emergency missive?"
She looked at the boys and sighed. "Yes sir. There's been a death in my family, sir."
Snape blinked at her. "How unfortunate," he said, in a quiet tone that was probably the closest he could ever get to sympathy for a Gryffindor. "I suggest you meet with Professor Dumbledore tomorrow before your detention to make arrangements."
She nodded. "Thank you, sir," she said. Snape swooped out of the room, his robes billowing a black menace behind him as he stalked away. "And thank you so much for the detention. It's so kind and thoughtful of you to force me to clean cauldrons when I should probably be packing for a funeral."
Ron and Harry helped her to her feet and Neville grabbed her books. "Tell McGonagall," Ron suggested. "She won't let that sadistic old bat trap you for something you couldn't help."
Hermione sighed. She definitely couldn't tell them that she didn't mind being stuck in the room with Snape at all, anymore. She could dream about him so much better in his presence. There was something sensual, something wanton, something almost real to it with him in the same room while she fantasized about seductive gestures that brushed along his skin but never touched him. But the boys didn't need to know that, at all. They would probably rush her to the hospital wing immediately.
She shook her head as they headed back to Gryffindor tower. She wondered if any of them would still speak to her at all if she won what first her mind and now, apparently, her body as well, so desperately longed for. They only saw the lake, the water, the surface, which was black and angry and unforgiving. But somehow, against her will, she had gotten a view of everything beneath the face presented for the world, and it was a precious view that would not let her go. She shook her head and wondered whether they would hate her more than she would hate herself.
duj - thanks for the note - I enjoyed fixing it in this singularly appropriate way.
Stay tuned for guest appearances from Ginny Weasley, Remus Lupin, Bellatrix LeStrange (boy, is she ever) and an alternate universe.