Severely Deluded
Scene 9
Hermione finished her Potions essay that same evening. It had been easy, once she'd found out from Neville what it was supposed to be about.
But she didn't have Potions again until Wednesday, and Snape, it seemed, couldn't wait that long.
Miss Granger – please stop by my office with your essay after class today. S. Snape.
He's probably expecting me not to have it done, Hermione thought as she folded and pocketed the note. Is he in for a shock.
But Snape seemed not to be the least bit surprised when she presented him with her essay, merely adding it to the pyramid of scrolls on one side of his desk.
"Sir, how did you know I'd have my essay finished already?" Hermione said.
"I didn't," Snape said, folding his hands. "But if any student in this school could write an essay in one evening, it would be you."
Hermione didn't know what to make of that, so she kept quiet.
"And since you didn't let me finish earlier," Snape said, "I would like to apologize again for treating you so abominably. You did nothing to deserve it."
"That's quite all right," Hermione said, looking down at her hands and feeling unaccountably nervous.
"Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"
Hermione's head jerked up. There seemed no point in lying, since he seemed to know better than she did what was going on. "No, sir."
Snape leaned back in his chair looking speculative. "I'd thought you were tougher than that," he said. "Was it really so traumatic?"
"Apparently," Hermione said.
"Did you use a Memory Charm?"
"I don't remember using one," she said. Which was true.
"No, you wouldn't," Snape said. "Very well, we're going to the hospital wing."
"What for?"
"Poppy is exceptionally good at reversing Memory Charms."
Fifteen minutes later Hermione was seated on a bed with Madam Pomfrey hovering over her and Snape lurking in the background.
"There's no evidence of a Memory Charm," Pomfrey said. "But good gracious, girl, there's quite a chunk of your brain missing."
"I think I understand," said Snape.
Hermione walked back to her room thoroughly confused. If Snape knew what was going on, why had he let her go? It was disconcerting to say the least that Snape had a better idea of what was going on in her head than she did. Perhaps, she thought vaguely, if I ask politely he'll explain what's happening to me.
But, as it turned out, she didn't even have to ask. The next evening, she was at her desk working on Transfiguration homework when there was a pop in the fireplace, behind her, and Snape's voice said, "Miss Granger?"
Hermione nearly knocked her ink out the window. She caught it and replaced it on her desk, then spun around. "Yes, Professor?"
"I have here --" he waved a parchment at her, then snatched it away when it began to scorch – "an authorization to search your room for an illegal Pensieve."
"But Pensieves aren't illegal."
"I think you'll find that at Hogwarts memory aids are illegal, including Pensieves."
Hermione looked at Snape with new respect; he had clearly read Hogwarts, a History down to the footnotes.
"May I come through?" Snape said. "I'd like to get this over with."
Hermione opened her mouth to tell him no, but he continued.
"I'm going to anyway, but I thought you'd like to have at least a semblance of control over the situation."
"Yes, you can come through," Hermione said, cursing to herself.
Snape accordingly came through. Wearing his habitual black, he looked about as suited to Hermione's lemon-yellow room as Hagrid to the Yule Ball. Hermione would have been tempted to laugh if some unknown part of her hadn't been so desperately uncomfortable with the situation.
"May I see that?" she said, holding out her hand.
Snape surrendered the bit of parchment. "I suppose you won't be satisfied any other way," he said.
Hermione scanned it quickly. Signed by Dumbledore – well, there wasn't any getting around that.
"Instead of searching my room, couldn't you just use a Summoning Charm?" Hermione said.
"Of course," Snape said. "If you want your memories all over your rug, that is."
Hermione returned the parchment, feeling mutinous. "Get on with it, then."
She had never been so humiliated in her life – at least, not any part of it she remembered. It was bad enough when Snape discovered Lavender and Parvati's cache of romance novels. ("Who would have thought," he sneered, ignoring all her protestations of innocence, "that Hermione Granger's biggest vice involved reading?") But when he reached her underwear drawer, Hermione leaped out of her chair.
"I refuse to let you search that drawer."
"Am I getting close?" Snape inquired, lowering his wand.
"That's my underwear drawer."
Hermione hadn't even thought Snape capable of blushing. You learn something new every day, she thought, surveying him with interest.
"I can't not search it," Snape growled. "Like as not, that's where it is."
Actually, she had reduced it and hidden it in the toe of one of her shoes. But the underwear drawer had been her first choice.
"Go ahead, then, if you have to," said Hermione, and watched his blush deepen.
"I am as little anxious to search it as you are to have me search it," Snape snapped. "Do you have any suggestions?"
"You could take my word for it."
"Not good enough."
"I could dump everything on the ground and show you the empty drawer."
Snape thought it over. "I suppose that'll have to do."
So she did. After Snape had been satisfied that the drawer was empty, Hermione gathered up its contents and retreated to her bed with them and the drawer.
"It's going to take an absolute age to get everything folded and put back," Hermione said.
"I don't want to hear about it," Snape snarled.
Brilliant wizard though he was supposed to be, it never once occurred to Snape to check the toes of her shoes, with the result that after another hour of searching, Snape was forced to give up.
"But I'll be back," he promised. "With a few things to make the job easier."
Hermione didn't like to think about what those might be: probably a Sneakoscope and a bottle of Veritaserum for backup. She could only hope he had decided to take her word about the contents of her underwear drawer.