The Emotions of Potions Rein Elanor
Chapter Four: Harboring Feelings of....What?
Disclaimer: Hi, my name is not J.K. Rowling. Nice to meet you.
A/N: Hello, faithful readers. (You must really be faithful if you've waited this long to read this.) I am soooo sorry about the horrendous delay in updating, my dears! It's a dreadful thing, to lead you all to believe that I wouldn't finish! (Or maybe I made you happy, giving you hope for a future without this crime of literature.)
Chapter 4: Harboring Feelings of ....What?
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Hermione ran blindly out of the classroom. She cursed herself silently for being so stupid and crying, but that didn't stop her tears. She got to her Head Girl's room and lay down upon her bed. As she thought about that night's lesson, her face grew hot with anger.
'He has no right to be so cruel to anyone,' she thought. 'Even if his father was horrible to him.'
Yet she couldn't help feeling sorry for him, through her anger. It had been a heart wrenching story, and it had helped her to see him in a more human light.
Hermione yawned, and her last thought before drifting off to sleep was, 'At least he was so angry that he forgot to make me tell him the truth about the potion...'
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Severus Snape, back in his study in the dungeons, felt like a heel. Of course, she had deserved the reprimand- it had been stupid to sneak up on him- but he still felt rather like a cockroach. And a slimy, one at that. He caught a glimpse of himself in one of the glass jars that lined his study walls, and turned away in disgust. The greasy hair, the hook nose- he was ugly, there was no doubt about it. He wondered how anyone could bear to look at him.
'No wonder the students fear me,' he thought, forgetting for a moment his deliberately evil outward demeanor.
Then he remembered Hermione Granger patting his shoulder again. Why did he keep remembering that?
She was the first person to touch him without extreme repugnance in a long time, even if it had been in sympathy. He knew she was sympathetic towards all pathetic creatures, having heard about S.P.E.W. If she could care that much about house elves why not the cruel and greasy Professor Snape?
He shook his head, trying to clear it. Why was he thinking these pointless thoughts about Hermione Granger, of all people?
He went into the cold lavatory he had all to himself and took a shower. He let the hot water burn his skin as he tore at his scalp washing his black hair. Although he knew that after ten minutes of standing over a steaming cauldron his hair would be limp again, he never failed in trying to make it look cleaner.
"Disgusting, that's what you are," he told the thin and hook- nosed reflection in his mirror as he brushed his teeth.
"You aren't so bad yourself, sonny," his mirror replied.
In the chamber that served as his bedroom, Severus changed quickly into his sleepwear and slipped between the sheets. He fell asleep that night with a look of self- loathing on his thin face.
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The next lesson, Tuesday night, Hermione once again came four minutes early. She walked in with her head held high, and when she spoke, ice dripped from her voice. Severus heard it, and inwardly sneered at her efforts. He could beat her at the frigid game any day.
They were to make the Liver potion again, and this time Snape had left the vial labeled "Unicorn Tears" right in front so the girl couldn't miss it.
Seveus saw that she colored a bit as she drew the glass tube out. As he had gone over the procedure and ingredient properties the night before, he sat at his desk in silence, watching her work.
He could tell that she could feel his eyes on her, and that it was making her nervous. Not that she was any less careful in her measuring and note-taking. But he noticed that she did tremble a bit nervously under his scrutiny of her methods.
He smirked slightly at this- maybe it would take the girl down a peg or two. Merlin knew she needed it.
At eight o'clock, Hermione looked up from the cauldron and her notes. "The potion is finished, sir," she said, carefully avoiding eye contact with him. She knew that any eye contact would break down her weak shield of frostiness, and that if it broke she would either cry again or lash out at him.
Professor Snape arose and walked around his desk, to stand before her at her cauldron. "I see that you managed to keep awake tonight," he sneered.
She turned a dull shade of red at this. Her mouth compressed and he could see her hands shake a bit with suppressed- anger? embarrassment? -as she spooned up a bit of the potion for him.
Her hands- Hermione drooped the spoon back into the cauldron with a splash when Professor Snape grabbed one of her hands. It was the one he had twisted behind her in his automatic self-defense move the night before. He was looking at the five little dark bruises that had appeared on her hand. She could feel his breath on her fingers as he peered at the marks intently. She felt another surge of- something- either in her stomach or in her head. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling.
After looking at her hand for what seemed like a long time- although in reality it had been perhaps half a minute- Professor Snape let go of Hermione's hand.
"I'm sorry about that, Miss Granger," he said, apparently about the bruises he had caused. "No physical harm was intended."
Hermione's eyes widened, and she regarded him warily. Was Snape apologising? To her, no less? This was strange.....
"However, you must expect to come by harm, whether physical or magical, when you foolishly sneak up behind someone as well-trained in defense as myself," he continued, his lip curling.
Hermione felt rather relieved. So he wasn't apologising. At least she knew where she stood when he acted like he hated her.
"Miss Granger," Snape's silkily cold voice once again cut through Hermione's thoughts. "I am not staying with you after 9:30 and we are not doing this potion again. So I suggest," his dark eyes bored into her face but she didn't meet them, "That you and I test this potion."
Hermione nodded. "Yes, sir."
She once again spooned out two doses of the Restorative Liver potion. He still insisted on being the one to test it first. Hermione was not sure how she felt about that. What if she had made another mistake? However, she was fairly confidant in this potion.
This confidance did not prevent her from watching Snape carefully as he drank his dose. After he downed it, he once again stood still to measure his own reaction, while Hermione watched him anxiously. He allowed a few moments to pass, after which he looked at her and said, "It seems to have come out well enough. Just don't ask me any personal questions, if you please, Granger." He nodded at her.
Hermione was shocked at the almost friendly tone of his voice. The she realized what he had said. She felt her face burning as she raised her own dose to her lips and drank it down. So he knew about the Veritaserum, then. Why wasn't he tearing her apart, then?
Severus Snape caught Hermione's look of shock and her red face. He had to fight back a laugh at the look on her young face. She was too sensitive, that was her problem. If she hadn't been so concerned about gaining the approval of others, she would have been able to open up a bit more more, and maybe she would even be able to catch his (admittedly odd) sense of humor.
After they had finished testing the potion, and Hermione had completed her notes on the experiment, Snape left her to clean up. He sat behind his desk and graded papers as she once again put all the ingredients back in the proper places. She was just packing her notes into her bag in preparation for her departure when he barked, "The time is only twenty past nine, Miss Granger. Our lesson is not yet over."
She looked at him. "Sir?" she asked.
"Sit down, Granger," he gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk. He saw her look of reluctance as she sat down across from him. 'Too bad,' he thought snidely. 'She should have been more careful about those "Unicorn Tears".'
Hermione sat in one of the straight-backed chairs and looked at her hands, which were folded in her lap. 'This is it,' she thought. 'You're going to get it now, Granger. You fed a teacher Veritaserum.'
"There is no need to look as though awaiting a death sentence, Miss Granger," she heard Snape's voice, dripping with- sarcasm or humor? Perhaps his version of humor was sarcasm.
" I merely wished to ask you a few questions," he continued.
'Here it comes,' Hermione thought. 'He's going to ask about the Veritaserum.'
"When you told them of your decision to go into Potions and of your lessons here with me, how did Potter and Weasley react?" Snape's voice was silky; not at all threatening, simply interested.
Hermione took a deep breath. Her relief was almost pitiful, Severus reflected.
"Well, sir . . . I haven't actually- told them," she admitted, torn between being abashed at her answer and indignant at his question.
His fathomless black eyes bored into her. "No? Pray tell, why is that, Miss Granger?"
Hermione thought about it. The real reason she hadn't told Harry and Ron (especially Ron) about her Experimental Potions ambitions (and, in particular, her personalized learning learning sessions with Snape) was her knowledge of what their reactions would be. They hated Snape too much to see the possibilities of his subject. They would harangue her and tell her to get a grip without listening to her defense.
Snape raised his eyebrows. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, Miss Granger. I am merely asking for curiosity's sake."
'Hell, what's the harm in telling him?' Hermione wondered.
"I haven't told my friends about my interest in Experimental Potions because I didn't want to have to deal with them constantly telling me that I chose wrong, and that I really want to be an Auror," she explained, with a tough of fondness in her voice.
"Aurors? Is that what they want to be?" Snape's voice was filled with scorn again.
Hermione looked at him. "Yes, sir. And I think they'll make good ones, with all due respect."
She stood up, picking up her bag and once again preparing to leave. "I've got to be going, Professor. Thank you very much for your time," she said curtly.
He got up from behind his desk, however, and stood in the doorway of the classroom with his arms folded across his chest, staring down at her. "Miss Granger, " he rumbled, " I have given up much of my personal time to help you in your chosen field. I do not give up my time lightly. I expect you to take these lessons seriously."
"I do, sir," she said, frowning. "But I really have to be"
"As I expect you to take the lessons seriously, I expect you to incorporate them into your life. You will tell your friends," he sneered at the word, " about your career choice and these lessons."
Hermione scowled. "With all due respect, sir, I really don't think that what I tell my friends is any of your business. Especially since you have made your contempt of them very obvious for years." She tried to brush past him through the door, but he put out an arm and she walked into it.
"None o my business, is it, Miss Granger?" Snape purred, pushing his face close to hers. "If you cannot muster the faith in your choice to face the challenges of your friends, I shall not waste any more time on you. Good night." And he stepped out of her way and made a mock bow towards the corridor beyond.
She brushed past him angrily. "Nosy bastard,"she muttered.
"Thirty points from Gryffindor for your lack of respect, and tem more for the idiocy to believe that I couldn't hear that."
Hermione made up some very clever insults for a certain bat-like teacher that evening before bed.
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A/N: Hello, my darlings! I just had to thank the people who reviewed. You guys are awesome. And I really am sorry about that horrific delay. I'll try harder next time, really! It's just a matter of typing this story. (I have two notebooks full of it already, and it's still growing. Like The Blob.) So, anyways, I hope you liked this chapter. So, what do you think will happen next? Don't worry, Snape and Hermione will still be having their lessons. They just had a bit of a tiff back there. Keep reading!