disclaimer: Jo deserves all the credit for these brilliant characters. I'm just happy to play with them.

A/N: This story is AU after Order of the Phoenix, but I think I am going to keep some story elements from Half-Blood Prince that don't contradict guesses I made in earlier chapters. Book 6 was a lovely wealth of potions information and more story on Snape, so hopefully I'll be able to work some of that in without it being weird that I'm leaving out the stuff that doesn't fit in (ahem.. Dumbledore's death and the whole plot arc that lead to Snape doing it, for example). I love the whole TotallyEvil!Snape from Book 6, though I have some doubts about whether he's truly all dark, but that character direction is something for another story. Like... the real Book 7.

Chapter 4: A Mistake

(Subterranean Homesick Blues)

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
...
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose

Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

-Bob Dylan

With a fwump, Hermione fell back on the bed and blinked several times at the ceiling. What had she said to Ron about her potions lessons? That they would be "standable" and she would "give Snape hell?" She laughed bitterly and barely managed to choke back a sob. The only standing had been done by her, and lasted her entire day of lessons, and that was only the first on a list of reasons why her first day back at Hogwarts had been hell. Not for Snape - clearly he had enjoyed himself immensely. Hermione couldn't remember ever having seen Snape look happier. She also couldn't remember when she'd wanted to hex him more.

The day had started at 7am, four hours after Hermione had placed the last book on the shelf of her new teacher's quarters. She'd spent the entire day before scouring the Burrow for her clothes and books and only by late evening was she packed enough to justify a quick floo home to explain her new job to her parents. They were more excited than any of the wizards she'd told the news to; but then, they'd always been nothing but supportive about her magic abilities and activities. That, and they had no idea what kind of man the old Potions Master had been. The kind of man, thought Hermione grimly, who would demand an early morning start on the first day of a six-week course despite - or specifically because of - his pupil's near-midnight arrival at the castle.

As if the sleep deprivation hadn't been bad enough, the smell that pervaded halfway down the dungeon corridor seemed specifically designed to have the most evil effect on Hermione's empty stomach. A house elf had left a pot of coffee on her study table while she was showering, the unfortunate upshot of which was that Hermione had the word "spew" already on her mind when she entered the potions classroom.

Snape was there already, adding to a line of bottles, vials, and jars on his classroom desk. Hermione placed her cauldron next to his on the desktop and emptied it of a stack of potions books before looking at her new tutor expectantly. He stared silently at her before twisting his mouth into a disconcerting smile.

"Well, Professor Granger," he smirked. "I'm not going to bother testing you on anything in those books. No doubt you can recite all of them word for word."

Hermione continued to stare at him with an expression that she hoped was somewhere between blank and defiant. She suspected it was really more along the lines of apprehensive and angry, but then without occlumency she couldn't really hope to hide much from Snape anyway.

"Your parroting may have gotten you safely through the N.E.W.T.," Snape continued, "but as a teacher, if you know nothing more than exactly what is stated in your textbooks, you will be useless to your students. No, to teach potions, you must understand poitions."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest that she did understand potions, that she had read plenty on the theory of potion making and successfully created lots of antidotes without relying on printed recipes, but Snape cut her off before she could speak.

"You understand nothing. To know is something is entirely different from understanding it. And if I am to get anywhere with you in the next six weeks, and let me say now that I sincerely doubt I will, you'd better drop your 'hurt little girl' attitude right now, and accept that you're nowhere near ready to teach this subject."

Hermione fought fiercely to keep back the tears that were stinging her eyes. If this was what it was going to be like, and she couldn't imagine now how she could have imagined it to be anything less than horrid, then so be it. She set her jaw and divided her attention between listening to the rest of Snape's lecture on the subtlety of teaching the subject of potions and imagining various gruesome accidents that might befall him before the summer ended.

By lunchtime, Hermione had to admit she'd learned a bit about potion theory that she hadn't already read in a book. Snape had made her re-create several simple potions without the aid of books or recipes, and after countless failed attempts (two melted cauldrons, five explosions and one uncontrollable whirpool that had sucked her stirring rod into the potion in question), she had accepted the fact that making mistakes might actually be as educational as memorizing the correct method. She'd actually come across some alternative recipes to the shrinking and size-restoring potions after accidentally doubling the amount of silverwort and simmering it a bit too long, and she probably would have felt proud of herself if she hadn't been so exhausted. Spending more time in front of a cauldron than she'd spent in her bed would have been bad enough, but what made it unbearable was being forced to stay on her feet the entire time. Snape's desk was considerably higher than the students' tables, and Hermione couldn't see into her cauldron while seated on one of the classroom stools. Snape had spent the morning perched comfortably on his chair.

Hermione ate in the Great Hall, alone. She guessed that most of the other teachers were wherever they went on holidays, and she had been informed via a note waiting on her desk the night before that Dumbledore would be away on some sort of business for the next couple of days and that he very much regretted not being on hand to personally congratulate her on the start of her lessons. She had never been the only one in the Great Hall before; it felt strange to eat in the midst of such resounding quiet. She sat at the old Gryffindor table instead of taking her rightful seat at the staff table. She certainly still felt like a student, she thought sadly.

Any breakthroughs Hermione might have thought she'd made that morning were more than dampened during her afternoon lessons. Snape again spent the five hours seated, speaking only to assign her new tasks and to find fault with all of her results. The stench of the potions classroom was still overwhelming even on a full stomach; and if anything, eating had only made Hermione sleepier. She strongly suspected that Snape was choosing potions based on the unpleasantness they would expel. In any case, Hermione was sure that a truly random sampling of brews would not contain nearly so many noxious and fume-emitting recipes.

As six o'clock neared, Hermione's tiredness had begun to take its toll on her brain. Snape had been assigning her harder and harder tasks as the afternoon wore on, and his comments were becoming proportionately more biting. "Well," he drawled finally, "it seems we have reached the peak of your ability. Interesting, I don't believe I've asked you to do anything above third-year level. But perhaps you're just out of practice. We'll start again tomorrow at seven."

Hermione didn't answer him as she swept her wand over the desktop, zooming the bottles all back to their original positions and removing all traces of potion. Collecting her books in her arms, she turned and walked out of the room before he could say anything to push her fully over the edge.

She knew she probably wouldn't have been able to hold down any dinner even if she had felt up to facing the echoing Great Hall again. After replacing her stack of books neatly on the potions section of her bookshelf, Hermione fell back on the bed and took stock of the situation. Lingering leg pain? Check. Burning sensation of anger and defeat in her chest? Check. Remnant odors of egg, ammonia, and various sorts of spawn clinging to her robe? Again, check. Yes, the day had certainly been hell for one of them.

Hermione dragged herself off the bed and began to change out of her stinking robes. "At least now we've solved the mystery of why Snape is single," she thought wryly. "The odds of finding a woman who could stand his awful personality were small enough without adding the criterion of a faulty sense of smell." She caught a glimpse of herself in her bureau mirror, and sighed at the dark circles under her eyes. At least her hair looked a little less bushy than usual. "Maybe the perfect hair conditioner is poisonous fumes," thought Hermione dimly, as she climbed into bed and fell asleep before the sun had even begun to set.

Another A/N: It occurs to me that having a beta reader would A) help screen dumb mistakes and typos I've been making, and B) possibly encourage me to update more regularly. Email me if you're interested. I'd be more than happy to return the favor, especially since editing is my true calling, while writing's more just a distraction.