Chapter 6: An Agreement

Go 'way from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I'm not the one you need.
You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an' defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

-Bob Dylan

Hermione hesitated with her hand on the door of the potions classroom. It was a half hour before the scheduled start of her lesson, but even through the closed door she could hear the swish of cloak and clink of bottles that meant that Snape was already inside.

"Miss Granger, I believe you may learn more about potions inside my classroom than by hovering outside it."

It was as if he could hear her complete lack of surprise at finding him already here. He had probably been working for hours, brewing up some sort of horrible revenge for her success of the day before. There was no point in avoiding it, though. She pushed the door slowly open, fixing her gaze thoughtfully on a panel at eye level.

"I'm very sorry if my standing outside your door silently was upsetting to you, Professor Snape. I was just deciding whether I wanted to put the sign on the door, or next to it."

No, there was no point in avoiding him, but there was something to be said for keeping him from taking control of the conversation. Snape very pointedly neglected to ask any sign-related follow-up questions.

"I haven't decided exactly what the sign will say. Maybe: 'Potions Classroom – Welcome, Beloved Students,' or 'Home of the Subtle Science and Exact Art of Potion Making – Please Roll Up Your Sleeves.' "

He still didn't speak, but she almost detected a look of nausea flicker across his face at the first suggestion, and the tiniest of starts at the second.

Hermione crossed the space between them and stared blankly at Snape for a second before moving aside to examine one of the cauldrons. If she had been expecting him to try and read some of her thoughts, she was disappointed.

"This one's doing well." Her own voice echoed against the steely-blue surface of the potion. "Though not as well as I would have expected, unless… you added something, didn't you?"

Snape raised his eyebrows but said nothing, and Hermione worked to swallow her growing annoyance at his silence. She had never seen a memory potion turn that color; she had no idea what he had done to it, but she wasn't about to admit that. She moved on to the next cauldron.

"You changed this one, too…" She scanned the room, realization settling over her. He had added something extra to every potion, or stirred it the wrong direction, or put it over the wrong heat. Well played, Snape. But this was hardly the worst you could do.

"Well, I suppose my students will be making mistakes like this all the time. Although you could have made it a little more difficult." She held the falsely perky smile on her face as she walked along the line of cauldrons. "Stirred with a glass rod instead of a rosewood spoon; chopped asphodel root instead of powdered; ashwinder eggs left at room temperature too long ignited this one; monkshood instead of moonstone – that's a dangerous substitution; and this shrinking solution just never had a fire turned on under it." Hermione maneuvered around the room, fixing Snape's little 'mistakes' as she enumerated each one.

"Well done, Miss Granger. I see your perfectionism and bossiness may finally prove to be nearly as useful as they are irritating. Tell me, what is wrong with that buffering potion?"

Hermione dipped a tumbler into the icy, dun-colored fluid and drank it in one gulp.

"Nothing is wrong with it, which is fortunate, because I'll need its protection to keep the fumes from that Protean solution from knocking me out while I add the knotgrass. Funny how the only effect knotgrass has, in this case, is to keep the potion from being highly toxic to anyone who breathes near it."

Snape looked almost impressed. "Then what, may I ask, makes you so sure the knotgrass hasn't been added?"

Hermione stared him levelly in the eyes once again, and once again he showed no signs of trying to enter her thoughts.

"Because I'm sure you wouldn't have added it. You think I deserve to be taken down by my pride – quite literally, in this case. You want to punish me for doing things right despite your best efforts to make this class miserable for me, but you're not so angry or so vindictive you want to kill me. And that is why you have concentrated knotgrass paste cooling in that dish over there, to give to me after I collapse, but before my lungs shut down completely."

Snape smiled slightly, moved toward the cauldron of Protean solution, and breathed deeply. His smiled widened at Hermione's gasp.

"You are right to mistrust me, in general." His voice was low, almost a purr. "Although in this case, you are mistaken. I have something of a policy of not poisoning those people who are intelligent enough to suspect that I will."

Hermione debated whether to feel good about the compliment to her intelligence or angry that she hadn't anticipated his moves far enough in advance. She instead went for secret option C.

"Can we stop this?"

"Stop these lessons? And you were such a promising student." His sarcasm was a little unfounded, she thought, considering how many of his tricks she had seen through.

"Stop these petty attempts to trip each other up. Can't you just teach me things like any other professor would, without both of us being entirely wrapped up in attempting not to make a mistake in front of the other?"

"As I recall, you were the first one to set up a room full of tripwires, Miss Granger."

"And as I recall, you were the first one to try and make these lessons so unpleasant that I would give up and leave. Do you not want me to take this job after all? I thought you would at least attempt to be decent to the person who was allowing you to take over the position you've wanted since you started teaching at this school."

"Did you spend the last seven years with your eyes and ears closed, or are you simply deluding yourself that my bad temper and misanthropy will disappear now that the Dark Lord has been vanquished?"

Hermione smiled as sarcastically as she could. "Bad temper I can deal with. Misanthropy doesn't bother me – it's just when it's directed only at me that I have a problem with it."

"Then I would recommend that you stop doing things to deserve it, Miss Granger."

"Is that an agreement then? A truce, of sorts."

"It does seem to be."

Trying to stare down Snape might have been the scariest thing Hermione had ever done, and she had stood at Harry's side during that final battle. Part of her realized that neither of them would be able to completely give up challenging the other. All the agreement would do was limit the ways in which they could compete. But maybe that would be enough to get them through the rest of the week.

For a girl who had not once counted down the school days left until a vacation, Hermione was remarkably aware that today marked the halfway point in her first week of lessons. Only two more days until I can escape to the Burrow. Then only five weeks until I'm in charge of my own classroom. She couldn't tell if Snape knew what she was thinking. She held his stare until her eyes burned.