I need to tell McGonagall.
First thought at four a.m. was crystal clear, imperative, and made perfect sense. She rolled over, wondering for a minute why she still wore her blouse, linen trousers, even the slimmer part of her tie clenched to edges of a too tight knot. When she's awake, a more reasonable voice kicked in. We've all got plenty to worry about, and she won't thank you for calling calling her out of bed for something she perhaps already knows.
Hermione cast off the rest of her uniform, and slipping into pajamas. The calming prospect stuck with her. Perhaps she already knows. The cushions were soft and welcomed her with an unambiguous, trustworthy hug. Hours later, she concluded she must have fallen asleep again, woken from Parvatis and Lavender casual chatter, as if nothing had changed.
The common bathroom served her needs, much like quick breakfast.
"You're out on the pitch today?", she asked Harry and Ron, who had barely started their bacon and eggs. They nodded with their mouths full. "See you then, I need to see the sun every once in a while", she announced and ran off.
One of them swallowed hard. "Someone's in a mood", she heard Ron comment, "Thought we would have to drag her from the library."
McGonagall would make her wait, but refrained from making her eat one of her ginger biscuits this time. Hermione summarized the exchange she had overheard, diligently neglecting anything from her own time with Snape. At the end, the witch displayed a more stern expression than usual, but Hermione did not read her behavior as shocked, surprised or overly worried.
"Any indications to what tradition Mr Malfoy senior was referring to?"
"No."
"And this -", she looked like she had accidentally bitten a cactus, "- arrangement with our headmistress has been conducted by him?"
"I presume. It was not explicitly stated."
"Strictly speaking, our dear headmistresses business meeting are none of my concern", McGonagall said slowly and remarkably calm, "But when it comes to calling in favor from my colleagues for excusing students, that might indeed become relevant to me."
"What do you think about their plans for Hogwarts?", Hermione asked, hands tightly clenched in her lap as she had watched from Seamus the night before.
"As for now, it remains the Ministry's privilege to decide upon a teacher for subjects we can't find a teacher for on our own", her head of house reminded her, "And if Professor Umbridge considers Professor Snape suitable for the position – which I agree with, if for different reasons -, it is her privilege as headmistress to offer him the subject."
"Do you expect her to remain in office after term, Professor?", Hermione asked, having a much harder time to hide her feelings.
"There's currently no incentive for her not to."
Hermione had long passed the point where she mistook the neutral statement for support.
"She's insufferable."
"I must advise you not to repeat this assessment outside this room."
"Noted, Professor."
"Any ideas what this carté blanche Professor Umbridge has been handed concerning Severus' services might include?"
"No."
McGonagall took her time to think through, again, what Hermione had told her.
"Professor, have you been aware of this arrangement before I came here?"
"Casting aside that this is none of your concern", McGonagall replied, eyeing her over the upper edge of her glasses in a move much more fitting to Dumbledore, "As a matter of fact, I've heard that Severus has been pressured into intensifying his cooperation with He Who Must Not Be Named." Whether she had chosen the exact phrasing on purpose – a detail she couldn't have learned from Hermione – remained her secret. "It's not something the Order does not welcome, or appreciate. And that's all I am going to say about it."
"Do you really trust him?" The question had escaped her lips like a prisoner, seeing his only and uniquely chance.
"I'd rather expect this inquiry from Mr Potter."
She chose to remain silent. Any elaborations might get her into trouble, or rather, Snape for his unsuitable pass at her.
"I do trust Severus Snape to be a loyal member of the Order and supporting our cause", McGonagall instilled on her after a few seconds, then rose from her chair to indicate the conversation had reached its end. "Now please get out into the sun, as long as we're graced by it." She loosely pointed to the window behind her, where, in the furthest parts of the horizon, clouds had begun to built up, preparing for an intense summer storm.
She had barely closed the door to her head of houses office when they ambushed her.
"Look who sucks up to her teacher on Sunday afternoon", Zabini mocked her.
"Shouldn't you be in the library?", a pretty, tall girl added with an expression as if she had dirt under her nose. "Sitting sore your ass, as if marks meant anything?"
"Yeah, like bending over books ever led to any valuable insight", Crabbe threw in.
"Hasn't anyone taught you not to draw conclusions from your own behavior? Always leads to false -", Hermione countered, but Goyle's laughter swallowed her voice.
"Lecturing people when she is outnumbered five to one", he barked, much like the Death Eater she had been listening in on.
"Well, if you weren't from any other background -", Zabini emphasized, causing the other Squad members to grin, "One might mistake you for Ravenclaws lost daughter!" Their laughter echoed through the corridor, none of them truly amused, frightening her to the very bone."
"Ahhh", a familiar sneer reached her ears, "Don't you get her wrong, Blaise." Malfoy was the first from the crowd to draw his wand, but the Squad had followed before she even reached into her pocket. "She's right in not wearing blue. She's just Gryffindor's most ambitious mudblood."
"Language, Malfoy", said another familiar voice. "That will be fifty points from Slytherin."
She had not heard him coming. The creature must have sensed the changed situation, for it had lept to its feet, stretching, demanding to sweep around his legs, pulling her along.
Snape flicked his wand, causing the thick door behind Hermione to burst open. Five pointed wands crashed against the stunned look of Professor McGonagall.
"Twenty points from Slytherin for each of you", she said coolly. "How dare you intimidate a student like this."
None of them answered. Yet Hermione read this reaction as ambiguous, expressing much less guilty or shame than disrespect of her head of house, if not shown openly.
"We will see the headmistress about this", McGonagall decided in an instant, drawing her wand, "Now. Severus, I'm afraid your request will have to wait until I've settled this matter."
"Yes, Minerva."
"Will you please accompany Miss Granger to a destination of her choice, on the condition that she remains there not alone?"
"Sure."
"You five, to Professor Umbridge, straight ahead", McGonagall shooed them further from her door, like kindergarten children at a muggle intersection, completely ignoring their reluctant and angry expressions. "And none of you make the grave mistake of taking any detours!"
Dumb steps echoed among the walls, pierced by McGonagalls sharp and quick pacing. In an instant, they had vanished around the corner.
The creature must have been woken by her anxiety, she told herself, the urgent need to fight almost half a dozen Slytherins. Now as danger had ceased, it was in a much lighter, elated mood. Her being safe again must be the reason why it purred loudly with only Snape remaining.
"The library, I presume?"
"No", she said, following a sudden inspiration, "To the Quidditch pitch, please."
"The Quidditch pitch it is, then. Or what's left of it."
"Has Madam Sprout succeeded in regrowing anything yet?"
"She's had her NEWTs class raise some promising crossings between Puddleweed and walnuts", he told her, voice determinedly casual, "If their roots extend deeper, they might draw water from more humid levels, unaffected by the Fiendfyre..."
Herbology carried them through the castle and out to the grounds, where two tall towers for stands had been rebuild already. Silence swept away their easy chatter from them like a strong and sharp breeze, heralding the storm still hung behind the mountains.
"I'm going to have to leave you in the custody of your friends." They had reached the stands, covered in grey cloth, which must have been white when they were hanged. "You'll be safe from any further assault."
"I should hope so."
"Yes, you will. There must be some benefit in Mr Potters endeavor to form Dumbledore's Army. Even if it's hard to recognize with his successor."
She did not get hung up on the lame provocation. "It was my idea, actually."
"It was?"
"Yes", Hermione admitted, realizing he had not insisted on formal address all their way down. She would not have put it past him to reinstate a proper distance by such simple, ignorant means. "I was afraid I might fail my practical exams in Defense Against the Dark Arts, if I had no opportunity to train. Besides, we're not staying at Hogwarts forever. And when we'll leave – we should be prepared."
"And has Mr Potter succeeded in making you feel – resistant enough to face … whatever you've been preparing for?"
"Mostly, yes."
She was expecting him to belittle her, mocking feeble attempts of children playing with magic they did not comprehend.
"No comment on my misplaced ambition?", she poked.
He chose to remain silent.
"No criticism regarding the short-sighted, naive attempt to prepare ourselves?"
"I was merely wondering -", he stopped abruptly, "Whether any of my – tutoring has been illuminating to you." The pitch was close, as were the students busy around the self-dug trenches, bowed to some degree or another to place seeds in the ashes. If any of them rose and turned, they might have seen a most unusual soft expression on their potions masters face.
"It has." She felt like she had provided an inadequate, insufficient answer to a decisive question. They were a feet from each other, but she dared not to look him in the eye, much less from an effort to keep their distance, but rather because a rejection would hurt and enrage the beast inside her. It urged her to step forward, and hug him in a way she wished none of her fellow students to witness.
"Then I might hope to have introduced a helpful element into a critical situation?", he asked.
"Critical, how?"
He seemed to linger over his phrasing for a moment. "As much as I acknowledge your efforts to prepare yourselves for", he hesitated, "- a war, Mr Potters teachings probably won't, under the foreseeable circumstances, prove sufficient."
Her heart suddenly raced painfully.
"It is -", Snape went on, "Of paramount importance that he can close his mind, may it be by the effects of Occlumency", he sighed, "Or any external influence."
"External influence?", she repeated back to him, aghast.
"Listen, Hermione." His grasp was firm on her arm, as he pulled her behind a broad pillar of the stands, hiding them both. "The forces of the Dark Lord may not be visible or manifest, but they are present within those comfortably thick walls nonetheless. As long as your chosen friend can't or won't close his mind to Him, we're all incredibly vulnerable."
"I am certain he has practiced in priv -"
"Don't you lie to me." His hand closed so tight around her biceps that it hurt. She flinched. He let got of her instantly. "I shall know", he added as if threatening her, holding eye contact.
She felt seriously ill now, glowing as if she had a fever, pain spreading from the part where Snape had just released her.
"I'm sorry", he whispered. "This wasn't meant to get that personal."
"You're kidding me?", she snapped, unable to withhold her tears.
"I said, I'm sorry." He raised his hand, as if he wanted to pull her over again, but caught himself in time. "I really am."
"For what?!"
"I've never meant to -", he gulped, leaving her the fraction of a second to prepare for impact, " - let personal concerns get in the way of -"
"Politics?", she squeezed out, sobbing heavily now.
"This wasn't in my hands. Never has been." Heavy sadness descended on his features. He was not breaking eye contact: Hermione felt it drip into her own mind like pure water into an underground cave. "I wish I could abandon the politics." Had he stepped closer to her, or was he pulling her into his mind again? "Please believe me." Feeling close and lonely at once, expressing feeble words of apology, the extensive guilt for hurting – were those hers or his?
They stood inches from each other now. He placed his fingertips on her elbow, and when he discovered she did not budge, went further to her back, placing his arm around her.
Her fever, if it was one, reached dangerous heights. "So you'd wish to reach – closure."
"We'd all be vulnerable." He sounded more like reminding himself than addressing her.
"Yes, we would."
"If we fail in this – the roles we're given … the stakes here are much higher than you realize."
His arrogance pushed her to break the connection. "If you say so -" No way would she allow him to find out about her overhearing his exchange with Greyback and Malfoy. " - Professor."
He sighed, gulped, then recovered quickly from the blow. "Enjoy the sun, Miss Granger. While you can."
Later, when they had parted ways, she mused whether her perception had been blurred, and to what extend. It did not sound like threat to her, but then, she did not know any longer whether she did not trust her senses – or him.