Chapter Four

A Secret's No Fun

"Professor!" Hermione whirled around from the open portrait hole to shout at Snape's back.

"Yes, Granger?" his 'yes' hissed sinisterly through the air.

"Who was in your office?" Snape arched his thick eyebrows disdainfully, "I mean, I was leaving your classroom because the door to your office was opening, and when I got to the hallway, you were there, so you couldn't've been in your office."

"You obviously imagined it." He turned and billowed away before she could respond. Hermione pursed her lips and entered the Common Room.

Dumbledore had been completely off the mark when he said it was past Hermione's curfew. It was, in fact, half past seven. Harry and Ron were playing chess, the fallen pieces idly shredding corners of the boys' Divination homework.

"Where've you been?" Ron asked when she sat beside him.

She searched for an answer that wouldn't be a total lie.

"She was in the library, Ron, where she always is. Knight to E5." Harry explained annoyedly.

"Are you sure you want to do that Harry?" Ron asked.

"Yeah," Ron's bishop beat the knight to a bloody pulp. If wooden chess pieces had bloody pulps. "I don't like that one." Harry's other pieces booed him.

Hermione sighed. She had thought it would be difficult to conceal her secret, but it appeared Harry and Ron hadn't noticed, and if they didn't, no one would.

To Hermione's complete and utter shock, someone did notice a change in her, and it wasn't a changeshe had suspected.

"Oh my God, you like him, don't you?" Lavender Brown's eyebrows wiggled suggestively at Hermione across the dorm room they shared.

"Who?"

"Professor Lupin!" Lavender squealed, "You've got the hots for him!"

"What?" Hermione squeaked.

"Come on! You've been staring at him during class! Oh Hermione, I can't tell you how glad I am. I was beginning to think you, like, didn't have hormones or something." Hermione gaped at her.

"Oh, it's okay. Everybody thinks he's cute. He's kinda…ruggedly handsome, like this!" Lavender whipped a trashy romance novel off her bedside table to show Hermione. Because it was a wizarding book, the picture on the front cover was particularly interesting. Hermione blanched.

"No, I. . . I don't like him, really Lavender, it's just. . ."

"It's alright," the other girl said cheerfully, "Your secret's safe with me." Hermione sighed with relief.

The next day, twenty-two people, not all of them in third year and not all of them in Gryffindor, asked Hermione if she had done anything with the Defense teacher. When she blushed scarlet, they elaborated as to exactly what they heard, and, more than once, Hermione was forced to shake her head vigorously and sprint for the privacy of Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom.

Even Myrtle had heard the rumor, though. The ordinarily glum ghost absolutely delighted in tormenting Hermione with her supposed crimes. The library, usually a silent sanctuary echoed malevolently with whispered comments and glittered with eyes peering at the girl between the shelves.

Hermione was certain that the entire school suspected her of the high crime of a student-teacher relationship, that she would be under close scrutiny for the remainder of the year, that her time-turner would be discovered, and that, worst of all, everyone would know about her infection. Or maybe she was just paranoid.

When she returned to the common room that night, Hermione had a full speech prepared to deliver her friends. They, however, were indifferent. Each murmured a "hi" before returning to their Charms essays.

After waiting a few seconds, she said, "Aren't you going to ask me something?" a little tersely.

Harry and Ron looked up at her and exchanged a confused glance.

"Ummmm," said Harry.

"Did you get a haircut?" asked Ron.

Hermione let out an exacerbated noise and flopped into a seat beside them. Apparently, it had only been paranoia.

A week later, Hermione was trudging against a bitter wind toward the all-wizard community of Hogsmead, praying that Wizards had such muggle things as pawn shops. She turned down one alley and another, hoping to bump into such a slightly dingy but largely friendly store. At the end of one street, a rather gruesome sign displaying a severed pig's head hung over a dirty pub. The store in front of it, however, looked more promising.

A cleverly painted sign showed the most common chess piece and a battered gold watch, underneath which a few coins rolled lazily. The pawn shop had a sad, musty smell, not unlike the motheaten linens mothers hope to pass to their daughters upon marriage, and thus rid themselves of the offending family heirlooms. The man behind the counter, whose bald head appeared capped by dust, did not glance at the girl who slipped into his shop.

Hermione fingered through old magazines, but could not find anything promising a recipe for Wolfsbane. She turned to go, nearly stumbling into the man from behind the counter. The dust on his head had not shifted. He looked down his nose at her bushy head, her own nose a centimetre from his chest. "Can I help you?" He asked in a voice as dusty as his head.

"No," she squeaked, and ran from the shop. Dusty laughter followed her outside.

Hermione arrived back at the castle at a complete loss. She couldn't get directions for the Wolfsbane Potion from Snape, and she certainly wasn't going to drink something he brewed, no matter what the headmaster said. Although she defended the great greasy bat quite often, she secretly agreed with Ron; Snape was not to be trusted.

Still pink from the cold outside, she slipped into a seat with Harry beside the common room fire. "Finish your potions essay?" she asked as a flock of girls, Lavender and her friend Parvati among them, fluttered through the portrait hole.

"Kind of," Harry answered, "I've been having trouble explaining how the daisy roots act as a…"

"Miss Granger?" McGonagall's head poked into the common room, "Professor Snape would like to see you immediately." A soft gasp came from the girls before excited giggles and chirps erupted and new rumors could fly.

Harry looked at her in askance. Hermione shrugged, blushed, and hurried to follow the transfiguration teacher.

A brief meeting with Professor Snape arranged for him to provide the third year girl with Wolfsbane each night via the enchanted tables at dinner the night before each full moon. A goblet full of the noisome brew would appear with desert. If anyone asked, Hermione was to explain it was a drought to reduce the pain caused by an incurable Whooping Toe Cough. It was assumed no one would ask any more questions.

Grudgingly, and probably on Professor Dumbledore's orders, Snape had agreed to teach Hermione to brew the potion on which she'd be dependent for the rest of her life. She would be receiving sporadic detentions from both Snape and McGonagall for the rest of the year, during which she was expected to brew.

Before Hermione could ask exactly how her teachers planned on assigning detention without arousing suspicion, an alarm in Snape's office went off. The Potions Master briskly told Hermione their meeting was done and to return to Gryffindor tower.

That night, Ron was attacked by Sirius Black.

That night, Hermione decided no one could ever know of her affliction, least of all her two best friends. She could not endanger them.

A/N:

I'm back! Okay, I can think of a whole bunch of excuses for not updating, none of which are very good. I want to heap piles of praise on those of you who flamed me, thank you! I love you! I really do. Despite the ripples of fear Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sent down the spine of every pre-HBP story, I will continue to write this story IN CANNON. Next update will, hopefully, be very soon.

PS: I would appreciate both kind and flaming reviews (anybody got marshmallows?).

Much love

Zvezdana