Second Year: The Chamber of Secrets

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Hermione Granger's eyes first came into focus on a watermark on the ceiling. She traced cracks with her gaze until a face looming over her blocked her view. It should have been a frightening face to wake up to. Certainly, unlike her recent crush, Gilderoy Lockhart, no one would nominate Snape's crooked, tired smile for Witch Weekly, but it struck her as far more real.

She had a minute to take in the stubble on his cheeks and the bloodshot eyes gazing into hers with concern. She wondered how she had ever found those eyes cold. Her mother had a favourite saying: "we call a man cold when he is only sad." As soon as Snape noticed her looking back at him, he turned away, calling Madam Pomfrey in a rasping voice quite unlike his usual smooth baritone.

Minutes later, Hermione was able to lift her head. Pomfrey propped her up with pillows before making her drink a foul potion that made her cough. Soon after, she felt well enough to sit up and swing her legs over the bed. Her attempt to stand almost sent her crashing to the floor, but strong arms caught her and lifted her back to the bed.

"Again, Gryffindor bravado trumps all common sense. Stupid girl. You've been abed for weeks."

She returned Snape's scowl with a smile. In his anger, he'd sounded like her father had right after she had taken a nasty spill from her bike and broken her wrist. "Are Harry and Ron fine?" Hermione asked. "The Basilisk! How long have I been—"

"Why," Snape muttered, "did we ever Unpetrify her? We should, at least, have waited 'til we found a way to stopper her mouth."

Hermione spotted Lockhart in a bed across from her. She gasped. "Is the professor hurt?"

Snape harrumphed and stalked away. When Pomfrey told her how Lockhart had come by his injuries—and his stolen fame—Hermione reddened. Some hero.

"Pretty is as pretty does—especially in the wizarding world, girl—or did you really think those glam looks of his natural?"

"But if you can change your appearance, why would any wizard choose to be ugly?"

"Why would a Muggle neglect his appearance? It's no different here. And we have far more near-at-hand and powerful remedies. Some people, child, are like a neglected house—they don't bother cleaning up because they are barely there, or do not think it worth the trouble, or are too busy. Sometimes it's even out of a wish to punish themselves or keep people away." Pomfrey sounded sad as she said it, and then her tone hardened as she glanced towards where Lockhart lay abed. "And some do nothing but decorating and dressing up to cover up a rotten foundation."

She wondered then about changing herself—her big teeth, her bushy hair. She wondered if she was Cinderella after all—and whether anyone would ever bother kissing Snape to see if they could turn the frog into a prince.

Hermione Granger scowled as Snape put a friendly hand on Harry's shoulder. She nibbled at her chocolate gateau, wondering if she had lost her taste for sweets—that would make her parents happy, anyway. She toyed with what was left until Ron asked if she was going to eat more. She shrugged and pushed the plate towards him, and he dived into it.

Her doubts about Snape had only deepened, but she'd learned over this year not to take her concerns to Harry. The last time had only caused him to cut her dead for weeks, and she hardly had a friend to spare.

She glanced up at the green and silver of the Slytherin banners decorating the leaving feast and wondered if she would ever get to see the Great Hall decorated with Gryffindor red and gold instead. She wondered why she had ever thought Gryffindor glorious and wished she had accepted the Hat's offer of Ravenclaw instead. She might have fit in better there.

The way the Slytherins were cheering at Dumbledore's speech, you'd think it had been one of their own that had tamed the Basilisk with Parseltongue and closed the Chamber of Secrets. Mind, Harry's actions had made everyone in the Houses other than Slytherin uneasy, despite his rescue of Ginny Weasley.

She didn't like the way Malfoy blew her a mocking kiss from the Slytherin table. He and Harry had become chummy over the last year, encouraged by Snape in his efforts to "ease the old House rivalries." She wasn't sure where that left her, though. Over the past year, as she had felt the ties of House loosen, she had come to feel less Gryffindor, less a witch, and more a Muggle-born.

Or as Malfoy would whisper for only her to hear—a "Mudblood." She wondered sometimes why she even held on to her friendship with Harry or why he bothered with her. It wasn't anything he said exactly, just a look of distaste here or some shared laughter with a pure-blood there, that made her think he was looking at her a different way. Less like a friend, more like … a pet?

She felt a prickling at the back of her neck. She looked up to find Snape smiling down at her. Oh, it was a nice smile, yet she still wondered how she could have ever found it or that hawkish face handsome. He leaned down and whispered, so near his breath tickled her ear, "Why, Miss Granger, you don't seem to be getting into the spirit of the festivities."

She shivered, but forced herself to turn and look up to meet his gaze. "I wish Harry had destroyed the Basilisk, instead of sending it back."

"You'd choose to kill?"

"Sometimes you have to slay the monster. What if it comes back?"

"Indeed." His caressing voice seemed to savour the thought. "Fear can be an effective control, don't you think?"

For a moment, his voice froze her like the Basilisk's gaze.

to be continued

A/N: Hermione's paraphrasing Longfellow - "often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."