Chapter Five: Thorns
The day after the strange revelation about Professor Snape's first class saw Hermione's first Herbology, Charms, and Transfiguration classes, which further continued the theme of difficult NEWT-level courses. She rushed through dinner so she could have a little time to work on her essays after her lesson with Snape. After she finished her cottage pie, she told the boys she was going to be away for the evening brewing for the Infirmary.
"What are you doing that for?" Ron asked around a mouthful of mash.
"They were looking for someone to help because neither Professor Slughorn nor Professor Snape has the time to do so, and I thought it would be useful for the future if I learned how to make healing potions," Hermione replied in a low voice, not wanting to draw attention to herself.
Harry said it sounded like a good idea and left it at that. Hermione carefully avoided mentioning the fact she would be brewing with Snape; she knew Harry and Ron wouldn't be pleased and she would deal with it when they found out.
She approached the dungeons with anticipation. She had never had private lessons with a professor before—would Professor Snape be more demanding, or less? Would he be more civil than usual or not?
She firmly knocked on the door three times and waited.
"Enter," said Snape from inside.
Hermione cautiously pushed open the door. She was surprised at the sight that greeted her—there were four cauldrons, and two sets of potions-making instruments set up.
"Good evening, Professor," she said, approaching the workbench with uncertainty.
"Miss Granger. Tonight you will be brewing bruise salve." He gestured to where he had set down written instructions for brewing one potion with two cauldrons simultaneously, and motioned for her to approach that set of the cauldrons.
"Sir?" Hermione asked.
"What was unclear?"
"I thought...we were going to work on Occlumency, sir," she said hesitantly.
Snape made an impatient sound. "I am taking precious time from my schedule to train you, so you might as well make yourself useful, and actually brewing will make it appear as if nothing is out of the ordinary if anyone drops by." He turned away from her to face his own cauldron. "These pastes will need to rest for an hour before the final step, which should leave ample time to take measure of your abilities so far and work on what you need to practice next."
They began brewing in silence. Hermione felt vindicated when her potion progressed as well as it always had before Slughorn, even though she was handling two cauldrons instead of one.
It was still silent when Hermione asked a question that had been on her mind since the summer. "Professor?" she ventured.
"What is it?" Snape sounded only mildly irritated, so she soldiered on.
"Do the Death Eaters know about bombs?"
Snape's brows furrowed. "Of course the Death Eaters know about bombs. The Dark Lord thinks we're too good for filthy Muggle technology, as do the other Death Eaters—they're convinced they make better explosions with magic. Also magic can render Muggle bombs useless. Why the sudden interest?"
"Just something I read in the Daily Prophet," Hermione said hastily. She didn't want to bring up Ron's fear of Muggles bombing wizards, but Snape's answer had been reassuring. Then something else occurred to her. "If magic renders bombs useless, why do wizards fear bombs?"
Snape turned his head and briefly stared at her. "The fear is less to do with the destructive power of bombs and more to do with how little Muggles value life. Have you ever seen the Death Eaters blow up entire portions of the wizarding world?"
"No…"
He settled his stirring rod down, and crossed his arms. "That's because even Death Eaters would think twice of using bombs in any event that could kill a Pureblood, even by accident."
"Really?" Hermione asked, surprised.
Snape turned to her fully now, and held her gaze with his dark eyes. "Do you know why Death Eaters want to subjugate Muggles and Muggleborns, Miss Granger?"
"Because they hate us."
Snape sneered. "Yes, of course, the 'they hate you because they're evil' explanation. But why? Use that frightfully overwrought mind of yours."
She frowned thoughtfully, thinking of what Snape said about how little Muggles valued life from a wizarding perspective. Surely Snape knew better than that, based on how he carried himself, considering his familiarity with the Muggle world? But Snape was not speaking of himself...she hoped.
Hermione spoke cautiously, "Because we're different, and there are always going to be people who hate others for being different. Because Purebloods don't understand the Muggle world, and what they do know came from when Muggles lived less developed lives. And then Muggles changed, and changed so much in the last hundred years, and became even better at violence. And there are so many more Muggles than wizards. So Purebloods fear us."
Snape looked down at her with an almost satisfied expression on his face. "Yes. You've hit on some of the major reasons. And of course power. And how little those who already have power wish to share it."
"So...it is a little bit of 'they hate us because they're evil'," Hermione said before she could stop herself.
Snape huffed but said nothing. They lapsed into silence for a moment, watching their simmering cauldrons and waiting for the colour to change.
"But it's interesting how the Prophet is reporting on so much more Muggle news all of a sudden," she continued, "and only the news that casts Muggles in the worst light possible."
"No, no stories of the daring heroics of firemen rescuing cats from trees or the elderly finding their long-lost friends," Snape said snidely, not taking his eyes off the cauldrons.
It startled her for a moment, that Snape would know what kind of fluff pieces made their way into small town newspapers, before she realised that perhaps he was referring to the type of reporting that happened in other wizarding publications like Witch Weekly.
The fact that he wasn't telling her to shut up prompted her to say more. "Though, I mean, I suppose wizards wouldn't understand scientific breakthroughs or progress with the UN and that kind of thing..."
"What are you talking about?" Snape asked, abruptly turning from his cauldrons to face her. Hermione shrank back from his scrutiny.
"I mean, science is the Muggle way of understanding the world and using their observations to invent new things—" she started, struggling to explain science to a wizard.
"I know what science is, Miss Granger," Snape said, voice clipped. "I know what bombs are and how they work. It is both arrogant and dangerous to underestimate what other people know. Do you think wizards are incapable of understanding science? Do you think the Death Eaters reached their conclusion on Muggle bombs entirely because they are prejudiced against Muggles?"
Hermione suddenly realised how badly she had misspoken."No! I just meant...the Prophet doesn't explain any of the good in the Muggle world, and provides no balance to their news coverage at all. It's all sensationalism," Hermione said, twisting the edges of her skirt anxiously.
"I see," Snape said. "Is it all sensationalism though?" he asked. "Does the Muggle news not read like this as well? Why should the Prophet be held to a higher standard than Muggle reporting? But as fascinating as all this talk about the editorial direction of the Prophet is, we need to return to brewing."
Hermione couldn't find anything to say to that, though she did not entirely agree with what Snape said. But she thought about it. They spent the rest of the time until their one-hour break brewing in silence.
"Let us begin," Snape said, the moment she put her stirring rod down.
"I want to see you relaxed with no defences, to gauge what your natural state of mind is," he said, raising his wand.
"Look into my eyes," he commanded.
Hermione raised her eyes and relaxed her mind. She tried to not focus on her centreing visualisation or anything else but felt him wrench himself from her mind shortly after he went in.
Snape frowned and studied Hermione's eyes critically.
"Miss Granger, I wanted you to stop Occluding completely."
"I have," said Hermione, confused.
"You have not—you are not so good yet that you can fool anyone into thinking you aren't repressing your emotions, and right now you are Occluding heavily, even if you are focused on a visualisation. Overachieving as this accomplishment is, this was not what I asked for. Try to stop," he looked into her eyes again. "Slow your thoughts down, pay attention to your mind."
"Now, listen very carefully to me: your constant need for the affirmation of your peers and elders makes you weak."
Hermione flinched. The fact that she was very sensitive to what people thought of her was not news to her, but it hurt to hear Snape put it in such bald terms. It wasn't noticeable before, but now she was paying attention she could feel her magic automatically seal up the familiar pang of hurt and insecurity before she could really feel it. She tried to relax her mind and let herself feel her response to the cutting statement, but she couldn't. The seal on her emotions was too strong.
"I can't," she whispered, horrified.
Professor Snape exhaled loudly.
"Look into my eyes again. I am going to help you stop Occluding, but this may be a bit unpleasant."
His face was a little closer to hers, and she focused on his eyes, which looked like fathomless tunnels in the dim lighting of the classroom. His mental presence in her head was more obvious this time, exerting a slightly uncomfortable pressure inside her head.
She felt as if he was sifting through her thoughts, but she did not know what he was looking for. She found herself reliving memories of looking at the long purple scar slashing across her chest, feeling the despair of never being beautiful. She found herself reliving Harry telling her about his confrontation with Malfoy, Harry's upcoming lesson with Dumbledore, Harry's sudden improvement during potions with his ill-gotten textbook, and a flash of feeling second-best in potions class—not good enough, never good enough—just a whisper of a thought, and suddenly the pressure in her head grew as he focused on the feeling. Instinctively she felt her mind try to bury it, but he was focused on the emotion and magnifying it until it was all she could think about. It was mortifying.
Don't fight this, he thought in her head, and she tried to relax while a sense of rising panic grew at the back of her head. She felt like a distant observer in her own mind. It felt as though he had cast a net into her mind and was dredging up every single hurtful thought and fear she had buried in the past several weeks.
It was as if the cap of a badly shaken fizzy drink bottle had popped off—emotions erupted within herself and she lost her breath to the pain of realising how inadequate she was compared with Fleur, how she would never be any good at Potions, how Ron would never notice her, how she would never save her parents, how she couldn't even have saved herself and only survived the Department of Mysteries by a lucky fluke. The terrifying fear of death came back all at once, and her head spun with the magnitude of the emotion.
She barely noticed when she stopped feeling Snape in her mind and started to cry. One minute tears barely began to sting her eyes, and the next minute she was hyperventilating and gasping for air as she ugly cried into her handkerchief. She shook like a leaf as her feelings rushed through her.
Professor Snape stood next to his desk impassively as Hermione broke down, and watched her with his arms crossed.
Just when she thought she would stop crying, she would start all over again. At some point she completely saturated her handkerchief, and was so distraught she didn't notice Snape cast a drying charm at it.
He made no outward signs of concern as he watched her cry, not moving even when he cast the occasional drying charm.
Finally, after an age, she stopped crying, and her trembling calmed. Her head felt sore and stuffy.
Snape looked at her pensively. "How long have you been Occluding your dreams and your feelings?" he finally asked.
"A few weeks," Hermione mumbled, unable to meet his eyes.
"You could have caused permanent damage to yourself. Repress your feelings long enough and you can kill yourself," he scowled at the shocked look on Hermione's face. "Did you think stopping yourself from feeling discomfort was a good thing? Discomfort tells us when things are wrong either within us or within our environment. Cutting off one of your senses is dangerous."
Hermione swallowed thickly. "I see. Thank you, Professor," she said, eyes still lowered in shame.
"There is a difference between hiding thoughts and feelings that can be dangerous if known by others, and thoughts and feeling from yourself, which can be dangerous if not known by yourself. The practice of Occlumency is meant for keeping secrets from others, not yourself," he said, scowling. "I realise the text does not explain this, but this should have been self-evident."
Snape took a moment to inspect the potions before addressing her again. "In the future I expect you to be in control of your emotions, not push them away. I understand you are dealing with overwhelming fear and it is difficult to function under these circumstances, but you are safe here at Hogwarts right now, I will tell you when you are not, and you need to become used to functioning with this kind of fear because we are at war."
He straightened up and looked her in the eye. "You must focus on the present, and what needs to be done right now—you cannot lose your focus. There is no use fearing events that have passed that may or may not happen again. It is easier said than done, but you must convince yourself of the truth of this—speak to Madam Pomfrey for some Dreamless Sleep or Calming Draughts if you must, though you should let your mind deal with your fears as much as you can."
Hermione nodded, eyes finally dried.
"And finally, I must address a few things. I see now Mr Potter was delayed to the opening feast because of a small adventure he had with Mr Malfoy. I understand I am asking the impossible, but do try to keep a closer eye on Mr Potter in the future so situations like this do not arise again. It could have been dangerous for Potter if Mr Malfoy had actually been a Death Eater with ill-intent towards him."
"Yes, sir," Hermione said miserably.
"I will teach you how to better help Mr Potter, but you must do the work yourself, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want you to find a way to deal with your emotions and remain in control of them as your homework for the next while. This will be crucial before I can begin to teach you some of the Dark Arts."
"The Dark Arts?"
"Don't sound so surprised. That was quite the dark jinx you used on Miss Edgecombe."
Hermione flushed. "What kind of Dark Arts will you be teaching me?" she asked, ignoring his jab.
"Mind magic, mostly," Snape said.
"Mind magic?" Hermione echoed dumbly.
"Come now, did you think mind control, Legilimency, wiping memories, and planting false memories was Light magic?"
Hermione shifted uncomfortably on her stool.
"But what about duelling, sir? If I'm to be helping Harry shouldn't I be learning to duel as well?"
"Most Death Eaters have years of experience being ruthless murderers. There is nothing I can do in a short period of time to prepare you for such confrontations and expect you to win—however, I can give you guidance to help you avoid and escape any such confrontations, especially so you can avoid another scenario like the Department of Mysteries." Snape paused at the look on Hermione's face.
"There is no shame in surviving to fight another day when outclassed by your opponent," he elaborated further, "You do not have the sheer firepower and instincts for duelling Potter does, but unlike Potter, you have a mind. I'm sure you can see the usefulness of such skills in a confrontation."
Hermione murmured her agreement, though she was a little stung by Snape's assessment of her abilities, even if it was honest. And she was a little flattered.
"As always, I expect your discretion in this matter. Occlude your thoughts and sensitive memories regularly, but not your feelings—that is safe."
"O-of course, sir."
"That's enough for tonight," he said and gestured to the door, which opened without her noticing.
"What about the potions?" Hermione asked, startled.
"I can finish them myself," he replied, and set about starting each potion one after another, managing the four potions at once.
"Also, Miss Granger…"
"Yes?"
"It's unbecoming and unwise to underestimate yourself so much. You need to know what you are capable of in this war, and it would not do to over- or underestimate yourself, just as it would not do to underestimate or overestimate others."
"I—"
"You can go now."
Hermione was speechless, and left without another word. She was also impressed and annoyed that the man had been able to brew four cauldrons at the same time all along. And he called her insufferable.
Severus patrolled the dungeons, deep in thought. He had been surprised to learn the depths to which the Granger girl had been affected by her time in the Department of Mysteries, though in retrospect he should have expected it. For all the things she had faced in her school years up to this point, that had been her first confrontation with the face of the enemy. He hoped she would find a handle on her feelings soon; he had lived his entire life looking over his shoulders for the enemy, but he could tell the visceral experience of being chased by danger had come as a shock to the girl.
And Albus was giving the boy private lessons. Dumbledore had never mentioned anything to him, though Severus assumed the headmaster was preparing Potter for the coming confrontation.
It had been a shock seeing his childhood handwriting on his old potions text in Granger's mind—he had not noticed how much his writing had changed since he was young, but evidently it had. So, Potter had his old potions book and was showing up Granger, was he? Severus considered bringing this up to Albus before he dismissed the idea. It was not his business if Slughorn could not detect a student cheating. He felt surprisingly unbothered by the whole affair; in the grand scheme of things, Potter having access to his old Potions notes didn't seem like much of an issue—he could hardly remember what he wrote, and maybe the boy would learn something for once.
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. Granger had been his best Potions student in her year, though she did not have deep insight into the art—either that, or she was too afraid to deviate from written instructions. She took instruction well and understood things when they were explained, but she didn't tend to take things on faith, a quality that was necessary to do the kind of experimentation one had to do to advance in the Potions field.
He smirked at the idea of the girl competing with his teenage self—no doubt she would find it frustrating being second-best in one of her classes, but he rather thought it would be a good experience for her.
He wondered what his teenage self would have made of her. Annoyed, probably. He wouldn't have appreciated her over-eager classroom manner, which was apparently a front for insecurity, which he understood all too well when he was younger. From what he had heard of her from other teachers though, he suspected he would have at least respected her for her intelligence. He wondered what the rest of the Slytherins would have thought if she had been in his year. Maybe it would've given some of them pause for thought—two incredibly intelligent and talented Gryffindor Muggleborns… He frowned, and stopped himself before he finished the thought.
AN: Thank you all for the wonderful comments and feedback last week! Once again I apologise that I haven't gotten around to responding - my wrists and arms are still not entirely well so I have limited time I can use to type every day, but I'm doing better, and next week's update should go up on time, or close to it. Thanks everyone again for all the support and kind comments. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!