If Hermione had expected some miraculous change in Severus' attitude to her after their conversation, she would have been sorely disappointed. Luckily she knew him better than to think he'd act any differently with her, though it didn't stop the sting of hurt every time he saw her and just looked through her.
The day after their conversation, Hermione had Potions last thing in the afternoon. She'd looked for a change in him and had seen none at all. He hadn't looked at her, and had barely commented on her potion. This was how he had been for two weeks now and it was really starting to hurt, however much she pretended it didn't.
She'd expected to see him in her detention that evening but instead, five minutes before she was due to grab her bag and leave, she'd received an Owl telling her to go straight to his library for her detention, and every detention after that. The protective charms had been lowered for her, but he was never there. She'd given up wondering where he'd gone to hide from her. It was funny; she'd never thought Severus would be a coward.
So she read in his library for hours each night, hoping he'd appear, telling herself that wasn't the reason she was doing it. But not once did he come to see her, or even come into his quarters while she was there.
The last night she'd been there she'd even tried looking for him, tentatively opening his bedroom and his bathroom doors, hoping he'd be in there. The chances of catching him naked in his deep, marble bath outweighed the chances of catching him on the toilet, she'd decided as she'd hesitated outside the door. So he'd curse the hell out of her for not respecting his privacy – she'd probably die happy if she could just see that body all wet and slippery...
She'd started fantasizing about him all the time and wasn't even really sure why. He just seemed to have got under her skin. But with the linking Charm still active, she hadn't been able to do anything about all the pent up frustration. It was killing her - she was constantly turned on, but she daren't risk him feeling her again. She felt rejected enough, without him thinking that she not only cared about him, but she still wanted him. He'd probably quit his job and leave the country if he thought she was actively trying to pursue him, she decided.
Every now and again, when she was happy, or depressed, or excited, she'd be able to feel him, because she knew he could feel her. She knew he'd started using Occlumency to block out as much as he could, and the one time he'd talked to her in those two weeks, had been to tell her that he'd found a spell to dampen the Charm a little. Neither of them had managed to get to talk to Albus in private to get him to remove it completely. Albus Dumbledore was incredibly... sneaky. Hermione was almost impressed, if not a little baffled as to why Albus would want to subject them both to this hell. Maybe all the sugar had finally started to rot his brain.
Severus had spoken to her directly just once, when he'd held her behind after class one day. She'd waited, her heart in her mouth, wondering what he would say to her. She didn't know whether she was disappointed or relieved when he had just asked her how things were going with Draco and if she'd made any progress.
She'd answered that she was, 'trying' and then had picked up her bag and stalked out. Two could play that game, she decided.
In fact, she was making absolutely no progress with Draco at all. The couple of times he'd spoken to her were to taunt her about Crookshanks with incredibly obvious comments that made even Ron and Harry think he'd been responsible for the cat's violent death.
She wasn't sure what to do and wondered if Severus had even bothered to talk to Draco about her.
The fact that her words obviously hadn't gotten through to Severus had briefly put Hermione in a sort of depression. She'd avoided Harry, Ron and Ginny for most of the two weeks, only really seeing them at meals, when she didn't speak very much anyway. Usually she was far too busy trying not to look up to the High Table, where she knew Severus would be pointedly not looking at her.
She had thought a lot about why he was avoiding her so much and had decided that she would never understand the man. He didn't want her to, so she never would. The only reason she could think of for him avoiding her so studiously was the fact that Severus might be scared of letting her in. And if that was true, she wasn't sure what she could do to change that, so she avoided him as much as possible too. Not that it really made much of a difference with him never being anywhere near her unless he was forced to be.
Hermione felt hurt every time she thought about him, yet the thought of him still sent shivers down her spine. She spent most of her potions class in a constant state of arousal, as he lectured them all in that sexy, resonant voice. That combined with the fact that she couldn't stop wondering why he was being so cold with her meant that she found herself in the completely unprecedented situation of not being able to concentrate in class. Usually Severus would have pulled her up for it, but instead he'd barely even seemed to notice.
To stop her wanting to touch herself when she got into bed, Hermione was sitting up all night in the library until she was so tired she could walk up to her bedroom and fall asleep the second her head hit the pillow. The library was open 24 hours a day to certain members of the student body, and all the staff and Hermione took full advantage of that.
Staying in the library all the time also had the added bonus of letting her avoid Ron. She had somehow managed to avoid being alone with him for more than a few minutes at a time and couldn't decide whether to feel guilty or relieved. She knew she should just break things off with him, but with all the upheaval in her life at the moment, she didn't want to add Ron hating her to it.
The library was definitely the best part of being a Head Girl she decided, as she ran her hands over the pages of the Ancient Magic tome she had waited seven years to read. It was supposed to be the only book that had ever come anywhere near depicting how Wizards had really come into being, because there were quite strong theories that they hadn't always existed in society.
Hermione's personal favourite theory was that magic came about when a Muggle had such a high level of intelligence there was no other available outlet for it. A lot like the book 'Matilda' actually, she thought to herself, wondering if Roald Dahl was a Wizard who subscribed to the 'intelligent Muggle' theory.
Although she supposed that people like Crabbe and Goyle would make anyone doubt that theory.
She was leaning back in her chair, stretching her back, when a sudden stab of pain knifed through her head. She clutched her head and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. This wasn't the sort of pain that you got from reading for too long; she couldn't think; she couldn't move; she just had to ride it out.
The pain started to fade and Hermione relaxed her body and warily opened her eyes, wondering if it would come back again. She opened her eyes wider and looked around. Still nothing. She couldn't see anything; the library had gone black.
Panicked, she groped around in the darkness for her wand. It had been somewhere on the table.
"Lumos!" she said, her voice shaking slightly as her fingers finally found it. What had caused this sudden blackout? Was this anything to do with Draco? Had he somehow got rid of all the lights so he could get her without anyone noticing?
"Lumos!" she said again.
Nothing. Why wasn't her wand working?
She got to her feet and walked as confidently as she could to the exit of the library. It was lucky that she'd spent so many hours in there, or she might never have found her way out.
God, being lost in a library with no light. It would be like Ron being in a sweet shop with his hands tied and mouth taped shut...
She finally reached the place where she was sure the door was and was groping for it along the wall, when she was hit with another incapacitating stab of pain. She fell to her knees with a scream and clutched her head again. It was like her skull was being broken in two.
She crawled forwards, forcing her hands from her head to feel for the door again. She had to get help. She had to find someone to stop the pain. Severus. She wanted Severus.
"Severus!" she screamed as loud as she could.
