[a/n: if the title made you think of the video game, shame on you! Also, enjoy the trolling!]

Hermione Granger was, three weeks out from school, completely and utterly finished with her homework. Of course, she'd done so after the first four weeks of summer (having had an unusual amount of free time, trapped in this house and doing menial chores), and reopened them to revise after another month. So she was well and truly done with school, for the moment.

Normally, this would be time to relax with her friends. Well, now she really only had one friend, Harry. And Ginny, who was kinda sorta a friend, sometimes. Ginny was off with Luna (Hermione was not allowed out unsupervised). And Harry? Harry was with Ron, who'd been sticking to him like a leech ever since Sirius. She could tell it was a lamprey, because Harry always looked so woebegone at the kitchen table when she came down to grab food for her room.
Which was why she was entering the Black library, in search of some new reading material, and some peace and quiet to enjoy. She paused, her hand on the lintel. That was Professor Severus Snape inside. He was... lounging, I suppose you'd call it, his heels crossed on an ottoman, as he stretched out, a book in his lap.

Frowning, she noticed that there was a perfectly good, if obnoxiously yellow couch along the opposite wall. Well, the Professor couldn't possibly be too upset if she came in and was quiet, could she? Quiet as a churchmouse.

So thinking, Hermione came in softly, procuring a book that seemed interesting, and settling on the couch to read.
"Miss Granger, shall I take it that you've completely forgotten your manners over the summer hols?" Professor Snape purred in that icy way of his, his eyes still focused on the book. *

Hermione's mouth opened, and she said, "No, sir, I was only trying not to bother you."

"Pity. I wish you'd been the first Gryffindor to be able to lie, even to only save an old man his delusions." Professor Snape said dryly.

Hermione's mouth opened, and then closed, as inside her mind, cogs began to whirl. "What delusions, sir?"

"Why, the delusion that you, as all good students should, might find me scary enough to avoid angering me unnecessarily."

"Wait, you want us to be afraid of you?" Hermione Granger said, studying the man as if he was a snake (which, of course, he was - if he was being an exceptionally approachable snake, today).

"Naturally," Snape purred, saying, "I sometimes think that fear of Professor Snape is the only thing that renders Potter and the Weasleys capable of following any rules whatsoever." Hermione muffled a giggle, nodding her albeit unwilling assent. "And this is why you mustn't tell them that I'm not nearly the bastard I act."

"I can keep a secret, Professor." Hermione responded.

"You will keep this one, on pain of my most creative punishment." Snape smiled at her, and it was not a pretty smile, "And that's not the Professor talking."

"Indeed, sir." Hermione Granger said, hoping, suddenly, that it wasn't the emDeath Eater/em talking.

*they aren't. they totally aren't. but Gryffindor is watching, so you see what she does. The spike of fear she felt was very, very real.

[a/n: Snape decided to wander in, having given both Dumbledore and Lord V the slip. Yes, there's a reason he's not going to see Malfoy. No, if you don't know it, I'm not tellin
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