Chapter 10

Hermione ran up to the school as fast as she could while crying, but the sobs made getting enough air much too hard to properly run. Once she made it to the school she knew she'd never make it up to the tower and so ran into the girl's lavatory and straight through a group of Hufflepuff girls, locking herself in the nearest open stall.

"Was that—?"

She heard the girls outside whispering to each other.

"It's that first-third-year, the Gryffindor."

"What happened?"

"She was wearing a dress. Could it be a boy?"

"She's eleven! It's not a boy!"

A knock on the stall. "Hey, ummm, you okay in there?"

She knew she shouldn't want the attention, shouldn't want the girls to be worried about her. But it felt so good to have them worried about her. Still, she was sobbing too much to want to answer.

"You really don't want to cry in the lav," one of the girls said loudly. A few thumps. "What? It's an awful place to cry. Who actually wants to cry next to a toilet? She should go to her dorms. Bed's the perfect place."

A more gentle voice came through the stall. "Should we get your Head of House?"

When she didn't reply, she heard them counsel behind the door. "We should get McGonagall." "Maybe one of her prefects?" "No, the head girl is good for this." "Should we stay with her?" "One of us should."

"I'm fine," choked out Hermione. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine, kid," the blunt girl from before called. More thuds. "She's not! Look, I'm going to get Professor McGonagall. Stay here if you want."

Severus made his way to the Potions classroom shoving guilt away and pushing irritation forward. He was volunteering his Sundays to the brat, his personal time to teaching her and she dared to get angry at him? No matter his words, she should be prostrate with gratitude.

He had barely sat down behind his desk when the Floo whooshed and Minerva McGonagall stomped into his quarters with pinched expression.

"What, no hello?" sneered Severus.

"What did you do?" Minnie glared down her half-rim glasses at him. "To Miss Granger, what did you do?"

Severus sneered. "Did she come whining to you about the big, bad bat?"

"No, I wish she had." Minerva sniffed. "Miss Aster and her friends tell me she's crying in the first-floor girl's lavatory. A lavatory!"

The guilt he had certainly not felt to the point certainly did not get worse at Minerva's pronouncement, he determined. He simply had indigestion. And a walk would do his indigestion wonders.

He rose from his desk strode for his door, Minerva coming up behind him and eventually joining alongside him as he strode towards the aforementioned lavatory.

"Minerva, I will deal with this," he snapped. "You may go."

"Absolutely not," said the cat-Professor. "I'm certain you are the reason for the girl's state, and I will not allow you to distress her further. We both know you are not the most … comforting presence."

"She does not need comfort, she needs censure for this little fit."

"That depends on what you said to her."

Severus' stride faltered just briefly. "You know my thoughts on faith."

"And you took out your frustrations on the girl?" Minerva said. "You know better, Severus. I thought you would be more restrained!"

He glared. "There were no frustrations. I did not yell, and I did not get angry. That should be enough for you."

"That girl looks up to you," admonished Professor McGonagall. "As a professor you are responsible for her."

They reached the restroom doors and were greeted by the Hufflepuffs in question, looking anxious at the sound of sniffling that was echoing off the walls.

"Get out," Snape hissed.

Minerva tsked. "Girls, twenty points to Hufflepuff for fetching a Professor and comforting a fellow student. We'll take it from here."

One by one the Hufflepuffs filtered out, all shooting furtive looks at Snape. Good. Let them wonder at his appearance, let them fear him. Once they were gone, he moved to the closed stall and banged a little too forcefully on the door.

"Miss Granger!" He barked. "This attention-seeking has gone on long enough! Unlock the door and face your problems!"

Minerva blanched. "Professor Snape!"

Before she could remand him, the tiny girl responded.

"You're my problem!" The girl shouted.

"Then face me!"

There was a shuffling and a clink as the door unlocked before it was swished open abruptly to show a petit Gryffindor with red eyes and an angry face.

"Leave me alone!" She screamed. She tried to slam the door in his face, probably the reason she opened it in the first place, but Severus stopped it with his hand. "Stop it!"

He ignored the stirring in his heart at the desperate, tear-filled cry and instead sneered at her.

"This tantrum is to end now," he said. "It is unacceptable behaviour."

"'Unacceptable'?!" the girl's face turned an angry red. "You say these horrible things and I'm not allowed to cry?!"

"No, you're not!"

"ENOUGH!"

Minerva dared place her hand on him in censure, and Severus spun from the girl and the stall door slammed behind him as she shut the door. McGonagall put herself between the two of them looked between him and the stall with righteous indignation.

"Severus Snape, you will control yourself!" he was remanded fiercely by the scotswoman. "Now, I realize both of you have had a trying morning in a new environment. I'm sure you were nervous, Miss Granger, about meeting new friends at your church. Isn't that right?"

"Y-yeah."

His ears pricked. The thoughts he'd had on the meeting today did not include how the girl was feeling. It had been assumed that this was all very normal for her and the he had been the one forced to displace. A foolish assumption. Of course a young girl with her disposition would have been emotional about the strange group of people.

His mind ran through the whole encounter, including the cheery smile on the girl's face as she'd been introduced to her new fellows. Had it been perhaps too cheerful? A forced cheer meant to endear her to them or perhaps to mask insecurities? Had her frantic movements not been the sign of enthusiasm, but nerves?

Then he remembered how she'd grabbed onto his hand right at the beginning, while speaking with the Bishop's wife. She hadn't explained why, and he had not pushed it as it would have drawn attention to the embarrassing situation, but could it have been she had been worried?

"So you were a bundle of nerves and Professor Snape is often uncomfortable in new situations, irregardless," McGonagall sniped sharply at him. It was deserved, making him burn in shame. "You are both obviously quite overwrought. Let's all just take a minute to breathe."

How did such simple words make everything seem more impactful? Minerva had a superpower, perhaps, but the atmosphere did indeed change. It seemed acknowledging both sides as at fault led to a moment of quiet from the both of them, the kind of quiet woven with thought so thick you could grasp it and listen to it say, 'maybe you should apologize.' Silence always held such thoughts for him.

"Now, let's talk about this. Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked through the door. "Would you start?"

A sharp sniffle. "I'm not a hypocrite."

Minerva looked puzzled, but Severus sighed and moved forward to the door.

"I did not say you were."

"You said I could just throw about my beliefs willy-nilly!" the girl shrieked. "I'm not like that!"

"And yet," Severus intoned, "you would not be so 'overwrought', as Minerva said, if you did not feel so"

She would have no response. Severus should have known this, should have seen it. She was but a child and her beliefs were not yet completely firm. The offer to tutor her on Sundays had been kind from his perspective as he'd seen it as a service to her – giving up the entirety of his day to teach one girl was a sacrifice on his part, and he'd approached the situation as such – and yet from her perspective it was a double-edged blade. He huffed.

"Severus!" Minerva hissed liked a cat, under her breath so the girl most likely could not hear it. A warning that his tone was becoming more hostile than he'd intended. He took a deep breath and continued.

"Am I to understand that you wish to take the additional time today to study potions but feel conflicted about whether to do so on your Sabbath is in line with your beliefs?" He listened but heard no reply. Like he could hear her thoughts, her silence was telling. "Use your words, Miss Granger. What if this could be resolved simply by asking nicely if I brew independently other nights of the week? By asking if I could—"

"I don't want to!" The girl yelled, voice echoing around bathroom.

Severus huffed again, a habit forming from spending time with the girl, and sent a look to Minerva. The tabby just sniffed at him rather than helping. There was nothing else for it, this encounter was quickly becoming uncomfortable and needed to be ended quickly.

"In skipping two years, you are required to study with me," Snape warned through the door. "Do you wish to be dropped back?"

McGonagall gasped. "Professor Snape!"

"No!" Hermione threw open the stall door, this time not in anger but desperation. Her eyes were wild and wet and wide as they gazed up imploringly at him. "Please! You can't!"

Severus leant on the stall door, ignoring McGonagall's complaints in favour of focusing on the girl.

"Let me take you through what happened, Miss Granger;" Severus was calm now, analyzing things out loud as if he were making changes to a potions recipe, "the situation – a situation that I created for you – made you uncomfortable and rather than coming to me with the issue you decided that you knew me so well that you didn't need to. You assumed you would be refused or perhaps you thought that I would be displeased with you, but this made the situation worse. It was your own guilty conscience that led you to this fit. Your anger may have been justified, but this …. wreck of emotions you crashed into the lavatory was not because of my words.

"Therefore you will ask me," he ordered. The girl looked confused and so he elaborated. "Ask me whether I would be willing to tutor you another day of the week."

Hermione looked up at him with those wide eyes, disbelief and worry. The act of asking for something from someone seemed to make her physically uncomfortable, a reaction he noticed in many kind-hearted people: children, Hufflepuffs, and Canadians, most prominently. There was the telltale tension in her stomach pulling her to hunch over which she countered with folding of her hands behind her back, the furrowing of her brow showing her fighting her physical discomfort mentally.

"I-I would prefer a different day," she said.

He grit his teeth to hold back the vitriol he wanted to throw at her. "I said ask. That requires a question."

Surprisingly, the girl didn't proudly stiffen at his tone, but instead turned herself inward and curled with her face towards the floor. It curdled in his gut, but he wouldn't stand down.

"D-do you have any other times you could tutor me?"

Acceptable. He nodded at the girl.

"Here is what we will do;" Severus began, "you will remove yourself from this stall and return to your dorm, you will change into appropriate attire for brewing, you will report to my office, and then we will begin your tutelage. However," he raised a hand to McGonagall, "next week we will change it to the day prior. And for this inconvenience you will arrive two hours earlier; simple potions such as Pepper-Up for the Hospital Wing should help you practise your skills, I should think. There are always too many students with weak constitution catching colds during the first few weeks of term."

Severus turned to leave, but Minerva halted him with a hand on his shoulder. "What?"

"You owe Miss Granger an apology."

He whirled on the woman, ready to tear into with the same vitriol he'd withheld from Miss Granger. She had no right to tell him he needed to apologize, no right! He had already resolved the issue with his student and that should be enough for her.

But as he glared at Minerva, he saw the girl behind her. The lines of tears were still on her face and she was watching him round on her Head of House with a line of worry on her forehead. Why, why couldn't he ignore the chit?

"Professor, please, he doesn't have t-" the girl tried to interject on his behalf, but he would not let himself be unmanned by her defense. His pride would be damaged by the apology, true, but worse damage would be done by having Miss Granger defend him to Minerva. The Scottish warrior-witch already looked ready to spit flames.

"No, Miss Granger, perhaps I must," he hissed, not at her, but at Professor McGonagall and the-won-the-House-Cup smile she wore. "I should not have disparaged your religion no matter the circumstances. You should not have taken such offense either, as it was not aimed at you, but nonetheless I … apologize."

He'd had to grit his teeth to keep from adding further acidic remarks to negate the effectiveness of his words, but Miss Granger didn't seem to mind his pained expression. Instead she hopped forward in her usual way. The chit seemed to withhold physical proximity from those around her when upset and then bounce back when pleased with them, as manifested within moments as the girl didn't halt her approach and instead jumped at him, arms tight as he tried to move back and her voice far too happy for his paltry apology as she practically sang, 'thank you' at his face.

If it had been directed at another member of staff, the look on Minerva's face would have been comedic to the Potion's Master. Unfortunately, it was at his expense and a little girl was to blame. He disengaged her rather too violently and rounded on her.

"Miss Granger!" he roared. Definitely roared, not shrieked. "Has your vaulted intellect left you?! Five points from Gryffindor for your inappropriate behaviour!"

The girl pulled back at the point loss, but Minerva immediately undermined him by stepping forward and laughing, laughing, at his lack of composure, even comforting the girl with a hand on the shoulder.

"Oh, pish, don't worry little lass," Minerva dared smile at the girl as if she'd done something acceptable. "I believe you deserve five points to Gryffindor for sheer pluck. It takes bravery to hug a Slytherin."

He threw his hands in the air. "Gryffindor conspiracy!"

Still, despite his movements, it seemed his anger was half-hearted. Instead of arguing with Minerva, he turned his eyes to the young witch who was looking at them both with wide eyes. "We'll see if she keeps those underserved points this evening. You have twenty minutes, Miss Granger, to be in my office. One point for every minute late."

The girl took a second to process his words, but when they sunk in she gasped and ran towards the door. Once she was gone, Minerva turned to him with a skeptical brow.

He glared. "What, woman?"

A second eyebrow joined the first. "Could it be you've finally found a soft spot for children?"

He rolled his eyes. "Hmph, soft, no. Miss Granger is simply competent, unlike the rest of those brats. Logic actually seems to work with the insufferable know-it-all."

"I'm certain that is the sole reason," Professor McGonagall shot him a rye smile before leading the way to the door. Once outside the lavatory, she kept up with him in his walk towards the dungeons and gave him a twinkling smile that would not be amiss on the Headmaster. "Every teacher has their favourites, you know. Best try to be fair with her, but Miss Granger could use your mentoring, and her, ah, youth – it could be enlightening. Children tend to steer straight where they're pointed and help us find our own hidden failings."

"My failings are not hidden," Severus sneered. "I do not deny that I am a disagreeable miser."

Minerva nodded, though her lips thinned. "Then, perhaps, the failing you do not see is that you refuse to behave differently."

He glared. "People do not change, no matter the girl's beliefs. Or yours. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a student who in fifteen minutes will no doubt lose five points for running in the halls."

Hermione felt awful. Her professor and her Head of House had both had to come and fix her crying fit, and then she'd gone and hugged him in front of Professor McGonagall! She didn't regret it – hugs were important – but she still felt embarrassed by it.

So when Professor Snape took five points off for her running in the halls and sliding into his office panting, she didn't even object. He was being kind as it was.

"Miss Granger, now you will learn proper cutting of the versatile mandrake," he ordered, motioning to his station where his mandrake was already divided by the limbs. It was the torso he was currently dissecting. "In class you will use stewed mandrake – already cooked and cut into half-inch cubes – but fresh mandrake is miles better if you know how to use it properly. Mandrake is a very tough root, so the size of the cut on fresh mandrake depends on how long it will stew in the cauldron with the potion. Smaller is safer than larger, but you must still be as accurate as possible.

"Now, since the Wiggenweld potion is a quick brew, we need small, very uniform cuts of it. A moderate brunoise cut, one-eighth inch cubes, should do. Start with making a julienne with the correct diameter then cube it. Understand?"

"Ummm …" She looked around the station for anything to use, but couldn't see any. "I don't have a ruler."

Her teacher seemed confused for a second, as if thinking 'why would you need a ruler?' but then she saw understanding. He took his knife and cut a small piece off he end of her mandrake, then cubed it for her. When he had, he took a hold of her pinky finger and held it next to the cubes.

"Your pinky nail is about that size," he showed her, comparing it to his cut. "It will change as you grow, but you should be practised enough by then to create various sizes of cuts without aid by then."

Hermione nodded and then went to work. Her cuts were slow at first because she really wanted to get it right and then kept checking the cuts against Professor Snape's original cubes. She was still slicing when her Professor had gotten through his much-larger mandrake and had crushed his chizpurfle fangs. But even thought she knew, intellectually, that he was the Master and she was really new to this, but being slower than him still frustrated her.

And then his comment in the lavatory … he really could move her back to first-year. She would not only be the girl who moved forward, but also who was sent back. Double humiliation. She couldn't let him find any reason to send her away.

Severus watched the girl as she struggled with the simple ingredient preparation. While she'd performed adequately in class, it was clear then that her potion had been severely rushed in order for her to meet the class-end deadline. In here she was doing the opposite; without a time crunch she seemed to double and triple check every cut in her mind before moving on to the next; perfectionism, he observed, was one of the girl's traits.

In this regard, however, potions theory could help her.

Leaving his charge to her mandrake, he turned to another station and set out six different pint-sized cauldrons, filling them all halfway with purified water and bringing them to heat. When the girl finished her too-precise cuts of mandrake, he stirred them into the cauldron, turned it to a simmer, and led the girl over to the station with the tiny array of cauldrons.

"You are thinking of the potions too much like chemistry. It is, in a way, but it is also similar to cooking," he informed her to focused attention. "When following a recipe it is not uncommon to make substitutions, changes, or small variations so long as the integrity of the dish stands. Some mistakes are certainly unforgivable in the dishes, such as having ingredients undercooked or overcooked, mixing things in the wrong order, or completely changing the dish. However, adding a little too much salt is forgivable. Having less than exact cuts is also, provided they are able to cook through properly. The same with potions. Certain things must remain fixed to provide stability and enhance the magic of potions, but some can be allowed … leeway. At the very least until you are a Master-level brewer. Observe."

One by one, he went through six cauldrons of the standard, simple wound-cleaning potion he gave Madame Pomphrey, the one that cleaned the wound and then sealed it provided it was within a certain size of cut. All of them began with him making them a transparent yellow, but from there he drastically diverged from all of them. Cauldron one he added an extra monkfish eye which changed it from the recommended green to a teal. Cauldron two he skipped the siren grass and substituted it for a pureed mix of dittany and mint which turned it from the recommended red to pink. All the way down he made these changes, leaving the cauldrons all different colours.

Then, finally, came the final step. He motioned Miss Granger a little closer and held up six dried but still beautifully unfurled moondew flowers.

"Now, watch."

One by one, he dropped a moondew flower to rest right on top of each potion. The various colours all started to shift. Red became cooler. Yellow became reversed. Blues and teals warmed. The colours all moved together until, all at once, they ended up as various shades of purple, from boysenberry to violet.

"The colour tells you exactly what it is for," Severus told her, a smug smirk finding his lips at the girl's awed expression. "It is the colour of the magic used. Not that these potions are identical.

"The point is to be able to understand exactly what each ingredient brings to the table, how it interacts with the others, and then what the most important parts of the potions are. Each of these are a strong, healing antiseptic for minor wounds. But this one, with dittany and mint instead of siren grass, it will be cooler to the touch and will be best used with already infected wounds or even open boils. These two are nearly identical in purpose, but this one will not seal wounds but keep them clean. Useful for extended procedures or curse scars that will not heal regardless.

"These small changes do not compromise the potion's purpose," he lectured. "Instead they show your flexibility and adaptability in the case of unexpected problems. If I had no siren's grass on hand, dittany and mint are cheap and easy to procure. If I had no monk fish eyes I could always get fire salamander eyes but neutralize their fiery components with juniper bark. Being able to use what's on hand saves lives and I hope you will learn this skill instead of simply aiming for precision, Miss Granger."

The lesson seemed to take root in Miss Granger after that. She was more focused on the reactions than her cuts, and questions about the ingredients themselves peppered their brewing.

Finally, he sent her off with the assignment to read through the 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi slowly and with their lesson in mind.

"You should teach like this every class," Hermione hummed happily, accepting the assignment. "It makes so much sense!"

With a noncommittal humph, he sent the menace off to her common room and went to his own quarters, determined not to give that girl's words credence. He certainly didn't want the students running to him for explanations they could easily find in their texts or by brewing in class. No, he'd simply had a tiring day filled with too much Gryffindor-ish behaviour for a weekend. That was all.