Hermione's first detention with Severus was only a day after the potions mishap, on Sunday afternoon. If anyone else were to ask, it would of course be a grueling detention involving manual labor and rat spleens – but it was really a much more dignified affair, with tea and even biscuts.
"Miss Granger, do come in." Said Severus coldly. Hermione raised an eyebrow at his tone, but it wasn't out of the norm for him, especially outside of his quarters. She walked in without a word, nodding her thanks as he held the door open for her. "I could have you perform an actual detention, if I thought it were useful in teaching you." Snape's eyes were as blank as an abyss, and Hermione couldn't quite figure out what he was on about. "But instead, I would like to discuss your conduct recently." He said this very calmly, pouring her tea.
"My conduct, Severus? Do you mean the memory wipe?" She took the cup absently, more focused on his expression.
If Snape were a less reserved man, he would probably have rolled his eyes at her. As it was, his next words came out in a snarl: "I mean the blatant disregard for common sense you've been exhibiting recently! Why would you bind your memories? Especially with that drivel Skeeter wrote, and even more so that you didn't inform me or Draco." Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but he continued overtop of her, "I have half a mind to take you out of any further plans and simply find and destroy the remaining horcruxes without you. And I may, if you don't stop making idiotically rash, Gryffindorish decisions! Hasn't Draco taught you anything about subtly?"
"Severus," Hermione said strongly. "The memory wipe was a mistake. A bad one, yes, but not one that warrants my removal from our team. The team that I created, let me remind you."
He scoffed. "From what I've seen, Draco has been the mastermind behind this operation."
"I'll thank you to withhold judgement on something you don't understand." Hermione said. Her blood was boiling, and the words didn't really seem like they came from her. Some other quick witted, brown haired girl was using her mouth to speak, and Hermione merely observed. "I have sacrificed so much, done so much, to get us this second chance."
"We've all sacrificed, Miss Granger. We've all worked hard. And all that will be for naught, if you don't continue to work for what you wish to accomplish. I have attempted to discover why you were acting the way you have, and I have concluded that you are lazy. You imagine to sit back and relax until the third task, when we shall swoop in and save the day. Because that's what a Gryffindor sees as the main challenge, isn't it? The big, flashy battle?"
Hermione simply stared at him as if struck. "We must prepare for the third task, Severus. I know that. You know it, too, that's all that matters."
"And what of after the third task? The next few hours, even? We will have to make many more decisions, work much longer, and continue to sacrifice. What about before, the things we are doing now and changing? These will have far reaching effects, Miss Granger. The damage done by your memory loss alone will ripple outward in the coming months, in the coming years."
"I know it was a mistake, Severus. It certainly won't happen again, and I will be able to repair whatever damage was wrought."
"I do not believe you will, Miss Granger."
"Why ever not?" She said, affronted.
"In the week and a half since you… lapsed, a few things have already altered from the future you've been trying to cultivate. Firstly, Rita Skeeter wrote an article, as I'm sure you recall. Do you know what danger could come from that?"
Hermione wanted dearly to roll her eyes, but refrained. Severus, one of the only people who knew her true age, was treating her like a child. And what would make him do that? Said a voice in the back of her mind. Perhaps you have really been too hasty, too Gryffindorish. She shook the voice away. She would just have to convince him that she was thinking more than he believed her to be.
"I imagine Harry and I will continue to suffer some backlash from that, as well as Viktor." She looked for a response from Severus, but he stayed quiet, as if waiting for her to continue. "Viktor may decide to break things off if he thinks Harry and I really were a couple. But I doubt it'll happen before the second task, after which it doesn't matter anymore." She would actually find herself missing Viktor's company, when he wasn't trying to teach her dangerous mind magic. She wanted another look at that fairy circle, if nothing else.
"What about Skeeter?" Said Severus slowly, as if talking to a small child or a very dumb animal.
"What about her? We'll go through with our plan concerning the Fidelus, and she'll do anything we want her to." Honestly, Hermione had learned to fear the woman's wrath a long time ago, but she knew she had the leverage over her this time.
And if anything went very wrong, Hermione wasn't above squashing her like a bug, in a very literal way.
"Skeeter is testing the waters, seeing how far you'll let her go. Or even if you're still there to influence her. You already showed your hand by letting her know you didn't want her to talk about Potter after the Weighing of the Wands. It was clumsy, Gryffindorish. Skeeter is a Slytherin, Hermione, and a reporter. They thrive on threats, blackmail, and toe the line of morality as if it were a game." Hermione had to conceal a smirk, for the same thing could be said for spies. "She will be looking for your identity. She may have even written the way she did as an experiment: if you go after her about this article, she will know she is dealing with Hermione Granger, the Heroine of Sussex."
Hermione leaned forward. A part of her wanted to argue, to say that he was wrong. But this was more important than pride, this was an ally contributing to the cause. She needed to heed his words, just as she took Draco's lessons in espionage and occlumency without guile, and took Poppy's advice about her abrasive personality to heart. "And how do you think she figured out the connection between the Heroine and me?"
Snape leaned forward over his desk, looking at her intently. "She may have noticed your concerns were centered around Hogwarts, or picked up your age from your voice. Then it was a matter of narrowing down Hogwarts students instead of the entire Wizarding World. For someone of her caliber, it would take a matter of months. Of course, she doesn't have the benefit of legilimency, just her meddlesome animagus form."
She thought hard about that. She really did overdo it with Skeeter. She had known that from the beginning, really. She knew it was a bad idea to take off the morning of the wand weighing, but she was so caught up in what was right and just that made her lose sight of what was smart and sensible. And Hermione considered herself a very smart and sensible person, although she realized she wasn't in this regard. "I suppose I've made some pretty horrible oversights, when you put it that way." She said, much more calmly than she felt. "And Skeeter isn't the biggest fish we're frying."
Snape almost looked taken aback by her tone, sure that he was about to deal with a very hotheaded Gryffindor. But he went on as if nothing rattled him; maybe nothing did phase him at all anymore. Too many years living a double life. "Correct. She is the least of her concerns. Do you know what I am most concerned about?"
There was that tone again, the one that made her feel like a first year again. She brushed it off, using her newly revived occlumency shields to calm herself. "I know I'm concerned about Dumbledore. He's a wild card, that one."
Severus heaved a great sigh that told Hermione she hadn't guessed correctly. "The Headmaster is a consideration, but hardly a threat."
"Why do you think so?" Hermione cocked her head to the side, bushy hair becoming even more frizzed.
"He has many other topics to consider besides the habits of a student, particularly one that isn't Potter. You have definitely roused his attention, but I wouldn't expect him to take any action. He believes in good intentions and Gryffindor courage."
"He is a fool." Hermione said scornfully. That was something which had kept her away from the headmaster: his damned morality would get in the way. If she were reporting to Dumbledore – and that's another thing, it would be him in charge, not her – then he would have a stricter moral code than her two Slytherin conspirators. Dumbledore would never allow her to kill Rita Skeeter, if that's what it came to. His good intentions were what left Harry in the dark for so long, made the Horcrux chase take so damned long, and what ultimately caused the Third War.
Snape shook his head, though, disagreeing. "He is not a fool, although he likes people to think he is. But he has limits, Hermione. Most of his information in the castle is second-hand, and I assume a good portion of that knowledge comes from myself. If Albus were to learn of your actions, he would still take a long time to come to a decision, and that is time that we could use to our benefit.
"No, you're missing the biggest threat of all: Barty Crouch."
Hermione gasped. "You don't think he knows?"
"I do not know what he knows, and that is what makes him dangerous." Snape said gravely. "Your mental state once I reached you in your mindscape was so scattered that he could've run across any number of memories. Perhaps your future memories were still locked away, but perhaps not."
"What do we do about him?" She was gaping. Snape wasn't a master spy for nothing, she reminded herself.
He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort. "We can't do anything. But the time is ripe for planning, and that is what we shall do. Not that I'm not overworked enough already."
She nodded stiffly. What other threats could she have overlooked? What else had she missed? "We need Draco here for this, don't we?"
Severus glanced at the clock that sat behind Hermione on a small table. "Now is not the time. It's nearly midnight, and I have to teach rooms full of dunderheads tomorrow."
"Severus, it's only just passed ten."
He almost growled at her. "The number of calls I have upon my time is well past astronomical. I need some semblance of a reprieve from this madhouse Albus calls a school." He grumbled. If Hermione didn't know better, she would've called it a whine. Perhaps he was right, though. He certainly didn't have an endless amount of hours in the day, like she did.
The next morning at breakfast, Hermione dearly wished she had mastered communicative legilimency – for all the trouble she had gone through to learn the skill, certainly she should get the payout – to plan a time to meet with Draco. He kept eying her carefully, as though she were a bomb about to go off or a delicate tower about to fall. Hermione was neither of those things. No, she was using her first go-round as a recovery day.
And by recovery, Hermione meant recovering all of her contacts. It was time she checked on her small network: Sirius was away in Berlin, but just a mirror-call away. Remus, since he had moved in with Sirius. Dobby, of course. Those three were her safest allies, but there were plenty more that could give her information, albeit unknowingly.
Dobby was the most useful of all, because he could flit in and out of Hogwarts without a second glance. "Dobby?" She said softly, listening for the telltale pop of house-elf apparition.
"Miss Hermione!" Said Dobby joyfully. "You is needing Dobby?"
"It's so good to see you, Dobby!" Hermione said excitedly. "How have you been?" Just because he was a house elf, didn't mean she should just order him about.
"I is doing well, Miss Hermione. I has been helping Winky, and I has been helping everyone who is in need of helping, like you asked." He sounded quite proud, puffing up his pillowcase-covered chest.
Hermione blinked. She supposed she had told him that, although she didn't realize how seriously he would take it. "Oh? What have you done so far?"
"Well, I helped Harry Potter's wheezies with their house – they had horrible gnomes and ghouls, oh yes. It was hard work, but Dobby has gotten rid of them!" He beamed at her. "I also helps prevent bad wizards from getting their evil work done, I have. I trips them while they does their shopping, and all of their dark posessions go flying."
This time, Hermione openly gaped. She had created a vigilante. Well, she had fueled a vigilante's fire by lending her magic and practically ordering him to "help the world." And what was more, people probably credited it to bad luck or the Heroine herself, depending how much people still talked about her.
"Oh that's wonderful. Good work, Dobby. I hate to pull you away from that, but I have a favor to ask."
"Anything, Miss Hermione," Dobby said adoringly. She felt a little guilty; did she really deserve his adoration, when all she had done was accept him as a servant and ask him to do things.
The thought made her pause, but she still had a task that needed doing. "Dobby, would you be able to keep me up to date on the movements of Alastor Moody? He's the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor here. I need to know what his habits are, if he ever goes anywhere that may seem unusual, and especially if he investigates me, Severus Snape, or Draco Malfoy. And of course Harry." She tacked on as an afterthought. It wouldn't hurt to have an extra set of eyes keeping her informed, just in case Crouch really did learn something from her mind. "Oh, but don't let him see you. He has a magical eye, so you must be very careful. I don't want him noticing you and harming you."
"Miss Hermione is so kind to think of Dobby, and to defend Harry Potter." Dobby said cheerfully. "I can help yous with this."
"Oh excellent, thank you very much, Dobby! I'm so grateful for you, honestly. You're doing me a huge help." She really was grateful. Dobby had been such an unexpected boon. And an inspiration to her for S.P.E.W., although she realized now that she came on far too strong, too quickly. Some elves weren't ready to think about wages and freedom.
"How is Winky doing?" She said, remembering how against wages she had seemed.
Dobby's small proud face turned quite sad. "Oh, I am afraid Winky is not doing well at all. She is wanting work, but she is not able to find it. She wants to work for Mister Crouch, but he is casting her aside. She won't even tell my why he has cast her out." He wrung his hands anxiously.
"Does she need someone else to look after her?" Hermione asked tentatively. She didn't want to suggest Hogwarts, for she knew how badly that ended the last time.
The way Dobby perked up made Hermione think that was exactly what Winky needed. "Dobby is thinking so, yes."
Hermione felt a smirk playing across her lips. Severus was feeling overworked, was he? Well, she might have just the solution for him.
AN: Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm so excited to have breached 50,000 views, 300 reviews, and 250 followers. You all rock!