A/N: Surprise! So I found myself with too much time on my hands last night and finished this little chapter for you, as a Thank You for your plentiful and marvellous reviews to the past two chapters. You'll notice that it's a bit shorter than usual, but the cut fit nicely, and I gathered that you'd rather have a shorter chapter now instead of waiting till the new year for a longer one. ;) I haven't written the chapter after this yet, so I omitted the little hint that I usually leave at the end of a chapter, but I'm hopeful you'll forgive me for that.
I hope you've all had lovely holidays so far. The next chapter can be expected on Snape's birthday at the latest - I trust you all know when that is. ;)
Friday, November 8th, 1995
"I'm scared," Hermione admitted as way of greeting when Professor Snape appeared around the corner of her usual screen.
It was precisely quarter past two o'clock on Thursday night that same week that he'd spelt out the favour he sought from her. Hermione had mulled things over in her head and had come to the same conclusion again and again; that this must have been what Professor Headmaster had meant for her to do when he'd asked her to accommodate the Potions Master. The question was whether she was willing to go this far.
A frighteningly big part of herself was screaming Yes.
"Of what?" Professor Snape asked.
She had Disillusioned herself tonight, as Angelina had shown her, rather than beg the Invisibility Cloak off Harry. Hermione wondered whether Professor Snape been pacing out along the corridor, waiting for her to enter the bathroom, erect her usual wards and her screen, fill the bath, disrobe, and slip into the water, safely hiding her nakedness under a generous layer of bubbles, before he'd entered the bathroom himself. Why else would he have entered at such precise a point of time as he had? Hermione knew that she was probably right. Professor Snape was never one to leave anything to chance, she figured, and it would be simply so him to set exact standards to how he joined her bathing time, just as he did with everything else.
"Of this war," she answered. For a moment she asked herself whether it was wise to leave out her usual 'sirs' and 'professors', but if the professor minded, he did not say so, and if the professor did not say so, he obviously didn't mind.
At his single arched eyebrow, she elaborated, "Hagrid told us of his mission, and about the outcome. I just never… I never imagined that Voldemort would be able to amass followers who have little to hope from his agenda. But I guess history will repeat itself, won't it? And history's repetition does not discriminate between muggle and magical."
The Potions Master just stood there, intently watching her face. What had before unnerved her, now was strangely soothing to her. Some things would never change, she figured, and took comfort from the knowledge that the professor's stare on her was quite certainly one of those things. For a moment, she revelled in the cold shivers that ran up and down her body, feeling icy on her skin but causing a heat in her veins that had little to do with the warm water surrounding her.
"I'm scared that it won't be enough," Hermione continued. "What I've been learning from you, I mean. I'm scared that I won't be strong enough to keep the Order's secrets; that it will be me who will give up essential information and allow the Dark to win."
"You think mighty highly of yourself, Miss Granger, now don't you?" Professor Snape admonished her without malice. In fact, if Hermione had to give a name to the emotion that played around his expressionless eyes, it would be… warmth. Understanding. Empathy, even. Support, maybe. But none of that could be – or could it?
Hermione found herself in a strange mood tonight. If the Potions Master's icy glare could make heat course through her whole body, and if she could take comfort from his scathing gaze, then why not find empathy in those empty eyes? She wondered whether this came from his proposal, from the price he'd named, that she now found herself in this brave new world where everything he did or said or didn't do or say felt new and different to her. If that was the reason, she found that she didn't care. All that mattered was this new light that she saw him in.
"I need a failsafe," she said. "Is there a failsafe, professor?"
She had called him 'professor'.
Of course, Severus thought, he was her professor, so there was nothing wrong with the moniker per se. It was simply that the girl had refrained from the use of any titles in the few sentences they had exchanged this night so far, and that she would use one now took him slightly, strangely aback.
"There is," he answered her question.
"Show me," she demanded.
"In time," he informed her. It would have been too easy to make the sentence a promise, but Severus Snape did not do easy, nor did he do promises.
"Please," she reiterated, "I need a failsafe. I can't be responsible for the outcome of this war. I just can't. Please, professor. Please."
Severus forced himself to a derisive chuckle. The girl did not even flinch, and he knew he must surely have lost his effect on her.
"Don't join the Order, then," he replied. "Don't learn their secrets, and you won't have any to betray."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"You know I can't do that," the girl whispered.
Severus nodded. He knew she couldn't.
"It will take time to teach you," he said. "The failsafe doesn't exactly lend itself well for exercises, and if you get it wrong even once, you could do severe damage to your own mind. Don't you want your mind to be intact for the Light?"
"I do," she said. Then, again, "Teach me, professor."
"It will take time," he reiterated, imploring her to understand.
It seemed the girl did understand.
"How would that work?" she asked. "Would I have to lie with you every time you were in the mood?"
Severus shifted his weight to the other leg. Slightly only, mind you, for he never fully rested his weight on one leg only. There was always almost equal weight on either leg, ready to flee or fight at any time. The motion was almost fully imperceptible, so minimal was it. The girl cocked her head to the side as if she'd seen it, anyway. Severus admonished himself at the ridiculous notion. Surely she was merely curious as to why he had yet to answer her.
"I would not force myself on you, Miss Granger," Severus reminded her. This time, this sentence – it was almost a promise. "I merely ask that should you be in the mood when I seek you out, you will not deny me."
The girl nodded as if in agreement, though in reality, Severus had to remind himself, it was probably only because she was physically mulling the thought over in her mind.
"And would I be allowed to seek you out in turn?" the girl asked.
Severus choked for a moment, almost swallowing his own tongue. None of that was outwardly visible, of course, but the girl might have noticed that he took longer to answer her than usual. Hopefully she took it that he was mulling things over, himself, rather than understanding that she'd rendered him speechless there.
"If you could devise a way to do so discreetly, without traipsing down to the dungeons and knocking on the door to my private quarters, then I assume that might be possible to arrange."
"It would only be fair, don't you think," the girl insisted. "That was your condition, after all, that any sexual relations would be with you. And once you awakened my sexuality, it would be hardly kind to let me starve for your attentions, wouldn't you say?"
Hard-pressed for words once more, Severus took the fraction of a moment to compose himself. When he spoke, his usual sneer was firmly in place.
"You forget yourself, Miss Granger," he spat, his tone scathing. "First of all, I am not a kind man, and I owe you nothing. Second, I will not be the one to awaken anything with you. If you will remember, your task is to rid yourself of your innocence until the end of the year, and only then will we approach continuing your lessons in any sexual aspects.
"And lastly," here he had to swallow before he found himself able to continue, "I might approve of other partners for you, so you would not be entirely dependent on me."
"And how probable is that?" the girl shot back. "Knowing as you do the men that I might consider 'engaging in sexual relations with', as you called it, how probable is it that you would allow me to be with them?"
The girl's body appeared tense, and so did her voice, but she was not even close to becoming the fierce little lioness that he usually knew her to be when in anger.
Good, Severus thought, good to know that she is not left completely unfazed by this particular topic.
Realizing that he had yet to answer her, he merely inclined his head in a way that she might interpret as she liked. The girl apparently took it for confirmation, which Severus now knew it had been supposed to signal, and nodded in turn.
"That's what I thought," she muttered.
The room fell silent for a while. The minutes ticked by as Severus watched the girl who was watching the bubbles surrounding her in turn. He felt a strange kind of contented disappointment at the fact that the bubbles did not burst. Much as he longed to see the girl naked before him – and yes, he could now admit to himself, in the deepest recesses of his mind, that he did, in fact, long to see her – it would not do to have her exposed by bursting bubbles while he was intruding on her bath. While they might have agreed on a certain time for her to bathe every week, and while the girl was aware that he might join her – in the room, not in the tub, of course! – at any time, it was still very much a violation, he felt.
"I know of a way," the girl said. "A way to communicate without immediate personal contact. I have used it with much success already, and I see no reason why it should not work for this as well. I will need to devise a method with which to encrypt our communication, and to decipher it of course, but I have an idea that might work… Just let me get onto this. I will get back to you by the start of next term. Will you – will we see each other before then?"
Trust the girl to bring Phoenix headquarters into this. As if facing the Order wasn't bad enough without trying to keep the Headmaster from delving into his mind and finding his lecherous thoughts about one of the old fool's most highly prized students.
"I have no plans to that effect," Severus answered, perhaps more harshly than he should have, "so no, most probably not."
"Oh," said the girl, and he watched her face fall. "Alright, then. Will you need me to get back to you immediately after I arrive by train on the Sunday before term starts? Or should I stay after Monday's Potions lesson? Or would you rather we talk in private during Remedial Potions? Will I even keep taking Remedial Potions with you, professor? You only set them until the end of this term, if I remember correctly, so –"
"Will you stop talking, you insufferable chit!" Severus thundered when the girl's mouth did not appear as if it would cease moving and popping out questions any time soon. It was with much satisfaction that he watched it fall shut. He wanted to heave a sigh and allow his shoulders to sag in relief at the blessed silence, but, of course, did neither.
"There is little use in planning two months ahead, as much can happen in that amount of time," Severus stated, with perhaps less malice than the girl was used to. "I will notify you of a meeting time and place. Do not approach me in school until then, do you understand, Miss Granger?"
The girl nodded.
When he probed into her mind, he found two things. One, her shields were embarrassingly down. Two, the girl was about to ask him about his strange mood on Hallowe'en, a week ago.
"Now, Miss Granger," he said, perhaps a little too loudly, "how is your underwater breathing going?"
When Hermione went to bed later that morning, she wanted to ponder the question of how to send encrypted messages with a Protean charm, and what to use as a medium. As it was, she was too tired from her repeated attempts at breathing underwater, most of which had ended with her desperately trying to empty her lungs of soapy liquid. Only her last attempt had worked, finally, though the oxygen she had managed to draw from the bath around her had been far too little to last her more than a few seconds. Fortunately, Professor Snape had desisted after that and had allowed her to go to bed. Although – no, 'allowed' was not the correct word in this context. He had ordered her to get some rest, and had left immediately afterwards to give her some privacy to finish her bath.
It was funny, Hermione had thought on her way back to Gryffindor tower, that feeling that had coursed through her as he left. If she'd been forced to put a name to it, it might have been disappointment. Though disappointment at what? That he hadn't further violated her privacy by staying as she left the tub, wet and naked?
Before she could ponder her feelings on that matter, and before she could address the topic of their secure communication, her head fell back and she was asleep before her hair had settled around her pillow.
Lessons that day were largely uneventful, and Hermione was glad for a quiet Friday. The boys were content to spend the evening playing Wizarding chess and gobstones and what not. Hermione begged off another round with the excuse of being tired (which she was) and wanting to go through a few pages of light reading before bed.
Instead of taking out a book once she was alone in her dorm room, however, she sat on the bed, thinking about what objects to use for their communication. Thinking that it would need to be easy to hide, close to the body, and unsuspicious in general, Hermione went to the trunk sitting at the foot of her bed and knelt before it. Opening the lid, she reached inside, eager in her search for some trinkets that were sure to lie around at the bottom. Orderly as she was, there were always some things that she would not readily part with throughout the many months she spent at school, but that were too intimate to have set about in the open in her dorm room.
She started when her fingers hit a heavy, edgy object that she was not aware had been lying in her trunk. Carefully drawing out the item and lifting the thick velvet that it was wrapped in, Hermione recovered the ancient tome that Professor McGonagall had handed her a few weeks ago. At the time, she had only thought to lock and ward it away, precious as the artefact was, but now, she found herself curious as to why her Head of House would think that she would benefit by a book on dark magic.
'Blood Magic for the Uninitiated', she read once more. Flipping it open to a random page, she immediately snapped the tome shut with a loud crack. Drawing a few deep breaths, she sought to come to terms with the fact that she had just seen a very detailed drawing of a couple in a deeply intimate embrace. Why, she thought, why would Professor McGonagall hand her a book on blood and sex magic, for what else could this be?
Climbing onto the bed and drawing the curtains shut around her, Hermione warded the heck out of the fabric surrounding her four poster bed and reopened her Head of House's tome to the introductory chapter.
Monday, November 11th, 1995
Saturday morning had expected Hermione to rise and shine, but she had failed to manage the latter. It wasn't as if she'd never spent a night studying before, going without sleep the following day, but there had never been a topic for her to study as delicate, as captivating, and as equally alluring and forbidding as this before. Having torn through the chapters with her eyes, hungrily sucking up the contents as if possessed, and mulling over the insinuations of what she'd read for hours, shining was not an action Hermione had found herself able to perform that following morning.
Fortunately for her, the boys had still been sulking over Harry and the twins' Quidditch ban and had noticed little of how she looked or what she did. Realizing with a start that she'd still have to face Professor Snape on Monday, Hermione had spent the remainder of the weekend practicing her Occlumency, which she'd felt shame to admit she'd been rather lacking in these past few weeks.
As it was, Monday found Hermione in a much better condition. Honouring Professor Snape's requirements for their private lessons, she had taken care to get a full eight hours of sleep on the two preceding nights, and ate a hearty breakfast that got her well through her morning lessons. Feeling better prepared than the previous week, Hermione faced their Potions period with the Slytherins.
Taking her usual seat in the back row corner, she found a book and a roll of parchment sitting on her desk. The parchment was void of any instructions, so Hermione waited patiently for the Potions Master to approach her.
"Miss Granger," his silky voice acknowledged her presence when he stalked to the back of the classroom after having left the rest of the class with their assignments for the lesson, "today you will be copying Asiatic Anti-Venoms for me, starting at chapter thirteen."
That task appeared rather simple to her, especially in comparison to what she'd been tasked with before. Confused, Hermione dared ask, "Will that be all, professor?"
"Breathe, Miss Granger," he answered. "Ah, and you will need this."
Setting a black feather quill and an ink jar before her, the Potions Master had already turned to go, when Hermione called him back.
"Professor?" she asked softly. "Excuse me, sir, but this jar contains powder, not ink. I'm not sure I understand…?"
She trailed off at the professor's smirk.
"Really, Miss Granger? Don't you, now?" Growing ever more confused, Hermione shook her head in the negative. "Has Potter not told you of his charming encounters with our respected" – the word was spat out with such malice that Hermione was certain she'd never seen directed even at her own person – "High Inquisitor?"
Realization dawned on Hermione, and she had to stifle a gasp.
"The powder is for the colour," Professor Snape continued, now apparently satisfied that she did, indeed, understand. "It will also support the consistency of the – let's call it ink, shall we? It would not do, after all, to have your hard work turn to dust as soon as the ink dried on the parchment, now would it?"
Another smirk left her bedazzled. Already in the process of stalking back to the front of the class to supervise her classmates, the Potions Master turned to her once more.
"Oh, and Miss Granger? Do change your choice of colour before you attend your Remedial Potions lesson tonight. You might think your loyalty to your House admirable, but frankly, red silk with gold linings does little for your assets."
If baffled was a person, she would be called Hermione Granger. Too long had he stopped to participate in what to him was probably a game of reading her colour and cloth of knickers from her mind, that Hermione had become lacking in guarding this particular piece of information in her mind.
Another thought crossed her mind.
"Sir?" she asked. "Will I be needing a change of clothes after this or will the quill reduce the area of… will it draw ink only from my left hand?"
"I thought about spelling the quill to draw from your left forearm but decided against it, for the pain would be too easily bearable." The professor shot her a look that Hermione knew not how to interpret. "Cleaning charms would be applicable to most fabrics, but in case you're wearing silk and lace, I would suggest you remove your stockings, Miss Granger."
And with that hint, Hermione was left alone at her desk at last. She did as she'd been told, rolling her lace-topped hold-ups down her legs and stowing them in her book bag, before straightening up and closing her eyes in order to concentrate on her breathing. When she had calmed down enough to open her eyes to a vision under the gauzy veil of Pure Black, or near enough the Pure Black anyway, she set onto her task.
Opening 'Asiatic Anti-Venoms' to chapter thirteen, she smoothed out the parchment in front of her, dipped the quill into the powder jar, and set its tip to the top of the scroll.
A hiss escaped her as the quill scratched over the parchment to note down the section header.
And Hermione knew that underneath the desk top, the skin of her left thigh would be knitting together where before there had been written 'Crimson Centella Calcaria' in her own blood.