A/N: Hey y'all.
So I've noticed a lot of curiosity about how I've started this fic and Destiny Beckons at the same time and how they are both time-travel Sevione fics. Your concern and curiosity is touching, however, for those of you who don't know my work, I have a knack for writing the same characters in a lot of different scenarios. Those of you silly dear who do know my work and have been following my colossal amount of Dramione fics, you should know better than to think they'll be anything other than totally shocking. Never fear, they aren't going to be anything alike and your concerns that they will either be too similar in plotline or that one/both will be abandonned are all for nought. That should become clear as I upload some of the newer chapters.
I also never abandon a story, (even if some of my works haven't been updated in an embarrassingly long time) so don't sweat it. If I've started it, I will see it finished. Even if it takes longer than I hoped. Now, I have several chapters pre-written for the stories I'm currently uploading, (Howl for Me ~ The Accursed Twenty-Eight ~ Deceptive Hearts ~ Destiny Beckons ~ Of Ticking Clocks and Beating Hearts). Any of my other WIPs around the site are currently at the end of their pre-written chapters, so I'll be updating those sporadically.
Don't worry, I'm improving at juggling them all. :-)
A huge thanks to all of you who've been reading and reviewing. And I hope you like the rest of the story. xx-Kitten
Chapter 3: An Honest Discussion
"Have you lost your mind?" Snape asked her, his deep baritone voice sounding very shocked indeed.
"Of course not, Sir," Hermione assured him, "I've just gained a new perspective on life."
"And would you care to explain why it is that the Headmaster has seen fit to grant you permission to leave the protection of the school grounds?"
"All in good time Professor," Hermione grinned, enjoying the scowl on his face at her words, "First I have many, many questions to ask you. Would you like me to start off with easy, non-threatening questions?"
"I beg your pardon?" He asked, gliding along next to her.
"I think it would be best if I did," Hermione said, feeling chipper and practically skipping along the path towards Hogsmede, "So tell me Professor, what do you like most about yourself?"
"What is the meaning of these impertinent questions?" He demanded, clearly less than pleased.
"Professor Dumbledore has given me an assignment. And important part of which, involves me learning about you Professor Snape. And since I have many, many more personal and invasive questions, I'm trying to warm you up to sharing with me."
"This is utterly ridiculous."
"Professor Dumbledore doesn't think so. What do you like best about yourself?"
"My intellect," he replied through gritted teeth and Hermione realised it was going to be very much like trying to wrestle silver away from a Niffler to get answers out of him.
"If you could change on thing about yourself, what would it be?" Hermione shot back straight away.
"My past," he responded, glaring daggers at her even though they walked side-by-side.
"Why? What would you change about the past?" Hermione asked him, "If you could go back right now, what would you change?"
He looked royally annoyed by her question, glaring down his hooked nose at her.
"What does this have to do with any assignment for the Order that I would be unaware of?" He countered.
"Everything. Answer me," Hermione replied.
"I am still your Professor and you will address me as such!" He snarled.
Hermione shook her head.
"For the purpose of this undertaking, you are no longer my Professor or of any elevated status to me. I am no longer a student of Hogwarts and you are of no more authority over me than I am over you. Answer my questions or I won't have all the information I need and so will jeopardise the entire cause that the Order of the Phoenix works so hard to achieve. What would you change about your past?"
"I would take back some things I said to a person who was important to me and I would never allow myself to have been seduced by the Dark Arts and the Dark Lord."
"Why did you become a Death Eater?"
"Why are you an insufferable know-it-all?" Snape fired back and Hermione realised that there was going to have to be a little bit of give and take if she wanted more answers.
"Because as a muggle-born I arrived at Hogwarts with no real understanding of the magical world and many of my classmates had been raised knowing such things. I arrived at a disadvantage and to make up for it I studied. I found I enjoyed learning almost everything to do with the magical world and wanted to fit in as I had been unsuccessful on that front surround by muggle children as a girl," She told him honestly and Snape curled his lip at her in a fierce sneer.
"I'm still waiting to know why you became a Death Eater," Hermione said several long minutes later as they passed through the school gates.
"I didn't fit in either," Snape growled, "I was too much of a know-it-all regarding the Dark Arts when I arrived because I had been taught to read by my mother and her reading material for me was textbooks on dark magic. I sympathised with the cause of believing that wizards were better than muggles because the only example of interactions I had ever had with muggles were poor and unpleasant."
"Why were they unpleasant?" Hermione asked him curious in spite of herself. Snape glared at her and Hermione could tell she was very quickly entering into territory he did not want to discuss.
She watched him throw out his wand arm with a violent swipe through the air to summon the Knight Bus and answered her in the silence that followed as they waited for the bus to appear.
"Because my muggle father was abusive and a drunk. He cowed my mother, a once powerful witch, into giving up magic and hated me for embracing it. The only other muggles I encountered were cruel children."
"They do always seem to sense the difference," Hermione mused, "They picked on me as a child as well, as though they could sense that I was magical and therefore different from them."
"They knew I was," Snape sneered, "Because I set them on fire and used my magic against them. They knew I was different because they feared me."
"So fear is the driving force you use to repel others in order to keep them from getting too close and allowing them the chance to hurt you?" Hermione clarified, though it was more of a speculation than a question and she could tell the Professor was less them pleased with her summation.
"I had already suspected as much based on the way you run your classes and act in general, though I had believed you simply despised children, and so couldn't understand why you became a teacher," Hermione continued pretending not to notice his scowl.
They both fell back in shock when the triple-decker purple bus appeared in front of them and Hermione smirked to herself to know that she had unsettled him so much with her questions that he was unprepared for a change.
"Welcome to the Knight bus!" began a nasally voice.
"Thank you, we've been on before; we don't need your spiel. Two tickets to Branxton Street in London please," Hermione interrupted the conductor as she got to her feet and stepped onto the bus, Snape right behind her.
He tried to interrupt by pushing her to one side but Hermione handed over the money for their tickets before he could pay for his own, knowing he would complain otherwise.
"What were you like as a child?" Hermione asked him as they were given their tickets and made their way towards their seats even as the conductor explained it would be a while before they returned to London as they were currently bounding north.
"How is that in any way going to be useful to some kind of assignment now?" Snape demanded, grumpier than usual.
"I'll just bet you were a delight," Hermione replied sarcastically.
"I've not changed," he told her sneeringly as he took his seat beside her, making Hermione sit in the window seat to ensure no one could snatch her out of the aisle.
"Oh, delightful!" Hermione muttered, "Why have you always been so disagreeable? Other than that you use bad attitude to keep people away from you. Why don't you like people?"
"People don't like me" he responded without looking at her and Hermione realised that she was learning far more about him than most would ever bother and that kind of made her sad.
"Because of your attitude?" Hermione prodded. Snape turned his cold black eyes on her, letting her see that they glittering with malice.
"Before I had ever spoken a word in your first Potions class, did you like me?" he asked instead of answering her question.
Hermione looked him over.
His black hair was long, and somewhat oily, though so close Hermione realised the black strands were actually quite silky, rather than being as greasy as she'd originally thought. His nose was the most prominent feature on his sallow face, long and hooked, it was an imposing specimen and not really all that attractive, though she supposed it could be considered a 'strong Roman-nose'. His teeth were rather crooked, and yellowed somewhat in the manner of a person who regularly forgets to brush and floss.
His hair hung long about his face and Hermione suspected he wore it that way because he was able to hide behind the twin curtains somewhat. She suspected on closer inspection that he cared little for his appearance due to his superior intellect and she wondered suddenly if he suffered some kind of mild social impairment. His heightened intelligence and lowered social skills certainly suggested it.
"I respected you, and thought you were a little bit scary because you glared so often," Hermione answered honestly. Snape's scowl deepened, "But I didn't dislike you. I didn't start to dislike you somewhat until you repeatedly degraded and ridiculed me for trying to help Neville in class when he was so terrified of you that he bumbled things up. And I was rather miffed that you felt the need to ask questions and proceeded to degrade and ridicule the entire class when no one but me had the answer, though you continually refused to let me answer them."
"Perhaps if you were smart you would learn to stop being so insufferable in your incessant need to answer everything," He countered.
"Perhaps if you were, you would stop asking questions in class if you don't want anyone to answer them," Hermione replied snidely.
"Ten points from…"
"Don't bother," Hermione interrupted him before he could finish, "After tonight everything will change. There's no use you speaking to me like I'm just a student anymore. The fact of the matter is that I'm no longer your student. There is little use speaking to me or treating me like I am."
"Exactly what kind of assignment is this?" Snape demanded, looking intrigued and irritable at the same time.
"The kind that changes absolutely everything," Hermione replied.
"How?"
"If we had been in the same year at Hogwarts, would you have been mean to me?" Hermione asked him rather than answering.
"Would you have been mean to me?" he shot back.
"No."
"Given your current friends, I doubt that very much," Snape growled snidely.
"Because I'm friends with Harry and you hated his father?" Hermione asked.
Snape didn't reply but his dark expression was enough to answer the question.
"From what I've heard I wouldn't have approved of James and Sirius's actions when they were in Hogwarts anyway. And if you were so much of an anti-social know-it-all, maybe we'd have been friends."
Snape glared at her for a long time after that, but Hermione remained quiet, sensing that he was appraising her as he never had before.
"You'd have been the interfering type that would've done more damage by trying to help," he said cryptically.
"Harry told me that James and the Marauders were cruel to you," Hermione admitted, "And yes, I would have interfered, trying to help you."
The expression of Snape's face was fierce.
"Meddlesome Gryffindors," he muttered sometime later as they bounced down some bumpy country high in the Scottish mountains.
"Why did you join the ranks of the Death Eaters?" Hermione asked after casting a muffliato spell - something that earned her a peculiar wide-eyed expression.
"I was disliked and trying to fit in with others in Slytherin," Snape replied much later, "I had an unhealthy fascination with the Dark arts and joining their ranks provided an opportunity not just to explore those darker things, but also to excel at them and be praised for their use – the more creative the better – rather than admonished and scorned for such talents."
Hermione nodded in understanding. It made sense.
"Do you think that if things had been different in your life, you would've been less easily swayed to the dark cause?" Hermione asked mildly.
"Different how?" he asked and Hermione realised that beneath his prickly exterior he was a curious person, especially when it came to the idea of a student being given a secret assignment that mean she had to question him about his life.
"Well, what if you'd been taught that muggles weren't all awful? Would that have made you less likely to join a group killing and torturing them?"
"Perhaps," he said in a tone that made Hermione suspect he still wasn't overly fond of muggles. When she took note of his robes and appearance she could guess why.
"What about if you'd had better friends, ones less inclined towards the dark side?"
"I had one but she was in a different house and was muggle-born, she also refused to speak to me when I spoke out of turn in anger and refused to be my friend anymore."
"Did it matter to you that she was muggle-born?" Hermione asked curiously.
"No."
"Does it matter to you that I am? Do you think less of me because my parents are muggles."
"Not for that reason, no," he sneered, smirking cruelly now.
"But you do have a low opinion of me?"
"You imagine yourself to be of far more importance to me than you actually are," Snape replied nastily
"Why do you have a low opinion of me?" Hermione pressed, knowing that such information would be vital when attempting to befriend the child-version of him.
"You are insufferable," he told her, "You lack even the most basic amount of control not to speak out of turn when you know the answer to something, even if you are not called upon to answer it. You have poor taste in friends and diminish your own intelligence by being friends with a pair of dunderheaded fools whom – without you doing their homework for them – would have failed their first year at Hogwarts. You further diminish your own intelligence by accepting everything you read as being fact. You make no effort to question the findings of others, a fact that was blatantly obvious when you failed to see the incorrect ingredient quantities within potions and so brewed mediocre potions rather than experimenting and discovering more effective ways to achieve the task at hand. You lack creativity and while you possess an above average memory – allowing you to regurgitate the information you absorb on command – you do not actually possess high levels of intelligence."
Hermione was aware of the fact that her face was crimson and that her mouth was open in silent protest at his accusations, but he clearly wasn't finished if that evil glitter in his black eyes was any indication.
"Your own use of logic – while commendable given that the rest of the world seems to ignore logistics – is what holds you back from perhaps becoming a renowned discoverer. To you, it is logical that spells would not be published in text books unless they were correctly documented and approved by the Ministry. You are limited by that logic because you fail to realise that magic is an entity, a fabric with which you can create absolutely anything by using the right amount of creativity, intent, and intelligence. You fail to see that if you have a need of some kind of spell, you would not need to look one up that might be close to what you want, but rather could create your own, tailored to your specific need."
He paused for another breath and Hermione wasn't sure whether she should feel insulted or stupid.
"Frankly Miss Granger, I have a low opinion of you because you walk around with an inflated sense of self-worth based on what is really nothing more than a photographic memory. You and many others believe that you are the 'brightest witch of your age' when it is an undeserved title due to your limited and rather poorly endowed competition. Is it really greatness to be better at running than beings who've no legs?"
"Branxton Street, London!" The conductor announced over the radio as the bus jerked to a stop on Hermione's street.
"This is my stop," she told Snape curtly, less than pleased at what he had said about her. He looked particularly pleased to have angered her and Hermione nettled all the more, wanting to hex him. Mostly it was because he'd hit some particularly sensitive nerves. She was well aware of that fact that she lacked an overly creative mind. She knew too that it wasn't really that much of an accomplishment to use her memory where others did not. Especially since she actually did have a photographic memory.
As they stepped off the bus onto the quiet suburban street where her parents lived, Hermione realised that she really was going to have her work cut out for her trying to befriend Snape in some way that would keep him from turning to Voldemort. Mostly because she would have to learn how to be his friend when he clearly didn't think very much of her and was far smarter than most people realised.
"So what you're saying," Hermione began as she walked slowly down the deserted street towards her parent's place, "Is that you think I'm stupid simply because I'm not creative?"
"You are foolish not to question what you are told," he replied, gliding along next to her looking like an over-grown bat when his cloak billowed in the breeze.
"Isn't it considered disrespectful to question your elders?" Hermione countered, "I seem to recall that you don't like to be questioned on judgements you make and things you say."
"That is because I'm far smarter than you will ever be and not only can, but have considered each of my assertions from every possible angle before I make them. Questioning me is foolish. However, to not question something you read is downright stupidity."
"Do you mean the way certain things are published as being fact when there are more effective ways to do them, such as more effective ways to brew potions than those published in the potions manuals?" Hermione asked, suddenly recalling Harry's copy of their sixth year potions book that had so many recipes tampered with in such ways that he was outstripping her in class.
"Indeed," Snape replied and Hermione rankled at his bored tone.
As they reach the front gate to her parent's house, Hermione reached over and took his arm.
"What do you think you are doing?" Snape demanded, eyeing her dangerously.
"Given that I have warded my parent's house to ensure that no magical being but myself can enter, I have to escort you or rather unpleasant consequences may befall you," Hermione told him shortly.
He didn't say anything when Hermione felt her wards ripple over both of them, releasing him once they were through the front gate. She could see his curled lip as he looked at her parent's stately townhouse while she used magic to unlock the front door. He jumped slightly when she took his hand on the stoop and led him through the now open front door. Hermione was surprised by the fact that his hand was warm inside her own. She'd expected that he would be as cold to touch as his personality was to experience.
"Mum? Dad?" Hermione called once they were in the hall, walking down the hall, surprised that her parents hadn't come to investigate the sound of the front door opening and closing. She jumped when Snape walked into her as she stopped to peer into the lounge room.
"Is anyone home?" she called out, suddenly feeling apprehensive when Snape stepped around until he was in front of her, his wand drawn while he muttered spells.
"There isn't anyone else here," he informed her and Hermione narrowed her eyes. Dashing into the kitchen, Hermione went to the large well-mapped calendar on the wall.
"They're at a board meeting," she announced loudly before realising that Snape had followed behind her, "And won't be home until after ten. So it looks like we'll have to wait."
"What is so important about your assignment that you had to see your parents so desperately?" Snape demanded looking less than pleased.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Hermione asked instead of answering him, rather enjoying his anger after he had been so blunt about his low opinion of her.
"Black with sugar," he replied curtly, nostrils flaring menacingly at her audacity.
Hermione set about making the tea while he loomed impatiently.
"You never finished answering my questions, you know," Hermione reminded him, "About whether or not having things be different in your life would have kept you from becoming a Death Eater. Do you think you would've been swayed from it if you'd had friends in Slytherin who weren't interested in the dark arts? Who were really your friends rather than 'business associates' or whatever stupid arrangement Slytherins claim to have in the place of friendship?"
"What is the meaning of this?" Snape demanded instead, "What possible assignment could you have been given that would require knowledge about me, let alone require prodding about with ridiculous 'what if' scenario-based questions?"
"Something that is highly dangerous and requires that I give up my life," Hermione replied, "So you better make sure you give me truthful, helpful answers because if I give it all up armed with false information I'm going to personally murder you."
Snape eyed her nastily after that but Hermione could still see the curiosity burning in those fathomless black pools.
"Real, loyal friends might have helped," he answered finally as Hermione brought him a cup of tea.
"Did your attitude make having such friends easy to attain?" Hermione asked, smirking at him when he choked on the sip of tea he'd just taken at her insolence.
"What is the point of having friends if you have to pretend to be something you're not in order to gain and keep their friendship?" He countered when he'd recovered and Hermione found herself nodding at the insight.
"If I'd been there, would you have let me be your friend?" Hermione asked him probingly and didn't much like the way he curled his lip at her.
"You're a Gryffindor and insufferable," Snape replied.
"What if I'd been in Slytherin? The Sorting Hat considered putting me there."
"Really?" he asked mildly and Hermione suspected that little piece of information surprised him. Hermione nodded, realising she'd just handed over a secret she'd never told anyone else. She'd never even told Harry when he'd mentioned something about the Hat wanting to put him in Slytherin.
"Yes. It seems I'm rather cunning with my logic when I want to be," Hermione told him.
"I doubt that. Cunning requires a modicum of creativity in order to think of ways to outsmart people."
"I regularly think of ways to outsmart people," Hermione replied.
"Stupid people," Snape replied sneeringly.
"I outsmarted the test you put in place to keep anyone from being able to access the Philosopher's Stone when I was in first year," Hermione replied, enjoying his unpleasant thunderstruck scowl.
After that they both drank their tea in silence, Hermione hiding a small, pleased smiled behind her mug at his expression.
"Well, are you coming?" she asked when he set his empty cup down finally.
"Coming where?" he asked warily, eyeing her suspiciously for the way she was smiling broadly now.
"My bedroom, of course."