October 1999
Oliver Brisk stayed after class again to report that something was wrong.
"I'm sure everything is fine," Hermione said. From all the information she had been able to gather from him, it seemed that his certainty that something was wrong came more from a feeling than anything. While Hermione knew that intuition could be a valuable trait, she thought it much more likely that Brisk was simply spending too much time with the Divination professor.
Seemingly unconvinced, Oliver informed her that he had been looking into it.
She tried, and failed, to keep herself from smiling.
"I'm serious, professor. Something is going on, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
"You may very well be right, Oliver, but that doesn't mean that you should spend your time trying to work it out. On top of your homework, which I'm sure takes up most of your time," she gave him a look, "you've also got Quidditch practice, I hear."
He stood up straighter. "You're looking at the newest Gryffindor Chaser," he said proudly.
"Congratulations, Brisk. Perhaps you should celebrate somewhere else," drawled a voice from the doorway. Snape entered. Oliver did not budge from his spot in front of Hermione's desk.
"Mr. Brisk, don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"No, sir."
"Then I suggest you find one," Severus turned towards Hermione. She smiled at Oliver, "You can come by my office later and we'll talk about it."
Oliver nodded and made a face at Snape's back as he left.
"Ten points from Gryffindor," Severus called, "For disrespecting a teacher."
Brisk, looking surprised, scampered off.
"Really, Severus. Was that necessary?"
In lieu of a response, he placed a small bottle on her desk.
She picked up the bottle and gasped. "I can't accept this."
"Consider it a belated birthday present," he said sourly.
"Thank you, Severus," Hermione said, taking the sleeping draught. She felt slightly embarrassed that he had noticed how little she was sleeping. Perhaps she had run into him one too many times after midnight. Instead, she changed the conversation.
"How did you know that Brisk was making a face? Was it Legilimency?"
He gave her an odd look. "It was probability. Students have a nasty habit of making all sorts of ugly faces when professors' backs are turned."
"Oh," she said awkwardly.
He gave her another look before striding away without saying another word.
"Hermione, Hermione, Hermione," Bella sang. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" She cackled, and forced her mouth open. "Oh wait, that's me," Bellatrix said as she pressed the blade inside of Hermione's mouth.
Hermione woke up and stumbled to bathroom where she retched. Crookshanks stood guard in front of the door, as if to protect her from anyone who would enter. When she was done, she went and grabbed the bottle Severus had given her. She would speak to him tomorrow.
Severus was seated in his office grading fourth years' abysmal essays on wit-sharpening potion, something this lot clearly could benefit from, when there was a knock on his door. Before he could say anything, Hermione Granger was in his office.
"Granger," he greeted her. "Do you realize the irrelevance of knocking if one is simply going to barge in?"
She blushed. "Sorry, I was afraid that you would leave me standing outside for five minutes. You did that frequently when I was a student."
"I don't recall," he said dryly. He knew exactly what she talking about though. She had a very particular knock, loud and brisk. He had always given himself a few last moments of peace before he had let her into his office. Unfortunately, she seemed to have caught on.
She cleared her throat, but did not immediately say anything. Severus' senses went on alert. A speechless Granger? Despite the fantasies he had entertained, he doubted that it could actually mean a good thing. She finally tried to speak. "I- ah, there's something I want to ask of you."
He narrowed his eyes. "No."
"But you haven't even heard what it is yet!"
"If it were a small matter you would have come out and asked already instead of standing here stuttering and wasting my time," he snapped. "I have spent more time than you know indebted to others, and I don't plan on continuing the tradition.
"Please, just hear me out," she protested.
"Get out of my office, Granger," he said tiredly.
It was a mark of how upset she was that she did not correct him this time. "Just listen to what I have to say. If at the end, you say no, I will respect that and not ask it again."
"And am I to assume that if I don't let this happen now, you will continue to pester me about it?"
She crossed her arms and stuck her chin out, which was an answer as far as he was concerned.
"Fine."
She brightened. "Really?"
"I didn't say that I would do it. Just go ahead and tell me."
"I want to learn Occlumency," she blurted out.
Her declaration was so unexpected that he almost laughed. Other than Potter, he could hardly think of someone less qualified for such a study, but all he said was:
"Really?"
"I imagine that this seems rather out of the blue to you, but I've given it a lot of thought. It's just that the library offers so little information on the topic and with your expertise, you seemed like the logical person to approach," she explained.
"And why, might I ask, would you feel it necessary to Occlumency? We are in a time of peace, and regardless it is apparent that certain heroes saved the day without any studies of the mind. Another quest for knowledge for the sake of knowledge then?"
"I am interested in the academic merits of Occlumency, the effects that it has on both the mind and magical ability." Hermione said. "I think it would a fascinating study that would expand my scholastic horizons, so to speak, and provide an intellectual challenge.
Severus who had been listening from his desk with his hands steepled in front of him, now leaned back in his chair. "The problem with that, Granger, is I don't believe you. I think there is something else driving this. Why do you really want to learn?"
"It's personal."
"It's personal. You do grasp the concept of Occlumency, do you not? And I am sure Potter had plenty of stories for you. Your deepest secrets, your most treasured memories, everything you have ever hid will be on display for me, and will be until you manage to strengthen your mind. If you manage," He amended. "Not everyone is skilled enough to do it."
He stopped before criticizing Potter in front of her again, but she definitely understood the barbed remark.
"My answer remains no. I see no reason for Occlumency to capture your academic interest right now. Your days as a student are over, Granger. If you are truly interested in taking up an advanced project, talk to Minerva. She is better equipped than I to indulge your whims and fancies, and she might be willing to provide tutelage to the current Transfiguration professor. Frankly, after years of dealing with you and your friends antics in my classroom, I am not anxious to put myself in a similar situation."
"I understand," Granger said, but she did not look as if she understood. She looked stunned. It was probably the first time she had ever been turned down for anything.
She thanked him before leaving. Severus returned to his grading.
He had not expected that would be the end of it. Yes, Granger had agreed to not bother him about it if he heard her out, but she was nothing if not persistent. Severus had prepared himself for the subsequent pestering he was sure would follow. What he had not anticipated that Granger would stop speaking to him at all.
It seemed that he had wounded her Gryffindor pride. She had always been rather insufferable, but it had been brought to new heights. Every time she saw him, she stuck up her nose and turned away from him like he had personally wronged her. While he knew that no one would consider him to be a nice man, it irked him that this was the tipping point for Granger. This infuriating behavior continued on for several weeks until fifth year dunderhead had brought them together.
The day had begun as a miserable one. A student in his fifth year class had brought a blast-ended skrewt from Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class in his bag. The class had been working on a poison antidote when students started screaming and someone's cauldron caught fire. Severus put it out quickly, but in the moment that his back was turned, another cauldron exploded. There were several students clutching their faces and the entire class had to be treated for burns. Apparently the culprit, Daniel Capper, had dropped the blast-ended skrewt into the his cauldron when it had attacked him and several other students, an act which caused his potion to explode and send green-grey sludge over the entire class. The walls, floors, and students were covered in it.
Severus was unscathed enough to cast cleaning and healing charms that held the students over until they could get to the infirmary. He found the remains of blast-ended skrewt as he cleaned the lab.
Hagrid had been devastated to learn that one of his beloved blast-ended skrewt had been killed, but received a mixed amount of sympathy from the rest of the staff, most of whom had witnessed the mass exodus from the Dungeons to the Hospital Wing. Poppy had already been running low on potions, and barely had enough burn healing paste for the entire class.
"I can treat them all today," she told Severus. "But most of them will have to stay overnight, and I won't have enough to treat them tomorrow, and the seventh year Herbology class is dealing with snargaluffs tomorrow, and I'm bound to get receive half of the class after that."
Severus had grimly nodded before heading back down to the Dungeons. He knew he would be up most of the night brewing so that he could have the potions ready for Poppy in the morning. He had already been at work for several hours when Granger came into the potions lab.
"Poppy asked me to come help," she informed him, setting up her own cauldron.
"I don't need help," he told her, giving the potion to his right a slow quarter turn.
"I'm sure," she sniffed daintily. "But nevertheless, my assistance was requested. Apparently Lavender foresaw an outbreak of colds within the next month."
He didn't bother gracing that particular comment with a response, but she continued on as if he had. "I know, I know. The likelihood of students getting colds during October and November is so high that it hardly seems worth predicting. I see that you already have the burn healing paste and the blood replenishing potion going, so I will begin the pepper-up."
"Pepper-up only takes a few hours," he pointed out. "And it expires rapidly. It should be prepared at the last possible moment."
She continued to set out ingredients. "I have modified the directions so that it lasts much longer than a few hours- almost two weeks as a matter of fact, but the tradeoff seems to be that it takes slightly longer to prepare."
"You modified the directions? How particularly unlike you. I thought the only rules you were capable of breaking were mine."
He expected her to explain herself as she always did, whether such an explanation was requested or not, but she said nothing more about it. If she thought that a simple modification would impress him, she would be sorely disappointed. And if she thought that this made them even, then he would let her, especially if it kept her silent while he worked.
He mentally cursed himself as she began speaking again. He had jinxed himself.
"You know, I always struggled with modifying potions, which I know what a major complaint you had with my work, but it is something I have improved on. I definitely don't have the natural affinity for feeling out what will make a potion better, but I have found that working with limited means causes me to be more creative. When Harry and I were ... camping, there were several instances where either Ron or Harry or I needed some potion or another, and there simply wasn't the time to do it properly. And creating a fire large enough for the something like a blood replenishing potion? Forget it. We were trying to keep a low profile and a fire that big would have given us away almost instantly."
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and went back to work.
"In any case, it always made me think of you," Granger concluded.
"If you continue to prattle, tonight will only seem longer," he said. His hair fell over his face, and he moved to tuck it behind one ear.
"Then the night will likely seem infinite," she said, unaffected by his words. "You know, you should tie your hair back. That way it won't get in your way."
"It is not my hair that is in my way, Granger," he said. He gestured for her to grab a container on her side of the counter, which she did.
Finally, she settled down, and they worked in silence for some time. He was constantly aware of her presence, as he had not worked with anyone else in a long time, and was not particularly keen on starting up again, but she at least she was much quieter now. He had worried that she was someone who hummed while she worked- she looked like someone who would hum- but this was probably the quietest he had ever seen her.
The blood replenishing potion was nearing the critical stage, where it needed to be watched intensely. The heat needed to decrease in two minute intervals while the last ingredient was stirred in.
"Why do you call me Granger?" She asked suddenly. "You're the only one who does."
"Because your first name is a mouthful," he said, lowering the heat slightly.
"But it's not because you still see me as a student?"
"Hardly. I would never let a student near my personal work bench."
It was an obvious deflection, but it seemed to satisfy her. She was focused on the potion in front of her, probably more focused than she really needed to be given that it was fairly straightforward to make, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Her hair had been pinned up, but there was a line of wispy curls from around her temples down to the nape of her neck that he found oddly distracting.
Chalking it up to exhaustion, he turned the heat further down on the potion.
The next day, Severus was in a particularly foul mood. He had stayed up the entire night, and immediately following dinner the next day he had to see to Mr. Capper's detention. What Severus had not managed to clean off the floor and walls yesterday was now Capper's responsibility. When he trudged into the classroom, already looking miserable, Severus wordlessly handed him an old toothbrush and pointed at the wall on which he was to begin. The boy had hung his head and went to go fill up a bucket of water. Five minutes before curfew, Severus let him go. If Capper ran, he could make it back before then. Severus made sure to inform him that running in the halls would lose Hufflepuff 25 points.
Typically, he found it difficult to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, but tonight he knew that he would have slept soundly. Unfortunately, today he was actually scheduled to patrol the corridors, at least for an hour. After closing and warding the classroom, he set off in direction of the Hufflepuff dormitories. It was an area of the castle students often wandered around, even at this hour. On his way there, a large orange cat fell in step beside him. Severus glanced down at it.
"You seem familiar," he said. The cat glanced up at him. Even with its rather flat face, it managed to appear unimpressed.
"Ah, you're Granger's cat. I remember you from Grimmauld Place."
The cat, predictably, said nothing.
As they neared the kitchens, it was clear that was the cat's intended destination. Deciding to humor it, Severus followed.
When they entered the kitchen, the cat seemed unsurprised by what it saw and hopped up on the table that Granger was sleeping at. Her head was tucked into the crook of her arm on the table. The cat pawed at her hair for moment before realizing its claws were quickly becoming entangled and frantically batting at the frizzy mess. She slowly propped her head up, blinking slowly.
"Crooks?" She mumbled.
Severus sighed. "Get up, Granger."
Although he spoke quietly so as to not wake up the house elves snoozing nearby, she sat up fully at the sound of his voice.
"Oh! Severus. Sorry, I must have drifted off," she said, hurriedly standing up.
"Do these look like your quarters? Go to bed," he said, grabbing her arm to steady her as she wobbled on her feet.
"That sounds good," she said. She took a unsteady step towards the door. He watched as she continued to shuffle her way forward and sighed again.
"I'll walk you."
"No, it's ok. I've got Crookshanks with me."
Severus eyed both her and the cat. He was unsure what support she was expecting the cat to provide.
He followed both of them out before losing patience and offering his arm to her. She grabbed onto it, her palm facing his wrist and her index finger touching the bottom of his hand. He adjusted her grip before guiding her towards her rooms. She said little on the way there, and most of she did say seemed to be incoherent mumbles.
After depositing a deliriously tired Transfigurations professor into her rooms, Severus checked the time. Granger's rooms were very close to the Gryffindor tower, and he had just a few minutes left of his patrol. Wonderful. With a swish of his robes, he was off to search for any lionhearted trouble makers that might be prowling about.
Thanks for reading! How many chapters do you think it will take these two to get together? Leave a comment and let me know what your prediction is!
