Chapter 6: The first approaching
With the back of her hand she wiped the sweat of her forehead. The coldness, which usually was in Snape's office, was replaced by the cauldron's heat, which stood in the middle of the room. They worked together for weeks and hadn't still bandy a word. Their work had always been attended by a peaceful calmness and the quiet brewing of the potion. For a few seconds she looked up and over Snape, who was busy with cuting a yellow spider into pieces. His black shoulder-length hair masked his eyes . Nethertheless he noticed that she watched him and stopped. Their eyes met. In his ones was a mix of anger and – she could'nt really sort it – maybe affection. Hastily she dropped her gaze and continued. For a while they kept quiet again and they was engrossed in their own thought. But then Snape got up to put the spider pieces in the caldron. In doing so he touched Hermione's arm. A prickling crossed her body. She was like electrified and couldn't help blushing. "It's time to stop", Snape said and his voice oscillate slightly. She agreed and tidied up before she left the room. She was completely baffled, when she walked along the corridor and thought about what happened after some minutes. How he looked at her…, how she felt when he touched her…
Instinctively she knew that this evening changed something between them. It seemed to be that they left the student – teacher barrier behind this night. On the one hand she was afraid about this thought, on the other hand she couldn't push an undefinable joyfulness to the back of her mind. Suddenly somebody threw the garish light of a lamp fair in her face. She scared - Filch looked at her with a big grin, which boded ill. "Well, look what the cat dragged in," he croaked hoarsely.
Paralysed by fear he looked after her. Slowly he unbended and tried to concentrate on the potion. His hand shivered when he grabed at a bottle. "What is my deal", he wondered angrily. Why did a random touch of a student sparked such a odd feeling off? Pondering he scuffled to the fireplace to take a seat a front the fire. "How she looked at me", it crossed his mind, "as if they weren't only teacher and student." He shaked. "She was only a annoying little smartypants", he reproached himself. But a voice in this mind remembered him that she wasn't a child in a long time. She became a beautiful young woman – he had to confess to himself. "Enough", he rebuked himself.
Last time, he thought about a woman like that, was when Lily was still alive. "Lily…" he whispered tormentedly. He still blames himself for her death because he told Voldemort about the prophecy and tipped him off that the Potters had a baby. The pain, which bedevilled him, was enormous. "He had to get out ", he thought and left his office in a hurry.
"I...", Hermione tried to feign an excuse, but Filch didn't let her finish. "Come on", he snapped at her hatefully. While she followed him anticipating the worst, she heard him swearing his head off.
To her surprise he didn't lead her to Dumbledore's office, but to the dungeons. At first she didn't know what this portended , but then it dawned on her slowly. Filch and Snape were just like friends because they liked to punish students. However Snape's office was empty. Also when Filch knocked on his private rooms' door, nobody opened. "Stay here!", Filch commaned, who was angry that he had to search for Snape She nodded and sat down on own of the chairs in front of the fireplace. After a while she started to shivered with cold. The fire died down by now and either Filch or Snape didn't still return. She reinflamed the fireplace and looked for an occupation because he start to get bored and was afraid to fall asleep.
At first she looked at the half-done Potion, but then she became braver and faced the books, which were in anearby shelf. She pulled off a book, which called "Useful potion and their Preparation". When she opened it, the familiar flavour of old parchment rose to her nose. Curiously she sat down on the chair again and started to read. In a second she was riveted by the words and forgot the world around her.