AUTHORS NOTE:
Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!
and sorry I do not update nearly as much as I want to. I did not realize how much time it would take. In April I'm doing Script Frenzy (.com), so i probably won't update again for a while. Send me messages though! Also R&R, that would be really helpful because this is my first fanfiction :)
Tuesday, September 3rd
Hermione:
Hermione wakes up to Ginny's squeals. She peels her eyes open, them burning, not being used to the brightness of the sun. She lifts her head off of her pillow and rubs her eyes. She looks out the window and sees that the sun is just rising. She turns to Ginny who is still in her robes from the previous day. "Ginny, why are you up so late?" she asks
"I just got back in," Ginny giggles. Oh god, she was drunk. Now Hermione could smell the Firewhiskey on her breath.
"Have you been drinking?" Hermione says with the raise of an eyebrow.
"Noooo… hehehe, I mean yes," Ginny slurs.
"Oh God," Hermione says getting up and going to Ginny, she casts a sobering charm. "Your going to need a hangover potion."
"Could you get me one, Hermione?" Ginny says, hands going to her temple, feeling the headache forming. Sobering charms remove alcohol, but they do not prevent the symptoms of the hangover.
"I don't have any Ginny."
"What about going to Snape, I bet that he has them."
"Professor Snape is probably asleep," she glances at the clock, "It's six in the morning."
"Exactly, you'd be able to sneak in there and get it, I would if this blasted headache would go away!"
Hermione thought about it, the probability of Professor Snape being awake was slim. She could borrow Harry's invisibility cloak for the hallways.
"Okay Ginny, I'll be back in twenty minutes."
"Thanks a lot Hermione," Ginny says with a smile that turns out more like a grimace.
Hermione puts on her robes quickly, leaves the dormitories, runs up to the boys and not bothering to ask takes Harry's cloak and then is in the halls headed towards the potion stores. Surely they have hangover potions in the stores. The teachers are known to party during the holidays and weekends. Also, after the war, some might be falling back on alcohol like Professor Trewlawney used to… Hermione thinks.
She approaches the cabinet and quickly looks around. Damn. If only I had the map. She couldn't see far in the dark, and didn't want to risk casting lumos, in case Professor Snape was around. She didn't want to lose points for her house in the first week of school. She wanted to avoid losing any points at all if possible. In the past she had lost points, but it was all the fault of Harry and Ron. They tried too hard to be on top of everything, and had made a lot of mistakes along the way.
Hermione slowly opens the cabinet and it makes a creeeeeeek. Damn. She casts a lumos sticking her wand as far into the cupboard as she can, and her eyes glide over the potion names until she finds the correct one. In her concentration she doesn't hear the footsteps behind her. As Hermione's hand clasps around the bottle, she suddenly hears a loud voice say, "Why what do we have here, someone stealing from my stores?"
It was Snape, he didn't know whom it was yet, she still had the invisibility cloak over her. She turns around slowly; Shit. She whispers nox and the light from her wand goes out. The light from his wand is bright enough to light the area though.
"The question is, is it Potter, in his famed invisibility cloak, or is it Weasley?"
She contemplates running, but she knows that she wouldn't make it anywhere in time, and knowing him he cast some sort of immobilization charm to prevent her from moving her feet. She knows that she would be in far less trouble if she gives herself up.
"No, it's me," she says hesitantly, pulling off her cloak.
"Ms. Granger! Your not supposed to meet me for another two hours!" he says with a bemused expression on his face.
"I know sir," she says biting her lip. She didn't know whether or not to tell him the truth. He is a legilimens, I would be surprised if he wasn't using legilimency on me right now. "It's Ginny sir, she wasn't feeling very well, and I thought that it would just be easier for me to get a potion from here, than going to the Hospital Wing or to you."
"A hangover potion?" he says raising one eyebrow.
Damn he knew. "Yes," she says bowing her head down.
"I assume knows the schools policy against underage drinking. You shall tell her that she is going to report to my office at eight o'clock this evening."
"What about me?" Hermione asks, surprised that she hasn't yet been scolded for being out of her dormitory this late.
"You, Ms. Granger, will be spending enough time with me already," he says, walking away from Hermione.
That was strange. She turns and heads back to the dormitory. He didn't punish her, from taking from his stores, or from being out of bed.
She made it to the Fat Ladies portrait and she says the password, luckily the Fat Lady had already awakened. She goes back into the girls dormitory, takes off the cloak and hands the potion to Ginny.
"Thanks a load Hermione, I'm assuming you weren't caught," Ginny says with a relieved expression on her face.
"Actually… I was, Professor Snape caught me and told me to tell you to go to his office at eight o'clock tonight."
"What!? Snape caught you and you made it back here alive, and with the potion! Wait, why do I have to go to his office?"
"I told him why I was getting the potion and he said, 'I assume knows the schools policy against underage drinking.'"
Ginny was obviously having trouble concentrating due to exhaustion.
"Just take the potion and go back to sleep." Hermione says with a hopefully comforting smile on her face. Ginny gulped down the potion and was asleep within moments. Hermione put her head back down on her pillow and shut her eyes, willing them to sleep.
An hour and a half later, and Hermione had no luck. She gets up and takes a shower. By the time she goes to the Gryffindor common room, it was almost time for her to meet with Snape. If she was worried before, now she was terrified. She heads down to the dungeon and knocks on his door, praying that for some reason he would not be there. Unfortunately, he is.
"Enter" he says. Hermione walks in seeing him behind his desk.
"Ah, Ms. Granger, I trust that Ms. Weasley is aware of her detention?"
"Yes, sir," Hermione says, nervous that he may change his mind and punish her.
"Very well," he says, and Hermione breathes a sigh of relief, "You are here to discuss your so called apprenticeship with me. This is not going to be easy work, and surely it will not end after you graduate Hogwarts unless you want your life to go in a different direction. Becoming a potions master is tiring and it tests your skills, pushing them to the level, and then past that, do you think that you are going to be able to accomplish that?"
"Yes, sir," Hermione says, her brain a bit dizzy from lack of sleep, food, and all of the information being processed.
"You are going to put in many hours here, and take some extra time brewing potions for the hospital wing to allow me time to plan your lessons; do you feel like you can manage time for that along with your other NEWT level classes?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well Ms. Granger, your first assignment, due to me at our first lesson, which will be six o'clock this Friday evening, is a two foot essay on the brewing process and the properties of Wolfsbane. Can you do that Ms. Granger?"
"Yes, sir," Hermione repeats, still astonished at the lack of punishment.
"At that lesson we will arrange a schedule that will not impede with any of our other duties. Now it is about time for you to go to your first class," he says as he lead her to the door, and opened it, signaling that it was time for her departure.
By the time Hermione reaches Herbology her head was still spinning from all that Professor Snape had said to her at their meeting.
The day past in a blur, and by the time Hermione gets to bed she is exhausted. She had made sure to eat dinner tonight; she didn't think that she would be able to go another night without it. She had just made quick work of it and barely talked with her friends. After that she went to the library, did her homework, and began researching Wolfsbane for her first assignment as Snape's apprentice.
She glances at the clock and it was eleven o'clock. A decent time to go to sleep, for the first time in a while. She puts her head onto the pillow, and falls asleep within moments.
Severus:
Severus feels something bright hit his eyes and suddenly awakes. "Damnit," he whines as the sun wakes him up for the second day in a row, too early for the day to actually begin. I really have got to get some curtains, he thinks. He turns his head the other way and tries to fall back asleep to no prevail.
He glances at the clock. Six o'clock! "Ughhhh" he says burying his face back into the pillow not wanting to get up, but unable to fall back to sleep. He lifts his head up, and a pain enters his forehead. Damn. He had overexerted himself yesterday. He didn't know how he would have survived if he had supervised the detentions that he assigned last night.
Knowing full well that he would not be able to slip into a state of unconsciousness, Severus gets up, showers, and puts on his robes. As was his daily morning regime.
When he steps into his quarters he sees the cast away cauldron of Pepper Up Potions. He begins to brew. Hoping that the process is not interrupted as it was yesterday. As soon as he gathers up the ingredients needed, he hears a shuffling coming from right outside his quarters.
Severus steps into the corridor and he sees his personal potions store open, and a light coming from it, but no person. Potter, he thinks. Potter and that damn invisibility cloak. Finally a chance to confiscate it. Or maybe it's Weasley. Or maybe both. Severus casts a silencing charm over himself. Stalks up behind the thief; disables the silencing charm; and says, "Why what do we have here, someone stealing from my stores?"
Severus can feel the terror. He hears a shuffling noise of someone turning around. He casts a lumos, to make sure they can't run from him.
"The question is, is it Potter, in his famed invisibility cloak, or is it Weasley?"
"No, it's me," says a very weary looking Hermione Granger.
"Ms. Granger! Your not supposed to meet me for another two hours!" Severus says, surprised to be catching his trainee out of her dormitory past curfew.
"I know sir," she says biting down on her bottom lip. She hesitates before speaking again; "It's Ginny sir, she wasn't feeling very well, and I thought that it would just be easier for me to get a potion from here, than going to the Hospital Wing or to you."
"A hangover potion?" Severus says raising one eyebrow.
"Yes," she says, her head beginning to hang, waiting for a punishment. Severus couldn't punish her for caring for her friend, who had no doubt woken Hermione up.
"I assume knows the schools policy against underage drinking. You shall tell her that she is going to report to my office at eight o'clock this evening." Severus says and turns to walk away.
"What about me?" she asks, expecting Severus to have punished her. Surely the big bad potions teacher would NEVER let any off!
"You, Ms. Granger, will be spending enough time with me already," he says, walking away from her. Going to finally finish his Pepper Up Potion.
Severus gets back to his quarters and shuts the door with a sigh. He doesn't have a class until after lunch, thank god. He did have that blasted Granger girl coming though. She would only be a few minutes. He set about brewing the Pepper Up.
Right after the completion of his Pepper Up Potion Severus hears a knock outside of his classroom. He walks from his private lab and sits behind his desk. "Enter," he says and Ms. Granger walks in.
"Ah, Ms. Granger, I trust that Ms. Weasley is aware of her detention?"
"Yes, sir," she says nervously.
"Very well," he says, "You are here to discuss your so called apprenticeship with me. This is not going to be easy work, and surely it will not end after you graduate Hogwarts unless you want your life to go in a different direction. Becoming a potions master is tiring and it tests your skills, pushing them to the level, and then past that, do you think that you are going to be able to accomplish that?"
"Yes, sir,"
"You are going to put in many hours here, and take some extra time brewing potions for the hospital wing to allow me time to plan your lessons; do you feel like you can manage time for that along with your other NEWT level classes?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well Ms. Granger, your first assignment, due to me at our first lesson, which will be six o'clock this Friday evening, is a two foot essay on the brewing process and the properties of Wolfsbane. Can you do that Ms. Granger?"
"Yes, sir," Ms. Granger repeats.
"At that lesson we will arrange a schedule that will not impede with any of our other duties. Now it is about time for you to go to your first class," he says standing and opening the door for her departure.
She leaves and Severus looks around. Now what to do. Severus settles on taking a nap. He needs all of the energy he can retain, and after waking up so blasted early…
Severus lies down and is asleep within minutes.
When he awakes again, he looks at the clock on his bedside table and it says 11:00. Thank goodness he was able to get some sleep. He was much better rested now. He stretches and becomes aware that it is the middle of the day, and their was still an hour until lunch began.
He remembers that he still has to bring up the Pepper Up Potion to Poppy. He gets up, puts the potion into vials, and then ascends the stairs to the Hospital Wing.
"Here you are Poppy, some Pepper Up Potion for your stores," he says walking into the room, confident that she wouldn't have any students on the second day of school.
"Ah, Severus, thank you," she says walking over to him and taking the vials from him. "We're going to be needing a lot of this once the colder months start coming."
"I know, it's a good thing I'll have Ms. Granger be assisting me with the potions for the hospital wing stores while I am training her in the art of potions."
"She'll make an amazing potions mistress Severus. The work that she did during the war was beyond believable for a witch who didn't even have her NEWTS."
"I'll keep that in mind Poppy, now I must be going down to lunch, Minerva was mad at me for skipping the feast last night."
"I'll talk to Minerva about that Severus, she knows that you mustn't be overexerting your self, which is exactly what you've been doing since the school year began. She needs to stop pressuring you to do more work, and start pressuring you to do less."
"I have actually just awaken from a very invigorating nap. My work load is fine at the minute. As soon as it becomes too stressful, you will be the first person I come to."
Severus always enjoyed joking around with Poppy; out of all of his colleagues at Hogwarts, she was definitely his favorite. He didn't understand how she had the patience to deal with all of the dunderheaded students and the injuries caused by their own stupidity.
He left the Hospital Wing and headed for the Great Hall. He would be among the first there, but he liked it that way. He didn't like drawing attention to himself when he walked into a large crowd of people. Except when he walked into his own classroom. He loved to see his students faces become filled with fear.
Severus sat in his usual seat at the teachers table, the farthest away from the center, and the closest to the Slytherin table. He ate his lunch quickly and then slid out of the room, avoiding any sort of communication.
He gave all of his classes simple tasks to judge their potion abilities, and then collected them, planning on grading them all later…..
After his classes were finished, he was frustrated. His students were honestly unable to do the easiest tasks. A total of three cauldrons were melted in his sixth year class, while they were making the potion given to them on their OWL the previous year. It also took them three times longer to prepare their ingredients that it should have.
He had no idea why Hogwarts didn't allow children to fail out or made to repeat a year or two. That was something that he had to talk to Minerva about. Something that the Muggles did correctly. They failed students, made them relearn material that they didn't learn the first time.
Severus went to his quarters and sat down on his couch. He was physically exhausted from the day, but wasn't tired enough to go to sleep. He settles on reading Hogwarts, a History, like he used to while he was a student, and unable to fall asleep.
After reading a couple of chapters, he remembers that he has to grade the potions that he had assigned today. Thankful that he was capable of grading them by appearance instead of actually having to test the potion, he made quick work of that.
After finishing all of his work, he heads to the kitchen for some more food, instead of going to the Great Hall again. He disliked having to deal with the entirety of Hogwarts population at once. The amount of people that are there at lunch is far less than the amount of people that populated the room during diner. He speaks to Winky again, he remembered the creatures name, and gets the house elves to deliver food to his room again.
He goes back down to his rooms, and sets about finishing Hogwarts, A History, falling asleep on his couch while reading it……..