Chapter 2: Accusations

The unaware Hermione lay in her bed innocently as something cold landed on her blushed lips. She opened her eyes as wide as possible for this time of night. To her shock and dismay, a blurry frame of her greasy, dark featured potions master so close to her face seemed to come together. She breathed in his warm breath that clashed with his cold touch. One of his hands seemed to find its way to her shoulder and the other, to her hips. He was obviously balancing his heavy body above her to create the illusion of weightlessness. This sent chills down her spine once again as if a ghost was walking through her.

He now pressed himself against her exposed body.

"Come to my class, Ms.Granger."

She tingled with excitement.

"Hermione, you're going to be late for Potion's class! We have a double today with Slytherin…OH, GET UP"

Hermione was rudely awakened by Parvati. As much as she was confused and a little disappointed that the dream had to end, she had to hurry up and get ready for Potions. She got ready in her normal attire and not her dress attire. She didn't feel as attractive and the magic seemed to of faded. To her much dismay, she had misplaced her potion's book

"I left it right here!" She thought to herself, staring at the obviously read-through pile of books on her night stand

It's not like it's easy to loose a book when you have limited living space. There were three obvious options to this problem. First would be to show up to potions class without her book and be unprepared. This was something she'd never done before. She could show up late to potions class, with the hopeful prospect that she'd have found her book by then. Last of all, she could just not show up at all.

Ignoring the last option, it was obvious she was going to be late. After a few minutes of looking for the book, Parvati had left her alone in the dorm. Everyone had gone to class.

Thoughts swallowed time and reality for Hermione. What had she done? Why would she have such a foul and sexual dream, and better yet, could she even blame herself? Dreams might be our inner most thoughts and desires, but her consciousness was not ready to agree. The real question should have been, "Where is my potion's book?"

To everyone's horror, Hermione walked into the dungeons at ten after ten. No book in hand and ten minutes late…

No one was shocked because it was perfect –law abiding- Hermione Granger and she was late, or because they just didn't want to see her with the exception of Pansy Parkinson. Everyone was in dismay because Professor Snape had been in a foul mood with them during the course of their ten minute visit thus far. Surely, Hermione Granger walking in late would allow him to practice his love of criticizing all Gryffindor students.

"Late again, Ms.Granger?" he spoke to her leisurely from his desk.

She had never been late before to his class.

"Thirty points from Gryffindor, but it is so nice for you to of graced us with a few minutes from your busy schedule." He was sarcastic yet again. At this rate, they were never going to win the house cup. They were going into negative point mode now, if that was at all possible.

Snape sighed.

"I guess that Miss know-it-all can be late and unprepared and expect me, as her professor, to go without observation." His lips curled. "See me after class, Ms.Granger."

Hermione was personally hurt that he was disappointed in her. As irrational as he sounded to her, her heart had sunk so low into her chest that it would be impossible to reach for to bring back up.

She sat down next to her usual potions lab partners. Harry and Ron were already turning to the page that their new assignments were on, when it suddenly occurred to her.

"Why didn't he give me detention?" she asked herself. Not that it was in her nature to ask for one, but the least he could do was give her the punishment. Maybe he was planning to do it after class when he wanted to see her. Why was that?

Her mind wandered from the class and into her dreams several times. She might have even made up new bits where she did go to his class and found him waiting there for her, in the cold dungeons, but with the boiling cauldrons keeping them warm. She should have been dreaming about the ball from yesterday. She should have been dreaming about Krum in her room, not Snape.

He seemed to pass her and look at her cauldron more so than any of the other students. The only clues that she was doing well is that he wouldn't curse at the color of her potion, and every time he passed by after admiring the Slytherin class potions, he just curled his lips more at Hermione's. She certainly was a "Miss-know-it-all of know-it-alls." The potion they were making was a potion that forced another to divulge in their most embarrassing secrets. Hermione knew that her confession would be everything she'd just thought within this past hour. Perhaps Snape would let them off the hook easy and not make them test their potions.

This Snape was not at all like the Snape from her dreams. For one, he was not at all amused by her in real life. At least, from what she could tell in her dreams, the other Snape was lustful towards her. She wondered if he had feelings for her in the dream other than a want for her young, striking body. She liked the one from the dream much better either way. It was evident.

He made his way past her spot again. She knew that there was exactly four minutes until lunch because she had been paying attention to time so strictly. This time, she felt his hand dance across her upper back and the feelings of physical touch from him seemed familiar. His hand retired on her shoulder and he stared down into her cauldron. Time seemed to stop for Hermione. She couldn't figure out what he was staring at exactly. It was something way past her cauldron or potion, even past his reflections in the bubbling, silver juices. It was probably one of those moments where you're just void of anything. Staring at nothing in particular and taking nothing in. They never made normal contact like this and it was as if he felt just as comfortable near her as she did. Could he read into her dream from last night? She wished she had the power of Occlumency.

"P-professor?" she sheepishly asked him.

He bent down, with his wizard cloak following behind him and whispered. "Don't forget after class, or you'll risk your grade." She felt his warm breath against her neck yet again. It was secretly exciting to her.

There it was though. The punishment she was looking for. At least it had finally come. It didn't make her feel any better, because if you knew Hermione, you'd know that was probably the only way to get at her.

A few minutes later and everyone had made their way out of the dungeon except Hermione. She waited for him to speak, but he was silently grading the remaining cauldrons.

From what seemed like an uncomfortable amount of instance, he finally spoke. It happened so fast, it was almost implausible.

"I don't want you cluttering my room with your things." He waved his wand towards his desk. "Accio potion's book!" he caught the book, walked over to Hermione's table and dropped her book in front of her. "Get out." And without another word, he walked back into his office.

"Impossible," she thought.