A/N- Weee! So many reviews! Thank you all for leaving them, talk about instant inspiration. LOL. Anyway, this chapter is a little bit longer, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as the other ones.

Disclaimer- my initials aren't really JKR; I just wish they were.

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Chapter 5- And so it Begins

He had the sudden urge to laugh at her discomfort, but in the end resisted it. It would do him no good, really, to render the girl entirely incapacitated. So instead he spoke. "I believed it has been settled then, Miss Granger. I shall see you this evening, the house elves will point you to your room." He did a slight bow of his head, stood, and with a bit of a 'pop', was gone.

Oh dear… She stared at the place that he had been for at least five minutes before she was able to break her daze. What in the world did the man have in store for her? She must have been right, there was an underlying reason to his acceptance, but what was it? It couldn't have been anything at all atrocious by any means. She had been watching him for two years, and watched from a distance, for the previous five. He wasn't a bad man, he wouldn't intentionally hurt her, and he wore that tough exterior simply to ward off unwanted attention.

She hoped he would be more personable once they started to work together. She sighed, and walked back to the place that she had apparated to, right after she performed the lumos charm herself. Ah yes, there they were, her luggage just thrown there when she had apparated. She had been so mindless with worry when she arrived, afraid that she might be late, she just forgot it there. How stupid. She almost lost her chance of apprenticeship with Snape, her new Master.

She couldn't help but grin at that. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wouldn't let herself accept that he would accept her. He was too much of a solitary man to just 'jump' at having an apprentice. Surely he had offers before this; he was, after all, one of the most brilliant men in Europe.

Hermione shook her thoughts away, and decided to go to Hogwarts. The sooner that she arrived, the sooner she would have her room. And she just remembered that she had no sleep before she came to the meeting. So, as soon as she finished picking up her things, she left for Hogwarts.

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Snape just couldn't wipe that stupid grin off of his face. He tried, nearly for ten minutes he had tried. But then he would remember the fact that the girl would be at Hogwarts soon, and under his complete control, and it would creep right back up on him. Blast his sudden giddiness. He had already frightened two other staff members, and made one out-right laugh at him. That had been Minerva; stupid woman never knew when to leave well enough alone. She had been trying to get him to succumb to her for the past seven years; the first six had been trying to get him to laugh, and then the next two had been to get him to smile.

That was the second time that she got her way. Oh yes, she made him laugh, only once of course, but it still happened. It wasn't his fault that he found it funny when she told him that Albus had just married. He simply couldn't see it, really, and it wasn't really fair that Minerva had been the one to deliver the news. Besides, she gloated about 'making Professor Snape laugh' for at least a year after it had happened. After this, he vowed never to let the woman get her way again. And it just happened. Oh, it wasn't her that made him smile, but that didn't matter to her. She was already taking the credit, for Merlin's sake. So, bloody hell, and damn it twice.

And it was almost time for breakfast. Which brought something to mind, or rather, someone. Someone by the name of Hermione Granger, and he idly wondered if she would be attending the morning meal. But more-over he wondered what he would do with her that evening. Oh, he had ideas, but none of them were quite right, really, once he thought about it more.

He was also beginning to believe that he went temporarily mad the day before. What in the name of Merlin made him reply to her letter in the first place? The summer was one thing, but four years? The girl was downright annoying most of the time, and when the school year started, his nerves would more than likely run so thin; he would either kill one of his blundering students that every SINGLE year seemed to possess. For the class that just graduated, it had been Longbottom, though in the beginning he had thought it might have been Seamus Finnigan; that boy blew so many things up that first year, it was simply ridiculous. Of course he had been proven wrong when Longbottom attained the fourth place prize for 'Most Cauldrons Melted Within a Seven-year Span'. Oh yes, there were three others that actually achieved worse results in his classes.

First place- Lauren VanDevroe, some very rich ambassador's daughter from France, or… at least that is where he believed she was from. She had melted EVERY blasted cauldron that she ever used. Mostly the ones she transfigured for herself, for, while she was a prodigy in transfiguration, she was a complete and utter dimwit when it came to making even the simplest of potions, and after the first two weeks of class, of her first year, took away her cauldron privileges. Yet, she still tried. During her seventh year, he had honestly considered just letting the girl blow herself up. He had wanted to, and honestly regretted not letting her do just that. Especially when he seen her name in his favorite magazine. It simply was not right that someone, who could not brew a single potion, would be a best selling author of Transfiguration books. It would figure; it seemed that he never sold anything of his, outside of a few copies.

He looked at the time, and decided that he would just go up to breakfast. So what if he was fifteen minutes early?

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She stared at the ceiling. It had been a few hours since her meeting with Snape, and she was completely moved into her new rooms. They were spectacular, four or five empty bookshelves in a sitting room, a huge bath, and a large bedroom, with perhaps the softest bed she had ever been on in her entire life. And she could not sleep.

She wanted to, but simply couldn't. She was too excited, or maybe that feeling was dread. She didn't really want to speculate on that one all that much, so she simply decided that it must be the excitement that went with anticipation. Nothing more.

She sighed, and realized that it was already time for breakfast. With a small effort, she got off of the bed and went to the door. It would be the perfect time to tell the other Professors that she would be staying there for a while. More like four years, actually. She smiled at the thought, and started to go down the hallway when she noticed some movement just ahead. As she jogged to catch up, she noticed that it was Snape. She smiled even wider. "Good morning Sir."

He froze. He thought he had heard someone walking behind him, but honestly didn't think it would be her. Damn her, how dare she be overly punctual in EVERYTHING. He spun around and narrowed his eyes at her. "I did not expect to see you until this evening, Miss Granger. Don't tell me that you have already unpacked…" As he finished he raised his brow in question.

She felt her cheeks grow hot. "Well… Yes, actually. You see; I really didn't have all tha-"

"Be quiet Miss Granger, I do not need your explanations. A simple 'yes' would have sufficed. So, I am assuming that you will be ready for orientation after breakfast?"

"I… Well… You see I was planning on…" She noticed as he raised his brow again, and decided that her sleeping habits probably didn't interest him. "Yes sir, we can start after breakfast."

"Good. I am also assuming that you were headed for breakfast, were you not?"

She nodded. "I was."

He swept his arm out in front of him towards the direction they were both headed. "After you." As she quickly made her way ahead of him, he started to follow close behind her. He smirked. If he could intimidate her enough for the next four years, he would be lucky enough to keep getting such short answers. At least that would be one of his headaches taken care of. Unfortunately, he doubted it.

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A/N-Thank you for reading, and once again, please review, I simply get overly giddy every time I see a new one. I will try to have the next chapter up soon. :)