A/N: Once again, ladyinthecloak exposed her nerves to my inadequate punctuation skills and stubborn use of hyphens instead of dashes… THANK YOU!!
Chapter 17 – Babysitting and other catastrophes
"You may rest assured that I am getting along quite well on my own." Hermione tried to keep Snape from entering the house, but to no avail.
He stepped past her and put little Albus down on the couch carefully. "You certainly do not, Miss Granger," he said dryly after inspecting the chaos in the sitting room. Then he added, "But I guarantee that I will disappear as soon as my godson is safely sleeping in his bed."
They heard a dull thud from the kitchen, followed by a happy squeal. James had obviously not noticed the new visitor, as he continued drawing pots and pans out from the cupboards and making 'music', as he called it.
Hermione did not like the expression on Snape's face at all when he walked into the kitchen without a word, stood behind the little boy and touched his shoulder. Snape spoke so softly that she could hardly understand him. "You will stop this immediately. Is that clear?"
"Oh, brilliant!" Hermione rolled her eyes and sneered at him. "You want to stop him with a menacing glare and a whisper?" However, to her big surprise, James stopped in the middle of a movement and gave the angrily glaring man an anxious look.
"Good. Now you put everything back where you found it!" The boy obeyed instantly, and Snape turned towards Hermione with open triumph in his eyes. "Did you say something, Miss Granger?"
Hermione knit her brows and said sourly, "I only mentioned that I had completely forgotten the high educational value of your teaching methods. You instill obedience through fear, not respect."
"The former does not prevent the latter." He took one step in her direction and said quietly, "Or do you claim that you did not respect me during your time at Hogwarts?"
Hermione kept her defiant silence and looked past him to the boy who was putting the cooking utensils back into the cupboards and giving Snape a frightened glance every now and then. Snape, on the other hand, did not take further note of him and left the kitchen without a word.
Hermione levitated the remaining pots and pans where they belonged with a wave of her wand and picked James up. He snuggled up to her without protest. "Would you like me to read you a bedtime story in your room?" she asked. He nodded eagerly, probably because he did not like the option of staying in the sitting room with the scary man very much. "I'm taking James to bed," she told Snape, who was sitting on the sofa with a gurgling baby Albus on his lap.
"Please don't dawdle, Miss Granger, my time and patience are limited," he answered.
"So why don't you just go?" she burst out.
"Because, and I am repeating myself, I want to see with my own eyes that my godson is well cared for while you are occupied with his brother. It seems to me that you are incapable of dealing with them both at once," he answered smugly. Oh, he probably savoured seeing her, the insufferable know-it-all, fail miserably in this one particular area.
Hermione swallowed her venomous retort and hurried upstairs, throwing him a furious glance. Basically, he is right she thought. It was not easy to cope with two children, one of them extremely lively. Even more so because she had no experience with children whatsoever. But she would rather bite her tongue than say that aloud.
When she had reached James' room, she helped him undress and put on his pyjamas, then she put him to bed and started reading from a book of fairy tales until his eyes fluttered shut during the third story and his calm, steady breathing indicated that he had fallen asleep. She observed him for a while, caressed his head and took several deep breaths. Then she felt ready to go back to the sitting room.
Once more, she remembered her anger about Snape's behaviour. Anger was a feeling she could cope with. In fact, she could cope with it much better than with those other feelings that kept fighting their way towards the surface of her conscience, although she kept driving them back.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, she saw that Albus had fallen asleep in Snape's arms; he was studying the baby's face intensively. His face held a strange expression that Hermione had never seen before. It was a mixture of wonderment and – could it be tenderness? Where the devil did that come from? As she was observing Snape, she overlooked one of James' toy trucks that were strewn across the floor. She stepped on it and cried out in pain when she twisted her ankle and almost fell to the ground.
"Good Merlin, Miss Granger! I thought I had to deal with only two children here," Snape said with a frown and observed her limping towards the sofa. Albus Severus had winced once because of her cry, but he was still asleep.
"Do you never stumble?" Hermione hissed and screwed up her face in agony when she tried to put some weight on her foot.
"No", he answered calmly. "I usually look where I am going."
Hermione said nothing but sat down and inspected her ankle. When she put her hands around it, it hurt like hell and she inhaled with a hiss when the pain started spreading.
Snape got up slowly to avoid disturbing the sleeping child. Then he walked upstairs and came back alone a few moments later, then stood in front of her.
"I would really like to go now. However, if I left you in your current snivelling state, that would probably make the Potters speculate wildly about the level of my heartlessness," he drawled.
"I am not snivelling!" she answered between clenched teeth. It was, however, not quite true, as her eyes had filled with tears due to the searing pain. He must have noticed.
"Of course not," he scoffed. Then he got ready to kneel down in front of her, but changed his mind and asked, "Can you get to the settee over there?"
Hermione got up and suppressed a painful moan. Snape gripped her upper arm to support her. She wanted to tell him to unhand her at once, but then she thought that this would look quite hysteric. So she accepted his help, but she kept thinking that he only did this to get away as soon as possible.
"Let me have a look at it," he demanded after she had sat down with her legs stretched out along the back of the settee, so he could sit right next to her.
"No," came her reflex answer, although she knew that she was sounding very silly.
"Do as I say, you obstinate thing," he growled impatiently and added with a malicious grin, "I promise I won't hurt you. At least not more than absolutely necessary." Without waiting for her answer he pulled off her shoe and, before she could protest, her sock. "Your feet smell," he commented dryly.
"They don't," she hissed. "And even if they do – it's in their nature! I bet yours smell like roses."
He emitted a strange throaty sound, and it took her quite a while to realise that he was laughing. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, Miss Granger. I am only trying to relax the mood. But in order to calm your nerves: your feet don't indeed smell."
He brushed over her ankle with a surprisingly tender movement of the thumb, which made her draw breath with a sharp hiss. "Does this hurt?" he asked in surprise.
"N... No," she said. It was true, but she could hardly tell him that it was his touch that triggered this reaction.
He pushed her trouser leg up a little and encircled her ankle with his right hand while he used his left hand to gingerly move her foot in all directions. After examining it like that for quite a while, he turned to her and searchingly looked at her face. She looked away instantly, but she knew that she was blushing.
"Well, I have good and bad news for you, Miss Granger. Which do you want to hear first?
Hermione swallowed. "The bad."
"You are going to die," he said with a serious expression.
"Pardon?"
His mouth twisted in a mocking grin. "I hope you were already aware of the fact that you will die eventually."
Hermione hardly managed not to slap him. "Is this your idea of a joke?" she growled.
"Honestly speaking – yes." He applied some more pressure to her foot while answering. "All right. You wanted the bad news first. I am sorry to inform you that the proverbial Gryffindor courage is nothing but a hypocritical legend."
Hermione tried to free her foot from his grasp, but he held it even tighter. "The good thing is: I will not tell anybody what a hypersensitive creature you are."
Hermione gave an exaggeratedly high-pitched laugh. "Oh, you must find this so very amusing."
"Yes, indeed, I do," Snape answered. His black eyes glittered with mirth, and Hermione quickly averted her gaze once again. As if she had not noticed before, she suddenly became aware that she was alone with him, and silence enveloped them like a blanket that kept her from breathing properly. She was unable to concentrate on trivial things in his presence. For one moment, she was almost sure that he could hear the frantic beating of her heart. She should not have these feelings, and she knew it. But they were there nonetheless. It was so – inappropriate and silly. Snape was not a man usually connected to thoughts of a loudly thumping heart, a dry mouth and damp palms. But still, she felt all of this and she was embarrassed because she knew that he was observing her. When he finally released her ankle, she almost sighed in relief.
"Please tell me one thing, Miss Granger," he said in a conversational tone that did not rouse any suspicion. He even got up and she thought that he was preparing to leave. "It seems that I have been missing something. Could you please tell me why you keep averting my gaze?"
Oh, she should have known better! "Come again?" she murmured. "I don't understand what you mean."
"Oh, please – I do recognise Hermione Granger's mock clueless expression when I see it. You seem to forget that I have been a teacher for many years, giving me a sixth sense for people who want to hide something, and – please do not hold it against me, Miss Granger – you have never been very apt at hiding things. If you blush, look away hastily and stammer meaningless things, it rings all kinds of bells with me."
Oh, my god, he noticed something, she thought and felt a wave of panic wash over her. What was she supposed to do?
"You... you seem to be imagining things," she croaked, silently cursing herself because of the sound of her voice.
He plopped down next to her so fast that she tried to jump up, but he was faster. Grabbing her chin with one hand, he forced her to look at him. "Believe me, Miss Granger: I can be very nasty when I realise that someone is planning things I do not want." His face was mere centimetres from hers. She could make out the creases around his black eyes and a very thin, almost faded scar that went from his left nostril to his ear.
The touch of his hand on her chin was too much, yet not enough at the same time. Her body seemed to act according to its own rules, and she leaned towards him almost imperceptibly until…
"Remember this: I will never, under no circumstances, appear at any victory parties and face hordes of dunderheaded people who want to see me as some kind of hero. I already told Ginevra when she made the mistake of asking me about it. I am telling you now, Miss Granger. And I will not repeat myself. Do. You. Understand?"
She nodded hastily, much too irritated to say anything.
"Good." He let go of her abruptly and got up.
He misunderstood, she rejoiced silently as soon as her mind was clear enough to understand. He thought I was planning something for the victory parties. The blasted victory parties!
Of course: they would be in some weeks, and she thought she could remember Ginny mentioning them at some point. She sighed in relief. At the same time, she realised that her skin seemed to vibrate where he had touched her. It felt as if a swarm of angry bees was hovering next to it…
A/N: so, this is where muggline, who translates this story, leaves you. Her family is taking a vacation on some Mediterranean beach for the next 3 ½ weeks and there will not be an update until sometime around Mid-September, I'm afraid…