Chapter 16- The Note

HPOV

Two weeks had now passed since Hermione had found Severus at the front gates. While she had been spending quite a lot of time down there already she was spending even more time in his quarters ever since that night. She told Severus it was because she couldn't stand being around Ron and Lavender, while that was true her main reason was that she wanted to be near him. It had now been three months that she had known about her feelings for the dark potions master, she was proud to say that he was none the wiser to her feelings for him. She considered this a great feat considering he was a spy and she was a Gryffindor who usually wore her heart on her sleeve. Unfortunately she wasn't able to stop herself from worrying about him, he had gone back to Voldemort three times since that night, luckily he had come back each time reasonably unharmed. She only knew this because on those nights she borrowed Harry's cloak and map to make sure he returned safe. Thankfully each time he had been able to make it back to his chambers without too much trouble. It pained her to see him suffering, but after the last time she had gone to help him she knew that it was better not to help. While he hadn't actually gotten mad at her she had seen the shame in his eyes. It was obvious that he didn't like people seeing him in a weakened state, even if it was his only friend. All she could do for now was make sure he got back to his room safely.

She was brought out of her reverie by Snape, calling her name, "Hermione". She had been reading in his library –again, and hadn't even noticed that he was staring at her. When she looked over at him all she could think was Merlin he's handsome. He was standing in front of the fireplace with his arm leaning on the mantle. "Hmm." She said looking at him with a warm smile on her face.

"I was just wondering what you were doing for Christmas. I know that some of the Death Eaters were thinking of making some sort of statement over the holidays, and I was thinking that it might be safer if you and your parents went on a vacation this Christmas."

"Oh well actually I'm staying here this Christmas. My parents are going on a ski trip. I don't like to ski, so I offered to stay here at Hogwarts this Christmas."

"Why are you staying here? Surly you would want to spend the holidays with your friends?"

"Well Harry is going to the Burrow and with everything going on with Ron at the moment I don't really feel like going there. But at least I will be spending the holiday with one of my friends." She said smiling at him pointedly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well I was thinking we would spend Christmas together." She said hesitantly. "I will be down here all the time anyways, working on the potion. Come on Severus it will be fun!"

As soon as she had said it she knew she had said something wrong for his face suddenly changed to one of pure hatred. "Hermione! I am your teacher! I can't spend Christmas with you! We can't exchange presents and sing carols! I'm not one of your bloody little dunderhead friends!"

"Severus do you really think that I imagined you would be willing to sing carols with me?" She said disbelievingly. "I don't understand why this is a big deal, we're together all the time, you are one of my closest friends and I'm pretty sure that I am your only friend."

"Don't you see how wrong that is? Hermione, I. AM. YOUR. TEACHER! We shouldn't be friends, we shouldn't even be co-workers, this whole thing is completely inappropriate!"

At this she got up out of her chair to stand in front of him. It annoyed her how easily he got her riled up.

"Oh Severus stop being so over sensitive! It's fine! Besides I like the way things are, I never would have learned all that I have without becoming your assistant. And I enjoy being your friend I would never be able to have conversations with Ron or Harry like I do with you. I think that you're afraid to enjoy yourself! You're so used to being all broody and miserable around the holidays that the idea of doing something nice terrifies you!" And with that last thought she turned around and stormed out as fast, loud, and dramatically as she could.

God he could be annoying sometimes! She thought to herself as she roamed the halls trying to think of some place where she could go to be alone. Honestly now what was she supposed to do! The last day of term was tomorrow, ugg which meant that Slughorn's party was tomorrow. She had been looking forward to it until everything with Ron happened now it just seem like something to dread. Severus hadn't been making her feel any better about it. He had been teasing her about it non-stop for the past few weeks. He had somehow found out a way of not having to attend but she had already said she was going so there was nothing that she could do.

"Hermione!" Hermione spun around to see Ginny jogging to catch up to her.

"Hey Ginny." She said in a sad tone.

"Why were you walking so fast, I have been trying to get your attention for ages!"

"Sorry I didn't hear you I was just thinking about other things."

"What happened?" Ginny asked concerned.

"Not here. Why don't we go back to my dorm room hopefully nobody will be up there." Ginny nodded in agreement as she followed behind Hermione.

"Soooo? What happened? It's about Professor Snape isn't it!"

"Yes it's about Professor Snape."

"Did you tell him how you feel!"

"No! God no I would never do that!"

"Then what happened?" They were both sitting on Hermione's bed with the curtains drawn and a silencing spell in place. Even though there was nobody in the room, Hermione wasn't going to take any chances.

"I'm trying to tell you! Just give me a chance!" Hermione said frustraitedly. Ginny finally seemed to decide to be quiet so Hermione started.

"Well it all began this evening in his library. I was reading a book and he had a detention with some student so we weren't able to work in the lab as usual." At this point Ginny nodded in understanding. "Anyways later on in the evening he came in to stand by the fire, he does this every so often so I didn't think much of it. After a few minutes he broke the silence and said my name. He then asked me what I was doing for Christmas break, saying something about being worried about my safety with the Death Eaters." Ginny nodded her head telling her to go on. "I told him that I had actually planned to stay at Hogwarts. He asked why I didn't want to be with my friends or family during the holiday. Then I told him that I had thought that we might spend the holiday together….."

"What did he say!"

"Well he kind of…. exploded. Ginny it was awful! He basically said that we shouldn't be friends and that our whole relationship was completely inappropriate! Oh Ginny I don't know what to do!"

"What did you say back? Or did you not say anything?"

"Oh I said something about him being afraid to enjoy himself. I don't really remember." She said all flustered.

"Don't worry I'm sure it's fine." Ginny said in a soothing, reassuring voice. "He will calm down and everything will go back to normal. Watch you will end up spending the entire holiday in his lab."

"That's highly doubtful."

"Trust me, with all of the students gone and the pressure of keeping up appearances gone with them I'm sure it will fix itself. Besides if it looks like he is going to avoid you all of break, I'm sure you are still able to get into his quarters. You could confront him about it. Not right away of course, maybe give him a few days to cool down."

"Maybe you're right. Perhaps having the school empty of prying eyes will help him relax." Hermione said letting out a relieved sigh. "There is one thing that is bothering me though." She said pensively.

"What's that?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Well he said that we shouldn't be friends or co-workers, that the whole thing was totally inappropriate. Does that mean that he doesn't want to work together anymore?"

"I'm sure he just said that in the heat of the moment. Don't worry about it. Besides even if he did mean it, it's not like he can get a new assistant now he's kind of stuck with you."

"Yes I suppose you're right. I guess I'll see tomorrow I have his class tomorrow afternoon."

It was the last day of term and that evening was Slughorn's party, Hermione went down early that morning hoping to talk to Severus before he went up to breakfast. Unfortunately when she got downstairs she found his quarters empty, so she decided to make her way up to the Great Hall, she would just have to talk to him tomorrow once everyone else had left. As she walked through the halls all she heard was people gossiping about who Harry Potter was going to take to the party tonight. It really was ridiculous she thought to herself, if Harry just invited someone he wouldn't have to worry about people thinking up different schemes to be his date. She had even heard a girl named Ramilda talking to her friends about how she was planning on slipping him a love potion. Honestly how could they think it was okay to do that!

When she walked into the Great Hall her eyes automatically scanned the teachers table. She was surprised to note that Severus' chair was empty. Where was he if not in his rooms or in the Great Hall? She went over and sat next to Harry. "Hey Hermione." Harry said through a mouthful of food. "Hi Harry." She said in a solemn voice.

"What's up with you? You've been in a bad mood the past few days."

Of course. The one time Harry actually notices that she is in a bad mood she can't even tell him what's wrong. "Oh it's nothing. I'm just tired I have had a lot of work to do lately. That's all." Harry nodded in understanding and went back to his meal. Well at least he seemed to believe her quickly enough. Once it was obvious that Severus wasn't going to make an appearance this morning, she ate a few pieces of toast and made an excuse about having to go to the library. Instead of actually going to the library she decided to try seeing if Severus was already in his classroom. When she arrived at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom she found it empty. She suddenly felt a rush of frustration towards the potions master. He was avoiding her, and she knew it!

Angry and irritated she waited out in the hall for the rest of the class to arrive. After a couple of minutes she heard the familiar noise that indicated a rush of students coming her way. When she turned to go into the room she gasped quite loudly. "Severus! How-"

"Miss Granger who on earth do you think you are? Do not call me by my first name I haven't given you permission so please do not assume you can address me as such!"

She had let it slip. It was only because she had been so startled by his sudden appearance that she had made the slip which reminded her of the question that she had wanted to ask. "Where did you come from? Have you been here this whole time?" The voices in the hall were getting closer now they probably had thirty seconds before the rest of the class joined them. She looked at him waiting for an answer but it never came. She suddenly realized that she still hadn't moved from the doorway and was now blocking everyone else's path into the room. She quickly walked over to her usual seat in the front of the room.

Half an hour later everyone was concentrating hard on the given task, Hermione of course had already perfected this particular spell and was now trying to help Harry wave his wand in the correct fashion when they were interrupted by Snape's hard voice. "I will now be passing back your pathetic excuses for essays on Dementors. Honestly you call yourselves sixth years? I would have thought that these were written by my first years with the lack of knowledge and effort that was put into these." He said scathingly levitating them to their author's respective desks. Hermione eagerly opened her scroll to see what her grade was. When she unrolled it she noticed a small envelope with her name on it. She hastily flipped it over to open it, but before she did she saw more writing that read,

Do not open until you are alone.

She couldn't believe that Severus would do something as childish as passing notes in class it was so unlike him! She desperately wanted to open the note but knew there was no way she could do it with Severus in the room she would just have to wait until class was over.

After another hour of Hermione waiting impatiently for the class to end, the bell finally rang. She jumped out of her seat planning to go to the girls lavatory to read the note stopped when she heard Harry calling her name. "Hermione! Hermione! Wait up will yeh?"

"Hey Harry sorry I'm just in a bit of a rush."

"What for? Don't worry we will make it to Transfiguration on time."

Hermione grimaced as she realized that she wasn't going to be able to sneak off. As they settled down in Transfiguration Hermione looked down in her hand to the note wondering what it said. What could he have possibly written her that he wasn't able to say in person? Her attention was pulled away from the thought when McGonagall called attention to the class. They were starting human transfiguration today, it seemed simple enough all they had to do was stand in front of a mirror and change the color of their eyebrows. After about twenty minutes Hermione had successfully changed her eyebrows to jet black, a color which reminded her a certain someone. This thought brought her back to the mysterious not that he had given her. Well Severus isn't here now I might as well look, it could be important he might have wanted me to read it as soon as I left class. She was about to open it when she was distracted by an unattractive snort from Lavender Brown. Looking over she couldn't help but laugh evily at Ron who had somehow conjured a blonde handlebar moustache. Shaking her head she went back to opening the note which read,

Dear Miss Granger,

After what happened the other night it has come to my attention that any other relationship besides student and teacher is completely inappropriate. Obviously our friendship or whatever it was cannot continue. As of now I will no longer be needing your assistance in the lab. I have had a house elf move all of your personal belongings up to Gryffindor tower. I will however be keeping all the potions notes and journals for safety. Please do not contact me on this subject or any for that matter. My mind is made up.

Professor

A/N: Sorry that it is so short but I am getting really busy with the term coming to an end I have about a million things to do for finals.

So it was either this short chapter now or a a chapter a little longer after Christmas, I figured you would rather have this now!

Thanks so much for all the great reviews that I have gotten so far I love every single one!

Review Please!

Oh also I have just started a new blog. Its an assignment for class, but the more hits I get the better my grade is. Its a blog about anything that I might think is interesting! Hope you like it, if so follow me on blogspot! and give your opinions on things! The link is in my profile!

Again I will try to update as soon as possible you might see something before Christmas it all depends on how long it takes to finish all my work!

If I don't write again before the holidays Happy Christmas everyone!