A/N: I had to post a chapter for the professor's fiftieth birthday! Happy Birthday, Professor Snape!
For the Potions Master's Amusement
Chapter 61: Exposure
Hermione arrived on Stoatshead Hill and swayed, only to be grabbed and hugged from either side. She was inundated with the familiar smell of boy, although these two could undoubtedly use a shower, and she wrapped an arm about each of them, standing on tiptoe to kiss each of their cheeks. There was a moment of silence when they simply held one another, hearts full of all the years of shared experiences, and then they were all talking at once.
'You did it!'
'It's so good to see you!'
'Let's get out of the open!'
With Ron holding her hand and leading the way, and Harry trailing behind holding the other hand, they made their way down to the bottom of the hill and into the trees. They did not speak as Ron wended his way through the small wood, taking them deeper, until they came to a stop beneath a very old oak tree.
'Aren't we really close to the Burrow?' Hermione asked, sotto voce.
Ron replied in the same low tone. 'So close it hurts,' he admitted.
'Can't we …?'
'No,' Harry said firmly. 'I won't take trouble there.'
'We've got it on good authority that my family are under surveillance,' Ron added. 'They're just waiting for Harry to show up there.'
Hermione squeezed their hands sympathetically. 'I worry about you all the time,' she admitted.
She could barely make out their faces beneath the overcast night sky, but she could hear the grin in Harry's voice as he said, 'We worry about you, too—but look at what you've managed on your own!'
Hermione preened at the tone of admiration in his voice.
'You never would have had the quiet for the study and all you've been doing, if you'd been with us,' Ron said soberly. 'We're constantly on the move.'
Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, she heard a whisper of movement. Without thinking, she whirled and cast a non-verbal Protego!
In the next breath, bright red streaks of light flew from all sides—they were surrounded! The Stunners thudded uselessly against the Shield Charm, but they couldn't stay here.
'Hold on!' Harry hissed, and the three stepped together neatly into Disapparition.
Hermione blinked as she came to rest in a clearing, where the half-moon illuminated the tent shimmering beneath protective wards. She didn't recognise the spot, but they were clearly in a different part of the country, for the stars overhead twinkled in a clear sky. But even as she took in these details, Ron uttered a moan at her side, and she turned to see blood gushing from a deep gouge in his left thigh.
'Splinched!' he gasped and fell bonelessly to the ground in a dead faint.
'Ron!' Harry cried, kneeling beside his fallen friend, but Hermione turned away from them, casting spell after spell, twining her wards with those Harry had already placed on the location, determined to hide them from prying eyes and Detection Spells.
'Open the tent flap, and I'll moved him,' she said steadily, trying not to look at the blood pooling beneath Ron.
Harry scrambled to do her bidding, and Hermione cast Mobilicorpus. When Ron's unconscious form hovered before her, she siphoned blood from his ripped jeans, and then guided him through to the interior of the tent. It was the one they had used at the Triwizard Tournament; it still smelled of cat pee.
She conjured a tarpaulin to spread beneath Ron and lowered him carefully, kneeling swiftly beside him. 'What potions do you have on hand?' she asked Harry without looking up from the cleansing spells she was using on Ron's wound. Determinedly, she put the taunting voice from her mind—the one that reminded her if she'd been with her professor when he went to fetch the books she hadn't needed after all, he might not have been hurt so badly. But at least she would have been there to care for him …
'Potions?' Harry repeated stupidly. 'We don't have anything on hand …'
Hermione looked up at him, her lips forming an "o" of amazement. 'You've never asked Professor Snape to bring you potions to keep on hand? What if one of you were sick? Or injured?'
Harry shrugged. 'It hasn't been high on our list,' he answered flatly.
Hermione huffed. 'If I'd been with you, we would have accumulated basic injury care potions,' she said crossly. 'Turn your back—I'm going to Transfigure some bandages from my vest.'
Harry turned his back obediently, and Hermione tugged off her Weasley jumper, followed by her white cotton vest with the pink-piped trim. She put the jumper back on, ignoring the scratch of the wool against her bare skin, and Transfigured the vest into a length of bandages.
'We need to get his jeans off,' she told Harry. 'Help me.'
They worked together to slip the ripped jeans down Ron's long legs, leaving him lying on the tarpaulin wearing on his bottom half decidedly grubby white socks and a pair of Chudley Cannons boxers that had seen better days. 'I would feel better if we had an Anti-Infection Potion to give him,' Hermione said, bending Ron's knee and having Harry hold it in place while she wrapped the bandages about his thigh. 'And ideally, he should have a Blood Replenishing Potion—but we'll just hope for the best.' She finished wrapping and fastened the end of the bandage with a wave of her wand. 'We'll watch him tonight,' she said, as if speaking to herself. 'If he's fever-free in the morning, I think he'll be all right.'
Harry leaned over to give her a hug. 'I'm glad you were here to manage this,' he admitted. 'I could have done it, but it wouldn't have been easy—and I never would've thought of the potions.'
Ron's eyelids fluttered, and he was looking at them with muzzy blue eyes. 'Where are we?' he asked, obviously confused. 'I'm cold.'
'Of course you are!' Hermione exclaimed guiltily. She Summoned a blanket from one of the bunk beds and wrapped tucked it around him. 'You'll be all right—just rest, now.'
Ron gave Hermione a sweet, confused smile. 'I've missed you,' he confided sleepily. Then his brow contracted, and he reached to her throat. Before his fingers touched it, Hermione realised she had forgotten to hide or remove her collar before she left Roissy House. Her face flamed. 'What's this?' he asked. 'Looks like a dog collar.'
Harry reached over and pushed Hermione's hair to one side. A frown settled between his brows. 'Why are you wearing that?' he demanded suspiciously.
Hermione stood and backed away from them, her cold fingers fumbling at the buckle of the collar. The boys watched her, twin expressions of suspicion in their eyes. She felt the colour leach from her face, and returned their stares, her lips pressed together in a bloodless line. Stuffing the collar in the pocket of her coat, she said, 'It's nothing. Never mind.'
Harry stood and walked toward her. 'But I've never seen a dog collar with a shiny silver disk on it—even looked like it might be engraved.'
Hermione shrugged and tried for a light laugh. 'Well, I can't expect you lot to be up on all the London fashion trends, can I?' she said, striving to sound worldly.
Ron struggled into a sitting position, the blanket falling from his chest into his lap. 'I think I know what sorts have fashions like that, Hermione,' he said, his voice sounding low and authoritative—when had Ronald begun to sound like Arthur?
'Oh, I doubt it, Ronald,' she said lightly. 'Let's talk about the spell.'
But Harry wouldn't let it go. 'What sorts wear dog collars for a necklace?' Harry demanded of Ron.
Ron answered Harry, but he did not look away from Hermione. 'That S & M lot do,' he said. 'Charlie told Bill and Perce about it one time, and I listened in.'
'S & M?' Harry repeated blankly—disbelievingly. 'Do you mean those blokes who like whips and chains?'
'Whips and chains and black leather,' Ron replied. 'Just like Hermione's necklace.' He said the last word with such contempt that Hermione felt herself cringe in shame. 'They live together sometimes, in communes, like.'
Harry tore his gaze from Ron and advanced on Hermione, looking sickened. 'Hermione,' he began, but his voice failed him. He stopped a foot away from her, took her hand, and tried again. 'You're not living with a bunch of sadists and weirdoes, are you?'
Hermione pulled her hand away from him. 'Don't be ridiculous,' she said testily.
Harry had been on the run for two months, but his Quidditch reflexes were still prime. He lunged and pulled the collar from her coat pocket, turning his back to block her attempts to retrieve it from him as he held it to the oil lamp.
'SS,' he read aloud.
'Let me see,' Ron said, and Harry strode over to hand it to him, turning puzzled eyes to Hermione.
'What's "SS"?' Harry asked.
'It's just a design, Harry,' she said, hearing the quaver in her voice, as clearly as they did. 'It doesn't say anything.'
Ron turned his blue eyes on her. 'So, do you have some sort of perverted sex with this "SS" person?' he asked, that mimicry of Arthur's patriarchal tone resonant in his voice.
Incensed, Hermione darted over and snatched the collar from Ron's hand, pushing it back into her pocket. 'Let's get this clear,' she said, and she knew she sounded shrill, but she didn't care. 'I've come here to bring the spell you wanted. I'm prepared to discuss that with you as much as you want.' She drew herself to her full height, straightened her shoulders, and pinned them with her best imitation of her professor's derisive sneer. 'I will not discuss my sex life, or anything else about my private life, with either one of you.' She looked into Ron's speculative face, then directly into Harry's worried green eyes. 'Do you want the spell or not?'
Harry held his hand out. 'Let's see the spell,' he said resignedly.
Dawn found Harry and Hermione seated together on the floor, practicing over and again the wand movements for the spell she had translated. Ron had fallen asleep on the other side of Hermione, and his cheek was pressed against her leg, where surely the seam of her jeans was leaving a deep imprint.
There was a sound, as of a small bell ringing, and Harry glanced toward the tent flap. 'Snape,' he said.
Hermione jerked upright. 'What?' she screeched.
Harry produced a gold Galleon from his pocket, and Hermione knew before he spoke what he would say. 'I used our fake Galleons from the DA,' he told her. 'It's how I can send an emergency message to the old git.'
Cold air blew in, and the visitor stooped to enter, the bright daylight limning his figure with gold. 'And the "old git" delivers,' a snarling voice proclaimed.
Hermione stared at him, frozen in place, with Harry sitting so close their arms touched and Ron sleeping with his head all but in her lap.
'I might have known,' Professor Snape said bitterly, and he took another step into the tent, allowing the tent flap to fall closed behind him. Unburdened by the glare of the sun, Hermione got her first good look at him.
He stood as straight as ever, his oily hair hanging in curtains on either side of his narrow face, but that face was pastier than she had ever seen it, greyish in its pallor, and a vivid red slash marred his already ill-favoured countenance. The angry, red scar began at the point of his jawbone on the right, just above the artery, and travelled transverse his features, across his cheek, over the jutting protrusion of the bridge of his nose, and beneath the black silk eye patch he wore over his left eye, before disappearing into his hairline.
'Sir!' Hermione cried, and she sprang up, crossing the floor to him and grasping his robes in her fists. 'Rafe told me you were hurt, but he didn't tell me—' Her voice failed, and she stared up at him while he stood immobile, no response to her words or her actions—not even to her presence!—showing in his face or eyes.
With disdainful disregard, he forced her hands from his robes and strode to stand over Harry and Ron. 'The potions you requested, Potter,' he said, allowing phials to drop one by one onto the mattress of the bunk bed at Harry's shoulder. 'Blood Replenishing, Anti-Infection, and Pain Reliever.'
Harry stood. 'I didn't know you'd been hurt,' he said quietly. 'I wouldn't have asked you to come if I'd known.' His green eyes flicked past Snape to Hermione. 'Why didn't you tell me?'
'I didn't know you were going to ask him to come here!' she said, and the tears on her face were her audible in her voice, as well.
Harry watched Hermione with slowly dawning understanding, the he crossed to stand with her, taking her hand gently. 'I guess you thought you couldn't tell me,' he said softly.
Hermione dashed angrily at the tears on her face. Why did she have to cry when she was angry? Her attention was focussed on bringing herself under control, so she was unprepared for Harry to pluck her collar from her pocket one more time.
'You're SS, I suppose,' he said in a musing tone, and the professor turned to glare at him, his thin lips parted, as if prepared to deliver a stinging retort … until he saw the collar in Harry's hands.
It was a testament to his self control that he did not look to Hermione. 'What are you babbling about, Potter?'
Harry gestured toward him with the collar. 'Hermione was wearing this when she came last night,' he said. 'I think she must have forgotten to take it off.'
Harry looked to Hermione, as if for affirmation, but she turned her eyes away, feeling her heart hammering in her chest, wishing she were anywhere but here.
'So she took it off, but not before I saw your initials on the name plate.' Harry stepped closer, thrusting the collar at the professor. 'What does this mean, Snape?'
Severus Snape walked right up into Harry's face and snatched the collar from his hand. 'It means she is my property, Potter. It means you are to keep your filthy hands and your filthy mind off of her.'
Harry planted a hand on the professor's breastbone and gave him a shove. 'What about your filthy mind, you lecherous old pervert?' he shouted, finally rousing Ron from his sleep, and the ginger-haired boy struggled to his feet, standing staunchly at Harry's back.
Professor Snape's hand blurred at his side, and then his wand was trained steadily on the boys. 'My filthy mind is between Miss Granger and me,' he purred, almost as if he wanted to provoke the boys to further anger—as if he were longing for a reason to use the wand pointed at Harry's heart.
'Stop it!' Hermione cried, stepping between them and giving Harry and Severus nudges with her outstretched arms. 'Stop acting like children!'
Her Master thrust his wand up his sleeve and gathered Hermione to him with his wand arm. With the other hand, he reached into his cloak pocket and withdrew a bundle wrapped in moleskin, which he dropped disdainfully at Harry's feet. 'The Dark Lord's blood and a bone from his father's grave,' he sneered, and without speaking another word, he wrapped Hermione in his arms and Disapparated.
