A/N yes, Francine, I will let you know when there is smut. Also, I have no intention of breaking the TOS here. You'll have to head on over to AO3 for the unedited version when the time comes.

Snape is inordinately pleased with himself. His plan is working. As long as he keeps Hermione engaged intellectually AND personally, he doesn't have to witness the hurt feelings, longing, and rejection in her face. It is her longing for him, her loneliness, that threatens to destroy all the boundaries he is so carefully maintaining with her.

So he is learning to engage her with conversation. And in the process of keeping her physically at bay, he is also learning about Hermione. Her fierceness surprises him. And she has a dark edge to her. It engages a part of him he has been suppressing ruthlessly for a long time.

He doesn't ask about her parents. Or about what happened in Malfoy Manor. He wants to. But he can't bear the thought of not being able to hold her when she cries. So he is waiting until the time is right to touch on those things- and others.

Snape is also really piling the work on Hermione. And not just as a ploy to keep her tired and distracted. Her mind is young and relatively uncluttered. With his careful micromanagement of her, Snape is keeping it that way. Every time they prepare ingredients or do other drudge work that requires little concentration, he encourages her to chatter at him. It helps her keep her thoughts organized, and helps him understand what makes her tick. She is logical to the point of insanity until it comes to her friends. With them she is insanely illogical.

When he points this out to her she only smiles. "Love isn't supposed to be logical, Professor, surely you know that."

'How does she suppose I know anything about love?' Snape muses to himself, but lets it go. There are things he isn't ready to talk about either. At least not sober and fully clothed.

He also keeps tabs, rather inappropriately, on her sleeping, eating, and socializing habits. When he sees her slipping in the area of self care, he is most severe with her. Sometimes her eyes flash at this meddling, but she never fights him on it, always obeys. Her blind obedience worries him, but he files that away with everything else that he can't broach with her in their current arrangement.

At first, Hermione doesn't think she will make it to spring without being able to touch him. But while their (proper) relationship lacks in physical affection, she can't help but delight in Snape's apparent interest in every tiny facet of her life. So she obliges him, for the most part. He is also heaping the work on her at an astounding rate, and micromanaging her life to an infuriating degree. She chafes a little at this at first, but when he points out how effective his management is, she really can't argue. So she relents, lets him have at it.

And in the midst of an astounding number of theorems, potions, and equations, spring arrives. The whomping willow has turned a glorious shade of electric green, and has already killed at least four birds attempting to nest in its branches- and that's just the ones Hermione has personally witnessed.

As the month of April draws to a close, Snape wraps up the advanced alchemy and arithmancy with Hermione. He also takes back his red ink bottle. For the next month, he plans to do nothing but help her revise for her NEWTs. He knows how much the tests mean to her. And, if he is honest, Hermione's NEWT scores are important to him, too. Snape has never taken a protégé before. But the word is out, at least in the realm of Wizarding intellectuals, that he has finally done so. Hermione's scores will reflect as much on him as they will on her.

Snape gives her the NEWT study schedule he has prepared for her on a Friday night. She looks it over in detail for several minutes before looking up at him.

"There's surprisingly little time spent actually studying, professor."

He nods curtly. "And why do you think that is, Miss Granger?"

"I've already learnt it all, haven't I? This is just a month to refocus on the NEWT material and, more importantly, tend to my core?"

"Twenty points to Gryffindor," Snape says, managing to look both genuinely pleased and genuinely sarcastic at the same time.

"Careful, Professor," Hermione teases. "You don't want Gryffindor to win the house cup simply because you like me."

"You don't give me enough credit, Miss Granger. I always make sure to take the points away from other students. And I most assuredly don't make a habit of fondness for insufferable know-it-alls."

"You keep track of the points you give me so you can detract them elsewhere?" Hermione is incredulous.

"Yes. And you would do well to remember that. I am a Slytherin, Miss Granger, as much as you like to romanticize otherwise."

Hermione shakes her head, turning back to the schedule in her hand. Next Monday after lunch he has penned in: 'watch the whomping willow kill birds (weather permitting).'

She points this out to him. "How did you know?"

"What?" Snape says, "That you take pleasure in the deaths of innocent creatures? I didn't until I emerged from my dungeons this spring to observe the phenomena, only to find you on my favorite bench laughing yourself silly. So you watched the willow and I watched you."

Hermione's stomach does a little flip. It does this so often now she barely takes notice. "Why ever didn't you join me, sir?"

Snape looks at her, his expression suddenly gone very dark. 'because some days I can't allow myself within arms reach of you, for fear of violating your innocence, the school's trust, and my own ethics in a matter of moments,' Snape thinks to himself, staring down at her.

And Hermione hears it, a snarling, aggressive, animal voice in her mind. And with the thought comes a veritable hurricane of emotion, first of which is a lust so powerful she has to grab ahold of his desk to steady herself.

Snape watches Hermione gasp and steady herself against his desk. He realizes in horror that somehow, and he doesn't have any idea how, but somehow he is broadcasting thought and emotion to her. He immediately occludes, but he can see the damage has already been done, and he is weeping inside.

'Miss Granger," he croaks out. "I have no idea how that happened. Please understand you were not meant to hear that thought."

She nods her head, but she won't look up at him.

"Hermione, please," he says.

She looks up. Her face is stricken. "Are you angry with me, Professor?"

"No," he says, quite vehemently.

"It felt angry," she says, and Snape notices she is trembling. He breaks down at the sight of her fear and reaches a hand out across his desk. She stares at it for a moment. He means for her to hold it, but instead, she bends down and lays her cheek in his hand.

Snape strokes her hair with his other hand, and tries to gather his thoughts. "That wasn't anger that you felt, although it was an emotion just as destructive. There is a reason why thoughts and feelings are meant to be private, Miss Granger. Part of that reason is to prevent moments like this."

"I understand that, really, I do, but- I still felt what you felt and- I don't want you to feel that way. Not because of me."

Snape runs his thumb across her eyebrow. "You let me handle my own emotions. Right now you need to be concentrating on your NEWTs."

Hermione nods in his hand, and then, without thinking about it really, turns her head and presses her lips against his palm. He lets out a frustrated hiss in response. Hermione realizes she has erred, and tries to lift her head out of his hands, but Snape grabs a fistful of her hair at the back of her neck quite forcefully, and she finds she can't move her head. She gasps in pleasure, and is immediately mortified by the sound coming out of her mouth.

Then, just as suddenly, he lets her go. She sits up, dazed, and immediately tries to apologize to him.

He cuts her off fiercely. "No! Do not ever apologize for your feelings, or your desire. You are entitled to both." He glares at her until she nods. Then his face softens. "And they are precious to me," he says. "But now you see for yourself why we cannot touch."

Hermione nods.

"Enjoy your Hogsmede weekend, Miss Granger. On Monday we will start preparing you for your NEWTs. With a desk between us."

"Yes, Professor," Hermione says, and flees the room.