Hermione took a deep breath to ready herself, then opened the library doors for the first time this school term. No Students needed to be in the library at this hour but Hermione wanted to make sure everything was perfect regardless. Snape was in tow, but his disposition in the mornings was far from sparkling, so he just stood near Hermione and yawned as often as he could in an attempt to make Hermione feel guilty.
"It all looks about right," Hermione whispered to herself scanning shelf after shelf and pacing like mad.
Students would most likely begin to show up after their first couple classes.
"Is it necessary for you to practically work yourself into a panic attack before anything has even happened?" Snape drawled.
"I just want to make sure everything is ready," Hermione snapped back, taking offense.
"You've been making sure everything's been ready for the last month. This library has never been this clean in all the time I've been acquainted with it."
"Is there something wrong with that?" Hermione grumbled back.
"No but I dare say some of the staff might not recognize the place and will most likely get lost after all the organizational changes you've made." Snape said sweeping his hand at the library as a whole.
"Is it that different?" Hermione squeaked her eyes going wide. "Maybe I should try to make it more like it used to be." Hermione was pacing and mumbling to herself her panic level rising by the second.
"Granger," Snape snapped grabbing Hermione by the shoulders to stop her damned pacing.
Hermione stopped as soon as Snape touched her. The magic that had protected her from Snape before was now stirring and Hermione was scared it might send him crashing to the floor as it had before.
After a moment of tense silence Snape, his hands still firmly gripping Hermione's shoulders sighed.
"You need to let things happen as they will, you won't stop a disaster by panicking now."
Snape let go of her taking a couple steps back.
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, apparently the protective magic could tell he wasn't doing her harm.
Hermione nodded at Snape and walked over to her desk, which was littered with lists of all the books she'd moved, which was mostly everything except the restricted section.
She sat down in her tiny creaky chair and waited.
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The first day had gone off without a hitch. Mostly the library was quiet and vacant, a few ravenclaws were meeting to discuss a project that wasn't due for a couple months and a few of the other students were there trying to start homework. Hermione noticed there weren't any first years in the library, perhaps they didn't know where it was. Hermione wrote down that she needed to make sure the Headmistress was aware of the potential problem. Hermione supervised the students and found no reason to have to reprimand any of them. Snape sulked in the corner of her work area reading one of the more frowned upon potions books that ordinarily inhabited the restricted section.
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The second day was starting out to be quite different.
Snape was still reading his book, but there were a lot more students appearing in the rows of books and not all of them were studious ravenclaws.
"Mr. Jones!" Hermione snapped at a fourth year hufflepuff, "What is that your reading?"
Bernard Jones turned a deep scarlet as he tried to hide the dirty magazine he had just been looking through.
"Nothing," He said quickly trying desperately to not look at the new Librarian.
"May I please have the transfiguration book you were just reading, so that I may put it away for you?" Hermione asked the terrified fourth year with a sweet smile.
Bernard handed the closed book to her.
Hermione took the book with the nude magazine in it still, and turned to walk away.
"That's fifty points from hufflepuff, Mr Jones. I'll ask that you kindly keep your personal reading material out of my library." Hermione said over her shoulder.
Hermione stormed up to her desk holding the tainted transfiguration book that contained the repulsive magazine.
"Honesty, I shall never understand why teenage boys are so very idiotic." Hermione huffed sitting down beside Severus and slamming the book down between them.
"What are you ranting about?" Snape grumbled putting a finger where he'd stopped reading, and looking up.
"I just caught Mr. Jones looking at this." Hermione growled flipping the book open to reveal it's nefarious cargo.
Snape glanced at the picture that had opened to a tall blonde witch, with a very short skirt that was leaning over a desk.
"Oh," He blurted his cheeks singed a slight red color.
"It's disgusting! I'll have to clean this book page by page before I put it back in circulation." Hermione didn't notice that Snape had stopped listening and was trying very hard not to look at the blonde witch that was now waving at him to join her, blasted moving photos.
"Are you listening? I asked if you think fifty points was a fair penalty, I think he's still in here I could assign him detention with Filch." Hermione asked Snape who was listening slightly pink cheeked.
"I think Mr. Jones was properly humiliated this time, if it occurs again tell the Headmistress she'll most likely give him detention for the rest of the year and most of the next." Snape replied he was trying to keep his book carefully positioned so that Hermione didn't notice how the blonde witch was affecting him.
"I suppose you're right. I'll be calling for lunch soon, what would you like me to get for you?" Hermione asked.
"Whatever you're having will be fine for me." Snape mumbled pretending to go back to his book.
"And what shall I do with this?" Hermione asked holding the magazine up and crinkling her nose.
"I'll take it and dispose of it later, don't want Mr. Jones trying to collect his confiscated property." Snape said taking the magazine and putting it in one of Hermione's drawers.
Hermione gave Snape a curious glance as she called for a house elf.
"Would you please bring two plates of fish and chips?" Hermione asked politely once an elf appeared, it nodded and popped away.
Hermione looked over her desk for a moment then began to organize books that had been returned, she flicked her wand at them and they moved back to their proper places.
Hermione and Snape shared a quiet lunch that was only interrupted a few times by students with questions.
Towards the end of the day Hermione was pretty irritable and Snape was twitching as though he'd rather be anywhere but there.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!" A shrill voice screamed from one of the back rows.
Hermione jumped up and Snape reluctantly followed her as she went to investigate.
"That's my boy friend! You slag!" A small black haired girl was shrieking at a tall brunette both were gryffindors. A tall muscular boy was standing between them dead silent as the two girls screamed.
The black haired girl grabbed ahold of the other girl's hair and yanked taking both of them to the ground as they continued to shout.
"Stop!" Hermione yelled in her most commanding voice. The crowd of students that had gathered were cheering the girls on and kept on cheering after Hermione's yell.
"Miss Granger? May I?" Snape asked stepping up beside her.
Hermione nodded, not knowing what else to do.
"Silence." Snape said his voice only rising a slight bit so that he was heard above the commotion but wasn't anywhere near yelling.
Everyone went silent, the two girls untangled themselves and stood.
"You three will see the Headmistress," Snape said to the two girls that had been fighting and the boy that had been the object of their dispute.
"The rest of you all will leave the area before Miss Granger takes ten points from each of your houses for each person here."
As soon as he finished his speech all of the students scuttled away.
Hermione was a little taken aback at how easily he'd disbanded the mob that hadn't even listened to Hermione.
"How did you manage that?" Hermione asked when they got back to her desk.
"If you haven't noticed Granger everyone in this school either hates or is terrified of me, the group that was so merrily cheering on that spectacle were primarily made of second and third years. Students I never taught but have heard of the man who murdered the great Albus Dumbledore and are properly terrified of me." Snape snarled his mood had rapidly disintegrated, he'd forgotten how often such things occurred and it irritated him that Granger couldn't handle herself.
"The next time that happens I'm not bailing you out." Snape snapped and went to sit at a table that kept him within his bounds but was away from Hermione and her stunned expression.