She was woken the next morning to the dorm room door being slammed shut, she groaned loudly and pulled the blanket over her head. A lazy attempt to keep the sun from nudging her eyes open before she remembered what she had to look forward to that day. Made all the worse because her prediction for a lack of sleep had proven correct. Another long groan expressed her displeasure at the now-empty lodgings.
She had stayed up for hours thinking each gust of wind against the window was someone coming to summon her for questioning. And once she had calmed enough to fall asleep it was broken by nightmares where she was wandering in the dark looking for something... Anything to give a hint to where she was, but it never came. She would wake only to be shrouded in the same inky stillness of night which would just intensify her anxiety, causing her to have to start the calming process all over again.
With one last groan she pulled the blanket back down and opened her eyes to the day…
Wishing she didn't have to make the trek all the way down to the Great Hall for caffeine...
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Hermione stood outside of Snape's classroom door at the predetermined time of nine o'clock. She'd had hopes that she would be shipped off to be someone else's responsibility (preferably Hagrid's) but they were instantly dashed when she had gotten the summons while sipping her third cup of coffee. There was not going to be an easy out for her today... Snape would probably have her grading papers or working on some other monotonous task for hours on end.
At the very least, her worries over Draco's plans seemed to be for nothing. Nott had shown up looking tired but normal at breakfast. He didn't look to be experiencing any of the side effects of an Obliviation spell. There were no signs of disorientation or weakness... Just a crabby look that was quickly fought off with food, tea and jokes among friends.
Her musings were halted when Snape turned the corner and made his way down to meet her, with Draco closely at his heels. They both wore looks of extreme annoyance on their faces which she probably would have found comical if she wasn't about to spend an extended amount of time with them.
Snape flung open the door and gestured for her and Draco to enter. They quickly followed the unspoken command obediently. She stepped into the room and waited a few feet from the door to be told what to do while Draco made his way to the closest table and sat down. Their perpetually sullen professor slammed the door shut behind them and made his way up the aisle to his desk before finally turning and addressing her. "Are you going to stand there all day Miss Granger?"
"No sir..." She responded instantly and went to the table and seat she used during class out of habit. She kept her eyes down, sensing the man was in no mood for any type of insubordination- imagined or otherwise.
"You will be grading First Year essays until lunch Draco..." With a flick of his wand Snape sent a stack of parchments across the room that landed on the table along with a quill and inkwell. She kept her eyes forward but could hear Draco shuffling for a moment before settling down. Once the older wizard was adequately mollified that his instructions were being followed he returned his attention to her. His pitch black eyes narrowed menacingly before he turned around to the chalkboard behind him, which moved out of his way with another silent wave of his wand. Allowing her a view of a table which held a simmering cauldron. "And you are going to start by completing Part Two: Step One of the Polyjuice Potion. I am fully expecting a perfect batch to give to Professor Slughorn. Am I wrong in assuming this will not be a problem considering your history with it?"
She could feel the blush that worked its way into her cheeks at the obvious hinting at what had transpired during Second Year. "I... No. It will not be a problem, sir."
"Good. Then by all means… Proceed." He sneered before gesturing to the table and stepping back.
She kept her head high but her eyes on the cauldron as she made her way over, unwilling to risk making eye contact and cause even more of his foul mood to be directed at her. As she stood in front of the thick bubbling liquid she quickly took stock on the state of the potion and the rest of the laid out inventory. There was barely a half an hour's worth of work left for her to do, but it was still better than the mind numbing tedium of lines…
With a steady hand, she pulled the vial of boomslang skin from the wooden rack and measured out the correct amount of flakes. She could feel, rather than see, Snape standing off to the side scrutinizing her technique. When she was finished he did not object as she scooped up the pile, instead the heavy feeling from his presence lifted and she heard the creak from his chair as he sat at his desk.
A smile threatened to break out at the corners of her lips but she suppressed it and poured the ingredient in. She watched as the mud-like liquid engulfed the white powder, spreading it through the contents of the cauldron as if it had never been there in the first place. The foreboding feeling that it was a metaphor for the darkness spreading throughout the world at that very moment had her quickly grabbing the mortar and pestle to take out her worry on the predetermined amount of bicorn horn set out on a small dish.
Exactly thirty-two minutes later she stood in front of the cauldron feeling quite satisfied with the result of her time. The bubbles that came to the top of the thick mixture were barely forming before popping, exactly as they should be. She pocketed her wand and walked over to the side of Snape's desk, keeping quiet as he finished going over a page of some poor student's work.
He did not acknowledge her for so long she started to wonder if the reprimand would be worth it... A terrifying thought when his earlier mood was considered. Thankfully his quill was set down and he turned towards her, frowning. "Yes?"
"I am finished, sir."
"Oh? Well let's go see how you did then." Snape scoffed, as if he expected her to destroy all of his hard work, but she knew that couldn't be true. If he had so little faith in her abilities he never would have let her touch the potion... He stood and made his way over to the table and looked down his long nose at the contents inside of the cauldron. A moment of heavy silence filled the room. Even the scratching of Draco's quill stopped. A pair of dark eyes flicked to hers fleetingly before falling back to the potion. "Good enough, Miss Granger."
Her eyebrow raised in surprise at the validation that neared a compliment... "Thank you sir?"
He whipped back to face her and narrowed his eyes at the tone in her question, sending another blush to tint her neck and cheeks. "Back to your seat Miss Granger and five points for once again showing just how discourteous Gryffindors tend to be."
She gave a curt nod before hurrying to her seat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Draco smirking down at the table and shaking his head. He covered up the reaction by scribbling a note in the margin of the essay in front of him. Her cheeks flamed even darker at the silent chiding and she sighed in annoyance as she sat down.
"And now you can join us in correcting the woefully inept minds of the children in this school..." Snape snapped and sent a stack of essays to fall perfectly into a pile at her left side, quickly followed by an inkwell and quill.
Another nod was the only indication she gave that she had heard, afraid if she opened her mouth she would unintentionally lose more points for Gryffindor. She took the first essay and set it in front of her, glaring at the words that would not connect to make a coherent sentence in her mind. Her annoyance quickly turned into anger at the jibes the professor kept throwing her way, without a doubt trying to goad her into a negative response…
For a full ten minutes all she could do was stare at that first sentence uncomprehendingly and breathe as she tried to calm down. Eventually she was able to concentrate and started the task assigned to her. She lost herself in the ramblings of other students on the best preventive defenses to use against boggart infestations. Occasionally scratching in a critique or fixing a mistake.
The rest of the morning went by dreadfully slowly. When Snape finally signaled that they could stop she was left empathizing with the man. There was no conceivable way she could ever be a teacher... She wanted to track down Ernest Brawnsworth, herself, and scream that Fire Crabs were not a simple solution to "any magical plague". It was no wonder why he thought they were all a bunch of moronic idiots.
"You both may take forty-five minutes for lunch." The man said as a way of dismissal before resuming the work on the desk in front of him, indicating that Draco had somehow not managed to finish his much smaller stack.
Hermione did not have to be told twice. She scrambled to the door and slipped out into the hallway in a matter of seconds, intent on savoring every second of time she did not have to spend in that room. The tension radiating from the man at the front was only compounded by the fact that she could feel Draco's eyes burrowing into the back of her head at random intervals.
She rushed in the direction of the Great Hall, hoping she might catch Ginny or Harry before they headed off to the Quidditch Pitch for practice. She wanted to verify that Ginny had given him the bag that contained the Cloak and Map, along with a hastily scribbled note that confirmed her "fears" of coming up empty-handed. Her desire had been to hand it over personally but he had not woken up early enough.
The sound of someone quickly running up behind her had her automatically deviating her course so she was walking closer to the wall. A quick glance over her shoulder had her faltering for a moment before she surged on ahead. It was, of course, Draco... Who skidded to stop a few feet ahead of her and then matched her frenzied pace. "Well hello there..."
"What do you want? You know it isn't safe for us to speak outside of the Room of Requirement! What if..." She snapped.
"What if Potter mysteriously sees us together?" He finished for her, smirking at the way her lips smashed into a thin line. She could tell he was trying to rile her, after six years of having to deal with taunts from the boy it was easy to spot. The only difference was instead of the usual maliciousness, the words were much more playful.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, sure that she looked like a poor imitation of the ill-tempered professor they had just abandoned. "Yes..."
"So what you are saying is that you will not feel comfortable, even if we are alone, outside of the Room?"
"Shouldn't you feel the same way? Considering what you are willing to risk to make sure things stay a secret?" She challenged.
He stared at the ground as they walked, keeping himself close to the other wall. Making sure there was a respectable distance between the two of them in case someone happened to cross their path. "What if there was an adequate excuse?"
"And what possible reason would there ever be for the two of us to be alone together, Draco?"
"I do not know... But I am sure if we both put our minds to it, we could come up with something."
She sighed at the absurdity of his statement but stopped in the middle of the last corridor they had before the chances of students running into them became more likely. "Why?"
"No reason. I was just talking hypotheticals." He said non-committedly. Sounding rather like Fred and George had last year, right before they were going to unleash another new invention on the unsuspecting student body. He didn't stop his advancement and called over his shoulder. "See you after lunch..."
"Where are you going?" She called after him knowing it was useless as he took the left, heading down the corridor that would take him to his dormitory, instead of the right that would lead to the Great Hall.
A quickly muttered string of obscenities followed in her wake as she continued on her way. Vowing to herself that she would not worry about whatever Draco was off doing. It was a pointless endeavor that would only stress her out more. For all she knew he was going to the bathroom.
And she had almost convinced herself of that scenario by the time she joined the large raucous crowd gathered together to eat... A quick glance at the Gryffindor table gave her some relief when she saw the whole Quidditch team were sitting together. Not a completely unusual sight considering they would be heading out to practice after they were all done loading up for the rigorous physical activity required of them. She started forward but couldn't stop herself from scanning the Slytherin table for a quick inventory…
Theodore Nott was the only other Sixth Year missing from their group...