The Legend of Soggy Bottom
Summary: Needing some time to regroup, Hermione travels to America to join a field crew observing the North American Sasquatch. She finds more than she bargained for.
Rating: PG 13 - for language
A/N: This is the 2010 SS/HG Exchange gift I wrote for hilaritasetlux. Hermione is burned out. She took one Master's too many, and now all she wants is to do something that doesn't require a lot of thought but does require time spent outdoors. She moves to America and gets a job monitoring the magical bigfoot population in the swamps of Louisiana. She is also surprised to discover that Severus Snape is the leader of the field crew. Lots of muddy, watery fun ensues as Hermione finds it unexpectedly hard to give up researching and unexpectedly easy to fall in love!
As always, I do not own Harry Potter or anything in the Harry Potter universe, I'm simply playing with them for a bit.
The Legend of Soggy Bottom
The weathered dock groaned as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Small beads of perspiration dripped from her hairline, down her neck and lower, causing the thin cotton shirt to cling to her back. Hermione swiped a hand across her brow and considered casting another Cooling Charm upon herself before deciding it would most likely be as ineffective as the first had been in the face of such oppressive humidity.
For the first time since she'd made her split-second decision a week ago, Hermione was having second thoughts. It had seemed like such a brilliant idea when Master Thornberry had suggested taking a sabbatical after she'd finished her latest apprenticeship. She had spent nearly every day of the last two years learning from the Master of Charms; and had grown to consider him a close friend. In fact, Hermione considered all of her former Masters, of which there were now four, friends.
Master Thornberry had postulated during one of their daily afternoon teas that completing four apprenticeships in the span of ten years would have to be exhausting, even for a witch or wizard as talented as his dear Miss Granger. Caught in a weak moment, Hermione had admitted that she was beginning to feel a little burnt out. She had told her Master that none of the employment offers she had received had felt right. What she really wanted, she had admitted over a particularly sinful chocolate-dipped raspberry biscuit, was something that didn't require advanced calculations and complicated feats of wand use. Something almost mindless. A few months should do it, she had said, just long enough to recharge her brain cells and clear her head. Master Thornberry had nodded in his understanding way and told her he might be able to help.
Which was how Hermione found herself half-way across the world, about to join a field crew in the swamp lands of Louisiana in order to observe and study the migratory habits of the North American Sasquatch.
Something slipped out of the long marsh grass on the far riverbank and splashed into the murky water. Hermione slid her hand into the pocket of her cargo pants and grasped her wand as a long, dark shape glided through the water and under the dock.
There was an ever-increasing rumbling noise coming from up the river. Hermione absentmindedly swatted at an insect that was hovering near her face and watched as a small outboard approached. The noise from the engine decreased as the sole occupant steered the boat toward the dock. He cut the engine off completely and drifted the last few feet until he could reach out and grasp the dock.
He appeared younger than Hermione, well-tanned and blond. "Hello. You the new intern, Harmony?"
His accent was American, and she was feeling charitable. "It's Hermione."
"Huh. That's going to be a tough one." He gave her a smile so blindingly white that it would have rivaled Gilderoy Lockhart's. He stood and reached up to offer her his hand, his feet spread apart, knees slightly bent to adjust for the gentle movements of the boat. "I'm Jesse. Let's get you back to base camp before the Boss Man starts to wonder if I capsized. In you go."
Jesse wiggled his fingers and tilted his head toward the front of the boat. With a deep breath, Hermione grasped his hand and very, very carefully stepped off the dock. Once she was safely settled, she returned Jesse's smile with one of her own.
"Sorry I was running late. We ran into some trouble back at camp."
She watched him fiddle with the outboard motor. "What happened?"
The motor roared to life, and suddenly, the boat was in motion. Jesse said something as he steered them into a turn so they could return to camp the same way he had come, but the motor was too loud, and all she caught was something that sounded a bit like "foggy autumn," which made no sense whatsoever.
Once they were facing the direction Jesse wanted them to travel in, he throttled down the motor. "One of our subjects was spotted rummaging through the garbage of a local family. Three witnesses, and one of them discharged a shotgun-several times. Boss Man and half the team spent most of the morning working on damage control, while the rest of us were up all night tending to an injured Sasquatch, which basically amounted to picking buckshot out of a huge, furry ass."
"Is it all right?"
Jesse gave her another smile. "Oh, yeah. His butt will be a bit tender for a day or two, but our Healer fixed him up. He's a lucky guy. This is the third- no, fourth-time he's been shot, and so far, no life-threatening injuries."
She was about to ask how often things like that happened when Jesse gestured toward the front of the boat. "That's where we're heading. There is a decent-sized tribe living in the Honey Island swamp, and our camp is located within walking distance of the grouping."
She told herself that the icy shiver that danced across her skin had nothing to do with the way the cypress trees and their exposed roots seemed to close in around the small boat.
"You don't want to get lost out here," Jesse warned as if sensing her shift in mood. "The bayou can be a dangerous place if you're not prepared. Quicksand, 'gators and cottonmouths, just for starters. Don't worry, we've got a full-time Healer on site, and a fully-stocked first-aid kit. The Boss Man insisted on it when he took over."
Hermione didn't find that nearly as reassuring as Jesse probably meant it to be.
~oOo~
She trailed behind Jesse, carefully picking her way through the swamp. The weight of her pack was heavy across her shoulders. Hermione almost didn't notice when they reached their destination.
The camp consisted of several tents of various sizes and colors, and in the center of them all, a wooden shack that looked as if it might fall over at the first sign of a stiff breeze.
"Over there is the privy." Jesse pointed toward the smallest tent, placed just inside the tree line. "It's a one-seater, I'm afraid. Great for privacy, not so great if it's Fiona's turn to cook." He flashed another brilliant smile to show that he was joking, then gestured toward another tent, this one larger than the last.
"That's the showers. Communal, two shower heads, curtains and all that. There's a sign-up sheet on the door."
They came to a stop in front of the shack. "There's a rotating roster for duties around the camp, but if you can cook at all, don't be surprised if you end up on kitchen detail more nights than not." Jesse looked into her eyes, suddenly earnest. "Can you? Cook, I mean?"
"Careful how you answer that. He nearly proposed to the last gal who was here, and all she did was bake him an apple pie." A pretty brunette stepped out of the shack, clutching an overly large box to her chest, and let the screen door swing shut behind her. "Hi, I'm Fiona."
"Hello, I'm-"
The screen door flew open, barely missing Fiona. "Evelyn needs the boat to pick up more supplies. Is Jesse back yet?"
The voice was impossibly familiar. Even as Hermione began to shake her head in denial, Severus Snape stepped out of the shack. He looked every bit as shocked to see her as she was to see him. "You!"
"Me? You!" Hermione countered, hands on her hips.
"What are you doing here?" Both voices rang out at nearly the same moment.
Jesse delicately coughed into his hand-sounding a bit like a male Umbridge-reminding Hermione and Severus that they weren't alone. "So. You two know each other, then?"
Severus drew himself up to his full height and glared at the younger man. "Obviously."
Even without his frock coat and teaching robes, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and denims, he still managed to look intimidating, Hermione thought.
"Great. Then I'll let Evelyn know the boat has returned, Fiona can get back to wherever she was going, and you can finish showing Harmony where to put her stuff, Boss Man." And just like that, the other two scattered, leaving Hermione and Severus alone.
"Harmony?" He was looking at her as if he were studying a particularly perplexing specimen in his lab. Hermione took advantage of the moment to do the same. He looked different than the last time she'd seen him, all those years ago. The harsh, pinched stress lines around his eyes and mouth had smoothed somewhat, leaving him looking younger than before, closer to his own age.
She shrugged. "I've been called worse. 'Boss Man'?"
"Yours isn't the only name that Jesse has had difficulties verbalizing, I'm afraid." His tone was unlike anything she had heard from him before. It took Hermione a moment to realize he seemed to find the situation humorous and that-judging by the way his lips seemed to tilt upward, ever so slightly, on the left side-he was inviting her to share in the joke.
She felt her own lips begin to twitch in response. "I take it to mean that you are in charge here, then?"
His arms lowered, his stance losing some of the earlier tension. "So it would seem. Most of the time."
Hermione looked around the quiet camp, surrounded by a cypress forest. It was almost pretty in the light of day, although Jesse's earlier warning stayed in the back of her mind. "How long have you been here, Professor?"
Did he-surely he didn't just flinch.
He began to walk away from the shack, a motion of his fingers indicating that he wished for her to follow. "As I haven't taught for over a decade, I do believe that title is no longer appropriate."
Since his stride was nearly twice as long as hers, Hermione had to move quickly to catch up with him. "You may have noticed that we tend to be rather ... informal here." He wasn't looking directly at her, but Hermione felt that he was watching her, just the same. "The others might think it strange if you don't address me by my given name."
"Easy enough. Severus." Saying his name was, for want of a better term, strange. To her, he had been the caustic Professor Snape for so long that she suspected it would take a few tries before such familiarity would seem normal.
Her mind cast about for something else to say.
"Is this where you've been since ... since you left?" Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. The Severus Snape she remembered would not welcome her prying into his personal life. Hermione braced herself for the scathing onslaught she was sure to receive.
It didn't come. Instead, his tone was civil, almost conversational. "You always were far too inquisitive for your own good. To answer your question, I've been studying our furry friends for just over two years now. Before that ... is unimportant."
They stopped in front of a small tent, only slightly larger than the privy Jesse had pointed to earlier. The tent was shabby and patched and had obviously seen better days.
"It's the worst of the lot, I'm afraid, but it is the only unoccupied tent in camp." Severus smirked. "At least you won't be forced to share with Potter and Weasley this time."
With a nod, he walked away, leaving her standing outside her new home.
The interior of the tent wasn't as bad as Hermione had feared it would be. The canvas walls were patched but appeared to be leak-free. It was barely large enough to contain a battered dresser, an old desk and chair and a single bed. It was spartan, but with the addition of a transfigured bookshelf, it was livable.
Hermione met the rest of the field crew at dinner. At first she worried that she might not fit in because the other interns were so very young-barely a year or two out of school-but Tegan, Andrew, Max, Jesse and Fiona were welcoming and friendly. Evelyn, the camp Healer, was a charming gentleman a few years older than Hermione. He was also, to her great delight, a shameless flirt.
Then there was Severus.
Hermione couldn't remember ever seeing him so amiable. Several times during the meal, when someone said something particularly amusing, she looked up to find him-not smiling, surely? Perhaps that smirkish up-tilt on the right side of his lips was a smile on Snape's face.
When someone asked how Hermione and Severus knew each other, he merely shook his head and said it was ancient history.
Later, as she lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake her, Hermione thought she could understand why he didn’t want to tell the others of their time at Hogwarts. If her former professor had crossed the Atlantic to get away from the notoriety and memories, then it would make sense that he wouldn’t want to dredge up old times.
Her last waking thought was that she still didn’t know what Snape was doing here, specifically. Hermione’s dreams were filled with visions of Snape in front of a classroom full of students, covered in gore and up to his elbows in the carcass of a dead Sasquatch, calmly demonstrating the proper technique for organ harvesting.
~oOo~
Breakfast was a strange affair. The eggs were somehow simultaneously runny in the center and burnt black on the outer edges. Jesse caught her eye and mouthed, "Fiona cooked," before helping himself to another piece of suspiciously pale toast. Hermione noted that Severus limited himself to a mug of coffee and a piece of fruit, and she chose to follow suit.
Evelyn caught her eye and sent her a salacious wink. Hermione suspected his flirting had less to do with her stellar good looks than with the facts that she was new and he was bored. Still, it amused her, and Hermione caught herself winking back.
Soon enough, the breakfast dishes were clean, an Evanesco was used on the contents of the skillet, and the crew was ready to head out for the day. Jesse and Max carried a large lidded basket between the two of them. Hermione was handed a child's pail containing a pair of rubber gloves and a spade. When she asked what they were for, Tegan laughed and told her she'd find out soon enough.
Fiona waved them off with a reminder that lunch would be ready by one and not to be late. Severus had disappeared earlier. The other interns started off, laughing and joking with each other as they walked down a worn path in pairs, leaving her to follow behind. She knew it was silly to feel left out, but a twinge of self pity reared its ugly head before she firmly clamped down on the feeling.
"It pains my heart to see you looking so sad, mon chere."
Hermione tripped over an exposed cypress root and would have ended up face first in the mud if not for the masculine hand wrapped around her upper arm. She righted herself and turned to thank her rescuer.
Evelyn shrugged and gestured toward the others, disappearing into the woods ahead of them. "Shall we?"
They continued down the path for a moment, Hermione being extremely careful about where she put her feet. "I wasn't. Sad, I mean. Not really."
She peeked up at Evelyn from the corner of her eye. "I was just ... thinking."
"Ah. Heavy thoughts?" He pointed toward another root so that she could avoid it.
"Heavy enough," she admitted, feeling silly once more.
"About our fearless leader?"
"What?" Realizing her exclamation had been loud enough to carry through the trees for some way, Hermione immediately lowered her voice and tried again. "What? No. Why would you even ask me that?"
Evelyn lifted a low-hanging overhead branch so that she could duck under it. "You two have this mysterious shared history. You've reappeared in his life-unexpected, but not unwelcome from what I can tell-following him to another continent to do so. It's not unreasonable to assume he might be in your thoughts. Especially since I observed you looking for him before you left camp earlier."
"I didn't follow him!" Again, she was louder than she felt comfortable with, although her voice didn't carry as far this time. She stopped in the middle of the path, relieved that the others had were long out of sight, and turned her full attention to Evelyn. "I didn't even know Severus was here until I arrived at the camp."
"So, you and he aren't ..."
Before she could answer, a twig snapped somewhere between them and camp. Severus appeared on the trail, a small Muggle foam cooler hovering along behind him.
In that split second, Hermione realized how she and Evelyn, standing so close together-alone, in the middle of the swamp-might appear to someone, and she took a step away from him before her mind even had a chance to register what her body was doing. She could feel both men looking at her, but neither chose to comment on her move.
The silence stretched for a long moment, then Severus turned the focus of his attention to Evelyn. "What are you doing down here?" His tone reminded her of her youth, being caught loitering in the halls at Hogwarts between classes.
"As I've nothing pressing on my agenda today, I thought I'd offer my assistance. It is collection day, is it not?" Evelyn gestured toward the cooler gently bobbing up and down behind Severus.
"How ... generous of you." The look on his face seemed to indicate that he thought it was anything but.
"Unless you'd rather I went back to camp, mon ami?"
Severus shook his head, that barely discernible up-tilt of his lips telling her that he was amused. "That won't be necessary. An extra hand is always appreciated."
Hermione couldn't help but think that she might have missed something important in their exchange.
The strange trio continued down the trail in near silence. Before long Hermione noticed a strange odor hidden beneath the damp, musty aroma of the swamp. The smell began to grow in intensity, tickling at her nose and the back of her throat until she could almost taste it.
"What is that?"
They paused, and Severus lifted a finger to his lips. "That is why we're here," he whispered, then used that finger to point to something ahead of them.
At first, she didn't see what he was talking about. All she saw was an opening between the cypresses, filled with lumps of tall marsh grasses, vines, and more Spanish moss covered trees. Then one of the lumps stood up and turned to face them, and Hermione was confronted with the deepest pair of brown eyes she'd ever seen.
The Sasquatch was smaller than she expected, covered in russet brown fur, and she had the strangest urge to see if it was as soft as it looked. Then a huge clump of moss on a nearby tree detached itself, and she realized the first must have been a juvenile, because the new one had to have been well over two meters tall.
Someone touched her shoulder. She turned, expecting to find Evelyn, and nearly bumped into Severus. With his hand on her arm, he gently guided her toward a large fallen tree. Once they were close, she was able to see the others, mostly hidden behind the log.
Hermione joined them, crouching down so she could observe the creatures without drawing attention to herself.
"There you are. We were beginning to think you'd managed to get lost," whispered Max as he took the bucket from her hands and set it beside the basket he and Jesse had carried.
"If you thought she was lost, why didn't any of you go back to look for her?" Severus hissed.
"We didn't really-it's just a figure of speech?"
Tegan rolled her eyes and nudged Max out of her way so that she could move closer to Severus. "Willow still hasn't given birth, but she looks ready to go into labor any minute. I think it will be today."
He nodded, appearing worried as he scanned the surrounding area for a glimpse of the Sasquatch in question. "If the baby hasn't been delivered by the time we usually return to camp, two of us will need to stay out here overnight, to keep an eye on things."
"I'll stay." Evelyn's expression was grim. He must have seen the look on Hermione's face, because he leaned closer to explain. "This is Willow's second pregnancy, but she had severe complications last year, and the young died during the delivery. We're not supposed to interact with them any more than strictly necessary, but none of us want to stand idly by when we can do something to help."
Hermione understood completely-her heart aching at thought of another lost child. She reached out and put her hand on Evelyn's arm, then looked up to find Severus watching her. When her gaze met his, he looked away.
~oOo~
The day seemed to stretch on forever, and more than once, Hermione regretted her decision to join the field crew.
Even as she sat with her back against the fallen log, sweat and muck dripping down her face and back, she knew her bad attitude had more to do with the smell and the dirt than with the work and the people here. Things would look better once she returned to camp and had a shower. At least, she hoped they would.
As she stared down at her filthy hands, she wrinkled her nose and decided things really couldn't look any worse.
The bucket, she discovered very early on, was for collecting Sasquatch droppings. Tegan would hide behind the log with her Omnioculars, searching for signs of one of the furry creatures going about its business. As the newest person on the team, it was Hermione's job to Disillusion herself, then scamper out onto the swamplands and scoop up bigfoot poo.
At first, she had been fairly certain the others were pulling her leg. "Seriously, you want me to fetch poop?" Everyone had assured her that this was, in fact, a real job. Severus had explained that one of their tasks was to monitor the feeding habits of the Sasquatch tribe, and what better way to see what the little buggers were eating then to examine their feces?
Each bucketful was brought back to Jesse and Max, who carefully bagged and labeled it, then put it inside their basket so that it could be examined later at the camp. Then her bucket and spade were carefully sterilized with a spell, and Hermione sat back to wait for next mission.
The first time Tegan had sent her out, she had pointed to a large, gray-furred creature. "Albus is getting ready to go; you can tell from the way he's shifting from foot to foot. Fiona calls it his potty dance."
Choosing to ignore the entire utterance of the phrase "potty dance" for the moment, Hermione focused on the important detail. "Albus? Who came up with that name?"
Tegan lowered the Omnioculars and thought for a moment. "I think it was Severus. I got here just a month or so before he took over, and up until then we just called them by the official Ministry-approved designations. Albus is something like NAS1978 ... G, I think. I'm sure you can see why the nickname thing stuck."
"Did Severus name all of them?" Hermione raised herself up onto her knees to peek over the side of the log.
"Oh, no. Just Albus and Minerva. He said they reminded him of old friends. I picked the name Willow," she announced proudly.
"How many of them are there?"
"Thirteen. Eleven adults, two young ones, with number fourteen due any day now. Bad news, hun. Albus is done, and you're up."
Hermione's nose itched something fierce, but there was no way she was going to scratch it with her hands in the state that they were. She envied Andrew, who had spent the day helping Severus and Evelyn and yet still managed to look clean. Pristine, even. Hermione suspected there might have been spellwork involved.
She detected a hint of movement from the corner of her eye and turned her head to investigate the shimmering air next to her. Severus and Evelyn appeared as they canceled their Concealing Charms. Severus handed a small vial off to Andrew, who labeled and stored it in the cooler. Hermione knew the vial contained blood, carefully drawn from a stealthily Stunned Sasquatch, as she had taken a moment to quietly ask earlier in the day. Andrew didn't know what the blood was for, but he figured it was something the Ministry wanted. He told her that only Severus or Evelyn dealt with the blood samples after they reached camp, unlike the other things the idiots at the Magical Creatures department insisted on in their weekly reports.
Curiosity had her wondering what the Ministry wanted with Sasquatch blood, but she figured she'd wait until they were back at the camp before she asked Severus about it.
"It will be dusk soon. We need to start heading back, and I'm still missing a sample. Has anyone seen Soggy Bottom today?" Rather than crouching behind the log like the rest of them, Severus stood tall with arms crossed and a classic Snape expression of annoyance on his face.
Soggy Bottom?
Jesse leaned closer- making sure to leave enough space between them that she wouldn't accidentally touch him, she noticed- and whispered, "I told you about him yesterday, remember? Silly furball got himself shot in the ass."
"Oh. But why is he called Soggy Bottom?" she whispered back.
"Because he perpetually reeks as if he's been marinating in a puddle of wet, rotten slop, Hermione." She looked up to find Severus standing over her, one eyebrow raised pointedly as if to silently ask if she were done interrupting him.
"We don't have time to look for him tonight. Max, when we get back, activate his tracking charm and make sure he's still in the area. If he's left the swamp again, we'll need to know." He looked to Tegan, and his harsh expression softened in a way that Hermione had never seen from him before. Her breath caught in her throat for some unknown reason.
"How is Willow? Any sign of the young one yet?"
Tegan shook her head in reply. Severus thought for a moment, then turned toward Evelyn. "Are you still willing to stay and keep an eye on her?"
"Absolutely."
"Any volunteers to stay with him?"
Before anyone else had a chance, Hermione spoke up, "I will."
Evelyn smiled at her even as Severus shook his head. "No. Someone else." Max raised his hand, and Severus nodded, obviously considering the matter closed.
Hermione didn't agree. She did, however, have enough sense not to protest too loudly in front of the others. She waited until they were making their way back along the trail to camp to broach the subject.
"Why didn't you want me to stay behind with Evelyn?"
Severus didn't even slow down, forcing Hermione to hurry after him. "You've barely been here a day, and you're already questioning my decisions. How very like you."
"That's not even-you're changing the subject. Why?"
Severus stopped suddenly, holding out his arm to keep her from moving on, letting the rest of the field crew continue on ahead of them. "Simply put, you aren't qualified."
"Not qualified?" Hermione huffed. "I know you've had no reason to follow my post-Hogwarts career, but I can assure you that I am more than capable of-"
Severus interrupted her. "I am fully aware of your numerous academic accomplishments, Miss Granger."
"It's Hermione, remember?" She shook her head, refusing to let herself get distracted again. "If you know, then why did you say I'm not qualified?"
"You may be a Master in your chosen fields, but your skills in Charms, Arithmancy, Runes or Transfiguration won't help you if the infant is breach. If the mother goes into distress, what will you do? What experience do you have in animal husbandry?"
"I-you're right."
"Of course I am."
Hermione sighed and began to walk once more. "And so modest, as well. It's been a long day. I'm going back to camp to find something to eat, and then I'm crawling into my tent and passing out."
"You might want to think about taking a shower, Hermione. I don't know if you're aware of this, but you smell like shit."
~oOo~
Something furry tickled against her cheek. Hermione wrinkled her nose and turned her head away from Crookshanks' attentions, more asleep than not. Then the smell began to register.
"Damn it, Crooks, I told you not to play with dead things," she mumbled, trying to burrow further under her blanket to get away from the wet, rotten stench. Something tangled in her hair, tugging on it. Hard.
Hermione's eyes snapped open, nearly blind in the darkness, as she remembered that Crookshanks had passed on nearly two years ago and she was currently sleeping in a tent in a swamp.
A swamp populated by massive, furry creatures that could rip a human apart if they were so inclined.
Hermione did what any sane person would do in such a situation. She screamed.
Her attacker issued a low, chest-rumbling bellow that might have been its version of a girly scream and fell backwards. Unfortunately, its hand was still embedded in the mess that was her hair, left to air dry on its own after her late night shower.
Both of them ended up on the floor, arms and legs flailing as they tangled in her bedding.
She scrambled, trying to get enough leverage to reach the top of the bed and her wand, which had been under her pillow. Huge hands swung wildly, knocking her against the bed hard enough that she couldn't draw in any air.
Not that she needed to; the creature was still making its horrid noises. If anything was going to draw the rest of the field crew's attention, that would.
The creature stood, tried to get away, tripped over the sheet wrapped around its feet and went down. Hermione saw it coming, like a felled tree heading straight for her, and rolled away from the bed toward safety. She heard the sickening crunch of the bed frame snapping under the creature, then the canvas above her head rippled and fell as the tent collapsed.
This is it. This is how I'm going to die. Not at the hand of a dark wizard, not in a spell accident, but by being squished to death by a rampaging, stinky, overgrown teddy bear.
Oh, hell no, that is not going to be my obituary.
Hermione began to scream for help in earnest, dragging herself forward on her belly toward what had been the front of the tent. At least, she hoped she was heading the right way-considering the current circumstances, she wouldn't be surprised if she'd managed to get turned around.
She could hear the creature behind her, thrashing around as it tried to get free of the downed tent, and for a tiny moment she sympathized with the beast. Then the furry bugger stepped on the back of her leg and all sympathy vanished.
There was yelling coming from outside the canvas prison. Hermione crawled faster, cursing her lack of a wand and the stench that was threatening to asphyxiate her in the enclosed space.
Hands closed around her forearm, pulling her free of the tent and hauling her up against someone solid and strong. The world spun, and Hermione had to shield her eyes from the brightness of several combined Lumos spells.
"What is it?" someone shouted.
Severus growled, his chest vibrating against her cheek. "Soggy Bottom. I recognize that scent. What in Hades is he doing in there?"
The others surrounded the undulating tent.
"He attacked-attacked me," Hermione gasped.
"No. Soggy wouldn't attack anyone," Andrew protested. "He likes people, he doesn't hurt them."
"He usually stays away from the camp. Something must have drawn him in. Something ..." Severus' arms tightened around her. He sniffed the air, then lowered his head to bury his nose in her hair. Hermione felt her knees start to buckle at the sensation of his lips brushing against her ear when he spoke. "Something new. You."
He lifted his head and scowled at the others, shifting Hermione's mostly dead weight in his arms to keep them both upright. "Get him out of there and Stun him. I need a blood sample anyway."
Severus slid his hand under her chin and lifted her face toward his. For an absurd second, Hermione thought he was going to kiss her. "Are you hurt? Do I need to send for Evelyn?"
"No, I'm all right, just a bit shaken up." Soggy Bottom let loose with a blood-curdling howl that made the hair on her arms stand up. She tried to push herself away from Severus' chest and very nearly crumpled to the ground as everything began to get fuzzy.
"She's in shock."
"Of course I'm in shock, a giant furry creature just tried to eat me," she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't form. Severus cursed under his breath, then picked her up off the ground and carried her away.
~oOo~
When Hermione woke up, she sat upright in bed so fast her head spun. She was in an unfamiliar bed in a strange tent, but at least she wasn't being molested by a creature called Soggy Bottom.
This time.
"Feeling better?"
Hermione managed not to scream, but it was a close thing. Her hand did shoot under the pillow in search of her wand, but her grasping fingers came up empty.
Severus arched a brow at her antics, then pointed toward the nightstand beside the bed, where her wand was clearly visible. He was lounging in a large armchair, bare feet up on a padded stool. Hermione was surprised to see that he appeared to be wearing lounge pants and a robe.
She rubbed her eyes, then slid her hand under the cover to pinch her leg, convinced that she had to be dreaming.
The pain was real, and so was this strange, new casual Severus.
A quick glance down confirmed that she, too, was in her pajamas. Awkward. She pulled the blanket up to her chest and tucked it under her arms.
"I've felt worse. What time is it?"
Severus glanced toward the clock on his desk. "A quarter to six."
"Ah. Is-is he all right?" Hermione picked at a piece of fuzz on the blanket.
"You mean Soggy Bottom?" At her nod, he settled back in his chair and made himself more comfortable. "He's fine. It took a bit of effort to extract him from the tent, but once the Stunner wore off, he was up and on his way, none the worse for wear. Your tent, I'm afraid, was not as fortunate. Jesse said he was reasonably sure he could repair it, but he wanted to wait until it was light out to try."
"That's good to hear. About Soggy Bottom. And the tent, I suppose. Did you figure out why he was in my tent in the first place?" And, more important, what were the chances that he'd be returning to do it again?
"I suspect that he followed you back from the field last night."
"Me, specifically? Why would he do that?"
Severus smirked. "Because you remind him of his mother."
Her mouth dropped open. "I what?"
"Relax, Hermione. That wasn't some snide commentary on your appearance." He made no effort to hide his amusement. "I noticed last night that you wear a scent that contains notes of ginger, vanilla and cinnamon."
Now she was confused. "His mother smelled like a Snickerdoodle?"
"Several years ago, before I arrived here, one of the females of the tribe went into labor with her first child. The field crew at the time was without a Healer. They could only watch, in growing horror, as the mother went into distress. Hours passed, and she grew weaker and weaker until finally the baby was born, silent and unresponsive. The field crew was positive it was stillborn. The rest of the tribe refused to go near the dead bodies, and the field crew was trying to decide what they should do when the baby cried for the first time."
Hermione swallowed hard, engrossed in the story Severus was telling.
"Since the infant had been abandoned by his tribe, one of the field crew decided that she couldn't leave the helpless newborn to die and, against Ministry policy, took him in. She was the cook, and from what I understand, Soggy Bottom was a permanent fixture in the mess shack for nearly a year. Eventually, he grew too big to keep in the camp and was reintroduced to the tribe that had earlier abandoned him. Even though he's returned to the wild, Soggy Bottom continues to be fascinated by people."
"I reminded him of his foster mother." When it was put like that, Hermione found it difficult to harbor any ill will toward the creature that had destroyed her tent the night before.
"That is my theory, yes."
"That's sort of sweet. But I don't remember seeing him with the rest of the tribe yesterday, so I don't understand how he could have managed to get close enough to catch my scent in the first place."
Severus shifted, and Hermione's attention was drawn to the hint of pale chest that was exposed when his robe loosened. "As you've noticed, Soggy Bottom has a particularly unpleasant odor, more so than any of the other members of his tribe. While they tolerate his presence, they do not welcome it. Nor do any of the other groups that tribe encounters when they go on their yearly migration, making it impossible for him to find a mate. Because of this, he has a habit of staying hidden in the trees, upwind of the rest. Often, he'll come out if he sees us, but we try not to encourage his fascination with humans for his own good."
"Of course." Hermione worried her lower lip for a moment. "It's just so sad. He's probably lonely." There had to be something she could do to help.
Another glance at the clock told her it was going to be light soon. Yesterday, they had all met by seven for breakfast. Surely Severus would want to get ready soon, wouldn't he? Which would mean that she should probably get out of bed.
His bed.
Oh, yes. Completely and utterly awkward.
She looked around the tent and, for the first time, noticed there was a second room. Through the doorway, she could see a lab table and several cauldrons. One of them had a fire beneath it, and the contents appeared to be bubbling. Hermione frowned. Why would Severus have a potions lab in his tent when there was a fully stocked set-up in the shack that he and Evelyn both used?
Unless he was brewing something he didn't want the others to see?
Her gaze skittered toward him, only to find that Severus was watching her quite intently. She averted her eyes and found herself looking at a large, folding privacy screen. The edge of something peeked out from behind the side.
"Is that-is that a bathtub?"
She could have sworn that a flash of panic raced across his face before they went suspiciously blank.
"It is! The rest of us have to make do with those horrid showers that have virtually no water pressure at all, and you have a bathtub hidden back there!"
Severus was out of his chair and across the room to the side of the bed before she had a chance to blink. "Quiet! Do you want the entire camp to hear you?" he hissed.
Hermione considered the situation. A sly grin crept over her lips. "What's it worth to you, not having anyone else know about your little secret?"
His eyes narrowed. "Are you attempting to blackmail me, Hermione?"
"And if I am?"
Severus leaned closer, looming over her. She was sure that he was just about to explain, in precise yet menacing detail, just why that was a foolish idea when the flap at the entrance of his tent was shoved aside and Evelyn entered.
"We've got a problem." Evelyn stopped just inside the tent, his eyes darting from Severus to Hermione, who was clearly dressed in her night clothes and in Severus' bed.
"Of course there is a problem. There is always a problem," Severus growled, stalking away from the bed to his dresser. He began to pull out clothing, slamming drawers shut as he went. With a glare for Hermione, he disappeared behind the privacy screen to change.
"Did I ... uh, interrupt something?"
There really was no good way to answer that. Even if she told him about Soggy Bottom and her destroyed tent, that wouldn't explain why she and Severus were so intensely focused upon one another when Evelyn walked in.
Thankfully, she didn't need to come up with a response because Severus beat her to the punch.
"Did Willow deliver?" he called from behind the screen.
"A healthy boy, less than an hour ago."
"No complications?" Severus appeared, buttoning his shirt. Hermione hurriedly looked away, only to find Evelyn watching her.
"Not a one."
"Then why are you bothering me?"
Evelyn finally turned his attention away from Hermione to focus on Severus. "It's the Ministry. They've sent a representative for a surprise inspection. The gentleman Apparated into the shack five minutes ago. I just happened to be preparing a cup of herbal tea before bed when he arrived."
Severus let loose a string of foul language. "And I thought Fudge was the epitome of Ministry incompetence. These bloody Americans ..." He turned to glare at her. "And you. Not a word about last night to our visitor. The last thing we need is for someone to get the mistaken idea that one of our tribe is dangerous. As a matter of fact, find Jesse and make sure he gets your tent in order before the Ministry idiot sees it, if he hasn't already."
Then he and Evelyn slipped through the tent flap and Hermione was left alone.
~oOo~
A week later, Hermione stealthily crept through camp under the cover of darkness. She hesitated outside Severus' tent, indecision causing her to worry her lower lip with her teeth. Her original plan had been to slip inside the tent unannounced, but now she was unsure.
Severus wasn't really the type of person who appreciated surprises. If anything, he was the type to hex first and ask questions later, and Hermione was absolutely positive that she didn't want to be on the wrong end of Severus Snape's wand.
The tent flap parted, and Severus stood there, his form a backlit silhouette. "Are you planning to stand out here all night?"
She nearly replied that she was, thank you, but Hermione suspected that he would close the tent up and leave her outside if she did.
Instead, she slipped past him into the tent. There was an open bottle of wine on the small table next to his chair. And two glasses.
Hermione turned around to face Severus, who was standing near the opening of the tent, watching her. "Were you expecting someone?"
"I've been expecting you for days now, and you are fully aware of why."
Oops. Apparently, he had been aware of all the questions she'd been asking around camp. She had thought she was being discreet, but then again, Severus had been a spy for nearly two decades.
"Why were you harassing Evelyn about the samples we collect for the Ministry?" He had his arms folded across his chest and was looking down his nose at her. She told herself he couldn't intimidate her anymore. Much.
Regardless, he'd managed to put her on the defensive. "I wasn't harassing Evelyn. I just had some questions."
Severus crossed the room and poured some wine into both glasses, handing one to her before he sat himself in the only available chair. Her choices were to continue standing, or to sit on the edge of the bed. Or the floor.
She was eyeing the rug in front of his chair when Severus issued a great suffering sigh and pulled his wand. Seconds later, a chair that was nearly identical to his own appeared. "Sit."
Hermione did, then reprimanded herself for immediately following his barked orders as if she were still his student.
"In the future, Hermione, it might be best if you bring your questions about how I choose to run this facility to me." He sipped his wine.
"I wasn't questioning how you run this place; I was just curious about ... things."
There was another arched brow. The man could speak volumes without uttering a single word.
"What?"
"I assume you came here because you finally worked up the nerve to approach me with your ... curiosity. Ask. I've things to do this evening."
"In your lab?" Hermione couldn't see into the other room from where she was sitting.
"As a matter of fact, yes."
Subterfuge and subtlety had never been her strong suits, so Hermione didn't bother with either. "Why do you keep drawing blood from them? Evelyn told me the Ministry never asked for it, so why do you need it? Tell me what you're using it for."
"I'll do better than that." He set his wine glass to the side and stood. "Come along, then, Madame Curious."
There were two cauldrons, contents bubbling away, on the table in the center of the room. Another table had a pair of coolers lined up on top of it, along with dozens of jars and canisters of ingredients.
Hermione drifted over to one of the cauldrons and looked in. The liquid was thick with an iridescent silvery sheen.
"Do you know what that is?"
Severus was standing directly behind her, close enough that if she took a step back, she'd be pressed against him. She cleared her throat, then answered, "It smells like aconite, and the coloration would suggest Wolfsbane."
Hermione turned, her back against the lab table. "But why would you need to brew Wolfsbane out here?"
He moved. Hermione drew in a deep breath and held it as he leaned closer. Severus reached behind her and picked something up off the table, dropping it into the cauldron. "Are you afraid that I've been experimenting on your little furry friends?" he breathed against her ear. "I have."
Hermione released her breath in a puff as he drew away.
"The Sasquatch, as a species, has many similar characteristics to man. Many of the potions we use have the same effect on them as us. They can even catch the same diseases that we do." He moved around the table to open one of the coolers and drew out a vial of blood. Severus held it up so she could see it clearly. "Yet, somehow, they're immune to the curse of the werewolf."
She knew that werewolves were a touchy subject for Severus, having observed his interactions with Remus Lupin for years. "And the blood?"
He replaced the vial in the cooler and carefully closed it. "They have a natural immunity. I may be able to use that to improve the Wolfsbane Potion. Possibly even modify it into a cure."
One of the cauldrons issued a loud belch, and Severus picked up a stirring rod to tend to it.
"I want to help."
"Then stop asking suspicious questions and drawing attention to what I'm doing. These aren't Ministry-sanctioned experiments; I'd rather not have another one of their goons breathing down my neck, documenting every little move I make."
"Fine. But that's not what I meant. I want to help."
"I think not."
Of course not. Hermione felt like throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. "Why?"
"Because you are a constant annoyance." Severus finished stirring the potion and set aside the stirring rod. Then he lifted his face to meet her eyes. "And I find you immensely attractive and more than a little distracting."
"Oh. Oh." She must have looked like a fool, but she couldn't stop grinning. Hermione cleared her throat. "Regardless, I want to help, and if you don't let me, then I'll ... I'll tell Tegan and Fiona that you have a bathtub hidden in here."
Severus gave her that almost-smile of his. "Ah, yes. I was wondering when you were going to return to your earlier foray into blackmail."
They regarded each other in silence for a moment; then Severus shook his head. "Fine, I give in. I am sure I'll come to regret this sooner or later."
Somehow, Hermione's grin managed to grow even wider. "And I want access to the tub. Especially on specimen collection days."
"'Sooner' arrived faster than I thought it would."
~oOo~
Hermione sat in Severus' chair, dressed in her pajamas, toweling her hair dry. Severus was in his lab. He'd left her alone so she could take her bath, as was his habit. They'd developed a routine over the last month. Most nights, Hermione would visit his tent, and they would work in the lab. Once or twice a week, she would take advantage of the tub, and Severus would pretend to grumble.
"I've been thinking."
"Of course you have." Severus came into the room and leaned against the back of the chair. "What about this time?"
"I saw Soggy again today. The rest of his tribe still won't let him near the baby." She pulled the towel into her lap and worried it between her hands. "I wish there was something we could do for him."
Something gently tugged on a lock of her hair. Hermione smiled and tilted her head back so she could look up at Severus. He briefly tugged on her hair again. "Unless you can think of a way to remove his scent, I don't think there is anything we can do."
"I know, I just-" Hermione broke off as she thought about what he said. "We're overlooking the simplest answer."
Severus frowned, tapping his fingers against the back of the chair. "Which is?"
"I need to write a few letters, send a few owls. I want to make sure it's even a possibility before I say anything."
~oOo~
They were told to expect the Ministry representatives by noon, so it was of no surprise to any of the field crew that they were still waiting at half past.
Eventually, the four men arrived, a large crate suspended between their brooms. From inside the box came a rhythmic. rumbling gurgle. "Snoring," explained one of the men. "They gave her something to put her to sleep before we left."
It took a bit of effort, but the crate was eventually levitated through the cypress trees until Hermione deemed it "close enough." Once the lid was removed, she sprinkled a few drops of her favorite perfume-which hadn't been used since the night that Soggy Bottom had come to visit-on the sleeping occupant of the crate, then everyone retreated to the fallen log to watch.
Severus was the first to spot Soggy Bottom, cautiously approaching, nose twitching as he sniffed the air.
After a few minutes, the creature in the crate began to stir. Soggy Bottom was nearly at the crate when a fur-covered hand appeared. He froze, unsure, and ready to retreat at the first sign of hostility.
"Her name is Mossy," Hermione whispered to Severus. "She's from New England."
Mossy stood up, wobbled a bit as the last of the sedative wore off, then climbed out of the box. She was shorter than Soggy Bottom, and her fur was a muddy, greenish-brown.
The two Sasquatches stood there, looking at each other for a long moment before Mossy tilted her head and reached out to pick a piece of foliage out of Soggy Bottom's fur.
"Most importantly," Hermione continued, "Mossy was born without the sense of smell."
As the two newly-introduced creatures continued to get to know one another, Hermione leaned against Severus' side. She was pleased when he slid his arm around her waist in response.
"You're going to be even more insufferable than usual, now, aren't you?" Severus whispered against her ear.
"Probably. But you like me anyway."
"Strangely enough, I do."
~The End~
Rating: PG 13 - for language
A/N: This is the 2010 SS/HG Exchange gift I wrote for hilaritasetlux. Hermione is burned out. She took one Master's too many, and now all she wants is to do something that doesn't require a lot of thought but does require time spent outdoors. She moves to America and gets a job monitoring the magical bigfoot population in the swamps of Louisiana. She is also surprised to discover that Severus Snape is the leader of the field crew. Lots of muddy, watery fun ensues as Hermione finds it unexpectedly hard to give up researching and unexpectedly easy to fall in love!
As always, I do not own Harry Potter or anything in the Harry Potter universe, I'm simply playing with them for a bit.
The Legend of Soggy Bottom
The weathered dock groaned as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Small beads of perspiration dripped from her hairline, down her neck and lower, causing the thin cotton shirt to cling to her back. Hermione swiped a hand across her brow and considered casting another Cooling Charm upon herself before deciding it would most likely be as ineffective as the first had been in the face of such oppressive humidity.
For the first time since she'd made her split-second decision a week ago, Hermione was having second thoughts. It had seemed like such a brilliant idea when Master Thornberry had suggested taking a sabbatical after she'd finished her latest apprenticeship. She had spent nearly every day of the last two years learning from the Master of Charms; and had grown to consider him a close friend. In fact, Hermione considered all of her former Masters, of which there were now four, friends.
Master Thornberry had postulated during one of their daily afternoon teas that completing four apprenticeships in the span of ten years would have to be exhausting, even for a witch or wizard as talented as his dear Miss Granger. Caught in a weak moment, Hermione had admitted that she was beginning to feel a little burnt out. She had told her Master that none of the employment offers she had received had felt right. What she really wanted, she had admitted over a particularly sinful chocolate-dipped raspberry biscuit, was something that didn't require advanced calculations and complicated feats of wand use. Something almost mindless. A few months should do it, she had said, just long enough to recharge her brain cells and clear her head. Master Thornberry had nodded in his understanding way and told her he might be able to help.
Which was how Hermione found herself half-way across the world, about to join a field crew in the swamp lands of Louisiana in order to observe and study the migratory habits of the North American Sasquatch.
Something slipped out of the long marsh grass on the far riverbank and splashed into the murky water. Hermione slid her hand into the pocket of her cargo pants and grasped her wand as a long, dark shape glided through the water and under the dock.
There was an ever-increasing rumbling noise coming from up the river. Hermione absentmindedly swatted at an insect that was hovering near her face and watched as a small outboard approached. The noise from the engine decreased as the sole occupant steered the boat toward the dock. He cut the engine off completely and drifted the last few feet until he could reach out and grasp the dock.
He appeared younger than Hermione, well-tanned and blond. "Hello. You the new intern, Harmony?"
His accent was American, and she was feeling charitable. "It's Hermione."
"Huh. That's going to be a tough one." He gave her a smile so blindingly white that it would have rivaled Gilderoy Lockhart's. He stood and reached up to offer her his hand, his feet spread apart, knees slightly bent to adjust for the gentle movements of the boat. "I'm Jesse. Let's get you back to base camp before the Boss Man starts to wonder if I capsized. In you go."
Jesse wiggled his fingers and tilted his head toward the front of the boat. With a deep breath, Hermione grasped his hand and very, very carefully stepped off the dock. Once she was safely settled, she returned Jesse's smile with one of her own.
"Sorry I was running late. We ran into some trouble back at camp."
She watched him fiddle with the outboard motor. "What happened?"
The motor roared to life, and suddenly, the boat was in motion. Jesse said something as he steered them into a turn so they could return to camp the same way he had come, but the motor was too loud, and all she caught was something that sounded a bit like "foggy autumn," which made no sense whatsoever.
Once they were facing the direction Jesse wanted them to travel in, he throttled down the motor. "One of our subjects was spotted rummaging through the garbage of a local family. Three witnesses, and one of them discharged a shotgun-several times. Boss Man and half the team spent most of the morning working on damage control, while the rest of us were up all night tending to an injured Sasquatch, which basically amounted to picking buckshot out of a huge, furry ass."
"Is it all right?"
Jesse gave her another smile. "Oh, yeah. His butt will be a bit tender for a day or two, but our Healer fixed him up. He's a lucky guy. This is the third- no, fourth-time he's been shot, and so far, no life-threatening injuries."
She was about to ask how often things like that happened when Jesse gestured toward the front of the boat. "That's where we're heading. There is a decent-sized tribe living in the Honey Island swamp, and our camp is located within walking distance of the grouping."
She told herself that the icy shiver that danced across her skin had nothing to do with the way the cypress trees and their exposed roots seemed to close in around the small boat.
"You don't want to get lost out here," Jesse warned as if sensing her shift in mood. "The bayou can be a dangerous place if you're not prepared. Quicksand, 'gators and cottonmouths, just for starters. Don't worry, we've got a full-time Healer on site, and a fully-stocked first-aid kit. The Boss Man insisted on it when he took over."
Hermione didn't find that nearly as reassuring as Jesse probably meant it to be.
~oOo~
She trailed behind Jesse, carefully picking her way through the swamp. The weight of her pack was heavy across her shoulders. Hermione almost didn't notice when they reached their destination.
The camp consisted of several tents of various sizes and colors, and in the center of them all, a wooden shack that looked as if it might fall over at the first sign of a stiff breeze.
"Over there is the privy." Jesse pointed toward the smallest tent, placed just inside the tree line. "It's a one-seater, I'm afraid. Great for privacy, not so great if it's Fiona's turn to cook." He flashed another brilliant smile to show that he was joking, then gestured toward another tent, this one larger than the last.
"That's the showers. Communal, two shower heads, curtains and all that. There's a sign-up sheet on the door."
They came to a stop in front of the shack. "There's a rotating roster for duties around the camp, but if you can cook at all, don't be surprised if you end up on kitchen detail more nights than not." Jesse looked into her eyes, suddenly earnest. "Can you? Cook, I mean?"
"Careful how you answer that. He nearly proposed to the last gal who was here, and all she did was bake him an apple pie." A pretty brunette stepped out of the shack, clutching an overly large box to her chest, and let the screen door swing shut behind her. "Hi, I'm Fiona."
"Hello, I'm-"
The screen door flew open, barely missing Fiona. "Evelyn needs the boat to pick up more supplies. Is Jesse back yet?"
The voice was impossibly familiar. Even as Hermione began to shake her head in denial, Severus Snape stepped out of the shack. He looked every bit as shocked to see her as she was to see him. "You!"
"Me? You!" Hermione countered, hands on her hips.
"What are you doing here?" Both voices rang out at nearly the same moment.
Jesse delicately coughed into his hand-sounding a bit like a male Umbridge-reminding Hermione and Severus that they weren't alone. "So. You two know each other, then?"
Severus drew himself up to his full height and glared at the younger man. "Obviously."
Even without his frock coat and teaching robes, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and denims, he still managed to look intimidating, Hermione thought.
"Great. Then I'll let Evelyn know the boat has returned, Fiona can get back to wherever she was going, and you can finish showing Harmony where to put her stuff, Boss Man." And just like that, the other two scattered, leaving Hermione and Severus alone.
"Harmony?" He was looking at her as if he were studying a particularly perplexing specimen in his lab. Hermione took advantage of the moment to do the same. He looked different than the last time she'd seen him, all those years ago. The harsh, pinched stress lines around his eyes and mouth had smoothed somewhat, leaving him looking younger than before, closer to his own age.
She shrugged. "I've been called worse. 'Boss Man'?"
"Yours isn't the only name that Jesse has had difficulties verbalizing, I'm afraid." His tone was unlike anything she had heard from him before. It took Hermione a moment to realize he seemed to find the situation humorous and that-judging by the way his lips seemed to tilt upward, ever so slightly, on the left side-he was inviting her to share in the joke.
She felt her own lips begin to twitch in response. "I take it to mean that you are in charge here, then?"
His arms lowered, his stance losing some of the earlier tension. "So it would seem. Most of the time."
Hermione looked around the quiet camp, surrounded by a cypress forest. It was almost pretty in the light of day, although Jesse's earlier warning stayed in the back of her mind. "How long have you been here, Professor?"
Did he-surely he didn't just flinch.
He began to walk away from the shack, a motion of his fingers indicating that he wished for her to follow. "As I haven't taught for over a decade, I do believe that title is no longer appropriate."
Since his stride was nearly twice as long as hers, Hermione had to move quickly to catch up with him. "You may have noticed that we tend to be rather ... informal here." He wasn't looking directly at her, but Hermione felt that he was watching her, just the same. "The others might think it strange if you don't address me by my given name."
"Easy enough. Severus." Saying his name was, for want of a better term, strange. To her, he had been the caustic Professor Snape for so long that she suspected it would take a few tries before such familiarity would seem normal.
Her mind cast about for something else to say.
"Is this where you've been since ... since you left?" Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. The Severus Snape she remembered would not welcome her prying into his personal life. Hermione braced herself for the scathing onslaught she was sure to receive.
It didn't come. Instead, his tone was civil, almost conversational. "You always were far too inquisitive for your own good. To answer your question, I've been studying our furry friends for just over two years now. Before that ... is unimportant."
They stopped in front of a small tent, only slightly larger than the privy Jesse had pointed to earlier. The tent was shabby and patched and had obviously seen better days.
"It's the worst of the lot, I'm afraid, but it is the only unoccupied tent in camp." Severus smirked. "At least you won't be forced to share with Potter and Weasley this time."
With a nod, he walked away, leaving her standing outside her new home.
The interior of the tent wasn't as bad as Hermione had feared it would be. The canvas walls were patched but appeared to be leak-free. It was barely large enough to contain a battered dresser, an old desk and chair and a single bed. It was spartan, but with the addition of a transfigured bookshelf, it was livable.
Hermione met the rest of the field crew at dinner. At first she worried that she might not fit in because the other interns were so very young-barely a year or two out of school-but Tegan, Andrew, Max, Jesse and Fiona were welcoming and friendly. Evelyn, the camp Healer, was a charming gentleman a few years older than Hermione. He was also, to her great delight, a shameless flirt.
Then there was Severus.
Hermione couldn't remember ever seeing him so amiable. Several times during the meal, when someone said something particularly amusing, she looked up to find him-not smiling, surely? Perhaps that smirkish up-tilt on the right side of his lips was a smile on Snape's face.
When someone asked how Hermione and Severus knew each other, he merely shook his head and said it was ancient history.
Later, as she lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake her, Hermione thought she could understand why he didn’t want to tell the others of their time at Hogwarts. If her former professor had crossed the Atlantic to get away from the notoriety and memories, then it would make sense that he wouldn’t want to dredge up old times.
Her last waking thought was that she still didn’t know what Snape was doing here, specifically. Hermione’s dreams were filled with visions of Snape in front of a classroom full of students, covered in gore and up to his elbows in the carcass of a dead Sasquatch, calmly demonstrating the proper technique for organ harvesting.
~oOo~
Breakfast was a strange affair. The eggs were somehow simultaneously runny in the center and burnt black on the outer edges. Jesse caught her eye and mouthed, "Fiona cooked," before helping himself to another piece of suspiciously pale toast. Hermione noted that Severus limited himself to a mug of coffee and a piece of fruit, and she chose to follow suit.
Evelyn caught her eye and sent her a salacious wink. Hermione suspected his flirting had less to do with her stellar good looks than with the facts that she was new and he was bored. Still, it amused her, and Hermione caught herself winking back.
Soon enough, the breakfast dishes were clean, an Evanesco was used on the contents of the skillet, and the crew was ready to head out for the day. Jesse and Max carried a large lidded basket between the two of them. Hermione was handed a child's pail containing a pair of rubber gloves and a spade. When she asked what they were for, Tegan laughed and told her she'd find out soon enough.
Fiona waved them off with a reminder that lunch would be ready by one and not to be late. Severus had disappeared earlier. The other interns started off, laughing and joking with each other as they walked down a worn path in pairs, leaving her to follow behind. She knew it was silly to feel left out, but a twinge of self pity reared its ugly head before she firmly clamped down on the feeling.
"It pains my heart to see you looking so sad, mon chere."
Hermione tripped over an exposed cypress root and would have ended up face first in the mud if not for the masculine hand wrapped around her upper arm. She righted herself and turned to thank her rescuer.
Evelyn shrugged and gestured toward the others, disappearing into the woods ahead of them. "Shall we?"
They continued down the path for a moment, Hermione being extremely careful about where she put her feet. "I wasn't. Sad, I mean. Not really."
She peeked up at Evelyn from the corner of her eye. "I was just ... thinking."
"Ah. Heavy thoughts?" He pointed toward another root so that she could avoid it.
"Heavy enough," she admitted, feeling silly once more.
"About our fearless leader?"
"What?" Realizing her exclamation had been loud enough to carry through the trees for some way, Hermione immediately lowered her voice and tried again. "What? No. Why would you even ask me that?"
Evelyn lifted a low-hanging overhead branch so that she could duck under it. "You two have this mysterious shared history. You've reappeared in his life-unexpected, but not unwelcome from what I can tell-following him to another continent to do so. It's not unreasonable to assume he might be in your thoughts. Especially since I observed you looking for him before you left camp earlier."
"I didn't follow him!" Again, she was louder than she felt comfortable with, although her voice didn't carry as far this time. She stopped in the middle of the path, relieved that the others had were long out of sight, and turned her full attention to Evelyn. "I didn't even know Severus was here until I arrived at the camp."
"So, you and he aren't ..."
Before she could answer, a twig snapped somewhere between them and camp. Severus appeared on the trail, a small Muggle foam cooler hovering along behind him.
In that split second, Hermione realized how she and Evelyn, standing so close together-alone, in the middle of the swamp-might appear to someone, and she took a step away from him before her mind even had a chance to register what her body was doing. She could feel both men looking at her, but neither chose to comment on her move.
The silence stretched for a long moment, then Severus turned the focus of his attention to Evelyn. "What are you doing down here?" His tone reminded her of her youth, being caught loitering in the halls at Hogwarts between classes.
"As I've nothing pressing on my agenda today, I thought I'd offer my assistance. It is collection day, is it not?" Evelyn gestured toward the cooler gently bobbing up and down behind Severus.
"How ... generous of you." The look on his face seemed to indicate that he thought it was anything but.
"Unless you'd rather I went back to camp, mon ami?"
Severus shook his head, that barely discernible up-tilt of his lips telling her that he was amused. "That won't be necessary. An extra hand is always appreciated."
Hermione couldn't help but think that she might have missed something important in their exchange.
The strange trio continued down the trail in near silence. Before long Hermione noticed a strange odor hidden beneath the damp, musty aroma of the swamp. The smell began to grow in intensity, tickling at her nose and the back of her throat until she could almost taste it.
"What is that?"
They paused, and Severus lifted a finger to his lips. "That is why we're here," he whispered, then used that finger to point to something ahead of them.
At first, she didn't see what he was talking about. All she saw was an opening between the cypresses, filled with lumps of tall marsh grasses, vines, and more Spanish moss covered trees. Then one of the lumps stood up and turned to face them, and Hermione was confronted with the deepest pair of brown eyes she'd ever seen.
The Sasquatch was smaller than she expected, covered in russet brown fur, and she had the strangest urge to see if it was as soft as it looked. Then a huge clump of moss on a nearby tree detached itself, and she realized the first must have been a juvenile, because the new one had to have been well over two meters tall.
Someone touched her shoulder. She turned, expecting to find Evelyn, and nearly bumped into Severus. With his hand on her arm, he gently guided her toward a large fallen tree. Once they were close, she was able to see the others, mostly hidden behind the log.
Hermione joined them, crouching down so she could observe the creatures without drawing attention to herself.
"There you are. We were beginning to think you'd managed to get lost," whispered Max as he took the bucket from her hands and set it beside the basket he and Jesse had carried.
"If you thought she was lost, why didn't any of you go back to look for her?" Severus hissed.
"We didn't really-it's just a figure of speech?"
Tegan rolled her eyes and nudged Max out of her way so that she could move closer to Severus. "Willow still hasn't given birth, but she looks ready to go into labor any minute. I think it will be today."
He nodded, appearing worried as he scanned the surrounding area for a glimpse of the Sasquatch in question. "If the baby hasn't been delivered by the time we usually return to camp, two of us will need to stay out here overnight, to keep an eye on things."
"I'll stay." Evelyn's expression was grim. He must have seen the look on Hermione's face, because he leaned closer to explain. "This is Willow's second pregnancy, but she had severe complications last year, and the young died during the delivery. We're not supposed to interact with them any more than strictly necessary, but none of us want to stand idly by when we can do something to help."
Hermione understood completely-her heart aching at thought of another lost child. She reached out and put her hand on Evelyn's arm, then looked up to find Severus watching her. When her gaze met his, he looked away.
~oOo~
The day seemed to stretch on forever, and more than once, Hermione regretted her decision to join the field crew.
Even as she sat with her back against the fallen log, sweat and muck dripping down her face and back, she knew her bad attitude had more to do with the smell and the dirt than with the work and the people here. Things would look better once she returned to camp and had a shower. At least, she hoped they would.
As she stared down at her filthy hands, she wrinkled her nose and decided things really couldn't look any worse.
The bucket, she discovered very early on, was for collecting Sasquatch droppings. Tegan would hide behind the log with her Omnioculars, searching for signs of one of the furry creatures going about its business. As the newest person on the team, it was Hermione's job to Disillusion herself, then scamper out onto the swamplands and scoop up bigfoot poo.
At first, she had been fairly certain the others were pulling her leg. "Seriously, you want me to fetch poop?" Everyone had assured her that this was, in fact, a real job. Severus had explained that one of their tasks was to monitor the feeding habits of the Sasquatch tribe, and what better way to see what the little buggers were eating then to examine their feces?
Each bucketful was brought back to Jesse and Max, who carefully bagged and labeled it, then put it inside their basket so that it could be examined later at the camp. Then her bucket and spade were carefully sterilized with a spell, and Hermione sat back to wait for next mission.
The first time Tegan had sent her out, she had pointed to a large, gray-furred creature. "Albus is getting ready to go; you can tell from the way he's shifting from foot to foot. Fiona calls it his potty dance."
Choosing to ignore the entire utterance of the phrase "potty dance" for the moment, Hermione focused on the important detail. "Albus? Who came up with that name?"
Tegan lowered the Omnioculars and thought for a moment. "I think it was Severus. I got here just a month or so before he took over, and up until then we just called them by the official Ministry-approved designations. Albus is something like NAS1978 ... G, I think. I'm sure you can see why the nickname thing stuck."
"Did Severus name all of them?" Hermione raised herself up onto her knees to peek over the side of the log.
"Oh, no. Just Albus and Minerva. He said they reminded him of old friends. I picked the name Willow," she announced proudly.
"How many of them are there?"
"Thirteen. Eleven adults, two young ones, with number fourteen due any day now. Bad news, hun. Albus is done, and you're up."
Hermione's nose itched something fierce, but there was no way she was going to scratch it with her hands in the state that they were. She envied Andrew, who had spent the day helping Severus and Evelyn and yet still managed to look clean. Pristine, even. Hermione suspected there might have been spellwork involved.
She detected a hint of movement from the corner of her eye and turned her head to investigate the shimmering air next to her. Severus and Evelyn appeared as they canceled their Concealing Charms. Severus handed a small vial off to Andrew, who labeled and stored it in the cooler. Hermione knew the vial contained blood, carefully drawn from a stealthily Stunned Sasquatch, as she had taken a moment to quietly ask earlier in the day. Andrew didn't know what the blood was for, but he figured it was something the Ministry wanted. He told her that only Severus or Evelyn dealt with the blood samples after they reached camp, unlike the other things the idiots at the Magical Creatures department insisted on in their weekly reports.
Curiosity had her wondering what the Ministry wanted with Sasquatch blood, but she figured she'd wait until they were back at the camp before she asked Severus about it.
"It will be dusk soon. We need to start heading back, and I'm still missing a sample. Has anyone seen Soggy Bottom today?" Rather than crouching behind the log like the rest of them, Severus stood tall with arms crossed and a classic Snape expression of annoyance on his face.
Soggy Bottom?
Jesse leaned closer- making sure to leave enough space between them that she wouldn't accidentally touch him, she noticed- and whispered, "I told you about him yesterday, remember? Silly furball got himself shot in the ass."
"Oh. But why is he called Soggy Bottom?" she whispered back.
"Because he perpetually reeks as if he's been marinating in a puddle of wet, rotten slop, Hermione." She looked up to find Severus standing over her, one eyebrow raised pointedly as if to silently ask if she were done interrupting him.
"We don't have time to look for him tonight. Max, when we get back, activate his tracking charm and make sure he's still in the area. If he's left the swamp again, we'll need to know." He looked to Tegan, and his harsh expression softened in a way that Hermione had never seen from him before. Her breath caught in her throat for some unknown reason.
"How is Willow? Any sign of the young one yet?"
Tegan shook her head in reply. Severus thought for a moment, then turned toward Evelyn. "Are you still willing to stay and keep an eye on her?"
"Absolutely."
"Any volunteers to stay with him?"
Before anyone else had a chance, Hermione spoke up, "I will."
Evelyn smiled at her even as Severus shook his head. "No. Someone else." Max raised his hand, and Severus nodded, obviously considering the matter closed.
Hermione didn't agree. She did, however, have enough sense not to protest too loudly in front of the others. She waited until they were making their way back along the trail to camp to broach the subject.
"Why didn't you want me to stay behind with Evelyn?"
Severus didn't even slow down, forcing Hermione to hurry after him. "You've barely been here a day, and you're already questioning my decisions. How very like you."
"That's not even-you're changing the subject. Why?"
Severus stopped suddenly, holding out his arm to keep her from moving on, letting the rest of the field crew continue on ahead of them. "Simply put, you aren't qualified."
"Not qualified?" Hermione huffed. "I know you've had no reason to follow my post-Hogwarts career, but I can assure you that I am more than capable of-"
Severus interrupted her. "I am fully aware of your numerous academic accomplishments, Miss Granger."
"It's Hermione, remember?" She shook her head, refusing to let herself get distracted again. "If you know, then why did you say I'm not qualified?"
"You may be a Master in your chosen fields, but your skills in Charms, Arithmancy, Runes or Transfiguration won't help you if the infant is breach. If the mother goes into distress, what will you do? What experience do you have in animal husbandry?"
"I-you're right."
"Of course I am."
Hermione sighed and began to walk once more. "And so modest, as well. It's been a long day. I'm going back to camp to find something to eat, and then I'm crawling into my tent and passing out."
"You might want to think about taking a shower, Hermione. I don't know if you're aware of this, but you smell like shit."
~oOo~
Something furry tickled against her cheek. Hermione wrinkled her nose and turned her head away from Crookshanks' attentions, more asleep than not. Then the smell began to register.
"Damn it, Crooks, I told you not to play with dead things," she mumbled, trying to burrow further under her blanket to get away from the wet, rotten stench. Something tangled in her hair, tugging on it. Hard.
Hermione's eyes snapped open, nearly blind in the darkness, as she remembered that Crookshanks had passed on nearly two years ago and she was currently sleeping in a tent in a swamp.
A swamp populated by massive, furry creatures that could rip a human apart if they were so inclined.
Hermione did what any sane person would do in such a situation. She screamed.
Her attacker issued a low, chest-rumbling bellow that might have been its version of a girly scream and fell backwards. Unfortunately, its hand was still embedded in the mess that was her hair, left to air dry on its own after her late night shower.
Both of them ended up on the floor, arms and legs flailing as they tangled in her bedding.
She scrambled, trying to get enough leverage to reach the top of the bed and her wand, which had been under her pillow. Huge hands swung wildly, knocking her against the bed hard enough that she couldn't draw in any air.
Not that she needed to; the creature was still making its horrid noises. If anything was going to draw the rest of the field crew's attention, that would.
The creature stood, tried to get away, tripped over the sheet wrapped around its feet and went down. Hermione saw it coming, like a felled tree heading straight for her, and rolled away from the bed toward safety. She heard the sickening crunch of the bed frame snapping under the creature, then the canvas above her head rippled and fell as the tent collapsed.
This is it. This is how I'm going to die. Not at the hand of a dark wizard, not in a spell accident, but by being squished to death by a rampaging, stinky, overgrown teddy bear.
Oh, hell no, that is not going to be my obituary.
Hermione began to scream for help in earnest, dragging herself forward on her belly toward what had been the front of the tent. At least, she hoped she was heading the right way-considering the current circumstances, she wouldn't be surprised if she'd managed to get turned around.
She could hear the creature behind her, thrashing around as it tried to get free of the downed tent, and for a tiny moment she sympathized with the beast. Then the furry bugger stepped on the back of her leg and all sympathy vanished.
There was yelling coming from outside the canvas prison. Hermione crawled faster, cursing her lack of a wand and the stench that was threatening to asphyxiate her in the enclosed space.
Hands closed around her forearm, pulling her free of the tent and hauling her up against someone solid and strong. The world spun, and Hermione had to shield her eyes from the brightness of several combined Lumos spells.
"What is it?" someone shouted.
Severus growled, his chest vibrating against her cheek. "Soggy Bottom. I recognize that scent. What in Hades is he doing in there?"
The others surrounded the undulating tent.
"He attacked-attacked me," Hermione gasped.
"No. Soggy wouldn't attack anyone," Andrew protested. "He likes people, he doesn't hurt them."
"He usually stays away from the camp. Something must have drawn him in. Something ..." Severus' arms tightened around her. He sniffed the air, then lowered his head to bury his nose in her hair. Hermione felt her knees start to buckle at the sensation of his lips brushing against her ear when he spoke. "Something new. You."
He lifted his head and scowled at the others, shifting Hermione's mostly dead weight in his arms to keep them both upright. "Get him out of there and Stun him. I need a blood sample anyway."
Severus slid his hand under her chin and lifted her face toward his. For an absurd second, Hermione thought he was going to kiss her. "Are you hurt? Do I need to send for Evelyn?"
"No, I'm all right, just a bit shaken up." Soggy Bottom let loose with a blood-curdling howl that made the hair on her arms stand up. She tried to push herself away from Severus' chest and very nearly crumpled to the ground as everything began to get fuzzy.
"She's in shock."
"Of course I'm in shock, a giant furry creature just tried to eat me," she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't form. Severus cursed under his breath, then picked her up off the ground and carried her away.
~oOo~
When Hermione woke up, she sat upright in bed so fast her head spun. She was in an unfamiliar bed in a strange tent, but at least she wasn't being molested by a creature called Soggy Bottom.
This time.
"Feeling better?"
Hermione managed not to scream, but it was a close thing. Her hand did shoot under the pillow in search of her wand, but her grasping fingers came up empty.
Severus arched a brow at her antics, then pointed toward the nightstand beside the bed, where her wand was clearly visible. He was lounging in a large armchair, bare feet up on a padded stool. Hermione was surprised to see that he appeared to be wearing lounge pants and a robe.
She rubbed her eyes, then slid her hand under the cover to pinch her leg, convinced that she had to be dreaming.
The pain was real, and so was this strange, new casual Severus.
A quick glance down confirmed that she, too, was in her pajamas. Awkward. She pulled the blanket up to her chest and tucked it under her arms.
"I've felt worse. What time is it?"
Severus glanced toward the clock on his desk. "A quarter to six."
"Ah. Is-is he all right?" Hermione picked at a piece of fuzz on the blanket.
"You mean Soggy Bottom?" At her nod, he settled back in his chair and made himself more comfortable. "He's fine. It took a bit of effort to extract him from the tent, but once the Stunner wore off, he was up and on his way, none the worse for wear. Your tent, I'm afraid, was not as fortunate. Jesse said he was reasonably sure he could repair it, but he wanted to wait until it was light out to try."
"That's good to hear. About Soggy Bottom. And the tent, I suppose. Did you figure out why he was in my tent in the first place?" And, more important, what were the chances that he'd be returning to do it again?
"I suspect that he followed you back from the field last night."
"Me, specifically? Why would he do that?"
Severus smirked. "Because you remind him of his mother."
Her mouth dropped open. "I what?"
"Relax, Hermione. That wasn't some snide commentary on your appearance." He made no effort to hide his amusement. "I noticed last night that you wear a scent that contains notes of ginger, vanilla and cinnamon."
Now she was confused. "His mother smelled like a Snickerdoodle?"
"Several years ago, before I arrived here, one of the females of the tribe went into labor with her first child. The field crew at the time was without a Healer. They could only watch, in growing horror, as the mother went into distress. Hours passed, and she grew weaker and weaker until finally the baby was born, silent and unresponsive. The field crew was positive it was stillborn. The rest of the tribe refused to go near the dead bodies, and the field crew was trying to decide what they should do when the baby cried for the first time."
Hermione swallowed hard, engrossed in the story Severus was telling.
"Since the infant had been abandoned by his tribe, one of the field crew decided that she couldn't leave the helpless newborn to die and, against Ministry policy, took him in. She was the cook, and from what I understand, Soggy Bottom was a permanent fixture in the mess shack for nearly a year. Eventually, he grew too big to keep in the camp and was reintroduced to the tribe that had earlier abandoned him. Even though he's returned to the wild, Soggy Bottom continues to be fascinated by people."
"I reminded him of his foster mother." When it was put like that, Hermione found it difficult to harbor any ill will toward the creature that had destroyed her tent the night before.
"That is my theory, yes."
"That's sort of sweet. But I don't remember seeing him with the rest of the tribe yesterday, so I don't understand how he could have managed to get close enough to catch my scent in the first place."
Severus shifted, and Hermione's attention was drawn to the hint of pale chest that was exposed when his robe loosened. "As you've noticed, Soggy Bottom has a particularly unpleasant odor, more so than any of the other members of his tribe. While they tolerate his presence, they do not welcome it. Nor do any of the other groups that tribe encounters when they go on their yearly migration, making it impossible for him to find a mate. Because of this, he has a habit of staying hidden in the trees, upwind of the rest. Often, he'll come out if he sees us, but we try not to encourage his fascination with humans for his own good."
"Of course." Hermione worried her lower lip for a moment. "It's just so sad. He's probably lonely." There had to be something she could do to help.
Another glance at the clock told her it was going to be light soon. Yesterday, they had all met by seven for breakfast. Surely Severus would want to get ready soon, wouldn't he? Which would mean that she should probably get out of bed.
His bed.
Oh, yes. Completely and utterly awkward.
She looked around the tent and, for the first time, noticed there was a second room. Through the doorway, she could see a lab table and several cauldrons. One of them had a fire beneath it, and the contents appeared to be bubbling. Hermione frowned. Why would Severus have a potions lab in his tent when there was a fully stocked set-up in the shack that he and Evelyn both used?
Unless he was brewing something he didn't want the others to see?
Her gaze skittered toward him, only to find that Severus was watching her quite intently. She averted her eyes and found herself looking at a large, folding privacy screen. The edge of something peeked out from behind the side.
"Is that-is that a bathtub?"
She could have sworn that a flash of panic raced across his face before they went suspiciously blank.
"It is! The rest of us have to make do with those horrid showers that have virtually no water pressure at all, and you have a bathtub hidden back there!"
Severus was out of his chair and across the room to the side of the bed before she had a chance to blink. "Quiet! Do you want the entire camp to hear you?" he hissed.
Hermione considered the situation. A sly grin crept over her lips. "What's it worth to you, not having anyone else know about your little secret?"
His eyes narrowed. "Are you attempting to blackmail me, Hermione?"
"And if I am?"
Severus leaned closer, looming over her. She was sure that he was just about to explain, in precise yet menacing detail, just why that was a foolish idea when the flap at the entrance of his tent was shoved aside and Evelyn entered.
"We've got a problem." Evelyn stopped just inside the tent, his eyes darting from Severus to Hermione, who was clearly dressed in her night clothes and in Severus' bed.
"Of course there is a problem. There is always a problem," Severus growled, stalking away from the bed to his dresser. He began to pull out clothing, slamming drawers shut as he went. With a glare for Hermione, he disappeared behind the privacy screen to change.
"Did I ... uh, interrupt something?"
There really was no good way to answer that. Even if she told him about Soggy Bottom and her destroyed tent, that wouldn't explain why she and Severus were so intensely focused upon one another when Evelyn walked in.
Thankfully, she didn't need to come up with a response because Severus beat her to the punch.
"Did Willow deliver?" he called from behind the screen.
"A healthy boy, less than an hour ago."
"No complications?" Severus appeared, buttoning his shirt. Hermione hurriedly looked away, only to find Evelyn watching her.
"Not a one."
"Then why are you bothering me?"
Evelyn finally turned his attention away from Hermione to focus on Severus. "It's the Ministry. They've sent a representative for a surprise inspection. The gentleman Apparated into the shack five minutes ago. I just happened to be preparing a cup of herbal tea before bed when he arrived."
Severus let loose a string of foul language. "And I thought Fudge was the epitome of Ministry incompetence. These bloody Americans ..." He turned to glare at her. "And you. Not a word about last night to our visitor. The last thing we need is for someone to get the mistaken idea that one of our tribe is dangerous. As a matter of fact, find Jesse and make sure he gets your tent in order before the Ministry idiot sees it, if he hasn't already."
Then he and Evelyn slipped through the tent flap and Hermione was left alone.
~oOo~
A week later, Hermione stealthily crept through camp under the cover of darkness. She hesitated outside Severus' tent, indecision causing her to worry her lower lip with her teeth. Her original plan had been to slip inside the tent unannounced, but now she was unsure.
Severus wasn't really the type of person who appreciated surprises. If anything, he was the type to hex first and ask questions later, and Hermione was absolutely positive that she didn't want to be on the wrong end of Severus Snape's wand.
The tent flap parted, and Severus stood there, his form a backlit silhouette. "Are you planning to stand out here all night?"
She nearly replied that she was, thank you, but Hermione suspected that he would close the tent up and leave her outside if she did.
Instead, she slipped past him into the tent. There was an open bottle of wine on the small table next to his chair. And two glasses.
Hermione turned around to face Severus, who was standing near the opening of the tent, watching her. "Were you expecting someone?"
"I've been expecting you for days now, and you are fully aware of why."
Oops. Apparently, he had been aware of all the questions she'd been asking around camp. She had thought she was being discreet, but then again, Severus had been a spy for nearly two decades.
"Why were you harassing Evelyn about the samples we collect for the Ministry?" He had his arms folded across his chest and was looking down his nose at her. She told herself he couldn't intimidate her anymore. Much.
Regardless, he'd managed to put her on the defensive. "I wasn't harassing Evelyn. I just had some questions."
Severus crossed the room and poured some wine into both glasses, handing one to her before he sat himself in the only available chair. Her choices were to continue standing, or to sit on the edge of the bed. Or the floor.
She was eyeing the rug in front of his chair when Severus issued a great suffering sigh and pulled his wand. Seconds later, a chair that was nearly identical to his own appeared. "Sit."
Hermione did, then reprimanded herself for immediately following his barked orders as if she were still his student.
"In the future, Hermione, it might be best if you bring your questions about how I choose to run this facility to me." He sipped his wine.
"I wasn't questioning how you run this place; I was just curious about ... things."
There was another arched brow. The man could speak volumes without uttering a single word.
"What?"
"I assume you came here because you finally worked up the nerve to approach me with your ... curiosity. Ask. I've things to do this evening."
"In your lab?" Hermione couldn't see into the other room from where she was sitting.
"As a matter of fact, yes."
Subterfuge and subtlety had never been her strong suits, so Hermione didn't bother with either. "Why do you keep drawing blood from them? Evelyn told me the Ministry never asked for it, so why do you need it? Tell me what you're using it for."
"I'll do better than that." He set his wine glass to the side and stood. "Come along, then, Madame Curious."
There were two cauldrons, contents bubbling away, on the table in the center of the room. Another table had a pair of coolers lined up on top of it, along with dozens of jars and canisters of ingredients.
Hermione drifted over to one of the cauldrons and looked in. The liquid was thick with an iridescent silvery sheen.
"Do you know what that is?"
Severus was standing directly behind her, close enough that if she took a step back, she'd be pressed against him. She cleared her throat, then answered, "It smells like aconite, and the coloration would suggest Wolfsbane."
Hermione turned, her back against the lab table. "But why would you need to brew Wolfsbane out here?"
He moved. Hermione drew in a deep breath and held it as he leaned closer. Severus reached behind her and picked something up off the table, dropping it into the cauldron. "Are you afraid that I've been experimenting on your little furry friends?" he breathed against her ear. "I have."
Hermione released her breath in a puff as he drew away.
"The Sasquatch, as a species, has many similar characteristics to man. Many of the potions we use have the same effect on them as us. They can even catch the same diseases that we do." He moved around the table to open one of the coolers and drew out a vial of blood. Severus held it up so she could see it clearly. "Yet, somehow, they're immune to the curse of the werewolf."
She knew that werewolves were a touchy subject for Severus, having observed his interactions with Remus Lupin for years. "And the blood?"
He replaced the vial in the cooler and carefully closed it. "They have a natural immunity. I may be able to use that to improve the Wolfsbane Potion. Possibly even modify it into a cure."
One of the cauldrons issued a loud belch, and Severus picked up a stirring rod to tend to it.
"I want to help."
"Then stop asking suspicious questions and drawing attention to what I'm doing. These aren't Ministry-sanctioned experiments; I'd rather not have another one of their goons breathing down my neck, documenting every little move I make."
"Fine. But that's not what I meant. I want to help."
"I think not."
Of course not. Hermione felt like throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. "Why?"
"Because you are a constant annoyance." Severus finished stirring the potion and set aside the stirring rod. Then he lifted his face to meet her eyes. "And I find you immensely attractive and more than a little distracting."
"Oh. Oh." She must have looked like a fool, but she couldn't stop grinning. Hermione cleared her throat. "Regardless, I want to help, and if you don't let me, then I'll ... I'll tell Tegan and Fiona that you have a bathtub hidden in here."
Severus gave her that almost-smile of his. "Ah, yes. I was wondering when you were going to return to your earlier foray into blackmail."
They regarded each other in silence for a moment; then Severus shook his head. "Fine, I give in. I am sure I'll come to regret this sooner or later."
Somehow, Hermione's grin managed to grow even wider. "And I want access to the tub. Especially on specimen collection days."
"'Sooner' arrived faster than I thought it would."
~oOo~
Hermione sat in Severus' chair, dressed in her pajamas, toweling her hair dry. Severus was in his lab. He'd left her alone so she could take her bath, as was his habit. They'd developed a routine over the last month. Most nights, Hermione would visit his tent, and they would work in the lab. Once or twice a week, she would take advantage of the tub, and Severus would pretend to grumble.
"I've been thinking."
"Of course you have." Severus came into the room and leaned against the back of the chair. "What about this time?"
"I saw Soggy again today. The rest of his tribe still won't let him near the baby." She pulled the towel into her lap and worried it between her hands. "I wish there was something we could do for him."
Something gently tugged on a lock of her hair. Hermione smiled and tilted her head back so she could look up at Severus. He briefly tugged on her hair again. "Unless you can think of a way to remove his scent, I don't think there is anything we can do."
"I know, I just-" Hermione broke off as she thought about what he said. "We're overlooking the simplest answer."
Severus frowned, tapping his fingers against the back of the chair. "Which is?"
"I need to write a few letters, send a few owls. I want to make sure it's even a possibility before I say anything."
~oOo~
They were told to expect the Ministry representatives by noon, so it was of no surprise to any of the field crew that they were still waiting at half past.
Eventually, the four men arrived, a large crate suspended between their brooms. From inside the box came a rhythmic. rumbling gurgle. "Snoring," explained one of the men. "They gave her something to put her to sleep before we left."
It took a bit of effort, but the crate was eventually levitated through the cypress trees until Hermione deemed it "close enough." Once the lid was removed, she sprinkled a few drops of her favorite perfume-which hadn't been used since the night that Soggy Bottom had come to visit-on the sleeping occupant of the crate, then everyone retreated to the fallen log to watch.
Severus was the first to spot Soggy Bottom, cautiously approaching, nose twitching as he sniffed the air.
After a few minutes, the creature in the crate began to stir. Soggy Bottom was nearly at the crate when a fur-covered hand appeared. He froze, unsure, and ready to retreat at the first sign of hostility.
"Her name is Mossy," Hermione whispered to Severus. "She's from New England."
Mossy stood up, wobbled a bit as the last of the sedative wore off, then climbed out of the box. She was shorter than Soggy Bottom, and her fur was a muddy, greenish-brown.
The two Sasquatches stood there, looking at each other for a long moment before Mossy tilted her head and reached out to pick a piece of foliage out of Soggy Bottom's fur.
"Most importantly," Hermione continued, "Mossy was born without the sense of smell."
As the two newly-introduced creatures continued to get to know one another, Hermione leaned against Severus' side. She was pleased when he slid his arm around her waist in response.
"You're going to be even more insufferable than usual, now, aren't you?" Severus whispered against her ear.
"Probably. But you like me anyway."
"Strangely enough, I do."
~The End~