The Headmistress Granger Quiz
Being a know-it-all may not be a requirement for the position of Headmistress, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Fortunately our beloved heroine is the most insufferable know-it-all of her age. Just ask Severus Snape. He'll be happy to tell you, especially if he's working for her!
Thanks to bluestocking79 for suggesting the Headmaster Snape quiz, thereby giving birth to the idea of the Headmistress Granger quiz.
This week's quiz was chosen by tamatersweet who proved she knows her way around a bubble bath!
The first fangirl who posts a perfect score will get to choose the next quiz. Which little insufferable know-it-all can give Hermione a run for her money?
Match the quote to the story title:
Milady Headmistress by Ladymage Samiko aka iqeret
Under The Potions Master by angelmischa
Constant Companion by bluestocking79
Splintered and Broken by A plus
No Loyalty in the Moonlight by ariadne1
What Goes Around.... by melusin_79
Prophecy's Pawns by leandra713
Diary, Diary by lulabelle72 WIP
Legal Advice by sc010f
The Office by lady_rhian
Irish Vikings by Camillo1978
A Different Kind of Love Story by fizzabella1110
1. 'I would like a word, Headmistress.'
Hermione turned on the spiral staircase. 'Of course. Come up.'
In her office, Hermione offered Severus a chair, which he declined.
'I must insist on paying for... this.' He indicated the robe he was wearing. 'And the others.'
'Sorry, you've lost me.'
'The clothing. In my wardrobe?'
'Ah.' Hermione sighed. 'I think I know what’s happened. As I'm sure you're aware, Hogwarts' house-elves are free. It was quite a struggle, though, to get them to accept any wages-until they realised what they could do with the money.'
'What?'
'They love buying people presents.'
2. Filius was very kind. As we walked slowly up the holidaying staircases, he suggested that I spend the afternoon exploring my office and getting to know its portraits better. He told me that he would be staying at the castle until the end of August, and that there would be plenty of time to hand over duties when I was more settled. I was absurdly grateful for his patience. I wondered idly how much time Albus Dumbledore had devoted to preparing Severus for the position during his doomed final year.
All the former heads of Hogwarts bowed solemnly in their gilded frames as I entered the control room of my little empire. Phineas Black greeted me with sarcastic familiarity, but he was strangely serious when he told me that nothing that happened within the single circular wall of my office would ever be revealed unless I wished it. After half an hour of polite introductory chatter, there was a loud knock at the door. I called out for the person to enter, and my voice squeaked nervously. I don’t know why, but I knew it would be Severus.
‘Headmistress,’ he growled.
I was blushing as I walked forward to meet him.
‘God, Severus, I’m pleased to see you!’ I said, and added teasingly, ‘Were you this terrified when you started?’
‘Oh, no, I was absolutely fine,’ he replied dryly. ‘I spent the day before at Malfoy Manor with His Lordship and the Carrows and was shown up here by an absolutely delighted Minerva McGonagall about two hours before the Hogwarts Express arrived. Does that make you feel any better?’
3. One o'clock came with a sudden clashing and clamoring of bells and pipes, but at a glance from Hermione, all the clocks fell silent. Dumbledore, who had been wagging one finger along with the cacophony, closed his eyes again, but not before giving Hermione a disappointed look.
"All of the clocks are ridiculous, you know."
"Yes, my dear," said Dumbledore without opening his eyes.
"I'm going to have them all taken away tomorrow." Hermione was feeling utterly peeved, and the thought of removing Dumbledore's beloved clocks gave her spirit a bit of a rise.
"No, you won't."
"Yes, I will. I can do whatever I like as Headmistress." She sounded childish, even to herself.
"Hm. Yes, I suppose you can. That was a very interesting staff meeting you held in here tonight, Miss Granger."
"Headmistress," Hermione responded automatically. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Phineas Nigellus Black straighten up in his chair and open his eyes.
"It wasn't so much the content of your discussions. But then, you don't have a war going on to keep staff meetings interesting."
"Let's leave the Headmistress be, Albus. She needs to get her rest," said a suddenly solicitous Black. Hermione was instantly suspicious. Former Headmaster Black never referred to her as "Headmistress," and he was certainly never concerned for her welfare.
4. He didn't need to look at her to know that she was deep in thought, probably formulating a plan, probably deciding how much she could show him.
They entered the large building at the center of the grounds. It wasn't a castle like Hogwarts was, but had an appearance more similar to a large old country manor. She led him through a maze of hallways as he tried to glance in the open doors they passed, catching only little glimpses. They wound up several flights of stairs until they arrived at a door marked “Headmistress”. She led him inside and closed it behind them.
“If you will excuse me for a second.” She slipped out another door, leaving him alone in the room.
He studied her office. It was filled with lists, charts and schedules plastered on the walls and sitting in piles on every available horizontal surface. Complex color-coded lines made their way across pieces of parchment, charting out times, people, and locations, marking classes, students and assignments. On the wall behind her desk hung what appeared to be a map of the building in which they sat, similar to the marauder's map. Since it was both summer and still morning, only a few stray dots wandered around the school while the rest were contained in what appeared to be a dormitory wing. Other charts mapped out curriculum, resources, student schedules, teaching assignments, and extracurricular activities.
It was obvious to him that while he was poorly skilled at the position of headmaster, she was incredible at it. It was the role she was always meant to play. He wondered if Dumbledore had known it. Even at Hogwarts, she organized Potter and Weasley’s study time. She was a natural at planning and managing other people. She had always had the incredible ability to grasp both the big picture and the most minute details simultaneously. He turned as she reentered the room carry a pile of papers which she lay on her desk.
“Would you care for a tour?” She offered, as if he was nothing more than an old acquaintance who had stopped by for tea and not a complicit member of a tyrannical regime that would kill her for even holding a wand let alone training others to use one.
5. “What’s that, then?” Phineas Nigellus barked, sneering down through his monocle at the parchment on the desk.
Hermione picked up the parchment, holding the written side away from the portraits’ line of sight. She tapped its corner on the desk, running the edges through her fingers, repeating the action for each corner.
“Well, chit? What is it?” Phineas Nigellus repeated.
“I am the headmistress of this school, and would thank you not to address me as ‘chit,’” Hermione said distractedly.
Phineas Nigellus snorted.
“He tries that every time,” a pleasant feminine voice said from somewhere up and to the left. Hermione didn’t recognize her, but she nodded an abstracted thanks.
“Well, chit? I asked you a question. Share with your betters.”
“If you don’t address me as ‘Hermione’ or at least ‘Granger,’ I shall forget everything I know about Silencing Charms,” Hermione said in the same distracted voice.
“Ooo, this one’s feisty,” Phineas Nigellus cackled, leering at her.
Hermione raised her eyebrow at him. “Minerva, by any chance do the house-elves keep a store of black baize draperies? Approximately portrait-sized?”
Minerva’s eyes sparkled delightedly. “They do.”
Hermione looked coolly at Phineas Nigellus.
6. “You’ve had a shock, my dear. Please remember we are all pledged to help the current Head of Hogwarts in any way possible.”
“Thank you, Headmaster. I shan’t forget.”
“I must say you have comported yourself with admirable restraint, Miss Granger-”
The low, velvety voice of Headmaster Severus Snape startled her and she spun around to look at his portrait over the fireplace. “Thank you, Professor. I wish I felt worthy of your compliment. I really was too shocked to know what to say.”
“Had it been you confessing infidelity to your husband, I daresay all of these magical devices would be in shards on the floor, and we portraits would be ducking and dodging in our frames. Mr. Ronald Weasley had a bit of temper. Whatever your motivation, Madam, your behavior does you credit.”
She smiled at the austerely dressed man in the portrait and then dropped her eyes, unused to praise from Severus Snape.
“Well said, Severus. Hermione, my dear, you have comported yourself with great dignity.”
Hermione got to her feet and started to pace. She could not allow herself to dwell on what Ron had just asked of her. If she let down her guard she would wind up in tears again, and that was not how she intended to spend the remainder of her first day as Headmistress of Hogwarts. She paused and looked around the big circular office, truly seeing it for the first time. Headmasters Dumbledore and Snape watched from their frames as she went to the windows, drawing open the drapes to let in the morning sunlight. The drapes opened with a flurry of dust motes, and Hermione sneezed explosively several times, causing Headmaster Snape to chuckle.
“I always kept the drapes drawn. I sneezed for an entire day the first time I opened them and decided after that to leave them alone.”
7. For a moment, he let his mind wander, distracted by his memory of his encounter with the Headmistress… Before his eyes flickered the image of her in that dress-Black, leather, oh-so-delectable-of his face pressed against that duvet, of that hairbrush… Suddenly, he searched the room with his eyes to find that familiar object, and he found it lying on the top of the chest of drawers behind him.
A smile played over his lips as he stepped over to take the hairbrush in his hand. He weighed it absently as he thought about what it would feel like to spank her with this as she had done to him.
Feeling a little more comfortable in the room now-he had somehow managed to enter using the passwords he had had as Headmaster, which had made him a little suspicious, but she had yet to arrive furiously brandishing her wand at the intruder, which made him a little more suspicious, but he pushed that thought aside-he wondered where to look first. She must have something more than this lying around.
Snape was planning to spring a surprise-not a trap, although that idea made him smile devilishly-and he needed props. As a solitary man, he rarely had need for any of his own…
Laying the hairbrush back down on the surface in front of him, he let his hand drift down to the knob of the first drawer and pulled it open just a little, slightly cautious lest there be some kind of trap. He found himself, a moment later, investigating her sock drawer. Snorting in disinterest he tried the next drawer down, and this rewarded him more fruitfully.
8. It was an extraordinarily short campaign, rife with tactics that would have put Machiavelli to shame. As it was, his portrait in the Uffizi fainted several times. Minerva was rendered speechless and Albus's portrait wide-eyed as they witnessed the ruthless political manoeuvring. One by one, candidates were rendered unsuitable or unwilling and Governors convinced (through means that might have included various unprovable forms of coercion) of her undeniable qualifications.
And thus Hermione Granger became Hogwarts' Headmistress. What no one realised was that she was, in fact, Hermione Granger-Snape, achieving her position with the full support of her presumed-dead husband, Severus.
9. . Hermione looked up, shocked.
"Oh, Severus! I'm sorry to wake you. I just-"
"I know. I understand," he repeated.
"Yes, you would, wouldn't you?" She sniffled wetly, wiping her face on her nightdress. "I appreciate that. Tell me, does it ever stop hurting?"
"No," he admitted. "Never. However…" He paused, surveying her damp face and reddened nose, her frizzy hair standing out in every direction. Though it was physically impossible, he felt his heart pounding.
"In time," he continued, "I have found… not a replacement, no, but a… vastly superior successor."
Hermione's smile gleamed in the moonlight. "So have I."
Severus returned to his portrait when the Headmaster's office became the Headmistress' office, and Hermione took her place behind a desk that had briefly been his.
He found the office's atmosphere no longer intolerable; somehow, it was easier to abide the blathering of others when it was he whom Hermione asked for guidance first, his word that was valued most.
She ruled Hogwarts well and wisely for decades, and his pride in her success was keen. He visited her quarters each day, watching her sleep and wake.
10. The Headmistress of Hogwarts scurried around her tower office as she tidied up the loose ends that would allow her to spend a peaceful week or two with her husband. She was running late, but what could you expect when Hogwarts was blessed with a reincarnation of the Weasley twins? Fred and George could never do anything separately, Hermione thought in exasperation, and their children had been born just hours apart. She was convinced that their first two years at Hogwarts had precipitated Minerva McGonagall’s cowardly announcement of retirement. Never mind that she had married the visiting Ancient Runes lecturer and was now honeymooning on Australia’s Gold Coast-quite happily too, if the pictures were any proof. Still, Hermione firmly believed that Minerva’s retreat had everything to do with the existence and enrollment of the two nearly identical redheaded male cousins; the bane of the Hogwarts’ staff.
So instead saying goodbye to her eldest daughter, instead of visiting with her oldest friend, and more importantly keeping her husband from murdering said friend if he dared to kiss Sylvia in front of him, the Headmistress of Hogwarts had spent the morning assigning reams of summer work to the juvenile delinquents as punishment for plying the first years with Weasley’s Prince Charming Cheers. Hunting down every male first year turned toad and then matching each up with the appropriate female first year ‘Princess’ had taken hours. And while the girls had squealed happily when their robes were transformed into pretty princess costumes, many had not liked kissing the toads at all, and more than one had broken down in tears when her ‘Prince’ was revealed. Too bad a stint in Azkaban was not appropriate punishment for third-years. The Howlers that were winging their way to their parents at this very moment seemed a very feeble gesture, the Headmistress thought darkly, and Fred and George would be hearing from her personally at some point this summer.
Hermione looked around her office with pleasure and awe. She still found it hard to believe that she was Headmistress of Hogwarts. She’d made a good career at Gringotts, but Hogwarts was home.