FIC (wip): Untitled SS/HG (1/5)
In February of 2004, I started writing a Snape/Hermione story. I played with it, off and on, for a long time, putting it aside whenever another story (or real life) demanded my attention, but always picking it up again to add a few hundred words here and there. Then Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published, and there was so much that needed to be changed in my story that I just buried it in a folder on my hard drive and tried to ignore it.
The trouble is, I couldn't forget about it entirely, and now with the last HP book coming out, I've decided to try and finish the story (making it reasonably HBP compliant at the same time), just to have one less albatross hanging about my neck. With that in mind, I'm going to be posting it in sections over the course of the next few weeks. Feel free to critique since I'll be revising the story at least one more time after it's completed.
Untitled (1/5)
Author: Beth H (bethbethbeth)
Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Word Count: 6300 (for this section)
A/N: this part might as well be gen, so for those of you with "Ew, het!" responses, feel free to read. :)
***
prologue
Not for one waking moment in the seven years that she attended Hogwarts Academy for Wizards and Witches was Hermione Granger indifferent to Severus Snape. She was suspicious, admiring, antagonistic, and pitying in turn - back and forth along the continuum of feelings and emotions - but never indifferent.
The same could not be said for her schoolmates. It was true that the sight of Snape's billowing robes rounding a corner or the mention of his name often evoked a sharp stab of anxiety in even the most stalwart of her friends, but by and large, thoughts of Professor Snape lodged no more firmly in their conscious minds than did the certain knowledge that some percentage of Bertie Botts Flavoured Beans would taste foul. When they encountered one of the worst of the flavoured beans, they either spat it out or - more commonly - chewed and swallowed, but for the rest of the time, the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts were able to disregard the fact that such foul-tasting things inhabited their universe.
In Hermione's early school days, thoughts about Snape all clustered at one end of the continuum. Hermione was a brilliant child, but she was a child nonetheless, and had a child's perceptions and prejudices. As with most children, her beliefs were organized into a simple system of binaries. Yes or no. Black or white. Good or bad. There was little if any room for maybe. For grey.
For human.
Aside from Professor Snape's undeniable brilliance with Potions, there was next to nothing even the brightest of children could see that would suggest he was anything more than the "greasy git" Ron called him whenever Snape was out of earshot.
His unrelieved black attire, ever-present glare, and menacing tone of voice could hardly fail to strike a note of fear, especially in a Muggle-born girl whose childhood had been peopled with similarly-garbed monsters that leapt out of the celluloid shadows during Saturday visits to the cinema.
She convinced herself early on that he was Bad - and certainly there was little evidence that her assessment was wrong. Snape was sarcastic and cutting. He made no attempt to disguise his favouring of his own Slytherins over students from the other three Houses, most notably Gryffindor. And his behavior toward her two best friends, particularly Harry, was spiteful and cruel.
And finally, there was his manner in the classroom, which was nothing like the mostly-kind and always-encouraging manner of the teachers at the progressive Muggle school Hermione had attended before coming to Hogwarts. Snape refused to allow for different skills and abilities when it came to the study of Potions, and his impatience with his students - the slow and the quick alike - was impossible to ignore; more than one child in his classes was reduced to tears each term. He introduced new concepts before even the brightest of his students had become entirely comfortable with the old, and he refused to give any student a perfect mark for any task, regardless of how well they had performed, sneering openly at his colleagues' occasional, tentative suggestions that he might consider being slightly less rigid in his marking.
Hermione had no particular complaint about teachers holding their students to high standards (her own parents had raised her to aspire to almost ridiculously high academic standards, after all), but no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, Professor Snape was not satisfied, and this was something she could not understand.
In short, there was little to recommend Professor Snape in Hermione's eyes.
This did not, however, mean that Hermione paid no attention to him. In fact, if anything she was all the more interested in Snape, in much the same way that Hagrid was fascinated by Blast Ended Skrewts, although without any of the underlying affection Hagrid held for his dangerous creatures.
Even after she learned of Snape's work for the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione was still a little mystified by the headmaster's apparent high regard for this man or the way Professor Dumbledore seemed to ignore the Potions master's unfair attitudes. It was true that Snape put his life on the line every time he was in Voldemort's presence, but he wasn't the only member of the Order risking life and limb on a regular basis. Harry, for instance . . . well, maybe Harry was a bad example since Dumbledore did seem to also allow a great deal of freedom to Harry, regardless of how often Harry broke the rules. And, yes, the headmaster had hired Remus Lupin as a teacher, despite his lycanthropy. And he'd let Sirius . . . all right, perhaps she couldn't exactly fault the headmaster for overlooking some of Professor Snape's less than fair actions; it was no more than he did for all the other members of the Order.
And the truth was, Snape had saved Harry's life more than once and he was the only Order member to put himself repeatedly in Voldemort's line of fire, regardless of the danger. Plus, of course, he was quite brilliant where potions was concerned, even if most of her friends were unable to recognize that his knowledge of the field was anything out of the ordinary. He might be a rotten excuse for a teacher, but he seemed to know everything there was to know about his subject. If only she could tap his brain and his experience without actually having to be in his classroom three days a week, there'd be no telling how much she could learn.
Although . . . being in the classroom wasn't all bad. Sometimes, when Snape was demonstrating a new technique or talking about the development of some variant of an ancient potion, he seemed to forget that he was standing in front of a roomful of the students he despised, and Hermione would find herself enthralled by his passion for his subject - so much so that she'd become almost hypnotized by the sound of his voice.
And then, out of nowhere, Gryffindor would lose another five points because someone sneezed, and Hermione would forget that she'd ever managed to find something to admire in the infuriating man.
But she watched him and she envied his skill at Potions and hated his behavior toward her and her classmates and noticed when he was absent from meals in the Great Hall and was annoyed by his sneering and glaring . . . and by her sixth year, she found herself wondering how her friends could still be making fun of the way Snape looked because honestly, he wasn't noticeably more strange looking than most of the adult wizards and witches Hermione had encountered at Hogwarts or in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley and he was certainly a great deal more intriguing . . .
. . . and then the end of her sixth year came, and everything changed.
For a very long time, Hermione tried hard to think of Snape only as a dangerous enemy in the war they all had to fight, and even after the truth about his actions was finally revealed, well, by that point it was easier just not to think about him at all, and so Hermione didn't, right through the moment she finally completed her NEWTs and left Hogwarts for the last time to get on with the rest of her life.
***
one
Another week, another Galleon.
With three of her fellow researchers trailing in her wake, Hermione walked out of the Wen Centre for Magical Innovations, squinting a little in the light of the setting sun.
"Thank Merlin it's Friday, hey?"
"Hmm?"
Martin Grepshenk snorted a laugh and draped a heavy arm across her shoulder. "I said thank Merlin it's Friday. What's up? You look a little out of it tonight."
Hermione shook her head. "No, I'm okay. I'm just thinking about the project. I was certain that the extra lacewing would make a difference, but we're getting the same results no matter how much of it we use."
Martin smiled. "Six o'clock's come and gone, you know. It's not like the potion won't be waiting for us on Monday morning."
"I know that," she said. "I just wish I could have gone through one more trial tonight."
"It's the weekend, Hermione. Remember weekends? Those days in the week when you're allowed to forget about work and do something fun?"
Shifting her leather shoulder bag to the other side as an unspoken excuse, Hermione slipped out from under Martin's slightly sweaty arm. She'd learned years ago not to bother trying to explain to any of her colleagues that when she was hip-deep in a project, working on it was fun - at least as fun as her real plans for this coming weekend, which involved three weeks worth of laundry and doing enough grocery shopping to at least replace the tea and biscuits in her bare cupboards.
It was almost enough to make her long for the days she had House-elves at her disposal.
Almost.
"I remember weekends, Martin. It's just that I was so certain we were heading for a break-through. You don't suppose we should think about using Thestral hide, do you?"
Martin sighed. "You're hopeless, you know that? In the first place, in case you've forgotten, Thestal hide is a protected substance, and only Ministry officials are allowed to requisition it. And in the second place - as I think I might have mentioned before - it's the weekend. Party time!"
Hermione bit back a grin. Sometimes Martin sounded so much like Ron used to back when they were younger - before Ron's marriage and the triplets put all thoughts of partying out of his mind.
"So what are your plans for the weekend, you three?"
"Ah. Funny you should ask. Serena, Malcolm, and I are going to kick it off by heading over to the Dram Shoppe for a little after-work drink or two, after which we'll move the party over to MacMillan's, where we may just have a drink or two. And then . . . well, I'm not sure what comes after that, but I suspect having a drink or two will feature strongly. Come along with us, will you?"
"Oh do!" said Serena. "It's been ages since you've come out with us and honestly, I could do with the female support. Marty and Malcolm are such total. . . boys, sometimes!"
"Attractive as the prospect of getting drunk with you lot sounds, I think I'm going to have to pass this time. I already have plans."
Malcolm raised his eyebrows and peered over the frames of his new purple sunglasses. "Are you holding out on us, Granger? Don't tell me you've got a lover tucked away somewhere and you haven't shared the plans for this weekend's hot date with your mates!"
Hermione smiled in what she hoped was a mysterious way, but which probably just looked slightly silly, judging by Serena's giggling and the grins on the faces of both men.
"All right, so it's not a hot date. But I do have plans, and . . . ."
"Just one drink, Hermione," Martin said. "One little drink. Pumpkin juice, even - at least if you don't mind looking the other way for a few seconds so that we can spike it with something a little more potent."
She looked at the faces of her colleagues, and all at once Hermione couldn't come up with a single good reason why she shouldn't join them. After all, it wasn't as if she'd had any better offers recently.
"Oh, what the hell. I'm in."
Malcolm's jaw dropped. "Really? You're really coming along?"
"Why not? But it's just going to be one drink, mind. I really do have business to take care of."
Once again, she felt Martin's arm settle heavily on her shoulder.
"That's our girl," he said cheerfully. "I promise, you won't regret it."
***
Four hours and an uncountable number of drinks later, Hermione stumbled out of MacMillan's Bar. She took a deep breath, but it only made her more dizzy.
No way was she going to be able to Apparate tonight, not without splinching herself. In fact, in this state, she didn't even think she'd be able to brew a potion for the hangover that was sure to greet her in the morning.
What was it her Uncle Tom used to do when he'd had too much to drink? All she could remember him taking was aspirin chased down by a litre of water to prevent dehydration. She looked down the street. There was no chance of finding a shop that sold aspirin in wizarding London. She was going to have to look for a chemists on the way home; one of them had to still be open.
Hermione sighed, and started walking in what she hoped was the direction of her flat.
She was less than three blocks from home before she finally found a chemists that was still open.
A twenty-something with an assistant manager tag pinned to her jumper looked up from the magazine that lay open in front of her as Hermione walked into the shop, then turned back to the article she'd been reading without saying a word.
"Pardon me," said Hermione.
The young woman put the magazine to one side.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a bored tone.
"Would you mind telling me where I might find some aspirin?"
"Aisle four," the woman answered, then glanced at her magazine again before adding, "unless there was there something else you wanted?"
"Too bad she's not a witch," Hermione thought. "Her customer relations style would practically guarantee her a job at Toil and Troubles in Diagon Alley."
"No, that's all, thanks."
She turned and walked in the direction she'd been waved by the sullen assistant manager, but couldn't see anything that looked like aspirin. She took a quick look down to the end of the aisle and saw Professor Snape kneeling beside the shelves next to an open box. Well, she'd try the next aisle first, and if she couldn't find the aspirin there, maybe she'd just ask Snape if he . . . .
Snape? Severus Snape?
Hermione turned around and returned to the aisle in which she'd just been, but it was empty. No one was there. Certainly not her former Potions teacher. But there was a half unpacked carton of conditioner sitting on the floor, so she hadn't been hallucinating entirely. Somebody had just been there.
After taking a quick look in the next aisle - and the one after that - Hermione found the aspirin she'd been looking for. She brought the bottle up to the register and handed over the payment, almost forgetting to pay in Muggle currency instead of Galleons, not that it would have made much difference as far as she could tell, as the assistant manager didn't look up from her magazine once during the transaction.
Hermione walked out into the chilly London night air with her purchase and - with a surprising amount of difficulty - broke the seal on the bottle. Too late, it struck her that she probably should have bought a bottle of water or something to help the pills go down, but she really had no interest in going back in and having to deal with Miss Charm again this evening. Hermione sighed, then dry swallowed three of the pills. They tasted terrible - bitter and chalky - but she knew from experience that they were effective.
Which reminded her, once again, of Snape.
No, it was impossible that the man inside the chemist's could have been him. For one thing, he'd been dressed in some kind of pale blue jacket and tan trousers - not Professor Snape's style at all. But the hair . . . .
Hermione checked her watch. The store would be closing in just a few minutes. Surely it wouldn't hurt to wait a little longer, just to make sure.
Finally the employees started to leave, chatting with each other as they waited for the last workers to come out so they could lower the gate and lock up for the night. Hermione was just about to turn and walk away when he appeared.
She ducked her head and turned away before she could get a clear look at his face, but it was him. Snape. It had to be.
She slipped back into the shadows of the entryway to the shop next door, and when he began to walk swiftly down the street in the opposite direction to the others, without giving it more than a moment's thought, she started to follow.
Hermione wasn't quite sure why she had this odd compulsion to pursue him, but she did. What was Snape doing in there? It didn't make a bit of sense. Despite his family background, he'd never expressed any particular interest in the Muggle world as far as she could remember. And it wasn't even as if he'd somehow translated his skill in potions to the more prosaic Muggle job of pharmacist, for some unfathomable reason. She'd seen the chemist behind the counter and that person was most definitely not Snape, at least not unless her former Potions master had somehow become a short Asian woman over the intervening years.
Her quarry was getting a little too far ahead. Hermione stepped up the pace a bit, not wanting to lose him if he turned a corner suddenly. It had been years since she'd had a reason to tail anybody.
Although, for the life of her, she couldn't remember it ever making her feel like such a prat as she felt now. Of course, in her school days, she wasn't usually alone when she did something like this; she was with Harry or Ron or both. But it wasn't just missing the presence of her childhood cohorts that made her feel like she was being an idiot. No, back then, she and the boys always had a good reason to be following someone - or at least they thought they had. Tonight . . . .well, her thought processes might be at something less than optimum strength because of all the drinks her co-workers had set in front of her earlier this evening, but she was thinking clearly enough to realize - finally - that she didn't really have any reason to be following Snape apart from idle curiosity.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she was no longer entirely certain the man she'd seen in the shop was Snape. There had to be hundreds of tall, thin, middle-aged men in London with long, limp black hair. Granted, it was less likely that many of them shared such a distinctive profile, but Snape couldn't be the only man in the city with a nose like that.
Hermione stopped in her tracks. Even if it had been Professor Snape, how could that possibly matter to her? She was tired and cold and feeling more queasy by the minute. What was she doing sneaking around as if she were still an adolescent and following a man who'd probably turn out to be a complete stranger?
Because she had to know, that's why.
However, when she looked back down the street, the man had disappeared.
Damn! How could she have lost him? She'd only turned away for a second! Hermione dashed past an alley and ran to the corner of the street, but . . . no, there was no sign of him - or of any other pedestrian, for that matter. The roads were deserted.
"Right," she thought. "Nobody's on the street because, unlike me, everybody's sensible enough to be home, tucked away under the duvet with a hot cup of tea and a packet of digestives." Hermione shook her head and started to walk back the way she'd come.
She had just passed the narrow alley when she felt a hand grab the collar of her jacket and pull her back into the dark alley. She reached instinctively for her wand, but before she could touch it, she felt the press of wood at the back of her neck.
"Whoever you are, I would advise you not to make another move."
The words were spoken in familiar silken tones, now slightly raspy as if the speaker hadn't much reason to use his voice recently.
"Had someone led you to believe that I had grown so enfeebled I was no longer able to detect such a clumsy attempt to follow me? If so, you were sadly misinformed. Now . . . turn around. Slowly."
Once more, she reached for her coat pocket.
"Leave your wand where it is, and step into the light."
Hermione turned around, slowly as he had told her to do, and met Severus Snape's frown.
"Good evening, Professor Snape."
He lowered his wand a fraction of an inch, but continued to hold it in a tight grip.
"Hermione Granger," he said slowly. "Perhaps you'd be so good as to inform me why you were following me . . . and when it was that you became so inept at a skill you'd perfected by the time you were twelve."
He waited, eyes narrowed dangerously, for her to answer his question, but she remained silent. How could she answer his question when she wasn't even able to answer it for herself? Why had she followed him? Mere curiosity wasn't likely to satisfy him as an answer when it hadn't even satisfied her, yet no other explanation came readily to mind.
She stood before him on the pavement - cold, tired, unable to meet his gaze, and feeling for all the world as if she'd been sent back in time a dozen years, only to be summoned to the dungeons to serve a detention.
"Miss Granger, are you going to answer me, or are we going to stand here all night?"
"Professor . . . I think . . . ."
"Well?"
"I think I'm going to be sick."
Hermione didn't have time to spare him another thought before kneeling down next to one of the walls that framed the alley and resting a hand on the bricks to keep her balance. She took three deep breaths, hoping to retain a last vestige of control, but it was useless. In the next instant, she proceeded to lose everything she'd had to drink that night as well as what felt like all the food she'd eaten in the past week.
Snape didn't say a word, but Hermione could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head through the whole humiliating spectacle. When there was nothing left to vomit, a linen handkerchief was thrust into her hand.
She looked up in confusion, only to see a familiar sneer on his face.
"Are you unfamiliar with the use of handkerchiefs, Miss Granger?"
Ordinarily, Hermione would have responded in kind, but not only was she incapable at the moment of participating in any kind of verbal sparring, but she was also too grateful for having the square of fabric in her hand to even consider challenging the person who'd given it to her.
She finally stood up - slowly, and with her hand still on the alley wall - and wiped the handkerchief across her chin one more time, just to be on the safe side.
Why wasn't Snape saying anything? Not knowing what he was thinking was worse than if he'd yelled at her as if she'd been a naughty child.
She bit her bottom lip and grimaced at the taste. "Would you just say whatever you're going to say and get it over with, for goodness sake?"
Snape raised one eyebrow, but continued his silent assessment. Amazing. Even in poorly made, mis-matched Muggle clothing, he still looked as imperious, arrogant, and dangerous as he had when she was a child. Unlike then, however, Hermione no longer found it so easy to spin the kind of lies that would extricate her from whatever trouble she and her friends used to find themselves in. She must have fallen out of the habit somewhere along the way.
Perhaps the truth would have to do.
"I don't know," she said quietly.
"Excuse me?" Snape said. "I don't believe I heard what you just said."
Hermione looked up and met his steady gaze. "I said I don't know. I have no idea why I was following you. Nostalgia, maybe? I just don't know."
To say that Snape looked surprised at her answer would have been a serious understatement of the case. 'Astonished' would have been closer to the truth.
"Nostalgia," he said finally, disbelief strong in his voice. "You wish me to believe . . . what, precisely? That a glimpse of your least favorite teacher suddenly evoked a rush of heretofore unsuspected fond memories, enough so that you were compelled to keep me in your sight? Forgive me if I . . . ."
"You weren't my very least favorite teacher," Hermione said automatically. "Trelawney was much worse."
As soon as the words left her mouth, Hermione recognized the implied insult she'd just given him, but it was too late to take the words back. But instead of the glower she expected to see in response to her poorly chosen words, Snape just . . . laughed. It sounded even more rusty and unused than his voice had when he first spoke, but it was a real laugh nonetheless.
Hermione took advantage of the unexpected easing of tension to ask, "I don't suppose you happen to have some potion to counteract the effects of alcohol poisoning on you?"
Snape tucked his wand into the pocket of the navy pea coat he was wearing and turned toward he street.
"Follow me." Despite the passage of time, the habit of obeying the instructions of her former Potions master remained as strong as ever. Snape strode down the street, and Hermione trailed in his wake, following him finally into a small cafe.
"Sit," he ordered, indicating one of the chairs at a small table pushed up against the wall.
Hermione might have taken offense at Snape's arrogant assumption that she'd simply fall in line with his commands even though she was no longer one of his students if she hadn't felt such a dizzying sense of relief at being able to sit down at last. God. She knew she should have called it a night after the second whatever-it-was that Martin and Malcolm had insisted on buying for her.
She rested her head in her hands and closed her eyes, only to open them again when she heard the solid clink of a glass being placed down on the table in front of her. When she opened her eyes she saw a pale yellow drink in a water glass.
"What is it?"
"Ginger ale."
She reached for the glass, then paused and looked up at Snape. "Muggle ginger ale? That's the best curative that the brilliant Potions master, Severus Snape, can come up with?"
She winced. Was her mouth totally disconnected from her brain tonight? However, Snape looked oddly pleased for a moment, before curling his lip in its more familiar sneer.
"Oh, for . . . drink it already, Miss Granger. It isn't going to harm you. If I had wanted you dead for some reason, I could have seen to it ten minutes ago in the alley, and I would have had far fewer witnesses."
She lifted the glass and took an experimental sip.
"This isn't just ginger ale," she whispered.
"Of course it isn't," he replied, leaning back in his chair and smirking. "It's been . . . enhanced, shall we say. Finish your drink,"
Despite a sneaking suspicion that whatever Snape had put in the ginger ale would cause her to sprout wings or turn blue, she did as he said. When she finished, she reached into her bag and took out a small pocket mirror, just to make sure that . . . no, there wasn't a feather to be seen, and her colour was actually quite good, all things considered.
She felt fine, too. Better than fine, in fact. Not a hint of dizziness remained, and the stomach-churning nausea that hadn't disappeared even after she'd been sick was gone as well.
"Thank you," she said.
Snape dismissed her thanks with a wave of his hand. "I happened to have the appropriate ingredients with me, that is all. They are not uncommon, as you might recall."
Hermione frowned. No, now that the alcohol was no longer clouding her brain, she could remember clearly all of the ingredients for sobriety potions as well as the various brews that alleviated the symptoms associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Snape was correct, of course, when he said that all of these ingredients were common enough. However, the likelihood of anyone "just happening" to have all of them with no particular reason was beyond the limits of her imagination.
She knew better than to ask why he had them - Hermione was in no position to question him about anything at the moment - but her curiosity must have shown in her face.
"Old habits die hard," Snape said in answer to the question she hadn't asked.
She nodded automatically, although she wasn't quite sure what his words were supposed to have made clear to her, if anything.
It was possible - not likely, but possible - that for some reason he was letting her know that he had grown accustomed to overindulging in alcohol, but somehow that didn't mesh with the image she had of him. She couldn't even remember him sharing in the celebratory drinks at 12 Grimmauld Place after the final defeat of Voldemort, although to be honest, Hermione couldn't recall having seen Snape eat or drink anything at the Black house, regardless of the occasion.
So perhaps it had something to do with his years spying for the Order instead. Everything she'd learned suggested that Death Eater gatherings, except those at the very highest levels, were rather drunken affairs. It probably made sense for Snape to keep on hand the right ingredients to enable him to retain control of his faculties regardless of how much Firewhisky he had to drink to maintain his cover.
Of course, this wouldn't explain why he'd still feel the need to safeguard himself in this way, so long after the War had ended, but since it was unlikely she'd get a confirmation or denial of her theory out of him even if she asked, she tried to put the whole question out of mind.
"So," Hermione said hesitantly. "How have you been?"
Snape snorted. "I must have failed to note 'social pleasantries' on tonight's agenda. Was it the weather or work-related anecdotes you wished to focus on?"
She knew he was mocking her, but she couldn't help agreeing it was rather funny. How ludicrous for her to treat this as if it were nothing but a reunion of two old friendly acquaintances.
Schooling her features into the most bland expression she could muster, Hermione leaned forward. "Do you think it looks like rain?" she asked as earnestly as she could.
For the second time that night, Snape laughed.
"Very good. Then I say 'I shouldn't think so,' and ask how you're getting on at . . . where do you work these days? I would have guessed you'd be working as an Auror by now, but after that pathetic performance earlier, I'm less inclined to think it very likely, even given their current low standards. So . . . some other Ministry department, no doubt. Perhaps the . . . ."
"I wouldn't work for the Ministry," she said, a little more emphatically than she'd intended. "Not after . . . anyway, I don't work for the Ministry."
"No?" Whether or not Snape wanted to pursue the subject was unclear, but he said nothing further, just raised an eyebrow and waited for her to continue.
"No. I'm actually working in the private sector. I'm doing research at the Wen Centre for Magical Innovations."
"Ah. They used to have a fairly strong Charms division, if I recall correctly."
Hermione nodded. "They still do, but I'm not working on Charms. I'm working in the Potions division."
"Potions? When did they branch out into Potions?" he demanded, leaning forward.
She should have been able to guess that the mention of Potions would draw a spark of honest interest from Severus Snape even if nothing else could.
"It's been over three years now since they created the division. I gather you haven't . . ." How best to phrase this? ". . . been interested in the wizarding news recently?"
Snape's eyes narrowed and he stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. Finally he looked away.
"No, I haven't paid attention to much of anything in the way of the news of the wizarding world in recent years beyond noticing whatever dunderheads are waving inanely from the front page of the Daily Prophet. It still seems to be your friend Potter three days out of four."
Hermione simply inclined her head in agreement. There was no particular reason to share the fact that for well over a year now, she'd seen Harry no more often than Snape had, and in exactly the same circumstances.
"We've been doing some work on concealment potions recently. It's part of a project that started with a query from China's Dragon handlers, but word seemed to get around to anyone with a regular need to transport Magical Creatures through areas with large Muggle populations, and so now we're . . . I'm sorry. This probably isn't of any real interest to you."
"I'll inform you when I cease to care. Continue."
A small part of Hermione was begging for permission to tell Snape to just piss off if he couldn't make at least a small attempt to be polite, but a far larger part of her understood that quite apart from the fact that his near-total lack of any social graces wasn't anything new, he was probably the one person in England who might be able to answer some of the questions her team had yet to answer where the potion was concerned. He was certainly one of the few people in Europe who might even understand the direction they were thinking of taking.
She took a deep breath and leaned closer. "I'm certain you remember the attempts Eric Von Dieter made in the eighties to bind a silencing spell to a concealing potion."
"Von Dieter is an idiot."
Hermione smiled. "Yes, he is, isn't he? However, he isn't completely incompetent when it comes to Potions."
Snape grunted in acknowledgment.
"More to the point, Aneela Kamtam was adapting the spell for him, and she's not an idiot."
"Perhaps not. However, their attempts all ended in failure, did they not?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. As did all the attempts Von Dieter made to develop a silencing potion just in case that might work where the spell had failed."
"I repeat, the man is an idiot. A mere child could brew a silencing potion." Snape stifled a yawn. "Is there a point to this ode to failure, Miss Granger? If so, I'd appreciate hearing it so that I might be allowed to return to my home sometime tonight."
Hermione breathed an inward sigh of relief. She understood that this was as close as Snape was going to come to saying that she was no longer in any danger of retribution for her alcohol-fueled pursuit of him earlier in the evening.
"You're welcome to leave whenever you want, of course, Professor. And yes, I'm very much aware that a mere child can brew a silencing potion because I did it when I was fourteen, as did all the other students in my year. But I've come to the conclusion over the past few months that there was only one person who could develop such a potion, and that person was no child. You created the silencing potion we brewed in our fourth year, didn't you?"
"Don't be an idiot," Snape said. "That was part of the standard potions textbook for your year."
"Perhaps so," she said, "at least while we were at Hogwarts. However, I kept the book after I left school."
"Of course you did," he muttered.
Hermione ignored his interruption. "Oddly enough, the specific pages containing that potion don't seem to be in the textbook any longer, nor is there a listing for it in the index."
"Perhaps your copy of the book was defective."
"My copy was perfectly good, and you know it because you're the one who charmed those pages to disappear when taken off school grounds, didn't you? If my team is going to be able to proceed with the binding experiments, we'll need that silencing potion, Professor. I remember most of it, but I can't remember the last items on the list of ingredients. What reason could you possibly have to keep such a useful discovery a secret?"
"What reason?" Snape said, pushing his greasy black hair back over his ears and pressing on his temples. "Perhaps it was because one month after your class was taught how to brew that potion, but before I'd had an opportunity to publish my findings, the Ministry, in its wisdom, put the key ingredient on the restricted list, at which point any further development became impossible. And two months after that," he continued, glancing automatically at his left forearm, "I no longer had . . . the leisure to explore alternate means of preparing the potion."
"Oh," she said softly."I'd forgotten."
"How very fortunate for you." Snape pushed his chair back from the table. "And now, pleasant as this has been, I believe I must take my leave. Some of us have to . . . work in the morning."
"Would you mind if I . . . ."
"Yes, I would mind. Whatever you're about to ask, I would mind very much."
"But . . . ."
"Miss Granger, just because I wasn't inclined to leave a former student drunk and vomiting in an alley in the middle of the night, don't presume I have any interest in further contact with you." He stood up and buttoned his coat. "Oh, and one more thing. You owe ninety-five pence for the ginger ale."
***
[ Click here for Part 2]
And in totally unrelated news: Happy Birthday, snapetoy!!!
The trouble is, I couldn't forget about it entirely, and now with the last HP book coming out, I've decided to try and finish the story (making it reasonably HBP compliant at the same time), just to have one less albatross hanging about my neck. With that in mind, I'm going to be posting it in sections over the course of the next few weeks. Feel free to critique since I'll be revising the story at least one more time after it's completed.
Untitled (1/5)
Author: Beth H (bethbethbeth)
Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Word Count: 6300 (for this section)
A/N: this part might as well be gen, so for those of you with "Ew, het!" responses, feel free to read. :)
***
prologue
Not for one waking moment in the seven years that she attended Hogwarts Academy for Wizards and Witches was Hermione Granger indifferent to Severus Snape. She was suspicious, admiring, antagonistic, and pitying in turn - back and forth along the continuum of feelings and emotions - but never indifferent.
The same could not be said for her schoolmates. It was true that the sight of Snape's billowing robes rounding a corner or the mention of his name often evoked a sharp stab of anxiety in even the most stalwart of her friends, but by and large, thoughts of Professor Snape lodged no more firmly in their conscious minds than did the certain knowledge that some percentage of Bertie Botts Flavoured Beans would taste foul. When they encountered one of the worst of the flavoured beans, they either spat it out or - more commonly - chewed and swallowed, but for the rest of the time, the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts were able to disregard the fact that such foul-tasting things inhabited their universe.
In Hermione's early school days, thoughts about Snape all clustered at one end of the continuum. Hermione was a brilliant child, but she was a child nonetheless, and had a child's perceptions and prejudices. As with most children, her beliefs were organized into a simple system of binaries. Yes or no. Black or white. Good or bad. There was little if any room for maybe. For grey.
For human.
Aside from Professor Snape's undeniable brilliance with Potions, there was next to nothing even the brightest of children could see that would suggest he was anything more than the "greasy git" Ron called him whenever Snape was out of earshot.
His unrelieved black attire, ever-present glare, and menacing tone of voice could hardly fail to strike a note of fear, especially in a Muggle-born girl whose childhood had been peopled with similarly-garbed monsters that leapt out of the celluloid shadows during Saturday visits to the cinema.
She convinced herself early on that he was Bad - and certainly there was little evidence that her assessment was wrong. Snape was sarcastic and cutting. He made no attempt to disguise his favouring of his own Slytherins over students from the other three Houses, most notably Gryffindor. And his behavior toward her two best friends, particularly Harry, was spiteful and cruel.
And finally, there was his manner in the classroom, which was nothing like the mostly-kind and always-encouraging manner of the teachers at the progressive Muggle school Hermione had attended before coming to Hogwarts. Snape refused to allow for different skills and abilities when it came to the study of Potions, and his impatience with his students - the slow and the quick alike - was impossible to ignore; more than one child in his classes was reduced to tears each term. He introduced new concepts before even the brightest of his students had become entirely comfortable with the old, and he refused to give any student a perfect mark for any task, regardless of how well they had performed, sneering openly at his colleagues' occasional, tentative suggestions that he might consider being slightly less rigid in his marking.
Hermione had no particular complaint about teachers holding their students to high standards (her own parents had raised her to aspire to almost ridiculously high academic standards, after all), but no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, Professor Snape was not satisfied, and this was something she could not understand.
In short, there was little to recommend Professor Snape in Hermione's eyes.
This did not, however, mean that Hermione paid no attention to him. In fact, if anything she was all the more interested in Snape, in much the same way that Hagrid was fascinated by Blast Ended Skrewts, although without any of the underlying affection Hagrid held for his dangerous creatures.
Even after she learned of Snape's work for the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione was still a little mystified by the headmaster's apparent high regard for this man or the way Professor Dumbledore seemed to ignore the Potions master's unfair attitudes. It was true that Snape put his life on the line every time he was in Voldemort's presence, but he wasn't the only member of the Order risking life and limb on a regular basis. Harry, for instance . . . well, maybe Harry was a bad example since Dumbledore did seem to also allow a great deal of freedom to Harry, regardless of how often Harry broke the rules. And, yes, the headmaster had hired Remus Lupin as a teacher, despite his lycanthropy. And he'd let Sirius . . . all right, perhaps she couldn't exactly fault the headmaster for overlooking some of Professor Snape's less than fair actions; it was no more than he did for all the other members of the Order.
And the truth was, Snape had saved Harry's life more than once and he was the only Order member to put himself repeatedly in Voldemort's line of fire, regardless of the danger. Plus, of course, he was quite brilliant where potions was concerned, even if most of her friends were unable to recognize that his knowledge of the field was anything out of the ordinary. He might be a rotten excuse for a teacher, but he seemed to know everything there was to know about his subject. If only she could tap his brain and his experience without actually having to be in his classroom three days a week, there'd be no telling how much she could learn.
Although . . . being in the classroom wasn't all bad. Sometimes, when Snape was demonstrating a new technique or talking about the development of some variant of an ancient potion, he seemed to forget that he was standing in front of a roomful of the students he despised, and Hermione would find herself enthralled by his passion for his subject - so much so that she'd become almost hypnotized by the sound of his voice.
And then, out of nowhere, Gryffindor would lose another five points because someone sneezed, and Hermione would forget that she'd ever managed to find something to admire in the infuriating man.
But she watched him and she envied his skill at Potions and hated his behavior toward her and her classmates and noticed when he was absent from meals in the Great Hall and was annoyed by his sneering and glaring . . . and by her sixth year, she found herself wondering how her friends could still be making fun of the way Snape looked because honestly, he wasn't noticeably more strange looking than most of the adult wizards and witches Hermione had encountered at Hogwarts or in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley and he was certainly a great deal more intriguing . . .
. . . and then the end of her sixth year came, and everything changed.
For a very long time, Hermione tried hard to think of Snape only as a dangerous enemy in the war they all had to fight, and even after the truth about his actions was finally revealed, well, by that point it was easier just not to think about him at all, and so Hermione didn't, right through the moment she finally completed her NEWTs and left Hogwarts for the last time to get on with the rest of her life.
***
one
Another week, another Galleon.
With three of her fellow researchers trailing in her wake, Hermione walked out of the Wen Centre for Magical Innovations, squinting a little in the light of the setting sun.
"Thank Merlin it's Friday, hey?"
"Hmm?"
Martin Grepshenk snorted a laugh and draped a heavy arm across her shoulder. "I said thank Merlin it's Friday. What's up? You look a little out of it tonight."
Hermione shook her head. "No, I'm okay. I'm just thinking about the project. I was certain that the extra lacewing would make a difference, but we're getting the same results no matter how much of it we use."
Martin smiled. "Six o'clock's come and gone, you know. It's not like the potion won't be waiting for us on Monday morning."
"I know that," she said. "I just wish I could have gone through one more trial tonight."
"It's the weekend, Hermione. Remember weekends? Those days in the week when you're allowed to forget about work and do something fun?"
Shifting her leather shoulder bag to the other side as an unspoken excuse, Hermione slipped out from under Martin's slightly sweaty arm. She'd learned years ago not to bother trying to explain to any of her colleagues that when she was hip-deep in a project, working on it was fun - at least as fun as her real plans for this coming weekend, which involved three weeks worth of laundry and doing enough grocery shopping to at least replace the tea and biscuits in her bare cupboards.
It was almost enough to make her long for the days she had House-elves at her disposal.
Almost.
"I remember weekends, Martin. It's just that I was so certain we were heading for a break-through. You don't suppose we should think about using Thestral hide, do you?"
Martin sighed. "You're hopeless, you know that? In the first place, in case you've forgotten, Thestal hide is a protected substance, and only Ministry officials are allowed to requisition it. And in the second place - as I think I might have mentioned before - it's the weekend. Party time!"
Hermione bit back a grin. Sometimes Martin sounded so much like Ron used to back when they were younger - before Ron's marriage and the triplets put all thoughts of partying out of his mind.
"So what are your plans for the weekend, you three?"
"Ah. Funny you should ask. Serena, Malcolm, and I are going to kick it off by heading over to the Dram Shoppe for a little after-work drink or two, after which we'll move the party over to MacMillan's, where we may just have a drink or two. And then . . . well, I'm not sure what comes after that, but I suspect having a drink or two will feature strongly. Come along with us, will you?"
"Oh do!" said Serena. "It's been ages since you've come out with us and honestly, I could do with the female support. Marty and Malcolm are such total. . . boys, sometimes!"
"Attractive as the prospect of getting drunk with you lot sounds, I think I'm going to have to pass this time. I already have plans."
Malcolm raised his eyebrows and peered over the frames of his new purple sunglasses. "Are you holding out on us, Granger? Don't tell me you've got a lover tucked away somewhere and you haven't shared the plans for this weekend's hot date with your mates!"
Hermione smiled in what she hoped was a mysterious way, but which probably just looked slightly silly, judging by Serena's giggling and the grins on the faces of both men.
"All right, so it's not a hot date. But I do have plans, and . . . ."
"Just one drink, Hermione," Martin said. "One little drink. Pumpkin juice, even - at least if you don't mind looking the other way for a few seconds so that we can spike it with something a little more potent."
She looked at the faces of her colleagues, and all at once Hermione couldn't come up with a single good reason why she shouldn't join them. After all, it wasn't as if she'd had any better offers recently.
"Oh, what the hell. I'm in."
Malcolm's jaw dropped. "Really? You're really coming along?"
"Why not? But it's just going to be one drink, mind. I really do have business to take care of."
Once again, she felt Martin's arm settle heavily on her shoulder.
"That's our girl," he said cheerfully. "I promise, you won't regret it."
***
Four hours and an uncountable number of drinks later, Hermione stumbled out of MacMillan's Bar. She took a deep breath, but it only made her more dizzy.
No way was she going to be able to Apparate tonight, not without splinching herself. In fact, in this state, she didn't even think she'd be able to brew a potion for the hangover that was sure to greet her in the morning.
What was it her Uncle Tom used to do when he'd had too much to drink? All she could remember him taking was aspirin chased down by a litre of water to prevent dehydration. She looked down the street. There was no chance of finding a shop that sold aspirin in wizarding London. She was going to have to look for a chemists on the way home; one of them had to still be open.
Hermione sighed, and started walking in what she hoped was the direction of her flat.
She was less than three blocks from home before she finally found a chemists that was still open.
A twenty-something with an assistant manager tag pinned to her jumper looked up from the magazine that lay open in front of her as Hermione walked into the shop, then turned back to the article she'd been reading without saying a word.
"Pardon me," said Hermione.
The young woman put the magazine to one side.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a bored tone.
"Would you mind telling me where I might find some aspirin?"
"Aisle four," the woman answered, then glanced at her magazine again before adding, "unless there was there something else you wanted?"
"Too bad she's not a witch," Hermione thought. "Her customer relations style would practically guarantee her a job at Toil and Troubles in Diagon Alley."
"No, that's all, thanks."
She turned and walked in the direction she'd been waved by the sullen assistant manager, but couldn't see anything that looked like aspirin. She took a quick look down to the end of the aisle and saw Professor Snape kneeling beside the shelves next to an open box. Well, she'd try the next aisle first, and if she couldn't find the aspirin there, maybe she'd just ask Snape if he . . . .
Snape? Severus Snape?
Hermione turned around and returned to the aisle in which she'd just been, but it was empty. No one was there. Certainly not her former Potions teacher. But there was a half unpacked carton of conditioner sitting on the floor, so she hadn't been hallucinating entirely. Somebody had just been there.
After taking a quick look in the next aisle - and the one after that - Hermione found the aspirin she'd been looking for. She brought the bottle up to the register and handed over the payment, almost forgetting to pay in Muggle currency instead of Galleons, not that it would have made much difference as far as she could tell, as the assistant manager didn't look up from her magazine once during the transaction.
Hermione walked out into the chilly London night air with her purchase and - with a surprising amount of difficulty - broke the seal on the bottle. Too late, it struck her that she probably should have bought a bottle of water or something to help the pills go down, but she really had no interest in going back in and having to deal with Miss Charm again this evening. Hermione sighed, then dry swallowed three of the pills. They tasted terrible - bitter and chalky - but she knew from experience that they were effective.
Which reminded her, once again, of Snape.
No, it was impossible that the man inside the chemist's could have been him. For one thing, he'd been dressed in some kind of pale blue jacket and tan trousers - not Professor Snape's style at all. But the hair . . . .
Hermione checked her watch. The store would be closing in just a few minutes. Surely it wouldn't hurt to wait a little longer, just to make sure.
Finally the employees started to leave, chatting with each other as they waited for the last workers to come out so they could lower the gate and lock up for the night. Hermione was just about to turn and walk away when he appeared.
She ducked her head and turned away before she could get a clear look at his face, but it was him. Snape. It had to be.
She slipped back into the shadows of the entryway to the shop next door, and when he began to walk swiftly down the street in the opposite direction to the others, without giving it more than a moment's thought, she started to follow.
Hermione wasn't quite sure why she had this odd compulsion to pursue him, but she did. What was Snape doing in there? It didn't make a bit of sense. Despite his family background, he'd never expressed any particular interest in the Muggle world as far as she could remember. And it wasn't even as if he'd somehow translated his skill in potions to the more prosaic Muggle job of pharmacist, for some unfathomable reason. She'd seen the chemist behind the counter and that person was most definitely not Snape, at least not unless her former Potions master had somehow become a short Asian woman over the intervening years.
Her quarry was getting a little too far ahead. Hermione stepped up the pace a bit, not wanting to lose him if he turned a corner suddenly. It had been years since she'd had a reason to tail anybody.
Although, for the life of her, she couldn't remember it ever making her feel like such a prat as she felt now. Of course, in her school days, she wasn't usually alone when she did something like this; she was with Harry or Ron or both. But it wasn't just missing the presence of her childhood cohorts that made her feel like she was being an idiot. No, back then, she and the boys always had a good reason to be following someone - or at least they thought they had. Tonight . . . .well, her thought processes might be at something less than optimum strength because of all the drinks her co-workers had set in front of her earlier this evening, but she was thinking clearly enough to realize - finally - that she didn't really have any reason to be following Snape apart from idle curiosity.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she was no longer entirely certain the man she'd seen in the shop was Snape. There had to be hundreds of tall, thin, middle-aged men in London with long, limp black hair. Granted, it was less likely that many of them shared such a distinctive profile, but Snape couldn't be the only man in the city with a nose like that.
Hermione stopped in her tracks. Even if it had been Professor Snape, how could that possibly matter to her? She was tired and cold and feeling more queasy by the minute. What was she doing sneaking around as if she were still an adolescent and following a man who'd probably turn out to be a complete stranger?
Because she had to know, that's why.
However, when she looked back down the street, the man had disappeared.
Damn! How could she have lost him? She'd only turned away for a second! Hermione dashed past an alley and ran to the corner of the street, but . . . no, there was no sign of him - or of any other pedestrian, for that matter. The roads were deserted.
"Right," she thought. "Nobody's on the street because, unlike me, everybody's sensible enough to be home, tucked away under the duvet with a hot cup of tea and a packet of digestives." Hermione shook her head and started to walk back the way she'd come.
She had just passed the narrow alley when she felt a hand grab the collar of her jacket and pull her back into the dark alley. She reached instinctively for her wand, but before she could touch it, she felt the press of wood at the back of her neck.
"Whoever you are, I would advise you not to make another move."
The words were spoken in familiar silken tones, now slightly raspy as if the speaker hadn't much reason to use his voice recently.
"Had someone led you to believe that I had grown so enfeebled I was no longer able to detect such a clumsy attempt to follow me? If so, you were sadly misinformed. Now . . . turn around. Slowly."
Once more, she reached for her coat pocket.
"Leave your wand where it is, and step into the light."
Hermione turned around, slowly as he had told her to do, and met Severus Snape's frown.
"Good evening, Professor Snape."
He lowered his wand a fraction of an inch, but continued to hold it in a tight grip.
"Hermione Granger," he said slowly. "Perhaps you'd be so good as to inform me why you were following me . . . and when it was that you became so inept at a skill you'd perfected by the time you were twelve."
He waited, eyes narrowed dangerously, for her to answer his question, but she remained silent. How could she answer his question when she wasn't even able to answer it for herself? Why had she followed him? Mere curiosity wasn't likely to satisfy him as an answer when it hadn't even satisfied her, yet no other explanation came readily to mind.
She stood before him on the pavement - cold, tired, unable to meet his gaze, and feeling for all the world as if she'd been sent back in time a dozen years, only to be summoned to the dungeons to serve a detention.
"Miss Granger, are you going to answer me, or are we going to stand here all night?"
"Professor . . . I think . . . ."
"Well?"
"I think I'm going to be sick."
Hermione didn't have time to spare him another thought before kneeling down next to one of the walls that framed the alley and resting a hand on the bricks to keep her balance. She took three deep breaths, hoping to retain a last vestige of control, but it was useless. In the next instant, she proceeded to lose everything she'd had to drink that night as well as what felt like all the food she'd eaten in the past week.
Snape didn't say a word, but Hermione could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head through the whole humiliating spectacle. When there was nothing left to vomit, a linen handkerchief was thrust into her hand.
She looked up in confusion, only to see a familiar sneer on his face.
"Are you unfamiliar with the use of handkerchiefs, Miss Granger?"
Ordinarily, Hermione would have responded in kind, but not only was she incapable at the moment of participating in any kind of verbal sparring, but she was also too grateful for having the square of fabric in her hand to even consider challenging the person who'd given it to her.
She finally stood up - slowly, and with her hand still on the alley wall - and wiped the handkerchief across her chin one more time, just to be on the safe side.
Why wasn't Snape saying anything? Not knowing what he was thinking was worse than if he'd yelled at her as if she'd been a naughty child.
She bit her bottom lip and grimaced at the taste. "Would you just say whatever you're going to say and get it over with, for goodness sake?"
Snape raised one eyebrow, but continued his silent assessment. Amazing. Even in poorly made, mis-matched Muggle clothing, he still looked as imperious, arrogant, and dangerous as he had when she was a child. Unlike then, however, Hermione no longer found it so easy to spin the kind of lies that would extricate her from whatever trouble she and her friends used to find themselves in. She must have fallen out of the habit somewhere along the way.
Perhaps the truth would have to do.
"I don't know," she said quietly.
"Excuse me?" Snape said. "I don't believe I heard what you just said."
Hermione looked up and met his steady gaze. "I said I don't know. I have no idea why I was following you. Nostalgia, maybe? I just don't know."
To say that Snape looked surprised at her answer would have been a serious understatement of the case. 'Astonished' would have been closer to the truth.
"Nostalgia," he said finally, disbelief strong in his voice. "You wish me to believe . . . what, precisely? That a glimpse of your least favorite teacher suddenly evoked a rush of heretofore unsuspected fond memories, enough so that you were compelled to keep me in your sight? Forgive me if I . . . ."
"You weren't my very least favorite teacher," Hermione said automatically. "Trelawney was much worse."
As soon as the words left her mouth, Hermione recognized the implied insult she'd just given him, but it was too late to take the words back. But instead of the glower she expected to see in response to her poorly chosen words, Snape just . . . laughed. It sounded even more rusty and unused than his voice had when he first spoke, but it was a real laugh nonetheless.
Hermione took advantage of the unexpected easing of tension to ask, "I don't suppose you happen to have some potion to counteract the effects of alcohol poisoning on you?"
Snape tucked his wand into the pocket of the navy pea coat he was wearing and turned toward he street.
"Follow me." Despite the passage of time, the habit of obeying the instructions of her former Potions master remained as strong as ever. Snape strode down the street, and Hermione trailed in his wake, following him finally into a small cafe.
"Sit," he ordered, indicating one of the chairs at a small table pushed up against the wall.
Hermione might have taken offense at Snape's arrogant assumption that she'd simply fall in line with his commands even though she was no longer one of his students if she hadn't felt such a dizzying sense of relief at being able to sit down at last. God. She knew she should have called it a night after the second whatever-it-was that Martin and Malcolm had insisted on buying for her.
She rested her head in her hands and closed her eyes, only to open them again when she heard the solid clink of a glass being placed down on the table in front of her. When she opened her eyes she saw a pale yellow drink in a water glass.
"What is it?"
"Ginger ale."
She reached for the glass, then paused and looked up at Snape. "Muggle ginger ale? That's the best curative that the brilliant Potions master, Severus Snape, can come up with?"
She winced. Was her mouth totally disconnected from her brain tonight? However, Snape looked oddly pleased for a moment, before curling his lip in its more familiar sneer.
"Oh, for . . . drink it already, Miss Granger. It isn't going to harm you. If I had wanted you dead for some reason, I could have seen to it ten minutes ago in the alley, and I would have had far fewer witnesses."
She lifted the glass and took an experimental sip.
"This isn't just ginger ale," she whispered.
"Of course it isn't," he replied, leaning back in his chair and smirking. "It's been . . . enhanced, shall we say. Finish your drink,"
Despite a sneaking suspicion that whatever Snape had put in the ginger ale would cause her to sprout wings or turn blue, she did as he said. When she finished, she reached into her bag and took out a small pocket mirror, just to make sure that . . . no, there wasn't a feather to be seen, and her colour was actually quite good, all things considered.
She felt fine, too. Better than fine, in fact. Not a hint of dizziness remained, and the stomach-churning nausea that hadn't disappeared even after she'd been sick was gone as well.
"Thank you," she said.
Snape dismissed her thanks with a wave of his hand. "I happened to have the appropriate ingredients with me, that is all. They are not uncommon, as you might recall."
Hermione frowned. No, now that the alcohol was no longer clouding her brain, she could remember clearly all of the ingredients for sobriety potions as well as the various brews that alleviated the symptoms associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Snape was correct, of course, when he said that all of these ingredients were common enough. However, the likelihood of anyone "just happening" to have all of them with no particular reason was beyond the limits of her imagination.
She knew better than to ask why he had them - Hermione was in no position to question him about anything at the moment - but her curiosity must have shown in her face.
"Old habits die hard," Snape said in answer to the question she hadn't asked.
She nodded automatically, although she wasn't quite sure what his words were supposed to have made clear to her, if anything.
It was possible - not likely, but possible - that for some reason he was letting her know that he had grown accustomed to overindulging in alcohol, but somehow that didn't mesh with the image she had of him. She couldn't even remember him sharing in the celebratory drinks at 12 Grimmauld Place after the final defeat of Voldemort, although to be honest, Hermione couldn't recall having seen Snape eat or drink anything at the Black house, regardless of the occasion.
So perhaps it had something to do with his years spying for the Order instead. Everything she'd learned suggested that Death Eater gatherings, except those at the very highest levels, were rather drunken affairs. It probably made sense for Snape to keep on hand the right ingredients to enable him to retain control of his faculties regardless of how much Firewhisky he had to drink to maintain his cover.
Of course, this wouldn't explain why he'd still feel the need to safeguard himself in this way, so long after the War had ended, but since it was unlikely she'd get a confirmation or denial of her theory out of him even if she asked, she tried to put the whole question out of mind.
"So," Hermione said hesitantly. "How have you been?"
Snape snorted. "I must have failed to note 'social pleasantries' on tonight's agenda. Was it the weather or work-related anecdotes you wished to focus on?"
She knew he was mocking her, but she couldn't help agreeing it was rather funny. How ludicrous for her to treat this as if it were nothing but a reunion of two old friendly acquaintances.
Schooling her features into the most bland expression she could muster, Hermione leaned forward. "Do you think it looks like rain?" she asked as earnestly as she could.
For the second time that night, Snape laughed.
"Very good. Then I say 'I shouldn't think so,' and ask how you're getting on at . . . where do you work these days? I would have guessed you'd be working as an Auror by now, but after that pathetic performance earlier, I'm less inclined to think it very likely, even given their current low standards. So . . . some other Ministry department, no doubt. Perhaps the . . . ."
"I wouldn't work for the Ministry," she said, a little more emphatically than she'd intended. "Not after . . . anyway, I don't work for the Ministry."
"No?" Whether or not Snape wanted to pursue the subject was unclear, but he said nothing further, just raised an eyebrow and waited for her to continue.
"No. I'm actually working in the private sector. I'm doing research at the Wen Centre for Magical Innovations."
"Ah. They used to have a fairly strong Charms division, if I recall correctly."
Hermione nodded. "They still do, but I'm not working on Charms. I'm working in the Potions division."
"Potions? When did they branch out into Potions?" he demanded, leaning forward.
She should have been able to guess that the mention of Potions would draw a spark of honest interest from Severus Snape even if nothing else could.
"It's been over three years now since they created the division. I gather you haven't . . ." How best to phrase this? ". . . been interested in the wizarding news recently?"
Snape's eyes narrowed and he stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. Finally he looked away.
"No, I haven't paid attention to much of anything in the way of the news of the wizarding world in recent years beyond noticing whatever dunderheads are waving inanely from the front page of the Daily Prophet. It still seems to be your friend Potter three days out of four."
Hermione simply inclined her head in agreement. There was no particular reason to share the fact that for well over a year now, she'd seen Harry no more often than Snape had, and in exactly the same circumstances.
"We've been doing some work on concealment potions recently. It's part of a project that started with a query from China's Dragon handlers, but word seemed to get around to anyone with a regular need to transport Magical Creatures through areas with large Muggle populations, and so now we're . . . I'm sorry. This probably isn't of any real interest to you."
"I'll inform you when I cease to care. Continue."
A small part of Hermione was begging for permission to tell Snape to just piss off if he couldn't make at least a small attempt to be polite, but a far larger part of her understood that quite apart from the fact that his near-total lack of any social graces wasn't anything new, he was probably the one person in England who might be able to answer some of the questions her team had yet to answer where the potion was concerned. He was certainly one of the few people in Europe who might even understand the direction they were thinking of taking.
She took a deep breath and leaned closer. "I'm certain you remember the attempts Eric Von Dieter made in the eighties to bind a silencing spell to a concealing potion."
"Von Dieter is an idiot."
Hermione smiled. "Yes, he is, isn't he? However, he isn't completely incompetent when it comes to Potions."
Snape grunted in acknowledgment.
"More to the point, Aneela Kamtam was adapting the spell for him, and she's not an idiot."
"Perhaps not. However, their attempts all ended in failure, did they not?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. As did all the attempts Von Dieter made to develop a silencing potion just in case that might work where the spell had failed."
"I repeat, the man is an idiot. A mere child could brew a silencing potion." Snape stifled a yawn. "Is there a point to this ode to failure, Miss Granger? If so, I'd appreciate hearing it so that I might be allowed to return to my home sometime tonight."
Hermione breathed an inward sigh of relief. She understood that this was as close as Snape was going to come to saying that she was no longer in any danger of retribution for her alcohol-fueled pursuit of him earlier in the evening.
"You're welcome to leave whenever you want, of course, Professor. And yes, I'm very much aware that a mere child can brew a silencing potion because I did it when I was fourteen, as did all the other students in my year. But I've come to the conclusion over the past few months that there was only one person who could develop such a potion, and that person was no child. You created the silencing potion we brewed in our fourth year, didn't you?"
"Don't be an idiot," Snape said. "That was part of the standard potions textbook for your year."
"Perhaps so," she said, "at least while we were at Hogwarts. However, I kept the book after I left school."
"Of course you did," he muttered.
Hermione ignored his interruption. "Oddly enough, the specific pages containing that potion don't seem to be in the textbook any longer, nor is there a listing for it in the index."
"Perhaps your copy of the book was defective."
"My copy was perfectly good, and you know it because you're the one who charmed those pages to disappear when taken off school grounds, didn't you? If my team is going to be able to proceed with the binding experiments, we'll need that silencing potion, Professor. I remember most of it, but I can't remember the last items on the list of ingredients. What reason could you possibly have to keep such a useful discovery a secret?"
"What reason?" Snape said, pushing his greasy black hair back over his ears and pressing on his temples. "Perhaps it was because one month after your class was taught how to brew that potion, but before I'd had an opportunity to publish my findings, the Ministry, in its wisdom, put the key ingredient on the restricted list, at which point any further development became impossible. And two months after that," he continued, glancing automatically at his left forearm, "I no longer had . . . the leisure to explore alternate means of preparing the potion."
"Oh," she said softly."I'd forgotten."
"How very fortunate for you." Snape pushed his chair back from the table. "And now, pleasant as this has been, I believe I must take my leave. Some of us have to . . . work in the morning."
"Would you mind if I . . . ."
"Yes, I would mind. Whatever you're about to ask, I would mind very much."
"But . . . ."
"Miss Granger, just because I wasn't inclined to leave a former student drunk and vomiting in an alley in the middle of the night, don't presume I have any interest in further contact with you." He stood up and buttoned his coat. "Oh, and one more thing. You owe ninety-five pence for the ginger ale."
***
[ Click here for Part 2]
And in totally unrelated news: Happy Birthday, snapetoy!!!