Hermione is a SPY!
Severus Snape has many qualities that make him the consummate spy. However, sometimes the job requires the courage of a Gryffindor Know-it-all. Join us as Hermione Granger goes undercover as Spy!Hermione.
This week's quiz was chosen by writermerrin who really knows her realistic romances!
So you thought you'd never have a chance to win the quiz? With our new, relaxed procedures anyone can win! No more racing about. You can play the quiz anytime you like over the weekend. Just comment with your answers prior to the answer post going up on Monday and you have a chance to win. Enjoy your reading. Good luck!
Match the quote to the story title:
The D.E.W.W. Conspiracies by Wonk
Rising Above by Dryad
Day Job by Melisande88*
When a Lioness Fights by Kayly Silverstorm aka lioness_kayly (WIP)
Wandless Magic by deeble
The Long Way Home by sshg316
Back in Black by ubiquirk
Saving your Life by lilmisblack
The Grim Mistress by Alphafemale or danistormborn
This Forbidden Knowledge by wendynat
Slightly Less Sinister by Jezzie or sufferbitch
As the Falcon Hath Her Bells: Taking Flight by Hyacinth Macaw aka corglacier7
* Day Job is the sequel to Night School. Read Night School first.
1. “How do you know this person is trustworthy, Kingsley? Very few people know I survived the war, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Behind the large, ornate desk sat the Minister for Magic, who was valiantly-if ineffectively-attempting to hide his amusement. “Calm down. I wouldn’t bring in just anyone to partner with you.” Kingsley’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Severus expectantly.
A flash of abject horror crossed Severus’ face, and he halted his pacing to glare at his so-called friend and employer. “No. Tell me you did not partner me with one of them.”
The Minister smiled benignly, reminding Severus eerily of his former employer.
“Damn it, Kingsley! I refuse to be trapped for months on end with a reckless, foolhardy, dunderhead who-”
“I do hope you’re referring to one of the boys, Mr Snape,” interrupted a feminine voice.
Severus turned toward the doorway only to come face to face with the insufferable know-it-all, Hermione Granger … and Merlin’s beard, had she grown up during the last seven years.
2. “What are you suggesting?” Fred was obviously interested now and slid into a chair near Snape.
“I want to modify a mobile telephone so we’re connected to Miss Granger when she traipses off into wizarding society.”
“Oh ho!” When Snape didn’t react to the suggestive eyebrow wiggling, Fred continued: “Just so we can talk to her, d’you mean?”
“And hear what happens around her as well. She is not and never has been a spy. Most likely she’d miss important subtleties.”
“Well … the first challenge is that complex Muggle inventions seem to go haywire around sustained magic - well, I ought to know, with my dad. So you need to shield either the whole thing or the key parts. Then you’re free to fiddle with them” - he coughed, though Snape noticed the noise sounded vaguely like flying car - “or take them to spell-intensive areas like Hogsmeade.”
“A regular Shielding Charm?”
“Yeah. Second challenge is-”
“-to make it invisible, clearly.”
The unexpected bit of Snape humor surprised Fred into a laugh. With a slight smirk, the other man continued: “A Disillusionment Charm would be sufficient, I should think.”
3. He flicked his wand to light a candle near them. He wanted to see her face, but he was also trying to buy himself some time. She didn't know he would do anything for her. It didn't fit his character. The work they had done together made them easy allies. He wasn't surprised that Hermione became a spy. She liked doing things behind the scenes and after hanging out with Potter for so long, she was used to not getting a whole lot of the glory.
He should've been more adamant when he said he was against it.
He realized she was still watching him, waiting for an answer. Her face was tense, lined and hardened. The Death Eater in him would have loved to see what she would do to Malfoy if she could get to him right now. His eyes narrowed.
"You can't be serious."
"It's taken me two years, Sev, to get in with them. Voldemort thought that having a virgin mudblood would be useful to him. Do you really think he's going to be happy with Malfoy now?" The bloodthirst on her face was evident. Part of Snape's mind was totally entranced by it.
"What do you plan?"
"I plan on letting our Lord know exactly how stupid his lackey is. And with any luck, he'll let me deliver the punishment. Which of course, will only make me look better to him, and get me closer to the whole thing."
4. “I was not enquiring as to whether you two chose to waste your time and energy playing juvenile pranks on your comrades. I instead had a desire to learn exactly what spell you incapacitated Ms. Granger with so that I would have some idea as to how long she would be indisposed.”
Snape!
“But I see that your blathering has served a purpose, nonetheless.” His voice grows closer on my left. “For my interruption of said blathering has proven to me that Ms. Granger has already joined us.
“Is that not so?” This last was said in a quieter voice - a quieter voice I hear very clearly because its source has grown close.
When I open my eyes, I’m gazing directly into those of Severus Snape.
Struggling upwards, my stunned limbs heavy and recalcitrant, I wet overly dry lips with an only slightly moister tongue before rasping, “The Think Pink Brigade is -”
With left hand pressing me to the table, he replies, “Relax, Ms. Granger, you are safe here.”
I look around the small, softly lit room. Heavy, dark wood furniture fills the shadows, and the walls are a forbidden deep wine color. There are no decorations anywhere, and this is shockingly beautiful. “Here being?”
“The headquarters of the resistance.” He pauses to smirk. “Congratulations, Ms. Granger.
5. ‘I believe you deserve an explanation, but I can’t give you one, at least not with all the facts. What I can tell you is this…’
The words kept appearing, only one or two lines replaced over and over again, and she had to concentrate hard just to read them before they were gone.
‘I had to tell the Dark Lord you were working for us so you wouldn’t be killed. They were to think I had seduced you and you were now spying for me.
He wasn’t inclined to believe this, and so I had to convince him I was telling the truth. Had you done anything to stop me earlier tonight we would both be dead by now.’
The words vanished and a few seconds passed, but she couldn’t write anything.
‘Still, I’m afraid this isn’t over yet. They will expect you to provide information about the Order and they’ll probably follow me almost everywhere. We will have to meet again, and they will be there. Do you understand this?’
‘Yes,’ she wrote, the quill shaking in her hand.
A small map appeared then on the parchment, and instructions next to it.
‘You are to Apparate there at 8 o’clock three days from now. You will find a small cabin half a mile south from there. Go inside and wait for me.
6. "I can tell you've been abusing your Pensieve," he said harshly. "Let me remind you of something you once knew."
Her eyes flew open. "No," she repeated. "Whatever it is I've -- forgotten -- put away from myself -- it's not safe for you --"
"I'll worry about that. Let me in, Hermione."
"I. Will. Not." She twisted her head free of his hands, only to have his hands lock into her hair and immobilise her.
He nudged harder at her mind, even as he berated her for his own anxiety. "What do you think you're doing, running about with Draco Malfoy?"
She coloured. "You know I'm only doing what I must do. There's nothing between Draco and me. The...engagement...is only for show."
"Engagement?" And now he was glad he had silenced the tiny cubicle, for he was suddenly shouting. "Engagement? What the bloody hell do you mean, engagement --" His own flaming anger choked him, and suddenly there was only one thought in his mind: Stop her. Convince her. Remind her she is MINE. Even though he knew she was doing nothing he wouldn't have done in the same situation, it simply was not the same. He jerked her against him, and his mouth came down on hers, hard, grinding, brutal -- harder than he had ever kissed her. And all the time the spell was running, coiling around her, twisting tighter and tighter. Legilimens, Legilimens, Legilimens..
Against his mouth she gasped that name, that stupid name, the one that gave him hope. "Batman, stop." And then she bit him, hard.
7. Avery stepped forward, took Draco's place, and hit the girl with Cruciatus during the rape, smiling almost blissfully to hear her choked cries of pain as she writhed beneath him. When he finished her off with the Killing Curse after he had taken his turn, she heard cries of protest from the others at missing out on their "fun".
She felt like she had suddenly been released from her transfixed state. Panicking, horrified, she felt her shape shifting, trying hard to return to its human form in her extreme stress and emotion. I--I have to go! she choked, firmly shoving herself back into falcon form and taking wing, bile rising in her throat.
She made it to a field a mile or two away, landing roughly as she resumed her human form almost painfully quickly. Collapsing to her hands and knees, ignoring the snow soaking her robes and the cold burning of it against her bare hands, she was violently sick. Shoulders heaving with sobs, she huddled there, wishing to Heaven that she had never heard of Animagism. Oh God--did Snape do things like that when he was a Death Eater? She thought wildly. Forcing himself on women and killing for amusement… She gave another dry heave at the thought of the man she had come to trust and sometimes almost like over the past months doing such things.
She suddenly heard the light crunch of footsteps behind her as she stared miserably at the snow, stomach finally coming to rest but mind and heart still infinitely sick. "Miss Granger," came the familiar voice, tones now cold and clipped, "we are going back to Hogwarts now. You had best start thinking of explaining yourself, and quickly."
8. After simply enjoying the warmth and smells for a while, she hesitatingly returned her attention to her body.
After weeks of fighting against its demands, she felt like a stranger to it. For a long time now, it had been nothing but the source of pain and suffering for her. A product she had to sell to her best advantage, a curse she had to bear.
She had lost too much weight, she realized critically as her hands scrubbed, foamed and rinsed. She´d have to eat as much as she could over the next week. Lucius liked his toys well-nourished. He wouldn´t be pleased when he saw her like this.
She dipped her head under the water to wet her hair, then chose a shampoo and started massaging her scalp while her thoughts returned to Snape´s mysterious behaviour.
If he had stopped treating her like an abomination, it meant that something had changed his opinion of her. She seriously doubted that the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall or Draco could have produced this change of heart, not with a man as stubborn and pig-headed as Snape was.
Which meant that something must have happened during the last week, something drastic enough to turn his open loathing into insecure politeness. Damn! She must have slipped something!
Every time she had surfaced from the madness of her dreams, she had asked him about her behaviour, about what she had said.
9. Snape glared at her wordlessly for a long, thoughtful moment. "So tell me, Miss Granger, what it is that you think that you need from me? Your... request."
Suddenly all of the fierceness disappeared from her face, and the blush was back on her cheeks. Her eyes went wide and she swallowed, apparently having forgotten the point of the interview in the passion of her arguments.
"You were a Death Eater once," she nearly whispered.
Snape snorted. "Yes. I was. So?"
Through some sort of exercise of will, she regained control of her voice, and said in something approaching a conversational tone, "You're right about this being different than... fumbling, you said... with one of the boys. I need to be better prepared than I am now, or he'll have too much of an advantage. You know... you know better than I do what sort of things he might try to get control of me. Magically. Or... otherwise." She valiantly maintained eye contact with him until the very last word, when it finally seemed too much and she looked away.
Snape's gaze was flat, his face and voice expressionless. "I have an idea."
"You can help me prepare myself," she forced herself to say.
10. “Professor… what can you do - what can we do - with this information, anyway? He’s… Viktor is a famous Quidditch star, well-respected. I’m just… I’m just-“
A Mudblood.
“A young, Muggleborn witch,” Severus murmured, drawing the attention of the two others in the room. She was perceptive, at least. Her innate sense of fairness did not overcome her sense of reality - not any longer.
Dumbledore nodded and shot an appraising look at her. “We would need more information, something that will could serve as incontrovertible evidence, before we bring this before the Ministry Aurors.” Albus looked at him, then, and the force of the old man’s gaze almost took his breath away. “Due to his position, his family name, and his funds… I think it likely that he has a rather prestigious position with the Death Eaters.”
Severus nodded in curt agreement. Although he had known where this would lead, where it had to lead, it was not an easy task to voice none of his reservations as the Headmaster continued to speak. To distract himself, he turned his attention to the young woman in the chair.
She stared at the Headmaster wide-eyed. Still agitated, nerves clearly on edge… she would be at her most malleable now. Albus always knew the best time to strike.
This week's quiz was chosen by writermerrin who really knows her realistic romances!
So you thought you'd never have a chance to win the quiz? With our new, relaxed procedures anyone can win! No more racing about. You can play the quiz anytime you like over the weekend. Just comment with your answers prior to the answer post going up on Monday and you have a chance to win. Enjoy your reading. Good luck!
Match the quote to the story title:
The D.E.W.W. Conspiracies by Wonk
Rising Above by Dryad
Day Job by Melisande88*
When a Lioness Fights by Kayly Silverstorm aka lioness_kayly (WIP)
Wandless Magic by deeble
The Long Way Home by sshg316
Back in Black by ubiquirk
Saving your Life by lilmisblack
The Grim Mistress by Alphafemale or danistormborn
This Forbidden Knowledge by wendynat
Slightly Less Sinister by Jezzie or sufferbitch
As the Falcon Hath Her Bells: Taking Flight by Hyacinth Macaw aka corglacier7
* Day Job is the sequel to Night School. Read Night School first.
1. “How do you know this person is trustworthy, Kingsley? Very few people know I survived the war, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Behind the large, ornate desk sat the Minister for Magic, who was valiantly-if ineffectively-attempting to hide his amusement. “Calm down. I wouldn’t bring in just anyone to partner with you.” Kingsley’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Severus expectantly.
A flash of abject horror crossed Severus’ face, and he halted his pacing to glare at his so-called friend and employer. “No. Tell me you did not partner me with one of them.”
The Minister smiled benignly, reminding Severus eerily of his former employer.
“Damn it, Kingsley! I refuse to be trapped for months on end with a reckless, foolhardy, dunderhead who-”
“I do hope you’re referring to one of the boys, Mr Snape,” interrupted a feminine voice.
Severus turned toward the doorway only to come face to face with the insufferable know-it-all, Hermione Granger … and Merlin’s beard, had she grown up during the last seven years.
2. “What are you suggesting?” Fred was obviously interested now and slid into a chair near Snape.
“I want to modify a mobile telephone so we’re connected to Miss Granger when she traipses off into wizarding society.”
“Oh ho!” When Snape didn’t react to the suggestive eyebrow wiggling, Fred continued: “Just so we can talk to her, d’you mean?”
“And hear what happens around her as well. She is not and never has been a spy. Most likely she’d miss important subtleties.”
“Well … the first challenge is that complex Muggle inventions seem to go haywire around sustained magic - well, I ought to know, with my dad. So you need to shield either the whole thing or the key parts. Then you’re free to fiddle with them” - he coughed, though Snape noticed the noise sounded vaguely like flying car - “or take them to spell-intensive areas like Hogsmeade.”
“A regular Shielding Charm?”
“Yeah. Second challenge is-”
“-to make it invisible, clearly.”
The unexpected bit of Snape humor surprised Fred into a laugh. With a slight smirk, the other man continued: “A Disillusionment Charm would be sufficient, I should think.”
3. He flicked his wand to light a candle near them. He wanted to see her face, but he was also trying to buy himself some time. She didn't know he would do anything for her. It didn't fit his character. The work they had done together made them easy allies. He wasn't surprised that Hermione became a spy. She liked doing things behind the scenes and after hanging out with Potter for so long, she was used to not getting a whole lot of the glory.
He should've been more adamant when he said he was against it.
He realized she was still watching him, waiting for an answer. Her face was tense, lined and hardened. The Death Eater in him would have loved to see what she would do to Malfoy if she could get to him right now. His eyes narrowed.
"You can't be serious."
"It's taken me two years, Sev, to get in with them. Voldemort thought that having a virgin mudblood would be useful to him. Do you really think he's going to be happy with Malfoy now?" The bloodthirst on her face was evident. Part of Snape's mind was totally entranced by it.
"What do you plan?"
"I plan on letting our Lord know exactly how stupid his lackey is. And with any luck, he'll let me deliver the punishment. Which of course, will only make me look better to him, and get me closer to the whole thing."
4. “I was not enquiring as to whether you two chose to waste your time and energy playing juvenile pranks on your comrades. I instead had a desire to learn exactly what spell you incapacitated Ms. Granger with so that I would have some idea as to how long she would be indisposed.”
Snape!
“But I see that your blathering has served a purpose, nonetheless.” His voice grows closer on my left. “For my interruption of said blathering has proven to me that Ms. Granger has already joined us.
“Is that not so?” This last was said in a quieter voice - a quieter voice I hear very clearly because its source has grown close.
When I open my eyes, I’m gazing directly into those of Severus Snape.
Struggling upwards, my stunned limbs heavy and recalcitrant, I wet overly dry lips with an only slightly moister tongue before rasping, “The Think Pink Brigade is -”
With left hand pressing me to the table, he replies, “Relax, Ms. Granger, you are safe here.”
I look around the small, softly lit room. Heavy, dark wood furniture fills the shadows, and the walls are a forbidden deep wine color. There are no decorations anywhere, and this is shockingly beautiful. “Here being?”
“The headquarters of the resistance.” He pauses to smirk. “Congratulations, Ms. Granger.
5. ‘I believe you deserve an explanation, but I can’t give you one, at least not with all the facts. What I can tell you is this…’
The words kept appearing, only one or two lines replaced over and over again, and she had to concentrate hard just to read them before they were gone.
‘I had to tell the Dark Lord you were working for us so you wouldn’t be killed. They were to think I had seduced you and you were now spying for me.
He wasn’t inclined to believe this, and so I had to convince him I was telling the truth. Had you done anything to stop me earlier tonight we would both be dead by now.’
The words vanished and a few seconds passed, but she couldn’t write anything.
‘Still, I’m afraid this isn’t over yet. They will expect you to provide information about the Order and they’ll probably follow me almost everywhere. We will have to meet again, and they will be there. Do you understand this?’
‘Yes,’ she wrote, the quill shaking in her hand.
A small map appeared then on the parchment, and instructions next to it.
‘You are to Apparate there at 8 o’clock three days from now. You will find a small cabin half a mile south from there. Go inside and wait for me.
6. "I can tell you've been abusing your Pensieve," he said harshly. "Let me remind you of something you once knew."
Her eyes flew open. "No," she repeated. "Whatever it is I've -- forgotten -- put away from myself -- it's not safe for you --"
"I'll worry about that. Let me in, Hermione."
"I. Will. Not." She twisted her head free of his hands, only to have his hands lock into her hair and immobilise her.
He nudged harder at her mind, even as he berated her for his own anxiety. "What do you think you're doing, running about with Draco Malfoy?"
She coloured. "You know I'm only doing what I must do. There's nothing between Draco and me. The...engagement...is only for show."
"Engagement?" And now he was glad he had silenced the tiny cubicle, for he was suddenly shouting. "Engagement? What the bloody hell do you mean, engagement --" His own flaming anger choked him, and suddenly there was only one thought in his mind: Stop her. Convince her. Remind her she is MINE. Even though he knew she was doing nothing he wouldn't have done in the same situation, it simply was not the same. He jerked her against him, and his mouth came down on hers, hard, grinding, brutal -- harder than he had ever kissed her. And all the time the spell was running, coiling around her, twisting tighter and tighter. Legilimens, Legilimens, Legilimens..
Against his mouth she gasped that name, that stupid name, the one that gave him hope. "Batman, stop." And then she bit him, hard.
7. Avery stepped forward, took Draco's place, and hit the girl with Cruciatus during the rape, smiling almost blissfully to hear her choked cries of pain as she writhed beneath him. When he finished her off with the Killing Curse after he had taken his turn, she heard cries of protest from the others at missing out on their "fun".
She felt like she had suddenly been released from her transfixed state. Panicking, horrified, she felt her shape shifting, trying hard to return to its human form in her extreme stress and emotion. I--I have to go! she choked, firmly shoving herself back into falcon form and taking wing, bile rising in her throat.
She made it to a field a mile or two away, landing roughly as she resumed her human form almost painfully quickly. Collapsing to her hands and knees, ignoring the snow soaking her robes and the cold burning of it against her bare hands, she was violently sick. Shoulders heaving with sobs, she huddled there, wishing to Heaven that she had never heard of Animagism. Oh God--did Snape do things like that when he was a Death Eater? She thought wildly. Forcing himself on women and killing for amusement… She gave another dry heave at the thought of the man she had come to trust and sometimes almost like over the past months doing such things.
She suddenly heard the light crunch of footsteps behind her as she stared miserably at the snow, stomach finally coming to rest but mind and heart still infinitely sick. "Miss Granger," came the familiar voice, tones now cold and clipped, "we are going back to Hogwarts now. You had best start thinking of explaining yourself, and quickly."
8. After simply enjoying the warmth and smells for a while, she hesitatingly returned her attention to her body.
After weeks of fighting against its demands, she felt like a stranger to it. For a long time now, it had been nothing but the source of pain and suffering for her. A product she had to sell to her best advantage, a curse she had to bear.
She had lost too much weight, she realized critically as her hands scrubbed, foamed and rinsed. She´d have to eat as much as she could over the next week. Lucius liked his toys well-nourished. He wouldn´t be pleased when he saw her like this.
She dipped her head under the water to wet her hair, then chose a shampoo and started massaging her scalp while her thoughts returned to Snape´s mysterious behaviour.
If he had stopped treating her like an abomination, it meant that something had changed his opinion of her. She seriously doubted that the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall or Draco could have produced this change of heart, not with a man as stubborn and pig-headed as Snape was.
Which meant that something must have happened during the last week, something drastic enough to turn his open loathing into insecure politeness. Damn! She must have slipped something!
Every time she had surfaced from the madness of her dreams, she had asked him about her behaviour, about what she had said.
9. Snape glared at her wordlessly for a long, thoughtful moment. "So tell me, Miss Granger, what it is that you think that you need from me? Your... request."
Suddenly all of the fierceness disappeared from her face, and the blush was back on her cheeks. Her eyes went wide and she swallowed, apparently having forgotten the point of the interview in the passion of her arguments.
"You were a Death Eater once," she nearly whispered.
Snape snorted. "Yes. I was. So?"
Through some sort of exercise of will, she regained control of her voice, and said in something approaching a conversational tone, "You're right about this being different than... fumbling, you said... with one of the boys. I need to be better prepared than I am now, or he'll have too much of an advantage. You know... you know better than I do what sort of things he might try to get control of me. Magically. Or... otherwise." She valiantly maintained eye contact with him until the very last word, when it finally seemed too much and she looked away.
Snape's gaze was flat, his face and voice expressionless. "I have an idea."
"You can help me prepare myself," she forced herself to say.
10. “Professor… what can you do - what can we do - with this information, anyway? He’s… Viktor is a famous Quidditch star, well-respected. I’m just… I’m just-“
A Mudblood.
“A young, Muggleborn witch,” Severus murmured, drawing the attention of the two others in the room. She was perceptive, at least. Her innate sense of fairness did not overcome her sense of reality - not any longer.
Dumbledore nodded and shot an appraising look at her. “We would need more information, something that will could serve as incontrovertible evidence, before we bring this before the Ministry Aurors.” Albus looked at him, then, and the force of the old man’s gaze almost took his breath away. “Due to his position, his family name, and his funds… I think it likely that he has a rather prestigious position with the Death Eaters.”
Severus nodded in curt agreement. Although he had known where this would lead, where it had to lead, it was not an easy task to voice none of his reservations as the Headmaster continued to speak. To distract himself, he turned his attention to the young woman in the chair.
She stared at the Headmaster wide-eyed. Still agitated, nerves clearly on edge… she would be at her most malleable now. Albus always knew the best time to strike.