Room of Requirement

Disclaimer: All these characters and places belong to JKR. I\'m just borrowing them because I\'m bored. I\'ll put them back they way I found them.

Hermione Granger put down her potions textbook and sighed. It was well past midnight, and she still hadn’t completed her homework. Granted, it wasn’t due for over a week, but she did like to get a head start on these things. Her deferral was not for lack of trying, however. Every time she tried to recall anything she learned, she’d become horribly distracted. The words would echo in her head, the soft, silky tones of his voice. The way he would glide, undetected behind her, and mutter comments in her ear. Even when he took five points from her today for helping Neville, a begrudged shiver went down her spine.

She’d felt this way about Professor Snape for well over a year. At first she’d been quite loathe to admit it to herself, but by now it was somewhat of a refuge for her. During Harry and Ron’s endless Quidditch discussions, she’d silently contemplate his strong but delicate alabaster hands, the silken sound of his voice softening his often harsh words, and his chin-length, shiny black hair. She was still heartily embarrassed at the incongruity of her situation- Hogwarts’ over-achieving, know-it-all Head Girl, who never put a toe out of line unless Potter’s life was at stake, frantically in love with the vile Potions Master. At the thought of him being called “Master,” another involuntary shiver passed over her.

How utterly mortifying, she thought, closing her Potions textbook and lifting her Arithmancy notes. No chance of being that distracted thinking of Professor Vector, she mused. Her ruminations on this were swiftly disturbed, however, and suddenly, the Head Girl’s quarters around her were swirling, a blur of red and gold and chilly air. She landed hard, on her bottom, in a room she’d never seen before.