The Raven

Sorry all but when I tryed to update last all my stories where gone... now amazingly there back... I guess AFF was doing upgrades at the time... well here it is!!

The Raven
Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I do not own anyone or anything in this fanfiction… *sigh* Sucks to be me.

Black beady unblinking eyes bore right into a pair of wildly fearful ones. Snape watched her like the bird he was, waiting – almost challenging her to make a move, and that was what Hermione was contemplating. All her little mouse mind could think of was RUN! But her body would not listen. She needed to get out of there, as far and as fast as she could. She couldn’t believe it – Mr. Mistoffelees – her “pet raven” Mistoffelees was none other then SNAPE! Oh, the humiliation of it all!

All her most private moments with Mistoffelees came flashing back into her mind. Mistoffelees had been there when Ron attacked her, and when she cried over how the other students mistreated her. If she wasn’t in her mouse form right now, she knew she would have been beet red from the curls on top of her head to the tips of her toes. The memory of the night she learned that Snape was dead… she’d called out his name!

How she longed to just curl up and die, never to see the light of day again. How she could be so stupid… she couldn’t have guessed the bird was him because no one told her… WAIT! They knew! Dumbledore knew all along!

She turned her angry eyes to the old wizard, who seemed not to be fazed by the wrath he saw there. Well, his eyebrow did rise a bit when he heard a low angry growling sound from the small mouse.

Snape was just watching her eyes change rapidly with each emotion. He understood the shock and her anger, but what fascinated him was how cute she looked when her memories focused on that night… the night he realized she felt the same way about him as he did for her. His feelings for the girl had only grown stronger during his stay with her. If a raven could smirk he would have. He could almost see her mouse fur turn a deeper red then it originally was.

Dumbledore’s eyes lost some of their sparkle under Hermione’s heated gaze. Having an enraged female – no matter what species they were at the moment – was not something he enjoyed dealing with. Soon he had an angry Potions master glaring at him as well.

“So let’s try a little experiment, shall we?” Dumbledore said a little too cheerily. “Severus, I would like to see if you can carry her while flying around the room, and for how long.”

“SQUEAK!” screamed the mouse as she jumped off the table and made a mad dash to a break in the wall. She didn’t and couldn’t think; she just reacted. She just couldn’t be near him, let alone carried by him… not right now.

Snape transformed back into his human form, raised his wand and lazily threw a spell.

‘Almost there… freedom,’ she thought as her little mouse legs pumped faster to bring her ever closer to the wall. Only a few centimeters more to go, then her world stopped dead. Her legs were frozen in position; the muscles still tensed and her breathing was still heavy, but her body would not move.

Snape walked over and scooped up the once-fleeing mouse.

“Well, that was unexpected,” said Professor McGonagall.

“Not at all, Minerva,” replied the Headmaster. “Severus had been living with her for the past few months as a raven; I’m sure she is quite embarrassed at this point.”

“That’s right. He was there during the Weasley incident,” McGonagall said thoughtfully.

Snape looked down at the mouse in his hands. It was giving him a look that said ‘they don’t know the half of it.’ Snape smirked at her ever so slightly, so that only she could see it.

‘What the…? Snape smiled… at ME!’ her mind screamed.

Snape absentmindedly started to pet her furry head, his hand’s rhythmic motions putting her to sleep easily.

Dumbledore observed his Potions master and the contented look upon his face as he stroked the furry little bundle in his hands. A thought crossed his mind for the millionth time these past few months, that perhaps Miss Granger could heal the gloomy young man that he thought of as a son.

“Albus?” Professor McGonagall spoke softly, also noticing the look on Snape’s face. “Well, it seems…”

Just then the door opened and Professor Flitwick stepped in, levitating a stack of papers that was taller then he was.

“Here you go, Headmaster,” the Charms professor said as he levitated the stack onto his desk. “All graduating students’ test scores, in alphabetical order.”

“Thank you, Filius.” Dumbledore turned back to Snape as Professor Flitwick closed the door and left the room.

“Well, as I was saying, Severus, I think it’s time you and Miss Granger had a little chat.”

Snape turned to walk out the door, still holding the sleeping mouse.

“Oh, and one more thing, Severus: I’m going to approve Miss Granger’s request to become intern to the Potions Department.”

“What!” Snape’s eyes became wide. He didn’t realize Albus was looking to replace him, nor did he know that she’d applied for the job.

“Yes, she came to me, saying that she wanted to continue and become a Potions mistress. She also felt that you could use the help trying to set that department back on track since Professor Gross left it in such a horrid state.”

Snape cringed just thinking about the job before him. What that man did to his Potions office and classroom was nothing if not sacrilegious to the art of potion making. Thank Merlin that Professor Gross didn’t get past his wards to his personal lab.

“Of course I was going to talk to you about it first, but I can’t think of anyone better to help you in this task.” Seeing that Snape was about to throw a fit, the Headmaster brought out his trump card. “Also, Miss Granger can grade papers during the school year; this will leave you time for more important experiments.”

Snape narrowed his eyes, studying the crafty old man, who was wearing a smug smile on his face – the same smug smile as always when he knew he got what he wanted. Snape knew that the Headmaster was aware that there were experiments and other projects he’d wanted to do for years now, but with his spying and teaching there was never time. Now it seemed the old man thought of everything and Snape could now have one of the things his heart desired: research time. It was tempting.

“Very well,” Snape said though his clenched teeth, and turned on his heel and left them standing there. The sleeping mouse in his hands never woke up.

Snape took his private pathways though the castle to reach the dungeons without being seen. He lifted all his wards to his personal chambers before entering. Looking around, he didn’t know what to do with Hermione, and he didn’t have the heart to wake her. The poor girl just had one of the biggest shocks of her life!

He placed Hermione’s small mouse form on his large bed, admiring how her reddish-brown fur contrasted to the deep green of his velvet comforter. Pulling out his wand, he gave it a flick of his wrist to turn her back into her original human form.

Looking down at her sleeping peacefully, he couldn’t help noticing how thick her eyelashes were as they rested on her pale skin. He also noticed that a few strands of hair were lying across her face. Leaning down, he brushed the strands back to where they belonged. He marveled that her skin was as smooth as it looked. Looking at her soft pink lips, he also wondered what she would do if she woke up to him kissing her. He knew he had to move away from her, or he would do just that, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. Things were much simpler when he was her pet raven Mistoffelees; she kissed him then.

Looking at the sleeping young woman before him, the temptation to kiss her was intense, but then he thought of the look she most likely would give upon waking up to that. Backing away from the temptation, he left Hermione in his bedroom and retreated to his living room to think. He thought that retreating was for the best since Hermione had been through a few too many things today as it was. He needed her to be calm and not in hysterics when he talked to her.

His spying days were now over, but this by no means meant his life was any safer. On the contrary, now that the Death Eaters knew he was a live traitor, there would be a big price on his head, and he did not want to drag Hermione into all of that.

'She's already involved,' said the voice in his head – that annoying but truthful voice. 'She too has a price on her head all of her own.'

He knew better than anyone that he was on the Dark Lord’s top five hit list of enemies to be brought in alive or dead. Amazingly enough, Potter was not on the list; the Dark Lord wanted to kill Potter personally. Potter's death wasn't enough for the twisted madman; no, he wanted revenge for all the years of exile before his bodily return. Voldemort wanted to take away everything that meant anything to Potter, to make Potter suffer as he had.

Snape had personally talked Voldemort out of attacking the Dursleys, saying that Potter would most likely send him a thank-you note if he knew where to send it. Having hated his own Muggle father and his Muggle grandparents, the Dark Lord understood this logic perfectly.

Hermione was another story. The Dark Lord wanted the girl dead not only for just being a Muggle-born or for being one of the most talented students to grace the halls of Hogwarts, and amazingly enough not really for being Potter's friend and adviser, though all these factors did add into it. No, the real deep-rooted reason that Voldemort wanted Hermione dead was because she looked like a girl he had been attracted to when he attended Hogwarts.

Two months before his true loyalty was found out by Pettigrew, Snape was alone with the Dark Lord, making sure he had everything he needed since all the other Death Eaters were gone on another raid. Usually, Voldemort stayed alone, but just before this raid a Death Eater by the name of Silverton tried to poison him. Nothing so mundane as poison would harm the man, if “man” was even a word that could be used to describe Voldemort anymore, and the things Voldemort did to Silverton as punishment before killing him were certainly not human.

On the night that Snape was ordered to remain behind, out of the blue Voldemort started to talk about Miss Granger. At first Snape thought that Voldemort was doing it just to see what his reaction was, scoping him out on his feelings for the girl who was his student, but soon it was obvious as the Dark Lord talked that he wasn't paying any attention to Snape at all, but was lost in his own memories.

From what Voldemort told him, the girl’s name was Sadie McGregor, the youngest daughter of a Scottish lord, who was also very influential in the wizarding world. She was a Ravenclaw and at the top of her class. Her hair was longer then Hermione's, reaching down closer to her waist, but was just as unruly, and she too liked to wear it free.

Sadie had returned Tom Riddle’s feelings, and always called him the Slytherin rogue. Tom being a Slytherin, the name “rogue” didn't bother him or her in the slightest, and it only made her laugh when she thought about it. Both her parents were Gryffindors during their Hogwarts' days. It was her father who tore Sadie and Tom apart. Lord McGregor didn't approve of Tom since he was not of proper birth, and her father pulled her out of Hogwarts halfway though their seventh year. Later Tom learned that Sadie’s father forced her to marry against her will, and that husband had killed her six months after their wedding.

Snape remembered the cold shiver that passed though him as the Dark Lord laughed that night when he spoke of how he dealt with not only the murdering husband, but Sadie’s father as well. Snape feared that in some sick way Voldemort may have wanted to pursue Hermione as a substitute for Sadie, but then he spoke of the differences between the two girls, and how Granger had a wicked stubborn streak in her; to break it was to kill her, and kill her he would. Voldemort softly added that no matter what, history always repeats itself.

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I would like to thank Luna for all her help with attachments and notes back and forth to get this out... you see, I do not have a computer and the Library will not let me do attachments to send them to June... LOVE YA, JUNE! Great job as always! And so much has happened to me as of late. (Thank you to the people that read my replies on the reviews...) I loved hearing from you all, but I wish I could have got this out earlier... chapter 15 is half way writen... but knowing my life thats not saying much... but I will TRY to get it out here soon!

Thank you so much for all of your understanding.