Tension in the Laboratory

chyara: The site admins tell me they’re working on it, but no story alerts yet.

Did I scare anyone last time with the c-word? Not many comments on the last installment.



Hermione sputtered and pulled away. “You waited until Dumbledore was gone, until you had me like this, to press your advantage!”

“Hermione,” Snape said with ill-concealed condescension, withdrawing his arm, “you seem like a reasonable girl. We can’t go on long like this. The Chameleo charm works, but do you really think we’ll escape detection over a period of weeks, much less months?”

“I don’t know that we’ll last weeks, much less months,” Hermione muttered to the wall. “Besides,” her volume picked up, “you told me just the other day that you only wanted to be lovers, and you wanted even that to be secret!”

“I’ve—-changed my mind.”

“Thank you for the notification,” she shouted.

Snape, in alarm, pressed a hand over her mouth. “We are right next to the Slytherin dormitory, if you please,” he rasped at her, eyes snapping.

Glaring, she waited until he removed his hand. Then she rolled off the bed and began dressing.

“Hermione.”

She gave him a narrow stare over her shoulder and continued dressing.

“Hermione.” Less a command, more like a plea now. She had never heard him sound like that before. She smoothed down the jersey and slowly turned around. Snape was kneeling on the bed, his hands twisted together. “I have—-" he cleared his throat, “changed my mind. I want to, make it hard for you to—-" Here he broke off and couldn’t seem to finish.

She knew what was coming next. Or, at least, she thought she did. “To leave you.”

The words hung in the air. Snape could only stare at her.

“You don’t want me to go.”

“If you stay,” he said quietly, “I run the risk of your being used by the Dark Lord as a lever over me. And over Potter, of course.”

“And if I go?”

Snape looked down at his hands. “I would much rather you stayed.”

“But what will happen to your Patronus?” Hermione said delicately.

Snape seemed surprised. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Does it matter?”

Hermione considered. This was not exactly the declaration of undying love she had hoped she might someday hear. It was, however, far more interesting than the awkward, sloppy confessions she once expected to have to extract, painfully, from Ron. And on the whole, it was much more interesting. Her flagging spirits revived.

“I guess not. But, er, how will this work?”

“We can have a small, private ceremony in Dumbledore’s office,” he said briskly. “I prefer no other witnesses or guests. I’ll put it about Slytherin House that I’m using you, as I said before—-"

“You seem to have this well planned out,” Hermione observed.

He gave her a sidelong look before pulling her back onto the bed. Stiffly, she allowed him to encircle her with his arms. “Hermione,” he said in her ear, “you may doubt some things, but never doubt this.” What this was, he left unsaid. But the hardness pressed against her spoke for itself.

Some time later, she rolled out of bed again and began putting on the rest of her clothes. Snape appeared to be dozing, half tangled in the black counterpane. But as she tugged on her trainers, he remarked, “No confiding in girlfriends. No schoolgirl confessions. Let’s keep this as secret as we can.”

Hermione yanked on the second shoe. “Don’t worry, Severus,” she said reasonably. “It won’t be secret once it’s done.” She twitched her wand. “Chameleo.”

Hermione was leaving her classroom at the end of the day when she ran into Ginny.

“What are you doing here?” Hermione couldn’t help saying.

Ginny grinned. “I thought you might want to go out to dinner in Hogsmeade.”

“Shouldn’t you be visiting Harry?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, he’s busy at Gringott’s tonight. Important security measures. I haven’t chatted with you for a while. I thought you might be tired of Hogwarts food.”

Suddenly, Hermione realized how hungry she was. “They’ll expect me in the Great Hall,” she said. “But I guess, just once—-"

In no time, they were off the Hogwarts grounds in Hogsmeade and walking through the door of The Hog’s Head. The bartender nodded curtly to them as they stepped in and slid into a booth. Soon, Hermione had drunk half her butterbeer and was making inroads into a steaming stew.

“So how are things with Snape?” Ginny asked.

Hermione chewed a bit more slowly, considering what and how much to say. “It’s over,” she said finally. “We’ve broken it off.”

Ginny looked relieved. “That’s good. I was afraid he might be using you.”

Her words went through Hermione like cold steel.

“You’re sure that everything’s—-all right—-now, right?” Ginny said, leaning across the table.

“Er, what do you mean?”

“All right. You know. You said the,” Ginny’s voice dropped to a whisper, “contraceptive spells?”

“I, er,” this was a bit more than Hermione wanted Ginny to know about. “He mentioned something about them. He said them.” Hermione was uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t doublechecked this key item of information.

“You’ve gotten it, then?” Ginny said, still keeping her voice down. No need to ask what “it” was.

“Not yet. It’ll come soon.”

Ginny frowned. “You should make sure that everything's all right. Even if Snape did say spells—-and who knows if he did?—-it’s probably been a long time for him. Those spells change. He might have been saying an old one.”

“Are you saying he’s been celibate so long he doesn’t know how to use contraception?”

“Well,” Ginny said, “I don’t like to think of him needing contraception at all, but yes.”

“Come on, Ginny, he’s probably, er, been with plenty of Slytherin girls.”

“Like who?”

“Well, I don’t know. Girls older than us.”

“All magical people come through Hogwarts. It’s a small world. We’d have heard of someone, right?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said, squirming. “Some Death Eaters, I expect. We wouldn’t have heard.”

Ginny snorted. “Name one likely girl.”

“I don’t know!” Hermione said hotly. “Someone! For all we know, he’s buggered Beatrix Lestrange!” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth, appalled at her language.

Ginny who was taking another sip of butterbeer, snorted again and got the butterbeer up her nose, and the two of them began laughing so hard that Hermione wasn’t sure she could stop.

“Right. Right,” Ginny said as the laughter began to taper off.

But a chill went up Hermione’s spine and for some reason, she stopped laughing.