A Terrible Temptation

A/N - Sadly, I do not have a mailing list or anything, unless you count WIKTT, where I do send notices. Ron and Severus hogged most of this chapter - Men! - so its a lot of man stuff here. However Hermione has a small but important cameo - LOL. Thanks again to Kate for making sure my hamsters ran speedily.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you are all wonderful.


Chapter 19 – What’s a Bloke to Do?

Ron sat in the chair with a sick feeling in his gut. Snape had pretty much admitted to liking Hermione and Hermione had made it pretty clear that the guy she liked was the new version of Harry and not the old, meaning that she liked Snape -- the Greasy Git, the Vampire, the Bat. She liked Snape; not the Harry she had grown up with but Snape pretending to be Harry. So did liking Snape pretending to be Harry automatically translate into liking Snape? Not necessarily, after all it was an act on Snape’s part. Ron blew out his breath in a gust.

This was getting complicated. Would Snape, once he was back in his natural habitat away from Hermione and himself, revert back to being a bastard? Well, he’d have to, wouldn’t he? After all, Snape said it himself: Voldemort would make killing or torturing Hermione his top priority if he found out one of his Death Eaters had an interest in a Muggle-born witch. So after he figured out how to get back to his own body and get Harry back to his, then Snape would have to go back to treating Hermione, Harry and himself as dirt.

Ron found that the thought made him a little wistful. Sure Snape was no fun -- he wouldn’t go out after curfew or raid the kitchens between meals -- but he listened to Ron in a way no one else ever had. Harry was sometimes so consumed with his destiny of killing or being killed that Ron felt silly bringing up little irritations. Snape was patient, something that Ron would never have suspected. He had helped Neville for hours, tutoring him in a calm, almost gentle manner. Snape seemed to understand what it was like to be overlooked.

Sure he had a cutting wit, was able to say vicious and sarcastic things. Ron had found himself laughing at the sly digs that Snape had tossed off. As for what he had done to Malfoy, well it had been a thing of beauty. Ron would treasure the sight of Draco lying in a puddle on the floor for the rest of his life. That moment had been courtesy of Snape. Ron had to re-evaluate his entire perception of the Potions teacher. However, that didn’t change the basic problem.

Snape was a teacher, he was a billion years older than Hermione and he was a spy for the Order. In short, it would be a lot better if Hermione forgot a him him once the switch back was made. At least until after Voldemort was defeated. This decision made, Ron went upstairs to give romantic advice to his most hated teacher.

Severus looked up from the book he was reading and watched Ron enter the dorm room, chewing on a fingernail with an expression of deep concentration. The young man looked as though the hamsters were running full tilt to make the gears in his mind turn.

Severus had found a tiny spring of vague fondness growing in him lately for the redheaded Gryffindor. It would be a relief to get back to his own body so he could start hating everyone again. All this Gryffindor niceness was uncomfortable and made him feel maudlin.

“Um, Harry?” Ron settled on the bed next to where Severus was sprawled and glanced pointedly over at Dean, Neville and Seamus who were playing exploding snap on Neville’s bed.

“Yes, Ron?” Severus was amused by Ron’s attempt to be discreet. It was a dgoodgood thing that Ron had grown comfortable with the “new Harry” long before he had figured out who he really was or the constant nodding and winking would have given the whole game away.

“We need to talk about Hermione.” He mumbled the last bit and Severus was startled by the look of intense discomfort on Ron’s face.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?” Severus asked warily.

“She likes you, you know.” Ron seemed rather nauseated by the thought and Severus relaxed.

“She thinks she does, anyway.” Snape pointed out. After all, Hermione thought he was Harry and so it was Harry that she was really interested in.

“No, I talked to her tonight and she says she likes you the way you’ve been lately.” Ron stressed the last word and Severus felt his jaw dropping open in shock. Ron could not be saying what Severus thought he was.

“She thinks the changes you have gone through lately are wonderful. It’s the new you she has a thing for.” Ron was sitting cross-legged beside him and Severus was staringhim him with a feeling of unreality. He could not be sitting in Potter’s bed, in Potter’s body, talking about his love life with Ronald Weasley; it was far too surreal to be happening. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I can’t tell her, can I?” Severus sighed out. A sharp pain in his chest told him he was going to suffer for whatever decision he made.

“Well, the truth is I don’t know if she would even like you anymore after the change back.” Ron shrugged at him and Severus nodded in return.

It was true, this could be a silly crush based on a handsome face attached to a functioning brain. It was all so Cyrano de Bergerac, he thought with asperity, except that he was in Christian’s body, instead of whispering to him under the arbor. God had a very odd sense of humor; the bitter thought was what spurred him to a decision.

“I am twenty years her elder, Ron.” He mumbled back to the other boy who was looking at him like twenty years was an unimaginable number and Severus was in the same league as Albus as far as being decrepit and ancient. Truthfully, the thing he liked best about Potter’s body was the fact that it wasn’t in the kind of constant pain that his own had been in lately, though a lot of that was due to misuse rather than age. “There is no way I can pursue her. She is a student and I am a teacher. It would be my job if Albus found out anyway.”

Ron was watching him as he spoke and his eyes had gotten rather large by the end of it.

“You really do like her, don’t you?” Severus looked at the boy -- no, the young man; seventeen was nearly adult, with exasperation writ large on his face.

“I thought you had figured that part out.” He knew his tone had gotten a little snarky but Ron ignored it and simply looked thoughtful.

“Well, besides the fact that my brain runs away screaming from the thought of you perving after Hermione, I guess I thought you were just sort onelynely and attention-starved and had latched onto the nearest source of affection.” Severus was insulted on so many levels by that speech that he didn’t know where to begin hexing Ron.

“Ron, I know seventy-five different types of untraceable poisons.” Severus growled at him watching a decidedly green tone overtake the freckled face. “It’s lucky for you that I am in a forgiving mood.” Ron relaxed somewhat. Severus decided that he needed to be clear with Ron who was obviously better at Wizard’s Chess than human relationships. “Firstly, I am not ’perving’ as you so elegantly phrased it after Hermione. Secondly, I have extremely discriminating tastes and I would NEVER latch onto someone like an abandoned duckling just because they were nice to me.” He snarled.

“I’m sorry, but it’s just really messed up.” Ron was looking at him gravely. “I mean, look at it from my point of view. First you’re a nasty git and now suddenly we’re friends plus you’re interested in Hermione who you’ve treated like filth for ages and eventually you’ll go back to being a nasty git and we won’t be friends anymore and you’ll have to treat Hermione like filth again.”

Ron’s speech was sobering because put like that, it all really was messed up. “You can’t date her or even be nice to her, so how do you think she’s going to feel when this is all over and you’re back to your usual self?” The last bit was said with a sideways glance at the other Gryffindors, making sure none of them overheard.

“I don’t know, Ron. I didn’t plan this, it all just happened. I ran to save him and ended up here; now it’s all, as you said, messed up.” Severus snorted in amusement. “My one heroic impulse and it lands me here.” Ron cocked a head at him and eyed him very seriously.

“Bullshit. You do heroic things every bloody day. Don’t think that just because I have always hated you that I didn’t know that.” Ron’s grin was infectious and Severus found his lips twisting upward at the frank statement. “Just because I think you’re a right bastard with no personal hygiene and the temperament of a rabid wolverine doesn’t mean I don’t respect you.” Ron added, still grinning.

“I think you’re an insufferable, self-righteous, single-minded prat.” He replied genially.

“Well, as long as we’re clear.” Ron retorted with a laugh and Severus was amused to realize that they were as close to being friends as they might ever be for a Slytherin and a Gryffindor.

Hermione lay on her bed imagining terrible tortures for all of her friends. Starting with Ron, who should be suspended by his thumbs over a pit of crocodiles, she went through each of the players in her little drama. Dumbledore she mentally strangled with his own beard while Harry she simply had chained to a Quidditch hoop and pelted with bludgers.

She pulled herself off the bed and went to her desk. She pulled her homework papers out of the bag and flopping into the chair, she buried herself in the solace of work. She flipped through her scrolls, making sure she had every question fully answered.

As she flipped through papers, she came across a scroll she didn’t recognize. She must have picked it up somewhere. The handwriting, which was cramped spidery lettering, was instantly recognizable; it was Professor Snape’s -- she knew the slanting Ts and rounded Os from years of nasty jottings in the margins of her homework. Hermione felt a little dizzy looking at it; it was strange how juhinkhinking about him lying still in the Hospital Wing made her heart hurt.

She glanced over the writing and was surprised to see that it was a set of Arithmancy equations, uncompleted but very advanced. Hermione was intrigued by the puzzle; it seemed sad that Professor Snape might never finish these equations. Her throat closed up with a sudden welling of grief. What if he never woke up?

Tears were rubbed fiercely from her eyes as Hermione went to work on the Arithmantical puzzle. Whatever the last thing he was working on was she would finish it for him. He deserved that much for saving Harry.