Fate\'s Pawns

Severus found difficulty thinking straight as he followed the headmaster to his desk. He recognized the feeling from his Deatheater training and realized that someone had quite recently erased his memory of something. ‘No. It couldn’t have been Dumbledore. He knows my memories can’t be completely erased. But does he? I will have to recover my memories later unfortunately – right now I have a meeting’ He sat in front of the headmaster, leaving his face blank despite the questions burning in his mind.

“Severus, you are aware that your status as a Potions Master requires you to take at least one person under your wing for training every ten years?”

Severus grimaced as Dumbledore said these words to him. In the past he had chosen to teach Deatheaters. It satisfied both Voldemort’s desire for him to be useful as well as the Ministry’s requirements for his Potions Master’s license.

“And of course you know that you must retain your status as a master to continue teaching potions here at Hogwarts?” Dumbledore’s questions were more of statements really, but Severus realized that he must at least respond.

“Yes professor. ve bve been neglecting my duties because of the war. But, now with the Dark Lord’s apparent disappearance this summer, you’re absolutely right, I must find someone to teach.”

Severus felt as if Dumbledore’s eyes were dissecting him at that moment. Then Dumbledore spoke, “Hermione Granger came to my office last night with a book on muggle Chemistry. She has some interesting ideas on how to combine the theories she is learning with potion theory, Severus. She may be young, but I would like to see something come of this.”

Severus felt his mind whirling. He noticed the headmaster’s grin and the twinkle in his eye and he realized that this was not a suggestion but an order. “I will meet with her tonight Sir. Is that all?”

Dumbledore nodded his head and Severus found himself headed back to his quarters at a fast pace, realizing he would have to wait until after dinner to recover his memories. As of 5 minutes from now, he had class.

~~

Hermione stepped into Advanced Potions with her head stuck in her Chemistry book. She heard Professor Snape clear his throat and she quickly closed the book and sat down in her seat. She was five minutes early, but she feared he would deduct points regardless. She stared at him and something stirred in the back of her mind. For some reason her legs were turning to jelly and she found herself holding her breath, staring directly into her potions master’s eyes. The class was empty except for them and utterly silent.

And then he spoke and she found herself staring at his mouth, licking her own lips. Her mind was spent for the day and her subconscious seemed to want to take over completely.

“Miss Granger, I would like to meet with you after dinner. The headmaster has directed me to you as a possible apprentice owing to some theories you have on combining some muggle practices with potion theory.”

~~
Severus noticed the way she stared at him and was utterly puzzled at her change in disposition. When he spoke, she didn’t seem to even notice what he was saying.

“Miss Granger?” he said with more authority in his voice.

“Yes Sir?” she replied, suddenly shaken from her bout of staring and looking frightened.

“Will you meet me after dinner?”

~~

Not knowing what she had done to upset him and realizing she had been staring off into space as he spoke with her, she agreed to his request. She was honestly afraid to let him know that she had no idea why she was meeting him after dinner.

~~

Severus chewed his food thoughtfully as he examined the students eating. He wasn’t having the best day in the world he realized then. He wondered why he hadn’t refused the headmaster’s request that he take Granger on as his apprentice. And then he remembered his loss of memory. He had only 15 minutes left until the end of supper. He decided to leave and get it over with before Granger arrived for their meeting, or he might forget he had memories to recover again.

Two minutes later he arrived at his office.

Six minutes later the spell began working to recover his memories.

Two minutes later he began to relive them as if they were just happening.

Five minutes later, his erection heappeappeared under his robes and he was reliving that loss of reason that occurs when a man succumbs to his desires.

Not one second later, Hermione entered the room through the door that had been ope open, still blissfully unaware of what had occurred between them just this morning. He openly stared at her, his face filled with desire.

~~

Hermione didn’t know what to think of his penetrating gaze. She became locked into it almost immediately, as if held by a spell.

Something in her subconscious stirred slightly and for the second tha that she could remember that day, she felt as if her soul was being ripped from her body and joined with his, meeting at the midway point of their gaze. Two minds left empty as their spirits danced together.
~~

Severus pulled himself away from the memory, running a hand through his hair. He actually felt relieved for once that the headmaster had erased their memories. He couldn’t bear to think what Granger would do if she knew his mistake.

He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t washed his hands after the encounter right away. He desperately tried to remember if he had been brewing anything important. Oh damn him and his forgetfulness for not washing his hands before brewing potions. Still, no students were dead, so he supposed he could let it pass. And here she was, staring at him again. She did lose her memory… didn’t she?

He began walking to the sink to wash his hands.

~~

Hermione suddenly wondered why she was here. She didn’t like the way he had pulled his gaze away and turned to wash his hands. She realized that she still didn’t know why he had asked her here earlier today and quite frankly she was getting nervous. She felt compelled to… well, all sorts of things. And she was having a hard time telling which was appropriate. She knew one thing for sure, she should *NOT* be thinking about her potions professor in that manner.

“Professor, what would you like?”

~~

Severus finished washing his hands as he heard her ask him the question.

Indeed, what would he like right now?

He wanted Hermione Granger on the floor with her skirt up, beckoning him to join her.
He wanted to not be thinking these things about his student.
He wanted her out of his office and out of his life.
He wanted that damnable old man Dumbledore to stop meddling with his life.

Severus turned around with an air of authority. He shook the water from he hands as his robes billowed out behind him. “I believe you have taken an interest in some kind of muggle science which you believe can be useful in potions theory.”

He put on one of his intimidating faces as he motioned for her to sit across from him and briskly gathered his robes as he sat in his chair.

“Our dearest headmaster believes that your studies could be of use. He has advised me to take you on as an apprentice Potions Mistress.”

He watched behind his stone still face with a hidden pleasure as saspeasped at the honor of being asked. He had expected no less of her. Seven years of telling her how worthless she was despite the As he was forced into giving her and here he was telling her that her work might just earn her the title of Potions Mistress. Of course, he simply had to take her on as an apprentice. His license would be renewed regardless of whether her experiments were successful. But something in the back of his head chided him at this thought and he realized that she would likely earn them both the ministry’s highest praises for her work.

“If you desire to be my apprentice, Miss Granger, I will expect you to work with me every evening for at least two hours. You may find yourself stuck in the dungeons on Saturdays while your friends are out visiting Hogsmeade. The work will most likely take longer to complete than the school year. You will likely have to spend the summer here at Hogwarts. After that we will have to see how much progress is to be had before deciding what to do.” He raised his eyebrow at her, pausing long enough for any objection to be launched. When there was none, he continued.

“There is a lot of paperwork that must be done before the process can begin. But even before that, I will need you to tell me just what this muggle fascination of yours is and how it applies to potions.”

~~

Hermione felt butterflies in her stomach. She didn’t understand a thing of what was going on. Here she was, seemingly attracted to Snape of all things, being offered the privilege of becoming an apprentice to an Order of Merlin, First Class Potions Master. She recognized that this was Dumbledore’s doing. She was hoping he would put her in contact with a Mistress or Master when she told him of her work, but Snape? As far as Dumbledore knew, Snape and she were mortal enemies.

‘I’m going mad’ she thought. ‘Yes, that’s it, this is all a dream’

She reached out and pinched herself, jumping a little in her chair when it hurt. Snape’s face seemed to falter as she did this, most likely confusion over the muggle concept of pinching oneself as a test for dreaming.

She realized he was awaiting her response. She wasn’t sure whether he was asking for her approval or asking for an explanation of what Chemistry was. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to do this.

Finally she reached into her bag and pulled out a chemistry book and the parchment she had been working on all day, setting it on his desk.

She explained to him that the muggle version of potion making involved theories on the breaking apart of matter into its smallest pieces and observing how those pieces naturally interacted. She showed him diagrams of the structure of basic molecules and described how the elements combined based on these theories on structure.

She paused for a moment and pointed out that through transfiguration, wizards had long ago proven that atoms were not the most basic form of matter, or they would not be able to break them apart and reform them into anything they wanted.

She explained to him how muggles used complex machinery to attempt to find the smallest form matter comes in and yet were in the end baffled at certain behaviors. These behaviors she pointed out, could be the result of magic.

And yet, regardless of the confusion, muggle scientists were able to create a method which could very accurately predict the reaction that would take place from mixing matter. These scientists were of course working with non-magical supplies, but the concepts could be applied to potions making.

“I’m hoping that after I work out how to create similar formulas describing magical ingredients, we will be able to predict the results of our experiments with much more success than with traditional methods.” She paused and cleared her throat, unfurling a parchment as she did so. “Now, normally we would work out the arithmancy of each ingredient and use its character number to determine its proportions, well you understand the rest… the thing is, this method only works about 50% of the time. The wizarding community has always attributed this low success rate to a lack of understanding in the field of Arithmancy somewhere. I believe that it is in fact the result of chemical reactions that we could not predict using arithmancy. In short, I believe it’s time to merge these two sciences together.”

~~

Severus was not looking forward to researching the way in which muggles created potions. He was in fact thinking just then that he would like to take Miss Granger Deatheater style and then leave her naked in a full body bind at Dumbledore’s doorway with a note attached to her newly pierced nipple asking him to kindly stop inundating his life with muggle-madness!

With a scowl on his face he leaned forward in his chair and gazed into Hermione’s eyes, “What you describe is a trivial affair and hardly worth my time. You are more than welcome to come to me with the results in two days as I’m sure that’s about as long as this undertaking will take you and then we can talk about applying them. The ministry just might not request the immediate revocation of my Potions Master’s license just for working with you if you can find anything at all useful in this silly application of numbers to a trade which has obviously been wholly lost on you.”

With that he lifted a stack of papers out of his bag and plopped them onto his desk with emphasis. “You may go.”

~~

Hermione stared at the spot where he had plopped the papers down on the desk and noticed the long red mark on the crumpled paper at the top. She simply stared, not moving for several moments. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this man. She had known him for 6 years a month ago and he still could drive her into hysterics with a scowl. Damn him.

HE HAD ASKED HER! HOW DARE HE THROW IT BACK AT HER LIKE SOME UNWORTHY ASSIGNMENT THAT SHE HAD FAILED!

She stood up swiftly and gathered her things. She left quickly, but she still saw the name on the paper at the top of the stack, “Hermione Granger.”

As she walked down the hall towards her room, she thought about the state her paper was in and realized that she unnerved him as much as he did her. And she smiled at the thought of it. Yes, this was going to be a fun project indeed.