For the Potions Master\'s Amusement

For the Potions Master’s Amusement

Chapter 2: The Infraction


The door slammed, and Hermione disciplined herself not to cower from him. His office remained, as ever, a repulsive place, the walls lined with shelves of glass containers in which horrid things floated in coloured potions. Unable to look at the revolting specimen jars, yet daring not to look into the very angry Potions master’s face, she stared at the stone floor and berated herself for what had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time …

‘Well?’

His voice was icy and cutting, flaying her where she stood.

‘Sir?’ she said, her eyes still averted.

‘What do you mean by it, Granger?’ he demanded, suddenly directly behind her.

Hermione shivered, an odd, fluttering sensation which shuddered through her body, bringing her nipples to inexplicable, aching peaks and flooding her core with heat. Sweet Merlin, how she had wanted this feeling.

‘Do you mean to answer me soon, or will I be handing you over to your Head of House for discipline?’

The threat whipped across her consciousness with the worst of punishments: To be sent from his presence.

‘I’ll do whatever you want, sir,’ she said.

She was painfully aware of him behind her, heat emanating from his body as he loomed above her. She closed her eyes, savouring the feeling. What’s the matter with me?

His next words were spoken with his lips so close to her ear that her hair danced against her cheek.

‘Be very careful how you formulate your thoughts with me, Granger,’ he said silkily. ‘I may take you very much at your word.’

She shuddered again, this time, unable to suppress the tiny whimper and shiver which accompanied her reaction. Why couldn’t she stop feeling this way about him? Ever since that night at headquarters … but it was not as if she had derived any satisfaction from humiliating herself that way. He had never acknowledged it. Term had been ongoing now for three weeks, and she had not seen so much as one indication from him that he was even aware that they had shared a very personal conversation together.

She was aware of him moving away as a flower knows when the sun has gone behind a cloud, the sudden absence of warmth leaving her yearning. He navigated without so much as brushing against her with the whisper of his teaching robes and took his place behind his desk, his erect posture as unforgiving as the straight wooden chair in which he sat.

‘You will now enlighten me, Granger, as to the reason for your abysmal performance in my classroom today,’ he said coldly.

Hermione felt a scrabbling of fear. Why had she done this? He was not likely to be satisfied with any story she concocted to explain herself. She closed her eyes against the rising tide of panic, wishing the dungeon floor would open and allow her to fall into an oubliette. It would be preferable to the ignominy she was likely to suffer in retaliation for her actions.

‘You will also look at me when I am speaking to you, girl,’ he added waspishly.

Hermione swallowed and raised her eyes to his face. His nostrils were flared, as if in particular disapprobation for her current transgression, and his cruel lips were pressed into a thin, white line. There was not a touch of humanity in his bearing—what had she done? She opened her mouth to speak, rapidly cobbling together a story involving a chapter unread, incomplete homework—although the completed assignment rested even now in her book bag—and a lack of sleep.

His black eyes glittered menacingly, and he raised his hand to stop her from speaking. ‘Do not,’ he hissed, ‘attempt to lie to me, Granger. Believe me, it would be fatal.’

Her mouth went completely dry then. Fatal?

He slapped the desktop with the flat of his hand, the crack of noise making her jump as if she were guilty of something. ‘Answer me!’ he ordered her.

‘I—’ she began.

And he was on his feet again, rounding the desk. ‘I know for a fact that you read the entire book before term began,’ he said, his voice low and vibrating with an emotion Hermione could only identify as dangerous. ‘I also know for a fact that your completed assignment is in your bag.’ He stopped directly in front of her. ‘I also know—for a fact—that you are perfectly capable of understanding and following directions.’ For the slightest instant, his eyes raked down her body in the school uniform, then rested again on her face. ‘Don’t I, Hermione?’

Having him so near threw her into complete confusion. She had spent hours thinking of him being near to her—hours with her fingers busy between her legs, her other hand twisting and pulling at her nipples as she drove herself to orgasm, fantasising about his voice and his hands and his wretched, ugly face—and dear God, now he was saying her name, and it sounded like his tongue would feel on her …

His voice was a whisper, compelling, insistent. ‘Tell. Me. Now.’

‘I did it on purpose,’ she exclaimed, horrified at herself but unable to prevent the words he commanded her to utter from spilling from her mouth. ‘I knew what would happen if I put the armadillo bile in at that juncture in the brewing.’

He showed reaction to her words in neither his expression or his voice. ‘You knew there would be an explosion resulting in the melting of your cauldron and the scorching of the work table?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she whispered.

His face was inscrutable, his glittering eyes studying her with dispassionate interest. ‘What did you imagine would be the outcome of this ploy?’ he inquired evenly.

‘You would pay attention to me,’ she blurted, the words themselves drawing a throb from her aching, needy core.

Several beats passed as she waited for his response, trying with all her might not to twist and turn like an insect pinned to his specimen board. Why had he forced her to tell him if he did not mean to do something?

She shifted nervously from foot to foot, her anxiety building, laced with embarrassment and shame. Why did she feel this way about him? When had it started? Certainly before the night in the Grimmauld Place kitchen—he had needled her expertly, as he had always done—but she was the one who had pushed back, pushed for some sort of acknowledgment from him. Why did she need it so badly?

The clock above the mantelpiece ticked the seconds away, and still Professor Snape watched her. She was not sure how much time had passed with him standing implacably before her, holding her immobile with the force of his pitiless gaze, but finally, she could bear it no longer.

‘Please, sir,’ she pled, sinking to her trembling knees, not even knowing what she was asking for … but he seemed to know.

‘Good girl,’ he said, and a lump rose in her throat. ‘You will be required to follow instructions implicitly and without question,’ he stated flatly.

Hermione gaped up at him, unbidden tears wetting her lashes as her heart tripped suddenly into an erratic, racing rhythm. ‘Of course I will,’ she said, finding it difficult to speak past the pain in her throat, her voice sounding gruff to her ears.

On the blank stretch of wall behind his desk, a doorway appeared, momentarily limned in green light. He had not moved, had not so much as moved his endless black eyes from her face, but the door behind his desk opened on a room filled with shimmering light.

‘Enter, if you choose,’ he said, and it seemed to Hermione that his long, slender body was taut with the tension of anticipation, almost as if he did not already know what her response to his invitation would be.

But she stood on her unsteady legs and staggered past him and around the desk. As she passed him, he released the breath he had been holding with an audible gasp, and there was a palpable relaxation in his bearing as he followed her through the doorway—into what, she did not know.