Goodnight, Demon Slayer

Goodnight, Demon Slayer
Chapter Twenty-Four:
I Award You No Points, And May God Have Mercy On Your Soul

Fuck Severus Snape.

Fuck him right in the arse!

The incident on Diagon Alley had hurt Hermione, that much was very true, but at her core, Hermione was still a very logical girl, and it just didn't make sense for her to be upset over him anymore. That was it. Simple as that. No more Severus. From now on, he was simply the Greasy Git once agaiShe She didn't care. He was an asshole. She was a good girl whose heart he'd trampled. He was worthless and stupid. She didn't care about him anymore.

And it sucked, not caring.

Harry and Ron had been astounded when the day after the incident in Diagon Alley Hermione seemed to have reverted to her former self. She was cheerful, looking forward to the beginning of school, and already pestering them about their impending homework assignments. To all external appeara, He, Hermione Granger was the sweet, happy, bossy, bitchy girl everyone at Hogwarts knew so well.

And it scared her friends more than they could describe. Just the day before, she had broken down sobbing in the streets , and now she was happy and smiling, almost mindlessly- definintely fake. Both Harry and Ron had each tried to talk to her, but when they did, she simply smiled at them, shrugged it off, and said she'd just been having a bad day. Ron accepted this explanation, as he had no idea what had really gone on between Hermione and the Potions Master. Harry, however, was more skeptical, and rightly so. Many times between that day in Diagon Alley and the start of school he tried to talk to her, but never did he get any answer out of her that was even halfway truthful. Harry knew that he wasn't the poster child for mental stability, but he knew enough to see clearly that Hermione could not deal with emotional turmoil. First with the shutting down and laying in bed all day, and now with the turn the complete opposite way. It definitely wasn't normal, and it couldn't possibly be healthy.

But Hermione stubbornly refused to acquiesce to her emotions, and so as school began (with Hermione being appointed Head Girl) all of her friends and housemates noticed no change in her behavior and in fact were quite anxious to begin gossiping about her relationship with Severus. She was able now to say that it had all been a hoax aimed at protecting her, and even though it was the truth it still pained her to admit it and to act like that was all it had been. It hurt her when the other girls asked her about kissing him and she pretended it was all for show. But it would have hurt far worse if she'd admitted that she'd been in love with him, lost her virginity to him, and then he'd gone away.

It hurt to say she didn't love him, but it hurt more to admit she did.

Class went well for Hermione, as it always did, with the noticeable exception of Advanced Potions. It wasn't as if she was having a hard time with the subject matter or her grades, but even after continuously repeating the "Fuck Snape" mantra, Hermione was having a hell of a time concentrating. She'd cried silently through the first three classes, and when asked about it, she'd explained that the fumes from Neville's cauldron next to hers had been quite close to noxious. And it also didn't help that Snape appeared to be the new front runner in the race for the Biggest Prick on Earth award.

Figuratively, not literally. Not that he wasn't... you know... But he was no Ron Jeremy, either.

Since the beginning of the year, Snape had deducted more points frne hne house than he'd deducted from all of the houses combined the year before. And, not surprisingly, that one ill-fated house was Gryffindor. He took off ten for asking to use the rest room during class, twenty for each misspelling on an essay, fifty for tardiness, and the requisite seventy-five from Neville for no apparent reason. His points-grabbing reign of terror went on unchecked by the other members of the faculty. Apparently, his mood was so black that even Dumbledore was scared to approach him. By the end of the first month, not a single Gryffindor had survived his wrath.

No Gryffindor, that is, beside Hermione.

For Hermione Granger was studiously ignored in all things.

If she raised her hand in class, he refused to acknowledge her. If she saw him in the hallway, he walked right past her. If she handed in an assignment, he marked it with the grade and not even an extra drop of ink in comment. She had the feeling that if she dropped dead in the middle of the Potions lab, he'd simply step over her and take house po awa away from anyone who tried to resussitate her.

Again, she felt it necessary to say it.

Fuck Severus Snape.

She had no idea what was going on with him. She knew that he hadn't been lying about his feelings for her this summer, and yet he wouldn't so much as meet her eye now. She knew he'd loved her and that he knew she'd loved him. She'd offered to have sex with him in public to save his life. He'd told her he loved her. What the hell had happened in between the time she'd passed out and when she'd woken to make him turn so completely?

Contemplating this questions, it was with a heavy heart that Hermione made her way to Advanced Potions on the first Friday of the term. Snape had been an arsehole the entire week, and she expected no different today. She hated his classes now; they were entirely too hard, what with the pretending not to care, and the convincing herself that she didn't care, and the pain of actually, deep down, caring. She was tired of playing roles. The entire end of last term, this summer, now... she was continually being someone other than herself. Faking this and pretending that. It was exhausting being herself, let alone the person everyone else expected her to be.

Sighing and slinging her heavy bookbag onto her desk with a dull thud, Hermione sat down at her desk, thankfully not in the front row for the first time in seven years. She took out her parchment and quill, nibbling nervously on the end, and waited for class to begin. But as luck would have it, class did not start for some time.

It was not altogether uncommon for Snape to be fashionably late for classes. Secretly, Hermione imagined that after paying so much money for the fun, flow-y kind of robes, he always waited outside in order to make a grand entrance, tails flapping behind him as he stalked to the front of the classroom, but as the minutes wore on, it started to become clear that Snape may not make this class at all. For the first ten minutes, the class sat in silence, thinking he was probably outside the door, ready to deduct house points for talking in class at the first sign of conversation, but the longer the class waited, the more likely it seemed that Snape was nowhere to be found and may possibly even miss the class. All around Hermione, the conversation began and quickly turned to gossip and the students' plans for the night, HermHermione, despite her vast mental protestations, began to worry.

It was not right for Severus to be so late. Snape, she reminded herself. Just Snape. Either way, it was really abnormal for him not to be there. Normally if a professor was going to be late or absent, Dumbledore was aware of the situation and sent a substitute as long as one was needed. But what if Dumbledore didn't know where Severus was? What if he'd been working on some experiment in his private labs and something had gone horribly wrong and he was lying unconscious and close to death? What if a Death Eater who'd somehow escaped life in Azkaban had caught up with him and wasn't happy about Severus' work as a Double Agent? What if he'd drunk himself into a stupor and fallen? Any number of horrible things could have happened to him, and she wasn't there to help him! Even worse, if something awful had befallen him and he was dead somewhere, he would have died thinking Hermione didn't care about him! Silent amongst the cacophony of students expecting a free period, Hermione slowly laid her head downher her bookbag, arms circling it.

She didn't care.

Nope, not even a little.

But she began to cry anyway.

Twenty minutes into the class, the heavy wooden door slammed open against the stone wall, and Severus Snape made his grand entrance, looking as cheerful as ever. Snapping out of her misery, Hermione jumped to her feet, her eyes wide, and her heart at what she was sure had to be breaking point. The students had quieted at his intrustion but hadn't completely silenced, and it was in this time between chaos and order that Hermione grabbed Severus' arm as he attempted to pass her.

"Severus?"

The teacher snarled down at her, all the spite he could muster evident in his visage.

"I..." she stuttered, not expecting his reaction, though honestly, he'd given her no reason to expect different. "I'm glad you're all right. I was worried about you." Her eyes begged him to understand all the emotions she was feeling, but his own black orbs only stared mercilessly, emotionlessly into her.

"I assure you I am fine, Miss Granger. However, if you do not remove your hand from me, you will not be," he hissed evilly, ripping his arm from her grasp and continuing his trip to the front of the classroom. Jaw slack and tears in her eyes, Hermione simply slumped back into her seat.

She'd been wrong before. This was breaking point.

But she didn't care. She didn't care at all. In fact, the longer she sat at that desk, listening to him drone on about something or other that no one in the class beside her was going to get anyway, Hermione kept not caring until she was downright furious. Who the hell did he think he was? He was the one who'd left her! He was the one who had hurt her! Now, when she was trying to extend the hand of friendship, and hopefully, a little more naked time, he refused her! Stupid git! Stupid greasy git!

..."And how long are you to watch over the potion after it is completed to make sure there are no side effects?" Snape's voice wove its way through her psyche, and before she could control herself, Hermione's mouth had acted on her behalf.

"Probably until after you shag it senseless. Then you can leave it to its own devices and pretend like it doesn't exist," muttered Hermione darkly, under her breath but loud enough that she was quite sure that both Snape and surrounding students had heard it. Reacting as if struck, Snape turned his attention to Hermione (who'd gone back to scribbling on her parchment in an unconscious effort to turn the whole page black).

"What was that, Miss Granger?" he spat venomously. "I'm afraid I didn't hear you." Looking slowly up toward the Potions Master, Hermione lost all control of the centers of the brain in charge of things like vocabulary and tact.

"The red in your cheeks says you did. Goes well with that greenish tint you've got going on. Kinda Christmas-y."

"MISS GRANGER! I do not know what your problem is, but if you are going to disrupt my class, I'm going to ask you to leave." Sitting still for a second and looking him straight in the eyes, Hermione could not control herself when she began to laugh bitterly, almost evilly. She reminded herself of Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty" then. As the laughter died out and left only her cold, dead eyes, Hermione stood at her desk, picked up her bag, and began to walk to the doorway.

"You don't know what my problem is," she repeated cynically, shaking her head in a confused, disbelieving kind of way. "Fuck you, Snape. You are an immature arsehole of the lowest order, and I can't believe I ever fucked you- even if it was to save your life."

With that, Hermione turned and walked calmly out the door, leaving behind a silent and bewildered class and a very angry Potions Master.

Fuck Severus Snape.

Fuck him right in the arse.

***********A/N***************
The title is of course ganked from one of the greatest stories ever told, "Billy Madison."

Thank you to all who have reviewed (though I wish there were more of you!)!!! You truly make writing this easier.
And don't worry, I know it looks dark right now, but I see a light at the end of the tunnel (only 2 or 3 more chapters, actually!)
Please keep the reviews coming!!!