Twice Bitten ~ COMPLETED

Chapter 28 ~ The Chase

After Hermione stormed out, Snape returned to his marking each student’s performance for the day. Most received low marks, though a couple of the students received fair ones. Snape came to Hermione’s parchment and stared down at it, warring with himself. He had never given Hermione a perfect mark since she first arrived at Hogwarts. It was more to keep her striving than anything else, although there was just a touch of malice involved as well.

He stared at the parchment, then marked each aspect of her performance honestly. Focus, Determination, Courage, Aim, Spell Work and so forth, then tallied them up. He stared down at the parchment, frowning, then put it in the pile.

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The next day in DADA class, Snape passed out the evaluation forms that showed the marks everyone received. Hermione sat stiffly at her desk and didn’t look up at him as he billowed by, placing her grade face down before her.

Hermione stared at the paper for a moment, then slowly turned the parchment over with a scowl. She read it and her scowl changed to an expression of disbelief. She had received perfect marks. She looked up at Snape who returned to the front of the class. Groans rose up all around him as his pupils read their marks.

Snape slowly wrapped his robes around his person as if he were cold and addressed his class.

”Most of you failed dismally. Most of you,” he said pointedly, his eyes flicking toward Hermione. “Now I hope that by observation of your other classmates you learned something, such as establishing basic protections around your person and taking advantage of your surroundings. Almost anything can be a weapon. Now, I want you each to write an essay as to why you did or didn’t do well and what you might have done to improve your performance. I expect it to be honest and will tally the mark you receive for the essay with my evaluation. Maybe a few of you will manage to squeak by with a passing grade.”

The mood lifted considerable at this statement. Most of the students were surprised. Professor Snape giving them a break?

The sky was falling.

Snape returned to his desk as the students took out parchments and quills. He pretended to be reading the latest issue of Potions Today as he surreptiously watched Hermione. She had a small smile on her face as she wrote.

Yes, the witch was pleased.

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”I got a fair mark,” Harry said to Hermione. “It was almost passing. With the essay I ought to be all right. That was pretty cool of Snape to do that. He never gives us breaks. What mark did he give you?”

Hermione mumbled something.

”What?” Harry asked her as they walked out of the DADA corridor toward the Great Hall.

”He gave me perfect marks,” Hermione said.

Both of Harry’s eyebrows rose.

”I thought he’d fail you,” Harry said, “Or give you a barely passing grade. That’s his normal way of grading.

“More than likely he’s feeling guilty about what I said to him last night and is trying to make up for it by giving me the marks I deserve for once,” Hermione replied, “But it’s going to take more than giving me what I’ve earned for me to forgive him. He’s such a bastard.”

“I still can’t believe you told him off like that, Hermione. That took guts,” Harry said admiringly.

“I was just mad,” the witch said as they entered the Great Hall. Ron was already there, eating. Snape was also seated, waiting for his food to arrive. He looked at Hermione. She looked back at him, expressionless, then sat down between Ron and Harry.

Well at least she hadn’t frowned at him.

It was a start. Next, he was going to have to actually apologize to Hermione and acknowledge just how important she had been to him during his dilemma.

He wasn’t looking forward to this. He was terrible with apologies, particularly when he had to apologize to witches from the house of Gryffindor. Snape’s brow furrowed as he thought about Lily. Gods, she used to twist him all around her little finger and played him like a violin for years. He only recently promised himself he would never let another woman get her claws in him the way Lily Potter had. He formed that resolution over the summer months.

Since giving Harry the bulk of his most poignant memories of his mother, much of the emotionalism involved with her memory had been removed and for the first time in his life, Snape was able to look at their relationship honestly and tell himself he had been a damned fool. That’s right. A complete and utter fool trying to commit slow suicide for a ghost who didn’t give him a thought in the end. It was a good thing he didn’t have this clarity of mind when Harry was a boy, otherwise he would have been taken by Voldemort within days of his arrival at Hogwarts. Snape wouldn’t have given a damn whose son he was, damn his green eyes.

Lily had been Snape’s first and he was completely enamored of her because of that intimate contact. They had been quite young when they had intercourse, very young in fact, Lily wanting to see the mysterious tool wizards had between their legs. Snape had been fourteen . . . but everything worked. When the inquisitive witch handled him, one thing led to another, Snape scared to death he was hurting her, thrown into something he was completely unprepared to handle emotionally.

They had only done it once. But once had been enough for Snape to follow her about like a puppy for the rest of their time at Hogwarts. Then James Potter started moving in. Lily knew Snape was jealous and to appease him would talk badly about James, but insist Snape not fight with him and the others because they were in her house and it made her look bad.

How the fuck was he to leave the bastard along when he and his cronies went out of the way to harass and attack him? Lily didn’t have an answer for that and seemed not to be greatly concerned about it. Snape found his own friends . . . well . . . associates rather in Avery and Mulciber. They would do things Snape didn’t have the nerve to do, because of Lily’s perceived wrath, so he lived vicariously through them. He had to have friends after all. The two Slytherins helped him fend off the Marauders a few times. Not every time but on occasion they charged to the rescue, wands blasting, scattering the surprised Gryffindors.

When Snape angrily called Lily a Mudblood down by the lake after being targeted by James and his friends and completely surrounded by Gryffindors, that had been the end of their association, although Snape desperately tried to apologize for what he had said in the heat of the moment. When Lily wouldn’t accept his apology, he swore to himself he would make it up to her in some way; prove to the witch that he cared for her more than anyone else in the world. It became his obsession and consumed him.

Without Lily to curtail him, he got mixed up with the Death Eaters. They offered companionship and a sense of belonging, something the socially inept Snape sorely needed. He still on occasion tried to speak with Lily, but she took up with James Potter. It broke his heart to see his Lily on that show-off’s arm, but there was nothing he could do except find a way to prove to Lily how much she meant to him. Snape lived with the delusion that one day she would see the depth of his love and realize she’d made a mistake by marrying the wrong man. She would then leave James and come back to him forever.

Then he found out because of a Prophecy he had overheard and told Voldemort that the despot had targeted the Potter family for death. The distraught wizard went to Dumbledore for help. In turn, Dumbledore promised to protect the family if Snape would turn spy and report Voldemort’s activities to him. It had been the worst form of blackmail on the old wizard’s part, but he was fighting a war. Anyway, Snape was a Death Eater, the lowest form of life other than Voldemort himself. Albus had always been manipulative and had a dark side of his own that surfaced from time to time. This was one of those times.

However, Lily’s hoped-for return never happened. Voldemort killed her.

Snape was ready to commit suicide himself when he found out about her death, but instead, Albus took advantage of his insane love for the witch a second time and used it to secure his promise to protect her son. Snape felt that even though Lily was dead, he could prove the depths of his love in this manner, while plotting the demise of Voldemort should he return. This insanity lasted until he was murdered for his efforts. In the end, it all had been a thankless effort in futility.

And he never saw it until after he was restored to mortal form. Well spoken were the words of the Muggle Benjamin Disraeli who said, “The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.”

For Severus Snape, it had finally ended. That part of his life was over. He was no longer ignorant. He had been such a fool.

Still, there was the matter of Hermione who had actually outshone Lily as far as he was concerned. She did personify the true qualities of Gryffindor without being completely insufferable about it and contained just enough of a dark nature to be bearable. Imagine, giving him to the Giant Squid. Sheer genius.

Not to mention this meant Hermione had a bigger set of balls than most wizards he’d come in contact with over the years. Snape believed no one else would have dared treat him in such a manner. Particularly since he was now, a “hero,” a designation that meant absolutely nothing to him other than a means of getting preferential treatment from time to time.

She deserved those perfect marks and an acknowledgment. Hermione Granger had literally saved his life. He couldn’t have accomplished anything without her. But once he was restored, all he thought about was being free of his entanglements, and his intimate association with Hermione for that short while put her squarely in the “entanglement” arena. She had to be cleared out with the rest, although she still remained a potential source of pleasure. He really did believe however that Hermione’s attraction for him largely revolved around his vampire allure. Rather than wait for her to reach that realization, he thought it kinder to separate voluntarily. There had been only a few tears, and Snape thought the witch had accepted the situation with her usual logic.

Clearly, she hadn’t.

Ah well. All he could do was apologize and hope that it would go better with Hermione than it did with Lily.

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Later that evening, Snape altered his rounds to correspond with Hermione’s usual route and caught up to the witch in the upper floors of the castle. He wasted no time.

”Miss Granger,” he called to the witch walking ahead of him.

Hermione started and turned around, her eyes narrowing as she saw the wizard approaching.

”May I have a word with you?” Snape said.

”No, you may not,” Hermione snapped, speeding up.

Snape began to walk quicker, as did Hermione.

”Why that little . . .” Snape muttered, and started to run, his robes billowing.

Hermione looked over her shoulder, saw him running towards her and took off like a shot, the angry wizard pursing her through the corridor. Hermione was quite fast for a witch.

”Gods damn it,” he hissed to himself as Hermione slipped into a niche that led to an inner passageway behind the walls. She knew many of the secret corridors that crisscrossed the castle.

Unfortunately so did Snape, who slipped in behind her. He couldn’t believe she would be so unreasonable. This was highly inappropriate . . . chasing her through the castle as he was.

But why was he enjoying it so much?

Maybe he still retained some vampire qualities such as the innate enjoyment of the Hunt.

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Hermione turned into a passageway that inclined downward. It led to a wall that opened on the Gryffindor tower corridor. She ran quickly, looking behind her.

”I can’t believe he’s actually chasing me,” she breathed, though she couldn’t see Snape now.

The reason she couldn’t see him was because he wasn’t behind her. He was in front of her. Snape knew the passageways better than she did and realized immediately she was making a break for Gryffindor house. He simply took an adjacent passageway that contained a short drop that allowed him to descend faster. Then he took up position in front of the way out.

Hermione was so busy looking back that she ran right into the wizard, who wrapped his arms around the struggling witch.

Hermione kicked him in the shins a couple of good times before he finally crushed her to the wall, holding her wrists over her head and using the weight of his body to subdue her.

”You let me go! I’ll report you, Professor. I swear I will,” Hermione seethed up at him.

”Not until you hear me out, you little hellcat,” Snape said through clenched teeth. “We could have avoided this entire scene if you had been reasonable and simply talked to me when I asked you rather than skitter away like some curly-haired rabbit.”

“I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want to,” Hermione shot back at him, becoming aware of how hard his body was against hers. Shit. She had to get him off of her.

”You will talk to me as long as it is necessary in order for us to iron our differences out,” he responded tightly.

”You are not my father!” Hermione spat.

”I should hope not,” the wizard purred, “that would be quite disturbing considering the nature of our association.”

Hermione struggled a bit more, and Snape pressed against her harder, enjoying her efforts. She was about as strong as a kitten.

Finally she gave up, exhausted.

”Fine. What do you want to talk about?” she asked him angrily.

”First, I am going to let go of your wrists and give you a bit of space. If you try to escape me, next time I’ll put a binding spell on you,” he said, releasing one of her wrists, reaching into her robes pocket and removing her wand.

”Hey! You give that back!” Hermione demanded as he pocketed it.

”When we are done talking. After your performance at the lake yesterday, I realize I need to be very cautious when dealing with you, witch. You are quite vindictive. Now, as to what I wish to talk to you about, it is quite simple really. I wish to apologize,” he said, releasing her fully and stepping back.

Hermione looked up at him. Apologize? Right.

“Good luck,” she said, folding her arms.

Damn. She wasn’t going to make this easy, was she?

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A/N: I added a bit of AU history for Snape and Lily in this chapter. I think it was necessary to show that the wizard is fully over her now and maybe will help open the way for he and Hermione to have a relationship although he is still rather bitter. Thanks for reading.