Madrigal

The first two weeks of February were a dark time for us. While a small part of me was deliriously happy knowing that Hermione desired me as well, the depression of being unable to fulfill our needs was overwhelming. We threw ourselves into our work in an attempt to sublimate our frustrations. Hermione was now doing nearly all of my grading and lesson planning for me because she was so much faster and, honestly, better at it.

She had an innate sense for how to tailor subjects to certain ages, and she was amazing at finding ways to teach Defense in a hands-on way without it being too dangerous. She confessed to me that she’d organized the illegal defense club “Dumbledore’s Army” last year, something that I had long suspected. She was a natural teacher, something that should have been apparent from the way she was constantly helping her pet dunderheads with their schoolwork. I had told her countless times over the past five months that she should seriously consider applying to be a Hogwarts professor after she finished her secondary education.

There was a lot of tension around the laboratory, and we frequently found ourselves getting into arguments over small things. We’d fight over the appropriate length to assign for a second-year essay, whether safety goggles were really needed when chopping gurdyroots, the appropriate volume for music, Nicholas Flamel’s age at the time he died, the list goes on and on. Fortunately, neither of us took these things seriously or held grudges.

We were studiously avoiding physical contact. Instead of placing a set of shears directly into her hand, I’d place it on the desk next to her. She would walk around the entire other side of the table rather than squeeze behind me and risk our bodies brushing against each other. If we were on the couch, we’d sit pressed against the arms as far as possible from each other. But nothing could keep me from staring at her incessantly. I’d watch her as she scribbled a scathing critique on an essay, perfectly imitating me. Concentrating on reading a boring a medical text was practically impossible when she was bent over a steaming cauldron with that pert little ass in the air.

Every single movement she made was so nimble, so precise, that I couldn’t help but watch her. I was a man obsessed. She haunted my dreams, waking me in the middle of the night with raging hard-ons that I’d have to take care of before I could fall back asleep. I’d be in the middle of a lecture and would lose my train of thought because I flipped over a page in my notes and found a strand of her hair. I watched her out of the corner of my eye at every meal, bristling any time someone touched her.

It was pure torture when she was in my class. I mocked her and her friends relentlessly, openly laughing when one of them would make a mistake. Once she got so angry at me for berating Weasley that I had to send her out of the room to cool off. Her efforts were essentially flawless as always, but she took criticism of her friends’ work just as personally as if it were her own. I’m ashamed to admit that I was more than slightly jealous of her relationship with those stupid boys. She was so fiercely protective of them. They could just look at each other and communicate without speaking. Every time she laughed at their jokes, my fingers reflexively twitched for my wand to curse them into oblivion.

On Friday the 12th, the tensions finally reached a breaking point. We were working on Reflective Shield Charms in class, and Hermione was paired with Potter. She cast a particularly powerful Leg-Locker Jinx at him, and he parried it, but it went way too wide. Instead of reflecting back at her, it flew across the room and knocked Seamus Finnegan to the floor. “What the hell was that, Potter?” I stormed across the room and loomed over him threateningly.

“It was just an accident!” he protested with righteous indignation.

“I know it was an accident, you bloody stupid prat! We’ve been working on this charm for three days now! What if this were a battle, and that was a Killing Curse, huh? You could’ve murdered one of your own comrades!” I spat.

“Yeah, I fucking understand that! But that’s why we PRACTICE! So we don’t make mistakes in the REAL WORLD!!!” His eyes were bulging behind his round glasses, and his face was red with embarrassment and fury.

“LANGUAGE POTTER!!!” I thundered, “FIFTY POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR!”

“That’s crazy! You can’t do that!” Hermione had stomped over and was in my face now too. “It was just an accident! He didn’t mean to hurt Seamus, and he didn’t mean to say a curse word! He was just worked up! You know, like you are now!” she said to me pointedly.

“What precisely has given you the impression that you can speak to me like that, Miss Granger?” I hissed dangerously, “You seem to be operating under the assumption that you are something special, that you are above the rules that apply to everyone else.”

I paused for dramatic effect, staring down my nose at her coldly, “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Miss Granger, but you are nothing special. You’re just a naive child who thinks she’s better than everyone else because she’s a bit clever. The world is going to eat you up and spit you out, little girl…”

I annunciated, drawing each syllable out dangerously, “Detention, Miss Granger. My office tonight. 10 pm. You are both dismissed.” I sent the two of them out of my classroom, bellowing at the other students to get back to work. No one made a single sound other than casting and parrying jinxes for the rest of the period.