Deliver Me

Chapter II – Dust in the Wind

“Professor,” she was breathless, “Snape.” Hermione could barely get the words out of her mouth.

He was still holding her up, his arms above her waist; her hands were gripping his arms for support and balance. She was starting to feel a little dizzy, and soon realized who was holding her, touching her, she blinked and attempted to stand her self up. He let go of her but never took his gaze off her, frightening her.

It was past midnight and she was in an empty library with Professor Snape.

“You are up late Miss Granger.”

“Yes, sir, I was studying.”

“I see that,” his eyes glancing momentarily at the stack of books on the table. “You were not at dinner Miss Granger.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

He raised an eyebrow to that, “You silly girl, do you really expect to feed your mind, if you don’t feed your body? I won’t have you wasting my time.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hermione said puzzled. She was beginning to feel dizzy again, and very tired, it was getting hard to concentrate…on everything.

“Your proposal Miss Granger, I will not have you wasting my time.”

“Proposal? Professor, what are you speaking about?”

“Do not play games with me. You will find I am a tough opponent.”

“Professor, I really haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about, and if you are quite finished with your riddles, I have things to do.”

“I am not finish, and don’t you dare ever insult me again-”

“That wasn’t an insult-”

“Don’t speak unless you are spoken to-”

“But you are speaking to me-”

“Keeping talking back to me Miss Granger, and you’ve just earned yourself a detention.”

“Detention?”

“Miss Granger-”

I simply can’t figure you out. And I’m sure-”

“Five points from Gryffindor-”

“No, wait I’m positive, that you went over both my tests again and realized they were perfect-”

It was late, she was tired and didn’t care, he didn’t hex her earlier, so she assumed a second round was worth it. Granted, she was scared senseless, she used a little bit of Gryffindor courage and continued.

“If you keep up this way, it’ll be 50,” he hissed.

“Not even perfect more than perfect-”

“Miss Granger,” Snape’s voice was raising, his patience was beginning to wear thin, “You-”

He stopped in mid-sentence, one of her hands was on the table, and the other was on her chest which was heaving. He wasn’t quite sure what he was witnessing.

Snape didn’t move, “Miss Granger?”

She didn’t answer; she tried to move and knocked over the glass of milk that Susu left for her.

Then she collapsed.

He didn’t catch her this time. He wasn’t expecting her to fall, but as soon as she did, he was on the floor beside her, holding her body up. Her eyes were barely open and soon they completely closed.

He apparated to the hospital wing and Madame Pomfrey was waiting.

“Severus I’ll take it from here,” she told him.

“No, I will wait.”

“She’s dehydrated and weak, it may take some time.”

“I’ll wait.”

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Hermione awoke with barely anything visible to her eyes, the very next afternoon.

“Harry? Ron?” she barely whispered.

“They aren’t here,” someone said.

Hermione tried to open her eyes and saw two very black ones looking at her. She tired to get up but couldn’t, before she drifted off to sleep again.

A few hours later, she awoke again, feeling more rejuvenated. She sat up and looked around her. She was in the hospital wing. On the nightstand there was a note with her name on it. She opened it and it read to her aloud the voices of Harry and Ron,

We Love You,

We Miss You,

Get Well,

And

We TOLD YOU SO!

She laughed at that, closed it, and decided to get up and stretch. She was wearing her nightdress. Not seeing her slippers on either side of the bed, she got up anyway and gasped when her feet hit the cold floor. She walked over the window where an empty chair was sitting with someone's robe over it.

“You are awake Miss Granger.”

Hermione jumped to see Professor Snape glaring at her from the shadows.

“Professor, wh-what are you doing here?”

"Seeing that you get better. I cannot have you fainting on me during our lessons, we would never get anything done, if you spent the majority of our time in the hospital wing."

“Sir?”

He took a deep breath realizing she really didn’t have absolutely any idea what he was talking about, “Miss Granger, I have read your proposal for your 7th year thesis and are informing you that I will be your instructor. You are officially in my care.”

“You stayed by me just to tell me that?” her smart mouth was coming back, a sign that she was recovering.

His eyes narrowed, “Why would you presume that I would spend any unnecessary time with you?”

“I didn’t, I just felt a presence next to me, and since you are here now, I assumed it was you. Process of elimination, Professor. Besides, I am officially in your care, aren’t I?”

“Has anyone ever told you Miss Granger that you talk too much?”

She did not answer him, but rather looked out the window, “It’s snowing.”

“Yes, we are in the middle of winter,” he remarked sarcastically. She flinched, but didn’t look at him.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I suggest you move from the window Miss Granger, you might catch a cold, and considering your feet are bare, it would be wise for you to get back into bed. Madame Pomfrey wouldn’t mind keeping you here an extra few days, but I certainly would.”

“They sparkle,” she said ignoring his words, “the snowflakes, so light, and free.”

She turned to him, “When I was a little girl, I wanted to live in a snowflake, and fly wherever the wind took me or fall the ground and –”

“Be stepped on?”

“No, fall to ground, only to be reborn and live in a magical, enchanted dream.”

He arched an eyebrow to that, not fully understanding. Probably the stupid little fantasy of a stupid little girl. What nonsense she was talking of snowflakes and living in them. It was something out of a children’s book. Yet again, she was proving to him just how young and idealistic she really was.

“That was what I wished for before I came here, before I knew magic really existed.”

“What, pray tell, Miss Granger, do you wish for now?”

“For happiness.”

Her answer left him speechless. He didn’t know what to say to that. She walked over to the bed and slid in.

“Professor,” Hermione said with her eyes closed.

“Yes, Miss Granger?” Professor Snape answered.

“Is there a potion for happiness?”

Before he could answer, she was asleep.

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Madame Pomfrey let Hermione out of the hospital, but not before she gave her strict instructions to eat, all three meals a day, that is, and walk around with an endless bottle of water, pumped with glucose.

The week she was fully back in school, was the week that all 7th years started their thesis projects. Ron and Harry still thought she was crazy, but they had their own work to worry about and let it slide, but not before promising her that if Snape did anything to her, they’d march right down into the dungeons and hex him. The 7th years scheduled changed for the six weeks it would take for them to complete their assignments. They would take a different class each morning, followed by lunch and a 2 hours break before heading to their assigned mentor. Some professors had more than one anxious student, Professor Lupin, seemed to be the most popular with 15 students under him. McGonagall had about eight and even the old Transfiguration professor, now headmaster, Dumbledore, had a few too. But Professor Snape, only had one, and it was not a mutual agreement. Of course the thesis project was not only limited to Hogwarts Professors, no, Cornelius Fudge had about three students deeply interested in Politics and Neville Longbottom was sent over to Honeydukes, how hard could it be for Neville to make candy?

Hermione walked into the dungeons for her first session to find herself in an empty classroom.

He had left her a note:

‘Dear Miss Granger,

Here is some reading material.

Sincerely,

Professor Snape.’


A man of few words, she thought.

There was a stack of books on his desk, probably from the restricted section. It was only two in the afternoon and the library was going to be filled with people so she decided to stay in the dungeons. In the very corner of the room, behind his desk was a small black leather sofa with a coffee table in front of it. She grabbed the books, all 10 of them, dropped them on the table, put her water next to it, took out her notebook and started to read and take notes.

‘Potions: The first 2,000 Years’ by Merriamabel Barnes, was the first book at the top of the pile, it looked the most interesting…but gruesome. It was not a wonder why it was in the restricted section to begin with, considering, it was graphic…very graphic, for that matter - containing pictures and in detailed descriptions of potions gone wrong and potions that went right, but did very horrid things.

About three hours later, she had finished the first book and decided to start on the second, it was teatime, and Harry and Ron would probably be looking for her, but she assumed they would understand, and picked up the second book. Eventually, teatime turned into dinnertime, and she hadn’t budged a muscle. Hermione just kept reading and reading, actually, she had forgotten it was dinnertime. Dinnertime turned into bedtime, and she was still reading. Professor Snape had not returned yet, and she had completely forgotten about him too, she was too drenched in her reading. Ron and Harry always said, she was one of the few people they knew, who started a book, and while they were reading the world around them seemed to cease in time.

It was about midnight when Professor Snape returned, cranky.

Damn Ministry of Magic, the biggest load of idiots, he thought to himself.

They had kept him away for the whole day almost, and he was tired and exhausted, fully not expecting to see a sleeping Hermione Granger, in his office.

“What in the name of Merlin…” He said out loud.

She didn’t stir. He walked over to her and realized she had read four of the 10 books he had left for her and was starting the 5th when she dozed off. Her self-refilling notebook had punched to over a hundred pages and her quill was still in her hand.

“Miss Granger?” Professor Snape said softly.

Absolutely ridiculous. Silly, stupid girl. He thought to himself, while he gently took the quill out of her hand, put the books on the coffee table and covered her with a black fur blanket. The dungeons made very cold at night, and he was not going to be the responsible for her stupidity. And a sleeping Hermione Granger, was much better than a Hermione Granger who just read four books and would have liked to discuss them with him. A sleeping Hermione Granger was quiet.
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The next morning, Hermione awoke to find herself not in her bed or in her tower either; she was still in the dungeons covered with a blanket. Who covered her? No one was in sight. She thought Professor Snape had not returned and that there would be a substitute teacher for today’s Potions class. She neatly, folded the blanket, put her books neatly to the side, grabbed her things and ran to the Gryffindor Tower for a shower.

“Hermione, where have you been?” asked Harry as she headed to the bathroom. He was fully dressed and ready go to the Great Hall.

“I fell asleep last night, in the dungeons, while I was reading the books Snape left me,” she answered.

“He wasn’t there?”

“No.”

“That’s good.”

“And by the way, tell Ron thanks for the blanket Harry.”

He looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“Blanket?”

“Yeah thanks for checking up on me last night.”

“Hermione, Ron and I were playing wizard’s chess last night. He didn’t cover you.”

“Hmm, then who?”

“Maybe it was Susu, or Ginny, it could be anyone, the two of them were talking over a apple tart yesterday about how deep you’ve been into your studies.”

“Could be.”

“Breakfast?”

“Yeah, after a shower.”

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During breakfast, which she did happen to eat, a howler was dropped in front of her, when the mail arrived.

“Who sent you that?” asked Ron stuffing the last bit of a pancake into his mouth.

“No idea,” she answered.

Hermione opened to hear Madame Pomfrey yelling at her for not eating dinner.

That caused a laugh at the Gryffindor table.

“So, Potions, Ravenclaw and us today, eh?” Said Harry.

“I don’t think he’ll be there,” she told him, “I mean he wasn’t there for my lesson last night.”

“That’s still a good thing,” Ron added, while she gave him a gesture that he had strawberry sauce at the side of his mouth from his pancakes.

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Entering the dungeons, very surprised Gryffindors, found Professor Snape glaring at them.

They each took their seats and the lesson began. They were supposed to brew a potion that would turn a frog from its original form into a fish.

“Mister Longbottom, purple, I said the potion is supposed to be purple!” Professor Snape stormed.

Everyone knew that Neville’s biggest fear was Professor Snape, ever since the Boggart in the closet incident in their 3rd year.

“If your potion works wrong Mister Longbottom, your frog shall blow up and turn into a poisonous acid. If it works, it shall be perfectly healthy and alive. Let us try yours before the end of the class.”

Hermione who was sitting next to him, started, quietly giving him instructions.

“Do not help him, Miss Granger.”

She looked up, didn’t say a word and continued on her own potion. When she was sure he wasn’t looking, she whispered instructions to Neville in through the corner of her mouth.

At the end of the period, Professor Snape took a spoonful of the potion and put it into the frog’s mouth. The entire class held their breaths, hoping for the better expecting the worst. Seamus covered his face in the anticipation of what would be the results.

Within seconds a multicolored fish was wiggling in Snape’s hands, multicolored and terribly ugly, but a fish nonetheless. The Gryffindors cheered.

“15 points from Gryffindor, I told you, Miss Granger, not to help him. 10 more points from Gryffindor, Mister Longbottom, you need to listen more carefully.”

And with that class was over. Everyone headed off to lunch and in 3 hours Hermione would have to face Snape…again, for her thesis project.

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She ate lunch this time deciding it was better to face the feared Potions Master on a full stomach rather than an empty one, and on her way down to the dungeons, she stopped by the library to give the house elves some cookies she’d sneaked away. The library house elves, didn’t have the heart to tell her, that they didn’t care for her cookies – because they helped to make them. Bu it made her smile, and they enjoyed that.

All of them were so terribly cute and sweet to her. She loved their company…most of the time. And after the incident with Harry and Dobby in their 2nd year, Dobby had a job in the library too. Rather, he was still walking around saying things like, “Harry Potter is kind, Dobby’s loves Harry Potter…Hermione Granger is nice too, Ronald Weasley has red hair, Harry Potter is kind to Dobby.”

Getting down into the dungeons, there was no Professor Snape, for the second time. He didn’t bother to leave her note this time either, only he took back the four books she had read and replaced them with four different ones. The fur blanket was folded right where she left it. Hermione sat down and began to work.