Nothing As It Seems

10/22/08

Chapter 2 - Falling in Love

“Professor, I can expl…”

“Can you, Miss Granger?” He interrupted her in his deep quiet tone, drawing the words out slowly, so softly, in that way he had. That way that yanked Hermione’s heart into her throat. His black eyes did not move from her face, did not blink a single lash as he continued to stare at her.

He moved away from the door and into the room like a dark storm, angry and unstoppable.

Hermione couldn’t help her perusal of him as he moved. Graceful as always. He was dressed in his usual black robes, every inch of him covered. His hair was combed straight, wet from recently being washed so it seemed. But when her scrutiny reached his eyes, her heart stopped.

Lightning flashed there, deep within those obsidian eyes.

“Indeed.” He drawled. “Tell me then. How do you find yourself in my bed? A dare? A bet? A death wish, perhaps, or have you simply lost your mind?”

Hermione couldn’t so much as breath with him staring at her like that. She felt her eyes growing wider, unable to blink. Unable to break his black gaze. The weight of it seemed to crush her.

Oh gods…he’s going to kill me.

Gasping at his conclusions she choked on her fear and tried to explain again. “No, Professor, it wasn’t….” But he cut her off, throwing something at her.

“Get. Out. Now.” He hissed slowly, enunciating each syllable, and then turned and stormed darkly out of the room.

Hermione closed her eyes, breathing deep calming breaths, trying to slow her pounding heart, and still clutching the sheets in a white knuckled grasp at her chest. Swallowing, she opened her eyes again and reached for the object he had thrown and recognized it instantly.

A potion for terminating pregnancy.

Ugh! This was simply the most humiliating predicament she had ever gotten herself into.

Of course, she had already taken precautions. She had, after all, come with the single purpose of loosing her virginity. So she placed the tube on his nightstand. Growing mortification began to rise in her and she wanted nothing more than to be gone from here. She scrambled from the bed and began flinging her clothes on and collecting the evidence of her presence.

Not that it matters anymore. She sneered at herself, trying to be angry at her stupidity. But tears burned the backs of her eyes and a lump began to form in her throat as she headed for the door mulling over his question.

“How do you find yourself in my bed?”

That particular question did not have a short answer, and the memories came in a flood rush.

It had started as a schoolgirl crush. It hadn’t bloomed until the end of her 5th year and she had found out he was a member of The Order. Indeed, she had quite hated him just as everyone else did, but when she had found out he was a part of the Order of the Phoenix, she had been astounded. She couldn’t believe that she could misjudge a person so. She simply couldn’t believe it!

So, she started paying closer attention to his actions both at school the following term and at headquarters. It wasn’t long before she noticed the power of his voice, became fascinated by is hands, and was mesmerized by the way he moved.

He was more intelligent than she had given him credit for as well. She had been so fixated on his bad temper that she had been ignoring, like everyone else, the brilliant mind he seemed to have. Soon, she was secretly agreeing with every snide remark he made to the dunderhead students in her class, having lost her patience with their idiocy and slow pace. She was dying to progress further, to learn what he had to teach, but the rest of the class was not to allow the progression.

She could practically feel the knowledge he had seeping from his pores, and yet she was not to have access to any of it, so it seemed. Every time she asked a question or tried to answer one, house points were taken for some lame reason or another, and though she knew her work was thorough, he never, ever gave full marks on anything. It used to anger her, but after a little nosing around, she found that he never gave full marks to anyone. Not even his Slytherin scum. And she did, in fact, have the highest grade in the class, followed by none other than Neville Longbottom. Not followed closely, but none the less, Neville held the second highest grade in her class. She had been amazed and astounded by that. Professor Snape, with all of his cruel words merely set high standards, and though he never outwardly praised, he still graded fairly based on those standards. Perhaps what truly angered his was that the two highest grades were those of Gryffindor house.

She watched him as he ate as well. He never seemed to talk to anyone and it made her sad for him. He looked so lonely, and she felt annoyance at the teachers, his fellow staff members, who seemed to exclude him on a daily basis.

Twice, she had seen him stop eating abruptly half way through his meal, get up, and silently leave, moving in a billow of black robes. It was the second time this happened that she noticed him clenching his left fist, his arm completely stiff, and she knew he had been summoned. When she looked at Dumbledore, he had continued his discussion with Professor McGonagall as though nothing was amiss, but his head moved with the retreating professor as though he was watching him from the corner of his eye. Both times, Professor Snape’s classes had a substitute for over a week afterwards, and he was nowhere to be seen. It was a strange experience when she first felt the pangs of worry for him. What if he was hurt? She had to remind herself that there was nothing she could do about it even if he were.

As the meetings of the Order became more and more frequent, Hermione found herself making any excuse she could to be at the headquarters. She volunteered her time for research, cleaning, cooking, whatever they needed just so that she could be there when he was around. He never said anything to her and she wasn’t allowed to sit in on the actual meetings, but she would get to sit with them in the evenings.

At first, the professor didn’t stay to eat with them, but Molly Weasly had finally gotten tired of him jumping up and practically running for the door and had scolded him for it, telling him that he was working too hard and not eating enough. Hermione’s heart had leapt into her throat when Molly had then proceeded to call him “too skinny”, and she had braced herself for the hex that the professor was surely going to throw, but all he did was stare at molly for a moment and then he took a seat at the table. It had seemed so strange to Hermione. Everyone had simply kept on talking and passing the food around. No one seemed to notice, or even mind the addition to their table, rather, they simply began passing him food as well and the occasional question or statement began to be shot in his direction.

It seemed that the only reason he hadn’t been included in the first place was because he had chosen not to include himself.

‘Strange.’

She had always assumed that he left because he knew he wasn’t wanted. How childish she felt now, thinking of that immature conclusion. These people were adults, comrades in arms, all fighting for the same cause. And they welcomed him easily, when he let them.

When Hermione reached her room, she flung open the door, and then swung around and closed it, pressing herself against it as she locked herself in. Her breathing was heavy and she was trembling as she turned and flung herself onto her bed, wiping at tears.

And the memories kept coming.

Late one Saturday night, she, along with Ron, Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Luna were all at the headquarters. It had been very late and everyone had settled in for the night when she had got up and gone down stairs to get a glass of water, but when she had entered the kitchen, she found the brooding wizard sitting alone in the dark at the table.

Her heart had leapt into her throat at the sight of him. He had been gone since Wednesday past, but here he was suddenly, in the dead of night. He sat, his head bowed, leaning on his arms on the table. His left hand was clutched into a fist, and she could see a piece of parchment crumpled in it. His hand had been shaking.

He hadn’t noticed her yet as he slowly ran his other hand through his dark hair and sat back in the chair, his eyes closed. When she noticed a bruise on his cheek and above his brow, she gasped. She hadn’t been able to help it.

His eyes had shot open at the sound of her gasp and he looked like a truly haunted man in that moment. She would never forget that look.

‘Never.’

Foolishly she had been drawn to him, wanting to comfort him, take that look from his eyes and the pain away from his wounds.

“Professor, what…what happened?” She whispered, closing the distance between them and placing a hand on the sleeve of his shaking arm as she kneeled at his side.

The bruise looked yellowish from this close, and she could tell it had been healing for a few days and she found this strange. Why hadn’t he gone to see a medi witch? Why hadn’t he had his wounds healed?

She remembered thinking briefly of all of those times throughout the year that he had disappeared for weeks at a time. Was this why? Had he been hurt during all of those calling? Had Voldemort forbidden him from healing? Her hear ached as she thought of how solemnly he went each time. Never complaining. Never showing fear. And yet all those times he knew he was going to be hurt…in some way or another. In that moment she knew that she could never convey her gratefulness for what he was doing now, had been doing for them all this time.

He looked at her hand on his arm for a moment and then his gaze swept up to met hers, his eyes searching, pleading for something, and she thought she might drown in the helplessness within those black pools. But he must not have liked the look of worry in her eyes, for in the next instant, he had jerked his arm from her and shot from his chair, dropping the scrap he had been gripping so tightly. As though she had burned him.

He had startled her and she quickly began stammering her apologies, but he simply stalked out of the room, his typical expression of disgust firmly in place. But she had already seen the utter and complete anguish in his eyes.

Something terrible was on the horizon. Something looming over them all, like a knife in the dark, preparing to strike unseen and deadly.

She had bent and reached for the scrap of parchment when he was gone.

It hadn’t made any sense. All it said was “…where Lucius has failed you will now have to succeed without…” She vaguely recognized the handwriting, but couldn’t place it at the time.

Still rattled over the discovery of his harm and her alarming reaction to him of late, she had absently folded the parchment and tucked it into her bathrobe and gone back to bed.

That night was the first night she had dreamed about him. And then she dreamed of him every night.

And so it went for the following months. Her crush grew with each new day and each new discovery. The end of 6th term grew closer, and whispers of battle became murmurs, and then outright preparation.

There would be war.

The summer between her 6th and 7th year was as it had been the previous summer. She had joined Harry and Ron at the Burrow, but it hadn’t been the same this year. The peaceful naive days were gone. Voldemort was gaining power and soon Harry would face him again.

Her friend had battled the Dark Lord twice now, and in their fifth year, he had almost died in the Ministry of Magic when the deatheaters were sent after the Prophecy. In the end, Malfoy had dropped the stupid thing and it had shattered into dust, and Dumbeldore and Harry had driven the evil wizard away.

With the impending war, the new 7th years were all being given rigorous lessons in defense and Dumbledore’s Army had become a formal study group. This class period was required of all 7th years this year, regardless of their chosen NEWT level studies.

Hermione shivered at the thought of that evil woman who had temporarily taken control of the school and had been stiffening all learning. It had been then that Dumbledore’s Army had been formed, secretly.

Along with the added defense curriculum, Hermione had been required to petition to take nearly all of the subjects at the N.E.W.T level. Professor Dumbledore had advised strongly against it, but she was determined, arguing that she had received all O’s and an E, that one on Potions, and that it was her right to pursue higher education in every subject that she had passed with E’s or higher. She was now taking Charms, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Muggle Studies, Herbology, and Potions. At the behest of Professor Dumbledore, she did agree to only work on two 7th year projects. For those, she had chosen Charms and Potions, much to the shagrin of both Professor McGonnagall who had hoped the star pupil would consider her field, and to Professor Snape who had sneered at the young woman and had tried to frighten her into changing her mind. To no avail, of course.

Her potions studies were rigorous and demanding, though she found the challenge energizing, and she found that she was content to spend a little more time with Professor Snape. Indeed, she found herself at the forefront of his temper a lot more often, but she also found that she learned so much more. He moved more swiftly through the potions he was teaching her, not spending as much time explaining each ingredient, explaining that as a grad program student, he expected her to be able to research the properties she hadn’t already soaked up like a sponge.

It was also during those study sessions that she noticed his scent.

The man smelled…good. Like sandalwood and pine. Ink and old books. There was no other way to describe it, and she found her heart rate increasing and other stirrings deep within when she caught his scent as he walked by or stood next to her.

The holidays were bittersweet this last year. She, Ron, and Harry had spent this year at the headquarters working for the Order. Their carefree days really gone now. Harry was being put through rigorous training both in controlling his mind and in defensive and in offensive tactics and maneuvers. Ron was training to become an auror and was formally inducted into the Order over Christmas break. She was also inducted, but she had not gone on any field assignments as yet, given the heightened danger of being muggle-born. The Order had given her the task of research, and she was good at that. Harry had been jealous that she and Ron were now a part of the Order, but there was no help for it. Harry was too important to the cause to allow him to be placed in more danger than he was already.

Not only were both young men’s studies different from her own, but they were both also now in romantic relationships and the trio’s time together grew less and less. Ron and Luna made a sweet, if somewhat odd couple, and Harry and Ginny had finally made their feeling known to everyone. Mrs. Weasly had wept with joy at the news. Hermione was still treated as part of the family, and for that she was thankful, for her own family had been relocated, placed in hiding, as all of the muggle-born withes’ and wizards’ parents were. She missed them horribly, almost painfully at times.

She hadn’t seen Professor Snape at all during the holiday breaks, and her heart broke thinking of him alone among Voldemort’s followers. Possibly even being brutalized for not having enough information to satisfy Voldemort.

His loneliness and silent suffering was nearly unbearable for her, but she was helpless to do anything, and he would have brushed her off with nothing more than mild annoyance if she had tried to approach him.

As her 7th year was coming to a close and the war loomed dark and foreboding now, she had decided that there was one thing left that she wanted to learn from the professor before she left Hogwarts forever. Before war tore apart all of their lives. Before the war possibly took him with it.

The realization that she had fallen in love with him hadn’t startled her as much as she had thought realizing one was in love should startle. She just…knew. That’s all there was to it really.

But there was no way on Mother Earth’s blue planet that he was going to give her what she wanted. Even if she had celebrated her 18th birthday back in October.

She thought about getting him drunk, but immediately dismissed the idea. In her many dinners at headquarters, she knew he did not drink. Then, she thought of slipping him a potion in his drink that would produce affects resembling lust and brewing it to be directed at herself, but had no way of testing it without having some other poor sap lust after her, and she didn’t want to give it to him without testing it.

In the end, it had been simple really. Sneak into his rooms and give him a lusty dream. And the plan had worked flawlessly until she had forgotten the last part. He wasn’t supposed to know their experience had been real. He wasn’t even really supposed to have dreamed about her if his mind was not so inclined, but she had been stupid and careless and had fallen asleep in his bed afterwards.

And that was how Hermione Granger found herself in Severus Snape’s bed this morning.

Unbelievable! She griped at herself for the tenth time since fleeing the professor’s chambers. Blinking back tears as she pushed the memories away.

She hadn’t even been given the chance to explain, and he had been clearly disgusted. She thought her heart might break.

‘Unrequited love sucks!’

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Severus headed straight for his labs as the events of the morning played over and over in his head. He was still in a mild state of shock after waking to find Miss Granger snoring lightly next to him, his sheets pressed against her curves and his pillow covered in waves of her auburn hair.

He had been horrified.

Not only had she gotten into his chambers without him knowing, but she had completely seduced him in his sleep. He never woke. Not once. And if he had, he might have reacted before he realized who she was. He might have killed her.

Not to mention that he had just had the most satisfying orgasm in years and it had been with a student. Not just any student, but her. Her, of all students! And she had been a virgin!

He growled inwardly as these thought assailed him over and over again accompanied by fresh anger at the woman and guilt at having taken her virginity.

‘Such a gift should not have been wasted on the damned.’

He was no longer paying attention to the hall he was moving through as he lost himself in his thoughts.

He had practically fallen out of bed trying to move away from her, torn between wanting to take the sheets with him and maintain his pretense of modesty as her teacher, and wanting to leave them right where they were so that he wouldn’t be confronted by the proof of her naked form.

In the end, he had left the sheets right where they were and had headed for the shower, completely unnerved. The hot water rushed over him as he stood below the spray, waiting for the forbidden thoughts in his head to have mercy on him.

He had not been blind to her constant watchfulness. He was aware that she was most likely charged with watching him for the Order. She was the most capable for such a task these past two years after all.

But this. This was…He had no words. Did she think he was not human? Not a man?

‘After last night, there would be no chance of her mistaking that fact.’

‘How could she be so foolish! What could she possibly have gained by this?’

The wizarding world was on the very brink of war. He could be summoned by the Dark Lord at any moment, day or night, and he was being summoned more often of late. What might he have done if he had been summoned in the night and she had been there?

Severus closed his eyes briefly. He could still smell her, could still feel her. And it disturbed him.

He stood under the spray long after his skin was scalded, cleansed of her scent. He had calmed enough by then to collect his thoughts as he stepped from the tub and with a flick of his wrist had dried himself off. He also removed a single vile of a vibrant green potion from his personal stores and slipped it into his pocket. He would give it to her when she woke, for he would not sire a child on her. And having to do this made him angry all over again.

But for the time being, he had needed to determine just how she had penetrated his wards. Once dressed, he began his inspection of his chambers. Slowly, he moved through the rooms checking the wards on the floo, and on the windows, and when he had reached the door he had found it.

‘Clever wench.’

There it was. An impervious charm. She had modified it and he could see how it had absorbed his ward and left the door completely unlocked. And he hadn’t detected a thing.

‘Very clever.’ He found her modification and its devious nature intriguing, and wondered for a moment how long it had taken her to perfect it. He would be impressed with the Gryffindor goody-goody if he weren’t furious with her.

‘Goody-goody. Does the juvenile name even apply to her any longer?’

When he had reached the bedroom door, the toe of his boot clipped something metal. His brow furrowed as he bent and inspected the object.

A small copper incense burner.

It wasn’t smoldering any longer, so he picked it up and sniffed the contents, but he already knew what they were. He was mildly relieved to find that this particular blend’s affects were very short term and lasted only as long as it burned.

The mix was called “Flame of Lust”, crafted with the mingling scents of cinnamon, orange and jasmine flowers, peppermint leaves, rose petals, and various other ingredients. Incense. The dry potion worked very well to stoke the flames of ardor, even when the recipient was asleep.

Shaking his head in exasperation he leaned against the doorframe and watched her as he waited for her to wake. He was only prolonging the inevitable unpleasantness by not waking her himself, but he didn’t care.

She snored.

What an interesting bit of information. Completely useless, of course, but so was the observation that she was rather enchanting in her sleep.

She had taken to wearing her hair in a tight bun the last two years and it was alluring to see her hair surrounding her as she slept. It was the color of cinnamon.

He had growled inwardly in disgust at himself as he pondered this young vibrant woman in his bed. She was, in fact, the embodiment of his wildest fantasies and the source of greatest torture at this point in his life. He fought to push her out of his thoughts on a continual basis of late, but she seemed to have bewitch him.

She had grown into a fascinating young woman, fierce and loyal, intelligent and talented. He couldn’t seem to help himself. She had grown to have all of the qualities that he had once been drawn to in a woman. And yet, he would deny the admiration to his very last breath.

For that breath drew nearer with ever day.

He had accepted her spying as a necessary evil. He was not ignorant to the Order’s distrust of him, and when Miss Granger had been introduced to the order, she along with her companions had been eager to jump in and get themselves into trouble.

Dumbledore had obviously seen the potential in Miss Granger. That was the only possible explanation for her scrutiny. He was Miss Granger’s 'assignment'. It made sense. Her constant watchfulness had started right around the same time he had come into possession of the object, the Prophecy, that the Dark Lord coveted immeasurably.

How the old man had found out, he was not sure yet, but for now, the object would remain hidden safely away.

Perhaps that was exactly why she was now in his bed, but her seduction would be for nothing. He was not foolish enough to keep it here.

The obvious motive of the lovely witch's seduction surprisingly hurt. It would have bene nice to think for even a little while that she might actually be attracted to him.

At that moment, she sat bolt upright, her chocolate brown eyes flying open and locking on him.

Severus stormed into his potions lab and slammed the door angrily and closed his eyes, forcing the thoughts from his mind.

I will not allow this weakness to bring me down He stated, trying to convince himsefl of the truth of it.

But Gods, I'm so tired.

Perhaps he could get through a Saturday without being summoned. Perhaps he could stay locked away in his lab for the rest of the weekend and not have to look into the alluring eyes of his pretty little spy.

Perhaps.

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