The Hepatic Hex

Chapter 2

Hermione Granger lay on her bed in the Head Girls’ quarters in Gryffindor Tower. The moonlight washed in from the only window she hadn’t transfigured into solid wall, and bathed her body making it shimmer in a silver iridescence. She had been tossing in bed for two hours trying to find sleep without the Dreamless Sleep potion Madam Pomfrey the resident Medi-witch has prescribed her. Studying for her N.E.W.T.S had left Hermione stressed and physically exhausted and so Madam Pomfrey had ordered her to take the potion for a week to aid her body in catching up on the much-needed rest it required for proper functioning. Hermione had taken the potion for three days and it hadn’t seemed to help. She was still awake until 3am in the morning, atilltill stressed and physically exhausted. So tonight she had tried more \'Muggle\' attempts at relaxation, but they too had done little to help her, so here she lay again, 2:30 in the morning and still no sleep.

No one understood why she chose to undergo the heavy workload that she had elected. It was double that of all the other students in the graduating class this year. Hermione had heard some of her fellow Gryffindors speculate that she was just trying to prove that she was above everyone else. Others had said that it was actually Harry Potters fault and that she was involved in some plot he had orchestrated to bring down the school. Some students gossiped that Harry really wasn’t on the side of the Light and was in fact a minion of the Dark Lord but only she had the intelligence to pull off the Dark Lords plans. Of course there was also the most hurtful rumor that her obsession with learning was actually due to a mental illness and that her Professors only passed her to avoid her from displaying some sort of violent psychotic episode.

Crap. All those feeble and uneducated insights into her life were just that. Pure, unadulterated crap.

“If they only knew,” she whispered to herself. She was well aware of the demands she had placed on herself and the reason behind them. It was simple. She needed a distraction from her thoughts. Normally she would seek out Harry and Ron and discuss what it was that was troubling her, but had she told them the reason for her distraction since the start of term, then she would most definitely end up in the psychiatric ward at St Mungo’s Wizarding Hospital, without the need to have a psychotic episode. The thought she had tried to block came back again

‘I love him’ she mused. That thought in itself was not the problem. It was the him that was the issue.

I am in love with Professor Snape’- she groaned audibly in frustration at the thought.

She was a sensible girl; mature for her age- her intelligence practically demanded that she be more than just the giddy schoolgirl that many of her peers were. She had never had a boyfriend, serious or otherwise, not that boys had not shown interest in her, Victor Krum had been proof of that. Hermione had just never come across the qualities she found ‘attractive’ in men amongst her perspective young suitors. She craved intellectual conversation, a brain that like hers, could go on all night long. She craved a soul that complemented hers. As for physical appearance she wasn’t interested in classic good looks. There was a small part of her that wanted someone to bring out the wild animalistic side that dwelt within her, the bad, naughty side and a pretty boy would never be able to bring out the kind of arousal in her that she craved.

She had mused on these thoughts over her summer break, but at the time had no clear picture of anyone she knew that could fill this description. She had returned to Hogwarts for her final year and was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and glanced over the Head Table, silently greeting each of her Professors when everything became suddenly clear to her. Still pondering her thoughts her eyes fell on Professor Snape, scowling at the inane chatter going on around him ahe rhe realized that there was the man she could spend the rest of her life loving.

She hadn’t realized that she had been staring at him until he raised his head and locked eyes with her. It took a moment for her brain to process what she was doing before she turned away, blushing at her carelessness. She had finished her meal engaging in some idle conversations in the hope no one had seen her making the fool out of herself she thought she was. She excused herself from the table, before everyone else, and returned to her room.

It was only then that it stuck her that when Professor Snape had found her eyes from across the room he had not glared or sneered at her. That was odd. What was stranger was the soft look of longing she thought she had seen.

\'As if ‘Mione’ she thought to herself. ‘You are definitely losing your mind girl’ Her intelligence told her that Professor Snape could never have the same longing for her that she had for him, but her mind and her hormones were not paying attention.

Groaning out allowed at these thoughts again, she resigned herself to the fact that sleep was not coming at anytime soon and that she may as well go and patrol the halls as was the duty required of her being Head Girl. Deciding not to be bothered dressing, she threw on here school robes over the ecru coloured satin nightgown she was wearing (they covered her completely anyway) and stepped out of her room.

Hermione wandered the halls aimlessly for half an hour before she decided that everything on the upper floors was satisfactory. ‘Better check the dungeons while I’m out here’she thought and headed in that direction.

While playing the thoughts and struggling with the feelings she had in side her, she failed to notice the black figure lying slumped on the floor at the bottom of the dungeon stairs as she descended them. She was brought out of her musings when she tripped over the unconscious form and crashed hard into the stone wall opposite the stairwell.

“What the bloody hell?” she said out allowed as she gathered herself together and approached the still body. See drew in a sharp breath when she saw the robes of what she recognized as the clothing of a Death Eater before placing the person in rongrong magical body-bind. Once she was convinced that the person was secure she rolled the form over and removed their steel mask, wanting to know the face of the fool who had entered Hogwarts Grounds. Hermione gasped when she realized their identity.

“Professor Snape?”