I Will Always Find You

AN: Chapter five here we go! Review Please!


Disclaimer: Not mine.


Chapter 5. Hoodwinked

Snape was irritated. He\'d wanted to speak to Hermione alone. She needed to get counciling and he knew someone who could help her.


He sighed as he sat at his desk staring at a blank parchment. He decided he would write the letter; but not send it until he spoke to her.


Half an hour later he was satisfied with the letter and he sealed it, placing a charm on it that would only allow the recipient to open it.


He sat back at his desk for a moment and thought. He\'d been civil to Miss Granger before; but tonight it seemed as if she actually liked him. She\'d smiled at him more in one night than any student had his entire carreer at Hogwarts.


He really did admire the little know it all. She was quicker than he himself sometimes, even though he would never admit it.


He decided to pass up patroll, and let Filch know. The man was not entirely pleased; but he knew that Snape had been to see Voldemort., and was probably very tired. He nodded curtly and called to Mrs. Norris as he was walking away.


Snape watched the man go, and then retired into his room for a glass of Firewhisky and bed.

Saturday morning broke clear and cold. Hermione woke refreshed after a night of dreamless rest. She looked up and saw a note lying on her nightstand.


Stretching, she reached up and snagged it. Looking at the envelope, she recognised the writing as Professor Snapes. She wondered what he wanted to tell her that he could not in the hospital wing the night before.


Shrugging, she tore it open and read the note.


Miss Granger,

I would appreciate it if you would stop by the potions classroom tonight after dinner. I have a matter that I would like to discuss with you concerning your attack. Please be discreet in coming here. If you are seen, make out you are coming to complain about a student of mine.

Professor Snape

\"That shouldn\'t be too hard to believe,\" Hermione muttered. She was always seeking Professor Snape out to complain about one of his students.


The note had brought last nights attack back in full. She shuddered and wondered if she could get Dumbledore to modify her memory of the attack. Then she felt like a complete coward for even thinking such a thing.


\"Girls like me have been raped before and dealt with it. I will too. I won\'t chicken out!\" She said determinedly, pounding her fist on the bed. Crookshanks looked up at her sleepily, and mewed.


It was quite early, so she decided to take a bath. She had been preoccupied in the shower the night before and now gasped at the state of her body. She was bruised all over. She wondered if she could get Mafam Pomfrey to give her some more briuse ointment; but decided against it. She\'d ask too many questions.


Snape! She realized. Maybe she could ask him to make her some. \"He just might,\" she said to herself.


After a long soak and a scrubbing, she got out and dressed. She\'d be late to breakfast if she didn\'t hurry, so she did a spell to dry her hair and left it down.


Harry, Ron and Ginny had waited for her in the common room.


\"Morning,\" she said to them as she emerged.


\"Hey Moine,you\'re looking better,\" Said Harry.


\"Hi,\" Said Ginny. \"Are you feeling better?\"


Hermone nodded, knowing if she spoke they would know she was not feeling better.


Breakfast was an ordeal. So many students crowded around Hermione asking questions that Professor McGonagall had started taking away house points,and the Headmaster himself had asked everyone to leave her be.


She noticed Professor Snape scowling at anyone who even looked at her. \'What is his deal?\' She wondered.


After breakfast she retreated to her rooms to study; but found she could not concentrate,and ended up staring out her window, petting Crookshanks.


Ginny knocked on her door about an hour before lunch, and Hermione reluctantly let her in. Ginny was good at telling when something was wrong and coaxed Hermione to talk about the attack.


\"Something else happened, didn\'t it?\" Asked Ginny.


\"Oh Ginny, If I tell you will you promise to keep it a secret?\"


\"Of course!\" Ginny said. \"I won\'t tell a soul!\"


Hermione proceeded to tell Ginny exactly what had happened from beginning to end.


Ginny was appalled. \"Oh Mione! I\'m so sorry!\" They were both crying by then, and Hermione felt so much better for telling someone. Especially a female someone who could understand where she was coming from better.


\"And to have Professor Snape find you! Oh, I just can\'t imagine it!\"


\"He was wonderful, actually,\" Hermione said, grabbing some tissues for them both. \"And he hasn\'t sneered at me or made an insulting comment since then.\"


Ginny looked surprised.


\"He is a person under all those black robes, Gin.\"


She laughed. \"Oh I know it, Hermione. But he\'s always so, well, mean.\"


\"I think he has to be,\" Hermione said softly. \"He completely crumbled when I started crying. He wanted to take me right to the hospital wing; but then I started crying and he gave in.\"


Ginny nodded. \"I think he doesn\'t want people to like him. Then he\'d feel better about himself, and he could forgive himself.\"


Hermione looked at Ginny in surprise. \"You may just be right about that, Ginny.\"

Harry and Ron interrupted, asking if they were ever coming to lunch, because the two of them were starving. They\'d been at quidditch practice, since the game had been cancelled due to the teachers being busy placing new wards around the grounds.


Ginny told them to hold their damn horses, or go without the two of them.


Laughing, Hermione led her friend out of her rooms.


The rest of the day, she couldn\'t escape Harry and Ron, who wanted her to play exploding snap with them and various other things she knew were only excuses for them to watch over her. She begged off after dinner and slipped down to the dungeons.


Thankfully she was unnoticed,and she knocked on the potions classroom door.


\"Come in,\" Snape drawled from inside.


She hurriedly entered the room and shut the door behind her. Snape was sitting at his desk going over some essays.


\"Miss Granger, pull up a chair,\" he said.


She did. and wincing at the hard chair, sat down.


He noticed and looked at her sharply. \"Are you still sore, Miss Granger?\"


\"Bruises,\" she breathed, trying to relax.


\"Dammit girl, why havent you been to see Pomfrey before this?\" He demanded.


\"She\'d ask too many questions,\" Hermione replied, looking at her lap.


She heard him sigh and get up. Fetching a cauldron, he went into his supply closet and she could hear him rummaging.


\"I\'ll make this potion for you, Miss Granger; but if I\'m going to do this, you\'re going to make yourself useful and grade those essays,\" he sounded annoyed.


\"Yes sir,\" she said meekly.


He strode back out as she was pulling them toward her. \"Make note of how I have graded the others and follow that.\"


\"Yes sir.\"


He filled the cauldron with water and lit a fire underneath it. As he waited for it to simmer, he could see Hermione out of the corner of his eye. She was shifting here and there, trying to get comfortable.


Hermione registered him leaving the room and coming back; but jumped when he spoke from just behind her.


\"Stand up, Miss Granger.\"


Confusedly, she did, and was shocked when he placed a pillow on the chair.


\"There. Now perhaps you can sit still so I can concentrate?\"


\"Yes, thank you, sir.\"


Without another word, each went back to their work. Hermione found that she very much enjoyed grading papers. The worked in compainionable silence until Hermione had finished grading, and Snape was just finishing up the salve.


He scooped up a jarful and gave it to her.


\"Thanks Professor.\" She said gratefully, tucking it in her robe pocket.


\"Now, Miss Granger, to the matter I asked you here to discuss.\" He sat down in his chair, and settled himself.


\"What do you want to know, sir?\"


\"No, you misunderstand,\" he said. \"I think you should consider getting counciling. The headmaster agrees. I know a very capable woman who can help you. I\'ve already written her a letter. I\'m waiting for your say before I send it to her.\"

\"I don\'t know, sir. I told Ginny Weasely today. I feel better about what happened...\"


\"Miss Granger, it would help...\"


She looked at him sadly. \"I want to forget it,\" she told him. \"I want the memories gone. But every time I think that, I feel like a coward.\" She willed herself not to cry.


Snape was looking back at her with (was that..sympathy?) in his eyes.


\"I understand. There are many many things that I would love to have erased from my memory. But it is those memories that make us stonger people in the long run.\"


Hermione looked at him slyly. \"That was a very Dumbledore kind of thing to say, sir.\"


He actually smiled at her cheek. \"Damn, the old sod must be rubbing off.\"


\"Sir!\" Hermione admonished, laughing. She was amazed. She had seen more personality from him in just an hour than ever before.


\"Miss Granger,\" Snape began. \"I noticed you took pleasure in grading those papers earlier. I wonder if you\'d like to be my assistant on the nights you don\'t have Head Girl duties to perform? I quite dislike grading and it would give me more time to brew the potions I know we are going to be needing soon.\"


Hermione lit up. \"Oh sir! Could I?\"


\"Yes. On one condition.\" There was a pregnant pause.


\"The counciling,\" Hermione sighed, drooping. \"Allright. It\'s a deal.\" She gave in.


Snape smiled. \"Good. Now we\'d best be going. It\'s past curfew and we\'re both supposed to be patrolling.\"


Hermione knew she\'d just been hoodwinked; but the thought of getting to grade papers, which she really did enjoy, overshadowed her anxiety at the counciling. \'Well, he IS a Slytherin,\' she thought to herself as he held the door for her.

AN: Okay, OOC for Snape, I know. But here\'s the thing. It\'s my story, and I\'ll OOC if I want to! LOL