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A Garden and a Library
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Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Snape/Hermione
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
5
Views:
4,223
Reviews:
9
Recommended:
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Category:
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Snape/Hermione
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
5
Views:
4,223
Reviews:
9
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Gryffindor Courage
Chapter 5 – Gryffindor Courage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Oh watch out, you\'re only better off
with half your life otherwise wasted…
House of cards, you fall hard.”
- Metric, ‘London Halflife’
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hermione awoke with a sigh to the sun streaming through her scarlet-curtained French windows. She caught a glimpse of spring as she drowsily slid the window open, cool dew collecting on the ledge. A breeze stirred her hair that hinted at warmth, matching the warmth in her heart.
Tying back her unruly curls, she stepped thoughtfully to the mirror. Pale skin that freckled wickedly in the summer was clear in the early spring, outlining an ordinary nose and convex cheeks. Brown eyes flecked with green critically examined the face, round and plain and framed with a thorn bush of nutmeg-brown hair.
Never had she seen beauty in herself. She was short and usually graceless, with round shoulders and a stiff gait. But now, for the first time, she put her hands on her body and felt like it was something to cherish. Even in the unforgiving frame of the mirror, she was reassured that morning.
This morning it was easier to take a step back from her dislike of herself. This morning she knew she was a woman. No longer a nymphet caught in stasis between youth and womanhood. It was the very thing that had changed within her, the tepid bubble that had burst and flooded her with warmth. A little spark of confidence amongst the tired embers of her self-image.
It had prompted her to take up her quill and record her thoughts.
She was willing to accept this abstract feeling as a valid change in her. After all, it had come from a book. Hermione found that making the step from reading to writing was a logical progression, and could, if she tried, explain every bit of her inner transformation and its eventual expression on paper. She was confident in her ability, in her intelligence, in her understanding.
(Never stopping to think that it might be something completely different, something she couldn’t understand. Something that written words could only disguise, never illuminate. It wasn’t in her nature.)
Before she packed her books and headed to class, Hermione picked up the Muggle notebook she had begun to fill the night before. After a brief moment of hesitation, she slipped it into her schoolbag.
She had a feeling she might be needing it.
***
It was with a strange trepidation that Hermione entered the Potions classroom, that morning in early spring.
Somehow, writing down the details of her encounter with her professor had cemented the event in her memory, and she was finding it almost impossible to keep her mind off of it.
Like most illogical thoughts, it unnerved her.
‘Think of something else,’ she willed herself.
Predictably, a passage from the Ars Amatoria came to mind, not exactly the sort of neutral thoughts she had hoped for, but at least something. It was a passage she had read over several times previously with much amusement.
‘But avoid the man that makes a parade of his clothes and his good looks, and is on tenterhooks lest his hair should get ruffled. The sort of thing such men will tell you, they\'ve said over and over again to other women. They\'re of the roving sort and never settle anywhere.’
The image that came to mind instantly was the Potions master, smeared with earth from the garden. It was hopeless to resist, she knew.
‘Well,’ she thought, sliding into her seat with an air of resignation, ‘Snape at least is indifferent to having his hair ruffled.’
She raised her eyes and he was there. The magic she had woven with her quill had put him there, in some strange way. He was now a part of her psyche, for better or for worse. He had slipped into her consciousness at a moment when her mind was open and unguarded.
Was there a reason? Perhaps.
Hermione had always been strange, always set slightly apart from her peers. She had come to accept it. And Snape had also been strange. She did not know him, but she was sure she knew this. He was a dedicated academic like herself, unwilling to be incorrect for the sake of social acceptance.
So maybe it was appropriate that his face was the one she focused on as she absent-mindedly piled her books on her desk, the words of poets long dead still pulsing in her mind.
His pale complexion glowed softly in the dungeon, illuminating a severe nose and cheekbones, thick dark eyelashes cast down in determined concentration. His long fingers cradled a quill, and she could see the faint blue arteries in his hand pulsing as he wrote.
That warm new thing inside of her had given her a sort of heightened awareness. Her surroundings seemed more vivid, as if brought into the focus of a camera lens.
She watched the tiny movements of Snape’s quill as it traveled steadily across the parchment.
She felt as if she were emerging from a deep sleep.
After completing her potion, early as usual, Hermione allowed herself to pull the spiral-bound notebook from her bag and read over what she had written the night before. She could only hope that nobody in the room noticed her flush.
***
Hermione escaped the pointless banter of her friends after a brief and exacerbating lunch in the great hall, her school-issue oxfords clattering against the cobblestone as she ran from the castle.
The air still held its early spring bite, and she pulled her cloak tighter about her. The chill didn’t seem to penetrate her skin as she made her way behind the castle, already knowing her destination.
As she approached the Hogwarts gardens, she could see a figure in black stooping over the cold earth. It was the Potions master. She quickly realized that since she had already seen through his cloaking illusion, she could now sort it out in her mind every time she approached it. It was a simple charm really, yet effective to anyone who lacked the cunning to reveal it.
The Head Girl wasn’t quite sure why she was venturing near him again, after her less-than-friendly reception the first time. But her own words in the notebook had fueled her curiosity. She approached his garden tentatively, quietly. Finding he was at the far end, near the bottom of the hill, she sat down at the topmost edge of the small plot. Watching him.
Severus Snape was dressed in his usual black on black, although he had set his heavy cloak aside. He appeared strangely out of place in his high-collared jacket, sowing seeds by hand in the dark earth, his back bent laboriously. One knee was resting on the soil, and one hand was occupied with the seeds, the other loosely clutching his wand. His sharp pale profile stood out against the murky ground, shoulder-length hair of the deepest black falling in a cascade across his cheek.
Hermione sat, her legs drawn up to her chest, just watching.
He must have known she was there for quite some time, though he didn’t acknowledge her presence until he had planted every seed, covered it with earth, and patted it down with a queer sort of tenderness. Only then did he look at her, and it was merely a glance. He was already engrossed in the garden again when he spoke, his eyes scanning the earth.
“I don’t believe I invited you, Miss Granger.”
She cleared her throat. “I apologize sir,” she said tentatively, “I was simply curious as to what I could learn about gardens. Outside of the school greenhouse, that is.”
‘Does he know I’m lying?’ she thought to herself, brushing her hair back from her face in an unconscious nervous gesture.
He glared at her for a moment before returning to his work.
“I have no time for extra-curricular instruction, Miss Granger. As it is, I have wasted enough time today repairing the seedlings you so callously trampled while you were playing detective yesterday afternoon”
They both fell silent for a good length of time. Hermione wasn’t sure what to say to him, this severe man.
After a decent interval, Snape glanced up again, and his annoyance was palpable.
“Miss Granger! Please desist in your vigil and get out of my garden!” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: “And twenty points from Gryffindor for trespassing.”
But Hermione, brightest witch of her age, would not be dismissed so easily. She rose, and took two steps back from the edge of his garden plot, where she promptly seated herself again.
“Very well sir, I won’t set foot in your garden again. I apologize.”
He gave her a withering look. “Twenty more points for cheek.”
She flushed, but did not budge. ‘Remember that he is human,’ she willed herself. ‘You saw it yesterday, this is only a facade.’
He did not speak again, although he knew she was there. Eventually she was forced to rise, as she had NEWT-level Arithmancy that afternoon and wouldn’t dare be late.
While she trudged uphill towards the castle, she glanced back at him over her shoulder, knowing she would be back again in the very near future.
As she reached the classroom, she felt no anger towards her professor. Somehow, today, she knew that his cruelty wasn’t genuine.
In fact, she was hard pressed to remember anything other than pleasant things; the gentle curve of his back as he knelt over the seed rows, his bottomless eyes focused on the nuances of the soil, and the sun glinting softly on his ebony hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Sorry for the delay. I struggled with this chapter, because I was writing the story’s conclusion at the same time. Which, let me tell you, was a lot more fun. ;) Thank you everyone for the wonderful feedback… I often lose patience with WIPs but as I have the last few chapters written, I am confident this story will be finished in due time. As this is a work in progress, my ideas sometimes get convoluted. The longer I take to write another chapter, the more I lose touch with the story as a whole. For you, dear readers, I’m going to try and keep it together.
Cheers!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Oh watch out, you\'re only better off
with half your life otherwise wasted…
House of cards, you fall hard.”
- Metric, ‘London Halflife’
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hermione awoke with a sigh to the sun streaming through her scarlet-curtained French windows. She caught a glimpse of spring as she drowsily slid the window open, cool dew collecting on the ledge. A breeze stirred her hair that hinted at warmth, matching the warmth in her heart.
Tying back her unruly curls, she stepped thoughtfully to the mirror. Pale skin that freckled wickedly in the summer was clear in the early spring, outlining an ordinary nose and convex cheeks. Brown eyes flecked with green critically examined the face, round and plain and framed with a thorn bush of nutmeg-brown hair.
Never had she seen beauty in herself. She was short and usually graceless, with round shoulders and a stiff gait. But now, for the first time, she put her hands on her body and felt like it was something to cherish. Even in the unforgiving frame of the mirror, she was reassured that morning.
This morning it was easier to take a step back from her dislike of herself. This morning she knew she was a woman. No longer a nymphet caught in stasis between youth and womanhood. It was the very thing that had changed within her, the tepid bubble that had burst and flooded her with warmth. A little spark of confidence amongst the tired embers of her self-image.
It had prompted her to take up her quill and record her thoughts.
She was willing to accept this abstract feeling as a valid change in her. After all, it had come from a book. Hermione found that making the step from reading to writing was a logical progression, and could, if she tried, explain every bit of her inner transformation and its eventual expression on paper. She was confident in her ability, in her intelligence, in her understanding.
(Never stopping to think that it might be something completely different, something she couldn’t understand. Something that written words could only disguise, never illuminate. It wasn’t in her nature.)
Before she packed her books and headed to class, Hermione picked up the Muggle notebook she had begun to fill the night before. After a brief moment of hesitation, she slipped it into her schoolbag.
She had a feeling she might be needing it.
***
It was with a strange trepidation that Hermione entered the Potions classroom, that morning in early spring.
Somehow, writing down the details of her encounter with her professor had cemented the event in her memory, and she was finding it almost impossible to keep her mind off of it.
Like most illogical thoughts, it unnerved her.
‘Think of something else,’ she willed herself.
Predictably, a passage from the Ars Amatoria came to mind, not exactly the sort of neutral thoughts she had hoped for, but at least something. It was a passage she had read over several times previously with much amusement.
‘But avoid the man that makes a parade of his clothes and his good looks, and is on tenterhooks lest his hair should get ruffled. The sort of thing such men will tell you, they\'ve said over and over again to other women. They\'re of the roving sort and never settle anywhere.’
The image that came to mind instantly was the Potions master, smeared with earth from the garden. It was hopeless to resist, she knew.
‘Well,’ she thought, sliding into her seat with an air of resignation, ‘Snape at least is indifferent to having his hair ruffled.’
She raised her eyes and he was there. The magic she had woven with her quill had put him there, in some strange way. He was now a part of her psyche, for better or for worse. He had slipped into her consciousness at a moment when her mind was open and unguarded.
Was there a reason? Perhaps.
Hermione had always been strange, always set slightly apart from her peers. She had come to accept it. And Snape had also been strange. She did not know him, but she was sure she knew this. He was a dedicated academic like herself, unwilling to be incorrect for the sake of social acceptance.
So maybe it was appropriate that his face was the one she focused on as she absent-mindedly piled her books on her desk, the words of poets long dead still pulsing in her mind.
His pale complexion glowed softly in the dungeon, illuminating a severe nose and cheekbones, thick dark eyelashes cast down in determined concentration. His long fingers cradled a quill, and she could see the faint blue arteries in his hand pulsing as he wrote.
That warm new thing inside of her had given her a sort of heightened awareness. Her surroundings seemed more vivid, as if brought into the focus of a camera lens.
She watched the tiny movements of Snape’s quill as it traveled steadily across the parchment.
She felt as if she were emerging from a deep sleep.
After completing her potion, early as usual, Hermione allowed herself to pull the spiral-bound notebook from her bag and read over what she had written the night before. She could only hope that nobody in the room noticed her flush.
***
Hermione escaped the pointless banter of her friends after a brief and exacerbating lunch in the great hall, her school-issue oxfords clattering against the cobblestone as she ran from the castle.
The air still held its early spring bite, and she pulled her cloak tighter about her. The chill didn’t seem to penetrate her skin as she made her way behind the castle, already knowing her destination.
As she approached the Hogwarts gardens, she could see a figure in black stooping over the cold earth. It was the Potions master. She quickly realized that since she had already seen through his cloaking illusion, she could now sort it out in her mind every time she approached it. It was a simple charm really, yet effective to anyone who lacked the cunning to reveal it.
The Head Girl wasn’t quite sure why she was venturing near him again, after her less-than-friendly reception the first time. But her own words in the notebook had fueled her curiosity. She approached his garden tentatively, quietly. Finding he was at the far end, near the bottom of the hill, she sat down at the topmost edge of the small plot. Watching him.
Severus Snape was dressed in his usual black on black, although he had set his heavy cloak aside. He appeared strangely out of place in his high-collared jacket, sowing seeds by hand in the dark earth, his back bent laboriously. One knee was resting on the soil, and one hand was occupied with the seeds, the other loosely clutching his wand. His sharp pale profile stood out against the murky ground, shoulder-length hair of the deepest black falling in a cascade across his cheek.
Hermione sat, her legs drawn up to her chest, just watching.
He must have known she was there for quite some time, though he didn’t acknowledge her presence until he had planted every seed, covered it with earth, and patted it down with a queer sort of tenderness. Only then did he look at her, and it was merely a glance. He was already engrossed in the garden again when he spoke, his eyes scanning the earth.
“I don’t believe I invited you, Miss Granger.”
She cleared her throat. “I apologize sir,” she said tentatively, “I was simply curious as to what I could learn about gardens. Outside of the school greenhouse, that is.”
‘Does he know I’m lying?’ she thought to herself, brushing her hair back from her face in an unconscious nervous gesture.
He glared at her for a moment before returning to his work.
“I have no time for extra-curricular instruction, Miss Granger. As it is, I have wasted enough time today repairing the seedlings you so callously trampled while you were playing detective yesterday afternoon”
They both fell silent for a good length of time. Hermione wasn’t sure what to say to him, this severe man.
After a decent interval, Snape glanced up again, and his annoyance was palpable.
“Miss Granger! Please desist in your vigil and get out of my garden!” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: “And twenty points from Gryffindor for trespassing.”
But Hermione, brightest witch of her age, would not be dismissed so easily. She rose, and took two steps back from the edge of his garden plot, where she promptly seated herself again.
“Very well sir, I won’t set foot in your garden again. I apologize.”
He gave her a withering look. “Twenty more points for cheek.”
She flushed, but did not budge. ‘Remember that he is human,’ she willed herself. ‘You saw it yesterday, this is only a facade.’
He did not speak again, although he knew she was there. Eventually she was forced to rise, as she had NEWT-level Arithmancy that afternoon and wouldn’t dare be late.
While she trudged uphill towards the castle, she glanced back at him over her shoulder, knowing she would be back again in the very near future.
As she reached the classroom, she felt no anger towards her professor. Somehow, today, she knew that his cruelty wasn’t genuine.
In fact, she was hard pressed to remember anything other than pleasant things; the gentle curve of his back as he knelt over the seed rows, his bottomless eyes focused on the nuances of the soil, and the sun glinting softly on his ebony hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Sorry for the delay. I struggled with this chapter, because I was writing the story’s conclusion at the same time. Which, let me tell you, was a lot more fun. ;) Thank you everyone for the wonderful feedback… I often lose patience with WIPs but as I have the last few chapters written, I am confident this story will be finished in due time. As this is a work in progress, my ideas sometimes get convoluted. The longer I take to write another chapter, the more I lose touch with the story as a whole. For you, dear readers, I’m going to try and keep it together.
Cheers!