Interesting

Thanks for the feedback everyone! :) I love to hear what you like (or don't like) about my stories. I check for it a few times a day and it generally makes me want to write more when I see that people are interested in it. :)

Now, if you'll forgive my tiny rant, which is only directed at a couple of thoughtless people, I would like to say that I DON'T appreciate messages and emails that demand to know why I haven't posted a new chapter fast enough to suit them and telling me to get my ass back to work. I've done pretty well with this story... I wrote and posted over 5000 words in one day, thank you very much. I see that none of the compainers have anything posted, so perhaps they don't know how much time and effort goes into writing a good story. Also, you ingrates may have noticed that it's CHRISTMAS, so excuse me for spending some time with my family instead of pounding the old keyboard for your amusement. You are not organ grinders and I am not a dancing monkey with a stupid little hat.

Anyway, I apologize to my nice, thoughtful readers for interrupting the story flow with the above paragraph. You gals are lovely and I'm very happy to write for you. HAPPY NEW YEAR! :)

*****

Hermione fought back tears as her potion boiled over… again. She cast a containment spell around the cloud of poisonous gas that wafted from the small cauldron and searched her pockets for a handkerchief to dry her eyes. She cursed when she realized that she’d used it to wipe off a blotch of potion that had burned a hole in her sweater two hours earlier when the last potion had failed. The bell on the door jingled and she wiped her tears away with her fingers and hurried out to help the customer. Severus Snape stood in the doorway with her latest letter in his hand as if he’d been reading it while he walked to Hogsmeade. She was so relieved that he had come that she rushed to him and threw her arms around his waist with a strangled sob of despair.

“Miss Granger,” he said, as he looked her up and down in surprise. “What on Earth has reduced you to this sniveling mess?” Part of him wanted to wrap his arms around the curvy little witch who was crying into his chest, like she had nearly a year before, but he was so shocked that she’d touched him that he couldn’t make himself move.

Hermione stepped away and looked down at the filthy leather apron she wore to protect her clothing. Then she glanced at her reflection in the front window. Loose curls had escaped her neat bun and her tears had mixed with the soot from her burned potion and left black smudges on her cheeks. Her fingers were burned and dyed green from chopping ingredients.

She straightened her apron and tried to wipe the dirt off her cheeks with her ruined sleeves. “It’s the bloody potion, Master Snape,” she sniffled. “I’ve tried fifteen times and I just can’t do it!”

“The Epilepta Dormus?” he asked. She nodded and he frowned. “It’s a very difficult potion, granted, but you should be able to brew that with little to no difficulty,” he said.

Hermione choked and covered her eyes with her hands. “I know,” she squeaked. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong!”

Warm fingers reached under her chin and turned her face up. She blinked at her master in surprise as he ran a gentle finger over her cheek. “My potions master used to beat me with a broomstick if I couldn’t do something,” he said with a sad smile. Then he whispered, “Scourgify.” Her skin tingled and when she glanced in the window, her face and hands were clean again. He pulled a crisp, white handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to her before striding to the lab at the back of the store. Hermione wiped the tears from her eyes and followed him. She stood silently by while he peered into the cauldron to examine the ruined potion.

“Did you crush the silver corn?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I followed your instructions to the letter!”

He didn’t take his eyes from the bubbling goop as he thought. “And you stirred it three times clockwise and once counter-clockwise?”

“Yes! I did everything right - I’m sure of it,” Hermione sighed. She wiped her eyes again and noticed the ‘S’ monogram on the corner of the tissue. It was green with a black snake curled around it. She pointed to the stack of books on the counter. “I even checked other potions texts just in case you had made a… mistake… in your notes.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably as his eyes shot to her and he quirked an eyebrow. “Not that your notes have ever had a mistake before, sir,” she added quickly. “They’re perfect.”

Snape snorted - almost good-naturedly, Hermione thought - and walked slowly over to his red-eyed apprentice. “Have you had any pepper-up potion, since our little talk?” he asked.

“No sir,” Hermione said, truthfully. “I haven’t had any in six weeks… actually, the only potion I’ve taken was for um… feminine pains.” She knew she was blushing and looked away. She looked back to his face and frowned when she saw that he wasn’t sure if she was being honest or not. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Go on and look then, if you don’t believe me!”

Snape’s lips twitched in amusement and he drawled, “Pretty young women shouldn’t dare dark wizards to look inside their heads.” He walked back over to the potion, leaving a stunned Hermione at a loss for words. He thought she was pretty? She blushed and tried to fix her hair a little.

Snape pulled out his wand and gestured to the potion, which vanished. “It should have worked,” he said bemusedly.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Hermione sighed. “It should have worked, but it didn’t!”

Snape pulled off his cloak and hung it on the back of the door, then he snapped his fingers and the buttons on the front of his jacket undid themselves. He hung it with his cloak and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt to his elbows. “Follow along in your book while I try it,” he said. “Your ingredients might be tainted.”

Hermione grabbed the special book that he added to every time he gave her a new assignment or lesson and hopped up on the table to watch. “I love watching you work,” she said, absently, as she flipped to the right page. “You’re so good at this.”

Severus ran his eyes over the preoccupied witch. She crossed her knees as she re-read the directions and it pulled her skirt tight along her shapely legs. He wished he could knock fifteen years off his age and make a pass at her. He sighed inwardly… the students didn’t even use that phrase anymore. Now, they hit on each other. Flirting and romance seemed to be dead. He chopped the ingredients with a practiced hand and found that he enjoyed the girl’s rapt attention to his work… it was very flattering.

Hermione’s eyes grazed over her master’s dark mark as he worked. She had only seen it once before on Christmas eve when he’d brought her the dreamless draught. The snake’s eyes seemed to look back at her, like it knew she was thinking about it. She wished she could touch it to see if it slithered… Charlie Weasely had a magical tattoo that moved… perhaps this one did too. She transferred her gaze to Snape’s torso. His chest and stomach were lean and well-defined under his black vest, and his high-necked shirt made him look almost aristocratic in a subtle, non-Malfoy kind of way. The shirt pulled tight over his arm and shoulder as he stirred the potion, showing clear muscle definition. He was in good shape for a man his age.

He pulled out his wand and held it over the pot while he spoke the brief incantation that activated the magical reaction in this particular potion. A red streak of light shot forcefully out of his wand and turned the potion into a pretty blue colour that gave off a pleasant, sweet scent. He looked at his apprentice and sighed. “It has to be you, Miss Granger,” he sighed. “The ingredients are fine. Let me watch you brew it.”

Hermione hopped down off the table with a gut-wrenching sigh and set to work. She’d done this so many times in the last few days that she didn’t even bother to look at the book for the measurements or instructions. Snape watched her like a hawk, but didn’t say a word, so she knew she was doing it perfectly. He stood behind her to watch her stir and she leaned unconsciously toward the heat from his chest. She could feel his breath on her neck, and her hand faltered for a moment. As if he knew he was distracting her, he stepped back to give her some space.

Hermione pulled out her wand and spoke the incantation. A light pink streak shot out of her wand and the potion turned into a gurgling mess of green sludge. “Merlin’s balls!” Hermione spat. She cast a containment field around the ruined potion and slammed her wand down on the work bench in a rage.

Snape picked her wand up and looked it over carefully before passing it back to her. “I was right,” he said. “It is you.”

Hermione scourgified the mess and leaned dejectedly against the bench. “What did I do wrong?” she cried. She pulled his handkerchief back out of her pocket and wiped the fresh smoke and tears from her face.

Snape chuckled. “Absolutely nothing, Miss Granger. You did everything perfectly and I’m sure that someday when your magic is stronger, you’ll be able to brew these more difficult potions.” He folded his arms and actually grinned at the shocked look on her face.

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with my magic?”

“Nothing at all,” Snape said. “Magic gets stronger when you… become an adult.” His broad shoulders trembled slightly and Hermione saw red. He was laughing at her!

“What’s so funny?” she asked. Her hands went to her hips again and the line between her eyes got deeper.

“I’m not laughing at you, Miss Granger,” he said. “I am simply amused by the answer to a riddle.” He walked over to one of the large shelves that lined the wall and picked up a vial of red liquid. There were dozens of other matching vials, all corked, sealed, and ready to be used. He turned it gently in his hand and then set it on the table between them. “I was very curious to know how you managed to procure so much virgin’s blood,” he said. “And now I know it’s all yours, isn’t it?”

Hermione felt her face go hot and she glued her eyes to the table as she nodded. She had to be the only twenty-four year old virgin on the planet.

Snape chuckled again. “All this time, I thought you were siphoning some poor girl dry in her sleep,” he said.

Hermione looked up to his face in shock. She would never hurt anyone! She saw the mirth in his eyes and a small laugh escaped her lips… he was only joking.

“So my magic’s weak because I’m…” her voice trailed off.

“It’s not weak,” Snape said, firmly. “It’s just not as strong as it will be once…” he gestured absently and trailed off too. “Not that I’m telling you to run off and… solve the problem, of course. That would be foolish.”

Hermione sighed. “If I’d known, I would have…” she sighed. “Maybe I could have saved someone’s life in the final battle if I’d been stronger.” She sat down heavily on a stool and fiddled with the handkerchief.

Snape sat down on a stool on his side of the table. “It’s very easy to fill your head with maybes and what-ifs, Hermione,” he said gently. She looked up as he used her first name and he picked up the vial in his strong hands and turned it slowly to watch the blood swirl. Hermione didn’t know how to feel about him touching what was technically a part of her in an almost tender way. It made the blood swirl through her veins faster. “We are what we are and we have done what we have done,” he said, simply.

Hermione turned to face him and she rested her forearms on the table like he was. “So… do you just wake up a different person once you’ve…” she blushed. “Done… it?”

Snape chuckled and set the vial down. “If you want to hide your virginity, Miss Granger, and I can tell by your blush that you do,” he said. “Don’t refer to sex as ‘it.’” He steepled his hands in front of his mouth in an attempt to hide his amused smile, but Hermione could still see his eyes dancing and wasn’t fooled.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, huffily. She crossed her arms in front of herself a looked shyly away.

Snape lowered his hands and the mirth was gone. “Forgive me, Miss Granger,” he said. “I didn’t mean it maliciously.” He waited until his apprentice unfolded her arms and then he gave her the information she was missing from her magical education. “As I’m sure you’re aware,” he started, “there are different kinds of love… parent and child, for instance, or platonic love between friends.”

Hermione nodded. She knew that. “And there’s romantic love,” she said.

“Hm,” Snape agreed. “When a man and a woman… make love…” he hesitated as he thought about how he could describe this to a knowledge-hungry virgin. “It is a magical experience… even for muggles, one could argue. Someone told me once that your soul leaves your body in those moments of bliss and that your lover’s soul catches it and keeps it safe until you return to yourself. It’s ancient magic and no one knows much about it, but to answer your question, yes, the effects are almost immediate.”

“What about… frequency?” Hermione asked, shyly. “Does it make a difference?”

The corners of Snape’s mouth twitched. “Arthur and Molly would have to have an excellent sex life to churn out that many children… and as you may recall, Molly killed Bellatrix Lestrange, didn’t she? That was no coincidence, Miss Granger. That’s decades of love-making.”

Hermione rested her chin on her fist as she thought for a moment. “So then it’s true what they used to say about the death eater revels?”

A strange look came over Snape’s face and he leaned in closer. “What did they say about the revels?” he said in a frighteningly dark voice that made Hermione want to hide under the table.

“T-that they were… orgies,” she whispered nervously.

Snape leaned back and smiled darkly. “Sometimes,” he answered, carefully.

Hermione’s mouth fell open and she stared at her master. She never thought he’d admit to that in a billion years. “And you…” the question failed her.

“Yes,” he said, simply.

“Did it make you stronger?” Hermione whispered.

“What do you think?” he asked. He stood and pulled a box of empty vials from a shelf to fill with his successfully made potion.

“I think you’re the most powerful wizard I know,” she said, quietly.

“Then there’s your answer,” Snape said as he found a funnel and started ladling the potion into the bottles. “Why don’t you get cleaned up. I don’t get out of the school much and I think I’d like to eat in the pub for a change.”

“A-alright,” Hermione stammered. Her mouth was dry and her head was spinning. She stood and headed for the stairs.

“Miss Granger,” Snape said. He didn’t turn around as he spoke. “It wasn’t worth it… the revels, I mean.”

“Why not?” she asked from the doorway.

His hands paused for a fraction of a second. “Because there was no one there to catch my soul.”