A Delicate Obsession

Chapter Six – The Evil Exploits of Miss Know-It-All

It all belongs to Rowling – except what you don’t recognize.

Hermione wasn’t sure what she expected. Certainly not to be vivisected with a dull blade. If she’d ever doubted Snape’s hostility to her, any such doubts were laid to rest in the following diatribe. During the entire time, he was careful not to give any student’s proper name, thus retaining some semblance of propriety while he twisted the knife.

In short order he recited the heinous acts that she had performed, beginning with her first day in his class where she was “waving her hand around until it was about ready to break off.” There was her crime of arson, which had interfered with Snape’s attempt to save Mr. Bighead’s life, her incredible hubris of choosing to confront a Mountain Troll and her solving Snape’s logic problem, something no proper wizard was likely to solve. He said that she had put the entire wizarding community at risk because she had practically handed over “a certain item of power” to the Dark by defeating his part of the puzzle.

It only got worse by the second year, when it was discovered that since Mr. Bighead was too stupid to be ato gto get into trouble by himself, Miss Know-it-all had taken the lead in egging him on to new heights of malfeasance. She encouraged him to break into Snape’s stores and steal potion ingredients. She was arrogant enough to brew an advanced formula, risking death by poisoning not only of herself but also her friends. And of course, it only showed how incompetent she was that she wound up hospitalized for weeks as a cat. Snape was back to himself in full sneer, Hermione noted with horror, as he continued to recount the misdeeds of a Miss Know-it-all.

By the third year, the enfant terrible had insulted a professor who had been there as long as Snape, by walking out of and refusing to attend her classes. Miss Know-it-all felt she was above the normal curriculum and had to have special attention just like her friend, Mr. Bighead. Furthermore, she actually had assaulted Snape while associating with an escaped convict. Hermione realized that Snape didn’t care that Sirius was innocent of betraying the Potters, as he would always be guilty in his eyes simply for being James Potter’s best friend and the person who had tried to get him killed by a werewolf as a boy. She shivered as she remembered how Snape had planned to let the Dementors kiss Sirius.

Things were not much better in Miss Know-it-all’s fourth year, when she attempted to reverse centuries of friendly elf-human relations by trying to stir up a resurrection of the Hogwarts’ house elves with her group called SPEW. By fifth year, this schoolgirl terrorist had instigated wholesale rebellion of three of the four houses by coming up with the idea to have the students teach themselves Defense against the Dark Arts, which was of course an incredibly stupid and foolhardy thing to do. And, if she was such a genius, why didn’t she remember to go to Snape when Mr. Bighead foolishly decided to storm one of the branches of government?

Of course, last year was only the icing on the cake as she again placed the whole wizarding world in peril by encouraging Mr. Bighead and his friend, Mr. Ne’er-do-well to confront a certain Dark Wizard with no backup and no sharing of information with their elders and betters.

Hermione shook her head, attempting to clear it of the damnable case made against her, not only as a Know-it-all, but also as a pestilence upon the world.

Sadly, Hermione realized that if she ever ed ted to be with Snape (and where did that thought come from?) she’d have to fake her own death and live her life forever as Laura. Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, Snape continued on a different tack.

“I suppose that it will be a terrible let down when Miss Know-it-all realizes that real life isn’t at all like school. Once out of Hogwarts no one will give a knut for her intelligence. In fact it will only serve to make her enemies.

Snape’s eyes glittered with malice. “She’s muggle-born and because of that she is driven to prove herself. What she doesn’t realize is that no one really cares how good a witch she is. The Wizarding world is not like the Muggle one. There aren’t any ivory towers to hide in. There is no place to go and ‘find yourself’ for a decade or so while taking University classes. You can either take a ministry job and be bossed around by idiots for the rest of your life or you can take an apprenticeship and live as a slave for 4 to 8 years. And of course, a certain small group of Hogwarts students will quietly leave after scraping through their O.W.L.s and find themselves working as shopkeepers. Miss Know-it-all will find out pretty quickly hetelltelligence and talent may actually serve to isolate her more that her accident of Muggle birth ever did. The Wizarding world is a jealous one. And, no doubt, she will eventually go running back to the Muggle world, tail between her legs.”

Hermione felt her temper flair up. How dare he! “So, do you feel this way about all Muggle born?”

Snape looked dismayed. “Of course not. I can tell that you are Muggle born. Certain turns of phrases you use give you away. However, it’s obvious that you are self-confident enough to not care about what others think of you.”

“How do you know I’m not a student at some Muggle ivory tower? Maybe I’m just here at Hogsmeade for the weekends.”

“And what if you are? Laura, why are you so upset? Have I said something to disturb you?”

Hermione stood up, “I have to leave.” She wanted to say goodbye, but because she knew she would never see him again as Laura, she didn’t trust herself to not break down.

“I have upset you.” Snape stood up and moved to her. “You believe that I am prejudiced against Muggles, don’t you?” He sounded hurt. “Well, when I was younger, I knew no better; however, I grew up.” His voice was gruff, lacking its usual smoothness.

Hermione turned to leave and she found he was at her back, holding her tightly against him. She wanted to lean back and melt into him. She had one more question. It was the question that had been born in her that first day they had met in Diagon Alley. If she didn’t ask now, there would be no more opportunities. Best to get it over with and move on.

“Tell me, what’s it like to be with a prostitute.”

She heard Snape hiss. That was the last question he’d expect her to ask. “Is that what this is about?” He turned her around roughly and looked deeply into her eyes. “Are you still upset with me about that?”

“No. I just thought I might hire one sometime.” She felt her face redden.

“You prefer women?” There was a look of confusion.

“No, no. I just thought, it would be nice to hire a man. There are male prostitutes, aren’t there? Someone who would be discreet, who would allow me to be in control and who I’d never have to see again.” She bit her bottom lip with anxiety. She couldn’t believe they were talking about it.

Snape suddenly understood. “Laura, has someone hurt you?”

Hermione looked down. He lifted her chin.

“Tell me his name.” In his voice there lurked a promise of death and mayhem. Hermione flinched.

“No, that’s not part of our deal. And besides it wasn’t his fault.”

Snape brought Hermione over to the chair by the fire. He sat her down and kneeled in front of her. “I think you should start at the beginning.”

She giggled nervously. Her whole body was trembling as the memory and the shame came flooding back to her. “We had been together for quite a while and had done everything but…” Hermione looked up to the ceiling to avoid his eyes, “you know.”

He took her hand and squeezed it.

“An, we, we decided that it was time and, something went wrong and we woundin Sin St. Mungos.”

“I’ll kill him.” He had said it so quietly that she wasn’t sure that she’d heard him rightly.

“No, no, it wasn’t his fault. It was mine.” Her eyes brimmed over with tears and her lips were trembling with trying to hold in the pain. “It should have been simple. But it wouldn’t break. You understand?”

He didn’t. He looked at her.

“The hymen. It’s supposed to be flimsy. You know a little pain and it’s over.”

“You weren’t ready, that’s why you were hurt,” he growled.

“I was ready. We tried, and tried and then, there was a rip and I was bleeding all over us.” She wanted to laugh; there was a certain absurdity to her and Neville, two bright Hogwarts students, totally losing their heads. “The bleeding wouldn’t stop. And he was out of floo powder and he couldn’t find the extra tin. And we didn’t have our apparition licenses yet. So we threw on our robes. He transfigured his handkerchief into a towel and he flew me to St. Mungo’s on his broomstick.

“Things got worse after that. Everyone found it fascinating, the maidenhead that couldn’t be broken. The staff was mostly student mediwizards on call that night and none of them could keep a straight face. My boy-boyfriend started to hex one of them and he was forced to stay in the waiting room.

“Finally, the senior mediwizard showed up and it was back to business as usual. It was such a unique situation -- there wasn’t even a spell or potion available. They fixed the problem surgically and used magic to stop the bleeding. I was told everything would be normal now.”

Hermione gave up the battle and gave into her tears.

He picked her up and put her on his lap. He rocked her back and forth as she sobbed.

It felt so good to finally let go. Finally the absurdity of it all washedr her her. She laughed through her tears. “Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

“You mustn’t feel ashamed. You did nothing wrong. Those mediwizards, on the other hand, behaved disgracefully.”

Still in his arms, she felt the rumbling of his voice through his chest. She raised her tear stained face to his, “You know,” she swallowed hard. “I sometimes think back to that day at Diagon Alley. I wonder what would have happened if I’d gone along with you.”

“Laura. Please don’t romanticize that. You’ve been hurt and you need to talk to your young man. He’s probably feeling badly about this as well. Running away does little good.” Snape got up and turned away from her. He was more than a bit worried over how hard he had gotten beneath his robes. He hoped that she hadn’t noticed.

She hadn’t, but she did when a moment later she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.


A/N:
Ezmerelda raised an interesting point. This story is based on the Cinderella mythos. There are several SS/HG stories where Hermione disguises herself to get close to Snape. Not just Dreaming’s Not a Crime (when was the last time she updated?), but also Quillusion’s Gift Horse (a huge favorite of mine), and another where Hermione is an animagus cat (can’t remember the name of it). More recently in film there has been Working Girl and JLo’s Maid in Manhattan. When I was researching the Cinderella story for a Graduate film class I was taking, I was fascinated to note that there didn’t seem to be a single culture that didn’t have their own variation of the Cinderella folktale. In addition, mistaken identity and hidden identities are such a standby of romance that I almost gave up on this story before I got to Chapter Two.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone again for their support.