Beneath the Surface

Beneath the Surface

Chapter the fifthe: A Sentence Served



They had been walking past and through the endless hallways of Hogwarts castle for quite some time now, Hermione fighting desperately to keep up with her Professor, who couldn\'t be bothered to slow his considerable gait for her much smaller legs.

As if she hadn\'t felt dwarfed enough by the sheer size of the walls surrounding them, Professor Snape\'s imposing height and billowing black robes made her feel even more minuscule.

‘I wonder where he\'s taking me....This isn\'t the way to Potions,\' Hermione mused nervously.

Instead of going through the Transfigurations Wing that started to the left of the Great Hall as the students had been shown, Snape had gone through the Divinations and Astronomy Wing, which bordered the Hall on the right.

He hadn\'t bothered to inform his cowering pupil that he had opted to take the teachers\' route instead of the students\'. And after all, Miss Granger did squirm so delightfully when trying not to question authority, he thought malevolently.

‘It\'s the fiery ones who are the most satisfying to see broken.\' But he immediately pushed that thought from his mind, as it brought with it darker images that should not be connected with a student.

He had not turned once to see if his student still followed him, for the tiny tip-tapping of her mary janes that echoed between his sure, strong footsteps ensured that she was right behind him.

Severus was glad that the girl could not see his face, because he couldn\'t seem to fully quell the small smile that stretched his lips at the sound of the eager little tapping of her feet as she fought to stay behind him. It amused him that she was having such trouble keeping up, because he was walking at a more relaxed pace than usual.

He would never say so aloud, but every time he walked through the magnificent halls and resplendent rooms of this castle, he was filled with a peaceful sense of awe and admiration that urged him not to pass it by without appreciating its ethereal beauty. He felt it was a privilege to be allowed intose hse hallowed halls; one he wasn\'t so sure he deserved.

He wasn\'t aware that Miss Granger was also having similar thoughts. One of her very favorite books (of which there were many) was ‘Hogwarts: A History\', primarily because it was all about the castle she had grown to love so very much, containing facts on its every aspect.

She looked around at the intricate staircases and animated portraits with reverence, trying very hard not to just stop in place and take it all in fully, lest she lag behind and incur Snape\'s anger.

Hermione followed her Professor as he took a sudden left down a cold, stone stairway that grew increasingly dark as they neared the lowest level of the school until the light disappeared entirely at its center. She was unfamiliar with this route, and put a hand against the damp stone wall, feeling her way along in the dark.

Snape seemed to know his way by heart, not hesitating as he took the steps evenly. Hermione could feel the edge of his flowing cape brush roughly against her legs with each step he took, and took comfort in the thought that he was just in front of her, should she fall.

At last a faint glow dimly lit the twisting staircase, signaling that they had almost reached its end. Hermione let out a small breath, not realizing that she\'d held it in the first place. Now she knew where they were: in the seemingly unused corridor that faced the hallway they normally traveled through to get to Potions. Snape opened the first wooden door on the right and waited calmly by it for her to precede him into the room.

‘Well,\' she thought dryly, ‘at least he\'s been taught proper manners.\'

Surprised that her demanding Professor actually possessed these and was actually using them on her–a practice now reserved in the Muggle world only for those one respected–Hermione strode haughtily past him, her head held high. Snape rolled his eyes at her childish behavior and followed her into the room, closing the door soundly behind him.

Hermione took a moment to look around upon entering the room; she realized that they had entered through the door to the left of his desk in the Potions room. She had always wondered what that led to. She smiled to herself, satisfied at having discovered the answer to yet another of her neverending questions.

\"Miss Granger, please tell me you recognize this room after having been in it at least twice a week for the last four months,\" Snape intoned irritably.

Hermione jumped at his voice. As had happened many times in his presence, the very intonation of his voice had kept her from fully comprehending his meaning. She raised her eyebrows at him timidly, her face blank. He sighed, pinching his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.

\"This is merely your Potions classroom, there is no need to gape at it as if you\'ve never been here before. Now don\'t dawdle, child, you\'re wasting my time,\" he said to her sharply.

Hermione ducked her head shamefully, and then immediately raised it to face him again. She did not want him to think her a silly, impetuous child, and at the same time she resented him for making her feel such in his presence.
Snape sighed again.

‘With Gryffindors, an *internal* battle is never thus.\'

He strode purposefully to an expanse of bare wall to the right of his teaching desk and removed his wand from one of the voluminous sleeves of his robe. After flicking it in a single expansive gesture, he whispered a password so softly that it sounded like sibilant hissing. The sound reminded Hermione of what she\'d read about parseltongue.

As soon as he\'d finished speaking, the stone wall seemed to evaporate as the narrow passageway to a series of rooms came into view. Hermione\'s eyes widened, her mouth partially opening in awe of what she\'d just seen.

‘A secret room!\' she deduced excitedly. Her eyes sparkled in delight as she stepped closer to it. Snape had been about to enter it when he stopped abruptly and pivoted to face her, holding up an index finger warningly.

\"Stay here,\" he instructed firmly. \"I need to retrieve something from my office.\" Then he disappeared into the room directly to the left of the passageway, the hem of his black robe curling around the frame of the entrance.

Her face fell and she sighed, disappointed that he didn\'t trust her to go into his laboratory; for she knew that\'s what lay beyond the threshold. What she wouldn\'t give to see what a true Master keeps in his stores! But alas, it was evidently not to be. Yet. She lifted her head, determination setting her jaw.

‘I don\'t know exactly how I\'ll do it, but I WILL gain his trust. And with it, access to his stores.\'

Though she did not venture closer to the entranceway--as she had been expressly told not to--she craned her neck painfully in an attempt to see what her Professor was doing. No matter which way she turned, nothing of import could be seen; but she could hear the opening and closing of drawers and the rustling of parchments interspersed with the occasional clink of glass.

After several moments more of this, Professor Snape swept back into the room so unexpectedly that she had to snap her head back into its normal position immediately. She felt the pangs of a cramp beginning, and she winced inwardly. Snape only raised his eyebrows suspiciously at her, though he knew that she had not moved from her spot.

‘Unusually deferent little thing. Her eagerness to obey is almost frightening.\'

He cleared his throat and went smoothly to his desk, taking his seat behind it. He had brought a substantial stack of papers contained rather untidily in an old leather binder that had the words ‘First Years\' etched in it in faded silvery script back with him, and set it in the center of his disorganized desk before looking up to study Hermione intently. As always, she faltered under his gaze, but refused to look away.

\"Well, Miss Granger, what shall I do with you?\" he asked dryly, not really expecting a response.

\"S-sir?\" she asked cautiously.

He again raised one of those elegant black eyebrows at her. Then he tilted his head to the side, lifting a finger to his thin, aristocratic mouth and knitted his brows as if he were deeply considering his own question.omenoment later he turned back to Hermione and smiled sinisterly at her.

\"I know.\" The smile immediately slid from his lips, leaving his expression openly unfriendly. \"You fancy yourself to be a relatively intelligent person, do you not?\"
Hermione hadn\'t the slightest idea what to say to this, so she continued to stare at him silently.

\"Yes, I believe you do,\" he answered his own question. Then he pushed the newly acquired leather binder forward on his desk deliberately. \"Then grade these essays for me.\"
Hermione\'s eyes widened slowly as she took in the sheer volume of the bundle.

\"Here\'s the syllabus you\'re to use to grade them.\" He placed the sheet on top of the binder and folded his arms on his desk, waiting for her to take it. When she did not, he fixed her with a sharp glare.

\"Miss Granger, I suggest you get started, lest you are unable to finish them all before your detention is over and I will have to assign you another so you can,\" he informed her coldly.

Her eyes shot up from the binder to meet his, outrage sparkling in them clearly. It seemed she was about to protest, but the glint in Snape\'s eyes convinced her to clamp her mouth shut and bite her tongue.

She went to his desk and took the binder without looking at him, struggling to hold up the heavy thing as she brought it to the desk she usually occupied in his class.
Snape regarded her with veiled amusement as she immediately set about her cumbersome task. She was an admirable little thing, in her own way, he mused.

‘If one could call blind obedience an admirable trait.\'

The warmth seeped out of his eyes, leaving them flinty and cold once more as he lowered them. He took another binder from a pile on the left side of his desk and opened it, soon becoming lost himself in the dreary monotony of grading his third years\' essays on the properties of Veritaserum.

~*~

‘I should\'ve known that he would make me grade his papers instead of letting me help with an experiment,\' she grumbled mentally.

An hour had passed since he\'d given her the work, and they had both been toiling in complete silence for its entirety. Hermione flicked her eyes to the First Year binder on the left side of her desk, calculating approximately how many more tests she\'d have to grade before she was finished.

She was pleased to note that only twenty or so were left, and she smiled to herself before taking another paper from the remaining pile. She had been working so diligently and with such efficience that she hadn\'t realized how many she\'d completed.

Nor had she realized how her quill hand was aching from having marked a couple hundred essays. She carefully placed her quill beside the stack of papers she had yet to complete and stretched out her fingers gratefully.

She reclined into her wooden chair to rest her back, which was also throbbing from being bent over her work for over an hour. She brought her watch to her eyes automatically, noting that it was now 7:55 in the evening.

Snape\'s detentions, she\'d learnt from her friends, more often than not went on until curfew, which, for the First Years, was nine p.m. She mentally determined how much time it would take her to finish the remaining essays, and sighed when she realized that she\'d be finished with plenty of time to spare until curfew.
Once again her eyes seemed to shift magnetically to Snape, but this time he was not looking back at her. She tilted her head as she contemplated him.

Professor Snape was bent practically double over his desk in the manner he had been when she\'d reported to him after class that afternoon. His eyebrows were knitted closely in intense concentration, but there were no worry lines on his smooth forehead, save for a sharp crease directly between hisws. ws.
His almond shaped eyes were dark as they glittered intently, darting back and forth as he instantly scanned the essays; one nostril twitched, his lip rising along with it as he dipped his quill in preparation to scrawl notes atop the essay. They would be uncommonly scathing, Hermione thought with a scowl.

Approximately every minute–and she\'d timed him, for lack of anything better to do rather than in actual curiosity, she\'d told herself–he would flick a finished paper aside and grab another one, marking it as swiftly as its predecessor.

‘My, but he\'s quick! It must be the experience,\' Hermione justified mentally. Then she tilted her head to the side, her expression softening a little as she continued to observe him.

‘I wonder why he\'s so...dark. I can\'t think of any other word to describe him. Well, not without sounding impertinent.... I wish he\'d let me help him with an experiment,\' she again yearned wistfully. ‘Maybe then I could...befriend...no, I\'m sure he\'d never let me get *that* close. But perhaps I could at least become friendlier with him, and maybe I\'d be able to find out something about him. I just HAVE to know why he chose to do nothing with his life besides teaching! I mean, not that it\'s not a wonderful thing to do, but someone like *him*, now HE could really do something great...\'.

Her line of thought trailed off as he stirred faintly, his eyebrows quivering slights his his eyelashes fluttered. Her head tilted even further to the side, as it was wont to do the more intimate her thoughts became.

‘He has awfully long eyelashes. Unusual in a man, especially *Snape*.\' Her head suddenly snapped forward, her eyes going wide (as *they* were wont to do the more surprised she became). How could she have thought such a fanciful, *personal* thing about SNAPE?!

She didn\'t even bother to rationalize the unbidden thought, instead choosing to completely close her mind to it.
She moved forward on her chair again, splaying her fingers once more before picking up the quill to start work on the twenty or so essays she had left to complete.

~*~

Snape himself had finished grading his essays about twenty minutes prior, as he was quite familiar with the process by this time. He could now evaluate a paper and scratch down a scathing criticism of the student\'s work in under a minute flat.

He\'d noted that the time was now 8:18p.m. He rolled his eyes heavenward, annoyed that he\'d have to supervise Miss Granger until she was finished with her work, and who knew how long *that* would be?

He had grown bored with the mundane task upon finishing his stack, and settled back in his chair to rest his hands and his mind before starting on the Fourth Years\' work.

Seeing as how Miss Granger was the only living and moving creature in his otherwise cold and still dungeons, he had taken to studying her as she worked obliviously at her desk.
She was a singularly strange little thing, and he had seen many children pass through his classroom at Hogwarts over the years. He\'d never known a child to work with such fervor, to be so eager to please him.

Yes, he could tell that was her goal, though he couldn\'t fathom why. Perhaps she sought to gather information on one of Potter\'s ‘enemies\'; who could know?
He realized with a frown that he must have been watching her for some time now, as he\'d been noticing changes in her behavior and appearance.

She was no longer the lively, energetic little thing that she\'d seemed upon her arrival at Hogwarts. As she settled into school life, she seemed to turn inward more and more as the months went by. (Save for her endless questioning of any and all people that were unfortunate enough to be responsible for her education, of course.)

It was as though something was constantly weighing on her mind and it revealed itself in her slumped shoulders and wide, frightened eyes that made her tiny face seem even smaller compared to them.
Now there was a permanent purple smear that colored her eyelids and it put him in mind of someone who had gone so wit without sleep that they were all the more hyper-aware for it.

He knew what caused that particular vigilant gleam in her dark eyes because he had experienced the torment of haunted dreams, and subsequently sleepless nights, himself.
He wondered what preyed so on this child\'s mind that would make her go without sleep and sustenance, seeming to shrink more moremore into herself as the children around her continued to grow and thrive.
His brow furrowed in a worried manner as he contemplated on the child.

‘Perhaps I can allow her to assist me in one or two of my more simple potions. Perhaps then I could ascertain what\'s troubling her so. Anyway, I\'ve been in need of an assistant who is at least marginally intelligent for some time now.\'

Having made his decision, he allowed his gaze to rest on Miss Granger nonchalantly for several more seconds before reaching for the Fourth Years\' binder.

~*~

Hermione\'s lips twitched in a smug smile as she put the last essay on top of the pile. She sighed, wringing out her now cramped hand before rising to lug the binder to Snape\'s desk.

\"Professor?\"

Snape looked up as he heard his title softly spoken in a strained voice. It seemed Miss Granger had finally finished grading. He glanced to the clock above the teacher\'s entrance.

‘Well, she didish ish quite a bit earlier than any of her peers. Several detentions earlier, as a matter of fact.\'

He returned his attention to Granger, who was now struggling not to drop the heavy binder. He immediately rose from his seat and took it from her, concealing his amusement at her small sigh of relief.

\"Thank you,\" she said to him. Snape frowned and looked down at her seriously.

\"Miss Granger, it seems that it would be pointless to keep you here for the remaining fifteen tes tes until curfew. But I would ask one thing of you before you take your leave,\" he said sternly.

She noticeably stiffened, looking up at him with questioning eyes that held a trace of fear. He continued.

\"Do you participate in any extra-curricular activities after the school day has commenced?\"

She was thoroughly confused by his question. \"Uh, n-no, sir.\"


\"Good. Since you have so much free time on your hands...,\" he paused, wrinkling his nose in distaste. In truth, he felt awkward asking such a thing of anyone, let alone a student of his. When he continued, his words were sharp and hurried. \"...Perhaps you could assist me in the making of some of my less complex potions once or twice a month or so.\"

When she didn\'t reply, his eyes slid warily over to her, wondering if she was trying to think of a polite way to refuse him.
He was surprised, to say the least, when he found her face to be positively aglow with astonishment, her eyes sparkling as they bored into his gratefully.

Unused to such a response from one of his students–or anyone, for that matter–he looked away from her and shifted uncomfortably.

\"I--I--,\" Hermione stuttered, what he had asked of her slowly sinking in warmly. She couldn\'t believe her good fortune! Now she didn\'t have to dredge up the courage it would take to ask this of him; maybe he wasn\'t so heartless after all. \"Thank you, Professor! I would be more than happy to help you whenever you want! I just can\'t believe that you trust me enough to ask--\"

\"Very well, Miss Granger, that will do,\" Snape said brusquely, still refusing to meet her eyes. \"If ever I am to prepare an elementary potion, I will inform you with the expectation that you will be available to assist me.\"

Hermione nodded eagerly, so happy that he had given her the opportunity to observe a Master at work that she continued to stare at him reverently. Snape paled to an even whiter shade than his usual pallor, which signified that he was blushing.
(For some inexplicable reason, he had never been able to turn red, no matter how harshly the wind bit his cheeks in Winter or how heated his innards became when embarrassed.)

His eyes began to dart around irritably as he wondered why she was still here. Finally, he turned to her, his expression schooled into one of accustomed vehemence.

\"Miss Granger, I wasn\'t aware that you needed to be told explicitly when you are dismissed!\" He fixed her with a menacing glare. \"Now get out before I rethink my decision to allow you to help me!\"

She started visibly, his warning sobering her immediately.

\"Y-yes, sir.\" She spun around and swiftly went to the student\'s door, not daring to leave through the closer teacher\'s entrance lest he think her insolent.

Pulling open the door, she was about to leave when she suddenly turned and poked her head back into the classroom. Professor Snape was still watching the door, ensuring her departure.

\"And, g-good night, sir,\" she offered shyly before immediately withdrawing her head and allowing the heavy wooden door to swing closed on own own.

Snape stared absently in the direction of the student\'s door for a moment, considering her actions and his decision. He frowned, causing a sharp line to appear between his eyebrows.

‘I hope I won\'t be forced regret this decision in the future....\'

He gave the door Miss Granger had gone through a pensive scowl before turning to reenter his private rooms, his ever ominous black robes undulating like great black bat wings behind him.