Beneath the Surface

Beneath the Surface

Chapter the Sixthe: And The Humans Were Given Fire To Do With What They Would

Hermione practically skipped back to her dorm, such was the force of her elation at the responsibility that Professor Snape had given her. Her steps were quick and tense as she rushed through the multitude of hallways, corridors, staircases, and finally the portrait hole. It was with much relief that she finally flung her overexcited little body down upon her bed.

‘I knew it would happen, but I\'d no idea that it\'d be this soon!\' She could barely contain the flushed smile that spread her mouth as her mind raced with jubilation. ‘I must\'ve behaved quite well while I was grading those papers for him....Perhaps that\'s why he decided it; because he had been testing me. Or maybe my efforts to get on his good side have finally paid off! Oh, I don\'t care what the reason is, I\'m just *so* happy!!\'

So happy, in fact, that she failed to prevent a giddy peal of laughter from escaping her lips. She quickly clamped her hand over her mouth and rose to kneel on her bed, peering around the room nervously. Once she had ascertained no one else was present, she settled back against her pillow and sighed in relief. Then she frowned as her mind calmed down from its euphoric stupor.

This always happened to her if she ever made the mistake of being openly pleased with herself: the sudden, crashing depression of reality. She had forgotten the reason the fateful discussion with her Potions Professor occurred in the first place: she\'d had detention. She had done something wrong....

‘...Oh, yes!\'

She had been late to class, an unforgivable offense. Here these people dedicated their lives to teaching them what they\'d need to know to survive in this wonderful world, and she had disrespe one one of them due to selfish laziness. She could not, *would* not abide by such behavior, and she knew that she\'d have to pay for it somehow. She always had to pay for any pittance of happiness that happened to overshadow her thinking; *that* was reality.
She signed again, this time in resignation.

‘Study,\' her inner taskmaster commanded of her sharply. She obediently bent to pick up a textbook from her bag on the floor (this time she would not make the mistake of allowing them to lie around haphazardly) and heaved it into her lap. It didn\'t matter which subject it covered (this one happened to be on Arithmancy) so long as she studied it diligently until curfew. She bent her head and allowed her heavy hair to fall around her face, a curtain to shield her from the outside world and all of its many distractions.

But try as she might, she could not stop the occasional triumphant reminder that she was now Snape\'s assistant from slithering sinfully across her mind, nor could she suppress the rush of excitement in her stomach and the tiny, self-satisfied smirk that came along with it.

~*~

The next morning Hermione rushed through her routine and was ready a full half an hour before classes were to begin. She impatiently waited for Harry and Ron in the Common Room between the girls\' and boys\' dorms, checking her watch several times a minute and shifting irritably. Although she wanted to just leave on her own and get to class early, the three friends had mutely decided that they would each always wait for the other two before and after every period.

Finally, ten minutes before their first class (which would be Transfiguration) was to commence, the two boys\' voices could be heard echoing jovially down the stairwell.

‘Finally!\' Hermione rolled her eyes and strode to meet them in the doorway.

Whatever they had been conversing about, they immediately clammed up when they caught sight of Hermione\'s fierce expression.

\"*There* you are! I was wondering when you\'d bother to show up,\" she chastised them, crossing her arms across her chest.

\"Is something wrong?\" Harry asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

\"Not yet, but there will be if we\'re late to class. Now come on, then!\" And she immediately turned to walk quickly to the portrait hole. The boys shared a bewildered look, shrugged and then hurried to catch up with her.

\"Hermione,\" Ron started as they were speed-walking down the hallway. \"What\'s all the rush about? We always leave for class around this time. Is something happening today?\"

Hermione sighed impatiently. \"No, Ron. I just think that we should start making an effort to be on time for our classes after what happened yesterday.\"

\"Ugh.\" Ron wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant memory. \"Well, I don\'t think it would\'ve happened if we didn\'t have Potions that day.\"

\"Yeah,\" Harry agreed, his face contorted likewise in disgust. \"I\'ll bet Snape was just *waiting* to catch us late.\"

Hermione\'s brow furrowed in consternation. The three never agreed on just what to make of the caustic Proor. or. \"Well, I know he can be a bit harsh,\" she began unsurely. \"But we *were* late, and we deserved to be disciplined for it.\"

The boys rolled their eyes at her, choosing not to agree or disagree with her studious logic. Hermione answered them with a perfunctory scowl. Knowing they would never come to a consensus on this, she decided to change the subject.

\"So, how did your detentions go?\" she asked.

\"Oh, *that*,\" Ron said derisively, then shrugged. \"Not too bad, I suppose. Professor Mcgonagall just had me sit there quietly for an hour. Caught up on some sleep, anyway.\"
He grinned lopsidedly at Harry, who returned the gesture, and Hermione rolled her eyes as she smiled at them.

\"How about you, Harry?\" Ron asked. Harry\'s grin immediately morphed into a grimace.

\"Filch made me polish candlesticks for two hours. Wasn\'t as bad as I was afraid it would be, though. I\'ve been through worse,\" he muttered. Ron and Hermione shared a sympathetic look for Harry. An awkward silence prevailed between the three for a moment, the one major difference between them having become glaringly obvious once again.

Harry rarely alluded to his life before Hogwarts, but his friends knew how hard it had been for him. He seemed so happy at the school that they could hardly believe the things he\'d been through, and perhaps he couldn\'t either. Perhaps he just didn\'t want to remember them so long as he was here. Hermione often wondered if all the painful things that happened to Harry before she met him would one day cause him to just break down emotionally. She knew that it was almost impossible for something of that nature not to happen, and she certainly wasn\'t looking forward to the day that it would.

Finally, Harry cleared his throat and offered a forced laugh. \"Well, I\'m sure Hermione\'s detention was far worse than either of ours. What did Snape do to you?\" They both looked at her expectantly, glad that the strange silence had dissipated.
Hermione frowned. ‘Better for you, but worse for me.\'

\"I know what you\'re both thinking, but it wasn\'t that bad. He just had me grade some essays.\"

\"‘Just\', she says,\" Ron protested dramatically, throwing up his hands. Harry laughed at his predisposition for theatrics.

\"He\'s right though, ‘Mione,\" Harry said, more seriously. \"It\'s hard enough to write *one* of those, let alone grade a hundred!\"

\"I had a syllabus to use, it really wasn\'t that difficult,\" Hermione huffed. She was starting to get flustered by this conversation. She knew where it was going.

\"A what?\" Ron asked, his face a scrunched mask of confusion. Hermione sighed in aggravation.

\"Never mind.\" She lowered her head, afraid of the expressions her face could betray to them. \"I just think you\'re both wrong about him. I don\'t think he could do a thing like that.\"
‘At least I hope he wouldn\'t...\'

Harry and Ron knew immediately what she was referring to. It was the suspicion they had been toying with for a month or so now that Professor Snape was out to get the Sorcerer\'s Stone.

\"I\'m sorry, Hermione, but I don\'t see how you *couldn\'t* think it,\" Harry stated. Ron nodded his agreement.

\"It\'s no secret that I don\'t like him, but even if I did, I\'d *have* to admit that certain things he does are right suspicious!\" Ron insisted to Hermione.

\"Alright, alright, calm down. We don\'t want anyone to know what we\'re talking about,\" Hermione warned them, glancing furtively around them. The boys did likewise, wincing at the possibility of having been overheard by the man in question, himself. Thankfully, all was well and clear.

\"What I mean to say...\" Hermione continued in a pontificating tone. \"...Is that appearances can be deceiving, and often one will act a certain way so that people will not discover that they are actually the complete opposite. Anyway, everyone knows that it\'s always the person who seems the least likely to commit a crime who did it!\"

Harry and Ron both stared at her doubtfully. Then Ron\'s eyes widened, his mouth opening slowly in preparation to voice his apparent mental realization.

\"I\'ll bet he hypnotized you or something in that detention last night!\" Ron blurted. Now Hermione and Harry stared at him with twin skeptical expressions.

\"You know, changed your thoughts about him or something. You know he\'s capable of it,\" Ron tried to explain. Then his face took on a pensive expression. \"But then again, you\'ve been fighting with us about this for some time now....I\'ll bet he\'s been working on in sin secret for longer than any of us knew!\"

Harry could barely contain his laughter at the silly image Ron\'s accusation had conjured in his head, while Hermione seemed aghast at it.

\"No, Ron, he was not ‘hypnotizing\' me,\" she told him as if he were a little child. \"I\'m just not the type to immediately buy into such an obvious theory involving one of our Professors!! And I think that you two should--\"

But Hermione\'s tirade was rather suddenly cut off when the trio rounded a sharp corner and almost ran headlong into Professor Mcgonagall, who was standing beside the entrance to the Transfigurations classroom. The austere woman raised her eyebrows as she fixed the three with a dry, questioning gaze. Her scrutiny had almost the same effect on students aat oat of the formidable Professor Snape, but since she was the childrens\' Head of House, they feared her marginally less than the Potions Master.

The trio immediately straightened before their teacher, their discussion abandoned as they made an effort to stand to attention. Mcgonagall was faced with three sincerely penitent expressions.

\"Pardon us, Professor,\" Hermione apologized quickly. \"We were rushing to get to class, and we should\'ve been watching where we were g.\"g.\" Harry and Ron nodded eagerly.

Professor Mcgonagall just stopped herself from smiling at these students whose adventuresome camaraderie never ceased to endear them to her. She was especially fond of the little girl, whose fierce intelligence reminded her of herself at that age, but whose strict adherence to the rules was a trait she hadn\'t possessed.
She didn\'t understand why the gpushpushed herself so when she was already so gifted academically. The child put her in mind of a needy kitten who hungered for affection but lacked the communication skills to ask for it.

\"I understand, Miss Granger,\" she replied crisply, but a wry smile hinted at the corners of her lips and her eyes sparkled down on the child. \"You three are just on time, but I suggest you go and take your seats now before that changes.\"

Amid a chorus of ‘Yes, Professor\', the three children readily scrambled into the classroom to find their seats. Professor Mcgonagall allowed herself a small, indulgent smile before striding into the room herself to begin the lesson.

~*~

It was that very Friday that Hermione had received her first summons to begin her duties as Professor Snape\'s assistant. As her plate had appeared before her that morning at breakfast, she was surprised to discover that a small, unaddressed envelope placed in its center had materialized along with it. At first she just stared at it blankly, blinking the sleep (or lack thereof) out of her eyes.

‘Daft girl,\' someone thought darkly from across the Hall.

‘Perhaps a house elf left it here by mistake,\' Hermione thought to herself. She turned it around to see if an address or at least a name had been written on the other side, but instead found a strange, emerald seal holding the letter closed. It had two snakes that were shaped like S\'s intertwined delicately, one slightly higher than the other. Hermione\'s eyes widened and a surge of excitement swept through her torso.

‘Could it be?\'

She used her knife to open the seal as quickly as she could without damaging it (she\'d kept every letter she\'d received from Hogwarts largely because she was so entranced with their use of the seals, and each person had a different one. She truly had never expected to receive one from Professor Snape, for any reason) and found a small note on which was scrawled a short message in Professor Snape\'s spidery script. It read:

Miss Granger~

I trust you remember the agreement we came to at your last detention. I sincerely hope so, for I will regretfully be needing your assistance in the making of a ***pain relieving potion*** tonight. We have gone over this in class, so I will expect you to have gone over your notes carefully before we meet, which will be at seven o\'clock this evening. See that you are not even a fraction of a second late.

~S. Snape

Despite the letter\'s undeniably harsh tone, its contents thrilled Hermione to no end, and her face positively lit right up with excitement. The dark someone watching her across the Hall couldn\'t help but be amused by the sight of her often serious little face so happy, and allowed himself a small, private grimace, his dark eyes softening as they continued to scrutinize her.

But Professor Snape swiftly averted his gaze and turned his head as the girl shifted to look in his direction, her delighted eyes seeking out his place at the High Table.
Hermione caught the tail end of Snape\'s sudden movement, seeing him concentrating on some unknown point far to the end of the Hall, his hair swishing around his head before falling carelessly about his face.

Hermione\'s breath literally caught in her throat, the gaiety dissipating from her features to be replaced by wide-eyed wonder as she openly stared at her Professor objectively for the first time since she\'d set eyes on him four months ago.
For the first time--but gods knew it would not be the last–young Hermione Granger considered hetiontions Professor as able ble man.

True, he did have a rather large nose, but it somehow suited him and managed to look quite aristocratic, especially in the way he would look down on people from it. That was another thing that she found...appealing about him: his considerable height. His savage intelligence and unmerciful cruelty made her feel so very inconsequential and small already, and his lofty height only added physically to that feeling. Which, for some undeniably twisted reason, she found she enjoyed in a base, rather depraved way.
(Oh, but she had problems, she thought. Problems to be examined at a later time, though; she was busy).

And the way his bleak black eyes would just bore holes into her confidence, made her feel absolutely powerless and vulnerable to whatever he would utter in that silky, dark voice. That was really what did it. That. Voice. The long, unkempt black hair, dangerous aura and mysterious ways would all amount to nothing without that sinfully solemn voice.

‘But why would all that make him...somewhat attractive to me?\' She mentally balked at the implications of that sentence, and was rather horrified that she\'d actually thought it in the first place. She slowly lowered her head as a hot fire waved through her entire body, and she realized what had happened. Realized that she could not simply make such feelings for her Professor vanish from her mind with a wish and a prayer.

It had only just begun, but here had been planted the seeds that, though they had yet to fully thrive, would one day become so rooted to Hermione\'s brain that they would be impossible to totally dig out.

\"Hermione?\" Ron suddenly asked, his voice sounding concerned. She immediately raised her head to face him, still a bit shaken but more than willing to take her mind from this decidedly sordid business.

\"Yes?\" Her voice was laden with a forced cheerfulness that caused Harry and Ron to exchange worried looks.

\"Is it...bad?\" Harry asked her gently, his expression of of utmost seriousness and compassion. Hermione realized they were referring to her unexpected letter, and laughed once loudly in relief.

\"Oh, no, guys, it\'s nothing like that!\" she assured them mirthfully. \"It\'s just a summons from Professor Snape for tonight.\"

Hermione realized that she\'d forgotten to tell her two friends about her new position aspe\'pe\'s sometime assistant when their eyes widened and they fixed her with incredulous, gaping stares.

\"Summons?\" Harry asked dubiously.

\"For ‘tonight\'?\" Ron continued for him. Hermione\'s own eyes widened as she took in their meaning and began to shake her head wildly.

\"No! No, no, no, no. NO,\" she protested vehemently, holding out her hands as if to shield herself from their thoughts. \"I\'d forgotten to tell you. During my detention Professor Snape asked if I wanted to help him make certain potions from time to time after classes, and I said yes. He told me he\'d send me a summons if he needed my help.\"

Although this explanation considerably relaxed the boys, Harry and Ron settled once again into disgust mode at the very mention of Snape\'s name.

\"You actually said yes?!\" Ron asked her, appalled at the very notion.

\"Well, yeah,\" Hermione answered uncertainly. \"I mean, it\'s really quite an honor! He is a Master, after all. That matters to me more than his...unpleasantness.\"

\"That\'s an understatement,\" Harry muttered darkly. Ron nodded in agreement. Hermione once again rolled her eyes at their perpetual immaturity.

\"Well, now you know, so don\'t look at me like *that* next time I get one of these,\" Hermione said tersely, waving the summons.

It suddenly dawned on her that Harry and Ron would probably always feel this way about Professor Snape, no matter what he did or would do. Hermione sighed softly as she knew she would never feel the same way about him again, and the thought of having to listen to her two friends constantly undermine the man for the rest of her years here–let alone her natural *life*–was a very dampening prospect.

As the three friends finally rose to exit the Great Hall, Hermione remembered that she had forgotten to eat breakfast. Again.

~*~

Evening crept up on Hermione furtively and far too fast. She gulped fearfully as the time read six forty-five in the evening on her wristwatch. Time to go to the dungeons.

She could barely keep herself from shaking as she made her way down into the depths of the ancient school. She hugged the wall as she went, keeping to the shadows that dusk had thrown about the corridors. She had been so excited about assisting Professor Snape that morning, and now she dreaded seeing him.

‘Was* that* why I wanted to impress him the whole time?\' She wondered miserably. ‘Just so he\'d...notice me?\'

She squeezed her eyes shut, holding in the tears that prickled beneath her eyelids. She had thought she was beyond such typically juvenile sentiments, and her heart ached both for the shame of thinking of her Professor in an inappropriately fanciful way and the even more shameful desire to have him reciprocate her feelings.

‘As if he would,\' her mind scoffed cruelly. ‘What would someone like him possibly want with a ridiculous little child like *you*?\'

She had never felt so emotionally torn and confused in her life, and that feeling combined with her lack of nutrition and rest made her feel very empty inside.
She arrived at the entrance to Potions at exactly 6:59p.m., not one moment too late but not early enough to irritate her exacting Professor. She inhaled a deep breath of courage and rose her small fist to rap on the door.

Severus Snape had been totally absorbed in the preparations for t**pa**pain relieving*** potion when he was rather rudely aroused by the soft yet eager tapping on the door. He was about to hurl it open and do all he could to discourage the uninvited guest from entering–or ever even entertaining the notion of visiting him again–when he remembered that he\'d summoned Miss Granger that morning to assist him with the potion tonig

He sighed tiredly, once again rethinking his judgment in enlisting her help at all, and mentally prepared to be in the presence of another human being for the next hour or so.

\"Enter,\" he pronounced imperiously, brooking no argument but offering no assistance.

Hermione shivered behind the door as she heard the order. She summoned up every ounce of strength she had, determined not to show her weakness to him, and opened the door.

The classroom seemed much more spacious and barren than when filled with the many bodies and belongings of the students. Professor Snape, being the only occupant of the room, seemed to fill it totally with his dark, commanding presence as he stood over an enormous, steaming cauldron that had been placed before his desk.

Hermione felt very small as she went over to him, but she tried hard to appear composed and businesslike, which was rather hard to do under his penetrating and appraising stare.

\"Miss Granger,\" he greeted her frostily. She gulped.

\"G-good evening, Professor,\" she managed to squeak out in return.

Snape raised his eyebrows at her, wondering what had happened to the exuberant child who\'d thanked him so effusively just days ago? Her face was absolutely devoid of all color; it put him in mind of the many Muggleborn First Years he\'d witness nearly faint the first time they\'d seen one of the school ghosts.

‘Oh, did he have to do the eyebrow thing at me?!\' Hermione lamented mentally. ‘Ok, pull yourself together, Hermione. Just do what he says and then go back to your room straight away. It\'ll be as simple as that.\'
She sighed and straightened her posture, pulling herself together.

Professor Snape\'s eyebrow rose higher at the child\'s obvious display of mental anguish.

‘What on Earth is the matter with her? Can\'t the child keep anything to herself?! Typical Gryffindor,\' he mentally sneered.

Snape cleared his throat, smirking inside as the sudden sound started Hermione, and motioned with a graceful, sweeping hand to the ingredients he had set out to the right of the cauldron on the long table.

\"Here, Miss Granger,\" he announced clearly in the austere tone he used when teaching. \"Are all of the ingredients and tools we will need to make the ***pain relieving*** potion.\"

He paused to look down into her eyes very seriously, making sure that she was paying close attention to his words. He saw that her wide eyes beheld rapt attention, and savored in it briefly as would a cat lying in a sunbeam. Then he took a breath, turned his head back to the table, and continued.

\"I have set them all out in the order they are to be added to the cauldron, both so there would be no confusion on your part as to what goes in when, and to absolutely avoid the rather harrowing possibility of you going into my personal ss.\"s.\" His tone as he said these things was very dry, yet still managed to be quite mocking and derisive.

Hermione bristled in indignation, her fea him him melting into her subconscious as she felt the uniquely painful sting of his well-aimed insults.

‘I should have known that he would do his best to take away from this experience,\' she inwardly fumed. ‘Perhaps this is yet another test. Well, I\'ll show him that I can pass it with ease!\'

She nodded crisply in acknowledgment of his words, determined not to let his biting little barbs get to her. He smirked at her profile, so rigid with fury ill-concealed.

\"Well, Miss Granger,\" he said almost indulgently. \"Shall we begin?\"

\"Of course, Professor,\" she replied coldly, reng tng to look at him.

‘The little thing doesn\'t appear so timid when she\'s angry. Whatever one may say to the detriment of Gryffindors, they most definitely run the gamut of emotions in a most entertaining fashion.\'

Snape immediately realized (or rather, drew, from the many lectures of Albus Dumbledore on the subject of decency and compassion towards your fellow human being that he had been subjected to upon his return to Hogwarts) that he was playing a mental cat-and-mouse game with Miss Granger\'s emotions, and, though it highly appealed to his darker senses, ituld uld be stopped immediately in the name of good will to humankind and his deliverance from the clutches of evil incarnate. He mentally let loose a long-suffering sigh.

‘Why does being good have to be so damned difficult!?!\'

Although he knew how juvenile that sounded, he chose not to bother retracting it from his thoughts in favor of a more intellectual sentiment. The day had just been too demanding on what remnants of his conscience he could salvage.

Nevertheless, Snape resolved not to provoke or offend Miss Granger for the remainder of the evening, no matter how badly she asked for it (for, whether she knew it or not, she certainly did in his opinion).

The next hour was spent in utter silence, save for the various sounds of chopping, dicing, powdering and the occasional splash of something being tossed into the cauldron. Snape had long taken comfort in the inorganic clamor, often losing himself in the inert cacophony in the most pleasant, numbing way. It was the only nonchemical drug that he found solace in: his potions.

But he soon discovered that he could not focus solely on his beloved potions tonight, for he found himself constantly on edge, awaiting the initial ‘Professor?\' that would begin Miss Granger\'s endless tirade of questions. But, strangely, she was completely silent.

In fact, she hadn\'t said a single word since they had begun the potion. She kept her eyes only on the work before her, unr unruly curtain of hair obscuring her face from view, making it impossible for Snape to read her.

It aggravated him to no end that this sliver of a child had managed to totally unnerve him–*him!* A master of deception–to the point of distraction just by behaving in a manner that was completely contrary to what he was accustomed to from her. For Merlin\'s sake, it was a common trick of the trade, and here he was desperately trying to comprehend this child\'s reason for doing it! Infuriating!!!

Hermione, for her part, had kept her silence simply because her mother had always told her to just ignore anyone who was teasing her, and that fighting with them only encouraged their behavior.

But she had also been taking this time to deeply consider her strange new feelings for Professor Snape. She had somehow convinced herself that he was only cruel to people because they failed to undand and him, and she had read enough about psychology (a largely Muggle practice that she had taken great interest in) to know that people who had been badly hurt by others taught themselves to push everyone away in order to avoid even the tiniest possibility of being hurt again.

She knew she was just a little child compared to him, but she had hoped, however subconsciously, that she would be able to break down her cold Professor\'s emotional barriers just by attempting to show him some kindness, to ‘be nice\' to him. She began to realize that the thought in itself had been childish; it would take years to get through to this man! If such a feat was even possible at all. Her heart sunk in defeat.

‘Oh, I have far too much schoolwork to have time for this sort of thing!\'

Yes, the realization of what she would be up against just to have a pleasant conversation with the man was defini dam dampening her adolescent fervor for him.
With a silent sigh, she moved to toss an ingredient she\'d just painstakingly sliced into the cauldron (this one had to be dropped in bit by bit, one piece every couple of seconds). As she performed the simple, repetitious task, her eyes wandered towards her Professor in idle curiosity.

And her doubts about him immediately scattered from her mind, as a dandelion\'s flower would when subjected to a strong gale of wind. She thought of nothing as she regarded him, only felt wistful pangs pull at her heart in varying degrees of pain as the reluctant desire to connect with him intensified once again.

The spidery fingers of one of his long, refined hands clutched a stoppered vial that contained a substance of a very dark yet vibrant red color a foot or so from his face. His other arm–the one facing her direction–was loosely wrapped around his midsection, its fingers gripping his side. He was so thin that tcovecovered the width of it with room to spare. His posture was slightly stooped, his weight shifted to one leg, the foot of the other mutely tapping the ground slowly and off rhythm.
His features were twisted into an intensely morose frown, eyebrows deeply hooded over flinty cross eyes, his nose creased in a sneer over pursed lips. But although this vexation was directed at the small bottle in his hand it was as if his mind didn\'t even register it, that he was only holding the vial before his eyes to mislead one into thinking that it was the object of his concentration.

Hermione had seen him with a scowl on his face many times, but she\'d never seen him with *this* expression before. For him it was so...\'human\', was the only word that readily came to Hermione\'s miHe sHe seemed almost as if he were...pouting...about something. The glower put her in mind of a child who desperately wanted to understand something that was just beyond their grasp, and it frustrated them to no end.

She had only been staring at him for a moment, but in it she saw allhim.him. She was voracious for any and all information that she could visually gather on him, looking at him as though he were one of the many subjects that she wanted to know all about. She beheld him with a researcher\'s eye, sensitive to every detail.

Suddenly, seeming to finally abandon his distressing train of thought, Snape released a disgusted snort that Hermione wouldn\'t have heard had she not been watching him and practically slammed the vial onto the table, moving to ready and violently chop up some aloe plant leaves. Then he stopped without warning and pivoted his head to glare at Hermione directly in the eyes.

\"What are you looking at, Granger?!\" he practically shouted at her, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.

Absolutely in shock, she continued to stare at him, unable to move in her terror. He seemed to become even more incensed at this, and said terror increased twofold as he strode towards her deliberately and bent over so that they met eye to eye. He was far too close for comfort.

\"Miss Granger.\" His voice was so low it was barely audible, but its deadly tone was more frightening than straight out yelling ever could be. She shuddered, furiously blinking her eyes at his close proximity. \"If you do not pay exceedingly close attention to what you are doing, this potion will be ruined and I will have to stay up late making another. I suggest you develop some focus, and *quickly*, or I will be forced to get another assistant. Is that perfectly clear?\"

\"*gulp*...Y-y-yes, s-sir,\" Hermione whispered, trying with all her might to stop her body from shg. g.

\"Good,\" he said firmly in his normal tone of voice. He hesitantly tore his eyes from hers and rose to stand.

As he went back to his side of the cauldron, he felt more than a little guilty at his...well, admittedly severe lapse in civility. He always had taken his anger out on the one who caused it, inadvertently or not. This case being the latter, he knew the girl deserved some sort of apology. But how to say it without appearing foolish?

A half an hour passed with complete silence reigning over them once again, but this time it was with great discomfort. Finally, the last ingredient had been added and the potion left to steep for the night. Hermione hastily got her things together and practically darted for the exit. Snape pressed his eyelids together, readying himself for what he knew would have to come.
Before the girl could open the door, Snape moved to stop her.

\"Miss Granger,\" he called to her. Hermione winced, wondering what kind of treatment she would have to endure next from him. But her Professor only sighed defeatedly, surprising her enough to make her turn hesitantly to face him.
\"Miss Granger, I must...beg you to forgive my earlier outburst,\" he said almost penitently, unable to look her in the face. \"It\'s...been rather a difficult day, and I often make the mistake of forcing my...displeasure on others who did not cause it. So I ask you again to...please forgive me.\"

Hermione could only stare at him in disbelief for a moment. When he frowned and looked up at her, obviously wondering what was taking her so long to answer, she shook herself and nodded shyly.

\"Of c-course I forgive you, Professor,\" she answered bashfully, now not able to look him in the face. \"I often have those days myself....I understand what people are like, and I...what I mean to say is, I know how you--\"

\"Thank you, Miss Granger,\" Snape stopped her quickly from going on, his face white as a sheet from embarrassment. Why did the child always have to put her foot in her mouth? \"I understand. I shall ask for your help the next time it is needed.\"

Hermione knew that he was trying to create a clean slate between them, and she smiled widely at him in gratification.

\"Oh, thank you, Professor! You have no idea how happy I--\"

\"Very well, then. Good night, Miss Granger,\" he told her pointedly. She ducked her head self-consciously, knowing a dismissal when she heard one, but the small smile continued to tremble on her lips.

\"Good night, Professor,\" she said back to him softly. Then she promptly turned to exit the dungeons, nearly banging into the door in her haste.

Snape again watched as the door swung closed, smirking at the back of the child whom, he had discovered in the past two hours or so, had proved herself to be even stranger than he\'d initially suspected.

Hermione ambled slowly back to her rooms, taking the time to admire the castle openly as she went. It felt as though a cumbersome load had been lifted from her shoulders, so light and happy was her spirit that it practically flew right out of the little body it was housed in. She\'d finally resolved her feelings for her notoriously brooding Professor, and she allowed herself to smile broadly at the ease in which she\'d discovered the answer to the seemingly complex question.

‘What on Earth was I thinking?! The man\'s a complete and utter mess!!! I\'d fail my O.W.L.S. for sure if I ever got involved with HI6¨ L