A Very Horrible Idea?

As she left the dungeons, Hermione realized that it was lunchtime. Had she been in Snape's office for that long? Frowning, she entered the Great Hall and sat down next to Harry.

"Where have you been?" He asked, "Did you go to the Hospital Wing? Dumbledore's back! Did you have to go and see him?"

Ron scowled, peering at her from Harry’s other side, "I'm going to kill Malfoy! You didn't even say anything! And what did Snape do? Nothing, that's what!"

Hermione shook her head and held out her hand for them to see, "He did heal me, Ron. He didn't leave me to bleed to death."

Ron huffed, "I don't care. He just let Malfoy go!" He glared up at the Potion Master's empty chair, "His favoritism is so obvious! It makes me sick!"

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"Do you have anything to say, Professor Snape?"

Severus looked away from the Head Master and smirked at the blonde boy sitting in the chair next to him; Draco Malfoy returned the look confidently. Severus moved his eyes back to the old wizard, "This was clearly a vicious, unprovoked attack on an undeserving student and should be treated as such, Head Master."

Severus didn't look, but he knew that Malfoy would be looking just as shocked as Albus. But then the old mans eyes began to twinkle - usually an ominous thing, Severus had always thought - and the corners of his mouth twitched.

"B-but... Professor!" Malfoy protested.

Severus glanced at him, "Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"

The boy looked between the two Professors, "I... but... I told you what Weasley said to me!"

The Head Master leaned back in his chair looking at the blonde gravely, "I suggest you go to the rest of your classes today, Mr. Malfoy, and stay away from Hermione Granger. Be warned, this is not the end of the matter. We will talk again very soon, but at the moment I have another very pressing situation to attend to. Good day, Mr. Malfoy."

Malfoy sneered and left the room, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'my father'. Albus was silent for a few minutes, before he smiled and leaned forward, "An undeserving student, Severus? When have you ever described a Gryffindor in that way? Or any student for that matter? And Hermione Granger of all people? My dear Professor, are you ill?"

Severus rolled his eyes, "Would you have liked it more if I had lied and said that she did deserve it?"

"Of course not. I just thought that you had never particularly liked Miss Granger." He said all too innocently.

"I find her irritating and opinionated. As far as I know, that is not a crime."

The old wizard chuckled, "You are right, Severus, as always. Although, even you must admit that she has grown into a remarkable young woman." He nodded to himself and then said quietly, as if thinking aloud, "I will have to ask Poppy how serious Miss Granger's wound was..."

"As far as I know, Poppy hasn't seen her yet." Severus said carefully; Albus' 'thinking out loud' was just a bit too obvious.

"And why is that? Surely you sent the girl straight up to be check over."

Severus cleared his throat, "There was no time. She lost too much blood when the knife was taken out, so I had to... sort things out."

Albus nodded, giving the Potions Master a knowing look, "Very well, that is good... Extremely good..." There was silence, before he shook himself out of his thoughts, "Right, Severus, thank you for... telling the truth. I will talk to you when I decided on a suitable punishment for Mr. Malfoy."

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Once they had finished lunch, Harry and Ron had dragged Hermione up to the Hospital Wing. They said that they didn't trust Snape's 'healing' and wanted Madam Pomfrey to look at her hand, even though there was no mark left what-so-ever.

The older witch inspected said hand, cast some spells and came to the conclusion that there would be damage if Hermione didn't use it too much. Hermione was not happy when the medi-witch told her to have the rest of the day off for such a stupid thing, but Madam Pomfrey was adamant that she shouldn't strain it. And that included a warning about turning too many pages.

Ron and Harry left for Transfiguration, and Hermione went back to her room. She couldn't go to lessons and she couldn't read! And just over one silly cut!

Shaking her head, she decided to have a bath, and as she was Head Girl, she had her own bathroom. She turned the taps on and took her necklace off, moving to put it on a counter under a mirror. She reached up for her earring, but... it wasn't there. She looked up at her reflection, pushing her hair out of the way.

They were gone. Hermione looked around, wondering if she had taken them off without realizing. She knew she had had them on this morning; she could remember putting them back on after her shower yesterday, and she never took them off apart from when she went in the bath or shower.

So where were they?

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Severus poked one of them hesitantly. It rolled slightly.

It wasn't really stealing, was it? No, not really. It was borrowing... sort of. He would give them back. One day. Perhaps. If he was feeling particularly charitable.

And he had been feeling very charitable towards her lately. Well, it was the rules of obsession. One either hated the person they were obsessed with and tried to kill them or...

Severus decided that he couldn't be obsessed with Hermione Granger. He didn't want to murder her - quite the opposite in fact - but the only other option for people like him was to... love people like her. And he would not be falling in love ever, even if he lived to be older than Nicholas Flamel.

It was an inconvenience, to be honest. He could cope with obsession - he had been obsessed before - but love was different and it was, quite frankly, a ridiculous emotion. Why would a person want to be tied to another human being like that? It just didn't make sense.

He couldn't help thinking, however, about that knife. If it had been only a few inches higher it would have plunged into her stomach; a little higher than that and it would have been in her heart. The thought made him dizzy.

When he had left Albus earlier, he had been ready to kill Draco Malfoy, but had refrained for one simple reason: his death would not be enough. But he couldn't go around torturing students, unfortunately. So he stalked around the Dungeons, looking for small, very petty reasons to take points from Slytherin, which was an unheard of occurrence.

Severus, himself, found it odd - let alone the students - but when he thought about that knife and the events of his class that morning, he felt something that was potentially very dangerous for Draco Malfoy. He had almost hoped to come across the blonde, so that he could shock him even more by taking a lot of points and maybe even give him a detention. A nice unforgivable would have been a lovely finale, but they were, regrettably, illegal.

He had been near the entrance hall when he heard her talking to Potter and Weasley, upset because Poppy had told her to have the rest of the day off; Severus had mentally agreed with the medi-witch. But hearing her had reminded him of something. He had put his hand in his pocket and pulled out two, tiny, silver objects.

Now, he poked the earring again, watching it rock gently.