Cover Girl

Characters aren\'t mine, they\'re J.K. Rowling\'s.



“Ms. Granger,” Severus Snape began, refusing to look at his former student. “May I have your autograph?”

“Of course.” Hermione took the Vogue he held out to her and she looped a big H-scribble-G-scribble on the cover. In the photo, she was wearing a fluttery dress that bared her hard tanned shoulders. Her eyes were masked with kohl and her lips painted matte pink. In real life, she was wearing loose brown trousers and the kind of sloppy white tee-shirt models wear while they’re not working. After all, it wasn’t like she was worried about not looking good.
“Um, can you put ‘XOXO’ on it also?” Snape began. He accidentally looked directly at her and stuttered “It’s for my niece. She’s a big fan of yours.”
“I never knew you had a niece. How old is she?”
“Fourteen.”
“So if she is at Hogwarts she must have already been there my last year. What’s her name?”
Severus should not have been surprised at her quick math. Of course the rest of the world may have forgotten that Hermione Granger was brilliant as well as heart-breakingly beautiful and one of the three heroic children who had saved the wizarding world, but he had been her teacher. He had known about her intelligence back when she had frizzy hair and big teeth.
“Her name is…”Severccidccidentally looked into her brown eyes. How had the little know-it-all possibly contrived to have such an innocent and seductive look in her eyes? He wanted to tell her all the wicked nasty things he had done so that he could see horror and revulsion flash across that clear face, and then forgiveness.
“Her name?”
“Marly”
“Marly Tickle? I remember her. She was friends with most of Ravenclaw, wasn’t she? How is she doing now?”
“Ms. Granger.” Severus nodded and grabbed back his magazine and swirled away.

“I don’t really care about Snape himself, but do you guys ever think about going back to Hogwarts? Just to see how things are going?”
Hermione was sitting in Ron Weasley’s living room with her legs tucked under her. Ron and Harry were both playing Quiddich Match on their GameCube, Harry sitting on the old sofa next to her and Ron on the floor.
“Auggh! You jerk!” Harry shouted and began to clobber Ron with his controls.
“Quit it! Just because you found the snitch first doesn’t mean you’re fast enough to catch it!”
“Pure luck, pure luck. Rematch.”
“Hermione, do you wanna play?”
“No, that’s okay. But do you ever want to go back to Hogwarts? Just to look around?”
“Ugh, too many bad memories,” Harry answered quickly. “I guess I saw too many people get hurt there.”
“I understand, but we had some good times there, too, didn’t we? What about you Ron, would you go with me?”
“Sure. Couldn’t hurt.”
After two more rounds of Quiddich Match, Hermione thought that the subject was forgotten, and she joined in to beat Ron but went to order pizza after Harry beat her. In the middle of his third slice, Harry spoke up.
“Hermione, this sudden urge to visit Hogwarts. Are you sure it has nothing to do with a certain greasy git?”
Under her glowing tan, Hermione blushed. “Of course not. I mean, I’d like to see him again, but I’d like to see a lot of people again.”
“You already did see him again.” Ron pointed out.
“But I didn’t get a chance to talk to him at all. I mean, I think he was just so embarrassed to ask for my autograph he couldn’t even look me in the eye. I’d kind of like to remind him that I exist.”
Both boys burst out laughing. “Herm, I , I don’t think that’s his problem,” Harry said.
“Yeah, since you’re on the cover of what, five magazines in the past three months, I think he probably remembers your name,” Ron added.
“Besides, you’re gorgeous.”
“I hardly think Snape cares about that kind of thing,” Hermione said primly.
By now, Harry and Ron were in stitches. “Nobody doesn’t care about that kind of thing!”
“You guys don’t.”
“It’s not that we don’t care, we just don’t care about you.”
“What Ron is so eloquently saying is that we want to date your model friends, but we think of you as more of a sister,” Harry amended.
“Fine. Then maybe I want to go date Snape’s Potion Master friends, and think of him as more of a greasy git.”
“You haven’t though of him as a greasy git since sixth year.”
“Are you coming with me or not?”
“Sure I will.”
“No, I said before. I’m not going back to Hogwarts just yet,” Harry said. No one pressed the issue further.