"Or he could still be...that's just...yuck. Really."
"I know but if he's with Hermione, I don't have to think that he could have been my dad," Harry shuddered.
"But he will lecture us even more."
Harry shook his head, grinning. "No, he won't. Just think, if they're together, and something happens to Hermione, we can immediately blame him."
"Because he...as the boyfriend — and I use that term loosely — has to take care of her. It's the job of the boyfriend."
"Using the term loosely," grinned Harry, "But yep, that's exactly what I've been thinking."
"But Hermione doesn't see it. Or does she?"
"She didn't even say good bye to him. Only sort of...nodded."
"Women are weird," Ron shook his head, snatching a chicken wing up from the plate.
"Hell yes," Harry groaned.
"What? Tina not up to..."
"Tina is...history," he said, "But that's beside the point. We were discussing Snape and Hermione."
"The way I see it," replied Ron, pensively, "is that Hermione is unhappy at the moment. I mean she leaves the house before we even get up and she comes home when we're almost in bed. And she works hard for Snape and with someone who has a crush, she didn't cling to him at all."
"So you think she was making fun of us? With the crush?"
Ron shook his head and bit a piece off the chicken wing. "No. Did you know she was, erm, you know, into me?"
"Sort of but it wasn't that obvious."
"Exactly. She's trying to hide and because she knows that we know, but he doesn't know, she would act coldly. Otherwise she'd think we'd probably say something weird and embarrassing and she can't want that..."
"So she really has a crush but thinks that he doesn't want her? But it was bloody obvious that he was concerned."
"He was, but we are concerned about Hermione and we don't...at least I don't. Do you?"
"Hell no, that'd be weird."
Ron shrugged. "See? But it would be weird, having him around the house..."
"On the other hand, she would not annoy us and she would be busy with other things and we wouldn't have to watch how she eats."
"Yeah," Ron replied. "But what do we do? Go to Snape and tell him that Hermione's in love with him?" he pulled a face.
"Not if you value your life. We just wait and Malfoy seems reasonable enough. If she gets worse, we let him do the dirty work," Harry smirked and took the last chicken wing from the plate.
.
Sod it. Sod it. Sod it.
No matter what, no matter how anyone could possibly construe this situation, no matter from which angle anyone could look at it — he had been worried about her and he had made sure that not only she knew — but her bloody friends as well.
How could he have been so stupid to tell Potter and Weasley to take better care of her? He wasn't even sure why he had done it — it had just seemed to be the right thing to do. Berate them for not caring enough about their friend.
And him — caring more about their friend than them.
"Oh hell," he said softly to himself. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't meant to run over there so quickly. And there was no reason. It wasn't as if he was in love with Granger and while he wasn't sure what being in love should have felt like, he was very sure that this wasn't what it was supposed to feel like.
Only because he didn't want to lose his means of quick transport and a quick mind, a willing mind to find a way for him to get his magic back, only because he had been scared for a moment when he had seen her sitting for forlornly at the table in Eleanor's house and only because he had been brewing a potion for her in his head, didn't mean that he was in love with her. He was quite sure that that would have called for butterflies in his stomach. Or at least something like butterflies in his stomach.
He let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling in his bathroom, the water beating down at him, the soap and bottle of shampoo for a moment forgotten. Maybe, he did care for her. It was, he had learned, okay to care for people.
These days, people you cared for weren't killed five minutes later after admitting you cared for them. These days, people you cared for weren't a liability or a danger. These days, it was okay to care. At least about Eleanor and Draco and Eleanor. Why shouldn't it be okay to care for Granger? She had helped him when he had needed help and thinking back, she had been the one, hadn't she, to camp outside his door to tell him that he should not hire a curse-breaker because he'd die. Hadn't she been the one to come to this house a few days to see if he was doing alright? To tell him that they were working on getting that verdict changed? Hadn't she been a major factor in the fact that he had a letter from the Ministry of Magic, guaranteeing him the free use of his magic and a wand and the return to the Wizarding World should they succeed in restoring his magic?
Well — actually, he wasn't sure who the driving force behind that could have been. Her or Weasley or Potter or even Malfoy. He didn't know. But she, and that was for sure...erm, well, yes.
Damnit, she seemed to care. She seemed to deeply care about him. Why else would she just not go to a lecture to apparate him to Malfoy Manor (Weasley, the idiot had let that one slip)? Why else would she spent her entire free time trying to find a way for him to get his magic back? And why hadn't she even considered whether she wanted to apparate him? Why had she emailed back almost immediately?
Severus Snape's logical mind was putting together a sort of chain of circumstantial evidence.
She had been the first to see him there in Spinner's End.
She had been the first to inform him that he was easily in mortal danger should he try and break the curse too heavy handedly.
She had come to see him more often than anyone else.
She had sought out Draco to work on the counter-curse and the chant.
She had twice gone to Malfoy Manor even if she was deadly afraid.
She had gone without food for him and for his...
It was too much. It was simply too much and Severus had to focus hard not to sink to his knees. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody ever had done so much for him.
Most of it was misdirected. Most of it had been wrong. But nobody, apart from Eleanor, had done so much for him, for his own sake. She had no agenda — she couldn't have. He doubted she would get a medal or a nice sum of money if she got him back into the Wizarding World. Probably quite on the contrary. She did this — all of this — for him.
The thought was too much and blindly, Severus grabbed for the shampoo bottle and viciously, washed his hair.
.
Determined, Hermione pulled the book she had — accidentally — forgot to leave at Mrs Callaghan's house from her pocket and spelled it back to normal size.
There it was. There was her key to getting rid of her crush. She had never been as certain as then. She would find the way to chant in that book. Hadn't Snape been adamant on finding this book and this book only? Hadn't he been so sure that the answer was there? Hadn't he said that the Greek was the answer?
Careful that her fingers were clean from the greasy chicken wings she had just devoured, she opened Thucydides's Chants. She needed an answer.
That concerned, worried look on his face had almost been too much to bear. For a brief second, hope had flared up again, it had almost been a blazing fire when he had berated Ron and Harry like some first years but when he hadn't even nodded back at her nod good bye, the fire of hope had died again. Completely. An entire fire extinguisher emptied over a little, tiny tea light. Something like that anyway.
And the sooner she could forget that idiotic crush, the sooner she could move on. It was so stupid and it hurt and she couldn't breathe properly when she thought about the way he had looked at her. The way his hands...and how he had carried her and his eyes and his eyebrows and his posture...
"Stop it, Granger," she told herself firmly. "You're not fifteen anymore."
She nodded to herself in reply. On the other hand...it wasn't like it had been with Ron. With Ron it had been long-winded and steadily rising and more and more butterflies in her stomach when she had seen him. Complete agony when he had been with Lavender and almost bliss when he hadn't been with her anymore. Then a sort of numbness, anger when he had taken off in the Forest of Dean, then utter relief when she had felt that he had in the end, understood her and her cause with the elves and then...well, the end of the shortest relationship in history was actually history.
With Victor — that had been admiration on his part and a sort of overwhelmed feeling inside of her that a bloke who had myriads of girls following him could be possibly interested in her. No butterflies.
With Snape? No butterflies. Just the inexplicable urge to be near and the constant wish to touch him and the overwhelming need to see him happy and content.
"You're sick," she told herself, just before she tried to clear her head and tried to delve into the book. Tried to focus. Tried to do the sensible thing.
.
Thucydides's Chants was missing. It was missing. She must have...oh, the little...chit. She must have either forgot to enlarge it with the rest, to put it on the table as she had done with the others, or, more likely, she had done it on purpose. Wanted to do this on her own, have a look at it on her own first.
He growled. Of course she would. But why? Why? Why? Did she care that much about him?
He scratched his head as he thumbed through an utterly useless book. Why would she? He had never been nice to her. He had almost strangled her the time she had come to see him to tell him about the deadly consequences. And he had wanted to strangle her too.
But Granger was...insufferable. And too curious for her own good. And too good for her own good. And...
He leant back in his chair and stared into the fire. Life with Granger would be — interesting. Life with someone who obviously seemed to care would be — a novelty. And with her firm thighs...he should just stop.
Angering her, annoying her, belittling her, that was what he did best, that was what he could do. Being nice had only led to a loony episode and an apparition which had almost gone wrong due to her low blood sugar. Angering her and annoying her had led them to where they were now. Working on the counter-curse together. That was what he wanted. That was what she wanted. Stilling her thirst for knowledge.
Ah — that was it.
She didn't care about him. She wanted to find the counter-curse for the sake of finding the counter-curse. Of course. She wasn't interested in him, only in the knowledge. There was nothing in it for her — but she wasn't a Slytherin. She did this only for the knowledge. To know that she knew more than anyone else, before anyone else did.
His face slowly fell into a familiar smirk.
If that was the case, his way to proceed was simple. Rain on her bloody parade. Piss on it. Do what he did best. Anger people. Tell them they were worthless.
Of course she wasn't interested in him or in his being a wizard. She wanted to know and she wanted to be the first to know and she wanted to tell the world that she knew.
He stood up and with steady hands, he found his phone and the little phonebook which he thought would come in handy one day and with almost steady fingers, he punched Granger's number into his phone.
.
It was utterly ridiculous. She knew it was. She was bloody chanting at a mirror. She was chanting at herself and it couldn't even be described as a chant really. It sounded more like screeching to her ears. Painful screeches. Lavender-Brown-Won-Won-screeches.
Still, if they did the trick, she wouldn't complain.
And they were most certainly described to sound like this — and she had practised. With the words that Draco and her had figured out would work. In front of her mirror. Her hair too wild, her mascara which she had applied that morning because, well, she had met Snape, rubbed off her eyelashes and surrounding her eyes and her lips blood-red from biting on them the entire time. The chant went well, the wording was perfect but then there had been this little, tiny sentence at the end of Thucydides's Chants.
No chant will ever work if the intent is absent.
Intent. Well, what was her intent? What did she want with it?
Wasn't the little romantic, long-thought dead, girl in herself wishing for the fact that Snape recognised her brilliance and would be, immediately so grateful that he couldn't help but fall into her open arms? Of course the logical part of her brain could still tell her that she only wanted to get away from him, that she wanted to make sure she didn't feel compelled to make him...whole again? To see him smile and laugh and wave his wand and cut an impressive figure with his leather jacket and a wand? Show him how to heal the wounds inflicted by Sectumsepra? Asking question after question about potions and mathematical equations used in potions?
She looked utterly ridiculous practising the chant.
Intent. Well, she wanted him to have his magic back. Why she wanted that, didn't truly matter — did it?
Hermione took a deep breath before she could start another round of her chanted screeching when she heard her mobile phone ringing. Faintly. Somewhere in her room and she considered for a moment to let it ring but her curiosity won out and she found it in her bed, next to her pillow (why was it there? She didn't know) and miraculously, it still rang.
"Hello?"
"Nice of you to deem to answer your phone," a silken, soft, steely voice came from the other end, almost undiluted from the bad connection.
"Snape?"
"Did you take the book?" the voice — well, Snape — replied instead.
"What book?" she asked innocently, staring guiltily at the book she had not enlarged for him but had taken instead. He couldn't try it anyway and he couldn't be the one who would be screeching, well, chanting, at him. She would be. Or Draco.
"You know what book I'm talking about, Granger. Do you have it or is it still at the Manor?"
"It's not at the Manor," she said, blushing.
She heard a sigh, then a groan. "So?"
"So what?" she asked and when there was another groan from the other side — a groan which, by the way, caused her skin to break out in goose pimples (not that she would admit to that. Ever), she chuckled and tried to sound honest with her chuckle. "Ah, you mean is there something of significance in the book?"
"Yes," he seemed to ground out between clenched teeth.
She smirked. He was impatient. And he wanted to know, so instead of answering straight away, she begun her chant. Screech. Without the words. She didn't want to trigger anything. It was more like humming to the screech. The other end of the line was very — silent. No complaining about her screech (and she tried to listen closely), no berating comment, not even a breath could be heard. Nothing. Not even the bad connection made itself known. Nothing. Just silent.
