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The Quickening	By : Desert_Sea Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 32428 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other characters/things/places created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money from my fan-fiction.

Chapter List
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Chapter 2
Severus Snape paced his chambers like a caged lion. He was losing control . . . had lost control. It wasn’t like him. Not like the Snape of old who could quell any dissention with a withering sneer. Was he losing his touch? Turning soft in his old age? All he knew was that he needed to up his game. Take back control.
What had he told that arrogant weasel, Potter? “Discipline your mind?” Well, he certainly wasn’t a paragon of success in that department. Not lately anyway. He wanted to blame the quickening, but the girl’s defiant expression kept swimming back into view. He couldn’t remember a look like that from anyone in recent times and certainly not a student. As a Death Eater and Spy, he could rely upon his mere presence sending people into fearful convulsions.
If that bitch thought she had his measure, she was sorely mistaken. He would not be humiliated by the likes of her again.
***
Hermione was in no hurry to attend her detention in the dungeons. In the past she would have arrived at least fifteen minutes early, hoping to appease the professor with her punctuality. But she had grown up. She was seventeen years old and no longer cared to please her professors in the way that she had strived to as a child. She had a mind of her own and was carving out a destiny that extended well beyond her N.E.W.T.s, which she was confident she would pass with ease.
She wasn’t sure where her current attitude had sprung from. Certainly the war had forced her to grow up. Survival had made her determined to create a future of her choosing. A future, she hoped, without fear. But Professor Snape seemed determined to ensure that, even with the war won, they should continue with an exhausting hyper-vigilance, a habit of perpetual anxiety. And for what reason? To massage his inordinately large ego. Well if he thought she was going to help him with that he was sorely mistaken.
She couldn’t help her body’s practised response to his intimidating demeanour and degrading remarks – in full flight the ferocity of the powerful wizard was on a par with Voldemort. But she would be damned if she would let her mind cave in to his demands to be kowtowed to without question. His actions in the classroom today were unfair. It was an impossible test and he had cheated them out of the allocated time. This was not the first time that he had set them up to fail so that he could berate and belittle them. But it was the first time she had spoken up.
It was a shame because she would have enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the vagaries of potion-making with him as an adult, as a mentor. She’d even started keeping a journal of original thoughts and theories about potion brewing. But he had become so caustic in the past months that she didn’t intend to spend an extra second with him if it could be helped. The latest detention would be hell. But she’d been to hell in the past. And come through intact. Well, almost.
***
“Enter.”
The instruction came only after Hermione had knocked and waited three times. It was now two minutes past seven. Clearly, his intention was to be adversarial. She took a deep breath and entered the classroom.
Professor Snape was at his desk, marking assignments with a flourish of his long, black quill. He didn’t look up even as she entered, trailing his efficient script across the scratchy parchments, as she slowly walked over and stood hovering only a few feet from his desk. Even as he ignored her, he oozed tension. She could feel it emanating from him like vapour from ice. Finally, she cleared her throat. He continued to write, only looking up as she was about to do it again.
“Miss Granger,” he said smoothly, somehow managing to look as if he were surprised to see her. She only just stopped herself from sighing out loud. The mind games had begun.
His dark eyes were cold and his stare unwavering. The cracks she had witnessed earlier in the day had been smoothed over. This was not just Snape back in control, it was a resolute, reinforced, Snape. She shivered involuntarily and glimpsed the almost imperceptible rise of the corner of his mouth. It was a smirk at her expense, he was revelling in his power over her.
“I believe you know why you are here,” he said, leaning back and crossing his arms.
“Actually . . .” Hermione began.
“So I won’t waste any more time dwelling on your behaviour,” he interrupted. “The recipe and parchments are over there.” He nodded at the desk facing his own. “You will complete twenty five copies of the recipe and you will not speak.”
Hermione gave a slow blink of barely supressed fury but raised her chin and walked as nonchalantly as she could to the desk, shooting him a look of disgust before plonking down in the seat and snatching up the quill that had been placed there.
It was all Professor Snape could do to stop himself from laughing out loud. She certainly had changed from the desperate swot he remembered. Where had this wild cat come from? It amused him and, if he were perfectly honest, excited him. He continued to mark his assignments but had deliberately positioned her desk so that he could watch her surreptitiously. He wanted to know what he was up against. What he needed to decipher, dissect, investigate, probe. His lips twitched again and he felt a shot of warm saliva on his tongue. His body obviously found her simmering fury quite delectable. His mind wasn’t so sure.
He was watching her. He was pretending not to, but she could feel the weight of his gaze upon her like a thin cloak of scorn, rendering her movements self-consciously sluggish. Bastard. Why couldn’t he just let her take her punishment in peace? His long nimble fingers manipulated his quill with comparative dexterity, he flicked through parchments and traced across his grade ledger with the fluidity of a pianist, a virtuoso, he had mastered the art of student anguish. She could just imagine the spiteful remarks he was carving across their hard work. What a Prick.
She knew he was watching her. He could tell. The tension in her jawline and the overzealous grip on her quill were dead give-aways. The pulse that shuddered rhythmically at her pale throat was well over one hundred beats per minute. She wasn’t resting. That, he was sure of. She reminded him of a snake. It was probably a very Slytherin analogy but nonetheless, she was a coiled snake, one that you would see on a rock as a child and ask the innocent question “is it sleeping?” She was tuned in to his every movement.
Without warning, he stood up. His reflexes had always been lightning fast and he used them now to break the stalemate, to force her to show her hand. And she did. Spectacularly. She convulsed with shock and knocked over the bottle of ink. The black spread like pestilence over at least half of her completed recipe parchments.
“Fuck,” she hissed between clenched teeth.
He swiftly gathered up the assignments on his desk as if he hadn’t noticed.
“I expect you to atone for your carelessness tomorrow evening,” his low baritone voice slipped into both ears and she flicked her head irritably, trying to dislodge it.
Without looking at her, he disappeared behind a swish of black fabric and was gone.
***
“Are you okay, Mione?” Ginny Weasley leapt from the armchair she had curled into, waiting for her best friend’s return. The Gryffindor common room was busy and Hermione couldn’t help looking sullen as groups of her peers chattered and laughed after a relaxing evening of exploding snap or Wizard’s chess.
“Fine.” Hermione huffed, raising a weary, ink-stained hand.
“He said something awful to you again didn’t he?” Ginny looked at her earnestly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him these days. It’s not like he was ever nice but lately, well, it’s like he’s possessed or something.”
Hermione shook her head. “I wish he had said something. He was basically silent the whole time.”
“Well that’s okay isn’t it?” Ginny sat back down, pulling Hermione onto the armchair beside her. “I’d be more than happy if he just shut up and left me alone.”
“He was quiet but he hardly left me alone.”
Ginny frowned. “He didn’t . . . touch you did he?” she said, haltingly.
Hermione almost laughed. “No, of course not. It’s just that I could feel him, watching me. It was like his eyes were . . . slithering across my skin. I’m not joking Gin.” She could see her friend’s dubious expression. “It was palpable.”
Ginny glanced around. “I thought you were looking rather flushed. Is it just the rosy afterglow?”
Hermione gave her a murderous glare. “Don’t even joke about it Gin. I don’t want that man under my skin, on my skin or even looking at my skin.”
“Well, you’ve got three more days of detention,” Ginny said matter-of-factly. “What are you going to do? Wrap yourself in a sheet with just your eyes peeking out?”
Hermione looked as if she was seriously considering the suggestion.
Ginny sighed. “Give him some of his own medicine, Mione,” she said. “You’ve been dishing it out left, right and centre since the end of the war. Ron and Harry are walking on eggshells around you. Most of the other guys around here are afraid that you will take them down with one blow from your tongue.”
Hermione smirked. “Interesting turn of phrase.”
Ginny giggled, realising what she had said. “Well I think you could do it either way. And most would be happy for you to.”
Hermione slapped her on the knee, hard enough for Ginny to yelp and promise to change the topic of conversation. They spent the rest of the evening making extravagant plans for the holidays. Even if they never happened, it was a wonderful escape from the drudgery of the school that they felt they were rapidly out-growing.
In bed later that evening, Hermione thought about what Ginny had said. She was right, Hermione really didn’t put up with crap from anyone any more. Why should she? She had survived. Many hadn’t. Life was too short to waste on dim-witted, frivolous conversation with dull people. She sought out cognitive challenges and the exciting thrust and parry of intellectual sparring but unfortunately most of these exchanges were pretty one-sided – often with the authors of books she found in the Library, devouring each in quick, insatiable succession. It’s not like she thought she was superior to everyone else, it’s just that she no longer had the tolerance. Life was a terminal disease, that’s what her father used to say, too precious to waste a moment.
She sighed as she thought about wasted moments. Detention. What a bloody waste of time that was. But she was determined that she wouldn’t let herself succumb to the discomfort that Professor Snape seemed intent on putting her through. She would treat him with the contempt that he deserved. He might be able to force her into performing inane tasks but she would choose the mindset under which they were executed.
She might even muster up the enthusiasm to consider it an opportunity. Snape did, after all, have one of the wizarding world’s largest private collections of rare ingredients. She might even manufacture a reason to look through his stores. There was one particular ingredient that she was desperate to acquire. It was the last one required to produce a potion that she had already made a hundred times – but only in her mind. Theoretically, it should work. As far as she knew, nothing like it had ever been done before. All she needed was that one last ingredient.
The phrase ‘like vapour from ice’ was borrowed from the writing of Teddy Radiator whom I greatly admire.
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The Quickening