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Unintentional Inveiglement	By : onecelestialbeing Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 130141 -:- Recommendations : 8 -:- Currently Reading : 30
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter and it's characters and making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 25
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A/N: It's ghosttown in AFF or I'm boring you all with the lack of smut in the past few updates. I'm sorry but for those still enjoying this little tale, thank you!

Hermione didn't speak on the entire walk back to Gryffindor tower. She noticed that Ron kept giving her sidelong glances as he stuffed his face, but he was smart enough to know that when Hermione didn't want to be bothered, it was best to leave her alone.

The few remaining students in the common room were just on their way to bed when Ron and Hermione stepped through the portrait hole. Offering a bruque 'goodnight' to Ron, Hermione stomped her way up to the girls' dormitory.

Everyone was either changed for bed or in the middle of doing so. Roughly changing out of her jumper and jeans, Hermione used to the same roughness to pull her nightgown on, before practically ripping the sheets back from her mattress, climbing in bed, and tugging them up to her head. She almost forgot to pull the bed curtains shut but couldn't be bothered to manually do so, and used her wand instead.

To hell with Snape! Hermione thought bitterly, brushing away angry tears that she just noticed were falling down her face.

She knew the man had a temper, and it was glaringly obvious that he had deep-seated issues, but Hermione truly did not know what she had done to warrant his wrath, and felt completely undeserving of it. And that snide little comment, 'Perhaps you'll have better luck next time'; what the hell was that supposed to me? Did he expect for her to up and forget about everything that had transpired between them and move onto the next wizard, just like that?

It was at that point that Hermione realised she felt more for Snape that she had been willing to admit to. Maybe it was because on some level the man was somewhat detached from everyone else that he tended to walk around with a chip on his shoulder. But whenever they were alone, Snape was a little less guarded; he was less Professor Snape and more Severus, and decidedly more human.

When Hermione first laid eyes on Severus Snape, she immediately recongised him a teacher that demanded nothing but the best from his pupils. She sought to gain his acceptance and glean any and everything possible from his classes. Of course, he hadn't made her task an easy one, not with the way he became short with her on a consistent basis.

But as Hermione got older and began understanding human nature and interpersonal relationships, it became apparent to her that Snape wasn't like everyone else. She didn't think he was the sort that had an upbringing similar to hers. Then again, what did she know? It wasn't as if he ever told her anything about his past. They spent months together in Grimmauld Place, and finally a somewhat uninterrupted week at Hogwarts, and still what Hermione knew personally about Snape could fill a thimble.

That idea, combined with the startling notion that she had been sleeping with a man who was essentially a stranger, made Hermione numb with confliction emotions.

Snape hadn't made her feel like a stranger whenever they spent time together; in actuality, Hermione felt as if she was seeing a side of him that was rarely shown to others. It almost seemed as if he cared about her, although he never came outright and said so (not that she expected him to). But for him to throw the fact that she had given herself to him in her face was embarrassing and hurtful, not to mention that she now felt dirty.

Perhaps you'll have better luck next time.

Those seven words kept circling round in Hermione's head. She wanted to scream that there would be no next time; she couldn't get her virginity back. She couldn't take back the kisses and caresses or the comfortably silent moments shared in the dark of his room. She gave herself to Severus purely because she wanted to, and now Hermione wondered if it had been a mistake.

Remembering when Snape had asked her early on how did she know that he wouldn't take what he wanted and cast her aside afterwards, Hermione told herself that he might as well have, because maybe then she wouldn't feel as bad. No, she would have still felt badly, but at least she could chalk up the entire experience to youthful foolishness on her part, and on Snape's, that he really was the selfish, bitter bastard that everyone else made him out to be.

But deep down inside, Hermione knew that Snape wasn't selfish, nor was he inherently bad.

Something else suddenly flitted across her mind; Hermione thought about a next door neighbour her mum had growing up. The neighbour's name was Mr. Henry, although all of the local kids, as well as some adults, called him 'Mean Man Henry'.

Mr. Henry had been the sort to chase children and puppies away from his grass, curse out the postman for smiling at him, and berate anyone that carried threats of bringing some sort of pleasantry in his direction. As a result, everyone either gave the dour elderly man wide berth when they came across him, else they generally avoided him.

One day Mrs. Granger's mum sent her round to bring a parcel that had been accidentally delivered to their house. Hermione laughed when her mum told her how she'd whined and begged to not be sent to old Mr. Henry's house, but she wasn't having it.

Hermione's mum finally went next door, and as expected the man cut her down with his watery eyes, but he allowed her to bring the parcel in and set it on a side table. Laughing into her pillow as Hermione remembered her mum telling her that she and Mr. Henry then stood for a solid minute in his vestibule, glaring at one another without saying a word. The elderly man finally broke the tension by digging into his pocket and pulling out a wallet, which her mum described as 'chewed up, beaten up, and in dire need of being thrown into the nearest rubbish bin'.

Mr. Henry had then pulled a tenner out of his pocket and handed it to the girl, with firm directions to buy the kitten she had been hiding from her parents some proper tins of cat food, and give it a decent meal instead of the scraps that she had taken to smuggling out.

The then eight-year-old Mrs. Granger had found and adopted a straggly kitten which she named Zoe. Her dad was allergic to cats and her mum disliked them, and they forbade their daughter to bring it into the house. Zoe, however, was smart enough to return to their garden each day where she would be greeted by the young girl, who would give her affectionate caresses and a plate of whatever bits of food had been scrounged up and snuck out.

The young Mrs. Granger hadn't know that Mr. Henry even noticed her playing with the small white kitten, and her mouth fell open when he handed her the money.

After that, she began to see the usually surly man in a different light. He still growled and sniped; that hadn't been likely to change, but every other week he would show face whenever his young neighbor could be seen in her front yard, and he slipped her a five quid or so to buy more cat food.

Zoe could be seen going between both residences after that. Whenever Mrs. Granger had gone on holiday with her parents, Mr. Henry grunted at her (a grunt usually preceded whenever he was about to say something nice) but offered to feed her pet while they were gone. He ended up keeping Zoe in his house, and the girl had been free to visit her pet whenever she liked. Months later, the kitten had been run over by passing lorry, and the drivers never stopped the vehicle. Mrs. Granger had grown quite attached to the feline and was completely beside herself, and thought nothing of picking up the kitten's limp, bloodied form and clutching it to her chest, not knowing what else to do.

Mr. Henry had limped out of the house on his cane to roughly wipe the crying girl's tears away, which only grew lustier when he sadly told her that her kitten couldn't be saved. After telling the young girl that her cat wasn't suffering anymore, he steered her into his back garden where he dug a small hole for her to bury Zoe in. The elderly man claimed that he had a dodgy hip and fussed that he couldn't dig any faster, but he had been very gentle when he removed Zoe from her arms, cleaning off the remaining blood with a towel before setting her in the ground.

Mrs. Granger never forgot the unconventional kindness of that man. Years after he passed, she found out why the man had always seemed so angry with the world. When she was still a girl, she remembered Mr. Henry opening a drawer to pull out an envelope, as he was giving her what he'd called 'cat maintenance'. There had been a pile of old rusty medals shoved carelessly to one side of the drawer, and when she attempted to look closely at them, Mr. Henry noticed her prying eyes and quickly shoved the drawer shut. Mrs. Granger thought that strange, but it wasn't until she was older that she strongly suspected the man to be a war veteran.

In her youth, she would have believed that he should be proud for fighting for his country. It wasn't until her rose-coloured glasses came off that she understood Mr. Henry had most likely been forced to do things he didn't want, many of which she didn't want to think about. She understood why he hid those medals.

She also found out that Mr. Henry had married his childhood sweetheart, only for her to run off with his so-called best friend. Mr. Henry had been left to raise their only child, a daughter, who had been killed by a drunk driver at the age of thirteen. There was no justice served as the driver nor the car had ever been found.

Mr. Henry had been a blue-collar worker but was a pinchfist in every sense of the word. He had a bit of money saved, but after falling sick with terminal illness, his only family, a brother-in-law, came around, supposedly to help him. Turns out the family member had been robbing him blind, and by the time Mr. Henry discovered the stolen funds, the brother-in-law had upped and left town. By some miracle, he managed to retrieve most of his stolen funds after the brother-in-law had been arrested.

The entire time, Mr. Henry had been battling cancer, which Mrs. Granger never knew. She had noticed that he often became tired, to which he would allow her to make their tea in his little kitchen. Her mum never allowed her in the kitchen, but Mr. Henry was eager to have a little bit of help and showed her how to do everything. She never minded and the elderly man would wave her on while he caught his breath in his favourite armchair. There had also been many days while she had been out playing with Zoe, that she overheard the older man muttering that he wished God would just take him, and if it weren't a sin that he would have taken matters into his own hands long time ago.

At the time she hadn't understood a word he said in the figurative sense. Concepts of depression and suicidal thoughts tended to be treated as something that only happened to a certain type of person, and were rarely spoken about in her home.

Mrs. Granger had been sixteen when Mr. Henry passed, and she was the only one in the neighbourhood that was upset about the man's death. She cried even harder when she found out that the man had let a stipulation in his will that left all of his money to her. Mr. Henry had donated his house to his church to do with what they saw fit, but had been adamant that all of his money as well as the profit from any estate sale should go to the young miss from next door.

Mrs. Granger often spoke of the elderly man to her daughter, stating that the money she received from him had helped pay her tuition for Uni as well as a few semesters at dental school, which had been where she met her husband. She joked that it was Mr. Henry's doing that caused her to meet her life partner.

Hermione's mum instilled in her that she should always try to look beneath the front that most people put on, explaining that it was typically the ones who were more bitter that usually had a sadder story to tell, only it was most likely untold. Mr. Henry's story had been untold, and unsurprisingly so, as there had been no one to listen. The only reason her mum found out about his life was because of a letter that had been left with his solicitor, some of its contents also explaining why he had left his belongings to Mrs. Granger, then Miss Smith. Mr. Henry explained that while she was a silly little girl, she somehow still had the ability to look beyond the forefront to see what truly lie beneath instead of being dismissive the way other people were.

In many ways, whenever Hermione thought about old Mr. Henry, she thought about the Potions master, now Defence teacher. Severus Snape didn't have a chip on his shoulder; he had a boulder. While he was snarky and surly and downright cruel at times, Hermione sometimes felt how she imagine her mother did when Mr. Henry found her sneaking out the house to feed her kitten.

Snape was the one that neatly pulled her out of the pink-painted clutches of Dolores Umbridge. Snape had been the one to get her and her friends out of hot water countless times before. Ron nor Harry ever told him thank you, and Hermione flushed when she realised she was guilty of never doing so as well.

Now that she had time to sit back and think about why Snape had gotten cross with her, things began clicking into place and Hermione felt like a fool.

How many times had she been the one to tell Harry and Ron that they were mad for suggesting that Snape was trying to kill them, or that he was the cause of any little thing that had gone wrong? One of the boys could have a nosebleed, and even if Snape was nowhere in the vicinity, they would try and find a way to cast blame in his direction.

No wonder the professor became so tetchy. It wasn't as if Hermione had been asking Snape if he took part in the attack upon the Weasleys; that would have been impossible as she had been lying beneath him when it occurred. She knew Snape was skilled, but didn't think he was good enough to sneak out of bed without her noticing, staying away for a few hours, and then sneaking back.

But surely he thought that she had been asking if he was involved in said attack. Going by his reaction, Snape knew just as much as she did, which equated to nothing. Then his comment about everyone always pointing the finger in his direction...did that mean that he overhead Ron and Harry's less than savoury comments when it involved the professor? Or perhaps he was catching heat from some other person.

Persons, most likely, Hermione amended.

At least half the adults she came in contact with never had good things to say whenever it came to Professor Snape. Of course, they wouldn't come outright and say something rude, but Hermione knew enough to tell when a certain look or tone in someone's voice meant that they were holding back instead of saying how they truly felt.

Sirius Black let anyone who would listen know that loathed Snape, but Hermione suspected that had more to do with some adolescent falling out instead of the professor's character. And while she loved Harry, Hermione had to admit that he was just as bad as his godfather had been when it came to his Snape-bashing tirades.

Now Hermione was feeling guilty for being unable to keep her mouth shut, believing that she was no better than the other people that badmouthed the professor on a consistent basis.

Rolling over in bed, Hermione heaved a sigh, wondering the best to way to go about correcting her slip of tongue. Still, she continued berating herself until she fell asleep.

Hermione Jean Granger, for someone that's supposedly intelligent, you really are an idiot.

While Hermione was fighting back tears by burying her face into a pillow, Snape had been pacing the length of his study the way a trapped, feral lion paced about in its cage.

He hadn't meant to take out his frustration on Hermione. He hadn't missed the hurt and anger in her brown eyes when he cornered her off before wishing her luck with another wizard, only to turn around and leave her.

At first, Snape thought Hermione had gotten under his skin, purely stemming out of a baser urge. And while she was still somewhat of an irritant at times, he slowly found out that he even found that bit about her endearing.

He knew Hermione didn't understand why he reacted the way he did to her question. He suspected that even she didn't realise how much she personally affected him. To tell her so meant that he would have to open himself in a way that he never had before. He hadn't even done that with...her. But one thing Snape learned in life was that if he became attached to anyone he would become hurt, be it directly or indirectly, or they would let him down. His life had been one succession of let-downs after the next, and eventually he arrived at a point where he numbed himself to the pain.

Everyone had their vices, but Snape refused to succumb to finding comfort in the bottom of a bottle. He remembered with perfect clarity the damage his alcoholic father instilled upon both wife and child, not to mention the many health problems that later arose in Tobias Snape's life. There were always drugs or potions available in the Muggle and wizarding world, but to use any of them would be suicidal. Snape needed a clear mind to carry on day in and out, and going around in a fog would do him a disservice.

Still, there had been many times he had been tempted to mix a bit of this and that in a flask, tossing it back and passing out wherever he happened to land in his rooms. He had all the necessary ingredients on hand, although he knew that the headmaster wouldn't be pleased to know that he was using said supplies for a much baser purpose. Snape was pretty sure there was some clause in the Hogwarts employee's handbook about not getting strung out while on school property. And no doubt the headmaster would have something to say about the teachers getting stoned whilst being off school property, as the elderly wizard was as meddling as they came.

But intoxication, be it from brew or bud, was temporary, and once one came back to Earth, they still had to deal with whatever it was that tormented them.

There was always gambling, but Snape had never been a gambling man. How could he, having grown up in a house where having money for the next meal was never a sure thing? Being raised in a home where money, be it pounds or Galleons were scant, Snape always made his money last and was a miser in every sense of the word. Books were the only thing he cared about, and besides dipping into his purse for food, he hoarded every Knut, Sickle and Galleon that came his way.

Smoking supposedly calmed the nerves, and where he was from, cigarettes were nearly akin to drinking a glass of water. It seemed that nearly everyone in his neighbourhood forever had a fag precariously balanced in the corner of their lips. Growing up he hated the smell of cigarettes. Cigarettes went hand in hand with his father's drunken fits, and somewhere in between Tobias yelling at his wife and passing out on the front room sofa, he would always snatch his son up by the scruff of his neck, lowering his face to his and blowing smoke into the terrified face of a young Severus. Long after his father was dead, Snape associated the smell of cigarettes with Tobias, and physically grew ill at the scent.

Perhaps it was innate that he should smoke later on in life. To his surprise, Snape could vaguely pinpoint the time he picked up the habit as to somewhere not long after Lily's death. Dumbledore had made him take a brief hiatus, deeming him unable to teach due to his unsteady mental state. For an entire week, Snape confined himself to Spinner's End, walking around in a fog, barely focusing on even the most mundane of tasks, such as eating and breathing. Only when it felt as if a hole was rotting through his empty stomach did he go out to purchase items to stock a paltry larder.

Snape had been standing in front of a shop for one reason or another, when a man stood less than a foot away from him. He vaguely remembered being annoyed as the older man clearly knew nothing about personal space, and was doubly annoyed when he lit up a cigarette right next to him.

Perhaps it was a rare fit of kindness, or perhaps Snape had been scowling too hard, for the bristly-bearded man, wearing oil-smudged overalls and boots like looked as if they had seen better days, held out to him a dirty fingerprint encrusted carton of cigarettes. Snape had hesitated at first, wondering why the man was offering to share his cigarettes, until another emphatic shaking of the box in his direction made him reach out and slowly pluck one from the aluminum wrapping.

The man then let Snape use his matches with directions to "Smoke up; maybe it'll get rid of that long puss of yours," in a rough, thick Irish accent, before letting loose a hacking cough in between puffs of his own cigarette and walking away.

With all the second-hand smoke he had endured growing up, Snape was surprised to nearly choke to death with his first pull. By the second and third, he became used to the burn in his chest, and slowly began appreciating the sharp, musty scent of the tobacco.

That habit lasted all of ten years or so, right before Harry Potter came to Hogwarts, and Snape cursed himself for quitting, even though sometimes he felt that he needed more than just cigarettes to deal with the wayward boy and his posse.

Besides cigarettes, there had been one other vice that sometimes warranted the use of currency. That vice was cheap, or free, unattached sex.

Whenever stressors of his double life, as well as his past, had been too much to bear, Snape visited the darkest parts of Knockturn Alley. For a fee he could bury himself into a witch without having to offer anything in return except for a few Galleons. He fucked and took with no questions asked, and took his leave when he was done. Those witches were discreet, and he never had to worry about his business reaching the ears of anyone that hadn't been within the four walls where said event took place, which was another reason he always gave a few extra Galleons.

There had been a few times where the witches he slept with weren't whores, although they were still coarse in nature as well as scruples. They never saw the Potion master's true identity, as each time he had been under disguise, keeping his face behind a veil of well-placed magic. Snape never slept with the same woman twice and each of them had been one-offs. By the time they all became roused enough to raise their rouge-smeared and raccoon-eyed faces off the pillow to ask him questions, Snape had been long gone.

Typically each of his transitory partners of the flesh had been older women, most of whom were too jaded to bother with looking into his face. They merely rucked their robes up to their waist and allowed the odd, quiet wizard to carry on, after which out came an outstretched palm. No words were exchanged, except perhaps to ask what sort of sexual favour was desired for the evening. There was no touching, except for perhaps his fingertips holding onto the woman's waist which was necessary to propel himself forward, unless there was a wall or piece of furniture to brace his hands on.

The women never touched him either, except perhaps to push at him if he accidentally trod on their foot or hair or caused them discomfort by getting too carried away. Snape didn't give a damn if he did something that was a bother; the only thing he wanted to do was get himself off and go about his business.

But Hermione Granger. Sweet, innocent Hermione Granger in his bed had been the other side of the coin. Where those other women never touched him, Hermione seemed unable to keep her hands off him. Where he had been pushed away after going a bit weak-kneed from release, Hermione reveled in his weight upon her body, and wrapped her arms around him to keep him closer. When they were done, she curled up next to him, running her soft little fingertips along his body; if she was extra tired, then she tended to fall asleep sprawled out unceremoniously, her limbs half-draped on the mattress, and half-draped on Snape.

Snape never made a noise with those other women, not even when he reached completion. But with Hermione, his groans seemed to well up from the pit of his stomach, and he had been unable to rein in his exultation.

True, Hermione was inexperienced when she first came to his bed, but it had been evident that she knew what she wanted, and who she wanted it from. The why and the who continued to stymie him to no end.

Snape knew that he should have told her no at first. Scratch that—he did tell her no, repeatedly. For starters, Hermione Granger was no doxy or the sort of witch that a wizard kept around for the occasional tumble. But ever since she first came to his room, he'd been drawn to her like a moth to a flame, and found her advances becoming increasingly difficult to resist.

Snape told himself that it was pointless to become involved with the young witch. He had seen many girls just like her drifting in and out the doors of his classroom for the past fifteen or so years. Witches like her completed school with top marks, and secured well paying jobs afterwards. If they chose to stay home, it usually was to care for a litter of screaming, whining, demanding children.

Of course, the children would come well after all proprieties had been observed. First was the proper courtship followed by a long engagement, after which the girl's tearfully happy mother (and a coerced father as no one was good enough for his little girl) were only too happy to send out fancy wedding invitations for the blessed event. Said daughters were 'good girls' and would only allow their fiancé the liberty of having a few kisses, maybe a few shy caresses shared in a brief but heated moment. Even before engagement and marriage, the girls might have dated a bit, but they saved themselves for the wedding night.

Snape had taken one look at Granger and sized her up the moment she stepped foot into Hogwarts. It was plain to see that she came from a middle-class family, no doubt from a loving home with parents that doted upon their daughter. She had been wide-eyed and full of awe, and eager to please. Hermione Granger was, without a doubt, one of the 'good girls', even if she had chosen to become entangled with the likes of him.

While Snape knew that he would most likely burn in the lowest pits of hell for even tainting her purity with the dark cloud that his life seemed to consist of since birth, he had been unable to help himself. Snape was no fool; he knew that no decent witch worth her salt would ever lay eyes upon him, lest it was to scorn him. That much had been made evident from his short-lived friendship with Lily Evans.

Even though Lily had deemed their friendship irreparable, despite the many times that Snape apologised for insulting her, it took years for him to finally accept that despite his one-sided love for her, no matter what he said or did, it would have never been returned. Witches like Lily Evans didn't date or marry or even socialise with wizards like Severus Snape that came from a broken home with two mad parents who left their child to practically raise himself. Hell, people like her would never set foot in the poor part of town he came from. They carried on with the shinier wizards that came from a good home. Those wizards always seemed to gleam; their clothing was always current and draped perfectly over their athletic builds; their hair was always clean and groomed within an inch of its life, and wherever they went, they were loved by the masses. Even if they weren't purebloods, their accepted status in society was enough to open doors for them.

Meanwhile, others untouchables like Severus Snape had to survive off the dregs of whatever life offered.

As an adolescent, Snape could have washed his hair; he could have put on robes or even Muggle clothing that properly fit his always too-thin frame. Yet he still would have seemed like an imposter. Even if he attempted to possess the skill of eloquent speech, he knew that all anyone would hear was a strong Northern accent, after which they would surely focus the remained of their attention on his too-big nose, gaunt features, and sallow skin, and shabby clothing.

Snape couldn't help how he looked; it wasn't as if he had a sit down with whatever Creator there was before being sent into the world. His features alone were enough to put people off, even without him opening his mouth. He looked shifty, sneaky. His eyes were like two dark bottomless pits in Hades and it made him look deceitful.

He had heard it all, and while it annoyed him, Snape became accustomed to rarely being given the benefit of the doubt and quickly learned to not expect it.

But, Hermione. Brilliant, wild-haired, loud-mouthed, highly opinionated, and understatedly beautiful Hermione Granger somehow managed to look past each of his foibles, even the ones he had no control over, and she accepted him.

When Snape realised that he didn't have to hide himself from the petite witch, it shocked him to the core. His entire life had been composed of nothing but hiding and secrecy and disguises, and he wondered if there would ever be a time that he could figure out who the hell he would be had he not been living by way of cloak-and-dagger.

Despite his life being shrouded in secrecy, Hermione chose to deal with Severus Snape. Repeatedly she had been met with difficulty at first, yet she continued to try and insinuate herself with him.

Snape knew that he first accepted her affections more so out of greed, but the circumstances had seemed nearly too good to be true. Yes, Hermione was technically of age, and if anything were to happen between then, he should have waited until she was out of school and no longer his pupil.

But propriety be damned; he wanted her, the consequences be damned.

Snape told himself that he didn't know if he would survive long enough to wait until Hermione was out of school. Deep down inside, he knew that he would have to answer for every wrong thing he had ever done, even those performed under coercion. But even if the Fates were kind to him and he did manage to survive whatever trouble was sure to blow his way, Snape knew that if he sent Hermione away one too many times, that any remaining opportunities with her would have been shot to hell. Even if he waited until she was no longer his pupil, Snape knew that Hermione would have grown older, wiser, and would never cast a second look in his direction.

He knew that assessment reached new heights of bastardtry and cynicism, but it wasn't cynical if it were true. Hermione would up and marry that freckled-faced idiot she and Potter went around with, or some other wizard would undoubtedly come beating down her door, eager to wed and bed the famous female member of the Golden Trio. Snape played out the scenario a thousand times in his head, and felt peevish when he acknowledged the portion of his mind that wished for the opposite to happen.

If by some chance they all survived whatever was to come, and if Hermione still chose to have him, Snape vowed that he would do his best to keep her happy. It wasn't as if he knew how to go about doing so; typically people were only as good as the examples they were brought up to live by. Snape knew nothing of tenderness or affection; the only constant things he knew had been abuse and neglect, both of which hardly constituted the grounds for a normal, healthy relationship with another person.

The fact that the young witch still hadn't run off screaming into the night said something. What that something was, Snape still didn't know, a notion that did not sit well with him. But he had to admit that Hermione seemed to be reasonably satisfied whenever they spent time together. So while envisioning her in his immediate future might have been a shot in the dark, but it was a risk he was willing to make.

Only his temper and his mouth had once again managed to hurt someone that he revered above all others.

Had he been able to speak to anyone else about his situation, Snape knew that would first be called a paedophile for consorting with a girl so young. Secondly, they would say he was mad for holding a young girl to such standards, not to mention letting her unknowingly shift and twist his thoughts.

Weary of pacing, Snape walked over to his armchair and fell down into it. He was so deep in his introspection that the cold hearth never occurred to him, and he continued to sit there, ruminating in the chilly, dark room.

It was sardonically funny how one fuck up could swiftly put things in perspective.

When Snape lashed out and called Lily a Mudblood out of a fit of shame and anger, she neatly retaliated by shaming him further. When Snape lashed out at Hermione and indirectly hinted that she was a fool for sleeping with him, she yelled right back, but the tears in her eyes hadn't gone unnoticed by him. He wondered if Hermione even knew she was crying, as she hadn't attempted to wipe away the single fallen tear that left a trail on her cheek.

Snape became defensive when he got the idea that Hermione was trying to imply that he was untrustworthy. He knew that he shouldn't have lashed out at her, considering that most people believed with the utmost conviction that Severus Snape was a snake that should never be trusted under any circumstances. He was used to it and they could all sod off for all he cared.

Hermione was the one person that he felt was a little softened to his unspoken and unshared plight, and it was a severe blow to his china-fragile ego to think that she thought ill of him. The only other person that claimed that trust him was Dumbledore, yet the wizard had an uncanny habit of speaking out of both sides of his mile-long beard-hidden mouth.

Now that he had time to calm his nerves, Snape realised that Hermione never had any ulterior motive for asking if he knew about the attack at the Burrow. He should have known better; the workings of his mind were much more intricate than the young witch's, no matter how much she thought she knew. And besides, the damnably honourable Gryffindor didn't have a cunning bone in her body if it erred to the side of maliciousness. She had probably just wanted to gain further information about her friends, nothing more, and he managed to twist her innocent question into something sordid, afterwards using something which should have been sacred between them to insult her.

Teacher or no teacher, it would have served him right had Hermione slapped him clear across the face.

His words had been cutting and unkind, to put it mildly. Snape overheard Draco calling Hermione a Mudblood to her face, and even then she kept her composure. Of course, he was sure that she shed her tears in private.

Snape told her... he didn't want to recall his words for even now they shamed him, but he regretted his actions. He didn't know if apologising would instantaneously fix things between them, but he was willing to eat not a slice but an entire humble pie, two if it meant that Hermione would forgive him.

To hell with the sex. Although he was unable to get enough of her tempting body, it had never had been solely about sex with the young witch. Reflecting back upon the time when he was seventeen years old, Snape remembered when he would have shagged just about anything. Being Head of House for so many years proved that budding young adults with racing hormones, boy or girl, were no different. Though bookish Hermione might have been, it seemed that she kept that side of her hidden. Snape had been the same way, his head always buried in a book, yet it had done nothing to impede his own sexual appetite and an awareness for the opposite sex. Although at that time had he attempted to chat up a girl, he would have been laughed right out of town. It would be a hard pill to swallow if Hermione were to say that she no longer wanted to continue with their intimate relationship, but if she were to accept his apology, he would try to be satisfied.

You sound like a right optimistic bastard. Next thing, McGonagall will be trying to recruit you for her House.

Roughly running his fingers through his head and hanging his head in defeat, Snape knew that he was deluding himself by thinking that things would carry on without a hitch between him and Hermione. It was pointless to even dally with the idea; there were too many odds outweighing their favour.

Of course, now he would be staring her in the face until the end of term. Hermione could be subtle when she wanted to, although Snape had the ability to detect even the smallest flicker of emotion that came over her. No doubt she would look at him with eyes heavy with accusation. He could handle it; after all, Snape had handled much worse.

Hermione's mood hadn't improved much by the following morning, nor as the week dragged on. Herbology, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, as well as the hoard of other classes on her schedule weren't nearly enough to distract her from the argument with Snape weighing heavily on her mind, even if she was ready to drop each evening from her extensive course load. To make matters worse, she had been unable to corner Snape off to ask what the hell his problem was.

Despite sitting in gloomily lit classroom a few days a week, she and the professor might as well have been standing on two different continents with the way he barely looked over in her direction. More than once Hermione had raised her hand in Defence class and each time Snape pointedly ignored her. This was lost on the rest of the class, although some most likely suspected that the cantankerous professor had had enough of their resident know-it-all's voice.

However, she refused to be swayed and had raised her hand a fifth time when Snape asked the class about conjuring a Patronus Charm, holding it up so long that she nearly resembled a lamp-wielding statue. Only when Snape brushed past her desk, still without acknowledging her hand that was clearly in his eyeshot, did Ron turn around and frown slightly at Hermione.

"What's he on about?" Ron muttered out the corner of his mouth.

Snape had already turned back to walk towards the front of the class. "Five points from Gryffindor for talking out of term," he said without turning his head. "Will there be anything else, Mr. Weasley? Or perhaps you would like to take a feather out of Miss Granger's cap and finish teaching this class?"

Hostility rolled off Ron in waves but he was prudent enough to not reply with a smart answer. Harry was shooting the professor a look of pure loathing, and Hermione sat quietly, not acknowledging any of it.

She couldn't believe that Snape insulted her without looking at her. She almost preferred the professor glaring at her with obvious displeasure the way he had done countless times over the years. But as things stood, it was pointless to try and make Snape look at her; it was pointless to try and make Snape do anything he didn't want to. It was a bit like trying to put a leash on a dragon and attempting to lead the way.

Up and down the aisles of the candlelight classroom Snape continued to walk, idly droning on repelling Dementors. The entire class was subdued for the remainder, and barely made a peep when Snape assigned two rolls of parchment on defending oneself from Dementors.

Hermione was out of the classroom, walking between Ron and Harry when she stopped short. A first-year had been walking closely behind the three and hadn't noticed when Hermione stopped, and the boy smacked right into her back.

"Sorry!" he squeaked.

"That's all right," Hermione soothed, urging him to carry on. "I forgot my book, it's back in the classroom," she informed her friends.

"Are you mad? Snape is going to skin you alive if you go back in there," Harry told her.

"Yeah," Ron agreed, "he seemed more put out than usual, and that's saying something. He wouldn't even look at you."

Hermione huffed at this comment. "I don't care; I need my book. I'll see you two at lunch," she said before going off in the other direction. Harry and Ron shook their heads as they waved her off.

The corridor was almost empty now, and Hermione slowly made her way back to the Defence classroom. Cautiously peeking her head around the corner, she saw that Snape was sitting down at his desk, head bent low over the pile of homework they all handed in at the start of class.

Hermione hurried down to the desk she had been sitting at not five minutes ago. Her Confronting the Faceless textbook was right on top where she had purposely left it. Snape didn't look up, and Hermione took her place in the seat, folding both hands and placing them on top of her book. Postured rigidly, she almost looked as if she had been forced to sit in such an uncomfortable position.

"There's no reason for to you linger about. You deliberately left your book here; now take it and go," Snape said coldly, dipping a quill into a pot of ink and scratching its tip across the unrolled parchment beneath his hand.

The professor looked stern and unruffled, his face its usual rigid mask. Hermione was unnerved by his unnaturally calm attitude, and set her jaw firmly before speaking.

"So is this the way it's going to be from now on? Snide remarks and pretending that I'm not even here?"

Snape didn't answer. He continued writing and his quill scratching again the parchment sounded extra loud in the stark silence of the dungeon classroom.

"Professor?"

After another few minutes, Snape placed his quill upright in the pot of ink. Planting both hands palm down and rising from his desk, he slowly advanced on Hermione and lowered his head until their faces were only an inch apart.

"Subtlety, Miss Granger. Subtlety," Snape told her in a voice of silky steel before pulling himself upright and quickly disappearing through the office door in the back of the classroom.
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Unintentional Inveiglement