It's All Fun and Games Until...

Disclaimer: I own nothing; I make nothing from this.

A/N - Thanks for all the lovely reviews! Glad you like it! I was waiting for the idea elves and fairies to visit for a possible continuation of "Cloak and Dagger" when this plot got dropped in my head.

Chapter 6: A Pretty Problem

Hermione was prompt, as was to be expected of her. All the way to the potions classroom, she had worked on creating plausible excuses for her behaviour. She had managed to construct an elaborate spider web of lies – in one instance (which she had rejected as being too farfetched) she had tried to work spies into her excuse. She had also thought of blaming a lust potion which must have been surreptitiously slipped into her pumpkin juice. Then, she recalled that Snape would have ways to test for such things. Out of desperation, she clung to her last lie – that her behaviour was due to a sudden fit of nymphomania. Surely he wouldn’t be able to detect that, would he? The next thought that consumed her, rightly or not, was whether or not the detention would mar her permanent record. She lived in horror of the thought that her school record would have a mark on it. After all, it was permanent - that mark could follow her around for life. A detention in her last week of school – she’d have nightmares for years!

She marched down the hall and took a deep breath. After a moment, she tapped on the door. The door swung open beneath her touch. She stepped in and the door closed behind her with a slam. Snape was nowhere to be seen so she wandered to her desk and sat down. He emerged from the storage cupboard, his hands so full of tiny bottles that if another bottle were added to the pile he’d need to learn to juggle. His robes billowed around him menacingly. He strode into the center of the class and lined the bottles on a desk precisely. With a sigh of relief, Hermione noted that they were merely bottles of herbs and bubutuber pus.

“You will polish and relabel these bottles, Miss Granger.” He glared at her “Then, you will store them in the cupboard in alphabetical order and categorized according to the geographic region in which they are found.”

She noted that he was actively avoiding his own desk. She had heard the Muggle phrase “the elephant in the room” in conversation before without really thinking about what it meant. Now she knew. Snape’s desk was the elephant in the room. They both knew it was there - all too well – but they were both avoiding it for reasons of their own.

For the first hour, she dutifully wiped the bottles and labeled them with her small, precise lettering, in complete silence. From time to time, completely inappropriate ideas popped into her head – mostly involving Snape and his desk. Try as she might to rid those thoughts from her mind, they were incredibly persistent. To distract herself, she hummed a soft, sad tune. Snape’s head snapped up and he looked at her from the desk where he was sitting and marking papers. It was strange to see Snape sitting at a small desk. He normally sat at the carved ebony desk that was as imposing as a throne. Behind the other desk, he looked huge – like a child in clothes that were too small.

“Stop that infernal racket.” He growled.

“I’m sorry, Sir. It’s something to help pass the time.” She focused on the bottle in her hand. Then, she looked up.
“Aren’t you going to ask about it?” She asked, her voice soft.

“About what, Miss Granger?” He did not look up from the parchment he was marking. His brow was furrowed with concentration. From the amount of red ink on the parchment, it must have been a particularly appalling essay.

“About why I’m here. About why I was acting like I did?” He looked up and slowly returned his quill to its ink pot.

“Oh tell me a tale Scherazade….” He murmured. He leaned back in his chair, shifted the parchment to the next desk, then propped his feet on the desk. He balanced on the back legs of the chair, looking sullen.

“Well, speak up.” He snapped, his jet eyes glittering.

“To start, I’d like to apologize. My behaviour today was completely unacceptable. My only excuse is that I was under duress.”

“Really? What sort of duress? Not a lust potion surely or your skin would be flushed. From what I saw, it certainly didn’t look flushed this afternoon.” He leered at her “Your pupils would be contracted as well, and they weren’t. So, what sort of duress were you under then?” He smirked.

Tell him you’re a nymphomaniac; tell him your hormones were imbalanced; tell him….
Her brain urged. However, when she opened her mouth, it was not the elaborate tissue of lies that came out but the truth instead.
“I was dared to act as I did.” Snape leaned forward, his boots hitting the floor with a resounding bang.

“A dare?” He arched an eyebrow. “You certainly take dares seriously, Miss Granger. You risked getting a detention, possibly an expulsion, for a dare.” Her face coloured – she hadn’t thought of expulsion. Surely Snape couldn’t expel her himself?

“Well, you see…” She started “I had an incentive. The person who dared me took something I value quite highly and changed it, harmed it, and would only change it back if and when I did the dare.”

“And so you went through with the dare, no matter how ill advised it was, to restore whatever it was to you.”

“Yes, Sir.” She bowed her head, looked at her fingers which she was twisting together on the desk in front of her nervously. Snape rose to his feet and crouched beside the desk where she sat.

“Thank you for telling me the truth, Miss Granger. It was a rather foolish thing to do but apparently you felt that you had no choice in the matter.”
“That’s right, Sir.” She stared down at her hand still, examining the lines of her palm with intense scrutiny. Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder and Snape was toying with a strand of her hair.

“You know, I should almost thank this…. acquaintance –surely such a nasty person couldn’t be your friend?” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. She shook her head and mouthed “Why?”

“Because your dare made today’s class the most interesting one I’ve taught for years – if not ever. I’ve certainly never thought of my desk in that way. You have a brilliant imagination.” She coloured and looked away, seeking a focal point well away from her professor’s face which was so near. She shook her head slightly and tried to push the memory of what she had said in class from her mind.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that damned desk ever since.” He laughed. The sound was so soft and unexpected that it caught her off guard. She jumped a little and turned towards the sound. She found her lips brushing against his.