Aletheia

Their first evening together was going surprisingly well for the first few minutes.

Hermione had knocked on the classroom door, come in when bidden, settled at a table in the middle of the room, and had gotten to work without a word from either of them. Snape had not looked up from his personal workstation tucked off to the side of his desk, instead focusing on reading what appeared to be handwritten notes.

After what Hermione assumed was about ten minutes of silent work and half a roll of parchment of scribbles, she heard what sounded like a faint pecking at the door. Before she could mention it, Snape flicked his hand at the door as he stirred his cauldron, and in flew a pigmy owl with a tiny parchment clasped in its claws.

It went straight to Snape, who mumbled a stasis charm on his potion and took the note. He stroked the bird with the knuckle of his index finger as he read.

Without a word, Snape strode from the room, his previously neutral aura turning positively thunderous as he approached the door and walked through it, slamming it closed behind him.

Hermione gulped. She had no idea what the note said, but she was not envious of whomever would be on the receiving end of that wrath.

Another twenty or so minutes passed. Hermione continued her reading, pausing to listen for approaching footsteps whenever she remembered to; her current book about the goblin rebellions was terribly fascinating, and she had a bad habit of tuning everything else out as she worked.

Finally, several pairs of footsteps approached the door, which banged open unceremoniously. Hermione barely stopped herself from turning to see who was entering with Snape.

She needn’t wait long to find out.

“Potter, front and center. Mr Malfoy, the table beside him.”

“But, Professor—”

“Next to him?”

The indignant voices of her two classmates rang out simultaneously, and Hermione felt her heart sink. The trio passed her with Snape in the front and Harry in the back. Her friend did a double take, turning to stare at Hermione for a moment.

“Research?” he mouthed, irritated, for that had been Hermione’s excuse for leaving her friends straight after dinner an hour ago.

It had been true enough that she hadn’t gotten zapped—she was, in fact, doing research; however, it was mandatory and in the dungeons instead of the library, like normal.

Hermione narrowed her eyes in response, disappointed enough in her friend that she didn’t care that she had misled him. Although she knew none of the facts, she had a strong hunch that one of them had been caught drawing his wand on the other—for the sixth time since term started two months ago.

“Miss Granger, if you have anything less than an entire parchment of notes filled, you will be here before dinner tomorrow re-organizing the stockroom,” Snape snapped as he returned to his workstation and Harry sat down at the assigned table with a huff.

“I do, sir, and part of a second parchment filled.” Hermione replied swiftly, glad she had continued her work while he was gone. Why he was suddenly so sour with her after being so indifferent, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t stupid enough to ask.

“As for you two imbeciles, I request that you keep your bickering to a minimum, since Miss Granger and I are working.”

“Then why did you make us sit so close together?” Harry fumed.

“Because, Potter, you have both shown a repeated inability to control yourselves around each other, so I would rather you bicker quietly as neighbors than shout across the empty room at each other,” Snape replied, tone clipped but harsh.

With how the school year had been going, it was probably not a bad idea. This year more than ever, they had been at each other constantly. In fact, this morning at breakfast was one of the few meals they’d had without Harry making a comment about something Malfoy had said or done. Privately, Hermione was beginning to think that his obsession with Malfoy was due to something more than simply disliking the Slytherin—not that Harry would ever admit it.

“I can control myself just fine. He’s the one who can’t control himself,” Harry remarked bitterly.

“Yes, because I’m the one who came up to you this evening, shouting about how the Quidditch Pitch was reserved for my team, and how dare you even try to—” 

“I’ve had Wednesday nights reserved for the past month, and you know it!” Harry all but shouted, face going red.

“Well, there was no one on the pitch, so Slytherin decided to take advantage,” Malfoy retorted. “It’s not my fault you’re so stupid that you forgot to remind your team to bring their brooms to dinner and they had to go all the way up to Gryffindor Tower for them.”

“Of course, because Draco Malfoy is so perfect, he can never do anything wrong!”

Hermione groaned to herself. The next hour was going to be torture if they continued like this—and they’d never run out of things to bicker about before, so they weren’t going to run out now.

She looked up to Snape, who seemed completely oblivious to their fighting. Instead, he was carefully and methodically chopping something beside his cauldron with precise, practiced motions. She didn’t often get a chance to watch him brew—it had been a long time since her class had needed a demonstration, and those had been rare anyway—and it was almost mesmerizing to watch the way he moved about the workstation like a well-choreographed dance.

As if sensing her stare, Snape looked up at her. “Can I be of assistance, Miss Granger, or are you merely wasting time?”

The boys, who had moved on to arguing about their Quidditch abilities, fell blessedly silent. She had a feeling that they had forgotten they were not alone; it seemed to happen every time they fought.

“Sorry, Professor,” Hermione muttered, hastily looking back down to her book.

“Was there something particularly fascinating about the way I was adding diced bat spleen to my cauldron?”

“No,” Hermione replied, and to her mortification, she felt a zap go up both arms—not painful, but strong enough that Snape surely felt it. “I mean… you’re just talented.”

“It’s almost as if I have taught the art of potion making every day for the past decade,” Snape replied, deadpan.

Malfoy laughed.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry snapped, ever prepared to start a new fight with him.

“Make me, Potter.”

Hermione almost laughed aloud as she imagined one rather brazen way that Harry could shut Malfoy up.

“Is something funny, Miss Granger? Do you find your friend’s antagonization amusing?”

Hermione wasn’t sure how to answer, since technically, the answer to the first question was yes and the second was no, and she doubted he wanted more than a single-word answer. So she stayed silent.

“Answer me, Miss Granger.”

He seemed intent on humiliating her. “You keep asking me questions I have no answers for,” Hermione admitted. “At least not ones I want to share truthfully.”

At this, Harry turned around in his seat, brow furrowed in confusion. “He didn’t give you a Verituserum, did he, Hermione?”

“Yes, Potter, I gave your friend a highly illegal substance so I could question her about her goblin-related reading materials,” Snape snapped at him, the idiot at the end of his sentence all but stated.

Zap. Hermione shot Snape a look, who turned back to his potion with a muttered, “teenagers.”

***

After what felt like hours, Hermione finally packed her books and parchment up, leading the way out of the classroom before Snape could stop her. Harry was close behind.

“What did you do that made him so irritated with me?” Hermione asked as soon as they were out of earshot. “He hadn’t said a word to me before you two idiots came in.”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, from what I can tell, it’s kind of your fault Snape ended up with us.”

“My fault?” Hermione screeched. “Please, Harry, tell me how it’s my fault that you can’t leave Malfoy alone.”

Harry winced. “No, that part isn’t your fault—but when McGonagall went to assign us detentions, she apparently noticed on some sort of teacher notice that Snape was already proctoring your nightly detention for the next two weeks, which was what McGonagall was going to give us, so she asked if Snape would mind taking us on, too.”

“I am not in detention!” Hermione stated hotly. “It’s research.” Alright, forced research, but that should hardly count as detention.

On the bright side, though, at least there were records of where she was if Snape were to determine the easiest way to break this bond would be to kill the other party and get it over with. The thought was laughable, but with how angry Snape was about it yesterday, she wouldn’t have been surprised if it had crossed his mind.

“Well, why are you doing research with Snape for two weeks straight? Surely you’re not that worried about your N.E.W.T.s already, are you?”

Hermione wasn’t sure how to answer. The truth wasn’t really hers alone to tell, and besides, it was rather embarrassing, so she decided to tell a modified version of it. “I found a potion in a book with no mentioned antidote, so Snape is helping me try to find one.”

A lie by omission, perhaps, but luckily that didn’t seem to trigger a reaction.

For now, an unhelpful part of her brain added, and even as they reached Gryffindor Tower and Hermione prepared for bed, the potential implications of a strengthening bond between her and her professor remained a nagging worry.