Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Not mine. I just borrowed them for a while. I promise to put them back when I'm done. Oh, nope, no money either...just for fun.

Many thanks to my betas, EverMystique and DuchessOfArcadia, for helping me clean up my many mistakes, and to Pookah for the shoulder and friendly advice. I really appreciate it more than you can possibly know.

Hermione sat at the desk revising her Charms essay. Well, she had decided to revise all her essays. She was trying to write her opinions on each principle she quoted on her Charms essay and summarize why she had thought the principles and theories that she had quoted were related. It was harder than she thought, substantiating her information with well-argued theories and extrapolations. Summaries were the easiest; she only had to write her thoughts as if she were talking to Severus. Nevertheless, she was determined to write the best essay she could. The problem was she was running out of parchment, so she was using the front and back of them for her drafts and notes.

She looked up at the timer on the worktable. According to the hands, Severus would show up in three hours and fifteen minutes, if not before. It never ceased to amaze her, the amount of time he spent with her. He really took taking care of her seriously and tried to make sure she had enough reading material to help pass the time between his visits.

She turned back to her essay and wondered what the guys were up to, then giggled to herself. Dumbledore said that this is 1976, and Professor Snape said he was sixteen when I...now, so Harry and Ron aren't even born yet. She knew Ron's birthday and tried to calculate which of his brothers might be in this timeline. Percy...maybe. He's four years older and his birthday is in August so... he'd be an infant. Which means Bill and Charlie are little kids. Charlie is three or four years older than Percy. She scratched out the equations. She was wasting time with this and then giggled at that thought. All I have is time...extra time at that!

Still, she missed her friends. She wondered what Harry would think about this Severus Snape and rolled her eyes. He'd probably run off to go meet his parents the first opportunity he had and ignore Severus completely. She laughed at the scenario that developed in her mind.

She brushed her fringe off her forehead and read the last few paragraphs again. She'd finished her Potions essay yesterday, and Severus had nodded in approval when he'd checked it for her. However, he had reviewed her Charms essay this morning and had told her that her second draft was better, but fragmented, and needed refining.

Hermione read the paragraph aloud, again, and erased what she'd rewritten, starting over. Her opinions sounded simplistic and childish to her ears. "I'm not inept at writing coherent thoughts!" she growled at herself. She read the essay again from the beginning. She was still all over the place because she had too many quotes.

She picked up her quill again. At this rate, her essay was going to have an extra eleven inches. Maybe if I just eliminate something. Sighing, she crossed out a quote, then circled it. No, Craigmyle's theory substantiates Bethencort's principle of concurring reactions, and Newton's Third Law of Motion validates Pierce Henderson's theory of frictional tension of the applied magical forces... Now she only had to explain why in her own words. She drew an arrow to the margin and started to explain why. She then circled Craigmyle's name and drew another arrow to the margin and summarized her reason for comparing his theory to Bethencort's and Tredwell's principles, and then Henderson's theory.

She circled Newton's name, drew an arrow down to the bottom of the parchment and started writing. By the time she was done, she'd filled up the bottom margin and most of the next margin. Dropping her quill, she read over what she'd written. Not bad, sloppy but rational, I hope. She went through and corrected her amendments.

She reached for a fresh sheet of parchment and realized that she didn't have any to spare. She still had five more essays to complete; well, three of those were ones she wanted to rewrite. She tried looking on the backs of the discarded parchments again for one with a blank side that was long enough, finally finding one that she could use. She picked up her wand, aimed it at the used sheet, and tried to erase the ink from it, huffing in exasperation when all she did was smear the ink all over the page.

"Problem, little Gryffindor?"

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin as she whirled around in her chair to face him. "When did you...? How long have you been standing there?"

Severus laughed. "I just walked in to check my potion. What's the problem?"

She showed him her parchment. "I tried to erase the ink, but it's set already and... I'm running out of parchment."

"Give me a minute." Severus walked over to the potion, stirred it the required times, waited and stirred it again. When he was done, he turned around to face her. "Don't you ever reuse your parchment?"

"Sometimes, not all the time... but I don't have my solvent," she said, looking remorsefully at the parchment in her hands, blushing. "It's in my trunk, which I can't get to, of course."

"What, you don't have any in that 'great bag of holding' of yours?" he chided her, smirking as he indicated her bag with a lift of his chin.

"No, I don't generally carry it unless I know I'll be in the library. I don't have breaks between classes on Thursdays," she admitted. "Isn't there an easier way?"

He smiled as he leaned against the worktable. "I use a solvent or the Solvent Charm and siphon off the ink, then dry the parchment." He stood up. "I'll get mine," he offered, turning to go.

"Or you can teach me the Solvent Charm," she said hopefully, turning in her seat as he walked by.

He turned and crossed his arms. "No, that's a fifth-year charm. Your Charms professor will show you the spell in the first week."

"You've shown me other fifth-year charms before," she said, smiling at him sweetly.

"And I explained why that is a bad idea," he said, not at all phased by her tactic of persuasion.

She dropped the smile and inhaled, preparing to try reasoning with him.

"You are going to insist until I say yes, aren't you?" he asked when she opened her mouth to try asking again.

She went ahead and voiced what she thought was a very logical solution. "We could try a small bit of parchment to see if I can do the charm, and if you think I'm capable of it, you can watch me as I try a larger piece. If I look like I'm straining, I'll stop and not bug you about it again."

Severus stood there, staring at her. Slowly his mouth stretched into a smile before he started laughing, and his arms dropped to his sides. "Blimey, girl, you are a clever bird. Well stated, but I still have to say no. I don't have time right now."

Hermione set her parchment down. "Okay. But that's not a no." Her smile fell as she looked at the parchment in her hand. "But I don't have any more to spare. I've used up all my spare rolls."

He looked at the stack of sheets and dropped his head, obscuring his face from view. "You know how to siphon up water, right?" he asked, coming around to stand beside her and drew his wand, "and the Latin word for ink?"

"Of course," she said, smirking at him, "it's atramentum."

He leaned around her. "Okay, I'll liquefy the ink...you siphon it off," he suggested, aiming his wand at her parchment. "Ready?"

Together they cleaned off several pages of parchment. "Thank you," she said when he pocketed his wand.

"You're welcome," he said, then pointed his finger at her. "Now no practicing the spell until I get back, okay? Promise me. I will let you try it, but I want to be here to make sure you don't overdo it."

"I promise."

He stared at her a moment, nodded and turned to leave. "I'll be back in two hours. If you want, we can brew something together."

Hermione quickly glanced at the timer on the worktable and smiled. It indicated that the potion didn't need attending to for three hours. "Sure," she said as she turned back to face him, smiling.

He shook his head at the expected exuberance. "So be good, my little Gryffindor."

"I promise."

Severus returned from the library carrying as many books as Madam Pince would allow him to check out. His library card indicated that he'd nearly tripled the number of books he'd borrowed this month in only a week, although the librarian hadn't commented about it so far. However, Rowe had commented on the number of books he'd been checking out lately, so Severus had used the Extension Charm on his own bag. Besides, a simple Relevo Charm to lighten the weight of the bag made it easy enough to carry.

Hermione was still revising her Charms essay when he entered. "How many do you have left?"

"Pardon?" she asked as she dipped her quill into her inkwell.

"Your essays, how many do you have left?" he asked slower as he set his bag on the table.

She looked up at him. "Besides this one...five, and I have my Astronomy chart to complete."

He nodded and smiled. "All right, get your wand..." he started to say as she smirked and picked it up from beside her book. "Okay... As you know, dye-based inks are generally much stronger than pigment-based inks because of the density of the pigments, so they are harder to remove. You seem to prefer the dye-based ink. That takes combining two spells at the same time, to liquefy the ink, then separate it from the parchment. Liquare makes the ink fluid, changes it back into a liquid, and Dilutum separates the ink off the surface of the parchment, acting as the solvent does, only better."

"Liquare dilutum," she repeated the Latin, careful to annunciate the words as he had.

"Exactly," he said with a nod, impressed, as usual, at how quickly she caught on. "Now the wand movement is tricky because Liquare is a smooth sweep and has to encompass the entire sheet of the parchment while Dilutum is a strong, straight, upsweep. So, you have to move the wand up the sheet with a deliberate stroke while covering the parchment side to side without waving your wand tip too much. And intent is imperative, you have to concentrate on both objectives simultaneously, which isn't too hard, but requires a certain amount of concentration."

Hermione nodded, having listened to him raptly, and her lips moved slightly as if repeating what he'd said to set it firmly in her mind.

He smirked at the determination in her expression.

She looked up at him, nodded, and said, "Got it."

"So watch my wand carefully. I'll do one parchment front and back so you can see the movement." He picked a long roll of parchment and secured the corners with a simple sticking charm. "Liquare dilutum," he said clearly and slowly as he moved his wand, adding a quick flick of his wrist at the end as he added, "Scourgify." He scowled at the result. "Not as clean as I usually do, probably because I wasn't deliberate and determined enough. Watch again." He repeated the spells, faster this time, and smiled smugly at the result. He released the parchment and repeated the demonstration, once again having to repeat the spells to remove the residual residue left from doing the spells slowly.

Hermione tried the wand movement.

"You're flourishing your wand too much. You need to keep your movement straighter, with more angling of the wand, rather than sweeping about so much. Try again." She needed to be corrected several times before Severus thought she had it right.

"Now you try it." He leafed through her used sheets and picked up a smaller, well-used one. "Try this one first."

Her first time, she only made the ink smear, the second cleared the center but made the words on the edges bleed, and the third left a few faint splotches. The forth, left the parchment clean but not as fresh as when Severus had done the spell. "Not bad, you're getting it."

She huffed in disappointment as she turned the parchment over.

He smirked at her dissatisfaction. "What, you thought you'd get it in one go?"

"No," she said, pursing her lips and getting that cute determined look in her eyes. He watched her as she tried the other side, cleaning the parchment sufficiently but not completely in two tries. The third time it was clean. She sighed in disappointment.

"Look at me," Severus demanded softly, lifting her chin. He didn't see any stress in her eyes; the soft brown orbs were steady and her irises were not dilated. "Okay, good. Hold out your hands." She silently complied as he stepped back to watch her outstretched hands. They were steady, the left dropping slightly, but when he corrected it, she was able to hold them out level and steady.

"No signs of fatigue then?"

"Don't get cheeky." He dropped her hands. "No, you're fine. Try another one."

Hermione picked up the top roll and secured it, having it clean in only two tries and the backside clean in one. Severus only nodded and sat down in the chair. He Summoned an apple from her food stash on the benches. "So now you got that one down, what would you like to do next?"

She'd smiled at the compliment and then grinned hopefully at the offer. "Sneak me into the library?"

"No," he said, biting into the apple. "I meant spells."

"I just thought..."

"How about making your bag lighter to carry?" he suggested. He smirked at her raised eyebrows. "Relevo Charm...learned it in fourth-year, I think. Relevo, to lift or to lighten, as you know. The incantation is Relevare, and saccus to specify that you're making your bag lighter." It took all of two tries to show her how to do that one, and the same for Ingraveso, which was to make things heavy or burdensome.

The next morning after showing her how to use the spells on larger objects like the table and chair, he checked her again for signs of fatigue, relieved when she looked fine.

"You know it might be possible that I'm simply able to do spells above my year," she said when he told her she could drop her hands.

"I'm beginning to believe you, but I'm not going to show you anything above a fifth-year level," he stated, shaking his head when she looked up at him hopefully, "and not today. I have potions to brew."

Hermione bit her lip and tilted her head. "May I help?"

"I'm counting on it," he said, checking his stores and selecting ingredients. "I need to make Calming Draught, Pimple Unction, Blood-Replenishing Potion... but I don't have enough hellebore or... leeches, so we'll brew some Calming Draught and Strengthening Solution now, Pimple Unction if we have time, and do Blood-Replenishing tomorrow."

He chuckled softly to himself as Hermione smiled, saying "Okay," while she grabbed two cauldrons and carried them to the worktable.

Severus scratched out a line of his Arithmancy equations and started over. She loved watching him work out something complicated.

"Hermione, you're staring at me," he said without even looking up at her.

She smirked as he placed an arm across the top of his parchment and leaned over it as he wrote. She struggled to suppress a chuckle. "I'm not going to copy you. My equations are not as complicated as yours are."

Severus tipped his head up and glared at her, making her giggle. She covered her mouth to hide her smile as the crease between his brows deepened, making him resemble his older self when truly annoyed. "Sorry, just, I have all my work caught up, and the potion hasn't finished simmering, and well, and..."

His scowl darkened, and he raised his hand up to rest his cheek against his fist. "You're bored, already?" He dipped his quill in his ink and dabbed off the excess on the tip on the bottle. "You haven't really been here that long."

"I've been here over a week," she said, chastising herself at the whine in her voice. If she knew anything about him, it was that whining wouldn't get her anywhere with him. At least she knew his older self hated whining. "I'm sorry. I know I have no one to blame but myself for even being in this situation, but sitting in this room all the time... Yes, I'm bored."

"Last time you were here two weeks and you were fine," he said pointedly.

Hermione held up the large book, so as not to show any sign of petulance. "Thirteen days actually, but who's counting," she said, turning the page even though she hadn't finished reading it. She pursed her lips at the stupidity of her actions and turned the page back.

He glanced up at her and set down his book. "Apparently you were." He looked annoyed.

True, he'd slipped her from the room to shower several times now, and he'd taken the risk to take her outside last time she'd come back, but that had been a series of complications. He had been separated from her on the way back to the castle, and they'd had a series of close calls that could have been disastrous if she'd been discovered.

He sighed and picked up his book again. "It's not a good idea to wander the castle. What if you are seen? How am I to explain you to anyone? I'm sure you'd love being interrogated by Professor Dumbledore or McGonagall. Hermione, I'm the only one who knows you are here and the only one who knows who you are."

"I know that," she said, setting the book on the basic principle theory of the underlying relationships involved in cross species Transfiguration down on the desk. She wasn't concentrating anyway and had read the same line twice. "We could slip outside again. Isn't it still snowing?"

His head shot up and the same line formed between his brows. "Yes, but how did you know?" he asked and scowled. "Did you leave the room?"

She shook her head and dropped her hands. "Only with you...to shower. Besides, when you came in here yesterday, your boots were soaked, your hair and the shoulders of your robes were wet and there were a few flakes of snow!"

"So?" he asked, regarding her suspiciously.

Maybe she could get him to take her outside again, if she reasoned with him. "Snow. Cold. I'd be bundled up. We could go out for an hour..."

"It's too risky," he said, leaning his head on his fist again.

Hermione sighed, realizing that he was not going to relent. She picked up her book and pulled it closer to rest it on the edge of the desk, tilted towards her. She had to backtrack a few paragraphs to understand what she was reading.

Time seemed to stretch on.

Severus checked the gently simmering potions with a satisfied grin before joining Hermione at the table to revise. She was truly an exceptional lab partner and could, in fact, follow his every direction flawlessly. She'd placed sliced apples on a plate between them and was leaning her head against one hand while munching on a slice as she read her book. He picked up The Practical Theory of the Resonance of Amalgamation Charms, crossed his left ankle to rest on his right knee and opened the book to his marker.

Hermione glanced up as she reached for another slice of apple and asked, "What are you doing this afternoon?"

"My house is playing against Hufflepuff today, so I have to go to the Quidditch game," he stated nonchalantly, checking his timer. It was half an hour to lunch yet. He wished that he could take Hermione with him to the pitch so he could have someone to talk to in the stands besides Mulciber.

"Oh, that would be so much fun to watch," she said, her smile hopeful. "I'd really like to see Slytherin play Gryffindor in your time!"

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

Hermione blushed a deep pink. "Oh, to, er, compare teams of course. My time to yours..."

"You want to watch Potter showing off on his broom?" he asked and then regretted the question. Hermione didn't know James Potter or any of the Gryffindors in his time. That time line when she'd spent a month in the Gryffindor common room with them, which his older self had told him about, didn't happen in his time line.

"Do you mean it?" she asked, her eyes bright and shining with hope. "I can go?"

He grasped his ankle that rested on his knee. "Oh sure, why not? No one would notice if I showed up with a date," he sneered and immediately regretted saying date.

"Is it still cold? I could wear a cap, scarf, and a coat, and you could add the Disillusionment and Notice-Me-Not Charms..." she rambled hopefully, thankfully not commenting on his slip of the tongue.

"Too risky and I don't have an extra scarf and hat," he said flatly. He'd been thinking about taking her outside even before she'd mentioned it. He'd meant it to be a surprise, although the Quidditch game was not at the top of his list of activities.

"Good thing I have mine, then," she said.

He was amazed when she grinned mischievously and pulled a sheepskin coat from her bag plus a hat and scarf and warm, sturdy boots. The hat and scarf she had were a green and blue plaid with black trim on the hat and black fringe on the scarf. Not that it really mattered.

"I had Care of Magical Creatures after lunch in my time, so I'd stuffed them in my great bag of holding."

Severus felt like he'd been cornered. Damn, okay... why not? No one will recognize her... I just need robes, and... Am I nutters?! "I'll think about it."

Her smile was so big, so full of gleeful anticipation, he shook his head. In the end he relented. "Merlin, I'm losing my mind agreeing to this!" he moaned as he thought it over carefully, analyzing how he could pull it off. In girl's Slytherin robes with a hat and scarf... I could pull it off. With the spells on her, she's darn near invisible... "A Notice-Me-Not, and in Slytherin robes. We'll sit in the top of the bleachers, and you will have to support Slytherin."

Hermione actually clapped her hands in joy. "I can do that."

She had been eagerly looking forward to the match all through lunch. She changed into the set of Slytherin robes he'd found in the laundry and her boots. Severus cast the Notice-Me-Not on her as well as a Silencing Charm on her shoes and the Warming Charm on her clothes before they left the classroom.

He poked his head out to make sure that the corridor wasn't too crowded before signaling for her to follow him. They made it through the castle without incident. It was snowing softly when they walked out of the castle. Severus walked slowly, his head bowed, watching the ground for Hermione's shoeprints. Thankfully, with so many students following the same paths, her shoeprints blended in with all the rest, and somehow no one stumbled, indicating that she didn't bump into anyone. He climbed to the top of the stands and felt Hermione slip past him, just as Mulciber approached. He cast a Repelling Charm on the seat on her other side and sat down, thankful that six first-years were sitting in a cluster near her. Good. They'll mask any noises she makes.

"Don't want anyone to sit next to you?" Mulciber asked, plopping down on Severus' other side.

"I want to read undisturbed," he said, pulling out the thin book on wandless magic as he sat down.

"Oi, so you bought my book," Mulciber said, bumping Severus on the shoulder.

He turned to smirk at him. "It's not your book unless you purchase it, but yes, it's the one you left on the shelf."

"May I borrow it later?" Mulciber asked, looking past Severus with a frown, staring at the space beside him with an intent stare.

"Sure," Severus said, putting his feet up on the seat in front of him and stared pointedly across the pitch to the Gryffindor stands. "Heard you had a run in with Black."

Mulciber turned his intent gaze from where Hermione sat to the Gryffindor stands. "He accused me of hexing Evans...don't get your wand tied in a knot," he said when Severus scowled at him. "I said accused. I didn't! I didn't do nothing." He looked past Severus again, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, however his attention was diverted again when the game began.

Even though the charm made it difficult to see her, throughout the game Severus had been able to feel Hermione beside him in the stands, bouncing slightly when Slytherin made a goal and grumbling when Professor Campbell made a bad call on a foul. Apparently, she knew the game rather well, and it seemed that she did, in fact, like Quidditch. He'd had to shush her a few times, and then cast a Silencing Charm on her voice. Thankfully, most of the time Mulciber was too engrossed in the game to notice anything, and the first-years were being quite boisterous.

Rowe was flying well enough as a replacement Chaser, and he made two goals in a row and stole the Quaffle from Saunders, one of the Hufflepuff Chasers, twice. Avery was doing all right filling in as a Beater for Thortenson, although more than once he'd knocked the Bludger into the Gryffindor stands. Luckily, Professor Campbell thought he was aiming for Burbage or Quirke, two of the Hufflepuff Chasers, as they flew close to the stands where the snowfall was lighter. However, Hodges, who was substituting for Rosier as Chaser, seemed to be having a hard time flying in the snow. He slipped from his broom three hours in, dropping the Quaffle that, thankfully, Rowe managed to catch and throw through the hoop before the Hufflepuff Keeper could block it, earning Slytherin another goal.

Tompkins, one of the Hufflepuff Beaters, managed to hit Avery in the side, making him hang precariously from his broom by one hand. He managed to land in the Ravenclaw stands, remount and join the game, but not before Quirke scored again for Hufflepuff. Avery used his next three contacts with the Bludger to retaliate. When Slytherin was down by thirty points, Westlake managed to hit the Hufflepuff Keeper, Elliston, with the Bludger, allowing Hornsby to score.

The game was a close and stretched on all afternoon and well into the evening, almost through dinner before Regulus Black suddenly made a quick directional change on his broom and shot forward, nearly colliding with the Hufflepuff goal post to catch the Snitch. Regulus flew through the tallest Hufflepuff goal hoop, waving the Snitch in his fist.

The final score was merely two hundred seventy to one hundred forty. Hornsby and Rowe had each scored six goals for Slytherin. But considering that Rosier, Atkinson, and Thortenson were not playing today due to injuries, it was a good game. Severus whispered to Hermione to make her way to the classroom, and he'd meet her there. However, his housemates, buoyed by their victory, corralled him once he'd stepped onto the ground.

"Severus, mate, did you see me knock that Hufflepuff, Tompkins, off his broom?" Avery asked, throwing his arm across Severus' shoulders nearly making him trip on his own feet.

"Rowe was on fire today!" Mulciber said, grasping Rowe's shoulders. "You were awesome!"

"Did you catch that recovery?" Rowe asked, holding his broom across his shoulders. "Set me right up for that goal."

Severus tried to look around for Hermione as his housemates marched him back to the castle.

"... and Reg held out for the last minute, to make sure that we were ahead..."

"... nearly thought I'd fall off the back end of my broom," Hodges admitted, slamming into Mulciber.

Severus turned around, searching.

"Mate, Evans is with Potter up there," Avery stated and draped his arm across his shoulders again. "She's made her choice, mate."

Severus tried to make his excuses in the dungeon corridor, but his friends forced him to join them for drinks and food in the common room. He tried to bow out after a short while, a futile gesture, but Hodges pressed a glass of Firewhisky-laced pumpkin juice in his hands.

"To the Team!" Hodges yelled, repeated by the celebrating Slytherins, which was shouted several times as various exploits of the game were rehashed to him as if he hadn't been in the stands watching the game. But every time Severus set down his glass to go find Hermione, a fresh one appeared and another toast was made.

Severus was quite snockered when he stumbled into the classroom, gave Hermione two bottles of butterbeer and three meat pies, and sat on the floor by her bed. He promptly fell asleep, leaning against her bed.

~ T. B. .C. ~

Author's Notes:

According to the almanac, snow fell in Scotland during Easter holiday in both 1977 and 1994 the second half of Hermione's third year and Severus' sixth.