Let's Get One Thing Straight

Have a wonderful week, I love you all.

A special thanks to Shanastay for being a wonderful beta.

Chapter 21-Let's Get One Thing Straight

Hermione returned to her office utterly livid. How dare he? She was a professor now. Anyone else who had interrupted him and asked to see a student would have gotten what they wanted, begrudgingly or not. Why was he treating her like this? He should have been a little more lenient with her now, especially after last night.

Oh, it made her so angry.

To take her mind off of the surly, horrible man, she decided to grade some of the work her seventh years would expect back tomorrow. It became clear, though, that taking out her aggression on the grading was not going to make her students very happy or herself when she gave more work for poor grades. But she did not care. It was just too bad that she was going to take off for missed punctuation today. She was positively fuming.

Time passed too quickly once she fully invested herself to the violent strokes of her quill on parchment. So deep was her concentration that she was not prepared for the crashing of her wooden office door against the stone wall, that she jumped out of her chair in a movement of sheer awkwardness, nearly falling to the ground from her tangled feet. Luckily, she caught herself on the edge of the desk, and looked up to find Snape following the cowering first year into the office.

Damn him and his entrances! Can't he ever enter a room like an ordinary person?

Why was he here anyway?

Vera stopped in front of her desk, making sure to keep her eyes lowered. At least the girl was intelligent enough to know she had done something wrong, and that she should be submissive now to her Head of House to lessen the severity of her punishment. Snape stepped up behind Vera, his obsidian eyes burning into her, the sneer from earlier still firmly planted on his lips.

Resigned to the fact that she had no choice but to handle this in front of the surly Potions master, Hermione sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you know why you're here, Vera?"

"Yes, Professor," she said quietly. "It's about Jane..."

"Exactly," Hermione acknowledged. "And what do you have to say in your defense?"

"Nothing, Professor," Vera muttered.

"Was there anyone else with you?"

"N-no," Vera shook her head resolutely.

"Think wisely, Vera, because I know there were others involved," Hermione said. If only she had some Veritaserum and could use it on a student. "It will mean the difference between a month's detention, or only a week, with Filch."

Vera looked up at her, eyes wide. She shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot before settling down and steeling herself to the challenge. Good Gryffindor.

"Yes?" Hermione intoned.

"Paulette and Georgiana," Vera said quietly.

She nodded her head. "Very well. Report to Filch after dinner for your detention, and in the meantime, I will speak to the others. You may go."

Vera sighed resolutely and turned on her heels, heading back out into the hall and away to lunch as quickly as she could without running. Hermione waited until the girl was gone before letting out a heavy sigh of her own, brushing some of the curly hair in her eyes out of the way before turning to Snape. The sneer was not there any longer, but his eyes still shone with such intensity that it brought back the feeling that she was being scolded all over again for interrupting him, just from the look of utter loathing there.

"And you!" she turned on him, walking around the desk to face him squarely.

"We have nothing to discuss, Professor," he said.

"Oh, I think we do," she said, her scolding finger pressing into his multitude of robes. "You have no right to treat me like an insolent student any longer, Snape. I am a professor here, whether you like it or not, and deserve just as much respect as Pomona or Minerva... or anyone else for that matter."

"Honestly, Professor," he drawled out, his eyes focusing on the finger pointing harshly into his chest. Treating it as a mere, annoying gnat, he grabbed her hand with his right, and pulled it away forcefully. "If you wish me to treat you like a staff member, then I suggest you start acting like one."

Hermione scoffed, her mouth dropping open out of disbelief. "I did nothing wrong and you know it! Just because you're in a foul mood does not suddenly make it okay for you to piss off everyone else!"

"All you had to do was tell me what you needed to speak with Miss Drake about," he responded, that ever-annoying arched brow in attendance. "It was quite simple, Granger. If it seemed severe enough, I would have let her leave."

"You did not need to know what the problem was! It was my situation to take care of," she continued, "and if you trusted me at all as a colleague, then you wouldn't need to know why I wished to see Miss Drake. You wouldn't have questioned it if any other professor had done what I did. Why am I so different?"

The muscles in his jaw visibly clenched and unclenched, as he apparently debated on how to continue. At least he did not just let loose on her like he might have with anyone else. He restrained himself... somewhat.

"Hermione," he began, his tone now incredibly low and even, perhaps, gentle? She knew not to take it for granted, though. He was such a master at hiding things, this could be a matter of deception until at the last minute, when she had her hackles down, he decided to strike. "You need to understand something."

"And what is that?" she asked, meeting his eyes and holding on to the last bit of defiance she had left.

Damn him.

"I must treat you the same, if not much harsher than I treat the others," he replied, "because of our... relationship."

"I don't see how our working relationship has any bearing on our personal one," she said.

He sighed. "Minerva happened upon us when I caught you in the storeroom, and she warned me about our conduct on school grounds."

"We wouldn't be like the children trysting in the bushes, for crying out loud!" she exclaimed.

"No, we wouldn't," he shook his head. "But you see how this could be a conflict of interest in my place of power, if the newest and youngest professor on the staff suddenly gets special treatment from the one person who not only ardently dislikes Gryffindors, but could not stand her or her two friends when she was a student? Do you see the need to act like I did this morning for that reason?"

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I do see it, but you don't need to treat me any different than the others, Severus. I won't ask for special treatment. I never have in the past. I'd just break the rules before I ask for special treatment."

"That's just the problem, Hermione," he said, a wry smile breaking on his lips for a fleeting moment. But his face turned again, to something she might call embarrassment. There was something else that he wanted to say, but somehow could not find the correct way to phrase it.

"What?" she asked.

He shook his head. "It's nothing."

"It is something. Tell me, Severus. I'm not going to laugh at you," she said.

Severus rolled his eyes in a bored fashion again and grumbled, "You will be the death of me yet. I had thought all along you would kill me by your seventh year, but I see that the gods have a much more prolonged fate in store for me, having you return."

"Is that what you wanted to say?" she asked. "How utterly romantic."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm, Miss Granger," he replied, "Especially when I am not by nature a very open man."

It was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes. "What else is new? Now answer me! Why would me not asking for special treatment be a problem? There aren't many rules I can break now that I am not a student."

He sighed heavily and bent his head, his right hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I worry that you may not ask for special treatment, but that I may just slip up at a crucial moment and give it to you anyway."

She raised a quizzical brow at him and crossed her arms over her chest. This was not the same man that she had spoken with earlier, or the man that had walked into the room only a few minutes before. Sometimes she wondered how he could be so duplicitous, even in his personal life, but she knew it was something that would forever be one of his characteristics. He had practiced for much too long to ever see another way of living.

"You'd never do that," she said. "Because every time you are around me, you will remember this conversation and stop yourself. You're not hasty in your words and actions like I sometimes am, you can stop yourself."

"I am surprised you have so much confidence in me," he said.

Hermione smiled softly. "I have no reason not to."

Silence prevailed over them for a few long moments, until he carefully placed his surprisingly warm hands on either side of her face, steadying her enough to lean in and brush his lips across her forehead. She had never expected such a gentle sentiment from him, but she was not going to question it. It was nice to see that, perhaps under an incredibly crusty exterior, there was an affectionate man.

"Shall we go to lunch, Hermione? You were not present for breakfast," he chided.

"Together? Will that not raise suspicions?" she asked.

He waved a dismissive hand, "I am sure the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor first-years have spread the incident around enough that they'll think we were just coming back from me scolding you."

Hermione frowned, but nodded. "I suppose so."

They headed in the direction of the Great Hall, the corridors nearly devoid of students, though some were mingling about. Keeping a safe distance from each other, Hermione did not dare to turn to glance at him for fear of her expression betraying her carefully crafted aloofness. There was a slight problem, though, when they reached the open doors to the Great Hall and Snape stepped aside to allow her to enter first. It was not her problem, she found it very gentlemanly of him, but the students who had caught the interaction noted and quickly internalized it.

After all, in the seven years she had been at this school as a student, or now as a teacher, she had never, ever seen Snape act in such a way toward another human being, not even with Minerva. In an attempt to minimize the potential damage, Hermione raised a quizzical brow and narrowed her eyes in what she hoped was a passable approximation of suspicion.

Hermione did not wait for him and continued the long walk to the head table, finding her now customary seat next to Tonks. The Day-Glo-orange-haired witch looked at her curiously for a moment, her smile growing larger as she tried to take a sip of her pumpkin juice to mask it. Hermione sat down and arranged herself carefully.

"Nice to see you, finally," Tonks teased. "Must have been one hell of a night if you weren't even up for breakfast. He must have gotten the upper hand of the deal."

Hermione shook her head. "For your information, Nymphadora, he was a perfect gentleman and we arrived back at a perfectly respectable time."

"That doesn't mean someone didn't spend the ni-," she began but was silenced by some other force. Tonks glared first at Hermione, who knew that a Silencing Charm had been placed on the Metamorphmagus, but was not the one who cast it.

"I didn't do it," Hermione murmured, turning to find Snape walking behind them. His fingers skimmed the edge of her chair, grazing her back lightly as he passed and sat down.

"Cat got your tongue, Tonks?" he taunted, not looking at her.

Tonks made a quite powerful guttural sound of disgust come from deep within her. Hermione found the whole situation quite humorous, even though she knew that Snape had done it so that the notoriously loud Tonks could not go off getting them into "trouble." Extracting her wand, Hermione uttered a reversing spell, freeing Tonks' voice from its muteness.

"We'll just see who lets the werewolf out tonight," Tonks muttered, glaring at him.

Hermione paused, hoping that this did not escalate into a much more serious argument. It was low of Tonks to bring that up now, in front of Severus. Especially after the previous evening and what all they had discussed. Of course it was not Remus' fault that Snape had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it all brought a sour taste back with the reminder of those days, even for Hermione.

"If he takes his potion as planned, then I have nothing to worry about," Snape retorted, and turned to concentrate on his meal.