Chapter One – Accepting

Thank you all for your encouragement and kind comments for my story. As I have stated, this is a little PWP with legs, and will take us on a journey of UST and fulfillment.

Usual Disclaimer applies, which is a polite way of saying I can't be arsed to copy and paste it for this chapter.

"There are rules, Miss Granger," he began softly, without preamble.

Hermione had been waiting for him to speak, but still jumped at the sound of his voice. His statement sounded suspiciously as if he was offering her the apprenticeship she'd requested. Here he was, mentioning rules and he hadn't actually made her an offer yet. Already expecting things of her; oh yes, Severus Snape was still good at expecting.

Regardless, Hermione nodded tersely. Any other witch or wizard probably wouldn't have noticed her immediate and instinctive stiffening at the words, but it was obvious that this particular wizard saw everything quite clearly. Hermione wished she could say the same about herself. Sitting opposite him, observing him closely, she wondered why he seemed so different from the man she remembered from her youth. He's changed, Hermione thought. We've both changed.

She'd heard through the grapevine that the dour wizard seemed different since returning to Hogwarts; that he had mellowed, but not all that much. He was still disinclined to suffer fools, but reports were that he was quieter, less volatile. And if he was perhaps not as biased toward Slytherins now that he no longer needed to be, he was still very protective of them, and not the most jovial man to deal with.

Hermione didn't necessarily think of that as a bad thing. Professor Slughorn had been the epitome of the jolly, unctuous magister, but the thought of apprenticing with him made her want to vomit. At least with Snape she would actually have something to show for her apprenticeship other than a lifetime obligation to provide him with his favourite candy – that is, if he stopped cutting her to ribbons long enough to actually oversee her work.

As a student, Hermione had respected him, perhaps, perversely, because he had hurt her so. She had secretly dreamed and hoped that he was and had always been Dumbledore's man, even when she and the boys had been on their demented little road trip. Had she not returned to the Shrieking Shack shortly after Tom Riddle's demise, no one would have known that Hogwarts' former Headmaster was still suspended between life and death by a strand so delicate and tenuous that it was hard to find a pulse. They both knew very well that Hermione was the reason he was alive.

Harry had spent the following year getting Snape exonerated and recognised for his efforts as a spy and a double-agent. These days, while the two men would never send one another Christmas cards, they could at least stand to be in the same room without hexing one another. Just. It was difficult for Harry, who had hated Snape on sight, to reconcile the vulnerable, ragged boy who loved his mum with the wizard whose treatment of Harry and his friend sometimes rode the ragged edge of abuse. Hermione remembered ruefully how Harry called Snape the "Prince of Un" – unattractive, unkempt, unpleasant, unlikeable, unkind. She always felt indignant on Snape's behalf for that. Unfair.

Even Hermione had to admit Snape had certainly known how to sow hostility and harvest fear with his very presence, and even after they'd learned the truth about him, Hermione still had trouble finding anything remotely charitable to say about his physical appearance.

Until today. It was as if Harry's scales had fallen from her eyes. Or perhaps it was merely that she was a woman now, seeing him with the eyes of maturity instead of her childish recollections.

He regarded her with his thousand-yard stare as she pondered his opening volley. "Yes, well," Hermione said, stalling. Her emotions about everything else were so jumbled; she could no more put into words her feelings for her former professor than she could untangle Crookshanks' favourite ball of yarn. They were as mangled as the skin around the scar he bore as a souvenir of that final night of the battle.

Now the two of them seemed to be having some sort of staring contest, but Hermione couldn't ascertain why or the results of the outcome, so she took the opportunity to really look at him. He tilted his head slightly, as if to say, Go ahead, Granger. Take a good long look, because you're going to see a lot of me in the next seven years...

He looked healthier than she ever remembered him, which was amazing, considering his long and painful recuperation from the battle. He was still lean and vulpine. His hair was long and rather stringy, and his nose certainly hadn't shrunk any. He still brought to her mind a giant bird of prey, dark and intense and menacing. Struggling to meet him on the level of an adult, Hermione noticed that he had a way of holding himself completely still as he waited to elaborate about these rules of his. He regarded her quietly, as if willing himself to be calm. Hermione noticed his deep, even breathing, and she envied that.

Hermione also noticed that his long, slender hands and dark eyes were incredibly expressive, and while his skin was pale, it was not the dungeon pallour he'd exhibited in her youth. His face, though lined with years of worry and stress, was curiously translucent, and more porcelain than sallow.

He definitely seemed less grumpy and impatient than she remembered. His thin lips were no longer curled into his trademark sneer, at least while addressing her. He watched her levelly as they sat across his desk from one another, and he took a deep breath and calmly let it out slowly, his expression as carefully neutral as a stranger's.

"While I seem to recall your youthful penchant for disregarding rules, I think you will find these are a bit easier to swallow." At the word 'swallow' she had obeyed him reflexively, as if he'd given her a command. This both amused and disturbed Hermione in equal measure, and she stifled a sudden urge to laugh at her bizarre reaction.

His voice was still vintage Snape; the same purling, expressive instrument she'd remembered from that first-year speech so long ago. He could make the most insignificant potions recipe into a sonnet; the most mundane lecture became a symphony. Every word and incantation had a weight and a beauty in the deep timbre of his voice. It could cut like a diamond, it could soothe like a lullaby. It had colour and flavour and scent to it.

It also, Hermione noted with adult insight, held the barest trace of a Northern accent, which she'd never noticed as a child. That gave it its lilt, its ability to calm as well as to instill fear. It was a lovely instrument, and easily his finest asset. If she were perfectly honest with herself, there were moments of her sixth-year DADA class when an occasional utterance from Professor Snape nudged at her burgeoning sexual awareness rather disconcertingly.

More than once she'd walked out of his class feeling strangely stirred and flushed by his pronunciation of the word 'penetrate.'

Hermione dragged herself from this rather odd reverie. Concentrate, Hermione. Rules. What rules, Professor, do you plan to inflict on me for the next seven years? She mentally gave herself a shake, waiting for the one rule that would send her blood pressure through the roof and the hexes flying. She waited for his tone to change to derision and jeering Slytherin superiority. In other words, she waited for Snape, and herself, to revert to type.

Shortly after the war, Hermione gradually became aware that nothing she said or did seemed to prevent the continuing rising tide of volatile anger that sparked from within. From almost the moment the dust settled over Hogwarts, her temper had been an out-of-control, frightening monster with teeth as sharp as Bellatrix's blade. Hermione had always been known for having a fiery temperament, but this was beyond the pale. Her short fuse disappeared into the nitro, and anything and everything set her off with little warning and no provocation. In the space of the next year, she had offended and alienated almost every person she knew, and she was powerless to stop herself.

Her temper had been a point of conversation since the end of the war. Being unable to retrieve her parents' memories was the catalyst. When the experts confirmed her fears that the Memory Charm she had devised to keep them safe had simply embedded itself permanently into their minds, Hermione returned from Australia seething with repressed rage. She walked around feeling like she had the word "failure" magically carved into her forehead. She had spent too much time in the wilderness with Harry and Ron; she had forgotten how to deal with the mundane-ness of life, and it all pissed her off.

Returning from Australia was also the beginning of the end of her crumbling relationship with Ron. What had started as a noble sacrifice to keep her parents safe and a careless snog and confession of love ended up as colossal failures falling from her hands like sands through an hourglass. Now she had a slim chance to do something positive, and she didn't want to make the same mistakes with Professor Snape.

On the advice of Remus Lupin, her one remaining confidante, she had come to Snape to ask for an apprenticeship, but deep down she was afraid. Afraid he'd say no (the likeliest of outcomes); afraid he'd say yes, and then she'd actually have to do it without losing her rag in front of him. She remembered all too clearly his penchant for provocation.

Worst of all was the fear that, once he realised just how short her fuse really was, he would gleefully use it to set her off like a Roman candle at any and every available opportunity. Something told her he was preparing to light just such a match with these 'rules.' She'd just have to learn to control herself.

She sat back and waited for the red mist to descend with his next smirking comment. Instead, his voice remained calm and mellow, with an underlying crispness that kept him from mumbling. "As my apprentice, you will live here within the castle. Your quarters will be near mine and your assistance will be required at my discretion."

Hermione nodded. She had expected as much, and she shifted, readying herself again for the snark to bleed into his next words.

"Further, I shall ask that you and I refer to one another by our titles, as befitting our relationship to one another. I shall be Master Snape, and you are Apprentice Granger." His voice was still quiet and lilting, almost tender. "I understand that you will need time away from your duties, and I do not expect that you will either abuse my trust nor take advantage of my leniency. Time away will be granted at my discretion. I trust you will not find me unreasonable." The barest hint of his old smirk teased the corner of his mouth, but he remained positively placid.

"We will take meals together. We will synchronise our waking and sleeping hours together. At first, I will be more inclined for you to remain cloistered within your apprenticeship, but as the time passes, you will be given more free time and freedom in general, along with the option to teach the second- and third-year Potions classes."

When she didn't speak, he looked at her, narrowing his eyes. "You're uncharacteristically reticent, Miss Granger. Are the arrangements not to your liking?"

Somewhat taken aback, Hermione replied, rather stiffly, "I was under the impression that my liking had little to do with the Master/Apprentice relationship, sir. Hence you are the Master and I the Apprentice."

Snape made a little conciliatory shrug. "It would seem pointless to proceed if you found it untenable, Miss Granger. You have already stated the objectives you are hoping to accomplish, as have I. At the end of the seven years, you wish to be a Potions mistress, and I wish to retire from teaching in order to take up research and development. Those are the long-term goals. I'm trying to ascertain the acceptability of our more short-term arrangements. It goes without saying that you would be expected to display deference for my position for this arrangement to succeed."

Hermione bit back a retort. In a very Un-Snapeish manner, he was quite delicately referring to her current state of affairs. As she met his rather impassive gaze, she thought he might just be her last hope to get something right.

He returned her sullen look with a mixture of intrigue and puzzlement, and finally concluded, "I am merely asking a simple question, Miss Granger: Are you prepared to do what I ask you, when I ask you, without question, for the next seven years?"

Now she felt her hackles rise. "And just what would you ask me to do that I might find objectionable, Master Snape?" She deliberately emphasised the word 'Master', but to her surprise he opened his eyes rather wide and made an elegant, dismissive waving motion with his slender hand.

"Oh, the usual. Scrubbing the lab floor with your toothbrush, daily beatings with Filch, horsehair robes. It's a standard contract."

Hermione's expression must have been exactly what he was expecting, and Snape smirked fully this time. With something that might have passed for a chuckle, he continued, "I truthfully do not foresee placing any unconscionable demands upon your person, Miss Granger. It is merely the tradition of an Apprenticeship to look upon one's Master as the fount from which all blessings and disciplines flow."

She grew very still, and something within seemed to both push and pull at her at once. Master Snape, she thought. He would be my Master. The frustration and lack of control she constantly felt could be pushed onto him. She wouldn't be constantly fighting herself. Perhaps.

As he sat there, patiently waiting for her to comment, Hermione thought, I don't have to keep blindly stumbling alone in the dark, hoping to find the light switch and the answers. Someone else can drive awhile. Do I want that? And if I don't, why does it sound so tempting?

Snape watched her carefully as the true implications of their impending commitment played across her face. As if finding what he sought there, he continued. "Like it or not, you and I will live cheek to jowl almost every day, having taken what is tantamount to holy orders. It has been noted more than once that the binding of Master to Apprentice resembles nothing more or less than a handfasting, except instead of a year and a day, we are committing to one another for seven years."

He looked at her, and for the first time since the interview began, he seemed tense, and his eyes bore into hers. He leaned forward, his expression quietly intense, as if he was truly addressing her as an adult for the first time. Caught in his black, uncompromising gaze, Hermione felt as nakedly vulnerable as she'd ever been. She thought she ought to look away, but wasn't able to look away from those steady, obsidian eyes.

Then, in a voice that washed over her like watercolours bleeding one into another, causing goosebumps to form on her arms, he said, "I am prepared to bond with you and become your Master. The real question is whether or not you are ready to accept being my Apprentice for the next seven years, Hermione."