Closed Doors

Chapter 9 - Closed Doors...

Hermione walked into the Great Hall for her first breakfast since the break, and it seemed strange now to be back at Hogwarts, eating with her friends, instead of a quiet, secluded one in Snape Manor. She secretly wished that she could go back there and just spend the rest of her days resting and relaxing in the study or parlor, reading a good book and getting intelligent conversation.

But now she would be eating breakfast with Ron, who spoke with food in his mouth, Harry, who was too busy talking to Ginny, and... Well, Neville wasn't very good with conversation, as he seemed to always trip over himself when he spoke. She sighed and took a bite out of her toast. She looked up at the staff table and the first thing she noticed was that Snape's place was vacant.

'Hermione, what are you looking for?' Ron asked from beside her.

She spun around and looked at him with surprise. 'Nothing really. I wonder where Professor Snape is,' she mused out loud.

'Why? He's probably off in the dungeons with his Death Eater mates,' Ron commented stupidly.

Hermione flashed him a dangerous look. 'Firstly, Ronald, Professor Snape would never do something like that, and secondly, Dumbledore would never allow it,' she snapped angrily, insulted by Ron's implications.

'Whatever you reckon, Hermione,' he mumbled, not seeming to care that he had hurt her, and continuing to shovel forkfuls of egg and sausage into his mouth.

She sniffed indignantly and finished her food in silence. By the time she had finished, her anger with Ron had as much as dissipated like fog in the sun, and she left the hall without feeling so much as a trace of anger.

She actually wondered why she still even felt the slightest bit of protectiveness over a man who had as good as spat in her face the previous evening. Shrugging inwardly, she made her way to her first class of the day and waited patiently at the door for Professor Vector.

o:0:0:o

Snape watched as his seventh years filed into the dungeon, all sitting in their regular seats, Blaise Zabini with Harry Potter, as the two, although in rival houses, had formed a tolerance and friendship with each other, and Draco Malfoy. Daphne Greengrass sat with Draco now, he being her more recent beau. Neville was sitting by himself this lesson, however.

He paused. Herm-Miss Granger would never be late for class, which meant that she was sitting with the only other student in this class... Anthony Goldstein, Head Boy of Hogwarts, was sitting silently next to Hermione, smiling at her, but both seemed to be waiting for Snape to begin class.

Snape didn't like that smile. He sneered and stood abruptly from his seat, walking and pointing his wand at the board, giving it a decisive flick. He flicked it so hard that dust flew off the board and his wand made a whipping noise as it cut through the air.

'The potion you are making today is on the board. Take down all of the notes listed beneath before you begin,' he commanded in a no-nonsense tone.

Hermione looked up from her seat next to the most charming Anthony Goldstein. Being a Ravenclaw, he was intelligent, good for conversation and a very good listener. He had been standing next to her as she had waited to get into the Arithmancy classroom earlier that day and had asked her how her holiday had been.

She didn't give him too many details, like the fact that she had been staying with Snape, but he had coaxed an 'it was lovely' out of her. He had, in kind, given her a quick overview of his Christmas in Ireland with his family, and she found that he was quite entertaining and witty.

She understood now, as she was starting to get to know him better, the reason he had been chosen as Head Boy.

After quickly writing all of her notes up in her tidy print, she pulled out her Potions text and summoned her cauldron and ingredients from the student stores. Anthony was still finishing his notes off, and by the time she had put a fire beneath a cauldron filled with liquid, he was at her side, chopping the ingredients efficiently.

They had, by unspoken agreement, decided that it was best to talk outside of class only and finish all of their work without running the risk of losing House points and setting a standard for the other students. He was, to say the very least, far more receptive and considerate than Ron.

'May I put the shriveled fig in now?' he asked quietly, rousing her from her thoughts.

She nodded, noticing that Snape had begun his customary walk around the classroom to examine the work and dish out punishment and insults wherever he could.

Snape, from the other side of the classroom, watched Hermione covertly out of the corner of his eye as he scrutinized Harry and Blaise's potion thus far. 'It's not the right colour that it should be by now. You are far too slow, and the heat of the flame should be at least twenty degrees higher than that,' he said in a low, silky voice.

Hermione was sure that Snape did it on purpose this time. She had once argued that he only did it to keep up appearances, but he seemed sincerely delighted now to be picking apart Harry's class work. She forced herself to concentrate on her own potion that was simmering slowly, the exact shade it should be at the stage she was on.

At the end of class, Snape stood at the front of the room and looked down his hooked nose at them all.

'Put a stasis on your cauldrons and clean your workbenches,' he started in a low voice, close to that of a whisper so that the students would not move until he had absolutely finished speaking to stand, just so they could hear him. 'I want a six foot essay on the properties and uses of the root of asphodel and wormwood in the Draught of Living Death by the beginning of next lesson.'

Everyone immediately began to pack away their belongings in a race to leave the dank room, leaving Hermione and Anthony as the last to leave, smiling and chatting with each other as if Snape was not still standing in the room.

Not that he cared. They were just students, after all. Except one of them he had more recently been friends with and had taunted back into hating him, and the other was a male, not unlike himself, who appeared to have an interest in the first. Snape scowled at Goldstein's back as he left the classroom.

Just one more student to put on his 'kill when no longer a student' list.

He went to his desk and flicked his wand, sending all of his notes for that day into the filing system in his office and everything to return to a relatively tidy position. He did not have any feelings for Hermione Granger. He had done terrifically at rejecting her personally in every way up until the Christmas break.

It should be easy for him just to block her out again. Shouldn't it? She was just a silly teenage girl with the maturity and body of a woman. That shouldn't concern him though, should it?

He groaned and ran a hand through his hair in thought. She was insufferable, yet he could not get her out of his mind. She was untouchable, yet she was the only thing that he wanted so badly to touch. She was a torment to him, yet he felt willing to subject himself to it -- any torment she had to dish out, he would bear, just as long as she was there.

But he couldn't. It was wrong, and it was probably terribly perverted of him to think those things of her. But she was nineteen soon, and a good two years older than the rest of her year level, due to her extensive use of a Time-Turner in her third year. She was not a child.

'Dammit, Severus! Stop trying to make excuses for it to seem in the least bit acceptable!' he shouted loudly to himself, slamming the door closed and oh-so thankful for the silencing charms he had put up around the room.

One thing was for certain. Hermione Jane Granger was off limits.