Chapter 5

This Time

Chapter 5

So come on, get higher, loosen my lips

Faith and desire in the swing of your hips

Come on Get Higher - Matt Nathanson

Severus took his concerns to Dumbledore that very night, but the Headmaster shook his head. 'No, Severus, she has no idea who you are. I slipped into her mind, to be sure. She was expressing genuine concern for her teacher, a fellow Order member, a war hero...she was there when Voldemort fell; she saw what you did. She never shared her friends' doubts about you, you know.'

Severus paced nervously before Dumbledore's desk. 'It makes no sense,' he argued stubbornly. 'There is no reason for her to say such things ...'

Dumbledore gazed at him shrewdly from beneath his shaggy brows. 'Perhaps you will have to accept that Hermione Granger possesses emotional depths of which you were unaware,' he said.

Severus could not prevent the derisive snort he uttered at this fatuous comment. Granger's emotional depths were not of least interest to him, providing she possessed the intellect necessary to solve the puzzle of the Dark Mark Curse.

The Headmaster glanced at the clock. 'Perhaps you'd best go to bed, Severus...it's been a long day for you, and this version of your body is not accustomed to the privations you have visited upon yourself in the last years.'

'Very well, Headmaster,' he said, knowing when he was being shown the door.

On Wednesday, he made his first appearance in Defence Against the Dark Arts. He followed Granger into the classroom, but she went to the front to sit with Potter and Weasley, right beneath the werewolf's nose, so Severus took a seat near Józsa and Allison. Lupin entered just as the bell rang, and seeing Severus at the back of the room, he smiled and said dryly, 'Welcome to class, Adin...we missed you on Monday.'

Severus scowled but did not speak, and Lupin said, 'Wands out...we'll take up where we left off with non-verbal Shield Charms. Pair up, please.'

Severus paired up with Dean Thomas, reminding himself that it was not his concern whether or not the students were well-taught, and besides, the war was over now, was it not? By the end of the lesson, though, Severus was forced to admit that Lupin was conducting the class well, thus far. Packing up, he went to the common room for his free period, resolving that he would keep quiet in the classroom and avoid contact with the werewolf as much as possible.

The week passed more quickly than he would have expected. He continued to stay close to Granger when the opportunity presented itself, torn between Severus' suspicions of her motives and Adin's physical awareness of her. However shallow, he was forced to admit that the concern she had demonstrated for him as Severus made her far more interesting to him as Adin.

Dumbledore's Special Studies class continued to meet in the Room of Requirement to share ideas and work on their theories. The best thing about the Room of Requirement as a classroom was that it always provided precisely what was needed: books for research, space for spell work, tea and crumpets for rumbling stomachs. In the first week of discussions, little had been accomplished, but several ideas had been ruled out, narrowing down the field of enquiry.

Severus felt that every moment not spent in trying to solve the problem of the Dark Mark Curse was a complete waste of his time. He had broached the idea with Dumbledore of him just moving into the Room of Requirement and staying there, researching and working until he had all the information he needed to solve the puzzle, but the Headmaster would not hear of it.

'If you disappear now, there will be questions about Adin Prince, Severus...you don't want that. Please, do your part and be patient...I am confident that we will find a satisfactory resolution, in time.'

So Severus attended classes and completed assignments, repressing his simmering resentment of his extraordinary circumstances. Some nights he worked in the common room, scowling over his textbooks and knocking enchanted paper airplanes, Fanged Frisbees, and Weasley's Whizzing Wallbangers out of the air when they flew too close to his head. His dormitory would have been quieter, but the only place he could see Granger in the evenings...and work to establish a friendly rapport with his prophesied saviour...was the common room.

Of course, half the time, when Granger did show up in the common room, she was either with Weasley...which irritated Severus...or she said something to get right up Severus' nose, and he ended up storming off to the library, anyway.

Friday afternoon after classes ended, a new parchment appeared on the notice board in the common room, announcing the first ever Hogwarts Club Night, to be held two nights hence.

'There'll be a band and dancing,' Neville said. 'It's a chance to hang out with girls, right?'

'It's all part of the Ministry's plot to get you to pair up and procreate,' Severus muttered, stabbing a chop from the serving platter and transferring it to his plate.

'Really?' Neville stared at him with big round eyes. 'Why would they do that?'

What a cock-up, you idiot! his inner Snape shouted. You're not supposed to repeat things Dumbledore has told you!

Severus shrugged. 'I heard a couple of the teachers talking about it,' he said hazily. 'The school will sponsor more dances and parties so we'll have more opportunities to'...makes fools of ourselves his inner voice supplied...'ask girls out on dates.'

Neville nodded in understanding. 'I don't think I'll go,' he said dejectedly.

'I know I won't go,' Severus said, and Neville looked a bit more cheerful.

On Saturday morning, Severus was one of the first up and dressed for breakfast; he was eating a plate of bacon and eggs when owl post arrived. There were two large barn owls carrying a long package wrapped in brown paper between them, and he grinned broadly when they fluttered down before him. His broom! He tore the paper away, aware that he had attracted the interest of a number of other students, but he didn't care. Without ingesting another bite, he walked out into the crisp morning air, did up the zip on his jacket, and kicked off into the air.

He felt as if his heart lifted higher inside with each increase in altitude, and the wind blew his fringe back from his forehead as he flew towards the Quidditch pitch. Exhilaration wrung a whoop from him as he looped by the seventh-year dormitory, bringing a sleepy-eyed Longbottom to the window to gape at him.

It was brilliant! How could he have forgotten the sheer elation of flying? When, in his life, had flying ceased to bring this lightness of heart?

He streaked across the lake, turning back only when the magical barriers Dumbledore set to protect the school reminded him that he was hemmed in all around by the old man's protective measures...that his so-called freedom was nothing but an illusion. The grim realisation robbed him of the joyful sensation, sending him back to the earth and back into the castle, to do his homework.

After spending Saturday slaving over the ridiculous pile of busy work considered necessary by the teachers conducting the N.E.W.T. classes, Severus was entirely ready for a Sunday in which there was nothing he had to do and nowhere he had to be. It was a day entirely his own, to spend as he wished.

He had a lie-in, and as a consequence, he was one of the last in the Great Hall for breakfast. Snagging a pocketful of toast before the house-elves could clear the food away, he meandered out into the sunshine, lifting his face to the warmth. Without thought, he began to wander down to the lake, to his favourite beech tree, and once there, he collapsed beneath it like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Pulling toast from one pocket and a book from the other, he proceeded to enjoy the day.

His book was a Muggle paperback edition of Dickens' Bleak House, and he frowned as he delved into the complicated story, wondering about this one's motivation and that one's scruples, until the drowsy warmth of the air lulled him into sleep.

'I think he's sexy.'

'Well, I think he's conceited and obnoxious!'

'And sexy.'

Muffled giggles exploded from the air over his head, and Severus opened one eye to glare at the gaggle of girls staring down at him. Gratifying and unprecedented though it might be to be spoken of as 'sexy', he had no intention of encouraging their behaviour.

'Hi, Adin!' the frighteningly forward dark-haired girl said, and her three friends giggled.

Severus scowled at them and addressed the aggressive one. 'Be a good girl and sod off,' he said, raising his book and beginning to read again.

'Would you mind if we sit here?' the pushy one, Romilda Vane, asked.

'Please, be my guest,' he said, moving himself into a sitting position.

The girls sat down, the hangers-on giggling whilst Vane looked triumphant. When they were settled, Severus inquired, 'Are you comfortable?'

The Vane girl gave him a bedazzling smile. 'Oh yes, thank you!' and her friends murmured their agreement.

'Excellent,' Severus said and stood, striding away from them to the castle, where lunch was being served.

'Adin!' Vane called, but he did not slow down or look back. The little tart was tempting him to descend into full Professor Snape mode, and he really did not wish to do that...Adin Prince was a pleasant fellow, after all...but she definitely needed to be put firmly in her place.

He sat with Józsa, Thomas, and Longbottom over his lunch, giving the impression of being one of the gang of Gryffindor seventh-years, even though his thoughts were far away, and his pleasure in a day of leisure evaporated with the reality of the impossibility of his position. How could he...why shouldhe!...pretend to be living the uncomplicated life of a seventeen-year-old kid when his own real life was in such a shambles? Why should he be forced to loll about when he had a real purpose for being here?

With a short farewell, he deserted his companions after lunch, declining their invitations to join them for a bit of Fanged Frisbee on the grounds, and instead returned to his own room, where he extracted his notes from the Special Class and began to pore over them.

Surprisingly, he realised after half-an-hour of perusal, Granger's ideas were the most intriguing. She had actually adapted a Protean Charm two years before to act as a method for alerting the DA to their secret meeting times. Her suggestion that the Dark Lord had used some sort of time-released transfigurative conduit to channel the charm into a curse was ... well, sod it all, it was nothing short of brilliant.

The thought of Granger tugged him to the window, and from the lofty height of the pinnacle of Gryffindor Tower, he looked out on the grounds, over which the students were scattered, soaking up the unseasonably warm sun. Granger wasn't hard to spot, really, not with her bushy hair and the ginger lump in her lap. She was sitting with Weasley, whose own ginger hair was easily spotted from a distance, but he seemed to be paying her no mind, for Granger's head was bent over a book, and Weasley was speaking to a group of other people, his hands waving expressively.

Severus turned from the window in disgust. That daft lout had the cleverest witch in the school beside him, and all he could think to do was ignore her in favour of a set of fawning admirers. Pausing before the mirror, Severus took up his comb and dragged it through his clean, shining hair.

'Don't fuss, dear...you're tidy,' the mirror informed him encouragingly.

Severus whipped out his wand. 'What did I tell you about talking to me?' he demanded sourly.

'Oh, all right,' the mirror said huffily. 'Don't see why you have to be rude about it.'

Snagging his Transfiguration textbook from his desk, he went to the door, where he found Bother waiting with an expectant air. 'What?' he said, and as soon as he opened the door, she preceded him into the corridor. 'Fancy a bit of sun?' he asked her, but she did not acknowledge his words, simply led the way to the staircase with her tail in the air.

When Severus strolled nonchalantly up to the group beneath the beech tree, Weasley was nattering on about some Quidditch match or other, and Granger was sitting a foot or so behind him, her back against the tree trunk, reading from their Transfiguration text.

'Great minds think alike,' he said, and she looked up at him, an unwary, pleased smile touching her lips.

'Isn't it fascinating?' she said eagerly, touching a fingertip to the cover of the book he held at his side. 'Especially as it relates to you-know-what,' she added.

'May I sit?' Severus asked diffidently, trying to combat the bizarre swooping sensation in his middle from her apparent pleasure at seeing him, fending off the notion that she had touched him, rather than his book, with such gentle intensity.

'Please,' she said, indicating the spot beside her.

He lowered himself to the ground, aware of her rather keen scrutiny as he did so. 'What?' he asked her, passing a nervous hand over his mouth, wondering if he had somehow dirtied his face between his room and the beech tree.

'Sorry,' she mumbled, directing her eyes back to her textbook, pink flushing her cheeks.

He felt a heady triumph; Granger only ever coloured up around him when he flirted with her...she was obviously attempting to return the favour. Feeling an irresistible urge to press on with the advantage she had given him, he dipped his head close to hers, lowering his voice, consciously using it to lure her into sharing a confidence. 'Why were you staring?' he said.

She shivered, and as he saw the gooseflesh spread over her arms, he was aware of the rising tension between them; he had noticed it before, and he attributed it to his frequent irritation with her, but it had never raised the hair on the back of his neck as it did now.

'It's the way you move,' she admitted, her voice barely audible. 'Like a big cat...not like other boys ...'

Bother chose that moment to spring into his lap, breaking the taut thread between them like a strong breeze scattering a dandelion into a thousand puffs of fluff. Instantly, the ginger cushion in Granger's lap resolved into an angry tomcat, hissing menacingly at Bother.

'Crookshanks!' Granger said reprovingly. 'Be nice!'

Bother appeared neither alarmed nor offended; she simply extended her neck and sniffed delicately at the tomcat's smashed-in face. The tom retaliated by launching himself from Granger's lap and hurtling towards the group surrounding Weasley, causing two sixth-year girls to start away in alarm. Bother followed, joining in the chase.

'I don't know what got into him!' Granger said, looking indignantly after the cat and his Kneazle pursuer.

Severus had not a glance to spare for the felines; his attention was riveted on Granger. 'I do,' he muttered, opening his textbook and pretending to become engrossed in the material.

After a time, Weasley was tempted into joining a group of Whizzing Wallbanger players. 'You don't mind, do you?' he asked Granger, and she fluttered her fingers at him dismissively without looking up from her reading.

Severus watched the Wallbanger, which was, in essence, similar to an insane badminton shuttlecock. It could be thrown and caught by hand or propelled by small, hand-held paddles. Once launched, it would begin to zoom as if propelled by a tiny jet engine, streaking until it made contact with a solid entity...unless another moving object crossed its path, in which case it would follow that object until impact. Severus had batted a few out of the air in the common room, and he was aware of their unpredictable behaviour. He was, therefore, not altogether unprepared when the unmistakable whizzing noise heralded the approach of one of the pesky things.

'Don't move,' he muttered to Granger, who looked up, saw her danger, and immediately made as if to rise. 'Don't move, girl,' he repeated, 'unless you want to try to outrun it.'

Granger subsided, and at the last moment, Severus lunged in front of her, whacking the Wallbanger with a two-handed grip on his Transfiguration textbook, sending it flying with great velocity over the trees, in the general direction of the Quidditch pitch.

'Thank you!' Granger said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, and then Weasley was bearing down on them, and Severus rose to meet the attack.

From beneath a tree nearer the water's edge, Potter had abandoned his girlfriend, Ginevra Weasley, and he, too, was rushing towards Severus. All for a little kiss on the cheek? he thought, squaring his shoulders to meet the Boy Wonder and his faithful sidekick.

Potter, who had been running, reached him seconds before Weasley did. Seeing that neither of the boys had wands drawn, Severus braced himself for the blow, but Potter turned to Weasley and said, 'Did you see that?'

Severus relaxed infinitesimally; apparently, the dunderheads were going to discuss the offence before trying to knock him down.

'Bloody right I did,' Weasley agreed, glancing over his shoulder towards the tree line. 'I wonder if it's stopped flying yet?'

Potter addressed Severus with barely suppressed excitement. 'Have you ever played Quidditch?'

Severus gaped at him. 'Have I what?' he blurted, wondering what Quidditch had to do with receiving a kiss from the dunderheaded duo's best friend.

'You have to come to team try-outs,' Weasley said enthusiastically, his eyes alight with a manic glee.

'Yeah,' Potter agreed. 'We haven't had a really talented Beater on the team since Ron's brothers left school.'

'And Adin's the one with the Nimbus 3000!' Weasley reminded his friend.

'Brilliant!' Potter said. 'Next Saturday, right after breakfast, on the Quidditch pitch, Adin...you'll come, right?'

'I...' Severus began.

'Brilliant!' Weasley said, and he and Potter each clapped Severus on opposite shoulders before turning away and walking off together, now in the mood to discuss Quidditch strategy.

'It's rather like being rolled over by the Hogwarts Express, isn't it?' Granger said knowingly, standing and beginning to dust off the seat of her jeans.

Severus was immediately distracted by the idea of smoothing his palms over the denim covered cheeks of her bottom. 'Need any help?' he offered, the words leaving his mouth before his inner adult could prevent them.

Granger laughed, her brown eyes bright. 'No thanks, I've got it,' she assured him before turning and heading back to the castle.

Severus sagged against the trunk of the tree, watching the devastating swing of her hips as she walked away. 'Oh, you've got it all right,' he muttered darkly, not caring to try to define what 'it' might be.

He stopped just short of the portrait hole after dinner, because Weasley and Granger stood before the Fat Lady, engaged in a heated discussion.

'You don't want to kiss me!' Weasley shouted, his face red. 'What do you care if someone else does?'

Granger thrust her face towards him pugnaciously. 'I don't care!' she responded. 'Go...enjoy yourself. Just don't you dare ever come back to me again after some bint drops you like last year's Cleansweep!'

Weasley barked an angry laugh. 'Why would I want to come back to you? All you ever do is read and study and nag...maybe if you did a bit of snogging, you'd be able to get another bloke to go out with you!'

Severus watched in fascination as Granger drew her wand and flourished it; Weasley obviously knew what was coming, because he threw his arms over his head and turned his back as a flock of angry yellow canaries attacked him. Granger did not remain to watch the resulting devastation; instead, she gave the password and fled through the portrait hole. When she disappeared, Severus drew his wand, immobilising the birds with one flick and Vanishing them with another.

'Lovers' quarrel?' he inquired sardonically, approaching Weasley.

'Hardly!' Weasley snorted, his face still alarmingly red. 'I pity the wizard who gets in her knickers.'

Severus felt a flash of inexplicable anger at this casual, disrespectful reference to Granger, but it dissipated as a momentary shadow passed over Weasley's face, and the redhead took a deep breath. 'She's been my best friend since first year,' he said. 'We keep trying, but I don't think we click that way, you know?'

He turned his earnest blue eyes on Severus' face, and Severus actually felt a twinge of sympathy for a fellow wizard, reflecting that the crush of his own school years had undoubtedly felt the same way about him...good for a friend, but not the material for a boyfriend.

'Witches,' he said vaguely.

'You said it,' Weasley agreed. 'Thanks for helping with Hermione's little birdie army,' he added bitterly. 'Just don't ever make her mad at you, mate.'

'I'll keep that in mind,' Severus promised solemnly.

Weasley gestured down the corridor. 'Are you coming to Club Night after dinner?'

Severus sneered and shook his head emphatically. 'No,' he answered shortly.

'Lavender asked me to go,' Weasley confided. 'It's what set Hermione off.'

'Good luck with that,' Severus said neutrally, turning away.

'I'd better change shirts,' Weasley said, following Severus through the portrait hole.

Anxious to escape his new 'friend', Severus settled in a chair and opened his Transfiguration book, acknowledging Weasley's good-bye wave with a simple nod of his head.

When the fourth- through seventh-years left for Club Night, Severus fetched his book bag from his dormitory and set up at one of the tables, hoping that Granger would make an appearance. If she wasn't going with Weasley to Club Night, perhaps she would come downstairs to study. Not that he wanted to see her, but he had some ideas about the Dark Mark Curse, and he wanted to discuss them with her.

He worked on his Arithmancy homework, scowling frequently at miscreants from the lower years, but his patience was not rewarded. When she hadn't appeared by ten o'clock, he packed his things back in his book bag and moved from the table into a battered old armchair in the dark recess beneath the staircase to the boys' dormitories; it was a popular place for snogging, but not for reading, because it was so dark. Severus read there anyway, opening his Dickens and lighting the tip of his wand. Soon thereafter, the Club Night couples returned, and he had to endure a number of face-sucking good nights before he had a clear view again of the girls' staircase.

In the late Sunday night quiet of the common room, he drifted into sleep and only awoke when he heard the sounds of a girl crying. All he had to do was open his eyes, and there she was, climbing the girls' staircase, the upper part of her body already in the shadows. Severus had only a quick impression of pyjama pants, a tiny tee-shirt, and a tattoo of a flying gryphon just above the cleft of the girl's swaying buttocks.

'Wait!' he called, lurching out of his chair, desperate to discover the identity of the girl with the gryphon tattoo, and he was able to keep his eyes on the tattoo as he hurried to the foot of the stairs, but the girl then turned at the bend of the staircase and passed out of his sight, never responding to his cry of, 'Please wait!'

Discouraged, he turned around and climbed up to his dormitory, castigating himself all the way up for falling asleep and missing his chance to discover the identity of the bearer of the tattoo, which still peppered his dreams. When he reached his room, he grabbed his shower things and marched to the bathroom, relieved to find the place empty. Shedding his dressing gown, he stepped into the shower, the mere thought of the tattoo stiffening his prick as his fingers closed over it. With one hand braced against the wall, he leant into it, the images of the heart-shaped bottom he imagined beneath the flying gryphon spilling over into his memory of the swing of Grangers hips as she had walked away from him and the beguiling scent of peppermint on her breath when she had kissed his cheek.

'Granger!' he gasped and spilled over his fist, turning then into the hot spray to rinse away his semen, hoping his confusion would wash away and down the drain, as well.