Chapter 7

This Time

Chapter 7

I just wanna break you down so badly

While I trip over everything you say

I just wanna break you down so badly

In the worst way

Make Damn Sure - Taking Back Sunday

'Don't gape at me like a fish!' he thundered, advancing on her menacingly. 'I didn't invite you in here!'

She flattened her back against his door, her wide brown eyes troubled. 'I'm sorry! I'm trying to avoid Jared...he had some sort of Bulgarian liquor in his room ... it was foul!' She grimaced in distaste. 'He drank too much too fast, and then he wanted ...'

He sneered mightily, Severus' fear of exposing his identity to her warring with Adin's blood-burning jealousy. 'Spare me the details,' he snarled.

She raised her chin defiantly. 'I decided to leave, and then I heard him coming after me. I saw this open door ...'

Severus pulled her ungently away from the door and stormed out into the corridor, which was now empty, maintaining his less-than-gentlemanly grip on her arm. At the head of the staircase, he released her.

'Don't go to a bloke's room if you're not prepared for the consequences,' he snarled.

'You're mean!' she said. 'He was just pissed and got out of hand, but you! I thought you were my friend!' And she fled down and away from him.

Severus gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to follow her, to stop her, to explain .... Explain what? That if she was going to be in someone's bed, it should be his?

'Damn it!' he snarled, pounding down the stairs to the common room. It was empty, save for Bother, who was curled up before the fire with Crookshanks. Brilliant...even his Kneazle had better luck than he did. Rather than going back up to his dormitory, he continued through the portrait hole, pacing down the chilly corridor, his hands clenched into fists.

What the bloody hell is wrong with you? You as good as show the girl who you are, then you chase after her like a lovesick moonling!

'Bugger off!' he said aloud, speaking to the adult Severus castigating him from within. This was bloody complicated. It became more difficult with every passing day to remain emotionally divorced from his seventeen-year-old life. Already, he thought of the seventh-year Gryffindors as his friends, cared about them, wanted to call them by their first names...he wasn't pretending to live this life, he was floundering in it, and he didn't know how to hold himself aloof.

What if I don't want to be aloof? his seventeen-year-old self queried. What if I want this life?

You can't have it and you bloody well know it! his ever more distant adult self advised. Avoid Granger. She suspects you...she makes you stupid.

An odd, swooping sensation filled his torso. 'She makes me want to be seventeen,' he whispered aloud, realising it was true.

He was standing before the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, and he knew what he had to do.

'I need a drink,' he thought, pacing up and down before the blank wall. 'I need a place to sit and drink.'

The doorway finally appeared, and Severus entered the room, irritated to find Dumbledore there before him. 'What the hell are you doing here?' he demanded aggressively.

The old man chuckled. 'Do you think I would permit a student to develop a drinking habit by way of the Room of Requirement?' he asked.

Severus stood just inside the room, his face twisted in a scowl. There were two leather chairs facing one another across a chessboard, a crackling fire, and side tables beside the chairs, each table bearing a decanter full of amber liquid and a goblet. 'I'm not a fucking student,' he snarled. 'I'm thirty-seven years old, and I need a fucking drink.'

Dumbledore waved his hand at the wingchair across from his. 'Sit; have a drink. I'm having brandy, but I believe yours holds Firewhisky.'

Severus found that he wanted the drink more than he wanted to walk out on the old man; he sat in the chair with ill grace and poured three fingers of whisky. Viewing the smoking goblet with satisfaction, he knocked back half of it in one go and fell into a violent coughing fit, feeling as if he had just ingested a lit candle.

It didn't help matters any that Dumbledore laughed. 'You may be thirty-seven in your mind, Severus, but your body is seventeen, and it is not accustomed to drinking like a man drinks.'

Severus sat back in his chair, wiping the sleeve of his jumper over his streaming eyes, feeling the heat of the liquor spreading through his body, putting a relaxed smirk on his face.

Dumbledore watched him closely as the whisky took effect. 'I'm not sure that you're thirty-seven in your mind, either,' he added, musingly.

Severus winced to hear the words spoken aloud. Hadn't he just been worrying about the same thing? 'This was your idea,' he reminded the old man.

'Certainly it was,' Dumbledore agreed. 'But it is the first time my Youthening Enchantment has been used...we're finding out how it works as we go along. Isn't it fascinating?'

Severus felt the intoxicant further relaxing him, loosening his tongue. 'I have all my memories...but I don't have as much control of myself as I did before.' He frowned. 'I'm not completely detached, as I thought I would be...I'm becoming involved,' he said, speaking the last word as if it were a filthy swearword. 'Granger burst into my dormitory tonight and I snapped at her, just as Professor Snape would have done...for a minute, I was afraid I had given myself away to her.'

Dumbledore looked grave. 'You had a female student in your bedroom?' he asked.

'I didn't invite her!' he retorted angrily. 'And I marched her out the door and watched her go down the stairs.' But I wanted her in my bed, he thought.

'Severus,' Dumbledore said intently, and Severus looked up into the old wizard's face, concentrating on the crooked nose, avoiding eye contact. 'I don't think you can help becoming involved in this life, and I don't think there is any harm in you enjoying what you can of it...but you mustn't interfere with the girls you meet.'

'Interfere?' he blurted indignantly. 'Must you speak as if you're in a Dickens novel?'

The bushy silver eyebrows rose. 'Mr Dickens was a fine Muggle man, and we enjoyed following his serials.'

Severus chortled. 'I forgot you were his contemporary.' Then he frowned. 'I have no intention of "interfering" with anyone, Albus.'

The Headmaster sat forward. 'Listen to me, Severus...boys do things they never meant to do when they're impassioned.' He leant back again into his chair, one hand passing unconsciously over his crooked nose. 'Believe me, I know.'

Severus didn't feel the need to argue the point; in fact, he was feeling quite sleepy. The Headmaster, noting his heavy eyes, smiled indulgently. 'There's Floo powder on the mantel, and you'll find you can Floo directly to your room...you'd better get to bed before you fall asleep, don't you think?'

Leaving the rest of the whisky in his goblet untouched, Severus moved unsteadily to the fireplace and Flooed back to his dormitory.

As Albus Dumbledore was leaving the Room of Requirement, he glanced down the corridor and saw Hermione Granger moving stealthily along under a rather well done Disillusionment Charm. Not for nothing had he developed the ability to see those who attempted invisibility; it was an invaluable skill for a teacher in a secondary school full of magical students. Curious, he Disillusioned himself as well and followed her.

Silently, the two of them traversed the staircases and corridors, and he soon understood her destination: She was going to the library.

Hermione cast a non-verbal Alohomora!, and the library door opened to her. She entered, with Albus continuing to follow her at a distance, and went to the card catalogue, now wielding her lit wand, reading the cards on the fronts of the drawers, searching for her topic. At last, she tugged a drawer open, flipped through the cards, paused over a few, and then closed the drawer with a snap.

Patiently, Albus watched as she began to weave her way through the stacks, and he had to admire her obvious knowledge of the library, for she did not so much as pause to read the signs on the ends of the bookcases identifying the contents of the shelves. Instead, she moved steadily through the room, until Albus felt a tug of dismay, followed by a flash of admiration. The girl really was remarkably clever; there was no getting around it.

He trailed her, knowing now her destination, and increased his speed, wanting to see her face when she made her discovery. Finally, she came to a stop before the shelf meant to contain the few books the library possessed which included the subject of age alteration charms. Albus smiled when Hermione's head tilted to one side, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed with thought.

The shelf was empty.

Luna, true to her word, delivered her mother's notes to Severus at breakfast on Saturday morning, and he spent the best part of the next two days reading and magically duplicating the work of Cynthia Lovegood. Severus had known of her at school; she had been a seventh-year when he was a firstie, a Ravenclaw girl at the very top of her class. She had married an odd, older man and died a bizarre, early death. Severus had known she died because of a spell gone wrong, but when he read through her notes, he realised just how dangerous it had been for her to be experimenting with these time release spell components on her own. He would see to it that no one in his group played about with solo experimentation.

Hermione's face flitted across his mind then, and he snorted in disgust. Did he truly think he could control her in any way?

He had been slipping into and out of the Great Hall either very early or very late for each meal, hoping not to see her. He didn't know what to say to her, couldn't decide if he owed her an apology for his behaviour in all but pushing her down the stairs after she invaded his room, and so he did the best thing he could think of: he avoided her.

On Monday, his presentation in the Special Studies class of the Lovegood notes, as they came to be known, riveted them all.

As he spoke, Hermione watched him avidly; he could feel her eyes upon his face, the powerful focus that was uniquely hers trained upon him, and he found it intoxicating.

It's not you she wants, the voice informed him. It's the information you have...she doesn't care about you. No one ever has, and you know it.

As he finished his presentation, and the others began their discussion, he pushed the thought away from him, finding it easier to do so now than he had ever done as Professor Snape ... but wait. Wasn't Professor Snape the voice in his head? He frowned at the floor, working it out in his mind. If Adin's detractor was Professor Snape, then who the hell had been internally castigating Professor Snape for his entire life?

Whose voice was really playing in his mind all the time?

'Adin, look how far she took this concept,' Jared said, one finger running down his copy of the notes, amazed.

Severus obediently directed his attention to Jared, though his mind was still far away. It didn't really matter whose voice kept up a running commentary in his mind, did it? All that mattered was that it spoke the truth: He had no business having feelings for Hermione Granger.

It wasn't as if he could choose to remain Adin Prince, was it?

'If we can duplicate this experiment successfully ...' Allison began, drawing Severus attention to her.

'... then we can work out how to reverse the time release of the curse,' Hermione finished for her, the excitement of the discovery fairly crackling in her voice.

Professor Dumbledore looked up from Cynthia Lovegood's annotations, gazing into space. 'She was brilliant,' he murmured.

'Well, let's get on with it,' Severus said impatiently, rolling up his sleeves, carefully avoiding Hermione's eyes.

After class, he ducked into the library and hurried to his study alcove, tossing his bag onto the table and not noticing that he was not alone until he all but sat down in Hermione's lap.

'What are you doing here?' he demanded, just as she said, 'Are you following me?'

'This is my study space!' she cried, as he snarled, 'Why would I follow you?'

She stood and they were now toe-to-toe, both so angry they were fairly bristling with it.

'This is my place!' she reiterated shrilly.

'No, it's mine...and you must be the idiot who keeps moving the chairs about!'

She gasped furiously. 'I've had the chairs like this...' She threw out her hand to indicate the side-by-side positioning of the furniture under discussion. '...for the last six years. How dare you change them around?'

With careless insolence, Severus dropped into the chair she had vacated, shoving the second chair with his foot until it was at a satisfactory angle, and then he lifted his feet into it. 'Because I like to be comfortable whilst I study...why don't you clear out, now?'

Enraged past reason, Hermione leant across him and gave his bag a mighty shove, sending his books crashing to the floor; before she could question the wisdom of their relative positions, he jerked her down into his lap and stared into her eyes, both of them overwrought, breath coming in panting gasps.

Severus' heart was pounding, his mouth was dry, and the outraged protests of his inner adult were pushed aside with such violence that he couldn't even hear them. All he knew was the curvaceous armful now sprawled across his thighs, her jumper and blouse rucked up to show a bit of creamy stomach skin, her skirt hiked high up her thighs, showing him a breathtaking expanse of smooth legs in silky tights. He dragged his gaze back up her body, riveted momentarily by the expansion and contraction of her chest, causing the mesmerizing movement of her breasts, and then forced his eyes to her face.

He could hear her panting breaths, and their faces were so close, he could smell the peppermints she had eaten. Her eyes were wary, but she had not yet begun to struggle against him, and he realised that mere seconds had passed, even though it seemed as if time had stopped and as if she had been stretched upon him like this forever, his to look at for as long as he liked.

His cock stirred, responding to the press of female flesh against his body, and he looked at her lips, suddenly keen to discover the source of the Grangeresque peppermint scent. His hands, closed about her upper arms, began the quest up, towards her hair, and her throat, and her face, wanting to caress her softness before he claimed her lips ...

With sudden resolution, she placed her palms flat against his chest, pushing herself up and off of him, her uncommonly pale cheeks flushing pink now as she turned from him and began to straighten her clothes.

Disoriented, Severus regretfully watched her go. He was leaning forward to pull her down again where she belonged when she spoke, and reality came hurtling back.

'I'm sure we can share the space,' she said, her voice unnaturally high-pitched, as if she had forgotten how to speak.

He straightened, his feet hitting the floor, and he hunched over a bit to hide the tent in his trousers, thinking of unsavoury things to make it go away. Circe's knickers! What was the matter with him?

'Don't you think?' Hermione said, turning back to him without actually looking at him.

'Yeah, all right,' he muttered, desperately trying to remember what they had been talking about.

'We'll be fine as long as you keep your feet out of my chair,' she added, a slight attempt at friendliness leaking into her tone.

'As long as you keep your clutter on your end of the table, you mean,' he retorted, bending to retrieve his bag from the floor, sanity and memory now restored.

'Well, it's time for dinner, now,' she said hesitantly, and he looked at her, unable to withstand the appeal in her voice. 'Do you want to come down to the Great Hall with me?'

She forgave him for acting like an arse when he threw her out of his room...when he pulled her into his lap? She wanted him to sit with her at dinner? Him? Not Jared?

Reflecting that his natural inclination would be to follow wherever she led him, he marshalled his self-restraint and reined himself in, forcing a scowl as he opened his bag. 'I have work to do,' he said in a dismissive tone, giving every appearance of being engrossed in his Transfiguration homework.

Several seconds passed, and he knew she was watching him, waiting for him to look up...but he didn't. He couldn't. If she so much as looked sad, he would be on his feet, trailing after her like a ... like a boyfriend.

That could never happen.

At last she said, 'Right...see you later, then,' and her disappointment rang in his ears long after she had gathered her things and left for dinner.