Pastoral

Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to JKR, who generously lets us play with her things. Or at least graciously looks the other way when we do.

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Later that afternoon

'I wish I could get away with doing my Arithmancy homework in Defence Against the Dark Arts,' muttered Hermione, stuffing Defensive Magical Theory roughly into her bag. Spending an hour and a half reading Slinkhard's useless book under Dolores Umbridge's eye left her feeling mutinous.

'Yeah, that didn't work out too well the one time you tried it, did it?' said Ron in an undertone as they entered the corridor. 'But at least she didn't make you split your own hand open in detention.'

'True,' admitted Hermione, glancing over at Harry. 'She just made me write ordinary lines with an ordinary quill.' She puffed out an angry breath and began to walk faster. 'It still made me want to stuff her stupid hair bow down her throat and crack one of those bloody kitten plates over her fat, evil head.'

She swept savagely down the stairs, Ron and Harry in her wake. They exchanged a significant glance behind her head.

'So Hermione, were you going for a run now? We could bring you a sandwich if you, you know, want to get outside,' said Harry offhandedly.

'Sandwiches, pumpkin juice, whatever you want,' seconded Ron. 'Give you strength to face Round Two of Potions tonight.'

She stopped abruptly at the foot of the stairs, causing Ron to crash into her. 'Right. Of course. I should. I will. A sandwich would be good. Thanks. See you after dinner.' And, looking rather distracted, she turned right around and headed towards Gryffindor Tower.

'Good call, mate,' said Ron as he and Harry made their way into the Great Hall. 'Bit fierce today, isn't she? I thought the top of her head was going to start smoking.'

'Yyyyep,' agreed Harry. 'Crabby as a skrewt.'

'O.W.L.s,' said Ron sagely as they swung onto the dark wood benches at the Gryffindor table. 'She's feeling the pressure.'

'Yep.' Harry reached glumly for an apple from the bowl that had just appeared in front of him. 'Feeling it.'

***

Hermione emerged from the eastern sally door fifteen minutes later in t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, her hair bound up in a ponytail. She stretched a bit and began moving down the hill towards the lakeshore.

As she went, she tapped two tiny silver cuffs with her wand and slipped them over the outer rims of her ears before tucking the wand in her waistband. The discreetly named M-Clip was a product from Fred and George Weasley's new line of Muggle-tech novelties: charmed ear cuffs that looked like ordinary jewellery but could hold about 5,000 minutes of Muggle music. Hermione had helped the twins test and refine the gadget earlier in the term, so they had given her the prototype free.

Hermione Granger had two ways of coping with stress and uncertainty: going to the library or going for a run. After the sort of day she'd had, she wanted...needed--to move and breathe. It was the only way she could hope to get her equilibrium back. She'd been holding certain thoughts at bay all day and the strain had made her very irritable.

When she reached the relatively level ground of the lake edge path, she lengthened her stride into a run and let her mind loose on the newly fascinating subject of Professor Severus Snape. Something had shifted in her perception of him today, and she intended to get a grip on it.

She approached the issue in her usual way, by marshalling the facts at her disposal and trying to examine her own assumptions. Snape was brilliant (fact). Cold (a widely if not universally held opinion). Rather nasty and vindictive (ditto). Biased against her best friend, her House, and herself (the evidence would seem to bear this out). Prone to explosive fits of temper (demonstrably true). A consummate Potions master (fact), which meant he had to have an underlying love of order (reasonable assumption). A former Death Eater (fact), which meant--what? That he had once been drawn to violence, hatred, and destruction? What made him change his mind? Was he full of regret? (Speculation, faulty inference, and idiotic question, respectively. Get it back on track, Hermione.)

She returned to her mental catalogue. A member of the Order of the Phoenix (fact), though pretty comprehensively loathed by the other members (observable). An Occlumens (fact). A double agent, but loyal, she was sure, to Dumbledore (fact, and again with the inferences). Tall (yes). Dark (mmmm). Austere (yes, that works). Not handsome in the least (but somehow beautiful, like a great black bird of prey or a cat. Something wild but contained...).

Hermione made a face. Okay, attempt at rational analysis has failed.

She rounded the far side of the lakeshore loop and began running back towards the castle. The early evening sunlight was gleaming on the usually dark surface of the lake, making it look like a warm sheet of ruffled silver. Springtime was full and ripe in the vicinity of Hogwarts, with about a hundred shades of green carpeting the forest and hills. The mountains rose up purple and blue and brown, dappled with the shadows of clouds and dotted with pockets of old snow.

Her spirits rose with every stride.

So she was starting to have a little thing for Hogwarts' least popular teacher. Unexpected, but why not? No one need know anything, and it might be... fun... to have a bit of forbidden lust fizzing through her veins. Better fun than the low-level frustration and uncertainty that was her longstanding, waxing and waning, going-nowhere crush on Ron.

The cool damp mountain air filled her lungs and the blood pumped through her limbs, heating her skin. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony poured out of the magical cuffs into her ears. The M-Clip was marvellous; it felt like the music was right inside her skull. This music was just what she needed: it was warm and bright and full of the promise of beautiful things. It always made her feel like something magnificent was within her grasp. She grinned and broke into a flat-out run.

Lungs bursting, she squeezed out a final burst of speed and finished the sprint with a flying leap in sync with a sudden fortissimo in the Beethoven. As she slowed her pace back to an easy jog, she thought of her mother, as she often did when she ran.

When she was eight, Hermione had finished second in a school science competition, and in her desolation she'd reduced a bookcase to kindling just by looking at it. Her magic had begun showing itself strongly in emotional moments, though as a Muggle-born she had no idea what it was, and it scared her.

When Dr Jane Granger had found her tear-soaked and terrified daughter moments later, it had looked to her as though Hermione had physically attacked the furniture. 'You need fresh air, exercise, and a break from the books, love,' she'd pronounced. 'Go and change into your trainers and meet me downstairs.'

So began their ritual of running together nearly every day. Hermione soon discovered that the exercise settled her emotions and actually seemed to help her brain work better, and she was hooked.

At Hogwarts, the habit took on another layer of meaning--it connected her to her Muggle life. It was something she had before she knew she was a witch--back when she was just an odd, bookish, intense little girl. Now an odd, bookish, intense big girl, she thought, her pace easing into a walk as the path sloped upward. Not so different, even though I live in a different world now.

She smiled lovingly up at the castle looming ahead of her, its grey stones half awash in yellowing sunlight, half lapped in shadow, its southern windows glittering red. Lucky me.

***

Severus closed the sally door behind him and looked at the sky. He judged he had ten minutes before he could move to the cold frames outside the southernmost greenhouse and start harvesting. For maximum potency, spurge needed to be cut within two hours of sunset, which would come a bit after nine this evening.

The shadows along the castle's eastern walls were deep, and on impulse he stepped out towards the promontory, onto a bright patch of turf that still lay in full sunlight.

He could see someone moving along the lakeshore path; a student, a girl. As he watched she began to sprint, bounding down into a hollow of the path and out of sight for a minute or two before emerging at full speed, arms pumping and ponytail flying. She gave an exuberant leap before slowing back down to an easier run, and he saw who it was: Hermione Granger, in a dark red t-shirt and grey tracksuit. She was close enough now that he could see her flushed and shining face. Her expression was abstracted and she was smiling slightly. She looked as though she were thinking of something very pleasant.

If she looked up now, she would see him standing there. Somehow, suddenly, he didn't want that--didn't want to see her unselfconscious joy dimmed by his presence. He moved back a few steps into the shadow behind a buttress, his eyes still fixed on the glowing girl, whose pace had now slowed to a walk.

Sure enough, she lifted her gaze to the building--seeming to look right at him, though he was only a dark shape cloaked in shadow--and just... beamed at it.

Her smile was so keen and bright and open that he almost gasped. To be looked at like that. It felt like his heart had been struck.

Fool. His face went rigid with disdain for his own reaction. She's smiling at something in her own mind. If she could see you, her face would sink like a stone. As it should.

Severus wore his sour, forbidding aspect like armour. Armour he worked, ate, and slept in. Armour he had made himself, which fitted him like a second skin. He cultivated a near-universal fear and dislike among his students, and kept his distance from his peers. It was the only way he had found to keep existing in a life shaped by duty, remorse, and mortal danger.

No. A smile like that would not be for him.

He turned, silent as always, and made his way through the gathering shadows towards the greenhouses.

***

'Oh, you blessed boys, you sweet, sweet men,' Hermione sighed as she sank down into a chair in the common room and reached for the roast beef sandwich Harry and Ron had brought from the Great Hall. 'Thank you!'

She beamed at them and took a massive, horseradish-y bite.

'How was your run?' asked Harry, grinning.

'Brilliant. I really, really needed that,' she answered through her mouthful. Deliciously tired from her run, warm from the shower, and dressed in fresh clothes and robes, Hermione radiated contentment and exuded a sweet, clean herbal scent.

'You look, erm, much better, Mione,' said Ron, a bit flustered. 'Smell nice, too,' he muttered.

'Thank you, Ron, I will take that as a compliment. Though I don't think my minty fresh breath is going to survive this sandwich,' she remarked, taking another bite.

''S'only Snape you're going to see, and I doubt he ever brushes, so he'd be a hypocrite to mind,' Ron declared. 'Wouldn't put it past him, though.' Ron pulled the corners of his mouth down in an exaggerated scowl and growled out between clenched teeth, '"Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger. For reeking."'

Harry shouted with laughter.

Hermione flushed pink and twisted her mouth in an effort not to smile. 'Ron, what did you just do?'

'It's called a joke, Hermione. It's a thing we do for fun.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'I mean the points, Ron. You're a prefect, and you just docked ten points from Gryffindor. The hourglass doesn't have a sense of humour.'

Now it was Ron's turn to redden. 'Oh. Right. Well. Ten points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger. For, ah, smelling good this time.'

'Prat.' Hermione rose to her feet. 'I'll be back,' she said, stuffing the last big bite of the sandwich into her mouth as she headed for the girls' bathroom. She would not go down to the dungeons with dragon breath.

Returning to the common room, she walked over to Dean, who was playing Exploding Snap with Seamus. 'Once more unto the breach, Dean,' she said. 'Are you ready for your servitude?'

Dean grimaced. 'I have to be, innit?' He got up and dragged his rucksack onto his shoulder.

Hermione grabbed her bag and waved her fingers at Ron and Harry. 'This shouldn't take that long,' she said. 'I'll see you in a bit.'

'And then can we work on the Charms essay together?' asked Ron.

'Ron, I've finished mine. I'm revising Arithmancy for O.W.L.s tonight.' She sighed at his stricken look. 'But of course I'll take a look at your work. Just... try to get an outline going while I'm away, okay?'

And she and Dean stepped out through the portrait hole.

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A/N: Love and thanks to my kind, generous, and sharp-eyed readers: ariadne and greenstuff (betas) and lifeasanamazon (Brit-picker).

To view/listen to Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGb-Kjy0S0