Many Meetings

Disclaimer: There was a great author named Jo / Who wrote seven books in a row / And now every day / For love and no pay / We post things she'd rather not know (of).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Week One

As it happened, the very next day was Tuesday.

Hermione was nervous and elated all day. She was also slightly loopy from lack of sleep, having been up until all hours working on her first report for Snape.

But above all she was determined, in all her interactions with him, to live by her new mantra: Be calm, succinct, and mildly friendly, no matter what he says.

When she entered the room, he gestured towards a chair near his desk. 'Sit.

'Your report?' He held out his hand.

She sat silently, nibbling unconsciously on a cuticle, while he scanned the scroll.

'What exactly is this?' he demanded.

Hermione had modelled the document on Muggle 'spreadsheets,' and its design involved a considerable amount of Charms work.

'It's a sort of grid that you...or rather that I...can keep adding to throughout the term. See,' she said, leaning forward and pointing, 'each of the two hundred students in your first- to fifth-year DADA classes has his or her own row, down the side, here.

'Across the top are column headings for each examination or written assignment. Run your finger across the headings like this to expand the columns, and like this to shrink them. The same when you run your finger down or up each column. It packs a lot of information into a normal-sized piece of parchment.'

He ran his fingertip across the grid a few times, then asked, 'What is this red column to the left of the names?'

'That's a bit of an experiment,' she said eagerly. 'That column contains an Arithmantic formula that identifies patterns in the student's work and attempts to predict an outcome for the term.

'It's for me, really...I don't know most of these students and the red column will sort of tell me the story of where each one is academically. You see them all in class, so I'm sure you have a sense of each student's strengths and weaknesses without having to use such a tool. It just occurred to me that it might be interesting to see if I could create a workable formula...' She stopped talking and squirmed a bit under his chilly gaze.

'Three quarters of what you've just said was surplus to requirements, Miss Granger. Let us be clear from the outset that I expect brevity and exactitude in both your verbal and your written reports to me. If you cannot manage that, this arrangement will be short lived. I will not be chattered at. Is that clear?'

'Yes, sir,' she said and closed her lips. Is that brief and exact enough for you, you impossibly irritable man? You may limit my speech, but I'll think what I want.

'...laughable results,' he was saying.

'I beg your pardon, sir; I missed the first part of what you said.' She coloured.

He glared at her. 'Would it be too much to ask of you to pay attention?'

'No, sir; I do apologise.'

'As I was saying, your experimental formula seems to produce some absurd predictions. For example, Mr Creevey the younger.' He touched his finger to Dennis Creevey's name and read aloud, '"Error-prone and unpredictable. Shaky foundation in Dark Arts defence principles, frequently misuses basic to intermediate concepts, hopelessly at sea with advanced material." So far so right, I would say. Now here's the oddity: "Likely to be dead, married, or in hospital by April. Query: Left-handed?"'

He drummed his fingers on the parchment. 'Did Professor Trelawney help you develop this formula, by any chance?'

She smiled, choosing to find the humour in his barb.

She shrugged slightly. 'No, I haven't had time to show it to anyone but you yet. I'll take it up to Professor Vector this week. At a guess, I'd say it's making strange predictions because it doesn't have enough data to work with yet. Sir.'

'Fine. While you were crafting this... overelaborate object'...he gestured at the grid...'did you make note of any particular issues requiring my attention? By this I mean students not completing the assignment, misconstruing it entirely, copying verbatim from the textbook...that sort of thing?'

'I did,' she said promptly. 'Run your finger down the list of names, and the ones I think you should review will turn green.'

He did, and perhaps twenty names turned green. The usual suspects, mostly. That, he thought, is rather a nice touch.

* * *

Week Four

By early February, their Tuesday evening meetings had an established pattern.

At 7:30 exactly, she'd knock on his door.

'Come,' he'd call, or, 'Enter.'

She'd find him behind his desk, and she'd sit in the chair opposite him. The fire was always lit, adding its glow to the lamplight.

She would sit in the chair with the green leather seat and hand him the updated parchment. He would skim through it, occasionally asking her a question.

Then he would put the kettle on.

Then he would hand her a parchment containing the week's lesson plans and begin to describe the week's assignments and what his expectations were for each. For example, first-years were expected to show they had read and understood certain points of the assigned text; second-years would receive higher marks if they used an additional source or two or drew on earlier lessons to enrich their arguments, and so forth.

When the water boiled, he would disappear into the laboratory for a moment and emerge with a large wooden tea tray, which he'd set on the desk before dropping back into his own chair, all the while continuing to talk as she scribbled notes on her copy of the lesson plan.

When the tea was ready, she would pour and they would drink it while continuing to work. He took his black; she used milk and a little sugar.

At the conclusion of their meeting, usually 8:30 or so, she would transfer marked papers from her bag to his desk and scoop up the unmarked ones; on the other days of the week she stopped by the DADA classroom after his last lesson and made the exchange there. She would wish him good night and go to the library to mark papers and do her own work until curfew (she could mark his papers in public now that everyone knew she was his TA).

Hermione reflected on this soothing regularity as she raised her hand to knock on his door. Her self-consciousness was fading with the growing ease of their interactions. Routine: an antidote to crazy love feelings, she thought wryly as the wards lifted to admit her.

But tonight was a little different. When it was time for her to go, he said offhandedly, 'If you'd prefer, Miss Granger, you can stay here and mark these'...gesturing at the stack of unmarked parchments. 'I'll be in the next room brewing; you can let yourself out when you're done.'

The calmness of her reply belied her pounding heart. 'Thank you, sir; that would actually be very convenient.' He disappeared into his laboratory without another word. She pulled her chair up to his desk and reached for the first paper.

If he had any idea what these small gestures meant to her, he'd probably never let her into his rooms again.

Soon, however, she was absorbed in her work and was in reality as calm and comfortable as she appeared to be. The scratching of her quill made a duet with the clinkings and scrapings audible through the open door to Snape's laboratory.

* * *

Week Five

The summons finally came on a Tuesday afternoon in the second week of February, ten minutes before the end of his second-year lesson. The lesson, naturally, ended early that day.

After a quick stop in his rooms, Severus Apparated to the Lestranges, feeling oddly empty handed without his customary Potions kit. Sounds of laughter and talk were coming from the drawing room; he found Voldemort alone with Nagini in the library. A private audience could be propitious or... not.

He placed a parchment scroll on the table beside Voldemort and dropped to his knees.

'I heard you've been unwell, Severus. Such a pity. How is your... health?'

Severus took a split second to ready himself before meeting the Dark Lord's gaze. He hardly felt the ripple of nausea as Voldemort's cold, brutal intelligence invaded his mind...he was too intent upon his Occlumency. The fabric of thought and memory he let Riddle see had to appear full and complete, its pockets of treasonous reality perfectly concealed behind partial truths and misdirections.

It was, as always, an exhausting performance, even for such an unequalled Occlumens as Severus Snape.

'Dear, dear, how uncomfortable for you,' hissed Voldemort mockingly once he had withdrawn the tentacles of his mind. 'And saddled with a Mudblood slavey, how dreadful. But... a friend of Potter's, is she?'

'Yes, my lord. Though so far she has spoken of him little enough in my presence.'

'Fresh little thing, isn't she? I remember Lucius saying as much.'

'Perhaps she meets Lucius's standard, my lord. I wouldn't take her served on a platter with beurre blanc. I would characterise her as an undergrown, shrill, jumped-up swot whose usefulness is limited to the lower forms of ink-stained drudgery. Her work...menial as it is...is... serviceable.' Severus flared his nostrils to signal disgust.

Behind one of the curtains of his mind, he vowed to find an occasion to punch Lucius in the mouth. Fucking paedophile.

'Mmmmm,' mused Voldemort, stroking his bloodless chin. 'I don't suppose you could try to not frighten the little Mudblood too much, Severus? One never knows when the connection to Potter might bear fruit.

'In any event, you'll be resuming your potion-making duties for me immediately. Narcissa, it turns out, is hopeless at making the things taste at all well.'

'I'd be very deeply honoured, of course, my lord,' said Severus, who'd expected this.

Voldemort smiled his horrid death's head grin and pointed his wand at Severus's midsection. 'Finite incantatem!' he said grandly. 'There now. Let that be a sign of my favour to one who shows loyalty to me.'

'Yes, m...my lord. Th...thank you,' Severus gasped, staggered by a feeling of almost overpowering good health as the Prometheus Curse was lifted...a solid month after its power was nullified by the improved Iecur Fortis potion.

Which was simply one more of Severus Snape's secrets that he hoped the Dark Lord would never know.

'Of course you'll stay to dinner, Severus. Bella will be so... delighted... to see you.'

Of course he would stay. He'd dine with the Lestranges and, since there was not to be an official Death Eater meeting afterward, he could perhaps get away before the guests turned to whatever tediously depraved amusements Bellatrix had laid on for them.

'Bellatrix has acquired a set of Muggle acrobats since the last time you were here. They are a bit dungeon-worn by now but still diverting in their way.'

Oh brilliant, a Muggle-baiting show. How original.

'Come to me after dinner, and we'll discuss this.' Voldemort tapped his finger on the parchment scroll...a record of Dumbledore's movements, and of Harry Potter's. 'Then we can go in and watch the show together.'

Severus felt a heaviness descend upon him, damping down his robust feeling of wellness. He was for it now. A heavy meal, stomach-turning postprandial entertainment, and Amycus Carrow's hand, at some point, on his thigh. The stupid blighter never stopped trying.

And no Tuesday evening meeting with Miss Granger. Odd how that seemed to matter.

* * *

Hermione had missed him at dinner.

She knocked and received no reply, but the door swung open. The wards had been adjusted to admit her without his command.

She hesitated on the threshold. 'Professor Snape?'

A parchment materialised on the floor at her feet. On it was written in his spiky, cramped hand:

11 February, 5 PM

S. Snape

Business. Her stomach clenched as she heard Dumbledore's voice say, 'Severus had some... business... with Tom this afternoon.'

Was he somewhere right now being hexed and abused? Or playing the Death Eater? What would that entail? Her imagination balked.

She walked over to his desk and swept the pile of essays into her bag. Then she hesitated.

She looked at the note again. He hadn't said she couldn't stay. Maybe if she stayed to mark the papers here, she'd still see him, however briefly, when he returned.

His wards had let her in. He was trusting her to do the right thing.

I'll just... sit over here and work at this little table, she thought, and practically tiptoed to one of the sofas. She wouldn't get up and look at his books, or try to determine what was floating in each of the jars on the mantel, or poke her nose into his laboratory or his... other room.

And she didn't. The minutes ticked past into hours. She finished marking just after nine-thirty.

Curfew was in half an hour, and she had no excuse to stay any longer. But perhaps... tea. Why not?

Of course he could call down to the kitchens for some when he got back, or make his own, but the house-elves were mediocre tea makers at best, and she had to admit he was not much better. Surprising, that.

She crept into the laboratory. The kettle was on the work table nearest the door; she filled it and set it on a burner.

Finding the tea things was a little trickier. Would they be in the laboratory or the sitting room?

Rather than risk any nasty wards he might...no, that he certainly would...have attached to the cupboards that held his private stores, she opted to try a Summoning Charm. Mercifully, it worked...the tray with its big brown pot, spoons, cups, tea canister, sugar bowl, milk jug, and tea strainers burst out of a low cabinet in the sitting room and flew at her. She barely caught it in time, and the sugar bowl jolted off the tray onto the floor.

While she waited for the water to boil and then for the tea to brew, she did a little bit of Charms work among the tea things. The enhanced Stasis Spell she cast on the perfectly brewed tea was designed to lift as soon as the pot was touched.

She set the tray on his desk next to the pile of marked parchments and let herself out.

* * *

The air was frigid under clear skies spiked with stars. Severus's wand hand felt gnawed by cold in the few moments it took him to take down the wards sealing the school gates, pass through, and reset the protections.

He'd be inside by his fire soon enough. Meanwhile he almost relished the sharpness of the air as it scraped into his airways, barely warmed, it seemed, before it reached his chest.

Unreadably jovial as Voldemort had been, sordid and numbing as the captive-Muggle parade had proved to be, he still felt surprisingly splendid. Alive. This would be a good night to spend in the laboratory catching up on his cataloguing.

The moment he closed his door behind him, a piece of parchment materialised at his feet.

11 February, 9:45 PM

H. Granger

And there was the tea tray on his desk, a plume of steam Suspended above the spout of the pot. The moment he touched the handle, the steam began to curl upward. He picked up his cup. Warm. Tea poured, he sipped. Perfect.

Perhaps it was the small comfort of having a pot of excellent tea awaiting him, but a rogue hedonistic impulse seized him. To hell with the lab. I'm having a bath.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N: To answer the question that may be leaping to your mind just now: no, the next chapter does not open with Severus in the bath. I know! I am so mean. Just, you know, take a moment now to conjure your favourite Severus-in-the-bath scene. Ahhh... nice.

I get a little shiny-eyed sometimes about the supreme excellence of many of the people I've met in fandom. Three people who steadily support and encourage me are greenstuff, hechicera, and lifeasanamazon. Thanks, ladies; I value your help immensely. And all of you who have left me one review or twelve? You're awesome. Thank you. And all of you who may not feel all reviewy but are following the story? Thank you, too. I'm glad you're there.