One

A/N: This story is a collaboration between myself and OpalJade. We began it in our hotel room at Leaky Con in Boston this past May, and completed it for our dear friend Lulabelle72's birthday in September. We always argue over who the story "belongs" to--I say it's more hers, and she says it's more mine. But since I'm posting it, I get the last word: all the good stuff is hers.

Professor Snape,

I believe I have made clear on numerous occasions that I require cauldrons in my classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays for afternoon lessons.

I haul the cauldrons myself, Snape, as you requested, so that the students will not, as you say, chip or bang them against the walls with their shoddy, careless charm work—no doubt, you would say, learned at my hand.

However.

I haul your bloody cauldrons up from the dungeons each Monday and Wednesday evening, finding invariably that they have been removed at some time during the night.

Who removes them, Snape? Last week you told me it must have been the house elves in that tone of voice you use that implies that you’ve no idea how I managed to graduate from Hogwarts, let alone teach here. But I will have you know that I personally contacted each and every Hogwarts house elf with the explicit instructions to leave those cauldrons be.

And yet.

And yet the cauldrons were missing again tonight, Snape. And perhaps it was within my rights to venture down into that dungeon of yours. And what do you think I saw?

I saw you, Severus. Standing over a pile—A PILE, Mr Don’t Damage My Precious Cauldrons—of sixth-year, copper-bottomed, lead-lined cauldrons.

And so I have to ask myself, what could you possibly need with those cauldrons? What could be so important as to disrupt my Advanced Charms lesson? Perhaps there was some emergency requiring the use of all 36 cauldrons? Was there an outbreak of Dragon Pox that somehow escaped my attention? Was it, perhaps, that St Mungos suddenly requisitioned 36 Draughts of Dreamless Sleep? Or is it, Severus that you

cannot stay out of my classroom?

simply want my attention. Is that it, Snape? Would you like my complete, undivided attention?

cannot help but undermine me at each and every turn, no matter how hard I try to prove to you

No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s it. I think you enjoy this, Severus—enjoy seeing me angry. Is that it? You enjoy it when I

continue to feel that I haven’t earned my right to be here? Is your hoarding of the cauldrons just another in your long line of staff room temper tantrums?

Perhaps you should just cut to the chase, Severus, and dock me house points or loom over me like a great overgrown bat. Intimidation has always been more your style, yes? So why don’t you come down in here those high-collared robes of yours and tell me exactly what I need to do to get those cauldrons.

Shall I beg you, Snape? Is that what you’d like? Or

When are you going to admit that this is all an embarrassingly Slytherin attempt to interact with me?

I see through you, Snape. It’s facile, really, and I think you know as well as I do that

Just admit it. You like me.

You. Like. Me.

And that’s ok. Because—here’s the secret, Snape. I like you back.

But stop stealing my goddamn cauldrons.

Love,

Hermione

Charms Mistress

*This letter was discovered with two empty bottles of elf wine on the desk of Charms Mistress Hermione Granger by Leaky, her house elf. Leaky helpfully delivered the letter to Professor Snape, as it was clear that her mistress was in no condition to do so herself.