Chapter Three - A More Humane Mikado

Hex Dumbledore several times over

The lift was, thank fuck, empty but for two aimless paper airplanes that circled above his head.

Snape hated these duty visits to Kingsley.

"Hold the lift, please!" A strident voice rang through the corridor, accompanied by the sound of running feet.

Snape sighed and shoved his hand between the doors, and they snapped open.

"Thank you." Breathless and disheveled, Granger slipped into the lift. "Thank you, Professor."

Snape sighed inwardly: the last time she'd addressed him, she'd at least called him by his name.

"Granger," he said with a stiff nod. "Floor?"

"Fifth floor, please. It would appear that we're going to the same place."

"I doubt that." Snape jabbed at the already-illuminated button.

"I'm going to see Kingsley," Granger volunteered.

"How absolutely fucking fascinating," Snape drawled in tones of heavy sarcasm.

"Well, where are you going?"

"None of your business, Granger."

Granger harrumphed.

The lift doors finally sighed closed, but the lift did not move.

Snape jabbed the button again.

"For fuck's sake."

"Do you mind?" Granger asked.

"Mind what?"

"All the swearing. It's quite uncouth."

Uncouth? What was this, eighteen-oh-four?

"Uncouth, Granger? What the fuck is this, eighteen-oh-four?"

Granger looked prim.

"I don't usually object," she said, "but coming from you, it's inappropriate. Especially when you're in the Ministry."

Snape looked at her in wild surmise.

"What? Granger, you're babbling."

"It's simply that you're a role model, an example. You didn't swear in front of the students, and now that you're a hero, you have people looking up to you. Can't you be a better example when you're in public, and people know who you are?"

"A what? Granger, just what have you been putting in your pumpkin juice?" Snape demanded.

"Is it me, or has this lift not moved?" Granger asked.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's mov–" Snape stopped. The lift wasn't budging.

"Momentum!," cried Granger, the typical spell to unstick unmoving objects. The lift shuddered and refused to budge. "Well, that's odd," she frowned.

"Odd indeed. I suppose you didn't think to press the button again?" Snape demanded.

"Try it yourself, sir."

Snape jabbed at the button again.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, flaming Salazar's festering fucking piles!" Snape bellowed, kicking at the lift doors. The lift shuddered again, and Granger grabbed for the handrail.

"Do you mind?" she asked acidly. "When you do that, the whole bloody lift shakes."

"Now who's using foul language?" Snape sneered.

"For your information, I don't like enclosed spaces like this, and you're not making it any better."

"Well, excuse me!"

"MOMENTUM," cried Granger again. The lift didn't even bother to shudder that time. Granger sighed. "I suppose we're stuck," she announced.

Snape wanted to bang a head on the doors. Preferably not his head. Surely Granger wouldn't feel it with all that hair.

"I'm sure somebody will come and rescue us eventually," Granger continued. "In the meantime, Expecto Patronum!"

Her silvery otter slid from her wand and chittered at them.

"Get help, boy!" Granger told it.

The otter chittered again and slipped through the crack in the door.

"Get help, boy?" Snape demanded. "Is it a sheepdog or a Patronus?"

"He's a Patronus, and his name is Skip."

"You're fucking joking."

"What's wrong with Skip?" Granger asked.

"You named your Patronus."

"So?"

"Granger, do you have any idea how tacky that is?"

"Who cares? He's my Patronus!" Granger crossed her arms in front of chest and glared at him.

It was the absolute limit. He was trapped in a lift with a woman who was actually madder then Bellatrix. He was trapped with a woman who had named her fucking Patronus after a sheepdog.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Snape exploded. "This is the last fucking thing I fucking need! It's so bloody typical, isn't it? After everything, all the suffering, all the bloody drama, all the stinking shitload of playing nice, doing what that pimpled wanker Shacklebolt tells me to, pretending that I actually give a Thestral's fwoop about the Good of the Wizarding World, after pretending to Minerva that I want my Merlin-forsaken job back, having to bow down to that sharp-tongued Scottish harpy so that she can gloat, and now this!

"I'm stuck in a bloody lift with a bushy-haired harridan who named her Patronus, the heroine, the bloody . . . "

"Snape! Will you please shut the fuck up!" screeched Granger in the middle of his tirade.

Startled, Snape fell silent. Please? She said please?

"When are you going to learn, you Dragon-Pox-ridden, skinny-arsed excuse for a wizard, that you were not the only one to suffer during the War?

"I spent all those Circe-cursed months with Ronald and Harry and then just Harry, traipsing across the bloody countryside because he couldn't sit still and do some fucking research!

"I had to listen to Bill and Phlegm shag every fucking night when we were imprisoned at Shell Cottage!

"I had the fabulous, mind-blowing opportunity to gnaw on the Malfoys' Axminster carpet while that pox-ridden bitch, Bellatrix, entertained herself with me!

"I have to get up at a fucking four a.m. just to make a cup of bloody tea and check my vitals just to make sure I'm not dead somewhere, or dying, because I've just woken up screaming blue fucking murder because of the nightmares! So don't you tell me about suffering, Severus fucking Snape! Because you are not the only one, you ... you ... arsehole!"

Granger stomped to a corner of the lift and slithered down to the floor, head resting on her trouser-clad legs.

Snape stared, more than a little gobsmacked.

"I'm sorry, Grang-, Hermione," he said. "I knew, of course, that Bellatrix had managed to get her slimy claws on you, but I didn't realize that it had gone so far..."

"Oh, fuck you, Snape. I don't need your bloody pity." The words were muffled by her trousers.

"It's not pity. And don't you think, Granger, that I'm the last person on earth who would pity you? I'm expressing regret that that bitch Bella did you harm, that you had to listen to any Weasley mate, that you were stuck in that festering tent for as long as you were, that you endured what you had to endure because Potter doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground."

Granger didn't respond.

"Well, it's true," Snape grumbled.

"Really?" Granger's head came up. "Because it just seems that ..."

"Contrary to what you might think, Granger – oh, hell, Hermione – I'm not incapable of feeling regret. Especially regret over things that I might have been able to prevent."

Hermione sighed. "I know – it's not like you've ever shown that. And besides, if I couldn't even keep Harry from going off half-charmed, what makes you think you could? I know what you tried to do for us; I know how much Harry hated you; and I know how much you hated him."

"Not hate, exactly," Snape said, sitting down beside her. "Derision, yes, resentment that he always managed to get away with mischief when others were severely punished, absolutely, but not hatred; that died with his father. After a while, it simply wasn't worth the effort."

"And what about me?" Granger asked.

"Oh, you." Snape sighed heavily. "Well, an accomplice? The voice of sense? I don't know, Gr- Hermione. You were always there, and in retrospect, I ... I don't suppose Potter would've survived without you. Doubtless, you deserve every ounce of praise. And yet, even you don't know what it is to have your accomplishments passed over.

"You're the bloody heroine. It's different for you."

"That's not true."

Snape ran his fingers through his lank hair, pushing it out of his face.

"No, it is," he replied. "You worked hard, swotted away, put yourself in danger, but think about it. You're the youngest Healer in the history of St Mungo's, you're probably going to see Kingsley to free the house-elves, you certainly don't lack for anything with your Order of Merlin stipend, you and the young Weasley are going to be married, and you'll have your perfect life.

"And what do I get?" Snape fished his List, now a dog-eared piece of parchment, from his back pocket. "I've managed to get pissed on by a drunk, made a laughing-stock at the most exclusive brothel, and now who the fuck knows what Kingsley's going to make me do this afternoon to keep my sorry arse out of Azkaban. If I ever get out of this fwooping, shit-soaked lift."

"We just have to be patient, I suppose," Hermione said, though she didn't sound convinced.

"Oh, fucking hell! " Snape rose and kicked at the door.

The lift shuddered again and lurched on its intended course.

"Oh, my," Hermione said, scrambling to her feet. "That was..."

"Surprising as hell?" Snape asked.

Hermione grinned. "You could say that," she admitted. "As a matter of fact, I was going to see Kingsley about you. And what about the house-elves?"

"What about me?"

"About your Order of Merlin."

"What Order of Merlin? Just when I thought you were beginning to talk sense, Granger, you start babbling again."

"I'm not babbling! Wasn't it on your list? 'To get the recognition you deserve?'"

"It's always about the list with you, isn't it? Can't you just leave well enough alone?"

"No, not always," Hermione said. "I do have other interests."

"Right," Snape sneered, "the house-elves."

"What? What house-elves?" Hermione frowned as the Sickle dropped. "Those house-elves? Snape, do you think I'm that naive? Honestly," she huffed, "of course the welfare of the house-elves is important to me, that they not be abused by their families, but if you hadn't noticed, Snape, I'm not fifteen anymore. Or have you not noticed?"

Snape scoffed and then looked more closely at her. She was, indeed, no longer a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. She had the breasts and hips of a woman – a young woman, a former student – but she wasn't a skinny, bushy-haired, buck-toothed swot.

And you were ogling her arse the other day. His conscience reminded him.

"Oh," he replied, looking her up and down, "I noticed." And he again had the pleasure of watching her blush.

"Anyway," Hermione said, filling the awkward silence between them as the lift slowed to a halt, and the doors slid open, "Kinglsey asked me to compile a report for him regarding your role in the War."

"Oh, he did, did he?" They stepped from the lift whose doors snapped shut behind them.

"Okay, I complied a report and bullied Kinglsey into looking at it," Hermione confessed.

Snape chuckled. "That sounds more accurate."

"And in any event, surely you'd prefer not being banged up in Azkaban?" Hermione demanded, turning to face him outside of Kingsley's office.

"Well, obviously. But did it not occur to you, Granger, to consult me first?"

"Since when has Hermione Granger ever asked permission before starting a crusade?" Kingsley asked, opening the door.

Hermione grinned.

"I won't be a charity case," Snape grumbled. "I don't need your pity."

"Nobody's talking about pity, Severus," Kingsley said, drawing him into his office. "What we're talking about is righting a wrong or two, or three. Hermione agrees with me, and we've arranged for a special hearing of the Wizengamot."

"A what?"

A familiar, and loathed, chuckle echoed in the office. Snape jerked his arm from Kingsley's grasp.

"What the bloody fuck is that oily lunatic doing here?" he demanded.

Before the portrait of Dumbledore could answer, before Kingsley could grasp his arm, before Hermione could scream, Snape drew his wand.

A stream of turpentine shot forth, followed by bright orange flame.

"Eat hot death, you manipulative, Giant Squid buggering, stinking fascist son of a syphilitic she-knarl!"

"Aguameni!" Granger screamed.

"Don't you dare, Snape! Expelliarmus!"

"Fuck you, Kingsley!" Snape grasped for his wand as it flew from his grip. Fist met jaw with a satisfying smack. Kingsley sat down heavily.

"Professor! Severus! You can't hit the acting Minister of Magic!" Granger gasped, racing for the door.

"Aphrodite's arsehole, Severus. That hurt!" Kingsley staggered to his feet.

"What the fuck did you expect? Granger, call off the fucking Aurors. I didn't hurt him that much." Reluctantly, Hermione returned to the office to survey the damage.

"Is he still smoldering? Ouch." Kingsley gingerly rubbed his jaw.

Hermione peered at the blackened frame. Snape joined her to admire his handiwork.

He'd certainly done a thorough job. All that remained was a wisp of purple robe, a portion of white beard and a twinkling blue eye.

Snape felt an immense sense of satisfaction, even as several burly Aurors tramped into the office.

"Severus Snape, you are under arrest for assaulting the Minister of Magic, as well as damaging a national treasure. If you will step this way," announced the heaviest of the Aurors.

"You're not going to arrest him!" Hermione sounded incensed.

"Sorry, miss, duty is duty."

"Kingsley!"

Snape glanced to Kingsley, who was gently massaging his jaw.

"It will probably be easier this way," Kingsley admitted, nodding at the Aurors. "We can..." the door swung shut behind them.

Neither the fact that he was being dragged off to prison, nor the realization that Shacklebolt and Granger were obviously plotting something troubled Snape. On the way down to the bowels of the Ministry in the lift, he was permitted to fish his List from his back pocket and check off one item at last.

Finally hex the shit out of that turd-eating ponce, Albus Percival Brian Fucking Dumbledore.

AN: Still not mine!