Captivation

A few days later, Hermione sat in Potions class, anxiously awaiting the return of her Flobberworm essay. Throughout the lesson, she kept eyeing the stack of parchments on Snape's desk with a mix of hopeful excitement and terrible dread. Finally, once the last potion had been bottled and the fires extinguished under the cauldrons, Snape distributed the marked assignments with a single wave of his wand, sending each essay floating towards its author.

As she caught her roll of parchment and unrolled it with shaky hands, her heart seemed to stand still. Her eyes flew straight to the bottom. But at the sight of the letter 'A', signed there in red ink without any further comment, all her hopes came tumbling down. Her sense of disappointment was so overwhelming that it made it hard to breathe against the weight on her chest, as if an entire bookshelf had collapsed on top of her. She could feel her eyes go hazy and tried hard to blink back the tears. Crying over a Potions mark would have been too embarrassing, hardly gaining her any sympathy. Despite her best efforts, however, her friends did not fail to notice that she was upset.

"What's the matter, Hermione?" Harry asked, putting a comforting hand on her arm.

"It's nothing. I'm just disappointed with my mark, that's all."

She sniffed and swallowed, mastering her emotions again.

"Let's see, what did you get?" Ron asked, taking the parchment out of her hand. "Wow, you got an 'A'. I wish I ever got that," he remarked enthusiastically.

Harry and Ron both had got a 'D', as usual, but it was little consolation that she was still better off than they were.

"Never mind, 'Mione," Ron tried to console her. "You'd have to get sorted into Slytherin to do any better, and I, for once, am glad I'm not in that House."

Hermione didn't believe it was a question of House favouritism, but at the same time was unable to just accept her grade. She really wanted to know where she had gone wrong. And thus, in a moment of true bravado, she decided to confront her professor.

Taking extra time to clean up her work bench, she waited until all the other students had left. Once she was alone with him, she walked up to his desk, where he was marking the samples of the potion they had brewed in class. She placed her own little potion vial in front of him. Trembling inside with trepidation, as well as the thrill of being so close to him, she tried to pluck up the courage to speak. Snape was completely ignoring her, which made the task somewhat easier than if he had subjected her to the fearsome power of his glare. With a deep breath, she took courage.

"Professor, I was wondering if I might ask you something," she managed to say, not without a little shakiness in her voice.

"What is it, Miss Granger?" he replied sullenly, still not looking up from his marking.

"It's about my essay." She swallowed, forcing herself to continue. "I put a lot of effort into it. I read every book in the library on the subject, and I referenced all my sources. In all modesty, I think Professor McGonagall would have given me an 'O' for it, but you only gave me an 'A'."

Now he did look at her, his eyes flashing with annoyance.

"Miss Granger," he said slowly, "if you take issue with my marking..." The brief pause he made was heavy with danger. "You may express your complaint to the Headmaster."

She shook her head violently. Under no circumstances would she complain about him to Professor Dumbledore. She just wanted an explanation. In no way had she wanted to offend him. He stared her down, seemingly satisfied with the frightened expression on her face.

"Well, since you are apparently incapable of recognizing your own shortcomings, let me spell it out for you," he drawled, his voice like liquid lead. "As you have just admitted yourself, your work is a mere reiteration of various sources, often contradicting each other. If I wanted to know what a particular author thought on the subject, I could simply read his work. In fact, you're even telling me exactly where to look. How charming..." He sneered. "Why do you bother, Miss Granger? Do you really think I'm going to check whether you are able to quote from a book?"

"No, sir, I suppose not," she whispered, lowering her head.

"What is missing entirely from your essay, on the other hand, is any critical evaluation of the material. You are at OWL level now. You should be able to express an opinion, and possibly even offer some original thoughts of your own. I therefore believe that an 'A' is a rather generous mark for your work, as it is not, in fact, acceptable from someone who should be able to do better."

He gave her a withering glance and went back to his marking. Hermione could feel her cheeks burn with shame. Her self-esteem had been dealt a devastating blow, but the worst thing was that she knew he was right. As she left the classroom, hastily making her way out of the dungeons, it felt to her like being on the run.

At lunch, she sat in silence, not listening to the animated chatter around the Gryffindor table, brooding about how she could possibly redeem herself in Snape's eyes. But it didn't take long for her positive thinking to return. He had told her what he was looking for, and it was something entirely achievable. Yes, she could indeed do better. He had given them a new essay topic earlier in class on the use of yew in longevity potions. She would take his advice to heart and do things differently this time. And thus she retired to the library to do her homework.

As usual, she started by reading the relevant chapters in a number of text books. But instead of describing the different potions in detail, she just wrote a quick summary of the various applications of yew. As for the preparation of the plant, her sources disagreed. Some called for the needles to be added whole, some would have them finely chopped, and one book even recommended bruising them with the back of the knife, though none of the authors actually gave any reasons. So what was the difference between these methods, or did it not matter at all? Hermione realised that this was an area where Snape would want her to offer her own thoughts, but the truth was that she had no clue. Then she had an idea. She returned the books to their shelves, stuffed her parchment and quills into her school bag, and headed outside.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The mild winter sun painted the sandstone walls of the castle in hues of gold, and the crisp, cold air made a refreshing change from the stuffed atmosphere of the library. There were several old yew trees within the grounds of Hogwarts. As she passed one of them on her way, she plucked off a handful of twigs. Back in her dormitory, she fetched some tea cups, a knife, and a kettle and immediately set out to work.

After an hour of experimenting with different preparations of the yew needles infused in hot water, she had learned that bruising the needles yielded the best result. The whole needles hardly released any of their flavour, while the chopped ones floated on top of the water's surface in a way that would make a potion unpleasant to drink without straining it first. Then she sat down at her desk with quill and parchment to describe her experiment and draw her conclusions. Once finished, she leaned back in her chair with a smile. It had been a very satisfying exercise. She felt like she had learned more than from any other homework assignment she had ever done.

A few days later, her efforts were rewarded. As Snape returned the essays at the start of his OWL class, her heart jumped with elation at the sight of the letter 'E' penned in red on the margin of her parchment. It felt as wonderful as unwrapping a Christmas present as a child, and discovering her most ardently wished for present inside. She managed to suppress the delighted squeal she felt like emitting, but could not stop a smug smile from spreading over her face. Snape did not fail to notice, and his expression seemed to darken, if such a thing was even possible from the already gloomy look he always carried on his face. Throughout the remainder of the lesson, he watched her disapprovingly, seemingly looking for even the slightest mistake to reprimand or criticise her for, as if he needed to redress the balance. But Hermione didn't care. She had finally cracked it. From now on, she would apply the same approach to all her Potions assignments. Perhaps she would even manage to get an 'Outstanding' mark next time.

After lunch, she headed to the library as usual, to do a little background reading on the new topic Snape had set them – four inches of parchment about the effect of stirring spoon length on a potion. But hang on – only four inches? Could that be right or had she perhaps made a mistake when copying it off the board?

Her thoughts were interrupted when Harry and Ron were coming out of the library just as she was about to go in.

"Are you done with your homework already?" she asked, somewhat doubtful.

"Yeah... Only four inches for Potions!" Ron beamed, triumphantly waving a short piece of parchment in the air. "I reckon the greasy git made a mistake! But I'm not complaining..."

"Snape doesn't make mistakes," Harry said gloomily. "Guess who's got the Quidditch pitch booked for practice this afternoon – the Slytherins!"

Hermione somehow doubted that Snape's interest in Quidditch went so far as to be aware of who had use of the Quidditch pitch, but she knew there was no point arguing with her friend over this. At least Ron and Harry had confirmed that she had the correct length for Snape's assignment.

"I'm going to call a training session for Dumbledore's Army," Harry said. "Are you going to be joining us?"

"I might, though I've got to do Arithmancy homework, too."

"Never mind, I think we will be practicing our Patronus charms again today. You're really good at that anyway."

"O.K. In that case I'll see you at dinner."

She entered and headed straight for her usual table by the window. She loved being in the library. It was like a temple of knowledge, filled with studious silence and the wonderful smell of ancient tomes.

Pondering on the essay subject, she frowned. Even though every student's potion-making kit contained a set of three wooden spoons of different lengths, they had only ever used the longest one in Snape's class, so it had to be one of the finer aspects of the craft that he reserved for his OWL students. She went to retrieve one of her favourite books from its shelf, Causticus Splotch's Grand Encyclopedia of Potions. It was the most respected and comprehensive text on the subject, a book she would have loved to own, had it not been so prohibitively expensive. She had it on loan almost constantly, using it for virtually all her Potions homework. It didn't take her long to locate the relevant section.

"The stirring instrumente's lenghte doth much impact upon the speediness of any broth. The shortest handle giveth the quickest onset, while the longest delayeth the moste."

So the shorter the spoon used the faster acting the potion would be. That was certainly useful to know. She consulted a few more books on the matter; however, none of them offered any more detail, and for the most part simply quoted Causticus Splotch's work. With a trace of disappointment, she realised that four inches of parchment would indeed be plenty to exhaustively cover the subject. She wondered how pronounced the effect was. Remembering her experiment with the yew leaves, she suppressed the urge to go looking through more books. Instead, she decided to go back to her dormitory to find out for herself.

She closed the Grand Encyclopedia of Potions and got up to put it back in its place. Just as she was standing in front of the shelf, she heard the sound of footsteps from the neighbouring aisle. The gravitas with which they moved unmistakeably identified them as Snape's. A flurry of excitement went through her stomach. She ducked behind a row of books, peering through a gap between the shelves to observe him. He was standing with his back to her, so close she hardly dared to breathe. Her eyes drank in the sight of his broad shoulders, accentuated by the yoke of his robes, from which the material flowed out in generous folds, only revealing a hint of the masculine V-shape of his back. His black clothes seemed to swallow all light from the library's stained windows, offsetting the equally black tresses of his hair, which reflected it in the form of bluish highlights, like the shiniest of silks.

It appeared that he, too, had come to replace a book, a small, dark green volume, which, thanks to his height and length of arm, he set on the top shelf with ease. Then he briefly tapped it with his wand and was gone from her sight in a whirlwind of black fabric. Fuelled by the desire to find out what he was reading, as well as to hold something he had touched so recently, she hurried into the neighbouring aisle to pick up the little green book. Unfortunately, unlike him, she was too short to reach it. She tried retrieving it with Accio, but to her surprise, the book petulantly resisted all her attempts. She wondered if Snape had deliberately put it on the top shelf, spelling it to make it impossible to Summon. Perhaps it was one of his favourite works, which he didn't want to share with others. That thought made her even more keen to obtain it, so she went to get a footstool for help.

On her way to look for a footstool, she spotted Snape standing by the door, talking to Professor Umbridge. Taking refuge behind another bookshelf, she tried to overhear what they were saying.

"... I assure you, Dolores, Madam Pince never misfiles any book," she heard Snape's deep voice say.

"Yes, well, it is not in the Restricted Section where she said it would be. I just thought you might know."

"Regrettably, I cannot help you. Perhaps Peeves has misplaced it. You could question him about it."

"I wouldn't have to if you'd finally provide the Veritaserum you promised me."

"I told you, this particular potion takes a long time to prepare, and it's not something I keep in stock."

"Then you should! One of my Inquisitorial Squad spotted a large group of students, obviously in breach of my last decree, heading up to the seventh floor. He tried to follow them, but they suddenly disappeared. I will need to interrogate them."

Thinking of the DA meeting taking place in the Room of Requirement, Hermione's heart filled with dread. She just hoped her friends would not get into trouble.

"In that case, I do not want to hold you up any longer from your admirable efforts to uphold discipline at this school," Snape replied coldly.

"Yes... well, I suppose I'll have to find Peeves," Umbridge uttered, a little uncertainly. Snape turned on his heel and was about to leave her when she stopped him with another question. "You wouldn't know of any good spells to use against poltergeists, would you?"

The look on his face as he turned back around was one of pure sincerity, but Hermione did not fail to notice that he was mocking his colleague.

"My dear Dolores, you are the expert on Defence Against the Dark Arts. I would never be so presumptuous as to advise you on matters in your own field."

Umbridge smiled sweetly, still appearing a little flustered.

"Ah, um, yes... You're quite right," she stammered.

Snape didn't wait for her reply, sweeping out of the door in one swift, fluent motion.

Hermione remained in her hiding place a little longer, until Umbridge had left as well, before continuing in her search for a stepladder. It didn't take her long to find one, which she took back to the aisle where the object of her desire sat on its high shelf. Finally, she was able to get at the little book. When she read the title – "Mastering Legilimency in Ten Simple Steps" – she was rather surprised. This volume didn't belong in the Potions section at all, but she immediately understood why Snape had hid it there. No doubt it was the very book Umbridge was after. It would be a terrible thing for the students if she got hold of it and actually managed to put its content to use. With a warm, fuzzy feeling in her heart, she realised that the dark Slytherin really was a much better person than most people gave him credit for. Relishing the sense of conspiring with him against the despicable High Inquisitor, she quickly put the book back.

Before going back to her dormitory, she decided to drop into the Room of Requirement in order to warn the DA that Umbridge was after them. As she passed Umbridge's office on the way up to the seventh floor, the squat DADA professor suddenly came running down the corridor, a rudely cackling Peeves in tow. She watched with great amusement as Umbridge entered her office in panic, slamming the door shut behind her. The door, however, was no impediment for the poltergeist, who simply floated through it. A moment later Hermione could hear a shriek from inside the room, followed by the sound of china clattering onto the floor. Smiling to herself, she walked on. It was clear that, for the next few hours, Umbridge would be too busy to ambush any of the DA members.

Back in Gryffindor tower, she once more set out to experiment. She chose a simple stain erasing potion, which was ideal for her purpose as it was quick to make and would not require her to drink the potion in order to test it. A second cauldron, borrowed from Ginny, allowed her make two batches simultaneously. One of these she stirred with her longest spoon, stained and worn from years of brewing, while for the other she used her shortest spoon, still pristine and new. Once they were finished, she assessed their speed of action by means of some ink blotted onto small strips of parchment. But no matter how many times she tried, there was never any difference between the two batches. She then proceeded to test some other potions, though always with the same result. It didn't seem that it made any difference which spoon she used. Finally, she had to face up to the only plausible explanation: The Grand Encyclopedia of Potions was wrong, and not only that – it appeared that dozens of other authors had blindly believed and quoted Causticus Splotch's assertion without ever checking its truth.

To Hermione, who held a deep reverence for books and literature, this realisation came as shock, shaking her view of the world to the core. She would never again be able to look at a book with the same eyes, nor would she ever again take its content at face value. As such, Snape's homework assignment had taught her something that went much further than potion making. What a shame that this insight would be lost to virtually all of his other students. It begged the question why, if he apparently put so much thought into the tasks he set them, he didn't ensure they actually learned the lesson by giving them a little hint or pointer in the right direction, rather than watching them fail and putting them all down as hopeless idiots.

Taking her quill and a small piece of parchment, she wrote down her findings. This might have been her shortest essay ever, but she felt immensely proud and pleased with herself. She had found a major error in one the most respected and widely used wizarding reference books, proving one of the old Potions masters wrong. This time, Snape really would have to take notice of her. If this didn't warrant an 'O', then what did?

In a gloomy, unwelcoming office deep down in the dungeons of Hogwarts castle, Severus Snape was busy with a most unpleasant task. He was marking homework assignments. It always felt like an insult towards his intellect to be forced to read pages upon pages of student's drivel, when there were so many infinitely better uses of his time. Over the years, he had developed faster reading techniques that allowed him to just skim over an essay and still determine whether it was poor, mostly inadequate, or absolutely dreadful. It was an essential skill for any Hogwarts professor faced with a never-ending stream of dunderheads. But then, about halfway through the stack of parchments on his desk, one essay caught his full attention, making him go back to the beginning, and read every sentence carefully.

Every standard Potions toolkit contains a set of stirring spoons of various lengths, but which one is the best to use? A widespread misconception is that using a short spoon will result in a faster acting Potion. This idea seems to have originated from Causticus Splotch's Grand Encyclopedia of Potions, and is frequently quoted by later authors. However, as anybody who has ever put this theory to the test will know, the length of the stirring spoon has no impact on the potion at all. Indeed the only thing you'll achieve by using a shorter spoon is to burn or blister your fingers. Therefore, for the sake of safety and convenience, one should always use a spoon with a sufficiently long handle.

One student had actually got the point of the assignment. He did not have to look for the name at the top of the parchment to see who it was, as he knew the neat, pedantic handwriting only too well. For several long seconds, and with growing unease, he considered what mark to give for this work. Then his resolve hardened. He briefly dipped his quill into the flask of red ink and signed the letter 'A' along the bottom of the parchment.

He had not anticipated the degree of offence this would cause, making a certain bushy-haired student storm out of his classroom upon receiving her essay back the next day. It did not take much to guess the reason, yet he felt like he was beyond reproach. His mark was perfectly justified. Bloody Gryffindors and their brazen overconfidence... It would do her no harm to have her inflated ego trimmed back to healthy levels on occasion, just like her bespectacled friend. And so he duly ignored the incident, continuing with his lesson as if nothing had happened, while a stern look and a raised eyebrow warned the rest of the class to do the same.

Meanwhile, Hermione sat crying on her four-poster bed in the Gryffindor girl's dormitory with the curtains drawn. She was so agitated that her heart was racing, to the point that she felt light-headed. She knew she would be missing lunch in the Great Hall, but apart from the fact that she would hardly be able to get any food past the lump in her throat, she neither wanted to face the strange looks people would give her after her bizarre behaviour nor the concerned questions of her friends. To storm out of the classroom like that was foolhardy; she could only hope that it would not come to Professor Umbridge's attention. It had been her best option though, as this time she really had not been able to hold back the tears, and it was still far less embarrassing than crying in front of Snape and the whole class. With one last shuddering sob, she wiped away the tears. She let herself drop back onto the covers, biting her lower lip in contemplation, while her breathing slowly returned to normal.

Perhaps she could claim that the potion fumes had suddenly made her sick, causing her to run for the bathroom. She hated to lie to her friends, but how could she possibly have explained to them why she was so upset about what they would consider a fairly decent mark for her homework? They would never have understood that it was far more than her academic pride that had been hurt. Her heart had been dealt a painful blow. The only meaningful real-world relationship she could ever have with the man of her dreams was that of student and teacher, and on that score she had just been coldly rejected. The most pressing question in her mind, however, was why? What on earth had she done wrong this time?

Remembering the humiliation of the last time she had enquired about Snape's marking of her essay made her loathe to go back, but at the same time she really needed to know his reasons. She knew she would not be able to take her mind off the issue. The Gryffindor in her would rather face her professor's wrath, than spend the coming days and weeks hurt, bitter, and wondering. The pragmatist in her realised that she needed to find out why he had marked her down, or else she risked another 'A' on her next assignment. The optimist in her didn't rule out the possibility that he had intended to give her a higher grade, but made a mistake, which would all clear itself up if she went to speak to him. Adding to that the irresistible pull that Snape's office in the dungeons and the prospect of simply seeing him exerted on her, it was little surprising that she found herself wandering into the Potions master's lair before the afternoon lessons would start.

The sound of her knuckles knocking against the ancient oak of his office door reverberated eerily in the cavernous space of the dungeons. For a moment she had to fight the urge to turn around and run, but that option soon disappeared when the door flew open, and Snape's tall form loomed in the semidarkness behind it.

"Miss Granger, what could possibly justify the insolence of disturbing me outside my office hours?"

She hadn't exactly expected him to invite her in for a friendly chat, but the frosty aloofness with which he measured out those words made her realise that nothing good could possibly come from any conversation with him. Now that she was here though, it was too late to turn back; she had to speak. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. His imposing physical presence, his piercing glance, and his dismissive posture were so intimidating, that it took her several seconds to find her voice. When she did find it, it sounded feeble and hoarse at first, until she managed to put some firmness and resolve into it.

"I – eh... Sir – I had a question about my essay..."

He didn't say a word, just looking at her with malicious challenge, like a predator watching his prey walk to its demise.

"You gave me an 'E' for my last essay, but for this one, you gave me an 'A'," she stated nervously. She had the distinct feeling that she was digging herself into a hole, but rambled on regardless. "I thought this one was just as good as the other, so why did I only get an 'A'... I mean, don't you agree that it was just as good, even though it was short...?"

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said slowly, with a distinctly condescending note to his voice, "the quality of your last essay, and your previous one were the same."

"Oh..."

A glimmer of hope lit up in her heart. So perhaps it was a mistake after all! She should have known better, however, from the cold determination in his eyes.

"It appears that you have not grasped the meaning of the term 'exceeds expectations'," he enunciated, scorn written all over his face. "Your previous essay exceeded my expectations, as you had never before used your brain in my classes. Since then, my expectations of you are raised, and your last essay did not surpass them."

Hermione couldn't believe her ears. She gaped at her professor incredulously, but there was more to come.

"If you think you can rest on your laurels in my class, you are mistaken."

Slowly, as if in a stupor, she turned and walked away. Her mind wanted to scream about how unfair, unreasonable, iniquitous, and plain wrong he was, but in her heart she just felt a great void, like a bubble that had burst, leaving behind a strange numbness. Hermione had a strong sense of justice, of right and wrong, and just couldn't see past his inequitable treatment of her. It made a dent into the pedestal upon which she had placed the Potions master, marking the beginning of the end of her unhealthy infatuation with him. From here on, she would struggle more and more to immerse herself in romantic dreams about him.

Perhaps if she had truly understood the reason for his behaviour, she could have been more forgiving. But how could she have guessed the truth – that as a female, Muggle-born, and unusually talented Gryffindor, she reminded him uncomfortably of a girl he had once known. Somewhere, deep in the unconscious part of her professor's mind, it seemed that she was competing against that girl when it came to brilliance in Potions, and he would never allow her to win.