My Friends Are Like Mushrooms: I Try to Keep Them in the Dark and Feed Them Bullshit

Chapter Three: My Friends Are Like Mushrooms: I Try to Keep Them in the Dark and Feed Them Bullshit

A month into term was no time for a headmistress to be skulking about, spying on her teachers. But the situation was dire...or it soon would be, so what choice did she have, really?

On cat's paws, she headed towards the clearing where Care of Magical Creatures was being held for third-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

If he'd been a more fortunate man, Severus would have awakened to find it had all been a horrible dream. Fortune had never exactly looked fondly on him, so he wasn't the least bit surprised to wake with a mouth full of bushy brown hair...and a more pressing problem.

He often used his right hand to steady his aim, first thing. The left was for bracing against the tiled wall those mornings when screaming need was the only thing that finally drove him from his bed.

Of course, even with much of the weight on his long legs, her spindly arms hadn't the strength to support him. Of course.

"I won't!"

"You had better. I cut up my best wool mitten for you!"

"I won't! And that mitten should have been binned decades ago!"

Stubborn bint! "It was my favourite mitten. And if you don't, I might end up going on you!"

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?"

"If you hadn't spent last night drinking yourself..."

Swaying, Severus freed himself from the threadbare y-fronts and took haphazard aim.

She glared at him, muttering something that sounded a lot like "disgusting git", but she did as she was told.

"Don't know what your problem is with touching it," he murmured. Sweet relief was sweetening his mood. "Yesterday, you bit it."

Severus didn't mind her lack of response in the least.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

"But... leave the grounds during term, Headmistress? Other than to Hogsmeade?"

Minerva closed her eyes a moment. "Yes, Mr Longbottom. With my permission, you can go just about anywhere you like. Under my express order, you will go to check on your colleague and business partner."

Longbottom didn't say a word...didn't even nod. He didn't tremble, exactly, but she could see something of his old fear beneath the confidence he'd been carrying since the end of the war.

"Someone needs to ascertain the nature of Severus's injury. I'd send Hagrid, but I think he's got something to do with it. Whatever 'it' is. You're the only other person who can get through The Dell's wards without incident."

"Right." She saw his courage settle back round his shoulders. "I'll make sure Snape's all right, Headmistress."

"A fortnight Saturday, Neville. Be ready to leave soon as the children are in bed."

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

Her screech ended in an alarming burble. Severus shut off the shower.

"You said you didn't breathe, " he accused.

"I said I didn't seem to need to breathe!"

"So don't breathe."

"When I don't breathe, I feel as bad for it as you look."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

He Summoned his wand, cast the Bubblehead Charm, and reached for the soap.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

"Ms Granger..." Jellyby frowned, but she was too far gone to notice. "Ms Granger!"

Hermione jumped. Her cheeks burned.

"I'm sorry, sir." She resumed her seat...she hadn't even realised she was standing and couldn't work out why she'd been feeling so woozy. "Did you need something?"

He slapped a thick sheaf of parchments onto her desk. Her shoulders slumped at the sight of her latest revisions to Article Nine marked up in red ink.

"I need you to work these into your next draft," her supervisor grumbled.

"All right." She couldn't exactly tell him where he could stick his "corrections", could she? Besides, he was already walking away.

"Ms Granger..." Jellyby watched her from the doorway. "Why did you think you needed a Bubblehead?"

"Thinking aloud, sir," she lied. "About the best protective gear to use when getting rid of Doxys."

"But you are opposed to Doxy extermination."

"Right, sir." She gave him a weak smile. "But, er, better prepared, and all that."

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

Two weeks and two days after McGonagall had ordered him to turn spy in a rare, Dumbledore-like abuse of her authority, Neville Apparated to The Dell, ready with an excuse about checking the spells that kept their plants-for-profit...his end of the business he shared with Hagrid and Snape...growing in tropical warmth.

He even checked the spells so he wouldn't have to lie to a known Legilimens. Not that it mattered, since both the gardens and the greenhouses proved empty.

Against his instinct for self-preservation, Neville took a deep, steadying breath that didn't steady him at all, reminded himself that he'd killed Voldemort's...at least now he could think the evil wizard's name without wanting to shit himself...great snake, and pushed open the bothy door.

Not even killing Nagini had prepared him for the sight of a towel-clad Snape ignoring the cauldron of porridge about to bubble over behind him as he did his best to snog what appeared to be a shaggy ball of brown hair growing out of the place where a left hand should have been. Neville couldn't stop a tiny sound of dismayed shock from escaping his throat.

Snape heard him, just his luck, and put off making out to look up.

"Tell anyone and I'll have your guts for garters."

That was when Neville saw the hairball was really a miniature...and nearly (was that a facecloth barely preserving her modestly?) naked...Hermione Granger.

Without answering or even asking for an explanation, Neville Apparated back to the castle gates. So he didn't hear the hand-witch teasing his old Potions professor with "Honestly, Severus! 'Guts for garters'?"

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

The ramshackle hut sat at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. She padded closer with grave caution...one never knew what one might encounter there...but also with the aloof nonchalance only her kind could achieve.

Once she was certain it was safe to approach, she leapt to the lighted windowsill and tapped gently on the glass.

He welcomed her enthusiastically, of course...he wasn't very bright, after all...and even gave her the choicest bits of his latest catch. "Just this evenin' afore dinner, puss!" And she deigned to accept his largess before getting down to business.

The purring tabby disappeared and the stern headmistress said, "A word, Rube?"

Though he'd spend the next hour pleading ignorance and innocence, it was impossible miss the guilty tic of his right cheek. She left after another two hours had passed, satisfied she knew everything.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

As both Severus and Granger had cause to know...and be reminded of over the next several weeks...it's frankly amazing what one can get used to. So, nearly a month into their shared existence...despite having learnt they had a few frustrating limits and obstacles which just wouldn't be overcome under current circumstances...neither was entirely discontent.

She only pretended she wasn't watching every forkful he lifted to his mouth. He knew it and made sure to display as much delight as was Snapely possible for each bite.

By the time he got to the cake he'd baked for pudding, she was nearly drooling. He licked a bit of errant chocolate frosting from his lower lip.

"Bastard," she muttered.

Severus knew she didn't really mean it because she was smiling at him.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

This Is How That Happened...

Day Three

He discovered letting her "help" was easier than listening to her whinge about having nothing to do. (It helped that her "help" eventually turned out to actually help.)

"I could hold down ingredients for you."

"You might lose your head, you fidget so much." He gave her a feral grin. "Or should my knife slip."

"Your knife never slips, and I only fidget because I'm bored!"

"That's as may be, but... no." (The "no" wouldn't last, but first she had to prove herself, and that didn't come till later.)

"I could stir your cauldron." She demonstrated with the glass rod he'd used to stir his morning porridge. "Just like a witch in a fairy story!"

"We're not in a fairy story." Then he offered her a smile as nasty as she'd ever seen. "A day ago, you could barely tolerate touching a todger, but the precise art of potion-making is no trouble at all."

She blushed and sputtered so long, he ended up piling a stack of books on the kitchen table and shrinking half to a size she could easily handle.

"Make yourself useful," he ordered.

Day Nine

Severus ordered an expensive doll...Mary Muggle arrived with fourteen outfits tied to various Muggle careers that were "suitable to ladies"...from Diagon Ally's finest toy shop. And when his constant companion complained of the cold nights in the bothan, he owled for two black (left-handed only) mittens from Madam Malkin.

He also asked Poppy Pomfrey to send a sling, claiming he'd wrenched his left shoulder whilst fighting off a brace of Hagrid's latest experiments.

Day Fifteen (not long after Longbottom's visit, as it happened)

"I don't think I'm really here." She was half-dozing in her sling whilst he threw food at Hagrid's disgusting beasts.

"I beg to differ."

"No, I mean... I don't think Hermione Granger is really here. I don't think I'm her. Or... Well, whenever I'm feeling sleepy like this in the middle of the day, I start thinking of Harry and Ron and Mr Jellyby and Doxys. That's what I was doing before, you know. Reforming...attempting to reform, anyway...laws about Doxy-removal. And it's all so vivid, as if it were real. My dreams, too."

"Maybe your subconscious is trying to hold on to your old life."

"I don't think so," she whispered. Her voice was so faint, he knew she was nearly asleep. "I used to dream only about you."

Day Twenty-seven

She really could stir his cauldron.

Day Thirty-five

"Go to sleep."

"What? It's not dawn for ages yet!"

"Go to sleep or I'll hex you unconscious."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I haven't had a decent toss in more than a month, and I mean to have one soon. And I don't need an audience for it!"

"Why not? You do everything else with me around. If we're going to be stuck like this for the duration, why shouldn't I get to enjoy myself, too?"

At that, his eyes gleamed in an entirely different way, and he lost no time in racing up the stairs to his narrow bed.

"Take off your dress."

For good measure, she also removed the black ribbon she'd been using as a makeshift bra.

His trousers were off, and his right hand was already delving between his skinny legs when he brought her to his mouth.

Days Two through Forty-three (not that either of them acknowledged it)

Severus woke with his left arm slung across his chest and a mouth full of hair.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

"May I have a taste?"

"You don't eat." He savoured the first bite.

"I haven't yet," she told him, smiling cheekily. "Only because I don't think I need to eat, but..."

"You probably haven't got a digestive system. Anything you take in via that unstoppable mouth is likely to come straight back up." He scowled thoughtfully. "Or worse. Think about it...even if you have guts and such, there's no other end on you. I don't plan to die of sepsis because you can't resist having a mouse's portion of chocolate cake."

"We're magic, Severus. I doubt there's a danger of that happening."

"No toothbrush, then. Aren't your parents dentists? You might die of shame if you can't clean your teeth."

She was inexplicably delighted to know he remembered that much about her. But she wasn't at all thwarted. A moist crumb was clinging to the corner of his thin lips, and as she knew from experience, when he was distracted...

Before he could realise what she was about, she took nearly full control of his entire arm and launched herself at the delectable titbit.

"Mmm."

Severus smiled the tiniest bit. "Mmm, indeed."