Chapter 2

Authors Notes: This story is Pre-HBP. It is my response to the Make-Over Sex!God Snape challenge by Southern_Witch_69 & PlaidPooka. I’m not following the rules very well, as it is late, and I am going to have a couple chapters, so please forgive me. I’ve been out of the fan fiction loop lately due to work, so please forgive me and take this little piece of fiction as my peace offering. This is my first attempt at posting anything, so please be kind if you decide to review (which I would really appreciate). Challenge rules are posted at the bottom of the first page. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my wonderful beta, Cocoachristy, for wading through all my mistakes and errors in this chapter. If any other mistakes are here, then they are completely and totally my fault. I’d also like to thank my dear friend, Anijade, for being at my beck and call whenever I need her.

Disclaimer: This all belongs to JKR. They aren’t mine. I’m just taking them out to dinner and a movie. I promise to bring them back as soon as the houselights come up and the credits begin to roll.

Chapter 2

Glass Pyramid

When Hermione entered her chambers, she was so out of breath that she flung herself down on the closest piece of furniture that she could find. This ended up being a small settee and shouldn’t have been a problem in most cases; however, on this particular evening her familiar had decided to settle down on said settee for his evening nap. This, of course, caused quite a stir, and inevitably caused the poor girl to start babbling again to her nearly crushed to death Kneazle.

“Oh, Crooks, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” she asked as reached down to pick up her angry familiar. “Don’t look at me like that, Crooks. It was an accident. I just had the most awful five minutes of my life, and all I want to do now is crawl under my bed and die.”

Crookshanks turned his head to the side and gave his mistress a calculating look. Something was definitely wrong with his mistress. Now if he wanted to find out what was wrong, he would have to behave himself. He made a dramatic swish with his tail, which seemed to say the incident was forgotten. He then jumped into Hermione’s lap and proceeded to rub his fluffy, orange body against her chest in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

This action did give Hermione some comfort, and she began relax and take some soothing deep breaths. However, once she began to calm down, she began to remember why she was so upset in the first place.

“Oh, my God, Crooks! He must hate me. I mean, what were they thinking saying such horrible things about him? And then to find out that he’d heard. Oh, God, how much did he hear?” Hermione jumped up and began to pace around her quarters and vocalize her thoughts about the recent events in the staff room to her familiar.

“It’s one thing to pick on me, but for them to insult him in such a thoughtless manner, and then to have him hear it is quite another! He might not always be the most pleasant person to be around, but look at what he has had to put up with all his life. It’s not like his life is a big secret. The Daily Prophet posted his life story all over the papers, along with the rest of the Order of Phoenix when we defeated Voldemort. He’s had so much to deal with all these years, and all they can think to do is speculate about his sex life.” With that thought, Hermione began to slightly tremble, and her skin began to get a little clammy.

“Oh, no,” she whispered under breath as she brought her pacing to an abrupt halt.

Her mind was rapidly realizing that she may have given her feelings away during her speech about Snape. No, not Snape--Severus, she thought to herself. How could I have been so stupid? Maybe they won’t think anything of it; he is my mentor after all, and it is only natural for an intern to want to defend someone they respect, isn’t it? Yeah, right, Hermione, you keep telling yourself that. You respect him so much that you can’t seem to get him out of your mind whenever you have a spare second, and your respect is so great that he haunts your dreams. You respect Minerva, too, but she doesn’t occupy your daily thoughts and dreams.

“I’m in so much trouble, Crooks. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking right now, and I’m sure he blames me for what those old ninnies said. I don’t understand what has possessed me to become so infatuated with him. It started so gradually that I’m not even sure when it began. I’ve always respected him as a professor and scholar. He is just so brilliant, and then when he helped Harry destroy Voldemort, I couldn’t help but to think how brave he was. I was terrified that he would turn me away when I sent him the request to become his intern, but I knew I had to at least ask before I accepted defeat. Then when I received his owl that he would accept me as his intern on a probationary period, I just knew that I had to be perfect so that he wouldn’t change his mind and turn me away. I think he was a little surprised that I stuck around and did everything he requested of me, no matter how asinine the assignment was. I always thought that was one of the reasons he kept me around in the end. And now, just after a year of peaceful study, this had to happen.”

Hermione’s eyes began to tear up as the next thought came to her mind. He’s never going to see me as a woman anyway. I was just kidding myself by thinking that he could see me as anything other than a little girl. I just need to apologize for this evening’s events and then hope that he will allow me to stay and study under him for the duration of my internship. Then I will leave and learn to forget him. Yes, that is the logical thing to do. Just complete this part of my life and move on. It will only be another two or three years, and my studies are what’s really important.

“Right!” Hermione exclaimed as she tightened her jaw and nodded her head, as if to silently agree with her decision. With that last thought, she walked to her desk and began to quill an apology to the injured professor. Once she had completed what she believed to be a suitable apology that would explain and apologize for all of the things said during this evening’s events, she summoned and owl and sent it without delay to Professor Snape’s quarters.

Well, I guess that is all I can do for now, she thought to herself. With that last thought, she turned in for the evening.

To be continued