Chapter Four - Dealing

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you have a great Christmas and a Happy New 2014. Now that the Prompfest fic is done and submitted, I'll try much harder to update more regularly. The usual disclaimers apply.

This story is dedicated to Beffeysue, and special thanks to stgulik for her amazing beta work. She really is the best in our fandom.

Later that evening, as she doused healing potions and skin salve on her burned, blistered, cut and scratched hands, Hermione cursed herself that she had ever agreed to enter into this apprenticeship. She longed to just pack and leave, but the ancient magical binding contract of Master/Apprentice was akin to a marital handfasting ceremony; it could only be broken at the behest of the Master, unless the Apprentice died ... or murdered the Master ... or died after murdering the Master...

And in spite of everything, her irrational, sense-stealing anger was still as rampant as ever. She still stewed with unhappy rage and frustration, and what's more she railed against her own gullibility. She'd actually believed Remus' blithe promise that this constant anger would eventually disappear if she found something to do with her life. She was still more or less permanently angry, only now she couldn't take it out on anyone. Even if she was insane enough to vent her spleen on Master Snape, he'd hex her to the moon and cancel her apprenticeship and she'd be back to square one. The real kicker was that he wasn't even all that nasty anymore. He just sat back and waited for her to screw up so he could give her that look of his.

Hermione saw Harry and Ginny every weekend. After the first couple of months of her apprenticeship, Master Snape was surprisingly lenient in allowing her to leave the castle and visit her friends. She would leave Scotland on a Friday, bristling with restless energy, ready to lambaste Harry and Ginny with tales of the hoops Master Snape had forced her through during the previous week. Curiously enough, though, whenever she arrived at Grimmauld Place or the Burrow, once her friends' curious questions started flying, she would find herself downplaying all the incidents she'd fumed over. For some reason, it felt wrong complaining about Master Snape to her friends. It was, she thought defensively, really none of their business, after all.

It also caused a row between her and Harry almost a year into her apprenticeship. She had asked for a break during a Hogsmeade weekend, pleading a need to get away and spend some time with her friends. Master Snape had been reluctant for her to go, but she had pulled out all the stops to finish her infirmary brewing, and with somewhat huffy bad grace, he had finally relented. She'd almost kissed his pale cheek after his martyred sigh, and she grinned as she headed out the door, "I'll be sure to give Harry your regards, Master Snape!"

"Do, and you'll find yourself dissecting Amour Bloodworms without protective gear every weekend between now and Christmas," he growled, but Hermione knew him well enough to know the there was no real rancor in his threat.

"I hear and obey, O Great Master of the Dungeons!" she said in a teasing, laughing voice.

"Apprentice Granger!" he shouted.

Hermione froze, and for a moment she thought her silly mood had pushed things too far this time. Master Snape was glaring at her in a way she'd never experienced before. An apology was on her lips when at last he spoke, his voice rather crabbed and hesitant.

"You will require a heavier coat, Apprentice. It is quite cold out. I won't be having you contaminating the lab with infectious germs should you fall ill due to exposure." When she hesitated, he relaxed somewhat, and his features softened. "And don't forget to ask the house-elves to feed that cat of yours. My time is far too valuable to be seeing to the dietary needs of that orange menace you call a familiar."

"Yes, sir," she replied, meekly, and turned away again. "Thank you. Have a pleasant weekend, sir." She felt a little queasy, as if something of import had transpired between her Master and herself, but even the best of pupils sometimes fail to grasp the intention of the most transparent lessons.

She arrived at Grimmauld Place confused, uncertain and rather discombobulated. She sighed. Master Snape was such a study in contrasts at times.

She was just teasing me, I'm almost sure of it. But she called me the Master of the Dungeons. It sounded dirty. It sounded sordid, like I was some sort of degenerate. I didn't want her to think of me that way. Oh, I've heard the rumours over the years that I'm some kink-raunched pervert. Gods, at times I even encouraged them; it frightened the students away from any attempt at familiarity. I couldn't afford allowing anyone to get that close to me then. At times I even perpetuated the reputation. It got me laid on one or two occasions in my younger days.

I am actually not a kink-raunched pervert. That is the last thing I wanted to be, and I never wanted Hermione to think of me that way. But I don't remember anyone actually ever flirting with me before, even during my Death Eater days when I was considered somewhat interesting simply because of a persona and a good costume. I wasn't sure, but she sounded a little flirtatious. Ironic, that while I was working so hard to change, hints of those rumoured debaucheries were spoken by the sweet lips of my beloved.

And oh, her eyes when I called her name! I frightened her, I embarrassed her. When would I learn that the simple truth would have served me far more than my clumsy attempt to cover up by suggesting a warmer coat, a reminder to feed her cat?

I was a forty-year-old wizard, Master to a twenty-one-year-old Apprentice. Why did I feel like the inexperienced one here?

Although he had worked very hard to clear Snape's name, Harry still didn't like him, and frequently questioned Hermione's decision to Apprentice to 'the mardy git.' He constantly raised doubts about Snape's suitability, his mental stability, his integrity, even his sexual proclivities...to the point where Hermione felt compelled to defend her Master.

"Honestly, Harry, you seem to think he keeps me locked in the dungeon during the week and only lets me out to brew and eat my stale bread and water," Hermione huffed. Seeing Harry's dubious expression caused her frustration to tip into anger, like a nagging tension nestled beneath the eyes that suddenly flairs into a true migraine. "Look, Harry, I know you don't like him, but he's not evil incarnate. Master Snape is not exactly sweetness and light, but he's not mistreating me or doing anything remotely inappropriate. He's not all that bad once you get to know him."

Harry looked doubtful. "Well, sure you say that, Hermione. But what if he's somehow manipulating you to think that way? He's a skilled Legilimens. He's a skilled Potioneer." Harry's earnest eyes blazed with self-righteous zeal. "What if he, I don't know, Imperused you into agreeing to apprentice with him? What if he has some sick agenda you don't know about?"

"Oh, buggering bullocks!" she all but screamed.

Harry remained unrepentant. "You don't know that he hasn't, Hermione! Remember how he treated you when we were in school? He was horrible to you!" His eyes narrowed challengingly. "Why the sudden change? What does he stand to gain from making you his apprentice? What if he's setting you up?"

Hermione actually snarled at her friend, and cried, "Merlin's ballbag, Harry Potter! The only thing that's inappropriate here is your attitude! And I deeply resent your sick insinuations about Master Snape and me. Do you know what that says to me?" She was breathing hard, almost in tears. "It says you don't think he took me on because of my abilities or my potential." Her voice took on a condescending edge. "Oh, no. Hermione's fine as the sidekick or the brain, but really she doesn't have what it takes to become a Master of one of the Magical Disciplines, so Snape must be stringing her along in order to make a fool of her and get back at Harry bloody Potter!"

"Hermione, I don't think-"

"You think he's up to some grand scheme that has nothing to do with my future - but everything to do with your past!" She bore down on her friend with such fury Harry actually took a step back. "Do you honestly think the man has nothing better to do than to sign seven years of his life away for some kind of petty revenge against you, using me? Fucking hell, Harry, does the world really revolve around you?"

She grabbed her coat, shrugging it on angrily. Her voice dripped with contempt. "If you'll pardon me, O King of Everything, I think I'll return to my little dungeon cell for a nice evening of bread and water." She reached the door and looked around at her stunned friend. "It's probably time for my daily beating anyway. I wouldn't want Master Snape to sharpen his Cat-o'-nine-tails for nothing." She left without looking back.

Stepping through the gates of Hogwarts, Hermione suddenly felt unaccountably upset with Master Snape, as if it was his fault that he wasn't doing all the things Harry suggested. At least if he were, she could honestly commiserate with her friends over her so-called plight.

Hermione grunted as she hung her coat on a peg. So she was stuck with an impossible-to-please Master...no, she amended, in all honesty, he wasn't. He was exacting, yes, and detailed in a way that made her look sloppy, but he demanded the same perfection in her that he required in himself.

Part of the problem was, he demanded a level of concentration that she was afraid she might not have anymore. She would be clicking along just fine, and something would happen, and the old inferior, inadequate, helpless fury would arise. Sometimes she actually had to down tools and leave the room to prevent herself from taking out her wand and blasting away at anything and everything.

The fault wasn't in Snape. Against all expectations, he had turned out to be a decent Master. He actually listened to her; he offered advice, he questioned theories and challenged solutions. She found herself confiding in him about things she simply didn't discuss with anyone. At times, it was almost like talking to herself; she could say those things out loud, and he didn't judge or disapprove. Most of the time, he didn't even respond. He just nodded, and occasionally interjected a brief comment. Sometimes he finished a sentence for her; sometimes she actually knew what he was thinking. He could be comfortable, and almost companionable.

Other times, he was as mysterious as darkest Egypt to her. She believed he did it deliberately to keep her on her toes. She wondered why he bothered. He was Severus Snape; she couldn't be any more 'on her toes' around him if he were giving ballet lessons.

Master Snape had showed no surprise or interest that she'd cut her visit short and returned to the castle early. And most irrationally, that bothered Hermione most of all.