Chapter 6 - Proviso on Property

Beyond Time and Space

Chapter 6 – Proviso on Property

"Have I startled you?" Severus asked carelessly, stepping out of the shadows.

"What are you doing in my apartments, Professor Snape?" she challenged, recovering rapidly from her shock.

"What are you doing in my private rooms, Miss Granger?" he retorted, forcing himself to cease dwelling on what he had just witnessed.

"Isn't it apparent?"

"Do you mean you live here now?" he mocked.

"I see you've managed to get past my wards," she said coolly.

"It seems you are not as powerful as others paint you to be; you could not discern my intrusion," he gloated, curling his lips with a glint in his eyes.

"Let me see, how do I put it objectively to you? YOU'RE DEAD!" she hollered, her eyes reclaiming their hard edge. At that pronouncement, Severus shut his eyes as if wounded. His eyes felt as if a hot poker had pierced them – he could not look at this fiery creature in the same manner any longer without a bodily reaction. "If only I had not been privy to that sight!" he mentally berated himself. "Idiot! Voyeur! Degenerate!"

"You've finally decided to think on it! Bravo!" she barked, folding her arms.

"You should try the intimidation act without the turban, Miss Granger. After Quirrell, the look is démodé," he responded, his eyes still closed. "Pray," he added after a brief pause during which he reopened his eyes. "Pray, enlighten me as to why everyone here seems to be labouring under this misapprehension of my death?"

"Because you are, sir," she quietly answered.

He curled his lips contemptuously while approaching her. "Then explain why I am still on this plane, facing the drudgery of this mortal coil! Don't you think I want to die? Do you think I enjoy this miserable existence where life is an empty succession of busy nothings?"

Crookshanks jumped out in front of Hermione and hissed at Severus in a bid to protect his owner.

"Out of the way, cat!" he shouted to no avail. Crookshanks remained where he was, glaring at Severus. "How touching, Miss Granger," he began, maintaining eye contact with Crookshanks. "It seems your cat has decided to engage me in a puerile staring competition. I should hex it into oblivion and put it out of its misery; perhaps then you'll see what death really is."

Hermione picked Crookshanks up defensively. "You will do no such thing! Shame on you, Professor Snape! Threatening a poor helpless creature like..."

"That cat is neither helpless nor defenceless," he interjected. "And seeing how well fed he is, I do not think it is poor either." He took a step forward and was met with a swat from Crookshanks' paw. "I rest my case, Miss Granger," he said triumphantly. "Perhaps you should return to Gryffindor Tower, I wish to be alone."

"These are no longer your apartments, sir!" she retorted, placing Crookshanks on the ground. After watching him pad away, she continued, "Or do property rights extend from beyond the grave? These are my rooms now!"

"Indeed? Then tell me why is everything just as I left them? Do not tell me some stupid maudlin lie. Do not tell me the house elves done so; I know you execute your own cleaning," he snarled, curling his lips scornfully.

"Such impudence! And to think I promised Professor Dumbledore that I would help you! You're a selfish bastard holding onto things that are not really yours!" she declared hotly, jabbing her finger at his ghostly chest. "Do you take anything with you when you die? No! Do these rooms belong to anyone of us? No! They are Hogwarts' property. I don't see your name labelled on everything in the dungeons!"

"Details, mere details, Miss Granger," he said quietly with a glare as he dismissively brushed aside her hand. "Have you read John Locke? If you've read Machiavelli, you should know Locke. He postulated, rightly in my opinion, that the state of nature is one where anyone can acquire a part of nature for himself without the consent of anyone else."

"But there are limits to acquisition," she countered evenly, her previous violent action causing her towel to fall to the ground.

"Did I say 'class dismissed'? I am not finished! There are two principles limiting acquisition in the state of nature: first, we must leave enough and as good for others; second, we must not let anything spoil or go to waste under our care. Suppose Hogwarts is the state of nature. In adopting this section of Hogwarts as mine, I have taken from nature. I have left the rest of the castle alone, thereby leaving enough and as good for others. Because the dungeons are now mine, you cannot trespass on it or forcibly take it away from me without my permission. I have attended to nature, so to speak, because I have put my labour into rendering my quarters inhabitable, my office comfortable and my classroom organised. Seeing how I have put my labour into the area that is the dungeons, it becomes mine by default. Do you see how I have my dungeons more productive? I have turned it into a library, sitting room, and bedrooms. This is one of the fundamental principles of labour theory – one must be rational and assiduous. Do you see how labour is incredible in transforming nature and spectacularly increasing the dungeons' productivity? I have improved on and increased the original state of nature that the dungeons formerly were. And you – have not added to the store of nature. You have merely rested on my laurels. And to further exacerbate matters, you've allowed your part of nature to spoil under your care. Look at your empty teacup! And you claim to be the executor of this portion of nature! How can you be when you've done nothing to deserve it!" he lectured in a cautiously quiet yet arch manner.

"Even if that were so, you are dead and as such, are unable to exert any influence over nature," she replied, her chocolate eyes shining brightly with what she had just learnt.

"Really?" he drawled causally as he sat on the desk. "You have not been reading my books then!" He gestured to the library. "Tell me, Miss Granger, you reside here, do you not?"

She nodded at his rhetorical question, watching him trace his lips with a long tapered finger. "I thought so," he sneered, gesturing for her to sit. When she had done so, he continued, "Therefore, as an inhabitant in this section of nature, which IS mine, you are a part of it as well. And unless I am much mistaken, I had just contributed to nature again by improving on something in it, namely, you. If it were not for my labour, id est, teaching, a moment ago, you would still be the same Miss Granger ignorant of political philosophy." He caught a look of admiration from Hermione as she drew her bathrobe closer to her body. He flinched slightly as he persisted, "If I were dead as you insist and unable to contribute to nature as you intimated earlier, how was I able to add to your store of knowledge?"

Tucking her legs to her chest, Hermione glared at him in spite of the miniature lecture. "Does that mean you regard me as your property then? I am not a piece of meat at the butcher's! I am not chattel! Blackstone's commentary does not hold in the wizarding world! It no longer even holds water in the muggle world!"

"Have you been paying attention?" he hissed in a low dangerous tone, not taking his eyes off hers. You are your own greatest property. However, your presence as merely another object, such as, say, these books, you come under my jurisdiction, not my property because you are an inalienable right unto yourself. Since you come under my jurisdiction as you are in and on my property, my 'land' as it were – I have the right to improve upon you as I deem fit. And this – I have just achieved."

"Indeed," she conceded. Severus noted with satisfaction that she had the good grace to look somewhat abashed.

"I suggest, Miss Granger, that you add analytical philosophy to your repertoire," he offered casually, forming a steeple with his fingers.

"Yes, yes, now can I get dressed?" she exclaimed, rising from her seat.

"By all means." He gestured nonchalantly to the screen in the corner, leaning back as if pondering a weighty issue.

"Well?" she questioned, folding her arms and impatiently tapping her foot.

"Yes?" he levelled at her, meeting and holding her glare. "Go get dressed."

"You are in my boudoir," she pointed out from between her teeth.

"Nonsense, this is my library," he said coolly. Then catching sight of the chaise lounge and her flushed cheeks, he hastened to add, "Just this once, Miss Granger. I shall be in the sitting room." And he swept out. He was pleased with the speed at which his gesture of common civility was rewarded. Soon after he stationed himself near the empty heart, Hermione entered the room in a black housecoat. Her damp hair had by then ceased their previous creeping around her neck and he observed how much she resembled those magical porcelain dolls at Diagon Alley.

"Well?" she began as she walked before him.

"Well," he answered blankly, his eyes fixed at her damp bushy hair. "Her hair was long, her foot was light and her eyes were wild. A description quite analogous to what I see, isn't it?"

"Professor Snape, we need to discuss the matter of our lessons. You can have your potions classes back, at least, for the time being," she said in a business like tone, sitting opposite him. Noticing his thoughtful silence as he leaned on the mantelpiece, she decided to venture a polite question so as to ease the tension. "Would you like some biscuits? Accio..."

"It will not be necessary. I am not hungry," he snarled, curling his lips as if repulsed by the idea of food.

Her eyes lit up. "When was the last time you ate?"

"I do not recall," he answered slowly, inclining his head to the left, intrigued by her half-smirk.

"Think about it, sir," she insisted with an undisguised look of triumph. "You are welcome to your old bedroom, that is, if you can rest. I shall retire for the night. Think on hunger, sir."

Before Severus could utter a sharp rejoinder, Hermione had already locked herself in the library, leaving him to mull over her strange words.

A/N: This chapter, though short, may be a little tedious, I apologise.

Footnotes:

"Her hair was long, her foot was light and her eyes were wild" is a quote from John Keats's poem La Belle dans sans merci

The reference to John Locke is drawn from his Two Treatises on Government; the state of nature argument is a combination of my readings on Hobbes and Locke.