Observed

12. OBSERVED

Hermione sat at the end of the High Table feeling very exposed. Less than half the professors were eating lunch in the Great Hall and none near her.

She sipped her soup and tried not to think about all the eyes that might be staring at her.

When the doors to the Great Hall opened and she saw Professor Snape enter, she couldn't stop the smile from spreading over her face. He seemed in a thunderous mood, but since when was that a surprise?

As he took his seat beside her, she said, "I'm glad you're here."

"Really?" He unfolded his napkin with precision. "Why?"

She blinked up at him. She realized she didn't have an answer. She simply was. She just smiled and went back to her soup. "This cock-a-leekie is Wonderful. You really should try some."

"I can choose my food without your assistance." His voice was cold and he didn't look at her.

He was in one of those moods. And now that he was seated beside her, she could guess why.

"You've been with Draco," she said, wrinkling her nose with a sigh. Malfoy was enough to put anyone in a foul humor, even his own Head of House.

He froze. "Why do you say that?"

"I smell the cigarette smoke," she responded, biting into a slice of ripe pear.

His voice was low and he still didn't move. She looked up at him, suddenly alert to danger as he said, "And where have you seen Draco smoking?"

"I haven't." She put the pear down carefully. "I smelled the smoke on him this morning."

His voice took on even more of a chill. "You were with Draco this morning?"

"Yes, in the corridor outside Slytherin. I wanted to make sure that Peregrine Burns..."

"Who else was with you?"

"Nobody. I was looking for..."

"Miss Granger. Did I, or did I not," his voice was barely audible but each word slapped her as if it were a shout, "inform you that you are never to be alone with a male, any male, once you are my wife?"

"I thought you meant Harry and Ron," she whispered.

Venom dripped from his lips. "I suppose it's an easy mistake to make, seeing as it has been an entire week since I married you at your own request because you wanted to avoid Mr Malfoy. Perhaps now you seek to tease him, now that you have me to hide behind?"

She glanced desperately around, fearful of those who might overhear. "It wasn't like that at all."

"Indeed." He picked up a knife to butter his bread, his movements fluid, but his knuckles white. "And what, pray tell, did you discuss?"

She lowered her eyes to her trembling hands in her lap. "Peregrine Burns."

"What else?" he ground out, tearing the bread into two pieces and dropping them both on his plate uneaten.

She couldn't tell him the rest. She wouldn't. She fought for calm and finally looked up into his burning black gaze. "It won't happen again."

He broke the stare, rose, and left the Great Hall.

Her soup holding no more interest for her, she waited the bare minimum amount of time before following him.

This time, she wasn't worried about the many pairs of eyes that might follow her progress across the Hall.

This time, the only pair of eyes that worried her was his.

X

He told himself he was doing it for his own protection, his safety.

She'd proven herself too stupid to trust and trust her he didn't, not when one wrong word could have them both before the Dark Lord and possibly taking in their last lungful of breath before the night was over.

Of course, he also realized that there was little she could say to her Gryffindor friends that would have that result. But still, he found himself sitting in the rear of his own classroom under a Disillusionment Charm with his feet propped on a table and his hands folded across his stomach, waiting for her little meeting to begin. He was fifteen minutes early; he'd timed it well he thought as the door from his office opened and she walked in and approached his desk.

He frowned as she riffled through the parchments there. Those were third year essays. She had no business –

Nosy little witch.

She certainly had no business picking up a quill, opening his jar of red ink, and marking them!

He stifled a low growl. He wasn't going to reveal his presence, but he would definitely have a lot to say to her on the subject later.

He watched her scowl grow fiercer, the further she read. She carefully put some sort of small marks – no comments, he noticed – throughout each parchment, deep lines between her brows as she (he was sure) got as frustrated with the inadequacies of the lack of content as he did. There wasn't a single sheet of parchment there that would have met her own standard as a first year, much less a third.

He hoped they gave her a headache. She deserved one for meddling.

He resettled himself in his seat as he heard the approach of footsteps in the corridor.

Impatient, she waved her wand and the door flew open, revealing the sullen faces of Weasley, Potter and Weasley. Faces that quickly changed to suspicion and then irritation when they saw who sat at the desk.

"Come in," she snapped. "I'm in a hurry."

They walked in slowly, scanning the room. Finding it apparently empty, Ronald Weasley was the first to speak. "So, where is the greasy git?"

"Professor Snape," she snapped, "isn't going to be here. And if the three of you weren't such gits, we wouldn't be, either."

"I don't have to put up with this," Ginny began, heading back to the door. "I don't even know why I'm here!"

The door slammed shut in front of her face, and she whirled, furious, to find Miss Granger with her arms folded across her chest and her wand dangling loosely from the fingers of her right hand, looking every inch the insolent chit she was.

"You're here," she drawled, "because those two need somebody to keep them focused, and it can't be me any more."

The Weasley prat burst out with an oh, so elegant, "Oi!"

Severus allowed his lip to curl.

"Okay, let's get this out in the open," Granger announced. "You've rebuffed my every attempt to talk to you and you've ignored my owls. I didn't marry George, and now I'm no longer even your friend?"

"You used George!" Ginevra Weasley with her hands on her hips and her narrowed eyes clearly had her mother's temper. "Half my brothers volunteered to marry you, but evidently Weasleys aren't good enough for you!"

"Ginny, that's not fair!" Granger seemed quite caught off guard by this angle of attack.

"When Charlie found out what was going on, he even sent an owl saying you could join him..."

"Yes, that's just grand, I could ditch my education, ditch my work for the Order, and run off to Tasmania!"

"It would be better than marrying that..." Ron fell silent, though his mouth kept moving and his face grew flushed.

Hermione held her wand erect. "I'll unsilence you when you show some respect." She picked up a book and held it out toward Potter who had remained oddly silent through it all. "Harry, this book has three chapters on horcruxes."

Horcruxes? What the hell? He strained to see if the book had come from his own shelf, because if it had –

"I've read them but haven't had time to compile my notes. Read them yourself this weekend and we can go over them together next week."

Potter hung back, somehow managing to glare at her and look petulant at the same time, but shooting curious looks at the book, as well.

She pulled a long parchment with various colored charts on it out of her book bag. "This is going to be a compiled schedule of classes and commitments once it gets filled in. I'm in black ink, on the bottom. Harry, you're green. Ron, you're red. Ginny, you're blue. I want each of you to fill in your schedule, including classes, Quidditch games and practice, and any other regular commitments. I have it charmed so it then calculate times when we are all free and can meet to compare our research and plan." She added a small folded parchment for each of them. "The schedules will automatically show up on your own sheet, here."

She pulled out two smaller parchments. "Harry, Ron, here are your revision schedules. I'm not going to be in Gryffindor Tower to nag you into studying so you're going to have to keep up with the details yourselves. But if you have problems just let me know."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I hope you didn't make me one of those."

"Of course not. You can manage without one." She folded her arms across her chest and glared at the three of them. "Did I forget anything?"

Ginny drew herself up. "What makes you think Harry needs your help?" she spat.

"Yeah," Ron said. "You're forgetting to tell us why we're supposed to want you involved now that you've gone over to that grea..." Face red, mouth moving furiously, no sound. One would think he would have learned.

"It's simple, really. Over the past six years, how have we spent the majority of our time? Wandering the halls after curfew, sneaking into places we're not supposed to go, risking expulsion at every turn – and that's just to seek information before we can even do anything we need to do. We spend more time sneaking and looking than we spend doing!"

"And your point is," Potter asked, sullen as usual.

"My point is," she said crisply, "I now have access to all the information we need, information beyond our wildest dreams. We'll be more prepared than we've ever been before – Harry, you will be more prepared. Because instead of sneaking around, I'll just get whatever we need from Professor Snape."

Oh, you will, will you? He had to stop himself from sitting up straighter and revealing his presence with a scrape of chair legs.

"You're going to steal from – Snape?" Ron caught himself at the last moment.

Yes, Miss Granger, elaborate, please.

"I don't have to, you pillock. He's on our side. He'd rather help us stay out of trouble than rescue us once we get into it up to our necks."

Humph.

The Weasley girl gave her an odd look. "Hermione, you still call him Professor Snape?"

Interfering little baggage. Although why her comment made him grind his teeth, he didn't care to examine.

Without missing a beat, Granger smoothed her hair out of her face primly and replied, "If I call him Severus..." And the name seemed to curl from her lips with a sensuous grace...

"Gah!" the Weasley prat whinged, while his sister flinched and Potter blanched white.

"...to the three of you all the time?" She whipped back to Granger-like efficiency and know-it-all lecture mode. "The first two hundred times I'd have to put up with that," she jerked her head at Ron. "Or course you'd eventually get used to it and next thing you know, you'd be missing Quidditch practice to scrub cauldrons with your toothbrushes for calling him Severus in class."

That seemed to take the wind out of all their sails.

It was a very quiet Potter who finally broke the silence. "Hermione, why did you have to marry him?"

"Because he can protect me."

"So, you're saying that even though I'm supposed to go up against Voldemort and be the Boy Who Lived Twice, not to mention the Saviour of the Wizarding World – when it came to your own safety, you didn't trust me. You don't think I can protect you. If my own friends don't believe in me..." His face was flushed with humiliation. Well, about damned time the arrogant little sod faced his own shortcomings.

"I believe in you against Voldemort." Her voice was solid with conviction. "I don't think you can handle Voldemort if you're having to protect me at the same time. You can't be everything to everybody, Harry. We all have sacrifices to make. We all have things to endure. I've found my place. Let me use it to help you."

The blood slowed in his veins as he studied her face, the way she worried about what Potter thought, about the fact that she might have hurt the little shite-eating Gryffindor.

Who, despite it all, could only spare her a sullen glare as he took the book off the corner of the desk. "I'll look at this if I have time."

"Damn it, Harry Potter! Find the time. I can't force-feed you this year. I can help you, but I can't..."

He waved her off with one hand and left, the Weasley girl following quickly after him with a flounce of her skirt.

Leaving Ron Weasley behind.

Alone.

With his wife.

His eyes were full of longing, and he reached for her hand. "'Mione..."

Severus stiffened.

"Go on. Catch up with them," she said. "Keep Harry strong, Ron. He needs you."

And with that, she gathered the parchments into her arms and left through the office door.

Weasley stood frozen, staring at the closed door, then whirled away and out into the corridor, following after his sister and his friend.

Leaving Severus alone to allow his Disillusionment Charm to dissipate.

Alone.

With a lot to think about.

But especially words like "sacrifices" and "endure."

She intended to use him to further whatever ridiculous schemes and plots she devised for her friends this most vital year.

And she stood there whinging to them about sacrifices, as if she had any idea.

Saturday.

If he were half the Death Eater they all thought him to be, he'd fuck her to hell and back and before the night was over, she'd know full well what making a bloody sacrifice meant.

How easy, how deliciously easy to give the Dark urges reign...

He felt the shudder roll through him and yanked himself back from it.

He would damn her to hell, if she hadn't already accomplished that feat by insisting that he "rescue" her.

He pushed down the rage, the inferno that he had once nursed to higher and higher head, but now knew was at its most deadly when held under icy control.

He would be efficient. He would be as quick as she'd assumed a man of his advanced years would be.

He would make sure she had little to endure.