8

* * * October 15, 1997 * * *

Mother of Merlin, doesn't she do anything but lay about in bed? Or study, of course. Draco was becoming very annoyed with Granger. What fun was it to have a made-to-order peep hole if there was nothing interesting to watch?

Granted, he still enjoyed seeing her undress, but it was the same thing every night. Return from patrol, put on a nightdress, shove the cat out of the way, read. Full stop. He'd begun to bring his own books into the tub, reading by carefully shielded wandlight, just to see what (if anything) would happen next. He'd sworn out loud the first time she'd Noxed her candle and simply rolled over.

Didn't the bint ever touch herself? Did she own a single sexy nightgown? He would have been happy if she'd sat even once at her nightstand and tried to brush that mass of brambles she had for hair. She hadn't even warmed up her pajamas again since that first night. It seemed that, like himself, Granger had nothing better to do in the evenings than lurk in her room.

Tonight she'd come home early from patrolling, before he'd even started his bath. He was quite certain she must have skipped part of her route; it was impossible to cover the whole thing so quickly. He had to abandon his Conjuring project midway, which he would surely have to start again from scratch, but damned if he was going to miss the one part of the evening where something interesting happened. Granger had already pulled off her tie by the time he had the water temperature correctly adjusted and flicked out the candle to Charm the wall.

A few minutes after settling into the warm water, Draco heard the portrait hole open, which startled him considerably. In his haste to take up his wand with sudsy hands, he managed to knock the thing right off the edge of the tub and had to lunge after it like an icebound walrus. Then there was a knock on Granger's door and he vowed to strangle her for giving out their password. But he was forced to belay that vow when the intruder entered her room: it was Professor Snape.

Draco stared, slackjawed, then put his arms behind his head and settled back against the tub. Oh, PLEASE let him be fucking her, he pleaded to an unspecified deity. This was going to be priceless.

It looked promising; Snape strode over to her bed with his robes cascading behind him. But any semblance of erotica ended then and there, for he stood before her four-poster and scowled. "I told you to come to me before it got this bad."

She gazed at him blankly, then (to Draco's utter amazement) rolled onto her side to face the wall. Snape turned a pale shade of salmon, then took out his wand and flicked it in a figure eight over the girl. She promptly rolled back towards him, entwined in the blankets like a frizzy burrito. Both of them glared at each other.

"I don't want it," she said.

"What you want is irrelevant, Miss Granger," Snape said brusquely. "You will take it because it is what you need." The girl clamped her eyes and lips shut and shook her head. Draco nearly squealed aloud with glee. Uncle Severus was going to cloud up and rain on her.

What happened next was so utterly unexpected, Draco instantly became suspicious that he was being made the butt of a joke. For Professor Snape, the most stern, demanding, and unyeilding man in the castle, sighed defeatedly and sat down on Granger's bed with his shoulders slumped.

"Hermione," he said wearily, "must we go through this again? You will get past this. I will help you."

"I'm tired of fighting, Professor Snape," she said tearfully.

"How many times do you suppose I have felt the same way, young lady?"

The girl began crying in earnest, and Draco began to wonder if someone had slipped a hallucinogen in his pumpkin juice. Snape simply did not tolerate defiance, he did not show compassion, and above all, he DID NOT divulge anything personal to other human beings, much less students. The hairs on the back of Draco's neck began to prickle; perhaps the end of the world had come at last.

She rolled away and sobbed out loud for some time as Snape sat impassively on the edge of the bed, his hands in his lap. He didn't look at her, just stared plaintively at some distant point near the floor, waiting for an opportune moment. It finally arrived. Granger stopped crying and caught her breath, and Snape shifted slightly and turned toward her, raising one leg to rest along the edge of the bed. "Will you take it now?" he asked quietly.

Granger shook her head. "I told you, I'm tired, Professor. I just want it to end."

Snape shook his head as well, but in a slow, measured arc. "You are depressed, Hermione. But you can and will recover from this. It may not seem so in the moment, but you will. The potion will help. It just takes time. You promised me, when we set out on this course, that you would give it time. Do you mean to go back on your word?"

She appeared extraordinarily ashamed for such a minor offense. "I don't... I don't mean to. I know I promised to try. It's just... I miss them so much!" The sobs began anew. Snape looked acutely uncomfortable, but had nowhere to run at that point. He put his hand over one of hers in an almost laughably timid way and patted it awkwardly.

When she slowed down again, he tried a new tack. "Have they rescinded their invitation for you to join them anytime?" Snape said with a faint spark of his usual sarcasm. It seemed to snap the girl back toward reality; she sat up and fumbled on the nightstand for a hanky.

"No, no," she admitted. "I know I can go visit. It's just... this is where they belong. Here! They've always been here with me, they're my best friends. It just feels all wrong without them!"

"It feels wrong, Hermione, because you are depressed. Once this has been properly healed, it may still seem sad, but it will not consume your will to live."

Will to live? Draco sat up straight. Granger was thinking about doing herself in?

"But it's not just that!" she protested. "I don't... I feel like I don't even know them anymore. When I went to that benefit in Tokyo, they were like total strangers! They've become, well, playboys is the best word to describe it! All they think of anymore is parties. Do you know they have a fellow in their entourage whose job is to go out in the crowd and proposition girls on their behalf?"

"I fucking KNEW it," hissed Draco, smacking the surface of the water with his fists.

Granger continued, her puffy eyes wide with revulsion. "He has a list of what to look for, what they like, you know, for each of them, and he makes sure each of the girls he finds is willing to do... well, whatever is asked of them. Then he gives them an amulet so they can go backstage after the lecture and mingle with all the impressarios, and Harry and Ron can pick through them and decide whom to take back to the inn!"

Draco couldn't tell if Snape was trying desperately to suppress a smile, or if this was what a genuine grin looked like when it managed to wrest its way to the surface of his face. "I will concede that this sounds quite uncharacteristic of the awkward boys you grew up with, but I believe this is par for the course of sudden celebrity. The world is only too happy to indulge its beloved saviors; you can hardly fault them for accepting what is offered, or indeed for becoming choosy. If it's any comfort, these encounters undoubtedly mean far more to the, ahem, young ladies involved, than they do to your friends."

"That's my point!" she said. "Harry and Ron aren't like that!"

"Harry and Ron are no longer boys, Hermione. Frequent and meaningless sex with absolutely no repercussions are the stuff of fantasy for young men their age."

"Stop it! They're not that shallow!"

"I believe Lavender Brown would make claims to the contrary," Snape purred in his silkiest voice.

Granger opened and closed her mouth several times before replying, her eyes downcast. "All right, Ron's been willing to... settle for that in the past, but Harry--"

"Has struggled with lonliness and rejection his entire life," interrupted Snape somewhat curtly. "I'm quite sure he's currently reveling in this parade of hero-worship. Whether he will eventually crave something truly intimate or harden off into an incurable cynic, remains to be seen. Either way, you might consider that in Potter's heart, you will never be lumped in with these cheap encounters. You may very well end up his defining standard for all that is good and real about femininity, for you are surely the only decent girl with whom he has truly connected."

"You really think so?" she sniffled in a reverent whisper.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Do the math for yourself, Hermione. And consider this while you're at it: How do you suppose Harry Potter would cope if you took your own life?"

Fucking Merlin's balls on a platter! How does he just SAY this shite? Draco leaned in so close he smacked his forehead on the marble tiles.

Granger sat straighter, pulling herself up with an inner strength. "He didn't handle things very well when he lost poor Sirius," she finally squeaked.

Snape, sensing that the tide had turned, was slowly withdrawing into his normal inaccessibility, but his voice was still uncharacteristically gentle. "My point precisely. Will you take your potion now?"

The girl nodded, and Snape pulled out a flask from his robes, unscrewed the top, and handed it to her. She drank the whole contents at once, made a wry face, and gave the flask back. "Good girl. I trust you will report to my office for tomorrow's dose, and I will not have to seek you out?"

"I'll be there," she slurred; whatever he'd given her, it was obviously part Calming Draught.

"As will I, Miss Granger." He rose smartly from the bed and departed without another word.

Draco leaned back at last in the tub, realizing that the water had become rather chilly. He turned on the hot tap for a moment and closed the window in the wall. It didn't make any sense. She was just as hot a commodity as the two chumps, SHE chose to put it all aside and return to Hogwarts, and now she was miserable? "All she has to do is step into bloody Hogsmeade and they'll mob her in the streets," he thought ruefully.

Unfortunately, that didn't ring true. He understood. She didn't want a sea of strangers proclaiming their love and appreciation. She wanted her friends back, to sit with her while they ate lunch in the Great Hall, to walk with through the corridors, or maybe to share her table at the library.

She missed the same things he did.