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MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

Part 28 - My Name Is Snape, Severus Snape

Snape yawned and stretched, waking slowly in the half-light that filtered through the ancient curtains at the window. A soft snuffle reminded him that he was not alone; turning his head, he saw the characteristic red hair of a Weasley spilling over a pillow in the bed on the other side of the room. It was, to say the least, disconcerting to share a room with Miss Weasley, although he should have been expecting it. Every Weasley in the family came home for Christmas, so the only way to accommodate a couple of guests was to double up - Harry shared with Ron, for which Snape thanked every deity available. He would have been beyond startled if Molly Weasley had expected him to share with the boys; somehow he had forgotten that there was a female junior Weasley, despite her presence in classes every week for the past few years. Well, until he had started taking classes from the other side of the teachers desk at the end of September.

Sharing the same room as Ginny Weasley had not, though, been the ordeal he had immediately imagined; the first evening had been an exercise in tension as he discreetly changed in a corner but, as the girl did the same thing, it would seem that it was not out of character for Hermione - certainly, he thought later, Hermione was not proving to be anything of an exhibitionist. Mr Longbottom's accident could have had far more serious consequences; not an original thought, admittedly. Snape felt the sentiment was more of a constant refrain in his life at the moment.

There was just enough light to read by - from the position of the dawning winter sun and the silence of the house, he estimated that it was somewhere around 8am. The Weasley family partied late and slept late over the holiday. Blessed peace and quiet. He was enjoying the holiday, more or less; not something he would willingly admit - nor, frankly, something he should admit under normal circumstances, not unless he wanted to redefine his role, and probably his existence, rather drastically. Nonetheless, some peace and quiet and the chance to read in peace was welcome.

He had spent some time reading over the previous days - catching up on journals. No-one had commented, and it was hardly unusual to see Hermione with her head buried in a book, but it was not quite the same. Reading in the Weasley household required an effort of concentration that was decidedly tiring - intermingled conversations and constant movement made for a distracting environment. From time to time, the efforts of the boys - all of them, from Ron to Bill, with the merciful exception of that pompous idiot, Percy - had dragged him from the cocoon of words to the outside world, spilling into snowball fights, gnome-tossing and Molly Weasley's fretting that they would all catch colds.

So now, in the cold light of a late December morning and curled in the warmth of a faded patchwork quilt, Snape propped himself on one elbow and pulled a copy of Monografias d'Alquimia from the bedside table and began to read. The solitude allowed him the luxury of reading in the original Spanish; the translation spells he had been casting - just in case anyone wondered where Hermione had managed to learn Spanish at Hogwarts or, worse still, expected her to know it after the mandrakes had matured and they had returned to what passed for normal - were fine, but didn't always catch the nuances in the original text.

An hour or so later, the house began to wake. The soft shufflings of Weasley parents were followed by the scent of coffee and toast; a louder set of shuffling suggested that Percy had decided that the Ministry would fall without his presence between Christmas and New Year. Just when Snape was about to make a dash for the bathroom - the one thing he would change about the Weasley house was the lack of washing facilities when all were home (well, perhaps not the only thing. Certainly the first thing, though) - he heard the unsubtle thuds and crashes that indicated that most likely belonged to Ron or Harry. Or both of them.

He let his head drop back onto the pillow and stifled a groan. A quiet chuckle from across the room made him realise that Ginny had woken at some point.

"I don't think anyone could ever describe Ron as delicate," she said.

"How do you know that was Ron?" asked Snape, looking over to her.

Ginny coloured slightly, and Snape raised an eyebrow at her apparent embarrassment."He and Harry sound different when they walk. And I've had a lot of years to get used to Ron's footsteps," she finished, adding the comment hurriedly.

Snape contemplated teasing her - the reaction to his question suggested that she gave the distinction between her brother and his friend more thought than she wanted others to know. He wondered whether Hermione would tease the girl and decided that, on balance, she wouldn't. Besides, it might lead to reciprocal teasing and he really didn't want to examine - or be forced to examine - where his own sentiments might lie.

The room fell into relative silence again as Snape and Ginny dozed, waiting for the tell-tale thumps that would indicate that the bathroom had been vacated again. Snape's thoughts returned to Hermione; it was Boxing Day now. Had Dumbledore taken his (hopefully) subtle hint and rescued Hermione yet? The conversation had been swift, in a corridor shortly before he left ...

"Good evening, Miss Granger. Looking forward to going to the Burrow for Christmas?" Dumbledore's question was innocuous - well, so it would seem to anyone else - and Snape looked at him for a moment, thinking through the response. Then he nodded.

"Yes, Headmaster . It'll be fun; I certainly won't be anxious to return to school." The comment was slightly out of character, but that couldn't be helped. As Dumbledore nodded, Snape hoped that meant that he had picked up on the emphasis on 'I'.

Dumbledore usually managed to find a reason to require him to return to school early whenever he couldn't avoid seeing his parents; there was no reason why he couldn't have done the same this time. Hermione would not be impressed if she had had to deal with his parents for any extended length of time.

He could, of course, have put them off this year. Snape wasn't entirely certain why he hadn't - it was a spur of the moment decision, and probably payback for her not warning him that he was to go to the Burrow. It was childish and beneath him but nothing was to be done about it now.

Ginny's voice cut through his thoughts. "Ron's out now - if you run for it, you should get there before Harry wakes up." Snape duly ran for it.

Breakfast, later, was chaotic - the elder male Weasleys appeared to be nursing hangovers, blaming the port that Bill had liberated from somewhere on his way home. The youngest male Weasley - and Harry - were complaining because they had not been allowed to seek the opportunity to have a hangover. All of them, irrespective of headaches, were demolishing large cooked breakfasts - bacon, eggs, fried bread, mushrooms.

Snape sat back on his chair, one of his legs tucked under him, and watched the mock-debate and discussion ebb and flow around him as he drank his coffee. The breakfast didn't particularly appeal; he was, finally, becoming used to the demands and tastes of Hermione's body and contented himself with toast and honey.

The familial squabbling peaked and then burst into a flurry of preparations and searches for coats and shoes when Mr Weasley reminded Snape, Harry and his two youngest children that they were going to London with him - Arthur had to put in a few hours work, unwillingly, and had promised to take them with him by portkey. Harry had been singing the wonders of the cinema, and Ron and Ginny had pleaded to be allowed to go, as a Christmas present. Snape wasn't quite so enthused but, on the whole, he doubted whether he could come up with a convincing reason to stay behind. Hermione undoubtedly knew all about 'films' - and that was something that was causing a few tremors of fear: he would be expected to know what was going on and, whilst Hermione Granger undoubtedly did know, Severus Snape's knowledge of such things was extremely sketchy.

Snape's understanding of the male psyche, however, did surpass Hermione's and, in the end, trauma and discovery were largely avoided when he allowed Harry to show off his knowledge, particularly to Ginny. In the light of her embarrassment that morning, Snape watched the two of them with a slightly detached amusement, speculating to himself. He would have to tell Hermione when he got back to school; she would undoubtedly find it interesting and, probably, amusing. Snape entertained himself with crafting the story, hardly noticing what he was doing, as they headed away from the alleyway near in the Ministry into which the portkey had taken them.

The 'tube' was an experience he could live without, he decided after they had resurfaced from the stiflingly hot and uncompromisingly crowded subway. Paying a small fortune to be molested by strangers rubbing against you in the press of humanity was not something he wanted to repeat. Back in what passed for fresh air, he found Leicester Square sufficiently diverse as to make him wonder why the wizarding world went to such lengths to remain undetected. Most could wander through here without causing so much as a single turned head.

Harry led them to a large building, blank and grey against the blank grey London winter sky. Neon signs overhead proclaimed what Snape presumed to be titles of the films that Harry had been telling them about, and advertised a season of films from 1987 - apparently the year the cinema had opened. Snape wondered why they were celebrating such a short period of time; businesses in DiagonAlley measured their anniversaries in millennia - a decade seemed rather pointless.

At eye-level, pictures were displayed to entice the audience in - although Snape thought that they might be more successful in that task if they were like wizarding pictures and moving. As far as he could understand, from what he had read and Harry's explanations, the films were like extended versions of wizarding pictures - theatre on a screen. Theatre was something he did understand; he hadn't seen any in England, but there was a thriving theatrical culture in European wizarding society, coming from the operatic tradition in Italy.

Snape made himself pay attention to the present as the animated discussion beside him caught his attention.

"I am not going to go and see explosions and people being killed," said Ginny firmly. Snape shuddered at the thought.

"What do you want to see, Hermione?" asked Ron, turning to Snape.

"What are the choices?" he prevaricated, not having paid much attention to the discussion.

"Lethal Weapon or The Living Daylights," said Harry.

"Or Dirty Dancing," added Ginny pointedly.

"Oh come on, Gin," said Ron irritably, "we don't want to watch you drool all over that Shway-whatever he was called." Harry seemed to be definitely in agreement with that comment, although he wasn't quite so obvious about it.

"And you think we want to watch - what was it you called it? A Bond film? Whatever that is, but what you said was enough - people getting killed and things being destroyed. I don't want to see that," said Ginny firmly. Snape thought that Harry wanted to persuade her, but wasn't quite sure how to do it.

"Well, there's a romance in it ... umm ... actually, maybe it's not exactly romance ..." Harry's voice trailed off for a moment. "Hermione, you decide!" he added in some desperation.

Snape scanned the pictures again, wishing they would move just a little and give him a better idea of what on earth the films were about. Finally, one caught his eye, looking at least as though it would be marginally more understandable than the others.

"How about the Princess Bride?" he said, looking at the other three. Ron and Harry looked back to the posters, and Ginny grinned. Snape wondered suddenly whether that was what she had been angling for all along; forcing a compromise by taking an extreme. It was interesting that she had thought Hermione would think the same way that Snape clearly had.

Finally they agreed, the boys rather reluctantly, and Harry went to the ticket booth to get tickets for them; it was a convenient way for him to pay for the Weasleys without them noticing. Once inside the cinema Harry led the way through the caverns there, checking for their seats in the echoing space. A moment's shuffle, and they were seated, with Harry and Ginny together and Ron and Snape on either side. Ron appeared a little put out by the arrangement; an arrangement that Snape had manoeuvered when it suddenly became obvious that the boy was hoping to sit next to him. He did not want to consider Ron's motives for that particular hope.

The film was amusing, after all. Very like theatre, but with far more scope without the constraints of performance in a limited physical space. The initially childish scenario had developed well and Snape found himself laughing with the rest of the audience - not always, perhaps, for the same reasons. After all, the line "people in masks cannot be trusted" had more resonance for him than the others, for instance. Fezzik looked suspiciously as though he was a cousin of Hagrid's - and the other three fell about laughing when Snape muttered that observation to Ginny, who passed it on. Ron became strangely quiet at the sight of the Rodent of Unusual Size, but Snape was sure he heard a snicker from Harry.

Snape raised an eyebrow at the concept of locaine powder, more so when he overheard Harry and Ron debating whether to ask Professor Snape about it in class next term. In the middle of the film, Snape found himself memorising lines to tell Hermione when he saw her next - things he knew she would find amusing, even when the trio next to him missed the humour in them.

The time passed much faster than Snape would have anticipated, and they spilled from the cinema still laughing, with Harry speculating as to whether he could face Voldemort with the line "Hello, my name is Harry Potter. You killed my father: prepare to die." Snape found himself joining the laughter, to his mingled surprise and disgust. Voldemort was not generally a topic that generated laughter. For a moment he thought to remonstrate, then realised that laughter was perhaps the best weapon they could have - provided they had every other weapon available. As long as none of them underestimated Voldemort, laughter would counter the fear that would otherwise stop them faster than the Dark Lord himself. It was an odd thought and he tried to push it away - to reassert his long-held conviction that Potter would die like his parents because he refused to take the threat of Voldemort seriously. He couldn't do it and, as they walked on laughing into the London evening, no longer tried.

The rest of the holiday was marked with more snow and warmth and, after another series of hangovers at New Year, Snape found himself back at Hogwarts. The dungeons were, mercifully, the same as ever and he found Hermione at her desk within an hour of his return.

"You survived, I take it," he drawled as he strolled into the room.

"Barely," came the muttered reply as she finished writing - presumably catching up on her project work. "I think I know every last inch of the sea front there."

"Ah," nodded Snape. "So you saw that small grey stone with the chip in it, about three feet down directly below the steps from the pub?" he said, drily.

The comment had the intended effect - Hermione put down her pen as she laughed, and turned to face him. "Was that a particularly important stone to you?" she asked with a smile. Snape smiled back.

Somewhere in the exchange they had moved towards each other; Snape suddenly realised he could feel the warmth from Hermione's body, almost touching his. A swift brush of mouth against cheek, unexpected and simultaneous. It was natural - he certainly hadn't planned it, and a proximity he had found appalling on the subway suddenly seemed ... pleasant was too mild a word and, rapidly, he took a step back. Too close, too much, too ... he didn't want to think about it.

When he looked up, he noticed Hermione was breathing fast - and so was he. They caught each other's eye and glanced away. Snape wondered whether he read the expression in her eyes correctly, or whether it was his own merely reflected.

"It's ... uh ... it's nice to have you back," said Hermione finally, her voice much less authoritative and more unsure than he had heard it in a long time. Clearly she hadn't expected or planned that any more than he had.

He nodded. "It's nice to be back." A banal statement, but it got them over the hurdle of unspoken thoughts and into a conversation that skipped through the holidays; an undoubtedly necessary conversation - they would each need to know what the other had done, when they switched back - but no less enjoyed because of that. Finally they fell into old patterns, caught up in their stories and easing away from the discomfort of tension.

Just before dinner Snape tore himself away from the dungeons, from the experiments that they had resumed in the midst of talking, and half-ran for the Hall to avoid being late. He was almost there when he had to check his pace abruptly to avoid stumbling over a Slytherin girl ahead of him.

Alice Lacock.

Snape debating striding past as if he hadn't noticed her. Too late; she had turned and spotted him. To his surprise, she went slightly red.

"Are you alright?" he asked, wondering whether she was ill - she looked slightly feverish, in fact.

"No," she mumbled. "It's nothing. Just .. nothing."

Snape took a breath and asked the question he didn't want to.

"Are you sure? It's nothing to do with ... what we talked about?"

The girl turned redder again, then nodded. Snape really didn't want to know what she was thinking or plotting now.

"It's ... " she stumbled over the words, then pulled herself together. "It's just that ... well ... you know and, please -" she found her words in a rush, "please don't tell anyone. It was silly, and I met this boy over the holidays ..."