Chapter 7: Return to the Board

Note: Snape's remark about a creature that cannot talk is paraphrased from the movie Anatomy of a Murder.

For a moment when she woke, Hermione strongly considered staying in bed for the rest of the holiday. She had all her course books here in her room, and some snack foods tucked away (she'd imposed quite enough on Winky and Dobby... though she suspected that those snacks would be replenished on a regular basis and without comment should she decide on this course of action). There wasn't any need to face the outside world---

The eighth square.

That was a reason. And so (she admitted, albeit reluctantly, to herself) was a certain pair of glittering dark eyes.

She'd expected nightmares--- if she managed to sleep. But the combination of the bath and food (perhaps, said a painfully honest corner of her mind) had worked a more subtle magic than any charm, and her sleep had been untroubled. Mostly. Except for the aforementioned dark eyes... which somehow soothed and excited rather than frightened.

Which, she decided pragmatically, was all for the best. She was going to be seeing him every day for the next several months--- she couldn't very well cringe every time he looked her way!

And skulking here in her bedroom wasn't getting her any closer to the eighth square. She pushed back the covers resolutely and headed for the shortcut to the prefects' bathroom.

Over her ablutions, she pondered--- a smile came to her face through the mouthful of toothpaste--- her strategy. Pawn though she was, it was her job to direct some of the pieces.

Specifically, Harry and Ron. She couldn't not tell them some of what had happened--- if only because they needed to be in on the subterfuge, for it to be effective. Truth to tell, she wasn't much of a liar, though she could misdirect quite skillfully when she had to.

But that didn't mean she would--- or could--- tell them the whole story. For one thing, they'd both lose their minds, Ron especially. Another smile, this one wry (and under the shower spray--- she always needed a shower first thing in the morning, even if she had had a bath the night before). Ron hadn't liked her with Viktor--- this would absolutely break him.

Not to mention that it would be too impossibly embarrassing to tell them. They were her friends... but they were boys, and there were just some things you didn't talk about with boys, things they wouldn't understand.

The thought came as a shock to her, so much so that she missed a stroke combing her hair (having moved from sink to shower to the benches around the edge of the room--- the only time she could comb her hair was when it was wet). She didn't have any girl friends, just Harry and Ron. And frankly, there wasn't really anyone else to be friends with in her year. Parvati and Lavender were just not possible (all giggles and Trelawny-worship--- would that ever wear off?). Hufflepuffs were... Hufflepuffs, the Slytherin girls were Pansy Parkinson's gang, and she didn't see enough of the Ravenclaws--- well, that wasn't true. Ramona Roberts in her Arithmancy class was nice enough, but... the simple truth was, she'd always been too busy with Ron and Harry. There was Ginny, but she was Ron's sister, and frankly adored Harry--- and, more importantly, she was a year younger, and didn't need that kind of weight on her shoulders. But that meant that now, when Hermione needed a girlfriend, she didn't have one.

It would have been awfully nice to indulge in a bout of self-pity about that... but she had to admit it was her own fault. And you didn't, for goodness' sake, make friends because you "needed" them. You were friends because... well, you were friends.

And it was time for her to go down and talk to her friends. She settled her robes on her shoulders, pushed back her mostly-dry hair, and headed for the Gryffindor common room.

*****

If she hadn't been so nervous about talking to Harry and Ron, their reactions to seeing her would have been very funny indeed. They were playing wizard chess in front of the fire--- her guts flip-flopped at the sight--- while Ginny watched, and when Hermione appeared, they managed to knock the board half into the hearth.

"Good morning, nice to see you, thanks, I'm fine, how are you?" she said dryly as they scrambled about picking up the pieces. Several of those had gone running to escape the fire and she gathered the poor things up and deposited them on the table as Ron and Harry righted the board.

"But--- Hermione---" Ron spluttered.

"We thought you were going home." Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose and regarded her curiously.

They had, for once, the common room all to themselves--- no other Gryffindor was staying, for which favor Hermione thanked Merlin. It hadn't been this deserted since their second year. She summoned a chair between theirs and sat. "I was---"

"Then---" Ron frowned--- "why aren't you there?"

Harry gave him a look. "I think she was about to tell us," he said meaningfully.

Right in one. But the jocular words stuck in her throat. She leaned closer to the boys--- fighting a little twitch as Ron leaned in too, a little closer than she would have liked. "Listen--- something's happened--- and you have to promise me you won't breathe a word of it." She waited until both boys and Ginny crossed their hearts. "Ok... the short version is, Lucius Malfoy snatched me from Platform 9 3/4 last night."

Their reactions were predictable. Ginny gasped, and covered her mouth with her hands--- obviously falling under the bad influence of Brown/Patil, as a prefect Hermione would have to do something about that--- Ron leapt to his feet, swearing, and Harry pulled him back down, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "What happened?" he said in a low voice.

"He--- he---" she didn't have to fake a stammer as the initial horror of being in that little room came to her--- "Apparated me to--- a dungeon, I found out later it's in his house---"

"Figures Malfoy to have a dungeon," Harry said disgustedly.

Ginny shuddered. "And that he'd do something like that." Ginny, Hermione remembered, was a fellow victim of Lucius Malfoy's general vileness. For a moment, Hermione entertained the wistful notion of getting her somewhere alone and explaining---

No, Granger, that's selfish squared. She's been through enough--- doesn't need you crying on her shoulder on top of it.

"There was--- he called it a Dark Revel---" small misdirection, but close enough--- "a gathering of Death Eaters---" She closed her eyes, hearing Snape's voice: "basically, an opportunity for Lord Voldemort's followers to get together and indulge some of their more depraved pleasures." That, coupled with her memories of the dungeon, gave her fodder for the next bit of misdirection--- "it was horrible---"

Ron put what he must have thought was a comforting arm around her shoulders; she had to fight not to flinch. "It would have to be," Harry muttered, and Ginny's voice was like a lifeline. "How did you get away?"

She grasped at it, turning a little so that Ron's arm fell away. "It wasn't anything I did--- it was Professor Snape, he was there---"

"At a gathering of Death Eaters?" Ron's voice rose in horror. "That--- that---"

"Oh, Ron, don't be thick," she said impatiently, feeling a kind of guilty relief at badgering him in their usual way. "You know Snape used to be a Death Eater--- you were there when he showed Fudge his arm last year---"

"Right--- 'used to be'," said Harry. "Which doesn't explain what he was doing with them now." He fixed her with an inquiring look. Ginny, to Hermione's surprise, had started when Hermione said Snape's name--- but now she looked thoughtful rather than confused, despite the fact that she hadn't been present at the aforementioned incident last year.

"Oh, honestly!" Now that she was with her friends, she felt herself slipping back into the familiar role--- the brain, the bossy know-it-all--- with no little relief. She wasn't always comfortable in it, but it was at least familiar. Normal. Safe.

You don't have to be like that with him, said a little voice in her mind. He doesn't mind when you think--- he likes it when you have an idea---

She told the little voice to shut up, rather firmly.

"Didn't you figure it out?" she asked, looking from one to the other of the boys--- Ginny obviously had, which confused her no end, but she'd sort that out later. "He's a double agent--- that's what the Headmaster sent him off to do last year, and that's what he was doing---" she swallowed--- "last night."

Harry blinked. "How d'you mean?"

"He was getting information--- there was a lot of alcohol around, I think---" she'd smelled it on Malfoy when he tied her up, and that was early on--- "and I guess he figured it would loosen some tongues." She took a deep breath. "Anyway, when he saw me---"

"Wait." Ron was finally catching on. "What'd Malfoy bring you there for anyway?"

Before she could answer, Ginny, to her surprise, spoke up. "Oh, honestly, Ron--- what do you think he was going to do to her?" She sighed in exasperation, then reached out and put a hand on Hermione's arm. Hermione covered it with her own, grateful twice over--- for the sympathy, and the fact that Ginny had planted the appropriate seed for misdirection, so that she herself didn't have to.

Harry looked sick. "Have a little fun, probably---"

"Like that lot at the World Cup last year," Ron finished. "That scum!" He looked ready to hit something.

Harry put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Now, why doesn't that make me twitch, like Ron's did? "What happened?" he asked again, gently.

"Snape--- when he saw what Mr. Malfoy was... was going to do---" well that was true enough--- "he... talked him out of it."

"How?" Ron was blatantly suspicious--- and rightly so, but she didn't want to tell him that, of course.

"I--- I don't know." Which, again, was sort of true. "I couldn't hear everything--- at least, not then--- and---" she put on a rather dry mask, and continued with some asperity, "you'll forgive me if I don't remember all the details letter-perfect."

"Of course you don't," Harry said, silencing Ron's worried outburst with a look. "Go on--- I mean, if you want to," he added hastily.

She nodded, a little shakily. "Well, after Snape got me out of there, he told me that he'd told Mr. Malfoy that he could... turn me into a spy. Make me tell him things about Harry, and, well, manipulate you---" she looked at Harry--- "through things he told me."

"That's stretching, isn't it?" Ron said. "I mean, why would you believe anything Snape says?" He said the name like it was a mucus-coated maggot.

"Well, there's more than one way of getting people to do something, isn't there?" she told him sharply, wincing inwardly at how close he'd gotten. "I mean, look at how, our first year, we all thought he was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone! Quirrel manipulated us using our--- dislike--- of Snape, didn't he?" Now she was really warmed up. "And all that time, Snape was trying to save Harry!" She took a deep breath. "Manipulating us doesn't mean we have to like him."

Harry frowned. "Well, that's true, I guess," he said slowly, clearly not wanting to believe it. "But--- Ron's right---"

"Oh, thanks," Ron said sarcastically.

"It is kind of far-fetched, isn't it?"

Hermione shrugged. "No more so than that Professor Moody was really Barty Crouch, right?"

Even Ron had to laugh at that.

Harry pushed his glasses back up his nose. "So--- what are we going to do?"

Hermione blinked in shock; she hadn't expected it would be this easy. "Do?"

"About... this plan of Snape's." Harry looked from one to the other of them.

"Yeah--- I mean, it's not like we're going to let him lead us around by the noses!" said Ron hotly.

"Do you honestly think he'd have told me, if that's what he was going to do?" Hermione asked impatiently. "I know you don't like him, Ron, but give him credit for some intelligence at least."

Ron shrugged, clearly not liking it--- then sat up with a look on his face that was all too familiar to Hermione from her relationship with Viktor. "What'd you mean 'you'? I didn't think you liked him any better than we do!" He stared at her accusingly.

Hermione smacked her forehead mentally. Stupid, Granger, stupid! Professor Snape was right about her discretion! "Well, it's rather hard not to like someone when they save you from something like Lucius Malfoy--- or a troll." She gave him a speaking look.

"Here, here," said Ginny quietly, looking at Harry, who had saved her from Lord Voldemort. Hermione hoped devoutly that no one was going to connect the dots....

Harry laughed. "Well, I hope we're not as hard to like as Snape."

"Well, I was, our first year, wasn't I?" Hermione teased.

"No, you weren't," Ron said instantly, patting her arm, and she and Harry both looked at him in surprise. "I mean--- not as hard as Snape," he amended hastily.

"Oh, thanks," Hermione said sarcastically. "But really," she said, in her best serious-things voice, "as far as Snape's 'plan' goes--- I don't think it is one--- I mean, it's more a matter of waiting and seeing what You-Know-Who tries to do---"

"Just like always." Harry looked bitter. "Just once I wish we could get ahead of him--- act, not react."

It was the first time she'd ever heard Harry say anything like that, and judging from the look on Ron's face it was news to him too. She opened her mouth to say something--- when the portrait opened, and Professor McGonagall walked in.

Their Head of House glanced around the room swiftly, then made straight for them, her mouth set in a thin line. "Miss Granger---" she said. "May I speak with you in private?"

Hermione got up, but Harry said, "Professor McGonagall--- is this about--- what happened to Hermione last night?"

McGonagall looked surprised, then her eyes narrowed and she looked at Hermione. "You've told them?"

"Er--- I was, when you came in." Hermione wondered just how much McGonagall knew.

The older woman gave a long-suffering look. "I might have known--- well, you lot---" she fixed the boys in particular with a sharp look--- "your friend has been through a very difficult experience, and I suggest---" the irony hung heavily in the air--- "that you give her all the support she needs. Miss Granger," she added, turning to Hermione with a suddenness that made her jump, "I'd still like to speak with you in private. Come along---" And the swept off, leaving Hermione to exchange glances with the others--- theirs confused, hers shamming it and worried--- and hurry after.

McGonagall led her up a narrow staircase and through a corridor that Hermione recognized: all the Gryffindor prefects knew how to reach the private entrance to Professor McGonagall's rooms, in case they needed to get to her in a hurry some night. All the younger students thought it was some kind of magic the way she could appear at the first hint of disturbance; and so it was, but it was the magic of the castle's design.

Professor McGonagall's sitting room was neatly furnished with a lot of bookshelves and comfortable chairs that somehow managed to be proper at the same time. She motioned Hermione into one and sat behind her desk--- a duplicate of the one in her office.

"Hermione," she said gently, dropping the formality in private--- a mark of favor that usually pleased Hermione; McGonagall didn't call even all the prefects by their first names. But this morning, somehow, it didn't distract her from her nerves. How much did Professor McGonagall know?

"Professor Dumbledore told me about... what happened to you last night," she said in the gentlest tone Hermione had ever heard her use, "and I'm--- sorry doesn't seem enough," she said finally--- then added with a trace of her usual crispness, "though I'm going to have to rethink my opinion of Severus Snape--- I'd never have thought he'd stick his neck out like that for any student, let alone a Gryffindor Muggle-born--- it's not everyone who could talk Lucius Malfoy out of his perversions---"

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that she kept wholly mental: it didn't sound like Professor McGonagall knew what Professor Snape had really done--- or she wouldn't be talking with any trace of respect about him.

But all the same, Hermione couldn't help feeling a strange sort of wistful twinge. It would have been awfully good to really talk with another woman about what had happened.... She didn't know how she knew that, she just did.

"But that's by the way," Professor McGonagall interrupted her thoughts. "Hermione, please, if there's anything I can do---"

"Er--- I don't think so, not... right now anyway." Hermione answered by rote.

"And now--- a question if you don't mind," McGonagall said gently. "How much did you tell Potter and the Weasleys?"

"Er--- well, I told them that Mr. Malfoy---"

"You needn't speak of him with any kind of respect, Hermione," McGonagall cut in crisply, "not after---" She pursed her lips together. "But go on."

"I told them that he'd kidnaped me," she said, "and that Professor Snape talked him out of hurting me--- but I didn't say exactly what he would have done."

"That's probably for the best," McGonagall said. "I know they're your friends and all--- but there are some things that most males will never understand--- and what it takes to make them understand isn't something I'd wish on anyone. When I think of the things I saw in the last war...." Her eyes went abstract, looking at something Hermione could only extrapolate.

Before she could ask, however, McGonagall's eyes refocused and she continued. "And as you've no doubt decided for yourself, Miss Weasley has already been through her own trial by fire, and it's probably better to let her... have what's left of her innocence while she can." Hermione's heart gave a wrench at the last words, thinking of how Ron's hand had made her twitch. No, she wouldn't wish that on Ginny, even vicariously.

McGonagall's eyes gentled again. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you, all right, child?"

Hermione almost flinched--- it was the same tone of voice Snape used when he called her "child"--- and she had the sense that both of them meant the exact opposite. Very peculiar. "I--- I will," she said. "And--- thank you."

McGonagall's eyes were very kind. "Don't thank me, Hermione--- from what the Headmaster tells me, you showed the bravery of Godric Gryffindor himself last night."

There was an awkward pause, then Hermione asked, "Should I--- is that---"

"'All' doesn't seem like the right word, does it?" McGonagall said as if she knew what Hermione was thinking. "Yes, that's it--- though if you'd rather stay up here for lunch---"

"Lunch!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Yes," said McGonagall dryly, "you missed breakfast altogether--- not that I blame you. But you're probably famished--- go on, if you like."

Hermione experienced a bizarre sort of deja vu: for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, a professor was ordering her out of their office to go and eat--- though the circumstances couldn't have been more different. "All right," she said, getting to her feet. "Thank you---"

"As I said, dear, no thanks needed." McGonagall's eyes on her were still kind. "Now, go along, if you like."

Hermione went.

*****

Severus Snape had been awakened a good few hours before Hermione--- awakened by a heavy, coiling weight cuddled across him and to one side.

"Esmé," he said wearily, "would you mind?"

A second later, a blunt sleek head about the size of a soup bowl poked out from under the quilt. "The fire went out, and it wassssss cold," said the creature. "And I'm a reptile, in casssssse you've forgotten."

"Nonsense," Snape said, stroking the blunt-nosed head, feeling the surprising softness of feathers under his fingers. "You're as warm-blooded as I am."

"Which, according to your sssssssstudentsssssss, isssss not very," Esmé grumped, cuddling tighter against him.

Snape grunted sharply as the quetxal's body squeezed the air from his chest. "Esmé, would you kindly desist?" he gasped, and added, "Corpses make dreadful hot-water bottles."

"And you would know, I sssssssuppossssse?" she retorted, but uncoiled herself part way from around him. Snape took a deep, grateful breath. "When isssssss breakfassssssst?"

"When you catch it yourself," Snape said irritably, starting to worm his way out from under covers and quetxal, ignoring Esmé's irked protest. The bandage over his left wrist tried to slip loose.

"Thesssssse featherssssss make it hard to ssssssslither properly," the quetxal whined.

"Yes, but they should keep you warm," Snape answered her, "if you'd have the sense to puff up like a bird, instead of ignoring half your heritage."

"Lookssssss sssssstupid," Esmé whined.

"And cuddling up like a kitten doesn't?" Snape said, and, tired of their old argument, resorted to his usual doomsday weapon: throwing back the covers and letting the cold air in.

Underneath the covers was the not inconsiderable bulk of Esmé: six feet of sleek lime-green and midnight black feathers arranged along the skin of what should have been a very scaly constrictor snake: a quetxal, literally a "feathered serpent"--- or, as his cousin Claudia called them, feather boas. Like the house-elves, the quetxal were a relic of his many times-great-aunt Esmeralda the Transformer's creativity.

Esmé hissed at him, rustling her feathers together. "Cold," she whined.

"I should have gotten a mank instead of you," he told her, taking advantage of her distraction to slide out from underneath the heavy coils. "They at least keep themselves warm." Both quetxal and mank had been an attempt to produce warm-blooded reptiles. The mank, snakes with the plush fur of mink, shed their skins, snake-fashion, several times a year, providing a steady supply of cruelty-free fur. Not that Great-Aunt Esmeralda had likely given a damn, but one mank could produce as much fur in its lifetime as several hundred mink, and--- perhaps a relic of their serpentine ancestry--- they were docile, attacking only when provoked, unlike the warm-blooded portion of their ancestry.

"Mank are ssssssstupid," Esmé hissed, glaring balefully up at him. "Can't even talk Parssssseltongue, let alone human languagesssssss like a quetsssssssssal." For whatever reason, quetxal were considerably more intelligent than their relatives--- hence the unusually large heads.

"At the moment, a creature that cannot talk would be a welcome companion," Snape told her, pulling on his dressing gown and heading for the bath. The silence behind him told him he'd scored a point.

The bathroom attached to his chambers was one of the odd advantages of rooming in the dungeons, and proof that even vile things could be put to good use. The small room adjoining his quarters had once been a torture chamber.

Appropriate, given its current occupant.... Snape cut off that line of thought in a hurry.

Many of the accouterments of its past incarnation were still in place: Snape thought the chains hanging from the walls added a certain je ne sais quoi to the decor, and made a convenient place to hang towels and clothing. The water-torture chamber had easily converted to a shower, and the old boiling pot had gracefully made the transition into a hot tub--- a not dissimilar use, he reflected as he filled the appliance in question, particularly given his preference for near-scalding baths. Not that anything was going to get the oil out of his skin and hair for good, short of an extended, painful, and costly stay in St. Mungo's, but he couldn't help trying.

He slid into the water while the tub was still half-full, and turned on the cycling system, slid the bandages off his wrist and let the bloodstains soak off. It had healed with unusual speed; it always did. Except for the part he wanted to heal--- a scar on soul rather than body....

Esmé came in before he'd finished, slouching along the floor like a lame caterpillar--- the poor thing really did have a case about her feathers being useless as instruments of propulsion; they afforded her absolutely no traction. She eeled her way up among the chains and came to suspend herself above him, lowering her head until they were eye-level, at a conversational distance--- yet another reason to leave the chains in place. "You're ssssssscrubbing your sssssssskin off," she said, sounding--- for once--- worried.

"Just the top layer," he reassured her dryly, dunking his head underwater to rinse--- hence the cyclers. "Bless Mother's black heart," he added sarcastically, coming up and started to scrub at his hair again.

"Humanssssss aren't ssssssuppossssed to molt," Esmé objected, watching long dark hairs swirl away in the cyclers' jets along with the now-greasy soapsuds.

"And hair and skin aren't supposed to exude enough oil to power a fleet of Muggle motorcars, either," he told her, blinking soap out of his eyes. "But thanks to Mother and her teaching methods---" He broke off to rinse again.

When he came up, it was to find himself literally nose-to-nose with the quetxal. She flicked her forked tongue at him, tasting his scent. "You sssssssmell more than clean," she said, "unless it isssss the 'scent' of Darknessssss on your sssssspirit." She drew back to regard him one more from a conversational distance. "What happened lassssssst night? You did not come home until very late."

He sighed, knowing they'd come around to this. And it was one of the reasons he kept the feathered pest as his familiar: Esmé knew when to ask--- she hadn't pestered him last night, had waited until this morning, after he'd finished his ablutions, to ask the questions that were most certainly burning her serpentine heart. Tact, she had, did Esmé, when it counted. "It was... a Dark Revel," he began, not quite stalling, but not wanting to launch into the worst of it without preparing her. "You know what that means."

Esmé, in a surprising gesture of affection, dropped down to bump her head against his. "I know," she hissed into his ear. "But that doesssssss not eksssssssplain your latenesssssss--- you would have left asssss sssssssoon asssss possssssssible."

He sighed, reaching up to pet the feathered head gently; Esmé squeezed her eyes shut--- like her avian ancestors, she had eyelids--- in pleasure. "Malfoy had brought me... his idea of a present---"

Esmé's eyes opened, and she reared up in midair. "Hissssss idea of a presssssent would be sssssssomething foul."

"And it was." He took a deep breath, pondering how to explain the full horror and severity of the occasion to a creature for whom mating was as uncomplicated an act as eating. "You remember I had Hermione Granger working as my assistant on the anti-lycanthropy potion?"

"The Gryffindor Muggle-born--- yesssss."

"Well... Malfoy, pervert that he is, decided that he knew my 'true' interest in the girl, and made me a present of her, to use--- to assault, Esmé. To abuse, in the vilest way possible."

The quetxal hissed, coiling about in midair. "He would. What did you do?"

Here was the part that her feathered little brain would never comprehend. "I... made it appear that I was... seducing her--- twisting her mind so that I could use her as a spy."

Snakes--- even quetxals--- don't have much in the way of facial expressions; yet Esmé managed to convey quite clearly her confusion. "How?"

He petted the head again. "How many times do I have to tell you, featherbrain--- humans are different from other animals, and sex is one of the areas of greatest difference."

"Yessssss.... alwaysssss in heat," she said boredly, then did a double-take--- a move quite effective on someone whose entire body, at the moment, was functioning as a neck: she made an S-curve in the air to look back at him. "What doesssss mating have to do with Malfoy'ssssss fun and gamessssss?"

"I've told you about the Dark Revels, Esmé," he said wearily, not wanting to relive the experience again for the curiosity of a feathered snake. "Malfoy thought I'd want to---"

"Mate with a ssssstudent?" Esmé hissed, managing, once again, to convey an expression of disgust. The quetxal regarded mating as just another biological activity... but she had enough understanding of human customs and psychology to realize the implications. Like a bird, she was warm-blooded... and she had a bird's sense of caring for the young.

"Yes, and in a way that she wouldn't enjoy in the least--- to put it mildly." He sunk lower in the water, anticipating the next question, hoping it wouldn't come.

"I will never undersssssstand humansssss," Esmé said finally, making a loop-the-loop in the air. "Sssssso I asssssume what you did with the girl... more human mating ritualssssss?"

"In a sense," he said, relieved that Esmé hadn't required too much explanation. He'd never had to discuss such things with the quetxal--- by the time she'd come into his life, he'd already sworn off such involvement... mostly owing to things he'd seen and done as a Death Eater. "It was... less traumatic for her than what Lucius intended, but...." He felt the pain rising up in waves as it had last night. "Esmé--- I hurt her. I hurt her--- and it was my fault that she was even there." If he hadn't been so weak--- so starved for contact with a mind of equal brilliance, no matter in what body it lived--- Malfoy never would have thought of presenting Hermione Granger to him as a "gift".

He closed his eyes and felt the tears come.

A moment later, he felt something soft and feathery slide around his shoulders: Esmé, more generous with touch than he'd been to her. "You have hurt your sssssstudentsssss before, when it wassss necessssary."

"Not like this." His voice was barely more than a breath. "The worst I ever said in class--- the harshest criticism, the most biting remark--- was kindness itself by comparison."

Esmé didn't understand, couldn't understand; yet a moment later, he felt the feathery coils squeeze his shoulders in a serpentine hug. "Ssssshe issss young, and you have ssssaid ssssshe isssss intelligent," she said. "And you--- you with your honor---- you will help her."

He laughed weakly, the quetxal's unflinching and absolute faith in him, her absurd simplification of what was likely to be an agonizing task, bringing him close to hysteria. "It's--- not that simple, featherbrain."

She butted her head under his chin, then coiled about him silently for a moment. "I think I would like to meet thissssss sssstudent," she said finally.

The thought of Esmé and Hermione in the same room made him smile. "All right, then," he said, nodding slightly--- then pushed at the feathered coils around his shoulder. "Now, off you go--- I need to get dressed."

Esmé's coils tightened around his shoulders one last time, then she slithered backwards along the chains.

As he got out of the tub and dried himself off, Snape reflected on the other reason he kept Esmé.

It was very nice to have a creature around who didn't mind hugging him.

Author's note: Esmé was inspired by my own punning sense of humor... but the notion to give her to Snape came to me courtesy of Salome, Snape's snake, in "A Decoding of The Heart". Sphinx is the goddess of Snape/Hermione fic--- again, go, read, enjoy! >GRIN<


Chapter 8. Setting Up the Attack

After lunch, Hermione decided that now was as good a time as any to start researching the house-elves--- and besides, a trek to the library on the first day of vacation would almost certainly get rid of Ron at least and probably all three of the others, leaving her with a little peace.

And a chance to see Snape, insinuated a corner of her mind, which she chose to ignore.

"I'm going to the library," she announced brightly as they headed out of the Great Hall. "See you in a bit---"

"Sure," said Ginny easily, seeming to understand. But to Hermione's surprise, neither of the boys made their usual exclamations of disgust. Instead, they exchanged a very odd sort of look, then Ron said--- reluctantly to her ears--- "We'll come with you."

"Er--- yeah, never too early to get to work, right?" Harry added.

Hermione looked from one to the other, her eyes narrowed. "Since when do either of you even think about your homework before Christmas?" she asked.

"Er--- I guess you must be rubbing off on us," Ron said, shooting Harry what could only be described as a pleading glance.

"Yeah--- and we have a lot more work this year, besides," Harry added. "The O.W.L.s are coming up---"

But it didn't take a genius to figure out that their sudden enthusiasm for their work had nothing to do with O.W.L.s. "You're--- body-guarding me, is that it?" she demanded, and had the satisfaction of seeing the guilty, startled looks on both male faces. "Because of what happened last night."

The boys looked at each other again, then Ron said sheepishly, "Well, like McGonagall said, you'd had a rough time---"

"We just figured you wouldn't want to be alone, that's all, and we didn't think you'd like to ask---" Harry said.

Hermione couldn't decide whether to be touched or vexed by their reactions. "Honestly---" Her first instinct was to chase them off---

Wait, said a little voice in her head. Would you want to throw them off if you didn't want to sneak off to see... Snape?

And she had to admit that the voice had a point.

"Well, all right, you two," she said ruefully. "You can tag along after me if you want--- though you'll probably bore yourselves stiff, as my current plan involves spending most of break in the library."

Harry and Ron's faces were studies in mixed emotions: they looked as though they couldn't decided whether to be relieved or annoyed. "Well," said Harry brightly, "if we start getting really bored, we can always take turns, can't we?"

For some reason the thought of being alone with Ron bothered her--- but, strangely, not with Harry. Why is that? But she only laughed. "Well, then, come along, my gallant knights," she teased, and they trooped gamely after her to the library, with Ginny in their wake.

*****

After flashing her prefect's badge at Madam Pince, Hermione made straight for the Restricted Section, causing Harry and Ron--- again--- to exchange looks.

Ron opened his mouth, but before he could speak, they were intercepted by the formidable librarian. "Fourth years not allowed back there!" she exclaimed, practically collaring Ginny, then turning a sharp gaze on the boys. "And I'm sure you two are up to no good---"

"Please, Madam Pince," Hermione interceded--- she was one of the few students the librarian actually liked, as they shared a love of the printed word. "They're with me, all three of them---"

Madam Pince sniffed. "Well, I suppose I can let the fifth years in," she said, "but you, Miss Weasley, will have to find some other mischief to keep you occupied--- or, heaven forbid, actually study."

Hermione shot her a sympathetic glance as Madam Pince trooped her off, then set off for the Restricted Section.

"What d'you want back here?" Ron whispered.

"Right--- we haven't got any assignments that call for it---" Harry paused. "You haven't even got your course books with you---"

She grinned, feeling a little hint of mischief as she anticipated the boys' reactions to her next bombshell. "It's not schoolwork," she said, "well--- not technically---"

"Not technically?" Ron repeated, scratching his head. "How d'you mean?"

"It's something Professor Snape gave me the idea for last night---" she said airily, as she began searching the rows of Restricted books for something on house-elves.

"Snape!" Ron forgot to whisper, and she and Harry both shushed him, lest Madam Pince hear them. He lowered his voice, still looking furious. "After what--- after you---"

Hermione gave him a severe look. "Actually, Ron, it was the best thing he could do for me--- give me something---" her voice shook all on its own, no acting needed--- "else to think about." She managed a grin. "Besides, I think you'll like this project--- both of you."

Ron looked mutinous, Harry merely skeptical. "What is it?" the latter asked.

"Well, somehow he'd found out about S.P.E.W.---"

Ron snorted--- then looked embarrassed, torn between his dislike of Snape and his disdain for her elf-rights project.

"And he suggested that I go and look up the origins of house-elves before I went about campaigning for their rights." She couldn't fight a sheepish grin. "Actually he told me that originally they were... how'd he put it---" she tried to remember his exact words--- "'they weren't nearly as nice as goblins, nor as magically weak as a phoenix.'" she shot Ron an arch look. "That make you think better of him--- talking me out of the house-elf rights campaign?"

Ron again looked torn, but Harry spluttered. "Leave it to Snape," he said, "to manage it." He blinked. "So--- if the elves were all that bad, how'd they turn into---"

"Winky," snorted Ron.

"That's what I'm supposed to be looking up," Hermione said with some asperity. "So, if the two of you wouldn't mind---"

"We'll help," said Ron, a little too eagerly, and Harry nodded, grinning at her.

"All right," she said, "but mind you don't open any of the books--- I'm the only one who's supposed to have access, and Madam Pince will throw us out if the silly things start screaming."

*****

In the next week, they quickly reached an unspoken truce: mornings the boys spent in the library helping Hermione with her research, afternoons they either played in the snow or lounged around the Gryffindor common room, Hermione reading and the boys playing chess or getting up to mischief with Ginny.

Though even Ron had to admit that the history of house-elves was at least somewhat interesting--- and to Hermione, downright fascinating. Most of the books on it were secondary sources, as the transformation had come about sometime before the Middle Ages--- she was having trouble pinning down the exact dates--- but it was very clear that the creatures from which the house-elves had come were absolutely terrifying. Stories of bizarre assaults, willful destruction of breakable items like buildings, and other kinds of violence were rampant.

Harry wasn't surprised. "If you'd had Dobby trying to 'help' you," he said dryly, "you wouldn't be either."

Remembering the countless "helpful" incidents that Dobby had perpetrated on Harry in their second year, Hermione couldn't help but laugh.

"But why didn't anyone do something about them sooner?" Ron asked, puzzled, as they sat one morning poring over a particularly gruesome tale of bloodshed.

"Because," said Hermione, looking up from the book to pull another one over in front of them--- "they were harmless little imps until they started interbreeding with djinn--- honestly, Ron, with your brother over in Egypt, I'd think you'd know---"

Ron looked annoyed. "I don't see why---"

"Because djinn guard treasure, for one thing," said Harry, sticking up for her, which was unusual--- it was usually the boys against Hermione when it came to anything having to do with studying. She guessed it was just one more little way of "cheering her up."

"And then their natural predators couldn't keep up with them," Hermione said, "so there as a population explosion---"

Ron shuddered. "Just what you'd want," he muttered, "a bloody mess of those things---"

"Exactly. Now," said Hermione, returning to the books, "I'd just like to know how they were changed...."

Snape's words came back to her: some of my father's ancestors were involved--- along with a few of the Potter family.... She rather thought Harry would like to know something about his ancestors--- but they weren't in any of the books she was finding.

Well, she'd have to ask him--- when Harry and Ron finally left her alone.

It had taken them until Christmas Eve to reach that dead end; as Ron said loudly, it was a good thing, for he didn't plan to spend Christmas Day in the library. The afternoon and evening were spent in excited anticipation of the Christmas feast the next day--- even Hermione, with everything she had on her mind, couldn't help but look forward to Christmas dinner at Hogwarts.

And to seeing Snape. He hadn't been at meals when she and the boys had--- but most of the holiday meals, with the exception of the feast, were quite informal, with everyone wandering in at their leisure. But surely he'd be there for the Christmas feast, wouldn't he? He had been their third year, when the school was almost as deserted as it was this year....

Hermione, of course, kept that thought to herself. She didn't want to spoil Harry and Ron's anticipation of the feast.

But it was the last thought she had before going to sleep that night.

*****

Christmas morning, Hermione awoke to Crookshanks' weight on her chest and a loud purring in her ears--- to say nothing of a cold, wet nose on hers.

"Merry Christmas to you too, furball," she said affectionately, rolling over and hugging the cat to her chest. He purred even louder--- Crookshanks being quite a cuddler by feline standards, as least where she was concerned. She sat up and looked at the pile of presents on the end of her bed. "And what have we got here, d'you think?"

There was the usual heap of presents from her parents, a mixture of things Muggle and magical--- mostly books, on spells and science; Hermione liked trying to reconcile the two. And she knew her parents wanted her to keep some contact with her roots, even as they encouraged her to find her place in her new world. Well, the balancing act was about to get harder....

There were also the usual thank-you gifts, mostly little tokens from Zonko's ("Goodness, why would I want an exploding quill?" she asked, and Crookshanks sneezed) and Honeydukes, from the younger students she tutored, and Neville Longbottom, who was only passing most of his classes because she helped him. And there was a set of books on the magical potential of cats for her and a set of magical fake mice that scampered about under a Wriggle-Legs Hex for Crookshanks, both from Professor Arabella Figg, this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who shared Hermione's love of cats. The venerable witch had invited Hermione to her office to meet all five of hers, and had been most impressed with Crookshanks, whom she pronounced to be half-Kneazle, which excited Hermione no end--- a real wizarding pet!

From Harry and Ron were the usual boxes of Honeydukes candy--- though she noticed that Ron's had more of the look of "--- and flowers" to it than she really wanted to handle at the moment. This suspicion was confirmed by her present from Mrs. Weasley--- in addition to the usual baked goods, there was her very first Weasley sweater, in a lovely shade of periwinkle blue. "Oh, dear," she said to Crookshanks. "This doesn't look good." Not that she didn't like Ron--- but she really wasn't up to an... escalation, not just now.

But the package at the bottom of the pile pushed all other thoughts out of her head very quickly. It was a small squashy thing, wrapped in plain dark green paper so thick it was almost cloth, with a Gladrags seal on it. There was no card attached.

"Who can this be from?" she asked Crookshanks, holding it out for him to sniff. The cat, who had an amazing nose for trouble, having found out Peter Pettigrew in their third year, could probably tell her more about it than any spell--- and after recent events, she was feeling quite cautious about unknown packages.

Crookshanks dutifully whuffled the parcel--- and purred loudly. "Well, if you say so," she said ruefully, and broke the seal, carefully pulling away the wrapping.

Something soft and silky, like a handful of moonbeams, puddled out into her hands--- along with two rolls of parchment. One had the Gladrags seal on it, the other was sealed with a crest she didn't recognize: a feathered serpent coiled around a quill. She tried to break the seal, but it wouldn't break.

"Hmmmm." Whoever had sent her this clearly wanted to create a bit of a puzzle--- which in its way was a present in itself.

But only a bit of a puzzle--- after a moment she remembered that some seals could only be broken by the addressee. She pressed her thumb to it, and the little parchment rolled open.

"I thought you might find a good use for this. Rather a superior model to the one Potter has from his father--- (there was a large dark blot after that, suggesting words crossed out by the writer). But then, you have more need of it. I think I need not tell you to keep this a secret--- from everyone except the Headmaster, from whom I believe this place has no secrets."

It was signed, "S.S."

Hermione caught her breath, running her hands over the silvery folds. "Oh---" An Invisibility Cloak of her very own--- better than Harry's, according to....

Severus. It was the first time she'd called him by his given name in her thoughts--- even when she'd said his name down in the Potions classroom, she hadn't really thought of him that way.

But she couldn't not, not after... this. Because this was not only a gift whose generosity bordered on philanthropy... but a thoughtful present (how else could she slip down to see him?) and one that reflected his trust in her--- that she wouldn't use it for mere mischief.

Not for the first time, she thought, He's treating me like a grown woman.

For a moment she could only hold tight to the cloak and blink back tears that startled her; then with a wrench, she set the parchment aside, carefully rerolling it. As she suspected, the seal re-stuck to the parchment, holding it shut. She hesitated for a moment, then slipped it under her pillow, caught up her wand from the bedside table, and murmured a Freezing Charm to hold it in place. The house-elves would be able to move it when they did laundry--- after reading in detail about their powers, she was sure of that!--- but they'd know enough to put it back where they found it and ask no questions. And she didn't want anyone else finding it by mistake--- the memory of Lockhart's card under her pillow could still embarrass her (not least because she hadn't seen through that lying twit herself).

"Well, let's see what this thing can do," she said to Crookshanks, who was purring happily and snuffling the cloak. She picked up the Gladrags scroll, unrolled it, and started to read.

And got another shock. It wasn't just an Invisibility Cloak--- it was a Concealment Cloak. Not only did it make the wearer invisible, like Harry's cloak--- it made them inaudible (unless they pulled down the hood) and even somewhat intangible: you couldn't slide through walls or anything big and solid, but you could move through crowds without jostling anyone, or through spaces just a little too small.

She had to grin at that, remembering some of her research into physics. Wonder if the wizarding world has found a way around Heisenberg? It would certainly explain Apparation, as well as this cloak.... Which was probably not anything she could ask... Severus... about. Somehow, she doubted he'd ever studied any of the Muggle equivalents of magic. But Professor Vector had... now that had promise....

Besides those large improvements on Harry's cloak, there were dozens of small ones: the clasps that adhered around your face and body, so that there was no danger of the cloak slipping off as Harry's had done at least once; the climate-control lining; the Exaudio Charm that let you make yourself heard by a specific person if you chose.... Hermione read through the manual (well, it was, even if it was odd to think of a manual for a piece of clothing!) at first with wonder and delight... then with a growing feeling of alarm, even guilt. This would have cost a fortune... and somehow, she just didn't think Snape's salary as a teacher (even at Hogwarts, which had to be one of the more luxurious schools in existence) would cover too many extravagances like this....

But he'd been a Slytherin, hadn't he? She'd never heard of a Slytherin who wasn't wealthy.... But then why was he teaching here, if his family had money? And his mother taught at Durmstrang....

This was getting complicated.

But before she could finished puzzling it out, she heard footsteps outside her door, and then a knock--- "Merry Christmas, Hermione!" called three voices from outside her door.

"Hold on a moment--- I'm in a state of dishabille!" Hermione called, hastily folding the cloak around the manual and sliding it under her pillow, then grabbing her dressing gown as she got to her feet. "'Speak friend and enter.'"

To her surprise, it was Ginny who got the quote--- her high voice chimed out, "'Mellon'!" and then all three of her friends had piled into the room.

"I didn't know you'd read Tolkien," she said to younger girl as Harry and Ron started exclaiming sarcastically over the books.

Ginny grinned. "Muggle Studies--- I'm doing an independent project on Muggles' understanding of magic, remember---"

Hermione could have kicked herself--- but before she could apologize, Ron noticed the sweater, and insisted she wear it.

Harry seemed to notice her twitch. "Now we've all got one---"

"One big happy family!" said Ginny (whose sweater was a very pretty red that somehow went with her red hair instead of clashing as one would expect--- but then, Mrs. Weasley would know what colors looked good on redheads, even if she did get everything Ron owned in maroon). She gave Harry an adoring look... that was the twin of the one Ron was giving Hermione.

Who swallowed a sigh. Oh, dear.

*****

The one thing Hermione wanted to do more than any other that Christmas morning was to go down to the dungeons and thank Snape for his gift to her--- but that, alas, was not to be. After breakfast--- at which Snape was conspicuous by his absence, in Hermione's opinion--- Ron and Harry dragged the girls outside for a snowball fight that lasted until almost dinnertime. They dragged themselves upstairs to change--- no one wanted to spoil the Christmas feast by eating it in wet clothing--- and lay about on the chairs and the huge hearthrug in the common room, catching their breaths, until it was time for the feast.

When they arrived at the dining hall, they found all the House tables pushed against the walls, and a small table in the center of the room.

Ginny frowned. "What---"

"This is just like our third year," Harry whispered to her, making her face turn as red as her hair. "When the school's almost empty---"

He was interrupted by the Headmaster, who entered the room at that moment--- "That's odd," said Ron--- "the teachers always beat us here"--- followed by Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Figg, and--- Hermione's heart skipped a beat, and she sternly told it to behave itself--- Snape, who brought up the rear looking even more sour than usual. "Since we have so few students staying over break--- why, the whole of Ravenclaw and Slytherin are gone---" which explained Flitwick's absence--- "it makes little sense to rattle around at our separate tables at what ought to be a festive occasion."

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Ron and Harry glance from Snape to each other, and grin. She could almost hear their thoughts: "Not likely."

But the four of them, along with a pair of rather nervous-looking baby Hufflepuffs, settled into seats along with the professors. Professor Sprout, looking even more motherly than usual, settled next to her little charges (who looked quite relieved, and even more so when Ginny, shooting Hermione a wink under her long red bangs, sat on their other side). Harry sat next to Ginny and Ron next to him. McGonagall sat between Sprout and Dumbledore, who gallantly handed Figg into the seat on his other side, between him and Snape.

Which left Hermione sitting between Ron... and Snape.

Oh, dear.

The sudden slight quirk of his eyebrow when he took note of the way the table had sorted itself out somehow settled her--- he's as startled as I am? --- and she perched herself next to him, stoutly ignoring the cotillion of butterflies making free of her stomach.

The look on Professor Dumbledore's face--- just an instant's flicker of his eyes for one to the other of them--- suggested that the seating arrangements were not accidental. Funny; she'd never figured him for cruel. But then, as with most things, he probably had a good reason.

Hermione didn't notice most of the conversation, or even the meal itself; she was too busy being aware of Snape's presence to her left, the subtle warmth of his body and the tingling all down her arm and side. Though she decided after a minute that sitting next to him was better than sitting anywhere else--- this way she could avoid the temptation to look at him, or the shock of catching sight of him unexpectedly when she turned to speak to someone else.

Maybe that was why he'd been missing meals....

She was so caught up in her half-articulate reverie that Professor Figg had to say her name twice to get her attention. "Er--- yes, Professor Figg?"

"I just wanted to ask what you thought of my Christmas present," she said dryly, "though if it was that bad---"

Hermione wrenched her mind back to the Real World. "Oh, the books are wonderful!" she replied, looking up at the old witch--- and trying not to let her voice hitch at the glance she got of Snape, out of the corner of her eye. "And Crookshanks loves his mice--- fake," she added for the benefit of the little Hufflepuffs, who were looking horrified.

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips impatiently. "Arabella," she said, "professors at this school do not single any of their pupils out for special attentions--- it smacks of favoritism---"

"Oh, put a sock in it, Minnie," grumped Professor Figg, much to everyone's surprise. "I'm hardly one to play favorites---" her eyes suddenly twinkled--- "ask Severus if you don't believe me."

Snape looked considerably displeased at being dragged into the conversation. He set down his fork--- Hermione noticed with a start that his plate was mostly untouched--- and answered curtly, "True enough---" Some of Hermione's curiosity must have showed on her face, for he added, "Professor Figg was Head of Slytherin when I was a student here."

Hermione shot a glance at Harry, who'd dropped his fork onto a plate with a slight clatter muffled, thankfully, by the turkey. Professor Figg had been his neighbor when he lived with the Dursleys--- must be a dreadful shock, discovering that she was Slytherin. He caught Hermione's eye and let his eyebrows fly up into his untidy hair. Sh shrugged minutely.

McGonagall, meanwhile, shot a piercing look at the two Slytherins. "Oh, I remember---" Hermione wondered at the bitterness in her tone.

"Then don't complain if I've softened up a bit." Figg resumed dissecting her turkey with the air of one who'd scored a point.

Hermione exchanged glances with the other Gryffindors. She could almost see the dozen or so questions flitting about their heads, but before she could ask---

"You're not usually that slow on the uptake, girl," Professor Figg addressed her in the dry bark that was her usual manner with the students she thought could handle it-- a mark of respect, however backhanded. "Old Crookshanks nabbed your tongue for you?"

Hermione couldn't suppress a blush, aware of Snape carefully not looking at her.

Professor Sprout took it on herself to be helpful. "Oh, Arabella," she said in a conspiratorial sort of way, "don't you remember being that age?"

Professor Figg snorted--- then looked keenly at Hermione, no doubt taking in the blush. "So that's how it is!" she said. "So--- which one of these strapping lads---" she looked from Harry to Ron, who turned as red as his hair--- "has caught your fancy, girl? Or is it someone who's deserted you to return to the bosom of his family for the holidays, eh?" She laughed, a real witch's cackle.

The reactions at the table were as varied as their owners. Sprout looked mildly surprised, the baby Hufflepuffs dumbfounded. Ginny was trying not to gape and Harry not to laugh, while Ron spluttered. Dumbledore and McGonagall--- the only ones, other than Snape and herself, who knew anything of substance about Hermione's recent experiences--- both looked a little worried, and McGonagall began, "Really, Arabella---"

But before she could finish, Snape's voice cut through hers like serrated steel. "Don't let Professor Figg's, ah, bluntness, distress you, Miss Granger," he said in a dry tone that carried through the hall for all that it was no louder than a whisper--- "She has the distinction of being the only teacher Hogwarts has ever had to show her students less quarter than I--- though perhaps spending the last decade as a Muggle has mellowed her a bit."

An unpleasant hush followed his words, in which the professors all exchanged an unreadable series of not-quite-glances, with the exception of Snape, who suddenly looked off into the distance. It was as if he'd said something truly nasty, even by his usual standards.

The silence was broken by the scrick of Snape's chair across the stone floor. "If you'll all excuse me---"

Dumbledore, who until now had appeared content to let the discussion follow its natural course, looked up from his third helping of turkey. "Must you, Severus?" he asked mildly. "We haven't even started on dessert---" He turned to Professor Figg. "Do help me persuade him, Arabella--- you were his Head of House once, after all." He regarded Professor Figg with a kindly expression that--- from where Hermione was sitting, anyway--- seemed to have more than a hint of steel in it.

Figg looked away after a moment, up at Snape. "Oh, for Merlin's sake, Severus, sit back down," she said irritably, "or Albus will send us all to bed without dessert."

Professor McGonagall gave a snort of a laugh--- and Snape, looking mildly irked, resumed his seat.

"Ah, good," said Dumbledore, rubbing his hands together. "And, as we've all finished our dinners---" he waved his wand, and the dinner dishes were instantly replaced with an assortment of remarkable desserts.

But while the main course might be finished, Hermione's curiosity was hardly as satisfied as her appetite. What had that business among the professors meant? What was it Snape had said that set everyone off?

Well, she thought, feeling a little sneaky, she might just be able to ask him--- and actually to get a straight answer from him.

And she did need to make an opportunity to thank him for the cloak--- in private. Not only had his note said to keep it a secret--- well, if Professor McGonagall didn't like Professor Figg giving her a few books, she shuddered to imagine that formidable woman's reaction to the Concealment Cloak!

*****

The arrival of the desserts served to sweeten everyone's mood a little, and it was with a feeling of great contentment that the Gryffindor contingent trooped up the stairs to their tower.

"Fancy that," said Harry ruefully. "Who'd have guessed--- old Mrs. Figg, Head of Slytherin?"

"That's practically the same words you said when she turned up as our Dark Arts teacher this year," Hermione reminded him.

"And you always said she was nasty---" Ron chimed in.

"No," Harry said thoughtfully. "I mean, aside from shoving pictures of her cats under my nose---"

"Which she was doing to be nice, Harry," Hermione pointed out. "Some people actually like them."

"--- and really, her house wasn't that awful, at least, not compared to the Dursleys," Harry finished, ignoring the interruption.

"Wouldn't anything?" Ron quipped, and the four of them laughed.

"Well, yes," said Harry, "but that's not the point--- Adeste Fidelis---" he said to the Fat Lady, who swung tipsily open--- she and her friend Vi had been having a bit of a Christmas party for themselves.

"The point," said Harry, as they settled by the fire, "is that... Professor Figg's just not what you'd expect from a Slytherin, is she? And guarding me all these years--- you'd hardly think---" He trailed off, looking into the fire.

"Maybe it has something to do with--- whatever the teachers wouldn't say," said Ginny, taking the words right out of Hermione's mouth and startling everyone considerably.

"What d'you mean?" Ron asked, looking puzzled.

"Oh, don't be thick, Ron," Hermione said crossly. "Didn't you notice--- the way they all looked at each other, after Snape said what he said about her?"

"Well, yeah, but I thought that was just because he'd insulted her," Ron said offhandedly. "I mean, really, saying she was meaner than him--- that's low."

Hermione privately disagreed, but she knew Ron wouldn't understand, and she didn't exactly want to explain. Before she could say anything, though, Ginny jumped in, again to everyone's surprise. "It's not just that," she said. "Didn't you notice, the way McGonagall talked to her--- 'I remember---' Like she'd done something awful?" She looked around at the rest--- though she had to rather crane her neck to look at Harry, as she was curled on the hearthrug by his chair.

"But what?" Hermione wondered.

But, though they talked about it until all of their remarks were punctuated at random and ungrammatical intervals by yawns, they couldn't find an answer.

*****

It was with a certain amount of relief that Hermione finally made her way up to her room. She was quite sleepy... and there was still one more visit she needed to make....

She slipped on the Concealment Cloak--- not only did she have no desire to be caught by Filch, who patrolled the corridors even at Christmastime, but she did want to try it out... especially on this visit. She rather thought Professor Snape would like to know how much she appreciated his gift.

The wonder of the cloak drove all sleepiness out of Hermione's mind. The lining was soft, clinging gently to her skin--- and when she closed the last of the neat little fastenings....

She didn't feel any different... until she put her hand on the bed.

For a moment, her hand actually sunk into the surface of the quilt--- then, quite suddenly, came to rest on the top, leaving no indentation to mark its presence, though she could still feel the softness of the down under her palm.

This was amazing! She was tempted to experiment a little bit more, but she reminded herself sternly that she should get down to the dungeons--- and besides, there would most likely be plenty of chances to try it out on the way.

She locked her door and slipped downstairs and out through the portrait--- the Fat Lady barely woke, which Hermione supposed was a good thing, as she didn't want her passing remembered.

The halls, of course, were completely deserted, and Hermione, to her own surprise (and slight disappointment), was able to make her way down to the dungeons without encountering even Mrs. Norris. They were also cold, and by the time she reached the corridor outside the Potions classroom, she was very glad of the cloak's climate-control lining.

She half-expected that his classroom would be deserted--- after all, it was Christmas night--- but no, there was a faint hint of light, though as she drew near she saw that it was under the outside door to his office rather than the classroom.

She started to knock, then realized that her fist would probably go right through the door, under the cloak at least. She started to slide her hand out from under the soft folds--- when a mischievous thought struck her. Why not test the Exaudio Charm?

The charm was triggered by a little piece of trimming on the inside of the cloak; after fumbling about for a moment, Hermione found it, and concentrated. "Professor Snape?"

The effect was quite something; she heard a muffled exclamation--- then silence.

For a moment, she was afraid the charm had somehow gone wrong--- then she heard the scrape of the door opening--- just a little.

Gratefully, she slipped through the crack and inside. Snape was standing by the door, looking mildly amused. "Well?"

"Er--- oh!" She realized that he couldn't tell if she was inside, and she hastily unfastened the cloak.

The quirk of his lips became more pronounced as she became visible. He shut the door, drew out his wand and tapped what she recognized as a one-way locking sequence: they could leave but no one else could enter. "Trying out your present?"

"Er--- yes---" Now that she was here, it was suddenly hard to get the words out. The office was dark, she noticed, and cold; the only light came from a single candle on his desk, no fire in the fireplace. She was reminded suddenly and painfully of Dickens.

"And what do you think of it, eh?" Snape was moving back around his desk.

"It's wonderful---" she paused, cleared her throat. "And--- that's why I came down here--- I wanted to thank you---"

He started, freezing for a moment, then continued around his desk to his chair, gestured for her to take a seat. "No thanks needed, child--- it's as convenient for me as for you, as I assume you've figured out."

"No--- I mean, this had to cost---" The minute the word was out of her mouth, she could have bitten her tongue; one just didn't mention things like money, not about a Christmas present.

Snape smiled thinly. "I assure you, child, my finances are quite equal to the task." A brief spasm crossed his face--- of what, exactly, she couldn't say.

"Er---" At a loss for words, she came to stand behind one of the chairs--- somehow, she just couldn't sit. She settled the soft folds of the cloak over the back of the chair, plucking at them nervously. "And... I wanted to... to wish you a merry Christmas," she managed in a rush, not knowing that she'd wanted to until the words were out of her mouth.

No mistaking it this time: he started again, and this time she had a glimpse of his face--- astonished, he looked, and bewildered, and rather grateful. The look was gone as soon as it arrived, but it had lingered long enough to touch her. "That's... very kind of you, child," he said quietly. "And a merry Christmas to you as well--- if that's not entirely out of the question." The bitterness in his voice was like a lash, though she sensed it was aimed at himself.

"Oh, it's not---" she started, then, moved by impulse more than sense, she went around the desk and slipped her arms about him.

He started, as she'd expected, but then--- also as she'd expected--- his long thin arms came around her and he rested his cheek against the top of her head.

This wasn't like the other night, when she'd been terrified and hurting and had needed very much to be comforted. She'd gone to him for shelter and he'd offered it--- it had been for her. This was something different, warm and peaceful and... somehow... a kind of sharing. And there was plenty of time, a great deal of luxury, to realize that she liked the feel of his lean body, the ropy muscles in his back under her hands, the deep steady pounding of his heart as she rested her ear against his chest, the warm strength of his arms around her and the gentle stroking of his hands through her hair. She realized, with something of a start, that this was another gift, as unexpected as the cloak and even more welcome.

As if in answer to her thought, she heard his voice, muffled in the tangle of her hair. "Thank you, Hermione." Slight hoarseness, slight quiver in his voice; she had the oddest thought that he might be crying. "This is the best Christmas present I've received in many, many years."

She shivered a little in his arms, thinking, How sad. How sad, that something as simple as a hug could mean that much to him.

After a moment, though, he released her, with a gentle pat on her shoulder--- how, how could he be so kind now? She hardly knew him for the professor who scowled at her entire House for three hours straight once a week!--- and stepped back slightly.

Awkward moment, then--- and for the first time a question niggled at the back of her mind: what were they to each other? Not quite partners and equals, not quite teacher and student--- limbo. Something still shaking itself into place.

"Well?" She jumped at the sharpness in his voice. "If you only came to extend your holiday felicitations---"

It took a moment for her to recover, to rationalize. He has to do this. The eighth square, remember? But it still hurt.

"Actually," she said, not quite able to keep the tremor from her voice, "I wanted to see--- to see if you were still willing to let me look at your books on the origin of house-elves." She hadn't been thinking any such thing, of course--- but it was an awfully good retort, even if she hadn't managed it without stammering.

For a moment, his stern sneer flickered in the candlelight--- and she started, for a different reason this time: had she actually scored a point in a duel of words with Snape? Then the sneer twisted into a wry thin smile. "Very good, child." He turned back to her, slightly, cupping her cheek in his hand for just a heartbeat, then drawing back. "But next time, without the hesitation, yes? Make it sound like you meant it all along--- that's the point."

Merlin's teeth, she was getting lessons in sarcasm from Professor Snape! Well, who better to teach her? "You're assuming I didn't."

Again, that flicker in his eyes--- but the smile deepened. "Oh, I may regret teaching you, that I truly might." He raised an eyebrow. "In that case---"

He brushed past her, moving into the shadows, while she waited; she thought she heard a door open and close, but couldn't be certain. In any event, it was quite a while before he returned, holding several heavy old books and a couple of rolls of parchment on top of the stack.

"Here you are, then," he said. "The collected works of my many-times great-aunt Esmeralda the Transformer."

Hermione blinked, all thoughts of the eighth square or her confused relationship with the Potions Master vanishing as if Apparated. "Esmeralda the Transformer? She's your aunt?"

"Many generations back, yes." His lips curled slightly. "Or is it the fact that I have a family at all--- that I wasn't, as Sirius Black used to accuse me, hatched out of an egg like a basilisk?"

The sarcasm in his voice stung her--- but the hurt glittering in dark eyes, almost hidden in the shadows, did far worse. "I--- I don't think that---" and, on impulse--- "and really, I didn't just come down here for these---" she gestured at the books.

His expression was inscrutable in the darkness; then it melted, and he set his burden on the desk and came toward her, into the light. "As your teacher," he said didactically, "I should very well take you to task for allowing your defense, your verbal smokescreen, to falter, much less at so little provocation." She opened her mouth; he held up a finger, silencing her. "But it appears such harshness is impossible, even for me--- which fact," he added dryly, "I must ask that you not bandy about among your fellow Gryffindors, or I'll lose all control of my classroom."

"Somehow I doubt that," she answered, the wry words slipping out before she could censor them.

"You're too kind." The wry smile melted into something pensive and solemn. "Too kind by half---" The upraised finger came forward, tapped her lightly on the cheek, then before she could respond, he added, "And since I've gone to the trouble of bringing these---" a graceful gesture at the books--- "for your perusal---" he swept a hand at the two chairs beside the fire--- "shall we peruse them?"

"I--- oh, yes---" The rest of Hermione's reply, unfortunately, was smothered by a yawn. Now that the assorted excitements of this little visit were wearing off, she remembered just how tired she'd been a few hours ago.

"Or not," Snape said dryly, then at her half-uttered protest, "Come, child, the books will keep--- they're certainly not going to disappear between now and tomorrow morning, are they? Or even---" a hint of smile, almost conspiratorial--- "tomorrow night?"

She blinked slightly at that, then nodded. "Er--- no."

"And you'll be better able to appreciate them rested--- at which time I will insist on your full attention. If you're going to study my great-aunt's magnum opus, you should give it the proper respect." His hand was gentle on her shoulder, guiding her inexorably toward the door. She went, unresisting, a little startled at the speed of the shift, but rather guiltily relieved not to be handed any further complications.

On her way past the chairs, she caught up her Concealment Cloak from the one nearest the door, and caught a hint of his approving look at her deft movement. She slipped it on over her shoulders, but did not--- yet--- fasten it.

At the door, he paused, turned so that they faced one another. "Good night, Hermione. And a merry Christmas to you."

She swallowed at the earnestness in his eyes, and the sincere warmth, and again felt that disorienting question--- what were they to each other?

"And... and to you... Severus." She couldn't--- quite--- meet his eyes as she said his name.

But it seemed all right; at any rate, she saw him smile out of the corner of her eye--- then his hands were on her shoulders, gently drawing the hood of the cloak up over her head. Automatically, her hands went to the fastenings--- they brushed with his as he drew back, sending a flurry of sparks through her bones.

A moment's silence, not quite as awkward as before, then he drew back, rested a hand on the door. "Off you go, then." Gentle tone, and light, as he opened it enough to let her out.

She slipped under his arm and through the crack between door and wall--- then turned back.

But, again, the door was already closed.

Author's Notes: First off, thanks to the wonderful people who reviewed this. It's so nice to be loved.... >GRIN<

Esmé isn't based on anything in Terry Prachett, because I've never read Terry Prachett--- but I'm perfectly glad to have been told that he too has "feather boas". >GRIN< And likewise about Esmé's namesake in the Burgess Meredith movie.

And to those who asked about Snape's choice of endearment for Hermione.... >Innocent look< Let's just say I'm not letting that one ride, and neither is Hermione. >GRIN<

The new material in this chapter is dedicated to J. Odell, who asked about house-elves. The "leaps of understanding" that Esmeralda had made in her working notes are another Screaming Cyteen Reference: Ari Emory Sr. makes them too. :>

Chapter 9: Bishop and Pawn

The very next night, Snape settled rather glumly into the chair at his desk--- hoping against hope, but not really expecting that she'd want to visit again so soon. Well, his office was as good a place to read as his room--- though Esmé did complain about being left to herself. The latest issue of Ars Alchemica would have to suffice for company.

But, a few minutes before midnight, he was startled out of his reading by a soft voice in his ear. "Professor Snape?"

He jumped, dropping the roll of parchment. Dear Merlin! He'd never known the Exaudio Charm to replicate the same... sensual... effect that a whisper had! But her voice in his ear sent shivers down his spine.

He got control of himself after a second, reached for his wand and with a gesture unlocked the door. "Come in, Miss Granger--- subtly, if you please; we don't need Filch mistaking you for Peeves."

Little riff of startled laughter in his ear; a second later, the door opened a crack, as if swaying on its hinges, then swayed shut. And after another second, Hermione Granger's head appeared, floating in midair.

"Was that subtle enough?" she asked, with that oddly breathless mixture of shyness and cheek that he was beginning to find... endearing. Merlin help them both.

He got to his feet. "It will do." Coming around the desk, he moved to stand before her, reached out to her. "May I?"

Not a pro forma question, either--- she was entitled to the courtesy... if she'd consider it so.

She started slightly--- then that cheeky little blush came back. "Well--- if you can find the clasp."

He raised an eyebrow in salute to the riposte. "Excellent point." She unfastened the cloak herself, and with the slipping of the last frogged closure, it shimmered into visibility: a diaphanous waterfall of light.

A moment's hesitation; he held out his hands again. She looked up at him, the blush mounting--- then her chin came up and she leaned toward him slightly, let him take the cloak from her shoulders. He let his hands brush against her collarbone, very lightly and nothing indecent or even seductive. A test, rather, to see what she'd make of this kind of touch--- social, but distinctly charged with an awareness of the difference between the sexes--- from him.

She twitched slightly... than, somewhat to his consternation, leaned into it, not quite as a grown woman might have--- but not the action of an innocent either. Not what he'd expected--- more fright, more reserve certainly. He couldn't imagine that a few little moments of affectionate closeness could have done half as much for her... as for him.

But then, perhaps, she wasn't as innocent to begin with as he'd thought. What had she got up to with Viktor Krum?

The thought actually put a sardonic smile on his face--- certainly, he was in no position to play the jealous lover!

He took the cloak from her, snapped his fingers sharply--- waited, then again, more impatiently. Blasted thing.... Hermione watched him--- not quite quizzically, but with a definite note of curiosity. Well, after four and a half years at Hogwarts, he imagined she ought to be used to the behavior of wizarding implements.

After a moment, the old iron hatrack in the corner shook itself awake and lumbered painfully out into the room. "Took you long enough," Snape said dryly. The hatrack dipped in a clumsy sort of half-bow before lifting the cloak from his hands with one of its hooks and shambling back into the shadows.

"It doesn't see much use," he said with deliberate casualness--- as Hermione had followed the rack's progress with every evidence of delight. "Seems to have forgotten its literal raison d'etre."

That brought a delighted almost-giggle--- hastily smothered; she looked down, then up at him out of the corner of her eye, clearly embarrassed.

By a perfectly natural display of youthful delight. He wondered if she'd always been that shy... or if it was his fault. "Laugh, by all means," he reassured her gently. "There's nothing for you to be ashamed of here."

Awkward pause--- they had, he had, touched on things neither of them wanted to address. Then Hermione asked, "How--- where did you get it? I mean, it doesn't seem like something you'd---" she broke off, blushing again.

"It seems a rather comical piece of furniture for someone as notoriously humorless as I, no?"

"I don't think you're humorless---" she interjected--- then her eyes lit with a certain mischief. "It's just your sense of humor tends more toward laughing-at than laughing-with."

He blinked in surprise... then felt his lips twitch upward in a smile. "That may be the most succinct, to say nothing of diplomatic, description of my particular brand of sarcasm that I've ever heard."

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing," she said, still with that mischief lurking in her eyes. "Rather useful for crowd control...."

"Which I sometimes think is the real definition of teaching--- keeping your students still long enough to drive something into their minds." He backtracked. "Present company excepted, of course."

She blushed--- quite prettily, in point of fact. He looked away hastily, before her voice brought him back. "You still haven't answered my question."

"You mean the hatrack?" With a slight sweep of his arm, he guided her to the chairs in front of the fireplace. "Like the chess set, another family legacy, though a far less dignified one."

She perched on one of the chairs--- they weren't the most comfortable pieces of furniture imaginable, nor intended to be, since mostly he inflicted them on students here for punishment. He didn't have visitors of any other sort. He settled back in the other, trying not to wince.

Awkward pause, then. There really wasn't any logical reason for her to be here... except for the dark logic of the inescapable and artificial bond between them. Not a bond that she at least would have chosen, he was certain, but it was there, nonetheless, and undeniable.

Her eyes flickered to the desk. "If I've interrupted anything---"

Looking for a graceful way to leave already. He felt an odd sort of twinge at that thought--- decided to make her work for it, as a queen should be able to. "Nothing urgent--- just a bit of light reading."

"What?" She looked interested.

"What was I reading, you mean?" She nodded. Relieved that they'd found--- for the moment--- a safe subject--- he Summoned the journal.

"Ars Alchemica!" Her eyes went wide. "I've only read a few articles from this--- Madam Pomfrey doesn't keep it on hand---"

"Not worth the cost," he said dryly, "as very few of the students here could read it with anything like comprehension, and even fewer would." He felt his lip twist. "For that matter, most of the teachers couldn't either."

She looked up from the roll of parchment, her lip twitching. "The Headmaster, of course---"

"And myself. And probably Minerva--- Professor McGonagall--- if, that is, she'd deign to put her mind to any sort of magic involving physical components--- she and Flitwick are both far too impressed with the abstract--- and Themba Vector."

As he'd expected, Hermione smiled--- it required no great observational power to note that she and the Arithmancy professor were thick as thieves. No bad choice, actually, on either of their parts; certainly, Vector had a sharply analytical intellect that even he was forced to respect... and, he reflected with a twinge, it was perhaps fortunate that Hermione had something of a mother-figure in the wizarding world, given the circumstances.

Hermione's voice startled him out of his less than pleasant musing. "What about Professor Figg?"

He couldn't resist a bit of verbal fencing. "What about Professor Figg?"

She blushed, but her lips twitched--- getting comfortable. "Don't you--- well---"

"Arabella Figg's talents lie elsewhere," he said shortly, then added--- remembering Christmas dinner--- "and I respect them, as she does mine. But alchemy--- indeed, any of what might be called the magical sciences--- is not her field." No, her field was far more personal--- one couldn't say human--- than that.

Hermione looked suddenly very much like a cat sitting between a bowl of cream and a fishbowl. "Er---"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I noticed--- last night at dinner--- what---" she looked down at her hands, flustered. "That--- business--- with Professor Figg and Professor McGonagall---"

So she had noticed. He'd have been surprised if she hadn't.

The only question was... how exactly to answer her? He decided on misdirection. "What's to ask?" He sat back in his chair. "Professor Figg was Head of Slytherin during my own student days--- and she was, as I said, the harshest teacher in the school." He forced his lips into something like a smile. "Probably because she was a Slytherin, too, when she was here--- wanting to restore the honor of the House and whatnot. If you want to watch any Slytherin with a grounding in House tradition go misty-eyed, just mention the graduating class of 1920--- last time we had both the Head Girl and Head Boy: Arabella Figg and Alastor Moody."

As he'd hoped, that distracted her completely. "Moody? Mad-Eye Moody... was a Slytherin?"

"Yes---" He let his voice harden into its usual sarcastic sharpness. "Did you think only Gryffindors could be Aurors, perhaps? That your house alone could serve the light openly?"

For a moment, she crumpled--- then, and he could almost see her think, the eighth square, her head came up. "No," she said, her voice quivering only slightly, but to all other appearances nonchalant, "but I'm rather surprised that a Slytherin--- or even someone pretending to be a Slytherin--- would turn Draco Malfoy into a bouncing ferret."

He had to laugh at that. "Child, if I thought for a minute I could get away with it, I'd turn Draco Malfoy into a bouncing ferret--- and leave him that way."

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes brimming over with mirth--- then it spilled out, and she doubled up laughing.

He restrained himself for a moment... then joined her. It felt good.

She caught her breath first--- more used to laughter than he--- and asked, "So--- Malfoy's not as much King of Slytherin as he'd like us all to believe?"

He sobered abruptly at that. "Well... you're partly right... and so is he. Slytherin internal--- politics is the only word for it, even if we are talking about children who still have stuffed animals---" she looked as if she might laugh again--- "are rather convoluted."

"I don't doubt it." She regarded him with frank curiosity. "But what does that have to do with Professor Figg?"

He should have know she wouldn't be that easily deterred. Well, much as he hated to do it--- it was time to begin the queen's lessons. He raised an eyebrow, steepled his fingers, and regarded her coldly. "I would think," he said, "that it should be obvious to you--- but if you can't figure it out---" not quite his harshest tone--- he wasn't sure she could bear that yet--- but it would do--- "perhaps you'll want to... reconsider... taking the Pawn's Walk."

Her eyes had gone wide and round at that little speech, but the mention of the eighth square, as he'd intended, steadied her. "I suppose I haven't... a Slytherin's cunning yet," she admitted, "but I'll work on it." She set aside the issue of Ars Alchemica still sitting in her lap, got to her feet. "Thank you, Professor Snape, for an... interesting evening--- but if you'll excuse me, it seems I have a clue to work out."

"Running away?" He let his voice crack softly in the chill air, then softened his tone--- deliberate switch, shaking her then calming her--- and added, "Why, you've hardly looked at the journal--- and there are my great-aunt's books upstairs, that you haven't even asked about."

She hesitated, and he reached out to the desk, recovered the journal, and held it out to her, raising an eyebrow.

After a second, she took the roll of parchment, with a hand that trembled slightly. He gestured to the chair, with an invitational lift of his eyebrow. Slowly, she sank down.

"There." He kept his voice soft, got to his feet and came around to stand by her chair "Shall we see what's inside? I believe Astrid Waxweather's piece might interest you; she's working on applications of Muggle science to alchemy, very controversial, of course---"

As he spoke, he bent over her, looking at the journal in her lap, and rested a hand against her collarbone, his forefinger lying along her neck near the pulse. She was trembling, sweating just a little; her heartbeat was jumping like a wounded thing.

And so she was. Damn you, Severus. For he'd been the one to do it.

He kept up the line of commentary as she opened the scroll to Waxweather's piece, all the while letting his hand knead her shoulder gently, wordless reassurance... and just a bit of stimulus. Hard line to walk, strengthening her while having no choice but to remind her what his touch could do to her.

At least it didn't seem to upset her; by the time her clever little fingers found the right place in the scroll, her pulse was back to normal. And by the time they'd finished dissecting Waxweather's article, she'd stopped twitching when his voice sharpened into criticism.

And by the time they'd moved on to Artimidoros Melarian's research results... he'd begun to relax. Even to let himself enjoy the company and the conversation. Hermione's views might be a little naive when it came to human behavior--- but alchemy, like any of the sciences Muggle or magical, was an objective discipline; one could afford a little naivete. And she really was quite impressively bright. He hadn't known that she'd actually been exploring the relationship of magic to science. It had seemed like something a bright young Muggle-born might appreciate, but her understanding of the subject put her well ahead of many of his peers. Though of course, she had the advantage of being unhampered by prejudice.

He half-expected her to ask how he knew anything on the topic, but either she'd decided not to open herself to further sarcasm, or she took it for granted that any disdain for all things Muggle he might evince as head of Slytherin was part of his disguise. Well, he'd wait and see if she worked up her nerve, or her curiosity, given time.

He could have let the discussion go on until morning--- really, it was amazing how good it was simply to talk with her, even to watch her steel herself against his harsher moments--- but after an hour, he took the scroll out of her hands with some firmness. "And that, I think," he said finally, "is quite enough for one evening."

She started. "If--- if you say so." She got to her feet, hesitantly, and he drew back--- then held out the scroll to her. She took it, in some surprise.

"Feel free to read the rest of it, if you like."

She got the hint. "Aren't you going to give me an assignment to go with it, then?"

"Oh, no." He couldn't resist. "After all, if I did that, you'd know what to prepare for." He beckoned to the hat stand, which responded with somewhat more alacrity this time, and held out her cloak to her. "Good night, Miss Granger."

She slid into the cloak easily, relaxing under his hands--- then stepping neatly away, turning to face him. "Good night, Professor Snape."

She fastened the clasps on the cloak--- and abruptly, he appeared to be alone in the room.

A flick of his wand, and the door slid open a fraction.

A moment later, it closed.

*****

The next night, she was back, with an impertinent, "Well, you did say I could read your great-aunt's opus, didn't you?" when he made to take her to task.

"That I did." She smiled, not quite shyly, as he brought the books over to the chairs by the fire.

"How much did you find out on your own?"

"Everything--- I think---" Absently, she bit on a curl of hair; charming habit--- and he knew better than to think it childish. Though the notion of this bright little Gryffindor sharing a nervous tick with his mother was rather unsettling. "Except how your great-aunt fits in."

He nodded. "Great-Aunt Esmeralda went to some lengths to keep people from knowing just how powerful she was--- she was, after all, a Slytherin."

Hermione frowned. "But I'd have thought---" She bit her lip.

"You thought that all Slytherins were like Malfoy, flaunting every ounce of influence they have?" His let a hint of sharpness creep into his voice--- I'm sorry, Hermione--- it had to be done. "Well, as much as young Master Malfoy would like everyone to think him the archetypal Slytherin, there are those with far more sense." He gestured to the books in front of them. "Read."

Any other student--- with the possible exception of his cousin's daughter, Blaise Zabini--- would have taken that as an implied punishment. Hermione, however, looked as if someone had handed her the key to Honeydukes' store-room.

But unlike most youngsters with their treat of choice, she didn't just grab; she looked over the books and rolls of parchment, flipping through each and looking at the labels and indices, frowning slightly in concentration as she did so. He watched her closely, wondering which she'd settle on.

To his delight, after her first scan, she went without hesitation to the very smallest of the scrolls--- Esmeralda's true working notes, the process she'd used in developing the transformation spell she'd used to develop house-elves. She examined it slowly, biting her lip again.

"She was quite brilliant, wasn't she?" Hermione asked him after a moment.

"Of course---" the practiced sarcasm came easily, much to the despair of his conscience. "She was only the most brilliant witch of her day, I'm sure you learned that much in Binns' wretched excuse for a class---"

To his astonishment, she didn't even appear to notice the sarcasm. "No," she said absently. "I mean--- her working notes--- she makes all these leaps--- here, look where she goes from one spell to the next without anything like a bridge---" She pointed out the place to him in the text, and he nodded. "Only it's obvious that---" she paused again, looking up at him. "To her, they aren't leaps, they're a sequence."

"Very good, child." He put just a hint of condescension into it, and watched her bristle.

And added another, purely internal and wholly unreserved, Very good to the first. Now let's see if you can use that anger---

"Now, can you make sense of my great-aunt's 'sequence'?" he asked, looking down his nose at her ever so slightly. He could, of course--- no other way for him to check her work--- but he'd had the advantage of almost three decades of studying them.

Not to mention the tutelage of one of the most brilliant Dark witches of the century. For his mother, whatever else she was, was a genius. He'd gotten a double dose of brains, no doubting that.

And what is it they say about regression to the mean, Severus? Don't get too confident.

Hermione, oblivious to his mental monologue, was still staring down at the paper, the curl of hair migrating into her mouth again; this time, she yanked it back hastily. So, unlike his mother, she wasn't above curing her nervous twitches--- or else, again unlike Lucretia Andropolous Snape, she didn't feel capable of commanding others' respect despite them. Well, a good thing for a queen to be aware of, at least.

She broke into his thoughts, looking up at him. "I can try, sir---"

"'Try'?" he imitated her. "Any fool can 'try'--- I expect that you should succeed." And then--- calculated shift, now that she was tense, to let her relax again--- "And, child," he added mildly, "you can call me Severus, when we're alone--- if you like."

For a moment, she gaped at him, trembling just slightly--- then she took a deep breath and her chin came up. "All right--- Severus."

Inwardly he exulted--- the pawn moving determinedly toward the eighth square!--- but was careful to show no sign of it on his face. The last thing she needed was to become dependent on his praise, either as emotional sustenance or a guide to her own performance; either way, she'd never become a queen. "Well?" he snapped.

Biting her lip, Hermione looked down at the parchment. "This is so private, she was writing only for herself--- I'll need to look at some of her other writings---" She reached for one of the other books. Snape noticed with approval that it was one of the more straightforward pieces, a good guide to the Transformer's mind---

Even as he brought his hand down sharply on top of it. "You will not," he said quietly. "Use that---" he pointed to the parchment in Hermione's lap--- "and that alone." She stared at him--- then her lips tightened.

"Am I allowed to use scratch paper, at least?"

He twitched, violently, he couldn't help it: that tone wouldn't have been out of place from Lucretia herself---

Dear Merlin, a woman like my mother. That Muggle psychoanalyst would have a field day. But at least it meant she was on the right path--- his mother was, in a very real if not a political sense, a queen. Poor Hermione. At least she's Gryffindor enough not to become a monster. I hope.

"Yes, I suppose---" he Summoned a roll of parchment, a quill, and ink, set them on the table with the books. "Mind you don't get ink on those--- they're valuable."

"Madam Pince will be happy to vouch for my trustworthiness." And with that crisp comment, she bent to the scroll and her notes.

After a moment--- again, calculated timing, just the time to shake her up--- he spoke. "If you can't manage it on your own after a bit" he told her gently, "you can look at the other books then--- it's just that it's not a good idea to get into the habit of taking the easy path---"

And had the satisfaction of watching her eyes flash in fury. "I don't intend to--- sir."

Which comment had ensured, far more than his earlier harshness, that she would solve it on her own. He sat back to watch her. And to curse his own calculated manipulation of her.

At least his earlier fears that she was Transfiguring herself into a carbon copy of his mother had yet proved groundless, he thought, watching the open enthusiasm and unfeigned pleasure flit over Hermione's face. She was wholly oblivious to anything but her work, wholly absorbed in it, and wholly enraptured by the task. No, not a manipulator... not yet, at least. And if Circe and Merlin were kind, she'd never truly have to be.

He watched, and noticed without wanting to that she was also quite heartstoppingly beautiful.

Beautiful, in a way that a brute like Malfoy would never understand, that the crude little boys who had the impertinence to call themselves her friends would never appreciate. Beautiful in her brilliance and her fascination with learning--- most beautiful when engaged in what she did best: learning, study, experimentation.

And would I ever have realized it if Malfoy hadn't offered her to me? Am I any better?

Yes--- because he would not have realized it; because it would not have been his place to do so. Still wasn't, if truth be told, though perhaps at some point she might find it healing to know that he found her breathtaking. It was still too early in the game to judge where the bishop's pawn would find herself.

He was drawn out of his wretched reverie by the look of dawning comprehension on Hermione's face. He had only a split second to savor the delight in her eyes before that delight was abruptly transfigured--- apt turn of phrase!--- to horror.

"Oh--- no---" After a moment, Hermione mastered herself, looked up at him. "She didn't--- did she?"

Snape lip twisted, though he knew full well what Hermione was thinking. "Elaborate."

Hermione turned slightly in her chair, held out her own notes to him. "The Imperius Curse--- see, where she was using the magic from the djinns--- they're tied to serve their masters through the lamps, only she took that basic aspect of their magical nature and wrapped it around Imperio, so that they'd have to serve a human---" She shook her head. "No, that's not right; it's so that they'd want to serve a human---"

She sat back, abruptly, in her chair, closing her eyes, one hand pressed to her forehead as if it pained her. And so it mostly likely did--- Severus, having had the same sort of experience himself no few times, could well imagine. "The--- the problem with the imp-djinn crossbreeds--- I found this out in the library--- was that they had all the powers of djinn, and the freedom of the imps. And they got a dose of mischief from both sides of the family tree." He had to smile at that turn of phrase; Hermione, her eyes closed, didn't realize. "Only---" With another sudden movement, she sat up, pointing first to the original parchment, then to her notes--- "they still had some of that djinn--- well, you can hardly call it loyalty, can you?" This time they shared the smile. "But they still had that latent capacity to be tied down to one place or thing--- to serve a master. And, like their djinn ancestors, they hated the idea of servitude--- that's why they were so vile to humans, wasn't it?"

Snape blinked. That little piece of information was in some of his great-aunt's other writings--- but as far as he knew (and he'd spent a great deal of time in the Restricted Section of the library in his own student days) it wasn't anywhere else that Hermione would have seen. "What makes you say that?" he asked, carefully.

Hermione actually made an impatient noise; he smothered a smile. "Because--- look what she did---" again, the gesture from the original to her notes--- "That's why she used Imperio: because it makes the obedience pleasurable---" She looked up on the last word; a mistake.

For a long moment, they held each other's eyes, not needing to speak, not daring to. Snape drew back first. "Very good, child," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. "Excellent work, in point of fact---" He smiled. "You see? You did succeed."

She caught her breath, leaning back in her own chair, looking more than a little flustered. "Er--- that's why---" she picked up the thread of her spiel with only a little faltering; he encouraged her with a nod to continue. "That's why the house-elves are so deferential, so eager to serve: it feels good to them to make a human happy. And see---" she leaned forward again, parchment in hand--- "that's where Esmeralda twisted the djinn-heritage into the version of Imperio, so that it would be passed down from parents to children---" she looked up, grinning. "Only, like any trait, it doesn't always come in the same strength--- there's a house-elf like Dobby down in the kitchens who's perilously close to being an imp."

He smiled back at her. "Given that the creature in question once belonged to Lucius Malfoy, I can hardly blame him."

Hermione looked away at the name--- for only an instant; then, defiantly, back up. "Wonder if we couldn't reverse the spell just on the rest of the Malfoy domestic staff?"

He couldn't help but join in her almost feral grin. "Now that, child, would be a sight indeed." He gestured at the other books. "It may seem anticlimactic after your little bit of ciphering---" her lip twisted sarcastically at the slight--- "but if you'd like to have a look at the other books---"

"Please?" Again, that look of a child in a sweetshop that banished any resemblance she might have had to Lucretia. He inclined his head, and she reached out for the book on the top of the pile--- then stopped, biting her lip. "S-Severus?"

"Yes, child?"

"Was... Esmeralda the Transformer a Dark witch?"

"Why do you ask that?" He kept his voice gentle; no time for manipulating, this.

"Because--- she used one of the Unforgivable Curses---" She looked up at him, wanting answers.

Answers that she could only find for herself--- if she were going to become a queen. "And why did she use it?" he asked gently--- then held up a hand, forestalling her answer. "Don't tell me. Think about it." And, before she could lose herself in the intricacies of the philosophical puzzle he'd set her, he leaned forward, tapped the pile of books. "And in the meantime---"

Hermione didn't ask him again that night; they were too busy with the what and the how of the Transformer's work to question the why. But several hours later, when a yawning Hermione had finally retrieved her Concealment Cloak, and was headed out the door, she turned to him and said, "Is there any such thing as a 'Dark' witch, or wizard?"

He smiled. "You're learning." Because that question was the first step--- the first step to abandoning the rigid categories that defined most people's safe moral worlds and learning to make the delicate, difficult judgements that a queen had to accept as second nature.

The first step; the first square. It was a long journey--- but he began to hope that she might make it.

"Good night, Hermione." He drew the cloak up over her face.

And heard her voice in his ear. "Good night, Severus."

******

It became a pattern with them, those late-night knocks on the door and evenings spent in his office poring over a book or journal. She toughened herself to his sarcasm faster than he'd expected; he rather expected she'd backslide a little once the initial "thrill" wore off. But then, he wasn't sure. His own calcifying had been entirely accidental.

More difficult for him to bear was his own reaction to her presence, the warm scent of her skin, her shy smiles and her sudden bursts of mischief. It was almost too much joy for him to bear, having her there, night after night, seeking out his company. Certainly, more human contact than he normally got in a year. And yet--- he knew, reminded himself constantly, that it was all... artificial. Contrived. And he'd been the contriver, for all that Lucius Malfoy had started this dark game. His hands had done the sweet cruel work of twisting her to his will. She wouldn't have been here but for that.

No, he couldn't let himself enjoy it too much. That way lay darkness, as he'd learned so many years ago. No better than the monsters.

But it was far and away the most wonderful, innocent thing he'd done in his adult life. That, at least, was some comfort. And she was enjoying herself--- no reluctance there, except perhaps when, ever so deliberately, he cut. Understandable, again. And she understood--- he'd see it in her eyes, after the flash and flicker of hurt. He could see it written there: the eighth square.

Sometimes he wondered if that too wasn't a contrivance, and a possibly dangerous one. To let her focus so completely on a goal that, for all he knew, might be irrelevant--- who was to say that she'd ever again confront the Dark directly? What would she--- they, it was his responsibility--- do for closure then? Even if she did get her dramatic transformation, what about her life afterwards?

Well, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. And, who knew--- they might both end up dead before the battle was won, and it would be a moot point entirely.

In the meantime, there were these moments. Things like joy and peace that he'd never had, and that she seemed to find an unexpected delight, at least here, with him. A mind he could guide--- a truly brilliant intellect, she revealed that with her every breath. Indeed, the raw stuff of her mind seemed to temper under the challenges he offered her. He had recognized her brilliance from her first day in his class--- but with the new, broader, and admittedly more dangerous intellectual world he offered her, he began to see a small but subtle flare of genius.

An intellect equal to his own. She'd not had the tempering he had received by her age--- but he suspected that the grounding of confidence and safety that she'd obviously known as a child would stand her in good stead now that she met adversity and challenge. He'd faced only the testing, never found the safety.

But perhaps... he could offer her both. At the very least, he could give her an appreciate platform for her gift--- and provide it with something to strive for. At least, he could care for her, and know that his caring was of value to her.

That was enough, and more than he'd ever thought to have.

Notes for this chapter:

Catlin and Florian Teasdale are named for the Catlin and Florian in Cyteen, who aren't twins but are definitely partners, not to mention supercool. Blaise and her Pooh Bear are a gestalt of (yet again) Cyteen (in which Ari Junior's "Poo-thing" is a featured player) and #15 in J.L. Matthews' hilarious "Rules of Being a Successful Slytherin". Blaisie is most certainly to be feared....

And, while I'm on the subject.... Sometime in the next few chapters I intend to address the issue of wizarding inheritance. Now that Blaise is here, it shouldn't be too long in coming :D so I thought I'd do the note now. Rowlings has said that wizards live longer than Muggles (Dumbledore's about 150 according to her and who would know better? ;> ) which means that the usual pattern of children inheriting at their parents' deaths wouldn't work too well. So I cribbed a(nother) notion from Cyteen, that of joint property, with parents and their adult-age children holding the family assets in common (the folk in Cyteen also have extended lifespans, thanks to, uh, post-modern medical technology... >GRIN<). Cherryh doesn't go into it at any length, though, so I'm mostly on my own except for the concept itself. Robert Heinlein probably addresses that issue somewhere in his "Lazarus Long" books, but I don't remember it specifically. And speaking of Heinlein, the "Lazy [Wo]Man Who Couldn't Fail" is his, from Time Enough For Love.