Achieving a Delicate Balance

According to her plan, at precisely midnight, Hermione already dressed, picked up the book bag she had packed for the occasion, slipped Harry's Invisibility Cloak around her, and headed for the dungeons. She wished she had asked Harry for the Marauder's Map, as well. That would have meant that she would be writing -all- his papers for the rest of term. Not that she would have minded, but she really didn't think it would be very fair to Harry.

When she got to the Potions Classroom, she pressed her ear to the door. She heard nothing, and was relieved that it was not lit, when she finally opened the door just a crack. She slipped inside, charmed light into the room, and took a couple of deep breaths. The truth was, as often as Hermione had broken the rules at Hogwarts, she always hated doing so. It made her feel dirty somehow, and like she was letting down all of her teachers, the Head Master, and the Four Founders where ever they might be, not to mention all the Gryffindors and Muggle-born students who would follow her, and perhaps be penalized for her mistakes.

Things were easier when Harry was involved. For one thing, lives were usually at stake. Now, that she was all alone in this particular offense, here to test a pet theory and satisfy her own curiosity, she felt downright selfish and petty. But she was here now and had already broken the rules. To leave now would be worse, for she would be breaking rules simply for the sake of it. At least by sticking to her plan, she could save herself from becoming a complete academic delinquent.

She was relieved to find that the cauldron that she needed was there, clean and ready for use.

She worked quickly, taking her tools and ingredients out of her bag, setting up her work station just so, then chopping, grinding, slicing, mashing, adding, stirring, adjusting the temperature, adding and stirring at precise intervals, all timed by her Muggle wristwatch. She forgot for the time being that she was breaking several dozen school rules. She fell into the complex rhythms, the sweet music of potions-making. She even hummed along.

Snape watched from the shadows. He had been furious when his very Slytherin warding, meant not to keep anyone out, but only to alert him so that he might catch them in the act, had awakened him from the first decent sleep he'd had in weeks, and the first pleasant dream he'd had in years. His initial anger increased when he saw the offender meant to risk Snape's own platinum-lined cauldron. The fury melted away, first into a hot annoyance when he recognized his trespasser, then into a sort of removed curiosity, as he watched her set up her unusual ingredients.

Now, listening to her hum and watching her movements reminded him of dancing. He studied the small smile just curling her lips and her expression, so filled with wonder. He did not feel detached now. He felt strangely at one with her, as if he were the other element in their own peculiar molecule. Suddenly her humming stopped. For Snape, it was like being slapped awake out of yet another pleasant dream.

He waited for another moment, until he knew by instinct, that what ever she thought she was brewing, needed to simmer for a while. He allowed her to step back from it, for safety's sake. Then he moved in for the kill, so to speak.

"Miss Granger."

She whirled to find herself facing his chest. She looked up at him, slowly, at his nose, to be precise. Most of the rest of his features seemed obscured by either his greasy hair falling forward, or the shadows it cast.

"Forgive me for being late. I failed to received your Owl informing me of our midnight rendezvous."

"Professor-" It was the merest of whispers.

Something about her caught out expression, the way she slumped her shoulders, did not quite close her lips after speaking, and knitted her brow, as if searching for some lie to sensibly explain her ridiculous behaviour, infuriated him once again. Snape pointed his wand at her unlikely looking concoction and said,

"Evanes-"

"No!" Hermione stepped between his wand and the goo in her cauldron. "Please sir."

Snape was truly curious now, and not just about what she thought she had bubbling away in his cauldron.

"I could allow you to finish. What is it worth to you?"

Hermione looked hopeful, then. He'd given her the opportunity of a Slytherin Deal. First of all, not making deals with Slytherins is one of those things, that you only ever have to warn the stupidest of the first years about. The rest just seem to know on instinct. However, she was Hermione Granger. She wasn't stupid. She wasn't a first year. She could do this!

What would Snape want? It was not often that Hermione's mind felt around and drew a complete blank. Maybe it wasn't the right question? She tried again.

With what did she have to bargain? Information! She probably couldn't give him any without feeling disloyal to someone, though. She didn't know what he knew already, nor what he'd want to know. She didn't think she'd like to find out in either case.

What did that leave? Money? She didn't have much left. Enough to buy a book and an icecream next Hogsmeade weekend. She certainly didn't have enough so that her offer wouldn't seem insulting. She thought about it and figured with Snape any amount of money might be.

Perhaps she could offer to work for him, in exchange for the privilege! That wouldn't do at all. He could make her do anything he needed done in the endless detentions she was bound to receive as punishment, whether they had a deal or not.

Suddenly, she realized something that she thought Snape would want from her. That was something that he could never order her to give him; but she could offer it to him, all the same. She could. Couldn't she?

He watched as an expression of sheer horror crept across her face, followed by the pain of indecision. He watched as she looked behind her at the cauldron, longingly, then up at him, in despair. He watched her weigh on her scales, the value to her of the thing she wanted from him against the value of that thing, that he knew at this very moment, would be his for the taking. He knew her decision long before she had made it. Knew she would make him the offer, that she now turned over oh so carefully in her mind. In Snape's opinion, moments like this were far too good to spoil with Legilimency. He waited patiently as the knowledge of what she was about to do settled upon her.

Could she really do it, give up so much, something so precious to her? For what, an experiment? She knew what the ingredients had cost her. Knew even if she could find a way to get more, somehow, she still would have sneak down here again in order to try it, or steal, well borrow, a platinum-lined cauldron from somewhere and hide in Myrtle's loo. What was she thinking! She'd never be able to get her hands on this one again. Not like he'd leave it here, not now. She had N.E.W.T.s coming. Even if she could manage to find all the materials, when would she ever have the chance? Then she'd be leaving school for good. She owed her parents four years at a Muggle university. Dentists were almost as bad as Slytherins when it came to deal making. Who knew when she'd ever set foot in another Potion's lab. Who knew how much she might forget about the subject after four years or more?

She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes, and bit her bottom lip hard to stop them from embarassing her more. All that she was left was the misery of what she had to do. She swallowed the large lump in her throat. When she spoke to him, she spoke very quietly and evenly, looking directly into that darkness from where she knew his eyes watched her.

"In exchange, I'll promise not to ask any more questions. I won't raise my hand in your class any more. I won't bother you, sir, not at all, not in nor out of class, not for any reason, not for the rest of my time here."

She cast her eyes down, bit her lip hard again, then looked up at him, hopefully. She did not expect Snape to laugh.

For once, Snape's laughter did not sound mean and cutting, though. It sounded like Snape's version of the laughter she often heard in the common room, and always wanted to join in on, desperately, just to relieve some tension, except that to her, the joke was never funny. If Ron or Harry told it, she might make an effort to smile. Most of the time these days, she didn't bother with them, either. Snape's voice that followed the laughter sounded to her, soft, warm, and, had any other person used the tone with her, she would have said- kind,

"Oh, Miss Granger, why on earth would I want anything like that from you? Stir your potion. It is time."

Hermione leapt into action, for Snape was right. No big surprise there, she supposed.

She quickly became so involved in her work, it took her several minutes to notice that Snape had withdrawn to his desk. He sat ignoring her, completely, or so it seemed, grading essays using copious amounts of red ink of which she had never seen enough. Usually there was only a grade without any comment at all. Sometimes she wondered if he read her papers, or just a point or two off for them being too long.

Suddenly, she was really glad he was here. His presence here in this room had always been a comfort to her. Maybe Neville Longbottom had something to do with that. Better still, with Snape here, she no longer felt like she was getting away with something. Unlike Ron and Harry, she had never developed a taste for that feeling. To her, it felt too close to the feeling of not doing her best. That was the feeling that she hated worst of all.

At last, it was time to add the final ingredient, the one that would make or break her theory that she had risked so much to test. She sprinkled the Spanish moss powder carefully, reducing the heat, and stirred it clockwise. Suddenly, her beautiful robin's egg blue creation, turned into a sputtering, putrid-smelling, deep olive-coloured mess, worthy only of Neville himself.

"Evanesco!"

Hermione and Snape had cast the spell simultaneously, together sparing Snape's expensive cauldron from becoming expensive shrapnel. Hermione knew that her mistake was not in the brewing. The fault was in her theoretical calculations. The worst part, was that she knew Snape had stayed just to allow her continue. She felt deeply ashamed for wasting his time. She cleaned her work station, packed up her things, then sat quietly at her desk awaiting what ever disgusting punishment Snape could dream up for her.

Did she really think she would invent a brand new potion? Find, on her first try, some successful mix of ingredients that no one else in the whole of recorded wizarding history had ever thought to combine? Yes. She had thought she would. At that moment, Hermione knew that she really was that idiotic, know-it-all, little fool that Snape had always sensed in her. She felt so very tired.

"Detention, Miss Granger, tonight at eight. Come prepared to discuss the possible reasons for the failure of what I gather was your intriguing first attempt to discover a breakthrough formula for the blocking of the Cruciatus Curse. I will supply all your ingredients, and one or two possible substitutions for the Spanish moss, as well as my own personal theories regarding the subject. For now, you might do well to consider yourself dismissed."

The meaning of his words dawned like a firey sunrise across the girl's features. Snape watched her gather her things, then head slowly toward the door. Before he returned to his other task of setting aflame in red ink the large pile of his first years' essays, he glanced at the set of scales on his desk. As usual, on one side of his scales was Hermione Granger, on the other, the endless parade of dunderheads, or at least their essays. Yet somehow, there was balance, at least enough to keep his world from flying off its axis.