The Cock Which Crows

Hermione Granger stormed through her flat, getting ready for the impending visit to her old Alma Mater, Hogwarts. 'This is crazy!' she thought to herself. 'I can't believe I'm nervous about meeting with my old professors! I mean, I never wear makeup, and I'm content with my nice high collared shirts, but suddenly I want something more pretty.' You mean more revealing, don't you, Hermione, said a treacherous part of her brain. You're not nervous to face all your professors; you're just nervous about talking to Snape. It's because you still love him. 'Shut up', she thought furiously at her own mind, and laughed at the very absurdity of the idea of her mind arguing with itself. At that moment, Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister and her good friend, was heard shouting from her front door.

"Hermione! Your doorbell isn't working!"

"Coming, Ginny!" Hermione opened the door, to see the Hogwarts Head Girl standing before her. She walked in and immediately made herself at home in the cozy little flat. "What are you doing here, Ginny? Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Mm-hm, but Headmaster Snape allowed me to come here to fetch you, and I came early so I could do your make up. Doesn't he have dreamy eyes?"

"Huh?" Hermione was stumped at the sudden change in topic. "Who's eyes?"

"Snape's, of course! Who else? He is the school hottie, now!"

"Ummm, Ginny, you are way too shallow!"

"I know you like him too. In fact, I heard you had an affair with him last year..." She was cut off suddenly by a smack on the arm from Hermione. She was glaring at her, while blushing.

"You must be mad! Me, have an affair with the teacher? Come on! I'm the good girl, remember? Top marks in everything?"

"Right, right. Now, let's get to work. We have very little time left."

In about fifteen minutes, Ginny had covered her face with light make-up and transformed her thick and rather ugly and colorless clothes into a tighter, more revealing, pretty suit. "There," she said. "You look much nicer."

"Thanks, Ginny," said Hermione wryly, looking at herself in the glass. 'It's great. Let's go. Did you fly here?"

"Yeah."

"I'll apparate us both and the broomstick if you wish."

"Okay!" Ginny loved to apparate.

In the meantime, Severus Snape sat in his office, and thought about women. 'Why did I screw it up with Hermione?' he thought for the hundredth time in the past year. 'We should have been together this year, and maybe I would have proposed.' He steepled his fingers beneath his chin thoughtfully when the door of his office burst open.

"Snape, you fucking bastard! We shagged once, and you LEFT! I am NOT the kind of woman who enjoys one-night stands, okay?" Snape stopped the outpour with a single raised hand.

"Who the hell are you?"

The pretty blond who had come into the office looked at him in disbelief. "You had sex with me last night, and you've forgotten who I am?"

Snape recognized her suddenly, but he couldn't remember her name. He couldn't believe that he had forgotten her! He felt like an idiot. "Well, Madame..."

She cut him off. "Do you mean to say that you have forgotten my name too? Oh, you asshole! You'll pay for this! My friends warned me that you had a bad reputation with women, but I didn't listen to them. I guess they were right!" She left immediately, muttering something about revenge. Severus Snape leaned back in his chair, his head in his hands. The worst thing that could happen now, was another woman to come in, saying the same thing. No that that was too likely, but...

Suddenly, the door burst open yet again, and he could sense the déjà vu. 'Good God!' he thought. 'This can't be happening!' But, sadly, it was. A feminine voice accosted the weak man in the chair, again filled with outrage.

"Snape!" said the voice. "You fucking bastard..." But Snape knew this voice. He looked up from his desk.

"Hermione?"

***

Hermione had been walking up the hallway in Hogwarts just minutes earlier, thinking of the best way to impress her former lover, when she had heard the sound of wailing, and smelled the well known scent called eau de sad female. She had just decided to ignore it-'probably some kid who tripped on their shoe,' she had thought to herself- when she bumped into a friend of hers.

"Narcissa!" she had cried in delight, and had pulled Draco's mother close, when she realized that it was she who had been wailing all this time. "Narcissa, what's wrong?"

"Snape is what's wrong," she had snapped, her sadness becoming anger in a dangerous second. "You know what he did? He got drunk, took me to a bar, offered to walk me home, and invited himself to warm my bed. And today, I walk in to ask him why he was gone this morning, and he doesn't even know my name! That asshole will get what's coming to him one of these days."

"He sure will," Hermione had said, enraged on the behalf of herself and her friend. "Just leave it to me!"

So here she was, ticking off the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in his own office, while he leaned back in his chair, seemingly enjoying the scene! That bastard! He leaned forward, and addressed her coolly. "Do you always behave like this towards your future bosses during an interview? No wonder you are living in a one room apartment!"

"Oh, go to hell, bastard!" she spat, and was surprised when his face took on the pained look of a constipated rabbit.

"I've already been there, thank you," he said softly. "It usually involves donning red robe and a mask and kneeling to the most disgusting creature ever to roam the earth."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring back those memories." She was genuinely remorseful.

"Well, I'll feel better if you sit on my lap," he said, his expression turning from one of sadness to one of flirtation in a blink of an eye.

"Ummm," Hermione decided to play along, and she perched herself on his lap, when she heard a bird call outside the window. "Is that a cock crowing, sir? I hope not, because that would mean I would have to get up." It was a cheesy line she had picked up from the classic book "How To Flirt", and she had really wanted to use it.

Snape decided to put a different meaning to it. "It certainly is," he said, and shifted her in his lap so she could feel his erection.

"Oh god, Snape," she said, the disgust showing clearly on her face. "Can you find a double meaning to every statement I say?"

"I can, of course. Would you like to try me?"

"Yes, of course. How about a competition?"

"What kind do you have in mind?"

"I give you fifty phrases for which you must find a sexual double meaning to. If you can't, I get to cast a spell on you, any spell..."

"And if I can, I get to sleep with you!"

Hermone gasped at his suggestion. "I am not a whore to be bet on!" she exclaimed hotly.

"Fine, if you think you are going to lose, I don't mind. Anyway, the last time we slept together..."

"Aaaaaahhhh! Whatever! I'll do it."

Snape smiled. "It's a deal."