The Price of Perfection

Hermione Granger chewed at her lip as she recopied the last sentence of her rune translation. She had meant to finish the final draft on Saturday afternoon, but an Arithmancy project had taken much longer than expected, leaving only Sunday night for the rest of her work.

There, finished. Well, better reread it, she thought. Wouldn't want to make a silly mistake out of carelessness! Returning to the top of the parchment and frowning in concentration, Hermione began reading. And promptly sneezed. Drat. Two paragraphs further down, she sneezed again - twice - and blew her nose. Bother.

Twenty minutes later Hermione had removed an apostrophe, changed one comma to a semi-colon, and finished going over her translation. Her nose was most decidedly running.

Carefully stowing her finished translation inside of her bag, Hermione reached for her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay and slowly smoothed it out on the desk in front of her, glancing at the clock as she absently wiped her nose with her handkerchief. 3:14 am. She groaned.

Hermione looked longingly at the empty bed behind her, then back at the parchment and books on the desk. She sighed. Slowly she massaged the area around the bridge of her nose and stared back at the clock. Her head was stuffy and her body ached...

Would it be so bad to go to bed instead, just tonight? No! she chastised herself, you can't. You have to finish it. You must. But despite her determination, she could not bring herself to go over the essay yet again. If only her head were clearer, maybe then she could do it.

Scrunching her face, Hermione massaged her temples, wishing there were a charm to relieve sinus pressure, not just a wide variety of potions -- none of which she had access to at three in the morning. What she would give for a hot, steamy bath. Oh, a bath would be perfect! Not in the dormitory bathroom, though -- that would likely wake Parvati, and the prefect's bath was ever so much nicer. Yes, a bath in the prefect's bathroom was a good idea. It was much more appealing than working on her essay, yet still better than giving up and going to bed.

Leaving the essay unedited on the desk, she stood up as silently as she could and tiptoed over to her trunk to retrieve her bathrobe and pajamas. She changed quietly, only to sneeze loudly as she tied her robe around her waist. After yanking her towel from its peg on the wall she padded towards the door, slippers muffling the noise of her feet.

Down the stairs, through the darkened common room to the portrait hole. A sneeze. Drat. Through the portrait hole, along two corridors, and down to the sixth floor by way of an unremarkable staircase that was never there on Tuesdays. Two successive sneezes. Really. Five feet further along the corridor, she sneezed again. Loudly. At this rate, she'd be lucky not to attract the attention of Filch. Or worse,

Professor Snape. "Miss Granger."

"Sir." Really, this was bad luck.

"Miss Granger, can you explain why you are awake and wandering the corridors at three-thirty in the morning?"

"Please, sir, I'm going to take a bath. I am allowed to do that."

"I did not ask what you were doing, Miss Granger. That much is evident. Answer the question."

"The question, sir?"

"Yes, the question," he repeated impatiently.

She stared blankly, wishing she had thought to bring a handkerchief.

"Are you incapable of giving any answer not taken directly from a textbook? Or can you possibly explain why you are awake and wandering about in the dead of night?"

She sneezed again, violently, and was surprised when he produced a handkerchief. She accepted it, and when she was finished she answered, "Please, Professor, I've been doing homework." She blushed and bit her lip, embarrassed by the implication that she had left her work so late, even knowing that it wasn't true. "I just wanted to take a bath before getting back to my essay. Really, I haven't been doing anything I wasn't supposed to."

"On the contrary, Miss Granger. You may be allowed to access the prefect's bathroom at any time of day, but no student was ever meant to use it at three-thirty in the morning. And you hardly have permission to be standing about in the corridors at this time of night. If you wish to have your bath, I suggest you go on your way directly."

"Yes, sir." And she hurriedly set off along the corridor once more, so distracted by the aching in her temples and cheeks that she almost didn't realize that he had neglected to take points from Gryffindor.

Twenty minutes later Hermione emerged from the steaming water of the prefect's bath with noticeably clearer sinuses but an even more noticeably running nose. Much to her consternation, she had to stop and make use of the handkerchief several times while performing a drying charm on her hair. Still, she was feeling remarkably more aware as she clambered through the portrait hole and out of the bathroom. And found herself once more facing Professor Snape.

"Tell me, Miss Granger, has it ever occurred to you or your friends that wandering the castle at night might be unsafe? Not to mention detrimental to your health?"

There wasn't really anything she could say to that. Hermione blew her nose.

"Come." He turned and began down the corridor.

"Sir?" she hesitated.

He stopped and turned to face her. "You are obviously unwell, Miss Granger. Because of your foolish disregard for your own health, you will need a sinus-clearing serum if you wish to be of the slightest use in your classes later today. You will accompany me to my office."

She nodded, eyes wide with surprise, and hurried after him as he turned and began striding down the corridor once again. He did not speak as he led the way toward the dungeons, and she did not attempt to make conversation.

Upon entering the office he nodded to the chair in front of the desk. "Sit." She sat while he retrieved a vial of sinus-clearing serum from a cabinet and brought it to her. Removing the stopper, he handed her the vial. "Drink."

She drank, and grimaced.

Ignoring the expression on her face, he resumed his questioning. "Now that you are capable of answering coherently, I will try again: why did you not go to bed hours ago? Is your homework really so imperative that it takes precedence over your health?"

"Please, sir, I wanted to work on my Defense essay for tomorrow. I've written three drafts of it." She lifted her chin. "I will manage to do better than an Acceptable."

"Surely, Miss Granger, you could not still be so naïve as to assume that your grades in my class were based solely on the content of your work?"

"But..." she sputtered. "You're a professor! It wouldn't be fair----"

"Indeed, I am your teacher." His indignation was enough to match hers, but it was older, colder, and better honed.

"Then--"

"Miss Granger," he interrupted. "What is the first duty of a teacher? Before even instilling knowledge, much less pithy ideas of fairness."

She took a deep breath. This she could answer. "A teacher's first duty is to look after the well being of his students."

"Correct. And do you really believe it would be in your best interest for my... colleagues... to know the extent of your knowledge of Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

Her lips fell open, but for once no sound came through them.

"You are supposed to be the brightest witch of your generation. Can you not think? Or is your pride really more important to you than your safety?"

"Professor, I--"

"If I had graded based on merit, your overly thorough regurgitations would have received at least an E on every paper you have handed in this year, even from me. But for your protection, it is more important that your enemies underestimate your knowledge than that your adolescent pride be satisfied."

"Oh." Oh, this was strange. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to be furious. But she wasn't; she hadn't the slightest idea how she felt.

His eyes bored into her face. "You must learn to think, Miss Granger. And think constantly, not just when you are told to do so. Obvious explanations, you may discover, are often as not obviously wrong."

She bit her lip. "I do think about things, Sir. I think about things a great deal. But it's hard, I suppose, to find time to really consider everything. Homework and studying take up so much of my time..."

"Perhaps," he said, voice tinged with asperity, "you should consider the cost of memorizing all your textbooks word for word and always turning in essays twice the required length."

"The cost? What cost? I don't see any great cost to being diligent in my studies! It's if I don't study that I'll pay the price!"

"Everything has a price, Miss Granger. Do not fool yourself."

"I'm not sure I understand, sir."

"Think on it, then. But not right now. Now," he said, "you will return to Gryffindor tower and go to sleep."

Professor Snape did nothing to acknowledge either her or their conversation in class that day, nor in any of the classes that followed. But the next time she had an essay returned, there was a note scrawled at the bottom, underneath the customary Acceptable:

Is perfection worth its price?