Unlikely Connections

Chapter Ten - The Cha Cha, Part One

Much as it displeased her to do so, Hermione had to admit it ... she was nervous. She was borderline petrified, in fact, of walking into Potions today. Oddly enough, however, it wasn't exactly the obvious situation that petrified her. She had (astonishingly quickly) come to terms with the fact that she had masturbated in time with her emotionally repellant, forty-something professor. She was even relatively settled on the fact that she had been quite randy at the idea of being in bed with him. What scared her was the actuality of meeting face to face with the man, now that he was aware of her body, mind and hormones. She was quite certain that despite the fact that he had initiated the situation that she would pay dearly for participating in it.

She had no doubt that he knew that she participated ... after all, it stood to reason, didn't it, that if she had heard and felt him in the back of her mind, he had felt the same for her? Hermione was quite certain that this was the case, and, not for the first time in her life, mentally damned the fact that Snape did seem to be able to read peoples' minds.

She sat none too stilly on her stool in the Potions dungeon that morning, arranging and rearranging all the ingredients of her kit in front of her on the desk. She was the first person in the classroom, which wasn't an abnormal situation, but she was quite unaware of the rest of her peers moving about as they came in.

Harry and Ron sauntered into the dungeon just before the bell was due to ring and observed her for a moment or two. She could see out of the corner of her eye Harry shaking his head and making somewhat subtle slashing motions, obviously trying to hint to Ron not to do whatever it was he was about to do.

As the boys took their seats, Harry buried his head in his hands, definitely wanting no part of Ron's joke.

What now? Hermione thought angrily.

As Ron sat down, he snickered lightly before making barely audible noises, consisting of slight moans and muttered recitations of "Severus ..."

That bastard. Hermione ground her teeth in fury as he continued the little diatribe. He was ribbing her because he thought she had a crush on Snape. She allowed this little show to go on for a minute or two, getting steadily more furious with Ron and noting approvingly that Harry kept inching his stool away from the two of them (sensing that there would be unfavorable retribution on Ron for this little performance). When Ron had raised his voice enough so that the students at the tables around them turned their heads, Hermione decided she had had enough.

Without a thought to the creaking noise that indicated the opening of the dungeon doors, Hermione cocked back her right hand and let it fly. Her aim was not as true as she had hoped; a red handprint was rising on the side of Ron's neck as opposed to his face, but the stunned look she received was enough to tell her that she had achieved her goal. He seemed astounded at her response. Her satisfaction, however, was stunted by a gruff voice.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger." Snape had not even broken his stride from the door to his desk in order to deliver the punishment. He merely continued to his desk, with his back to her as he spoke. Hermione hung her head, knowing that she deserved the docked points.

"And I shall take care in the future to take another five points if you cannot improve your aim. Mr. Weasley's hair and grades do not deserve to be the only things that appear in red."

Harry held Ron forcibly onto his stool, in a measure of calm and trying to prevent more points from Gryffindor. Snape continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Before beginning his lecture, however, the Potions Master decided to get in one last dig at Hermione's self-respect. "Despite my desire to see Mr. Weasley in the Hospital Wing at your hand, Miss Granger, you will remember to restrain yourself in my classroom. And on the subject of restraining yourself," Snape glared at her pointedly, "you are to report to the dungeons for detention tonight instead of my private office."

She knew instantly that he had slipped in the detail of his office for a very particular reason. Every head in the classroom turned to stare at her, aside from Harry and Ron. She hung her head lower, knowing the question in all of their eyes: What could she have done that would have warranted detention in Snape's PRIVATE office?

It was a well known fact throughout Hogwarts that the severity of Snape's detentions was gauged by location. Most often he had his students doing menial yet tedious work somewhere in the castle (as with Ron's famous detention scrubbing bed pans in the Hospital Wing, given to him by Snape). Only the more serious detentions would force Snape to have to be in his classroom with the student while they served. And if Hermione had been having hers in his private office ...

Hermione knew that he was purposely taunting her. He must have decided that if he embarrassed her just enough, perhaps she would hate him to the point of banishing all other thoughts relating to him from her mind. And as Hermione sat on her stool at the back of the dungeon, she considered it a very successful plan of attack.

He smoothly moved into his lecture, the students furiously dragging their quills across their parchments. After seven years in his classroom, they were well aware of when he intended to put something on a final exam. Starting the exam work a little early this year, Hermione noted. Mid-October's pushing it a bit to expect that we'll remember all this come June ...

But she took notes regardless, knowing that she'd end up saving Harry and Ron when it came time to study for N.E.W.T.'s. She was scribbling furiously, ears intent upon Snape's lecture, when she felt as if she had been mentally punched. A vision, quick and clear, drove itself into her sightline. Hermione gasped aloud as a searing flash of a rather compromising situation flickered before her ... she saw herself from the back, straddling Snape's lap as he sat pushed back from his desk. While her hair and robes obscured most of his body and all of his face, the violent, wavering motion her body was making left little doubt as to what they were doing.

Hermione was so taken aback that she reeled physically, her head swaying, her quill dropping to the floor. She looked up and realized that there had been a pause in the lecture, owing to her gasping for breath. She raised her eyes to Snape, who was gazing at her with the most considerate look she had ever seen grace his countenance. That, in itself, was a bad sign.

"Are you quite well, Miss Granger?" he asked, his voice honeyed with worry.

She met his eyes and, despite his mask of humanly concern, she saw a tiny glimmer of self-satisfaction glimmer in his eyes. Damn him, she thought, he had done it on purpose.

"Fine, sir, I thank you," she muttered, leaving her stool and stooping to pick up her quill.

She had just set pen to paper again to resume note-taking on a form of Veritaserum that would come up on their N.E.W.T.'s when her mind was again assaulted with a quick, explicit vision. She didn't gasp out loud this time, but was still just as shocked. The visions hurled themselves at her throughout the lesson, getting longer and more explicit each time. Every time she was caught with a vision, she looked to Snape who was getting visibly more amused with himself by the minute. The more she resisted looking shocked, the more he persisted in outdoing himself. By the time the bell rang to release them from the lesson, she was duly horrified.

"You go ahead," Hermione muttered to Harry's questioning look, "I need to ask Professor Snape something about ... detention."

Harry left reluctantly, jogging slightly to catch up with Ron. Hermione rushed up to Snape's desk hurriedly as soon as the dungeon was clear.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" she spat irately.

"Tone, Miss Granger," he responded coolly. "I am your Professor, remember, and deserve a mark of respect."

She scoffed at him and bit back. "Oh fine. Just what the hell doing you think you're doing, sir?"

Snape grinned. "One would think that someone who has gotten herself into a rather copious amount of trouble in my detentions would be a bit more careful to avoid finding herself in further instances of such. Seeing as how I'm feeling--" he pursed his lips in a tight smirk before finishing, "generous today, I'll let that slide."

"You still haven't answered my question. I won't be sidetracked. Just what is it that you thought you'd accomplish by that little spectacle, other than embarrassing, infuriating and otherwise scandalizing me?" She was stamping her foot in anger by the time she finished.

"Precisely that, Miss Granger. I'd say that our recent situations together show that you have a decidedly lacking amount of self-control. You need to learn how to steel yourself in the face of adversity."

He smirked at her briefly and then turned his eyes to the pile of essays waiting on his desk. He was playing with her, purposely trying to infuriate her. And despite her valiant efforts, it was working. She turned quickly and marched from his classroom with as much dignity as she could possibly muster.

****

The day did not improve for Hermione. The 'lessons in self-control' continued at random intervals throughout the morning. After the thirteenth vision during Transfiguration, she stopped being shocked and began to be more analytically intrigued at what he chose to show her. It was always some perfectly scandalous action, always sexual in nature, and always portrayed him as an unyieldingly dominating figure. She didn't find this last fact shocking in the least.

However, what she did find surprising was not what he did show her, but rather, what he took great amount of care not to show her. She noticed that no matter how outrageous the action that he chose to thrust upon her overloaded mind, he was very careful to reveal relatively little of his own body. Glimpses of his own flesh were few and far between, and never, ever included anything lower on his body that his chest.

Hermione smirked idly as she transfigured a doorstop into a dormouse, wondering whether this lack of showing his anatomy was due to propriety (which she found unlikely), self-loathing (which she found entirely plausible), or embarrassment (which she found highly amusing).

She also noticed that he never, EVER showed himself in a position other than complete (and often degrading) control over her. Could it be that Professor Snape was just a teensy bit afraid of being overpowered? she chuckled to herself.

As the lesson wore on, she talked little to Harry - who had begun to whisper curiously to Ron as to whether she was ill or simply losing her marbles - or Ron, who was still fuming from the slap; instead she focused on anticipating the visions rather than being shocked by them. She knew that his strength and smugness over the situation lie in the shock value of the visions. If she could somehow anticipate either when they would happen or what they would contain, she would have stripped his power.

By the time they were halfway through History of Magic, she believed that she had Snape pegged. The last vision had been at least fifteen minutes before; she had had an inkling of when it was coming and so steadied herself and her mind. She was onto him.

Just as this thought rang through her mind, another vision came upon her, entirely unexpected, as she hadn't been concentrating. This vision was definitely different ... it wasn't as forceful as the previous had been; the images seemed to flow into her head like fluid. This vision also brought with it a certain sound effect: in the back of her mind was the dull echo of heavy breathing and a soft, wet noise that sounded like kissing. Hermione then saw, as if a television camera was panning from her head downwards, her own body, naked and splayed across Snape's desk.

No problem, she thought, seen it. Old man's losing his touch.

She shot the last thought at him, knowing that he would hear it. Seemingly as a result, the vision shifted. She squawked a very loud "Oh!," flung her arms into the air and tumbled head over heels from her chair and onto the floor. She lay on her back on the floor, feet in the air, dimly trying to rearrange her robes so as not to ... reveal anything. But she couldn't get a hold of her spinning mind.

In the instant before she had taken an involuntary flying leap from her chair, a very close, very clear image of her Potion Master's erect penis thrusting into her very willing body had flung itself into her vision, accompanied by a very loud moan (inside her head) from a voice that she had heard only hours beforehand, droning on about Truth Serums.

Hermione staggered to her feet and back into her chair, panting slightly, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. She could hear his laughter ringing inside her head. Professor Binns, never sensing the disturbance, assigned an 8-inch essay for homework and glided through the chalkboard into the staffroom, just as the bell rang.