Unlikely Connections

Chapter Twelve - Closing the Dancing Space

"He didn't?!"

"He did!"

"Who'd have thought?"

"Right in the middle of the lesson?"

"Could you even imagine he was capable?"

"And just who'd want to imagine of that?!"

"I mean, it is him . . ."

"Just right there in front of everybody?!?"

Touché indeed, Hermione thought to herself.

She snickered, her smile growing exponentially as she made her way through the crowd that had gathered in clumps in front of the Great Hall. She was holding her head up totally for the first time in days as she walked into the Hall for dinner, all the tables slowly filling with chattering students. The staff table was full, she noticed ... except for one chair. She chucled again to herself as she heard raucous laughter behind her.

"Hermione, you'll never believe it ..." Ron started, their previous scuffle forgotten.

"M'inee, did you hear--" Harry blurted before he could finish.

"... what happened to Snape during his last Potions lesson?" Ron finished for him.

Hermione merely stood and grinned smugly as they tumbled over each other's sentences. When they realized she hadn't responded, they both trailed off and watched her. Realization dawned visibly on both boys.

Ron worded their thoughts. "You had something to do with this, didn't you?"

"You caused him to ...?" Harry started, shocked.

"Well, I didn't really cause it ... I just ... laid the groundwork, shall we say. He involuntarily sealed the deal."

"But how--?" Ron began.

"You know what," Harry said, turning to Ron, "I don't think I want to know."

Hermione chuckled as Ron turned back to her, incredulous. "Well I bloody well do. How in the world did you ...?"

Hermione pushed towards the Gryffindor table, and turned to call back over her shoulder. "Now, boys, if I told you all my secrets, what would I have left to do at parties?"

The boys' jaws both slackened in surprise as they stared after her, then, collecting themselves, scampered up to join her at the table. The three talked animatedly throughout dinner ... something Hermione hadn't actively participated in since before this whole Snape-detention nonsense started. Several times during the meal she felt a strange prickling, as if a fly had lighted on her neck. She slapped at it absently once, turning to see what it had been ... and locked eyes with Snape, who, by the fixed nature of his gaze, had been staring at her over the rim of his goblet for quite some time. Feeling emboldened by her earlier triumph, she winked cheekily at him before turning back to her conversation with Harry and Ron.

Startled out of an inappropriate reverie, Severus coughed slightly into his pumpkin juice, trying desperately to hide the reaction from any curious students who might be watching at him at the time. Fine spy you are ... unnerved by a wink. But, he had to admit, it wasn't the fact that she had winked that had startled him. It was that she met his eyes so confidently so soon after showing him ...

He cleared his throat as quietly as possible and lowered his gaze. The young Gryffindor certainly did live up to her House's prided fearlessness. Sexually dominating Severus Snape (even in a strictly theoretical way) was something that not even Death Eaters had the fortitude to attempt. He grinned in spite of himself.

While debating whether he was more thoroughly disgusted at her for throwing lewd mental pictures at a professor or at himself for being so engrossed in said vision, he became conscious of the fact that this situation was completely new. Most of his students were so incurably puerile that he couldn't even imagine them maturing past the age of twelve, let alone to a point where he could find them sexually attractive. But, he couldn't deny that Miss Granger was different. And the thought gave him no little amount of displeasure. Fed up with this line of thought, which was destroying his digestion, he threw back his chair from the table and started to rise.

Since he was aware that most of the students' eyes were on him, he swept out of the hall presenting his typically severe front. His pride chaffing, he scribbled a note on a scrap bit of parchment he found in his pocket the instant he left the hall and prevailed upon a house elf he called forth to do his bidding.

He stooped to a squat in an effort to intimidate the creature less, and used his softest voice. "Excuse me, would you please take this note to a young lady at the Gryffindor table?"

The house elf, whom he vaguely remembered as Winky, was trembling with fear, but nodded and managed a weak smile.

"Her name is Miss Hermione Granger ... do you know--"

The elf adopted a look of barely-contained annoyance. "Yes sir, Professor Snape, sir. Winky knows Miss Hermione, sir."

Snape chuckled roundly. One of the creatures she'd been tormenting with S.P.E.W., no doubt. "Thank you, Winky, I'm very much obliged."

She warmed noticeably. "Winky is just doing her duty, Professor, Sir." As Winky scurried away, Snape raised to his full height and craned his head just slightly so he could make sure that the message had been delivered.

At the Gryffindor table, Hermione turned her attention back to her meal, tiring quickly of the current conversation topic: the new line of brooms put out for specific Quidditch positions. Hermione was trying valiantly to conceal a yawn when she felt a sharp tug at the back of her robes. She turned to see Winky standing behind her, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot.

"Miss Hermione, Winky has been asked to bring you a note, Miss."

Hermione smiled as she reached out for the note, but noticed with disappointment that the smile was not returned. Winky still had not forgiven her for leaving clothes in the Gryffindor common room for the house elves two years ago. Hermione gave a small nod to Winky, indicating that she was free to go, which she did in a large hurry. Sighing, Hermione unrolled the note.

Miss Granger, I must remind you that despite the infelicitous events of this afternoon, you are still expected in the dungeons for detention this evening.

~ S. Snape

She had to fight the urge to allow the hysterical laughter to leave her throat. She convinced herself that the sudden fluttering in the pit of her stomach had everything to do with overeating and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was starting to be afraid of how he would respond to this afternoon. She took several long, shaky breaths on the walk from the Great Hall, and several more as she stood at the door to the dungeons. Show no fear, Hermione, she told herself. An ounce of weakness and he'll eat you alive.

****

Oddly enough, Severus was giving himself precisely the same talk at nearly the same moment. Much to his distress, he couldn't shake the vision, meaning he'd need to call on his training as a spy to help him conceal his true thoughts. Any other possibility would be simply calamitous. So he stood in the middle of the dungeon, calmly arranging ingredients for the potion that she would aid him in concocting for detention.

Hermione wasn't sure exactly what to expect when she walked into the room, but sighed with relief when she saw that his back was to her. This gave her at least a moment to compose her face before she went to help him. Before she could speak, his voice came to her, smooth and with no little measure of arrogance.

"Miss Granger, are you going to lollop about in the doorway all evening, or are you planning to be useful?"

"You know, I think you fully exploit the rumor that you can read minds and see through walls," she called back, more confident than she felt.

She watched his shoulders shake before actually hearing his chuckle, which (to her very great surprise) was devoid of its usual jeering tone. "You Gryffindors, you're all alike."

He heard her huff of indignation, but didn't turn to her. He continued bending over the roots he was cutting, but raised a hand in the general direction of the counter before him. "There is a mirror on the front desk that remains pointed at the door. I noticed you the moment you came in. Now, come up here and be constructive, for pity's sake."

She hurried to the counter where he was working and set down her bag and potions kit. He glanced over at her quickly. "I'd suggest you remove your robes and work in your skirt and jumper. This potion tends to bubble and spurt at times and it leaves some rather nasty stains on the particular kind of fabric used for school robes."

She responded before she could stop herself. "What about you?"

For the first time since she entered, he looked up into her eyes. "Given the nature of my work, all my robes have protective charms," he explained. But then his eyes took on a different glint and he raised an eyebrow arrogantly. "Besides, unlike yourself, I don't happen to be wearing anything underneath."

She tried to formulate a response but her voice came out in a squeak, her eyes involuntarily drifting to his lower torso. He began to sneer and laugh derisively, so she turned her back to him and laid her school robes across the chair in which her bag sat. Folding the cuffs of her blouse above her elbows, she ventured another try at conversation. "Actually, sir, I wasn't sure how you'd react to ... er ... me this evening."

He concentrated even more ruthlessly on the tiny and precise incisions he was making into the ingredients on the table but his expression quirked. "Truth be told, Miss Granger, I'm impressed. The level of strategy you exhibited was positively Slytherin."

"Erm... thank you," she said, not entirely sure that this was a compliment.

He smirked as he heard her hesitation but kept working nevertheless. "Hit the enemy at his or her weakness. Basic rule of offense. I, of course, had no trouble attacking your naiveté."

She bristled noticeably. "Well, naturally. But I had a more difficult job in picking which of your weaknesses would be the most critical for an attack."

He smirked at her, never pausing in the swift, precise motions of his hand. "Oh? Do regale me in a list of my faults, Miss Granger."