The Hogwarts Poets' Society

"It's definitely not in this book," said Snape. He flipped through another thick, moldy volume. "It's not in this one, either!"

"Are you going to say that every time you decide that another one of your revolting books is useless?" asked Hermione irritably. She had heard Snape announce that another book did not contain the solution 26 times. Personally, she was disgusted by Snape's collection of books. After flipping through So You Want to Be an Evil Minion?, she was leery about reading anything that Snape had on his bookshelves.

"Probably not," said Snape. "I've just never heard you be so quiet. I'm surprised you don't know the answer yet."

"How would I know the answer? I'm Muggle-born, remember?" snapped the irritable Hermione.

"Oh, yes, I remember," said Snape, his eyes glinting dangerously. "Unfortunately, that has never stopped you from being an insufferable know-it-all before."

Hermione's breaking point was, once again, reached. Hermione is generally a rather patient person. She has dealt rather well with being best friends with Harry Potter, who has a hero complex, and Ron Weasley, who has rocks for brains. Before she had known she was a witch, she had pictured herself living a rather quiet life. She could be a librarian, marry a nice man with a good job, own a small, cute house, have children, and spend her spare time working on counted cross stitch. She had accepted her new role in life as peacefully as she could. With this new situation, she was quite a bit more stressed than usual. Her breaking point was much, much closer than usual. Seeing Draco and Harry after The Shagging Incident had pushed her to the breaking point. (She was still mostly not sorry about freaking out in the Great Hall.) Being called an insufferable know-it-all by the teacher who had asked her for his help was also pushing the line.

"You shut up," hissed Hermione dangerously. Her voice had a low, deadly quality. Snape literally felt a chill run up his spine. "You just shut up."

Snape, wisely, did not say anything for a moment. After Hermione had turned back to the book she was scanning, he regained his confidence.

"Touchy, aren't we?" he muttered quietly.

In a quick instant, Snape found himself on the floor with Hermione's wand pointed at his throat. She had a slightly manic glint in her eye and suddenly, without question, Snape knew that if she had not been Muggleborn, Voldemort would have spent a good amount of time and resources trying to recruit her as a Death Eater.

"I said shut up," said Hermione. "Do you understand you slimy, sniveling git?"

Again, Snape felt his blood run cold. Behind her composed, intelligent outer shell, Hermione obviously had a lot of pent up anger. This, coupled with the fact that she was one of the most skilled witcheshe had ever seen, made Snape realize that he would have rather irritated a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

He was entirely correct. For in the next moment, he found himself trapped in a full-body bind. (Hermione had quite well mastered the Occlumency that Harry had failed miserably at.) Then he found his swooshy black robes being taken from him. Then she knocked him unconscious.

He came to about an hour later, suspended by his underwear in the Great Hall.