In Which Hermione S. Granger Fails to Save the Day

In Which Hermione S. Granger Fails to Save the Day

I. In Which Hermione Avoids Adventure

Hermione was avoiding Harry. She had noticed that around April every year Harry began trying to save the world; which was interesting and exciting as long as she and Ron were involved, but as soon as one of them was overcome by petrification, broken limbs, madness etc. it simply became depressing, and distracted from her exams. Hermione suspected that her failure to attain perfect marks last year was directly related to Harry's most recent efforts ("We've been to the forest a hundred times before. Hagrid knows everything there. It's perfectly safe.") For last year this was possibly acceptable, since they had saved the world, or Harry had; but this year Hermione's exams mattered more than ever before, these exams would determine her entrance to St. Bartholomew's, and just this once Hermione was going to do her own studying and let Harry save the world all by himself.

The best way to avoid Harry was to study in Snape's office. Hermione had determined that whenever there was an opportunity for remarkable heroism, Snape was nowhere to be found; thus following him around was the perfect way to avoid heroics. Besides, if one treated criticism as something other than an oncoming vehicle about to smash one's rabbit-like self (i.e., if one was not Neville) Snape was actually a very good teacher. For example, if Hermione looked up from her book and asked, "How can the toenail-parings of the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World possibly be an ingredient in Philter 3758?" Snape would not brush her off with "We get them mail-order, philters won't be on the exam, don't worry about it," but would in fact point out that Serpent and Wyrm were both inaccurate translations of the term megadrakaina or wingless dragon, and the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World had very impressive claws or toes as well as toenails, which one might have realized if one had troubled to find a bestiary . . . No, no, Miss Granger needn't get up, she would find a perfectly adequate volume on the shelf behind her.

The only problem with studying in Snape's office was that his piercing stare was becoming a distraction. Hermione supposed that the fact that she had been almost camping in his office for two weeks straight might seem odd, but she really didn't believe he needed to glare at the backs of her textbooks all the time. Every time she looked up he seemed to be reading the titles with suspicion. On the other hand, she was currently reading the text he had assigned (well, one of the supplementary readings, if she had to be absolutely precise) and he must know what the back of his own textbook looked like by now--so maybe he was criticizing her hair. Better to stop that before he wrote her up.

"If you're looking at my hair, sir," said Hermione, "I can't do anything about it. A high-magic environment increases ambient static, and it was hopeless to begin with, anyway. I'm sorry if it's not up to the dress code, but I really can't help it."

Snape's reply was strangely incomprehensible. Hermione shrugged and returned to her book. The classification of philters was unusually arcane. Didn't the author understand basic arithmagical principles? For instance, this should be Philter 39.8.1, not 3940, unless of course the tongue of newt was a cheap substitute for eye of newt . . .

Snape was definitely staring at her. Enough was enough. Hermione decided to stare back until he explained himself.

The man could stare for a remarkably long time. Ron usually gave up after three or four minutes, and even Harry got bored eventually. Hermione realized she had never quite thought about the way Snape's eyes looked before. They had a fascinating black ring around the iris.

"There's a bit of hair on your robe. Let me get it," Snape said suddenly. (Ha! thought Hermione. I win!) Snape stood up from his chair, walked over, and touched Hermione's . . . breast. Yes, if he hadn't said something about finding a strand of hair, she would definitely think he was touching her breasts.

Hermione felt her neck turning red. She hated the way she blushed. Her ears always turned red, and her neck turned bright red, and her nose got sort of blotchy, and overall she began to look like a pink and underfed version of some obscure primate. Something had to be done immediately.

"It's, um, awfully warm in here," said Hermione, standing up quickly. "I must open a, uh, window." (She hadn't noticed how tall Snape was, either, but suddenly she seemed to be staring at his armpit. How odd.)

"We needn't stand upon ceremony, Miss Granger," said Snape. "If you truly find yourself too warm, you might simply remove your robe and spare us all the expense of heating the out-of-doors."

He had a point, actually. Hermione was opposed to wasting energy on principle, and she really was awfully warm. She removed her robe, folded it neatly, and hung it over the back of her chair. For the sake of completeness, she took off her sweater, too. Then she picked up her book and settled down again. Philter 3942, now this was interesting. What would happen if you gathered the aconite under a waning moon, instead?

Snape was still staring at her. How frustrating, and after she had already beaten him, too. Plus he was still standing over her chair, and Hermione rather objected to being stared down on. Maybe he was trying to read over her shoulder? But he must have his own copy.

"Really, Miss Granger," Snape said, "You can't possibly expect me to believe that you've been spending all this time in my office just because it's a particularly well-heated place to read about philters."

"Well . . ." Hermione answered, playing for time. Should she tell him her theory about Harry, coincidental injuries, and saving the world? Harry might get upset; he and Snape were never quite rational about each other.

"Keep your mouth open, just like that," Snape commanded. Then he kissed her.

Oh, thought Hermione. She hadn't considered this outcome, but it was a good way to avoid Harry. Damn it, she could feel her neck turning red again. Maybe if she kissed Snape hard enough he would close his eyes and not notice? She could just imagine him making sarcastic comments about pink primates.

Snape was fumbling at the buttons of her shirt. Strange, he usually seemed much more coordinated. He was going to break something at this rate . . . Yes, that was a button snapping off, at least she knew a spell to find it again . . . Hermione realized she had better remove her bra before he broke that, too. It was so nice to have the thing off; the underwire rubbed at the space between her breasts and she never could breathe right with it on.

Now he was sucking on her breasts. Hermione felt warm, but oddly motherly. Snape's eyes were shut in bliss; at least she had solved the staring problem.

Somebody was pounding on the door. Or possibly trying to knock it down--that was a very regular thumping sound. Snape rushed behind his desk and shuffled some papers. Hermione threw her sweater at him, stuffed her bra into his bookcase, buttoned most of her remaining shirt buttons, and pulled her robe on. She hoped she had it on the right way round. And her hair--but there was never anything to be done about her hair. She was sure whoever was breaking the door down wouldn't notice if it was mussed.

Hermione opened the door, and Hagrid nearly fell into the room. "Mr. Snape!" he shouted. "I must find Hermione, have you seen her?"

"I'm right here, silly," said Hermione. "I've been studying here for days now."

"Oh . . . Nice outfit, Hermione," said Hagrid. "And your hair looks especially nice today. Look, can I talk to you in private? I've sort of found something."

Oh dear, thought Hermione. This bore every sign of a new opportunity for Harry to save the world. But Hagrid was looking at her so hopefully, she really couldn't just brush him off. "I'll be back in a few hours, sir," she told Snape, and followed Hagrid out of the office and down the hall.

II. In Which Hermione Encounters a Snake

Hagrid led Hermione into the cellars, behind a stack of barrels, through a door, and down a winding staircase. He had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. Hermione was impressed that he had dared the staircase in the first place. Surely nobody ever came down here, and if Hagrid tripped or hit his head he might never be found again. But then, Hagrid had never had any sense of self-preservation. Or any sense of anything, really--why on earth had he complimented her hair?

At the bottom of the staircase was a wooden door set into a stone archway. Hagrid muttered something at the door and hit it with his umbrella; it creaked open. The room on the other side was huge, cold, and very, very dark, though Hermione thought she saw some sort of arch or statue toward the back of the room. She sighed and declared, "Lux Grandissima!" Now she could see, though even her biggest sphere of light couldn't fill the entire room. In fact, it barely reached the edge of the statue, or bulge in the wall, or whatever it was. She would have to walk closer.

As Hermione approached, she realized that the bulge actually stretched along the entire far wall of the room. Maybe whoever built this cellar had simply enlarged a natural cavern, and had decided to leave one wall in the original rock?

That wasn't rock. It was moving forward and backward, very slowly . . . like something breathing. Hermione stopped walking. Hagrid promptly bumped into her. (And I thought Snape was tall! thought Hermione.)

"Hagrid . . . What is that?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, it's a very large snake. Well, part of one," said Hagrid. "I thought you might have read about it somewhere. Let's go a little closer. There's something you need to see."

Of course. It was the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World, or a very small part of it, anyway. Hermione should have known that whenever she opened a bestiary, some malevolent spirit gave Hagrid ideas. Most of the creature's scales seemed to be gray and rocklike--no surprise, if its nourishment came from rock--but Hermione could see something crystalline up ahead.

The crystalline feature was a very large eye. It was set into the serpent's side, like a precious stone as big as Hermione. Most of the eye was a pale yellow-green, but it glittered somehow . . .

"I always wondered how the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World kept track of the parts of its body that weren't near where it was chewing," Hermione remarked.

"Hermione, be nice," said Hagrid. "I think it's crying."

He was right. Ordinary snakes didn't cry, but ordinary snakes didn't have toenails, either. The glints were water dripping from the edges of the eye. A small pool of tears had collected on the floor.

"Do you think I should give it my coat, for a hanky?" Hagrid asked.

"Can't hurt."

Hagrid pulled off his coat and walked cautiously toward the serpent. About four feet away he stopped, and held out his coat hopefully, but the eye stared straight ahead, and continued dripping. Hagrid sighed and dropped his coat in the puddle, then walked back to Hermione.

"I think maybe the cloth on my coat isn't soft enough," he said. "And it's not exactly clean, the snake might get infected. If only we had a finer piece of fabric . . ."

"You can have my shirt," said Hermione. It was a perfectly logical offer; that way they could dry the serpent's eyes, and she wouldn't have to worry about fixing the button. However Hagrid was turning bright pink. He was rather adorable, really; unlike Hermione, who went all blotchy, Hagrid was a perfectly even shade of salmon. She wondered whether his toes turned pink, too.

Hermione pulled her hands inside her robe and unbuttoned her shirt, then gave it to Hagrid. He took it very carefully, as if her hands were charged with static. Then he tiptoed toward the snake again. This time its pupil opened slightly, as if curious. Hagrid gently blotted the scales around the serpent's eye. The pupil closed to a thin slit, and the tears slowed--

"Hagrid, be careful!" Hermione whispered. "It's breathing wider!" Indeed, the serpent's belly seemed to be stretching further out, and then in again. Hagrid retreated to Hermione.

"Don't worry," he said. "If it was a cat I would say it was purring."

"But it's still crying."

"Maybe nobody's ever been nice to it before."

"If you're going to make kindness to the section of the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World that's taken up residence in our basement your new hobby, you had better tell Dumbledore," Hermione pointed out.

"Oh, I did. He says it's much safer than the baby phoenix I used to have."

Hermione was relieved. At least Hagrid was behaving like a sensible adult, not getting all secretive the way Harry did whenever something heroic was in the offing. If she didn't have to worry about Hagrid, she could get back to the real question--why on earth was the serpent really crying?

"Oh, of course," said Hermione. "It's a girl serpent, and people keep cutting off its toenails for potions. I bet it's miffed. And they're probably hurting it."

"The poor thing!" said Hagrid. "We'll have to find where its foot is and stop them, at once."

Oh no, thought Hermione. This is where saving the world really came in, and she didn't have time for it, not with all her exams. But if she let Hagrid rush off by himself, he'd get himself killed. "Let Harry do it," she said.

"But--"

"No, seriously. If there's an evil toenail-cutting operation afoot, it almost certainly has something to do with Voldemort, I mean You-Know-Who, and that means Harry's the only one who can deal with it. Plus neither of us can talk to snakes."

"But Harry won't know what to say to it."

Clearly Hagrid was unconvinced. Yet if Hermione allowed him to go rushing off all over England looking for a plot against the world-serpent, she would have to go too, and then she would never, ever get all her work done. (If Harry went, his work would suffer, too; but since Harry and trouble had a magnetic relationship, he would find the evil-doers much faster, and Harry wasn't trying to get into St. Bartholomew's.) How could Hermione make Hagrid stay? She would have to institute a distraction.

"Hagrid," Hermione asked, "Can I borrow your shirt? It's kind of chilly down here, and I couldn't find my sweater this morning."

Hagrid looked uncomfortable, but Hermione's own shirt was obviously too soaked in snake-tears to be warm, and he was too honorable to refuse outright.

"Please?" said Hermione. She stepped closer to Hagrid, and began unbuttoning his shirt. She had to start from the bottom, of course; he was so very tall. His belly was rather hairy--but yes, he did blush pink underneath the fur. He was probably pink all over. It was oddly sweet.

Hermione thought if she could get all of Hagrid's shirt off, and maybe make him lie down so she could see all of him properly, it might be rather like having a very, very, very large cat at her disposal. By now she had undone all the buttons she could reach. Given time she could probably work out a spell for the others, if Hagrid continued to be unhelpful . . . Maybe she would just rest her cheek against him, and think about it.

Hagrid reached down and touched Hermione's hair, so lightly that she almost couldn't feel it. He was astonishingly gentle. Hermione wished he would touch something besides her hair.

"Really, I can't let you leave Hogwarts when I have to stay here and study for my exams," said Hermione. "I'd go mad with stress."

"Really? I make you more relaxed?"

"Well, you could, if you tried harder," said Hermione in frustration. Had she doubled her time once too often? Right now life seemed to be moving at half speed . . .

In desperation she pulled off her robe, and tugged at the drawstring of Hagrid's pants. He really was large, and she was at almost the right height.

As Hermione had predicted, Harry did very well without her; and under Hagrid's tutelage, Hermione felt much more confident about the practical elements of her exams. Somehow magical beasts could tell when she was happy . . .

Finis.