Trapped!
So how do you get two stubborn people to fall in love? Easy. Trap them, preferably alone and/or in close quarters! This week's quiz is all about forced socialization bringing our hero and heroine together. Yes, Severus and Hermione are trapped!
This week's quiz was chosen by mrs_helenesnape who apparently doesn't have claustrophobia.
Would you like to choose next week's quiz? Simply play the quiz by commenting on this post with your answers at any time over the weekend. All comments with answers will be screened until the answer sheet is posted on Monday morning EDT. On Monday, all quizzlings with the correct answers will be entered into the winner's drawing and one lucky fangirl will win the right to choose the next SSHG quiz theme. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the story titles while avoiding the red herring titles:
Landing by warded_portal
Dark Land by Tegan
Solitaire by snarkypants
Just a Little Bit by melenka
Twenty Four Little Hours by Severusgirlx
Locked In by Songbird101
Rumour Has It by subvers
Darkest Before the Light by celisnebula
The Perils of Being Nice by borg_princess
Damn! We Missed the Reception! by snarkywench_64
Stuck by sylvanawood
The Other Side of Darkness by Abby
1. Fifteen minutes, ten Alohomoras, and five crashing kicks later, the door was still sealed. He tried shattering spells, exploding spells, and even a buzz-saw spell that he had learnt (annoyingly enough) from observing the Weasley twins.
He was winded, sweaty, frustrated and majestically peeved.
“Sir?” a small voice whispered from the steps.
“WHAT?” he roared at his former student. She cringed, and, he, oddly, felt a short, sharp stab of contrition. “What?” he repeated in a slightly more temperate tone.
“Could we try a window?” she asked in an even smaller, almost embarrassed voice.
He looked at her from behind hooded lids, sweeping lank strands of hair from where they had stuck to the perspiration on his brow. He just looked at her for a long minute, during which Hermione thought he might be settling on where to bury her body.
The moment passed, and he raised his eyebrows. “Right. The window.” He didn’t say it with any great grace, mind you. But the fact that he acknowledged her idea and didn’t attack her for it...it was the strangest thing, but she almost fell asleep with relief.
2. ‘You invented the spell? What was the purpose of it?’
The adult, nearly professional tone of her question, of which she had been quite proud, was ruined by an audible rumble from her stomach. She placed a hand flat on her tummy, blushing, and he produced a bar of chocolate from his pocket, placing it in her hand with no comment save the quirk of an amused eyebrow.
When she had torn open the sweets wrapper and begun to devour the Honeydukes chocolate, he rested his head against the wall and said, ‘I thought it would be handy to have a spell which would permit me to disappear in an enclosed space, so I could not be trapped in a room.’
Hermione swallowed a mouthful of delicious chocolate and took a breath, feeling the sharpest of her hunger pangs resolve. Strangely enough, the chocolate seemed to clear her mind a bit, as if counteracting Dark magic, and she wondered if the potion she had been force-fed was a Dark one. Then she darted a glance at her companion from the corner of her eyes, wondering why a boy would create such a spell. Of course, Harry had shared many stories from his parents’ past, including the persistent victimisation of Severus Snape by James Potter and his gang of Gryffindors.
Sadly enough, Severus had probably had many opportunities to hide out between the covers of a book as the Marauders hunted him.
‘Then we’ll just wait for them to go, and we’ll climb out again,’ she said complacently, relaxing against the wall at her back, her shoulder pressed to his upper arm.
‘Oh, we’ll be in here a bit longer than that,’ he murmured softly, even as her head drifted to lie upon his shoulder, and she twined her arm with his, as if to hold her pillow closer.
‘Why?’ she inquired sleepily, but his next words banished thoughts of sleep from her mind.
‘Because we won’t be leaving until our reinforcements arrive, and that won’t be until morning,’ he said and closed his own eyes, seemingly deaf to her barrage of questions.
3. "I was reading the post. And I was going to find Minerva to have a bit of a cry over it." She looked at him indignantly, daring him to make light of her situation. "And a gust of wind or something tore the letter out of my hand and sent it over the balcony. I still don't know where it ended up." Her shoulders sagged and she covered her eyes with her hands. "Look will you just let me in before someone sees me out here?"
He gave her his best disgusted look and moved out of the way, tacitly inviting her over the threshold.
"Thank you."
Severus stepped out into his classroom and disappeared from her view.
She stood, looking around, wondering what he'd been up to on a Saturday. There was a fire in the grate, a pot of tea on the side table, and a book face down on the wingback chair. A Muggle book, with a garish colour slip cover with a picture of a man in a fedora being held at gun point by another man. "The Glass Key," she read beneath her breath.
He returned and closed the door behind him, regarding her coolly. "There seems to be nothing wrong with the dungeon corridor now."
Her arms still crossed, she sighed, defeated. "Right. Thanks ever so." She moved passed him and as she reached for the door handle, the entire frame groaned and shifted just a hair to the left. She tried the door. It refused to budge. "Merlin's hairy bollocks, this can't be happening."
Snape slit his eyes. He waited until she moved out of his way and he tried. Nothing doing. "Oh you can't be serious. Really?" He seemed to be addressing the ceiling.
"I swear, if I'd have known this curse would affect your office, I'd have stayed away. I would have thought your wards would be suitably --"
"Granger, do you ever stop talking?"
4. Finally, a chance to get away from the Boy-Who-Only-Lives-Because-I’m-Not-Allowed-to-Kill-Him and his annoying sidekicks, thought Snape as he walked up the stairs to the top floor of the hotel. A whole night of nothing but privacy and relaxation is sure to do me good. He pulled out his key and opened the door to his room.
It was tastefully decorated in gold and royal blue, with walnut furniture and rose-colored lighting. The king-size mattress was bewitched to be extremely comfortable, and bathroom contained a shower that never ran out of hot water and a bathtub that had seven different knobs, each emitting a different type of bubble bath. There were two cushy armchairs practically begging to be sat upon, and a fire was burning merrily in the grate. Professor Snape, however, noticed none of these creature comforts. He was too busy staring at the bushy haired girl quietly unpacking in his room.
“Miss Granger!” he shouted, irate at having his dreams of privacy shattered. “Are you accustomed to intruding upon another person’s personal space?”
Hermione jumped at the sound of his voice, but quickly became indignant at his accusations. “Professor, I believe it is you who are intruding upon my personal space. This is, after all, my room.”
“Nonsense, girl. This is room 515.”
“Yes, Professor, it is. And 515 happens to be the number on my room key.” She held the key up, and indeed, the number 515 was emblazoned upon it in black letters.
“Oh.” Snape was momentarily stymied. “Well, the hotel must have made a mistake then. You’ll just have to find another room to stay in.”
“I’ll do no such thing, Professor. I’m already unpacked. If anyone is going to be finding another room, it is going to be you!”
“Now, listen here, you stupid girl!”
At that moment, they heard the sound of the door slamming and locking.
“What was that?” asked Hermione, her righteous anger momentarily forgotten.
5. Before today, if you had asked Hermione whether Snape would trouble himself to remove her from the path of a messy, destructive Weasley product, she would’ve had no doubt Snape would have left her there to be covered in the smelly deluge. But as she’d stood frozen in the middle of the corridor, watching the incoming mass of foul-smelling gunk rapidly spreading across the floor, he’d unexpectedly reached out to grab her and hustle her across to a broom closet she’d never even noticed, shutting the door just in time to keep them safely untouched as the swamp continued down the corridor.
They were now stuck in this broom closet until the swamp had a chance to solidify somewhat so that they wouldn’t be flooded with the icky, gooey substance the moment they opened the door.
“All right, so you’re not really that nice, but you’re occasionally predisposed to do nice things.”
“There really is no need to keep nattering on in such an inane manner, Professor Granger.”
“Like pulling me into this closet out of the way of that bloody awful mess out there. I have to admit, my reflexes aren’t what they used to be during the war.
6. “Miss Granger, do you think you could find it convenient in the next few minutes to please stop that infernal pacing?” Severus Snape’s voice was low, both in volume and tone, the result of years of perfecting his infamous persona as Hogwarts’ most feared and hated professor. But it revealed his frustration as keenly as if he’d shouted at the top of his lungs from the highest rooftop. “I believe I’ve lost several pounds and worked up quite a sweat just watching you. Besides,” he sneered, “I highly doubt Mrs. Potter would appreciate you wearing a path in her new carpet.”
“Sorry if I’m bothering you, Professor Snape. I figured it was easier on both of us if I ran my feet instead of my mouth.”
“How considerate,” he intoned dryly.
Hermione Granger stared at the doorknob as she passed it for the one hundred thirty-seventh time… not that she was counting. She resisted the urge to reach out and try it just one more time, knowing full well that the new anti-abduction wards that Harry and Luna Potter had placed on the redecorated nursery at Godric’s Hollow would remain intact, leaving her and the sour-looking Potions master occupying the rocking chair in the corner locked together in the room.
“Glaring at it will not change the situation,” he retorted.
“Never worked for you, why should it work for the doorknob?”
He ignored her comment. “If your precious Potter was not so damned paranoid, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Harry has perfectly legitimate reasons for his paranoia.” Hermione’s staunch defense of her long-time friend made Snape snort derisively.
7. She went back to crafting the spell-or attempting to. She was so close, the solution just out of reach. She pushed the paper away and slumped back in her chair, making guttural noises.
“Do you require assistance?” The contemptuous words flowed like oil, coating her.
She sat up straight, then grit her teeth. It rankled that he could still do that to her. “No, thank you. I can do this on my own.” She did not turn her head.
“I am quite certain that you are capable of finishing alone.” He drew out the last word.
She was alone. Everyone had gone to the Quidditch World Cup. Everyone save her. She had volunteered to be confined to a house with Severus Snape and the shell of a man the world thought dead. She was to spend the remains of her summer break playing nursemaid to the lost and whipping girl to the reviled. Lovely. No amount of brownie points were worth this.
“Just because a thing can be accomplished alone does not mean it is best done that way.” His shadow fell over the table.
She resisted the urge to hide the page with all its imperfections. Let him look. He wouldn’t be able to decipher it. She could barely read it, but that was not the point. Once she’d written something, she would remember it.
“What are you attempting? There are several spells indicated here.”
8. "I see you have decided to grace us with your presence once again, Miss Granger." His voice was familiarly silky, though lacking the sharp edge Hermione would have expected.
He took a pitcher from the bedside table and poured Hermione a glass of water. Accepting the glass from him, Hermione took several mouthfuls of water before weakly asking, "How long have I been unconscious?"
"According to my watch, you have been in the infirmary for twelve hours."
"Twelve hours?" Hermione was confused, "but, but that's impossible."
"Are you questioning my ability to track time?"He was baiting her to continue.
"No, it's just, well we couldn't have been here for twelve hours," she looked resolutely at her professor, "because it should be morning, which," she motioned towards the darkened window, "it is not."
"True, it should be light out, however I have found that much is not as it should be."
She returned her glass to the nightstand and waited for him to continue.
Placing his forearms on top of his slightly spread thighs, he leaned forward from his chair, "While I have not had the opportunity to search the castle, I have been unable to contact anyone. Furthermore, the house-elves have not answered my calls."
This bit of information deeply concerned Hermione. She knew, from an unsuccessful attempt to liberate the house-elves from their slavish bonds, that they would rather be beaten over their heads with large mallets than ignore a request for their service.
Snape sat back in his chair staring into Hermione's eyes, "I conclude, therefore, that we are alone."
9. When the rushing sensation stopped, Hermione found herself unceremoniously dumped into a small, but very prickly bush. Disentangling herself, she scrambled to her feet and looked around. The scene in front of her did not exactly inspire confidence. She was surrounded by what could best be described as bare moorland. Patches of rock were visible through the sparse ground cover. The area was ringed with low hills. There was no appreciable tree line, and indeed, she had the strong impression that any plant taller than a stunted gorse bush had long ago given up the unequal fight for survival. The place exuded an overwhelming sensation of damp desolation.
It reminded her of parts of Dartmoor, visited with her parents on childhood holidays. She had not exactly paid attention. For all her secret desire to be a field agent, Hermione had never been that keen on actual fields. She had preferred to spend her time curled up with a good book.
Now she was plunged into her worst possible scenario.
“When you've quite finished admiring the beauty of the scenery, you might like to consider the practicalities of our situation.”
Hermione reconsidered her definition of worst possible scenario. Turning she took in the black figure silhouetted against the grey backdrop. He was staring at her with a supercilious expression on his face.
“What are you doing here?” she stammered.
Oh very impressive. That sort of question will really convince him that you are an asset to the Ministry.
His response didn't disappoint.
“I see the trip deprived of the use of your brain Miss Granger. I should have thought that it was perfectly obvious what I am doing here. Your ... behaviour in the museum has resulted in both of us being transported to this place.”
Hermione’s brain had begun to function again. They had both grabbed for the hilt at the same time.
“The sword hilt is a Portkey?” she said, thinking out loud.
“Congratulations,” came the icy response. “I'm gratified to see that you haven't lost your grasp of the blindingly obvious.”
10. She shivered. It was so cold in here.
Voldemort had caught them off guard - struck in the middle of the night. She'd had no time to change out of her night things. She wore just a dark green singlet with matching shorts. Not very practical for battle, but changing her clothes hadn't been a priority as Voldemort and his Death Eaters had stormed Hogwarts.
She wondered what had happened to everyone else. Harry, Ron, Ginny...everyone. Were they all still alive?
The question and its possible answers sent bile rising to her mouth. She stood, unsteady, and walked to the table. The jug at least held water. She poured some into the wooden goblet and drank.
She let out a scream and dropped the goblet as the door to her cell crashed against the wall. Instantly, the air was filled with screams and cries from outside. Obviously, she was not alone.
Unseen hands hurled a body at her.
She ran to the door, but it was slammed shut before she even reached it, the lock clanking back forcefully, leaving her in silence again.
Exasperated, she leaned her head against it, taking deep breaths to calm her frustration and turmoil. Here she was trapped while her friends were fighting the most important battle in wizard history. She felt so helpless, so inadequate.
Slowly she turned to look at the heap of rags that now lay sprawled on the floor of her cell.
She couldn't see a face, but she would recognise that hair anywhere.
"Professor Snape!" she gasped.
This week's quiz was chosen by mrs_helenesnape who apparently doesn't have claustrophobia.
Would you like to choose next week's quiz? Simply play the quiz by commenting on this post with your answers at any time over the weekend. All comments with answers will be screened until the answer sheet is posted on Monday morning EDT. On Monday, all quizzlings with the correct answers will be entered into the winner's drawing and one lucky fangirl will win the right to choose the next SSHG quiz theme. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the story titles while avoiding the red herring titles:
Landing by warded_portal
Dark Land by Tegan
Solitaire by snarkypants
Just a Little Bit by melenka
Twenty Four Little Hours by Severusgirlx
Locked In by Songbird101
Rumour Has It by subvers
Darkest Before the Light by celisnebula
The Perils of Being Nice by borg_princess
Damn! We Missed the Reception! by snarkywench_64
Stuck by sylvanawood
The Other Side of Darkness by Abby
1. Fifteen minutes, ten Alohomoras, and five crashing kicks later, the door was still sealed. He tried shattering spells, exploding spells, and even a buzz-saw spell that he had learnt (annoyingly enough) from observing the Weasley twins.
He was winded, sweaty, frustrated and majestically peeved.
“Sir?” a small voice whispered from the steps.
“WHAT?” he roared at his former student. She cringed, and, he, oddly, felt a short, sharp stab of contrition. “What?” he repeated in a slightly more temperate tone.
“Could we try a window?” she asked in an even smaller, almost embarrassed voice.
He looked at her from behind hooded lids, sweeping lank strands of hair from where they had stuck to the perspiration on his brow. He just looked at her for a long minute, during which Hermione thought he might be settling on where to bury her body.
The moment passed, and he raised his eyebrows. “Right. The window.” He didn’t say it with any great grace, mind you. But the fact that he acknowledged her idea and didn’t attack her for it...it was the strangest thing, but she almost fell asleep with relief.
2. ‘You invented the spell? What was the purpose of it?’
The adult, nearly professional tone of her question, of which she had been quite proud, was ruined by an audible rumble from her stomach. She placed a hand flat on her tummy, blushing, and he produced a bar of chocolate from his pocket, placing it in her hand with no comment save the quirk of an amused eyebrow.
When she had torn open the sweets wrapper and begun to devour the Honeydukes chocolate, he rested his head against the wall and said, ‘I thought it would be handy to have a spell which would permit me to disappear in an enclosed space, so I could not be trapped in a room.’
Hermione swallowed a mouthful of delicious chocolate and took a breath, feeling the sharpest of her hunger pangs resolve. Strangely enough, the chocolate seemed to clear her mind a bit, as if counteracting Dark magic, and she wondered if the potion she had been force-fed was a Dark one. Then she darted a glance at her companion from the corner of her eyes, wondering why a boy would create such a spell. Of course, Harry had shared many stories from his parents’ past, including the persistent victimisation of Severus Snape by James Potter and his gang of Gryffindors.
Sadly enough, Severus had probably had many opportunities to hide out between the covers of a book as the Marauders hunted him.
‘Then we’ll just wait for them to go, and we’ll climb out again,’ she said complacently, relaxing against the wall at her back, her shoulder pressed to his upper arm.
‘Oh, we’ll be in here a bit longer than that,’ he murmured softly, even as her head drifted to lie upon his shoulder, and she twined her arm with his, as if to hold her pillow closer.
‘Why?’ she inquired sleepily, but his next words banished thoughts of sleep from her mind.
‘Because we won’t be leaving until our reinforcements arrive, and that won’t be until morning,’ he said and closed his own eyes, seemingly deaf to her barrage of questions.
3. "I was reading the post. And I was going to find Minerva to have a bit of a cry over it." She looked at him indignantly, daring him to make light of her situation. "And a gust of wind or something tore the letter out of my hand and sent it over the balcony. I still don't know where it ended up." Her shoulders sagged and she covered her eyes with her hands. "Look will you just let me in before someone sees me out here?"
He gave her his best disgusted look and moved out of the way, tacitly inviting her over the threshold.
"Thank you."
Severus stepped out into his classroom and disappeared from her view.
She stood, looking around, wondering what he'd been up to on a Saturday. There was a fire in the grate, a pot of tea on the side table, and a book face down on the wingback chair. A Muggle book, with a garish colour slip cover with a picture of a man in a fedora being held at gun point by another man. "The Glass Key," she read beneath her breath.
He returned and closed the door behind him, regarding her coolly. "There seems to be nothing wrong with the dungeon corridor now."
Her arms still crossed, she sighed, defeated. "Right. Thanks ever so." She moved passed him and as she reached for the door handle, the entire frame groaned and shifted just a hair to the left. She tried the door. It refused to budge. "Merlin's hairy bollocks, this can't be happening."
Snape slit his eyes. He waited until she moved out of his way and he tried. Nothing doing. "Oh you can't be serious. Really?" He seemed to be addressing the ceiling.
"I swear, if I'd have known this curse would affect your office, I'd have stayed away. I would have thought your wards would be suitably --"
"Granger, do you ever stop talking?"
4. Finally, a chance to get away from the Boy-Who-Only-Lives-Because-I’m-Not-Allowed-to-Kill-Him and his annoying sidekicks, thought Snape as he walked up the stairs to the top floor of the hotel. A whole night of nothing but privacy and relaxation is sure to do me good. He pulled out his key and opened the door to his room.
It was tastefully decorated in gold and royal blue, with walnut furniture and rose-colored lighting. The king-size mattress was bewitched to be extremely comfortable, and bathroom contained a shower that never ran out of hot water and a bathtub that had seven different knobs, each emitting a different type of bubble bath. There were two cushy armchairs practically begging to be sat upon, and a fire was burning merrily in the grate. Professor Snape, however, noticed none of these creature comforts. He was too busy staring at the bushy haired girl quietly unpacking in his room.
“Miss Granger!” he shouted, irate at having his dreams of privacy shattered. “Are you accustomed to intruding upon another person’s personal space?”
Hermione jumped at the sound of his voice, but quickly became indignant at his accusations. “Professor, I believe it is you who are intruding upon my personal space. This is, after all, my room.”
“Nonsense, girl. This is room 515.”
“Yes, Professor, it is. And 515 happens to be the number on my room key.” She held the key up, and indeed, the number 515 was emblazoned upon it in black letters.
“Oh.” Snape was momentarily stymied. “Well, the hotel must have made a mistake then. You’ll just have to find another room to stay in.”
“I’ll do no such thing, Professor. I’m already unpacked. If anyone is going to be finding another room, it is going to be you!”
“Now, listen here, you stupid girl!”
At that moment, they heard the sound of the door slamming and locking.
“What was that?” asked Hermione, her righteous anger momentarily forgotten.
5. Before today, if you had asked Hermione whether Snape would trouble himself to remove her from the path of a messy, destructive Weasley product, she would’ve had no doubt Snape would have left her there to be covered in the smelly deluge. But as she’d stood frozen in the middle of the corridor, watching the incoming mass of foul-smelling gunk rapidly spreading across the floor, he’d unexpectedly reached out to grab her and hustle her across to a broom closet she’d never even noticed, shutting the door just in time to keep them safely untouched as the swamp continued down the corridor.
They were now stuck in this broom closet until the swamp had a chance to solidify somewhat so that they wouldn’t be flooded with the icky, gooey substance the moment they opened the door.
“All right, so you’re not really that nice, but you’re occasionally predisposed to do nice things.”
“There really is no need to keep nattering on in such an inane manner, Professor Granger.”
“Like pulling me into this closet out of the way of that bloody awful mess out there. I have to admit, my reflexes aren’t what they used to be during the war.
6. “Miss Granger, do you think you could find it convenient in the next few minutes to please stop that infernal pacing?” Severus Snape’s voice was low, both in volume and tone, the result of years of perfecting his infamous persona as Hogwarts’ most feared and hated professor. But it revealed his frustration as keenly as if he’d shouted at the top of his lungs from the highest rooftop. “I believe I’ve lost several pounds and worked up quite a sweat just watching you. Besides,” he sneered, “I highly doubt Mrs. Potter would appreciate you wearing a path in her new carpet.”
“Sorry if I’m bothering you, Professor Snape. I figured it was easier on both of us if I ran my feet instead of my mouth.”
“How considerate,” he intoned dryly.
Hermione Granger stared at the doorknob as she passed it for the one hundred thirty-seventh time… not that she was counting. She resisted the urge to reach out and try it just one more time, knowing full well that the new anti-abduction wards that Harry and Luna Potter had placed on the redecorated nursery at Godric’s Hollow would remain intact, leaving her and the sour-looking Potions master occupying the rocking chair in the corner locked together in the room.
“Glaring at it will not change the situation,” he retorted.
“Never worked for you, why should it work for the doorknob?”
He ignored her comment. “If your precious Potter was not so damned paranoid, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Harry has perfectly legitimate reasons for his paranoia.” Hermione’s staunch defense of her long-time friend made Snape snort derisively.
7. She went back to crafting the spell-or attempting to. She was so close, the solution just out of reach. She pushed the paper away and slumped back in her chair, making guttural noises.
“Do you require assistance?” The contemptuous words flowed like oil, coating her.
She sat up straight, then grit her teeth. It rankled that he could still do that to her. “No, thank you. I can do this on my own.” She did not turn her head.
“I am quite certain that you are capable of finishing alone.” He drew out the last word.
She was alone. Everyone had gone to the Quidditch World Cup. Everyone save her. She had volunteered to be confined to a house with Severus Snape and the shell of a man the world thought dead. She was to spend the remains of her summer break playing nursemaid to the lost and whipping girl to the reviled. Lovely. No amount of brownie points were worth this.
“Just because a thing can be accomplished alone does not mean it is best done that way.” His shadow fell over the table.
She resisted the urge to hide the page with all its imperfections. Let him look. He wouldn’t be able to decipher it. She could barely read it, but that was not the point. Once she’d written something, she would remember it.
“What are you attempting? There are several spells indicated here.”
8. "I see you have decided to grace us with your presence once again, Miss Granger." His voice was familiarly silky, though lacking the sharp edge Hermione would have expected.
He took a pitcher from the bedside table and poured Hermione a glass of water. Accepting the glass from him, Hermione took several mouthfuls of water before weakly asking, "How long have I been unconscious?"
"According to my watch, you have been in the infirmary for twelve hours."
"Twelve hours?" Hermione was confused, "but, but that's impossible."
"Are you questioning my ability to track time?"He was baiting her to continue.
"No, it's just, well we couldn't have been here for twelve hours," she looked resolutely at her professor, "because it should be morning, which," she motioned towards the darkened window, "it is not."
"True, it should be light out, however I have found that much is not as it should be."
She returned her glass to the nightstand and waited for him to continue.
Placing his forearms on top of his slightly spread thighs, he leaned forward from his chair, "While I have not had the opportunity to search the castle, I have been unable to contact anyone. Furthermore, the house-elves have not answered my calls."
This bit of information deeply concerned Hermione. She knew, from an unsuccessful attempt to liberate the house-elves from their slavish bonds, that they would rather be beaten over their heads with large mallets than ignore a request for their service.
Snape sat back in his chair staring into Hermione's eyes, "I conclude, therefore, that we are alone."
9. When the rushing sensation stopped, Hermione found herself unceremoniously dumped into a small, but very prickly bush. Disentangling herself, she scrambled to her feet and looked around. The scene in front of her did not exactly inspire confidence. She was surrounded by what could best be described as bare moorland. Patches of rock were visible through the sparse ground cover. The area was ringed with low hills. There was no appreciable tree line, and indeed, she had the strong impression that any plant taller than a stunted gorse bush had long ago given up the unequal fight for survival. The place exuded an overwhelming sensation of damp desolation.
It reminded her of parts of Dartmoor, visited with her parents on childhood holidays. She had not exactly paid attention. For all her secret desire to be a field agent, Hermione had never been that keen on actual fields. She had preferred to spend her time curled up with a good book.
Now she was plunged into her worst possible scenario.
“When you've quite finished admiring the beauty of the scenery, you might like to consider the practicalities of our situation.”
Hermione reconsidered her definition of worst possible scenario. Turning she took in the black figure silhouetted against the grey backdrop. He was staring at her with a supercilious expression on his face.
“What are you doing here?” she stammered.
Oh very impressive. That sort of question will really convince him that you are an asset to the Ministry.
His response didn't disappoint.
“I see the trip deprived of the use of your brain Miss Granger. I should have thought that it was perfectly obvious what I am doing here. Your ... behaviour in the museum has resulted in both of us being transported to this place.”
Hermione’s brain had begun to function again. They had both grabbed for the hilt at the same time.
“The sword hilt is a Portkey?” she said, thinking out loud.
“Congratulations,” came the icy response. “I'm gratified to see that you haven't lost your grasp of the blindingly obvious.”
10. She shivered. It was so cold in here.
Voldemort had caught them off guard - struck in the middle of the night. She'd had no time to change out of her night things. She wore just a dark green singlet with matching shorts. Not very practical for battle, but changing her clothes hadn't been a priority as Voldemort and his Death Eaters had stormed Hogwarts.
She wondered what had happened to everyone else. Harry, Ron, Ginny...everyone. Were they all still alive?
The question and its possible answers sent bile rising to her mouth. She stood, unsteady, and walked to the table. The jug at least held water. She poured some into the wooden goblet and drank.
She let out a scream and dropped the goblet as the door to her cell crashed against the wall. Instantly, the air was filled with screams and cries from outside. Obviously, she was not alone.
Unseen hands hurled a body at her.
She ran to the door, but it was slammed shut before she even reached it, the lock clanking back forcefully, leaving her in silence again.
Exasperated, she leaned her head against it, taking deep breaths to calm her frustration and turmoil. Here she was trapped while her friends were fighting the most important battle in wizard history. She felt so helpless, so inadequate.
Slowly she turned to look at the heap of rags that now lay sprawled on the floor of her cell.
She couldn't see a face, but she would recognise that hair anywhere.
"Professor Snape!" she gasped.