Trapped! - Part 2
Apparently trapping Hermione and Severus together is an even more popular theme than we thought! The fangirls voted and we obey. Hope you don't have claustrophobia because our hero and heroine are once again Trapped!
Want to give Hermione a run for her money in the know-it-all field? 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 receive a pretty banner to prove their quiz prowess. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the story titles without using the red herring titles:
An Unwitting Romance by notsosaintly
Trapped by lady_karelia
The Amber Solution by wandlimb
Personal Space by Priscilla
In Charm's Way by annietalbot
The Closet by Fatinah
The Apothecary's Assistant - or - Witch Austen's Revenge by subtilior
Survival Instincts by scratchingpost1
It Happened One Hallow's Eve by ms_figg
Just Look Up by MomoDesu
Getting the Hang of Thursdays by hayseed_42
Objects of Desire by azraelgeffen
1. “It’s been a long, tiring day. Do you want the loo first? I’ll try to get in touch with Brad and Brianna to sort out the bed.”
Hermione smiled gratefully and gathered her nightclothes. When she emerged several minutes later, teeth cleaned and hair secured for the night, she found that the television was on and Severus was lying on the untransformed Queen-sized bed.
“What are you watching?”
“An old programme from the 1960’s called The Prisoner. It’s about a retired spy.”
“Ah. A childhood favourite?”
“No, it just came on.”
“Brad and Brianna?” she asked hopefully.
“No response. The house-elf doesn’t come when called, and the doors are locked because it’s after midnight.”
“Bugger.”
“Quite,” he replied, getting up.
2. "Keep quiet, for the love of Merlin!"
"It's not my fault -"
"It damn well is - if you squeal like a stuck pig and wake half the countryside and the house I won't be held responsible, do you hear me?" The Snape-shaped shadow was fuming from a few paces, and then from one pace away - Hermione smirked.
"Perfectly," she said, aiming for his ear - he jumped in surprise - and she dusted off her hands. "Sir."
"Don't call me 'sir.'"
"Oh." Hermione blinked. "Why not?"
"Because I am your social inferior, Miss Bennet."
"That doesn't mean I can't be polite, does it? And you know it's Granger."
The Snape shadow straightened, somehow indignant even in the dark. "You must maintain your character, Miss Mary Bennet, or the whole book is lost!"
"And what a shame that would be," Hermione grumped.
"You have not been waiting seven-odd years for the plot to start, have you?"
Hermione was about to retort that at least he had a job … but then the words sank in. She blinked. "Seven … years?"
3. Severus was convinced that he was going mad.
Somehow, yesterday was today and today was yesterday, and he had no idea what the hell had happened to tomorrow.
The curious thing was -- nobody else seemed to have noticed what was apparently going on.
When Severus woke up this morning, he'd idly wondered how the robes he'd been wearing yesterday had been cleaned so quickly -- it generally took the house elves two or three days at the very least to do the laundry. But there were his robes, hanging neatly in his closet, nary a drop of Hermione Granger's blood in sight.
And his papers had been reshuffled -- Severus distinctly remembered grading a stack of third-year essays yesterday and putting the scrolls in his case to return to the class. But this morning, they were all spread out over his desktop again, unmarked.
It wasn't until breakfast that the confusion deepened into panic, however. He'd been surprised to see the same cheerful Great Hall as usual and simply decided that Albus had not made the announcement. But then he'd sat down at the table, chagrined to notice that they were still out of marmalade, and spotted a grinning Hermione Granger, alive and unburned, hitting Ron Weasley on the shoulder with a large book of some sort.
He was sure that if anyone had actually been looking up at him in that moment, they would have thought him a gibbering madman. He'd half-risen out of his chair, as if he was going to actually talk to Granger.
"Good morning, Severus," Albus had said calmly on his right, startling him out of his shock. "I see you noticed that we're out of marmalade."
4. “Professor,” she whispered. “Don’t pull away, please. Something is wrong. I can’t see anything. Just stay still, and let me find you.”
Hermione had to take a couple more steps, using his labored breathing as a guide, before she found him again, this time nearly falling right on top of him. Grabbing fistfuls of his teaching robes, she fell heavily to her knees and felt two hands cover her own, grasping them almost painfully.
“Miss Granger?” The incredulous voice echoed in the void. He seemed surprised she was there, which she thought odd. He was giving no indication of letting go of her either. Of that she was immensely thankful, seeing as she had absolutely no idea where they were.
“Professor, where are we? How did we get here?” She started asking the questions as quickly as they formed in her mind until a hand came up and covered her mouth. Surprise turned to astonishment when the expected admonishment from him never came.
Instead, all that emanated from his direction was a simple, low, and very drawn out “Shhhhhhhh.”
Her heart beat hard and fast within her chest as she crouched on the ground with her ordinarily ill-tempered professor. When he could trust her not to speak, or rather not to speak so excessively, Professor Snape removed his hand slowly from her mouth and used it, instead, to draw her closer to him.
“Be very still, Miss Granger, and please see fit to contain your questions for once. You have no idea what is lurking in the darkness.” He delivered his words on a breath into her ear as though speaking any louder would arouse the menacing, unseen force.
5. "Well then, what do you suggest we do?"
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Frankly, at the moment I'm not sure. Wait it out?"
"Like I want to be stuck with you longer than I have to," he grumbled.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hermione laughed at herself; maybe that tentative friendship that had been formed was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
"All I wanted to do this evening was make an appearance and return to my quarters where I have a bottle of Ogden's waiting for me." He moved from the door and sat down on a sturdy looking crate. "I only came after Minerva insisted I attend and stayed because she blocked my path as I tried to leave." He brushed some dust off of the crate. "The way she headed me off so many times tonight, it's no wonder she was top notch at Quidditch as a student."
Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "If it makes you feel any better, I thought I would be opening presents right now with my friends and future colleagues, not stuck in a closet with you." She pouted for effect, though she knew it wouldn't do any good when it came to the scowling man perched on the dusty crate.
"You voluntarily spend months with me in the lab, and now you have an issue being with me?" He stood from the crate and marched over to her.
She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. "At least in the lab either of us had the option to leave voluntarily if the other starts getting under our skin."
He shook his head. "I'm not doing this, not now." He returned to his crate. "Eventually, somebody will take notice of our absence and let us out of this bloody closet. Hopefully before there is bloodshed."
6. She was trapped.
The realization came slowly only because Hermione had taken all this time to figure out where she was. The trouble was, after all this time-how long had it been? She had no idea. Had she been here a day? Several days? She was utterly clueless. Time did not seem to behave in the same way as it did at home. Where am I?
Hermione tried the logical approach once again. I am... somewhere. She had no idea how long she had been in this place, and she also had no idea how she had arrived here. That about summed it up for her.
Hermione tried to think back to when it had all started.
She'd been sitting in her living room, talking with Severus and Lucius, something about time and space and the meaning of sound, and suddenly, she'd felt as if she was falling; she had tried to hold on to something, but unfortunately, there had been nothing to grab. Hermione had kept on falling as through all eternity and had ended up here. She looked around once again. It appeared to be a bubble of some sort, surrounded by featureless gray. The gray seemed to swirl sometimes as if stirred by hidden winds.
Fear engulfed Hermione; she was afraid of losing her sanity in this place. Trying to shout once again, her voice just seemed to echo back from the bubble.
Suddenly, the witch heard a whooshing sound, as if something was falling down a tube. Startled, she looked around to find the source of the sound to be a body that had fallen out of space and landed next to her.
Hermione stepped back in shock. "Severus!"
7. Snape leaped up when he heard muffled screaming from the direction of his
office.
Merlin's balls! He had not realized the lateness of the hour. He raced to
his student's aid, cursing himself for his inattentiveness. Beyond nine o’clock,
the wards within the closet were keyed to his wand only. All others were
rendered powerless. His stomach clenched, as he recalled what Malfoy had done to
her last week.
Snape, you damned fool.
He arrived in front of the closet and shouted the password. When the door
swung open, he spotted Granger huddled against the far wall whimpering and
trembling. She looked pathetic. Without thinking, he rushed over to her.
"Miss Granger, I forgot that the wards..." As he kneeled beside her, putting his hand
on her shoulder, the closet door slammed shut.
Bloody hell!
He reached in his pocket, and discovered he didn't have his wand.
Then he remembered. It was still at his desk, braced in the wand stand he
used to analyze the potions samples.
Double bloody hell.
His mind ran over the particularities of his wards and he groaned. Unless someone
came looking for them, they would locked in here until morning.
8. She was interrupted by the very loud slamming of the very heavy door to the store room.
That’s ok, he’ll just open it and we will go our separate ways.
His face drained of color.
Oh, that doesn’t look good.
“Shit” he said.
Oh, he swore, that didn’t sound good.
He went to the door and whispered, “alohamora”, nothing happened.
Not Good.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed.
Really, Really, Not Good. If he was swearing without reservation in front of her, it really couldn’t be good.
He let out a stream of hexes and obscenities at the door which remained unmoved and very decidedly closed.
“Professor?” She asked.
”Stupid fucking, shit assed wanker of a…..”
“Professor?”
“Piece of shit fucking…”
“PROFESSOR!”
“WHAT?!?” He rounded on her, eyes blazing.
“Umm, do we have a problem?”
He snorted impatiently. “What? Has that marvelous brain of yours suddenly taken a leave of absence?” He retorted scathingly, “Yes, Miss Granger, we have a problem. The Castle has decided to lock us in for the night.”
9. "I'm going to kill him."
"You'll do no such thing."
"There's plenty of Weasley males around, I'm sure they won't miss just one." Hermione huffed. "Besides, it's not like he's the first born or something, they won't really miss him really. I don't think Molly would even notice." She grinned evilly up at her Professor.
"Again… no."
"Perhaps torture," Hermione recommended, trying to shift her weight, only to stuff an elbow in her Professor's rib. "Sorry," she mumbled.
Severus in turn tried bringing a hand to his nose, desperately trying to itch the spot on his nose that one of Miss Granger's curly hairs insisted on tickling.
"We are in a tiny closet Miss Granger. We are bound to cause each other some form of physical pain no doubt."
"I'll lock him in here," Hermione continued, resting her head against her Professor. "With spiders. Lots and lots of spiders."
"Now that's just cruel." Snape said with a chuckled, knowing full well Mr. Weasley's fear of spiders.
"Well he locked me in here with you! Talk about not being considerate."
"I'd like to think that I fair better than a spider Miss Granger."
"They are smaller, Sir. And quite frankly, they wouldn't take up as much room as you do."
"Again, we're in a tiny closet."
"I know!" Hermione screeched, throwing her head back against the door. But it was useless to do anything to it while the locking and silencing charms were still in place. "Are you sure you don't have your wand on you?"
"I was not aware that I had to carry my wand to and from the bathroom while at headquarters," Snape replied. "Should have know better knowing that there would be Weasleys about though."
10. The door opened and she felt and hand close around hers. "We have to hurry."
She recognized the voice. It was Professor Snape. "The train?" she asked.
"I don't know, but we are not safe here." He pulled her to her feet slowly and guided her into the corridor in front of him, keeping a hand on her arm.
"My magic isn't working," Hermione said.
"No magic works here," Snape said. "This particular stretch of land is a void for magic. It is rumored to be cursed. The train broke down while passing through." He pushed her slowly forward, and she heard the metal groan slightly. "It seems that our car broke away from the others and slipped off the track." Once more he urged her forward. "We need to hurry before we slip again, but move carefully."
Before they could take another step, the car moved again. Hermione was knocked off her feet and slid along the floor. She only stopped when she slammed into the back wall of the car. Pain shot up her left leg, and she cried out in pain. Before Snape found her, the car had stopped moving.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"My leg hit something," she said. "It hurts a lot." In the dark, she heard him moving, but she was still startled when she felt him touch her leg.
"I think the car is stable," he said and he felt her lower leg and foot.. "But we have most likely fallen too far to escape on our own. We will need to wait for someone to rescue us."
Want to give Hermione a run for her money in the know-it-all field? 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 receive a pretty banner to prove their quiz prowess. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the story titles without using the red herring titles:
An Unwitting Romance by notsosaintly
Trapped by lady_karelia
The Amber Solution by wandlimb
Personal Space by Priscilla
In Charm's Way by annietalbot
The Closet by Fatinah
The Apothecary's Assistant - or - Witch Austen's Revenge by subtilior
Survival Instincts by scratchingpost1
It Happened One Hallow's Eve by ms_figg
Just Look Up by MomoDesu
Getting the Hang of Thursdays by hayseed_42
Objects of Desire by azraelgeffen
1. “It’s been a long, tiring day. Do you want the loo first? I’ll try to get in touch with Brad and Brianna to sort out the bed.”
Hermione smiled gratefully and gathered her nightclothes. When she emerged several minutes later, teeth cleaned and hair secured for the night, she found that the television was on and Severus was lying on the untransformed Queen-sized bed.
“What are you watching?”
“An old programme from the 1960’s called The Prisoner. It’s about a retired spy.”
“Ah. A childhood favourite?”
“No, it just came on.”
“Brad and Brianna?” she asked hopefully.
“No response. The house-elf doesn’t come when called, and the doors are locked because it’s after midnight.”
“Bugger.”
“Quite,” he replied, getting up.
2. "Keep quiet, for the love of Merlin!"
"It's not my fault -"
"It damn well is - if you squeal like a stuck pig and wake half the countryside and the house I won't be held responsible, do you hear me?" The Snape-shaped shadow was fuming from a few paces, and then from one pace away - Hermione smirked.
"Perfectly," she said, aiming for his ear - he jumped in surprise - and she dusted off her hands. "Sir."
"Don't call me 'sir.'"
"Oh." Hermione blinked. "Why not?"
"Because I am your social inferior, Miss Bennet."
"That doesn't mean I can't be polite, does it? And you know it's Granger."
The Snape shadow straightened, somehow indignant even in the dark. "You must maintain your character, Miss Mary Bennet, or the whole book is lost!"
"And what a shame that would be," Hermione grumped.
"You have not been waiting seven-odd years for the plot to start, have you?"
Hermione was about to retort that at least he had a job … but then the words sank in. She blinked. "Seven … years?"
3. Severus was convinced that he was going mad.
Somehow, yesterday was today and today was yesterday, and he had no idea what the hell had happened to tomorrow.
The curious thing was -- nobody else seemed to have noticed what was apparently going on.
When Severus woke up this morning, he'd idly wondered how the robes he'd been wearing yesterday had been cleaned so quickly -- it generally took the house elves two or three days at the very least to do the laundry. But there were his robes, hanging neatly in his closet, nary a drop of Hermione Granger's blood in sight.
And his papers had been reshuffled -- Severus distinctly remembered grading a stack of third-year essays yesterday and putting the scrolls in his case to return to the class. But this morning, they were all spread out over his desktop again, unmarked.
It wasn't until breakfast that the confusion deepened into panic, however. He'd been surprised to see the same cheerful Great Hall as usual and simply decided that Albus had not made the announcement. But then he'd sat down at the table, chagrined to notice that they were still out of marmalade, and spotted a grinning Hermione Granger, alive and unburned, hitting Ron Weasley on the shoulder with a large book of some sort.
He was sure that if anyone had actually been looking up at him in that moment, they would have thought him a gibbering madman. He'd half-risen out of his chair, as if he was going to actually talk to Granger.
"Good morning, Severus," Albus had said calmly on his right, startling him out of his shock. "I see you noticed that we're out of marmalade."
4. “Professor,” she whispered. “Don’t pull away, please. Something is wrong. I can’t see anything. Just stay still, and let me find you.”
Hermione had to take a couple more steps, using his labored breathing as a guide, before she found him again, this time nearly falling right on top of him. Grabbing fistfuls of his teaching robes, she fell heavily to her knees and felt two hands cover her own, grasping them almost painfully.
“Miss Granger?” The incredulous voice echoed in the void. He seemed surprised she was there, which she thought odd. He was giving no indication of letting go of her either. Of that she was immensely thankful, seeing as she had absolutely no idea where they were.
“Professor, where are we? How did we get here?” She started asking the questions as quickly as they formed in her mind until a hand came up and covered her mouth. Surprise turned to astonishment when the expected admonishment from him never came.
Instead, all that emanated from his direction was a simple, low, and very drawn out “Shhhhhhhh.”
Her heart beat hard and fast within her chest as she crouched on the ground with her ordinarily ill-tempered professor. When he could trust her not to speak, or rather not to speak so excessively, Professor Snape removed his hand slowly from her mouth and used it, instead, to draw her closer to him.
“Be very still, Miss Granger, and please see fit to contain your questions for once. You have no idea what is lurking in the darkness.” He delivered his words on a breath into her ear as though speaking any louder would arouse the menacing, unseen force.
5. "Well then, what do you suggest we do?"
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Frankly, at the moment I'm not sure. Wait it out?"
"Like I want to be stuck with you longer than I have to," he grumbled.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hermione laughed at herself; maybe that tentative friendship that had been formed was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
"All I wanted to do this evening was make an appearance and return to my quarters where I have a bottle of Ogden's waiting for me." He moved from the door and sat down on a sturdy looking crate. "I only came after Minerva insisted I attend and stayed because she blocked my path as I tried to leave." He brushed some dust off of the crate. "The way she headed me off so many times tonight, it's no wonder she was top notch at Quidditch as a student."
Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "If it makes you feel any better, I thought I would be opening presents right now with my friends and future colleagues, not stuck in a closet with you." She pouted for effect, though she knew it wouldn't do any good when it came to the scowling man perched on the dusty crate.
"You voluntarily spend months with me in the lab, and now you have an issue being with me?" He stood from the crate and marched over to her.
She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. "At least in the lab either of us had the option to leave voluntarily if the other starts getting under our skin."
He shook his head. "I'm not doing this, not now." He returned to his crate. "Eventually, somebody will take notice of our absence and let us out of this bloody closet. Hopefully before there is bloodshed."
6. She was trapped.
The realization came slowly only because Hermione had taken all this time to figure out where she was. The trouble was, after all this time-how long had it been? She had no idea. Had she been here a day? Several days? She was utterly clueless. Time did not seem to behave in the same way as it did at home. Where am I?
Hermione tried the logical approach once again. I am... somewhere. She had no idea how long she had been in this place, and she also had no idea how she had arrived here. That about summed it up for her.
Hermione tried to think back to when it had all started.
She'd been sitting in her living room, talking with Severus and Lucius, something about time and space and the meaning of sound, and suddenly, she'd felt as if she was falling; she had tried to hold on to something, but unfortunately, there had been nothing to grab. Hermione had kept on falling as through all eternity and had ended up here. She looked around once again. It appeared to be a bubble of some sort, surrounded by featureless gray. The gray seemed to swirl sometimes as if stirred by hidden winds.
Fear engulfed Hermione; she was afraid of losing her sanity in this place. Trying to shout once again, her voice just seemed to echo back from the bubble.
Suddenly, the witch heard a whooshing sound, as if something was falling down a tube. Startled, she looked around to find the source of the sound to be a body that had fallen out of space and landed next to her.
Hermione stepped back in shock. "Severus!"
7. Snape leaped up when he heard muffled screaming from the direction of his
office.
Merlin's balls! He had not realized the lateness of the hour. He raced to
his student's aid, cursing himself for his inattentiveness. Beyond nine o’clock,
the wards within the closet were keyed to his wand only. All others were
rendered powerless. His stomach clenched, as he recalled what Malfoy had done to
her last week.
Snape, you damned fool.
He arrived in front of the closet and shouted the password. When the door
swung open, he spotted Granger huddled against the far wall whimpering and
trembling. She looked pathetic. Without thinking, he rushed over to her.
"Miss Granger, I forgot that the wards..." As he kneeled beside her, putting his hand
on her shoulder, the closet door slammed shut.
Bloody hell!
He reached in his pocket, and discovered he didn't have his wand.
Then he remembered. It was still at his desk, braced in the wand stand he
used to analyze the potions samples.
Double bloody hell.
His mind ran over the particularities of his wards and he groaned. Unless someone
came looking for them, they would locked in here until morning.
8. She was interrupted by the very loud slamming of the very heavy door to the store room.
That’s ok, he’ll just open it and we will go our separate ways.
His face drained of color.
Oh, that doesn’t look good.
“Shit” he said.
Oh, he swore, that didn’t sound good.
He went to the door and whispered, “alohamora”, nothing happened.
Not Good.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed.
Really, Really, Not Good. If he was swearing without reservation in front of her, it really couldn’t be good.
He let out a stream of hexes and obscenities at the door which remained unmoved and very decidedly closed.
“Professor?” She asked.
”Stupid fucking, shit assed wanker of a…..”
“Professor?”
“Piece of shit fucking…”
“PROFESSOR!”
“WHAT?!?” He rounded on her, eyes blazing.
“Umm, do we have a problem?”
He snorted impatiently. “What? Has that marvelous brain of yours suddenly taken a leave of absence?” He retorted scathingly, “Yes, Miss Granger, we have a problem. The Castle has decided to lock us in for the night.”
9. "I'm going to kill him."
"You'll do no such thing."
"There's plenty of Weasley males around, I'm sure they won't miss just one." Hermione huffed. "Besides, it's not like he's the first born or something, they won't really miss him really. I don't think Molly would even notice." She grinned evilly up at her Professor.
"Again… no."
"Perhaps torture," Hermione recommended, trying to shift her weight, only to stuff an elbow in her Professor's rib. "Sorry," she mumbled.
Severus in turn tried bringing a hand to his nose, desperately trying to itch the spot on his nose that one of Miss Granger's curly hairs insisted on tickling.
"We are in a tiny closet Miss Granger. We are bound to cause each other some form of physical pain no doubt."
"I'll lock him in here," Hermione continued, resting her head against her Professor. "With spiders. Lots and lots of spiders."
"Now that's just cruel." Snape said with a chuckled, knowing full well Mr. Weasley's fear of spiders.
"Well he locked me in here with you! Talk about not being considerate."
"I'd like to think that I fair better than a spider Miss Granger."
"They are smaller, Sir. And quite frankly, they wouldn't take up as much room as you do."
"Again, we're in a tiny closet."
"I know!" Hermione screeched, throwing her head back against the door. But it was useless to do anything to it while the locking and silencing charms were still in place. "Are you sure you don't have your wand on you?"
"I was not aware that I had to carry my wand to and from the bathroom while at headquarters," Snape replied. "Should have know better knowing that there would be Weasleys about though."
10. The door opened and she felt and hand close around hers. "We have to hurry."
She recognized the voice. It was Professor Snape. "The train?" she asked.
"I don't know, but we are not safe here." He pulled her to her feet slowly and guided her into the corridor in front of him, keeping a hand on her arm.
"My magic isn't working," Hermione said.
"No magic works here," Snape said. "This particular stretch of land is a void for magic. It is rumored to be cursed. The train broke down while passing through." He pushed her slowly forward, and she heard the metal groan slightly. "It seems that our car broke away from the others and slipped off the track." Once more he urged her forward. "We need to hurry before we slip again, but move carefully."
Before they could take another step, the car moved again. Hermione was knocked off her feet and slid along the floor. She only stopped when she slammed into the back wall of the car. Pain shot up her left leg, and she cried out in pain. Before Snape found her, the car had stopped moving.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"My leg hit something," she said. "It hurts a lot." In the dark, she heard him moving, but she was still startled when she felt him touch her leg.
"I think the car is stable," he said and he felt her lower leg and foot.. "But we have most likely fallen too far to escape on our own. We will need to wait for someone to rescue us."