Fanfic: Those Who Favor Fire (Chapter One)
Rating: T. Pairing: Hermione/Snape
WORK IN PROGRESS
Chapter One
She could kick herself, sometimes, for being one of "Those Girls."
The ones who base the whole of their existence on a man (or a woman, the freedom fighter within her screams).
The ones who plot their travel throughout the day to which route is more likely to bring her into contact with him, if even for a moment.
She hates that he has become her everything.
She hates these things, hates herself, because, she has found, it is impossible for her to hate him for what he does to her.
When she is sitting in class, he is talking about Defense tactics and she does not care. She just sits there and lets his words wash over her, because she could listen to him talk until the end of days and it would never be enough.
It wouldn't matter what he was talking about. He could recite her parents' washing machine instructions and she wouldn't give two Knuts, so long as he kept talking and never stopped.
His dismissal of the class almost hurts. Her head jerks up the moment his voice stops speaking. She gathers her books and notices, to her horror, that she has not remembered to take any notes.
Playing over the class in her head, she realizes that he has not strayed too terribly far from the text, and resolves to write up some fake notes for the boys to study that night.
Harry and Ron don't notice anything. Not that they would.
* * * * *
She has figured out that if she positions her spoon just right at breakfast, she can catch a refracted, distorted image of him. She has, she is certain, reached a new low.
She can't help it. His eyes, his greasy hair, the way he dominates a room when he enters - they all enchant her. When he swoops upon their table during Defense, she catches a whiff of sandalwood and something that she suspects might be sphynx eyes - a rare and illegal potions ingredient.
Her brain automatically begins to rattle off to her reasons why sphynx eyes are so very illegal. She doesn't listen to it.
She can’t think logically why she might have developed an obsession like this, and she concludes that she simply must have, as Ron likes to say, lost it.
* * * * *
Today, Professor Slughorn again drags out the Amortentia potion and begins a lengthy discussion about why Ashwinder eggs are so closely rationed and monitored by the Ministry. Today, then, will be a lecture, and because it's Professor Slughorn and not Professor Snape, she drags out her parchment and quill and begins taking lengthy notes.
At one point Professor Slughorn begins to take the pot of love potion around the room, asking his students to smell and record their notes for a homework assignment. Hermione cannot come up with a reasonable explanation for why her Amortentia now smells like mildew and copper and sandalwood and sphynx eyes - a scent she should not at all be familiar with - and so she jots down her observations from the beginning of the year.
Grass, fresh parchment. Mint toothpaste.
* * * * *
There are many nights where she doesn't go to bed until well into the early hours of the morning. Half of this is homework, which her peers expect and never comment on.
Others are stolen hours, beneath her muffliato-d and silencio-d and otherwise-warded canopy bed. They are hours of feverish dreams, of fantasies that she knows will never come true.
In her most private of them, he tells her he has fallen in love with her, with her remarkable beauty and her outstanding intelligence and most especially, her willingness to please.
Her roommates - Lavender and Parvati - never comment on her face when she wakes up, so she assumes that the tears manage to dry themselves well before she wakes up.
* * * * *
Hermione Granger has never hated herself more than the day when he - she can't say his name, can't even think it without feeling a horrible stab of betrayal - kills Professor Dumbledore.
She hardly thought it possible. All of those things she loves about him - his cunning, his intelligence, his bravery and willingness to risk it all - they were all fake. Not-real, complete fabrications, her very fine mind whispers accusingly.
She brushes it to the side and begins dressing for the funeral.
* * * * *
The day she watches him die she feels as if her heart stops. She looks at him and she knows that he has only ever seen Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor brain, and yet that tiny part of her that knows he killed Dumbledore but doesn't care wants him to see her as something more: a woman.
It's the same tiny part that knows he is dying and there's nothing she can do about it.
He broke her heart when he murdered Professor Dumbledore, and yet somehow, it still beats as strongly for him as it did on that day in her sixth year, when her Amortentia absolutely stank of mildewed dungeons (blood) and suspicious potions ingredients.
Hermione knows that if she took a whiff of that damned potion right at this moment, it would smell exactly the same.
She can see the moment the light goes out of his eyes, and even though she's supposed to hate him, she lets herself cry.
* * * * *
When Harry tells her that he was a good man, that he fought for them even when all hope was lost, she is exultant. Hermione, however, is a very smart young woman and she only allows herself a brief moment of joy before the sorrow sets in. She always knew, of course, that she would never have a chance to prove to him how very eager to please she was - and oh was she - but his death smashed those dreams to pieces and she feels like grieving the death of her first real crush.
She knows that she is young, and she is fairly certain that she is not sure what love really is, not in the romantic sense anyway. But she thinks that she might have loved Professor Snape - maybe just a little bit. If she didn't have even the slightest tiny bit of love in her heart for him, would it hurt so very much?
WORK IN PROGRESS
Chapter One
She could kick herself, sometimes, for being one of "Those Girls."
The ones who base the whole of their existence on a man (or a woman, the freedom fighter within her screams).
The ones who plot their travel throughout the day to which route is more likely to bring her into contact with him, if even for a moment.
She hates that he has become her everything.
She hates these things, hates herself, because, she has found, it is impossible for her to hate him for what he does to her.
When she is sitting in class, he is talking about Defense tactics and she does not care. She just sits there and lets his words wash over her, because she could listen to him talk until the end of days and it would never be enough.
It wouldn't matter what he was talking about. He could recite her parents' washing machine instructions and she wouldn't give two Knuts, so long as he kept talking and never stopped.
His dismissal of the class almost hurts. Her head jerks up the moment his voice stops speaking. She gathers her books and notices, to her horror, that she has not remembered to take any notes.
Playing over the class in her head, she realizes that he has not strayed too terribly far from the text, and resolves to write up some fake notes for the boys to study that night.
Harry and Ron don't notice anything. Not that they would.
* * * * *
She has figured out that if she positions her spoon just right at breakfast, she can catch a refracted, distorted image of him. She has, she is certain, reached a new low.
She can't help it. His eyes, his greasy hair, the way he dominates a room when he enters - they all enchant her. When he swoops upon their table during Defense, she catches a whiff of sandalwood and something that she suspects might be sphynx eyes - a rare and illegal potions ingredient.
Her brain automatically begins to rattle off to her reasons why sphynx eyes are so very illegal. She doesn't listen to it.
She can’t think logically why she might have developed an obsession like this, and she concludes that she simply must have, as Ron likes to say, lost it.
* * * * *
Today, Professor Slughorn again drags out the Amortentia potion and begins a lengthy discussion about why Ashwinder eggs are so closely rationed and monitored by the Ministry. Today, then, will be a lecture, and because it's Professor Slughorn and not Professor Snape, she drags out her parchment and quill and begins taking lengthy notes.
At one point Professor Slughorn begins to take the pot of love potion around the room, asking his students to smell and record their notes for a homework assignment. Hermione cannot come up with a reasonable explanation for why her Amortentia now smells like mildew and copper and sandalwood and sphynx eyes - a scent she should not at all be familiar with - and so she jots down her observations from the beginning of the year.
Grass, fresh parchment. Mint toothpaste.
* * * * *
There are many nights where she doesn't go to bed until well into the early hours of the morning. Half of this is homework, which her peers expect and never comment on.
Others are stolen hours, beneath her muffliato-d and silencio-d and otherwise-warded canopy bed. They are hours of feverish dreams, of fantasies that she knows will never come true.
In her most private of them, he tells her he has fallen in love with her, with her remarkable beauty and her outstanding intelligence and most especially, her willingness to please.
Her roommates - Lavender and Parvati - never comment on her face when she wakes up, so she assumes that the tears manage to dry themselves well before she wakes up.
* * * * *
Hermione Granger has never hated herself more than the day when he - she can't say his name, can't even think it without feeling a horrible stab of betrayal - kills Professor Dumbledore.
She hardly thought it possible. All of those things she loves about him - his cunning, his intelligence, his bravery and willingness to risk it all - they were all fake. Not-real, complete fabrications, her very fine mind whispers accusingly.
She brushes it to the side and begins dressing for the funeral.
* * * * *
The day she watches him die she feels as if her heart stops. She looks at him and she knows that he has only ever seen Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor brain, and yet that tiny part of her that knows he killed Dumbledore but doesn't care wants him to see her as something more: a woman.
It's the same tiny part that knows he is dying and there's nothing she can do about it.
He broke her heart when he murdered Professor Dumbledore, and yet somehow, it still beats as strongly for him as it did on that day in her sixth year, when her Amortentia absolutely stank of mildewed dungeons (blood) and suspicious potions ingredients.
Hermione knows that if she took a whiff of that damned potion right at this moment, it would smell exactly the same.
She can see the moment the light goes out of his eyes, and even though she's supposed to hate him, she lets herself cry.
* * * * *
When Harry tells her that he was a good man, that he fought for them even when all hope was lost, she is exultant. Hermione, however, is a very smart young woman and she only allows herself a brief moment of joy before the sorrow sets in. She always knew, of course, that she would never have a chance to prove to him how very eager to please she was - and oh was she - but his death smashed those dreams to pieces and she feels like grieving the death of her first real crush.
She knows that she is young, and she is fairly certain that she is not sure what love really is, not in the romantic sense anyway. But she thinks that she might have loved Professor Snape - maybe just a little bit. If she didn't have even the slightest tiny bit of love in her heart for him, would it hurt so very much?