The whole thing was very queer. Since that display of Hermione's yesterday evening his thoughts roamed the vast lands of this incident. He had tried to distance himself from it before, but now that she had started to follow him it was hard to do, especially since he had found “Severus Is My Hero” posters with his scowling face on them all over the school. He sincerely hoped that he had found and removed all of them. He had finally started to do what Albus and Minerva had prompted him to do before: attend to that matter.
But the one thing that really made him want to find out more about Hermione’s odd behaviour was the fact that he remembered witnessing something like this before.
It had been when Hermione had been in her fourth year, not long ago. Lisa Madson, Ravenclaw Head Girl, had started to act funny after the Easter Holidays. She had tormented her friends, left the kitchens in utter chaos, followed Peeves around the castle while loudly singing the national anthem of France, announced her engagement with the Bloody Baron, stopped to speak like a normal person and only giggled at one point, screwed up potions, insulted the staff, built a high pile of chocolate frog cards in the Entrance Hall and other such things. Quite like the things Hermione did now.
Severus was surprised at the similarities between these two girls. Both were Head Girls and both were very studious. Both loved to hold endless reading sessions in the library, particularly in the Restricted Section to which Head Girl and Boy had full access, and both had gone mad in their seventh year. Because of this madness, Lisa Madson had failed all her N.E.W.T.s.
His natural curiosity had taken over, he wanted to explore the mystery, solve it, he wanted to find out what had caused the girls to lose their sanity. And in the meantime, he could as well help Hermione regain hers.
But this morning was a bad day to start this new project as Severus was in a very foul mood today. He had nearly overslept because he had drained half a dozen mugs of coffee after Hermione left last evening. He had needed them; it had been very stressful to have Hermione occupy his rooms.
And into the bargain, his wand was missing. He had noticed this when he wanted to apply the usual shaving charms to his face. Instead he had to use a Muggle razor. And the one person that had been in his quarters after he had last seen his wand was Hermione Granger.
He scowled at his pumpkin pie. He would have to seek her out and make her tell what she had done to his wand. Fantastic. First thing on his how to best ruin you day list: seek out mad Hermione Granger. Tick.
When he arrived at the Gryffindor house table, Severus found Hermione prodding Harry with her wand and amusing herself greatly at it.
“Miss Granger, a word,” he demanded angrily. Harry seemed relieved to hand her over to him.
Severus noticed that Hermione looked very tired, another similarity with Lisa Madson, he realised. He scowled at her, trying to make her go quiet as she was still giggling like a fool.
“Scowling is so sexy, Severus, scowl some more!” she said. Severus found he complied, but rather because he felt like scowling and because he had the funny feeling that she was about to confess her love once more.
“Miss Granger, calm down!” he said, taking both her shoulders and turning her to face him, but holding her at arms-length from him for fear she might try to kiss him. Or do anything else.
She looked rejected and pouted, but he didn’t let himself be influenced by this. “Miss Granger,” he shook her slightly, “I need you to tell me where my wand is.”
No guilty confession from her, no helpful hint as to where it was, but mad giggling and hysterical laughter were what he got out of her. She gasped for breath, unable to draw it while she was spending too much of it on shrieking with ear-piercing laughter.
“Do you know where it is?” he demanded impatiently, aware of all the people who stared at them. Minerva seemed to take extreme pleasure in watching.
Hermione nodded and blushed, still not able to calm down. She looked as though she was going to burst at any moment.
“Where is it, then?”
Even more mad giggling followed this question. The students in the hall were all craning their necks to get a glimpse of what was going on between their Potions Professor and the Head Girl.
“Earth to Miss Granger, where is my wand?”
Hermione slowly lifted her hand and pointed at Severus’ trousers. “There is your wand. I bet you can do wonderful things with it,” she said, catching a pause of her hysterical laughter.
Severus couldn’t believe what she just said. Followed by the eyes, the gossip and the laughter of the whole school (could he deduct house points from all houses and give all of them detention with Filch? he wondered), he seized Hermione at her arm and dragged her out of the hall and into a nearby corridor.
“How do you think you will get away with all this?” he growled menacingly at her.
“I love you,” she said matter-of-factly.
Merlin, please, not again. “Where is my wand?” he tried to distract her from her currently favourite topic which she seemed to approach at every opportunity.
Hermione seemed to sober a bit, now that they were out of the Great Hall. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I meaaaaaan,” she said, swaying slightly on the spot, “that I have noooo idea where it is, Sevvie.”
He decided to abandon making her call him with his proper title. “But you do know what happened to it?“
“Miss Granger?” For she had suddenly sunk to the floor.
Severus stood over her like Goyle in front of a bookshelf; he had no idea what was wrong this time. He squatted down beside her and shook her roughly. She didn’t react. He got up and was about to conjure up a stretcher to transport her to the hospital wing when she suddenly jumped to her feet again, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.
“I knew you love me,” she told him trustfully. “Why else would you care for me?”
He pointed out that if someone found her dead or unconscious while he stood next to her, marvelling at the sight before him, there would be many nasty questions. But this wasn’t as convincing to her as it was to him.
“Do you know what we will do once we’ve grown up?” she asked him, a manic gleam on her face. “We will marry and have tons of children!”
“We might, once you’ve told me what you have done to my wand.” To his surprise, it worked. He would have to remember this approach for the next time, though hopefully there’d be no next time.
“I made it invisible.” She sounded very proud of her achievement.
“You. made. my. wand. invisible,” Severus managed. “Are you mad?”
“Isn’t it great?” she asked, jumping on the spot and clapping her hands.
“Yeah, fantastic.”
“Sarcasm is just one more service we offer,” she remarked, taking out a notebook and making a tick on it. Severus peered over the notebook and tried to read what was on it.
Checklist “ The Man Of My Dreams the heading said. Below it was a table, filled with hundreds of words and short phrases.
Hermione looked up at him and proceeded to tick several more points. “Curious .. tick. Helpful .. tick. Charming .. tick. Hair..” She looked at him, squinting at his hair. “Half a tick. Black as ebony wood, but clean as a landfill.”
“Miss Granger, I still need my wand,” Severus impatiently cut her off.
“I told you it’s invisible,” she said, while she took out a ruler and measured the length of his nose. “You know what they say about the length of one’s nose ..”
“Where is it? How do you think I’ll find my wand if it’s invisible!” he shouted.
“I dunno. It’s not my problem, is it?” she said innocently. “It was somewhere in your quarters.”
“Hmmmpf!” Severus decided it was no use trying to get something sane out of her. “Good day to you, Miss Granger,” he said through clenched teeth with a strained false smile on his face. He turned around and strode off, his robes billowing behind him.
“Nice ass .. tick.”
********
He had managed to get his wand back with Albus’ and Minerva’s help. Minerva predictably had burst out laughing when he told them and Albus’ eyes had just twinkled madly like stars on the clear night sky.
“It could have come worse,” Minerva assured him, mockingly patting his back.
“Like .. she could have made your other wand invisible,” Albus offered.
“Honestly, do you ever take anything serious?” Severus complained, sending Albus a dirty look.
Minerva had cast a Detection Charm and in no time Severus had his wand back, accompanied by the teasing of Minerva.
At the moment he was making his rounds in the castle, trying to detect students that were still out after curfew. To his disappointment, he didn’t find any. He walked to the library, hoping to find some over-zealous sixth or seventh year there.
To his great amazement, a faint light emanated from the closed door of the library. It was shortly after midnight, who would be studying now? The students with at least some brain in their head were all in their common rooms or dormitories.
Severus silently opened the door and slid inside. He crept along the many bookshelves, looking for whoever was still there. When he reached the Restricted Section, his search was crowned with success. A student was sitting there, Hermione Granger.
He approached her and was about to shout at her, hoping to make her cower, when he noticed something that made the words stick in his throat.