'Hello, Granger,' Snape sneered as Hermione entered the dungeon. She herself looked calm and business-like. She wanted to get this over with.
'You're late. That'll be ten points from Gryffindor,' Snape hissed.
'Wha-'
'Late, Granger. You can tell the time, can you not? Or does that prove too difficult for your mental capabilities?'
Hermione shrugged. Snape was horrible, but as the smartest student in the school, she had been assigned to work with him on a potion for the Order. 'I'm sorry, sir,' she replied.
'Well, we may as well get on with it. Do you know about the properties of Wrinkleweed?'
'If it is mixed with moonstone it causes someone to feel deeply disloyal to his or her employer. So we're going to use it on Peter Pettigrew then?'
Snape looked impressed. 'Naturally. The effects won't last for long, but while the Dark Lord loses his most trusted servant, the Order and your arrogant little Potter friend will attempt to ambush him at his weakest.'
'Why would Voldemort be weak without Pettigrew?' asked Hermione.
'You are too young and insignificant to use the Dark Lord's name, Granger. Do not ask about matters you will not understand,' Snape snapped. Hermione was intrigued, and resolved to ask Harry when she next saw him. She didn't get many chances to talk to Harry anymore - often he missed lessons due to his work for the Order, and he had become increasingly quiet and secretive.
Snape took a flask of moonstone and poured it into the cauldron he had set up, where it bubbled silver for a moment, emitting a low, hissing sound. 'Granger, have you been stewing the Wrinkleweed thoroughly?' he asked. Hermione produced a small vial of a strange, dark green liquid from her robes. As she did so, her robes billowed around her, revealing her slim figure. She looked up to see Snape gazing at her, and his lip was not curled.
'Bring it here, Granger.' Hermione was confused. She had just seen Snape look at her with....what? Longing, even....tenderness? No, it couldn't be. She was still a student, and besides, Snape couldn't be capable of any romantic feeling. She already suspected that Snape had loved Harry's mother, which was why he was so bitter. But for him to like her now....
Hermione's head was spinning with questions. When she looked at him, he was really quite an attractive man. His skin was unhealthily pale, he was haggard, he was lined, but beneath it all, he wasn't ugly. His cheekbones were set high in his face, and his eyes were dark and vivid. She looked at him directly, and he could not sneer, could not help but look back. He turned away from her.
'I asked for the potion, Granger,' he said harshly. Quickly she brought it to him, and he added it, turning the mixture a clear, unfaltering blue.
'Now we need to wait for a fortnight for it to cement, won't we?' Hermione asked.
'Very good, Granger, you always were a know-it-all. But you have omitted one detail- phoenix feathers must be added to it daily. I suppose you can work out why.'
'Because putting in the symbol of Dumbledore will strengthen Pettigrew's loyalty to him and weaken his links with-with You-Know-Who. Though I don't know why I can't just say the name. It's a bit stupid, all this secrecy around him. He's back in power, and we can't even refer to him properly, we're so scared. And you call him the Dark Lord, like the Death Eaters.'
Snape looked tight-lipped. 'When I tell you to do something, Granger, it is because you are a student, and I am a professor. I hope you are not questioning my loyalty to Dumbledore by what you have just said. You may keep you impertinent opinions to yourself.'
'Well it's true, isn't it?' Hermione shouted. 'Only the Death Eaters call him that, and you're meant to be on our side, or so Dumbledore tells us. So why say it?'
'You really are crossing the line,' Snape said, and his voice was soft and dangerous.
'So were you, a moment ago, looking at me in that way.'
Snape flushed. 'If you imagine things because you have a schoolgirl crush, that is hardly my fault. Although your taste is somewhat worrying.'
'Why? Can nobody like you?'
'SHUT UP!' Snape roared suddenly. 'You have said quite enough. If I need a counselor, I will go to one. I will not waste my time talking to a buck-toothed seventeen-year-old.'
Hermione was silent. Then she whispered, 'I only meant, that if you were.... nicer, people would like you. I, well, I would like you.'
'I don't know where you got the impression that your liking is something that matters to me. And however much you seem to wish it, I am not about to embark on an affair with a student. I think you had better leave.'
Hermione gathered her things and went, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. She knew she wasn't wrong about how he had glanced at her though. As she left, he glanced at her swinging nut-brown hair, and felt something he knew it was wrong to feel. Desire.