Chapters 31-40

Teacher, Teacher, Toil and Trouble

She must have dozed off, because the next sound Hermione heard was Snape’s smooth voice near her ear as he asked, ‘Did the sweet children tire you out already? Why, but it’s only your third day! I cannot imagine a heroine of the war to give up quite that quickly.’

Hermione blinked—trying to go from sleepy exhaustion to witty repartee within a few seconds, and failing miserably. All she could see were his dark eyes, black and fathomless, and his gaze made her stomach flutter. For fleeting moment she the horrible suspicion overwhelmed her that he knew exactly what an effect he was having on her. Then her ears caught up with her eyes, and she realised that his voice sounded ever so much better. Almost like the silky-tongued potions master of her school days. Had he attempted that ‘silly’ exercise after all?

She couldn’t help smiling, a befuddled, sleepy, honest, happy smile.

A smile that made him frown and draw back instantly, and suddenly she was wide awake with her heart racing and her mind in desperate circles: mustn’t think mustn’t think mustn’t let him see mustn’t let him see how I how I—that I—

Somehow she managed to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘And yes, they did. How did you survive so long?’

Too tired for diplomacy and too Gryffindor for subtlety, she added, ‘More precisely, how did you survive me?’

The mere thought of Ravenclaw smartarse Pearl Shynnyng was enough to make her feel nauseated. And the girl was only one rather small Second Year, compared to a whole group of sullen teenagers interested in anything but study groups.

The corners of Snape’s mouth quivered. Then he gave in to the impulse and snorted. In better days the sound might have been a chuckle.

‘There’s one of your kind in every other class. Along with a Neville and hopefully only one specimen of Weasley twins. Oh, and we mustn’t forget a pair like Potter and Draco, of course. Though I should probably warn you now—you can count yourself lucky if you get them as boys. Boys are less studious and much more obvious than girls.’

Hermione blanched.

Snape smirked, but his reply was almost gentle: ‘Don’t worry, Miss Granger. If you’re merely weary to your bones, if the classroom is not in ruins and less than ten pupils are in the hospital wing, you have done very well indeed for your third day.’

‘But I don’t think they learnt anything today at all,’ she moaned.

She knew she didn’t have the perfect personality for a career as a teacher—she was too impatient, she hated having to repeat herself. But to fail at such an important aspect of her tasks as Professor Snape’s apprentice…If she didn’t even manage teaching basic potions to a horde of Second Years, how could she ever hope to…

‘Welcome to your life as a teacher at Hogwarts,’ the potions master said dryly.

oooOooo

She dropped her wands again, her face screwing up as if she was close to tears.

Snape was ready to snap at his apprentice, when something about the way she’d winced when the larger wand had struck her palm, how she couldn’t keep her fingers from twitching now and again, registered with him belatedly.

Minerva’s words came back to him, ‘Her hands were completely flayed because they were drenched in your blood.’

Shite.

He ought to have remembered that. The only reason he hadn’t snarled her to hell and back or even chastised her as was his right was that he was so bloody tired himself today. She ought to have told him.

Why hadn’t she told him?
Bloody Gryffindor stubbornness.
Why did she so desperately want to impress him?

…she wanted to impress him?

‘He–’ He was about to clear his throat, when he remembered Petrel’s admonitions. Instead he only swallowed painfully. ‘Miss Granger? Could it be…’

He shook himself. Her hands, wet with his blood, with his blood and Nagini’s venom. Snape heaved a sigh. He had to do better than that.

‘I was informed that your hands were injured when you saved my life. Is it possible that there are some after-effects that impair your performance with your wands?’

Her wands, one moment held loosely in her hand, cluttered to the ground once more. She was deathly pale as she stared at him.

After-effects, my arse, he thought, and bent down to retrieve her wands. It was not something he would normally do, touching the wands of another wizard, but Hermione looked as if she was about to faint.

Somehow in the process birch touched yew.

The energy and wisdom of two sphinx feathers mingled and flowed into him, soothing and golden, overwhelming him, blurring the world before his eyes.

He would have fallen, but for Hermione’s hand catching him just in time. He heard her suck in her breath in agony, then the power found her—recognised her—and flowed through his body into hers, drawing them together and drenching them with warmth and light. When the flow of magic ebbed away, he felt as breathless as if he’d just played a round of really fast Quidditch, or crazily made love to a beautiful woman.

‘I didn’t know that the core of your wand is made of a sphinx feather,’ he said slowly.

She was staring at him as if she had never seen him before. ‘I—I—I’m sorry—’

He shook his head. ‘I should have asked,’ he said softly.

Carefully he laid their wands on the table and reached for her. Clasping her gently around the wrists, he pulled her hands towards him.

He stared at those hands. They were slender and very white, perfectly healed. Nothing reminded of what they must have looked like, stripped down to raw flesh by the touch of his blood.

‘I can give you a salve for your hands,’ he whispered.

13 Responses to Chapters 31-40

  1. Katie says:

    “Carefully he laid their wands on the table and reached for her. Clasping her gently around the wrists, he pulled her hands towards him.” awww, bow-chicka-bow-bow

  2. Fluffette says:

    Prue Halleywell!! Will Phoebe, Paige and Piper turn up?

  3. Teresa says:

    Hello! Wonderful story – I first started reading it when you were in the process of writing; however, I never finished so I hope to do so now. Unfortunately the link to chapters 41-50 doesn’t work…I also cannot find a different path/link to those chapters (any kind of overview) so it would be great if you could take a look whenever you have time. Thank you 🙂

    • JunoMagic says:

      The link should work now. There was a character missing in the url of the next chapter.

      Unfortunately the chapter overview in the sidebar is broken, and I’ve been trying in vain to get the plugin creator to take a look at what’s wrong. *sigh*

  4. lanie says:

    Just a heads-up: the Magicarena link is no longer valid. Other than that, good story.

    lanie

  5. Xexar says:

    First off, I love this story. The pacing is wonderful and your grasp of the characters is awesome, they are all recognizable from their canon but still have an original voice.

    I was just curious though, you haven’t had anyone remark on there being a Muggleborn in Slytherin; something that I had figured would be noteworthy. So, I was wondering if this had happened before or if her father was actually a wizard or perhaps there was a squib somewhere back in her family tree?

    I just had to tell you that you having the Slytherins play Settlers of Cataan was truly inspired…if ever there was a game that was made for them, that is the one! I swear I’ve played it with a few of them, promising one thing in trade and actually handing over something else (buggers).

    • JunoMagic says:

      Thank you for reading and for your kind comment! I’m glad you like the story so far. I remember well how much fun I had introducing the kids to Settlers in my story. 🙂

  6. obsidianjg says:

    I love how Hermione messes with Snape’s running of the Slytherin house. On top of having a muggle born not only as apprentice, but also as a student in his house, it must be trying for him. Hermione does not follow the time-treasured Slytherin rules. For the Slytherins that so far prided themselves mostly for purebloodedness (at least as far as the viewpoint in the books allowed), that must be something. I like it that the Slytherin’s show some redeeming qualities in this story.
    I really like how you bring the worlds closer together in proving that not all muggles are stupid even if they don’t have magical abilities.
    So, the cruciatus curse has some long term side-effects. Very realistic. No Reset button for the war-veterans and some interesting possibilities for h/c scenes 🙂 .

    • JunoMagic says:

      Slytherin: I think Slytherin must have some very nasty dark secrets (which will surface unexpectedly later on 😉 ), but they are not automatically Evil (or misunderstood saints, as some fans would have it …).

      Muggle vs. magic world: “Apprentice” was in every way an experiment, and I simply explored all facets of the story that seemed interesting to me at the time. I just let my imagination run wild. And the Muggle/wizard dynamics were just waaay too tempting. 🙂

      h/c: Guilty as charged. *grins* I like me some nice h/c, what can I say …

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