Love Potion

Sparks in the Corridor

"Hermione Granger, detention. Tonight, my office, five o'clock." Snape said softly. He knew she didn't deserve detenion, but he gave it to her anyway, unsure of quite why, yet unable to stop himself with reason.

Hermione's face paled. Biting her tongue from wailing, but why?!, she swallowed hard and answered calmly, "Yes, sir." Unable to keep the frustration from her face, she turned and let the thick curls cover it instead.

"Don't be late," was all he said to her for the rest of the class.

After Potions, Hermione had a free period. She sat alone in the common room and wrote in her diary.

Today I got detention from Snape. I don't know WHAT I did to upset him, but he looked really mad. I've got to go right after Nighttime Star Search with that Centaur, the one Ginny thinks is hot. I wonder what I'll do with detention with Snape? I hope he doesn't have me cleaning those nasty jars of who-knows-what lining the classroom walls. But then again, who knows. It may not be so

She paused, her quill hovering just above the parchment. Her lips pursed. She had been about to say, it may not be so bad.

But why? What good would come from an hour with Snape? There was nothing good about that. There was nothing good about being forced to scrub jars of disembodied monster anatomy or wear her knuckles raw cleaning the old cast-iron cauldrons.

Not thinking of much else to say, she closed the leather journal and let it fall to her lap. 

"Are you okay, 'Mione?" a voice from behind the over-stuffed chair pulled her out of her thoughts. 

Hermione craned her neck to see who had spoken to her. She sighed and smiled at Ginny, who looked as if she had just woken from a very satisfying nap. "Yes, I'm all right," she said. "I just feel... odd." She absentmindedly let her fingers trace the contours of her rib cage, following a pattern they had learned so well with the past few weeks. "I just need a new quill." As if to prove her point, she held out the battered, worn-out feather she had been using and stood from the chair. 

Ginny nodded. "Then... can I have that chair?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, but nodded to Ginny and tucked the diary into her robes. 

"Thanks." Ginny dove onto the chair.

Hermione pushed the portrait-hole open and stepped out, careful not to wake the sleeping Fat Lady. As she wandered down the slightly chilled halls of her beloved school, she thought absently, her mind wandering to her family, her friends, and her upcoming detention. What had that been about, anyway?

Suddenly- CRASH! Hermione's vision jarred and she heard the sound of papers flying about. Hermione shook her head to rid the dizziness of the impact. She hastily looked to see who it was she had crashed into. "I'm so sor- oh," she trailed off when her eyes had focused on the object of her impact. "Professor Snape. Pardon me."

"Watch where you're going, Miss Granger," he snarled, but the acerbity that usually laced his sultry voice when addressing Hermione or her friends was absent. Could it be, he was less cold when it was Hermione alone? Perhaps he felt less aggressively towards her, since his acquaintanceship with Hermione was less strained than that of his with Harry or Ronald. The thought, however fleeting, baffled her and, she bent and gathered up the many parchment slips that had scattered over the floor. When she handed the thick stack to Professor Snape, her hand barely brushed his, and a sudden shock went through her body. 

Her hair stood on end, and she blinked, startled. Hermione looked up for a split second into Snape's face, then looked away, hoping he hadn't felt it too. Her heart pounded. 

Why? Why do I feel so... strange? she thought. And for once, an arbitrary term like 'strange' was the only word the usually well-equipped logophile could conjure up for her twisted stomach and cramping lungs.

Professor Snape's usually solemn, expressionless countenance also seemed, in this static-charged moment, to be etched in... disbelief, maybe. Perhaps she was reading too deeply into the oddness of the encounter.

 The troubled Gryffindor gulped, then stepped aside to let her professor pass. He sashayed around her and continued walking as if nothing had happened, his robes trailed behind him like an ominous cloud, almost like foreshadowing of something dark to come.

Hermione bit her lip. Whatever that shock had been, it had startled the poor girl half to death, and she couldn't remember for the life of her where she had been going. Her stomach filled with butterflies. Thankfully, the between-class gong rang out, and she scurried off to find her books without a second thought.