Not Yet (A Hermione Granger fanfic)

Chapter 15

A/N: If I had to give this chapter a name, it would be titled, "Flirting." Hope you enjoy. ;)

********Chapter FIFTEEN*******

"I don't want to show you this, Granger." Snape dropped the Miss a couple of days back. Going to surnames works for Hermione, who still can't work through how she feels about Severus Snape calling her by her given name or some pet name that makes her feel like a wounded animal. And if he can't call her Hermione, she's not going to call him Severus. Not yet.

They'd had to start over, relationship-wise. Even though her history with Snape runs much deeper (and shallower, depending on how she looks at it), she's been comfortable with Orev. But now Snape . . . Severus? . . . Snape . . . is there in Orev's place. And she's having to rework her feelings to accommodate the change.

One of the feelings she needs to work through is how much she enjoyed Orev's close proximity. But it won't do to think of Snape that way, will it?

"I just want to learn a few more complicated spells, for insurance," she says.

They were just stopping for the day, having spent considerable time following a trail that turned out to be nothing. Of course, Snape had said it was nothing to begin with, but Hermione had insisted on postponing their search of the first cave in favor of checking this section of the woods.

And they've been arguing for the last hour. Hermione wants Snape to show her some of the Dark spells he knows. He is flat out refusing.

He takes the tent from Hermione. "Then learn them from your books," he says. "Nothing will entice me to show you those spells."

"Afraid of sullying my good name?" she shoots at him, annoyed.

"No, of sullying mine. I've never knowingly taught Dark spells to a student, and I'm not going to start now."

"But I'm not a student anymore."

Snape throws down the tent in anger, his eyes flashing. "In. Deed. So I should not be obligated to teach you anything!"

"Alright, don't get worked up."

"Worked up? Granger, you don't know what you're asking."

She takes the tent from him, afraid he is going to damage it if he keeps picking it up and throwing it down. It is old and fragile, after all. "Then enlighten me."

Snape's nostrils flare. He's thinking of something snarky, she can see it in his eyes, but he hasn't let the words fly yet. When he finally speaks, it is with a kind of forced control leaking out of every phrase. "As much as you might enjoy being a student, did you ever think that I don't want to go back to being a professor?"

"Is that all that's bothering you? I was thinking you could show me more as a friend and a fellow member of the Order than as a teacher reprising an old role."

"Her—Granger, the only reason I've been able to go on with my life is because I've put certain things behind me. And standing in front of an old student, teaching her Dark spells that I learned from You-Know-Who himself isn't high on my list of things to do to keep my past in its proper place."

"You wouldn't have to stand in front of me, just off to the side—"

"Argh! Infuriating witch!"

Hermione smiles inwardly. She can't help but be pleased that she's flustered him.

"You enjoy torturing me just a little, don't you?" he asks, his voice a little more composed.

"I learned from the best."