When Hermione Fights

When the Lioness Roars

Chapter beta: Dani & Olivia, (Deeylla)

Chapter translator: Sophie, Svenja, Lea & Aivy

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The next morning came as suddenly as always, and I got myself ready for my daily run. It was unbelievable how fast my body had gotten used to this daily obligation, but it felt good.

I couldn't forget Harry after yesterday. I knew I had assured him of my trustworthiness but I was also sure about the fact that a little bit of mistrust would still remain. It was a completely natural reaction, but it confronted me with a problem: I promised Snape not to leave the school for Easter, but I was unsure how viable that promise would be now. I needed to fill up the last holes in Dumbledore's vita and that would require a visit to Godric's Hollow - yet another thing I had to plan for.

Lessons after Christmas followed the usual pattern and sadly Umbridge hadn't gone missing over the holidays. She and Harry did their best to make each other's life difficult with their mutual antipathy, which is hard to believe, but nonetheless true. So it was up to me to calm Harry down after the day's lessons had ended. I even meditated with him to stabilise his mental shields, otherwise they would crumble in mere seconds. My problem was that in the last five years Snape had managed to ingrain into Harry's mind the belief that, no matter what he did in Snape's classes, his work would never be up to par; let alone good.

This was the main reason he had little... Nah, not even that, he had absolutely no confidence in his ability to master this particular field of magic. Adding to that, in Harry's eyes Occlumency was a more nebulous part of wizardry that he couldn't grasp and we had a recipe for disaster. I fully understood his wish to keep his intimate thoughts and feelings to himself, especially his desire to not divulge them to anyone, especially Snape. I wouldn't want anyone to read my mind as well, no matter who.

After sending Harry down to his damnation in the dungeons, I kept laying on his bed in the dorm and thought about a question I had successfully repressed until now. What would I do if Snape decided to call me again? It had been a surprisingly long time since his last call, most likely due to time restraints, seeing as he had multiple people keeping him busy. Nonetheless, I was pretty sure that I would hear from him again, maybe not in the next couple of days, but soon.

I had decided to stop nagging Draco about his feelings on the matter. He would only tell me the same "Snape is family" bullshit. Given that he never tried to talk to me about it, I just assumed his opinion hadn't changed. Maybe he wasn't inclined to change his opinion and didn't like to be reminded of it. Thinking about this as a possibility strengthened my resolve to not pester Draco again.

Lost in thought, my hand moved to the edge of my uniform skirt, moving my pointer finger below it to feel the mark that graced my skin since Christmas. I had hoped that I would be able to hide it, but given that I already tried multiple illusion spells - even the dark ones - and none of them had given me the desired result... and so my last resort was the unicorn blood, but it was far too valuable for a test run, thus I would only use it if a situation made it unavoidable.

I groaned. If this didn't work out, I would have to think of a position, where he wouldn't be able to see my stomach. The only reason why I was still keeping my hopes up was that I never yet had needed to take my clothes off. Though I knew myself that with my luck, he would want to see me completely naked next time for sure! Oh yes, I could just imagine it.

Frustrated, I stared at the canopy on top of my bed whilst my thoughts drifted from Harry to Snape, back and forth. Snape, always Snape, I smiled wistfully. No, time to think of something different!