Where Words Fail

Chapter 3

Hello everyone! Please don't shoot me, I know my update is a little overdue. I must admit to you, I tried my best but found absolutely NO time to write... "Life waits for no one", as they say. I won't give you my excuses, I will only say that there were situations entirely out of my control at play.

PLEASE READ: Guys, I write this purely for feedback and reviews... and I received none last chapter. I'm not ashamed to admit that broke my heart a little. :/ Please, I don't care if you're just saying hi, or saying how much the story sucks, but I'd love those reviews! If not, I may just discontinue the story.

And with that, I hope you like this chapter! On with the story!

"Mr. Longbottom," Professor McGonnagall reprimanded, "Hold your wand firmly! Sloppy wand movements will not produce the required result."

Minerva McGonnagall loved nothing more than teaching the first years. As they had no previous experience, they were the hardest, but also the most rewarding to instruct in Transfiguration. The looks of wonder on their faces when they performed their first transformation were memories that she would always treasure.

Slowly taking a turn about the room, she observed the work of her young charges. Today was their first try at their major project for the semester, transfiguring a mouse into a goblet. It was proving to be quite the challenge for some, indeed.

"Ugh!" Ronald Weasley growled as he nearly slammed his wand into the desktop. "Why isn't it working?!"

Professor McGonnagall's lips turned slightly at the corners, barely giving away her amusement. Walking to his table, she was just about to respond to his rhetorical question, when another voice beat her to it.

"Ron, you're trying to force it too much. Magic is natural, you have to let it flow out of you."

McGonnagall turned her head to the voice, Ronald Weasley's partner for the day, Hermione Granger. In the few months of being a student at Hogwarts, she was already proving to have the talent for learning magic that very few second and third years have achieved. She was always the student who wasn't afraid to ask questions, regardless of the continuous stares she received every time she raised her hand. Schooling wasn't a chore for her, but a privilege. That kind of reverence for instruction warmed the professor's heart.

"Well said, Ms. Granger." Professor McGonnagall said, giving an affirmative nod whilst returning to her perusal of the classroom. "Five points to Gryffindor."

Her lips curling into a faint smile, Hermione returned to her own mouse.

"Let it flow out of you? What kind of poetic nonsense is that?" Her red-faced parter murmured. Hermione rolled her eyes before continuing to work.

By the end of the week, Hermione's mouse had already been successfully transfigured, where the majority of her peers had only succeeded in changing theirs' fur colors.

Severus Snape sat at his desk, tapping his fingers upon the dark wood while his other hand held a quill dipped in red ink. His eyes focused on the paper he was currently grading, and he could hardly believe what he had just read.

Porcupine quills in Draught of the Living Death? Has she paid attention in any of my classes?

Scrawling a large 'P' in the upper right corner of Lisa Cullen's essay, he huffed a disapproving sigh as he set the graded paper in a completed stack. The second period bell had just rung, notifying him that first year students would be arriving at his classroom at any moment. The first to arrive, being, of course...

Granger. The door to his classroom was pushed open, and the scrawny girl with bushy hair hurried to her seat at the front of his class. She was always the first to enter his classroom, and there had yet to be an exception to this pattern. Does this girl even have friends?

"Good afternoon, Professor," Hermione said with her smile as she collected her potion materials from her bag. She surely was a strange one. Where the rest of his students would cower and rarely dare to utter a word in his classroom, Hermione Granger showed no signs of fear whatsoever as she gave her customary greeting. He wasn't entirely sure he liked it.

"Is it really, Miss Granger?" He drawled. Hermione, knowing better to respond, simply opened her potions text and began to read.

As several minutes passed, more and more students entered the classroom, and Professor Snape began his usual speech.

"Today, you will all brew for me an effective Wideye Potion. If you will look at the board, you will find the appropriate instructions." With this, his eyes pointed to the desk beside Hermione, the one where Ron and Harry sat. Opening his mouth once more, Professor Snape addressed only them. "And there will be no rough housing in this classroom, is that perfectly understood?"

Receiving nods from around the room, Snape began to observe the class through his penetrating gaze.

Hermione teamed up with Susan Bones, and with both of them being fairly competent Potions students, had no problems with producing an acceptable batch of the potion with a large portion of their time left over. After the two girls had placed their sample on his desk for observation, they returned to their desk. Miss Granger, unsurprisingly, pulled out a book to read until the end of class.

Only, something about this book seemed strange to his well-trained eye. It wasn't the usual hardcover textbook or research material that he had become accustomed to seeing in the girl's hands. This book was a bit thin, and Snape could barely make out the title from across the room after narrowing his eyes.

'Piano Masterworks: Intermediate Levels'?

Schooling his expression, his face left no trace of the confusion he felt. Granger plays?

For whatever reason, this surprised him. This year had been in session now for several months, and he had assumed that he knew all that there was to be known about his severely lacking first years. The thought of this irritating, know-it-all bookworm being involved in the arts had never occurred to him.

He secretly pondered whether she was any good.

It had been many years since Severus Snape had last seen, or heard the playing of a piano.

Don't even think about it.

Saving him from his thoughts, the period bell let rang it's shrill cry, dismissing the children for lunch. He returned to grading the 4th years' essays.

Now before you all go back to the real world and do whatever it is you do, please don't forget to leave me a review!