Free

Chapter 38

The days passed and Christmas drew near. Hogwarts was covered in snow and its inhabitants slowly got into the mood of the season. The last week of school before the students were free to go home to celebrate Christmas with their families, Professor Flitwick started decorating the trees that Hagrid had brought in from the forest. Meanwhile, Hermione took over more and more lessons from Severus, who in turn took to observing her way of teaching.

Harry and Draco were mostly in the headmistress' office doing assignments to keep them busy and somewhat in school with no preferential treatment.

Hermione was to teach all of Severus' classes for the day which she found to be quite peculiar, even to her standards. Adding to that he behaved differently if one were to ask her. She would have said that he was nervous if she didn't know any better - but Severus Snape was never nervous, or was he?

Despite Severus' arguable nervousness that lasted the whole day, Hermione held all her classes and was in quite a good mood at dinner that evening after everything went better than well for her that day. She even took Severus up on his offer to sit at the head table, leaving Harry and Draco, who were now nearly the same age as prior to the incident, to eat with Neville, Astoria and the others.

"Severus, why are you so nervous?" asked Hermione during dinner that evening, looking worriedly at him.

"Not now, Hermione," was his short reply after which he just continued eating.

It wasn't long before they all sat together in the living room with Hermione on the couch and Severus in his favourite armchair, the both of them reading. Harry and Draco were both eagerly learning for some sort of test Minerva wanted to do the next day. Hermione had never seen Harry study this eagerly her whole life, and it was beginning to scare her.

"I think I should call it a night for today, I'm getting a terrible headache," sighed Harry around 9 in the evening, closing the book he was reading in.

Draco looked up at him before saying:  "Strangely enough I feel the same way. I guess I should stop now, too."

Two hours after they left, an owl clanked on the small window in the dungeon room. Actually, the window was there for that purpose only. Severus stood and retrieved the letter that was tied to the bird's leg before getting it a cracker after which she flew away rather happily.

"Yours or mine?" asked Hermione whose interest was clearly spiked.

"Both, I'd dare say."

He walked over to the couch again and sat down next to her.

"This," he gave her another good view of the letter, "is the reason I was so nervous in your opinion.  I arranged for a ministry worker to watch how you teach today. This can only be your final results."

He could see her brain working, trying to process this information he just gave her.

"Before you ask, it was Minerva's idea. She helped me with this. The ministry worker is an animagus. That's how he managed to observe you today. Now, are you ready to open it?"

Hermione didn't know what to say about this at first and all she could do was nod.

With jittery hands, she took the envelope from him and opened it up revealing the cream-coloured parchment underneath. After looking at him for reassurance she took it out and began to read, holding it so that he was able to read at the same time.

Dear Master Snape,
After the thorough observation of your apprentice's way of teaching and her skills when answering difficult questions, the Ministry is happy to declare Miss Hermione Jean Granger a potions mistress, and therefore she is allowed to take on a teaching position, and she is free to take on apprentices of her own.
With best regards,

Grant Hopkins

Hermione was speechless when she finished reading the letter. To her, it was still surreal that her apprenticeship with Severus was now officially over without her actually noticing it.

She let her hand down, figuring that Severus surely was finished reading by then.

"Does - does this mean-"

The young woman didn't finish her sentence and instead, her companion spoke.

"It means that you're officially a potions mistress now. This could entail you taking over the position of potions professor in the very near future so that I could take over Defense again. I'm proud of you, you know that?"

"But this, too, means that any argument Skeeter had, is invalid, doesn't it?" asked Hermione with a  hopeful expression.

Instead of answering her question, Severus leant in and simply kissed her, which was better than any verbal answer he could have ever given her.

Hermione revelled in the feeling of him kissing her, and it didn't take her long to deepen the kiss.

"Get a room, won't 'ya?" asked a voice behind them. They parted, although unwilling, to see who spoke.

The young emerald-eyed wizard with round glasses stood in the hallway, two glasses of water in hand.

"Why should we? These are our chambers and if I recall correctly, you should be in bed," answered Severus coolly as Hermione couldn't help but blush and bury her face in the crook of his neck.

The younger man shrugged and went on his way back into the room Severus had turned into a bedroom for him and Draco.

"Hey, what's up. It's just Harry," laughed Severus kissing the top of her head.

"Nevertheless, I do think he's right," answered Hermione looking up at him.

"You're right. Come."

He stood and held out his hand to help her up from the couch and then guide her towards his bedroom.

"Severus, my bedro-"

"I just want you near, that's all," answered the man and Hermione thought that this was kind of cute in its own way.

Once in his bedroom, he changed while she did the same after having summoned some pyjamas.

They both slipped into bed, and he kissed the top of her head and bid her goodnight before closing his eyes and falling asleep not too long after that.

She however lay there for quite sometime after that, thinking about the day she had and how seemingly everything had changed in the matter of mere hours.

However, even she found sleep that night despite her brain wracking itself the whole time.