Chapter Thirteen: The Decision

Severus stormed into the Great Hall wearing a scowl. Minerva sat alone, primly sipping her tea and reading the paper. It was not long before she acknowledged his arrival.

“And here I thought you weren’t coming,” she remarked cheerily as he seated himself. “Paper?”

Severus ignored the paper she held out to him, so she folded it and put it down on the table between them.

“I’ll leave it for you to enjoy privately,” she said. “Severus, we have things to discuss.”

“You want the office,” Snape said immediately. “There is nothing to discuss. The most difficult part will be getting the bird to move out.”

Minerva sighed.

“I’m sure Fawkes won’t be a problem, even if you were to make him live in the dungeons. Severus, the office is the least of my worries. The truth is that you are still Headmaster of Hogwarts, whatever the Ministry might have to say on the subject. I am acting as Headmistress now, but you have neither given up nor been removed from your position. So, we need to discuss what you want to do.”

When Severus did not reply immediately, she continued.

“Now that your name’s been cleared you have options,” she said. “You have found favor with the public. You have Dumbledore’s phoenix, you are tirelessly working to save a student, and you are a war hero. It would be foolish to resign now, when the board is so eager to have you stay. It would give you time to pursue your own work, and it would give you some distance from the students. After all that’s happened, it may be best if you are not in the classroom with them, for their sakes as well as for your own. Nobody will know how to act. Furthermore, I must confess that I don’t want the responsibility of the school. I’m old, Severus, and I’m comfortable teaching. I don’t know what I would do without the classroom, and I honestly doubt that anyone else could teach Transfiguration to my standards.”

Severus leaned back and folded his arms.

“Have you actually managed to talk yourself out of the most prestigious position in education in the country?” he asked.

She folded her arms as well and stared back at him.

“It seems I have. Severus, it would be a burden for me and I don’t need the prestige. Any time last year, I would have gladly taken the position, but the more I think about it, the more certain I become that I would do it only out of duty.”

“And so the duty is mine.”

She made an impatient gesture with her hand.

“If you want it, Severus.”

She waited, eyebrows raised in anticipation, but Severus did not yet know how to reply.

“You want me as Headmaster.”

She cleared her throat. “I do. I think you would – do well, and that perhaps your Slytherin background will help with the tensions that are sure to be present this year.”

Now it was Severus’ turn to raise his eyebrows.

“A sentiment too optimistic for even you to believe,” he remarked with a smirk. “Most of the school will have had me in class, and no amount of publicity is likely to change their opinions of me.”

Minerva smiled slightly.

“You may be surprised,” she said, pushing her chair back to stand. “Now, may I take that as an acceptance of the responsibilities of Headmaster for the coming year?”

Severus hesitated.

“You may,” he said finally.

She looked quite relieved.

“Good,” she said. “We have more to discuss, but let’s continue after you check on Miss Granger. You have a meeting with the Minister tomorrow at noon, and the board will need official notification of your decision before the end of the week.”

Severus sat at the table and pondered his fate as McGonagall left with a slight bounce in her step. Anything would be better than the classroom and he rather liked the idea of returning as Headmaster with the public’s support. Even more, he liked the idea of running the school without the Dark Lord and his minions watching his every move. It had been hell then, but he had still been glad to escape the classroom. He might never teach Potions again, a most welcome realization.

The abysmal state of Defense education was going to change. Severus would monitor the class closely, as well as Potions. Slughorn was competent, but he was so eager to entertain and impress that he was likely to skim over the less attractive elements of Advanced Potion Making. Severus remembered his own days in Slughorn’s class too well.

Severus stopped himself before he made too many plans. Now was not the time. He went to check on Granger.

Dumbledore's portrait was thankfully empty again. Severus stood beside Granger’s bed and stared at her closed eyes. His hand paused on its way to open them. A newspaper lay beside her, slightly crumpled from being read and re-folded. So the Weasley girl had come early today. Severus picked up the paper and opened it.

“It is embarrassing that this paper would stoop so low as to insinuate that Professor Snape would propose marriage to his student. A man of his intelligence and accomplishments would never fall in love with a teenage witch, no matter how much time she might spend in the library!”
-Mary Mims

“Hermione Granger is not as smart as she thinks she is and she’s no beauty. Just ask anyone in my year. But you did get one thing right – she would never marry Snape. She’s practically a Weasley already.”
-Annonymous Hogwarts student

“If Hermione ‘Beauty’ Granger won’t have him, let the rest of us have a chance!”
-Glenda Wartwich

Hermione and the Poison Apple

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who lived with her Muggle parents for eleven years, never knowing that she was actually a witch. Hermione’s magic was strong and she was very clever. She learned advanced magic quickly at Hogwarts, causing all of her professors to take notice. Even Professor Snape was impressed, and he was almost never impressed.

Hermione may have discovered that she was a witch at eleven years old, but there was another secret about her identity that she had yet to learn. Hermione was adopted. She had been found on the doorstep one morning with a very strange note indeed. It had read:“Dear sister, I must leave the little one with you for a few days to look for Daniel. He's disappeared again. Take care of her, and give her a proper name. I expect I will be back by Sunday.”

Well, nobody was back by Sunday, or any day after that, and the poor Muggle woman who found Hermione was nobody's sister. That nobody was Lark Morin, a powerful witch gone mad from a potions mishap. She had escaped her family’s wards and gone on many delusional adventures and no one had heard from her in years.

It was not until Hermione’s seventh year at Hogwarts that Lark decided that she wanted to see her daughter. She returned to the house where she had left the child and watched her for weeks. Lark saw that Hermione was a brilliant and magically powerful witch, perhaps even more powerful and more beautiful than Lark herself.

Lark became jealous of Hermione and began to hate her more than anything. She went away and plotted, recalling the ancient potions and spells that had once been so familiar to her.

One day at Hogwarts, during Potions class, Professor Snape’s instruction was interrupted by a woman screeching his name from the corridor.

It was Lark. She had managed to enter the castle and found her way to the dungeons to visit her former Potions apprentice.

The professor dismissed class immediately, shocked to see Lark alive and perhaps more surprisingly, at Hogwarts. Lark insisted on having lunch with him.

Now it just so happened that even in her insanity, Lark was still very clever, and had convinced a house-elf only a half hour earlier to make sure a very special apple appeared on Hermione’s lunch plate. She knew from her weeks of observation that Hermione loved apples. Lark watched from her seat next to the professor as Hermione picked up the apple and took a single bite.

Immediately, Hermione fell to the ground. Professor Snape was the first of the professors to reach her and so he did not notice Lark slip out quietly.

The professor soon realized that the apple Hermione still clutched in her hand was poisoned, but he would toil for many months without discovering a cure. He suspected Lark was the culprit, but the mad witch was found dead a week later from another one of her own concoctions.

In addition to being very clever, Lark Morin also had a terrible sense of humor. She had worked into her poison apple a curse that would not be lifted unless Professor Snape kissed Hermione. Lark had once been in love with Severus Snape and had told him to kiss her, but he had only replied ‘Why? Have you poisoned your lips?’

Lark thought she had made a great joke, but there was something Lark did not know. Over the years the professor had become more than impressed with Hermione; he had come to love her. Lark never got her kiss, but will Hermione?

Severus crumpled the paper up with an exasperated snort and tossed it back on the bed. Sooner or later they would run out of fairy tales to bastardize, and that day could not come soon enough. The stories were far too preposterous to truly threaten his reputation. Any witch or wizard who formed an opinion of him based on such rubbish was not someone he would wish to have as a supporter in the first place.

Severus opened Granger’s eyes and heard footsteps approach the room. They stopped short of the doorway, but he knew who it was.

“Enter, Miss Weasley,” he said. “I am on my way out.”

Dumbledore’s portrait had returned and Severus was not in the mood to chat this morning. Severus swept past the silent Weasley girl and into the hall. His sudden exit most certainly did not have anything to do with the fact that he had suddenly become aware of Granger’s unmoving lips, which were as pink, thin, and as delicate as ever.

Fine then, leave without saying hello!

Severus stopped just short of the doorway. It was the second time Granger had invaded his thoughts from across the room, but the first time she had done so completely on her own. He exited and stood outside of the door, leaning against the wall. Inside, he could hear Ginny Weasley chatting brightly about something. He glanced at the cracked door beside him and shut his eyes in concentration.

“I reminded Ron that it was her birthday two days ago and he still forgot. Honestly, my brother is an idiot. I don’t know what you ever saw in him, Hermione.”

Weasley sighed, then laughed.

“I shouldn’t say that, but sometimes Ron really doesn’t get it.”

Actually, Ginny, I think you should say it more often, next time to his face and make sure to punch him for me.

“Harry’s been great lately. I can’t believe how moody I’ve been!”

I can.

“I feel bad about it, but he just leaves me alone and doesn’t say a word. I think I’ve trained him well.”

How lovely for you. Perhaps you could have him punch Ron for me. Somebody needs to do it.

“Mum keeps hinting about us getting married. She's relentless and so obvious about it! She keeps saying how she would just love to have Harry in the family, and that he practically lives at the Burrow anyway. But just because she got married right out of school doesn't mean I want to!”

Yes, it must be terrible to think that you might marry Harry Potter and live happily ever after. It’s only been your dream since you were ten.

“Well, let me read this story to you. It’s so long today!”

Severus opened his eyes and stepped away from the door. He was certain that she had not noticed him listening to her thoughts, but he did not want to risk getting caught eavesdropping by lingering. Their connection must be stronger than he had thought, to be able to hear her at such a distance with no eye contact. Perhaps more surprising was the sarcasm in her thoughts, something he had not heard before. It seemed that Hermione would not be a Weasley after all. The next time he saw Ron Weasley in her room, he would take great pleasure in removing him.

Severus left the girls and went to look for Minerva, who was not in her office. He met her in the corridor, her face flushed and her heels clicking sharply as she strode toward him.

“Reporters! If you had not just agreed to be Headmaster, I would order you to give an interview tomorrow, Severus. You can deal with the next one!”

“You make the mistake of speaking to them at all,” said Severus. “It only encourages them.”

“I might just hex the next one upon sight,” she mused. “It would be satisfying.”

Severus did not reply. He was still not used to making conversation with Minerva. She had opened the door to her office and he followed her inside to begin their meeting.

An hour later, Severus left in a terrible mood. He had to meet with the Minister tomorrow. It was sure to be a long, drawn out affair. They would go to lunch. There would be reporters everywhere. Severus was determined not to say a word to any of them.

He went to Granger’s room. She was alone now, the newspaper still crumpled on the bed. He picked it up and stood with his arms crossed.

“Good afternoon, Granger.”

Hello, she thought, a bit sullenly it seemed.

“I trust you enjoyed today’s rubbish,” he said, waving the paper in his hand, and noting the rush of embarrassment that flooded her thoughts.

Not at all, she thought. Did you?

“What makes you think I would read such drivel?”

There was a brief pause in which he sensed she would have been smirking at him if her face had been able to cooperate.

I heard the pages crinkle when you read it this morning.

Severus scowled and dropped the paper into the wastebasket.

“I believe Mr. Weasley may be scheduled for a visit tomorrow,” he said. “Perhaps he will find a way to entertain you that does not involve 'The Daily Poppycock'.”

Whatever he does, he had better not read anything, said Hermione. It’s truly torture to hear him!

“No, Miss Granger, it is not,” admonished Severus in response to her dramatic tone. “Painful though it may be.”

Another pause followed as her mood sobered.

I know what torture is. Bellatrix –

Severus heard the echo of tortured screams in her thoughts and regretted his rebuke immediately.

“Enough,” he said quickly, and pulled out his book.

Oh, I was hoping you would, thought Hermione. Thank you.