Getting the Hang of Thursdays

Chapter 5 - Pete Fell In...

By Hayseed

Day Eighty-Two

It was more difficult for Granger to remember than it was for Severus. Quite possibly it had something to do with the fact that at the end of Granger’s day, she found herself dead -- Severus merely went to sleep -- but he had absolutely no intention of asking her.

When she did remember what was going on, she also remembered to be angry with him. That was actually how he knew -- if Granger’s barriers were in place, she simply looked up at him with confusion as she died, but if they weren’t, she gazed at him with fury.

Mostly, he left her to her own devices. He’d had difficulty coping with the truth himself, and he wasn’t the one who was dying at the end of the day. But Severus had gotten very good at putting it out of his mind for the largest part of the day -- if Granger didn’t want his help, he would be damned if he was going to continue to offer it to her.

Meaning, of course, that he kept to his office while he wasn’t teaching. Over the past few todays, Severus had ordered a breakfast tray from the kitchen instead of going to the Great Hall. Avoiding all contact with Granger until her actual class became his normal course of action.

And now, during his break between classes, Severus was marking those hateful third year essays yet again. It was almost enough to give his first years a surprise test in his first class, just to have something different to mark for once. On this particular today, Severus had finally given in and commented truthfully on the essays as he marked them. It felt perverse and delightful to write whatever he actually thought in the margins of their parchments. You have the comprehension level of a two-year-old, you brainless twit... if this hadn’t been copied word-for-word out of the textbook, I might have thought that you possessed a rudimentary intellect... the most pathetic excuse for an essay that I have read in my entire career...

In one way, it was a shame that he would never be able to hand them back. But on the other hand, Albus had hinted in more than one staff meeting that making students cry was not an acceptable teaching technique.

Severus looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly time for his afternoon lesson. With a sigh and a stretch, he laid his quill down amidst the few remaining unmarked essays and began searching around for his lecture notes.

Of course, after giving the identical introductory lecture on Restorative Draughts more than fifty times practically in a row, Severus didn’t exactly need his notes, but he wanted them all the same. It was oddly comforting to have parchment to rustle through as he stood in front of a class, and the fact that he generally did not have to refer to the notes he left lying on the podium as he spoke only reinforced his authority in the classroom. He had the notes, but he did not need them -- prepared, yet fluid. There were few joys to be had in teaching, and so Severus took full advantage of those he could find.

Finally, Severus saw a sheaf of pages protruding from under a book lying on his workbench on the other side of his office. Picking them up and riffling through them -- they were, indeed, the correct parchments -- he noticed that another ten minutes had crawled by. If he didn’t leave directly, he was going to be late. And it did not do to be late to one’s own lecture.

He frowned down at the notes in slight exasperation.

Wait a minute...

Blinking, he ran his finger down the edge of one of the parchment pages. Or rather, he ran his finger down the oddly distorted line of air where the edge should have been.

“Shit...” Severus mumbled, flipping through his notes and noticing that most of the edges had ‘worn away.’ One page had a startling hole of blinding nothingness right in the middle. “Shit, shit, shit...”

Granger ought to know. She was entitled to it. As the only other person in the time-loop who even had the faintest idea of what was happening, Granger needed to know.

Severus took off at a dead run, knowing it was undignified and not caring, clutching his lecture notes to his chest. He’d no idea where the girl could be -- she hadn’t bothered to attend his class for the past couple of todays; it was growing less and less difficult for her to remember.

Of course, that was a sign, as well, now that he came to think on it.

Up a set of stairs, down another, through a corridor, peeking around doors and wishing that there was a better way to go about this. Panting, Severus paused both to breathe and to check his watch -- somehow, another whole hour had passed. He only had thirty minutes or so. Avoiding Granger was shaping up to be a bad idea. He really didn’t know her well enough to know where she would go.

Although...

He did know where she usually went to die. If she did not perish in his arms, Granger was usually found on the Quidditch pitch, near the Gryffindor common room, or, in one particularly horrible incident, floating facedown in the lake. That was fairly early on, however, and he’d decided to simply throw the girl out of class that day without explanation. Albus had notified the staff about an altercation down by the lake in the middle of class, but Severus had gotten there too late to do anything other than fish Granger’s blue-tinted body out of the water.

Actually, that was when Severus had realized that the more he intervened and tried to save Granger’s life, the more it felt as if he was directly killing her each time.

Severus closed his eyes and tried to push the unwanted memory of Hermione Granger’s blood on his hands out of his mind.

He had to tell her. She deserved to know.

The Gryffindor common room, then. It was about five past two, so Granger should be nearby. Severus willed himself to walk instead of run up to the Fat Lady’s portrait. “Erm, excuse me, madam,” he said in as polite a tone as he could muster, “could you please tell me if Miss Granger has been by recently?”

The Fat Lady gave him an equally polite smile. “Actually, Professor, she hasn’t left the dormitory all day. Do you need to speak with her? I suppose I could -- oh, hold on, lovey.”

Severus blinked -- had she just called him ‘lovey?’

Swinging forward, the portrait’s voice was muffled as she continued to speak. “Speak of the devil... Miss Granger, the professor has been looking for you.”

Granger, still half inside the portrait hole, fixed him with a baleful glare. “I’m going back in,” she said, backing up slightly.

“I have the authority to follow you, you know,” Severus replied mildly.

Face hardening further, Granger stilled. “I have nothing to say to you, sir.”

Fed up with the girl, Severus felt his face settle into a matching scowl. “But I have something to say to you, and you will listen to me, you insufferable little brat.”

With a sigh, Granger pulled herself out of the portrait hole and made a great show of straightening her robes. “Shouldn’t you be teaching right about now?” she muttered.

“Shouldn’t you be learning right now?” he countered with a thin smile.

Granger glanced down at her watch. “Not for long, at any rate.”

He let it pass. “I have something to show you, Granger.”

“You have about five minutes,” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot impatiently. “After that, I’m afraid that I’ll be otherwise occupied.”

“Granger...” he growled warningly, wondering why he was even bothering. “I have been indulgent up to this point, but I will not tolerate any more of this.”

Looking as if she wanted to say something absolutely poisonous, Granger settled for a quiet huff. And then, “What do you want, Professor?”

“Here... look,” he said, shoving his lecture notes roughly at her.

Resignation written all over her features, she took them, glanced through them, and looked back up at him with a quizzical expression. “These are your notes for today’s lecture on Restoration Draughts, Professor.”

With a great effort, Severus managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “I know that, Granger. Look at the edges.”

She squinted. “They’re ragged.”

He opened his mouth to explain, but she cut him off before he could even begin.

“More than ragged... there’s something I can’t... Professor, what’s wrong with these things?”

Severus’ smile was humorless. “Turn to the third page, Miss Granger.”

A rustle, and a muffled exclamation. Granger dropped the entire bundle. “Oh, God! Professor Snape, what was that? It was...”

“You felt as if you were blind as you looked at it,” he supplied neutrally.

“Exactly,” she whispered, staring at the scattered notes as if they were about to strike her. “Professor --”

“It’s because of what’s happening to us,” he said. “Miss Granger, we are caught in --”

A loud, raucous scream rattled through the corridor suddenly, causing the both of them to jump. Something in Severus’ chest dropped down into his stomach. Peeves.

“Granger,” he whispered fiercely. “Granger, get --”

The girl cried out as a blast of air threw her off her feet. Granger went flying back toward an open window.

A window at the top of Gryffindor tower.

Unthinkingly, Severus flung himself after her. Her fingers grazed his as she toppled over the window’s edge. Making a second grab, however, his hand wrapped more or less around her wrist.

Granger was now dangling in midair, more than three hundred feet off the ground.

“Granger,” he hissed, “brace your feet against wall.”

“There’s no...” Looking past her wide, scared eyes, Severus saw her loafers scrabbling for purchase against the smooth wall, flailing.

His grip slipped just slightly.

“Fuck, Granger!” Severus shouted, trying to get a hold on her wrist with his other hand. “Hold on!”

As she made a fruitless swipe at his arms with her free hand, her eyes locked on her wristwatch and she gave Severus an incomprehensible look. “It’s too late, Professor,” she said in a neutral voice.

Granger slipped entirely out of his sweaty fingers and fell through the air. Severus looked away, unable to watch.

Day Eighty-Nine

Severus resisted the urge to rub at his eyes. He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing. Blinking rapidly, he realized that he was.

Halfway between the dungeon and the first-floor boys’ lavatory, sandwiched between the wall and the statue of Griselda the Bearded, at first, Severus didn’t know who it was. A couple of giggles, a robe hem peeking out from the corner of the statue, really, it could have been anyone.

Sensing trouble, Severus stepped around the statue and froze, shocked.

A half-dressed Ronald Weasley had his tongue in an equally unclad Hermione Granger’s ear and was, by all appearances, unhooking her exposed bra with his left hand.

It took Severus a few moments to even wrap his mind around the scene. Weasley and Granger were attempting to shag in the first-floor corridor, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock in the morning.

Just then, Weasley’s quest ran to fruition and the straps on Granger’s shoulders loosened and slipped down to her elbows. Something in Severus’ mind snapped.

“What do you two think you’re doing?” he thundered.

If he hadn’t been absolutely livid, he might have been amused at the dumbfounded expression on Weasley’s face. The boy took his hands off Granger’s breasts as if burnt. “Professor Snape, sir?” he squeaked. “I, erm... we were just...”

Granger, her hands now clutching her bra to her chest, just looked up at him impassively, not speaking.

“Are you completely brainless?” Severus exclaimed. “It’s broad daylight.”

Weasley, still mostly flummoxed, collected himself enough to shoot Granger a sideways glare and mumble something under his breath. Severus had a good guess as to who’d initiated the ill-fated tryst.

Shaking his head, Severus made a disgusted noise. “Get dressed and get to class. Both of you.”

Because he did not have to dress so much as straighten out his robes, Weasley was more or less in order long before Granger. The boy gave Severus one last terrified glance and dashed down the hall, not even bothering to look at Granger, who was fumbling at her back with her bra clasps. Severus wondered how long it would take the idiot to realize that Severus hadn’t even taken away so much as a point from Gryffindor.

“Miss Granger,” he began once Weasley was out of sight, “I am aware that you do not like the idea of dying with your virginity intact, but I find it hard to believe that Weasley is your only --”

“How dare you?” Granger cried, struggling into her robes. One shoulder covered and one shoulder bare, she abandoned the effort long enough to take a step forward and raise a hand in the air. “You bast --”

Severus anticipated her move and caught her wrist in the air long before her hand could make contact with his cheek. “Twenty points from Gryffindor for language, Miss Granger. And let’s make it another, say, eighty for attempted assault on a professor.”

She gave her arm a sudden twist and wrenched her hand from his. “Leave me alone, Snape,” she tossed over her shoulder as she strode away.

Day Ninety-Five

“... said to leave me alone,” Granger hissed through clenched teeth.

Severus brushed a bit of hair out of her face, away from a rising blister. “You came to class,” he replied mildly enough. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Fuck, this hurts,” she whispered as one of her sores broke open.

“Do you want me to call Poppy?”

Eyes rolling back in her head, Severus was startled by the resulting sickening flash of white. “What good would it do? Nothing... shit... there’s nothing for it.”

He pushed more of her hair out of her face, his thumb idly tracing her hairline. “What can I do for you, Granger? Tell me what you want.”

She turned her face away, averting her gaze. He could have sworn he heard her whisper, “Please, make it stop...”

Choosing not to comment on it, Severus settled for removing a bit of broken glass from her cheek, wincing as Granger gasped at the contact.

“What’s... that...?” she asked, labored breaths rattling in her throat. Severus looked up at the clock -- two thirty-three.

“Bit of broken glass,” he replied in a gentle voice. “There’s always broken glass.”

“Glass?” Granger echoed, eyes narrowing in obvious confusion. “But --” Her mouth fell open. “Professor, there’s something I...” Trailing off, Granger’s eyes lost their focus and Severus heard that sickening gasp that he’d come to know so well. Two thirty-four.

Right on time.

Day Ninety-Six

Severus nearly leapt out of his skin as a hand tugged at his robes. “Professor Snape?” a quiet voice asked from the vicinity of his knees.

As he flinched away from the source of the sound, he happened to look down. Granger was sitting on the floor beside his office door, her bag by her legs and her head tilted against the wall. And she looked like absolute hell, too -- dark circles around her eyes and her hair looking decidedly more flyaway than usual. “Granger?” he asked. “It’s five in the morning.”

“I know that, sir,” she said, the tiniest bit of humor coloring her tone. “But I wanted to speak with you.”

He continued to stare at her. “Clearly.” Stepping back into his office, Severus waited patiently for Granger to pick herself up and follow. “Would you like some tea?” he asked grudgingly as she settled herself in one of his chairs. “I was about to go to the Great Hall for some coffee, but I can call for a tray.”

Obviously distracted, Granger just looked at him. Or, more correctly, through him.

Severus cleared his throat.

Granger jumped in her seat and brought her eyes back to focus on his face. “Oh... no, thank you, Professor.”

“So...” he drawled, steepling his fingers under his chin as he propped his elbows on his desk. “Why are you here, Miss Granger?”

“I think what’s been happening is all my fault,” she said without preamble, hands sliding down to fiddle with the strap of her knapsack, resting by her knee.

He cocked his head. “Really? That important a person, are you?”

Giving him a dirty look, Granger just shook her head. “Of course not,” she said, clearly biting some comment or another back. “But... here...” Leaning down, she fumbled in her bag for a moment, pulling out a long, golden chain. Attached to the end of the chain...

“What the hell...?” Severus yelped, tilting back in his chair so quickly that he very nearly flipped it over. “Miss Granger, that’s a --”

“A Time Turner,” she confirmed, cradling the little hourglass in the palm of her hand.

With a fair amount of difficulty, he regained his equilibrium and steadied his chair. “How on Earth did you manage to acquire a Time Turner, Granger?”

She blushed and looked away, and suspicion immediately rose in Severus’ mind. “Well...” she hedged, mumbling something completely inaudible.

“Come again, Miss Granger?” he asked icily.

“I said that it’s not exactly mine,” she muttered, eyes focused firmly on her lap.

He came out of his chair at that, rounding his desk so that he could tower over Granger and more effectively glare at her. “What?” he asked dangerously. “Are you telling me that you’ve been carrying around a stolen Time Turner? Of all the stupid, unbelievable, Gryffindor --”

As she cut him off, he saw the anguish in her eyes. “I didn’t steal it, Professor,” she said in a quiet, agonized sort of voice. “Professor Dumbledore had it, and he gave it to Harry, so he could... well, you know...”

Severus thought viciously of Potter’s Invisibility Cloak and remained quiet, waiting for Granger to continue.

“And Harry sort of loaned it to me for a while,” she said, wringing her hands by now, “what with classes and all. Professor, I hadn’t slept for days, and there it was... I know I shouldn’t have taken it, but I was just so tired...”

With a sigh, Severus pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and pointer finger. “Granger, I ought to be absolutely furious with you. Any other day and I would drag you to Albus and demand your expulsion. But today... I think today has been and will be punishment enough for you, Granger.”

“But it’s not just me, is it?” she asked bitterly, glaring down at the Time Turner. “I’ve damned us all. We’re all going to die, aren’t we, Professor? We’re caught in a time-loop.”

“Technically,” Severus said in a thoughtful voice, perching on the corner of his desk facing Granger, “we’re not going to die, per se. We’re just going to... fade, I guess. Be nonexistent. At least, if a time-loop affects us the way they affect non-living objects.”

Granger kept her head down. “It’s already happening, isn’t it? The breakdown, I mean.”

With a shrug, Severus resisted the urge to put a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I think so. I am not an expert in such matters.”

“Actually, Professor,” she replied with a grim laugh, “I expect that you rather are. As close as anyone’s ever seen, at any rate.”