Getting the Hang of Thursdays

Chapter 8 - Pete Fell In...

By Hayseed

Day One Hundred Fifty-Five

Severus’ lecture notes were gone. Not missing, not destroyed... gone.

Of course, they had been slowly but surely... disordered. Losing structure as their constituent atoms were affected by the residual entropy building up all over Hogwarts.

Heat death.

He wondered if it hurt. If your atoms losing all sense of their internal structure was painful.

Severus was fairly certain that he would find out shortly.

In the meantime, however, he was planning to eliminate as much pain as possible.

Hence all of the brandy.

Severus was fairly certain that Albus had not been fooled that morning when he Flooed him to beg off teaching -- if he did not make his excuses, Albus would most certainly come looking for him, and today of all days, Severus did not want to be found. He hadn’t waited to begin drinking before he talked to Albus and, consequentially, his usually insufficient plea of illness might have been more believable -- disorientation and slurred speech symptoms of a good fever, after all. But Albus had simply raised an eyebrow and told him to get all the rest he needed -- Severus did not think for a second that Albus believed him (that blasted eyebrow confirmed his suspicions).

It did not signify, though. He did not have to teach today.

He did not have to watch Granger die.

All he had to do today was make sure that his supply of brandy was quite depleted.

There was one good thing about repeating the same day over and over, he reflected as he gloomily swirled the liquor around in his glass. Not only was his supply of alcohol virtually unlimited (as long as he was content with the half dozen or so bottles he had lying around his quarters), he was guaranteed to wake the next day with no ill effects.

Severus contemplated his brandy and decided that maybe becoming an alcoholic wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounded. After all, he wasn’t likely to be an alcoholic for much longer.

The trick was to keep the level of alcohol in his bloodstream more or less constant, just enough to sustain the illusion that he didn’t care that the world was falling to pieces about his ears. To numb the feeling of Granger’s hand on his cheek and the memory of the look in her eyes.

Maybe... this is how it’s supposed to be.

Severus took another sip.

That was ludicrous, of course. What sort of place would the world be if Granger were supposed to die? A harmless little chit of a girl with only an annoying tendency toward overachievement counting against her?

A longer sip.

Actually, he decided, that was probably exactly how the world should operate -- at least, if it was the sort of world he’d come to expect. A world where Lucius Malfoys went unpunished, where Harry Potters were adulated for their mothers’ deeds.

Where Hermione Grangers died again and again and again.

He forcibly pulled the brandy glass away from his lips. Overindulging would mean passing out and passing out would mean waking up. And waking into the same nightmare over and over was something that Severus preferred to only do once a day.

There was a knock on his office door, abruptly. Severus looked up from his glass and tried to focus on the door across the room. “What do you want, Granger?” he asked loudly.

The door creaked open and Granger’s head peeked through the opening. “What if it hadn’t been me, sir?”

He returned his gaze back to his liquor. “It always is,” he said in a dull sort of voice.

“You weren’t at breakfast,” she said, inviting herself into the room and sitting down in what Severus dimly suspected was her ‘usual chair.’

“Hardly an uncommon occurrence,” he replied, emptying his brandy glass.

“Yes, but...” Trailing off, Granger’s eyes widened as she looked at him. “Professor, you’re drinking? Are you drunk?”

For a moment, Severus debated taking points off but decided in the end that he did not care nearly enough. “Yes, Granger, I am drinking. But no. I am not drunk.” He regarded the few drops of amber liquor in the base of his snifter as if they were about to reveal the most profound of secrets. “Not exactly,” he amended. “Not yet, at any rate,” he amended further.

Granger was sitting too far away -- he could not see if there was disapproval in her eyes. Hazily, Severus hoped that there was. Maybe, then, she would go away in disgust, and he wouldn’t have to think about that look in her eyes any more.

Maybe... this is how it’s supposed to be.

Shaking his head, Severus stood and made his careful, deliberate way back to the brandy bottle, making sure that his steps did not waver as he walked. He filled his glass halfway, regarded it thoughtfully, and then topped it off. “Care to join me, Granger?” he asked on impulse.

The girl was quiet for a moment, still in the shadows -- Severus had not bothered to provide any light in his office aside from the flickering fire in the grate. “I am not old enough for you to make such an offer, sir,” she said eventually.

His interest was piqued. “Granger, how many days have we been caught in the loop?”

“At least a hundred twenty-eight days, by your count.”

He smiled and took a sip of his drink. “At least?”

“Probably a fair number more, given our circumstances,” she elaborated.

“And, pray, Granger, how many days away is your eighteenth birthday?” Another sip.

There was a grudging pause as Granger ostensibly did the mental arithmetic. “One hundred seventy-eight days, sir,” she replied reluctantly. “I see your point.”

“Probably not,” he said, giving her a smirk. “My point was merely that it is your choice, Granger. So, I reiterate -- would you care to join me?”

“What are you drinking, sir?” She sounded very nearly surly as she spoke.

He lifted the decanter at her. “A rather decent brandy.”

Granger’s voice was confused. “I thought that was a Muggle drink.”

“Indeed,” he said in an ironic sort of tone. “But it has been my experience, Granger, that ‘magical’ and ‘superior’ are not always synonymous terms. Firewhisky is an appalling beverage that only indigent wizards who are no longer fond of their taste buds indulge in.”

Sullen, now. Severus almost wished he could see her expression. “Why not?” she asked rhetorically. “I haven’t died from alcohol poisoning yet.”

He poured a second glass and held it in the air -- he would be damned if he was actually going to serve the girl. Granger emerged from her shadow and took it out of his hand. Hesitantly, she took a sip, and Severus realized that this was quite likely the first alcohol she’d ever ingested.

Nearly immediately, she made a spluttering noise and nearly dropped the whole thing. “It burns,” she managed between coughs.

“Finish it or not, Granger,” Severus said blandly, picking his way back to his chair. “As I have said, it is your choice. It makes no difference to me.”

The girl glared at him, but her hand tightened around her glass and she took another deliberate sip. Severus tried not to smile as she coughed another couple of times and mostly failed.

They drank in silence for a good, long time, the only sounds in the office coming from the fireplace as the burning logs crackled and settled. Severus noticed that Granger’s brandy was disappearing at least half as fast as his and was rather surprised; judging by her initial reaction, he’d thought that she probably wouldn’t even finish her glass through the morning.

Perhaps her comment about alcohol poisoning wasn’t entirely in jest.

“You know...” Granger began pensively, disrupting the quiet and sounding preternaturally loud as she did so. “I tried to contact the Ministry.”

Severus snorted. “The Ministry,” he echoed in a derisive voice.

“I thought maybe they’d have a way of getting through the time-loop. After all, they supposedly regulate all the Time Turners in Britain,” she said defensively. “But my owl didn’t even get off Hogwarts grounds.”

“Firstly, Granger, we are in a singular situation -- as this is not a case with precedent, I cannot imagine that our particular contingency has been anticipated. And secondly, when has the Ministry ever been helpful?”

Firelight flickered off Granger’s glass, indicating that she was taking another sip. “There has to be a first time for everything, Professor.”

“Granger, if you’re going to drink with me, you may not address me as ‘Professor,’” Severus said into his own brandy glass, finishing the last swallow. “It suggests a blatant abuse of authority that I do not feel is warranted under present circumstances.”

“My, what an articulate drunk you make, sir,” she said, upending her own glass.

He shook his head briefly and stood, making his way back to the bottle. “As I have said, girl, I am not drunk.”

“Not yet,” she amended, teeth flashing in a grin. “Would you please pour me another?”

Severus did as she requested, tipping the last glassful of brandy into her snifter after he filled his, and regarded the now empty bottle carefully -- the outline was pleasantly blurred, suggesting that the liquor was working.

“Is that the last of it?” Granger almost sounded disappointed.

“Got four more bottles in my quarters,” he replied, trying to enunciate as clearly as was possible under the circumstances.

“Ah...”

Granger allowed him to reach his seat in silence. “So...” she drawled as he situated himself. “If I am not to call you ‘Professor,’ sir, what should I call you, then? Your first name or your last name?”

It was the liquor talking; he knew it was. Severus would have never let his reply tumble off his lips if he hadn’t been on the verge of a crying jag. “Another couple of glasses of this and I’d probably respond to ‘Polly.’”

Granger chuckled. “I’ll have to remember that... Polly.”

He let her have that one.

Day One Hundred Sixty-Two

The door flew open with a bang. Severus, startled, dropped his quill and wrapped his fingers around the wand in his robes -- it wouldn’t do to be caught unawares, although he was fairly certain that danger was not imminent. Unless, of course, he counted Hermione Granger as ‘danger.’

Indeed, the girl was in his office and at his feet before he could do little more than blink. “Professor,” she gasped. “Come and see!”

“I am busy, Miss Granger,” he said, easing his wand out of his grip and picking up the quill again.

“Marking essays that you’ll just have to mark again tomorrow,” she retorted, making a face. “Now, come on, Polly -- got something to show you!”

Not waiting for a reply, the uncharacteristically bouncy Granger grabbed at his wrists and tugged. “Three points from Gryffindor,” he said as he stood, swearing never to drink alcohol around her ever again (and to take an exponentially higher number of points every time she called him Polly).

Granger literally ran down the hallway once she’d released him, uncaring of who saw her. Severus chose to follow at a more sedate pace. “Hurry up, hurry up, Polly,” Granger called over her shoulder -- she sounded very close to happy.

“Eight points from Gryffindor,” he tossed back, half-amused at her enthusiasm -- although a herd of wild Dumbledores could not have dragged that information from him -- and half-exasperated at being very nearly bodily pulled from his office. The exasperation, he let show. “Where are we going, pray?”

“Outside, to see,” she replied cryptically, picking up her pace.

Severus was forced into a near-trot just to keep up with her -- fortunately, they encountered no one on their little journey to the outside doors.

With a wide grin on her face, Granger reached out and pulled at the ring on the door, struggling to open it even the smallest amount. He hadn’t seen Granger grin like that in a long time.

Come to think of it, Severus hadn’t ever seen her grin like that at anyone but Potter and Weasley. Of course, he hadn’t made it a habit to follow the girl around, making a note of whom she graced smiles upon. It didn’t matter though -- Granger was here, she was happy, and, oddest of all oddities, she was grinning at him as if he was her dearest compatriot.

He almost returned the grin before he could help himself but hurried forward to help her with the door in an effort to disguise it. To further hide his sudden burst of good humor on her account, he made it a point to grumble as he opened the door. “This had better be good, Granger...”

“Because you were obviously so busy, sir,” she retorted, grunting as she gave the ring one last tug. “Ah, here we are,” she exclaimed, sounding satisfied.

Severus stared. “But... but...”

“I know,” she said happily.

“It’s never rained before,” he said, still staring up at the dark, threatening clouds.

“I heard the thunder from my dormitory,” Granger explained unnecessarily. “I was studying a bit and --” She made an exasperated noise as Severus quirked an eyebrow. “It won’t do to get behind on my NEWT revisions, sir.”

“I didn’t say anything, Granger,” he said.

“And I know it may not rain after all,” she continued, “but I thought you might like to see the clouds, at least. Some things change, Professor.”

“And some,” Severus said, turning as if to leave, “do not.”

He stopped short as he felt Granger’s hand on his sleeve. “Don’t you at least want to see?” she asked, face now solemn. “I thought --”

“Granger, if you would like me to stay, just say so,” he interrupted impatiently.

Something in her face relaxed, and he realized that he’d just lost the battle -- he would stay, now, no matter what happened next. “It’s been a beautiful day for so many days now,” she said wistfully, “the rain is... different. And anything different...” After a pause, she added slyly, “Besides, I rather thought you’d be fond of rain.”

The girl was attempting to tease him. He almost took points but remembered the feel of her hand on his cheek as she died and decided that Granger had pretty much earned the right to tease whomever she wanted to. “No more fond than the next person,” he said in a bland voice, trying not to give anything away.

“You mean you don’t just live for gloomy days, when you can watch the rain coming down and contemplate all of the evil in the world?” But her voice was still light.

“I have entirely too much marking to indulge myself in such a fashion,” he replied demurely, eliciting a bright laugh from Granger.

“The wind is picking up,” she said suddenly. “It will start soon.”

And Severus could feel the wind in his hair, on his face. It fluffed Granger’s hair up around her head, undoing the tenuous balance between unruly and curly that she seemed to be satisfied to maintain. But the girl did not appear to mind -- if anything, she turned her face into the wind. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“I wonder...” she mused. And she had her hand around Severus’ again, pulling him outside before he could even squeak in protest.

Realizing that he was being tugged down the grassy slope against his will and that there were raindrops pelting his face, Severus tried to pull away. “Granger!” he shouted.

“Haven’t you ever walked through a thunderstorm, Professor?” she cried, not even turning around.

“Not voluntarily,” he said. “Are you familiar with the turn-of-phrase, ‘does not have the sense to come in out of the rain?’”

“I should tell Harry that he’s wrong,” Granger said tartly. “I’m not the most boring person on Earth after all.”

It was raining harder now, and the thunder crackled again. “Are you telling me, Granger, that you enjoy getting cold and wet?” he asked, yanking at her hand again, hopeful that she would release him before he was forced to resort to hexing her.

“On occasion,” she said, finally letting his hand go. “And especially when I literally cannot remember the last time I saw rain.”

She had gotten very good at that, he decided. At saying just the right thing to completely crumble his resolve. Instead of going back to the castle, as he’d planned, once she released him, he simply stood beside her, feeling the rain running down his scalp, under his collar. “You could go look it up, I suppose,” he settled for saying.

“And it would tell me that it rained two weeks ago or some such thing, when you and I both know very well what the weather was two weeks ago,” she retorted, holding her arms out in an apparent effort to douse herself further.

Severus resisted the urge to shiver. “What do we do now, Granger?”

The girl actually laughed at him. “I refuse to stand in the rain with someone who calls me ‘Granger,’ sir. It suggests a formality that I do not feel is warranted under the present circumstances.”

“I could call you Polly,” he found himself suggesting slyly, recognizing her meaning.

Looking both highly amused and terribly pleased with herself, she ran her fingers through her dripping hair, slicking it back out of her face. “My,” she exclaimed airily, “two jokes in one day. I do believe, sir, that you’ve exceeded your quota.”

He snorted. “Fancy having a quota on humor. I suppose, Gr -- Hermione, that you have neatly labeled lists of jokes that you carry around in your pockets, ready for any occasion?”

“Well, I tried writing on my arms, but the ink smears,” she replied, straight-faced. “Come on -- let’s go down to the lake!”

Following her, he was unwilling to do so without complaint. “You want more water?” he groused as thunder boomed once again, signaling that the storm was drawing ever closer. “You are aware that lightning is drawn to water, are you not?”

“Pay attention, Polly,” she said matter-of-factly as they approached the lake, “it’s heat lightning. Nothing’s going to be struck.”

“What time is it?” he asked cruelly. As she shot him a glare, he smiled at her. “Oh, and that’s...” He did a bit of mental arithmetic. “Twenty points for the name.”

“It’s not even lunchtime,” she said acidly. “And I suppose if I call you ‘Polly’ again, it will be, what, fifty-five points?”

“It’s refreshing to know that the rest of the faculty is not entirely incorrect about their estimations of your intellect,” he said, sitting down in the wet grass. As he was already soaking, it did not particularly matter where he sat, and his legs were getting tired.

Granger -- Hermione walked over to the edge of the lake and leaned down, cupping her palms under the water briefly. “Warmer than I would have thought,” she said in what would have been a conversational tone if she hadn’t been shouting over a sudden crackle of thunder.

Severus ignored her, choosing instead to lie back in the grass and fold his arms over his head. The majority of the storm appeared to be in a westerly direction, and he could just see the lightning flickering in the distance. If he could overlook the fact that he was literally dripping with rain and he had Hermione Granger chattering in his ear, it was quite a pretty sight.

A squelching noise to his right told him that she’d approached him, and a splat suggested that she’d followed his example. Only after a rather lengthy pause did he glance over -- indeed, Granger was flat on her back, one hand tucked under her head, as she stared up at the sky. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she asked, not moving.

Blinking, he averted his eyes -- how did she know he was looking at her?

“I used to do this when I was a kid,” she continued. “Go out into the summer thunderstorms and watch the lightning. It was nice -- the rain felt quite soothing, usually, in the summer. This is a bit cold, I’ll grant you.”

He said nothing, plucking a blade of grass at random from the ground and twirling it in his fingers.

“Maybe...” Hermione said thoughtfully as the rain pattered softly to the ground -- as storms went, this one was quite gentle, really. “Maybe the rain means that the world really is still going around us. Maybe somewhere else, it isn’t Thursday the twenty-fifth.”

“I don’t think so,” Severus replied slowly, tearing the piece of grass in half lengthwise as he turned her suggestion over in his mind. “That doesn’t sound... right.”

“Too hopeful, eh, Polly?”

“Fifty-five points.”

“Ah, so I was right. What’s the next number?”

Severus smiled, certain that she could not see him do so. “I’ll let you know when we get to it, Gr -- Hermione.”

She returned to the previous subject as if he had not spoken. “Well, if it’s not that, then... small changes, perhaps? You’ve said before that we can make small changes -- I’ve done it myself. Within reason, of course. But maybe it’s not unreasonable that if one makes a certain number of small changes, they can build up to a big effect.”

“Of course it’s not,” he said mildly. “They call it ‘chaos theory.’”

“Actually,” she said with a nasty edge in her voice, “I believe that particular theorem within chaos theory is known as ‘the butterfly effect.’”

He rolled his eyes. “So we have a thunderstorm-generating butterfly loose on Hogwarts grounds, then.”

“It seems very unlikely, though,” Hermione said. “Especially, I suppose, when you phrase it like that.”

“Nice to know that I can be of assistance.”

“You know,” she exclaimed, no small amount of exasperation in her tone, “I used to think, when I was younger, that you were cruel to your students because you were on some sort of misguided quest to toughen us up. Now I realize that’s simply your preferred state of being.”

“Blast,” he said flatly, “my secret is out. Whatever will I do now?”

“Don’t worry, sir,” Hermione told him, “I won’t tell. And besides...” Here, her voice dripped with false cheer, “even if I did, they would forget by tomorrow.” Her suddenly dismal statement was punctuated with another rumble of thunder.

Severus decided that when he made dry remarks of that nature, they were simply droll. When Hermione said such things, they only served to bring the sheer hopelessness of their situation into high relief. “Why are you questioning your hypothesis of the tempest-inducing insect, then, apart from my insightful remarks?” he asked, knowing that the subject change was awkward but also knowing that she would go along with it because she tended to be kind when the situation warranted it.

She did not disappoint. “The probabilities involved are vast, aren’t they? I mean, practically zero, all things considered. Meaning that if we were ripe for such a situation -- if there was something around here that could cause a storm like that -- wouldn’t it have happened more than once by now? We’ve had enough repeats that I imagine most of the random behavior around here has played itself out.”

Severus shrugged. “I do not claim to be an expert in higher-level Muggle mathematics.” He blinked rapidly as a raindrop unexpectedly fell into his eye.

“Thinking about it probably won’t make it any more clear,” she said. “Except now we know that it can rain. Which makes me wonder why it hasn’t before. What’s changed?”

“It’s not just raining, Hermione,” he corrected, tucking one of his hands behind his head once more, “it’s storming.”

“What difference does that make?” She sounded rather defensive.

“Heat,” he said, a thought flickering briefly through his mind before he could get a handle on it. “Storms are caused by the mixing of warm and cool air. And it hasn’t been particularly warm before...”

“Meaning that heat is being generated?” Hermione asked confusedly. “But, sir, where --?”

“Oh, no,” Severus sighed, feeling the blood drain from his face. “It’s getting worse.”

“It’s getting...” she echoed. “What’s getting worse?”

Severus sat up and regarded Hermione stoically. “It requires a great deal of energy to maintain a time-loop, Hermione.”

“Right,” she agreed, sounding overly cautious. “That’s why we’ve got the entropy building up, and the atomic breakdown. You’ve said before. And most of the books I’ve read that mention Time Turners suggest that it’s true.”

“It is true,” he insisted. “My old Defense professor when I was at Hogwarts worked on developing Time Turners when he was young -- he gave us a thorough rundown of the theory our sixth year. More than the Ministry had officially sanctioned, actually. But I’d forgotten -- that buildup of energy... it manifests itself as heat, Granger.”

“Heat?” she repeated, expression blank.

“The local temperature is increasing,” he said urgently. “You said it yourself -- the lake...” Standing, he strode through the rain to the lake’s edge and scooped up water in both of his hands -- the languid warmth of it was a testament to his rising anxiety. “The water is warmer. The lake is --”

“A thermal bath,” she finished, eyes widening. “The ground temperature is rising. Oh, my God, Professor, we’re --”

Severus nodded. “It’s raining because the time-loop itself is generating an effective warm front that’s mixing with the normal weather conditions. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stormed every day, now that it’s gotten warm enough. Hermione, it’s getting worse.”

Her face was a turmoil of emotions and Severus wondered what he could say to her, but she soon solved that dilemma herself. “Polly, I think I’m going back inside now.”

He was so agitated that he completely forgot to take points as he watched her walk back to the castle. After a long moment, he followed.