Hermione Pulls It Off

Chapter 1

By Shiv

It was the Graduation Ball and Hermione was watching the clock hand get ever closer to midnight. Ten seconds - nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three - two - one. Now she was no longer a student at Hogwarts and entirely free to do as she wanted, and she knew what she wanted.

She stood up to cross the hall to find her prey, nervously smoothing her dress over her hips. Snape wasn’t difficult to find, largely because she had been watching him all night. He had sat at the teacher’s table all evening, with the same faint sneer on his face, and danced with no one.

She was aware that the eyes of Gryffindor house had been on her all night, waiting for her to make her move. They had been disappointed.

As she covered the last few yards she was aware that Snape was watching her every move. Undaunted she stood before him and asked him to dance.

His eyes flickered to the clock and then back to her again. “Miss Granger, I expected to see you a little earlier in the evening. The time limit on the bet was midnight I believe?”

“Indeed, Professor,” she returned composedly. “And that really is rather the point, don’t you agree?”

He looked at her appraisingly for a moment. “I take your point. If you had approached me any earlier I would of course have declined your … offer.  However, under the circumstances I think a dance would be acceptable. Perhaps, during the course of it, you can supply me with the finer details of this last week’s events.”

It wasn’t an enthusiastic response but at least he was sufficiently intrigued to dance with her.  She had successfully negotiated the first hurdle, now for the rest. Five minutes to persuade him to give her a chance.

Her hand was clasped in his as they took up their position on the dancing floor. She valiantly resisted the temptation to move closer to him, and maintained a very proper distance but she couldn’t restrain the shiver that went through her when his hand settled on her waist.

“Relax, Miss Granger, I don’t bite.”

“Not even if I ask you very nicely,” she retorted.

Ah, another question answered for him. She had delayed her plan, but not abandoned it. A little encouragement might be in order, but not too much.

“Perhaps, but only if you ask very nicely.” The tone was laden with meaning.

Another shiver. “You don’t play fair, do you?”

“No, Miss Granger, I do not. I do hope you didn’t expect me to do so.”

He was rewarded with a glorious smile that made her look almost beautiful. “Not at all, Professor. I would be very disappointed if you did. Where would be the challenge in that?”

They danced together in a peculiarly contented silence for a while. Hermione began to believe that she might be able to pull this off after all.

“So,” he said, “I believe that the deal was that you were going to tell me all about the events of last week.”

“That’s a very broad brief, Professor. Why don’t you tell me what you know, and I’ll fill in the details.”

“Let me see, it would be last Friday night that your fellow Gryffindors decided to celebrate the end of exams by sneaking in alcohol from Hogsmeade. A venerable tradition followed by all Houses, every year since Hogwarts began, I suspect.”

“So the teacher’s turn a blind eye to it?”

“Certainly not. It wouldn’t be as much fun for the students if they thought it was sanctioned, would it? However, matters progressed as usual whenever a group of boys are gathered together and the situation descended into each of the boys boasting about their … romantic … conquests. Although I would be surprised if the term romance can be applied to a series of fumbling encounters on the Astronomy Tower or, for the sportier student, the Quidditch Pitch. I do wonder how these things are organised. Do you think they have a rota, or is it first … come, first … served?”

They executed a showy turn before he continued, “I fail to see how this resulted in you announcing to the whole of Gryffindor House that you had a crush on me.”

“Hardly the whole of Gryffindor House,” she replied.

“Ron Weasley was there. It amounts to the same thing. He is a bigger gossip than Molly was, and believe me that is saying something.”

She conceded the point with a rueful shrug. “Well, it moved on from the usual boasting to taking bets as to who they could get into bed. The terms were that they had to seduce the partner of their choice by the end of the term, which was stated to be midnight at the graduation ball.”

“Doubtless it was at this point you pointed out to them how immature they were being.”

“Yes. Of course they said that I was being a spoilsport and that just because I couldn’t get a boyfriend there was no need for me to stop them having their fun. After all, who would want to go out with the Gryffindor know-it-all? It made me very cross.”

“I can imagine. Teenaged boys have very odd ideas. Girls only have breasts and no brains. Therefore if someone has brains it seems to be only logical to them that they therefore can’t have breasts. The faulty premise and logical fallacy that is built upon usually only becomes apparent some four years into marriage, when they realise that the blonde sweetheart they married has turned into a harridan.

“I, on the other hand, have always appreciated that there is more to life than a heaving bosom, however plump and rounded,” he said, whilst obviously admiring the view of her cleavage afforded him by her dress.

She smiled, and then continued, “So I pointed out that the reason I had never gone out with anyone at Hogwarts is that I wasn’t attracted to children, only to real men. Someone, I forget who, mentioned your name as a likely candidate. I think I was supposed to faint with horror, so I merely pointed out that you were certainly more attractive than any of them.”

“To the sound of fairly universal dismay I would imagine,” he smiled faintly.

“Once they realised that I was serious, yes.” Ron in particular had been vehement in his denunciations of Snape as a Greasy Git. She had pointed out that it would be a simple matter to get Severus a bottle of shampoo, but that nothing on God’s earth would ever make Ron less of prat.

He hadn’t liked that at all, and had said that if she was so damned clever she should be able to get Snape into bed before the end of the term. Before she knew it, she had lost her temper and rather than doing the sensible thing and leaving in dignity she had agreed to take part in the bet.

“I am surprised that having taken the bet you then did nothing about it.”

“That,” she said, “is a very long story, and I think this dance is about to end.”

Would he bite?

He would.

Severus escorted her to a table and poured her a drink. Firewhiskey, no less.

She raised the glass to him in mute query.

“You are not a student here anymore, Miss Granger.”

“Then, Severus, perhaps you could call me Hermione,” she said, feeling greatly daring.

“Hermione, then. You were about to tell me why you did nothing to attract my attention during the course of last week. I must say I was surprised that Lavender and Parvati didn’t persuade you to turn up to classes in tight clothing and your robe unbuttoned.”

“I do wonder where you get your information from, because, of course, that is exactly what they tried to persuade me to do. You were quite right, of course, that telling Ron amounted to telling the whole of Hogwarts. The girls took it as some sort of challenge and decided to help me out.”

She sipped at her Firewhiskey and grimaced. It really didn’t taste very nice at all.

“Lavender and Parvati turned up first. You should have seen it. They have boxes and boxes of make up, potions, lotions, books on glamours and charms to attract the most resistant wizard. You could barely move in my room for all the clutter they brought with them.

“They spent ages trying to straighten my hair. I told them it was a lost cause, but they were determined to succeed.”

Professor Snape inspected her hair with the eye of a professional. “Sanglise’s Patented Hair Straightener I presume?”

She nodded. “I will give them credit for that, they did manage to find something that worked. But the rest of it?” She shuddered. “I ended up squashed into a bra that pushed my breasts up so high they could keep my ears warm, a shirt two sizes to small for me which was practically unbuttoned down to the waist, and a skirt so short you couldn’t dignify it with the name – it was a belt.”

She took another sip of Firewhiskey. The second taste wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was growing on her.

It had been a disaster. She had ended up looking like a refugee from Knockturn Alley, and not a particularly attractive one at that. She had turned to the girls and said, “Remind me again, why this is going to work?”

They had thought she was just being shy and had tried to reassure her that she looked good. “Bless you for lying,” she said, “But that’s not the point anyway. I wouldn’t want to get a man on these terms.”

They had difficulty in understanding her point at first, until she translated it into terms they could relate to. “Lavender, when you go out to buy a pair of shoes, do you buy the first pair that you see?”

“No,” she said, puzzled. “I look at all the shoes in the shop, and then try some and choose which look best.”

“Actually,” said Parvati dryly, “She tries on all the shoes in the shop, goes to another four shops, and then comes back to the first shop to buy the pair she first tried one.”  They both giggled.

“Well, that’s my point. Don’t you think you should spend as much if not more of your time choosing a man than you do on choosing a pair of shoes to match your robes?”

They had both nodded. “So what do you want in a man?” Hermione asked.

“I like blonds,” said Lavender.

“Like Malfoy?”

They had wrinkled their noses up at that.  “Ew, no, he’s an arrogant little tosser. You can’t like him, Lavender?” said Parvati

“God, no! Can you imagine having to put up with his obnoxious attitude all the time? It doesn’t matter how pretty he is, he’s not worth the aggravation,” she replied.

“So you’re saying personality is important, as well as looks?”

They looked puzzled for a moment, and then more thoughtful. “I suppose so,” said Lavender slowly, “I hadn’t thought of it like that before. You know how you say someone has a nice personality when what you mean is that they have face like a smacked arse, it tends to skew your thinking on whether you want a nice personality or not.”

“And, if you ask me,” continued Hermione, “you don’t want to be going out with the sort of boy who has just picked up the first available pair of shoes, do you? You want someone who has really thought about what they want and has had the good taste to pick out the best pair of shoes available.”

They nodded.

“So, on that basis, do I really want to turn up to Potions looking like a cheap pair of shoes?”

They had reluctantly conceded the point, but looked very disappointed at the thought of not working their magic and transforming Hermione from bookworm to siren in an afternoon.

“On the other hand, I really think I need to look my best for the graduation ball, don’t I girls?”

They had brightened at that. The girls had spent the rest of the day trying out different outfits. Hermione usually despised fashion and make-up, but by the end of the afternoon she had felt a reluctant admiration for the sheer attention to detail and effort that the girls had put in. Despite herself she had enjoyed their time together, and regretted a little that she hadn’t made more of an effort to get to know the two of them.

The results had been, if not the stunning transformation they had hoped for, a subtle shift into womanhood. Hermione had been very pleased with the results and, in the end, so had Lavender and Parvati. She hoped that Professor Snape had been pleased too; she certainly seemed to have held his attention for the last hour or so, and that was better than she had hoped for.

“So, continue,” he said.

“There I was, with a broad expanse of flesh on view, and all I could think about was how cold the potion’s classroom was, and how attractive goose bumps are. So I told them that I wasn’t going to double potions dressed like a prostitute. I also pointed out that, whilst these tactics worked on 18 year old boys, did they really believe they would work on you?”

“And their answer was?”

“Probably not.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

“Not to mention that one of your little Slytherins was bound to have tried it on at least once, if only in the hope of getting better marks in class. I wouldn’t want to be unoriginal, you know.”

He smiled faintly. Some of his Slytherins had indeed tried that, sometimes for less innocent reasons than improving their marks, and over the years he had developed a whole range of very nasty tactics designed to put them off sex in general and him in particular for a very long time. He had been looking forward to trying them on a Gryffindor.

“What would you have done, if I had tried that?”

“I think I would have admired the view for an entire lesson, thus giving you cause to hope that you were being successful, and then reported you to Professor McGonagall for being inappropriately dressed. I am sure her disappointment would have been very hard to bear.” He paused.

“Dare I hope that you have been a good influence on Miss Brown and Miss Patil? There dress seems to be a little more restrained than usual?”

“Perhaps.”

“And this is of course wholly unrelated to the fact that two of your competitors had selected them as their targets?”

 It was actually, but Hermione decided to take the credit anyway. Professor Snape would only admire her cunning.

She smiled mysteriously – she hoped – and murmured, “You may think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.”

He smiled back. “I believe you had a string of advisors last week. What other help were you offered?” he laid a faint stress on the word help that led her to believe that he held the same views as her on the quality of the advice offered.

“That would probably be Pansy.”

“What had Miss Parkinson to say for herself?”

Hermione had not been surprised when Pansy had offered her help in Project Snare Snape as she had called it; she had been shocked. For a Slytherin to be actually talking to a Gryffindor without using the phrase Mudblood was surprising in its own right, but to find that the girl actually wanted to help, well, Hermione could be forgiven for wondering what was the catch.

Apparently there wasn’t one. Pansy was filled with a desire to help her fellow man. Hermione took that to mean that Slytherin had taken an interest and Draco was probably running a book.

Still, she was prepared to listen to advice no matter from what source it came. Part of being a scholar was being able to assess the weight that should be given to a particular text; she felt sure the same skills would allow her to spot any but the most subtle deception.

That was before she heard the advice that Pansy had to offer.

“Ah,” said Severus. “I can guess at her recommendations.”

“Can you, indeed?”

“The same technique she has used on Draco to such good effect over the years; Flattery laid on with a trowel. Why didn’t you try that technique? I might have enjoyed that.”

“Yes, perhaps a little too much?” she replied dryly. “You would see through it, of course.

Although I could be merely saying that to flatter you,” she paused to allow him to appreciate the delicate irony and the even more delicate compliment. “There is a more serious point of course. I didn’t think you would appreciate a doormat; and I wouldn’t appreciate being one.”

“And you explained all this to Pansy?”

“Yes, I explained it all to Pansy. And loaned her several of my more radical feminist books.”

“And does this explain Draco’s face being slapped earlier in the evening?”

“I believe it does. Which makes the whole evening worthwhile in itself, don’t you think?”

Professor Snape said nothing in reply, but he didn’t have to. His smile said it all.

“You have caused a stir this week. No one else seems to have been slapped, so can I assume that was the last of your advisers?”

“Malfoy did offer to sell me a couple of bottles of lust potion to slip into your drink this evening.”

“Good god. How insulting.”

“I thought so, as if you would be so stupid as to not notice…”

“I meant, how insulting that the little ferret thought you couldn’t produce a lust potion of your own. Your grades exceeded his by a considerable margin.”

Hermione was taken aback. After all this time, Severus Snape had just complimented her work. She didn’t think she would have been more shocked if he had wandered up to her and said, “How about it, you and me?”

“Blimey,” she said. “You just said something nice to me.”

Severus – she could now call him Severus to his face and not merely to herself– looked a little shifty for a moment, but then conceded the point. “I wonder if someone slipped something into my drink earlier.”

She smiled, adding with a little acid in her voice. “Of course, that is something that you would have to get used to: compliments without the aid of potions.”

He assumed an air of thoughtfulness. “I suppose I could make the sacrifice, provided that there would be some sort of quid pro quo.”

Hermione stiffened. She hoped he wasn’t suggesting anything obviously crude. He noticed her uneasiness, and added softly. “I just meant that you should feel free to pay me compliments in return.”

She tentatively covered his hand with hers, and simply said, “Sorry.” His faint look of surprise became more pronounced when she added warmly, “And of course I would pay you compliments. That goes without saying.”

Awkwardly he changed the subject. “So who else volunteered to help you?”

“Harry and Ron were full of advice.” She smiled fondly at the memory. “Harry offered what should be the best advice of all – just to be myself. Which, whilst it is true, is about the most useless thing anyone can ever say. I mean what bloody help is that - just be yourself? If that was all that it took, you would have been falling over yourself to ask me out already, and the bet wouldn’t even be necessary. At least Lavender and Parvati had something constructive to say, even Draco was more useful.”

Severus snorted. He was obviously happy to hear something to Harry’s disadvantage. “And young Mr Weasley?”

“He actually made the most sense.”

She didn’t think that Severus needed to know that Ron’s reaction had been one of complete horror. “What the hell do you think you are playing at, chasing that Greasy Git? For god’s sake, Hermione, don’t do anything so thick. He’ll make your life a living hell, and you’ll probably be mentally scarred for life. It really isn’t worth it, just to win some stupid bet.”

Hermione continued, “He pointed out that the bet was a silly idea. And I thought: he’s right. What did I really want? To win the bet or to actually persuade you that I was worth taking seriously? Ron thought that you would know about the silly bet one way or another. And I thought that if you did, it didn’t take a genius to work out that you would be insulted if you thought that was the reason behind me asking you to dance. Not to mention the fact that you would be very likely to demonstrate just how unhappy you were with the situation in the most humiliating manner possible. And quite right too; if someone did it to me, I would be livid.”

The smile on Severus’ face was neither pretty nor pleasant. “Oh, yes,” he said. “You would have regretted it for a very long time.”

Hermione felt her insides lurch oddly. She found that feral smile to be very sexy, although she was obviously pleased that it wasn’t directed at her personally at the moment.

Something of her glazed-eyed contemplation registered with Severus. A faint flush mounted his cheeks – whether embarrassment or something else, she couldn’t tell – and his hand moved restlessly beneath hers.

“Miss Granger,” he said. “I am not a very nice man. You would do better with someone of your own age and probably your own house.”

“Not according to Pansy,” she said cheerfully. “She says, and I think we can take her word for it, that Gryffindor men, boys, call them what you will, are universally dreadful in bed. I would like to have an orgasm sometime before I’m forty you know, preferably more than once. Perhaps even two in the same night?”

He snorted.

“Can you imagine,” she continued blithely, “the sheer hell of trying to explain to one of them that, yes, the woman is supposed to enjoy sex as well; and no, just because they can wank for fifteen minutes doesn’t mean that they are the last of the red hot lovers; and no, they aren’t getting a blow job on the basis that they will last longer the second time, because quite frankly even if they managed to double ten seconds their performance is clearly still going to be inadequate.”

Severus was by now openly laughing, a sight guaranteed to strike terror into the heart of any Hufflepuff and most of Gryffindor.

“Frankly I don’t have the time or patience to train one of them up. I need some time to get on with my reading you know.”

“You seem to be setting very high standards,” he said, “are you sure I would be able to live up to them.”

“Well maybe not the first time, because they’re usually dreadfully, but after that? Oh, yes,” she breathed, “absolutely certain.”

He smirked and patted her hand. “Have you considered that this might be some passing phase? A teenage crush? Like Professor Lockhart, for instance.”

She looked daggers at him. “Well, judging from the behaviour of Lavender and Parvati… ” at his quizzical glance she conceded the point, “All right, and me - when I was 12, for heaven’s sake - if I was in the grips of a crush I would believe you to be wonderfully handsome and the paragon of all virtues. I hardly think you are a knight in shining armour, and I am sure I would have noticed if you had a white horse tethered outside.”

His face had darkened once the word handsome passed her lips, so she tightened her grip on his hands, and continued, “You aren’t tall, dark and handsome, but I’m no raving beauty either. I think it’s better to be tall, dark and interesting. You say you aren’t a nice man; I agree, in many ways you’re not. You have an evil temper and a tendency to bully people. If you haven’t managed to bully me in seven years, when you were in a position of authority over me, how much less likely is it that you’ll manage it now? Believe me, the first time you snap at me, and we both know that there will be a first time, I will snap back.”

“Why on earth would you want to take up with me if I am so bad-tempered?” he sneered.

“Precisely because you are so bad tempered. I’ve got a temper of my own you know; just ask Malfoy, he has the scars to prove it. I want someone who isn’t frightened of me, who will stand up to me and refuse to be bullied. I have nightmares where I wake up in ten years time, married to Ron, and still having to do all his thinking for him. I don’t want to turn into Molly Weasley and have some shambling idiot of a husband who says nothing but yes dear. I would rather be having spirited discussions on the meaning of life, the contents of Ars Alchemica and precisely whose bloody fault it is that some domestic disaster has happened. Obviously it would be your fault, but I expect you would be stubborn and refuse to admit it.”

“The Gryffindor boys frightened of you, are they?”

“Terrified, mostly, unless they want me to do their homework for them; then they manage to overcome their shyness quite nicely.”

He looked puzzled. “But surely you enjoyed helping your fellow Gryffindors; you certainly seemed to spend a lot of time helping Longbottom. Didn’t Minerva say something about you wanting to be a teacher?”

“Bloody typical!” Hermione wasn’t pleased. “Harry got fifteen minutes worth of career advice, and Professor McGonagall practically offering to start a war to get him to be an Auror. I barely got five minutes, and she told me that if I was a very good girl and did as I was told I could be a teacher. I would rather poke my eyes out with a blunt wand than be a teacher,” she stopped suddenly, realising just how much she was insulting Severus, and added wryly, “No offence.”

“None taken. I feel like that myself most days.”

“I’m not surprised. Teaching Neville must have been a strain.”

“You ought to know, you spent most of your potions lessons teaching him, despite my express instructions.”

“Self defence,” she said darkly. “That, and of course, good old Hermione could be relied upon to help out anyone who needed it. I mean, you think you had problems. I had to sit next to him every bloody lesson. I never had time to be frightened of you, you know, I was too busy worrying what Neville was going to do next. Now he really was scary. The number of times I had to stop him blowing us all up! Neville is a sweet boy, but he should never been allowed to take potions at NEWT level.”

“I agree. I told Dumbledore he was a danger over and over again, but all he did was twinkle at me and then ordered me to take him anyway.”

“Bastard,” she said.

“Not a member of the Dumbledore Appreciation Society?” he said in mock-surprise. “I thought membership was compulsory for Gryffindors?”

“You’d be surprised. Harry and Ron aren’t entirely thick, you know, and it doesn’t take a genius to start wondering precisely why the only wizard Voldemort is allegedly afraid of is tucked away safely whilst an eleven year old boy faces Quirrell on his own.”

Severus said nothing, but his glance was eloquent. Silence descended for while, not precisely awkward, but she was aware that his decision could go either way. She hoped that she had done enough to shake him out of his preconceptions about Gryffindors in general, and her in particular.

“Hermione,” he said, “would you like to meet for lunch at some point in the summer holidays?”

She resisted the urge to squeal with excitement – grown up, she thought, I must remember to be grown up – and simply replied, “That would be very pleasant, Severus. Perhaps you could owl me with a date?”

He nodded.

“There’s just one other thing, Severus. A favour, I’d like to ask.”

The next day the students milled around aimlessly, reluctant to board the train that would take them away from Hogwarts to begin their lives as adults. Hermione hadn’t seen the boys on her way to bed the night before, and they had been so busy packing and saying their farewells this morning that she hadn’t had the chance to tell them that she had – to put it bluntly – pulled last night. And she wasn’t sure that she would have told them, even if she had had the chance. This was going to be fun.

They were about to find out the hard way.

Harry and Ron were astounded to see the tall, thin figure of Professor Snape making his way across the platform. The crowds of departing pupils parted before him, the habit of terror he had implanted in them still holding good despite their emancipation.

They were even more astounded when Hermione moved towards him. Although their conversation couldn’t be heard over the chatter, the nature of their discussion was clear when he bent and kissed her hand.

Draco watched in open-mouthed horror as Professor Snape escorted Hermione across a suddenly silent platform to settle her in her compartment. Severus didn’t stay to watch the train depart – when she had asked him to come down and see her off in the morning he had put his foot down on that point, determined not to look like a lovelorn fool. He had been surprisingly easy to persuade though, and she rather thought he was enjoying the stir he was causing. Severus, she filed away for future reference, is a bit of a drama queen. Although, to be fair, anyone could have worked that out from the way he flounced into potion’s classes.

Harry and Ron looked at each other in astonishment, and then bolted into the train, eager to hear quite how she had managed to pull that off. She refused to answer any of their questions and sat calmly reading the paper, resolutely ignoring them with a faint smile playing across her lips.

Shortly after the train pulled out of the station, Draco put his head round the compartment door. “I don’t know how you did it, Granger, but you did it. I should have known you had something up your sleeve when you made that side-bet. Here,” and he thrust a bag of galleons at her with very bad grace.

“How much did you win, Hermione,” asked Ron in amazement.

“500 galleons.”

“Wow,” said Ron.

Draco winced at the mention of the money. “Come on, Granger, give. How did you manage to get Snape down here this morning? Did you use your womanly charms?”

“It’s simple, Draco. I just told him about the bet, and pointed out that 500 galleons would buy a very extravagant lunch. Congratulations, Draco – you just paid for our first date! Honesty is the best policy, you know.”

He just shook his head. “You and Snape against the world. God help the world!”

Chapter 2 >>