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On the Clear Understanding That This Kind of Thing Can Happen by Deeble [Reviews - 5] [1529
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Disclaimer: Mine, all mine! No? JKR thought of it all first, you say? Well that's a fine kettle of Flobberworms.
“Professor?”
Severus Snape, eyeing a gaggle of Gryffindors who were hanging about the punch bowl suspiciously, snapped his head around to the source of the interruption — the source of all interruptions for the last five-and-a-half years, it seemed.
“Yes, Miss Granger?”
Considering he had just three words to work with, he thought the delivery was an exquisite example of intimidation — capitalizing on the sibilant, drawing out the phrase, synchronizing the irritated eyebrow.
He was vaguely disappointed that it had no discernable effect on the girl. She was, in fact, smiling at him.
“Would you care to dance, sir?”
There was a short moment of silence in which he managed with great effort not to look gobsmacked, followed by a short moment of staring at her with narrowed eyes, seamlessly transitioning to a short moment of scanning the Great Hall for the Boy-Who-Must-Have-a-Death-Wish and his hapless sidekick. The two were in a corner, trying not to look but failing, attempting to hide grins and failing at that as well.
Hah. Not like his father indeed. Albus could say that until the Runespoors stopped biting off their own heads, but Potter and his gang might as well call themselves the Marauders and be done with it. Their forebears didn't let a Yule Ball pass without perpetrating some terribly amusing humiliation on—
“Er … sir?”
He fixed Granger with a glare and set his voice to stun. “Putting aside for a moment the … impropriety of such a request,” he said, pausing to let that sink in, “I cannot conceive of a situation in which I would willingly let you inflict yourself upon me.”
Ah, there was the reaction he had been anticipating earlier. Her eyes went very wide; red blotches bloomed on her cheeks; a breath caught in her throat. She turned on her heel and fled.
Oh yes, Headmaster, it is truly better to give than to receive. Snape's lips twitched into the cheerless smirk of the eternally bitter.
A year later; another Yule Ball. He didn't know why Albus insisted on such foolishness at the height of a deadly struggle for survival, and he was so wrapped up in dark thoughts that he didn't notice her until she'd placed herself a meter away.
No bright enthusiasm this time. Her chin was up, her shoulders were thrown back; everything about the way she held herself suggested defiance.
He crossed his arms and stared down his nose at her.
“Good evening, Professor,” she said stiffly. “Would you care to dance?”
Eight months later; the Ministry ballroom. Snape's invitation didn't call it the Voldemort is Dead So Let's All Drink Ourselves Into Oblivion Party, but that appeared to be the point.
Making a conscious effort to stop grinding his teeth, he pushed his chair further into the dark corner he'd been occupying since a very old witch who'd consumed a very large amount of Firewhiskey had the gall to grope him.
He hated this. He'd not be here if Albus hadn't insisted — now, now, Severus, you know Minerva always attended Ministry functions, and you did agree to be my deputy. The potions experiment waiting for him back in the dungeons was exponentially more interesting than this excuse for debauchery. He tried to make some use of the wasted time by running through the ingredients he intended to add to the base, in order: tubeworm paste, dried nettles, caterpillar legs, asphodel roots …
“Professor.”
He sighed deeply. Not this again. She was, he noted, dressed in lilac robes that subtly shifted shades with movement, a neat bit of spellwork but wholly frivolous.
“Did I not make myself clear on the first two occasions, Miss Granger?” he asked icily. “Or are you testing the Muggle theory that 'third time is the charm'?”
“I'm operating under the assumption that you will eventually accept.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because I will continue inflicting myself upon you at every event until you give in.”
She was smiling grimly. Though momentarily impressed by this crude but serviceable stab at Slytherin cunning, he thought the power play didn't suit the Gryffindor doer of good works, protector of house elves and Longbottoms. That thought was followed by a small burst of annoyance that he was analyzing this ridiculous girl instead of his potion.
“I doubt very much that you will have further opportunities to test your hypothesis,” he said dryly.
“Actually, I have it on good authority that the Ministry intends to organize monthly balls. Fudge will expect to see Hogwarts leadership there, I'm sure, and I doubt very much that you will get out of them all.”
This bit of intelligence was news to Snape, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach though he'd not had a bit to drink.
“The headmaster and I can't both be away from the castle during term,” he said with a semblance of equanimity. “I wouldn't dream of denying him the” — a sneer — “pleasure of a Ministry gathering.”
Granger was, alas, still smiling.
“Ah, but Professor Dumbledore could be easily convinced that you are more in need of socializing than he.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“It depends. Will you dance with me?”
He was out of his seat in a flash, using his ten inches of extra height to full looming advantage.
“Do not play with fire, Miss Granger.”
“No, no, that's all wrong as a metaphor — you're ice, not flame.”
She swept away in a swirl of color-changing fabric, cutting a straight line to the headmaster.
One month later.
“Hello, Professor.”
“You do realize that I could kill you in such a way that it would never be traced back to me.”
“Yes, which is why I gave Tonks strict orders to arrest you should I ever turn up dead.”
One month later.
He raised his hand before she could get a word out. “No. Not now, not next time, never.”
“We'll see,” she said.
Three months later.
“I noticed that you managed to get out of the last two, Professor.”
“I happened to be ill.”
“Oh? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“It would have been very serious, had I not downed the antidote after Albus left in my place.”
She laughed and leaned in conspiratorially. “How did he deduce that you were poisoning yourself?”
“I made the mistake of using the same potion both times.”
“Wasn't it horrible?”
“Preferable to this.”
One month later: Even worse, because it was February. He closed his eyes against the barrage of red, opening them only when he heard the telltale swish of robes.
“Why must you torment me, Granger?”
“Why is the sky blue? Why do Mandrakes scream? Why did you torment me all those years, for that matter?”
He scowled at her and then looked pointedly elsewhere.
“All right,” she said, “I'll allow that I might have been a bit overeager in class at the beginning, but I really wasn't trying to show off, I only wanted to prove that I belonged. For heaven's sake, just dance with me and get it over with. I'm not ghastly. I'm not the irritating, awkward schoolchild I was then, honestly.”
He gazed at her, taking in her pale green robes, cinched around the waist; her wildly curly hair, swept up and showing off her neck becomingly; her face, pink from the exertion of multiple dances with willing partners.
It was all her fault he was here, looking at her.
“I see no difference,” he said, crossing his arms.
One month later.
“You're a miserable bastard, you know,” she said conversationally.
“And I make no secret of that fact. Others, however, masquerade as sweetness itself, all the while maliciously causing pain to miserable bastards. Tell me, which is worse?”
She sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Look, I'm sorry I wheedled Professor Dumbledore into sending you to these things, although he was so keen on the idea that he might have come up with it himself already. Could we have a truce?”
She raised her right hand in his direction, obviously expecting him to take it. He raised an eyebrow.
“Not a dance,” she said in exasperation. “A truce. An agreement between belligerent parties, by which they mutually engage to forbear all acts of hostility against each other for some time, the war still continuing.”
“As long as it still continues.”
“Always.”
He shook her hand perfunctorily, noting with disinterest that it was smooth and warm. She sat quietly with him the rest of the night, watching couples weaving in and out in the mesmerizing patterns of a formal wizarding Quadrille.
One month later.
“Care to dance, Professor?”
He smirked. “You do of course realize that every time you ask, you are making it impossible to ignore your … heritage.”
“Oh?” she said, a smile playing about her lips. “Nice witches don't do this sort of thing?”
“No,” he said. “And they especially don't seek me out.”
“I recall you deciding last time that I am not a nice witch.”
“Is that an admission of guilt? This is a glorious day indeed.”
“You haven't answered my first question.”
“Very well. No, of course.”
“Of course.”
One month later.
“Ah, the ever-present Miss Granger. Would you do me the honor of not asking me to dance?”
“What, and break with tradition?”
One month later.
She was wearing robes of scarlet this time; he assumed she was charming one set to suit for all occasions. She didn't strike him as the sort with closets full of dress clothes … but then she hadn't struck him as the sort to pester him for dances for two-and-a-half years.
“What do you really want, Granger? To have a laugh at my expense? To get a bit of power over me? To see if your will is stronger than mine?”
Her face flushed, and he used the rare moment of silence to tilt her chin up and gaze into her dilated pupils.
“Or do you want … something else?”
He hadn't time to see anything but a reflection of himself in her eyes before she jerked away and disappeared into the crowd.
One month later.
Granger was, surprisingly, not among those present. Snape reveled in the comfort of knowing that not a soul would bother asking him for anything.
One month later.
Where was she?
Oh, he didn't care. He just … wondered.
One month later.
Snape was feeling rather as if he'd been stood up, though his mind refused to recognize it as such. He tapped his foot in annoyance. He glanced often at the knot of dancers. He stayed past 10 for the first time.
The ballroom remained completely Granger-free.
One month later.
She had yet to make an appearance, but this time Snape was ready. He gave her an hour to arrive fashionably late; then he closed his eyes, visualized the coordinates he'd swiped from Albus' Order files and winked out of the ballroom with a barely audible pop.
His knuckles cracked out a very audible pattern on her front door.
She had obviously not expected to see him — nor intended to go to the event, if the fuzzy bathrobe she was wearing was any indication.
“Pr-Professor?”
“Would you care to tell me why I have been suffering the slings and arrows of the Ministry alone while you enjoy a quiet night in?”
“Er …”
“You will come with me.”
At this she managed a half-hearted grin. “Like this?”
“If necessary.”
“All right, hang on …”
She pulled her wand from one of the sleeves and cast a series of charms that left her, Cinderella-like, wearing a set of silver dress robes and a few artfully arranged pins in her hair.
Grasping her hand none too gently, Snape apparated them to the ball.
Right into the middle of the dance floor.
As the band was striking up a waltz.
“Keep in mind,” he said, as he pulled her into the proper position, “that whatever bet you had with Potter and Weasley has been voided by your cowardly decision to stop asking me to dance.”
Her eyes, uncharacteristically clouded over, snapped back to life. “Is that what you thought? No wonder you wouldn't agree to it!”
“No bet?” he asked suspiciously. “No game? No foolish joke with your foolish friends?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “I was simply in a good mood that night and thought you looked lonely. Harry insisted it was a silly idea, actually.”
“Come now, Miss Granger” — silkily; she shivered under the force of his gaze. “You cannot expect me to believe this had nothing to do with power.”
There was a weighty pause.
“After you were so cruel the first time, I vowed to make you dance with me,” she admitted, her eyes focused on a point somewhere around his left shoulder. “I thought if I could manage that, I could do anything. And I suppose I reckoned that you might for once in my life be forced to concede that I'm good at something.”
He frowned slightly. It hadn't occurred to him that his opinion meant so much to the girl everyone else loved to praise.
“But then …” She faltered before apparently finding the courage to continue. “But then at some point in the attempt, I realized that I didn't just want you to give in.”
He raised an eyebrow. She looked up at him, taking a deep breath.
“I want you.”
Only years of poker-face practice as a spy prevented his mouth from falling open. He vaguely noticed that the music was ending and she was pulling out of his arms.
“Thank you for the dance,” she said softly. “I think I'd best be going home.”
“Miss Granger,” he intoned in his classroom voice, “surely you do not intend to commit such a faux pas?”
She squared her shoulders, most likely expecting a rebuke for being inappropriately attracted to a former teacher.
“In the wizarding world,” Snape said, offering his hand and a barely-there smile, “it is customary to perform two dances with one's partner.”
Author's Note:
1. Title from “Shall We Dance,” The King and I. Can't … get … the song … out of … my head … BUM BUM BUM.
2. Two dances with one's partner: That was expected during the Regency years. JKR's magical universe does seem to have one foot firmly in that time period.
3. Thanks to Mr. Deeble and Deeble Mum for beta reading — the latter enjoys fan fiction; the former must truly love me because he dislikes the stuff and still looked this over for me. This story was written before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in case anyone wonders why certain people are alive and certain other people are not on the run.