Chapter 3

Witness

xxx

Hermione stayed in her room for the rest of the day, and found herself lying awake deep into the night. On any normal day, the boredom would have been unbearable; at this time, however, she found her mind over-brimming with different bits of information to digest; to turn over again and again until she could piece everything she knew together into some sort of well reasoned explanation.

It was not only the overheard conversation that she had to question. Snape had been, from the very beginning of her nightmare, wary, elusive, and snide. Of course, at first glance, these were simply the Snape-ish qualities that one ought to expect; upon further speculation, however, Hermione was beginning to reason that the man's motivations were slightly more complex than what she had first guessed.

His attempts at intimidating Hermione into compliance seemed typical, a complement to his predatory nature and the flagrancy that characterized a Slytherin. True to form as his behaviour was, however, Hermione had to question why, when she was defenceless and unaided, Snape had not simply stunned her and taken her away, or even worse. If he was not preserving her for Voldemort's own machinations, what reason did he have to keep her unharmed? If not by someone else's orders, why had he taken her, and seen to it that she remained no worse for the wear?

Furthermore, despite all his subtle indications that he was willing to kill her if she did not offer her compliance, Hermione's reflections gave way to the idea that he was perhaps willing to release her when all was said and done. He had not given her the guarantee of freedom, but he had neither denied it. If he had not obtained her for Voldemort and was lying about her whereabouts, he wouldn't be giving her over to them. Either she would die at his hands or she would be released, and for the sake of her sanity, she held on to the belief that he would not murder her without reason.

Lastly, there was still the issue of the letter Hermione had initially discovered in Snape's office. Though she knew too little to guess at its contents, she had to take Snape's intent to contact Harry as another point in her favor. Even if the letter was only intended as a threat to Harry, she had possibly earned the position of leverage, which meant that her safety would be vital to Snape's purposes, and her eventual release would most likely be required for Harry's cooperation. Though it was a situation she didn't particularly desire to be in, it placed her into a position of importance, and her importance to Snape was certainly essential to her survival.

Of course, if she were being completely honest with herself, she only knew enough to take stabs in the dark at what Snape was playing at. But, she reasoned, her powers of logic had rarely failed her before. If nothing else, she had a good basis upon which to build a theory about her captor's intentions.

Only one thing was clear to Hermione: she was being artfully and purposely mislead. She was not simply being lied to; she was locked in an epic waltz with a man who had made a profession out of dancing around all topics of inquiry.

xxx

Severus Snape had never been accused of being a nice man. In fact, most had seen fit to affix him with exactly the opposite descriptions. He'd been called difficult and stubborn by the generous, and callous and cruel by those less inclined. Snape preferred to use the all encompassing adjective of self-serving. Whichever qualities seemed best suited to serve his purposes, he assumed them.

He felt it essential now, however, to veer from his usual list of descriptors and allow himself to be viewed as somewhat merciful. Certainly not kind, but less harsh than he usually behaved. He felt it would behoove him, at this point, to earn not only Miss Granger's compliance, but perhaps her eventual gratitude for his consideration towards her.

It was with this in mind that Snape approached the Granger girl's room that morning.

She did not respond to his first knock. Similarly, she ignored his second and third. By the fourth, Snape's resolve to behave civilly was dissolving, and he was bellowing through the door all sorts of threats that he felt sure would scare her into emerging.

He felt a bit taken aback and very foolish when she emerged from the bathroom behind him, giving him a look of somewhat dubious nature, and said coldly, "Can I help you, Professor?"

Snape narrowed his eyes and and made a low growl in the back of his throat. Hermione raised her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed, and waited.

"I will have company this afternoon," Snape stated. "If you plan on eating today, you may want to do so now."

"Is that all?" Hermione asked flatly.

This was not the reaction Snape had been looking for. He had expected something similar to the way she had behaved the day before, when he'd shown her to her room. Surprised. Taken aback by his extreme generosity. No, there was none of this to be found in little Miss Granger today. She was wholly ungrateful and indifferent to his attempt at treating her like a human rather than just a hostage.

It was unbelievably irritating to him that he should be taking such pains to give her food and living room, and she treated these things as though they didn't matter; as though she deserved everything he gave her in the first place.

She obviously had no idea how prisoners were normally treated.

Impertinent little imp.

"I'll expect you downstairs in fifteen minutes," was Snape's terse reply. For a moment, Hermione looked as though she were going to defy him. A moment of silent debate with herself, however, and apparently her hunger won out over her obstinance. She gave him a curt nod that he felt certain she must have learned from himself, and promptly closed the door in his face.

Exactly as he thought. Impertinent.

It mattered little, he convinced himself as he turned and headed down the hallway. He would allow her this small display of defiance; there was no quashing it in a Gryffindor. In fact, he felt he could gleam some satisfaction from knowing he had stirred the girl to erecting such defences in his honor. She knew she had no choice but to obey him, even if that didn't mean she had to like it.

Snape considered, as he sat down at the small, rickety wooden table in his cramped kitchen space, that he was perhaps allowing this girl too much luxury by allowing her her own room and even inviting her to eat with him. However, logic told him that to starve the girl could possibly poison her mind against him. The last thing he wanted was to give the girl more incentive to escape.

Not that he believed there was a great possibility of her success anyway.

A small portion of fruit and a plate of eggs sat across from Snape, turning cold as he tucked into his own meal. He hadn't bothered to place a warming charm on it; it was the girl's own fault if she ignored his order to come downstairs promptly.

Exactly ten minutes later, Hermione appeared in the kitchen. Snape ignored her as she took the seat across from him. She watched him warily for a moment as he continued to eat his breakfast.

"It's not poisoned," Snape growled between bites, leveling her with a glare as he stabbed another piece of cantaloupe.

"No, I don't believe it is," Hermione agreed, though she still didn't begin eating.

Snape grunted, lifting an eyebrow and giving an irritable jerk of his head, but returned to his meal rather than responding further. He apparently had no interest in Hermione's reasons for refusing to eat. She sat quietly, hands folded in her lap, watching him for the duration of the meal. She never took a bite, and he refused to pay her any attention, though annoyance was visibly etched into every line of his weathered face.

Finally, as Snape finished off the last of his breakfast and Hermione's had grown cold before her, he said icily, "If you think you are impressing me, I must inform you that you are failing miserably." He rose from the table and vanished his mess, continuing, "When you are finished with this childish display, I suggest you return to your room. Visitors will be arriving any time after noon; your presence would prove quite the inconvenience, and you can be assured it is in your best interest to cause me as little trouble as possible."

It seemed strange to Hermione that Snape would not simply tell her the real reason he wanted her back in her room: he was hiding her from his fellow Death Eaters. This much she knew; she laid no claims to understanding his reasoning behind it, or how it would play out in the long run, but she understood very well what a precarious position her presence in the house placed him in. She supposed he didn't trust her with the knowledge that she could easily ruin his place in Voldemort's circle.

She was mildly irritated that he apparently didn't lend enough credit to her powers of intellect to realize that she understood the danger of the situation for herself as well as for him.

Snape didn't appear to be paying any attention to her watchful glare as he exited the room. In fact, he appeared to be resolutely ignoring her entirely. Hermione huffed and stared down at her plate, and then pushed it away. She had very little appetite; greater things were on her mind than her stomach.

Against her better judgment, Hermione followed Snape into the front room, where he was already seated on the couch with a worn book in his lap. He threw an irritated glance over his shoulder at her, but said nothing as she came to stand directly behind him. He apparently had the idea that if he ignored her, she would go away, but Hermione was not so easily deterred. She leaned over slightly, attempting to catch a glance of the page he was reading, but Snape quickly snapped the book closed. He didn't turn around for an instant; involuntarily, Hermione's breathing audibly hitched.

"Miss Granger," Snape drawled slowly. Hermione took a single step back without ever having decided to do so. It was a instinctual reaction to his dark tone of voice; a step away from Snape was a step towards self preservation.

"It seems to have escaped your attention," Snape said after a decidedly long pause, with a deliberate quality to his speech that gave Hermione the impression he was weighing his every word carefully, "that I am no longer your Professor. You are no longer my student; I am not being paid to suffer your many interruptions and idiosyncrasies. It is not my job, nor my inclination, to protect or coddle you, and you certainly shouldn't expect half the amount of civility I managed to offer you at Hogwarts."

At this point, Snape rose from his seat and turned to face Hermione, whose apprehension showed plainly on her shining face. His expression was one of malice: black eyes narrowed, upper lip lifted into a well practiced sneer, thick eyebrows drawn low and tight upon the bridge of his hawkish nose.

"I harbor no amount of fondness for you, Miss Granger, and have no particular concern for your well being, nor for the cares of your family or friends. Clearly, you have some romanticized notion of me in your mind that allows you the luxury of feeling safe enough to challenge my patience. Let me disabuse you of such fallacies. I will provide you with food. I will provide you with shelter. I shall refrain from various forms of torture and murder so long as you prove you are worthy of such mercy. I will not provide you with companionship. I will not provide you with unlimited fountains of information. I will not abide by defiance or unnecessary annoyances. Your relative happiness and ability to continue living depends solely upon my complacency with our current arrangement. Tip the delicately balanced scale of my tolerance, Miss Granger, and I promise you will suffer most exquisitely."

Hermione Granger did not like Severus Snape. Whatever credit she had once lent towards him in his favour she was immediately revoking.

Snape did not seem interested in her response. He did not wait for her to regain her composure or deliver a rebuttal; he took his withered, nondescript leather-bound book from the couch and moved to the small desk across the room.

Unnerved, but wholly determined to see this through, Hermione remained rooted in her place. Snape was writing now--what, Hermione had no idea--and had returned to ignoring her.

"If you could just tell me why I'm here, and what is going to happen to me--"

"Has it occurred to you that I may not be the ultimate authority on those answers?" Snape asked suggestively, quill never leaving parchment as he continued his task.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. She would not be mislead, and that was precisely what Snape was aiming to do. She hated being lied to; it was something she could not abide by under any circumstances. Trepidation gave way to indignation as her temper flared, and she smartly retorted, "Ah, so whose council should I be seeking, then?"

"Surely the answer is obvious," Snape intoned.

"No, I don't think so," said Hermione, stepping around the couch and taking a seat. She could be as nonchalant as he could; as long as his temper was at bay, she would continue to press her advantage.

Snape did not push his lie any further. It seemed his object was to mislead, or to omit, but not to make any direct admissions which might be proved false in the future. Hermione reminded herself that Snape was well practiced in the trade of treachery.

Minutes upon minutes of silence stretched on. Snape seemed content to continue about his business, while Hermione's vexation mounted. How could she possibly learn anything if Snape continued ignoring her? If she was stuck with him, she could learn to accept it. If she knew what was to become of her, she could end her terror and anxiety and concentrate on getting through this. If there was one thing Hermione felt she was lost without, it was most certainly knowledge.

A groan of frustration escaped her, and she pushed her hair back from her face with both her hands, resting her elbows on her thighs and cradling her forehead. There was a pause in the scratching of quill against parchment, but it resumed so quickly it might have been imagined.

“What do you want from me?” Hermione asked from her place on the couch, attempting to mute the fretful tones in her voice. No answer came, and she inquired, “Leverage?”

Snape finally stopped his writing, looked up as though thinking to himself, and then slowly and thoughtfully answered, “No.”

“Knowledge?”

Snape smirked to himself and returned his eyes to the parchment. “No.”

“Sex?”

“Are you offering it?" Snape asked without missing a beat.

"No!" Hermione cried, indignant.

"Then, no," Snape replied without looking up, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“What, then?” Hermione asked, an almost pleading quality to her voice.

Snape finally set down his quill and looked around at the girl, watching her carefully. What he saw in her expression did not surprise him, nor did it soften him. She looked simultaneously angry, scared, and unsure of what was to come, and there was a detectable glint of moisture in her eyes that he could tell she was trying unsuccessfully to withhold.

Snape took a moment to consider. The girl was more persistent than he had expected; he had always known her to be determined, but the temerity he was observing in her now paled in comparison to what he had previously seen of her brash and audacious nature. The fact remained, he did not yet know if he could trust her to go along with his plans. In actuality, he felt she was now in limbo between utter defeat and utter defiance; he did not want to push her in one particular direction so much as he wished to steer her away from both. He had hoped that by ignoring her, that by giving her time to adjust and treating her well without being kind enough to draw suspicion, she would become more docile and easy to reckon with in the coming weeks. However, he saw now that she would have none of it if she didn't first gain something in return.

It appeared that Hermione Granger was smarter than he'd thought.

He considered keeping his purposes unknown; let her fear him and his intentions. Let her worry day and night whether he would force his way into her bed. Let her stay on guard at all times, guarding whatever information he might find useful. He had no care for those things- they, like she, were of little concern. Still, the thought did not escape him that she was incredibly clever, and perhaps her power, coupled with the support of the order, was not to be doubted. Her compliance would be necessary in any perilous situation, especially one when his presence would be necessary to ensure her safety. Despite all his efforts to scare her into good behavior, it was not his goal to harm her, or bring her to any untimely end. Quite the contrary, he needed her alive and well when all was said and done.

“I need a messenger,” Snape said at last, turning his body completely towards her and folding his hands calmly in his lap. It wasn't quite true--what he really needed was a witness for when all was said and done--but it was believable, and he couldn't reveal his true intentions just yet. Her blank expression at this told him that she did not understand, but as her eyebrows lowered, he could see that she was trying to work it out in her head. He nodded slowly, as if to encourage her comprehension in some way.

“What do you mean by ‘messenger’?” Hermione finally asked a moment later.

“I feel it critical, Miss Granger, that I give information on a need to know basis only. You will understand in due time,” Severus informed her, unwilling to answer her question. “All you need to understand is that as long as you obey me, your life is in no danger, and neither are the efforts of your dear friends.”

“As long as I obey you?” Hermione repeated indignantly, some of her panic forgotten in favor of incredulousness.

Severus threw her an annoyed look, and turned back to the letter he was penning. “I tire of your presence now, Miss Granger. Why don’t you go spend some time in your room?”

“I will not,” Hermione objected, rising to her feet.

Severus gave her a doubtful look. "Somehow, I think you will."

“As you said," Hermione said pointedly, "I am no longer your student, Professor-”

“And yet you call me Professor.”

“Stop! You don’t have any right to order me around like this-”

“Granger,” Severus growled, weary of her antics. Did she honestly believe she was in control of this situation? He had thought he'd set her in her place a mere fifteen minutes prior. How quickly she had forgotten. “Surely I mustn't reiterate. I have neither the time nor the inclination to tolerate your fits of temper. You are not a guest in this house, you are a prisoner and somewhat of an inconvenience. You are no match for me, girl; you are neither my physical, magical, or intellectual equal. Add to that sum, you have more than me to fear. Consider another Death Eater should get his hands on you. Who would help you? Me, who is part of an alliance in which my protection of your life would be repaid with my death? Do you suppose you could protect yourself? "

"You wouldn't hand me over to them," said Hermione, though she herself was unsure of the truth of this statement.

"Perhaps not," said Snape to a surprised Hermione, who had not expected his agreement, "but they could very easily take you from me if they discovered you were here."

Momentary astonishment rendered Hermione speechless for a moment. There it was: Snape had seen fit to reveal to her that she was being kept for only his purposes. Recognizing her opening, Hermione opened her mouth to urge him to expound on the subject. On a second thought, she snapped it shut. More than she needed to know his purposes, she needed to know what his intentions were for her in the long run.

"And you do not plan on telling them?"

Snape frowned and crossed his arms, eyeing Hermione shrewdly. He supposed that if she felt a sense of security at least in this aspect, she might be more apt to cooperate with him to prevent her discovery and lend to his purposes.

"Miss Granger, one thing I will promise you is that I will not hand you over to such a fate. However, this is provided you work with me to keep your presence here discreet. You must listen to me, Miss Granger, at all times."

"And I will live?"

"As long as the choice is mine to make."

Hermione regarded Snape for a moment, evaluating his level of sincerity. Her conclusion was that he was serious about this, if nothing else. His expression showed no traces of mockery or deception, and for the first time since she'd been there, he was speaking to her as though they were on the same level.

A moment later, he was tapping his wrist and reminding Hermione of the time, issuing an order for her to return to her room.

Having pushed her luck enough for the night and wanting to prove that she grasped the concept of making herself essentially undetectable, Hermione went without complaint, though she couldn't quite shake the feeling of having lost something by submitting to his will so yieldingly. Snape did not mock her obedience, however, and Hermione forced herself to swallow her pride as she shut herself in her room for the second night in a row.

xxx

Snape's eyes followed Hermione's rigid movements as she mechanically made her way out of the room and up the stairs. He could tell it was difficult for her to obey him without question; of course, he would have expected nothing less. If her years at Hogwarts were any indicator of what to expect from her in terms of behavior and attitude, he had thus far been lucky. Of course, he reflected, she had been surprisingly self-restrained throughout their conversation, at least according to his prior expectations. Her persistance had persuaded him to give her eagerly sought answers to her questions earlier than he had planned to relinquish them, merely for the fact that he had not believed she would yet be able to comprehend them. It seemed, however, that knowledge had a greater effect on her than intimidation: all his attempts to scare her into submission had only pushed her further towards defiance, whereas understanding had rendered her more subdued.

Not only was she a more intelligent girl than he had really given her credit for, she was also much more reasonable. Or so it seemed.

Yes, the more Snape reflected on her behavior, even with the limited amount of time he'd had to observe her, the more he believed he had been correct: she would be perfectly suited to his purposes. He would slowly feed her information, treat her less like a prisoner and more like a confidant, and earn her trust. Trust would evolve into loyalty, and finally, that loyalty would make her the perfect candidate to defend his honor after the war was finished. If all went as planned, when the Dark Lord fell, she would be there to attest that all his work had gone towards defeating him. It would be difficult, of course, but then, manipulation was never quite simple. He would have to play his hand very carefully, and be sure not to show his cards too early. If she knew what he were planning...if she recognized his intent...if she believed him insincere, in short, he would never be able to sway her to believe otherwise.

It occurred to Snape that he would have to begin swaying her earlier than planned. He had counted on her irrationality more than any other factor; from what he remembered of her at Hogwarts, he had always assumed her to be as impulsive and impertinent as Potter and Weasley had been. She had been undeniably brilliant, yes, but he had assumed that this only extended towards her studies. If she were blessed with common sense to match her book smarts, he had formerly reasoned, her voice of reason would have carried more weight with the idiots she consorted with. Now, upon realizing his assumptions had been wrong, he shuddered to think about the magnitude of the trouble her two comrades would have gotten up to had she not been there at all.

Since he had been decidedly wrong in his assumptions, he would have to immediately alter his present intentions for the girl. The sooner he gained her trust, the better; he could not risk waiting, for to continue to treat her callously would most certainly deepen her resentment towards him. In fact, he considered, he would begin said alterations once Avery concluded their business later this afternoon.

Yes, Snape thought as he closed his book slowly and rose from his desk. Once he began, Hermione would shape into the perfect witness. The perfect witness indeed.

xxx End Chapter 3 xxx

AN: Thank you for reading! I would, of course, appreciate any reviews you would be generous enough to send my way :)