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“I am sure you are planning to tell me
where we are going eventually, Miss Granger, so you may as
well do so now,” cajoled Professor Snape as he stepped out
of the Floo into the Leaky Cauldron to join a waiting
Hermione. “And what is that you are holding?”
Hermione handed him the bag she’d been
holding and motioned toward the pub’s restroom. “You’ll
need to change before we go any further. We’re going into
Muggle London.”
“Whatever for,” asked the bewildered
potions master. “It is bad enough that you are subjecting
me to these Muggle ‘treatments’ but do we have to mingle
amongst the masses as well?”
“Yes,” smiled Hermione sweetly, still
pointing toward the lavatories. “So hurry along and
change.”
“What about you? Surely you are not
planning to go dressed like that?” Hermione was
wearing one of her everyday robes.
She glared back with mock sternness as
she began to unbutton her robe. She laughed as she saw his
eyes widen, but continued to disrobe under his shocked gaze,
revealing a tight muggle t-shirt and knee-length skirt
underneath.
“Go on, now, get changed!”
Hermione laughed to herself as Snape
departed, shaking his head in annoyance or whatever other
malignant thought was filling his mind at present. It
hardly mattered. He was obeying, and that was all she cared
about. He’d accepted everything she’d thrown at him so far,
albeit with poor grace most of the time and little success.
She had high hopes for today’s treatment, despite Snape’s
discomfiture at ‘mingling with the muggles’. She’d
deliberated over whether to bring the treatment to him at
Hogwarts or whether to bring him to the treatment. She’d
decided on the latter because she hoped the overall
discomfort would give his emotional center a jolt.
Hermione struggled to contain a grin as
Snape emerged. She’d chosen clothes that she thought would
suit his appearance, so as to draw as little attention to
them as possible, but his lack of muggle style would
certainly draw some attention nonetheless. The black
‘Metallica’ t-shirt he sported was tucked neatly into the
all-too-new looking blue jeans he wore. The cuffs of the
jeans rested lightly upon the sparkling white shoes
beneath. She shook her head in mock frustration.
“The slacks you provided were in an
unacceptable state of disrepair, Miss Granger. I know you
are averse to utilizing House Elf labor but surely even you
can manage a simple repairing charm to mend holes in
garments,” criticized Snape. “And if I recall correctly,
the cleaning charm is taught to students in their third
year, so why did you feel the need to provide me with shoes
that look like they had recently danced in hippogriff dung?
What are you doing?”
“Reverta!” Hermione pointed her
wand first at the jeans, then at the shoes, transforming
them back into their previous state of disarray. “I gave
you the clothes that way for a reason, Professor. Muggles
find it fashionable to wear jeans with holes in them, and
honestly, given your overall lack of attention to personal
grooming, clean white shoes would stick out like Hagrid at
the Flitwick family picnic! And just one more thing. . .”
Hermione reached forward and tugged the
T-shirt out of his jeans. “T-shirts are traditionally worn
outside the slacks.” She stepped back and nodded in
approval. “Perfect.”
“If you have finished, perhaps you
could now tell me where precisely we are going?” Snape
looked not at all amused with his grungy appearance.
“Certainly,” replied Hermione as she
headed toward the Muggle-side exit. “We’re going to Soho.”
“Soho? Where in Soho?” Snape
apparently recognized the name for what it was, one of the
many London neighborhoods. Hermione did not answer, merely
glanced back and smiled. He continued to follow her, out
the door and down the street.
The pair walked for several blocks
before descending the large tunneled staircase with people
rushing in either direction that led to the London
Underground. Hermione glanced back periodically as she
maneuvered them through the maze to the appropriate train,
just to make sure they did not get separated. Although she
suspected the Professor could take care of himself, she did
not want to deal with the hassle of having her plans
disrupted.
Hermione wondered if Snape was
physically capable of a deeper scowl than the one he gave
her as he found himself sandwiched between two very obese
muggle women on the train. She mouthed the words, “It’ll
only be a few minutes” at him and stifled a giggle when his
jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed at her. Whatever. It
wasn’t as if he could take House points from Gryffindor, and
if he tried to bow out of the treatments, she’d just repeat
her dramatic display of grief again. How very Slytherin of
me, she thought.
When they reached their stop Hermione
motioned for Snape to follow. He disentangled himself from
between the matrons and rushed out behind her. “Not one
word,” he said as they climbed the stairs back into the
daylight.
“Here we are,” said Hermione as they
approached one of the many shops on the street they were now
on. The window was filled with posters and signs, including
a large neon sign displaying the shop’s name.
“Spin!” Severus read the pink neon.
“What sort of place is this?”
“You’ll see, come on!” Without
thinking, she grabbed his hand and pulled him in behind
her. She quickly let go as she realized her error.
“Sorry.”
But Snape was no longer paying
attention to her, he was looking all around at the shelves
and shelves of little boxes that made up the store’s
merchandise. He walked over to the closest display and
selected one for closer appraisal. He turned it over, then
over again, as if trying to determine how to open it. He
reminded Hermione of a toddler, who experienced very every
day items with a sense of curiosity and wonder. Well, maybe
not wonder.
He finally gave in and turned to
Hermione. “What are these? At first I thought they were
books, but they are too thin and they do not open.”
“They’re compact discs, Professor.
Also known as CDs. They hold music inside, and when placed
in a device called a CD player, the music plays.” Hermione
was once again reminded of Hogwart’s serious lack of arts
education. “You know what music is, I assume?”
“Of course I know what music is, we
have it at every one of Dumbledore’s damned balls.” snapped
Snape. Both Professor and librarian grew silent at the
mention of the deceased Headmaster. Snape took in a deep
breath, then continued more calmly. “I was unaware that
music could be captured. I have only ever heard music that
was being produced by the musicians in my presence. How
does this work?”
Tense moment passed, Hermione launched
into her famous explanation mode. She began by describing
the concept of digital media being recorded as a series of
ones and zeros, then into the specifics of musical
recordings and playback. Anyone else would have stopped her
after the first sentence, but Professor Snape listened
attentively to her explanation, asking questions
occasionally, but for the most part just absorbing the
information. When she finished, she realized that she’d
done it again, run off at the mouth with a complete
explanation when probably a short summary would do. She was
about to apologize when she realized that the Professor
hadn’t seemed annoyed with her explanation. There really is
a first time for everything, she thought.
“Thank you for the explanation, Miss
Granger. Mug-“ he stopped himself. “Technology is quite
fascinating. But pray tell how it relates to your little .
. .project?”
“Come with me,” Hermione led him
upstairs into the loft area of the shop. More racks of CDs
lined the walls, but the center of the room housed several
tables with stereo equipment on them. The two picked an
empty table and sat down, then Hermione began her
explanation.
“There are many, many different types
of music. Different cultures and time periods led to
different styles of music, and each musician is driven to
create music by different emotions that they feel. The best
music is that which instills the emotion felt by the
musician onto the listener. I am hoping that we can find
some music that will do this for you.”
“I have heard plenty of music,” argued
the potions master. “The only thing it instilled on me is a
headache.”
“If the music you’ve heard is what I
think you’ve heard, I’m not surprised,” replied Hermione.
“The Weird Sisters, though popular in our world, are hardly
the cream of the musical crop. Their music is simple and
pleasing but certainly doesn’t give me any burning emotions
either. We’re going to try something different. Wait here,
and I’ll be right back.”
Hermione scampered over to the
“samples” rack and began making her selections. She picked
about a dozen CDs before returning to where Snape sat at the
table. The first selection was popped into the CD player,
and then Hermione fitted the headphones around her former
instructor’s ears. Though she hadn’t turned the volume up
very high, the headphones fit loosely and Hermione could
hear the music creeping out from inside them.
She watched Snape’s face as he listened
to the varying segments of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. She saw his
features go from apathy to confusion, where they stayed
throughout the remainder of the song. When it was over, she
stopped the playback and asked him how the song made him
feel.
“I am not sure I understand this
music,” mused Snape. “The musician fell down a landslide,
but then his mother shot someone and who the devil are
Scaramouche and Bismillah? I’m quite familiar with Galileo
and Beelzebub, of course, but what relation Galileo has to
this pathetic fellow I can not for the life of me
ascertain.”
Well. Perhaps that song was a little
abstract for him, thought Hermione. She replaced the CD
with another, one of her favorite love songs, and pressed
play.
Again, after the first few seconds,
Snape’s expression became puzzled and by the end of the song
he was shaking his head. “Since when do birds, flowers,
bees or the moon care whether some love-sick swain has been
abandoned by his woman? This man obviously has an inflated
sense of his own importance to the natural order in the
universe.”
Sorry, Huey, thought Hermione as she
hoped third time would be a charm.
“Someone should tell this man that a
single tear will not affect the drinkability of his beer,
and that he should just drink it and stop singing.” Oh
well, Hermione hated American country music anyway. She
tried another that she hoped would be obvious enough not to
confuse him.
“Stupid girl, do they not have
contraception in the muggle world? At least the cad is
willing to marry her, but it would serve them both right if
the father disowned her.” Hermione groaned inwardly, then
tried again. Over the next half hour they went through the
blues, heavy metal, even glam rock, and each time the only
‘feeling’ Snape could conjure up was disdain for the
singer. If only he would stop trying to analyze. . . the .
. . words. . .that’s it, thought Hermione.
“I have an idea, I’ll be right back.”
she assured the quickly-becoming-impatient guinea pig. She
leapt over to the classical samples and grabbed several.
“Remember the word association game? We’re going to try it
again, but with music. I’ll play just a few seconds of each
of these and I want you to tell me the first word that pops
into your head. However, the following words are
forbidden: noise, sounds, music, loud, headache. I want
you to see if you can tell what the artist was feeling.”
“Have we not already been doing that,
Miss Granger?”
“Not exactly,” answered Hermione. “All
the songs before had lyrics, words. You were trying to
interpret the words to determine meaning in the song. But
we don’t care about meaning, we care about feeling. These
next songs have no words, so you’ll have to get your
impressions from the music itself.”
“Hmph,” grunted Snape, but he shifted
in his chair, apparently resigned to his fate. Hermione
started the first sample, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2.
This famous (in the muggle world anyway) piano piece started
out slow and solemn, in C-sharp minor. Hermione let it play
for about twenty seconds before stopping and turning
inquisitively to Professor Snape.
As with the picture based word
association, he seemed to need a moment to adjust, finally
deciding on a word. “Foreboding.”
“Excellent,” encouraged Hermione. “I
would have said ‘creepy’ but that’s pretty much the same
thing! Let’s try another.” She switched a very distinctive
Rimsky-Korsakov tune.
“That sounds like a bee buzzing around
my head, Miss Granger. I know you want me to get an emotion
out of this but it really just sounds like an angry bee.”
Hermione laughed and held up the CD
case for him to see the title of the tune: ‘Flight of the
Bumblebee’. She thought she saw Snape almost smile in
satisfaction at the accuracy of his guess.
“Let’s do one more, I want to try a
quick experiment.” Hermione went back one last time to the
samples rack, hearing Snape mutter something to the effect
of “save me from your experiments.”
“We can go home after this, Professor.
You’ve done very well. I just want to see how you react to
this one.”
Severus listened a moment, the puzzled
expression returning. He spoke, not waiting for Hermione to
stop the recording. “I hear singing, but it is not a
language I recognize.”
“That’s right, Professor. I didn’t
expect you would. Just listen to the sounds, don’t bother
trying to understand the words.”
He did as he was bid, waiting for
Hermione to shut it off before speaking again.
“Excitement.”
Hermione rewarded him with another
smile. “I get that feeling from it too. I think you’re
doing it, Professor. You’re able to recognize the emotions
the artists are projecting, it’s only a matter of time
before you’ll be able to feel them yourself.”
“Splendid. Can we go back now?” It
was as if Professor Snape did not want to hear her words of
encouragement.
“Of course, sir. We’ll just buy a few
of these for your homework.”
“Homework?” he inquired.
“Practice makes perfect,” insisted
Hermione. “The more you listen the sooner you’ll be able to
feel for yourself.”
They walked downstairs, then Hermione
selected several CDs and took them to the counter to
purchase. After they exited the shop, Snape turned to
Hermione with a smug expression on his face. “I think you
have forgotten something. Muggle electronics cannot
function inside the Hogwarts grounds. I will be unable to
do your ‘homework.’”
“On the contrary, Professor,” argued
Hermione. “I have not forgotten anything, and have already
worked around that small detail as you will see when we
return.”
His only answer was a noncommittal
grunt, and they made the rest of their journey in silence.
When they arrived back at Hogwarts, Hermione invited Snape
to accompany her to the library to collect his ‘homework.’
Once there, she handed him a small, portable stereo with
headset. “You’ll find this CD player will work inside the
Hogwarts grounds. I spent ages in my first couple years
here finding the right charms to accomplish it, but I’ve
always studied better with music in the background. Here
you go.”
“Once again, I have underestimated your
resourcefulness. Good day, Miss Granger.” Hermione watched
the Professor depart, trying to absorb the knowledge that he
had just given her a compliment. |