CHAPTER TWO

The beginning of love…

The first time Severus saw her, he caught his breath.

She was sitting there under the hat, a keen intelligence in her brown eyes, yet a strange innocence about her like he'd never known.

Ravenclaw, I think, Severus said, reading her mind as their eyes met. He saw in that instant Hermione's soul. Her intelligence. Her thirst for knowledge, so like his own. Her determination.

"Gryffindor!" The hat called.

Severus's heart sank. It seemed they were never to be. He could never love a Gryffindor.

And yet…

And yet in his first class, her clear, ringing voice challenged him, her eyes flashing at him across the room. There was a sensual flush to her cheeks as she threw out her knowledge in blatant challenge, her mind making his own stretch to accommodate her.

He got her alone, quite by accident, a week later when they bumped into each other in the hallway.

"Watch where you are going, Ms. Granger," Snape reproved her.

She straightened up, and he couldn't help following the motion of her hands as she wiped off her robes.

"You watch where you're going, sir." Then Hermione tossed her hair and stalked away.

All Severus could think was, What a woman.

TBC