Once Upon a Potion's Class by Destiny M. Elkins

Chapter One - Once Upon a Potion's Class

Summary: Hermione loves fairy tales. Ron likes Hermione. So, he decides to give her a enchanted book of Muggle fairy tales from Flourish and Blott's. An incident in potion's class sends her and Professor Snape into the book where they will have to follow the stories to get out. Will they survive each other? [For the Emotions:Broody prompt on Mission:Insane via LJ.]

Title: Once Upon a Potion's Class
Chapter: 1 - Once Upon a Potion's Class
Author: MallowCakes
E-Mail:
Rating: R; HG/SS
Warnings: Nothing so far.
Disclaimer: Not mine, otherwise I would be off being rich somewhere... and Snape would've lived... Ron would've died... you get the picture.
Distribution: By appointment only.
AN: Thank you to my beta reader, Lo. Without her I don't think I'd survive! ^_^ Also, for updates follow me on Twitter, the name is MallowCakes. I'll update this story as often as I can until it's finished. And then when it's done I'll be working on sequels to I Spy and A Mask of Gold.
AN, the second: I'm working on fixing the quote thing. I didn't realize that they were missing. My program did that. -_- Thank you for pointing it out. :)
AN, the third: Should be all fixed now, if there are any I missed, please let me know in reviews! 3

Hermione Granger was eternally a hopeless romantic. Ever since she could remember she had wanted two things in her life. The first thing, she had wanted to be remembered for her intelligence and the second, to get swept away in one of those great romances like shed read about in her story books. She wanted to be Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or Snow White she just didn't want to be dumb enough to have her finger pricked or eat a poison apple. That is to say she wanted a prince, she didn't want to need a prince.

Ron found her love of Muggle fairy tales endearing. So endearing, in fact, that he had took out a loan from his brothers to buy her a book she's been eying in Flourish and Blotts' for months. It was a magical anthology of fairy tales. He had, had it for months before he worked up the nerve to give it to her. It had already passed Valentine's Day and her birthday and, not wanting to wait until Christmas, he had decided to just give it her before he lost his nerve completely.

"Hermione." Ron said, nervously before they made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast one morning, "I, um, got something for you."

He had been holding it, unwrapped, behind his back before bringing it around to show it to her. Her eyes saw the familiar fairy on the leather cover and she crooked an eye brow at him.

"The book I've been wanting? You can't afford this. I can't take this from you." She walked forward and tried to hand it back to him.

"No, I want you to have it. I know how much you like those silly muggle stories."

Hermione sighed. "Silly? As silly as going to a magic school with a boy who has a magic lightning bolt scar on his forehead and manages to find trouble no matter where it is?"

"Well, yeah. Sort of like that." He laughed slightly.

Not relenting, she walked forward to throw her arms around his neck, keenly turning her head so that his pursed lips missed hers and landed on her cheek.

Ron blushed slightly as the missed kiss didn't go unnoticed.

"Thank you, again." Hermione said with a warm smile.

"You're welcome. Lets head in to breakfast."

With a nod, Hermione followed him down into the Great Hall to meet Harry at the Gryffindor table. She had finally got a chance to look at the book that Ron gave her. She rubbed her fingers along the cover and the neatly stamped bronze fairy on the front of it who flitted around at her touch.

She looked over at Ron, his face stuffed with scrambled eggs as he spoke to their classmates and she cringed inside. He had tried so hard over the years to be with her, but she just couldn't see herself with him. He was rude, obnoxious, childish, but all he could talk about was Quidditch. She just couldn't bring herself to say yes, no matter how much her mother, or his, chided her.

She sighed, utterly bored again. She just wanted someone that she could talk to about things that interested her, but any time she'd bring up homework or education the boys would run away from her like shed grown an extra hand on her chin. It was frustrating.

It put her in a bad mood for the rest of breakfast so she almost didnt notice when the boys got up to head to potions class. That was the last thing she needed at the moment, Severus Snape swooping around the classroom like a bat spouting insults at her just because hed had a bad childhood. It wasnt her fault that his dad probably hit him or his mom put him in dresses to have tea parties with her.

She was in a worse mood by time she'd reached the dungeons. She was at her breaking point for the day and she'd barely been awake two hours. Walking in the classroom she could already see Snape was in one of his moods, but when wasn't he really?

'Just bloody peachy', Hermione thought to herself as she took her usual seat next to Neville.

"Alright, Hermione?" Neville said, turning to face her.

"Alright. "She said, trying to sound happier than she was, "You?"

"Yeah." He shrugged.

With a curt nod, she looked to the front of the classroom and waited for Professor Snape to start his lesson. It seemed that today they were going to be brewing a blood-replenishment potion. It was easy enough to do, she thought, she had read the entire potions textbook after all. So, she got the ingredients she'd need and brought them back to her desk to start the brew. Mixing it carefully and stirring at exactly the right times with exactly the right angle of her wand, the potion had turned a dark red and she knew she'd have to wait ten minutes before stirring it again.

Waiting for the time to pass, Hermione had time to stop Neville from adding something she was quite sure would either cause an explosion or make the imbiber speak in only Japanese for a month and a half. After that, she grew sufficiently bored and chanced a glance at the first few pages of her book. She couldn't wait to get back to the dorm to read it. Glancing at the contents page she was happy to find a lot of her favorite stories in it. She flipped to the last story, The Sword in the Stone, and gazed at the moving pictures of Merlin and Wart.

"Miss Granger." A familiar deep-throated drawl pierced through her trance, "As much as Id like to see you fail at something, we already have one Longbottom here and I'd like to keep my classroom in one piece, so if you would please turn your cauldron off and toss your ruined potion in the bin."

Hermione looked up at Snape and then down at the burnt muck in the bottom of her cauldron with a frown. She sighed and wiped her face with the palm of her hand in frustration.

"I'm going to use the rest of your fluxweed then." Ron came up from the desk behind her and grabbed at the unused plant. Hermione was getting ready to yell at him, when he turned to sit back down. His clumsy way of trying to show off was unimpressive as his elbow knocked into her cauldron spilling the sludge over the desk and all her books.

"Mister Weasly!" Snape yelled loudly, turning uncharacteristically red with anger, "Sit back down!"

Ron ran to his seat in fear as Neville grabbed for the sludge covered books with his gloved hands, trying to save Hermione's things. Yet, in true Neville fashion he knocked his own cauldron over onto the desk.

Snape was speechless for one of the first times and stood sputtering at the scene. "Out!", he managed to growl, "Everyone, out. Granger, stay."

"Sir?" Hermione said quietly.

"OUT!" He roared, "Everyone out but Miss Granger, now!"

The entire class scrambled to turn off their fires and ran out of the room, grabbing their things as they went.

"Sir, Im sorry." Hermione said.

"What the devil has gotten in to you?" Snape said, trying his hardest to calm down.

"Ive just..."

"Just what? Decided you're too bloody intelligent to pay attention in my class? 20 points from Gryffindor."

"I had a bad day." She grumbled, folding her arms.

"Oh, really? So sad for you, Miss Granger. Maybe we should close down the school for holiday. As you know, I live to serve." He sneered, the sarcasm biting at her.

She told herself she wasn't going to cry. Not in front of this bastard. She wasn't going to give him the pleasure. Yet, tears fought to sting her eyes.

"Get this mess cleaned up and ge-" He was going to finish, but his eyes caught the book shed been reading and he stopped, "Was this perhaps the reason for your serious lack of judgment?"

His hand went to grab the leather book out of the goopie mess, but Hermione sought to grab it first, not wanting him to confiscate it. As both their hands touched the cover the potions room became empty.

When Hermione opened her eyes she was standing next to a much younger Severus Snape in a dark bedroom and she could hear a woman and a man in the next room.

"What the hell?" Severus whispered to her, glaring at his hands in the soft moonlight that shone through the window.

Hermione shushed him before putting an ear to the door.

"We've got to, Christoph. We cant afford to feed them anymore." A womans voice spoke.

"I don't know, Emilie. They're our children." A mans voice replied, "We can't just-"

"We can't feed them anymore." The other voice interrupted, "We don't have the money. Tomorrow were going to take them into the woods and leave them there. Agreed?"

A sigh came, "Agreed."

"Well, fuck." Hermione stated simply.