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Professor Granger’s annual performance review began, as many of Severus Snape’s irritating administrative obligations did, with a very deliberate arrangement of papers that did not need any arranging.
He placed Professor Granger’s file in the centre of his desk, aligning it with the edge of his blotter.
Then he readjusted it, clipping the summary slip precisely in the corner.
He shifted the inkpot, then shifted it again. Dead-centre felt perilously symmetrical, and too much symmetry was suggestive of egalitarianism, and visual nods to egalitarianism was just the sort of dangerous detail she might seize upon as an invitation to resume her overly familiar flirtaciousness.
In fact, as he took stock of the items on his desk, it suddenly occurred to him that every object on his desk could be interpreted as a point of encouragement, and so, be a point of encouragement, and so, in a sudden panic, he swept all of the items on his desk, save her file, into one of the drawers of his desk. He could ill afford anything that might foster a sense of conversational warmth.
But this was going to be an entirely successful, entirely formal, entirely professional review of Professor Hermione Jean Granger’s performance in her third year as senior Arithmancy professor and co-instructor of intradisciplinary duelling.
He was not someone who spooked easily.
He was the Headmaster.
He was in charge.
This was going to be fine.
At exactly four o’clock she knocked.
“Enter,” he said.
The door eased open and she angled in just enough for her head to clear the doorframe, lingering there for a beat. She wore, predictably, her usual maddeningly deceptive expression of deference and docility.
“Professor Granger,” he said.
“May I enter, Headmaster?”
“Of course,” he gestured to a chair. “Thank you for being so punctual.”
She swept in and briefly folded herself in a parody of bow. “It is my most obedient punctual pleasure, my liege,” she said.
His mouth tightened very slightly. “Straight out of the gates today, is it?” he muttered.
After a moment he gestured again at the seat, saying “Please, take a seat” in a more severe sort of voice.
She moved around to sit down, crossing one leg over the other, and neatly folding her hands in her lap.
He looked down to reorder the top sheet of parchment with unnecessary care.
After a moment, he looked up again and said: “As you already know, the purpose of our meeting is to conduct your annual performance review.”
“Yes,” she said.
Surely this didn’t bode well for him how quiet she was acting. He narrowed his eyes at her briefly, and then decided Ah, well, best get on with it, and adjusted the papers in front of him again.
“Let’s begin with an overview,” Severus said. “I will be looking at your departmental contributions, your teaching effectiveness, your classroom management, your student and peer feedback, extracurricular instructional work, as well as your development goals for the coming year. I will be closely assessing each of these individually, and then together, as a whole.”
“Thank you, sir,” she shot him a beatific smile, “I do so appreciate the opportunity to be closely assessed by you.”
His fingers briefly stilled on the page, and then he sighed. “It is abundantly clear, Professor Granger, that you are, objectively, extremely good at your job,” he said, tapping the folder once.
She smiled. “What an uncharacteristically direct and lovely thing for you to say, headmaster.”
He grunted. He was determined she would not seize this as an opening for her usual flirtatious nonsense.
“I am always direct when conducting professional assessments, Professor Granger. I’ve never been in the habit of burying the lede, simply to create suspense.”
She allowed herself a proper smirk.
He cleared his throat. “Septima’s remarks regarding your contributions are uncharacteristically glowing. Barring myself, she is likely the most unforgiving of the Hogwarts faculty, and I cannot recall her having ever previously employed a complimentary superlative in any of her supervisory reviews.”
He paused. “And yet, she does so here, repeatedly, in reference to you.”
Hermione couldn’t stop the smile blooming across her face. Earning Septima’s respect was a point of tremendous pride.
“She has written—” he stiffly consulted the sheet in front of him, “—and I quote: ‘Professor Granger’s performance this year has been exemplary. She continues to combine intellectual rigor, unusual clarity, pedagogical inventiveness, and excellent professional judgment. She is deeply respected by students and colleagues alike, and her contributions this year have extended well beyond her own classroom. Her work in curriculum development, faculty mentorship, and interdisciplinary instruction has materially strengthened the school.’”
He paused, then pressed on. “She praises your peer mentorship, noting how several of your newer fellow instructors have singled you out for being incredibly generous with your time, and have noted that despite the fact that you have frequently made material, and occasionally pivotal contributions to their work, you have expressed being uninterested in receiving any attribution from them.”
She shrugged lightly. “Clean copy is best, I think.”
He paused to consult the parchment in front of him, “One rather memorably said you were ‘the only person who could tell me I’ve built an entire unit backwards without me immediately bursting into tears.’”
Her expression was the picture of blank serenity.
He stared at her for a moment, feeling irritated he was still bracing the as-yet-unsprung something of her making, before continuing: “Septima also notes that you have quickly become the person that other faculty members—even the more senior members—often actively seek out when they are in need of candid, competent counsel.”
“While that’s gratifying to hear, Headmaster,” she said, her eyes beginning to glitter dangerously, “I can think of one notable senior member who has never sought out my candid, competent counsel.”
He exhaled through his nose. Ah, he thought. There it is. Well, at least there’s no more waiting around.
“Please know, Professor Granger, I highly value and always welcome your strictly professional counsel, of course,” he said, attempting to shut down that particular line of provocation.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, “I’ve had several people remark upon the strictly professional effect I have on you.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before he finally averted his gaze back to his piece of parchment.
He cleared his throat.“So, next up: curricular innovation,” his gazed remained fixed to the safety of the parchment.
“Septima has been quite effusive about the introduction of your novel fourth-year bridge unit. She has informed me that you have, in the span of two years, effectively corrected an over half-century-long performance gap between our fifth years’ conceptual fluency and their procedural competence, thus raising their OWL distinctions by fourteen per cent.”
She smiled.
“I have also taken the time to review the structure of your bridging unit myself, and while I was initially concerned that your lesson planning included some quite ambitious material, you seem to have managed to make quite legible the the formal reasoning of several rather difficult concepts, and without oversimplifying them or diluting them. You’ve managed to challenge your stronger students, while still not leaving your weaker students behind. I think it quite… elegantly achieved.”
He did not pause long enough as to allow her an opening, and so was immediately on to his next point.
“Now, as to your teaching effectiveness,” he continued, “you appear to have somehow accomplished the seemingly impossible task of making our third-years voluntarily care about the subject of numerical harmonics. In fact, one of your student’s parents spontaneously wrote to me during this past winter break to observe, with considerable astonishment, that their child spent much of break eagerly discusses integer resonance at dinner, as if he were discussing Quidditch.”
She laughed. “I’d bet good money that was Brunson’s parents.”
“It wasn’t,” he said. “Though I’ve no doubt that they, and probably many others, might also have similar remarks, if asked.”
He paused briefly, adding “Many have commented about your… uh… unusually strong… uh…instructional charisma.”
Her brows rose.
“Instructional charisma,” she repeated, in a somewhat disbelieving voice.
“Mmhmmm,” he made an attempt at a bored hum in the affirmative.
Another pause.
“Am I permitted to be flattered, Headmaster?” she asked in an impish tone.
“No,” he said briskly, still looking down at the parchment.
“No?”
“No.”
Another, longer pause.
“Not even a tiny, eetsy weetsy, just bittiest bittiest little tiny smidge of professional flattery?”
He fought a strong urge to swallow, then tried to look stern. “Professor Granger, do not fish.”
She laughed. “Very well. Well, consider my fishing attempts ended,” she waved him off. “And, please, feel free to resume narrating all this documentation regarding my ‘instructional magnetism.’”
He grunted. “I did not say you were ‘instructionally magnetic!’” he snipped.
“Ehhh, potato, potahto,” she shrugged, smiling. “‘My ‘instructional charisma,’ then.”
He stared daggers at her.
Finally, she made a little coaxing wave towards him, inviting him to resume. “Please, Headmaster—consider me ready for you to admire me in the most bureaucratically safe language available.”
He sighed.
After a moment he looked up at her, and resumed. “Septima writes: ‘Professor Granger’s students continue to perform at an exceptionally high level. Their written work demonstrates unusual clarity, rigor, and methodological discipline. Her sixth-years’ sequence analysis this year was markedly stronger than any from at least the previous half-century, and her seventh-years’ predictive modelling projects were, in several cases, of a standard I would expect from junior researchers, rather than adolescents.’”
Hermione looked rather smug at this. “I’ll happily take that,” she said.
He looked up at her, adding: “I, too, have seen a marked shift in the class as a whole, and in certain individuals in particular. Your class has demonstrated a kind of technical sure-footedness unusually early, and I’ve seen some of your students begin to show the sort of creative impatience that heralds that exciting experimentation phase, where they start to want to manipulate and tinker with method, and to press at spellwork’s known limits. Generally, that sort of intellectual suppleness only appears in one’s mid to late collegiate years, assuming one experiences it at all.’”
Hermione made a little contented, self-satisfied hum. “So, in other words, you’d say my students have graduated beyond ‘simply parroting textbooks?’”
He ignored this attempt at provocation. “Septima further suggests that your influence is evident in the sharp increase we have seen in the number of our seventh-years who applying for post-graduate Arithmantic study, with their applications rising from seven percent in the past fifty years, to thirty-two percent during your tenure.”
“That’s very generous of Septima, to attribute that shift purely to my influence.”
“No, it is not,” he snapped sharply.
“No?”
“It is merely accurate,” he attempted to shift back into a more neutral tone. “You are, after all, the only variable that has taken the department from half a century of low single digits to impressive double digits.”
“Your classroom management is somehow, shockingly, apparently quite good. Students seem to find you approachable, but without mistaking you for lenient, which is a balance most teachers fail to strike. They consistently describe your standards as demanding but fair, and you have also displayed both shockingly sound judgment as well as finesse in both supporting and containing some of our more habitually unruly, if more advanced, students—”
That made her grin. “By ‘habitually unruly but advanced,’ I assume you mean either Aurelia Rosier or Keira Fenwick?” she arched a brow.
“Yes. Both,” Severus replied. “And Tamsin Pryce, and several other dangerously bright and bull-headed students brimming full of fearlessness, recklessness, and righteous opinions, forever convinced of their own correctness.”
Her eyes were alight.
“The type who, if mishandled, might easily tip into becoming—”
“Insufferable?” she supplied.
His mouth pinched, confirming her bull’s-eye.
“That’s your favourite category of pupil, if memory serves?” she said, sweetly.
“I refer to those students who need to understand the critical difference between friction and combustion,” he frowned, choosing to ignore her comment. “You seem to have found a way of neither blunting them, nor indulging them, and you seem to be quite adept at somehow directing them.”
She smirked.
“You seem to be at an advantage in successfully domesticating the next generation of your own kind, as I am aware it is very… precise work.”
“Yesk I would agree that I have a respectable record in taming difficult and unruly creatures.”
She tipped her head back. “Tell me, Headmaster—have you something wild and bitey in need of my… domesticating touch?”
His jaw tightened.
“Something you’d like, docile and purring in my lap?”
He snorted. “Let’s just keep our discussion focused on pupils, shall we, Professor Granger?”
“As opposed to… ?” she trailed off for a moment, before adding: “...headmasters, for example?”
He huffed out a half sigh, half laugh.
Her expression remained flawlessly innocent, only making her constant impertinence that much worse.
“Are you going to allow our meeting to proceed, Professor Granger?”
She looked surprised.
“I believe I am allowing it to proceed… immensely, Headmaster Snape,” she replied.
“Then you should just stop with your completely maddening—” he paused for a moment, casting about for the right word. The word he wanted to use was insolence, but, as usual, she wore nothing conveniently convictable on her face.
“—unnatural prosody,” he finished lamely.
She drew her head back with mock confusion. “My unnatural… prosody?”
“Yes!” he hissed. “You know perfectly well that you are constantly placing unnatural emphasis on perfectly ordinary words, trying to create some sense of ridiculous, nonsensical innuendo where none can reasonably exist!”
“Oh, really?” she frowned slightly. “How troubling. I had no idea.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, making an angry, impatient gesture. “I knew you’d be impossible at this.”
She tutted primly. “Careful, Headmaster. One mustn’t let one’s Muggle show in public, you know.”
He looked imploringly at the ceiling. “This is exactly what I’m talking about!,” he spat. “I don’t care what Minerva says, I will be forcing her to be the one who does your review next year, and completely on her own! She can be the one who has to deal with you when you’re always saying these ridiculous things, in that ridiculous way, in that ridiculous voice of yours!”
The corners of her mouth held. She countered: “Well, I can’t very well say ridiculous things, in a ridiculous way, in Harry’s ridiculous voice, now can I?”
“Potter isn’t the one who’s always doing some thing with his voice so that even some aggressively unsexy grocery shopping list sounds like some kind of coded invitation to debauchery!”
“And I do?” Hermione blinked.
He rolled his eyes.
“ I had no idea,” she sniffed. “I will, of course, immediately begin working on correcting my distressingly… unnatural prosody.”
She cleared her throat lightly, paused dramatically, then said:
“Honey-menthol llllllozenges,” her voice was slow and suggestive, and she over-articulated the ‘l’ in obscenely exaggerated pantomime.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Severus snapped. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes.
“Item two,” she said. “Extra-absorbent adult nappiesssssssss.” The final ‘s’ emerged from her mouth like an obscene and filthy little Parseltongue sibilant.
“Is that any better, Headmaster?” she asked, looking up at him. “Does my prosody make you feel any less debauched by me?”
He groaned. “We’re meant to be discussing students, Granger. Students.”
“I’m only honing my diction, as you requested, Headmaster,” she replied, all clean-handed innocence. “It’s just that it’s rather difficult to correct something so diagnostically unclear, especially when I’ve been so few particulars about what is so offensive about my prosody, is all.”
“I feel,” he grated, “that you are purposely drawing us perilously close to some sort of disciplinary hearing just for shits and giggles, Granger.”
“A disciplinary hearing for which one of us?”
“Does it matter at this point?” he made a frustrated gesture with his hands.
“If you’re worried about your virtue somehow being imperilled while we’re still figuring this all out, I can, of course, summon a house-elf to chaperone us.”
“This is exhausting, Professor Granger,” Severus said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You are exhausting. We only have a little bit more of your review to get through, and we’d be done in ten minutes tops, if you’d only just briefly shut up with all of your usual provocative nonsense.”
She shrugged. “Very well.”
“Finally!” he muttered, sitting forward again.
Annoyingly, this was the section he had actually been looking forward to. The optional intradisciplinary duelling seminars they’d built together—combining her tactical inventiveness with what Minerva once dubbed his “lifelong commitment to making children good at ducking”—had been so successful that it couldn’t very well be called an elective, as every student who qualified for enrollment had done so.
“Now, let’s go over the impressions of our new intradisciplinary duelling elective.”
At this, Hermione’s smile reappeared, and even widened.
“The student feedback around your teaching was exceptionally strong,” he kept his tone level. “And our programme appears to have struck the exact balance we had intended, with students repeatedly praising the blend of technical precision and real-world application.”
Her smile widened.
“In our live demonstrations, you remained articulate, calm under pressure, and adept at explaining your decisions in real time, all while still moving, and without losing pace. That is very difficult to do, as most people can either duel cleanly, or then can explain cleanly. Being able to do both, especially at the same time, is rare.”
She held his gaze for a second too long, and so he looked back at his notes.
“Thank you, Headmaster,” she said, still watching him closely.
“The students expressed enjoyment and benefit from our end-of-class analytic debrief and demo breakdowns, and your instruction during their partner drills was also universally praised. Students said they found your feedback specific, adaptive, and clear. One student even commented that being disarmed by you in front of the whole class felt—” he looked down at the paper in his hand, “—‘less like public humiliation, and more like an empowering kind of shared problem solving.’”
Hermione snorted. “That sounds like Owen.”
He looked up. “It was Mr. Patel, yes.”
“Good for him,” she smiled. “At the end, I hink he actually became our best strategist.”
Severus made a small hum of agreement.
“You have a talent for helping students understand why their choice failed, without reducing the lesson to mere error correction,” he paused. “You make them curious about their own instincts, rather than ashamed of them—even when those same instincts misjudge a situation, or lead them astray.”
There was a pause.
“That,” he said quietly, “is not a small thing.”
Hermione watched him. “And what of our co-teaching dynamic?” she asked.
He remained quiet for a moment, then replied: “Overall, the students commented quite favourably on our… instructional contrast.”
Her smile bloomed larger. “Did they now?”
“Yes, they did,” he replied stiffly.
“Could you expand a little more on that?”
He sighed. “Well, students said they found our class to be so effective because each of us modelled a different but complementary approach to the same problem.”
“Complementary,” she repeated, smiling.
There was another long pause as she waited for him to offer more on this, then prompted: “And were there any specifics about our ‘complementary’ approach?”
He looked down at the sheet of parchment in his hands.
“Well, I think we are both effective in matters of tactical interpretation and live analytical feedback. However, you seem to favour probabilistic thinking, and adaptability and rapid recalibration, while I favour control, anticipation, and making people feel appropriate bad for making stupid choices.”
“May I read some of their actual comments?
He abruptly looked away, to one corner of the room.
“No,” he said.
She huffed out a laugh. “Severus,” she said.
“This is your performance review, not a gossip exchange, Professor Granger. We have already covered all of the relevant and constructive criticism regarding your teaching.”
She stared at him hard, narrowing her eyes.
“No,” he repeated, making a small, petulant shake of his head.
She leaned forward, saying: “Severus—those are a part of my official teaching portfolio, and I am entitled to access them. If you refuse to share them with me, I will simply request access to them through formal channels, if necessary.”
She paused, extending a hand in demand, and added: “So either read me their comments, Severus, or let me read them myself.”
It’d be better to just surrender them to her now, he thought, as he knew this was just the sort of thing she would follow through on. Any continued refusal on his part would only promise the full trifecta of misery: public humiliation, more paperwork for him, and potentially drawing the attention of the Board of Governors’ to the collection of student surveys that basically read like clumsy and confused erotica. And so grudgingly, he slid the sheet of parchment her way.
She smiled as it reached her, and she immediately looked down to read what was written upon it.
‘I mean this with the utmost respect for Headmaster Snape and Professor Granger, but are these two idiots ever going to sort themselves out? They need to either get together or cut it out, because this weird in-between thing is too confusing for everyone involved.’
‘There’s basically a point each week during the demo where the whole room goes quiet and you can actually feel everyone thinking Surely this is the week where they finally snap and shove each other against a wall and snog each other senseless. But it never happens!’
'Frankly, unless my life takes a very unexpected turn, I do not anticipate much duelling in my future. Even so, I suspect this will still be one of the most useful classes I’ve ever taken. These two have unreal technique, but it’s really their strategy and practical breakdowns that make the class feel like it’ll be useful far beyond just duelling. I will say that some of their duelling demonstrations feel like they carry some weirdly… sexual subtext? Maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe it’s totally natural to look at your opponent like you want to bit them while explaining counter-attack theory.’
‘My little sister (fourth year) asked if these two are ‘soul-bonded or just really really dumb about flirting.’’
‘WHAT IS THE HOLD UP YOU GUYS?!?!?!’
‘Watching these two circle each other like they’re deciding between snogging and/or mutual destruction every wed at 9am is so much more effective than muggle coffee.’
‘Footwork focus is brilliant. Spells are broken down in a way I actually understand. Incredibly useful, conceptually and practically, and surprisingly enjoyable. Probably my favourite class ever. Howwwwweverrrr… sometimes class feels like we’re all being forced to witness deeply charged if likely accidental foreplay between two profoundly oblivious if otherwise brilliant people.’
‘The Snape-Granger I’m-going-to-ruin-you staring contest energy in this class is unreal. Bit unfair to do to us before lunch, if I’m honest.’
‘I plan on pursuing a career as an Auror, and so I suspect this will be one of the most valuable classes I’ll ever take. The duelling demonstrations are brilliant, but it’s the one-on-one instruction and post-battle strategy breakdowns that really stick. That said, I have just one complaint (and I hesitate to write this, but honesty matters): sometimes it’s a bit hard to focus on their duelling demonstrations when much of my focus is being diverted to worrying whether or not my robes are concealing the constant half-to-full chub I sport during class. Because sometimes you’re just sitting there thinking, Wow. Yes, I’m learning loads. But also, great! Cause now I’m constantly at half-mast in front of my entire year. The only comfort is that everyone with the relevant anatomy seems equally afflicted. So maybe, for future years, offer a pre-emptive “Notice-Me-Not for Ill-Timed Hard-Ons” refresher at the start of the 7th year term?’
‘Sometimes watching them duel feels a bit like you’re all settled on the sofa with your family to watch an interesting and very respectable educational film. Nana is there, you’ve got snacks, and you’re learning loads of really interesting things, and all is well. And then, without warning, the film cuts to a trailer for a super hot slow-burn softcore drama, and now you’re stuck watching this while still sitting there with EVERYONE, and no one knows where to look, and everyone has gone super quiet and is trying very hard to pretend like we’re still all totally thinking about spell enunciation.’
‘GODS, JUST KISS EACH OTHER ALREADY!’
‘Educational benefit: ten out of ten. Theoretical benefit: ten out of ten. Practical benefit: ten out of ten. Technique: ten out of ten. Sexual tension (benefit or curse?): one hundred out of ten. Group-porn-viewing awkwardness: one hundred thousand out of ten.’
‘not complaining AT ALL, but still bewildered that we actually get school credit for watching Professor Granger and Headmaster Snape basically conduct the slowest, hottest, most catastrophically confused magical equivalent of edging each other (and us) under the flimsy cover of combat instruction.’
‘I’m not writing anything on this survey. I have no idea who reads these.’
‘OMG just shag already’
‘We could totally raise enough money for a whole new Quidditch pitch just by auctioning front-row seats to this class at the next Board of Governors gala. Plenty of adults would pay good money to witness the slow-burn ‘public sex or imminent homicide?’ spectacle we get treated to every Wednesday morning.’
‘The Claws have created a drinking game called ‘Permission Slips,’ where, after class, you have to slam a shot of Firewhiskey for every time the Headmaster leaned over Granger to to breathe out: ‘Allow me, Professor Granger.’ I think we’re all legit alcoholics now.’
‘Look, I’m not saying these two fancy each other, but if they don’t, they’re both complete psychopaths.’
‘I finally understand why my dad would go all dumb and glassy-eyed whenever he’d tell that painfully boring story about the time Granger popped by the Auror bullpen to give him a coffee and yell at him. What he neglected to do was include the most crucial detail about how she’s basically the poster witch for smart + scary hot.’
‘This class is awesome and incredibly educational. But honestly, there’s no way to ignore that these two are basically dry-humping each other via wandwork.’
‘At this point, the whole student body has collective blue balls because of those two.’
‘Would I volunteer as a fly on the wall when they finally shag? Well, duh! Obviously. Granger’s freakin gorgeous AF, and—don’t ask me how—but seeing Snape all obviously wrecked for her somehow makes him even more weirdly fit, too. And you just know the bloke’s got some advanced-level kink stuff ready to deploy on her once they both finally snap. All the same, that’s the kind of scene I’d prefer to watch when NOT flanked by thirty of my classmates. So, for the sake of a bunch of randy adolescents, consider either releasing a director’s cut, installing private viewing booths, or just shagging each other already. I think most of us prefer to perv in private, thanks.’
‘At least half the Snakes are in on ‘Project Truth Bomb,’ and are actively crowd-sourcing the remaining ingredient for a small batch of Veritaserum. Plan is to spike Granger and Snape’s water bottles at the start of class, and FINALLY force the ‘Are we snogging or nah?’ conversation. If that doesn’t work, I just might be reduced to trying to brute-force push their faces against each other like I used to when making my old muggle Barbie dolls make out.’
‘Seriously guys. Enough already.’