You know I've loved this story from the beginning. And I still do. But keeping Hermione Granger so much in character (which you do brilliantly) makes it so much harder for me to accept an HGSS pairing, unless you make Snape OOC, which I think this does.
I'm really torn. The chapter is brilliantly written and plotted, as always. The problem I have, I think, is that Granger reverts back to the frailties in character she showed in canon, to the point where I just can't have any sympathy for her. Definitely too much for me to believe that Snape would ever want much to do with her unless she starts to grow up very quickly. Yes, he's a teacher through-and-through, but surely he's not completely without some support in those caves other than a couple of Gryffindor school girls. ;-)
I've expressed happiness in the past over the way you don't immediately turn Granger into a brilliant, sexy uberwitch in the first two chapters. And I still like that. But it really bothers me here that, even after all the time Snape has spent trying to teach her to think about tactics and long-term strategy, Granger *still* doesn't get it that it did NOT protect the DA to maim Edgecombe after the fact. Or that she thinks it's acceptable to arrange Umbridge's gang rape, and still refuses to even think about the possibility that they should have tried to persuade Harry to go to the one member of the Order who was accessible and could have confirmed that Sirius was still at Grimmauld Place.
Actually, it's not so much that she doesn't get it. It's that she refuses to even *think* about it. She does not seem able to *think* about what Snape is trying to teach her. And it just makes me want to slap her when she responds to his criticism by whining about "everything that's been done by Slytherins."
I could accept that her whinging about Slytherins and Neville was just knee-jerk defensiveness, and that she is capable of learning to think through what she does, had she shown any indication of having reflected on her actions between that discussion and the mission. The chapter does not say how much time elapsed, but it appears to have been fairly significant. And it does not appear that she used any of that time to think, however, given that her sole complaint about the mission was that it was necessary to use a curse on Trelawney to effectuate HER plan, which of course she refused to take responsibility for.
"She had also, unknowingly at the time, convinced him of her admiration for him. That had gained her his trust, and maybe Sabrina's stone had helped her with that, too."
Too bad she refuses to trust him, isn't it? ;-)
At this stage, we have had Granger acting irresponsibly and making it clear that she does not trust Snape, and in addition, that she feels no sense of responsibility for the difficulties she has created and enemies she has made. And Snape's reaction to all this has been to snap at her and, when she snaps back, to pull back completely and do nothing more than smirk at her, expressly joke about her statement that she is hiding things from him, and continue to take her on essential missions.
I just am finding it hard to believe that Snape would trust this Granger so completely because she's competent, appears to admire him (although her actions say otherwise), and is obviously thinking about sex. Yes, he's a man and we all know how susceptible they can be to that. ;-) But she makes it clear in this chapter that not only does she not trust him, but she refuses to accept responsibility for the fallout from any of her actions (except to be proud of the gang rape that should have been avoided, that is). That's not a trustworthy individual, and Snape did not survive as long as he has by trusting people like that. Using them, yes. But not trusting them. And certainly not entertaining the idea of any kind of personal relationship with them.