A/N: The beginning of my first long-term fanfiction project! Great Scott I'm nervous... hope you like and review!
A Black Lotus
Chapter 1
It was late and Hermione knew it. The floating candles and lanterns that illuminated the library burned low, casting long, dense shadows in the already dim room; the spaces in-between the bookshelves looked like the dark places that imagined horrors lurked.
Snape himself might be lurking there, Hermione thought with a small smile and closed Hogwarts, A History with a snap. She turned in her seat to look at her companion, their face pale and tear-stained in the light. Ginny looked weary of the world or of coping with living, eyes heavily lidded and glazed.
"We'd better get back to the tower," Hermione said and felt a rush of both sympathy when Ginny nodded absent-mindedly. Composing her expression into one of agitation as she stood, Hermione added, "Snape will punish us worse than last time if we don't make curfew."
Ginny's blank face clouded over with anger; she muttered nastily, "Hark to the greatest git's admonishings." But she rose nonetheless and followed Hermione through the dark spaces between the bookshelves, past a bleary-eyed Madame Pince, and into the dimly lit corridor, the torches in their brackets on the wall sputtering at random as they began to make their way back up to the Gryffindor common room.
"His admonishings weren't so bad last time he caught us," Hermione said finally to dispel the silence between them. Ginny snorted.
"Twenty points apiece isn't bad to you?" she asked incredulously. "I'd hate to see the state of our hourglass if you ever said that it was bad then."
Hermione laughed quietly despite herself, inwardly grateful that Ginny was now responding to her normally.
"Maybe," Hermione conceded, "but as prefect I have to admit that we were out past curfew and--"
"You're taking his side?" Ginny asked, disbelieving. Her eyes were wide in the torchlight as they took the stairs. But then she added, "But then you are a prefect."
The smile that had drifted onto Hermione's face became a slight frown; stung, she said, "You make it sound like it's a bad thing."
"It's not because it's you," Ginny said, now grinning, "but that doesn't mean that I like it when you go all rule-abiding on me."
They took the right turn and went up another flight of stairs, Hermione's hurt feelings placated.
"Anyway," Ginny continued, "It's Snape--why would I be pleased to see him?"
"He's not that bad. He's just a really difficult person who…" Hermione began, but trailed off when she glanced at the redhead beside her.
"Oh, Ginny!" Hermione whispered, ashamed of how tactless she'd been. "I didn't mean about-- well, you know about what--I just meant that he's not overall as bad as he seems."
"He hurt him. He purposefully antagonized him, and it eventually led to his death." Ginny's voice was cool and calm, but Hermione was not fooled by it; Ginny's shoulders were slumped and her head hung while she watched her feet as she walked.
Of course, Hermione knew without asking who him was. There might have been a time, back when it was still so fresh in their minds that they were shocked, when Hermione would have denied ever having any inkling about it. But that time, if it had ever been there, had passed, and Hermione had (by listening for the past six weeks of school to Ginny in the library) confirmed that any inkling she had had was right.
Ginny, whether she knew it or not, had been in love with Sirius--no, maybe not the Sirius that Hermione, Harry, and Ron and his other family had come to know, but the Sirius that Lupin had probably known. And somehow Ginny had come to know him too in the brief instances when he had seemed younger, fuller of life, and less haunted; Hermione had seen the look on Ginny's face whenever those small moments had flitted into being and she had merely perceived it as delight and affection at the time.
The misery evident in Ginny now seemed too intense for something as mildly complicated as a simple friendship, but Hermione did not share any of these thoughts to Ginny as they climbed the last staircase to the seventh floor. Instead she said tentatively, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound so..."
But there wasn't any word that Hermione could use that seemed appropriate, and she trailed off into silence, waiting for Ginny to break it.
She didn't have to wait long.
Ginny, still looking sad replied, "It's okay. I know you didn't mean to say it that way." She sighed deeply."I don't blame Snape entirely either, but...I still don't like him," she added with a twitch in the corners of her mouth.
Hermione laughed.
"Well, that was palpable," she said a little ironically. Glancing at her watch, Hermione stopped near the door of one of the numerous empty classrooms, shock and disbelief invading every one of her cells like an unnatural disease.
Ginny, who had walked a little ahead before stopping as well, came back toward Hermione looking concerned.
"What's wrong?" she asked. Hermione shook her head and held out her arm, the face of her watch winking in the torchlight.
When Hermione had looked at her watch's face simply to know the time she had seen not the normalcy of one through twelve numerals in order, but all of them scrambled up and misplaced in spontaneity like blemishes and the hands warped and twisted like corkscrews.
Ginny looked surprised when she looked up from peering at the watch, but not disbelieving or shocked.
"Do you know what it means?" Hermione whispered, most of the air in her lungs being forced out and replaced with excitement.
Ginny nodded and said, "Something's interrupting your watch's measurement of time."
"Meaning--?"
"Well, it means that something near us," Ginny gestured around the empty corridor, "has enough magic to make time…" she struggled for an appropriate word and finished pathetically, "weird."
"I've never read about this…" Hermione murmured and peered at the stone surrounding them, thinking that maybe whatever had made time weird was going to become obvious to them. But nothing appeared, and the only thing that happened was the sensation that they were running out of time to get back to the common room.
Ginny gave a sudden gasp. Hermione turned and saw that Ginny had opened the empty classroom door that she stood by to reveal the biggest grandfather clock Hermione had ever seen standing against the far wall and thickly blanketed in dust.
It was as big as a wardrobe and plain except for a doorknob encrusted in jewels of every color and size, their brilliance dimmed by the thinnest layer of grime. The brass of the doorknob had tarnished severely, but the outline of a normal door stood out despite the filth.
Hermione watched Ginny cross the room and reach out for the doorknob. Instinctively, Hermione darted forward and stilled Ginny's hand; the sensation of foreboding made her skin crawl and her stomach twist. Ginny raised her brows at her.
"What?" she asked.
Frowning, Hermione replied, "You don't know what this thing is! It could be dangerous—it's probably the reason my watch is acting strangely!"
She held up her watch as evidence of this and was horrified to see that the entire face of her watch was gone, leaving only a beige background. Ginny's eyes widened.
"Hermione," Ginny said soothingly, "I'm sure it's nothing extremely dangerous. Dumbledore wouldn't keep something—"
"The Philosopher's Stone ring any bells?" Hermione cut in scathingly. It was Ginny's turn to frown.
"That was different, though!" she argued. "Dumbledore himself told you guys not to go where it was, didn't he? I've never heard him say that this particular corridor on the seventh floor was off limits."
Not liking it at all, Hermione knew that Ginny was right this time; she couldn't recall ever hearing Dumbledore forbidding any particular places at the Welcome Feast except the forest. Slowly, Hermione withdrew her hand from on top of Ginny's.
"I guess it's…okay," Hermione muttered, but the sense of foreboding did not fade, even as Ginny twisted the little knob and opened a normal sized door that revealed nothing but darkness and shadows that were so thick that the corners and back of the timepiece were obscured.
Ginny looked disheartened at what Hermione was sure had been an anticlimax to her mounting curiosity. Hermione gave a small, sad smile, and was just about to say that no one always got what they wanted, when she heard the faint sounds of someone climbing the not so distant staircase and the slightest rustle of a cloak on flagstones.
It seemed that Ginny had heard it as well because her eyes widened. "Hermione…" she breathed.
The footsteps grew louder and a new sound made Hermione want to run to the open classroom door and shut it: the soft billowing of cloth.
"Snape!" Hermione whispered. And without a second thought as to whether it was actually a smart idea or not she continued hastily, "Get in the clock!"
Trying not to make the slightest noise, Hermione and Ginny clamored into the grandfather clock and shut the door gently behind them just as the footsteps reached outside the classroom door.
It creaked a little on its hinges as Snape opened it wider and peered inside. There was nothing in the room except for an inch thick blanket of dust. He shut the door and continued with his rounds, face expressionless. He could have sworn he'd heard someone in the empty classroom just moments ago.