Chapter Two
The next two days were spent attempting to perfect a glamour that would stand up to almost constant wear, yet be easy enough to maintain that it did not completely drain them of energy. They had only been partially successful, Delaia thought, surveying her reflection in the Three Broomsticks' guestroom mirror. Her disguise was convincing enough--she really did look like a normal, if somewhat tall, twelve year old boy--but it wavered if she kept it up more than six hours at a time, and utterly exhausted her after five. Snape could last somewhat longer, which did not improve her attitude; of course, all he had to do, she reflected bitterly, was to project a younger version of himself, a considerably easier task than maintaining a completely different figure. She turned from the mirror as he swept in, his black student robes looking little different from the ones he usually wore.
"The Hogwart's Express is due in a few minutes. It will be easier if we are met at the station with everyone else." He surveyed her critically, but apparently she passed muster, for he merely told her to hurry up and left, presumably for his own room. Delaia neither knew nor cared what he was doing--two days of almost unrelieved Severus Snape combined with the stress of constructing the glamour had given her a pounding headache. Despite reminding herself repeatedly of the importance of the opportunity fate had given them, she couldn't help but secretly wish that her uncle's owl calling her back from Egypt, where she had been attempting to obtain some highly illegal potions supplies for him, had been lost on the way. If fate did insist on throwing her into this mess, however, the least it might have done was to give her a slightly less objectionable partner. Snape, she had discovered, did not improve with exposure.
Delaia sighed, shrank her trunk to the size of a small book, and dropped it into her pocket. There was no point in postponing the inevitable, she supposed. Snape met her in the hallway and they walked in silence to the station. Neither of them, of course, had a licence to apparate in this time period, and they had already done enough to make the Ministry of Magic suspicious without attempting any more unnecessary infractions. They waited in the woods beyond the station until the train arrived and the resulting confusion allowed them to mix into the crowd without attracting notice. Delaia and Severus, as a second and seventh year student respectively, were able to avoid the ride in tiny boats across a rough- looking lake required of the first years. For her part, however, Delaia found the horseless carriages that conveyed the older students to the school little better; they smelled musty and were uncomfortable. Severus had warned her about them, along with imparting a few other grudging slivers of information, but only after she had pointed out that he needed her knowledge of Beauxbatons to convincingly portray a transfer student. She couldn't be sure that the academy she had attended was quite the same as its 1855 counterpart, but then, how many at Hogwarts would know the difference?
The inelegant carriages finally deposited them at the entrance and they were able to proceed to the great hall. Unlike the other older students, she and Snape had to be sorted. During the tedious wait for her turn under the hat, Delaia amused herself by scanning the Slytherin table to see if she could pick out her uncle from among the several hundred students already seated there, but without success. This surprised her as he'd mentioned being a prefect in his last years, which should have put him at the head of the table and therefore fairly near her. But, unless he had changed beyond all recognition, she didn't see him.
Turning to Gryffindor, she had no trouble picking out Albus. What she saw was such a shock, however, that she did not notice her name being called until Snape gave her a less-than-gentle shove forward. She stumbled to the sorting stool, her eyes briefly meeting those of the young Dumbledore, who was politely watching from the head of the Gryffindor table. Before she could wipe the dumbfounded expression off her face, it was eclipsed by the sorting hat falling over her eyes. It smelled, she noticed, even worse than the carriages.
"Hmm. Well, this is certainly a surprise," came a voice in her ear. "You are aware that girls aren't allowed at Hogwarts?"
"And you are aware that I know of at least a hundred different ways to set fire to an old hat?"
The mouldy headgear chuckled in her ear. "Oh, don't worry, my dear, after nine hundred years I know how to keep my own counsel. I also know where to put someone capable of such an elaborate deception . . . "
"Don't even think about it," Delaia warned, "I have to be in Gryffindor." She wasn't sure exactly what had made her say that . . . ok, she had a suspicion, but that wasn't the same thing as being sure. And anyway, it only made sense. Snape was almost certainly going in Slytherin, and this way they'd have a foot in both camps, so to speak.
"I don't take requests," the ratty old thing replied acerbically.
"One hundred and one . . . "
"Alright, alright! I can't see that it matters anyway--you won't last a week before they discover your little secret, you know."
"Let me worry about that," Delaia replied confidently, as the damned thing finally yelled out "Gryffindor!" loud enough for the whole hall to hear.
She sat the filthy object back on its stool and trotted over to the Gryffindor table, sliding into a seat near its foot with the other younger students. Her eyes never left Dumbledore, not even when Snape's name was called immediately after hers. Albus looked, she thought, a little bemused, but gave her a small smile as she settled into her place. She barely noticed when her neighbour, a tiny brown-haired boy, leaned over to offer his commiseration on the fact that her brother had just been sorted into Slytherin.
"Yeah, quel dommage."
"What?"
"What a pity," Delaia translated for him. In reality she thought the dungeons went well with Snape's personality and really couldn't imagine him anywhere else. The food appeared shortly thereafter, but she barely managed to eat anything. They'd had a rather hearty lunch at the Three Broomsticks anyway, and besides, she was distracted.
"I think your brother is trying to get your attention," her neighbour said, and Delaia finally glanced over to where Snape was seated. Huge surprise, he was scowling. She ignored him and returned to the much more attractive vision offered by Albus Dumbledore, who was, she decided emphatically, the most attractive man she'd ever seen in her life. Why on earth, she wondered in amazement, had someone with a face like that decided to grow a beard in later life? It had to be to keep the women from constantly harassing him. Her contemplation of the fascinating way the candle-light turned his long auburn hair to burnished bronze, played across his perfect, classical features, and lit up the clear, cerulean blue of his eyes, was interrupted a few minutes later, not by the end of the feast, but by a rough hand on her arm and a yank that brought her up from her seat in one swift motion. An apparently furious Severus Snape glared down his overlong nose at her. "If I could have a word, BROTHER?," he hissed, steering her out of the hall and into a small, curtained archway nearby.
He cast a silencing charm on it before turning to her with his usually sallow complexion almost purple. "What the HELL did you think you were doing?" Delaia was glad of the charm, as his voice would otherwise have carried not only beyond the room, but probably throughout the great hall itself.
"What are you yelling about, Snape? And will you keep it down? I don't have a hearing problem, you know."
"No, you apparently have an INTELLIGENCE problem, or are you deliberately trying to sabotage us before we even begin?"
"Me?! I'm not the one making a scene by dragging someone out of the hall halfway through a meal!"
"No, you're the twelve year old BOY practically drooling over Albus. Do you have ANY idea what you looked like in there?!"
Delaia shifted a little uncomfortably. Had she been that obvious? She regretfully concluded after a brief silence that she might have been. Damn, now Albus would probably avoid her like the plague. Great going. Fifteen minutes a Gryffindor and she was already the house freak.
"I was just surprised," she defended herself. Snape might be right for once, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of hearing her admit it. "He looks," unbelievably stunningly gorgeous, "different."
"Yes, how extraordinary, a little thing like a century and a half actually changing a person." Snape was still glaring, but his complexion was slowly returning to its normal colour. "I find it almost impossible to believe with your COMPLETE lack of ability at deception that you are the niece of one of the most illustrious Slytherins ever to live." He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. "The glamour is only going to do part of the job. Were you unaware that you have to at least ATTEMPT to act like a normal, preadolescent boy?"
"Don't lecture me, Snape." Delaia was a bit embarrassed but damn it, she'd had a shock. HE, of course, couldn't be expected to understand, having probably never had a normal, human emotion in his entire bloody life.
"Do you think you could possibly manage not to look like a COMPLETE imbecile if we return to the feast?"
Delaia would have liked to make a snappy comeback, but found that she couldn't think of one. "I'll be fine."
Snape glowered at her for a moment, then sighed and gave up. "Just stay as far away from Dumbledore as you possibly can. Try to remember that he isn't just one of the most powerful wizards in recent memory, but also nobody's fool. You keep acting like you did tonight, and we won't have a chance."
* * *
Snape settled himself back at the Slytherin table a few minutes later in a particularly foul mood. Not only was Zosimus conspicuously absent, but the idiotic little wretch he had been saddled with by a perverse universe was going to give him heart failure. He had just realised that none of the Slytherins surrounding him was the illustrious potions-master-to- be when his neighbour on the right had leaned over him to ask the boy on his left if he'd noticed that the newest Gryffindor seemed just FASCENATED by his senior prefect. Snape had glanced over at the Gryffindor table, not immediately realising that they were talking about his "brother," until he saw the asinine expression on Delaia's face. She was staring at Albus like an acolyte adoring an ancient divinity, only he doubted that most acolytes had quite that lascivious a gleam in their eyes. He had almost choked on his pumpkin juice, willing her to snap out of it, to realise just how strange that expression was on the face of a young boy, which of course she didn't do. If he didn't badly need her to try and recall everything Zosimus had housed in his sanctum sanctorum, to give them some idea where to start to recreate the potion that had resulted in this debacle in the first place, he'd petrify her until spring thaw at the very least.
Snape did not expect his sour expression to save him from relentless, scathing teasing from his housemates--this was Slytherin, after all--so was pleasantly surprised to find that, in his absence, a new subject had replaced Delaia's indiscretion as the hot topic. Zosimus' name caught his attention almost as soon as he had seated himself. A redheaded boy who, had he not been in Slytherin might have been mistaken for a Weasley progenitor, was excitedly proclaiming that Zosimus would certainly take the prize. "Especially as it's at Durmstrang this time, and everyone knows his family has CONTACTS there."
Snape gradually discerned, without actually having to ask, that the excited babbling at all four tables had been caused by the announcement, made while he was berating his idiot of a partner, that the Triwizard tournament was to take place this year at Durmstrang Institute. Four champions would be chosen to attend, one from each house, with the final Hogwarts champion selected at Durmstrang itself. Anyone could enter, so not surprisingly, given the competitive nature that was a requirement for placement in Slytherin, the red-haired boy's championing of the mysteriously absent Zosimus did not go unchallenged. Snape tried to concentrate on his dinner while ignoring the heated debate raging around him and wondering what kind of hell this newest development would play with their plans. If Dumbledore and Zosimus were two of Hogwart's champions, a fact which Snape, at least, did not doubt for a moment, he and Delaia could be facing a serious problem. The tournament, he was informed after a casual inquiry, would require the selected students to be absent from Hogwarts for much of the academic year. It would be a bit difficult, he reflected, to gain the trust of two boys if neither was actually in residence.
Snape speared a piece of rare roast beef with a tad more aggression than absolutely necessary and glanced over at Gryffindor. He was relieved to see that Delaia seemed to have learned her lesson. He could not see her expression, hidden as it was by a fall of dark hair, but at least she was ignoring Albus. Snape really couldn't see the problem. To him the headmaster just looked like a normal, if rather annoyingly pleasant, young man, much as he would have described had anyone ever asked him how he thought a youthful Albus might appear. Delaia obviously saw something more; he could only hope she would show a bit more discretion from this point on; not, of course, that it would matter if Albus soon went on an extended trip abroad. He sighed and ate the rest of his meat. Might as well keep his strength up. It looked like the universe planned to continue indefinitely its favourite game of making Severus Snape the butt of every possible joke.
* * *
A somewhat chastened Delaia returned to the feast and slid into her seat. I will not look at Albus, she told herself, impaling a potato on her fork and pretending it was Snape's head. Just get through this, don't make any mistakes and remember, you'll be in the dormitory soon and can drop this damn glamour and get some sleep. She and Snape had worked out a simple spell to project an image of themselves, with glamour intact, while not having to maintain the entire, complex charm. It worked great as long as they didn't have to move around, shielding a small area rather like a blanket. They had tried it out the previous night and it seemed to work well for sleeping . . .
Delaia became aware that the mousy boy beside her was saying something in her direction. "What?" She looked at him vaguely.
"I said, my name's Ashley Mornington. I'm really pleased to be in Gryffindor, aren't you?"
"Oh, right." Pay attention Delaia; any normal twelve-year-old would want to make friends. "Very glad."
"I'm a first year, too. Wasn't that trip across the lake brilliant?"
"I'm not a first year, so I didn't arrive that way." Delaia answered automatically, her gaze, despite strict orders to the contrary, drifting down the table to where Albus was sitting. She almost dropped her fork when she realised he was watching her. Their eyes met for an instant, and she saw a strange expression cross his face, something approaching speculation, before he turned to answer a query from the burly blond boy sitting next to him. Delaia quickly returned her eyes to her plate, and resolutely kept them there for the rest of the meal. It passed fairly quickly, with her new little friend finding the fact that she had transferred in from Beauxbatons fascinating. At least, she had to assume he did, considering how many questions he asked her about it.
At last the interminable meal was over and the houses rose to follow their prefects to the dormitories. Apparently Albus and the big blond boy were the two for Gryffindor, which explained, she supposed, their prominent seats at the table's head. Albus took the lead, with the students in a chattering group behind him and his companion bringing up the rear. Delaia held back to almost last, deciding not to tempt fate further that night by getting anywhere near Albus. Snape gave her an approving nod as Gryffindor filed out of the hall.
Delaia was concentrating on trying to remember all the twists and turns along the way to the Gryffindor rooms, to the extent that she did not notice anything amiss until she was suddenly pushed into an empty classroom. Wondering if she was due for another round with Snape, although what she'd done wrong this time was a mystery, she turned to see the second Gryffindor prefect closing the door to the hall behind him. "Well, well, a new little Gryffindor." He smiled at her in a way Delaia did not like at all and ran a large hand over her hair and down her back. "And a pretty one at that." Delaia wondered if her glamour was slipping, but it felt the same as always and she wasn't THAT tired. Catching sight of her reflection in a highly polished shield decorating the otherwise unrelieved stone of the wall to her left, she could only see a willowy boy's frame, with dark brown, almost black hair cascading to her waist and her own caramel coloured eyes. In other words, all was as it should be, which meant . . .
"Uh oh." Delaia backed away from the steadily advancing prefect, wondering how she got into these things. Not that she had a problem hexing him to Christmas if needed, but if his reaction was anything to go on, she might have a bit of a problem ahead of her. A desk bumped the back of her legs, stopping her progress across the room. He smiled, advancing with a predatory look in his eyes. Delaia hadn't been one of her academy's duelling champions for nothing; she only hesitated because she was trying to decide which of several really objectionable curses to hit him with when the door opened and Albus walked in. So much for avoiding him, Delaia thought, surreptitiously returning her wand to its narrow pocket up her sleeve.
"Is there a problem, Geoffrey?" Albus asked mildly.
The prefect smiled. "No, just welcoming our new arrival." He didn't look particularly intimidated, Delaia noticed, but he did back a step away from her. "We ought to be friendly, Albus."
"Then you'll want to join everyone else in the common room, so we can welcome ALL our new Gryffindors."
The blond boy smiled nastily, but made no effort to prevent Delaia from slipping around him. "We were just coming."
She did not wait for the two prefects, but scurried up the corridor to where a large painting had swung out of its place on the wall, allowing entrance to a cavernous room beyond. A cheery fire was crackling in the grate, and new and old students milled about, chatting noisily. Delaia found a place in a far corner where, hopefully, she would be inconspicuous, and wondered how long it would be until she could get her room assignment and fall into bed. She had been maintaining the glamour for over three hours now, and was beginning to feel the strain.
Albus and Geoffrey brought the meeting to order, which seemed to be primarily concerned with deciding which of the first years would act as slave to which of the sixth and seventh years. It was an old custom, and while it had long been out of fashion at Beauxbatons, she was aware that it had once been common for lower-level students to act as servants to their more advanced classmates. Apparently, Hogwarts in this era practised the tradition, although she was relieved to find that only first years were expected to participate. She lost interest in the proceedings after ascertaining that they would not involve her, and just wished they'd get on with it. It seemed to take forever, involving as it did squabbles between upper level boys over almost every single first year. Delaia, concentrating on not falling asleep, missed the start of yet another disagreement. It was not until she heard her name that she realised Geoffrey was trying to insist that, as this was her first year at Hogwarts, the custom should apply to her as well.
Delaia immediately saw that the idea appealed to her fellow Gryffindors, who seemed to feel that, as they'd all had to take their turn, there was no reason the new boy should get out of it. Geoffrey was grinning at her maliciously from the red leather armchair he occupied in front of the fire. It did not take a great leap of imagination, Delaia thought in annoyance, to imagine just what it was that had prompted his observation. What was she supposed to do anyway, she wondered, hex the bastard every day for the next year to keep his hands off her? And as his slave, wouldn't she have to share a room with him? She wished she'd practised her memory charms lately, as she saw no way to avoid eventually giving herself away if forced to be constantly around someone who watched her every move.
"I'm sure Mr. de Plannis has already done his turn at Beauxbatons," Albus was objecting. She sent him a smile across the room, but wasn't sure that he caught it. His attention was on Geoffrey, and he wasn't smiling. If he knew the boy's character, Delaia was not surprised. She sincerely hoped he'd win the argument, as every eligible boy but Geoffrey seemed to have already claimed a slave. Not that it would matter; if things were done the same way here as in France, as a prefect, he'd outrank everyone else anyway.
It quickly became obvious that Albus' views were not predominating. Delaia noted that only a few older boys clustered near Geoffrey seemed to be vocally supporting him, but no one was seconding Albus and speaking up for her. Most of the laughing faces surrounding her, in what was beginning to resemble a nightmare, did not look malicious; they just felt that fair was fair, and transfer or no, all new arrivals needed to take their turn. The collective opinion was important in lending support to Geoffrey, who was soon looking confidant of victory. Fine, Delaia thought in irritation. Just do it, and I'll hex you as soon as we're in your rooms. It wasn't until she noticed a tall brunette standing next to the stockier boy lean over to whisper something in his ear that she began to be genuinely concerned. The dark-haired student had a strange expression in his eyes as he met her gaze, and several of his companions laughed at something she could not hear. This whole thing might turn out less than amusing if she had to defend against four or five of them, Delaia thought, especially if they were all, as they appeared, upper level students.
Her heart sank as she heard Albus finally give in. "Very well, if that is the consensus." Most of the boys about her cheered, whether at her misfortune or the fact that the evening was finally drawing to a close and they could get some sleep, she wasn't sure, but she scowled at them on principle anyway. They responded by clapping her on the back and telling her to buck up as they filed off to their rooms. She began rapidly trying to remember her seventh year, multiple opponent attack sequences while subconsciously fingering her wand.
She reluctantly walked forward to where Geoffrey and his little clique, Albus and a few scattered, older Gryffindors were still standing around the fireplace. Geoffrey laid a beefy hand on the back of her neck and chuckled. "Don't look so glum," he admonished, "I think I can guarantee you'll enjoy the experience." His cronies laughed as Delaia turned resentful eyes on them. They would not be laughing in a few minutes, that she'd guarantee. Mission or no mission, this group was going to have an extremely painful night if she had anything to say about it.
Geoffrey had dropped his hand to the small of her back and was propelling her towards the stairs when a calm voice from behind them arrested his progress. "Aren't you forgetting something, Geoffrey?" Albus' voice was even as always, but his tone had a slight edge. "I do believe that I am senior prefect here."
The group around Delaia turned as one to where Dumbledore continued to lean casually against the mantle, two other Gryffindors flanking him, one on either side. None of the three looked pleased. Neither, Delaia suddenly noticed, did Geoffrey's group.
"Your point being, Albus?"
Delaia was slightly shocked to see a vicious little smile hover about Albus' lips. It was not an expression she would ever have associated with him, and combined with the rather dangerous glint in his suddenly cold blue eyes, made her wonder if she knew the kindly old wizard as well as she had thought. "Merely," he said evenly, "that Valentin will be serving me this year. I'm sure you don't have an objection?"
Delaia didn't dare to look round at Geoffrey, but heard his sharply indrawn breath and felt the tension in the large body behind her. She thought for a moment that she would have to be explaining to Snape tomorrow how she'd somehow become involved in a mass duel in the Gryffindor common room mere hours after being sorted there. A minute later, however, a spiteful push against her back sent her careening into Albus' arms; apparently, Geoffrey had backed down, this time at least. Delaia was not so naïve as to think she would have no more problems with him, but was grateful for the respite. God, she needed sleep.
She looked up at Albus, ready to gush out her appreciation, only to see his expression icy, and narrow-eyed. Admittedly, he was watching the retreating figures of Geoffrey and his little gang, and not directing the look towards her, but Delaia suddenly wondered if she might not have just acquired a much more difficult set of problems.
The next two days were spent attempting to perfect a glamour that would stand up to almost constant wear, yet be easy enough to maintain that it did not completely drain them of energy. They had only been partially successful, Delaia thought, surveying her reflection in the Three Broomsticks' guestroom mirror. Her disguise was convincing enough--she really did look like a normal, if somewhat tall, twelve year old boy--but it wavered if she kept it up more than six hours at a time, and utterly exhausted her after five. Snape could last somewhat longer, which did not improve her attitude; of course, all he had to do, she reflected bitterly, was to project a younger version of himself, a considerably easier task than maintaining a completely different figure. She turned from the mirror as he swept in, his black student robes looking little different from the ones he usually wore.
"The Hogwart's Express is due in a few minutes. It will be easier if we are met at the station with everyone else." He surveyed her critically, but apparently she passed muster, for he merely told her to hurry up and left, presumably for his own room. Delaia neither knew nor cared what he was doing--two days of almost unrelieved Severus Snape combined with the stress of constructing the glamour had given her a pounding headache. Despite reminding herself repeatedly of the importance of the opportunity fate had given them, she couldn't help but secretly wish that her uncle's owl calling her back from Egypt, where she had been attempting to obtain some highly illegal potions supplies for him, had been lost on the way. If fate did insist on throwing her into this mess, however, the least it might have done was to give her a slightly less objectionable partner. Snape, she had discovered, did not improve with exposure.
Delaia sighed, shrank her trunk to the size of a small book, and dropped it into her pocket. There was no point in postponing the inevitable, she supposed. Snape met her in the hallway and they walked in silence to the station. Neither of them, of course, had a licence to apparate in this time period, and they had already done enough to make the Ministry of Magic suspicious without attempting any more unnecessary infractions. They waited in the woods beyond the station until the train arrived and the resulting confusion allowed them to mix into the crowd without attracting notice. Delaia and Severus, as a second and seventh year student respectively, were able to avoid the ride in tiny boats across a rough- looking lake required of the first years. For her part, however, Delaia found the horseless carriages that conveyed the older students to the school little better; they smelled musty and were uncomfortable. Severus had warned her about them, along with imparting a few other grudging slivers of information, but only after she had pointed out that he needed her knowledge of Beauxbatons to convincingly portray a transfer student. She couldn't be sure that the academy she had attended was quite the same as its 1855 counterpart, but then, how many at Hogwarts would know the difference?
The inelegant carriages finally deposited them at the entrance and they were able to proceed to the great hall. Unlike the other older students, she and Snape had to be sorted. During the tedious wait for her turn under the hat, Delaia amused herself by scanning the Slytherin table to see if she could pick out her uncle from among the several hundred students already seated there, but without success. This surprised her as he'd mentioned being a prefect in his last years, which should have put him at the head of the table and therefore fairly near her. But, unless he had changed beyond all recognition, she didn't see him.
Turning to Gryffindor, she had no trouble picking out Albus. What she saw was such a shock, however, that she did not notice her name being called until Snape gave her a less-than-gentle shove forward. She stumbled to the sorting stool, her eyes briefly meeting those of the young Dumbledore, who was politely watching from the head of the Gryffindor table. Before she could wipe the dumbfounded expression off her face, it was eclipsed by the sorting hat falling over her eyes. It smelled, she noticed, even worse than the carriages.
"Hmm. Well, this is certainly a surprise," came a voice in her ear. "You are aware that girls aren't allowed at Hogwarts?"
"And you are aware that I know of at least a hundred different ways to set fire to an old hat?"
The mouldy headgear chuckled in her ear. "Oh, don't worry, my dear, after nine hundred years I know how to keep my own counsel. I also know where to put someone capable of such an elaborate deception . . . "
"Don't even think about it," Delaia warned, "I have to be in Gryffindor." She wasn't sure exactly what had made her say that . . . ok, she had a suspicion, but that wasn't the same thing as being sure. And anyway, it only made sense. Snape was almost certainly going in Slytherin, and this way they'd have a foot in both camps, so to speak.
"I don't take requests," the ratty old thing replied acerbically.
"One hundred and one . . . "
"Alright, alright! I can't see that it matters anyway--you won't last a week before they discover your little secret, you know."
"Let me worry about that," Delaia replied confidently, as the damned thing finally yelled out "Gryffindor!" loud enough for the whole hall to hear.
She sat the filthy object back on its stool and trotted over to the Gryffindor table, sliding into a seat near its foot with the other younger students. Her eyes never left Dumbledore, not even when Snape's name was called immediately after hers. Albus looked, she thought, a little bemused, but gave her a small smile as she settled into her place. She barely noticed when her neighbour, a tiny brown-haired boy, leaned over to offer his commiseration on the fact that her brother had just been sorted into Slytherin.
"Yeah, quel dommage."
"What?"
"What a pity," Delaia translated for him. In reality she thought the dungeons went well with Snape's personality and really couldn't imagine him anywhere else. The food appeared shortly thereafter, but she barely managed to eat anything. They'd had a rather hearty lunch at the Three Broomsticks anyway, and besides, she was distracted.
"I think your brother is trying to get your attention," her neighbour said, and Delaia finally glanced over to where Snape was seated. Huge surprise, he was scowling. She ignored him and returned to the much more attractive vision offered by Albus Dumbledore, who was, she decided emphatically, the most attractive man she'd ever seen in her life. Why on earth, she wondered in amazement, had someone with a face like that decided to grow a beard in later life? It had to be to keep the women from constantly harassing him. Her contemplation of the fascinating way the candle-light turned his long auburn hair to burnished bronze, played across his perfect, classical features, and lit up the clear, cerulean blue of his eyes, was interrupted a few minutes later, not by the end of the feast, but by a rough hand on her arm and a yank that brought her up from her seat in one swift motion. An apparently furious Severus Snape glared down his overlong nose at her. "If I could have a word, BROTHER?," he hissed, steering her out of the hall and into a small, curtained archway nearby.
He cast a silencing charm on it before turning to her with his usually sallow complexion almost purple. "What the HELL did you think you were doing?" Delaia was glad of the charm, as his voice would otherwise have carried not only beyond the room, but probably throughout the great hall itself.
"What are you yelling about, Snape? And will you keep it down? I don't have a hearing problem, you know."
"No, you apparently have an INTELLIGENCE problem, or are you deliberately trying to sabotage us before we even begin?"
"Me?! I'm not the one making a scene by dragging someone out of the hall halfway through a meal!"
"No, you're the twelve year old BOY practically drooling over Albus. Do you have ANY idea what you looked like in there?!"
Delaia shifted a little uncomfortably. Had she been that obvious? She regretfully concluded after a brief silence that she might have been. Damn, now Albus would probably avoid her like the plague. Great going. Fifteen minutes a Gryffindor and she was already the house freak.
"I was just surprised," she defended herself. Snape might be right for once, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of hearing her admit it. "He looks," unbelievably stunningly gorgeous, "different."
"Yes, how extraordinary, a little thing like a century and a half actually changing a person." Snape was still glaring, but his complexion was slowly returning to its normal colour. "I find it almost impossible to believe with your COMPLETE lack of ability at deception that you are the niece of one of the most illustrious Slytherins ever to live." He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. "The glamour is only going to do part of the job. Were you unaware that you have to at least ATTEMPT to act like a normal, preadolescent boy?"
"Don't lecture me, Snape." Delaia was a bit embarrassed but damn it, she'd had a shock. HE, of course, couldn't be expected to understand, having probably never had a normal, human emotion in his entire bloody life.
"Do you think you could possibly manage not to look like a COMPLETE imbecile if we return to the feast?"
Delaia would have liked to make a snappy comeback, but found that she couldn't think of one. "I'll be fine."
Snape glowered at her for a moment, then sighed and gave up. "Just stay as far away from Dumbledore as you possibly can. Try to remember that he isn't just one of the most powerful wizards in recent memory, but also nobody's fool. You keep acting like you did tonight, and we won't have a chance."
* * *
Snape settled himself back at the Slytherin table a few minutes later in a particularly foul mood. Not only was Zosimus conspicuously absent, but the idiotic little wretch he had been saddled with by a perverse universe was going to give him heart failure. He had just realised that none of the Slytherins surrounding him was the illustrious potions-master-to- be when his neighbour on the right had leaned over him to ask the boy on his left if he'd noticed that the newest Gryffindor seemed just FASCENATED by his senior prefect. Snape had glanced over at the Gryffindor table, not immediately realising that they were talking about his "brother," until he saw the asinine expression on Delaia's face. She was staring at Albus like an acolyte adoring an ancient divinity, only he doubted that most acolytes had quite that lascivious a gleam in their eyes. He had almost choked on his pumpkin juice, willing her to snap out of it, to realise just how strange that expression was on the face of a young boy, which of course she didn't do. If he didn't badly need her to try and recall everything Zosimus had housed in his sanctum sanctorum, to give them some idea where to start to recreate the potion that had resulted in this debacle in the first place, he'd petrify her until spring thaw at the very least.
Snape did not expect his sour expression to save him from relentless, scathing teasing from his housemates--this was Slytherin, after all--so was pleasantly surprised to find that, in his absence, a new subject had replaced Delaia's indiscretion as the hot topic. Zosimus' name caught his attention almost as soon as he had seated himself. A redheaded boy who, had he not been in Slytherin might have been mistaken for a Weasley progenitor, was excitedly proclaiming that Zosimus would certainly take the prize. "Especially as it's at Durmstrang this time, and everyone knows his family has CONTACTS there."
Snape gradually discerned, without actually having to ask, that the excited babbling at all four tables had been caused by the announcement, made while he was berating his idiot of a partner, that the Triwizard tournament was to take place this year at Durmstrang Institute. Four champions would be chosen to attend, one from each house, with the final Hogwarts champion selected at Durmstrang itself. Anyone could enter, so not surprisingly, given the competitive nature that was a requirement for placement in Slytherin, the red-haired boy's championing of the mysteriously absent Zosimus did not go unchallenged. Snape tried to concentrate on his dinner while ignoring the heated debate raging around him and wondering what kind of hell this newest development would play with their plans. If Dumbledore and Zosimus were two of Hogwart's champions, a fact which Snape, at least, did not doubt for a moment, he and Delaia could be facing a serious problem. The tournament, he was informed after a casual inquiry, would require the selected students to be absent from Hogwarts for much of the academic year. It would be a bit difficult, he reflected, to gain the trust of two boys if neither was actually in residence.
Snape speared a piece of rare roast beef with a tad more aggression than absolutely necessary and glanced over at Gryffindor. He was relieved to see that Delaia seemed to have learned her lesson. He could not see her expression, hidden as it was by a fall of dark hair, but at least she was ignoring Albus. Snape really couldn't see the problem. To him the headmaster just looked like a normal, if rather annoyingly pleasant, young man, much as he would have described had anyone ever asked him how he thought a youthful Albus might appear. Delaia obviously saw something more; he could only hope she would show a bit more discretion from this point on; not, of course, that it would matter if Albus soon went on an extended trip abroad. He sighed and ate the rest of his meat. Might as well keep his strength up. It looked like the universe planned to continue indefinitely its favourite game of making Severus Snape the butt of every possible joke.
* * *
A somewhat chastened Delaia returned to the feast and slid into her seat. I will not look at Albus, she told herself, impaling a potato on her fork and pretending it was Snape's head. Just get through this, don't make any mistakes and remember, you'll be in the dormitory soon and can drop this damn glamour and get some sleep. She and Snape had worked out a simple spell to project an image of themselves, with glamour intact, while not having to maintain the entire, complex charm. It worked great as long as they didn't have to move around, shielding a small area rather like a blanket. They had tried it out the previous night and it seemed to work well for sleeping . . .
Delaia became aware that the mousy boy beside her was saying something in her direction. "What?" She looked at him vaguely.
"I said, my name's Ashley Mornington. I'm really pleased to be in Gryffindor, aren't you?"
"Oh, right." Pay attention Delaia; any normal twelve-year-old would want to make friends. "Very glad."
"I'm a first year, too. Wasn't that trip across the lake brilliant?"
"I'm not a first year, so I didn't arrive that way." Delaia answered automatically, her gaze, despite strict orders to the contrary, drifting down the table to where Albus was sitting. She almost dropped her fork when she realised he was watching her. Their eyes met for an instant, and she saw a strange expression cross his face, something approaching speculation, before he turned to answer a query from the burly blond boy sitting next to him. Delaia quickly returned her eyes to her plate, and resolutely kept them there for the rest of the meal. It passed fairly quickly, with her new little friend finding the fact that she had transferred in from Beauxbatons fascinating. At least, she had to assume he did, considering how many questions he asked her about it.
At last the interminable meal was over and the houses rose to follow their prefects to the dormitories. Apparently Albus and the big blond boy were the two for Gryffindor, which explained, she supposed, their prominent seats at the table's head. Albus took the lead, with the students in a chattering group behind him and his companion bringing up the rear. Delaia held back to almost last, deciding not to tempt fate further that night by getting anywhere near Albus. Snape gave her an approving nod as Gryffindor filed out of the hall.
Delaia was concentrating on trying to remember all the twists and turns along the way to the Gryffindor rooms, to the extent that she did not notice anything amiss until she was suddenly pushed into an empty classroom. Wondering if she was due for another round with Snape, although what she'd done wrong this time was a mystery, she turned to see the second Gryffindor prefect closing the door to the hall behind him. "Well, well, a new little Gryffindor." He smiled at her in a way Delaia did not like at all and ran a large hand over her hair and down her back. "And a pretty one at that." Delaia wondered if her glamour was slipping, but it felt the same as always and she wasn't THAT tired. Catching sight of her reflection in a highly polished shield decorating the otherwise unrelieved stone of the wall to her left, she could only see a willowy boy's frame, with dark brown, almost black hair cascading to her waist and her own caramel coloured eyes. In other words, all was as it should be, which meant . . .
"Uh oh." Delaia backed away from the steadily advancing prefect, wondering how she got into these things. Not that she had a problem hexing him to Christmas if needed, but if his reaction was anything to go on, she might have a bit of a problem ahead of her. A desk bumped the back of her legs, stopping her progress across the room. He smiled, advancing with a predatory look in his eyes. Delaia hadn't been one of her academy's duelling champions for nothing; she only hesitated because she was trying to decide which of several really objectionable curses to hit him with when the door opened and Albus walked in. So much for avoiding him, Delaia thought, surreptitiously returning her wand to its narrow pocket up her sleeve.
"Is there a problem, Geoffrey?" Albus asked mildly.
The prefect smiled. "No, just welcoming our new arrival." He didn't look particularly intimidated, Delaia noticed, but he did back a step away from her. "We ought to be friendly, Albus."
"Then you'll want to join everyone else in the common room, so we can welcome ALL our new Gryffindors."
The blond boy smiled nastily, but made no effort to prevent Delaia from slipping around him. "We were just coming."
She did not wait for the two prefects, but scurried up the corridor to where a large painting had swung out of its place on the wall, allowing entrance to a cavernous room beyond. A cheery fire was crackling in the grate, and new and old students milled about, chatting noisily. Delaia found a place in a far corner where, hopefully, she would be inconspicuous, and wondered how long it would be until she could get her room assignment and fall into bed. She had been maintaining the glamour for over three hours now, and was beginning to feel the strain.
Albus and Geoffrey brought the meeting to order, which seemed to be primarily concerned with deciding which of the first years would act as slave to which of the sixth and seventh years. It was an old custom, and while it had long been out of fashion at Beauxbatons, she was aware that it had once been common for lower-level students to act as servants to their more advanced classmates. Apparently, Hogwarts in this era practised the tradition, although she was relieved to find that only first years were expected to participate. She lost interest in the proceedings after ascertaining that they would not involve her, and just wished they'd get on with it. It seemed to take forever, involving as it did squabbles between upper level boys over almost every single first year. Delaia, concentrating on not falling asleep, missed the start of yet another disagreement. It was not until she heard her name that she realised Geoffrey was trying to insist that, as this was her first year at Hogwarts, the custom should apply to her as well.
Delaia immediately saw that the idea appealed to her fellow Gryffindors, who seemed to feel that, as they'd all had to take their turn, there was no reason the new boy should get out of it. Geoffrey was grinning at her maliciously from the red leather armchair he occupied in front of the fire. It did not take a great leap of imagination, Delaia thought in annoyance, to imagine just what it was that had prompted his observation. What was she supposed to do anyway, she wondered, hex the bastard every day for the next year to keep his hands off her? And as his slave, wouldn't she have to share a room with him? She wished she'd practised her memory charms lately, as she saw no way to avoid eventually giving herself away if forced to be constantly around someone who watched her every move.
"I'm sure Mr. de Plannis has already done his turn at Beauxbatons," Albus was objecting. She sent him a smile across the room, but wasn't sure that he caught it. His attention was on Geoffrey, and he wasn't smiling. If he knew the boy's character, Delaia was not surprised. She sincerely hoped he'd win the argument, as every eligible boy but Geoffrey seemed to have already claimed a slave. Not that it would matter; if things were done the same way here as in France, as a prefect, he'd outrank everyone else anyway.
It quickly became obvious that Albus' views were not predominating. Delaia noted that only a few older boys clustered near Geoffrey seemed to be vocally supporting him, but no one was seconding Albus and speaking up for her. Most of the laughing faces surrounding her, in what was beginning to resemble a nightmare, did not look malicious; they just felt that fair was fair, and transfer or no, all new arrivals needed to take their turn. The collective opinion was important in lending support to Geoffrey, who was soon looking confidant of victory. Fine, Delaia thought in irritation. Just do it, and I'll hex you as soon as we're in your rooms. It wasn't until she noticed a tall brunette standing next to the stockier boy lean over to whisper something in his ear that she began to be genuinely concerned. The dark-haired student had a strange expression in his eyes as he met her gaze, and several of his companions laughed at something she could not hear. This whole thing might turn out less than amusing if she had to defend against four or five of them, Delaia thought, especially if they were all, as they appeared, upper level students.
Her heart sank as she heard Albus finally give in. "Very well, if that is the consensus." Most of the boys about her cheered, whether at her misfortune or the fact that the evening was finally drawing to a close and they could get some sleep, she wasn't sure, but she scowled at them on principle anyway. They responded by clapping her on the back and telling her to buck up as they filed off to their rooms. She began rapidly trying to remember her seventh year, multiple opponent attack sequences while subconsciously fingering her wand.
She reluctantly walked forward to where Geoffrey and his little clique, Albus and a few scattered, older Gryffindors were still standing around the fireplace. Geoffrey laid a beefy hand on the back of her neck and chuckled. "Don't look so glum," he admonished, "I think I can guarantee you'll enjoy the experience." His cronies laughed as Delaia turned resentful eyes on them. They would not be laughing in a few minutes, that she'd guarantee. Mission or no mission, this group was going to have an extremely painful night if she had anything to say about it.
Geoffrey had dropped his hand to the small of her back and was propelling her towards the stairs when a calm voice from behind them arrested his progress. "Aren't you forgetting something, Geoffrey?" Albus' voice was even as always, but his tone had a slight edge. "I do believe that I am senior prefect here."
The group around Delaia turned as one to where Dumbledore continued to lean casually against the mantle, two other Gryffindors flanking him, one on either side. None of the three looked pleased. Neither, Delaia suddenly noticed, did Geoffrey's group.
"Your point being, Albus?"
Delaia was slightly shocked to see a vicious little smile hover about Albus' lips. It was not an expression she would ever have associated with him, and combined with the rather dangerous glint in his suddenly cold blue eyes, made her wonder if she knew the kindly old wizard as well as she had thought. "Merely," he said evenly, "that Valentin will be serving me this year. I'm sure you don't have an objection?"
Delaia didn't dare to look round at Geoffrey, but heard his sharply indrawn breath and felt the tension in the large body behind her. She thought for a moment that she would have to be explaining to Snape tomorrow how she'd somehow become involved in a mass duel in the Gryffindor common room mere hours after being sorted there. A minute later, however, a spiteful push against her back sent her careening into Albus' arms; apparently, Geoffrey had backed down, this time at least. Delaia was not so naïve as to think she would have no more problems with him, but was grateful for the respite. God, she needed sleep.
She looked up at Albus, ready to gush out her appreciation, only to see his expression icy, and narrow-eyed. Admittedly, he was watching the retreating figures of Geoffrey and his little gang, and not directing the look towards her, but Delaia suddenly wondered if she might not have just acquired a much more difficult set of problems.