ANGEL OF A DEVIL
Chapter 6: I Never Could Talk To You
DISCLAIMER: Not Mine. Honest…
A/N – I forgot to mention this at the beginning (and although it's probably pretty obvious at this point, I'm gonna let you know anyway), this story was started pre-HBP, and it would have meant a lotof re-working and probably would have ended up really quite crap, this story is AU and doesn't take anything from HBP into account.
Despite the fact that she'd planned on telling Dumbledore that Voldemort was her father, a spurt of panic stabbed through her at his words, How do they know? Do they know it's me? No, they can't, otherwise Dumbledore wouldn't have brought the other two up here as well.
There was a shocked silence as Harry and Ron stared open mouthed at Dumbledore and Hermione's alarmed eyes flicked round at the different teacher's; Dumbledore's calm features; Tonks's grave look – at odds with her hair; Snape, unreadable as always.
Dumbledore seemed content to allow the silence to continue as long as necessary for the news to sink in.
"Er, could you tell us a bit more about this…heir, Professor?" Harry finally managed to get out, "how do you know about him?"
"Actually, we're not entirely sure if it is a him," Dumbledore responded, nodding his head in Snape's direction, "All we have been able to determine, based on Professor Snape's connections within the Death Eaters, is that Voldemort has a child who is within the same age range as you. He or she is likely to be at Hogwarts, although there is a possibility that they are at a different school. We simply do not know. That is the reason for the extra protection. This person, if indeed they do attend Hogwarts, would be somebody who has been here all their school life, someone you know, whom you may have contact with on a daily basis. Nymphadora is here to aid in…scrutinising the pupils."
"It's obviously going to be a Slytherin though, isn't it?" Ron cut in, "I mean, You-know…Voldemort…is related to Slytherin so his kid would be there too."
"That seems most likely, Mr Weasley, however, I should think that after the many escapades you three have embarked upon during your time at Hogwarts, you would have discovered that the most likely explanation is rarely the correct one."
Ron opened his mouth to argue but Dumbledore raised a graceful hand.
"Nevertheless, it is a sound argument and we shall be watching the Slytherin students closely. It is important, though, that you do not fixate your suspicions solely upon the Slytherins and be wary of all the students. The Sorting Hat sorts pupils based on the predominant aspect of their character, for example, if Voldemort's child is very clever, he or she may be in Ravenclaw, similarly if they are uncommonly loyal there is a chance they are a Hufflepuff."
"And Gryffindor?" Harry enquired with a slight edge to his voice.
"It is extremely unlikely that the child will be a Gryffindor, however it is possible. What better way to conceal a spy than to place them right in your midst?"
"So you think they're a spy then?" Harry was determined to glean as much information from the Professor as possible.
"I must confess that we do not know what this person's agenda is. From the information Professor Snape has provided me with, it seems that he or she did not even know about their heritage until sometime during the summer holidays. For reasons known only to him, Voldemort waited this long to reveal himself to his child. Though he had known about his offspring all along, they had no idea about the true nature of their father, indeed it is unlikely that he or she had even met Voldemort before the summer."
"So they might not be evil, then?" Hermione broke her silence, "If they didn't know that Voldemort was their…father, then they could just have grown up a normal person, couldn't they?" She was grasping at straws. Even though she knew it was stupid she felt like her fate hinged on Dumbledore's answer to her question.
If he said that yes, a person could be good no matter their bloodline then everything would be alright, however if he replied that evil was inherent then there was no hope for her.
She waited almost on the edge of her seat as the elderly wizard pondered what she had asked.
But before he could say a word, Harry cut in, venom and hatred dripping from his voice.
"Of course they're going to be evil, Hermione – there is no way you could have that thing as a father and not be evil."
"Your ignorance never fails to astound me, Potter," Hermione jumped as Snape's smooth voice filled the silence that had followed Harry's display of anger, "with all of your arguments and fights with Malfoy to the contrary, here you are condemning someone for their blood."
"I'm not," Harry stood to look Snape square in the face, "this is different. I just don't think it's possible to be good when you've come from something that terrible."
"Severus," Dumbledore held up a hand as Snape opened his mouth to retort, "Harry, please. Ms. Granger does raise an interesting question, and alas, as so many times already today, I have to say that I do not know. We know nothing of this child other than their age and the identity of their father."
Tonks spoke for the first time since the trio had entered the room.
"Moody lent me a few of his dark detectors, I'll have a play about with them, see if I can get them to sense more than the usual teenage deception. I can already tell when kids haven't done their homework – I know all the excuses. I've used all the excuses. Every kid in the school does Defence Against the Dark Arts, if I keep the detectors in the classroom they might pick up something."
"Very well. If there's nothing else, I believe all of you have classes to go to."
Hermione stood with the other two, her eyes on the floor. She'd seen what they would all think of her if they knew. She couldn't stand the thought that Harry would turn to her with that hatred in his eyes, the disgust dripping from his words, like he had when she'd spoken earlier.
No. She couldn't tell anyone. It was her problem, she had to deal with it herself. Just her.
The only topic of conversation for the rest of the morning between Harry and Ron was obviously the identity of Voldemort's offspring.
"It's got to be a Slytherin. There's no way on earth it would be anyone else. Can you imagine one of the Hufflepuffs having him as a dad?" Harry was saying during muggle studies.
"I dunno, Ernie MacMillan's always been a bit up himself. What's this?" Ron held out one of the items they were supposed to be labelling.
"Mobile phone. But he's still quite a nice guy, he did tell me he believed me when everyone thought I was making stuff up. And he's a DA member."
"Oh yeah," Ron replied, "What's this?"
"Thermometer."
"I know who it is! It's Dean Thomas!"
"No it's not."
"Yes it is," Ron was now looking daggers at Dean, who was innocently chatting away to Seamus.
"Ron, just 'cause the guy's going out with your sister doesn't mean he's Voldemort's son."
"He could be," Ron weakly defended himself, "what's this?"
"Ask Hermione, I'm in the middle of trying to thread this needle."
"Hermione…" Ron began, turning to the witch beside him who'd studiously ignored them all lesson.
"No, Ron, you've got the book sitting right in front of you. Just look it up instead of asking me and Harry."
Ron grumbled to himself as Hermione went back to her light bulb. Flicking half-heartedly through the book in front of him he eventually came across the right page.
"Cool," he muttered, looking at the picture of the item he held, "hey you two, watch this."
Hermione looked up just in time to see Ron launch what looked suspiciously like a boomerang across the room. She had a few seconds to admire how well he'd thrown it on what was obviously his first time before she remembered the whole point of a boomerang.
The whole class were now watching as it started turning to come hurtling back towards Harry, Ron and Hermione.
Hermione exchanged a glance with Harry as Ron just stood there looking pleased and excited, like a three year old with a new toy.
The thing was going really fast, Hermione noted, cursing the fact that her wand was in her bag. She heard Harry yelling at Ron to duck, only to be answered, "it's alright, it's not going to hit me."
He was right, it wasn't going to hit him, it was going to hit her! She just watched it come closer and closer, almost in slow motion as her body refused to listen to her screaming head and wouldn't move. Death by boomerang. Wow. At least I'm original, came the fleeting thought.
She squeezed her eyes shut a split second before the curved piece of wood was about to impact and flinched in anticipation of it hitting her face.
Two extremely long seconds later she was still waiting for the collision. When it didn't come she hesitantly cracked open one eye, then the other, to see the boomerang hovering in the air right in front of her.
She looked round to see the shock on everyone's faces before lifting an unsteady hand to pluck it from the air.
"What happened?" She asked quietly, dropping the boomerang onto her desk.
"It just stopped," Harry said, his voice almost awed.
"See, I told you it would be fine," Ron smiled, "it's obviously got some sort of inbuilt safety device in it, muggles wouldn't be stupid enough to leave something that dangerous lying round without a safety feature."
"Tell that to the Australians," Harry muttered, "are you ok Hermione?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she gave a little laugh, "I thought it was going to hit me for sure, I'm quite happy it didn't."
"Why didn't it, though?" Ron asked, having finally realised that boomerangs weren't supposed to stop before they hit something.
"Probably one of those natural reactions, I can't remember what they're called, you know, the thing that makes you pull your hand back when you touch something hot. Like what you used to do Harry, remember when you told us about the time you accidentally jumped on the roof to escape your cousin? I think it was something like that."
Harry looked thoughtful, "that makes sense."
Now that all the fun was over everyone had gone back to their work, even – to Hermione's chagrin – the professor. I've just nearly had my head smashed in, shouldn't you at least ask me if I'm ok, you stupid man.
Her eyes followed the professor as he moved around the room, not even stopping to see how Hermione was doing after her potential near death experience. As he smiled and spoke quietly two desks in front of her, explaining something to Parvati, Hermione felt a surge of anger burst through her and she felt heat travel up her right arm to envelop her body.
She couldn't tear her eyes from the professor, everything around the edges of her vision blurred until he was the only thing she could see clearly.
The rage was overwhelming her and a single thought resounded through her mind, I could have been killed, that thing was bloody close and you did nothing to stop it, are you blind or something?
A scream shattered her trancelike state and her vision snapped back, almost sharper than ever, just in time to see the small sewing needle that Harry had been trying to thread speeding through the air to impale itself with a sickening squelching noise right through the pupil of the professors left eye.
A/N – I just wanna cover my ass here; I love Australians – especially that hot guy who used to be in Neighbours and is now in House, can't remember his name (Jesse something?) anyway, he's really hot. So if anyone's offended by Harry's little comment about the Australians in regards to the boomerang, blame the fictional character and the inventor of the boomerang, not the poor little author.
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