Quinn stubbornly folded his arms across his chest, "You're late..." the younger vampire snapped hotly. "You said you would be back by four-it's six-thirty my dear sister! What have you been doing all day, eh? Don't give me that look-I was worried about you!"
Ignoring his bantering, Hunter played with her blue hair until it tumbled down to her shoulders. It was hard enough for Hunter to sign over the deed of her house to the Ministry of Magic, she didn't need any more shit in her life right then. "Why are you so edgy, dear brother?" she handed him books she had bought for him. "What is it?" she finally asked when she noticed his uncharacteristically silent behavior.
Suddenly someone stood up from Hunter's office chair with a weary look on their face, "We have a slight problem lass..." Macnair was clearly ruffled about something that was on his mind, "It's about Fletcher..." The Scottish Death Eater leaned against her desk without much thought, "We had some of our spies in the Ministry notify us that he has been captured..."
Hunter sighed loudly, "Blood and flames..." she lifted her head to glanced at her brother's unhappy look, "They're going to give him a Truth Serum...aren't they?" When Macnair nodded, the vampire began rubbing her temple with her index fingers and pacing back and forth in her office. There's only one way to solve this, she mentally ran through all of their available options. "Quinn...could you excuse us for a few minutes?" she wanted to speak with Macnair privately.
For a moment Quinn gave her a puzzled look, but he then set the brand new books on his sister's office desk and bowed to the both of them. Obeying his older sister, Quinn transformed back into a bat and floated out of the open window without making a single peep.
"We have to kill him Avalon," Macnair whispered when Quinn was gone from the room, "Before he spills too much information about our raids and puts you in a very tight opposition against the Ministry."
She continued to pace with her hands rubbing away the oncoming headache, "He is an unworthy cause to remain alive I know...but my brother is best friends with him-we can't just lob off his head-" Hunter could see a sneer form on Macnair's lips. Sighing she stood still in front of the Death Eater, "If my dear brother finds out that I ordered a death penalty for Fletcher-he will never forgive me..."
"It's not like that has stopped you before..." he commented just to make her glare at him, "I'll make it look like an accident," he said simply with a dark sneer still present on his scruffy face.
"Of course you will...you always do-just like you did with Durmstrang's Headmaster," she snapped coldly at her old friend. "Wouldn't slipping him a forgetfulness potion work just as easily? He can't talk when he doesn't even remember what to say..."
He nodded, "It would work. But slipping into the Ministry and giving him the potion is easier said than done... Killing him would be quicker," Macnair hissed in a low voice.
"I might have someone who would be willing to give Fletcher the potion," the vampire scratched the back of her head. "If they fail...you have my permission to slice Fletcher's head clean off his shoulders. How does that sound?"
Macnair grinned maliciously, "Fantastic..."
- - - - - - -
Panting loudly, Harry popped his back in three different places before he jumped back onto his handmade broom. "Okay-let's try that play again," he called to his three Chasers at the top of his lungs, And get it right this time-we only have two more days of practice! Speeding back into the air, he blew an old whistle Hermione had given him when he was announced Quidditch Captain last year. "Kelsay-you stay to the right-yes that side!" The Chasers and Beaters were continually getting tangled up. Harry finally gave up and told his team to pack it up for the rest of the day.
Thankfully, Quidditch practice ended just before three o'clock and Harry sprinted back towards the castle without saying anything to Ron. He felt his heart pounding in his chest by the time he had reached the Dark Arts professor's office. Just before he knocked on the door, the vampire swung it open and peered down at him with an expression of curiosity. "I'm-not-l-ate-am-I?" Harry's words were all strung together.
"Three more seconds then you would have been," Hunter smiled weakly at the boy, "Follow me...We have much to do today."
Heading back outside, Harry took notice that they were walking towards the Whomping Willow once again. "Today we are going to put your three wandless spells to the ultimate test Mr. Potter," Hunter announced loudly as she stood in front of the swaying tree.
"Against the tree again?" Harry did not see the point in facing the tree for the second time in less than a month.
"No," she smiled, "Against me Mr. Potter...A wizard duel!" The Dark Arts professor cracked her knuckles and headed towards the Whomping Willow. "The rule are simple: no wands, only three spells can be used, and take advantage of your surroundings."
Harry laughed, "I can't duel you-you're a teacher-"
"Well, I was going to let you have the first attack...but since you need some motivation-" In an instant, her left hand produced a magical fireball which immediately caught Harry's attention.
Barely having enough time to react, Harry dodged the fireball but managed to have his hair singed in the process. Leaping back up to his feet, the Gryffindor tried to focus his mind just enough to defend himself. By the time he could form a few icicles in his dirty hands, the vampire had vanished from sight. Confused, Harry ventured closer to the Whomping Willow to see if he could find the missing professor.
Remembering the boy, the Whomping Willow decided not to attack Harry this time around; the tree's branches still had superficial burn marks. Placing his hand gingerly against one of the tree's branches, Harry could not figure out where she had gone to. Then he heard a twig snap directly above his head; he looked up to see Hunter leaning against the trunk on a branch twenty feet above him.
"You underestimate me, Mr. Potter..." Hunter growled in an icy tone Harry had never heard her use before, "Now why would you want to do that?" She snapped her fingers to shoot flames down at the branch he had his hand on, lighting the tree on fire.
Panicking, the Whomping Willow frantically began whipping its burning branch back and forth; which knocked Harry into the air and rammed him into the very trunk of the destructive tree. Slightly stunned, Harry watched as the tree waved and flailed its branches around desperately trying to put out the flames. Now he at least knew what Hunter had meant by taking advantage of his surroundings.
"Don't expect mercy from your enemies Mr. Potter..." She carefully peered down at him with an evil sneer on her red lips. Black smoke swept around her as she watched him try to regain his senses.
Harry's eyes opened wide when he heard her snapping her fingers, Oh shit... Scrambling for his life, he tried to move out of the Whomping Willow's reach before she could light anymore of the branches on fire. But Harry wasn't quick enough to get out of the destructive tree's range in time; he was blocked in by one of the tree's thickest branches. Rolling, leaping, and dodging the burning branches, the boy avoided most of them as he slowly inched his way out of the tree's range.
Sitting on the sturdy and unmoving branch, Hunter laughed to herself as she watched him work his way through the maze of smoke and branches. "You'll have to do a lot better than that Mr. Potter!" she teased from above the chaos.
Bloody hell-I'll never get away...I'll have to stop the willow from...THAT'S IT! STOP THE TREE! FREEZE IT! With a determined look in his green eyes, Harry held his ground as he conjured the freezing charm that would save his life. Blowing the icy wind he could feel the hot, sticky air progressively growing colder. When the smoke had cleared, he was proud to see that half of the Whomping Willow was completely frozen solid.
A short clapping sound could be heard above him, Hunter was kneeling on her now-frozen perch with a dark gleam in her eyes. "Impressive...but you still have to deal with me," she hissed. Dropping twenty feet and gracefully landing on the frozen grass, Hunter stood before Harry with her crimson-hued eyes narrowed. "Have any more surprises up your sleeve Mr. Potter?"
Knowing that he needed to react quickly before she could, Harry slid across the slippery ice and went right past her with his tongue sticking out. He then clamored up the frozen half of the Whomping Willow while Hunter sent flames flying in his path. Have to think fast-get out of here alive...Harry panted as he almost lost his grip on a frozen branch he was hanging from. Instead of dropping from the branch, a brilliant plan formed in the back of his mind as Hunter turned on him.
"Enjoy the ride Mr. Potter," Hunter laughed just before she melted the ice off the branch he was desperately clinging to.
With the branch now free from the ice, the Whomping Willow decided to get rid of the troublesome humans at the exact same time once and for all. "Oh shit," Hunter could see a branch coming straight at her. Slamming the branch at Hunter, Harry was sent to the ground and conveniently landed on Hunter as she moved out of the tree's raging furry. "Get out of the way Potter!" Hunter pushed the dazed boy off her just as the tree was about to smash the both of them into pancakes; Harry slid across the ice and out of the way when the branch suddenly came down. Closing his eyes, he heard the sound of ice breaking.
Not wanting to open his eyes, Harry did not hear the Whomping Willow try to smash anything else which meant... He forced himself to open his eyes to see if his professor had been flattened. To his relief, there was nothing but cracked ice where Hunter had been. Harry suddenly felt someone grab his shoulders from behind and pull him back to his feet; turning around he smiled to his professor.
Hunter returned the smile, "You're bloody insane...but brilliant Mr. Potter," she scratched the back of her head. "I think we're done for the day..." the vampire popped her jaw back into its proper place, "Are you alright?" she asked in a pleasant tone of voice.
"I'm fine...how about yourself?" Harry couldn't believe she was still in one piece and standing right next to him without a single scratch.
"Good," she patted him roughly on the back, "You're getting better at focusing your mind...What would you like to learn for next week?" Hunter brushed the crushed pieces of ice from her blue hair, "Conjuring items or a shield charm?"
"Conjuring items..." Harry wanted to give the poor Whomping Willow a break this time. At least he knew that Hunter wasn't his enemy; she had saved his life when she could have allowed the tree to flatten him. He now looked at his Dark Arts professor with complete trust in everything she said and did. This was the entire point of the lesson-having him learn to trust her without a second of hesitation.
"When is your first match?" Hunter changed the subject.
"Um...Thursday I believe..." Harry stretched out his arms as they headed back to the castle, "We're playing against Ravenclaw," he added.
She nodded, "I'll come watch it...I haven't see Quidditch in ages," Hunter sighed to herself. She missed flying in the air; the vampire glanced up at the sun and narrowed her black eyes at it. "It's going to storm tonight..." she patted Harry on the back once again, "Come to class prepared for a little quiz tomorrow."
Harry groaned loudly; he had completely forgotten about the quiz the Dark Arts professor had announced at the end of class on Thursday. "Right...quiz..." he mumbled.
- - - - -
Folding his copy of the Daily Prophet newspaper in half while sipping on some tea, the Potions Master casually glanced at the new potions book that was sitting on the edge of his desk. It was Monday night and Snape had not seen Hunter since Halloween; he missed her terribly. He had noticed that she had been avoiding the Library lately.
As he stared at the book his mind began to drift away. He then remembered what had happened on Sunday night...when he was spying for Dumbledore. How Pettigrew snickered behind his back and how Macnair had suddenly become friendlier to him. He couldn't understand why Macnair kept asking him questions about Hogwarts...questions that only had to do with the owl delivery system. Of course, Snape told everything to Dumbledore what had happened on Sunday with the Death Eaters.
Sighing loudly, Snape left his office to go search for the one person who could cheer him up just by simply saying his name. Every place he checked though provided him with more stress; she was no where to be found. Just as he walked past the dining hall for the fifth time in less than ten minutes, Snape was stopped by the headmaster.
"Have you lost something, Severus?" Dumbledore's soft eyes searched Snape's cold expression for any clues to what was troubling him.
"Not exactly, headmaster," the Potions Master said in a very respectable voice. More like someone...he mentally thought to himself. It was nice for Snape to think to himself around the headmaster without actually being heard; being a skilled Occlumens did have some advantages.
The elderly wizard smiled at Snape, "I believe what you are looking for is at the Quidditch stadium...but you didn't hear that from me," Dumbledore winked.
Just as he was about to thank the headmaster, Dumbledore wandered back into the Great Hall pretending like he had forgotten something in there. Snape smirked behind the older wizard's back, I'll never figure out how he knows these things...
Hunter sat in the stands of the Quidditch stadium with her knees tucked underneath her chin. Her mind was somewhere else as she stared off at nothing in particular. The cold November air played with her loose blue hair and sent shivers down her spine, So cold... It had snowed a foot this morning, but by tomorrow afternoon it would turn into large puddles of water.
Jogging through the snow towards his depressed master, Brooklyn suddenly decided to bury his face into a large pile of snow to see if something was hiding there. The dire dog spirit wagged his white tail madly as he pranced over to Hunter with a frozen frog in his mouth. He enjoyed being out of the castle when the sky was a gloomy grey hue.
"Alright, arlight," the vampire took the frozen frog and chucked it back across the stadium for her pet to find. "I bet you can't find it this time," she smirked while Brooklyn just growled playfully in reply. Her slightly-pointed ears picked up on the sound of snow being crushed under someone's footsteps. "Am I missing another Halloween dance?" she asked in a curious voice as the Potions Master crossed the frozen field.
"Not this time," Snape began tugging his favorite green and silver scarf off his neck, "You look like you've been out here for hours," he handed her his scarf. The Potions Master sat down next to her and looked solemnly at her, "I don't mean to state the obvious but you do not look very cheerful..."
Her hands were shaking as she wrapped his warm scarf around her frozen neck, "So you've come to make me feel even worse...?" she chuckled sourly. "You don't like to listen to what others tell you, do you?"
Snape shrugged his shoulders at her, "That's how I am these days...stubborn as an ox." He noticed that she had moved a foot away from where he was sitting, "You don't trust me, do you?"
"Don't be insulted," Hunter wrapped her arms around herself, "I don't trust anyone." Glancing away from her pet furiously digging up snow to find his frozen frog, she gave the Potions Master a weak smile. "If it makes you feel any better...I hate you the most."
"May I inquire why?" Snape asked in a semi-pleasant voice.
Narrowing her black eyes at him for a moment, Hunter mentally counted all of the reasons on her fingers. "You are a bothersome, irrational, egotistical prick-" she started in a bored voice.
"Oh," Snape stopped himself from blushing, "Is that all?"
"I'm not done yet," Hunter snapped with her nose wrinkled in his direction. "You are disrespectful of other's privacy, cynical, boring, and not to mention downright-" she froze when Snape suddenly reached over and placed his index finger over her frozen red lips to quiet her.
Snape smirked at her, "You're never going to let me have a turn, are you?" he noticed the corners of her lips slightly curl.
"And let you have the upper hand?" Hunter snorted with disgust, "Never."
Bounding over to his master, Brooklyn had to dig his hind paws deep into the snow to stop himself from colliding with the Quidditch stands. He dropped the frozen frog on Hunter's lap and impatiently waited for her to throw it again; he kept both eyes on his favorite toy. Barking loudly at his master, the dire dog spirit demanded that she keep playing with him or else.
"Severus will play with you," the vampire tossed the frozen frog to him, "Since you two are such good friends and all..."
Rushing over to Snape, Brooklyn wagged his tail madly as he carefully watched the hook-nosed character gingerly lift his toy. "Strange choice for a chew toy," the Potions Master muttered as he examined the frozen frog. Just when Brooklyn thought that Snape wouldn't throw his toy, Snape suddenly chucked it into the air.
"Traitor," Hunter grumbled under her breath as she watched her pet sprint after his toy. "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be torturing some miserable first-year with detention right now?" she was getting a little sour about his presence now. "If you're going to mock me, get it done and over with. I have better things to do with my time."
"I just wanted..." the Potions Master paused for a moment to find the right words to say, "I just wanted to talk. That's all," he bit his lip. Silently, he was wishing that she would let her guard down long enough for them to make a connection he had been longing to have.
Hunter gave him a strange look and started to laugh at what he had just said. "Blood and flames," the vampire shook her head in disappointment. "If you had said that to me when we were still in school, I would have probably fainted-" she was no longer laughing. "I had the biggest crush on you when I started school. I thought you were perfect in every aspect ..." she sighed as if what she was revealing to Snape had long since passed.
"And what about now?" the Potions Master somehow knew her answer would be a negative one but he had at least broken a hole through the wall she had built to block him out.
Feeling a bit uneasy, she shifted in her seat before she replied. "Now..." Hunter tugged the scarf he had loaned her off her pale neck, "Now I can't even stomach the thought of you." The hole Snape had successfully created was resealed in a matter of seconds. She shoved his Slytherin-colored scarf in his face, jumped down from the stands, and headed back towards the castle.
"Avalon," the Potions Master scrambled out his seat to chase after her, "Avalon!" Please come back. You can't leave just yet! He sighed with relief when he watched her stop dead in her tracks on the frozen field. Once he caught up with her, Snape gingerly reached out to touch her shoulder. "I didn't mean..." he could hear her sniffling.
"Then why are you still here?" Hunter's pallid face was hidden underneath her vibrant blue hair. When he did not reply soon enough, the Dark Arts professor whistled for her gytrash to follow her back to the castle. "Nice try," she hissed through clenched teeth.
Slightly stunned by what had possessed him to keep so silent, Snape released a long sigh as he let her go. He could see his puffs of breath floating in the cold air. Feeling a bit more depressed than he had started out before he spoke with the vampire, he wandered back to the Quidditch stands to figure out where he had gone wrong. Snape shivered in the bitter cold as he tried to come up with a master plan to make everything right again.
- - - - - - -
There was a soft knock at Hunter's office door around ten o'clock at night. "What now," Hunter growled as she tossed her quill across her desk with a sour expression. The dark look in her cold eyes suddenly lightened when she found the Potions Master standing in her doorway with a bottle of fire whiskey in his hands. "For me?" the vampire eyed the bottle with suspicion. When he handed her the fire whiskey, Hunter graciously took it and slammed her office door on him without a word of thanks.
There goes plan A, Snape scratched the side of his head as he waited for her to allow him to come inside.
"You didn't poison it, did you?" Hunter slightly cracked her door open to give him a curious expression.
"No..." That's plan B, he silently thought to himself. The Potions Master sighed loudly when she shut her office door on him again, How long will this go on?
After another minute, Hunter allowed Snape to come inside her Dark Arts office. "Don't mind the lack of light," she said in a humble voice as she handed him a glass already filled with fire whiskey. Hunter motioned for him to take a seat in front of her desk, "Would you like a strawberry?" she ignored a hiss from the ceiling; it was coming from her brother.
Glancing up at the ceiling, the Potions Master felt uncomfortable with the dark glares the vampire bat was giving him with its beady eyes. He noticed that Hunter did not take a sip of her drink until he had made the first move. "No thank you. I've been thinking about what you said earlier..." he pondered about how she would react this time; especially since he had poured Truth Serum into the fire whiskey. He had taken an antidote before he knocked on her office door so he wouldn't accidentally say something he didn't want her to know about.
"The egoistical prick part or-"
"The other part," he didn't enjoy the thought that she still felt the same about him even when she had been slipped a Truth Serum. "I wanted to apologize for what I might have said or done in the past when were in school..."
"Okay," Hunter leaned back in her chair and neatly placed her boots on the edge of her desk. "If that's all, you can go retreat to your musty dungeons with your tainted fire whiskey," her black eyes suddenly changed to a blood-red hue. "You think I would fall for a pathetic trick like slipping Truth Serum into my drink? I've been a Death Eater too long to know what it smells like and tastes like..." Cracking her knuckles, she got up from her seat and moved over to him with a dark sneer on her red lips. "If you want to talk freely with me, I give you permission and my word that I will speak the truth." Her glowing red eyes quickly faded away to a lifeless black hue; like they were the holes of a bottomless pit; as she examined his facial features.
Snape snorted, "The word of a Death Eater?" he knew that he could never trust her then.
"No..." Hunter glanced away from his cold eyes, "The word of a friend." For once in her life, she gave the Potions Master a bright grin, "You better hurry up and explain yourself before I change my mind about letting you leave my office alive..."
Narrowing his equally black eyes at the vampire like he still didn't trust her, Snape finally asked her what he had been meaning to ask for over several weeks. "Would you accompany me to the Quidditch game...?" he felt just like a schoolboy being punished by the headmaster for setting James Potter's robes on fire again as Hunter stared him down.
"Alright," she bent down slightly so their noses where almost touching like she had done the last time they were alone. "It's a date," Hunter gently pressed her frozen lips against his.
