Goodnight, Sweet Princess
Or May Flights of Angels wing thee to thy sleep
A Harry Potter FanFiction
Notice: The only characters I own in this fanfiction are Tara Landers and Danielle Bousquet. I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters, as they belong strictly to J.K. Rowling. Also, I am well aware that at points, at least in the later chapters, Severus Snape and Harry Potter do not always act as as they should.
A.N.: Thanks to all of my reviewers, especially WhiteDragonHawke and dmc87, and to all of my readers, whether you review or not, I appreciate you all!! I know it's taken me a rather long time to get this chapter out, and hopefully it wont take near as long for the next chapter.
Chapter 9 – Detention!
Tara made it to the potions dungeon just in time, and managed to catch the heavy door before it closed completely. She began to pull the door open again, but voices inside the room made her hesitate. She immediately recognized one of the voices as Professor Snape's and she couldn't place the other, though it was familiar. Unable to resist, Tara popped her head just inside the door and took in the scene in front of her. Her favorite professor was staring at the student in front of his desk like it was a basilisk or gorgon. This was not terribly odd, as the student was none other than Harry Potter, and the entire castle knew that Harry was Professor Snape's least favorite student. Staying silent, Tara crept into the room, and settled her things softly at one of the worktables in the back of the room.Snape seemed to get over his speechlessness quickly and Tara heard him ask "Mr. Potter, why is it you are in my dungeon?" Tara paused what she was doing, and found herself wondering the same thing, why was Harry Potter voluntarily in the potions room on a Saturday? Everyone knew that potions was his least favorite subject. "You gave me detention." Harry stated simply. Snape looked shocked for just a second, then regained his composure. "I see. So above-the-rules Harry Potter is given a detention and he actually shows up? This must be a first." He drawled. Tara could see the Gryffindor tensing up at the professor's remark.
Behind his composed front, Snape was seething. How could he have been so stupid to assign Potter a detention for the same time he had a make-up lesson with Tara? For a moment he honestly contemplated letting the boy off the hook, for the sake of his sanity. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. If he let Potter off everyone would think he'd gone either soft or crazy. He wasn't sure which was worse, to let everyone think he had gone crazy or to actually go crazy. He groaned inwardly. Either way he couldn't win, but maybe he could get Potter to leave before Tara came in, so there would be no witnesses. "Well, Potter, it seems you'll be getting off eas- " He started, but he was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking.
Tara cursed herself for not paying attention to what she was doing. She had been setting out vials of powered ingredients, but she had been so engrossed in the conversation between Snape and Potter that she had missed the table and dropped a vial to the floor by her foot. At the sound of the glass hitting the floor, the other occupants of the dungeon turned and stared at her. "Oops" she muttered as she shifted her weight from one foot to another and was startled when pain shot up her leg. She looked down and was surprised to see a thin stream of blood flowing from beneath her robes to the floor. Silently Tara thanked who ever had put an anti-stain charm on the fabric, because blood definitely clashed with the bluebell color of the fabric.
Harry took a step towards her, but somehow in the time it took him to take one step Snape had already swept around the desk and was standing in front of her. "Miss Landers. Next time you have a lesson you will announce yourself when you arrive, and when you are in this classroom you will pay attention to what you are doing." He said, more harshly than he had intended. Tara nodded mutely and Snape turned around to walk back to his desk. She settled gingerly on a nearby stool and inspected her foot. There was a large piece of glass sticking out from the side of her foot. Tara gritted her teeth and grabbed the shard. Taking a deep breath and holding it, she gently pulled until the glass slid out of her flesh. In a few seconds the cut was half it's original size and Tara knew that the cut would be closed completely in a matter of minutes. Still, she pulled off her sock, and wedged it between her cut and her shoe, to absorb the trickle of blood still coming from the cut. As Tara waited for the cut to heal, she felt resentment bubble inside her. She hadn't done anything wrong, there was no need for Snape to be so harsh with her. She wondered idly what had happened to the man who had taken care of her when she was sick.
By the time her cut had healed and she had pulled herself from her thoughts, Snape had already walked back to his desk and was giving Tara and Harry glares, looking particularly unpleasant. "Miss Landers, you will follow the instructions I have left here" he gestured to a nearby chalkboard filled with step-by-step direction before turning towards her and glaring all the more fiercely "and make a Eloko–repelling potion, a quick-grow concoction, and a Fire-shield protection potion. I expect two vials of each to be on my desk in two hours, without any errors. You may leave when all six vials are on my desk." He paused, and then turned to Harry. "Mr. Potter. You will write me a essay two feet in length on the properties and uses of three kinds of tree resin and the potions that they are used in." Another pause. "I will be in my office. Mr. Potter, you are free to leave when your two hours are up, I will collect your essay next class." That said, the potions professor swept out of the heavy door, thanking the quick thinking that had helped him maneuver himself out of the classroom.
Tara sighed. She already knew how to make quick-grow concoction, she had been using it for years on her garden at home, and had once helped Danielle's mother make a Eloko–repelling potion. Only the fire-shield protection potion she was unfamiliar with. "Looks like we got off easy." She remarked. "Two feet on tree resins is easy?" Harry looked at her as though she had three heads. "He could've given you six." Tara returned as she packed up all the ingredients she wouldn't need. Deciding to at least try and be friendly, Tara asked "So what are you here for anyway?" "Detention. If it wasn't for that stupid git Malfoy, I wouldn't be here." He replied, and Tara could hear the anger and frustration in his voice. She nodded. As she put the last of her unnecessary ingredients into her bag, Tara watched the school's most famous student. Tall and thin, his hair going in every direction, she supposed he had a certain appeal. At the very least he did not seem to suffer from the same unpredictable mood shifts that their professor was apparently subject to. He was setting up his book and scroll on the worktable next to hers, looking resigned and weary. "Want help?" Tara surprised herself by asking. For a moment he looked at her strangely, something Tara was getting slightly annoyed with, and nodded. "Good. Just let me start this potion, you can start looking at that book, it should have plenty of stuff on trees in potion-making in it." She instructed, and busied herself with her potion.
For the next twenty minutes, Tara tended her Eloko-repelling potion, adding powdered yarrow root and crushed St. Johns Wort to a base of Pomegranate juice and waited for it to turn a soft baby blue color. When it did she added five moonstones, three dragon scales and a drop of her own blood, mixing it gently for a few minutes before letting it simmer. When she was satisfied, she turned back to Harry, who was staring blankly at the book in front of him. Tara cleared her throat, and when he didn't move she walked over to his table and poked him playfully in the shoulder. "Ouch! What was that for?" he asked, and she shrugged. He spent a minute rubbing his shoulder. Finally, he asked, "You're not normal, are you?" Tara peered at him. "Not really… how did you guess?" "Just know, sorta. It's kinda hard to explain, but I don't seem to meet a lot of normal people."
Tara smiled at him. Before she knew what she was doing, she told had told him her secret. Not the big one, about her and Snape, but about what she was. Much to her surprise, he didn't look frightened, but curious. After a few minutes, he smiled back at her. "If Hermione knew there was a vampire in Hogwarts, she'd never leave you alone." He stated. Tara could imagine. Everyone knew that the head girl was forever in the library researching something. "So… were you really friends with Professor Lupin?" Tara inquired quietly. "Yeah, still am, he was one of my dad's schoolmates." Harry said. "You really don't know a lot of normal people, do you?" She asked softly, as she pulled Harry's potions book towards herself. She immediately found a large passage, four pages, on amber, which she pointed out to Harry. "That should give you about six inches," she encouraged.
They were silent for a while, and every now and again, Tara would stir her potion as she thought. "What did Malfoy do, to make Snape give you a detention?" "He threw a paper airplane at my hand, and made me add too much powered cypress resin to the potion I was making." Tara nodded and returned to her thoughts while Harry returned to his essay. Unbeknownst to Harry, Tara loved teasing Malfoy, and took any excuse she had to do so. A thought hit her, and Tara smiled. Had anyone who knew her been watching, they would have run very far away, very fast. Everyone who knew her would recognize the smile as a sure-fire precursor to a lot of trouble. As it was, poor, unfortunate Harry Potter did not know her, and so was not able to recognize Tara's smile, even if he had been watching to see it.
"You like adventure, right?" She asked as she glided over to Harry's worktable. "Yeah." He returned, not looking up from his scroll. "How would you like to get back at Malfoy without getting in any trouble?" He finally looked up at her. "Without getting in any trouble?" He repeated. "Yeah." Harry stared at her. What exactly did getting back at Malfoy involve? "I can deal with Malfoy, and make sure no one will think it was you." Inwardly, Tara wondered at herself. 'What the heck am I doing this for?' Remembering her earlier anger at the potions master, her mother's voice suddenly sounded inside her head. 'Tara dear, it cannot hurt to play a little hard to get. It makes a guy go crazy, thinking you're with someone they can't stand, and then you get to watch them work to win you over. That's how I got your father's attention.' Tara grimaced for a split second, she hated the thought of taking relationship advice from her mother, but it did seem to make sense, and she had seen Danny do the same thing without fail a few times before. "I'll take care of Malfoy, but you have to do something for me." Tara announced hesitantly, considering her decision one more time. "You don't have a girlfriend, do you?" Tara questioned Harry. He shook his head. "Good." She announced, "Perfect. All you have to do is pretend to be going out with me for a few weeks, and I'll do the rest."
Though some part of his brain was setting alarms off like crazy, all Harry could do was stare at the pretty Slytherin girl as she bottled filled two bottles of light blue potion, and started work on her second potion. 'How do I get myself into these things?' He wondered. Still, he had to admit going along with her plans couldn't be too bad. Since the final battle against Voldemort, Harry had been receiving stacks of mail from witches, and even some wizards, all over England professing love, and the girls at Hogwarts would not leave him alone. Harry didn't like any of them, but he didn't have the faintest clue about how to make them leave him alone. The only time he felt safe was when he was with Ron and Hermione, who seemed very capable at glaring away all Harry admirers. By now some part of his brain, probably not the brightest part, had pushed forward it's two cents. 'If I already have a girlfriend, maybe they'll leave me alone.' Alarms shut down, appeased at finding this kernel of logic, and Harry found himself agreeing absently to whatever Tara was telling him, as he dreamed about how he would spend all the free time he would no longer have to use avoiding group after group of girls.
Tara paused, about to add a pinch of powdered unicorn horn to her Quick-grow potion. "You ok?" She asked, looking at Harry's strange expression. "If you don't want to do this, I'm sure I can convince somebody else to help me." "It's ok, I think I can handle it." "Well, then, might as well make this convincing." Tara went over to her worktable and grabbed as much of her potions equipment as she could carry, and brought it over to Harry's table, dumping it on the empty space he wasn't using. For a moment, she stood staring at her cauldron, after a few minutes she added the last few ingredients to her second potion and filled three bottles of it. She labeled the bottles, and placed two on Snape's desk, next to the two bottles of Eloko-repelling potion, before walking back to Harry's table and sitting next to him. He watched her for a few minutes as she considered the instruction Snape had left on the board detailing how to create the Fire-shield protection potion. They spent the next half-hour of their time in comfortable silence, Harry working on his essay, Tara working diligently on her last potion. When she had filled two more bottles with the last potion and sighed in relief, Harry put down his quill and looked over his progress on the essay. About four inches short, but Harry decided he'd have Hermione help him after dinner. Tara placed the last two bottles on Snape's desk, then returned and wrapped the extra bottle of quick-grow in soft cloth and placed it gently in her bag before packing up the rest of her supplies.
They hadn't expected to see Snape again, but had expected to simply leave when their two hours were up. Unfortunately for him, he had decided to collect Tara's potions a few minutes early, and make sure that Potter hadn't somehow blown himself up, though it was a fate Snape knew he would not lament. As he moved closer to the classroom, sounds of laughter and joking made him more and more ill tempered than he had previously been. Still, he would never have expected the sight that greeted him when he pulled the thick wooden door open and stepped into the room. Tara's potions were sitting in a row on his desk, but he didn't notice them. All he could see was his student sitting closer than proper to Harry Potter, reading over his essay. Snape glared. All he wanted to do was stalk over and strangle Potter for being so close to Tara, but something kept him from moving. Neither student had noticed him, or if they had they didn't give off any signs that they had. Snape watched, strangely jealous, as Potter muttered and Tara laughed, looking for the world like nothing could be funnier. She took the book Harry was looking at and flipped a few pages before pointing to something. He grunted and picked up an eraser and started scrubbing at the scroll in front of him.
Suddenly Tara looked at her watch and leaned over and gave Harry a quick kiss on his cheek. As she grabbed her bag and Harry turned bright red, Snape fumed. What right did she have to kiss anyone else? Hadn't she kissed him just days ago? And why, for god's sake, did she have to kiss Harry Potter? Tara was backing slowly towards the door, talking to Harry as she went. Harry had taken her cue and was packing up his things, so neither of them noticed that she was on a direct collision course with the potions master. Unaware of the man behind her, Tara turned to push the door open, and collided with Snape's chest. She fell to the floor with an oomph and a thud, and succeeded in pulling the professor from his thoughts. For a moment the two were caught staring into each other's eyes, and Snape noticed that something about her was different, but he couldn't place what.
There were a few awkward moments, as Tara sat on the floor and Snape stared down at her, until Harry cleared his throat from behind them and helped Tara off the floor, but Tara's eyes did not leave Snape's. He stood in the classroom doorway until Harry had dragged Tara all the way up the corridor towards the Great Hall before he slammed the classroom door and stalked back to his quarters.
