One Day at a Time
Deneb
"What are you doing here?" I asked my brother Deneb in a barely restrained hostile tone.
"You know, it's funny, I was telling Adelaide," he indicated the girl by his side, "About my Hogwarts experience and Hogsmeade and I thought, 'Why not just show her Hogsmeade itself?' Bonding time, you know. I had no idea I might see you here!" he smiled, and I was sure he was lying through his teeth.
"Pleasant story," I said coolly.
His daughter Adelaide was looking between me and Snape with a shy look on her face. Deneb, seeming to notice this, picked her up and said "This is your Aunt Liseli, say 'Hello, Aunt Liseli.'" Adelaide, for her part, hid her face on her father's shoulder in an adorable manner and mumbled something. "She's very shy," Deneb explained smiling, looking at both Snape and I.
"I didn't know you and, uh, Mariana had had another child. Does that make four?" I said, attempting to pick a neutral topic of conversation.
"Yep, Marie-Ange and I are the proud parents of four children now." Damn, I had gotten his wife's name wrong. "We'd like to have five. That seems to be a good number." I could tell where he was going with this and I had to keep myself from wincing. "I mean, we were five, growing up," he smiled again. "That reminds me—" Like hell it does, I thought. "Tarazet said he visited you, and he was afraid he might have upset you a bit. Not started off on the right foot, if you know what I mean." And there it was, the reason for his visit: he was trying to get into Tarazet's good graces by talking to me on his behalf.
"You could say that," I said slowly, with a touch of annoyance in my voice. I noticed Snape's eyes darting between my eyes and Deneb's.
"He feels really bad, he does." Deneb's eyes looked mournfully serious, but they also had the restless gleam they always had when he was plotting. "He wants to make it right, apologize."
"I don't want to see him again," I sharply articulated my syllables, ignoring the part of me that did want to see him again. I was still mad at him.
His eyes gained a sad, pleading look, but the restless gleam was still there. "Liseli, imagine yourself in him shoes. He's been suffering, suffering, for the last fifteen years. He comes out of it scarred, unsure. He hasn't had human contact in a very long time—can you blame him if he's a bit socially awkward?"
"He was beyond 'a bit socially awkward,'" I was about to sneer the words out, glad to have a legitimate reason to be mad at him, until I saw Deneb's daughter's wide blue eyes looking at me. Instead I said the sentence in a meek, subdued tone. I bet he brought his daughter just to restrain me, I thought, annoyed.
He spread his hands in a plaintive gesture. "So he made some mistakes. We've all made mistakes, said things we regret, hurt people we didn't mean to. You and Tarazet always had a special bond--"
"No we didn't," I snapped, eyeing Snape; I didn't want to be associated with Tarazet any more than necessary.
He softly shook his head. "If you could just find it in your heart to reconcile with him…" he trailed off. The word "No" was on the tip of my tongue but I saw that his daughter's innocent face was turned towards me and I hesitated to say such a word so callously. "Just promise me you'll think about it," he pleaded.
"Fine," I curtly replied.
"Thank you, Liseli. That's all I'm asking. Family harmony is so important," and he smiled broadly. The restless gleam had yet to leave his eyes. "You know, I feel like it's been forever since we've seen each other. Why don't you come to my house for dinner sometime? You can see all of your nieces and nephews."
"Thank you for the invitation," I said politely, and a bit coolly.
"No, really, I insist," he cheerfully replied.
"I'll look at my calendar and get back to you," I sighed in a resigned tone.
"Great, so I'll see you then! Bye," and he turned towards Zonko's with his young daughter.
I started quickly and angrily walking back in the direction of Hogwarts, feeling rather like an animal with the coils of a booby trap wrapped around it. Snape hesitated and then said roughly "Do you think his motives are as pure as he makes them out to be?"
"Oh, they're pure alright," I spat out. "Pure self-interest."
"I got that impression," Snape said lightly (or lightly for him, at least).
I angrily continued my previously thought, "To Deneb the world is a giant chess board, and people are pieces to be manipulated for his own victory."
I fumed silently for minutes, before Snape said, "Is Tarazet the man who was in your classroom almost a week ago?" I pursed my lips and nodded. "One of your brothers?" I nodded again.
Neither of us said another word until we arrived at Hogwarts. I announced "I'm going to my quarters," hoping that he would take the hint and stop following me. He stopped as I turned down the hallway towards my room and I saw a look of indecisiveness crossed his face. I was surprised to see any emotion on his face, but I simply continued on my way, ignoring him.
"Don't let your family get to you, Liseli," he harshly and suddenly said to my retreating back. I stayed rooted to the spot, completely and utterly shocked that Snape had said something which, if you ignored the tone, was downright supportive. Wow, he may have a soul yet, I thought to myself. And here I was so sure he'd had a snogging session with a Dementor when he was younger.
I went back to eating all of my meals in the Grand Hall. Professor Sprout seemed particularly happy that I was back again, and cheerfully chatted with me. None of the professors mentioned Tarazet, or Deneb, to my great relief. I didn't talk to Snape, either, but because of chance, not because of a desire to avoid him. About a week later, Snape and I exchanged our first words since visiting Hogsmeade.
"When were you planning on cursing the Chocolate Frogs, Colburn?" Snape asked me in a rather disinterested tone.
"I was thinking of presenting them on Halloween, actually," I replied. "That way it'd seem less suspicious."
He nodded. "I'll make sure to brew the antidote for that day, then."
I was mildly nervous on Halloween morning. I had stayed up late the previous night individually cursing large numbers of chocolate frogs, and although I had the antidote sitting in my office, I kept thinking of ways my lesson plan could go wrong. When students started trickling in before the start of class, they looked mildly surprised at the individual chocolate frogs I had placed on each desk. "Oh, they're for all of you. Halloween treat," I explained in a cheerful tone, feeling as though it must be terribly obvious that I was lying.
By the start of class, all of the students had heard my false explanation and believed me, as evidenced by most of them consuming the candy. "Now," I started, clasping my hands together. "Who had a Chocolate Frog?" Excepting a few, all of the students raised their hand. "Now, who thought to check for curses first?" The cheerfulness quickly drained from all of the faces in front of me, and some gained worried or even horrified looks. "Knowing how to check items, including food, for curses is an important skill," I said in a rather teacherly voice.
"But you didn't actually curse them, right?" an alarmed Ron Weasley blurted out. A chocolate frog leg was still sticking out of his mouth.
"No, I did," I said lightly, and the look of alarm increased on many student's faces. "Your assignment is to determine the curse and the appropriate counter curse. There are replicate Chocolate Frogs in the box at the front of the classroom, so please take one. I should let you know, that it's a rather weak curse, and that I have the antidote should you be unable to determine the counter curse, so don't worry too much."
The students quickly bustled up the front of the class to grab a Chocolate Frog for analysis, and soon the room was filled with students casting different spells on the candy or scouring the textbook for information, their noses mere centimeters from its pages. I was happy to see that some of them at least, were progressing: finding the right spells to cast, determining the curse, and finally the counter curse. By the end of the period, only about a quarter of the class had failed to discover the counter curse, and I told them to come and drink some of the antidote.
The lesson plan went equally well with my other classes, and by the end of the day I was giddy with a feeling of accomplishment. I decided to go to visit Hagrid, as I had taken to doing every couple of days. Besides, it was Halloween, and I was excited for the evening's planned feast. It was late afternoon when I went, and I was unsurprised to find Harry, Hermione and Ron there; they seemed to visit Hagrid quite frequently, also.
"Quite interesting lesson today, Professor Colburn," Harry grinned at me.
"Yeah, certainly grabbed our attention," Ron nervously laughed.
I couldn't help but start laughing. "That was Snape's idea. Or, rather, the candy was my idea. He was the one who suggested that I actually curse it, though."
"So it was actually cursed?" Hermione inquired. "I wasn't sure. I thought maybe you just wanted to see how we reacted under pressure, and I didn't feel the side effects of any curse."
"Oh, that's because the curse's effect is that it makes you feel ill if you eat anything. So unless you ate another Chocolate Frog after the first one, you wouldn't feel anything," I explained.
Hermione nodded knowledgably. "Okay. See Ron, it's good you didn't eat the Chocolate Frog you were working on," she said pointedly.
Just before Ron replied, I felt a sudden pain from my left arm. "But they're just so delicious!" Ron exclaimed. "And besides, I got one of the Wizard trading cards I didn't have yet. I thought I might continue the streak," he said dejectedly.
"Oh!" I let out. "I just remembered something. I told Snape I'd help him with something tonight. I figured since he brewed the antidote for me, the least I can do is return the favor. I have to run. Sorry I couldn't stay very long," I smiled apologetically at Hagrid and rushed out the door.
...
Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter's world.
A/N: A huge thank you to JackSwagger_fan, PollyWantCookie, argyle owl and Mywaychan for reviewing. I really appreciate every review!