Chapter 11
"Severus, I do wish you'd take that tiresome Glamour off," Narcissa says.
"And have someone come to the door and see a dead man sitting here?" Severus says.
"The Dark Lord's been dead more than twenty years," she says. "You don't need to play the paranoid spy anymore, you know. Really, I don't see why you couldn't just come back here as yourself."
"If I do that, I can't go back to being dead again."
"But you could still go back to that quaint little town of yours," Lucius says, "with the strange food, big-haired witches, and ubiquitous smell of cow shit."
Narcissa gives Lucius a reproving look, but Severus smiles. He loves the food, rather likes big hair, and stopped noticing the cow shit years ago. A part of him would like to walk to the gates and Apparate back there right now. As he stares into the flames, they blaze green, and Granger's face appears.
"Lucius, are you up for a duel?" she asks.
"My dear, you'll be the death of me. I still haven't recovered from our last one."
"Coward," she scoffs.
"Why don't you duel our new colleague Ebarossa instead?" Lucius asks, ignoring Severus, who is scowling and shaking his head emphatically. "He's sitting here with me right now, and was just saying how much he missed having someone to duel with."
"Really?" she asks.
"Yes," Lucius says as Severus mouths, No! "He says he'll meet you in the Defence classroom in half an hour."
When the flames return to their normal color, Severus glares at his friend. "You are an insufferable, interfering busybody."
"I've never claimed otherwise," Lucius shrugs.
"You're going to fight in that?" Granger asks when he enters the classroom. That is dark gray trousers and waistcoat and a long-sleeved white dress shirt. She's wearing a red t-shirt, worn thin and clinging in all the right places, and a pair of what he knows from his experiences with Muggle women are called yoga pants. Clearly, this costume is designed to distract him and give her an advantage. Her prodigious mane of hair—a look witches in Texas spend years perfecting charms to achieve—is contained in a tight braid.
"What should I fight in?" he asks.
"I don't know, something more comfortable?" She shrugs. "But suit yourself."
Until now, he realizes, she's had on what Texans call her company manners during their interactions. They're long gone now. She's pacing like a caged animal, magic radiating off her in waves. It's quite possibly the hottest thing he's ever seen. Since the Glamour is covering his Dark Mark, he transfigures his clothes into a black t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, and takes a dueling stance.
Flaming fucksticks, as Buddy would say. She's good. Better than good. She was good when he taught her in sixth year. Now, she's bloody magnificent.
He was even better, back in the day, but it's been a long time since he's dueled someone who could give him a run for his money. At first, he has to work to just keep up with her. But the muscle memory returns, and they settle into a rhythm, hex and shield, attack and defend, each holding their own.
Without the potion to anchor it, he could never hold the Glamour and still duel like this, but with the potion, it might as well be his real face. He can forget about it, and focus all his energies on beating Granger.
He feels the thrum of her magic, twining and dancing with his. He's felt it before, in her sixth year dueling practice in his classroom, then in the healing spells she used in the shack. It's familiar, but so much more powerful now. She's become a witch to be reckoned with, as he knew she would.
But he was a Death Eater. He may be an aging, out-of-practice one, but still. He's not going to let a girl who used to be a firstie waving her hand frantically in his class out-duel him.
Hex by hex, he wears her down, slowly, inexorably, until he feels the tide turn in his favor, and a last burst of adrenaline pushes him onward until she's on the floor and her wand is in his hand.
"Fucking hell!" she gasps.
"Indeed," he smirks. As she pants for breath, he tries to look less exhausted and battered than he feels as he conjures glasses, fills them with water, and hands her one.
She nods her thanks and gulps it down. She refills it with her own Aguamenti and drains the glass again. "That was…unexpected," she says once she can speak normally.
He sits down beside her. "Why is that?"
In lieu of answering, she raises her wand and begins healing the cuts and scrapes he received during their duel. He startles, not used to anyone healing his wounds.
"I'm sorry," she says. "Lucius and I always heal each other, but it was probably too forward, as we don't know each other well."
"I've grown accustomed to forward, living in the States."
"Shall I, then?"
He nods, and feels her magic wash over him again, healing rather than hurting now.
"May I?" he asks before reciprocating, and she nods.
When he's finished, she Summons the bruise paste. When they've both finished with it, she asks, "Where were you during the war?"
"I've been living in America for many years now."
She looks at him, long and hard, then says, "You neglect to say how many years, implying you were there during the war, but not coming out and saying it. If you went to Hogwarts, I'm pretty sure I can guess your House affiliation." She takes another sip of water. "Did you?"
"If I had, it would have been long before you arrived here."
She looks at him for so long he has to force himself to remain impassive. "You're like him, in some ways, you know," she says at last, as though to herself rather than to him.
"Like whom?"
"Snape."
How did she make that leap? He keeps his voice bland and uninterested when he says, "I've seen photographs. I see no resemblance."
He transfigures his clothing back to its original form. He's grown comfortable with casual clothing in America, but here, with her, he needs his armor. He wishes he had his old frock coat with all the buttons.
"Not the way you look," she says. "It's your mannerisms, the way you walk. Your speech patterns—minus the constant insults, of course—and, just the littlest bit, your voice." A wistful smile plays at the corner of her lips. "He had the loveliest voice."
He doesn't say anything.
"And your hands," she says, picking one of them up and turning it over in hers. He forces himself to remain still, not to pull his hand back or react in any way to her touch, which has set every one of his nerve endings ablaze. She releases his hand, almost reluctantly, he'd say if he didn't know better.
"Even your magic," she continues. "While we were dueling, it felt…familiar, somehow."
He drinks some of his water so he'll have an excuse not to look at her. She was little more than a child. How could she recognize it after all these years? "Constant insults?" he asks, to distract her.
"He was a spy. He had to appear to hate us all."
"But you don't think he did?"
"I certainly believed he did at the time. Though when he left me access to his books, I had to wonder if maybe he didn't hate me just a little less than he hated Harry and Ron."
"I'm sure he didn't hate you at all, Miss Granger."
She draws in a breath. "Why did you call me that?"
He inwardly curses his carelessness, but gives her the dismissive wave Lucius does so well. "Weasley, Granger, Jenner. So many names. One is hard pressed to keep them all straight."
She stares at him as though she can see through the illusion, though he knows she can't.
"Who are you?" she asks softly.
If they hadn't just dueled, he'd worry that she suspects he's Glamoured. But she thinks his potion is still in the theoretical stage, and knows no one could hold a Glamour during a duel like that. He knows her question means What sort of man are you? rather than Who are you behind that Glamour?
He turns to face her. "Someone with whom you can talk, in person and without a three-month lag time, about the theoretical and practical work you've been doing all on your own." He can tell from her reaction that she understands as well as he does the isolation, the ache to talk to someone else about the ideas swirling in your head. "Also, someone who alleviates the need for you to teach classes in two subjects."
"So, don't look a gift Thestral in the mouth?" she asks with a wry twist of her mouth that tells him they're out of dangerous waters.
He returns her sardonic smile. "Precisely."