Chapter 7: Return to the Board
For a moment when she woke, Hermione strongly considered staying in bed for the rest of the holiday. She had all her course books here in her room, and some snack foods tucked away (she'd imposed quite enough on Winky and Dobby... though she suspected that those snacks would be replenished on a regular basis and without comment should she decide on this course of action). There wasn't any need to face the outside world---
The eighth square.
That was a reason. And so (she admitted, albeit reluctantly, to herself) was a certain pair of glittering dark eyes.
She'd expected nightmares--- if she managed to sleep. But the combination of the bath and food (perhaps, said a painfully honest corner of her mind) had worked a more subtle magic than any charm, and her sleep had been untroubled. Mostly. Except for the aforementioned dark eyes... which somehow soothed and excited rather than frightened.
Which, she decided pragmatically, was all for the best. She was going to be seeing him every day for the next several months--- she couldn't very well cringe every time he looked her way!
And skulking here in her bedroom wasn't getting her any closer to the eighth square. She pushed back the covers resolutely and headed for the shortcut to the prefects' bathroom.
Over her ablutions, she pondered--- a smile came to her face through the mouthful of toothpaste--- her strategy. Pawn though she was, it was her job to direct some of the pieces.
Specifically, Harry and Ron. She couldn't not tell them some of what had happened--- if only because they needed to be in on the subterfuge, for it to be effective. Truth to tell, she wasn't much of a liar, though she could misdirect quite skillfully when she had to.
But that didn't mean she would--- or could--- tell them the whole story. For one thing, they'd both lose their minds, Ron especially. Another smile, this one wry (and under the shower spray--- she always needed a shower first thing in the morning, even if she had had a bath the night before). Ron hadn't liked her with Viktor--- this would absolutely break him.
Not to mention that it would be too impossibly embarrassing to tell them. They were her friends... but they were boys, and there were just some things you didn't talk about with boys, things they wouldn't understand.
The thought came as a shock to her, so much so that she missed a stroke combing her hair (having moved from sink to shower to the benches around the edge of the room--- the only time she could comb her hair was when it was wet). She didn't have any girl friends, just Harry and Ron. And frankly, there wasn't really anyone else to be friends with in her year. Parvati and Lavender were just not possible (all giggles and Trelawny-worship--- would that ever wear off?). Hufflepuffs were... Hufflepuffs, the Slytherin girls were Pansy Parkinson's gang, and she didn't see enough of the Ravenclaws--- well, that wasn't true. Ramona Roberts in her Arithmancy class was nice enough, but... the simple truth was, she'd always been too busy with Ron and Harry. There was Ginny, but she was Ron's sister, and frankly adored Harry--- and, more importantly, she was a year younger, and didn't need that kind of weight on her shoulders. But that meant that now, when Hermione needed a girlfriend, she didn't have one.
It would have been awfully nice to indulge in a bout of self-pity about that... but she had to admit it was her own fault. And you didn't, for goodness' sake, make friends because you "needed" them. You were friends because... well, you were friends.
And it was time for her to go down and talk to her friends. She settled her robes on her shoulders,
pushed back her mostly-dry hair, and headed for the Gryffindor common room.
*****
If she hadn't been so nervous about talking to Harry and Ron, their reactions to seeing her would have been very funny indeed. They were playing wizard chess in front of the fire--- her guts flip-flopped at the sight--- while Ginny watched, and when Hermione appeared, they managed to knock the board half into the hearth.
"Good morning, nice to see you thanks, I'm fine, how are you?" she said dryly as they scrambled about picking up the pieces. Several of those had gone running to escape the fire and she gathered the poor things up and deposited them on the table as Ron and Harry righted the board.
"But--- Hermione---" Ron spluttered.
"We thought you were going home." Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose and regarded her curiously.
They had, for once, the common room all to themselves--- no other Gryffindor was staying, for which favor Hermione thanked Merlin. It hadn't been this deserted since their second year. She summoned a chair between theirs and sat. "I was---"
"Then---" Ron frowned--- "why aren't you there?"
Harry gave him a look. "I think she was about to tell us," he said meaningfully.
Right in one. But the jocular words stuck in her throat. She leaned closer to the boys--- fighting a little twitch as Ron leaned in too, a little closer than she would have liked. "Listen--- something's happened--- and you have to promise me you won't breathe a word of it." She waited until both boys and Ginny crossed their hearts. "Ok... the short version is, Lucius Malfoy snatched me from Platform 9 3/4 last night."
Their reactions were predictable. Ginny gasped, and covered her mouth with her hands--- obviously falling under the bad influence of Brown/Patil, as a prefect Hermione would have to do something about that--- Ron leapt to his feet, swearing, and Harry pulled him back down, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "What happened?" he said in a low voice.
"He--- he---" she didn't have to fake a stammer as the initial horror of being in that little room came to her--- "Apparated me to--- a dungeon, I found out later it's in his house---"
"Figures Malfoy to have a dungeon," Harry said disgustedly.
Ginny shuddered. "And that he'd do something like that." Ginny, Hermione remembered, was a fellow victim of Lucius Malfoy's general vileness. For a moment, Hermione entertained the wistful notion of getting her somewhere alone and explaining---
No, Granger, that's selfish squared. She's been through enough--- doesn't need you crying on her shoulder on top of it.
"There was--- he called it a Dark Revel---" small misdirection, but close enough--- "a gathering of Death Eaters---" She closed her eyes, hearing Snape's voice: "basically, an opportunity for Lord Voldemort's followers to get together and indulge some of their more depraved pleasures." That, coupled with her memories of the dungeon, gave her fodder for the next bit of misdirection--- "it was horrible---"
Ron put what he must have thought was a comforting arm around her shoulders; she had to fight not to flinch. "It would have to be," Harry muttered, and Ginny's voice was like a lifeline. "How did you get away?"
She grasped at it, turning a little so that Ron's arm fell away. "It wasn't anything I did--- it was Professor Snape, he was there---"
"At a gathering of Death Eaters?" Ron's voice rose in horror. "That--- that---"
"Oh, Ron, don't be thick," she said impatiently, feeling a kind of guilty relief at badgering him in their usual way. "Youknow Snape used to be a Death Eater--- you were there when he showed Fudge his arm last year---"
"Right--- 'used to be'," said Harry. "Which doesn't explain what he was doing with them now." He fixed her with an inquiring look. Ginny, to Hermione's surprise, had started when Hermione said Snape's name--- but now she looked thoughtful rather than confused, despite the fact that she hadn't been present at the aforementioned incident last year.
"Oh, honestly!" Now that she was with her friends, she felt herself slipping back into the familiar role--- the brain, the bossy know-it-all--- with no little relief. She wasn't always comfortable in it, but it was at least familiar. Normal. Safe.
You don't have to be like that with him, said a little voice in her mind. He doesn't mind when you think--- he likes it when you have an idea---
She told the little voice to shut up, rather firmly.
"Didn't you figure it out?" she asked, looking from one to the other of the boys--- Ginny obviously had, which confused her no end, but she'd sort that out later. "He's a double agent--- that's what the Headmaster sent him off to do last year, and that's what he was doing---" she swallowed--- "last night."
Harry blinked. "How d'you mean?"
"He was getting information--- there was a lot of alcohol around, I think---" she'd smelled it on Malfoy when he tied her up, and that was early on--- "and I guess he figured it would loosen some tongues." She took a deep breath. "Anyway, when he saw me---"
"Wait." Ron was finally catching on. "What'd Malfoy bring you there for anyway?"
Before she could answer, Ginny, to her surprise, spoke up. "Oh, honestly, Ron--- what do you think he was going to do to her?" she sighed in exasperation, then reached out and put a hand on Hermione's arm. Hermione covered it with her own, grateful twice over--- for the sympathy, and the fact that Ginny had planted the appropriate seed for misdirection, so that she herself didn't have to.
Harry looked sick. "Have a little fun, probably---"
"Like that lot at the World Cup last year," Ron finished. "That scum!" He looked ready to hit something.
Harry put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Now, why doesn't that make me twitch, like Ron's did? "What happened?" he asked again, gently.
"Snape--- when he saw what Mr. Malfoy was... was going to do---" well that was true enough--- "he... talked him out of it."
"How?" Ron was blatantly suspicious--- and rightly so, but she didn't want to tell him that, of course.
"I--- I don't know." Which, again, was sort of true. "I couldn't hear everything--- at least, not then--- and---" she put on a rather dry mask, and continued with some asperity, "you'll forgive me if I don't remember all the details letter-perfect."
"Of course you don't," Harry said, silencing Ron's worried outburst with a look. "Go on--- I mean, if you want to," he added hastily.
She nodded, a little shakily. "Well, after Snape got me out of there, he told me that he'd told Mr. Malfoy that he could... turn me into a spy. Make me tell him things about Harry, and, well, manipulate you---" she looked at Harry--- "through things he told me."
"That's stretching, isn't it?" Ron said. "I mean, why would you believe anything Snape says?" He said the name like it was a mucus-coated maggot.
"Well, there's more than one way of getting people to do something, isn't there?" she told him sharply, wincing inwardly at how close he'd gotten. "I mean, look at how, our first year, we all thought he was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone! Quirrel manipulated us using our--- dislike--- of Snape, didn't he?" Now she was really warmed up. "And all that time, Snape was trying to save Harry!" She took a deep breath. "Manipulating us doesn't mean we have to like him."
Harry frowned. "Well, that's true, I guess," he said slowly, clearly not wanting to believe it. "But--- Ron's right---"
"Oh, thanks," Ron said sarcastically.
"It is kind of far-fetched, isn't it?"
Hermione shrugged. "No more so than that Professor Moody was really Barty Crouch, right?"
Even Ron had to laugh at that.
Harry pushed his glasses back up his nose. "So--- what are we going to do?"
Hermione blinked in shock; she hadn't expected it would be this easy. "Do?"
"About... this plan of Snape's." Harry looked from one to the other of them.
"Yeah--- I mean, it's not like we're going to let him lead us around by the noses!" said Ron hotly.
"Do you honestly think he'd have told me, if that's what he was going to do?" Hermione asked impatiently. "I know you don't like him, Ron, but give him credit for some intelligence at least."
Ron shrugged, clearly not liking it--- then sat up with a look on his face that was all too familiar to Hermione from her relationship with Viktor. "What'd you mean 'you'? I didn't think you liked him any better than we do!" He stared at her accusingly.
Hermione smacked her forehead mentally. Stupid, Granger, stupid! Professor Snape was right about her discretion! "Well, it's rather hard not to like someone when they save you from something like Lucius Malfoy--- or a troll." She gave him a speaking look.
"Here, here," said Ginny quietly, looking at Harry, who had saved her from Lord Voldemort. Hermione hoped devoutly that no one was going to connect the dots....
Harry laughed. "Well, I hope we're not as hard to like as Snape."
"Well, I was, our first year, wasn't I?" Hermione teased.
"No, you weren't," Ron said instantly, patting her arm, and she and Harry both looked at him in surprise. "I mean--- not as hard as Snape," he amended hastily.
"Oh, thanks," Hermione said sarcastically. "But really," she said, in her best serious-things voice, "as far as Snape's 'plan' goes--- I don't think it is one--- I mean, it's more a matter of waiting and seeing what You-Know-Who tries to do---"
"Just like always." Harry looked bitter. "Just once I wish we could get ahead of him--- act, not react."
It was the first time she'd ever heard Harry say anything like that, and judging from the look on Ron's face it was news to him too. She opened her mouth to say something--- when the portrait opened, and Professor McGonagall walked in.
Their Head of House glanced around the room swiftly, then made straight for them, her mouth set in a thin line. "Miss Granger---" she said. "May I speak with you in private?"
Hermione got up, but Harry said, "Professor McGonagall--- is this about--- what happened to Hermione last night?"
McGonagall looked surprised, then her eyes narrowed and she looked at Hermione. "You've told them?"
"Er--- I was, when you came in." Hermione wondered just how much McGonagall knew.
The older woman gave a long-suffering look. "I might have known--- well, you lot---" she fixed
the boys in particular with a sharp look--- "your friend has been through a very difficult
experience, and I suggest---" the irony hung heavily in the air--- "that you give her all the support
she needs. Miss Granger," she added, turning to Hermione with a suddenness that made her jump,
"I'd still like to speak with you in private. Come along---" And the swept off, leaving Hermione to
exchange glances with the others--- theirs confused, hers shamming it and worried--- and hurry
after.
*****
McGonagall led her up a narrow staircase and through a corridor that Hermione recognized: all the Gryffindor prefects knew how to reach the private entrance to Professor McGonagall's rooms, in case they needed to get to her in a hurry some night. All the younger students thought it was some kind of magic the way she could appear at the first hint of disturbance; and so it was, but it was the magic of the castle's design.
Professor McGonagall's sitting room was neatly furnished with a lot of bookshelves and comfortable chairs that somehow managed to be proper at the same time. She motioned Hermione into one and sat behind her desk--- a duplicate of the one in her office.
"Hermione," she said gently, dropping the formality in private--- a mark of favor that usually pleased Hermione; McGonagall didn't call even all the prefects by their first names. But this morning, somehow, it didn't distract her from her nerves. How much did Professor McGonagall know?
"Professor Dumbledore told me about... what happened to you last night," she said in the gentlest tone Hermione had ever heard her use, "and I'm--- sorry doesn't seem enough," she said finally--- then added with a trace of her usual crispness, "though I'm going to have to rethink my opinion of Severus Snape--- I'd never have thought he'd stick his neck out like that for any student, let alone a Gryffindor Muggle-born--- it's not everyone who could talk Lucius Malfoy out of his perversions---"
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that she kept wholly mental: it didn't sound like Professor McGonagall knew what Professor Snape had really done--- or she wouldn't be talking with any trace of respect about him.
But all the same, Hermione couldn't help feeling a strange sort of wistful twinge. It would have been awfully good to really talk with another woman about what had happened.... She didn't know how she knew that, she just did.
"But that's by the way," Professor McGonagall interrupted her thoughts. "Hermione, please, if there's anything I can do---"
"Er--- I don't think so, not... right now anyway." Hermione answered by rote.
"And now--- a question if you don't mind," McGonagall said gently. "How much did you tell Potter and the Weasleys?"
"Er--- well, I told them that Mr. Malfoy---"
"You needn't speak of him with any kind of respect, Hermione," McGonagall cut in crisply, "not after---" She pursed her lips together. "But go on."
"I told them that he'd kidnaped me," she said, "and that Professor Snape talked him out of hurting me--- but I didn't say exactly what he would have done."
"That's probably for the best," McGonagall said. "I know they're your friends and all--- but there are some things that most males will never understand--- and what it takes to make them understand isn't something I'd wish on anyone. When I think of the things I saw in the last war...." Her eyes went abstract, looking at something Hermione could only extrapolate.
Before she could ask, however, McGonagall's eyes refocused and she continued. "And as you've no doubt decided for yourself, Miss Weasley has already been through her own trial by fire, and it's probably better to let her... have what's left of her innocence while she can." Hermione's heart gave a wrench at the last words, thinking of how Ron's hand had made her twitch. No, she wouldn't wish that on Ginny, even vicariously.
McGonagall's eyes gentled again. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you, all right, child?"
Hermione almost flinched--- it was the same tone of voice Snape used when he called her "child"--- and she had the sense that both of them meant the exact opposite. Very peculiar. "I--- I will," she said. "And--- thank you."
McGonagall's eyes were very kind. "Don't thank me, Hermione--- from what the Headmaster tells me, you showed the bravery of Godric Gryffindor himself last night."
There was an awkward pause, then Hermione asked, "Should I--- is that---"
"'All' doesn't seem like the right word, does it?" McGonagall said as if she knew what Hermione was thinking. "Yes, that's it--- though if you'd rather stay up here for lunch---"
"Lunch!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Yes," said McGonagall dryly, "you missed breakfast altogether--- not that I blame you. But you're probably famished--- go on, if you like."
Hermione experienced a bizarre sort of deja vu: for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, a professor was ordering her out of their office to go and eat--- though the circumstances couldn't have been more different. "All right," she said, getting to her feet. "Thank you---"
"As I said, dear, no thanks needed." McGonagall's eyes on her were still kind. "Now, go along, if you like."
Hermione went.
*****
Severus Snape had been awakened a good few hours before Hermione--- awakened by a heavy, coiling weight cuddled across him and to one side.
"Esmé," he said wearily, "would you mind?"
A second later, a blunt sleek head about the size of a soup bowl poked out from under the quilt. "The fire went out, and it wassssss cold," said the creature. "And I'm a reptile, in casssssse you've forgotten."
"Nonsense," Snape said, stroking the blunt-nosed head, feeling the surprising softness of feathers under his fingers. "You're as warm-blooded as I am."
"Which, according to your sssssssstudentsssssss, isssss not very," Esmé grumped, cuddling tighter against him.
Snape grunted sharply as the quetxal's body squeezed the air from his chest. "Esmé, would you kindly desist?" he gasped, and added, "Corpses make dreadful hot-water bottles."
"And you would know, I sssssssuppossssse?" she retorted, but uncoiled herself part way from around him. Snape took a deep, grateful breath. "When isssssss breakfassssssst?"
"When you catch it yourself," Snape said irritably, starting to worm his way out from under covers and quetxal, ignoring Esmé's irked protest. The bandage over his left wrist tried to slip loose.
"Thesssssse featherssssss make it hard to ssssssslither properly," the quetxal whined.
"Yes, but they should keep you warm," Snape answered her, "if you'd have the sense to puff up like a bird, instead of ignoring half your heritage."
"Lookssssss sssssstupid," Esmé whined.
"And cuddling up like a kitten doesn't?" Snape said, and, tired of their old argument, resorted to his usual doomsday weapon: throwing back the covers and letting the cold air in.
Underneath the covers was the not inconsiderable bulk of Esmé: six feet of sleek lime-green and midnight black feathers arranged along the skin of what should have been a very scaly constrictor snake: a quetxal, literally a "feathered serpent"--- or, as his cousin Claudia called them, feather boas. Like the house-elves, the quetxal were a relic of his many times-great-aunt Esmeralda the Transformer's creativity.
Esmé hissed at him, rustling her feathers together. "Cold," she whined.
"I should have gotten a mank instead of you," he told her, taking advantage of her distraction to slide out from underneath the heavy coils. "They at least keep themselves warm." Both quetxal and mank had been an attempt to produce warm-blooded reptiles. The mank, snakes with the plush fur of mink, shed their skins, snake-fashion, several times a year, providing a steady supply of cruelty-free fur. Not that Great-Aunt Esmeralda had likely given a damn, but one mank could produce as much fur in its lifetime as several hundred mink, and--- perhaps a relic of their serpentine ancestry--- they were docile, attacking only when provoked, unlike the warm-blooded portion of their ancestry.
"Mank are ssssssstupid," Esmé hissed, glaring balefully up at him. "Can't even talk Parssssseltongue, let alone human languagesssssss like a quetsssssssssal." For whatever reason, quetxal were considerably more intelligent than their relatives--- hence the unusually large heads.
"At the moment, a creature that cannot talk would be a welcome companion," Snape told her, pulling on his dressing gown and heading for the bath. The silence behind him told him he'd scored a point.
The bathroom attached to his chambers was one of the odd advantages of rooming in the dungeons, and proof that even vile things could be put to good use. The small room adjoining his quarters had once been a torture chamber.
Appropriate, given its current occupant.... Snape cut off that line of thought in a hurry.
Many of the accouterments of its past incarnation were still in place: Snape thought the chains hanging from the walls added a certain je ne sais quoi to the decor, and made a convenient place to hang towels and clothing. The water-torture chamber had easily converted to a shower, and the old boiling pot had gracefully made the transition into a hot tub--- a not dissimilar use, he reflected as he filled the appliance in question, particularly given his preference for near-scalding baths. Not that anything was going to get the oil out of his skin and hair for good, short of an extended, painful, and costly stay in St. Mungo's, but he couldn't help trying.
He slid into the water while the tub was still half-full, and turned on the cycling system, slid the bandages off his wrist and let the bloodstains soak off. It had healed with unusual speed; it always did. Except for the part he wanted to heal--- a scar on soul rather than body....
Esmé came in before he'd finished, slouching along the floor like a lame caterpillar--- the poor thing really did have a case about her feathers being useless as instruments of propulsion; they afforded her absolutely no traction. She eeled her way up among the chains and came to suspend herself above him, lowering her head until they were eye-level, at a conversational distance--- yet another reason to leave the chains in place. "You're ssssssscrubbing your sssssssskin off," she said, sounding--- for once--- worried.
"Just the top layer," he reassured her dryly, dunking his head underwater to rinse--- hence the cyclers. "Bless Mother's black heart," he added sarcastically, coming up and started to scrub at his hair again.
"Humanssssss aren't ssssssuppossssed to molt," Esmé objected, watching long dark hairs swirl away in the cyclers' jets along with the now-greasy soapsuds.
"And hair and skin aren't supposed to exude enough oil to power a fleet of Muggle motorcars, either," he told her, blinking soap out of his eyes. "But thanks to Mother and her teaching methods---" He broke off to rinse again.
When he came up, it was to find himself literally nose-to-nose with the quetxal. She flicked her forked tongue at him, tasting his scent. "You sssssssmell more than clean," she said, "unless it isssss the 'scent' of Darknessssss on your sssssspirit." She drew back to regard him one more from a conversational distance. "What happened lassssssst night? You did not come home until very late."
He sighed, knowing they'd come around to this. And it was one of the reasons he kept the feathered pest as his familiar: Esmé knew when to ask--- she hadn't pestered him last night, had waited until this morning, after he'd finished his ablutions, to ask the questions that were most certainly burning her serpentine heart. Tact, she had, did Esmé, when it counted. "It was... a Dark Revel," he began, not quite stalling, but not wanting to launch into the worst of it without preparing her. "You know what that means."
Esmé, in a surprising gesture of affection, dropped down to bump her head against his. "I know," she hissed into his ear. "But that doesssssss not eksssssssplain your latenesssssss--- you would have left asssss sssssssoon asssss possssssssible."
He sighed, reaching up to pet the feathered head gently; Esmé squeezed her eyes shut--- like her avian ancestors, she had eyelids--- in pleasure. "Malfoy had brought me... his idea of a present---"
Esmé's eyes opened, and she reared up in midair. "Hissssss idea of a presssssent would be sssssssomething foul."
"And it was." He took a deep breath, pondering how to explain the full horror and severity of the occasion to a creature for whom mating was as uncomplicated an act as eating. "You remember I had Hermione Granger working as my assistant on the anti-lycanthropy potion?"
"The Gryffindor Muggle-born--- yesssss."
"Well... Malfoy, pervert that he is, decided that he knew my 'true' interest in the girl, and made me a present of her, to use--- to assault, Esmé. To abuse, in the vilest way possible."
The quetxal hissed, coiling about in midair. "He would. What did you do?"
Here was the part that her feathered little brain would never comprehend. "I... made it appear that I was... seducing her--- twisting her mind so that I could use her as a spy."
Snakes--- even quetxals--- don't have much in the way of facial expressions; yet Esmé managed to convey quite clearly her confusion. "How?"
He petted the head again. "How many times do I have to tell you, featherbrain--- humans are different from other animals, and sex is one of the areas of greatest difference."
"Yessssss.... alwaysssss in heat," she said boredly, then did a double-take--- a move quite effective on someone whose entire body, at the moment, was functioning as a neck: she made an S-curve in the air to look back at him. "What doesssss mating have to do with Malfoy'ssssss fun and gamessssss?"
"I've told you about the Dark Revels, Esmé," he said wearily, not wanting to relive the experience again for the curiosity of a feathered snake. "Malfoy thought I'd want to---"
"Mate with a ssssstudent?" Esmé hissed, managing, once again, to convey an expression of disgust. The quetxal regarded mating as just another biological activity... but she had enough understanding of human customs and psychology to realize the implications. Like a bird, she was warm-blooded... and she had a bird's sense of caring for the young.
"Yes, and in a way that she wouldn't enjoy in the least--- to put it mildly." He sunk lower in the water, anticipating the next question, hoping it wouldn't come.
"I will never undersssssstand humansssss," Esmé said finally, making a loop-the-loop in the air. "Sssssso I asssssume what you did with the girl... more human mating ritualssssss?"
"In a sense," he said, relieved that Esmé hadn't required too much explanation. He'd never had to discuss such things with the quetxal--- by the time she'd come into his life, he'd already sworn off such involvement... mostly owing to things he'd seen and done as a Death Eater. "It was... less traumatic for her than what Lucius intended, but...." He felt the pain rising up in waves as it had last night. "Esmé--- I hurt her. I hurt her--- and it was my fault that she was even there." If he hadn't been so weak--- so starved for contact with a mind of equal brilliance, no matter in what body it lived--- Malfoy never would have thought of presenting Hermione Granger to him as a "gift".
He closed his eyes and felt the tears come.
A moment later, he felt something soft and feathery slide around his shoulders: Esmé, more generous with touch than he'd been to her. "You have hurt your sssssstudentsssss before, when it wassss necessssary."
"Not like this." His voice was barely more than a breath. "The worst I ever said in class--- the harshest criticism, the most biting remark--- was kindness itself by comparison."
Esmé didn't understand, couldn't understand; yet a moment later, he felt the feathery coils squeeze his shoulders in a serpentine hug. "Ssssshe issss young, and you have ssssaid ssssshe isssss intelligent," she said. "And you--- you with your honor---- you will help her."
He laughed weakly, the quetxal's unflinching and absolute faith in him, her absurd simplification of what was likely to be an agonizing task, bringing him close to hysteria. "It's--- not that simple, featherbrain."
She butted her head under his chin, then coiled about him silently for a moment. "I think I would like to meet thissssss sssstudent," she said finally.
The thought of Esmé and Hermione in the same room made him smile. "All right, then," he said, nodding slightly--- then pushed at the feathered coils around his shoulder. "Now, off you go--- I need to get dressed."
Esmé's coils tightened around his shoulders one last time, then she slithered backwards along the chains.
As he got out of the tub and dried himself off, Snape reflected on the other reason he kept Esmé.
It was very nice to have a creature around who didn't mind hugging him.
*****
Author's note: Esmé was inspired by my own punning sense of humor... but the notion to give her
to Snape came to me courtesy of Salome, Snape's snake, in "A Decoding of The Heart". Sphinx
is the goddess of Snape/Hermione fic--- again, go, read, enjoy! GRIN
