Author's Notes: First off, thanks to the wonderful people who reviewed this. It's so nice to be loved.... GRIN

Esmé isn't based on anything in Terry Prachett, because I've never read Terry Prachett--- but I'm perfectly glad to have been told that he too has "feather boas". GRIN And likewise about Esmé's namesake in the Burgess Meredith movie.

And to those who asked about Snape's choice of endearment for Hermione.... Innocent look Let's just say I'm not letting that one ride, and neither is Hermione. GRIN

The new material in this chapter is dedicated to J. Odell, who asked about house-elves. The "leaps of understanding" that Esmeralda had made in her working notes are another Screaming CyteenReference: Ari Emory Sr. makes them too. :



Chapter 9: Bishop and Pawn



The very next night, Snape settled rather glumly into the chair at his desk--- hoping against hope, but not really expecting that she'd want to visit again so soon. Well, his office was as good a place to read as his room--- though Esmé did complain about being left to herself. The latest issue of Ars Alchemica would have to suffice for company.

But, a few minutes before midnight, he was startled out of his reading by a soft voice in his ear. "Professor Snape?"

He jumped, dropping the roll of parchment. Dear Merlin! He'd never known the Exaudio Charm to replicate the same... sensual... effect that a whisper had! But her voice in his ear sent shivers down his spine.

He got control of himself after a second, reached for his wand and with a gesture unlocked the door. "Come in, Miss Granger--- subtly, if you please; we don't need Filch mistaking you for Peeves."

Little riff of startled laughter in his ear; a second later, the door opened a crack, as if swaying on its hinges, then swayed shut. And after another second, Hermione Granger's head appeared, floating in midair.

"Was that subtle enough?" she asked, with that oddly breathless mixture of shyness and cheek that he was beginning to find... endearing. Merlin help them both.

He got to his feet. "It will do." Coming around the desk, he moved to stand before her, reached out to her. "May I?"

Not a pro forma question, either--- she was entitled to the courtesy... if she'd consider it so.

She started slightly--- then that cheeky little blush came back. "Well--- if you can find the clasp."

He raised an eyebrow in salute to the riposte. "Excellent point." She unfastened the cloak herself, and with the slipping of the last frogged closure, it shimmered into visibility: a diaphanous waterfall of light.

A moment's hesitation; he held out his hands again. She looked up at him, the blush mounting--- then her chin came up and she leaned toward him slightly, let him take the cloak from her shoulders. He let his hands brush against her collarbone, very lightly and nothing indecent or even seductive. A test, rather, to see what she'd make of this kind of touch--- social, but distinctly charged with an awareness of the difference between the sexes--- from him.

She twitched slightly... than, somewhat to his consternation, leaned into it, not quite as a grown woman might have--- but not the action of an innocent either. Not what he'd expected--- more fright, more reserve certainly. He couldn't imagine that a few little moments of affectionate closeness could have done half as much for her... as for him.

But then, perhaps, she wasn't as innocent to begin with as he'd thought. What had she got up to with Viktor Krum?

The thought actually put a sardonic smile on his face--- certainly, he was in no position to play the jealous lover!

He took the cloak from her, snapped his fingers sharply--- waited, then again, more impatiently. Blasted thing.... Hermione watched him--- not quite quizzically, but with a definite note of curiosity. Well, after four and a half years at Hogwarts, he imagined she ought to be used to the behavior of wizarding implements.

After a moment, the old iron hatrack in the corner shook itself awake and lumbered painfully out into the room. "Took you long enough," Snape said dryly. The hatrack dipped in a clumsy sort of half-bow before lifting the cloak from his hands with one of its hooks and shambling back into the shadows.

"It doesn't see much use," he said with deliberate casualness--- as Hermione had followed the rack's progress with every evidence of delight. "Seems to have forgotten its literal raison d'etre."

That brought a delighted almost-giggle--- hastily smothered; she looked down, then up at him out of the corner of her eye, clearly embarrassed.

By a perfectly natural display of youthful delight. He wondered if she'd always been that shy... or if it was his fault. "Laugh, by all means," he reassured her gently. "There's nothing for you to be ashamed of here."

Awkward pause--- they had, he had, touched on things neither of them wanted to address. Then Hermione asked, "How--- where did you get it? I mean, it doesn't seem like something you'd---" she broke off, blushing again.

"It seems a rather comical piece of furniture for someone as notoriously humorless as I, no?"

"I don't think you're humorless---" she interjected--- then her eyes lit with a certain mischief. "It's just your sense of humor tends more toward laughing-at than laughing-with."

He blinked in surprise... then felt his lips twitch upward in a smile. "That may be the most succinct, to say nothing of diplomatic, description of my particular brand of sarcasm that I've ever heard."

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing," she said, still with that mischief lurking in her eyes. "Rather useful for crowd control...."

"Which I sometimes think is the real definition of teaching--- keeping your students still long enough to drive something into their minds." He backtracked. "Present company excepted, of course."

She blushed--- quite prettily, in point of fact. He looked away hastily, before her voice brought him back. "You still haven't answered my question."

"You mean the hatrack?" With a slight sweep of his arm, he guided her to the chairs in front of the fireplace. "Like the chess set, another family legacy, though a far less dignified one."

She perched on one of the chairs--- they weren't the most comfortable pieces of furniture imaginable, nor intended to be, since mostly he inflicted them on students here for punishment. He didn't have visitors of any other sort. He settled back in the other, trying not to wince.

Awkward pause, then. There really wasn't any logical reason for her to be here... except for the dark logic of the inescapable and artificial bond between them. Not a bond that she at least would have chosen, he was certain, but it was there, nonetheless, and undeniable.

Her eyes flickered to the desk. "If I've interrupted anything---"

Looking for a graceful way to leave already. He felt an odd sort of twinge at that thought--- decided to make her work for it, as a queen should be able to. "Nothing urgent--- just a bit of light reading."

"What?" She looked interested.

"What was I reading, you mean?" She nodded. Relieved that they'd found--- for the moment--- a safe subject--- he Summoned the journal.

"Ars Alchemica!" Her eyes went wide. "I've only read a few articles from this--- Madam Pomfrey doesn't keep it on hand---"

"Not worth the cost," he said dryly, "as very few of the students here could read it with anything like comprehension, and even fewer would." He felt his lip twist. "For that matter, most of the teachers couldn't either."

She looked up from the roll of parchment, her lip twitching. "The Headmaster, of course---"

"And myself. And probably Minerva--- Professor McGonagall--- if, that is, she'd deign to put her mind to any sort of magic involving physical components--- she and Flitwick are both far too impressed with the abstract--- and Themba Vector."

As he'd expected, Hermione smiled--- it required no great observational power to note that she and the Arithmancy professor were thick as thieves. No bad choice, actually, on either of their parts; certainly, Vector had a sharply analytical intellect that even he was forced to respect... and, he reflected with a twinge, it was perhaps fortunate that Hermione had something of a mother-figure in the wizarding world, given the circumstances.

Hermione's voice startled him out of his less than pleasant musing. "What about Professor Figg?"

He couldn't resist a bit of verbal fencing. "What about Professor Figg?"

She blushed, but her lips twitched--- getting comfortable. "Don't you--- well---"

"Arabella Figg's talents lie elsewhere," he said shortly, then added--- remembering Christmas dinner--- "and I respect them, as she does mine. But alchemy--- indeed, any of what might be called the magical sciences--- is not her field." No, her field was far more personal--- one couldn't say human--- than that.

Hermione looked suddenly very much like a cat sitting between a bowl of cream and a fishbowl. "Er---"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I noticed--- last night at dinner--- what---" she looked down at her hands, flustered. "That--- business--- with Professor Figg and Professor McGonagall---"

So she had noticed. He'd have been surprised if she hadn't.

The only question was... how exactly to answer her? He decided on misdirection. "What's to ask?" He sat back in his chair. "Professor Figg was Head of Slytherin during my own student days--- and she was, as I said, the harshest teacher in the school." He forced his lips into something like a smile. "Probably because she was a Slytherin, too, when she was here--- wanting to restore the honor of the House and whatnot. If you want to watch any Slytherin with a grounding in House tradition go misty-eyed, just mention the graduating class of 1920--- last time we had both the Head Girl and Head Boy: Arabella Figg and Alastor Moody."

As he'd hoped, that distracted her completely. "Moody? Mad-Eye Moody... was a Slytherin?"

"Yes---" He let his voice harden into its usual sarcastic sharpness. "Did you think only Gryffindors could be Aurors, perhaps? That your house alone could serve the light openly?"

For a moment, she crumpled--- then, and he could almost see her think, the eighth square, her head came up. "No," she said, her voice quivering only slightly, but to all other appearances nonchalant, "but I'm rather surprised that a Slytherin--- or even someone pretending to be a Slytherin--- would turn Draco Malfoy into a bouncing ferret."

He had to laugh at that. "Child, if I thought for a minute I could get away with it, I'd turn Draco Malfoy into a bouncing ferret--- and leave him that way."

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes brimming over with mirth--- then it spilled out, and she doubled up laughing.

He restrained himself for a moment... then joined her. It felt good.

She caught her breath first--- more used to laughter than he--- and asked, "So--- Malfoy's not as much King of Slytherin as he'd like us all to believe?"

He sobered abruptly at that. "Well... you're partly right... and so is he. Slytherin internal--- politics is the only word for it, even if we are talking about children who still have stuffed animals---" she looked as if she might laugh again--- "are rather convoluted."

"I don't doubt it." She regarded him with frank curiosity. "But what does that have to do with Professor Figg?"

He should have know she wouldn't be that easily deterred. Well, much as he hated to do it--- it was time to begin the queen's lessons. He raised an eyebrow, steepled his fingers, and regarded her coldly. "I would think," he said, "that it should be obvious to you--- but if you can't figure it out---" not quite his harshest tone--- he wasn't sure she could bear that yet--- but it would do--- "perhaps you'll want to... reconsider... taking the Pawn's Walk."

Her eyes had gone wide and round at that little speech, but the mention of the eighth square, as he'd intended, steadied her. "I suppose I haven't... a Slytherin's cunning yet," she admitted, "but I'll work on it." She set aside the issue of Ars Alchemica still sitting in her lap, got to her feet. "Thank you, Professor Snape, for an... interesting evening--- but if you'll excuse me, it seems I have a clue to work out."

"Running away?" He let his voice crack softly in the chill air, then softened his tone--- deliberate switch, shaking her then calming her--- and added, "Why, you've hardly looked at the journal--- and there are my great-aunt's books upstairs, that you haven't even asked about."

She hesitated, and he reached out to the desk, recovered the journal, and held it out to her, raising an eyebrow.

After a second, she took the roll of parchment, with a hand that trembled slightly. He gestured to the chair, with an invitational lift of his eyebrow. Slowly, she sank down.

"There." He kept his voice soft, got to his feet and came around to stand by her chair "Shall we see what's inside? I believe Astrid Waxweather's piece might interest you; she's working on applications of Muggle science to alchemy, very controversial, of course---"

As he spoke, he bent over her, looking at the journal in her lap, and rested a hand against her collarbone, his forefinger lying along her neck near the pulse. She was trembling, sweating just a little; her heartbeat was jumping like a wounded thing.

And so she was. Damn you, Severus. For he'd been the one to do it.

He kept up the line of commentary as she opened the scroll to Waxweather's piece, all the while letting his hand knead her shoulder gently, wordless reassurance... and just a bit of stimulus. Hard line to walk, strengthening her while having no choice but to remind her what his touch could do to her.

At least it didn't seem to upset her; by the time her clever little fingers found the right place in the scroll, her pulse was back to normal. And by the time they'd finished dissecting Waxweather's article, she'd stopped twitching when his voice sharpened into criticism.

And by the time they'd moved on to Artimidoros Melarian's research results... he'd begun to relax. Even to let himself enjoy the company and the conversation. Hermione's views might be a little naive when it came to human behavior--- but alchemy, like any of the sciences Muggle or magical, was an objective discipline; one could afford a little naivete. And she really was quite impressively bright. He hadn't known that she'd actually been exploring the relationship of magic to science. It had seemed like something a bright young Muggle-born might appreciate, but her understanding of the subject put her well ahead of many of his peers. Though of course, she had the advantage of being unhampered by prejudice.

He half-expected her to ask how he knew anything on the topic, but either she'd decided not to open herself to further sarcasm, or she took it for granted that any disdain for all things Muggle he might evince as head of Slytherin was part of his disguise. Well, he'd wait and see if she worked up her nerve, or her curiosity, given time.

He could have let the discussion go on until morning--- really, it was amazing how good it was simply to talk with her, even to watch her steel herself against his harsher moments--- but after an hour, he took the scroll out of her hands with some firmness. "And that, I think," he said finally, "is quite enough for one evening."

She started. "If--- if you say so." She got to her feet, hesitantly, and he drew back--- then held out the scroll to her. She took it, in some surprise.

"Feel free to read the rest of it, if you like."

She got the hint. "Aren't you going to give me an assignment to go with it, then?"

"Oh, no." He couldn't resist. "After all, if I did that, you'd know what to prepare for." He beckoned to the hat stand, which responded with somewhat more alacrity this time, and held out her cloak to her. "Good night, Miss Granger."

She slid into the cloak easily, relaxing under his hands--- then stepping neatly away, turning to face him. "Good night, Professor Snape."

She fastened the clasps on the cloak--- and abruptly, he appeared to be alone in the room.

A flick of his wand, and the door slid open a fraction.

A moment later, it closed.



*****

The next night, she was back, with an impertinent, "Well, you did say I could read your great-aunt's opus, didn't you?" when he made to take her to task.

"That I did." She smiled, not quite shyly, as he brought the books over to the chairs by the fire.

"How much did you find out on your own?"

"Everything--- I think---" Absently, she bit on a curl of hair; charming habit--- and he knew better than to think it childish. Though the notion of this bright little Gryffindor sharing a nervous tick with his mother was rather unsettling. "Except how your great-aunt fits in."

He nodded. "Great-Aunt Esmeralda went to some lengths to keep people from knowing just how powerful she was--- she was, after all, a Slytherin."

Hermione frowned. "But I'd have thought---" She bit her lip.

"You thought that all Slytherins were like Malfoy, flaunting every ounce of influence they have?" His let a hint of sharpness creep into his voice--- I'm sorry, Hermione--- it had to be done. "Well, as much as young Master Malfoy would like everyone to think him the archetypal Slytherin, there are those with far more sense." He gestured to the books in front of them. "Read."

Any other student--- with the possible exception of his cousin's daughter, Blaise Zabini--- would have taken that as an implied punishment. Hermione, however, looked as if someone had handed her the key to Honeydukes' store-room.

But unlike most youngsters with their treat of choice, she didn't just grab; she looked over the books and rolls of parchment, flipping through each and looking at the labels and indices, frowning slightly in concentration as she did so. He watched her closely, wondering which she'd settle on.

To his delight, after her first scan, she went without hesitation to the very smallest of the scrolls--- Esmeralda's true working notes, the process she'd used in developing the transformation spell she'd used to develop house-elves. She examined it slowly, biting her lip again.

"She was quite brilliant, wasn't she?" Hermione asked him after a moment.

"Of course---" the practiced sarcasm came easily, much to the despair of his conscience. "She was only the most brilliant witch of her day, I'm sure you learned that much in Binns' wretched excuse for a class---"

To his astonishment, she didn't even appear to notice the sarcasm. "No," she said absently. "I mean--- her working notes--- she makes all these leaps--- here, look where she goes from one spell to the next without anything like a bridge---" She pointed out the place to him in the text, and he nodded. "Only it's obvious that---" she paused again, looking up at him. "To her, they aren't leaps, they're a sequence."

"Very good, child." He put just a hint of condescension into it, and watched her bristle.

And added another, purely internal and wholly unreserved, Very good to the first. Now let's see if you can use that anger---

"Now, can you make sense of my great-aunt's 'sequence'?" he asked, looking down his nose at her ever so slightly. He could, of course--- no other way for him to check her work--- but he'd had the advantage of almost three decades of studying them.

Not to mention the tutelage of one of the most brilliant Dark witches of the century. For his mother, whatever else she was, was a genius. He'd gotten a double dose of brains, no doubting that.

And what is it they say about regression to the mean, Severus? Don't get too confident.

Hermione, oblivious to his mental monologue, was still staring down at the paper, the curl of hair migrating into her mouth again; this time, she yanked it back hastily. So, unlike his mother, she wasn't above curing her nervous twitches--- or else, again unlike Lucretia Andropolous Snape, she didn't feel capable of commanding others' respect despite them. Well, a good thing for a queen to be aware of, at least.

She broke into his thoughts, looking up at him. "I can try, sir---"

"'Try'?" he imitated her. "Any fool can 'try'--- I expect that you should succeed." And then--- calculated shift, now that she was tense, to let her relax again--- "And, child," he added mildly, "you can call me Severus, when we're alone--- if you like."

For a moment, she gaped at him, trembling just slightly--- then she took a deep breath and her chin came up. "All right--- Severus."

Inwardly he exulted--- the pawn moving determinedly toward the eighth square!--- but was careful to show no sign of it on his face. The last thing she needed was to become dependent on his praise, either as emotional sustenance or a guide to her own performance; either way, she'd never become a queen. "Well?" he snapped.

Biting her lip, Hermione looked down at the parchment. "This is so private, she was writing only for herself--- I'll need to look at some of her other writings---" She reached for one of the other books. Snape noticed with approval that it was one of the more straightforward pieces, a good guide to the Transformer's mind---

Even as he brought his hand down sharply on top of it. "You will not," he said quietly. "Use that---" he pointed to the parchment in Hermione's lap--- "and that alone." She stared at him--- then her lips tightened.

"Am I allowed to use scratch paper, at least?"

He twitched, violently, he couldn't help it: that tone wouldn't have been out of place from Lucretia herself---

Dear Merlin, a woman like my mother. That Muggle psychoanalyst would have a field day. But at least it meant she was on the right path--- his mother was, in a very real if not a political sense, a queen. Poor Hermione. At least she's Gryffindor enough not to become a monster. I hope.

"Yes, I suppose---" he Summoned a roll of parchment, a quill, and ink, set them on the table with the books. "Mind you don't get ink on those--- they're valuable."

"Madam Pince will be happy to vouch for my trustworthiness." And with that crisp comment, she bent to the scroll and her notes.

After a moment--- again, calculated timing, just the time to shake her up--- he spoke. "If you can't manage it on your own after a bit" he told her gently, "you can look at the other books then--- it's just that it's not a good idea to get into the habit of taking the easy path---"

And had the satisfaction of watching her eyes flash in fury. "I don't intend to--- sir."

Which comment had ensured, far more than his earlier harshness, that she would solve it on her own. He sat back to watch her. And to curse his own calculated manipulation of her.

At least his earlier fears that she was Transfiguring herself into a carbon copy of his mother had yet proved groundless, he thought, watching the open enthusiasm and unfeigned pleasure flit over Hermione's face. She was wholly oblivious to anything but her work, wholly absorbed in it, and wholly enraptured by the task. No, not a manipulator... not yet, at least. And if Circe and Merlin were kind, she'd never truly have to be.

He watched, and noticed without wanting to that she was also quite heartstoppingly beautiful.

Beautiful, in a way that a brute like Malfoy would never understand, that the crude little boys who had the impertinence to call themselves her friends would never appreciate. Beautiful in her brilliance and her fascination with learning--- most beautiful when engaged in what she did best: learning, study, experimentation.

And would I ever have realized it if Malfoy hadn't offered her to me? Am I any better?

Yes--- because he would not have realized it; because it would not have been his place to do so. Still wasn't, if truth be told, though perhaps at some point she might find it healing to know that he found her breathtaking. It was still too early in the game to judge where the bishop's pawn would find herself.

He was drawn out of his wretched reverie by the look of dawning comprehension on Hermione's face. He had only a split second to savor the delight in her eyes before that delight was abruptly transfigured--- apt turn of phrase!--- to horror.

"Oh--- no---" After a moment, Hermione mastered herself, looked up at him. "She didn't--- did she?"

Snape lip twisted, though he knew full well what Hermione was thinking. "Elaborate."

Hermione turned slightly in her chair, held out her own notes to him. "The Imperius Curse--- see, where she was using the magic from the djinns--- they're tied to serve their masters through the lamps, only she took that basic aspect of their magical nature and wrapped it around Imperio, so that they'd have to serve a human---" She shook her head. "No, that's not right; it's so that they'd want to serve a human---"

She sat back, abruptly, in her chair, closing her eyes, one hand pressed to her forehead as if it pained her. And so it mostly likely did--- Severus, having had the same sort of experience himself no few times, could well imagine. "The--- the problem with the imp-djinn crossbreeds--- I found this out in the library--- was that they had all the powers of djinn, and the freedom of the imps. And they got a dose of mischief from both sides of the family tree." He had to smile at that turn of phrase; Hermione, her eyes closed, didn't realize. "Only---" With another sudden movement, she sat up, pointing first to the original parchment, then to her notes--- "they still had some of that djinn--- well, you can hardly call it loyalty, can you?" This time they shared the smile. "But they still had that latent capacity to be tied down to one place or thing--- to serve a master. And, like their djinn ancestors, they hated the idea of servitude--- that's why they were so vile to humans, wasn't it?"

Snape blinked. That little piece of information was in some of his great-aunt's other writings--- but as far as he knew (and he'd spent a great deal of time in the Restricted Section of the library in his own student days) it wasn't anywhere else that Hermione would have seen. "What makes you say that?" he asked, carefully.

Hermione actually made an impatient noise; he smothered a smile. "Because--- look what she did---" again, the gesture from the original to her notes--- "That's why she used Imperio: because it makes the obedience pleasurable---" She looked up on the last word; a mistake.

For a long moment, they held each other's eyes, not needing to speak, not daring to. Snape drew back first. "Very good, child," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. "Excellent work, in point of fact---" He smiled. "You see? You did succeed."

She caught her breath, leaning back in her own chair, looking more than a little flustered. "Er--- that's why---" she picked up the thread of her spiel with only a little faltering; he encouraged her with a nod to continue. "That's why the house-elves are so deferential, so eager to serve: it feels good to them to make a human happy. And see---" she leaned forward again, parchment in hand--- "that's where Esmeralda twisted the djinn-heritage into the version of Imperio, so that it would be passed down from parents to children---" she looked up, grinning. "Only, like any trait, it doesn't always come in the same strength--- there's a house-elf like Dobby down in the kitchens who's perilously close to being an imp."

He smiled back at her. "Given that the creature in question once belonged to Lucius Malfoy, I can hardly blame him."

Hermione looked away at the name--- for only an instant; then, defiantly, back up. "Wonder if we couldn't reverse the spell just on the rest of the Malfoy domestic staff?"

He couldn't help but join in her almost feral grin. "Now that, child, would be a sight indeed." He gestured at the other books. "It may seem anticlimactic after your little bit of ciphering---" her lip twisted sarcastically at the slight--- "but if you'd like to have a look at the other books---"

"Please?" Again, that look of a child in a sweetshop that banished any resemblance she might have had to Lucretia. He inclined his head, and she reached out for the book on the top of the pile--- then stopped, biting her lip. "S-Severus?"

"Yes, child?"

"Was... Esmeralda the Transformer a Dark witch?"

"Why do you ask that?" He kept his voice gentle; no time for manipulating, this.

"Because--- she used one of the Unforgivable Curses---" She looked up at him, wanting answers.

Answers that she could only find for herself--- if she were going to become a queen. "And why did she use it?" he asked gently--- then held up a hand, forestalling her answer. "Don't tell me. Think about it." And, before she could lose herself in the intricacies of the philosophical puzzle he'd set her, he leaned forward, tapped the pile of books. "And in the meantime---"

Hermione didn't ask him again that night; they were too busy with the what and the how of the Transformer's work to question the why. But several hours later, when a yawning Hermione had finally retrieved her Concealment Cloak, and was headed out the door, she turned to him and said, "Is there any such thing as a 'Dark' witch, or wizard?"

He smiled. "You're learning." Because that question was the first step--- the first step to abandoning the rigid categories that defined most people's safe moral worlds and learning to make the delicate, difficult judgements that a queen had to accept as second nature.

The first step; the first square. It was a long journey--- but he began to hope that she might make it.

"Good night, Hermione." He drew the cloak up over her face.

And heard her voice in his ear. "Good night, Severus."

******

It became a pattern with them, those late-night knocks on the door and evenings spent in his office poring over a book or journal. She toughened herself to his sarcasm faster than he'd expected; he rather expected she'd backslide a little once the initial "thrill" wore off. But then, he wasn't sure. His own calcifying had been entirely accidental.

More difficult for him to bear was his own reaction to her presence, the warm scent of her skin, her shy smiles and her sudden bursts of mischief. It was almost too much joy for him to bear, having her there, night after night, seeking out his company. Certainly, more human contact than he normally got in a year. And yet--- he knew, reminded himself constantly, that it was all... artificial. Contrived. And he'd been the contriver, for all that Lucius Malfoy had started this dark game. His hands had done the sweet cruel work of twisting her to his will. She wouldn't have been here but for that.

No, he couldn't let himself enjoy it too much. That way lay darkness, as he'd learned so many years ago. No better than the monsters.

But it was far and away the most wonderful, innocent thing he'd done in his adult life. That, at least, was some comfort. And she was enjoying herself--- no reluctance there, except perhaps when, ever so deliberately, he cut. Understandable, again. And she understood--- he'd see it in her eyes, after the flash and flicker of hurt. He could see it written there: the eighth square.

Sometimes he wondered if that too wasn't a contrivance, and a possibly dangerous one. To let her focus so completely on a goal that, for all he knew, might be irrelevant--- who was to say that she'd ever again confront the Dark directly? What would she--- they, it was his responsibility--- do for closure then? Even if she did get her dramatic transformation, what about her life afterwards?

Well, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. And, who knew--- they might both end up dead before the battle was won, and it would be a moot point entirely.

In the meantime, there were these moments. Things like joy and peace that he'd never had, and that she seemed to find an unexpected delight, at least here, with him. A mind he could guide--- a truly brilliant intellect, she revealed that with her every breath. Indeed, the raw stuff of her mind seemed to temper under the challenges he offered her. He had recognized her brilliance from her first day in his class--- but with the new, broader, and admittedly more dangerous intellectual world he offered her, he began to see a small but subtle flare of genius.

An intellect equal to his own. She'd not had the tempering he had received by her age--- but he suspected that the grounding of confidence and safety that she'd obviously known as a child would stand her in good stead now that she met adversity and challenge. He'd faced only the testing, never found the safety.

But perhaps... he could offer her both. At the very least, he could give her an appreciate platform for her gift--- and provide it with something to strive for. At least, he could care for her, and know that his caring was of value to her.

That was enough, and more than he'd ever thought to have.