CHAPTER TEN
It was the fourteenth of December, two weeks into Dia's term at Hogwarts, when the troll appeared in the dungeons at Hogwarts.
She was sitting in her usual seat between Professors Snape and Sprout, eating a leg lamb when she starled both professors by shouting, "Oh!'
Snape nearly jumped out of his skin, turned to her, and snarled, "What the bloody is it this time, Diamond?"
Dia peeked at Snape from behind her large glasses. "I just remembered. I left the wart potion boiling downstairs!"
Snape rolled his eyes in disgust. "What a moron," he murmured under his breath.
Dia caught this and felt deeply hurt on the inside. Snape, it it was possible, was more miserable to her than he had been on her first day. Dia was covering nearly all of his Potions classes (except the seventh years) to give Snape some leeway from the daunting position as Defense Aginst the Dark Arts Master. Snape stayed up nights at a time, planning lessons and grading parchments for his new class. Being tired and miserable had caused him to be extra nasty and everyone--especially Dia--tried to stay out of his way.
Dia froze for a moment, remembering the boiling potion. She had made the potion for the Weasley twins--George and Fred--when they had to miss Potions for a emergency Quidditch practice. The boys were supposed to show up after dinner in the dungeons and make up their Potions class.
She was lost in her thoughts when Snape gave her a jump by growling, "Well get up of your arse and stop the boiling of the bloody potion!"
Dia looked at the professor in disbelief. His dark eyes flashed with a coldness that chilled her to the bone.
"Yes, sir," she murmured, quickly rising from the High Table. She exited the Great Hall where she descended to the dungeons. Not a moment had she been gone when the doors were flung open again, and, gasping for breath, the Weasley twins staggered towards the High Table. Their red hair stood on end and they dripped with perpsiration.
The whole room grew silent. When he saw the twins lumbering to the High Table, Dumbledore stood up, a stern look on his face.
Fred reached the Table first and looked at Dumbledore with wild eyes. "Troll in the dungeon!" he breathed heavily.
"What kind of joke is this, Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore coldly asked, for he knew the pranking nature of the boys.
George soon joined his brother. "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!" he screamed.
A united gasp was the initial response from the populus of Hogwarts--but soon the students started laughing as the teachers looked on disapprovingly.
"I will deal with you later, Mr. and Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said, sitting down, struggling to control his voice.
"PLEASE!" Fred cried. "IT"S TRUE, HEADMASTER!"
"What were you doing in the dungeons?" Professor McGonagall asked in a cold voice.
"We...we had Quidditch practice today during Potions...." George started.
"...we promised Miss Diamond that after dinner we would make it up..." Fred said hurridly.
"...but we went before...TROLL was in the DUNGEON! WE SWEAR! It was in the dungeons..." Georged finished before he collapsed of exhaustion in front of the High Table.
Gasps rippled through the students, and many began to worry. Maybe the Weasleys were being serious--for once.
Dumbledore rose from his seat and raised his hands. "I will take this threat seriously. Prefects, lead your house back to the dormitories. Teachers, please stay."
Various yells and screams erupted from the four house tables as students rose and stumbled out the doors, pushing to get back to their dormitories while the prefects shouted over the chaos for order.
Geoge Weasly was scooped off the ground by a fellow student and Fred followed out the doors, trembling.
Snape's mind rushing. Normally, he wouldn't have believed the Weasley twins for a moment, but they had seemed so sincere. The first question that flickerd through his head was who had let the troll in? The students were almost through the doors when a thought popped into his head. Dia Diamond. He looked involentarily towards her seat, but all he found was an empty chair. Dread crept up on him and then knowing--she was in the dungeons!
Snape quickly spun on his heels and exited out a door behind the High Table. He felt for his wand as he hurridly made his way down the dank stonelined stairs to the dungeons. When he got to the door that opened to the Potions classroom, he knew that the Weasleys had been correct. There was a troll in the dungeons.
A loud groan and then a scream were heard. Then the sound of something smashing. Snape braced himself for the scene ahead. The door swung open.
Most of the Potions classroom was in ruins. Desks smashed and flipped over. Glass chards from the vials lay scattered over the floor. An assortment of ingrediants were strewn everywhere. Another growl and a following scream.
A great troll, like the one encountered four years ago, carrying a huge club, was lumbering after Dia, trying to whack her with it. Dia screamed and dove under the desks. The troll raised its club with a mighty roar. She squirmed out from under the desks and stood to her feet. She picked up a chair and with a screech, heaved it at the troll. It hit the beast in the head and he let out a cry.
With the troll stunned, Snape darted over to Dia, who stood frozen. He put his arms on her shoulders and tried to move her.
"OH, PROFESSOR!!" she sobbed, burying herself in his billowing robes.
Snape wasn't paying attention to Dia, who clawed at his robes. Only at the troll. And it was coming out of its stupor. Snape heaved Dia away and reached for his wand, holding his arms over his head.
He was about to yell a charm, when he realized that all he held in his hands was air. Stunned, he slowly brought his hands in front of his face. Where was his wand?
The troll was approaching quickly, and his eyes scanned the battered room. He saw it. Laying in the doorway. Snape cursed out loud. There was no time to reach his wand in time. He grabbed Dia and flung her over his shoulder.
Dia was screaming hysterically as she saw the troll approaching them. Snape dove for his office and slammed the door behind him, just before the troll rammed into the door.
Snape hurridly looked around the office for something to hold the door with. There was only his desk and crates of ingredants. He made eye contact with Dia. "Push the goddamn desk over here!"
Dia froze. Her glasses had fallen off and lay somewhere smashed in the classroom. Her hair hung widly about her.
"I said push the goddamn bleedin' desk over here if you don't want to die!" Snape bellowed, trying with all his might to hold the buckling door against the ramming the troll gave the flimsy wooden door.
Dia slammed back to reality and with all her might, stuggled to push the heavy desk over to the door. Snape helped her push it against the door, and he could finally step back. The desk was temporarily holding the troll at bay.
"What are we going to do?" Dia sobbed.
Snape looked wildly around. "I don't know!" he yelled, but his voice was drown out by the growls of the troll and the crashing of concrete right outside the door. Dia erupted in another scream.
"What the HELL was that?" she shreiked.
Snape fell to the floor and lay on his stomach to peer out the crack at the bottom of the door. Broken stone and concrete covered the crack except one section. "I think the bloody thing hit the wall above the door and shattered it. It just might be a barrier to keep us from it!"
Dia dove next to Snape, in the same position to peer out the tiny crack at the bottom of the door. Silence filled the air.
"Do you think it left?" Dia asked hopefully.
She was answered when she heard the troll's bellowings. The beast was in the far corner of the classroom, preparing to charge the door.
"Oh Jesus Christ, you mother fucking great prat of a stupid ass troll! Just fucking die, already!" Dia screeched.
Snape looked at her, stunned, wondering how such a quiet thing such as Dia Diamond could use such harsh curses.
The troll's war-cry caused Snape to look under the crack once more. It was certainly charging the door.
Dia shut her eyes. "Please, if I live I will never do anything bad again. I will be thankful for everything, I will be good..."
As his assistant rambled on and on, something miraculous happened. The troll erupted into agonizing howls of pain and Dia's electric eyes opened quickly.
Snape, in rapture, put his arm around her and squeezed her. "You lucky bitch, you did it! You bloody did it!"
Their peering eyes found the troll, on his way to ram in the door, hadn't noticed the only standing thing in his way--the cauldron of wart potion that Diamond had made earlier.
The troll tripped over it, falling on the hard floor with a thud, cauding the club and the cauldron to rise in the air, and sening the potion to cover the troll. It's skin broke out in huge red blisters as it howled in pain. As the troll stood, covered in red boils, the airborn club landed with a sick thud on its head. The beast wobbled drunkingly about for a few moments, until it slipped out of conciousness and fell to the floor.
The aftershock remained with Snape and Dia for a few minutes. They lay frozen, on their stomachs, hair disheveled, faces smuged with dirt, and sides touching, peering through the crack in the door.
After a while, Dia wobbily got up. Snape followed her lead, dusting himself off.
"Now how the hell are we going to get out of here?" he murmured.
He moved the desk out from the door and gave a great push, but the concrete would not let the door budge.
"Damn and blustrey," he muttered. He motioned to Dia. "Diamond, come and help me."
When she didn't reply, Snape turned around, to see her swaying on her feet. Her eyes were welled up with tears.
"Diamond!" Snape snapped. But Dia became hysterical, and fell to the floor in sobs.
Normally, Severus Snape would have made a snide comment about Diamond's show of emotions, but this time he felt a pang inside. 'Stop crying, you silly girl!"
Dia responded by crying harder and burying her tear-streaked face in her hands.
Snape walked over to her and put a wearly hand on her shaking shoulder blades. "It...it's alright, Diamond. The troll's knocked out...There there." Severus Snape really wasn't the one for words of comfort.
Dia shook her head. "No...no...you don't understand..." She sobbed harder.
Snape, even surprising himself by his actions, dropped down next to Dia. Dia looked at him, rather stunned, with puffy eyes. His eyes glinted and a thin smile crossed his lips. "The troll's dead, Diamond. If you wouldn't have had that dratted wart potion there, then I daresay that we would be dead."
She reviewed his words for a moment, before shaking her head and the tears started again. "No...I could have died. If I would have died...then...then...who would Dunner have? No one..."
She buried her face in her hands again.
Snape moved closer and put a light arm around her shoulders. Dia stopped her tears and looked at him, surprise crossing her tear streaked face.
Snape saw a look of despretly wanting an answer linger in Dia's electric blue eyes. He was hypnotized by them, but then quickly looked away. "But you didn't die, Diamond," he said softly.
Dia Diamond choked out a sob and fell against Severus Snape's chest is a state of pure exhaustion. Snape was surprised by this and flexed his back against her, but soon arched it, so she rested peacefully amongst his black robes. After a few minutes, Dia fell to sleep with Snape's rhythmic breathing filling her ears.
It was the fourteenth of December that Severus Snape sat in the potions office, with a knocked-out troll with blistering red boils laying outside in the battered classroom, with concrete and stone covering the only exit of escape, with no wand, and with his assistant--her robes ripped, her long blonde hair dishevled, her face smuged with dirt, and her soft breathing, that he knew that he would never feel the same way about Dia Diamond.
It was the fourteenth of December, two weeks into Dia's term at Hogwarts, when the troll appeared in the dungeons at Hogwarts.
She was sitting in her usual seat between Professors Snape and Sprout, eating a leg lamb when she starled both professors by shouting, "Oh!'
Snape nearly jumped out of his skin, turned to her, and snarled, "What the bloody is it this time, Diamond?"
Dia peeked at Snape from behind her large glasses. "I just remembered. I left the wart potion boiling downstairs!"
Snape rolled his eyes in disgust. "What a moron," he murmured under his breath.
Dia caught this and felt deeply hurt on the inside. Snape, it it was possible, was more miserable to her than he had been on her first day. Dia was covering nearly all of his Potions classes (except the seventh years) to give Snape some leeway from the daunting position as Defense Aginst the Dark Arts Master. Snape stayed up nights at a time, planning lessons and grading parchments for his new class. Being tired and miserable had caused him to be extra nasty and everyone--especially Dia--tried to stay out of his way.
Dia froze for a moment, remembering the boiling potion. She had made the potion for the Weasley twins--George and Fred--when they had to miss Potions for a emergency Quidditch practice. The boys were supposed to show up after dinner in the dungeons and make up their Potions class.
She was lost in her thoughts when Snape gave her a jump by growling, "Well get up of your arse and stop the boiling of the bloody potion!"
Dia looked at the professor in disbelief. His dark eyes flashed with a coldness that chilled her to the bone.
"Yes, sir," she murmured, quickly rising from the High Table. She exited the Great Hall where she descended to the dungeons. Not a moment had she been gone when the doors were flung open again, and, gasping for breath, the Weasley twins staggered towards the High Table. Their red hair stood on end and they dripped with perpsiration.
The whole room grew silent. When he saw the twins lumbering to the High Table, Dumbledore stood up, a stern look on his face.
Fred reached the Table first and looked at Dumbledore with wild eyes. "Troll in the dungeon!" he breathed heavily.
"What kind of joke is this, Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore coldly asked, for he knew the pranking nature of the boys.
George soon joined his brother. "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!" he screamed.
A united gasp was the initial response from the populus of Hogwarts--but soon the students started laughing as the teachers looked on disapprovingly.
"I will deal with you later, Mr. and Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said, sitting down, struggling to control his voice.
"PLEASE!" Fred cried. "IT"S TRUE, HEADMASTER!"
"What were you doing in the dungeons?" Professor McGonagall asked in a cold voice.
"We...we had Quidditch practice today during Potions...." George started.
"...we promised Miss Diamond that after dinner we would make it up..." Fred said hurridly.
"...but we went before...TROLL was in the DUNGEON! WE SWEAR! It was in the dungeons..." Georged finished before he collapsed of exhaustion in front of the High Table.
Gasps rippled through the students, and many began to worry. Maybe the Weasleys were being serious--for once.
Dumbledore rose from his seat and raised his hands. "I will take this threat seriously. Prefects, lead your house back to the dormitories. Teachers, please stay."
Various yells and screams erupted from the four house tables as students rose and stumbled out the doors, pushing to get back to their dormitories while the prefects shouted over the chaos for order.
Geoge Weasly was scooped off the ground by a fellow student and Fred followed out the doors, trembling.
Snape's mind rushing. Normally, he wouldn't have believed the Weasley twins for a moment, but they had seemed so sincere. The first question that flickerd through his head was who had let the troll in? The students were almost through the doors when a thought popped into his head. Dia Diamond. He looked involentarily towards her seat, but all he found was an empty chair. Dread crept up on him and then knowing--she was in the dungeons!
Snape quickly spun on his heels and exited out a door behind the High Table. He felt for his wand as he hurridly made his way down the dank stonelined stairs to the dungeons. When he got to the door that opened to the Potions classroom, he knew that the Weasleys had been correct. There was a troll in the dungeons.
A loud groan and then a scream were heard. Then the sound of something smashing. Snape braced himself for the scene ahead. The door swung open.
Most of the Potions classroom was in ruins. Desks smashed and flipped over. Glass chards from the vials lay scattered over the floor. An assortment of ingrediants were strewn everywhere. Another growl and a following scream.
A great troll, like the one encountered four years ago, carrying a huge club, was lumbering after Dia, trying to whack her with it. Dia screamed and dove under the desks. The troll raised its club with a mighty roar. She squirmed out from under the desks and stood to her feet. She picked up a chair and with a screech, heaved it at the troll. It hit the beast in the head and he let out a cry.
With the troll stunned, Snape darted over to Dia, who stood frozen. He put his arms on her shoulders and tried to move her.
"OH, PROFESSOR!!" she sobbed, burying herself in his billowing robes.
Snape wasn't paying attention to Dia, who clawed at his robes. Only at the troll. And it was coming out of its stupor. Snape heaved Dia away and reached for his wand, holding his arms over his head.
He was about to yell a charm, when he realized that all he held in his hands was air. Stunned, he slowly brought his hands in front of his face. Where was his wand?
The troll was approaching quickly, and his eyes scanned the battered room. He saw it. Laying in the doorway. Snape cursed out loud. There was no time to reach his wand in time. He grabbed Dia and flung her over his shoulder.
Dia was screaming hysterically as she saw the troll approaching them. Snape dove for his office and slammed the door behind him, just before the troll rammed into the door.
Snape hurridly looked around the office for something to hold the door with. There was only his desk and crates of ingredants. He made eye contact with Dia. "Push the goddamn desk over here!"
Dia froze. Her glasses had fallen off and lay somewhere smashed in the classroom. Her hair hung widly about her.
"I said push the goddamn bleedin' desk over here if you don't want to die!" Snape bellowed, trying with all his might to hold the buckling door against the ramming the troll gave the flimsy wooden door.
Dia slammed back to reality and with all her might, stuggled to push the heavy desk over to the door. Snape helped her push it against the door, and he could finally step back. The desk was temporarily holding the troll at bay.
"What are we going to do?" Dia sobbed.
Snape looked wildly around. "I don't know!" he yelled, but his voice was drown out by the growls of the troll and the crashing of concrete right outside the door. Dia erupted in another scream.
"What the HELL was that?" she shreiked.
Snape fell to the floor and lay on his stomach to peer out the crack at the bottom of the door. Broken stone and concrete covered the crack except one section. "I think the bloody thing hit the wall above the door and shattered it. It just might be a barrier to keep us from it!"
Dia dove next to Snape, in the same position to peer out the tiny crack at the bottom of the door. Silence filled the air.
"Do you think it left?" Dia asked hopefully.
She was answered when she heard the troll's bellowings. The beast was in the far corner of the classroom, preparing to charge the door.
"Oh Jesus Christ, you mother fucking great prat of a stupid ass troll! Just fucking die, already!" Dia screeched.
Snape looked at her, stunned, wondering how such a quiet thing such as Dia Diamond could use such harsh curses.
The troll's war-cry caused Snape to look under the crack once more. It was certainly charging the door.
Dia shut her eyes. "Please, if I live I will never do anything bad again. I will be thankful for everything, I will be good..."
As his assistant rambled on and on, something miraculous happened. The troll erupted into agonizing howls of pain and Dia's electric eyes opened quickly.
Snape, in rapture, put his arm around her and squeezed her. "You lucky bitch, you did it! You bloody did it!"
Their peering eyes found the troll, on his way to ram in the door, hadn't noticed the only standing thing in his way--the cauldron of wart potion that Diamond had made earlier.
The troll tripped over it, falling on the hard floor with a thud, cauding the club and the cauldron to rise in the air, and sening the potion to cover the troll. It's skin broke out in huge red blisters as it howled in pain. As the troll stood, covered in red boils, the airborn club landed with a sick thud on its head. The beast wobbled drunkingly about for a few moments, until it slipped out of conciousness and fell to the floor.
The aftershock remained with Snape and Dia for a few minutes. They lay frozen, on their stomachs, hair disheveled, faces smuged with dirt, and sides touching, peering through the crack in the door.
After a while, Dia wobbily got up. Snape followed her lead, dusting himself off.
"Now how the hell are we going to get out of here?" he murmured.
He moved the desk out from the door and gave a great push, but the concrete would not let the door budge.
"Damn and blustrey," he muttered. He motioned to Dia. "Diamond, come and help me."
When she didn't reply, Snape turned around, to see her swaying on her feet. Her eyes were welled up with tears.
"Diamond!" Snape snapped. But Dia became hysterical, and fell to the floor in sobs.
Normally, Severus Snape would have made a snide comment about Diamond's show of emotions, but this time he felt a pang inside. 'Stop crying, you silly girl!"
Dia responded by crying harder and burying her tear-streaked face in her hands.
Snape walked over to her and put a wearly hand on her shaking shoulder blades. "It...it's alright, Diamond. The troll's knocked out...There there." Severus Snape really wasn't the one for words of comfort.
Dia shook her head. "No...no...you don't understand..." She sobbed harder.
Snape, even surprising himself by his actions, dropped down next to Dia. Dia looked at him, rather stunned, with puffy eyes. His eyes glinted and a thin smile crossed his lips. "The troll's dead, Diamond. If you wouldn't have had that dratted wart potion there, then I daresay that we would be dead."
She reviewed his words for a moment, before shaking her head and the tears started again. "No...I could have died. If I would have died...then...then...who would Dunner have? No one..."
She buried her face in her hands again.
Snape moved closer and put a light arm around her shoulders. Dia stopped her tears and looked at him, surprise crossing her tear streaked face.
Snape saw a look of despretly wanting an answer linger in Dia's electric blue eyes. He was hypnotized by them, but then quickly looked away. "But you didn't die, Diamond," he said softly.
Dia Diamond choked out a sob and fell against Severus Snape's chest is a state of pure exhaustion. Snape was surprised by this and flexed his back against her, but soon arched it, so she rested peacefully amongst his black robes. After a few minutes, Dia fell to sleep with Snape's rhythmic breathing filling her ears.
It was the fourteenth of December that Severus Snape sat in the potions office, with a knocked-out troll with blistering red boils laying outside in the battered classroom, with concrete and stone covering the only exit of escape, with no wand, and with his assistant--her robes ripped, her long blonde hair dishevled, her face smuged with dirt, and her soft breathing, that he knew that he would never feel the same way about Dia Diamond.