Chapter 2 Following through
A/N I don't own em!
Ginny awoke to the smell of something delicious yet different than she had ever had. She sat up and opened her eyes. A House Elf was trying hard to reach the edge of her bed and carefully set a tray on it.
"Here let me take that from you…" She pulled it from the little elves hands.
"You is being very kind madam." The elf curtsied and scuttled out of the room.
She took a closer look at the tray. A mug of something warm sat on it. The liquid in it was the same dark color of her eyes. 'Coffee' read the small tab next to it. She picked up the letter.
Good Morning,
Hopefully I've caught you in high spirits. The drink was mister Malfoy's idea as he says it is Muggle and what his mother drinks in the morning to help get her up. He also highly suggests you wait till it cools a bit and add creamer before drinking. On another note, your presence is requested in the library. We will be helping to discuss and research potions to solve Mr. Malfoy's little problem. He also mentioned that due to battles with him in the past that you may be unlikely to wish to give your help so openly. In this case I would like to inform you that catching Mr. Lucius Malfoy would allow us to further question him under the effects of a truth serum, and help us in the great task of taking down Voldemort. That is all.
Cordially,
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster
She smirked and quickly dressed herself. Holding the hot drink in one hand and the Merlin in the other she began her way to the library. As she entered the common room she was surprised to find that two others were dressed and on their way as well.
"Morning Ginny, do you have the slightest clue what we are doing?" Hermoine asked yawning and noticing the mug, and eyeing it cautiously.
"We are joining forces to create an elite group of super-heros in order to stop the great and darkest evils." Ginny sipped the drink again and smiled. It had a weird taste that grew on her. She heard a laugh come from behind her. As she turned around she spotted Lupin. And so did Hermoine. Hermoine had a little bit of worry on her face Ginny noticed.
"In that case I'll be Batman. Do you want to be Robin, or perhaps Wonder Woman?" In a white T-shirt and baggy jeans with a belt, he looked good. His shaggy light brown hair had bits of golden blond streaked through it where the gray had been. Ginny gawked for a moment. Hermoine got over the previous bit of worrying she had been doing and stared incredulously at him. He threw his hands over the girls' shoulders and smiled. Ahead of him a couple feet levitated his cup of this coffee. "Now in truth, Ginny were you really trying to get your cat last night, that I might mention seems to have an obsession with Pansy, or was it for some other amazingly good reason? Cough spying cough."
"For your information, professor Lupin, I was simply looking for my cat. I was not spying. Let me guess that your letter was perhaps a bit longer than my own." Ginny said warming her cold hands on the edges of the cup.
"That was absolutely correct as it filled nearly two rolls of parchment, also explaining that the two of you lovely girls as well as Draco have been excused from classes today to help out. Don't look so down Wonder Woman, you will catch up, even if it means I must privately tutor you myself! Now Wonder Woman, Robin to the bat cave, I mean library." He stepped forward, way too awake for it only being six. Ginny noticed that his drink didn't have any creamer and was refilling it's self.
Hermoine smiled to herself. Private tutoring lessons weren't sounding too bad. She mentally slapped herself for that.
"Hey now why didn't I get a drink too? Or am I not special enough?" Hermoine looked at the two others with some curiosity. Ginny laughed a warm laugh that sometimes use to make Hermoine jealous because it some how was perfect but loud enough to get all the boys in quite some radius to look up over at her and smile. Remus smirked and looked down on her.
"Here have some of mine. I've already drunk four glasses but it just keeps refilling it's self. Perhaps minor foreshadowing on how our workload is going to be."
He was quite correct. As they finally made it to the library they found that most of the potions section of the library was piled on one of the further back tables with a smiling Dumbledore standing over it. Snape stood next to him and Draco next him. All of them all ready looked exhausted.
Dumbledore briefly explained the reason they were there. They would briefly break and have lunch with the other students before returning and the other teachers would come help after they had finished their classes.
"What about my classes?" Snape asked looking slightly cross.
"I've hired Lockheart to sub temporarily for you, don't worry." What little color was in his face dramatically left it. "Only kidding Servus." Dumbledore added with a young grin.
"I had hoped so." Snape smiled, something few had lived to see. "Who is looking over the students…?"
"A new professor. I'm sure they will enjoy his antics, as you should learn to as well. He is a rather different Professor to the subject, as he didn't prefer it much during his own schooling…"
"Headmaster who is the professor substituting?" Snape looked as if he had a fearful clue of who it might be.
"Professor Black…"
"WHAT!!!!!???" Snape rose from the table enraged. He completely ignored the glares coming from Madame Pince, the librarian.
"Calm yourself, you know that he is well disguised. And you will be able to check on him at random times when ever you please, to make certain that…"
"Why, of all people, did you choose him to substitute for me?" He walked over and the two spoke in harsh whispers for some time until Snape looked as he had lost and walked over. He huffed and sat heavily in the chair across from Ginny and Draco, running a hand through his hair that turned into a fist as it released and then sank to his side. He picked up the first book and began to scan through the contents still filled with much anger. He stopped and conjured some parchment in which he wrote a few possible potions down and the book's title. Hermoine looked at him admiring the way he studied. She sipped Remus' coffee and stared on.
"He use to do that for hour on end, back when we were students. We would constantly battle for better grades here." Remus whispered in her ear following her stare. She felt the hair stand on the back of her neck as his warm breath caressed her. "This was his table. Mine was closer to Madame Pince over there." He said pointing to the table that Hermoine considered her own every time she entered the library. As she watched him she noticed his tactics were similar. He ran a rough callused finger over the index and wrote particular possibilities on a slip of parchment, then when he was thought to be done he flipped to the back of the book and glanced with scrutinizing eyes over the index.
She herself went straight to the back of the book and found a possible solution, looked it up and then worked to find a problem with it. She had very few that met the requirements to her, so she stood carefully and sorted through a very thick potions encyclopedia. It alone could last her all day, but she liked the familiarity of it. She picked it up and a book of spells and then turned it to the first page. She muttered a curse and the book spun open emitting light and sparks. It rested on a page with a picture of a page appearing then disappearing. She grinned. Remus stood and leaned over her to get a better look at it. Snape moved closer. He stood glancing at the page then the girl.
"Where did you learn that spell?" He said lifting the book from her place and staring intently at it.
"I made it up in my third year after reading the biography of Nicholas Flamel. He was a spell writer before he was interested in Alchemy." She said, suddenly worried, that she had disobeyed some unknown rule.
"Impossible! In your third year? You couldn't have! Most spell writers are well over eighty!" Snape stood up to bellow at her more effectively. It was the first time that Hermoine had gotten a proper look at his apparel. He too had donned some comfy clothing for a day of research. Black slacks fell over the top of his boots and a white long sleeve shirt pulled up to his elbows just long enough to hide most of that black mark burned onto his skin. The head of the serpent on the mark was still visible when he threw his hands down in disgust as he was doing now. She unsuccessfully tried to bring her attention back to his words and away from his rather startling appearance this early morning. The sun was already filtering through the highly situated windows of stained glass portraits keeping the need for candles and leaving the library a bit dim in light.
This was Hermoine's sanctuary and the place she felt most at home in. Even more home than her large house where she resided with her muggle parents/dentists over the holidays. She much preferred it here. Remus turned toward her, temporarily blocking out moody threats from Snape, and followed her gaze towards the moving stained glass pictures. He grinned as he saw the glass showing a stunning knight rear his horse before rounding to the other side where he clashed against the shield and sword of another knight on foot. It was beautiful yet noiseless unlike the portraits in hopes not to distract the students terribly from their studies.
"Rumor has it that it's suppose to be based upon the ever-going encounters and conflicts of the founders, Godric and Salzar." His warm breath in her ear woke her dramatically and she quickly spun around to face him.
"Really? But I read in The Founding Four that before fighting with each other the two were best friends…inseparable even. How could two that hated each other with such a passion ever be able to create such a school as this?" She hadn't meant to use the word passion and blushed terribly as did.
Dumbledore smiled and looked away from Snape momentarily to catch the end of this conversation. "Such foolishness created the walls around us, yes." Both the other two startled whipped around to the headmaster. "I have been told that all of the better things in this castle were indeed attempts to out do one another. It was Helga and Rowena in the end that were the only things that could keep the others from ripping down the others progress."
"Well if our history lesson is over, it seems we are wasting precious time." Snape leaned on the table, his body blocking the two groups from continuing to converse. As he did so the sleeve rose an inch, letting the mark show enough for it's identity to be revealed to anyone who didn't already know about this. Unfortunately everyone at the table didn't. Snape looked in the same direction as Ginny who was unable to look away from the mark on his arm.
He stood up in a single dramatic movement quickly concealing the mark with his sleeves. His eyes still gazed menacingly at her own. Draco glanced between the two from where he sat beside Ginny. "Merlin's sword!" He swore and grabbed Ginny who had yet to blink or move and walked to a corner.
"Curse it! Curse it all! Why now?" The potion master brought his fist down hard on to the wooden table making everyone's coffee cup rattle. Ginny's fell from her place at the table's corner. She let out a quick hiss and it froze as well as the coffee spilling from it. An orb of blue swirling light surrounded it and she conjured it to her where she had began speaking with Draco with a flick of a finger, her wand still in her pocket.
"How? But she should not be able to speak Parseltongue. She is a Weasley, one of those saints that love muggles and are poor little…" Snape could not question this further as the frustration became too much for him. He disappeared muttering about checking on his class. He passed by Draco who was no longer explaining Snape's past to the younger girl, but as it seemed being explained to.
She returned to the table flipping through the pages much above her regular pace and Draco just sat staring blankly at a single page. "Sorry Headmaster. It will not be a problem again, I promise." She whispered it furiously clenching the cup in her right hand so hard that it looked like it might implode at any second. Hermoine and Remus mentally were casting strengthening spells, in hopes it wouldn't suddenly shatter.
"Apology accepted of course. I am one to know that in truth this is not your fault." Though the Headmaster's words were warm, Ginny continued to stare down at her book flipping the pages as if her life depended on it. She resumed to using her wand instead of the mysterious wandless magic she had been doing previously. She continued at her extreme pace however, with little regard to the sixth and seventh years who had stopped their passing to watch. She had enchanted four of her quills and some rolls of parchment to levitate above her scribbling notes madly.
The tallest of the bunch looked onto the paper to read some of the different notes she was writing. He turned back to his friends and loudly announced, "Yup all four pages are different, she's not simply making copies." One of the older one's groaned handing a gold galleon to the other.
"But that's impossible. Just look at her, will you? She got to be about fourth year." The one who had lost the bet complained, his accent quite French.
"Nope, it must be possible cuz I've seen her do it before. I think it's only when she's upset tho…"
"Just shut up and leave! You're probably breaking her concentration!" Draco snapped leaning back on his chair to glare fully at them with his unblinking silver eyes. The others left quickly, and Madame Pince who had gotten up and was walking over to tell the boys off shrugged and turned on one heel headed back for her desk.
"Well," Remus said trying to relax, and letting out a breath he hadn't realized that he had been holding. "I think you need to show me that spell again."
Hermoine grinned, more than happy to leave off the awkward silence. "Like this.." She raised her wand and with three quick flicks of her wand and her spell the book Remus had been looking at began to flip eagerly as if excited to show her the answer. Remus noted the spell title and then tried the spell himself. The book slammed shut and slid quite a ways down the table. Dumbledore smirked but Remus didn't notice.
'The book,' he thought grumpily, 'has the same reaction most humans do to me.' A hand slid over his and he discovered that Hermoine was bringing the book back over towards them. 'Well most'
"Try again, but this time let me move your fingers for you." He tried hard to concentrate on the words rather than her fingers gripping his but it was hardly any use. It took him three more tries. A small clock that Hermoine had not noticed before rung a small three-note chime symbolizing the end of the first class. She wondered to herself if Lupin had always had that hard of a time learning and memorizing the spells.
'He's just got his mind clouded with other problems at the moment,' she told her self mentally slapping her when she thought that there was the slim possibility that it had been her.
Snape arrived vividly expressing anger to the fit man with shaggy but certainly well kept black hair, who was sweeping next to him in billowing teacher's robes. Servus looked as if he wished to hit or strangle the pleasant professor, but wouldn't dare under set conditions so simply and unconsciously pulled up his sleeves and thrust his heavily balled fists into his trouser pockets. He stood tall speaking in a deadly whisper that only the substitute could hear. The strangest thing to Hermoine, was the fact that the man's familiar smile seemed to grow with each more horrifying threat given to him.
A couple of Hufflepuffs began to approach the two, and it seemed Snape hadn't noticed either them or that his sleeves had been pulled up again. Fear briefly passed over Hermoine's face, but she quickly grabbed her wand and gave it a quick flick.
Snape seemed suddenly in a fair bit of pain. He turned away and bit his lip hard. With a quick glance at his arm he noticed a huge scar where the dark lords mark should have been. He also noticed that his sleeve had been pulled up again and obviously by his doing. He turned back to the substitute and Hufflepuffs who were chatting about homework. As they noticed the look on his face they instantly backed off. One of the two caught a glimpse of the scar, as did the other Prof.
"Servus…what happened to your arm?" The note of concern in his voice was minimal, but there.
"One of the … less talented students, shall we say, blew up a cauldron of a potion gone wrong." He spoke in a perfect draw and the Hufflepuffs skittered away nervously. He glanced briefly after them, then the other teacher, before turning to see the culprit/savior. Hermoine stared into his eyes trying her best to read them. It wasn't a true despise they held… Before she could tell exactly what it was, some one had wrapped her in a hug of greetings.
"MOINE!" The sudden voice and grin, and those eyes worked themselves out from their puzzle form in her head. The substitute professor was Sirus.
"Si-Professor Black! How good to see you again."
A/N Sorry bout the wait. Didn't make drill team so i'll have more time to write now. OH WELL. REviEWs MakE ME HappY! (and keep me going.) Special thanx to those who reviewed to tell me they liked it. Special thanks to Teeth Shaver who got on my back to keep this one going!
A/N I don't own em!
Ginny awoke to the smell of something delicious yet different than she had ever had. She sat up and opened her eyes. A House Elf was trying hard to reach the edge of her bed and carefully set a tray on it.
"Here let me take that from you…" She pulled it from the little elves hands.
"You is being very kind madam." The elf curtsied and scuttled out of the room.
She took a closer look at the tray. A mug of something warm sat on it. The liquid in it was the same dark color of her eyes. 'Coffee' read the small tab next to it. She picked up the letter.
Good Morning,
Hopefully I've caught you in high spirits. The drink was mister Malfoy's idea as he says it is Muggle and what his mother drinks in the morning to help get her up. He also highly suggests you wait till it cools a bit and add creamer before drinking. On another note, your presence is requested in the library. We will be helping to discuss and research potions to solve Mr. Malfoy's little problem. He also mentioned that due to battles with him in the past that you may be unlikely to wish to give your help so openly. In this case I would like to inform you that catching Mr. Lucius Malfoy would allow us to further question him under the effects of a truth serum, and help us in the great task of taking down Voldemort. That is all.
Cordially,
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster
She smirked and quickly dressed herself. Holding the hot drink in one hand and the Merlin in the other she began her way to the library. As she entered the common room she was surprised to find that two others were dressed and on their way as well.
"Morning Ginny, do you have the slightest clue what we are doing?" Hermoine asked yawning and noticing the mug, and eyeing it cautiously.
"We are joining forces to create an elite group of super-heros in order to stop the great and darkest evils." Ginny sipped the drink again and smiled. It had a weird taste that grew on her. She heard a laugh come from behind her. As she turned around she spotted Lupin. And so did Hermoine. Hermoine had a little bit of worry on her face Ginny noticed.
"In that case I'll be Batman. Do you want to be Robin, or perhaps Wonder Woman?" In a white T-shirt and baggy jeans with a belt, he looked good. His shaggy light brown hair had bits of golden blond streaked through it where the gray had been. Ginny gawked for a moment. Hermoine got over the previous bit of worrying she had been doing and stared incredulously at him. He threw his hands over the girls' shoulders and smiled. Ahead of him a couple feet levitated his cup of this coffee. "Now in truth, Ginny were you really trying to get your cat last night, that I might mention seems to have an obsession with Pansy, or was it for some other amazingly good reason? Cough spying cough."
"For your information, professor Lupin, I was simply looking for my cat. I was not spying. Let me guess that your letter was perhaps a bit longer than my own." Ginny said warming her cold hands on the edges of the cup.
"That was absolutely correct as it filled nearly two rolls of parchment, also explaining that the two of you lovely girls as well as Draco have been excused from classes today to help out. Don't look so down Wonder Woman, you will catch up, even if it means I must privately tutor you myself! Now Wonder Woman, Robin to the bat cave, I mean library." He stepped forward, way too awake for it only being six. Ginny noticed that his drink didn't have any creamer and was refilling it's self.
Hermoine smiled to herself. Private tutoring lessons weren't sounding too bad. She mentally slapped herself for that.
"Hey now why didn't I get a drink too? Or am I not special enough?" Hermoine looked at the two others with some curiosity. Ginny laughed a warm laugh that sometimes use to make Hermoine jealous because it some how was perfect but loud enough to get all the boys in quite some radius to look up over at her and smile. Remus smirked and looked down on her.
"Here have some of mine. I've already drunk four glasses but it just keeps refilling it's self. Perhaps minor foreshadowing on how our workload is going to be."
He was quite correct. As they finally made it to the library they found that most of the potions section of the library was piled on one of the further back tables with a smiling Dumbledore standing over it. Snape stood next to him and Draco next him. All of them all ready looked exhausted.
Dumbledore briefly explained the reason they were there. They would briefly break and have lunch with the other students before returning and the other teachers would come help after they had finished their classes.
"What about my classes?" Snape asked looking slightly cross.
"I've hired Lockheart to sub temporarily for you, don't worry." What little color was in his face dramatically left it. "Only kidding Servus." Dumbledore added with a young grin.
"I had hoped so." Snape smiled, something few had lived to see. "Who is looking over the students…?"
"A new professor. I'm sure they will enjoy his antics, as you should learn to as well. He is a rather different Professor to the subject, as he didn't prefer it much during his own schooling…"
"Headmaster who is the professor substituting?" Snape looked as if he had a fearful clue of who it might be.
"Professor Black…"
"WHAT!!!!!???" Snape rose from the table enraged. He completely ignored the glares coming from Madame Pince, the librarian.
"Calm yourself, you know that he is well disguised. And you will be able to check on him at random times when ever you please, to make certain that…"
"Why, of all people, did you choose him to substitute for me?" He walked over and the two spoke in harsh whispers for some time until Snape looked as he had lost and walked over. He huffed and sat heavily in the chair across from Ginny and Draco, running a hand through his hair that turned into a fist as it released and then sank to his side. He picked up the first book and began to scan through the contents still filled with much anger. He stopped and conjured some parchment in which he wrote a few possible potions down and the book's title. Hermoine looked at him admiring the way he studied. She sipped Remus' coffee and stared on.
"He use to do that for hour on end, back when we were students. We would constantly battle for better grades here." Remus whispered in her ear following her stare. She felt the hair stand on the back of her neck as his warm breath caressed her. "This was his table. Mine was closer to Madame Pince over there." He said pointing to the table that Hermoine considered her own every time she entered the library. As she watched him she noticed his tactics were similar. He ran a rough callused finger over the index and wrote particular possibilities on a slip of parchment, then when he was thought to be done he flipped to the back of the book and glanced with scrutinizing eyes over the index.
She herself went straight to the back of the book and found a possible solution, looked it up and then worked to find a problem with it. She had very few that met the requirements to her, so she stood carefully and sorted through a very thick potions encyclopedia. It alone could last her all day, but she liked the familiarity of it. She picked it up and a book of spells and then turned it to the first page. She muttered a curse and the book spun open emitting light and sparks. It rested on a page with a picture of a page appearing then disappearing. She grinned. Remus stood and leaned over her to get a better look at it. Snape moved closer. He stood glancing at the page then the girl.
"Where did you learn that spell?" He said lifting the book from her place and staring intently at it.
"I made it up in my third year after reading the biography of Nicholas Flamel. He was a spell writer before he was interested in Alchemy." She said, suddenly worried, that she had disobeyed some unknown rule.
"Impossible! In your third year? You couldn't have! Most spell writers are well over eighty!" Snape stood up to bellow at her more effectively. It was the first time that Hermoine had gotten a proper look at his apparel. He too had donned some comfy clothing for a day of research. Black slacks fell over the top of his boots and a white long sleeve shirt pulled up to his elbows just long enough to hide most of that black mark burned onto his skin. The head of the serpent on the mark was still visible when he threw his hands down in disgust as he was doing now. She unsuccessfully tried to bring her attention back to his words and away from his rather startling appearance this early morning. The sun was already filtering through the highly situated windows of stained glass portraits keeping the need for candles and leaving the library a bit dim in light.
This was Hermoine's sanctuary and the place she felt most at home in. Even more home than her large house where she resided with her muggle parents/dentists over the holidays. She much preferred it here. Remus turned toward her, temporarily blocking out moody threats from Snape, and followed her gaze towards the moving stained glass pictures. He grinned as he saw the glass showing a stunning knight rear his horse before rounding to the other side where he clashed against the shield and sword of another knight on foot. It was beautiful yet noiseless unlike the portraits in hopes not to distract the students terribly from their studies.
"Rumor has it that it's suppose to be based upon the ever-going encounters and conflicts of the founders, Godric and Salzar." His warm breath in her ear woke her dramatically and she quickly spun around to face him.
"Really? But I read in The Founding Four that before fighting with each other the two were best friends…inseparable even. How could two that hated each other with such a passion ever be able to create such a school as this?" She hadn't meant to use the word passion and blushed terribly as did.
Dumbledore smiled and looked away from Snape momentarily to catch the end of this conversation. "Such foolishness created the walls around us, yes." Both the other two startled whipped around to the headmaster. "I have been told that all of the better things in this castle were indeed attempts to out do one another. It was Helga and Rowena in the end that were the only things that could keep the others from ripping down the others progress."
"Well if our history lesson is over, it seems we are wasting precious time." Snape leaned on the table, his body blocking the two groups from continuing to converse. As he did so the sleeve rose an inch, letting the mark show enough for it's identity to be revealed to anyone who didn't already know about this. Unfortunately everyone at the table didn't. Snape looked in the same direction as Ginny who was unable to look away from the mark on his arm.
He stood up in a single dramatic movement quickly concealing the mark with his sleeves. His eyes still gazed menacingly at her own. Draco glanced between the two from where he sat beside Ginny. "Merlin's sword!" He swore and grabbed Ginny who had yet to blink or move and walked to a corner.
"Curse it! Curse it all! Why now?" The potion master brought his fist down hard on to the wooden table making everyone's coffee cup rattle. Ginny's fell from her place at the table's corner. She let out a quick hiss and it froze as well as the coffee spilling from it. An orb of blue swirling light surrounded it and she conjured it to her where she had began speaking with Draco with a flick of a finger, her wand still in her pocket.
"How? But she should not be able to speak Parseltongue. She is a Weasley, one of those saints that love muggles and are poor little…" Snape could not question this further as the frustration became too much for him. He disappeared muttering about checking on his class. He passed by Draco who was no longer explaining Snape's past to the younger girl, but as it seemed being explained to.
She returned to the table flipping through the pages much above her regular pace and Draco just sat staring blankly at a single page. "Sorry Headmaster. It will not be a problem again, I promise." She whispered it furiously clenching the cup in her right hand so hard that it looked like it might implode at any second. Hermoine and Remus mentally were casting strengthening spells, in hopes it wouldn't suddenly shatter.
"Apology accepted of course. I am one to know that in truth this is not your fault." Though the Headmaster's words were warm, Ginny continued to stare down at her book flipping the pages as if her life depended on it. She resumed to using her wand instead of the mysterious wandless magic she had been doing previously. She continued at her extreme pace however, with little regard to the sixth and seventh years who had stopped their passing to watch. She had enchanted four of her quills and some rolls of parchment to levitate above her scribbling notes madly.
The tallest of the bunch looked onto the paper to read some of the different notes she was writing. He turned back to his friends and loudly announced, "Yup all four pages are different, she's not simply making copies." One of the older one's groaned handing a gold galleon to the other.
"But that's impossible. Just look at her, will you? She got to be about fourth year." The one who had lost the bet complained, his accent quite French.
"Nope, it must be possible cuz I've seen her do it before. I think it's only when she's upset tho…"
"Just shut up and leave! You're probably breaking her concentration!" Draco snapped leaning back on his chair to glare fully at them with his unblinking silver eyes. The others left quickly, and Madame Pince who had gotten up and was walking over to tell the boys off shrugged and turned on one heel headed back for her desk.
"Well," Remus said trying to relax, and letting out a breath he hadn't realized that he had been holding. "I think you need to show me that spell again."
Hermoine grinned, more than happy to leave off the awkward silence. "Like this.." She raised her wand and with three quick flicks of her wand and her spell the book Remus had been looking at began to flip eagerly as if excited to show her the answer. Remus noted the spell title and then tried the spell himself. The book slammed shut and slid quite a ways down the table. Dumbledore smirked but Remus didn't notice.
'The book,' he thought grumpily, 'has the same reaction most humans do to me.' A hand slid over his and he discovered that Hermoine was bringing the book back over towards them. 'Well most'
"Try again, but this time let me move your fingers for you." He tried hard to concentrate on the words rather than her fingers gripping his but it was hardly any use. It took him three more tries. A small clock that Hermoine had not noticed before rung a small three-note chime symbolizing the end of the first class. She wondered to herself if Lupin had always had that hard of a time learning and memorizing the spells.
'He's just got his mind clouded with other problems at the moment,' she told her self mentally slapping her when she thought that there was the slim possibility that it had been her.
Snape arrived vividly expressing anger to the fit man with shaggy but certainly well kept black hair, who was sweeping next to him in billowing teacher's robes. Servus looked as if he wished to hit or strangle the pleasant professor, but wouldn't dare under set conditions so simply and unconsciously pulled up his sleeves and thrust his heavily balled fists into his trouser pockets. He stood tall speaking in a deadly whisper that only the substitute could hear. The strangest thing to Hermoine, was the fact that the man's familiar smile seemed to grow with each more horrifying threat given to him.
A couple of Hufflepuffs began to approach the two, and it seemed Snape hadn't noticed either them or that his sleeves had been pulled up again. Fear briefly passed over Hermoine's face, but she quickly grabbed her wand and gave it a quick flick.
Snape seemed suddenly in a fair bit of pain. He turned away and bit his lip hard. With a quick glance at his arm he noticed a huge scar where the dark lords mark should have been. He also noticed that his sleeve had been pulled up again and obviously by his doing. He turned back to the substitute and Hufflepuffs who were chatting about homework. As they noticed the look on his face they instantly backed off. One of the two caught a glimpse of the scar, as did the other Prof.
"Servus…what happened to your arm?" The note of concern in his voice was minimal, but there.
"One of the … less talented students, shall we say, blew up a cauldron of a potion gone wrong." He spoke in a perfect draw and the Hufflepuffs skittered away nervously. He glanced briefly after them, then the other teacher, before turning to see the culprit/savior. Hermoine stared into his eyes trying her best to read them. It wasn't a true despise they held… Before she could tell exactly what it was, some one had wrapped her in a hug of greetings.
"MOINE!" The sudden voice and grin, and those eyes worked themselves out from their puzzle form in her head. The substitute professor was Sirus.
"Si-Professor Black! How good to see you again."
A/N Sorry bout the wait. Didn't make drill team so i'll have more time to write now. OH WELL. REviEWs MakE ME HappY! (and keep me going.) Special thanx to those who reviewed to tell me they liked it. Special thanks to Teeth Shaver who got on my back to keep this one going!