The Secret Seduction of Severus Snape: Part II
Harry Potter and his two best mates and fellow Gryffindors, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were just stepping into the Great Hall for the first time since last term. The summer had been rather uneventful for Harry, but that was more than all right with him. He'd had enough excitement to last him two lifetimes just before the term let out, in his fourth encounter with the Dark Lord Voldemort. He'd been uneasy all summer, wondering if, or perhaps more appropriately, when he-who-must-not-be named would come for him in his small room in the house on number four Privet Drive. Though life with the Dursleys was pretty damn near intolerable more often than not, Harry would still not prefer death at the hand of the murderer of his parents to it.
He'd been jumpy when walking through the dark hallways on his way to the bathroom on those sticky summer nights when it would have been so convenient for you-know-who to just creep up out of the shadows and nab the little fifteen year old in his tee shirt and boxers. And how convenient that would have been for the Dursleys, to be rid of Potter once and for all. Hip-hip-hooray! Lets throw a block party for the death of the boy no one even knew that the Dursleys housed! He could just picture it. Not that he really wanted to.
He'd had difficulty sleeping knowing that Voldemort was out there, alive and fairly well…well enough to come back and try to kill him again. He'd distracted himself with his homework and letters from Ron, Hermione, and a couple from his godfather, Siruis. He'd tried to keep the paranoia at bay, but sometimes it would just creep up on him, like a cold hand reaching out and grabbing him by the neck…
"Harry, its time to go sit down," said Hermione, who stood to the left of Harry.
Harry looked about the enormous room, his eyes mainly focusing on four wizards in what looked to Harry like security uniforms who stood in every corner. It made him uneasy knowing that Dumbledore had had to hire a whole branch of security officers just for him. He didn't like being treated differently than just some normal kid, but he wasn't just some normal kid, and he'd had to try and deal with that ever since he'd come to Hogwarts. It wasn't all bad, fame and recognition and the lot, but it just got kind of irritating, and he knew he could very well do fine without it. In fact, he was convinced that he'd be better off being just your regular Joe Shmoe, rather than Harry Potter, a name that had become a topic of household conversation ever since "the incident" fourteen years before.
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their seats at their house table and waited for the first years to arrive so that the Sorting Ceremony could begin.
Harry felt his stomach rumble. He realized he hadn't eaten all day, save a couple of chocolate frogs and a cauldron cake on the train. He was starving, and he was anxious for the annual start-of-the-term feast to begin.
His eyes drifted over to the staff table. All of the teachers had already assumed their regular seats. He smiled at the man in the golden half-moon spectacles, who immediately returned the gesture. He was glad that Dumbledore would always be close. It gave Harry a little reassurance in his unstable life, and sometimes a little shove from Dumbledore was all Harry needed to keep going. The man sitting three seats to the headmaster's right, however, was an entirely different story.
Severus Snape was one of the creepiest men Harry had ever come in contact with. Though he definitely had his uses from time to time, he still gave Harry the heebie
jeebies. Aside from that, saying that he hated Harry was an understatement, and if Snape wasn't saving him from being thrown off a broom during a Quidditch match, he was making Harry's life miserable by shooting him nasty glares, humiliating him in class and giving him hours worth of homework. The longer Harry looked at the hook-nosed man, the more he became aware that he was glaring right back at him. Oddly enough, right at that moment, the lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead began to burn.
Harry winced and rubbed his forehead, and immediately regretted that he had.
Oh, not again…he pleaded, silently, trying to act as normal as possible, despite the searing pain in his skin.
Hermione's big eyes got even bigger.
"What is it, Harry?" she asked, visibly concerned.
"Nothing…" Harry lied. "I've just got a head ache…prob'ly cuz I haven't eaten much of anything, today." Hermione's brow was knitted with doubt but she nodded her head in a false sort of agreement. She wanted to believe Harry just as much as he did.
"Probably," she said. But something had caught her eye. There was an unfamiliar woman sitting beside Professor Snape. Her green eyes were reflecting the light of the floating candles in a most eerie way. But as Hermione continued to look at those eyes, it didn't seem like a simple trick played by the light, anymore. She was positive that the woman's eyes were actually flashing, glowing even, and quite dangerously.
"Who is that?" she asked no one in particular. Her inquiry turned a few heads toward the staff table.
"Must be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," said Ron. "Who else would she be?" Then with a smile, he added, "And she is a piece of work, eh Harry?" Harry smiled weakly. He couldn't help but agree with his comrade; she was very beautiful…but there was something else about her. Something foreboding that Harry didn't like.
"Wonder if she's single," Ron continued, his eyes never leaving the new addition to the staff table. It could have been the dim lighting or simply a drop of sweat, but Hermione could have sworn that she saw a small thread of saliva slipping smoothly from the corner of Ron's mouth. "Ooo, she could give me detention anytime."
Hermione rolled her brown eyes and sighed. "Oh, come off it Ron. She's much too old for you, and a teacher, anyway. And besides, detention seems to be Snape's specialty. I'm sure he'd love to land you with a nice long detention…all alone with him…in the dark confines of his dungeon," she said with a smirk that made Ron cringe.
Harry would have been surprised at how unlike Hermione it was to say such a thing, but he was too busy trying to figure out why his scar would be burning, now. Remarkably and thankfully, it had been fine all summer. In his dreams the pain would sometimes become unbearable, but then he'd wake up and touch it and shine a torch about his room to find that all was well. The room would be just as he'd left it before going to sleep, Hedwig sitting still inside her little golden cage next to the window, and a small pile of un-folded clothes in the corner.
Surely Voldemort can't be inside the school, he thought to himself. Not with all these guards around, who looked meaner and stiffer than the pictures of the Palace Guards in London that he'd seen. Dumbledore chose only the best, and he knew what was best for his students, as the old man, himself, was the best at nearly everything imaginable in the wizarding world. Harry was glad he was headmaster, and wouldn't settle for anyone else in the position. He would rather eat his pointed hat.
Ron was still drooling over the new teacher when the Sorting Ceremony began. He cursed under his breath when the first years blocked his view of her but didn't have long to muse, as there was a small bunch of kids, this year, so they had less time to wait before the feast began. Harry resolved that the small number of new students was due to parents not wanting their kids anywhere that Voldemort could possibly do them harm…though that was pretty impossible as Voldemort's wrath was once boundless, and would be again if something wasn't done. Still, Harry hated knowing that he was the principle target of the Dark Lord, that he was the one keeping bright and deserving eleven year olds from a top notch education at the best school the wizarding world had to offer. How disappointed they must have been when they received their letters, knowing that their parents would never let them go.
"Harry, what are you sulking about?" asked Ron, adjusting his hand-me-down prefect badge and stuffing a forkful of dressing into his mouth, simultaneously. "You always love the food here. Is your chicken undercooked?"
"Nah," said Harry, who hadn't even touched his chicken. His hunger had suddenly been replaced with a low, down-in-the-dumps sort of feeling.
Hermione's cheery expression changed drastically and she lowered her voice. "Are you still troubled about…about Cedric? You never mentioned it bothering you in any of your letters…"
"No, not Cedric…It's just…did you notice how few kids came, this year? Only like…like fifteen. That's even less than half of what there usually is." Ron shrugged his shoulders.
"Then I've got less to worry about. Seeing as it's my first year as prefect, I'd rather not have my hands full with obnoxious newbies, if ya know what I mean." He swallowed down his dressing with a swig of fresh pumpkin juice and moved on to the next thing on his plate, a steaming lump of mashed potatoes and gravy. Fred and George snickered at their younger brother from down the table. They'd told Ron he'd be made a prefect if he wasn't careful, and their prediction had come true.
"Yeah, I guess," Harry agreed, half-heartedly. "I just don't like thinking that all those kids that would have come didn't get to, and all because of yours truly."
"So then don't," said Hermione, satisfying and itch in the center of her freckled nose. "Maybe there just weren't very many kids who qualified this year. You can't hold yourself responsible for everything, you know. Its really not your fault. Its…well…a lot of people can be held accountable for…you-know-what. But none of them have anything to do with you." Harry's hand moved sluggishly toward his fork.
"Yeah, I guess," he said again. "I just…have a bad feeling about this year. I don't think it's…"
"You don't think it's what?" asked Ron. Harry shrugged and impaled a carrot drenched in cheese sauce on the end of his fork.
"I just…I know he's gonna come for me, again. How could he not? He was so close last time, I almost didn't escape with my life. And, well…one of us didn't." Hermione was really beginning to worry about her friend. It wasn't like him to act so melancholy, especially not at the beginning of a new year at Hogwarts. It was all quite understandable; everyone was a little more somber than usual, as it was only a few short months ago that one of their fellow students had left them, never to return again. No one would ever forget Cedric Diggory, especially not so quickly.
"But you did escape, and you will again."
"But I shouldn't have to keep escaping and facing him and escaping him again, only to wait for the next time he'll come for me." Ron's expression had become solemn.
"I know its unfair, Harry…" began Hermione, seeing it fit to reach out her hand and put it on top of Harry's. "It'll be all right. Let's not start off on a sour note. We've got a long year of who knows what ahead of us, and if we start out bad, there's a greater chance that we'll end it bad."
"Right," said Harry.
"Right," echoed Ron. "So," he said cheerily as though they hadn't even had that conversation. "Did you get a good look at Lavender Brown yet, Harry?" Harry grinned in spite of himself and shook his head, the disheveled black mop of hair that rested on his forehead tickling him. Good ol' Ron.
"No Ron, I can't say that I have."
"Ooo, you should, you don't know what you're missing. I always did think she was kinda cute, but she sure did grow over the summer, and bloody hell! Remember how flat-chested she was, last year? Well not anymore, let me tell you summit. I should like to get a real good look at her…"
"Ron, stop it, honestly. You're really disgusting, you know that? You're going to put me off my food. Typical adolescent male." Ron actually looked offended.
"Well I'm not the one that made the crack about Snape bein' a perverted pedophile." Hermione continued as if Ron had never spoken.
"This is the dinner table, for heavens sake. I'm sure we can find a more interesting topic of conversation than…than Lavender Brown's boobs." Harry couldn't help but laugh at the sound of Hermione saying "boobs," and neither could several other Gryffindors that were seated within earshot. Ron only smiled.
"Not likely."
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After the banquet, Ron lead the Gryffindor first years up the many shifting staircases and past the paintings on the walls, chuckling to himself as the kids "oohed" and "ahhed" when they'd discovered that the paintings moved. It didn't seem a whole four years since he'd been the one marveling at the oddity of animated oil paintings.
They finally came to the painting of the fat lady in the pink dress, and when she asked for the password, Ron puffed out his chest importantly like he'd seen his older brother Percy do so many times and said, "Santifus Menindrictis," as clearly as he could, which sounded a bit like Latin to him, but if it was, he didn't know what it meant. Maybe it was some weird sort of spell. But it didn't matter whether he knew the meaning of the password or not. What mattered was that it had worked, and he couldn't afford to forget it. It wouldn't do for a prefect to forget his own house's password.
Once he'd explained everything, made sure that everyone's luggage had arrived, that uniforms were the proper size and that the kids were settled into their dormitories for the night, he made his way back down to the Great Hall to meet Harry and Hermione and the rest of his upper-classmen. There wasn't much time before they would have to go up to bed, themselves, but Ron wanted to make the most of what time they did have. Maybe he could pretend to slip and fall right behind Lavender Brown's bench and sneak a quick peak up her skirt…
Harry Potter and his two best mates and fellow Gryffindors, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were just stepping into the Great Hall for the first time since last term. The summer had been rather uneventful for Harry, but that was more than all right with him. He'd had enough excitement to last him two lifetimes just before the term let out, in his fourth encounter with the Dark Lord Voldemort. He'd been uneasy all summer, wondering if, or perhaps more appropriately, when he-who-must-not-be named would come for him in his small room in the house on number four Privet Drive. Though life with the Dursleys was pretty damn near intolerable more often than not, Harry would still not prefer death at the hand of the murderer of his parents to it.
He'd been jumpy when walking through the dark hallways on his way to the bathroom on those sticky summer nights when it would have been so convenient for you-know-who to just creep up out of the shadows and nab the little fifteen year old in his tee shirt and boxers. And how convenient that would have been for the Dursleys, to be rid of Potter once and for all. Hip-hip-hooray! Lets throw a block party for the death of the boy no one even knew that the Dursleys housed! He could just picture it. Not that he really wanted to.
He'd had difficulty sleeping knowing that Voldemort was out there, alive and fairly well…well enough to come back and try to kill him again. He'd distracted himself with his homework and letters from Ron, Hermione, and a couple from his godfather, Siruis. He'd tried to keep the paranoia at bay, but sometimes it would just creep up on him, like a cold hand reaching out and grabbing him by the neck…
"Harry, its time to go sit down," said Hermione, who stood to the left of Harry.
Harry looked about the enormous room, his eyes mainly focusing on four wizards in what looked to Harry like security uniforms who stood in every corner. It made him uneasy knowing that Dumbledore had had to hire a whole branch of security officers just for him. He didn't like being treated differently than just some normal kid, but he wasn't just some normal kid, and he'd had to try and deal with that ever since he'd come to Hogwarts. It wasn't all bad, fame and recognition and the lot, but it just got kind of irritating, and he knew he could very well do fine without it. In fact, he was convinced that he'd be better off being just your regular Joe Shmoe, rather than Harry Potter, a name that had become a topic of household conversation ever since "the incident" fourteen years before.
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their seats at their house table and waited for the first years to arrive so that the Sorting Ceremony could begin.
Harry felt his stomach rumble. He realized he hadn't eaten all day, save a couple of chocolate frogs and a cauldron cake on the train. He was starving, and he was anxious for the annual start-of-the-term feast to begin.
His eyes drifted over to the staff table. All of the teachers had already assumed their regular seats. He smiled at the man in the golden half-moon spectacles, who immediately returned the gesture. He was glad that Dumbledore would always be close. It gave Harry a little reassurance in his unstable life, and sometimes a little shove from Dumbledore was all Harry needed to keep going. The man sitting three seats to the headmaster's right, however, was an entirely different story.
Severus Snape was one of the creepiest men Harry had ever come in contact with. Though he definitely had his uses from time to time, he still gave Harry the heebie
jeebies. Aside from that, saying that he hated Harry was an understatement, and if Snape wasn't saving him from being thrown off a broom during a Quidditch match, he was making Harry's life miserable by shooting him nasty glares, humiliating him in class and giving him hours worth of homework. The longer Harry looked at the hook-nosed man, the more he became aware that he was glaring right back at him. Oddly enough, right at that moment, the lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead began to burn.
Harry winced and rubbed his forehead, and immediately regretted that he had.
Oh, not again…he pleaded, silently, trying to act as normal as possible, despite the searing pain in his skin.
Hermione's big eyes got even bigger.
"What is it, Harry?" she asked, visibly concerned.
"Nothing…" Harry lied. "I've just got a head ache…prob'ly cuz I haven't eaten much of anything, today." Hermione's brow was knitted with doubt but she nodded her head in a false sort of agreement. She wanted to believe Harry just as much as he did.
"Probably," she said. But something had caught her eye. There was an unfamiliar woman sitting beside Professor Snape. Her green eyes were reflecting the light of the floating candles in a most eerie way. But as Hermione continued to look at those eyes, it didn't seem like a simple trick played by the light, anymore. She was positive that the woman's eyes were actually flashing, glowing even, and quite dangerously.
"Who is that?" she asked no one in particular. Her inquiry turned a few heads toward the staff table.
"Must be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," said Ron. "Who else would she be?" Then with a smile, he added, "And she is a piece of work, eh Harry?" Harry smiled weakly. He couldn't help but agree with his comrade; she was very beautiful…but there was something else about her. Something foreboding that Harry didn't like.
"Wonder if she's single," Ron continued, his eyes never leaving the new addition to the staff table. It could have been the dim lighting or simply a drop of sweat, but Hermione could have sworn that she saw a small thread of saliva slipping smoothly from the corner of Ron's mouth. "Ooo, she could give me detention anytime."
Hermione rolled her brown eyes and sighed. "Oh, come off it Ron. She's much too old for you, and a teacher, anyway. And besides, detention seems to be Snape's specialty. I'm sure he'd love to land you with a nice long detention…all alone with him…in the dark confines of his dungeon," she said with a smirk that made Ron cringe.
Harry would have been surprised at how unlike Hermione it was to say such a thing, but he was too busy trying to figure out why his scar would be burning, now. Remarkably and thankfully, it had been fine all summer. In his dreams the pain would sometimes become unbearable, but then he'd wake up and touch it and shine a torch about his room to find that all was well. The room would be just as he'd left it before going to sleep, Hedwig sitting still inside her little golden cage next to the window, and a small pile of un-folded clothes in the corner.
Surely Voldemort can't be inside the school, he thought to himself. Not with all these guards around, who looked meaner and stiffer than the pictures of the Palace Guards in London that he'd seen. Dumbledore chose only the best, and he knew what was best for his students, as the old man, himself, was the best at nearly everything imaginable in the wizarding world. Harry was glad he was headmaster, and wouldn't settle for anyone else in the position. He would rather eat his pointed hat.
Ron was still drooling over the new teacher when the Sorting Ceremony began. He cursed under his breath when the first years blocked his view of her but didn't have long to muse, as there was a small bunch of kids, this year, so they had less time to wait before the feast began. Harry resolved that the small number of new students was due to parents not wanting their kids anywhere that Voldemort could possibly do them harm…though that was pretty impossible as Voldemort's wrath was once boundless, and would be again if something wasn't done. Still, Harry hated knowing that he was the principle target of the Dark Lord, that he was the one keeping bright and deserving eleven year olds from a top notch education at the best school the wizarding world had to offer. How disappointed they must have been when they received their letters, knowing that their parents would never let them go.
"Harry, what are you sulking about?" asked Ron, adjusting his hand-me-down prefect badge and stuffing a forkful of dressing into his mouth, simultaneously. "You always love the food here. Is your chicken undercooked?"
"Nah," said Harry, who hadn't even touched his chicken. His hunger had suddenly been replaced with a low, down-in-the-dumps sort of feeling.
Hermione's cheery expression changed drastically and she lowered her voice. "Are you still troubled about…about Cedric? You never mentioned it bothering you in any of your letters…"
"No, not Cedric…It's just…did you notice how few kids came, this year? Only like…like fifteen. That's even less than half of what there usually is." Ron shrugged his shoulders.
"Then I've got less to worry about. Seeing as it's my first year as prefect, I'd rather not have my hands full with obnoxious newbies, if ya know what I mean." He swallowed down his dressing with a swig of fresh pumpkin juice and moved on to the next thing on his plate, a steaming lump of mashed potatoes and gravy. Fred and George snickered at their younger brother from down the table. They'd told Ron he'd be made a prefect if he wasn't careful, and their prediction had come true.
"Yeah, I guess," Harry agreed, half-heartedly. "I just don't like thinking that all those kids that would have come didn't get to, and all because of yours truly."
"So then don't," said Hermione, satisfying and itch in the center of her freckled nose. "Maybe there just weren't very many kids who qualified this year. You can't hold yourself responsible for everything, you know. Its really not your fault. Its…well…a lot of people can be held accountable for…you-know-what. But none of them have anything to do with you." Harry's hand moved sluggishly toward his fork.
"Yeah, I guess," he said again. "I just…have a bad feeling about this year. I don't think it's…"
"You don't think it's what?" asked Ron. Harry shrugged and impaled a carrot drenched in cheese sauce on the end of his fork.
"I just…I know he's gonna come for me, again. How could he not? He was so close last time, I almost didn't escape with my life. And, well…one of us didn't." Hermione was really beginning to worry about her friend. It wasn't like him to act so melancholy, especially not at the beginning of a new year at Hogwarts. It was all quite understandable; everyone was a little more somber than usual, as it was only a few short months ago that one of their fellow students had left them, never to return again. No one would ever forget Cedric Diggory, especially not so quickly.
"But you did escape, and you will again."
"But I shouldn't have to keep escaping and facing him and escaping him again, only to wait for the next time he'll come for me." Ron's expression had become solemn.
"I know its unfair, Harry…" began Hermione, seeing it fit to reach out her hand and put it on top of Harry's. "It'll be all right. Let's not start off on a sour note. We've got a long year of who knows what ahead of us, and if we start out bad, there's a greater chance that we'll end it bad."
"Right," said Harry.
"Right," echoed Ron. "So," he said cheerily as though they hadn't even had that conversation. "Did you get a good look at Lavender Brown yet, Harry?" Harry grinned in spite of himself and shook his head, the disheveled black mop of hair that rested on his forehead tickling him. Good ol' Ron.
"No Ron, I can't say that I have."
"Ooo, you should, you don't know what you're missing. I always did think she was kinda cute, but she sure did grow over the summer, and bloody hell! Remember how flat-chested she was, last year? Well not anymore, let me tell you summit. I should like to get a real good look at her…"
"Ron, stop it, honestly. You're really disgusting, you know that? You're going to put me off my food. Typical adolescent male." Ron actually looked offended.
"Well I'm not the one that made the crack about Snape bein' a perverted pedophile." Hermione continued as if Ron had never spoken.
"This is the dinner table, for heavens sake. I'm sure we can find a more interesting topic of conversation than…than Lavender Brown's boobs." Harry couldn't help but laugh at the sound of Hermione saying "boobs," and neither could several other Gryffindors that were seated within earshot. Ron only smiled.
"Not likely."
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After the banquet, Ron lead the Gryffindor first years up the many shifting staircases and past the paintings on the walls, chuckling to himself as the kids "oohed" and "ahhed" when they'd discovered that the paintings moved. It didn't seem a whole four years since he'd been the one marveling at the oddity of animated oil paintings.
They finally came to the painting of the fat lady in the pink dress, and when she asked for the password, Ron puffed out his chest importantly like he'd seen his older brother Percy do so many times and said, "Santifus Menindrictis," as clearly as he could, which sounded a bit like Latin to him, but if it was, he didn't know what it meant. Maybe it was some weird sort of spell. But it didn't matter whether he knew the meaning of the password or not. What mattered was that it had worked, and he couldn't afford to forget it. It wouldn't do for a prefect to forget his own house's password.
Once he'd explained everything, made sure that everyone's luggage had arrived, that uniforms were the proper size and that the kids were settled into their dormitories for the night, he made his way back down to the Great Hall to meet Harry and Hermione and the rest of his upper-classmen. There wasn't much time before they would have to go up to bed, themselves, but Ron wanted to make the most of what time they did have. Maybe he could pretend to slip and fall right behind Lavender Brown's bench and sneak a quick peak up her skirt…