Details
A/N: Sorry it took long for this chapter to come up; I promised you all I'd compensate for the last chapter which was, in my opinion, ridiculously short. Angie, I only hope you have as much fun writing reviews as I do reading them. ^_^ By the way, folks, Nicolette not only leapt over the railing with a backpack on, but with a binder and Biology book in arm, all the while, sporting a purse. Also, the meanings of the ingredients later in the chapter are not at all fiction. I happened to take the trouble of looking them up.
Disclaimer – All of the characters, exempting Sarah Hernandez, belong to J.K. Rowling.
"Come on!" growled Sarah, tugging Hermione after her and trying her best to get through the mob of slow-moving students, each taking their time to get to class. "He's getting away!!" she hissed, awarded by a few strange glances in her direction as she went after Charles who was walking rather quickly ahead of the crowd.
"Sarah…" Hermione murmered, allowing her companion to pull her along. "People are staring…"
But she was too busy pushing people aside to pay attention to Hermione. ("Stupid sixth-years," one particularly threatening-looking seventh year yelled.)
While Sarah mischievously grinned to herself as she engulfed in the pleasure of walking behind the teenage version of our delightful Severus Snape, Hermione quickly took her wrist out of her friend's grasp and looked at her worriedly, taking notice of Sarah's flushed face and glowing smile.
Examining "Charles", she deduced that he obviously hadn't noticed as he kept on walking toward their next class at his usual quick pace.
Ignore them, Severus thought feverishly as he quicked his pace, careful not to throw a glance backwards. Pretend not to acknowledge them and just ignore them…
Luckily, or unluckily as Hermione was right behind them, Rem- Phillip…joined Charles and glanced back curiously at the girls. (Hermione whom suddenly gripped her best friend's shoulder tightly.)
Resisting an urge to turn around and say hello to the girls simply for their reactions, Remus instead wondered what it would be like to be taught in his own class, which, indeed, was the class they were heading toward.
Hernandez and Granger's P.O.V.
"Is it me or have they been avoiding us?" mumbled Sarah out of the corner of her mouth.
"The idea had crossed my mind," the other admitted, glancing across the room curiously to steal a look at "Brewer" and "Lycan", the latter of which, was watching Professor Lupin with intense concentration, as if hanging onto his every word. Indeed, he was leaning forward and gripping the front of his desk.
"Please turn your books to page 342 and complete the section review on the succubus. Any work you fail to complete must be taken for homework." With that, the DADA professor sat at his desk, peering over at Brewer and Lycan for just a moment.
Sarah, who had been observing Lupin for a while, suddenly snapped her head in the direction of Lycan and Brewer's table, then jerked her head toward Lupin, then back again.
Tilting her head, she looked down at her review and dipped her quill into the ink bottle on her desk, poising the quill onto the parchment.
Scratching the number "1.)" onto the scroll of tinted paper, she looked to the right of her again at Phillip, then back toward her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. But Lupin had moved from his desk and was walking along the back, occasionally stopping to answer questions from his students.
Phillip had apparently completed the assignment already and was drumming his fingers quietly upon the desk.
Thoughtfully, Sarah flipped her purse open and pulled out a mirror, carefully adjusting it so she had a clear view of Lupin, as he was in the back of the room.
Remus, who had finished answering students' questions, was leaning against a table in the back, drumming his fingers also.
They both stopped at the same time and looked around the room, each to the left first, then to the right, stopping, and then resuming drumming their fingers.
She blinked and rubbed her eyes a moment then looked into the mirror again just in time to see Phillip and Remus both glancing in the direction of her and Hermione's table.
Snapping the mirror shut hastily, she set it down, then looked back down at the parchment and proceeded to answer question one.
"The succubus lures its victims in by transforming itself into the form of the person the victim has liked, or loved," she scratched onto it before stopping in mid-sentence.
She couldn't help it.
"Hermione," she whispered silently, almost noiselessly.
Hermione looked over at Sarah, who proceeded to write on the parchment, "Look at Professor Lupin and Phillip…"
As Sarah performed a quick erasure spell, Hermione looked over at Lupin who was absently twirling a midnight blue quill in his hand, then at Phillip who was doing the exact same thing with a hunter green quill in grasp.
"Well…that's a bit odd," she muttered to Sarah out of the corner of her mouth as she pretended to be doing her work.
Phillip got up at that moment and walked over to Professor Lupin, slowly handing him the page.
Remus took it, slowly drawing the page back, the two staring at each other in doing so.
Finally, after a moment, Professor Lupin smiled meakly and muttered a "Thank you," and "Phillip" nodded once before returning to his desk, apparently shaken. The girls, naturally, had seen this and they both turned back to their sheets of almost blank paper and proceeded to discuss the matter with their heads bent low.
They didn't notice that Remus had silently and stealthily snuck up behind them while they were discussing this.
"A bit odd?" whispered Sarah, careful to keep her eyes on her parchment. "Take a good, long look at both of them and tell me you don't see a resemblance."
"Resemblance? What nonsense, Phillip and Professor Lupin?" scoffed Hermione under her breath. Nevertheless, Hermione picked up the mirror and adjusted it so it showed the back of the room.
The image they saw was a table with a short stack of homework papers on it.
Panicking, Hermione turned the mirror this way and that, trying to get him into view. Thinking this odd, she absent-mindedly took a quick look at herself in the mirror and uttered a small squeak as the mirror caught the image of an amused-looking Professor Lupin standing directly behind them, arms crossed.
As Hermione stared at the image in the mirror dumbly, she heard Sarah turn around. "Why, hello, Professor," she heard the Slytherin state in what was meant to be a pleasant, but quiet voice so as not to attract her classmates' attention.
At that moment, the bell rang which saved them from embarassment.
At least from the class.
"Ms. Granger, Ms. Hernandez," Lupin smiled, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Please remain a few minutes longer."
The color alternately drained and rushed to the girls' faces as they walked out of Professor Lupin's office and practically ran back to their dormitories.
Remus laughed quietly to himself, pushing himself gently side to side on the rolly-chair in his office.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Phillip yawned then started as two tawny owls flew past him and dropped one off-white packaged envelope into each of his and Charles' bowls of cereal.
Scowling, Charles picked his up by the corner, watching the milk drip down into his bowl.
"Wonder what it is," yawned Phillip as he ripped his open.
He heard his companion draw a breath back in a hiss so he looked over his shoulder in curiousity at the letter.
Mr. Brewer:
You are cordially invited to attend the Halloween Ball at Hogwarts this 31st of October. Fifth years and above may attend only, unless invited by an older student. You may invite (1) person per invitation. Formal dress robes are required unless one is in costume. Thank you,
Professor Dumbledore
As they were both allowed to sit at the Slytherin table, due to special arrangements by Professor McGonagall, the boys (who were looking pale and sickly at the moment) fixed their eyes over at the Gryffindor table meeting the all-too-happy looking Hermione Granger and Sarah Hernandez' stares.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I'm telling you, this is going to work! There's no other way…" Sarah stated in a smooth and silky voice.
"But…" started a rather exasperated Hermione. "Even if we did happen to get the ingredients for two love potions, I don't see how we could get Charles and Phillip to – "
"Details, details!" waved Sarah impatiently as she flipped a few pages in a spellbook Hermione assumed she had gotten last Saturday in Hogsmeade. "It's simple, see?" she pointed at the book.
"One unicorn hair for purity, honeysuckle for a strong bond of love, lavender for devotion, half a cup of sorrel for affection, one strand of our hair, and lastly…" She frowned at this. "Heliotrope for eternal love." She gazed up at Hermione. "That last one might be a problem… Heliotrope's not exactly easy to find…"
"This is crazy!" exclaimed Hermione impatiently, tapping her foot on the ground. "We're not going to be able to get our hands on heliotrope!"
"So we'll skip an ingredient…Details!" she repeated, slamming the book shut. "Anyway, it's just a dance, it's not like we're going to marry them!" At this, she peered over at Hermione over the book. "You do want to go with Phillip, don't you?"
She glared at Sarah, then sighed, allowing her frustration to melt away. "I suppose so… But the quarter moon's tonight, so we have to get to work. When are we supposed to administer the potion?"
She shrugged. "Any time before the full moon, so we have a while to figured that out. According to this, it should work in three hours," she patted the book almost affectionately.
She grinned at Hermione. "I'm adding a little extra ingredient to it… I'm telling you, even Professor Snape wouldn't be able to distinguish this from an ordinary cup of herbal tea!"
As it turned out, Sarah's "Secret ingredient" was nothing more than three teabags soaked into the potion. If this would have any effect on the potion itself, they weren't sure and Sarah didn't really care. (Details!!)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Charles sat down with Phillip in a corner of the Slytherin table and threw a disgusted glance toward Draco who was faking a crisis over what to wear and who to take to the ball.
"Don't look now, but we've got company," muttered Phillip, raising his cup of tea to his mouth.
"Excuse me," Sarah smiled sweetly, approaching them with a rather panicky-looking Hermione. "But you've both got the only blueberry muffins they had left, and we were wondering if you'd trade us." She thrust the trays she had in hand toward them.
Hermione jumped at this and turned around to stare at Sarah. Oh my God…This is her "genius" plan?! They're never going to buy this… What was I thinking in letting her do this?!
To her surprise, Phillip smiled at them and pushed both his and Charles' trays toward them. "I like strawberry muffins better anyway…"
Hermione forced a neutral look at this (the corners of her mouth were still twitching) and Sarah picked up the trays. "Thank you," they muttered before sweeping away.
"What…was that?" Charles inquired of his companion, awarding him with an odd stare.
He only shrugged and took a bite of his muffin. "I prefer strawberry," he swallowed.
Muttering to himself, Charles took a sip of his tea, licked his lips and downed the rest of it.
Phillip followed suit.
Wiping his mouth off with a napkin, Charles sighed and leaned back into his chair.
"I'm so glad that that old bat, McGonagall, gave us permission… to remain in our original forms for the rest of today after next period."
His colleague nodded in agreement, though looked perturbed at the description of the headmistress. "I must admit, it's going to be a relief not bothering with the timeturner for a while, even if it's only for today."
"Tomorrow's the ball… I wonder if Hernandez and Granger came over in hopes that we asked them," Charles commented thoughtfully.
"No worries," Phillip smirked. "I daresay the chances of that are very….very slim."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Three periods later, the girls stopped in the hallways each looking a tad bit dissapointed.
"I heard they got leave for the day, something about a Norkish holiday and whatnot…"
"Well, it's all for the best I'm sure," Hermione stated as-a-matter-of-factly, though she couldn't hide an edge of dissapointment in her voice.
The schedules had been changed for the day since some teachers had to leave in order to make preparations for the ball the next day, and the girls had to part, since Sarah had to go to Potions and Hermione to DADA.
"Well, we
always have tomorrow, don't we?" Sarah looked down the corridor.
"Right..." her friend
responded. "See you tomorrow." With that, the girls each walked down a
different hallway to their next classes.
Hermione's P.O.V.
Hermione guessed she was about half done with her essay when it happened. It was very subtle at first…nothing more than a few more glances than natural, but he held something in his eyes… She had never seen that look in his eyes before.
Maybe he's sick… She looked him over and he looked away when he saw her looking at him.
Shrugging, she dipped her quill in her ink bottle and began scratching once more on the yellowed parchment.
She paused and chewed the tip of her crimson quill then started when she saw Professor Lupin crouched down by her desk.
"Need any help?" he muttered, almost…breathlessly, was it?!
What's going on?!
Blinking, she didn't take her eyes on him, but dipped the feathered pen into the ink again.
"Professor," she whispered low enough so the class wouldn't notice. "Are you…feeling alright?"
It took a few moments more of staring before the question registered.
"Hmm? …Oh…yes, yes, of course," he stood up.
"Would you…mind ah…staying after a bit?"
"Er….yes…yes, of course," she responded, looking at him quizzically.
He smiled at her. "Thank you…"and returned to his desk.
"Hmm…" she shrugged and returned to her essay.