P.S. Majestyic: The title of chapter 5, was my attempt at a throw out to the came CLUE. (You know..."Col. Mustard, in The Kitchen, with The Wrench")
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of his wonderful little friends. The only thing that is mine is this sad little plot. Anything recognisable belongs to Ms. Rowling who I hope never finds out what we're doing to her innocent little creations (Hehehehe!! ?) (Wow I used the word 'little' in every sentence—creepy)
Chapter 6
Omniscience and Amadeus
The corridors were cold this time of year, almost unbearably so if not for the aid of quite a few well-placed charms to keep the wind out. Severus gathered his cloak around him a bit tighter as he made his way back towards the teacher's quarters.
By the time he reached the portrait hole of Shakespeare, he'd reached the regrettable decision that going to the library had been a bad idea. Needless to say, he was not in the most charitable of moods and, to the chagrin of the very man in question, the portrait was no where in site.
"Shakespeare!" he screamed in utter frustration, allowing his voice to bounce harshly from wall to wall all the way down the winding corridors. A few moments later, a very perturbed looking poet entered the frame.
"I see no reason to shout, sir" William huffed most vehemently. Severus was losing what little patience he was known to possess."Magister, now open the bloody door." The picture begrudgingly obliged with a not-so-silent mutter that left Severus seriously doubting that 'wanker' emerged from the realms of Middle English.
Merlin's robes! Nothing had gone the way he'd expected it to. He had never intended to invite her to his rooms—to help her at all. Of course he'd also never intended to be so impressed by what she was studying or be so drawn in by the smell of vanilla that had slowly crept across the table as she moved about in her chair. Leaning in to talk to her had been strictly self-serving—there was no way that anyone could have heard or found them back there—he had just needed to be closer to her.
"Uggh!" he vented in frustration as he threw his body onto the old brown leather couch in front of the fireplace and rubbed his eyes firmly with the heel of his hands.
"I take it things are going well, Severus?" came the unexpected, yet characteristically predictable, voice of Albus Dumbledore from the far corner. Severus made no move to sit in a more controlled or dignified manner—this was one man that he felt as if his vain attempts at dignity were completely wasted upon.
"Yes, Albus. As always my life is nothing but sunshine and sugar wands." There was also no use, Severus had found, in pretending to be anything but a sarcastic soulless bastard for Albus, the man knew things about him that even Severus didn't fully comprehend.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," the elderly wizard remarked pointedly as he moved into one of the two chairs flanking the sofa. Once seated, he very carefully removed a red sweet from the depths of his voluminous violet robes and set to work on the arduous talk of unwrapping it. After a few moments he dubiously popped the gem into his mouth before turning a studying gaze upon the younger wizard sprawled out on the couch. He hated it when Albus did this, studying him like a bacterium under glass.
"Yes, yes," he finally spoke in that knowing manner that many had learned to simply tolerate in one so omniscient over the years, "I think things will turn out just as they should." Severus exhaled as loudly and with as much exasperation as he could manage towards such a purposefully ambiguous statement. Riddles, the man lived for riddles!
"Well, Albus, as reveling and enlightening a conversation this has been, I'm afraid that I've a few matters to attend to," Severus spoke with as much civility as was necessary for the old wizard to take the hint. The Headmaster only smiled genially at the obvious boot out the door, before getting up and walking towards the exit. Once at the door, he stopped and turned back towards the Potion's Master now working diligently to brew the most pungent tea possible.
"Oh, and Severus, you might want to straighten up a bit before Miss Granger arrives at eight." And he was gone.
Snape physically threw his half filled cup across the room before halting it in mid-air and muttering a quick reversal charm to place it calmly back on the kitchen table.
"Damn him!" Why did everyone have to be so transparent to him? What gives him the right to act as walls with ears in everyone's personal lives in this school? Albus Dumbledore, however, was beyond reason—whether containing any or needing it in order to pry into anyone's life. Few rarely understood just how taxing being around him constantly could be. Subterfuge became something of dreams, which, Severus noted acidly, he was sure the Headmaster could see into as well.
Turning back to face the bulk of his rooms, he did have to begrudgingly admit that they could use a quick cleaning. With a swift swish and flick, the rooms sparkled—well, maybe sparkle was a bit to intense of a word, perhaps it would be better to say that the light was no longer absorbed by a thin layer of dust that had been aloud to settle on everything except the couch, his desk, and a small portion of the dining table at which he took his meals when not in the Great Hall. Somehow the room looked slightly less lonely. Glancing at the tall and numerous bookshelves covering most of the walls, Severus wondered idly what Hermione would think of it all.
Outside the tall gothic windows of Hogwarts' main corridor, Hermione could see the feather light flecks of snow wafting gently through the air, coming to rest of the many turrets and towers of the castle and lawns. She shifted the weight of the many books in her arms to a more comfortable position and continued her walk towards the teacher's apartments.
She was half-way down the corridor, and wishing seriously, for the first time ever, that she hadn't checked out quite so many books from the library, when her foot caught on a slight wrinkle in the floor runner and she was sent sprawling. Her books went flying forward as she fell face-first to the solid stone floor, catching her lip in her teeth as her chin smacked painfully with granite. The immediate taste of metal came to her tongue as the feeling of trickling liquid down her chin and onto the floor simultaneously caught her attention. In the distance she could hear a hurried pair of footsteps coming ever closer. She closed her eyes and prayed that it wasn't Snape.
"Oh good Merlin!" came the worried and unfamiliar voice seemingly belonging to the previous set of footsteps. Arching her neck slightly to one side, she could just make out his heavy black boots and the hem of his deep navy robes as they trailed the ground and then abruptly halted in front of her line of sight. Suddenly a fair male face, crowned in a flow of dirty blond hair crouched before her, a pleading look in his eyes. "Listen I'm going to try and lift you up, there doesn't appear to be anything broken." Slowly he helped Hermione to her feet, grasping her hand to support her and levitating her books into a neat pile in the air. "You know it would be more helpful to use magic when it comes to these heavy books…oh your lip," the stranger said, pulling a large white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing her bloody lip slightly. Hermione only smiled warmly. "Come, let's get you to Poppy."
Within minutes of Hermione entering the infirmary, she was instantly back in her days as a student—Madame Pomfrey flittering about, not letting her do a thing by herself that might cause even the slightest aggravation to her condition.
"Well," she huffed importantly as she had cast the last spell on Hermione's now healed lip, "it really is no surprise to see her back here Professor Malbaton. She was constantly here as a student, it was only a matter of time before I saw her again. There you are dear, all patched up."
"Thank You Poppy," she muttered sarcastically at the retreating back of the hospitable mediwitch, before giggling slightly and turning back to the form, of who she could only assume was Professor Malbaton, sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room. "And thank you too…Professor Malbaton was it?" she questioned lightly. The nervous young man swept gracefully over to the bed where she was sitting, fingering the slight redness of her lip that was the only remains of the deep gash that had been there moments before.
"Sorry," he began, "I suppose that I was so caught up in helping you that I forgot to introduce myself." Hermione silently marveled at how upon leaving the lips of a different man—Severus Snape to be more precise—that entire phrase could have carried a completely opposite meaning. As was, there was nothing but warm affection and substance to his words. "The name's Amadeus Malbaton." He quickly extended his hand which she grasped warmly, giving it a fervent shake.
"Hermione Granger.""I know that…I recognized you from your pictures with Harry Potter in the Prophet." Her features darkened considerably at the mention of his name. Severus would have caught it with ready perception. Amadeus didn't. "I am sorry to hear about your break-up by the way." Hermione pulled together her best genuine smile and thanked him with a thinly veiled mask of depression.
"Amadeus…Mozart wasn't a wizard was he?" she said with a quick change of subject. Amadeus quickly brightened and took up the line with eager enthusiasm.
"Oh no, no. My parents were Muggles, not an ounce of wizarding blood anywhere." Hermione also brightened considerably at the thought of having another Muggle-born to talk to. "I'm afraid it came as quite a shock to my parents, finding out about wizards and all, especially with me being one of them. They were real great about it though." He had lost some of the cheerfulness in his voice at the mention of his parents, and Hermione knew exactly what the matter was—she experienced the same sinking of emotions every time she thought of her parents as well.
"You drifted apart didn't you?" Amadeus looked up disbelievingly at her and Hermione was suddenly struck with the realization of what it must be like to be Albus Dumbledore—constantly seeing an astonished awe-struck look on his listeners faces. "It's no great leap," she explained, "the same thing happened to me with mine. In the first years they were supportive and excited, but being apart from me took it's toll—I'm an only child—and when I was home on holidays, I was wrapped up in this world they knew nothing about, talking about things that they could never fathom and slowly, a rift grew between us." Hermione paused for a moment thinking about how heart breaking it was to hear her mother muttering her usual good natured remark: 'Don't mind us Muggles'. "You know I never even told them about Voldemort, how could I? I mean, how do you begin to explain the kind of threat he was to not only the wizarding world, but their world as well?" And there was the crux of the problem—after years of schooling, Hermione could no longer count herself as being a part of her parents' world. They were something different from what she had become and there was no turning back to fix that. Feeling a slow trickle down her chin once more, Hermione supposed that her lip must be bleeding again. Only after wiping away nothing but clear liquid did she realize that she was crying. Amadeus was looking down at her sadly, his own eyes glittering a bit with a restrained wetness.
"I understand," he whispered softly and, placing a hand gently on her back, began to run lazy soothing circles along the tension at the base of her spine. It felt good to be understood in this capacity—so few wizards could understand this.
Hermione and Amadeus sat in the infirmary, on her small bed, for a while. They talked about growing up Muggles, first experiences with the wizarding world, and the prejudices they had come across as a result of their heritage. Hermione soon learned that Amadeus wasn't a gifted wizard, much in the fashion of Neville Longbottom; however, just like his childhood counterpart, he was very sweet and was as ready to share his own experiences as he was to listen to hers. It was only when he finally pointed out that they had missed dinner did Hermione become fully aware of what time it was.
"Oh holy hell, it's nearly eight o'clock!" she exclaimed, jumping off the bed and quickly grabbing a hold of the books she had been carrying earlier. Amadeus, thinking quickly, transfigured them into a smaller, more easily carried, pile. "Thank You." And she was gone out the door, leaving the poor man reeling from her erratic behavior at times.
A/N: Yay, another chapter. Yes, Ashleigh, I understand that you think that Hermione uses far to much foul language, but in my opinion basing a 22 year old Hermione on her 11-14 year old canon would not, in my opinion, produce a very realistic or interesting character...so there :) Love Ya!
Thanks to all the reviewers, and thanks for reading this chapter. Review Pretty Please!
Concerning the name Amadeus: I actually got the idea of naming him from a country music song (I hate country music, I just happened to be flipping through CMT) when I heard the singer mention the name Amadeus...and I thought it had a very wizarding feel.