**********
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. :D
**********
(A/N: Wow, more reviews…thanks everyone! Warm fuzzy feelings abound – but not too many, wouldn't want them spilling over onto our dear grouchy potions master, would we? :grin::
Anyway, I wanted to point out, the creatures and such I mention in this chapter come from J.K. Rowling's 'Fantastic Beasts And Where To find Them'.
Again, many thanks to those of you who have reviewed – thank you for the interest and taking the time to let me know your thoughts.
- Key)
**********
3. Lost Time
Ginny moved through her dimly lit classroom, pausing to look around the great stone pillars with a critical eye – she used her hip to scoot a few desks this way and that, making sure that all of them would be in full sight from her own desk.
The students would be arriving to begin the new term within a few hours, and she was trying to keep herself busy until then – she didn't really feel like admitting to herself that she was simply avoiding Snape. Which was what really got to her - it had been along time since she'd ever felt intimidated by anyone or anything…
"Settling in, Ginny?"
She looked up with warm brown eyes as she heard Albus Dumbledore speak from behind her.
"Hello, Professor."
The older man moved forward, his hands clasped at the waist of his elaborate robes. "Remember, do call me Albus," he insisted.
"Of course…you'll have to forgive me – I'm still getting used to referring to Professor McGonagall as 'Minerva'." Ginny smiled as she approached him.
Heartfelt gratitude again filled her as she looked into the kindly Headmaster's light blue eyes. This was the man behind the whole reason she'd been able to return home to Hogwarts – if he hadn't offered her the position, she'd have been stuck patrolling and protecting certain areas in frigid northern Europe against particularly troublesome Red Cap's again that winter season – it was a lonely, dangerous, if not tedious job, at best.
"Is everything all right? With Professor Snape, I mean…he didn't seem to be too terribly happy with my sudden reappearance."
Albus smiled. "I think you can recall, Ginny, that Severus does not seem to be too terribly happy with anything at all."
Ginny linked her hands together behind her back and bit back a grin. He was completely right, of course – Severus Snape's face would crack if he ever attempted to move the corners of his lips into an upward position.
"I'd like to thank you again, sir, for taking me on…I feel as if I've finally returned 'home'," she said gratefully, brushing a strand of red hair behind her ear.
"I am the one who should be doing the thanking…I believe the students will appreciate your youth and experience…"
"Well, if there's one thing I have, it's experience – "
"That, I believe, is a strongly debatable issue," came a cool, deep, well- known voice from the doorway.
Ginny turned her head sharply to meet the thinly veiled insult with an equally cool glare. "Good evening, Snape – I trust you've had a 'productive' day…" she didn't need to mention that she'd smelled fire whiskey all over him in the corridor the evening before.
It wasn't hard to tell that even with a sobering charm, the man was still suffering the after – effects of tying a rather large one on.
The tall, dark robed man stiffened, narrowing his eyes, and stepped into her classroom, looking at her haughtily down his long nose. He inclined his head slightly as he acknowledged Dumbledore, but kept his shiny black eyes on hers.
The same familiar old silvery shiver dusted along her spine as she looked upon his brutally handsome visage, steeling herself against the empathy she felt at the ashen shade the skin of his face had taken on, and the well hidden shadows of discomfort in his eyes.
Severus Snape had long since been an adult – he had only himself to blame if he had over – indulged.
"I've come to inform you, 'Virginia', that Hagrid has received the 'package' you had sent ahead."
Ginny held back a scowl at his exaggerated use of her name, and smiled sweetly. "How 'kind' of you, Snape…perhaps you would care to accompany me out onto the grounds to see to it? I believe you might find it incredibly useful."
"How so?" He asked suspiciously
"Have you ever had the opportunity to examine a Living Shroud?"
"You captured a Lethifold?" He asked faintly.
"It wasn't terribly difficult, really, though I found it near impossible to summon a decent patronus – "
"Albus, are you hearing this?" Severus snapped in furious disbelief, whirling on the silent headmaster. "This – this, 'girl', has brought a Lethifold onto the school grounds! A known, classified wizard killer, only feet away from hundreds of unsuspecting children!"
Ginny crossed her arms, and leaned back against a desk. "I never said it was 'alive'," she pointed out calmly. "Unfortunately it did not survive the encounter – Ron always did say I was positively lethal when it came to someone – or, something - disturbing my sleep."
Albus hid a chuckle in a sudden loud cough, and stood to place a reassuring hand on Severus's shoulder. "I don't think you have to worry about the great Professor Weasley, Severus. She 'is' a member of the Dark Force Defense League, you know, and has been working these past years for both the Beast and Being Division's of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She is very well known for her work involving research on dark creatures – didn't you read the memo I sent out yesterday?"
Ginny hid a grin with great difficulty, as Severus's eyes widened slightly.
"I received both Albus's and the Ministry's permission to study the Lethifold remains here at the school, Professor," she stated straight – faced. "I had thought that perhaps you might be interested in testing the material for possible potions uses."
'Yes, do go on with Ginny, Severus – there is still plenty of time before the student's arrive…" Albus moved to the door, his eyes catching Ginny's in a brief wink. "I had the opportunity to look on it before I came – it's positively ghastly."
Ginny watched after the Headmaster with a dry smile, and looked back at Severus to gauge his reaction to Albus's words.
**************
Ginny Weasley had a Lethifold in her possession.
He was surprised, which he really shouldn't have been, considering what she'd put him through in her Seventh year at Hogwarts.
Severus looked at her, expecting to see a smug, gloating expression upon her face, but she was simply watching him, in a manner that reminded him uncomfortably of those days after he'd discovered the contents of her diary…
He resisted the urge to raise his hand to his dully-throbbing temple and pressed his lips into a thin line.
"Well? We haven't got all night – let's go and have a look at this creature of yours," he snapped, drawing his robes tightly against himself in what he recognized too late as being a purely defensive manner.
Ginny dropped her warm brown eyes and moved to a cabinet on the wall, withdrawing a pair of dragon hide gloves. She cast him a considering glance over her shoulder, and removed another, larger pair as well.
"We'll need these," she murmured needlessly as she walked towards the door, not bothering to wait for him.
Severus found his gaze dropping to her slim, shapely hips, where the straggling tendrils of her scarlet hair brushed gently as she moved, and he caught himself with an impatient growl, giving his aching head a slow shake.
It was going to be a long year. A very, long year…
*************
"Have you finally accepted the fact that I'm here to stay?"
Severus looked over at the girl at her softly voiced question, as they returned to the castle after seeing to the Lethifold specimen.
He paused on the dark, grassy slope surrounding the school, and set his jaw.
"My opinion on the matter of you teaching here is probably best left unspoken," he said with a blunt finality.
Ginny stopped a few feet ahead of him and turned to face him, her face shadowed in lacey patterns by the tree branches swaying slightly overhead.
"You never have forgiven me, have you…"
The solemn, gentle remark made his heart jump painfully in his chest again. "Forgiven you for what?"
"Making you feel something you didn't want to."
Severus was torn suddenly between simply walking away, and blasting her to hell and back for her infuriating presumptuousness.
"I have no earthly idea of what you are blathering about, Weasley," he said icily, curling his hands into frustrated fists. Why did she have to go and bring his temporary lack of control into the light? Couldn't she see that as far as he was concerned, it had never happened?
"It's all right…I just wanted to let you know, I missed you. All the time I was gone, I thought about you. I wondered if you were well…"
Severus found himself taking a humiliatingly hasty step back as she approached him.
"I remember, there was this time I was cornered in some ruins by – well, it doesn't really matter what they were, only that there were an awful bloody lot of them…anyway, I thought that was it for me, I thought it was over…and you know what? I thought of you. I was standing there, facing certain death, and I thought, 'What would Professor Snape do, if he were here, right now?'"
Severus swallowed, his shirt collar suddenly feeling far too tight.
"You saved my life, in a sense, you know…you kept me from feeling completely alone in the world on many a night, whenever I found myself in a foreign place, a stranger in a strange land, as it were."
"I made it through a lot of difficult, impossible situations thanks to the memory of that sharp tongue of yours, Severus," she murmured, moving forward again slowly, looking so fragile and ethereal in the moonlight that for a moment he doubted his eyesight.
"I made it because I knew that if I didn't, I'd never get to see you again…or get the opportunity to do this."
He stood as if frozen, as her tiny warm hand moved up to touch his cool cheek, and her eyes drifted shut as she braced herself against his chest and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his…
Severus stepped away from her after the brief contact, pasting a disapproving, fierce frown onto his face. " What exactly is going on in that tiny brain of yours? What do you think you are doing?"
"Making up for lost time," she said carelessly.
"It's been years, you couldn't possibly still have a 'crush' on me…I find the very idea patently ridiculous!" Snape searched for something devastating to say, but was distracted by the soft, slightly out of focus appearance of her eyes as they stared up at him.
Ginny pressed her fingertips to her lips, and stared up at him with a bittersweet smile. "I probably shouldn't be telling you any of this…it no doubt undermines my abilities to teach in your eyes even further…but I have to say, if my number should be called tomorrow, I could almost die happy."
He found himself staring at her in slack – jawed amazement, and then stalked past her, up the slope to the castle, snarling incoherently.
"Did I say anything about it still being a 'crush' after all, Snape?" He heard her call softly from behind him. "I believe 'you' were the one to give my feelings that particular label..."
He ignored her, walking against the cool fall breeze that had sprung up with unusually warm cheeks.
***********
Ginny cursed herself as she watched Severus stride determinedly away from her, his black robes rippling in the cold night wind with an ominous finality.
What had come over her, to make her go on like that in front of him? He'd probably never speak a word to her again, unless it was absolutely necessary…
She touched her still tingling lips again, an unwilling smile appearing.
The man had felt just as much as she had when she'd kissed him, she knew it, and he was a fool if he thought she was just going to forget about it, as he himself seemed so set on doing…
If only she weren't still so unnerved by his very presence.
Ginny sighed and started back up the grassy slope just as the first students began arriving with their excited, noisy racket.
**********
TBC
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. :D
**********
(A/N: Wow, more reviews…thanks everyone! Warm fuzzy feelings abound – but not too many, wouldn't want them spilling over onto our dear grouchy potions master, would we? :grin::
Anyway, I wanted to point out, the creatures and such I mention in this chapter come from J.K. Rowling's 'Fantastic Beasts And Where To find Them'.
Again, many thanks to those of you who have reviewed – thank you for the interest and taking the time to let me know your thoughts.
- Key)
**********
3. Lost Time
Ginny moved through her dimly lit classroom, pausing to look around the great stone pillars with a critical eye – she used her hip to scoot a few desks this way and that, making sure that all of them would be in full sight from her own desk.
The students would be arriving to begin the new term within a few hours, and she was trying to keep herself busy until then – she didn't really feel like admitting to herself that she was simply avoiding Snape. Which was what really got to her - it had been along time since she'd ever felt intimidated by anyone or anything…
"Settling in, Ginny?"
She looked up with warm brown eyes as she heard Albus Dumbledore speak from behind her.
"Hello, Professor."
The older man moved forward, his hands clasped at the waist of his elaborate robes. "Remember, do call me Albus," he insisted.
"Of course…you'll have to forgive me – I'm still getting used to referring to Professor McGonagall as 'Minerva'." Ginny smiled as she approached him.
Heartfelt gratitude again filled her as she looked into the kindly Headmaster's light blue eyes. This was the man behind the whole reason she'd been able to return home to Hogwarts – if he hadn't offered her the position, she'd have been stuck patrolling and protecting certain areas in frigid northern Europe against particularly troublesome Red Cap's again that winter season – it was a lonely, dangerous, if not tedious job, at best.
"Is everything all right? With Professor Snape, I mean…he didn't seem to be too terribly happy with my sudden reappearance."
Albus smiled. "I think you can recall, Ginny, that Severus does not seem to be too terribly happy with anything at all."
Ginny linked her hands together behind her back and bit back a grin. He was completely right, of course – Severus Snape's face would crack if he ever attempted to move the corners of his lips into an upward position.
"I'd like to thank you again, sir, for taking me on…I feel as if I've finally returned 'home'," she said gratefully, brushing a strand of red hair behind her ear.
"I am the one who should be doing the thanking…I believe the students will appreciate your youth and experience…"
"Well, if there's one thing I have, it's experience – "
"That, I believe, is a strongly debatable issue," came a cool, deep, well- known voice from the doorway.
Ginny turned her head sharply to meet the thinly veiled insult with an equally cool glare. "Good evening, Snape – I trust you've had a 'productive' day…" she didn't need to mention that she'd smelled fire whiskey all over him in the corridor the evening before.
It wasn't hard to tell that even with a sobering charm, the man was still suffering the after – effects of tying a rather large one on.
The tall, dark robed man stiffened, narrowing his eyes, and stepped into her classroom, looking at her haughtily down his long nose. He inclined his head slightly as he acknowledged Dumbledore, but kept his shiny black eyes on hers.
The same familiar old silvery shiver dusted along her spine as she looked upon his brutally handsome visage, steeling herself against the empathy she felt at the ashen shade the skin of his face had taken on, and the well hidden shadows of discomfort in his eyes.
Severus Snape had long since been an adult – he had only himself to blame if he had over – indulged.
"I've come to inform you, 'Virginia', that Hagrid has received the 'package' you had sent ahead."
Ginny held back a scowl at his exaggerated use of her name, and smiled sweetly. "How 'kind' of you, Snape…perhaps you would care to accompany me out onto the grounds to see to it? I believe you might find it incredibly useful."
"How so?" He asked suspiciously
"Have you ever had the opportunity to examine a Living Shroud?"
"You captured a Lethifold?" He asked faintly.
"It wasn't terribly difficult, really, though I found it near impossible to summon a decent patronus – "
"Albus, are you hearing this?" Severus snapped in furious disbelief, whirling on the silent headmaster. "This – this, 'girl', has brought a Lethifold onto the school grounds! A known, classified wizard killer, only feet away from hundreds of unsuspecting children!"
Ginny crossed her arms, and leaned back against a desk. "I never said it was 'alive'," she pointed out calmly. "Unfortunately it did not survive the encounter – Ron always did say I was positively lethal when it came to someone – or, something - disturbing my sleep."
Albus hid a chuckle in a sudden loud cough, and stood to place a reassuring hand on Severus's shoulder. "I don't think you have to worry about the great Professor Weasley, Severus. She 'is' a member of the Dark Force Defense League, you know, and has been working these past years for both the Beast and Being Division's of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She is very well known for her work involving research on dark creatures – didn't you read the memo I sent out yesterday?"
Ginny hid a grin with great difficulty, as Severus's eyes widened slightly.
"I received both Albus's and the Ministry's permission to study the Lethifold remains here at the school, Professor," she stated straight – faced. "I had thought that perhaps you might be interested in testing the material for possible potions uses."
'Yes, do go on with Ginny, Severus – there is still plenty of time before the student's arrive…" Albus moved to the door, his eyes catching Ginny's in a brief wink. "I had the opportunity to look on it before I came – it's positively ghastly."
Ginny watched after the Headmaster with a dry smile, and looked back at Severus to gauge his reaction to Albus's words.
**************
Ginny Weasley had a Lethifold in her possession.
He was surprised, which he really shouldn't have been, considering what she'd put him through in her Seventh year at Hogwarts.
Severus looked at her, expecting to see a smug, gloating expression upon her face, but she was simply watching him, in a manner that reminded him uncomfortably of those days after he'd discovered the contents of her diary…
He resisted the urge to raise his hand to his dully-throbbing temple and pressed his lips into a thin line.
"Well? We haven't got all night – let's go and have a look at this creature of yours," he snapped, drawing his robes tightly against himself in what he recognized too late as being a purely defensive manner.
Ginny dropped her warm brown eyes and moved to a cabinet on the wall, withdrawing a pair of dragon hide gloves. She cast him a considering glance over her shoulder, and removed another, larger pair as well.
"We'll need these," she murmured needlessly as she walked towards the door, not bothering to wait for him.
Severus found his gaze dropping to her slim, shapely hips, where the straggling tendrils of her scarlet hair brushed gently as she moved, and he caught himself with an impatient growl, giving his aching head a slow shake.
It was going to be a long year. A very, long year…
*************
"Have you finally accepted the fact that I'm here to stay?"
Severus looked over at the girl at her softly voiced question, as they returned to the castle after seeing to the Lethifold specimen.
He paused on the dark, grassy slope surrounding the school, and set his jaw.
"My opinion on the matter of you teaching here is probably best left unspoken," he said with a blunt finality.
Ginny stopped a few feet ahead of him and turned to face him, her face shadowed in lacey patterns by the tree branches swaying slightly overhead.
"You never have forgiven me, have you…"
The solemn, gentle remark made his heart jump painfully in his chest again. "Forgiven you for what?"
"Making you feel something you didn't want to."
Severus was torn suddenly between simply walking away, and blasting her to hell and back for her infuriating presumptuousness.
"I have no earthly idea of what you are blathering about, Weasley," he said icily, curling his hands into frustrated fists. Why did she have to go and bring his temporary lack of control into the light? Couldn't she see that as far as he was concerned, it had never happened?
"It's all right…I just wanted to let you know, I missed you. All the time I was gone, I thought about you. I wondered if you were well…"
Severus found himself taking a humiliatingly hasty step back as she approached him.
"I remember, there was this time I was cornered in some ruins by – well, it doesn't really matter what they were, only that there were an awful bloody lot of them…anyway, I thought that was it for me, I thought it was over…and you know what? I thought of you. I was standing there, facing certain death, and I thought, 'What would Professor Snape do, if he were here, right now?'"
Severus swallowed, his shirt collar suddenly feeling far too tight.
"You saved my life, in a sense, you know…you kept me from feeling completely alone in the world on many a night, whenever I found myself in a foreign place, a stranger in a strange land, as it were."
"I made it through a lot of difficult, impossible situations thanks to the memory of that sharp tongue of yours, Severus," she murmured, moving forward again slowly, looking so fragile and ethereal in the moonlight that for a moment he doubted his eyesight.
"I made it because I knew that if I didn't, I'd never get to see you again…or get the opportunity to do this."
He stood as if frozen, as her tiny warm hand moved up to touch his cool cheek, and her eyes drifted shut as she braced herself against his chest and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his…
Severus stepped away from her after the brief contact, pasting a disapproving, fierce frown onto his face. " What exactly is going on in that tiny brain of yours? What do you think you are doing?"
"Making up for lost time," she said carelessly.
"It's been years, you couldn't possibly still have a 'crush' on me…I find the very idea patently ridiculous!" Snape searched for something devastating to say, but was distracted by the soft, slightly out of focus appearance of her eyes as they stared up at him.
Ginny pressed her fingertips to her lips, and stared up at him with a bittersweet smile. "I probably shouldn't be telling you any of this…it no doubt undermines my abilities to teach in your eyes even further…but I have to say, if my number should be called tomorrow, I could almost die happy."
He found himself staring at her in slack – jawed amazement, and then stalked past her, up the slope to the castle, snarling incoherently.
"Did I say anything about it still being a 'crush' after all, Snape?" He heard her call softly from behind him. "I believe 'you' were the one to give my feelings that particular label..."
He ignored her, walking against the cool fall breeze that had sprung up with unusually warm cheeks.
***********
Ginny cursed herself as she watched Severus stride determinedly away from her, his black robes rippling in the cold night wind with an ominous finality.
What had come over her, to make her go on like that in front of him? He'd probably never speak a word to her again, unless it was absolutely necessary…
She touched her still tingling lips again, an unwilling smile appearing.
The man had felt just as much as she had when she'd kissed him, she knew it, and he was a fool if he thought she was just going to forget about it, as he himself seemed so set on doing…
If only she weren't still so unnerved by his very presence.
Ginny sighed and started back up the grassy slope just as the first students began arriving with their excited, noisy racket.
**********
TBC