Chapter 6: Trick or... Trick?
Authors Note: Well, this ended up being a somewhat longer chapter than my previous offerings. Hope you don't think it's dragging on too much, but there was a lot that I wanted to do here. *grin* With any luck there'll be another chapter out before the weekend.
Oh, and reviewers credits at the bottom again.
Pronunciation Note: I had one email asking this question, and I figure that for every person who can be bothered to type a question there's at least a dozen who are thinking the same thing. So I state here:
Seona is a Gaelic name, and is pronounced either SHOW-nah or Shorna (depending on how thick your accent is). It is in no way phonetic. :)
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Severus Snape entered the Great Hall to find that the candles had been replaced by jack-o-lanterns and the tables were set with an even more festive fare than normal. The Halloween Feast. He'd been so absorbed in his work that he'd completely forgotten, although he vaguely remembered hearing some of the students talking about it. With a perfunctory nod to the rest of the staff, he sat and cast a cynical eye across the house tables.
Slytherin, of course. Even from where he sat he could make out expressions of sly cunning on many of the faces as they talked with their housemates. Cunning, but not as much intelligence as he'd like, he reflected in disappointment.
Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff... yes, yes. They all seemed to be enjoying the feast, not much else of interest there. He rarely did take much interest in either of those houses. Probably a leftover from his own Hogwarts days, he decided. The only houses that had mattered were his own Slytherin and rival Gryffindor.
And wasn't that a house full of surprises! While it had attracted nuisances like Potter and Longbottom, it had also become the house of his new assistant. He ran his gaze along the Gryffindor table until he spotted Seona MacGinty sitting with her band of friends and general hangers-on. It was odd that he was becoming so used to thinking of her by her first name. Perhaps it was because she had already proven herself valuable to his work, even though he had only presented it to her during their last session. Certainly, he had decided to present her with some of the more complex aspects of it next time. It would be interesting to see what she made of it.
"Severus, are you listening to a single thing I'm saying?" Blinking, he turned to see Professor McGonagall frowning irritably at him. She must have been talking to him, but he honestly couldn't remember noticing. Silently he cursed his inattentiveness.
"No, Minerva, I wasn't." The words hung like icicles between them.
The Gryffindor Head snorted. "I was trying to ask you if you thought it had been a significantly quieter year than previously." She raised one eyebrow significantly, indicating that she wasn't merely talking about the day-to- day affairs of the school.
Snape returned a level gaze as he replied quietly, "Indeed. Makes you wonder if there's something significant being planned, doesn't it?"
"You mean you don't know?" McGonagall's eyes widened slightly, but she remembered to keep her voice low. Not all of the faculty knew of Snape's former position as Dumbledore's spy among the Death Eaters, and he preferred to keep it that way. Luckily, so did everyone else who knew.
In response, he merely shrugged. "How would I know anything now?" The ironic twist of his lips was not lost on the older woman, and she sniffed and turned away. Good. Leave him to eat his meal in peace.
And it was growing more peaceful by the moment. He realised that many of the students were already wandering off, prepared to amuse themselves for the rest of the evening. He hadn't eaten much, but abruptly decided that he wasn't that hungry after all. Rising, he headed from the Hall and began to make his way back to his quarters in the dungeons.
He hadn't even made it halfway there when he heard voices raised in a heated argument. Pausing, he made out the sound of soft sobbing, then identified another two voices: Draco Malfoy and Seona MacGinty.
"Why should you care, MacGinty? She isn't even one of your precious Gryffindors! Why don't you just stay out of it and mind your own business?"
"Because when I find you tormenting someone for the sheer joy of it, I choose to make it my business." Odd, there was a note to her voice that he had never heard before. With a start, Snape realised it was the first time he had heard her angry. The venom in her voice came close to something he would expect to hear from his own lips.
"Why? She's just a mudblood." In contrast, Malfoy's voice sounded petty and arrogant. He obviously expected his opponent to back down, so the ringing slap that echoed down the corridor must have come as an even greater shock to him than it did to Snape. But that was noting compared to what he heard next:
"Crucio!"
A piercing scream split the air. In an instant, Snape had his wand out and had stepped around the corner and pointed it at the blonde Slytherin who was watching the girl thrash around on the stone floor in front of him.
"Stupefy!" Snape spat the word out between clenched teeth. How, by all the powers, had the boy learned that curse? He turned his mind from the question as the curse died without the will of its caster focussed on it, leaving its victim a pathetic bundle on the floor. Having been on the receiving end of the Cruciatus curse often enough himself, he felt a stab of sympathy for the agony he knew she must be in.
Looking around, he spotted another bundle on the far side of the corridor. He vaguely recognised her as a Ravenclaw first year, and apparently the object of Malfoy's amusement before Seona had found them.
Seona? He shook his head. Enough time to worry about that detail later. Forcing himself to remain calm, he spoke to the girl. "Child, I need to you run and find the Headmaster quickly. Tell him to meet me in the hospital wing, and to send someone down here to take Mr Malfoy to my office and keep him there. Can you do that?" The girl, who had watched him with wide frightened eyes, nodded briefly and ran off still stifling sobs.
Now he turned his attention to more important matters. Was there anything he could do for her now? Probably not. There was very little that could be done for a victim of the Cruciatus curse aside from fill them with painkillers. Frowning, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Can you hear me?" He hadn't spoken with that much gentleness in his voice for many years, but he knew how important it was to try and establish some sort of response.
Green eyes, smudged and haunted by pain, were lifted to meet his. There was a flicker of recognition, which he was thankful for. "Severus?" The words were so soft he almost missed them, forced as they were from lips that were as sore as the rest of her undoubtedly was. Then her head sagged suddenly and he barely caught her in time as her body finally took pity on her and allowed her the release of unconsciousness.
It would make it easier to transport her, anyway. No need to waste time with a stretcher. Scooping her into his arms, startled to find how light she was, he strode off towards the hospital wing with his black robes billowing behind him.
Once at the hospital, he handed her over to Madame Pomfrey with a curt explanation of what had occurred. The plump witch gasp with horror when he mentioned the use of one of the Unforgivable Curses, then set about doing whatever she had to do to help the flayed nerve ending heal quickly and easily.
Standing at the door to the ward, Snape was met a few moments later by Dumbledore. The old wizard looked as though he had run all the way from the Great Hall. "Is it true?" he asked. "Malfoy cast that curse on Miss MacGinty?" His eyes pleaded with Snape to tell him the stories he'd heard had been exaggerated.
Snape nodded. "Yes. I will deal with him once I find out if there has been any lasting damage done. I..."
He was interrupted by the reappearance of Madame Pomfrey, who cleared her throat to get their attention before speaking. Her face was the careful calm of someone who is feeling too much emotion to be able to express any of it, and her voice was almost expressionless. "It would appear that there has not been too much damage done, Professors. She was only under the curse for a short time, so she will wake sore and stiff and with some rather unpleasant memories, but that is all." She paused for a fraction of a second, then added hurriedly, "I also decided to see if there was any other spells affecting her, in case they had been duelling before you found them." A nod in Snape's direction indicated her meaning, then she continued, "There is an incredibly strong charm blocking part of her mind. I'm guessing it's a memory block, but it's stronger than any I've ever seen."
"Can you remove it?" Dumbledore's voice was serious, his eyes narrowed slightly.
"Well, yes, I suppose I could..." The witch nodded and began to turn away.
Snape's hand on her arm stopped her. "No."
Dumbledore stared at him for a moment, then simply asked, "Why not?"
Feeling anger welling up inside him, Snape forced his voice to remain neutral. It had never done him any good, getting angry with Dumbledore. "Albus, when she wakes up she's going to have enough to deal with. There's the remnant of the physical pain, but more than that is the mental pain. The knowledge that someone had to completely at their mercy. That they had forced you to completely debase yourself before them. Trust me on this. I've... I've felt it often enough myself." He trailed off for a moment, struggling to push away the memories of his many sessions being tortured by Voldemort or one of his followers. Abruptly, his gaze refocussed and he stared at the Headmaster with all the determination he could muster. "Let her wake up, let her deal with all of that. Then tell her about the block. Let her decide what to do with it. Perhaps she'll even have some idea of why it's there or when it was put in."
"A vain hope." The Headmaster smiled slightly. "Very well, Severus. Your suggestion has merit. We'll wait until she has recovered, then we shall deal with the block."
Snape nodded. "Thank you, Headmaster," he replied formally. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and have a word with young Mr Malfoy." He turned on his heel and stalked back towards his office. Anyone who was still in the corridors shrank back at his approach to let him pass, but he barely noticed.
In between the seething rage, two questions nagged at him. The first was one he had already asked: How had the boy learned one of the Unforgivable Curses? Surely Lucius hadn't been that stupid as to give a young upstart access to such a powerful spell? Well, he would soon find out.
The second was a much more difficult question: Why, amongst all the anger and the worry, was the one thing that stuck in his memory the most the way that she had called him by his first name just before she passed out?
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REVIEWERS TRIBUTE:
Tabbycat2000 - Ah, be patient, my dear. All shall be revealed. :)
Kawaii Phe chan - Perhaps, eventually.
Skyfire - Don't worry, I don't intend them getting together for a while at least. I think he needs a friend more than a date. *grin* Come to think of it, so does she.
And last, but definitely not least:
Melanie C - Many thanks go to you, my number one reviewer! *hugs* So far you've reviewed every single chapter. I'm impressed. ;)
Authors Note: Well, this ended up being a somewhat longer chapter than my previous offerings. Hope you don't think it's dragging on too much, but there was a lot that I wanted to do here. *grin* With any luck there'll be another chapter out before the weekend.
Oh, and reviewers credits at the bottom again.
Pronunciation Note: I had one email asking this question, and I figure that for every person who can be bothered to type a question there's at least a dozen who are thinking the same thing. So I state here:
Seona is a Gaelic name, and is pronounced either SHOW-nah or Shorna (depending on how thick your accent is). It is in no way phonetic. :)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Severus Snape entered the Great Hall to find that the candles had been replaced by jack-o-lanterns and the tables were set with an even more festive fare than normal. The Halloween Feast. He'd been so absorbed in his work that he'd completely forgotten, although he vaguely remembered hearing some of the students talking about it. With a perfunctory nod to the rest of the staff, he sat and cast a cynical eye across the house tables.
Slytherin, of course. Even from where he sat he could make out expressions of sly cunning on many of the faces as they talked with their housemates. Cunning, but not as much intelligence as he'd like, he reflected in disappointment.
Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff... yes, yes. They all seemed to be enjoying the feast, not much else of interest there. He rarely did take much interest in either of those houses. Probably a leftover from his own Hogwarts days, he decided. The only houses that had mattered were his own Slytherin and rival Gryffindor.
And wasn't that a house full of surprises! While it had attracted nuisances like Potter and Longbottom, it had also become the house of his new assistant. He ran his gaze along the Gryffindor table until he spotted Seona MacGinty sitting with her band of friends and general hangers-on. It was odd that he was becoming so used to thinking of her by her first name. Perhaps it was because she had already proven herself valuable to his work, even though he had only presented it to her during their last session. Certainly, he had decided to present her with some of the more complex aspects of it next time. It would be interesting to see what she made of it.
"Severus, are you listening to a single thing I'm saying?" Blinking, he turned to see Professor McGonagall frowning irritably at him. She must have been talking to him, but he honestly couldn't remember noticing. Silently he cursed his inattentiveness.
"No, Minerva, I wasn't." The words hung like icicles between them.
The Gryffindor Head snorted. "I was trying to ask you if you thought it had been a significantly quieter year than previously." She raised one eyebrow significantly, indicating that she wasn't merely talking about the day-to- day affairs of the school.
Snape returned a level gaze as he replied quietly, "Indeed. Makes you wonder if there's something significant being planned, doesn't it?"
"You mean you don't know?" McGonagall's eyes widened slightly, but she remembered to keep her voice low. Not all of the faculty knew of Snape's former position as Dumbledore's spy among the Death Eaters, and he preferred to keep it that way. Luckily, so did everyone else who knew.
In response, he merely shrugged. "How would I know anything now?" The ironic twist of his lips was not lost on the older woman, and she sniffed and turned away. Good. Leave him to eat his meal in peace.
And it was growing more peaceful by the moment. He realised that many of the students were already wandering off, prepared to amuse themselves for the rest of the evening. He hadn't eaten much, but abruptly decided that he wasn't that hungry after all. Rising, he headed from the Hall and began to make his way back to his quarters in the dungeons.
He hadn't even made it halfway there when he heard voices raised in a heated argument. Pausing, he made out the sound of soft sobbing, then identified another two voices: Draco Malfoy and Seona MacGinty.
"Why should you care, MacGinty? She isn't even one of your precious Gryffindors! Why don't you just stay out of it and mind your own business?"
"Because when I find you tormenting someone for the sheer joy of it, I choose to make it my business." Odd, there was a note to her voice that he had never heard before. With a start, Snape realised it was the first time he had heard her angry. The venom in her voice came close to something he would expect to hear from his own lips.
"Why? She's just a mudblood." In contrast, Malfoy's voice sounded petty and arrogant. He obviously expected his opponent to back down, so the ringing slap that echoed down the corridor must have come as an even greater shock to him than it did to Snape. But that was noting compared to what he heard next:
"Crucio!"
A piercing scream split the air. In an instant, Snape had his wand out and had stepped around the corner and pointed it at the blonde Slytherin who was watching the girl thrash around on the stone floor in front of him.
"Stupefy!" Snape spat the word out between clenched teeth. How, by all the powers, had the boy learned that curse? He turned his mind from the question as the curse died without the will of its caster focussed on it, leaving its victim a pathetic bundle on the floor. Having been on the receiving end of the Cruciatus curse often enough himself, he felt a stab of sympathy for the agony he knew she must be in.
Looking around, he spotted another bundle on the far side of the corridor. He vaguely recognised her as a Ravenclaw first year, and apparently the object of Malfoy's amusement before Seona had found them.
Seona? He shook his head. Enough time to worry about that detail later. Forcing himself to remain calm, he spoke to the girl. "Child, I need to you run and find the Headmaster quickly. Tell him to meet me in the hospital wing, and to send someone down here to take Mr Malfoy to my office and keep him there. Can you do that?" The girl, who had watched him with wide frightened eyes, nodded briefly and ran off still stifling sobs.
Now he turned his attention to more important matters. Was there anything he could do for her now? Probably not. There was very little that could be done for a victim of the Cruciatus curse aside from fill them with painkillers. Frowning, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Can you hear me?" He hadn't spoken with that much gentleness in his voice for many years, but he knew how important it was to try and establish some sort of response.
Green eyes, smudged and haunted by pain, were lifted to meet his. There was a flicker of recognition, which he was thankful for. "Severus?" The words were so soft he almost missed them, forced as they were from lips that were as sore as the rest of her undoubtedly was. Then her head sagged suddenly and he barely caught her in time as her body finally took pity on her and allowed her the release of unconsciousness.
It would make it easier to transport her, anyway. No need to waste time with a stretcher. Scooping her into his arms, startled to find how light she was, he strode off towards the hospital wing with his black robes billowing behind him.
Once at the hospital, he handed her over to Madame Pomfrey with a curt explanation of what had occurred. The plump witch gasp with horror when he mentioned the use of one of the Unforgivable Curses, then set about doing whatever she had to do to help the flayed nerve ending heal quickly and easily.
Standing at the door to the ward, Snape was met a few moments later by Dumbledore. The old wizard looked as though he had run all the way from the Great Hall. "Is it true?" he asked. "Malfoy cast that curse on Miss MacGinty?" His eyes pleaded with Snape to tell him the stories he'd heard had been exaggerated.
Snape nodded. "Yes. I will deal with him once I find out if there has been any lasting damage done. I..."
He was interrupted by the reappearance of Madame Pomfrey, who cleared her throat to get their attention before speaking. Her face was the careful calm of someone who is feeling too much emotion to be able to express any of it, and her voice was almost expressionless. "It would appear that there has not been too much damage done, Professors. She was only under the curse for a short time, so she will wake sore and stiff and with some rather unpleasant memories, but that is all." She paused for a fraction of a second, then added hurriedly, "I also decided to see if there was any other spells affecting her, in case they had been duelling before you found them." A nod in Snape's direction indicated her meaning, then she continued, "There is an incredibly strong charm blocking part of her mind. I'm guessing it's a memory block, but it's stronger than any I've ever seen."
"Can you remove it?" Dumbledore's voice was serious, his eyes narrowed slightly.
"Well, yes, I suppose I could..." The witch nodded and began to turn away.
Snape's hand on her arm stopped her. "No."
Dumbledore stared at him for a moment, then simply asked, "Why not?"
Feeling anger welling up inside him, Snape forced his voice to remain neutral. It had never done him any good, getting angry with Dumbledore. "Albus, when she wakes up she's going to have enough to deal with. There's the remnant of the physical pain, but more than that is the mental pain. The knowledge that someone had to completely at their mercy. That they had forced you to completely debase yourself before them. Trust me on this. I've... I've felt it often enough myself." He trailed off for a moment, struggling to push away the memories of his many sessions being tortured by Voldemort or one of his followers. Abruptly, his gaze refocussed and he stared at the Headmaster with all the determination he could muster. "Let her wake up, let her deal with all of that. Then tell her about the block. Let her decide what to do with it. Perhaps she'll even have some idea of why it's there or when it was put in."
"A vain hope." The Headmaster smiled slightly. "Very well, Severus. Your suggestion has merit. We'll wait until she has recovered, then we shall deal with the block."
Snape nodded. "Thank you, Headmaster," he replied formally. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and have a word with young Mr Malfoy." He turned on his heel and stalked back towards his office. Anyone who was still in the corridors shrank back at his approach to let him pass, but he barely noticed.
In between the seething rage, two questions nagged at him. The first was one he had already asked: How had the boy learned one of the Unforgivable Curses? Surely Lucius hadn't been that stupid as to give a young upstart access to such a powerful spell? Well, he would soon find out.
The second was a much more difficult question: Why, amongst all the anger and the worry, was the one thing that stuck in his memory the most the way that she had called him by his first name just before she passed out?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
REVIEWERS TRIBUTE:
Tabbycat2000 - Ah, be patient, my dear. All shall be revealed. :)
Kawaii Phe chan - Perhaps, eventually.
Skyfire - Don't worry, I don't intend them getting together for a while at least. I think he needs a friend more than a date. *grin* Come to think of it, so does she.
And last, but definitely not least:
Melanie C - Many thanks go to you, my number one reviewer! *hugs* So far you've reviewed every single chapter. I'm impressed. ;)