Snow and Sorcery
Disclaimer: If you hadn't figured this out by now: I own none of them.
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Replies: The update day changed to Wednesday (because I wanted to post on Xmas day!) I know Latin because I learn it in school (at GCSE level which is ridiculously complicated!) And if anyone wants to use Glacios references (GirlEnigma) it depends exactly what you mean… The word is from Latin so you're free to use similar words, but if the spell effects are similar I'd prefer for you to mention that you have my permission in your A/N. I've seen people who stole it get some pretty nasty reviews!
A/N: I absolutely love leading you all up the garden path with the mystery of M.B.! I'll only tell you one thing – she is not an original character. Apart from that, you'll just have to wait till the characters find out.
I apologise in advance for the fact that this chapter isn't very good (in my opinion) The dreaded block, plus holiday arrangements, plus utter hiatus managing to fall out with two of my friends, meant that I wrote most of it… well, on the day it was due up. Heh. Next chapter should be back to normalcy.
More bad news: No chapter next week!!! This is because I'm going to be in Rome on a school trip. But the next chapter will be up the Wednesday after as usual.
And having said that, enjoy this chapter!
~*~
After at least five minutes of lock breaking charms, Hermione finally managed to open the door of the abandoned classroom. It must have been closed off for years, perhaps even centuries. The entire room was coated in a thick layer of dust, which swirled chokingly around their feet as they entered. The feeble rays of light from the corridor outside which bravely tried to light the interior lit upon an old blackboard, screwed to one wall, with an aged wooden frame. A chalked message had once been scribbled on the board, but age and time had worn it to a pale ghost.
Draco, looking around the room, summed it up in one sentence: 'This place is a dump.'
Harry took out his wand, muttering 'Lumos.' A pale light spread out, lighting the room a bit better. It also lit upon a rather cross-looking ghostly figure, with a spotty face and huge glasses.
'Oh, Myrtle…' Hermione began rather guiltily, but was interrupted by the ghost.
'So it's alright to just barge into someone's home and call it a dump, is it?' she said with a baleful glare.
Hermione made an attempt at diplomacy, putting on a sympathetic smile. 'We're sorry, Myrtle. We didn't know you lived here. Did you have to move after the Chamber of Secrets was opened?'
'You still said it's a dump.' She sniffed resentfully.
'We didn't mean it, Myrtle…' Ron protested.
'Yeah, we didn't know you lived here. It looks really nice as a home…' Harry added.
Myrtle scowled. 'You don't really mean that. Besides, this isn't my home all the time: sometimes I live in the Lake or the prefect's bathroom. And you haven't come to visit me for ages.'
Draco looked slightly bemused. 'Could someone explain what's going on here?'
Myrtle turned to him with a pity-demanding expression. 'They used to come and visit me all the time a few years ago, when they were making that potion in my bathroom, but they don't anymore.' She rubbed a tear from her eye with a transparent hand.
'Nope, I'm still lost. What potion?' Draco asked Hermione.
'The Polyjuice Potion.' Hermione replied, seeing his look of further confusion, she turned to her housemates. 'Did we not tell him about that?'
'Erm…' began Harry. Ron burst in with the answer before Harry could.
'No.'
Hermione sighed, inadvertently choking slightly on the dust that they had swirled into the atmosphere. She turned back to Draco, whose pale hair and skin almost seemed to glow in the dim light – a thought she immediately pushed away – and explained.
'Well basically, when the Chamber of Secrets was opened in second year, we thought…. basically, we suspected you.'
Draco actually snorted. 'You did? Should I take this as a compliment or as an insult?'
'Whichever you prefer. Anyway, we used Myrtle's bathroom to make something called a Polyjuice Potion in, Polyjuice Potion is used to transform a person's physical features into that of another. Harry and Ron used it to turn into Crabbe and Goyle and ask you whether you were opening it or not.'
Draco looked impressed. 'Cunning plan. I presume it was yours?'
Myrtle distracted Hermione's attention by floating up to her and staring her in the face. 'What are you doing here now?'
'We need to make another potion….' Hermione began, but Myrtle cut her off by letting out an almighty sob and rising into the air.
'I knew it! You don't care about me, you only want to use my homes to make your stupid potions!' she howled, before flying off through the blackboard with a ghostly wail.
There was a few moments silence. 'Well that was strange.' Draco eventually said. 'Is she normally like that?
'Yes.' replied Harry shortly.
Hermione decided to busy herself with the preparations. She knelt on the dusty floor, unpacking a collapsible cauldron from her bag and muttering the charms to return it to its normal state from the far smaller and lighter 'collapsed' version. 'Now, the Genitive Potion - according to the textbook – should take a week or so to prepare. We need to put the quill into the cauldron before anything else. It should come out unharmed… but with the identity of the owner clearly marked onto it.'
Draco pulled the ornate quill out of his pocket, casting an eye over the detailed engravings. 'Are you sure this is going to work?' he asked. 'It seems far too… easy.'
'According to the book it should work perfectly.' Hermione replied. 'And it will take a week or so to prepare. A week in which, don't forget, I'm still open to attack.' She gave the three boys a glance. 'But if we're careful it should be fine.'
Draco nodded, and crossed the floor to place the quill into the cauldron. He moved soundlessly, like a cat, and put the white feather into its receptacle with a kind of reverence, making the potion and its preparation seem like an esoteric ritual.
Hermione smiled and began to chop the oak roots she'd taken earlier from the student's store cupboard.
~*~
The daily walk around the lake, even after the squid incident, had become a habit. They hadn't bothered to arrange it anew that day, but each had found their way to the hall at the same time as usual. And so, again, they were walking.
It had snowed overnight: only an inch or so, but it had been enough to cover the world in a crisp white layer. Some of the snow had iced over, and their footsteps made a definite crunch as they made each step, leaving perfect impressions in the ground behind.
Hermione glanced at the sky, which unlike the colour filled sunset of the previous day was simply turning from white and blue to grey, the sun only serving to cast brighter highlights on a scene that was already pale and reflective. It was strange to think that it had been so different yesterday. But then, many things had been different yesterday…
The attack by M.B. had left no physical marks – thanks to Draco's healing spell – but she still felt unnerved. Every shadow could hide someone, every movement out of the corner of her eye was the mysterious hooded figure… she felt tense, over alert, like a frightened rabbit.
But of course, M.B. could and probably would attack at any time. Nowhere was safe anymore: not the corridors of Hogwarts, not the common room, not even out here in the freezing cold. The lessons, under the watchful eye of the teachers, were probably somewhat safe: after all, who would dare to attack with a teacher there?
'Who do you think M.B. is?' she asked aloud: more for the sake of conversation than anything else. Draco glanced up at her, his silvery eyes unreadable.
'I don't know, really. The only person I know with those initials is Millicent Bulstrode, but she's too obvious…. Voldemort said it was someone unexpected.'
Hermione nodded. 'We really should go through everyone in the school and see who has those initials… but it wouldn't be practical. The potion will be quicker anyway. But still… I wish there was something I could do, something to spend my time on, just so I could feel I was doing something.'
She wasn't really sure why she was telling Draco this. Possibly because she wanted to, possibly because the few memories she'd regained were slowly but surely changing the way she felt…. she didn't know.
'I know what you mean.' Draco said suddenly, and Hermione looked sideways at him sharply. His face was still blank, but his posture gave something away: he seemed almost vulnerable for a second. 'I want to do something too. I hate having to wait and do nothing.'
His response surprised her: she would have thought that with a suitably planned scheme underway he would have been content. She didn't say this however, just continued to crunch through the snow. Speaking to Draco was an odd mix: one instant they were uncomfortable, the next they were talking as openly as if they had been friends for years. Of course, more than friends at one point…
'What lessons do you have tomorrow?' Hermione asked, trying to find a suitable topic.
'Runes, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy –drat, I have a test…'
'What on? Calculations involving quadratics?' Hermione asked. Draco nodded. 'We had that last lesson. It's pretty easy, as long as you remember about negative square roots being imaginary, and make sure you don't forget the common formula.'
'I hate the common formula.' Draco groaned. 'It just doesn't make sense, and it's really hard to remember.'
'Negative b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus…'
'Stop, stop!' interjected Draco in mock horror.
'…. four a c, over two a.' Hermione finished, beaming. 'It's not that hard!'
'Yes it is.' grumbled Draco. 'Let me see… negative b plus or minus b squared…'
'You forgot the square root.' Hermione said. 'Anyway, you're supposed to learn this later. Now is not the time for Arithmancy.'
'Is there such a thing?' Draco asked with a teasing smile.
'As what?'
'As a time which is not for schoolwork?' Draco asked. 'I'd have thought schoolwork was absolutely paramount with you. It always used to be.'
Hermione trudged on a few steps through the snow before giving her answer. 'I guess… with all the things that keep happening, well, some things are more important. Like Voldemort trying to kill me or attempting to get my memory back. Schoolwork is important but… I guess I just have more things to worry about.'
Draco nodded. 'That makes sense.'
And again, that transition from closeness to awkwardness, and the sudden silence as they paced through the snow. It was clean and white and its coldness seemed to radiate through the air. It wasn't the bitter punishing cold of a fierce winter wind, but rather the impersonal blank coldness that you feel on an ice rink. Hermione always felt that the icy winds were conscious and acting against her personally, while this coldness was not sentient: it just was.
'Do you like the snow?' she asked, again nothing more than a forced conversation topic.
'It's cold.' Draco observed. 'Beautiful, but cold. I ought to be used to the cold, and I am, but I still prefer to be warm.'
And yet again they were in the area of closeness, swinging around like a pendulum and never quite deciding how to act. The Glacios curse was something Draco wouldn't normally speak about, that much she knew, and his reference to it hinted at their past.
'Apart from the cold, I like it. I suppose you can have snowball fights and make snowmen and stuff like that, which might be fun. I've never tried.'
'You've never had a snowball fight?' asked Hermione in surprise.
He turned towards her with an eyebrow raised. 'What, and actually have a semi-normal childhood? Heavens forbid!'
With a slight shrug of the shoulders, he walked on through the snow, crunching it underfoot. Hermione paused, biting her lip, trying to come to a decision…
With a speed born of impulse she bent to the ground, scooping up a snowball, feeling the agonising cold on her skin. She straightened, crushing it carefully into a spheroid, and taking careful aim at Draco's retreating head, a small smile playing on her lips.
He stopped and turned suddenly. 'Why are you…' he began, before Hermione's snowball hit him in the face with deadly accuracy. The look on his face, of bemusement and surprise, sent Hermione into hysterics.
'You threw a snowball at me.' he said petulantly.
'And I hit you.' Hermione said when she'd finished laughing. 'With perfect aim!'
Draco's face broke into a sudden smile. 'Yes, yes, well done Hermione. Shall I sculpt a little trophy out of snow?' he bent to the ground as if to do so: it took Hermione a second to work out his real intent.
'Oh no, don't you dare…' she said, turning to run. 'Don't you dare…' she shouted, laughing despite herself.
From behind her came the crunch of running feet, Draco's laughter and the sudden heavy thud of snow against her back. She bent to the earth to scoop up a handful of the fragile white powder, her laughter combining with his as she did so.
The fight had begun!
~*~
The snowball fight was inspired by a roleplay I was doing a few Sundays ago, where two characters (one of which was mine) ended up having little playful fights with washing up water, ink, pasta and other types of food, and many other things. Including sword fighting with globes.
The 'Genitive Potion' is not actually Latin (shock, horror!) but the word genitive is uses to describe the declension of a noun which shows ownership (e.g. the girl's letter, 'puella epistolae', with epistolae being genitive showing that it belongs to the girl) As all the actual Latin words for owner were thing like 'possessor' I decided it worked better.
And that's about it, apart from to remind you there's no update next week.
Reviews and feedback, please!
