Attention all Weasley fans! I've been following an absolutely hilarious AU fiction written by my Beta-Reader, Born To Be Wild, about Harry and Hermione's summer of fun spent at The Burrow. Go check it out!
Chapter Twenty Two:
"Pass the bacon, please," Eleanora asked Harry thickly, through a mouthful of toast.
Harry looked up from his copy of Quidditch Monthly and handed the loaded platter to her.
"Ugh, bacon and marmalade?" he asked incredulously, as Eleanora carefully placed several slices of bacon onto her slice of toast.
She grinned. "Don't knock it until you've tried it," she said, taking a large bite. "And besides, you're the one who eats Bertie Bott's with mashed potato."
"Fair point," Harry conceded with smile, turning back to his article.
"Where's Hermione this morning," asked Ron, glancing at the empty chair to Eleanora's side.
"She said she had to go to the library," she explained, roughly brushing crumbs for her robe, "to get some books for ancient runes."
"At eight o'clock in the bloody morning?" Ron said, rolling his eyes. The girl is stark-staring mad."
Eleanora grinned. She had told the studious brunette exactly the same thing earlier in the dormitory, but Hermione had been steadfast and had slipped off to the library as the others had trooped to breakfast. She wouldn't say what she was researching, but Eleanora knew better by now than to press the matter: Nothing came between Hermione and her books.
"Shall we save her something to have at break," Ron asked a little too casually, "because she's going to have missed breakfast?"
Eleanora and Harry looked up at him, small smiles creasing their faces.
"That's thoughtful," Harry said innocently, winking at Eleanora, who was quietly sipping her coffee.
Ron blushed a deep maroon, his freckled face not an entirely dissimilar colour from his school jumper.
"What?" he mumbled embarrassedly, "it's just some breakfast for Merlin's sakes."
Eleanora tried to wipe the smirk she felt forming on her lips. Just some breakfast, she thought amusedly. Though she had only known the three friends for a matter of some weeks, she was not at all oblivious to the subtle crackle of attraction that existed between the petite brunette and the gangling redhead. Though Ron might tease Hermione mercilessly over her unbending dedication to schoolwork, both Eleanora and Harry had noticed that his repartee was born out of a kind of fond familiarity as opposed to any real malice, and that during Hermione' sporadic absences from their company, he always seemed rather subdued, his lively humour dulled somewhat. However, try as they might to draw Ron out of his denial, they were met with the same sceptical glares and mutterings.
Ron was saved from further interrogation and embarrassment by the sudden roar overhead of flapping wings as hundreds of owls descended upon the Great Hall, letters and parcels clutched in their formidable talons and beaks.
A large snowy owl alighted on Harry's shoulder, nibbling his ear affectionately. He plucked a large brown envelope from her beak and fed her a small morsel of toast which she crunched enthusiastically.
However, Ron's attention was fixed firmly on a colossal eagle owl which circled menacingly below the enchanted ceiling, today a moody pewter grey sky, stippled with ominous black clouds. He followed the powerfully built bird's course nervously with his eyes, which widened to the size of dinner plates as the monstrous bird swooped down with lightening-like speed, scattering the other birds in its wake and landed solidly on the back of the empty chair next to Eleanora. It blinked its large ochre eyes disdainfully, fleetingly reminding her of someone, before holding out a lethal looking foot to which a single rolled parchment was attached with a leather thong.
Cautiously removing the parchment, her eyes warily regarding the dangerously curved claws, Eleanora silently wondered who on earth this immense creature could belong to. Her father always sent an overworked, bedraggled Ministry owl, who would routinely collapse on her shoulder and insist on devouring at least two pieces of bacon before going on it's way again.
She cracked open the thick emerald green seal on the parchment and carefully unfolded it, a faint jolt of excitement gripping her, as she saw exactly who the magnificent eagle owl belonged to.
Shielding the parchment from Ron's curious gaze with her arm, she read,
Miss D'Souza,
Your first lesson in the basic art of duelling will take place at eight o'clock this evening in the Duelling Gallery, on the fifth floor corridor.
Should this arrangement be agreeable to you, send affirmation by means of this owl.
Until this evening,
Severus Snape.
Eleanora read the letter through twice, then turned it over and fished in her numerous pockets for a quill. Finding one, she scribbled a brief reply on the back as short as its forerunner.
Professor Snape,
That sounds just fine.
Until then, (unless I've been gored to death by your monster of an owl.)
Eleanora.
Having silently beseeched the owl to stand still while she reattached the parchment to its leg, she cagily held out a piece of buttered toast. The owl stared at her loftily, then, totally ignoring the toast, deftly swiped a sausage from her plate, then flew off before she could retaliate, its formidable wings nearly clipping her head.
"Damn cheek," she grumbled, turning her gaze back to the table. Ron continued to watch her with a watchful eye.
"Who was that from?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Oh, just an old friend from Beauxbatons," Eleanora replied rather too quickly, slurping down the dregs of her coffee.
"Right," he replied, obviously unconvinced.
Harry however was not to be so easily deterred.
"Secret boyfriend?" he asked with a mischievous grin.
Eleanora snorted. "Highly unlikely," she replied, rolling her eyes, and wondering just how different their reaction would be if they really knew who the sender of that letter. She guessed that Ron would very quickly lose his voracious appetite for one.
Sensing that no more could be gleaned on the matter, Harry quickly turned to his favourite topic of conversation: Quidditch.
"First practice of the year tonight," he told them excitedly, practically rubbing his hands in glee.
Eleanora longed for Hermione to be sitting next to her so that they could roll their eyes in perfect tandem as had become their customary antidote to what they had nicknamed "Quidditch Talk."
Instead she let her thoughts drift to what the evening had in store for her, with just a hint of trepidation. Though she had, as requested by her godfather, attempted to forge a somewhat more workable relationship with her professor, there was still a tangible air of animosity that existed between the headstrong girl and the stern man, and whilst the outright hostility that Snape had previously exhibited towards Eleanora had been replaced by a grim tolerance, theirs was still a far from gracious rapport. The brief letter had been a perfect quintessence of their fraught affiliation: civil, distant and cold.
Eleanora frowned to herself. She had almost preferred the state of out-and-out conflict that had been replaced by this distant civility, and in truth rather missed the dangerous tension of potions lessons that had evaporated soon after the previous weeks meeting with her godfather. Since then, lessons had been, in her opinion at least, rather dull, though to confess to her classmates that she grieved for his constant taunts and acerbic insults would have been unthinkable.
At that moment, the bell for the commencement of morning lessons rang sonorously around the Great Hall, shocking the three friends into a flurry of hasty movement. Eleanora scraped back her chair, flinging her bag over her shoulder, grinning at Harry as Ron carefully wrapped up three slices of toast in a linen napkin, and tucked them into his own bag. He looked up and caught them staring at him in amusement.
"Oh, sod off," he muttered, his ears a vivid shade of scarlet.
* * * * * * * * * *
The shimmering fumes of the deep purple potion rose in an iridescent miasma, cloaking the harsh features of Snape as he stooped over the cauldron, a slim glass vial in hand. Lifting a ladle from the depths of the cast iron cauldron, he carefully poured a measure of the dusky liquid into the vial, deftly corking it, labelling it and consigning it to the depths of his desk draw.
Glancing at the clock he realised with a frown that once again he had missed dinner. Whilst he would be perfectly happy to abstain from all meals taken in the company of the staff, Dumbledore insisted that he attend regularly. However, he was sure that he would be forgiven on this occasion as it was imperative that Lupin's potion be prepared in time for the next week's full moon.
The Wolfsbane potion's correct preparation was essential for the safety of both Lupin himself and for that of the staff and teachers, as without it, the excruciating transformation made by the man each month would become an all encompassing one, altering his mind as well as his body, reducing him to nothing more than an inhuman beast, dangerous and savage.
Snape knew only too well the full extent of Lupin's hideous alterations. In his school day's Sirius Black, ever keen to lead others into peril had convinced him to follow the boy down the secret passage leading from the castle to the Shrieking Shack. He had been saved, moments from an almost certain death by that dratted fool Potter who had followed close behind, dragging him out of the passage as he stumbled upon the werewolf in the agonizing throws of transformation. That unfortunate incident had left him in the undesirable position of being wholly in Potter's debt, something perhaps more painful to bear than what would have been his final moments at the mercy of the ferocious werewolf.
Clearing the litter of jars and vials from the work bench, Snape pondered what was to be the remainder of his evening. Why in Merlin's name he had agreed to tutor that girl was utterly beyond him, and he had spent many an hour attempting to formulate a plausible excuse, but he knew that back down now would have been to admit defeat to the clamouring chorus of insatiable voices that haunted his waking hours with sly taunts and sing-song mockery.
He felt nothing for the girl.
Nodding in silent agreement with his resolution, he caught sight of himself in the lead paned glass panel of the storage cupboard door. His ebony hair hung limply over the pale stretch of his face, casting limpid shadows over his dark eyes which glinted coldly in the candle-lit gloom of the dungeons. The high collar of his black silk frock coat graced an elegant neck and pointed to the obstinate curve of his jaw line, at ease with the ascetic vigour of his face. The heavy fabric clung intimately to his shrouded form, revealing in its modesty broad shoulders, striated with wiry muscles and slim build that spoke of hidden strength beneath its dark mantle.
Severus Snape had never been a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination. His face, which might otherwise have wielded a stern appeal, was too often creased in a thunderous scowl to be considered attractive, and the dominating presence of his aquiline nose threw the sensitively carved cheekbones into indiscernible silhouette.
Shaking himself out of his contemplative reverie, Snape picked up his wand from the desk and strode towards the door, pausing to perform a series of complex wards upon the entrance to his chambers. Snape was a man of secretive nature, but then he had much to conceal.
* * * * * * * * *
Eleanora pelted down the echoing cloisters, her pewter grey robes ballooning behind her.
I must look like some kind of overgrown bat, she thought to herself with a grin, as she skidded around the corner, nearly colliding with a suit of particularly disgruntled armour.
"Sorry!" she yelled out loudly over her shoulder, already half way up the stairs.
Gasping for breath and flushed in the face after her run, she arrived at the imposing façade of the entrance to the duelling gallery. A pair of tall oaken doors barred her way, stretching up to a high vaulted ceiling. The walls, painted an ominous blood red were richly adorned with shields and other duelling memorabilia and she winced as she caught sight of a particularly menacing looking mace with what looked suspiciously like century old blood stains.
Smoothing down her hair with some limited success, she found herself wishing that the tangle of anxiety in the pit of her stomach could be soothed so easily.
Tugging at the handle of the door, she found her to vexation that it would not open. Stepping back, she placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head in puzzlement. She tried again, yanking at the handles with all her strength. Still, they wouldn't open.
She huffed, her cheeks reddening yet more in irritation.
Giving them a final almighty heave, she nearly fell over backwards from the force, but still the doors stood unmoved.
She glanced around accusingly, wondering whether this was Snape's ridiculous idea of a joke. But she saw nothing amiss and frowned at the seemingly immovable doors. Her hand snaked into a pocket and withdrew a slim wand. She pointed it at the doors, muttering,
"Aloharmo – "
At that moment the supposedly locked doors flew open, revealing a very irate Snape standing, arms folded angrily across his black clad chest.
"You are late, Miss D'Souza," he intoned dangerously.
She tucked her wand up her sleeve, a bewildered expression on her face.
"The doors," she began confusedly, "they wouldn't open."
Snape hitched an eyebrow in a scornful sneer, his eyes flashing over the tip of her wand protruding from her sleeve.
"So you thought you would use a little magic instead of common sense," he said in a bored tone. "If you had used just one ounce of the sagacity that your godfather credits you with, you would have tried to push the doors open in the correct manner instead of infernally pulling at them."
Eleanora realising her foolish mistake bit her lip in embarrassment, and lowered her eyes to the floor, cringing at her lack of common sense, something over which her father constantly berated her.
"Still, we must at least be thankful that you deigned to use a wand this time," he added sarcastically, again glancing at the wand now clutched in her hand.
Eleanora gritted her teeth in frustration at his taunts, but remained silent, painfully aware of the disdain that Snape must now hold her in, her constant application in his lessons, which she had hoped had earned her a sort of grudging respect, undone in a fleeting moment of foolishness.
He stared at her, his gimlet-like eyes boring steadily into her, seeking out her own eyes from under that weighty veil of hair. A moment of painfully awkward silence ensued, Eleanora rocking gently on the balls of her feet.
"Do you intend to spend the whole of the lesson skulking silently out in this hall?" he asked pointedly.
She lifted her gaze, hoping it was one of quiet defiance, but the prickles of mortification that danced uncomfortably over her skin told her that she most probably resembled nothing more than a shame faced child, caught doing something she shouldn't have been. Strange, how Snape always made her feel like she had been caught in the throes of some forbidden pursuit.
He stepped lightly aside and she pushed past him through the door way, a twinge of exhilaration mingling with her fading discomfiture as her hand fleetingly brushed his thought the overlong sleeve of her working robes.
Eleanora had never been one to unduly worry about clothes, but that evening she had spent an agonising five minutes critically surveying the contents of her wardrobe, her eyes roving over the selection of robes. She had dismissed all but one set as "too bright," or "too drab," or "too thick," and had finally settled on the pewter grey silk as both practical and suitably flattering, the dark iridescence of the material enhancing the shadowy glint of her eyes. Pulling on the robes, she had realised with a jolt that she was already a matter of minutes late, and her stomach clenched with dread anticipation of Snape's likely torrent of mordant castigation.
She had fled out of the Gryffindor common room as if she had an irate flock of Hippogriffs on her heels, and had fended off Ron's hasty questioning with a conclusive sounding, "I'll be back before curfew!"
Now, she stood mutely before the imposing professor, her uneasily clenched hands hidden by the soft folds of her robes. Snape, she noticed with well concealed interest, had cast off his usual sombre black teaching robes and stood in a sleek black frock coat, buttoned up to the neck with a single row of innumerable jet buttons. She idly pondered whether he stood each morning, painstakingly doing them up by hand or whether he employed the skills of "foolish wand waving" he seemed to deplore so. It seemed rather incongruous that her godfather had chosen someone who seemed so fundamentally opposed to wand work as her duelling tutor, but Eleanora knew better by now than to probe too deeply into the sometimes seemingly eccentric gambits of the aged wizard.
"I do hope that idiotic error of yours will have firmly impressed upon you the first lesson you will learn here," he drawled, fixing her with a searching gaze, withdrawing his own wand from his pocket, and twirling it absently between his long fingers, luminously pale against the deep blackness of his coat.
She stared at him questioningly, bridling a little at his blunt citation of her so called "idiotic error."
He sighed, rolling his dark eyes to the ceiling. "The first thing you must learn in order to master the skills of duelling is that every aspect of every duel must be approached with some vestige of rationale. One cannot simply wave one's wand blindly and expect great things to happen."
Eleanora snorted a little too loudly, then turned it into an implausible cough, stifling it with her sleeve.
"If this all depends on common sense then I better just leave now," she said, wrinkling her nose, noting his displeased scowl deepening at her words.
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment through narrowed eyes then abruptly turned away from her, one elegant hand gesturing towards the door.
"By all means, leave. It makes no odds to me."
His voice was cool, wholly disinterested and Eleanora felt suddenly aggrieved at his lack of emotion, all too aware of her own racing heartbeat which skipped and danced in nervous abandon in stark contrast to the professor's impassive demeanour.
She glanced towards the door for a moment, and then turned her head resolutely back to face her duelling partner. In several respects, she noted gladly, they were evenly matched. Though she knew that physical strength had little significance in magical duelling, she was pleased to see that Snape stood only a few inches taller than her own impressive height, though his still slim frame was broader and undoubtedly stronger. With an almost imperceptible smirk she relished the advantage she knew she had when it came to magical ability itself. Though she knew Snape was a powerful wizard, capable of strong magic, he did not possess her own aptitude for wandless incantations and she planned to use this to her advantage.
Though had Eleanora studied the resolute figure of her potions master more attentively she would have noticed the indiscernible curl of his own lips as his fingers curled around his wand and he tossed his head. Suddenly his limp ebony locks were restrained in a leather thong, the graceful tendrils swept back, throwing the full light of the autumn evening that streamed in through the high windows onto the strong contours of his face.
She stared in ill-concealed admiration. His face suddenly looked more youthful, the deep lines thrown into invisibility by the warm glow of the waning sun and she was afforded a fleeting glimpse of how he must have looked in his younger years before the weary toil of the war took its toll upon him; body and soul.
"If you are quite finished staring, Miss D'Souza," he snapped tartly, turning smartly on his heel, "we shall begin." He seemed aberrantly uncomfortable under her scrutinising gaze and Eleanora detected the palest flush of colour striped across his hollowed cheeks, warmed by the touch of the fading day.
He strode nine carefully measured paces across the highly polished wooden floor of the duelling platform, his heels clicking loudly and waited for her to do the same, the dispassionate scowl back in place.
Eleanora assumed her position, but did not see the intensifying glower that lined the potions master's face as he watched her fairly swagger across the platform, exuding over-confidence in every movement.
Turning round slowly, she faced him again, her feet thrown apart, shoulders squared. She clutched her wand firmly in her right hand, the cool feel of the wood a comforting constant in her hot hand.
Her father had spent her thirteenth summer teaching her how to duel. Day after searing, sultry day he had dragged her in from the lush gardens of their then home, and much to her displeasure devoted his time to ensuring that she learnt the basic rudiments of magical conflict. Having been separated from her father for much of that year she would have preferred their time spent together to be of a more frivolous nature, but whilst she may have been able to manipulate him in most things, in this he had been strangely adamant. Still, after so long an estrangement due to his work commitments, she craved any attention she could get from him, and had delighted him in performing well in her allotted tasks. It was with this same desire that she planted herself in alert readiness before Snape, coveting his respect and admiration in that same way her father heaped praise upon her, as liberally as he doled out castigation on other less felicitous occasions. The irksome voice of doubt at the back of her mind piped up,
"Is that all you want?"
Eleanora frowned and clutched her wand more tightly.
"Just his respect and admiration?" it persisted, "or something more?"
She shook her head skittishly in an attempt to dislodge the infuriating voice. The voice of doubt, but perhaps also, she admitted grudgingly, the voice of truth.
"Now," he said, "the deep, silky baritone of his voice reverberating richly around the gallery. "I wish you to attempt to disarm me. You may use whatever means you wish."
Eleanora smirked openly at his use of the word "attempt," but her grin was wiped by his deadpan addition of,
"Within reason."
Damn, she thought. So much for the Blasting Curse. She doubted very much whether Snape would consider finding himself flat on his back on the other side of the gallery "within reason."
Better be the Relashio then, she thought quickly, as Snape was already bent in a chivalrous bow, the arch of his slender back infinitely more graceful than her own hurried curtsey.
She raised her wand hand above her head, drawing her left arm across her upper body like an invisible shield. Her fingers twitched impatiently, but in a rare show of foresight she realised the danger of jumping the proverbial gun in this particular instance. The predatory glint in Snape's eyes told her that whilst she might have the edge now, he would gladly even the balance with a hefty dose of detentions later should she so much as shoot off a spark before the order of commencement. A bewitched pocket watch that Snape had carefully removed from his breast pocket and set down on a nearby chair was acting as the starting signal, and Eleanora glanced at it anxiously.
At its shrill toll, she quickly whipped her casting hand over her upper body creating a deflection shield, and flicked her wand at Snape, shouting,
"Relashio!"
However her fiery jet of burning sparks was misfired into a low rafter as she was knocked clean off her feet and lifted several feet into the air, her lissom body landing with a heavy thud upon the floor, some feet beyond the platform, her wrist, held out to break her fall, splintering with a painfully audible crack.
Disorientated, she shook her head, trying to rid her eyes of their troop of dancing stars. Her mind reeled with confusion more than concussion, and she hoisted herself up on her elbows, trying to ignore the sharp pain in her wrist. Into her field of vision swam the figure of Snape, standing above her, something curiously like concern lighting his obsidian eyes. However as she opened her mouth, the concern hardened into scornful disdain.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?" she gasped, eyes flashing, wincing as her wrist buckled under her weight.
Snape merely stood over her, so close that she had to bend her head right back to meet his gaze, and said in measured tones,
"Observe the second rule of duelling: There is no such concept as 'within reason.' If you think for a second that an opponent will play within the rules then you are naïve as well as impetuous."
She spluttered with anger.
"But you told me 'within reason!' What the hell was I meant to do?"
He hitched one eyebrow in calm response to her flaring temper.
"You were meant to do exactly what you did," he replied evenly, still towering over her prone form.
Her eyebrows knitted in puzzlement.
"You mean the whole sodding point of this was for me to end up flat on my back, whilst you stood over me and told me what a silly girl I was?"
Snape noticed her hands trembling with rage and he took a step back, a strange pleasure coursing through at the sight of her anger. For weeks they had existed in a strange limbo of suspended emotions during potions lessons, his snide comments as noticeably absent as her fiery temper as they studiously ignored one another. Eleanora dutifully completed her work on time, and received it back with a pleasing grade, and in turn he refrained from goading the volatile girl with derisive remarks and contemptuous taunts. Though he would never admit to it, he sorely missed their unofficial verbal sparring matches, and often had to bite his tongue to prevent the escape of a deliciously acerbic remark that would have immediately elicited the heated response he so craved of her.
However, judging by the fire that danced wildly in her eyes and the grim slash of her mouth, he had successfully unleashed what promised to be nothing short of an overpowering display of furious fireworks.
Still lying on the floor, her robes puddled around her hips, she once again made a futile attempt to stand up, her wrist hanging limply at her side. For the first time, Severus consciously noticed that she wore nothing but a pair of muggle cut-off denim shorts under her sombre grey robes. He recognised them as the same pair that she had worn that late summer day and once again he found his eyes quickly perusing the tanned expanse of her long legs, their slimness contrasting almost comically with her heavy winter boots, from under which peeked a pair of clumsily knitted maroon socks.
Taking a deep breath and tearing his gaze back up to her face, now reddened in rage, replied in irritatingly cool tones,
"Correct, Miss D'Souza. The whole point of this valuable exercise was to rid you of your wholly erroneous belief that you are somewhat invincible."
"I've never thought that I'm at all invincible!" she protested ardently, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Then you do a remarkably convincing job of acting that way," he replied smoothly, "so far, it has only been a matter of dumb luck that you are not in traction in the hospital wing, after your foolish dalliance with the staircases."
Eleanora slapped her palm on the cool wooden floor.
"Why the hell does everything going on and on about that?" she asked to no one in particular. "Nothing happened – I'm still here!"
Snape smiled snidely. "And for that, be assured that we are all eternally grateful."
She glared at him and shot back, "Excuse me while I go and fetch a mop and bucket to wipe up all the sarcasm you just dripped all over the floor."
His voice suddenly turned deadly serious and his eyes bored into her uncomfortably.
"Though you may not realise it, Miss D'Souza, you have a great responsibility to those around you. You have been gifted with astonishing powers but so far I have seen or heard of you doing nothing but abusing them."
Eleanora opened her mouth in indignation but he cut her off.
"With the proper training you could be a true asset to the Order but as you are, you are nothing but an arrogant schoolgirl, the expediency of your powers outweighed by your carelessness and foolish disobedience, and so you will remain until you begin to apply yourself to something other than the production of Dung Bombs and exploding toilet seats."
The room was plunged into silence as the girl reeled in shock. No one had dared speak to her like that before and she felt hot humiliation mix with annoyance and run throughout her body, inflaming her senses and heightening her fury. She didn't even consider the need to inform him that it had not been her that had masterminded the toilet seats, (that had been particular flash of brilliance from Terry Boot.) Her hands burned with a latent heat and with some difficulty she gracelessly hoisted herself up from the floor and stood before the taciturn potions master.
"What the hell gives you the right to come over all high-and-mighty with me?" she demanded the tips of her hair crackling audibly.
Snape stepped so close that she could feel his breath hot on her face. He grasped her shoulders and shook her hard, his fingers pressing uncomfortably into her flesh.
"What gives me the right?" he hissed at her, his teeth bared in quiet fury. "I cannot help but look at you and see in you the shadow of another, also proud, conceited and convinced that he was untouchable. He craved power and recognition and went to any lengths to get it."
He released her and stepped back, his breathing laboured, and his face suffused with an ugly flush.
"Whilst we may plainly dislike each other, I have no wish to see you walk the same path that he did," he muttered half to himself, a hand pressed to his ashen temple. "No one deserves that."
The fading sun suddenly vanished from the high window and without its pinkish blush, the room seemed cold and hostile. Snape had walked slowly to the window and was standing perfectly still, staring out over the Quidditch pitches, his back to Eleanora who remained awkwardly on the platform, afraid of breaking the deafening silence that had descended over them.
"You may go," he said sharply, not turning around. "I will expect you at the same time next week."
She stood dumbly having not really heard his words. Her mind spun, and she frowned in bewilderment. She had a vague recollection of en nd shielding his face your wand?"rds.breaking the deafening silcne that had descened over them. t schoolgirlhim raising his wand hand, his left hand she had noticed, his other hand shielding his face, and then he had flicked his right hand, then all she had seen had been the rafters spiralling over head as she sailed through the air, landing with sickening thump.
"How did you manage to knock me off my feet when I never even saw you move your wand?" she asked suspiciously, her uninjured hand placed gingerly on her bruised hip.
He turned slowly around, the half light casting fluid shadows onto his face, illuminating the sly smirk playing upon his thin lips.
"It would seem, would it not, Miss D'Souza, that you are not the only one who possesses an aptitude for wandless magic?"
Eleanora closed her eyes as comprehension suddenly dawned upon her. Now that she thought about it, it seemed obvious: The way he seemed to scorn upon wand work, and how he never appeared to carry a wand during lessons yet often cruelly evaporated a student's ill-prepared potion, leaving them with an empty cauldron and a failing grade.
Opening her eyes again, she found him staring strangely at her, as if he took pleasure in his destruction of what she had imprudently thought to be her advantage.
"And next time, if you leave your legs uncovered by the hex deflection charm then it is a certainty that you will once again end the lesson flat on your back."
She bit her lip, but made no retort, unsure of herself in light of Snape's revealing diatribe. Whilst she may not have been the most insightful of girls, she possessed enough acuity to half realise that the mysterious "he" that the potions master spoke of was none other then Snape himself.
Having relinquished her only weapon against him, she felt small and vulnerable in his presence, standing in the long, engulfing shadow created by his body in the twilight of the window.
"You would be advised to take that wrist to the hospital wing for Madame Pomfrey to look over," he added, turning away from her again, indicating that the lesson was over and that any further conversation was superfluous.
She marched to the door and flung it open, bathing the room in the blindingly bright light from the corridor outside, silhouetting Snape's slim form against the shadows of dusk. Taking one last glance at the silent figure over her shoulder, she slammed the door shut, still painfully aware of the throbbing of her wrist.
Trudging down the stairs, she came to the corridor that led to the hospital wing. She stared down the snaking passageway for a moment, then turned away, instead taking the narrow staircase that led back to the Gryffindor common room.
She could fix her wrist herself with a simple splinting charm but the persistent gnawing of uncertainty in the pit of her stomach, she suspected would not be so easily remedied.