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Chapter Three
'The Uninvited Guest'
The broom was a Portkey, but how it got there, and why it was in the broom cupboard in Gryffindor Tower, she had to figure out later. Hermione heard music in the background and the sudden halt of conversation between many people.
She realized that it had become quiet quite suddenly. She smelled hard liquor and champagne, possibly prestige cuvee of Vins Mousseux. A sweet plumeria scent imbued the room, and the savor of heavy cologne and burnt parchment lingered in the air. It seemed as if she was in some sort of bar. However, except when she looked up, she found that she was in a beautiful, lofty, Edwardian-styled quarters. There were thick, heavy, custom-made drapes with deep golden threads crisscrossed to outline its beautifully embroidered Victorian patterns. A grand marble-framed hearth with historical styled tiles caught Hermione's eye; the fire blazing behind its cast iron arched inset was as blue as the ornately carved pillars that flanked the beautiful marble floors and the intricately designed 14th century ceiling. The room was dim with a scarlet glow in every corner illuminating the decorative fringes of oil paintings on the walls; one of them reminded her of Oviglio.
Hermione realized she had landed in the middle of the room, just beneath the spiral glass chandelier; the old broom Portkey lay inches from her feet. Hermione would have thought the beautiful room belonged to Muggles, if it hadn't been littered with blurry visions of wizards all around her.
When she looked up, she saw faces she wished over and over were just figments of an oddly realistic dream. But she was dead wrong. The situation she was in was very real indeed; confirmed by the silky, dreadful voice of the last person she wanted to see.
"Well, well, well…" Malfoy dragged the words as if it sounded more intimidating the longer it left his sinewy lips.
"What the hell do we have here?" Hermione stood up to her full height, the arrhythmic beatings of her heart banging against her ribcage as she realized she had crashed a private party that had not anticipated her arrival. Palms sweating and fingers twitching violently in closed fists, Hermione threw her head up and gazed at the approaching man, determined not to bow down to the son-of-a-bitch. Malfoy stood inches away from Hermione's face, eyeing her in a most satisfied manner.
Hermione knew that all eyes were on her, but never broke her stare from Lucius' malicious eyes. His face was stern and unyielding, and he gazed down upon her as if she were a filthy parasite.
"It's the Mudblood girl from Hogwarts. How the hell did she get here?" Macnair growled.
"How did she indeed, Ruloph? But I think the more important question is 'what is she doing here?" Lucius raised an eyebrow, awaiting her reply.
When Hermione didn't answer, Macnair stepped forward and shouted furiously, raising his hand to strike her across the face. "Answer him, you filthy piece of Mudblood!" But before his stroke fell, she seized her wand from beneath her cloak. Tossing her chestnut-colored hair to the side, she slipped her other hand beneath his cloak and pulled out his wand with his hands held still in an upraised position and before he could take another breath, her wand was aimed at his throat while his own conducted towards his genital area.
Macnair froze with his hand still in midair; his wide bloodshot eyes nearly protruded its sockets. The room went still, and it seemed that everyone had held their breath, slightly taken aback with the sudden retaliation. She inched herself forward and him backwards. She lowered her wand to his heart and with narrowed eyes and a voice dangerously malicious, she enunciated every word so he could hear the danger in each one spoken.
"Touch me and-I-will-hex-you-in-so-many-ways-you'll-need-your-Dark-Lord-to-undo-the-damage." Macnair glared with malicious eyes. Lucius hadn't even moved, a bit disconcerted that Macnair was cornered by a girl; let alone a Mudblood, and this Mudblood in particular.
Macnair, whose eyes were boiling with fury, was shaking fiercely from wanting to rip the bitch's head off; if only she hadn't cornered him so well and so suddenly; he was turned on.
Hermione, now locking gazes with Macnair, refused to yield to such trash, but had noticed Lucius from the corner of her eye. Unmoved by her quick-witted retaliation against his fellow Death Eater, Lucius simply tucked a hand under his elbow while holding his drink in the other. He slowly moved the glass of mousseux to his lips and eyed her from the thin rim of his glass. The atmosphere was uncanny and completely still. She knew she was in for, and would be dead in a matter of seconds. Despite her braveness and hard looks, her heart was pounding ridiculously fast, sure to knock her out soon if it didn't slow down. A shaken Hermione, furiously angry at the rather attractive, sallow faced man at the tips of her wand and his, was nearly lost in her thoughts when in an instant she was surrounded by a ring of formally dressed Death Eaters' wands pointing straight at her.
Hermione held her breath and steadied her shaking hand and realized that a rather corrupt smile had slid across Macnair's face. "You didn't honestly think you'd get away with cornering me and then live to talk about it, did you? I'll have your head for this, mudwhore." His voice was so soft now that it was barely a whisper. "If I'm lucky, I'll take you for my own keeping and dismember you myself. I rather like a good challenge." Then, looking at the wands she held ever carefully in her hands, he narrowed his eyes and said through curled lips, "And if you're lucky, I'll let you keep your arms," he sneered with desperate coveting eyes that never left hers.
Hermione knew the sick bastard was bluffing till it hit her that Macnair worked at the Ministry beheading creatures for a living.
He looked at her hungrily and let out a soft, groaning bark.
"Well, as fun as that sounds, I don't think that would be necessary," came a mellifluous voice from outside the ring of Death Eaters.
Everyone turned to see who had spoken… but Hermione would have recognized the voice anywhere. Snape was leaning on a back pillar, his features hardly visible, though his lean body was outlined by the scarlet glow from behind him. Hermione was shocked to see Snape there and more at what he had just let out. Everyone had turned their heads towards him, and Lucius' face turned from deadpan to shock.
"And what do you mean by that, Severus?" Lucius asked venomously. Snape didn't answer Malfoy. Instead, he looked from Lucius to Hermione, and walked slowly over to her.
"Hermione, put down the wand before you sever something of value to Macnair." Hermione looked at Snape and back to a cautious Ruloph.
Hermione, still in her battle stance, felt her Potions Master's deft fingers glide across her arm and down to her slightly shaken fingers. He took Macnair's wand away from her tight grasp, effortlessly.
Macnair snatched his wand from Snape, stepped back and pointed it towards her.
Snape turned to Macnair and eyed him dangerously. "That won't be necessary, Ruloph though I understand why you should feel threatened by her," he said insultingly to a livid Macnair.
"I thought I told you not to follow me when I attend my important business, you foolish girl," he said, turning to Hermione. Hermione, puzzled at what Snape was playing at, simply looked at him and didn't answer, which was exactly what he had hoped she had the wits to do.
"So she knows about tonight then, Severus," Malfoy asked through gritted teeth, determined to find out what it was exactly that Snape was up to.
"Of course she does, Lucius. Doesn't your wife know where you disappear to in the middle of the night?"
"Is this Mudblood your wife?"
"She could be," he said with an air of prospect.
The room went quiet and a suspicious Malfoy eyed an impassive looking Snape.
"What are you playing at, Severus?" Lucius asked suspiciously.
"Well, Lucius, I obviously gave you too much credit. I thought you would see the obvious." Lucius, still eyeing Severus, turned to Hermione and curled his lip to the side in disgust. "She's with me - So I advise…" Snape turned to Macnair and eyed him intently, "that you return her to me with everything… intact. But I'm sure that won't be a problem, Ruloph, seeing as how she nearly dismembered you first," he leered wickedly.
Snape turned to look at an unhappy Macnair and then back to Lucius.
"And why is it that no one has ever heard of this… coadunation," Avery interrupted.
"Frelerik, please, don't use words you can choke on. I'm sure you could figure out who the girl is and piece the parts together… or would you like me to break it down for you into diagrams?" A rather intimidated Avery was abashed by Snape's usual cruel remarks. Snape's lips curled into something Hermione figured had intended to be a smile, or at least a nasty one.
Snape was just as nasty and intimidating to his fellow Death Eaters, as she knew him to be to her fellow students—well, except to Malfoy, of course. Which of the two was nastier, she could not tell at the moment.
"Well, Severus, a Mudblood and a student. You're either very desperate, or very stupid. And what may I ask was the old fool's reaction to your… er… arrangement."
"He is against it, and I've given him my word that I will not see her."
"And you see her still, why? What do you see in such- filth?" Hermione threw Malfoy a vile look. Malfoy turned to her, his breath heavy against her face. "What could possibly interest you, Severus?" His eyes running slowly across her breasts and down between her thighs, "if it's innocence you want, I could offer that to you," Lucius said, turning his eyes to a glaring Snape.
"Lucius, please, don't insult the girl so clumsily." Snape looked slyly at Malfoy than back to Hermione. "I would hardly call her innocent." Everyone in the room laughed at this, and Hermione feeling tramped on by the man she had always considered a bastard couldn't have placed him higher on her shit-list.
"Well," said Lucius. "I must say I'm rather disappointed in your insipid taste in women, but if she's the flavor of the week, we still have a problem."
"She's here to stay."
"Is that a joke? Don't insult my intelligence, Severus; I know who the girl is. Do you honestly think she will not run back to Potter and tell him of our private meeting?"
"Tell me something, Lucius, how did you think I attained most of the information about Potter for this meeting?"
"Are you telling me she is working against Potter? That's more absurd than Avery using words that exceeds his vocabulary."
Avery broke in…"Uh, could you two not…?"
"I assure you, Lucius, she's my accomplice behind our plans."
"I think Draco would say otherwise."
"So would Avery, and he's here. I doubt he has any idea what we've been discussing for the past fifteen minutes."
"You know I came third in my…", Avery interrupted again.
"It's not his fault incompetence runs deep in his family."
"Well, Avery, I believe you've just received a compliment from Lucius."
"Well I'm not as incompetent as you think I…"
"So what you're telling me, Severus, is that the girl is now retrieving information for the Dark Lord?" Lucius interrupted.
"No. For me."
"And why would she turn against Potter for you?"
Snape smiled at the anxious man and turned to Hermione. Uneasy at how Severus was going to get himself out of this one, she eyed him warily. Snape stepped closer to her, his tall, thin stature towering over her. She felt her heart stop abruptly before it jumped to a hundred and fifty beats a minute. He brushed strands of hair off her face and looked at her with indulgent eyes, as she had never seen before.
The scent of his cologne invaded her senses, and she felt the pit of her stomach knotting up. Her breath, unsteady, was encouraging her heart's misbehavior. Her heart pounded faster than it had all night, eventually missing a beat or two. He tucked the loosely wound strands gently behind her ear and ran his finger along her jaw line, down her neck, across her chest, between her breasts, and then stopped; along with her heart. Hermione had tilted her head back slightly, her eyes closed she released her breath and shook beneath his long deft fingers; her mind was completely blank, though her emotions were overwhelming. He saw what he was doing to her and moved closer so his body brushed hers lightly; shivers invaded her body, shocking her erotically. She let out a soft moan and clasped her fingers around the side of his shirt and pulled him closer to her.
Various pairs of eyes looked at her hungrily from around the room and Snape, who stopped abruptly and stepped away from Hermione, heard her let out a sharp "No."
Snape, feeling disgusted inside, turned to Lucius, who in a fleeting moment, he noticed, had an aching look on his face before it disappeared.
"Does that answer your question?" Lucius stared back with a vacant expression.
"Well, if that is all for the night, I believe I shall return to Hogwarts and take back what's mine - from your hungry perverted eyes."
Snape heard murmurs and protests of "aw's" and "no's."
"Why don't you leave her here for the night, Severus?" said a familiar broad-jawed pale face; Hermione couldn't quite remember which name it belonged to.
"I'm afraid it is past her bedtime, and Hermione has a long night ahead of her still."
"Well, aren't you the romantic?" said a blonde older replica of Pansy Parkinson from behind them. Severus ignored her and took a rather flushed Hermione by the arm and led her out the room through large double oak doors. Hermione could feel Lucius' eyes burning through the back of her neck before the doors closed behind her.
Hermione was surprised to see that the doors had led her and Snape to a deserted hallway that she knew was not a part of the room she had just left. It was a long hallway that seemed to go on forever, with a door or two on the side, and eventually a mirror or a window. Snape had been leading the way, ignoring Hermione the whole time. Hermione didn't dare to speak. It became very awkward; she wished she were anywhere but there with him. She was too busy thinking and feeling how ashamed she was with what happened in the room at the party that she didn't realize that Snape had stopped abruptly in the middle (so it seemed) of the hallway. She bumped in to him. He threw his head around and glared at her, but still refused to say anything. Hermione quickly looked away and followed Snape behind a wooden door and into a dark room where he took her arm and placed her hand on a jar on the windowsill beneath his and she felt that pull she hated so much when she traveled by Portkey.
She landed and looked up to see that they were in a dark alley. Snape walked away from her and she followed instantly; he took a left and then a right, and did so for the next five minutes. Hermione was nearly dizzy from the zigzagging, but still hadn't dared to open her mouth to protest. Snape halted again, but this time, next to a metal trashcan that reeked from moldy fish and a hint of chocolate pudding… odd.
Snape took her hand and pulled her towards him. Shocked, Hermione did not know what to expect, when all of a sudden she was in Hogsmeade, standing by the gates leading up to Hogwarts. With a sigh of relief, she turned around and faced Snape to thank him for getting her out of the mess she put herself in tonight, when suddenly she felt hard hands slam against her back, pushing her from behind; she flew forward and collided with a thick tree, when she was suddenly whipped around by her Potions Master to see the wrath brewing in his eyes.
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