Disclaimer: *Checks passport for identity* Huh. How strange. I'm not JK Rowling. So that must mean that…oh! I don't own any of this. Of course.
Er, yes I suck beyond belief. And I don't expect any one to still be reading this, but I'm posting it anyways. I'm sorry? Does that suffice at all? There has been a lot of stuff going on in my life lately, including social stuff, school stuff, and a few creative pieces that bugged me to write them. Fan fiction was relegated to the farthest corner of my mind, and I'm still not certain when and where I am going to find the time to write 5,000 words for my other fic. But I will don't worry, because I promised that I won't abandon this fic, just that it may take a really long time sometimes to get the next chapter up. I'm still trying to figure out the plot, and if you couldn't tell, I am new to writing very long fics and I find having to make a timetable rather difficult, so I am sorry, and as always, feel free to make any and all corrections and criticisms, please review, and above all, I hope you enjoy the continuation. Avril Lavigne ought to be killed. Thank you. Oh, and of course, anyone who wishes to be informed of the next chapter, since y'all never known when the next one is coming, feel free to tell me in a review or email me at amariran@yahoo.com and I will add you to the email notification.
As The Seasons Decay, Chapter Thirteen
Severus Snape was rarely at a loss as to what to do in a situation. When one is a spy, there is preparation for everything. Encountering a sleeping child, nearly turning blue from the cold of the dungeons, was not one of them. Still, he rose to the occasion. Or he would, as soon as his feet began to move. He shook himself invisibly, willing his brain to decide on a course of action. He knew that he ought to take the easy way out. The Death Eater way out; shout at the child till she woke up, abuse her verbally for her stupidity in falling asleep in such an ill-suited place, make random snide comments upon her person, friends, and House, and rush her off to bed with the loss of many tens of points. Well, all right, admittedly Lucius would probably have managed to add rape and screwing with her mind in there, but his point still stood. And then there was the other way, the thing he wanted to do. Simply pick her up, return her to her rooms, and get some sleep himself. There were some definite benefits to the second choice; lack of hassle being the most dominant. But, as happened so often in his life, that nasty crone who calls herself Fate intervened and took the choice out of his hands.
Hermione blinked her eyes open, wincing at the soreness from her scrubbing at them with the rough fabric of her robes. The first thing she became aware of was that she was very, very cold. The second was that there was a figure a few feet away from her, standing stock still in the dim lighting of the dungeons, just staring at her. She could not make out the features of the person, aside from judging that they must be male from their general figure. Her mind was too sluggish with the dregs of her interrupted and uncomfortable sleep to make the shift from dungeons to tall figure equal her dour professor, and instead began to race in circles and scream at the top of its lungs ' Slytherin, Slytherin!' It was well known that meeting a male member of Slytherin house late at night anywhere was a bad idea, but in their own lair…Hermione nearly whimpered and backed herself against the slimy wall behind her. But she was the Head Girl of Hogwarts, and she was damned if she was going to act like the damsel in distress in a bad muggle romance classic. She took a deep breath and stood to face the figure, only just realizing that it had not moved since she had noted its presence with a soft squeak of surprise.
He stood motionless, watching her every emotion fly across her face, and at last settle into dread determination. His vision was much sharper than hers and he had enough sensibility to realize that she thought him a member of his House, rather than the professor that he was. Grand old Slytherin House, he thought with bitterness. At last, he decided to alleviate her fears, and he cast a gradual illuminata spell, allowing her eyes to adjust naturally to the increase of light until she could easily make out his features.
"Prof-Professor Snape…" she stuttered, clearly trying to figure out how he was going to react to her being down there. Next, he knew, she would vainly try to explain herself, irritate him, and then he could deduct some points and they could both go to their respective rooms and sleep until morning, like any other sane people. Ah, but this was Miss. Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Head Girl, and active member of the Dream Team. How unfortunate of him to forget.
"Aside from your creeping about, *trying* to scare me, I want some answers. You have absolutely no reason to dismiss me from what was evolving into a complex and vital project that might mean the turning point in the war against Voldemort; something that one man simply can NOT do alone. You have every reason to keep me as your assistant. I seek, of course, none of the credit; merely the knowledge that I am *doing* something. I am a good worker, and a hard worker, regardless of what your tirade on my momentary, and may I repeat momentary, lapse of concentration might have indicated. You have been my professor for seven years- seven years- and yet you can not say that I am one of the best students that you have taught. And I know I am, Professor, I know I am even if you never say it. But that's fine; I lost the need to seek validation long ago. What I want right now is the only chance I may have to protect my family and friends and world. And if you deny me that chance, you condemn me to slow madness through the route that Harry has taken, sir." Hermione stopped speaking suddenly, and looked at the man in front of her, who had yet to even twitch a muscle, aside from his casting the light spell. His eyes searched hers for a moment, and she noted that he was not so moved by her as to drop that mask which held the emotions of his eyes from the rest of the world. His gaze was piercing and disturbingly intense, and she held her breath without realizing it, dispelling it in one long soft sigh when he slowly nodded.
"I am tired, Miss. Granger. You are tired. You make some good points," an amazing concession for the arrogant Slytherin," but I have yet some valid concerns. We will meet tomorrow, down here, to discuss our options as reasonable adults. You will be expected to behave as such, girl, and one more outburst of the sort that you gave today and there will be no third chance offered. In return, I will treat you with as much tolerance as you give me reason for. Now, 15 points from Gryffindor for being out after curfew, and get up to your rooms. I trust you can find your way back to them?" Hermione was practically Locked into place in her astonishment. Such grace, if condescending had hardly been looked for from her harsh professor, and she was ecstatic. Still, she could see, if she looked harder than most people cared to look, that the man was almost falling over with fatigue and stress, and she knew better than to say anything other than 'yes, sir, thank you, sir' and scamper off down the darkish hallways to her safe rooms.
But when she had closed the door behind her and set the wards back up, and lit the room with a soft glow so that she could find her pyjamas…she let out an absolutely astonished shriek of happiness. He had let her continue!! She had survived yet another late night encounter with Snape; it seemed those were becoming more and more frequent as of late. Even when she had tucked herself into her bed, with the soft down comforter covering her from feet to chin, her tired mind was racing with adrenaline and thoughts for their project that she had not let herself consider when she had been unsure if she would be allowed to continue in her capacity as an assistant. For she had been telling Snape the truth about her indifference to receiving credit for the work that she knew, she just KNEW, was going to be important. She was hardly cutting herself short, though; she was no fool and she knew it. In a few years she planned on being a respected Mistress of whatever field she chose, with all the accolades that went with it. She would do fine on her own. With that last happy, perhaps conceited but nonetheless true, thought bouncing around in her mind, she drifted off into a far more comfortable sleep than the first time that night.
Morning saw Hermione Granger stumbling out of bed five minutes before breakfast was to start. She hated Fridays, because although they heralded the coming weekend, they were also the busiest days, filled with interminable amounts of Head Girl work. Her largest number of counseling and tutoring sessions were that day, as well as some of her heaviest classes. She barely had a free hour from the time she awoke until the time she closed her eyes late at night, after an attempt to do as much of her large pile of weekend homework as possible. And she was still dealing with the backlog from her unexpected week's hiatus from her responsibilities. The Head Boy, a Ravenclaw named Carl Ervine, who was very nice, and quite smart, and an absolute bore to Hermione, had tried the best he could to take her share of the duties, but there were some things that he simply could not do. Her counselees had told her that they would never go to him, and secretly, Hermione didn't blame them. Plus, there was a Yule Ball coming up, and she knew that there were still rather a lot of details that she had to go over with the committee before they could submit them to Professor McGonagall.
Her mind went through the checklist as she showered, drying herself with a spell (although it always left one feeling a bit clammy for the next few hours, and her hair would be the devil's own delight when she took it out of the knot she was currently wrestling it into), and shrugging into her school clothing as she grabbed her books and ran down to the Great Hall.
She arrived only a few minutes after the meal began, and so managed to creep in with a few of the other latecomers. She noted, although she had…certainly not been looking for him…that Harry had finished most of his breakfast already and was getting ready to leave; a habit he had recently taken to. It was as though he thought that if he got to the Great Hall early and ate his meal quickly, then he wouldn't have to deal with being Harry Potter, the supposed savior of the wizarding world…a teenaged boy who didn't know what he was supposed to do, let alone what he *could*.
Hermione snapped her gaze from her ex-friend to Professor Snape, who was seated complacently at the High Table and sipping his morning coffee with the same boredom that he did every other morning of the year. She marveled at his composure, although it hardly surprised her. The man probably survived on the fumes from scared Gryffindor first years, she thought uncharitably. Hermione's charity of thoughts on Fridays was reserved for her counseling sessions, and she usually used up her entire supply. She shoved the last bite of food into her mouth, waved at her Housemates, who had gradually gone back to at least acknowledging her existence, before heading off to her first class of the day.
Advanced Charms was a fascinating class that delved into the more complex issues of the subject. Professor Flitwick was a little late coming into the class, but his students had dutifully gotten out their books and parchment and had begun comparing homework answers, as they began every class. The little wizard beamed and then directed the class's attention towards himself as he began a discussion on the reading they had done last night. The troubles of the war lightened at least a bit as Hermione lost herself in academic discussion. But by lunchtime, all of her realization of how foolish and unworthy it was to sit here in this stupid grand dining hall and eat luxurious food prepared by slaves and…
Hermione's breath hitched in her throat, but all of her tablemates just carried on. Ron was still with his family, and Harry had already left. Just as Hermione was forced to do, because she didn't want to make a scene.
She escaped the pressing air of the Great Hall and ran through the silent, deserted hallways as fast as she could to get to her private spot. True, it was rather far away, but she hadn't eaten much lunch, so she should be able to get to her after-lunch class on time. Right now, she just needed to be alone for a little while. She burst into her rooms in a fairly short amount of time, and quickly wrenched the door to her balcony open.
Then she stood, gazing at the peaceful grounds of her school as she took great gasps of air, both to give her lungs proper oxygen from her flat out run, something the bookworm was not well used to, and to control the emotions that had been threatening to bubble out of her at the lunch table. She could just imagine what a scene that would have been; the perfect, always in control Head Girl Hermione Granger suffering a random breakdown in the middle of her Shepard's Pie. Just imagine the glee from the Slytherin table, especially that ferret prick of a Draco Malfoy! The thought of Draco as a bouncing ferret almost always made Hermione smile, and it did no less at that moment.
Hermione chanced a glance to where she recalled Professor Snape's… area to be, but she had not expected him to be there and indeed he was not. For a moment, she felt a twinge of guilt in the realization that she was far freer than he to take off in the middle of the day for some quite time for herself, but then she also knew that there were simply certain responsibilities that came with being an adult, and that was one of them.
Hermione was thinking about all the things that had been plaguing her mind for a while now, as she let the pure, cold November air cleanse her thoughts, when she noticed something moving near the lake. There seemed to be a person, which was rather strange. She cast the time charm quickly and, indeed, it was still in the middle of lunch time. No one but she and…Harry! Hermione sharpened her vision with a temporary, but useful Eagle Eye charm that lasted long enough for her to discover two things. Firstly, that the figure near the lake was not trying to drown himself, and secondly, it was none other than the ferret boy she had been thinking of before, one Draco Malfoy. Knowing that the stupid fool would never do anything to harm a single hair on his own precious head, Hermione immediately dismissed the sight as being unworthy for her viewing and incredibly uninteresting. She turned away and sought her peace in a different direction.
Draco Malfoy wouldn't actually, although perhaps his enemies would hardly believe it of him, have cared that Hermione found him uninteresting. He wished he could say the same for himself. If he was uninteresting, than maybe he would not have quite so many of those aforementioned enemies, and that seemed like a damned good thing at the moment. He had managed to slip loose of Crabbe and Goyle for awhile, as there was little that could induce them to leave food, and Professor Snape had barely spared him a glance as he had slipped out of the Great Hall. Draco knew better than to think that he was unobserved, but sometimes he wished… He laughed a bit bitterly. While it was true that he probably wouldn't trade places with a Weasley, he sure thought that they had it easy sometimes. Straight moral road, Dumbledore's benedictions showered everywhere, no crazy megalomaniac screaming for your blood and loyalty….
Oh, yes. Draco Bloody Malfoy did NOT actually want to become a Death Eater. Hardly for any altruistic reasons, however, although he would not mind fighting on the other side so much. But he was a Slytherin, and they did not do anything for one reason alone, let alone an unselfish one. He had quite an agenda, in fact. The first thing on his list was his hatred of his father, and a general but heartfelt wish to see him dead.
Oh, in public his father showered him with gifts and praise, but behind the scenes there was an ugliness between father and son that he rather fancied was beyond a Weasley's- beyond any Gryffindor's- imagination. His father loathed him, plain and simple. He was never good enough. Draco Malfoy was almost the top of his class overall, was the top of Slytherin, but he was not Head Boy and so he was not special enough. He was better at most Dark Curses and Magick than most of Voldemort's adult recruits, but his father never seemed to find in him quite enough fascination and delight with the Dark Arts and torture and murder and mayhem as would befit the heir of the Malfoy name, may it rot in the seventh circle of hell in agony.
He had…trouble with human targets. And then there was the fact that Draco did not wish to grovel at the feet of the demented mold demon Dark Lord. One thing he could say for Dumbledore was that the man treated his followers with decent respect. The young heir of the family name and fortune had his own ideas of what was befitting to a scion of the House of Malfoy. Draco clenched his fists and stared out at the murky grey water. The lake was not pretty in November. And it was not a particularly nice day; after all, it was almost winter, and the water creatures had heeded Nature's warning and had already disappeared into warm and murky depths. Only the tentacles of the giant squid occasionally broke the surface of the rollicking lake.
Every so often, in a methodical rhythm, a wave would sweep his feet, and he would think about casting a charm to dry himself, but by the time he had decided that it would be a good idea, yet another one had already drenched his feet and the long black cloak that trailed from his body. So maybe he would get a bloody cold. He'd live. Or rather, he would take a nice dose of Pepper-Up potion and be fine. He had never understood how Muggles managed to get along with life when every little thing was a problem, like colds. If he realized that he was sending his mind on random tangents in the vain hope of avoiding the problems that were really troubling him, like that of the choice between disobeying his father and giving his conscience something of a reprieve but most likely being slowly tortured to death for his betrayal, and becoming a twisted sycophant like his sire, bowing and scraping and murdering on command, he would have told himself to fuck off- he was having a nice illusion, thank you very much.
Done at last. All right, hope you liked it and all. I really do appreciate any and all reviews, even one liners, although those with a bit more substance are quite enjoyed as well. Review replies:
Michelline: And I'm very glad. Thanks for the praise.
Sarah F.: Oh my goodness, I hope that you didn't get bored and stop reading before you hit this part, but goodness do I know what it's like to be reading fanfiction in the wee hours of the morning, and so I than thee ever so much for posting a review.
Andrian: Glad you like it. Ah, yes, peace. I'm eating in my room in a [vain] attempt to get some of that. Hope you found, and continue to find, some.
Katieshaz: So glad, thank you.
Fairy Thimbles: Always happy to clarify things, hope you are still reading, and thank you very much for telling me that you are getting the notification emails.
Madeleine Jete: Oh, gosh, yes I ought to be doing work as well. Phooey on that! Good luck on the revisions, thank you for the help…I ought to change it, but I can't seem to find the will. Perhaps I will soon *snort*. Right, this is coming from the girl who wrote her paper at one in the morning. Yes, I have problems with long paragraphs, please try and tell me if I do it again this time too, and then I will try very hard to stop, and if you aren't still reading, I totally understand. And you wouldn't be reading this…
Princesskatt: Thank you, although I fear that this was really a doozy of a stop for someone who isn't writing a masterpiece of a fic, like Kaz or someone. Oh, don't worry, my muses are generally nice to everyone except me. Sorry that he didn't, but he did rather think about it. Yes, I am trying to add action, and I think there will be more later. Uh-oh, now the muses are sending *me* death glares! Thanks for the review.
JediHermione: Hm, I really don't mean to be making Harry out of character, I keep trying to explain *why* he is the way he is…out of canon, perhaps, but he has changed so much. Still, I thank you for the comment and promise you that he is far from irredeemable.
Cosmo-Queen: Oh, my goodness, I feel so loved and so ashamed for taking so long for writing this fic! But flippancy aside, I really appreciate that you took the time to tell me what it was that you liked about my story, it makes me feel quite happy, and I am glad that you are enjoying this. And thank you for understanding my writing troubles, also *smile*. If you are ever looking for some really excellent fanfiction, I am very into HP fanfiction and have a mental storelist of my favorite stories (although most are, of course, SS/HG!), so feel free to email and ask. Storelist isn't a word. Huh. Well, thanks and I hope that you liked this chapter as well.
Daxi: Right, I must admit that I got a bit carried away with the torture and mayhem bits, and I am not sure whether I ought to change the rating on this story, although I saw a PG-13 movie the other day, and it was more gruesome than my little story…*smile*. Glad that you like it otherwise.
Alexial: Hehe, she's not the little goody Gryffindor, any more, is she? Hopefully not too far removed than what JKR might have written, after all, Hermione is now…17 or 18 or 19, I don't know that I've decided yet. Somewhere there, and her old awe of her teacher is somewhat diminished along with her working along side of him. The specificities of the potion may not be something that I want to go into for fear of sounding like a fool, but I've stated that it is something to reverse the immortality potion that used Harry's Blood and restored Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament. And as for Dumbledore's knowing about Harry's descent into darkness, hm. Well, Harry isn't dark, he's just not light and he certainly isn't a very nice person at the moment. And I don't think that Dumbledore is either fully aware, or fully oblivious to it. Hope I helped you out with your questions, always feel free to ask them. Thank you!
MadMonkette: Thank youJ!
Evermind: Ah, thanks for the email, and the compliments!