J.K. ROWLING owns all characters except for Laurel who I created myself, I am not doing this for money, only the pure enjoyment of the thing. So ends my lame little disclaimer, okay? Don't sue!
More introduction stuff and begining to get into the romance soon enough :) R/R please!
********
High above the darkened clouds, a large half horse half eagle soared slowly through the air, the speed was mostly due to the three patrons he carried upon his back. An extremely large man, with a beard that went on for what seemed like miles, a crimson-eyed girl with long, curling, brown hair that was streaked with silver. The last was a sour-faced man with greasy black hair, who just so happened to be deep in thought.
It was degrading enough for Severus not to get the job as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but to be outdone by a red-eyed Egyptian Elf, was enough to make his temperment more dour than usual.
"Ouch," he grunted. The girl had once again elbowed him in the ribcage for no reason at all. "Would you stop that?" he yelled over the rushing wind. Feigning ignorance, she wisely did not start a further arguement with him and proceeded to narrow her eyes against the cold perspiration of the clouds.
He sniffed loudly and turned back to his thoughts. 'What was an Egyptian Elf doing going to Hogwart's anyway?' Egyptian elves had the tendency to be more than precocious, if it wasn't for their ennui with the world, some might consider them all seeing and all knowing. Although they could not see into the soul's of men, they could catch glimpses from time to time. He wondered what she had found out about him just from a glance...
"Wer jus' bout there!" Hagrid said lightheartedly, over the beating of the hippogriff's wings.
"Thank goodness," was the mumbled reply from the other two passengers, as the hippogriff began to make his descent to the underbelly of the dark clouds. Laurel let out her breath in a gasp.
Hogwart's was beautiful, the stones seemed warm and inviting despite the dark background of the weather. Small flashes of lightning from nearby hillsides reflected down upon the lake that surrounded part of the castle and for a brief instant she could have sworn she saw the large outline of an enormous squid and darting shapes.
Narrowing his eyes, Snape looked at her oddly. He could have sworn Egyptian elves were pompous and not easily surprised, yet here was this girl, gaping over a castle. Not to mention one so simple as Hogwart's. Somehow she felt his eyes on her and proceeded to close her mouth a bit too forcefully, causing her teeth to clack together. Snape snickered again, and she scooted further up on the hippogriff's back, uncomfortably aware of his nearness.
********
The hippogriff, wheezing from over-exerhtion, landed with an earth-shaking thud on the Quidditch field, causing everyone to lose their grip, and Laurel, being the smallest of the three, to be ditched straight over the head of Hagrid and the hippogriff Buckbeak. There was a small, "Ooof!" accompanied by a groan. Snape was the first to shakely dismount from the hippogriff, since Hagrid's legs would not allow him to dismount with someone else behind him.
Snape hurried over to where Laurel lied, this was the third time he'd found her laying on the ground since he'd met her a few hours ago. This time it didn't seem like she would be able to waltz herself back to the castle, even with his help. "Hagrid," he snapped. "Go fetch a stretcher, I can't magic it all the way from the Quidditch field, and take the hippogriff with you." Hagrid hesitated for a moment before retrieving Buckbeak and exiting the stadium.
Muttering to himself again, Snape sat cross-legged on the grass next to where Laurel's head lied and took out his wand. 'Might as well try to heal her so she's suitable for meeting with Dumbledore,' he thought absent-mindedly. He pulled her surpsingly light form across his knees and began with her wrist that was twisted at an obviously wrong angle, a simple incantation righted the wrong and he continued to look along her person.
When he looked up to her face he started, she looked so familiar to him for some reason. He paused in his work and studied her, trying to match a memory to the face. He was sure he knew it, but he would have remembered coming across an Egyptian Elf, so he continued working on the numerous scratches that adorned her face.
As he began to heal the slight scratches, he noticed and put away in his memory, little things about her. The way her eyes were shaped like almonds, how her eyelashes were black yet grew unaturally silver at the ends, the silver strands that streaked through her extraordinarily long hair, the way she had a natural dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose that made her out to be blushing happily all the time.
As he was glancing at her hair he noticed something extremely odd about her ears and abruptly shook her, HARD.
"Ahhh," she groaned, straining against his vice-like grip.
"Wake up," he said obstinately. "I said wake up - OW!"
Laurel had, unknown to Snape, reached behind him and pinched the back of his arm, that now hung limply at his side.
Snape just sat there and gaped as the wand slid out of his non-existent grip. Red filled his vision and he turned his wrath upon Laurel who was standing up and happily brushing off her Muggle disguise. He watched in disbelief as she began to look around for her purse, that had been kindly retrieved by Hagrid on their way into the farm from a Death Eater who was more than happy to bow down to the larger man's wishes.
"There we are!" she cooed happily, bending to swoop up her black purse from the ground. Snape still could not see straight, lest he would have hit his target already. She deliberately turned to face him and looked him up and down. "I hope you know that you deserved that Mr. Snape. That's no way to treat a lady-"
"My name is Severus Snape, and you may address me as Proffesor Snape, right after you fix the mess you have made of my arm!" he roared, flapping the limp appendage at her. This only proceeded to make her laugh and she spoke to him again in that lilting voice of hers.
"Oh, please forgive me Mr.- err Proffesor Snape. It is most unforgivable of me," she lamented while stifling a giggle that threatened to erupt from her throat at any moment. The sky overhead was begining to clear and she obviously wished to make her way to the castle, he could tell by the way she shifted her feet. He did a double take when he saw that she was begining to walk away from him, and he was forced to trot after her.
His loose arm flapping in the wind, Snape stepped directly in front of the path she was taking. Bewildered, she glanced icily at him and inclined her head, "Yes, Proffesor?"
There were no words for Snape to express his anger, and the only one that came out was, "NO!" Looking puzzled, she pushed some strands of his hair out of his eyes to stare into them. She could tell he was angry, and at first thought his state of handicap would humble him a bit. It however had seemed to backfire, and his eyes were positively quivering with rage.
"Alright you big baby," she sighed. "Turn around." Snape was positively taken aback.
"Turn...around?" he said slowly and deliberately. A look of impatience, came over her pretty face, darkening the air around her somehow. She nodded and waited.
"And...why my dear girl, would I do such a thing?" he said through gritted teeth. That was quite enough for Laurel however, and angrily she turned him around by force pinched his arm a quarter of an inch below it's previous mark and whirled to take another path to the Hogwart's School...which ever one that was...
The sound of thundering foot falls came up swiftly behind her, and before her mind could register the owner, Snape had her by the back of the arm and was dragging her to another one of the 6 exits.
"What - are- you - doing!?" she said painfully, holding her arm ridigly straight, as to not cause further discomfort to herself.
"My goodness Ms. Millan, you are quite the menace to society," grunted Snape, warding off a blow from her purse. "I wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong impression that you were safe to be around, so I think I'll escort you in with as much of a spectacle as possible. For safety's sake."
He laughed sharply at her indignation as she began to struggle, and he simply dragged her along, blocking blows and making sure to watch her pinching fingers at all times. As they progressed the hitting and kicking became more and more subdued until there was nothing but a sullen silence between the two of them.
"So," Severus said bitterly, as Laurel tossed her hair for the 30th time in an agitated way. "What's wrong with your ears?" Her hand stilled in her hair as she went to flip it again and she glanced suspiciously at him.
"Were you staring at me the whole time I was unconscious Snape," she said angrily. "What else did you do?" At this she tread harshly on his foot and he grabbed her tighter, growling.
"Perhaps if you're nicer to me," Snape hissed, knowing full well what she was rudely implying. "I'll tell the story to our children one day." She gasped at his perverted and clearly untrue statement he had made, and elbowed him in the gut at which point he twisted her arm, causing her to hiss loudly.
"So my girl-" began Snape.
"Stop calling me a girl!" she spat furiously as he dragged them ever closer to the awaiting castle. However he ignored her and continued onward, both with their movement and with his speech.
"Pardon me, young lady," once again she stiffened at the remark but let him continue. "Now tell me, what is wrong with your ears?" Silently her free hand went to her ears and she rubbed them. Snape continued dragging her along in silence until she broke it.
"I'm only half elf, I didn't inherit the ears. The one thing that I might have been able to hide..." she murmured as he helped her over a puddle.
Snape took in her answer without acknowledging it for a moment, and then replied, "Have you ever thought of having them hexed, or using Muggle contacts?" She slowly nodded as they began to circle the outer edge of the lake.
"The hexes don't work and my eyes glow so strongly in the dark that when covered by even the slightest obstruction such as Muggle contact lenses, they positively flame. Those were a disaster if I ever saw one," she sighed, obviously reliving a painful memory from long ago.
"So it's true," Snape mused out loud. "There are no more Egyptian elves."
She turned abruptly towards him, stopping their advancement to the front of the school and glared at him.
"Of course there are more Egyptian Elves, they are only my half siblings and they are at home as we speak and if you so much as dare-" her rant spluttered to a halt as the enormous Hagrid came bounding up to them.
"Ther' ya ar'. I bin lookin' evrywhr' for y' two. Dumbldorr is 'cpecting you two, hury' alon' then!" and with that he turned to go see to Buckbeak who was standing patiently next to a large wooden cabin with smoke rising comfortably out of it's chimney.
At this announcment, the idea of the embarassing scene that might ensue, came back to Laurel and she began to fight Snape for her freedom to walk in, alone and not a "captive" - to meet Dumbledore. However Snape dodged all her tactics and kept a hold of her unceasingly all the way to the Hogwart's doors.
Snape was quite bruised, especially in the ribcage area, as he limped up to the doors and kicked them open, dragging the hellcat inside with him. There was no one in the entry hall and for a moment Laurel could see he was crestfallen and she laughed, loudly. Which caused someone from the next room to come in and see the duo, and Snape to snicker.
Laurel tried to snake her hand behind Snapes back to pinch his pressure point again, but was subdued by him before she had the chance and the two struggled. She - trying like mad to get a grib of something to pull, and he - trying to keep her hand behind his back until she ceased to struggle.
Proffesor McGonagall decided to investigate the noises that were disrupting her class, and clacked out into the hallway in her old-fashioned high heels. Standing there, were two people having what looked like...a fierce hugging contest. A tall woman with long dark hair in Muggle's clothing, and an even taller man in long billowing cloaks, were grunting loudly and slamming each other into walls ferociously. One of them looked oddly like...no, it couldn't be.
"Ahem," she cleared her throat, and as it resonated off the stone walls of the entry hall, the struggling ceased and the pair faced her. McGonagall put a hand to her throat as she realized that the tall man was, indeed Severus Snape, the Potions teacher for Hogwart's. "Proffesor Snape," she exclaimed. "This is quite uncharacteristic of you, I must insist that you leave that woman alone."
As Snape opened his mouth to defend himself against Minerva McGonagall, Laurel took the chance and darted out of his grasp and up the left set of staircases. Setting his mouth in a grim line, Snape yelled over his shoulder as he went running after his captive, "I'll explain later." Thousands of giggles erupted from Proffesor McGonagall's classroom and she bustled back in, chastising them all for not minding their manners and to keep out of other's business.
********
Meanwhile, the chase ensued up the staircases, and at one point Snape had almost caught her until the staircase decided at that moment to move. Chest heaving, Laurel gasped in fright when she saw that the staircase she was on, also had moved suddenly and with a scream she fell. The staircase that was directly below her holding Snape rushed to meet her and he caught her in his outstretched arms. The staircase they were on shuddered to a halt and Snape quickly mounted it to the nearest non-moving area of the hall.
He finally looked down and noticed the young woman lying in his arms, she was shaking terribly hard and gasping for breath. She looked up through her hair at him.
"You could of killed me," she said matter-of-factly, still heaving in large breaths. He looked down his long nose at her and noticed that her eyes didn't seem red at all for a moment, they were almost...green.
"I know," he muttered, not letting her go or putting her down for fear she would run away from him again.
"You should have," she chastised him, staring unblinkingly at him as if she hadn't just said that he should have let her die. "If He ever finds out you will surely be killed. What are you doing here Death Eater?"
A puzzled and dark look crept over his face and for a while he just stood there. Holding the young woman in his arms made him feel... different. He wasn't used to this, he wasn't ready for this... then a small voice crept into his head, 'Why not? When were you ever ready, when will enough time pass when you will be ready? When will the lies stop?'
Stiffening, he lowered the young woman to the ground and took her arm once agan, this time much gentler and mumbled, "I have no idea what you're talking about." He led her towards the staircases to take her to see Dumbledore as she thought sadly to herslef, 'As you wish Severus...'
********
NEXT IS CHAPTER 3! YAY! R/R FOR CHAPTER 2 PLEASE :) THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS THUS FAR! :)
