Title: Looking for Magic in All the Right Places
Chapter Nine: The Art of Winning
Genre: Romance, Humour, and my response to the WIKTT 'Summer School Challenge.'
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Occasional poetry!
Disclaimer: Please see Chapter One.
Acknowledgements: See Author's Notes for sources and thanks to reviewers.
Chapter Nine: The Art of Winning
At Dumbledore's request, the eight Slam contestants came down to the front of the classroom and sat on chairs facing the audience. McCourt, producing his hideous green gym bag, drew the first pair of names for the semi-final round.
'Susan Bones against . . . Neville Longbottom.'
By the time clever, quiet Susan had finished reciting her wickedly funny stylings about a dancing skeleton, chuckles were running around the room and poor Neville was checking himself for runaway ribs and femurs. Even Jones and McCourt were grinning. Showing remarkable aplomb under the circumstances, Neville produced a neatly self-deprecating defence: 'the art of losing isn't hard to master/it seems so many things I grasp intend/ to be lost that their loss is no disaster.' That produced much good-natured laughter and scattered applause.
However, the judges concluded that whilst Neville had perhaps won more hearts, Susan's intricate wit had captured the majority of minds.
'Padma Patil against . . . Severus Snape.'
'Ohhh nooo!' groaned Parvati. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws applauded as Padma, clearly terrified, moved to the centre of the room. The Slytherins all looked enormously self-satisfied.
Padma couldn't even look at Snape. When she finally began to recite, her voice was so soft that not even people in the front rows could hear her very well. But as she moved further into her piece about the sorrows of losing the ability to transform, her voice grew a little stronger.
'I was witch and I could be
Bird or leaf
Or branch and bark of tree.
In rain and two by two my powers left me;
Instead of curling down as root and worm
My feet walked on the surface of the earth,
And I remember a day of evil sun
When forty green leaves withered on my arm.'
Before Padma had finished, McGonagall had pulled out a handkerchief and was quickly, almost angrily dabbing at her eyes. Beside her, Dumbledore put a gentle hand on her shoulder. A sigh went around the room. Parvati, though, was grinning from ear to ear.
'That was wicked!' she whispered. 'Look, she made McGonagall cry!'
Snape acknowledged Padma with a slight, admiring bow that showed no trace of mockery. Then he faced the audience.
'Times were pleasant for our mages here
until one dark day a demon out of hell
began to work his evil in our world.'
Snape's voice became harsh, almost keening--a blood-curdling chant that made jaws drop and eyes widen. Even the unflappable Lupin looked startled.
'The Dark One, He Whom We Would Not Name,
haunted our proud keep, marauding around our lands
and the Forbidden woods; he had dwelt for a time
in misery, a thin spirit banished among monsters,
of Nagini's clan, whom the wise had outlawed
and condemned as outcasts. When the wise
finally understood their peril, recruiting old and young
to join the struggle, they courted mortal danger:
for no spells on earth, no conjurer's art
could ever damage their demon enemy.'
But Snape's tone modified to a plaintive lament as he went on to describe what the brave mages, young and old, had given up in finally defeating the Dark One. By the time Snape had finished, more eyes than McGonagall's were damp.
'Harry, I think he was describing you--praising you like a hero of old,' Hermione whispered into her friend's ear.
'He meant all of us,' said Harry, turning red. But he couldn't help wondering whether, in an oblique way, Snape had just made a peace offering.
When the judges announced Snape as the winner, Padma sank back into her chair with obvious relief. She smiled weakly across the room at her twin and Lavender, who each gave her a thumbs-up and a big, reassuring grin.
'Ernie Macmillan against Remus Lupin,' announced McCourt.
As the full meaning of that pairing sank in, Hermione and Harry looked at each other in amused horror.
'Be gentle with me, Miss Granger,' murmured Harry. Hermione snorted.
Ernie had performed surprisingly well on Tuesday night and might have won this round if he'd been pitted against someone like Neville. Lupin didn't have to try very hard to weave word-circles around the Hufflepuff's well-meaning, proletarian effort. Ernie got a round of consolation applause.
'This leaves Harry Potter against Hermione Granger to end our semi-final round,' said McCourt. A pleasant buzz of excitement ran through the room.
'Bloody hell,' Ron groaned. 'I want both of them to win.'
'Could happen, if the judges allow a tie like they did the other night,' said Dean.
'Bet they won't,' said Ron gloomily.
'Mr. Potter, please begin when you're ready,' said Jones.
Harry looked at Hermione, his mouth quirking in a peculiar little half-smile. When he began reciting, his tone was almost affectionate.
'You once flew out, a furious witch,
haunting the night air, fiercer than light.'
Then Harry's tone darkened:
'Dreaming glory, you have done your hitch
over the dark fields. Will you take flight
with words? Book-bound, sad of mind:
a woman chained by facts will not raise magic, quite.
You seek. You shall not find.'
As Harry finished, Hermione flushed and looked down, biting her lip. When she raised her head to meet Harry's challenge, her tone was as merciless as that of a judge sentencing the lowliest criminal:
'I saw you grasp the hidden heart of earth
And burn your rage to dust within its fire,
I saw you face the Dark One's hungry maw
And summon strength to blast his fell desire;
You healed the rose devoured by the worm
And stood in solemn guard beside the pyre.
And now you wait, as if the world entire
Spins solely on your agony. No spell,
No hexes you once bandied with, no curse
Will un-make guilt. Now only you can tell
When anger ends and power moves your heart--
But don't pretend, each day, that all is well.
Your final battle looms--to end this hell.
By seeking magic, honour those who fell.'
As Hermione stopped speaking, a shiver filled the air. The classroom doors banged open, making several girls scream, and a wind whirled through the room, lifting some of the judges' note cards and scattering them like leaves. Snape and Lupin shot to their feet. Dumbledore, standing more slowly, reached for his wand.
But it was Harry who pulled his wand from his sleeve first and pointed it at the judges' table. 'Accio pens!' he shouted. In less than a second Snape, Lupin, and Hermione had their wands out too, shouting 'Accio pens!' more or less in unison.
Four pens, two blue and two red, quivered and clattered against the battered wooden surface. McCourt pushed his chair back, more out of respect than fear, and Jones stood, moving hastily away, though her face remained calm and curious.
Then four pens rose from the table and shot toward the four wands. Without thinking, Hermione opened her left hand and a red pen flew into it. The other three pens bounced off the foreheads of the other three wand-wielders, who had forgotten to hold out their hands.
The whirling wind died down. The air stopped shivering. Three pens fell to the floor.
Harry pointed his wand down at his feet. 'Accio pen,' he said softly. It didn't move. But by then the room had dissolved into chaos. As students seethed out of their seats, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Lupin converged on the Muggle judges.
Under cover of the noise, Snape came up to Hermione and Harry and, with a look, separated them from the crowd.
'What were you feeling when you raised that magic?' Snape said urgently.
'I was trying to warn 'Mione not to forget what it was like to have power. I felt worried that she'd given up hope.'
'I was angry at Harry for giving up hope, but I also felt very sad about what he's lost, and--erm--I was also trying to tell him I love him,' said Hermione, turning a bit pink.
'Yeah, ditto,' said Harry, turning pinker. Suddenly a phalanx of classmates descended on The Boy Who Recited and swept him away, leaving Snape and Hermione by themselves, staring at each other.
'Love?' said Snape.
'Is that--the right emotion?' said Hermione.
'If it was, why--again--weren't we able to sustain the power?'
'We might be on the right track, but we're still missing something.'
'I wonder if Potter handed me a clue last night. He told me he was able to withstand Voldemort by invoking the power of his mother's love for him.'
'Perhaps that means the right emotion has to be--very intense. Very sustained,' said Hermione slowly.
'Is that how you feel about Harry?'
As Hermione, startled, opened her mouth to tell him that was a bit personal, all the fantasies teasing her throughout the summer term, all her dreams about what it would feel like to be seduced by Severus Snape's low voice and kissed by that thin, ironic mouth, rose into her mind and flooded her heart. For a moment, she couldn't speak.
'Harry's the brother I never had,' she finally managed. 'And so's Ron.'
For just a moment, Snape's gaze dropped and his tense shoulders relaxed. Then his gaze burned her again, invoking an answering heat she couldn't name and yet understood as instinctively as breathing.
'Miss Granger, I'm determined to raise magic tonight and to make damned sure we sustain it. When you and I compete, I will hold nothing back. Nothing. In turn, you must hold nothing back from me. Do you understand?'
Speechless, all she could do was nod.
A few minutes later, Jones stood on a table. Bellowing over the crowd, she announced that for the second time in the DADA Invocation Slam, a set of double winners would move forward into the next round.
'Ha! What'd I tell you?' said Dean, poking Ron in the ribs.
===============
After Dumbledore, Lupin, and the other senior faculty members had herded the crowd back into their seats in preparation for the final round, the Headmaster, sounding as pleasant as if he were presiding over a holiday feast, reminded the audience that their votes would now help determine the finalists. When McCourt, Jones, and Lupin passed note cards and pens around the room, some students handled these materials gingerly, as if expecting them to fly across the room again.
Hermione barely registered these preparations. Her mind roiled. Yes--something seemed to be happening between her and Snape. 'Hold nothing back. Nothing.' Just remembering how he looked and sounded when he said that made her heart pound.
But wait a minute. Surely that didn't mean--was he expecting her to declare love for him? And was he thinking of declaring love for her? Circe's silk knickers! Even if she did love him (which she didn't, she was just, interested in him--well, quite attracted actually), there was no way she was going to stand up there in front of everybody and say that.
He couldn't possibly love her. Hermione wasn't stupid. Of course he'd been on the receiving end of schoolgirl crushes before. Maybe not many. But probably at least one or two. She was just the latest, and the timing couldn't be more convenient for him.
Premise: Snape sensed her attraction to him. Premise: attraction was a handy emotional catalyst. Conclusion: Snape was using her.
Snape: the universe's greasiest bastard. Granger: the universe's biggest idiot.
At that moment, when she felt she might dissolve into tears, an idea for a new invocation settled full-grown into her mind. An invocation, like a perfect curse, designed for one sublime purpose: to bring Snape down.
'Hold nothing back,' Hermione said under her breath, and smiled.
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To be continued in Chapter Ten . . . a battle of words, wits, and hearts!
Author's Notes:
--Neville's 'The art of losing' adapts a few lines from 'One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop (American, 1911-1979).
--Padma's transformation poem renders word-for-word part of Stanza III from 'Nature be damned' by Canadian poet Anne Wilkinson (1910-1961).
--Snape's 'Lament' is inspired by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney's recent translation (2000) of Beowulf.
--Hermione's 'I saw you grasp' is based on a sonnet within a series of short poems I composed called 'After the Battle: the Five Stages of Severus' (posted in Lord and Lady Snape under the category 'Poetry').
--Harry's response to Hermione, 'You once flew out,' takes some wording and much of the structure and rhyme scheme from 'Her Kind' by the American poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974).
Thank you to wacoramaco87, Michaela, Chillout, Falafelgigglehiney, Sunandshadow, EvilExpressions, and Magictwinkle for reviewing and commenting!