Chapter 12: The Halloween Ball
PRESENT: 31 OCTOBER
Meli was walking slowly down the corridor when the unmistakable sound of fisticuffs sent her running around the nearest corner. She found Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley facing off at the center of a crowd of students. Aside from being angered past the point of rational thought, Ron appeared unscathed, but Malfoy's left eye was blackened and beginning to swell shut.
Great. "What is the meaning of this?" she roared, already pushing her way through the crowd. Ron and Malfoy spun to face her; not far away, she saw Harry and Hermione watching anxiously. She caught the eyes of all of them, then ordered, "You four, come with me."
She herded Malfoy, Ron, Hermione, and Harry to her office, then stood behind her desk with them lined up in front of her. "Now," she said through her teeth. "Explain."
Malfoy put on the worst mask of affected injury Meli thought she had ever in her life seen. "Weasley hit me," he sniffed. "For no reason at all."
Meli quelled Ron's protest with a look, then turned an unsympathetic eye on Malfoy. "Weasley has red hair and the temper to go with it," she allowed, "but he is not the sort to haul off and whack someone without provocation." She returned her gaze to Ron and arched an inquisitive eyebrow.
"He called Hermione a Mudblood," Ron fumed. "Said now that You-Know-Who's back, he'd probably be rewarded for hurting or killing her."
Meli looked now to Hermione. "Did he specifically threaten you?"
"No." Hermione shook her head disgustedly. "He doesn't have the gumption."
"Very well." Meli narrowed her eyes. "Mr. Weasley, please note that Gryffindor will suffer a five-point deduction for obvious reasons. Chivalry is honorable, but violence is not always the solution. In future, you will present your concerns to a teacher or your Head of House and leave discipline in the hands of the disciplinarians.
"Mr. Malfoy," she continued, turning to him with a fierce glare. "I suggest you wipe that disgusting smirk off your face. For your tastelessness, your cowardice, and your language, Slytherin will be docked twenty points, and your Head of House will be receiving a letter from me. After he has read it, I suspect you'll wish I had deducted two hundred points and not mentioned the incident. And if another report like this reaches my ears, I will propose to the headmaster that you be put on strict probation, suspended, or expelled. Is that clear?"
If looks could kill, Malfoy's expression would have served in excellent stead of a Kedavra curse. "Yes," he answered, his voice sounding strangled.
"Good. You're all dismissed. I don't want to hear another bloody word about any of you, either good or bad, for the rest of the day."
She watched them go, a painful weariness settling over her. She'd have to draft a letter to Snape and speak with him as soon as possible, and she had also to speak with Madame Pomfrey immediately, on the subject of refusing Malfoy medical treatment for his shiner.
In the meantime, however, there was one small, irrelevant, item of humor to cheer her. Single man, indeed, Ronald Weasley. Within ten years, you'll hand over a ring to Hermione Granger, or my name isn't Ebony.
Harry watched as Malfoy stormed off in the direction of the dungeons, unsure whether he was more glad that Ebony had been so harsh to the Slytherin or worried that Ron had not heard the last of her reprimand. It seemed that she had gone too easy on the Gryffindors, even though she was a Gryffindor herself.
"Well, at least that's over with," Ron sighed, visibly relieved.
"Just don't you do it again," Hermione told him. "I can defend myself, you know. No sense in you getting into trouble on my behalf."
Before Ron could utter his defensive retort, Professor Ebony emerged from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, as calm and collected as if she had just been to tea. She was not the only one to enter the corridor then, though; Peeves came out from behind a tapestry to launch a spitwad at her.
Ebony calmly drew her wand. "Accio peashooter." It flew to her hand, which deftly caught it and broke it in half.
Peeves was not so easily put off. He zoomed and dove around the corridor, chanting shrilly: "Oh, Meli, you smelly old bowl full of jelly, there ought to be warnings about you on the telly! A man in a deli once emptied his belly at the stench from smelly old Meli!"
Ebony weathered the tasteless poetry without so much as batting an eye, but she watched Peeves intently, and when, at the end of his spiel, he made a dive for the wall, she again raised her wand. "Substantia!"
Before Harry's eyes, Peeves turned solid just as he came to the wall. The poltergeist slammed into it with a sickening thud, then fell like a rock to the floor.
Even then, Ebony wasn't finished. "Petrificus totalus!"
Peeves froze, unable to move even his vocal cords (or whatever it was that served for vocal cords in a substantial poltergeist) to howl in outrage. Ebony turned to Harry and his friends, bowed slightly, then resumed her stroll, stepping over the enraged Peeves as though he were nothing but debris.
Ron swallowed eloquently. "I'm glad she's on our side," he whispered.
Hermione seemed uncertain what to do. "We can't just leave him there . . . can we?"
"Are you suggesting we undo what a teacher just did?" Ron retorted.
"Weell—"
"I think," Harry said, "that it's time we pulled out our costumes and got ready for the ball."
"Good idea," Ron agreed.
Hermione still hesitated, but at last relented, unwilling to get into trouble for helping Peeves against the mercurial Ebony's wishes.
Meli was glad that Malfoy chose to make a detour on his way to the hospital wing; it took her twenty minutes of heated argument to convince Madame Pomfrey not to treat him. The mediwitch, predictably, had an idea of necessary and proper discipline that was quite a bit different from Meli's, but she relented when Meli adjusted her request to one for temporary refusal of treatment until the following day. There was, after all, no need to torment Malfoy for a week or more; the Halloween Ball would more than suffice.
That negotiation at last completed, she left the hospital wing before Malfoy arrived and made her way to Snape's office by the most direct route. He was still there, sorting and stacking newly handed-in papers preparatory to grading them.
Meli rapped lightly at the door, drawing his eyes upward. "May I have a moment of your time, Severus?"
"Certainly." He stood, beckoning for her to enter and take a seat. Once she did, he sat again and raised his eyebrows slightly. "What can I do for you?"
She took a deep breath. "I wanted to give you fair warning that you'll be receiving a most unwelcome letter in about an hour's time," she replied.
His eyes narrowed. "Indeed?"
She briefly summarized the events that had just transpired, attempting to give equal time to all involved but probably, she acknowledged to herself, favoring the Gryffindors over Malfoy. Snape listened in silence until she finished.
"Coward that he is, Malfoy has clearly grown bolder since the Dark Lord's return," he observed darkly. "There are grounds for a reprimand to be added to his file; are you sure you hadn't rather do that?"
"I want it on record that I warned him first," Meli answered. "A letter to his Head of House will accomplish that. I have no doubt that he'll give reason for a reprimand or worse soon enough; as you say, he's grown bolder."
Snape nodded slowly. "And Lucius Malfoy will have fewer grounds for protest if there is a written record of a prior warning," he conceded. "It will also make clear that the matter is out of my hands—provided that you send a copy of it to the headmaster."
Meli gave him a small, cool smile. "Severus, I had no intention of doing otherwise," she replied. "However, for the sake of plausible deniability, I planned to keep you in the dark." She shrugged. "Trust a Slytherin to outthink a mere quasi-Slytherin."
"That has little or nothing to do with it," Snape countered. "There's a long-standing antipathy between Lucius Malfoy and me; as such, I prefer to avoid unnecessary conflict with him when at all possible, and so have trained myself to think in that direction at need."
"I find that simultaneously comforting and disturbing," Meli remarked. "But I do take your point. Both letters—the one addressed to you and the one you don't know anything about—will be written and filed in an hour."
"I await the one I know about with bated breath and eager expectation," Snape said sardonically, his expression deadpan.
"I can see that."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood near the entrance to the Great Hall, taking in the scenery and their numerous costumed classmates. Seamus had caused a small stir with his Leprechaun costume, effectively preventing another stir by upstaging Malfoy, who had come as a vampire but arrived to late to be noticed. Ron had noted with satisfaction that, though Malfoy had obviously made thorough use of white face paint, his black eye was still in evidence.
The ball had been fully underway for nearly an hour when something not on the program schedule took place anyway.
During a pause between songs, one door to the Great Hall creaked theatrically open and in pranced, of all people, Professor Ebony.
Her face was covered in blue and silver swirls of grease paint that gave her the look of a woodland imp akin to Puck or Ariel. She wore a black tank top, but it was nearly covered by fluttering strips of gauze and veil dyed nearly every imaginable shade of blue. The same was true of her skirt and the sheaths that she wore on her arms from elbow to wrist. She also had bright blue tights and slippers. Her black hair was pulled up in a topknot divided into tiny braids, each of which had one strand dyed blue. Around her wrists and ankles she wore bracelets with silver bells that jingled in rhythm to the song that she sang in a high, impish voice as she danced around toward the center of the Hall—to the amazement of all present.
Well, here I am amongst you,
And we're here because we're here,
And I'm only twelve months older than
I was this time last year-aye-ah.
With my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Ride-a-lum with my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Catching sight of Malfoy, who was glaring furiously at her, Ebony leapt lightly to his side and proceeded to address the next stanza to him:
The more a man has, the more a man wants—
The same I don't think true;
I never met a man with one black eye
That wished that he had two-ri-ah.
With my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Ride-a-lum with my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
She proved to be an equal-opportunity irritant, however, for her next target was a knot of tired-looking Ravenclaws, around which she danced while singing:
Early to bed, early to rise—
The same I don't think true;
How the hell can you go to bed
When you have none to go to-ri-ah?
With my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Ride-a-lum with my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Next, she popped up as if from thin air beside Seamus, on whose shoulder she leaned while singing him a stanza of sage advice:
Never throw a brick to a drownin' man
If you're close to a grocer's store.
Throw him a bar of Irish Spring,
Let him wash himself ashore-aye-ah.
With my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Ride-a-lum with my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Having completed these verses, she spun comically to the center of the dance floor, stomped both feet, then stood still to silence her bells for her grand finale.
Oh, here I am amongst you,
And we're here because we're here,
And I'm only twelve months older than
I was this time last year-aye-ah.
With my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Ride-a-lum with my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey.
Oh ride-a-lum with my toor-aye-ah,
With my toor-aye-oor-aye-ey!
She finished with her arms up and her head thrown back in a pose that would have been greeted with appreciative laughter had she been almost anyone else. But the sheer absurdity of the display—the fact that cool, collected Professor Ebony was the one responsible for it—resulted instead in a dumbfounded silence as students and teachers alike pondered the probability that she had absolutely lost her marbles.
The moment lingered, but before it could become fully awkward, both doors to the Great Hall slammed open with a resounding boom. Everyone whirled to see the entrance of the last two late arrivals. Their heights betrayed them as Snape and Zarekael, but they were so covered in black armor that no confirmation of their identities was possible; their heads and most of their faces lay hidden under helmets. Their hands and forearms were sheathed in wickedly clawed gauntlets, and each strode purposely with his hand on the hilt of a long, elegant sword, an emerald cape lined with silver billowing like a cloud behind him. Students parted like the Red Sea to allow them passage, but the Potions teachers seemed to take no notice.
Ebony, meanwhile, squealed out a delighted "Ooh!", then sprang away from the center of the Hall to fall in directly behind Snape and Zarekael. She looked for all the world like a very tall child marching noisily, showily, and not very well, behind soldiers at a review. Still, for fear of the wrath of the most frightening and vengeful teachers in the school, no one dared to laugh.
In this manner the trio made their way to the food table. Snape and Zarekael silently took up stations flanking the punch bowl, but Ebony whirled and immediately started shooing students out of the way, still in a Puckish voice: "Move along, move along. Nothing more to see! You can go about your business—the show's over. Come on, move along, now!"
From his station next to the punch bowl, Snape had a fairly clear view of Meli's continued shenanigans. She was nothing if not creative and mischievous, more so even than the Shakespearean tricksters from whom she had drawn some of her inspiration. Students and teachers alike soon learned to duck out of the way when her wand came out, not so much to avoid her doing something to them as to avoid whatever it was that she set into motion nearby. Colin Creevey didn't duck fast enough once, and before he could at all react, several streamers came to life, snatched away his camera, and spun away around the hall, snapping random photos as they went.
Another of Meli's wand-waves went unnoticed, though, until a Hufflepuff first year helped herself to a cup of punch. The cup didn't make it anywhere near her lips before she dropped it in shock, then reached out and pulled an iron rail spike out of the punch bowl.
"Who spiked the punch?" she demanded, quite puzzled by the laughter her unknowing pun elicited. She caught Snape and Zarekael looking at her, yelped, dropped the spike back into the bowl, and backed away, gulping.
Only Meli, Snape thought, smirking beneath his helmet.
Eventually, he and Zarekael abandoned the punch bowl and slowly circulated the room. Students were, for the most part, enjoying themselves, and Meli's antics contributed to the festive air—once people figured out how to separate in their minds this blue demon of mischief from the sarcastic, brooding Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor.
The fun and games lasted about an hour and a half. Then, just after nine-thirty, Snape saw Meli stiffen slightly in apprehension. She fixed her maniacal grin in place, but pivoted until she caught his eye. A warning shone in her gaze as she tucked her wand into her right arm sheath and started to spin, laughing rather disturbingly.
It appeared to everyone else to be just one more of her quaint Halloween tricks, but Snape soon saw the purpose behind the maneuver: As her arms flew out in a propeller-like motion, the crowd around her pulled back, leaving her room to fall and convulse.
Snape was already moving toward her when the seizure came. Fall she did, but with an insane force of will, she held her silence for a full two minutes or more before the pain finally ripped out of her in a scream. By the time that came, Snape had already reached her and started to pick her up. Her arms and legs flailed, striking his head and torso hard enough to bruise had he not worn armor; her scream, when it poured forth, was almost directly in his helmet-covered ear.
The claws on his gauntlets made it impossible for him to cradle her; the ferocity of her uncontrolled thrashing almost guaranteed that she would impale herself on one or more of them. Nevertheless, since he must get her out of the Great Hall and to the hospital wing as soon as possible, he caught her in a bear hug, then hefted her over his shoulder. His efforts were immediately rewarded with a sharp blow from her left fist that made his helmet boom like a Chinese gong, accompanied by a kick to his armor-shielded elbow that likely broke at least one of Meli's toes.
Students parted for him, so his progress to the doors was unimpeded. Out in the corridor, Zarekael joined him. The apprentice, he saw, was cradling the curled up, moaning, and more or less still Harry Potter, whose scar now burned a livid scarlet.
Meli, apparently, also caught sight of Potter. As Snape started a steady jog in the direction of the hospital wing, the refined-looking Professor Ebony dusted off and put into immediate use her profound vocabulary of gutter. Since she was still seizing, it came out in breathless, jostled shrieks, which produced an odd acoustical effect in the vault-ceilinged corridor—an effect that seemed somehow appropriate to the mood of the holiday. Snape wondered briefly what Zarekael, who had fallen in behind him, made of it. He did not think or even care what Potter thought.
When they were halfway to the hospital wing, Meli's initial seizure stopped, and she fell suddenly silent. Behind him, Snape could hear signs that Potter was still in pain, though, which indicated that Voldemort was not yet finished with whatever it was that he was up to.
"You know, I just can't seem to hold onto one identity this Halloween," Meli commented hoarsely.
Snape frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, first I was going to be a sprite," she replied. "Then, at your suggestion, I changed to Cinderella. After the inherent error of that was pointed out to me, I went back to being a sprite. I thought it was settled for sure." She sighed. "But now I find myself as not a sprite but a sack of potatoes. Why, Severus? Why can't I make up my mind?"
His answer was cut off by the onset of another seizure.
The episode itself had finished, but Meli still shook and twitched uncontrollably. She did not want to think about the mess she had left behind in the Great Hall—and she really didn't want to think about food. She gritted her teeth as her stomach rumbled, then lurched in rebellion against itself. Her eyes had fallen out of focus; the world swam in a fog before them, until an upright figure stepped into her field of vision. She forced her eyes back into focus and recognized Professor Snape, sans helmet.
"Hullo, Severus," she said hoarsely, then managed a wan smile. "I'm afraid I won't be able to teach tomorrow. I would love to, but I have a feeling Poppy won't allow it."
"Quite right," Poppy Pomfrey clucked from the doorway. "Unless you've discovered a miracle recovery technique in the time since you were a student here, there will be no getting past me!"
Meli narrowed her eyes in an expression that only the Skulkers should have recognized, but it seemed to her that Snape understood it perfectly, to judge by the smirk on his face. Not surprising, really, she thought, given that he's probably worn the same expression a few times himself. "No getting past you, Poppy," she replied meekly. "I know not even to try. You're the boss."
The mediwitch nodded once, adamantly, then left to tend her other patient. Snape raised his eyebrows fractionally and regarded Meli with amusement.
"How is it, exactly, that you weren't Sorted into Slytherin?" he asked mildly.
Meli smirked. "I've got a bold streak to me that just wouldn't fit there," she replied. "I don't think we should talk about anything terribly important just now, though," she added, glancing at the door. "She may well throw you out if she thinks you're bothering me."
"It wouldn't bother you to talk about trifles?" Snape countered.
"Oh, nothing too terribly frivolous," she amended. "No philosophy, for example . . ." She stared at a corner of the room for a moment, then slowly grinned. "I know. I'll teach you how to tell jokes."
Snape raised incredulous eyebrows. "You'll teach me what?!"
She looked mischievously at him. "Do you know that the students here think you don't have a sense of humor?" she asked by way of answering. "I think you should consider adding a stand-up routine to your lectures, just to prove them wrong. Now repeat after me: A werewolf, a vampire, and a boggart go into a pub."
Snape rolled his eyes but humored her. "'A werewolf, a vampire, and a boggart go into a pub.'"
"Ah, that's one of my favorites." Both turned towards the door to find that Dumbledore had silently appeared sometime during the conversation. "Though I do feel rather sorry for the poor boggart by the end."
Meli would have laughed, but laughter hurt too much. "Welcome to the hospital wing, sir," she rasped. "Sorry about that little row back there."
As improper as it probably was to make light of such a thing, she could not do otherwise. If she considered for too long what had actually happened to her—more to the point, what had actually happened to someone else—she would lose all semblance of control and break down weeping.
Dumbledore, thankfully, seemed to recognize this. He smiled gently, then pointedly closed the door. "Poppy probably feels that you should recover a bit more before I talk with you, but there are some things I must know as soon as possible."
"I understand." There was, apparently, no problem with Snape remaining to hear; she made no suggestion against it.
"I am sorry," Dumbledore said sincerely, "but I must ask: Do you know who it was?"
Meli swallowed, though she had expected the question. "I've never heard his screams before," she replied. "It was a man, though, and a former Death Eater, to judge by the way he went about begging for his life." She frowned. "He wasn't British or American. There was a distinguishable accent—Continental, possibly East European."
Snape and Dumbledore exchanged looks. Silence reigned a moment, then the former said, "Karkaroff."
Dumbledore nodded slowly, then turned back to Meli.
"No, sir, he did not survive," she told him before he could ask. "Voldemort killed him just after Severus brought me here." She shuddered, the violent motion sending spasms of reaction through her frame. What a mess I am, she thought irrelevantly. All a-tremble, as if I'd been the one tortured. She chose to ignore the fact that she had been tortured; she was better off than Karkaroff, after all.
"A second question, then," Dumbledore said after a moment. "Is there anyone you wish us to notify about your seizure?"
She furrowed her brow. "Everyone who could be safely notified already knows," she answered. "I would ask, of course, that the Daily Prophet not be notified, but that's less a request and more wishful thinking. The students can hardly be expected to keep quiet, and there are plenty of parents of whom the same is true."
"Fortunately, the only reporter who might be expected to run with such a story has recently retired," Dumbledore said grimly. "And there are ways of keeping a sensation from spreading too much, some of which I have already put into motion." He smiled again, and some of the customary twinkle returned to his eye. "Rest assured, Meli, it was all taken into account even before you interviewed to teach here."
"It comforts me to know that."
Behind Dumbledore, the door opened to admit a frowning Poppy. "Gentlemen," she said disapprovingly, "you are disturbing my patient. Professor Ebony needs rest, not questions."
Meli smiled. "In addition to rest, Professor Ebony could also use a good stiff shot of Glenlivet," she remarked. "I don't suppose you've brought one, Poppy."
Her attempt to lighten Poppy's mood did not come off well. The mediwitch smirked, then pulled from behind her back a vial of nasty-looking purplish-brown semi-fluid. "No, but I brought you something that'll do you even more good," she replied.
"Looks like cough syrup," Meli said off-handedly, carefully masking the nausea that swept over her. She knew that particular potion; she avoided that particular potion at all costs. That particular potion was laced—no, thoroughly saturated—with sugar. Her grandfather's house elf had given it to her on more than one occasion. "You wouldn't happen to have picked up the wrong container by chance?"
"Oh, no, Professor Ebony, it's the right one," Poppy assured her. "And remember what you said not ten minutes ago: I'm the boss."
You're only the boss when you being the boss allows me to fake a more thorough recovery and get out a day early, Meli thought miserably. The last time anyone compelled me to take in anything sweet, it was Dumbledore, and that was only because he didn't know at the time what sugar does to me!
"Is there any chance I could get a different pain potion?" Meli asked, doing her best to sound more polite than panicked.
Poppy frowned. "The only other one I've got ready at hand is for minor aches, which in your case would be the same as taking water."
"Ah, yes. I see your point." Meli debated whether or not she should request no pain potion at all, but going that route—even if Madame Pomfrey agreed to it, which was by no means a foregone conclusion—meant no sleep for the next several hours. If she was to be fit to teach the day after next, she needed her rest.
"Besides," Madame Pomfrey continued, "this particular potion's not so bad. It's very sweet going down."
To judge by the look on Snape's face, Meli must have paled visibly. She reached out to take the proffered dose, however, and forced it down, her strength of will and probably Divine intervention working to keep her from vomiting it back up again.
And they wonder why I self-medicate! she thought darkly, handing the vial back to Poppy. There were any number of perfectly reasonable alternative pain relievers . . . but they were all in bottles lined up on the worktable in her quarters. And as long as Poppy was "the boss", there would be no sneaking out to retrieve them.
Ron and Hermione huddled in an alcove near the hospital wing, waiting for an opportunity to sneak in and see how Harry was doing. Zarekael had easily outpaced them, and in any case, they had wanted to avoid being seen by either him or Snape.
"That was really creepy," Ron whispered. "Did you hear her start screaming right after Harry dropped?"
Hermione nodded. "And Snape and Zarekael were both close by when it started," she whispered back.
"There are rumors that Ebony has fits like that a lot," Ron told her. "Not always when Harry's scar bothers him. Parvati saw her once just before dinner, on the floor like that. You think it was just a coincidence tonight?"
"Maybe," Hermione allowed. "But I don't think it was a coincidence about Snape and Zarekael. They seemed to know something was coming—Zarekael picked up Harry almost as soon as it started, and Snape caught Ebony before she even screamed."
An odd connection formed in Ron's mind. "Do you think maybe Snape caused it?" he asked. Catching Hermione's opaque look, he shrugged, then continued. "Think about it. Snape hasn't liked any of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, and we know he wants the job for himself. He's gone up against the different teachers in different ways; maybe this is his way of trying to get rid of Ebony."
"By making her fall down screaming?" Hermione countered skeptically.
"By making her look crazy or out of control," Ron corrected. "All it took to get rid of Lupin was the rumor that he's a werewolf. If Ebony actually falls apart in public, how much more likely is it that she'll be gone?"
"It makes some sense," Hermione conceded reluctantly.
"And if Snape gets to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, Zarekael can take over his Potions classes. It'd be a sensible arrangement on the surface—easier than having to look for a new teacher right away."
"We'd have to learn some more," Hermione said. "I've never heard of any spell that could cause such a fit, other than the Cruciatus, and it still doesn't explain what happened to Harry." She furrowed her brow. "Besides, Snape would've had to release the curse to pick her up—he wasn't holding his wand. That means it can't have been the Cruciatus, or any other relatively simple curse either."
Ron shrugged again. "Well, obviously there's more to it than we've figured out so far."
"But I suppose it's worth checking out." Hermione peeked past the wall of their alcove. "Here come Snape and Zarekael."
They fell silent until the armor-clad Potions teachers had moved past, their footsteps eventually fading away, then ducked out of the alcove and slipped up the corridor to their destination.
Harry lay quietly in a hospital bed, his scar still a livid red. A recently emptied glass sat on his bedside table next to a bottle of pain potion; Madame Pomfrey was nowhere in sight. Ron and Hermione crept quietly over to Harry's bedside, keeping the bed between themselves and the far end of the room, whence Madame Pomfrey was most likely to appear.
"Hullo, Harry," Ron murmured.
Harry grinned tiredly. "Hullo," he replied. "Am I glad to see you." He frowned suddenly. "Any idea what happened to Ebony?"
Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. "We have a rudimentary theory," the latter told him, then quickly explained Ron's hypothesis.
"It can't hurt to look into it," Harry said, then flicked his eyes to one of the private rooms in the back. "And if you're right, it may well help." He suddenly frowned. "But one thing doesn't make sense: Snape and Ebony are friends . . . aren't they?"
1 SEPTEMBER 1980, SECOND YEAR
Dumbledore had announced at the end of the previous term that Professor Mediocritus Brewer, the Potions teacher, would be retiring. Meli had not been sorry to see the man go; in her mind, he was a terrible instructor and a thoroughly disagreeable person. In the excitement of the summer holidays, however, she had forgotten to speculate about the person who would replace Brewer and what quality of teacher that individual might prove to be.
Now, though, as she and the other Skulkers entered the Great Hall, she remembered and wondered briefly.
The answer, seated stiffly at the head table, stopped her in her tracks. Collum and Sharpie were ahead of her, but Crim, walking beside her, noticed the lapse immediately and also stopped, arching an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Meet me at eleven tonight," Meli said under her breath, then resumed her pace as though nothing had happened. Outwardly, she forced herself to appear impassive and calm, but beneath that façade, her thoughts were careening nearly out of control.
Dumbledore was no fool, not by any definition of the word. He could not be unaware of the extracurricular status held by the new Potions teacher, could not have been fooled even had the man appeared to be an angel—which he manifestly did not. He had to know what he had hired; why, then, in heaven's name, had he hired him?
Unless he's a spy, Meli thought hopefully. Dumbledore would know about that, too . . . and I know Voldemort doesn't know the headmaster well enough to think he knows everything. So if he's a spy, Dumbledore would know, but Voldemort would have no reason to suspect that Dumbledore knows; he'd just think his man was a particularly good sneak—or even a spy working for him instead of the Ministry.
That thought, comforting in theory, was not so comforting in practice. The new Potions teacher felt her eyes on him, shifted his gaze to meet hers—
And to Meli's shock, the back of her neck did not go cold. Instead, an odd sensation tiptoed eerily up and down her spine. She had had such a reaction to a Death Eater before, but not to this one; that Death Eater had been a woman. However, it had, she admitted, been some time since she had last encountered this one, and he had often been around that other Death Eater. That might, perhaps, have something to do with it.
Perhaps.
The teacher, meanwhile, appeared to recognize her, for, though he showed no dramatic reaction, his eyes widened just noticeably. They rested first on her face, which she knew must be burned into his memory, then on the House crest emblazoned on her robe. His eyes narrowed back to their normal size again, but she had the clear impression that he, too, thought her mis-Sorted.
Meli sat down at the Gryffindor table and turned her eyes to the plate in front of her for the duration of her time in the Great Hall. Not a syllable of the Sorting Ceremony reached her ears, nor did any of Dumbledore's customary start-of-term announcements, nor even the prim banter from Nearly-Headless Nick. She ate nothing and drank little, her mind a world away from Hogwarts.
At eleven precisely, Crim slipped out of the shadows near the entrance to the kitchens and joined Meli just outside the Hufflepuff common room. Given the Skulkers' public disdain for that particular House, it made perfect sense for them to use its entrance as a meeting place; no one would think to look for them there.
"Greetings and felicitations," Crim said quietly. "To what do I owe the honor of this interview?"
Meli raised her eyebrows. "Have you been reading the dictionary again, Crimson?"
Crim grinned. "Can you blame me?" she countered. "I spent the whole summer trapped in the same house as Collum and"—she shuddered—"Donald the Hufflepuff."
"Oh, is that where he ended up?"
Crim looked narrowly at her. "You really were spooked, weren't you."
"I suppose so," Meli conceded.
"All right, then. What happened?"
Meli took a deep breath. "The new Potions teacher, Snape—I know him."
Crim's expression suddenly hardened. "From . . . before," she clarified.
"Yes."
"Then he's—"
"I don't know," Meli broke in. "I used to have the same reaction to him as to all the others, but I didn't tonight; it was something different." She shook her head. "I can't explain it, really, but it wasn't at all the same. There was another—"
Crim abruptly snapped her head around to look towards the kitchens.
"Someone's coming," she hissed. "It's not Filch, but it's not a student, either."
"Then I'll see you at breakfast," Meli breathed, already fading back into the protective shadows and slinking away toward Gryffindor.
Crim, too, hid herself, but curiosity held her in place a little longer as the footsteps drew nearer. That they belonged to a teacher was quite obvious, but they were different from any pattern of footsteps she'd yet encountered while out after hours.
She watched in silence, therefore, as the teacher came at last into sight. From the height and build, it was obviously a man, and his graceful bearing implied someone of better-than-average breeding. He was robed entirely in black.
He passed through a ray of moonlight shining in through a window high in the wall above where Crim stood, and that light revealed a lean, pale, aristocratic face out of which glittered black onyx eyes and which was framed by greasy black hair. Those glittering eyes moved quickly and efficiently back and forth, taking in every inch of the corridor around him. Crim held her breath and stood perfectly still, coolly admiring Professor Snape's thorough search even as she was relieved that it was not quite thorough enough. What had brought him to the Hufflepuff corridor she had no way of knowing for certain, but she had the sinking feeling that she had not been quite careful enough in leaving the dungeons an hour earlier.
Snape, unlike Slytherin's former Head, was an adept skulker in his own right—something that she and Sharpie especially would do well to keep in mind from now on.
She watched as Snape once more scanned the corridor and slinked away, then, once his footsteps faded, she slipped away in the other direction and made her way as rapidly and silently as possible back to Slytherin House. She made it there without incident and slipped inside—
To find Professor Snape waiting for her in the common room beyond.
A Gryffindor would have tired to come up with some suitable excuse for being out after hours; Crim had no affinity for such attempts at moral justification. She was caught, and her energy would be put to much better use talking her way out of a punishment. Even before the shock of the encounter had fully worn off, she was settling into conversational mode.
"Good evening, Professor Snape," she said smoothly. "I hope the evening finds you in good health and high spirits?
To her untrained eye, Snape looked as though he might be mildly amused, but at this stage she was unwilling to risk a further snarky remark.
"I believe I'm entitled to know what you were doing outside the kitchens when you are supposed to be asleep," Snape said calmly, crossing his arms.
"Outside the kitchens . . ." Crim darted her eyes back and forth. "I, um, dropped a quill there earlier this evening, and I didn't want to be seen in such close proximity to Hufflepuff." Give a lame lie first. That way, the second, more artful lie will be far more likely to be believed.
Snape smirked slightly. "Which, naturally, begs the question of why you were there earlier this evening," he countered. "And I'm rather saddened to observe, Miss Fell, that you lie like a Gryffindor."
Trying to outwit Snape is going to be thoroughly enjoyable, Crim thought gleefully, even as she lowered her eyes in genuine-looking shame. "Were I a Gryffindor, sir, I would be foolish enough to blame my brother's influence for that particular shortcoming," she said. "However, as a Slytherin, albeit a pathetic one, I'm perfectly willing to accept responsibility for my failings and vow not to get caught at it again."
"How fortuitous that you think so far ahead," Snape replied dryly. "But for the moment, I'm still waiting for the truth about your nocturnal adventure."
Indeed, it is fortuitous that I think ahead. Crim managed a weak smile as she pulled from her pocket six chocolate biscuits and a pumpkin scone lifted not five hours before from the dinner table. "The truth is, sir, that . . . I've a notorious sweet tooth," she lied ruefully.
Snape surveyed the sticky handful with a pained countenance. "You risked a detention and a point deduction from Slytherin for biscuits?!"
Crim swallowed. "Or perhaps . . . perhaps I'm worse than a Gryffindor," she nearly whispered, slowly returning the contraband to her pockets. "I'll go pack my trunk, sir; it's clear I belong in Hufflepuff." She started to shuffle toward the tunnel to the girls' rooms, letting out a convincing sniffle as she went.
"Miss Fell." Now she was sure of the amusement in Snape's voice.
She turned to him with eyes threatening tears. "Yes, sir?" she rasped.
The Potions master sighed. "I begin to doubt I'll ever extract from you your real reason for being abroad, but I likewise doubt that there is even the barest trace of either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff in you." He raised his eyebrows a bit. "After you've handed over the contraband, you will go to bed and not leave Slytherin again until breakfast time tomorrow."
Crim smiled slowly, then handed him the now-gooey biscuits and the scone.
"And," Snape continued, as Crim wiped her hands on her robe, "you will also spend tomorrow morning in the Potions classroom, helping me clean out cauldrons and beakers."
She half-bowed. "I'd be honored, sir."
"Finally, there is the matter of points."
Crim swallowed. "A popular amount is thirty," she said, managing to keep her tone even. "At least, that's Professor McGonagall's standard."
Snape shook his head. "I'm not sure that your performance was quite so brilliant," he countered. "I believe it was worth a full ten, however."
"I understand." It's still a stiff penalty, and well worth an in-House hazing at the start of term.
Snape looked thoughtful. "If you had actually left me convinced that you belonged elsewhere, you might instead have earned fifty once I learned the facts of the matter."
Crim's head shot up. "Earned, sir?"
"You don't honestly believe I'd take points from my own House, do you?"
Once more, a slow smile crept across her face. "I stand corrected, sir." She glanced over his shoulder at the clock. "However, perhaps it's time I was where I'm supposed to be."
"Indeed."
Crim made it safely to her bed without further incident, quietly charmed away the chocolate stains on her robe and hands, then at last lay down to sleep. I hope Snape sticks around for a few years, she thought cheerfully. The Skulkers need practice at fooling a true Slytherin, and if we do get caught, he'll let it go if we're suitably slick about it. She smiled. Which, of course, we will be.
Unfortunately, Crim was forced to reevaluate her opinion of Snape two days later on the first day of class. As in the previous year, Slytherin and Gryffindor were grouped together for Double Potions, and while some antipathy toward Gryffindor must be expected from the Head of Slytherin House, Snape went far above and beyond the call of duty—particularly with one specific Gryffindor, who also happened to be Crim's best friend.
Snape began the period by calling roll, and he flanked the name "Stafford, Meli" with a pause and a glare on either side of it. Meli, who had never been especially expressive (her face had only three settings to Crim's knowledge: impassive, solemn, and occasionally terrifying when she smiled), met his gaze without flinching and betrayed absolutely no emotion whatsoever. From the corner of her eye, Crim saw Collum gulp visibly. Beside her, Sharpie watched the display with interest, but he gave no clue that he at all cared. Crim herself effortlessly mirrored Meli's countenance, but inwardly, her heart was sinking.
Why does the coolest teacher I've ever had have to be a necessary adversary?! It just isn't fair . . .
Nor did matters improve after roll-call.
In the other Skulkers' eyes at least, Meli was a Potions genius, an academic star who managed to excel in that class, despite Brewer's ineptitude as a teacher. No one could brew a forgetfulness potion or a shrinking draft like she could, and not all of that skill came from training prior to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, Snape appeared to believe differently, or so it seemed as class progressed.
Today, he started them out with a simple medicinal brew so that he could "evaluate existing knowledge and ability"—by which everyone understood that he meant he was evaluating the extent of the late Brewer's inadequacies as an instructor. This particular potion required no delicate balance of temperature or ingredients—indeed, there were only five basic ingredients, only one of which was a liquid. By rights, everyone, second years though they might be, should have been able to whip it up with no mistakes in the minimum required time.
That, however, presupposed that the dark and forbidding Potions master was not busily breathing down everyone's necks just waiting for a mistake to be made. He made only a token effort to intimidate the Slytherins, of course, but he was thoroughly (though silently) brutal to the Gryffindors, and Crim could not help but notice that his favorite station was directly behind Meli, staring down at the perfectly straight part in her black hair.
Meli was, to all appearances, perfectly impervious to this invasion of her space, but Collum, whose cauldron was next to hers, did not fare so well. His hands shook visibly every time he was obliged to move them, and then he made two errors that, by themselves, would have done little harm, but when combined produced disastrous results. Intending to add porcupine quills, he accidentally grabbed ground adder fangs and poured in a generous measure, then, imagining Snape's malevolent eye to be on him, he sweat even more profusely, and several drops of it fell directly into his simmering brew.
Adder fangs, as Meli could doubtless have explained, were not particularly reactionary things most of the time. However, when combined with either oil or salt—both of which sweat contains—at certain temperatures, they tended to become rather grumpy, sometimes explosively so; this, naturally, was one of those times.
Meli obviously caught some auditory signal of the potion's sudden discontent, for she whipped her head around, saw the contents of Collum's cauldron violently frothing, and hollered for everyone to get down. She collared Collum and hauled him to the floor as their classmates ducked for cover . . . but in her haste, she tumbled backwards, mowing down Snape in the process. Bare seconds later, the cauldron blew, spewing forth its contents to shower everyone within a ten-foot radius. The cauldron itself was decimated and settled throughout the room in the form of nasty, thick, damp pewter dust.
Everyone remained under cover for an uncertain moment, then slowly emerged, coughing on the dust and searching for the culprit. Snape was the first on his feet, in spite of his having landed beneath two students and a stool, and he pulled both of those students up by their robes as he stood.
Crim swallowed and caught Meli's eye, but the other girl seemed suddenly quite apathetic and detached.
"Fell, you fool!" Snape roared, eliciting what looked suspiciously like tears from the usually indomitable Collum's eyes. "What in the name of Merlin did you do?"
Collum, normally smooth enough to come up with a mollifying reply to anything, could not even formulate a coherent syllable in answer. Crim was thunderstruck; Snape was infuriated. The result was an immediate loss of fifty points from Gryffindor.
And then the Potions master turned on Meli. "As for you, Miss Stafford," he said through his teeth, "how could you have known what was coming unless you had something to do with it?" It was an unjust question, and everyone present, especially Snape, knew it.
To the wonderment of all, though, Meli's only reply was to raise mild, uncaring eyebrows. It was the first time she had not given a teacher some answer, either serious or sarcastic, in her brief time at Hogwarts.
Crim watched Snape closely to see how he would react, but what she saw was not entirely what she had expected. For a brief fraction of a second, something like recognition and surprise flickered through his glittering eyes, and he actually seemed to hesitate . . .
But then the moment passed, unnoticed by anyone but Crim and possibly Meli, and Snape's gaze hardened once more. "Ten points from Gryffindor for your insolence," he snapped, then turned loose both Collum and Meli. "You'll all have to discard your potions," he told the class. "They've been contaminated beyond use. You will re-brew them tomorrow, in addition to your next daily potion. You can thank Fell and Miss Stafford for that."
Crim found Meli serenely eating her lunch shortly after Double Potions. To all appearances, the Gryffindor had had a thoroughly uneventful morning and was preparing for a thoroughly uneventful afternoon. Collum—no surprise—was nowhere to be found.
I'm almost afraid to bring this up . . . Crim thought. But that was just too weird.
She sat down beside Meli at the Gryffindor table. To her delight (for several reasons), every other
Gryffindor within spitting distance immediately moved further down the table and out of earshot. I love being a Slytherin.
Meli, far from being intimidated, laid down her fork and knife and looked up mildly. "My, what an awe-inspiring presence you have," she said dryly. "Might you be willing to share with me the secret of your technique?"
Crim smirked. "Actually," she replied in an undertone, "you seem to have quite the technique yourself, at least with certain members of the faculty."
"Only one, I assure you," Meli said calmly. "He probably won't be so readily and openly hostile again, but that isn't at all due to any 'awe-inspiring presence' on my part."
"What, then—if you don't mind my asking."
Meli's eyes hardened as they always did when she dredged up memories dating back more than a year. "It's his own memory that stopped him," she answered. "He's seen me act like that before."
Crim leaned in close. "You mean . . . with You-Know-Who?" she whispered.
Meli nodded. "I didn't do it intentionally," she murmured back. "It's just that . . . well, when someone tries to frighten or intimidate me, the only thing I can think of to do is to show him that he can't. It doesn't matter who it is, Snape or Voldemort or McGonagall . . . they can't faze me. It's just not in me to let them do it."
Crim smirked. "You realize that you've just put McGonagall under the same heading as You-Know-Who."
Meli offered her a crooked smile. "And I notice you've done nothing at all to contradict me," she countered, then sobered again. "Snape doesn't trust me anymore than I trust him; I can't say that I blame him."
"You're a Gryffindor who told You-Know-Who to cram it," Crim hissed. "What more does he want?"
Meli shrugged. "Proof that I'll stick to that?" she suggested. "Remember, Crim, the point of torture is to wear someone down until he surrenders. I've had a year and a half of seizures, and only God knows how many more years of them ahead of me. Snape's concern is legitimate."
"Is it well-founded, though?" Crim countered. "I don't pretend to know everything about you, but I don't take you for the type who'd turn."
Meli shook her head. "Of all the Skulkers, Sharpie and Collum would turn long before I ever will," she answered. "Probably you, too; I'm just too contrary to turn at Voldemort's demand, no matter what he puts me through."
"Then we don't have anything to worry about," Crim said. "Because even if the others go—which they won't—I never will. Not after what that prick did to you."
Meli smiled again. "What a thing to call Voldemort," she remarked. "I'll have to file that one away for future comedic reference."
"Now who's been reading the dictionary?" Crim snickered. She sobered, though, as another thought occurred to her. "It's too bad about Snape not liking you, though; he's really cool otherwise."
"How do you know?"
Crim smirked again, then gave a brief narrative of her late-night conversation with the Head of Slytherin House. Meli was a touch alarmed but overall appropriately amused by the story.
"Skulking will be an especial challenge from now on," she observed. "But as long as neither Collum nor I get caught, the punishment shouldn't be too terribly severe."
Crim groaned quietly. "Relying on the Gryffindors not to get caught? We're doomed for sure!"
"The other option is for me to call Snape's bluff," Meli said smoothly, not quite meeting the other girl's eye.
"And what bluff is that?"
The Gryffindor offered her a reptilian smile. "Let him know that I know what he's really about," she replied. "But I daren't do that until I know for certain that he's not . . ."
A Death Eater, Crim finished silently. Even with no one eavesdropping, certain things were best left unsaid in the Great Hall. She cleared her throat, then ventured to ask, "And how long do you suppose that'll take?"
"Longer than I'd like it to," was all the answer Meli would make.