Story Title: Wicked
Chapter Title: Observation/The Value of Friendship Pt. 2 (3/?)
Chapter Rating: PG-13- for references to sex
Warnings: References to sex and tiny book spoilers.
Author's Notes: I hope that this chapter goes over well. Parts were a tad bit tricky. I want everything to sort of flow and set up the plot. I added my Yahoo! Group web address to my profile (finally!), so if you know anyone that loves several celebrities and wants a place to chat about all of them, tell them to go by the group. I spent most of the time it's been open adding fun little features that I like to see in a group before really attempting to advertise the group. There is now a profile on me to read (go figure. . .), as I never make those. It'a simple bit really. (Both of which should be up sometime today, I hope. . . ) Also, I want to send a thank you to everyone that has been reviewing, and has added me to their Favorites and Author Notice lists. (G 14 The Real One, JoJo the Jellyfish, Xel Black, we3, Sammy Riddle Voldemort's Baby, and last but certainly not least, Natsuyori Thanks guys!) That means the world to me. One last thing, sorry that the ANs are soooo long. -Danielle
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I watch the Granger girl run across one of the numerous open grass courtyards that surround the castle."Where is she going?"
The question is not allowed time to simmer, before I discern the direction of her jaunt. Hagrid's hut.
I feel my chest heave and twist. Hagrid's hut. The girl has recently been going there, and those two irritants she now calls friends have always been in attendance as well.
"One of those irritants protects the future of the entire wizarding world," a subtle whisper calls to me low enough that it could be easily ignored. I still hear it, and reason that it does have a valid point, no matter how much I wish it not to.
I tap my fingertips on the end of my chin considering the irony of it all.
Though I have pledged to potect The Boy, I would certainly not object to the boy disappearing to parts unknown, and taking the Weasley boy with him. Even the Longbottom idiot would be a prime candidate for a disappearance as well. Of course I would prefer for them to be safe, but I would also prefer not to have to look at them every day.
My mind drifts into reverie, imagining a world without Potter or his shadow, while my eyes follow the girl's path.
"I wonder what they do in there," I ponder the most reasonable options. "Surely they can't be doing anything truly immoral in Hagrid's presense. As half-baked as he is, he wouldn't permit an orgy or Dark cermonies to occur within his quarters. Or would he?"
I quickly abandon the absurd notion.
"The man respects, and probably fears, Dumbledore too much to do such a thing. No, they must be playing a simpleton's game, wizard's chess, or some other such nonsense," I conclude.
Pleased with my rationale, I move away from the window to head to my office. I have papers to grade.
- I could swear bullets that I can feel someone's gaze upon me as jog to Hagrid's hut. I realize that it is most un-ladylike to run in my uniform skirt and heels, but I cannot be bothered to waste a thought on appearances or protocol. The Grey Lady spoke to me! If she can see something special inside of me, surely he can too.
I leap up the few steps that separate me from Hagrid's door. I rap my knuckles on the slab of wood, and back off of the steps to wait for the door to swing open to me.
I can already hear the boys' raucous laughter rising and falling in a welcoming tempo on the other side of the door.
"Hagrid must be telling one of his stories again," I deduce from the sudden spike in the rhythm of the laughter inside the hut.
My stomach jumps in response when the door finally opens to me.
"Well hello Hermione! Come in," Hagrid says to me as he shuffles back to his seat.
I tiptoe into the dim hut, not wanting to seem too forward, or knock over anything. Since I have not been here very many times before today, I am still weary of how to hold myself in such an intimate setting with three males and no prying eyes. I count the occasions when I have come to see Hagrid with Ron and Harry, and get a total of three times, counting today's visit.
"Hermione!" Ron's face lights up as my name crosses his lips. The same enchanting lips that purse just so when he sulks, or when Gryffindor loses a game, or when he finds out that I have gone out with someone other than himself. He hates to lose in any fashion, including not having me.
I knew from the moment we bet briefly seven years ago that he was smitten with me. How could I have not known? The looks of longing mixed with those of jealously when I answered yet another question correctly. The ackward hugs shared after yet another triumph over yet another evil that seemed to always pop up at Hogwarts every year, the laughable formality with which he addresses me, even the time he tried to defend me from Malfoy Second Year, and ended up eating slugs himself in place of Malfoy. Yes, I knew, I've always known.
I know that we would have been together years ago if I had not developed crushes on our former Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, or the unfornate string of Slytherins I have always managed to have the misfortune of falling for. What can I say, I have always fancied a bit of danger in my life. Now, it was him.
"Hey Ron!" I answer brightly. "Hey Harry. How you doing Hagrid? No, let me correct myself, Professor Hagrid."
I smile and plop down on the wall-length bench next to one of my favorite redheads.
"Now Hermione, yer know yer don' have ter call me that."
"Of course I do, Professor Hagrid," I snicker, enjoying the coloring I cause to engulf Hagrid's cheeks without the aid of alcohol.
"Hermione. . . " he simply shakes his head at me.
I laugh again, encouraged by Hagrid's flustered response to my academic address.
"So what things did you need to take care of with McGonagall?" Harry asks me, taking advantage of the pause in conversation.
My smile evens immediately. "Not much. She offered a few words of advice."
"What kind of advice?" Ron looks at me questioningly as he blatantly ignores my attempted polite side-step of Harry's question.
"Nothing really. So what do you boys have planned? You are always looking to drag me into trouble with you," I inquire in an effort to change the subject.
"Us?" Ron and Harry shriek together.
They turn to one another calling out a synchronized 'Jinx' for the second time in the past half hour.
I groan under my breath,"I would rather not have this conversation again. I cannot, and most importantly, will not, sit here and listen to the two of you carry on like children."
"Children?!" once more they respond together.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and consider suggesting to my newly acquired companions that they join the school choir if they insist upon constantly speaking together. I bite back the comment to ensure that we do not get a further trivial argument over a joke.
"You both know I am teasing the two of you. I only tease because I have come to tolerate you," I smirk at them.
"Oh, tolorate. How flattering," Ron quips and settles back against the wall behind him.
"It is. Now," I sigh. "I've been thinking about my, well, our options following graduation. I was thinking of an apprenticeship."
"I considered an apprenticeship myself, but I think I'd rather work for the Ministry of Magic. My dad and brother already work there. I figure I could go into one of their departments. What kind of apprenticeship were you thinking of?" Ron furrows his brow at me in absolute concentration on the topic being discussed.
I recognize the beginnings of a chuckle at the seriousness Ron displayed forming in the back of my throat, and clear it to halt its growth.
"I was thinking about quite a few areas of study actually. I seem to be naturally best at Charms. Remember that feather from First Year?"
"Oh yeah, in Professor Flitwick's class. Wingardium Leviosa right?" Harry drew up the memory.
"Yes, exactly, but I have also been making immense progress in Transfiguration, and Arithmancy as well."
"I'll say. Water to glass. I wish that I could transfigure water into anything on my first try," Ron prompted his lip to quiver in a false pout.
I do not hold back a light laugh this time, "You know that I am able to the things I do because I practice, and study. You could try it too you know."
Ron punches me on my right arm with less force that I expect.
"I don't know what I'd like to do honestly. I thought about being a professional Quidditch player, but everyone wants to do that. Plus, I'd be wasting my wizarding skills," Harry cuts in.
I take into account what Harry has just said, "You are correct. Someone as powerful as you will be needed for greater things than riding on a broomstick. You will, no doubtably, go on to fulfill the prophecy; yet, I believe I am in agreement with you. You deserve to do more with your life than to only be known as The Boy Who Lived, and will go on to eventually completely finish out Voldemort."
"Hermione! You know we don' speak his name!" Hagrid cries, shocked by my disregard for Wizarding London's superstition.
"Yes, yes, I know, but what harm can come from speaking a name?" I assert.
"We don' want ter know," Hagrid says in a sober, hollow tone.
"I did not wish to imply otherwise. OK, You-Know-Who. You shouldn't only live to rid the Wizarding, and Muggle worlds, of him," I tell Harry earnestly.
Ron nods his head in agreement, "You should be known for something that has nothing to do with him. Have you thought about staying at Hogwarts?"
"I have, but what would I do?" Harry scrunches up his face at his own words.
"Plenty, I'm sure," Ron mustered through a half smile.
"Well, I. . . "
My sentence is cut off by the evening meal bell.
"There's dinner!" Hagrid chimes throughly thrilled.
"We'll walk with you to the Hall. It's too bad that you can't sit at the Gryffindor table with us," Ron tells me, rising to his feet.
"You don't give up easily on trying to steal me away from Ravenclaw, do you?" I ask, readying myself to depart. I look down at my books and wish that I had dropped them off at Ravenclaw Tower before coming here when I realize that they will have to accompany me to dinner.
"It's never to late for the Sorting Hat to redistribute students," Ron tickles me playfully.
"Oh, I know it is," I respond in an uncharacteristic giggle to Ron's attentions.
"If the two of you are finished with all this chattering, I'd like to eat now," Harry pushes the door open and steps out of Hagrid's hut.
Hagrid followed him out and called to me and Ron, "Yea, I don' want ter miss any o' the announcements and such."
I brush past Ron with a mischievous wink as I exit the hut,"What announcements Hagrid?"
"Um, well, ther' may not be any announcements spurcifically. Just in case y'know."
"I think you know more than you are telling us," Ron points out as he closed the door behind him.
Hagrid shakes his head, fluffing his lengthy mane and beard in the process, before speeding up to catch up with Harry, who had already reached the castle's arched doorway.
Ron and I glance at one another before speaking the same thought together, "He knows something."
We laugh together companionably, and hurry to join the rest of the school for dinner.
-
My eyes land on Hermione as soon as she enters the Great Hall. I note, with dissatisfaction, that she seems to find something Mr. Weasley has said to her amusing.
They always appear rather engaged with one another since they have begun spending more time together.
It was not been a secret that the Weasley boy longed for her. I wonder if, after all the years spent here at Hogwarts, something has finally come of Weasley's fascination with her.
I suppress the urge to sigh openly in relief when they part to dine at their Houses' respective tables. I scowl at several students facing the High Table.
I pick up my fork and wait for tonight's annoucement. My eyes slide over to Hagrid. The hairy oaf had been excited about the "news" since Albus told the staff this morning in a meeting. How great is a dance?
My mind wanders back to the last dance Hogwarts held. "I'm certain that Viktor Krum shall not be in attendance this time as Hermione's date, not after the trouble he got into with Karkaroff for attending a ball at the much-hated Hogwarts with a Muggle-born," I reflect confidently.
I watch the tables fill with magically summoned food, and feel my stomach's growls spike in anticipation.
"I should keep more food on hand," I resolve, placing a selection of the food nearest to me on my plate, and stabbing at it harder than necessary and begin to eat.
I remember that I still need to add one last component to a burn heal ointment I promised Madame Pomfrey. I rush through my meal in order go complete the ointment, and give the entire ointment enough time to simmer.
With one last glance toward Hermione, I push my chair back. As I stand to leave, Minerva casts me a meaningful look.
"Severus," her hand rests on my forearm as I pass her. "a moment. I believe that I am done here." She gestures to her plate.
I stare down at her with a scowl on my face, when she does appear detered, my hostility ebbs marginally. "Of course," I say to her.
She places her napkin beside her plate as she says her good-byes. I watch her through my peripheral vision. Her face is an even facade of total calm that I can tell she does not feel. The slight twitches of anger at the outward points of her mouth give her away utterly.
Minerva spins to face me once we've entered the hallway we use to enter the Hall. She casts a silencing spell around us before speaking to me, "For a spy, you were not as subtle as you'd like to presume you were being at the meals recently. You seem to be overly occupied with your lastest focus."
I fight the insistant impulse to roll my eyes at my long-time friend and fellow professor.
"Is it truly so important for her to give into hysterics over a few glances? I am allowed to observe the student body at meal times," I reason to myself.
"Minerva, I do not see your point," I answer her aloud.
"My point, Severus, is that she is a student."
"I am expected to keep an eye on the students, Minerva."
"Not in such a manner as I have seen you 'keeping an eye' on Miss Granger, Severus."
"You make too much out of your mind's more creative scenarios. Do try to get some rest Minerva."
I move to pass Minerva, but her hand closes around my arm once more.
"Be cautious Severus. Be extremely cautious when attempting to test what is not yours to experiment with."
I bring a hand to Minerva's and gently loosen her hold on my arm, "I shall have to keep that in mind. If you do not have any further motherly counsel to dispense, I will be retiring now."
"Am I mistaken, or did you not have hall duty tonight?" she asks me, her curiosity evident on her face.
"You know as well as I do that arrangements can be made. Goodnight Minerva." "Goodnight Severus."
I continue past her into the main hallway. I have more enjoyable activities lined up for the evening.
I smile inwardly, and hasten my steps to my office. "The sooner I finish the ointment, the faster I may return to my chambers," I indulge myself on the thought of my fair fiancee awaiting my arrival. "Adventurous or not, there is certainly something incredibly appealing about an eager participant." I dig my wand out my inside pocket to lower the wards surrounding my office, and unlock the door.
I push the door in so that I can enter. I gaze around the room, and decide to set a few things out of order before the Granger girl comes to repeat the previously assigned tasks.
I rush into my laboratory intent on finishing the ointment so that I may return to the dugeons to enjoy the exquisite woman who is lying in my bedchamber half naked by this time.
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TBC