Plots and Harem Girls

Hermione took a long swallow of her orange juice before setting the goblet back down upon the table.  Across from her, Antigone was biting into an orange-currant scone, still steaming from the ovens and dripping in far too much butter.  If she kept eating like this, she was going to grow as fat as she was tall.

"What happened last night?"  Hermione was about to scold her future daughter for talking with her mouth full, but Snape answered the question instead.

"As expected, Draco spouted off to his father regarding your true relationship with me; so naturally, Lucius Malfoy had to pass that information on to Voldemort." 

"Was… was he very angry, Professor?"

"Not in the least, Miss Granger."  He had just finished buttering both sides of a scone he had split in two, and to her great surprise, handed her one of the halves.  She took it, wordlessly.  "He was merely curious as to the reason I never mentioned her."

"What did you tell him?"

"That she was an embarrassment."  Snape's expression was bland as he took a sip of very strong coffee, ignoring the sound of outrage coming from his daughter. 

"Embarrassment?!  You're damn lucky to have me for a daughter and you know it!"

"Don't swear in front of your mother."  Hermione nearly choked on a bite of scone while fighting a rather unsettling urge to giggle.

"Oh, come off it.  I've heard her say much worse to you."

At that, Hermione set her scone down with her own look of outrage.  "I beg your pardon!  I have never used foul language towards Professor Snape."

Tigga rolled her eyes.  "Well of course you don't now.  You're still a student.  I'm talking about when you're married to him.  Believe me, even someone as crazy in love with her husband as you're going to be has the need to screech at him now and again."  She grabbed another scone from the warming basket and began to butter it, not noticing her father's contemplative look as he watched her.

"Such a cynical view to have at such a young age."  Severus looked from his daughter to his future wife.  "She must get it from your side of the family."

Hermione blinked and looked at her teacher.  Was he joking with her?  What had Voldemort done to him last night?  "Are you sure you're all right, Professor?  You aren't behaving at all like yourself."

Antigone looked up from her breakfast to frown at her mother, then at her father.  "How so?  He's always like this when we're together.  That whole 'vampire bat' thing he does is just an act to keep the students in line."  She turned the scone on her plate over onto the other side so that the butter between the two halves would have the chance to melt evenly.  The uncomfortable tension that settled between her parents went unnoticed.

"Back to the meeting, Professor.  You told… him… that she's an embarrassment?"

"Correct."  Severus folded his arms atop the table and leaned a bit towards his brightest student.  "Remember this, Hermione, and remember it well for it may help you in the future.  Voldemort can detect lies.  There's so much of him that is snake-like that I'm not entirely sure if he cannot smell them.  For that reason, the best way to keep him turning the wrong direction is to give him just enough of the truth that he has no cause to think that you are lying."

"Half-truths, then."  Severus smiled.  She wasn't top of her class for nothing.  "What did you tell him?"

"That her mother was a mudblood.  I described it as a 'youthful indiscretion', and for all I know that could be how it all begins between you and me, only it will be you who is the youthful one.  I also admitted that I have had little influence in her raising, which is also true, since the man I am today is not the man who raises her."

"And he fell for that?  I thought he was supposed to be some all-powerful supreme-evil type."  Tigga took a bite of the now properly buttered scone and looked to her father for an explanation.

"He isn't 'all-powerful', though he aspires to be.  Not even Merlin was all-powerful, though he came closer than any other wizard born.  Voldemort is, however, quite evil and quite certain of himself.  Too certain, if the truth be known.  He tends to make the mistake of underestimating his opponents."

Hermione looked down at her plate, containing the half of a scone the professor had given her, a thick slice of ham and perfectly seasoned eggs, but she didn't see them.  "Evil overlord."

"What was that, Hermione?"

She looked back towards her teacher, future-husband…whatever.  "It's a sort of running joke on the internet.  That's a communication network where people from all over the world can exchange thoughts and ideas.  Someone came up with a list, something like 'Ten Things I Will Not Do When I Become an Evil Overlord', although some people have expanded it to as many as one hundred or more.  One of the rules is 'I will not underestimate my opponents'.  A few others are 'I will not send a lieutenant to kill the child prophesized to destroy me, I will do it myself', 'Killing will not be too good for my enemies' and 'I will not put my enemies in some elaborate setup meant to kill them slowly and then spill my master plan while gloating'. 

Tigga gave a snort of laughter.  "Apparently Moldy Voldie hasn't read that list."  Her father gave her a quelling look and she turned her attention back to her own breakfast. 

"Be that as it may, he is still someone to be careful around.  I did, however, manage to convince him that Antigone needs to be reeducated before I can present her to him.  He's given me until Halloween, which will buy us a few months.  Hopefully the Headmaster will have figured out how to return her to her own time by then."  The house elves who had brought their breakfast to his quarters had truly outdone themselves.  Perhaps they figured that, seeing how he never entertained, this was a special occasion and warranted extraordinary fare.

"Uhm… Papa?  Halloween is this coming Monday."

"I am well aware of that, Tigga.  However, the Headmaster always finds some reason why I cannot leave the school, usually something to do with keeping the students of two particular houses from tearing one another apart.  I haven't had to attend a Halloween Revel since I came to teach here.  After that, it will be impossible to remove you from the school before the Christmas Holidays."

"Professor, aren't you taking a bit much for granted?"

"Miss Granger," he allowed his voice to drop to his 'class room' level, "I have been at this for longer than you have been on this earth.  I believe that I would have more understanding about how this works."  He picked up a pitcher and refilled her orange juice before topping off his own.  "Until then, however, the two of you must continue on as though everything is normal.  You will continue to work together in Potions, although I must caution you, Tigga, against spending so much time with the other Gryffindors.  I don't mind if you want nothing to do with the Slytherins, and I doubt Poppy will miss the potential for broken noses and limbs, but if I am to be reeducating you into thinking like a good little pureblood, you'll need to behave as though it is working."

"Oh."  Antigone took another bite of buttery scone.  She seemed to be contemplating something as she chewed it, then she swallowed and gave her father a sweet smile.  "You know, there is something that would really help smooth things over with the other Slytherins."

Sensing a potential trap, Severus' hand hovered by the handle of his coffee cup.  "And that would be?"

"Well, I do get that rematch against the Gryffindors.  I know that I'm the better flier, but that Nimbus 2001 isn't up to par and Uncle Harry does have an advantage over me, what with his faster broom and being of a smaller, lighter build."

Hermione quickly took a bite of her ham before she started to giggle.  The Potions Master was arching a brow at his daughter, clearly knowing a 'hit up' when he saw one.  "I suppose you have a suggestion as to how to correct this."

"Certainly."  She gave him a brilliant smile.  "I need a new broom."

"No."

Tigga blinked.  From the expression on her face one would think that she had never been told 'no' before in her entire, young life.  "Why not?"

"Because there's no point in spending money on something you're quite likely never to use.  The rematch is after the rest of the house games, which puts it after the Christmas Holidays.  I have every confidence that you'll be back where you belong by that time."  He took a long sip of his coffee, ignoring his child's expression of outrage. 

"That's a silly reason!"

"Why would that be?  I see no reason to waste money on a new broom simply because you feel that a Nimbus 2001 isn't up to par with a Firebolt.  You will be more than prepared against Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.  You can beat both of them without a new broom."

Tigga glared at her father and smeared honey on the end of her scone.  Hermione washed down her last bite of breakfast with the last of her orange juice, staunchly refusing to let herself laugh at her daughter's mutinous expression.  Snape, for his part, seemed just as inclined to ignore Antigone as well.  He was nursing his coffee, elbows on the table, eyes slightly unfocused as if he were thinking of something.  "Professor?"  His eyes shifted into focus and moved to rest on her.  There was an odd light within their depths, something she couldn't quite name.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"What will you tell them, the other Death Eaters, when Tigga's gone?"

"Simple.  I will tell them that I had to dispose of her when she couldn't be reformed."

Antigone's scowl turned into an expression of shock.  "They'd believe you'd kill your own daughter?"

"After all their children run home and tell them what a brat you are, most definitely."  Surprisingly, she had nothing to say about this.  Both her father and her mother thought this was nothing short of a miracle.

~***~

"I am not a brat."

Hermione pondered this for a moment.  "Well, not really.  I mean, Malfoy's a brat, and you're far better than he is.  I'm sure that Professor Snape was just teasing you."

"You don't think I'm a brat?"

"Oh, of course not.  I've never seen you be cruel or heartless, and although I do think you're probably used to getting your way, I haven't seen anything to suggest you don't have a generous spirit.  After all, you're a Gryffindor in your own time, aren't you?"

Tigga worried her bottom lip as she doodled on her parchment.  They were in the Room of Requirement today, having wanted to go someplace where they could speak openly and without fear of being overheard.  It was also a lot warmer here, so Tigga could stretch out on her stomach as she worked.  "I wonder why the sorting hat put me in Slytherin this time."

"That's obvious, if you just think a moment."  Hermione was double checking her answers on a large arithmancy assignment due next week. She was supposed to work every odd problem out of a total of one hundred problems, but had decided to do the even problems as well.  She heard her future-daughter sigh and saw her lay the rest of the way down out of the corner of her eye.

"I'm too tired to think right now.  Just tell me."

Hermione looked up and saw that Antigone was pouting.  It wasn't a very pronounced pout, but it was still a pout.  There was a look of sadness about the other girl.  Without realizing it, Hermione closed her heavy textbook.  "What is it?"

"I want to go home.  I want to go back where I came from, when you and Daddy are both adults and go out of your way to embarrass me in public by kissing each other and Aunt Minerva takes me the Highland Games so I can watch the cute boys in their kilts and Albus covers for me when I almost get caught sneaking around after curfew."  She lifted her chin a few inches from the floor.  "I probably shouldn't have told you that last part."

"I'm fairly certain that Professor McGonagall doesn't take you to the Highland Games so you can drool over cute boys wearing kilts."

"I tell her that I like to go because I want to learn the finer points of Scottish culture and history."  Tigga smiled and rolled over onto her back, looking up at the stone ceiling above her.  "I'm glad I got to come here, but I still want to go home."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't.  This isn't your time and most of the people who are important in your life cannot know who you are now that you're here.  This isn't your home."  Hermione tilted her head to one side, her eyes meeting Antigone's as the other girl craned her head to look at her.  "I'm glad I had the chance to know you, though.  It's a great incentive towards motherhood."

Tigga grinned. "You mean if I hadn't come here and met you, you might not have had me at all?"

"I've read a great deal about pregnancy and childbirth.  It seems quite messy and painful, to be truthful.  I haven't really seen anything to recommend it until now."

"And Dad?"

Hermione snorted.  "The jury's still out on that one.  I'm trying to figure out what there is to recommend him.  So far all I've come up with is a high level of intelligence and the possibility that he's got an extensive private library."

Antigone's grin turned positively evil.  "I know another one."

"What's that?"

"I overheard you telling Aunt Ginny once that Dad's lower wand is almost as long as…"

"Hermione!"  The door to the room burst open as Harry and Ron came skidding across the unexpectedly highly polished marble floors.  Hermione and Tigga had indulged themselves in a slightly scandalous fantasy of a posh room such as a sultan would house his harem in, more to see what one looked like than anything else.  Harry managed to skid to a graceful halt whereas Ron's foot struck a firm, thick roll pillow, causing him to pitch forward onto a pile of silken cushions.  He lay face down for a second before pushing himself up onto his elbows and looking around.  "Not bad.  Now all we need are the girls.  Unless you two want to…"  He was cut off when Hermione grabbed a pillow and smacked him in the face with it.

"Why are you two charging around like a couple of idiots anyway?"

"We didn't see you at breakfast."  Harry flopped down on a cushion and reached for a bowl of grapes nearby.  "We thought maybe you'd forgotten that breakfast comes before the library again, but then Lavender said that Snape showed up in your dorm in the middle of the night and invited you to breakfast in his quarters."

"He did."  Hermione opened her text book again, secretly thinking that it was perhaps a good think that the boys had interrupted Antigone.

"How'd he get up there?" Ron asked with obvious puzzlement.  "We can't get up there.  Any boy tries and the steps just melt into that slide thing."

"Because he's a teacher, Ron.  The rules are different for teachers."

"You guys mean you haven't figured out how to get past that trip spell yet?  It's easy!  All you've got to do is…"  But how exactly one did get past the trip spell they didn't learn, because Hermione had clamped her hand over Antigone's mouth, glaring at her.

"Honestly!  How can your father be so good at keeping secrets and yet you continuously blabber at the mouth?  Ouch!" She jerked her hand away because Tigga had bitten her finger before blowing a raspberry at her.  This turned out to have been a bad idea, as she was stilly lying on her back with her head cranked at an awkward angle, which allowed saliva to spray into her own face.  Ron snorted with laughter as the tall girl grimaced and wiped it off.  Hermione merely smirked and said, "Serves you right."

"Seriously, Hermione, how could you pass up breakfast with us to eat with Snape?"

"Hey!?"

"No offense, Tigga."  Harry gave his newfound friend his most winning smile before looking back at Hermione.  "Ron got this mad idea that Snape was going to poison you."

"Oh, that's ridiculous.  Severus wouldn't poison me."

Both boys stared, dumbstruck, at their friend.  She continued to check her work for several minutes, until someone started making a sound a good deal like a cricket.  Hermione blinked and looked up, craning her neck around to see where the insect might be, until she realized it was coming from Tigga.  She gave the other girl a questioning look.  In answer, Tigga, stilly lying on her back, pointed over her head with one finger towards Harry and Ron.  Hermione looked up to see the pair of them staring at her, their jaws slack.  "What?"

"You… you called him by his name."

"Of course I did, Ron.  What else would I call Professor Snape but Professor Snape."

"You called him 'Severus'."

"What?  No I didn't."  Harry nodded mutely.  Hermione frowned, trying to think.  "Did I?"  She looked down at Tigga, who nodded.  "Oh."

"Hermione, are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah, Hermione, you feeling all right?"  Hermione kicked Tigga lightly in her hip to silence her. 

"I feel fine.  I was just a slip of the tongue.  I was too busy thinking about my homework and… and it just came out."

Ron looked skeptical.  "Tigga, what's going on?"

"Well, she was doing her arithmancy homework and I was pretending to be doing that essay for Professor McGonagall."

"Not that.  You two are hiding something."

"Don't be silly.  Tigga and I were, well, we were trying to figure out how… how to make Gryffindor hate her."

"Why would we do that?  She's all right, for a Slytherin and a Snape."

Hermione sighed and looked at Tigga, who gazed back up at her.  "Well, last night Professor Snape was summoned by… by Voldemort.  He had found out about her and was upset with Professor Snape for not telling him he had a daughter."

"What?  You mean that no one knew about her?  Not even Snape's old cronies?"  Ron shifted himself around so that he was sitting cross-legged beside Harry.

"Apparently not.  Anyway, that was part of what he wanted to see me at breakfast about, to explain why Tigga can't be making anymore trips into Gryffindor Tower."

"Why not?"

Tigga rolled over on to her stomach, propping herself onto her elbows but not looking up.  "Because Daddy's supposed to start re-educating me to be a good, little pureblood, or at least that pasty-faced snake's version of one."

"That means no more eating at the Gryffindor Table, no more sitting with the Gryffindors during Quidditch matches she's not flying in and no more running around with us.  He says that I can still study with her, because he can argue that he's just using me to get her caught up with the classes here, but that's the only concession he'll make."

"That's terrible!"  Harry looked truly appalled.  "You mean we've got to start pretending to hate her?"

"What if we can't?"

"Well it's not my idea."  Tigga folded her hands over one another and flopped her chin down onto them. 

"And it's only temporary, until the professors can figure out a way to… make her disappear."

"And what happens if You-Know-Who wants proof before then?  What if she can't convince him she's gone all bad?"

"Then he'll expect Daddy to kill me."

The room fell quiet.  Tigga didn't even pretend to be a cricket again.  Ron's face had gone so white that his freckles seemed to pop off of his skin.  Harry swallowed hard before he tried to speak again.  "I suppose that we'll have to, for everyone's sake.  I mean, if Tigga doesn't seem to go bad, then the Death Eaters will want her dead.  If Snape doesn't at least look like he's trying to make her go bad, then Voldemort might figure out what he's really up to and we'll loose a good ally."

"So… what do we do?  I mean, it'll look fishy if we just start insulting her for no reason.  No one will question you if you stick up for her, Hermione.  I mean, you still stick up for Snape.  But the whole school knows that Tigga's welcome in Gryffindor Tower."

"We'll have to stage something, a sort of falling out." 

"Can we not plan it right this instant?"  Tigga gave a slight smile and pushed herself up onto her hands.  "I mean, can't we just have a little more time being friends before I turn all 'Malfoy' on you?"

Harry and Ron look up at their soon-to-be ex-friend and smiled.  "Don't see what waiting another day would hurt.  We can make a party of it."  Harry gave Ron a sly look.  "Time to make a run to Honeyduke's."

Ron grinned and nodded.  "Definitely!  We need party supplies."