Nightingale Blossom
By
Snivellus aka Heather Granger
Part II
"Good morning Neville." I say rather cheerfully, as he looks up from his breakfast.
"Morning, Hermione. Ron and Harry are still finishing their transfiguration essay. They said they waited up for you to help them, but you didn't get back until curfew." Neville said.
"Yes, I had to speak to Professor Snape about a matter, actually, maybe you can help me." I said now turning towards him. I reach into my pocket and reveal the root.
"Do you know what that is Hermione?" Neville asked nervously.
"Yes, it is a nightingale root, Professor Snape gave it to me last night, I was hoping I could get it to bloom."
"Hermione, once the nightingale turns into a root, there is no hope in saving it." Neville told me.
"There has to be a way!" I nearly hiss. Now I find myself acting somewhat like Professor Snape, how frightening.
"Have you done any research?" Neville asks me.
"No not yet, I haven't had time but I was planning to look in the library after classes end today." I confide in him.
"I have NEWT's Herbology today, I can talk to Professor Sprout about it if you wish." Neville says as he banishes his plate away.
"Would you? That would be fabulous." I exclaim, as I grab my sack from the floor.
"Where are you going?" Neville asks me.
"I have to drop off an assignment for Arithimecy, then I have Potions." I say taking a bite of toast.
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I watch as my students file into their seats. I clear my throat loudly, which causes them to all fall silent, something I admit I enjoy. I see that Miss Granger takes her usual seat in the second row next to a Ravenclaw girl, Miss Sangeral. I notice that Miss Granger is looking at me, more so than usual. I break eye contact quickly, and turn my attention to my blackboard. I wave my wand and reveal the day's lesson. The students quickly gather the ingredients that they require, while I speak.
"Today we will continue our work on mood enhancing potions by brewing the Delerium draught. Begin."
I pace the room, occasionally making remarks on their work. I stop short of Miss Granger's work station. I look over her should and watch as she places the asphodel into the potion. I stay and wonder if she kept the root. I wonder why she stayed quietly to do her work. I wonder what her motivation is.
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I can feel him breathing down my neck, his presence brings a sense of unease, and I drop my measurement tool. He makes a snide remark as I bend down to pick it up, he too bends down to pick it up for me. I touch his hand briefly, then quickly withdrawal. He looks away, and practically heaves the measurement tool onto my workbench and moves on. I did not know what to think of this interaction, and quickly get back to my work.
I finished my potion, and class soon ended. I pour my potion into my phial, and put away my ingredients. I am always one of the last students to leave class, and today as I prepare to leave, I notice that Professor Snape has cut himself on an improperly put away knife. I hear him curse under his breath, while grabbing his cut hand.
"Are you all right sir?" I ask as I walk over towards him.
"Fine, leave me be." He snapped.
"You should go see Madame Pomfrey, the knife could have some residual potion on it." I state, now standing in front of him.
"I, unlike you, can take care of myself, I said leave." He hissed.
"Here, let me see." I say, now reaching out to see the cut.
As soon as I made the movement, he flinched and withdrew. His other hand flew into the air, hitting me on my face. I grabbed the side of my face and flew out of the classroom.
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I still do not know why I reacted the way I did. Why did she have to touch me? I did not ask for her help. Nosey Gryffindor, she should have left like her classmates. I mutter a healing spell, and watch as the last drops of blood squeeze out of the quickly healing wound. I was expecting a knock at my door, from the Headmaster, asking what possessed me to hit a student. How was I going to explain this one? I had barely gotten away with nearly hitting Potter with a jar of cockroaches two years ago.
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I was unsure of what to do, I wasn't mad, nor was I upset. I knew I had stepped over the line, he was a professor, a grown man. I was a teenager, his student, I shouldn't have touched him. It wasn't as if I found him attractive, but I just felt the urge to help him. After last night, I wasn't sure what to do, how to act around him. I touched my face where he had accidentally slapped me, it was still warm. I would not give up on him so easily, I would return, even if that meant facing more ridicule. There had to be a reason, a reason he acted the way he did. He was pushing me away, just as he pushes everyone away, but why, what caused him to flinch?
Later, I met up with Harry, Ron and Neville for lunch, and spoke nothing of my incident down in the Potions classroom. They did not achieve their NEWTs level Potions, as I did, and so I had given up a long time ago trying to justify my reasons for taking Professor Snape's class.
"Hey Hermione, I talked to Professor Sprout and she said that while there has been no documented cases of successfully nurturing a Nightingale root to a blossom, she did not seem to think it impossible. She said that it might require several potions that would aid in its growth, but she did not know of any specific ones off the top of her head." Neville supplied me.
"Oh, thank you Neville, I do appreciate it. Did she say anything else, like whether it might require special soil, or water?" I ask again.
"Well, from what I know of the Nightingale blossom, it is usually kept in the dark, until planting in the sunlight. It grows best in humidity, that of the equator. Really if you want any chance at all of getting it to grow, you should go down to the equator and plant it there." Neville said as he took a bite of his sandwich.
"Hey, Hermione, I thought you were interested in potions, not herbology." Ron commented after listening to Neville and I's conversation.
"I am conducting a project which requires both." I state, taking a bite out of my apple.
"Sounds like loads of fun, what did you run out of items to study for the NEWTs?" He asked sarcastically.
"For your information, I am still currently studying for the NEWTs and if you two had any sense you would be as well. This project is an extracurricular activity, so you can think of it as my hobby, as Quidditch is yours." I state.
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There it was, the knock at the door, it only took Albus eight hours for him to hear the news of my hitting a student, Hogwarts best student to be exact. I had not gone to dinner in the Great Hall, and had avoided leaving my classroom at all possible costs, all I needed was to be threatened by the girl's best friends, misters Weasley's and Potter. I straighten my robes, and wait for him to enter, but he does not. Albus always knocks and then promptly enters, a ritual, which I cannot comprehend. If you are going to knock then it is polite to wait to be asked in. If you come straight in what is the point of knocking.
"Are you going to come in, or have you finally learned some manners." I say sarcastically to the person behind the door.
"I am sorry to disturb you again sir, but I was wondering if I could ask you for something." I hear her voice.
"Granger, haven't you had enough of disturbing me today?" I hiss.
"With all due respect, it was you that hit me, not the other way around." She snaps back. So she has a backbone after all, I was beginning to think that she was no better than mister Longbottom.
"What is it now, Miss Granger?" I ask impatiently, she is obviously here to annoy me, for what other purpose does she serve.
"I was wondering if you might have an old pot, that I could use to plant the root you gave to me." I hear her mumble slightly.
"Do you think me a Herbology Professor? You think by sticking it in some pot, covering it with old dirt, and watering will make it grow? How very naïve." I say to her.
"It is all I can offer it. You know, I think if I give the root all I have to offer, it will appreciate the gesture and begin to grow." She cunningly responds.
"And what precisely is all you have to offer?" I ask in return.
"I have caring, and kindness, and compassion, and most importantly respect for it." She responds.
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He looks at me from the other side of his desk. He looks at me, not with loathing, but with confusion, perhaps? I cannot tell. I watch as he opens his desk drawer and takes out a stone. The stone was very plain, and ordinary. It was not smooth or shiny, but rough and jagged, cut with a million imperfections. I scrunch my eyebrows in curiosity, wondering what he is doing.
He takes out his wand, and mutters a spell with French origins. I could not make it out, but I did notice the imperfect rock as it transformed into a round bowl, in which I could place my root.
"Perhaps if we would both give a little, you can make that damm root of yours grow." He says as he hands me his bowl.
I notice that he had covered his healing cut with a white cloth, which was poorly tied. I look at him as we both held onto the bowl. I put the bowl down, as the cloth came untied. I pick it up and hold it out for him to take back, but for some reason he does not snatch it this time, but looks down at his hand.
"Perhaps, if it is not an inconvenience you could tie it back on for me." He says so softly I almost did not hear him. I could not believe that he was asking for help, my help nonetheless.
"No problem at all, but I would appreciate it if you did not hit me this time." I smile slightly trying to lighten the mood, but yet he did not change his expression.
I carefully touch his long hands, they are rough and callous, perhaps a hazard of the profession he has chosen. I gently pull his hand closer to my body so that I can get a good look at it. I nearly have to pry open his hand, in order to see the almost healed cut. He tenses as I do this, and briefly catches my gaze, I can tell that he is highly uncomfortable. I take the white cloth and wrap it several times around the wound, tying it off with a double knot, which he will no doubly have to cut off when the wound is completely healed.
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I try not to shake as she touches me, as it has been a very long time since someone had touched me, especially touched my hands. I always felt that hands were private parts of the body, only to be used for one's personal benefit. A wizard's hands were necessary when it came to casting magic or stirring a potion. My hands on the other hand were necessary to hold on to pillows so tightly that the pain escaped through them. My hands were necessary to pound the desk in front of me, or to ball up in tight fists to control my anger.
I stay still as she finishes tying my bandage, why I had asked her, I am not sure. She seemed to on some other level understand me, or at least wanted to understand me, something no one has ever tried. It was true I had built up impossibly high walls, but she seemed up to the task to climb them. I somehow admired her for that, and so I tried. I tried to be civil, I tried to bring the wall down, and make just a little bit easier for her to climb.
"Thank you, I hope the bowl is adequate." I say. She squeezes my hand softly before letting go, I do not know why.
"It is quite adequate thank you." She responds as she places the root into the bowl. She takes out a packet of dirt that she must have collected earlier, and pours it in around the root.
"Do not be surprised if it doesn't work Miss Granger." I say.
"It will work, it just might take some time. Do you mind if I keep it down here, I have read that the plant prefers dampness, and seeing how damp it is down here in the dungeons, I was hoping I could keep it here.
"Very well, but do not expect me to take care of it for you." I respond.
"I would never do that, besides I am now bound to care for it, I made it a promise." She says placing the bowl on one of the unused workbenches.
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"I will be back tomorrow evening to check on its progress." I tell him confidently.
"Are you not going to water it?" I hear him ask as I prepare to leave for the night.
"I think we both know that it is too early for that, I think we shall take things slowly, I don't want to drowned the poor thing." I smile, and turn to leave.
"Good evening Miss Granger." I hear him say for the first time. I smiled as I walked back to Gryffindor tower.