Chapter 13: Slytherin terror (courtesy of the terrible twins) or "Waaarrrgghhh!!"
So far:
Practically nothing in the last chapter except people discuss Hermione and Snape and now they are about to play their prank on the Slytherins to get them back for... well... everything and just 'cause they're feeling mean.
"I have a feeling," Ron started with a smirk but had to pause his sentence to let out a huge sleepy yawn. He lifted his hand to his mouth then continued. "- that there are going to be no Slytherins at their table at breakfast today."
It was about four forty in the morning and the hour saw them in the Slytherin common room. They all stood in a cluster in the center of the room. Hermione was looking around with wide eyes in wonder at the difference compared to the Gryffindor common room. It was square with sharp corners, unlike the round of the Gryffindor tower. It was dimly lit, not by a fire which was dead in its hearth, but by candles which had burned down to stubs on elegant stands all around the room. It was cold and all the walls were stone, yet strangely enough it was not unwelcoming.
"I do too," agreed Harry, nodding. His black hair looked almost invisible against the backdrop and his choice of black clothes, like everyone else, made it difficult to decipher where exactly his outline ended.
He lifted the white linen sack dangling from his hand up to his chest. Everyone waited as he opened it carefully and stuck a hand in.
He pulled out a small scarlet sachet about the size of a fist tied together with string. He looked at it for a second before handing it to Hermione. She held out a hand to take it. She squeezed it gently and it felt like it could have been filled with beans but Hermione knew better. This whole thing was courtesy of Fred and George. Their latest invention.
Harry handed out one to each of them then tucked the lighter sack (which contained two extra sachets – just in case) under his belt. He patted it twice to make sure it didn't slip and once he was certain it was secure he looked back at them. His emerald green eyes bore into the eyes of each of them in turn before he opened his mouth to speak again.
"You know what to do, girls take the girls' side and we'll take the boys'," he was taking charge with absolute ease and everyone nodded. Draco flicked his hair out of his eyes because he had nodded with such vigor. He seemed incredibly edgy but that was understandable. His silver gaze was scanning the room and taking in the sight hungrily because he had missed it so much. His "friends" on the other hand he did not miss in the slightest, in fact he was glad to be rid of them.
They split up. Hermione took Ginny's arm and they both left for the door in the far corner that Draco had told them led to the girls' dorm. The boys headed for the other corner, working their way past chairs and desks, careful not to stumble in the dark.
Hermione and Ginny stopped walking once they reached the door and Ginny put out a tentative hand to turn the handle. She furtively opened the door and peaked around it before slipping in. She waited until Hermione had come in too before shutting the door.
Only once she had shut the door did she turn around to see her surroundings. Ginny was irritated to find that they were in a long corridor with labeled doors on either side. She was slightly jealous seeing as after a hard day of jamming junk into her brain she had to drag herself up a winding staircase whereas the Slytherin girls simply had a corridor.
Hermione on the other hand didn't even consider this, as she carefully started to untie the string of her sachet. She and Ginny continued to walk down side by side until they reached the first door.
Hermione tucked the loose string away in the pocket of her jeans and looked up to read the sign written in silver imprinted deeply on the wood. It read: First Years. Hermione was the one this time who put out a hand to open the door. She very carefully pushed it open so as not to wake any sleeping first year Slytherins up.
She and Ginny stealthily stepped inside and left the door open to make it easier to escape if someone woke and just because it was convenient.
The dorm was exactly identical in every way to that of the Gryffindor dorms except the blankets and curtains were in dark green. There were a couple of girls snoring but the atmosphere was pretty much relaxed and quiet.
Hermione pointed to the row of beds on the left and looked at Ginny, meaning that she should take that side. Ginny nodded and silently made her way to the first bed on the left. Hermione would be taking the right hand side.
She cautiously approached the first bed, feeling bad at what she was doing but getting excited at the same time. There was a first year snuggled on her side with her blanket pulled up around her shoulders. For a moment Hermione almost felt sorry for the helpless and tiny first year with her long straight dark brown hair splayed out on her pillow and shoulders.
She dipped a hand into the sachet and pulled out a small pale pink pill from the hundreds stored in there. She loomed over the relaxed young girl and hesitated as she saw how small she was. Had she really been that minute when she had helped Harry to the Philosopher's Stone?
She bent over placed the open bag on the bed beside the sleeping mound so she could have a free hand. She carefully put a hand under the girl's jaw and softly pried open her mouth without waking her. She dropped the pill into the chasm and closed her jaw.
The girl continued to sleep and Hermione took the bag of pills and moved to the next bed.
Severus couldn't sleep that night, nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't as if he never slept or he was an insomniac, he just felt no desire to sleep this night in particular.
At first he had prowled the corridors in search of students out of bed. It was always relaxing and entertaining if he caught someone. There hadn't been any - nevertheless he felt it hadn't been a waste of time.
He had spent a good deal of time reading (or attempting to in any case) but after several chapters his mind had seemed to give up and the words began to come out of focus. No matter how much will power he mustered the words would not clear. Slowly his frustrated thoughts at why he was unable to concentrate turned to thoughts of Hermione and what had happened.
He thought for a while about what they would have to deal with but he found himself imagining her face and wishing to see her. There was still something in his brain like an itch or a small voice constantly condemning him, constantly reminding him that Hermione had been his student for seven years. But with time he listened less and less to that irritating voice. He loved her, everything about her and she loved him back. There was still some inner confusion about why this had happened and how it was possible but he supposed that was healthy.
After spending quite some time on this unproductive thinking, he decided to go to his classroom. There was always something there to do to distract him.
He had spent most of the early morning hours rearranging items and reorganizing. At one point he had been sure he heard footsteps pass his door but it couldn't have been students because rarely in his experience had he seen a student awake past the unsightly hour of three in the morning. He was sure that there was a possibility that they were students but he doubted it.
He returned to his work without another thought.
Goyle's groggy eyelids peeled apart and he blinked stupidly as he tried to focus his sleepy eyes. Things stayed blurry for a good half a minute where he just lay in bed blinking. He lifted his bulky hands and balled them into fists so he could rub the crud from his eyes.
Once he could see properly he struggled to push back the green sheets off of his oversized body. It had to be about late morning, ten thirty maybe. There was no need to wake up early when there were no classes. The whole school was usually awake by eleven with some exceptions who preferred to wake at eight or nine in the morning, but they were mainly teachers. This was their last week at Hogwarts. School ended on Saturday when they would pack their trunks and leave forever.
He stumbled out of bed and cautiously stood before flinging back the dark green drapes. There was a mixture of empty beds and curtained sleepers. But no one was awake in the room apart from him. The light streamed in through the small window high up, shattered by the shards of grass that blocked parts of it. That was inevitable seeing as the window was barely at ground level.
He twisted an arm and roughly rubbed an itch on his lower back as he trudged over to the bathroom, smacking his lips.
He yawned as he walked through the wide open door without bothering to put a hand to his mouth. He turned, taking his hand from his back and pushed the door shut. It slammed which proved he had not stopped to think of the other sleeping Slytherins, either that or he didn't care.
He locked it then turned around. First stop: the mirror. He shuffled forwards to the sink over which it hung. To his right there was the toilet and to his left was the shower. The whole setting was in pale grey which was the closest they could get to having a toilet made of pure silver.
He placed his hands on either edge of the sink and leaned on them as he looked at the mirror. The squashed and lost looking face of Goyle stared right back at him. His hair was a tangle of straight flat hair that had been distorted by sleep to stand up in all directions. He lifted a huge hand to run through it.
Once his hair had been sufficiently controlled he nodded his pudgy face briefly at the mirror. Nothing out of the ordinary.
...
Goyle stuffed his hands into the pockets of his saggy jeans as he sluggishly trundled down the boys' corridor. Crabbe must already have woken because his bed had been empty. He decided to go in search of him before he had breakfast, although breakfast was beckoning him more than finding his, since recently, only friend. Draco had betrayed all the Slytherins and the mere thought of him made his fingers curl into fists in his pockets.
His dull brown eyes took in all they could of his familiar surroundings. Nothing new.
He was almost at the door when he heard a scream so loud it stung his ears. He dimly froze and it took him a couple of seconds for it to sink in that there was possibly something wrong in the common room from which the scream had come. He blinked twice.
He finally got into motion and walked a little faster to get to the door ahead of him. He could start to hear noises of fast shocked talking.
He had opened the wooden door an inch when there were two more simultaneous shrieks at deafening pitches. He felt his eardrums cringe as if they were threatening to burst. His mud colored eyes started to water and he lifted his other hand to his ear as he winced.
He flung the door wide open and looked at the confusion laid out before him. The Slytherins had gone hysterical.
He glanced at the terrified faces and immediately felt as if someone had swung a huge tire-iron in his face. He thought for one second he would be knocked backwards... The ugliness. He had never in his life seen anything like that. A boiling that felt a lot like hot oil inside his guts made him panic.
People were running away from everyone else, backing into each other, turning around and pointing at each other before screaming and running away again. Goyle couldn't be sure that they in fact were people. Whatever they were, they sounded a lot like the Slytherins he had said good night to before sleeping last night.
He scanned the room and his eyes rested on a small girl next to him whom he slightly recognized. She was leaning against the wall. Her eyes flickered over each person and she was shivering violently. She whimpered as she glanced at him staring right at her. Her hair was misshapen and a frazzled mass of comically orange curls sticking out at different angles. Her eyes had been distorted to become exceptionally wide. The skin of her jaw was hanging like a bulldog's around her neck.
He stumbled backwards when he looked at her.
Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped and spun clumsily around. His eyes were wide with horror. He tried to gasp when he saw who had tapped him lightly. It was another girl, it must have been, and probably in his year. But the whites of her eyes were bright yellow, the irises dark orange and her hair a spiky unkempt black mess. Her chin was incredibly large and her nose was so long that it almost touched it. Her skin was a sallow acid green.
"Goyle?"
"Waaarrrgghhh!!" he yelled and tripped backwards, right into the orange haired girl. He flayed out his arms and failed to prevent himself from crushing the poor girl. She squeaked, muffled by his weight, and fainted. When he pushed himself off of her, she slid down the wall onto the floor with her dish-eyes loosely closed.
He looked at her apologetically, not that it made much difference. She remained propped against the wall, her legs squashed beneath her and head tipped to the side, her skin hanging at an angle.
Goyle turned back to the terrifying mimic of a muggle image of a witch and almost stumbled backwards again, which would have resulted in him landing on top of the fainted girl. He caught himself with a hand on the wall just in time.
The creature asked with a feminine voice "Is that you, Goyle?" He blinked. How did the thing know his name and how did her voice sound so familiar? He squinted at her.
"Of course it's me. I'm the only one here recognizable!" he retorted, still squinting. His eyes widened with recognition. "Pansy?!" he gasped loudly. "Is that you?!!" He couldn't believe it. The thing nodded its crows nest piled atop its head solemnly.
"Yeah..." she said sadly, "You can't tell can you?" The grotesque orange eyes flickered over him.
"Absolutely not!" he replied. How could he possibly recognize her when she did that? "What did you do to yourself?!" They paused what could be called their conversation to observe as two terrified people who weren't looking as they ran away from their housemates slammed into each other in front of a black sofa with a sickening thud. They both flew backwards from each other and landed on their butts. They winced in pain and looked up to see who they had run into and both immediately shared repulsed looks of shock.
Pansy turned back to Goyle with abhorrence. "ME?! DO THIS TO MYSELF?! ARE YOU MAD?!" she shrieked. He flinched at the high note she could hit. He had also caught a glimpse of her dark yellow teeth. "And let me tell you something," she hissed, continuing practically apoplectic with anger, "You are far from recognizable! You look gross!" she snapped. Goyle frowned, baffled. How could that be? He had seen how he had looked earlier in the mirror.
He shook his head. But to everyone else Goyle did in fact look like, for lack of a better word, a gargoyle. His ears were pointed and large enough to match his face. His nose had been squashed back even further up his face so that it was nothing more than a few triangular wrinkles before his huge nostrils like it had been pinned back into a snout. His eyes were perfectly wide and sharp like cats eyes and his mouth was pulled into an ugly smirk, with his top row of sharp little teeth, that looked more like pincers, sticking out over his bottom lip. His eyebrows were shoved high up his forehead and shaped as jutting angles.
In fact, he had it quite easy compared to some of the others. Crabbe for instance looked like some twisted version of the hunchback of Notre Dame. He had multiple warts scattered over his face, misshapen uneven grey teeth, a nose that looked like it had been broken five hundred times, limp yellow-orange hair with a prominent bald patch at the back and his skin held a coffee mottled appearance.
They had put a window spell on the Slytherin mirror in the common room and on a fair sized hand mirror before they had left. It had been the second part of Ron's ingenious plan. So now they could watch everything which the mirror saw through the portable vanity mirror.
Fred and George saw fit to sneak in via the Honeydukes passageway to see the results of their latest invention which they had yet to name. They planned on gathering ideas for it from reactions. Harry had smuggled them under the invisibility cloak up to the Gryffindor tower which was once again empty due to everyone waking up and deciding to spend their time elsewhere.
So they had the whole room to themselves. Yet since the mirror was not particularly large all seven of them were crowded together.
Hermione had let Ron do the honors of the levitating spell which he was so proud of. He had held the mirror by the silver designed handle with a look of superiority despite the fact that this was first year magic. He majestically swung his wand back over his head.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" he narrowed his eyes to look as though he was concentrating really hard and Ginny giggled behind her hand softly at how ridiculous he looked with his exaggerated performance.
The mirror slid free of his grasp and floated up where it hovered in front of their faces, giving them a far better view. Ron had decided to let Hermione do the spell that revealed the Slytherin common room, however.
They waited patiently for the Slytherins to start arriving in the common room. It seemed they woke much later than the Gryffindors, if only by a half hour.
When finally someone stepped into view from the girls' side of the room George did a double-take. Fred slapped a hand to his forehead and pretended to stumble backwards in surprise. Ginny's jaw dropped. Harry and Ron winced and Draco cringed. Hermione's brown brows shot up in shock.
"Woh!" said Ron with bug eyes. "Now that's ugly!" he gasped as the girl wandered over to a couch with a book in one hand, blissfully ignorant of her appearance. They all nodded in agreement. She had five eyes and in place of a mouth was an oval hole lined with little dagger-like teeth. And her hair was... wriggling?
Fred and George were sharing unsure looks.
"Yeah..." agreed Fred slowly, "Much uglier than we imagined..." he glanced at George again to make sure that it was indeed uglier than he had imagined. George nodded feverently. He looked repulsed by his own invention, although he was grinning broadly. Ginny was doing everything to resist the urge to wrinkle her freckled nose.
Hermione's head snapped around so fast her hair swung into Harry's eyes. She eyed them dangerously.
"What?" she said slowly. Fred started looking uncomfortable and George suddenly found the window a fascinating piece of craftsmanship. "Do you mean to tell me that you didn't test these things first before we gave them to the whole Slytherin house!?" Her voice was rising and her fury growing. Fred fidgeted on the spot.
George looked back at her with honesty etched on his boyish features.
"Oh, no. Of course we tested them. Honestly Hermione," he smiled wanly at her, "What kind of people do you think we are?! We just doubled the dose... that's all..." Hermione gave them the Mrs. Weasley look and they shrunk away from it. He leaned closer to Fred to mutter between themselves. "I think I've got a description for it... any title ideas?"
Fred shook his orange hair. "Nope. Let's wait and see," he gestured to the floating silver mirror which they crowded round. George nodded. They all started watching again. Ginny gave up on her nose and let it crinkle with repugnance. Now she had to resist cringing too. Hermione's wide brown eyes flickered over the girl reading quietly in front of the Slytherin mirror. Eugh.
There was the sound of a door opening from the boys' side.
"Here we go!" said George with anticipation. They held their breath. But when the guy came he just walked behind the sofa without glancing down at the girl bent over her book. Her hair shrouded her ugliness anyway and she was too absorbed in her volume to look up and see who had come in. He just walked right past with nothing more than a glance at the short straight blonde hair of her scalp.
"What was that?!" Fred jabbed a finger at the mirror as if it had offended him. He folded his arms over his blue robes and his brows drew together as he fumed. George glared at the mirror and folded his arms too and soon they were identical in expression as well as appearance. They both pouted and Ron grinned at them.
Draco lifted an eyebrow as he glanced at them but said nothing. He could barely recognize the people he had eaten breakfast with countless times and it scared him. He wondered what the overall reaction would be. They continued to watch.
Another Slytherin girl came in just as the boy left in the direction of the bathroom. She had her head squashed down so her neck appeared nothing more than a disk or a ruff. She was oozing some lime green liquid from her ears and a long glob of it dangled from her nose.
Fred started furiously tapping his fingers on his folded arm. Nothing was happening. She didn't look at the first girl sitting on the couch and just sat down beside her with a wheeze from the cushion. George's eyes narrowed as he grew more and more impatient. The others, though, did not mind the wait.
There was a moment where nothing happened and the two girls sat stone cold and silent side by side looking equally repulsive. Even Ginny held her breath as she waited to see what would happen when they saw each other.
"Morning," said the five eyed girl with the book. She started to mark her page and close it so she could greet her friend. She lifted her head and the paper of each page had barely touched when her eyes landed on the monster sitting next to her.
The other girl twisted to look at her to reply to the greeting and her cold grey eyes froze on the features of the girl. Both of their jaws dropped for a split second before they both let loose their petrified screams.
The girl with the book flung it to one side as they both simultaneously flew back from each other and turned and scrambled backwards over the sofa. They both struggled to clamber over the couch quicker than humanly possible and in a second they had both disappeared from view as they hid from the other.
Ron snorted and Fred and George cracked up. They both leaned on each other as they laughed.
George nodded with satisfaction. "Now that's more like it," he said approvingly. "Where's the rest?" Hermione had so far not been amused to the point of laughter by the terror of the two and neither had Ginny, Draco and Harry. But they were yet to see what would happen and continued to stare at the floating silver mirror.
There was a drawn out silence as the two girls both remained hidden and once again the twins began to get impatient. Draco gave George a look of utter distaste because when he unfolded his arms he had prodded him roughly in the side with his elbow.
"Ouch," he spat, furrowing his blonde eyebrows into a glower. George humored him with an apologetic glance. But apart from that, nothing much happened for a minute apart from the two girls/monsters peaking over the edge of the sofa at alternate intervals to check if they were safe. Even Ginny started to get bored.
"What kind of lame prank is this?" Fred asked accusingly, looking pointedly at Ron's head in front of him. His arms remained folded and his temper was not so excited any more. Ron turned abruptly and faced Fred's jiving. He gave Fred a sour look.
"Excuse me," he started sardonically, "But why exactly are you staring at me? This is, if I remember right, your invention?" There was a brotherly friction starting to flow between them that Hermione felt obliged to put an end to. It made everyone else around uncomfortable. They weren't exactly glaring at one another but they were nearing it.
"So far we've only seen two people; soon everyone else will wake up. You can't judge anything just yet," Hermione pointed out, looking over at them, twisting carefully in the squash of bodies. Fred nodded shortly and the tenseness began to dissolve. It was enough to satisfy her and she turned back to wait with the others for something more to happen.
Finally there was a break in the silence that made them all jump. There was a shrill screech from the girls' corridor and suddenly a repulsive looking sixth year burst out of the door. She was normal looking in every way except she was totally bald, her skin which was a raw light blue-grey, thick, leathery and crusty with an abundance of unsightly blemishes.
She ran across the room, behind the couch screaming, with her hands out before her. They were wrinkled and bubbly and there were no nails or sign of any joints, the things that made them human. All the boys winced together at the sound.
She was almost at the end of the couch when she tripped over something and fell ungracefully out of vision, landing flat on her face. There was a loud groan, the source of which they could not see with the one-sided view of the mirror but it came from behind the sofa. Following that was a rough grunt of pain and then silence.
There was the sound of running footsteps from somewhere and suddenly the boys' door flew open. It swung back roughly on its hinges and standing in the gap it once took was what could possibly be an older looking boy maybe in the sixth, fifth or seventh year. He was just as hideous as the others. He looked as if he had stepped out of star trek with serious burns. The skin of his face was molded into plastic-y folds.
"What's going on?" asked the Dr McCoy look-a-like, eyes moving rapidly around him. He frowned when he couldn't see anything. There was absolutely nobody in the room.
He took a couple of steps forward, head turning from side to side as he checked around him when he heard another boy approaching from behind. He ignored it at first, screaming would of course attract a lot of attention. He wondered why not more people had come.
"What's wrong?" a voice from over his shoulder. Dr McCoy-guy didn't hesitate to take his eyes off of the seemingly empty room to turn around to reply.
He had opened his mouth to say "no clue" but when he saw who had spoken all that came out was "AAAH!". His eyes swelled in his head so they looked like they might fall out. The person behind him in turn yelled out in disgusted surprise.
"Aaaah!" then there was a thick silence where they both looked at each other in alarm. George nodded.
"Much better," he praised himself.
What followed that involved the two girls getting up from behind the sofa seeing each other, running away, one bumping into the hiding girl and the other abruptly halting when she saw the two boys staring at each other. More people arrived and there was more confusion, more running around screaming, gasping and hiding.
By the time half the Slytherin common room was up they were laughing uncontrollably. Fred and George were having the hardest time trying to stay upright and keeping their eyes open to watch. It seemed that every time someone turned and found themselves face to face with another monster they reacted exactly the same way. There were some, like those who had been the first to arrive, who realized that the monsters were in fact Slytherins and were watching numbly from the side-lines with hanging jaws.
One of those standing near the wall in surprise was a green skinned, orange-eyed girl in the seventh year. She was the only one in the room who looked more angry than scared. Her arms were crossed brusquely across her chest with enough vigor to bruise herself. She was glaring at the stupidity of her housemates because she had been the only one so far who had stopped running and screaming to actually think what could be happening. She knew more would figure it out eventually once they calmed down.
She sneered when two people yelled in terror at each other then turned around and yelled again. However the Gryffindors watching burst into tears of laughter.
Ginny was clenching her sides as she struggled for breath. Even Draco was unable to hold back his amusement.
Hermione stopped laughing when she saw the boys' door swing open to reveal a lost looking, spiky-eared Goyle. Hermione leaned over to speak with the others, keeping her gaze intently on the hovering silver handled vanity mirror.
"Is that who I think it is?" she said quietly in awe. He didn't look much uglier compared with the other Slytherins which made sense because he was already so ugly that the difference was hardly noticeable. Ginny quit her giggling and frowned as she concentrated her relaxed mind. The green skinned girl was walking over to him, finally moving from her perch.
"Goyle?" she asked at the exact same moment Pansy approached him from behind and asked the very same question. The others tried to stop laughing, breathing deeply so they could hear what Pansy and Goyle would say.
"Waaarrrgghhh!!" yelped Goyle and they all could not help exploding with fits of giggles again. Fred and George were by far the loudest when it came to laughter. The mirth glowed in their eyes and their cheeks were beginning to hurt.
"Oh ooh..." said Hermione putting a sympathetic hand to her mouth in pity when the small orange haired girl got crushed against the wall and slid down. "The poor thing..." she said honestly. Ginny nodded and wiped the smirk from her face respectfully. Fred and George had a tougher time trying to feel bad for the crumpled pile of flesh with bright orange sprigs of hair. Their faces creased in equal ways as they really attempted to squash the grins.
They ended up hiding their guilty/evil smirks behind their hands.
"Yes, the poor thing," mimicked Fred and they both started snickering together. Hermione chose not to tell them off, just looking at them with repulsion similar to that which she looked at the Slytherins with.
And so it went on until Hermione could hardly move for the cramps. Her sides ached the more she laughed and she found herself trying hard to look away from the mirror to not laugh.
Ron finally decided they should stop now or else it would not be funny for much longer. When he took down the mirror from the air, they all nodded their agreement since they could not talk for the wheezing.
There were several minutes of panting and struggling for air with a few traces of giggling in between. Hermione and Draco, being the most sensible of the group, were the first to recover and breathe normally again.
Severus woke to sounds of shrieking so loud they ripped through his flesh and his brain. He snapped upright in an instant, the dark green sheets sliding from his chest. The aching muscles of his back and shoulders cried out in aggravation, begging for him to lie back down again. He had been so roughly torn away from his rest. He had found it in him to sleep a couple of hours at about seven that morning but he had in fact slept past his scheduled amount of time since it was now ten thirty.
In a moment he was alert and ready as one tends to be when one is (or was) a death eater. His black eyes lost their sleepiness and were focused and sharp. The sheets lay in folds on his lap. His room was half light with the filtered sunshine from the window high in the corner.
There was another collective scream and it hit his sleep deprived brain harder than before because he had been listening extra carefully for any sound of activity. He lifted a hand to his forehead and rubbed it.
He let out a disgruntled moan of pain and annoyance. They were the screams of playful teenagers which he had once upon a time often mistaken for screams of terror. He glared at the air in front of him. How he hated children. If he ever had a child himself he was sure he would not feel the same way but with others' he was free to hate them as much as he wished.
Even the fact they were Slytherins could save them from his wrath. He was most irritated and for one long minute in the haze from waking he forgot everything that had happened. He thought it was exactly the same routine as it was the past years and images of Hermione took too long to come back to him.
When they did he felt so ashamed and guilty with himself. She had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, he realized. He had never found anyone like her. Of course he had been with women and found most of them to be too stuck in tradition and air-headed. They were all hung up on pure blood like the Malfoys. He personally didn't give damn about someone's blood. This was so different. He had thought he knew himself well until recently. Hermione, although by far the most intelligent woman he had come across in his lifetime, had never even crossed his thoughts until he found himself being unreasonably protective of her.
But his thoughts were disturbed by several boys yelling consecutively. His dark glare deepened. What on earth was causing such a fuss? He decided that it would be hopeless to try and sleep longer with the sound and it was late.
He flung the sheets back in one sweeping motion and slid his legs out of bed. He would get dressed and wait in his classroom since it would be inevitable with such a commotion that someone would get injured and if this involved the whole Slytherin house (and he judged from the sounds of it that it did) then there would be many.
...
With his robes on and his cloak fastened around his neck despite the fact it was summer, he was scribbling scratchy notes on parchment. In his dank classroom with little light his mind was at peace. He had his head bent over his work so his hair hung on either side of his face and occasionally the tip of the eagle feather quill would push several strands of black hair out of its way.
His hand did not stop writing in thick inky, spiky words even when he randomly glanced to the sounds of screeches with his clear raven eyes.
He was not disturbed for a full ten minutes which he considered a lot. The soft scratching noises from his quill and being in his classroom surrounded by spicy scents of different ingredients helped his bad mood infinitely. The wooden desks and chairs, bathed in the light of torches on the wall, were empty. The pervading silence (excluding the occasional yelps) was pleasant and the fact he would not have to teach until next September put him in a good mood. At the end of this never-ending week everyone would leave.
He would be alone again... but what of Hermione? Where would she go? He had to speak with her but she would have to come and find him because he could not go into the Gryffindor common room. Little did he know that where she would be staying would not be of his concern when the time came around.
He was thinking of this when he was rudely interrupted, as expected, with a panicked knocking at the door. He sighed and put the quill down when the sharp noise carried through the air. He tried not to let his exasperation show in his face as he lifted his head to look at the door.
"Enter," his voice remained a drawl of superiority. The door did not creak open as he was too used to students doing when they were afraid or reluctant to enter. It slammed back into the wall with the same strength he usually used. It groaned as it bounced weakly off the stone.
Severus jumped violently. He gripped the arms of the chairs till his knuckles were white. It wasn't fear or terror of the kind the Dark Lord could induce but it was repulsed surprise. He stared at the ugly creature with wide eyes. Standing outside was a furious looking green skinned (what he assumed to be) girl. She had the most disgusting colored eyes he had ever seen, a mixture of orange and yellow. Her hair was a wild bundle of black straw and her nose was so long it was dangerously close to her chin.
Severus pushed himself back into his chair to get further away from the thing that was already very far away. He knew he was being ridiculous and tried not to show it.
"Who the hell are you?!" he snapped with shock and anger both leaking into his voice. He looked her up and down. He recognized those clothes.
Pansy ignored him. "Professor, you have to come see the Slytherin common room. NOW!" she ordered. His eyes narrowed. He recognized her voice as well. "I think a Gryffindor did this to us."
"What are you talking about?" he scorned back, "Miss Parkinson, is that you?" he asked disbelievingly.
She nodded her hideous head. "Yes. Everyone in the Slytherin house is the same way!" she said urgently. "You have to come immediately! We don't know how to reverse it."
"I will do no such thing. I do not get involved in the frivolous jokes of children," he bit back. "Now you have graduated you should be able to do things for yourself. If there are any casualties the prefects should be able to ensure their care until they reach the hospital wing. And what makes you think I will know the reversal for such a trick since I have never come across it myself?" Pansy/the green thing looked horrified by the laidback approach he was taking. She would have thought he would have been the first one on the scene.
"B-but... sir?!" she gaped. Severus gave her the "get-out-of-my-sight-if-you-wish-to-live" sneer. Pansy looked totally blank.
"Do I need to repeat myself?" he spat, "I do NOT get involved in childish jokes!" His posture was relaxing immensely now he understood that the creature was Miss Parkinson. His grip on the armrests was not so strong and he wasn't squashed against the back of his chair. His surprise (also his weakness) had dissipated.
He folded his arms smoothly across his chest to reinforce his point. Pansy, on the other hand, did not react accordingly. She did look as if she finally understood something but not what Severus had intended. A look of realization followed by a smirk took over her disgraceful features.
"It's because of Granger isn't it?" she said knowingly, folding her arms in turn across her chest. Her smirk grew smugly and she nodded slightly.
Severus gripped the armrests again tightly feeling the anger rising like boiling water in his chest. His brows drew together in an uncontrollable frown. He could not hold the pure hatred in his face back even if he had wanted to. He had always had the ability to control his facial expressions before but now he could not. His lips curled back into a vicious snarl. His eyes held a dangerously sharp touch to them, enhanced by the torchlight.
"What?" he said quietly. His voice was soft and icy enough to freeze the smug grin off of her face had she not been Slytherin. He articulated each syllable and managed to make such a small word seem bigger. He leaned forward in his seat but continued to squeeze the sides to help restrain himself. Pansy's grin did not fade but it did falter. She seemed to hesitate before regaining her Slytherin courage to push him to the edge.
"Granger had something to do with this," she continued with her unfounded certainty, "That's why you won't get involved," Severus held his silver tongue because he wanted to see exactly how far Pansy was about to dig herself into her own grave. Pansy took it as a sign that he was not as angry as he should be yet; that and she could not hold back her bitchy questions any longer. "What were you thinking, Professor?! Granger! She's a nuisance know-it-all and a Gryffindor! She's so much younger than you? How can you find anything worthwhile-"
Pansy's voice died in her throat when she realized she had crossed the line too long ago. She caught a glimpse of the glint in his eye although his face was intensely passive. The corner of lips gave a subtle twitch and Pansy closed her open mouth.
"By all means," his voice was the coldest drawl she had ever heard from him; that was not good seeing as she had seen him yell at Gryffindors, "do continue." His eyes transformed into black slits that glared with the light of the torches. His voice was sardonically coaxing her to keep making his nerves burn and pumping the levels of hate in his system.
She opened her mouth to try and defend herself but her eyes locked onto the deadly black of his. She could not get a sound past her lips.
"What right have you to interfere with other's personal lives, and a Professor's at that?" he lectured icily. He did not move, his protective rage set in stone on his face. "You seem to be forgetting your place Miss Parkinson. One thing you must learn, even if it is the only thing you will ever learn since you lack such intelligence, is that you can never insult Hermione, especially around me. Is that understood?" How he desired to rush over to the door and wring her ugly neck.
Pansy was left speechless. She had never imagined a voice, even Snape's, could make her feel so terrified. It was silky but rough with tiny invisible shards of glass embedded in it that cut and scratched the inside of her ear all the way to her brain. She shuddered, despite herself. She could sense how much fury he was containing and did not wish to give him any more reason to let it loose on her.
She stared at him long and hard then took a deep breath. She spun on her heel then left. Severus was left fuming at the empty air until the sounds of retreating footsteps disappeared.
Hermione was incredibly hungry. Her appetite was healthily large. She put a hand to her grumbling stomach.
She looked to the faces of her friends. Their party was once again down from seven to five. The twins had returned to the comfort of their joke shop. They had been most pleased with the results of their pale pink pills. They were sitting in the empty common room by the unlit fire. The silver mirror lay discarded on the table.
"Do you think it's safe to go down to the Great Hall?" she was holding back the urge to whine. She rubbed her stomach to sooth the pangs of hunger. Ginny eyed her incredulously. The pink pills should be wearing off about now.
"When did you last eat?" she asked, letting her arms fall from Draco's neck. Harry and Ron looked up from their game of chess. Draco marked the page of his book and put it next to Hermione's on the table with the mirror. All eyes were on her but free of the pressure she was sure to attract in the Great Hall.
"Yesterday...?" she said guiltily. Ginny looked surprised as if she had forgotten that Hermione did not join them for meals anymore. "But I don't want to go down," she said before Ginny had even opened her mouth.
"You'll have to face them sooner or later," pointed out Harry. He leaned back in his chair and brushed some of the tufts of black hair out of his eyes. Ron nodded in agreement.
"On the contrary," argued Hermione, lifting a finger into the air to help accentuate her own point, "I'll be leaving at the end of this week and I will never have to see them again... unless fate has a grudge against me." She snuggled up on the loveseat she sat on to make it clear she had no intention of getting up to go to lunch. She folded her arms across her chest.
Ginny frowned in caring concern, her mother shining right through her features.
"In fact, I think I'll go down to the dungeons if you don't mind," she said. She had changed her mind and struggled to pull herself upwards by the back of the seat. Her hair had unraveled itself from its perfect curls back to its normal frizzy mass because she had forgotten to put the spell on it in the morning. She had hardly noticed until now.
The boys looked shocked. Harry looked even a little irritated.
"What?!" he snapped. His eyebrows drew together as Hermione stood up. She chose to ignore him. She tucked a bunch of bushy hair out of her face behind her ear. She straightened her crushed skirt smartly.
"See you guys later," she said over her shoulder as she walked over to the portrait. She didn't care that the boys were so appalled in the slightest. She kept her pace brisk and Ginny smirked at the bounce that revealed Hermione's good humor.
"Bye!" called Ginny cheerfully with a broad grin.
When Severus heard the knock on the door for the second time he was certain it was another student begging him for assistance. He would be damned if he could find it in him to actually feel sorry enough to help.
He lifted his head and glared poisonous black daggers at the closed door. He didn't have patience at the moment, but then again he never did.
"What do you want?" he sneered sharply. There was a strong dose of bitterness and contempt he added for effect.
The door did not slam open but neither did it creak open timidly. He waited to see who would dare to be standing in the wake. He was surprised when he found himself scowling at Hermione; looking striking despite the fact her hair had come loose of its curls. She lifted an eyebrow when she spied his sour glare.
"Feeling a little grouchy?" she asked sarcastically with a good-natured smile. He dropped his frigid glower in a second. He placed his quill down, without looking at it and Hermione watched his every move intently, hungrily.
"I suspected I was about to be pestered by some panicked Slytherins..." he explained. Hermione glanced away, her lips forming a small guilty "o". He stood, pushing his chair back. His powerful ebony stare caught the guilt. Raising a brow himself, he gave her a skeptical look. "Would you happen to know anything about it?" his tone was light but Hermione felt the underlying interrogation.
"I might," Hermione replied cryptically, skirting an outright answer. She smirked a little. The torch light made her smirk look more sinister and guilty than it was.
"Meaning...?" he persisted his prying. He gave her a hard look. Hermione watched him straighten his back. He was not being rough or threatening in the slightest but he was demanding. He stood behind his desk, in front of his chair radiating the cold lonely vibe that he always did that simply cried out for someone to erase (and Hermione took that duty on herself).
"Meaning I may have had a hand in it..." she added with teasing defiance.
"That was not prudent," he said carefully, giving her a stern look. Hermione nodded. She started taking slow relaxed steps towards him.
"I know," she agreed, "It wasn't prudent but," any seriousness left her face, "it certainly was funny." She grinned at him and he raised a sharp black brow at her. All the while she was steadily getting closer to him. She missed his touch. Her feet seemed to be taking too long to carry her over to him.
"Maybe for you," he retorted silkily, "but for myself... I would have to label it downright terrifying-" Hermione chuckled. Severus raised a corner of his lips in a one-sided smile at her amusement. His long pale fingers rested delicately on the desk in front of him and his eyes followed her as she closed the large gap between them. She was wearing an off-white t-shirt and a blood red pleated skirt. He, on the other hand, was wearing his usual black robes that hung down balefully.
"I should have told you..." she apologized. "Then maybe it would have been less frightening and more entertaining..." she gave him a faux nervous smile.
"That would have been appreciated," he said sardonically. Hermione felt as if his smooth words were playing her heart. She wanted to shiver and she was ecstatic to think that she actually had reason to. She let her hand stroke the wood of her old desk as she passed it.
Severus noticed. He recalled images of her sitting behind that desk with her hand waving pointlessly in the air countless times while he ignored her. "I haven't given you the praise you deserved for all your years of attentiveness and hard work but I hope you know how much I approved..." his voice was a little sad and he watched her solemnly. Hermione was taken aback.
She stopped walking and frowned down at her hand placed on the desktop. She stared back up at him with confusion written in her eyes.
"Thank you for the compliment but I did not need to be praised for every successful paper I wrote. You inspired me to try harder when others tried to convince me that I was good enough I did not need to keep trying. That's valuable to me. Don't apologize for your actions," she said firmly.
She started walking over to him at a quicker pace than before. All she wanted was him and to make him feel better. He had too many problems and regrets to be guilty about the way he treated her as a student as well.
She came up to him, hesitating when she was a foot away. It wasn't really hesitation, she just wanted to stand back and look at him. She couldn't place what it was exactly that made him the one for her but whatever it was it was certainly powerful. He appeared as normal as ever clad in long black robes and cloak that flew out behind him when he walked. His black hair hung beside his jagged features and his black eyes dug deep into her soul.
She broke into a satisfied smile just staring at him. Then she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, comforting her. He had his face close to hers so they were an inch apart. He held her by the waist gently and rested his forehead against hers.
Hermione relaxed and melted with his touch.
"Say you love me," she whispered. He pulled her closer so they were pressed against each other.
"I love you," he purred. Hermione smiled softly. Her heart started racing in her chest.
He kissed her lightly on the lips. The tender touch was more than welcomed, creating a different kind of warmth from that of the summer rising from inside her.
If she had had any doubts, this would have been enough to destroy them.
Hermione spent several more hours with him in the comfort of his study. Severus sat on the leather couch. He had started to take a liking to the maroon color after a while. He and Hermione were reading. She lay with her legs across his lap and held the book up over her face to read. Her fluffy hair provided a sufficient cushion.
The fire was alight, throwing its orange glow out to the room still but Severus had put several spells on the room to keep it cool enough. Together, in contented silence, they both focused on their books. Hermione was reading one of his since she had left her own in the Gryffindor common room.
Suddenly her stomach let out a large rumbling growl. Severus lowered his thick black book to look at her. Hermione shot him an apologetic look from under her own book in return.
"Sorry." Severus ignored her apology since it was not needed. He gave her a concerned glare that reminded her of Ginny.
"You haven't eaten?" he asked sternly. Hermione raised her brows at him in puzzlement. She shook her head reluctantly on the red sofa. He slowly closed his book and put it to one side. "Since when?" he turned back to her giving her a strict stare that made Hermione feel protected.
"Yesterday...?" she repeated the same answer she had given Ginny. His frown deepened, if possible.
"Yesterday..." he echoed darkly. "And when exactly do you plan on eating again?"
"I don't know..." She said unsurely. She bit her bottom lip as she continued to stare back guiltily. She didn't understand why she had to be guilty but she felt she should be. "Whenever..."
"I will not stand by while you starve yourself," he said firmly. He pushed her legs off of him and Hermione moaned in complaint. She didn't really mind the fact that he cared so much for her but she didn't want to move.
He stood, keeping his unyielding eyes on her. Hermione started shaking her head in useless argument. He would not take no for an answer, she could see it in his piercing black eyes.
He held out a slender hand and she obliged by taking it. The smooth touch of his hand reminded her of Graduation. "You are going to eat," he ordered as he yanked Hermione slowly up off of the sofa.
She had been comfortable, lying down, and when she stood she almost let herself fall back down to the console of her cozy position. And she would have let go of his hand if he had not been gripping her back. She sighed and chose to rest against him instead.
"Really," she whined into his shoulder, "I'm not that hungry! This is completely unnecessary!" Severus ignored her and put an arm around her back as he led her over to the fireplace. Hermione let him lead her. Despite her grumbling she relished his concern. "Can't we just stay here?" she pleaded half-heartedly when they stopped in front of the fire.
He shook his head, his shoulder-length black hair brushing the top of her head. He put a hand up to the mantle and took a pinch off floo power from a large jar. It glittered a dull green between his fine fingers. He threw it into the fire and it formed a cascade of pale powder showering down in an arc lost into the flames. As soon as it was consumed by the fire the flames flared up high, changing from a soft orange/yellow to a strong emerald green.
He nudged her forwards into the fire by the arm at her back. Hermione sighed and grudgingly stepped over the grate with him at her side.
"The kitchens," he drawled. Hermione threw her arms around him tightly just before the fire swallowed them because she remembered exactly how treacherous the whole ride was. She didn't want to be separated from him. She buried her face in his neck just as the flames raged about them.
In a second they disappeared from view.
Finally!! Done with chapter thirteen!!!!! Took so long!!! Thank you for reading this story by the way.
You have to start worrying (I'm telling you in advance before I forget) about the ending. I haven't decided to make it a happy or a sad one because it can turn into a horrible ending so easily. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what I feel like when I get there. I'm swaying towards happy – because that's what I want. A sad ending would mean less writing...
And sorry if you get impatient with this chapter – I'm itching to get to the goods but I have to wade my way through time first until the right moment. Plus I'm having second thoughts about rewriting Dark Silence. I like it better than this one but I can't bring myself to go over it. I may put it off until I finish the next one. Email me if u want it - but I wouldn't recomend it - its pretty bad.
hang on... its no where near over yet!
I have a feeling that I'll be writing SSHGs until 2050 even if I write books in between.
Drop a review b4 u leave pleez!Luv Snakecharmer