CRADLE-SNATCHING
This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and situations elaborated herein.
A/N: Spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers.
"So," Ron chortled as he hugged her, "you're stuck looking after the greasy git. Are you going to make him pay for all the nasty names he used to call you?"
Hermione forced a smile.
He wasn't that bad," she said.
"You're not still defending him, are you? Even after that letter?"
Hermione chewed on her lip. She couldn't tell them the truth and she'd been too preoccupied with research to prepare a lie. To no avail; she still didn't know whether Voldemort's destroyed diary could have left a shadow in Ginny's brain.
"Say the word and we'll teach him a lesson," Harry offered.
"No!" Her voice was sharp. "You're not to go near him. He's far too ill to be bothered. And besides -"
"Serves him right. He's the most spiteful -"
"Ron!"
"Horrid -"
"No, he -"
"Greasy, rotten -"
"Shut it!" She'd been so looking forward to seeing them and now she wanted nothing more than to hex them. "You've never even thanked him for saving our lives all those times." Neither had she, she realised suddenly.
"All right, all right," Ron huffed. He examined her scowlingly. "You're sweet on him, aren't you?"
"Ronald Weasley! Looking after sick people is my job." And teaching used to be Snape's but he'd never seemed to enjoy it. She scowled. Whatever had inspired him to agree to look over that ubiquitous girl's Defence essay? He'd never have looked over one of her essays when she was in school.
Upstairs, Snape was asking himself the same question.
"It says that a delayed curse is usually activated after 'a full cycle plus one'. What does that mean?" Varvara demanded, brandishing a small dragon-skin book she'd borrowed from the Restricted Section two weeks earlier.
"Most casters choose either a year and a day or a week and a day."
"How can you tell which?"
"If one knows the caster well, one can probably guess," he equivocated.
"And it starts when the curse is spoken?"
"Sometimes sooner. A reactivated curse starts from the time of first revival, if the caster or his proxy makes contact within 48 hours." He traced his lips with one long pale finger. "Anyone else he's ever cursed may unwittingly act as his proxy or it can be transmitted through an object."
Varvara looked up from her notes.
"And certain words act as commands, sort of like coded messages. What -"
"That's only of interest to dark wizards."
"But wouldn't Healers need to know it?" she asked.
"No. The only way to undo such a curse is to fulfil its conditions."
"And if you can't?"
"Surely even you must be able to answer that for yourself!" he growled, dismissing her. There was a pounding ache in his left temple. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep. When Hermione checked on him an hour later, he was still waiting, every muscle tensed. He didn't open his eyes.
The next morning dawned cloudy and cold. After a restless night, he slept into mid-morning, waking to the unwelcome sound of kissing from behind the curtain. He wondered if it was Potter or Weasley or perhaps a more recent entanglement.
"If you've quite finished, Miss Granger," he sneered, "perhaps you could return to your duties."
"Sorry, Professor." A small hand slid the curtain aside. It was Varvara, with a long-chinned straight-limbed boy at her side. "We didn't mean to disturb you."
"I'm not a raree-show for the amusement of your friends, Miss Skolnik."
"No, Professor, sorry. This is Gary Eldridge. He helped me bandage you. It's hard to believe it's only a week, sir!"
"Cradle-snatching, are you? I've never taught an Eldridge," Snape mused, "though there was a Laurence Eldridge a year or two below me. A Hufflepuff."
"My father, sir."
Simultaneously Varvara protested, "He's not that young and he's much nicer than any of the older boys."
"Very well. Now that you've presented him, you can remove him and go watch the raree-show outside instead," Snape said wearily.
The boy left. Varvara stayed.
"Shall I call Madam Granger, sir? Do you want a potion?"
"No. Go away."
"Yes, sir. I didn't mean to wake you. I just wanted to bring you this." He opened his eyes. She was holding a long uneven rectangle of green wool with a silver stripe at each end.
"What's that?"
She grimaced.
"I knitted you a scarf, sir. I know it's not very good but I wanted to say thank you."
His voice was quiet and deadly.
"What made you think I'd wish for your charity?"
"It isn't charity, Professor. You saved my life and I wanted to – to show that I appreciated it." Candid troubled eyes met his. "Why would you think it was charity?"
He took three long slow deep breaths. She meant well and he was tired. Almost too tired to care.
"Perhaps you're not aware that my possessions were disposed of when they thought me dead."
"No! They – Oh no! That's awful!" She bit her lip. "All the more reason for you to have this, sir. As a thank you present. If not for you I wouldn't be here."
He stared at the lumpy crooked rectangle that was all he owned in the world. It was ridiculous, but let the girl leave it if she wanted. Just so that she'd go away.
It was the first thing Hermione saw when she visited him twenty minutes later. A messy green and silver scarf, the scarf Varvara had been knitting all week, clenched in his fist. She glared at it, then at him.
"What does Varvara mean to you?" she snapped. "What are you enticing her to do?" She knew, even as she said it, that that was unfair but she couldn't stop herself.
He stared at her incredulously.
"You think I'd be interested in a child like that?"
Too stubborn to apologise, Hermione shrugged one shoulder and stared at his pale blue-veined fists, the left still closed around Varvara's gift.
"Why not? You were interested in me once. For all I know you're always falling for students."
"I have only ever loved once." He folded his lips and turned his head away. "Whether I die tomorrow or in two hundred years, my feelings will not have changed."
"Raree-show" is an old-fashioned word for "freak-show".