Oh my gosh! You guys are so amazing! Five reviews…do you know how happy that makes me? I was expecting one. Not even one. I was expecting to come home from school, hop on the computer, and see: "Fiction Rated: T - English - Drama/Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1638 - Reviews: 0 - Updated: 1-30-06 - Published: 1-30-06"
I knew immediately after I read the reviews that I just had to get on and write more. So this is for you: da, Phoenix's Feather, June W, UltimaYunie, and sailorsun, for supporting me and encouraging me on with your kind reviews. You five just made my entire day go from crappy, to great.
Just a random little side comment: Have you guys heard H.I.M.? I love him. I didn't think I'd like him since often you see stuff by HIM in places like Hot Topic (And I really don't like any of the song artists they have t-shirts of). Anyways, I tried listening to HIM and found that I really really really like him. (He's great!) I don't like artists like Marilyn Manson or Korn and…stuff, and HIM is nothing like them
--Have you all ever noticed that Microsoft word, if you type in 'grey' it says it's spelling in incorrect? I found this interesting…
To the story!
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Chapter 2, What have you done?
Hermione was going to see Madame Pomphrey as soon as she had a chance without missing one of her classes, but it just wouldn't do to miss any of her classes on the first day.
She picked up her satchel and walked through the hallways, musing about the pendant, which was still connected to her hand. It wasn't painful, and she could still feel the skin beneath it when pressure was applied. She tried tugging at it, but that was when the pain would jolt down her palm and wrist.
She lifted her right hand, the golden eyes staring back at her. Her stomach squirmed in unease, so she dropped her hand to her side.
She walked up to the large wooden grey doors to the potions classroom, and walked through them, early to class. She looked around, and as usual at the beginning of just about every year, there were no cauldrons upon the tabletops. The less…dangerous potion ingredients that lined numerous shelves were organized and clean, chairs and tables aligned perfectly.
She headed towards her usual seat, in the front, far left. In her third year discovered that being in that particular seat, meant that Snape often overlooked them…but only on the off chance. He had a winding path that he always took, not very practical, so once he reached the back row, it was is if he had forgotten about the front far left that he often didn't check up on first, like the other three rows in the front.
She even tested her theory, moving her and her friend's location, and the students who where forced to sit there, were indeed missed. At first she assumed that maybe he didn't check on them because he hated bothering with them.
Walking back to her usual seat, she was shocked to see another sitting there… Usually she never had to worry about someone sitting there, even at the beginning of the year; since no one ever wanted to sit at the front. She walked up to the girl (She concluded after seeing the long black hair). She leaned over, trying to get a look at her face.
She wasn't expecting what she saw…she looked so young. She couldn't have been a seventh year… But she hasn't ever seen her either. Maybe she was a transfer student?
"Hello," said Hermione to the girl. The girl started, jerking up straight to turn towards Hermione in her seat.
"Oh! Well hello!" she smiled sweetly, dimples clearly on either side of her smile. "My name is Tiffany Brothel." She extended her hand towards Hermione.
"My name her Hermione Granger," she introduced. "I—don't believe I've ever seen you before?"
Tiffany's smile diminished, her eyebrows furrowing in distress. "Oh my! You are the girl who ran into me on the train station!" she exclaimed, she clasped her hands over Hermione's larger ones. Hermione suddenly remembered what happened yesterday. Being late…the girl…falling to the ground…the stone… "Please, you must forgive me! I didn't mean to run off like I did, but I was immediately pulled aside and didn't even get the chance to look back and see if you were hurt. You weren't were you? I didn't mean to cause any problems; it's just that I was so awestruck. You see it was my first time actually seeing the magnificent train that goes to Hogwarts; School of witchcraft and Wizardry!"
She paused to draw in a breath before continuing. "I'm not from around here…I know all about magic, but I come from an American school in the U.S. I've heard so much about Hogwarts, since I've read Hogwarts; A History. I was too caught up in marveling that I…temporarily forgot that others would need to come through the passageway."
Hermione stood, absorbing what the girl said. "So why are you here?" she questioned.
"My father and mother needed to come here…I don't know why; they wouldn't tell me. They said it was for a trip, but I know better. Their tones were too serious. I can read them like an open book!"
Hermione came to one conclusion: This girl sure likes to talk. "But…please don't take offence to this, but you look so—young."
The girl giggled, her dimples showing through again. "You're right, I'm eleven, but I was taught by my parents all about magic. My mother was a master witch and even used to teach as a professor at Durmstrang. She's from there, you see. Once she had me, she quit her job, and just let my father work. We had enough money as it was, but my father couldn't let go of his job, since he loved working so.
"Anyway, my mother took it up as her responsibility to teach me everything she knew, as well as let me go to school, so I could learn three times as fast as the average student. When we came here, I had to take at least one year of school, even after taking a class to verify how much I knew. The most they could do was let me take all seventh year classes.
"I find it amusing since school's over in America have six years, instead of seven. But I have yet to find out if it's because the schools over in America cram more into your heads in one year, or if over here they just teach you more; above and beyond what is taught throughout an American's six years."
Hermione was having difficulty keeping up with the girl, since she spoke so fast. Usually she was the one who talked the most, but this girl was hardly letting her get a word in. How much time had past since their conversation began? When would class start? Just about everyone had filed into his or her seats by then. She glanced back to find Harry, Seamus, and Neville sitting at one table…there were only three seats to a table, and the seats around them were taken too.
Harry met her eyes, and shrugged, as if telling her that he couldn't do anything to make her room to sit. Hermione sighed and sat down besides the girl.
After classes had begun she found to her pleasant surprise that Tiffany didn't talk much more, unless it was about the potion or to point out useful facts and fun information about the ingredients they were using. Hermione found it rather pleasant, since often what she said, struck up a deep conversation. Snape, oddly, was out of the classroom most of the time, out in the hallway speaking with the Headmaster. This allowed for the entire class to have their own quiet conversations.
Snape finally discontinued his conversation the Headmaster, and quieted everyone from the conversations. Hermione and Tiffany worked together in companionable silence, on their joint potion.
It was by chance that Hermione saw was the girl was doing…she was adding the wrong ingredient! Her heart leapt, as she reached out to quickly jerk her hand away from over the cauldron top, but it was by bad luck, that the motion tore the ingredients from her hand as they plummeted into the contents of the potion.
Unable to do anything to prevent the potion from exploding, she instead thrust Tiffany to the side, and shielded her smaller body from the contents, which rapidly exploded. Luckily the contents didn't fly to the other tables, and just hit the areas around their own.
Thick globules of the maroon substance splattered across her backside. After the angry outburst ended, Hermione rose up from over the cowering girl, to hurriedly toss off her outer robes.
Before she could react, she saw all the students racing from the classroom, by apparent order of the professor. She heard him tell Tiffany to run to the hospital wing to be checked over, as it was obvious that she was not hit by anything at least noticeable—or enough to affect her immediately. The young girl scrambled to her feet, and too frightened to object, sprinted out of the room.
Snape spun Hermione around by the shoulders to face him. She curled her hands into fists, to hide her right palm since she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
He pulled out his wand, and after cleaning of the mess on the table and floor, pointed his wand at Hermione. She tensed out of instinct, but he just scanned his wand over her front side to see if the potion had gotten on her and had some sort of effect. Seeing that her magic levels were fine, he glared at her darkly, as if she had just killed his beloved family, burned his possessions, and strangled his pet dog named Skipper for him to see. She had to thwart the urge to giggle as she briefly imagined him with a little Shih Tzu dog named Skipper.
"I need to get to Madame Pomphrey," she said, and turned to leave, to try to avoid his wrath.
"I have to give you a potion. Now." He said relatively calm. What? No screaming at her, no trying to punish her? She thought too soon—"And we need to discuss your…punishment." He was dangerously calm. It was starting to scare her to the bone.
"I can just get the potion from Pomphrey—" she made to start walking, but he grabbed her hand—her right hand.
He shouted out, as if in sudden pain at the touch of the pendent to his flesh. He recoiled, grabbing his own hand, but quickly reached back out to snatch her wrist, not touching her palm.
The stone glinted in the torch's firelight from the walls, as Snape stared at the small golden face staring back at him, smiling serenely up at him.
His grip tightened painfully on her wrist and she made to object, but stopped as he face rose to meet hers. His black eyes against her honey brown. She stopped as soon as she saw his expression, still where she stood…petrified.
His face was a mix of horror, tightly knitted black brows, anger, and pure hate…and…fear?
"What have you done?" it was his voice that unnerved her the most, and how he stood crouched over her hand…looking up at her with all of those confusing emotions riddling his features; asking her quietly, in hardly a whisper at all. It was like his words were pleading and begging with her, screaming at her, and demanding that she with her life on the line, all at the same time—tell him whatever answer he wanted to hear. "What have you started?"
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End of Chapter 2
Hope you all like it. We are going to start getting into the plot from now on…muahahaaaa.
Please, review. You know how much I love it ;)