Chapter 7- Frights
-
"Outstanding, Miss Greyback."
Severus continued to concentrate on turning his handkerchief into a pillow. Seventh year Transfiguration had broadened the range of objects transmogrified and emphasised practical application of the discipline.
"Thank you, professor. The book you recommended I read over holiday was brilliant."
Watching Professor McGonagall's face soften into a pleased smile, Severus wondered if there was a teacher Eris Greyback could not wind around her dainty finger. He, of course, would not stoop to flattery and bribery to gain favour. Thankfully, his erudition was at such a high level that no such subornment was necessary. His sneer faded when he remembered the way Eris had held her wand on the train. Severus emulated the wrist motion while mentally reciting the spell.
"A grey pillow? To match your knickers, I expect, eh Snape?" Clive Sutton drawled maliciously from a table across the aisle.
Snickers and suppressed laughter rang throughout the class. Severus pretended not to hear. He was heartily sick of being jibed at for an incident that had happened back in fifth year. Sometimes, the teen felt like he'd be hearing derogatory laughter for the rest of his life because Potter had stolen his text and used his spell against him. Had the Gryffindor ever been punished for his misdeeds? No, he'd been made Head Boy!
"Ten points from Slytherin, for talking out of turn." Green eyes looked hard as emeralds as the professor swooped down the aisle to pick up the boy's pillow with two fingers and chided, "Were you intending to furnish a doll's house, Mr. Sutton? The size of this pillow is unsatisfactory. Advanced Transfiguration goes beyond changing objects to items of similar mass. Try again."
Once the teacher had swept away to answer a question at the back of the classroom, Tom Wilkes tapped his tablemate on the shoulder and winked. Leaning forward, the boy said in a stage whisper, "A small pillow? To match what your last girlfriend said was unsatisfactory, I expect, eh, Sutton?"
The sound of disparaging laughter was now music to Severus' ears. Clive was looking at Eris, who didn't laugh, although her eyes were cast down and her hand covered her mouth. Red-faced, the insulted boy stood and whipped out his wand.
"Mr. Sutton, threatening behaviour is not permitted in my classroom. Leave at once and report back after dinner for detention." McGonagall was not swayed by indignant excuses, pointing her finger toward the door and saying implacably, "Go."
Seeing the venomous look Sutton threw the jeering boy on the way out, Severus murmured, "He'll be out to get you after this."
"I certainly hope so," Tom replied with a grin. "Ruddy code says no hexing without provocation, and I want to try out a few new curses."
There was a glint in Tom's eye that made Severus ponder whether the rumour of excessive use of Dark Magic leading to eventual madness was based on fact. Making a mental note to do research on the topic, he turned his attention back to the subject at hand. Transfiguring the grey pillow back into a dingy handkerchief, Severus immediately used a whitening charm on the fabric. After it lightened, he turned it into a snowy pillow.
-
-
Narcissa Black, who had been focused on transforming her lawn handkerchief to a pillow, asked, "What's all the fuss about?"
Eris glanced around. McGonagall was in the back, so she reached over and clasped Narcissa's wrist, showing her how to move it in the way that best facilitated this kind of transfiguration. "Pillow envy."
Her friend's giggles were contagious. They were hard pressed to keep silent. Just when she thought they were both calm, Eris made the mistake of glancing sideways. Cissy, after making sure the coast was clear, snatched up both their pillows and held them to her chest, whispering, "I'm Emma!" Their roommate was well rounded in every way. The blonde continued, "Oh my gods, do you think Carrows stuffs?"
Eris had to clap both hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Her body shook so hard it was beginning to hurt. She didn't care. This silly humour was one of the things she liked best about Narcissa. Sadly, the playful side to her friend's personality had been seen far too seldom in the last weeks.
The click-click of sensible heels on the stone floor erased the last traces of mirth. Eris sat up straight and hastily transfigured her white, rectangular pillow into a square, emerald green velvet throw pillow with gold tassels.
"Innovative spellcraft is what makes a transfiguration outstanding. Well done, Miss Greyback," Professor McGonagall praised.
Eris said, "Thank you," and held out the pillow. "This is for you." She gestured to the woman's teaching robes. "I tried to match your colour."
The professor touched the velvet and smiled. "Thank you, it's lovely. I'll use it to demonstrate impeccable technique to my other classes." Dryly, she added, "I can accept it because you're my top student and have no need to lobby for better marks."
Eris smiled widely and glanced back at the boy whose humour was even more ironic than her favourite teacher's. He shook his head slightly. Severus' expression clearly showed he thought her actions were prompted by guile rather than generosity. She bit her lip. His lifted slightly at the corners. Irrationally happy over the scrap of approval, Eris turned around.
Cissy was staring incredulously. "Tell me you were not flirting with Snape."
"Of course I wasn't!" The automatic denial made relief flit across her friend's pale features. Eris almost asked why the other girl thought she was. Was it just the fact that she'd looked his way at all, or was there something more? Unsure whether she wanted to hear the answer, she let the matter slide.
After class was dismissed, Diana and Claire joined them in walking toward the Hall for lunch. The girls giggled when they caught sight of Emma walking with Owen ahead of them.
"Who wants to bet she'll be sneaking out to take a moonlight ride with him?" asked Claire.
"Emma's not that kind of girl. She'll make him put a ring on her finger first," Diana contradicted.
"You willing to bet on that?" retorted Claire.
"Five Galleons?"
The girls all gasped. The usual bet was one. Diana looked chuffed with herself at getting the shocked reaction. Claire nodded. "You're on."
Entering the Great Hall, the girls quickly took their regular spot at the Slytherin table and began to eat. Narcissa nibbled at a piece of lettuce and then said on a sigh, "Only a few more days until Hogsmeade Weekend. How long the hours will seem until I see Lucius again."
Eris coughed to hide a disbelieving laugh. Across the table, Diana smiled. "That sounds like something out of one of those plays we had to read in Muggle Studies."
"Which ones, the comedies or the tragedies?" Eris realised her tone was lifting plucked eyebrows. She covered with a light laugh. "Joking. Of course its romance, on the level of Romeo and Juliet, Lord and Lady Macbeth, or Othello and Desdemona, I'm sure." Thank heavens the others hadn't actually read the Shakespeare recommended, but not required.
Cissy smiled. "Lucius is clever like you, Eris. You'll get along famously." She turned to the other girls and began talking about the fabulous luncheon Malfoy had promised to arrange. Eris shuddered at the thought of her and Luci getting along famously.
A disturbance at the Gryffindor table caught her eye. James Potter and Sirius Black were making agitated gestures along with angry facial expressions while Peter Pettigrew nodded vigorously. When Remus Lupin shot to his feet and walked out of the Hall, they followed.
Eris stood and said, "I forgot something for my next class. I'll see you there."
Once through the door to the entry, she cautiously moved forward. Instinctively flattening against the wall when she heard voices behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, Eris listened as a boy protested, "I still can't believe Flitwick gave us detention!"
"Sirius, we sent everyone's peacock feathers floating to the ceiling. One detention is lenient for disrupting class," reasoned the voice she recognised as James Potter's.
"Bollocks, man, today's the full moon!" argued Black.
"Maybe we should've thought of that before we pulled the stunt, mate." Potter sounded repentant of the folly. Black seemed only to regret being punished.
"Remus will be all right without us, won't you, Moony?" an oily voice questioned.
Peter Pettigrew sounded the way he looked. Eris grimaced with distaste. She'd given him a stinging hex the one time he'd tried to touch her hand as they'd both reached for a potions ingredient fifth year. Why the other Gryffindors put up with him was a mystery.
"I'll get by without the distinguished company of Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs," assured Lupin.
The girl's stomach dropped. He didn't sound good. He'd looked tired and ill in the Hall, and his voice reflected those qualities and melancholy as well. Their voices drifted further away as the group moved off. Eris remained where she was for several minutes, thoughts racing as she began to make plans.
After picking at her dinner later, Eris smiled wanly when Narcissa asked her if she was feeling okay. "I'm a bit wonky. I think I'll turn in early."
The other girls promised not to disturb her as she left. In her dorm, Eris put a Chimera charm on her pillows. If no one touched them, the illusion that she was asleep in bed would hold. Using a Disillusionment charm, she slipped out of Slytherin house. Halfway up the underground corridor leading to the entry, she halted.
"Is anyone there?" called Severus Snape, the enchanted torchlight casting shadows over his face while his eyes searched the apparently empty corridor. She held her breath as he moved slowly forward, arms outstretched, his hands moving back and forth. Snape's fingers came within centimetres of brushing her.
When he passed, she unconsciously released her breath. The boy whirled around, once again trying to determine if someone was hiding. Finally, he shrugged and muttered, "I could care less if some fool wants to sneak around the castle." Reaching the concealed door to the Slytherin common room, he called, "I'd wait a few moments if I were you. Filch and that bloody Mrs. Norris patrol the entry. She'll sniff you out, whoever you are."
Eris smiled as he turned his back and said the password before entering the house. Severus might not be nice, but he was a decent person nonetheless. Turning her attention back to her plan, she waited a few minutes and then cautiously made her way to the entry hall.
In the side courtyard, Eris took a black ribbon out of her pocket and fastened it around her neck, fingering the engraved silver oval hanging from it. She utilised the spells it had taken a nightmarish summer to perfect and shifted into her Animagus form.
Once her world view had changed, the Siamese cat named Elpis darted for the open gate. Crossing the grassy area to the Whomping Willow, she enjoyed anew the expanded range of senses that being a cat gave her. Her pupils widened to take in what little light there was and reflected it back to her retinas. It was so nice to see in the near dark. Her ears rotated 180 degrees, constantly searching the air for sound. Whiskers acted like antennae. Running on her claws in a diagonal manner, smoothly moving two legs on one side and then shifting to do the same with the other, she felt like she could run forever, exulting in her speed, agility, and silent tread.
She slipped beneath the willow and pressed the knob at the base. She'd been assured by a well-paid informant that it opened a secret passage to the Shrieking Shack. Counting it money well spent, the feline leapt down the revealed steps and darted up the corridor toward the supposedly haunted shack.
Her keen hearing led her directly to the upper room where something large moved restively. She paused outside the opened door, waiting for her heart to stop racing and her hair to stop standing on end before cautiously slinking forward.
A werewolf paced back and forth inside the room half-filled with old furniture that had been abandoned along with the house. The rickety-looking wardrobe and four-poster bed with moth-eaten bed hangings were fit for ghosts and nothing else. She paused when the wolf looked directly at the smaller animal invading its space, its eyes glowing amber.
Cautiously flicking her tail upwards in greeting, she moved forward. The girl's mind inside the cat froze in disbelief when the animal stepped across a chalk line drawn on the floorboards.
Oh shite, oh shite, I thought he was contained by wards! What if he bites me? Eats me? Oh shite!
She flattened down completely, closing her eyes in instinctive feline reaction to a threat. The werewolf- she couldn't call him Remus when his mind was now different from the boy's- merely sniffed her curiously before lying down beside her.
Well, this isn't so bad. Dumbledore must've put a powerful aegis spell on Lupin so companionship calms him instead of…no, don't think about how he could be…crazed with blood lust is not an image you want to dwell on.
After several minutes, she gathered the courage to look directly at the werewolf. His eyes were half-closed, a reassuring sign of contentment. Time passed in a strangely peaceful manner. Both cat and wolf eyelids were almost completely shut when a clatter sounded on the stairs.
Backing away, ready to leap to safety, Elpis' spine arched when a large black dog bounded into the room, followed by a stag. When a rat scurried between the legs of the stag to enter afterwards, she thought hysterically,
Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, I presume? And I thought my idea to become an Animagus and keep Moony company was so noble, unique and brilliant. What a bloody fool I am. He doesn't need me. I'll never be able to make things right.
For someone who enjoyed ironic humour, she didn't find the situation amusing. It became menacing when the rat scuttled forward, teeth bared. It was an effort to keep from severing his spine. She could do it so easily. Instead, her mouth half opened, her upper lip pulling back as she wrinkled her face to expel a breath so hard, the moisture sprayed the rodent and sent him retreating. The dog reacted to the sound of her hiss with a menacing growl, baring large, powerful teeth.
She bunched her muscles and jumped onto the bed. Padfoot, the nasty dog, started barking like mad, lunging toward her. Hair on her back rose as she hissed at him, tail waving to give her balance as she leapt only a moment before he did.
From atop the wardrobe, the cat who wished she was a girl lying in her safe, warm bed watched the animals below. The stag used his antlers to knock the dog away after the canine crashed into the wardrobe in an effort to knock her off. Padfoot growled at Prongs and then turned to the wolf and gave a few short woofs before leaving the room. After impassively regarding the other animals, the werewolf followed. Squeaking in a way that made the feline long to scratch his ugly face, Wormtail followed. Giving a snort, the stag looked from the door to the cat. He lowered his antlers in a weirdly gallant fashion before leaving.
Elpis waited until her straining ears confirmed that the group had left the shack before leaving her perch of safety. Landing on all four legs with her back arched to absorb the impact, she raced toward the way out.
Once out of the tunnel, reaction set in. A distressed mew escaped before she could prevent it. Her vision was acute, but the range was more limited than a human's. Scared that the dog was lurking, waiting to attack, she ran full tilt.
-
-
Another full moon, another night wasted.
Severus wondered why he even bothered trying to catch Dumbledore's pets red-handed. The Headmaster would probably only shrug off their infamy with 'boys will be boys' indulgence. He was tempted to go in and complain to his roommate, but Wilkes would only compare him again to Inspector Javert in the Muggle Studies novel Les Miserables. The ambitious policeman was the only character of note in the entire story, in Severus' opinion, and much more realistic than the criminal who wished to reform, Jean Valjean.
A mew unlike any he had ever heard brought the teen's glowing wand up to see a cat racing toward him in the darkness. The feline's eyes were like black pools of distress. He called, "Elpis, come." He bent down and took up the Siamese that leapt into his arms. Cradling her securely against his chest, the boy looked around sharply to discover what had frightened the cat so.
A dog's howl arose from the depths of the Forbidden Forest. Another pitiful mew escaped Elpis. Severus pet the cat while saying in a low, soothing tone, "If you were chased by a dog, he's no longer a threat, so calm yourself." The deep purr that rumbled from her throat was one of continued distress. The boy made a decision. Concealing the animal beneath his cloak, he brought the cat back to Slytherin house.
"What have you got there?" asked Tom, looking up from his desk. His face slackened in disbelief when Severus took off his cloak. "A cat? Where did you get it?"
"She's been roaming the grounds. The name on her tag is Elpis, but there's never been any sign of an owner," replied Severus, mistrusting the impish look on Tom's face.
"Fancy that, a Siamese stray," remarked Tom. He said, "Want to try a few of my hexes on her?" The boy reached for his wand.
Feeling the animal's trembling, Severus said, "After we try them on you."
His roommate laughed. "I wouldn't hurt a little kitty cat. People are so much more fun. I just wanted to see how you would react."
Tom's expression said that he hoped Severus would ask why. Without another word, the taller Slytherin kicked off his shoes, took off his robes, and climbed onto his bed with the cat still in his arms. He lay back against the pillow, smiling briefly when Epis made herself at home, sprawling on his chest. His fingers stroked her downy hair.
Beyond the drawn curtains, the other boy complained, "You have no sense of humour, Snape."
After Tom doused the illumination orbs, the cat's eyes shone in the darkness as she continued to steadily watch Severus' face. He returned her regard. "Whoever you belong to deserves to worry when you don't return tonight. They are entirely too cavalier about your well-being." Elpis rubbed the side of her cheek against his uniform shirt. Her paws made soft kneading motions in the material. After several minutes of peaceful stroking, she bumped her nose against his palm and began to purr contentedly.
-
In the middle of the night, Severus dreamt he was being lowered by rope into a pit of vipers. Clumps of earth struck his face. Snakes writhed below, while above him, Lucius Malfoy watched with detached interest. Hissing sounds grew louder. One of the snakes rose up like a cobra and struck Snape's hand.
He jack-knifed into an upright position, eyes wide open. Breathing heavily, Severus realised that he was in bed. The back of his hand had just received a light scratch. Regaining his composure, the boy was glad he hadn't shoved the feline off the bed when the curtains were suddenly pulled open.
Staring into the glowing tip of Severus' wand, Tom grinned. "Got yourself a watch-cat, I see."
"What did you awaken me for?"
His roommate shrugged. "A meeting has been called. Let's go."
One benefit to having fallen asleep in his clothes was the speed in which he could throw on a cloak and be ready to leave. Telling the cat 'stay', Severus followed Tom out of the room. The two silently made their way to the secret corridor. Before they'd travelled half-way down the dimly lit passage, a ghost materialised in front of them, eyes glowing red.
-
-
A/N: I am the one hiding under your bed; teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red! I'm a huge 'Nightmare Before Christmas' fan, and couldn't help putting the last bit in, happily singing "This is Halloween, This is Halloween…" even though it's not Halloween yet at Hogwarts. Next chapter, though, it will be! Contrarily, I'll prolly be singing, "What's this? What's this?" LOL. Thanks to reviewers who made me jolly!