NOT MY FRIEND
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.
A/N: Spoilers, knowledge assumed. Thanks to all my reviewers.
Professor Snape's scowl never left his face as he accepted back his wand from the Ministry security guard. He deeply resented having to waste his one free period and probably miss lunch on this cursed business. The likely prospect of being detained long enough to miss the afternoon classes as well made his teeth grind. Another cache of unfamiliar dark instruments had been found at Malfoy Manor and, since he was the only senior ex-Death Eater to be neither dead nor Demented, his presence was required at the Department of Mysteries. The only saving grace was that he'd be working with Unspeakables, not with Aurors.He turned to face the trainee who was waiting to escort him. Of course it would be her, the one ex-student who seemed actually to desire his company. It was sixteen months since she'd graduated and she'd been in training for over a year. Had she been allocated this duty as the most junior staff member or had she asked for it? She was smiling up at him. His stomach clenched at how wrong that was.
She launched into an eager welcome.
"Professor, it's been almost six months since we spoke at the Commemoration -"
He glared down at her.
"Six years wouldn't be long enough for my liking, Miss Granger," he sniped.
The brightness went out of her face and she caught her lip between two small white teeth. In silence, they walked from the entry hall to the lift hall, where a small crowd of witches and wizards was already waiting. She wasn't looking at him anymore and her shoulders were slightly slumped.
'You're not my friend, you'll never be my friend,' he thought savagely, 'and the sooner you get that into your foolish Gryffindor head the better off you'll be.'
They waited without speaking. No one who knew him would wish to start a conversation and she was included in that interdiction by association.
A wrought golden grille finally slid open. Everyone else went in. There were seven levels going up but down was much less frequented as it led only to the Department of Mysteries and the old courtrooms. Snape watched Hermione Granger stare at the wall in front of them, her face set and her fists clenched. She was blinking a little too hard and too often. Another grille opened and he followed her in. It wasn't like her to say nothing for so long. He didn't like it.
"Sulking, Miss Granger?" That should provoke a response.
"You'd recognise sulks, wouldn't you?" Her voice was hard. "You've been sulking for more than twenty years."
His eyes narrowed, glaring into hers. She met his gaze, with a little defiant smirk playing around her mouth.
"If you wish for a war of insults, I'll be happy to oblige you, but you've very little chance of winning," he sneered.
She was studying the floor again. If her hair hadn't been tied back, no doubt she'd have hidden behind it, but instead he could see every thought on her expressive face. She was angry, hurt and more than willing to hurt back. He waited.
"Level nine, the Department of Mysteries," said a cool, female, official voice. That was as low as the lift went.
Hermione folded her lips.
"I've very little chance of winning anything where you're concerned," she muttered, for once choosing the path of prudence.
"Good. At least you recognise that fact."
The lift came to a halt. The grille slid open and they walked out to a long, bare corridor with a plain, black door at the end. They were halfway there before she spoke again.
"Why are you always so rude to me?" There was just the faintest hint of a tremble in her low voice. "I thought, when you agreed we could start over, that that would stop. You were so helpful last year. I love this job and I'm sure I wouldn't have thought of working here without your advice. All I wanted to say was thank you, but you didn't even give me a chance. Every time we talk, you pulverise me!"
"Why do you keep trying to rewrite my character? I'm not nice," he spat out the last word with bitter emphasis, "I never was nice. Seven years of my classes should have been enough for you to learn that."
"But you talked me through all my options and I know you didn't have to -"
"Because, for once in my life, I chose to make sure your brain wouldn't be wasted on some idiotic Gryffindor decision, does that obligate me to be pleasant and friendly thereafter? I think not. You were my student. All you've ever been to me was a mind to be guided."
She sniffed and he eyed her warily, hoping she wasn't going to cry. At least, not till she'd handed him over to her boss and escaped his reluctant company. Reducing another female to tears would hardly damage a reputation as dark as his, but he just wasn't in the mood. He gentled his voice to a silky murmur.
"I'd have done the same for any student who dared to ask me. Even Longbottom."
She cast him a sideways glance. Her eyes were no longer damp. Good.
"You wouldn't," she accused.
They were at the black door now. She ushered him through to a large, circular, black marble room studded with identical black doors and branches of blue-flamed candles. As she closed the door behind herself, the room spun rapidly till the doors and candles blurred into a single blue line. He waited till it stopped.
"Of course I would," he retorted. "I'd tell him the exact truth, that anybody fool enough to offer him a Potions career must be too dunderheaded to stop him blowing himself up – and themselves too. And he shouldn't expect me to come to the funeral."
"I can see you telling him that," she conceded with a ghost of a smile. "In fact, I did see you telling him that, or something very similar, every Potions lesson."
"I'm relieved that your memory isn't completely faulty." He smirked. "Since it's so useful in amending the deficiencies in your intellect."
She glared at him.
"My intellect is not deficient!"
He raised a mocking eyebrow and followed her through the third door on the left into an office that might have been roomy had it not been so jam-packed with gadgets and papers. A string of smaller offices led off from it.
"Rader," Snape greeted the short balding man behind the desk, "What are you wasting my time on today?"
The Head Unspeakable turned a blunt, heavy face with pouched eyes on him, looking him over with no visible change of expression.
"Snape," he replied, without standing up. "We've found another room behind the third dungeon. Would you take a decontamination crew over and see how much you can identify?"
Snape glowered at him, sitting down without invitation and stretching his long legs. Hermione remained standing by the door.
"Ready now?" he snapped.
Even so, it would be a full day's work. In fact he'd probably have to come back tomorrow. He'd Floo-call Hogwarts before he left. Luckily, he had only Sixth and Seventh years this afternoon. They could work under Poppy's nominal supervision.
"Whenever you are. Same team as last time. And Granger, of course. About time she got some field experience."
"Of course? She's Muggle-born!" Snape ignored the quiet huff of protest from behind him.
Rader sat back in his chair with a world-weary air.
"It's been cleared."
Snape shrugged.
"She's your trainee. If you wish to risk losing her at Malfoy's there's nothing for me to say." He leaned forward with black eyes narrowed, adding in a low menacing whisper, "Except that I shall be seriously displeased if I find any anti-Muggle devices remaining."
The other man gave a bark of laughter.
"I've written my will. Granger, tell them he's waiting."
"Yes sir."
Ten minutes later, Snape's team was standing in the vast Malfoy Entrance Hall with its floor of variegated green onyx marble from Pakistan and its walls of pearl-white Italian marble. Two Aurors looked them over briefly then waved them on.
Apart from Hermione there were three experienced Unspeakables in the group, Borodin, Lovatt and Hermione's immediate superior, Waldemar Tigran, plus one just finished training, Ricky Brocklehurst, whom she knew slightly. He'd been a Ravenclaw like his younger sister, Mandy. Hermione had shared a couple of classes with her, but they hadn't been close.
"You'll stay behind me at all times, Granger," Snape ordered, dropping the title for the first time. She stood a little taller at this hint that she was just part of the team, though she frowned at the contraindication of his special instructions. He gave her a hard glare.
"This is no place for Gryffindor recklessness, girl. I'm sure you recall how Malfoys felt about Muggle-borns. They may have left some surprises."
"He told you it was cleared," she grumbled under her breath, but not softly enough.
"Talk back to me again and I'll put you under guard!" he snarled. "I don't share your inflated opinion of Ministry competence."
Remembering all her experiences of Ministry incompetence, she reddened and hung her head.
"Sorry, Professor."
Snape turned away and they fell in behind him. As soon as his back was turned, Ricky winked at her. He was darker than Mandy, with flashing piratical eyes and a hooked nose.
As they went downstairs, he pressed close enough to whisper, with one wary eye on Snape, three steps further down, "He lets you call him Professor? You must be a favourite."
She shook her head with a scowl.
"He called me an insufferable know-it-all all through school and he hasn't changed a bit," she grouched.
He shrugged.
"He's not such a bad old stick if you do as you're told without question. Just very safety-conscious. Recklessness and over-confidence gets him hot under the collar. And there are some very nasty hexes floating around this place."
"Brocklehurst," Snape growled, without turning his head. "If any instruction is necessary I will give it."
"I beg your pardon, Master," Brocklehurst said, with another easy wink at Hermione. He caught her making faces at Snape's back. She blushed fiery red at being seen engaging in such childish behaviour.
They walked down another two marble staircases, though these were smaller and less grand than the first. The painted walls were bare, but rectangular shapes of differently coloured wall indicated that pictures had once hung there. Hermione wondered what they'd done with them.
She hoped they were stored somewhere. Sentient portraits were protected under the same section of Ministry law as ghosts and shades, with exorcism permitted only where ill-will had resulted in malicious damage to wizard-kind. It wouldn't have been right to burn or erase them, as surely the Malfoy forebears hadn't all been Dark Wizards. The pureblood families were too intermingled for such proclivities to remain secret for generations and Lucius would never have had the protection of reputation and influence if Malfoys were known to be dark.
Sometimes it was easier to be Muggle. You could use your old newspapers to wrap your fish 'n chips or your potato peelings without having to first banish all pictures to the newspaper archives. Her mouth watered. She missed fish 'n chips, it was one of those foods wizards didn't seem to eat. She hoped Snape wouldn't make them work through lunch.
Then they reached the dungeons and all thoughts of food vanished. The stone rooms had been stripped bare and scrubbed, but nothing could remove the bloodstains or the smell of despair and death. It was impossible to forget what they'd been used for; the in-depth Daily Prophet reports that had helped send even Narcissa to be Kissed had made ignorance of the gruesome details hard to sustain.
They passed another two Aurors, with no more greeting than a nod, and halted just inside the secret room in a wary knot behind Snape. The ominous-looking silver and copper objects that filled it were dumped casually around the room in no apparent order.
"Ehr'eh teraeh soneicha," Snape intoned, twirling his wand in a complicated and unfamiliar flourish.
So much for his sneers about "foolish wand waving" in his first Potions lesson, Hermione thought with sour amusement. Protective spells couldn't fairly be termed foolish, but she wasn't in the mood to be fair.
Two thirds of the objects in the room began to glow, in shades from lolly pink to deepest red-violet. Hermione gasped and took an involuntary step backward. This didn't look good.
"Protego protegnum," Snape continued in a bored voice, his wand describing a circle of protection around them. "Lovatt and Tigran, you'll work together on the objects I designate. Brocklehurst will observe and assist."
Ricky made a face and whispered to Hermione, "That means fetch and carry."
Snape turned and glared him down in silence before continuing, "Granger, stay in this circle and pay attention," to me only, his eyes said, "Borodin, we'll work together, but keep your eye on Granger till I'm ready for you."
Hermione's lips thinned to an angry, straight line. He glanced at and through her.
"I trust you've not forgotten how to follow instructions."
"I never forget, Professor."
"See that you don't," he snapped and began to move through the room in a clockwise direction, singling out the objects that shone paler and listing appropriate counter-hexes for each as they took notes with an Aeroquill.
Soon the air hung with shimmering, golden names. Hermione had never heard of most of them. She looked imploringly at Taddeo Borodin for an explanation.
"Dark Arts," he shrugged. "Don't teach 'em at Hogwarts, of course. 'S why we need Master Snape for this." His large, mournful eyes, that fit so badly with his round rosy face and button nose, met hers with understanding. "He'll have you joining in, soon as it's safe," he promised. "Didn't he have you brewing from the very first lesson?"
Hermione's eyes widened.
"Yes, he did. Was that unusual?" She'd thought it was standard practice.
" 'S not how I learned. In my day," (he must be at least fifteen years older than her former Potions-master,) "we spent the first year on theory before they ever let us near a cauldron. But his results're so good that Beauxbatons and Durmstrang've followed his lead."
"But it seems so obvious to start on the practical work immediately. We did in other subjects like Transfigurations and Charms."
"Ah. 'S always obvious once someone's thought of it. Didn't seem so obvious to anyone then. But Dumbledore backed him up. Transfiguration and Charms're all about learning to channel your magic through your wand. There's precious little danger and no waste of ingredients – besides you can always transfigure them back. 'N how much do matchsticks and feathers cost anyhow?"
She digested this in silence watching Snape's lean dark figure stride from one unidentified glowing object to another. Had he revolutionised the study of Potions? And he hadn't even wanted to teach it despite being a Master in the subject.
Would her schoolmates have fared better in the war if he'd been allowed to teach them Defence, like everyone knew he'd always wanted to? She'd never questioned Professor Dumbledore's refusal. Surely he had good reason. Besides Snape was a bitter, bad-tempered teacher. No one would have wanted him in the spot.
Yet she'd seen Snape in action at Lockhart's Duelling Club in second year. His first spell had been "Expelliarmus" and, with hindsight, she knew it had been one of the most useful defensive spells she'd ever learnt. He'd demonstrated it so clearly that that single repetition had imprinted it into their minds, despite the fright Malfoy's snake gave them shortly afterwards. The discovery that Harry was a Parseltongue had overshadowed everything else that day, but they'd remembered Expelliarmus well enough to disarm Snape the following year in the Shrieking Shack and it had helped save Harry from Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament.
She frowned. It must have been bitter for Snape all those years, denied the right to train his students for what he knew was coming and forced to watch lesser teachers frittering away valuable, irreclaimable preparation time on Cornish pixies and Grindylows. Even Remus had concentrated on dark creatures rather than dueling dark wizards.
Ricky was right about the man's safety-consciousness. He was the most protective teacher she'd ever had, always on the lookout for danger, and saving or scolding with equal energy. Perhaps he'd had something more worthwhile than a few harsh words to sulk about. At any rate it had never led him to neglect his duty.
A/N "Ehr'eh teraeh soneicha," is my rendition of Hebrew "I will surely reveal your enemies".
"Protego protegnum" is just a doubling of the Protego spell. I don't know Latin so have no idea if it's grammatically correct.
The ruminations on the history of Potions-teaching are neither supported nor excluded by canon.
