PICNIC AT MALFOY MANOR
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.
Ricky Brocklehurst is a non-canon character, a co-worker and older brother to canon-character, Mandy Brocklehurst.
Hermione settled herself more comfortably on Ricky's robes, spread out like a picnic-cloth underneath them, and dipped another chip in the last remnant of her mushy peas. Beside her, long and lean in open-necked shirt and chinos, Ricky leaned back on his elbow, watching her. Scattered around them were the remains of a fish-and chip supper.
It had been a long day. After almost an hour of resentful waiting, she'd been called over to Snape's side and instructed in the more basic decontamination spells. Then she'd cast them as Snape and Borodin simultaneously cast higher-level spells. It was her first practical experience of entangled magics and, by the time Snape dismissed them with a command to meet him in the Entrance Hall tomorrow at 8, she'd been almost too tired to accept Ricky's invitation. Almost.
It was pleasant on the grounds of Malfoy Manor. Most of the park and gardens had been cleared for public use a few months earlier and were now favourite leisure spots for wizard families, though they were mostly deserted by this time of the evening. They had chosen a grassy knoll overlooking a stream, far enough from the trees not to be covered in falling leaves. Hermione took secret pleasure in the irony of enjoying a Muggle meal in what had been one of the last bastions of pureblood power.
"But how could you remember me from Hogwarts?" she asked after finishing her last mouthful. "I was three years lower and in a different house."
Flashing dark eyes laughed at her.
"Hermione, everyone knew who you were by halfway through your first year. Best friends with the Boy-Who-Lived. You three were at the centre of almost everything that happened my last four years of school."
"Not everything," she protested, gathering all the rubbish into one neat pile to Evanesco in one go.
Times like this it was good to be a witch. No litter bins to spoil the view. No scraps of wrappings or festering plastic drink bottles to choke the stream or attract wasps and ants.
"Yes, everything!" he retorted, eyebrows rising in smiling disbelief at her naivety. "Who got attacked by a troll? You! Who got petrified by a basilisk? You! Who got 160 points to catapult Gryffindor from last place to first for something to do with Quirrell and Voldemort, no one knew exactly what? You three!"
"Neville got ten of those points," she cut in.
A tanned well-kept hand waved that away.
"Ten points for trying to stop you. You three were the ones doing – whatever it was you were doing."
She shrugged.
"Keeping Quirrell away from the Philosopher's Stone because he had Voldemort living on the back of his head. That's why the turban. Anyway, Harry was the only one to see that. Ron and I didn't get that far."
"See what I mean? And you probably went there on purpose. How long had you been on his trail?"
Hermione blushed and looked away. Maybe she'd been in too much of a hurry to dispose of their scraps. There was nothing to fidget with. She picked three long stems of grass and began braiding them.
"He tried to steal the Stone from Gringotts before school started. We knew all year that something was up." Although she hadn't been included till they'd become friends. "But we weren't on his trail at all." She hung her head. "We thought Professor Snape was the villain." And didn't that sound silly now?
Ricky burst out laughing. Hermione stared at the grass she was braiding, her cheeks getting redder and redder.
"Well you would, wouldn't you?" he choked after several minutes. "He dresses up like a pantomime villain, all scowling and long black robes and swooping around the corridors at night. All he needed was a moustache to twirl."
She glanced at him and her lips twitched into a relieved smile. Then it wasn't her he was laughing at. She changed the subject anyhow.
"Do wizard-children go to pantomimes? I thought that was a Muggle thing."
"Only the moustaches." He was still grinning. "I learnt about them in Muggle Studies. Fourth year, I think; I did a special project. But pantomimes are a traditional Yule treat for us too."
"I only did one year of Muggle Studies. My workload was just too big to continue."
"I'm not surprised. Everyone knew you practically lived in the library. But tell me more about your Snape adventures. Did you trail around after him every night? Most first years would have found that scarier than facing Voldemort."
"We didn't dare," she admitted. "It was the troll on Halloween that first made us really suspect him. Quirrell summoned it to distract the other teachers so he could have a go at the Stone, but Professor Snape wasn't fooled. Only he got bitten by Fluffy and we noticed him limping –"
"Hang on. Who's Fluffy?"
"The first line of defense. Remember Professor Dumbledore at the Sorting Feast, threatening anyone who went to the third floor corridor with a painful death? He was a three-headed Cerberus."
"Fluffy?" He gave another shout of laughter. It was very infectious. "Who on earth would call a Cerberus Fluffy?"
"Hagrid of course," she said when she stopped chuckling. "Didn't you ever study Care of Magical Creatures?"
"Not with him. We had Professor Kettleburn and I dropped it after my O.W.L.s. I remember though, Mandy used to complain about Hagrid's lessons – hippogriffs and blasted scoots or something."
"Blast-ended skrewts. They were – pretty horrid." She'd been about to say "something he'd bred himself" but changed in mid-sentence. That had been illegal. For all that Hagrid was a decorated war-hero from the final battle and had gone off to live at Beauxbatons with Madame Maxime, there was no telling but it might still cause him trouble if it ever came out.
"Everything you studied with him was pretty horrid, from what I heard. Except flobberworms. At least they couldn't hurt you."
"He does know an awful lot about magical creatures," Hermione defended. Too bad he liked the flame-breathing man-eating types best.
Ricky raised a lazy eyebrow.
"Why flobberworms anyway?"
"That was Malfoy's fault. He provoked the hippogriff into slashing him and then whined to his dad to get Hagrid sacked."
"But still, flobberworms! Catch Snape changing a lesson for fear of anyone!"
Hermione frowned. Not likely. If someone had tried to pressure him, he'd have made them do more dangerous potions, not less. She dumped her grass braid and sat up straighter.
"You sound as if you admired him," she grumbled.
Ricky sat up too, smiling apologetically.
"Is that the ultimate crime? Sorry, I can't help it. Not after that first amazing lesson." His eyes glowed with remembered enthusiasm. " He swept in and everything went quiet. Then he told us he could teach us to brew fame, bottle glory or put a stopper in death - if we weren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as he normally taught. We decided instantly to do anything rather than have him think us dunderheads. And then he gave an impromptu quiz to make sure we'd remember that he expected us always to come prepared."
Hermione scowled.
"We got the same speech -"
"Why meddle with perfection? He was brilliant!"
"He used the quiz to humiliate us. Harry for not knowing the answers and me for knowing." She stared at the ground, biting her lower lip. Was she mad? Arguing about Snape, of all people, with the best-looking guy she'd met since school? No wonder she had no love-life.
"But didn't it get better after that? I always thought you were rather a favourite."
"Me?" she burst out. "What gave you that idea?"
Ricky reached over for her hand and started playing with her fingers. She gave him a sideways glance under her lashes. He was still smiling at her. She felt suddenly breathless.
"He mentioned you once. At least I think it was you, he didn't say a name."
She gulped.
"What – what did he say?"
"It must have been during our O.W.L. year, because it was just after the third attack. We'd had a really bad lesson, most of the Hufflepuffs were crying because one of their own was frozen, and we were all terrified because what could do that to a ghost? After the third melted cauldron, he got furious. He said one of his second years could brew better than us and he'd be strongly tempted to make us watch her do it if -"
He stopped abruptly, folding his lips with an absurd look of guilt in his eyes. She leaned a little closer.
"If?"
"Hmm." His face was flushed and his eyes darted around for inspiration. "Ahh, well, umm, if she wasn't – too sure of herself already."
She ought to feel insulted that he'd identified her as the girl in question – for sure Snape hadn't used such polite language – but she wanted to giggle. He was such a bad liar. Besides, he was still holding her hand.
"Sure of herself?" she probed mischievously. "Was that what he said? Not know-it-all or insufferable or conceited?"
"I don't think you're insufferable or conceited,' he said quickly, with an anxious gaze in her eyes. "Anyway, you did know it all, didn't you? It's not an insult."
"It was, the way he always said it," she huffed. "What made you think it was me then?"
He tickled her arm. She batted his hand away, giving him a mock stern look. Let him wriggle his way out of this one.
"Mandy said it must have been you. Because it wasn't anyone in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff she could think of and she knew you and Malfoy were the only ones to beat her in the first year exams. Besides, you were every teacher's prize pupil, weren't you?"
She blushed.
"Was I?"
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
"Don't say you didn't know."
"He never let me answer in class. I'd always have my hand up and he'd always pass me over."
"Of course he did. He wanted to test people's knowledge; he already knew you knew." He squeezed her hand.
"I don't think it was that," she declared. "He just hated Gryffindors, that's all."
Ricky shrugged.
"I wouldn't know. We were always paired with Hufflepuffs for Potions in the junior classes. But it figures, I guess. What's the hallmark of being in your house?"
"Courage. The Hat always called us brave."
He shook his head.
"Not so much courage as bravado. The Hat said brave and bold, which is another way of saying that you rush into danger without planning ahead. And that's the last kind of behaviour he'd want to encourage – in class or anywhere."
She frowned. That didn't sound very complimentary. Although the more she thought about it the more she had to admit its truth. And put like that, it made a lot of sense.
He ducked his head and gave a crooked smile.
"Potions requires patience, precision and careful preparation. That's why Gryffindors generally do so badly in it. It wasn't him; it was you lot."
"He should have changed his methods to suit us," she muttered.
"Didn't we agree before that opposition just makes him more stubborn? The more you rebelled, the harder he'd clamp down."
"It was more than that."
He shrugged.
"Well your class did put a stop to a seven year run of Slytherin success. And it was you and your friends that kept snatching theCup away every time. The rest of us never had a look-in."
"He probably just cheated to make them win. He took points from all the other houses except his own."
"If you say so," he allowed. "Like I said, we never shared a potions class with them and class is where the points mostly come and go – unless you get caught snogging or wandering the corridors or hexing each other. I don't remember him ever taking points from me."
On the word snogging, his eyes had dropped to her lips and lingered there. She held her breath. His Adams apple bobbed a few times, but he didn't make a move towards her.
The silence was becoming uncomfortable. She couldn't think of anything to say. She licked her lips nervously and heard him catch his breath.
"So I guess you like working with him now," she squeaked.
Ricky gave her a rueful smile.
"Don't you think we've talked about him long enough? There's someone here with me right now that I like a whole lot better. If that's all right with you?"
It was. It definitely was.
