"The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower…"
Percy Bysse Shelley
He watched closely, a primal concern had taken over his rationality…
At first, she stammered, busied her hands with props and hid behind a leakage of too many facts, the students were becoming glazed over.
Come on girl, I know your more than facts, let go…
The fake wind rustled the strands that had escaped her twisted plait, she paused, sensing the indifference of her audience, turned, walked to the back of the tent and retrieved a long wooden box.
"Flowers can kill…" The words came as a whisper, like a secret born on the wind. She took off the lid and maneuvered the charmed box so all could view the perfect branch of tiny hearts hanging like earrings from their stem.
That's it girl, arrest them, then inject the information…
"Enough of these hearts ground and concentrated and you can induce coma." She lifted the branch of hearts bent in a weeping half circle and walked, holding it at eye level, through the aisles. The hearts swayed from largest to smallest and the students shifted back in their chairs as she approached them.
"You see the potential of flowers, they can be our saviour and our undoing, the ability to cure and mame, both beautiful and deadly…" She turned back to the tent and proceeded with the geographic locations and uses for the local wildflowers.
Snape shook his head, lifting from the stupor of intensity. She had done well, and it pleased him to see one of his former pupils assume the reigns.
"The scent of those flowers is intoxicating. Don't you think, Severus?" Dumbldore had sidled up to the potions master.
"Herb and flower scents are around me constantly, it's very hard to impress my senses….less I become distracted from my vigilance." He lied, not wanting to share the sweetness.
"Pity." Dumbledore turned away and smiled as he watched Hermione continue the lecture.
She concluded and the students clapped, some walking up and engaging her in questions afterward. After a while McGonagall shooed them to their dormitories or quidditch practice.
They had retreated to Dumbledore's office for a much needed drink, some out of habit and some new to the game.
"You were both wonderful…I hardly expected anything less." Dumbledore poured generous drinks, light with the mood of comraderie."
"The setting definitely made an impression on the children, they were transported, I could tell." Minerva held her glass up while Dumbledore gave her a generous second portion.
Charlie held his drink and listened to the praise while he eyed some of Dumbledore's interesting artifacts. Hermione remained quiet enjoying the celebratory mood. She sipped her drink and spied Snape sitting off to the left in a small alcove having his cocktail in front of the fireplace. His words to her before the lecture had buoyed up her confidence and she was able to overcome her nerves. In fact she had used a bit of Snape in her lecture, who would have known that his dramatics were actually a teaching device, previously she thought his snark was just for Voldemort's benefit, perhaps it had started out that way but she was sure he quickly realized how much teaching was similar to acting.
Snape shifted in his seat and glanced her way, sensing that someone was watching him.
She took this glance as the opener to a conversation, proceeding tentatively, not knowing if it was the actor or the person.
"Professor Snape, I wanted to ask you a question. Sometime ago I had a package sent to Hogwarts from the apothecary in Hogsmeade, I've been experimenting with something and wanted to continue while we were lecturing. I asked Professor McGonagall but she hasn't received any packages and neither have any of the other teachers." She stood at the back of the opposite wing chair from where Snape was sitting.
He narrowed his eyes in thought and then spoke, "… it's time to pay a visit to Monsieur Garni, something is not right." He finished his drink in one swallow and set it on a small side table next to him.
Hermione cocked her head, questioningly.
"He sent me my term order with several mistakes in volume and one complete omission." He sounded incredulous.
"I thought he was so reliable?"
"He was…tomorrow I'll pay him a visit."
"May I come, perhaps he still has my order but confused the instruction that I wouldn't be picking it up."
Snape thought for a moment and then nodded his head in assent.
The intimate group disbanded and Hermione and Charlie went with Professor McGonagall to their temporary quarters, both in Gryffindor tower.
Snape lingered and Dumbledore made his way over to the fire and sat down beside him. They stared silently, passing a few minutes without entering into their usual discussion of strategies and information.
"I am heading out to the village tomorrow, it seems Bertrand is slipping after all these years, perhaps he is ill…I hope not." Snape shook his head with pity.
Dumbledore was impressed by this unusual display of empathy, but he understood, Severus prized accuracy, strict regulation and attention to detail and Bertrand Garni had been all these things and more over the years. It was the closest thing Snape had to a friend outside the castle, outside his life as a spy. There relationship suited Snape because he rarely had to be in his company and when he did it was to discuss his interest, potion ingredients.
"I haven't heard any news of a problem, surely one of the locals would have spilt the news." Dumbledore offered.
Snape snorted in disgust over the way Dumbledore gathered information from the unreliable drunks in Hogsmeade village. His reasoning was that they tended to see everything because they were always about, at odd times and in odd places, but what he never included in this rational was that they were usually drunk or unconscious and that they'd tell the great headmaster of Hogwarts anything to procure a shot of firewhisky from Madame Rosmerta, free of charge of course.
"Your sources are sometimes too polluted to give a clear picture." Snape quirked his lip in sarcasm.
"Be that as it may…Rosmerta surely would have heard, told Hagrid and all the staff would be privy by now." Dumbledore reasoned.
Snape nodded in agreement, the leakage of information was notorious from that sector.
"Did I hear Miss Granger is going with you?…something about a package gone missing."
Snape looked up, surprised that Dumbledore had overheard their conversation.
"Yes, she had ordered some ingredients that she wanted to use in an experiment she's working on." Snape sounded nonchalant.
A long pause ensued and the two watched the charred remains of a log fall from the pile onto the hearth, Dumbledore waved his wand and the blackened wood disappeared in a wisp of smoke.
"Any idea what our prodigy is working on?" Dumbledore's voice had taken on a smoother timber, questioning but forceful and Snape rose to its commanding tone.
"No, not yet."
"Perhaps it would not be a bad idea to inquire, out of pure professional interest. We do have to encourage our youth." Dumbledore caught Snape in a gaze that punctuated his seemingly benign request.
Snape felt a twist in his stomach and understood what his assignment for the next few days would entail;
…spying on Hermione Granger.