A/N: Harry and Grace are NOT a 'thing'. Just thought I'd clear that up. The scene (you'll know it when you get to it) is not romantic in any way, it's a brother comforting his sister. And it takes a toll on Harry, but I'll get to that later.
Anyway, thanks so much everyone for reviewing this! I'm really grateful for every single review, and I'm finally going to start responding to them, starting from the last chapter on.
I'm REALLY sorry for taking so long to put this up, but a lot of stuff has been going on in my life, plus the fact that it's getting harder and harder to get on the computer. I will try to be quicker with the next one.
Disclaimer: Nothing in JK Rowling's world belongs to me. I am just playing with her creations.
Nighttime at Hogwarts"I'm here for Grace Jorkins' file," came a harsh voice, floating out of nowhere.
Mrs. Starling looked up from her papers. "I'm sorry, I cannot release that information without the proper authoriz-"
The man withdrew a wand, transfigured to look like a gun. "GIVE ME THE FILE!"
"I–" Mrs. Starling quickly fumbled for the key to the filing cabinets, but apparently she wasn't quick enough.
"Avada Kedavra," the man shouted, and Mrs. Starling fell, the tiny key clutched in her outstretched fist.
"Thank you," the cloaked man muttered sarcastically, as he took the key and began to search through the many files. He looked for several minutes and finally found the one he was looking for.
The man slipped the file under his cloak just as another matronly woman rushed in. "Emma?" she said. "I heard a-" But she never finished that sentence.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
And the second woman lay dead on the floor.
The man hurried up to the first of the dormitories. It was nearly midnight, and he could hear soft breathing coming through the doors. Avada Kedavra seemed too simple …
The man seized a bundle of blankets that were sitting by the door. It would be fun to hear them burn … the children, that is.
"Aish Ya'achol," he muttered, and the blankets were set ablaze.
He hurried out of the building. The Dark Lord would be waiting for him just outside the city. He had to meet him there before midnight or else be left to burn with the rest of the townspeople.
"Miss Potter?"
Grace snapped her head up painfully to see Snape's ugly face smirking down at her.
"I had hoped you might prove more adept at staying awake in my class than your cousin," he snapped. "I see I was wrong. Fifteen points from Hufflepuff."
Her heart sank. She had been docked nearly a hundred points this week, all by Professor Snape.
"If we could move back to Potions now …" her teacher continued still in the same nasty tone, "I would like to make sure you have all chopped your ingredients correctly."
They still hadn't attempted to make a potion. The class had spent the first few weeks of school learning the names and properties of common ingredients and were just now moving on to "The Correct Way To Chop Them."
Grace returned to her roots angrily. She'd been thinking of that nightmare again … the one she'd had nearly every night for three weeks, ever since Harry had told her that the Death Eaters had destroyed an entire village just to find her. She wished Mark Parkinson was in her Potions class. He was always nice to her, and the two had built up a fragile friendship. His cousin Marigold was another story, she always had something nasty to say to Grace, but Mark … Mark shouldn't have been a Slytherin.
"I thought I made it quite clear that you were to cut the roots at a five degree angle," Snape quipped as he passed her table. "Those were clearly cut at a forty-five degree angle."
"I'm sorry," Grace muttered insolently. "What would you like me to do about it?"
He seemed surprised for about half a second, but quickly regained his composure. "Detention, my office, tonight at seven," Snape said. "That's what I would like you to do about it."
"See you there," she muttered back. Detentions with Snape had become almost nightly. She was falling a bit behind on her homework, but not too much. Anyway, they only had Potions three times a week - that was only three nights out of the week taken up with detentions.
"Detention again?" Teri asked Grace as she slid into a seat beside her older friend that day at lunch.
"Of course," Grace replied. "He hates me."
"Why?" Jess asked. "That's stupid. You're just a firstie, you haven't done anything to him."
"He hated my uncle," Grace explained. "He's just bitter, that's all. I wish we'd do something useful in his class. All we've done so far is chop vegetables."
"My sister said he used to start with potions right away," Laurie remarked. "She told me he did potions first week of school with the firsties, until last year. They had this High Inquisitor –"
"-Delores Umbridge –"
"-and she couldn't believe he was doing that. Made him stop."
"But why's he still listening to her?" Grace asked. "Isn't Dumbledore the High Inquisitor now?"
"Of course," Jess said. "But he still has to report to the Ministry. And they're keeping an extra close watch on him. Snape."
"Why?"
Laurie glanced around nervously. "They say he's a Death Eater, or used to be. Fred Weasley saw the Dark Mark on his arm."
Grace stared at her plate. She knew Snape was all right. She knew he was in the Order. She knew how important it was to keep quiet now, not to say anything. Snape needed to keep his cover, and if she blurted out his innocence to Laurie and Jess it would be all over school – and in the Slytherins' hands – in three seconds flat.
She, Grace Potter, was protecting Snape. What an absurd thought.
"Stop insulting him," came a snooty voice from behind her. Grace and Teri turned to see Marigold Parkinson, that ever-present ray of sunshine, standing behind them. "He's a wonderful teacher … I guess you're just too stupid at Potions to appreciate him."
"Say, Mari," Grace retorted, using a nickname that she knew Marigold hated, "I heard you failed that quiz he gave last week on the properties of dittany … I got an O myself, how'd you manage to fail?"
"At least I've made a potion before, Potter."
"Oh, is that what happened to your face?"
Marigold stared at her in shock, than turned huffily on her heel and strode back to the Slytherin table. Grace grinned broadly. Score one for 'That Potter Girl'!
Grace rapped sharply on Snape's office door precisely at seven o'clock that evening. No one came to the door. She could hear voices coming from inside – could he was in a meeting and couldn't hear her? She didn't want him to think she was late … maybe she should knock again?
Grace had barely raised her fist to knock on the door again when said door swung open violently.
"I had heard you the first time, Miss Potter," Snape remarked, ushering her in. "Right on time … as usual."
"Who were you talking to?" she asked, casting a glance at the fireplace.
"That is for me to know and you to … not find out, Potter."
"Were they – on our side?"
"I haven't got a clue what you mean, Miss Potter. This is detention, not an interrogation."
She knew he wasn't going to tell her. "What am I doing tonight, Professor?"
"Have a seat, Miss Potter." Snape waited for her to settle herself onto one of the chairs that painfully reminded her of the hard wooden chairs in Mrs. Starling's office.
"School has been in session almost three and a half weeks and you have had detention ten times already. If you are trying to set some sort of school record –"
"You're the one giving the detentions," Grace pointed out, "not me."
"Silence!" Grace pursed her lips. Should she make the 'lock your lips and throw away the key' motion, or would that be too over-the-top? "Miss Potter, I am only human. How do you expect me to come up with an appropriate detention for you three nights out of the week?"
"I don't know."
"And what about your third year, when you have Potions four times a week?" Snape continued. "Or fifth year, when you have me five times a week? Will you sit through three hours of detention every night?"
"Probably. But what am I doing tonight?"
"Nothing."
Her eyes widened. "Nothing?"
"Have the Potters gone deaf now? You heard me correctly, Miss Potter, you will be doing nothing in detention tonight."
"Not lines?"
"Not lines, not chopping potion ingredients, not scrubbing out the cauldrons, nothing."
"So …" she was almost afraid to ask. "Can I go?"
"No," Snape sneered. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? No, you will sit in that chair and do nothing for four hours."
"Four?"
"You heard me correctly, Miss Potter, four hours. I want silence. I have essays to mark."
And with that, Snape picked up his quill and began scratching out corrections onto a student's paper.
Grace stared at her Potions teacher open-mouthed. Four hours of sitting in this stupid chair, in this stupid office, doing … nothing? She could just as easily do nothing in front of the common room fire, why did she have to waste an evening here?
But Snape didn't seem to be paying any attention to her. She stifled a sigh and tried to get as comfortable as she could on that hard, wooden chair. She couldn't even use the detention as an excuse for not having her homework done … she wouldn't finish anything tonight … she'd get into so much trouble …
I can do Transfiguration before breakfast, she thought. Charms is easy, I can do that in between classes, we have him last anyway. Potions … I have Potions homework! I'll have to do that when I get back to the common room tonight, whenever that'll be …
Grace swung one leg awkwardly over the other in an attempt to sit like a lady.
"Stop that," a harsh voice snapped. Grace looked up; Snape had put down his quill at last.
"Haven't I already told you I have work that needs to be done?" he asked. "I want absolute silence in here. Doing nothing means doing nothing. At all. Every time I must remind you of this, Miss Potter, two extra minutes will be added onto your punishment. Do I make myself clear?"
She nodded.
"Nodding is doing something, Miss Potter. That's two minutes added onto the original four hours then …"
…………………
Four hours and thirty-six minutes later, Grace was released from her chair and was marching briskly back to the common room. Doing nothing had been the absolute most horrible punishment ever. When Snape said nothing, he meant Nothing. He'd barked at her for merely scratching herself.
She couldn't go through another night like that. And now she had homework to catch up on as well.
"No," Grace whispered fiercely. "That's exactly what he wants me to think." He wants me to stop acting up in class. Every detention's going to be the same thing – until I stop bugging him in class. Well, I'm not going to play along. "I'm not," she added aloud.
Grace marched angrily out of the dungeons and was halfway across the Entrance Hall when she heard an unwelcome voice – a very unwelcome voice.
"Sneaking around … up in the Towers after beddy-bye time … see what she thinks about that, now!"
Filch.
She had barely run more than three steps when he called, "You! Potter! Hold it right there, little miss!"
There was no way out of it, he had already seen who she was … Grace turned slowly to face the livid caretaker.
Filch stood at the top of the marble staircase, glaring down at her.
"I was in deten-"
"No, no, I've had enough of your lies for tonight," Filch muttered wildly, hurrying down the staircase. He had someone with him as well, another student being dragged along behind him in a very uncomfortable fashion. "'I had detention …'" he mocked in a high-pitched voice. "If I had a galleon for every time I'd heard that one I'd be richer than Lucius Malfoy. You wait right there, Potter."
Grace couldn't have moved even if he hadn't had warned her; she was frozen stiff.
As Filch drew nearer, she saw who the unlucky student behind him was: Harry.
Harry seemed to recognize her at the same time she recognized him. She saw his face light up, and then his eyebrows furrowed and he gave her a stern look. Grace could read his expression clearly – What are you doing out of bed? She widened her eyes and shrugged her shoulders slightly, trying to portray innocence. From the look on her brother's face, it wasn't working.
"Yes, that's right - come on, you!" Filch snarled as he neared her. He grabbed onto Grace's collar and dragged both her and Harry back across the Entrance Hall and through an out-of-the-way door. And there they were – in Filch's office.
"Sit," he ordered, pointing them to two ratty, falling-apart chairs. The room was lit by a single torch on the wall across from the door, which was casting horrendous shadows over everything. A large row of filing cabinets stood against the far wall. "Sit," he urged them again, giving Harry a little push. Grace followed her brother over to the chairs and sat down gingerly on one of them.
"Mrs. Norris'll watch you while I get Minerva and Seraphina," Filch said nastily, shutting the door with a BANG.
"What were you doing out of bed?" the twins asked each other at the same moment.
Harry laughed. "We'll be as bad as the Weasley twins next."
"What?"
"Haven't you ever heard their act? Where they finish-"
"-each other's sentences?"
Their grins quickly faded.
"No, really," Grace insisted. "What were you doing out of bed? Filch said you were in a tower …?"
"The Astronomy Tower," Harry supplied. "He thinks I was trying to jump off it or something … I had to get away from things for a while, you know? I was talking to Nick before –"
"Nick?"
"Nearly Headless Nick. Gryffindor Ghost. Anyway, he said some stuff and I had to get out of everything for a bit." Harry had a faraway look in his eyes. "What about you? Sneaking off to the kitchens after dark?"
"I had detention," Grace repeated shortly. "I … I hadn't been doing my homework lately. I've been doing research on the wards around Hogwarts and didn't have time for it." Why was she lying to Harry?
"Detention with who?"
"Snmhmph."
"Who?"
"Snape," Grace whispered.
"WHAT!" Harry cried. "Already? What – what'd he do to you?" That's why, Grace told herself. He's going crazy. It's … It's my life, why does he care? This is exactly why I haven't told him about any of those other detentions.
"Nothing."
"Nothing what?" Harry said, disbelievingly. "Nothing too mean? Nothing too horrible? Nothing what?"
"Nothing. Nothing – anything. At all."
"Did he say anything to you?" Harry asked worriedly. "Anything about Dad or-"
"- Sirius? No. It's all right, really, I can take it," Grace added.
"But …"
"Harry-" she ordered. "Stop. Stop worrying about me. I'm glad you care, but really! You have … your own life, don't you?"
But there were tears in her eyes as she said it, and she knew he could see them.
Harry stared at her, dazed for a moment. Then he slid off his chair and slipped carefully into hers. Their hips pressed together and she once again felt the sensation that the two separate bodies were melting into one.
"You're part of that life," he said simply, and the tears spilled over her cheeks.
Grace tried to stop them, tried to brush them off, but the tears kept coming. Harry pulled her a bit closer to him until her cheek was firmly pressed against his chest. She could feel his heart beating wildly. She knew that the tears would soak his shirt, but he didn't say anything.
The two spent a long, quiet minute just soaking up the silence as Grace's sobbing finally stopped. "If there's something bothering you, you can tell me," Harry said. She nodded, burrowing herself deeper into her brother's chest. She hadn't felt this warm, this loved, in over two years.
If ever.
Grammy had loved her, she knew that. But Grammy had been somewhat … cold … now that she saw how Harry was and could compare him to … Grammy had loved her, but would never have engulfed her in the embrace she now found herself in …
The thought seemed treacherous to her and made her feel like crying again, but she managed to hold her sobs in.
"If there's something bothering you," Harry repeated.
Grace shook her head, her face still buried in her brother's chest. She pulled her knees uncomfortably up onto Harry's lap, trying to curl up into his body – she knew she was acting like a baby. She could feel a metal spring poking into her side, could hear Harry's fast, haggard breathing, but none of that mattered, nothing mattered except her brother's calm, steady heartbeat.
"There they are, Professors," came Filch's voice. Harry pried her off him and she parted unwillingly from the warmth of her twin's body, looking over at the door and the newcomers: Filch, Minerva McGonagall, and Seraphina Sprout. At a look from McGonagall, Harry left Grace's side and returned to his own chair.
"What has been going on tonight?" asked Professor McGonagall, marching over to the desk and taking control. "Mr. Potter, up in the Astronomy Tower?"
"Grace – wandering around the Entrance Hall at half past eleven?" Professor Sprout added.
"Would either of you care to explain yourselves?" McGonagall said.
"I was in detention with Professor Snape," Grace said quickly, "and he had just let me out."
"That's what the other one told me as well," Filch interjected. "Detention with Professor Bowtry."
"If you are anything like your cousin, Miss Potter," McGonagall began, "I don't think it is unlikely that you would have a detention so close to the beginning of the school year."
"Yes, of course," Professor Sprout said. "I believe we can excuse you. You may go on to bed now. I'll walk you back to the common room, come on now …"
"What about Harry?" she asked, throwing a worried glance toward her brother.
"He'll be up a little while longer," McGonagall said, turning her stern eye on Harry. "The Astronomy Tower is forbidden at all times except for classes, and her had no reason at all for being up there."
"I was thinking," Harry finally said, as though that explained it all.
"I understand, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, "really, I do, but that is still no excuse for being up on the tower after dark. I believe a detention is in order …"
"Come on, then," Sprout whispered, tugging at Grace's arm. She was reluctant to leave her brother's side, but …
Grace let herself be steered out of the uncomfortable chair, out of the office, and back to the painting of the rose. She muttered, "Flower Power," bid goodnight to Professor Sprout and hurried down the long hallway to the firstie dorms.
Her roommates were asleep. Grace crossed the room to her mat and collapsed onto it with exhaustion. Homework could wait …
And soon she saw once again the scene that played out only in her dreams …
"I'm here for Grace Jorkins' file," came a harsh voice, floating out of nowhere.
Mrs. Starling looked up from her papers. "I'm sorry, I cannot release that information without the proper authoriz-"
The man withdrew a wand, transfigured to look like a gun. "GIVE ME THE FILE!"
………………
And introducing ... RESPONSES!
ERMonkey, Burner of Cookies - it was, wasn't it?
Kitty-Katty-Pryde - Oh he will, just you wait ... I just thought it was too mean to do it her first day.
Miss Lady Padfoot - thanks!
potterfiend - thanks!
GiGifanfic - I know, I know. Sigh. I hadn't meant for him to be. But then I looked at him and he was so much like Lockhart it's scary. But he will turn out very different from dear ole Gilderoy, trust me. As for Grace being in Gryffindor, I was sick of that old line. You know, how the character's all nervous at the Sorting but ends up getting into Gryffindor anyway? It's one more thing the twins have to work around, on top of everything else. But it feels very strange typing "Ten points from Hufflepuff". Several times I've written in "Gryffindor" and have to go back and change it. I'm trying to keep a good pace, but ... I dunno, that's how I write. Same with the excitement thing. But thanks very much for taking the time to review, I really do appreciate it!
Lynda - more! See?
