The first few days back hadn't been particularly eventful, Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts were sure to be trouble though.
Moody turning Malfoy into a ferret had been really, quite excellent, although Hermione did disapprove of using Transfiguration as a punishment; it had been lucky Professor McGonagall showed up when she did. There was something the ex-Aurour had said though, he'd told Malfoy he used to know his Father, the way he said it certainly implied that he knew Mr Malfoy from his days working in the Magical Law Enforcement Office, it wasn't a huge jump therefore to assume that he'd been a Death Eater, or at least caught up in the Dark Arts in some way. That hadn't come as a huge surprise. It was what he'd said about Snape that had been unsettling.
*"Now, your Head of House'll be Snape, will it?"
"Another old friend," Moody had growled. "I've been looking forward to a chat with old Snape..."*
She's heard the thinly veiled threat in his voice and it chilled her blood. He was surely implying that Snape had been a Death Eater too… No. There was no proof, she was allowing her imagination and fear to overpower her logic. Funny really, ever since that night when she'd seen another side to the Potions Master, she didn't seem to be able to be all that logical where he was concerned.
The first Potions lesson of the year hadn't actually been too bad, Snape had appeared to have stopped glaring at her quite so much which was a welcomed relief although he did *seem to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer and he gave Neville detention for melting yet another cauldron. Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads.
"You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" said Ron to Harry.
"Yeah," said Harry. "Moody."
It was common knowledge Snape had disliked all of their previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it - but he seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody. Indeed, whenever the two of them were together - at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors – it seemed that Snape was avoiding Moody's eye, whether magical or normal.
"I reckon Snape's a bit scared of him, you know," Harry said thoughtfully* and Hermione's head snapped up to stare at Harry. When had he become so insightful? She'd been coming to the same conclusion herself and she'd been watching the pair of them like a hawk, morbid curiosity overweighing her sense of caution. Those two definitely had history.
Their first lesson with Moody had certainly been a spectacle. The image of him smiling at Ron came floating to the front of her mind, he'd looked almost grotesque but she'd felt that slight twinge of attraction again and hated it. Then he'd started talking about the Unforgivables and she'd forgotten everything else except the look on Neville's face when he'd seen the Cruciartus Curse in action; he looked so utterly horrified she'd wanted to march him straight back to the Common Room and make him drink tea and eat chocolate until he forgot all about the twitching spider.
And now here she was, lying in bed, not sleeping, but brooding about the less-than-supportive reception to S.P.E.W and Sirius' intriguing reply.
*Harry -
I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumours that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore - they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is.
I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open, Harry.
Sirius*
What signs was Dumbledore reading that everyone else was ignoring? Could he mean the Death Eater presence at the Quidditch World Cup and the Dark Mark? The missing Ministry employee? In combination with Harry's dream about You-Know-Who, Hermione was worried. She turned over in her bed and decided to concentrate on furthering S.P.E.W instead of contemplating on more sinister things. One thing was obvious though; Sirius was worried too.
The next few weeks passed in a haze of mental Defence lessons, constant talk of the Triwizard Tournament and throwing herself into her S.P.E.W campaign; refusing to be deterred. Before she knew it, it was the 30th of October and they were gathered in the Entrance Hall to welcome the students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Snape looked particularly sour-faced, she noted with interest, he looked exhausted as well, and slightly agitated, but then all the teachers had been lately. He turned and glared at her so she quickly looked away, not wanting to trigger his filthy stares once more.
*"Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!" Dumbledore called.
Something large, much larger than a broomstick - or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks - was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.
"It's a dragon!" shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.
"Don't be stupid...it's a flying house!" said Dennis Creevey.
Dennis's guess was closer...As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powder-blue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.*
Madame Maxine was huge. There was no other way to describe her. Hermione was used to Hagrid, so really, seeing another huge person shouldn't have come as such a shock … but it did. Then before she knew what was happening a *ship rose out of the water of the lake, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.*
The Durmstrang students looked mean as they approached but she tried not to judge; Durmstrang did have a bit of reputation for its affiliation with the Dark Arts.
*"Dumbledore!" a man called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"
"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied. Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.
"Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd.*
Hermione instantly didn't like him, she was loathe to form opinions of people before she really had any basis for that opinion, but in this case she really couldn't help it. She glanced back over at Professor Snape and almost did a double take; he was staring at Karkaroff with a look of pure hatred. It was different somehow to the looks he gave to Harry, more aggressive and formidable. She could only hope that he never looked at her like that; she'd be running for the hills. Suddenly he seemed to notice himself and his expression quickly faded back to the look of bored indifference he usually sported. It was quite an impressive change in such a short space of time…
*I don't believe it!" Ron said, in a stunned voice, as the Hogwarts students filed back up the steps behind the party from Durmstrang. "Krum, Harry! Viktor Krum!"
"For heaven's sake, Ron, he's only a Quidditch player," said Hermione,* firmly quashing the flutter of excitement she'd felt at seeing him, and regarding the frantic sixth-year girls with distain.
She felt a totally irrational swell of jealously when one of the girls from Beauxbatons managed to turn Ron purple just by speaking but she quickly quashed that too. God her hormones must be all over the place at the minute, it wasn't even like she fancied Ron. He was kind and funny, and good-looking in a sort of boy-next-door way. Okay so maybe she fancied him a little bit, but it was natural surely; she was watching him grow up and mature, plus he wasn't the sort of, brother figure that Harry had become.
*"The moment has come," said Dumbledore, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket, just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."
"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore continued, "and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts."
At the mention of the word "champions," the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen. Perhaps Dumbledore had noticed their sudden stillness, for he smiled as he said, "The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch."
Filch, who had been lurking unnoticed in a far corner of the Hall, now approached Dumbledore carrying a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels. It looked extremely old.
"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman," said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before him, "and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways.. their magical prowess - their daring - their powers of deduction - and, of course, their ability to cope with danger."
At this last word, the Hall was filled with a silence so absolute that nobody seemed to be breathing.
"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Dumbledore went on calmly, "one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."
Dumbledore now took out his wand and tapped three times upon the top of the casket. The lid creaked slowly open. Dumbledore reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly hewn wooden cup. It would have been entirely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue-white flames.
"Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet," said Dumbledore. "Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete.
"Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all."*
As they were making their way to bed, they ran into the Headmaster from Durmstrang. *Karkaroff froze. He turned his head back to look at Harry and stared at him as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Behind their headmaster, the students from Durmstrang came to a halt too. Karkaroff's eyes moved slowly up Harry's face and fixed upon his scar. The Durmstrang students were staring curiously at Harry too.
"Yeah, that's Harry Potter," said a growling voice from behind them.
Professor Karkaroff spun around. Mad-Eye Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on his staff, his magical eye glaring unblinkingly at the Durmstrang headmaster.
The colour drained from Karkaroff's face. A terrible look of mingled fury and fear came over him.
"You!" he said, staring at Moody as though unsure he was really seeing him.
"Me," said Moody grimly. "And unless you've got anything to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You're blocking the doorway."*
Karkaroff almost ran from the castle. Shit,another Death Eater? She thought madly, then quickly shut off her train of thought. There was no point panicking every time Moody was rude to someone.
Hermione felt as though the whole world stopped when Harry's name came out of the Goblet.
*The flames inside the goblet turned suddenly red again. Sparks began to fly from it. Next moment, a tongue of flame shot into the air, a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it - the whole room gasped.
Dumbledore caught the piece of parchment and held it at arm's length, so that he could read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue-white.
"The champion for Durmstrang," he read, in a strong, clear voice, "will be Viktor Krum."
"The champion for Beauxbatons," said Dumbledore, "is Fleur Delacour!"
"The Hogwarts champion," he called, "is Cedric Diggory!"*
And everyone cheered and clapped and it had been fine. Great even. Then *the fire in the goblet had turned red again. Sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air, and borne upon it was another piece of parchment.
Automatically, it seemed, Dumbledore reached out a long hand and seized the parchment. He held it out and stared at the name written upon it. There was a long pause, during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in his hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore. And then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out -
"Harry Potter."
And that was when everything just … stopped. All she could hear the thundering in her lungs as adrenaline coursed through her.
No no no no no no no.
She turned to Harry in shock and confusion and panic. He was sitting there looking as frozen as she felt.
*"I didn't put my name in," Harry said blankly. "You know I didn't."*
She opened her mouth to respond but uttered no sound. She was terrified. Death Eaters, the Dark Mark, Professor Moody, Bertha Jorkins and now this. Shit. Shit something bad was going on.
*At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall.
"Harry Potter!" he called again. "Harry! Up here, if you please!"
"Go on," She whispered, giving Harry a slight push.*
And he walked down the Hall with hundreds of eyes on him, and disappeared through the door. Hermione felt about a million times worse when she couldn't see him anymore. What the bloody hell was going on?
She cornered him with toast first thing the next morning and was shocked that Dumbledore, well, that anyone was allowing him to compete; there was something so obviously wrong. She felt awful telling him about Ron but she'd known from the moment she'd seen Ron's face that he was jealous of Harry, really it had only been a matter of time until he freaked out, what with his brothers and all. It certainly was bad timing though – Harry was going to need all the help he could get.
Hermione felt a little of her anxiety ease when Harry wrote to Sirius; at least one grown up was clued in to what was going on and was exclusively on Harry's side. She spent the next few days sat in between the boys feeling extremely uncomfortable and making vague attempts at a normal conversation. It wasn't particularly enjoyable.
Snape seemed to be punishing Harry viciously for becoming Hogwarts champion, he really was being so awful to him that the dislike he'd felt for him before, which had mostly dissipated after the Sirius rescue, was slowly starting to seep back into her mind. She's managed to get Harry through one lesson by repeatedly whispering "ignore him, ignore him, ignore him." But she wasn't sure how many more lessons he could cope with before completely losing his head.
He actually lost his head rather spectacularly the very next week. She didn't blame him of course; the POTTER STINKS badges really were pathetic and Malfoy had been even more vile than usual.
*"Funnunculus!" Harry yelled.
"Densaugeo!" screamed Malfoy.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles - Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy's hit her. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up - Hermione, panicked and clutched her mouth, feeling something forcing its way out.
"Hermione!"
Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong and dragged her hand away from her face. She knew it wasn't a pretty sight. Her front teeth - already larger than average - were now growing at an alarming rate; her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin - panic-stricken, she let out a terrified cry.
"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice she recognised instantly.
Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamoured to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, "Explain."
"Potter attacked me, sir -"
"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.
"- and he hit Goyle - look -"
Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi.
"Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly.
"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "Look!"
Hermione was forced to show Snape her teeth, they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back.
Snape looked coldly at her, then said, "I see no difference."*
She stared at him in horror. How dare he? She felt hideous. She felt betrayed. She felt immeasurably hurt but most of all she felt stupid. So bloody fucking stupid for thinking he might not hate her anymore. For thinking he might have some sort of respect for her after what had happened between them. For thinking he was just another flawed but decent human being.
*Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.*
As if he had the right to make fun of her teeth. Fuck him. Bastard. Slimy greasy git. Black ugly bat of the Dungeons. She hated him. She loathed him.
Oh dear Severus.
And this chapter is much longer than the others. I think it's fair to say at this point that the chapter lengths WILL NOT be consistent. I can only apologise ;)
I'm sorry if anyone disapproves of the swearing but this story is rated "M" for a reason; there will be swearing (at least in Hermione's head and I should imagine Snape will do some serious swearing at some point) and there will be sex.
Also **SPOILER ALERT** Hermione won't be losing her virginity to Snape. I'm not gonna make her into a slut or anything but I want her to be relatively experienced and confident when they finally get together - obviously I'm not gonna write loads about her other partner/s though! I hope this won't make Hermione seem too out of character to some of you but that's just how I want to write it and I am sorry if that's not how you'd like it to go. I hope you'll read anyway.
x
*Text in between these things* from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by the amazing J.K Rowling. Queen.