Author's Note: Thanks to Snapeslittleblackbuttons and Relish RedShoes for their input on this chapter. Thanks also to skyONflames, Amarenima Redwood, Katherine, Ravenswing79, moriah, julesyx0, callalil27, XinconceivableX, and Petite Mule for their reviews of the first chapter. Thanks also for all the follows/faves. Thanks to all your encouragement, I have decided to go ahead and write Honeytrap alongside Pennines.
Chapter 2: Epistolary Exchange
Hermione Granger had had a rotten go of it the first week back at school. NEWT level work was proving more difficult than she had anticipated. Where the OWLs had emphasized factual knowledge and practical competence, the NEWTs demanded a deep theoretical understanding and innovative problem solving. In everything from Charms to Arithmancy, the usual step-by-step instruction were being replaced with nothing more than a vague conceptual overview. When Hermione had approached Professor McGonagall after class to ask for a list of items that would appear on the NEWTs, she had been mortified by the answer: "At this stage, you should be figuring that out for yourself, Hermione. You can't expect your teachers to spoon feed you forever. Nobody's going to do that for you in the real world." She had barely made it out of the classroom before her lip started to quiver. She had to duck into the loo to collect herself, and ended up running late for Ancient Runes.
Then there was Harry, who was consistently showing her up in Potions, all because of that stupid book. They had had four classes so far, and no matter how closely she followed the instructions — measuring everything twice — Harry's potion always ended up matching the description in the book better than hers did. Harry had offered to share the Prince's annotations with her, of course, but she had refused. Not only because it was cheating, but also because she was determined to brew the potions in the way that they were meant to be brewed — according to the textbook. What was the point of having a textbook at all, if you deviated from its instructions at whim? No matter how clever the Prince was, he couldn't possibly be more correct than Borage. If he was, then they would be studying from his textbook instead, now wouldn't they?
And the final nail in the coffin of her self-esteem had been Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was her worst subject, and now that Professor Snape was teaching it, she was doomed. At the start of class, she had actually been excited — whatever else he was, Professor Snape was a good teacher, and perhaps that was exactly what she needed to improve in the subject. He had even seemed to sympathize in his own prickly way, telling the class he was surprised that they had passed their OWLs given the disastrous parade of teachers that they had been saddled with throughout the years. She had seen Harry bristle at that out of the corner of her eye, but Hermione could read between the lines. She knew that was Snape speak for: "I'm going to do my level best to get you kids up to speed before your NEWTs."
And then he had made that speech about the Dark Arts. The man really was mesmerizing when he spoke on his passions. By the end of it, Hermione had been balancing on the edge of her seat with anticipation.
But that had lasted only until she had answered his question about the advantages of silent spell casting in duels. He had cut her down: "an answer copied almost word for word from the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six," he had sneered, chastising her as he had a million times in the past for reciting the textbook verbatim. It had stopped bothering her by the end of her first year. She was a pedant, and she was proud of it!
But this time, her stomach had dropped into her shoes. Maybe it was because the textbook was failing her in Potions, or maybe it was McGonagall's comment still niggling in the back of her mind. But she simply hadn't been able to brush his rebuke aside this time. She was beginning to wonder if maybe he had a point. That maybe he hadn't spent five years disdaining her tendency for route memorization simply to pick on her. Since none of the other teachers had ever complained before, she had always assumed that he was just trying to needle her. But could it be that all the rest of her teachers secretly agreed, only they were too nice to say it to her face? The thought of it was almost too humiliating to bear.
So by the time that the second week of term rolled around, Hermione's self-confidence was at an all time low. And when Snape strode between the aisles at the end of class that Monday, handing back their first essays of the year, she hastily shoved her scroll in her rucksack without even glancing at it, not wanting her classmates to catch sight of the less than stellar grade that he had certainly assigned her.
She waited until she was ensconced in the safety of her bed that night, hangings drawn shut, before she finally unfurled the parchment with trepidation, steeling herself for the barbed remarks that she had come to expect from her exacting professor. She nearly dropped the essay when her eyes landed on the large E gracing the top of the page. She muttered a quick Lumos and brought the tip of her lit wand right to the surface of her parchment, just to be sure. No, it was definitely an E. But she had barely scraped an E on her Defence OWL! And everybody knew that Professor Snape marked harder than the examiners did.
Her lips had already curled into a wide grin, and a giddy, fluttery feeling had taken over her insides. She scanned the page, but there was a shocking absence of the great big slashes of red ink that she was so accustomed to seeing. Her smile wavered. Had he even read her essay? She was glad to receive an E, but not if she hadn't really earned it.
She flipped the parchment over, and sighed in relief as she spotted his cramped, spiky script; in the subdued blue ink, it looked a lot less intimidating. She peered close and read by the light of her wand:
You present an interesting argument, Miss Granger. Certainly, Dark spells, classified variously as jinxes, hexes, and curses, are loosely defined by their common intent to cause harm. However, as you rightly point out, a simple Aguamenti can be used to drown a person if the caster is so inclined. So your conclusion — that Dark magic by its very nature is inclined to leave lasting, irreversible damage — is intriguing, and well supported with your example of Curse scars.
However, I urge you to closely consider this particular counter-example: Stupefy. As I am sure you are aware, if a person is hit by multiple simultaneous Stunners, or too many Stunners in a short span of time, lasting brain damage (even death) can often result. This is, unfortunately, an inherent property of the spell.
So, if the Dark Arts are, as you say, characterized by their inherent aptitude for causing lasting harm, then why is Stupefy not classified as Dark magic? Before you say: "because it's a Charm," ask yourself: who made it so?
When she had read his comments through three times, Hermione rolled the parchment back up, placing it carefully in her bedside drawer. Then she extinguished her wand and crawled under the covers of her bed. But sleep would not come so easily tonight. Her mind raced, first reciting his comments (he thought her argument was interesting! And intriguing! And well supported!), then branching out in all directions at the challenge that he had posed to her. She certainly knew the damage wrought by Stunners— Professor McGonagall had landed in St. Mungo's last year, after all. So why was Stupefy a Charm? Before she finally drifted off to sleep that night, Hermione mentally rearranged her next day's schedule, resolving to scour the library until she found out.
Thursday evening found Severus behind his desk in his sitting room in the dungeons. He had just poured himself a tumbler of Whiskey (Bell's, not Fire), and settled in to do his marking for the evening. After the unmitigated disaster that had been the previous essay question, he had learnt his lesson and assigned his sixth years something even their dim witted minds could grapple with: six inches on the history of any famous cursed object of their choice.
Three-quarters of an hour and five essays on the Hope Diamond later, he reached Granger's assignment. He unfurled the scroll, rolling his eyes as it reached down to a foot in length as he did so. Typical. But then he noticed something curious — there was a second, smaller parchment tucked in behind the first. He pulled it out and placed it in front of him on the desk, casting her assignment aside absently. As he began to scan its contents, the corner of his lips turned up into a self-satisfied smirk. His mother was right after all: you did catch more flies with honey.
The Stunning Charm (Stupefy) was crafted by the Committee on Experimental Charms in 1941. It was commissioned by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which was looking for an offensive spell that could be employed safely and reliably in combat. The Stunning Charm turned out to be the perfect solution, as it fully and painlessly incapacitated the victim, could be instantaneously reversed with a simple Counter Charm (Reenervate), and eventually wore off on its own after a period of several hours. It was also favoured by Aurors and Hit Wizards due to its ease of use, accuracy, and low requirement for magical power and intent. As a result, it was employed widely during the riots that broke out in Magical Britain during the Grindelwald Wars.
Although at the time of its development the Stunning Charm was thought to be completely safe, real time use on the ground has unfortunately shown that this is not always true. The shocking death of a 15 year old child hit by two close range stunners in 1944 prompted intensive research into the Charm's effects by the Department of Mysteries. The results of the research showed that the effect of a single mid-range stunning spell directed at an adult is consistent with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (colloquially known as a 'concussion'). Similar to suffering multiple concussions, multiple Stunners can result in lasting brain damage, with effects ranging from headaches, mood changes, and difficulty concentrating, to depression and cognitive deficits, and even death.
Nevertheless, no better alternative has been developed in the intervening years, and the Stunning Charm is still considered by leading Defence experts to be a paradigm of modern law enforcement. Despite its drawbacks, the Charm has been licensed for use by over 80 public and private magical organizations the world over, with revenues going to fund the Committee on Experimental Charms.
He looked up from her parchment and snorted. She had recited the history of the Stunning Charm from the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six. But she had completely missed the point, of course. His hand tightened around his quill as he resisted the urge to write, "how are you so dumb" in big block letters across her parchment. He had come this far, no sense in wasting it now. He let his eyes fall shut and pretended that he was someone else — a tolerant teacher, who actually liked all of his students, no matter how hopelessly obtuse they were. His eyes snapped open in a moment of clarity: what would Lupin do?
With that thought firmly in mind, he put his quill to the back of her parchment and began to write…
On Sunday morning, Hermione escaped to the sanctuary of the library straight after breakfast. Ron was still cross with her for going to the Slug Club dinner the previous evening, and Harry was in a snit over his detention with Snape. (Apparently, Snape had made him sort flobberworms for hours, and banned him from using protective gloves.) She settled herself at her usual table in the far corner and got started on her Transfiguration homework. But thirty minutes later, she had only written three inches; her mind kept wandering to the piece of parchment that lay neatly folded in her rucksack. She huffed a breath, and finally gave up the Transfiguration essay as a lost cause, putting it aside. She leaned over in her seat, rummaging in her rucksack before emerging a moment later with the parchment that had occupied her thoughts all weekend long.
She straightened up and carefully unfolded the parchment, laying it out on the table in front of her. She had read it so many times since getting it back on Friday that she had almost committed the words to memory. But she liked following the jagged lines of his spiky script with her eyes, anyway.
You present a thorough description of Stupefy — but from what source? The Standard Book of Spells. Published by? Oh yes, the Ministry. Hardly an unbiased source on this subject. Of course a Ministry-published syllabus will regard Stupefy as the pinnacle of Light magic — it isn't exactly good PR for aurors to be using Dark spells, is it?
Use that formidable brain of yours (the words were smudged where she had run her fingers over them multiple times) and think! The point of last week's essay is that there is no such thing as the Dark magic. The "Dark Arts" is nothing more than a human construct, and one which the Ministry of Magic uses to its fullest potential in its clever PR games.
Hermione bit her lip, caught between elation that he had bothered to write her back, and disappointment that she had failed to impress him thus far. She had spent four hours in the library last Tuesday working on her answer to him, and that was in addition to the actual assignment! He hadn't seemed too interested in her essay on The Crying Boy Painting, although he had, once again, given her an E, this time accompanied by a simple "sound work." Surprisingly enough, Hermione found that she wasn't too interested in her grade or his perfunctory comments on this second assignment. No, she was still wrapped up in their original discourse on the meaning of the Dark Arts. A meaning which, according to Professor Snape, she had yet to grasp in its entirety.
But no matter. He had assigned another short essay on curse scars to be handed in tomorrow, and she could slip her response to him in with that. At least she knew now that he cared enough about what she had to say to take the time out of his busy day to read and reply to it. And curiously, that was turning out to mean more to her than the grade itself.
Author's Note: Please review! Also, a request: I'm looking for someone to Britpick the hell out of my picks. Please reply if interested!