Chapter 2
Consolidating the Dangerous Liaisons
The students went off the train at the Hogsmeade Station and were shoved in the carriages that took them through the way until the enormous oak doors of the castle. At the station, Harry and his friends met Hagrid, who gave them a brief hello.
From the fifth year on, Harry found each time more anguishing entering the celebrated carriages, because Luna and him where the only ones who had the ability of seeing the animals who were trailed to the carriages — and for a reason Harry hated remembering. The only ones able to see the thestrails' ugliness were ones who had already seen she worse thing someone can ever see — death. And that really wasn't something Harry wished to recall.
Meanwhile, in a carriage not far from there, Sebastian and Kathryn had gathered. The girl had decided that the best way to end up with Hermione Granger's life would be making her be seduced by Sebastian—not that a good dose of charm and Fred and George Weasley's Love Potion wouldn't solve. To fit the picture, Kathryn was intending to take Ron Weasley's cherry—and for that charm wasn't necessary, neither Love Potions. It would be the easiest part.
"The climax of the whole operation is to make sure she's in the ovulation period when she goes to bed with you, and don't get prevented" had said Kathryn "Get pregnant in the apex of her school life would be death to that cocky ugly duck."
Obviously, Kathryn was not counting on Hermione's high intelligence and cleverness. Sebastian, nevertheless, with his highly developed ability due to his experience in identifying a woman's character, had successfully guessed that would be a though run. Maybe it might be more interesting than I initially had thought, he thought.
On the opposite bench, Annette de Laclos was asleep—and Lamaison Rosemonde was certain of how would he sabotage the almost certain victory of Sebastian Valmont.
"Welcome once again to Hogwarts" said Prof. McGonagall, opening her arms to the Great Hall. Due to the happenings of the last terms, more of half the students had decided that would be safer at home. How ever, how well was said by Prof. Flitwick, the school would be opened to whomever student which should decide to stay.
"I'm still satisfied that many of you have decided to come back to our school" continued Prof. McGonagall "We didn't even know if we were coming back to work after the death of the greatest headmaster Hogwarts's ever had, Albus Dumbledore."
"In fact I don't even know why we came back" muttered Ron bad-mooded. "It'd be much more useful if we were un the pursue of the Horcruxes."
"Shut your mouth, Ron" said Hermione "You want to face Voldemort without even have finished Hogwarts?? Many experient wizards would have succumbed in the blink of an eye. As a matter of fact, we'll also not be very prepared after we leave, yet it'll still be better than now."
"We'd be experiencing something different" said Ron stubbornly.
"Yes" said Hermione "We'd be experiencing a Cruciatus Curse. So fun."
"You don't know what is to have fun, Hermione Granger" grumbled Ron.
"In fact it is you who doesn't know what is to have fun" stroke back Hermione, in deep grudge "We could have a lot of fun together…"
"More than we've had already?" asked Ron, confused.
"Yeah, Ron" said Hermione "More than we've already had."
Merlin's beard, how this boy's such a moron, thought Harry and Hermione at the same time.
"Thank you, that was very clarifying" said Ron sarcastically.
"Do you want me to say explicitly? You could drive me to madness…"
"It is you who's driving me to madness with this nonsense word play…"
Hermione snorted.
"We'll talk about that later in the Common Room, alright?"
"McGonagall should stop chattering" said Harry "I'm starving to death."
"Shh!" said Ginny "She might be about to talk about our dearest françaises friends."
Harry threw her a dirty look.
"I didn't know they were so dearest… or you're referring to Valmont alone?"
"And if I am, what would you do?" replied Ginny fiercely.
It was true. She was referring to no-one else but Sebastian Valmont. Hermione could not be more wrong, after all. Perhaps there was something wrong with Merteuil, but Valmont was so beautiful… nice… seducing…
"However, to cheer us up in such difficult times and grant the union of all magic peoples, we could establish an interchange course with Beuxbatons Académie" went on McGonagall energically "We are pleasured to receive the students Kathryn Merteuil, Sebastian Valmont, Annette de Laclos and Lamaison Rosemonde in our castle this year."
There was a modest roar of clapping in the hall and next its doors opened giving way to our four friends, who smiled pompously.
"I hope our students have the cordiality to offer a place in their tables for our guests. However, you needn't worry where shall them spend the night, we have individual bedrooms reserved for each."
Sebastian passed by the Gryffindor table and winked at Ginny. It was only missing Ron to faint when Kathryn threw him a nasty look. Lamaison, however, seemed utterly interested in Luna Lovegood.
"Look!" said Annette, grabbing Lamaison's arm and pointing "That's Harry Potter."
"Great thing!" replied Lamaison.
"What an audacity!" said Hermione to Ginny "Valmont dared wink at you!"
"I don't find it audacity" said Ginny "I find it even nice."
Hermione threw a dirty look at her friend.
"Keep your head up. He's dangerous."
Ginny looked like she didn't give a damn. In fact, she had stirred all over because of Sebastian's wink.
"I wished that at the end of the feast you four headed for the staff table" said McGonagall "I'll take you personally to your dorms. Now, bon appetit!
As usual, the dishes were filled and the hall got back to its almost usual uproar.
Ginny was exquisiting her sauté potato when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. A hot sweaty hand, gifted with and all special and inexplicable contact, full of sympathy and promises. The red-headed girl shivered slightly.
"Did I scare you?" asked Sebastian Valmont "I'm sorry, I only wanted to know if I could sit by your side."
"Certainly yes" replied Ginny with a smile.
Hermione throat-cleared audibly. Harry roared silently like a lion and Ron stared at Sebastian mistrusted.
That lad's up to something… And I don't wanna know what, as long as it doesn't involve my sister…
Nevertheless, a hot and sudden halite drove Ron's thoughts completely out of their train.
"Could I enjoy your company?" and without waiting for a reply Kathryn Merteuil sat between Hermione and Ron. Hermione snorted: "Don't you have any respect??"
"O I'm sorry!" said Kathryn with a fake innocence and regret face. "I didn't realize you where there!" and turned around to talk to Ron.
The boy, however, seemed like a pile of nerves. He knocked out twice a dish of sauté potatoes—which magically was getting back in place—and was oversweating.
"So" asked Kathryn in talkative tone "How is Hogwarts' teaching?"
"Well I—I mean Hogwarts—It's hard. It's very hard."
"Rock hard, one can realize it" said Kathryn with a rogue smile, looking to Ron's part of his robes which Madame Malkin usually called fly. The red-headed boy blushed violently and tried—uselessly—cross his legs, then put the folds of his robes, but it was rather apparent.
"I had imagined Harry Potter wouldn't spend his last year at Hogwarts" went on Kathryn in a talking tone "I thought he was going after You-Know-Who, as he's the Chosen One, isn't it?"
"I think—I th—It wouldn't be mu—much exciting for him" stuttered Ron, trembling uncontrollably, Hermione was facing both with an ugly face.
"And what would you consider excitant?" asked Kathryn, maliciously putting her hand on Ron's tie—quite close, as a matter of fact, from the protuberance in his trousers.
"But FRANKLY!" railed Hermione,
Ron tried to cut the escargot with the knife, yet this one slipped with his shivering and the boy's chock, and an enormous jet of white sauce spurted from the plate, dirtying all people around, including Hermione herself. The sauce was frying and making smoke in the girl's forehead.
"Oooops, it spattered" said Kathryn with a malicious smile, still staring fixly at Ron's fly. Calmly, with a flick of her wand, she cleaned her black robes, got up and muttered in his ear: "Bon appetit, mon cher."
The boy tried to hide the sticky fly—which had ACTUALLY spattered—and, in total nervousness and despair, dropped a pumpkin juice glass on his robes.
"Ronald Weasley!" grumbled Hermione, cleaning her boyfriend with a flick of the wand. Ron trembled and shrank on the bench, down to the size of a rat, and a complete fear of his boyfriends in face—and of the sermon that would follow.
At the opposite side of the table, white sauce had fallen on Ginny. Sebastian soon enough took the wand from the bar of his robes and said: "Allow me… Impervius!"
The red-headed girl's clothes were cleaned in the blink of an eye.
"Thank you."
"I was only a gentleman" replied Sebastian with a smile.
"Tell me, which region of France are you from?"
"O me and my half-sister Kathryn live in Marseille. When our parents got married, we moved there. Both of our parents work in the Ministry Française, you know?
"I know" said Giny "My father also works at the Ministry."
"Don't you tell me he's the Minister personal assistant?"
"No" and this time the girl's ears blushed violently "He works in the Detection and Confiscation of Counter-Effect Protective Objects Department."
"Sounds important" said Sebastian with a sincere smile. Or else, what seemed sincere to Ginny.
"Do you really spend the holidays at the Riviera?" asked Ginny interested "Well, it's very likely, because you live in Marseille, which is close…"
"Really, we have a house at the Côte D'Arzur" replied Sebastian pompously "And I suppose you spend the holidays at the British Riviera?"
"Um?" now Ginny was undoubtedly surprised, a sauté potato halfway her mouth.
"You know, Torquay, Brixton, that Canal region" explained Sebastian. As he realized Ginny was still open-mouthed, he laughed enjoyfuly. "I thought all Englishmen spent the holidays in the British Riviera."
"In fact, I've never heard of that place" said Ginny sincerely.
"Nevermind" said Sebastian "After all, what kind of classes do you have here?"
"Well, at the seventh year we all have classes selected to the vocation we've chosen" explained Ginny "I don't know if in France is the same system…"
"Yeah, it is."
"Well, we've never had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for more than a year, for it is said that the job's jinxed— Besides, it's weird McGonagall didn't introduce the new DADA teacher."
"Maybe it's someone you already know…" suggested Sebastian.
"I don't think so… I think that, whoever he or she is is not here yet, I don't see any new face on the staff table…"
"Who's that walrus?"
"WHAT??" and later Ginny realized the blonde was pointing directly to Prof. Horace Slughorn, snoring rowdily in the middle of the feast, with the hands crossed over the huge paunch and the vast walrus moustache flying up every time Slughorn snorted.
"O that's our Potions teacher, Horace Slughorn" cleared up Ginny "He's also head of Slytherin, one of Hogwarts's four houses."
"Is it that table there on the corner?"
"That one."
"Seems kind of empty, doesn't it?"
Ginny had to recognize so. After Dumbledore's departure, many parents had decided that Hogwarts was no longer their children's place, mainly the ones who were at Slytherin—probably for motives diverse from security. The red-headed girl thanked Merlin, however, that such people like Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson had dropped out school.
At the same moment, the food from the plates vanished, the benches magically stood back and the students followed their prefects toward their respective houses. Hermione was pulling painfully Ron's ear in front of the first years, embarrassing the red-haired boy and making the rookies laugh to death.
"Here, kids, here!"
This was Prof. McGonagall, running down the hall and calling the French students. The four of them gathered in front of her.
"Now I'll take you to your special dormitories" said the professor "Follow me."
However, she did not embarked immediately. Instead of it, she put an enormous forefinger between Sebastian's eyes.
"Don't you think Madam Maxime did not warn me about your, hum, night habits, Valmont" said the professor severely "I can assure you no Hogwarts girl will help you to maintain your lousy womaniser reputation."
"You lady has a pretty finger, professor" said Valmont smiling.
McGonagall made a despising "humpf!" and turned to Kathryn: "Merteuil, I hope your outstanding behaviour manage to hold your brother's horses for the rest of the term."
"Certainly yes, madame" replied Kathryn graciously.
"Follow me, then."
The four students followed the headmistress.
"So, did you get any progress?" asked Lamaison in French to Sebastian, while they were walking up the stairs.
"A lot" answered Sebastian with a rogue smile "But with Ginny Weasley alone."
"You should be worried in conquering Hermione Granger, Sebastian" criticized Kathryn, in a lovely diabolic voice.
"I realized you were quite busy during the feast with my dear brother-in-law" stroke back Sebastian "You managed to get Hermione Granger having a petit."
"And I was just warming up" said Kathryn with a triumphant smile.
"Warming up my bed sheets, you mean" said Sebastian smiling.
Yet she'll be warming me up when all of this come to and end, thought Lamaison. And said: "I was having an interesting talk with a certain Luna Lovegood. She's a completely idiot geek, but may help my geek disguise."
"O I spent the feast talking to Harry Potter!" said Annette, whispering.
Kathryn, Sebastian and Lamaison threw her dirty looks.
"You were being truthful, honey" said Kathryn "In this world you ought not to be truthful, if you wish to be happy. Fools die, Annette. Remember it. Fools die."
Freak, thought Sebastian. Doesn't' even seem related to us!
McGonagall struck.
"In this corridor are all of your bedrooms" said McGonagall, indicating four doors at the end of the hallway "All of them are suites, and interconnected. Obviously your interconnection is locked, Sebastian."
"Obviously" said Sebastian with a rogue smile "Wouldn't you like to check if my windows are also locked, professor?"
"Now HONESTLY!" and McGonagall went away without giving the students good-night, mumbling "A student hitting on me, I've never been under such an outrage—"
"Well good-night to you" said Sebastian still smiling, and shut his room's door.
That night, Annette spent hours awaken, looking to the bed's canopy. The face of Harry Potter was forming in the cuffs of the cloth, grinning to her.