Unexpected Gifts
"I have yet to receive what I have asked from you, Lucius," the Dark Lord hissed, turning to his servant. "Why is this so difficult? Term ends, exams are upon you, and the girl I asked for three months ago remains safely locked in Gryffindor Tower, under the nose of the old man. I believe you assured me that your charm never fails with women- why isn't she here?" His voice had dropped, ugly, low and sinister. Lucius swallowed forcefully. He had heard no hint of music from anywhere on the grounds since that night. And he was about to contradict the Dark Lord, which was never wise…
"Master…I am not entirely sure we have the right girl," Lucius offered hesitantly.
"I have told you many times that she is the one," Voldemort snarled furiously. "Simply because you cannot see her talent does not change her status. You are a Slytherin. Surely there is enough cunning residing in that brain to fool one Gryffindor thirteen-year-old? I know you are slippery enough in other fields of endeavor."
"I…there is another musician in the castle, my lord," Lucius hastened to explain himself. "A different one has been seen-"
"Silence!" His wand twitched, and Lucius felt his knees buckle, toppling him to kneel on the hard wooden floor. "Your excuses do not intrigue me, child. I would not for one instant imagine that in all of Hogwarts, only one student played music. But she is different. I want this girl and none other. She is but a third-year witch. Her magic cannot be so far advanced as to make it impossible for you to apprehend her. If you cannot do it alone, some of your compatriots champing at the bit to prove their loyalty to me will surely assist you."
"My lord, could you use – I could bring…another-"
Voldemort whirled on him, crouching to be at eye-level with the young man. His long, hard fingers fixed on Lucius' jaw, mad eyes glaring into the grey ones. "No. I do not like repeating orders to my servants, Malfoy. I was assured by several old acquaintances that you are an intelligent child. So far, you disappoint. Prove them correct. I have offered you a substantial reward for completing this task. Perhaps you think it was not enough?"
A deluge of ice crystallized in his stomach, and Lucius hurried to whisper from his knees, "No my lord, never, it is simply that I could bring you another musician," he strove to redeem himself, "maybe more than just the girl-"
"How many of them are there? Who?" Voldemort's freezing fingers were wrapped around his jaw, clenching his bone uncomfortably as he stared into his young servant's eyes.
"I don't know yet, my lord." Voldemort could feel the boy's jaw tremble in his hand as his eyes shone bright and cold once more.
"You don't know. Find them!" he snapped, shoving Lucius over onto his back and rising in a single, violent motion. His back to Lucius, he grated, "If you cannot subdue her, then one of the others will do, as long as they are friendly. She is a Gryffindor, and will seek to find and rescue anyone she cares about. One of the things we can rely upon is Gryffindor's vaunted stupidity that masquerades as bravery. You will at least bring me the means to get her, since you clearly lack the ability to bring her to me directly."
The lord's words stung deeply, and Lucius bowed his head in shame as he slowly got to his feet. "And Lucius," the lord hissed as the boy started to take his bow. He froze, bent at the waist, daring to go neither up nor down, fearing the worst, the test he had not yet been subjected to…
"You have been spared punishment for failure because I cannot risk Albus Dumbledore's discovery of my Death Eaters in his school. But every hour I wait your account mounts, and I would hate for the lovely Narcissa's husband to be…incapacitated…for the wedding."
Lucius paled, the little color that he had draining at the clear threat, completed his bow and Disapparated. He arrived in the Forbidden Forest, shaking and gagging. He leaned on a tree trunk, the rough back and slick moss staining hands kept soft and lily-white like a girl's. He glared at the mark on his left arm, wondering what it was that had possessed him to join this madman in the first place.
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Severus was quite sure he'd never felt a relief in his life like the sudden lightness that flooded his veins during their first Transfiguration lesson after they were discovered in the forest. "See you in class." And here she was, seated at her well-worn desk, looking cheerful and unharmed – if a bit tired - as she slung her books down from her shoulder and twisted, stretching her back after carrying the heavy burden. Without thinking, he was at her side.
"Hi," he greeted her quietly, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on her desk instead of her face, knowing they would betray his inexplicable delight at seeing her whole and well.
"Hello," she smiled as she automatically unzipped her bag and started to pull out their text.
"Are you all right?" he blurted, and seemed mortified by this unqualified show of caring, for he quickly stammered, "I was – that is to say, we were – worried about you…after, you know," he murmured, and now dark eyes snapped up, gaze intensifying as he stared at her.
"I'm fine-" she started, only to find them surrounded in the blink of an eye, Sirius' wand so close to Snape that it looked like he might shove it up the other boy's nose.
"What are you looking for here, Snivelly? Something to help you get through your exams?" Sirius asked loudly. "Funny thing about that, it's called cheating, you see, when you get someone else to tell you how..."
"Except, of course, when she helps you do your homework," Snape snarled back silkily, withdrawing. "Perhaps she just needs a little more…intellectual stimulation…than you Quidditch players can offer." He smirked as he turned his back, supremely unconcerned, as Professor McGonagall stood directly at the front of the room, and was in fact eyeing the six of them warily.
"Ten points from Gryffindor for having your wand drawn in a classroom without instruction," she said, sounding tired. "And five points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin for trying to start a fight."
Hermione glared at Sirius as they sat, whereupon he looked to her and shrugged with a face that plainly asked, What did I do? Hermione opened her book rather harder than necessary, nearly tearing the thin pages as she flipped through it to the necessary lesson, her eyes darting to the back of the boy seated next to Slytherin Michael Avery. With the Marauders as friends, she had about as good a chance of getting Snape to trust her as the lake was likely to be balmy in January.
James leaned over her desk, ignoring the dirty look she turned on him. "We can check Folios Books in Hogsmeade – we haven't looked there yet."
"Think they'll have anything?" Remus replied from her other side, whispering to match James.
Hermione shrugged. "It can't hurt to look. When's the next-"
"Next weekend. It was posted this morning," James told her.
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Lucius waited, stock still, puffs of breath misting on the air the only tell-tale that he was alive, and not part of the stonework he stood next to. He had five minutes to go until his appointment, and nervousness churned with pride in his stomach. Getting the man to meet here, in Hogsmeade, where he could simply slip away from his compatriots and remain after hours, instead of in Knockturn Alley, had been a difficult negotiation. But Lucius had discovered that most wizards were easily intimidated by a few intimations of pain or personal suffering.
Hesitant footsteps darkened the alley and Lucius bared his teeth in what one could call a smile as his hand thrust out to grab the man and yank him into the shadows of the building, away from any streetlamps.
Lucius' wand pressed pointedly into the side of the man in front of him, making the other wince uncomfortably.
"I have a job for you," he hissed sibilantly. He told the man what he wanted. "You can get it for me?"
"Ouch! Yes, yes, young master," the man wheezed desperately, clearly many times the younger's age. "Though it many take awhile, since the merchandise is…ah…hard to come by, as you ought to know…" The wand twisted again and he fell silent, breath rasping louder yet in the darkened alley.
"This is not the usual rubbish fools ask you for. This is for my master. And if you check this address, you should find someone who can supply you with what you seek." A slip of parchment passed hands, and the shorter, rounder figure pocketed it without attempting to read it. Moonlight reflected and refracted off the snow, their only visibility, and not enough to read by, but it was enough for Lucius to pull up his left sleeve, hinting at the angry tattoo that usually remained hidden beneath his robes and glamour spells. The older man gasped and turned violently, trying to jerk away in terror. Lucius' hand tightened about his upper arm, and for all his manicured fingers, it was quite strong enough to hold the man where he was.
'You know that sign, don't you?' the blond hissed viciously. 'Who it belongs to, what it means? Who will come after you if you fail to fulfill my request?'
'Of course,' the man panted in panic.
'Excellent. And Borigin,' he released the man's arm and the old wizard nearly bolted, 'do remember that you can't speak of this to anyone without severe consequences?'
The head beneath the cloak hood bobbed, and Bilius Borigin tore out of the darkened Hogsmeade alley, feet slamming the snow as if hell itself were on his heels, Disapparition and magic completely forgone in the rush to get as much distance between them as possible.
Lucius sniggered from underneath his hood. Yes, reporting to the Dark Lord was nerve-wracking. But watching everyone else sweat because of the Mark…that was entertaining.
His self-satisfied smile lingered as he started on the road back to the school. Kassandra might claim that the American witch was not the flute player, but his master insisted that the girl was the musician he was looking for. In a few days' time, shortly after the holidays at most, Lucius would find out.
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"Where are you going for the hols, Hermione?" Lily asked the last week of term as Hermione sat quizzing her on Transfiguration.
Hermione blinked. "Staying here, I guess."
"You're not going home?"
"No." Hermione could not think of a lie that would sound remotely true, so she stopped with that. Lily didn't seem to notice.
"Really? You can come with me," the other girl offered. "My mum and dad are kind of curious to meet other witches."
Hermione lifted her eyes to stare at her friend. "Can I?" It was entirely too hopeful, but she had been vaguely dreading remaining at Hogwarts alone for two weeks. Before there had always been Harry and Ron, now not even born, and her parents- who not yet met one another.
"Of course," Lily replied eagerly. "D'you want to?"
"I'd love to!"
Lily seized a piece of parchment and started scribbling madly. "I'll just write my mum and dad and tell them I'm bringing a friend home…" a shadow crossed her face before she determinedly returned to her smile, and Hermione said:
"What?"
"I have a sister who's, well, a Muggle and she's not so…"
Hermione recalled seeing Harry's aunt and uncle once, and the stories of spiders under the stairs, his childhood pockmarked by his cousin's bullying and the cupboard that had housed him. Her heart wrenched. This was Harry's mother, and she had no idea what her sister would do, and fail to do, for her son…
"She's not so keen on the witchcraft thing?" Hermione strove for lightness, and was rather proud that it sounded unstrained.
"No."
"That's all right. If she bothers us too much, we'll turn her into a newt." Lily smiled in relief at Hermione's unflagging acceptance and dipped her quill back in the ink, resuming her hasty scrawl.
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"You seem to have got us out of it all right," Severus told his cousin sharply. He deftly stripped a Bornican Bubble-Plant of its pink and purple pods, bursting them to release a liquid that smelled strongly of perfume. Professor Sprout had given the third years a chance for extra-credit if they would come after hours and harvest the pods. Knowing his classmates, Severus had told Klytemnestra. It would be the perfect, private time and place to continue the fierce debate that had been occurring off and on since they had been caught playing in the forest.
"I got us out of it once," she hissed furiously. "Don't think my father wouldn't dress us both down if he found out – and forget our mums. We'd be lucky if we had all our limbs left if they ever found out we were playing music at Hogwarts. And don't forget the reports in the Prophet, and what that Lord Voldemort is doing – collecting musicians. Besides…what about the other girl?" She asked the last hesitantly. There was no denying the American witch was more talented than she and her considerably powerful cousin combined, and though she would never say it aloud, Klytemnestra would pay much to hear her again…
…and true, she had been in classes and eating at the Gryffindor table with gusto ever since, it seemed she had neither been expelled nor placed on probation, then again, the counselor's eyes when he had seen her…as if he was gazing on the living face of a great, terrible goddess…
"She's fine," Severus told her firmly, but she noticed he did not meet her eyes, and her gaze on him sharpened.
"Is she?"
"Yes."
"And does she want to continue this craziness?"
"I…" He hesitated. He had not thought to ask. Her voice had been making an appearance in his dreams every night and his only thought, beating a path through every nerve center to his brain, was to hear it again in his waking moments.
"You don't know." Klytemnestra considered him for a moment, and then smiled a quiet smile, feeling a tugging in her chest at her next thought, for she had never seen her stoic, sarcastic cousin look like this about anyone.
"You like her, don't you?"
Red crept into his cheeks, but he brought up his head to glare at her, mouth compressed in a thin line. "No," he said harshly. "She's a Gryffindor."
"Ah. Of course." Klytemnestra gave him another piercing look, amusement gone. "I cannot let you practice alone, but I also will not do this with you. Severus, if you had not been with me, you would have been expelled. These are dangerous times we live in, and wizards do not trust each other any longer. We will not play again. She seems smart enough, I am sure she will tell you the same."
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Hermione pushed her parchment away from her, tapping her fingers on her desk, nails clicking on the dark wood. McGonagall lifted her head from the front of the room, frowning, met her best student's eyes, and the frown turned into an amused sparkle. She nodded her head very gently, indicating that Hermione could go. The time for the exam was only half over, and Hermione gladly, if quietly, lifted her bag to leave, attracting stares from every quarter. She noticed Lily looking at her in amazement, Snape looked disgusted in an ironic way, envious and…what else? Was there pride in those sallow features? The delight in seeing a- were they friends?- do well? But his head swung back over his parchment, obscuring his face and leaving her to wonder what shadow of emotion she had seen crossing his features.
One pair of eyes she did not notice. Remus watched her stand, gather her things and exit, trying to nerve himself for what he was about to do. He had debated at length asking James and Sirius, but rather than endure their teasing, he had decided to simply ask her. After this exam he would go find her. After the exam.
He hurried through, his mind only half on the questions. He reflected later that it was lucky that most of the second half of the exam regarded their study of Animagi this term. Due to the many books they had been flipping through in the hopes of finding a way for his four friends to begin transformations, he doubted any student in the school knew more about the subject than they did. He dotted his last period, skimmed it quickly for obvious mistakes, bounded out of his chair to place the completed exam on Professor McGonagall's desk, and hurried out.
James and Sirius were lounging outside the doorway, having finished a full five minutes before him.
"Where are you going?" Sirius shouted as Remus didn't stop.
"I have to ask Hermione a question!" the boy shouted over his shoulder, not bothering to turn around.
"Ask Hermione a question?" James repeated. "Probably about Animagi since we didn't find anything in Folios- what?" For Sirius was grinning evilly, eyes on the rapidly vanishing figure of their gentle friend.
"I reckon he's a got a bit of a thing for her," he announced, his mouth so broad his eyes were in danger of disappearing.
James blinked. "Remus? For Hermione? Think so?"
"Absolutely. And you have to admit- they're perfect for each other."
James shrugged. "Maybe. She spends a lot of time doing other stuff, though."
"You mean in the library with Evans." Sirius dismissed that with a flip of his hand. "You know Remus. Neither of us has ever really been scholarly enough for him. A girl who spends all her time reading books? Please."
"Maybe," James conceded.
"Let's go ask him," Sirius bounced off after Remus, and James had little choice but to follow, Peter- emerging from the exam just as the bell rang- hurried after them, squeaking questions that they both ignored.
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Remus found Hermione in the library, books for Arithmancy and Animagi spread in front of her, glowering at a piece of parchment that contained an equation the boy knew he couldn't make heads nor tails of if he tried.
"Hermione?" he whispered.
"Hmm? Hi, Remus." She flashed him a smile and went back to her books, one finger tracing a line of the ancient writing, smearing dust where her finger touched the page.
"Is that Latin?" Remus asked, momentarily derailed from his purpose.
"Yes," she replied. "And reading it is very slow going."
"You read Latin?"
"Only a very little." She sighed, and the dust raised a little puff that settled on the cover of yet another tome.
Remus watched her absorbed in her work, and knew that she wasn't going to present him with a way in. So he sighed to himself, pulled up his courage, and opened his mouth.
"Where are you going for Christmas?" he asked hopefully.
"Home with Lily," she replied distractedly, crossing out a bit on her paper and glowering at it.
"Oh." The disappointment descended so genuinely he could not help the soft word, or the crashing feeling that accompanied it.
Hermione turned to him instantly, one hand stretched out to touch his arm. "Are you all right, Remus?"
"I'm fine," he lied immediately, head lifting and banishing the regret that he knew remained in his eyes. "I was just going to invite you to stay with me if you didn't have somewhere else to go."
"Oh, thank you!" She smiled genuinely this time, books momentarily forgotten. "I already said I'd stay with Lily, but maybe we could meet you in Diagon Alley for a day-"
The double doors to the library thrust open and Sirius, James and Peter came pelting through, earning them glowers from the other students.
"Remus!" Sirius shouted, heedless of library etiquette. He opened his mouth to continue further, saw who his friend was standing with and stopped, smirking broadly. Remus felt his face heat, but Hermione, blind to both Sirius' expression and Remus' response, turned on him, opening her mouth to berate him for yelling-
"Out!" Madam Pince was storming down the central aisle of the stacks, face practically puce with rage. "I have never heard such a depraved racket! Get out right now! Miss Granger, I'm shocked at you! Out! Out!" They hastily gathered their things, ripping out of the library before the enraged librarian could start hurtling curses.
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"I have something for you," Lucius told Kassandra as she doodled patterns on his abdomen, tracing the tight muscles there. He was quite pleased with himself for talking her round into coming back to his bed. Two weeks of leaving the American witch fully alone – never even mentioning her in conversation where Kassandra might hear – had mollified the girl and she was convinced he cared not one whit for her personally, but merely as an object.
"What kind of a something?" she was asking and she sat up, eyes bright with curiosity.
"A gift," he teased, hand groping blindly on his side of the bed. His fingers came in contact with the silky paper, and he pulled it up, handing it to her.
She took it one-handed, and it immediately bent, curving over her fingers. She cocked an eyebrow at him. "If this is some vintage issue of The Chamber of Secrets: Salazar Slytherin's Cunning, or something like that, I'll hit you with it all the way out to the train."
Lucius snorted with laughter. "Kass, I haven't touched the Chamber comics since I was, like, five. It's not that."
The girl eagerly tore the paper, heedless of her exposed breasts and the cold that hardened her nipples into little nubs. But her eyes grew wide, and she threw the gift from her as if it burned when she saw it fully, horror mounting in her face.
"Where did you get that?" she asked raggedly.
"Don't you like it? I got it from Russia," he said, a measure of uncertainty in his voice. "I got it shipped special…it's a Muggle piece, see, and Muggles do music all the time, don't they?"
Slowly, Kassandra regaining control of her fear-driven breathing and picked up the sheets again. The opening movement of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker unfolded for her line by line on pages of music, and she instantly wished to pull out her instrument and play. "This must have cost you a fortune," she breathed, now stroking the sheets as she recovered from her initial shock. She gave him a sharp look, but he only looked anxious that she should like it and pleased with himself for finding something that she so clearly valued. "Oh Lucius, thank you!"
"Might I hear you play it sometime?" he asked hopefully. He was banking, after all, on the fact that she played. She had never mentioned it directly, but with her father's business…Her expression of pure joy shifted for a moment, like a scratch on a record, before replacing itself.
"If it's safe. Perhaps in my house. Oh…it's wonderful! I can't believe you found this!" Her eyes were on the music, not his face, and she did not see the look of pure triumph that flashed in his grey eyes.
Mr. Borigin had his uses after all. Another parcel was going to the Gryffindor third-year-girls dormitory, courtesy of the house-elves. He would soon hear the girl play as well.
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Hermione blinked as she opened her eyes, stretching as light from the mullioned window streamed across her face through a crack in her curtains. She frowned at the gap as she stirred. She always shut her curtains carefully around her every night, the need for privacy in a room full of girls compelling her to keep her bed – the only square of ground in the entire castle that belonged to her alone - completely private.
So who-
-as she sat up, a slippery, shiny thing toppled off the bed and landed on the floor in a crackle.
"Wha-?" Lily jerked awake across from her, and sleepy green eyes that for a moment reminded Hermione so fiercely of Harry that it hurt, peered out from her bed. "Hermione? What time is it?"
"Early, I think," Hermione kept her voice down. "You should go back-"
"What is that? An early present?" Tiredness vanished as Lily's eyes caught the sparkling wrapping paper around the rather floppy present that Hermione held in her hand.
"Erm…I guess so," Hermione replied, looking at it. It was completely unmarked. But on the other hand, it didn't feel dangerous. Just thin and bendy, like a single-issue of a comic book.
"Open it!" Lily's bed curtains were pushed back and she was seating herself on Hermione's mattress before the other girl could blink. Bed was clearly the last thing on Lily's mind. Hermione eyed it, remembering all too well what had happened to Ginny Weasley their second year. But she would never know until she looked.
She carefully untapped a corner, peeling the adhesive slowly, so that it wouldn't rip the rest of the paper. Beside her, Lily snorted. "You would unwrap your presents as if the paper were as important as the actual gift."
"Nothing wrong with recycling wrapping paper," Hermione answered. She did it because her mother did it. But Lily's impatiently twitching hands did nothing to speed her progress.
When she pulled off the spellotape binding the middle of the paper together, several white sheets slid onto the floor. Hermione hastily bent to retrieve them, and froze.
The gift was sheet music. She was holding Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and she could not imagine what the headmaster would say if he saw it, after insisting firmly that she was not to be taken anywhere, in spite of the danger her voice offered to those around her.
"Hermione…what is this?" Lily's voice sounded strained, as if all the effort in the world could not make that question a casual one. "Who sent it?"
"I don't know," Hermione answered, terror knotting in her stomach. But you know two people who play, her logical mind kicked in, calming her suddenly-galloping heart. It could be either of them.
But it could also not be either of them. In fact…Klytemnestra would never expose someone with so hard a piece of evidence…In which case, it could be anyone who wishes me harm…
"Do you play?" the other girl asked abruptly, then clapped her hands over her mouth and glanced around, afraid that the rest of their roommates might wake and hear.
"No," Hermione lied curtly and without pause. "This looks like some immature, practical joke, especially since the attack in Diagon Alley in October has brought a fresh round of suspicion on anyone who so much as listens to classical music." She stashed the smooth, white sheets beneath her robes in her trunk. Much as she ached to play it, she would have to find a way of getting rid of it soon. Mrozcek had made it perfectly clear how dangerous and volatile her power was, and how imperative it was that she learn to harness it at all times and faced with all temptation. Somehow, playing The Rite of Spring hardly seemed in keeping with his instruction to keep herself and her fellow students safe.
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Hermione had finished packing her trunk. She marveled, not for the first time, at the assortment that Dumbledore had provided her with on a second's notice when she had arrived. Muggle clothing had been stored in the bottom of the trunk, where the music she had received a week ago was now stored innocuously (she could throw it away at Lily's house), and the modest, non-descript clothes were easy enough to Transfigure to her size and alter the color and cut to match the fashions that Lily wore.
As she carried the enlightened, half-full steamer down the stairs and out the portrait hole, she found herself face-to-face with one of the last people she had ever expected to see near Gyffindor Tower, leaning casually against a wall some fifteen feet away.
"Snape?" she murmured quietly, peering at him. In spite of their sharing music both illegal and powerful, they had not yet progressed beyond last names, her friendship with the Marauders inhibiting him, the shadow of her would-be professor tying her tongue. And there had been precious little time for talking these past few weeks. He had not asked her if they might play again, and she had not approached him either, knowing now what she knew about herself, she would probably have to say no.
He startled, saw her, color hastily blotched his cheeks, and he stepped forward awkwardly. "I…Happy Christmas, Granger," he said brusquely, thrust a tiny parcel into her hand, and darted off.
"Thank you!" she called after a moment, stunned by the abruptness of the presentation and the almost-panicked swiftness of his departure.