Chapter Nine
by Lionheart
I O I O I
Early morning things were already stirring in the Gryffindor girl's first year dorm. Some of the invitees had been morning people, and that activity just started to spread wakefulness to the rest. Ranko's bed was empty, all four of its occupants gone. The Patil twins were also missing as people started to wake up and take stock.
"Don't worry about them," Lavender informed Hermione when she inquired as to where the missing ones were. "I asked Shampoo about that yesterday, and there's a group that goes out with Ranko every day at dawn to do some exercises with our Defense and History teachers." Lavender giggled. "And, considering how good those professors look, I was considering joining them! I mean, who would you rather look like when you grow up, them or McGonagall? Or worse, Sprout?"
There came many feminine shudders.
"Hooch and Trelawney don't look so hot either." Parvati put in, brushing out her hair, in the act of pulling on robes. She'd just returned with some others for their morning practice in time to clean up and get ready for breakfast, all but Ranko (who had to go about her twice daily milking chore, and would get changed in her private bathroom in Hagrid's cabin).
"Come to think of it, I believe Malfoy and Cologne are the only teachers we have that I'd call attractive." Padma agreed, sliding into a blouse, fresh from the shower.
'Sinistra comes close, but I overheard her talking to Madam Pomphrey in the hospital wing about how she's gaining weight,' Lavender supplied.
All of the girls considered that, and what the possible implications were about how good looking they'd be during their own futures, and whose example that meant they had to follow if they wanted to change that in their favor.
"Do you have to call our History Prof by her first name?" A Ravenclaw asked.
"As near as I can tell, she doesn't have a last one." Another Ravenclaw answered. "Chinese amazons don't, on the whole." The girl who'd spoken had straggly, waist-length dirty-blond hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant silvery gray eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look, particularly since she didn't seem to blink as much as a 'normal' person. She had arrived at Ginny's invitation and spent the night sharing her enormous bed.
Hermione double-blinked. "Ginny, I know your friend has been taking the extra classes with us, but I'm afraid that I don't know her name. Could you introduce us?"
"Sure!" Ginny bobbed. "This is my good friend Luna Lovegood. She was at Kings Cross doing an article for the Quibbler, a magazine her father owns, about the students going off to school, and see if she couldn't get a shot of the famous Harry Potter. Then, when I started to sneak on she joined me on my prank. We're both a year too young for Hogwarts, but the way things worked out we're now official students!"
"I thought it could make a good story," Luna spoke up dreamily. "But it had to get dropped in favor of the Malfoy vs Snape argument our first day. Maybe it will make it through in a future edition, but dad wanted to save the space in our next issue for a full transcript of the first full contact brawl between Hogwarts staff members in nearly a dozen years."
"I thought it was the first in sixty," Ginny returned doubtfully. "Merrythought vs Slughorn at the staff Christmas party."
"No, you are forgetting the Filch vs Kettleburn match, scored as one of the best brawls in modern wizarding history, with nearly a dozen injuries." Luna returned calmly.
"But that didn't happen on campus," Ginny objected.
"True, however it was still staff members going at each other with fisticuffs. We don't count staff vs non-staff member fights in the same category, of course. Maybe we should keep a separate pool for on or off campus fights. I'll have to suggest it, because we came near to having to pay out the full pot of ten thousand galleons to a witch from Manchester, who'd bet on a Snape vs Malfoy fight for the second day of school, instead of the first, and she thought it'd be in Hogsmead. As it is she's bet on a rematch occurring sometime next week, once again in the Great Hall." Luna flipped through a notebook she had with her. "Her bets are on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday."
"You take bets on the teachers fighting?" Parvati asked, disbelieving.
"Five galleons a bet, the pot is already back up to two hundred and ten looking for our next teacher vs teacher match. Our current favorites are some hair pulling action between Malfoy and McGonagall, a Sprout vs Malfoy mud wrestling event, and by far in the lead is another Snape vs Malfoy brutal bash with blunt objects."
"Put me down for another Snape vs Malfoy brawl on Wednesday." Padma offered, getting the required coins out of her purse. A line formed behind her, with Susan Bones betting that McGonagall would hit Snape with a piece of tableware on Saturday.
Ginny would've loved to participate. She favored a midnight duel with swords on the grounds, ending with Snape pinned to a wall sometime this year, but didn't have the money.
"I can't believe you're all doing this." Hermione objected.
"You're just jealous that all the good bets are taken." Padma returned.
Further arguing got interrupted as Fred and George shoved their eager faces in the room, shouting gleefully, "Did you hear? Someone just burgled Filch's office! Everything's gone, including his list of what items are forbidden! Flitwick is trying to help him chase it down using Point Me charms, but whoever it was who did it had waited for Filch to come back to his office, set off a smoke bomb and hit him with a Confundus charm! Filch keeps asking kids to stop wearing socks - he swears they've been banned by the International Confederation of Wizards, and that caramel is going to kill us all! It's great! You'll want to come see this before someone finally manages to take the curse off!"
Hermione put her hands on her hips. "You two! Never mind that, did you help Ginny and Luna get into Hogwarts early?"
One of the redhaired twins shrugged. "Why, not to put too fine a point on it, should we care about silly old rules? She's a powerful witch, better suited than Ron (in our eyes) to start schooling."
The other naturally agreed. "Now, more to the point, we've got her in serious debt to us as well. She owes us a BIG favor, and so does Luna. We could do with some free advertising when we finally set up our shop. Anyway, we're not staying around here. Sooner or later they'll take that charm off Filch, and I want to hear more of his screaming that the mildew is coming to get him."
I O I O I
Harry was happy in Hufflepuff.
He was not sure how his life could get better. First, he had been rescued from his abusive relatives by a gentle giant of a man, who'd then told him that he was a wizard and showed him the wonderful world of Diagon Alley, where they'd bought him school supplies and he'd learned more of his parents.
Then, on the train to school where he was to learn how to use magic, he had met his sister for the first time, and already they got along famously together.
But surprising him most of all on this trail of events had been becoming a Hufflepuff. He had thought it might happen, and told Hagrid as much (who'd reassured him Hufflepuff was not the worst house to be in). But when he'd gotten here some kind of miracle had happened!
There was some kind of mechanism, a system in place inside of Hufflepuff that had been that way since the school was founded; since Helga took the dregs, the forsaken, any child the other Founders didn't want, she had set up a sort of nursery to take care of these little, wounded fledglings and put them back together again so they could be healthy and strong.
Harry had no sooner arrived in the Hufflepuff common room for the first time (it was near the kitchens) than the older students had already identified him as wounded property, and taken him aside to assess what had to be done about that.
Harry wasn't sure how he felt about being immediately labeled 'damaged goods', but they had a point. He had to admit that his past fell far below that of every child's dream. Heck, it made up plenty of their nightmares!
The really great thing was his new housemates seemed bound and determined to fix that, inasmuch as it was possible.
The general treatment also surprised him. Where he later learned that other Houses simply went to bed that first night, Hufflepuff stayed up an extra half hour while the oldest students used a charm on the youngest, the new arrivals, and before anyone went to bed everyone in Hufflepuff knew the names of every other Hufflepuff.
That actually made a huge difference! You couldn't call on any older students for help if you were afraid to approach, and one of the best reasons to hesitate was because you didn't even know how to address them. But the Hufflepuff creed was loyalty, and you could not be loyal to someone or something you didn't know, while on the other appendage if you really knew that any Hufflepuff you saw would feel obligated to give you at least a fair shake and you knew all of their names and faces so you could recognize them when you needed them - That made it real easy to hold up your end of the bargain and return the favor to any other Hufflepuffs who stood in need of help from you.
So simple a thing, yet it had sewn up Hufflepuff together so tightly as to make the other Houses best efforts seem like sand to their stone. Being a year apart in any of the other Houses was grounds for being complete strangers.
Not in Hufflepuff. Never in Hufflepuff. That wasn't to be allowed. By the time you graduated a Puff you knew thirteen years worth of your fellow students: your own year, plus six years above and six below. And the six above you knew the six above them, and so on, going down in years as well, so every Puff graduated with a whole network of contacts who had their own friends and so on.
The first morning in the Hufflepuff dorms once again the oldest two years took the young arrivals and did a skills assessment. Harry, who'd lived in a cupboard for most of his life and wasn't allowed out unless that was unavoidable, obviously rated pretty far below normal and was set up for remedial coaching in just about everything. Interpersonal relations was big on that list, but also appearing came personal grooming, games and sports, everything that he needed to know but hadn't ever been taught. They even gave him a list of hobbies that they could teach and asked him for what sounded interesting. He hadn't been able to decide, so they'd set up a rotation for him to try all of them, but made sure to warn him that people liked most what they were already good at, so some of the better interests would not sound or seem so exciting at first and he had to stick with them for a few weeks to make sure if they fit or not.
They even assigned him a girlfriend!
Oh, it wasn't like that, she was a pretty sixth year with blonde curls. But she knew what he did not about how to talk, or dress, or act, and was willing to pass that on in a playacting sort of relationship where every time that he screwed up he got a gentle, even friendly, bit of coaching on what he needed to know, but didn't, on how to do it right the next time. It took so much of the mystery out of learning how to behave himself in certain situations that he soaked it all up eagerly, and even had thoughts about looking forward to doing this himself for some future student five or six years down the line.
But they had mock dates scheduled and everything. He was to learn how to dance and take her for a waltz, learn how to eat and make polite conversation simultaneously, and so on down the list of becoming a complete, well rounded person able to handle himself in any environment and make friends with virtually anyone.
Books and reading material had gotten assigned, mostly so that he could learn to converse on topics that he'd never previously thought about, but also some really good novels to encourage him to learn how to read for pleasure and enjoyment. The Ravenclaws might go after knowledge for its own sake, but Hufflepuffs had a different reason. They knew that a person who didn't know anything was boring and difficult to be around, hard to make friends with, and generally isolated without all of the shared interests that make for ready bonds and easy companionship with other people.
If you knew sports it was easy to talk with anyone who knew sports, and from initial contact make a friend. Other topics worked the same with other people who knew them, and so on. Know enough things, and how not to argue when talking about them, and you could make the most unlikely friends and approach virtually anyone with never a fear about breaking the ice.
His sixth year 'girlfriend' didn't miss a trick and that first afternoon they went out together to sit by the lake, dressed in comfortable yet attractive clothes as if for a date, and she'd asked that he take turns reading one of those novels to her - It had been one of her favorites when she had started this on his end half a dozen years ago. They spread a picnic lunch and ate grapes and sandwiches while they sat on the grass in the sunshine and read.
It was honestly the best afternoon he'd ever had since learning he was a wizard and going to Diagon Alley, and certainly better than anything before then!
Hufflepuffs had opened his trunk and gone through his clothes. Some they had transfigured to better things, others they burned and used the House funds set aside for this to go out and buy him inexpensive yet attractive replacements for casual wear outside of classes. Some of their tastes were decidedly odd, so Harry looked more like Buster Brown while he was on his first date. But he learned something special there too, and that was what did not bother your date should not bother you. She was from a wizarding family, and the clothes did not look ridiculous to her, so he should not feel ridiculous in them.
Everything about being a happy, well adjusted human being he did not know they were willing to teach. And one thing they explained to him caught his interest: Hufflepuffs always married well. Ravenclaws could get great jobs, and Slytherins often had wealth or powers, while Gryffindors were as well suited as anyone could be to carve out their own place in the world, but a Hufflepuff could have her pick of them to marry and share the rewards of their advantages because nobody else knew how to date or studied how to be romantic or just good friends like they did. And oddly, for that very reason, Hufflepuffs were most often happiest married to other Hufflepuffs.
After that wonderful date two of the oldest students, a boy and a girl, had taken Harry aside and asked some very difficult and uncomfortable questions about his home arrangements. And, once they had gone through an established arrangement of checks and confirmations, they took what they knew and filed formal charges against the Dursleys for child abuse, gross neglect and criminal misconduct, in the wizarding courts through a sympathetic former Puff in the judiciary system.
Another great reason for Hufflepuff loyalty was that they looked out for each other, and certain things you Did Not Do to a Puff without bringing them all down upon you.
So, when Dumbledore acted reflexively to counter the case and keep things quiet so he could still return Harry to the Dursleys care, the Puff who was acting as judge over this case came to Hogwarts and asked Harry permission, carefully explaining the reasons why. When Harry understood this was all meant for keeping him out of the Dursleys forever he gave the go-ahead, and the shocking expose was published in the Daily Prophet the very next day.
Aurors had to extract the Dursleys from their house in Surrey to avoid their being murdered by mobs of angry wizards who appeared on their door, wands blazing and revenge fires burning in their eyes. The first spontaneous Muggle Burning in ten years was put to a stop by removing that cruel and wicked family to protective custody - in Azkaban prison, where the warden (who was also a Puff) made certain they had a Dementor guard outside of their cells 24 hours a day.
Uhm, it was for added protection, really. Just keeping them safe and all that. Never mind the screams.
I said never mind the screams.
But before that happened (which would be on Tuesday), on the end of their first day of the term and their second night as students (Monday), when Dumbledore took out the Hat to do the reSorting, Harry had been astonished to hear that object address him from halfway across the room, and in between shouting to Percy that he was and always would remain a Slytherin no matter how many times he removed or put the Hat back on (as he was then doing) the object had apologized to Harry and tried to make him a Gryffindor.
Harry had refused, insisting on remaining a Puff to the cheers of his housemates. So the Hat had given him an opportunity (while McGonagall was protecting it from Ron and Percy's attempts to shred it) to be a Dual Hufflepuff/Gryffindor, and he'd accepted so he could get to see his sister more often.
Then Kodachi had approached the Hat very menacingly, but before she could give voice to a threat it had amended her House so she could be a Dual Hufflepuff/Gryffindor with Harry.
Then it had been her turn to go through assessment and so on that evening, just before the slumber party. She hadn't needed a boyfriend assigned, as she already knew more about style and etiquette than the rest of the House combined. But she was given three of their most trustworthy middle years as volunteer confidants, and encouraged to learn to trust other people and share her secrets a bit more. They'd scheduled an evening for girl talk together over ice cream so they could get to know each other and see if they'd work out as potential friends, and the girls were actually so charming Kodachi found herself being won over and not knowing what to do about that.
So she just went along, and became surprisingly good friends with Hikaru, Umi and Fuu. And as their link to the secret inner meetings of the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw fashion club, got to be a firm ally of her entire new House in short order. And it blew her away to have so many good people trust and rely on her, causing that girl to work extra hard to earn that trust and keep it.
Of course, she had to share that spotlight somewhat with the Bones girls, Ukyo and Susan, one a Ravenclaw and one a Gryffindor, who were now also Dual Hufflepuffs.
Slytherin was starting to feel awfully lonely.
I O I O I
At breakfast, the very next day after the slumber party, all Gryffindor and Ravenclaw girls of the first years wore colorful dresses. The cuts and styling were still somewhat plain, being comfortable yet uncomplicated. They fit well, and they'd all chosen colors that suited them, so in spite of being plain patterns the clothes flattered their wearers nicely.
Only one or two older girls from various Houses had done as well, though more than a dozen had employed Charms during the night to add colored sleeves or patches to their otherwise dreary robes.
And yet, it was plain that a fashion trend had started, and the trio from yesterday were still at the head of it wearing fresh gowns just as gorgeous as they had on the other day.
Flitwick came in early, led by his pointing wand to one of the great fires that always burned behind a hearth in the Great Hall. When he confirmed what he was pointing at was ash, Filch, who had been following behind, grabbed his head and howled in angst like his life was ruined, and perhaps it was, as all records of past detentions had been in that blaze and gone up in smoke. Now he had nothing to read for amusement.
Then Filch curled up in a ball and started whimpering about big dogs landing on his face.
McGonagall made the rounds, passing out new schedules again, juggled so that whatever classes Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff were taking, Gryffindor could be in either of them getting educated along with either House.
When the post owls came flying in carrying mail, as they had the day before, there came in hundreds of copies of the Daily Prophet bearing the banner headline "Wizarding Savior ABUSED!" and a sub-headline "Muggle Guardians Tried To Beat Magic Out Of Boy-Who-Lived! Dumbledore Responsible!" Those articles were read in a gradually deepening silence as disgust and horror gradually gripped the hall - especially at the staff table.
Today there was also a glasses-wearing white duck in that feathered flock, and it angled out of the mail crowd, bearing an envelope and landing right before Ranko.
"You have a duck for a familiar?" Parvati asked, incredulous.
"Mousse is not my familiar. He's more of a friend, though we've done our share of fighting over things; like he'd still rather he be with Shampoo than me."
"An awfully opinionated duck. What's he got to offer her? Other than a good meal, that is." Padma agreed with her sister.
The waterfowl apparently overheard and turned to face the speaker, sprouting a half dozen throwing knives between its feathers. Ranko caught the animal as it drew back its wings to throw. "Not now, Mousse. And not her, you forget most people around here think of a knife barrage as intent to hurt, rather than a show of mild displeasure. So unless you want to meet the executioner who deals with dangerous magical creatures for the Ministry, tone it down a little around most people. Understand?"
The duck nodded and flew off.
Ranko opened her letter. Inside of the envelope were five pretty vials and a note in her mother's hand, which read:
"Dears, this morning you will take Potions. One thing you must know that I forgot to tell you, then forgot I hadn't told you, is that Professor Snape is a very highly skilled Legilimens - he can read minds. This often requires eye contact, but he's good enough that he doesn't need to speak the spell to do it. Of course, improper, unrestricted or casual use of mind reading is a very serious crime subject to harsh punishments by the Ministry. The use of Veritaserum is severely restricted by law and this could be far worse in the wrong hands, as it is subtler and harder to detect or defend against. Obviously, neither Snape nor Dumbledore care, and during your next class I would expect both rampant and blatant use of this skill against you. So I have prepared a potion for each of you to take that will protect you today. We will train you all in Occlumency for better protection, beginning sometime later this week."
Meeting her mother's eyes at the high table, Ranko lifted a bottle and received a nod, the note and bottles had come from her. That just confirmed what she'd felt touching the magical seal on each bottle, and feeling her mother's energy in them.
The girl cracked the wax seal and swigged down her potion, passing around the rest, and the letter to explain them, to the rest of their intimates.
"You'd trust a potion delivered by owl, er, duck, I guess?" Parvati asked before she'd read the letter.
"As you just saw, Mousse is a little harder to intercept than an ordinary post owl. Mom uses him when she wants something sent secure. He could probably kill most wizards who tried to stop him from making a delivery for mom. That duck may not like me, but he works for her pretty faithfully."
"Snape." Ukyo butted in with an alert. Already warned, the girls from Nerima took out sets of mirrorshades and slid them on. Ranko, as a chi adept, shuddered as she felt the man's presence come to a stop behind her.
"Why are you wearing those ridiculous glasses?" Snape snapped snidely.
"Ask my mother," Ranko told him frostily, with no sign of respect or disrespect, just guarded tones.
The Potions Master tossed a glance to the high table and saw Nodoka standing, one hand reaching for her bundle. Having no desire to be bashed across the room and humiliated again he dropped the subject for now. But he couldn't leave without a parting word. His pride would not permit it.
Professor Snape stared down his long nose at Ranko. "You know, but for the intervention of a flimsy bit of curtain I could have been your father." Swirling drapes had caught his ankles and tripped him up on his way out of the Malfoy Manor, so he'd subsequently lost Nodoka in the woods, having lost sight of her over critical moments and chased in the wrong direction.
Still gazing straight ahead, without deigning to turn to face him, Ranko replied, "Then I must remember to say a prayer each night in gratitude for a flimsy bit of curtain, and the horror that it saved me from."
Seething in rage and quivering in fear simultaneously, Snape stalked off toward the head table lest he do something then and there and get Nodoka attacking him before the school again. Another defeat like that last would be humiliating, and he was not done preparing his curses for the conflict to come.
I O I O I
As Nodoka Malfoy said her 'Good Mornings' at the head table she was puzzled to see Professor McGonagall smiling toward her more warmly than before. So she sat next to her old Transfiguration coach to see if she could worm the secret out of her.
She'd scarcely seated herself before she saw Snape stalk in and stop behind her daughter. Standing up, ready to intervene, she reached for her bundle, only to have Snape break it off before her child gave her a warning signal.
Still curious, she probed as he went by, starting a conversation to see if any interesting bits fell out, "So, Snape, what classroom are you going to be using for your lessons today? You should probably inform Minerva so she can give an announcement before everyone starts leaving after breakfast."
That was enough to get that vile fellow stopped in his tracks. Again, he used his long nose to stare down at her from a standing position. "What do you mean?"
"Didn't you get your memo?" She asked in genuine curiosity. "I was talking with Professor Weasley until late last night, so I just borrowed her owl to send it to you."
The Weasley family owl came wheezing, coughing and gliding erratically in to the hall, only to drop to an exhausted bunch of feathers a dozen feet short of its goal, letter still clutched in its mouth.
Ms Malfoy fought the urge to sweatdrop. It couldn't be done and remain ladylike. Oh well, it would be better to see his reaction in person than imagine it. She addressed her enemy and summarized the contents of her note.
"Ah. Yesterday I was showing the class a re'em which I had purchased at great personal expense for my own use, and was generously allowing them to see some of what goes into potions brewing at the highest levels so the students could get a feel for the ingredients and more respect for the subject. All of the earliest sessions went beautifully. But your final class on Monday, as you'll recall, is your own Slytherin House, and when I went through the same explanation I'd given the other years about how valuable re'em blood is, one of your students cast a Cutting Curse at my animal! Naturally, it went rampant and before I was able to control it, it had charged all over the place. Madam Pomphrey tells me that your students will get out of hospital in a couple of weeks with no permanent injuries. And I only took away fifty points from Slytherin for destroying your classroom. Wasn't that nice?"
Snape's already waxy face went even paler in horror. Re'ems were extremely rare golden-furred giant bulls who's blood would grant a drinker immense strength, and was vital for certain advanced potions.
So not only was it on-topic, but so valuable as to have protections enough to render them untouchable for his revenge. So he had just had a giant bull noted for its enormous magical strength rampaging through his potion shop, and wouldn't be able to do anything about it!
McGonagall dabbed her lips clean, a strange smile on her face. "That's true, Severus. She was being most amazingly generous. I can recall you taking one hundred and fifty points off of a Ravenclaw for accidentally disrupting one of your lesser demonstrations. Who knows what it would have been had that poor girl done it deliberately, or if it had been a Gryffindor. I shudder to think how many thousands of points you would have taken in such an instance. Nodoka Malfoy, I approve. Although I insist that you give several detentions to the student who caused this fiasco." The Deputy Headmistresses nodded and went back to her meal.
Adapting to the flow, Nodoka smirked and nodded. "Yes, I think I should start by revoking his prefect status. No, I should prefer to start proceedings for him to be expelled. Wouldn't you agree, Professor Snape?"
"Of course he does!" McGonagall shot in before Snape could untie his tongue. "After all, the Potion Master is noted for being a most stern disciplinarian. And I could not possibly think of permitting his corrective actions to turn to any other course before he had expelled the pupil responsible for this most dreadful behavior! You have your official ruling, Professor Snape. I will have it in writing to you this afternoon."
Going paler than ever, and without excusing himself, Snape bolted from the hall toward his classroom to assess the damage. What he found when he got there would not be out of place in a post-apocalyptic muggle movie, with steaming pools of multicolor chemicals and smoldering fires amidst blackened and twisted wreckage. The carnage had spread through a broken down wall and was just as bad in his private office, if not worse.
A few minutes after Snape left the hall went quiet as Dumbledore entered and walked direct to face Professor Malfoy, displeasure in his eyes. Obviously something juicy was about to occur and both staff and students went silent to listen in.
"Ms. Malfoy, you did not come to my office yesterday as directed."
Nodoka dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.
"I'm sorry, Albus. I was too busy with the extra classes you assigned to me. But if you are going to address me you must do so with some respect for my title. Your Grace will be sufficient."
Seeing his eyes bug out was perhaps worth it all alone. Ranko's mother laughed as she elaborated, "Royal titles have been for sale in Britain for over a decade, Albus. I'm honestly surprised that so few wizards have availed themselves of the opportunity. I had some gold just lying about and decided on a whim to join the nobility. So I went to a muggle precious metal dealer with some melted down galleons because the exchange rate the goblins give is just miserable. Then I became a duchess yesterday. Actually I now hold quite a few titles and had enough to spare that my daughter is now a countess."
Even though she spoke in a calm and collected, even refined and elegant, voice, her words carried the length and breadth of the Great Hall.
The Defense teacher gave herself another serving of delicious fried lizard; actually from the purple color it was probably dragon, which had to be specially prepared to be edible, but was supposed to be delicious if you could leech the poisons out. "My brother Lucius was ever so upset that I didn't get him one while I was shopping. He felt that he deserved it, but as I explained to him, until this matter concerning his turning me over to Snape for rape and enslavement is dealt with, I just could not see my way clear to do that for him. So long as it stood between us and the fiend goes unpunished for those crimes there was just no way. So, to add a little incentive I've decided to throw that opportunity wide open, and anyone who rids me of the threat of your Potion Master's Unbreakable Vow I'll gladly award with a barony of their own and a few thousand galleons to support them in their new estate."
"You've posted a bounty for his death?" Dumbledore's astonishingly pale face gave off a choked whisper, that was nevertheless heard throughout the hall.
"Pish tosh, Albus. Have you no faith in research? While death is the only known remedy for an unfilled and reprehensible Unbreakable Vow, there is so much that we don't know. I'd much rather have a solution that comes out of new discoveries, wouldn't you?" Nodoka almost gave him the opportunity to reply before adding, "But yes, his death would be sufficient, I suppose. I hadn't really given that much thought. You must know how I would never advocate anyone do anything illegal." Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and some could swear she even formed a halo for a brief instant.
"Nodoka, you must retract your offer immediately!" The Headmaster ordered, rising to his full height with stern countenance and commanding voice.
"Nonsense. Think of the possible benefits from having a cure for the Unbreakable, Albus. Why, it might even be the first step toward breaking the Imperius! Such a benefit to the Wizarding World could be incalculable, and I'm not going to deny posterity this opportunity. After all, if Professor Snape is as well-loved as you seem to believe he'll be in no danger! Why, who would even think of harming him?"
'Everybody', was the unspoken through that echoed through every mind in that hall. Albus Dumbledore looked sick as he realized he'd either have to retract his own unconditional and 'blind eye' support of Snape's behavior and admit the cruelty he'd displayed to underscore his Potion Master's very real danger, or go along with his possible execution.
Either path was likely to be resolved the same way, with the loss of Severus Snape's life.
Then a third option occurred to him. Before he could implement it, however, Snape came charging back into the hall red in the face, a bottle of Veritaserum in his clenched fist, as he strode powerfully up to the head table and roared before the whole school, "My supply of erumpent horn is missing. She must have stolen it!" He stabbed a finger toward Nodoka, his face was purple with slightly out of control rage.
"Ridiculous, Snape. I just purchased a pair of erumpents live from Africa. Why would I go to all of that care and expense, not to mention the dreadful permits, to get a pair of animals to cultivate for their horns if I was going to get a supply from you? It doesn't make any sense. How much do you think I need?" The lady concerned refused to be ruffled.
"Then you did it out of spite instead of need!" He shot back in fury.
Nodoka calmly reached down to his fist, quite obviously plucked out the bottle she found there, popped open the cap of clear fluid labeled 'Veritaserum' and measured two drops onto her tongue. After smacking her lips, she spoke distinctly, "I have no erumpent horns that do not currently grow on my animals, nor does my family. The first time I went into your office in twenty years was to teach your classes as Dumbledore had directed me, and I left with nothing I had not brought in with me."
Finishing off, she tossed his vial of Veritaserum back at him and while he scrambled gingerly to catch it, administered the antidote to herself from her own supply.
Inwardly, she had to smirk. Of course she had no erumpent horn! She'd used it all to create other things. It was gone now. But having no flour didn't mean you hadn't baked a lot of cake to get rid of it.
And just because she hadn't ransacked his office under cover of the destruction caused by her magical bull, did not mean that Cologne hadn't. Enough acids had been spilled and fires caused to hide the loss of a great many things.
Even more than she knew, frankly.
I O I O I
Author's Notes:
Ah, it makes me feel so good to abuse Snape. After all, that freak of nature is ALWAYS dishing it out. But like so many childish bullies, seems so outraged and just can't take it!
