Disclaimer to JK Rowling
Interlude III
DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR EDUCATION IS BEING COMPROMISED?
DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE A SAY?
Buckbeak the Hippogriff was sentenced for execution in February this year following an incident in a Care of Magical Creatures class. All of the students were advised of the risks of insulting such a proud creature, and these instructions went unheard.
We, the students of that class, believe that such a judgment was draconian, given the temperament of Hippogriffs.
We believe that the execution of an animal will compromise the quality of future Care of Magical Creature classes. All classes have hazards, and one incident should not affect the quality of future classes.
We urge the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures to reconsider its position and overturn its decision for execution on appeal.
We need YOUR help to appeal this decision. Our voices WILL be heard.
Please sign below to show your support.
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Remus paced.
He was sure to bore a hole into the ground with the amount he was pacing, but he continued to pace.
He had been avoiding Lacerta Malfoy like the plague for several weeks, ever since the child had started adorning a particular necklace made of pure silver around her neck. The thought that something so simple and delicate could be so frightening was irrational, but Remus was afraid. It was as if he was conditioned to be frightened of that silly little chain, as even the smell of silver burned the back of his throat.
He could even smell it across the Great Hall when the girl twirled the chain around her finger.
It often sent him running to his office.
The blatant attack on his person from Narcissa Malfoy was made even clearer when he saw her son brandishing a new ring on his finger. Another trinket of pure silver. Another reason to hide in his office.
Remus knew he was being ridiculous. Silver was mainly harmless when he was in his human form, causing the most damage when he transformed into a werewolf. If he were to simply wrench the pendant off Lacerta Malfoy's neck it would only sting, as if pulling nettles with his bare hands. Nothing too damaging, but the fear of insulting Narcissa Malfoy prevented him from doing so.
Severus Snape watched him pace with curled lips and an air of satisfaction, as if Remus had brought on this outcome himself. Snape was finally vindicated in his views that he was an unsuitable person to teach children.
As if Remus didn't think it of himself anyway.
He didn't know why he was thinking of confiding in Snape about his troubles. Firstly, they had never gotten along as children, and secondly, Snape had spent every waking moment he could trying to discredit him to Dumbledore. Furthermore, it wasn't as if Remus didn't have other people to talk to. There were a plethora of other Professors that he could ask for advice from, but there was an adolescent reluctance in him that prevented him. He couldn't run to his former Head of House with his problems as if he was sixteen years old again.
Perhaps it was because, above all things, he saw Severus Snape as a peer. He wouldn't understand, or respond or even listen, but he was there. He was there in a painful way that his former friends were not, and working with Snape made Remus feel like his childhood had been real.
Of course, his former friends and he were never particularly friendly with Snape, which was why every interaction between the two men was strained.
Remus paced.
When he couldn't take the silence any longer, he stopped and turned to Snape and asked, "What did I ever do to Narcissa Malfoy that would warrant this sort of reaction?"
"I think almost attacking her in the Shrieking Shack in our sixth year was a contributing factor," Severus replied dryly, as if he had been anticipating the question.
"You know that it was Sirius' fault, as a werewolf has no control over his or her mind during the full moon," Remus countered, "and… Malfoy made it a point to wear an ostentatious amount of silver until we left Hogwarts."
The wolf-part of his brain reminded him on a nightly basis the moment where Narcissa Black – now, Malfoy – had flung her necklace at him. He woke up, drenched in sweat haunted by the burning feeling on his chest. It reminded him of the morning after, where Sirius had laughed himself silly when he saw that Remus was effectively branded by the crest of Narcissa's necklace.
He paused mid-step, hoping that Snape would say something, instead of sipping his tea. He didn't, instead raising his cup to cover his smirk.
"Why is she arming her children with silver?"
No answer.
The question had sounded ridiculously childish, not one someone would expect from a grown man and it hung in the stale air of Snape's office.
Remus continued to pace, and considered his next sentence, hoping that it would illicit more than a smirk from the Potions Master.
"It's like seeing her mother all over again," Remus started, but his sentence ended it with an involuntary shudder. Narcissa Malfoy had always been a certain brand of spiteful, even before she knew he was a werewolf. He had been slightly taken aback by the similarity between her and her daughter, and something in the deepest parts of his soul revelled he saw the fear in Lacerta's eyes during their first lesson with the Boggart.
His karmic retribution was a silver-adorned child, who was on extraordinarily on good terms with the son of a man who regulated his every move. It almost seemed too well-planned for Remus' liking.
"I would suggest you take a Calming Draught, but it may interfere with your Wolfsbane Potion," Snape's inattentive response did little to pacify him, but it was a response nonetheless.
"Lacerta looks extraordinarily like her mother, doesn't she?" Remus asked carefully. He paused and prepared his words before he started, "Do you think…"
"I am going to stop you right there, Lupin."
"But - …"
"I will not even entertain the idea of this conversation, I am not here to be your little agony aunt, so take your potion and get out of my office."
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"I hate Debussy."
"I know for a fact you like Debussy, you just have a certain disregard for this particular movement."
"Fine," Lacie said as she crossed her arms and turned to face Cedric in her piano chair. He had pulled forward one of the normally unused desks and had stacked a large pile of notes and folders upon them. Even though he was due to take his OWLs in the coming month, he still had gone out of his way to punish her with movements and the like. "I hate Clair de Lune."
Without looking up from his dictionary, where he was following a line with the nib of his quill he said, "Well, I got paid extra to teach you Clair de Lune, so you're learning Clair de Lune."
"And here I was, mistaken that you may prioritise your OWLs over torturing me with piano lessons," Lacie sniffed.
He looked up at that and gave her a repentant look, "I will never understand why you have a passionate dislike for this song."
Lacie bit her tongue at the remark. If Draco was in the room, she would cast him a look and he would understand. He would know that Clair de Lune was the song that their mother had absent-mindedly danced to one cloudy afternoon when their father had first settled his eyes upon her. It was the poem that he whispered to her in lieu of vows, the song of the first dance as man and wife. It was no surprise that on the rekindling of their marriage that the song would make a reappearance.
She never told Cedric her reasons, merely passing it off as a quirk of hers.
"C'mon, Lace. I'll let you drag me around Hogsmeade and we'll spend some of the outrageous amount of money that your mother is paying me just so I teach you the songs she likes."
She pulled a face at his attempt for negotiation and had hoped that he would note her displeasure. Her pout deepened when she noticed that he was no longer looking at her and was frowning at something in his Rune dictionary.
"I will double her offer if I can play something else for the rest of the term," Lacie offered.
"Nice try - shite, that's supposed to be bark, not tree, I wondered why the Crup was treeing at the Goblin – I know you're also filthy rich, I did see those shoes you gifted that friend of yours in Slytherin, but I don't take my orders from you."
"Foul language is unbecoming of you."
Cedric looked up, face filled with amusement and grinned, "And there is that favour you asked. Your friend has plastered petition posters around Hogwarts, I can't walk a single corridor without seeing a sign-up sheet."
"Hermione can be… enthusiastic."
"Well, it gets Dad off my back, too," Cedric said, Rune dictionary falling between his legs and hitting the floor. He grunted as he leaned down to pick it up. "He thinks I am finally taking an interest in a Ministry career."
"By petitioning his department?"
"Animal rights," he mused as he flicked through the pages of his dictionary to find what he was looking for, "is still a springboard to the legislature, which, in turn, is a springboard for the Minister for Magic."
Lacie snorted gently and replied dryly, "I thought it was every boy's dream to become the Minister for Magic."
"Definitely not, I want to travel after Hogwarts and perhaps gain an apprenticeship with a Professor at Beauxbatons. Did you know they study elemental magic?"
Lacie raised an eyebrow. "Yes, and in second year, you choose to specialise in several of the five magies elementaires."
He seemed to miss the bitterness underneath her tone as he carried on, excitement filling his voice.
"It must have been amazing to have studied there. See, there is just so much to explore outside of Hogwarts and the Ministry. I calculated that if I carry on teaching you until I graduate, I should have enough to live modestly and travel for around five years. Six, if you learn all of the songs that your mother requests, and I'll still have enough to buy you all the Butterbeers in Hogsmeade to placate you."
Lacie could not help but smile from the passion in his voice. He ran a hand through his hair and scratched his head. When he had finished grooming himself, he pointed at the piano in front of her.
Lacie flexed her fingers as she turned back the manuscript and sighed. "Well, I am not one for crushing your dreams."
x-x-x-x-x
"This place is going to the dogs," Tracey sniffed as she thrust a stack of primly made posters onto the coffee table that the third-year Slytherins were all gathered around. "The little chit even had the audacity to stick them up to the Common Room door."
"Gryffindor tenacity knows no bounds," Blaise smirked. Tracey swatted him aside and the boy moved aside to make space for the petite girl. Planting herself between Blaise and Theo, she clicked her fingers and a house-elf appeared.
"Tea?"
When no one objected to Tracey's suggestion, she sent the house-elf off with her orders. Cordelia leaned forwards to pick one of the posters up and scowled at it.
"It is rather… unorthodox." she said, her upper lip upturning into a frown. "A petition… it rather reminds me of the Leach administration."
"Draco?" Theo murmured with a raised eyebrow and Draco rolled his eyes.
"I refuse to comment on the Leach administration," Draco replied with gentle amusement.
"Lacie is insane for tolerating this," Daphne said, as she examined her always immaculate nails. "You would think she had the good taste to avoid such scandal but you can tell she is right in the thick of it."
"Lace has fantastic taste, I will have you know," Theo protested before preening and showing off his new shoes, "the leather on these is just exquisite, your sister simply knows me too well."
"Well, one could suppose that she has been trained to be your wife-to-be since she was born," Pansy said distractedly, her gaze slid over and met Draco's momentarily before slipping back into the distance. Pansy had made it a point to limit her interactions with Draco as if he was a brick wall, which had suited him for a while.
He did not dare to admit it, but he missed his friend.
"Theo's or Diggory's?" Vince pointed out. "I would say that Theo had some competition."
"Diggory is rather handsome, and clever too… and even though he is only a fifth-year, he is pipped to be Head Boy in two years' time," Tracey said. Theo glowered at her.
"I am handsome and clever, and I could be Head Boy," he insisted petulantly. The Slytherins around him all rolled their eyes and he insisted on it again before huffing and crossing his arms.
"Passed over for a Hufflepuff," Cordelia said with a hint of a smirk, "now that is embarrassing."
"Well I doubt that Lucius Malfoy wants a Hufflepuff in the family, anyway," Theo said stubbornly. "Malfoys have a way of getting rid of things with a bit of discretion, after all."
"I refuse to comment," Draco repeated, but this time there was no amusement. Theo had been ill-mannered to even insinuate such a thing. Off Cedric Diggory just for Theo to prove a point? Impossible. Draco glowered at his friend, but he was too busy sulking to notice.
Sensing discomfort, Greg asked, "Where is the house-elf with our tea?"
"How should I know?" Tracey retorted airily. "If it was my mother training the elves, we would be drinking the tea by now."
"Or if it was Draco's, they would be free," Blaise added. "I heard your entire French cohort were freed to acquiesce Granger."
Draco glowered at the comment but held in his retort.
"Do Muggles not have house-elves, or is Granger just poor?" Millie asked Draco. Being the only one that took Muggle Studies, Draco found himself fielding questions about Muggles and their simplicity. This was yet another example where Draco had to explain something, and despite the subject, he enjoyed being knowledgeable in an area that his peers were not.
"They frown upon slavery," Draco explained with a false disdain, "Servants have to get paid to do work, but I suppose that does not seem entirely too unreasonable."
"Muggle Studies has softened you," Daphne complained. "Have you started comparing people to summer's days yet, or will we have those to look forward to?"
"Well, Daphne, thou art more lovely and more temperate," Draco shot back, and the girl feigned a shudder with a grin.
"Well, I do not know how much dentists are paid, but I doubt Granger is poor," Blaise added. "She is more stick-in-the-mud than the ignorant savage that we were led to believe as children."
"Dentist?" Greg asked.
"A Muggle Healer that specialises in fixing teeth," Draco snapped before Blaise could reply. He refrained from asking how Blaise knew that Hermione's parents were dentists and simply added with leftover venom, "Although, have you seen Granger's teeth? I would consider changing profession if I were them."
Someone in their group let out a low whistle which was punctuated by a small pop. A house-elf stood before them with an extensive tea service, and all conversation slowly veered towards eclairs and teacakes. Draco looked across and saw Pansy staring at him oddly, but dismissed it, simply offering Theo a strawberry tart to placate his petulant mood.
x-x-x-x-x
"Hermione?"
"Harry, we are not having this conversation again."
Harry groaned. "Look, all I want to do is go back and trip up Malfoy or something, if you're afraid of being seen, I can even go and get the Invisibility Cloak."
Hermione's quill fell out of her hand. Harry blinked at her behind his circle glasses. "You find out that I have the ability to travel in time, and all you want to do is go and trip Malfoy up?"
Hermione watched as Harry's eyebrows slowly furrowed, and he shook his head. "What else would I want to do?"
"You haven't asked me to go back and save your parents."
Harry gave her a withering look and said in a quiet voice, "Even I understand the danger of potentially creating a temporal paradox, Hermione. Maybe there are some people that are just meant to die."
Harry opened his textbook and started to read the chapter, but Hermione noticed after a while that he was simply staring at the page and his fist was clenched on the page.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to - …"
"It's not like I haven't thought of it," Harry said, so quietly that Hermione had to strain to hear him. "But I also secretly watched Back to the Future once, so I think that if I went back and interfered with things, Voldemort might still be alive and I would be dead."
There was an awkward pause between them. Hermione glanced back at her homework but she couldn't concentrate. She looked back up at Harry, but he was still staring at the same place he had been before.
Hermione knew that Harry had had a terrible upbringing. He was dumped on a doorstep with a letter, he grew up in a cupboard under the stairs and stayed relatively friendless for the formative years of his life. Yet, when he was told that one of his best friends had the ability to travel in time and had the chance to indulge his fascination with time-travel he didn't even consider asking her to go to save his parents. He didn't ask her to change the world for him, because he was wary of the ramifications. He only wanted to bother a certain annoying blond.
Hermione wondered if Harry's fascination with time-travel was akin to her own fascination with books, and for him it was more than just an escape. Those times he snuck to watch episodes of Doctor Who, or watch forbidden films seemed like it was the only happy thing to occur during Harry's childhood.
"It's not a blue box."
Harry looked up at her with a guarded look on his face, and Hermione dipped her hand behind the collar of her shirt. Her fingers skimmed the heavy chain underneath, and she pulled it upwards. She lifted the Time-Turner from her shirt before letting it hang in front of her uniform.
"It's called a Time-Turner, and it's limited to travelling five hours either way," Hermione explained. "Any further, and like you said, you can cause serious damage."
Harry appraised it for a moment before snorting, "You were right, Wizarding time-travel is unimpressive."
"That's not even the worst of it, Who-boy."
He smiled at the moniker and leaned in closer to ask, "Not Who-boy, Ace."
Hermione rolled her eyes and replied with, "We are not going back in time to trip Malfoy up."
"Killjoy."
A/N: Happy 20 years, Harry Potter.