A/N: Chapter 4: Whee!
Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard
Chapter 4: Striking Distance
Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.
Jean Anouilh
"Hey, Hermione," a familiar voice said, causing Hermione to pause.
"We just wanted to say we were sorry," another voice said.
Figures moved out of the shadows, their heads cast down.
"Yeah, we're sorry for having, you know, done all that stuff to you."
Hermione frowned, suspicious.
"Look, we know you don't have any reason to believe us, but we wanted to show you something. A peace offering."
"Look, you can come see it. Take it or leave it, but—" one of the students said. "We did make it just for you."
One of them tossed something at her, and she caught it automatically to avoid having it hit her on the face. It was a shiny button, silver, and so very, very familiar.
"Did it work?" one of them whispered.
"Ssssst!" another said.
"Come see, Hermione," one of them said, pushing the other out of the way. "You'll come, won't you?"
Hermione blinked dazedly. "Yeah, I guess."
"This way!"
"Yeah, it's this way."
"There was something I had to do," Hermione mumbled.
"Naw, don't worry about it, this will be way better."
Hermione blinked, confused. She rubbed her head, shaking it.
"Follow us."
"Troll! Troll! Back to the dorms!" voices cried. Hurried shuffling rang out down the hallway.
"Cormac, there's a troll in here! Let's do this later!"
"No! We've planned too long. Come on. This will be perfect."
"Come on, Hermione," Parvati cooed. "No hard feelings, huh?"
Hermione, strangely befuddled, shuffled behind them.
"I spent three weeks in detention just so you could get that stupid button! This had better work!"
"Shut it, Roderick. It will work."
They led Hermione down a quiet hall and into the girl's lavatory. Inside, a polished statue of a snake waited, surrounded by lit candles.
"You like it, Hermione?"
Hermione stared blearily.
"You should totally touch it, Hermione."
"Yeah, touch it."
Hermione's hand slowly went towards the statue.
A strand of her hair fell over her ear, and Hermione's eyes began to clear. "Whu-what?"
"Fuck! It's fading!"
"Quick, let's get out of here."
"No! She has to pay for what she did to us!"
Cormac jerked Hermione's over to the statue and forcibly placed her hand on it— where it stuck.
"Come on, let's get out of here!"
Hermione screamed.
Fire ants were streaming out of the statue's eyes and mouth and stinging her. Every bit of exposed flesh had an ant on it, and the angry ants were taking it out on her. Her hair was writhing as madly as she was, but her hand was stuck to the statue. She couldn't escape.
"Come on, let's get out of here before she gets free."
"She won't," one girl said, her eyes filled with malice. "It's a permanent sticking charm."
"Come on! There's the troll! We have to go now!"
They fled the room, some with reluctance and some with haste only to find their way blocked by a very large, very smelly troll.
The other children screamed, some trying to cast spells while others tried to flee. Hermione, however, shrieked in pain— the sound of her agony echoing throughout the girl's lavatory.
Crack.
Crack.
Rattle.
The sound of something moving was almost covered up by the troll angrily slamming his club as he swatted a few of the screaming students across the room, stopped only by the wall. They fell to the ground, moaning in pain. When all the moving screamers had finally been silenced by the troll, he turned to Hermione and raised his club. Hermione, however, didn't see him. The ants had covered her entire body.
The troll moved to slam his club into her.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssss!
A blur of black fury slammed into the troll even as fangs the size of swords were buried into the troll's head. Scales on top of scales on top of scales curled around the troll's body and squeezed mercilessly. Murderous sulfur orange eyes blazed with rage.
Yet, even as the troll struggled in vain to escape, the coils drew tighter. Tighter. TIGHTER.
Crack!
The troll's spine finally snapped, and its body went limp.
"SSSSSsssss!" The huge serpent flung the troll to the far wall with a loud crack.
It lowered its head down, staring at the shrieking girl, mouth gaping with fangs dripping and orange eyes glowing hatefully. The ants all fell to the ground, dead instantly.
Hermione whimpered, crying, her one free arm trying to beat on herself to get rid of the ants as if they were still there. Her mask lay on the ground, and her eyes were shut tight— even in her pain, refusing to possibly kill someone with her gaze. She cried, falling to her knees, her hand still stuck to the statue.
The basilisk tongue flicked, pegging the girl on the face.
One free hand touched the basilisk on the muzzle. "Socrates?" Hermione sniffled, feeling the basilisk's face as her head snakes recovered enough to see for her. Hermione stared through her snakes' combined vision. "You're not Socrates."
The basilisk nudged her with its nose.
"You're a she-basilisk." The basilisk opened her mouth wide and clamped her jaws around Hermione—
… and then released her, having coated her with a thin layer of venom.
Hermione's skin, swollen and bitten by ants, healed, easing her pain. The venom worked around her stuck hand, and her hand came free, leaving behind a thin layer of shed, scalelike skin behind. She quickly grabbed her mask, putting it back on, soothing her head-snakes as she hugged the basilisk's head. "Thank you!"
"Ssss," the basilisk replied. "You called. I came."
Hermione's eyes widened with wonder. Her head-snakes rubbed up against the newcomer, checking her out.
Footsteps neared, and Hermione flung herself over the basilisk's head. "Don't kill them!" she pleaded. "Don't kill her!" she pleaded to the professors as they ran around the corner to find Hermione flung over a basilisk's head, the carcasses of a thousand score ants dead on the floor, a very dead and quite smelly troll, and several unconscious students crumpled on the floor by the far wall.
Hermione quickly wrapped her outer robe around the female basilisk's eyes as Professor Snape kept the other professors from walking in to their deaths. When the snake's eyes were well and truly wrapped, he let them pass.
"What in Merlin's overgrown toenails is going on in here?" Flitwick cried in a squeaky voice.
Severus, however was too busy staring at a dark stairwell leading down into the darkness below Hogwarts— the path having been made plain out of the old fountains.
"I think, Filius, that we have just discovered the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets."
He eyed the newly unearthed basilisk. "And its guardian."
Hermione, her pain now forgotten, was being tickled by her new friend's forked tongue. She giggled and hugged the basilisk's head, squealing with delight as the serpent raised her off the ground like a ride at the amusement park.
Quirrell came rushing in, screeched to a halt as he saw the corpse of the forest troll, and immediately passed out.
Severus rolled his eyes. "Amateurs."
"How long were you down there?" Hermione asked.
"I do not know. Your screams for help woke me up."
"Do you have a name?"
"Salazar called me Zanique," the basilisk answered. "He bade me guard his secret place until another voice could command me."
Socrates' red head feather rose and fell with his curiosity as he stared at the other basilisk. "Why do all the exciting things happen when I'm not around? I should never have left your side. I could have eaten someone for you!"
"You had to hunt, Socrates," Hermione admonished. "I don't blame you. And no eating people!"
Socrates sulked.
"You were Salazar's?" Severus asked.
The basilisk nodded. "Was. Now I am yours, my lady."
Hermione's eyes widened. "Mine, but—"
Hermione looked to Severus, hands wringing. "I'm don't think I'm allowed to have two basilisks!"
Snape rolled his eyes. "Who, my apprentice, is going to stop you?"
Hermione slumped sheepishly. "I don't know. Someone! You're beautiful and powerful and I don't deserve you!"
Zanique sigh-hissed. "You may not think so, but maybe I think so, hrm? You managed to wake me up after— how long has it been?"
Snape tilted his head. "A few hundred years, give or take a few hundred more."
Zanique poked Hermione with her snout. "Don't you like me?"
"You're wonderful. Like Socrates."
"Between to the two of us, we can protect you all the time," Socrates said. "No more of this funny business being ambushed in a bathroom." He eyed Zanique. "Well, save for one happy outcome." His red feather raised as he admired the female basilisk.
"Well, before that happens, Zanique needs her own pair of stylish serpent-shades. I hardly think going around covered in your robes is going to suffice."
Hermione grinned, kissing Zanique and Socrates on the nose only to get pegged twice from both sides from giant basilisk tongues. "HehehEHEHHEHEHE!"
"Severus, is it safe to come in now?" Minerva's voice said.
"Yes, Minerva, come on in."
The deputy headmistress came in and went directly to a chair to sit down. "I think I need a stiff drink."
"Troll carcass dealt with?"
"And that lot of bullies," Minerva said grimly. "Albus had Moody come and pick apart that serpent statue trap they crafted. Ugliest piece of horribleness I've seen crafted from student cruelty in a long time."
Severus sighed, handing her some tea. "I will admit, the Marauders at least waited a few years before attempting to murder me."
"Albus is talking with Alastor about some sort of summer program to set them straight. As it is, Poppy is busy trying to mend their bones. Both Albus and Alastor agree that keeping Hermione out of the limelight in this would be best, not to cover up the situation but so as to not to bring undue attention to her, especially with our new friend, yes?"
"Hullo," Zanique said, lowering her head down.
"Zanique says hello," Hermione translated.
"Hello," Minerva said, holding out her hand for the basilisk to "taste" her scent.
The large serpent rubbed against her hand. "I will remember you."
Hermione smiled. "She said she'll remember you."
"That's a relief," Minerva said. "As it is, none of the bullies saw or remember anything once they were trolled into a wall. That is the only good thing that came of it. Hermione, dear, you don't mind that we aren't bringing you up during all this, do you?"
Hermione shook her head. "I don't mind. I prefer it."
Minerva smiled. "Come here, your mam needs a hug, and I think I need to make sure you're okay for myself."
Hermione grinned and ran up, hugging Minerva tightly.
The tension in the elder witch seemed to finally ease. "After that first round— I thought after their parents were informed and the shame would keep them in check, but—"
"You couldn't have known," Snape said. "Even I underestimated the hatred and scorn they kept for my apprentice, and I tend to recognise that sort of thing all too easily."
"Oh, here, Alastor gave me this for your new friend. He said you'd know what to do with it." Minerva handed Hermione what looked like an elongated pair of shades.
Hermione bounced and smiled. "Your new shades are here, Zani!" Hermione said, beckoning the basilisk.
Zanique lowered her head and let Hermione wrap them around her eyes, tugging and adjusting them for her.
"Not too tight? Comfy?" Hermione asked.
The basilisk pegged her with her tongue.
"Ehehhe!" Hermione hugged her. "There you go. All safe for public consumption."
"Public consumption?" Minerva asked, eyebrows raising. "Someone has been spending too much time with publicists at the Ministry."
Socrates and Zanique mirrored each other, bobbing their heads and swaying like reflections in a mirror.
"Good thing Albus gave me clearance to expand my quarters as needed," Severus said, rubbing his nose.
Minerva smiled. "We'd all be jealous if we didn't know exactly why you needed it."
Snape harrumphed, waving her off.
"I think Amelia has Unspeakables cataloging everything in the chamber as we speak," Snape said, stifling an impressive yawn with the back of his hand. "They'll be busy for months, I'm sure."
"Well, even Albus has to admit that a place like that needs to be preserved, but the school needs to kept safe, so if there are any other dangerous things down there, they'll soon be found. Maybe, one day, we'll be able to open it up to students to see a piece of history."
"What did Salazar have down there, Zani?" Hermione asked.
"Treasure beyond imagining. Tomes. Knowledge. The history of the school. The very first students and teacher lists. The first masters. The first apprentices. Underground fungus gardens that glow in the darkness. Fountains that purify water. Inventions—magical wings you could wear instead of using brooms. Many things."
"Wow!" Hermione said.
Minerva gave Severus a look, and he translated for her.
"There was an invention my old master made," Zanique said. "A statue with his locket. In place, it would allow all of Hogwarts to understand the language of snakes within its walls, but when he was forced to leave Hogwarts, he took it with him saying that no one that remained at Hogwarts deserved the privilege anymore. That was when he bade me sleep the decades away, waking only when called or when the wards were tripped."
"Amazing," Hermione said. "Are you hungry? Do you need a feral hog?"
Zanique's tongue flicked. "I could eat an entire wagon full of people."
"I hope hogs will do," Hermione said with some concern. "It's frowned upon to eat people."
"Pity," Zanique said. "What if they are already dead?"
"People find that even worse," Hermione said.
"Humans are strange creatures."
Hermione patted Zanique on the nose. "Come on, I'll take you out to the hunting place. "Master, do I have permission to take Zanique out hunting?"
"Go on, then. Say hello to Magorian for me."
"I will, Master. Thank you." Hermione wrapped mini-Socrates around her neck.
Zanique seemed to get a look of intense concentration before her body shrank down, and Hermione picked her up and wrapped her around her neck too.
"Do not bring home any more basilisks," Severus said.
"I won't, Master," Hermione said with a giggle and dashed out the door.
"No fear. that one," Minerva said admiringly. "Even after being attacked, she's right back out that door."
"Damn Gryffindor traits. I'll have to stomp harder."
"Psh," Minerva replied. "She's my daughter now, Severus. Now she'll have the stubbornness of the Scots in 'er too."
Snape pinched his nose. "Now, I really need a drink."
Hermione yawned she sat next to the fire in the centaur camp. Some of the foals were feeding her head-snakes, and she got to taste a few different types of food vicariously through them.
"The rumours travel far, young Hermione," Firenze said. "Are you quite well?"
Hermione shook her head. "Zanique used her venom to heal me. I didn't even know she could do that. I don't feel it anymore."
"But you are not suffering now?" Magorian asked, smiling as one of the foals squeaked as her head serpents tickled her.
"No, I feel—" Hermione looked skyward. "I feel better. Something told me something was off, but then something happened. Next thing I know, I'm totally covered in fire ants. They were stinging me all over, even getting under my mask. I didn't want to kill them. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped I could keep them shut long enough for help to come. I had no idea they hated me so much."
"Humans do not like what make them feel mundane, ordinary, Hermione," Magorian said. "They seem to shun it with much ferocity, just as strongly as centaurs do not wish to be judged mere beasts of burden. But, like all muscle twitches, sometimes we let them them lead us by the nose and sometimes they lead us by the tail before we know any better. We centaurs are not perfect, Hermione. We have our judgemental moments just as the humans do, but the one thing we do not do. We do not tolerate violence to foals. Every herd from here to Greece and beyond. All of them are this way. This includes foal-on-foal violence."
Hermione smiled as one of the foals backed his rear up to her to keep brushing since she had stopped. She laughed and brushed him more attentively.
"Magorian, I must go patrol," Firenze said. "Hermione, I will come back to escort you to Hogwarts after I make sure the edges of our forest are safe."
"Thank you, Firenze," Hermione said.
"You're staying with us?" a filly asked.
"Looks like it."
"Yay!"
Hermione promptly found herself buried in happy young centaurs— and she wasn't complaining one bit.
"Friend Hermione, are you awake?"
Hermione blinked blearily, sitting up from the miniature herd of foals. "Mugh?"
"There is something unnatural out in the woods tonight, but it is magical in nature and not something we normally deal with." Firenze knelt down on his forelegs. "Get on, friend Hermione. Speed is necessary, and you are a cherished friend. I am permitted to carry you back to Hogwarts when such danger comes to call."
Hermione nodded and pulled herself up onto his back. Firenze waited to make sure she was seated properly. "Hold tight to my mane, little one."
Hermione curled her fingers into his thick mane. "I'm good."
Firenze took off into the dark of the forest, knowing the path without needing to see it, hurriedly carrying his precious passenger back home to Hogwarts.
"Why are you out here, Draco?" Harry asked. Fang whined fearfully, channeling his inner coward.
"Your buddy, Weaselbee," Draco said. "Caught me out after curfew trying to sneak a book out of the library."
"You have detention because you were sneaking a book out of the library?"
"No, Scarhead, I have detention because I was caught sneaking a book out of the library," Draco said with a sigh.
"Must have been a really great book," Harry said.
"It was. I really wanted to finish it," Draco said.
"If it makes you feel any better, Ron was given detention because he was out past curfew getting you in trouble."
"That does make me feel better, I'll admit," Draco said.
Harry snorted. "I guess I'm impressed he wasn't one of the ones ambushing Hermione in the haunted bathroom."
"Snape isn't going to let her go anywhere without bodyguards," Draco said. "Good thing her bodyguards are portable. I'm glad you weren't apart of that fiasco. I"d have to murder you and hide the body, and hiding the body is pain in the butt."
Harry made a face. "Thanks, I think."
Draco averted his eyes. "She's… special. Not just because she's Snape's apprentice. Not just because she's in Slytherin where she belongs. You should see my father with her. He's much kinder. Thoughtful. He listens to me now because he listens to her. She— listens to him too. Like I should but don't. But, I'm not jealous. I feel like I have a sister. Someone to teach. Someone to distract the parents from me once in awhile." Draco gave a small shrug. "Mum is afraid she'll petrify me though. Do I look stupid enough to make her angry at me? Don't answer that, Potter."
Harry gaped like a fish. "I wasn't going to—"
Draco glared at him.
"I swear!"
"Mum is— I know she loves me and all that but— she didn't even want my father to give me a broom because I might fall off."
Harry blinked. "Harsh, man."
Draco blew his hair out of his eyes. "She's special, okay? Even if I can't expl—"
"No, you're right, Draco," Harry said. "I get it. I'm just glad she got out of Gryffindor before something even worse happened because no one would stand up for her. She couldn't even sleep in the dorms, yeah? Her own house. I tried to talk to her, but— I let Ron drag me off to do things. I told myself she'd be fine. Maybe, I even thought if I kept Ron away from her for a little bit, it'd help some."
Draco frowned. "She says you're all right, so I guess I should give you a chance."
Harry sighed. "You don't have to make it sound like such a terrible chore."
Fang whined loudly, and both boys instantly snapped to attention.
"What are we doing out here anyway? Alone? No adult supervision? In the Forbidden Forest with dog that is afraid of his own shadow?" Draco complained.
"Sometimes I think detention is actually a way to make people disappear through convenient accidents," Harry speculated.
"I mean, okay, so Hagrid says there are injured unicorns out there. Unicorns, right? Big and fast animals with a really long and pointy horn. They aren't like… little pixies or something. Would we really have a fighting chance against something that could injure or kill a unicorn?" Draco shuddered.
A terrified neigh was abruptly cut off somewhere nearby, and Draco and Harry both tried to grab for Fang's leash, but the frightened dog had already bolted, yelping piteously the entire way.
"Useless dog!" Draco moaned miserably.
"I'm not even sure that's really a dog," Harry said, wrinkling his nose in frank disgust.
Harry and Draco dove behind the nearby log , tried to slow down their rapidly beating hearts, and then peered over it carefully.
A lone figure, cloaked in dark robes leaned over the carcass of a dead unicorn.
"Is that Snape?" Harry blurted.
"Is he eating a unicorn?" Draco asked and then glared at Harry.
Harry made a face that seemed to translate as 'it was a pretty good guess anyway.'
The figure turned, blood masking the face completely. He snarled, running across the ground so fast that he seemed like a looming spectre. Harry and Draco screamed together as an equine scream and a golden horse body flew over head, jumping the log.
Firenze roared, rearing up on his hind legs as a small figure slid down from his back.
Firenze backed up against the log. "Children, close your eyes, NOW!"
Having learned that closing your eyes was a good idea in the company they kept most recently, both boys did as Firenze bade without hesitation, burying their eyes in their robe sleeves.
Hermione flung two things from her neck onto the ground, but even as the two serpents began to grow much larger, their sulfurous eyes glowing fearsomely in the dark—
Hermione pulled back her hood and removed her mask. Her head serpents writhed with glowing magic, their eyes glowing a fluorescent green together. Her eyes went from dark gold to the radiance of a brilliant sun, filling the grove with the beams from her now-exposed eyes.
SssssssssssSSSSSS!
Hermione bared her teeth, fangs exposed as her tongue flicked out.
The black-shrouded figure fell to the ground where it had stood, totally petrified.
Hermione quickly covered her face and her eyes, pulling her hood back over her head as she recollected her basilisks, and they entwined around her neck once more like layered torques. She panted heavily. "You can look now, it's safe."
Hagrid came running into the clearing at full tilt. "Draco? Harry?! Where are yeh?" he bellowed and then he tripped over the petrified figure, landing face first into the leaf litter.
"Hermione?"
"Firenze, are you okay?"
"I am fine, friend Hermione."
Firenze stepped delicately over Hagrid's body and lifted the cowl off the spectre's face. He frowned.
"Professor Quirrell?" Draco and Harry cried together?
A wash of unicorn blood still stained Quirrell's face.
"To drink of a unicorn's blood will save your life even if you are but a moment from death," Firenze said, "but to kill a unicorn is such a crime against nature that to drink its blood is to pay an even worse price than death."
The stomping of hooves alerted them as the patrols arrived to join them.
"Firenze? What happened? We heard your yell." Bane stomped his hooves as he looked around, scowling at the human foals and the half-giant.
"That was the thing preying upon the unicorns," Firenze said, pointing to the petrified Quirrell. "The foals were with the half-giant, on some task when they stumbled upon the scene."
"We should inform the teachers at Hogwarts," Bane said decisively. "Firenze, can you take friend Hermione to the school and explain what happened here?"
"Of course, Bane."
"Put your hand on my back, little sister," Firenze said. "We run together."
Hermione said nothing but did as she was told, running alongside Firenze, who kept a slower pace just so she could keep up with him.
"And you two," Bane said, curling his lips at the children, "can tell me why two foals are just wondering the forest at night waiting for the Furies to swallow you up?"
Harry and Draco said nothing, but they both pointed at the unconscious Hagrid— obliviously snorting leaves.
Internal Memo
To: Unspeakables, Every Rank
From: HBOY, Amelia Bones
The petrified almost-corpse of one Quirinius Quirrell, ex-professor of Hogwarts, is being contained off-grounds as safehold A535-1F2 just in case there is some sort of Dark magic homing beacon attached to it that we have not previously encountered.
Matron Poppy Pomfrey of Hogwarts discovered a second face on the back of Quirrell's head, and that face, unlike the front, seems to be anchored to the body of Quirrell. While it "lives" on somehow, Quirrell is not in any fit state to run away.
We have reason to believe from the face's rantings that it is, if fact, that of You-Know-Who. Seeing as we have no evidence either way, we are treating it as though it is, placing the entire body in stasis in case there is even the slightest possibility of some sort of post-death magic body-hopping possession taking place.
For those of you out in the field, I want you keeping an extra sharp eye on any and all possible Death Eater activity. For those of you serving as Death Eater double agents, I need whatever reports you can give nightly via a security-coded Patronus, owl, plague of locusts, smoke signals, or whatever else you can send me.
I have dispatched Alastor to Hogwarts to go through all of Quirrell's personal possessions, so anyone working on that detail with him, stay extra sharp. Quirrell managed to fool even Dumbledore somehow, concealing his Dark magic from him, and I want to know how this could happen. Dumbledore is hardly a neophyte wizard.
Quirrell wanted something at Hogwarts, and I want to know what and why— especially if that second face IS that of the supposedly long-dead You-Know-Who. We will be running magical trace scans on the face to see if we can match it to previous traces of YKW's magic from his reign of destruction from the first war. Results will be shared as soon as we have them.
Stay sharp, people.
Be safe.
For those of you who have apprentices, make absolutely sure that they are never left unsupervised out there. There is no telling what the Death Eaters may do if word gets out that their Lord is back in the running, even if they don't know the whole story.
Oh, and if you would like to bake Severus' apprentice some biscuits for giving us this opportunity, her favourites are double chocolate shortbreads and iced ginger biscuits.
Sincerely,
Amelia Bones, HBOY
P.S. I want all the apprentices taught Apparition as of yesterday. If something horrible is going on, I don't want them cowering under logs, I want them to be able to escape. No excuses. We'll be crafting Home-Port-Keys that will be wearable, but nothing beats Apparition when there isn't a jinx preventing it. Get this done by the end of the month.
P.S.S. Annual Bake Sale next week. Don't forget. Speak to Agnes Peabody if you want to bring in sweets. I'll grant a free day-off for the raffle winner. Don't forget, the big prize for the raffle winner is a Nimbus 2000 courtesy of the Nimbus Racing Broom Company as a thanks for clearing up that unfortunate mess in the cursed broom polish incident.
Hermione woke up, glad to know that her ability to turn the living into stone finally had a purpose that she could fathom. There was petrification, and there was very literal petrifications— the statue making kind, and there seemed to be some confusion as to what or who did what, when, and how. There wasn't much in the way of Gorgon information— Merlin knew she checked— and most of it was myth in a non-incident-based study.
She could understand it, but it was frustrating to a young Gorgon who didn't have a mother or father Gorgon to learn from. She did have Eleanor, and that was a big relief, but even Eleanor was a different branch of the family tree. Her snakes were all non-venomous, and her gaze petrified in a way that could be cured with a Mandrake Potion or just outright killed someone, but the flesh didn't actually turn to stone. She was much like the basilisk.
Hermione, however, had seen that her gaze had quite literally turned Professor Quirrell into a statuary. Well—most of him. There was that fleshy part of him that resembled some other guy's face.
You Know Who, Amelia had called him.
She wasn't to say his name because there was some sort of magical geas tied to it. Something bad. Something that could be traced back to you.
It was the last thing Hermione wanted, so she started thinking of names to call him that didn't require hyphens or breaths in between.
Creepface.
Vonderdork.
Paratio.
She liked Paratio. It sounded like Horatio, but it also sounded like parasite.
It was definitely shorter that He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Come on, if you really wanted people to say a name and not bring attention to yourself, couldn't you be a little bit more creative? Though, from what Alastor had said, most people were so scared of the wizard, they didn't want to call him any name.
She stretched a little, rolling about in Socrates' coils which sent the purple-spotted bouncing spiders bouncing like popcorn before they settled back around her again, tucking themselves in all sorts of places to make sleep more comfortable. Her sleep, specifically. She was pretty sure they didn't mind where they slept as long as they weren't being set on fire or frozen to death.
Her master had tried to put them back in their habitat, which had always sufficed before, but every morning they'd be tucked around her like a bed of living moss— eight-legged sentient moss. With eyes.
Snape had said she spoiled them, but he didn't make her force them back in the cage unless they had to be there for class, to which they would begrudgingly shuffle in, if only to spring back out as soon as class was over and find her wherever she was in the school. Sometimes they'd glide by her on a raft of soap suds in the bath, and there were times they even offered her a bar of soap.
It was hard not to love them. They were so helpful. Even her head-snakes liked them. She was pretty sure each snake had a favourite spider mate, and they plotted mischief and biscuit thievery together.
Snape found it amusing, even if he didn't outright say so. Hermione knew if he was well and truly irritated, he wouldn't hesitate to say something.
Hermione mumbled, pressing her face into a pile of fluffy spiders.
"Eeee!" they cried, They hugged her face with their legs and snuggled up to her.
"Good morning," she said.
"Morning!"
"Morning!"
Every headsnake gave a large morning yawn and picked up a spider as Hermione got up and scratched her arms sleepily.
"If this is my first year, what will the other years be like?" she asked to no one in particular.
"Either really calm," Socrates said.
"Or really chaotic," Zanique said.
"I wonder what a normal life is supposed to be like?"
"Normal for you is this," Zanique said. "Why fight it?"
Hermione scratched her head. "You're probably right. I can't imagine sitting in a library alone like I used to."
"Don't you like us?" a spider peered at her from atop Nag's head.
"Of course I do," Hermione said, leaning in to give both Nag and the spider a kiss on the nose and the back respectively.
The spider cheered, raising its legs in celebration.
"Well, I guess it's time to face the day," Hermione chuckled.
She pulled on her robes and shuffled out into the next room right into— an explosion.
"Master?" she squeaked, looking around. "What's wrong?"
"The price of success, Apprentice," Severus said. "Some healers from Mungo's sent a list of people with whom they wish to try the treatment. Some of them, are not dying, but they are at the end of their treatment options. They wish us to meet with some of the petitioners and get their stories on why they think it's worth the risk."
Hermione frowned. "Though it hasn't. It could kill them. Surely they know that?"
"Some think it worth the risk to a lifetime of nothing."
Hermione sighed. "I wouldn't ever want to be in such a position, trying to decide if someone I cared about was better off risking death for a chance to recover." Hermione sat down in one of the chairs and stifled a yawn. "How many of these interviews are there?"
"Twenty," Snape said. "Ranging from cases that have been around far too long to those that are dire, indeed."
"And none of them feel like they can wait?" Hermione asked, frowning.
"The healers have whittled the list down from well over a hundred cases. These are the ones that were left. Are you up to sitting through the interviews? Since you are the one that makes the potion, ultimately, it is your choice as to what you have time for. I have told them I will stand by your decision regardless of what it is. You should not feel obligated that just because you have a possible solution that you must exercise it now. And, Miss Granger—"
Hermione lifted her head. "Yes?"
"Do not feel like one particular answer will earn either my approval or disapproval. The choice is yours alone, and I am happy with either outcome."
Hermione smiled, brushing her head-snakes back. "I guess I should look into the list. Every patient we help adds another notch to our potion's rate of success ."
"As you wish," Snape said, saying nothing more, but there was a small smile tugging at his lips as he picked up the next round of scrolls.
"Please, you must let me see her!"
"Mrs Weasley, it is two-thirty in the morning," Dumbledore said, adjusting his purple sleeping hat and his spectacles. He shifted in his chair and frowned. "What could possibly be so important?"
"My Charlie! He's dying! He has to have the treatment!"
"I am very sorry to hear that, but as I understand it, Mrs Weasley, that treatment is still in a highly uncertain testing phase," Dumbledore said.
"We don't care! It's the only chance my Charlie has!"
Albus stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I highly doubt that you do not care, Mrs Weasley. I do, however, question whether you are in a fit state to make such critical decisions. Why are you here and not at your, or rather, Charlie's healer?"
"He's treating my Charlie!"
"So he IS being treated."
Molly wrung her hands. "That's beside the point!"
"What, then, is the point?" Dumbledore asked. "I'm not trying to be unkind, Molly, but you're asking me to wake up not only one of our professors but his twelve-year-old apprentice as well."
"This has nothing to do with age or privilege! This is a life!"
"And you can tell me that you'd be here advocating the same if it was someone else's child?"
"Albus!" Molly pleaded. "Please! This is my Charlie! My CHARLIE!"
"Molly, you realised the position you are putting me in? If let you in, which I have, and you wake up all of Hogwarts, you will have just started a trend that will have every mother or father in wizarding Britain with a family crisis arriving at all hours to ask some sort of favour."
"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore!" Molly screeched. "My family has known yours for ages! I'm not asking you to break any rules! I am asking you to help save a life! My boy's life! My Charlie's life! For Merlin's sake, Albus! After all we've done to support you! The Order! The—"
"Molly!" Albus snapped, his eyes hardening.
Molly wrung her hands. "Please, Albus, please! I'm begging you! I don't want to have to tell my sons that Charlie is dead!"
"What do you mean, mum?" Fred and George blurted as they walked in with Percy, escorted by the Head Boy. Ron came stumbling in behind, sleepy and extra groggy.
"What's wrong with Charlie?"
"Is he dead?"
"He can't be dead!"
"What happened?!"
"Nothing!" Molly cried. "Your Headmaster was just explaining to me how he won't help your dying brother!"
"WHAT?!" the boys cried together.
"We have to go visit your brother in the hospital in Romania where he's going to DIE even though there is a cure here! Right here at Hogwarts!"
"I believe it is now time for you to leave, Mrs Weasley. Your sons are all excused from class for the entire week. I expect them back by the start of next week."
"Albus, please, I'm sorry—"
"No, Molly, you are not sorry. You are not sorry at all," Dumbledore said quietly. "You may use my office Floo to transport your family to St Aloysius."
Molly abruptly seemed to realise she had just burnt the very last bridge she had ever wanted to. Then she and her sons quickly disappeared into the green flames of Dumbledore's floo.
"Tea, Mr Weasley?" Hermione asked as the Weasley patriarch sat down in what was normally "her" seat.
"Yes, please, my dear, thank you," Arthur gushed, his hands trembling with fatigue.
Hermione waited for Snape to re-enter the room, having spoken with the healer that was on Charlie's case.
"How are you, Hermione?" Arthur's face was tormented and tired, but he still managed a smile for her.
"Good, I guess," Hermione answered, not sure what the proper answer was right now or if he was really asking her such a question.
"I was sorry to hear what my youngest son put you through, truly."
"It's not your fault, Mr Weasley," Hermione said gently.
Arthur seemed somewhat dubious, but he nodded in acceptance. "It's kind of you to think so."
As Arthur sipped his tea, Hermione tilted her head, seemingly listening to something Arthur couldn't see. "I think perhaps Molly and I put so much pressure on our children to follow us that we forget they are their own people. We expect them to be in Gryffindor, but there are times I wonder if they'd be better suited in a different one. Ron, especially. I never wanted him to think that if you weren't in Gryffindor that somehow you were a failure."
"It's okay, Mr Weasley," Hermione said. "I was picked on even when I was in Gryffindor. My master says that some people want find reasons to pick on a particular person, even if it's based on a lie. After a while, they even come to believe it."
Arthur flinched guiltily. "He would know."
Severus returned to the room with a soft whoosh of cloth, the Romanian healer beside him. "Thank you, Master Snape," the master healer sighed. "I would not have come to you if I did not believe the case to be dire indeed, and we have, since this morning, exhausted all other treatments. The burn unit can only make him comfortable, but his body is already going into shock."
Snape nodded, pulling out a small vial of golden liquid from one of the many shelves. "One drop to the burn bath every fifteen minutes. Do not add more or it will cause a cascade that goes too fast. No matter how dire his condition. It must be introduced to his system very slowly as he is far too weak yet to heal himself. Too much too soon and he will in all likelihood die from the stress. Keep him on the life supportive spells. All this comes from St Mungo's Master Healer Benjamin Flagstone, with whom we've worked with extensively. If you have any questions, he has been notified to expect your Patronus.
"Given the seriousness of his condition, you may need to keep in him the soaking bath until he's entirely stable, but again, I would contact Flagstone for the specifics."
"Mulțumesc," Master Healer Petrescu said, clasping Snape's hand and bowing his head. The healer rushed up to Hermione and knelt, taking her hand and pressing his lips to the backs of her hands. "Bless you for your potion, Apprentice Granger. I know we were not on the list to receive the serum to test, but I thank you for allowing us to have some for Mr Weasley."
Hermione flushed pink but shook her head. "I hope it helps. It's so new. There's no guarantee—"
The healer clasped her hand and smiled. "Sometimes we must remember that we are wizards but we are also people of great faith. I have faith that it will work. Are you one to pray?"
"I have learned to pray to Athena," Hermione admitted.
"Then I shall leave an offering to her as I thank her for you," the healer said warmly, giving her a gentle hug. "Mulțumesc," he thanked her.
With that, the healer swept towards the floo, stepped in, said something in rapid Romanian, and vanished in a fwoosh of green flames and Floo-ash. Arthur, seeming to realise that something highly significant had just happened, dove in after so quickly that he Flooed away with his tea cup still clutched tightly in his hand.
Hermione eyed her master with some confusion.
"Thank you," Severus said. "You may not realise this, but you have proven you are a far better person of moral character than most. Even if Mr Weasley does not spread the tale, Healer Petrescu certainly will, so when the time comes that you need a favour, my apprentice, you will have far more to work with than the blind hope that someone thinks highly enough of you to grant you assistance."
Hermione rubbed her head-snakes and then smiled.
"Ooo! What's in the hamper?" Theo asked curiously as he thumped down beside Hermione and Draco. He let his legs dip into the water and kicked them out a bit.
"I'm not sure," Hermione said. "My master said it was lunch and we are not to make craven swine of ourselves and eat it all at once."
"That's Snape, alright," Theo laughed.
"Odd not to see more Gryffindors out making stupid on the green," Pansy said.
"I think they are being overly cautious after what happened to the bullies," Blaise said, staring with disapproval at the carp latched onto his toe.
"Well there is the entire real-life basilisk thing," Draco said. "Authorised with specialised shades or not— most people don't really respond well to the idea of giant snakes that can petrify you with a mere glance."
"Any snakes, really," Pansy said, idling scratching a fuzzy purple spider under the belly.
"Eeeee!" the spider cooed, hugging Pansy's fingers in gratitude.
"Speaking of idiots," Blaise said. "Where the hell are Crabbe and Goyle?"
"No idea," Draco said. "I think they are allergic to African Purple-Spotted Bouncing Spiders."
"Really?" Pansy said. She coaxed a few more spiders into her hands and pet them more openly.
Blaise snorted. "Gosh, Pansy. You'd think you didn't like them."
"I'd like them to keep away from me, thanks," Pansy grumbled. "They are Slytherin's answer to Seamus Finnigan and Neville Longbottom in Potions class."
"I heard they turned their mice into matchboxes but the matchboxes were all burnt," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose.
"You heard correctly," Blaise laughed. "Flitwick started yelling at them in that squeaky voice of his because they turned the floor into ice by accident."
"Trying to do what, exactly?"
"Make a feather float."
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. "Their own worst enemies, I tell you."
"I think the squid is sad," Hermione said. "No one is playing with him today."
"We could go over to that side of the lake, if you want," Draco said. "We can just move the hamper and blankets—"
"And Pansy's huge honking umbrella!" Blaise teased.
"Shut it, Zabini!"
Blaise chuckled and stood up, folding the blankets.
The trip to the other side of the lake took only a few minutes, and by the time they had replaced their "base camp" all the children had jumped into the water with glee. The squid had found a ball to toss, and the basilisks eagerly teamed up with the squid to play keepaway.
"Not fair!" Draco sputtered as the squid promptly pegged him with the ball. That had, of course, resulted in everyone else pegging him with the ball too.
Draco spouted water like a fountain, looking quite disgruntled.
The children teamed up trying to get the squid and the basilisks set up as living waterslides, and they squealed with glee as they zoomed down the serpent's backs only to be drawn up by the squid and cast down its long feeder tentacles.
"Hey! Is there any room for me in all this fun?" Harry complained good-naturedly from the shore.
The Slytherins exchanged glances just before playfully pegging Harry with every ball they had.
"Oi! Hey!" Harry laughed, sloshing into the water, shivering a little as the colder water shocked his system.
"You're just lucky that Hermione vouches for you," Theo said. "Otherwise we'd sic Blaise on you."
Blaise harrumphed.
The squid interrupted the conversation as it dragged all them under just long enough to cause them to sputter while getting back to the surface. The happier squid seemed much more playful than the usual, having finally found playmates that didn't move away to other parts of the lake.
"Hey, Scarhead, where is the rest of Gryffindor anyway?"
Harry rubbed his perpetually messy head. "I think they tried to take over the other side of Hogwarts and got ambushed by a giant tree."
The others exchanged wide-eyed glances. "They're out there getting the daylights beaten out of them by a tree?"
Harry sighed. "I honestly don't know. They don't really tell me much of anything anymore. Ron told a whole bunch of people that I was 'fraternising with the enemy'."
"Big words," Theo said. "Does he even know what that means?"
Harry just shrugged. "He thinks he does."
"Browl!" Fang stood at the shore of the lake, his tail wagging furiously.
"What are you doing out here, boy?" Harry called to the boarhound.
Fang woofed, playbowing.
"Well, come on in then," Harry invited. "You'll probably smell better after a nice dip anyway."
The boarhound leapt in, paddling around. No sooner than he was in the water, a raft full of purple spiders drifted by carrying a bar of soap and they set upon the dog in a flurry, scrubbing him down so fast that Fang didn't even realise he was clean until he seemed startled that he didn't smell the same anymore.
Pansy snickered into the back of her hand. "That was totally worth it," she giggled.
Harry chuckled as Fang slogged back out of the water just in time to shake, shake, shake, shake all over Hagrid.
Hagrid stood dripping wet, leaving new trails of clean across his dirt-covered face.
The bouncing spiders seemed to get a look of intensive concentration on their faces, multiple fangs clacking together as they pondered something.
Suddenly the squid reached out to wrap its tentacles around Hagrid's legs and drag him into the water, and the spiders leapt upon him, all carrying soap bars, and they lathered him down in a huge cloud of suds.
The children scurried out of the water, trying to avoid the sudsy cleaning frenzy, making a beeline to the picnic hamper.
Later, as Minerva walked down the bank to check on the children, she found herself facing a tower of giant-shaped foam that smelled strongly of lemons with a twist of orange and lime— and just a smattering of kelp.
"Hagrid?" Minerva greeted, her eyes wide with astonishment.
"Yes'm?" Hagrid answered, spitting out a mouthful of soap suds.
"What in— what on earth happened to you?" Minerva's shoulders were quaking in suppressed mirth, but she worked hard to hold it together for the sake of propriety.
"I'm not quite sure ma'am, but I think the squid thought I needed a little… something," Hagrid replied.
The squid chose that time to dump a large bucket of water all over Hagrid, rinsing off the suds off before disappearing into the depths of Black Lake.
"I'm, uh, going to get meself a fresh change of clothes," Hagrid said awkwardly, trundling off to his hut.
Minerva rubbed her ear. "I think that's the freshest smelling I've ever associated with Hagrid," she said not to anyone in particular.
"EAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A shockingly loud male scream came from up the hill.
Minerva and the students went running full tilt up the path, keeping pace with Minerva as she blazed a trail like her feet were on fire.
"Me hut!" Hagrid wailed. "What happened to me beautiful hut?!"
Hagrid prostrated himself in front of what should have been his hut, but the hut had undergone a strange and dramatic transformation.
The window glass was clear as crystal, the stones were all freshly grouted and reset to be perfectly even, the fences were repaired and repainted, and the door was standing wide open. Inside, the furniture was glistening with lemon-scented polish, the rubbish had been removed, the broken baskets that Hagrid had been meaning to fix but never got around to it were repaired and hanging in neat clusters, the curtains were cleaned and repaired, the books that no one realised he had were neatly shelved on bookcases no one knew he had either—
His large bed was restuffed with the quilts washed so thoroughly that the colours stood out brightly again. The mantle above the enormous hearth was decorated in candles with their wicks trimmed and old wax removed. The huge pile of ash in the hearth was gone. There were rugs on the floor, and they no longer looked like well-used Muggle mudflaps.
And Fang was blissfully curled up in a large dog bed that had mysteriously appeared in the midst of the chaos of cleanliness, all four legs up in the air and toes curled as he let out a happy canine moan of pure pleasure.
A trail of purple-spotted spiders skittered by Hagrid, unnoticed.
"Job's done!"
"Phew!"
"We found the floor!"
"We found the ceiling!"
"We found the door!"
"Did you know there were five cats living in there?"
"And a hedgehog."
"And an entire seventeen generations of rodents."
"They didn't like the lemon-scented cleaner though."
"They left."
"We repaired the door."
"And the roof."
"And the cracks in the windows."
"We're going to go take a nap now."
"Goodnight!"
"Yup, later!"
"I'm going to sleep for a week."
"Oh, and we found a house-elf buried under a pile of moth-eaten blankets."
Minerva watched the trail of spiders skittering back up towards Hogwarts. "I think Albus needs to see this to believe it."
Albus stood on the path to Hagrid's hut and admired the well-polished lanterns that lit the way to the building. It had been a very long time since the lanterns had been lit— or even found for that matter. The paddocks were now properly repaired, the garden wall was no longer a crumbling ruin, and he could no longer smell the inside of Hagrid's hut the moment he stepped out of the castle.
Many of the faculty said that Hagrid surely had to come inside Hogwarts to get fresh air rather than the opposite. Some of them had come to habitually cast air freshening charms whenever the half-giant sat near them at the Head Table. Albus, however, had tried to come up with a gentle way of telling the well-meaning half-giant that he really should bathe more than once a month and that the smell of hippogriff and wet dog was not something that everyone enjoyed.
Smiling to himself, he waved his wand surreptitiously to add a few extra "reinforcements" to the miraculous cleanliness that had blessed the hut— self-repair and self-cleaning charms, dust and mud-repellant, and a clever shoes-at-the-door charm that his own mother had been fond of.
Now that you could actually see the floor, he rather wanted to keep it that way. Even Fang seemed so much happier. He definitely smelled better.
"Hagrid, my dear friend," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "I truly love what you've done with the place. Shall we share a nice brandy to celebrate?"
Hagrid immediately burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Yes? Excellent," Albus said, waving his hand to summon the bottle of Muggle brandy and a pair of snifters. "I, for one, will sleep a little better knowing that your place is so much more conducive to your health, old friend. No more mice nesting in your beard when you wake up."
Hagrid continued to wail loudly as though Albus had taken away his pet dragonet (again).
Albus sipped his brandy and wore an utterly serene look on his face as though he was listening to the symphony orchestra. The smile tugged at his lips as his blue eyes twinkled— extra mischievously.
Severus woke to a spider on his face.
It was a cute and adorable, fluffy spider, but it was still a spider.
"Hrmph."
The spider jumped up into the air, startled and scurried off into the dimness of the room, leaving a trail of silk behind it to mark where it had jumped off him and the bed to escape.
Rumours of Albus' drinking celebration in the wake of Hagrid's newly spider-cleaned hut had travelled far and wide, and just about everyone, staff included—hell, even the elves—were celebrating.
Pixie, the unfortunate house-elf that had been pinned under a pile of rubble and lost for months, had been so thoroughly buried that she hadn't been able to elf-Apparate out of there. All the other elves didn't even think to check Hagrid's place and they had made some sort of solemn oath never to go there long before then. Pixie, however, had taken it upon herself to try and help out, and it hadn't ended well for her. Poppy was doing her best to nurse the emaciated house-elf back to whatever house-elf normal was. She had said it was a good thing house-elves survive half on magic and only little if any food.
As Snape grunted, pulling on some fresh robes and wandering into the bathroom to brush his teeth, he tripped.
As he pulled himself off the bedroom carpet, he found one small strand of silk had curls around his foot and caused his literal downfall.
Snape's shoulders shook, and he belted out laughter, causing his apprentice to burst in on him to check if he was having a fit or some sort of insanity potion gone wrong— or all too right.
"Master?!" Hermione cried. "Are you okay?"
Snape uncurled the silk from his foot and collected it, following it to where the spider had cut it off somewhere near the doorway.
"I'm fine," he said, collecting himself. "But this—" he chuckled again. "This stuff is gold."
Hermione eyed it critically. "But, it's just a silk thread, Master."
Snape smiled smugly. "Not just any silk, Apprentice. It is super strong spider silk."
"Erm, okay?" Hermione said, working on how that was cause for her Master to be laughing so out of character in the middle of his bedroom floor.
Snape gestured for her to come closer, and Hermione did so, still wearing a completely puzzled expression.
"You recall how our mutual friend, Alastor, plays the violin, yes?"
Hermione nodded. "He's amazing."
Snape snorted softly. "I see he's charmed you as well."
Hermione crossed her arms across her chest, looking a lot like a certain Snape. "He's good."
"I do not question it," Severus said. "But if you have ever seen him get really into his playing, you'll notice he de-hairs his bow strings."
"The last one bonked Amelia on the nose."
Snape turned to stare at Hermione.
"It was hilarious!" Hermione confessed.
Snape rolled his eyes. "Anyway a small in-house project has been circulating ever since we first found out he was playing gigs at a Muggle pub. We are trying to get him to play for us, and he made the mistake of saying—" Snape cleared his throat. "'When ye can die me a bow 'tha dosnae snap th'strings when I'm pla'in a Scottish temper, then I'll play in front ay a crowd'."
Hermione stared at Snape in wonder, taking in his accent— or rather Moody's strong Scottish lilt. "So you want to make him a bow that doesn't snap strings?"
Severus nodded. "I just tripped over one strand of spider silk on the way to the bathroom. One single strand. If our spider friends could string this bow, we could see if the challenge has been met, hrm?"
Purple-spotted spiders popped up between the head-snakes, curious as cats. "We could do that."
"Yes."
"This could be fun!"
Snape placed the empty bow down on the table. "This here is the tension screw that pulls the fibers, usually made of horsehair, unicorn hair for the more exotic witch or wizard, or thestral hair for billionaires. Each has their own quirks. Unicorn hair bows make for epic, bright sound. Thestrals make for sorrowful, mournful tones. They tried mermaid hair, and it made wet, squeaking sounds that no one liked."
Hermione frowned. "You have no idea what this will sound like."
Severus shook his head. "No. But, I am willing to see if we can succeed where other Unspeakables have failed."
"How long have you all been trying?" Hermione asked.
Snape sighed. "About as long as you have been alive."
Hermione's eyes widened and she whispered onto one of the spiders. It perked and had a conference with the other spiders. Then, they all bounced off her head and landed on the bow, setting to work.
Hermione nudged her master. "Maybe we should start a new class. In, um, spider-crafting."
Snape snorted. "I think we'll just keep this to ourselves for now. We can't tell people all of our secrets."
Hermione grinned and then went back to watching the busy spiders dutifully putting their skills to work.
Winter blew in like the cruel mistress it tended to be, covering everything in a coat of ice and snow so thick that even the giant squid had resorted to hiding itself away deep in Black Lake's more briney murk. January ninth came in under about twenty feet of snow that had blown in from the sea and dumped right on top of Hogwarts, making the celebrating of Severus' Snape's birthday a somber affair at the Department of Mysteries.
Fortunately for the DoM, nothing involving Unspeakable celebrations was ever small. The bakers brought in a large storm cloud-shaped birthday cake with Snape's favourite dark chocolate cake buried under a mountain of rich buttercream frosting, and the decorations were performing a duel with each other as the cake was sliced. In a perfect act of Slytherin-Unspeakable cunning, when Alastor stated he hadn't had time to get him a gift this year, Severus had given him the gift of the bow explaining "he could make it up to him."
Moody had called it reverse-birthday-gift trickery, and Snape hadn't exactly denied it one bit. Alastor had tried his level best that night to play the bow into submission, but unfortunately (or fortunately) the spider silk accepted the rosin and played like a dream, making Moody's fiddling the talk of the DoM.
And there were about fifty orders for custom-made spider-silk bows on the books. Thankfully, the spiders worked for belly rubs and cuddles and were more than happy to oblige without arrogance or demands. A few intrepid magi-arachnologists came up asking what they fed their spiders and if they had noticed if the diet had anything to do with the quality of the silk. Snape told them all about their diet knowing full well that the silk had to do with the happiness of the spider, and nothing made African Purple-Spotted Bouncing Spiders happier than Hermione Granger and her head full of spider-loving snakes.
He'd been raising the spiders for years and had never noticed the quality of silk in all of those years— the only thing that had changed was Hermione in the equation.
Let them try and reproduce that, he thought. Heh.
The spiders had, he admitted, shown no inclination to show their talents until they found someone they wanted to impress, and while they dutifully allowed themselves to be "milked" for their venom as long as no one got too handsy with them and squeezed them too hard, they hadn't show the outright problem solving and desire to help as they did with Hermione. Somehow, the young Gorgon had charmed them and gained their loyalty as surely as she wanted to please him. That in itself was a humbling thought.
Hermione, thanks to a certain tabby cat that liked to stick her paws in everyone's business, told the young witch that Snape's birthday was coming up, and she had made him the first— well, second if you counted Minerva being her test victim— pair of silk basilisk socks made with the help of all of her friends, the attached and non. The spiders helped her weave the basilisk shed into an amazingly soft sock that could stand up to almost anything, but unlike dragonhide, was flexible and comfortable. And, if that wasn't practical enough, they put together a hippogriff down quilt with pictograms like those found on old Grecian vessels, mimicking the old red and black clay-fired vases. Each panel told a story or part of one, from the creation of the first spider by Athena to the forgiveness of the line that became the African Purple-Spotted Bouncing Spider— to the gifting of Medusa that she may never be harmed again. Chasing a spider along the seams was a certain silver tabby that showed up in quite a few places, much as she did in life.
Hermione had smiled as her master had taken the quilt and brought it up to his face to feel the fabric and take in its scent, a tug of a smile on his lips.
"Thank you," Snape had said warmly, and that was all Hermione needed.
Weeks passed, and the closest holiday closed in: Burns Night.
In celebration of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, the planning of the Burns Supper had the houses buzzing with crafts and activities. Professor Flitwick had the choir singing Auld Lang Syne, and Minerva was teaching the house-elves to "cook properly instead of that other slop."
Hermione helped the house-elves hang sparkling blue and white flakes of snow on a strand of spider silk with the help of her ever-so-happy-to-help entourage of bouncing spiders. Minerva had approved of the colours of Scotland mirrored in the flakes.
Hagrid had found out that for some inexplicable reason, he was welcome at the Head Table with a little more enthusiasm. He blamed it on the lack of chicken blood from feeding "well, from feedin' Fl— ah, shouldna said tha'. Well, feeding the animals, ya know."
Hermione had perked at the slip, and Snape and Minerva had quickly switched the conversation over to talk of postponing the Sorting for the second year, allowing incoming students to be in a united Hogwarts House until they got their bearings. Their hope was that in fostering friendships in their first year that they would be less likely to consider changes in house as making someone their "enemy" and instead "their friends in another house." There was also talk about allowing all current students, if they wanted to, to be Sorted again with the justification that it took a child some time and work to become what they would most likely always be. The discussion went well into the end of dinner with far more for than against— those against being more about tradition than practicality. Safety, however, was the key to the slant towards the change. Tradition was getting children hurt by clinging to the tenacious belief that "if you aren't with us, you're against us." Changes had to be made, or children would continue to be hurt.
Hermione had a lot of questions about Hagrid and most of them were currently unanswerable. Hagrid was a bit of an exception to every rule. Stories about him were highly contradictory, and she wasn't sure whether to sympathise or be wary of him.
Her more Slytherin mind-voice told her to be wary. Could she be wary and sympathise? Hermione had no idea. She was trying really hard to manage both for lack of any significant reason to avoid him as of yet. But at least now the poor hygiene issue was taken care of. As the apprentice at the table it was her job to " accidentally" spill things on him that just happened to have been laced with a heavy-duty odor dampening potion. Hagrid surely thought she was the clumsiest chit on earth, even worse than Sybill Trelawney.
Personally, Hermione thought Sybill Trelawney was the very worst person to be compared to, so she hoped her name didn't come up in the same breath as that bug-eyed witch who really used any (and she did mean any) excuse to touch her master's butt.
Hermione shuddered.
She was his apprentice, and she hardly understood the fascination. Maybe it was some sort of adult— thing.
Some really odd adult thing.
Trelawney had once claimed that her vision was cloudy and the only way she could tune into it was to fondle Snape's bum. Her master had, of course, stepped out of the way of the arse-seeking witch, allowing her to fall into the very long tentacles of the giant squid— where she proceeded to snog the squid like it was a long-lost lover. Many traumatised children later (not to mention the poor squid itself) Trelawney was taken to the infirmary to treat the numerous dark purple suckermarks on her own bum.
Hermione's lesson for that evening was how to dodge highly intoxicated people without getting vomitus all over yourself. Words and lessons for life, as far as Hermione was concerned. Anything that kept her free from icky vomit was more than okay with her. The lesson for the sober-up potion was after all, as Snape taught ther that no matter how hard you tried, eventually someone would be drunk around her that she needed to be sobered up in a hurry.
It wasn't one of her more exciting lessons, but she did have to admit it was quite practical. He had taught her how to add drops to alcohol to take out all of the alcohol content as well as neutralise any drugs that might have been added to it— that had been a fun one and useful for accepting drinks in places you didn't trust the person or the drink.
Poison really wasn't a problem for her, but why risk it when you didn't have to? The only side effect he hadn't been able to counter was that if there were toxins or drugs in the drink, it coagulated into a large, bottle-trapped, red-capped lionhead goldfish, which was probably why it wasn't terribly popular outside of other Potions masters— then again. If you had an aquarium of goldfish back home, one might wonder if it was worth dating at all.
Snape had given her a alchemist's finger gauntlet for Christmas— a goblin silver shield for her index finger that also doubled as a delivery system for potions. In ancient times, alchemists would wear the good one on the right hand and the poisonous one on the left, but she used hers to carry doses of the drink-detection potion. All she had to do was slip her fingertip into the rim of the drink and one drop of the potion would dispense. She had tested it, of course, filling an aquarium with red-capped lionhead goldfish until she was convinced it wasn't a fluke.
Lord Malfoy had shown her some interesting techniques that many purebloods learned from an early age— poisoning each other had apparently become an outright social trend and for some time now. It made her very glad she didn't live back then.
Besides, if she really wanted to poison someone, gosh, wherever could she get some poison? Gabby the Gaboon viper peered at her from above, making an upside down serpent face of curiosity. Hermione had smiled back, giving the viper a tender kiss.
Now, if she could just keep Rose and Penny out of the jelly blocks and the marshmallow fruit salad— people would stop looking at her like she wanted to dip her hair in food all of the time.
Hermione sighed. That would be like asking Chicka to not strike at anything and everything that moved around her.
You could lead a snake to water but—
Hermione thumped her head against the High Table, already feeling Jig sticking his head in the cream. There were bagpipes playing from the sidelines, played with actual bagpipers, and she tried to focus on the music instead of the fact her head-snakes were sampling the food without her.
Dumbledore stood up and walked up to the podium, clearing his throat as the place got quiet. "Good evening, my friends, children. Good evening," he greeted. "Today, we have a very special night planned, but before we continue we must, as tradition demands, say grace."
"Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some was eat that want it;
But we he meat, and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit."
Dumbledore clapped his hands. "Soup starts off our course this evening. Be sure to enjoy the cock-a-leekie and cullen skink, as it comes from a family recipe we have been blessed to have shared with us."
Dumbledore sat down as the elves popped in, opening the lids to the large soup kettles before disappearing. As conversation began again in earnest, Dumbledore stood again. "If everyone could please stand while the haggis is brought in," Dumbledore requested.
The pipers began to play "The Star O'Robbie Burns" and as that faded, Alastor Moody walked through the Great Hall, right down the center.
"Fair fa'your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o'the puddin-race!
Aboon them a'ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm.
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my airm.
Hermione listened as Alastor continued, but she admitted to herself that she loved to listen to his lilt far more than the words he was actually saying. Alastor was deep into it on this night, this night that was all Scot. The poem itself was epic, and Minerva had shared it with her on a few occasions in between teaching how to make a proper haggis and the custom of piping in the haggis on Burn's night. As Minerva's new daughter, it was her job to teach her how to be a proper McGonagall, so even when she wasn't learning potions, she was always learning something.
Alastor had drawn his knife and made to sharpen it as he continued reciting the poem, causing the children to gasp as if they were at a parade when the men wielding scimitars came around, twirling them like batons.
"Ye Pow'rs wha make mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o'fare,
Auld Scotland wants ne skinkin ware,
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer,
Gie her a haggis!
With that, Alastor made a gesture with his knife and all the table haggis' split down the center from end to end, causing all the children to cheer. Alastor smiled as his "knife" transformed back into his wand, and he tucked it away. The neeps and tatties were passed around as the children took some of the haggis. Some of them looked a bit dubious as to the edible nature of the haggis, but when watching the head table eat it without hesitation, many closed their eyes and thought of England only to find out they liked it far better than they expected.
Moody was honoured as a guest to the Head Table, and Dumbledore served him personally, giving a toast to his guest and the haggis. Dumbledore made the comment that he hadn't really expected the haggis to go over so well, but both Moody and Minerva scoffed at him, reminding him that Hogwarts was in Scotland, and no man, woman, or child would dare disgrace the haggis "here of all places."
Once the food had been enthusiastically devoured, Dumbledore made his way to the podium again. He spread his arms wide. "Today we have a first, and something that I think will be a real treat for us here at Hogwarts. To celebrate the end of our Burn's Night Supper, our honoured guest will treat us to the very first showing of his talent with the fiddle. Please, help me welcome our friend, Auror Moody, as he shows us that just because you catch Dark Wizards doesn't mean you don't have other talents."
Dumbledore clapped, and the Head Table clapped with him. The children seemed a little dubious, clapping half-heartedly.
But the moment the first sliding notes came off Alastor's violin. Had the children expected something more boring or something from a guy sitting down with music in front of him, all doubts went flying out the Great Hall in a whoosh of magic and music.
His bow flew across the strings so fast that it was hard to tell where his hand was. His fingers went up and down the board— up and down, up and down, to a placement that seemed to known only to him. The ghosts danced to the music, gliding across the Great Hall to the reels, and the notes—
Hermione's head-snakes swayed back and forth in musical celebration, and she wasn't alone. People were stomping their feet to the beat, others clapped, and some even got up and danced. Even Peeves hovered motionless in the rafters, a strange expression of peace having wiped the normally malicious look right off his face. Socrates and Zanique bobbed their heads in appreciation, doing their own serpentine dance while remaining around Hermione's neck.
The stars seemed to come down from the ceiling and dance with them, and they swirled around the Great Hall, filling it with the depths of space made tangible. One song flowed into another and another as seamless as the meeting of water. By the time the music had stopped, it was like the entire hall had held its breath just before the thundering applause filled in the silence.
Auror Moody gave a slight bow, emotion choking him up as the music had moved him to somewhere both deep inside himself and so far away. As he put his fiddle away into its case and strapped his bow lovingly into the top, a small purple-spotted spider bounced up and down on the lid of his case. He scooped the arachnid up with a smile. He gently pressed his lips to the spider's furry back, and the spider ran around in his hand in an excited circle before hugging his thumb with its forelegs. "Thanks, ye wee thing," he said with a smile.
The spider cooed softly and spronged off Moody's hand to scurry across the table and up Hermione's arm to hide in her "hair".
Snape gave Moody a brief nod before turning his head away in a disturbingly convincing scowl of disgust. Alastor gave Hermione a wink just before he snarled at Snape, calling him a disgrace of a teacher for Hogwarts.
But whatever tension may have come with their feigned animosity, it disappeared as conversations shifted to ask Moody where he had been hiding all of that talent that no one had even suspected him of.
Hermione yawned as her head-serpents echoed her sentiment. After listening to her master and Alastor yell at each other in public, he had come in to spend the night with them, yelling old Scottish stories and how he'd grown up. Hermione was all ears and snake heads, and Snape had allowed Draco to sneak in and listen too. Pansy tailed him like the Slytherin she was, and she spend the rest of the night on the carpet with Draco, soaking in the old Auror's tales with greedy fascination.
Hermione had too, but she had to finish up the brewing of the Caduceus Elixir for the next in line for testing out treatments on the last chance list. A few emergencies had her scrambling, not out of obligation, but the knowledge that there were people out there literally in their last moments that could be saved by the potion.
Could be, she warned herself. Just because it hadn't not worked yet didn't mean it couldn't backfire. The potion could be like her countenance, dangerous even when hidden under the cover of something innocuous.
The Head Boy came in to report that Pansy and Draco were not in their beds, and two sheepishly left Snape's quarters after he gave them the obligatory cover snarl that they better not do whatever the hell they did again. Or else. It must have worked, Hermione figured, as the Head Boy looked sympathetic to the pair's tongue lashing. It made her glad to know that her life was blissfully uncomplicated when it came to sleeping arrangements. There were three places she could be: in her quarters, with McGonagall, or with the centaurs. Okay, four. She could bunk down at the DoM, but that was decidedly more rare and only happened when Snape had to leave on some task and Minerva and the centaur were busy all at the same time. Not impossible, she figured, but not often.
As it was, she trusted her master in a way she felt safe. That safety was, if she admitted to herself, something rare after trying to come to terms that her parents would just—give her up.
She'd finally accepted that acknowledging that your daughter was a mythical monster that could literally stone people to death was probably a bit much to take in, even for an understanding family. She also accepted that she was lucky she had those that were willing to.
Mal and Border peered at her, tongue flicking, and she smiled, drawing the coral snakes close to her face and closing her eyes. The two coral snakes yawned meaningfully at her, reminding her that sleep was not just for the weak.
"You going to be able to handle working with Remus Lupin come next term, Severus?" Moody asked, causing Hermione to blink blearily from her warm cocoon of blankets by the fire.
"Must I?" Snape answered with a weary sigh.
"Dumbledore wants him in to replace Quirrell, as I understand it," Moody said.
"Fan-tastic," Severus replied, rubbing his nose. "As long as he doesn't attempt to pick up where he left off, I am willing to tolerate him, Alastor."
"Of all of them, Severus, he was the one with the least amount of issues."
"Save one really big one."
Alastor scratched his head. "Yeah, the furry little problem. Maybe you could try making peace with him?"
"What? Want me to greet him with open arms and a bottle of flea dip?"
"Severus."
Snape grunted.
"You know he didn't mean to try and kill you. Those other idiots, well, that's a different story."
Severus sighed. "I know, Alastor. But you know that I've been subjected to more than just a little slice of hell at the hands of his cretinous 'friends'— friends that he would rather stand by in solidarity instead of being a man and telling the truth.
Alastor sighed and shook his head. "I know, old friend. I do."
"At least I am fairly certain Lupin is not a Death Eater."
Moody harrumphed. "Only fairly certain."
"There is the Fenrir Greyback issue. There is no telling what kind of loyalty he can't help." Snape's frown made his lips form into a straight line.
"I'll do my best, Alastor," Severus said after a long silence.
"That's all we can ask." Moody said. "At least you have a few months to prepare yourself."
"If he starts peeing in the corners of the school, I'm taking Miss Granger's mask off and telling her to give him a big hug."
Moody snorted. "Pass the scotch, ya ornery walkin' stormcloud."
"One more and I'm cutting you off," Snape said.
"Psh," Moody muttered. "Don't be a party pooper, Sheverush."
"Apprentice."
"Yes, Master?"
"Do roll out the guest cot, hrm?"
"Yes, Master!"
Hermione scurried to the cupboard and pulled out the miniature bed and set it down on the floor, scooting the couch over. She tapped the bed with her wand, and it expanded into a larger bed sized for an adult, complete with linens and pillows. She pulled out a warm quilt from the cupboard as well, flinging it out and over the linens, and then set up the folding privacy screens to give the intoxicated Auror some protection from the casual glance or the two a.m. spider or basilisk.
By the time Snape had finished putting the groggy ol' Scot to bed, Hermione had fallen asleep on the couch. Severus gathered her up as her sleepy head-snakes yawn-nibbled on his fingers, and he carried her to her quarters. He tucked her into her bed as Socrates and Zanique curled around her like a living nest. He placed the pillow under her head, tucking her head-snakes around so they didn't get pinched and pulled the blanket over her, a tug of a smile on his face as the purple-spotted bouncing spiders filled in all the spaces and cuddled with their unlikely mistress.
"Good night, apprentice," he said softly, blew out the candle, and swept from the room, closing the door behind him.
A/N: I'm craving Cinnabons. There will be no more chapters until I get one!
Spiders: rut-roh! Emergency situation! *scurries off to fetch Cinnabons*