Crouch walked through his office door, shutting it firmly and locking it behind him with a spell.
While she was walking Severus saw her, noticing that she was coming from the defense classroom. He had considered stopping her and testing the little witch, if for his own amusement, to see how upset or angry he could get her. However keeping a close eye on her face he noticed her eyes flashed in anger momentarily only to be replaced by what seemed like minor irritation.
It was her eyes flashing quickly with heated emotion that brought him back to her eyes that night on the ball. It had been months since then and her eyes still haunted him. The potions master quickly abandoned the idea. He had considered leaving the grounds in search of a witch in Knockturn Alley, but quickly threw that thought aside with Mad-eye Moody being in residence. He was already under enough scrutiny, he didn't need the old grizzled auror sniffing him for a…. call girl's perfume.
At least that's what he told himself to help him sleep at night. It was merely the knowledge that no witch there would have half the passion in her eyes the way that Miss Granger did that night. He had indeed lit up a few of their eyes for different reasons, namely his voice, but also for his equipment. The cards of fate hadn't given much of a face to look at, but they made up for it in other ways.
He would find a way to banish the girl from his thoughts! She was like the damned plague, having turned into a little epidemic amongst his hormonal Slytherins.
Thankfully they weren't obvious about it, but he knew what to look and listen for. If he hadn't been teaching for more than a decade, he was sure he would have been scarred for life. Sometimes he wished that their rooms weren't charmed, allowing for staff members to hear the students in their rooms, silencing charms or not. He knew it was a safety precaution, and he half-heartedly approved of their use of a silencing charm in general, but sometimes he wished he wasn't so thorough in his patrol.
Once the, now curly haired, witch had passed he shot an annoyed look at her back. It was technically her fault. He was pleased at first with the effect it had on his students that believed in the pureblood propaganda, now however it was simply annoying, if still effective.
He did get at least some sort of satisfaction at seeing their guilty faces when receiving letters from home, that he knew were mostly from family members reminding them about pureblood and their line and how to not let that muggle-loving headmaster corrupt them.
'Well bravo. The headmaster didn't even need to corrupt them. A muggleborn did it for him, and now all the skirt chasers have a dirty secret fantasy starring Miss Granger.'
The potions master continued walking down the hall, sneering slightly at the retired auror's door. With the Dark Mark getting darker, it was worrying, if not unexpected. The headmaster had assured him that there would be a time when it would come again, and the dark mark would be their warning sign. However, as expected as it was, regardless of the timeframe, he decided to stay as far away from Mad-eye as he was able lest he be accused of more crimes that he had not committed. More so because he still held enough clout that if framed correctly, could have him behind bars. He'd seen it happen more than enough times, and being marked would just expedite his supposed crime.
Crouch had used the magical eye to make sure that he was well and truly alone. He almost laughed despairingly to himself how well he had fallen into his act as the old grizzly like man, becoming just as paranoid.
He opened the older wizard's trunk, and found his captive down there.
"Hey, old man", he said fondly.
"Let's catch up on today, and while we're at it, I have mash for you. No gravy though, sorry."
Crouch lowered a plate of mashed potatoes down for the wizard in the trunk with his wand. The older wizard in the trunk sat up and grabbed the plate gratefully.
"Well then, catch me up, boy!" he growled up at the young man parading to be him.
"You remember Miss Granger, yes?"
"What you've told me about the lass. She's your private pupil, in't she?"
"That's the one."
"What about her?" he asked curiously.
While Crouch had told him her progress from time to time, what he covered, and questions on what he should cover with the witch, he never really spoke of her.
"I found out today, that she has the potential to be a wards mistress."
The old wizard was stunned and almost dropped his plate.
"What?", his voice was quiet as though afraid that it was a lie.
"Exactly! She was able to put up a small ward and key it to me!"
"The lass is a fourth year?"
"A fourth year who knows how to make wards!"
"What else?"
"Well I tried to trip her up with a cursed object, don't worry all benign your name won't be sullied, some NEWT level stuff. I expected her to miss the two small ones, which I shouldn't have, I should know this by now. But she did it. She did it, and just in case she missed one she put a ward around the box! A ward that she keyed to me so I could check it!"
"She key warded a box on the off chance she missed a curse?"
"Yeah!"
"Smart lass. Cursed objects shouldn't be gettin' by her."
"I told her that when we started on cursed objects for her private lessons. I even mentioned how some of the Death Eaters did it for fun."
The grizzled auror in the trunk snorted at him.
The Moody imposter rolled his eyes at the real Mad-eye knowing how he felt about the subject.
"Now that you know, what should I do? I don't want to tell the headmaster, no knowing what he'd do. But I also don't want her to go untrained with such a rare gift."
"Mail order the lass a few books, use my galleons. They're going to be hefty price. Use some of my pay as well. Start with that."
"Light, Dark, or Gray books?"
The older wizard frowned, looking at his stump leg in thought.
"… Light and Gray. Nothing Dark… not unless… not unless she might need it."
"Well considering HE is coming back by the end of the school year."
The grizzly wizard huffed, "Order one Dark book… Old... Rare. Useful."
"Actually sounds right up her alley considering taste in books. Old and obscure. Seems useless to most wizards."
"It's going to cost a leg!" he barked up at the younger wizard.
"Ha. Ha. Like that ever gets old."
The older wizard growled, "In my peg leg. There is a good amount of galleons. That book is going to be expensive. Expensive enough that Malfoy would be interested in purchasing it just to brag about how expensive it is. If you could use your own galleons, if not for such a suspicious purchase, I'd make you do it."
Crouch sighed as though he lost a battle, "Thanks, old man. I know she'll love it. I'll check over titles with you tomorrow. Do you need another blanket?"
Alastor looked at his stump leg again.
"Aye, for my leg. Ghost pains. And something else to read. It's gets damn boring in this blasted trunk!"
"Aye, old man, aye," Crouch teased fondly.
The next Monday morning brought the post and Hermione was anxious for her morning paper. It was her first subscription, even though her parents had their own. She was quite fed up with finding out information through taunts from the Slytherins, and it seemed as though the older students didn't much care for a subscription themselves. The few that did though, didn't bother sharing.
What she was not expecting however was the hate mail that had come in a flock because of that horrid Skeeter woman.
Hermione had taken the first letter from a gray owl, opened it.
"What on earth-?" she started reading it and her nostrils flared.
"Oh really!" she sputtered, her face going red.
"What's up?" Ron questioned.
"It's- oh how ridiculous-!"
She thrust the letter at Harry, who saw that it was not hand written, but composed from pasted letters that seemed to have cut out from the Daily Prophet.
"YOU are a WickEd girL. Harry Potter desErVes BeTteR. GO back wherE you cAMe from muGgle."
While all the other owls were trying to have their letter taken first, Hermione instead used her wand to take the letters instead of touching them. She knew that many witches had a great unhealthy fondness of Harry, and if this letter was any indication of the rest, it would be safer to inspect them than touch them first.
Four of the six were safe, She levitated all of them in front of her while she opened them after scanning them for curses or something equally ask foul so her friends could see them with her.
The first two were safe enough, even if the words were poison.
"They're all like it!"
"'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you…' 'You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn…' "
The third one didn't pass inspection and indeed held something foul. Undiluted bubotuber pus.
Hermione was quite grateful now that she had spent so much time with Professor Moody, or else she was sure that she would have opened up the letter and have come in contact with the foul substance.
She glared at the offending letter. How dare these witches target her! FOR WHAT!?
She inspected the next letter and opened it and read it aloud, "'I read in Witch Weekly about how you are playing Harry Potter false and that boy has had enough hardship and I will be sending you a curse by next post as soon as I can find a big enough envelope.'"
"Blimey," Ron exhaled, "I warned you not to annoy Rite Skeeter!"
"Shut up, Ronald!"
The petite red faced witch swished her wand, packaging her letters all together.
"Tell Professor Sprout that I've gone to see the Headmaster about something important."
She kept her letters at least a foot away from her, to prevent them from accidentally touching her. She considered putting a ward around them, but decided against it. She knew with how Professor Moody reacted that it was a skill that she would have to keep to herself for a while. She got up and turned on her heel, heading up to the Headmaster's tower.
'I'll ask Neville what we've done in Herbology since it's his best subject. That Skeeter woman is playing with me, well let's see how much she likes it when I play back.'
The next night at her private lesson with Crouch imposter Moody, he praised her for her thinking and found himself agreeing with the half-giant over the advice to stop opening the hate letters. He was concerned that witches were targeting his pupil, some of them with obvious pureblood beliefs that he himself used to believe. He knew that witches would be offended for The-Boy-Who-Lived, however he was reminded of how spiteful and petty upper class witches tended to be.
Especially those who read the rags that Rita Skeeter had articles in. That witch was a real piece of work, but had enough writing out there to be well known and considered credible. If only he could be a fly on the wall to find out how it was that Rita found her information.
With the recent flashes of hate mail however, he decided it would be best to do a refresher on how to scan objects and such for curses and harmful objects. He even decided to teach her some gray spells that would catch some of the curses undetectable by light spells alone. They were gray enough that they weren't considered dark, per say, but definitely weren't illegal.
The purebloods would be coming out of the Forbidden Forest for this one, and he would be sure that his pupil would know what to look for and how to protect herself from the masses. He was sure that he would only be there until the end of the year when things would start to go tits up, and he wanted to make sure his pupil was as well prepared as he could get her in a year.
He was also glad for his innate Slytherin discretion when ordering the books or else he was sure if he had mentioned names or anything extra as to why he wanted them. He was sure if he mentioned names, like Miss Granger a student with potential, or something of the like he would have either been denied business or been sent some hate mail full of that bubotuber pus. He was pretty sure of it, respected auror name or no.
House witches could be petty bitches. They have nothing better to do than send hate mail to a Hogwarts student who was not even of age, as far as they knew. They had to send hate mail to a teenager, because that's the mature thing to do apparently.
'Witches are such bitches. I'm so glad I never married', Crouch thought after reading some of Hermione's letters.