Revealing Detention
"P-professor Snape?" stammered Parvati. She felt her knees go weak and would have liked to slump right back in her chair. I don't believe it! What is he doing here of all places?
"Miss Patil," Severus said in his dark voice, which sounded strangely brittle. "May I ask what you are doing outside your common room at this hour?"
Parvati felt the tears coming again. "I … played the piano," she breathed.
"I heard that," Severus said. His expression was, as always, inscrutable. "But I don't see what that has to do with you being required to stay in your rooms after nine o'clock! Now, if you will please come with me!"
"I-I still have to cover it, sir," she whispered. Her throat felt tight and the shock of meeting Severus so unexpectedly in this lonely part of the castle was still in her bones.
"Go ahead," Snape replied with an ironic wave of his hand.
Parvati pulled the cover over the piano more bad than right, noticing that she was shaking all over. Then, with her heart pounding wildly, her bag clutched in front of her chest with both arms, she walked towards her teacher who was waiting for her in the doorway. The almost full moon shone through the window in the aisle behind him, casting a silvery light on his hair and shoulders. And, of course, directly on her face. Shit, my make-up must have run all over the place!, it rushed through Parvati's mind as she finally stood in front of him.
Severus studied her for a moment without saying anything. The left side of his face was completely in darkness, but once again, she had the feeling that his dark eyes were looking down to the bottom of her soul.
Then he turned around with swirling robes. "To my office," he said curtly, and started moving. He walked so fast that Parvati almost had to run, and all the long way to his office, he did not speak a word.
What a mockery, thought Parvati. Lavender really does everything to get caught at night, but now I'm the one to be hit. I'd like to know what's in store for me.
And as she followed her teacher through the dark corridors, trying to remove the worst traces of make-up from her cheeks with the help of her wand mirror, she wondered how long he had been standing there listening to her play.
Arriving outside his office, Snape, whispering a spell, tapped the heavy door with his wand, which immediately swung open effortlessly.
"Sit down!" he snarled at Parvati and pointed to a chair in front of his desk, behind which he sat down.
"Well, you've had plenty of time to come up with a plausible explanation as to what prompted you to break this well-known rule!" said Snape, putting his fingertips together.
What does he want to hear now?, Parvati thought, almost a little annoyed. Does he really think that seventeen-year-olds need a good reason to break the rules? And I'm so tired of being talked down to and making up excuses!
Slowly, she raised her eyes to Severus and began in a quiet but clear voice: "I had an argument with my sister Padma, Professor Snape. And it upset me so much that I wanted to play the piano immediately afterwards!"
Snape stared at Parvati; if he hadn't had his features so well under control, their expression could have been called stunned. "Miss Patil," he said in a low, dangerous-sounding voice. "Who do you think you are dealing with here! This is not the time for your impertinent insolence!"
"But it's the truth, Professor," Parvati said. "I know it was forbidden to be there at that time and I am sorry. I have explained to you how it came about. And I understand if you want to punish me for it!"
"You understand it," Snape repeated sarcastically. "How very kind of you! Then perhaps it will be a little easier for you to crush the twenty whelks I have in mind for you and distil their bodily fluids!"
"Whelks?" asked Parvati weakly.
Snape leaned back in his chair with a rich grin. "Do you have a problem with whelks? I hope it doesn't upset you too much to work with them!"
"When?" was all Parvati asked.
"Now!" announced Snape, seeming to take a sadistic pleasure in her shocked expression. "At least you won't have a problem with the time! More likely with your choice of clothing, but that's nothing new to me." However, the look he then gave her black, wide-cut dress made Parvati's pulse beat faster.
"The dress is warm enough," Parvati explained in a firm voice. "Besides, I can always change it into something else!"
Snape raised an eyebrow. "I am quite aware of that. Come on!"
He led Parvati into the laboratory, which was directly connected to the office by a door, and placed a box of whelks on the table in front of her. "Back there is the distillation apparatus," he explained. "Slowly heat to one hundred and fifty degrees, meanwhile trap the different fractions in separate vials! Any questions?"
"I'd like a face mask," Parvati demanded, and Snape's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at this bold demand. "Surely you could conjure one up for yourself!"
But finally he handed his pupil a mask behind which she could hide half her face and retreated to his office.
"Shit!" muttered Parvati. "Shit, shit! He couldn't have thought of anything worse!" But despite all her anger, the expressions he had used to describe her the other day came back to her. Skilled, smart, quick … He wouldn't entrust just anyone with such a demanding task, let alone let them touch the distillation apparatus. And what was that about the dress? That almost sounded …
No!, she called herself to order again immediately. Severus Snape does not flirt! Especially not with schoolgirls!
But then what would you call his almost legendary eye contacts with Lavender?, a quiet voice inside her asked.
Parvati shook her head unwillingly and witched her hair into a tight ponytail. Then she set to work, cursing.
She had just cut up the seventh snail, crushed it and tipped the squeezed juice into the filter, when she heard a faint knocking at the door from the next room. Curious, she paused and pricked up her ears.
"Draco?" she heard Severus's voice through the ajar door. "What brings you to me at such a late hour?"
She did not understand the answer, only a faint murmur.
"We'd better go to my flat," Severus said quietly, then Parvati heard footsteps, and the slam of another door.
What is Draco doing here?, she pondered with a dull feeling in her stomach. Is it because of the Night of the Blood-red Moon?
Parvati took the eighth snail out of the box. By now she had become so jaded by her work that she no longer even felt compassion as she transported the poor animal to the afterlife. She prepared to cut the dead snail into strips, then paused again. She put down the scalpel, wiped her hands on her dress and pulled down her face mask, which had already received a few splashes. Then she crept to the door of the office. It was empty, as she had expected. It must be an important conversation, she pondered, or they wouldn't have had to go to the flat. She entered the office cautiously, glancing right and left. Leave it, whispered a voice inside her. What if he can monitor the office from his flat?
But curiosity got the better of her—she could always come up with something if he caught her. Parvati prowled around Severus's desk, which was quite tidy, but without touching anything; looked at the stacks of parchment, all written in the neat, sober handwriting of Severus that she knew so well.
Through the door to his flat she heard murmured voices, one of them quite agitated. Draco, thought Parvati. With rustling dress she crept closer and finally pressed her ear to the smooth wood.
"… don't know if I can stand it," she heard his voice muffled through the door; there was none of the typical Slytherin grandeur left. Draco sounded like he was on the verge of crying. "It was enough for me last time when You-Know-Who put the three cats' eyes—"
Parvati quickly jerked away from the door. She could not hear anything like that at all. But what was I thinking? Of course he wants to talk to Uncle Sev about his fear—that's exactly what his father told him to do in the letter …
Cautiously, she put her ear to the door again. Now the dark voice of Severus could be heard, which seemed no less strange to Parvati. He sounded concerned, almost affectionate. "Draco, I know it's hard at first. You're still very young … Lucius perhaps shouldn't have pushed you so hard."
No sarcasm, no nasty jibes; Parvati could hardly believe it. Suddenly she became almost jealous of Draco, and the desire to be able to pour her heart out to Severus like that welled up inside her. But I would never gain so much understanding. I already noticed that earlier.
"But now you are in," she heard Severus continue. "You have become a follower of Voldemort, you carry his Dark Mark. You can't go back, Draco."
"But what if he realised I was simply unfit?" it came meekly from Draco. "Then I'd be useless to him anyway and maybe I could leave!"
"Do you know what he does to people who become useless to him?" asked Severus quietly; Parvati could just barely understand him, and she felt icy cold.
"I don't even want to know!" cried Draco, sounding rather desperate. "Oh God, Sev! What have I done!"
For a while Parvati heard nothing, and suddenly a hot wave of panic gripped her: They've spotted me!
But just at that moment she heard her teacher's calm voice. "Are you all right, Draco?"
Apparently he was all right, because Severus continued: "You must stay strong now, my child. If Voldemort realises what's going on with you, he won't hesitate for long … you know what I mean. He must think that you are fully behind him. The day after tomorrow is the night of the nights for him. You've got to withstand it. And everything that comes after that, too!"
"How am I supposed to do that?" it came from Draco again. "I'm already sick when he kills a few creatures! I can't even hurt a snail myself. What am I supposed to do when it comes to human beings, Uncle Sev? What am I supposed to do then?"
Parvati swallowed hard. Tears welled up in her eyes and a fierce pity overwhelmed her. No matter how Draco had got into this, he was probably a lot more human than she had thought, and seemed to bitterly regret it. And sooner or later he would have to kill for the Lord.
"The day after tomorrow it will be about people," Severus said. "You will merely be a witness. But if you look away, it will expose you."
Draco obviously could take no more. He began to cry loudly.
And Parvati became sick with horror. People? But what— She pressed her hand in front of her mouth to suppress her own sobs, which suddenly came out of her throat.
For quite a while she heard only Draco's rough sobs, and she wondered if Severus was just holding him in his arms as he had held Lavender the other day.
Finally Severus said, "So, Dray, now you drink this and calm down." He seemed to wait until Draco drank whatever it was, then remarked, "It's a pity you didn't come to me sooner, but we still have two days until Thursday. We will improve your knowledge of Occlumency, so that Voldemort at least cannot extract your thoughts by just looking at you. In addition, you can place the memories that could be dangerous to you in Dumbledore's Pensieve beforehand, as you did last time. And on the night in question, at moonrise, I will give you a potion that will make you a little more … insensitive to the events to come."
"Thank you, Sev," Draco said wearily. "Maybe I'll make it then!"
"You must! And after the meeting, we will prepare you for the things that will be expected of you in the future. You cannot survive otherwise, Draco."
"Okay," Draco said weakly. "Where is it actually going to take place? Again on the …?"
Parvati did not understand the rest of the sentence because Draco spoke very quietly.
"No, you can't get a good look at the moon from there," Snape replied. "We'll meet in the Valley of the Marsh Ghosts." Parvati pressed her ear flat to get the name right. Valley of the Marsh Ghosts? Where is that supposed to be?
"You're coming with me again," he said. "By the way, did you find your father's letter?"
"No, I'm afraid it's gone! I hope no one else has found it. In the end, another one of the Gryffindor bi … cows," Draco said contemptuously.
"You did make the writing invisible again after reading it, didn't you?", Snape assured himself. "Well, then, no one will have read it!"
You think, thought Parvati, grinning thinly. Then she heard a chair moving and immediately she was away from the door and moments later, equipped with mask and scalpel, back at her lab table.
When Snape dropped in on her some time later, she was already busily distilling the disgustingly smelly liquid. She had never worked with such an apparatus before, but it was by and large self-explanatory, and she had already succeeded in collecting two fractions separately, one at fifty-four degrees, the other at just under seventy.
"I see you are coping," he remarked coolly. "When you're done, please put the fractions into the little vials over there. Don't forget to label them, and let me know when you leave!"
Parvati nodded. "Yes, sir."
She collected two more fractions, the last at one hundred and fifty degrees. As a test, she continued to heat, but no more drops came out of the brown residue in the flask—she was done. Sighing, she filled the fractions into the vials, which she had labelled beforehand. Her eyes almost fell shut, but still, she dismantled the entire apparatus to clean it with magic. Then she went to Snape's office to say goodbye. "I'm done now, sir."
Severus looked up from his table and the thought of what those eyes must have seen already made Parvati's head spin. "Good, then you can go. And in future, I don't want to find you outside your living area at such a time!"
"All right, Professor." Parvati turned to go.
"Oh, Miss Patil," her teacher called after her. There it was again, that strange tone in his voice that made her throat tighten.
Hand on the handle, she turned hesitantly. "Yes?"
"What you played earlier … was very beautiful," Severus said quietly.
Parvati stared at him wordlessly. Then she turned away with a violent movement, grabbed the stiff door handle with both hands and hurried to get out. "He didn't say that now, did he?" she whispered to herself as she stood outside, goose bumps spreading over her back. She started to run and on the stairs leading out of the dungeon she began to cry so hard that it shook her.
The sight of him the next day in class went right through Parvati. Severus Snape had greeted his class in his usual unfriendly manner and wordlessly slammed Parvati's bag, which she had left with him yesterday, on the table. No look, no gesture indicated what he had said yesterday about her playing the piano.
I must have dreamt it, thought Parvati, who still couldn't believe it. Why did he say that? Simply because he wanted to be nice? Could that be? Or was he trying to annoy me? Or did this piece perhaps … upset him? Him?
Draco, too, was sitting in his usual swaggering pose in his seat. The fact that he had turned up at Severus's yesterday, crying and teeth-chattering, seemed at least as unreal to Parvati as Severus's compliment. And tomorrow they have to go to the meeting, she thought, shuddering. What will happen there on the night of all nights? Are there really people going to die?
Parvati yawned so hard that one hand was almost not enough to cover her mouth. She had slept for three hours at most. Lavender had fortunately already been asleep when she had come into their room at half past one, completely overtired but still crying, where the first thing she did was to take a shower to wash the greasy, smelly snail guts out of her hair. Afterwards she had written in her diary at breathtaking speed and then lay awake for hours while thoughts swirled through her head. Only after quite a while did the terrible questions arise: People are supposed to die? I have to tell someone! But whom … Harry? Dumbledore? And what could they do about it? Would Dumbledore do anything?
Parvati remembered that Snape went to the Death Eater meetings as a spy—with Dumbledore's consent. So he knows they are taking place, he even lends Snape his Pensieve so he can keep his precarious memories safe. He will also surely know, as everyone else does, that the Dark Lord does not shy away from murder. And if Snape is working as a spy, he will report back to Dumbledore afterwards anyway … perhaps over a good glass of wine?!
Parvati's hair stood on end. That's really hard to believe! No, I don't need to go to him! she thought. And Harry …
"Parvati! Are you asleep?" her thoughts were interrupted by Hermione, and she flinched. A flurry of activity had broken out in the class, as it always did when twenty students were scurrying around gathering ingredients for potions.
She quickly got up and took her bottle from the shelf. They had made a new potion on Monday, which had to be brewed further today. I really have to concentrate so that I don't do anything wrong, she thought as she lit a fire under her cauldron and let the contents of the bottle flow into it. After this intense night!
Lavender, still lonely beside the blackboard, sent her a gallows-humoury grin, and Parvati's heart squeezed. Oh, if you only knew, she thought. If you only knew what the man you love will see tomorrow while you're watching your romantic lunar eclipse …
Parvati was on the verge of tears again. Grimly, she kept staring at her notes while she carefully weighed out one ingredient after the other, pulverised it and added it to the brew, counted seconds or made stirring movements in a certain pattern.
When she looked up once to make sure how Lavender was doing, she looked directly into the eyes of Severus, who was sitting at his desk and had obviously just been watching her. Quickly Parvati lowered her gaze and her cheeks grew hot. Oh man … help! Why is he looking like that? Was he thinking about yesterday …?
Don't be silly! she scolded herself immediately afterwards. What should he think about me turning so bright red? If I were Lavender, I would probably have stared back at him until he looked away … how can she stand it?
Parvati's heart raced and her knees were as soft as pudding. That's the exhaustion!, she consoled herself, but that didn't make things any better.
At the end of the second lesson, theory was done, homework was checked. It was already standard that Lavender was one of the first to have her finger up. Her assignment was unfortunately not correct, as Snape indifferently remarked, and then picked Hermione, who didn't miss the opportunity to give Lavender a triumphant look. And Draco, as if nothing had happened, boasted, "Squibblewibble, stick to your last!"
To Parvati's utter surprise, Lavender turned to Draco and winked at him, the corner of her mouth slightly raised. Draco looked quite flabbergasted, and Parvati's breath caught in her throat. Did she practise that in front of the mirror?, she thought. Cool tactic, though, to put Draco off his stride … She didn't seem to be afraid of him at all since he had almost killed her.
Despite her tiredness, Parvati also came forward after a while to perform one of the tasks.
"That is incorrect, Miss Patil," Snape said tersely, and without paying further attention to her, he turned to the rest of the class, "Does anyone have the correct result?"
Padma, of all people, raised her hand and Parvati got all stiff with anger. You really need this, don't you? Something similar had happened in Arithmancy today, and she was getting fed up. Padma had everything right, of course, and Parvati heard her whispering to Lisa afterwards, "… more than she can chew, I guess!"
Parvati turned around and gave her sister a furious look. You don't know the slightest bit what's going on! You're sitting there with your friends in your little pleated skirts and talking your smart little head off about such important topics as career and university! But you have absolutely no idea what's going on outside!
Parvati would have liked to shout these words across the room. But for now, she had had enough of detentions with Severus Snape.