Constantly and consistently like the ticking of a grandfather clock, pages after pages were flipped by a girl’s fingers. The dim light of the lamp shone spookily on her gloomy figure in the heart of silent darkness. Growing, a pile of books to her left, shrinking, the one to her right. Hard for her to admit, the words and their letters were already going to her head. It couldn’t be so difficult. It couldn’t. But right then, another book had become frustration in vain and found its way firmly to the top of the left pile. Five more to go. Then she would give up and continue the search tomorrow. Five more to – a surprised squeal escaped her.
“Doing some extra work already, Miss Granger? So early in the term?”
“What the – ?”, she panted and turned; he had snuck up from behind so incredibly silent, even a falling needle would have made more noise.
“What a nice excuse for breaking rules, such a Prefect’s badge is.”, he sang with boredom, leant against the writing board at the shelf behind her, forcing her to turn her chair as well so she wouldn’t crack her neck.
“Breaking rules, might apply, Sir.”, Hermione said grim.
“Is this a confession, Miss Granger?”, he raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.
“I am merely trying to do something for the students’ wealfare.”, she snapped and devoted to the next book, hoping he wouldn’t taunt her for the ignorance.
“By scanning the wrong books?”, Snape huffed and rose. “Very useful, indeed.”, she watched him disappear in the dark behind a shelf, and though curious, she couldn’t resist the book she had just taken. “One might think, you knew all these books by heart already, considering the time you have spent in here within your four years of education.”, she could hear him pulling books, assumingly three rows down. “An advice, Miss Granger, sometimes even the logical is not the right. Madam Pince, has rearranged some things over the summer.”, he returned with a steady pace. “Regular school books are now – ”, Hermione had to lift her current book to prevent him from ballasting it with a pile of seven, “All together. And those abandoned, are a row further.”
“Those are – outdated versions?”, she stared along the worn off spines. “Of the book series – we had! Oh my – ”
“Defence Against the Dark Arts school books according to curriculum, used from nineteen twenty to nineteen seventy-eight; or probably a little longer.”, he said cold, with his nose held high and his arms crossed again.
“Sir – ”
“Believe me, her book is far more outdated than those. Be glad that we share an enemy, Miss Granger. Try not to let her get hold of those. Irma and I are working on a spell that will ban specifically her and her alone. If she should start to pry into the library, Albus could just as well close this school right away.”
“Sir – ”, Hermione aspirated, “Are you – plotting against her? Would you actually – join a – conspiracy – against Dolores Umbridge?”
“I have no idea, what you are talking about.”, he sang and turned to leave.
“Sir!”, chuckled Hermione, stood up and peeked after him as he walked down the dark corridor, not believing that he had just done that.
“Sort in those uselessnesses where they belong, hide the treasure thoroughly, douse the light and try to avoid Peeves. He is exceptionally nasty tonight. If I should catch him, I will try to persuade him paying a certain office a visit. Good night.”
“Sir!”, she had caught up running at the entrance. “One more question – ”
“Yes?”, Snape stopped and, just a bit, turned to the left.
“How did you find him?”, his pale white face was questioning her too. “Harry – when – when Barty Crouch took him – ”
“Presence.”
“Presence?”, he held his left arm to his chest just like he had done in the tent. “You – you felt him? Death Eaters can feel one another? Through the Mark?”
“Yes, I felt him. I felt him all the time.”
“But Dumbledore – ”
“Is a narrow-minded man.”, Snape slackened his arms. “If he has an opinion, it can hardly be shattered.”
“But he trusts you – ”
“There is a big difference between acceptance, trust and unconditional faith. He has reasons to doubt me. I must daresay, I gave him plenty. Good night, Miss Granger.”
He quietly opened and closed the door and was gone. Thunderstruck, Hermione gazed at the old wings she could barely locate in the dark even though they were right in front of her.
~~#~~
Many corners were in the Potions classroom. Some created by windowed alcoves, others simply cast in shadows. Normally, those corners weren’t attracting at all. However, in this Monday’s lesson, there was a change to one of them: it was owned by pink. As if he had indicated her place, there was a bright pink circle drawn on the floor around the chair. It took the students a while to notice and wonder whether this circle would have any influence on her behaviour. After all, she sat silent, her short legs awkwardly crossed and her flipchart on her thigh. Yet the pink quill in her right hand seemed ready to start a ferocious battle with the papers on the flipchart.
Keeping a class quiet by his mere presence, had always been his strength. So naturally, after having taken ten points from Gryffindor for Harry having tried to hold back Neville who had lost temper against Draco Malfoy, he had silenced them with a loud bang of the door, making not only the students jump and take in their seats with anxiety. Umbridge had bounced almost a hand broad from her chair, which was much, given her size. Waiting for them to get out their stuff, he stood before his desk, his fingers gently holding his wand at both ends.
“You will notice, that we have a guest with us today.”
His voice was as low as usual. Though it seemed, the only one not threatened by it was Umbridge. As expected, there was her famous `hem, hem´ cough. He remained as ignorant as McGonagall had been.
“But I see no need for you to feel distracted by her. We are continuing – ”
“Hem, hem.”
“With our – ”
“Hem, hem.”
“Miss Abbot, I believe, you usually carry around some cough drops? Would you be so kind and help our guest in need?”, he sighed.
Umbridge’s face became as pink as her clothes. Subdued giggles went through the classroom.
“No need for that, Miss Abbot.”, Umbridge said. “I actually wanted to ask something.”
“People are to raise their hand in my class if they wish to ask, or otherwise say something.”, Snape sneered, not looking at her, and everyone saw clearly that these words had been the biggest smack in her face she had ever met with.
“I don’t think – ”
“As I was saying,”, he continued ignoring her.
“Hem, hem!”
“Miss Abbot – ”
“I said, there is need for that!”, she sang, a little demanding and quite high. “I was only – ”
“People are to raise their hand in my class.”, he repeated, pulling the sentence into a murmuring length.
She was bright red now and her lips curled so much they looked dangerously close to pickled red leeches. Filled with rage, she nevertheless raised her plump right arm, not letting go of the quill. The whole class was amazed by how much control he already had over her. With this, even he knew, he had earned himself some respect points from the class.
“Yes?”
“I – was asking myself – ”
“Then why asking me as well?”
“I am curious, why there is a pink circle around my chair?”, apart from the forceful change of phrasing, she sounded almost like a child.
“It is there to make you feel at home.”, it was a cold, stern statement; so cold she didn’t even dare to take down a note on it. “I wonder, when you have grown breasts, Mr Finnigan?”, he raised an eyebrow, making the class fall silent with confusion. “Isn’t it normally a girl’s characteristic to – giggle? So, I was wondering – have you grown breasts over the weekend? No? Then behave.”, Seamus swallowed when the dark eyes pierced into his. “Well, we are continuing with our Strengthening Solution today. You will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson; if correctly made, they should have matured well over the weekend – instructions – ”, a wave of his wand over the blackboard, “On the board. Carry on.”
It had been a quiet and concentrated half an hour. Umbridge had spent it with taking notes behind Snape’s back, though not considering leaving her chair until then. With a concerned look at the circle of conjured pink paint, she stood up and took a cautiously slow step across. Most of the students watched her from the corners of their eyes. She placed her second foot to the side of the first and, undoubtedly, took a relieved breath, only to find it cut off by being forced back down onto the miraculously still standing chair. The general giggling returned to the class.
“Concentration, please,”, Snape murmured.
“Hem, hem.”, this time her hand was in the air immediately, visibly feeling humiliated to something as low as a student was in her opinion.
“Yes?”, he said smugly when he had turned to her with intended delay, to see that she had actually learned.
“May I – leave my seat?”, she mewled quietly.
“If you can make it in the frightening world of a classroom, being at mercy of dreadful underage witches and wizards – ”
“Yes, I think I am able enough.”, Umbridge gnarled at him.
Giving a sigh, he flicked his wand at the ring and a tiny gap opened in it. Careful again, Umbridge stepped out and pulled a sulky face, placing a note on her flipchart. It was then, that she walked towards Parvati Patil to interrogate her.
“I have a few questions to you, Miss Patil. Would you say, Professor Snape is a good teacher?”, she started in a whisper.
“Well, he sticks to the subject matter and – he has control of the class.”, Parvati turned noticeably pale at an instant, which was an alarming change compared to the normal colour of her skin.
“So?”, Umbridge sang quietly.
“So?”, Parvati swallowed.
“Well – ”
“If you knew at least a teensy bit about Potion Making, you would rather not distract Miss Patil, for your own safety.”, he spoke again with one of his typical bored tones. “Her potion is close to explode.”
Umbridge jumped back from the cauldron a little and Parvati panicked, putting in the ingredient she would have had to add already before Umbridge had come over. Taking another note, she strutted on, approaching Malfoy who was, as desperately as Parvati, trying to bring his rumbling cauldron to rest.
“Now, Mr – Malfoy, is that right?”
“Yes.”, he grunted, giving the potion the wrong stir in his rush, making it rattle even more.
“I have acknowledged that your father and Professor Snape know one another quite well. So, what do you think? How would you rate his teaching qualities?”
“My father knows him, not I.”, mumbled Malfoy, his potion was now sending out small sparks.
“What was that?”
“You know, Dolores, I do not wish anyone to disturb my students when they are about to commit mass murder due to their inability to read.”, it was a clear warning. “And whatever you try, your knowledge is not enough to calm down that unfortunate thing, Mr Malfoy.”
Snape went over to a shelf, picked a glass, took out something that looked like a horribly slimy stick and carried it over to Malfoy’s cauldron. When he dropped it in, the cauldron instantly stopped moving and the surface of the potion rested still.
“Another possibility would have been to make it vanish completely.”, Snape murmured. “But since these roots are not too expensive, I preferred you to learn. This potion is useless now though. Good luck washing it out. Five points from Slytherin.”, Malfoy distorted his face. “Yes, from my own House, Malfoy.”, he added hissing. “And if you clog the sink, you will clean it as well, as long as it may take you. No magic required.”
That apparently cheered Umbridge up. He didn’t make differences; punished everyone equally. With a little self-satisfied smirk, she made another note and went back over to her chair, though she refused to sit down or even cross the pink circle for the rest of the lessons, which went fortunately a little better and more quiet, until she decided to give it another try.
“Just two more questions, you had first applied for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post, is that correct?”, Umbridge toadied around him with regained determination when he had returned to stand in front of his desk, all heads on the two once more.
“Yes.”, there was not the slightest joy in this word, his eyes staring straight through the room, giving the impression that his look could cause the wall at that end to burst any time.
“But you were unsuccessful?”, her fake pity was not to be overseen and -heard.
“Obviously,”, half of the class giggled under their breath again, unable to decide another time, who was less worthy to be liked.
“And you have applied regularly for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post since you first joined the school, I believe?”
“Yes,”, he said so thin-lipped that he very much resembled McGonagall if it hadn’t been for the big difference in the amount of wrinkles on his ill-natured face.
“Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?”, she actually thought herself on the secure side.
“I suggest you ask him,”, he started again, clearly separating the words when speaking.
“Oh, I shall.”, the sweetest smile ever.
“I suppose this is relevant?”, his eyes narrowed.
“Oh yes, yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers’ – er – backgrounds.”
She went over to Pansy Parkinson, though not really able to hide that she had partly wished to escape. Not noticing that he had made a security emptying of Harry’s cauldron, she questioned the girl.
“No marks again, then, Potter, you will write me an essay on the correct composition of this potion, indicating how and why you went wrong, to be handed in next lesson, do you understand?”
“Yes.”, was Harry’s grumpy answer.
“And I meant,”, he continued louder, gaining Umbridge’s attention, “If you don’t want to listen to me, I suggest you ask him about the truth. So yes, your version of the story is what any uninformed person would believe.”
“What is it?”
“What I was going to say before you decided to possess enough ignorance again as to be able to interrupt me, is that you were obviously not informed thoroughly – if – we already are on that term.”
Only his eyes were on her, the class realizing that it cost him a lot of restraint not to walk through the rows of tables and strangle her right away. Everyone saw her shrink slightly, even though no one would have believed that a woman of her size could become much smaller anymore. Nevertheless she bore the ineffable hate drilling into her eyes now.
“I had applied for the position, but after some considerations, decided otherwise. You have seen what they do to their potions. Naturally, knowing this habit from my own former classmates, it was not in my interest to teach adolescent wracks phrases which would be useless if their hormone-struck minds refused to gather enough will for actually meaning to concentrate the energy they would be supposed to unleash.”
“I can very well see my agreement on this.”, she coughed. “Unless they know the theory – ”
“Clearly,”, he said very slow, “I have still not expressed myself in the right language for you to understand. Let me phrase it in a different way – learning to flawlessly recall incantations written into an obsolete book leads one nowhere if the mind is too weak to bear. In other words, don’t try to shatter if you cannot take being shattered yourself.”
Confusion all over the classroom. Umbridge faintly swallowed, trying to keep her eyes from popping out. Hermione couldn’t stop her hand raising slowly.
“Yes, Miss Granger?”, he murmured, not taking his dark marbles off Umbridge.
“So that means, if one isn’t willing enough to defend themselves, they can neither attack properly?”
“Almost.”, a disappointed chuckle.
“You should only attempt to kill if you don’t fear death, because otherwise you wouldn’t succeed, but rather be dead yourself?”, now all eyes were on her. “What!”, she hissed around.
“That is an interesting way to spin it on, Granger. But yes, it would quite likely be that way. Only, my thoughts were going into a slightly less fatal direction.”, everyone stared at him again.
“It seems to me, your students are highly interested in your assumptions. So, if you would explain it in their language as, like you stated, they are incapable of thinking properly?”, Umbridge grinned artificially, but the bell rang off her desperate attempt to ask without looking dumber than she already did.
“Don’t forget to hand in your probes.”, he threw a scornful smile and turned away from her to rummage in the drawers of his desk while the students bottled their flasks and cleaned up.
Umbridge just stood there, clinging to her flipchart. She seemed to have totally forgotten to take notes. Now Snape sat down behind the desk, placed his wand on it and searched the lower drawers. Hermione nearly dropped her probe in front of the stand on his desk when he gave her a short, hair-covered glance from below. She knew that he had only meant to threaten Umbridge and tell her that her methods were rubbish. But she, insolent enough, would have gone as far as making him butcher her unequivocally. She wasn’t one of those weak people he had described; not at all. Or more, sadistic enough to suffer terribly just for sacking as many teachers as possible. Though she hadn’t bargained on him, or even McGonagall. They were more than a match for her.
Having packed a little slower than the others, making sure she would be last out after Malfoy who needed a bit more time to wash his cauldron, Hermione let herself fall back right when she couldn’t see into the classroom anymore. To her luck, none of her classmates noticed it. Nevertheless, she hid behind one of the big stone statues in alcoves outside, listening closely. Umbridge’s shoes clattered over the stone floor, coming to halt a bit further away from the door.
“Yes?”, she heard him saying. “Is there anything more you’d like to ask me?”
“Oh yes, there is.”, Umbridge’s high pitched voice when she was slightly panicked, wasn’t as delightful as desired. “I believe, you question my methods.”, Hermione heard him shutting another drawer.
“Would that be a crime?”, he sneered.
“I am the Undersecretary of the Minister. Questioning me is equal to questioning the Minister himself.”
“If so, what would you do, hmm?”, he whispered.
Hermione, hearing him walk, couldn’t resist. Silently she stepped out of her hiding place and peered into the room, the potions book held tight to her chest with both arms. Hoping they wouldn’t spot her, she watched him approaching Umbridge slowly, his long black cloak and hair making him no less frightening than a Dementor, not only because his hair fell so deep into his face that Hermione couldn’t even see the tip of his nose from where she stood. The already cool Dungeon air was palpably freezing. Umbridge took a step back, only three feet from one of the shelves on the; seen from the door; left side of the classroom. It was filled with massive glasses, containing things that wouldn’t look beautiful when having hit the floor. He stopped, about the length of his desk away from her.
“What would you do, if I questioned his sanity?”, no words in reply. “Do I sense a waft of fear?”
“You don’t scare me, Snape.”, she raised her chin and chest, but failed to impress him.
“No? Well, that makes me a little glad, you see?”, he stepped closer, making her back off again, only a hand broad away from the shelf now. “Because,”, he took off his cloak and threw it in a high bow over to the desk, where it landed gently, “I don’t like to waste my time and energy for teaching people who do not ask for a lesson. You, I must say,”, he half unbuttoned his sleeves and pushed them up to his elbows, “Downright beg for it.”
He placed his hands above his head against the shelf, just enough distance between them that no part of their bodies would touch. Umbridge however, had met with the shelf, glasses shaking dangerously. But his hands’ touch against the shelf seemed enough to prevent their fall. Portraying a very pathetic defence, she held her flipchart to her chest. It looked like a black snake was about to swallow a pink toad in whole. Her brown eyes widened with panic, staring on the inside of his left forearm.
“The world, as it happens, is a huge board and every single being, living or dead, has their own team on it. When they clash, it is called war. You do good not to lose too many of your soldiers, as you will stand alone, without a single ally. Because, believe it or not, there are people carrying a nasty weapon. It is called `willpower´. And I – have a lot of it. In my few years on this planet, I have seen people like you coming and going. They came with pride and went shortly after, crumbled to a picture of misery.”
“Trying to threaten me will only result in things you surely do not wish to experience”, she sang, not looking as unconcerned as she wished to.
“Likewise.”, Snape countered, very slow and clearly pronounced.
“Yes?”
“Yesss.”, he hissed excessively. “I can do things to you which your brain is quite possibly not capable of packing into your worst nightmares. You can call yourself lucky that I will wait until the very last moment. I will resist much. Though I advise you, do not even consider trying to discover where the border lies, and especially, don’t step across. For your own welfare, yes. It won’t end nice; that much I can say. Provoke me a little too often or heavily and you will wish your parents had never been in bed together. But as far as I take it, you have been wishing that already since you knew what your brother was.”
Even Hermione was troubled by Umbridge’s expression. Certainly he had hit a nerve. But what was her brother?
“I have no brother.”, she had pressed that sentence out so quietly it had only been audible due to its clear repulsion.
“Just like you have no father anymore, right?”, she didn’t counter. “Yes, I know everything about you.”
“You know nothing, Snape.”, Umbridge snapped quietly and disgruntled, but her fear remained.
“We will see. Now, unless you have any more things to ask about – my background,”, he gently pushed himself off, bending his left arm; slightly lowered; towards the door, his open palm up – Hermione could see the big jet black Mark Umbridge had stared at, “You may leave.”
The look on her face didn’t change either when she turned on pink high heels, the flipchart still against her chest and the pink quill in the hand of her limply dangling right arm. Hermione ducked away and scurried behind the statue, holding her breath in panic. But Umbridge just minced past, not noticing her. She waited until her shoes vanished on the spiral staircase to the upper floors and sighed with relief.
Trying to understand what she had just watched, she stepped sideways out of her hiding place – and froze. There was something small pressed against her temple. Moving only her eyes to the right, she saw that it was the tip of a long black wand. Its owner leaned against the corridor wall, the right leg swung over the left. His left elbow rested on his right fist, holding his wand rather languidly in the left hand, though firm enough to make the tip drill. His face was at the opposite wall.
“I will light a candle in memory of your forsaken sanity.”, he whispered angrily. “Play the trombones! We need to honour terribly lost intelligence.”, Hermione swallowed. “I could just cut it out of your brain, you know? Believe me, if it wasn’t you, I would do it. But somehow a voice in my head tells me not to.”, a short pause. “I leave you the option to forget it yourself.”, he took a deep breath and pulled back his wand, turning his head down the corridor, away from her. “Five points to Gryffindor, for the mere luck that she didn’t see you.”, Snape snarled. “Now get off!”
Not daring to look back, Hermione sprinted towards the staircase. She winced, the moment she set foot on the first step. The classroom door was slammed shut. A muffled, furious scream. The sound of bottles filled with liquid being smashed to the stone floor. Her thoughts not where she was, she hurried up for lunch, just looking to the floor some yards ahead, still embracing her book and her heavy shoulder bag dangling carelessly beside her.
“Hermione’s back.”, Ron whispered, making Harry turn.
“Back? What do you mean with `back´?”
“Look at her! She’s just like in our first year! The way she walks, I mean.”, it was actually stomping.
“What happened?”, Harry asked when she had sat down, trying to figure out where she was. “Hermione? Are you alright?”
“What?”, she gasped and stared at him as though he wasn’t there – not letting go of the book.
“I said, are you okay?”
“Oh – yes –yes. I’m fine.”
“What’s with the potions book?”
“Potions book?”
“Hello – ”, Ron waved in front of her face, leaning over the table. “Is Hermione here?”
“What the – ?”, now she was, though still held the book. “Yes, I am here.”, she snorted.
“What happened?”, Harry repeated.
“What’s supposed to have happened, according to you?”, she snapped back. “Nothing happened. I was just in thoughts.”
“Just.”, Harry chuckled. “Looked rather like you’ve been raped by Snape and Umbridge together,”
“What?”, she shrieked, some heads turning to her. “Don’t be silly now! Can’t someone just be in thoughts?”
“And what were you thinking of?”, Harry smirked.
“That’s really none of your business.”, she hissed.
“Uh oh – Hermione’s got her days.”, Ron giggled subdued and was hit with the book. “Ow! Bloody hell! You’re learning from Snape – that’s not good – ”
~~#~~
Breakfast. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful breakfast. And like many times in Hogwarts, there was a topic spreading like wildfire. The fifth-years had told almost everyone over the past days what had happened in Snape’s class. It had been ever since then, that Umbridge had strangely decided to sit closest to the wall, at the other end of the staff table, far away from their new predestined hero. Though nobody except Hermione knew about the events after the lesson and therefore the conversations were more or less the same.
“He owned her! I mean – really!”, Seamus chuckled under his breath to Nigel.
“Yeah. It’s – okay, it doesn’t make Snape any better,”, Ron joined in, “But for that – I think I love him.”, Hermione choked.
“Give it a rest, okay?”, Harry grunted, back in one of his recent bad moods, not only because they were supposed to hand in the essay today.
“Even you have to admit, that the lesson had something positive to it. Umbridge got lashed, Malfoy cost Slytherin some points – ”, he counted on his fingers, “I think, I can’t even complain about the horrible mark I’ll get for that potion. I never thought I’d say that, but in this case, Snape’s brilliant.”
“I said, give it a resT!”, Harry barked, shocked himself right after as most heads in the hall rushed at him.
“Whow!”, Ron startled with widely opened eyes, slightly sliding away from him on the bench.
“Harry – ”, Hermione aspirated quietly, seriously concerned. “What’s wrong with y-”
“You think, there’s something wrong with me?”, he hissed at her, chaffing his teeth, seemingly having forgotten his own shock at an instant.
“I – ”
“Well?”
“Would you mind lowering your voice?”
“Why. You think it bothers anyone here?”, he snarled.
“Harry – ”
“I’m not in the mood for discussing, alright?”
“Obviously not.”, Hermione moaned when Harry stood up and stormed out of the hall.
“What’s really up with him?”, murmured Ron.
“I have no idea.”, she shook her head.
That moment, a noise almost shot her ears. The Weasley twins had started playing a new version of Exploding Snap with Dean, Seamus and Lee. Those cards they invented were less fatal, though exploded with an increasing frequency the longer the game lasted. As long as they didn’t hurt anyone, should they, thought Hermione and continued eating, wondering why she didn’t feel the urge to intervene.
“And what’s wrong with him?”
Lavender tore her from her considerations. She found the girl pointing quite flagrantly up to the staff table.
“Take your hand down!”, hissed Hermione. “You can’t just point up there!”, a little scared she seemed, when she obeyed and dedicated to her breakfast again.
Another card exploded and Hermione saw what she had meant. Watching him from the corner of her eye to not appear too obvious, she slowly began to realise that it was the noise. Reading some magazine, he squinted every time a card gave a sound and the more often the noises came, the worse it got. When they exploded less than every ten seconds over the laughter of the players, he already winced at it, clutching his fingers to fists. Unfortunately, his hair hung too deep in his face now and she couldn’t see it any longer. But by the way he moved his head and the concerned look Professor Burbage to his left gave him, she knew that it wasn’t anger. Something clicked in her mind.
“Will you stop it!”, she yelled down the table and a whole pile flew in the air with an enormous crack, ending the game eventually anyway.
“Hermione! You made it blast!”, chuckled George. “Incredible.”, he shook his head. “Guess, we gotta work on that. Note to the brain, Fred, screaming girls hurt the cards.”
“You deviant idiots!”
She just shook her head and looked back up to the staff table, in time to not miss an actually grateful glance. Curling her lips, she ate the last bite and borrowed the Prophet from Ron. Though the letters were there, but didn’t reach her. Her thoughts were with him and what she had discovered last Easter. Demonising the Ministry, she shut the paper and handed it back after about fifteen minutes of pointless page-skipping. It was then that the sound of shoes approached them from the face of the hall.
A few yards ahead, Snape walked through between the middle rows, his hair and cloak bumping and waving like usual. As fast as the tight skirt around her plump legs could allow her, she strutted after him, her clipboard to her left. Midway through the hall he came to halt. Raising his eyebrow, he slowly turned around and waited for her to close up. A definite look on her round face, she stopped about three feet in front of him, just staring up.
After some seconds of breathtaking silence in the entire hall, she pulled a number of pink papers, bracketed together. Her short hand stretched out, she held the report under his nose. Still not lowering his eyebrow, he picked and skimmed it, the rest of his expression just like hers. Then, visible for only half the people in the hall, a satisfied smirk crossed his lips.
“It pleases me to see, that we finally speak the same language.”
There was nothing but calmness in his voice. Nevertheless he ripped the report into many pieces while he said that and by the second he languidly threw them into the air, they burst into little flames, falling to the ground as gleaming trumpery of ash. Umbridge scrunched up her nose and gave him a wide berth when she flounced on.
“Yeah. He definitely owns her.”, Dean muttered with a grin.
“What was that?”, she stopped at the fifth-year Gryffindors now.
“Noting, Ma’am.”
“Oh there was something. So, would you repeat that, Mr Thomas? Or do you wish to follow me into detention right away for this illegal game of yours?”
“It’s not my game,”
Though it was Snape who followed her, his walk almost leisurely when he strode along the Gryffindor table, heads turning after him. While he drew near, he elegantly pulled his wand from his left sleeve, holding it like he always did before he wrote instructions on the blackboard. Completely stiff, Umbridge noticed the new direction of students’ looks, spun on her heels and faced him, her stringent expression unchanged. Her head slid slightly back on her short neck, when he lazily raised his wand, not lowering the empty hand either.
“You surely do not want this.”, her eyes gaped as he spoke with his low voice, the tip of his black wand only fingers away from her forehead.
“I beg your pardon?”, she sang in her high-pitched tone.
“How can you tolerate such a mess?”, he gave his wand a tiny flick and the bundle of hair that had rolled out a bit, flipped back into its usual curl. “A lot better, don’t you think?”
Umbridge’s lips became as thin as McGonagall’s when angry, in front of her teeth, which were tightly pressed together. She still stared at where his head had been when he left the hall, the narcissistic smile now visible to the other side. Hermione could swear he did a perfect catwalk – if it hadn’t been for his bagging cloak hiding his legs from her view. He had obviously come over the effect of the card game. However, he stopped in the middle of his way from Umbridge to the doors.
“What the – ?”, Ron whispered as he too had spotted the face that was peeking in.
Snape threw a fleeting, concerned look over his shoulder to the huffing Umbridge, who now strutted back to the staff table, apparently not willing to leave the Great Hall through the same door as he did. Then Snape continue walking, a little faster and less arrogant. At the door, he reached out with his left arm and grabbed Lupin by the collar, dragging him in direction of the Dungeons. Shortly after, Umbridge was gone through the backdoor of the hall.
“What’s he doing here?”, Ron muttered quietly to Hermione. “And how can Snape dare to do that to him?”
“Probably some very important Order business.”, Ginny ignored his add.
“But drag-”
“They are adults. Let them drag one another wherever they like to.”, Hermione though panted, Ron blinking at her when a paper plane came soaring through the gilded doors and landed right before Fred, who unfolded it with utter curiosity.
“What’s that?”, asked Seamus.
“A – a note from – ”, stammered George.
“From whom? What’s it say?”
“Twenty-five points off Gryffindor for the dangerous idiocy of testing an updated version of a banned card game right under the wrinkly nose of the luckily otherwise engaged personal hound dog of our very beloved Minister. Thank the inventor of the Confundus Charm.”
~~#~~
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