“beyond wandpoint” 056 by gingerbred
Mar. 21st, 2019 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beyondwandpoint“11 10s Monday - Reactions Part 1”
Severus, Ginny, Harry, Ron, Fay, Seamus, Dean, Neville, assorted Gryffindors, Hermione, Crooks
Just Another Evening in the Castle
Originally Published: 2018-02-09 on AO3
Chapter: 056
Pairing: Hermione Granger / Severus Snape
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
It went disastrously.
That was hardly surprising. Far more surprising is the fact he's made it back to the castle, not quite dead yet. Yet again. He's making a habit of it. How marvellous. He pitches forward, landing in a heap as he reappears, his strength sufficient for the Apparition and nothing more.
He hasn't even made it to the safety of the gates.
Ginny returned to the Tower, sadly without any food in hand. Predictably, it didn't help matters go any more smoothly with Ron, as nothing she said would convince him it hadn't been a deliberate choice on her part. That she might have had other things on her mind after that announcement doesn't strike him as overly reasonable. It's possible, however, that he never forgets food, regardless how dire the situation. Or maybe he was just being unfair. It's not unheard of.
Harry was terribly eager to know what had been said and how everyone received the news. Ron had no desire to hear it whatsoever. Wild Thestrals... It was extremely shortsighted, as he would be facing their reactions soon enough. Tomorrow at the very latest. Within minutes, likely enough. Gryffindors aren't exactly known for their reserve.
Harry persisted, Ron was free to leave if he really didn't want to hear it or stick his head deep in the couch cushions for all Harry cared, and so Ginny was forced to admit she had missed the announcement as such. Harry, understandably, was exceedingly annoyed. He hadn't asked for much, but that had been very important to him. They rowed. Ginny accused him of holding her up with his squabbling earlier; it only made Harry angrier, and he was frankly disgusted at the assertion. He happened to recall the exchange quite differently.
And then it dawned on him, given no one else had returned, that Ginny must have left Hermione alone in the Great Hall to come back to talk to them. Or argue, more like. Worse, Hermione wasn't alone, but with everyone imaginable but her friends. Hermione might have found that preferable, the way things had been going, but he wasn't thinking along those lines. If he had been angry before, he was bordering on furious now. How could Ginny think that was a good idea? It went downhill from there.
"Well, I wanted to check on Ron, didn't I?"
"Sure, because you're such a comfort," he snapped sarcastically, remembering the state Ron had been in when she left earlier. Only extensive visualisation exercises, courtesy of Professor Taylor's DADA class, unusually enough, of what Ginny might bring him to eat had eventually been able to calm him. Well, a little. Still...
Ron's disappointment when she failed to do so was all the greater.
Harry may have been correct, she hadn't helped the situation any, but it probably wasn't the smartest move to say so, and Ginny wasn't impressed with his tone. It's a bit of an ongoing thing of late. "I was here with him," he practically snarled, his face going red as it tends to when he's angry. "You weren't needed."
"Sure," she threw back, every bit as angry and her fear of not being needed a very sore point, "'because you're such a comfort.'" That made him madder, particularly as there was some truth to her words, or his words, case in point.
"So you left her there with no support?"
"You left her there with no support. You knew what was coming and didn't say a word!"
He gave up, convinced she would never understand the constraints of the Oath. It would have helped were he able to explain them. Hell, it would have helped if she had an inkling there was an Oath in play. One might hope that would teach him something important, but that way lies disappointment for the foreseeable future. He turned to stalk off, disgusted. "Fine, you want to take care of him, he's all yours."
"I still need to..." But it was too late, Harry was gone.
Ron had remained slouched apathetically on the couch. He hadn't spoken up again once it became clear Ginny wasn't going to tell them about the announcement. Or couldn't, more like. She approached her brother with much more patience than she'd had for Harry and told him they still needed to owl their mum. It's a little hazy why she felt this was such a matter of urgency, but she certainly didn't want to be the one who hadn't let their mum know at the first opportunity. There is something to be said for her logic.
"Do you want to do it, Ron, or should I?" Ron just shrugged. The Oath wouldn't permit him to do it until morning, but he couldn't explain that to his sister and honestly didn't want to talk about it anymore anyway. "Alright, I can do it. Can I borrow Pig?" Ron just shrugged again, which Ginny took for agreement. It simplified things.
"Right. I'm borrowing Pig, yeah? I'll be back in a bit," she prepared to leave, but Ron still hadn't moved. "Are you going to be alright here on your own? Ron?"
That only got her another shrug. She hesitated a little longer, and finally Ron answered, "Sure, go ahead." It was all she needed to hear. With that, Ginny vanished through the portrait hole to make her way to the owlery. She wanted to be sure to bring Pig back to the Tower before curfew, so she could send him off whenever she was done writing their mum.
It wasn't a bad plan.
Leaving Ron in the common room, however, was a really bad idea. Perfectly dreadful.
It wasn't long before the others began to trickle back in. The topic of choice, naturally, was Hermione's marriage, 'bond', 'whatever, Neville', to Snape. It wasn't that there was much to concretely be said about it, but that just left a vacuum for rumours to fill.
And they did.
Thoroughly miserable, Ron tried to flee.
Unfortunately, escaping to his room proved a not much better solution as Seamus' was one of the loudest, albeit extremely repetitive, voices of incredulity, and he followed the ginger straight to their dorm room, repeating "She married the dungeon bat", or variants thereof, over and over until Ron leapt into action and force fed him a Puking Pastille. While hardly sporting, it did shut Seamus up. Dean came to his defence, Neville hurriedly Summoned his books and left to go to the library, his intelligence is generally underestimated, and some pretty serious hexing ensued.
Projectile vomiting, profusely, it transpires, limits one’s magic to the non-verbal sort, but also makes it rather difficult to focus sufficiently to perform with any accuracy.
Well then.
Seamus' Silencio, something he'd learnt to cast in fifth year, although admittedly not silently, went horribly wrong, and Ron's head swelled up larger than it had seemed after he first enjoyed a few Quidditch successes last year. For those who may have forgotten, that's huge. Not that most of his family members or even his best friend hadn't also had their share of victories, easily as noteworthy, but Ron always responded a mite differently. His retaliatory Furnunculus Maximus, deafening thanks to Seamus' miscast, covered Dean from head to toe in boils, Merlin, his boils had boils, and ensured Ron, Dean and Seamus all ended up in the Infirmary in short order.
Harry had pulled the curtains to on his bed and Imperturbed them, and missed the whole wretched affair. His intelligence is also sometimes underestimated, although his actions tonight were probably driven primarily by annoyance and not intellect. Of course, that's often the case. They could all bloody well rot for all he cared. He'd had enough for today. As strategies go, it wasn't a bad one. Ron could have learnt a thing or two from him.
The discussions and speculation were in full swing when Ginny returned to the common room. There was no sign of Harry, and her Housemates only too cheerily reported that Ron had gone to the Infirmary. His head was so swollen, they'd had trouble squeezing him through the portrait hole. But nothing to worry about. Madam Pomfrey would have him sorted in two flicks.
Well, maybe more...
Frankly, there's probably no sorting the boy, but the Mediwitch will doubtlessly have his head and voice back to normal soon enough.
Ginny could have told Harry and Ron how everyone went a bit mad at the news at dinner and was silenced, but she took it for a given. The madness, that is. The mass silencing was new. But as a pure-blood witch, she was used to new magic. So to speak. As she saw it, there really hadn't been much to tell, and she was still stewing over Harry's reaction.
Now Lavender, on the other hand, had had some interesting things to say about Hermione going missing Friday night. Far in advance of the news of the bonding even. In light of that, however, theories ran riot as to what Hermione could have been doing that night. Hmm, indeed.
When Fay had returned to the common room, she expanded quite... explicitly on Lav's theory that Hermione had been with... someone. Georgina objected, she's kinder that way, but she's also deemed a tad... simple. No one paid her much mind. Ever. Considering that Hermione and the Professor were bonded, Fay argued, almost sensibly, it seemed not altogether far-fetched they were caught in flagranti and presumably forced into it. At wandpoint. It's unclear by whom, naturally, Muggle parents not much given to such actions (and certainly not when said parents were apparently in hiding, not that it was known), but the responsible party was of secondary concern. It's not like anyone would bond voluntarily.
That they happen to be living with two individuals who had apparently done just that slipped their minds. Collectively. Completely. As Gryffindors, that's been known to happen; they're also not known for their mental acuity. Fittingly, they didn't think to ask either of the other recently bonded what led to this rather extreme course of action on their parts. Dhanesh and Kiera could both have explained someone was attacked in the school. Then even Gryffindors should have been able to connect the dots given Hermione's stay in the Infirmary.
Regrettably, Madam and Mister Devi were themselves both still in the Infirmary, and Hafsa was... assisting Filch in his endeavours. Out of sight, out of mind.
Most present in the Tower feel the issue there is bonding the greasy git and not bonding per se. Some... discussion followed as to what it entailed. 'Permanence' as a property was sufficient to make bonding seem stupid, er, ill advised enough. Anything else probably depended on their Vows, and it's not like any of them were privy to the ceremony. More grumbling over the lack of invitations took place. That widespread defamation of the participants' characters and near universal antipathy towards the groom might preclude wedding invitations under the best of circumstances occurs to no one. Gryffindors are not known for their self-reflection.
One particularly malignant theory supposed Hermione had... and here voices grew hushed... been up the duff. Joined the pudding club, as it were. One silly Firstie, a chubby lad, thought that might have something to do with afters, or hoped, more like; it was clear where his preferences lay. He was promptly declared 'too young' for the discussion and sent from the room. The Mobilicorpus is a useful thing to know. It certainly helps manage refractory underclassmen.
From there it was an even split whether Hermione had been getting 'cleaned oot' at McGonagall's insistence - if one is going to spin a yarn, why not go whole hog - or lost 'the wee bairn', if she really spent the weekend in the Infirmary instead of Snape's bed.
Much shuddering ensued. Predominantly for the wrong reasons.
As that theory seemed more robust than any other explanation, and even Harry had said he visited her in the Infirmary, and there'd been no real trace of that weird library tale in evidence... Well, the fabrication sticks in some minds rather insidiously. Even after the Devis later provide more information, some won't be able to entirely shake their belief in the communally crafted fiction.
The especially sad thing about it is other Houses may speculate that there had been a relationship between Granger and Snape. It's fair enough, given their bonding, as to be more reasonable than malicious. Truthfully. Minds seek explanations. But as the only ones particularly aware she'd spent the last couple of days in the Infirmary, Hermione's own Housemates are the ones who come up with the more elaborate and darker theories. And as her failure to be visibly pregnant in the months to come fits perfectly with the story spun, how convenient, there is essentially no proof to the contrary after the fact. The canard tenaciously survives.
Luckily, Hermione soon won't have to put up with too much of their guff, and it only serves to make her new living arrangements a great deal more appealing. She'll settle in quite nicely in fact. Severus for his part by and large couldn't care less what they say. Gossip is the least of his problems. And completely unexpectedly, he'll find himself drawing comfort from... hers.
Lamentably, and she will have occasion to lament this fact, Ginny still knew nothing whatsoever about an attack Friday night, and in the absence of information, she made the mistake of including some of the speculation from her Housemates in her letter home. It really wasn't one of her better decisions. When the boys are able to speak more freely tomorrow, not that they'll disclose all, of course not, because they had nothing to do with any of it after all, and Ginny realises Hermione had been targeted, injured even, she will realise her mistake. Timing, unluckily, is sometimes everything.
Surprisingly, Ginny will have a clearer understanding of the situation than the boys do, as she won't be wrestling with denial. It won't help things much, though, as her fury with them for not stopping her, not that either of them had known precisely what she was going to do, won't be conducive to reflection on any of their parts. And none of them will learn the lesson about the problems Oaths can cause. Not at that time.
But rest assured, when her mother discovers Ginny's error, she'll make her displeasure known. Loudly.
Hermione was scared spitless.
That's the state where one keeps one’s head when faced with adversity, not 'witless' by any means, but one’s mouth goes dry in an involuntary physiological response to the fear and stress. Quite. She can explain it in detail, but oddly no one ever seems interested. She tends to find that disappointing.
Many things are.
It doesn't help, of course, that most of the people she speaks to these days have virtually no understanding of biology. She hasn't quite come to terms with that yet, that fairly common Muggle knowledge isn't necessarily widespread in the wizarding world or even particularly valued. She probably won't come to terms with it either for a long time to come.
Determined to make the best of the evening, and to keep her mind resolutely off the Professor and what might be happening to him, anything but that, she decided she had two goals. The first was to solve the problem of dissuading Crooks' from taking up his constant watch over the room from the Professor's chair. Anywhere else would do, she really wasn't picky by this point.
The second was the issue of collecting Crooks' fur for... Mrs. Figg apparently. Hermione would soon realise she hasn't a prayer of accomplishing the second goal tonight; she couldn't focus enough to read the unfamiliar texts. Uncharacteristically, she let go of it and simply gave up for the time being. There's always tomorrow.
That she was willing to declare those her goals for the evening is even more uncharacteristic of her, with all the things she still has to learn and only a paltry seven months left until N.E.W.T.s, but her experience last Friday is affecting her a great deal more than she's currently noticing.
When considered superficially, that might seem frightening at first, and when she notices it, she will have moments where she worries about just that. But there's also something to be said for gaining perspective and leading a more balanced life. Honestly, Hermione tends to be rather... obsessive, that's phrasing it mildly, and has an all too limited range of interests. She'll overcompensate some initially, it's unavoidable, and it will take a while to find to herself again - well, her new self - but when she does, she'll be happier than she's been in a very long time.
Really.
But that's for later.
Tonight was a different affair altogether. And it was more than a little nerve wracking.
It wouldn't be long before she would also come to realise she hadn't a hope in hell of keeping her mind off the Professor's harrowing straits.
The first order of business was scolding Crooks. She generally prefers to see it as 'negotiating', but several fundamental attributes thereof are lacking for the term to be correct. Whatever it's called, it wasn't crowned with much success. Gary Larson summed it up in a 'Far Side' cartoon rather nicely many years before: the difference between what cats and dogs hear was basically the difference between 'blah blah' and 'blah blah, Ginger'. Half-Kneazles are no different.
Fine, alright, Crooks recognises his name; that doesn't make him a dog.
But he was no more impressed with Hermione than Ginny had been with Harry. He might have been less disdainful. But only just.
It isn't until Hermione tackles her second avenue of attack that she begins to discover why. A little frustrated with her lack of success, it didn't help that the situation with the Professor was rubbing her nerves raw, she grabbed Crooks and just tried to drop him into her chair.
It had seemed simple enough.
It wasn't.
Crooks hissed and sort of shrieked and extended what suddenly appeared to be far too many limbs in all directions at once and absolutely refused to be placed on the chair. Huh. It was definitely an extreme response.
It was, in fact, extreme enough, that Hermione gave it some thought.
Finally.
Crooks really does love the little witch to bits, but goodness is she slow. She's just lucky she's so kind and soft and smells nice and seems to have an endless supply of toys and Kneazle treats - not that Crooks' affections can be bought, not at all, well, except maybe with kippers - because she really is dense as rocks. She's also lucky she has him to look after her, because he isn't sure how she's managed to survive this long on her own. It certainly doesn't speak for their species, because she's considered one of their brighter representatives.
Crooks would have great difficulty pointing out specifically where his looking after her was rewarded with any more success than Hermione's attempts to negotiate with him. That's not just because he hasn't any fingers to do the pointing. But in typical Crooks fashion, that doesn't begin to diminish his unwavering faith in his world view. Crooks is a great many things. What he isn't is unsure.
Figuring that there must be some reason for the hefty reaction, Hermione set about examining the chairs more closely. Calculating that it should be less objectionable if she were to sit in the Professor's chair than Crooks' doing so, and banking heavily that the Potions Master would never know either way, Hermione took a seat and tried to analyse the differences. Surprisingly, there were several. She returned to her chair and looked at it more closely and could see signs of wear. It made sense, inasmuch as it had been the only chair in the lounge when she first entered their quarters... last night. Goodness, it really hadn't been long.
It followed, that if the Professor preferred using an armchair instead of the sofa, and an examination of the leather on the seating reveals that to be the case, that she had seized not only his desk chair when she moved in yesterday, but also co-opted his favourite reading chair. Rats. In fact, the wear patterns indicated he must have used the chair in the lounge she now called 'hers' almost exclusively. Rats again.
Further examination revealed that the chair is not the same as the one she had taken for its match standing across from it. The back had been altered at some point. Some Charm makes the one she was using deeper than it appears, which makes perfect sense in view of his exceedingly long legs. The lumbar support is also different. She crossed back and forth between the chairs a number of times, poked and proded and otherwise crawled all over the furniture, emboldened no doubt by the sure knowledge the Professor wouldn't walk in on her doing so, and then immediately trying to forget why that was, and finally came to the realisation that he had apparently customised the chair quite a bit.
Which, now that she considered it, explained why he seemed so uncomfortable in the chair he was currently left using. Rats yet again.
What it didn't explain was why he hadn't continued to use his chair then.
More traversing the lounge followed, and eventually she realised that from his old chair, in its present position, he could watch the room. But quite evidently he hadn't felt comfortable with the idea of her room directly at his back. Marvellous. He'd preferred to sacrifice his chair for a position where he could keep a better eye on her. Which probably also explained the mirror he'd felt the need to add to the room, the one that now adorned her door. So he could keep an eye out if she's moving about in the room behind him. Splendid.
Well, she was feeling incredibly guilty now.
Truthfully, she was feeling incredibly guilty anyway because he'd gone to report their bonding to You-Know-Who and associates, but she was still fiercely pretending that wasn't the case. The chair problem was incredibly important, after all. Because he was going to return any minute now and be perfectly fine, and nothing would be more important than her having solved the Crooks-chair conundrum...
She'd almost succeeded in convincing herself, distracting herself, and now there she was, feeling guilty all over again. Rats and rats again...
He could have switched the chairs.
Why hadn't he?
She suspected it was sort of like why she hadn't repaired the bra she had been wearing Friday. She could have. But she didn't. She couldn't afford a new one right now, and in some stubborn act of, well it was defiance, but it's thoroughly unclear who she thought she was defying. Maybe she was just railing against the situation. Probably that.
Poverty sucks.
But she'd been utterly stubborn, far too stubborn to repair the bra and it hadn't mattered at all until it had, and then she'd have been far more interested in freeing herself from the ropes and Professor McGonagall's chair and getting out of that fucking room than in repairing her godsdamned bra. Had she been able that is.
Right.
She imagines it must be something kind of like that. Just without the women's undergarments. Or colourful language.
In fact, with all the shifting and fidgeting about he'd done, she expected it was only a matter of time until he gave up and switched the chairs. Unless he's just that stubborn. Which he might be. But she could maybe make his life a little easier and just do it for him.
Sometimes it helps when someone takes things off your hands.
A Wingardium Leviosa or two later, and she'd done just that. Swapped the wing chairs. Now he can keep an eye on her door, sit comfortably in a chair he apparently likes, and still see the room behind him in the mirror. She made a mental note to shut her door when she's in the main room so he can use the mirror as he seems to have intended. She naturally has no way of knowing that he has a spell that adjusts reflections for the viewer, but it's a considerate thought that he'll appreciate once he finally figures out what she's doing.
In a final acid test, she picked up Crooks once again and dropped him on the chair currently in 'her' spot. He had no problems whatsoever anymore taking that seat, but still threw her a long suffering look. Felines. She thought it was for the rough handling; he would laugh at that, quite a bit, if he knew those were her thoughts and if half-Kneazles actually could laugh, of course. Obviously it was because it took her this long. Humans.
In a couple of days Hermione will try to explain to the Professor why Crooks apparently preferred 'his' chair. Her theory is the half-Kneazle hadn't wished to sit in a chair so thoroughly magicked and customised and... well, truly his. Severus will revise his opinion from a feline 'fuck you' to 'fear', and be marginally cheered. He really is a difficult man to help. But if thinking that makes him any happier, both witch and half-Kneazle wouldn't take much issue with it.
Crooks, naturally, will consider it a simple question of common courtesy, unmannered nit, and he claims to know better, and bestow another of his patented long suffering looks upon their wizard.
Those looks are far more versatile than one might think. Especially when dealing regularly with humans.
It's a lucky thing that Hermione had that bit of success, inconsequential though it was. It gave her a sense of achievement, left her feeling good for a few moments, before the Professor apparently stopped Occluding as strongly and everything, everything fell apart.
Holy Cricket.
A/N:
You have LadyCindy to thank for this chapter being posted now. :-)