mybackup2022 | Next ficlet -- Dances with Wolves

For

harrietvane. This one's a bit longer, because there had to be a bit of back story. Enjoy!

DANCES WITH WOLVES

Curious and manifold are the things an ex-Death Eater is prepared to do in order to stay out of Azkaban. And although bribery, blackmail and subtle threats to the right people are the more commonly established means of avoiding a trip to the wizarding prison, the modern Death Eater and wizard du monde will by no means despise marriage, if it is likely to steer him away from a certain island in the North Sea.

If this is true for one Death Eater, it’s doubly true for two of them.

Lucius Malfoy had always been a very cautious wizard: whatever he’d done in his capacity as a Death Eater, he’d either had an alibi or disposed nicely of any witnesses. There was only one exception to this rule though, and it might prove fatal. When Fenrir Greyback’s Friendly Parcel Service had delivered Potter, Weasley and Granger to Malfoy Manor, Lucius hadn’t made the least effort to stop his sister-in-law torturing the young witch.

As far as Narcissa and Draco were concerned, there was no need to worry. Narcissa hadn’t helped either, and neither had Draco, so his ex-wife and son didn’t have anything to gain by pointing out that daddy dearest had been a by no means innocent bystander. Potter and Weasley had been in the dungeons, and everybody else was dead. But Granger… The Granger girl was alive and kicking, and although she didn’t seem especially keen to see him in Azkaban, Lucius wasn’t going to rely on that assumption.

Unfortunately the young lady was unbribable, unblackmailable and unthreatenable. Lucius almost felt reluctant admiration for the witch. Admiration, whether reluctant or unbridled, wasn’t going to get him out of this fix though. The trial was to take place in six weeks, and he needed all the help he could get.

In the end, he hit on a solution that was as simple as it was brilliant, if he said so himself. Wives were not allowed to testify for or against their husbands in court, so marriage was the way out of the dilemma.

This meant he had to court the Granger girl, and he had to do it quickly. Not too quickly though, in order to avoid suspicion. A bit of inside knowledge of his soon-to-be betrothed would be very much to his advantage, he thought while partaking of a light breakfast. Draco didn’t really know her – the boy always started to babble about his nose, whenever Granger was mentioned. Being able to hold on to a grudge was, in principle, a very laudable quality in a Malfoy, but only so long as you didn’t allow the grudge to block your view on its object.

Approaching Potter or Weasley was useless, for many reasons.

Lucius took a thoughtful sip of champagne. He needed a willing source of information; there really was no time to be wasted cajoling tidbits out of recalcitrant youths. Lost in his musings, Lucius refilled his glass. So profoundly was he immersed in the meanderings of his mind that he almost jumped when a house elf announced Severus Snape.

Severus, too, was facing the dire perspective of a prolonged holiday in an invigorating northern climate, surrounded by highly trained attendants and potential friends for life. He hadn’t survived the last twenty years only to spend the next fifty in jail. True, Potter had told everybody and their dogs about Severus being a spy and really one of the Good Guys, but then Potter’s reputation had been severely damaged a few times already. It had been done, so it could be done again. Weasley was useless as a character witness, because his knowledge of the facts as they really were was merely hearsay. Ditto for Granger. But Granger was a war hero, she’d never been accused of having gone round the bend or entertained relationships of a dubious nature with the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Granger was to be the trump card – he couldn’t play it in court, of course, because wives weren’t allowed as witnesses for or against their husbands. But the mere fact of Granger choosing to marry him was bound to corroborate Potter’s version of events.

Due to two decades spent mooning after a long-dead girl while he did his best to teach hormonal teenagers, keep Dumbledore happy and Voldemort even happier and thus his life Cruciatus-free, Severus Snape wasn’t what you’d call an expert in the art of courtship. But he knew a man who was. The woman who could resist Lucius’s tactics of seduction hadn’t yet been born. The man was an expert, and he was Severus’s friend. Besides, once Narcissa had decamped after the divorce, the skimmed milk, weak tea and fat-free comestibles had mysteriously vanished from the breakfast table.

They really did serve excellent breakfast now at Malfoy Manor.

‘Well,’ Lucius said, smiling thinly and dabbing his lips with a blindingly white napkin, ‘it seems that we have ourselves a problem.’

‘It seems that we do.’ Severus nodded. ‘Since neither of us is particularly suited to playing the part of sacrificial lamb…’

‘Certainly not. It’s a pity, really,’ Lucius continued with a half-lidded, calculating glance at the Potions master, ‘that she’s so young, barely nineteen. Because otherwise…’ He let the sentence hang and chose a miniature Danish pastry.

Severus leaned back and crossed his arms. ‘Exactly my thoughts. It would be a trifle unusual, but by no means unheard-of. The last time it was done, if I remember correctly, two women married the same man… 1852, was it?’

‘Unless you count Morgana the Morganatic and her two centaurs in 1893, yes it was. It is our chosen one that is the problem, Severus. She’s too inexperienced. Merely hinting at the possibility would have an extremely adverse effect on our project.’

‘You never know with those Gryffindors,’ Severus said pensively, ‘If we managed to present it as a challenge, a kind of dare?’

‘A dare? Severus, she may be a child, and a virgin to boot, but she’s not stupid. Marriage isn’t something she’d do on a dare, Gryffindor or not.’

‘You’re probably right.’

There was a prolonged silence, and then Severus said, ‘Do you really think she’s a virgin?’

‘Of course!’

‘Lucius, she spent almost a year in a tent with two boys, do you really-‘

‘I’m pretty sure. They couldn’t use magic too often, and they didn’t have access to potions – she’d be about to give birth by now, if they’d had sex. Provided those two dolts managed to fit tab A into slot B, but experience tells us that this is the one thing even Cornelius Fudge managed.’

Severus nodded his appreciation. ‘Good point. We can eliminate her having had sex at Hogwarts, because she simply wouldn’t have found the time – believe me, I know. I saw her essays. I’m not so sure about the past six months, though.’

‘Nonsense. The Weasley girl is her best friend, and she’d have told Draco. She tells him everything, and he…’ Lucius heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘He passes it on to me in minute detail. If it had happened, it would have come up in conversation.’

Silence descended again. Both men were contemplating their plan.

‘There’s nothing for it,’ Severus finally said. ‘We have to try.’

‘Mmh. She’s our ticket out of Azkaban. We’re Slytherins – surely we’re able to lure a chit of a girl into bed?’ It had come out more like a question than he was comfortable with.

‘We ought to try,’ Severus said firmly.

‘Very well, old friend. We shall be wolves dressed as lambs.’

Severus shook his head in disapproval. ‘Mixed metaphor, Lucius. But whether we are mutton or wolves, we ought to start plotting without delay. Taking into consideration that our intended is very possibly a virgin.’

Hermione had never liked her great-aunt Daliah. Or rather, she had started taking a shine to the old lady when her testament was opened.

According to one of Hermione’s many firm beliefs, like and dislike were always mutual. It seemed, though, that Daliah Granger had been an exception to this rule, because her fondness for Hermione had been as great as Hermione’s aversion to the woman. She still got the shivers when she remembered the visits she’d been forced to make, the heavy perfume and squashy bosom, the stains rubbed off her face with spit and the horribly overcooked broccoli.

But all these were things of the past now, and Hermione had been the proud owner of a flat in Knightsbridge and a fat bank account for four months. Once she’d cleared out the flat and got rid of the ubiquitous odour of mothballs, she was quite happy with her new home. The fatness of the bank account allowed her to do what she’d wanted to do since the beginning of her camping odyssey with Harry and Ron: Get a life, have fun, read the books she fancied reading, and generally make up her mind about her future without any pressure at all.

Crookshanks had moved in together with her and immediately taken possession of the small back garden and the nice sunny spot on the window seat downstairs.

Hermione didn’t plan on continuing her life of hedonism forever, but she had allowed herself a year. In spite of her newfound freedom, it was by no means an easy year: she had to survive endless interrogations at the Ministry, often three times a week, and after six months, she was beginning to feel that maybe all those stupid bureaucrats hadn’t been worth saving. She hadn’t been so foolish as to expect complete peace once everything was over, but neither had she thought of herself as such an important witness that the Aurors would need her to testify every two days. She was beginning to get grumpy and sullen, and that wasn’t at all what she had imagined. She’d wanted to be carefree, finally, just for a year, not to be reminded again and again of events she’d have preferred to deal with on her own, in her own time.

Besides, she was sure that the Aurors were twisting and turning her words into something that didn’t resemble her own version at all. Take the questions about Snape, for instance: there was no doubt that they wanted the man to be guilty; it was as plain as daylight from the way they asked their interminable questions. And although she didn’t like Lucius Malfoy in the least, she wanted the man to get a fair trial. Yes, he had stood by inactively while his crazy sister-in-law tortured her, but what on earth could he have done without a wand? But that obviously wasn’t what the Aurors wanted to hear.

Anyway, it was Saturday, which meant that she had two undisturbed days to look forward to. The nice young man, with whom she’d had a rather satisfying one-night stand on Wednesday, wasn’t likely to bother her again, because she’d changed her phone number and erased his memory of her address. She was getting quite good at that, Hermione mused while her coffee was steeping in the French coffee press. The first time she’d felt awful, but then rationality had triumphed over misplaced guilt – she never promised more than one night, and if they didn’t want to hold up their end of the bargain, well, they’d have to deal with it. The boys at the Vodafone shop already knew her, although they didn’t know why she kept changing her number so frequently.

Nor did anybody else know. She was exploring a hitherto neglected side of herself, and there was no reason why she should expose herself to questions or, heaven forbid, judgement.

She pressed down the filter, selected a medium-sized cup and put coffee pot and cup down on a tray, on which a basket of croissants was already waiting next to a butter dish and a selection of jams and honey.

Crookshanks joined her in the library – she’d converted the living room immediately after moving in – and together they sat in companionable silence, Crookshanks contemplating the pattern of the placemat, Hermione reading the morning paper.

When the doorbell rang, she was more surprised than annoyed. She checked her appearance on the way out – hair hopeless, very nice negligee, nail varnish on her toes still all right – and peered through the spy hole.

She withdrew, shook her head and looked again. But the figure on her doorstep remained Severus Snape, even after another shake of the head and a renewed effort to dispel what she thought must be an illusion. In the end, she decided to open the door.

‘Professor Snape?’ she asked cautiously, careful not to enunciate too clearly, so that she could still claim to have said ‘postman’, if the illusion decided to go away.

‘The very same,’ he said in the voice she instantly recognized. ‘I am aware that this is a very awkward time for me to disturb you on a Saturday morning.’

Too polite to just ask what he wanted, Hermione bade him come in and share her breakfast. She hadn’t really expected him to accept and was surprised when he did. Her surprise grew when Crookshanks approached her former teacher with every sign of affectionate interest and shed an astonishing amount of copper hair on his trousers. Snape didn’t seem to mind though, and sat down at the table.

He was wearing Muggle clothing, Hermione realized when she poured his coffee into a hastily fetched cup. Nothing extraordinary, just a pair of casual black trousers and a grey polo shirt under a dark grey jumper. She peered down the front and noticed his hairless chest. She liked hairless chests. She had to admit that she rather liked what she saw – he was as lean as a whiplash, sinewy and without a gram of fat, and he had very good legs indeed. The hair was clean, too, and combed back from his face in a loose ponytail.

‘You look good, professor,’ she remarked, sitting down opposite him. ‘I’m glad to see you have recovered so well.’

If she had expected a rebuke from the man she’d thought to be reclusive to the point of obsession, she’d been wrong. ‘Thank you, Miss Granger,’ he said. ‘I have to return the compliment. You have changed a great deal since last I saw you.’

Hermione snorted. ‘Well, I guess neither of us was looking their best last time we laid eyes on each other. But I’m glad you came to see me, although I’m not quite sure…’ She didn’t finish her sentence and gave him an expectant look.

‘Ah.’ Snape put own his cup. ‘Excellent coffee, by the way, Miss Granger. But then you were always a dab hand at brewing. I am sure my visit, unannounced visit, must seem very strange to you.’

‘Unexpected, yes. Strange, well, yes, a bit. I mean, you aren’t exactly a social animal. As far as I know,’ she added hastily, because she knew from experience how tedious it was having other people tell you who and what you were.

‘Not exactly, no. Although I have been known to talk to people for more than thirty seconds, you know. But I admit that from a student’s point of view, your impression was quite correct.’

‘Well, I’m not a student anymore,’ Hermione said reasonably.

‘No, you aren’t.’

He gave her a Look when he said that, and Hermione wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. In a different environment and with a different man, she’d have interpreted it as decidedly flirtatious. But here? Snape? Well, she wasn’t going to get ahead of her data. First observation, then interpretation. I worked as well with men as it did with empirical studies.

‘The reason for my visit at this unreasonable hour is a favour I would like to ask of you.’

Ah. Of course. She ought to have thought of it right away. ‘It’s about your trial, isn’t it? I assure you, professor, that I’ll do anything in my power-‘

‘I’m sure I’m very grateful, Miss Granger,’ he interrupted her. ‘But that wasn’t why I came here.’

‘It wasn’t? Well, in that case I’m even more curious!’

‘It is… a little awkward. But I suppose beating about the bush will do no good, so I’ll come straight to the heart of the matter. There will be a ball, on Wednesday, at Malfoy Manor, and I meant to ask you whether you’d be good enough to accompany me.’

There was a long silence. Hermione felt as if a tectonic shift was taking place in her head. ‘Did you just ask me,’ she said tonelessly, ‘to go with you to a ball at Malfoy Manor?’

‘I’m afraid I did.’

‘But why?’

The acid test. Severus took a fortifying sip of coffee. ‘There is more than one reason. Firstly, I’ve been invited to a ball and need a partner. Now, the list of women who would even consider being seen with me is very short. You were the only exception I could think of.’

‘That,’ said Hermione, ‘is probably true.’

‘Er, yes. Secondly, I don’t want to spend a whole evening with some stupid bimbo, who thinks she might get her share of fame by going out with the wizarding world’s most hated man.’

‘I think you’re using a bit too much black to paint the picture, but on the whole, yes, I understand.’

‘Thirdly, I can’t and don’t want to conceal from you the fact that I desperately need to be seen with somebody above any suspicion whatsoever.’

‘Then why accept an invitation from Malfoy?’ Hermione asked, refilling both their cups.

‘Good question. Because everybody who is anybody will be there. Shacklebolt, McGonagall, Potter, Weasley, reporters, everybody.’

‘No! I mean, you don’t mean to tell me that all these people have accepted an invitation from Malfoy? I don’t believe it!’

‘My dear Miss Granger, I think you sadly underestimate the attraction of expensive champagne, exquisite food, the possibility to show one’s face and…’ He grinned. ‘You’re Muggle-born, so you probably don’t know. A ten-karat diamond is waiting for the lucky lady who wins the tombola, and a pint of Felix Felicis for the lucky male winner. It’s a tradition Lucius established after the first Voldemort war.’

‘With good reason,’ Hermione commented dryly.

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘There is one small thing that bothers me in an otherwise delectable scheme pour épater les bourgeois. If I go with you, I’ll be doing Malfoy an equally big favour.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Severus replied smoothly. ‘Not that I want to belittle your efforts in the, erm, latest upheaval, but if Minerva and Potter are there, do you really think your attendance would make much of a difference?’

‘I still don’t understand why Harry would go,’ Hermione muttered, frowning.

‘Cherchez la femme.’

‘But he’s unattached right now – oh, I see! You mean he’ll try to get Ginny back? Fat chance he’s got, especially if she gets the diamond. That’s bound to attach her to the Malfoys forever. Plus, she’s been avoiding him for months!’

‘You are not without a healthy cynicism, Miss Granger,’ Severus remarked gravely. ‘I like that in a woman. So, do we have a deal?’

‘It seems that we do, professor. Does Mr Malfoy know about your plan? He won’t be too pleased, I imagine.’

‘As of yet, he doesn’t. I hope you will understand the deeply-rooted male instinct not to tell one’s friend that one intends to invite a girl, while one isn’t sure yet whether she’s going to say yes. A matter of primitive pride, I suppose. But rest assured that I will inform him presently.’

Accepting an invitation to a house where one had been tortured and actually entering that house were two very different things, as Hermione found out on the following Wednesday. When she and the boys had been transported to Malfoy Manor, bound and gagged and so frightened that something as natural as breathing had seemed like hard work, it had been dark. The Manor had been looming ahead, once they’d emerged from the gravel path leading towards it. Hermione still remembered with horrible clarity how she’d been telling herself, with every step of their captors that brought them nearer their destination, that this was the last day of her life, and how completely unable she’d been, even then, to grasp the thought. It had just been a sentence, and a terrible one, and somewhere in the back of her mind it even made sense, but she could have thought ‘There’ll be sausage for breakfast’, and it would’ve made as much sense as the thought of her imminent death.

It was dark now, too – the days had already begun to lengthen, as it was February, but at seven p.m. the sun had long gone – and they were travelling in a carriage, which swayed gently on the gravel. Hermione felt her hands go clammy.

‘I, erm, don’t think I can do this,’ she said, when the carriage had come to a halt at the foot of the large staircase. She had trouble breathing, and her arms and legs felt so stiff as if they’d never unbend again.

‘How thoughtless of me.’ Severus, who was sitting opposite her, bent forward to get a glimpse of her face in the darkness. ‘I should never have… Miss Granger, do you want me to escort you home?’

‘And turn tail? Never! I just need’ – she took a few deep, reassuring gulps of air – ‘I just need to get my breathing under control.’

Severus sincerely doubted that that would be enough, given that the girl was trembling like a leaf. ‘Would you maybe like to walk for a while? It’s cold, but with a warming charm you should be quite comfortable’

She gave him a grateful smile and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea. Will you walk with me? My knees are feeling a bit weak. But, won’t we be too late or anything?’

Suppressing a smile with difficulty, Severus thought that she’d probably be anxious to arrive in time for her own execution. ‘No problem. The ball as such only starts at nine; before it’s just mingling and inane small talk – Lucius won’t make his grand appearance before half past eight at the earliest. So there’s plenty of time.’

He cast the necessary charms on her cloak and footwear, and they set off into the darkness. As they walked, Hermione felt the panic recede and started to enjoy the stroll that led them past flowerbeds heaped high with earth, with narcissi and crocuses dreaming of sun and rain, and past skeletal trees that embraced the night sky with their barren arms.

‘Better?’ Severus asked, when they’d wandered for about twenty minutes.

‘Much better. Thank you, that was an excellent idea. You know what I’d really like now?’

‘A drink?’ Severus ventured hopefully, since he was feeling the growing need for a double scotch, no water please, and keep those ice cubes. On second thought, make that a triple.

She beamed up at him. ‘Exactly. You aren’t using Legilimency, are you?’

‘I’d rather call it empathy,’ he replied dryly, and she laughed. ‘We’ll enter through the side doors’ – he pointed at the glass doors to their left – ‘into the library. Lucius’s elves don’t let the guests trespass, so we’ll be quite undisturbed there.’

‘I daresay the elves won’t keep you from the library?’

‘No, and as my companion for the night you are of course allowed in as well.’

They swiftly walked over to the doors Severus had indicated. The room behind them wasn’t as brightly lit as the entrance hall had been, something that Hermione found very comforting. The darkness in the garden had been like a protective layer she was reluctant to leave behind, but she could cope with that warm golden light.

The door had barely closed behind them, when a house elf popped into existence and inquired after their wishes. With a quick sideways glance at Hermione, Severus told it to retire; they’d pour their own drinks.

‘I would have imagined a much bigger library,’ Hermione muttered, more to herself than to her companion, wile she contemplated the cosy room with its large desk and bookshelves.

‘Oh, this isn’t the main library. This is just Lucius’s lair, where he drags the books he’s currently using, in order to devour them in peace.’

Seized by sudden panic, Hermione grabbed the edge of a bookshelf so hard that her fingers hurt. ‘His… Are you saying that this is Malfoy’s private study?’

‘Uh-huh. Very cosy, isn’t it?’

‘Cosy isn’t a word I’d associate with – oh my god!’

‘Good evening,’ said the Lord of the Manor, closing the door behind him and smiling at his guests. ‘I couldn’t quite believe it when that benighted elf told me – but here you are. Welcome to my home, Miss Granger.’

As he walked towards her with his hand already outstretched to salute her, Hermione felt physically, like a small, personal earthquake, how paradigms suddenly shifted and reality realigned itself. This wasn’t the Malfoy she’d fleetingly known. This was post-war Malfoy, a man who’d been humiliated and beaten, and whose beliefs had been so thoroughly destroyed that nothing remained of them. He was still good-looking and still able to maintain a façade of aloofness, but the man underneath was very much changed.

She mechanically shook Malfoy’s hand while her head turned, almost of its own volition, to look at Snape. How on earth had she been able still to call him professor, after all that had happened? He was just a man – a powerful wizard, yes, just like Malfoy was still a powerful wizard, but their time was over, and hers had begun. It would never do to underestimate those two men, because they were, without a doubt, still forces to be reckoned with. But she’d never again be afraid of them, because Snape wasn’t her teacher anymore, and Malfoy wasn’t a threat anymore. They had no power over her. They were just men.

And very attractive, she thought as she watched them pour the drinks. Opposites, matching pieces, the kind of thing any collector would be ready to acquire at an enormous price.

Collector, eh?

She’d been thinking of herself as a kind of collector these last months… You couldn’t put one-night stands on a shelf for others to admire well, you could, but the police tended to give very nasty names to such propensities), but then hers was a very different kind of collection. These two – they’d make a nice centrepiece. One would have to have them both of course, that was what matching sets were for.

Hermione crossed the room and sat down on a large sofa. When the two men turned towards her with their drinks in hand, she smiled – did it feel wolf-like only to her, she wondered – and patted the empty spaces to her left and right.

‘I’m telling you right here and now,’ Hermione said huskily, when she’d reluctantly separated her lips from Severus’s, ‘that a one-night stand won’t be enough. Usually I put memory charms on the blokes and change my phone number, just to be on the safe side, you know, but the way you two are making me feel, I’m sure once won’t be enough. And we’ve only just been kissing.’

Lucius cast a fleeting look at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Unless one of you has a time turner, I’m afraid it’s too late now to do much more than kissing. It’s a quarter past eight already, and you’ – he fondly bit Hermione’s earlobe – ‘have dishevelled me beyond recognition.’

‘It suits you, though.’ Hermione turned to place a kiss on the blond wizard’s throat and grinned at the love bite she left blooming on the white skin.

‘I’m sure it does, but it is not a fit state to greet my guests in. Perhaps the two of you would like to accompany me upstairs, to freshen up and, er, familiarize yourself with the premises? I trust the lady’ – he somehow managed to bow to Hermione and smile up at her at the same time – ‘will be gracing us with her presence after the ball?’

‘The lady is definitely inclined to do so,’ Hermione replied. ‘And now she has to go and powder her nose. See you upstairs, gentlemen.’ She gave each of them a peck on the cheek and strode out of Lucius’s study.

The two wizards, left alone, stared at each other.

‘Virgin, you said?’ Severus muttered finally.

‘I have been known to be wrong, although it is an extremely rare occurrence,’ Lucius replied stiffly.

‘Well, you were, but not in a bad way, I’d say.’

‘Not bad at all, no.’

‘Do you think she’ll consent to marry us? Or is she just going to use us and then dump us?’

Lucius sniffed. ‘Nobody uses and dumps a Malfoy.’

‘Except for Voldemort.’

‘Well, yes, that would be the exception to the rule.’

‘Indeed.’

The two men fell silent.

‘Have you ever…’ Severus began, but didn’t finish his sentence.

‘N-no.’

‘No? I was convinced you got up to all kinds of depravities!’

‘I might have given that impression,’ Lucius said cautiously, ‘but as a matter of fact…’

‘You’re a serial seducer! The man whom no woman has yet refused!’

‘That might be a slight, erm, exaggeration.’

‘Exaggeration? You’d better explain yourself, Lucius! You know what’s at stake!’

Lucius passed a desperate hand through his already mussed hair. ‘Well, if you really have to know…’

‘Of course I have to know. We can’t afford to disappoint the girl. What did you say?’ Severus asked sharply, when Lucius muttered an indistinguishable reply.

‘I said, there was only ever Narcissa.’

‘Only ever… Good heavens, man, you’re not much more than a virgin!’

‘I’ll have you know,’ Lucius began heatedly, but then deflated. ‘All right. Let’s have a look at the books, there must be something about threesomes.’

‘I thought Narcissa had confiscated all your naughty books.’

‘Oh, damn. So she did.’ Lucius gnawed at his thumbnail – Severus rightly took it as a sign of extreme distress, because he’d never seen his friend bite his nails, not even when Voldemort took away his wand.

‘We’ll have to make it up as we go,’ he said soothingly. ‘I’m sure we can pull it off. The old wand is still in working condition, I trust?’

Lucius winced. ‘I’ll thank you not to be rude, Severus. Of course it – oh, here you are, Hermione.’

‘Yes, here I am, and the two of you still aren’t ready. You’d better get going, the sooner we start that stupid ball, the sooner it will be over.’

‘Yes, dear,’ they said in unison and followed her meekly out of the library and towards the Great Staircase.

Next ficlet -- Dances with Wolves

no subject

no subject