Chapters 81-90

And the Worst Thing is…

When Severus returned with a pale Alina in tow, Hermione had made her excuses and buried herself in her work. After grading a pile of essays from her First Years she had turned to a fat tome about advanced Herbology. But she found it nearly impossible to concentrate. Recent events weighed heavy on her mind. Heavy enough for her to develop a tension headache that had not abated for a minute during the last two days.

A knock on the portrait made her jump.

‘Hermione?’ Lois’ muffled voice drifted up from the main dungeons corridor.

‘Coming.” Hermione hurried down the hallway and down the stairs. Slightly out of breath, she swung open the portrait. Lois looked tired and worried.

‘Have you talked to Alina?’

‘Yes,’ Lois said. ‘I just left her at the entrance of her House. And I thought I’d drop by on my way back.—Ron’s going to come over and pick me up in a bit. If you don’t mind, I’d rather wait here with you.’

‘No, of course not. Come in. I think both of us could use some more tea. Rooibos?’

Her friend nodded gratefully.

oooOooo

A short time later Lois and Hermione were seated in the comfortable squashy armchairs in the library, meditatively staring into the warm flames of the fire. Even though the May sunshine was warm outside, the lower levels of the castle were still quite chilly.

‘How is Alina?’ Hermione asked. ‘I mean, obviously I’ve tried to talk to her about everything…but I don’t know how successful I’ve been.’

‘Well,’ Lois began. ‘Alina is not happy, of course. However, I do believe that this misguided attempt at ‘punishing’ her doesn’t really trouble her very much. She told me she knew at once that it was only a DADA exercise.’ Lois frowned. ‘I think she actually expected just to be thoroughly thrashed. Most of all she’s deeply ashamed that it took her so long to master that exercise—— never mind that it’s an exercise designed for Third Year students and not for First Years.
‘Luckily the more serious implications of illegal punishments in a torture chamber of all places completely escape her—yet. And I for one do not intend to enlighten her. It will be difficult enough for her to settle down with her entire House punished so severely. Have you any idea how they are treating her about that? Do her house-mates blame her?’

Hermione shook her head. ‘I’ve made a point of talking with all of the Prefects, and a number of the other students. I believe they do understand the mistakes they made now.’

She ticked off the points on the fingers of her left hand.

‘Punishing a fellow Slytherin without the explicit permission by their Head of House, ignoring all considerations of commensurability and common sense, using a torture chamber as the location for the punishment with all the connotations that entails, using advanced magic on a younger student…’ Hermione sighed. ‘Lois, you have really no idea how difficult this situation is. Beyond how wrong and hurtful it is what they did to Alina. The balance inside Slytherin House is precarious to say the least.
’While many Slytherin families are relieved that Voldemort was defeated, and quite eager to prove that they are not, and never have been, on the side of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, others take a very different stance. To them it is an affront that people like Alina—or Severus, for that matter, as his father was a Muggle, too—are even allowed into Slytherin House. That imagined slight to Slytherin House pride would have made them punish Alina much more severely.
‘Especially the Prefects are under a lot of pressure from their families. Ciardha Vaisey believed that he had to punish Alina. And he tried his level best to come up with something that wouldn’t frighten or seriously hurt her. Up to the point that he allowed Ginny to be present as a witness. That idiot boy! Couldn’t he have gone to Severus?’

‘Kids do the darndest things,’ Lois quoted.

‘It’s so stupid. Crookshanks always gets away from me. I never told Alina to keep him inside all the time. I only asked her to watch him.’ Hermione shook her head. ‘You know, for the majority of the students the whole thing was simply a lot of fun! They enjoyed the chaos and the adventure of searching for the damn cat. They were surprised at how civil Slytherins could be—asking for help and initiating a campaign that all four Houses joined. This could have been the start of the House-unity the Sorting Hat has been singing about for years. And now all it is is a big, flaming mess. They all tried to do their best.
‘But…as the saying goes ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’.
‘And the worst thing,’ Hermione whispered, ‘when this gets out, and it will get out, such things always do…I have no idea what they will do to Severus because of it. As Head of House, this is automatically his fault. And it’s not even a week since he fulfilled the conditions of his probation.’

‘Shit, I never thought of that!’ the Muggle-woman cursed soundly. ‘Oh God, Hermione—you don’t think they’ll—they’ll—’

Hermione’s lips trembled. ‘I don’t think so. But…I just don’t know. Maybe I’m just overreacting.’

‘Have you talked to him?’

‘Sort of…he said that the only good thing about the situation is that he doesn’t have to fear the parents of his own students anymore, now that Voldemort is gone and the remaining Death Eaters have disappeared. But apart from that…He’s been…I’ve never seen him like that as a teacher. He puts up a good show for the school. But down here,’ she gestured at the library, ‘it’s obvious that this really hit him hard. He’s furious, frustrated, disappointed. And he blames himself.’