Chapters 31-40

‘The Apprentice and the Necromancer’ by JunoMagic
Chapters 31–40

Morning After

At breakfast the next day Hermione was decidedly the worse for wear. Bleary-eyed and headachy, she clung to the edge of the table, hard put to prevent her lips from breaking into an ear-splitting yawn.

She knew that Snape had had even less sleep. He had stayed up until dawn—patrolling the Slytherin quarters once an hour after the end of the party.

And quite effectively, too: he’d thrown a Seventh Year boy out of the Sixth Year’s girls’ bedroom (though Hermione had the distinct feeling that Snape was quite impressed with how Ciardha Vaisey had worked his way around the charms that were supposed to keep boys from ever setting foot inside the girls’ dungeons), he’d broken up a magical spin-the-bottle game in the broom-cupboard and escorted a Fifth Year girl who’d decided that she was plenty old enough to handle Ogden’s Firewhisky to Madam Pomfrey in order to have her stomach lining restored.

In spite of all that, Snape looked just the way he always did: pale, bad-tempered, and disgustingly awake.

Minerva had at least a sympathetic smile for her. ‘Slytherin house party?’

Hermione nodded carefully while she looked longingly at the mug in front of her, willing it to fill up with coffee instead of tea.

‘Ahhh…’ Madam Hooch let out a nostalgic sigh. ‘Those were the days. Slytherin parties were already infamous when I started at Hogwarts. Did you have fun?”

Yellow eyes focused on Hermione who didn’t feel at all up to this disconcerting scrutiny.

Did she have fun? Hermione frowned, mentally going over the previous night. She’d danced with her master. She’d danced with Snape! Not once, but twice. She’d also danced with Malfoy. And she’d done the Magicarena with a whole gaggle of Slytherin goslings—Second and Third Years. She’d rolled into her bed at 2 am.

Actually…She put her mug down and beamed at Madam Hooch.

‘You know,’ Hermione said slowly, ‘I really had a lot of fun.’

oooOooo

‘Here,’ Snape rasped. ‘A table spoon ought to suffice. Merlin, don’t look at me like that! I’m not about to poison my own apprentice. It is only a basic Invigoration Draught. How you survived the war if a single late night has you looking so peaky is really quite beyond me.’

He directed one of his most intimidating scowls at her.

‘Trust me, Miss Granger, I did not enjoy last night any more than you did. But my…Slytherin house expects its head of house to uphold certain customs and traditions. And it seemed expedient to exploit the opportunity to bolster your position with my Slytherins. You will need every help you can get if you’re supposed to teach them one day.’ He sniffed. ‘Not that I necessarily think you will get very far no matter how much help I can provide for you.’

When Hermione just stared at him, he rolled his eyes towards the ceiling of the dungeon, muttering darkly under his breath.

‘You didn’t honestly expect that I consider silly children’s dances and those pitiful attempts at partying by hormone-controlled teenagers as … what would you call it? Oh, yes,’ his voice softened into a supercilious sneer, ‘‘fun’ would be the term that you and your Gryffindor cronies use for such exceedingly mature examples of entertainment as the one we had to suffer through last night, wouldn’t it? But surely you—as you are no longer a student anymore—have at long last moved beyond such ridiculous notions, haven’t you?’

Snape didn’t wait for a reply, but spun on his heel and exited the room, leaving Hermione to stare after him in horror. The last she saw of him was a swirl of black robes as he strode down the corridor towards his office.

oooOooo

Much later Hermione shuffled wearily into Snape’s private library and slumped down into an armchair. From beyond the door that connected the room with study, she heard the low, strangled sound of her master’s voice.

‘I am not going to do that—that—that is completely—’

‘Preposterous?’ Lois Petrel sounded amused. ‘Was that the word you wanted?’

Hermione allowed herself a faint grin. She’d love to be a spider at the ceiling of that dungeon right now. She could just imagine Professor Snape’s expression when faced with the Muggle-woman’s peculiar mixture of patience and insistence, coupled with a notable lack of apprehension where a certain potions master was concerned.

A harsh hacking sound indicated that Snape was trying to clear his throat. Snape—at a loss for words?

‘No, don’t do that,’ Lois interrupted and launched into an eloquent explanation of how Snape should have a sip of water instead of clearing his throat and overstraining his vocal cords.

‘So what did you want to say earlier, professor?’ Petrel asked at last.

‘Huh?’

A pause.

‘Silly,’ he admitted grudgingly.

‘Really? Surely you can do better than that, sir. What’s so bad about ‘silly’?’

The silence stretched out for a long moment. Then, to Hermione’s surprise, Snape answered:

‘‘Silly’ is dangerous. It leaves you weak and exposed. It provides an opening for your enemies to hurt you and those that you…’ He choked, and Hermione could hear the effort it took him to follow Petrel’s instructions on how to clear his throat. ‘That you care about. It is best to avoid situations which…’

‘Cause you to let down your guard?’ Petrel sighed. ‘Sir, I don’t know anything about you, and next to nothing about your world, about my daughter’s new world. And I’m only a speech therapist, not a psychologist. But…the war is over. You’ve won. The enemy is dead and gone. Maybe it’s time for you to learn how to be silly again? To have a bit of fun now and then?’

‘What good would that do?’ Snape asked, his voice strained and weary.

‘Well,’ Lois continued briskly, ‘as far as this ‘silly’ exercise is concerned that you find so repugnant, it might help you to get back the voice you once had.’

13 Responses to Chapters 31-40

  1. Katie says:

    “Carefully he laid their wands on the table and reached for her. Clasping her gently around the wrists, he pulled her hands towards him.” awww, bow-chicka-bow-bow

  2. Fluffette says:

    Prue Halleywell!! Will Phoebe, Paige and Piper turn up?

  3. Teresa says:

    Hello! Wonderful story – I first started reading it when you were in the process of writing; however, I never finished so I hope to do so now. Unfortunately the link to chapters 41-50 doesn’t work…I also cannot find a different path/link to those chapters (any kind of overview) so it would be great if you could take a look whenever you have time. Thank you 🙂

    • JunoMagic says:

      The link should work now. There was a character missing in the url of the next chapter.

      Unfortunately the chapter overview in the sidebar is broken, and I’ve been trying in vain to get the plugin creator to take a look at what’s wrong. *sigh*

  4. lanie says:

    Just a heads-up: the Magicarena link is no longer valid. Other than that, good story.

    lanie

  5. Xexar says:

    First off, I love this story. The pacing is wonderful and your grasp of the characters is awesome, they are all recognizable from their canon but still have an original voice.

    I was just curious though, you haven’t had anyone remark on there being a Muggleborn in Slytherin; something that I had figured would be noteworthy. So, I was wondering if this had happened before or if her father was actually a wizard or perhaps there was a squib somewhere back in her family tree?

    I just had to tell you that you having the Slytherins play Settlers of Cataan was truly inspired…if ever there was a game that was made for them, that is the one! I swear I’ve played it with a few of them, promising one thing in trade and actually handing over something else (buggers).

    • JunoMagic says:

      Thank you for reading and for your kind comment! I’m glad you like the story so far. I remember well how much fun I had introducing the kids to Settlers in my story. 🙂

  6. obsidianjg says:

    I love how Hermione messes with Snape’s running of the Slytherin house. On top of having a muggle born not only as apprentice, but also as a student in his house, it must be trying for him. Hermione does not follow the time-treasured Slytherin rules. For the Slytherins that so far prided themselves mostly for purebloodedness (at least as far as the viewpoint in the books allowed), that must be something. I like it that the Slytherin’s show some redeeming qualities in this story.
    I really like how you bring the worlds closer together in proving that not all muggles are stupid even if they don’t have magical abilities.
    So, the cruciatus curse has some long term side-effects. Very realistic. No Reset button for the war-veterans and some interesting possibilities for h/c scenes 🙂 .

    • JunoMagic says:

      Slytherin: I think Slytherin must have some very nasty dark secrets (which will surface unexpectedly later on 😉 ), but they are not automatically Evil (or misunderstood saints, as some fans would have it …).

      Muggle vs. magic world: “Apprentice” was in every way an experiment, and I simply explored all facets of the story that seemed interesting to me at the time. I just let my imagination run wild. And the Muggle/wizard dynamics were just waaay too tempting. 🙂

      h/c: Guilty as charged. *grins* I like me some nice h/c, what can I say …

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