Back at Hogwarts, Severus wasted no time dragging Hermione to the library and forcing her into the Restricted Section. Unfortunately, she seemed to have developed some kind of phobia of these surroundings.
“I don’t want to go in there!” she shrieked hysterically. “There are mad men in there! A banshee could wait around the corner, or a mummy! I don’t want to go there, Sevvie! Please, don’t make me!” she pleaded.
But Severus ignored this (he was even used to it now) and jostled her around the corner. “See a banshee there?” he mocked.
“No,” she replied sheepishly.
“So there is no point in letting me wait for my well-deserved freedom.”
“But they almost always hide behind the bookshelves,” Hermione tried.
“I promise to watch out for any attack on my life,” Severus replied. Hermione looked at him, terrified. “Oh, and on yours, too. Now ... do you want to show me where you usually read in here?” He had to find the location of her lemon drop ingestion.
“Why do you want to know that?” she asked, sensing a conspiracy against her.
“Because if I know, I can send you straight to hell where you belong. Or maybe give you a short hug,” he added, seeing that she didn’t like the hell-alternative.
“Lemon drop?” he asked when she had shown him her favourite reading spot. She accepted and flipped it into her mouth.
Severus accio-ed himself a chair and sat down, waiting hopefully for the lemon drop to take actions. He waited and waited and waited for several minutes which seemed like hours to him.
He had conjured up a box containing paper ships for her and a little swimming pool where she could let them swim. She was happily playing shipwrecking when she suddenly stopped and looked up at him.
He looked back at her, expectantly. Finally, he thought, the curse will be lifted. He would have his privacy back. He wouldn’t have to play babysitter to a seventh year student aymore. He would be able to teach again without worrying about his quarters.
“My captain has drowned,” Hermione informed him. “The people are panicking and nobody knows what to do. They don’t have any rescue boats. They are going to die a very slow death, suffering while the ship will gradually be sinking. After several hours, half of the occupants will be dead. After days, only a man and a dog will be left. The dog will eat the man or the man will eat the dog, depends on who gets the idea first. Eventually, the one who has eaten the other will die, too, because there aren’t any fish in the ocean, as the ocean is a fish-less ocean. Isn’t that tragic?”
Well, there were other things he found to be more tragic. Like Hermione still being batty. “Don’t you feel any different, Miss Granger?” he asked, crestfallen.
“Why should I? I’m not on the sinking ship.”
But he was, though not literally “ yet. If she went on like that, soon the whole of Hogwarts would be flooded.
His shoulder slumped down, Hermione still wasn’t cured. He didn’t know what else he could do. He had tried everything he could imagine. She had to be normal by now! Theoretically. Unless that blasted book has kept something secret. Severus seized the book and was about to throw it far, far away when some tiny portion of his mind told him that if someone knew what the book has kept quiet about, it would most probably be the book itself.
“I know you concealed things,
Now give me a clue:
Are the things your poems promised
Ever going to be true?”
This time he was sure that the book grinned, or rather smirked. It was unmistakeable. The midnight-blue cover turned purple. Probably from suppressed laughter, Severus thought grimly. He quickly focussed his attention back on the book, as new stanzas formed on the cover, giving him the answer to his question.
Politeness doesn’t seem
To be a trademark of you,
Which is somthing I’m forced to notice
Again and anew.
But now that you ask
I have to spill the beans:
Whatever’s on my pages
Is true by all means.
And before you explode
From suppressed anger and such,
It all takes some time,
I will tell you that much.
Severus drew in a deep breath. He’d just found himself a rescue boat and was shipping happily to the next island. It would only take time for Hermione to become normal. The question was, home much time.
“I have another query about
The last curse you cast:
How much time does it take
Before the person’s rid of it at last?”
His stanza vanished and only seconds later, the book’s reply appeared on the front cover, red-lettered as usual:
I do not know for sure,
It depends on who it is,
Twenty-four hours at maximum,
Then she’ll be alright, the little miss.
Twenty-four hours, a full day. He could get by with it. He had managed to bear with her for the last two months, after all.
“Miss Granger, I believe it is time to go back to my rooms,” he told her. “I have essays to grade.”
Several hours later, Hermione was still in his bedroom where he had deposited her after they arrived at his rooms. Severus was sitting at his desk, silently complaining about the dumbness of his students.
His bedroom door creaked open and a bushy head peered out. Hermione’s eyes travelled around the room and finally fixed on him. She closed the door quietly and walked towards his desk while he pretended not to notice her. You never know what she’s up to.
“You stopped the curse?” she asked bluntly.
“Very perceptive of you,” he answered. Silently, he was congratulating himself for his glorious victory.
Hermione threw himself around his neck. “I’m so glad I’m back to normal again!” she said breathlessly. “I thought I’d never experience a sane moment again. You know, we “ I had nearly no time left after midnight. It’s such a luck that I “ you found the book in time. I don’t want to know what would have happened if you hadn’t!”
“The curse wouldn’d have been lifted,” Severus suggested helpfully.
“Well, that’s a possibility. But you see, so much more could have happened. And you must be very happy that I won’t bother you again! I’m sure it had been a most demanding time for you. I can’t even remember a lot. Only, that we went for a walk yesterday. But not much more. I guess I was very difficult to manage, but that is even more reason to“”
“Miss Granger, now that you’re cured, would you care to stop behaving as though you weren’t?”
“Um .. right,” Hermione said. “I only wanted to thank you. Well .. I’ll go now. Thanks, again, Professor.”
The door closed behind her and Severus leaned back in his chair, marvelling at the quietness that suddenly settled in in his quarters. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and a swig of coffee.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
A silver-bearded wizard wearing half-moon spectacles walked along the bookshelves, carrying a packet of spinach. He was looking for something, carefully flicking through the books in the shelves and squinting at their titles.
He was chewing a lemon drop which he had gotten from one of his staff members earlier. A slight frown could be found on his forehead, but it vanished when he found the midnight-blue book he was searching for.
“Ah, there you are,” he murmured silently to himself, taking the book from the shelf. “Lemon drops were interesting ... I wonder how spinach works ...”
- THE END -