A Road of Shattered Glass by Ennalee
Chapter Notes: Once again, I must apologize for how long this chapter has been in coming. The rest of the story is mostly written, so if everything goes as planned, future updates will be closer together. Thanks for sticking with me, and thanks also to my beta, hermionedancr, who is willing to spend hours (literally) going over each chapter with me.
Leaning back in his chair, Charlie was laughing. His mouth was open in a wide grin, making him dangerously close to ingesting the sticky purple substance trickling down his face, but he did not appear to care. Next to him Tonks and Kevin were less pleased with their current state of stickiness, but as Charlie continued to laugh, Tonks, running her purple hand through her slimy hair, began giggling as well. Finally Kevin threw up his hands in despair, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“This is disgusting, Tonks,” he complained. “Next time we do anything that involves puncturing, I’m sitting at the other end of the greenhouse. No, I take that back. Next time, you’re sitting at the other end of the greenhouse. By yourself. Without anything that might explode, or anything to poke it with.”
“You know,” replied Tonks, still laughing, “Purple’s a good color for you. You should wear it more often.”
“Oh, really? Should I keep the slime in the hair as well? Because I think that adds a great touch, don’t you? Next thing we know, everyone will be using sap for their hair! You should go for pink, though “ purple makes you look peaky.”
Tonks gave him a withering glance, but was prevented from making a retort by the appearance of the Herbology professor.
“Oh, dear!” twittered little Professor Snith, her graying hair sticking up in wisps as she made her way through the crowded greenhouse. “Oh, dear!” The students stopped their work and moved aside to let her pass, preparing themselves for entertainment. It was the professor’s first year at Hogwarts, but the student body had already discovered that she was easily flustered, even by such minor incidents as misdirected slime from a Pituita Purpurea.
Now the professor had reached the table of the catastrophe. “Dear, dear…” her voice trailed off as she surveyed her splattered students. “I thought I told you “ oh, dear me, what a mess “ you only have to puncture “ only puncture the bulb, don’t squeeze it. If you have sensitive skin, it might leave a rash… Oh, dear me, it’s all over the place!” Her voice had grown quite shrill, and she was twisting her hands agitatedly in front of her.
“Sorry, Professor,” Tonks gasped, attempting to curb her smile.
Professor Snith frowned back “ an anxious, tentative frown. “Perhaps you should go to the Hospital Wing. The sap shouldn’t hurt, but in cases of sensitive skin “ one really oughtn’t to take chances, oughtn’t one? Perhaps you’d better… But I already sent Lillian Carew to the Hospital Wing today, and I wouldn’t want Madam Pomfrey to think me careless. One tries so hard, you know, and I can’t help… It’s just so difficult…” She broke off, looking undecided, and waved her wand. The slime gathered itself together and flew into the basin in which they were supposed to be collecting it.
With a quick, jerky movement she clamped her hand around Kevin’s wrist and bent close, inspecting it. Kevin’s face wrinkled in distaste as he leaned away from the wisps of hair threatening to fly into his face.
“I don’t see a rash “ no “ perhaps it’ll be alright. You’ll tell me if anything happens, won’t you?” The three students nodded, suppressing smiles. “One must be so careful, you see. One wouldn’t like to take chances. It’s so hard to keep order, so…so difficult “ and yet if anything happens I wouldn’t want to be blamed.” She paused, lost in indecision again. “Perhaps you really ought to go down…”
Kevin interrupted her, assuring her that they’d go down if they felt the slightest bit harmed by their encounter with the slime; at last, seeming somewhat reassured, she left the table. The class returned to work with furtive giggles and grins. Charlie, reaching across the table to pick up a new Pituita Purpurea, looked up and caught Ninette’s eye. She was staring at him, as she had been staring at him through the whole encounter.
Immediately Ninette ducked her head and looked back at her own Pituita Purpurea. She could not stop watching them: laughing Charlie with his quick smile; wry, skeptical Kevin; and especially Tonks “ loud, clumsy Tonks, who was all the things Ninette herself was not. She wondered what it would be like to be able to cover someone with purple slime and then to laugh about it.
Another burst of laughter floated over from the table next to her, and she was not able to stop herself from glancing up again. Charlie had somehow procured a long blade of Slithering Snodgrass and was leaning across the table to tickle Tonks under her chin.
Ninette smiled, for a moment caught up in their happiness, and then the longing set back in. She turned away and neatly punctured her Pituita Purpurea. Purple slime poured out in a steady stream. Watching it, she wondered if any of the laughing students at the other table would ever be willing to be friends “ and even if they were, if she would know how to be friends back. She knew even less about having friends than she did about making them.
That was the problem, she thought rather bitterly. She did not know how to do anything besides dance.
The once taut pod was now empty of fluid, and her bowl was nearly half full. She picked up another plant. Staring down at her hands, she watched as they completed their task efficiently: white hands against green pod, going sedately about their business as if nothing in the world was wrong. They could have belonged to anyone. They might have been the hands of a doll. She might have been a doll herself, she thought, sitting unnoticed in the middle of the chattering Gryffindors and Ravenclaws.
Tonks’ table was still laughing. At the table on her other side, Justine and Marianne sat with Ben and Niles, the other two Gryffindor boys. Seeing Ninette watching her, Marianne flashed a quick smile. Following her friend’s gaze, Justine looked up as well. She gave Ninette a cool, dismissive glance before leaning over to whisper something to Marianne, who giggled. Ninette looked away quickly, back to the two Ravenclaws with whom she shared a table, while her doll hands went on piercing and squeezing, piercing and squeezing, releasing a fine and continual stream of sap into the basin.
An icy stream of air interrupted her thoughts as the greenhouse door swung open. The girl who entered was an older student, perhaps sixth or seventh year, who Ninette did not recognize. It had started snowing again; there was snow in the girl’s hair, and her thin face was red from the wind. The door slammed shut, and Ninette heard a sharp intake of breath from behind her.
“Professor Snith?” The girl’s voice was high and tight.
“Miss Rosier?” Professor Snith looked taken aback. “What can…? That is… Can I help you?”
The girl scowled, scuffing the toe of her boot against the greenhouse floor. “Professor Kettleburn sent me to ask for more cuttlefruit for the fire crabs.”
“Oh… I see…” Professor Snith trailed off. “I’m not entirely sure “ that is, I’ll have to check. One doesn’t keep a lot of it around, you know. It’s so difficult when people make such constant demands…” As she spoke, she made her way back through the greenhouse towards the storage rooms, her voice fading away entirely as she disappeared through the door.
The class sat in amused silence. The girl at the door fidgeted, continuing to scrape her foot back and forth against the uneven stones of the floor. At last Professor Snith returned, holding an armful of roots. She was on the verge of handing them to the girl, but then paused. “Perhaps “ might it be better “ would you like a package? That is, I could “ if you want, of course “ wrap them up for you. So you wouldn’t get dirt on your robes, you know…”
The girl made no answer, and with a sigh Professor Snith waved her wand; a clean white cloth wrapped itself around the roots and tucked itself in tidily at the edges. She handed the fresh package to the girl and stepped back, eyeing it tentatively. “Perhaps that will be “ I hope it holds… Well, then, Miss Rosier, as long as you don’t need “ that is “ is there anything else?”
“No, thank you, Professor,” replied Miss Rosier sullenly. Holding the package firmly against her chest, she turned on her heel and left the greenhouse. A blast of cold air hit the students as the door opened, and Professor Snith wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. As the door closed, the words “so difficult,” were evident in the moment of silence before everyone returned to their plants.
The two Ravenclaw girls across from Ninette bent over their project, speaking to each other quietly. Automatically Ninette returned to her own plant, but once again her attention wandered to the table behind her.
“It was her, ” Tonks was insisting vehemently. “That was the girl I saw come out of the room.”
“And?” Kevin sounded exasperated. “Tonks, she’s allowed to be in a room. She’s allowed to have a conversation you don’t understand. You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“But they mentioned tunnels“” began Tonks, before she was quieted by the boys. Their voices then dropped to a whisper, and Ninette returned her attention to her hands. Pierce the bulb. Squeeze and release. Squeeze. Release. Just like a doll.
She was surprised when everyone around her stood up, chattering as they left the greenhouse. She rose quickly and gathered her own things to follow, but a voice stopped her.
“Miss Fairchild?” Professor Snith stammered, looking even wispier than usual. “Miss Fairchild? I thought perhaps… Might I talk with you for a few moments? You needn’t worry; I won’t make you late. I thought “ perhaps just a moment?”
Ninette nodded and put her things down, waiting for her teacher to go on.
“I saw “ that is, I couldn’t help but notice it, you understand. One tries not to be too nosy. One tries not to interfere. But it’s so difficult, you know, and one does notice things.” The tip of her nose had become slightly pink in her exertion.
Ninette waited for her to go on, but Professor Snith was waiting for encouragement. “Yes?” she questioned, at last.
Her teacher looked gratified. “It’s difficult, you see “ I’ve wondered for so long “ I’m not sure at all that it’s entirely proper to ask one’s students about their families, and one does try so hard to be proper. But sometimes one simply can’t help oneself, and from the moment you first entered the greenhouse, I couldn’t help but notice the resemblance.”
Reaching out hesitantly, she touched Ninette’s hair with trembling fingers. “It’s the hair I noticed first of all. You look so like her, I couldn’t help but ask. You do understand, don’t you?”
“So like whom?” Ninette asked, fixing her eyes on the woman in front of her.
“Why, Cynthia Fairchild, of course. Cynthia Fairchild, the dancer. Are you any relation?”
For a moment Ninette stopped breathing as two worlds collided before her. How could this woman “ this witch, a professor at Hogwarts “ speak of her mother, the mysterious figure whom even her aunt hardly mentioned? Her mind was still grappling with the sheer discontinuity when she heard her own voice reply, politely and emotionlessly. “She was my mother.”
“Of course she was!” Professor Snith twittered delightedly. “I knew it, from the moment you walked in. One does notice things, and that hair was unmistakable. And those eyes! You really couldn’t be anyone other than her daughter!”
“Did you know my mother?” Ninette heard herself asking in the same level voice.
Professor Snith twittered. “Cynthia Fairchild? My dear, one simply doesn’t know people like that. She was a dancer “ a famous dancer. I met her once or twice, but she wouldn’t have had a place in her world for someone like me! No, it was your father I knew.”
“My father?” Whatever had kept her voice calm before was gone now “ her words came out in a funny, half-choked gasp.
“Oh, yes, and never have I met a more charming man than Cecil Peverell. He was younger than me, of course, but ever so kind, even if some people did say “ well, he was such a handsome man. They made a lovely couple, with him so dark and her so light “ everyone noticed. Of course, there was the trouble with your father’s family “ didn’t approve of him marrying a dancing girl. They had hoped he would marry well, despite“ Well, his poor mother never did recover from the shame of it. Caused quite a scandal, but there you are.” She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug, casually dismissing the ways of the world.
“How did you know my father?” Ninette asked, aware that she had never spoken so much to a teacher, knowing that she was pushing the limits of the politeness her aunt had taught her “ yet unable to pass up this chance to learn about a man her aunt refused to speak of.
Inexplicably, Professor Snith began to blush. “Why, one does meet people,” she stammered. “One tries so hard to be social, and of course I was never on the same level as his family “ after all, he was a Peverell “ but he was always so charming. And so kind! Not many handsome young men will condescend to pay attention to someone… well, older, but your father was always different from the other young men.” She smiled, cheeks still pink. “Always a bit wild “ he used to frighten me, he was so wild. But then, one does like a bit of wildness, and it had to be expected, what with his brother being so serious and studious. Head boy, your uncle was “ brilliant man, knew more about Potions than any man in England, some people say “ and poor Cecil must have wanted to prove something to the world.”
“My father was a wizard?”
Professor Snith stared. “You mean… Why, I hardly know what to say! You don’t know your father, then?”
“I don’t remember him at all,” said Ninette steadily. “Was he a wizard?”
“My dear child, the Peverell family goes back practically to Merlin! You really didn’t know? I am terribly sorry to intrude “ I never guessed that… Do you mean to say that you’ve never had any contact with him?”
Ninette shook her head.
“No letters, no birthday presents, nothing at all? Why, that hardly seems like Cecil, to go off without a trace. Of course, I knew he had left England, but I assumed “ that is… One cannot help but wonder what happens to one’s old friends. You understand, don’t you? And I always wondered, when Cecil left…” Breaking off, she flushed to the end of her nose before continuing abruptly in a different strain. “You have your mother’s name, don’t you? Fairchild “ such a pretty name. But “ one doesn’t want to presume, but it is so difficult, you see. Might I ask why you didn’t take your father’s? It’s hardly a name to be ashamed of, though not quite as recognized as it used to be.”
When Ninette remained silent Professor Snith went on, the blush continuing to darken her face. “This must seem presumptuous to you, I know, but I can’t help but wonder… Were your parents ever married?” Dark eyes peered keenly through the wisps of hair that floated across her face.
Wordlessly, Ninette shook her head.
Professor Snith looked back at her sharply. “So after he left, he made no contact?” she probed.
Ninette looked down.
“My dear child,” said Professor Snith, placing her warm hand on Ninette’s own.
The warmth of the touch seemed to spread through Ninette’s body “ she could not remember the last time someone had touched her on purpose, apart from dancing. It gave her a sudden surge of strength, and she looked into Professor Snith’s dark eyes and asked, “Please, will you tell me about my father?”
Professor Snith smiled at her, a warm, welcoming smile. “I would be happy to talk about Cecil,” she said. “I’m afraid, though, that I have already made you late for your next class. One hates to be an inconvenience, but… perhaps another time?”
Startled, Ninette glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that she was indeed five minutes late for Charms. She leaned down to gather up her things, and Professor Snith bent down to help her. “Anytime, Miss Fairchild,” she said. “Come by the greenhouse when I don’t have a class, and I would be delighted “ simply delighted “ to talk to you.”
“Thank you,” said Ninette softly, and stepped out into the swirling snow.