A New Beginning (DH -COMPLIANT)

Chapter 21 ~ Two Meetings

”Oh where the hell are they, damn it?” Hermione cursed, digging under the bed for her comfortable slippers. They were made of terrycloth too, with heavy bottoms and Hermione wore them around the site, everywhere really. They were so soft.

”Did I leave them in the exercise room?” she asked herself, getting up off her knees.

She could wear her trainers, but she really liked those slippers.

“I must have left them in there this morning,” she muttered to herself, walking out of the apartment and down the hall toward the exercise room.

Severus had finished his jog and was now in the shower room, washing the sweat from his body. He stood beneath the spray, enjoying the cool water pouring over him after his run.

Hermione opened the door and immediately heard the water running.

”Oh what now?” she said, thinking something was broken. She walked to the door of the shower room just as Professor Snape turned around to let the spray hit his back, water streaming down his face and body, his black hair plastered to his head . . .

“Oh my gods!” Hermione exclaimed covering her mouth.

The wizard’s eyes flew open and for a moment, he and Hermione stared at each other, the witch’s shocked amber eyes dropping to his loins and growing wide. Then, she was gone as if she disapparated.

Snape leaned forward a little and wiped the water from his face, blinking at the empty spot, then turned and cut the water off. He ran his hands through his hair once more to press out the excess water.

”You’d think she’d never seen a naked wizard before,” he said to himself, grabbing a towel and beginning to dry himself off.

Hermione ran back into her apartment, closed and locked her door, staring at it as if she expected it to be blasted off its hinges as she backed up and fell into the armchair, her eyes still wide as the image of the Professor’s nude body still swam before her.

She had never seen a cock that size in her life . . . not an actual one. She had curiously watched one of Ron’s blue Pensieves while he was at work and there was a wizard in there who had a tool that was enormous, but Hermione was certain it was a purposeful distortion created to make the Pensieve more arousing.

Well, there was no spell on the Professor. What was hanging between his legs seemed more suited to the face of an elephant than a wizard’s body. He wasn’t even erect! And what’s more, he was hairless, his pelvis completely smooth. Did he . . . did he shave down there?

Hermione shook her head as if she could get that image out of her mind. Oh gods, this was more information about the wizard than she ever wanted to know. She had seen Severus Snape naked. Would she ever recover?

Hermione shuddered and just sat in the chair for the next half an hour. She didn’t want to run into him. Then she heard the female voice speak out, rather muffled. The Professor must have left otherwise there would have been no announcement. Hermione retrieved her trainers, the comfortable slippers all but forgotten. If she had looked under the covers in her bed, she would have found them at the end of it. She had worn them while reading in bed last night and forgotten she had them on when she fell asleep.

The witch put her trainers on, opened the apartment door, looked up and down the hall carefully, then rushed into her lab to gather her research. The Professor was supposed to come after lunch to discuss the project. No doubt he’d be there on time. She had to put together a hasty presentation, which normally wouldn’t be a problem, but she flushed crimson every time she thought about what she’d seen.

Dear gods. Who’d sleep with someone like that? He was . . . he was abnormal. That’s all Hermione could think of as she walked back to her apartment, her arms full of parchments with diagrams and notes scrawled all over them. She headed into the study and piled them all on the table, pulling out her wand and enlarging it to accommodate them, then set about arranging them in order, from initial notes and sketches up to the point she was now. She drew two chairs up to the table, first putting them side by side.

Then she thought about it and put them on opposite ends.

Much better.

Then she took a quill off her writing desk, sat down and began to read the parchments painstakingly, using her wand to clear errors and the quill to rewrite portions. When she had scrawled these notes down, she hadn’t known anyone else would be reading them. She sent Bartleby copies of her carefully written notes and conclusions. These notes covered the process itself. If she remembered correctly, Professor Snape always wanted to understand the thought processes involved in reaching the conclusion as well as the conclusion itself. She doubted he had changed and most likely would be looking for mistakes and errors.

Well, he wouldn’t find many if any at all.

Hermione suddenly realized that most likely she had made a perfect score on the test she was given when she initially accepted the job, and the Professor had done like he always did, given her a lower mark.

Bastard.

Well, she’d find out if that was what he’d done and take him to task for it. He couldn’t give her detention now.

Her indignation served to stave off her trepidation. The way she felt right now, the Professor could flounce into the study in his altogether, do a randy bump and grind and she’d still give him a piece of her mind and maybe a good kick in the nads to boot.

She focused and spent the next two and a half hours making everything perfect.

The female voice announced lunch and Hermione reluctantly rose from her work, grabbed a sandwich she’d made the night before and a bottle of water and went outside. She spent a quiet hour wandering the path, looking at all the “Keep Out” signs and thinking maybe now she could find out what the wizard was protecting without getting covered in pink bubble gum and sucked back into the building.

The warning whistle sounded and Hermione headed back to the worksite. From the right, Hermione saw Professor Snape striding toward the building. She picked up her pace, hoping to beat him inside, but the wizard saw her and increased his own speed. They reached the door at the same time.

Hermione stared at the closed door as if it were the most interesting object in the world. The Professor’s black eyes glittered as he watched color seep up from the collar of her robes and wash across her face.

”Has your time alone here mucked up your manners, Mrs. Weasley? You saw me first. I believe at least a greeting is in order,” the wizard said to her.

”Hello Professor,” Hermione said in a strained voice.

”Hello, Mrs. Weasley,” he replied, amusement in his voice.

Suddenly the door to the building swung open.

”Professor Severus Snape. Mrs. Hermione Weasley. Authorized to enter,” the voice announced.

Hermione walked in, followed by the Professor, who purposely fell behind the nervous witch. He found it a bit amusing that the mother of two children was so . . . so repressed and flustered. It was obvious she had to have been in contact with a cock at least twice in her life. So why did the sight of one make her so upset?

He considered.

Maybe because it was his tool and not her husband’s. Yes. That was it. The same with his shirtless body. She was only used to being in her husband’s presence that way. Oh, she probably had been to beaches and the like, but that was a public area, not a solitary room where she was alone with another man not her husband. Yes, that might be enough to make her nervous and skittish.

Snape had never been with a woman who only had one lover. He either shagged female Death Eaters when young or prostitutes when he grew older. He had never been with a woman for any other reason than the desire to use her body for physical release. He had loved Lily, but never touched her, never even kissed her, though she often kissed his cheek when he pleased her in some way. That’s as far as it went, however. So he never knew what that special connection between two people in love was like.

He had a feeling Ron had been Hermione’s one and only, they were so young when they became involved. He thought they made an unlikely pair, Hermione being so much brighter than the red-haired wizard. Maybe the claims that opposites attract was true in some cases. Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger had been as opposite as opposite could be.

But somehow, they made it work.

Hermione turned into her apartment and held the door for him to enter.

”My notes and diagrams are in the study, Professor. I suppose you’d like to look them over before we discuss the status of the project,” she said to him, forcing herself to meet his eyes.

”Yes, I would. Thank you, Mrs. Weasley,” the wizard said, striding past her and walking into the study as if he owned the place.

Well, he did.

The Professor sat down and pulled several parchments toward him and began to read. Hermione sat down opposite him and watched as he did so, trying to anticipate his questions the way she used to do as his student.

**************************

Rod made his way down the dungeon corridor, choosing to skip lunch in the Great Hall. He remembered the stone he had found yesterday. It was in his other set of shabby robes. No one would be in Slytherin house now. It was the perfect time to examine his treasure.

He said the password, then walked down the long, damp corridor to the double doors that opened on the low-ceilinged Common Room. He walked down the hallway that led to the boy’s dorm area and entered his room. He opened his wardrobe, dug through the pocket of his robes and extracted the black stone, sitting down on his bed and placing it on the nightstand. His blue eyes studied it.

”You’re not an ordinary stone,” he said, “Someone put those symbols on you for a reason. You must be magic.”

The stone sat there, silent as Rod stared at it.

Rod was a young wizard who had no one he desired to be resurrected. His only desire was to be treated decently, or better yet, be treated with respect or even looked up to as someone special. He knew it would never happen. But if it were said that Rod Dolmer Dormers wanted anything in this world, it was to be noticed for being something other than being what he was. Nothing.

Carefully he picked up the stone, staring at the symbols, trying to decipher what in the world they could mean. He had no hope of doing that. He knew as much about the Deathly Hallows as he did about rebuilding a muggle car engine.

Hesitatingly, he used a finger to roll the stone over in his palm. Suddenly the room seemed to darken. He sat there, frozen, his heart pounding.

Then he heard a horrible noise. Slight, wheezing, painful as if something were having trouble drawing a breath.

It came from behind him. Whatever it was, it was in his bed with him. He didn’t dare move as the noise continued . . . weak. Laborious. Pitiful. Then he was aware of a flapping, flailing noise, muffled by the softness of the bed. It sounded as if something were struggling to rise, but couldn’t. The bed sheets shifted slightly.

Slowly the blonde wizard turned his head toward the noise, his body following as he twisted to see what the stone had created. He stifled a cry as he saw what it was and scrambled up from the bed in horror.

There, lying on his quilt was a . . . a thing that had the form of a small child. The skin was raw looking and rough, as if it had been flayed. It shuddered.

Rod stared at it. It was some kind of child, something that he felt had been abandoned, deserted. Left alone. As frightening as it was, Rod couldn’t help but feel a bit of pity and compassion for the creature.

Suddenly, the thing seemed to have a reaction, a kind of response, the shuddering ceasing as Rod’s emotion washed over it, strengthening it. It rolled toward him, and Rod could see its face was deformed. It had slits for a nose and the eyes . . . the eyes seemed crimson. It mewled at him piteously.

”What are you? Why are you suffering like this? Are you sick? Injured? Is there any way I can help you?” Rod asked the creature.

As Rod’s concern washed over it, the thing was able to uncurl fully, its eyes focused on the young wizard’s face. The skin seemed slightly less raw now . . . now that someone had feeling for it, feeling it could not provide for itself because it just wasn’t there. No capacity for compassion, for understanding or for love was within this remnant, this distorted soul. There never had been from the beginning.

But it could feed off those emotions, those feelings, those benevolent leanings if provided by another. Feed off them and gain strength. More compassion. It needed more.

Feebly, the thing reached out a long, thin arm toward Rod as if asking him for help. Rod hesitated. It didn’t seem to have any teeth and was weak as a newborn niffler. Tentatively, Rod reached toward it.

His hand passed through the long thin limb. The creature wasn’t solid. He couldn’t touch it. It was some kind of spirit.

”Are you a ghost?” he asked the creature, thinking how horrible it must be to exist this way, even if it were a spirit.

Strengthened more by the boy’s feeling, the creature nodded, able to sit up now. It was naked, its cock thin and longish. It reminded Rod of a snake as it rested between the thin thighs.

The creature gurgled as if trying to speak. Excited, Rod now sat back down on the bed, his curiosity overriding his fear as he tried to make sense of the thing.

”Are you trying to tell me something? Who are you? What are you?” the wizard asked the creature.

Again it struggled, making stronger sounds now, the lipless mouth clicking and working back and forth, the red eyes desperate.

Finally two thick words, formed, wet . . . gummy as if from a throat full of mucous.

”T-Tom,” the creature said, a slight, forked tongue emerging for a moment then flicking back.

”F-F-Friend.”

**************************

A/N: Oooooh shit. Now . . . is that trouble or what? I think we got our conflict, folks. A major one. Thanks for reading. ****