The Hogwarts Challenge: Evolving Magic

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling, not me. This is just fanfiction, written to amuse myself and (hopefully) others and not for any profit or material gain.

She didn’t fall far, that is she would have, but the person who preceded her was still standing underneath the opening, so she landed on them. They didn’t make a very good cushion, very bony, all knees and elbows. Her midsection --right under the sternum-- impacted solidly with their shoulder, knocking them (him? seemed like a him) forward to the floor, where he managed to catch himself on his hands and knees. But her momentum continued, sending her somersaulting over his shoulder and slamming into the floor. Dots swam dizzyingly across the back of her eyelids and she gasped for breath, the 1-2 of the sternum hit and the floor slam left her unsure if she was still capable of that function. Overhead, she heard a familiar voice utter “Lumos” and opened her eyes to the soft glow of wand light and a very, very irritated looking Professor Snape. She closed her eyes again and went back to breathing, maybe he’d be gone when she opened them, hallucinations seemed to be the order of the day.

“Miss Granger,”

Nope, still there, she mused.

“Behind you, you will notice a set of stairs. I had hoped you would be familiar with their use,” he drawled icily “ten points from Gryffindor. And, since you are here,” he purred, “you might as well be useful.” He bent down, gingerly snagging the collar of her cloak and lifting her to her feet by it, holding her at arm’s length, like you would a cat that you were not fond of.

She was still having trouble breathing, but she managed to gasp out, “useful?”

“Welcome,” he bowed slightly, “to the future dungeon challenge class room. I was just about to rid it of some of its more lethal inhabitants. You will assist me. Perhaps next time you will be more circumspect about following people into secret passages.” He looked at her warily, as if she were an unknown potion.

Finally, someone who knew something about the challenge! This dungeon was new, or at least the passage to it from the library was new. She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. She’d assumed that she’d be put in Professor McGonagall’s class, but the sorting hat had talked about digging and dirty. It had never said Professor McGonagall’s class directly, and Snape would hardly be letting her assist with the scouting if she were in a rival class. Damn, hat, why did it have to be so difficult? So. She was in Professor Snape’s class. That was unexpected. Not too bad though, Harry would be there too. And now she had this lovely opportunity to find out more about the challenge, yay for Gryffindor bravery and charging into things! She’d have to stop giving Harry and Ron such a hard time.

Hermione fought to control her excitement. Really, there wasn’t a better professor that she could have been stuck with. As one of the challenge mentors, he should be able to answer most of her questions about the challenge. As a member of the order of the Phoenix, he knew the current situation of the fight against Voldemort. And there was still a fight against Voldemort. The idea that a ministry task force was capable of defeating him was laughable. Regardless, had Voldemort actually been defeated, Harry would not have been forced to spend the summer with the Dursleys. Had Voldemort actually been defeated, Professor Snape would no longer have that tattoo on his forearm. She’d glimpsed it when he picked her up, his sleeve had bunched around his elbow, and the dark mark stood out vividly against the pale glow of his skin in wand light. He’d been quick to pull his sleeve down, but she’d noticed. It was just another confirmation. So as Challenge Mentor, Order of the Phoenix Member, and Death Eater, he was uniquely suited to not just answer all of her questions on those fronts, but have an idea of how they related to each other. Had Voldemort been part of staging his own death, or was it just something the ministry had come up with? What about the disappearance of so many Slytherin students? Was Voldemort gathering his forces? And why was the Order of the Phoenix not telling them anything? , th, that wasn’t anything new really, Dumbledore and the rest of the adults never told them anything, Hermione thought, feeling a flash of resentment. She knew that Dumbledore and the others didn’t want them to become involved, but given that every year for the past six years, they’d managed to end up in the thick of things, it seemed like a flimsy excuse. Lack of knowledge had gotten people killed. First Cedric Diggory, then Sirius Black, and last year Cho Chang. Well not again, this year they’d find out for damned sure what was going on. She eyed Professor Snape’s back consideringly, now if she could just convince him of that.

Ok, think, she told herself. What is the most important information to find out? You know Voldemort’s alive, don’t bother asking. As a death eater, Professor Snape would have been involved with whatever Voldemort was doing over the summer. So ask him about his summer, that’s innocuous enough. He is the head of the Slytherin house, and as head girl, it’s not odd to ask him about the missing Slytherin students either. And as one of his students for the challenge he should be absolutely eager to tell her details about that, given how competitive he was. Yes, that would be the best place to start; she could lead into the rest from there.

“Professor Snape? I had a few questions, about the challenge?”

“Yes.” He replied, not stopping, or even turning to look at her.

Why did the one person who had all of the information that she needed also have to be one of the most difficult people to get information out of? “Well, when did you first find out about it?”

“Over the summer” he replied curtly, lengthening his strides. Hermione was jogging to keep up with him now. Although he, she noted sourly, had yet to break out of the smooth gliding steps of a fast walk. It wasn’t just that he had longer legs, it was something about the rhythm, the quality of his movement man managed to combine speed and grace. And it was incredibly, insanely frustrating, that she had no idea of how to accomplish something similar, it was probably innate, damn him. She gritted her teeth and prepared for round two.

“I’m not really clear on the approach to the challenge. From what the headmaster was saying it sounded like there were different ways to solve the challenge, and the sorting hat divided us up according to the approach that we’re supposed to take and that each professor would be tutoring us in that approach. Are we limited in where we can solve the challenge as well? Does each group have an area?” the dungeon was getting narrower now, and the floor rougher, she concentrated on her footing as she waited for his answer.

“Yes.”

Frustrated, Hermione opened her mouth to ask for more clarification. She was in his class, it was counter-productive to withhold information. He was just being difficult.

Professor Snape paused to examine a viscous black goo smeared at shoulder height along the walls, like the path of a huge snail. To her surprise, he continued his explanation without any prompting, “To my knowledge, the different areas have made themselves known to the other house heads. None of us have chosen to share the locations of these areas with each other, so I am not aware if there are any barriers to entering another group’s areas or if they will converge or interact in the future.”

Now to keep him talking. “So what exactly do we do? Are we defeating monsters? Solving riddles? Navigating obstacles?” She prodded, hoping he would have more information.

of of the above, I would imagine,” he murmured, “this is the first time something like this has ever occurred. But given the nature of the areas that have appeared so far, it seems like a reasonable assumption. Although I think there is probably a time factor, since we will be competing against the other groups.”

“Yes, and the bit about solving it different ways. I can understand that the results would be different depending on which team won. But can we still influence the results within a team. I mean, if we concentrate on solving it a certain way, can we choose or influence the results?” Hermione asked eagerly, that part had been particularly intriguing. It seemed so open-ended.

“Ms. Granger, surely you’d like to save some of these questions for the actual class? I do not love hearing myself talk so much that I look forward to having this conversation twice, once with you and again once class actually begins.” Professor Snape replied caustically.

Hermione sighed, a loquacious Snape was too good to be true, she supposed. She wouldn’t let it faze her though, it was the perfect lead in to discussing non-challenge questions. And she certainly had enough of those.

“Get down!” Professor Snape cried, lunging forward and pulling her down with him till they were both flush against the floor. Hermione shifted uncomfortably, she heard soft sucking noises and the movement of air above her. Snape’s body pressed into hers on top, pinning her to the floor and his hand covered her mouth tightly to ensure she didn’t speak or make any noise. She craned her neck trying to look up and see what might be above them. Her heart was beating wildly at the unexpected danger and her senses felt heightened. It seemed like she was aware of everything at once, like the way the potions professor was pressing into her, his hair brushed her cheeks lightly and she could feel his breathing, rapid like hers, against the side of her face, small caresses of warmth. She held her wand tightly in her right hand as she scanned the space above her for movement, noting that Professor Snape was doing the same.

She felt his muscles tense above her, then his right hand shot forward and he yelled a curt, “Stupefy” as he rolled off of her in one smooth motion. Turning in the direction of his wand, Hermione lifted herself into an awkward crouch, but kept her wand pointed at the thing that Professor Snape had stunned. It was a slug, but enormous, waist high and several meters long. It glistened, oily and black in the dim light. She regarded it critically. It looked like ash esh eating slug, only flesh eating slugs were normally hand sized. They were dangerous because they swarmed. She looked around nervously, feeling a chill run down her spine, were there more of the things?


A/N: Between this chapter and the last, I hope everything is a bit clearer. And finally I get to play with another one of my favorite pairings, happiness. The next chapter should be interesting. Please review, constructive criticism is particularly welcome, if you can be specific about it even better. Did I mention that I love people who review?

Silver: Thank you for the encouragement.

Shin: Glad to have you along, thanks for the criticism. I’ll try to keep an eye out for those script errors (although they’re very difficult to spot as an author, so anyone who’d like to volunteer to beta, please let me know). I would like to post the story on lordandladysnape.net, but I wanted to wait till I actually had HG/SS content, so I guess it’s time to start the application process.

Melagic: Well, here it is. Guess I’m just evil ^_^.

Romie: Good to get another review from you (so cool that someone is actually regularly reading my fic!). I’m happy that you liked the hair thing, I had a lot of fun writing it. Sometimes you just have to write something bizarre. Don’t worry, yummy Harry and Draco stuff is coming with the first challenge class session. I would never neglect them for long, slash is too much fun, especi HP/ HP/DM.