Watching the Watchers

Chapter 2: Watching the Watchers

"I've never heard such a cockamamie idea."

"That's why I need your help," he said. "Look, I found a flip chart. You can outline the plot and jot down all your inspired ideas."

She glared at him. She was not going to be swayed because of some dumb story-aid.

"I have these," he said, holding up a handful of multi-colored writing implements.

Her pupils dilated. How did he know she was devoted to color-coded study charts? Her pupils narrowed. It was Mary Lee Perkins. Mary Lee Perkins had ratted her out. Vengeance might not be swift, but it would be inexorable. She would hex her betrayer's lingerie into the next size. Ha, the vain bitch would think her boobs had shrunk. Nobody stabs Harmony Grayson in the back and lives happily ever after.

"You should look behind the flip chart," he suggested.

Suspicious of more treachery, she cautiously moved the stand aside. She caught her breath. There, battered but in working order, was a cappuccino maker. At school, the dungeon ran on caffeine.

"You devil," she said.

"I found it in the basement," said Snorri. "I think the regular staff has moved to harder stuff."

Her inner conscience wrestled with her inner child. She dare not let him know her fatal weakness – blueberry muffins.

"There's a bakery around the corner," he said. "We should celebrate our good fortune. I can get anything you like while you fire up the caffeine machine."

Her eyes danced between the colored pencils and the coffee marvel. Visions of blueberry muffins danced in her head. "You fiend," she said.

"Who's that witch sitting with Professor Snape?" asked Ron as he joined Hermione for lunch.

"I don't know," said Hermione in the calm state of exhaustion and relief at the completion of her fifth-year exams.

They soon learned she was Professor Misako Ogami, joint instructor of Plants and Chemistry at Denver. She was on a summer exchange program, and she would be working with Professor Snape.

"I should exchange places with Snape," said Ron, ogling the lady. "I'm an altogether friendlier program."

"Professor Snape is doing well enough," replied Hermione, thinking she should be glad, not irritated, that Ron had shown more poetic imagination than a teaspoon. And it must have been exhaustion that caused her to be equally irritated, instead of happy, that Snape seemed to be playing the gracious host. Nevertheless, she smiled when she learned that Professor Ogami would be staying in Ravenclaw Tower instead of the dungeon.

"She looks puzzled by her lunch," said Ron. "Maybe she wants some chopsticks." He began waving his wand at his knife and fork, causing them to assume strange shapes. "I'll gladly play 'chopsticks' with her."

"She looks mixed-descent, and she was probably raised on rock-and-roll, hotdogs, and apple pie," said Hermione, thinking the mixed-descent had turned out well and she should stop Ron from making a fool of himself and he had never offered to play 'chopsticks' with her. "She's probably looking for the ketchup."

Several days later, in the wilds of Scotland, Severus was watching Misako stomping on a shovel as she tried to dig up a plant. "Brilliant spade work, Miss Ogami. You're going to break the shovel. And if you hurt your foot, I will have to waste time taking care of you."

"How thoughtless of me, Severus. And I'm sure this is your special shovel." She scanned the landscape to make certain they were alone, pulled out her wand, made three quick flicks of her wrist, and lifted a perfect tetrahedron of rocks and soil containing the plant.

Severus noticed her spell had sliced cleanly through several rocks.

She moved the plant to its pot. "Before this, I only worked in a greenhouse, and I'm more at home with a Bunsen burner."

"Bunsen burner?" he asked.

"Yes, you know, Bunsen burners, test tubes, the lot." She paused. "Are you telling me you still use cauldrons?"

"Cauldrons give very good results," he said.

"Cauldrons are clumsy, reactive, and dangerous."

"Perhaps for the unskilled," he suggested.

She smiled. "That's rich. I was warned about your sense of humor."

Severus was thinking the lady must have a very keen sense of humor. His remarks had been too subtle for his.

"I was so busy getting ready for this field trip that I never got a chance to see your lab," she said.

"I was hesitant when they suggested I entertain you, but I think it will be easy. I can take you on a tour: quaint castle with quaint moving stairs, quaint kitchen with quaint slaves, and quaint Potions lab with quaint cauldrons."

"That's good," she said. "I like wizards with a sense of humor. Any chance of getting haggis around here? I keep hearing about it."

"Now that you're on our quaint island, you're determined to have the adventure of a lifetime, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said.

Back at the castle after the field trip, Professor Ogami introduced the excitement of poker to the summer staff. They played on a balcony during the long summer twilight.

"I relish seven-card stud," she confessed to the players around the table: Severus, Filius, Minerva, Pomona, and Dobby.

Dobby, grinning at his pile of knuts, missed her licking her lips over the other kind.

"Walk me to my room?" Misako asked Severus after one game when they were the last to leave the balcony.

"Are you still getting lost?"

"No, I've mastered your quaint stairways. I thought you could entertain me by being a quaint gentleman," she said.

After leaving her at the door to the Ravenclaw dorm, Severus reflected that escorting Misako was one of life's small pleasures. After escorting her to her door the second time, he accepted her invitation for a nightcap of herbal tea.

"It's one of the things that improve sleep," she said.

Severus finished his tea and left for the dungeon. Misako was left thinking that either Brit wizards were thick or Brit wizards were asexual or the Potions master was so full of self-loathing that he couldn't make the world around him a better place to live.

Two days later, Misako was in the Potions lab with Severus and was unpacking a box of supplies from Denver. "I always thought the bigger test tubes looked rowdy but the smaller were versatile. It's all about how skillfully they're used." She lined them up. "Don't they look good all in a row and erect like they were on parade." She petted them. "All hard and shiny." She pulled out the strangest looking contraption. "Of course, like all good little boys, they perform better when they're properly warmed up."

"I'm tempted to describe your visceral approach to your work as beyond quaint," said Severus.

"You're cute when you're being witty," she said. She wondered if she was finally getting through to the thick Brit. For all the action she had seen in the castle, she was beginning to wonder where little Brit wizards came from. Perhaps they were imported – caught wild in Australia and Canada and shipped to the Motherland in crates.

"That's a good start," he said to the lady at the flip chart who was trying to decide between orange and red-orange for the next plot line

She carefully put her pencils back in the box. "How long before we get them in bed?" she asked.

"This is a general circulation magazine," he replied. "That's out of the question."

"If we can slip it in, it will improve sales. We'll be doing everyone a favor." She gave the story more thought. "We need more snark for Severus to be in character. We could have him poke fun at her small breasts."

Snorri shook his head. "We can't have him poke fun at her breasts and then expect her to get in bed with him."

Harmony looked skeptical.

"Suppose," he said, "that I mentioned your breasts were on the small side."

"Men! All they think about are big boobs! Big mummy boobs! Why don't you run home to mummy, little boy?!"

"That's what I'm talking about," he said.

"It's nearly lunchtime," she said.

"They're paying us very well, and I'm inspired by our character. Care for sushi for lunch?"

"But London is famous for its fish and chips," said Harmony.

Snorri shuddered – flip charts, colored pencils, chips – the sacrifices he was making for his art.

When he returned to the writing room that afternoon, Snorri found Harmony reviewing the morning's effort and shaking her head.

"Flat and featureless prose," she announced.

She thought she should wield the quill while he handled the flip chart. After all, she already had the colors picked out which was the difficult part. Weakened by lunch, he offered no resistance.

After embarking on a course of action, it is often difficult to recall what prompted the initiative, especially when numerous consequences come of the adventure. Memory is notoriously fickle about such pivotal occasions; the following were some of the reasons that came to mind: jealousy over a possible rival, fear of an unknown intruder, anger at the mismanagement of past affairs, and eagerness to demonstrate pluck; all four had their merits, but a more considered line of thought picked acute-perception as the principle motivation; a conclusion supported by its obvious lack when the heroine's friends had recently charged into needless action which had cost everyone dearly and which had been saved from being a total disaster only because of a lucky and last-minute intervention.

Thus it was that the arrival of such a personage as Professor Ogami caused more stir among the spectators than among those whose business it was to engage the new visitor in a professional capacity or those whose business it was to ensure her personal comfort. The aforementioned perception guaranteed that much of the upheaval came from the fair sex with their suspicion that the exchange scholar was more than willing to intertwine her professional business with her private pleasure. It was only natural to those with such suspicions that other suspicions be generated since the difficult times had produced a wariness where it seemed only prudent to not dismiss items that might be ignored under more convivial circumstances even if these items could not be readily verified as potentially harmful. And so the ones with the heightened awareness that seemingly insignificant events could tip the balance in the struggle for the soul of the wizard world found themselves engaged in activities that they would scarcely recommend under usual conditions but seemed mandated by a proper concern for the safety of all and surely partly justified merely by the inconvenience and discomfort of carrying out these precautions in the face of the indifference or even censure of individuals who did not realize that without bending some of the rules of propriety the game might be lost.

It had fallen to the more astute among them to bend their minds to the multiple dilemmas facing the conscientious who would rid their society of the malcontents seeking to do it harm since it appeared ill advised to embark too openly on the necessary course of action lest their well-meaning but slower-witted allies either curtail the campaign because the need was not clear to them or forbid involvement because of the danger or ruin the well-laid plans by their clumsiness. To this end, the uncertainties and apprehensions could be allayed by a program of clandestine but comprehensive surveillance.

It was the details of the surveillance that caused our heroine to wrack her brains since her compatriots were full of ideas that while inventive would hardly past muster; the following schemes were proposed: aerial reconnaissance that would certainly have attracted the attention of anyone in the vicinity, disguise as a crew to fix the castle plumbing which faltered on the realization that none of them knew the mechanics of hydraulics, and constant visits on pretence of using the castle library which would raise the suspicions of those who knew the weak scholastic impulses of the available volunteers; the first idea of constant flybys seemed fun and easy, but was discarded in favor of a plan that had the same result but required talents possessed by a greater number of people and had equivalent recreational potential: apparently impromptu outings by wizard-witch pairs that could stroll through the castle countryside and surreptitiously watch the happenings while appearing innocent.

A difficulty arose, however, in the pairings which had to appear compatible but could not be compatible to the point that the couples forgot the purpose of their mission or aroused the protective instincts of adult guardians. The first pairings suggested were of this latter variety, and much persuasion and appeal to higher purpose were needed before those involved saw reason and then only grudgingly agreed to spend time with someone not their first choice. Discussion and diplomatic effort finally produced three teams: Ron Weasley with Parvati Patil, Harry Potter with Padma Patil, and Hermione Granger with Ginny Weasley, and although the teams were a compromise, they were effective enough on their maiden voyages to establish that observing Professors Ogami and Snape was potentially hazardous because both had a sense of when they were being observed even when the observation was conducted at long distance with a spyglass but that Professor Ogami confined her activities to the castle and occasional shopping trips with Professor Snape and that she engaged in no obvious rendezvous.

"Stop fidgeting, Ron."

This outburst occurred because Hermione Granger, the mastermind of the operation, had had second thoughts about the pairing of Ron and Parvati when, before this couple's third foray, she had observed Ron assiduously grooming, humming a happy tune, and preparing to leave early instead of grousing as he had before the pair's first venture. She had decided to keep everything on an even keel by taking the risk and making the sacrifice of accompanying Ron his fourth time out even though it had caused a tremendous row with Ginny who asserted that Harry was showing the same disconcerting signs that Ron had exhibited. She was also discovering that his constant fidgeting upon the air mattress they were using to protect themselves from the cold and stony ground was almost as irritating as his barely disguised disgruntlement at not being with his original partner – not to mention that, distracted by his restlessness and upset by his disloyal preference, she had been careless and discovered, in the spyglass, Professor Snape looking at her and, worse, Professor Ogami giving her a cold glare that froze Hermione's heart even though she was certain neither professor could see them from this great distance. Hermione had snapped at Ron as she came to the conclusion that if Professor Ogami was an enemy, then she was a deadly enemy indeed.

She would have to warn the second team of Harry and Padma that Professor Ogami was more sensitive to her surroundings than previously reported, and it was even more reason to resist the complaints of Ginny that she should be the one to accompany Harry since Hermione was certain that Ginny and Harry together would not keep their attention completely focused on the assigned task even though Hermione had to admit that, while she was glad that Harry and Padma had settled into a comfortable partnership, propinquity, as with Ron and Parvati, was having a more salutary effect than was desirable for this delicate operation. Nevertheless, Hermione felt confident in trusting the natural antipathy of Harry and Padma whereas she was not certain that natural antipathy was sufficient when it involved the less disciplined characters of Ron and Parvati.

Harmony looked pleased at the story's progress.

"Do people read that?" asked Snorri.

"It's character development," said Harmony. "It's the lifeblood of romance literature, and our audience is ninety-percent female."

"I knew there was a reason I never bought this magazine," said Snorri. "Do you really think ten-percent of the readers are male?"

Several hours later, Biff Barston wandered in to check on progress but found that Severson and Grayson had left for the day. He perused the manuscript, concluded it was amateurish, but knew he was a professional enough writer to adapt.

The sun was setting as slow and reluctant as the last saxophone solo at an amateur jazz club when Biff, Wizard for Hire, discovered the castle was being watched. He would spend some time watching the watchers even though his assignment was to ascertain what Misako Ogami was doing in this backwater. Her outspoken interest in the Brit conflict had the ears and eyes of officialdom as alert as a finely bred hound in the field. Their inquisitive noses had turned to England as intently as a pointer who had heard a rustle in the wilds of the Scottish brush.

Two lean greyhounds, as innocuous as death in a silent rush, had coached him for spying on the British aristocracy: disguise himself as a servant, preferably a cleaning servant who could go anywhere and remain unnoticed. After the briefing, he had tried to recall why the two had made such an impression on him, but not even his trained mind could focus on any detail about them. But their information was good, and he had assumed the strange persona of a house-elf. As a laundry-elf, he had categorized Misako's wardrobe as half rugged-adventuress and half slinky-seductress. Elf society was a time-trip to a mythical place where slaves were happy. Biff was taking evening tours of the castle environs in his natural form to retain a tenuous link with sanity when he discovered others were interested in Misako. He regarded them as a pack of amateurs who were more likely to alert the quarry than track and capture it.

"What genius arranged a stakeout with hormonal pairs of adolescents?" he asked himself. "I should thank him. This is going to be entertaining."

Entertainment was hard to come by amongst the house-elves.

The first pair consisted of a gangly, red-haired wizard and dark-haired witch of striking beauty who might be of Indian descent. They appeared stand-offish at first, but both had a lively disposition, and they were soon engrossed in discussing the minutiae of their lives. They occasionally broke off their conversation to peer at the poker group with a spyglass. "They're doing it right by accident," Biff observed to himself. "Don't stare at Misako too long; don't underestimate her."

The second pair had a more serious demeanor: a dark-haired wizard and another beauty that also seemed Indian. They talked quietly. Biff was placing his bet on these two: it's the quiet ones.

By their third evening together, the first pair was as compatible as a mellow song over a vintage merlot. Their time was spent chatting and looking at the stars. By the end of their watch, the witch was touching the wizard whenever she spoke to him. When the poker party broke up, the witch glanced through the spy glass to check that Misako was still there.

The third evening for the second pair was as broken as a string bass arpeggio and as bonding as a walking chord progression. The wizard seemed to have matters of great import on his mind which came out in a halting fashion. The witch touched him several times as he talked, and when he finished, she reminisced in the manner of one relating past sad events. Despite the intensity of the conversation, they were a conscientious pair who periodically checked the group on the balcony. The evening ended with the witch talking quietly and lying close enough to touch – a new piano ready for the deft fingers that would bring out her first melody, preferably using the dark keys.

The next evening was as jarring as a bebop riff. The red-haired wizard was back, but he was accompanied by a pale-skinned witch who appeared to be telling him things instead of talking to him. The wizard was lying on his back, not seeing the stars and obviously missing his previous companion. Biff almost yelled a warning when he saw the witch stare at Misako through the spyglass. To Biff's surprise, another member of the poker party became aware of the surveillance. Biff recognized him as the wizard with whom Misako was working and marked him as someone to treat with caution. Biff watched the pale-skinned witch turn paler and hastily put away the spyglass. "A bossy klutz," concluded Biff.

Biff decided to take the risk of warning the watchers. He easily learned the identities of some of the participants by talking to the house-elves, but he had no quick way of getting a message to them without the possibility of revealing his cover. His voyeurism had produced an irrational protective urge, and he went out the next evening in case the message had not reached them. It hadn't. The boy he now knew was Harry Potter appeared at dusk with his raven-haired partner.

Biff was wishing he had learned the name of the girl even though it seemed she had already made a choice. She looked as if she was wearing her second best skirt and blouse in an attempt to be noticeable but not be obvious about it, and she looked as crisp as a Coast Guard cutter coming into harbor under the eyes of the old salts. She convinced Harry they should find a more hidden location, and she let him do the spying while evincing the nervous eagerness of a filly at the starting-gate. She began with tentative touches until he touched her back. She let him get closer and closer until she only had to move her lips an inch to meet his. He was unsure what to do after their first kiss, but she embraced him while he adjusted to being in her arms. They held each other until the poker party broke up, checked that Misako was still there, and left holding hands.

Barston set down the quill with a feeling of satisfaction.