Part First: The Hart Assurgent: Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

After bidding Lucius good night, Emily went upstairs to the Green Room and had tried to get some sleep, like he recommended. The Green Room, predictably, was decorated in green: Persian rugs in a green pattern, white-streaked green marble, and a vast bed draped with green velvet. Beautiful as that bed looked, however, it was not especially comfortable, and it was rather too far from the fire with too few bedclothes to be terribly warm. Her filmy nightdress and light velvet robe were no real help, either. Eventually, she had piled some pillows a few feet from the hearth and lay down on them under some coverlets and her heavy cloak; an arrangement which turned out to be far more comfortable than the bed.

She usually had no trouble dropping off to sleep when she was tired, and the day's events had certainly been mentally, if not physically, wearying. Nonetheless, feelings of vague unease kept her awake for first one hour, then two.

Finally, just as she had started to drop off – the sound of someone's footsteps just outside her room brought her back to lucidity in a second. She sat up silently, one hand instinctively going to where her sword would have lain, had she been camped with her unit near disputed border territory. Instead, her hand touched velvet cushions, a luxurious hearth rug. She both listened and watched closely, straining forward in the dark.

Men's hushed voices, at least two of them, outside in the corridor. At least two sets of footsteps – and the cadence of one person's gait was stumbling. There was a sound of someone lurching against the wall beside her door. She threw back the covers and stood up, moving silently away from her makeshift pallet, sliding into the deeper shadows to the left of the hearth.

As she watched, the doorknob began to turn, and then the door began to open into her room.

Emily quickly spoke a word, Obscuring herself and flattening against the wall.

The door only opened a few inches – she heard a man's slurring voice saying "... wherezafeery? zisseroom?... " Two other voices hissed what seemed like interjections of prohibition – she caught No! stay out of there! in a voice she didn't recognize immediately – and someone dragged the slurring-voiced person away from the door. A second later, it was quietly eased almost shut again, but the tab of the doorknob mechanism had not slid all the way into the doorjamb socket, and a strong draught blew it ajar again a minute later. She heard the voices retreating down the corridor.

There was no doubt in her mind what had happened – that idiot Menzentius had woken up out of his drunken stupor and decided that perhaps she would welcome his attentions in her bedroom. Luckily, someone had caught him just before he made good on that plan and dragged him away from her door. She felt shaken and angry – so much for thinking she could sleep unmolested in a friend's home with that moron staggering about. Only her people's stern customs of respect for hospitality kept her from going out and giving him a practical hands-on demonstration of what '... zafeery' thought of having her sleep so disturbed.

The voices continued down the corridor. She heard a laugh, then... get to her soon enough.

The back of her neck prickled. Suddenly, she wanted very much to know who was on the other side of that door.

She reached for the robe on the floor beside her and pulled it on, then slid through the blowing door and out into the corridor, pulling it silently closed behind her. To an ordinary observer, it would have appeared that the draught had finally blown the door securely shut. In the ornamental gloom just outside, she leaned against a wall for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness, and strengthening her self-Obscuring effect with another recitation of her Mot de Puissance. Then she swiftly followed the voices down the corridor.

She caught up to within twenty paces of three men – and as she suspected, she recognized Menzentius Black, being supported by Walden Macnair on one side, and Marcus Flint, Sr. on the other. They seemed to be heading for the hall just inside the foyer, where the guests had assembled that morning.

Emily moved silently onto the balcony gallery overlooking the hall as Mr. Flint and Mr. Macnair began negotiating Menzentius down the stairway to the ground level. She paused, leaning on the gallery railing, still Obscured, looking down at the tableau below her.

The male members of Lucius's family (all but Draco), and all of their male guests were clustered in a tight little knot in front of the great fireplace, which was still crackling brightly. They had all gotten out of their fancy dress and resumed their normal dark robes, and seemed deep in some very intense, and very absorbing, conversation. Lucius seemed to be holding forth in a long speech, to an audience composed of Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle, and Mr. Bulstrode, while Macnair, Mr. Flint, and the groggy-looking Menzentius joined a debate between Mr. Nott and Mr. Parkinson. Professor Snape was hunched silently in a great armchair, listening very attentively to everyone. At first she thought the group was comprised only of the men, but then she spotted Druella Black, resplendent in another large armchair, her rheumy eyes glittering, like some dread dowager queen.

But she couldn't have said later why that scene – just people in front of a fire talking – struck her as so very sinister.

Perhaps it was because there was no light in that vast dark room other than the giant fire in the hearth – which backlit everyone to lurid, Faustian effect. Maybe it was because all of the company below looked so deadly serious, so fixed on matters of grave import. Maybe it was because of the way they were all conversing in such hushed voices, inaudible even to ears as sensitive as her own.

Or maybe it struck her as sinister because the idea of going down and chummily saying hello to them all, asking if they had all popped down for a nightcap, and if she could join them, filled her with a mysterious, but heart-pounding and immediate, terror. Even the ones she knew quite well – Lucius, and to a lesser extent Professor Snape – seemed profoundly forbidding at that moment. All she knew was that she didn't want them to discover her watching them at any cost.

She thought for a moment how easy it would be to go back up to her room, pack up, bundle herself up, and climb out the window while still Obscured, and then Apparate lickety-split back to Hogwarts as soon as she passed the Malfeasant wards... but that would betray a lack of confidence in the Malfoys' hospitality that would probably mean that Lucius would never speak to her again.

They didn't seem to be really doing anything, she thought, calming down with the help of a few deep breaths. Just talking. Just doing a lot of talking. And given the amount of money and political influence for which members of this group were responsible, it was entirely possible that whatever topic they had decided to discuss in their late-night caucus was very pressing and important indeed.

With those thoughts in mind, she turned and silently went back to her room. Once arriving there, however, she placed a Faery Ward of Impassability on every entrance to the room – laying her hands on the doors and windows and whispering Stoppian, backed by her word – so that while the ward was in place, it would have been easier to chop through the solid wood rather than open any of them without her specific invitation. Then she took her favourite duelling rapier out of her trunk and slid it, sheathed, under the cushions before the fire before lying down again.

Only with these precautions in place did she finally drop off to sleep.

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Emily awoke that morning to the sound of light but persistent knocking at her bedroom door. A high tremulous voice was squeaking, "Miss Professor, please? Miss Professor... please? Good morning, please? Breakfast... please?" She sat up and quickly put on her robe, then pulled the rapier out from under the cushions and laid it on a bench near her trunk. Next she moved to the door and, laying a hand on it, muttered Ende Stoppian and her word. Turning back toward the hearth, she called, "Come in!"

A towel-clad house-elf – her ladies' maid, Cecile, who had helped her dress for the ball the previous night – backed into the room carrying a delicate porcelain breakfast tray, which she put on a little table near the fire. She first poured Emily a cup of tea – which smelled deliciously like lemon peel and honey – then scurried to build up the fire again, after which she moved back to Emily's side and dropped a wretched little curtsy. "Please, Miss Professor, be you wanting anything?"

Emily indicated the cushions and coverlets on the floor, a little guiltily. "Um, if you could put all those things back on the bed, dear?"

"Right away, Miss Professor, ma'am... " Cecile made up the bed with lightning speed. Then she came back toward the breakfast table, where Emily was buttering a wheat scone, and poured more tea with another curtsy.

There was something different about those hands... after the elf had set down the teapot, Emily gently took hold of her arm. "Wait, Cecile – let me see your hands."

The thin, long-fingered hands – not totally unlike Emily's own – were wrapped inexpertly in bandages, under which red blistered skin was visible. She certainly had not had such injuries the previous night before the ball, when she had laid out Emily's gown, coiffed her hair, and manicured her nails.

"What happened to your hands?" she asked.

"Cecile... had to iron them," the little creature said, hanging her head abjectly.

"Why?" Emily asked incredulously, gently taking her by the shoulders.

"I, um... well... we all had to iron our hands last night, miss." Emily looked past the elf's face to her own bandaged hand, resting lightly on Cecile's elbow.

"Who made you iron your hands? I thought Lucius said that he wasn't going to punish you," Emily said, looking pleadingly into the little elf's face, wanting him to be innocent of such disregard toward her – and such a horrible act toward his servants.

"Master didn't make us do it," Cecile replied, and Emily breathed a sigh of relief.

"Then who did? What happened?"

"Mistress said... Mistress told us... Mistress was angry," Cecile stammered. Then she pressed her lips together and just trembled, imploring with huge liquid brown eyes.

Emily leaned back in her chair, staring grimly at her own bandaged hand. Well. Lucius told me he wouldn't punish the elves, but Narcissa didn't, did she. She could scarcely believe the sheer cruelty of Narcissa's punishment – over an accident, a simple mistake. Perhaps, she reflected grimly, Narcissa had forgotten about the Faery reaction to iron and absentmindedly told the elves to put out the wrought iron cups herself, and was now covering for her own carelessness. How someone like Lucius could stand being married to such a hideous creature, she had no idea.

Then she turned her attention back to her breakfast, releasing Cecile from her scrutiny. "Oh, that's all right, you don't have to tell me any more. But Cecile... I... I need you to run an errand for me. Do you know where Professor Snape's room is?"

"Yes, miss," the elf quavered.

"Run up there and tell him I'm in dreadful pain from my burned hand, and... you want to bring me a bit more of his Healing Potion, if he can spare it. Come right back with it, and bring me some fresh gauze bandages, tape, and a scissors. Go right now. Quickly." There, that wasn't too dishonest – she was in pain from her burnt hand, and Cecile probably would have wanted to bring her some of the Healing Potion, if she had been previously aware that it existed.

"Yes, miss – " Cecile was gone from the room in an instant. Emily barely had time to finish the scone and tea by the time Cecile returned, carrying bandages and the stoppered bottle of blue Healing Potion and an eyedropper very carefully in front of her. She set them down on the table next to Emily's breakfast tray and waited silently.

Emily picked up the bottle – the same one Snape had taken from his bag the night before – with some surprise. She had been expecting Professor Snape to have sent a tiny vial of this potion, and to have taken a considerably longer time to part with it. Healing Potion was a precious substance, worth its weight in gold in her world. It was difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to make – it was really a testament to Snape's skill as a Potions master that he was able to make it at all.

For him to have sent his entire bottle of it to her was either an extremely generous and trusting gesture – or, an extremely arrogant one, a show of despising profligacy tossed to that caddish and amoral, not to mention clumsy, acquaintance of his. And as always, with him, she couldn't tell which.

"Cecile, what did the Professor say when you asked him for this?"

"Mr. Professor, sir, he says, 'All right, take this to her,' and he gives me the bottle from his bag, Miss Professor, ma'am," Cecile said.

"What else did he say?"

"Well, I says you were in dreadful pain from your hand, Miss Professor, likes you told me, and that I wanted to be bringing you a bits more of his Healing Potion, if he could spare it, likes you told me. Then he says, 'All right, take this to her,' and gives me this blue bottle, this one here, that he gets from his black doctor bag, ma'am," Cecile answered. "And he gives me this little dropper too."

"That was all he said?"

"Well, as I am leaving his room, he says, 'Bring it back when she is done with it,' Mr. Professor, sir, he says."

"All right... well, how did he say it? Did he sound angry, or... did he sound, um... "

Cecile looked up at her uncomprehendingly, her slender little bandaged hands clasped in front of her. Emily stopped herself in mid-sentence with pang of guilt – she had sent for the potion to help Cecile, not in order to pump her for information about Professor Snape. Some fecking Knight Protector of the helpless and downtrodden I am today. Bloody hell.

"Oh – never mind, dear. But we can't have you helping me with your hands like that, can we?"

"Cecile has had to help with ironed hands before, Miss Professor. It be not stopping me from doing my work," the elf interjected pathetically.

"Well, regardless, I, um... I... I don't like the idea of my ladies' maid touching my hair and my clothes with oozing burns on her hands." There, that was an absolutely airtight reason, and she was sticking to it. "So you just have to do as I say. Understood?"

A direct order was definitely something Cecile understood. She dropped another little curtsy. "Yes, Miss Professor."

"Let's get those bandages off your hands." The blood-crusted gauze was off in a second. Emily opened the healing potion and eyedropper, and dispensed a few drops onto the backs of Cecile's hands. "This might itch a bit."

Professor Snape had been right about the potion's efficacy on simple burns – wherever she dropped the potion, the burned skin healed itself almost instantaneously. In a moment, Cecile's pale grey skin was whole and unblemished over the backs of her hands. Emily wrapped her hands back up in the blood-soaked bandages again, and strictly cautioned her not to take them off for at least a week or two.

"Cecile... how many elves live in this house?" she asked.

"Um, there be fifteen others of us, Miss Professor," came the reply.

"All right... " Emily went into her bathroom and rummaged around in her cosmetics bag until she came up with a miniature bottle of mouthwash left over from a long-ago hotel stay. She emptied the bottle into the sink, and then washed it out thoroughly. Bringing it back to the table, she dispensed sixty drops of the blue potion into the bottle, and gave it to Cecile with the eyedropper. "Now, I want you to give four drops of this potion to each of the elves in the house. It won't heal them up completely, but it will help with the worst of it. Tell them all to keep their hands bandaged for at least the next ten days or so. Can you hide this somewhere in your uniform?"

"Yes, miss," Cecile said, faintly, huge brown eyes fixed on her face.

"Good. Now take this bottle back to Professor Snape. If he asks about the eyedropper, tell him I dropped it and broke it. Do you understand?"

"Yes... yes, miss," Cecile answered.

Emily looked closely at the bottle of healing potion before handing it back to Cecile – the level of the blue liquid seemed noticeably diminished to her. Ah well, she would replenish his stock from the apothecary's in Diagon Alley after she got back to Hogwarts.

When Emily came out of the bath wrapped in a robe, Cecile had returned from her errand – and her navy tweed riding habit was laid out on her bed, pressed immaculately, her black riding boots had been polished to a mirrorlike shine; on the breakfast table, there were a fresh pot of hot herb tea and more scones with honey, a bunch of fresh grapes and quinces, and a vase of fresh flowers, no doubt from the hothouse downstairs. Cecile was warming Emily's slippers by the fire and ran up and curtsied deeply when the bathroom door opened.

"Can I be helping you with your hair, miss? Be you wanting anything?"

Emily smiled. You're welcome.

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The group of hunters was to begin assembling in the great front hall by noon, and Emily joined them at about ten past the hour, after carefully removing the wards from all the doors and windows of her room.

All of the men and some of the women – Narcissa, Mrs. Rosier, Miss Wilkes, Mrs. Crabbe, and Mrs. Goyle – were dressed for the hunt, in boots and riding habits. Lucius was of course the first one to greet her when she came down to the hall – Count Vronsky could not have looked more handsome in his black riding habit and astrakhan over-robe. There was no trace of the foreboding figure he had seemed in front of the fire the night before – when he put his usual kiss of greeting on her cheek, and smiled at her with his usual slightly conspiratorial joviality, he seemed only the usual Lucius, the one that was comforting and familiar to her.

Narcissa was immediately at his side with an elaborately tolerant sidelong smile – looking like an exquisite czarina in charcoal grey, with a matching capelet lined with white mink over her shoulders, and a white mink hat over her braided hair. Yes, Narcissa was a very beautiful woman indeed, Emily thought when her hostess wished her a good morning. She was just lovely – for someone who made her servants iron their hands. Because of that morning's episode with Cecile, Emily's manner toward Narcissa was far less cordial than usual.

At the front of the hall, Professor Snape was talking to Draco on one of the sofas beside the great fireplace, and Lady had again sprawled her dignified furry bulk beside him and draped her head over his knee. He was looking very well that day, with his hair freshly combed and slightly damp from the bath, and looking very slim and elegant in his black riding costume and boots, but she wasn't about to stare too admiringly at him, as he might take that as further proof of her supposed rakishness and amorality.

A few house elves were circulating silently, offering tall china mugs of steaming tea on little silver trays, and Emily noticed that while their hands were still wrapped in crusty bandages, there was very little burned skin visible. She accepted a cup of orange spice tea from one of them – and the little creature almost wiggled with gratitude when she thanked him.

The goblin major-domo appeared at Lucius's side and muttered something to him with a crisp little bow – and Lucius dismissed him, then addressed the assembled company.

"Well then, everyone – Goliath tells me that the horses are all saddled up and ready, so let's be making our way out to the stables. And our quarry has been spotted near Narcissa's croquet green, ripping the rosebushes to bits, so do let's go put him out of my misery."

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Out in the courtyard by the stables, several goblins dressed as grooms in diminutive riding boots and horsemen's dusters were lining up a row of some of the most beautiful horses Emily had ever seen – clearly the Malfoys' good taste extended to horseflesh. Lucius was holding the reins of a giant bay stallion with a black mane and tail, and Narcissa was already mounted on a pure white Andalusian. The air was freezing, and it looked as though even more snow had fallen during the night.

"Emily, there you are," Lucius called. "They're saddling up the sweetest little mare for you in the stables, if you'd like to run in and collect her. Walden will fit you up with a bow as well. Severus, show her where the weapons room is, would you?"

"This way, Professor," Snape said with a curt nod.

Snape led her to the weapons room, just off the stables.

And from the look of the weapons room, someone in the Malfoy house expected to fight off an invading army of marauding Turks sometime soon.

Swords of all kinds, from French court swords to great heavy two-handed English bastard swords lined the walls, giving way to ancient Briton and Gallic morning stars and battle maces. Briton longbows and crossbows were well represented in the tremendous array of armaments in that arsenal – and arrows and crossbow bolts hung plentifully against the walls. Walden Macnair was looking over them with a practised eye, while she watched him warily, still worried by the cryptic remark about getting to her soon enough made the previous night.

"Here we are, milady – I've found a nice little bow just the right size for a lady's hand. There you go – " Macnair had plucked one of the crossbows from the walls and was handing it to Emily –

"Sir, I – " She sprang back, allowing it to clatter to the stable floor. "I can't take a crossbow out with me today, I'm sorry."

"Why not?" Macnair asked, mystified, picking the bow up off the ground and checking its mechanism for damage.

"Because the trigger and metal fittings are made of iron, sir," she said quietly. "If I try to use one of those, I'll end up with burnt hands again."

"Oh, of course," Macnair said, putting the bow back in its place on the wall.

Professor Snape looked at her gravely. "Then really, Professor, perhaps you had best go back up to the house and pass on hunting today."

"I'll be all right, sir. Thank you for your concern." She turned back toward the door.

"No, really, Professor, I don't think you should go out there unarmed," Snape said sternly, stopping her with a not-ungentle hand on her shoulder. "No matter how many dangerous beasts you've fought in your native country, Lucius says this is a very big and destructive boar we'll be after today, and – "

"I am armed, sir," she interjected calmly.

She plucked something from her right lapel, and silently spoke a word – and suddenly there was a large hunting dagger in her hand, three inches wide and a foot long. It was the sort of thing a hunter would have used to filet a salmon, or skin an elk. She indicated her lapel – "There are others in reserve, as well."

Snape leaned in for a closer look – and noted what would have looked like stickpins in the shape of tiny, perfectly detailed miniature daggers and swords to the ordinary observer, piercing the blue wool of her lapel in a neat row. "All functional, I take it?"

"Yes, sir. Reducio is extremely convenient for this sort of thing. After all, I can't exactly walk around Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, et cetera, with a three-foot duelling rapier hanging off my belt, with the weapons laws being what they are." She spoke a word again – and then slotted the miniature dagger back into her lapel.

"I suppose not," Snape said briefly, stepping back and gesturing for her to precede him out of the room.

"So we're not hunting foxes or pheasants but boar today?" Emily asked, walking back out in the main stables with Snape and Macnair following.

Macnair paused before mounting his horse, a heavy mottled black with ruffled fetlocks. "Yes, miss – a great big'un, Lucius says. It's tearing up the fences and landscaping like anything, and they don't dare let the dog out while it's out there. Menzentius has a dreadful mad-on to go after it for weeks."

Emily glanced at Narcissa's brother, who looked so dull and headachy that he had to be helped onto his horse by Mr. Goyle. "No doubt he's a mighty hunter indeed," she observed dryly. Behind her, Professor Snape turned a snort of laughter into a cough.

"Yeah, I think he took the worst of it last night with the claret, poor chap. But don't you worry there, miss, I won't let the bugger near you." He patted something strapped to his saddle – and Emily recognised a boar-hunting lance, with vicious-looking pointed head, and a bar some feet down the staff to keep a boar speared through the mouth from biting off a hunter's arm after the killing blow.

"Thank you, sir," she said. "Might I ask how big this great big'un really is?"

"Ruddy damned big – and you're certainly welcome, miss," he said, winking at her so familiarly that she felt rather repulsed. He mounted his horse, then nodded to Snape – "See you out there, Severus." – and was off.

Well, that was vague. Emily was beginning to feel uneasy about going off to hunt a quarry about which she knew virtually nothing.

Another surly goblin in a groom's uniform and riding boots led out a tall bay gelding and handed the reins to Professor Snape. He paused for a moment, stroking the horse's beautiful arched neck with a black-gloved hand. The groom then brought out a pretty, fleet-looking dappled-grey mare for Emily, and then offered her his hand while steadying the near stirrup for her.

"That's all right – I can do it, thank you," she said to the groom, then took hold of the saddle and leapt up onto the mare's back as lightly as a bit of blown thistledown. The groom stepped back, his eyes widening, and muttered something that sounded like Nimble little thing, aintcha under his breath, then headed toward the back of the stables.

"Do a bit of riding at home, then, I take it?" came Professor Snape's voice, in a tone of stating the extremely obvious.

"Well, our travelling options are limited to either riding one's horse somewhere, or walking there," she replied, in the same tone.

"I see. Tell me – did the potion help at all the second time?" Snape asked. The bay gelding was rubbing the side of his face against his arm.

"Uh... yes, it helped a great deal. Thank you, very much. I feel much better now." She glanced down at her bandaged hand, gingerly holding the leather reins, and cursed inwardly that she had not yet put on her riding gloves. A second later, she hid her hand in the pocket of her coat with what she hoped was an entirely casual air.

"Took a rather heavy dose of it, I thought," he continued acidly. "I would have thought you'd be more recovered by now. I do hope breaking the eyedropper didn't make too much of a mess."

"No, not at all. My maid's the sort who can have that cleaned up in a minute."

"Evidently they didn't teach Reparo when you were in school?"

"Didn't think to use it, sorry. Perhaps I was just appalled at myself for being so clumsy." What was it with all these questions – the man was like a Scotland Yard detective after a criminal.

"Ah, yes, of course. You are just the clumsiest person that I, or the Malfoys' groom, ever saw." Snape chuckled pityingly and shook his head, with the kind of look he might have given a Gryffindor claiming a dog ate her homework. "You are truly a terrible liar, Professor. Any one of the Slytherin girls is a seasoned con artist by comparison. Neville bloody Longbottom can lie more convincingly than you."

"All right, fine, it was for Cecile and the elves. They were hurt worse than I was," she replied in an angry whisper. "Are you going to tell anyone? Shall I wait here while you go tell Narcissa and make her boiling mad at me for interfering?"

He only looked at her – a look that said he was disappointed in her for even asking him such a question, and even more disappointed in her for being so very thick, yet again. Then he deftly swung up onto his horse's back, and in another second had urged him forward and out of the stable at a brisk trot.

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Once everyone was mounted, and the group of hunters had assembled outside the stables, Lucius nodded to Macnair, who blew a curled bronze horn, sounding a single, ringing note. Lucius spun his horse eastward, and the other horses surged to follow him. The ground was mounded with snow to above the horses' fetlocks, and the bitingly cold wind blew so swiftly against her face that it made it difficult to draw breath. White fields passed swiftly beneath the feet of her mount as Emily urged her mare to a brisk canter.

Lucius led them to the croquet green first – which in sunnier weather would have been a wide expanse of lawn surrounded by a border of rosebushes. Something had been on a rampage amongst the plants, however, as two or three freshly uprooted bushes were lying on the snow, their roots gnawed away completely. Macnair dismounted and examined a pile of droppings amidst the ruins of the garden.

"Still fresh," he told Lucius. "He's not far. The tracks go this way, toward the orchards."

"All right then – follow me, everyone," Lucius called, pointing to the north.

As the group followed, Emily pulled alongside Lucius's horse and called urgently to him. "How big is the boar? Have you seen it?" She followed him up a slight rise in the turf.

"Goliath saw it on the slopes this morning – said he was a real monster," he said cheerfully. "You'll see a fine show today, and that's for certain."

Her heart gave a lurch. "How monstrous is a real monster, then?"

"Ah – judge for yourself. We've found him." Lucius nodded in the direction of a grove of trees ahead of them.

Emily turned toward in the direction he indicated – and gasped. No wonder this beast had done so much damage to the landscaping – to her eye, the Malfoys' boar was the stuff of nightmares. He was an abnormally large, fully mature adult male – one that made Lady, the Malfoys' giant Newfoundland, look like a cocker spaniel by comparison – and probably weighing as much as Lucius and Mr. Goyle together. His massive skull was mounted on a neck so thick that Emily couldn't have encircled it with both arms, and his hulking shoulders promised to put more power behind a forward charge than any of the full-grown horses they were mounted upon. Protruding from his lower jaw were ivory tusks that could have disembowelled a fanged, four-legged land predator in one stroke.

And these hapless aristocrats thought they were going to take the likes of him down with crossbows and a lance.

When she spotted the boar through the trees, Emily quickly threw off her cloak. Then she hastily drew her feet out of her boots, and tore off her woollen socks, letting them drop where they fell. Barefoot, she raced the mare to Lucius's side.

The boar had uprooted a small tree and was chewing on its tender roots with his great jaws – at the sound of horses' hooves, he looked up with a mildly startled expression, momentarily uncertain as to whether he should flee or stand his ground – but when his small brown eyes sized them up, he perceived no threat. Then he lowered his head, and pawed the ground. Attitude of aggression and readiness. He wasn't afraid.

"Lucius – we should go," she cried desperately to him. "You can't hunt an animal like this under these – "

Unmindful of her warning, Malfoy aimed his crossbow at the creature and got off his first shot – and the bolt from his crossbow hit the creature dead in the shoulder. The sharp metal head hit the boar with a dull, meaty sound, not stopping until it chunked against solid bone. The boar reacted in agony, falling backward against his off foreleg, and howling in torment.

But then he recovered himself, turned his gleaming, maddened red eyes in Lucius's direction, and charged.

The horse, quite sensibly and independent of its rider, gathered itself and dodged to one side, wheeling away from the boar's forward motion. Lucius managed to reload the crossbow with remarkable quickness, and fired off a second shot, which struck the boar hard in its right haunch with a second sickening chunk. The animal's hind leg crumpled, and he bayed with pain. Then again, he lowered his lethal, magnificent tusks, and bolted forward.

But now Lucius's horse was terrified, stumbling over itself – and the boar had infinitely more resolute, pain-maddened strength. He charged forward and struck the magnificent stallion in the chest, nearly knocking it over, and as he pulled away – raked its tusks sideways along the horse's belly, ripping muscle and viscera from its body. The majestic bay gave a shrill equine scream and crumpled beneath its rider. The smells of bile and the metal stench of much blood rolled over Emily like a wave of heat – and she knew from those smells that the boar had disembowelled the horse with its tusks.

Which meant the horse was done for – it would never get up again – which left Lucius unmounted.

He managed to recover, getting free of the weight of the falling horse – she could see him attempting to draw his wand as he hit the ground. The boar lunged for the fallen horse, now the only barrier between Lucius and himself, and sank his tusks into the supine animal's flesh. The horse screamed again as more of its entrails fell, steaming, from its body onto the snow. In its dying agony, Lucius's horse kicked outward in all directions, flailing in a futile attempt to defend itself. One of its forelegs impacted with Lucius's wand hand –

snap

– and his wand splintered and was knocked aside. Realization – then fear – broke across Malfoy's face; he was facing a maddened enemy, unmounted and unarmed. The boar put down his giant head, grunting animal curses of pain and rage, small brown eyes watching the frantic human now crouching beside the steaming corpse of the once-magnificent horse.

"Father!" The scream broke from Draco Malfoy. He desperately aimed his crossbow at the boar's side – but in turning his already-spooked horse around, he dragged too hard at the creature's mouth, causing it to wheel around in fear and pain. Distracted for a moment by the boy's shout, the boar watched the younger Malfoy's terror-stricken horse lurch away, then turned back to the boy's father, still crouched, wide-eyed and shaking, behind the body of his fallen mount. The small porcine eyes fixed on Lucius, and the great head with its murderous tusks lowered with obvious intent.

But abruptly, a heavy hunting dagger had pierced the beast's heavy hide, somewhere behind his right ribs. The boar bellowed, spinning hard to the right.

Emily had dropped off her horse's back, running barefoot in the direction of the fallen Malfoy. She plucked at her lapel – and a second dagger gleamed in her hand.

She was calculating desperately – on her list of allies, Lucius was the only hunter who could have taken it quickly with a crossbow. The rest were milling around uselessly, apparently too frightened or shocked to take any action – though in theory, any of them could have drawn their wands and used an Avada Kedavra curse on the creature.

It seemed, however, that none of them had thought of that.

The boar, she knew, was not going to be given to rising on his hind legs to strike with his forelegs, thereby exposing his vulnerable belly, and his anatomy was such that her best killing strike – the throat slash – would not be feasible unless she could get directly above or below him. This opponent was strong and agile enough to corner fast if she tried to take him from the side. That left the viscera – but she already had a dagger lodged probably six inches into his abdomen, and that was barely slowing him down.

Lucius had done enough damage with crossbow strikes that he would have probably would bled out eventually – he was gouting blood from three major wounds – but now, he was fighting for his life, and he was intelligent enough of a creature to know that. That would make him reckless.

A frontal attack through the mouth meant that his continuing momentum down the sword would potentially leave her arm between his jaws as he died –

A lateral attack at the eyes was her best chance.

In the time it took her to decide on a course of action, the boar spun toward the new threat that she represented, away from the man on the ground. His great head turned from Malfoy, to the woman across the clearing, back to Malfoy, undecided as to where to attack next.

Lucius was watching both of them intently – clearly he was trying to keep a cool head, but his eyes rolled white with fear. She had the animal off balance – but now more distraction was necessary. Darting forward at a run, the second dagger struck home in the meat of the beast's chest, just above his foreleg. He howled.

She had been trying for the pulmonary artery or the heart – but the burnt hand was making her clumsy, and it looked as though she had gotten deep muscle instead. Damn.

But the knife in the chest had the desired effect of making the boar abandon Lucius and turn its full efforts to her new, and more immediate, threat. Lowering its great head, the boar charged her head on, surging forward at a blinding rate of speed, despite the fact that it was gouting blood from four different wounds. Some of the other hunters let out a shout of panic – clearly the seemingly unarmed woman on the ground would be killed by such a charge. Draco Malfoy shrieked and threw his forearm over his eyes.

The boar's tusks never connected. Emily changed direction and took a sideways leap that made the onlookers gasp in amazement – no human woman should have been able to move like that.

But what landed, with a clatter of cloven hooves, several feet away from the charging boar's shoulder, was not entirely human – and the sword that she seemed to draw from nowhere, was also nothing of human – or even wizard – make. Her voice was still recognisable though – "Draco! Get Lucius!"

The boar wheeled toward her, and she toward him, now pitted against only each other, committed to each other. This was the way the boar's tribe and the woman's tribe had been fighting each other in her world since two-legged warriors had begun hunting with weapons. The boar rushed her again, lowering its great head to slash at her legs – but she again dodged clear.

Draco Malfoy had collected his wits. Throwing his unwieldy crossbow aside, he urged his horse toward his father, dealing the beast a savage blow with his crop when it shied away from the disembowelled horse still bleeding on the ground. He braced himself in the saddle and extended his hand. "Father! Here, climb on!"

Lucius ran towards his son, but terror made him clumsy. He slipped to one knee in the snow, but quickly righted himself and scrambled back to his feet. The sound of a falling body, however, again attracted the attention of the boar, now frustrated with lunging at a foe he couldn't reach. His reddened eyes fixed on the elder Malfoy, who was now running toward his son, one hand out to grasp the boy's proffered arm. With a piercing roar, the beast charged him, tusks lowered. Shouts of warning and a high feminine scream – probably Narcissa's – rent the air.

But Emily took advantage of the boar's distraction to lunge forward and drove the point of her sword through the beast's eye socket and into its brain. Propelled by the forward momentum, she fell over the body of her adversary, her left arm circling his neck, her chest pressed to his shoulder. The boar turned his near tusk in her direction, attempting to gouge at her with it, with the gory result that he turned into her attack. A second later he spasmed on her blade, misfiring muscles jerking grotesquely.

Then his great body crashed to the ground, and was still. Lucius Malfoy clutched his son's arm, looking very much shaken.

Emily had fallen against the boar's body, uncontrollable waves of emotion crashing over her. Blood, huge gouts of blood, senses full of it, metallic reek of adrenalin rage and aggression... nothing she could do for him... he convulsed in her arms, coughing blood, and died...

The wind was cold on her wet face.

Awareness returned. Narcissa had dismounted from her horse and had thrown her arms around her husband's neck, weeping hysterically. Draco had dismounted, and he and Lucius were both trying to calm her. Macnair had also dismounted, and had stabbed the boar's chest with the lance he carried – rather redundantly, for he was already dead. Someone had an arm around her waist, and was trying to prise free her grip on the sword and stranglehold on the boar's neck.

"Emily – it's dead. Let go."

She threw herself backward at the person holding her, hard, spilling Severus Snape backward onto the snow. It would be another few moments before she could stand to be touched by anyone. Her eyes darted over the others around her, as fey and hostile as an animal surprised in the woods.

At that moment, they all got a good look at her. Narcissa screamed again.

The skirt of her riding habit had rucked up around her knees – knees which no longer looked or bent like a human woman's knees. In place of her human legs and feet, she now had cloven hooves, and the long slender legs and haunches of a deer. Her eyes were now pure dark, iris and pupil so large that they seemed without whites. And her ears – always more than normally pointed – were suddenly longer, covered over with a down of pale russet hair, whisking suspiciously toward them.

Narcissa Malfoy clutched her husband even harder to her, and threw a protective arm backward to shield her son. Draco could only stare, fascinated, but not afraid. Mrs. Rosier gasped, dragging back on her horse's reins so hard that the animal half-reared in protest.

Laying her hand, and then her cheek, again on the boar's hide, Emily said something in a language that none of them knew. Attitude of prayer. Then she had again taken the humanlike form they knew again, crouched shivering in soft bare feet in the snow.

Lucius Malfoy had started forward toward her, only to turn with annoyance to the still clinging Narcissa, who had her arms locked around his neck. "What is it, darling? I'm fine, thank you... "

But she continued to cling, not wanting to allow him to approach the woman who had had hooves for feet a moment ago. "Honestly, dear! It's all right, it's over. It's quite safe. Draco – son, tend to your mother."

He turned to the assembled company, most still staring apprehensively. "Oh come, all of you! Haven't you ever seen a changeling before? The reason they call them changelings is because they can change their shapes... ?"

A murmur of, Oh, yes, changelings, change their shapes, of course, quite right, as it should be, I knew that, came from the assemblage.

Lucius quietly approached the carcass of the boar, which in death still retained some of his fearsome dignity. He dropped to one knee, one hand pressed over his heart, and bowed to him. "You were a brave and worthy quarry," he murmured. "We thank you, and your gods, for your sacrifice."

Then he grasped the hilt of the Faery sword and dragged it out from the boar's skull. A steaming gout of blood and brain matter gushed forth from the wound, staining his white hand dark, dark red.

He turned to Emily, and presented her with the bloody sword. "Gloria Addo Victrix," he said, and then, in the most delicate gesture imaginable, raised his bloody hand to her face, and drew four lines of scarlet across her cheek.

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"Well, that'll be one to tell your grandchildren, my boy – you saw a wild boar taken down by a Faery knight during one of your own parents' hunting parties." Menzentius clapped a thin, elegant hand to his nephew's shoulder. "Another chop?"

The savoury scent of pork roast and chops filled the air as several elves passed platters of roast boar around the table. Emily was mollified to see that the flesh of their hard-won quarry was not being wasted. Although she had very little appetite, she was nibbling on a pork chop with hot apple and red wine sauce and was downing a great deal of brandy. While she sat at the table, the house elves had wrapped her in her fur cloak again and propped a low velvet tuffet under her feet that gave off a low, penetrating heat, dispelling the piercing chill that resulted from standing in the snow.

She was waiting impatiently for their host to join them at the table. In the aftermath of the hunt, while almost everyone else had hung back from her in fear, Lucius had been wonderful – sweeping his own cloak from his shoulders and wrapping her in it, then catching her little grey mare and putting her tenderly on her back. When she arrived back at the house, she found her cloak, boots, and socks cleaned, pressed, shined, and put away inside her guest room.

Lucius had ridden back with Draco, but when they had arrived at the house and he had dismounted, he had suddenly discovered that his right ankle would not bear his weight. Apparently he had injured it in the fall from his horse, and with all the adrenalin coursing through his veins at the time, had not noticed it until arriving back. He was now upstairs with a village mediwizard tending to him.

To Emily, the company was suddenly very dull and very unwelcoming without him.

When she had come down to the dining room after cleaning up and changing out of her hunt clothes into dinner dress, everyone had looked up and fallen silent, and then obviously started conversations on different topics. Everyone was now looking at her with curious eyes that cut away when she turned to face them. They seemed to be putting a strenuous effort into talking about anything other than the fact that a member of the group had suddenly displayed what was to them a rather astonishing ability while hunting. All but Professor Snape, who was sitting by himself again, not saying anything.

Menzentius was attempting to take over Lucius's usual duties as host and failing miserably as far as she was concerned, shuffling about, making overly excited comments to everyone, jovially brandishing a whiskey glass in his hand. He turned to Emily with an unsteady little flourish and toasted her, saying, "Here's to our Faery warrior," and upending his double whiskey with relish. There was a smattering of polite applause.

"Thank you," she said desultorily.

Menzentius accepted a second double whiskey from a helpful house-elf, and again turned toward her. "Thish toast is to a lady so brave, so courageoussss, and so heroic, that I admire her with all of my heart and mind," he declared, staggering a bit.

Emily looked as though she didn't much esteem being admired with a heart and mind such as his. "Yes, huzzah," she said wearily. "What I'm still wondering, though, is once that beast had killed Lucius's horse and was after him, why no one got out their wand and used a wizard Killing Curse on it? Last I checked, that wasn't illegal to use on animals that aren't protected by law. Use one on a human and it's a life sentence in Azkaban, of course, but you can Avada Kedavra all the termites, rats, and game pheasants you want, right?"

There was a long silence.

"Well – that wouldn't have been very sporting, now, would it?" Menzentius said finally, shrugging and taking a nonchalant swig from his whiskey glass.

Emily very nearly hit him, and very hard at that.

"You looked as though you were capable of handling it. And we'd all heard the story last night about how you killed two great panthers all by yourself," Felina Rosier said, in a voice sweet as razor wire.

Emily wanted very badly to hit her too.

"I said I had some help with them, madam," she pointed out, barely bothering to keep her voice down. "I'm so glad I looked capable then – because in actuality, I was scared out of my bloody mind. As you would know if you had actually ever hunted one before, fully grown boar are hard to kill even when there's a group of us, and by us, I mean people with as much training as I have. And that, madam, was one very big, very strong damn boar. We're really profoundly lucky that the only ones who died out there today were him and that poor horse."

There was another long silence. Then Narcissa said, "Um, language please," in a very high, pained voice, putting an arm around Draco.

Well. That's fifteen years of truly profound love for one's husband there, all right, Emily thought, staring down at her plate.

"Professor... in my experience, Avada Kedavra... cannot be aimed with perfect accuracy. It creates a field of luminous negative energy that rushes forward in a focused cloud of sorts, destroying all life that it encounters. In my opinion, there would have been one safe opportunity to use it today during the hunt... and I apologise for not having a clear enough head to think to use it when it might have been possible. It did occur to me after you had rushed into the fray, but by then you were between me and the boar, and I was afraid of accidentally killing you instead of it... and it did seem to me as though you had the situation quite well in hand. I doubt if the time between the moment you jumped off your horse and the moment you killed it was any more than a minute, though I can certainly see how it might have seemed longer to you."

Professor Snape's quiet voice. Saying the only reasoned, intelligent words anyone had said so far. She fell silent, gripping the arm of her chair.

"Thank you for that clarification, sir," she said finally.

"Just a thought, but... you might have tried using a Killing Curse yourself, seeing as how you were the closest to the creature," Mrs. Rosier said, her teaspoon tinkling in her china cup as she stirred her tea.

Emily turned on her, her eyes glinting. "Two problems with that – they don't teach that sort of thing at Beauxbatons, and being a Faerie, I don't carry a wand, madam," she snapped back.

"Isn't there a Faery killing curse of some sort, perhaps?" Mrs. Rosier asked, in a pleasant, hateful voice.

"No, actually, there isn't. If we could say a couple of words to someone and make them drop dead, don't you think we would use that in combat instead of engaging the enemy directly with things like swords and bows?"

"Ladies, please. There are children present," came Narcissa's obsequious voice.

Silence.

"I'm sorry, Narcissa – I'm just a bit overwrought from what happened today," Emily said finally.

"Of course, Mrs. Tumnus, I understand," Narcissa said, in a voice that did not understand at all. Felina Rosier sniffed contemptuously, but remained mercifully silent.

It was a tremendous relief when the afternoon drew to a close and everyone began to say their good-byes and go upstairs to pack for the trip home.

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An hour later, Emily's packing was not going well.

Cecile had deftly tended to her clothes, but there were some things, like the sword and the daggers that she had carried on the hunt, that had to be properly cleaned and oiled before being put away, and she preferred to tend to that herself rather than instruct the elf. After Cecile had done all she could, Emily had tactfully dismissed her with thanks, and then had a difficult session with a whetstone, oil and brush, and polishing cloth, which made her hand hurt every time any movement pulled at new, tender grey skin. She had abraded the burn today while hunting, and now her whole hand was pulsing with a low, persistent ache.

She was still in a rage over the way the hunt had proceeded that day – the way this group of inexperienced aristocrats had sallied blithely forth to bring down a creature for whom none of them had been prepared. Her mother had always cautioned, Don't rely too much on magic, Em, it won't save you on the battlefield if the enemy hits first – a lesson which, apparently, no one here had ever had to learn.

The thought came unbidden – If Dorien had been here, he could have taken him in one shot.

He had easily been the greatest archer, and marksman, she had ever seen. The bards sang of him that he never wasted an arrow. Whenever she had ridden into hunts with him, everyone had known – had joked about – how quickly it would be over, once his crossbow came out. Dorien never preened under the others' admiration – he would just smile faintly and go back to the task at hand. He had never been the sort to do anything for the glory and recognition.

And now – she paused over her work, her face contorting with old, deeply entrenched anger – all anyone remembered of him was that he had been murdered by a jealous rival. Just a player in a tragic, slightly scandalous story, to be repeated over brandy in ballrooms in an effort to appease a bad-tempered Second World schoolmaster.

By the time she heard the soft knock at her door, she was in a thoroughly foul mood, and not at all happy to be disturbed. She wiped her eyes on a clean cloth before getting up to answer it. "Hello?"

It was Professor Snape. Hunching against her doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest, his black eyes impenetrable. "Emily?"

"Why, Professor Snape. Good afternoon," she said with exaggerated politeness. Her hand throbbed, and she rubbed it against her side.

"Emily, I was – "

"Oh yes, I know what you're going to say." Even to her own ears, there was an odd note to her voice – a sound of extreme brittleness.

The sinister eyebrow went up – in surprise. "You do?"

"Of course I do. You think I didn't see you at the Ball last night? When you talked to Lucius for a really really long time, and every so often you'd look terribly direly at me, and take a big hit of the brandy... ? Yes, I couldn't imagine what the two of you were talking about. That was certainly the first time anybody's ever done that in the last three years."

A shadow of – dismay? worry? revulsion? – crossed his face. "Professor – "

She cut him off with a harsh exhalation of laughter. "It's funny, really. I know Lucius is a big gossip at times – I expect it from him. But I rather thought that you weren't the type, somehow – I'm not sure why. So I suppose you've heard the whole lovely story by now."

He stared at her impassively. "It's true, then."

"Well, I'm not sure what was embellished to it, but if you heard that Robinett confessed to killing Dorien, and then I challenged him and killed him – yes, that's true. Don't expect me to ever deny it – I'm not sorry." She hated the sound of her own voice at that moment; it had bypassed brittleness into barely controlled hysteria. She willed herself to maintain some composure.

He watched her silently, his eyes betraying some shock.

"And you needn't worry about your ethical duty in making sure Dumbledore and McGonagall are aware of any of that, because they both already know. Dumbledore knew before he ever asked me to come to Hogwarts. Just so you know – " she leaned closer to him " – it was never my idea to come here and do you out of a job. Truthfully, I never wanted to come here at all. But in my world – if the King commands you to do something, you do it. That's where it ends.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish packing, so I can go back to Hogwarts and teach some more neat little tricks to your students. Good afternoon, Professor."

She retreated into her room and shut the door – refusing to be so vindictive as to actually slam it in his face, that would have been the sort of thing he would have done – but closing it with the clear message that this conversation was now over.

After a moment, she heard Snape's footsteps storm off down the hall.

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Quarter of an hour later, there was another knock on her door, and she answered with a rather ill-tempered, "Yes?"

Lucius was leaning against the doorjamb – peering in at her with the most appealing expression of concern on his face. "I'm sorry, am I disturbing you, love?"

"Lucius... no, not at all." Just the sight of him lessened her burden of tight-wound tension. "How are you? How's your ankle?"

"Just a sprain – between the doctor and Severus's Healing Potion, I'm now good as new."

"I'm sorry, I was talking to someone else, and – "

"And the someone else perhaps bit your head off a bit?" He laughed. "So I take it Severus was here?"

She laughed too, then stepped back and opened the door. "Yes, actually. I'm sorry. Come on in, I'm just about finished."

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, then crossed to the window before turning back to her. "Still snowing like mad out there. All ready to go, then?" he asked, turning toward her and nodding toward her trunk, still sitting open on the bed.

"Almost. Lucius? Can I talk to you about something?" she asked.

"Yes, of course, dear."

"You know... a fully grown boar is an extremely dangerous quarry. I meant what I said today about how they're difficult even for a group of us at home. If you want my unsolicited opinion, after what happened today, I really think that perhaps you'd do well by sticking to things like foxes and ducks in the future."

"I shall take my lady's advice," he said. Total humility in his tone, no archness or satire.

"Thank you," she said fervently, coming forward to clasp his hand. "You know – I was really terrified for you out there today."

"I was really terrified for me out there too. And I count myself hugely lucky that you were here," he said gently.

"Anytime," she said, blushing furiously. "Well, I suppose it's good-bye then?"

She held out her bandaged right hand, then had to correct herself and hold out her unbandaged left hand instead. He shook it with earnest formality; then they both laughed at their own exaggerated politeness and embraced each other. Her laughter faded into some sniffling. She hugged him hard and unsentimentally, like a soldier congratulating another soldier after a hard-won victory.

"I'm so glad you aren't dead," she said finally, letting her head sink onto his shoulder.

"I'm terribly glad to not be dead too," he said, very gently and drolly, making her laugh again. She could feel his heart beating, feel his chest rising and falling with his breath, the vigour in his arms as he held her against the silky cotton of his shirtfront – and felt limp with relief.

"Duck hunts from now on, definitely," she said, in cheery, quavering voice.

"Yes, we shall hunt ducks," he replied soothingly.

It was so satisfying, being held like this. Her forehead was pressed to his cheek, and she could feel his hand stroking her hair. At some point, the mood had changed from two warriors congratulating each other on a good hunt, to a terribly disquieted woman being tenderly comforted by a man.

When he took her chin in his hand and kissed her – not a delicate kiss on the forehead, but the full-blooded kiss of a lover – it felt like the most natural thing in the world. It also felt absolutely natural to twine her arms around his neck, lose one hand in that thick blond hair, and pull him closer as the kiss deepened. Polite distance, the appearance of platonic friendship, melted in an instant. His reaction was intense and immediate – he lurched forward into her embrace, one hand thrust into her hair, cradling the curve of her skull, his other arm sealing her hips against his. The scent of his lust washed over all of her senses like rich, fragrant smoke.

Then, as will often happen during illicit kisses, someone knocked on the door.

They sprang apart – or rather Emily made to pull away from Lucius, but he did not relinquish his hold on her. He turned an ear in the direction of the door, then quite unconcernedly kissed her again.

"Lucius... !" she protested, but he only smiled at her, knowingly and conspiratorially.

"I missed you too, love," he whispered. Only then did he relinquish her and answer the door, while she guiltily hurried back to her packing.

"Hello? Ah, Severus, there you are."

Emily froze. Oh holy shite, not him.

"All packed and ready to go, then, cousin?" Lucius's voice was saying.

"Yes, thank you. I was wondering if Professor Swain was ready as well?"

"I think she is – Emily, dear, is that trunk closing properly now?" He turned back to Snape. "Oh, do come in, she's ready."

Snape's expression was all bristly brows and prickles when he did come in – and he only did so after peering inside suspiciously, as if he thought he might have to dodge projectiles thrown at his head if he crossed the threshold. Lucius leaned against the doorjamb, in an attitude of casual and irreproachable cordiality.

"Emily, dear, I hope you don't think me presumptuous – Severus told me that Portkeys don't agree with you – but I think you really should travel back with him. You've already taken a bit of a chill today, and I don't want you going out for another walk in the snow. Really, I insist."

They were both looking intently at her – grey eyes and black on her face – and she was in no mood to argue. "All right, then. I'm coming."

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The Portkey deposited them just outside the gate that marked the boundaries of the Hogwarts wards against Apparition, to Emily's annoyance – she was not looking forward to a considerable walk alone with Severus Snape. She briefly considered pretending to have some errand in Hogsmeade and bidding him good-bye at the gate, but it was late enough on Sunday that all the shops would be already closed. It won't take long, she reminded herself, turning toward the lights of the castle just ahead. Luckily, though, Professor Snape seemed to feel about as talkative on that walk as she did.

"Professor?" he asked, finally, while they were crossing the entrance hall on the way to the great main staircase.

"Yes, sir?"

He paused and seemed to take a deep breath. "I'm... I... regret that I was not of more help to you today," he said, in a voice so gentle that most of his students would not have believed it possible from him.

"It's quite all right, Professor. I'm growing less and less fond of hunting myself. Today I was trying to prevail upon Lucius to choose a less dangerous type of quarry in his later hunts."

"That seems like good advice, madam."

She had arrived at the top of the Great Hall's stone staircase – the way to Ravenclaw Tower was to her left, Snape's path to the Slytherin dungeons lay to the right. She took her leave of him with a very formal little nod. "Good evening, sir."

"Good evening," he said, in the direction of her departing back.