Part First: The Hart Assurgent: Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Since the Monday morning after returning from the Malfoys' weekend party, Emily had invariably been early enough to breakfast to grab a seat on the extreme right of the High Table.

She was making a point of sitting next to Madam Pince and engaging her in conversation about the libraries. That way, if anyone noticed her shift from the left to the right side, she wanted it chalked up to a desire to further cultivate her acquaintance with the librarian – and certainly not attributed to any desire to stay out of Professor Snape's orbit. To her immense relief, both Madam Pince and Professor Sprout seemed glad of her company at meals, and by the end of the first week, she had a standing invitation to work with Professor Sprout in the greenhouses, and Madam Pince had made her a very interesting offer to come up and help catalogue a new acquisition of illuminated manuscripts. She was now sorry that she hadn't done more to seek their friendship before, rather than doing all of that rather ridiculous obsessing over the inner workings of Severus Snape in the weeks leading up to the weekend of November 8th.

Judging from the spectacular indifference of his non-reaction to anything regarding her since their return from Malfeasant, he seemed just fine with that.

Regardless, she had bought a replacement bottle of Healing Potion at the Hogsmeade apothecary's a day after their return, which she had left in his administrative mailbox with a note reading: "Thank you. – E.S." The bottle vanished from his box after a day or two, but he never mentioned the matter to her. Nor did he seem at all interested in discussing any part of the Malfeasant weekend with her.

After the hunt, however, she couldn't have said she was surprised by this. On top of everything else, of course the man had to be part of a gang of bloody xenophobes, afraid of anything different from themselves. Her memory of how startled and put off he and all of his old school friends had been at the sight of her hoofed form was to continue to set off deep pangs of insecurity for some months afterward. He really could take a cue from his friend Lucius if the mere sight of a changeling frightened him so much.

Ah, well. If he was content to fear her kind, she didn't feel personally obligated to enlighten him.

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The week following their return proved to be a trying one.

The Slytherins and Hufflepuffs had targeted reluctant champion Harry Potter for a merciless barrage of scorn and ridicule, and Emily could see that even his staunch friend Ron Weasley didn't seem to be taking his side. In Harry's Thursday fencing class, she divided the Slytherins and Gryffindors into separate groups on opposite sides of the courtyard in order to practice their thrust/parry drills, so as to prevent unfortunate pairings from erupting into real trouble. She paired Harry with Hermione in all practice bouts – the girl wasn't up to his level athletically, so their sessions together took on a teacher-student aspect, with Harry drilling Hermione in parries and counter-parries that he himself had mastered easily. He didn't seem to be benefiting too much, but at least it kept him out of harm's way, and he seemed happy to be able to tutor Hermione in some subject. (Emily suspected that the reverse was true in most of their other classes.) It was truly a shame that she didn't dare put Draco Malfoy and Harry up against each other in a few bouts, because the two of them were the only ones who could have truly challenged the other.

During that Friday afternoon's fencing class, her group of Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff seventh years, she noticed that some genius had come up with the brilliant idea of passing out badges reading "Support Cedric Diggory – The REAL Hogwarts champion!" that alternated to "POTTER STINKS" – the wearing of which Emily prohibited in her classes the minute after she spotted the slogan. Cedric Diggory himself, however, was being hounded by the members of his House to join in the Potter baiting, and stalwartly refused every time. One of the other Hufflepuffs kept trying to palm him a POTTER STINKS badge, which he wouldn't accept. After class, she pulled Diggory aside for a minute and told him how much she appreciated his efforts. He thanked her with becoming modesty and some surprise – it was clear that he hadn't expected praise from a teacher for his actions.

Well, she thought as he headed back up to campus, Cedric Diggory might make a good candidate for the Tithe. Gwydion would like him.

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The Saturday morning of the following weekend, Emily made her appearance at breakfast in narrow black jeans tucked into her riding boots, a black t-shirt, and a black leather peacoat, with sunglasses in her hand. She had also painted her fingernails dark purple and slicked her hair back with Muggle shine gel. The reactions at the High Table varied from brow-knitted disapproval from McGonagall, a stare from Snape, amused chuckles from Madam Pince, and an indulgent smile from Dumbledore.

The Headmaster had just been leaving his place at the table, chatting with Professor Flitwick. "Ah, good morning, Emily. How stylish you're looking today. Are you going out?"

"Thanks! Good morning to you, sir. Yes, I'll be running down to Cambridgeshire to see some old friends in the CU folklore department. We're going to hook all of our laptops together and play a bunch of computer games and then rent some videos and have a lot of pizza and beer and crisps. After last weekend with the purebloods – " she drew the word out satirically, with an instant's glance at Professor Snape, " – I'm having this intense desire to go have a mad wallow in all things Muggle. I'll be back by Sunday supper – unless you want me back sooner."

"No, go, go, enjoy yourself. Sounds like a smashing good time," Dumbledore replied with a cheery smile. "Do bring me back a few Mint Crisp bars, will you? I find them rather in short supply in Hogsmeade."

"You got it, Chief." She grinned at him. He winked at her.

Dumbledore moved off, still talking to Professor Flitwick, and Emily sat down beside Professor Sprout and poured herself some vanilla jasmine tea, falling easily into a chat with Irma Pince and Pomona Sprout. Madam Pince had just taken a school subscription to a new herbology journal at Professor Sprout's recommendation, and they were both quite impressed with it.

Madam Pince turned to Emily, then reached for a napkin. "Oh, Emily, dear, you've got a chalk smear on the back of your coat. Here you are – "

"Oh, I must have leaned against the chalkboard in my classroom." She accepted the cloth with a smile of thanks, pulled off her coat, and began wiping at a white powdery line on the black leather.

"I didn't know you had a tattoo," came Professor McGonagall's stiffly polite voice. Just beyond, Professor Snape turned toward her and glanced at her arm with a look of such scrutiny that she half expected her skin to burn under it.

"Oh." Emily looked matter-of-factly down at her arm. The short sleeves of her shirt didn't quite cover the intricately inked armband that encircled several inches of sinewy upper arm. "I'm sorry – I've had it so long I never thought to especially point it out to anyone."

"Does the Headmaster know about that?" the Deputy Headmistress asked, again in the same tone.

"Yes, Dumbledore has known for years that all of the Fianna have them," Emily replied, answering McGonagall, but looking at Snape. He suddenly noticed that she was watching him watching her and turned his attention back to his coffee cup – but not before getting off another of those sneers of disapproval for which he was rightfully famous.

"I suppose there is a long military tradition of tattooing oneself," Professor McGonagall said, with a pinch of disapprobation at such.

"Well, yes, but there's a bit more to it than that. This pattern is my name and those of my next of kin, the kingdom I hail from, and my rank in our native runes. Certainly we've cultivated an aesthetic quality in them, but its real purpose is to allow my body to be identified if I die in action. It's a very old custom," Emily explained.

"Oh. I see," McGonagall replied, looking much appeased. Professor Snape, however, appeared totally unimpressed.

"Really? Which part is your name?" Professor Sprout leaned over for a better look.

"These characters – to these characters, here," she said, pointing to a band of graceful black calligraphy full of long up- and down-strokes curving over her bicep. "And this is my mother's name, and that's my father's name. This band in this pattern just above it means that I was a page, then when I got to be a squire, they added this band and then that one, and then they added this one when I was knighted, and so on. The colours – violet, red, and black – are on the Third Kingdom's banner, so if I walked into an Eighth Kingdom beer pub or whatever with my arms bare, everyone would know I was a knight in Gwydion's service in about one second."

"Really rather prettily done," Madam Pince said. "Like an illuminated manuscript – I've seen similar border designs in the Book of Kells."

"The original influence for both came from the same artists. But don't go out and get one yourself now, Irma," she mock-cautioned the librarian. "Professor Snape might disapprove – and heaven knows you don't want that."

The other teachers laughed – even McGonagall chuckled a little into her morning chocolate. All but Professor Snape, who scowled down at his breakfast. Emily realized a moment later that her remark hadn't been absolutely fair, as Professor McGonagall had expressed more open disapproval to the idea of a tattooed Hogwarts professor than Snape had, truth be told. But it was just so easy to assume that he would disapprove of anything, and to accept his ill-temper as a given, that he had to expect everyone else to joke about it a little, she thought. They were his colleagues, his peers, and except for her, his elders – most of them were at least twice his age. Were they all supposed to cower under his petty tyrannies like a bunch of first-years?

"Absolutely, dear. The next time I have one too many gillywaters, I'll be sure to stay out of any tattoo parlours, lest Severus take a round fifty points from my House," Madam Pince said, smiling merrily over at Professor Snape. Everyone laughed again, louder – probably more at the idea of the sedate librarian getting in her cups and turning up sporting a tattoo than the idea of Snape disapproving of it – but he nonetheless shot a dirty look at Emily and again scowled deeply at his plate.

Emily quickly finished wiping the last of the chalk from the back of her coat and put it back on. "That actually sounds like a nice evening out, Irma. Do let's go out some evening and drink too many gillywaters and not get tattoos together. Next Saturday, perhaps?"

"That sounds lovely, dear. Minerva, Pomona, Poppy – anyone else care to get a drink and not get tattooed? I think perhaps we could all stand a bit of fun before the First Task is upon us." The others agreed – even McGonagall, much to Emily's surprise. Professor Snape looked sublimely disinterested.

"Splendid – we'll have ourselves a great big chick-fest then," Emily said, making Madam Pince and Professor Sprout giggle again. "I'm off, then – till next weekend, ladies."

"Quite brightens the place up, doesn't she," Madam Pince remarked to Professor Sprout as Emily waved good-bye and made her exit.

Professor Snape said nothing – but from the look on his face, perhaps he would have preferred Hogwarts a trifle less brightened up.

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Like all the other Hogwarts Professors, Emily had posted office hours, in which any student could show up to her office and ask her questions about assignments. She liked visitors, and given the fact that she would offer the students who came to see her a comfortable seat, a cup of herbal tea, and a small plate of those honey-wheat cakes with fresh flower petals that the kitchens made specially for her, it was more like paying a visit to an intellectual aunt than a review session with a teacher.

Also, given that Professor Swain had furnished her office very comfortably, with some green velvet armchairs deep enough for a small child to have slept in and several little overstuffed tuffets, and given that she had lots of extremely interesting-looking armaments in glass cases on the walls, those weekly office hours had gotten quite popular, with a diverse assortment of students hanging about.

Hermione Granger was a regular – she would often be found sitting in one of the Professor's big green armchairs sipping loganberry tea and asking questions. (Emily had asked Hermione about her SPEW badge and had been extremely sympathetic to the cause of bettering the lot of house-elves.) She occasionally dragged her friend Ron Weasley with her, though Harry Potter, poor boy, seemed very much preoccupied these days. Oftentimes the Weasley twins dropped by as well, sometimes with their friend Dean Thomas. A gang of Ravenclaw girls, including Orla Quirke, Cho Chang, Lisa Turpin, Padma Patil, and Mandy Brocklehurst, liked to descend en masse with their books and camp there – just before tests, it became difficult to dislodge them. Now and then Pansy Parkinson would show up alone, glancing suspiciously at any Gryffindors who happened to be present. But word seemed to be out amongst students that Professor Swain actively disliked and discouraged mean-spirited Inter-House competition, and was just as likely to give or take points from any of the four Houses, so that her office became a temporary cease-fire zone.

As student visits became more frequent, their questions sometimes had nothing to do with the material she was teaching.

"Did you see that Muggle film that came out the eighties – Legend? It had lots of Faery characters in it. Was it totally off?" Hermione Granger asked one rainy afternoon.

"Some of it was totally off," Emily replied. "Like, for example, I kept wondering, why did all those people decide to live within easy walking distance... of HELL? If I know the incarnation of pure Evil lives somewhere, I'm going to choose to live in a forest rather farther away from it than that.

"But some of it was fairly accurate. We've got the occasional wild Fae traipsing about living in the woods who look rather like the little troupe of Faeries Tom Cruise and the Princess were friends with. But Oona was so real it was frightening – I know nixies just like her. A few of us who work in the folklore department at Cambridge went to see that film in this little art house theatre they've got there one year. When she came to the bit about 'What cares I for human hearts? Soft and spiritless as porridge! A Faerie's heart beats fierce and free!' we all just about fell over and died laughing."

"There are other Fae teaching at Cambridge?" Orla Quirke asked, from her seat near the window.

"Yes, there are. I'll tell you a little secret – there more than a few Faeries out there occasionally passing for human in the Muggle and wizard worlds. I know one ogre who does some prize-fighting in Muggle Oxfordshire. Rather an unusual-looking chap, but you won't find a kinder heart anywhere."

"Why do they say that church bells bother Faeries so much?" George Weasley asked, his mouth full of wheat cake. "You've got bells going off round here all the time and it doesn't bother you. Can you go into a church if you like?"

"Certainly. At Cambridge I went to Evensong service quite often to hear the singing. That whole bit about the Fae being anathema to the Christian church got started in the Dark Ages. If you lot don't mind a bit of a history lesson I can tell you a thing or two about it. Don't worry, you won't get tested on this."

"All right then." Cho Chang got comfortable on a green velvet tuffet near the fire.

"Well, back in the Dark Ages the portals opened more often, and there were fewer humans about, and, there were rather more Faeries running about Europe then. A few had come to the Second World, and immediately noticed, well what do you know – there are no Orcs here! They liked that, so some groups chose to emigrate, and they were a somewhat noticeable presence, what with their ears, Words of Power, using Glamours, turning invisible, and dallying with shepherds and all that. Now, the Christian Church of that time never especially liked us because Faeries don't see asceticism, or the denial of one's impulses, as being necessary in order to be judged worthy of salvation. For us, anywhere outdoors is a place of worship, you don't need clergy to intercede with the deity for you, and the things that make us happy are sacred, whether that's drink, dancing, making love, or playing the nose flute. So needless to say, that's one big set-up for a clash with the early Christian Church there.

"Faeries also don't baptise infants or any such, because there's no pressure on anyone to keep to the same name their parents give them most of the time. So, to some, we were seen as very sinful and demonic. Plus, we travelled between here and a parallel world, which some assumed must be the Biblical limbo where unredeemed souls were sent.

"So, suffice to say, Faeries ended up becoming very unpopular with church officials in the Dark Ages and early Middle Ages. And after enough people got burnt at the stake, the early Christian church officials became rather unpopular with Faeries as well."

"Faeries used to get burnt at the stake? What about using a Flame Freezing Charm like Wendelin the Weird?" Padma Patil queried, sounding concerned.

"Well, you see, that was a Wizarding spell. We didn't have its equivalent in the Faery magical canon at the time. So mostly Faeries just got burnt, which as you can imagine, they didn't enjoy as much as Wendelin did. And there being a whole lot more humans than there were Faeries, fighting them wasn't exactly an option. So, mostly, the Fae just packed up and went back to Arcadia. The ones that stayed, and the ones who ventured back, got very fond of hiding. And with arts like Obscurantis, Glamours, and Deceivre, they got so good at it that a lot of folklorists still refer to us as the Hidden People."

"What's Deceivre?" Fred and George asked together.

"I'll never tell," Professor Swain said earnestly. Then she turned to Hermione, who had been getting ready to answer. "Miss Granger, before you say anything, imagine what those two would be like if they knew how to use it."

Hermione considered that for about one second. Then she turned her attention back to her teacup and refused to say another word.

"Now the early Christian church is not to be confused with the current versions of Christianity, whose clergy would never burn anyone at the stake – most of them don't even support capital punishment these days. Hardly any of them even acknowledge that Faeries exist any more – a notion which we ourselves reaffirm at every opportunity. But the early versions of the Church hated the Fae to such an extent that they made up a lot of untrue rumours about us that are still floating around, in the guise of old wives' tales and childrens' stories. There are a whole host of tales about the practice of the Tithe in particular. Rumour had it that we didn't just give very talented and willing people a nice sabbatical at Court – no, we stole them away unwillingly, or we sent them to Hell, or we put them back on Earth after decades had passed and everyone they loved was dead, or we stole them away and drank their blood to ensure our continuing immortality or some such. All of it was complete rubbish, of course."

"What about immortality? I've read some Muggle authors who thought Faeries were immortal – is that true?" Hermione asked.

"No, it isn't. We live a long time by even Wizarding standards, but we do get old and die. To your average person who lived in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, though, who thought that a person was an aged crone by the time they hit fifty, we must have seemed immortal.

"Also, one of our tribes, the sluagh, were said to be dark angels or fallen souls by the early Christians. I suppose there are those impressionable few who think they're sinister looking – they all have black hair and eyes and pale skins, with very low voices. But I assure you, they aren't any kind of angel."

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Friday of that week at 6:00 p.m., Lucius Malfoy finished his day's work at the Ministry of Magic.

He neatly arranged the papers on his desk and returned his inkwell, quill, letter opener, and blotter to their accustomed places. Then he put on his outer robe and cloak, hanging on an elegant coat rack by the door of his expansive wood-panelled office, and slipped on his black kidskin gloves. Briefly smoothed his long mane of white-blond hair. Picked up his favourite walking cane, the ebony one with the silver snake's-head handle, and made his exit, nodding pleasantly to his secretary and to the colleagues he met in the lobby. He then walked a few blocks to the Sword and Sistrum, his supper club, which had been the place to talk business and politics over drinks for members of the Ministry for over a thousand years. (He especially liked the fact that the steep membership fee kept certain Ministry employees, including one Arthur and one Percy Weasley, out of the real Ministry deal-making.)

There he had his evening meal and some excellent whiskey with members of the Hogwarts Board of Governors and of Minister Fudge's executive staff. At ten p.m., he made his good-byes and left.

After he had proceeded a few blocks, he pulled up the hood of his cloak and turned toward Knockturn Alley.

His destination was marked only by an elegant painted sign hung over the door of a second, lavish and well-kept, but windowless, club – Pasiphäe's. The hulking pair of bouncers at the door recognised Malfoy on sight, threw open the stained-glass double doors, and silently bowed him inside.

The interior was luxurious, smoky, and very dimly lit. Couples or lone women in evening dress lolled about on low velvet chaises, sipping cocktails and talking in low, intimate voices. A slender woman, with very blonde hair that fanned around her perfect face in no wind, was playing romantic jazz piano in a corner, while six or seven well-dressed wizards sat around and stared unabashedly, their jaws hanging slack, their cigars and drinks sitting forgotten in front of them. On another divan in a far corner, a skinny, very young wizard with an inch of thin wrist and ankle protruding from his business suit was lolling on the lap of a handsome redheaded woman whose majestic stature dwarfed his to such an extent that he looked like a child by comparison. The part-giantess was stroking his hair and murmuring to him in a low, crooning voice.

Malfoy passed a couple entwined in a heated clinch on a low couch. A blonde, ice-fair woman in a pale blue satin gown was lying over a man in a velvet smoking jacket, his throat thrown back in ecstasy. Her golden tresses fell over his neck and chest as her lipsticked mouth worked against his throat. A long, single rivulet of blood had escaped onto the woman's chin.

He cut his eyes away in genteel disgust, muttering, Oh, do get a room, under his breath. A sultry brunette vampiress in red velvet sidled into his way as he approached the bar, pressing herself against his shoulder. She licked a very red tongue enticingly around sharp white teeth, but Malfoy shrugged her brusquely off. Vampiresses were getting altogether too common in this particular establishment – they were starting to all look the same to him. He supposed it must be their idea of the perfect situation – a constant supply of all-too-eager donors willing to pay for the privilege of carnal bloodletting. They didn't interest him in the slightest, however.

No, Lucius Malfoy was a devotee of another kind of this establishment's attractions.

He found someone who interested him at the bar. The girl's night-black hair, the entirely black voids of her eyes, and blue-white skin marked her as a Faery sluagh; the look of her tribe was unmistakable. To Lucius Malfoy – who was something of an aficionado of the type – the characteristic look of the Fae was equally obvious in the high arch of her black brows, the upward tilt of her almond-shaped eyes, the elongated point of her ears, and her willowy, hyperattenuated physical beauty. She was dressed in a short wisp of a white silk frock, black stockings, and patent-leather schoolgirl shoes, casting doe-eyed looks over the crowd, with a mug of chamomile tea clasped between hands that were almost transparent in their delicacy.

Whomever she was, she was new to this particular establishment. Faeries were as rare here as vampiresses were common, and he would have remembered this girl if he had seen her before.

If the vampiresses were the happiest of the lot, however – the few Faery women who ended up here were the most melancholy. Their stories, Malfoy knew, were invariably the same – love of a human lured them to the Second World, and addiction to substances unavailable in Arcadia kept them there. Had they been abandoned or abused by their human lovers, or given birth to little fatherless Fae, it still would have been the most advantageous choice to return home to the Faerielands, where the weather was warm, fresh food and clean water were there for the taking in every forest, and a healthy infant was treasured, regardless of parentage. Faeries were not the sort of people who would persecute their unfortunate prodigal daughters – even those who returned with little half-human merrybegots in their arms.

Ah well. He didn't patronise their services to hear a lot of talk, and these women were not given to reciting their life stories.

Also invariably, the Faeries that turned up at Pasiphäe's accepted two forms of currency: Galleons, and their drug of choice. Given the physical beauty that was the norm amongst most Fae, and the fact that their blue-blooded non-human physiology was incapable of becoming infected with, or transmitting, human diseases, they inevitably became very popular when they did. He was lucky no one else had claimed her attention yet this evening.

Malfoy sat down at the bar beside the girl. She looked sidelong at him – and her gaze lingered.

"Hi," she said, in a surprisingly gravelly whisper of a voice.

"Hello. What's your name, my dear?"

"Call me Lisa." She cocked her head to one side, fathomless black eyes studying his face. "Well, you're certainly prettier than most."

He smiled with catlike satisfaction. "Thank you."

"Are you nicer, too? I hope you are."

Malfoy put a hand on the girl's slender thigh.

"Come along and find out, love."

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That Sunday evening, upon her return from a rollicking good time with her former colleagues in Cambridge, Emily discovered that an article about the Tri-Wizard Tournament had appeared in the Daily Prophet over the weekend she spent in Cambridge – an article that prominently featured Harry Potter to such an extent that mention of Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum was relegated to the last paragraph. (The names of both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang's champions were misspelled, which earned a contemptuous nose-wrinkling from Emily. Really, one would think that a writer educated in the country that invented dictionaries and standardised spelling would perhaps practice it with some consistency – whoever this Rita Skeeter person was, she needed to be spanked.) She scanned the article for any mention of Cedric Diggory at all and found none, to her mounting indignation.

Meanwhile Harry Potter, poor boy, seemed to regard this flood of attention with the same liking that he would have felt for a root canal sans anaesthesia. He was getting taunted in the halls so much that she wondered daily how he managed to maintain his self-control. And that Ron Weasley seemed to still be cherishing his grudge, she noticed, mentally adding Mr. Weasley to her list of people who would have benefited from a spanking, the little prat. Hermione Granger, however, was sticking to Harry's side and coaching him along through difficult situations with admirable tenacity. Now there was a loyal friend. Emily had already concluded that once Hermione Granger turned seventeen, she was going to lobby long and hard for the girl as a Tithe candidate.

That week's Friday afternoon faculty meeting progressed uneventfully. Professor Sprout said she needed more budget allotted for plants and greenhouse supplies, which Professor Snape supported – roused from his usual sullen funk, no doubt, because more plants in the greenhouse meant more ingredients for Potions.

Professor McGonagall reminded them all that the First Task would be coming up on that coming Tuesday, November 24th, and that a block of seats had been specially allotted to Hogwarts staff. Then she announced to all and sundry that Hogwarts would be hosting a Yule Ball that December 25th, which would be announced to the students on December 10th. The Deputy Headmistress asked the staff to make certain to take a few turns on the dance floor, if possible, in order to keep up appearances. Most of the staff members were enthusiastic about the event, but Professor Snape pulled a face.

The Deputy Headmistress then stressed to Professor Sprout that she would need to make certain that Cedric Diggory knew that he would be leading the dancing, so would need to bring an appropriate escort. "I believe that concludes all of our business for today?"

"Not quite all of our business, unfortunately, Minerva," Professor Flitwick said gently. "There is still the matter of, you know, the birds and the bees."

Emily thought there was another of those noticeable lulls in the conversation, and for some reason, everyone seemed to be studiously refraining from looking at Professor Snape. That is, all but Professor Moody, who was glaring at Professor Snape with more of his sort of demonic hilarity.

"Just to remind everyone, I got stuck teaching it the year before last, so I'm right out, thanks," Professor Sprout said, shaking her wild grey head.

"I thought we had decided some time ago that the newest Professor has to teach it," Snape said icily, turning to Moody with a triumphant smirk.

"I think you're forgetting that I'm not the newest Professor on staff, Snape," Moody said, with a look of devilish glee. "Professor Swain? Looks like you're up, lassie."

Emily was puzzled. "If someone would please translate for the uninitiated? I'm up for what, now?"

"Oh," Professor Snape said, glancing at her. "I had forgotten that you're the newest Professor on staff."

"That's all right, Professor, I'm not terribly memorable," she said shortly. "What do I have to teach because I'm the newest professor?"

"Sex Education," Professor Moody said, with broad gusto. Then he glanced at Professor Snape again and guffawed.

Professor Snape had now had about enough of Professor Moody's sniggering. "Oh, do share what's so funny, Moody," he snapped.

"Just impressed that a gentleman and a scholar like yourself ended up drawing the Sex Ed lecturer's short straw last year, Snape," Moody replied. "From what I've heard, your lecture was damn memorable. They're still talking about your doorbell analogy. Damn memorable, my boy. Good show."

Emily turned toward Professor Snape. "You taught Sex Ed last year?" she asked. Then she smiled. Then she put her hand to her mouth and appeared to swallow hard. Then she caught Professor Moody's look and laughed wildly before she could stop herself. "You just stop it, you ruddy great instigator, you!"

Moody shrugged with perfect, hilarious mock-innocence. "Me? An instigator? I don't know what you mean."

"You're doing it right now!"

"What, this?" Moody shrugged again. "No idea what you're on about."

"Words fail to describe my immense pleasure at providing so much fodder for your entertainment," Snape growled silkily, directing evil glares at both of them.

"Actually, in all seriousness, you might be a good choice of teachers for this subject, Emily," Professor McGonagall interjected quickly before Moody could get off a retort to Snape. "Many of the students find you quite approachable, and therefore might be more inclined to ask you questions on the subject."

"All right – when do I have to give the lecture?" she asked.

"Well, seeing as how the First Task will be upon us this coming Tuesday – I was rather hoping you could give it Monday," McGonagall said.

Which meant she now had the weekend to catch up on how humans reproduced and prevented themselves from reproducing, and the diseases they sometimes caught in the process, and how to get treated for such. Just brilliant.

"All right, I'll do my best," she said.

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"Professor Snape?" She caught up to him as they were all leaving the faculty lounge after the meeting.

"Yes, Professor?" he answered, the sinister eyebrow quirking in inquisitive irritation.

"It looks as though I'll now have to give myself a thorough briefing on human venereal diseases and pregnancy and the like before I sally forth teaching people about how to prevent them, with all of tremendous amount of notice I've gotten for this undertaking. Since you taught the class last year, could you perhaps recommend something from the library on the subject?" she asked.

"What, they don't teach you about such things as human sexuality in school at home?" Snape asked with a patronising smile.

"No," she said, shrugging. "There's no need for it most of the time."

He stopped dead. "No need for it? Do I mistake your meaning, madam?"

"There's no need to brief Faery children on human sexuality, sir. When the topic comes up, we brief children on the whys and wherefores of our own sexual health and reproduction, which differs a bit," she said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. "Most matters of human sexuality are somewhat outside the usual body of knowledge for us."

"How... is that?" Snape asked. He didn't bother to hide his incredulity.

"Well – I can only imagine that's probably because Faeries don't get human diseases, and humans don't get Faery diseases. If any of the faculty or students here gets some communicable disease – a cold, chicken pox – they can't transmit it to me because my physiology is too different for the usual bacterium or virus to affect me," she explained. "The inverse is true as well – if I come down with the white fever or wasting cough this winter, none of you will get it."

"I see," Snape replied, nodding – evidently that made sense to him because he left off implying that she was too unsophisticated to know that things like sexually transmitted diseases existed. "And... what about matters of birth control... ?" he inquired of the air next to her ear, in a much lowered tone. While he remained perfectly composed outwardly, he was now giving off an acrid odour of embarrassment and mounting anxiety.

She averted her eyes, blushing horribly. "That's... um, that's actually very simple by comparison."

"If you could... elaborate on that, madam?"

"If a Faery woman wants to get pregnant, she has sex during her oestrus period. If she doesn't want to get pregnant, she doesn't. Oestrus occurs about once a year."

"And for the rest of the year?"

"The individual isn't fertile then."

His brow creased. "For an entire year at a time?"

She nodded. "Think of it this way – you've got a creature who lives for about a hundred and seventy years. From about seventeen to about a hundred, they can produce one offspring every fourteen or fifteen months. If Faery women had a chance to get pregnant every month, think how fast we'd get overpopulated... "

"I see. How can you tell when oestrus is going on?" He addressed his question to the far wall.

"It's... unmistakable."

"How?"

She blushed. "Well, there's some bleeding involved. There can be cramps, mood swings... you've seen a cat or dog in heat, maybe?"

"Yes," he replied, the sinister eyebrow arching alarmingly.

"It's not quite that bad, but... it's unmistakable."

"So... if it's like feline oestrus... then... every male in the vicinity looks desirable to an ovulating female... ?" There was such sudden alarm in the man's voice and scent that even she pitied him.

"Professor?" She emphatically shook her head no.

"I'll... have some recommended reading for you by dinnertime," he said very stiffly. Then he turned and swept down the hall, scattering awed students in his wake.

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Professor Snape was as good as his word, if stand-offish about keeping it. There was a piece of parchment propped between her plate and water glass at her now-accustomed seat beside Madam Pince at Friday's dinner, folded into thirds with martinet's precision. Listed on it in a highly legible, elegantly stark hand was a long list of titles, mostly of scholarly medical texts. There was no greeting, closing, or personal note of any kind, not even his initials at the bottom of the page.

In all, however, his recommendations made her work very easy. Once she had obtained five or six of the titles he had recommended, spent an evening studying them, and made up an outline, she felt very well prepared on the topic of human sexuality. On Monday, her two classes of fifth-years, the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff session and the Slytherin-Gryffindor session, went as smoothly as any other classes she had taught that year.

Classes let out early on Tuesday to allow everyone enough time to get down to the arena erected for the First Task. The teaching staff assembled in their lounge to gather their cloaks and wraps in preparation for heading out to the stands of the First Task's enclosure.

"So, Emily, your Sex Ed lectures were yesterday, weren't they? How bad was it?" Moody asked, with a gruff smile.

"Oh no, it was fine. They were curious, as you can imagine, and they giggled a good bit, but in all it was about what I expected," Emily said, wrapping herself in her outer robe and reaching for her cloak.

"I'm glad to hear it went well. No really awful questions, then?" Professor McGonagall asked, tying on her pointed, plaid woollen hat.

"No, not at all," she said. "Lots of blushing and a few giggle fits, but overall, I think they were glad to hear it."

"Well, then, Professor," Snape uncoiled his full lithe height from his chair by the fire, and reached for his cloak, "I'm glad you thought it went so very smoothly. However, again I find my entire House falling over themselves to regale me with tidbits about your...thought-provoking... lecture material. Really, I think everyone in Slytherin is almost as impressed by your Sex Ed lecture as they were by the time you hurled daggers at the far wall during the first week."

"Actually, it was only the one dagger, sir, and that was to demonstrate the necessity of diversionary tactics in –"

"So tell me," Snape continued smoothly, cutting her off. "Did you actually tell all of Hogwarts' fifth-years that anal penetration is very stimulating to the male prostate?"

She had to hand it to the man – he definitely knew how to bring all conversation in a room to a screaming halt, and without ever raising his voice. The Deputy Headmistress and Professor Moody both looked at her as though they would both very much like to hear it answered ay or nay as to whether she had in fact discoursed on means of stimulating the male prostate. McGonagall looked shocked into abject speechlessness, while Moody's wide grin was openly admiring.

"Someone asked me a question about gay sex," Emily replied, shrugging. "What should I have said instead?"

"You didn't need to go into such explicit detail as has been described to me, perhaps," he replied acidly, winding his black scarf around his neck. "If they ever choose to investigate that practice for themselves, perhaps there could be some element of surprise to the proceedings, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes, of course," she said, glaring at him dead in the eye. "I suppose instead of telling them what I knew about homosexual penetration, I should have singled out some poor embarrassed virgin of a schoolboy and grilled him mercilessly, as I've had described to me. And did you actually tell them that PMS was a form of temporary lycanthropy?"

"It isn't?" Snape asked with elaborate mock-innocence.

She fixed him with an annoyed look. "All right – I was told, sir, that I was to give a practical lecture on human sexuality. I gave one. I did this even though, I want it noted, that I am not even of the same biological species as the human children I was teaching. If what you actually wanted was for me to lecture on sexuality and be tremendously coy and uninformative about it, you really should have sent me a memorandum to that effect. Furthermore – "

"Would you look at the time!" Professor Flitwick suddenly interjected, mashing his little tweed cap down on his grey head and whisking up his tiny cloak. "We should all really hurry down for the First Task, don't you all think?"

"Absolutely, Filius, couldn't agree more," Madam Pince said. She hurried Emily into her wraps and drew her inexorably toward the door. "Come along, dear – Pomona's saving some seats for us. Isn't this just terribly exciting?"

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From the number of people milling about on the lawns beyond the lake, it appeared that the entire school had turned out for the First Task. Actually, it appeared that the entire school, the entire village, numerous alumni, a healthy number of vacationers, and the entire population of a local retirement community had turned out for the First Task. The stands were full, and an overflow of people were sitting on folding chairs and blankets. Emily followed Irma up to the top of one of the stands, where some benches had been reserved for the Hogwarts staff. They joined Professor Sprout, who was so wound up with nerves that her flyaway grey hair was sticking out from her head like a large grey dandelion. The other professors joined them shortly afterward in twos and threes.

A tent had been erected next to an enclosure made of high fence walls, in front of which were tall stands of long benches. The enclosure held a silvery-blue dragon that Emily recognised as a Swedish Short-Snout, hunching protectively over a clutch of large, speckled eggs, amongst which was a single, gleaming, golden egg. The objective was apparently to retrieve the golden egg, without harming any of the other eggs, and without being clawed, bitten, incinerated, or otherwise killed by the mother dragon.

And this was only the First Task. No wonder so many champions had ended up dead in the past. "I cannot believe they're letting teenagers do this," Emily said, worried.

"There's Cedric," Irma said, nudging her and pointing. "Looks like he's first."

The crowd fell silent as Cedric Diggory, the Hogwarts seventh-year champion, entered the enclosure alone. For a lone seventeen-year-old wizard facing some tonnes of hostile broody dragon, he seemed remarkably composed. He looked very young, and very brave.

Cedric stepped forward very slowly, his eyes fixed on the Short-Snout, and extended his wand toward one of the rocks on the ground in a very measured and non-threatening gesture. "Caninus."

The rock was instantly Transfigured into a very large, yappy, and aggressive brown mongrel dog – "He always was good in my class," Professor McGonagall said with satisfaction – that advanced on the Swedish Short-Snout, growling and barking. The mother dragon was not at all happy about the presence of either Cedric or the dog, which ran around her snapping and barking – and hunched protectively over her eggs. The dog made to bite the dragon's tail – and she lunged out at it irritably. Finally, as it continued to worry her, she seemed to forget about Cedric, and momentarily left the nest in order to lumber after the dog, apparently intending to either incinerate it, or catch it and make a snack of it – Emily couldn't tell which.

Cedric took advantage of the Short-Snout's distraction to dart forward and snatch the golden egg from the nest – but attracted her attention again in doing so. Alarmed, she forgot the dog and breathed a long flume of blue fire toward the boy, which he dodged, but not fast enough. He had the egg, but had to slap out his burning hair as he ran back toward the gate. The crowd gasped in nearly a single voice, then jumped to their feet with wild applause as Cedric made it out of the enclosure, the golden egg clutched in his arms.

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After Cedric Diggory had been immediately pounced on by Madam Pomfrey and taken to the medical tent, the Swedish Short-Snout was replaced by a common Welsh Green dragon for the next champion, Fleur Delacour. The insouciant blonde part-veela was naturally pale; but when she entered the enclosure, clutching her wand, she looked almost waxen, doll-like, fragile. But the set of her shoulders was resolute.

The crowd fell absolutely silent as she pointed her wand at the beast, and whispered, "Torpere." The incantation, in Fleur's soft French-accented intonations, was infinitely soothing, a lullaby. The Welsh Green shook its head, blinking; its harsh, protective attitude softened, and its movements slowed. Emily wished for a moment that she could paint, so as to preserve the tableau in the enclosure below: the sleek, reptilian beast hypnotised by the fair, formidable sylph of a girl. The crowd was now dead silent.

"Torpere," Fleur breathed again, in the same soft tone, her voice resonating with subtle power, so that Emily felt her own eyelids droop gently under its suggestion. The dragon curled up wearily around her clutch of brown eggs, and went to sleep.

Now that was really a good idea. Leave it to a veela's granddaughter to lull a dragon into submission. The crowd remained silent as Fleur waited a long moment, then picked up her robes and stealthily made her way over to the dozing creature, then began to gently ease the golden egg out from under the green-scaled foreleg.

Her touch must have tickled the beast – and while she managed to wrest the golden egg from under the dragon's very breast, the young part-veela learned the hard way that one should never tickle a sleeping dragon. The Welsh Green fidgeted in its sleep, letting out a soft snore – and with the snore came a thin, fitful jet of flame. Fleur turned, quick as a cat, and started running silently across the enclosure with the golden egg tucked under her arm like an American football quarterback. But the exhalation of flame caught the skirts of her robe and ignited them as she took off – the crowd let out a collective gasp – but Fleur whipped out her wand and quenched the flames with an incantation that sent a gush of water over her burning clothes with barely a missed step.

Fleur made it through the gate with her prize under her arm a second later, and was instantly whisked up by Madame Maxime and a concerned Madam Pomfrey.

The crowd applauded the Beauxbatons champion mightily. Emily was well satisfied with the performance of the female part-human contingent of this Tournament.

She was less satisfied with the marks Fleur received. She thought the girl should have received better – she could have been snored on even if she hadn't disturbed the beast, and had recovered from being set afire with remarkable aplomb. Ah well, the judges must think they had their reasons, and she had no desire to do their job herself.

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The Durmstrang champion, Viktor Krum was third, and his approach was far more direct, and offensive, than any of the other competitors so far. He slouched into the enclosure with a slightly despising air, as though the Chinese Fireball dragon inside – a really striking creature with red scales and a ruff of gold-scaled bone spikes around her head – was inconveniencing him by guarding her red, gold-freckled eggs. Neither diversionary tactics, nor sleeping charms were for him – he wound up his wand hand and hit the Fireball with a blast of energy from his wand – "Conjunctivus!"

The dragon reared its sinuous body back, writhing and pawing at its eye with its forelimbs, and letting out shrieks of anguish that sounded like metal tearing. Emily winced – the infliction of unnecessary pain always distressed her. Krum let fly with a second Conjunctivitis curse at the Fireball's other eye, effectively rendering her temporarily blind. She spun hard to the right, still clutching at her eyes, and one of her heavy back feet came down squarely on one of her eggs, smashing its shell and spilling its precious contents to the sandy floor of the enclosure. The dragon may not have been able to see, but she could hear and feel, and she knew what she had just stepped on. She howled in anguish, plunging forward, and crushed two more of her eggs in the process. Emily leaned forward, chest clenched with pity.

The dragon staggered backward against the back of the enclosure, its brightly frilled head drooping between its forelegs, emitting cries that sounded like a grieving locomotive. Krum raced forward and snatched the golden egg from amidst the broken, smeared wreckage of the dragon's other eggs. The keening Fireball did nothing to stop him.

Krum loped back toward the gate with the egg in his hands, but Emily did not join in the applause that followed.

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Harry Potter was last – and the dragon he was facing, the black, lizard-like Hungarian Horntail, was by far the most aggressive of the four. She fixed her hostile yellow gaze on the very, very spindly and nervous-looking fourteen-year-old boy when he entered the enclosure, and went on a rampage at just his presence, her spiky, saurian tail uprooting the turf in annoyance. Emily watched him with her heart pounding in her throat, promising herself that if Harry Potter made it through this, she would never reprimand him for giggling in her classes again. She and Irma Pince had huddled very close together, and Irma was now convulsively clutching Emily's right hand with both of hers in abject terror.

He was just a little boy, just a child – it wasn't fair to make him do this. He hadn't had time to learn all the skills the other, adult students had learned. He hadn't even had a fair chance to try to create a Word of Power with the pressures on him this year. As she watched Harry, alone in that enclosure, she was longing to help him, just cast some little Charm or Protection on him, or to hit the dragon with a powerful Curse that would allow Harry to get through the task unscathed. Just a tiny Glamour, perhaps, something that would distract the Horntail and allow Harry to slip by... if only everyone would break eye contact, Harry could Obscure himself with his wand and slip by, but there was no way he could distract the dragon and the entire crowd...

Her attention was then caught by a convulsive movement to her left – Professor Snape had thrust his hand into the pocket of his black robes, and she could see his fingers clenched tensely around the hilt of his wand, and as the Horntail continued her aggressive rampage, he seemed to be fighting the urge to draw it. The flesh of his pale face was drawn very, very tight over his clenched jaw, the black eyes riveted on Harry – apparently, she was not the only one longing to somehow help the boy facing the dragon below.

But Harry stood in the enclosure with admirable calm, threw back his wand hand, and resolutely cried, "Accio Firebolt!"

A Summoning Charm. But what was he Summoning... a Firebolt... oh yes, that was the latest make of racing broomstick. And then she saw the boy's broomstick, tearing over the wood and lawn toward him. The Firebolt came to an efficient halt just at the right level for the boy to mount, and then he pushed off from the ground and sped nimbly into the air.

Of course – he was a Quidditch player.

Now that was just bloody clever.

Yes, very good, Harry. Now remember – even if you can't Obscure yourself, diversionary tactics will still serve you well...

Harry rose high into the air, circling for a moment, then dived sharply, as if he had just spotted a Snitch. The irritated Horntail reared back and sent a gaseous burst of fire after him –

"Dodge, damn it!" she thought, then realised that she had in fact shrieked the words aloud. But Harry did just that a second later – dropping just below the great burst of flame – but then, she reassured herself, he had capably dodged faster-moving attacks with regularity in her class –

He soared upward again, circling the enclosure high out of the Horntail's reach, and this seemed to annoy her immeasurably. She sent another gout of fire after him, and lunged her spiked tail at him – while he dodged the lethal flames, the tail connected, ripping his robes and probably tearing the flesh underneath, but Harry recovered and swooped away, fast as a swift –

Finally, the Horntail reared up away from her eggs, her throat working to cough up more fire – and Harry dived for the egg so fast Emily could barely follow the motion – and caught the egg. The Horntail aimed a blow toward him with her forelimbs, but was far too slow –

Only after Harry had scooped up the golden egg and carried it off, high above the stands, to the jubilant cheers and howls of the crowd below, did she notice Professor Snape's white-knuckled fingers loosening themselves from his wand. He let his dark head fall into his hand, and silently exhaled in what looked like deepest relief as everyone else cheered and hugged each other around him. Professors Moody and McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid were rushing down from the stands to the champions' tent to greet Harry when he landed.

"Oh, that dear little boy," Irma Pince said tearfully, falling against the back of the bench with both hands pressed to her heart. "I'll never scold him for whispering in the library again, poor little motherless mite that he is."

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After the First Task was over, Emily, Irma, and Pomona Sprout went down to the front of the enclosure for a closer look at the Hungarian Horntail, who was being prepared for transport by a group of energetic young wizards in dragonskin gloves. Irma and Pomona suggested an outing down to the Three Broomsticks for a gillywater to celebrate the fact that all four of the champions had made it through the First Task alive. Emily – who was still looking at the dragons, who had been moved to various holding pens – told them that she would catch up to them at the pub in a few minutes. Hopefully, someone would find a way to console the grieving Fireball.

She had a few minutes' pleasant conversation with a young, robust, redheaded fellow, whom she correctly guessed must be a Weasley, who was the lead dragonkeeper. He was also none too pleased about the loss of the Fireball's eggs.

"Bloody Krum – wasn't supposed to destroy the eggs, and he knew it. I hope they took a right lot of points off for that. But don't worry, miss, she'll be all right. She'll pine some, but when we get her back to the colony and the alpha male starts courting her again, she'll get to another round of egg-laying and forget about it. It happens in the wild, when their eggs get stolen by predators and the like."

After saying good-bye to Charlie Weasley, Emily made her way through the crowd toward the path to Hogsmeade. She passed a group of very well-dressed wizards sitting around a well-appointed picnic area, sipping from liqueur glasses and nibbling on delicacies from picnic hampers. While they all looked as though they were having a marvellous time, there was just something callous, in Emily's opinion, about treating this event – in which four young people had risked their lives and three of them had been injured, not to mention the Chinese Fireball's clutch of eggs that had been destroyed – like some sort of tailgate party or country picnic.

Then Emily recognised Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson among the group, chatting with their daughter Pansy and Draco Malfoy. Just beyond them, she noticed Felina Rosier, wrapped in lugubrious black tweed robes over her mourning crape, and turned away, intending to slip away unseen into the crowd. It would have been nice to see Beatrice Parkinson again, but she would have to do so when that Rosier harpy wasn't amongst her party.

She was so intent on making her escape through the crowd that she literally ran into Lucius Malfoy, who had been approaching her from behind.

"Why, Emily – hello, there." He caught her and put a steadying arm around her waist, then peered earnestly behind her. "Is someone chasing you?"

She laughed. "No, I'm all right. Hello – what a surprise." He was wearing another of those obscenely expensive black bespoke outfits, and smelled deliciously of English lime water. He hadn't yet withdrawn his arm from around her waist.

Emily had, of course, sent the proper note of thanks to her host and hostess following the Malfeasant weekend, but this was the first time she had met up with either of them afterward – and, of course, there was no way she could have forgotten what had gone on between them just before she left Malfeasant. Now, face to face with Lucius again, she found herself at loss for words and blushing furiously. What was she to infer from... that moment in her room? Had he been overcome with relief following the hunt, and allowed decorum to lapse for a second... ?

What did he want?

"Lovely to see you again, dear," he said, then raised her hand to his lips and put a very brazen and deliberate kiss on her ungloved palm, a gesture which would go unnoticed in this teeming crowd, but that held infinite meaning to her. Emily was so transfixed with staring into those cool, still grey eyes that she forgot to breathe for a few seconds.

Draco, have you seen your father? wafted from somewhere in the crowd. Narcissa's voice.

Lucius glanced in the direction of his wife's voice with a faint look of irritation, then stepped back, composing his gloved hands on the head of his walking stick. "Narcissa, darling – look, who's here. I've found Emily, and – Severus, old man! There you are."

She turned in the same direction Lucius was facing, and spotted the black silhouette of the Potions master some paces to her left. Apparently Professor Snape had been behind her in the crowd, and Lucius had just spotted him. She could tell by the set of his shoulders that he had been trying to slink away unseen by the Malfeasant set as well, but he stopped and turned around when he heard his name called, dutifully rearranging his features in a slightly more pleasant expression. "Lucius. Good afternoon."

"Quite the event today, wasn't it? I can scarcely believe they let the Potter boy compete," Lucius said jovially. "I thought the little fellow was done for until the broomstick appeared."

"Yes, it did look that way," Snape said shortly.

"The Beauxbatons girl was amazing, don't you think? Rather surprised her marks weren't higher." Then he turned back to Emily as though he had just remembered something. "Oh, I've been meaning to ask you – what are you doing for New Year's Eve?"

"Nothing, as of yet. Why?"

"How would you like to go to a charity ball at the Ministry? Narcissa and some of the other wives in the Daughters of Wendelin are on the organisation committee. It's black-tie and very exclusive – all the really important Ministry folk will be there. I could arrange an invitation for you, if you like."

"I should love to go," she said, her eyes still riveted on him, and remembering, with a shiver in the pit of her stomach, how it had felt to bask in his attentions at Malfeasant. He slanted a humid look down at her, one corner of his mouth rising in a slight, fond smile.

"Wonderful," he purred. "I'll have to get a suitable escort for you, of course." Then, to her horror, he turned in Professor Snape's direction and called out, "So, Severus – what are you doing New Year's Eve? Can I possibly persuade you to escort Emily to the Ministry Ball?"

Emily thought Snape looked as though he would rather have drunk a cocktail of dragon's bile, but he muttered: "I suppose I could make it. Anything would be preferable to the godawful racket the students make at New Year's."

"Splendid. I'll make certain to have Narcissa stock the bar with that Orcadian Scotch you're so fond of."

"Thank you – most kind," Snape muttered. Then Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson wandered up, and began complaining to their Head of House about the unfairness of Harry Potter being allowed to compete, and he turned to them with characteristic good humour.

"Ah – duty calls for poor old Snape," Lucius chuckled. He turned back to Emily with one of those understanding, conspiratorial, smiles. "So I'll see you New Year's?" He sounded a bit wistful, as though he couldn't wait for the time to pass until then.

"I wouldn't miss it," she replied, smiling back at him. "Thanks very much for the invite, you're very kind to me."

"And long to be kinder," he whispered – or so she thought; he spoke so softly that she wasn't sure she had heard him exactly. Just then Narcissa wafted up, in a swirl of veiled hat and blue velvet robes, took her husband's arm, and nodded a cool greeting to Emily.

When the Malfoys and Professor Swain made their good-byes sometime later, it was with only the most impeccable decorum on both sides.

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Author's Note: This chapter contains an homage to Grindylowe's hilarious fic, "The Lecture."

I've taken some liberties with Grindylowe's timeline in order to make it fit with KEC's chronology. – GS