Part First: The Hart Assurgent: Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Administering December's end-of-term exams turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. Emily's students had to turn in a single-scroll essay on anything that interested them about the Faerielands or Faery magic and complete a written test on the parts of the sword and various fencing terminology. Then, they had to Obscure objects of gradually increasing sizes, hopefully culminating in Obscuring themselves, using either their wands or Words of Power. (Those who had actually created Mots de Puissance received extra credit points, and feats performed using one were weighted accordingly.)

Lastly, she picked up her practice rapier and mask and engaged in one-on-one bouts with each of them. To keep them motivated, she made them all a standing offer – anyone who could score two touches against her in any given bout would get a perfect mark on both parts of the exam.

Emily had saved Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy for last during her Gryffindor-Slytherin fourth-year class, more by means of a treat for herself than anything else. There was no one at Hogwarts who could have been a truly challenging sparring partner for her, which meant that she had to keep in practice by means of solitary drills and exercises in the long storage room just under the Owlery, which had been cleared for her use as a practice studio. Those, however, were deadly dull compared to the challenge – and pure physical exhilaration – of duelling a real opponent. During her solitary evening practice sessions, she would miss the other members of her unit – especially Bill and Victoria – with a wistful intensity.

So the bouts with Harry and Draco were a real pleasure for her. Harry, as she expected, did very well. The boy was as slippery as a trout when it came to dodging attacks, hence his performance against the Horntail. He was so quick and agile it was really a delight to spar with him – he had nearly picked up the Fianna trick of moving just the distance sufficient to evade an opponent's attack while keeping the point of one's own sword solidly in place. Her only critique for him was that he could have been more aggressive – while he was excellent at defence, it did him no good to hang back and defend, defend, defend – he had to try to score some points, too. In all, however, she gave him a very solid mark in the practical part of the exam. The Gryffindors applauded him as he saluted her after their bout and went to rejoin Hermione and Ron, grinning madly. Harry and Ron seemed to have made up their feud following the First Task – Ron gave Harry a hearty pat on the back following his bout.

But while Harry Potter was the first opponent to challenge her that day, Draco Malfoy was the only opponent all year who managed to get in a successful attack against her.

There were several factors that went into Draco Malfoy landing a point on a vastly more skilled opponent that day. Emily was tired – she had been bouting against students since her first class session of the day and in every session from then on, and he was the last opponent in her last class of the day. She was perpetually cold in this Scottish weather, especially in metal armour, and the chill stiffened her joints and slightly slowed her reaction time. The previous succession of easy victories had made her complacent as well – and Draco, sly little fox that he was, had been watching his classmates batter unsuccessfully at her shoulders, chest, and torso for the last hour, and when it came time for his bout against her, he had made a few feints to her upper torso, but then disengaged, dropping the point of his sword down, and almost – almost – landed a solid low-line attack on her right hipbone. She noticed it at the last second, and instinctually turned away from it, so his point brushed against her armour and past her, instead of finding purchase and bending in a solid attack. Had an Orc warrior landed the same kind of attack the boy had, she would have been continuing the battle with a nasty abrasion on her right hip.

But it was the first time any Hogwarts student had ever managed to get past her guard and land a touch on her. She held up a hand and stopped the action.

"Nicely done, Mr. Malfoy. It was passé – your point brushed me and went past – but nonetheless, that counts as a point. Also take thirty points for Slytherin, for being the first student at this school to score a point from me." Draco held a triumphant fist aloft as the Slytherins cheered him loud and lustily.

When he turned back to his opponent, her stance had altered subtly – the opportunity of duelling a skilled opponent was invigorating. She stood en garde more alertly than she had in months.

"Oh great, now I've just made you mad," Draco said anxiously, retreating from her.

"Don't worry," she said, smiling. "Remember, if you can score a second point from me, you get a perfect mark on the term's-end final. I need to score five points from you, you need one from me. Not too poor of odds, I think. Ready?"

Draco assumed en garde position, and lowered his blade. "Yes."

He put up an excellent fight, a valiant fight. As with all advanced fencers, he had begun to analyse his opponent for areas of vulnerability – and had picked up on the fact that she was not accustomed to low-line attacks, used as she was to doing battle with opponents much taller and more heavily muscled than herself. Draco was two inches shorter than Emily was, and dropped to a crouching position to take attacks at her lower body with great dexterity, so that she found herself having to employ little-used downward parries to block. At one point he aimed such a quick lunge at one of her knees that would have hit solidly if he had been duelling anyone less nimble than an Arcadian deer changeling – he only missed because she sprang three feet backwards so fast that it elicited gasps from the class.

She beat him in the end, but he made her work harder for it than anyone had all year. They both pulled off their masks and saluted each other, each raking sweaty fair hair off their faces. "Well done, Mr. Malfoy. Take another ten points for Slytherin, as well."

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Christmas break came as a welcome respite – from December 18th to Christmas morning, there was absolutely nothing to do but lie around and read, run into Hogsmeade for mulled mead, and make short trips into London, Cambridge, and the Continent. Emily went with Irma and a few of the other staff members into London for Christmas shopping expeditions. (Presenting one's friends with gifts on Christmas Day was customary here in the predominantly Anglican part of the Second World, as she recalled from her Beauxbatons schooldays.)

But on Christmas morning, Emily woke up with a mild fever and low-level headache, feeling a bit achy around the middle. She had left a cup of half-drunk tea on her night table the night before, and suddenly the smell of the honey was overpoweringly, nauseously sweet to her.

She groaned, sinking back into her pillows.

Oestrus. Today of all days.

It was about the right time for it, she supposed – a bit late, but then she had never had regular yearly cycles, and occasionally would miss oestrus entirely if she had been doing a great deal of training or was under considerable stress. It was her least favourite time of the year, bringing on headaches, night sweats, extreme sensitivity to smells and sounds, crazed emotional extremes – and, of course, overpowering lust for anything in the shape of a desirable male, and some men that could not exactly be called desirable in the usual sense of the word as well. Her body, quite oblivious to the fact that its inhabitant had no maternal inclinations, was going about its business preparing itself to become pregnant, as was its biological wont.

A long-time friend of hers, a doctor, had come up with a potion that helped tremendously with the annoying symptoms of this state – it served as a potent painkiller and also diminished the mood swings and sometimes overpowering sexual urges that accompanied it. She rummaged around until she found the bottle Catherine had given her and drank a dose of it, then went back to bed and waited for it to take effect. It simply would not do for a Hogwarts professor to fly into a rage or have a crying jag at the slightest provocation. Nor would it do for her to be flirting outrageously with any of her colleagues, or any of the flocks of teenage boys running around... the crowds of... healthy, young, lusty...

NO. She was not going to let herself have these thoughts. No no no. She was going to think of things that could not be construed as sensual in any way. Glacier fields in Antarctica. Dragons with scale rot. Orcish cookery. Orcish table manners. Her mother telling her, at nine, that she was such a rotten archer that she couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Professor Snape telling her she was an amoral rake. The way her burned hand had itched when it was just about healed. Professor Snape telling her she was a truly terrible liar. That stinky swamp just outside of Ardensea. Professor Snape glowering at her tattooed arm. Cleaning other people's crusty blood off her chainmail. Professor Snape looking unbelievably put out because she asked him to tea. Professor Snape looking shocked because she had just called him on his desire to kiss her.

Now that thought was a bad mistake.

She hadn't gone back and revisited that scene in her memory very much in the last weeks – once he had made it so clear how angry she had made him on that particular evening in September, it felt rather like a violation of his privacy to dwell on it too much. Better that she simply follow his lead and ignore it. But now, goaded by a tremendous upsurge in hormone production, the whole scene recurred to her in painfully vivid sensory detail. That endlessly cool demeanour of his melting in an agony of raw heat after she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him. The way he shivered with receptivity when she touched him, as if he couldn't have gotten enough if she'd kept him there all month. The air had been cold, but his skin was deliciously hot. And then the way he unabashedly whisked her up and ravished her like some hero out of a bard's epic romance... compulsively buttoned-up academic or not, the man had been like a satyr at the top of his form... yes, glower as he might, scowl as he might, the sonuvabitch was a fantastic lover, she'd give him that...

No, dammit, she corrected herself, she was not giving him that, she was not giving him anything. She clamped a pillow over her face and groaned. Then she dragged herself out of bed and into the coldest shower she could stand. As she was drying off, she noticed that it was 8:47 a.m., and the sun was just now rising. She glanced out the bathroom window and noticed that snow was falling again – and the sight of that bleak landscape suddenly engulfed her with a wave of despairing claustrophobia so strong that she put her head down on her hands and had a good cry over it.

Thank the Mother this hadn't started while classes were going on, she thought, patting her face with a towel.

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The potion had taken effect by the time she finished getting dressed, and while it afforded a great deal of relief from the worst symptoms of oestrus, it still had only a palliative effect – the state of intense hormonal disquiet strained and writhed underneath her attempts to maintain her composure.

Breakfast was something of an ordeal – she was ravenous, yet anything strong-smelling made her feel ill. She devoured a pile of dry wheat toast and most of a pitcher of milk.

The Malfoys' black eagle owl had appeared at breakfast owl post, burdened down with a long, narrow box – probably Draco's latest something or other from Narcissa, Emily thought idly. This was nothing unusual – he got packages from home every few days.

But instead, the owl dropped the box toward her. She caught it automatically. Again there was no return address other than the Malfoy family seal in dark green wax.

Inside the box was a sheaf of deep blue Arcadian horn lilies, trumpet-shaped blooms whose ruffle-edged petals grew in an overlapping spiral that started out deep violet and shaded to a deep, clear cerulean blue, the impossibly saturated colours so brilliant they nearly glowed. They were deeply fragrant with a scent that was something like violets, and something like roses, and something else totally different.

"How lovely!" Both Professor Sprout and Madam Pince were in ecstasies. "Where on Earth does one find morning glories in the middle of winter, I wonder?"

"They're from home – we call these horn lilies, actually, they grow all over the wall outside my window. I had no idea you could even get them here... He must have had to look everywhere... "

The enclosed handwritten card read:

My dear Emily,

Happy Christmas, and have a lovely time at the Yule Ball.

Yours,

Lucius

Of course he must have heard about the Yule Ball from Draco, but nonetheless, Emily's face flushed hotly as she read it. And in order to find fresh Arcadian flowers... even she had no idea where to find something like that – he really must have looked everywhere. The effort involved in such an indulgence, all to alleviate her continuing homesickness... Lucius was a very kind man and make no mistake about it. The parchment held a trace of the scent of his skin, from where his hand had rested against the paper, and she took a deep breath of it. Then she slipped it into her pocket as covetously as a love letter. For a very long, dizzying moment, she was absolutely in love with Lucius Malfoy.

"Oh, who sent them? A gentleman admirer, perhaps?" Irma asked, slanting a pert look of curiosity at her.

"Just a friend," she replied, grinning. She broke off sprigs of the blooms and tucked them into Irma's and Pomona Sprout's lapels. "There you are. Happy Christmas."

Hagrid had finished breakfast, excused himself with nods to everyone, and was heading back up the aisle toward the front entrance, and presumably, back to his little house on the edge of the courtyard green – but Emily was suddenly noticing the wide, virile set of his shoulders, the strength in his huge hands. A man of his stature was no doubt likewise proportional in his endowments as well... and he was single, wasn't he...

No! Dragons with scale rot, stinky swamps, glacier fields in Antarctica...

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It was a very long, very strange day.

Her sense of smell – always highly acute – was now so strong that she was constantly blitzed with a welter of extra sensory information. She knew exactly which girls were menstruating and who had neglected to brush their teeth thoroughly as she made her way down the hall toward the library. There was such an odour of decay on the breath of a Slytherin second-year, a boy she had never spoken to before – that she stopped him and told him to go see Madam Pomfrey immediately for a dental check up. "That's going to hurt a whole lot, very soon. Go right now, it's only going to get worse."

"Uh... yes, Professor." The child nodded his head, puzzled, but skittered up the steps toward the hospital wing.

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Emily received more unexpected Christmas gifts from some of the staff in the teacher's lounge that afternoon. Madam Pince had given her an absolutely beautiful illuminated volume of William Butler Yeats' complete poetical works – the gesture struck her as so thoughtful, such a previously unlooked-for kindness, that she became positively teary as she unwrapped it. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout had evidently noted her fondness for herb tea and had loaded her down with enough deliciously fragrant exotic varieties of it to stock her office all year, while Dumbledore had presented her with a bottle of excellent French Armagnac, apologising because it wasn't Faery calvados, which made her eyes tear up again. Emily herself had had very little idea what to give anyone on staff, and so had presented each of her colleagues with a bottle of her favourite French burgundy. Now, she was sorry that she hadn't put more effort into choosing more personal gifts for them, as they obviously had done for her.

In all, she was extremely fond of everyone by the time everyone headed back up to their rooms to dress for the Yule Ball.

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The hospitality Hogwarts offered its guests at the Yule Ball would have been a credit to any house. The Great Hall was decked out in silver frost, garlands of greenery, and bright lanterns. The dinner was wonderful – clearly the school house-elves were outdoing themselves. The entertainment had been exceedingly well chosen. The champions had led the dancing without a hitch, even poor self-conscious Harry Potter. The students seemed to be behaving themselves very well, a marked improvement from weeks prior.

Yet Professor Snape didn't seem to be enjoying the Ball one bit.

There could have been any number of reasons for this. Perhaps it was because he felt constricted and overformal in his dress robes – which seemed remarkably similar to his ordinary robes, except they were cut of soot-black velvet rather than soot-black woollen. Perhaps his idea of a good party was not one in which he had to monitor the behaviour of hundreds of students. Perhaps he wasn't a fan of the Weird Sisters. Perhaps he was annoyed by the fact that Professor McGonagall was wearing thistles on her hat, and he had not thought to wear a thistly hat. Perhaps he disliked the lavender silk gown that adorned the impressive person of Madame Olympe Maxime, preferring her usual black satin, or perhaps he was annoyed that that good lady danced with Headmaster Dumbledore and not him. Perhaps he was annoyed that Professor Moody, with his wooden leg, evidently knew at least how to do the two-step, while Professor Snape, judging from the number of his appearances on the dance floor, did not seem to know any dances at all. Perhaps he took as a personal affront the fact that his Faery colleague, Professor Swain, was wearing sleeveless robes of ink-green silk with an uneven hem that fluttered around her ankles like the petals of a flower. After all, it was entirely possible that he had wanted to wear the same colour of green but had had to fall back on his black robes so as not to be seen as unoriginal.

Or, perhaps, Professor Swain surmised, he just still hated everything in general, or her in particular. Well, let him. She hated him right back.

Nonetheless, she had been meaning to ask him if his classes had gotten any more orderly since she had delivered those stern lectures to her classes about using Faery magic responsibly. (Which had made her feel a little bit ridiculous, given what your average Arcadian's opinion would have been of Professor Snape's ideas of responsible use of magic. If he thought his students were prankish, he'd obviously never met a wood pixie of the Puck clan.)

But she had told Professor Snape that she would help him restore order in his classroom, and she was a woman of her word.

She had meant to ask him after the Christmas feast had ended and the dancing had begun, casting about in the crowd for him – in time to see Snape slink off into the rose garden outside. Well, this was as a good time as any to take the subject up – if he decided to snub her again, at least only she would be there to hear him for a change. She wrapped herself in her fur cloak against the chill and followed him out onto the terrace.

She ran into the three Gryffindor Chaser girls coming in, just as she was going out – and one whiff of the exhalations of their collective breath told her what they had been up to in an instant. "Spinnet, Bell, Johnson – come here for a second, ladies." They turned toward her with very guilty looks, but followed her as she took them aside.

"Now... much as I can understand the desire to have a nip of something in this cold weather, you know the rules about students drinking on campus. You've all only got a year or two to wait until you're of age to go hit every watering hole in the U.K. whenever you like, so please, just don't do it at Hogwarts because I hate giving detention. Besides, Ogden's Firewhiskey is such swill – if you like whiskey, get yourselves a nice single-malt on your eighteenth birthdays. That's the real stuff."

"Are we in trouble?" Alicia Spinnet asked sheepishly.

"Not this time, but just be glad it wasn't Professor Snape or McGonagall who noticed because they'd come down on you like something out of the Old Testament. Don't do it again until you're old enough, and especially not while you're at school, all right?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Sorry, Professor."

"Thanks, Professor – "

"Sure. Now run along and go... " she waved her hand in front of her face "... gargle with something, would you?"

The three Chasers stood not on the order of going, but went, exchanging confused looks between them. Emily continued out into the rose garden, immediately spotting Snape's black, etched silhouette by the way it blotted out the low lights of the garden outside. She was momentarily struck by the incongruity of the setting – a rose garden in full bloom, in late December, in Scotland? This must be one of Dumbledore's magics, then.

"Professor Snape?"

He turned toward her voice, his face registering surprise. "Yes, madam, how can I help you?" He sounded as though he would have preferred to help her onto a non-stop flight to Albania for an extended holiday, she thought, with suddenly waspish temper.

"I was thinking about the pranks that you mentioned were being played in your classroom. I was wondering if they had died down at all. I've told all my classes on several occasions, quite sternly, that if I hear any more reports of acting up in other professors' classes using Obscurantis that I will have to become a much stricter disciplinarian," she said.

"I'm so happy to hear that," he said, scowling faintly. "Thank you for your kind, if rather tardy, attempts at remedying this situation. You might be pleased to hear that my students seem to have heeded your admonishments and have stopped playing tricks using Obscured items in my classes. Either that, or they have become so skilled in its use that they are able to now pull off their pranks beneath my notice."

So it was still war between them – and her never-admirable temper now flared dangerously. She laughed – a laughter tinged with an arch, malicious note that implied she found the idea of students fooling him more amusing than not.

"Well then. I'm so pleased to hear things are going so very well for you. Good evening, Professor." She turned to leave, with as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances.

There was a long pause, and then she heard: "One moment, Professor?"

She slowly turned around. "Yes?"

His intense black gaze was fixed on the walkway in front of her. "I have been doing some research in the library... and have a question for you."

"You have a question for me, sir? Whatever about?"

"I find the third form of Obscurantis to be... intriguing. Could you perhaps find time to recommend some further reading on the subject?"

"The third form of Obscurantis – you mean the power to see that which is invisible?"

"Yes, madam."

"Well, first, it would help if you would create a Word of Power for yourself, you know. Without at least a rudimentary one, you might have a difficult time managing it. Many of the more advanced forms of our arts can be temperamental if one attempts them with a wand."

His eyes turned toward the sky – really, he seemed to prefer looking at anything other than her. "I have actually... been attempting to create one, and may have had some limited success in the endeavour."

"Really." For a moment she was speechless with surprise – Professor Snape, actually applying himself to learning Faery magic? This was... it was unbelievable. When had he done it? He must have worked morning and night at it – and to have already had some measure of success was a tremendous accomplishment. She clasped her hands in front of her and grinned at him almost girlishly. "You have? That's wonderful! But... I thought you weren't interested in learning my kind of magic, sir."

"A proven method of wandless magic... seems to me to be a worthy field of study," he said finally.

"Even if I'm teaching it," she said, turning away from him with a careless laugh.

Snape coloured slightly – and his scent coloured with embarrassment. "If anyone is teaching such a discipline... it seems worth learning."

"I'm happy to hear it. So you think you had some success with it – how so?"

"Well... " Snape half-turned away from her for a moment, folding his arms over his chest in a characteristic thoughtful posture, one hand plucking abstractedly at his lapel. Then abruptly, he turned back to her, holding out his hand – in which suddenly materialised a red rose, which he had apparently plucked from his lapel buttonhole.

She laughed, in real amusement this time. "Brilliant – I had no idea you were such a sleight-of-hand artist."

He actually smiled faintly – not his previous thin, sardonic half-smirks, but surprised into real expression of pleasure at her compliments. "Dumbledore made us wear these absurd things for the ball – might as well do something useful with them. At any rate, I've... been doing a bit of work on it. But as you said in your class, the Faery arts are not my first language when it comes to magic."

"First language or not, you've been working successfully at it, I'd say. Well done, Professor." The rose was in full, dark red bloom – she impulsively put her hand around his wrist and brought it to her nose, taking a deep breath of its green, powdery fragrance.

He stared at her – that guarded, almost blank expression that she remembered from the first day she met him. "Thank you," he replied quietly.

Impossibly... under the irritation that always seemed to hang around him like a metallic-smelling cloud, she detected a salt tang of embarrassment and – the most sudden breath of desire. And in her current state of hormonal disturbance – it smelled delectable. It felt as though her every tissue and cell was straining closer to him.

That telltale sign of receptivity, from this usually repellent man, was like finding a spring of pure water in the midst of miles of arid desert. It occurred to her that she could very easily have taken about two steps forward, put her arms around his neck, and brought his lips down to hers. What with the scent he was starting to exude right now, there was the mad possibility that he might actually like that. It also occurred to her that dragging him into the shadow of one of those rosebushes and having another brief interlude with him might greatly improve both of their respective moods. Tides of oestrogen were telling her that this was a very, very good idea indeed, one that should be acted upon immediately.

She scarcely noticed her fingers slithering up onto his wrist, savouring the warmth of his skin. Nor did she much notice the effect – surprise, followed by suddenly riveted attention – such a caress had on Professor Snape.

But close on the heels of her sudden desire for him came, perversely, a rush of revulsion. No, this was just the hormones talking – to act on such feelings right now would be disastrous – neither one of them wanted what would come of that. In the incendiary nature of her current state, lust became revulsion, then frustration, then anger, in a split second. Why should she want him? He had been hostile to her from the first, making it difficult for her to feel welcome or even comfortable at Hogwarts, and then took her to task for finding companionship with anyone, even her old friend Lucius Malfoy. If she had thoughtlessly offended him before, he had certainly gotten his own back in everything he had said to her since, especially what he had said to her at the Malfoys' Hallowe'en Ball. She was still smarting from that little speech of his, in which he had called her an amoral rake. Besides – she was a Fianna knight, not some bloody camp follower to be trifled with – was he expecting her to dangle after him now, gratefully responding to anything less than complete incivility?

"That's a neat little trick," she said gaily, mockingly. She let go of his hand as though it was red-hot and smelled bad besides. "Though hopefully it won't make you an even more diabolically efficient mischief-maker than you were before. After all, it's not part of a magical tradition thousands of years old – it's just something we made up this year solely to annoy you."

Snape stepped back, glaring at her in shock and then outrage. "It wouldn't have annoyed me so much if you'd taken that thousands-of-years-old magical tradition and employed it in a less deceitful way," he snarled back, crossing his hands in front of him under his cloak, as if they had been much offended.

Oh, so this bloody great Second-Worlder dared lecture her on what her people thought proper behaviour, did he? She faced him with killing coolness.

"Sir, if you think that most of us would find the use of a harmless magical prank of five minutes' duration to get the attention of an attractive member of the opposite sex anything less than completely understandable, then your experience of us must be very limited indeed."

He still seemed to be in a state of shock – perhaps immobilised with fury? Perhaps stunned that he had been referred to as "an attractive member of the opposite sex"? He stared at her, silent and unmoving. That lack of response infuriated her more than anything else he could have done.

"I bid you good evening, sir."

Then she turned on her heel and stalked away.

Behind her, Professor Snape let the rose in his hand fall to the paved walkway, treading on it as he turned his back in Professor Swain's direction. He glared at a nearby red rosebush with intense dislike. A second later, his attention was caught by a soft giggle issuing from another rosebush, some metres to his left. He whipped out his wand with a crisp swish, in the manner of an Old West sharpshooter unholstering his six-gun. The look on his face was such to make the very dust motes skitter out of his way.

Emily passed Headmaster Karkaroff hurrying in the direction she was hurrying away from – Snape-ward – on her way down the shadowy paths of the rose garden back to the ball. Wherever he was going, Karkaroff seemed very anxious to get there. He barely paused to nod a greeting to her in passing. "Good evahning, Professor Svay-hin."

"Good evening to you, Headmaster Karkaroff."

She could hear him hissing urgently to Snape as she was leaving the garden – Severus, I need to talk to you NOW – I have nothing further to say on the matter, Igor – not realising that a faun's earshot was somewhat longer than that of one's average wizard. She wondered what they were arguing about so heatedly – she had had no idea that they even knew each other – but she had no desire to stay and eavesdrop. The elemental scent of teenage lust was growing thick in this garden, and she had no wish to lose her head around Snape any more than she already had.

And by the Mother – what was THAT? If the scent of barely hatched young desire wasn't heady enough, by the fountain she caught a great lungful of something so potent it practically knocked her backward over the low garden border and rolled her down the hill. Glancing around, she noticed the dark silhouettes of two towering shapes by the fountain – Hagrid and Madame Maxime. What with the size of them, it couldn't be anyone else. They were not touching, but their postures were practically sighing into one another. She exhaled hard against the storms of emotion contained in the scent of courting half-giants. And she had thought satyrs were intense... !

She hurried quickly back up the entrance hall, passing Harry Potter and Ron Weasley on their way out, no doubt in search of a breath of air. "Good evening, gentlemen," she said, and they pleasantly, and shyly, returned her greetings.

Behind her, she heard a blast, and then the sound of desperate squeals and scampering. Professor Snape had apparently caught some students kissing in the shadow of a rosebush and had blown the bush half-apart in a shower of falling leaves and petals.

Really, she thought, the man was just utterly impossible. What did some innocent rosebush ever do to him?

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Once she got back inside, dammit, she felt like dancing. Professor McGonagall had asked the staff to make appearances on the dance floor, and it seemed like a fine idea to her.

The Weird Sisters were in the middle of a fast number, and several couples dotted the floor – Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang, both in different sessions of her class, Fred Weasley and Angelina Johnson, Ginny Weasley and a painfully awkward Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger and the Durmstrang champion, Viktor Krum.

Hermione Granger looked wonderful that evening – Professor Swain did a long double take as she passed. Hermione had long since been one of her favourite students, and it was a pleasure to see her out from under her heavy book bag, with some care lavished on her appearance. She was leaning on her dance partner's shoulder, his arm encircling her waist. Hermione's masses of curly, dark hair had been smoothed sleekly back into a soft upsweep, and she wore robes of translucent, pale blue silk that emphasized her narrow waist and graceful hands. Hermione spotted her and smiled brightly over her date's shoulder; Emily flashed her a grin and silently mouthed You look great! back to her. Hermione blushed.

Someone was at her elbow – "Professor? Would you care to dance?" She turned to face the red, chubby face of Ludo Bagman, the former Quidditch star, dressed in purple gaudy robes splashed with gold stars.

"I'd love to," she said immediately, dropping her cloak on a nearby chair, and taking his proffered arm.

That song segued into the next – she danced with Ludo Bagman until his red face was turning purple and he staggered when he sat down. He entreated her to sit down and have a drink with him, but she only smiled at him and was off, inducing Percy Weasley, the terribly earnest young Ministry of Magic clerk, to have a turn on the floor. By the end of a dance, his pale redheaded face was flushed, his composure was ruffled, his collar was askew and he looked, in her opinion, rather adorable, but then George Weasley, another of her favourite students, boldly cut in on (grateful, relieved) Percy and spun her around the floor for awhile. George was a nimble and far more energetic partner than his older brother – indeed, she could almost picture him dressed in a kidskin tunic, playing pipes and prancing madly at a Faery revel, with a beautiful nymph for a dance partner.

But she relinquished George after a dance or two – she certainly couldn't make too much of a spectacle of herself with a student here (and, the clean scent of his fifteen-year-old exertion was beginning to take on a decidedly adult testosterone lust tinge, which was making him look far too good for her comfort). Instead, she decided to brave a few rounds of the claw-footed two-step with Professor Moody, to Professor Sinistra's intense gratitude.

"Good evening, Alastor."

"Evening, lassie." The other Defence Against the Dark Arts professor seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. Alastor Moody wasn't uncoordinated, simply a bit ungainly in his movements – and certainly a prosthetic leg was reason enough for that. She slowed her pace and matched her motions to his.

"Thank you kindly for indulging an old man, my girl – I know I'm not a graceful dancer, but I do still enjoy cutting a rug now and then." She suddenly noticed that for a man who had to be at least sixty, maybe even seventy, Moody had a surprisingly young, lusty scent to him.

She laughed. "What's this 'old man' nonsense? You'll outlast us all."

His hand, curving over the small of her back, was firm, and tactile, and attentive – but that was just the response of an unmarried, middle-aged man enjoying the temporary proximity of a younger woman. Moody had always been kind to her in his own rough way, and she thought of him as a gentleman of the old school like Albus Dumbledore, his long-time friend.

"I can still outlast some," he said roguishly, making her laugh again. "You're quite the dancer, Emily. I could keep you on the floor as long as these Weird Sisters can keep their instruments to their skinny lips."

"In which case, you'll probably have outlasted me," she said drolly.

"I find that hard to believe," he rasped. "You're what we used to call a damn fine woman, back in the day." His fingers trailed up her spine in a surprisingly virile and authoritative gesture – in a different situation, from a different kind of man, it might have been a very arousing sort of caress. "Albus tells me you're an Auror in your own right, back home."

"Well, it's a different kind of conflict. We're not after Dark Wizards, just your everyday treaty-breaking Orcs."

"Maybe you could tell me about it over a nightcap, later tonight?" he asked casually. Something in his tone said that he did not mean that they should retire to Dumbledore's anteroom for a brandy with the rest of the staff.

The question was so beyond the kind of behaviour she had come to expect from Moody that she was struck temporarily speechless. "Um... well... "

The music ended, and Moody stepped away from her. "No worries, lassie. Forgive me for sounding impertinent. You have a nice evening." He nodded jovially to her and disappeared into the crowd.

Now that was odd.

Certainly, Emily could excuse him for a bit of gentle provocation – she realised that she was probably being a bit of a flirt that evening by Second-World British standards, flitting from dance partner to dance partner, moving off once she had engaged someone's attentions. But his last question was just on the safe side of propositioning her.

She wasn't upset – he hadn't been rude or importuning, and had taken a refusal with good grace – but it was just odd. If someone had joked to her that Professor Moody had fancied her before that night, she would have laughed. But now... the idea that a man who looked like Moody did, with all the physical limitations Moody had, could radiate the kind of intense sexual energy that he had was slightly disconcerting. It was just that... he was Professor Moody, not some young buck half his age.

The ball was winding down as the clock inched closer to eleven o'clock. The Weird Sisters segued into a slower, more romantic final set of waltzes and ballads, and she had a riotous good time teaching Professor Flitwick and some of the boys from Durmstrang how to do the box step waltz. Draco Malfoy had begun hovering around her periphery sometime late that evening, looking very sleek and handsome – and very like his father – in black velvet dress robes. He delicately plucked at her elbow at a break between songs and asked for the next dance.

"Good evening, Draco. So you'd like to learn the waltz too?"

He laughed arrogantly. "Everyone knows the waltz. My mother taught me that one when I was ten."

"All right, then, how about the foxtrot?" Draco picked up new dances the same way he took to fencing, and it was just as much fun to dance with him as it was to bout with him. It probably hadn't been too difficult to teach him the waltz when he was ten.

Yes, Lucius's son was soon to be a highly eligible young man, wasn't he... for a long moment, she was lost in contemplating the boy's profile, the freshness of his pale, rosy skin, his thick blond eyelashes... all so very like his father's. Draco noticed her looking at him and stole a shy, but provocative, look back... whereupon she decided it was high time that she take a break from dancing and get a drink of water.

Close to the end of the ball, she felt a hand on her elbow. "Might I have the next dance?" Albus Dumbledore asked.

"Of course, sir."

She had thought she would pull in her usual energy level to dance with an elderly man, whose white beard reached his waist – but Dumbledore turned out to be a spry and more than competent partner, who led flawlessly.

"You're an excellent dancer, sir," she said.

"Thank you, Emily. To be so praised by one of the Fair Folk is flattering indeed," he said, smiling. His eyes, she noticed, were the colour of the daylight sky. Unlike Alastor Moody, though, his scent and demeanour were entirely neutral. She was pleasantly reminded of King Gwydion, and her father.

When the music ended, Dumbledore turned to her again and motioned her aside to a corner of great ballroom. "I confess that I have other reasons for wishing to speak to you, Professor. Have you by any chance spoken to Professor Snape tonight?"

"Only very briefly," she said, very briefly.

"He told me that he had some success in creating a Mot de Puissance."

"Yes, he has. He Obscured a rose outside in the garden."

"He seems very proud of that achievement," Dumbledore observed, with another smile.

"To some limited degree, perhaps," she replied cynically. "I admit that I'm surprised that he so applied himself."

"Why so?" Dumbledore asked.

"Well, I thought Professor Snape scorned my arts – he seemed to think Obscurantis's only use to a wizard would be in smuggling Whizzing Nose Spawning Teacups into his cauldron or some such."

Dumbledore laughed heartily. "While I have never heard of such a device as a Whizzing Nose Spawning Teacup, I have no doubt that the Weasley twins will invent one ere long. But no, I do not believe that Professor Snape holds your people's magic in contempt. I daresay, he has simply had one too many Dungbombs dropped into cauldrons during his lectures."

She nodded. "I see your point, sir. I've tried to help Professor Snape after he complained to me about student pranks – "

Dumbledore held up his hand to stop her. "I understand that you have done your best to help Professor Snape keep order. There is, sadly, another reason for some of your colleague's less than charming moods, Emily. He has reason to believe that an old antagonist of our world may be seeking to return."

"Could you, sir, be referring to a certain wizard whom people hesitate to name, of my father's generation?"

Dumbledore nodded. "The same."

Several measures of music went by; she was lost in thought.

"I'm aware of... his history, sir. I was there, you know, when you and Father addressed the issue of what to do about him before the Ministry."

"I remember," Dumbledore said reflectively. "It was the first time I had seen you since you were a child. How old were you at the time?"

"Eighteen."

"There has never been any ill will between me and Buckminster over our difference of opinion in that matter, my dear," the Headmaster said gently. "No one would have been more pleased than I if his approach could have been successful. I was sorry to see him go when he left our world for good."

"I know, sir," she said disconsolately. "Father always thinks everyone is reasonable at heart, you know... "

"Yes, my dear. I know."

"But... that just wasn't the case. You know the Death Eaters tried to recruit him, after that, and threatened him and the family when he refused. Father severed most of his ties to the Wizarding world just after his faction began to gain power."

"Indeed – your father preferred to devote himself to your family and his adopted culture than fight Voldemort."

Emily's jaw tightened. "He's a scholar, not a soldier, Dumbledore – but he's not a coward. People will be reading his works when no one can remember anything my mother or I ever did on a battlefield. How could he have devoted himself to the fight here, when his wife's people were already fighting such a bloody war against the Orcs? That was when he sent me away to school in the Muggle world – "

"Emily, Emily," the Headmaster interjected kindly, "your love for your father does you credit. Indeed, Buckminster had your welfare to think of, knowing as he did that his wife could fall against the Orc tribes at any time. I thank the Lady of the Worlds that your mother survived the Orc wars of the last decades."

She paused and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, sir. It's simply that I grow tired of hearing some people criticise my father." And many of those people most cruelly critical of her father's decampment to Arcadia were his own sons and daughters, she thought, but did not say.

"Of course, dear girl. But while your people were menaced by the Orc threat, the Wizarding world here in Britain was threatened as well. And – I tell you this in the strictest confidence – one of the most valiant and self-sacrificing of those who opposed Voldemort was your colleague, Severus Snape."

"Really." Her expression sobered, and her brow creased deeply. "I had no idea. If that was going on fifteen years ago... he must have been only a few years out of school when... "

"Yes. He was very young at the time, but no less heroic for it."

"Again, I apologize, sir. I've... I've underestimated him."

"I grow concerned with Professor Snape's safety, the same as I worry for Harry Potter's safety," Dumbledore said seriously. "Which is why I must ask you for another favour, Emily."

"Of course, sir. You have only to ask."

"I would like you to privately instruct Professor Snape in the same defensive arts you are teaching to your classes. It would be very beneficial for him to learn your ways of defending oneself."

"I'm willing to do that, sir. But I have to tell you that I fear that he'll resist learning anything from me. He and I have... many differences of opinion," she said, glancing over Dumbledore's shoulder at nothing in particular. She wished, for one very long moment, that she could confide the real circumstances of her... association with the Potions master to him, to someone who knew him and might offer useful advice as to how to win him over, or at least better deal with him. But she couldn't – not without compromising both his integrity and her own – and she refused to even allow for the possibility of embarrassing him.

"My impressions are that he thinks you to be changeable, proud, obstinate, and uncommunicative," Dumbledore said. "And that you think him to be rude, humourless, exacting, and oversensitive. Am I wrong?"

"I'd say you were right on all counts," she replied ruefully.

"Yet... I have never heard either of you fail to acknowledge the other's intelligence and competency," he said reflectively. "And in the face of a threat like Voldemort, can the two of you not put your differences aside and work together toward a common cause?"

"Of course, sir. I do apologize, sir... I'm being petty. I'd be happy to teach Professor Snape anything that I can."

The Headmaster smiled at her, with fatherly gratitude over his half-spectacles.

"Thank you, my dear."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

On the day after the wizards' feast of Christmas – another holiday they called Boxing Day – Emily left a parcel in Professor Snape's administrative mailbox, containing her Christmas present for him (there had really not been any way to present him with such face to face), a Muggle book and a folio of handwritten and illustrated papers in a leather folder secured with a leather thong. Enclosed was a short note:

"As per Headmaster's request for personal combat instruction:

Please read before scheduling first practical session. Weekday evenings are best for my schedule.

Folio is an uncopied original. Please handle carefully.

Regards,

E.S."

There. Now the ball was in his court, and he could come to her whenever he was ready.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Later that evening, Severus Snape remembered to check his staff mail after neglecting it for several days. There were the usual duty Christmas cards from staff members (the Professor never bothered to send them himself), a year's end pay stub, and a parcel, accompanied by a note. He carried everything back to his quarters and sorted through it.

The parcel was from that tiresome Swain woman. Dumbledore had asked her to serve as combat instructor to him as well as to the students, despite Snape's own protestations that he needed no such instruction, and now it appeared that she had assigned him some reading beforehand. Wonderful.

With the two books, she had included a bottle of wine with a handwritten Christmas card tied to its neck with ribbon – Snape knew that she had given one to everyone on staff, including Hagrid and Argus Filch, so had not been terribly impressed until he glanced at the label. Chateau Latour 1986 red burgundy – well, someone had Galleons to burn, didn't she. Snape's taste usually ran toward spirits, but he wasn't averse to a fine wine now and then. And this, he had to admit, after uncorking the bottle and allowing it to aerate – was a very drinkable little bottle of swill. Ah well – if that presumptuous female was going to deign to give him reading assignments like some first-year student, it was halfway decent of her to at least present him with something pleasant to drink while he did it.

The first book was a small, glossy hardcover – definitely not acquired at Flourish and Blotts. The Art of the Foil by someone named Luigi Barbasetti. Translated from the Italian, translation copyright 1932 by E.P. Dutton and Co. Written and published by Muggles, then.

The second volume was a thick, untitled folio of handwritten parchment. He set it aside and opened the Muggle hardcover with a grudging sigh.

But Luigi Barbasetti's book – an instructional manual for the Italian style of sport fencing – actually proved to be somewhat interesting.

The opening postures were exactly the same as the Wizarding style of wand duelling – one saluted one's opponent in exactly the same way, started from duellist's first position in exactly the same way, and attacked with exactly the same posture, only a fencer used a sword instead of a blast fired from a wand. Snape realised that they had both had probably been derived from the same teachers. A fencer began his action from the position of the guard, or en garde position. One attacked by extending one's sword in a straight thrust, accompanied by a lunge. Barbasetti's system broke the target area to be protected into five spatial fields, prime, seconde, tierce, quatre, and quinte, which were each defended with a corresponding stroke called a parry. Once a thrust was parried, the fencer countered with a movement called a riposte; from there one had beats, grazes, feints, and any number of exotic defensive and offensive movements to learn.

It was an absorbing, but short, book – he had finished it in two hours, by which time he had gone through about half of the burgundy. (As far as duty gifts went, he had to admit, he'd received worse.)

The first through fifth sections of the Faery manuscript described a combat system similar to Luigi Barbasetti's, except where the Italian system was entirely linear, the folio's system covered both linear and lateral movements. Whereas Barbasetti demonstrated five spatial areas defended by five parries, the folio's system broke it down further, into thirty-two spatial areas, each with corresponding defensive parries and even more involved defensive movements, covering the entire body. Each movement was mapped out exhaustively in beautifully detailed pen-and-ink diagrams, which offered the same movement from several different vantage points.

The next section, at first glance, resembled a page out of a medical anatomical textbook. The major muscle groups, major veins and arteries, and three areas of spinal cord mapped out in painstaking detail. Descriptions of how this muscle supports that movement, this artery or vein feeds this necessary organ.

And the next section... gave instructions and diagrams on how to disrupt the body's functions with a bladed weapon, in the most economical of movements, again depicted in the same exquisite pen-and-ink drawings. Sever the spinal cord at the base of the skull, and your opponent will die without pain. Sever the jugular vein, and brain function will cease almost immediately as the brain is deprived of oxygen.

Two strokes were all that were required, the author's argument stated. The first blow, which debilitated an actively aggressive opponent, was called Healt, the blow that halts, or the stop shot. The second blow was called Misericorde, or Mercit – mercy – the blow that killed. No blow was ever struck without a purpose, and infliction of prolonged pain was absolute anathema. The taking of prisoners – and especially torture – were blasphemy against the Mother Goddess. You either released an enemy unharmed, or you killed him fast and without pain. There was no in-between state.

It was the coldest, and most intellectually elegant, system for dispatching attacking hordes imaginable. Combat as euthanasia. Yet there was a tremendous amount of restraint involved in it as well. None of its aggressive movements started until an opposing aggressive movement was offered, and then the life of the aggressor was ended as quickly as possible, usually before that aggressor could even finish his first attack.

He wondered who had written it – and on a sudden hunch, he compared the handwriting of Professor Swain's note and Christmas card to the handwriting of the folio.

No wonder she wants it treated with kid gloves, he thought, carefully moving his wineglass out of harm's way from the pages.

She was the author.