Harry Potter and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus

Chapter 2 : Whiter Than White

“YOU LOOK BLOODY AWFUL,” observed Ron as Hermione approached them at breakfast the next morning.  Lightning struck across the ceiling of the Hall, bewitched to mimic the dark, sunless sky outside where a real storm was raging.  The rain battered against the tall, gothic windows with its loud, tympanic tapping as the post-owls soaring above showered the students with errant drops of rainwater.

Harry glanced up from his sausages.  Hermione’s chestnut hair was even bushier than normal, as if from much tossing and turning, and telltale dark circles ringed her bloodshot eyes.  Eyes which were now fixed upon them with indignation and disbelief.

“What happened to you?”  Harry asked, green eyes blinking bemused behind his spectacles.

Hermione tutted testily.  “What happened to me?  You both gave me the creeps last night, pretending to hear something in the For—“

“Shhh!” hissed Ron.  Harry followed his eyes and swiftly spotted Professor Snape passing by their table, pausing briefly to shoot them his signature glare.  Behind a tangled mass of dark shoulder-length hair, his black eyes narrowed suspiciously.  Clearly, the Potions Master would have given his eyeteeth for another chance to give Potter, Weasley and Granger detention.

Keeping an eye on Snape’s receding back, she continued in a near-whisper.  “And then both of you whistling that eerie tune—“

“What eerie tune?”  asked Ron, now that Snape had safely retired to the teachers’ table.

Yeah, what—“  Harry began.

“What do you mean what tune?  The one you were both whistling last night when you went off to bed.  This one.”  Although Hermione had once told them whistling was often discouraged in the Granger household, she seemed to managed a rendition.

The boys exchanged curious glances.

“What’s that?” said Ron, frowning.  “If I’d been whistling that, I’d remember.” Beside him, Harry nodded.

Their sincerity appeared to confuse and further irritate Hermione.  “Fine, if you don’t want to tell me what you heard, then don’t.  I’m too tired to deal with you two today.”  They watched as she turned on her heel and stalked off to review her Arithmancy notes at the other end of the table, across from Seamus Finnigan.  Seamus barely glanced up.  He looked to be in the middle of transforming a turtle into a teapot.  Unsuccessfully.  The pot was a scaly green and the spout kept retreating back into its body.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows at Ron, who shrugged.

Any inquisitiveness regarding their friend’s outburst, however, was forgotten as a small commotion at the front of the Hall arrested their attention.  Harry craned his neck slightly but his view was obstructed by clusters of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff boys who appeared to have frozen in mid-step as they gaped at the staff table.  Justin Finch-Fletchley arched his eyebrows at his blushing fellow Hufflepuff Ernie MacMillan, while the Beaters and Chasers at the Ravenclaw table nudged each other, grinning excitedly. 

Before long, the tinny tapping of a crystal goblet commanded the attention of all four house tables in the Great Hall.  Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster, holding back his long white beard from his eggs and beans on toast, hammered gently away at his water glass with a breakfast spoon until the Great Hall was silent.

           

“Good morning, everyone.  I know that the beginning of term is an exciting time for you all and that you have no doubt been all too eager to burn the midnight oil with your books.  That is to say, in the company of your books—not with your books as an incendiary device.”  A smile tugged briefly at the corners of the Headmaster’s mouth, but the pun was greeted only by a smattering of somnolent frowns and a few weary smiles from the more alert.  “And for those students who have recently transferred from other wizarding schools, I am sure you are keen to get on with the Hogwarts Orientation Programme.  Therefore, I shall not waste any precious time with long speeches.  However, I would like to take this moment to introduce to you our new Muggle Studies instructor, Clarimonde van der Witte.  Professor van der Witte joins us from De Vredewizardzakademie, the Free Wizards’ Academy, in the Netherlands.”

Harry’s gaze tracked Hermione’s from Seamus’s turtlepot to the young woman sitting to Dumbledore’s left.  Long, softly-curling flaxen hair, luminous like cascading moonbeams beneath a silver peaked witch’s cap, set off her pale ivory skin, framing deep-set eyes and a small red mouth.  The fingers of one elegant hand distractedly stroked a large moonstone ring in the shape of an orb reflecting the candlelight.  Her robes flickered shades of steely silver and dove grey.  Before too long, Harry became vaguely conscious of his mouth hanging awkwardly agape… and the heat of a reproachful glare from Hermione’s end of the table.  Professor van der Witte smiled and Harry heard the sharp intake of breath from every male student in the Hall.  Nearly all the students had come to life by now.  At the Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy and fellow fiends Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle instinctively straightened their ties, thrusting out their chests like so many lusty peacocks.  For their part, all the faces along the staff table smiled back welcomingly.  With one exception.  Professor Snape’s brow knitted even more firmly together over his dark eyes, punctuating his scowl on surveying the new professor.  He looked menacing.  Although, reflected Harry, this was normal for the Potions Master.

“Professor van der Witte’s office may be found on the upper level of the West Tower.  Incidentally, office hours will be posted for all professors next Monday.”  Dumbledore paused as if to take in the sea of awestruck (predominantly male) faces.  Harry could not avoid overhearing an exchange of catty remarks by seventh-years Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, annoyed no doubt by the fact that their boyfriends, Ron’s twin brothers Fred and George, were staring unblinkingly like walleyed fish. 

The first few claps of Dumbledore’s hands had the effect of bringing the students back to earth and soon the Great Hall resonated with thunderous applause.  Harry was amused to note Hermione’s pained expression at the few catcalls that seemed to originate from somewhere in Ron’s direction.

Dumbledore cleared his throat before once again bringing his spoon to his water goblet.  Reluctantly, the Hall grew silent. 

“It also gives me great pleasure to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, Bethany White.  Professor White has spent the past few years as Special Agent and Deputy Head of the International Wizards Intelligence Council.  Her office will be located in the dungeons, opposite the main passage from Professor Snape.”

Snape lanced a withering look at Professor White who failed to, or declined to, intercept.  Harry glanced from Hermione to Ron whom he knew were thinking the same: that Professor Snape would rather hang from his toenails than share his workspace with any professor teaching in the position he’d been craving for years.  Every Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor Harry and his friends had ever known had lasted no longer than a year.  It was said that each year Snape requested the appointment, and each year Snape remained unselected.  Perhaps that was one of the (possibly many) reasons why the lanky, ill-tempered and unsmiling man seemed so irritable.  But even so, Harry thought he noted genuine shock flash across the Potions Master’s stern features before his look contained, if possible, ever more fury.

At the opposite end of the table, Ron let out a low whistle and nudged Harry’s ribs with a well-placed elbow.  Harry, struck out of his own reverie by a fresh round of applause, immediately registered two things.  First, Snape, looking aghast and infuriated, was shooting daggers at Professor White, the woman sitting to Dumbledore’s right.  And second, Professor White was, if anything, the mirror opposite of Professor van der Witte.  Over robes of a dark green against pale skin, Professor White’s jet black hair tumbled in waves over her shoulders as her stormy eyes roamed the faces in the Hall.  She did not possess the Veela-like beauty of the new Muggle Studies professor; her mouth was a little crooked, her smile a little too guarded, and her nose less pointed and slightly off-centre.  But there was an enigmatic cloud about her that gave him pause.

Almost immediately the room flashed red as his scar seared painfully into his forehead.  Harry wanted to vomit, as if the cells of his internal organs were scrambling over each other to get out.  The pain was excruciating.  He doubled over, both hearing and feeling the thud! of his head against the table edge.  A single, distant gasp.  Then blackness. 

When he came to, both Professor van der Witte’s and Professor White’s eyes were on him.  As were those of all the teachers at the head table and most of the students in the Hall.  He must have cried out and fainted.  The sight of the school nurse Madam Pomfrey kneeling beside him on the floor was a dead giveaway.

The concerned and curious whispers in the Hall percolated rapidly into a deafening din until Dumbledore ordered silence.  On the arms of  two seventh year students, on Madame Pomfrey’s orders, Harry was carried out in the direction of the infirmary.  There, she forced him to down a long draught of strong hot chocolate before committing him to sleep for the rest of the day.  But when Madam Pomfrey’s robes disappeared from the long cold room, all Harry could see were those stormy eyes that called to mind the jagged rocks at the bottom of the ocean.

To Be Continued…