The Syndicate

Chapter 8 - Questions

Albus Dumbledore couldn't help but be a little flabbergasted at watching an injured man who should barely have the energy to talk let alone move leap out of his bed as if it were on fire and run to the end of the hall only to peek out of the door. His tired and weary bones protested getting out of the comfortable seat but he did it nonetheless and made his way behind his friend.

"What are you looking at Severus?"

Snape turned around and faced his headmaster not really wanting to believe what his eyes had just shown him. He always knew that there was something about Vicious that others didn't seem to take any notice of. Despite his young age he held an air of power around him much like Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle. No one seemed to notice it much however as it was cleverly concealed. Should he trust the headmaster with this piece of knowledge? What would Albus really do with it? Finally deciding that there just wasn't enough information to go on right now he put back on the blank mask that he was used to wearing at his death eater meetings and answered his long time friend with a lie that he would never be able to forgive himself for.

"Nothing. It was nothing at all. I just thought that I heard someone screaming and had the notion that death eaters might have followed me here. Although it seems that I was wrong in that assumption."

Now Albus Dumbledore might have been old but he was not senile. He knew that he had just been lied to and he desperately wanted to know the truth but he knew that asking the potions master now would be futile. After all he was the one who taught the man when he first came to him as a boy how to keep secrets and not divulge them. Perhaps he taught him too well but the knowledge came in handy when he went to work as a spy. Oh well, if it was truly important then he would find out eventually. Helping the injured man back into the bed he had vacated he couldn't help but wander what in the world had happened.

Vicious Bromista made his way through the halls of Hogwarts toward his rooms. After walking upon several of the students who were out after dark and removing points from their houses while assigning them the promised detention in the Forbidden Forest he reached his chambers. Seeing the painting of the warrior covered in blood who happened to go be the name of Athed (an anagram for death) he whispered the password.

"May god have mercy on my soul for what I have to become to do what must be done."

The portrait bowed to the man acknowledging both the truth behind these words and the fact that it was the password that Vicious had chosen when he accepted the position as professor. Upon entering his chambers, he noticed Athena leaving her perch to fly over to land on his shoulder, trying to comfort him and help replenish the energy that he had lost.

"Don't worry Athena," he spoke to his ice phoenix while stroking her back to show that he cared for his pet, "I will soon recover on my own. Freezing day will be soon and I do not want you to tax yourself out. If you use too much of your energy you know that you might not come back."

Athena nodded accepting her master's decision. When a phoenix bonds to a wizard or to a witch then they have the ability to feel the emotions of one another. She knew that fate seemed to plot against him in elaborate schemes and the only way that he could truly be free was when Voldemort finally met his end. Vicious didn't realize that Athena knew so much about him but he knew that she had decided to stay by his side until the very end. He didn't feel so alone now. Making his way over to his couch, he laid down and fell asleep under the watchful gaze of Athena who prayed to herself that her master would be alright and would one day be free to soar and free to be himself.

Everyone has the ability to wear a mask some more so than others. Severus observed this as he sat at the head table the morning that he was released from the infirmary. The students as well as most of the faculty were looking at him with some sort of morbid curiosity, like when you would pass an accident or know of an accident and wanted to see for yourself. One man was different though and that one man had been the one that he had been thinking about since that fateful night.

Severus Snape was not attracted to him. This man had been running through his mind because he was a mystery that just refused to be solved. How was he able to turn into shadows? That was supposed to be humanly impossible, that is if he were completely human. Still, no magical creature known to man had the ability to do what he had seen that man do. It was all very confusing and more often than not gave the former death eater a headache. Vicious was acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened to the "greasy bastard" at all. Most would have pitied the potions master but this man simply refused to and still treated him the same way.

"So Professor Snape how do you feel today?" Minerva McGonagall asked in a voice that was as nice and compassionate as the stern lady would allow in front of anyone else.

"How do you think I feel?" Snape sneered at the woman who had given him pity. He could not help but notice the hurt look that crossed over her face. She was only trying to be nice after all, and that made the man almost feel bad for what he had just done. Almost.

"Like a bloody bastard as always," Vicious interrupted from the other side of Severus. The others looked at him with something akin to hatred in their eyes for the way that he was treating the crippled man that they had taught alongside of for years, "I will not give you pity like everyone else for your arm. You made your own choices in life whether you like it or not and I will not treat you any differently than I have before. You are still and will always be the same greasy bastard that you were before and I am still the same teacher from hell."

That said Vicious stood up from the table and made his way toward his office since it was a Saturday and he had a lot of tests to grade. The other teachers and students that were close enough to hear the conversation could not believe that the defense against the dark arts teacher had been that insensitive. Following him as he left the hall their gazes were full of hate and scorn thus when they turned back to Snape to see how he had taken it they could only be shocked.

Severus Snape couldn't help the smile that crept up on his face even after he noticed the stunned gazes. Bromista had not taken pity like the rest and had actually made sure that he knew that he would be treated no differently. While others would pity him Vicious would not take up that role even if everyone else hated him. Greasy Bastard as he was he was now convinced that he had not made the wrong choice by keeping what he had seen a secret from the headmaster that night nearly a week ago and that one day the two of them might actually become something like friends. Both of them were similar in the way that they acted and both of them were loners who kept to themselves for their own reasons. Friends indeed.

Upon reaching the door to his office he took off the locking charm that he had on the door that kept the students out and moved into the chair behind his desk that was burdened by large stacks of paperwork on the top. God he hated grading papers because each and every single one had to be gone through thoroughly. His classes were beginning to shape up and had learned faster than he had given them credit for. Always having to maintain his teacher from hell persona he had to keep pushing them far beyond the limit. Now he began to realize his problem. He had taught them everything too soon. They were more knowledgeable now than even the seventh years. He had to push the sixth year class the most, as they were the ones that the future pivoted itself on. Unbeknownst to them they were the next leaders of society. Still he had almost run out of stuff to teach all of the different classes. Athena trilled in a way of greeting as she flew in through the window and landed on her perch in the corner to keep him company. Sighing he decided to get it over with and grade the bloody things.

Nearing lunchtime he was finished with nearly three fourths of the papers. They were nearly perfect in their answers so he wouldn't have much to count off on if anything at all. Naïve as they were they had no idea of the amount of knowledge they had acquired in just several months time. These were the tests that the students in the A.W.E. had to take. A.W.E. stood for Advanced Wizardry Exams and were the college version of finals that was much harder than the N.E.W.T.S. They actually did a decent job at the answers and many of them might have been able to pass if they learned a little more within the next year. The fact remained that he had taught them too much too fast. He was running out of things to teach them, as they had learned more than most already. Yet he had never taught them the basics and had skipped to the advanced work. They were unbalanced in this and may fail have failed their O.W.L.S. if they had not taken them last year. The fifth year class would most likely fail because they were never taught the basics neither. Basics were a must have for the O.WL.S. and even though these students would have excelled at the N.E.W.T.S they would do poorly on the O.W.L.S. However, this knowledge was required if they were in the need to defend themselves. It was not like knowing about evil slugs would help them in a fight against the most powerful of the dark creatures that roamed the world. For some reason that he was not able to comprehend there was a part in the sixth year classes exams for defense against the dark arts that to do with the Gluss (evil slugs). Silently shaking his head in amusement he was brought out of his thoughts by a knocking on his door.

There had to have been a student at his door and this was a first. The professors would have knocked politely and then entered but the students were to wait outside until told to enter. Using a very nifty spell that he had read from one of the books in the library he looked out his door to see none other than Hermione Granger standing there. Thinking quickly he took his journal (A/N: You will be able to read this journal at a later point in time when the contents of the journal are discovered.) out of a secret compartment in the desk and made sure that the book was unable to be opened for now. Knowing the young witch, she would do anything to solve a mystery and would eventually do just that. Still he had the only book in the entire school that told how to remove the charm in his possession since he had taken it out of the school library. Some more quick thinking and he used his power over shadows to warp the words and make the text look different than it was. Replacing the spell that locked the book shut, he laid the journal on top of his desk and called out to the witch.

"Come in."

Hermione Granger prided herself on being one of the most knowledgeable witches in the school. She was never one to care all that much for gossip and heaven knows that she didn't like Severus Snape but that did not mean that she could ignore what happened at breakfast this morning. Always one to study she had been in the library at the time of the confrontation between Bromista and Snape. Ginny and Ron had rushed there after breakfast to tell her what they had heard. In her mind Bromista had been wrong but something that she did not understand was why he had acted like the Teacher from Hell since school started. When they met in Diagon Alley he seemed really nice under the tough exterior but that was no reason for him to hurt the feelings of a fellow human being like that. In a righteous tirade she made her way down to his office. When she had told Ginny and Ron they had thought that she had lost her mind.

"Ginny I think that we should call St. Mungos and tell them that all the knowledge fried her brain and that they should come and pick her up," Ron said as he looked at her as if she had grown a second head.

"For once I agree with you Ron. Hermione, what could make you even think about going to his office? That would be like going to hell to have a cup of tea with old Lucifer himself. Are you CRAZY? Do not do it. I do not want to see you hurt."

Ron looked confused while Hermione understood perfectly. They had never told Ron that Hermione had feelings for the teacher when they saw him in Diagon Alley. Ginny was afraid that she was going to end up hurting herself because he now acted like he did not care about anybody but himself. Without saying another word she picked up her satchel and walked out of the library to go visit 'old Lucifer.'

"Take a seat, take a seat," he said as he motioned to the empty chair setting across from his desk, which the young witch took with some apprehension thinking that it might have been cursed only to sigh in relief when nothing happened, "now, what brings you down here to visit me? You do know that this is the first time that a student has ever stepped foot in my office?"

"I have come here to talk to you about the way that you treated Professor Snape this morning at breakfast. Have you no compassion? Do you even feel remorse for what you have done? You must since you have a phoenix and they do not choose someone who is not worthy of them," Hermione Granger ranted at the Professor her face becoming a little flushed from her anger at even mentioning it.

"I have no remorse at all for what I said this morning and if you thought that you could come here and try to convince me otherwise then you are a bigger fool than I thought," Professor Bromista stated as he leaned back in his chair enjoying the comforts that came along with the position that he held.

An even further red faced Hermione replied, "What the hell happened to you? You were nice that day in Diagon Alley and now you act like you do not care at all about other people's feelings. The students hate you."

"I am well aware of that," Vicious interrupted another one of her tirades and left her speechless.

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew. I am not deaf or blind you know. Why else would they call me the teacher from hell?"

"Is that why you are so hard on us?"

"My reasons are my own Ms. Granger. As for what happened this morning as I said before the entire population of Hogwarts except for a select few are fools indeed."

"So I am a fool then?" her rage was beginning to make a comeback.

"Yes," before she began to shout he continued, "how would you feel about being treated like a cripple? Everybody in the Great Hall this morning pitied the potions master. The only thing that has changed about him is that now he is missing an arm. He is still the same on the inside and I showed him that he was not going to get pity from me. I am not going to take it easy on him. Severus Snape is a man of honor and to be pitied the way that he was is a slap in the face to him and his family."

She could not believe her ears. Had she really been that big of a fool until the obvious was pointed out to her? A squawk brought her out of her thoughts. Looking over to a perch in the corner of the room a magnificent sight met her eyes.

"She is Athena. You heard about her before in Diagon Alley and I did not know if you remembered that," Hermione could only nod her head to show that she remembered, "Of course you are seeing her at a bad time."

"What do you mean a bad time?" she asked as the phoenix squawked again.

"Normally she is much more beautiful than this. You just happened to catch her on a Freezing Day. Even the headmaster has never seen this yet."

"A Freezing Day?" she asked knowing full well do to her research in the library on the matter that phoenix's had Burning Days not Freezing Days.

"Yes. Athena unlike others of her species is an ice phoenix. She saw ice first not fire. Thus she does not have a burning day like her brethren but a freezing day. Just watch."

Athena squawked a few more times and then something amazing and wonderful happened. Instead of being surrounded by flames the phoenix was surrounded by ice. The ice began to crack and then it came apart into many light blue crystals. Moving around in the crystals was the baby ice phoenix.

"So what do you think?" Vicious asked. Hermione was still speechless at what she had just witnessed. Books had several descriptions about burning days and even though she had never seen a phoenix have a burning day she knew that the privilege of watching this went above and beyond that. This was really, really rare to witness. Walking over to the small bird Vicious picked it up with his hands and turned to speak once more.

"I am going to go to my chambers and place her there so she will be more comfortable. Feel free to stick around if you want to talk some more or you can leave if you want to, I really do not care."

Hermione sat in a chair waiting for the handsome professor to return. Looking around she noticed a book sitting on the professor's desk. It looked like a journal. Well it would not hurt to take a peek now would it? Lifting it from its place she tried to open it only to find that it was spelled shut. This was just another intriguing mystery about the man. She had realized for quite some time now that he was not teaching them anything on this year's curriculum for the sixth year class and that most of it was advanced.

Glancing around quickly she put it in her bag to figure out later and fled from the room at a hurried yet not too rushed pace. Watching her go Vicious stepped out of the shadow that had been next to one of the suits of armor. Having already placed Athena on her perch in his room and telling her to only come to him today if it was a dire emergency he had hid in the shadows by using his power again. He was a little drained since she had taken a while to come out of the room. Stepping into his office he immediately noticed that his journal had been taken. All he had to do now was wait until the right time to use it to his advantage.

Dinner that night was accompanied by fewer glares at Professor Bromista by the students. Hermione had told some of her friends (namely Ron and Ginny) about his reasoning behind it. It was a scrumptious meal as always. Headmaster Dumbledore stood up at the end to make a startling announcement.

"I have something very special planned for next week. As you all know Professor Snape has requested for many years now to teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts. It has also come to my attention that Professor Bromista is a little skilled in the art of potion brewing though not nearly a master or as skilled as Professor Snape. It is my idea that for one week both of these classes will be switched. Professor Snape will teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and Professor Bromista will teach potions. That is all," there was completed silence in the Great Hall as the old man sat back down in his chair.