The Web Wizard

The term wore on, and Tara found herself enjoying her work immensely. A few scrapes with Snape occurred now and then, but she enjoyed taunting him, and brushed away her fascination with him and concentrated on her friend, Seth. They were seeing each other fairly regularly and she was becoming quite accustomed to riding behind him on his broomstick.

She got to see her first Quidditch game and was fascinated--and hooked. She wished she could play, but as a muggle, it simply wasn't possible to fly on her own.

One day when she and Minerva were walking through the castle, a door that hadn't been open before was, and Tara saw a piano inside. She stopped and gasped. "A piano!!!!!"

"Yes, it's been here for years," Minerva said, and followed Tara inside. Tara sat down at the piano, and struck a chord.

"No one has played it in years," Minerva told her.

"How is it that it is in perfect tune then? Oh wait, don't tell me. Magic."

"You're really catching on. Do you play?"

"Yes, it's been a while, not since before I came here. I have a piano at home and like to unwind with a glass of wine and some music," she said, and started a classical piece. Minerva listened, impressed, then Tara hit a wrong note and cursed.

"Go on, keep playing!"

"Naw, I'm a tad rusty. But would it be possible for me to have access to this room so I can unwind a bit at night sometimes?"

"Of course. I'll see to it that Dumbledore gives you a key."

The key came later that day and Tara purchased downloaded sheet music from the Internet. It was about 11 PM when she took a nice bottle of wine from her small refrigerator, a glass, an armload of sheet music, and, clad in her dressing gown, she headed downstairs to play. It was hard to carry the lantern, but she managed. She opened the door, set her things down, and lit the candles on the wall. She couldn't wait to play!

She poured herself a full glass of Chardonnay and began with scales to warm up her hands. It was a bit chilly in the room; there was a fireplace but she didn't have the magic to light it the way her magical friends did. No kindling either for a muggle to use, so she had to warm her hands with her breath.

She went through all of the pieces she knew and had brought with her, then started working on Moonlight Sonata. She loved that piece and it somehow reminded her of something...something deep in her soul and she didn't know what.

She returned to bed a few hours later, happy with her experience. It felt good to get away from the computer for a while and concentrate on something different. This quickly became her night time ritual, unless she and Seth had gone out; then she would just return to bed since it was often past midnight when she would return. He was nice to be with and made her feel good. But there was no spark which saddened her, but oh well, she was only dating and having fun.

One night, she was playing Moonlight Sonata, and feeling the passion that was personified by the moody music. She felt herself get lost in it, as it went to a minor key and then resolved again. It had taken her a few weeks of constantly practicing passages to get the notes correct; it was a good thing she had long fingers because this piece definitely required her entire span of reach, which was 10 keys. She was feeling the music and knew it by heart now, and had closed her eyes, and reached the final notes, and just froze, with her eyes closed. She had a lump in her throat and swiped her eyes.

"Miss Hall, I had no idea you were so ... multi-faceted," an all too familiar voice purred. Oh SHIT what is HE doing here? Tara gathered her robe tightly around her and tightened her sash to make sure she wasn't showing cleavage, and turned slowly.

Severus Snape was there, just inside the door. She hadn't even heard him come in. She poured herself another glass of wine and he sat down on the bench beside her, the only place to sit in the small room. It must have been the wine because she suddenly felt very dizzy. The heat seemed to have gone up 10 degrees, although the fireplace was still cold.

"Go on, play some more," he encouraged her. She said not a word, just looked at him with wide eyes. He nodded to her, as if to say, "it's okay." She stumbled for a moment mentally, then played another song that stirred passion in her - Nocturne in E Flat Major by Chopin. She didn't know the full version of this piece; she had an intermediate version but had modified it to include some of the parts of the 'hard version' that she could play. She tried to forget he was there, but she could feel the warmth from his body, even though he was a cold person. She closed her eyes and played, and transported her self to her special place, far away from this castle, computers, and this guy who made her nervous...but lately he wasn't making her the same kind of nervous...she finished the piece and made hardly any mistakes. Each time she did, Severus noticed she would grimace. He found this enchanting, and was finding her rather enchanting, so much that it was getting difficult to avoid her; he didn't want to avoid her anymore.

Finished with the piece, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"I hope I didn't wake you up or anything," she finally said.

"You didn't; I was in the dungeon late, and was walking by and heard one of my favorite pieces of all time," he said, staring into her eyes.

"Which one?" she stammered, finding her voice, which would only come out in a little croak.

"That Beethoven piece....Moonlight Sonata is it?" he asked, pointing to the sheet music. He looked at it and shook his head. "I can't understand how you can make music out of these weird little symbols," he commented.

"Well, I can't understand how you can make potions out of weird little ingredients that do things like heal knees and cure hangovers," she said softly, sensually.

"It just takes practice," he said, as he leaned closer to her.

"So does this..." she said, her voice trailing off. Oh my God, I've had WAY too much wine if I'm going to kiss this nasty old git, she thought to herself, when suddenly the door opened. Both turned, startled, to see Hagrid standing in the doorway.

"Oh, I'm sorry to have interrupted you," he said, with a cough, meant to cover a laugh. "We've got problems again - there are students out of bed. We need everyone to go look for em'. I didn't mean to interrupt your, uh, time together--" Hagrid stammered.

"I was just playing the piano and the Professor came in to listen. Come, let's look for them. Who is missing exactly?" Tara stood up and exchanged glances quickly with Snape. The heat had been turned off between them with the crisis at hand.

"Okay I'll meet you out at the Quidditch field, we're all gathering there," Hagrid said, heading back out. Tara busied herself extinguishing candles in the small room, feeling Snape's eyes on her. Finally, she turned to him and opened the door to let him out.

"Good evening, Professor Snape," she said simply.

"Good evening, Miss Hall. We'd better go see what is going on."

"Yes, we'd better," she said, locking the door behind them, and they headed out to take care of their students, who quite possibly could have been injured - or worse.

Fortunately, neither was the case. A few in the Slytherin house had gotten one of the first years to go out to the forest on a dare.

"I have to deal with this," Snape said to Dumbledore.

"Yes. Good night, all," Dumbledore said, and he and the other faculty members started off towards their respective quarters. Tara remained behind for a moment, locking eyes with Snape. The heat was coming back up again.

"I'd better...handle this situation," he said slowly.

Tara nodded and turned to walk away.

"You play magnificently, Miss Hall," he called after her.

She stopped and turned around, flushing. "Thank you." She said, then turned again and walked away. He watched her walk into the darkness without him...