Shivers of a Serpent

Chapter 1: Brewings of a Storm

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Albus Dumbledore got to his feet slowly in front of his uncharacteristically quiet audience. Their apprehensive faces followed his eyes as they swept around the Great Hall, seemingly appraising each of one of his students as he tugged on his beard. Some eyes, including many of those at the Slytherin table, remained downcast; some met his gaze with trepidation, others with pure fear. However restrained they were in meeting the gaze of their headmaster, their eyes could not keep from darting to the pale, lifeless forms lying on the cold marble floor in front of them.

Albus's gaze had finished sweeping the hall and had come to rest on the crumpled bodies of the unconscious, bloodied Muggles lying in front of him: an old man with a heavy handlebar moustache and glasses askance, his wife's pink bonnet blood-stained and hanging off her neck. Little had they known that their innocent Sunday afternoon stroll through the Scottish countryside would have resulted in such horror and destruction.

He found himself so appalled that such young people, and to top it all his students, could inflict such horrors. Albus had always thought Hogwarts would be a safe haven for these young people in the face of dark times ahead, and never thought that he'd see the day when the Dark Lord's influence would be emanating from inside the walls. Quelling the shudders that had been building up inside him he realised how wrong he had been. His students looked up at him as they waited for him to begin: the compassionate Hufflepuffs filled with sympathy for the innocents before them, the shrewd Ravenclaws stunned as they realised the deeper implications of what was surrounding them, the brave Gryffindor filled with righteous anger, and ...the Slytherins. A mixture of fear and defiance; shame and pride. Their furtive glances towards each other and scared, defiant faces confirmed that what Dumbledore was most afraid of was beginning.

The houses were turning against each other and, along with them for sure, their families and the rest of the wizarding World. Voldemort's opposition was crumbling to pieces by its own hand, just as he had intended all along. The old man vowed not to let this incident divide them. Tom Riddle was clever, but Albus Dumbledore was cleverer.

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Hermione ran up the stairs towards the top of the tower, ignoring Ron's feeble attempts to divert her attention, and flung herself on her bed, a sob escaping from her lips just as the door slammed behind her. The image of those poor Muggles burned into her eyes as she slammed her fist down on the pillow.

She could not believe what Hogwarts had been reduced to. Hogwarts - Albus Dumbledore's stronghold, Harry's haven from the Dursleys, the one place in the wizarding world where Hermione felt she had always truly belonged. Hermione had never imagined that the influence of dark magic would truly infiltrate its walls, and that if it had, it would come from the top -from Voldemort himself. The direct and honest Gryffindor inside her would have imagined the greatest terror and threat to the school would be Voldemort in person, but as her world crashed around her, the sinister realisation came to her that the evil's infiltration began with the lowest ranks of Voldemort's chain of command, and would escalate until all was within his grasp.

She pounded her fist on the bed again in a sudden fit of rage. How could this have happened? How could mere students, one day happily going to and fro to their classes, suddenly turn into servants of the Dark Lord? No matter that the Muggles were not dead but merely stunned, no matter that it had only been a few students - the whole school and the whole wizarding world was reeling from the shock. Something had to be done right away before the shock was numbed and this sort of event became the norm. But what?

A knock sounded at the door and Hermione tensed. Knowing she couldn't hold them off any longer she hastily wiped the tears from her face and squeaked "Come in". Ron's anxious face poked around the door and he stepped in, followed by an impassive-looking Harry.

"Hi."

"Hi," she returned weakly.

After a slight pause, Ron made his way over to the bed and sat at the end of it awkwardly. Harry just stood in the doorway blankly staring out the window. The silence stretched on for a while as each remained lost in their private thoughts.

"I guess you didn't see the notice board then," Ron said morosely. Hermione looked at him confusedly -

"What, just now? Why?"

"Well Dumbledore certainly isn't wasting any time: he said we needed to act fast and....well."

Hermione was still confused, and, as that seemed to be the only explanation Ron had to offer, she turned towards Harry.

"What does it say? Is it punishment? For everyone or just for the dirty rotten..." She stopped, fists clenched tightly, unable to continue.

Harry finally turned his head away from the window, eyes far away still. "We're leaving tomorrow," he said as if from a great distance. "Everybody. divided up into Muggle boarding schools for a month."

Hermione sat on her bed, mouth agape at this astonishing new turn of events. Still digesting what this meant, she heard Ron whine -

"But I don't understand why! Why not just send those Slytherin gits away and leave us all in peace?"

"To send them away would be to alienate them, Ron," Hermione replied quickly, her voice a little stronger now. "Dumbledore wants to remind us that we are all in this together, and that the greatest form of punishment is to live with the guilt of what we have done."

"What? You've lost me Hermione," Ron said, expelling a sigh as he flopped backwards and lay on the bed gazing up at the ceiling.

"Don't you understand? It's all about tolerance. The wizarding world needs to understand that Muggles are humans just like them, and not what they've accepted blindly from birth, that they are inferior," she said with a sniff as she once again quelled the tears threatening to start from behind her eyelids.

Ron looked at her open-mouthed and then laughed shortly. "Trust the old man to do what Voldemort would never expect."

Harry looked up, fire burning in his eyes.

"Exactly."