Dolor Draconum

Chapter the Twenty-Second

Julie Kelp decided she didn't like the holidays. Oh, it was nice not to have thousands of emotions slamming into her, but the teachers were beginning to give her odd looks, and she couldn't decide whether she was just being paranoid about it. Perhaps kissing Severus under the mistletoe last night, Christmas night, was a bad idea. The sheer shock that had rippled around the staff room, shock and disbelief and suppressed laughter, had told her that perhaps most other members of staff wouldn't have touched Snape with a barge pole. Oops.

She missed the spontaneity. Pouncing on him in classrooms. Inviting him into her office under false pretences. Slipping notes into his register. That one had almost got them caught, but a quick 'accio' later and the day was saved.

There was a tattoo on his arm. It was faded, but it looked more like a brand than a conventional tattoo, the flesh around it raw pink scar tissue. She'd asked him about it, idly, one night, but he'd evaded the question. She hadn't asked again. But she had done a little research, which lead to a bit more, which led to a few more unanswered questions.

Voldemort, it seemed, was a very complex man. And if he had one operative in Hogwarts already, and surely Dumbledore knew, then perhaps not everyone thought he was demon he was made out to be. Or perhaps they knew something she didn't.

Power. Standing in the hall, shivering in the thick woollen cloak, that was what it came down to. Without the fires burning, Hogwarts was a cold and miserable place. The other teachers knew the charms and spells to stay warm, but no one had bothered teach her. The burning resentment wasn't enough to keep her warm, though.

Well, in the fantasy books, in the magic, quest filled books, there was a technique, using mirrors or puddles or any reflective surface. They called it scrying. A few of the older texts in the library referred to it. The recent ones debunked it, but Julie, no, Aurora, was certain she could make it work. Splice a few spells together, and she could locate and talk to anyone. Not so hard. Not so hard that a completely untrained witch couldn't do it.

So as she stood there, water seeping up her trousers and her robe, shivering and shaking from the cold, glowering at the chimney through which came an icy draught. So she checked her list, and wondered which student would be gullible enough to go out and buy her some eyebright. It was the wrong time of year for the parasitic plant, but she knew some enterprising local tradesman would have some.

Of course, they weren't supposed to go down to Hogsmeade, not on their own, not during the holidays. But some students had their ways. Harry Potter. Ronald Weasley. And her pet antagonist, Hermione Granger.

She climbed into the Gryffindor common room and was greeted by a blaze of heat. She stood and basked for a second.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" a voice called from beside the fire. Terry Boot was lounging in front of it, bare-footed and pyjamaed.

Aurora smiled. "Envying you your fire. Mind if I come and warm up?"

"Go ahead," he waved her in. "Looking for anyone in particular?"

"I was hoping to find someone to run an errand for me. Strictly unofficial, of course."

"Oh, you're looking for Harry Potter then," Terry said dryly. "We're not allowed down to Hogsmeade just now."

"Neither am I," Aurora grimaced. "All of the other staff members are, but I'm not. I wish they'd make up their minds whether I'm a teacher or a student."

"You know, no offence, but you struck me as rather an odd choice for the new DADA teacher. I mean, you know nothing. Why not get some witch or wizard who can actually give practical demonstrations?"

"You mean Dumbledore must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel?" Aurora forced a laugh. "There was no one else; Terry, isn't it? I was the only applicant. No one wants this job. And I suppose I can see why, now. Quirrel dead, Lockhart without a memory, Lupin disgraced as a werewolf, Moody a fraud, Umbridge, well, phobic of horses and disgraced for being a poor teacher."

"If you don't want the job, quit," Terry said bluntly. "Like everyone else."

"I'm not going to, you know," Aurora said firmly. "I've always wanted to teach, and I've always enjoyed learning. I'm not quitting. I might die or go insane like most of the previous teachers, but I'm not quitting."

Cho appeared, looking harassed. "Men," she muttered under her breath, throwing herself into an armchair. "Boys!"

"Oh dear," Aurora laughed. "What happened?"

Cho frowned at her. "It's just, well, it's Harry. We went out once or twice, he so obviously had a crush on me, but now... I don't know, perhaps it would have been better if we had never gone out. I was still too upset about Cedric, and it all fell apart. Well, I fell apart. But he keeps dropping hints that he wants to have another go, and I just don't want to any more. And I told him so, and he started yelling and I didn't want to hurt him, but he's acting like my sole purpose in life is to torture him. And now he's sulking up there." She sighed and stared at the fire. "I wouldn't even be here, except my father's new girlfriend decided she didn't want me around because it makes her look like a gold-digging tart, which she is, coincidentally."

"Ouch," Aurora said sympathetically.

Cho looked at her pleadingly. "Some people just don't understand that the world doesn't revolve around them, you know? Harry can't get it into his head that my life is enough of a mess as it is without a boyfriend thrown into the equation. My parents are getting divorced, my last boyfriend died, I'm in danger of failing my NEWTs and everyone is putting pressure on me to plan the next sixty plus years of my life out and I don't even know what I'm doing next week!"

Aurora's first impulse was to say: "yeah, life's a bitch like that, isn't it," but she got the impression that perhaps that wouldn't go down too well. She sighed. "Harry has always had a lot of attention focused on him and his problems. You have to tell him, like you did to me just now, why you can't date him right now. He doesn't always register that just because someone doesn't have a dark lord hell bent on their destruction, their life doesn't still suck. You might also want to remind him that you won't be here next year, while he will. That's always worth taking into account in school relationships."

"You're right," Cho shook her head. "I think I'm going to go for a walk to clear my head."

"Outside?" Aurora raised and eyebrow.

"Of course outside," Cho said, looking bemused. "Where else?"

"Well, seeing as it's just as cold and windy inside the castle, and you're less likely to get so imbedded in the ground that you need Hagrid to pull you out, I'd say you might be better off finding a tower to sit at the top off. Hopefully a suitably dramatic breeze will ruffle your hair and make your cloak flow out behind you, so you can pretend you're on the cover of whatever type of novel takes your fancy," Aurora grinned.

Cho chuckled. "Sure," she said, rolling her eyes. "Or maybe I'll just go and pick my way down to the lake and look for the giant squid."

"It's up to you," Aurora told her.

As Cho made her way out of the portrait hole Draco darted through.

"Didn't anyone hear me knocking?" he complained. "I've been standing out there for ten minutes!"

"Forgot the password?" Terry asked teasingly. "It's 'Deck the halls with boughs of Polly'."

"And you wonder why I forgot," Draco said scathingly. "Who on earth is 'Polly'?"

Terry shrugged.

"Why are you here?" Draco turned his attention to Aurora.

Someone could be heard coming down the stairs from the boys dormitories, and Aurora judged from the emotional state that it probably wasn't Harry. Safe, then, to mention him. "I'm looking for someone to run an unauthorised errand. It seems that Harry Potter is out of the question," she said smoothly.

"I'll do it," two voices said simultaneously.

"Right then," Aurora looked from one to the other. "I want three pounds of eyebright, and you can both buy yourself something as a thank you for doing this for me." And she pressed a galleon into Ron's hand and fled before the sheer hostility in the room made her do something she'd regret.

Ron and Draco stared at each other. "I'm going," Ron growled.

"Me too," Draco said.

"Well then, let us go," Ron ground out with mocking formality.

"And how, pray tell," Draco answered in the same tones, "do you suggest we get to Hogsmeade when we aren't allowed out of the castle grounds?"

Ron paused. Did he really want to tell Malfoy about the secret passages? He could vividly remember the look on Malfoy's face when Harry had been hiding under the invisibility cloak and tormenting him. Worse, he could remember the look when Harry's head had appeared. Malfoy knew about the invisibility cloak now; it wouldn't take a genius to work out that Harry really had been in Hogsmeade that day. Of course, most people had already figured that out, but sometimes Malfoy really could be quite slow on the uptake.

"Let me guess, secret passage?" Draco drawled.

Okay, perhaps even Malfoy wasn't that slow.

"Come on, I know this place has them, and I know your brothers must have known about them, so it stands to reason you do. Let's just go, get the weed and, I don't know, some chocolate or butterbeers or something, then get back here. It's bloody cold out."

"I'd rather go alone," Ron said stiffly.

"So would I. Since neither of us is going to give up on this, why not both go. Tell you what, I'll even promise not to insult your family. Now there's a once in a lifetime offer," Draco said snidely.

"Why are you so keen?" Ron asked suspiciously, stepping towards the other boy, galleon clenched tightly in his fist.

"Do you know how many of that woman's lessons I've skipped or been late to?" Draco asked casually. "She knows I hate her anyway. Right now I need to suck up all I can."

"Like you do to Snape?" Ron asked.

"Basically, yes," Draco said candidly. "Now can we go and get the sodding plant?"

"Fine," Ron grumbled. "But remember what you said about the insults. Say one thing, any thing, about my hair or money or parents or brothers or sister or anyone, and I'm knocking you out and leaving you to drown in the mud, got it?"

"Yessir!" Draco mock saluted.