Animalexus

"Good, Hermione, that's good. You're letting your wrists turn in too much, keep those thumbs on top--that's better." Marie stood in the center of the main outdoor ring, watching Hermione pilot an older cob by the name of Archie around the rail. She'd begun giving Hermione private lessons when it became clear that she was the only Seventh Year among the beginning riders--and when Marie realized she actually enjoyed the company of someone her own age who knew that her name was not, in fact, Marie Lancet. "Go ahead and walk him out. I think that's enough for today."

Marie joined them in the barn aisle afterwards. She picked up a soft brush and ran it over Archie's dark coat while Hermione wiped down her tack. "You're looking really good out there, Hermione."

The younger girl blushed but didn't say anything.

"No, I mean that. And Archie likes you. Right, Archie?" she asked, addressing the horse. "You like Hermione?"

"She's hardly God's gift to horses, but she's sure as hell better than that lard-arsed kid you had on my back yesterday," he snorted.

"He definitely likes you," Marie assured Hermione.

"Well, I'm certainly enjoying riding more than I expected to. I never thought much of horses, to be honest, but now I daresay I've been converted."

Marie offered a small grin. "Always good to hear. We welcome all at the Church of the Equine."

Hermione matched her smile, then let it fall. "I won't be able to come to my lesson next week, of course. Exams." Marie nodded. She already knew Hermione too well to expect her to give up even a couple of hours of study time to come to the barn. She'd miss seeing her friend, but it would give her some free time to take Mash out on a hack, maybe. "I'm sure I'll see you at the Yule Ball, of course."

Marie looked up. "What's that?"

"Oh! It's one of Hogwarts' better traditions, if I do say so myself. It's a ball held after exams, for Fourth Years and above only. All of the faculty always comes--I imagine it's required for you, actually--and everyone wears the most amazing dress robes--I already have mine; they're the most beautiful shade of blue you could--" She cut herself off suddenly, evidently realizing that she'd begun to sound like a typical teenager. "It's a good time. Your typical holiday party."

Marie was about to nod in agreement when Hermione's last words caught her breath in her throat. 'Typical holiday party' meant something very different to her after last year; she'd been taken to a holiday revel at Malfoy Manor that lasted two days straight. Marie didn't remember most of those two days, which worried her more than anything she did recall. She cleared her throat, now. "Sounds good," she agreed. "Can I--can I ask you something?"

Hermione put down the brush in her hand, straightened. "Of course you can," she said, suddenly serious.

"How long did it take you to get used to all this?" Marie asked. "Magic?"

Hermione rocked back on her heels, thought a few minutes before answering. "Well, not as long as it took my parents, certainly." She offered a small smile. "I was quite young. I suppose I thought it was just another adventure, another aspect of life to be explored. And I did a bit of research before I came. Still, that first day in Diagon Alley was something of a shock."

"Diagon Alley?"

"A magical shopping district in London. It's where most of we students get our school things before the beginning of each year."

Marie nodded. She reached into her pocket, rolled the sugar cube she found there between her fingers. She pulled it out after a moment and offered it to Archie, who took it, typically, without a thank-you. "And how did you first come to know about it all?"

"There were a few incidents when I was young, I suppose. Broken glass a few times, and once I magically tripped a girl at school from a good twenty meters away. But those were simply 'unexplained occurrences' until I got my letter of invitation to Hogwarts. Delivered by owl. My first real connection with the world of magic, I suppose." She seemed to know that her answer was somehow inadequate, and she raised a hand to Archie's mane and smoothed the strands repeatedly, the way one might a doll's hair.

"The first spell I ever saw cast," Marie said, looking not really at Hermione but at the wall behind her, "Was the Killing Curse. My father and then my mother an instant later. In the space of the two hours following that, I was Apparated, ordered to speak to an owl and hit with Cruciatus when I hesitated, placed under Imperius and forced to further demonstrate that I was indeed the Animalexus, and had a binding Mark burned into my arm." Marie faltered for a moment. She supposed the Dark Lord had wanted her to see what she was up against right from the start, to know what he could do to her if she refused him, but even the memory chilled her to her core. She cleared her throat. "Anyway. That was my introduction to the world of magic, and that, coupled with potions and more spells and legillimency and dungeons, has been my experience of it ever since."

Hermione was staring, her hand hovering halfway to Archie's mane, and for a fleeting moment Marie felt something like regret for throwing all this information at the girl. But hell, she'd been forced to live all that when she was Hermione's age, or less; the least Hermione could do was listen to it.

"My God, Marie, I had no idea you--"

"Never mind," Marie snapped, suddenly wishing she'd kept her mouth shut, wishing she'd never even met Hermione, never ended up liking her and befriending her.

"No, I--"

"You're going to be late for your next class, Hermione."

"I can't--"

"I'll take care of Archie." She clipped a lead to the horse's headcollar and led him off down the aisle, away from the bewildered Hermione. "Good luck on your exams," she called over her shoulder, without looking back.

***

Snape wrapped his cloak more tightly around himself. The first of the winter winds had descended on Hogwarts this evening, and their bite was more than even he could ignore. "Bloody girl has to live out here in the bloody barn," he muttered to himself. "Can't even stay inside like a civilized person..."

The lights in the main aisles of the three barns were out, but the small windows of the apartment above glowed with flickering yellow light. Snape trudged up the steps and had just lifted his fist to knock when the door pulled open.

"A bit later than usual, aren't you?" Marie said.

"I was supervising a detention," he explained, resenting in some part of himself that he was even offering an explanation. He shrugged his cloak off and hung it behind the door. "That damned Potter."

Marie had already settled back into one of the chairs near the dark fireplace--Snape figured that had to be magical; it wasn't physically or practically possible for there to be a fireplace in the loft of a barn. This main room of the apartment was sparsely furnished: just the bed, itself simple and plain, a wardrobe and two small tables, one on either side of the bed, and a desk with a large cabinet overhead. There had only been the one chair the first time Snape came here; he'd charmed the second, along with a pair of low end tables, and Marie had evidently seen fit to keep them. Either that, he thought, or she simply didn't know how to get rid of them.

She didn't bother watching him, now. She was reading something, a small book that looked decidedly magical, and she held a glass of wine in her free hand, swirling the dark liquid slightly. She didn't offer him a drink, but in the week or so that Snape had been coming to her apartment to teach her, he'd grown used to this indifference. She worked hard to prove to him that she was comfortable here in her own rooms, and she did so mostly by refusing to show even the most basic of manners. He went to the cupboard and poured himself a whiskey before taking the chair opposite.

Marie kept reading. This sort of insolence from an ordinary student would have Snape in a rage, but he'd decided that for all he'd taken from her, the least he could do was allow her her few minutes of childish silence at the beginning of each of these lessons. The simple fact that she was not required, here, to call him 'Sir' must have been a major victory.

She continued reading for a moment before deliberately closing the book and setting it on the table next to her. She looked up and held his gaze as she took a slow sip of her wine--the gesture seemed incredibly adult, and Snape realized how much she'd been aged by her years with the Dark Lord--before setting the glass, too, on the table. "So," she said, and didn't continue.

"Have you begun your lessons with Minerva?"

"Yesterday."

"And?"

Marie tipped her head in a near-shrug. "And I am now well on may way to being able, as you put it, to 'turn a rock into a toad'."

Snape kept his expression flat. "I do hope you didn't phrase it as such in her presence."

"I restrained myself."

"That's most--Gods, girl, what are you wearing?" Snape had only just noticed Marie's rather unorthodox attire.

She glanced down at her clothes. "Jeans?"

"Muggle clothing." He snorted. "Where the hell did you get them?"

"Hermione Granger gave me a pair of hers. We charmed them to fit." Snape rolled his eyes. Granger, of course. Had probably been the blasted Mudbl--Muggleborn's own idea, too. Marie scowled. "I'll have you know, Professor, that these are not only comfortable, they're also far more durable than robes, which are hardly appropriate for stablework." The girl stood in a huff and started to unbutton her shirt. Before Snape had a chance to demand what in the name of Merlin she was doing, she'd pulled it off to reveal yet another piece of Muggle clothing, some sort of sleeveless close-fitting shirt. It was not, to Snape's eye, the sort of thing one should be wearing in the presence of anyone but one's own mirror, but as Marie had always struck him as rather overmodest anyway, he gathered that it was acceptable in whatever backwards society she'd been raised.

She made no move to advance the conversation, so Snape cleared his throat and took his wand from beneath his robes. "You don't know any defensive spells, do you? Shields, deflections, that sort of thing?"

Marie shook her head. He couldn't help but notice that she'd gone stiller the moment he'd taken his wand into his hand, that she kept one eye on the dark wood at all times. He doubted she even knew she was doing it, and he was sure she'd stop if she realized how blatant the habit made her fears.

"These days, they're most often used by Aurors and sport duelers, but they're plenty useful in practice. There are several levels of shielding charms, and it's important to remember that the strongest aren't necessarily the best. The stronger the shield, the longer the incantation is likely to be and the more concentration and movement is required. Spells with shorter incantations and fewer required movements might not be as powerful, but they can be cast in a split second and might be enough to weaken a curse to the point of ineffectiveness."

Marie was frowning deeply, and Snape wondered if it was mere concentration, or if she was remembering the same moments she was, those last seconds of her parents' lives. Her father--he'd been an Auror, Snape knew, though he'd never met the man before--had thrown up his hands at the sight of the DeathEaters who had burst into his home. He'd shouted a few words of an incantation, and then he died. Snape had heard rumors that the Llewellur family had a certain propensity for wandless magic, but he'd never seen anything like that from Marie, not even in her most desperate, instinct-driven moments, and her father certainly hadn't been able to muster any kind of defense against Snape's curse that last night.

Snape stood, the swishing of his robes breaking through the pall that had descended on the apartment. He automatically adopted his usual teaching posture, back straight, chin lifted so that he had to scowl downwards to see his pupil. "For example, the Deflection Defense in its strongest form requires a three-part incantation: 'Excursus Totallus Reboundi'. However, should one find the--"

He broke off, realizing that Marie wasn't even paying attention to what he was saying. She was watching him, yes, but with a strange look in her eye, something halfway between reckless loathing and calculating astuteness. It bothered him in an abstract sort of way; she was usually quite intent on learning anything he might be able to teach her in terms of defenses or curses.

"What is it?" he snapped finally, impatient with her scrutiny.

"Come here," she said, picking up that small book and moving towards the other room in her apartment, the kitchen.

Snape rose and followed her, but more out of exasperation than obedience. Her kitchen, he found, was less Spartan than the rest of the apartment. Marie evidently preferred to do her own cooking, as there was a rather precarious stack of dirty dishes in the sink, and there were two small piles of chopped herbs on a block cutting board on the counter. Good knife technique, Snape noticed idly. Even cutting. Good trait for a potions practitioner.

Most noticeable, however, was the tiny black form asleep on a pile of blankets in the far corner of the room. Snape felt his lip curl back automatically when he laid eyes on the creature. Superstition or no, Thestrals had unnerved him. He couldn't decide what was worse; the leathery bat-like wings or the arched, reptilian face. Or maybe the fact that he'd been able to see them from the first day he'd arrived at Hogwarts as a boy.

"You obviously know what that is," Marie said icily, pointing. Her binding Mark stood out starkly against her pale skin. "Hagrid found it this morning in the Forest--orphaned, it seems--and brought it here for safekeeping until it's a few days old." She turned to face him, still moving with those uncharacteristically cold, precise movements. "You are the only reason I can see that thing."

"I know for a fact, Miss Llewellur," Snape said, adopting an equally distant tone, "That you have witnessed many, many deaths not perpetrated by me."

"I wouldn't have been able to see it at the moment you walked into my house two and a half years ago," she spat, some emotion at last beginning to break through in her tone. Snape was almost relieved to see that her eyes were glistening.

He wasn't about to let that show in his manner, of course. "Miss Llewellur," he said, pacing the words, drawing them out, "I have not given up my evenings to bear witness to your adolescent temper tantrums. If you wish to continue your tutoring, let us proceed. If not, I shall leave immediately and I will not be returning."

Appealing to reason, it seemed, was not going to be an effective tactic this evening. Marie was fairly bristling with fury, and for an instant Snape thought she was going to raise her wand and curse him--it wouldn't take even an ounce of effort to deflect whatever she threw at him, of course; in this state it was bound to be unstable and carelessly directed--but instead she threw a magazine onto the heavy oak table between them. It was one of the better wizarding news weeklies, a current issue. On the cover, the Dark Mark swirled in the sky over the charred remains of a small house. 'WHERE WILL IT END?' demanded the headline.

"Why do you do this shit?" hissed Marie, unable even to raise her eyes from the picture and look at Snape. "What could possibly appeal about this?"

"You have to understand," Snape said, surprising even himself, "That when the Dark Lord sets out to recruit DeathEaters, he does not approach them and ask them to give up all the safety and security they have in order to commit crimes on his behalf and risk Azkaban or the wrath of an angry Auror. Or I don't know," he added, more quietly, "Perhaps in some cases he does. I imagine he's more than capable of tailoring his pitch to the individual. You hate him, Marie, but I know you've seen how charismatic he can be. How persuasive."

Snape fell silent for a moment. He'd thought he was so bloody smart. He could see through this man calling himself Voldemort, he thought. He been absolutely certain he'd be able to use the position he offered, take advantage of the opportunities it would present, use it as the means to success he'd never had. It was a very Slytherin way of thinking, Snape acknowledged, now. Believing the things he did to gain his success were warranted because he'd been deprived for so long. He would be smart enough to use this chance to his own advantage, and then he'd be finished with it. Leave the DeathEaters behind, because although he agreed with their core principles, they were fanatics, through and through. They didn't reason the way he did.

"Suffice to say," Snape said now, forcing himself to meet Marie's eyes, "That I believed I could manipulate the situation to my benefit, and that I was incorrect in my supposition."