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"Hermione--you going to eat that?"
Ron looked up from a drumstick he was most definitely eating and glanced
across to Hermione Granger, sitting on Harry's other side. Hermione's fork,
laden with a generous lump of mashed sweet potato, had frozen halfway up
to her mouth and was staying there. Ron raised his eyebrows.
"'ehmyanie?" Ron managed around a mouthful of turkey.
"Look," their friend--and incidentally, prefect--hissed. She
nodded in the direction of the teacher's table. "Sitting down beside Snape
there."
Harry and Ron's eyes followed hers and lighted on a tall woman, made
even more so by her pointed hat. A new professor, a new oddity.
"Bloody hell," Ron breathed. "What is she wearing?"
Odd indeed. The newcomer wore her witch's robes loosely; they were
on the verge of falling off her shoulders. Beneath the uniform one could
easily see a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, dominated by a rearing
Chinese dragon curling around a ball of complicated Celtic knots, all of
it in silver.
The three friends weren't the only ones staring: the entire Gryffindor
table had taken notice by now, and no doubt the Slytherins were already
whispering among themselves about...
"My God," George Weasley, having chosen to sit across from them for
the express purpose of annoying his little brother. "Is that our--"
"--Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" his twin finished.
"She's practically a Muggle!" Ron exclaimed. Hermione shot him a dirty
look from around Harry and Ron flushed. "Sorry, Hermione."
"If she were a Muggle," Hermione said a touch icily, "then she wouldn't
be here at Hogwarts, would she?"
Harry almost smiled at the familiar, prim tone in Hermione's voice:
he and Ron had been afraid that, upon being made a prefect, their old friend
would become a, well, a Percy. Fortunately, from the beginning of buying
their books in Diagon Alley, neither had detected any superiority coming
from her.
Well, any more superiority than usual. Which, he supposed, was more
than they had asked for. Fred had said that since Hermione already was
a Percy, there would be no getting worse for her.
"Look at her, though!" Ron insisted. "She looks like a seventh year."
The woman who had, undeniably, taken the infamous seat beside Professor
Severus Snape did look extremely young. And it didn't help that, as she
turned her head to glance at something, the hair that was pulled back into
a low ponytail was revealed to be a pale ice-blonde...accented with blood
red highlights.
Ron's eyes were bugging out of his head. "Bloody. Hell."
Harry was watching the teachers. Dumbledore leaned forward to catch
the new teacher's attention. He smiled at her over his half-moon spectacles;
she only nodded curtly back and looked away, not touching the food that
had appeared on her golden plate. Dumbledore, not looking in the least
bit put out, turned back to McGonagall.
I wonder how badly Snape will hate this one, Harry wondered,
reaching for his cup of butterbeer while watching the teacher's table from
the corner of his eye. From the buzz of the Great Hall he could pick out
snatches of conversation, and nearly all of them were about the new teacher.
"A girl. This's the first time since..."
"Look at those clothes. They let her in like that?"
"I think they're wicked."
"Harry...Harry!"
He started and looked over at Ron, who had nudged him a bit sharply
in the ribs. "What?"
"Look at Snape," his friend whispered, pointing. Harry followed his
finger and so did Hermione.
Snape, with his greasy hair and sour expression, had been staring at
the girl who was sitting in the chair he so wanted with natural dislike.
But now the subtle sneer that distorted his thin face was rapidly melting
away, replaced by a shocked, disoriented kind of expression. He looked
quickly away from the strange teacher, one hand to his forehead, staring
into nothing. His eyes closed as though he were in pain.
Mad Eye Moody's replacement never looked his way once.
Harry saw Dumbledore exchange a glance with McGonagall before he looked
to Snape and spoke. Snape inclined his head and actually shuddered, then
suddenly stood. Harry didn't even see him say anything to excuse himself.
He turned and walked out of the Great Hall, heading for the dungeons.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched, rapt, as first Dumbledore then McGonagall
made eye contact with the young professor. She looked away with an air
of indifference, but Harry thought she seemed a bit grim.
The entire Hall and subsequently quited then reached new heights of
noise when Snape left. Hermione turned her head back towards Harry, then
Ron. "What was that allabout?"
Harry only shook his head. It was going to be an interesting year.