Habitabit lupus cum agno

Hello my faithful readers!

I\'ve not really done anything on my fan fic for a while. I\'m hoping that putting up a site will at least make me get around to writing. I\'ve been rather ill and I\'ve had computer problems, but things are tiding over now, so I should be able to write more. Unfortunately, because I didn\'t check my yahoo account for so long, it got deactivated. It\'s back up now though, so if anyone wants to know when these stories are updated, drop a mail to secretlysnape@yahoo.co.uk and I\'ll add you to the list.

I\'ve put up a website, though, with my fan fic.
It\'s only on geocities at the moment, and it\'s not great, but that\'s just so I could get stuff online asap.
I\'m working on a better one.

URL is: http://www.geocities.com/secretlysnape/

So, this is a new fic.
It\'s set after Half Blood Prince.

The fic is called Habitabit lupus cum agno, which means \'The wolf shall also lie down with the lamb.\'

It comes from the following quote:

\"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.\"
-- Bible. Hebrew, Isiah 11: 6

The first chapter is called \'A Warm Welcome from a Bitter Cold.\'

DISCLAIMER: I do not own these people! J.K.Rowling does, and she is wonderful!

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Hermione pulled her cloak closer around herself, trying desperately to keep out the wind, whilst still holding onto her bags.
She hadn\'t seen a winter this bad for a long time, but then, she\'d not been out in a remote Scottish village at this time of year either.
She stepped into a doorway and sighed deeply, putting her bags down so she could tie her cloak again.
She couldn\'t believe she\'d offered to come here at this time of the year, when Ron had also offered to take the trip.
She should have let him come out here and be cold, whilst she stayed at Hogwarts nice and warm.
She closed her eyes briefly, imagining the lovely fire in the Gryffindor common room, and the large pile of books on the desk in her dormitory that she could be reading now.

Sighing again, she picked up the bags and headed back out into the blizzard.

Ron\'s face appeared in her vision and she chuckled to herself at the thought of him trying to find the right ingredients for their potion. She\'d probably have ended up with some kind of poison without him meaning to.
Yes, she was definitely the right person to come here. She was the best at potions in the school now that Professor Snape had...
She stopped in her tracks and bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears that came whenever she thought of Dumbledore.
His face filled her mind, a smile covering it, a twinkle in his eye.
She frowned deeply and continued on her way.
Snape.
It was all his fault after all.
For five long years she had defended him to Harry and Ron. Believing in Professor Dumbledore\'s optimistic wisdom.
And then, he had abandoned them, and killed Dumbledore in the process.

\'That bastard\', she cursed under her breath.
And, because he was no longer here, she was the only person that the Order could turn to to help Remus with his moonlight problem.
And now there was Bill as well.
He hadn\'t become a full werewolf, but the healers at St. Mungo\'s weren\'t really sure what he had become.
Oh he was still the same old Bill, but... with differences.
Remus thought that his potion might help, but with no Snape...
She sighed again.
It hadn\'t been too bad up til now; Bill had still been in St. Mungo\'s, and Remus had been with Fenrir and his group still, trying to find out what he could. But when he finally accepted Tonks\' advances, he\'d had to come back to a normal life. Well, as normal as a werewolf could have. Snape\'s defection worried the order as well; Remus\' cover might no longer be useful.
And so, the Order had asked Hermione if she could try the potion that Snape used to make for him.

And of course, the challenge of creating it, had grabbed her curiosity, so, here she was, trying to find some extremely rare ingredients for an intricately complicated potion, that she didn\'t really know how to make.
She just hoped it would work.

Up ahead of her, she spotted a sign swinging heavily in the wind. Drawing close, she could make out the words \'The Red Dragon\'. She smiled; little did muggles know that one of their most common pub names came from her world.
She leant into the wind and pushed through the snow to the door. Opening it, she breathed a sigh of relief as a warm glow burst out into the darkness.
She entered and quickly closed the door behind her.

\"Hello!\" cried a voice over to her left. She turned and smiled to see a middle-aged woman, rather chubby, beaming at her.
\"Come in, come in, it\'s such terrible weather! Here, let me get your coat in front of the fire.

Hermione removed her cloak and set her bags on the floor.

\"Wow, a proper cloak!\" exclaimed the woman. \"Very fancy!\"

Hermione smiled, \"Well it helps keep me warm, certainly.\"

The woman smiled and led Hermione through a doorway to a large room. There was a roaring fire here, and a couple of comfy sofas moved close to it. A couple of men looked up as they entered, one about fifty, his hair well-grayed, the other young, about twenty, Hermione thought.
\"It\'s quiet tonight, dear, we don\'t often get travellers here, but the weather\'s stopped most of the locals coming down as well. We\'re going to play some scrabble though, if you want to join in.\"

The two men stood and smiled welcomingly.

\"Oh that would be nice,\" Hermione smiled. She preferred a low-key visit. Lots of locals would only attract attention.

\"This is my husband John,\" said the woman, indicating the elder of the two men, \"And our son, Paul. Oh, and where are my manners, I haven\'t introduced myself! I\'m Joan.\" The woman beamed at Hermione again, Hermione could only wonder at people whose lives hadn\'t yet been touched by Voldemort.

\"I... I\'m Hermione\" she said, smiling a little more shyly now.

\"Well, Hermione, you\'re welcome to have a room for the night, we\'ve got plenty spare. There\'s only one other guest here tonight. Another traveller like yourself; a gentleman up from London I think he said. Seemed a very private kind of person though, said he was tired.\"
Joan chuckled, \"I don\'t think he\'d be too interested in our game of scrabble myself.\"

Hermione smiled. \"It\'s ok, I\'m sure we\'ll do fine by ourselves.\"

John grinned at her. \"That\'s the spirit lass. Get the poor girl some cocoa, Joan, she looks freezing.\"

\"Oh! Sorry, what was I thinking of!\" Joan bustled off into the kitchen and John took a scrabble set down from a shelf and set it on a table.

Hermione sat at the table and helped the two set up the game.

\"So what brings you all the way up here?\" Asked Paul, somewhat shyly.

\"Oh I\'m doing a Biology Project,\" she responded, the prepared cover running through her mind.
\"I\'m here to try and pick some very rare flowers, but the storm came up so suddenly. I didn\'t realise it would be like this.\"

\"Aye,\" put in John, \"It\'s come up quick indeed. Nothing but sun and empty skies the other day, and then this. Though, I can\'t say we don\'t expect bad weather in winter time.\"

Joan returned with hot cocoa for all four.
\"Well I went to take some up to the gentleman, but I think he may be asleep, didn\'t get any response out of the room.\"

\"Ahh leave him to sleep, he\'s had a long journey.\" said John, \"Let\'s get on with our game.\"

They played for a couple of hours, the others obviously impressed by Hermione\'s intelligence. She explained that her parents were both dentists and they accepted that she\'d have to be clever with clever parents like that.

After a couple of hours, and a few cups of cocoa, Hermione was feeling rather sleepy.
\"I\'m sorry, I think I\'m going to have to go to bed.\" She apologised woefully. \"I\'m just so tired now.\"

Joan smiled and stood. \"Don\'t be sorry, dear, I should have thought you\'d be tired; you\'ve had a long journey and been out in this horrible weather. Come, I\'ll show you your room. Paul, take Hermione\'s bags will you?\"

A few minutes later, Hermione lay down in bed, curling up under the thick duvet.
It had been a pleasant evening and her day had been so long that she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.


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